Parallels between Jan 6, 2021 & Nov 8, 1923
“The government has betrayed its people,” the man cried out. There is a coterie of traitors deep in the government who collectively robbed the nation of its power, he claimed. He and his companions were fighting as hard as possible to restore the nation, but it would take longer than they had hoped. He said these things to a crowd of supporters, gathering to listen. Some were locals. Others, like the speaker himself, had traveled great distances to be there.
Some of the people in the audience, though not all, were Nazis. Some of the people in the crowd just liked how the speaker said what was on his mind without being politically correct. …
When new tech doesn’t do much after all
Among other things, I am a filmmaker. That means my computers get put through the wringer. My last editing workstation was an HP Z800 that I kept for about ten years. Among other reasons I replaced it was that it took forever to process video files.
When I would try to ingest video or render video or export video, it would just take an age. Hours. Now I have a brand new Z4 with the most powerful 18 core processor available. It has the most powerful AMD video card rated for Avid Media Composer. …
When my dad died in 2018, I had to sort through piles of physical stuff. Most of it was his magic collection; books, props, etc. There were, however, a few fountain pens. I tossed out two of them that were both totally bunged up with crap and weren’t expensive to begin with, but I kept a few, slotting them into my own collection.
I was organizing my collection when I came across these pens and suddenly a story came together. Looking at the pens felt like looking at a story outline in acts.
Montblanc 320P — The 1970s
I cannot express in words how happy I am that Donald J. Trump is no longer the President of The United States of America. I don’t think I could even express it in dance. As I have confessed, I liked Trump a lot when I was a six-year-old when he said he would build the world’s tallest building not far from my home. Then I turned seven and realized what a clown and scumbag he is.
We’re now safely past him having the nuclear codes. We’re into a restoration of norms. The country is out of the ambulance and in the ICU. The doctors are on the job. …
Why I’m losing the war on clutter
A few years ago, I received several pairs of socks for Christmas. I usually like that sort of thing, but I wear a size 14 shoe, so most socks I get as gifts don’t actually fit me at all. Since they were gifts, I felt compelled to keep them. I would even try wearing them. I didn’t buy new socks when the good ones died because I had these, which looked fine — only they didn’t fit me.
My Writing Sample for a Right Wing Don’t-Think-Tank’s Online Publication
Joseph “Robinette” Biden is little more than a Manchurian candidate, a left-wing, anti-American, pro-killing-babies, pro-gay-agenda, pro-THE-SQUAD, pro-Illuminati coastal elite who wants nothing more than to see the Sharia Law Police take away all our guns and force us to marry our pets so illegal Mexican Muslims can take our jobs and hand them to the Communist Chinese health care “system”. It’s just common sense.
Mark my words: When the black helicopters come for you because the “federal government” wants you to “pay taxes” because of some Marxist “social contract” then you’ll wish you still had that Browning Automatic Rifle because if you resist Al-Biden, who is a crypto-Baháʼí and was born in Bermuda, will be taken by the Stasi to a reeducation camp in San Francisco’s Mission District. …
Memory Can Be Friend or Foe
Perfect recall exists. There are a few people who really just do remember it all. Everything. Every moment of their lives. They don’t need to keep an address book or store phone numbers on their phone. They simply remember it. It’s called having an eidetic memory.
Having an eidetic memory must be hell. Leaving aside confusing the memory of where you parked your car two weeks ago with where you parked it today, as people with photographic or eidetic memories don’t suffer from this, just imagine never being able to forget your embarrassments, your most painful memories, the moments when you were most disappointed, most defeated. …
In his final moments in office, President Trump pardons his infernal patron
WASHINTON, DC — In his final moments in office, President Trump used his powers as President to issue a full pardon to Satan, AKA The Adversary, Old Scratch, Old Nick, The Devil, et cetera, for all crimes including disobedience to The Lord, inciting mankind to sin, and sundry lesser crimes.
“Mr. Satan isn’t just a devil,” said White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “He’s The Devil. He’s so important to our history. There is no one else like him. The President has known Mr. Satan for many years, he knows him well, and he knows that without him we could not have salvation, so he decided to pardon Mr. …
Stop working hard to accomplish less
There’s something in the American ethos that seems to say “Work until you drop dead because you will earn your reward.” This is completely nuts, but we all do it. If you work too hard in this way, not only will you burn out and need to take a long break to work well again, you will burn out completely.
There are several ways of looking at this problem. Stephen Covey wrote that sometimes when we work too hard, we forget to “sharpen the saw”. …
How To Handle The De-Ba’athification of the USA
Remember Iraq? Man, what a mess that was. I recall a moment that stood out, just a few months into our invasion of Iraq. I was in a bookstore in New York, looking at travel books. I saw Fodor’s Guide to Iraq. I picked it up and read part of it. It was an anachronism. It was about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
The book spoke to how the Ba’ath Party, Saddam Hussein’s party, was the controlling force in Iraq, and how it was a mixture of Naziesque totalitarian ideology and cult of personality built around Saddam and his sons. It warned that even if you just wanted to run a bath, you had to be a member of the Ba’ath party. …
