Atomic Fungus

NyQuil--

[43,000 word rant, which quotes heavily from Denis Leary, deleted]

--for the first time since I had this illness in EARLY JUNE I took NyQuil for the symptoms. Of course it hit me like a 16,000 ton weight (see bracketed statement) but at least I slept well. This morning I feel less congested and I'm still high as a kite.

Doxylamine succinate takes a bit to get going, but once it does, I'm OUT OF IT for 15-18 hours. It's an old-school antihistamine, and it's highly sedating, which is why they put it in NyQuil in the first place. But I hardly coughed at all last night and when I did, I was able to get to sleep afterwards. If I couldn't, I'd get up and have a popsicle, and that fixed it. That happened twice. Not bad.

I haven't had any of the prescription antitussive (cough) medicine since Friday, and I'm now beginning to suspect that stuff does not work for me the way it's supposed to. I think it made things worse, rather than better, because without it I'm coughing a lot less at night.

I need to get the grass cut--at least the front yard--but I'm not operating power equipment until I feel a lot less spacy than I do right now. At least I can tell its "drugs" spacy and not "fever" spacy.

Meanwhile, nothing on the tubzorz really sparks any commentary, so this is going to have to do for today's post. Sorry about that.

I'd like to suggest that the Jeep Wagoneer is not selling better than it is because IT COSTS SIXTY THOUSAND FREAKING DOLLARS

...MSRP starts at $62,000 and goes up from there, and you can't get a V8 in the stupid thing. Turbo I6--and not the legendary straight six that was in the Cherokee (like the one I used to have). Good power etc, but not a V8...and if you're paying sixty grand for a luxury SUV, you probably want a V8 in it.

Maybe lower the price. Holy crap.

* * *

We went to an exhibition of ukiyo-e at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, centered on Hokusai's work. The art was fantastic. It was a wonderful time.

I was not feeling all that hot, but we went, and we had fun. Beautiful artwork. Got to see the original Great Wave print; it was naturally the centerpiece of the exhibit.

There was a little cafe in the middle of it. The ramen was bleeding awful. (How can you possibly screw up instant ramen?? They managed!) But the eggrolls were all right.

Blizzards from DQ on the way home; then I took a 3+ hour nap and woke up feeling a lot better than I had all morning.

I'll take it.

* * *

Tomorrow's plan is to rest and recuperate as much as I can, but I've got to cut the front grass. I may just get the tractor out and do it, because while I feel better, I do not feel good.

Mrs. Fungus keeps suggesting that I go to Urgent Care, but I don't think this rises to that necessity.

We went out for ramen last night (real ramenm, at our usual haunt for such cuisine) and I couldn't finish my food. Today I had a PBJ before we left. A veggie eggroll and about 40% of the awful ramen was enough food to keep me going. I had a hamburger at DQ solely because I thought I should eat something solid, but the Blizzard was enough for me.

But after sitting down here and having a popsicle, I hit the store for more popsicles, and then--after having a couple more--realized I am hungry. Return of appetite is a good sign.

And speaking of which, dinner is ready.

Anonymous Conservative says:

Perhaps it is time we take the training wheels off, and see if this country can function without a national federal Secret police spying on everyone and blackmailing our politicians. Shitcan the entire FBI, and give the rest of their duties and funding to local law enforcement.

...which I have been saying for years. Only now are other people starting to say it. How long until they use my hashtag for it?

#DefundFBI

* * *

And here's another one! It is the timing and the frequency of vaccination that causes autism, not the vaccines themselves. Individually--given later in life, and one at a time every few months--they don't cause any harm. But if you're giving a baby 2-3-4-18 vaccines at one go, that is what does it.

Covering births through age nine, the study focused on children who had received the full CDC-recommended vaccine schedule.

To qualify as "up to date," the child would have received more than 70 vaccine doses during around 11 vaccination visits.

However, a chilling finding emerged in the data, showing that children with the complete vaccine schedule showed a 4.4-fold increased incidence of autism compared to those who did not.

According to the authors, this elevated risk translates into a Population Attributable Risk (PAR) of nearly 80%.

This shocking discovery means the schedule accounts for most autism diagnoses in the study group.

As I have been saying all along. We vaccinate too early and too often.

* * *

Female English police officer wonders why no one tried to help her when she was beset by shitheads.

In England, you go to jail if you do anything about shitheads being shitheads. Even if the shithead is being a shithead to you, you're not allowed to defend yourself. Why would anyone risk their ass helping a police officer? You risk jail just going on social media and saying something derogatory about the shitheadedness!

* * *

Newscum's buddy had 9 children slaves on his pot farm. Illegal alien children, "unaccompanied minor" status. Yeah.

* * *

Germany has the same problems England has only worse because they're not surrounded by water on all sides. The German people are starting to get fed up with the shitheadedness, though.

Just remember that the police exist to protect criminals from mob justice.

* * *

You need to be almost entirely ignorant of economics to be a socialist. It seems that today's socialists think that bounty is the natural state of mankind, and that capitalists are just greedy people who figured out how to make other people pay for their fair share.

Um, no. The natural state of mankind is for everyone to be starving, just about, because food is a scarce resource. Capitalism has enabled us to generate so much food that obesity is an affliction of the poor.

...which is why one salient feature of every last socialist economy in the world is starvation.

* * *

I feel like crap. Ibuprofen and benadryl helped a ton last night--I got some sleep, at least. I'm gonna need more Sudafed, though.

Ugh.

Illegal alien children working on a pot farm in California. Pot farm belongs to a major Newscum donor.

Child labor is illegal in the United States. A kid aged 16 is allowed to have a job, but any age under that, there are some really strict regulations. That's why you don't see 14-year-olds working at McDonald's: McDonald's would be breaking federal labor law.

And quite unlike the laws prohibiting the use of illegal labor, the feds actually enforce the child labor laws.

The democrats' defense of slave labor stems from two things: they get a lot of electoral power from it, and they love cheap labor. Someone estimated that if California, Illinois, and New York were completely devoid of illegal aliens, democrats would lose something like 18 electoral votes. And the "cheap labor" thing ought to be self-explanatory.

Hell, there's nothing new about it. The democrats have always favored slavery, in all forms--from the antebellum South to the USSR to China and on and on.

* * *

The American market for electric vehicles is in the shitter because that's where EVs pretty much belong.

* * *

The new Superman movie is not good.

* * *

I have a sore throat. I kept myself awake last night by coughing a lot. I couldn't get in contact with my doctor today. I've got to wait until Monday for that. Awesome.

This is not fuckin' allergies, FFS.

Blacks are unhappy about Carnival Cruise Line's new behavioral rules. Such as?

Zero tolerance on smoking marijuana onboard ships.

Minors cannot be in public areas without a parent after 1am.

Personal folding fans and the "Boots On The Ground" line dance are banned due to noise.

Bluetooth speakers in public areas are banned due to loud music disrupting other passengers.

Disruptive guests can be removed without a refund and possibly fined.

Numerous customers claim that Carnival DJs will no longer play rap music, though Carnival denies this.

It's really quite easy to understand why.

Marijuana--that shit stinks and I think they're well-justified to ban it from their ships. It's private property, assholes--if you want to smoke pot, stay home.

American society is growing tired of the antics of this demographic. It's no longer cute, or a matter of "cultural differences". Expectations are finally being enforced and free passes on bad behavior are being canceled.

As it for damn sure ought to be.

* * *

LA is suffering a labor shortage. Sorry, that should read "a shortage of ARTIFICIALLY CHEAP labor", because the illegal aliens are not going to work, because they're afraid of being deported.

I like this remedy:

A nice fine levied against every employer who employs illegals would be a fine start. How about 100 times the hourly wage employers pay the illegals....each day they work? That ought to focus their minds on the basic documentation necessary to prove legal employment status.

Any employer caught and convicted of hiring illegal labor sure as hell won't do it again, will they? Assuming they can remain in business once those fines hit.

People like old Arturo, here, need to feel that kind of pain, methinks:

"We don't have enough people to staff the work and we're scrambling to figure it out," said Arturo Sneider, the CEO at Primestor, a real major estate management company in California and two other states. "It's triggering delays."

Well Arturo...tough shit. Pay a decent wage to legal workers and you will have your pick of legal employees. In fact, why don't you sponsor a job fair and some training programs for high school students who need jobs.

What Arturo is complaining about is that he can't find illegal labor to exploit. That cuts into his profits, if he has to pay for legal labor!

* * *

Thursday is handled. Tomorrow is Friday, which should be relatively light. I hope.

Today I finished my latest cold reread of AV, and--holy crap the third book in the trilogy was actually keeping me in suspense.

I've got to get cracking on this stuff.

* * *

The sinusitis is back. Or whatever it is. Left side of my head is jammed up like a Tokyo subway car at rush hour. I feel like crap.

Probably gonna have to go see the doc again. I need to get this handled, because I need to get a colonoscopy done, and I don't want to do that when I've got an intractable upper respiratory infection.

What a pisser.

Taking the Epstein stuff off the table doesn't mean Trump has sold out. The simple fact is that there is absolutely no reason for Epstein's files to have remained intact. I'd bet that all the proof of misconduct which the Epstein files might once have contained has been deleted, with malice aforethought, by people who wished to protect those who would be incriminated by that evidence.

How many years has it been since Epstein didn't kill himself? The FBI has had that long to delete anything in those files that they wanted. The evidence was never catalogued or inventoried, because that would have made it a matter of public record, so they could have combed through it and wiped out anything that might have incriminated someone from the Gangster Party.

Trump's most vicious political enemies have been in possession of these "files" for years. If the conduct largely implicates those enemies, why would they NOT strip the evidence of their criminality from the files they knew would be available to Trump?

Not only that, but those files did not contain any evidence against Trump--because if they had, wouldn't it have been used?

I trust Trump in a way I do not trust any other sitting politician. I think the pronouncement that Epstein killed himself is a bit much, but I'd bet money this is a tactical retreat coming from the simple fact that the evidence--left in the hands of those whom could be convicted by it--was deleted.

There's no client list to publish, because the people on it made sure it was deleted.

* * *

Weed is bad for you. Evidence that CBD causes liver damage. Does tobacco cause liver damage?

I said it years and years ago that I expected that marajuana would turn out to be just as bad for you as tobacco, if not worse.

* * *

There you will find a brief history of the Israel/palestine situation. It is a fantastic encapsulation of something I've known about this issue for decades: the problem is not Israel; the problem is palestine. The opening paragraph explains.

In 1964, when the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was founded, the West Bank was in the hands of Jordan--it was Jordan--and Gaza was in the hands of Egypt--it was Egypt. So the PLO was founded in 1964, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. They wanted to drive the Jews into the sea and get rid of every single Jew in the Middle East.

Emphasis in original.

20 years ago, in 2025, Israel pulled out of the West Bank and Gaza entirely, and left palestine with the keys to a fully functional floral industry--Israel was exporting 50 million flowers a year to Europe. They left it all intact, and a businessman from New York raised $14 million to help palestine take advantage of this intact industry left for them by Israel. Of course, rather than take advantage of all this, palestine destroyed the greenhouses and ripped out the plumbing.

These assholes cannot be reasoned with. Their entire political stance is predicated on being the dog in the manger. That's why I have absolutely ZERO sympathy for them. ANY of them. AT ALL.

However, there is some hope.

A group of five leading sheikhs in the Palestinian Authority's Hebron district sent a letter to the government expressing a desire to join the Abraham Accords and to have peace with Israel, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The American media has kept very quiet about the Abraham Accords, because they have brought peace to the middle east on an unprecedented scale, and the very last thing they want is for Trump to get any credit for that.

The Abraham Accords succeeded because palestine did not have a seat at the negotiating table when they were being hammered out.

Still, if some of them want to start acting civilized and reasonable, why wouldn't we welcome them to the 21st century?

* * *

Anyway, we have to wash dishes tonight. Wednesday is otherwise handled, though, and I'll take it.

"Renewable" energy is only cheap as long as the government subsidies last. Once the subsidies end, it's no longer cheap.

The cat is out of the bag. Electricity made from renewable sources is not as "cheap" as its advocates sometimes claim. It evidently cannot survive without billions annually in tax credits.

If anyone had just listened to me, this would have been widely known years ago.

* * *

Unelected judge decides that congress doesn't control the purse strings. "This judge," says Ace, "is declaring that a law passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by the President is invalid."

Ace later points out:

The Supreme Court just ruled that South Carolina can completely ban Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, and the Supreme Court just told lowly district court judges they could not issue nationwide injunctions.

This unelected judge from MA just ignored both rulings.

The judge in question didn't even find the law to be unconstitutional, or legally questionable in any way. No, she just outright put a stay on it, forbidding the executive branch from enforcing the law, without any justification.

But apparently the judicial branch--rather than being "separate but equal" from the other branches--is actually an unelected dictatorship.

* * *

As usual, democrats are calling for people to be killed. They want to kill ICE agents.

The fact that the democrats are losing their shit in such detail over Trump's deportation initiative indicates to me how effective it is. It's costing them power--and the more illegals get deported, the more power they lose.

* * *

So, Xi doesn't seem to be in charge in China any longer. There's a "Decision-Making and Coordination Body" telling Xi what to do. That means he's not running China any longer, but China doesn't want the rest of the world to understand that just yet.

* * *

John Cusack has removed all doubt...again. Dude's a decent actor--or was, anyway, forty years ago. He's otherwise a complete idiot, and always has been.

* * *

Well, we took the plunge tonight: the bunker is getting new patio doors. The one we use to access the patio has reached the end of its useful life, and it's getting harder and harder to open and close it. The one in the living room has not worked as long as I've been cognizant of it. We're getting 'em both replaced.

Whee!

* * *

Anyway, it's Tuesday.

Today I saw, on FB, a thing from the cyclekart group about rack-and-pinion steering versus go-kart steering. People are saying that R-n-P steering doesn't work as well as the traditional go-kart steering does. So, I might have some more work to do. It won't take much, anyway.

* * *

Speaking of not much--I'm pretty tired tonight.

You will have to scroll down in today's post from THE John Wilder to the graphic I'm talking about, but it's a screencap from an on-line discussion where a Baby Boomer answers the question, "What was your first job, and what did it pay?" It is slightly past halfway down.

At age 14, in 1972, dude was earning $3.25 an hour on an unskilled summer job. Minimum wage in 1972 was $1.60 an hour. The 2025 equivalent of $3.25 is a bit short of $24.

Where is the unskilled job today that pays that much? You can't find one, because the prevalence of illegal labor has kept the price of legal labor artificially low.

This is why we need to punish those who hire illegal labor just as much as we need to remove the illegals from the country. We need to end H1-B and similar visas and force American countries to hire American domestic labor.

Or, hell, just put a tariff on imported labor! That means any time you get labor from outside the US (including H1-B etc) you pay a tax on it. Sure, you can have that call center in Philippines or India, but with the tariff you're paying the same wages you'd pay Americans living in America, so--

* * *

NYT stepped on its dick again but in a surprising fashion. The yellow rag published a story critical of Zohran Mamdani, the communist democrat (redundant?) nominee for the NYC mayoral race. You see, NYT published a story about how the commie lied about his race in an attempt to get into Columbia University. Dude claimed he was black and/or asian. You might see why that could be problematic. (Hint: dude is not black. He's not asian, either.)

The paper printed something which is a verified fact--verified by the communist himself--and the left is livid over it, because how dare you print something less than complimentary about a democrat???//

* * *

What in the hell is going on? Elon Musk is proving to be unstable, politically, and this whole "America Party" deal is troublesome for a variety of reasons.

Apparently there's no actual Federal Election Commission filing for the "America Party" and Musk himself said that it's "fake news", but that doesn't really jibe with what he Xttled over the weekend.

Meanwhile, any third party would just cut into republican votes and it would ensure that democrats won the next several elections. It's a bad idea on several levels.

The idea is to get the democrats to split their vote, dude.

* * *

This is why Planned Parenthood needs to have its federal funding cut off. They have absolutely no qualms about helping a 13-year-old girl obtain an abortion, and to hell with what the parents think, or what the laws are.

Abortion is an invasive procedure, and sometimes the dice roll snake-eyes. What would Planned Parenthood do if the girl died? I have to wonder about that; you don't hear much about botched abortions because the democrat-media complex has so much invested in abortion-as-contraception. I'd bet that the figures would be astonishing, though, and widespread knowledge of them would lead to an immediate public backlash against the whole thing.

If the casualty rate doesn't compare favorably with that of uncomplicated appendectomies, I'd be pretty surprised.

* * *

Chicago area media ignored this story because there's no way to disguise what the race was of the participants. Or, at least 90% of them.

I like the "no fighting" exhortation. Yeah, that'll work.

* * *

The democrat party covers itself in glory again. I talked about this the other day: there's a major natural disaster in Texas which killed dozens of people, and the democrats are right there dancing in blood.

They can't help themselves. They support a bloody ideology that always demands a mountain of skulls.

"This is horrific--leftists cheering drowning children." Yeah, it's horrific, but it's what they do.

* * *

I think I know what's going on here. It's a story, from a cashier, about a woman who apparently didn't understand that $20 is less than $23.

I'd bet that the customer in question pulls this scam a lot: just act abysmally stupid, and you save a few bucks when the cashier gives up in frustration. You say, "What, over three bucks??" But yes, there are people like that--and if you spent any time working behind a cash register, you'd know it.

* * *

Today is the last day of our 5-day weekend. I slept a lot yesterday. It's cool outside today--not even going to hit 80--but the air is on because it's still humid out there. We'll be able to shut the air off this evening, though, and open the windows.

Air will go back on tomorrow, though. Still--I'll take it.

Leftists are gloating over flood deaths in Texas because Texas doesn't vote the right way.

Lovely people, aren't they?

* * *

Head of teachers' union can't spell. She hoped the sun would start "peaking through again" on the "4rth" of July.

Well, the first one would have passed spell check.

* * *

"We need to take care of our people" say the proponents of socialized medicine, but they mean that the same way mobsters mean it when they say, "Vito, go 'take care' of Lenny the Fish tonight."

No, that's not really true, but it might as well be. Many of the people who push socialized medicine don't understand economics well enough to see why it cannot work the way they envision it working. They think that they'll get American health care as it was prior to Obamacare, but for free: no insurance premiums, no bills, and the best possible care with no waiting. They think they'll get instant access to urgent care without having to present an insurance card or to write a check, and they think everyone will get the same quality of care.

But socialized medicine is economically impossible. You can't provide high-quality care to everyone, immediately, on-demand, without some kind of rationing mechanism. In the US, it's the cost of entry; you go to the doctor expecting to pay for the care you receive. In places like Canada and England, it's in time: you wait in the ER, you wait to see specialists, you wait for tests, you wait and wait and wait. You spend an inordinate amount of time on jumping through bureaucratic hoops to get any care at all. Sometimes, you die while you're waiting. If the death panel isn't willing to approve the plan of care for what's wrong with you, they'll gleefully suggest euthanasia as a way to avoid further suffering from whatever's killing you. Assuming it doesn't kill you before they finish reviewing your case.

* * *

Sunday! "4rth" day of our 5-day staycation. Today will probably be pretty low-key, considering how the weekend has been. Weather-wise, it's not supposed to be too hot today--though right now it's 83 with a dew point of 71, making for a heat index of 89--and there's a good chance of rain. First good chance of rain was around 7 AM but we didn't get anything. Next good chance is around 3-ish, and we'll see how we do. We need rain.

I mean, we need rain. I haven't cut the grass in weeks, because it simply hasn't needed it, and it's turning brown to boot. It looks a bit shaggy, though I'm not going to cut it since my neighbors haven't been cutting theirs.

* * *

Saw a thingy on FB: "Over $150,000 of bicycles stolen" from a hotel hosting a Tour de France team.

So, what...one bike? Because those bicycles are incredibly expensive, being made of exotic materials so that they're super-light and have as little rolling friction and air resistance as possible.

Okay, maybe two bikes. FFS.

* * *

Anyway, I woke up with the usual hydraulic pressures--both positive and negative--and needed to relieve them in the usual ways. Having done that, and having written this post, I'm heading back to bed. I get to do that; it's Sunday.

Liquid crystal radiation shielding.

The key is a lattice of gallium-based liquid metal droplets suspended in a flexible polymer film. These droplets form micro-crystal domains that scatter and absorb high-energy particles, particularly gamma and solar proton radiation. The structure remains stable in vacuum, non-toxic, and flexible enough to line the inside of spacecraft walls or crew suits.

In vacuum chamber simulations, a single 1 mm layer reduced solar flare particle penetration by over 80%, and stacked layers performed even better. Unlike lead or ceramic shielding, the material is lightweight, reusable, and won't crack under micrometeorite impacts or thermal cycling.

In my stories, ships have "flare shutters" which are there to stop radiation etc. Sensors on the outside of the ship detect radiation pulses and the shutters "slap shut" to protect the pilot, including his eyesight, in the event of a solar flare or thermonuclear detonation or anything that could cause him harm. I'd bet this would fit the bill handsomely.

* * *

Jalopnik Gawker Communists ask, "How did it get this bad?" in an article about how the American auto industry "seems doomed".

Within my lifetime U.S. auto production has tanked from half a million cars per month to just over 100,000 cars per month. The absolute nadir of the 2000s financial crisis saw automobile production in this country dip to a then-unfathomable 107,500 vehicles in January of 2009. Current automobile production rates within the United States have dipped lower than that in three of the last seven months, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data.

"How did it get this bad?", you ask?

THEY COST TOO FUCKING MUCH

People have to take out mortgages to buy new cars, paying $1,000 a month for nine years to be able to afford to buy something bigger than a Chevy Aveo. The automakers have built their business models on selling hyper-expensive cars that make them big profits, and have all but abandoned the idea of selling reasonably-priced cars by the hundred thousands. The article makes the point that this way lies ruin, and it is not wrong.

Perfect example: the Ford Maverick. Rather than sell as many of them as they can possibly build at $20k a pop, Ford chose to limit production so that they sell for a premium. They don't want Maverick sales to cut into their F-150 sales, because the cheapest F-150 you can possibly buy starts over $36k and rapidly climbs to the stratosphere if you want any options at all.

It's not sustainable.

* * *

Incidentally, I bent the hell out of the cyclekart's brake pedal. I need something stronger.