Feb 042022
 

In my lifetime there have been several noteworthy epidemics, but two stand out for their political nature. The Commie Cough, of course, has been wreaking havoc for a few years now, and opening the door for totalitarianism and mass Karening the whole time. But a generation earlier, another epidemic gained vast political clout and resulted in almost the exact opposite response. Where COVID has led to lockdowns of entire populations, mass testing and legal repercussions for not just ill-behaved people with the disease but well intentioned people without it… AIDS resulted in the opposite. AIDS is a disease that is 100% fatal barring the use of complex and expensive drugs that do not cure the disease but merely hold it in check; stop the drugs and not only do you probably die, you return to being a carrier. The entire planet was shut down to ostensibly deal with a disease that  well over 90% of those who get it will survive. But AIDS? Go ahead and do what you like, because reasons.

Had the same policies now in place for the Pinko Pox been in place for AIDS thirty years ago – in particular, mass testing and quarantining of the infected – the disease would be a historical footnote, popping up about as often as Ebola. But no, any suggestion for doing such a thing is seen as homophobic, despite the fact that the bulk of the lives spared would have been that very demographic.

But behold, joyous news:

More aggressive HIV strain that leads to AIDS twice as fast discovered in Netherlands

By allowing the HIV to persist, rather than wiping it out decades ago, it had the opportunity to mutate into an exciting strain that not only transforms the infection into full AIDS faster, it also results in a higher viral load and is much more transmissible. This strain has been around for a while but is seemingly becoming much more prevalent. Coming soon: an airborne strain as transmissible as COVID.

Some will argue against the need for testing and quarantining because AIDS “cocktails” have been around for a couple decades now that allow people with the virus to live seemingly healthy lives, apparently for a normal lifespan. And for those that have the virus, this doubtless is a good thing. But this is only a good thing for as long as the drugs last. A global war? A major economic meltdown? A Carrington Event? Complex, expensive drugs could easily become quite rare. How long does someone need to be off their antiretroviral meds before the HIV decides to become resistant to the meds?

 Posted by at 7:56 pm
Feb 042022
 

So, I had the opportunity to procure a box of vintage diagrams. This is not the sort of thing to be passed up. The shipper wanted me to pay the shipping cost, which is a wholly reasonable position to take; the most convenient shipping service for the sender was FedEx, so I got a FedEx account, created a shipping label through the FedEx website, emailed it as a PDF to the sender, he printed it out, stuck it to the box, dropped it off at FedEx on the 1st. It promptly appeared on the FedEx tracking site. Woo.

Delivery was scheduled for yesterday. It arrived in this state yesterday morning, with delivery scheduled by “end of day.” All plans for the day were put on hold to await the box; I have no desire for this thing to end up in the hands of porch pirates or drowned in rain. So 5 PM rolls around, no package. Perhaps “end of day” meant midnight. Sometime in the evening, the tracking info changed… now, “pending” and “no delivery date scheduled.”

Gah.

So I wake up this AM hoping that things will have changed. Nope. Noon rolls around, no change. So I called FedEx and spoke to a human. And here’s the problem. It got on a truck to be delivered to me, they scanned the label and found that the “to” address is the same as the “from” address on the account, and they got all confused, so they will sit on the package for a few *days* while they print up a new label and then ship it *back.* And since the “from” address is the same as where it was supposed to go in the first friggen’ place, “shipping it back” means sending it to me, where it was supposed to go anyway. Just delayed several days, because reasons.

Fricken’ bureaucrats.

 

 Posted by at 1:18 pm
Feb 012022
 

Now people are fighting over steak.

40-person brawl breaks out in Golden Corral over reported steak shortage

Here’s the thing, though. I went to YouTube to look up this video (some people can’t see embedded twitter vids), and found a number of “fight at Golden Corral” videos. One wonders at such a thing. Conclusions? Draw your own. Is Golden Corral the harbinger of collapse? Or does Chuck E. Cheese still hold the reins on that dubious distinction?

One from 2018:

One from 2019:

Another from 2019:

 Posted by at 2:20 pm
Jan 312022
 

I ain’t a Christian. I also do not like magic (as in the fictional supernatural stuff, not what Penn & teller do on stage). And yet… I’ve been a fan of the Lord of the Rings and associated works since the 80’s. The LotR books are slopping over with obvious and not so obvious Christian themes and ideas, and with wizards and magic and such… and they’re awesome, because they’re well written and, importantly, *not* *stupid.* I do not have to be an adherent to a particular religion to recognize when someone is drawing inspiration from it.

And then there’s this guy.

No, Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” isn’t Christian

My recommendation is to give the article linked above a pass (it is, after all, likely mere click- and rage-bait, designed to drive traffic by claiming something so fundamentally stupid that you’ll go there to rage-read, comment and drive up ad revenue) and go straight to the YouTube debunking of this nonsense:

 Posted by at 2:10 pm
Jan 302022
 

The developed world is being flooded with “migrants.” This is far beyond deniable at this stage. The only debatable questions are “why is this happening,” “why does it continued to be allowed,” and “is it too late to do anything about it other than hope Elon Musk makes interplanetary colonization possible before the influx of the third world into the first destroys the ability of civilization to survive out in space.”

The fact that such a large percentage  of the “migrants” are young males says a lot about the goals of the endeavor. The lands they leave behind are populated with their women and children; those lands will continue to be what they have been. The lands they enter will be colonized and changed; far too many are stories of “migrants” who attack locals, get arrested and then receive leniency – or are outright released – because their savagery is part of their original culture, and Obama forbid that host nations expect immigrants to adapt.

A smidge of hypocrisy:

European edition:

I do, however, have a compromise to deal with *all* of the worlds problems. The first video claims that the media focus on Ukraine/Russia is to divert attention from the ongoing invasion of the US. Well, maybe. Thing is, Russia invading Ukraine would be a bad thing regardless. So… my idea: scoop up a few dozen million of these military age male migrants. The US has a lot to spare, as does France, Britain, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, etc.  Gather them all together in staging areas, and if Russia invades Ukraine or China invades Taiwan, drop these conscripts into the war zone. Hell, maybe even arm a few of them with bolt action rifles or something. Let them be useful, rather than cultural, financial and demographic drags on their host nations.

 Posted by at 1:22 pm
Jan 292022
 

Remember when it was announced last year that the graves of hundreds of indigenous children were found on the grounds of a Canadian Catholic school? Wellllll…..

In Kamloops, Not One Body Has Been Found

Someday, humanity might evolve to the point where not every single accusation against western civilization is automatically believed by the media and the politicians and the activists before there’s any actual evidence. Sadly, we’re still at the monkey-throwing-its-own-poop stage of evolution, it seems.

 Posted by at 2:21 pm