Author: wwducat

About: Writer, Technology guy, Photographer, Possibly EX-Software QA Engineer, Worker Bee. Interests: SCUBA, Working out, Friends, New Views, New Vistas, Photography
Posted on

Janet Yellen says Trumps Tariffs instead of Federal income tax, would make life unaffordable..

The Article is here

Janet Yellen.Since she’s been wrong on just about every single thing over the past 3 years, I cynically wonder if I should, as a matter of course, invert anything that comes out of her mouth.

I also wonder if she meant unaffordable for the Federal Government? My assumption is that if the Federal Government was 1/3 its current size and functional, that perhaps the tariff idea would work.

It’s not just about taxes. It’s about the horrific inefficiency of the Federal Government. It’s about the way our leadership spends money like drunken sailors. They remind me of a shopping addicted, depressed housewife with a credit card watching QVC all day long.  Believe me, that’s a combination that you do not want.

In the case of our government, we don’t ever see the UPS guy delivering boxes of crap that end up being returned or just going right in the trash can. Our government has found that dumping our money directly in the trash is far more expedient.

You might think I’m being funny. I’m not. I’ve seen first hand what the husbands of shopping addicted folks have to put up with. I’ve seen the stress & strain, the haunted look on a man’s face when the credit card bills keep rolling in and the house is filling with useless crap. I’ve witnessed the fights, the divorces, the “discovery” of a whole bunch of joint credit cards a guy didn’t know his spouse had opened.

It’s not much of a stretch to describe the American Taxpayers as the abused breadwinner being saddled with ever increasing debt by a spouse who insists on buying the Pretty Polly collectors edition faux porcelain doll with genuine agate buttons for only $495. Followed by the same Pretty Polly in a different color dress with genuine synthetic azurite buttons for $595. Both can be purchased together for $1550 and you get free shipping with a certificate of authenticity. 

Our government has forgotten that they’re supposed to provide Value for the dollars they’ve spent. Lately, all we’ve gotten for the taxes they’ve burned so frivolously is the equivalent of a shitload of Pretty Polly dolls, and a maxed out credit card at 22% interest.

Janet Yellen reminds me of the woman who, after the divorce, decides to part with her collection of Pretty Polly dolls, only to discover that every single version she purchased with its “Certificate of Authenticity” is available on eBay for .10 + $22.95 shipping and that she’s not going to be able to pay the rent.

Eventually the Federal Government will reach a point that the American Taxpayer demands a divorce. The manner in which that happens remains to be seen.

The Federal Government in general and this Administration in particular have done more to make the American People turn away in disgust than any time I can remember. 

That being said, I watched the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation.

Posted on

Existential THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!!!!!

Oh for god’s sake STOP!

Global Warming, Is a threat to democracy
Global Cooling, Is a threat to democracy
MAGA, Is a threat to democracy
Trump, Is a threat to democracy
Vaccine Hesitancy, Is a threat to democracy
Israel Palestine conflict, Is a threat to democracy
January 6th Protests, Is a threat to democracy
Questioning the media, Is a threat to democracy
Questioning the Government, Is a threat to democracy

If everything the media and politicians warn us about, Is a threat to democracy, then nothing is.

Alternatively, if everything is a threat to democracy then democracy is some seriously weak assed shit.

Neither of these assertions are particularly correct.

What these morons are saying is anything and everything beyond their control is a threat to their idea of democracy.

Which leads me to wonder if they understand what democracy is, or that if used incorrectly, democracy may be a bad thing.

You want to see true unfettered absolute democracy?

Look at the Pro Palestinian protestors on college campuses preventing other students from getting to & from their classes. Is this not The Majority exercising absolute democracy and using their numbers to overrule the rights of a minority?

How about Pro Palestinian protestors interrupting a pride parade? Aside from the multiple ironies of Queers for Palestine being on both sides of the “battle line”. Protestors versus Pride Parade is absolute RAW Democracy in action. (There’s also a lesson in there. With Palestinians we can’t have anything they don’t want us to have.)

Democracy can easily be used to trample the rights of the individual. 

That’s why The Constitution and Bill of Rights are so important. When you understand those documents are the only thing standing between us and Pure Democracy (a.k.a. tyranny of the mob), the importance of these documents appears in a whole new light.

I’ve come to believe that the media and our politicians are overusing the word democracy so that we stop “hearing it”. Much like the overused word “racist”. I’ve started wondering if this is a prelude to redefining the word to mean something else in practice if not actual definition.

We don’t now and never have lived in a democracy. Our form of government was designed as a Constitutional Republic. That design was chosen so that the rights of the individual would be preserved regardless of the desires of the Mob.

There’s also an interesting bit in The Constitution that says something to the effect, rights not enumerated are assumed to be held or retained by the individual, not the state. I’m paraphrasing but the meaning was clear to me as an 11 or 12 year old.

My right to do as I pleased was enshrined in The Constitution…

To be clear, my parents were pleased and impressed that I’d read and comprehended The Constitution. They did not however buy my assertion that my misbehavior was Constitutionally protected. I recall their rebuttal was completely rational.

“You live in our house, as a dependent on our largess, therefore you will obey our rules until such time as you are no longer dependent upon us for food and shelter. Now, GO TO YOUR ROOM!“

It wasn’t until many years later that I learned my Father’s face had been beet red not out of anger, as I had supposed at the time. He’d been doing one of the hardest things a parent has to do. Being parental, when what he really wanted to do was bust up laughing. He told me in my 30’s that he & my mother had gone out to the driveway and laughed till they cried.

I can say these days, it’s a good thing my Father is dead, much as I miss him. With the way the government has been doing things over the past decade or two, my Brother is convinced, and I concur, that our Father would have been out in the shed or in a bunker making ammo and planning for “La Revolution!”

He’d have seen his planning as duty to The Founding Documents, in particular that part that says if the government has become so corrupt and distorted that it no longer serves the people, then the people should overthrow it.

Even in the 1970’s I remember my Father saying that the government should be “big red switched”. A.K.A. abolished and restarted from The Bill of Rights, Constitution, and basic principals. His thinking was that for 1 hour or day there’d be no laws whatsoever. He was ahead of his time. He was really talking about something similar to “The Purge”.

His thinking was that you have to re-elect all new officials, all the laws get erased. The government got started up again with the basics of commonly accepted laws. Don’t kill, don’t steal, that sort of thing. He figured that any scores that got settled while the government was restarting and laws being re-adopted was probably acceptable losses. He’d sometimes go a bit further saying that the folks who got taken out during the restart, probably would have deserved it.

Funny thing, now that I think about it. I wouldn’t consider my Father and his somewhat radical ideas a threat to The Republic. But I could see how his ideas would be considered a threat to the “Democracy” that our politicians are trying to defend.

I’d hate to be worried about my Father and the rest of the family getting “Ruby Ridged” or “Wacoed” by the Feds. There was a time when I called those incidents “outlier” events. Now, I’ve begun to see the Feds for what they are. They’ve shown us all exactly who and what they are in the past 4 years. 

When things like the following have become common place:

3am raids against lawyers who represented a political enemy.
Hunting down people who were simply at the capital on Jan 6th.
Kicking down the doors of ministers over a political dispute with weapons drawn and children in the house.
10-15 vehicles with 60+ agents of the FBI in full tactical load out to arrest one 65 year old retiree and his wife.

Really? This is the “Democracy” our politicians are screaming about protecting?

I’ve seen old newsreels of this. Jackbooted authoritarian thugs kicking down doors.

It was common in Soviet Russia, we denounced it then. It is common in Communist China, our politicians seem to be looking the other way these days. We also saw this behavior in 1930s & 1940s Germany. While the Hugo Boss uniforms were impressive, the authoritarianism was not, and we saw millions murdered. At the end of that conflict. When the trials were ongoing, the common refrain was “I was only following my orders.”

We’ve already heard testimony before Congress that sounded a lot like, “I was only following orders.”

If this kind of government is what our politicians, specifically those in high offices want to protect, then we have a serious problem. 

The question is, how radical will the solution to the problem have to be?

Posted on

Ya know… Sometimes I can’t catch a break!

Doing laundry, you’d think would be a straightforward and simple task.

Laundry bottle.jpg.HA!  You’d be WRONG!

In a Rube Goldberg series of events. I found myself reaching down into the abyss behind the washing machine. Why? To retrieve my laundry detergent of course!

How did my laundry detergent end up behind the washing machine? Oh let me tell you a story but you’re not going to believe it. I was standing right there, watched the whole thing, and I couldn’t believe it. Although what I saw lends credence to one of two theories I’ve had for quite some time.

The Theories are: 1, God hates me. 2, we are living in a simulation and there are times when the simulation glitches.

I’d just moved wet clothes to the dryer, put some dirty clothes into the washer, and reached for the laundry soap. It’s a mid sized bottle of liquid and is mostly full so it’s got some weight to it.

Somehow my hand connected with the handle of the bottle, slipped off, knocked the bottle sideways, where it bounced, skidded directly to the back of the washing machine, then righted itself, & slipped like bugs bunny into the impossibly narrow gap between the wall and the washing machine. 

The only thing it didn’t do was make the silly “Zip” noise as it disappeared into the abyss. It did however make a good “Thump” as it hit the floor behind the washer.

I understand kinetics and weird physics. I also understand that all energy degrades toward a zero state. Somehow, the bottle of detergent instead of bleeding energy towards stillness, looked like it was pulling energy from space time in some bizarre way.

I wonder if unbeknownst to me, the odd sock wormhole was open behind the washer or dryer at the time?

For a moment I honestly considered leaving the bottle right where it ended up, and going to the grocery store for a new bottle.

It wasn’t so much laziness as wondering if the bottle was somehow cursed. I decided ironically “Cursed be damned” and set about retrieving the bottle.

Alas, like the T-Rex my arms were too short to just reach the bottle and hoist it up. I was however able to barely get my fingertips around the very top of the bottle, but could not get a good enough grip on the slick plastic to lift the weight. In other words, just enough to tease me.

Reaching into my Primate Heritage I started swearing and looking around for a tool. My Marine & Navy buddies would be proud of my creative use of language to describe anatomical impossibilities.

I’d probably lose some points for swearing like that at an inanimate object. Although, had the bottle winked out of existence I’d have been fine with that too.

After several minutes with a hanger, and a pair of pliers I crawled back on top of the washer. I wedged myself back between the washer and the cabinets above it, only to have to un-wedge myself seconds later because somehow I’d managed to start the wash cycle. 

2nd attempt I discovered that the hanger would have to be folded twice to give me the strength needed for it to life the bottle without bending the hook I’d made to a straight rod.

3rd attempt becoming a contortionist I was able to hook the bottle and lift it about 6 inches, then I discovered that impossibly, the bottle was too thick to be raised any further. There is no way that the darn thing should have been able to fall all the way to the floor in the first place.

Hmmm, “God Hates me, and we live in a glitchy simulation?”

After more creative casting of curses I came upon a plan. The hanger lifting the bottle 6 inches meant that I could get my hand on the handle of the bottle and perhaps snatch that bad boy out of the abyss and back into reality.

But only if I found a way to try the hanger around something. A cabinet handle worked, the scratches on the wood can be repaired. I was successful! My laundry soap is now in this reality again, as is my missing microfiber car washing mitt.

You might have found yourself wondering why I didn’t just pull the washer away from the wall.

Valid point!

Here’s why. To do so, I’d have to remove the doors to the laundry closet, then slide the washer through a narrow opening and possibly I’d have to pull the dryer out too. In other words… 

That would have been at least a 1 hour project, since all 6 hinges on the doors would have to be removed. All I wanted to do was pour the detergent into the washer and press “Start”.

Posted on

Fasinating how draining Twitter is…

At first it’s interesting. There’s a stream of “new” data and ideas.

You interact because some people are funny, and if you’re lonely you’re reaching out to other humans, trying to connect.

There are positive connections but generally they’re temporary. When they go away as they inevitably do, it hurts in a way. It’s not a major hurt but suddenly you’re unimportant in someone else’s life and you wonder if / what you did wrong that made them go away. What changed between this week and last week? Are they just busy, or did they find someone more interesting? With the possibility of thousands of followers all interacting or attempting to interact daily or hourly if you fall of the edge of the map it usually goes unnoticed.

This has the potential to make any loneliness a person may feel, much sharper. 

Some people will move on without paying much attention, after all, there are literally thousands of other people. Some people won’t notice, and others, those with few followers may be devastated.

Everyone is clamoring for attention “Pick Me, See Me, Talk to me”, and yet the satisfaction provided is not sustaining.

In my observations of the “Twitterverse” I’ve started to understand this and noticed a few other things too. 

Twitter has a lot of really shitty, stupid, and narcissistic people. I can only imagine what TikTok or other platforms are like.

For someone like me, seeing that level of stupid or meanness is super depressing. This is especially true when the Twitter Stream is like a broken sewer pipe of shit. It wouldn’t take me long based on a raw Twitter feed to decide that humanity needed to be nuked.

Even if Twitter represented only a fractional part of humanity, it’s pretty clear the species is doomed. Dropping nukes might be a mercy.

The fact that it’s monetized and you can apparently make reasonable money using Twitter, in some cases brings out the absolute worst in people.

The parody accounts are sometimes funny but in other cases are even more depressing because sometimes you’re transfixed by the sheer insanity. You’d never normally watch some of the shit, but it’s like watching an accident, you can’t look away. Then you have to try to unsee what you saw and are depressed about being pulled into it in the first place.

The “Free Energy” Twitter accounts are really depressing for someone like me. Time and time again, the “free energy” person has “figured out” how to make an electric motor.  Something that’s been known for 200 years or so. However, because apparently Science isn’t being taught in school anymore, these people think they’ve got something new. 

All the free energy people succeed in demonstrating is that a rather substantial part of humanity isn’t more than two steps away from seeking out an old crone to “cast the bones” about next years harvest.

That’s really depressing!

So much potential wasted, so many petty people, so much ignorance.

Much of which could be addressed and improved if sites like Twitter and the internet in general weren’t intellectual wastelands.

How many African American fights do I need to see happen in a fast food joint? How many weaves need to be snatched off a fat chicks head before any shame is felt?

Twitter and sites like it pander to the lowest common denominator. In doing so, they drag the rest of us down into the gutter.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Twitter is not healthy, not even a little bit.

I rather think that cigarette smoking is a healthier pursuit. 

I’m speaking of Twitter because I long ago gave up on FaceBook and all the rest. I have a twitter account and I’m considering deleting it. This is actually the second twitter account I’ve had. I’d forgotten why I deleted the first one. Now that I remember, do I delete this one too, or should I simply stop using it then check in only when someone sends me something from Twitter.

Yes, I know Twitter is called X now, but typing “X” in sentences play hell with auto correct and spelling subroutines.

Posted on

OMG! Talk about Maximum Irony!

Fu NWQOXgAEVFSM.So the SLPC (Southern Poverty Law Center) has put Gays Against Groomers on its list of so called “Hate groups”.

You can’t make this stuff up!

Their reasoning is that Gays Against Groomers is ‘anti-trans conversion of children’. Which is by their definition hateful.

By my definition, making permanent alterations to something as fundamental as a child’s reproductive system is hateful beyond belief. We’re talking Josef Mengele level criminality.

Oh and not for one minute do I believe the medical profession saying that puberty blockers and hormone therapies are reversible.

I’m linking the Breitbart article here.

Ya gotta love the irony, A gay group, who is about protecting children from harm by taking a stand against what amounts to medical malpractice driven by a fringe group within the gay community, (if one subscribes to the concept of “Do No Harm” from the Hippocratic oath,) is defined as a hate group.

Why? Because they are taking a stand against the Trans agenda that is quite honestly destroying the LGB community.

It’s not that gay people hate trans folks, it’s that Trans folks have damaged almost everything that the LGB community built and they’re continuing to destroy the LGB community. Bars, Dating, and the cohesiveness of the LGB community have all been poisoned. Traditionally male and females spaces outside the LGB community are being invaded by, I believe in most cases, individuals who are not Trans, but who have seen opportunity to “belong”. Some within that group are simply about being perverts getting thrills offending others while being a protected class.

Screenshot 2022 09 19 152756.There are women who’ve had mastectomies that call homosexual men, (note the word homosexual) horrible names because the men are not interested in them. Uhh one defining feature of homosexual men is that they like, and want to have sex with other biological men. Ya know, men who can ejaculate and have actual working penises…

The Trans agenda has wrought more harm to the LGB community than the Westboro Baptist Church and similar religious organizations across the United States EVER did.

[I tried searching for the other names of churches and organizations who fought against gay marriage and gay rights. Interesting thing about that. It’s kind of difficult to locate articles about those folks. Where once there were hundreds of articles both pro and con, now there’s this weird miasma of articles that are sort of related but not informative. Even narrowing the search to a specific range of years doesn’t help. Regardless of the organization existing or not, I’d expect for the articles to still be available.]

I suppose that highlights what I’ve pointed out several times about the underlying flaw in the internet. It’s very easy for something to be deleted or “go missing”. The internet is not an archival system. There is no rigor whatsoever in publications. 

[I wonder if I’d find the same “missing” information were I to look for negative articles written about folks who questioned the recent COVID responses? That might be worth a shot just for shits and giggles. Especially since there have been those in positions of fame or power who called for, “conspiracy theorists” and the unvaccinated to be placed in concentration camps, who have recently said “Forgiveness”, “Kindness” and “Grace” should be given to them.

It has not gone unnoticed by me that not once have these authoritarians admitted they were wrong or apologized for their hateful rhetoric.]

I digress.

I find it interesting that the SLPC also classifies Anti-Government Groups right along with Hate Speech, and White Nationalist groups.

Excuse me? Who in this country after the past 3.5 years isn’t anti-government? Has this administration done a single thing to engender trust in the government? 

One of the groups the SPLC describes is called Neo-Völkisch. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure that Neo-Völkisch is wrong. Of course I could say the same of The Proud Boys. I think the SPLC triggered on the Neo-Völkisch because there’s German in the name.

I’d bet that gave at least a few folks at SPLC “The Vapors”.

I’d say that Gays Against Groomers is in good company. Based on the descriptions of some of the other “Hate” groups. I think it’s hysterical that Gays Against Groomers is on the same list as California Family Council which is anti-LGBT. How’s that work exactly???

I think this points to two fundamental things.

1) The Southern Poverty Law Center is no longer trustworthy, and quite possibly a front for a totally communist agenda.

2) Gays Against Groomers is having an impact against the Trans Agenda, and the Trans folks are attempting to rally their troops.

If I were part of Gays Against Groomers, I’d be reaching out to other “Hate” groups on the SLPC list. Particularly those groups that are for home schooling, and generally anti-government. Some of these would also be Anti-Gay but those that were simply about parents having the right to dictate what their children are taught in school might be natural allies. For that matter, the National Coalition for Men might also be an ally if their Philosophy is to be believed. They’re also on the SPLC list of Hate Groups.

I’ve noticed a pattern. To get on the SPLC hate list, all you have to do is be slightly counter culture.

Who would have thought that educating children in traditional ways with traditional subject matter, or protecting children from chemical castration would be controversial? I’m surprised that the SPLC hasn’t added anti circumcision groups to their “Hate” list. BloodstainedMen for example. However, the National Coalition for Men also mentions that circumcision isn’t cool.

I’m sure that next week, Doctors protecting Children, will be added to the SPLC list of hate groups. Especially since they just released this;

“Therefore, given the recent research and the revelations of the harmful approach advocated by WPATH and its followers in the United States, we, the undersigned, call upon the medical professional organizations of the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to follow the science and their European professional colleagues and immediately stop the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological sex. Instead, these organizations should recommend comprehensive evaluations and therapies aimed at identifying and addressing underlying psychological co-morbidities and neurodiversity that often predispose to and accompany gender dysphoria. We also encourage the physicians who are members of these professional organizations to contact their leadership and urge them to adhere to the evidence-based research now available.”

Pretty powerful stuff and 180° opposite what the Trans would have any of us believe.

I think the real problem is that Gays Against Groomers and other organizations like them, threaten the medical industry’s income.

Face it, hormone therapies, and continuing medical care for a Trans Child or Adult is lucrative. The Doctors are creating a patient and associated income stream for the life of the patient. Virtually all disciplines of the medical profession stand to make money. Psychologists, Endocrinologists, Surgeons, & General Practitioners just to start. Over time, all the rest of the Medical Industry gets a taste of that patient. The younger they start, the longer the doctors get to bleed money out of them. More properly, out of their insurance companies.

No-one wants to think about the medical profession being driven by greed instead of the desire to help. I however, believe that greed is the driver and as proof I point to the last 4 years.

Gays against Groomers also has a position that the liberal left can’t assail. Gay people know damn well that 40% of the population suddenly identifying as Trans is absolute bullshit.

Trans people, real trans people, not fetishists have always been very rare, and they do deserve protection. The Gay community has always afforded real Trans people protection and inclusion.

What we’re seeing today is something else entirely, and it is destructive to the rest of the LGB community in that instead of having a cohesive group, that looks out for each other, we’re being divided and subdivided agains and again until no one subgroup has a strong enough voice to actually be heard.

Gays Against Groomers may well be our only voice, and it’s not about banning or marginalizing Trans people. Gays Against Groomers is about not damaging children.

In the course of an afternoon, a child can go from being a fireman, to spaceman, to doctor, to Indian Chief, to policeman. Typically we understand that all of those are possibilities, but wait until the child settles down before handing them a gun, firehose, scalpel, or blasting them into space.

Gays against Groomers is simply saying we should be a lot less quick to pump a bunch of drugs into kids before they have the capacity to understand what it all means.

Somehow it figures that the SPLC would list “normal” LGB people as hateful. 

This kind of irony is comedic and actually pretty sad.

6/14/2024 Update:

The SLPC announced layoffs. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of people! It’s unclear how many people are out the door, but early reports say as many as 60.