Vox Day puts it rather eloquently:
Jesus Christ turned down the entire world, what price a TV show? Why would you sell your soul for a TV show, for a movie, for a career as a second-rate movie star? I mean seriously, who has a better career in Hollywood than Tom Cruise, is there anyone you can think of? He's in all the blockbusters, everybody knows his name, he's about as famous as you can be, he's been in a number of hit franchises, he's been in movies that are part of our cultural language, several of his characters are iconic figures, and how many of you would trade places to live in that guy's freakish life? Why would you ever want to live like that? And that's the best that they can offer! That is the Heaven on Earth that they can offer you. What an utter nightmare!It's not sour grapes. It's a realization that no matter how much money you make here, no matter how famous you get, no matter how well you live, sooner or later you end up meeting your maker--and He is not impressed by your 50-room mansion or your garage of supercars or your expensive wardrobe. He made the universe with a thought.
And a price must be paid. Always.
I don't know what price was exacted of Tom Cruise for what he has attained in this world; but I do know that everything we have here is written on wind and is utterly worthless the instant we pass beyond the pale. And some prices are too high.
* * *
Francis Porretto makes a point here that I've been wondering about, myself. A security clearance isn't carte blanche to see every last secret there is. Even when you have one, what you see is limited by "need to know".
Okay: you've got a top security clearance and you work in England and "other sources" say there's a Russian spy coming to kill you. The knowledge that this assassin has been dispatched is Top Secret, because of how it was obtained, but you have "need to know" about this important detail. You do not, however, have "need to know" for the formula for the latest and greatest radar-absorbent paint they're putting on the F-35. You will therefore be privy to one piece of information, but not the other.
Just like the guy working on the F-35 doesn't need to know about your assassin.
Decisions about security clearances are always informed by "need to know". Who gets one, how long it's good for, what level of access is to be granted, and so forth. It stands to reason that sitting high officials need some pretty high access
WHILE THEY ARE IN OFFICE.
That is the sticking point. When you're working every day with secret information, you need that security clearance. But after you've retired or otherwise left office that clearance should be revoked--immediately--because
YOU NO LONGER HAVE NEED TO KNOW.
It's painfully simple to understand. Hence it's a big deal that Trump is talking about revoking the security clearances of proven leakers who were high up in the previous administration. They're leftists, after all.
* * *
Good luck with this. Latest scam is for scammer to send you an email that includes an old password of yours, claiming that he hacked your webcam and took a video of you watching porn and (presumably) masturbating while doing so. And if you don't send him thousands of dollars, he'll send the video to everyone on your contacts list. Just think of the horror if your boss, your wife, your friends, your family saw you rubbing one out to porn!
It is, of course, a scam. While it is technically possible to hack a computer to get video from the webcam, these people are not doing that. They are doing something much simpler: taking a stolen (and usually out of date) password and matching it with an email address, and bulk-spamming every match they find.
Just like that stupid FBI virus, this doesn't take very much technical ability to accomplish.
* * *
The reality of socialized medicine. This is where it ends, every time it's tried.
* * *
The entire thing is completely at odds with reality. I offer one quote to show how freakish the whole notion is:
...some transgender men have their ovaries removed.MEN DO NOT HAVE OVARIES.
I mean, I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but MEN DO NOT HAVE OVARIES.
A man cannot have his ovaries removed because MEN DO NOT HAVE OVARIES.
A woman can have her ovaries removed.
This is not a social construct, nor is it a matter of opinion. This is an ESTABLISHED BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE FACT.
* * *
Sauce for the goose, bitches. Look: leftists have decided that saying the wrong thing in a public place is enough for your career to be ruined. Further, their own rules say to use your opponent's rules against him.
As long as conservatives get fired for their political opinions, in their view, they can use campaigns to get liberals fired for the same.So, hell yeah, fire the bitches.
Look: I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy and I expect the third movie not to be as good since this turkey got fired, but he was calling for Roseanne to be fired for her lame joke--and the jokes he made were many times as offensive as Roseanne's was.
Leftists, you are not going to like the new rules:
* * *
All those "community organizers" in Chicago don't have a thing to say about black-on-black violence. Second City Cop's own words tell the tale best:
Their words would have more impact if (A) the community treated human life as more important than the dope trade, (B) as more important beating/robbing people in quiet neighborhoods, and (C) more important than carjacking pregnant women. That would involve cooperating with removing the violent segments of their own neighborhood. What was it a simple carpenter said once?That's really the long and short of it. Nearly all the violent crime in Chicago is being committed by under 5% of its population. That 5% is the problem--not "easy access to guns", not "poverty", not any of the leftist bugaboos. It's just that 5% of the people in the city are irredeemable savages, flatly incapable of living in a civilized society.First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:5)Much of Chicago recognizes human life as valuable. That's why homicides are rare in those areas, and in direct contrast where certain other areas where the bodies are littering the streets seven at a time.
The kindest thing we could do would be to shoot them. They can't function in civilization; and even if there were somewhere on the planet we could put them, they would just beat and rape and murder each other. They'd constantly be trying to escape, and any who did would have to be apprehended or killed before they reached civilization.
It would be kindest, but it's impossible, both politically and otherwise.
* * *
Sunday night I set up my computer desk again. The printer stand has gone back to the garage, and in its place is the big desk I got in 1999 (?) or whenever it was. The desk that I bought from Best Buy after one holiday season, and which fit nicely into the Escort once I lowered the back seat and put the passenger seat all the way forward. Skeptical guy watching thought I couldn't do it, that it wouldn't fit, but of course I knew my vehicle.
Anyway, it's been a while.
...the computer room has been finished since last November, but I've had other fish to fry. Sunday I could procrastinate no longer; after cleaning out the garage for Buttercup my desk--which had been out there, in pieces--was moved to the dining room, which was awaiting renovation.
Today, theoretically, we are supposed to get carpet in the dining room. When that is done, I have one room left to do before I can lay down my tools for a little while: the main bathroom.
But since we need the floor clear to get carpet put on it, I had to get the desk out, and it was a logical extension of that necessity for me to finally put the thing where it belongs.
Of course, I did not do what I normally do and tape the hardware to the furniture; that would have been smart. No, instead I put it all in a baggie in a box, so I had to go looking for it, but lo and behold I did find it and was able to properly reassemble the desk.
Hooray. And so here I am, sitting at a proper desk where there is room for my soda and snacks and desk lamp and the Lil' Hogger plush Mrs. Fungus put in my stocking this past Christmas. The rest of it will make its way back to the desk, probably truncated a bit by the stuff I have not missed and therefore really don't need to have out and on my desk and cluttering it up.
The next project is getting the basement cleaned up. We're going to be using it as a staging area for stuff that we're bringing in from the storage locker, but there needs to be room; and the big project after the completion of the main bathroom is to make the basement a suitable recreational space. That will be mostly effort, though.
Main bathroom: I am replacing the drywall on that beknighted wall that got the mural. Og looked it over and told me that it had been primed but not sized, and I bow to his superior experience and wisdom; certainly the wallpaper is behaving exactly as I'd expect from a half-assed job. He's of the opinion that I could finish the job and fix the gouges.
But that would be a shit ton of spackling and sanding--and if I'm going to do all that damned sanding, I might as well just put up new drywall and re-mud it. The work I did on the partition wall did not come out badly; it actually looks pretty good, and considering that with this wall there will be exactly two corner joints (by the door and by the ceiling) I don't expect it to be too complicated. It's an 8' ceiling so I should be able to put one entire sheet in next to the new sheet by the bathtub surround, and then most of a second sheet from that one to the door--and that leaves me with four joints to cover. Two butts and two corners. And it's not rocket science.
Once that's done, prime it, and then paint the whole room, which will take considerably less than a single gallon of paint. Leftover Ultra White for the ceiling and whatever color Mrs. Fungus picks for the walls. A couple of shelves and a couple of towel bars later, we have a stunning bathroom.
After that, we're done for a while. Mrs. Fungus wants to take a two-year vacation from fixing up the house. We'll have the outdoor stuff to take care of, but we can do that together and a little bit at a time, and for the most part that's labor.
Down the road: master bedroom, master bath, spare bedroom. Then tear out that ugly-ass paneling in the basement and put up drywall. Replace the drop ceiling with something that makes sense. LED can lights instead of that single ugly-ass fluorescent fixture. New carpeting or laminate flooring.
Whee!