Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Book Review: Civil War Two, Part I

“I’ll give you a winter prediction: it’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.” – Groundhog Day

There was a dwarf fortune teller that was wanted by police. The news headline was “Small medium at large.”

One of the comments on the very first issue of the Civil War Two Weather Report (You can find all three Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming, Civil War Weather Report #2, Censorship, Stalin, and a Bunch of Links, Civil War Weather Report #3: Violence, China, and Lots of Links) was a link to Thomas W. Chittum’s 1997 book Civil War Two: The Coming Breakup of America. It is available as a .pdf here. Ordinarily I’d point you towards Amazon® so you could buy the book and put money in the author’s pocket, but it looks like the book has been out of print for some time.

Update: it’s here, Mr. Chittum pointed me in this direction. Please give this one a purchase – it’s good for Mr. Chittum, and I promise I don’t make a dime off of it.

Chittum had an interesting past before writing this book – he fought in Vietnam for the United States. Apparently that wasn’t enough and the United States was all peaceful for the next twenty years, so he fought in Rhodesia and Croatia as a mercenary rifleman. Oh, and he was a computer programmer for most of his life.

The book is now 22 years old, and it makes predictions. How did it do? I won’t spoil the plot too much, but Chittum has probably been better at predicting 2019 while writing about it in 1996 than a lot of people have done living in 2016 and predicting 2019. It was pretty chilling to me to read how much Chittum had gotten right, so I thought I’d review the book.

As the notecards I use for blocking out posts went to three times the number I use for a typical post, I realized that the review would be take (at least) two posts, if not three. So, here’s part one. You’ll see part two next Monday.

Early on, Chittum notes that the United States has moved from the status of a nation to that of an empire. Some might date the beginning of empire to the end of the first Civil War, but I’d say that the United States was, more or less, a single nation up until the 1970’s. Sure there were regional differences, but the idea of kneeling when the national anthem was played wouldn’t have occurred to anyone but revolutionary Leftists.

Make the Empire Great Again™!

The United States had a homogeneous culture for 90% plus of citizens in the 1970’s. The dreams of the civic nationalist were realized in that era that resulted from very low immigration: all that matters was that people were committed to being the idea of integrating and assimilating into being an American, and it would work out fine. As long as we were one group that could sit and watch Cheers® or M*A*S*H™ or baseball, and cheer for our favorite teams, we’d be fine.

In the civic nationalist world it didn’t matter that your great-grandparents were Italian immigrants in 1900. Your grandpa might have been named Enzio, but he went by Ernie and married an Irish gal named Mary. Your dad played baseball. Your name is Robert and your sister’s name is Nancy and the only thing really Italian about you is you like pizza.

I’d guess I’d use the participation in youth soccer as a proxy for demographic change. We all know that soccer was originally invented in Europe so the Germans would have something to do besides invade France and conquer it in an afternoon. It’s not a traditional game that Americans play. Oh, sure, the United States women won the World Cup®. But to be fair, we needed something for our women to do so they didn’t invade France, either.

Let’s face it, our choice is either World Cup® soccer, or panzers streaking through Paris. Is it just me, or do the panzers sound more interesting?

But Chittum points out that stability comes from a single group identity. People being all on the same team makes us stronger, where as many groups make us weaker. In this light, diversity isn’t Our Greatest Strength™, it’s really a weakness.

And his point is clear – ask a Leftist what it means to be an American, and you’ll likely get a vague statement about all you have to do to be an American is want to be one. Asking them to learn English and assimilate and fit into American culture is for some reason now considered racist. From the vantage point of 2019, it’s clear, diversity is our greatest weakness if we want a safe and stable nation.

This is observable in the real world. Chittum fought in the breakup of the Balkans, and witnessed the breakdown of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union fell, Chittum notes it was about 50% ethnic Russian. The resulting nation that emerged was about 80% ethnic Russian and is much more stable. It’s certainly more Russian.

The trends of a nation in peril are observable. Our police departments don’t look like policemen, they’re now military. Remember, to a cop, the citizens look like citizens. To the military, everyone is a potential enemy.

SWAT teams raided Amish farms because they were selling unpasteurized milk.
Cops get armored personnel carriers like they’re patrolling Syria and not San Francisco.
Even local cops in Modern Mayberry wear gloves with hard plastic knuckles during normal patrols.

When she pulled me over I rolled down the window and said, “What’s wrong?” Her response? “Nothing.”

Chittum spends a lot of time on the American Southwest – he figures it will be the trigger to the Civil War.

The original Reconquista took place in Spain as the Spanish expelled the Muslims who had conquered it over the course of six hundred years. It was slow, but it finished up in 1492. In the same way, Chittum notes that, although Mexico is a failed state, Mexicans are “retaking” the Southwest in a modern Reconquista that has taken place over decades since 1965, but with 1000% less Muslims.

Nothing says practical like that hat!

Likewise, Chittum writes that the only solution is to close the border. Of course he was writing this in 1997 so 22 years have passed. Right now, at least 40% of the population of Los Angeles is foreign born. In no way could Los Angeles be considered to be an American city today. It might even be considered Mexican, as rival Mexican gangs have recently infiltrated the LA County Sheriff’s office (LINK).

Who loves this? Leftists who wish to topple the United States: Leftists need the votes. Ethnic groups like La Raza: La Raza is the intellectual part of the movement that actively wishes to retake the Southwest. Multinational corporations: they like the lower wages.

Worst, though, are the hipster cops who will only arrest you ironically.

Let’s be clear: Mexicans are patriots about Mexico. They love their country – that’s why they proudly carry their flag during protests. Even in 1997, Chittum noted that crime was rampant in Mexico and the border was a mess and it’s even worse in Latin America south of Mexico. Who can blame them for wanting to come to the United States, especially when some groups spin a fable of an ethnic empire, Aztlan, which is theirs for the taking?

The South and Northeast aren’t much better, and Chittum mentions that the Northeast will experience massive, open violence, which will be unorganized, and savage. Some of the urban areas might survive as city-states.

California is his odds-on favorite to be ground zero. Street gangs, as mentioned above, are numerous and founded on ethnicity. They’ve infiltrated public organizations and the police and even allegedly corrupted members of the Marine Corps (LINK). It’s this particular “enemy inside” that is troubling. An external enemy is that can be fought, but when the enemy of the country becomes an internal enemy, it’s much worse – there’s a reason that treason is mentioned in the Constitution.

Ahh, California, the meth laboratory of democracy.

Chittum mentions militias. They seemed to have their peak in the 1990’s, and quickly declined after Oklahoma City. He also mentions “Committees of Correspondence” which were a mechanism for people to communicate with each other because they didn’t have the Internet in the 1760’s to begin to organize against the British, LOL. The Internet serves this purpose now, with large groups getting information from unapproved sources, and even managing to “privately*” share information.

*Don’t bet your life or liberty on it.

Chittum writes that Civil War Two will be vicious, atrocity filled, and genocidal. Civilian casualties are to be expected, and many will be on purpose. Looting will be common. This is not the usual scenario our military faces in any fashion, so the analyses performed by John Mark (see Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming) or Forward Observer (Civil War Weather Report #3: Violence, China, and Lots of Links) aren’t valid. Civil War Two has the potential to be far worse than any conflict seen in history, as it combines both ethnic division along with ideological division – it’s like the Russian Revolution times Rwanda to the power of Somalia.

I’ve been stuck in the same phase for . . . oh . . . twenty years now. Maybe one day I’ll grow out of being a 12 year old. I’m not telling you how long it took me to get to that phase!

There are four phases according to Chittum. The first phase of the problem is what he refers to as Foundational. He said in 1997 the Foundational phase was already complete.

Tribalization of society – have different rules for different ethnic groups, push people to identify as something other than “American.”
Power shift to unelected administrators, judges, board, commissions, and public servants.
Since 1972, wages been stagnant, or, when compared to medical care or education, dramatically falling.
The core of many large cities has been abandoned – think Baltimore or Detroit.
Massive and sustained immigration, falling of standards and conditions in some locations to those similar to undeveloped countries.
Racial organizations in police – militarization of police, which are both covered above.
Treaties are more important that state sovereignty.
A consistent and strong drive for gun control.
From Antifa© to MS-13 to the Crips, these are in place.
Mass media participation in the polarization. The mass media has already picked a side – Left.

We can see what Chittum says is behind us. Next Monday we’ll look (from his vantage point in 1997 and ours in 2019) to see what else he’s predicted, and how far along we are.

Sweet dreams!

Red Flag Laws, or, How To Repeal The Second Amendment Soviet-Style Without A Pesky Vote

“Now, you see all these red flags? Trouble spots. Southeastern Asia. The Caribbean. The Congo. I’ll give you one guess as to who’s responsible.” – Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine

I look much better after I’ve had a cup of coffee. And after I’ve found my axe.

I know that you, gentle reader, have thoughts about guns that are probably pretty similar to mine, so I’d like to take you on a short walk through history, specifically the history of politics and psychiatry. I promise, it will make more sense than the lyrics to the Manfred Mann song Blinded by the Light. What the hell is a go-cart Mozart, and why is he checking out the weather chart, anyway?

The history of psychiatry is tied directly to the political.

I have seen a person suffering from schizophrenia to such a degree that they were sure that MTV® video stars were stealing songs directly from their brain and that they were also a surgeon who regularly performed operations on world leaders and stored their organs in the freezer for safe keeping.

If no one has ever told you that there are human organs belonging to world leaders in their fridge in a completely matter-of-fact “would you like a glass of water” voice, well, all I can tell you is that my first thought was one of complete disbelief that I had heard them right. Yes, I asked for them to repeat that statement. Twice.

I walked over and checked their freezer. Thankfully the only things in it were some frozen pizzas and ancient ice cubes. I assure you I was talking to their shrink that afternoon and they were involuntarily committed by 5PM. They were helped, and after being put on some appropriately industrial levels of anti-psychotic medication, did okay enough to be released back into the wild. As long as they stayed on their meds.

I know that there are actually crazy people that really need help.

But I also know this: psychiatry is still the most politically abused medical profession.

Okay, if Depp isn’t crazy, why does he keep starring in movies like this?

Examples of political abuse of psychiatry? There are many. When I mentioned this topic to The Mrs., she immediately said, “the Soviet Union.” And that’s the example I thought of first, too. The Soviets systematically used diagnosis of psychological disorders such as “philosophical intoxication” and “sluggish schizophrenia” to put people who didn’t like Marxism into mental institutions. And, no, those diagnoses aren’t lame jokes – those were really Soviet-era diagnoses.

How many were caught up in the psychological gulags?

We really don’t know since those records are still secret, but in 1978 at least 4.5 million Soviet citizens were listed as having mental health problems. In 1988, perhaps thinking that they might face their own version of Soviet Nuremburg Trials for Crimes Against Humanity, Soviet leaders had over 800,000 thousand patients removed from the list of the mentally ill. Paperwork error, surely?

Okay, with all those red flags, how did they not see the collapse of communism coming?

Did the Soviets condemn thousands with false diagnosis? Nearly certainly. Hundreds of thousands? Very likely.

Millions?

Probably. Think of it, millions of people falsely diagnosed with a mental illness due to political beliefs and sent to asylums and work camps. Certainly some were executed.

The Soviets allowed ownership of smoothbore weapons for hunting. Except when they didn’t. Which was most of the time. Oh, and the definition of sweet summer child is: a person who doesn’t know the hardships of winter, often used when someone has no experience with a particular (stressful) thing, which may describe a generation that rhymes with perennial.

Okay, it was just the Soviet Union, right?

No. Cuba did the same thing. There is evidence that China is still doing it, and likely on scale similar to that of the Soviet Union. Thankfully the World Psychiatric Association took the lead in investigations. Oh, they didn’t? The World Psychiatric Association pretty much ignored it and said that people associated with Falun Gong are nuts and that putting them in asylums run by the state security apparatus (not the medical directorate) was perfectly normal?

One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest . . . and if you haven’t see the movie, you should, it’s a lighthearted comedy and perfect for a first date.

Okay, that’s just China. Thankfully this would never happen in the United States.

Oh, it did?

Sure. In the 1920’s dissidents (like one who protested the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti) were put into asylums. In the 1960’s members of the American Psychological Association smeared presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in the press by diagnosing him. But that wasn’t political, right?

Thankfully it isn’t happening now.

Oh, in 2012 a whistleblower with the NYPD was railroaded on mental health? Ouch. But New York is corrupt.

It would never happen based on political motives, right?

Dinesh D’Souza, author and filmmaker on the Right was convicted of a crime based on giving too much money to a political campaign. He admitted he was wrong. The Federal Judge involved in the case sentenced D’Souza not only to prison, he sentenced D’Souza to years of mental health counselling despite a licensed psychologist saying that D’Souza was just fine mentally.

So, yes. Psychiatry is a political weapon. It’s not like the Left has sentenced political opponents to chemotherapy, but I hear that they’re working on it.

Yes, this is a common sense way to use psychiatry!

This corrupt branch of medicine is the background of the Red Flag Laws.

The idea is that we’ll create laws to remove rights from people without due process, with the presumption that individuals should lose a right guaranteed by the Constitution®. A single accuser, with no evidence can result in gun confiscation to a law-abiding citizen. Sadly this already happens – people with contested domestic restraining orders (a standard tactic in divorces nowadays) lose their rights, although I’ve heard of people fighting these orders and winning – at least there is a pretense at due process.

The claim that the ability to strip people of rights won’t be abused is laughable. In every country that’s been infected by psychiatry, it has been twisted to meet political ends. Yes, there are crazy people. I’ve seen one as I related above. And, if you did a brain scan, there is a physical basis for schizophrenia. It’s real. It is a medical condition. But remember, these are the same psychiatrists that would diagnose me as nuts if I believed I was be five years older than I really am, but are perfectly fine with children younger than the age of five claiming they are a different sex than their genetics have made them.

Po-tay-to, Po-gender reassignment surgery for children is normal-to.

Furthermore, the medical profession as a whole is maybe a bit, well, mental*. In one study it was claimed that 50% of female doctors could be diagnosed with a mental disease. I wonder again why my ex didn’t take up medicine? (*Aesop LINK excluded, unless pimp-slapping in the comments section is classified as a mental disorder.)

Oh, and psychologists have nearly the highest rates of suicide of any profession. Yes, any profession, including the people who make balloon animals in Mauschwitz Disneyland® for chubby children with hands sticky from chocolate ice cream. Perfectly stable. And this is also the same profession whose international governing body (WPA) was just fine with political repression in the name of psychiatry.

Besides being oppressive, the Red Flag laws would not have helped in latest shootings – these people lawfully and legally got their rifles. But they will form the basis for taking away guns for . . .

Conspiracy Theories – Believing anything other than the Official Narrative® will become a basis for exclusion of lawful firearms ownership, despite the fact that throughout history, many conspiracy theories have been proven true. Google® MKULTRA. That happened. But the FBI® is now warning that you are a danger if you don’t believe the Official Narrative©.
Antisocial Behavior – Ever not want to hang around people? You’re antisocial, and that’s dangerous, citizen. No AR for you!
Websites Visited – Going to unapproved sites? Thinking unapproved thoughts? Glockblock™!
Comments Made When You Were 16 – Wow, did you really say that maybe the Crusades weren’t all bad? No pew-pew for you, hater.
Not Believing in the Easter Bunny Socialism – Well, I think I covered that above.

The irony is this will have the impact of keeping people away from mental health professionals. This will keep people from seeking help when they’re a little depressed, because the consequences of having a “health record” might prevent them from future opportunity – the only safe way to live life would be to stay away from health professionals – and not answer certain questions your M.D. might have for you with a polite BFYTW when asked why you’re not answering. Oh, but that probably puts you on the antisocial list.

Texas may or may not be your cup of tea, but they certainly got some things right once upon a time.

Psychiatry is on pretty iffy ground in many cases already. As an experiment, a group of doctors sent people to a psychiatrist with one symptom – they heard a voice. No other symptom. They were perfectly normal, mentally healthy people. In one case, the person was committed to a mental health facility (as I recall) for several weeks with zero symptoms. I tried to look it up, but, surprise, most Google® searches right now link commitment to . . . violence. Even that’s not a comfortable thought.

Soviet mental health nurse. Not shown: tenth guard, who is now an inmate.

The single scariest thing to me is watching a human mind erode – what was once a rational human disappears. It’s what makes (to me) zombies scary. They look like humans. They used to be a normal human. But that rational human being is now gone, replaced by someone who has no real tie to reality while the external form remains.

I realize that there is a time and a place for psychiatric care.

But psychiatrists are already owned by the Left. The Left sees you as crazy already. The Left views your dissent from their agenda as a mental disorder, one punishable by death, if need be.

I’ll leave the last word to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who is really pictured above while in the gulag: “I’ll take Solzhenitsyn on Gun Control for $1000, Alex. Oh, look – the Daily Double®!”

“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? [They] 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.”

Social Security Won’t Sink Us. But The Ship is Still Going Down.

“Here comes an overweight cat with dollar signs for eyes and a hat that says “Social Security” pouring a bucket that says “Alternative Minimum Tax” over a sad Statue of Liberty holding a “democracy” umbrella.” – Family Guy

There’s this joke I heard about Social Security, but no one will get it.

When I was in junior high, our history class ended up with a long-term substitute teacher, Miss Vargas, for over a month. Most substitute teachers just handed out word-search puzzles where you tried to pick out names of conquistadors, Thanksgiving foods, conquered Mayans, and famous cats that belonged to the Mayflower Pilgrims. Since Miss Vargas had us for weeks, however, she actually had to teach. Thankfully, she had a lesson plan.

Not an original. I could not resist.

She was a nice substitute teacher so our class didn’t beat up on her that much. We could tell, however, that, whatever her degree was in, it wasn’t history. Given the time and place I was going to school, it seemed like she was likely a chemically-damaged refugee from the 1960’s, and likely a former Leftist hippy. Since we had caught her on some (rather) basic mistakes about American history, we weren’t shy about questioning the things she said.

Not to mention when Abraham Lincoln “freed the penguins, dude” after signing the Treaty of Ghent at Woodstock. At least class was interesting.

The lesson (at some point) took us to the New Deal. The format of the homework should be familiar to anyone who was in school when mimeographs were a thing (look it up). There was a term, and then the student was supposed to write down the definition. It was a fancy way to force eighth graders to learn to skim texts for key words written in bold.

But the smell . . .

One of the terms was Social Security. I dutifully looked through the text until I found the boldface words Social Security. In it was the definition that it was (more or less): An insurance program founded to provide benefits to retired and disabled people.

The teacher, not feeling like grading the homework, decided to go through the definitions with us. After Social Security she wrote on the board, A program created to redistribute wealth in the country.

With all of the righteous indignation an 8^th grader who had fully consumed the Kool-Aid® of the Official Story™ of the Government-Approved© textbook, I proceeded to correct Miss Vargas.

She didn’t back down, and maintained that was the purpose. Obviously, the event was significant enough that I still remember, and as I grew older I realized that, well, the burned-out hippy was right. Social Security is a wealth redistribution scheme. Heck, you can tell the program is socialist – it’s right there in the name.

The program was started in the depths of the Depression and rewarded those who hadn’t paid in with benefits they hadn’t earned. I’d whine more, but that happened 80 years ago, so it’s like Madonna complaining about her virginity – that ship sailed a LONNNNNNNG time ago – nearly as long ago as when the Japanese bombed the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria at Pearl Harbor. I know that you’re expecting that this is some sort of rant about how Social Security needs to be taken down because it’ll wreck the economy. It isn’t a rant, and Social Security won’t wreck the economy.

According to the latest data I could find (there’s probably newer, but 2013 was close enough and I’m travelling) but an average couple, making an average wage paid in about $600,000 in Social Security taxes during their career and would receive roughly $600,000 in benefits – the system was in balance. Of note, it’s kind of cute because the graphic assumed it was a man married to a woman and not an immigrant trans-porpoise which I understand is now required in California, as long as the porpoise signs a pledge to drive a Prius® and not to use straws.

Ahh, nostalgia for simpler times.

Social Security was roughly in balance in 2013, and could be put back into balance fairly easily with minimal effort, even though we’re facing a demographic bulge as the boomers retire. As long as we can convince them all to take up chain smoking and they decide that anti-chemo is the new anti-vax, we’re fine. Theoretically, there are the accumulated savings that Social Security has had during all of those years it was in surplus, but the reality is that all of those funds are just IOUs from Congress sitting in a filing cabinet in West Virginia in a converted National Guard Armory behind Buddy’s Chicken and Black Lung Shack®. Doris has the key.

It might look nice, but it still smells like the DMV and low motivation.

Yeah, the money going out of Social Security has already exceeded the money going in to Social Security, but it’s manageable. A few tweaks to the tax, and a few tweaks to the benefit (two-for-one coupons at Burger King™ instead of money every other month) and it will work out. Social Security, despite being a piggy bank continually raided by Congress for my entire life, won’t hurt us, at least not by itself.

That’s the good news. I fully expect that if the only major obligations that the government had were defense, transgender reassignment surgery, and Social Security, we’d be fine. Heck, even welfare for dachshunds that can’t find a job because of terrier privilege wouldn’t break us. Even if Congress approved the Ocasio Cortez Guided Missile©, which is designed to approach every target from the Left, has a warhead that does nothing but make babbling sounds, and costs a billion dollars a missile, we’d be fine.

What will break us?

Medicare® and Medicaid™.

Those are the M&M®s that will crater our financial system.

From the 2013 data, the average couple could will pay in about $110,000 in taxes during their lifetime for Medicare, but will take out nearly $400,000 in benefits. Where does that benefit come from? I’d say our tax dollars, but let’s you and I be real – not one dime of deficit spending has ever come out of your pocket or mine directly in taxes. It’s all borrowed into existence at this point.

I was going to save this graph for Halloween, since it’s scarier than most zombie movies.

From this projection, you can see that by 2024 Medicare plus Social Security will make up 12% or so of the GDP. Add in 2% for Medicaid costs, and you’re up to 14% of the GDP. Add in 4% for the projected interest payments due on the national debt, and that’s 18%, folks. That leaves 2% at most for all of the rest of the spending on the economy before we run out of tax dollars. But the rest of the spending (on things like defense) generally runs about 10% of GDP. Through the magic of math, that means that we’ll need another 10% of GDP. Just raise the taxes, right?

Even during the “90% tax rate” 1950’s, the proportion of the GDP taken in taxes wasn’t any higher than today and resulted in more loopholes than there are bacon-wrapped shrimp at a congressional lobbyist’s party.

That means the Federal government spending alone will consume 30% of the GDP, of which at least 10% will be deficit spending. Given a projected GDP of $26 trillion in 2024, that is an annual deficit of $2.6 trillion. The deficit this year is projected to be $1 trillion or so, which is more money than some people make in their entire lifetime, so imagine one 2.5 times larger.

Through some sort of magical incantation worthy of Houdini’s proctologist, money has been pulled out of somewhere (The Worst Economic Idea Since Socialism, Explained Using Bikini Girl Graphs) and hasn’t created massive inflation. Yet. I guess that in Zimbabwe they managed to just print money like we’re doing now to get out of the problem.

See, you too can be a trillionaire!

So, in the end, Miss Vargas was right. Social Security was the start of a program that will do a great job of income redistribution, from a wealthy and prosperous society, to a society where everyone can be a trillionaire, and a good nickel cigar only costs a few hundred billion dollars.

Thankfully Lincoln posed for this after getting back from Woodstock and before he retired to Gettysburg to make movies with George Lucas.

Civil War Weather Report #3: Violence, China, and Lots of Links

“I can promise you this will not silence your demons. If you can’t control the violence, the violence controls you.” – Star Trek: Voyager

I really didn’t expect to do this so soon – the clock moved closer to midnight. Last month was 6. Now we’re at a 7. The scale is from the first issue (Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming)

Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology. Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.

In this issue: Front Matter – Violence Update – Forward Observer Video and Criticism – Logistics – Updated Civil War II Index – Who Benefits, Part II? – Chittum’s Book – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to Issue Three of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are a bit different than the other posts here at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War II, on the first Monday of every month. Issue One is here (Civil War II Weather Report: Spicy Time Coming) and Issue Two is here (Civil War Weather Report #2, Censorship, Stalin, and a Bunch of Links).

Please keep the comments, emails, and links coming in – they provide a way for all of us to get smarter, faster. You can comment below, or send me an email at movingnorth@gmail.com. If I get an email, I’ll assume you don’t want your name mentioned or to be directly quoted (except for links), and I’ll honor that unless you explicitly give permission to refer to you or to quote you.

Violence Update

Last month this was the Censorship Update, and even before the El Paso shooting I had selected violence the topic of this month. I had this section written before the El Paso shooting this weekend and had to (obviously) re-write it. Here’s what I had written:

Almost all of the violence started on the Left, and was perpetrated by the Left. The biggest story was the beating of Andy Ngo, though there were multiple other attacks on display. July and August are typically months where violence is running high – heat seems to make riots, though I’m not sure if that’s changed now that air conditioning is more prevalent.

The level of violence is rising. I would follow Remus’ advice:

“Unless one side or the other sends death squads into my neighborhood, I shall observe my Most Excellent and Inviolable Rule One For Survival: stay away from crowds.”

If you’re not (like me) waiting every Tuesday for the Woodpile Report® (LINK), shame on you.

Obviously, El Paso changes what I have to say.

El Paso is a narrative that will likely have legs in the media for months – this is the shooting the Left has been dreaming of – a shooter who isn’t gang related, a Person of Color, Moslem, or going after Republicans. And the shooter wasn’t in Chicago where last weekend (7/29/19) 9 were killed and 39 were wounded in what is a more or less “normal” level of violence. This shooter fulfills the Narrative of the Left in ways that previous shooters haven’t.

I had a discussion with several people about El Paso today. They were less surprised than I was about the violence – they reminded me about all of the violence from the Left, including the shooter that tried to kill Republican congressmen and the now endemic violence against supporters of even the most mainstream members of the Right whenever they appear in Leftist strongholds. From their perspective, this was a response – a predictable response to the pressure being placed on the Right.

Do I think the Manifesto is fake? Probably not. Do I think that this is a “false flag”? Again, probably not. I’ll leave room for both of those things.

What comes next? That’s tough. I’d expect more violence from the Left, both disorganized (isolated beatings – groups engaging in random interracial violence) and organized (Antifa®). I don’t expect more (near term) from the Right, but I must make clear – I didn’t expect El Paso.

Will it escalate? I spent several hours going through comments on primarily Leftist sites on the Internet today. What I came away with was, more or less, that they feel entirely justified in increasing the level of violence and see no connection with their hospitalizing assaults and “chemical milk shakes” since they are morally justified.

The polarity increased this weekend. And if this is the level of polarity and violence we have when the economy is “good” – beware. A recession will lead levels of violence not seen in the United States since 1865.

Forward Observer Video and Criticism

Last month I presented and gave a critique of the John Mark video about Civil War II. The primary focus of the Weather Report are the conditions that lead to war, not conduct of the war itself, but it seemed like a good idea to discuss the video – it was on topic, suggested by a reader, and had a huge number of hits. The John Mark video presented what I thought was a too optimistic view of the outcome of Civil War II.

Aesop, (who you should be reading whenever he posts, or you’ll miss gems like this) and his monthly Ebola Update LINK) had some criticism of Mark’s video in the comments. He included a link to Sam Culper’s Forward Observer series that was a response to John Mark.

I think Mr. Culper was just a wee bit angry when he started the videos. The videos are very good, and if you have an interest in this subject, I suggest that you review them as well. Mr. Culper knows his stuff.

One mild criticism is that he indicates that we won’t have a World War II-type war or a replay of Civil War I. I think we can all agree that’s a given and he probably could have skipped that. This will be far uglier and resemble the breakup of Yugoslavia or of the Beatles®. It will be nasty, and I think Mr. Culper’s thought that the Right wouldn’t lay siege to Los Angeles or New York because it would wreck the financial system or disrupt the economy is not a concern that the Right will have. If it gets to that point, it’s not war to take over an economy. The Right won’t care.

In the third video, he mentions Sir John Glubb’s The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, which I discussed back in ‘17 (End of Empires, PEZ, and Decadence). Glubb’s observations remain relevant as the end of the American experiment comes closer and he’s right to bring him up.

Again, the Forward Observer videos are good. Watch them – make your own conclusions.

The reason I don’t try to delve too far into the predictions of how the war will unfold is that will depend on the initial conditions. As Culper frequently and appropriately notes in the video, predictions are hard. As Yogi Berra specifies, “especially about the future.”

Wait until you hear about story hour.

But those initial conditions will end up determining both the course of the war, and the conclusion. Beware: Your opinion now will be (depending upon who wins) be held against you at the end. In that case, it would be best for everyone if the Libertarians™ won, but I seem to note that they’re all off smoking weed and having deep conversations about Ayn Rand.

Updated Civil War II Index

Economic: +10.42 last month, +1.78 this month. Unemployment is slightly up – interest rates were slightly down, and the Dow was up. If this is right, economic conditions are slowing. While positive is good, this is less positive than last month.

Political Instability: +10%. This increase in instability is minor, compared to the drop (-46%) last month, and probably related to Mueller’s testimony. I think the proximity to elections is actually having a calming effect.

Interest in Violence: Up 8% this month, compared to 7% last month. I expect the August numbers to skyrocket.

Illegal Aliens: Down 38% last month to 104,000. That sounds great, but last month was the highest ever at 144,000, and this month was the third highest ever. So, down is good, but third highest is still bad. For perspective, last year it was 43,000. This is either sign of increased instability in the countries down South, or decreased fear of deportation. There is no good news in this category.

Logistics

Last Weather Report I dropped a (more or less) throwaway line to the effect on the conduct of the war that:

The Left can be resupplied via air and ship. “Emergency” supplies would head into coastal cities and sustain them forever, though Denver would fall soon enough. Would Russia supply the heartland while the Chinese supplied the West Coast?

Rightly, Joe at Eaton Rapids Joe called me on it, and noted it on his blog that you should be reading, here (LINK).

One thing that is true is that it’s certainly not going to be possible to feed the entire United States externally during a war. Feeding the Boston-New York-D.C. corridor which comprises over 20% of the United States population from external sources simply won’t happen, and I’m not sure if anyone in Europe will even try.

What will happen without Doritos®? And salsa?

But Mexico or China could feed Los Angeles, if they wanted to. I put pencil to paper and found, that to give everyone in Los Angeles 1700 calories a day it’s a really small number of 20’ shipping containers of rice – 600 or so. And, yes, China is a food importer, why would they export food to the United States, and a few million people to feed isn’t even rounding error on their current food supply.

Water would be tougher. To secure the port would require troops setting up a perimeter, but I’d think that when the residents of Los Angeles figured out the machine guns won’t be shooting over their heads anymore, they’d stay well back.

Distribution would be a mess. But the food can make it to the city. Similar numbers work for San Francisco. If you read below, however, I don’t think any of that will happen.

Who Benefits, Part II?

But who benefits from a civil war in the United States? Internally to the United States, it depends on who wins. Externally, the list of potential winners is long. I wrote about China last week (China – What’s the deal?) it occurred to me that China is currently working on building a system so they don’t need the United States at all – I’d expect them to focus on having alternate sources for everything that they depend on the United States for, including food. The end of the United States as a global power would allow them to move from a regional power to the leading global power.

China couldn’t defeat us militarily. But if we defeated ourselves? Bonus, and Sun Tzu would nod in approval!

And we hope he didn’t ask him to wok the dog.

Civil War would allow Russia to increase influence in Europe, so this wouldn’t bother them much at all. Europe? Europe would lose their free army, but would gain the markets that the United States would leave.

Would there be a period of economic dislocation for all of those countries? A period of economic depression? Sure. But there is the possibility that each of them would gain.

So, who would resupply those cities? Maybe nobody.

Chittum’s Book

I originally thought I’d be reviewing Thomas W. Chittum’s book, Civil War Two (LINK) in this issue, but this update is long enough now. Civil War Two came out in 1997, but his analysis is so accurate it’s like he wrote most of it last week. I’ll review/summarize it starting no later than Monday, though it might take me more than one post to complete the review.

Links

The missing link discovered zero, but didn’t tell anyone because he thought it was nothing.

First up is from Practical Eschatology. Docent (the proprietor there) has an interesting look at mass immigration.

Notes on how fragile our infrastructure really is from Andrew Miller.

From Mat Bracken, two of the best pieces on Civil War Two, here and here.

From Arthur Sido, on bugging out.

Concerned American correctly noted that Matt is an excellent writer. Buy his books.

From Ricky and Zerohedge.

Also from Ricky, on another divide.

From an e-mail, for perspective – Civil War on the Western Border and Partisans (Missouri).

Please keep the links coming!

Boston-Washington corridor map by Bill Rankin — Citynoise (talk · contribs) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8293465

Defeating My Biggest Enemy: Me, Complete with Hairy Kardashians and Video Games.

“I noticed earlier the hyperdrive motivator has been damaged. It’s impossible to go to lightspeed!” – The Empire Strikes Back™

Nah, I got an A. Got a perfect score on the final, plus I got to watch C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate during winter break.

Ever think you could accomplish more? You can. Read on. It’s okay, I’m a trained professional.

When I was in college I took a course called Probability and Statistics, or as we referred to it at the time, Sadistics. During one lecture the instructor told the class a story about how a graduate student working on his Ph.D. was late to a class – so late that he’d missed the start of the lecture. The student saw two math problems on the blackboard. Thinking they were homework problems, he copied them down, and spent the weekend working on them. They were a little harder than usual, but he managed to finish them.

On Monday he returned to class, and showed the instructor his results. Turns out that the problems weren’t homework: these were two unproven theorems in statistics; unproven theorems that George Dantzig (the student) finished because he had no idea that they were too hard for him to do.

In Dantzig’s own words:

“A year later, when I began to worry about a thesis topic, [his teacher] just shrugged and told me to wrap the two problems up in a binder and he would accept them as my thesis.”

At least he didn’t have to shag the professor, baby.

That’s a pretty good story, especially because it’s true and a great example of how much you can achieve when you’re too stupid to know that what you’re doing is impossible. It’s also a very good story to tell the boss the next time you’re late for a meeting at work, because his reaction will likely allow you time for independent exploration of all the employment opportunities this great nation has to offer.

So how do people sabotage themselves so they don’t achieve all that they could? How do they turn themselves into their own worst enemy? Today I’ll present three reasons. There are more, but what do I look like, a budget Tony Robbins?

I was wondering why that seminar only cost $14.98.

I think the worst is negative inner dialogue.

Ever make a mistake? Ever beat yourself up about it? Yeah, me too. But what I noticed is that when I beat myself up, I used to say things to myself that were meaner than any person had ever said to me in real life. Notice I said “used to” – I simply don’t put up with it any more. When I sense that inner beat down coming, I just shut it down.

If your best friend who has your best interests at heart wouldn’t say it to you, why would you say it to yourself?

Recently I read about a research study that indicated that you had more impact when motivating yourself if you encouraged yourself in the third person. Saying to yourself, “You’ve got this, John,” is much more powerful than, “I can do this.” Why? I have my guesses – it’s probably that you don’t want to fail when you’ve got some other person involved, so you dig that much deeper.

If that’s the case, how much more damaging is beating yourself up verbally in the third person? “I’m stupid,” versus “you’re stupid.” Think about it – and I advise you not to put up with your nonsense. Shut it down.

Yes, this happened.

Negative inner dialogue doesn’t help me, especially since whatever mistake I made was generally not even noticed by others. I hate to break this to you, but outside of your family, you’re less important than you think. People don’t notice the things you do all that much, and if they do? They don’t remember.

That may seem like a downer, but it’s really the opposite. It’s freedom, and another reason not to beat yourself up.

Next on the list? Belief that your goal is impossible.

Well, it isn’t possible, until you actually do it. Nobody had solved Dantzig’s theorems until he solved them. Heck, the Kardashians are too dumb to know they shouldn’t have hundreds of millions of dollars despite an utter lack anything resembling talent or a redeeming feature. Oh, unless you count their copious amounts of body hair. And I wouldn’t advise that you count their body hair, since that would take far too long. Plus? You’d get Kardashian grease all over you.

This is right before the hair covers them entirely in a protective cocoon so they can become giant genderless moth people.

I’ll note that nearly every time I was given an assignment that seemed impossible at work, I managed to crack the problem. What was off was my definition of impossible. I eventually ended up working for a boss that pushed me even farther. Nine times out of ten, he gambled and won. The tenth time? They fired him. Don’t feel bad for him – his severance package was about $2 million.

Finally, there’s not giving it all you’ve got.

This one is insidious. Here’s my example: in my career (the one that pays the bills, not this one) I’ve accomplished most things that I’ve ever wanted to do and have a whole batch of odd stories that I’ll maybe get around to telling someday. Does this mean that I aimed too low, that I didn’t push hard enough? Nah, I don’t think so. I’ve seen what some of the people at the top had to do to get there, and I like sleeping well.

It’s tough at the top. Everything is a tradeoff.

But here I can push myself, and sleep well. So, I write. I give that all that I’ve got, especially once I understood that I’d never get better unless I really pushed myself. And I can see results. I had a post that related to one I’d written back in 2017 that I was thinking of linking to. I pulled up the old post. I read it.

What made me happiest about the old post is: I’m better now than I was in 2017 – a lot better. How much better will I be if I keep pushing it, keep focusing on it for 20 hours a week for another decade? I have no idea. But we’ll see.

But I had my own George Dantzig moment before I ever heard his story:

I was in high school and a friend came over to my place. He and I sat down to play some video games, since we didn’t have a car. He went first. Normally on my first guy I’d score 10,000 or so. But my friend scored 50,000. I was amazed – I had no idea it was possible. So, my first guy up? 50,000 points. This was my best score ever.

I know – it looks exactly like a scene from The Empire Strikes Back©. But, trust me, this is really a video game.

What had been missing was belief. Seeing my friend play with no higher a skill level than I had do five times better than my best ever score flipped a switch. I believed. I could perform better than I ever thought possible.

But right now, it’s time:

Time to believe in yourself. Time to believe that your goal is possible. Time to work harder.

Go on, you’ve got this.

Black Holes, Money, Population, and 2050

“Using layman’s terms: Use a retaining magnetic field to focus a narrow beam of gravitons. These, in turn, fold space-time consistent with Weyl tensor dynamics until the space-time curvature becomes infinitely large, and you produce a singularity.” – Event Horizon

I tried to explain the budget to my ex-wife, but she couldn’t grasp the gravity of the situation.

Right around the year 2002, I first heard of a geophysicist named Didier Sornette. Sure, you say, with a name like that, he’s French, how smart could he be? Well, let’s get this straight – I still blame the French for cigarettes, Leftism and the metric system, but Sornette is an original and first-rate thinker, even though the actual pronunciation of his name is probably “Dipstick Snort” because the French haven’t in the last 1600 years mastered spelling a word with any relationship to the way it is actually pronounced. In addition to Sornette, the French gave us Sophie Marceau, so there’s something they did right.

Even though Sophie Marceau played a villain, Bond© thought spending time with her was 00heaven.

Sornette is a geophysicist by degree. He initially studied the physics of earthquakes. Earthquakes, Sornette noted, don’t come about due to any single failure, but as a result of the microscope failure under pressure at LOTS of different places that at some point becomes critical. The pressure builds up, and it’s not the first little crack in the rock, but rather the aggregate cracking that eventually releases the stress. It does that all at once.

Sornette thought that he could use math to describe the behavior of rocks, and model it so he could understand earthquakes better. He worked for twenty five years on doing this, and found that there was a mathematical “signal” was present before the earthquake occurred. It wasn’t useful for predicting exactly when the earthquake would occur, but like everybody with a new tool, Sornette looked around and wondered where else it might be applicable.

Sornette looked at the financial system, specifically stock markets. He noticed that stock market crashes looked a lot like earthquakes. And, unlike earthquakes, financial crashes could devastate the world globally. He switched his focus to that, using math to model the financial bubbles that led to the high values that then came crumbling down when the market finally crashed.

In 2001, he decided to take this modelling a step further. What if, he asked (along with fellow researcher Anders Johansen) we try to model not only the financial system, but world population, too?

Okey, I’m betting Anders Johansen-a duesn’t ictuoelly telk leeke-a zees. Prubebly. Bork Bork Bork!

The result was the paper Finite-time singularity in the dynamics of the world population, economic, and financial indices, or FEEnite-a-time-a singuolerity in zee-a dynemeecs ouff zee-a vurld pupuoletiun, icunumeec, und feenuonceel indeeces in Swedish. That’s a really long title that could have been shortened to, Yo, something weird is coming, and I don’t mean your mother. You can find a copy of the paper here (LINK). It shows a May 29, 2018 date, but I don’t think there’s been any changes to it since its initial publication in late 2001. I’ll warn you – there’s a wee bit of math involved.

The paper starts with the statement that for most of the known history of the human race, our growth rate hasn’t been exponential, it’s been far faster than that. It took 1600 years to go from 300 million people in year 0 Anno Domini to 600 million. To get to a billion total only took 204 years. Double to two billion? We did that in 1927. Three billion in 1960, four billion in ’74, five billion in ’87, six billion in ’99, and seven billion in 2011. Now as I write this in 2019? 7.7 billion people. And only forty people are friends with you on Facebook®.

What allowed this population growth? Knowledge. The revolutions in agriculture (the first one, which I wrote about here: Beer, Nuclear Bikinis, and Agriculture: What Made Us Who We Are), industrial, fertilizer, medical, and information have allowed the population growth to accelerate like it has.

Sornette and Johansen studied several data sets. Population was one set, and another was the economic growth rate of the United States, as measured by the stock market. Even though the Dow Jones Industrial Average© (DJIA) didn’t exist before Dow married Jones, several economists have created data on what the data might have looked like. Is that a bit of a guess, like your mother’s weight since there aren’t scales that big? Sure. But, as we will see, it might be close enough.

Math is funny. When you divide something by zero, you get infinity. Several mathematical functions that describe things going to infinity do exist – we call those singularities. The funny thing is that they appear to exist not only mathematically, but in real life as well. They have real properties that we can predict, measure, and see. One popular example of a singularity is the black hole. Some scientist said, “Okay, gravity sucks, like your mom. But what if something had so much gravity that it trapped even light, like your mom?”

That concept blew their minds, but it was there in the math in 1916 when Karl Schwarzschild solved Einstein’s equation and divided by zero. A black hole is a singularity based around gravity – where gravity is so intense that we have no real understanding of what happens inside, like God divided by zero, liked what he saw, and said, “Yeah, this is the ultimate practical joke.” But singularities aren’t limited to stuff that would only interest starship crewmembers. Other singularities regularly occur in physical systems. Earthquakes.

Stock market crashes.

A scientific discussion of gravitation inside a black hole.

This wasn’t the first time someone calculated the date of a singularity based on population. In 1960, the prediction was published in the journal Science that the population singularity would hit on (somewhat tongue and cheekily) Friday, November 13, 2026. Didier and Johansen relooked at the data, and came up with an equation that they felt gave a better fit.

Their date for the singularity? 2052, +/- 10 years.

They then looked at the data (keep in mind, this was in 2001) and modeled the behavior of the DJIA©. What did they find? A singularity in 2053.

That was too close for coincidence. Two different data sets show the same predicted end date?

Thankfully, Sornette and Johansen are wrong, right? They certainly didn’t predict that the DJIA™ would be as high as 27,000 in 2019?

In fact, their prediction (in 2001) was that the Dow would hit 36,000-40,000 by 2020. They did leave some weasel space, noting that, “. . . the extrapolation of this growth closer to the singularity becomes unreliable . . .”

It’s say that they were pretty close, and far closer than I was in the year 2001 when I would have predicted the aggregate stock value of the DJIA© in 2020 would be worth a less than a handful of ramen noodles and ten rounds of .22 ammo. So they were far closer than I was.

One thing Sornette and Johansen noted was that the minor ups and downs would be of less consequence the closer we move to the singularity point. What happens each week is less important than the overall trend, so the data errors associated with “creating” a Dow Jones™ index before there was one probably isn’t too much of an error.

Here’s 100 years of stock market data, now with snarky comment.

Another conclusion of the equations is that population, technology and wealth is intertwined. The number of people that the world can hold is very much tied to technology. When modelling prehistoric population, no fewer than three technological ages – have to be mathematically introduced: hunting, followed by farming, followed by primitive technology are required to accurately model the actual population.

But when these intertwine, does the increased population lead to the technology, or do they feed on each other causing an explosion?

They feed on each other, causing an explosion in technology and population and wealth. More people lead to more wealth. More people leads to more technology to feed people which leads to even more people which produces more wealth which leads to . . . more people. The end dates are similar because the functions of wealth and population are related. You can’t have the super-exponential growth without the interactions. Sornette and Johansen came up with approximately 2050 for the end date. Ray Kurzweil (futurist) predicted the technological singularity would hit around 2045, which is pretty close.

Bill Gates gave up lap dancing and stripping after pulling a hamstring at a bachelor party, and he had to settle for his second love – computers.

But what happens next? What happens if and when the singularity hits? The authors indicate we’re probably in it a transitional phase already – the population growth rate peaked in 1973, and so did the world per capita energy use. Sornette and Johansen came up with some silly ideas of what’s next, but let’s be real: no one can predict what happens after a singularity – dividing by zero changes every rule.

We have no idea what happens inside a black hole.

I know that many of you sense the same thing that I do – we are changing at a pace that is already fast but that seems to accelerate: it’s faster every year. This is the case, and I don’t anticipate that things will slow in the next decade or two. Beyond that? It’s anyone’s guess.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what happened to Didier Sornette? He runs a group called the Financial Crisis Observatory in Zurich, where they try to observe financial budget growth in real time. It’s here (LINK) and worth a few minutes of review.

So, if they’re right, it’s the best time to be in stocks, at least until the singularity occurs, the population collapses and the robots decide that to get rid of their pets . . .

Dow chart from here: (LINK)

China – What’s the deal?

“What does that mean? ‘China is here.’ I don’t even know what the hell that means.” – Big Trouble in Little China

Had enough Mongols? This is how you avoid Mongols, unless the 9^th Circuit says you have to let them in.

I’ve had my eye on China for quite a while. It knows why.

Anyway, China has in the past 50 years transformed itself from an example of the nation your parents warned you about: “See, eat your peas and study hard, you don’t want to be like China,” to a country competing for prime representation in the International House of Pancakes®. Okay, I made that up. I don’t even know if they have Frosted Flakes™ in China, let alone pancakes©.

For four thousand years, China looked inward. Only conquered twice, by the Mongols and by the Manchu, the 20^th Century was a succession of weak leaders until the communist takeover at the hands of Mao Zedong. Mao seemed content to play with the Chinese people and the Chinese economy like a Doberman’s chew toy until his death in the 1970’s.

AOC will never be a doctor – she’s committing political Mao-practice.

Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, looked around at the huge Doberman spit-covered collectivist mess left by communism, and decided that something had to change. After visiting the United States, he decided that China needed way to get convenient chocolate milkshakes like that one Jimmy Carter got him at McDonalds®, and began reforming the economy based around market lines. You know, capitalism.

Capitalism worked amazingly well at saving a communist economy. Shocker!

The collective ingenuity of over a billion Chinese coupled with capitalist incentives and totalitarian controls has led to growth. The economy of China in 2019 is 91 times larger than it was in 1978 when Deng’s reforms began. Some before and after pictures become relevant at this point:

Okay, I’m exaggerating. But not by much.

What China has effectively done is make its citizens nearly 100 times richer since Star Wars® first came out. Perhaps more impressive is the amount of expertise that has been imported to China. By making first cheap junk in the 1980’s to radar detectors in the 1990’s to iPods® in the early 00’s to iPhones™ today, China has imported not only the technical know-how of cutting edge technology is design, it understands better than any other country in the world on how to build most things.

See, I told you I wasn’t exaggerating much. Two day shipping really changed their lives.

An engineer in California (who may or may not even be an American) designs the iPhone©. In China, they figure out how to build it. That know-how isn’t in a manual, it’s built up in thousands of mistakes that require solutions to produce a finished product. All of those solutions are known by the workers and engineers in the factory, and used to make production lines that much faster.

In this way, China has traded lots of cell phones for zillions of dollars that we just printed up out of thin air, sure, but it’s also trained itself on how to be an industrial superpower.

Industrial. But what about military?

No. China has seen our military and has no ambition that it can in the near future compete with American military power. Unlike the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United States Congress, China has no desire to fight World War II again. While the United States has fought in numerous conflicts in the last fifty years, China has fought in exactly one, an incursion into Vietnam back before Reagan was president. The Chinese make the Italians look like Patton with Pizza.

So, rumor is that they also have a tricycle attack brigade, but they were at nap time.

If I were Chinese President Xi Jinping, I would have no illusions about my military. Even if it fielded better tanks and planes than the United States, it still would come up short because outside of games of Call of Duty®, the Chinese military has no experience.

Instead: “China will use a host of methods, many of which lie out of the realm of conventional warfare. These methods include trade warfare, financial warfare, ecological warfare, psychological warfare, smuggling warfare, media warfare, drug warfare, network warfare, technological warfare, fabrication warfare, resources warfare, economic aid warfare, cultural warfare, and international law warfare…” (United States Army Special Operations Command, 2014)

In particular, China has focused on trade. In the last five years, China has started an international cooperation scheme called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This has led to (so far) agreements with over 68 countries. The stated objective of BRI is that it is meant to produce closer ties and stronger trading arrangements between China and the rest of the world.

See, need some place to keep my stuff – Mom’s basement is full.

BRI consists of at least a trillion dollars of planned Chinese spending, and by spending, I mean loans. China will loan countries money to develop infrastructure – pipelines, roads, harbors, PEZ® mines, railroads, industrial parks, electric power grids, and airports to better move people and goods throughout the world. Certainly China won’t take advantage of the loan conditions if a country has trouble repaying it?

Actually, so far not really. In only one case has China seized assets, and the rest of them it has either renegotiated debt payments or forgiven them entirely.

So what is China doing?

It came to me one night while I was thinking about the blog and just drifting off to sleep. Thinking about this like a banker looking to gain leverage wasn’t the right framework. China isn’t building this trading network to compete with the United States. China is building this framework for life without the United States. BRI replaces our markets, and replaces what we’re shipping to them. But there’s more.

When you look at what China has, it is people, industrial capacity, and ingenuity. China needs raw materials. It’s short on food. It needs oil. By making inroads into Africa, China has started new mines, run by Chinese administrators and Chinese miners. China has built, using Chinese laborers and Chinese steel, new railroads in Kenya.

And all of this BRI stuff isn’t paid for in dollars. China has seen that the United States has managed to pay for debt in dollars it printed. If China can be the dominant country, it can pay for things in Kenya with Chinese money printed by China itself, rather than have to make iPhones® and send them to iNdiana© in exchange for dollars.

Perhaps it’s just the economy of the United States that China expects will be gone?

Beyond that, closer economic ties with a country that could dominate your economy certainly isn’t dangerous, is it? They’d never use their influence to change your laws, or influence your movies, right?

Set from the 2010 remake of Red Dawn before China demanded they not be the villain. Hmmm.

Belt and Road graphic (pre-meme) By Owennson – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78386561

Stonewall Jackson, Patton, Wrecked Cars and Dealing with Fear

“Yes, well, I imagine if it were fear, my eyes would be wider.” – Serenity

Sadly, I’m a Sagittarius and my name’s not Morris or this could have been comedy gold.

I had a Ford® Taurus©. Yes, that’s an admission of guilt. Even worse? It was a pale-lime green. I imagine someone in marketing called the color “seafoam”, but if the sea has foam that color, it’s probably in a congealed blob off the coast of China and consists of anti-freeze, extra kidneys, and despair. After 150,000 miles the Taurus© died on impact with a pickup whose driver decided stop signs were optional on Tuesdays. But the other driver made up for wrecking my car by not having insurance, so there was that benefit.

As I recall, there were three buttons on the dash of the Taurus® to program the display. Since I am a man, reading the manual was out of the question. The display had the option to show various things – it had a compass mode, a thermometer, and a countdown timer to show the number of days until Obama left office. I only knew it had a compass mode because when I bought it (used) it had the compass on. After I changed the battery, it reverted back to the “Only this many days until Obama is gone” mode.

I wanted it to show the thermometer.

Clearly it never gets hot in summer, so it must be global warming.

I had no idea how to change modes – since the manual was only two feet away in the glove compartment, it might as well have been in Mongolia, and not the easy to reach parts of Mongolia. I reached my hand out to start mashing the buttons with all of the skill of a baboon wearing a pink tutu attempting to clear a paper jam while making double-sided color copies at Kinkos®. I hesitated. What if I ended up turning the car’s language into French? Would I have to wear a beret and learn to smoke cigarettes while being nihilistic?

Then I started to panic. Being French was awful, but what would happen if I accidently turned the car’s units into metric? I don’t even know how to drink in metric. Is sixteen a lot of kilometers of beer to drink? How many metric days until Christmas? How many milliliters of cheeseburger do I order at Sonic®? Perish the thought of being French and metric. That’s how we got Canada, after all. Sure, the Canadians look like us, but that’s how they infiltrate.

Sure, they look polite. But just try to dissect one to see if it’s an alien from outer space and they get darn grumpy.

The thought then hit me – I’ve spent literally my entire life tearing stuff apart to see what was inside, and then trying to put it back together. That’s been my mode since, much to Pa Wilder’s dismay, I discovered screwdrivers. If I wasn’t tearing stuff apart, I was experimenting in other ways. Sometimes the result wasn’t that great, like the time in fifth grade when I took a letter opener and put it across both prongs of an electrical plug.

An electrical plug that was plugged into the wall.

Oops.

Immediately there was a big spark, smoke, the smell of ozone, splattering molten metal, and then complete darkness in my room. I knew where the breakers were, and went to flip mine back on. I’m pretty sure Ma Wilder smelled the ozone, but didn’t say anything since my bedroom wasn’t actively on fire.

I’ve done stupider things. Some of them even when I was sober.

So, there I was sitting in my car. Once I was brave enough to slam a letter opener between into an active electrical circuit, and now I was hesitant to push some buttons.

What? I came to my senses. It’s just a car.

I pushed buttons, didn’t turn French, and even better, just like the Apollo program, I avoided having to use the metric system entirely. And I got rid of the hesitation.

What led to the hesitation?

Fear. It’ll creep up on you, first in small ways, and then in large if you don’t fight it every time it shows up.

General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson said, “Never take counsel of your fears.” And Jackson didn’t – he even got his nickname by being famously fearless at Bull Run when he rushed his troops to fill a gap in the line. “Look, men, there is Jackson standing like a stone wall!” Not a bad way to get a nickname.

Stonewall understood that fear was his most potent enemy. Well, fear and that musket ball his own troops accidently shot him with.

For the record, he didn’t ever have a microbrew or a nonfat anything.

So, why is fear so bad? What’s wrong with a little fear?

That’s simple: fear is at the root of every significant problem in the world. Period. I understand that’s a pretty bold statement. Can I back it up? Sure.

Let’s take envy. It’s at the root of lots of bad things, like Leftism which is almost entirely based on envy. What causes envy?

Insecurity. Think Elon Musk feels envy? Probably not, and I could name a dozens of people who don’t feel envy. They’re not envious because they’re not insecure. They don’t feel uncertainty, anxiety, or self-doubt. All of these emotions are based in fear and lead to envy.

That’s the same with every other negative emotion – anger, shame, et cetera. It’s just another face of fear. And evil things come from evil emotion (and Disney®), not from rational calculation.

Frank Herbert got it right, writing about a rite in his novel Dune:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

If Dune® had sandcatworms, would the spice be in the hairballs?

Okay, Herbert is a bit flowery. But the concept is right. Fear robs you, decision by decision, of your entire life. And fear is used to manipulate you. Today I was reading Google® News™ and counted 38 major stories on the main page. Here’s my analysis:

3 of the stories were mildly amusing or interesting.
2 of them were potentially useful to me – they were stories I could use to make myself better, depending upon my situation.
8 were useful only to manipulate and titillate readers through fear.
25 were utterly useless.

I read the amusing stories. I read one of the useful stories – the other didn’t apply right at the moment. I’ll admit, I got caught and read one or two of the useless stories. I skipped the fear manipulation stories. Fear is a tool that can be used against you, but only if it makes you forget your values. There should be no news, no story that can make you waiver from your values.

What’s the cure for fear?

Action. Press the button. Ask the girl out. Lift the weight. Press the button in your car. Successful or not, you will have overcome your fear. You will be stronger. You will have less fear the next time – the only way to escape your fear, is to go through your fear. And fighting fears when they’re small (like resetting a car dashboard) is easier than waiting until they grow to the size where they eat away your life like vintage Elvis© on a peanut butter and bacon cheeseburger.

Is fear useless? No. Fear can be used. Fear should be used.

General George S. Patton, riffing off of Stonewall, said:

“The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine. When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead.”

Fun fact: General Patton is tired of your whiney crap.

So, maybe Patton is saying I shouldn’t fear the metric French, but maybe I should stop the whole “turning a letter opener into a bedroom arc welder” because, in the words of Robert A. Heinlein:

“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”

Bikini Economics, Guns, and the Problem with Free Stuff

“Good job, isn’t it? Type something will ya, we’re paying for this stuff.” – Ghostbusters

I like guns. And butter. Especially cocoa butter. Admit it – you’ve never enjoyed economics more.

Economics means choices.

One choice presented by Marxist economics professors to hung-over sophomores in college is between “guns or butter.” This is a classic economic model. In it, a choice is presented: produce guns for defense, or food for the people, or another shot of Jägermeister© before Calc 201. I added the Jägermeister® for the sophomores. No one should have to learn 3-space vector calculus sober.

The idea is that there is some balance where government can feed people just enough so that they can make guns for beautiful Marxist bikini soldiers to take over the world with love and kindness and AK-47s. In this fable, once the world chooses peace (that means Marxism), guns will no longer be produced and the glorious workers will now luxuriate in a worker’s paradise.

These are the deep thoughts of a dimwitted socialist like Kamala Harris, or of an overly caring 11 year-old who is earnestly trying to solve the world’s problems. But I repeat myself.

Don’t be mean to Kamala. She already enough difficulty explaining to her husband why she’s in the top results for “slept her way to the top” on a Google® image search (this is true).

Just because Marxists were wrong about economics doesn’t mean that economies that there aren’t economic choices to make. There are. The biggest actual economic choice to make is whether to spend the output of that economy on building additional productive capacity or on Free Stuff.

Building additional production is investment in the economy. Sure, Leftists like to use “investment” as just another word for Free Stuff, but investment, by definition, produces a return. In the case of investment in an economy, after the investment is done the economy produces more than it did before. Instead of dividing a finite economic pie between guns or butter, the genius of investment is that it creates a bigger pie for everyone. By definition, that’s a win, because it also means more guns for everyone!

There is a time to tell the truth, and a time to lie. If she’s holding an AK, it’s time to lie.

This was self-evident in Western Civilization during the Cold War. We picked the strategy that we invest in our economies so that they became larger, and we’d defeat Communism by out producing them. In order to do that, we increased freedom of the free market so that instead of handfuls of production bureaucrats and commissars guessing what should be produced, millions of free people experimenting in an open economy would make that choice. The winners were selected by the market, and even when things like the Hula-Hoop® or Justin Bieber became wildly popular, industrial capacity was increased all across Western Civilization (and Japan, which had largely adopted all of the winning parts of Western Civilization).

We allowed this to guide our military spending, too. Multiple companies competed to produce new jet fighters that were more capable, missiles that were more accurate. The technical prowess of the military came not from a top-down dictate, but from the companies competing to produce better defense products. Sure, some of them were horrible, but most of our equipment and doctrine was better than the Soviet stuff. How much better? Ask Saddam Hussein.

As the focus of our economy was growth, the economy grew. How big did it grow? It grew to the point where Reagan could consciously bankrupt the entire guns and butter Soviet economy through pretending that the Star Wars™ missile defense was going to make intercontinental ballistic missiles obsolete. The economy of Western Civilization was such a potent weapon because it harnessed the ingenuity of everyone through capitalist incentives and rewards. The system of capitalism was so obviously successful that China®, Inc. decided to copy it for their economy and get rid of the silly Maoist collectivism. Keep in mind, capitalism does not mean freedom.

Economies still have limits. There’s a maximum amount of “stuff” that the economy can produce, and certainly there’s a limit based on sheer physics, if nothing else, though we’ve yet to see it. The real choice isn’t guns or butter, it’s investment versus Free Stuff. It used to be that money mattered, but that was in the time before Modern Monetary Theory (The Worst Economic Idea Since Socialism, Explained Using Bikini Girl Graphs) fans tossed bottles of Jägermeister© into Congress and told ‘em to spend as much as they wanted.

If Venezuela had a dollar for every time giving out Free Stuff worked, they’d have zero dollars. Oh, that’s exactly what Venezuela has. Never mind.

What Free Stuff do the Leftists want to toss out?

“Free” Healthcare – for everyone. Including illegal aliens. You might think that they don’t give it away now – they do. A pregnant illegal alien show ups to have a baby? You get to pay for that right now. I guess the good news is you don’t have to change it’s diaper.
“Free” Daycare – for everyone. Why? Because who could be better at raising your children than the state. They do such a good job at the DMV.
“Free” College – for everyone. That kid that sat behind you with his finger up his nose, who talked about how he wanted to ride a tyrannosaurus on Mars? When he was a senior in high school? Yeah, he gets free college, too. Although riding a tyrannosaurus on Mars does sound cool.
“Free” Income – for everyone. Why not give everyone $1000 a month for free. It won’t distort the economy at all.
“Free” Reparations – not for everyone. People who were never slaves would get paid by people who never had slaves, for the sin of slavery. Makes about as much sense as the rest of this list.
“Free” Housing – just not in the gated communities where Congressmen live.

Oh, and don’t forget regulations, since regulations is another way to give Free Stuff. They take freedom from the economy and create winners and losers. The Green New Deal is an example of this – the idea of the Green New Deal has nothing to do with the environment – it’s all about creating a socialist economy. In the words of AOC’s advisor: “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Saikat Chakrabarti asked. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Regulations are used to change the economy.

Take a look at all of the innovation spawned by Communism!

At some point Free Stuff will grow to encompass the entire economy leaving nothing for productive growth. Ever notice that every Communist economy freezes at the technology level (outside of military technology) that existed when it went Commie? Cuba is a great example, what with all of the vintage 50’s Ford® and Chevy© rust buckets and fine Soviet cars they have on the streets. If only they would have waited until the 1970’s to go Communist they could have had Ford© Pintos™. That would have made driving exciting!

The same thing happened in Venezuela. PDVSA was a very profitable oil company before Hugo Chavez gutted it to provide Free Stuff to the Venezuelan people. Now? PDVSA is deeply in debt and incapable of producing as much oil as it did in 1998, despite having 77.5 billion barrels of reserves.

Yeah. Free Stuff can make a country bankrupt.

The nice thing about this concept is that it also applies to individuals. Every day each of us has a choice: do we work to make ourselves better, or do we goof off? The choice is an important one.

Do you invest time in increasing your capabilities every day? Do your work to make yourself better? I mean, really work? Take Steve Martin’s advice – “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” (“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”-Steve Martin Plus? A sniper joke.)

You have the choice. And time is running out. And I’m certain you can’t afford Free Stuff.

Neil Armstrong’s Secret Moon Diary, Revealed at Last

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

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

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

Here are the journal entries:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Collins was rechargeable, thankfully.

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

Buzz sighs again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The long distance rates shut that particular business down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thankfully we were AAA members.

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

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

“Neil, we need women astronauts.”

“Why, Buzz?”

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

He’s not done.

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

“What, Buzz?”

“I need more space.”

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

Yeah, I know. I’m mad, too.

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

Liftoff from the Moon! Heading home.

“No, you’re upside down.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a two-drink minimum.

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

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

100% heroes.

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

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