Category: Uncategorized

“I am taking comedy to the next level:  the extermination of all biological life on earth.” – South Park

How do you break up a fistfight between two blind guys?  Say:  “I’m rooting for the one with the knife.”

We’ve been doing serious stuff for a while, so I thought, on a beautiful spring day like today, it’s a perfect time to have class outside and relax.  Don’t worry – you won’t be graded on this one.  Probably.

I like comedy movies, which probably surprises zero readers.  Recently, comedies haven’t been all that funny, because to be funny, generally someone is made fun of.  That, in a serious world, is not allowed.  I believe it is a fact that it was easier to get sent to the Gulag in Soviet Russia over a your-momma joke than it was by actually spying for the capitalist pigs.

Authority can allow many things, but it cannot abide being ridiculed, even gently.  That’s why Saturday Night Live® mocked Trump mercilessly, but can’t poke fun at the most buffoonish Oval-Office-Occupant since Bill Clinton was mocked about cigars and a blue dress.

The last thing Bill said to Jeff Epstein?  “Hang in there!”

But movies endure.  They provide a picture in time of a reality and culture of the past.  Comedies are in short supply, too.  I even ran the numbers a while back that proved just that, but it’s late and I got home late so you’ll just have to trust me:  they really don’t make ‘em like they used to.

One thing about a great comedy:  when it really catches a moment, it is memorable.  We quote it again and again.  The best movies are like that.  So, in no particular order, here are some of the movies that I chose that represent the best of comedy.  Note that while I might have multiple movies from the same “creative source” that I love, I only picked one of their movies.

Except when I didn’t.

Here’s the top 15.  Why 15?  Because I said so.

One note:  as I said, the list is in no particular order – each of these is a classic in its own way, and why do I have to choose or rank between masterpieces?

A Night at the Opera – Some might like Duck Soup.  Some might like Animal Crackers.  For my fifth grade teachers, this was their particular nightmare:  a blonde hunched over five-foot tall fifth grader walking back and forth, pretending to smoke a cigar, and talking about why no one believes in a Sanity Clause.  No rooms?  Send up a hall.  This is my kind of Marxism.

Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana.

Better Off Dead – John Cusack blocked me on Twitter® after he said some inane Leftist thing and I responded.  I don’t take it personally.  But Cusack starred in (my opinion) the best teen comedy ever. Savage Steve Holland (the person really responsible for the film) should have done so much more.  Now, where are my two dollars?

Baseketball – South Park was still new (and good) when this movie came out.  I’m (sort of) cheating on my own rule because this has Zucker involvement (see below) but this movie was a Trey and Matt movie at its core.  It’s hilarious and never gets old.  “Pretzel?  Made it myself.  Goes great with mustard.”

Big Trouble in Little China – John Carpenter and Kurt Russell in a list of the best comedies of all time?  Yeah.  This movie has everything.  Magic.  Trucks.  Cheesy special effects.  Great heroes.  Evil villains.  How did they get the comedic timing down so perfectly?  “It’s all in the reflexes.”

Galaxy Quest – This is the best Star Trek® movie since Shatner . . . played . . . the . . . part.  Period.

Monty Python and The Holy Grail – I first saw this movie, uncut, on PBS® on an 11” black and white television.  I was hooked.  This was my first exposure to Monty Python and made me realize that there were jokes that I couldn’t explain to anyone because they just wouldn’t get it.  That did hurt me, deep inside, but ‘tis but a flesh wound.

What did the actors eat while filming Monty Python movies?  Grail mix.

Ghostbusters – If Bill Murray had a greatest moment, this was it.  Some would say that his best movie was Groundhog Day, but I disagree.  This was the man at his absolute mastery of timing, wit, and charm.  But if you don’t like this list?  You only have 75 more to go.

Airplane! – It was rare to get Pa Wilder to go to a movie.  First, Ma had to drag him away from the woodpile.  Second, we had to drive two hours (I’m not making this up) to a picture show that he would go to (there were closer movie theaters, but Pa Wilder never went to them).  We went to see Airplane! one hot summer day.  I never saw Pa laugh louder or longer.  He loved every second, surely.  But don’t call him Shirley.

Office Space – Mike Judge convinced someone from a corporation to give him money to make a movie that utterly skewered the slow, meaningless death that is corporate life.  This movie made me want to stop going to work.  The Mrs.:  “Are you quitting?”  Me:  “No, I just don’t think I’m going anymore.”

Get out of that car.  Right meow.

Super Troopers – Broken Lizard® is the comedy group that produced this and their other movies, including that wonderful film, Beerfest.  But Super Troopers?  I have no idea what I expected, but I wasn’t expecting a chugging contest with bottles of maple syrup.  Pardon me, I have to go find a liter of cola.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – I rented this movie from the VHS bin at the supermarket because I had no idea what it was, but it was only a buck.  Is it stupid?  Yes.  Is it funny?  Also yes.  It’s a teen comedy without anything but two idiots with a time machine.  Most triumphant!

Raising Arizona – Again, a rental.  Why did I pick it?  It was late on a Friday.  It was in stock.  Who was this Nic Cage guy?  The writing was crisp, the action scenes funny, and I had no idea how or where it would end.  Maybe it was Utah?

UHF – Of course I knew who Weird Al was.  Of course I knew this would be a movie as stupid as making a hot dog with a Twinkie® as a bun.  And I was right.  But this movie?  It’s drinking from the firehose.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High – There was never a movie that was more 1980’s about 1980’s teens.  The worst part of this movie was that it got Sean Penn’s movie career started.  The best part of this movie is that it convinced the world that Sean Penn was an idiot.  Have any problems with the plot?  Don’t worry.  My old man he’s got this ultimate set of tools.  I can fix it.

I tried to sew together small dogs and cattle.  It was a terrier bull idea.

Young Frankenstein – This was Mel’s best movie.  The Mrs. prefers Spaceballs, but, of course, she’s wrong.  Never has a movie so lovingly captured an entire era of film, and then had so much fun with it.    You could say he had a roll, roll, roll in ze hay . . .

As I look at this list, I noticed that the most recent movie on this list is Super Troopers, in 2001.  That’s two decades ago.  Sure, there have been some comedies that I’ve enjoyed since then, but none of them have been as, well, funny.  Anchorman was nearly a pick, but didn’t quite make my cut.  I’d rather re-watch any of the movies above than Anchorman again.

So, what did I miss?  What are your favorites?

“By Grabthar’s hammer, we live to tell the tale!” – Galaxy Quest

Three years ago my doctor told me I was losing my hearing.  I haven’t heard from him since.

Last week I touched base on Ludwig von Mises’ theory of human action that he wrote about in his book Human Action while probably not getting a lot of action.  I mean, he was writing all the time.

The basics of Ludwig’s theory are pretty simple.  I’ll give a quick recap of the three requirements to human action.  There’s much more at last week’s post (A Brief Guide To Human Action – Which Leads To Human Freedom):

A Vision Of A Better State:  Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise® is the basis for rebuilding society after the collapse.

A Path To Get To A Better State:  Writing more.  Finally getting around to starting that cult – Wilderology©:  The Post-Apocalyptic Cult, With a Difference!™

A Belief That Action Will Really Lead To A Better State:  Elon Musk finally answered my voice mails!  Okay, it was a cease and desist letter from his attorney, but it’s a start.

Again, these requirements of Vision, Path, and Belief can show up in any order – although the example above starts with a Vision, that’s not required.  Most often, I’ve seen that’s the catalyst for action – a Vision – but sometimes it’s nothing more than a person with a talent and free time eventually coming across a Vision by accident.

This is the only way to explain ¡Jeb!

Jeb was a pallbearer at his dad’s funeral, so he could let him down one last time.

If the three elements of Vision, Path and Belief are there, action is nearly inevitable.  If even one is missing, action rarely happens.

One of the lines in the post seemed like a throwaway, but it was really a setup for this post.  Whereas that last post ended up pointing out that we as a nation are governed only by our consent, this post is a bit more practical – a tool kit – in solving problems when dealing with people.

The other tool kit, I mean.  Sure you can always get more cooperation with a .45 and a kind word than with just the kind word, but sometimes The Mrs. thinks the Glock® is a bit much when trying to convince Pugsley to take out the trash.

I put glue on my Glocks®.  I’m sticking to my guns.

The basis of this toolkit is simple.  If all three elements of human action exist, human action should follow.  Missing an element?  Just like von Mises while he was writing his book, no action.

Let’s break it down a little further when dealing with actual people:

Vision is vision.  However, if a Vision isn’t shared, people won’t be going in the same direction.  For instance, if my Vision of a clean bathroom looks like miles of gleaming chrome and sparkling porcelain where I would be proud to eat moist scrambled eggs off of any surface, that’s wonderful.

But if Pugsley’s Vision of a clean bathroom looks like a petri dish left in the steaming jungles of the Amazon during plague week and it’s okay the toilet is flushed on alternate Wednesdays (except during Lent) he and I may have the seeds for a conflict.

How do I fix that?  First, I have to communicate my Vision to him.  That may involve choking and yelling.  Choking for emphasis, and yelling because I want him to know why I’m choking him.  Then he knows the Vision is important to me.

Just kidding.  Normally, I’ll clean an area.  I point out that, “This is what I want.”  The primal part in his teenager brain not devoted to Chicken McNuggets®, driving, girls, and sleep then dimly understood my point.  He may not share my Vision (more on that later) but he certainly knows what it is.

Next comes Path.  For me, acting alone to clean a bathroom, is simple:  grab the stuff and clean.  There’s nothing that a liberal application of flame, kerosene, and bleach can’t take care of.  Oh, yeah, don’t forget the acid.  Gotta clean that toilet bowl.  My motto when cleaning Pugsley’s bathroom?

“If it bleeds we can kill it.”

For millions of years, the most dangerous predator the world had ever known was T. Rex.  Now it’s J. Biden.

But why would I act alone to clean a bathroom?  The Mrs. calls me “Juan De La Gator” and I try to live up to that.  I wouldn’t clean a bathroom by myself because . . . I live with a teenager.  Honestly, I don’t feel I should clean Pugsley’s bathroom at all, because . . . it’s his bathroom.  One of my cardinal rules as a parent is to never do work around the house that a kid could do.

It’s called building character.  (snicker)

The next question I have to ask myself is does Pugsley have the ability to do good work – does he have the talent for it and the ability to focus?  Yes, he does.  Talent for cleaning a bathroom to standards slightly above the third world (or France, but I repeat myself) isn’t rare.

Does he have the focus to do it?  Certainly.  I’ve seen him work like a monster to loosen a bearing on the lawnmower deck to fix it himself.  And this week he’s spent several hours not fixing (yet) the garbage disposal – I’m thinking he’ll bring that home tomorrow.  So, he has focus.

What deodorant do prospectors choose?  They pick Axe®.

Ability (and talent) and focus are the Path.  If he’s missing one of them, the path is incomplete.  If you ask an Albanian mall lawyer to fix a copier, all you’ll get is an incomprehensible series of grunts, some drool, and a floor hip-deep in toner powder.  The extent of the Albanian mall lawyer’s ability is to poke at the copier (breaking small plastic parts in the process) and make grunting, vaguely simian noises.

But as bad as they are at copier repair, if you need a parking ticket fixed, you can’t beat an Albanian mall lawyer.  They’re as feisty and cunning as starving midgets in a cage fight over a pork loin while armed with claw hammers.  Never underestimate the power of a claw hammer – it can also be a bus pass or a coupon for a free dinner.

What about ownership?

When it comes to mowers and garbage disposals at our house – Pugsley “owns” those.  He decided to fix those, and my support has been mainly moral (“Did you want to see the assembly instructions before you try to fix it yourself, Columbus?”) and financial (“Yes, we can order a new seal since that one is ruined now”).  Let’s be real:  when people own the systems they’re working on, and own the results, they put a part of themselves into those systems.  The results matter to them.

Ownership matters.

If Pugsley owns the results, things get fixed.  The Mrs. bought him a new shower rod for his bathroom.  “Come here, Dad.  Hold this.”  I played Statue of Liberty if instead of Liberty she was really the Statue of Installing Shower Curtain Rods.  My job was a simple job.  He was done with me in fifteen seconds.

Lastly, there are incentives.

For me, the incentive is a clean bathroom.  If I do the minimal job as Dad, for Pugsley the incentive for him is doing just enough minimal work so I leave him alone.

Minimal equals minimal.  The real win is when his incentive isn’t to shut me up, but his incentive is to clean the bathroom because it’s important to him – and he gets to look at it and say to himself, “I did that.”

Not all math jokes are hard.  Just sum.

As a father, dealing with incentives is easy.  There’s always the last resort:  “Hand me your phone and your car keys.”  It’s the claw hammer of incentives – and one I don’t want to use.  It always works, but when I get to that point I know that I haven’t done my job of creating ownership, which internalizes incentives.

Going back to our model:  Ownership and incentives are the Belief, the final key.

So:

• Vision=Vision (after it has been communicated and shared)
• Path=Ability, Talent, and Focus
• Belief=Ownership and Incentives

It’s not a perfect correlation, but it’s close.  When you look at something that’s not working when you’re dealing with people, think about this model.  Most often when there’s a problem that I’ve found it has been with either Incentives or Vision, but each of these can be broken.

Sure, Human Action is just a model but it’s an important tool, just like a hammer.  And to everyone who has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

And for every problem?

There’s a cage match with claw hammers.

“But thanks to recent advances in stem cell research and the fine work of Doctors Krinski and Altschuler, Clevon should regain full reproductive function.” – Idiocracy

I saw my math teacher using graph paper. I’m suspicious. I’m sure he was plotting something.

In the United States, winter is near. And it all has to do with biology . . .

I didn’t like high school biology – the class. The dating was just fine. Not that I didn’t have a good teacher, I had a great teacher. She was obviously passionate about biology.

I love science, but biology seemed so . . . pointless. It was a lot of learning the proper names for things (stamen and pistil are two vaguely naughty flower parts that I recall) and learning how a flower worked was so much less interesting to me than learning about the floating fusion reactor that powers our solar system.

High school me decided that biology wasn’t a real science because math wasn’t involved. Bacteria multiply by dividing. How silly is that?

No, biology was just endless classification of things into groups. It was like Rainman developed a class.: “Yeah, definitely Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. Definitely.” Besides,

For me, the most interesting part of the biology class was that my lab partners were two cheerleaders. They gleefully did the frog dissection with a morbid fascination that was almost creepy. I just sat back and watched and made bad sketches in my lab book while a basketball cheerleader wielded the scalpel like a bobby-socks wearing samurai in a short skirt and school-color saddle shoes.

Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you kill both of them in the process. But . . . to use the word “dissecting” means the frog (or joke) in question is already dead. The right word choice would be “vivisecting,” which is the equivalent of dissecting, but with the animal (or joke) still very alive. With this in mind, I probably should say, ” Explaining a joke is like vivisecting a frog: you kill both of them in the process.” See what I did there? I took the common phrase: ” Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you kill both of them in the process,” and I vivisected it.

As I’ve gotten older, I realize that there are interesting aspects to almost any subject, even cheerleaders. As I said earlier, when I was younger, my biology interests mainly involved attempts at field experimentation with cheerleaders. Decades later biology came back up in my intellectual wanderings in settings that didn’t involve double features at the drive-in.

This time my study of the convergence of biology and economics explained to me why half of the US population can’t talk to the other half – and can’t even understand the other half.

It starts with a wolf.

There is a bleak, windswept plain in Alaska. Off in the distance, the wolf pack follows a caribou herd, as it has for the better part of a week. The pack acts as one. A lone wolf in the deep winter in the north is a dead wolf.

The female wolves – smaller, quicker – herd and harass the caribou on the sides, keeping the caribou moving to the west, away from the cover of the trees. The older males push through the center, finally selecting the small group of caribou that they will take.

This also describes a grandpa when he sees a man-bun.

The older males use their superior muscle to attack. The young wolves and pups follow along, sometimes play-fighting among each other, but more often imitating the adults. The play will turn to hunting as they watch, learn, and get older.

As the caribou comes down, the males feed first. Eventually, the pups feed. It’s been a week, and they’re hungry, and a wolf after a kill will sometimes eat twenty percent of its body weight in meat. The alpha male and alpha female of this pack are mated for life and will stay mated until the male dies in three years from an infection due to a broken tooth, but today they have food.

A significant amount of effort is put into raising the pups, who, when they get older will split off and join other packs.

Wolves follow what a biologist calls “K” selection.

Based on their environment, wolves face significant pressure for resources every day. They live in environments at the sheer edge of habitability and have to cooperate to fight those environments daily in order to survive.

Their young have significant parental involvement and training. Due to the scarcity inherent in the environment, they must work together to live. They only have a few offspring, but they invest heavily in them. And a mother wolf will fight to the death to save a pup – the pack works together and is loyal to individual members.

Oh, yeah, Happy Easter!

Rabbits follow “r” selection. The “K” and the “r” originate as variables in an equation that you’ll never use, but here’s the link (LINK) if you want to stare at it. See, the biologists finally figured out a way to wedge some math in there!

r selection is the opposite of K selection in many ways. r selection depends upon having significant amounts of resources available. These resources make life easy, so strategies change.

Part of winning biologically in a resource-rich environment revolves around having the most number of offspring. So, have as many as you want. Really, r selection requires the rabbits to reproduce as quickly as they can so their genes spread far and wide.

Since resources are abundant, mating for life is silly. Mate with . . . whoever.

Whenever.

However.

As long as they have babies.

Two rabbits were being chased by a pack of wolves. They hid in a forest. One rabbit asked the other, “So, you want to keep running, or wait a few days until we outnumber them?”

Since a rabbit has lots of babies, each gets little attention, and the idea of a rabbit protecting offspring is unknown – rabbits run away, hoping the predator will eat their offspring and leave them alone.

Resources are plentiful, so there’s no real reason to work together. Not that the rabbits won’t hang out together and chill, it’s just that no rabbit that will ever inconvenience itself to help another rabbit.

Biologically, the rabbits avoid competition for resources – there’s no need.

The wolves focus on mating for life, but promiscuity is required for rabbits – rabbits are single parents. Rabbits are single parents who come to early sexual maturity early and have children young.

Wolves have to take part in competition, delay sex and are (mainly) monogamous in the wild. They have dual parents for raising their pups, a much longer time to sexual maturity and independence, and will fight to the death (if needed) for each other.

We see echoes of r/K selection in our society today. When the economy tanks? Divorce rate plummets.

As social spending goes up providing free resources? Sexual promiscuity in youth goes up. Single parenthood increases.

The number of children born to unwed mothers went from 3.8% in 1940 (before welfare) to 5.3% in 1960 to over 40% by 2008. The numbers stayed small as long as resources were limited, but once resources were free? Boom, many women become r-selected rabbits, which is paralleled only with the behaviors seen at the beginning of the decay of empires.

Which I covered back in 2017:

End of Empires, PEZ, and Decadence

But at least a remnant of society remains K selected. K selection was the societal norm prior to the 1960s and the mass rollout of welfare. So, blue state/red state? Republican/Democrat? Left/Right?

Or r/K?

That’s where we find ourselves today. Our political divisions are so deep that they are expressed in differing biological strategies. When the biological strategy is rooted so deeply because it is supported by society, it becomes part of the definition of self, not something abstract.

What do you call a can that gets a college degree? A graduated cylinder.

How deeply does this go? Attacking a Christian’s religious beliefs is just fine. Attacking someone’s gender identification?

Heresy!

Only someone bad would question someone’s sexual choices! Time to pull out cancel culture! And if you don’t agree with the effect polygamy, bigamy, furries, and any other arrangement that people can devise to express their sexuality might have on society, you’re a fascist!

I imagine an unwed mother with eight children from seven fathers living on public support cannot understand (and may even look down upon) the married parents with 1.2 children and a perfect lawn. It’s a division that’s not rich/poor, but deeper.

What happens when the resources dry up, when the fields full of rabbity grass give way to the cold steppes of wolf-friendly tundra? Society changes – the ability to use surplus goods for r-selected people goes away. Societal attitudes change, too.

Watch conflicts around the world and think about . . . how many of them are simply due to a difference in r/K reproduction strategy? These conflicts inevitably move a society from abundance to scarcity.

The rabbits rule the spring, the wolves rule the winter.

And it’s getting chilly.

Good news, everyone!  Bombs and Bants is not dead, though we did take a few weeks off while The Mrs. and I fended off Ebola.  The better news is that I got a little goofed up and didn’t post links to the podcast a week or two when I should have so there are extra episodes!

Here they are.  As soon as The Boy sends me information, I’ll put up links to Bombs and Bants – we’re on the Apple Podcast thingy and Bitchute in addition to YouTube.

I think we’re getting better most weeks.  The Mrs. handles all the production, and is really getting the hang of it.  So, enjoy!

Edit:

(Here is the Solzhenitsyn Harvard Commencement Address mentioned in the vidya and comments)

I drink, I read, and I make bad puns.  What can I say?

 

“Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets.” – The Dark Knight

Perfect name for a clock store in 2021?  Uncertain Times.

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

February was a silent month as far as violence goes.  Very cold weather, combined with a change in Leftist strategy (see below) calmed the situation.  As such, I’m backing down for this month to “just” a 9 out of 10.  That’s still two minutes to midnight.

As I said last month, the pressure will continue.

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

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

In this issue:  Front Matter – Slowing The Boil? – Violence And Censorship Update – Changing The Narrative:  Citizen Vs. Terrorist – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Leadership Vacuum – Links

Front Matter

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

Slowing The Boil?

So people *gasp* are able to talk to each other without the New York Times fact checking?  Horrible!  (note, most memes this issue are “as found” on the ‘net)

The smart move for the Left is to turn down the temperature, politically speaking.  In general, I think they’ll take the opportunity.  Turning down the temperature means:

• Keeping the leash on Antifa® and BLM©. That is ongoing.  BLM™ and Antifa© served their purpose – they put pressure on Trump.  Already, they’re being set loose as “thanks” for their service.
• Putting fear into the general public about the Right. This explains the hyperventilating overreaction to the unscheduled January 6 field trip to Capitol Hill.  They’ll use this to drive public opinion, and, after a few show trials, stop.
• No real action on a gun control bill this session. I think the Left, even as blinded by ideology as they are, realizes that this isn’t an issue that has any acceptable compromise in the minds of 80,000,000 people.  “Not one step back, not one gun turned in” is the default position.
• For the time being, just work on the mundane blocking and tackling of basic government, all while changing out personnel that don’t meet Leftist ideological principles.

If your pistol isn’t working, check the manual under “trouble shooting”.

One real wildcard is the coming trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.  There is a significant chance that Chauvin walks away from the trial a free man – his department trained him (and every other officer) to use exactly the techniques he employed.  George Floyd was going to die of a drug overdose.  These will be compelling facts to any fairly selected jury with a competent and fair judge.

Of course, it’s 2021.  Fair trials and an impartial justice system just might be a thing of the past.

Violence And Censorship Update

The biggest story in censorship this month is the canceling of Dr. Seuss.  It’s ironic because Ted Geisel (the real name of Dr. Seuss) was pretty Leftist.  This proves again that, in time, every historical figure is eventually condemned because they don’t meet the needs of the new Left.

How is weed the same as the Koran?  Burning either will get you stoned.

Next:

Amazon as late as 2012 fought against banning any book.  That was then, this is now (LINK, account required, H/T to Vox Day, LINK):

Conservatives are sounding the alarm about an updated Amazon policy that bans books the ubiquitous billion-dollar company deems offensive or includes so-called “hate speech.”

Amazon has ramped up its censorship on conservative views in recent weeks. For example, a popular documentary on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was banned from their streaming service this past week. Before that move, the company deplatformed conservative Ryan Anderson’s book critical of gender theory, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement.”

So, during Black History Month, they banned a documentary about the second Black Supreme Court Justice because . . . on the Right?  And also ban a bestselling book from a major publisher that just has a different opinion than 0.3%-0.6% of the population?

Next:

The phrase “Blue Anon”, a term based on “Q Anon” was at the site Urban Dictionary™.  Anyone can submit a word, and the rules are really, really open.  But the phrase “Blue Anon” apparently rustled their jimmies, since it is banned.  Here’s a link to the story from ZeroHedge® (LINK) where they show that Google® is censoring searches for Blue Anon.

Oh, and for added irony, here’s a quote from the founder of Urban Dictionary©, Aaron Peckham:

Free speech and the Internet go hand in hand, because online, anyone with a computer can be heard. The Internet equalizes people like that — no matter how much money you have, or how old you are, you can connect with a huge number of people. And it’s getting easier as computers become cheaper and easier to use.

Urban Dictionary is one of a huge number of sites where people can talk and think about the world. It’s a place for people to freely express themselves and to write about their lives through the definitions they post. Everyone’s a wannabe sociologist, and you can see that come out in Urban Dictionary. It’s also a way to watch our language evolve and to see what’s hot in pop culture.

Freedom of speech?  Only for certain people.

Changing The Narrative:  Citizen Vs. Terrorist

Trump wanted the military to secure the border from an invasion of illegal aliens.  The Left is using the military to secure the Capitol from American citizens.  Guess who the Left thinks the enemy is?

If you’re reading this, probably you.

What is the difference between an American home and a terrorist training camp?  Don’t ask me, I’m just the drone pilot.

And the Air Force is quick to jump into that spirit, as documented by Academy Watch   (LINK)(h/t Heresolong(LINK)).

Here is a list of things that Air Force Academy students can no longer do:

• Interest
  • Watching impermissible videos
  • Reading impermissible literature
  • Visiting websites promoting impermissible ideology
  • Membership in an impermissible group
• Language
  • Making statements sympathizing with impermissible ideologies
  • Making social media posts that mention impermissible causes

What’s impermissible?  Head on over to the link and RTWT.

The idea in play is one from the Clinton era – re-brand the citizens who like freedom as terrorists.  Scare people with stories of militias, and then run the FBI out for a jog to incite a bombing or assassination plot or two with a mentally-challenged member of the group you want to tweak, and, presto, instant public opinion switch.

And this month has been an inflection point in that narrative, and it will be used to get rid of anyone in the armed forces that doesn’t agree with Leftist ideology.  And it will be prohibited to read any other viewpoint.

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Up is more violent, and to no one’s surprise, the perception of violence dropped less than I expected in February.  I think the propaganda of “home grown terrorism” was the likely cause.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable.  Instability dropped a bit.  Wonder what warm weather will bring?

Economic:

Interest rates are starting to rise, which caused this to take a big dive this month.  Inflation early warning?

Illegal Aliens:

After a month’s absence, the data is back, but now delayed 60 days.  Must have been the Capitol Riots?  Regardless, as expected, the border is more active.

The Leadership Vacuum

Handy Tip:  If you’re starting a revolution on a budget, use a coup-on.

Very few of the levers of power are in the hands of the Right – I’ve established that before.  Right now is a particularly difficult time for the Right because there is a very real leadership vacuum.

Why?

Because no one trusts career politicians anymore because Trump was the first President in a very long time to fight.

Did he accomplish as much as he promised?  Well, no.  The levers of government are rusty in the hands of someone on the Right.  In the hands of someone on the Left, however, the Executive Orders were flashing by so fast that President* Biden had no idea what he was signing, and even admitted that he was confused while signing them.

Trump did fight.  And Trump did make some temporary gains, most of which will be erased in the first six months or so.  But his biggest legacy was that he was a leader.  From watching him, I think Trump loved the moments when people were attacking him more than any other time.  Trump fed upon the controversy.

Now, though, he’s largely silent.  The Right doesn’t appear to have anyone else in the wings, ready to lead.  Trump will be a tough act to follow.  Until that time?

We wait.

LINKS

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

From Ricky:

“With no further need to rally Left voters with scary Boogaloo profile stories, the entire tenor of civil war coverage has dramatically changed…”

 

With Biden Inaugurated, MSM Narrative Control Engaged:

The Alt-Right Civil War

https://zogbyanalytics.com/news/997-the-zogby-poll-will-the-us-have-another-civil-war

https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2021/01/is-america-on-the-brink-of-civil-conflict-biden-calls-for-unity-but-some-worry-current-moment-recalls-run-up-to-civil-war.html

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/18/how-civil-wars-start/

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-us-news-race-and-ethnicity-conspiracy-theories-philanthropy-f8f793b94b0dd7e8ec62957dcbeb53d8

https://www.facingsouth.org/2021/02/far-right-accelerationists-hope-spark-next-us-civil-war

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/02/08/a-strange-game-part-two/

The Republican Civil War

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/03/01/trump-won-republican-civil-war-cpac-showcased-unity-column/6866748002/

https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2021/03/04/Jonah-Goldberg-CPAC-shows-there-s-no-Republican-civil-war/stories/202103040047

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-americas-uncivil-war-republicans-are-the-aggressors/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/anti-trump-republicans-are-facing-punishment-back-home-don-t-n1256292

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56240856

The Black Civil War

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

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

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/09/were-fighting-the-second-american-civil-war_partner/

https://www.recorder.com/my-turn-davis-civil-war-38265615

https://hbr.org/2021/03/the-u-s-needs-a-third-reconstruction-and-business-should-lead-it

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/mar/05/show-us-the-tubmans/

The American Civil War

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/image%20%2814%29_0.png?itok=zqOf_YKB

“A Roy-ale With Cheese®. What do they call a Big Mac©?” – Pulp Fiction

Picard doesn’t have an iPhone® he got unlimited Data with his Android©.

The last time I had a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese™ from McDonalds© here in Modern Mayberry, it cost me $4.79. It was over a month ago, but I remember biting into the bun feeling the warm hamburger . . . warm? Dangit.

I looked down. It was raw. Ugh. I was done.

What our local McDonalds® misses in quality they make up for by taking longer than any other fast-food place in town. Why do we go there? The fries and the $1 drinks. Anything more complicated than that is like asking a puppy to land a P-51 Mustang. You know the puppy really wants to make you happy, but it’s really only good at looking cute and sleeping.

I think the employees at McDonalds© must like to sleep. A lot.

We have exactly five fast-food restaurants in town, and my theory is that there are have two excellent managers that make good food, promptly. We also have one manager that’s not great, but focuses on making the food tasty and the orders correct even though you might not get it in ten minutes. We have another that makes good ice cream, but the burgers taste like NHL® puck rejects. Then we have the last in line – the manager of McDonalds©.

I always wondered where McDonalds™ got fish shaped like that. The asquarium?

The Mrs. and I were going to stop at McDonalds® for fries and drinks at around 1 PM. There were six cars in line before the speaker at the drive-through. They weren’t moving.

We opted to go elsewhere but noticed that all six of the “wait here because your order surprised us” parking spaces were also full.

I asked The Mrs., “Do you think that every day the manager looks at his watch and says, ‘Dang, it’s busy at 11:30 AM. Again! Who could have predicted that? Why does this keep happening to us?’”

The Mrs. laughed. “Probably. I imagine he asks, ‘Don’t people know it’s our lunch break?’”

Yes, our McDonalds© is bad. Heck, one time I asked for two large fries and got about 300 small ones.

Also, this is really a cat, your honor.

But McDonalds® can be instructive. There are McDonalds© restaurants all over the world. We have exchange rates with other countries, but The Economist™ had a different idea to judge purchasing power around the world: The Big Mac™.

This is a little bit of genius. The ingredients of a Big Mac© are roughly the same no matter where you go, and the amount of labor required to produce a burger is pretty constant, so you can use that to judge what the real purchasing power of the dollar is versus other countries.

It’s a cool idea, and like most cool ideas, it started as a joke. But you can go here (LINK) and see that, as of January 12, 2021, the United States dollar was overvalued compared to most other currencies. That’s what happens when your currency is preferred for use in international trade. The Swiss Franc is generally the most overvalued: that’s what happens when people really trust you.

The Swiss may avoid inflating their currency, and they might be boring, but their flag is a plus.

Where is the Capital of Venezuela? In a Swiss bank account.

But the Big Mac® is useful for other things, too.

One of the problems of being in a pot of slowly boiling water is that you don’t really notice the temperature going up until it’s too uncomfortable to bear. One of my old standards was the $5 lunch. Before we moved to Alaska, spending more than $5 for a lunch at a fast food place was rare. Once we got to Alaska, we at least found a use for our spare kidneys: paying for lunch.

Just like a Big Mac™ is a Big Mac© all over the world, it’s a Big Mac® even going back into the past. So, we can judge purchasing power around the world, and through time. It’s like Back To The Future minus the Deloreans® and 88 gigaWatts.

Okay, what does a Big Mac™ tell us about inflation?

Plenty.

If you look at the following graph from Seeking Alpha®, you can see what a Big Mac™ should cost if the official, government Consumer Price Index (CPI) was telling the truth. In 2016, it would have cost about two bucks.

I once made a graph of my old girlfriends. It had an ex-axis and a why-axis.

Not even close to reality – by 2016 the Big Mac™ was closer to $5.06 according to The Economist’s™ data, which matches the graph. It’s $5.66 today, according to The Economist’s™ data, but cheaper at the Modern Mayberry McDonalds™ – I guess they save a lot of money by not turning the stoves on.

I was actually surprised at the data. I guess I’ve been sitting in the boiling water too long, but I was expecting that the price would have gone up more in the last four years. I guess not.

But that’s one hallmark of economic difficulty – a period of deflation hits first. As astute comments at this very site have noted – it’s more than the quantity of money, it’s the velocity.

The Federal Reserve™ could print $2 trillion and give it to Jeff Bezos and cause zero inflation – as long as Jeff didn’t spend any of it on his goblin-like girlfriend (or anything else, for that matter). Or maybe he should spend money on her. She’s so goblin-like I worry she’ll raid my village to steal children.

When people get scared or don’t have any money, they’re not spending it. When the stimulus is popped into zero-interest business loans, well, it goes right into the business bank account. If I owned a business, I’d take all of the free money the bank could give me. Unfortunately, the banks are finally on to my “laser printer and green ink” scheme so I’ll just let the government do that for all of us.

Small businesses aren’t making money. Landlords not receiving rent aren’t out partying. And none of these people are paying taxes on income they didn’t make.

Just like me, the government can keep printing money until it runs out of ink, and force enough through the system to make it look like there’s a functioning economy. But too much stimulus eventually fails even though this year I used my stimulus check to buy baby chickens: money for nothing and the chicks for free.

What does Putin want by thanksgiving? Turkey.

However, for presidential politics, the very best time to have a recession is in the first year of the first term. Then, hopefully, the economy is in a full recovery by the time of the next election. Maybe. That’s the old calculation. As Herbert Stein said, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” The ultimate failure of a currency made up of nothing but hope and ink is always preordained. It can’t go on forever.

The only question is when it won’t.

But we did learn that the Big Mac© is useful in more ways than one this week. In Modern Mayberry, though, it might be undercooked, so eating it wouldn’t be one of the uses. The Mrs. doesn’t believe me – “John, raw meat at McDonalds™ is rare.”

“Wait till she finds out you’re 4’6 and peddle a Schwinn.” – Home Improvement

I had a boss once who could have worked for FEMA – he showed up late, and wasn’t any help when he finally arrived.

There I sat, in the middle of the highway, on my right side.  The back wheel of my single-speed bicycle had locked up as I had turned around to make my way back home.  I hadn’t been going that fast, since I was turning, so I wasn’t hurt at all.

Okay.  Get up, right?

I tried that, but my right leg was locked to the bike, under the bike, with my left leg holding the whole mess down.  It wouldn’t budge.

I looked down.  The reason my foot was locked to the bike is that I was wearing jeans – hand-me-downs from my brother where the cuff was so long it had dragged on the ground.  That ragged cuff on the inside of my leg was stuck between the sprocket, the chain, and the chain guard.

On a 10-speed, that wouldn’t have been a problem.  Just rotate the pedal backward until the jeans got loose.  Not on my blue Schwinn® Stingray™.  Turning the pedal backward just engaged the coaster brake – then it locked up like it was welded in place.

I looked around and assessed my situation.  It was getting dark – that’s why I had turned around to go home.  I was lying in blue jeans and a gray shirt on an asphalt road.  Oh, yeah, it was on a banked corner.  The cars coming from the east wouldn’t see me until they were right on top of me.

Then the obvious thought flashed in my mind:  “I could die, right here, right now.”

My bicycle couldn’t stand on its own.  It was too tired.

——-

When I was a kid, we lived at the edge of the forest.  The nearest kid to me was at least 10 miles away.  If I had started in the forest, I could have gone (in one direction) 45 miles before I would have seen the next paved road.

It was remote.  Oh, sure, there was a movie theater pretty close – only a fifty minute drive away.  And there was a supermarket not 15 miles away.

I think that growing up there really influenced the way I look at life.  First, I had to become comfortable with my own company.  Thankfully, there were monthly trips to the bookstore, and when I was in school the library had a great selection of thirty-year-old paperbacks that I could check out.

I learned to make models, to go hiking by myself, and make my own fun.

I once went to a car show in Mexico, but it was only for Fords®.  They called it the Ford Fiesta™.

Growing up in a place like that, one thing is certain – not only were you in charge of making your own fun, you were in charge of keeping yourself alive.  When I went hiking, even though I never went too far, all it takes is one rattlesnake to ruin your day.  They say the rattlesnakes where we lived were fast and could move at 75 miles per hour, but I never saw one driving.

Every trip we took into the forest was on us.  In the summer when we went to get firewood, we’d only be 10 or 15 miles into the forest.   That wasn’t so bad.  If the truck broke down, we could hoof it out and be home before Ted Cruz could make it back from Cancun.

I had a girlfriend that got tired of my astrology puns.  It Taurus apart.

In the winter when we went hunting, that was another story.  Pa Wilder packed survival gear, food, and extra warm clothing.  With what we had, we could have survived, but it certainly wouldn’t have been comfortable – sleeping in cold weather would have been in-tents.

The vehicle itself was four wheel drive – with a winch.  One cold November we got not one, but three flat tires.  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to drive a car with multiple flat tires up a snow-covered mountain trail road, but it’s not something that generally works.

It does, however, work when you take a winch cable from tree to tree, pulling the car up as you drive it up.

It worked.  I think I was 12 or so when this happened.  It made an impression.  There was no one there to help us.  If we didn’t get out, our lives were at stake.

It was on us.

And that was the primary theme that we had, living at the edge of the forest, at the edge of civilization.  If we didn’t save ourselves, no one else would.  That’s why we had the fireplace, wood stove, and all of that sweet, sweet firewood:  no loss of a generation plant hundreds of miles away would stop us from being warm.  Water?  We only had a supply for a few days, but the river was only a half a mile or so away.  In the summer, a pleasant walk.  In the winter?  Well, there was plenty of snow.

“I’m, I’m not a cat, your honor.”

Life was always about survival.  Life was about always having a Plan B.  Our pantry was stocked, our freezer was full, and Pa Wilder had enough powder and primers to last a lifetime.  Sometimes we lost our power for a night, but we never had to worry – we had candles, and we had enough firewood to last until Hillary Clinton grew a conscience.

Sure, we expected the light switch to work when we flipped it – we weren’t in Venezuela.  But we had a backup plan, and that backup plan didn’t require government at any level to help us.  It couldn’t, and if it tried, being so remote, we’d be among the last people it would try to save.

Time and again, I’ve been proven right.  Outside of snowplows and preventing the Soviets from invading, the government really hasn’t been much help during any emergency I’ve been a part of.  Private companies (like power companies) have done far more to help.

Lenin put “?” behind traitors – and would ask himself, “Did they question Marx?”

The attitude of preparation and self-reliance has driven me towards the Right.  I don’t want every service that government can give me if it means that government controls everything.  No matter what pretty picture is painted, the end result is the same.  Wal-Mart® is better at feeding people in disaster areas than FEMA ever will be.

Thankfully, ordinary citizens are even better than Wal-Mart™ at disaster recovery.  Preparing for a disaster beforehand is generally not that expensive, but if you wait until the disaster is unfolding, it might not even be possible.

The biggest lie a government tells you is that it will take care of you if disaster strikes.  Governments can’t – they’ve proven that time and time again.

———-

As I was lying against the cold asphalt in the dimming light, I knew no one was coming to help me.  I pulled my leg as hard as I could.  I heard my jeans rip.  My leg was free!  I got up, and carried my bike to the side of the road.

What do you call a bike tire repairman?  A spokesman.

About two minutes later, a car passed me as I pedaled homeward.  Had I been sitting in the middle of the road, could he have stopped?

I don’t know.  But I do know that if I had waited to depend on him seeing me, the answer wasn’t mine – it was his.  By taking action, I made that possibility disappear.  And I got home before Ma Wilder missed me.

The best person to save me, was me.  The best person to save you, is you.  Act early and prepare.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And after PETA armed the Cows, this happened.

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

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

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

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