Category: Things that make you say hmmm?

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Enough Already!

That’s it! Let’s take all social media platforms down! Yeah I said it!

All podcasts, Twitter, FaceBook, Gab, and all the rest!

I’m sick of seeing yet another self righteous pundit, news organization, or whoever the hell else, BITCHING about people espousing views that they don’t agree with. We’re supposed to be a free country, we’re supposed to have freedom of speech, we’re supposed to respect people whose views are different from our own. RIGHT?

Apparently NOT!

The latest two examples of violation of free speech is this article in Breitbart. Followed by this little gem from The Washington Post.

The Breitbart piece talks about the AP, yeah, you read that right… The Associated Press making the case that Podcasts should be de-platformed due to “incitement” on these podcasts.

The Washington Post article describes Apple being sued in federal court to force Apple to de-platform Telegram. Telegram, don’t ya know is where all the Parler users went after finding out that Parler was going to be screwed over by Amazon Web Services.

Here’s a idea. Shut it all down. Our phone batteries would last longer.

That would have the benefit of keeping all the village idiots in their own villages. If you stop them from talking to each other, you’ll prevent them from gathering steam. You might also have a side benefit that if they never meet, we don’t have to worry about an every increasing number of idiots that we’ll have to put up with and take care of.

Then we have this brilliant Senior News analyst from CNN (Communist News Network) who’s trying to float a balloon about censoring OAN & Newsmax.

Both of which appear to be conservative oriented news broadcasters. I’ve not watched either of them, because by the time I learned about them, I was too disgusted by the way the country was heading after the 2020 election to give a rancid fuck.

This is so similar to the way that the NAZI party came to power I can’t stand it. If they actually taught history in schools today and didn’t sanitize the brutality of various regimes people would know this.

First control the narrative, then control the media, then censor anyone with differing beliefs, cast everyone who doesn’t agree with you as anti-(insert the noun de jour) BLM, ANTIFA, Left, Progressive, Equality, Woman, blah, blah, blah. Then take over the country. Next build the camps, then try the re-education, and finally kill EVERYONE!

But… humanity appears doomed to repeat the horrors of the past.

A couple thousand years from now, in a barren wasteland some guy will find a TESLA buried in the sand. People will oooh and ahhh and decide it’s from Aliens. One curious person in the group will recognize that it was made by humans, be curious about how we fell so far, and the whole process of a civilization crawling out of the muck will start over.

Maybe they’ll get it right the next time.

The fall of America to communism or socialism won’t destroy all civilization. But the pervasive backwards thinking cult of leftism in the world just might.

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Some days I’m just too dark.

mockingtodo20201014.pngThere it is, the “Perky” reminder in my ToDo list saying that I should write something at least in my blog.

It’s overdue too.

Go on you little bastard, mock me!

I’ve tried a couple of different tangents. Trouble is, every time I try to put something on paper it takes a path leading straight to the bowels of hell.

I suppose I’m sick of everything! Although the salacious pictures of Hunter Biden do pique my interest. I’m curious about that 12 minute video… 

By nature, I’m a voyeur so my prurient interest shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.  

Way back in the day I was entirely fascinated by a grainy poor quality video of a 3 way staring a young actor (now famous) that made the rounds on videotape. Even today, the only porn that I can not look away from is of the home grown amateur variety. Much of today’s stylish, scripted, professional porn has become “ho hum” and unfortunately predictable. But the lighting is always awesome!

Along those same lines I’m curious to know what Hunter’s email, video, and pictorial evidence will do to his father’s election chances. 

Oddly enough, I don’t think it will matter one bit.

Joe Biden is under investigation in the Ukraine, has been accused of sexual harassment by Tara Reed, has been caught in at least three other lies where what he claimed was not in fact what was recorded in the public record, and now if the emails found on this computer hard drive are proven to be real he’ll be literally at the center of another scandal.

It won’t matter. He’ll never be subpoenaed, he’ll never be brought to trial, he’ll never answer for any of it.

Hence the blog takes dark turn. Any Republican politician would have already issued the requisite humble apology and been forced to resign. Captains of industry have been destroyed for less. We have police chiefs forced to resign for something their wife tweeted.

Against this backdrop of cancel culture and outrage how can Joe Biden still be a viable candidate? What happened to equality?

If specific targets (Conservatives) can be “Canceled” for these offenses, then everyone can and should be “Canceled” for similar offenses.

There is the crux of it for me. Patent, (dare I say systemic,) inequality. 

Either we are all bound by the same standards, rules, and laws, or none of us are.

If none of us are bound by these things, then why am I wearing a mask in public, not shopping in person, obeying stay at home orders, not looting, or any of the rest of it.

We already have anarchy. I should be out enjoying myself!

See, that’s why you’ll see me skip a few days blogging. It’s actually for your protection…

We’re all in this together!

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Huh, First time I’ve seen that in a while.

About three months ago, I replaced the hard drive in the other half’s computer. I fought with the system to get a functional operating system on the drive but was finally successful and the other half’s computer was suddenly faster and stable.

I thought, “Cool,” and assumed that I wouldn’t have to deal with computer issues for a while. 

Think again! 

This morning, the other half was sitting there in front of the computer with a very puzzled expression. Innocently, I asked, “what’s wrong?”  There are times when you shouldn’t ask questions!

The other half said they’d tried to use the computer just now and were presented with a white screen and that the computer seemed very warm to the touch. I figured it was nothing, a simple hard reset would bring everything back up and then I could go back to beating my head against the wall in the heinous job search.

This was not to be, no amount of cajoling (a.k.a. swearing), incantations, or holding keys down during the boot up process gives me anything but the white screen. I can’t even get to the built-in diagnostics of the system and those are supposed to be in ROM and therefore independent of the hard disk. In other words, I’m wondering if the computer itself is dead because I should be able to get to something that would aid me in the diagnosis of the problem.

Generic SSDAn hour later I’m holding the nifty new SSD drive in my hand, wondering why it “sings” when I try to mount it on my computer. This is a solid state device… There are no moving parts and yet when I plug it in to my system the device very clearly makes a high pitched sound.

At the same time, the device refuses to identify itself to my computer at all. Placing the old hard drive in the other half’s  computer confirms that there is nothing wrong with the computer itself and in fact the machine boots happily.

I contact the manufacturer of the SSD and after a brief discussion am directed to please box up the drive for replacement.  The person I was speaking with (an American) recognized a kindred spirit and was pretty forthcoming. Instead of leading me through all sorts of useless diagnostics (which I’d already done) they responded to my question, “Did I miss anything,” with a laugh and said not that they could tell. 

It was refreshing to not have endless apologies and kow-towing. This was two professionals having a technical discussion about a piece of hardware that had died during what we used to call the infant mortality period. They weren’t defensive and I wasn’t angry sometimes shit like this just happens. It’s inconvenient on both sides but it’s reality and nothing is going to change that reality.

A new drive should arrive on Monday. 

Aside from a slightly long wait on hold dealing with the company was a real pleasure. The long hold time was due to lots of people upgrading their computers who probably shouldn’t have been inside their machines in the first place.  Apparently, a lot of “average” people failed kindergarten blocks and are unable to correctly put oddly shaped plugs into equally oddly shaped sockets. The tech & I had a bit of a laugh over that.

Now, the only problem is getting the OS back on the new drive… 

I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it!

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Interesting

I’ve lived in this area for almost 30 years.

During that time I’ve seen a variety of wild life including snakes from time to time. Prior to this year I’ve seen only one rattlesnake.

This year I’ve seen two in the neighborhood. The first one was in my yard, unfortunately I don’t have a very good photo of it.

Yesterday, I heard some girls screaming that there was a snake. They’re children so as an adult it’s on me to insure they’re not hurt and that they don’t antagonize a snake that could hurt them.

I’m thinking it’s a California King snake, or a Gopher Snake and the girls are just being girls. I was wrong.

The snake had crossed paths, or rather one of the girls had stepped over the snake and it rattled at her. By the time I got there the snake had moved to a defensible position and was alert but not aggressive.

The girls guardians showed up a couple of minutes later, then the discussion about killing the poor thing began.

Generally speaking I’m not in favor of killing creatures just because they happen to exist. As it turns out the “father” shared my general opinion.

What surprised me was the bloodlust of the little girls. They wanted it dead. It had done them no harm, it had warned them to stay away, and appeared to be waiting patiently for the hubbub to die down.

I imagine that it would have left the area of its own accord had it not been for all the humans around.

Probably, if the snake had not been positioned as it was, it would be dead now. The thing is, there was no clear way to strike at it with a shovel or ax that would insure an instant kill. Meaning that if we’d struck at it, we’d have probably just pissed it off and it would have struck at us.

We had a rattlesnake standoff. Myself and the other male were discussing the options when one of the little girls was just rabid about killing it. She kept saying, “Kill it, Kill it,” in an ever increasing volume. Without thinking I said, “If you want something dead that bad, maybe you should be the one prepared to kill it,” and gestured toward her with the trenching tool I was holding.

She suddenly got quiet. I don’t know what was going through her head. I hope that it was the realization that killing anything isn’t trivial. Even if it’s not your hand on the instrument of death. I doubt that’s what she thought, she probably wasn’t old enough to make that kind of connection.

Eventually, one of the neighbors remembered there was someone in town who would relocate snakes to another canyon (unpopulated) so we gave them a call. They weren’t available, but they hooked us up with a lady who was. Twenty minutes later, the snake was safely in a box and heading to a place where it wouldn’t have to deal vicious blood thirsty humans.

The experience left me thinking.

I’ve killed snakes that were an immediate threat. I felt bad about killing ’em but given the circumstances there was no choice.

I’ve killed other creatures and ate ’em, in that situation it was because I was hungry. Even fishing, you’re killing another creature, which means that there’s supposed to be a built in limit.

You kill what you need, you kill whatever it is quickly and humanely, you eat what you kill, and you don’t arbitrarily or wantonly kill more than you need for yourself or your family.

Most men I know subscribe to the same principals. But wait, males are supposed to be the vicious killers aren’t they?

Why then were the little girls and the adult women screeching for blood? Why was it that the males were willing to take a watchful caution?

Had it only been me and the other guy, we’d have probably let the snake go its way and we’d have watched it go back into the forest. Two predator species respecting each other.

Because of the presence of women, we were under pressure to do something, anything, even if what we did was going to make the situation worse.

It occurred to me that almost every conflict I’ve ever been a part of, or witnessed was driven by women. Either the males were trying to impress, or the women were demanding action.

I makes me wonder…

I can understand that women might be genetically predisposed to eliminate any possible threat to their young whether or not the threat is real.

I wonder if men on the other hand, because we’re stronger, and usually have been the ones to get our hands bloody, might have an inherent respect for life & death that goes unacknowledged. We learn early on, that killing is bloody and final. We understand that when we kill, we’ve removed something from the world, on some level we understand that once gone it’s gone forever.

Granted some men acquire a taste for killing but most men I know have a deep respect for life, and don’t take it lightly, or for granted.

It’s strange how simple events get me thinking.

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The Death of Twitter

Twitter has become synonymous with censorship. Facebook is running a close second. Both services have been called to testify before congress and it’s quite possible that one or both have lied under oath. Both services enjoy (Non-Publication) status and both are now drawing the ire of the Senate and some members of the House.

“Lucy, You got some splainin to do!”

Recently due to Twitter’s incessant shadow-banning of Conservative people expressing opinions that are not in lockstep with the established narratives, (Orange man bad. Protests peaceful, etc.) Folks are seeking other alternatives. Their most recent permanent banning of Congressional Candidate Laura Loomer (R) FL, and attempt to prevent the Trump campaign from using their service. has created an exodus from Twitter.

This has been amusing to watch. As conservative voices leave, the leftists find they’re bored with Twitter. After all, if you want to have a conversation, you don’t necessarily want to have it with yourself in an echo chamber.

I still have one Twitter account open, mostly so that I can watch the implosion. Okay, I also look at some of the nude images that are posted daily. Which is funny because supposedly those images are against the Twitter TOS, given that they often show full penetrative sex acts of various stripes.

It’s funny in many ways that saying, “abortion is murder” may get you banned, but images or video of a restrained woman being forced to submit to orally, anally, and vaginally to three men at the same time is okay.

Saying something like, “putting prepubescent children onto hormone therapies to change their gender, is wrong.” will get your account suspended for a while.

If you ask Twitter why, they’ll tell you that you violated the TOS (Terms of Service) by posting hate speech. While at the same time representatives of CAIR can specifically state that they hate all Jews, and call upon the faithful to murder Jews whenever and wherever they can. Similarly BLM and ANTIFA can outright say, “Kill White People”

It’s this kind of one sided enforcement that has driven conservatives specifically, and even moderates away from the platform. Either you’re really all about free speech or you’re not. More people are realizing that Twitter is not about free speech or equality and while they may have been at one time… That time has passed.

There was an article yesterday describing Twitter’s consideration of a subscription model. Several days prior another article noted that Twitter’s earnings were down. That same article also noted that Twitter’s new user count appeared to be fairly consistent while the number of actual users appeared to be dropping.

There is even some feeling that Twitter is attempting to skew the election. I don’t know if there’s actual evidence, or if it’s just hearsay. I can only opine that from personal experience and observation; Twitter is highly biased toward Democrats & Liberals, and against Republicans & Conservatives.

Over at Parler, (another social media platform) they’re having a tough time keeping up with new subscribers and their site is occasionally showing the strain of hundreds of thousands of new users weekly.

Parler, is pretty free and you can say what you like. There are limits of course. Threatening to kill someone will get you booted. But other than egregious things that you shouldn’t put out on a public forum anyway, Parler doesn’t seem interested in silencing the free exchange of ideas, regardless of whose ideas are being espoused.

It’s very much the digital equivalent of carrying your soapbox to the local park and announcing your ideas.

Oddly, there are a lot of liberal lefties showing up on Parler too. (I guess they got tired of screaming in an echo chamber on Twitter.) The conservatives and liberals on Parler do interact.

The liberal left screams about Trump, Abortion, Transrights, or whatever, on Parler and sometimes they’re challenged but most of the time they’re blocked, not by Parler, but by individual users who have no desire to deal with the ranting. Most conservatives and moderates have heard it all before anyway and aren’t likely to change their minds.

Again, similar to the soapbox in the park. No-one is forcing you to stand there in the park listening to the rantings of someone you think is a lunatic. Once you’ve heard enough, you walk away. Walking away is the physical equivalent of blocking someone.

I’ve blocked a number of individuals who were rude, demanded that I validate their position when clearly I didn’t, or who were simply disagreeable to talk to. I’m sure that I’ve been blocked by others, in a similar fashion and for similar reasons.

After all, you gentle reader, know that I’m an acquired taste.

The funny thing is that the liberals are upset when no-one pays them attention and more upset that Parler refuses to take their side in silencing views that they disagree with.

I’ve been watching the diversity of users drop on Twitter and suspect that it will go the way of MySpace or the old computer BBS systems. After all, without at least a little disagreement all conversations get stale and pointless.

I welcome Twitter’s death. It’s time for the little bluebird to crash headlong into the nearest skyscraper.

There was a time when Twitter was open and free. But then some people started getting butt-hurt that they got to read things they found offensive. That started the whole censorship train on Twitter and has brought us to Twitter’s graveside.

Facebook will probably experience something similar in due time. Even Parler at some point will probably follow the same arc. I hope not, but I won’t be surprised.

For the moment, I’m enjoying that Twitter is suffering. I look forward to them declaring insolvency the layoffs, and Jack Dorsey making impassioned pleas for his users to return.