Category: Scarred Brain murmurings

I wrote last week about how busy I was.

Wednesday I attended this:

I showed up just as Matt Welch was delivering his opening.

I was there, and think my opening vote might have timed out…..I said Matt and Nick won after trying to vote undecided at the open.

While I have voted for some Democrats in the past as a statement against a particularly bad Republican, the Democrats have done some absolutely batshiat crazy stuff, really, since about 2005. I put a lot of it on the reax to Katrina. That was a massive failure of local, but especially state government. For every reference to “heckuvah job, Brownie,” there was a spooky silence about Kathleen Blanco.

Things didn’t really start moving there until LTG. Honore showed up.

Sarah mentioned Harry Browne during her open, but Katrina should have driven the point home that government doesn’t work.

Yet that’s the Democrats’ prescription for just about anything.
Health Care
Disaster Relief
Monetary Policy
COVID
You name it.

Another 6K GS-11s will solve it.

And they never do.

Bubuhbut OrangeManBad!!1!

Yep. And I didn’t vote for him. But you all did vote for vaccine mandates, lockdowns, the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, the Inflation Reduction Act, a completely open border, continuation of Trump’s tariffs…..

You need something way more compelling to convince me that voting for Biden is a good idea.

This is what I posed on the Substack discussion of it:

^{Random asides: Substack makes copypasta way difficult…almost as difficult as some of the data protection features I’ve seen recently to stop data spillage. Also, the text-prediction stuff on iOS has gotten pretty damn good; I’m able to type full replies using the predictive e text much of the time on my phone. As with the Crypto scammers I dealt with on WhatsApp, I will get information out. You can’t hide things, no matter how hard you try.}

This was the night before the Fami Willis disqualification in Georgia. The two debating the Reason editors-at-large were from The Bulwark, which is something I’ve really not paid much attention to. You don’t like Trump. I get it. I never voted for him, and, in spite of all the things the Democrats did to him, the LP’s basic endorsement, etc., I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

But how does it make you feel?

Ambivalent? Do I hold some hope that Trump/Musk/Vivek will get things trimmed down? Maybe a bit? Am I very confident about it? Nope.

But I do enjoy getting into Reason events. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I had an early morning.

Or just a bit more. (Since I finished this year’s compulsive streak.)

Busy week, obviously.

Missed the The Fifth Column thing this morning because I was trying to follow whatever’s going on in Syria.

It’s another example of the right-about-everything-all-the-time crowd missed hard.

Nobody knows exactly what’s going on.

But it’s pretty evident that it’s not because of anything the US did…certainly nothing to benefit the hated Military-Industrial Complex.

Other stuff?

There’s something burbling on the job front I might have to figure out. It’d likely be out of DC or MDDR, which isn’t ideal, but it’d be something different to do for a few years.

I would just assume stay where we are, but a lot of that is going to be dictated by my wife’s work.

And I’m okay with that. It’s cool that she’s probably out-earning me these days. I can be finished, and try to enjoy some of my time to try to relax.

Certainly my parents missed out on that; fourteen years since my dad died today.

Instead of being sad about things, I’m going to go watch football.

I listened to David Harsanyi’s new book over the past few days. Please excuse the link to Space Cowboy Jeff’s site to order, but anything works. (If you can find it somewhere else, I would you mildly encourage you to buy it that way….)

It’s a good necessitation of some of the absolutely batshit crazy things that have happened over the past decade or so. It leads to things like the video I put in here a couple of weeks ago.

So many things are getting better in the world. There’s not going to be a mass-extinctions event that we can do anything about. Unless it comes from the State. They’re really good about killing people and destroying things.

Listening, I’m reminded of something I bought bout twenty-five years ago. Apocalypse Pretty Soon. I think I heard the author on with Art Bell, if that tells you anything.

Are things better than they were back then?

Yes.

Thangs Get Better.

I actually did email my bosses this morning requesting time off so I can make one of my trips to the Gulf Coast to visit my mom in the Spring.

I can get around down there without too much trouble, now, with things like ride-sharing applications. I can get whatever I need quickly either with Space Cowboy Jeff’s delivery, or via one of the myriad other delivery services.

I can remember wondering if I’d have enough basic necessities back then to get through a weekend.

I can recall not too long ago when I forgot the medication that helps me walk. When I got to Biloxi after the ride on The Crescent, my meds arrived at the hotel the next day.

That reminds me that today’s the day I need to take my current DMT (Disease Modifying Therapy). I’m on KEYsimpta, which I only have to take once a month.

Imagine that. In the almost fifteen years since my diagnosis, I’ve gone from taking shots multiple times per week to a daily pill, to periodic infusions to a shot once per month.

Thangs Get Better.

And I’m still able to sort of function in society. Sorry, it’s going to take a lot more than that to scare me.

But if you feel like I need to be compelled, fine. State that loudly. And don’t try to hide what you’ve done, and the consequences that come from your actions.

No, Commissioner Walz, an anonymous reporting line doesn’t make the people calling it any less loathsome.

I think I figured out an effective spam filter to keep the foreign spambots at bay. I have no idea what the word is; I’d assume it’s some common word, but including it seems to have done the trick.

Maybe it’s because I’m not as opposed to him as I am Ofc. Harris, but I did actually watch all of the Rogan interview with Trump.

Don’t Know

I know I’ve gotten some incredibly negative responses whenever I’ve even broached Rogan, but I did watch through it. All three hours or whatever it was.

Just a ton of time talking about things I don’t at all about.

The bits about replacing the individual income tax with tariffs is interesting to say the least.

What will happen with the “payroll taxes?” Many, many, many, many politicians roll out things about “the rich not paying their fair share,” there are already many people who pay no income tax. NYT actually had a decent take on it here.

I’m wondering if eliminating voters’ confusion about what’s actually income taxes, and what’s contributions to the old-age programs might clear some things up.

Am I confident about that?

Not in the least. The “rich” will forever not be paying “their fair share.”

So, yeah, I put myself through all of that, and still haven’t made up my mind. That should tell anyone reading how much I dislike President Trump. No, I’m not going to call him “Former President.” It’s a title you keep. Jimmy Carter is still President Carter.

Bucco Bruce is back today, so I’m going to go watch football.

Well, that’s when the writing begins.

But there’s been so much else I’ve been preparing for to get ready for the end of the year.

Watching On Patrol Live last night, there were two spots in a row for Christmas ads. It’s not even Halloween! Am I ready for trying to figure out something to do with my wife since I can’t have a Lexus with a bow on its roof in the snow?

That’s supposed to start after Veteran’s Day.

Seriously.

Halloween seems to kind of passe these days. I remember seeing things the past few years about trying to actually move the date because, you know, safety. Trick-or-treating should be at from 4:30-6:00 the last Friday in October.

Let’s erase the religious significance from it. You know who else tried to excise parts of history that didn’t really fit? The FP had a thing the other morning about abortion being a health care right, and forcing Catholic hospitals to perform them.

Thinking more about it, after my initial you-can-leave attitude, it occurred ot me that, no, they wouldn’t. They’d stay to help take care of people because they’ve got a purpose higher than whatever some politician sets.

But that’s as bad as Kavanagh being a member of the Knights of Columbus.

What can you do?

Senate? Yep. House, not that it matters in a district that’s been blue since the Northern Aggressors left in 1877? Yep. President? I still haven’t decided.

The WTF interview with Dan Crenshaw was about the best endorsement of Trump I’ve heard. (Interesting tidbit there, too, about RON PAUL(pbuh)’s strategy in the House that let him get things for his district, while still being able to vote against the larger bill…)

The interview with Reason kind of pushed me his direction, but then I saw some third party debate that reminded me of the things I really don’t like about him.

I guess the Trump interview with Rogan is up on YouTube, which might be better than dealing with Spotify, but I’m skeptical whether it’s worth three hours to still be undecided at the end.

I need more coffee, and this is meandering.

Still would like some more topic suggestions for next month.

It’s a Wednesday night, and I’m trying to figure out what I’d like to write about in November.

I should be figuring out what to do with lining up various medical appointments. Or fixing this NetBSD host. Or…

I did try to watch another interview with Trump, and failed to get through it.

I was very interested in this today. All sorts of interesting implications regarding law. The treaties, including Trump’s NAFTA replacement, all rely on Mexico having an independent judiciary. The changes being made right now really call that into question. Do the treaties still apply if the other country isn’t keeping up its end of the bargain?

It also speaks to treaties with the former USSR. Do they matter?

I’ve come to think, lately, that there needs to be more temporality to basically every single law/treaty/regulation.

Hmm.