I’ve been light posting lately. This isn’t an accident. There are two main reasons.
The first is that winter is kicking my ass. The fact that the calendar says March while I’m still plowing February level snow is proof of that. Lugging yet another jug of diesel across the ice to my tractor so I can plow yet another round of snow that’s drifting like the fucking Sahara of doom really does take it out of you. I’m beat!
The second is more philosophical; I’m trying to post as I wish to be. If it’s merely negative or it’s shit you don’t need it from me. You can get it elsewhere. The internet is doing just fine at hyperventilating without my help. Jumping up and down pointing at the dumpster fire saying “There it is! It sucks!” doesn’t seem necessary.
Y’all know. Y’all just lived through the COVID panic. You either understand or you’re trying hard to not understand. Instead of bitching about the eleventh stupid thing to happen since yesterday I’m wisely checking out until some level sanity returns.
I’ll give you an example that has absolutely nothing to do with our current president who got more votes than any other candidate in American history. I’m interested in economics. I actually like studying it. I used to post about the federal debt. Then I stopped. I didn’t stop last year or last week. I stopped (more or less) when it was a done deal. Sometime in the second Obama administration the largest debt ever amassed in human existence went beyond my own personal event horizon. I can’t remember the exact number (perhaps ten trillion)? I came to the realization that it could not be resolved in a normal non-destructive manner and therefore it would be resolved in a big messy shitstorm. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
That was probably 10 years ago or more. Frankly I’ve enjoyed these last many years of whistling past the graveyard. I even got a good chuckle out of about three years of booming economy during the post “Hillary wasn’t coronated” shitstorm and pre-plandemic shitstorm. I couldn’t have enjoyed that respite if I’d been too focused on the inevitable doom. Maybe we have a few more years left, maybe we don’t. But I’m not going to fret about it on my blog. The timing is uncertain but the destination is known; so lets talk about sailboats and trees instead.
That’s why two (or is it three now?) banks going tits up didn’t merit much response. Why would it? Why comment on what we all knew that would happen? We all know what will eventually happen. No need for me to bitch about it. It’s not a new concept. I’ll post when I have a ray of sunshine in my heart.
Which brings me to part 2.
Part 2: Play It Loud!
I haven’t paid attention to the band Extreme. I had not the slightest clue that Nuno Bettencourt was a guitar God. But I just heard a song that absolutely set me back on my heels!
I want to share it with you. What a breath of fresh air! In a world where autotune bitch music oozes from the earbuds of empty headed drones en masse, I have found another of the very few who can shred. Hendrix and Satrani and Skwisgaar (and some others) have a new member at the table!
This may be the coolest thing I hear in 2023.
Warning! If you can’t do heavy metal, this may hurt. If you’re Boomerishly incapable of liking anything newer than the Beatles… run! If you think Garth Brooks is the apex of music… bail out! If you think that hippie upstart Bach went overboard with Toccata and Fugue in D minor… hurl your computer out the window. You’ve been warned. If this isn’t for you, that’s fine. Accept there are places you can’t go and leave the path unexplored.
Those of us who aren’t dead yet should take it in like it was meant to be experienced. Do the whole dose! Slam it down! Don’t half-listen while writing up your TPS reports. Do yourself a favor and grant yourself five minutes to a single purpose. Turn off the phone, tell everyone to shut up, crank up your speakers, and listen.
Let this be a reminder of a different level of engagement. The cell phone dancing monkey that can’t sit still for even one single song will miss the blast zone.
It’s four and a half minutes. You aren’t doing anything that important. Experience it properly. Shut out every distraction. Let it happen. When the two phase guitar solo hits you’ll thank me.
Whenever everyone seems to be in the thrall of serial panic attacks I check out. I invite you to do the same. Nothing good comes from following the herd. Allowing oneself to be manipulated or stampeded is a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Doubt me? Remember when misplaced classified paperwork started coming out of Joe Biden’s ears? Remember how that very week a giant Chinese spy balloon materialized in Montana? Remember how the balloon teabagged the continental United States for several days? What happened with the paperwork? You forgot about the paperwork didn’t ya’?
Whenever enough people stop to think they begin to discover uncomfortable things. As soon as enough people wonder too much, like maybe whether the CDC was a good faith source of information about masks… oh look! The Ukraine is winning, or losing, or the whole thing is about to go nuclear, or whatever… Stop thinking and look at the shiny thing!
Don’t fall for it. Keep your feet where they belong, on the muddy earth of the real world.
I’m still pinned down in the long winter of the northland but I understand weather cycles like Al Gore doesn’t. Winter won’t last forever. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, “in the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of lovemotorcycles.”
In efforts to reduce my daily dosage of dipshits, and in joyous embrace of nearly forgotten youthful simplicity, I’ve been returning more and more to nature. Spring, fall, and summer are when that’s easiest. While everyone hid from each other over Covid and then rushed to bunch up cheek by jowl in a mosh pit to righteously torch Portland, I was elsewhere.
I’d been rambling aimlessly on Honey Badger, my cheap and delightful Yamaha TW200. (I’ve also done overdue maintenance on my cruiser, a Honda Shadow nearly old enough for classic plates in some states. Unfortunately, the cruiser has been mostly ignored while I bounce over tree stumps on the brash little shitbox of the Yamaha. Who knew a farm bike could be so much fun?)
A TW200 isn’t perfect for all things. It does moderately low highway-ish speeds like a politician tells the truth. It can do 55 MPH but it’s painful and noisy and you can tell the bike would rather be beaten with sticks. To ameliorate this, I got in the habit of trailering the little bike behind my behemoth truck. I’d tank up with diesel (quite expensively given the Bidenverse’s fuel prices) and drag my long suffering utility trailer with it’s small cargo to nowhere important. I’d park and spend my evenings happily camping (enjoying the novelty of bulky, heavy camping gear). During the day I’d zip around the forests more or less for free (the TW gets roughly 80 MPG).
Unfortunately, the utility trailer has had a hard life; not the least of which was me mounting my sailboat on it and driving it into a lake as if it were a boat trailer. It’s pretty shot and I didn’t dare take it far. It will soon find its way to trailer Valhalla. Despite still being trapped in the time of snowdrifts and ice, I’ve been shopping for a new motorcycle trailer. Don’t sweat it, I’ve got a line on one. I’ll post details in due time.
With a good trailer the concern of distance fades. New options appear. I can trailer 100 miles, or 1,000 miles. It’s all the same. From wherever I go I can setup base camp and have Honey Badger adventures. I don’t care if politics drives the world into the dark ages, I’ve got a fun summer planned!
I dream. But if I dream of what can actually be done, I can make it happen. What a C90 or a CT125 can do, a TW200 can do. Why not?
But lets step back a bit. I’m a busy guy and there’s a lot of logistics in such an endeavor. Time to take it easy and test the waters slowly. Mostly, I’ve grown attached to my luxurious Dodge carried cot. I love that cot! A TW200 trip will have me sleeping on the dirt again and that’s a thing that one might transition to slowly. Maybe a few mild overnighters.
Be it resolved, I shall trailer to somewhere obscure and try a few mild overnighters.
While happily pondering the ultra-small gear I’d need to ride a pipsqueak farmbike into places most people won’t go (like the middle of some desert or in a swamp), I forgot other options. Thankfully, I stumbled across HerTwoWheels, which reminded me of tamer options for my very reliable and much larger cruiser:
A Harley? No shit! Lots of people camp from cruisers (and I’ve done it myself) but for some reason I hadn’t considered such a thing. I’ve been riding Honey Badger in swamps that would eat a Harley and spit out parts… and that gave me blinders to forget there’s a whole world of pavement out there. My Shadow is functionally the same as a basic Harley bagger (I would say better but that’s a discussion for another day). If a Harley can do it then a Shadow can. (Assuming I manage that “sleep on the ground” issue.)
Also, HerTwoWheels makes a point about going solo. I ride solo too. Always. Oddly, modern people (maybe it’s an always thing and not a modern thing?) never do anything solo. Except me, of course. It’s a nice reminder to see HerTwoWheels do the occasional campout on her own. (I should also mention The Emporium Outdoors does his thing with anything from an Argo to a brand new Jeep but he does it accompanied only by his photogenic dog. TDubsKid also rides and camps solo. Ed March is an entirely different critter altogether. He’s his own entire universe of self-reliance and could probably carry his bike on his shoulders if he had to.)
So now, one idea has turned to two; and perhaps many.
What will happen? I’ve no idea. Frankly I hadn’t budgeted for anything too extravagant in 2023. Yet the mind builds ideas that I’ll presumably indulge in due time.
I know what can be done with what I’ve got; and it’s plenty. My logistics look good (this is not by accident). I like to ponder what shenanigans I could cook up with two very different motorcycles, an unstoppable tow rig, and a solid reliable trailer. I’m not sure where this leads but I feel like it’s gonna’ be great!
It’s still winter. Nothing is set in stone. But in a fit of optimism I dug a path to the bikes (which are in cold storage behind a snowdrift). I pushed the little one into my workshop (which is also unheated) so I can start changing the oil and other needful things.
“Goodness Dude when you say you’re OUT you almost mean it.”
I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks. I inadvertently checked out longer than planned. Was that unwise? Has the preceding demoralizing progression of stupid events yielded to a more thoughtful current situation?
Ha! Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it!
Everything that happened the last two weeks is exactly what was going to happen. Due to the low caliber of participants, they could do no other.
Aside from more information coming out that proves what we already knew and a mildly funny joke by Woody Harrelson (that freaked out the left), nothing surprising has happened.
No major player has changed tune, learned, grown, or improved. Jerks can’t learn because to learn is to accept your inherent imperfection. All humans occasionally fail, most of us understand that. The current crop believes they’re flawless. (Ask them. They’ll tell ya’ how excellent they are even after a lifetime without evidence they’ve done a single thing right.)
Our current crop of dipshits don’t live in or deal with reality. They follow the story of their internal narrative. They’re never wrong. Every bad thing was caused by an Orange real estate guy from New York. They refuse to accept incoming data.
Can you imagine playing poker against Biden? The minute he says “no joke” or starts that weird whispering thing I’d know he’s bluffing. I’d raise like hell and I’d keep doing it. Biden is utterly incapable of folding. He’s never once said “I tried action A but it didn’t work so I changed to action B”. I’d Corn Pop his ass into bankruptcy.
As for my blog? It’s ok to “check out” right now. Idiots intend to drive into walls and there’s not much point in standing by the wall to witness the mess.
Here goes a summary of two weeks of stupid..
The things everyone knew to be true are turning out to be true:
Evidence is now clear that COVID came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I welcome new members to the club of “knowledge that the rest of us had in 2020”.
Ivermectin is no longer dangerous horse medicine that’ll kill ya’. Way to get in front of that true fact.
People who wished to subjugate the un-vaxed are still mentioning “forgiveness”. They’re still not getting it. I won’t forgive them because they don’t actually seek forgiveness. “We did nothing wrong but wish you’d forget about it.” People that behaved abominably were “tricked” and want to “put it behind them”. No! What have they done to stop being the kind of person that gets tricked? What has changed that they’re unwilling to commit atrocity in 2023 but you were willing in 2020? They don’t want forgiveness. They want to escape mild, unenforced, and theoretical repercussions of behaving monstrously. The only reason I’m not unemployed, forcibly jabbed, bankrupt, shot, or imprisoned is because they couldn’t pull it off. Anyone who was bleating on social media that they hoped all the bikers in Sturgis would die of COVID is a flat out asshole. They did evil, they wanted it, they enjoyed it, and they will do it again as soon as they can.
Evidence is now clear that masks did nothing. Also the sky is blue.
Even the most deeply entranced Kool-aid drinker are starting to get a picture of the COVID mess. Remember when people who’d had COVID were forced to get the shot and natural immunity was censored as “misinformation”? Everyone now knows natural immunity is just as good as the vax.
Everyone is slowly understanding that Twitter, Facebook, Google, and the rest of social media were manipulated. Welcome to the party folks! Stay tuned while I continue to ignore social media. On a related note, everyone who figures TikTok is spy software is wondering how long it’ll take everyone else to figure it out.
Everyone now accepts that the Hunter Biden laptop is real. Remember the 51 spies who lied about that? Fuckers!
Everyone who doubts recent elections still does. Everyone who doesn’t is feeling queasy and would rather talk about sports. Doubting an election in 2016 was good but doubting one in 2020 is criminal. It wears them out.
January 6th is still the nothingburger it always was. Video is slowly trickling out. America has political prisoners now. I don’t like living in a nation with political prisoners. Every minute of video that trickles out is good.
Inflation continues. Our political leaders deliberately perform actions that cause inflation. The initial cover story was that inflation didn’t exist, then it was transitory, then it was no big deal. By election season inflation be a good thing.
We still have no border enforcement. We spend more money protecting Kiev than El Paso.
Ohio still has a polluted train wreck. It’s funny that Trump got there before Buttigieg. It’s funny that Biden will never show up. It’s also irrelevant. It’s already polluted. I have no idea how bad it will be. I’ve grown suspicious of “it’s so polluted everyone will die”. I suspect everyone will just get used to it a lower quality environment.
The US still bombed the Nordstream pipeline. Evidence is coming out that makes it harder to deny we did it. I especially don’t like this. People who bomb civilian infrastructure of their allies are not the good guys. Committing a crime specifically to reduce the chances of peace negotiations is extra bad. Germany was tempted to settle with Russia to access cheap energy in the winter. Sabotaging peace overtures is flat out evil.
On schedule the balloons/UFOs fad ran out. Once American jets shot down a $30 HAM hobbyist balloon over Canadian airspace the topic was dead. (I wonder why Canada needed an American jet?)
Epstein is still dead. Ghislaine Maxwell is still in jail. One alleged and one convicted of trafficking sex workers… who were victimized by nobody.
That’s my abridged summary of things irretrievably fated to happen.
There are two predictable events I’d like to address in detail:
John Fetterman, was elected while incapable of serving his job duties. He is still incapable of doing his job duties. Just look at that freak! Would you want him as your surgeon or lawyer. Would you let him babysit your kids? Would you leave him alone in your house? Would you take a long road trip with him? Would you go hiking, alone, on a remote trail… with that!?!
That photo is from before he had a stroke. It’s posed! That’s Fetterman in peak form!
Pennsylvania elected Fetterman after he’d had a stroke:
Now he’s in the hospital. Supposedly he has “depression” but it doesn’t matter what malady put him down. He started out too damn messed up to be a Senator he’s still too messed up. He never belonged in that role.
Depression sucks. Having a stroke sucks. It cuts down what you can do. Whitewater rafting is out. Chess competitions are out. Senator is out. If you’re too addled to figure it out, someone who cares ought to help you understand. Nobody can be a Senator if they’re not intellectually capable of being a truck driver or a tax accountant or a cook. It was cruel to put him in a high stress job. He was stupid to go along with it.
Elect a mess, get a mess. Fetterman’s health is never going to be better than the zombie that campaigned.
Meanwhile, the press says Biden is as fit as a fiddle! (Note: If Biden needs a lift then install one. Nobody cares if the president needs a wheelchair provided his mind works. Then again Biden’s mind ain’t what it once was either. He was fried when he campaigned in abstentia and he’s fried now. Elect a mess, get a mess.)
Everything in Ukraine proceeds exactly as it was going to proceed.
Among the many accomplishments of our record-breaking vote getting, super-popular president, is war in Ukraine. How’s it going?
It wasn’t going well two weeks ago. Today, it’s exactly the same but with more dead people. Check in two weeks from now and it’ll be exactly the same.
Remember the old days when one of two American parties was anti-war? Remember their endless bitching for decades? Between Vietnam and 2008 it never ended. Suddenly the lefty anti-war movement evaporated when George Chimpy McHitler Bush was replaced by Barak God Among Men Obama. No shit! I was there. I saw it. One week it was “no blood for oil” and the next week it was “Obama’s in charge, we’re cool with war now. Shut up and buy an electric car.” I honestly miss genuine peaceniks. (I don’t miss useful idiots who only protest wars that involve the party of R.) Peace protesters might be dumb but they had a moral framework. I live in a world where lefties (of all people!) will keep war going until the last Ukrainian soldier falls.
Since day one the American press has reported Russia is on the verge of collapse. Russia keeps not collapsing. Remember those first few weeks when plucky Ukrainian farmers were picking fighter jets out of the sky with deer rifles? Those news articles were a hoot!
Biden (or whoever is in control) is incapable of reacting based on observation of real world situations. Putin is smarter. When Russia’s early “move quickly” attempts weren’t working, he re-organized and came up with a new plan. The “slowly, cautiously, grind them to dust” plan appears to be working.
Biden is glad to kill many Ukrainians if it burns off our existing war equipment. Then he gets to manufacture new shit with the usual grift and targeted spending in loyal congressional districts. Speaking of uni-party dipshits Mitch McConnel says any budget should magically have all the armaments we could ever want.
In 2020 doctors left-splained that everyone should stay home because of COVID but it’s totally cool to form a big sweaty moshpit if a “mostly peaceful protest” benefits certain parties. In 2023 Mitch is shit-splaining that a buck spent on highways costs a buck but one spent on tanks is free; a magic unicorn rainbow expense!
As for the war’s tactics, Biden, who knows nothing, has learned nothing, and will never have a new idea, continues to double down. He visited Ukraine to help. How? Is a soldier toting a rifle in a frozen grain field supposed to care, in some unclear ephemeral way, that an American geriatric placeholder is hanging out with the corrupt president that put you in that miserable situation?
The press reports there were air raid sirens. Hilarious! Presidents do not wander about where there’s a risk of air attack. Biden does, however, strut about with audio props that impress the press! “Crank the sirens! America’s animated meat sculpture is totally a risk taker! Give him a gun! He’s ready to fight Corn Pop!”
The Ukraine situation bothers me because America seems like it wants as many people killed as possible and we’re faceplanting as we do it. Russia made overtures to avoid conflict but we insisted that Ukraine join NATO. Things pretty much had to go the way they did. Our sanctions made Russia’s economy stronger and America’s economy weaker. Recently, it has come to light that it was America and not mysterious ocean trolls that bombed the Nordstream pipeline. Biden goes on TV about once every few weeks like he’s doing the fighting himself.
Russia has learned that negotiation is pointless if Biden is involved (and Zelenskyy is no prize either). Russia, logically, withdrew from the New Start nuclear arms treaty. Why wouldn’t they? Biden will pursue war until the last Ukranian is dead and he basically said so. Russia cannot negotiate with him. slowly and cautiously grinding their opponents to paste seems to be working anyway. Russia is dangerous. Cornering it into an unnecessary war was galactically stupid.
I had more to say but y’all have been patient just reading this far. Good luck out there.
Lets state for the record that I’m often fearlessly stupid. I heartily recommend it. Man was not put on this planet to meekly watch TV until the clock runs out. An interesting life of physical and mental exuberance is the place to be (at least some of the time).
However, I’m still alive. I do have limits and (with caveats) observe them well enough.
<Warning: nostalgic memories ensue… all details scrubbed for obvious reasons.>
I remember one night in my long ago youth when shit got too real. I was 95% of the way through a bottle of tequila. If you’ve ever been in a bottle of tequila you know what I’m talking about. (Yes I wrote “in”… at some point you’re “in” the tequila and not the other way around.)
This wasn’t anything new. It was a place I’d been many times. I’ve explored the internal geography of someone who drinks like he’s Thor and doesn’t give a shit what happens next so long as it’s loud. So have many men.
That night was destined for the kind of epic misadventure that involves ER visits and broken furniture. I was young and bulletproof and usually up to live out a good story. It was that magic time in life when a few stitches or a burning car or whatever else happens is just part of the fun.
This time was different. I don’t know why but I didn’t let the story happen as it was written in the stars. At the very last minute, I showed just enough common sense to know I had no common sense. My ego was writing checks my body couldn’t cash and it was time to bail.
There was only an inch left in the bottle and we had plans to do something (I forget what) as soon as I was done. Obviously, the right and proper thing to do in the middle of that already well developed night of unwise decision is to finish the bottle. Upend it like the lunatic you are and ride the burning madness all the way to wherever you end up! Everyone around (who was just as drunk as me) was chanting. “Drink! Drink! Drink!” I was the center of attention. I was in the spotlight. I was having a hell of a night!
We’ve all been there. If you haven’t you’re a wimp. For whatever reason, this time I showed a bit of wisdom.
I’m out.
That’s all I said. I set the bottle down; or rather I tried to and needed assistance to get it settled on the table (which was moving like a ship in a hurricane, as was the floor, and ceiling, and planet). I flagged down someone (I don’t remember who) and instructed them to get me somewhere (I don’t remember where). On the way to wherever I wound up, I vomited on a bush… which was right and proper. Because tequila.
The point is there’s a time when you have to say “I’m out”.
This week, I was out.
The “news” exceeded my physical limits for stupid. The fake and gay propaganda stream that passes for current events was just too fucking dumb. I stopped watching the circus and wandered off… it was time to get some pancakes, drink some water, and sleep it off in the safe refuge of ignorance.
So this is my concise summary of this week and the continuing balloon thing:
I’m out. I can’t go this dumb.
How did this come to be? Last week I ranted about the marvelous massive Chinese spy balloon of mysterious mystery. It demonstrated the First Rule of Clown World*.
* “No matter how fake and gay you think it’s going to be (for any value of “it”), it will always somehow end up being so much faker and gayer.”
I’m not naïve enough to expect ensuing events to be anything other than dumb but I’m only human. Perpetual logarithmic increases in weirdness to infinity (and beyond!) are hard on my more or less sane mind. Some levels of stupidity are physically painful to grok when you are not insane yourself.
I also learned that an American ICBM had been launched into the Pacific… because “shut up, it’s a thing”. Nukes are a thing?
Yep. I’ve now learned that we (or at least someone) considers it completely normal to launch American blank nukes. A quick search turned up American nuke launches in: 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023.
I did not know that. Let the record show that I was totally unaware that firing blank nukes was commonplace.
Did you know that? Whether you knew or not, it’s true.
Let’s all take time to assimilate this true fact.
America periodically ejaculates a nuke.
That’s a fact. It’s verifiable.
Let us stop here and give this warm steamy nugget of truth the attention it merits. Let it roll around in your head for a few minutes. STOP AVOIDING IT! Quit surfing Tik Tok and scratching your nuts… reflect on the fact that it’s totally normal for America to fire ICBMs into the Pacific because that’s what we fucking do.
Whether it’s based on some logic (testing purposes) or just for shits and giggles doesn’t interest me. Am I the only one sane enough to think that launching nukes is a bad fucking idea?
“Don’t launch nukes” is a good solid rule of thumb that applies everywhere and always. I’m sure there’s a good reason for this and it involves testing equipment and I’m equally sure that launching nukes is still a dumb fucking thing to do. It’s dumb if you’ve got a reason to test the gear. It’s dumb if you think Trump is a spastic orange gibbon who’ll start WW3. It’s dumb if the president that got more votes than any other candidate in history can’t complete a coherent sentence. It’s dumb if Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley is a shitweasel who subverts the chain of command. It’s dumb when NATO is at war with Russia in the Ukraine to defend the Ukrainian border using money from a country that won’t defend its own borders. It’s dumb when we did an act of war. It’s dumb in a house. It’s dumb with a mouse. It’s dumb here or there. It’s dumb anywhere.
I not sure I was ready for that final bit of stupid. Firing blank nukes after a balloon pantsed the continental US seemed fake and gay. So I find out we do it all the time because reasons. We do it all that time? Does doing it all the time make the world more sane?
Then, for no reason I can discern, the Biden administration started shooting down shit all over the place. High altitude objects apparently fly over us all the time and only now we’re hearing about it. And these objects can’t possibly be domestic spying on Americans by Americans because only a tinfoil hat wearing weirdo would ask such a question. And they’re popping up in February but not last November because of course they are. And for some reason this week it’s wise to shoot them down… unlike last week when we waited for thousands of miles. And for some reason Canada asked us to shoot down one of these objects over Canada because apparently Canada doesn’t own airplanes.
And these objects which are shot down are always shot down in places where there’s no wreckage, like Lake Huron. And since nobody can identify them they’re unidentified… even though they’ve been happening all the time and including under Trump but we didn’t know because “shut up”.
And if nobody is willing to identify them, then maybe they’re space aliens… because of course that’s a possibility that normal rational adults consider when they see a balloon.
“No matter how fake and gay you think it’s going to be (for any value of “it”), it will always somehow end up being so much faker and gayer.”
I ruminated about the Chinese Spy Balloon kerfuffle. I can imagine a reasoned world where America (or any of the few remaining serious nations) would shoot down Xi’s Barroon one inch inside their airspace. I can even imagine a slightly weird but vaguely logical world where America lets the Chinese Balloon drag its geopolitical nutsack across America’s face all the way to the coast… and then let it sail toward some other nation to see if the next nation downwind can react better.
But I could not imagine the fakest and gayest possible situation. America let China teabag half of the continental US and then decided to shoot the balloon down as soon as it’s over hard to retrieve salt water. Thus reacting decisively, but literally doing so only after the very maximum amount of embarrassment/spying had happened.
A serious nation would shut the barn door before the horse gets out. A stupid nation would shut the barn door after the horse gets out. Our monumentally fucked up mess of a nation waited for days until the horse was out, then shot the horse.
Truly, we live in an amazing universe.
But wait… there’s more!
Having completely mis-handled the situation clear from Montana to the Atlantic there’s still a faker and gayer way events could play out.
I hesitate to type it because the new face saving spin is so dumb it’s almost radioactive:
Presidential Spin: “Getting spy ballooned by the Chinese is no big deal. It happened three or four times under Trump.”
The Last Few Sane Americans: “That sounds like bullshit. I never heard of it.”
Presidential Spin: “We kept it secret. The military didn’t even tell Trump.”
The Last Few Sane Americans: “The fuck you say?!?”
Presidential Spin: “Yeah, so getting pantsed by China in 2023 is no big deal because China does this shit all the time.”
The Last Few Sane Americans: “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.”
Presidential Spin: “Sure! Biden got more votes than any other candidate in history. Yesterday we installed a fence before the president gave a speech. We did that to protect Democracy. We didn’t want to have to take more political prisoners.”
The Last Few Sane Americans: “When you tug you yank!”
So that was it. The story was over. It’s no big deal that we had a ChiCom Balloon floating over the heartland because it happens all the time. The ultimate fake and gay way for the story to play out.
Wrong!
Speaking of “radioactive” there was a faker and gayer option. Something so incandescently moronic I’d never even considered such a thing. America launched an ICBM at the Pacific Ocean.
The Last Few Sane Americans: “WHY ARE YOU FIRING NUKES?!?”
Presidential Spin: “It was a “routine” activity “intended to demonstrate that the United States’ nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, reliable and effective…”
The Last Few Sane Americans: “FIRING NUKES IS ROUTINE? ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH?”
Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, Air Force Global Strike Command commander: “A test launch displays the heart of our deterrence mission on the world’s stage, assuring our nation and its allies that our weapons are capable and our Airmen are ready and willing to defend peace across the globe at a moment’s notice…”
The Last Few Sane Americans: “I’m supposed to believe that Chinese Spy Balloons have teabagged the Continental United States several times. But this time, and only this time, Americans saw it. Therefore, you concluded that it was a reasonable and intelligent response to sink the balloon in the Atlantic and fling an ICBM at the Pacific?”
Presidential Spin: “I give you my word as a Biden, the laptop is a nothing-burger.”
The Last Few Sane Americans: “What’s wrong with you? Launching nuclear weapons is dumb. It’s dumb at every scale from planetary to molecular. Have you been copying your homework from North Korea? North Korea is the only place that does that kind of shit and they’re fucking weird. Don’t be North Korea!”
Presidential Spin: “I’m hard core, Jack! Corn Pop was a bad dude.”
I don’t know how fake and gay things can get. I ran out of imagination years ago and I talk to trees!
All I really know is not over. It’s sixth week in the third year of the Bidenverse. An event that came about due to more votes than any other candidate in history appearing at 3:00 AM in specific locations. And that was just the start!
I can’t imagine what will happen but the remaining 46 weeks of the year. They’re going to be mind-blowing!
Last week a slow, crude, dumb Chinese balloon flew over a huge portion of the continental United States. The Government and its air force had the capacity to shoot it down. It lacked the decision making capacity to do so. Nor did it express some decisive alternate action. Our military and government did the same thing your geezer neighbor did on F***book; they literally watched it float over domestic airspace for thousands of miles. The people nominally in charge witnessed events but did not drive them; no different than someone watching a sporting event.
After the balloon completed whatever its mission was (assuming it had one) and after it had (presumably) gathered as much data as it possibly could, it was shot it down. It was dispatched where the wreckage would be submerged in salt water and hard to recover.
Nobody thinks the air force is incapable of destroying a balloon. But the people in charge (including the president that got more votes than any other candidate in history) weren’t capable of deciding what to do.
The inability to make decisions and implement swift rational responses to events are the end state of decay. Part of any collapse is the point when nobody knows what to do because nobody knows who’s in charge or even why they show up to work in the morning.
You’ve seen this for yourself. We both experienced the last few years of concentrated panic and chaos. You know it as well as I.
The core purpose of nearly every system in society has been discarded. Are doctors really curing sick people? Is the FBI solving crime or causing it? Why does the Post Office have guns? Does your bank have enough money to pay you back if you make a withdrawal? Will that withdrawal happen if you vote the wrong way or have unpopular opinions? Will the police protect you if someone tries to rob you? Do elementary schools teach reading or racism? Do universities teach anything at all? Does your church try to save your soul or is it doing something else? When was the last time the press told the truth? Do you have freedom of speech? Of the rights written in the constitution; how many can you exercise right now? Who decided you can’t have an incandescent lightbulb or a certain flow showerhead or a gas kitchen stove, and how did they get to be in charge? Why are fences put up periodically in Washington DC? Cuba or Iran might have political prisoners but why does America have them too?
Think of all the things that are done which don’t match the original purpose of the organization doing them. Think of all the things they should be doing. Think about how many things just don’t get done.
Don’t take it from me. I’m just a dipshit blogger. Look with your own eyes. Witness today’s post covid paralysis using whatever common sense God gave you. Watch whatever system interests you to see if it still does what it was created to do.
Some people call it Clown World. I call it the Bidenverse. Whatever vocabulary you use, you know what I’m talking about.
In 1987 an inexperienced German amateur pilot had a fun adventure. He rented a Cessna 172. It was not a particularly powerful plane and he wasn’t some sort of super duper ace pilot. He was a 19 year old weirdo with a starry eyed view of the world and perhaps more initiative than common sense.
Mathias Rust and his rented Cessna flew straight into the heart of the biggest baddest Communist empire in human existence. He flew into their capital city. He landed there. He signed autographs and waited to be arrested; two hours later.
The Soviet Union (USSR) had been a mighty, unstoppable, globally dominant, militarized, superpower but it was in terminal decline. By 1987 it was hollow. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew who was in charge, what their orders were, or if they had the authority to do anything.
The USSR’s fearsome military and government had once been murderously powerful. It fought wars and starved whole regions to death. It could vaporize a Cessna at will and had Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles that could do the same to cities anywhere on earth. A few years before Mathias’ little joyride, the USSR would have shot him down pretty much instantly.
But that’s the point, by 1987 the USSR was just a shell. They couldn’t figure out what to do about a youth in a simple little airplane and so they did nothing (emphasis added):
“A teenage amateur pilot, he flew from Helsinki, Finland, to Moscow, being tracked several times by Soviet Air Defence Forces and civilian air traffic controllers, as well as Soviet Air Force interceptor aircraft. The Soviet fighters did not receive permission to shoot him down, and his aeroplane was mistaken for a friendly aircraft several times. He landed on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, next to Red Square near the Kremlin in the capital of the Soviet Union.”
I’m not saying it would be a great thing if anti-aircraft fire had downed idealistic Mathias and his rental (I wonder if he put down a deposit on the plane?). I’m saying the USSR in 1956 would have blown the plane to bits but the USSR in 1987 was so internally contradictory that it didn’t know what to do.
Here’s a picture from that day:
It was 1987 when the mighty and feared USSR couldn’t figure out what to do with a nutty teenager in a Cessna. Four years later, in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics completely dissolved. I’m not saying a Chinese balloon last week means America is toast… I’m saying America right now behaves like the USSR did back when the USSR started not meaning anything.
Now here’s the good news. The oppressive and miserable USSR (at least some of it) is now the Soviet Federation. The transition sucked and the ensuing Federation isn’t perfect… but the nation that rose from the ashes is a vast improvement. The Russian Federation is better for its people than the totalitarian shithole it replaced. Collapse was followed by renewal and improvement.
There’s always hope.
Here in the west, politicians and boomers and dipshit “journalists” haven’t yet figured out that cold war USSR is no more. They act like it’s 1973 and Putin is one James Bond plot away from nuking Baltimore. That’s not true.
Whatever is damaging society domestically is based in city, State, or Federal mis-governance (or a combination of all three). Failure is not inflicted externally from Moscow or Beijing. Like the chaotic fading mess of USSR in 1987, whomever is making a mess of Baltimore or Portland in 2023, is failing due to internal contradictions. Locally, governance isn’t assuring domestic tranquility, clean water, stable economies, or the freedom of citizens… and at the national scale it didn’t know what to do about a Chinese balloon. Nationally, the system that can’t handle a three story floating fabric ball has opinions about your kitchen appliances and the contents of your bloodstream and everything else but it can’t do much of anything well.
Today, the leader of one of two nations that couldn’t make a clear decision about a balloon (not Trudeau) will give a speech. This man, who got more votes than any other candidate in history, will give a speech from behind temporary fences, in the city where he imprisons his political prisoners.
You will be given orders. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Toe the line. Forget about the balloon. Eat your bugs, get rid of your gas kitchen stove, line up for the next booster. Don’t say certain sentences and you are required to at least pretend to have certain official beliefs. Do as you’re told. Why? Because you are told to do so.
Founding Questions is a much appreciated fount of rationality and humor in this, the third year of the Bidenverse (and the seventh or ninth or thirtieth year of the long drawn out swirling of the drain). Among other wise thoughts you’ll find there is the First Rule of Clown World: “No matter how fake and gay you think it’s going to be (for any value of “it”), it will always somehow end up being so much faker and gayer.”
So true!
I spent January riding out a boring old fashioned winter cold, burning my inadequate firewood supply, and stacking canned goods. I was forced by circumstance to sit still. I used the time to idly ponder what stupid thing would roll around after the mid-winter cold snap wrapped up. (I think last mid-winter had Texans freezing their ass when windmills froze up?)
It tried ever so hard to think of the dumbest, most pathetic, lamest, stupid thing that could happen but the First Rule is never wrong. Clown World did it’s thing by diving beneath the lowest bar I could imagine.
A balloon? A fucking balloon!?!
Great raving gibbons of Gloucester*! The stupid thing was a fucking balloon?
I’d pinned my guess on a limp dick AI generated article that proved CPUs are racist. Or maybe a boatload of “non-documented totally anything but illegal migrant blessings of diversity” would have a tragic whale based accident near offshore windmills.
But no… it was a goddamn balloon.
Early last week it “suddenly” appeared; just lot like certain myocardial issues… see what I did there? It appeared in Montana. Virtually nobody in any press mentioned how it crossed from the Pacific to the Great Plains without anyone noticing. Since our press is nothing but propagand-tainment nobody bothered to ask why the entire nation of Canada didn’t pick up the phone and maybe give us a heads up. Nor why NORAD didn’t flag this issue long ago. (Are they literally doing nothing but tracking Santa?) Don’t we have an air force? (Or God forbid couldn’t the space force do something? Bwa ha ha ha the space force! I crack myself up!).
Nobody dropped that fucker because nobody is in charge.
When I see a raccoon heading for the chicken coop I handle it. I see the threat, I assess options, I consider where the creature is headed and evaluate possible outcomes. If the critter is about to take out a chicken I know. I know what to do. Most importantly, I do what I know how to do.
Invariably (if I see it) the raccoon is dispatched within ten minutes or less and not a feather is riled on a single chicken. If a raccoon was made of fabric, three stories tall, radar indicated, and moving at walking speed it would be even easier.
Yet in Clown World the balloon seemed to have the upper hand. The most highly funded military on planet earth couldn’t handle the same decision made by a dipshit blogger with a chicken coop.
The balloon just hung around. Noticed by all and addressed by none.
I’m not particularly worried about spying or even Chinese spying. I’m especially not worried that Chinese Lidar is going to scan a midwestern cornfield (or even the adjacent missile silos) and figure out something they don’t already know.
However, there’s one thing they might have learned. In case there was doubt before, it’s now proven that our chain of command can’t do shit. It literally couldn’t handle the basic and stupid situation of a balloon in our airspace.
“General Sir, there’s a balloon the size of a Winnebago floating near Billings, shall we blast it to smithereens?”
“Stand by soldier, I need to check my nail polish and then make Powerpoint slides for a hundred meetings.”
The dumb, stupid, slow, lazy balloon outwitting a whole nation is what happens when nobody’s in charge. It’s not that we lack the capacity to handle a stupid balloon, we lack the command structure to decide to handle a stupid balloon.
I tried to think of the fakest and gayest possible resolution to this situation. Letting it coast at the speed of USPS all the way to the Atlantic is about what I imagined. Unlike a lot of people, I’m not worried about a fucking balloon. It does what satellites do, just slower and cheaper. Lacking any more information than anyone else, I figured someone in China tossed it into the stratosphere as a sort of test; “lets see how long it takes the morons in American government to detect and shoot this thing down”. I’m sure they got a laugh out of it; “What do you mean it got the way to Montana and now it’s a trending meme on F***book? How is is still floating? Are they all too busy watching the Finnish Figure skater fall over?”
Over a couple of days it became a waiting game and I had a bit of hope. One neat idea would be to let that fucker just plain float clear to France. It would be a pretty chill response. Show the world that the US isn’t easily panicked. Ideally it’d drift from stupid America to stupid Europe and heck… it might make it all the way back to a completely baffled China.
I thought the lowest level of fake and gay would be to let it drift as if undetectable clear to the heartland, then let it lumber across the eastern seaboard, then earn back a little redemption by watching to see what everyone else did. After all, the best way to look like we weren’t so incompetent as to be unable to decide what to do about archaic technology might be to let archaic technology float on by.
Has anyone here ever done any sparring? If your opponent’s punch ain’t gonna’ land, you don’t have to expend energy blocking it. Sometime that’s the boss move. By the time it got to the coast I was expecting that to happen and I was mildly optimistic that we hadn’t behaved like total jackasses.
We could learn something. Since formerly mighty and now completely inept America had let it pass like it had zero fucks to give, what would come next? Would France flatten it eleven nautical miles from Brest like a proper nation? Would Portugal pick it off from the Azores like a proper nation? Would Spain consider it a new from of green energy and have a parade as befits the Clown World. Would it drift over a bickering, irrational, indecisive EU only to wind up vaporized the instant it got within view of the Russian Federation (which for better or worse appears to have adults in charge)?
Ha! This was going to be fun. Canada (as far as I can tell from American propagand-tainment) either didn’t know it was there or was too busy picking out new socks for Trudeau to do anything about it. America hyperventilated while doing nothing. My nation’s government used the excuse of “it could hurt someone if it fell on the densely populated civilians of Eastern Montana”; which convinced absolutely nobody who’s seen the empty spaces of Montana. So now we could enjoy the show. What would France’s reaction/excuse be?
But I forgotten the first rule. There was a faker and gayer resolution. One so incandescently stupid that I hadn’t been able to conceive of such a thing.
“General sir, we’ve had days to ponder the situation. Are we just going to let the balloon float to Europe for the exclusive entertainment of an obscure blogger?”
“No! I’ve consulted with Captain Pike… I mean I’ve spoken with a very popular president who won more votes than any other candidate in history and is clearly in charge of everything. He says we should let it float over every single inch of the continental United States but then, just when the wreckage would fall into salt water where retrieval and reverse engineering would be hardest, blast it.”
“Yes, sir. We will call it operation First Rule!”
So it was done. A nation of 350 million people, once the most technologically advanced society in human history, a people that could put men on the moon 50 years ago, used a 35 million dollar fighter jet to eliminate a fucking balloon that had finished it’s presumably super secret spy mission across an entire continent. We failed to either quickly dispatch OR stoically ignore technology first demonstrated in 1783. We picked the dumbest possible option out of a huge universe of slightly less dumb options.
None of it matters. The balloon will be forgotten by next week. Sooner or later something similar but even dumber will happen again. Why wouldn’t it? If you were the Chinese government and had inexplicably outwitted the Americans with a balloon you’d logically experiment with something even slower and dumber. Maybe they’ll put a chihuahua in a kayak and see if it can take out Tacoma? (Based on the balloon, a chihuahua might work!)
Tomorrow the president who got more votes than any other candidate in history will provide the next example of the First Rule. He’ll give his state of the union speech. I don’t know what he’ll say but his last two memorable speeches have been a doozy. One involved getting me fired while cursing me to a winter of severe illness and death. The next involved blood red lighting while flanked by soldiers in a setting that would make Darth Vader cringe at the negative symbolism.
At this point I can only imagine what he’ll do and I simply can’t imagine the ultimate level of fake and gay that is certain to happen. Kittens being thrown into a wood chipper due to climate change while executing gas kitchen stoves for racism? Interpretive dance while on stilts?
There’s something out there that’s so fake and gay I cannot possibly imagine it. Tomorrow we get to experience it.
Stay tuned. And lets offer a silent nod of appreciation for the Chinese engineers who did pretty well. They flummoxed not just one but two nations, encompassing most of North America… using fabric. I’ll bet they know calculus in a way our military doesn’t.
Good luck y’all.
A.C.
*It doesn’t have to make sense. Nothing has to make sense.
My last post came about because I’ve been thinking about the “spectrum” of self reliance. It amused me to post the video of the girl who thought Obama would fill her car with gas. Then I realized she lives in the same world as some of my readers who (wisely and impressively) grow heirloom crops. She thinks the president has a “Bureau of Filling Cars With Gas” while others gather their own seeds from their own crops. Meanwhile, I have twelve cans of peanut butter but I’m running out of firewood.
That’s a huge spectrum to be acknowledged. Folks seem to think “prepping”* is either yes or no; but it’s nothing of the sort.
This is exacerbated by “prepping media” which emphasizes the extreme over the mundane (as do enthusiasts in any hobby). Someone will always bitch about any level of anything as “inadequate”. Here are a few samples I’m sure you’ve heard: “If you carry a .22 for self defense you’re almost certainly screwed.” “If you don’t own a lifted Jeep with a winch you can never bug out.” “If you haven’t EMP proofed your Jeep while carrying nothing less than a .45 with a backup AR and twenty loaded mags, you’re zombie meat.”
I figure if you get shot with a .22 it’ll still hurt like hell. Unless you’re on the Chuck Norris side of things any firearm hits harder than a punch. Sure, a .45 is better than a .22 but anything is something. My cheap squirrel hunting 20 gauge fits somewhere in there. Nobody would recommend it as perfect for home defense but I damn sure wouldn’t want to be in front of it. For that matter if someone bails in a Toyota Camry all that really matters is if it works. If they watch the tsunami on TV from 100 miles inland, I guess they successfully bailed out. It’s important to avoid perfect becoming the enemy of “making good progress in the right direction”.
Failing to see a spectrum is a weakness to which I am prone. For example, in 2022 I cut less firewood than I wanted. Now, in the coldest winter months, I’m running low. There’s no surprise in that; ant and grasshopper y’all. But it still sucks. (Relax, I’ve got a furnace too.)
I could fret that I, like Germany, allowed myself to become dependent on oil. I could fret that (predictably!) the cost doubled or tripled after certain events in early 2021. But what good would that do?
I should focus on the positive. I should shrug and be happy that I cut 60% or 80% percent of what I needed. Less than I wanted, more than most.
So what does “more than most” really mean?
Bad question! Trying to find out sent me down the rabbit hole. I tried to think how many people are 100% dependent for their heating (or in warm climates cooling)? Or 100% dependent for food? Or struggling paycheck to paycheck? And for that matter isn’t “paycheck to paycheck” elevated self-reliance compared to “EBT to EBT”?
I started playing with numbers and just plain gave up. I’ve sought (to varying degrees of success) self-reliance so much and so long I’ve lost touch with how utterly dependent most people really are. I can’t quite picture a “normal person” anymore. How are they still alive?
Is this why they were fighting over toilet paper in the first week of Covid? Is this why they signal group affiliation on F***book as if their life depended on group membership? Is this why people act so… for want of a better word… stampede prone?
I don’t have any answers. I just got sucked into this line of reasoning and decided to share.
A.C.
*I hate the term “prepping”. Newspeak couldn’t hack the manly stoic term “survivalist” and sought a lame, gutless, alternative. “Prepping” sounds like something you can do from your couch. “Survivalist” sounds like someone who actually does leg day. Since our language is as manipulated as our media they gradually associated “survivalist” with someone running around the forest re-enacting Rambo… which wasn’t the original intent. I tend to settle on “homesteading” but what do I know?
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
John Dryden: 1631-1700
“Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde”
Beware of the anger of a patient man.
D. H. Lawrence: 1885-1930
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
Czeslaw Milosz: 1911-2004
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
