Fighting All The Time

I am about writing. Given that it’s Saturday, I’m not going to fight it today.

The big news this week is that the Democratically-controlled house want to admit the 90%+ Democratic city of DC into the union as a state. Two more party votes in the Senate, so it has to happen.

Uh.

No, it’s a Federal district. It’s not a state.

I would say that if “taxation without representation” is just an issue, let the wards with land borders join the adjacent localities.

So the richest parts of the city can be part of the gem of local governance that is Montgomery County (I say that because it seems like every time you see a stupid local ordinance on the news, if it’s not out of Florida, it’s out of “MoCo.”), while the other parts can join Prince George’s County.

The DC bars and restaurants would have a great time with MoCo’s stupid liquor controls. Then, what of the bars where you can smoke inside?

Speaking of smoking, perhaps it’s due to a few things I’ve watched lately, but I’ve been really craving a glass of Scotch with a cigar.

Like it’s 1999 again. I think that was reinforced by forcing myself to watch The Matrix again. I think a lot of that might have stemmed from seeing the FCC chair put up a red/blue pill reference on Twitter.

The movie isn’t better with age.

But I think it does speak to what’s going on with politics.

There’s many different views.

And that’s a problem.

It’s incredible listening to various people wedded to the red/blue dichotomy in the corporate press.

My frustration is further exacerbated by listening to various MS podcasts, where there’s a very firm push to “take the blue pill.”

And this is where I’d normally take off on my I’m-a-bad-person-because-I-choose-to-reject-a-binary-world.

Part of it, too, may have been from listening to this the other day. I’d listened to the guest’s interview with Thaddeus Russell. Russell was talking about his incredible interview with his interview with Hotep Jesus. He talked about the all-or-nothing attitude with many of these radical movements who’ve been able to rebrand themselves as of late.

No. Some of this shit is just incredibly nuts.

You can actually take pieces of the whole, and come to something for yourself.

You don’t have to swallow one of two pills.

That’s tough for some people to understand.

And, no, it doesn’t make me a horrible person that I refuse to play the binary game.


I’d forgotten what I wanted to write about here, but I do remember, now.

It does speak a bit to the blue-versus-red pill argument, however.

I was listening to a podcast where Dr. Jorgensen discussed what she’d do with the FDA.

“We had about 60 American companies making testing kits and the FDA only approved two,” she said in the final Libertarian Party debate. “What the president should have done was use the Emergency Powers Act and say, ‘FDA, you only have to prove safety, not efficacy. Get these kits out there.’”

Citation

The MS “disease modifying therapy” I’m on could hardly be considered “safe.”

One possible side effect of taking TYSABRI is progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). PML is a rare brain infection that usually leads to death or severe disability. Currently, there is no known treatment, prevention, or cure for PML.

Tysabri site

Obviously, that’s concerning. What would I get during a not-as-good-as-even-Medicaid-for-all system?

Ugatz.

The IV steroids are “safe.” For the most part. They’re also cheap.

And there I go again not accepting all of one answer, which, of course, makes me a bad person.

Whatever.

Resistance Is Futile

I did manage not to write last week, so there’s that.

I’m taking a break from my oh-so-fascinating protection for a bogus IT certification racket.

I’m listening to The Fifth Column taking a break from barely-functional labs.

Woohoo. I know how to fire up Wireshark on a Win10 VM!!1!

Getting the promised gift to TFC is proving more difficult than I originally thought. Virginia’s screwed-up liquor laws don’t help.

But I’m stumbling along as well as could be expected.

All that said, I am exhausted. Perhaps that’s due to expiration of my Tysabri does,. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I’ve had odd sleep patterns the past week or so.

I did run the Jitsi meeting last night. I’d never done that before for the HR Geeks folks last night. The only other meeting I’d ever done was talking to my mom on Mothers’ Day.

The webcam I’d ordered in mid-April for these meets finally showed up earlier this week, too. Enjoy the quarantine at the Port of Los Angeles.

Maybe I’ll remember later exactly what I meant to write about.