Month: January 2023

29 January 2023

correspondent Humjat Ticut assails both theists and carnivores in their indifference to the suffering of “lower orders,” and challenges those whom might have “realized their god is a lie” to justify their continued exploitation of helpless sentient beings, insofar as gods remain unavailable as excuses for atheist behavior.

I am not insensitive to the plight of farm animals, and I am no fan of gratuitous cruelty, but I still have a working metabolism, and I’ve learned that no single vegetable can replicate the nutrient density of animal flesh.

Humjat’s challenge feels a little empty. With no God to excuse my carnivorous appetite, there’s also no God to punish my barbarity. Millions of years of evolution have determined our dietary requirements, and we are informed thereof by the shape of our homegrown teeth: incisors for clipping carrots and biting apples, molars for grinding nuts and pulping roots, and canines for ripping flesh. I respect the rights of chickens to their lives as much as the chickens respect the rights of the bugs that they eat. And I am much more merciful in my kills (either personally or shopped out) than tigers or owls are in theirs. We usually cut a throat quickly or run an hydraulic ram into a brain. Cats often play with their food, seeming most to relish rodent brains that have been marinated in terror. (Quantum, rip, frequently left our back yard in Kawaihae littered with headless mice.)

Let’s Get Busy Tackling Questions

16 January 2023

I said, “Q Anon is silly, and influences no one.
Blue Anon is dangerous, and owns the DNC.”

correspondent BA responded, “Q Anon is indeed silly, and influences no one with any sense. Sadly, millions have no sense, and have been sucked into Q’s malevolent game. There is no Blue Anon, so far as I can tell. That term was invented by right-wingers intent on trashing the left.”

While I might plead poetic license in my use of “no one,” BA‘s qualification is noted. Some loons will believe anything, and I can be careless in using “no one” rather than “point I’m-not-counting-all-those-zeroes one percent.” But while Q’s likely quixotic campaign of rooting out a cabal of corrupt pedophiles hardly seems “malevolent,” they nevertheless accomplish approximately zero in the body politic.

Blue Anon, on the other hand, is just the new name for the Deep State, that emergent interest class springing from the permanent bureaucracy and national security state. It is manifested in every biased report from Faux-MSNBCNN about Mitt McCain slipping to third place, while Congresscutie Au Courant surges ahead to first, and Senator Loser McPointless shows a strong fourth, all while never mentioning Ron Paul’s second place finish. Blue Anon is the author of the Warren Commission Report, and the master theorist behind Arlen Specter’s magic bullets. Blue Anon has framed every mainstream debate about the merits of a 34% tax rate vs a 38% tax rate, but manages to lose its feed just as anyone dares mention the Federal Reserve. Blue Anon demands that sensible Americans decide between starving brown children in Whogivesafuckastan, or bombing them quickly and mercifully. Blue Anon continues to funnel your tax dough to Halliburton and Solyndra. Blue Anon blew up Nordstream and thinks you’re stupid enough to believe that Vlad shot himself in the foot just to show you what he’s capable of.

Blue Anon is as real as suction, centrifugal force, coldness, and Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Like them, it is just a rhetorical device used to describe an emergent property and provides a convenient way of describing certain behaviors. And while it may have been coined by “right-wingers,” it is embraced by many others. And, besides, whom better to trash than the left?

4 January 2023:
Kevin (not the good one) McCarthy seems to be yet another Nancy Baloney in the mold of Cryin’ John or Paul R’Ayneau (as does suggested alternative Scalise). Donalds or Zeldin or Jordan or Mace all seem viable, and Trump, followed by cute matching impeachments for Jomala, remains plausible, desirable, and highly unlikely.

Six More Years!
But only because Lefties would hate it so much.

5 January 2023:
Given their narrow majority in the House, Republican conferees would be well advised to consider all their options from Amash to Zeldin by which they might settle on a Speaker AND preserve a floor vote (as Speakers typically refrain from floor votes themselves, leveraging their influence more directly with threats and bribes). Mr Gaetz has already launched his ill-fated Trump-balloon, contrary to El Donaldo’s own preference, in fact, so they (other than the most ardent of Sixthmas Celebrants) may put that behind them.