Month: March 2021

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Appeals to Higher Powers

16 August 2021

correspondent KW avers that “almost every atheist” she knows has adopted “statism as their religion” whose adherents’ zeal exceeds others’.

Other correspondents confirm her observations, and JH concludes that “when people stopped believing in God they replaced it with the state.”

I thank KW for that “almost.” Broadly defined (including the occasional weaselly “agnostic” or trying-to-impress-chicks “Christian Existentialist” phases I may or may not have gone through) I have been a consistent atheist and anarchist for most of my life. Just never was in me to subordinate my ego to states or gods or teammates. As far as I can tell, theism and statism are both symptoms of the same emotional disorder — wishful thinking. I don’t believe that the magicks of either prayer or voting have any powers beyond the palliative.

30 July 2021
Gotta get me a paddle, and a canoe.
Gonna paddle myself right back to you!
Gonna paddle my ass ’til it’s black and blue,
And then maybe I’ll be worthy of you.

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Hard Money

19 April 2002

You don’t see them much anymore, but every so often, when going through your change, you may catch a glint of something. It’s a whiter metal, with a unique luster, like moonlight reflecting off honey. Silver. It’s what made up America’s coins when we had a government with a little more integrity and a Dollar with real value.

Or maybe you got a few bills in change and noticed an odd one. The seal and the serial number were different, blue or red ink perhaps, or there was a little extra printing that spelled out how the instrument worked.

THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND
PRIVATE, AND IS REDEEMABLE IN LAWFUL MONEY AT THE UNITED
STATES TREASURY, OR AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK.

The note made no pretense of being lawful money itself, it simply promised to pay up if the bearer chose to redeem it for lawful money.

What then is “lawful money”? Lawful in the context of American money means in accord with Constitutional principles. Article 1, Section 8 spells out the delegated powers of the Congress, and Paragraphs 5 and 6 stipulate that the Congress shall have the power to Coin money and regulate its value, and to provide for the punishment of the counterfeiting of the coin and securities of the United States. It goes on to state, in Section 10, Paragraph 1, that no State shall make anything but Gold and Silver Coin a tender in payment of debts. Lawful money then, in America, at least, is either Gold or Silver Coin, or reliable receipts (bank notes, warehouse markers, merchant chits, or even government bonds) that may be redeemed for a specific quantity of Gold or Silver. Congress has the power to COIN money and to regulate its value. To coin money is to stamp an image into a disc of precious metal. It is not to delegate to a private cabal of bankers the authority to print piles of paper notes having no intrinsic value themselves beyond the “full faith and credit” of the government. The promises of the government have a way of being easily forgotten whenever it’s convenient for the Congress or the White House to infuse a batch of paper into the economy to stimulate some favored sector or to enrich well-connected contributors.

If I had my way there’d be a silver dollar in the hand of every American, and gold coins in the bank for every worker or investor cashing a dividend or paycheck.

Before 1913 and the passage of the unlawful Federal Reserve Act, the “price of gold” was $20.67 per troy ounce. Of course, in that context, the “price of gold” is a misnomer. It wasn’t that gold was found to have that temporary market value in dollars, but that the dollar was defined by statute to be that specific quantity of metal. Today, in violation of the Constitution, our government no longer guarantees the value of our currency. Democrat Lyndon Johnson’s debasement of silver coinage and Republican Richard Nixon’s repudiation of the gold standard unleashed the inflation that has savaged our savings and eviscerated our investments for three decades. Gold now trades for about $300.00 to the ounce, and silver about $5.00. Or thereabouts. Try to pin it down sometime and it will wiggle away. It’s not the metal that fluctuates. Gold and silver are material, and their supply is fairly stable. It is the value of the dollar that won’t sit still, because it is not fixed to anything solid.

Ironically, today’s dollar is backed up by something more rare even than silver or gold, its value is guaranteed by political integrity. Consider this, when you fill a tire or bubble gum with hot air, you call it inflation. When something is filled up with nothing of value, it is inflated. It may look impressive, but it is light and insubstantial and its value is diminished. Inflation is good for balloons or anything else that you’d like to float, but we want our money to hold value and to retain that value over time. Once, it did. Of course, after it got to be considered inconvenient to carry around a lot of gold or silver coins, people came up with the idea of carrying warehouse receipts, notes that indicated that someone you could trust would hold your metal, and redeem it in coin or bullion when you turned in the note. Or you could trade notes. Easier on the pockets than jing jing jangling through the market. As long as the notes were understood to be redeemable, and the banks or merchants or refiners issuing them were known to be honest there was no problem. Bank notes were considered to be “as good as gold.” (And haven’t you ever wondered where THAT expression came from?)

Once governments discover the power to create money from paper, backed up by nothing more tangible than a politician’s promise, they inflate themselves into poverty and tyranny. The temptation is just too great. Many of us remember the near panic at the end of the seventies when silver soared to fifty dollars an ounce, and gold was pulled along with it to nearly a thousand. After twenty years of relative fiscal restraint, prices seem to be less volatile. But Ronald Reagan is out of office, and we can’t count on Alan Greenspan living forever. Sooner or later, an indulgent Congress or an adventurous President will unleash the power of the printing press and we’ll find ourselves reliving the horror of Weimar Germany. Or worse. It may appear that we’ve Whipped Inflation Now, but we cannot afford to push our luck.

As the Century of the Leviathan State withdraws into history, it is altogether fitting and proper that we return to the principles that bore this Republic, and restore honesty and durability to our national currency. It is the Federal government’s responsibility, and as your Congressman, it will be my duty, to insure a stable, inflation resistant currency based on Gold and Silver Coin.

update 180129: Okeh, swiping text from “Honest” Abe doesn’t seem either fitting or proper, but we fail now and then, and move on.

In 2002 much of America was still enamored of the Maestro (Mister Andrea); real estate just kept boomin’ along… Selling out and moving to the mainland in 2007 was probably my second best financial maneuver. Most lucrative remains that “honorable discharge.” Riding the real estate bubble might have been possible without it, but things were generally tight. Nevertheless, when a guy with a family and a steady job shows up at the mortgage office and says, “VA,” their eyes just light up! Following the philosophy of The Confederate Mint, I’ve squirreled away a bit of gold, silver, copper, and lead. Not enough gold or silver to inspire too many would be free lance socialists, but enough copper-jacketed lead to dissuade those who might otherwise be tempted.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or 
Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars”
in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates,
c/o Gene Greigh // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas; 76903

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Tzelphish Tovarisch?

13 December 2017

Is there a word in English that means, “prone to promote, protect, or enrich the interests of the self?”

Egocentric, rational, logical, or sane all fit, but are each too broad and insufficiently descriptive. Normal would work, too, but that’s completely trivial. Right-handed, heterosexual, and bipedal would also fit the definition of “normal” (go ahead and check my math) so that’s out.

According to my son, Michael Malice, and the stupid dictionary, Rand and I have gotten this one wrong, as it is also not “selfish.”

This comes as a bit of a surprise, considering what lofty thinkers we are, but English is vast, complex, and often confusing. In addition to the reasonable definition posited above, the word “selfish” contains the necessary caveat (and obvious contradiction) “without regard for the well-being of others.” That is perfectly stupid, because so often my interests subsume the interests of others, as do yours, I’d guess. If our primary allegiance is to ourselves (as it must be in order to survive) then by extension we love those things that enrich our lives. I may have been mistaken at the time, but I thought that my interests and those of the Air Force were consistent in re the Soviet Empire. I selfishly signed up. I also selfishly fed my children, paid my mortgage, and scratched my thespian itch. As I pursued my self-interests I served the self-interests of vendors and manufacturers world wide. But, according to the self-loathing scolds at Merriam Webster et al, I have to hate that part of myself that loves others in order to love and serve myself.

Look, if Lefties and their sympathizers can turn “privilege” on its head, reversing its definition from the exclusive “elite access” to the meaninglessly inclusive “majoritarian immunity”, I think ya’ll can bend a little on “selfish”. I might offer a compromise in the form of “selfious”, but that sounds more like “filled with poorly framed self-indulgent self-portraits”, or maybe offer to respell it as “celfiche” or “tselphisch”, but if I were to do that you terrorists would win.

update 171225:  correspondent NT comments: “The whole point of words is to communicate…Keep in mind that people less familiar with your preferred meaning [of selfish] might tend to misunderstand.”

An excellent point, which is why I generally try to subvert their likely understanding with humor. I often proclaim that selfishness, laziness, and cowardice are my fundamental VIRTUES. This will often put them at ease, as it makes ME the butt of any potential insults. Once I introduce that turbulence into their heads, they are more amenable to considering the ramifications of my thesis, that self-preservation, self-service, and self-regard are GOOD THINGS, (leading to clever devices, more productive crops, and an easier and longer life for us all) and ought not to be scorned or denigrated. It usually works, except with the most hide-bound of literalists, and the inevitable creative listeners.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or 
Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” 
in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates,
c/o Gene Greigh // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas;  76903

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Scrooge McMoneybags®

23 March 2021

correspondents IA & BA express concerns that the “pathological hoard[ing]” of cash by the monied elite could “impoverish [an] entire nation” and yet society lauds such miserly malefactors as “role models.”
And some offer lamentations of “glorify[ing] greed.”

“Hoarding cash” impoverishes no one except perhaps the truly rare “pathological” miser, and even that’s arguable. He may get a rush out of it, but it’s his, so it “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Maybe he likes hookers and blow, too. What do I care?
Contrariwise, the accumulation of large resources permits long term delays of consumption on a massive scale, which can, for example, build a hydroelectric dam or fuel a moon launch. And even if the wealth is NOT invested, just the very removal of currency from circulation enhances the value of that which remains. If your megabucks are NOT bidding up prices, my meagre mites have more power.
And frankly, I find the exaltation of need to be symptomatic of the
greater pathology, and far more destructive.

Scrooge McDuck® et al are the creations of Carl Barks
and are held de jure by das MausenKorp®

Hotez Bears the WHO
(by Doctor Staccato)

Joe Rogan knows a showman shows,
And Rogan shows how much he knows,
But when his lacks to him occur,
To wiser heads he will defer.
But Hotez knows to go with flows,
And yield conclusions presupposed,
To carry forth his sponsors’ products:
Placebos palliating addicts.

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Accounting Irregularities

14 March 2002

Our President and Congress make a big noise about corporations going belly-up and the “scandal” of insider trading, so they propose “tough new regulations” to restore investor confidence in the stock market. I’m a little confused. Aren’t crimes like fraud, theft, extortion, and perjury already illegal? We don’t need new laws to “restore confidence.” Artificial reporting requirements are part of the reason that many businesses are having a rough time of it already.

Now, I do not intend to diminish the very real trauma for shareholders, pensioners, and employees who are getting hurt in the fallout from the failures of Enron® and WorldCom®, but the sad fact is that some enterprises don’t cut it, and some people don’t do well in the market. It’s tragic, but the only alternatives to the free market are Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Communist China, or Soviet Russia. So when Republicans® and Democrats® vow to fix the system, to protect the consumer, to cushion the investor, and to save capitalism from itself, I have to say, “Hold on to your wallets, folks, you’re about to get gored.”

The fact is, bankruptcy isn’t all bad news. It isn’t fun, but sometimes it’s the best thing in the long run. When a company goes under, its material assets don’t evaporate, and the talents and experiences of its many employees don’t disappear. The market will reallocate them to other tasks. It is far better for the economy for a failure like Enron to fade into history, than for “successes” like Amtrak and the US Post Office to continue sucking up taxpayer subsidies and posting record losses quarter after quarter. When a capitalist makes a bad decision, the market mercilessly shuts him down. When a government agency makes a bad decision and loses record amounts of money inflicting record amounts of damage, the Congress increases its budget.

If private citizens ran an operation like the Social Security Pyramid Swindle, they’d be in prison. It’s long past time to retire that fraud. Liability to three generations of Social Security and Medicare victims can arguably be considered to be a part of the Federal Debt, and settlements based on divestiture of Federal Assets may provide us with the leverage we need to retire these schemes.

I want every victim of the Social Security Scam to get back every dime that was taken plus interest. How much interest is hard to say, but we can have that argument later. Victims who trusted the system and are now wholly dependent on it should get the help they need. The help they NEED. Yes, I propose means testing. The Congress must change the statute so that those retirees who are able to care for themselves will not get any more than a just return on what was taken.

Most important of all, however, is to let every working American stay out of it altogether. Let them save the money if they wish, or put it into their coin collections, or bury it in the back yard. Better still, let them invest it in their own retirement, and let them earn a market return, rather than the anemic performance of the Social Security “Trust Fund.”

Savvy politicos have named Social Security the “Third Rail of American Politics.” It is a reference to electric subway trains that draw their power from the charged third rail. You touch it and you die. It’s a very colorful expression, and it may well have some merit as a warning to those who would court the free lunch vote, but a candidate who refuses to acknowledge the inevitable collapse of the system doesn’t deserve your respect or your vote. We have nothing to lose by retiring Social Security except constantly rising taxes and constantly diminished prospects for a survivable retirement.

Pessimists will have you believe there is no hope, ever, of changing the system, and since they haven’t the means to make a difference, they have relieved themselves of the responsibility to make the effort. I’m not surrendering to their future, and I hope you won’t either. We can make a difference, every day, with every vote, with every purchase, with every word and gesture and action. We are making the future every day. It’s up to each of us.

update 180311: Very little has changed on this front except the public notoriety of Martha Stewart’s time in stir, providing critics of the Iraqi invasion the handy slogan, “Martha lied, but no one died.” It is sad, stupid, and ridiculous all at once. Ms Stewart wasn’t even convicted of the outrageously contrived non-crime of “insider trading” but of simply stymieing the FBI’s pointless investigation.
update 210325: Considering the evil that the FBI commits, Martha deserves a full pardon. Maybe even a medal. Lying to the fuzz wastes their time and obstructs their investigations. I wouldn’t recommend it, because they are heavily armed, highly vengeful, and demonstrably homicidal. But I still salute courage.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or 
Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars”
in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates,
c/o Gene Greigh // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas;  76903

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trash it?

4 March 2023 — All that and dead cat stew?

Would that she’d remained at one of “our” rural homes. I may have had help burying her. Or maybe she’d still live, frolicking in the woods, feasting on fresh rodent, and shitting on the ground. Instead, I confined her to a tenth story sterile indoor environment akin to what the State of Oregon did to my mother: murder by house arrest. The funny thing about laughter, knowledge, and guilt is that they can all be shared without being diminished. At their trials, I see many standing to answer for Rosalie. I will answer for Tichelle.

The letter arrived, but I couldn’t get past the first few lines. Not that it was poorly written or anything like that. It was neatly typed, but the tone turned so quickly that my head locked up and I couldn’t bring myself to proceed. I neatly folded it and tucked it away to cool. I know I must address it, but my mind’s pretty crowded right now.

10 March 2023 — Meanwhile, my surgeon beat me up just fine on Monday (to repair my inguinal hernia), so now I am in even greater discomfort than previously, but the trend of recovery over the last few days is encouraging. Strength and appetite seem to be returning, albeit frustratingly slow. Part of my impatience is no doubt due to the long weeks of bureaucratic delay that characterizes the VA and its ilk. But I guess that’s part of the price I’m paying.

11 March 2023 –– The longer, and closer, and deeper the alliance, the longer, and more painful, and deeper the pain of separation. So, ending twenty years of alleged comity calls for a little more mourning, I guess, than ending thirteen years of battle (twice). But, as when a beloved pet (or parent) dies, we are reminded that, “Only love hurts this much.”
When it becomes clear that a consistently pursued endeavor will not yield the fruit desired, but in fact continues to foul the field, it may be best to reassess, let things stand as they are, and distract myself from it as best I can. But let them stand, always let them stand. Any less is a lie.

8 December 2023 — Note from a “loathsome, offensive brute”:
I may be locked out of SOME rooms,
but I haven’t forgotten the ponies in them.
(aka: ikyra)
It seems that I can never escape The Kramer, even if I wanted to. One of my neighbors here in Geezer Tower (Maybe some less offensive name? I might be “looking down” on someone again.) has put up a framed portrait of The Kramer on the tenth floor. Even though “he is a loathsome offensive brute,” and “I can’t look away,” (precise quotes might also be a problem) I nevertheless find the addition to be a familiar comfort (which can no longer be denied me simply because I believe that I have an immune system and that I am not a surgeon. Not quite “two in a canoe” but that opportunity has passed anyway… )

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With or Without a Bookie

6 March 1998 — approximated & paraphrased

Patient with a brokered account: “Time to settle up.”
Receptionist: “Well, looks like we’ll send a bill to your insurance company for a hundred and twenty dollars, but we’ll need your co-pay of twenty dollars, please. You can mail it in, if you like.”
P w/ aba: “Thanks! Have a great day!”
Receptionist: “Thank you, hon!  Next please.”

Patient without a brokered account: “Time to settle up.”
Receptionist: “Uh… you don’t have any insurance.”
P w/o aba: “That’s correct.”
Receptionist: “That’ll be three hundred dollars. Right fucking now!”

update 210108: Mrs Axis once explained this to me. Insurance companies deal in large numbers, and can therefore negotiate lower rates because they represent a bloc of reliable payers, whereas I am an unknown quantity, and they’re not sure they can get even a fraction out of me. But they didn’t know me, did they? So they couldn’t know in advance that for EVERY time I ever walked myself into a doctor’s or dentist’s or other skilled contractor’s office, and incurred a debt, they ALWAYS got EVERY DiME! Which makes me considerably more reliable than every bookie who ever went belly up and left thousands bereft.

The images above are reproduced for purposes of analysis and scholarship.  Their use here constitutes free advertisement for their creators at the considerable expense of Piracy Press & Greigh Area Associates. Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination, but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  
Reader discretion is advised.

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Wishful Thinking

15 March 2021

Says Syed Balkhi:
“Hey, I noticed you created a contact form with WPForms – that’s awesome! Could you please do me a BIG favor and give it a 5-star rating on WordPress to help us spread the word and boost our motivation?”

That is one interesting observation.
I recall trying to figure how to decipher the “instructions” for setting up “forms” in the “backend” of my “D-panel” but I have no recollection whatsoever of actually accomplishing anything. In fact it was not “awesome” at all. It was painful and frustrating and fruitless. I expect that my experience with this cybernetic horror show is hardly the testimony that a vendor is going to want to clarion to the world. Fortunately for professional cyber-geeks, most consumers aren’t nearly as stupid or retarded as I am.

Alex (Swamp Thing) Olsen, Linda Olsen, Shvaugn Erin, 
& Jan (Element Lad) Arrah, are all properties of 
Detective Comics and Warner Communications.  Their images are reproduced by Piracy Press for purposes of analysis and scholarship.
Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination, but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  Reader discretion is advised.

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Not the “Mask Police”

12 August 2020

Dear Correspondent JS:
Thanks so much for your kind words.  The “QuikkStopp™” where I work is located at Exit Sissin Nyn on Interstate Sekki Sen in northeast Cincinnatistan.  In fact it is a gasoline station and convenience shop, sharing space with Drunk’n Dimwits™ and Chik’n’n’Biskits™.  I would very much appreciate your NOT making any specific issue out of my own masklessness as you laud me, or management policy, to management itself (we are a large district chain.) 

The two relevant management policies throughout the QuikkStopp™ empire are as follows:
We are NOT the “Mask Police.”  Employees have no authority to enforce, and are discouraged from even mentioning, Malefic Mike’s statewide masking diktat. We welcome every naked face that enters the store.
Employees are to be masked while on duty.  I have advised my shop manager that I would not be complying with this and attempted to apologize in advance if firing me constituted any hassle for him (It would, I am an extremely valuable employee), but he cut me off, pointed to my bandana and said, “That’s fine.  Just don’t say anything else I don’t need to hear.”  He’s obviously hoping I get away with it too. 

So yeah!  Please do stop in if you’re close!  And then call the big guns and tell them how much you appreciate our not giving customers flak about their missing muzzles. 

Work hard, rest easy, laugh often, and love endlessly. And breathe free!

Yr Obt Svt,
Gene Greigh

update 210315: Sorry if I’ve left anyone hanging, or otherwise left questions unresolved. Upper (or middle) management finally did reach the limits of their patience with me, just a couple of weeks after I had composed the above. Now, whether they opined that my unteamly behavior was an egregious social problem, or whether my specific misbehavior might be seen as compromising their financial well-being, is entirely irrelevant. It was entirely their call (as it is their shop), and I have no ill feeling towards accountants being attentive to the bottom line, nor to shop managers following through on their pledges to middle (or upper) management.

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“Over control meant loss of control”

29 July 2003

To the editors (West Hawaii Today): What a comfort it is that the terrorist-enablers in our federal government have forgiven themselves for their evisceration of the Bill of Rights (“Lapses found, but no way to prevent Sept. 11” page 7A, July 25)

Over the last several decades the proponents of victim disarmament have made it possible for a handful of thugs to commandeer jet-liners and crash them at will.

If the Second Amendment were still in force in America, and all responsible adults were free to travel as armed as they saw fit, there is no way that punks with knives would have attempted the atrocities of September 11th.

“[N]o way to prevent Sept. 11?” Hardly. As long as we practice the cruel superstition of gun control, there is no way to avoid it.