Tag: Things that make you say hmmm?

Posted on

Here we Go Again!

China has created a COVID variant that is more deadly than the previous version. 20X more deadly supposedly. I suppose that means it’s only likely to kill humans 4% of the time or some such. What none of the fear mongering articles answer is does previous COVID-19 exposure and recovery, confer immunity to this particular variant.

China is apparently dealing with some respiratory disease that they claim is not covid but is widespread enough that some of their cities are still operating under covid protocols.

But that doesn’t matter!

Chinese folks are traveling the world for the Lunar New Year. 

Ya know folks… We’ve seen this movie before.

Let’s see:

Disease that causes China to enact quarantine protocol for some cities. CHECK

Election Year in the United States where one candidate is a threat to Chinese hegemony, and the other is a useful empty shell that can be commanded to dance. CHECK

Billions of Chinese travelers flying all over the world like dandelion seeds perhaps carrying the new contagion. CHECK

Bioweapons are expressly prohibited by treaty. The 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibited the use of biological weapons. A supplementary convention was adopted in 1972 that apparently expanded the rules to prevent weasel-wording your way out of having created a bio-weapon.

In other words folks, we’ve known for almost 100 years that biological weapons were a SUPER BAD Idea. Yet, the Chinese military and other militaries around the world are still fucking around with them. 

Biological weapons disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants. They can be deadly and highly contagious. Diseases caused by such weapons would not confine themselves to national borders and could spread rapidly around the world. The consequences of the deliberate release of biological agents or toxins by state or non-state actors could be dramatic. In addition to the tragic loss of lives, such events could cause food shortages, environmental catastrophes, devastating economic loss, and widespread illness, fear and mistrust among the public.

That’s from the UN office for Disarmament Affairs 

I’ve highlighted in blue an interesting passage right from the top of the page.

Not that the UN has any power other than the power to insult or demean Western countries specifically the United States over past transgressions, while member countries castigating the West, are currently engaging in those same activities. Slavery, paging Slavery, Women’s rights, paging Women’s rights. Border enforcement, paging border enforcement…

I personally think the United States should end its affiliation with the United Nations. I think the UN building in New York should be reconfigured as migrant housing, and the United Nations should be asked to relocate to Geneva, or The Netherlands, or a sinking cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic. I really don’t care, as long as these fuckers are off American Soil.

As I’ve said before, I think that if the UN wants to involve the United State Military to solve a dispute, they should pay for our services UP FRONT. Or… they can offer us useful natural resources and commit their non-combatants to farming, mining, or refining those resources. They treat our Military like mercenaries, WE SHOULD BE PAID like mercenaries.

I digress.

The United Nations, like the World Health Organization, is pretty much owned by China. Neither of these organizations are any more interested in the well being of The West, specifically the United States, than Ghingis Khan would be (or the World Economic Forum is). The sooner we understand and accept this simple fact the better off we’ll all be.

For those of you who may have failed English, here’s the simple version:

UN, WHO, WEF, China… ALL ENEMIES. They be bad for us n shit.

The highlighted text should sound very familiar. We’ve lived it over the past three to four years.

Now coincidentally, we have the WEF and the WHO and UN all talking about the “Hypothetical” Disease X [dum dum duuuummm]. Interesting that they’re talking about it and supposedly making plans to “combat” it, while China is apparently building it, and quite possibly, using their people to spread it, world wide.

It would be simple… All the Chinese folks going through security checkpoints or disease checkpoints at airports get spritzed with whatever contagion, They’re not sick when they leave, they’re not sick when they arrive at their destination.

They get sick while they’re on holiday in whatever country they’ve decided to visit contaminating the locals and voila, the desired country is decimated, or if China is really lucky “Cleansed” entirely of the vermin who disagreed with their politics.

We’ve all gotten used to security checkpoints at airports, we’d think nothing of stepping into or through a “Scanner” would we?

The CCP could even use their citizen’s destination as a method to target specific countries. It’s evil beyond belief, but as they say you’ve gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. The same is true of global conquest. So you kill a few hundred thousand of your own people. Big deal!

If their deaths killed millions of your enemy it’s a good trade off. Those of your own who died are “Heroes of the cause”, right? The State can build monuments to their sacrifice and make annual speeches about their dedication to the cause for decades, if not centuries.

Isn’t that how mass murderers and genocidal maniacs justify their actions?

I truly hope that I’m wrong, and that China won’t use a bioweapon to interfere in our election process. (Again?) but the pattern seems just a little too close. March 11th 2020 was when the WHO declared COVID-19 a WorldwidePandemic. March 11th 1918 was the Influenza pandemic a bit over 100 years prior. I’m not going to be surprised to hear the WHO declare March 11th, 2024 a Disease X pandemic. 

When some people with rudimentary education in science (real science) say, “Wait, pandemics usually only happen every 100 years or so.”

The response will be, “MORON CLIMATE CHANGE has accelerated the cycle. Now you dumb science deniers shut up and get to the back of the fucking bus! We must pray to Sol. Perhaps the sun god will charge our bus enough to deliver you to the work camp.”

Those who question the narrative will be immediately and possibly permanently silenced, (aside from a recording of Bumbling Joe Biden explaining, “You’re being shot because corn pop uhhh well I’m a working guy from scranton, and uhh, uhhh, uhhh, white supremacy!” ) Then momentary M-16 fire.

The Media will say it’s, “For the Greater Good, and our Safety and Security.“

Thus ends The Republic. With not even a whimper heard in the darkness.

As I said, I really hope I’m wrong. But the similarities in the set up are spooking even a nasty asshole like me!

Posted on

Maybe AI will be a good thing.

Bear with me!

I was on the phone with some utility… I don’t remember who. Who can? Their phone prompts sounded just like Apple’s, and every other “Helpful Automated Phone system.”  None of which are helpful to me at all.

In that moment while I was grinding my teeth listening to a bunch of choices that I didn’t want, and having the system telling me, “I didn’t understand what you’re asking for, so let’s try again…”

I thought, “I don’t want or need to deal with this frustration in my life,” in addition to the frustration of whatever problem was serious enough for me to call this Servicer Company in the first place.

Yeah, I’m getting right back to acting like a Nebari. Folks this ain’t gonna be pretty. 

“Servicer, here is the account number, I don’t care what your name is, I don’t choose to give you my name, I give the commands – You execute the commands. That is the extent of our relationship.”

I gotta admit there are some fictional races from science fiction that have really stuck with me. The Nebari from FarScape, The Romulans from StarTrek, The Omecs and the Indogenes from Defiance. There are others, Predators and Aliens for example, and still more which are the stuff of nightmares. 

I think the Nebari stick with me most because they simply “KNOW” they’re right. I identify with the kind of arrogance!

Anyway, my point is that I’m not going to willingly talk to automated phone systems anymore. I don’t as a rule use a company’s website for anything except the simplest of things and these days the list of simple things is dwindling as well. It’s gotten to the point that some websites won’t show you your bill without 97 factor authentication.

If I’ve already set up multi-factor authentication, then let’s do it! Stop changing the protocol such that my stored passwords are no longer functional and my stored user ID is locked out.

Does no-one test their software anymore prior to shoving it down a captive population’s throat?

Due to the ever increasing complexity of corporate phone trees, and the ever decreasing return on my investment of time to get something done I’ve started going to the branches of the corporations in question.

I will no longer be a faceless, imaginary, easily ignored, person. Oh they’re going to have to see me, hear me, and if I’ve been working in the yard… smell me!

If they point out that they have phone and web services I’m going to show them my smart phone or watch and loudly explain that I choose to be a physical pain in their asses because satisfaction cannot be had via their corporate phone or web site. 

I want to see them CRY!

As this particular train of thought derailed in my mind, it occurred to me that AI living on the Web might meet its demise not through corrupted use but through lack of use. AI could be the death of the internet, or at least a driving force in humankind choosing to use the internet less.

For years, there have been “news” sites on the internet that read like the old tabloid publications from the grocery checkout lines. Within the last 15 years or so, even so-called “reputable” news sites have become nothing more than replicators of a single story with a paragraph or two of “Original” material serving as an “Analysis” of the original item that is being reposted.

The same thing is happening on the major broadcast news sites too if you think about it.

The only changes there are the talking heads, and a slightly different spin to appear non-homogeneous but the underlying story is exactly the same shit.

That’s why a lot of people are disconnecting their cable feeds and going back to antennas or just the internet.

Why pay for the exact same take on every single news article from 50 news channels when an antenna can pull the same garbage right off the air for free?

See I just saved you $200 a month. You’re welcome!

I’ve been noticing for years that people “Writing” are actually dictating their articles. I’ve also noticed that they’re not always proofreading their articles. (Yes, I know I’m the kettle calling the pot black. I however am not a trained journalist. I also don’t dictate my pieces, I actually type them. Although sometimes the autocorrect systems “Help” me really fuck up a word I’ve spelled incorrectly.)

Lately I’ve been noticing AI generated output. I’m looking for an example because like an idiot I didn’t save what I was reading when I noticed the Artificial-ness  (I know, the word is “artificiality”, ) of the article. I went with “Artificial-ness so I wouldn’t be called racist for using actual English words correctly. Apparently having a vocabulary these days is in fact a demonstration of white privilege, a micro aggression, and completely racist. So you may notice me giving myself a lobotomy from time to time…

I digress, AI generated articles are interesting and noticeable. I can’t really describe what the tip off is, I can only say you’ll know it when you see it.

The text is just “off”, and the conclusions of the piece are skewed in an odd way. It’s rather like reading something that’s been passed through Google Translate© several times. The construction is prefect but the meaning is ambiguous or lost entirely. 

Admittedly, there are some articles that are very subtly non human. I’ve noticed that I don’t enjoy reading them. In the case of some “scientific” articles the lead is buried completely.

For Example, there’s an archeological site in Turkey that was thought to be a “One Off” religious site not an example of a civilization. The site is called Göbekli Tepe and dates to somewhere between 10 and 12 thousand years and was intentionally buried.

10 to 12 thousand years ago, Humanity was supposed to be loosely aggregated bands of small semi-agricultural hunter gatherer villages, there was no civilization as defined by archeologists. That’s why the site is called a “one off” religious site and Archeologists breathed a sigh of relief that they didn’t have to explain the sophistication of the site as anything other than religious fervor. 

Then a second site called Karahan Tepe, using the same architecture, and also buried intentionally was discovered 10-20 miles away. Then a third site may have been discovered in the same general area, 10-20 miles from the first two sites, which has yet to be excavated but appears to have the same architectural elements.

We’re talking about a heretofore undiscovered civilization that pushes humanity’s civilization period 5000 years back in time. That’s a big deal! Archeologists are having to rethink civilization and how long humans have been capable large scale coordinated building projects and why.

Interestingly, this discovery also reopens the question of age of the Sphinx. The Egyptian authorities have steadfastly maintained that the Sphinx was built by the Egyptian civilization not an older civilization. The weathering on the sphinx enclosure and the sphinx itself indicate that the sphinx is approximately 12000 years old. Egyptian authorities have denied this age because it predates the Egyptian civilization of the Nile by around 6000 years. 

They’ve been able to maintain their denial because there was no evidence of other civilizations from 10-12 thousand years ago.

Until now.

The AI version of this information was “A site has been discovered in Southern Turkey which has a similar age and building style to Göbekli Tepe, a neolithic site of interest.”

The AI version went on to discuss the original site, and that it was thought to be a Temple Complex for an unknown religion.  The article details the original sites discovery date and makes vague reference to the detailed bass reliefs carved into the stones. 

What the AI articled failed to point out was finding a second site and potentially a third site with the same architecture and artwork isn’t what is typically associated with neolithic people. You might get some petroglyphs on cave walls but you don’t typically get freestanding stones with bass relief depictions of local wildlife, fantasy/mythology creatures,  and humans.

AI doesn’t have soul. AI isn’t going to be fascinated by discoveries. While AI might connect the RAW data, as in this case, AI will not recognize the significance. AI will ultimately produce something that is factually correct but lacks excitement. 

I think that a lot of people will stop using AI because of its lack of excitement in discovery. 

How many people do you know that call utility companies to talk to the helpful people personality phone tree?

One can hope that people with brains will be unimpressed with AI and the technology will be relegated to the pile of interesting ideas that didn’t really pan out.

Fingers crossed! Otherwise the internet is going to become really dull, boring, and extremely annoying to use. Sort of like attempting to contact your local utility company.

Posted on

On the plus side…

Screenshot 2023 11 13 at 8 05 22 AMIn Wauwatosa, WI there won’t be any Palestinian flags flying in city buildings.

This is true for at least the Christmas season. You see, a memo from a Wisconsin deputy city administrator discouraged employees from putting up “religious decorations” in “red and green colors” for the holidays in public buildings in order to be “inclusive.”

You have to love ill thought out edicts with unintended consequences!

Since Red and Green are used in Christmas Decorations. Or so the theory goes, Christmas is offensive to some people and can’t be celebrated. Red and Green are also used in the Palestinian Flag, Most African Flags, and of course the flag of Italy.

So tell me again, how this is inclusive???

What this deputy city administrator really wanted to say was, “Hey Christians Fuck you and your Christmas Trees, traditions, and decorations,”  She just didn’t have the guts to say it out loud or in print.

This was directed at employees decorating their cubicles. With “Open Office” floor plans it’s likely that the cubicles are visible from public areas and are therefore considered public areas.

The last place I worked, we could decorate the hell out of the place for Halloween. But we couldn’t do elaborate decorations for Christmas. It was the same thinking… We had Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and people from every religious persuasion in the building. Christmas decorations could offend those other people so they were muted.

The funniest thing was that the practitioners of Wicca were the happiest folks in the building because everyone went wild over Halloween. That being the only holiday that wasn’t frowned upon. Even the Fourth of July was frowned upon because there were workers from other countries in the building.

I’ll grant you, this is a small thing. But it’s another annoyance, and I think an attempt to wipe Christianity and possibly American values, from America. 

I really miss the elaborate decorations in malls at Christmas. When I was a child shopping with my parents, the decorations made the time of year magical. As an adult myself, shopping for family and friends, the decorations made me smile and actually enjoy being trampled, in over crowded Southern California malls.

Over time, those beautiful elaborate decorations became muted, and watered down, the last time I was in a favored mall the decorations seemed “phoned in”. There was no joy in them, and many were obviously shop worn, not having been replaced for many years.

I think this trend is not inclusive at all.

Inclusion would be, “Hi, come on in, join us in our fun and revelry. Let’s brighten up this dark time of year. You don’t have to believe in my religion to participate, you’re welcome all the same. Where are you from? How can I make you feel welcome?”

This “inclusivity” is actually exclusion. It eliminates a situation where respectful questions get asked, and people smile at each other more. A time when people share favorite foods, family recipes, and sweets, enjoying it all together and putting aside differences.

This inverted “Inclusion” spawns nothing but low level resentment and demonstrates that some are apparently MORE included than others. Some are more important because they can’t have any possibility of their feelings being hurt.

Honestly, that’s the birth of resenting “Snowflakes”. If you’re so weak in your beliefs, culture, sexuality, or whatever, that you have to be protected at the expense of everyone else’s method of going about their lives…

You’re going to be disliked. Not because of your beliefs, but because you disrupt and prevent others from pursuing happiness in their way.

It begs the question, why is group X,Y, or Z more important than all the rest of us? How do they rate and why?

I wonder if some people seeking answers to those kind of questions find themselves harboring resentment that blossoms into hatred. In their search for inclusion do these folks join hate groups that they would never have considered had they not been excluded by “Inclusion”.

It’s just a theory. I honestly hope I’m wrong. I do wonder though, if we stripped away all the sophistry and spoke what we really felt and thought without fear, would a majority of us admit we felt excluded from society by the never ending inclusivity movement? It’s just a thought.

Merry Christmas to Wauwatosa, WI.

To anyone working for the city of Wauwatosa, WI who might be proud of their African, Italian, or Palestinian heritage… Y’all will need to put the flags in your cubicles away until after Jan 1st!

Posted on

Obviously MEN are better at everything!

Men are better at Sports. We’re better at women’s and men’s sports hands down.

Men are winning Women of the year awards and all we have to do is what we already do best. Dress like a woman and apply makeup better than women do. I’ll admit the tuck and duct tape might be a bit uncomfortable but hey we’re better at dealing with pain too.

Men are stronger, better cooks, painters, drivers, clothing designers, and shoes designers too, (Think Jimmy Cho)!

Men are better at war, science, healing, diplomacy, computer science, and really anything you can name. Obviously, men should be paid more than women!

Most of us can write our initials (some of us our whole names,) in piss, on walls and in sand or snow. How many women can do that? Women don’t think that’s cool, but lots of proud CIS men think it’s cool.

Once artificial wombs are working we’ll be better at reproduction too. Why? Because we have X and Y chromosomes. In the event that women ever become necessary again we have the ability to make them.

Why bother? Women are bad at everything.

Remember that God originally built only Adam. Adam was lonely so God built Eve from Adams rib. If God had built Steve instead of Eve, then perhaps the whole mess with the tree of knowledge and the serpent could have been avoided.

Wake UP PEOPLE!

This is the kind of stupid crap that we were supposed to have eradicated 30 years ago. Yet here we are again. What’s next? Will we force women back into the kitchen to be barefoot and pregnant?

Come on! Stop acting like men dressing like women and taking awards away from Ladies who worked their asses off for them is okay.

This shit isn’t right and we all know it. Stop being afraid to call it out.

If something isn’t right and it’s obviously hurting a select group, aren’t we supposed to speak up and fix the problem? The problem here is asshole men who want 5 minutes in the spotlight because they couldn’t rank against other men, so they beat the shit out of Women in sports and other awards.

Oh, Ladies, the men who stand up against this dumb assed shit, will really need your help and guidance… You know sometimes we’re like bulls in china shops. We need a soft hand on the shoulder with a soft kind voice, letting us know when it’s time to stop.

Posted on

Here we are in November. I wasn’t going to blog today…

I’ve got to run a couple of errands. Then it’s back to the house to try to get something done.

Last week I was pretty productive. Then the weekend hit and I haven’t felt like doing a damn thing. It’s getting cold, and for some reason the house feels colder than usual. 

On the plus side, Jesse has taken to sleeping cuddled up next to me. I think he’s worried about his dignity, so when we first go to bed, he’s at the foot of the bed looking out the sliding glass door. Then sometime during the night after I’m asleep he stretches out with his head tucked against my chest. I’ve promised him that I won’t tell other dogs that he sleeps cuddled up next to me.

God forbid that he’d tip his paw about actually liking me!

I’ll admit I like waking up with him next to me.

Both of us slept late today, and we’ve both been sleeping later in general. I’m pretty sure it has to do with the sun. This time of year, the sun doesn’t make it above the mountains to the east until late in the morning. In summer, the sun rises and starts blasting into the bedroom about 5:45 am. This time of year, all you get is an orange band resting on the eastern mountains. It’s very easy to turn off the alarm and just go back to sleep.

IMG 2877The master bedroom never gets direct sunlight from fall through spring.

You can tell time watching the sunlight move up the line made by the wash. The wash itself points almost due north. The shadows cast by the mountains onto the banks of the wash mark the passing of the day. It’s not actually an earthen works sundial but after having been here for so long, I can ballpark the time of day from how much of the wash is in shadow, and which bank, the light is falling on.

I was thinking about the issue of moving. When I had the apartment in San Diego, the bedroom didn’t get light until afternoon. This was a problem because I had to be in bed by 8pm to get up for work at 3am. The room, indeed the whole apartment got, and stayed hot in springtime and summer. The winter sunlight barely hit my apartment so the place was cold as heck. The upshot is that I had to run the heat or air almost all the dang time.

I was thinking about specifications for a new place I’d like to live. I thought perhaps having a master bedroom window facing east would be good. I could wake with the sun, and the room wouldn’t be baking all day so perhaps I wouldn’t have to run the air all the time just to be able to sleep.

I just realized something else. I prefer to have the windows open. I like breezes and the smell of grass, flowers, and rain. This house for example almost always has the windows open in spring and summer. (Unless crazy pants is screaming, or the flood control folks are driving dump trucks, bulldozers, or graders, up and down the street, or the jackass up the road is cutting and grinding metal or running a chain saw at 10PM.)

Still, even with all of those annoyances, we kept the windows open most of the time. The neighbors would open their windows when the other half was practicing harp or piano. Sound carries quite well here. The mountains form a natural amphitheater. It seems too big to be an amphitheater but you’d be impressed at how small sounds echo up and down the canyon.

That suggests that where I go to live should be in a more temperate zone. Northern Florida almost but not quite fits the bill. I think further north might be a better fit for me personally. I have been very surprised at certain friends reactions when I mention that I’m considering or have considered FL.

Almost universally they’re against FL. It’s very strange. When I remind people that I was born and raised in FL until I was 14, the response is, “well you’re different,”

Different from what, I wonder.

Then I remember the continuous hit jobs the media has done on Florida, from the COVID panic to DeSantis running for President. Absolutely nothing Florida does wins the approval of the media. Although, a whole lot of the people of Florida seem pretty damn happy. 

If the media would stop for a minute, get past their bias, and really look at Florida objectively… Well they’d be ashamed of themselves if they had any shame left.

In the media, Floridians are almost universally lambasted as ignorant redneck doofuses. Everyone in Florida drives monster trucks with confederate flags. Everyone is white and racist. (Most of the white people in Miami came from New York… so New Yorkers are racist by that measure…)

It’s gotten to the point that rather than fight it, Florida is having some kind of “Florida Man” festival where it looks like they’re going to lay claim to the caricature the media have created. Knowing Floridians, they’re going to blow the caricature way out of proportion as a huge middle finger to the rest of the country that loves to badmouth the state. I’d also say that many of the Floridians want everyone in the big cities thinking Florida is dangerous, because it keeps the real shitheads from visiting or God forbid moving to Florida.

Florida and Floridians are not what the media says they are. I personally think that Florida is badmouthed all the time simply because Trump lives there. And wherever Trump is ALLOWED to live, must by definition, be simply awful. There’s a whole lot of really weird shit regarding Trump. I’m still blown away by how much venom is spewed his way and how so many people are willing to look the other way when his rights as a person are taken away. There is a lot that is simply wrong on its face.

None of this is why I’m hesitant to move to Florida.

I want four seasons, and occasional snowfall. I want a little more property than most of the Florida homes for sale have around them. Well, at least in my price range… How is it, if Florida is such a shit hole that the home prices have shot through the roof and indeed the availability of homes in the state is constrained? 

Even northern Florida, might be a little too hot for me to be really comfortable with the windows open. As I said, I like having the windows open. That being said, I might still spend a month in Northern Florida before I make a final decision about where I want to live.

It’s got to pass the Jesse test too. He’s probably going to last about as long as I do. I know I don’t have another move in me. Once I get where I’m going, I’m probably going to be there until I die. Not to be all Egyptian about it, but he & I will likely kick off about the same time.

I was thinking about moving someplace based on the governor, or the state legislature but realized that was only temporary. Governors come and go, legislatures change too. I’ve decided that I’ll choose my next home based on the general population. 

It’s people that vote and make a state a good place or a bad place. The majority of California’s people are bordering on socialist / communists and the state reflects that. The majority of Florida’s people are conservative, constitutionalists, obey the law, ain’t nothing free, capitalists, and the state reflects that. I’m way more comfortable with the latter. Having decided that, it’s a matter of degree. 

Where on the scale between Blue (Communist Leaning) California, and say a super RED state like Florida, Wyoming, Montana, or South Dakota do I want to live?

Were It not for the winters in Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota, (and their house prices,) I’d consider them. Problem is, I just don’t want to do harsh winters. I’m too old to really enjoy them. The snowy winters where I live now are too much. Visiting Wyoming or Montana might be something I’ll plan to do in Spring or Fall.

I don’t know… I’d like to have a destination in mind before I put the house on the market. I think I’ll be spending this Winter, sorting and tossing stuff in preparation for getting out of California.

I’ve gotten to the point where getting rid of stuff doesn’t seem like I’m violating the memories of the other half and our life together. I guess that’s what grieving is about. You have to come to peace with the loss and let the wound heal in its own time. The healing can’t be rushed or forced. You’ll know you’re there when tossing junk your other half just had to have, no longer has an impact on you. When it’s just stuff, you’re nearly there…

I’ve wandered all over the map for a post I never intended to write.

I Promise, I’ll try to do better. But when we move to DST, expect some really wonky posts. 

Time Changes and I do not get along!