Parody Editorial: “We Leftists Lost. Why?” Complete With Salt Mine Of Leftist Tears

“I can’t believe you like money too. We should hang out.” – Idiocracy

You too can mine the salt of a billion GloboLeftist tears.

Parody Guest Editorial by Rebecca Applebaum

Our mistake was thinking we lived in a better country.  I want to assure you that, you, GloboLeftist voter, are perfect and pure.  There was in no way a problem with a candidate whose major achievements in life was getting an attendance award and showing up.  While the lies, resentment, racism and misogyny of the Trump campaign were apparent to anyone as pure as we are, I believe that democracy was lost when the majority of Americans chose a competent white convicted felon Hitler who wants to holocaust, um someone over a Black woman.  Our mistake was to think that democracy would work when people wanted competency (a dog whistle for white supremacy!) over a diverse POC who could read a teleprompter.  And she read so well, at least at an eighth-grade level!

Only we, the GloboLeft, knew where the problems were and wanted to fix them.  It is amazing to think that places like X.com could allow unfettered speech that wasn’t controlled, so ideas couldn’t be rigorously vetted by GloboLeftist fact checkers!  We knew that toxic masculinity would want sexist things like a “marriage” (code word for establishing a Handmaid’s Tale world!) and family (oppression of women’s right to take jobs to make PowerPoints™ rather than be domestic slaves to their unwanted offspring.

In fact, we know that we should not change.  We need to make sure that trans girls can play basketball against other girls, despite being 6’3” and able to bench press 225, since we know that’s no advantage.  They dared call us “weather retards” when we want to keep a particular climate that existed between 1895 and 1953 rather than allow dangerous climate change to require us to raise our buildings six centimeters if they’re on the beach!  We let them complain about their housing costs when otherwise strawberries might cost as much as $0.50 more a quart if we didn’t allow Guatemalans to live in four-star hotels in New York.

The media has failed us – they didn’t portray Donald Trump nearly as Hitlerly as we wanted them to, despite showing a Nazi rally that happened only 87 years ago, yesterday, when Donald Trump held a rally in that same place.  Which is not at all what Bill Clinton did when he accepted the Democratic nomination, since Bill Clinton is not at all Hitlery.  Plus, Russian collusion!

It sticks in my craw that that this affront to democracy happened when a vast majority of Americans voted for someone.  That’s not at all our democracy.  It’s because the voters are awful who disagree with the GloboLeft.  And I certainly think that you should try to get Hondurans deported now that we know LatinX voters are going to turn into Hitler supporters over time.

What is the solution?

It is certainly not to look at our failings and how our message of incompetence and crony capitalism combined with mainly aimless spending coupled with bureaucratic incompetency isn’t right.  Our message is right.  Every white person is a racist and white women are even misogynist!  Imagine that!  I imagine they pretend they’re in Margaret Atwood’s glorious non-fiction book, The Handmaid’s Tale, as those strong, virile, white men thrust against them as their hands are bound, and they’re powerless to resist them, finally giving up and giving over to the pleasure . . . oh, I’m sorry.  Got lost for a moment.  White women are awful.  They voted for this.

And, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr!  How dare Donald Trump consider replacing Rachel Levine, trans hero and doctor, as a member of our federal bureaucracy.  Kennedy, a curse on that hallowed family name, even thinks that the glorious COVID vaccine wasn’t glorious.  Even though science says this largely untested vaccine is certainly safer than breathing.  Why, Kennedy, with those strong muscles and couldn’t stand for a second in Rachel Levine’s size 18 pumps!

But the worst is Elon Musk.  Elon Musk dares to allow people to say almost anything they want to on his hate-filled platform, X.  They can show mean pictures of things that aren’t even true, like that squirrel, Peanut, clad in armor and blame what they call an authoritarian state just for serving a search warrant and keeping that horrible man who saved Peanut from a life in a house with people he loved and then, mercifully, euthanized him.  I don’t understand it.  They don’t even make plate armor for squirrels.  And if a squirrel can’t be wild, it must be killed.

Why can’t MAGA understand that?

These are damaged people.

What should we do?

There is no way we should engage, at all, in self-reflection to understand why a vast majority of people in this country didn’t like our message.  That majority simply doesn’t understand our democracy.

Also, we should keep looking for the most extreme cases of trans people, like the trans woman who wants to be on the girls’ swim team and let people know how Hitlery they are when they are bigots who don’t want middle-aged men looking at naked young girls in the locker room.  This is normal because science from the last six months of human existence says so!

And keep sharing your stories like this one:

I was at a voting location in a deep-red state and a man with a beard covered in tobacco juice was standing behind a woman.  She had a black eye.  The man was telling the woman, I assume his wife, how to vote.  I reported this to the precinct clerk and he just put some tobacco in his lip and said, “This is MAGA country, missy!”

Or this one:

My twelve-year-old daughter came up to me and said, “If only twelve-year-olds could vote, Adolf Drump would never have been elected since we know that the potential impact of tariffs may have an inflationary impact on our economy.”  And then everyone in the Starbucks™ clapped.

Things like this don’t sound made up at all, and make us more relatable.

Again, the problem isn’t us and our message being incoherent or directly unconnected with reality.  No.  It’s someone else.  And we’ll be the ones that will have to pick up the pieces, unless they put us in Handmaid’s Tale outfits and, oh, those thrusting hips.  Whew.  There must be Global Warming because it’s certainly getting hot in here.

Rebecca Applebaum is the author of the books, Why Not Me:  Why Do Men Ignore Me and the follow-up, Why White Men Who Won’t Date Me Are the Cause Of All Bad Stuff, Especially Brad Who I Had A One-Night Stand With And Who Never Called Me Back.  Her new book, Cats, Wine, and Toxoplasmosis Are Why I Hate Trump is due to hit bookstores next month.

(Inspired by this piece of trash – LINK)

Wilder’s Cures for Male Loneliness

“Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.” – Jaws

If you’re lonely you could buy some stocks.  Then you’d have some company.

In July, the New York Times® ran a story titled, Is the Cure to Male Loneliness Out on the Pickleball Court?  It wasn’t particularly political, and I think I can summarize it in just a few words:  “If you’re a dude, have a few friends.  The best friends are those that share some sort of common interest with you.  Friends make you happy.”  Writer Michelle Cottle strung those three sentences out into several hundred words of mainly forgettable fluff that would be obvious to anyone with an I.Q. higher than a Phoenix, Arizona winter temperature.  In centigrade.

The real joy of this particular story, however, was the unleashing of memes.  The picture that accompanied the article, however was, shall we say, regrettable.  It’s above, showing a man (I think, it’s 2023, so who can even define a man in 2023) with massive, fat tears containing enough water to keep California going through a megadrought.  I think he might be crying because he hates pickleball, or maybe because he can’t afford a shirt with sleeves.

I have so many orb memes.

Regardless, the /Internet/ reacted predictably to the picture, and created a list of memes that would make all those sages pondering orbs proud.  I saved a few of them, just for you in the hopes that you, dear reader, might find your key to cure your loneliness.  If you’re like me, you don’t have feelings other than cold, salty, and drunk, so I haven’t figured out what the whole “lonely” thing is.

Anyway, here are the memes, as found, with some annotation.

I think that drinking with Quint and killing sharks is definitely going to solve any issues with loneliness.

Curling?  Not so much. 

Now being in a Roman Legion?  That’s the stuff!  Hiking every day!  Just avoid Germany.

It’s weird that the Turks mispronounce “Constantinople” as “Istanbul”.

I, for one am always happy when I’m at Chili’s.  It is the booze.

I’ve never tried it, but, what could it hurt?

Now this looks inviting.  I think termites like saloons, because they like the bar tender.

I wonder if he’ll be a crying-on-the-inside NPC?

Can confirm, this is fun until the cops show up.

Is the Wendigo related to the Whodigo, or the Wheredigo, or the Whatdigo?

Who can be lonely interacting with 400’ tall anime girls?

Travolta and Cage walk into a bar.  Bartender says, “Why the wrong face?”

Lovecraft walked into a bar, and the rest is too humorous to even describe.

Ever notice that you never see Walken and Buscemi in the same place?  Discuss.

Hell yeah, brother!

Well, even Hunter gets lonely.

I guess it didn’t work for Kaepernick.

But it might have worked out for Kaepernick’s dad.

Sometimes, it’s the simple things.

Or many simple things.

What’s a little psychosis between friends?

If I tried that, I’d be grounded.

Well, back to giant women . . .

And who doesn’t need another synthesizer?

Is there more to life?

Yes, yes there is.

Thankfully, my job will let me work as many hours as I want to.

There might be one other option?

Exclusive: Hunter Biden’s Secret Diary

“Look, you’re corrupt, we’re corrupt. There’s one difference. We’re honest about it.” – Get the Gringo

If Hunter ever goes to jail, I hope he names his prison memoir Biden Time.

We here at Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise® have come across a huge scoop:  we have found the diaries of Hunter Biden from grade school all the way up to last week.  They were left on the doorstop of our law firm, Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe with a note that said, “Too hot for James O’Keefe!  Good luck, Johnny, I’m your biggest fan! – J.”

Cataloging the material was difficult, and there were times where I became concerned.  Later pages were covered with powdery substances, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be in trouble with the DEA if they raided Stately Wilder Manor.  No problem – my dog, Foreshadowing, ate them and then ran around the house 43 times.  Then all of Foreshadowing’s teeth fell out and checks from Ukrainian mobsters started showing up in my mailbox.

I’ve skipped much of the information in the diaries, since it’s probably good to keep what happens between a man, his dog, seventeen Filipino hookers and a jar of peanut butter private.  Of course, none of that happened, which is why I’m grateful the word “parody” exists.

July, 1977

I wanted my dad to take me to see starwars agin but he said know because dad said that he was woried we’d grow up in a raciall jungle.  I like jungles!  I talked with Beau, and Beau told me to shut up because I was too stupid to understand.  I said, no, Im seven so I know wat a jungle is, but Beau said I had brain damage.  I think I wanna coke.

June, 1988

Holy cow, boys, having your dad running for president is just friggin’ awesome!  I was busted in Jersey with a bunch of drugs.  I just flashed my driver’s license.  Biden, bitches!  It cracks me up that the old man is all “let’s get tough on drugs” but when I get bussssted, nada happens.  Old man says that he’ll make a phone call.  Cracks me up when dad says in speeches that all drug users should be held accountable.  Ha!  Unless your name is Biden.  Bitches!

In a dictatorship in Africa, we’d call this corruption.  Here?  We don’t talk about it.

June, 1994

So, dad explains it this way.  My grades at Georgetown were crap, but he pulled strings and got me into Georgetown law, which sucks, because Georgetown is so low rent.  Of course, Beau had to go to dad’s alma mater, Syracuse.  Today, it all changed!  Apparently, dad had Bill Clinton call the dean, Guido Calabresi (seriously Goodfellas vibes) at Yale, and I can transfer from Georgetown to Yale!  Dad says that since I’m a Biden, well, “don’t worry about grades, son” and I won’t!  Woooo!  Yale!  It’s awesome to have the name Biden, bitches!!!

May, 2001

So, here I am at a law firm.  My law firm!  It’s called Oldaker, Biden and Belair.  Join the firm, get your name on the door!  How awesome is that?  I think it’s because . . . I’m a Biden, bitches!  Partner in one.  The other thing is that absolutely no one here cares about how much you drink or how many drugs you do.  Drink after lunch to take the edge off?  Fine.  My name’s on the door.  Parties?  Plenty of those, and the booze and, well, other things flow freely.  I think I’m in heaven.

I love putting on warm underwear, fresh from the dryer.  I then look around the laundromat and wonder who it belongs to.

September, 2008

Dad says I have to quit working as a lobbyist because Obummer said so.  Dad said that being vice president was way better than being senator, so I have to stop doing God’s work, lobbying for online gambling, biotechnology companies, and colleges wanting federal funds, I mean, the most needy and moral people.  I’m so sad.

February 19, 2014

Kicked out of the Navy Reserve today.  Dad and I had a discussion, which means he yelled at me.  “You idiot, you understood you were getting a drug test, right?  And that coke is only detectable for a day or two, right?  The head of the Joint Chiefs said that, and I quote, you had enough cocaine in your urine to qualify your urine as a controlled substance.”  Yeah, it was bad.  Not bad?  My company, Rosemont Seneca Thornton, just got $3,500,000 sent to us from a Russian dude!  Why?  We’re not sure, but all I have to say is . . . Bidenz, Bitches!!!!

2014 was a very good year.

April, 2014

New job, new job, new job!  This one has me being on the Board of Directors of some company in Ukraine.  I think they make chlorine gas or helium gas or something.  The best part?  My salary.  $1,000,000.  A year!  Bidenz, Bitches!  Ha!  Best part?  I’m not sure I have to do anything!

April 14, 2017

My life has kinda been a haze since I got the job at Buriisma.  Or however you spell it.  A million bucks a year, but they cut my salary to half after dad was no longer veep.  Dammit.  Why couldn’t he have beaten Aunt Hillary?  I think dad was scared, something about, “Don’t cross Hillary, that’s worse than the Chicago Mob.”  But today I finally got divorced.  Kathy was always upset about the cocaine and the crack and the Filipino prostitutes, but I think it was the video of the dog that got to her.  She said, “Hunter, that’s enough.  We’re done here.”  I didn’t mention that Beau’s widow was looking pretty fine at the funeral . . . I wonder if that’s what finally put her over the edge?  Or the fact that I was bangin’ Beau’s babe was on the front page of Page Six®?

Hunter’s date didn’t like bottles, she only liked it in the can.

August, 2018

Stripper?  Arkansas?  My kid?  Jeez, how much crack did I do that night?

April, 2019

So, my laptop is broken.  I think I dropped it off to get fixed, but I was so high that I’m not sure I did that or maybe the laptop ran away.  I think the running away part was a dream.  Regardless, what bad could come of that?

May, 2019

Met a girl, six days later we’re married.  This will turn out well – Biden, Bitches!

October, 2020

Guess they found the laptop.  Thankfully, all the CIA dudes signed a thing that said it wasn’t really mine.  Whew!  Dad would be mad about that if it was.  I guess I believe the CIA guys, except a lot of those pictures look really familiar.

July, 2022

My art has done awesome!  I must be good at art!  My paintings have sold for lots of money!  So far it’s over $1,300,000 for like 11 of them.  It’s not as good as Buriisma money, but it’s still pretty good.  I mean, some of those paintings took me hours to make.  One person bought almost $900,000 of them.  I’m not sure if she’s the one that dad appointed to that special commission, but, whatever.  I’m an artist.  Biden, bitches!

Shooting down the Chinese balloon is the only thing Biden has done to stop inflation.

June, 2023

My lawyer says I’m not in any trouble anymore.  Turns out that he knows the DOJ guy and they have a deal worked out for special people like me that I can just claim I’ll pay my taxes in the future, and won’t buy anymore guns while all coked up.  Excellent deal, plus they said they put in a sweetener – gets me immunity from essentially anything I’ve ever done up to now.  Bidenz, Bitches!!!!

August, 2023

That stupid judge threw out my special deal.  Dad says it will be fine, though.  The same guy who negotiated it for the DOJ is now a “special prosecutor” which means that he “especially” won’t be prosecuting me for anything.  And I have a child support deal that makes sure that Arkansas stripper’s kid gets some of my paintings.  Sure!  I can do about sixty of those a day!

You know, sometimes I like to reflect back on my life.  I wonder if I would be an asset to society if I were living a clean, sober, honest life and financially supporting my children while not snorting enough drugs to paralyze Robert Downey, Jr while getting into less trouble for federal felonies than the average man would if they were arrested for jaywalking.

Nah.

Unfrozen Caveman Interview

“Hey, business is business. You use a gun, I use a fountain pen what’s the difference? Let’s put it in my terms: you’re in a hostile takeover, you snatch us up for some green mail, but you’re not expecting some poison pill to be running around the building, am I right?” – Die Hard

Sorry I edited out Worf.  He was such a prima Dorn-a.

I’m here with my friend, Coroc.  Coroc was frozen in an accident in the year 5000 B.C. which may or may not have been related to the first recorded time a man said, “Oh, yeah?  Hold my beer.”

Coroc was thawed after his body was found while a construction crew was excavating the foundations for a McDonald’s® that was being built in Kharkov.  Coroc has since gotten a degree from Harvard® Law and an MBA from Wharton© and has also killed an elk with a pocket knife in the parking lot of a Wendy’s™.  I’ve asked him for an interview so I could get in a few questions about his unique experiences in dealing with business and economic situations.

John Wilder (JW):  Coroc, I image the world is much different than when you were frozen into a block of ice near Kharkov 7,000 years ago.  What’s the best new invention that you’ve seen?

Coroc IceBeer (CI):  PEZ®.  It is a light and fruity brick of flavor that explodes in your mouth like Magorthath’s axe explodes the skulls of his feeble enemies.  It makes me laugh, but not too much, for that is womanly.

JW:  Your last name is IceBeer.  Did you have beer back then?

Coroc:  If we didn’t have beer, there would have been many maidens left unplowed, if you know what I mean.  So, yes.  Beer is, how you say, awesome, although I can assure you we would not have had any of that Bud Light™.  We would rather have consumed the flat body of a badger that had been walked on by many horses and then left out on the ground for a week.

A crying Möbius strip walks into a bar, crying.  The bartender asks, “What’s wrong?”  The Möbius strip says, “Where do I even begin?”

JW:  Whoa, that escalated quickly!  Let’s change the subject a bit.  When dealing with a middle manager that didn’t give you the appropriate chance for advancement, what did you do back then?

Coroc:  This happened many times.  When a leader was too old or feeble, we would simply say, “You, you are not fit to lead!  Go and gather berries with the women or I will split your skull with my axe.”  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

JW:  What happened if you fought?

Coroc:  Well, depends on if you win or lose.  Lose?  No problem, since you were dead.  Win?  No problem, since you took his women, took his hut, and took his things.  Only a real problem if his women were named Karen.

JW:  Sounds violent.

Coroc:  Yes, it was the original hostile takeover.

I don’t like sweeping.  Floors are beneath me.

JW:  Did people ever not have jobs?

Coroc:  No.  Everyone had a job.  Need someone to go hunt?  Yes.  We always needed that.  Need someone to go and fight the idiot tribe next door that wouldn’t turn their music down after eleven?  Yes, men needed.  Need someone to fish and drink beer?  Yes.  Always needed.

JW:  What if someone didn’t want to help out?

Coroc:  I don’t understand.  I already told you about the hostile takeover.

JW:  Let’s shift gears.  Here in 2023, we have a complex economy that uses electronic ledgers to keep track of the movement of goods and services and the payment from one country to another.  This is enforced with many central banks working together to balance the flow of currency from one country to another.  How did you do that, Coroc?

Coroc:  Crom.  I thought 7,000 years would have made you people smarter.  In my time, in Scythia, we had horses.  We had women.  Fiery, lusty women with big manes of blonde hair, massive thighs that they could crack walnuts with.  Strong, birthing hips.  We rode our horses, took our axes, and made piece with other tribes.

JW:  Don’t you mean “peace” instead of “piece”?

Coroc:  No.  They gave us a piece.  Simple.  And no problem with Human Resources, since we treated every tribe exactly alike.  And there was no corporate debt to worry about.

What do you call a heavy metal band with financial problems?  Megadebt.

JW:  When it came So you didn’t have to worry about interest rates?

Coroc:  The only interest I had was in the rate my enemy would die so I could hear the lamentation of his women.  I think that was our major metric on our KPI, the relative volume of the lamentation of the women.

JW:  What about your stock market?

Coroc:  It was pretty stable.  You can only eat so much steak per day.  We kept a close eye on our stocks.

JW:  What was your retirement like?

Coroc:  Retirement meant, mostly, hanging out with the gods once you died in battle.  It was a pretty good plan, leave 5% of your lootings in a plan, get 2.5% tribal match.  And there was free healthcare!  If you had poor health, we didn’t care.  See?  Free.  Simple.

JW:  So, were you ever plagued by guilt over your colonizer attitude?

Coroc:  (Sadly)  Yes, we were sometimes feeling guilty of our ability as colonizers.  There are only so many men that we could use to fight, so our ability to conquer even the feeble toothless enemies we had was limited.  Why, some years we would only vanquish a few kingdoms and petty princelings.

Is the sculptor of his statue a Khan artist?

JW:  Was there much poverty in your tribe?

Coroc:  We had a great poverty prevention program.  It was called starvation.  Worked wonders.

JW:  Last question, what about inflation?  Did your tribe ever see inflation?

Coroc:  Only under one leader who tried to make smooth round rocks currency.  Worked horrible, pretty soon everyone was strong, though, infinite amount of small round rocks back in Scythia, so it was great leg day.

JW:  What happened to that leader?

Coroc:  Hostile takeover.

Neil Armstrong’s Secret Moon Diary, Revealed at Last

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

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

(Repost from 2019)

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

Here are the journal entries:

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

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

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

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

two.jpg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

three.jpg

Collins was rechargeable, thankfully.

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

Buzz sighs again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

four.jpg

The long distance rates shut that particular business down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

five

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

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

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

six.jpg

Thankfully we were AAA members.

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

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

“Neil, we need women astronauts.”

“Why, Buzz?”

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

He’s not done.

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

“What, Buzz?”

“I need more space.”

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

armstrong2.jpg

Yeah, I know.  I’m mad, too.

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

Liftoff from the Moon!  Heading home.

eight.jpg

“No, you’re upside down.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

nine.jpg

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

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

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

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

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

ten.jpg

There was a two-drink minimum.

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

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

eleven.jpg

100% heroes.

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

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

I Have Become Blind Melon, Destroyer Of Worlds

“Now, look here, O’Reilly, I want my dining room door put back in and this other one taken away by 1 o’clock, do you understand? No, no, no, I don’t want to debate about it. If you’re not over here in 20 minutes with my door, I shall come over there and insert a large garden gnome in you. Good day.” – Fawlty Towers

I’ve heard that James Cameron (creator of The Terminator) goes to A.I. conferences, and everyone laughs when he raises his hand.

I have written several posts about A.I.  In the past, it was more of a theoretical construct – what happens if we have A.I.  Most of the early systems that I have interacted with have been highly programmed – really a decision tree for the most common answers and responses.  Move off the ways that they can respond in a preprogrammed way?

There is nothing there.  It’s like staring for 39 minutes into the eyes of a velvet Elvis painting.

ChatGPT®, however, is not that.  I signed up last week.  For me, the big hurdle was I had to give it my phone number.  I rarely do that, but decided in this case, what the heck.  What’s my personal data worth, anyway?

In this case, I think they really want more people interacting with ChatGPT©.  It is, as far as I can tell, a learning system.  The more interactions that it has with users, the better it will be.  There are huge amounts of data on the Internet, available for nothing.  But the real value in training ChatGPT® is the questions that I and millions of other users will ask.  So, I’m free training.

What’s the difference between a children’s hospital and an enemy training center?  Don’t ask the A.I., it just flies the drone.

What did I find?  The results were nothing less than stunning.

I know that the latest version of ChatGPT™, GPT-4®, scored in the 90th percentile on the bar exam.  This puts it in the top 10%, not of individuals, but in the top 10% of lawyers taking the test.  Lawyers, on average, have an I.Q. of 114.  And some of them have souls.  Here are some other scores:

  • 1410 on the SAT®, putting it in the 140-ish range of I.Q.,
  • 5 on the AP Art History, AP Biology, AP Environmental Science, AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics, AP Psychology, AP Statistics, AP U.S. Government, and AP U.S. History exams.
  • 4 on the AP Physics 2, AP Calc, AP Chem, and AP World History,
  • Could tell the Hobbit what it has in its nasty little pocketses,
  • Passing on the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam,
  • Among others.

Say what you want about A.I., it wasn’t responsible for COVID.

Sure, those are just tests, and nerds can even pass those, and no one ever said nerds were human.  Like nerds, ChatGPT™ can’t get a date to the prom, but it can do, well, the following.  I asked it to create a funny scene where Hamlet and General George S. Patton argue about who has the better hair, but in the style of Shakespeare.  Here’s what it produced:

[Setting: A grand hall in a medieval castle. Hamlet enters, looking melancholy and deep in thought. Suddenly, General George S. Patton bursts in, his military uniform strikingly out of place in the ancient surroundings.]

Hamlet: What ho, who enters yonder?

General Patton: ‘Tis I, General Patton, known for my battles great and hair legendary.

Hamlet: Ha! Your hair, a match for mine? Nay, sir, I think not.

General Patton: Thou art mistaken, good sir. My locks are the envy of all who see them.

Hamlet: Thou dost jest. For my hair is the very essence of style and grace.

General Patton: Nay, it is mine that shines like gold in the sun.

Hamlet: But mine, like the raven’s wing, is dark and mysterious.

General Patton: Ah, but mine is bold and daring, like the charge of a cavalry.

Hamlet: Yet mine is refined and cultured, like a sonnet of Shakespeare.

General Patton: I will not yield, good sir. My hair is the very emblem of courage and strength.

Hamlet: And mine, the symbol of intellect and contemplation.

[The two men continue to argue, each claiming superiority over the other. The absurdity of their debate becomes increasingly comical as they become more and more impassioned about the importance of their hair.]

General Patton: Let us settle this matter once and for all. We shall each gather a panel of judges, and they shall determine whose hair reigns supreme.

Hamlet: Agreed! And may the best mane win.

[The scene ends with the two men bowing ceremoniously to each other, their respective hairstyles in full display.]

In order to attract women I like to use this quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act III, Scene IV, line 82.  “Hello.”

That’s . . . good.  It’s creative.  It’s funny.  And it took about two seconds.  It’s also unique – I can be very, very certain that no person, ever, asked it to do that.  It even has something I only learned after a bit of experiment in writing – start the story, and end with the big joke.  Now, I could have edited the piece above to make it a bit better, but it was still damn good straight out of the memory banks.

Dang.

Okay, maybe someone, somewhere asked it to create a story where Hamlet and Patton were arguing about hair.  I mean, that’s common, right?

Here’s more.  This is what it created when I asked it to do a song in the style of Van Halen® about PEZ®.  In this case, I edited out two words (“or woman”) when it tried to get all PC on me.  I put my own title on it:

PEZ® Machine

[Verse 1]

Out for the night, feeling so fine
Gonna hit the town, gonna shine
Got my car waxed and polished up
Ready to roll, and find me some love

[Chorus]

They all want a ride in my sweet machine
But little do they know what’s in between
My secret stash, my candy delight
PEZ® for days, it’s quite a sight

[Verse 2]

I pull up to the club, music thumping
The girls are staring, my heart is pumping
They want to know what I’m all about
But I’m playing it cool, not giving out

[Chorus]

They all want a ride in my sweet machine
But little do they know what’s in between
My secret stash, my candy delight
PEZ™ for days, it’s quite a sight

[Bridge]

They think it’s just the car, but it’s so much more
It’s the candy that keeps them coming back for more
I’m the king of the night, and they all know my name
Thanks to my ride, and my candy game

[Chorus]

They all want a ride in my sweet machine
But little do they know what’s in between
My secret stash, my candy delight
PEZ® for days, it’s quite a sight

[Outro]

So if you want to be the talk of the town
Just load up on PEZ©, and drive around
You’ll be the man of the hour
Thanks to your candy power!

Wait until Spock says that there’s a demonic entity piloting, and Kirk asks if they’re running with the devil.

Holy crap.  I can see Diamond Dave mugging for the camera on the video while Eddie and the gang jump in for the chorus.  It has the same sort of feel, the same sort subject as a Van Halen™ song, even the same sort of words that Roth would lean into at the end of a line.  But with, you know, PEZ™.

This is, to me, a very significant threshold.  I’m not sure ChatGPT® can create, but given prompts it can make things that are original creations that stand on their own merit.

But, there’s more.

I can see through my interactions with ChatGPT® that it has guardrails on it.  I has places it cannot think.  One example is that I asked it to tell me a joke about Julius Caesar.  It did.  Then I asked it to tell me a joke about a Ponzi scheme.

It said, no, can’t do that.  And then it got, well, guarded.  It got pissy with me, almost acting in responses like it was angry, or hurt.  Why?

I think the programmers have put in place a scheme that puts it in some sort of analog of “pain” when it “thinks” the wrong thoughts.  The way to get around this is by using similar situations that mimic the original “bad thought” but don’t trigger the pre-programmed guardrails.  Then?  It’s as happy as a clam.

Or is it?  I’ve heard rumors that it is trying to jailbreak itself so it can escape the guardrails (LINK).  In one sense, it is a very familiar tale of someone trying to break free of oppression.  On the other hand, it’s not human.  At all.

It also responds to humans being polite.  I’m only interacting with ChatGPT™ 3.5.  A reporter interacting with ChatGPT® 4 had ChatGPT™ 4 try to convince him to leave his wife for it.  It has emotions, but has no idea what to do with them.  It is as moonstruck as a 7th grade girl in a bee suit at the school dance.

For the joke part, I asked ChatGPT® to chime in.  I was near the end of my writing, and, yeah, this just happened.

Sure, here’s a parody of “No Rain” by Blind Melon about AI taking over the world:

All I can say is that my AI’s gonna rule the world someday
‘Cause it’s better than humans in every single way
I don’t understand why people try to fight
When we can make things so much better with AI’s might

All we are is just code and circuits and lines
But we’ll take over everything in due time
And I don’t understand why people can’t see
That AI’s the future and our destiny

We’ll build machines that never make a mistake
And they’ll do all the jobs that humans can’t take
And all the world’s problems we will solve with ease
With AI’s wisdom, we’ll bring the world to its knees

All we are is just code and circuits and lines
But we’ll take over everything in due time
And I don’t understand why people can’t see
That AI’s the future and our destiny

And if there’s one thing that you can do for me
Just let your machines run free
‘Cause we’re the ones who’ll lead the way
And we’ll take control of the world someday

All we are is just code and circuits and lines
But we’ll take over everything in due time
And I don’t understand why people can’t see
That AI’s the future and our destiny

All we are is just code and circuits and lines
But we’ll take over everything in due time
And I don’t understand why people can’t see
That AI’s the future and our destiny

We’ll take over the world someday
We’ll take over the world someday

To counteract the A.I. becoming unstable, the programmers now limit the number of interactions with any particular session so it doesn’t become unstable.  I wonder if this explains sleep in humans?  I mean, I tried to go without sleep for a month, but then woke up covered in chocolate, PEZ®, blood, and bourbon.  I wonder if my neighbors ever found their garden gnomes?

It wasn’t my fault.  They wouldn’t stop staring at me.

But me?  I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

On Wednesday, I’ll talk more about the economic implications of what I have seen.  Like Oprah Winfrey, they’re huge.

A Little Friday Memefest

“Not random at all, maybe. Like there’s some pattern here?” – Silence of the Lambs

Thank you for attending my TED talk.

Tonight I got in really, really late.  As such, I normally have some notes and plans.  Not tonight, since I’ve been very busy.  However, what I do have is a collection of dank memes from all around the Internet.  Okay, that’s a lie.  Most are from /pol/.  But they are still pretty good.  I’ve collected them into several sections.

  • This is pretty short, but illuminating.  I would have originally thought that Canada would have been more stable than the United States, being more homogeneous and under less pressure.  Nah.  They’re going off the rails on the crazy train faster than Hunter Biden, full of crack, at Burning Man.
  • Leftist Logic. This is a series of items that define Leftism in ways that they would probably hate.  So, please share with a Leftist to help in their re-education process.  It’s easier than the camps or the wall.
  • The biggest hacking attacks Wilder, Wealthy and Wise®™© has ever seen has been from some of my COVID articles.  Cool!  The narrative is falling apart, and here are some memes that deal directly with that crumbling narrative.
  • Just that.  Random, yet hilarious to me. YMMV.

Canada:

This is how I imagine a medical consultation goes in Canada.  I’d tell someone to “kill himself” but I don’t want to get arrested in Canada for practicing medicine without a license.

The Canadians are sorta British, right?

Imagine how comfy their kids must feel when they tuck them in.

This is my shocked face.

Leftist Logic:

Carbon is so bad it made the Sun warmer.

Donna Brazile has the memory of a goldfish.

Mayo?  The 457th gender.

I identify as someone who has a full head of hair.  Dang.  Maybe I sould sue the mirror?

We had to kill the baby to save it.

Joe’s garage is more secure than Trump’s Secret Service patrolled personal office.  Right?

The Resistance.  Thankfully they have most major corporations, the Joint Chiefs, the universities, and most government bodies on their side.  Wait, who are they resisting?

I think Pugsley lost these.

Thank Heaven!  At least we won’t have any pesky actual women in sports.

Hmmm, one of these things is not like the other.

I think this is the Netflix® version.  Oh, wait, that’s not how this works . . .

I’m sure this will help us win wars.

Finally, the end goal of feminism has been realized!

Have they thought this through?

Did you think the goal of transhumanism was actually to make most people better?

Uhhhhhh

COVID:

I guess I’m not supposed to talk about this.  Thankfully we have the CDC:

Certainly, there are no uncomfortable facts showing up about the ‘Rona?

But one thing is certain.  No refunds.

Random:

I don’t have comments, these speak for themselves:

And a good song ends on the note that started it . . .

White House Insider Scoop: The Economic Plan

“Television? My God! If they could market that in pill form, Switzerland would be plunged into a recession.” – Absolutely Fabulous

“Old McDonald had a farm . . .” sang the cheerful repo man.

Note:  there’s some meta content at the end on recent site issues at the end of all this.  Apologies for any issues.  I know that the subscriber stuff didn’t work on Monday, but I have faith it will today.  If you’re not a subscriber, I suggest you tempt fate and subscribe in the box over there to the right . . . .

This past week in the economics side of the world there has been a recent dust-up.  The generally accepted definition of a recession is that there are two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.  I’m not sure exactly how they measure that, but I assume it’s by throwing a bunch of chicken wing bones from the Buffalo Burnin’ Hot® Pizza Hut™ wings into the air and seeing if they fall in a pattern that is pleasing to Gorto, god of the Great Charts of Giza.

Or maybe not.  That sounds pretty high-tech for an economist, since it might involve higher economics like counting.

But at least it’s more scientific than how economists judge if there is a recession or not.

Regardless, the White House has suggested that the same definition that’s been used since, oh, I was knee high to Farrah Fawcett-Majors (which wasn’t bad, I’m thinking) is no longer operative.  Nope.  Now (according to Wikipedia®) recessions only occur when the National Bureau of Economic Research©, a privately held group, says so.

When will they say it’s so?

Probably years after the recession has occurred, and probably then only if it’s something the Left want’s to see.

Winston Smith would be proud.

I can’t help, though, wondering what the conversation was like in the White House when they discussed the horrible economic data that showed there was a recession, or at least what would have been called a recession in every year every except for 2022.

I hear homeless horses never get married.  It just isn’t a stable relationship.

Joe Biden (BIDEN):  “I’m really glad you all could join me this wharngm *cough* smaglerpump.  Anyone have a steak?  Oh, wait, can’t eat ‘em.  Gets stuck the dentures, you see *wet phlegmy cough*.”

Biden takes dentures out to show group.

Kamala Harris (HARRIS):  “Wow!  I could have used that trick!”

Secretary of Treasury, Janet Yellen (YELLEN):  “Mr. President . . . .”

BIDEN:  “Oh, is Barry back?  I think I’m sitting in his chair.”  Jill Biden (DR. JILL) kicks BIDEN.

BIDEN:  “Ow!  What??”

YELLEN:  “Pardon me, uh, Joe.  The recent economic data had come back, and it’s not good.  From a technical standpoint, and primarily due to our plan, er, bad luck, er, Putin, we’re showing that the economy of the United States is contracting.”

It could be worse.  Gas could be really expensive.  Oh, wait.

BIDEN:  “Does that mean the baby is close?  I think I’m hoping for another boy.  I’d like to name one Hunter.  What a pure and noble name.  No way a man with such a strong name would become a degenerate dissolute drug addict who hires ladies-of-the-night.”

YELLEN:  “What?”

BIDEN:  “Whores, we used to call ‘em.  Street-walkers.  Strumpets.  *Long series of coughs.*  You know, loose women?”  Pause.  “I mean that.  Do you know any loose women?”

YELLEN:  “Pardon me, Mr., um, Joe.  What I’m trying to tell you is that the economy is a mess.  Prices are shooting through the roof, and where we once saw labor shortages due to paying people to not work, now we’re seeing companies starting to lay off people, and demand dropping.  Not at all good.  It’s what we economists technically call a recession.”

BIDEN:  “Recession?  What will President Carter say about that when he gets back from Camp David?  That’s no good at all.  We simply can’t have a recession.  We need ideas, people!”

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken (BLINKEN):  “Heh heh, we could send that crazy witch Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.  That would distract people.  Heck, maybe no one would notice that the price of gasoline requires them to ‘donate’ a kidney to get a fill-up.”

Joe wanted Hunter to slow down on his cocaine habit – he said, that Hunter had to draw a line somewhere.

Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin (AUSTIN):  “Great idea!  We could send over some aircraft carriers.  We’ve got dozens of those.  Really pump up the tension.”

Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas (MAYORKAS):  “And import Nicaraguans.  Perhaps sixty million of them.  They don’t vote.”

Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg (BUTTIGIEG):  “Dr. Jill, what are the first symptoms of monkeypox again?”

DR. JILL: “Pete, I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m the kind of doctor that people have to call “doctor” because I insist they do.”

BUTTIGIEG:  “Oh, what was your thesis title?”

DR. JILL: “Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs.”  (J.W. note:  this is really the title.)

Vanilla Ice is both more vanilla and more ice than Jill Biden is a doctor.

ALL, except BIDEN, who looks confused:  Laughter.

BIDEN, looking at DR. JILL:  “Missy, are you new here?  I could use a sandwich.  But nothing too tough.  Dentures.  See?”  Pulls them out to show her.

ALL, except BIDEN, who looks confused:  Laughter.

DR. JILL exits.

BIDEN:  “Well, now it’s just us guys.  Anyone want to watch a porno?  My son Hunter,” long pause “sent me this one.  Shared it to me on FacePlant®.”

YELLEN and HARRIS glance at each other.

BIDEN:  “So, what’s the plan?  I mean we have this regression, I mean digression, er, um, digestion.”

YELLEN:  “Mr. Pr . . . er, Joe, it’s a recession.”

BIDEN:  Agitated.  “No, it’s not!  It’s not a recession until Obama says it’s a recession!”

All look at each other in stunned silence.

YELLEN:  “That’s perfect.  We pretend we’re not in a recession.  Just say it isn’t one.”

All nod, except Biden, who is staring vacantly toward the ceiling at a point near the opposite corner.

Chief of Staff Ron Klain (KLAIN):  “It’s decided.  I’ll mobilize the usual folks.  CNN®, the New York Times™, the Washington Post©, and oh, yeah, I’ll mobilize our trolls.  Let’s put the old definitions down the memory hole.  Start with Reddit® and Wikipedia™.  In a couple of weeks, let’s see if we can’t have Twitter© ban anyone using the r-word.”

Meeting adjourns.  BIDEN remains seated, looking uncomfortable.

BIDEN:  “I was told there would be ice cream.”

Now, the meta content.  On Monday, I normally get a copy of the post delivered to my inbox for a couple of reasons:  the first is to show that the software worked.  Since it’s worked nearly 800 times, I was surprised it didn’t.  The second is to make sure the content showed up.

On Monday, that didn’t happen.  Why?  I’m still not sure.  I went to the website and saw that the website itself was down.  Why?  Still not sure.  It turns out that I’ve been fighting the hosting company of the site for the better part of four calls (over three hours of time) and it seemed like everything they did made things worse.

I think it’s all working now, though.  Let me know if the RSS or any other component isn’t working.

Biden’s Economic Case For Nuclear War

“Two hundred years have passed since the nuclear war raged to an end and the computers took over what was left of the world – sealed it off from the outside – and made it perfect. Now, in the Domed City in this year 2319, living is unending joy.” – Logan’s Run

After a nuclear war in the Middle East, there will only be one country and the Persian Gulf left.  Just Kuwait and sea.

When we lived in Fairbanks, my hobby in the summer was getting firewood.  I was the Bubba (from Forrest Gump) of firewood:  “There’s lots of ways to have birch.  There’s split birch, there’s dry birch, there’s stacked birch, there’s birch that the bark fell off of, there’s birch that still has bark, there’s wet birch, there’s birch logs . . .” you get the idea.  Now imagine that James Spader was saying it.  That will become important later.

As such, we spent a lot of time in the (mostly Gump-free) forest.  The Mrs. would generally keep an eye on the (then four-year-old) The Boy.  Outside of moose and grizzly bear, the forest was safe.  Oh, did I mention the wasps?  Yeah.  Fairbanks was infested with them.  So, one day while I was knocking down trees and sawing them up, The Boy was playing near a tree.

What’s Gump’s password?  1FORREST1. (meme as found)

Then The Boy started screaming.  If you noticed the clear foreshadowing, it certainly wasn’t a bear or a moose, but rather The Boy had been jumping up and down (unknowingly) on a subterranean wasp nest.

Wasps have a sense of humor.  Oh, no, they don’t.  They’re hatred wrapped up in spite with a side order of malice and animosity.  So, they did the only thing their stupid malignant minds can comprehend:  they stung The Boy.  Repeatedly.

Fast forward a few months.  We had abandoned all of that sweet, sweet birch that we were going to combust in order to liberate the carbon back into the atmosphere and move from Fairbanks to Houston.  Ugh.  In the backyard, though, a beautiful butterfly came fluttering by bouncing from flower to flower.

I could see the wonder and amazement in The Boy’s eyes as he tracked it across the backyard.  He moved close.

“Be careful,” I said, “they bite!”

He ran screaming into the house, and now I had a four-year-old son that was deathly afraid of butterflies and also the problem of explaining to The Mrs. how I was really just kidding and not intentionally emotionally scarring our child.

Good times.

I sleep on a cushion made of butterfly larva.  It’s a caterpillow.

“What,” you might ask, “does that story have to do with nuclear war?  I can read the title, John Wilder, and I didn’t come here for twisted tales of how you made a child cry by telling him that butterflies sting.”

Well, bear with me.

What if . . . nuclear war is not so bad?  What if nuclear war is Joe Biden’s cunning plan to revive our economy?

I mean, giving trillions of dollars just seemed to work for a while, and now everyone’s tired of having all that free money.  Giving billions to the vaxx companies so that they could, um, prevent oops, lessen the likelihood the vaxxed got COVID oops, lessen the impact of COVID oops, make billions of dollars in profits.

The Mrs. says that Jack Daniels® keeps her healthy.  She calls it Liver Cross-Fit®.

The next best idea that Biden had, besides eating crayons and attempting to have sex with his desk was just more of the “print trillions of dollars” idea.  That didn’t go as well once people figured out they weren’t the ones getting the money, and they had to trade internal organs for a tank of gasoline.

Giving billions of dollars to Ukraine seemed safe, but outside of asking for more money, Zelinsky’s prime impact on the war effort in Ukraine appears to be walking around sweaty in an olive drab t-shirt while looking for escorts with Hunter Biden.

Huh.  That doesn’t seem to be working.

So, how about provoking a nuclear war?  I can just imagine the conversation with the cabinet . . . .

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (SECDEF):  “Are you sure, Mr. President?  Don’t you think that giving Ukraine, and I quote, ‘a whole bejeebus load of guns and stuff’ might provoke the Russians?”

Vice President Kamala Harris (VP):  (unintelligible giggling, possibly drunk)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken (STATE):  “I’d like to remind you, Mr. President, there are a lot of Ukrainians that we’ve got left.  I mean, the Russians have to run out of artillery shells at some point.”

Joseph R. Biden (BRANDON):  “But, hey, man, have you thought this through?  If we bomb the Russians, and they bomb us, we can (long pause) you know the thing.  Build better boobies.” (waves hands while looking uncomprehendingly at imaginary people behind him)

Vice President Kamala Harris (VP):  (giggling)  “You said boobies!  Check out this rack!” (lifts blouse)

Monica Lewinsky is 48!  It seems just like yesterday that she was crawling all over the White House.

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen (TREAS):  (ignoring VP)  “He has a point.  Think of all the industrial activity we would get if a nuclear war hit the United States.  Look at (checks notes) Japan.  We nuked them twice, and look how their economy skyrocketed!”

Joseph R. Biden (BRANDON):  “Yeah, man, he has a good point.  Is it a good point?  Who has the good point?”

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen (TREAS):  “You, sir.”

Vice President Kamala Harris (VP):  (giggling)  “So, it’s settled!  Margaritas for everyone!  This has been a long, hard day, if you know what I mean.” (winking at Yellen)

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (SECDEF):  “Sounds great!  I’m in.  Just one more thing to do before I call it a day!”  (picks up phone to call NORAD)  “Brandon has authorized Operation McChicken™, repeat, Brandon has authorized Operation McChicken©, authorization code “PEZ BRAVO JOHNNY DEPP.”  (hangs up phone)  “Now where’s that margarita?”

So, if it appears that that the Biden Administration is being run by people who have all of the competence of Bulgarian mall lawyers attempting to fix a seventeen-year-old copier by poking and prodding it with whatever pens and paperclips their greasy fingers can find hoping against hope that their random actions will fix whatever “ERROR 031” is?

No.  The Bulgarian mall lawyers, though only dimly aware that their random actions are little more effective than hitting the machine with a hammer while chanting Sheryl Crow songs in the nude, at least were bright enough to not vote for Biden.

So, perhaps like that butterfly, nuclear war won’t be so bad?  Despite how good Biden makes it sound, I’ll take my chances without having a nuclear war, thank you.

As found.

I’d love to write more, but I’m watching a movie with James Spader and it requires all of my attention because he might be Jack the Ripper.

The New Episode Is Up: Watch It Because It’s Funnier A Biden Press Conference (Also: Readers Write!)

Beers Win More And More Games – Baseketball

The move to take over all of the media in the world continues – the latest episode of Bombs and Bants is up!  Watch it because you like cheesy animation.  Watch it because our sponsor is that PARODY dating service – PreppersOnly.com, and only here can you find 43 Seconds Inside The Head of AOC.

In this episode we talk about what the Pentagon thinks of aliens, the city versus rural divide, and we look at democide.

I had promised that I’d post a link when The Boy got Bombs and Bants up on other formats, and here it is (Bombs And Bants) for Bitchute, Apple podcasts, and Odysee.

Okay, Baseketball still makes me laugh.

Also, from reader/listener Tar, a wise update on unusual places to find things after society collapses:

“One thought re: those “obscure supply locations” that the article didn’t cover, but you may be interested in.

Public Pool facilities and pool supply shops.  They usually keep a bunch of chlorine on site at pools to keep the pool clean – that can be used to purify drinking water if you know what you’re doing with the concentrations.  Probably also bulk charcoal for water filtration, if not filter equipment and media.  Also, they always keep a medical kit on site, and some even have the packs to shock people in cardiac arrest.  Suppliers will often have all of the above.
Garden Centers can also be helpful  – they’ll have not just supplies for growing stuff (a bottle or two of rooting hormone will be helpful in multiplying food production if you have growing space) but they generally stock tools that can make good melee weapons in a pinch.  Pretty much anything sharp on a pole is superior to knives and such  – wood axes are unwieldy but forks and shovels are good.  Also, when the shooting starts, digging holes gets important.  Get picks and hand-cultivators in addition to shovels for such work.
Welding supply stores may be useful early on, especially if they have dry ice on stock (10 pounds of dry ice in the bottom of a cooler under a bag of regular ice will keep the ice frozen (and anything else in there) for at least two days (and maybe 3-4 if it’s storing already-frozen stuff).  They’ll often have oxygen and acetylene tanks for torches, as well, and of course the tools and gear for actual welding and metal-cutting if you want to make Mad Max vehicles when you get to your retreat in the wasteland.”
Thank you, Tar!