Atomic Fungus

So I started fiddling with MakeHuman, which is a freeware human figure modeling program.

Generated a random figure and just tweaked it a bit here and there to move it out of the uncanny valley. Maybe fifteen minutes' worth of fiddling produced this:



No background or anything but not bad for the first effort taking less than 20 minutes. It's amazingly powerful for a free program.

Don't know what I'll do with this, though; I discovered the program and thought, "That looks neat! Let's try it!"

Anyway, past bedtime now.

Cold morning, "wintery mix". *sigh* Well, autumn, and it'll be November in a few days. Get used to it.

* * *

Just in time for the house to be all closed up for the next six months, we have a Mystery Odor.

The entry foyer, something smells there. Not a lot--just enough that you smell something that stinks when you first come in. Smells like someone just blew the bottom out of the toilet, or one of the cats carpet-bombed the litter box...but it goes away fast because it's not really strong. But every once in a while you'll catch a whiff of it.

The problem is, when you try to find it, it doesn't get stronger; it gets weaker. It fades right out, and it's not stronger in any particular part of the foyer. I've looked in the closet, behind the louvered doors, in the crawl space, in the basement, in the laundry room--nothing. A faint whiff, just enough to make entering the house unpleasant.

Cleaned the cats' litter boxes last night (but they're in the master bathroom) and took out the trash. Did the dishes, too--no change.

The only place I haven't looked is the attic, because it's a royal pain to get up there, but I think I'm going to have to. *sigh*

* * *

Oh, hey, guess what?

Last year, 75,000 Americans died of the flu. 75,000 people dead from a viral infection. It's a tragedy, really it is, because each one of those deaths left a hole in the lives of their friends and relatives. And I have some good news for you.

This year, we had almost no flu deaths!

Isn't that miraculous?

* * *

So, at a Trump rally, they had WiFi for the press.

SSID: Make America Great Again
Password: WhoBuiltTheCagesJoe?

Troll level: EPIC GENIUS

* * *

Nope, not the attic, either. I checked. *sigh*

* * *

Starlink!

..."better than nothing beta" and it costs $500 up front for the gear and $100 a month for service. But let's just imagine that your other choices for Internet access are:

1) Dialup (is that even still available?)
2) Getting Internet from a geosynchronous satellite
3) Using 4G LTE data at $ASSRAPE if you go over a handful of gigabytes' usage

Dialup: I actually don't think there are still dialup services in North America. What's Googe say? Googe says yes; for example, NetZero is still operating. So you can still surf the intartubzorz at glorious 56K bps!

Of course, actually doing anything more complicated than sending text-only emails will take fourteen hours, but go for it.

Geosync: Go ahead and click that icon to open YouTube. Each image will take a minimum of 0.54 seconds to download; when you click on a video, it will similarly take half a second before it starts to play. That's probably not so bad, but if you want to play, say, World of Warcraft, you might as well forget it, because that kind of latency makes the game unplayable. No on-line games for you!

4G LTE: Believe it or not, there are still places in the United States where you actually don't get cell service. Most of them are out in the boonies where you also don't get cable TV. If you are lucky enough to get a good 4G signal, well, let's just look at Verizon. Their "unlimited" plan costs $60 a month for 25 Mbps speeds, and the latency is okay, but it's not actually unlimited because once you use more than about 10-15 GB of bandwidth, you're throttled down to 56k speeds.

By the way--the plan is $60 a month; is there a monthly fee for the line of service? $20? $40? And what does the equipment cost? I'd wager that to get that "unlimited" internet plan you're looking at $100 a month easy. Which is fine if it's all you've got.

Starlink: Starlink is saying speeds, during beta testing, should vary between 56 Mbps and 150 Mbps, though there will be periods where there is no access. Latency, they say, will be much lower than geosync (because the satellites are a couple hundred miles up, rather than 25,000 miles, so it takes 1 millisecond for the signal to get from your dish to the satellite, rather than 130 ms). Speed-of-light delay for Starlink is 0.004 seconds where it's 0.540 s for geosync service.

$100 a month is reasonable for broadband service, and once they're actually looking to sign up subscribers, wholesale, there'll be deals for the equipment.

It's the way of the future, all right.

* * *

Of course, leftist shitheads are screaming about the "Elysium Effect". They're unhappy that only rich people (at least, at first) will be able to afford to go on rocket flights.

I dealt with Elysium in an earlier blog post--years ago--and made points different than those in the linked post. But those are also good points.

Myself, I still say that a world with the kind of AI they have access to in that movie cannot be poor...but of course if you have the culture of, say, sub-Saharan Africa in charge of the economy, they could routinely have blizzards dumping three feet of gold leaf, and it'd still be an unremediated shithole. *sigh*

* * *

Just saw a mention for a YouTube video, "Cardi B terrified of Trump supporters in Las Vegas".

Morons.

* * *

One week from today is the election. Hoo boy. The left is, of course, promising unprecedented rioting if Trump wins.

Basically, they're going to throw a temper tantrum--and I don't think I'm the only one who is (or who will) view it that way. The asshats had to stop because their bullshit was hurting the Democrat party's election chances; what makes them think that anyone's going to be tolerant of it after the election is over?

Don't count on knowing the outcome of the election on Tuesday night, though, because the Democrats have promised they are going to draw it out as long as they possibly can, using every last excuse they can think of. The point is to make sure that Trump is not declared the winner before January, so that Nancy Pelosi can pick the next President. (Except...what if the Democrats lose their majority in the House?)

Just to make it plain: if the Democrats are allowed to steal this election, there will never, never, ever be another fair election in the United States, ever again. They will pack the Supreme Court with leftists, they will eliminate the Electoral College, and they will put restrictions on us that make the COVID horseshit look like make-believe.

Count on it.

And yet....

What if it's a runaway landslide for Trump? I mean, not just a landslide, but the ultimate freaking avalanche, a cometary impact of world-ending proportions that sees every state go red? What if he nails the popular vote as well as the electoral college and you need a microscope to find the districts that went blue?

Next Tuesday is going to be some value of "exciting", I can tell you that. I just hope it's not the "exciting" which requires firearms.

* * *

Fair-to-middlin' day today. Rocking chair is fixed. Maybe tomorrow I can start sanding spackle.

Snow in October, two years in a row--that is really unusual for the Chicago area!

It didn't stick, though; it's been too warm for that. But I drove home for lunch in a creditable snowstorm, even so, and if the ground was colder there would have been measureable accumulation.

* * *

On the way back to work I heard about some program that Cook County is doing where they're giving $600 apiece to people who've been monetarily affected by COVID-19--having to take time off to care for someone who's sick, or having to care for children who are off school, or-or-or--and the news item mentioned that in order to apply for it you had to have a "government-issued photo ID".

"That's racist!" I exploded. "You're just trying to suppress utilization of this program!"

Eh? C'mon! You know as well as I do that every time "Voter ID" is proposed, the Democrats tell us that it's merely a racist attempt to suppress the minority vote, and that's why it's unfair and wrong to expect people to present a government-issued photo ID before they vote! And if it's racist to expect people to present an ID to vote, then it's racist to expect them to present ID for anything else, damn it.

* * *

Got a line on a PC that might do as a replacement for Floristica, which is six years old. It's a Skytech computer, the "Archangel" model. Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, GTX-1660 video card, 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. The Ryzen 5 3600 is a mere 3.46x faster than the Core i5-4570 in Floristica. It's 2.65 times faster than the Ryzen 3 2200G in Achernar. And the amazing thing? 3600's clock speed is 3.6 GHz. Floristica's i5 is 3.2 GHz. Achernar's 2200G is 3.5 GHz. They're all about in the same ballpark, clock-wise; it's just that the 3600 is a lot more efficient at using clock cycles than the 4th-gen Core i5 in Floristica. Or even the 2200G in Achernar!

$850 at NewEgg with a coupon code which is around $100, $150 more than Floristica cost, but look at all that bling!

Well, we'll see. Supposedly, there's going to be another round of stimulus; and if there is....

* * *

Okay, everyone get out your dusty copies of Adele's most horrible hits and play "Rumor Has it" because RUMOR HAS IT that Hunter Biden died of a drug overdose today. Either that, or Biden himself had a massive stroke. Or----

*sigh*

...I don't believe any of it, but the post mentions the possibility that if Hunter Biden were dead, it could be because he was "Epsteined"--killed in order to keep him from being investigated--because of what is in his laptop.

And I thought to myself: my God, Lord of Mercy, the horrors that the Democrat party is visiting on this poor family! I mean, it's not bad enough that they're making that poor decrepit man run for President with his mind turning to mush, flogging him like a failing horse--but then if he somehow manages to win, to give up the position to someone whose brain works well enough to follow instructions. Shooting him full of God-knows-what to make him coherent enough to answer questions, giving him a drug that improves brain function but makes him crap his pants.

...and then murdering his only remaining son?

I don't believe it, if only because it's too far out there. If it were true, it would be such an egregious violation of common decency that only the wholesale incarceration of the Democrat leadership, and the end of the Democrat party, would begin to atone for the crime.

It's not that I have any special affection for the Biden family, but because everything the Democrats have been doing in this election is so pathetic and wrong, all because they're trying desperately not to have whatever other crimes they've committed investigated by an administration that has said it is 100% about law and order for everyone. The assholes selected Biden from a baker's dozen of unappealing candidates, using their ballot-stuffing tricks to make sure the leadership's pick got the nod; only when he did, it turned out that his brain was hash browns, rapidly turning into mashed potatoes.

Too late to turn back--having expended an enormous amount of political capital to select Joe Biden, the Democrat leadership could not now say, "Whoops, turns out Joe's got the brain of George Bush, who was stupid, rememeber? Ha ha ha--so we need to front [other pick]." Who would it have been? Who could it have been, when the other candidates had been such unremediated shitheads that Bernie Sanders was beating them? None of those people were electable at all and Bernie Sanders was the death knell for the Democrat establishment, so who could they get? Hillary? Don't make me laugh: she already lost to Trump once and she's scarcely in any better shape than Biden is. Michelle Obama? She's never held office and no one likes her. Go through the list of prominent Democrats and you won't find anyone who has the stature necessary to win the election. Pelosi? Feinstein? Schiff-for-brains?

Joining a dangerous mission and told that his place was on the throne, a king in one of my stories asked if there was anyone who could do what needed doing? "Only name him, Father Thorgrimm, and I shall summon him forth immediately."

That's the problem the Democrats had: there wasn't anyone besides Biden who could creditably take the nomination and run with it and have any kind of decent polling at all. Picking another candidate after selecting Biden the way they did, all that would do would be to convince a lot of Democrat voters that their votes don't matter, and they'd stay home for the general election...and then the Democrats lose the House and Senate BIG TIME. No: they have to be fairly certain that they can't get the White House, but if their voters show up and vote they can at least keep the House of Representatives, and maybe get the Senate, too. That won't happen if their voters stay home.

* * *

So I've been checking the usual news sites I read, trying to get confirmation, and so far there's been nothing about the health stateus of either Joe or Hunter Biden, and "no news is good news".

Which is not to say that there is nothing going on. Biden thought he was running against "George"--George W. Bush? George H.W. Bush? George Washington?

"What kind of country are we going to be? Four more years of George, uh, George, he, uh," Biden said.

His wife, quietly: "Trump."

"...going to find ourselves in a place where if Trump gets...."

"He was just talking to George Lopez!"

Of course. Whenever I am talking to someone, I do that. "So it looks like your hard drive is starting to fail, because that error is Pasquale, uh, Pasquale, uh, usually the first symptom."

No: Biden was about to say "Four more years of George Bush" and someone stopped him, or else he had just enough mental acuity to know that "George Bush" was wrong, but not enough to know what the right name is.

He wasn't randomly inserting George Lopez' given name into the sentence because he was answering a question put to him by George Lopez. He wasn't going to say, "Four more years of George Lopez."

Media, however, must protect Biden. And in the process, they make themselves look pathetic.

* * *

"Can I change my vote" searches on Googe reveal what the Hunter Biden Laptop has done for the Biden campaign.

...and by the way, a shitton of people waiting in line for "early voting" today. I'm going to vote on the day itself, and it's going to take whatever time it takes. I'm going to tell my boss tomorrow: "I'm going to vote on election day, and it may take a while. I'll be in as soon as I can."

* * *

"You'll bury everyone!" I am pretty certain that whatever is on that laptop, it still won't mean anyone of any real stature is going to jail. Even if there are videos of Obama himself getting it on with a couple of 10-year-olds, no one will be going to jail for what's on that machine. It'll all be glossed over.

By the way, it looks as if it's been confirmed that "photos and videos on Hunter's laptop are of his niece, Natalie Biden,... She was 14 years old at the time the pictures and videos were taken." Urgh.

* * *

Well, NYC is turning into Nazi Germany, anyway. "Jews For Trump" had a rally and now the commie mayor and governor are punishing the Jews for doing so. Quote: "We have a list."

Do I need to remind you who else had a list? Do I also need to remind you that Jews are the canary in the political coal mine, and any regime that does this kind of thing to them is one which will do it to all of us if it gets a chance?

* * *

It used to be that if you wanted to be high up in the American intelligence apparatus, you needed to know Russian fluently. Now it's Chinese.

* * *

Anyway, just finished bending the metal strap and fitting it to the hanger, so now I've got it screwed and glued in place and the Gorilla Glue needs to harden before I can put it back on.

...and that'll do for today.

It's plain that there's no functional difference between communism and fascism when you look at their goals. All you have to do is take this bit from my prior post:

1) The Nazis were a self-proclaimed socialist movement that called for the end of capitalism, abolishment of non-labor income (interest and finance), and proposed an all-powerful central authority to regulate the market
2) Racial identity politics was used to identify an oppressor class (Jews), that embodied both the evil nature of capitalism and the anti-German nature of communism
3) Strong nationalistic pride was a core pitch to the people to justify a stronger central authority
4) The party used militant radical socialist activists to harass businesses and political enemies with acts of violence
5) Limitations on free speech and removing access to dissenting views

So let's look at what antifa does in relation to these tactics and techniques used by the National Socialist Party of Germany, the NASDP or "Nazi" party.

1) ...call for the end of capitalism, abolishment of non-labor income (interest and finance), and propose an all-powerful central authority to regulate the market

They repeatedly excoriate capitalism as the cause of society's ills. They target successful businesses for violence and vandalism.

2) Racial identity politics was used to identify an oppressor class (Jews), that embodied both the evil nature of capitalism and the anti-German nature of communism Here antifa flips the script just a little. The oppressor class is white people and they embody both capitalism and fascism. Jews are still in there, making the movement as anti-semitic as Nazism was, but they consider themselves not to be anti-semitic by claiming that Jews are just whites, and therefore racist oppressors. In any case, racial identity is paramount.

3) Strong nationalistic pride is a core pitch to the people to justify a stronger central authority This is the only thing antifa doesn't do that the Nazis did.

4) The party uses militant radical socialist activists to harass businesses and political enemies with acts of violence So just go look at Seattle, Portland, New York--anywhere antifa has been active, they've done nothing but harass and destroy.

5) Limitations on free speech and removing access to dissenting views Do I need to amplify this?

The goal of antifa in the United States today is the same goal of antifa in Germany in the 1930s: seizing control of the country and turning it over to communism. Or, at least, assisting politicians in that goal.

The fighting between NASDP and antifa in Germany was nothing more than an internecine conflict between socialist sects, two groups vying for ultimate power over a major industrialized nation. There is no functional difference in the outcome, though; regardless of who wins, the people lose. There are still--in the end--labor camps, death camps, dead bodies by the millions, and unspeakable horrors committed all in the name of "progress". It means slavery and starvation and poverty for millions of proles while the party elites live in luxury beyond dreams of avarice...all while patting themselves on the back.

The really amusing thing here--if anything in any of this can be said to be amusing--comes from how many useful idiots there are. Artists and intellectuals and workers and reporters, actors and businessmen and even some politicians, all of whom think that because they helped the revolution, they'll be spared the negative effects.

I'm certain that a lot of Cambodians thought the same thing when the Khmer Rouge came to power.

But once socialism gets its hooks into a society, the very next thing it does is to demand a mountain of human skulls as tribute. The only people who can control a socialist country are ruthless people who are willing to kill so many people to retain power that they need to ask their economists, "How many proles can I wipe out before critical industries are affected?" People that can make jokes about the mass murder they've just ordered, like Stalin talking about omelettes.

And still the useful idiots think that socialism is meant to take care of people, that it means free food and health care and living quarters without any reduction in their standard of living or their personal liberty.

Because of how history is taught--when it is taught at all--young communists don't understand what they're advocating. They're given the same introduction to it that Lenin and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot and Castro and Guevara were given, which is lightly edited editions of Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto and an absolute flat refusal to examine its many failures since the late 19th century, instead just skipping past any critique by saying, "That wasn't real communism. Real communism has never been tried." And they aren't bothered at all by the fact that these failures have cost the human race over a million lives a year since 1901.

The people who discuss "the fourth turning" inevitably do so in apocalyptic terms, as if once it's done there's nothing else. Everything over, we're all screwed, blah blah blah, etcetera.

Except if you take a look at Strauss-Howe generational theory, which is where "the fourth turning" comes from, you find that it's a continuing cycle.

According to the theory we're fifteen years into "crisis". There's no schedule, but a typical minimum duration for a stage is eighteen years. But once "crisis" is finished, we move on to "High" again.

America was created in one "crisis" and has survived two others. At the end of this "crisis" we will see a couple decades of "ups" to match the "downs" of the last ten years.

* * *

There are already signs that things will improve greatly. The first step in solving a problem is identifying it. Discovering rampant corruption at the highest levels of government is the first step towards eliminating it.

Time to add term limits to all elected positions.

* * *

Not to put too fine a point on it, but "If You Don’t Know That 'Coyotes' Are Human Smugglers, Shut Up About The Border." You are utterly ignorant of the issue and your opinion is therefore invalid.

* * *

I'm going to file this one under "a poor grasp of the story". Short form: they made a series for Hulu about M.O.D.O.K., one of the most fearsome supervillains in the Marvel universe...and it's a sitcom. Or drama, or "dramedy". With the same kind of setting that every drama/sitcom/show about a family has had since 1965:

The setup for this show is that after decades of trying to take over the world MODOK has run AIM into the ground and has been kicked out by the board. His (Woke) marriage is falling apart, he can't relate to his kids and he is about to have a mid-life crisis.

I can see where this is going: the feared criminal supergenius is reduced to the typical male failure that TV shows have presented us with for decades, where everyone on the show is smarter than he is, and he always Learns his Lesson at the end of each episode. Can't wait to see the reviews for the ep where he puts too much detergent into the washing machine and the house fills with suds, you know?

*rolleyes*

* * *

Who WERE the nazis, anyway?

1) The Nazis were a self-proclaimed socialist movement that called for the end of capitalism, abolishment of non-labor income (interest and finance), and proposed an all-powerful central authority to regulate the market
2) Racial identity politics was used to identify an oppressor class (Jews), that embodied both the evil nature of capitalism and the anti-German nature of communism
3) Strong nationalistic pride was a core pitch to the people to justify a stronger central authority
4) The party used militant radical socialist activists to harass businesses and political enemies with acts of violence
5) Limitations on free speech and removing access to dissenting views

Does any of that sound familiar?

* * *

Well. Mrs. Fungus ran over a traffic cone the other day, so I need to go do something about the noise her car is making. The fender liner has been ruined so I need to buy a new one and install it, but in the meantime I need to patch things up so it won't be a problem.

Unless there's some kind of error, the parts are cheap. The fender liner cost seven dollars. I just ordered some cosmetic parts for the car and the grand total was a bit over $25...and half of that was shipping.

Of course, they're just bits of injection-molded plastic.

* * *

Last night I finally got around to working on my glider rocker. Got the broken part glued back together and fabricated the brace that will go around the end of it. I just need to bend it to fit and screw it in place and we ought to be good for a while longer, until something else breaks. Plus side, the other side--which I fixed this way previously--has since has shown no sign of moving or coming apart.

Once it was glued and curing, I turned to the cupola and glued the two pieces of the louvered section that needed gluing. That ought to have cured, too, so I'll be ready to strip and paint that part of it. Progress, albeit slow.

On the other hand, though, I got nothing done on the bedroom this weekend. Saturday was eaten by locusts. Today I have to change the oil in Mrs. Fungus' car. Might get a bit of sanding done today, and might not, depending on how I feel. *sigh*

But nothing's getting done until I move my butt out of this chair. Off I go.

All the blue checkmarks on Twattler who are pretending they don't know that the people who are paid to smuggle people into the US from Mexico are called "coyotes".

Perhaps I am wrong. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I do have a pretty good retentive faculty for things that I've read, sometimes to the point of being able to see the page in my memory. It's just possible--I suppose--that there are a number of people who get all their information from the mainstream talk media, read very little, have neither the curiosity nor the intellectual horsepower to learn things on their own, yet consider themselves educated and well-read solely by virtue of the fact that they vote the right way. And who would therefore consider a President they don't like to be stupid enough to claim that wild animals are bringing humans across the border. And who would also never think to do even so much as one search on Googe to see if there's another meaning for the term, because of course OrangeManBad is the one who's ignorant and stupid and full of shit.

...and who therefore would wallow in their ignorance, purposefully and solely in order to enable the use of the only insult available to leftists: "Hey, Trump said something stupid! Boy, he's really stupid, isn't he?"

* * *

Flattening the curve: day 223 of 15. Lockdowns were supposed to last two weeks. We're on month seven and still counting.

* * *

"New York City is failing the Jews in the Attic test."

The Jews in the Attic test.

I [look] at all laws that restricted freedom with a view to the impact it would have in a worst case scenario of our government run amok. Will this law make it difficult or impossible to protect innocent life from a government intent on their imprisonment or death? ... [I]f it fails this test no further discussion is really needed, the law must be opposed in the most vigorous manner possible.

Emphasis his.

* * *

Up too early for a Saturday. Back to bed.

I'm tired of the political ads.

I'm tired of hearing about the polls, particularly given that everyone knows they're wrong.

I'm tired of the Democrats' elder abuse of that poor man.

I'm tired of the yard signs.

* * *

Hoping to get sanding done this weekend, and the ceiling painted. Wouldn't that be cool?

* * *

My brother's oldest son posted on FatzBoob that he voted for Biden:

Why are they not teaching taxes in school? This country needs some changes. I voted for Biden.

Comments

Also, why is the USA government allowing people to be locked up in concentration camps if they're supposed to be the policeman of the world?? This country has been at war for 30 years and we can't help those who need it? I'm leaving.

I wanted to reply to him but don't want to be that uncle, so instead I'll write it here.

The problem with his question is that the United States is not supposed to be "the policeman of the world". That's a role it assumed during the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, back when Theodore Roosevelt was President--but the problem is that in a world where major powers have nuclear weapons, any kind of hostilities (whatever the motivation for them, no matter how noble) can easily turn into a civilization-ending global thermonuclear war.

* * *

I agree, this is the way to go. You'll want to wear a gas mask yourself, though.

* * *

New hotness on the left is to pretend to be utterly ignorant of the slang term "coyote".

Of course the left wants unrestricted immigration and doesn't care about the human cost of it.

The American left sanctions this evil in the name of increasing their political power.

And I do believe that all those asshats are merely pretending that they've never heard the term before. I think someone decided, "This is a way we can make Trump look bad!"

Problem:

If they don't know the term coyote, then doubtless they've never heard of the rape trees, decorated with the panties of every little girl they rape.

You see, I have heard of coyotes, but I never heard about "rape trees" until just now, and I am completely horrified.

The American news media doesn't cover this stuff because if the American people knew this kind of thing was happening, they'd demand that it be stopped. Illegal immigration is a criminal enterprise and it is chock-full of the worst sorts of criminal behavior. If you support open borders, you support the rape of little girls. It's really that simple.

* * *

I'm tired and I need to have something for dinner. *sigh*

CBS' long-standing communist bullshit show 60 Minutes was all set to do the usual hack job they do to Republican Presidents. Trump released the entire interview and CBS is crying bitter tears over it because they wanted to present a "contextual" interview (ie one where they made him look as bad as deceptive editing could, by taking answers out of context).

It's pretty simple, really: you ask the President a set of questions in the interview and film his answers. You take the President's answers back to the studio with you, and then you film yourself asking an entirely different set of questions, and cut the two tapes together.

Let's have a ham-handed example:

Original question: "Do you like dogs, Mr. President?"

Answer: "Oh, I love them! They're so friendly, always willing to play. All you have to do is give them a little affection and they're all yours."

New question: "Do you like pretty young women, Mr. President?"

Read the answer in the context of the second question and you see what I mean. Of course they're not this obvious and clumsy about it--because these are professional propagandists who are paid extremely well to lie, and I'm just a dumb honest hick from flyover country--but it illustrates the methodology.

By the way, it turns out that the story that Trump "walked out" of the interview was also a lie. Because of course it is!

I'm going to watch the interview, even though I expect to find it extremely frustrating; but I liked the bit quoted at the end of the article:

Commie filth: Can you characterize your supporters?

President Trump: Yeah, I think I can: people who love our country.

* * *

I'm not the only one gloating over this, either.

* * *

In the debate tonight, Biden claimed that Trump called himself "Abraham Lincoln".

...I think Trump cleaned Biden's clock. There was one point where I think Biden panicked.

This didn't happen, which is good.

* * *

News flash: Remdesivir still doesn't work against COVID-19.

* * *

This is not going to win over the people in red states. Biden ad: "America was an idea. We've never lived up to it but we've never walked away from it before."

I'm sick and tired of Democrats pissing on America.

* * *

The money from the (un)Fair Tax scheme isn't going to fix the existing problems, but instead is earmarked for new spending. That's why it's absolutely essential to add "...right now" to the lies the ads tell about 97% of taxpayers not seeing a tax increase.

* * *

So, I've learned that conference calls are, for me, 100% instantly effective sleep agents. I had two of them this morning, back to back, and I do not remember so much as one point made in either of them.

The first one was run by (I think) an Irish guy, and at some point suddenly someone with about the same voice started speaking with such a thick French accent that I thought the Irish guy started speaking French. Then I realized that no, it was someone from France or Belgium who was speaking, but half the words sounded French to me, and by the time I got it sorted out and realized he was speaking English "wit dis OUTRAAAHHHHGEOUS OCCENT" the Irishman came back.

The second call was my boss teaching us about one of the account tools we use, but thanks to the first call I have absolutely no idea what was presented in that call, either.

They were all downhill--I was just there to listen--and I spent the entire time fighting sleep, and so the benefit that I gained from those two calls is effectively zero. I didn't even sleep, but was in some hazy twilight state, the entire time.

* * *

It was sunny today, during the afternoon. Warm, too.

When I got home from work, I ended up flopping. I got maybe an hour of sleep, woke up feeling embalmed. Probably just going to hit the hay when my wife does.

No, after--have to get the garbage out tonight. But immediately after that, I think.

I've seen bit after bit after bit about how Faceboob and Twattle are censoring Trump but never any Democrat, blah blah blah, etcetera, oh the hypocrisy!

I don't remark on it here because it's no longer remarkable, and hasn't been for a rather long time. Instead, whenever we see it happen YET AGAIN, it's just another example of the simple rule that hypocrisy is an essential characteristic of leftism.

There is no such thing as a leftist who is not a hypocrite. I don't care if it's your sainted aunt Tillie; if she's a Democrat, she's a hypocrite. It might take some digging to find it, but sooner or later you'll discover that there is some key place where she doesn't even remotely practice what she denounces other people for not doing. For most of the left, the two key places where hypocrisy occurs is in speech and finances.

Example: leftists give themselves leave to hate whoever they want in the name of "tolerance".

Example: leftists always call for high taxes on "the rich" but somehow "the rich" always make more than what the leftist earns. If the leftist in question is a hyperrich douche like Warran Buffett, then instead he claims, "My taxes ought to be much higher!" yet he employs a small army of accountants and lawyers specifically to make sure he isn't paying the government one cent more than he owes.

So in this case--major media outlets refusing to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop because they don't like "leaks", after four years of anti-Trump leaks--it's not surprising; and in fact it doesn't even make me mad any longer. I expect this kind of two-faced bullshit from our communist media the way I expect water from a faucet.

It has, of course, led me not to watch or read the mainstream media for news any longer. You can't trust them; they spin the stories they can't spike, but they spike a lot of stories that would make Democrats look bad. Their coverage is selective, their wording malleable according to who did the deed, their leftward bias both painfully obvious and ludicrously pathetic.

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Speaking of ludicrously pathetic, I've got a sneaking suspicion this is why the media is so eager to discredit the Biden Laptop. The headline tells the tale: "Get Ready to See A Lot of Media Collusion With Hunter Biden In the Emails".

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"We only want to lock down the country for two weeks to flatten the curve! Really!"

We're currently on day 215 of a 14-day lockdown.

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Yesterday I got a lot done at work. Today, not as much, but still got things done, which makes me feel pretty good.

Also, tired. *sigh*

And so now the various media outfits are chiding us, "Oh, come on! Everyone does it!" Oh, sure, plenty of people get bored during Zoom meetings, whip out their dongs, and have a quick wank. Or, if female, grab the vibrating toy and use that, right?

I think? I really don't know. Because I'm not a pervert.

This is not normal behavior and it is not something that just kind of happens all over the place. Most people who engage in masturbation do so in private, and everyone quite correctly labels the ones who don't as perverts.

Remember Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens? Had a hit TV show until he was caught fapping in an "adult theater". Because doing that in public is inappropriate behavior.

The elites are trying to fix the situation for their boy Toobin, but quite frankly, we all could have gone our entire lives without this story and been perfectly happy about it.

Honestly, what is it with these people? They can't keep their pants on for a few hours? Toobin couldn't wait for lunchtime? He couldn't excuse himself and hit the can, or something?

Cripes.

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So the other thing is the media are trying to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop as a fake. Politico says that "more than 50 former intelligence officials" agree that it's a "Russian information operation". "Former" means they came from prior administrations like Obama and Clinton (and probably Bush). They don't have access to the data contained in the laptop, yet they've pronounced it fake.

FBI and Department of Justice confirm that it's decidedly real and they have the machine in hand. I trust their word more than the word of "over fifty" unemployed leftist stooges who haven't seen the contents of the machine.

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Googe is shilling for Biden, which is why the Department of Justice has started an antitrust investigation against them.

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Not news: leftist news magazine show is biased against President Trump. 60 Minutes has been a left-wing hack job for decades.

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China is having a problem. The problem I have with Zero Hedge is that their editorial bent leans too far to the apocalyptic, and every time there is any hint of trouble on the horizon it's automatically the worst thing it can possibly be, at the worst possible time, and we're all doomed.

World Food Program economists have already estimated that 270 million people globally are suffering from hunger this year. That's more than twice last year's amount. That number does not include China, the United States, and Europe as they are all considered food-secure countries.

As the COVID-19 restrictions have eased over the course of the year, supermarkets around here have returned to being fully-stocked. At no point this year--even at the height of the media-driven consumer panic--did I ever have trouble buying the staples, the ingredients I use all the time. In fact, the only problem I had was that there were a couple weeks where I couldn't buy a decent steak from the supermarket--and that was months ago. Just this past weekend my wife and I had delicious store-bought porterhouse steaks, thick and tender, and I paid a typical pre-COVID price for them.

Now, the evidence they present in that article does indicate that China may be having a problem with their food supply. It wouldn't be the first time; the fact that theirs is a command economy with certain capitalist optional features means there's no redundancy or robustness to it. So when you have an event which wrecks food production in one area--such as, say the outbreak of an epidemic which prompts you to shut down the economy of an entire province for months--you rapidly find that there's not really much of a surplus from other areas that you can move around. And that's on top of the outbreak of "pig ebola" which led to the culling of entire herds, putting a large dent in the pork supply. And pork is most of the meat in Chinese cuisine.

Because China is a communist economy with, as I said, certain capitalist options taped onto it, I'm confident that there are no surpluses worth speaking of. Under communism there is no incentive to produce more than is expected; you meet your quota because you have to, but only a fool works his ass off to produce more when there's no reward for it. Human nature is essentially capitalist.

* * *

Would you fuckers just GO?? The leftist asshats continually vow to leave America if the right-wing candidate is elected, but they never make good on it! They always stay!

--except Johnny Depp. He actually left. But he's the only one! The rest of them get up and posture and promise they're going to move to Canada or someplace if Reagan/Bush/Dole/Bush/Bush/McCain/Romney/Trump/Trump wins the election, but then they don't go.

Go ahead, Bruce, and leave the country if Trump wins! And take your shitty songs with you, you cretinous dicklick!

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"I don't know if the world has ever seen anything like this. A bunch of people who live lives of freedom and relative luxury choosing to destroy their country because they've convinced themselves that they are the victims of a completely imaginary oppression."

The funny thing is that those people are being aided and abetted by people who have convinced themselves that they are the perpetrators of that very same imaginary oppression.

America is the most free and the most prosperous nation on Earth. If there is anywhere on the planet where racism is kept to a bare minimum, it is here.

Let me ask you: would you rather be a white man in South Africa, or a black man in America? Where would you rather be a Muslim: China or here? If you happen to be gay, would you rather live in Iran, or America?

Everyone knows the answers to those questions. Especially the people who claim that they're so oppressed by society.

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THAT BASTARD HOW DARE HE

That's right! Donald Trump FORCED intelligence officials to have malts! He had his personal goon squad line up with their AR-45s with the shoulder things that go up and point them at the intelligence officials and HE MADE THEM HAVE MALTS.

Wow, the Democrats sure got Trump now!

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Today--

Had to run to my offsites before noon. Had a bout of hypoglycemia on the way, and so snagged a couple double cheeseburgers on the way. My actual lunch break started when I got home at 1:24, but instead of eating anything I laid down and took a quick catnap. That gave me enough energy that I was able to go back to the office and finish the day, but when I got home I went right to bed again and slept for another hour or so.

Still, it was a pretty productive day and I can't complain.

As I left work, I was thinking about how--very soon--it's going to be dark at quitting time again. Daylight Saving Time ends on the 31st (technically on November 1st) so we only have a couple weeks left of it.

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The other day I made a new character in WoW Classic: an undead warlock named "Moldfinger", and I was surprised that the name wasn't taken. The warlock class is as easy to play as I remember it being before the challenge of the whole game was utterly nerfed to make the game more palatable for casuals.

...which is to say, for a dead guy, Moldfinger gets killed a lot.

Meanwhile, in preparation for "Shadowlands", I pre-bought the expansion pack and have done some fiddling around with it. The level compression took place--Ormus went from lvl 120 to lvl 50 with no actual loss of relative power--but Blizzard postponed the release date of the expac, for "reasons".

This marks the first time I've bought an "ultimate edition" for a very long time--I think since the release of Ultima IX. I was looking at the middle version, but when I saw that the "ultimate" was $20 more and included a month of game time (itself worth $15) I went ahead and spent the extra $5 to get the ultimate version instead. Whee!

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Anyway, it's now 8:30. I got up at 6:30, which means I've been bloggerating for two hours. One more thing, and then I'm going to do something else.

I've been reading Ookumo-chan Flashback on MangaDex. Found it much earlier in the year and read all the extant chapters, but whoever had been doing the scanlation stopped doing so and it languished. Suddenly there were fresh chapters, though.

Basic premise is that the main character sees flashbacks from when his parents were in high school. Because he keeps seeing his mother through his deceased father's eyes, he's kind of a "mother-con", but it's all very wholesome and he's gradually falling for a girl his age anyway (as I expected him to) and it's a really charming, pleasant series.

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And now...off to other things!