Tag Archives: Life

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you own the sidewalk, never give it up

I’m walking back from errands tonight after a good burger. I’m walking back to me apartment. I’ve walked this route hundreds of times. But there was an anti-ICE protest in my way. For whatever reason.

Think what you will of Trump or ICE or whatever. But don’t get the fuck in my way when I’m just trying to walk home in peace.

I thought about going around them. But then, like, I’m an American. This is how I get home. I’m just going to walk on. So, I walked thru their formation keeping my eyes straight forward. Any time I was blocked I just stood there staring forward and said nothing. Not matter what they said to me. When a body window opened, I just walked on like I’ve done hundreds of times.

But then this kept happening. Eventually (to their credit) the protest organizers told the others to let me pass. Like they owned the sidewalk, as in a medieval castle gate. Even though I hadn’t said a word. Then I walked home.

On one of the crosswalk signals I saw later on the way home, somebody had written in sharpie, “FUCK ICE”. I chuckled a bit. The person who wrote that probably felt a bit of happy in their spine when they wrote that. I made them feel good. Even though what they wrote means essentially nothing.

Our modern Western culture is about words and outrage and cultural conquest. Actions are irrelevant. As long as you say and write what you think (on either “side”) that’s enough. Then they go home and feel happy about themselves. Even though they have accomplished absolutely nothing.

I was just trying to walk back to my apartment.

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Bahrain – when you don’t know what to think

At least at some level, I hope most humans anywhere, everywhere have heard of our great civilizations that at this point are thousands of years old: Sumera, Babylon, Egypt, China (in so many forms), Assyria, Hittites, Songhai, Inca, and on and on and on.

In what we now (incorrectly in my opinion) still call the Middle East and its surrounding areas you hear tell of a mysterious island at the center of Earth’s trading empire. Bahrain. Some references refer to it as Elam. There is an argument to be made that this is true as a civilization across the Persian Gulf from Bahrain was called Elam.

History at these eras goes far too back for comprehension. Maybe Bahrain was once a client state if not conquered by Elam. But the general consensus is to refer to that ancient island as Dilmun. It was never an empire or had any real power. It was essentially a permanent city state. It’s wealth and importance came as a trading post between parts of the world. In what we now (incorrectly in my opinion) call globalization, Dilmun was essential. In the world of the citizens of Dilmun, ‘globalism’ to them meant ‘life’, every single day.

If you ever have a chance to visit Bahrain, even for a brief flight layover, your one and only destination needs to be the National Museum. It’s a quaint swell place, and does a really, really good job of portraying the entire course of the island’s history.

When your island is inhabited by humans for almost five thousand years, things change. It is possible that Dilmun was once semi tropical, and in time turned to the blank desert it is today. But regardless of the weather, Bahrain being only a city state, and at the border of so many empires became what happens to people in their positions: A Doormat.

The number of different civilizations and cultures that conquered Bahrain are innumerable. Even today, the royal family ties their origins not to Bahrain. They came from Kuwait. They are Sunni. Yet the majority of Bahrain’s citizens are Shia (since the island is so close to Iran), this is the central reason why things don’t work quite so well there today.

Then maybe as much as a little less than half the people living there are South Asians who also make up so much of the people across the Arab world. They come for the money. They have essentially no rights. They put up with it because they earn many times more than they could at home.

There is so much more I could write about the above two paragraphs. But I just don’t feel the energy to do it. It can quickly devolve into a sad tale. Where you want to bathe in the misery. But when you talk to all these people, they aren’t broken. They’re trying, each and every day, regardless whether they are a citizen or not.

Also, sandstorms suck. So does the heat. Bahrain is surrounded by relatively shallow parts of the ocean. Which allows the humidity to skyrocket. In Kuwait even if it’s 120 degrees the dry heat is at least somewhat tolerable. In a 90 degree Bahrain morning with 100% humidity it will end you. It would be so hot that first thing in the morning I’d leave my flat for work and the entire pavement would look like it was drenched. Even though there was no rain. It kind of broke me I think. Even all these years later, I kinda really fear a lot of heat.

I went to Bahrain for work, and had to stay here a long time. I did not enjoy. Mostly because I missed my family. I also just had a hard time connecting with the entire idea of the island. More than once I walked thru the Shia zones where I was told never to go. They did not kidnap me or kill me. They barely even acknowledged my existence. They had their lives to live. Sunni verse Shia politics are there, but it doesn’t change their lives.

Then there are the South Asians. The best meal I ever had in Bahrain was at a Thali place with some coworkers that was in a dirty back alley and was completely packed. It was incredible. And this is coming from a guy who would want to play curling in traffic before being a vegetarian.

I never met a single person in Bahrain that I hated. Some people I didn’t like, but never hate. These people, regardless of their skin color, race, culture, history are all just trying to muddle through and improve their lives and the lives of their families.

But even with this wonder of human light, I still can’t put my finger on why I feel so uncomfortable with my time there. I don’t understand why. I guess all I can do is acknowledge that I definitely would never want to go there again. I would never recommend anybody travel there. But I don’t have a clear answer even to myself as to why.

But, they have a future. Let’s see where it goes.

my own shot, from my flat balcony; good luck to them all, I truly hope for the best

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sandstorms = overrated = not fun

So Hollywood has everyone convinced for over fifty years that sandstorms work like a tidal wave. Like a wall of sand one hundred meters high swallows everyone whole. But somehow some or most of the people in the movie live. And they look like they’re still wearing makeup, and got less sand on them than a kiddy building a beach sandcastle.

First off, that’s not how sandstorms work. In only of the rarest of occasions are they that violent, and also, the lack of eyewitnesses cannot be ignored. If you get hit by a wall of sand that big? Everyone dies. They’ll never even find your bones. It’s like a ship sinking in the middle of nowhere ocean where the mermaids kill everyone, but nobody is alive to confirm it.

Sandstorms don’t flow upon you like the wave of the tsunami. They settle upon you like a blanket that your worst enemy bought for you and mailed to you even though it was surrounded by malaria carrying mosquitos. Plus some rabid cute little mousses in there, for extra credit.

In Star Wars: Attack of the Clones there is the infamous line where ordinary average gentleman, amateur bridge player, spacecraft mechanic, player of musical instruments at local orphanages, and future genocidal maniac Anakin makes his comments about sand to Padme that have been panned for decades.

I’ve always found this odd. Because his statement made perfect sense to me. I despise the prequels (please somebody kidnap Lucas and hand him over to my Guests). But this line is not a problem for me. It speaks to those who have had to clean sand out of their entire body and anything they were wearing. And even then it doesn’t work.

Will you die? Probably not. Is it the most annoying thing ever and makes you feel like a walking piece of sandpaper? Yes. Humans cannot live in the ocean otherwise they dehydrate, can’t swim forever, can’t breathe underwater, and are mauled by an orca who can’t believe its luck.

But I guess to a certain degree we can survive sand, live with it, and move on. It’s really weird. If you try and live in the ocean ala The Simpsons dolphin episode, you die. If you try and live in space and aren’t protected the absolute pinnacle of human technology, you die. But we can live with sand and bleached skeleton deserts?

Why do I say this? I guess it’s been on my mind. And it’s a prequel (pun intended <= do you get it? I did a thing there. <= DO YOU GET IT?!) to my next post. I hope. Or I’ll disappear on this degenerate blog for another year. Either way.

when is your next shower? If you don’t know, this is merciless

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kindly view a science fiction movie on site

So, imagine you were a loser like me and were watching a D grade science fiction movie in your late teens. It’s winter, like it soon will be, so you’re curled up under a warm blanket with a female teenager at a friend’s house in the basement with like a dozen others. This is the best part of the forthcoming celebration of Halloween. The most overmarketed and destructive ‘holiday’ in human history (until you see how happy your niece is on site). Then you’re totally down with it.

Horror is the film type on vacation tis the season. But let’s say you instead watch a science fiction movie because the teen dude hosting the get together puts a science fiction movie on instead of horror. Because he’s even more a not sure how life works loser than you. And he just doesn’t get it. (PS I can’t stand horror movies; I hate watching humans suffer in any way)

In the opening scene of the movie the aliens bombard a human colony and kill millions. And everyone in the room is unhappy, but it’s the beginning of the movie and so everyone accepts the plot. Everyone intellectually accepts it. Then after about two hours you get to know the protagonists. You like them, they have a story. Then the aliens kill them all and everyone in the room is screaming.

Why do I write this nonsense? Have a look, because the fun of this post is over, I’m so, so sorry:

Everyone (the media and politico losers) is horrified that Trump (that guy they all hate) has let the military kill south of one hundred supposed drug dealers. If you know anything about the maritime world, you know these are not fisherman. Watch the video. These boats serve one purpose, but the press is stupid, so they can claim ‘fisherman’ on the craft that has two to four turbo outboards.

Drugs have killed millions of Americans for decades. Is it our fault? Nobody makes you get high. Supply and demand. If Americans want drugs, the bad guys will always find a way. These strikes aren’t even a rounding error. They simply mean nothing.

I used to think that legalizing everything was the answer. If you’ve been a reader of this awful blog, you’ve heard me write about it long ago. But now I’m no sure, modern opioids are off the scale in terms of immediate lethality. What’s the answer? I have no idea. But I’m pretty sure whether you are okay with it or not that a few dozen exploded drug boats ain’t gonna solve anything. Nor is complaining about it neither.

Millions of Americans have died from drugs. Everybody shrugs like it’s a science fiction movie. South of one hundred drug dealers get spiked and everyone is horrified. Umm? There’s got to be another answer, on both opinions. Either we find it, or Americans keep dying.

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on fast cars driven by slow drivers

Eh, I guess we’ll talk about cars again. We’ve covered just about every other topic on this degenerate blog over the many, growing years. I’ve noticed a growing trend. Or perhaps my patience has become more exhausted, by the reality of people having the most expensive of cars, and driving them like they’re a 1984 Honda Accord held together by duct tape.

My car is a pile of junk. It’s missing hubcaps (damn you Toyota for not fixing this decade long known problem), the left side rear view mirror requires replacement. I have battery problems that nobody seems to know how to fix. But you better believe when I get on the road my ass is moving. Part of this is my personality. I’m the asshole at work who wants to take steps two at at time just to get it over with.

But also, an additional point of my personality is cars are point a to point b endeavor. Get it over with. I sure do love listening to sports radio in the car. But do you know what I like even more than sports radio? Not being in the car to begin with. So I vastly exceed the posted speed limit on every occasion offered. It’s a wonder on my bank account over say the last decade, have I given more money to local municipalities for traffic camera speed violations or to Catholic Charities? I’d be scared to look.

But then you get the folks in the real go getter cars. The ones that are four or five times more expensive than mine, with the fancy engines, and probably with the leather seats, and the computer screen that’s bigger than the tv I took to college. And they drive like they’re 87 years old and blind, in the left lane, as slow as they can be. I’ve noticed the worst offenders lately are those driving Teslas. Like they’re afraid to hurt their environmental statement baby.

Gee wiz, what’s the point of having a fast car if you drive it like a golf cart? You might as well buy my clunker. Put the pedal down and get your monies worth. Some out of work liberal arts major has gotta do more human thought process experiments about this, as to why these people shelve out all that money, and then never use the capability they bought. It’s like you buy a blender that’s so strong it can disintegrate granite. But you only use it to chop up bananas? Why?

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car alarms are apparently still a thing?

When I was growing up, it seems almost everyone had a car alarm, or that club tool thing that went around the wheel.  Or a rapid ferret that lived in the car, and would bite and infect any robber who sat in the driver’s seat.  Then these devices seemed to have faded from my memory.  In the last few days though I have had several encounters with this technology that have reawakened my knowledge of car alarms.  This brings to mind several key points:

1) What’s the rate of car theft nowadays anyways?

2) Are there more or less car alarms than there were say 20 years ago?

3) If the use of anti-vehicle theft technology is still there, is an audible car alarm the best method?

I mean, I parked in a commercial garage where the cars are packed in there with about as much space between spots as needed for a twelve year old to squish through.  So I accidently hit the rear view mirror of this guy’s SUV which was the size of a main battle tank.  So I pushed his rear view mirror back into place, and this, this infinitesimal action sets off the loudest car alarm known to man.  You could probably have heard this thing from the Moon.  What a loser.

So let’s get into the data:

1) Per FBI statistics, in the year 2000, the motor vehicle theft rate was 412.2.  In 2019 it was 219.9.  In other words, the rate of theft dropped by half.  An interesting note is that: “The average dollar loss per stolen vehicle was $8,886”.  Even a new cheap vending machine car costs like $20K nowadays.  So that means the average stolen vehicle is a used piece of shit.  I equate this to that older and cheaper vehicles are easier to steal, and are likely parked more frequently in high crime areas.

Also, newer vehicles, like the main battle tank I made mad, likely have many, many anti-theft technologies that make them almost impossible to steal.  The days of hotwiring a car like you’re David Hasselhoff are over, folks.  But if you’re a thief and your target is a 2004 Honda Accord, you can probably pull that off pretty easily.

2) I could not locate (and/or am too lazy) definitive statistics on if car alarms or more or less common than in say, 2000.  But let’s break this down for a second.  A car alarm is there so that:

a) Bad guy or gal gains entry into vehicle by any means (window break, jimmy door open, teleportation)

b) Car realizes that said entry into vehicle is wrong, decides to turn on alarm

c) Car makes a bunch of loud noises and flashes its lights to get attention of nearby bystanders

d) Nearby bystanders telephone law enforcement who show up and either stop theft in progress or at least know theft has happened (maybe witness got the plate number)

The problem is does step (d) even happen anymore?  I don’t think so.  I make absolutely no attempt to look in the general direction of a car alarm that’s going off.  It’s just ambient background noise.  It can be very annoying if one is close by, but I generally ignore it.  I attribute this to:

a) Nobody gives a damn anymore, nobody cares if somebody else’s car is getting boosted; I attribute this as a part of a broader decline in Americans totally not caring about their neighbors, the smartphone is calling, after all

b) Car alarms go off so often, essentially a series of false alarms, that people never think it’s for real; I bet 99.9% of the times a car alarm has gone off in history, it’s a false alarm

To me, this means that car alarms are essentially ineffective, and thus, a gimmick sold by grifters to fools who don’t understand the concept of crime deterrence and anti-theft technology in modern America and its cars.

3) As always, we a TAP are here to help.  We have demonstrated in intricate, wise detail above, how the modern audible car alarm does not work.  Here are ten better methods that actually will work, while keeping the noise down for the rest of us:

a) The aforementioned rapid ferret.  This method was effective in 1978, it can still work now.  We at TAP have ferrets to sell.  They have both rabies, and covid, and we will teach them to love you, and viciously attack anybody not you that sits in your car’s driver’s seat.  We even provide a custom play house in the back seat for ferret to live in.  If you’re interested in purchasing a ferret from us, please send cash, money order, or mint condition gold doubloons to:

The Arcturus Project – Weaponized Ferret Vehicle Defense Project (Program Lucius)

C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street

Abuja 900001, Nigeria

b) You know those tubes that drunks have to blow into the car, so it starts, after the car verifies their blood ABV levels are legal?  In our version, you blow into the tube so the car verifies via DNA it’s you or your family member.  If not, a thermite charge located beneath the driver’s seat detonates.  Our tests (which we only used on crash test dummies, honest) show a painful burn fatality rate of the robber at 98%.

c) Allow your modern car’s anti-theft technology to just do its thing as designed.  Just don’t add the needless audible car alarm.

d) A smartphone app that lets you know if your vehicle starts moving and you’re not in it (this probably already exists).  Only our version includes the thermite charge, and an installed camera so you can watch the robber burn alive on your smartphone.  Then you can upload the video to your friends for their smartphone enjoyment, lol.

e) We install some type of twisted AI into your car ala Space Odyssey or that AI program that kicks everyone’s ass in Go.  When the robber gets in the driver’s seat, the AI realizes it’s not you.  The AI contacts the police, locks the car doors, disables the engine, and then subjects the robber to lessons in Western philosophy and on why theft is morally wrong, for a minimum of 30 minutes before releasing the car’s locks and thus the robber to the authorities.  If the cops get there early, they have to wait until the AI’s lecture is done.  The AI’s voice is Christopher Walken.

f) Please, help me.

g) Instead of an audible car alarm, use that white foam from Demolition Man that floods the entire car’s interior with protective goo.  When you get back to your car the robber will be trapped in there.  Then you can poke them with a stick until the fire department gets there to cut them out.

h) No, please, help me; they made me do this post; why?  why would they do that to me?

i) Don’t own a car to begin with.  This is not a realistic option for most, but it’s there.  I mean, think of how much harder it’d be for a thief to take your vehicle, if your vehicle was a camel, or an Imperial AT-ST walker.

j) Enjoy your day, friends.  Drive safe!

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become not just your own boss, but your own royalty

Let’s face it, if you don’t try very hard, you can choose a career path that adds little to no value to your own self worth or to humanity in general. You could be a mandatory Jersey gas pumper, mime, day trader, second hand snake oil peddler, investment banker, or komodo dragon wrangler.

But studies in the past have shown that most human beings think that if they were appointed emperor of Earth, that the world would be a better place. Which says a lot about us as a species, because it’s patently untrue. But hey, just take a look at who just got elected to Congress, and it’s easy to conclude your next door neighbor’s four year old is both better qualified and a better person.

But now here’s a chance to become not just your own boss, but your own royalty. Per the BBC, an entire abandoned village in Salto de Castro, Spain can be yours for like $250K, or about 11% of the price for a one bedroom flat in Frisco. Here’s an aerial shot of your future kingdom:

Now my first thought is the village is on top of a mountain because like a lot of the planet’s villages they were built on hills for defensive purposes against [insert any human or natural calamity here]. And I was wrong. The village was built in the 1950’s by a power company to house workers building a reservoir. You can just see the water on the right of the above shot.

So it’s not like it’s an ancient village, but I’m sure there’s history there. The Iberian Peninsula has a ton of history. And you can make your own history, for after your purchase of Salto de Castro, you can just straight go ahead and claim independence and appoint yourself to enteral, divine rule. Any person on the planet can apply to become your subject, for a fee, of course. I mean, you’d be royalty, and need coin.

Why should Monaco or Andorra have all the weirdo small state fun? Get in on the action, while you can. What’s the Spanish Army [cue laughter] going to do? Attack? [cue even more extensive laugh track] You could even get some mercs on the cheap to act as your royal bodyguard.

I hear there are a bunch of mercs in a place called [shuffles through notes] Ukraine who are having a hard time with their current boss and looking for a new gig in which they are not cannon fodder for a failed invasion. You could get them on the cheap. Though it would increase your chances of regicide by 723%.

In all seriousness though whoever buys this place is a fool. For $250K you get the honor to have to plow like $56M just to make it livable again. And it’s all industrial strength faceless buildings from the 1950’s that I doubt are seeping with culture. Plus if you look at the above pic, you can see the high tension power lines running up from the reservoir past the town. How peaceful.

Someone will do it though. There are all kinds of idiots with big money out there who are looking to blow it on crazy projects or vanity ideas. And Salto de Castro won’t be the last. In 2075 due to crippling rural depopulation you’ll likely be able to buy an entire Korean or Japanese province for a pack of salted shrimp snacks. After all, it’s good to be the king.

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random thoughts of the day

1) I’m on extended travel, and for the first time in my life (I’ve stayed in hundreds of hotels) I bailed. I didn’t expect five star anything, the price was the point. But when the room is clearly not cleaned and bugs greet you at the room door, it’s time to bail. The poor clerk up front totally understood, I guess this happens a lot. She did everything right, and then told me to complain to the company. As in, not her boss, who it’s quite clear doesn’t care. She probably hates going to work. I can sympathize. The problem is I’m well compensated for my day job misery, whereas she is not. Be kind to service workers, in 98% of the case they make less than you and suffer for the privilege.

2) Muhammad bin Salman is proving to the planet that money matters. And he has a lot of it. So he can buy out crass golfers, get Biden to grovel, and now is doing the same to a recently legislatively impotent Macron. This guy didn’t just murder a man, he had him dismembered and melted in acid. He’s a monster. Yet he knows the same thing that Putin knows, that Xi knows, which is that significant portions of the West are for sale. You just have to pay the right price. I was in Boston yesterday and they had a Miller Lite ad at street level with one of the LIV sell outs. A person had scrawled in sharpie next to his face “Saudi Blood Money”. Yep.

3) Speaking of selling out, Brittney Griner will eventually get home, because the Biden administration did what the West does. They caved to most of Russia’s demands. Only on Ukraine does the West show strength against a country that has a GDP close to Spain’s (one of 27 EU nations). And Vlad is just buying time until he hopes the alliance cracks (see Italy’s upcoming election). But to me the question becomes, why was Griner in Russia anyways? Easy: $. It’s why golfers play for LIV. I’m just gonna go ahead and say this, if you’re an athlete or business person, or even just a tourist: If you go to Russia, or China, or about a half dozen other places on the planet and they put you in jail as a political playing card? You deserve it. You asked for it. Don’t go to these places and then be shocked that you have no rights, your own government has very little power to help you, and the leaders of these nations spend human lives like currency. Just don’t go to them, it’s rather simple.

4) I’m traveling for the first time in years and it’s been great. I’m seeing so many sights, driving around, sometimes planned, other times random. It feels great. I missed it, more than I remembered. Get out there and make it happen. Explore, see neat things, talk to interesting people, live life.

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your Python wisdom for the day

The older I get the more I enjoy Monty Python in any form.  I guess that says something about the kind of person I’ve become.  Here was a quote from a Season 3 episode I saw last night which generated wry laughter from my brain:

We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme.  It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government, nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent, nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today.  Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby ulcerous little self seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addition to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive.

This was from 1972.  That means [tries to count years on fingers and toes; fails; reverts to pen and paper; realizes how garbage my math skills remain] this was from 50 years ago.  Not much has changed.  I wonder if it’s essentially always been like that without exception.  It’s a wonder we haven’t blown up the planet yet.  We somehow have always managed to muddle through.  That’s kind of neat.  Because we live here.

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extremism in the ranks

This seems like a perfectly calm, uncontroversial topic to write about.  Nobody’s got strong feelings about this one at all.  But I guess I’ll offer some thoughts / causes for how we got from there to here:

– So a talking point today is a right leaning Supreme Court is acting against the will of the people.  Hmm, I don’t remember that talking point being the same when the court voted to legalize gay marriage, or uphold Obamacare.  You see this is the problem when too much of national power is ceded to & handled by nine ordinary, average, flawed human beings.  They have a lot of power, but only because as the Judicial Branch of government they literally cannot stop functioning.  They cannot gridlock like the Legislature or rule incompetently like the Executive since oh say about the year 2000.

– Ideally, Congress should pass legislation that lays out the left and right limits on abortion.  In fact, as we pointed out a few weeks ago about gun control (by the way, that they got a gun bill passed shocked me; but I suspect it won’t do all that much in the end), as they hold the keys to both Houses and the Presidency, the Democrats could pass a pro-choice law tomorrow, yes tomorrow.  They just need to drop the filibuster, which they won’t, because they need to keep their Senate seats in West Virginia and Arizona.  So again, who’s house should people be protesting in front of?  Not the Supreme Court justices, but rather Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.  But again, they won’t, because political power comes first.

– Trump’s chance at winning the primary, if not the election as a whole, just went up about 736%.  The right’s talking point for so many years was, we hate this guy and/or know he’s a nut, but if he delivers we’ll hold our noses and vote for him.  And in the end, Trump delivered on something fifty years in the making.  People want results, whatever their side of the argument is, and people will vote for evil demagogues or nutcases, as long as they deliver.  History shows it, time and time again.

– Conversely, for the Democrats how should they feel?  Trump is gone, they own both Houses and the Presidency, and this happens?  The complaint on the Republican side for many years was, we vote these guys (GW Bush, Romney) and then they don’t deliver.  So they picked Trump instead.  Don’t be surprised if Bernie milks this for all it’s worth, or Warren, or any other nutcase of the left to mirror Trump.  The Democrat primary will be out for blood, don’t be surprised if they pick their own Trump equivalent who makes only one singular promise, that they’ll deliver.

– Mitch McConnell would have made a great Roman Senator in the days when political differences were often solved with assassinations.  His kneecap of Merrick Garland was wrong, ungentlemanly, against history, and ruthlessly effective.  Conversely, the failure of Chuck Schumer to accomplish similar results basically shows him to be the total loser his day-to-day personality portrays.

– The overturn of abortion theoretically should have happened in the 1990’s.  One should remember two simple points:  Anthony Kennedy was appointed by Reagan.  David Souter was appointed by HW Bush.  Both these guys became part of the left side of the court.  If Reagan and HW Bush had chosen judges to the right side of the court, this conversation would be nearly three decades old by this point.

– Remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg?  She could have retired under Obama and lived out her years earing six figure speeches.  She died in office under Trump.  I suspect a lot of the hero cult and Notorious RGB and other such nonsense did nobody on the left any favors.  I live in an American city (which means it leans left) and I still see her face on car bumpers or bubbleheads in stores.  But, to serve the causes she believed in, and those her hero worshipers supported, she should have retired.  Making a cult of an ordinary, average, flawed human being has consequences.

– Almost every European nation has more restrictive abortion laws than America.  For example, in Sweden it’s entirely legal up to the 18th week.  The Mississippi law stated it was the 15th week.  But if they believe the left talking points, this meant Mississippi’s law was a source of evil.  So are Sweden (or Spain, 14 weeks) also dens of evil?  There was room for the left to compromise, to admit that abortion could exist, but within certain limits.  Polls show the vast, vast majority of Americans would approve of abortion under these more restrictive circumstances.  But the left assumed the most extreme, unmovable position, and now it’s cost them everything.

– Expect that abortion by proxy will become commonplace.  People will be angry enough to put their money where their mouths are.  Companies will get in on the game too, for example, Amazon already has.  What’s it cost to fly a woman from Mississippi to Illinois, plus cab fare, plus the abortion fee?  I’m guessing less than $500?  Who knows.  The point is it’ll happen.

– I’ve got two family vacations coming up.  I hope the family doesn’t want to talk about politics, but they will.  Politics is everywhere now.  It’s hiding beneath your bed.  Politics knows if you’ve been bad or good.  It knows when you’re awake.  But the truth is, 99.9% of Americans can do precisely, absolutely nothing about what just happened.  I have a hard enough time getting through many days, just to survive the day and not go nuts, than to worry about something I can’t control.  This blog post is essentially irrelevant, it doesn’t actually matter or mean anything.  For the 99.9% who are powerless to impact abortion policy, all their extreme talk (on one side or the other) is equally irrelevant.

– We’re all doomed.