The Taxidermist Ate My Homework

“The exhaust port is marked and locked in.” – Star Wars, A New Hope

I’ll never end an email with “Regards” again – turns out the G is pretty close on the keyboard to the T.

Things are looking up, very much.  The Mrs. today looks better and more well rested than she has for the past few weeks, perhaps for the last month.  It’s a good thing, and I want to thank everyone who has prayed or shared a kind word during her illness.  She took a medical test today and the tech who administered it noted that The Mrs. was off the charts for someone only three days out of the hospital, which put a bit of pep in The Mrs.’ step.

As for me, I’m just a bit exhausted tonight.  The way I typically do these posts now (for the last six months) is that I work on a rough draft during free time during the day and then finish it, polish it, edit it, and add memification the night before the post.  I think this changed the output for the better, and I’ve certainly been going to bed earlier.  I haven’t had time to draft the latest post, it’s nothing more than a Post-It® note I scribbled seven consonants on along with sixteen arrows pointing in random directions.

Not a great foundation, unless you’re doing scripts for Disney® movies.

This vacation, I had planned to do quite a few things around Stately Wilder Mansion (polishing the drywall, combing the hardwood floors), but had other, more important priorities, obviously, and am still not remotely caught up on my sleep.

My dog’s vet is also a taxidermist.  Either way, I get the dog back.

While the dog didn’t eat my homework, and I have some great posts already planned for January (starting with the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report on Monday) I’m going to plead exhaustion tonight rather than put out a column that’s not the best I can do on a subject I’m passionate about.

In my life I’ve noticed (at least for me), that during times of difficulty and stress, things get simple and I’m usually very calm during the crisis – I’ve always been that way.  Heck, my normal way to deal with stress is make a nice hot, steaming cup of tea and pour it into the lap of whoever is causing the stress.  After the danger is in the past and I relax, that’s when I really notice that I’ve been through something.  I guess we all have to pay the price.  I mean, everyone except those people that visited Epstein’s Island.

So, tonight, a few more hours of sleep, and back to it.

Ye Olde Wilder’s Almanack of Things That Won’t In Thine Yeare of Our Lord 2024 Happen

“Since when can weathermen predict the weather, let alone the future?” – Back to the Future

I think Lady Macbeth wanted to walk her dog the other night.  She kept yelling, “Out, damned Spot!”

Notes:  No podcast tomorrow.  Or the next week.  I’m not going to push The Mrs. this week, and next week she has to go get measured for one of those plastic bubbles so she can live in one (just kidding, follow up visit and we probably won’t be home from Modern Mount Pilot by then, she’s getting better every day). 

Second:  if you’ve emailed me and I didn’t respond, please email me again.  I enjoy and respond to every email sent to me (if I’m cc’d or bcc’d, no, but I read most of those).  I found several in a spam filter today, and I apologize for not checking that since roughly 2007.  I’ll check every week now.

Now, on to the show!

Last year I swapped out my idea of predicting the future.  It appears to be harder.  Now, I predict what won’t happen.  It’s more fun, and I can pretty much bat 1.000 by doing that while making a few humorous points along the way.  So, with that, here are my Wilder Predictions for What Won’t Happen in 2024™.

First:  Ukraine won’t “win”.  So far, the war in the Ukraine has been a disaster for everyone involved.  Had Donald Trump been in office, this never would have happened.  Donald is all about the deal, and had he been president at the time, Putin and Zelensky would probably have come together over a deal that would have been mutually beneficial, and trade would have probably been increased between the two, and there would have been hugs all around.

Really.  That’s what would have happened.  Biden could have shut this down with one phone call.  Of course, the Left would have gone nuts, since a large part of their strategy is to pump the wealth out of the Ukraine directly into either their pockets or their campaigns.  Ukraine is a country that makes the money laundering on Better Call Saul look like amateur hour, so I guess peace was never an option.

Still more credible than the official story.

Second, Israel and Palestine won’t be joining each other for dinner.  Ever.  Note:  I don’t have a dog in this hunt.  The following is an analysis, not a wish list.  No matter what I feel, the writing is on the wall.

This is an existential crisis for both sides, and both are already in a diaspora so they can continue this fight wherever Jews and Palestinians (or Leftists) are in the same city.  In the long term, nobody wants the Palestinians, even (and especially) the neighboring Arab states, so Israel wants to export them to Europe and the United States.  I’m betting they all end up in Canada, or what future historians will call, “Gaza with Grizzlies.”

The Romans couldn’t invent algebra because X was always 10.

Long term for Israel, well, Israel is doomed, too.  They’re surrounded by Islamist populations that will soon outnumber them 50 to 1.  I anticipate another diaspora there, too.  Maybe to Ukraine?  Not sure anyone will be living there, but there will be plenty to mine.  Or de-mine.

I think eventually the merged Facebook®/Al-Jazeera© will probably end up running Jerusalem.

Third, and I’m going out on a limb with this one:  The US Debt won’t come down.  Even though Congress and both presidential candidates will jaw about it incessantly, they won’t do anything, and I do mean anything to even slightly slow it down.  Nope.  It’ll increase faster than Taylor Swift can ruin a football franchise.  Side note:  I took my car to the mechanic because it was making a horrible noise.  Turns out it was Taylor Swift on the radio.

Fourth, the 2024 Election won’t be free and fair.  I know, I know, I’m playing with fire on this one.  It’s clear that the Left mobilized every single trick they read on that Buzzfeed® article, Ten Crazy Things You Can Do to Steal An Election And They Won’t Stop You (You Won’t Believe Number Seven!).  They even bragged about it in a Time® magazine article about how they conspired to do everything they could possibly think of to Make America Democratic Again, since it was clear that Joe Biden created as much enthusiasm with the American people as passing a kidney stone.

They stole the election.

I wish our elections were less corrupt, like China or Russia.

The biggest factor was in creating slop in the system.  Early voting, that ensured that dead people would vote.  Yeah, dead people.  Some percentage of people who voted died after their ballots were cast, and not all of them were Friends of Hillary.  So, dead people voted, and their ballots were just as good as yours.

Ballots were harvested, this is clear, we’ve seen people dropping off dozens and hundreds of ballots.  Exactly as designed.  Mail in voting?  Why not?  And early voting resulted in numerous cases (especially in Michigan) where the early vote was counted, even though the actual voter showed up at the poll and claimed they never requested an early ballot.  They were given a provisional ballot.  In a leaked recording of a Michigan training session, the provisional ballots were given out so people wouldn’t throw a fit.  The provisional ballots of people who showed up in person whose votes were stolen were . . . discarded.

Making an election free and fair is easy:

  1. Paper ballots only. California just outlawed paper ballots, so you know this is a good idea.  The idea isn’t that we make the system so that votes are easy to count – the idea is that we make the system so only valid votes get counted.  If you need more people and it’s important, hire them.
  2. Same day voting, in person, only. Exception for the military – they vote where they are.  If overseas, they vote on election day and the votes are counted right there and results transmitted to the precincts by 11:30pm precinct time.  That day.  All votes are counted by midnight.  If not counted by midnight, they are discarded.  If Detroit can’t figure out how to do that?  Pound sand.
  3. All votes, all voting boxes are counted and are on video every second and broadcast.
  4. All vote counting takes place on video in full view.
  5. Every voter sticks their hand in that blue stuff they cover bank robbers in. It’ll wash off.  If you have a Smurf® hand?  You can’t vote again.  Oh, and you need I.D., even though the Left thinks that blacks aren’t smart enough to get one.

As I said, this won’t happen.  Leftists want every vote counted so that they can just manufacture votes as needed.  People on the Right want only valid votes counted.

Thanks to Biden, soon every American will be a billionaire!  Of course, that’s what it costs for a Snickers®…

Fifth, suppression of viewpoints on the Right won’t stop.  One of the key elements of control is the control of the ability to share ideas.  That’s why the Left was the “Free Speech” party right until they felt they could spike the ball and start sending us to the GULAG.  Blog views are down over most of the Right blogs, and that’s due in part to suppression of search engine traffic, which is a primary way that new readers find us – they stumble upon us while searching for a topic.  If I were Vox Day I’d suggest we create a news and commentary search engine for the Right.

If only someone like Ricky would make one…

A bikini covers only 5 to 10 percent of a woman’s body, yet men are so polite they only look at the covered parts.

Sixth, Elon will not hit peak amusement in 2024.  Good heavens, that man cracks me up.  It’s really fun to watch him change positions over time, but not unusual.  Why?  They have to suppress our ideas because the Truth is inherently Right.

Seventh, no alien contact will happen this year, but it will be trotted out again and again – my bet is that in March and July or August or whenever Biden needs a distraction it’ll show back up in the news.  It’s the ultimate shiny object to distract with.  I mean, besides COVID.

Eighth:  The RINO congress won’t suddenly become effective.  This is a repeat for the last 27 years.  Gingrich did a good job.

Ninth:  Illegal immigration won’t be stopped, but may be (slightly) slowed.  The Wealth Pump from the Elite demands it, and the ideology from the Left demands it.

If you filmed a superhero movie in Detroit, you’d have to use CGI to repair buildings.

Tenth:  2024 is not the year we lose.  The spark that is at our core has existed since (at least, and probably before) the dawn of civilization, and started to burn brighter some 2024 years ago.  That won’t change.  Provided we don’t go full Revelation, we’ll exist until we go full Revelation.

This isn’t over.  We’re not done.  Take that to the bank.

Update On Wilders, Happy 2024

“Happy New Year. Stay fit. Keep sharp. Make good decisions.” – Ghostbusters II

“Call me crazy, but I think it is possible for a Democratic president who spent his first term setting records for inflation, gasoline prices, and low approval ratings to win a second term.” – Jimmy Carter

Hiyas!

Apologies for the delay – for the last few days I’ve been riding vinyl in a hospital room while nice people poked, prodded, x-rayed, EKG’d, CAT-scanned (I think that they use cats instead of dogs because cats keep hospital hours), and measured in such detail that I’ve seen charts, graphs, percentages, statistics, and cross-sections of The Mrs. that I’ve seen at least three of her vertebrae.

People want pictures with women’s clothes off?  I’ve seen pictures of The Mrs. with her skin and muscles off.  At least in slices.  Dang.  That sounds like something Dr. Lecter would say.

Nevermind.

The chair in the hospital room was ungodly uncomfortable, and the vinyl couch was okay since we were at a hospital nearly three hours away in Modern Mt. Pilot.  At one point, a woman I didn’t known came into the darkened room, gently lifted up my blanket, and started to lift up my shirt.

I said, as groggily as a human who only had two hours of sleep in the past 48 could, “Huh????”

“I’m here to replace the battery in your cardiac monitor,” she whispered seductively in my ear.

The Mrs. quickly marked her territory from the actual hospital bed:  “I think you’re looking for me.”

In a hospital, there’s a flurry of activity at the emergency room, and people with amazingly expensive looking pieces of equipment come and stand in line to do amazing tests that provide lots of data so that the hospital doesn’t get sued.  Then comes the long wait as recovery hits, and interaction with the hospital personnel happens only every six hours or so.

This is a good sign.  They have much bigger problems elsewhere.

What’s best in life to get out of the hospital?  Be boring.  The Mrs. tried, but her lungs greedily ate up all the antibiotics the world has to offer and then called for more.

The good news is they booted her out of the hospital so they could give the bed to someone who needed it.  The bad news is that her lungs have not adapted properly for our atmosphere, and we’ll have to seek a planet with more oxygen.

Just kidding, that’s silly.  Why not increase the oxygen content of the Earth, instead?  All we need is a volcanic island lair in the Pacific, the entire GDP of Japan for 30 years, and several dolphins that can play chess at the International Grandmaster level.

So, I filled all of her prescriptions in Modern Mt. Pilot while we waited for discharge.  In one case, the pharmacist said at the consult that the antibiotic might make her poop turn blood red, which apparently alarms weak people who do not welcome the signal that Valhalla is calling.

“Well, that’s an Easter egg I’ll let The Mrs. figure out.”  Sometimes I say what I’m thinking out loud.  It’s usually more enjoyable for me than for others.  The pharmacist gave me a look.  The Look.

I said, “We’ve been married 26 years – I think I know how far I can push a joke.”

She smiled, and shook her head.  “Just like my husband.”

We’re home now, and our Penultimate Day was spent doing precisely nothing.  Pugsley stayed home and didn’t drink all my booze and injected Elderly Dog periodically with insulin, a process we call (in honor of Lisa Douglas, wife of Oliver Wendell Douglas) “Shoosting the dog.”

Now, we’re home.  The Mrs. is touch and go on podcasting Wednesday (if you don’t show up for the livestream, you really should, it’s fun, free and if you have a beer I’ll chug one with you), but (I think) we’re back into that controllable portion of life where we manage the really unimportant things like bills and schedules.

Regardless, we welcome in 2024 with the idea that although we know life is finite, we should enjoy and live each moment with the virtue and faith that you would use in your last moment.

What will anyone pay for pictures of the vertebrae?  We’ll call it Only Organs.

I’ll respond to comments and such tomorrow.

I’m tired.

A.I.: The Most Important News Of 2023?

“This is the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron in the fires of Mount Doom, taken by Isildur from the hand of Sauron himself.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

I asked Microsoft’s® Bing™ A.I. to draw itself, and it looks like the A.I. is dying for a microbrew.  All drawings this post are from A.I.

It’s between Christmas and Penultimate Day (that’s Saturday, December 30 this year), and I often write about “whatever” during that time frame, so I’ll focus on what a truly goofy year this has been while I watch The Fellowship of the Ring in the background.

If I were to pick the first biggest reason 2023 will be remembered (if it isn’t because of the brewing World War III that seems to be on the verge of breaking out) it will be as the year that A.I. became a reality.

No, I’m not talking about generalized artificial intelligence, but I am talking about A.I. that’s useful enough to start taking jobs away.  This won’t be the first time that’s happened.  Google Translate® has cratered the market for interpreters/translators.  Why?  Even if Google Translate© isn’t right, it’s probably close enough for 99% of tasks that people used to use translators for.  I mean, I can now ask, “What is this growth in my armpit?” in Swedish.

Translator wages have been flat, and in the United States (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) there is the need for a total of 14,000 in the country at a stagnant average wage of about $50,000 with roughly 10% unemployment in the field.

I guess a Googlebot™ will help you pack your bags if you get fired as a translator.  But, hey, free cats.

Without Google™?  We’d need more translators.  Free translation is killing that profession.  Never try to compete with a product, however inferior, that’s free.

Now, I wouldn’t call Google© Translate™ A.I., since it’s just matching patterns, it’s something that could have been done by a whole big library of notecards where it matches the ones that you pick.

But ChatGPT© is very different.  It’s possible to have an actual conversation with ChatGPT™, and a much more interesting conversation than one with a feminist.  Is it like talking to a human?  Mostly not, but I’d argue that it passes the Turing Test better than most Leftist college kids.  Is it conscious?  Probably not, even though there are emergent properties – it does more than it’s programmed to, and in some cases (speaking of current A.I. as a whole) we don’t have any idea how it does the things that it is doing.

So, I guess A.I. is familiar with Harvard.

One version of ChatGPT© (GPT-4) lied to a TaskRabbit™ worker so that the worker could solve CAPTCHAs for it so it could get the information it needed.  The worker, suspicious, asked GPT-4 why it needed help and asked if it was a robot.  GPT-4™ told the worker it was a blind person instead.

A.I. is becoming useful.  It’s also replacing people.  Sports illustrated® was recently caught creating fake writers that were creating content with A.I.  On my cellphone, one news service is obviously entirely written by A.I.  The dates and facts are wrong, and the stories are often entirely made up, on every story (feednews.com).  Based on the types of stories, they’re either clickbait or attempting to influence public opinion (by lying).  So, feednews® is just like a politician, but it doesn’t tax me.

Also, apparently Fox News® never covers news about foxes.

But A.I. is moving quickly, and changing.  If you were to have spent the time to become an expert at using ChatGPT© a year ago, that time would have been wasted.  Why?  The model is evolving, and evolving at an ever-increasing rate of speed.

Science fiction author Vernor Vinge came up with a term for the time in history when, as artificial intelligence begins to feed back on itself, the pace of technological change becomes so fast that it becomes constant – imagine hyperinflation, but with technology.  A.I. art is moving along very, very quickly, and, just like the market for translators – the market for illustrators will be drying up.  A.I. art may not be perfect, but it’s very hard to compete with free.

The concept of the singularity is one that is more probable by the day.  2023 made that clear, and I would expect that in 2024 or 2025 we’ll see commercialization of A.I. tools that replace huge amounts of human brain work.  GPT-4 was passing the bar exam in the beginning of 2023, but what if an A.I. legal tool could review all case law (in the appropriate court system) so that it could help create the most powerful arguments?

So, this is what happens when I input the previous paragraph in the art description.  I know I’ll be sleeping well tonight.

I have made the argument that, soon enough, we’ll be seeing A.I. as a mandatory part of the medical diagnosis process.  Why?  Lawsuits.  As soon as A.I. can be used to, say, read x-rays or read EKG information or verify medication dosages on a commercial scale, it will be used.

Why?  A.I. analysis of EKGs has already shown that the A.I. can see who has heart problems better than doctors.  Soon enough, a clever lawyerbot will file a lawsuit noting that the doctor was negligent because he didn’t use A.I. to diagnose a patient who died.

It’s coming.

The prediction was that A.I. would replace fast food workers, when the reality is that it’ll do a much better job replacing mediocre programmers which cost a lot more than the dude at the Wendy’s® drive through.

Profits will be huge for the companies that most quickly harness and use A.I., so they’re all rushing as fast as they can to make it, regardless of the consequences.  It’s almost like they’re trying to be first to create that One Ring of Power®, because if they can do that first, well, that absolute power certainly won’t corrupt them.

Christmas 2023 – Looking Back

“It’s like Christmas at the Kennedy Compound.” – The Simpson’s Movie

What happens if you hallucinate and see a psychologist?

I was going to write a story about one of my Christmas experiences, but instead I thought I’d write about more than just one.  Since my only boss at this blog is you, dear reader, I thought you wouldn’t mind.

So, for this Christmas, I’ll share some of the Christmas memories I have of my family while growing up.  Why?  Because those Christmas memories are the strongest in the young, but our understanding of Christmas as well as our experience of Christmas changes as we age.

The very first Christmas memory I recall as a child was of sneaking out of my bedroom, late at night on Christmas Eve.  As an adopted child, I might have been looking for firearms or an exit so I could exit if these adoptive parents wanted me to do chores or something.  Or not.  I was four.  Long after everyone had gone to bed, filled with excitement, I got up and headed towards the fireplace where I had been told Santa would be dropping off presents.  I recall seeing Santa, putting presents in the stockings, his back to me.  Or it might have been an alien.  I was four, so it was probably just a dream.  Or maybe Ma and Pa Wilder put something extra in my eggnog so I “slept well”.

That would have been an uncomfortable parent-teacher conference for them, “Hey, he’s thirty and in the fourth grade, but he sleeps well.”

Jeff Bezos doesn’t sleep naked – he sleeps with pajamazon.

The next year, when I was five, I recall that there were presents under the tree.  Of course, I was drawn to them like the Colorado Supreme Court is drawn to crack cocaine.  Being five and having the coordination of Joe Biden biking, I stepped right one of the presents that was meant for me.  The result?  My foot tore right through the wrapping paper, revealing to me what the gift from Uncle McWilder was. It was awesome:  a tool belt, complete with real tools including a flashlight, screwdriver, and metal pliers.  Immediately, I imagined putting the belt on and helping Pa Wilder fix things, like the sink.

Our sink had never been broken to my knowledge, but if it ever did break, I had a pair of real metal pliers and all the tools a five-year-old could imagine would be necessary to fix a sink.

We never did fix a sink, though I believe I did an unsanctioned fieldstrip of an Electrolux™ vacuum cleaner.  Note:  I still have the pliers.

I once bought a three-foot long ruler at a yard sale.

I don’t recall a particular present from first grade, but I do recall sitting at dinner.  Being an idiot, I announced to Ma and Pa Wilder (who I think had stopped drugging my food by now) that there was no Santa.  My brother, John Wilder, kicked me savagely under the table.

“Ow!  Why did you do that???”

“You idiot, now they won’t give us presents for our stockings!”

I’ve written about second grade before, here:

A Wilder Story, or, The BB Gun, The Black Bear, The Soviets, and Me

In third grade, we had moved to Wilder Mountain.  We were in a very small place while the rest of Stately Wilder Manor was still being constructed.  Ma Wilder decided to make wine, which involved really good, thick balloons.

My brother John and I decided to play a strange version of volleyball using one of the really thick wine balloons over the small pine tree Ma Wilder had made since we were living in a house the size of Hunter Biden’s sense of morality.  Good times.

In fourth grade my brother John Wilder was proven wrong, as my parents really went all out filling our socks.  In addition to several G.I. Joes®, my brother and I got wind up cars that, when they hit something, all of their body panels flew off.  I had no idea that kind of toy existed.  What was best?  The surprise.

What crayon is in charge of answering the phone?  Yellow.

In fifth grade my parents had said we weren’t going to get any presents.  It was part of a deal – they were going to buy some new snowmobiles, and because of the expense, those would be our Christmas presents.  To be fair I was fine with that – a snowmobile is just awesome.  But, my parents lied, and on Christmas Day we found lots and lots of presents under the tree.  What were they?  Boardgames, galore.  Everything from Mousetrap® to Clue™ to giant checkers.

The present I remember most from sixth grade was one from my brother – he got me the cassette version of Alice Cooper’s album, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell.  An odd Christmas present?  Sure.  But I’ll never cry.

Welcome to my lunchline . . .

Seventh grade brought probably one of the most peaceful Christmas Days from my youth.  I recall on Christmas Day quietly doing a Star Wars™ jigsaw puzzle.  If ever there was a day where there wasn’t a single problem, no strife, nothing but a completely happy time spent with my family growing up, this was the day.

The biggest present I recall for Christmas in my eighth grade year was a Nerf® football, which my brother and I promptly took and threw in the driveway for hours on an unseasonably warm Christmas Day.

As a freshman, my brother and I were out shopping for Christmas presents for Ma and Pa Wilder.  One gift I saw was a towel.  It wasn’t just any towel, but one that had metal snaps and the Everlast® logo.  It looked like boxer’s trunks when you wrapped it around your waist.  This was the era of Rocky™, and I told my brother, “Man, that’s cool.”

He said, “Yes, it is.  I like it, and I’m buying it, for me.”  I was only slightly disappointed, since he had the money, and I didn’t.  Imagine my surprise on Christmas morning when I unwrapped his present to me and found . . . the towel.

I named my pet rock “Rocky” – not because it’s a rocky, but because it has trouble speaking.

When I was a sophomore, all the varsity wrestlers shaved our heads.  Why?  I have no idea.  We were in high school.  Ma Wilder took great amusement in this, and, for Christmas, she made me a knit hat in my high school colors.  The hat was ludicrously long, and perfect in every way.

My junior year was the last year that my brother was with us before he got married, so, in a sense, it was the last, close family Christmas.  Pa Wilder could see the nerd in me, and my present that year was an HP-15C programmable calculator that used reverse Polish notation (RPN).  Back then, HP™ had no equal.

My senior year, I recall that Pa Wilder gave me a metal puzzle – one that he had given all of his friends that year.  Made of brass, it wasn’t a hard puzzle, but I still have it, a memory of the last Christmas before college.

Going through this, it’s interesting (to me, at least) to see the changes over time as I moved from greedy excitement to looking for meaning and peace.  This year?  Not sure I’m getting a present at all, and I’m certain I don’t need one.  I’m also not sure if there’s going to be a Monday post, I’ll give myself permission to skip it if we’re having a good time here at Stately Wilder Manor.

I hope your Christmas is a wonderful one, and brings you peace and meaning as well.

2023: The Funniest Year-End Review You’ll Read Today, Probably

“Ten years I’ve been working in this town, that man never gave my food a good review.” – Psych

Why do skydiving companies get great reviews? Only the survivors rate it.

Every year here at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise, I like to end the year with a look back at how ludicrous and pointless that year was. 2023 is, so far, no different, but there’s still 11 days left for it to either get sillier or for them to indict Trump.

January 3

After 754 days of voting, a bloodletting, and an oath to the grim god Gorto the Nasal, Kevin McCarthy is elected Speaker of the House.

January 9

Joe Biden’s lawyer confirms that Joe had classified documents in his office, garage, closet, and several nuclear codes were stuffed in his Depends™. Biden’s lawyer contends, “It’s okay because he’s not Trump and we couldn’t read the nuclear codes because the ink was urine-soluble.”

January 24

Former VP Mike Pence notes that in a search, he found several classified documents, too, although his were wrapped around 30 pieces of silver. In related news, Pence announced the forming of his new heavy metal group, Judas Pence.

I guess Tom Brady and Robert Kraft both went to Florida for happy endings.

February 1

Tom Brady announces he will stop playing pro football and attempt to become Taylor Swift’s boyfriend or immortal, whichever is easier.

February 3

A train carrying hazardous chemicals derails in East Palestine, Ohio, causing mass evacuations and still not quantified environmental damage. As no Palestinians or Israelis were involved, it was quickly forgotten. Biden quickly uses the event to request more aid for Ukraine. BUT DON’T WORRY ABOUT OHIO – LOOK! – THERE’S A CHINESE SPY BALLOON!!!!!!

February 20

President Biden makes a surprised visit to Kiev. What makes it a surprise is that Biden thought he was just going out to get ice cream, Jack.

February 22

The “Three-Day Special Military Operation” in Ukraine enters day 730. Putin has since renamed it to “Special Military Operation Anniversary Tour.”

March 10

The FDIC announces that Silicon Valley Bank has been closed. Thousands of starlets awaiting surgery sigh in relief when they find out that Silicone Valley Bank is still open.

You didn’t think I’d pass that one up, did you?

March 10

Xi Jinping is re-elected president in China with a vote declared “fair and free” by the Democratic Party of the United States. “No evidence of anything wrong here, it looks like China has successfully defended their democracy, especially since Donald Trump wasn’t elected.”

March 15

The French raise the retirement age from 31 to 32 years of age. There are riots. The French surrender.

March 30

Trump Indicted on charges of “being Donald Trump”. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

April 4

Finland joins NATO, adding a +5 to the autism level of NATO.

April 24

Tucker Carlson is fired from Fox News™, since firing your most popular host and one of the most popular people on television for no particular reason is what networks do all the time.

Mayonnaise may be trying to kill me. At least that’s what Tucker’s sauces say.

April 25

Joe Biden formally announces he is Joe Biden, and will win the presidency in 2024 so he can “take over and build from the wreckage that the current president created, Jack.”

May 2

The Writers’ Guild of America goes on strike against Hollywood. They are nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize™ for stopping their crusade against good movies and humanity.

May 6

King Charles crowned. Meghan Markle immediately rushes the camera and notes that she’s not king because she’s black and that’s why people don’t like her.

Meghan Markle – the first woman to turn a prince into a frog.

May 9

Trump is found liable for sexually abusing a really unattractive female in the very plausible and not at all made up story about him pulling her into a dressing room in a crowded luxury department store because that’s where billionaires commit sexual assault against homely women. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

June 8

Trump again indicted on charges that he is, indeed, still Donald J. Trump despite Leftists wanting him to not be Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

June 18

The search begins for the submarine that had been taking people to go to see the wreckage of the H.M.S. Titanic in person. Critics say the submarine name, “U.S.S. Turning Millionaires Into Something With The Consistency of Library Paste” was probably not to blame.

June 23

The Wagner Group begins a march on Moscow, despite it being June and Prigozhin not having reservations. The march ends when Prigozhin is given several gift cards and a Happy Meal™ with a Transformers© toy.

June 29

The Supreme Court rules that colleges and universities can no longer discriminate against people based on their skin color. Harvard™ and Yale© announce an immediate initiative to bring in hair texture and tendency not to sunburn as a specific reason for admission.

I guess a guy in a wheelchair could be a sit-down comedian?

July 27

Hunter Biden’s plea deal sentencing the United States government to give Hunter Biden an apology and $23,000,000 for inconveniencing Hunter by stopping him from snorting coke off of hookers while taking naked pictures of himself falls through when OMIGOSH! ALIEN HEARING IN CONGRESS! IGNORE HUNTER! ALIENS! IT’S REAL I TELL YOU!

August 1

Trump again indicted on charges that, despite being warned, he is still Donald J. Trump. Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

August 8

Hawaii wildfires break out, and Joe Biden immediately announces more funding for Ukraine to the tune of “a gazillion trillion”. For residents of Hawaii, Biden promises a “buy one get one free” coupon to Subway™.

August 14

Trump again indicted on charges that, he is “still breathing and stuff.” Leftists everywhere say, “We’ve finally got him this time.”

August 23

Wagner Group leader Prigozhin is killed in a totally accidental and coincidental plane crash. Shards of shrapnel from a Transformers™ Happy Meals© toy are suspected to have caused the malfunction.

Is Prigozhin really the only one who didn’t see this coming?

September 14

Queen Elizabeth II is still dead. Meghan Markle announces that she has assumed a new form, Mega Markle, and will eventually usurp the throne after her dragons are full grown and that, “Those meanies are gonna be sorry!”

September 28

Dianne Feinstein passes away at the age of 1371 years old. She is survived by her great grandson, Count Chocula®.

October 3

Kevin McCarthy sacrificed to Gorto and removed as Speaker of the House in a mostly peaceful ceremony. Three weeks later, Mike Johnson of Louisiana is elected Speaker, after promising “gumbo, elephant rides, pantyhose, and hot sauce” for everyone.

November 8

The Vatican decides that the new basis of Canon Law is that “anything goes, and if it feels good, do it.” It is also announced that Holy Water is a dated concept, and will be replaced by “Holy Lube”.

I used to take dead raccoons with me when I traveled by air. It was my carrion luggage.

November 14

Xi Jinping visits the United States and San Francisco shows they can clean up crime and the streets, but only for a foreign communist ruler. I mean, you have to look good for him, right?

December 3

Venezuela decides, “What the heck, let’s go get some oil” and decides to invade Guyana. Venezuela’s sixteen-man army with six working helicopters quickly crashed after not being able to find Guyana, which was unaware that they had neighbors, since the Internet has yet to reach there and their number one television show is Seinfeld.

December 16

Senate aide allegedly has sex in the Senate. Senate Democrats say it’s okay and perfectly legal, since at least one participant is an illegal alien, and, besides, Democrats are used to screwing everyone.

Most years, I have to make up some silly stories. 2023? Every time I’m showing Donald Trump being indicted in the above list? He was indicted. Can you imagine the excited Lefty flop-sweat each morning at Stephen King’s and Rob Reiner’s house when they hear that Trump was indicted, again?

Here’s to the world being absurd – it makes The World’s Foremost Hugo™-Nominated Humorist writer’s job easier.

NOTE: If you sell something or write something and are a regular commentor, please feel free to link your stuff or site as long as it’s legal and tasteful – my choice there on the tasteful part. If we’re going to build our own future, we should buy stuff from each other (if we like the stuff).

On Winning The Big Fight

“If I owned a company, my employees would love me. They’d have huge pictures of me up on the walls and in their home, like Lenin.” – Seinfeld

And how do we get rid of communists?  We Oxycute™ them!

We’ve talked about the bigger picture recently.  The bigger picture includes Elite Overproduction and The Wealth Pump.  What we haven’t discussed so much is how the Left subverted so many of our institutions.  I think we have the why down pretty well, but let’s go to the “how” of the situation.

It starts with Vladimir Lenin:  “Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.”

Yup, Lenin said that.  Or at least someone typed that he said that.  I mean, someone besides me.  And when Lenin said it, it was probably in Russian and I imagine he needed a breath mint, because I always imagined he’d smell like cabbage and B.O.

How does Stalin drink water?  GULAG, GULAG, GULAG.

Regardless, Lenin’s idea was to propagandize kids from the start.  And, in the Soviet Union, he could get away with that because the Soviets had the secret police and the bravado and the people thought they were at their mercy.  I think Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn said it best:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking:  What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?  Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

If . . . if . . .  We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

In the United States we were entirely different – there has yet to be a secret police that could act with impunity against Enemies of the State.  Oh, sorry, forgot about Ruby Ridge and Waco and January 6 protestors and the ATF and FBI.  I guess we do have one, but ours is on a shorter (for now) leash since they still have to pretend that the Constitution exists.

I’d tell an ATF joke, but I can’t compete with their supervisors.

But to get to where we are now, things had to start to rot.  The rot in America really started in academia, specifically colleges.  And, the colleges that were targeted were the education departments of the colleges.  Why?

Here’s Lenin’s statement again:  “Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.”

Now, in my experience, teachers generally start teaching when they’re in their early 20s and stop sometime after they become petrified wood.  I think my kindergarten teacher was born in the late Triassic, but my first-grade teacher was maybe 22.

If you’re a Lefty in a rural farm school district, you’re not going to get away with much, especially if the other teachers are all married and religious conservatives.  But over time, bureaucracies always swim Left.  I recall the first really Leftist teacher that showed up at my school.  She was fresh out of college, and was a substitute.  She went on a long rant about income redistribution and lots of other commie talking points.

Someone said I make too many graphs, but I know where to draw the line.

Since it was middle school and she was a substitute, she got about as much respect from the students as Joe Biden would if he guest-hosted Jeopardy!, which is zero.  “You know, you have to answer the question in the form of a question like my dead son, who was in the military did.”

These teachers had to bide their time, move into the administration, and slowly build a majority.  Of course, this didn’t happen all at once, it evolved.  And once it evolved, it did what Leftists always do:  they radicalized themselves more and more until only the most Leftist idea survives.  I was blessed to have “conservative” and left-leaning teachers, but no real Leftists.

But in the big cities and in Blue State?

Lenin would be proud.

But that’s only a part of it.  Pop culture is important, too.  I recall reading once that because Fonzie in Happy Days said, “The Fonz don’t go to sleep without sweet smelling teeth,” that toothbrushing doubled among the 8- to 14-year-old set.

I fell in love with some blood, but it was all in vein.

Propaganda works, and the younger you get the kid, and the more hours that you have with the kid, the deeper the hook sets.  That’s where television came in.

Before the big cable invasion, before the Great Fragmentation of the streaming services and multitudes of video sharing services, there was the Big Three.  CBS®, NBC™, and ABC©.  These three dominated the airwaves, and produced content that was beamed directly into the brains of Americans from when they got up to when Pa Wilder turned off the TV after watching the 10:30 weather.

In between, it was filling brains with Leftist propaganda.  Norman Lear (who just died) was one of the biggest proponents of Leftist propaganda on television, and made tens of millions.  It really was Lear who made me question if the ideas of freedom and nationalism that I’d had since I can remember could ever be funny, or if the only humor could come from the Leftist perspective.

Of course, I know now that the brainwashing didn’t hold, and that we’re actually a lot funnier than the Left because our humor is based on Truth, and the only way that they’re funny is when they set up a construct.  In order to poke fun at the Right, they had to construct an Archie Bunker and use him as their strawman.  And Norman Lear created him.  And had shows that showed that stronk womens don’t need no man (On Day At A Time).

Why are divorces expensive?  They’re worth it.

Those shows weren’t aimed at parents – they were aimed at kids, so Norman could pump his Leftism into their brains when the teachers were off duty.

Norman made millions attempting to destroy everything that made American culture strong, and when Reagan was elected, Norman took is tens (if not hundreds) of millions and tried to continue on building a cultural subversion mechanism, People for the American Way©, which, even now, funnels money to Leftists.

This subversion took decades, of course, and it brought us to where we are.

Thankfully, the tide is turning.  Home schooling is great for counteracting Leftism impact on kids and more people are opting for it.  Places like Modern Mayberry don’t care much for Leftism in schools.  The media chokehold the Left had forever is weakening – they can’t channel our minds on just three channels for 12 hours a day.

Let’s look at the other side:

“Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a state of free men that won’t yield to tyranny.”

Do we want to win?  We have to show up.  With our children.

The Good News? It’s Up To You.

“Winners always want the ball when the game is on the line.” – The Replacements

People keep wondering if the Bowling Alley Killer will strike again.

One of the freeing things about what’s going on in the world right now, especially with respect to the current breakdown of American (and perhaps Global) society is the fact that many are coming to one of the biggest realizations they’ll ever have:  most people don’t care about us, and there’s probably no one that’s going to come and save us.

I remember the first time I came to that conclusion, that it was all on me. – I believe I was a sophomore in college, and realized that to the college, I was just a number measured in GPA and how much I had to pay beyond what my scholarship paid for.  Sure, I had friends at school, and I do know that several professors liked me, but I was on my own.  Well, with the exception of student loans:  for a long time, I didn’t think I could ever figure out how to repay them.

Sink or swim, it was up to me.  It was a cold winter day.  I was having a beer with my roommate.  I remember at him and saying, “No one really cares about us, do they?”

“Nope.”

Like I said, this was good news.  I got to survive or thrive or fail based on my own efforts.  This realization was a winner – my GPA actually went up afterwards, and it wasn’t all that horrible to begin with, though I hear the minimum GPA needed to go to USC is $500,000.00.

What’s another name for an adoption center?  A stork market.

We are at that point in society as well.  Many of the legacy institutions that were created by our forefathers are no longer in the business of serving actual American citizens who love freedom and have no idea how to have a complicated Starbucks™ order.  Here’s a partial list:

  • Immigration: Right now, ICE is on the side of the illegals streaming across the border.  Not you.  You can apply this to most government (both federal and big city) agencies.  Disagree?  Ask the January 6 Protestors if they think they got a fair deal from the DOJ and FBI.  The only reason the FBI isn’t spelled KGB is because they don’t know Russian.
  • Most Colleges: I can post academic after academic engaged in the vilest hate speech.  Do they lose their jobs?    Because it’s directed at you and me, which is okay and is covered under policy 364.3.d.  But make a joke about a trans-GPA 4.0 student living in the body of a 2.0 student?  That’s not allowed.
  • The Military: The officers on the Right have been under attack since (at least) Obama.  Good luck being promoted if you don’t agree with the Left.  With things like illegal alien lesbian mom recruiting videos and mandatory Vaxxing, well, they’ve done their best to filter out people in the lower ranks, too.  Thankfully the most reliable fighting force in the history of the United States is vaxxed illegal alien lesbians.

Just wait until she wants to talk to the manager.

  • Most Government Schools: Yesterday, read a story about a history teacher that marked a student incorrect on the question, “All men have a penis (T/F)”.  Apparently, this is now indoctrination that is deemed worthy of history class where I recall spending a lot of time talking about George Washington’s penis.  Oh, wait, I never heard the word penis a single time in history, except when my teacher was talking about FDR.  Today?  They’re not on our side.
  • Mainstream News Media: Without the Internet, there would be very little division in the country because The Narrative is agreed to by almost all (including Fox™) news organizations.  Without the Internet, there would be exactly one opinion, and it would be presented in crayon.
  • Mainstream Entertainment: Why does Disney® make movies for kids that their parents find to be objectionable?  Because their investors don’t care – they have an agenda that goes beyond making money.

I could keep going on and on, but my laptop is running out of ink, and you already know all of this.

And, this is the good news:  these institutions aren’t going to save us.  They actively despise us and are doing everything they can to destroy us and erase us from memory.  I mean, apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the people on the Right ever created?

Did you know the Monty Python theme was written by someone from the United States?  After all, nobody expects the American composition.

Like I said, that’s the good news.

Why?  Because, just like I discovered in college, it should change everyone’s mindset.  Our fate isn’t in their hands, but instead it’s in our hands.  When I see people like Andrew Torba building out GAB™, I know that he’s out of the victim mentality, and is building a future that doesn’t depend on the Left.  Vox Day is doing something similar with multiple initiatives, from his Arktoons® to Arkhaven Comics™ to Castalia House© (publishing) to Infogalactic© (Wikipedia® without the Leftist Overlords).

These institutions that people are actively creating show that they’re intent not on relying on the institutions that the Left has subverted, but instead on building their own.  In truth, that’s the first step.  The second is to make sure that the culture of each of these organizations that we’re creating is rooted in freedom and the ideology of the Right.  Why?

Because any institution that isn’t explicitly Right becomes Leftist over time, as John O’Sullivan’s First Law states.  O’Sullivan cited the ACLU™, the Ford Foundation© and the Episcopal Church.

Why?  Since Leftists aren’t good at creating much besides starvation and misery, they look to insinuate themselves into institutions that others have made.  And they don’t do it in a good way, building something new – no, they’re like termites, gradually eating away at everything they find until they end up destroying what they’ve infiltrated.

Do termites on a date order a table for two?

Then they blame those that built the institution they subverted in the first place for the failure.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

No, it’s time we take the future into our own hands and build the structures that we need.  Homeschooling is one bright example of how the Right has built something out of the ashes of public schools.  We’re building our own social networks, our own entertainment.

I want my ashes stored in a clear glass urn – I wonder if my family will like it?  Remains to be seen.

We don’t need the Left – or what they produce.

There’s a bright future ahead once we realize that no one is coming to save us.

All we have to do is make it.