^H

Pretty descriptive of me at the BARPod/Soyboyz event in DC last night. Going seemed like something fun to do on the last day of the Fiscal Year. When I was still working it would have been something that would have been a big sigh-of-relief; we’re finished. Time for fall weather, and the holiday between Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl.

But, really, with the incredible mismanagement of the budget over the past few Administrations, and Congresses, I guess it’s less important now than it used to be.

Trying to figure out how to best describe my thoughts; the assemblage seemed to be very either from the Northeast or Midwest.

• I am old. Though there seemed to be people describing chronological age similar to mine, I do think I’ve been “in the world” longer. Oh, the AIpacolypse is gonna be like Y2K.
  I don’t think so, really. There’s not a firm date like there was with Y2K. If I brought up the 2038 problem, I’d probably get confused looks; why come you maths? I suppose there’s some similarities with the worry, but I think absent the drop-dead date, it’s ummm, less pronounced. I think there was some relation of it to the Millerites. So, no great disruption, but the fear is similar. I don’t know that there’s a way to neatly-divide populations. To the younger Boomers, really, it’s fine. All of you can now spend your pre-tax savings without penalty. If you’re worried because you have so much debt that you’re still working, that’s another problem. Learn To CodeFind something different to do until you reach a point where you’re comfortable stopping, then stop. I wonder if I’m going to live long enough to regret not having done that, myself, but I was trying to stick around until the new stuff was ready. (As an aside, the stuff on America.gov actually looks kinda awesome. I don’t know really what more I need to do at this point; and I have lawyers taking money to do things for me for the next couple of years, but this is actually the sort of thing that the 18F/USDS/DOGE folks were brought in to do. I also was sipping on a Tom Collins, and enjoying it very much; I don’t think that’d have happened when I was 22.
• Politically, I’m very much on the outside. My parents were Nixon Republicans. My not-nearly-as-white as Liz Warren grandmother was a Republican in the South in the 50s; I don’t know how many times I was told that after she was old enough to vote, her daddy had told she needed to go vote for “Hairy Ass” Truman (And that needs to be said in a Cajun accent, which is very different than Birmingham, Alabama, Hollywood), but she didn’t. The Northern Aggressors really have no idea how bad Southern Democrats were. Though Strom Thurmond eventually became a Republican, Fritz Hollings never did. Let’s just gloss over Jimmy Carter. He, um, deregulated the airlines. No! He hired Paul Volcker as Fed Chairman, who raised interest rates! (I think my parents’ VA Loan in 1980 was something like 16.5%) Nah, that’s not it. Um. He lowered the Georgia flag to half-mast for Lt. Calley. Uhh. He ended Federal funding for Abortion, which paid a good chunk of them during the Ford Administration! Pfft. He let people brew beer! I also remember coming to Virginia after being in school in Kansas and overseas with the new MLK holiday. “Lee-Jackson-King?” Oh, those are Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, famous Virginians. I think the Lee-Jackson prefix got removed sometime before the Great Awokening, but, it still happened with the General Assembly in Republican hands. But, back to the politics, because of what Democrats did in the “Solid South,” I’m very, very, very hesitant to vote for any of them. I’m even more worried about anyone who claims to have any affinity for Socialism. The filth I experienced first-hand in Eastern Europe is something completely unimaginable to younger people. So, too, is the authoritarianism. That authoritarianism accompanies so many really-powerful government systems. It’s not normal. It’s not okay. Well, it could be Sweden! No, setting up a government based on that sort of mistrust and hidden brutality inevitably leads to Kampuchea. Or, if you put a religious coat on it, Occupied Iran.
• The venue is actually better than the last time I was there for a Reason event. The Reason mention ties in a few brief mentions of the Cornell news. Robby Soave has a pretty good piece at first glance. I really don’t want to dig too deeply, but I’m starting to come to really not-too-uncommon conclusions. A) Something happened. B) The University handled it through its own Kangaroo courts. C) Actual law enforcement probably can’t do anything about it because there’s no evidence that’s admissible in criminal court, especially since it was sat on by the university for two years, and D) the people really upset about it won’t be satisfied short public punishment. Which could be castration, but execution would work, too. And, the people named and served are totally the right ones. Even if they’re on duty at Camp Lejeune. You know, this is why you actually go to law enforcement when the crime happens, and don’t mess around with the Mall cops…

I’m really off in space on this, I think. I’ll run it

I’ve been trying to fully-coalesce my thoughts after listening to Jessica Tarlov’s book.

Though I’ve never met her in person, I do think we’d probably get along since she’s friends with Kennedy and Malice.

My reaction, as I posted on Malice’s Locals site, was this:

Yeah. I think I understand where she’s coming from, and the Obama-era optimism that went with it, but she does miss something, and I’m too lazy took it up, but it’s common. GOVERNMENT DOESN’T WORK.

The noble things she ascribes to Democrats really ignore the realities of the irrational exuberance that’s explimplified politics for the past 30 years or so. Where you put the blame is really a matter of preference. The Reason folks were alarmed with the $40T Federal Debt news. I was, too. Gillespie was putting a lot of that blame on Bush. Me, I place a lot of it on Obama/Trump/Biden/Trump; 75% of that has come since Bush passed his last budget.

The bills are way past due, regardless of where you place the blame. 

Incredibly, the older Boomers seem to be dying off at a pretty remarkable rate. It’s not the 30y in The Villages as was once imagined, but…..many, many are blowing through insurance programs.

I don’t know if I just missed it, and may be too lazy to check, but another instance where GenX doesn’t even get a mention….

So I’m trying to figure out if it’s just my complete alienation from politics speaking, but I think that if you, or anyone tried to analyze the effectiveness of government over the past thirty-or-so years, how can you even try to say that things worked? Ever.

So, I appreciate the being cordial to “the other side,” but you all have failed completely regardless of who’s in the driver’s seat.

But there’s a few things I’m trying, especially, that I’m trying to work though.

1. Medicare-for-All. I will qualify for Medicare in about a year and a half courtesy my disability declaration. Yes, my payments will be paid from a different pool of money than the old-People’s fund, but I understand that if I was relying on it, it’d be very expensive. But this isn’t something that started with the Bad Orange Man.

The incivility isn’t new. And, yeah, with class like that which fed the government-can-fix any problem, I’m out. I can talk to civilly, but I’m probably just going to avoid you.

2. Similarly, when it comes to things like money in politics, I’m not going to vote for, or trespect any politician who took ActBlue or Emily’s List money. Trump is really awful. I never voted for him. But that doesn’t mean that your stuff is any better. It’s not. And I hold that position for reasons you’re completely unwilling to discuss.

Maybe I’ll finish up my thoughts, but there’s football to watch.

This was a DB record that I’d started when I was working on yesterday’s entry.

Big sigh on the 9/11 25th stuff. Maybe I should check LiveJournal to see if I’d thrown anything in there, but I suspect there’s nothing.

Checking seems like a waste of time.

TheFP had some interesting stories, certainly. This one, in particular, had me wondering whether some of my medical team might be interested. I’m too lazy to see if it’s paywalled, but if you drop me an email, a PDF copy might appear in your inbox. (And, yes, you should subscribe to TheFP. They’re actually doing good reporting.)

But so much of the discussion is about learning root causes and lessons. I understand that that’s how Big Ed. tells you to handle everything, but, at some point you do have to pass judgment on the people who did it.

No, you assholes at Auburn, it doesn’t matter in the least what your hippie sources said they were upset about. They fucking murdered a bunch of people and caused tons of property damage. But, get some rest. Should be a lot of Uber/Lyft fares tonight as my parents’ alma mater, The University of Southern Landmass, comes to town.

A similarly-bright story came across my feeds yesterday, too. I never met him, but he’d certainly come up in conversations in/around the crowds I pay attention to pretty often.

But, see, what were the root causes that brought him to Austin?

You could spend all day talking about that stuff, but it’s a waste of time.

Speaking of time, I think it’s time to get some more coffee. More later, maybe.

But, as I go, Reza Pahlavi had some good words for the European press.

Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about several things.

Notably, I’ve been thinking about government and NGO programs. There’s always much kvetching here inside the Swamp when funding gets adjusted in a direction other than exponential growth.

But, as I’m thinking about it, one phrase kept coming to mind, “a government program is Truffle Oil on a problem.”

Where did this annoyance with Truffle Oil come from? Not sure, but I recall Anthony Bourdain talking about it. Bourdain On A Talk Show.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Atlantic City, himself, Trump is all about new programs, albeit without the practically-useless NGOs should surprise no one.

Gold-plate this. Let’s make the Reflecting Pool more blue than you’ve ever seen.

Perfect Atlantic City renovation. Throw another layer of paint on that crappy apartment, and put it back on the market for 30% more money.

But Bourdain’s criticisms of Truffle Oil do fit so perfectly when you’re trying to cover up things that are really rotten to the core, but fit so well with government.

• Using Truffle Oil is lazy. It’s a somewhat unusual flavor on top of not-very-good base food.
• Much like government programs, Truffle Oil is stupidly-expensive.
• If using Truffle Oil “fixed” one problem, using more of it will fix every problem.

But God forbid you ever exclude that essential Truffle Oil.

I could probably stretch this into an OWT entry….

I went through this.

I basically stopped paying attention to the internal workings of Germany, the country where I spent half my youth, after some of the outrageous Green policies it took during the mid-2000s, and its stance when it came to the GWOT.

Yes, the performance of the Bundeswehr were important, impressive, in Afghanistan, but they really moved away with Operation Iraqi Freedom.

AfD are being called Nazis.

But nobody is paying attention to the shit-sandwich that the KPD made of East Germany.

And, that the hulking remains of bad Communist industry are being reinflated with “migrants” feels oddly familiar to the US; “they’re eating the dogs.”

I don’t know. Nobody is actually a Nazi. But there’s more than a few Communists still around, even if the guy who’d be Chancellor was born after The Wall fell.

I always want to append “sent to your phone.”

My phone, where my very-full pod queue resides. I’m hearing many people who are pissing-their-pants scared about this.

I’m just not able to be that scared; we’ll figure it out.

I think there really might be something wrong with me when it comes to being frightened.

Set hard resource limits, and make sure the OS enforces them.
Set hard time limits.
Implement roadblocks that have to be performed manually; the PEBKAC can actually be a good thing. (And if he fucks something up, you can now send him an I’m-really-not-angry-with-you coffee wherever he or she is in the world…)

If you’re not doing those basic prudent things, you are the problem. I understand that your guidance counselor might not have told you that, and your shrink certainly hasn’t, but it’s the truth.

But, sorry, I just can’t bring myself to be frightened about this. Humans will figure out a way to constrain new technologies and employ them to our benefit.

Don’t you know, there’s a continuous series of explosions happening under the bonnet of that carriage making a shaft rotate thousand of times per minute!
And any of those explosions could easily kill you!

That’s enough for this morning, I think.

Writing late in the afternoon. Didn’t sleep well last night for a variety of reasons. The title is kind of a concentration of some of the suppositions about me.

No, you’re not correct about me, but I’m exhausted trying to disabuse you of your assumptions. It’s exhausting.

I did finally get the problem with the disability payments straightened out Friday. Though I won’t get cost of living adjustments on the private supplement, I will get them on the Social Security Disability benefit.

The SSDI payment, comes from a different fund than the soon-to-be-cut regular Social Security Income fund. The Boomers’ mismanagement of the retirement fund isn’t going to negatively-affect my benefits. For now.

Hmmm.

Initial line of self-degradation deleted; maybe the psychological therapy treatments are working.

The study is going well. I have no idea if I’m getting a medication or placebo. The discomfort I was experiencing the first few weeks seems to have disappeared; not sure I can really attribute it to the drug (or placebo), as it kicked off before I started taking the pills.

The physical therapist is very pleased with my progress. I am moving better.

So, prompt….

When have I listened to my gut and it was right?
What helped me trust it in that moment?

I really don’t know. I made so many bad decisions since my layoff in 2013. Not trusting my gut on the salary on the first gig following was really a mistake. Could I have waited for something better? Maybe. But I didn’t.

The ensuing hard times led us to where we are now.

*resigned shrugs*

Could I have stopped working sooner than I did? Sure. But I thought I could help, and I wanted to see the changes.

But my body didn’t let me do that.

So, what’s left?