Adaptive Curmudgeon

I had a blog post planned for today that would be entirely non-political and quite positive. You know… fun homesteader shit. But I got lazy.

Last night, instead of writing it, I kicked back by the wood stove sipping bourbon and watching movies. Meh, it was a Friday. All work and no play something something something.

Today I bumped into this delightful image of Joe Biden’s campaign and the press. I couldn’t help posting it:

Hat tip to Knuckledraggin My Life Away.

P.S. I promise I’ll be positive and non-political soon. Forgive me,

I’ve written optimistic posts as much as I can. In many of the last few weeks months years it has been a struggle. Each time some new shitstorm arrives, the odds are a little less in our favor. The shitstorms are invented and they’re designed to keep us constantly on edge. The struggle takes the wind out of my sails. I try to write about squirrels and decide it’s just pissing into the wind. None of us is immune.

I want to smile. To embrace the suck. I don’t quit easily. I’ll grin right in the face of Satan and I swear I’ve done it. You probably have too. But it’s unwise to cross the line from healthy outlook to deluded.

We really are fucked. We have been fucked. We are likely to be fucked again. We get fucked every step of the way. Merely getting out of bed and trying to keep the lights on sets us up to be fucked over and over. The assholes who’ve never built a damn thing sure enjoy breaking civilization. That’s how we wind wind up fucked. They’ve been on a tear for most of my life and they’ll happily fling everything onto the ground. In so many places they’ve had their way until everyone is starving in mud huts. Even when they’re starving in the dark, they’ll just blame someone else. That rich bastard who grew two turnips when he only needs one. Burn the witch.

This has happened before. Fall of Rome, The Great War and then a Sequel just for fun. Imagine that. They had the “war to end all wars” and decided it was so fun they’d do it a second time. Big evil and small. The spectrum from cretin to douchebag. Stalin, Pol Pot, Venezuela, Cuba, Detroit, that bitch at the HOA.

Some men work hard to create a good life. More work hard to create hell on earth for man. One day you’re living in a warm climate awash in natural resources. You’re getting rich on oil exports and might buy a new Volvo. Then BAM… it’s over. One election. One step too far left. You’re hunkered down and wishing you’d been the clever gent who first thought of eating the giraffe at the zoo. Instead you’re the second and the question is if you’ll get knifed waiting in the food line. (Venezuela, look it up.)

It sucks. No point in pretending otherwise. The weak would tear you down so that they’d feel taller.

They did it.

It really  happened.

There really was a huge, pervasive, targeted, and effective cheat. It’s true that the contested State legislatures have done absolutely the very least possible to stand up for fair elections. It’s true that State judges have done absolutely the least they can possibly do to defend the rule of law. It’s true that the Supreme Court has been a ridiculous pile of squish… failing to defend even the shadow of a hint of the Constitution; rewriting Obamacare as needed and basking in penumbras the rest of the time. It’s absolutely true that if this thing gets as far as congress… some fucking pussy of the party of R will sell us out the minute they get a chance. They’ll fuck us up every inch of every road.

The word for this is coup. Some coups involve battleships, some use assassins, others involve computers. We didn’t start this mess. We just voted. The problem was created and dropped on our head. Those smirking assholes have no idea the cliff they’ve pushed us ALL over! (Yes, them too.)

It’s true that the media hasn’t said an honest thing in so long I can’t remember. There is no “news”. It is all propaganda; lock, stock, and barrel. At this point, even a weather report is questionable. I just want to know if I need to wear a hat. Are they honestly reporting the upcoming storm or is this another chance to hype a panic? Is it really record heat or are they flogging global warming?

It’s also true that our circle of freedom recedes. Phones spy on us. That used to be a conspiracy theory, now it’s a fact we accept.

Society is now a cage. In work you much genuflect left. In school, students must genuflect left. In any organization anywhere you must genuflect left.

Karens skulk about looking for imagined infractions of their unwritten laws. As soon as you accept one set of laws… they’ll turn the screws harder and make up new laws.

It’s true that every TV show is propaganda and every movie has a “message”. There will never again be a story that lacks a gay sidekick, a 90 pound girlpower wonder taking out six linebackers in hand to hand combat, all liberty seen with suspicion, and every rural resident invariably portrayed as a racist idiot rube.

What have we won? Aside from 2016? Not much.

Given Trump’s been in power since 2016… how much power did he really have? Russia, Russia, Russia, Nothingburger. Was Trump a temporary speedbump and nothing more?

When I started this blog I bitched about the Federal Debt. Midway through the Obama years I stopped. It’s simply mathematically impossible to resolve in any way other than collapse. Me bitching about it would be pointless now. The debt situation has sailed. Whatever is going to happen will happen. We all know that.

But…

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

I light the candle, when I can. Maybe it helps. Maybe I’m blowing smoke up my own ass.

Who could know?

I’d really like to kick that football if I had the chance. But here’s the interesting part. Charlie Brown was the hero. He was the best of them all. Lucy was just a one dimensional bitch. A future Karen who’ll die alone in a condominium full of cats. Charlie was the guy we cared about.

Charlie was the hero. But he was also a bit of a dumbass. Am I hero or a dumbass? Maybe both. I wish I could find that poor boy and buy him a kicking tee.

https://youtu.be/RieABEtmpUg

If you’ve been paying attention to politics you know two things:

1. The election was rigged.
2. We’re fucked.

Even in this dark moment, I’m not consumed with despair. #2 isn’t a done deal. Am I nuts? Why the hell haven’t I just plain given up like I’m told to? It’s not easy to explain. I’m seeing something… different. Sometimes we must painfully scrape off the evil barnacled onto an otherwise functioning system.

Scott Adams may be a bit smug at times but he tends to have his finger on the pulse of the world. One of his clever ideas is that two people can see the same event but retain from it vastly different memories and lessons. He says “they see two different movies”. It’s not a bad way to discuss last Friday and this Monday.

What happened (factually) since my Friday post?

1. The SCOTUS refused to address the Texas suit.
2. The electoral college was selected by the several States. (More on this below.)

What’s the movie that the press described?

1. The SCOTUS has spoken. It’s all over. Suck it Deplorables! With half of the states siding with the defense and the other half with the plaintiffs, the SCOTUS bravely dove for cover. “We’re not touching it with a 10′ pole!” Wimps! They only have a spine if it’s leaning left. Can they detect unwritten “penumbras” which “emanate” from the Constitution? Sure, if it’s used to swing left! Last week’s legitimate question of several states not following constitutional law might have gone right! So they used standing to tell Texas to “get bent”. They also used laches to deep six the PA suit. (Except the PA suit is still alive!) The situation is clear: “Don’t come knocking until you need Roberts to prop up Obamacare again.”
2. The electoral college was selected in the States, it’s all over. Suck it Deplorables! “All discussion of electoral fraud is right wing bullshit. To prove how truthful this is, the media is going to censor the hell out of badthink on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The media in general is now Pravda. We have always been at war with Eastasia.”

That’s the movie most folks are seeing. I should be seeing it too. Unfortunately, I think too much. I just suck at seeing only what I’m told to see.

What movie is the Curmudgeon seeing? It’s a dozy. I could be totally wrong. At this point it doesn’t matter if I sound like a kook anyway. Right? Here’s my movie:

Act 1: The Legal Battle Is Not Even Close To Over:

Texas offered an “all in” argument but the SCOTUS took a powder. Fuck them. Texas wasn’t the only game in town. Ironically, it was the argument least likely to publicize the cheat. Meanwhile, each “contested State” has one or more independent legal actions. They’re still ongoing.

I like this movie. I’m not a “sprint to the finish” kind of guy. I like to win with grinding certainty. Slow and steady, hard to refute, documenting every step of the way. Legal action in every State is doing what I want; carefully establishing facts.

It’s just starting. Until the last few days, every judge in every jurisdiction was doing everything they could to look at anything but evidence. Laches. Standing. The dog ate my homework. They might have allowed small cheats to slide but this is too big. Now actual legal evidence is getting written (however reluctantly) into the books. It’s happening in several avenues. Every day, new bits of information are getting written into proceedings from which it can’t be expunged.

At this point I’m more concerned with fair elections than one president versus the other. If they can cheat a landslide, nothing else matters. I want the truth known. That means we have to figure it out and make damn sure it’s written in a place it can’t be deleted or ignored. Legal proceedings are one venue among many. I want all this information permanently known.

You can’t stop the signal. Here are some signals of interest:

• Arizona, Maricopa County: Today I heard subpoenas are being issued in Maricopa Country to seize ALL of the Dominion systems for a full forensic audit. I haven’t verified, but I suspect it to be true. Note: Google is playing deplatforming games against Vox Day, to whom I linked. If it’s blocked, don’t panic. Just click “I’m a fucking adult and I want to see the page”. Or, if you really believe Google has your best interest at heart, stay in the playpen Google made for your computer. (I see deplatforming as a good sign. When you’re taking flack, you’re over the target. As long as I’m mentioning deplatforming, lets talk about Facebook. They like to paste up bitchy “this statement is counter to the narrative” warnings. Is there no relief? There might be! The Federal Trade Commission and 46 states just launched a massive lawsuit against Facebook. Did you hear about the Facebook suit in the “news”? Of course not, but it’s happening.)
• Michigan:, Antrim County The forensics report of the Dominion voting machine for Antrim County was released yesterday! Did you hear about it in the press? Of course not. Yet, it’s a true thing. Here’s what happened: Last week the Local sheriff tried to prevent the Flynn forensics team from entering the courthouse(!). The Sheriff’s strongarm tactics failed. The data was collected by a team said to be reporting to General Michael Flynn and General Jack Bergman. Yesterday, the forensic analysis was released to the public. It’s juicy! Information went from a “conspiracy theory” to a 22 page report. Read it yourself. It’s straight up factual evidence of intentional voter fraud! That’s the point. No more bullshit; carefully acquired knowledge is now public record.
• Georgia, Ware County: Another piece of the puzzle involved sequestered Dominion Equipment. Ware County ran a equal number of Trump votes and Biden votes through the Tabulator. The Tabulator reported a 26% lead for Biden. Remember how the press said “no evidence of fraud”? That argument seems weaker each day. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if this one is yet part of any legal “findings”. Time will tell. This probably won’t be the last we hear from Ware County.

That’s just one part of the legal situation:

• Three sets of Dominion machines.
• Three different states.
• Three different analyses.

Did you hear about any of that on CNN? Nope. Does it mean it didn’t happen? Nope.

That’s why I’m happy. The press made itself irrelevant. This is revenge of the nerds. Dudes who know math and are scrupulous about truth are doing what they do best. It doesn’t seem like they’re having a hard time finding evidence. Even when evidence is deleted (see the Michigan report) they know exactly when it the legal audit trail was destroyed.

Smart folks are tearing Biden’s “unquestionable clean win” into itty bitty pieces. It’s fun to watch!

Act 2: The Political Battle Is Not Even Close To Over:

What happened Monday? Did every State pick electors; giving Biden an unquestionable win? Is “shut the fuck up deplorables” the final answer?

Well it certainly could happen… but it didn’t yet. As far as I can tell, there are now dual sets of electors for PA, GA, MI, WI, AZ, NV, and NM. (Full disclosure, I haven’t verified this list. It may be more or fewer. It’s hard to suss out the truth using 2020’s internet.)

I’m having fun with bulleted lists so let’s go with that. There may be dual sets of electors for:

1. Pennsylvania
2. Georgia
3. Michigan
4. Wisconsin
5. Arizona
6. Nevada
7. New Mexico

Seven states (I think) have dual sets of electors. This does several things:

• It makes everything messy.
  • Remember when the press said “not a whiff of cheating”? So much for that!
• It preserves legal options.
  • Judges can’t weasel out with “it was rigged as hell but now it’s moot”. Dual electors make it “not moot”.
• It preserves political options.
  • There are procedures in the Constitution for dual electors. The Founding Fathers planned for this. Smart fuckers back in the 18th century knew we’d sooner or later have “issues”. They added written options to the Constitution. This is good! It’s better than tanks or guillotines.

Lean back and take a deep breath. Did you know 7 states (I think) had dual slates of electors? Did you know three forensic analyses in three states (at least) are now in progress. (One you can read for yourself.) There is now vastly more evidence of election fraud in 2020 than the made up bullshit they called Russian Collusion. Remember this, we have records: numbers, dates, places, lists of voter rolls, whistleblower testimony, statistical analysis, electronic packet traffic, and so fort. All sorts of fabulous information that is not going away.

I’d prefer a clean, fair, transparent election. I didn’t get one. This crap is messy, ugly, and gross… but it really happened. We didn’t cause the cheat. It’s not our fault. They made it our problem. Each successive day is a little closer to rooting it all out. We’re going to solve the living shit out of this!

It’s a great movie! Twists and turns at every scene. You paid for the ticket and attendance is mandatory; you might as well enjoy the show.

A.C.

P.S. Y’all are the greatest! Friday’s post went live just an hour before the SCOTUS took a dump on my optimism. Damn! I thought “enough writing for now… I’m going to focus on stacking firewood”. Then, like he could read my mind, a reader sent a Christmas donation via Paypal. The universe provides! Whenever I see resignation on the horizon, there’s a new beam of light. It was superb timing. Absolutely ideal! I’ll let the donor remain anonymous but if you’re reading this you completely made my day. Thanks!

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

― Abraham Lincoln

“This isn’t just bullshit, it’s low quality, poorly planned,  substandard bullshit. You could scrape crap off a dead crackhead’s ass and serve it on a plate claiming it was steak; and that would be more believable than this election!”

― Adaptive Curmudgeon

I went to bed after watching a clean undeniable electoral win. I woke up to “Biden is ‘President Elect’. Fuck you.” I didn’t deserve such mistreatment. None of us did.

I’m not sure why I was surprised. I’ve been lied to, shouted at, mistreated, insulted, gaslit, and propagandized so much I’m not sure the media even knows truth exists; much less how to tell it. Yet, I marvel at the sheer scale of it all. Small cheats in Democratic cities are a sad but accepted part of political life but this wasn’t a small cheat. It was massive!

Biden didn’t just win with a series of spectacular statically anomalies. Biden supposedly got more votes than any presidential candidate in American history. Really? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.

Immediately after the election, I saw the following graph. If you’re looking for a fight, it’s graphs like this that start ’em. Also, if someone’s going to lie to me, I expect them to do a better job than that!

Who’s buying the shit? Nobody! Even Biden fans knew it was fishy. They were uneasy and quiet. After four years screaming at the sky, Democrats who won fair and square would be cavorting in the streets like ecstatic winners. Instead, they were subdued. There was no fireworks, no Champaign, no confetti, no parades, no hooting hollering happy winners. They just hunkered down. That’s a “tell”. They knew. We all did.

Within a few hours I saw this meme. The lie was too huge. It wouldn’t hold.

The ensuing wait was the worst! A whole month knowing this would get resolved above my pay grade… or wouldn’t get resolved at all. A month wondering if I my vote counted or if I’d just been mugged.

Fortunately, mass awareness followed a fairly predictable curve.

1. The election was flawless and fair. – Suck it up deplorable.
2. There was a little fraud but that’s to be expected. – Biden is picking his cabinet.
3. There was no widespread fraud. – Here’s an article about global warming.
4. There is no evidence of widespread fraud. – COVID rules for Thanksgiving!
5. There is evidence of substantial fraud but it’s too late. – COVID ruins Christmas!
6. We’re going to stop all media that discusses evidence of election fraud. – Puppies!

What comes next? The denouement. It is/has/and always was scheduled to come next. The falsehood wasn’t successfully forced on a subservient people; therefore it will fail.

The tragedy is that it wasn’t necessary. There are a thousand off ramps on the highway to hell. The wisest move for the cheaters was to fold.

There’s a time and a place to say “this isn’t working”. The weeks after the coup was the time. In nine foot tall neon letters, the universe screamed “resolve this while it can still be construed as a clerical error or minor issues”. It would have been easy; “OK fine, we’ll do a transparent, honest, recount and you’ll see.” Followed by “whoops, who knew? Oh well, your guy won and I can claim I made an honest mistake.”

There was an out. Everyone involved had a chance to come clean. They didn’t.

Already, close to half the populace has turned. In less three weeks, the fact that the election was fixed went from heresy to common sense. Unavoidably, reason overcame the human desire to avoid a fight.

All Americans had to go through the thought process. Now they’re working through the ramifications. It’s no longer about Trump. If an election like 2020 can be cheated out of existence, every election can be cheated out of existence.

That’s the rub. This isn’t one election; it’s all elections.

It’s a big pill to swallow. Nobody likes it. But 2020’s fraud was substantial, intentional, targeted, sufficient to sway the election, there is evidence to prove it, and the people who cheated are not going to do the right thing.

Now what? It starts, as it always does, with preliminary legal wrangling. Sidney Powell’s stuff looks like a James Bond novel. The math nerds already know what happened and they’re trying to explain it to people who can’t define “standard deviation”. Testimony and whistle blowers are coming out of the woodwork. Whenever evidence has been obfuscated, it just makes the coup leaders look worse. Meanwhile, more evidence is discovered. Evidence is found faster than it can be memory holed. Future historians will write books about it. Statistics graduate students will use 2020 data as learning exercises. It wasn’t subtle and it can’t be explained away.

We’re learning new words. Until 2020 I’d never heard the word “spoliation”. The difference between “sedition” and “treason” now matters. Nobody likes the word coup… but it’s used in its proper form:

coups d’état (ko͞o′) or coup d’états (dā-täz′)

“The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.”

Go ahead. Say it. Say “coups d’etat“. Say “sedition“. Say “treason“. Those words exist because those things exist. They’re happening right now.

The sole defense has  not been “we can prove it was an honest election”. It has been “it’s too late to make change the theft”. That’s a thin thread. One does not submit to a coup because there’s a date on the calendar.

Given the gravity of the situation, everyone wondered how the Supreme Court would get involved. Notice what I said. Nobody wondered if the Supreme Court would get involved. We only wondered how and when. For the last several weeks, options and remedies that didn’t involve the Supreme Court were rejected one at a time. Therefore, it had to happen.

Monday, Texas stepped up. BOOM! Direct hit!

I read most of Texas’ argument. It’s dense legalese but it sounds narrow, targeted, based on publicly known facts, and calls directly and precisely to the Constitution. It requests remedies that were written into the Constitution for precisely this purpose. To my untrained eye, it looks a kill shot. Roberts is going to have to work very hard to “penumbra” his way out of this one.

The Texas gambit is doing precisely what was intended. As I type this, just shy of 20 states legally sided with Texas. A roughly equal number oppose Texas. From there it gets messier. Many members of the Pennsylvania legislature are on the Texas side. Same with players in Michigan. A few state Attorney’s General have joined Texas. In DC, the House of Representatives has about a hundred on the side of Texas and many Senators too. The Supreme Court cannot hide under their robes.

Remember, this was caused. It didn’t have to happen. The four states in the crosshairs had a chance to play fair. Even after they cheated they had a chance for  transparent & fair recounts. The State Legislatures have plenary powers and in the case of PA there were clear instructions from Justice Alito. Cheaters doubling down made this monster. The fuckers started the problem and they’ll have to deal with what they have wrought.

The good new is this; Trump has already won.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

– Sun Tzu

Regardless of the legal wrangling, everyone knows Biden’s “record setting” vote was fake. It’s tainted. It’s ugly and dishonest and his party created the mess. They cheated so hard they’re nearly destroying the playing field. That’s a next level fuck up! Democrats pissed off 70 million Republicans and put another 70 million Democrats in the horrible spot of knowing they voted for a cheater.

Everything Biden does from now on… even if he’s sworn in… will be about cheating. He slithered all the way from plagiarism in 1988 to election fraud in 2020. He just wasn’t good enough to win the presidency fair and square. The mess created to drag Biden’s loser ass across the finish line is his to bear. November 3rd was the last time anyone will take him seriously. Biden wasn’t good enough to win. End of story. Everyone knows it.

Notice who didn’t cheat? Trump! He won a landslide. He did it old school, by campaigning his ass off. Biden hid in a basement while his party cheated. Spontaneous, joyous, parades appeared wherever Trump went.

Nobody anywhere is accusing Trump of cheating.

Nobody believes anything Biden says.

Trump has already won.

If Biden swears in next January, Democrats will not party in the streets. His supporters will not bask in the glorious triumph of an honest win. 70 million plus Republicans will be pissed off because they were fucked by the Democrats. People who know they were screwed do not forget. They act accordingly. Even Biden fans will have regret. They’ll know they’re cheaters. They’ll know they voted for a lying scumbag. What does that do to you? They’ll find out.

Trumps defense against Biden’s cheat has already done its job. Everyone will watch every future election like a hawk. Taping up windows and ejecting observers and driving trucks full of ballots around at night will have a different outcome. Every potential ballot stuffer will have wolves circling. Every voter, on both sides, will stalk warily. It’s hard to fuck over a hundred million skeptics.

There will be no repeat of 2020 and that’s a big deal! Trump has already shown us that Biden cheated; big and ugly. You know, I know, your neighbor knows, your dog knows. Everyone on both sides know. All that remains is the resolution; clean up the system or sink the ship. Good luck to the Supreme Court! If they pussy out they might as well move into Biden’s basement with him.

My compliments to Trump for a fine campaign. He ran up the score like a champ! That made cheat unavoidably obvious. He made the coup summon the greatest number of fake Democratic votes to ever exist. Since then, Trump’s been mounting an excellent defense. It’s clear to everyone that Trump had contingency plans for his contingency plans.

Also, well done to Texas for stepping up first. The other 49 states had the chance. They wimped out. Texas has a unique right to stand tall!

Over time, this is for the best. Americans don’t like being fucked over. This will make it harder in the future. Ideally, future elections will be better because this vote was wrecked.

On the Biden side, all that will be left are a few lonely “fraud deniers”. I’m not the first to notice this:

There is a universal characteristic to really bad news.  It never comes out early.  It drips out, a bit at a time, and there is always one more painful point coming.

This narrative is coming apart and it will only escalate, move quickly, get more colorful, people will turn.

Who then will be the 2020 election fraud deniers?

Cleaning up this and all future elections is bigger and better than anything I expected from Trump. Dude’s got giant clanging brass balls and he successfully mustered a solid army of legal support.

When Texas stepped into the ring, Christmas came early.

I’ve started… and rejected… a dozen posts lately. I had to delete them. They were inadequate.

The election situation exceeds my grasp as a wordsmith. Meanings too deep, ramifications too numerous, it cannot be “wished away” with a silly joke. Nothing I can say in 1,500-ish words is sufficient to the task. So, I’ve limped along with posts about woodworking and (behind the scenes) gone about my personal life with as much inner peace as I can muster.

I’ve bided my time and discovered an interesting point, it’s not all bad news. I’ve been feeling pretty good about things. Resignation has not been the feel of the world. The press is screaming at me until every intellectual circuit is muttering “we’re doomed” but my soul senses otherwise. I know “doomed”. This ‘aint it. Doomed is a gutless leader facing a wise and implacable foe doing incremental measured misdeeds. We have a guy who’s never backed down from a fight facing a stupid, overconfident, and power drunk group that just plain isn’t up to the task of coup. Yeah, I said it. It’s a coup. They’re chumps for initiating it. Sloppy, uncontrolled, incapable of recognizing a time to retreat, domestic (and foreign?) enemies have acted like toddlers with a machine gun. Our would be oppressors are dangerous, but they’re losers and idiots.

Here’s how I know they’re idiots. They couldn’t win a free and fair election in the richest and most peaceful nation on earth, during the richest and most peaceful time in history. If you can’t gain power and prestige legally, in that fertile ground, despite wanting it real bad, you’re fundamentally flawed.

That’s why I’ve been guardedly optimistic. If this is the best they have to offer, they’re in over their head. They’re malevolent, they’re a hassle, they cause a lot of problems, but they’re hampered by their internal limitations.

They could have hunkered down and waited things out. “Orange man bad can get 10,000 people to show up with a day’s notice. He seems to enjoy fighting. Our guy can barely fill out a bowling league and looks like a strong wind will blow him over. Lets wait out the next four years and step in when the time is right.” That’s the wise move.

In their hubris, they overreached and made a mess. It’s so huge and ugly it can’t be ignored. Now the mess must be sorted out. It will get sorted out. Ideally it’ll be resolved by serious people in suits. I’d rather a Socratic Dialogue than the French Revolution. I

For a month, the opening moves have been played. A bitter yet careful defense against the coup has been in process; evidence has been analyzed; foundations have been laid; constructs have been tested. The press screamed like maniacs but they couldn’t distract all of the people. Many of them made their one decisions. A little under half the people think the game was rigged. That number is going to rise. It will not go down.

From a place I least expected it, Texas, came the first punch to connect. Simple logic: “We played by the rules. Every state that didn’t play by the rules has done us harm. There are remedies in the Constitution. Use them.” Quickly, they were joined by Louisiana. Then several others. A score of states with clean elections have squared off against four states that cheated too much.

It was time. Americans just stepped into the ring. They’re beckoning to the coup. “Get in here. Step out of the shadows. I’m going to sort this out right here in the spotlight and you’re going to be in the ring with me.” It feels good. Damn I love Texas today!

Do I seem naïve? Too bad. Cynicism is not meant to be a crutch. It could all be for naught. Lawyers and cretins will twist words; as they have been trained. Judges, will seek to avoid making judgements; as they have grown accustomed. Happy endings are only guaranteed in fiction.

The next step is a big one. Compared to this, the whole of 2020 was merely an opening gambit. The saga we’re going to witness is no longer about Trump. It’s about elections. If Trump gets sworn in this January, that’s the least important thing. I’d consider it a pleasant side effect of resolving a situation that was allowed to get out of hand. The important thing is to restore our elections. Six weeks ago the only “solution” to “margin of cheat” elections was a big fat landslide. The landslide happened and it was denied. That made a different remedy necessary. I’m glad it’s being contested (for now) in the realm of constitutional law.

Texas nudges us toward a solution that doesn’t involve guillotines or tanks on the streets. I didn’t expect yesterday’s news, but I expected something. This year is a trip we will long remember.

Because it matters right now and because you can’t stop the signal:

On July 4th 2013 I posted the text of the Constitution of the United States.

On July 4th 2014 I linked to the Constitution of the United States.

On July 4th, 2017 I posted the text of the Constitution of the United States.

On July 4, 2018 I posted the text of the Constitution of the United States.

I tried (again!) to write something coherent about our current situation. I just can’t do it. So much bullshit… going down rabbit hole… doooooooom

So here’s Ryan George, who gets it:

[How y’all holding up under the 2020 shitshow? Everyone ok? Here’s a post with no politics and simple wood boards. We need a break.]

Things on a homestead never go according to plan. (Actually, life never goes according to plan, but that’s a different post.) Among my many first world problems was a window in my shop that had rotted away. Wind was whistling through the 1″+ gaps around what once was the edges. Last year I bought a cheap window to fit the rough opening, and then dropped the ball… for an entire year.

As long as you’re not dead you haven’t given up. Right?

Recently, I dug out the window, still miraculously undamaged and where I’d left it. I installed it. No biggie, except I did most of the work and it was the first window install I’ve done that didn’t piss me off.

The first part sucked. In the midst of a snowstorm I ripped out the old window. I had a friend help. There was a saw involved… and swearing.

Time for a digression. I used to think I hated carpentry. then I made a boat and it was a joy. This made me rethink things. What passes for “carpentry” in modern America is basically “construction”. One can be a “carpenter” and build a whole house and scarcely interact with wood at all. I hate that!

I recall a bathroom remodel that both sucked. It took forever, bled me dry, and it was a slog of learning new material after new material.

Under the guidance of someone smarter than me (thank God!), I tore layer after layer of shitty industrial wonder materials from 1970 off the studs. Then I reversed the process; slapping layer after layer of flimsy obnoxious “modern” industrial materials together to create the hybrid mess that is a modern house. I fucked with tile, grout, fiberglass insulation, low quality plywood, vinyl window sashes, Tyvek vapor barrier fabric, silicone sealant, PEX hose, a fiberglass tub, a porcelain commode, siding made out of God knows what, a rat’s nest of wires, drywall galore, and three coats of paint.

Did any of that involve a peaceful Curmudgeon working with actual wood? No! I call bullshit on the modern world. I like to work with wood… not whatever new sheet material Home Depot is spewing at consumers this fiscal quarter.

Back to this project, I removed a window that was once wood but was actually little pieces of wood scabbed together. The window was Plexiglas. The siding was some sort of Masonite atrocity that looks to me like marketers convinced people in 1970’s to side their houses with basically thick cardboard. It was a mess.

Gross!

Thank God I had help… and beer.

Anyway, the old shitty window bits were tossed and a new just as annoying vinyl window was tacked up. This took no time at all. The shop seemed a thousand degrees warmer. Then we quit. It was dark and snowing. There was more beer.

A few weeks later I was back at it. I was determined to regain lost ground. I’d experience the dead tree aspect of woodworking.

I said aloud to nobody “I’m going to do this job with some fucking wood”. It’s 2020, talking to myself aloud is the least of society’s worries.

The rough opening was a stud (the only wood in the wall) and a sheet of Tyvek and then some plywood. It’s butt ugly, but I like plywood walls in my shop. Drywall doesn’t suit me. Also this is a workshop. Only half of the wall is even built. Some of it is still disgusting, moldy sagging “bungalow paneling” some fucknut tacked up decades ago. All of Curmudgeon Compound is a work in progress.

Anyway I had some 1″ nominal (that’s 3/4″ on earth) pine that was leftover from another project. Some had been stained and some had not. Some was 3″ wide and some was 4″. I was determined to spend $0.

A chunk of stained 3″ wide pine filled the gap and covered up the rough wall. See it here on the bottom. It fit just right. I went around the perimeter with an unholy mix of stained and unstained. It would be better if all four sides were unbroken single boards and uniformly stained. However, IT’S A WORKSHOP! This is more than adequate for a workshop.

Once I had the perimeter done I put up a decorative “molding(?)” or “trim(?)” of 1″ x 4″ all around the window. I offset from the inner perimeter just about 1/4″ in all direction. It looks pretty spiffy having that little offset.

I cut the horizontal top and bottom trim a smidge long and then whacked a little triangle off that just to make something approaching visual appeal.

None of this is rocket science. Any chimp can do the same. I was just copying something I’d seen some other guy install. But it sure felt a lot more fun than messing with the vynil trim bits sold for window trim. Say it with me folks:

“Wood is a good material for building, vinyl is made for shitty disco albums.”

Oh no! The homebuilt dust collector I built is in the way. I hung it from a few pieces of maple leftover from my little sailboat build. I didn’t want to move the collector pipe or the support bits. It works surprisingly well and I’d rather not fiddle with that nice level pipe.

No sweat, just measure twice, figure out where the maple dust collector support will intrude on the area meant for the incoming pine trim. Then cut out exactly that area.

I expected a complete clusterfuck, but after measuring ever so carefully, I cut out notches so tight that they slipped together like puzzle pieces.

Sometimes things fit together so well… it just made me happy. I’m just a redneck fiddling around with pine in a garage but for a moment I felt like I’d crafted a fine thing. It was tight enough to support itself. It was loose enough to slide together without undue pressure. I didn’t split the very small trim part on the right side. I didn’t break anything, cut off a finger, or waste so much as an ounce of wood.

A thing made well, even if it’s a crude and simple thing, is a joy to the builder. It made me happy. You gotta’ enjoy the moments when they happen.

Here’s the right side. Just friction fit. I hadn’t even screwed it to the wall when I took this photo.

It was almost a shame to screw the piece down.

Here’s the other side. Again, I’ll admit, it’s not a finely crafted reproduction antique heritage rocking chair… it’s just a slab of trim. But it fit right and made me happy.

Here’s the whole thing. Note: the wall itself isn’t even done on the left side. That’s why there’s some loose Tyvek visible. But damn, some simple bits of 1″x3″ and 1″x4″ pine really spiffed things up. Sooner or later I’ll get out the stain and make the pieces match… maybe next year.

By the way, that silly looking dust collector “blast gate” I built a year and a half ago works great. (Links to my dust collector build: 1, 2, 3.) I had my doubts that my cheap little solution was as good as the expensive stuff but it works well and has held up better than anything that crude has a right to perform. Sometimes the simple solution is just right.

[This post has no politics. We all need a break.]

Last year, when practicality won out over my stubborn refusal to take on payments, I bought a new tractor. It has a bucket. The bucket is a bit small for carrying firewood. I wanted to carry larger amounts so I bought a “carryall”.

A carryall is a cheap and supremely crude three point hitch attachment. Locally, they’re sold as a frame, you’ve got to bolt on boards or whatnot to make it useful for your needs. (Here’s a link to a fully assembled one, but that’s not what I bought.) I bought the locally available frame and set to work.

The logical choice is to buy dimensional lumber and build from that. However, even the most expensive 2″ nominal wood you can get at a consumer outlet (like a place that rhymes with Home Despot) is crap. Seriously, the stuff they sell as “wood” is just embarrassingly low quality. How do they look in the mirror in the morning?

Luckily a tree fell across my driveway almost a decade ago. (The timeline of this story is mixed up… life is like that.) I hired some guy with a WoodMizer. Together we whacked the tree into planks. WoodMizer guys like making big fat giant beefy timbers. Slabbing up fifty dinky little 2″x4″ studs is a lot of work compared to milling three monster 2″x10″ beams. When I grow up I want to own a portable sawmill!

I had no purpose in mind for the wood, only the idea that it would be handy someday. I wound up with wood that would fit more in a medieval castle than a modern American house. I stacked it in my decrepit barn, a couple thousand board feet of timbers. It has been air drying ever since.

I brought the stuff out, birdshit and dirt and all. It was a bear to work with it. I couldn’t get the timbers onto my radial arm saw so I had to cut them with a handheld circular saw. I should have used a chainsaw. A circular saw was like a chipmunk trying to chew through a sequoia. None of my cuts were square, but it was the best I could do. I was happy the saw didn’t burst into flames.

Obviously, the wood was rough cut. It came off a bandmill, not the Home Despot supplier of wussy junk. Luckily, rough cut was fine. If you got a sliver off that mess it would probably be the size of a baseball bat anyway.

There is a process called “resawing”. Resawing is when you take a big fat honkin’ rough cut timber and work it down to smaller, finished face, pieces of wood. I ripped each of the planks to get an equal width and ran it through my thickness planer to get an equal thickness. I didn’t go overboard, this is meant for rough work. Think “toss a ton of firewood on it”, not “make an heirloom rocking chair”. It was hard work and I made a huge pile of sawdust while doing it. Thank goodness I already built a sawdust collection system!

The finish product was pretty OK. It wasn’t as uniform as I’d like but the big heavy wood was a real workout for my decades old and fairly basic consumer grade woodworking equipment.

There’s something about a big plank that makes me happy. I would like to build a clipper ship out of this shit and sail the seas. Alas, a carryall is what I needed and that’s what I made.

I slapped on some basic waterproofing. Nothing special. I expect it to get beat to hell with use so I didn’t want to overdo the “fineness” of it.

I bought some spiffy new drill bits so I could countersink the bolts. this was a special present for myself; an early Christmas present because I’d been a lucky Curmudgeon. Blog readers Bruce and Kristy send me a nice tip so I bought a shiny new set of Forstner Bits! I’ve always wanted Forstner bits. I spent the second half of the generous tip on a couple bottles of my favorite bourbon. So much joy… Bruce and Kristy, if you’re reading, y’all rock!

Like a ridiculously predictable blues song, my drill press took one look at my shiny new bits and malfunctioned. The bastard! The on/off switch got weirdly stuck “on”. Off is one thing but “stuck on” is a safety disaster! I have no intention winding up wrapped around a drill spindle!

Between the dead drill press and the rest of life, the entire project stalled. I made no progress for an entire year!

Ironically, huge beams will warp just like small boards. The tree that “donated” these planks was nothing great. When the fibers of the “resawn” boards were released, the planks warped… but only a little. With a small piece of wood, you can force it into alignment and all is fine. With these planks you could stand an elephant on them and they won’t give even 1/16″.

I could resaw them again. Or I could say “fuck it, it’s a farm implement”. Good for me that I didn’t overthink it. Everything lined up well within tolerances of big load bearing planks. Here it is just haphazardly tossed together.

I used paint sticks to add “drainage spacing” to the flat part of the carryall. My dumbass cat showed up to knock every damn one of them over. Cats suck!

I bought a replacement switch for the drill press. I had doubts that my decades old crappy low quality drill press that’s made of Chinesium would have compatible parts. I considered a dozen solutions involving various switches and soldering but I didn’t want to deal with a drill press with a rednecked lamp switch bolted on top. I’d dithered all year before I ordered a replacement switch without any indication in the description that it would match my drill press.

It was a shot in the dark. To my delight the switch lined up! It accepted the internal wiring and snapped right into the face plate! I almost died with joy! For $10 I’d turned an unuseable drill press into “good as new”! I can’t say enough about how happy I am with that silly little switch.

I was going to crop this picture but Ms. Stihl from March 2016 was just too fuckin’ gorgeous to delete!

My drill bits, financed a whole year ago by a blog donation, were perfect. I drilled the countersink hole just exactly the right diameter for the washer and each one locked in like it had been welded there. I love it when things work out! (Also, yet another thanks to my donor who made my day a year ago and again this weekend!)

I had had bought all the hardware last year. I think it’s a sign that I might be slightly more mature than I once was because normally I’d have lost all the parts by now. Finding all those bolts right where I’d stashed them should be “assumed” but instead it’s like a lottery win. How often do you stash a part and then find it easily when you need it a year in the future?

It’s not rocket science; any monkey can build a simple carryall, but this particular monkey was proud of his work. The bolt heads are sunk deep enough that the surface is flat. I didn’t want to be stubbing my toe or mashing my fingers on bolt heads.

Ta da! Dirt simple and only 8 planks with 18 holes… you’d think I’d build it in a day… but life isn’t like that. Simple projects always take longer than you want. At the very least it’s built like a brick shithouse.

I’ve tested it out and I can hold just about the maximum weight that I ought to carry on my tractor. I toss some wood into the front bucket to make sure the front wheels are actually steering instead of just rolling. The front bucket and the carryall looks to haul 2 weeks wood in the coldest weather and a month in mellow conditions. Nice!

Have a great day y’all!

I just spent two weeks in contemplative peace. Some time was devoted to rest and some to hunting (which is its own form of meditation).

I hoped to gather my thoughts. I had the intention to make sense of the current mess. How did we get here? What does it all mean? Did the heartbreak of 2020 have to be as it has been? Was it necessary? Does necessity make it better? Are we feeling the sharp pain of a power grab or dull throbbing remorse as a lost situation gasps in its deathbed? Are the two mutually exclusive? Who can bear a full year of gaslighting? Was it only a year? What is to become of the ones who’ve already forgotten the before time?

Am I seeing an ending or a beginning? Does anyone else see what I do?

I couldn’t do it. It’s too big to encompass, to weighty to elucidate, to much for a mere blogger. The only solution is to wait. People will come to their own conclusions in due time… if they’re capable. And if they can’t? The solution to that problem is above my pay grade.

I wrote a 2,000 word rant. I discarded it. I wrote a 1,500 word carefully considered analysis. I discarded it. I scribbled notes and ignored them. I had more false starts than I care to revisit. In the end, I realized the truth. Nothing I write will be equal to witnessing what has happened and was probably fated to occur. Strange and destructive, yet irresistible and attractive; I looked it square in the face and took in its full measure. To witness, one must look. Not everyone looks. Even fewer see.

What summation does justice to a year of constant harassment? All is in flux; a people simultaneously losing freedoms and gaining a spine. It’s not even limited to my country… does not Europe flounder? Once upon a time there was the phrase “western civilization”…

It seems overwhelming but then again, it’s meant to. It’s artificial. If you didn’t have media, most of what’s claimed to be “important” would be imperceptible. Meanwhile, the sun rises each day. It does that with or without CNN. Which is why the sunrise matters and CNN doesn’t. To think otherwise is to indulge in pretend battles with fiercely imaginary people. Hollow, simulated, creatures, bereft of connection or accomplishment; twisted by lack of self, they burn what they cannot break, consume what they cannot sow. Violent but only in their minds, they’ve neither thrown nor taken a punch. They bellow insults into the wind; thinking that if only they bay loud enough it’ll break the silence within. It won’t.

It is wiser, and was once common sense, to build your house on a foundation of stone, not theater. So I have returned to stone, as all wise folk do.

Here’s what matters. The cycle continues. My dog died. I have a new puppy.

Not much in life is better than a puppy. I am happy.