Student Loans, Death, And Taxes

“I’ve got Doctor Euthanasia’s home number for that eventuality.” – Absolutely Fabulous

They should thank their student loans – I don’t think they could ever repay them.

I had another theme picked for today, but that’s okay – it can wait for a few posts. It’ll keep. But when I heard that Joe Biden was planning on relieving up to $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers that make less than $125,000, I was astonished.

The late genius P.J. O’Rourke described exactly this situation:

“I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on virtually everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club.

“Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. He’s nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.”

First, $10,000 doesn’t sound like all that much, right? Further, that would wipe out entirely all the debt from about a third of the borrowers. So, I pulled out my calculator. A third of 45,000,000 is 15,000,000 people, who presumably vote. Assuming that their average debt . . .

That’s $90 billion. Ugh! Some people work a whole year and don’t make that much money. I checked the numbers again, and was, like, um, that’s right. So what about the other two-thirds?

I assumed that some of them made more than $125,000 a year – Biden’s cut-off for his “gift”. I decided to play it conservatively – assume that only 25,000,000 people would get the full $10,000 airdropped into their lives. That’s another $250 billion.

Altogether, that’s $340 billion. $340,000,000,000.

This is an astonishing sum for someone to just give away as free money. And forget the moral hazard associated with doing this – paying debts is honorable, especially when everyone else is required to. You’re not a loan.

I guess someone didn’t get the Barbie® they were looking for from Santa Biden.

But since (spins wheel) at least Bush II (and you could argue Nixon was on the bandwagon, too), the competition by presidents of either party has been to shovel the most money out the door to people as fast as they could in year two of their presidency to juice the economy so all the cylinders would be pumping when their next election hit. And since they only have two terms, who cares what happens then?

People vote in favor of good economies, so a good economy going into the 2024 election will help get votes.

Originally, that $340,000,000,000 bought a lot of nonfat vanilla lattes on the way to Introduction to Feminist Non-Binary Ancient Indigenous Australian Literature 201 at good old We Have A Climbing Wall University. I’m betting that $340,000,000,000 will buy a lot of votes from the graduate-level baristas that took that class.

What will be the result of all of that extra cash floating around the economy?

It does look like it will be tax free . . . but I’m betting lots of those folks wouldn’t cheat on their taxes, I mean, what kind of example would that be for their 23 dependents?

It’s hard to tell. Normally, I’d say almost certain inflation. I think that even Biden is dimly aware that all of the previous inflation has destroyed the housing market – sales are down over 20% from last year. That destroys a lot of value. And if the market drops?

The bigger question is this: giving a single politician the unilateral authority to make multibillion-dollar decisions on a whim is madness. It turns the executive into a king, handing out largess to whoever he feels like. I mean, if Biden remembers.

But what other powers does a king have?

The power of death. And that’s in play up in Canada.

3.3% of deaths? Those are rookie numbers, Canada!

They are rookie numbers, and Canada is doing its best to pump them up. Remember, coffee is only for closers. And Canada wants to be a closer. Read a headline the other day – a Canadian veteran has PTSD. Doctor’s suggestion?

In Canada, if you’re feeling suicidal, apparently the authorities want you to get help. As in someone to help you kill yourself.

Yup, Canada suggested he run away to go live on a farm where he can run and play, like all those goldfish I had as a kid. Except in this case, if you go to a doctor because you have a cold, they’ll suggest, without you asking, if you want to have a dirt nap instead. Okay, not a cold. But PTSD.

I can’t imagine why they’re suggesting that. Perhaps it’s because it’s cheaper to bury someone than to give them “free” healthcare?

Suicide? That’s the last thing I’d ever do.

Oddly, it turns out that when people have goals, values, and the prospect of a decent life ahead of them, euthanasia is an idea that doesn’t sound so good.

Except to them. And if it’s you dying.

Huh, somehow they no longer sound like Santa. Because? He isn’t real. If you want to know how they really feel, re-read the Tweet® above.

American Civil War: Four Fates, From Freedom to Soviet Tyranny

“Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?  No!” – Animal House

free.jpg

On this blog recently someone commented, “When I was a kid, people used to say that ‘It’s a free country,’ but they don’t say that anymore.”  I tried it out the other day.  The response?  “It hasn’t been a free country in a while.”  I turned him into the FBI for that kind of hate think.

Again, this is a repost from back in 2020, partially because I’m going to add it on the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report page, and partially because it seemed a good fit as we keep sliding down.

I was driving around and one of the videos that was in my suggested list was about “America’s Cold Civil War.”  This isn’t a review of the video, but it brought up some interesting points.  The one I want to make clear to every single person that loves freedom in the United States is:  if you’ve ever seen a movie about that rag-tag elements of a group fighting a foe that has nearly utterly defeated them, it’s us.  We are the Wolverines.

wolverines.jpg

I get to be Charlie Sheen, mainly because he’s still alive.  I think.

I don’t mean to say that to create a feeling of defeat – far from it.  But the first step in dealing with a situation is understanding reality.  And reality is very simple today.  At a minimum, the Left has coopted the following elements of culture in the United States – they have been, over time, “converged” into Leftism:

  • The K-12 educational system.
  • Colleges and Universities.
  • Most Protestant religious organizations.
  • Most Catholic organizations.
  • The psychological establishment.
  • The American Medical Association.
  • All mainstream news media.
  • All mainstream entertainment media.
  • Most departments of the Federal government, absent the armed services.
  • The general officer corps of the armed services.
  • The courts.
  • Silicon Valley tech companies.
  • Many (but not all) Fortune® 500™ companies.

This isn’t an accident, it’s entirely by plan.  And not only by plan, it’s by a plan that was entirely shared.  From Verified Communist Traitor® Herbert Marcuse, in his book Counterrevolution and Revolt (bold added):

To extend the base of the student movement, Rudi Dutschke has proposed the strategy of the long march through the institutions:  working against the established institutions while working within them, but not simply by ‘boring from within’, rather by ‘doing the job’, learning (how to program and read computers, how to teach at all levels of education, how to use the mass media, how to organize production, how to recognize and eschew planned obsolescence, how to design, et cetera), and at the same time preserving one’s own consciousness in working with others.

I could prove all of the above Institutions have been converged through the Long March Through the Institutions and will probably discuss a few of these in the future, because I could do a post on each one.  Heck, maybe it would be a great book, but only if I could figure out how to pair hot chicks and communist propaganda.

roids.jpg

East German girl swimmers bench pressing 300 pounds in 1976 is completely normal.

But if you doubt me, you have Google® (itself converged) and you can easily verify list above even through the Leftist-bias that’s now on that search engine.  I’ll leave you with one more question:  why else would Fortune© 500® corporations sign a manifesto saying profits were less important than social goals if Leftists weren’t in control?  Because there were extra doughnuts in the breakroom and they were feeling generous?

In almost any context, these organizations reflect the values of the Left, not of the Right.  I specifically don’t use the label conservative here – the conservative movement has utterly failed in the United States (to quote absolutely everyone) to conserve anything.  We live a country where adults telling four year old boys that being a girl is okie-dokie (and vice-versa) aren’t thrown directly in prison for a decade or more (after a trial, of course) for child abuse.  The goals of the above organizations would be cause for mass revolt if they had been publicized in 1990, but now, despite no vote, no public acceptance, each point of the Left has been accepted as the new normal.

And telling a boy that he’s a girl?  Oh, wait, that’s brave.  Sorry.

Despite all of that, this is not a post about giving up.  Screw that.  Each day makes me more independent, not less, more wanting to tell the truth.

And if you’re reading this, no one is done here.  Freedom is always the underdog.  I really wish we’d just stop waiting until 2:00 in the fourth quarter to start playing.

I remember seeing a film in Social Studies in High School about the Korean War.  In the black and white film, almost all of Korea had been lost.  The film ended right at what is known as the Pusan Perimeter, right where the North Korean Army was about to kick freedom off of the Korean peninsula, forever.  It was tough watching that film.

But then we learned what happened next:  MacArthur led the naval invasion of Inchon and turned the tide of battle, leading a combined United Nations® force that cut off the North Koreans.  This turned the course of the war, and in the process helped to create the free country of South Korea that is a world leader in technology, bad music videos, and wealth creation today.

korea.jpg

Spoiler alert:  we tied.

Our Pusan Perimeter is now.  I had a great boss once upon a time, he would continually remind me, “John, start with the end in mind,” which is #2 of Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  As I look at the state of the Right back in 2016, we were at the Pusan Perimeter.  As we as a nation blindly stumble toward Civil War II, I can’t predict the outcome, but I can see the full range of outcomes.

We’ll go from best case to worst case for people who love freedom.  Although there are variations, I think I’ve captured all of the big picture end games below.

thanks.jpg

I named operation Aesop after the Raconteur Report’s Aesop.  You can read him here (LINK).

Operation Aesop:  Total victory.

What it is:  The Right wins.  Traditional society is restored.  Mothers and fathers in committed relationships are again honored.  A Constitutional republic of limited government replaces the democracy of unlimited power.  The United States is unified.  Think of it as a return to the 1950’s, but with color TV and microwaves.

What it takes:  Oh, not much more than the bloodiest war in the history of the country.  The only way this results in victory is as Von Clausewitz wrote about in On War:   [Accomplishing . . . ] “three broad objectives, which between them cover everything:  destroying the enemy’s armed forces; occupying his country; and breaking his will to continue the struggle.”

That’s what happened in the first Civil War.  That’s what happened to the Germans and Japanese in World War II.  The concept of continuing was even more horrific than the concept of trying to continue to fight.  It’s total capitulation.  This is actual war until the enemy is not capable of continuing.  Not talking heads on a television show.  Not voting.  Not discussion.  Not a “mission accomplished” after five weeks moving across Iraq where the “will to continue the struggle” is still clearly intact.

Outcomes:  Some freedoms we see now would be curtailed.  Political discourse would be constrained.  But teenagers would be pretty polite, again.  And you wouldn’t really have to worry about the border.

constitution.jpg

I’m related to Patrick Henry, or so my aunt told me.  I like to imagine Patrick getting a bit tipsy and writing mean letters to Madison about how short Madison was and how Dolly might want to give up on the chew.

Operation Founding Fathers:  50 Independent States. 

What it is:  A return to base principles.  Originally, the United States was conceived as just that, independent free States.  The majority of decisions to be made were to be made at the state, and not the Federal level.  Each state was to be free to make decisions.  Texas could be Texas.  California could be Venezuela.  Vermont could be stoned.  The free decisions of free States was allowed.  The free movement of free peoples was likewise allowed.  This is returning to that state.

What it takes:  Leftist thought is built around the universal adoption of their principles.  Individuals in society cannot be left to make decisions, so this is a hateful outcome to the Left.  I recall discussing politics with a Leftist when I was younger.  The Leftist thought I was on the Right.  That, at least they could deal with.  When I identified as a Libertarian®?  The look of disgust was clear – the Left hated Libertarians™ more than they hated the Right.  The Right was merely amused and not threatened by Libertarians©.  Maybe it was the Star Wars® shirts and poorly trimmed beards?

That taught me one thing:  the thing the Left hates the most is  . . . freedom.  Liberty.  In many ways the Left would rather lose a shooting war and be subjugated to the views of the Right than to be allowed to turn Seattle into the Siberia of the PacNorthwest.

The only way this can take place outside of warfare is a Second Constitutional Convention.  I think that alone would lead to a shooting war from the Left and a complete revolt from all of the Leftist institutions shown above.  But we can dream that the Second Constitutional Convention would turn out well.  If we did it, oh, in the next year.  The clock is ticking on this being a viable outcome.  It’s probably time to do it now.  As in, well, now.  Conservatives (not the Right) seem to feel that everything is going to come out fine, so until the wolf is at the door, I don’t think they’ll move an inch.

The problem is that Conservatives (again, not the Right) seem to think that the Left likes the Constitution.  Since the Left gained the institutions I’ve listed above, the Left doesn’t care about the Constitution – the Left cares about power.  Pure, unadulterated, 18 year old with a 12 pack of Coors Light™ behind the wheel of a 1969 Camero® power.

Outcomes:  In many ways this is the best outcome, but in my opinion the most unlikely.  This is the only outcome where we can still have the full freedom of political discourse and the full Bill of Rights.  I’d love to turn over freedom to choose to a California that can choke itself to death on Leftist feelgoodism while a Rightist Arizona can deny admission to every illegal and return them via a trebuchet if they want to.

sumter.jpg

I was expecting more girls in bikinis from Bruckheimer, but this is a good start.

Operation Fort Sumter:  Going our separate ways.

What it is:  Secession.  Splitting up.  It’s not you, it’s me Oregon.  The problem is that unlike in 1860, the dividing lines aren’t so clear.  Then there was a line which, if everyone agreed, would have been fine for a split.  The North could be the North, the South could be the South.  Oops.  Now it would be a county by county fight.

What it takes:  Just like a psycho ex-girlfriend, if the Right tried to succeed in Texas, the Left wouldn’t accept it, and would demand tanks on the banks Red River by morning, which would be hilarious because tanks don’t float.  Unless the secession were overwhelming in number of states, numbers of the armed forces, and nearly immediate, I see only a small path to a peaceful secession.  For secession to stick, the Left and Right would have to feel that conquering the other side was more costly than trying to forge a peace.

Outcomes:  If secession happened and was maintained, the United States would be irrevocably broken, unless it was re-stitched by a Caesar sequentially conquering the Balkanized United States.  Maybe Caesar Pugsley Wilder the First?

gulag.jpg

Think they need a reason to send you to the Gulag?  Sure they do!  It’s Monday – that’s good enough.

Operation Gulag in The Dakotas:

What it is:  This is the darkest timeline not only for our nation but for our world.  And, amazingly, the only timeline (outside of a Second Constitutional Convention) that we can vote ourselves into.  It is the Leftist takeover of everything.  Although it is sold as a Denmark, in reality Denmark is capitalist with stronger social institutions because Denmark is, well, Danish and I think they put mayo on their fries.  In the United States it will look much more like the U.S.S.R. – but not the basketcase 1988 U.S.S.R., but more like the 1932 “starve to death millions of citizens that Stalin doesn’t like” (In the World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold and Silver!) U.S.S.R.

What it takes:  Nothing.  We keep going as it is.  In less than 20 years, we will be in complete tyranny.  The erosion of rights we have seen won’t continue in a linear fashion.  It will accelerate.

Outcomes:  1984.

Now we know the stakes.

orwell.jpg

Big Brother is our friend!  And we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

Government Nutrition Advice: About To Get Worse

“Janine, someone with your qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.” – Ghostbusters

What celebrity loves cereal the most and is always prepared to eat it? Reese. With her spoon.

It sounds like how you would describe my hair.

“Tufts.”

Weirdly, it’s also a college in Massachusetts, which has very little to do with my hair. The last time I was in Massachusetts, I was looking for a lumberjack dressed like a patriot – I heard they had a Boston Lager©.

But back to Tufts®. It turns out that when famous showman P.T. Barnum wanted to give a college money, he chose them, I’m guessing because he likes a good joke. Although P.T. Barnum didn’t really say, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” it looks like Tufts© has adopted that phrase as their motto.

And the suckers that Tufts™ is currently targeting is . . . us.

American “official, government-approved™” nutritional guidelines have been a mess for all of my conscious life. Food quadrants. Food pyramids. Food tetrahedra. Actual government policy since 1969: “The same 1500 calories of sugar is better for you than 1500 calories of steak” – which came from after nutritionists (from Harvard™, no less!) in the 1960s got paid off.

My friend turned vegan – it was like I’d never seen herbivore.

I think that the results over the last fifty years have plainly shown that the government-suggested diet is awful. And I think that, further, the cheapest foods that many people consume on a daily basis is equally awful, but more on that, later.

The first conference on nutrition was held in 1969, and you can see how well that has worked out by all the skinny and fit people wandering around. The idiot in charge of this is a spell-check challenging person by the name Dariush Mozaffarian. To me, his name sounds like the founder of a Jamaican cannabis religion, but, no, he’s the head of a group that’s working with Joe Biden to further enrich big food companies no, make people fatter no, “build bigger backsides”.

I’ve seen the preliminary results of the mess that they’re likely to introduce. It’s called a Food Compass. The “compass” combines “9 domains and 54 individual attributes” to produce a single number between 1 and 100. I’m not kidding, and they claim to have done this evaluation on over 8,000 foods.

1 is “bad”. 100 is “good”. I don’t know if that makes it much of a compass, but I can already see that this is headed south. Instead of “don’t eat crap” it’s now going to be some ludicrous phrase like “Follow the Food Compass™ to Health®” and then Kamala will giggle like she’s been hotboxing ether with Hunter.

Yup, this is likely going to be official government policy – and one of Mozaffarian’s papers is titled, Mandating front-of-package food labels in the U.S. – What are the First Amendment obstacles?, so that should make you certain that there’s no threat of government force to mandate everyone. Oh, wait, this is Biden. His world consists only of mandates, pudding pops, and looking for fresh hair to sniff.

If The Mrs. made whiskey, I’d love her still.

Thankfully, Hair Plugs University®, oops, Tufts™ put a list of some of the foods that they had rated. I had a batch of comparisons I was going to make but decided I’d just put out a list so you could judge how well the compass works for yourself. I want to remind you, that these numbers came directly from the Tufts’© website:

  • Tomato Juice, 100
  • Cheerios™, 95
  • Almond milk, 86
  • Orange Juice, 78
  • Chocolate-covered almonds, 78
  • Soy milk, 71
  • Potato Chips, 69
  • PowerBar©, 67
  • Peanut butter sandwich, 66
  • Fritos®, 55
  • Pineapple, canned, heavy syrup, 51
  • M&M’s™, 44
  • Chocolate ice cream cone with nuts, 37
  • Cheddar cheese, 36
  • Steak, 33

No, I didn’t goof up. This isn’t Bizzaro™ World©. These “scientists” are trying to say with a straight face that eating M&M’s© is better than eating steak. That eating potato chips is healthier than eating cheddar cheese. I could keep comparing, but food analogies are the Cheetos® of conversation.

I keep breath mints in my sleeveless jacket. I call it my Tic-Tactical® vest.

It is clear that these recommendations are going to be very, very bad. On the list as better than cheese and steak (which we have been eating for millennia) is candy. Also on the list are many things that simply have never existed in nature. How does one milk an almond or a soy? Where are the nipples even at?

Part of the problem with highly processed foods (like Cheerios™) is that they are essentially pre-digested. They hit the digestive system harder and faster than their more natural and unprocessed counterparts, which also creates spikes in insulin. Oh, wait, that seems to be a problem that leads to obesity and early death.

As found.

Cheerios© are certainly not as bad as M&M’s©, but both steak and cheese are better. And better for you. Steak and cheese are better, in my opinion, than every food ranked higher by the idiots at Tufts©. It will likely soon be government policy to encourage people to jam their cheeks with food that will kill them.

The food industry is about this: getting the most profit. How to do that? Jam the most calories into a food that tastes good enough to make people come back for more. Health? What’s that? Health doesn’t show up on the balance sheet.

If only someone could solve this problem. If only . . . oh, wait. Want to find physically healthy people with odd beards? Look to the Amish farmers that spend their days eating the food that comes off their farms. The first study I found on the Internet indicated that only 4% of Amish folks were obese.

Huh.

Do you know what drives me buggy? Me horsey.

Now, the Amish are also physically active, too, in most cases. But not in all cases. And they have pies. And cakes. But they don’t have almond milk. Or soy milk.

But when you look at their beards?

Tufts. And I’d trust those tufts over P.T. Barnum’s Tufts™.

Total Recall: Looking Back On The COVID Crisis

“You had a dishwasher box to sleep in?  I didn’t even know sleep.  It was pretty much twenty-four seven ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn” – Deadpool

One girl I dated in High School asked if she used too much makeup.  I replied, “Dunno, depends on if you are trying to kill Batman.”

[Wilder Note:  I’ve been meaning to dig this post out for a while, especially since something that WordPress did mangled a bit of the original with weird characters.  I wrote it originally on March 25, 2020.  This was meant as a prediction of what we’d see going through the ‘Rona.  It has been wilder than even I would expect, and in many ways I think I undersold what we’d see.  That being said, I’m not sure we’re done going through The Cliff phase and into Disillusionment.  I’d love your feedback.]

“Great, now it’s the end of the world and we can’t get a new dishwasher,” The Mrs. actually said, after I finally relented that it would probably cost more to fix the dodgy old dishwasher than a new one would cost.  Plus, the old dishwasher is stainless steel, so if it were a hundred yards away, it would make quite a nice practice target.  I call that a win-win.  Besides, Amazon® actually has them in stock, so I could theoretically have one by next week.

See?  You can get quality appliances during the end of the world.

I started working from home yesterday, which was nice.  When it was lunchtime, I wasn’t hungry, but I was nice and warm so I took a nap right in my home office which is also known as the couch.  Good times.  I do have a concern:  The Mrs. slapped my heinie as I walked by and said, “nice butt” so I’m thinking of bringing this up with HR.  I want to be treated as more than a sexual object.  I mean, not much more, but more.

As much as you might be interested in my derriere, I really do want to talk about COVID-19 and get to the bottom of how the issue will progress in the coming months.  While each crisis is different, they are all sort-of-predictable because in the end, people don’t change all that much, even though circumstances do.  Certainly, we want to get this all behind us, in the rearview, so to speak.

Okay, I’ll stop.  Seven synonyms for the posterior in two paragraphs are quite enough.  I don’t want you to think I’m a bum.

But what is this pattern I mentioned?  Here are, as near as I can determine, Eight Stages of a Crisis.  This provides way in which each crisis can be evaluated compared to the others this is my modification of work originally done by Zunin and Myers.

This is like the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief, but with the apocalypse in mind.  Why settle for one death, when you can have millions or billions on your mind?  It’s so nice and cheery.  The nice part of using this model is that you can gauge where we are in the current COVID-19 mess.

Who would he assassinate for a Klondike® bar?  Apparently Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The Warning

This is the opening stage of a crisis.  It may be short, as in 9/11, or it may be a slow-motion collapse like the gradually increasing troop buildups and mobilizations that led to World War I.  Everyone wanted to stop it, but no one was sane enough to say no.  The Warning before the first Civil War was literally decades in length.

In the current COVID crisis, The Warning came during and just after the December impeachment.  With the focus of the country elsewhere, who cared about the flu?  We don’t trust the media very much.  Why?  They don’t seem trustworthy.  Example:  when Trump shuts down air transport to China, CNN® says it’s racist.  When China shuts down air transport from the United States, CNN™ says it’s a wise and prudent move by China’s benevolent leadership.

In a world where CNN© and the Chinese government have similar levels of credibility we tend to forget the ending to the story of the boy who cried wolf:  in the end, the wolves really attacked.

How did they not see this coming?

The Event

The Event is generally not long, but it can be.  It’s the Shot Heard Round the World at Lexington and Concord in the Revolutionary War.  The Event is when the rules change forever, and nothing can ever make the world go back to the way it was.  It’s the spark that lights the fire.  When people look back, everyone can see The Event.

Nothing is ever the same afterwards.  The Event changes everyone that it touches, and often ends up changing systems permanently.  It is disruptive.  It may not be the reason that everything fails, it might just be a small event toppling an already unstable system.  In a crisis like 9/11, the event is obvious and instant.  COVID-19 has led to a slow-rolling avalanche across the economy.  Was it poised for a fall anyway?  Possibly.

As a longer cascade, what will be The Event that history will use to remember COVID-19?

In one of my more frightening thoughts:  what if we haven’t seen The Event yet?

I’m not sure he’s koalafied to make that decision.

Disbelief

When things have changed, and changed drastically, people refuse to believe it.  When the power is out because a tree fell on the power lines, I will walk into a room an automatically flip the light switch.  Why?  Habit, partially.  But there’s a part of my mind that is existing in Disbelief, perhaps, that doesn’t believe that the power could ever be gone.

Disbelief isn’t a coping strategy, and it’s not an attempt of the mind to protect itself, at least in a healthy person.  It’s more inertia.  You’re used to the world being a certain way, and when it isn’t, part of your mind isn’t quite ready to process it.

This might be an overreaction.  COVID-19 might be no worse than the flu.  But that isn’t explained by the reactions we’ve seen so far from places that got it earlier than the United States.  Italy is locked down.  In two weeks, we will know more.  In a month, I think, we will have certainty.

In order to calm panicked customers, Wal-Mart opened up a second register.

Panic

At some point, the mind is confronted with the new reality and forced to accept it.  But the rules are new, and unknown.  What to do?  One could take a deep breath, and review the situation and think logically or?  One could Panic.  Panic is easier, and doesn’t require a lot of thought.

Panic is the natural reaction when your brain realizes that it has done zero to prepare for the new reality.  So, what to do? Buy staples as required to build up the stockpile you’ve accumulated over time?  Or buy 550 cans of Diet Mountain Dew®?  Or just buy toilet paper, because everyone else is and you don’t know what to do or have any independent thought?   Toilet paper purchasing is Panic.

Not all heroes are able to walk.  I mean, some gained 400 lbs on the couch.

Heroism

While the Panic is ongoing, the first glimmer of Heroism starts to show.  Brave men and women working in the medical field are the first signs of Heroism.  Donald Trump talking with Al Sharpton to address the problems he sees is Heroism is realizing that there is a greater good, and that sacrifice is required.  Heroism is embodied throughout the response to the crises where a few have an opportunity to save many, and where enemies put aside squabbles for a time because it’s the right thing to do.

There was a family story:  Grandma Wilder went during World War II to weld Liberty ships at the Alameda Ship Yard.  She would regularly get things sent to her from her mother who lived in the country in the middle of Flyover.  Needles were rationed in San Francisco, but not in Flyover.  Sugar was rationed in San Francisco, but not in Flyover.  Why ration needles and sugar?  To build common purpose, so even people not piloting P-51s or jumping out of landing craft at Iwo Jima could feel like they were doing their part.  To be fair, rationing was necessary in wide segments of the economy, it wasn’t a fake, but it did help bring everyone together.

Right now Heroism is going on, and we aren’t even asked to do anything more than to sit down and watch Netflix® unless we’re keeping vital industries going.  Here’s a link to Aesop’s place that shows the quiet heroism going on out there (LINK).  Read it all.

I read the other day that coyotes are about 10 miles an hour faster than road runners.  My entire childhood was a lie.

The Cliff

Keeping order requires energy.  Some part of the energy of the system is put into keeping order.  In a time of significant social cohesion, like World War II, the United States didn’t face The Cliff, even though virtually every other developed nation did.  Instead, the energy that the crisis took was replaced by people working together.

Most of the time in a real crisis, however, there’s The Cliff.  I wrote about it here: Seneca’s Cliff and You.

We have not fallen off The Cliff.  Is it certain that there is one?  No.  But every single leader, elected or appointed, is acting like it’s there.  I believe we will see it.  The new normal will grow from events moving quickly.  Already at Wilder Redoubt, we’ve had nothing but home-cooked meals for the last week, with a couple of store-bought sandwiches being the exception.

Will home-cooked food, family dinners, and homeschooling be the legacy of COVID-19?

I expect that we’ll see The Cliff soon enough.  How deep will it go?  As I’ve mentioned before, no one knows.  The worst case is that the economy crashes through levels to Great Depression era lockup in two weeks or so.  Only 40% of Americans are able to absorb an unexpected $1,000 expense.  80% are living paycheck to paycheck, and those paychecks just stopped.

Dead.

Going first will be car payments.  The average monthly car payment is $800.  Me?  I’d sell you my daily driver for just two months of that, so expect car finance companies to seize up like an ungreased stripper pole.  But the businesses that employ those people aren’t much better off.  The best restaurant in Modern Mayberry came pretty close to closing down shop six years ago, but pulled through.  The second best restaurant didn’t survive.  There will be cascading failures as the debts owed from one business to the next go unpaid, and this won’t just be for small businesses.  I feel confident saying that several businesses with 10,000 or more employees will go bankrupt.  Overall loss to the economy?  40% of the GDP this year?

Is there a better case?  Sure.  We contain COVID-19 in a month or so, and then call it good.  We only lose 10% to 20% of our GDP this year, and government pumps five or six trillion dollars into the economy to juice it back up.  That’s the best case.  And that’s just in the United States.

I’m not kidding, that’s how deep The Cliff is.  If we’re lucky.

Something, something, Dark Side®.

Disillusionment

After the fall, things suck.  We had heroes, but the time for Heroism is over.  Disillusionment sets in when things don’t snap back to normal.  Things will seem rosy, only for failure to crush hope.  The more government “helps” during this phase, the worse recovery will be.  Roosevelt “helped” so much during the Great Depression that he extended it for years.

But politicians will take drastic steps, because they can’t help themselves.  The length of time Disillusionment lasts?  Months to years.

Some re-assembly required.

Rebuilding

This is the other side of The Cliff.  Whereas, as Seneca said you go down a cliff pretty quickly, you only build up slowly.  Rebuilding the economy will take years.  If we do it right, we’ll build a stronger economy, less dependent upon foreign supply lines, that guarantees freedom while preserving the traditional values that built the wealth in the first place.

If done poorly?  The system is controlled, oppressive, and coercive.  Leaders matter, but the quality of the citizenry to fight back against the system is even more important.  Rebuilding takes years, and by my best case scenario, four to eight years.

So, I guess I’ll get a jump start on rebuilding.  Dishwashers on the Internet.  Amazing.  My only problem is that there’s this lady at work who keeps making suggestive comments and touching me all the time.  Just a few minutes ago, she told me that she expects me to share a bed with her!  They always told me not to get my honey where I got my money, but what happens when you work at home?

What’s Going In Your Head?

“I’ve narrowed it down: either mind controlling LSD or sorcery.” – Chuck

Teddy Kennedy was the big alcoholic of the family, but John more famous for taking shots in public.

What goes in your head?

Really, what goes in your head?

The CIA did some significant experiments in the past under the collective name of “MK-Ultra”.  If you haven’t looked them up, this won’t be the place to get good information about it.  Heck there are very few places to get good info about MK-Ultra because the CIA just shredded it all.  Or burned it.  The biggest reason we have information about it is through accounting records.

No one in the 1970s remembered to burn the receipts.

The goal of MK-Ultra was mind control.  Why?  I’m not sure, perhaps to create a group of super-secret assassins?  The CIA already had zillions of ways to kill people and topple foreign governments.  So, not that.  What minds would they want to control?

Dunno.  Maybe ours?

There are lots of different types of mind control.  The MK-Ultra type is really cool for movies, because it involves creating what I think of as the ultimate horror – a human being whose mind has been hollowed out, and whose actions no longer belong to them.  The goal of MK-Ultra was to create zombies.  And not the Rob kind.

When the Moon hits your knees, and you mispronounce trees, sycamore.

Again, we don’t have the data from MK-Ultra, but we do know that the one thing government craves more than any other is the power that it has.  Jerry Pournelle called it Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.  To allow Jerry to describe it himself:

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers’ union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

This is the story of government since, well, forever.  Thankfully, Federalism and the Constitutions slowed it.  A bit.  The real power, though, got into place around the turn of the century – the turn of the 20th Century.  The CIA wasn’t the cause of it, it was more the result.  If the CIA was willing to drug unknowing citizens with LSD and also to conduct experiments on hundreds (if not thousands) of other people, it’s not very hard for me to believe that they also spent a lot more effort studying how to influence the average American.

I made it my mission to fight poverty:  I wrestle homeless people every weekend.

When it comes to persuasion, the most potent medium is visual.  It creates it’s own reality – it creates an emotional investment.  I remember as a kid, when the Death Star® blew up, I felt the emotion, just as if I had flow the X-Wing® down that trench myself.  When the alien was about to munch a scantily clad Sigourney Weaver, pre-puberty me felt a zillion emotions.  Seeing the video made it seem like I was there.

There’s a reason for that.

The medium of video is “hot” (in the theory of Marshall McLuhan) and is especially wonderful for propaganda.  Hot media fully engages one sense, and spoon feeds the content directly into the viewer’s mind.  Cool media, like this blog, demands interaction, and demands thought.

And you thought those memes were just for fun.  In reality, they serve a purpose – they exists to counter propaganda.  It’s why the Right is so good at memes and the Left is awful.  A great meme from the Right tells the Truth in just a few words.  The Left, on the other hand, has to build an entire reality for their meme to even make sense – if you’re not already on board with the worldview of the Left, they have to build it for you.

But media today is everywhere.  Especially, it’s on phones.

And it’s addictive.  I was at dinner with Pugsley today and he was on his phone.  I said, “Please, put that down.”  He didn’t.

“Pugsley,” I said, “You don’t want to have people watching you databating in public.”

He turned sixteen shades of red, and the phone went down onto the table like it had been sucked down with a magnet and his hand moved away like the phone was hotter than the Sun.  So, Internet, if you ever want your kid to put the phone down, let them know you don’t approve of public databation.

Why did the hobbit® set his cell phone to vibrate?  He was trying to get rid of the ring.

And that explains the memes.  They break the programming, and break the addiction loop.  But back to the programming itself.  What values does the world want you to have?  What values are those who program the algorithms at YouTube® attempting to create in our minds?  What values and beliefs does Hollywood™ want to create?  And how are those values being rolled out?

When you look back at a television show like Sex and the City, showing how strong independent women don’t really need men, what impact did that have?  I wonder, because the writer whose stories the whole series was based on is now in her sixties, and was lamenting that she never created a strong marriage and family.

Ooops.  But what about all those girls that bought the message?

And what about all those divorced moms, living in houses that (in reality) they’d never be able to afford?  How many women were influenced that divorce was the key to freedom, prizes, and a home version of the game?  Even if you ignore the awful emotional consequences of divorce on the family and on children, divorce is generally economically devastating on all the participants as well.

I hear that Putin is divorced – he never got along with his NLAWs.

Divorce was featured and glamorized on film and television starting in the 1960s.  Why?  Who benefits?

Well, families don’t.  Churches don’t.  Communities don’t.  So that leaves lawyers, the court system, and the alimony/child support complex, which employs thousands in most states.

But that’s not enough.  A strong family is like an atom – self-sufficient.  It provides strength, and a way to transmit values from generation to generation.  But families don’t consume welfare, mostly.  They aren’t dependent and that’s why Nu-Government® has little use for them, and would like them to disappear.

Who benefits from this?  The Left.  They want the families destroyed, so that individuals have to turn to government for their money and values.

Movies are also used to try to influence public opinion on policy.  How many movies do you see in 2022 where immigrants are here dealing drugs or committing crimes?  Contrast that with how many films that show immigrants in a ludicrously positive light.  Why?  Studies show that immigrants coming into this country are overwhelmingly in favor of strong states that provide massive welfare and restrict (for instance) the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Hmmm.  Who would that make happy?

Oh, yeah.  The Left.  You can think of plenty of other examples of how film and television and news has been used to create a version of reality that leads to Leftist values, which always, always leads to the horror and carnage of Leftism in action.

In other news, Sean Penn has a badger living on his head.

There is that alternative, though.  When done well, film can really be uplifting, and fun.  It has the ability to provide examples of the very best values that man can strive for, and share them back with us.

Always, always, guard what goes into your head.

The End of COVID, And Mining Salt From Leftist Tears

“That’s the saltiest thing I ever tasted, and I once ate a big heaping bowl of salt.” – Futurama

Think they were crying at CNN® when they wrote that headline?

The CDC® has just sent out the word:  Corona-Chan is over.  The ‘Vid is over, served its purpose, finished, and, whereas last year Joe Biden wanted everyone who wouldn’t submit to the Vaxx fired, well, now it is over.

Done.  Doesn’t mean that at certain places that they still can’t fire you for not having been Vaxxed, but it’s starting to look a bit silly.

There are, apparently, a group of people that have looked on the ‘Rona as one of their base sacraments, nearly an item of worship.

The CDC is my shepherd; I shall not want.
It maketh me to inject mRNA: it leadeth all men with slight fevers to quarantine.
It affirmith my gender: Biden leadeth me in the paths of inflation for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Drumpf, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy heckin’ science and stimulus checks, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of Cheeto Hitler: thou anointest my hair with unnatural colors; my electric car runneth over people.
Surely virtue signaling shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Corona forever.

Except, not.  I’m thinking with midterm elections coming up, just like Biden declared victory on inflation, he can declare victory on the ‘Rona.  And here in Modern Mayberry I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen anyone in a mask.  It’s simply not a thing anymore.  Oh, yeah, several vaxxed folks I know have had the ‘Rona.  Shocking, that:

But, the Left simply cannot fathom a life without one of their fears, it’s like they’re in some weird, inverted sense, comforted by their fear.  Their reaction is telling, so, without further ado, I’ll let them (mostly) tell it in their own terms.

Warning:  some of the language is a bit salty – they’re pretty butthurt about this one.

Let’s start with Reddit®

Surely things are better at Twitter©.

Ouch.  Guess not.  Well, I’ll let them speak (mostly) for themselves.  Enjoy mining the salt from the Leftist tears!  See you Monday!

My response:

‘

Trump: The Symbol and Symptom of the End

“I’ve come back. Give me a drink, Brother Kipling. Don’t you know me?” – The Man Who Would Be King

I guess I should be sorry about telling all those the bad yolks now.

Wednesday is usual the “wealthy” part of Wilder, Wealthy and Wise.  Why?  Because it starts with W.

Duh.

But I can’t this week.  I normally like to talk to the deeper issues, the longer trends, and those timeless aspects of the human condition.  There is more than a little evidence that we’ve been, in one way or another, been two sides fighting for thousands of years across a gulf between two factions.  One is open, and the wellspring of Western Civilization.

The other is one that, for lack of a better allusion, is best represented by the worst aspects of Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings (reprinted at the end of this, because it’s old enough that Disney® doesn’t own it, it’s wonderful, and it’s True) – that implacable urge to move away from those values that emphasize what is Good, Beautiful, Right and True to placate what Kipling called “The Gods of the Marketplace”.  It is a battle that provides humanity amazing wealth, meaning, and prosperity when The Gods of the Copybook Headings win.

Spoiler alert:  The Gods of the Copybook Headings always win.

One signpost in the road downward is the raid on Donald Trump.  The word that people are using is “unprecedented” and they’re using it for a reason.  It is unprecedented.  As I went upstairs a moment ago, the news on the radio was insisting that Joe Biden had “no idea” what was going to happen.

The Mrs. remarked, well, it starts with “Bull”.  You get the idea.  If Biden didn’t know about this, then the system is horribly broken.  If he did, the system is horribly corrupt.

What’s Biden’s favorite musical group?  The Who?

Do I believe a former president should be above the law?

I certainly do not.  But unless the FBI® found a dead stripper or a live boy in the safe, it ain’t enough.  As much as the Clintons were corrupt and literally stole items out of the White House, there was no real push to have them arrested.  Sure, Bill was impeached, and sure, because he perjured himself he could no longer practice law.  That was about it.

And I’m okay with that.  Even Nixon, who took part in a conspiracy and looked like, well, Nixon, was pardoned.  Why?

Because Nixon was politically neutered and could never take part in the public sphere again in any consequential manner.  He was humiliated enough that the Left could enjoy it.  Bill was humiliated, but (unlike Nixon) was he decided he’d try to bilk millions (and bimbos) out of those that wanted to buy influence with his political machine.

What toothpaste did Nixon use?  Colgate®.

It is clear that every president since (and certainly including!) FDR has likely committed multiple felonies in office.  It’s our system.  Some, because they were not good guys.  Some simply because there are more felonies on the books than hairs that were implanted in Biden’s head.  The Federal way is now the way that the Soviets liked it – as Lavrenty Beria, former head of the Soviet NKVD and GULAG architect extraordinaire said, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

Now, Trump.

In every case during his presidency, he has been the boogie man for the Left – the man that gives them I accidently killed John Wick’s dog-level night sweats.  Why?

I’m not sure.  Even though he couldn’t build a wall, Trump certainly upset the apple cart.  Perhaps his singular achievement as president was to return the Supreme Court into a court that could actually read the Constitution in plain English again.  The Constitution was written the way it was, for common men.  It was written that way so that nearly every man in the United States could read it and understand the plain language.  I mean, today they’d do it with angry cat memes, but you get the picture.

Given hundreds of years, the language was buried in a stream of emanations and penumbras such that what was clearly the written language of the Constitution became ignored in favor of piles of case law that in some cases twisted the original meaning nearly 180°.  The Fourteenth Amendment, so beloved by the Left, turned a series of prohibitions on Federal activity into a prohibition on activity by the Several States.

When Ma Wilder caught me with a copy of the Constitution, I told I only read it for the articles.

Why is this important?

Because it became a weapon of the statists, of those that would become globalists to use as a club so that the centralized government that the Founders feared could be put in place.  Now every Federal law could be pushed into the Several States with impunity.  Horrible Federal bureaucracies could be put in place.  I remember reading that OSHA (which regulates workplace safety) was challenged in court by a company in Maine.

The company in Maine argued that they only worked in Maine, digging a hole for people who lived in Maine, in Maine.  What business was it of a Federal Administration that sounds like the noise I make when a cigar ash hits my bare chest?  Why did anyone care that the Maine hole didn’t match what a government rule written in Washington D.C. said?

The Federal prosecutor didn’t even refute the argument.  The administrative (not Constitutional) judge in this case ruled against the guy from Maine, since the judge said, “they have a phone and use the mail” so they’re engaged in interstate commerce.

Really.  It’s a nonsense ruling, like you’d see in Alice in Wonderland but involving people who hated their lives but who were just “doing their job”.  In 2022, for the first time in my life, this sort of nonsensical reasoning is being challenged at the Supreme Court level.

Go ask Hunter, when he’s at the mall.

And they hate Trump for it.  They hate him with every fiber of their being, even more than they hate Vladimir “Putler” or people who don’t take the vaxx or people who would deny teachers the right to indoctrinate kindergarteners into the world of S&M.  They hate it more than they hate people who won’t kill their babies.

For that, Trump must be punished.

Is it rational?  Not at all.  They’re willing to destroy the Republic for that, because they want to destroy the Republic anyway.  There are those on the Right that are accelerationists:  anything that brings on the actual shooting war with the Left should be embraced.  On the Left, there are accelerationists, too.  Anything that can pull down another statue, anything that can pervert another value, anything that can make the legacy of the United States die is to be saluted.

Really.  They hate it so very much, and Trump has been an inconvenient speedbump along the way.

So, their most fervent fantasy is Trump in an orange jumpsuit, whereas the most fervent fantasy of the Right was Hillary being an impotent drunk wine aunt staring from the outside in at a party she could never be a part of.  Sure, the crowds at the Trump rally chanted “Lock Her Up” but what they really wanted was her humiliation.

The Right got it, and then some.

Hillary tried to sell her soul to Satan to become president, but Satan responded and said that was like Bill trying to sell his virginity. 

Perhaps that was what drove them over the edge into insanity.  Again, they want the destruction of the United States, so, they’re cool with that.  It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.  I’m not really sure what bizarre fantasy plays in their heads as they contemplate the collapsing economic system and the utter lack of any shared goals or morality.  Perhaps it’s a rainbow, though I doubt they’ll understand that the only actual consequence that they can really have is one that will lead to.  But Rudyard Kipling understood it, every bit of it.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper protestations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshiped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘The Wages of Sin is Death/’

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you don’t work you die.’

The Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: The Divide Grows

“We can take whole by force what they propose to divide.” – Star Trek VI:  The Undiscovered Country

The book I ordered about clocks finally came in.  It’s about time.

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

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same.  Tensions are still high.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – The Divide – Violence And Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Growing Farther Apart – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join over 700 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

The Divide

One thing that hasn’t changed, at all, since Biden was installed in the White House is that the tension hasn’t dropped.  It’s a matter of Team Blue being in charge, and is looking at every way that they can stick it to Team Red.  It’s not a new story, but it is a continuation of a fundamental divide in the country, about nearly everything.

When Donald Trump allegedly tossed hush money to a tramp, it was nearly grounds for impeachment.  Joe Biden allegedly funds tens of thousands of dollars for Hunter’s periodic chemical and biological safaris?

Not a word.  So, it’s an offset, right?

Not really.  The Left has a deep hold on the institutions of this nation, who will, apparently, actively run cover for the Left, no matter what they do.  Which institutions?  Not big ones.  Just the FBI and the major news media.  The mere fact that CBS® is now running the story that the Washington three-letter agencies are all-in for Biden shows that the Left is getting ready to ditch Biden, or at least sending him a warning.  I mean, it’s not like he’d notice.

The cultural divide is far worse that that would indicate, though.  Let’s take the children.  No, really, that’s the slogan of the Left:  “Let’s take the children™.”  They want them desperately, and are dedicated to doing whatever they can to indoctrinate them.  Case in point:

As near as I can tell, this defines a lot of what’s going on with kids, but it’s not just schools, it’s media as well.  There is a reason they want unfettered access to kids – it’s not about education, it’s indoctrination.  What proof?

Imagine what the world would look like if teachers were secretly trying to make kids moral and Christian.  The ree and cry would come from the usual sources, and then all the Left would dress up in Handmaid’s Tale outfits and pretend the United States was near to becoming a theocracy when it is farther than it has been, ever and the danger to kids isn’t coming from the Right.  And the biggest fairy tale is coming from the Left:

Violence And Censorship Update

First, the Left wants to create conformity, and make sure that if your opinion differs, that you’ll feel left out.  Their bots are Legion:

So, your opinion isn’t valid.  But neither was the past opinion of the Left, if it was inconvenient.  Left is always the direction of the Censor.  And one of the biggest goals of the censor is not only to censor your current views, but it’s also to censor their past views.  Why?

Because only the current view is valid.  If the past view (for example) was that it takes an actual man and an actual woman to get married, why, that view is very uncomfortable now.  So, any view that contradicts the New Truth® is forbidden.  And when people try to use your own views against you?  That’s hate speech, right?

It was Winston Smith’s job in the novel 1984 to make facts inconvenient to the Left disappear from the record.  That job continues:  the Left cannot accept the idea that the economy of the country is in very bad shape – and is in a technical recession.  It hasn’t been long enough for Google® to take the previous definition down:

But at Wikipedia®?  The Leftist editors are all too happy to change the definitions in near real-time just to make the Left happy.  They do it for nothing but Good Boy™ points.

I think Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There had it right:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master:  that’s all.”

Biden’s Misery Index

Last month’s inaugural edition inspired Aesop (LINK) to come up with his own version.

That’s a lot of Kamalas!

But when we look at the reason behind the graph, it’s simple:  this is the pain associated with a planned Leftist transition.

Here’s the current graph.  I suppose the good news is that even though things are getting worse, they’re not getting worse as fast as they were?

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence ticked downward again this month.  I think it continues to be muted because the Left has kept their dogs on a leash.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it dropped a tiny bit in June.  Elections are coming up – I’m wondering if we’ll see more?

Economic:

Economic indicators ricocheted upwards this month.  Looking at the reasons:  the markets stopped falling, the interest rates stopped shooting up – this is related to the Misery Index being slightly less awful.  This is an instantaneous look, and things aren’t as awful as they were last month.

Illegal Aliens:

It set a new record for this time of year.  But it was down from last month, for the first time in ages.  Must be hot out.

Growing Farther Apart

The first story was the divide – the second is that the divide isn’t getting better.  People are making choices to move to areas that match their ideology.  And what about the people there?

They’re ready to check out.  Red State Secession (LINK) conducted a poll at the end of June and released the results at the beginning of July.  The result?

People are talking about breaking up.  In the eight states they polled, (HI, TX, LA, MS, AL, FL, and SC) the results were fairly similar:  They felt that if California were to want to leave the Union, that 56% felt there should be no penalty, 41% felt that there should be economic sanctions.  Only 5% were willing to use military force to keep California in the Union.

The numbers were pretty similar if Texas wanted to leave.  Texans, on the other hand, were ready to go to the next level.  69% of voters want to hold a referendum on separating from Texas, including a majority of Democrats and independent voters.

In Arizona (not part of the study) you can see that the Democrats don’t much care for the United States, either:

And the showing of a Revolutionary War flag on a coffee cup.  It wasn’t me, even though I own one myself, which I bought at a United States National Park:

People are sorting themselves based on ideology, as long predicted:

And I’ll leave this Tweet® for the last word on how close we are to being one country:

Sounds like someone is a bit butthurt?

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1544768644244049920

https://twitter.com/i/status/1542746999245549568

https://twitter.com/i/status/1545705450703912960

https://twitter.com/i/status/1546007176002408449

https://twitter.com/i/status/1546000131744759808

https://twitter.com/i/status/1545917339467661312

https://twitter.com/CrimeWatchMpls/status/1544240651734228994

https://twitter.com/CPD1617Scanner/status/1543577251681390597

https://youtu.be/SVDWQv5lWPM

https://twitter.com/CPD1617Scanner/status/1553032236760535041

https://youtu.be/Vz4r8nNWOHA

https://www.foxnews.com/us/video-shows-utah-child-4-shoot-police-outside-mcdonalds-drive-thru

https://www.revolver.news/2022/07/the-hidden-agenda-behind-new-york-times-desperate-ray-epps-puff-piece/

https://www.insidebidensbasement.org/

Good Guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg7q00OczIU

https://twitter.com/iamyesyouareno/status/1550500701465452545

https://twitter.com/i/status/1544337951332655110

https://twitter.com/i/status/1545874643994787840

https://twitter.com/Tr00peRR/status/1544619495100145664

https://youtu.be/ELDO8tJx0iY

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/off-duty-correction-officer-hailed-hero-after-shooting-man-who-pointed-gun-crowd

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fourth-of-july-mass-shooting-richmond-virginia-thwarted-police-tip/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mississippi-teen-hailed-hero-helping-rescue-girls-officer/story?id=86300178

https://abcnews.go.com/US/93-year-man-shoots-home-intruder-fends-off/story?id=85991432

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article263351778.html

https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2022/07/even-if-it-saves-but-one-life.html

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fcrimeresearch.org%2F2022%2F07%2Fuber-driver-in-chicago-stops-mass-public-shooting%2F

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/miacathell/2022/07/27/10-times-a-good-guy-with-a-gun-saved-lives-n2610406

One Guy

https://heavy.com/news/elisjsha-dicken/

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/us/eli-dicken-indiana-mall-shooting-bystander/index.html

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/special-reports/greenwood-mall-mass-shooting/armed-citizen-was-not-the-only-one-with-a-gun-at-the-greenwood-park-mall-shooting-the-first-victim-killed-had-one-too-indiana-elisjsha-dicken/531-e5f3c8db-8f58-4c62-b8b0-acaab48ec4d1

Body Count

https://youtu.be/aakhNFhbhWk

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1550526039234908164

https://thepostmillennial.com/52-shot-in-new-york-city-over-july-4-weekend

https://news.wttw.com/2022/07/05/68-people-shot-8-killed-shootings-across-chicago-over-july-4th-weekend-police

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chicago-4th-july-weekend-violence-160718752.html

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63182

https://www.unz.com/article/28-black-on-white-homicides-counting-white-hispanics-middle-easterner-unspecified-juveniles-etc-june-2022-another-month-in-the-death-of-white-america/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10976437/How-Californias-legal-cannabis-dream-public-health-nightmare.html

https://goodsciencing.com/covid/athletes-suffer-cardiac-arrest-die-after-covid-shot/

https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/in-memory-of-those-who-died-suddenly-17d

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/vaccinated-english-adults-under-60
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/will-physicians-ever-speak-out

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-safe-and-effective-narrative

https://twitter.com/ElectionLegal/status/1549833362919112704

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/color%20map.jpg?itok=NWg8Tskj

https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx

 

Vote Count

https://emeralddb3.substack.com/p/voterga-uncovers-massive-election

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyc-election-sites-had-no-republican-ballots-primary-election

https://dnyuz.com/2022/07/05/on-conservative-radio-misleading-message-is-clear-democrats-cheat/

https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/07/07/poll-majority-of-americans-believe-midterm-elections-will-be-tainted-by-fraud/

https://www.kawc.org/news/2022-07-04/biden-administration-to-sue-arizona-over-law-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-to-vote

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-biden-donald-trump-wisconsin-supreme-court-05166e3f3ef970b5cde8ac15cd30e18b?taid

https://uncoverdc.com/2022/07/01/u-s-supreme-court-takes-case-that-could-impact-future-elections/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-case-voting-rights-experts-say-bring-chaos-elections-rcna34033

 

Civil War

https://news.gallup.com/poll/394202/record-low-extremely-proud-american.aspx

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10971195/A-QUARTER-Americans-say-ready-arms-against-government.html

https://www.science.org/content/article/half-of-americans-anticipate-a-us-civil-war-soon-survey-finds

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/07/03/americans-divided-civil-war-unlikely/7767742001/?gnt-cfr=1

https://mises.org/wire/avoid-civil-war-learn-tolerate-different-laws-different-states

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-07-27/fear-of-a-second-us-civil-war-ignites-debate.html

https://dnyuz.com/2022/07/02/spurred-by-the-supreme-court-a-nation-divides-along-a-red-blue-axis/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/on-the-campaign-trail-many-republicans-talk-of-violence/ar-AAZTYhP

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/07/11/are-we-looking-at-another-civil-war-n2609990

https://thecarousel.substack.com/p/theres-gonna-be-a-war-in-montana

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/31/the-civil-war-that-is-here-and-the-one-that-may-yet-come

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/04/50-year-attack-right-wing-corporate-forces-leading-us-back-towards-civil-war

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/a-president-asking-for-civil-war

https://www.businessinsider.com/civil-war-expert-barbara-f-walter-us-heading-toward-insurgency-2022-7

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/07/jeff-sharlet-on-the-martyrdom-of-ashli-babbitt-and-whats-to-come

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/experts-make-case-for-the-ar-15-only-defense-in-civil-war

 

Progress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6tOAafAJCA

Success, Fight Club, Strippers and Socialists

“We have just lost cabin pressure.” – Fight Club

The second rule of Wilder Club is if this is your first visit, you have to comment.  Oh, and this is a repost since I have to get up pretty early tomorrow.

I had a conversation with a friend today.  Oh, sure, I hear you say, what would an iconoclastic iron-jawed individualist with a body odor redolent of medium rare ribeye (with just a hint of pepper) like John Wilder need with a friend?  I guess we all have our little weaknesses.  And dogs follow me.  Because I smell like steak.

In this particular case as with most of my friends, I’ve known this friend for years.  I’ve known most of my close friends longer than The Boy has been alive, and he’s in college now.  It’s nice.  If a day, a week, a month or a year goes by, so what?  We can still restart the conversation where we left off.  It’s as comfortable as watching a movie you’ve seen a dozen times.

I’ll make the observation that the only place where the character of people change is in a movie – almost all of my close friends have the same sense of humor and the same sense of values that they had when our friendships were forming.  Absent a significant emotional event, people are a constant.

And I like that.

There is a corresponding trust that comes with being a close friend – honesty.  That’s why when talking with my friend, I really enjoyed the chance to be honest.  Honesty is difficult because it requires that trust, because really honest criticism is hard to take, even when it comes from a friend.  Or a co-worker.  Or a relative.  Or someone you just met.  Or your UPS® delivery guy.  Oh, wait.  Most people don’t like honest.  But my friends do.

This particular friend is really in a good position in life, which seems to be a common pattern with my friends.  He has a spouse that makes more money than he does, and, in general, the household probably brings in enough cash each month so that Nigerian princes send emails to them asking for money.  They’re wealthy enough that they donate to the homeless.  This appears to be a more socially acceptable donation strategy than my “donation to the topless,” scheme.

strip.jpg

Yes, this is the only joke that I’ve ever seen that involves both the Greco-Roman philosophy of stoicism and stripping.  I’m sure that Seneca would be proud.

But lest ye want to class my friend as the evil, selfish, wealthy type, he’s not.  The family has a huge number of kids, and it’s a close family.  My friend is constantly taking time off to go to athletic events, and when we catch up, I can sense that the relationship he has with his kids isn’t a surface relationship – it’s genuine and deep.  I can tell, because I know people who understand genuine relationships, who listen to both sides of a family argument – my neighbors.

And yet . . . despite the wealth, despite the great family, my friend feels that there’s something missing.  He is as high as he wants to go in the company he works at – any higher and the travel demands would pull him away from family.  He’s long since mastered his job – there is little that can be thrown at him that he hasn’t seen in the last fifteen or so years.  So, his condition is one of high pay, mastery of work, and, improbably, discontent.

John Wilder:  “You realize you have an advantage that 99% of people would die for.  You’re financially secure.  You can quit your job anytime.  Literally, you could walk in to your boss this afternoon and quit.  Your lifestyle wouldn’t change a bit.”

Not Elon Musk:  “Yes.”

Unlikely Voice of Wisdom John Wilder:  “So, what is it you want to do?”

Really, I Promise It Isn’t Elon Musk:  “I need to think about it.”

Channeling Tyler Durden From Fight Club® John Wilder:  “No.  If you think about it, you’ll end up doing nothing but thinking about it.  You have to do something.  Physically start it.  This weekend.  I’ll check back on Monday to see how you did.”

There is a scene in the movie Fight Club™ where Tyler Durden holds a gun to the head of a liquor store clerk.  If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly suggest it.  I probably watch it once a month while I write – I think there are few movies that communicate the human condition in modern life so well.

clerk.jpg

Pugsley doesn’t miss many school days.

JACK, in voiceover:  On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

CLERK:  Please… don’t…

TYLER DURDEN: Give me your wallet.

Tyler pulls out the driver’s license.

TYLER:  Raymond K. Hessel. 1320 SE Benning, apartment A.  A small, cramped basement apartment.

RAYMOND:  How’d you know?

TYLER:  They give basement apartments letters instead of numbers.  Raymond, you’re going to die.  Is this a picture of Mom and Dad?

RAYMOND:  Yes.

TYLER:  Your mom and dad will have to call kindly doctor so-and-so to dig up your dental records, because there won’t be much left of your face.

RAYMOND:  Please, God, no!                            

JACK: Tyler…

TYLER:  An expired community college student ID card.  What did you used to study, Raymond K. Hessel?

RAYMOND:  S-S-Stuff.

TYLER:  “Stuff.”  Were the mid-terms hard?  I asked you what you studied.

JACK:  Tell him!

RAYMOND:  Biology, mostly.

TYLER:  Why?

RAYMOND:  I… I don’t know…

TYLER:  What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hessel?

Tyler cocks the .357 magnum Colt© Python™ pointed at Raymond’s head.

TYLER:  The question, Raymond, was “what did you want to be?”

JACK:  Answer him!

RAYMOND:  A veterinarian!

TYLER:  Animals.

RAYMOND:  Yeah … animals and s-s-s —

TYLER:  Stuff.  That means you have to get more schooling.

RAYMOND:  Too much school.

TYLER:  Would you rather be dead?

RAYMOND:  No, please, no, God, no!

Tyler uncocks the gun, lowers it.

TYLER:  I’m keeping your license.  I know where you live.  I’m going to check on you.  If you aren’t back in school and on your way to being a veterinarian in six weeks, you will be dead.  Get the hell out of here.

JACK:  I feel sick.

TYLER:  Imagine how he feels.

Tyler brings the gun to his own head, pulls the trigger — click.  It’s empty.

JACK:  I don’t care, that was horrible.

TYLER:  Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessell’s life.  His breakfast will taste better than any meal he has ever eaten.

greta.jpg

How dare you . . . make Greta uncomfortable.

And it’s true.  I tend to think that everyone’s life would be a little better if they had Tyler Durden to be a life coach, to ever so gently coax them to be the best they can be while holding a .357 magnum Colt® Python™ to their head.  That seems to be a bit frowned upon, so that leaves my friends with me.  See how lucky you are?

In my role as Dr. Durden, I’ve noticed that there’s a problem some people have.  It’s being too clever.  It’s thinking.  How do I know?  It’s my problem that I try to compensate for by writing and doing.  If I think about doing something, it will never get done.  I keep thinking about fixing the banister that broke when we moved into the house a decade ago.  It’s never been high on my list, since people falling down stairs is funny, with extra points if they are really old.  But thinking about doing something never accomplishes anything.

If I plan to do it, it will get done.  Half of my time driving to and from work on a day I’m going to write a post, I’m writing it in my head, selecting jokes, thinking of themes.  It’s also spent thinking of how I’m going to connect the idea I want to share with students who might be forced to read this post when Mrs. Grundy tells them to compare and contrast my work with that poseur, Mark Twain, in high school in the year 2248 (that’s when Kirk will be a sophomore).

driver.jpg

Okay, generally on my drive to work I have about five or ten minutes between cars, so it would take several hours to get a group of cars behind me like that.  But a man has to have goals!

It may look like I’m driving to work, but I’m really plotting out what I’m going to write about.  To be honest, it sometimes takes both lanes to do that.  I wish the State Patrol® would be a little more understanding to artists like me.

Thankfully, The Mrs. is.

The Mrs. and I had a conversation the other night.  It may or may not have involved wine – I’m not telling unless I’ve been subpoenaed and am under oath to a House subcommittee.  Actually, it wasn’t so much a conversation as The Mrs. describing to me how she felt about this little project I publish three times a week.

I don’t make any money on this blog, though I’ve made clear since day one that can change at any time.  I have plans for several (eventual) ways to do that including adding subliminal messages causing you to want to pay for my health insurance.  It looks like it’s already worked for Bernie Sanders.

bernie.jpg

In a socialist paradise all bloggers make $450,000 a year, right?  But I worry that for this Christmas we won’t have an Elf on a Shelf, we’ll have a Bernie on a Gurney.

No, at this point, writing is a hobby.  But it’s a hobby that takes over 20 hours a week, sometimes closer to 30 hours.  I still have a job, and I won’t stop interacting my family, so most nights I won’t even start writing before 9pm.  A lot of that time comes from time I’d normally be selfishly engaged in what you mortals call “sleep”, but a chunk of that time comes directly from time I’d be spending with The Mrs.

When I’m writing, I’m simply not available.  I’m writing.

The Mrs.:  “You know, I would certainly have an issue with the time that you spend writing, if it weren’t important.”  There was more to this, where she detailed the number of hours I spend.  But I keyed in on the word “Important.”

I was a little surprised by that.  “Important?”

The Mrs.:  “Yes.  I can see that what you’re writing about is important.  People need to hear it.  So keep doing it.”

Okay, that proves she never reads this stuff.

But as I talked more with my friend, the concept of “meaning” came up.

My Friend Who is Really Most Certainly Not Elon Musk:  “So, it’s about meaning?”

Suddenly as Wise as the Roman Philosopher Seneca John Wilder:  “That’s silly.  You don’t go off chasing ‘meaning’ in your life.  Pick out something you like to do, and do it.  But figure out how to make it important to other people.  You like to woodwork, right?  You say you never have time to do it.  Do it this weekend.  Film it.  Put it up on YouTube®.  I’ll be checking up with you on Monday.”

I asked myself, why is my friend working at all?  I think because he feels he’s supposed to work.  That having a job is a rule, it’s what he’s always done.  The problem that many of us have is that we tend to create rules where there aren’t any rules.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps we need to justify what we do.  Perhaps it’s like my two important rules for life:

  1. Don’t tell everything you know.

Success?  My friend is already successful in most ways a person can be successful.  Their life is really good.  I told them, directly, “You’ve been given so many gifts.  If you don’t make something special of your life, you’re wasting it.”

Interestingly, this applies to you, too.

And me.

How will your breakfast taste tomorrow?

White House Insider Scoop: The Economic Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When will they say it’s so?

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

Winston Smith would be proud.

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

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

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

Biden takes dentures out to show group.

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

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

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

BIDEN:  “Ow!  What??”

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

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

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

YELLEN:  “What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALL, except BIDEN, who looks confused:  Laughter.

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

ALL, except BIDEN, who looks confused:  Laughter.

DR. JILL exits.

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

YELLEN and HARRIS glance at each other.

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

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

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

All look at each other in stunned silence.

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

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

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

Meeting adjourns.  BIDEN remains seated, looking uncomfortable.

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

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

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

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