Category: family

The quality I value most in a friend? Loyalty, maybe above everything else.

What quality do you value most in a friend?

I don’t mean the Batman and Robin type of a friend and loyalty. I just want somebody that I know I can trust, and not betray me. It’s like your girlfriend or wife not sleeping around behind your back.

What I ask is not too much and I don’t think it’s that hard to do. I know I give that to those that are really my friends. Being an introvert, I only let a very few people to the innermost part of my life. That’s a lot for a person like me to do so respecting that isn’t too much to ask in return.

Do I have any collections?

Do you have any collections?

Yes, memories lots of them. I write down as much as I can remember about my life and then if something pops up, I’ll insert where appropriate.

Sure, I have stuff on the wall, pictures on the phone and even photo albums that remind me of times that I’ve spent. It’s the words that I write down though which create the more vivid image in my mind, and experience the emotion of when it happened.

27 Ways To Tell If You Are A Toxic Person

I’m was related to one. She fit a lot of these but is fortunately now gone. I lived though a lot of this and it’s not pretty.

“Am I toxic?”

Toxic is a word that’s thrown about a lot these days.

But how do you know if you are a toxic person?

What are some things that you might do that cause you to be a toxic influence in the lives of others?

That’s what we’re going to explore.

Speak to an accredited and experienced therapist to help with any negative personality traits you might have. You may want to try speaking to one via BetterHelp.com for quality care at its most convenient.

What Does It Mean To Be Toxic?

In the general sense of the word, something that is toxic is harmful to a person upon exposure.

A toxic person is one who causes harm to others through their words and actions.

There are varying levels of toxicity.

Some may just be bad behaviors, others can stem from personality disorders, and some may be rooted in a mental health disorder that can be physically damaging as well.

Toxic people leave others worse off than before they met or interacted with them.

Sometimes this harm is felt instantly. Other times, it builds slowly with time and repeated exposure.

With this in mind, how can you tell if you are the toxic person in your life?

Here are some of the signs you can look out for.

27 Signs You Are A Toxic Person

1. You are emotionally manipulative and controlling.

You seek to make others your pawns and have them do as you wish.

You boss people around, micromanage situations, and use various forms of emotional blackmail to ensure you get your own way.

Subtlety is not your forte. You can be very blunt and rude to the point where it shocks other people.

Alternatively, you may feign upset and use tears as a way to guilt people into doing what you want.

When other people realize this about you, they may experience anxiety whenever you are around for fear of being targeted.

If this is something you do to one individual a lot, it can even result in depression and the destruction of their self-confidence.

Click here for rest of the list. It is a bit too long for me to put it all here but I bet everyone that reads it has someone that fits this.

Where Unsold EV’s Go To Die

I’ve already posted today that EV’s are not a solution to anything. My wife’s relatives in a Scandinavian country have them, but they continue be on the side of wrong for just about anything. I’ve learned to go against what they choose and I’m usually on the right side of most things. They are proud of their decisions and have no idea that they are so far from the truth.

(ZeroHedge)—Ten years ago this week, we posted one of out most viral stories, highlighting the over-capacity in the auto industry: “Where the World’s Unsold Cars Go To Die,” which highlighted the ‘endgame’ of automakers’ ‘channel stuffing’ efforts to disguise the sudden lack of demand for all the exciting new models that they had forecast would boom to the moon…

And now, as MishTalk’s Mike Shedlock reports, we are seeing similar pictures across Europe…

“Some are parked here for a year, sometimes more.”

Le Monde reports Belgium’s ports drowning under glut of Chinese electric cars: ‘Some are parked here for a year, sometimes more’

Due to China’s overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated.

You probably need to see it to appreciate the challenges the automobile industry faces in transitioning to electricity. You also need to come here to understand how the Chinese industry’s overcapacity has flooded the European market. That morning, as the sun unexpectedly lit up the maze of highways leading to this remote arm of the port of Antwerp, Belgium, a huge cargo ship from the Norwegian company Höegh Autoliners unloaded thousands of cars at one of the terminals of International Car Operators (ICO), a subsidiary of the Japanese group Nippon Yusen Kaisha.

Quartz reports Cars are piling up at European ports at an alarming rate

Imported vehicles are seriously piling up at European ports, turning them into “car parks.” Automakers are distributors are struggling with a slowdown in car sales as well as logistical bottlenecks that make it hard to alleviate the buildup of new, unsold vehicles.

Some Chinese brand EVs had been sitting in European ports for up to 18 months, while some ports had asked importers to provide proof of onward transport, according to industry executives. One car logistics expert said many of the unloaded vehicles were simply staying in the ports until they were sold to distributors or end users.

“It’s chaos,” said another person who had been briefed on the situation.

story

Any time I Can Be Alone Is My Favorite Day

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

I’ve always had a problem with attention on me or the hustle and bustle of holidays.

It’s counterintuitive to me that people act one way because someone said a day is different and then revert back when it was over.

I learned that it’s because of my introverted nature that causes me to process things differently than others.

It’s why days alone to recharge are better for me. They are my vacation and holidays.

I never got birthdays either. It’s just another day for me. I prefer not being the center of attention.

I’m glad others get excited about it but it’s not for me.

Anything deep, I’m an introvert and avoid small talk.

What topics do you like to discuss?

I’m not afraid to discuss anything that’s interesting. I can cover a large range of topics and do when prompted.

What is difficult for me is small talk. The banality of it is a painful exercise that I have to go through.

So my talking skills are good with deep conversations and any distraction to end small talk and my having to suffer through it.

The Two Types Of People In An Introvert World

Most people are temporary because it takes a long time to get to know someone and it’s hard to find the traits that are important. Loyalty is usually the final demarcation line for me. If they cross it and are disloyal, it’s over for me.

Take my college girlfriend who turned out to be a traveling slut (stewardess). Even though I didn’t find out until afterwards that she was sharing herself with others, that eliminated her from the permanent people pool. I didn’t have to feel the hurt and pain during the relationship, but the dishonesty got me out the door early.

I had acquaintances all throughout my life, but it’s hard to call them friends. The extroverts in my life meet and talk to someone for more than 5 minutes and it’s their new friend. Those are just temporary people for me. It takes a long time and a lot of things in common before they make permanent status. Very few make it.

You have to build a relationship and that is hard enough for me (and I’m guessing other introverts). We’d have to share something in common long enough to see if there is anything there. It still takes a long time for the walls to come down. Then there is the trust tests. I don’t dream them up, but they present themselves in life. I’m usually forced into a situation, but you can tell if a person is going to stick with you or stick it to you.

Even my siblings were temporary. They are around, but don’t count for me as permanent people for the loyalty reason. One can only take so much screwing over growing up and then the walls come up.

There’s your thought for the day.

A much deeper dive can be found here. It is by Introvert Dear who I’ve linked to on the home page describing why introverts don’t consider everyone their friend. It is a special to us and this article tells you why a lot better than I do.

Describe A Risk You Took That You Don’t Regret – Moving to a new state site, unseen

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

When I was living in South Florida, I had started a family. There parts of Florida that are better than others. I was in a place that wasn’t family friendly.

I wanted to move back to the south having grown up there (south Florida is the north), So I got a job and moved to the Carolina’s.

New job, new state, new life, all in a couple of weeks, just like that.

It turned out to be one of the best moves for my family and me economically.

Now, parts of the Carolina’s have become the north. It’s like déjà vu, all over again.

I had to move again to get back to the south.

The times I didn’t say no

Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?

It’s more than one time, but it’s the same thing. I got asked to do something, go somewhere or be with some people that I shouldn’t have.

It was about setting boundaries. I remember the feeling or not wanting to be there, we’re doing whatever we were doing, saying the things I said or being with the people I was with.

If I had learned to say no, instead of going with the crowd, a lot of things would’ve turned out differently. I would have gotten in a lot less trouble, not done as many stupid things and would have not been in situations I didn’t want to be in.

I learned the hard way to protect myself from these instances and people, and as a result of gotten in to a lot less trouble.

Admitting Failure

What makes you nervous?

I reached a point in life where I have learned enough that I shouldn’t make bad mistakes or faux pas, yet I do.

It’s difficult enough to express your real feelings, compounded by knowing you’ve let somebody else down is soul crushing sometimes.

I can make it worse by rehashing it in my mind over and over until the point I have to admit it or ask forgiveness.

Question For The Day – Describe a Decision You Made In The Past That Helped You Learn Or Grow

Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

When I stopped caring what people thought of me. It was incredibly freeing when you don’t have to worry about your image in other people’s minds.

I heard of saying that went like this, “you’ll stop caring what other people think about you when you realize how little they do “.

Describe a positive thing of family member is done for you

Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.

This is counterintuitive, but a sibling leaving was the most positive thing for me. Growing up, I had a sister that fought with my parents and caused all kinds of consternation in the house.

Fortunately, she got married early and when she left the house got quieter and all of our lives got better.

Happy National Sibling Day

I know mine made my life a lot harder than it needed to be growing up. When we could have bonded, I got someone who was actively against me doing well, instead of being supportive. It must have been insecurity, but trying to bring someone down to build yourself up is no way to live.

My other sibling has been gone for 12 years. We didn’t grow up together and there was no bonding because she was pathological. It’s a good thing I found out how to be alone in life and not worry about others.

See Eating Alone as an Introvert a couple of posts down and you’ll know why.

Eating Alone As An Introvert

This will seem matter of fact for those who are introverts because it’s as normal as waking up. I thought that I’d write down the journey that I took to discover this pleasure.

Before I knew I was introverted (although I suspected it) I was traveling for business in the IT industry. My job rarely required a team so I found myself traveling alone a lot. While there was some sense of anticipation before the trip (that I’d learn to loathe), the return home was a recover trip from the people I had to deal with either in groups or one on one.

Inevitably, this would find me in an airport lounge/restaurant or a hotel before or after my business meeting with no one else in town. I’d already flown for hours while reading a book (before movies on flights and well before wifi), so dinner was just an extension of that.

I suppose I could have sought out others, but it was simpler and easier to eat and go back to preparing for my meeting or whatever the agenda was the next day. The people I was meeting usually lived in the city I was visiting so they had families. Once business was done, I had wrapped up any further association in my mind. If I had multiple meetings, I needed to plan for the next day so it was dinner alone usually.

I love to read and books have been my best friend before video games or electronic distractions on trips (and still are). I’d get lost on a spy novel and was identifying as the protagonist by mid flight on my way out of town. I was imagining myself as Edward X. Delaney, Jason Bourne or Mitch Rapp depending on the decade

To continue reading while eating seemed normal to me. I didn’t know it wasn’t, until people I worked with thought it was odd for me to order a table for one. Some of them refused to eat if they had to do it alone, but I wanted to eat and to not be bothered by conversation that was just banter. I could also be finished on my schedule rather than putting up with someone else’s agenda.

By now, I’d realized that if I ate alone, I didn’t have to mess with others during or afterwards. It started to become a pattern for me.

I also worked on the trade show tour, meaning you’d have to spend a week with people you never associated with back in your home city. It seemed obvious to me that I didn’t really want to eat with them, although protocol forced me to at times.

Since trade shows tended to be in towns with night life, like Las Vegas, at the end of the day the extroverts couldn’t wait to rev up to some drinking, gambling and other cavorting. I’ll get to that later.

As I transitioned to Analyst Relations, there were conferences that resembled the structure of a trade show. Work all day together and then be stuck in a city not home to anyone and most gravitated to socializing including eating together.

DRINKING

Alcohol is the grease in the gears of socializing. It turns introverts into extroverts if only even for a night. I did imbibe early in my career, but life decisions caused me to stop. It changed my socializing as dramatically as that decision.

I’d also gotten married by then and saw first hand the shenanigans that went on during travel. Almost 100% was fueled by drinking and nothing would have happened sober. So I looked at this as just another opportunity to be alone.

LET’S GO OUT!

At the end of the day in trade shows, in fact before the end of the day the topic of conversation was what bar, party, other place (strip club for some) they would all go to. While still a reader and having my social battery worn down by the end of the day (and knowing I’d have to face these people the next day(s)), I had to think of an escape to be alone. It of course was to recharge and to get away from people if only for a short time.

My counter offer was who wants to work out. I’d wait until they were neck deep in wanting to order their first drink so I knew full well I’d be rebuffed. Never once did anyone take me up on it. By then, my goal was to eat alone, not to accidentally wind up that way.

Now, even though I’m retired, I actively try to eat alone on travel, but also at home. I enjoy the nightly meal with the family left in my house, but I’m still as happy to read while eating. It doesn’t seem strange to me, but my extrovert friends and family don’t and never will get it.

Things I’ve learned.

  1. It’s just fine to eat alone. Don’t be shamed into thinking there is anything wrong with it. Just like some people have to small talk or have company, others prefer the opposite.
  2. You are never alone if you have a book. Surfing the web is quick and random. A book draws you out and can take time to develop the characters and affect your emotions.
  3. If you learn to be ok by yourself, life will be a lot easier to manage.

I’m Traveling To Hell This Week

When I say hell, of course I mean Portland. It’s a shithole now. Oregon is beautiful, but for some reason all the shit not in California or Washington is in Portland. It’s the required trip to the family.

All I hear or read is about problems with Boeing jets, DEI in Air Traffic Control and parts falling off of jets because maintenance workers require diversity. I don’t want to get on a plane, but there is no way out. I figured the statistics are with me and if some shit does go down, my rare flights should exempt me.

When I get there, I’ll get to deal with a city rampaged by Antifa, BLM and many other miscreants. Other than SF, it is the homeless capital of the world, not to mention walking on the streets to the freak show and shit on the sidewalks.

I’ve scheduled some posts and meme’s to enjoy, including stories and observations of mine. It’s a look into my head when I put these out. I’ll cover introverts, the gym fashion show, sibling hell, lots of meme dumps and other stuff.

I may get a post in about my adventures while there, but no promises. Maybe I’ll keep some readers, like Ellie K, a new subscriber. With all the shit I post, I’m surprised she’s still there, but there you go.

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

Coffee, breakfast, something to read, and please quiet, lots of quiet.

On the remote chance, the dog gets up, I’ll take care of him. He doesn’t talk back.

What about you?

How Often Do You Say “No” To Things That Would Interfere With Your Goals? Not Enough

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

I’ve only learned later in life to prioritize myself for my mental sanity. A lot of my life growing up was not saying no enough it was a price I paid while growing up.

The goal I think of here is trying to set boundaries. If I’d have done it earlier in life, a lot of crap I deal with now wouldn’t be still bothering me.

What Activities Do You Lose Yourself In?

What activities do you lose yourself in?

Let’s see, over the years it’s been fishing, hunting, karate, racing, tennis, Biking, and then there was kids and Life, and other stuff, and the next thing I knew I’ve lived in seven decades. I mostly do introvert stuff now so I get lost in my mind a lot.

The Real War On Women

We girls in the Cascade Bridge Club listened incredulously as Marge told us that her daughter, Esmeralda, had just shed her bigtime Assistant Manager job in some e-commerce corporation and had gone home to “have babies and make a home for my husband and my children!” “Why?!” we asked. Marge explained, “She says she is finally happy, that this is what she has always wanted to do, and that she was deceived into a career!” Stunned, we mumbled at each other, “Esmeralda has joined the tradwives? What’s going on?”

At this point in the development of the Elites’ plot to rule the planet, we understand the essence of their strategy is to make us all dependent upon them. As Cheryl Chumley points out, this means destroying all existing economic and cultural institutions, including food production, so the slate is clean for the Masters to scribble on.

The war against the family, therefore, is so central to the strategy of the Elite Masters that they campaign against the family on four fronts:

  • Promote sexual libertarianism to tempt men with affairs.
  • Promote feminism to tempt women away from their maternal and family instincts.
  • Promote transgenderism to confuse the children.
  • Promote no-fault divorce to eliminate the institution of marriage itself.

rest of the story

Of course it from the left. Part of the communist manifesto is to destroy the family and make people dependent on the state. It’s the same equation to get rid of God. It’s been the same throughout history, people doing anything they can for power.

And I Have To Go To This Shithole Soon

Portland, here is what happened when they de-funded the police. They turned make Portland weird into make Portland a crime zone.

I have a relative there and have to go in a few weeks. I can’t say how little I’m excited to go travel.

Hopefully, I’m not on a Boeing plane that is missing bolts or stuck next to traveler who starts a fight. Both seem to be a trend lately.

When I get there, the homeless and the crazies have destroyed the city, so I can’t say I’m looking forward to that either.

Like all trips, the best part is leaving and coming home.

As for being an introvert, as soon as I committed to going, my irritation level shot up. My social battery is not able to recharge because it can’t knowing I have to face this. A countdown to leaving (to come home) automatically begins in my head, I can’t stop it from happening.

It will be over in a bit, but for now I’m suffering until it is over and I’m back home.

Things That Say Why Disney Sucks, Musk Helps Sue The Mouse

The Tragic Kingdom continues to go down the toilet. 

The good news is that Elon Musk is in with people that want to sue Disney.

Gina Carano Sues Disney Over ‘Mandalorian’ Firing in Lawsuit Funded by Elon Musk: (click for full story)

In an escalation of a standoff over her firing from The Mandalorian, Gina Carano is suing Disney and Lucasfilm for discrimination and wrongful termination in a lawsuit that opens another front in the battlefield for influence over Hollywood that has drawn in corporate America.

Carano, in a complaint filed Tuesday in California federal court, alleges she was fired for voicing right-wing opinions on social media and seeks a court order that would force Lucasfilm to recast her. Elon Musk, making good on a promise to foot the legal bill for users who claim they have been discriminated against due to their activity on his platform, is helping fund the suit through X.

In other news: Disney+ Loses 1.3 Million Subscribers After Price Hike

Disney+ has reported a 1.3 million drop in global subscribers in the final three months of 2023.

The Walt Disney Company’s streaming platform—which includes brands like Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic—lost about 400,000 subscribers in the U.S. and Canada alone, per a press release. Its losses were even greater internationally, amounting to 900,000.

In total, subscriptions decreased from 112.6 million to 111.3 million at the close of its first fiscal quarter, which ended on Dec. 30 (The Walt Disney Company’s fiscal year ends on the Saturday closest to Sept. 30, per the Securities and Exchange Commission.)

Disney+ partially attributed the losses to the “substantial price increase” it implemented that same quarter. On Oct. 12, the company raised the price for its ad-free Disney+ Premium plan by $3, bringing the cost of commercial-free watching from $10.99 to $13.99 per month. The price of Disney+ Basic, which includes ads, remained the same at $7.99 per month. 

story

It’s not the price hike alone, it’s the quality of the entertainment and just how far Disney can go woke, hating America and morals the whole way.

I have a cousin that has seasonal passes, but then she informed the family that she was a Biden supporter, so I guess the 2 go hand in hand.

They might surpass Bud Light on the get woke go broke list. #FAFO

My Message To My Younger Self

I suppose everyone says this. I can’t change anything so I’m not going to try to. I’m just trying to enjoy these times. If I’d told myself what to do/not do, it would have turned out different. It might have changed the whole space/time continuum, and I don’t want to tempt God or the Sci Fi world.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and the present is gone in an instant.

Are Men Smarter than Women?

  1. In adulthood, men score about 2-4 IQ points higher than women. Selection bias might account for around 1-point of that.
  2. This gap may be said to not reflect underlying intelligence differences, but something specific about the tests. Yet that conclusion is based on complex methods that depend on assumptions made by the researcher and have questionable real world application. I’m not an expert in these methods, but I’m skeptical of them.
  3. All of this is despite the exclusion of spatial ability from IQ tests, where the male advantage is particularly large. There are some female favored traits excluded from IQ tests, but as far as I can tell none are as g loaded and therefore theoretically as likely to influence true g, to the extent we are comfortable thinking about the concept in this way.
  4. The debate about true g might matter to psychometricians, but there seems to be no reason it should to normal people using the common sense definition of “intelligence.” Men are better at problem solving and know more things, so can be said to be more intelligent in the collective understanding of the term even if women are just as smart in some sense that doesn’t predict performance in the real world.

The definition of “intelligence” does not come from nature. Scientists have constructed various tests designed to measure what people commonly mean when they use the term. The idea that intelligence exists in a meaningful sense comes from the finding that how well individuals do on all kinds of mental ability examinations are correlated with one another. Psychometricians therefore talk about the g factor, which is a mathematical construct that refers to the underlying ability to think abstractly and solve problems.

The most common intelligence test for adults is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (for those 6-16 years old, there is the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)). It traditionally has had two main sections: Verbal and Performance, or non-verbal.

So in conclusion, yes.

Despite what many hereditarians believe, the idea that men and women are of equal intelligence appears unlikely to be true. That doesn’t hurt my feelings, because I love truth, believe in liberty, think individuals should do whatever they want, and that society should be completely indifferent to disparate outcomes between groups. When arguing with social engineers, however, higher male IQ serves as one more thing to beat them over the head with.

The short answer is yes.

Full story here

I know that the spacial ability part is true. I can look at a group of items and know exactly how to pack them. The same with a dishwasher. I get it in the dishes in the unit with a pattern that fits more and cleans better. I can look at a parking space and know to the inch how to get in. The females in my family can’t park, brake too late and pack the dishwasher like a kindergartner, despite multiple tries at doing it. 

In playing a trivia game with the question what trait did you inherit, the thing I got from my dad was spacial awareness. The rest of the family readily admitted that they don’t have it and don’t see how things fit in a coordinated manner. 

It’s why I see patterns in life also, like not taking the jab because the evidence of fraud were there all along and that the election was rigged, as was January 6th.

And Epstein didn’t hang himself.

Happy World Introvert Day

May we celebrate together, but alone and separately. Talk to you tomorrow because I’m not talking today.

It’s my favorite holiday after just suffering through Christmas and New Years. I can be alone today. Somewhere out there (although probably quiet) my fellow souls finally have some joy. It’s doubtful others will hear about it as we don’t boast, and other times you can’t get a word in edge wise for all the yapping.

I know and so do others.

PS, I’m not an INFJ.

This next one is me. I’m always in the back, next to the door so I can leave if I need to escape or panic

A Life Lesson About Tomorrows. How Many Are Left?

What does tomorrow mean to us? I thought about that today. It occurred to me that I don’t have as many tomorrows left. As endless as they used to be, I’d grab at a new handful of them. For now, I’m glad to have the next one. They grow fewer every day (sorry, I had to put that in)

Young

When I was young, I never thought about tomorrow. It always came. Some took forever like when I cared about my birthday, and others flew by.

When something has an endless supply, the value is less. It’s economics. I never considered that I’d be working, or retired, or would have kids, a mortgage or any responsibility. Live for today. It was all about today. I had no real yesterday’s to learn from yet.

If I did think about tomorrow, it was the kid dream about being an astronaut or pilot (what I thought about).

That was so long ago and the days between now and then are so numerous that it seems, like another life for me. I’ve lived many different lives within the one I chronologically am still in.

School

I recall sitting in the classroom watching the clock ticking away. Tick, tick, tick towards when I’d be able to go home. Time was endless on those days, and this was just between 2 and 2:15 in elementary school. The only good tomorrow started on Friday.

By the time I got to college, I was aware that life was right around the corner. Still, I enjoyed the day without a care. I ignored that inevitable tomorrow. When it came, it was in the form of an exam, or a girlfriend or another event in life. It was finite and had little consequence as to what my next day held. Still, I had no real cares and a lot of what tomorrow brought was a new experience.

Letdowns started to happen, but the ocean of tomorrows never crossed my mind as I did stupid stuff. I think I lost a few tomorrows by taking too many risks. Somehow I survived and was able to live to the next day, always another tomorrow. It was expected.

Responsibility Years

Life marched on and I grew up, bought a home and started a family. Tomorrows always came, but now they came with other’s problems also. It wasn’t the carefree days when your kid is sick or in trouble. I didn’t have time to think about tomorrow as today brought 10 tons of manure in a 5 ton truck.

So much is happening in your life you take tomorrow for granted or you are too busy to think about anything but today. If you do, those thoughts are invaded with things you have to get done or do for others.

I did notice one thing. I was starting to have a lot of yesterday’s. Some of them happy and some sad. There were lessons learned on both.

The ocean of tomorrows was still seemingly full as it (now) quickly drained away.

Deaths

The first reminders of fewer tomorrows happened here. Those you used to know have run out of tomorrows.

When you are young, say at a grandparents funeral, you can’t comprehend time not being endless for you. By middle age, you know it is closer, but most choose to ignore the reality of time slipping away.

Growing Older

Rarely, do tomorrows bring something new to me. Occasionally, I get a different version of something I’ve been through. I have many more yesterdays now than the number of tomorrows remaining.

The kids are grown. The mortgage is paid off. I no longer work. I’m among the oldest of my relatives now. It brought me to how many tomorrows there will be. Among those, how many will be good or bad? Will there be tough times?

I try to enjoy the days, even if the tasks are mundane. I have less patience for things that don’t seem meaningful to me. My meaningful scale has changed dramatically over life.

From time to time (becoming far too common), people I know run out of their tomorrows. As I sit at the funerals, life comes into perspective for me, at least the part on Earth.

Tomorrows aren’t endless. You only come with so many. Some have more than others and some enjoy them more than others.

Most of life’s struggles are over, except what happens when the tomorrow’s are running out.

Here’s hoping for another tomorrow, and that it doesn’t suck for me.

A Truth About People At Christmas

This much attention is overwhelming for an introvert. i can’t wait for it to be over. I can’t hear another Christmas song on the speaker anywhere.

What I hate the most is how people change and act different when I know damn well what asswipes they are the rest of the year. I hate their fake attitude because it’s the Christmas spirit, or whatever lie they are telling.

I like the meaning of Christmas, but the crap that people do around it, compounded by the commercialization since September and I want to pull my hair out.

This is true every year. I can’t wait for it to be over so we can go back to being who we really are.

We Are Not Made Equal

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” — Aristotle

I have to deal with Scandinavians I’m related to by marriage. They believe in the concept of Janteloven and continually use it to trash the USA. Mostly they try to justify that their country is better. Fortunately, I can almost gauge what is the wrong thing by them telling me what they believe in and that is it. Their country is of course held up as the model of socialism by Bernie, the Squad and other idiots. That’s just more proof for me to intuitively know it is wrong.

I call BS on it because history says otherwise. Did the USA go to the moon because of equality or exceptionalism? How about helping the rest of the world with medicine, discoveries, advancements in technology and improving the quality of life around the world. What has Jante given the world other than stopping being conquering Vikings?

Now this evidence on it’s failure:

School Boards Accelerate Race to the Bottom

School board administrators in their mindless pursuit of “equity” have decided to eliminate honors English classes in a prestigious academic district where parents would be delighted to enroll their children: Santa Monica High School.

The sentiment behind the initiative was best summed up by Sarah Rodriguez, an English teacher at the high school. She, and others involved in the 1½ year pursuit of the initiative, wanted to be “fair” to all students, and not make anyone feel left out or marginalized.

“This is not about labeling students or labeling classes,” Rodriguez says. “What we’re doing is, we’re saying this is a new paradigm.” Her overview of this new paradigm — she insists — is about “all of our students (being) capable and we’re going to meet them where they are.”

It’s a beautiful sentiment, but lacking in reality of what’s going to happen to the bright and gifted students’ opportunities for advanced education. She failed to mention how the initiative would “meet” their needs in a dumbed-down curriculum.

Parents have made it clear to administrators that they view the “equity initiative” as another example of administrators being shortsighted, if not blinded, by the end results of their bad decisions. “A race to the bottom,” is now a popular term used by parents to describe this and other diversity programs contributing to the eroding academic standards in public schools.

“We really feel equity means offering opportunities to students of diverse backgrounds, not taking away opportunities for advanced education and study,” says parent Joanna Schaenman, who spearheads an effort to reinstate honors class at a school where her child attends in Culver City.

The one-size (academic curriculum) fits all students, Schaenman says, is not beneficial for the students who are willing to work harder and achieve higher academic outcomes.

This parental push back is popping up at school board meetings at different high schools operating in one of the nation’s most “progressive” regions: Los Angeles Unified School District.

“I have a child in high school,” one mother told the school board in Culver City. “It is too easy in his classroom” since the elimination of the honors classes. “They (administrators) say it’s equity, they say that’s the reason and therefore it’s okay,” she added. It is far for “okay,” she says, pointing out her son is “no longer challenged in class.”

This complaint is shared by many parents who are watching the decline of their children’s education. Now my son is “bored in class,” offers another parent.

Sensitivities expressed by the administrators in the interest of underperforming students does not appear to extend to parents of the more accomplished students. Parents objecting to the “dumbed-down” curriculum have been subject to slurs and insults by faculty and administrators: “Racist” is a common fallback term used by administrators to label parents objecting to the “equity initiatives.”  At one school board meeting in another district, Asian parents were met with a sign that read: “Leave your Asian privilege at the door.”

It is now becoming harder to tag the parents as racists.

Many of the upset parents are immigrants themselves who appear as dark as the students who are underrepresented in the honors classes, primarily including Hispanic and black children.

Pedro Frigola, who is from Cuba, has two daughters attending Culver City High School. He claims the school is “performing a disservice to the students and community” with the elimination of advanced instruction.

He pointed out in a Fox television interview that the administration put forth the claim that the initiative is hatched in the name of “equity,” but “it’s not defined,” The parent stresses the necessity to provide equal opportunity for all students, but not remove opportunities for students who are excelling in their studies.

“Achieving equal outcomes at all costs,” says Frigola, is an ideology that results in holding many children back, That’s not the only drawback. Students now cannot list “advanced placement” (AP classes) on their applications when applying to Ivy League colleges, placing them at a distinct disadvantage.

This reality isn’t getting in the way of administrators championing their cause. They claim that teachers — who work with students day in and day out — are completely supportive of this “equity initiative.” That has not been Mr. Frigola’s experience when he has discussed the issue with teachers at his daughters’ high school. He reports they have expressed their concerns about the detrimental effects this initiative will have on the high-achieving students. “Of course they’re afraid to speak out because they don’t want to be reprimanded,” he says. “They have their careers to worry about.”

Mr. Frigola, who had grown up in Cuba, thought he had left behind the communist culture of censorship and fear of expressing a dissenting voice, but he was wrong.

In the meantime, embattled faculty and teachers have become more firmly entrenched in espousing their ideology. Rhetoric is becoming more harsh, with administrators now claiming advanced English classes were “perpetuating inequality.” They tend to rely on statistical data verifying black and Hispanic students are underrepresented in the honors classes. Of course, Asian students — who score consistently higher — remain overrepresented in percentages enrolled in advanced courses vs. make-up of population.

Less accomplished students appear to be picking up the messages of victimhood from the faculty. One student described his feeling as “unable to break out of the mold” and another as feeling inferior “because of the segregation” of honors from regular English classes.

“Whatever happened to the concept of working hard and earning a place in an AP class,” one parent commented on social media. “Are we teaching these children to whine rather than work hard?’

It is fair to wonder whether today’s educators are failing to prepare students for their matriculation into the real world. Students who were coddled and protected — from revamping curriculum for “equal outcomes” to handing out “participation awards” for non-athletic winners — will be sorely disappointed when they enter a merit-based system and find themselves at the end of the line for a salary increase or promotion up the corporate ladder.

I lost the link to this story, if anyone has it I’ll give it retribution.

Destruction Of The Family

Check out the marriage rate. It’s what the communists have wanted all along and is in the manifesto. Make the Government your family and your religion, then you are dependent on the state. 

We have been under attack for decades, but this sign of the war for our survival as a country is disheartening at best, dangerous at worst, deadly if it continues. Look up the great reset to see what else they are trying.

It’s A Dog’s Life

 

I got good response on my dog, Boxer Rebellion as well as my interview series, so I thought I’d interview her by describing her day.

Here’s how it goes…..

Wake up, Oh boy, it’s Christmas day, every day! my favorite!
Go for a walk, Oh boy! my favorite!
Eat Dog Food, Oh boy! my favorite!
Play with my toys, Oh Boy! my favorite!
Bark at the kids leaving for school, Oh boy! my favorite!
Nap, Oh boy! my favorite!
Lunch with Dad, maybe some people food, Oh boy! my favorite!
Go for a walk, Oh boy! my favorite!
Bark at the mailman, Oh boy! my favorite!
Kids come home from school, Oh boy! my favorite!
Nap, Oh boy! my favorite!
If I’m good, I get a treat, Oh boy! my favorite!
Dog food, Oh boy! my favorite!
Bark and play with my toys, Oh boy! my favorite!
Go for a walk, Oh boy! my favorite!
Time for bed, sleep on Dad, Oh boy! my favorite!

Constant Christmas Music, Too Early, Too Often, Too Much

I heard it back in September when the first Christmas decorations came out. One of my relatives, Meathead, plays it constantly. It just becomes noise in the background. He hates God which is confounding.

I wish we could keep it to a celebration instead of an Ironman Triathlon.

Why I Like To Be Alone

It’s not that I don’t like others, just not all the time. Actually, I’d rather be alone most of the time. I don’t even miss others or think about missing them. Most of the time, they let me down or make the time spent together difficult. My appetite for that is over.

People drain me and consistently let me down. I’m sure I let them down when they think I should act like an extrovert, but then I don’t force myself on others.

Small talk is the most draining thing during the day. I know as soon as I get into it that it’s going to be a dreadful and useless conversation. Society expects you to go through this ritual, but that doesn’t make it meaningful or any less painful.

Give me meaningful and deep discussions and you have my attention. Otherwise, I’m happiest writing in my diary and reading.

Not caring what others think about you is a blessed relief. It’s the same when they don’t think of you also, like the remote parts of your family that are annoying.

Some Things I Just Can’t Explain To The European Side Of My Family

They don’t get guns. They are afraid of them, yet they get robbed and live in one of the countries that the culture enrichers (Muslims who want free money) are invading. I don’t bother trying to explain it as they want to be morally superior, but are intellectually understated.

They live in a socialist country anyway.

They love to trash the US and pick any gun issue to pontificate. Well, there are over 300 million weapons in the hands of private citizens and over 1 trillion rounds of ammo. If there was a problem, you’d know it. The real problem is that they read the left dominated news and believe the lies. The propaganda arm of the democratic party wants to take guns away.

They also drone on constantly about free education, medical and pension. It’s free because someone who worked paid for it. They don’t like to talk about the 70% tax rate.

I’ve tried to explain this, but they only read the liberal press that also trashes the US. They got rolled over by the Nazi’s in about 6 hours because they can’t defend themselves.

So here you go because I learned from history and am not afraid to defend myself and family….

The police response is under 30 minutes. The response from a gun is instant.

It’s why the people who came our country continued to prosper. Some of the countries had their weapons confiscated. We know how that turned out. Ask the Cubans, Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, Germans in the 1930’s……It will be you next.

hat tip busted knuckles.

An Introvert’s Perspective Of Family Gatherings

My mom told me I had to stick with my family and put up with gatherings because they are blood. She was right on most things in life, but not this one.

I look at them like I look at most people. If we were friends or wanted to see each other, we’d get together. Now, it’s just weddings and funerals, and I avoid those if possible. I missed the last one that made me the patriarch of both sides of the family now. That’s not a burden I relish or will give any attention too.

Besides avoiding both sides of my family whenever possible, my wife’s family doesn’t live in my country, so I have it easy there. They sit around and trash the US to feel morally superior so I don’t want to be a part of that.

Best of all, I stopped drinking a while back. Most of them drink a lot when they are together, so I don’t get invited to almost everything. I think I make them feel uncomfortable. They are happier to be around people who drink a lot without feeling guilty. I don’t get invited and it’s one of life’s blessings.

I treat others like they treat me. Fortunately, most of them don’t want to talk and I keep my head as low as possible so I don’t get in their line of fire.

Still, leaving is always my favorite part of getting together, family or otherwise.

Life These Days, Introverts And Social Media

It’s like this sign below

The world and the media and especially Social Media is trying to tell you how to live, what to say, what is politically correct and so forth. It’s so much shit that you don’t know which way to turn.

I’m finding that staying to myself makes it easier. I don’t have to fit into the world’s definitions of what I should be doing instead of what I want to do. It used to be a lot easier before the Karen’s and Chad’s tried to build their power base by judging others. I got fed up enough of that crap with the high school childish games we suffered through.

I decided to grow up and make my own rules. It’s because I’m an introvert and didn’t do stuff like get the Covid Jab. I’m not as accepted for what I believe, but like Groucho Marx said, I’d never belong to a club that would have me as a member. It’s made my life a lot easier.

This is the way they want you to behave on social media now. I had to eliminate that to not drive myself nuts. I got the added benefit of not having to find out what others did to try and make themselves feel better when they got likes. My favorite benefit was re-losing people I was able to move on earlier in life. They found me on social media, but I already removed them once for a reason.

The way I looked at it, if I wanted to stay connected (or we wanted to together) we would have. Not for likes. I guess I just don’t care enough what they did after we parted ways all those years ago. I got to lose family that made life difficult also.

I get some love to reconnect and rehash things, but I already did that in my private journal. If it was that good, I wouldn’t need social media to see what they ate or drank while doing stuff I didn’t care about.

This version of non English is how social media is. Almost non-sequitur.

With all the bullshit with the lying about the politicians and covering up by the media, if I get too involved with it, this happens to me

I can always revert to my introverted life and spend time alone with my thoughts and pets. That way people aren’t ruining my life as much.

Intelligence, IQ And Pattern Recognition

I found this definition of intelligence when I was reading an article on why smart people got the mRNA Covid-19 Jab. For me, I knew it was a lie almost from the beginning. FWIW, my whole family, friends and acquaintances all got jabbed.

I’ve always believed that patterns are there if you look for them. It’s putting pieces of information together to develop a vision or a solution. It is the key to opening doors in life, or it has been for me. I’ve known too many people with high IQ’s, but no common sense or good decision making who were only book smart. Being intelligent is more than scoring high on a test.

Here is what I found from John Carter.

Intelligence really just boils down to the ability to extract meaningful patterns from information. The more rapidly this can be done, the more complex the patterns that can be discerned, the higher the intelligence. As a rule this means that intelligent people are capable of learning more rapidly, since learning is itself essentially a pattern recognition process in which the meaningful is abstracted from the meaningless and therefore more easily stored away for future reference. Hence ‘crystallized intelligence’, the sum total of the information that someone has acquired over their life, is usually a reasonable guide to how intelligent someone is. Early IQ tests relied to a large degree on tests of knowledge for this reason, until researchers realized that this measure was useless for cross-cultural comparisons, including comparisons of subcultures that had differential access to educational materials, at which point they ultimately settled on pattern recognition tests as an objective measure.

One Of My Worst Introvert Nightmares

I hate this.

I’m not able to process the attention that others force on you. To me, it’s just another day and I wish others would treat it that way. I want to crawl in a hole and not come out until it is over.

When I was a waiter, we’d sing the song to the birthday person. Almost always, a drunk table nearby would want it and would ask for us to sing it to them. One time, a party was so belligerent about it, instead of Happy Birthday dear (name), we sang eat a big one you asshole, HBTY.

Back to the point. I never understood why it was such a big deal. I didn’t know it was OK to hate your birthday until I talked to other introverts. It was painful for years. When I found out you didn’t have to suffer through this, I got my family to swear they’d never put me through the fake festivities again.

I think parents are so overboard on their children’s birthdays that they set this false expectation that it’s a real holiday. It was painful for me and I never knew how to act. The kids come to count on it like it is going to make them happier because they got stuff.

The extroverts in my family expect the attention, but it’s difficult for me to sit through that also. I want that to be over as much as when it happens to me.

In my life, charade has taken over any holiday. People get worked up and claim they are happy because of a day that is supposed to be celebrated. I’ve grown to loathe big family gatherings and the month long Christmas ordeal. I see how unhappy they can be. It’s because people set themselves up for false expectations that some holiday or gathering is supposed to make them feel better. Take away their alcohol and it’s a whole different thing.

I can’t buy that nonsense as there are other days in the year that make me happier, but it is organic rather than manufactured. I can even take (a small amount) some celebrations if spontaneous and real.

At this end of my life, I don’t like having another birthday so fast. It just reminds me that that I’ll be crossing the checkered flag in life soon.

The Hell That Is Small Talk For Introverts

I had to learn how to do this to get by in life. I never liked it.

I listen to girls of all ages talk about food, shopping, clothes and just about anything and anybody. I have watched my wife’s relatives in Denmark deal in Janteloven. It’s where they talk about anything to not go below the surface which might “upset someone’s feelings” for being different. It is tedious. The lack of depth is a waste of time for me.

I ran out of gas to put up with that in life, that or patience. Jenn is right. I don’t have the energy for it anymore.

The other side is also right though. If it is deep conversation about an actual topic with depth and I can talk for a long time. The problem usually is finding someone with my interests or interest level. Even then, I run out of gas a lot sooner than an extrovert.

I tried to keep up with extroverts when I had to get by in life. Now that I’m retired and don’t have to work, find a wife or any of the young person problems, I bail on these conversations. I’ll listen, shake my head and say yes, no, great, sure or other comments, but mostly I just want it to stop. I don’t want to open the door to it going on any longer than it has to.

Prince Harry’s Balls

So Chuckles clown’s son just decided to trash America. His loser, the Spare, is a direct descendant of George III. George went crazy, likely from inbreeding. Those genes look like they re-surfaced.

Here’s a guy who had everything. He didn’t have to work other than to show up at events and not be a retard about it. He had access to millions, servants, castles for homes, private yachts and planes and all the perks to enjoy a life. He had access to all the women he wanted.

All of this and he threw it away for a domineering racist B actress who has such a case of entitlement that she got Harry to throw everything away. For what?

These types of marriages have low percentages against them for lasting. Then, he has to play the prodigal son and crawl back to the palace with the kingdom of England against him for being an Benedict Arnold and trashing his homeland. He’s consigned himself to to loserdom because of a mean girl who didn’t get her way. She played the race card to pretend that being a royal was somehow a victimhood issue.

Even Chris rock said about her whining that her white in-laws were worried about the color of their kid was in-law problems, not race problems. He said that black people were more interested in the color of the baby than others. Why is it that the half-black/white group seem to be the biggest whiners and play the race card the quickest (Obama, Lewis Hamilton, Kaepernick, and on and on….)

I have European in-laws. They love to trash America. I know it is because everyone hates number one or those who have done better. I’ve got news for them and Harry, you can’t make yourself better by bringing others down. I’d rather not talk to them than hear their whining. They just repeat what they read in the liberal press. They can’t even get their facts right.

Harry has managed to piss of both England and now America. It sucks to be inbred. It sucks even worse to be led around by an ungrateful little bitch with an ax to grind.

Grow a set Harry.

He, like my in-laws are wrong about America, and he played the fool for a girl.

Here he is, trashing America also:

The signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 brought a new era and good riddance to the tone-deaf aristocracy under King George III.

With the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788, America’s new experiment in self-rule was formally initiated. This document established the framework for the U.S. government, both its institutional structure and the rights of its citizens.

Today, the United Kingdom’s Prince Harry doesn’t understand this, apparently. We’ll get to that shortly.

The Framers of the Constitution were heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideals, including the power of human agency, importance of individual rights, necessity of religious freedom, fundamentality of a just society, and primacy of seeking the truth. They created a system of government that, first and foremost, would not interfere in the development of these virtues.

Thus, “American” values include individual liberty in the pursuit of happiness, respect for the equal rights of others, limited government shaped by the consent of the governed, a merit-based system of rewards, and the pursuit of truth as a societal virtue.

Today, each and every one of these values—along with the system that upholds them—is under vigorous attack by powerful subversives for whom they are anathema.

These subversives seem driven by one of two primary impulses.

The first is as old as humankind: the satisfaction of the base human passions. This includes, especially, the accumulation of wealth, exercise of power, and the indulgence of sensory pleasures (and, typically, all three simultaneously). This group includes the so-called globalist elite who view a strong U.S. driven by American values as an obstacle to its insatiable appetite for wealth, power, and consequence-free physical indulgence.

The second group is driven by dogma. These are the disciples of Karl Marx and fellow travelers who believe that once some group attains social primacy, that group will use its power to tweak all the institutions in a way that ensures the continuation of the group’s dominant position.

This includes legal institutions, government structures, culture, language, and even rational thinking. This “systemic” lock-in is so resistant to change, so the story goes, that the only solution for the oppressed is to completely destroy the institutions.

Marxist values include limited liberty in the pursuit of equity, unequal rights in the pursuit of diversity, unlimited government shaped by the consent of the oppressed, a system of rewards via identity-based notions of inclusion, and a rejection of the very notion of truth.

Note that, while these two types may be united in their animus toward the U.S., it is axiomatic that a single individual cannot truly be both. That is, one cannot be a wealth- and power-maximizing hedonist while, at the same time, fully embracing Marxist values. Or so it seems.

Yet, here we face the perplexing case of Prince Harry, a descendant of King George III himself. Following the prince’s attacks on the British Commonwealth, he has turned his attention to bulldozing American values.

This is perplexing because, on the one hand, Harry, Duke of Sussex, enjoys all the privileges of the globalist elite. Yet, on the other hand, he enthusiastically embraces the anti-American values of Marxist dogmatists.

It is difficult to imagine how Harry deals with the implied internal contradictions without blowing a gasket—much like the “supercomputer” in Season 2 Episode 24 of TV’s original “Star Trek,” which self-destructed when Kirk presented it with a logical dilemma. Perhaps a dogged fixation on the object of animus common to both groups, the U.S., is enough for Harry to keep it together.

Alternatively, the answer may lie in really believing that there is no such thing as objective truth. After all, Kirk’s AI antagonist was hard-wired to adhere to logic. The logical demands of Marxist dogma are much more elastic.

Exhibit 1 is the prince’s bestselling autobiography “Spare,” a canonical instance of the postmodern genre in which knowledge is “positional” and one’s “lived experience” takes precedence over logical, fact-based arguments.

“Spare” is riddled with historical inaccuracies and objectively untrue claims, such as identifying Harry as Henry VI’s great x7 grandson.

Harry also writes about his general disdain of history, recalling a visit to the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore with his father, now King Charles III:

A lifelong student of history, [Pa] had loads of information to share, and part of me thought we might be there for hours, and there might be a test at the end. Mercifully, he stopped, and we carried on.

Harry had no interest in more formal lessons from his history teacher, identified as a Mr. Hughes-Games:

So it came as a roaring shock when I realized that Mr. Hughes-Games believed me to be the odd one. What could be odder, he said to me one day, than a British prince not knowing British history? … It wasn’t just that I didn’t know anything about my family’s history. I didn’t want to know anything.

Once the problem of being a self-hating elitist is solved, all the other anti-American values can follow.

For example, Harry’s flagrant disregard for the rule of law, as evidenced by his illegal drug use in passages such as this:

I had been doing cocaine around this time. At someone’s country house, during a shooting weekend, I’d been offered a line, and I’d done a few more since.

Or his disregard for the truth, as evidenced by his unwillingness to release his U.S. visa paperwork.

Or his indifference to human dignity, as evidenced by his macabre discussion of kill counts in Afghanistan, including:

I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number. … So, my number: Twenty-five.

Or his inability to understand democracy, about which U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, tweeted: “Love being lectured on democracy by an actual prince.”

Still, one marvels at Harry’s ability to forge ahead as the embodiment of two mutually inconsistent dispositions.

Is it a maniacal focus on the common object of animus? Is it the dogmatic rejection of logic itself?

British author Alexander Larman suggests that the answer is simply that Prince Harry, at 38, “is even more stupid than we thought.”

We’d like to think that he can learn better.

It’s Too Late, Portland Wants To Reverse Defund The Police

I had a relative move there in the early 2010’s. The theme was keep Portland weird (look out Austin who has adopted that phrase) and I knew it was going down the toilet right then. I saw the beginnings of anarchy, homeless people defecating on the street and mentally unstable people yelling at us as we walked to the foodie places. Everything was so hip, but the crumbling of the infrastructure was there at night in the tent cities. They thought they were the elite and upper crust because they were against what was morally right.

Drugs were made legal and the flush began to swirl faster.

Ted Wheeler, the mayor who let it self destruct did nothing to save it. He embraced everything liberal and now you see what is happening.

Little did I know how far down the sewer it would go. After occupy, antifa, homelessness, drugs, crime, shoplifting and control by the left who wouldn’t uphold the law, it is a shithole like San Fransisco now.

They want to refund the police, but it’s too far gone. The city is so indoctrinated in what they feel it should be rather than right vs wrong that it would take burning it down and starting over.

Half of the state has voted to join Idaho. Even they want to get away from Portland.

Anyway, here is the story.

Back in 2020 when Democratic-run cities decided it would be a good idea to give in to angry mobs of protestors and defund local police and other authoritative agencies, no city’s voice seemed louder than that of Portland. The city’s leaders cut police funding by $15 million leaving the city largely in the hands of the angry, violent mobs that had forced the move.

Now, 3 years later with the city sinking under skyrocketing crime rates, a shrinking tax base, and shuttered businesses, Portland seems to have finally realized that it needs police, but replacing the force it all but threw away is proving to be an uphill battle. The city is struggling to attract new officers, DAs, and investigators given its leaders’ recent history of turning their backs on law enforcement. Potential replacements know better than to go where they’re not wanted.

The lack of candidates for its underfunded and under-appreciated police force and court system is making it difficult for a newly launched task force to fulfill its purpose and crack down on retail and vehicle theft in what now appears to be a lawless city.

Crime rates have risen so drastically since 2020, that Portland residents are now 3 times more likely to be the victim of a property crime than the average U.S. citizen, according to data from Neighborhood Scout. Portland had 63,000 property thefts in 2022 along with roughly 11,000 stolen vehicles – a new record for the city that doesn’t need police.

Now, residents who have the means to do so are fleeing the city and taking their businesses with them. Public data has shown that since the pandemic, more than 2,600 businesses left downtown Portland and filed for changes of address with USPS.

Not only has the city been left trying to replace the $15 million it cut from its budget for police and the officers themselves, but now Portland is having to find a way to reinstate its police force with limited funding as its tax base continues to shrink as more residents pack up and leave.

Meanwhile, according to a report by Zerohedge, most of the remaining local police officers have been doing everything they can to get off the force. Officers have not only been quitting at an alarmingly fast pace but there has also been a substantial uptick in early retirements and transfer requests to other municipalities.

To complicate matters further, the police who have survived the past 3 years have become discouraged by liberal prosecutors who never take cases to court, instead opting to return criminals to the streets.

Meanwhile, it is unlikely that defunding the police, which was done wholeheartedly and briskly, can be undone as quickly and thoroughly. It is far easier to cut $15 million than it is to raise it – a lesson the Portland City Council and the city’s residents have had to learn the hard way.

It’s a tough time to be a Portland resident, but a great time to be a criminal. As for the city’s police force, it will take years, possibly decades, to rebuild what the City Council destroyed in a matter of months.

Murphy’s Mother’s Laws

Another long lost post.

Murphy’s mothers laws

  • Mothers only offer advice on two occasions: when you want it and when you don’t..
  • A mother’s love is a better cure than chicken soup, but chicken soup is cheaper.
  • Your mother is the only person that knows more about you than you know about yourself.
  • Any time you are unable to solve a problem, ask your mother. She probably won’t know either, but she will fake it.
  • Maternal instinct is stronger than any force known except an IRS collection agent.
  • The more you try to stay on your mother’s good side the harder it will be to figure out which side this is.
  • The nicer a mother is, the greater the probability that her kids are rotten.
  • If you can’t remember whether or not you called your mother, you didn’t.
  • The motherly advice you ignore will always turn out to be the best advice she ever gave you.
  • If you forget, mom will remind you of all your mistakes so you don’t repeat them.
  • Anything you do can be criticized by your mother – even doing nothing.
  • Never criticize your mother’s cooking if you expect to get any more of it.
  • If you think you have any secrets from your mother, remember who has changed your diapers.
  • You can’t “out mother” your mother. Don’t even try.
  • Never lie to your mother. And if you do, never think you got away with it.
  • The harder you try to hide something from your mother, the more she resembles a webcam.
  • The older you are, the more you feel like a child around your mother.
  • All mother’s have a “How To” manual. That’s because they wrote the book.
  • Mother’s way is best. If you don’t believe it, ask her.
  • Everything is a good idea till you mother finds out and tells you why it isn’t.
  • One mother is company, two is a psychic reading, three is a hen party, four is a bridge club.
  • If you don’t have time to study the drivers’ manual, drive your mother somewhere and get a quick refresher course.
  • When you are broke, ask mom for a loan. She will help you remember what you wasted all your money on.
  • The more expensive the gift you give your mother, the longer she will “save” it before she uses it.
  • No matter how wrong you are, your mother will not hold it against you. She may remind you a number of times, but she will not hold it against you.
  • No matter how much you eat, you can never get so fat that mother will not offer you more food.
  • If a mother does not have an item, she will have the recipe or the directions.
  • The more times mother reminds you to take an umbrella, the greater the probability of rain.
  • Accomplishments are made possible by your mother – failures are your own fault.
  • Never forget who rocked you as a baby. That’s something else you will never be able to repay her for.
  • Mother can always tell you a better way to do something after you’ve already done it.
  • The longer it’s been since you cleaned house, the more likely it is that mother will visit.
  • No matter how small your mom is, she will always be bigger than you are.
  • The more you detest an item that belongs to your mother, the more likely it is that she will try to give it to you.
  • If you do it yourself, mom could have done it better. If mom does it, you should have done it yourself.
  • You never are as good as other people’s children. You are never as bad as mom imagines.
  • The only thing more accurate than a mother’s advice is her memory of the times you didn’t take it.
  • The funnier the joke is, the more likely mom will think it is dirty.
  • Never tell your mother you have nothing to do. She can always find something.
  • If the job of a mother is going smoothly, she thinks she isn’t doing it well.
  • There are always two sides to a story – the way it really happened and the way mother remembers it.
  • Mothers always “know.” We don’t know how – they just do.
  • Murphy’s mother told him so.

This article was written by Sheila Moss, from Humor Columnist.Com and copied with her permission.
Copyright 2001 Sheila Moss

  • a child will never ask Mom to get something until she sits down.
    Corollary – a child will only ask for a glass of milk after you put the milk carton back in the refrigerator.
    Sent by Lexia Gibson
  • Call your Mom
    Sent by Nikki Hubbell-VanHoosear
  • If your kid grows up to be like you its an insult, not to you, to the kid
    Sent by Mohammed Ram jackson
  • You can fool some people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool Mum
    Sent by Meself
  • Small, teething children will chew on the most valuable thing within reach. The same goes for puppies and juvenile tigers, bears, or crocodiles.
    Sent by -?Anonymous!
  • If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.

Gilligan’s Island, The Epitaph

It was a good TV show when I was a kid. My Mom dreaded that I watched such nonsense and that it would certainly ruin me. I didn’t get any smarter by watching the show. It provided me with clean entertainment as compared to the woke TV the kids get now.

There were some things that didn’t make sense.

The professor could charge batteries for their radio by stirring coconuts, but couldn’t fix the Minnow?

Finally, my answer. It was Ginger, My how things have changed…

She’s the only one of the cast left

An Introvert On Arguing

The biggest problem I have in my arguments is timing. I get out talked by people who tend to be wrong. Only later does the truth come out or I can express myself, but no one (except me) cares by then.

Like most introverts, I think things through, throw out the things that are wrong, then come up with a salient and correct argument. All of this is well after the discussion took place.

LESSONS LEARNED

While being pressured to get the jab during Covid, I knew it was wrong and listened to everyone regurgitating the media and government lies (paid for by the Big Pharma companies). Since I was an island, it was everyone against me. There was nothing I could say that anyone would listen to other than my black friends. They remembered Tuskegee like I did.

The lesson? Stop trying to be right, learn patience for the facts to come out. They are coming out now.

This would have also helped me a lot earlier in life if I’d have known. I didn’t understand that I was an introvert though and thought I could go toe to toe with extrovert talkers not afraid to be wrong. I lost a debate to an imbecile in 8th grade when I clearly had the facts. He had the class popularity and the class went with him as he made up stuff.

It was similar in politics. The 2016 election won me a $100 bet, not that anyone cared. The 45th President continues to be right, so they just throw dirty underwear against the wall until something sticks. He is the comeback champion in rhetoric though so I stopped talking about that also. I was an island politically also. I lost every discussion on that one also even though my facts were proven right over time.

I found out that a lot of people don’t have a sense of history or really understand anything other than reading and repeating talking points they are told to think. Social media is making idiots out of the next generations. Knowing how to find information is not the same thing as understanding why things are the way they are.

I was already recognizing the pattern of facts that led to the truth, just not when I wanted it. I’d never make it as a lawyer or politician.

Maybe that’s why I write about this. It gets my thoughts (mostly cogently) in order and documents my position. It’s all I have sometimes. Since the internet is forever, here you go in the future if you read this.

Very rarely in my life do I have the proper comeback. It’s not satisfying when I do compared to the frustration of not being drop quick witted and precise information when needed.

So, I just have decided to let some stuff pass. It gets me out of talking to the under educated anyway.

The other lesson?

“Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

― Mark Twain

The Epstein Island Pedophile Visitor List, Notably Meathead And Other Celebtards, Politicians

There are a few meatheads in my life. The more time goes on, the more Archie Bunker has been right. Screw political correctness. They tell me how bad the people are who try to put America and Americans first, but their spew is just that.

These people need to be held accountable for actual pedophile crimes.

Know why this isn’t as big of a deal as it should be? It’s because they are all guilty and are being protected. The magpies from The View are there. A lot of notable perverts are here as are the Clinton’s. Billy Boy Clinton was clocked there 21 times, not to mention the in flight servicing he got on the Lolita express.

Noticeably absent are Trump and DeSantis.

Also, Epstein didn’t kill himself.

My Childish Humor Strikes Again

Oh yes, I could say it with a straight face, depending on the other person. I just texted my friend George that there were a lot of balls to juggle, instead balls in the air.

I still call them wiener’s if there is a chance the other person will feel uncomfortable.

Hat tip to wirecutter on this one. It was too good to not share.

Mensa At 3, Boy Genius

I love these stories. I worked with geniuses who created technology that we take for granted (and carry around or wear). They were great to talk to as they spoke with different words on how things are related and put together. They explained things on another plane of knowledge that required me to expand my thinking to deal with them.

It also confirms how different we are. I have relatives through marriage in Denmark who believe in Jante’s Law to bash American’s. This kind of flies in the face of what they believe, but then they were triple jabbed so they aren’t that smart.

Story begins here:

A toddler has become one of the youngest people ever to become a member of MENSA, after he taught himself to read at the age of two.

Now four years old, Teddy Hobbs, began reading during the coronavirus lockdown.

Staggeringly, when he was only 26 months old, he was able to read a book fluently to his parents, Beth and Will.

After that, the youngster progressed to learning how to count up to 100 in Mandarin, Somerset Live reports.

His 31-year-old mum Beth said: “He has always been interested in books so we made sure he had plenty around.

“But, during the lockdown, he started to take a real interest, and by the age of 26 months, he had taught himself to read.

Teddy Hobbs, now four, managed to gain entry to the exclusive organisation for the intellectual 'elite' aged just three years and nine months last year

Teddy Hobbs, now four, managed to gain entry to the exclusive organisation for the intellectual ‘elite’ aged just three years and nine months last year (

Image: Beth Hobbs / SWNS)

“He then moved onto numbers and was learning times tables. We got him a tablet the following Christmas for him to play games on. But instead, he taught himself to count up to 100 in mandarin.”

The child prodigy can already count to 100 in six non-native languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish and German.

Beth and Will were confused by his unheard of talents whilst still a toddler, and so got in touch with health visitors to ask them to assess Teddy.

“With him looking forward to starting school, we wanted to have some sort of assessment so we knew the level of skills he was going to start school with.” said Beth.

The child prodigy from Portishead, Bristol, can already count to 100 in six non-native languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish and German

The child prodigy from Portishead, Bristol, can already count to 100 in six non-native languages, including Mandarin, Welsh, French, Spanish and German (

Image: Beth Hobbs / SWNS)

“Teddy was our first child and as he was conceived via IVF, we have nothing to compare him with.”

Continuing to search for support for their son, the couple approached MENSA for guidance.

Teddy, then aged three years and seven months old, had to undergo an hour long online assessment with experts.

“I was worried about him being able to sit in front of a laptop for an hour, but he absolutely loved it.“ said Beth.

Experts then revealed that Teddy sat in the 99.5 percentile for IQ.

Teddy, who starts school in September, received a certificate confirming his membership of MENSA

Teddy, who starts school in September, received a certificate confirming his membership of MENSA (

Image: Beth Hobbs / SWNS)

Experts then revealed that Teddy sat in the 99.5 percentile for IQ

Experts then revealed that Teddy sat in the 99.5 percentile for IQ (

Image: Beth Hobbs

GRTWT

The Real Reason I Quit Facebook

That’s right, I’m keeping the past in the past.

When I was first on fake book (an early adopter), it was great until people came back that I didn’t want to ever see again. That’s pretty much the way it is for most of my life. When you are in the past, you stay there. It’s too much drama for me to catch up. I have trouble with seeing people I haven’t seen in a while and it’s awkward.

It’s not just people from school or social groups I’ve been affiliated with, it’s family also. It’s very awkward as I know that were we not related that I’d never talk to them. I don’t with most anyway and have lost contact with a lot of the others.

Why haven’t we talked? The answer is usually because I didn’t want to. I have a hard time lying about that. I can fake being excited to see someone, I just refuse to do it anymore. It’s personality turn off when I see it in others.

I didn’t want anything connecting me to memories I didn’t want. It was painful enough the first time around. Why do I want to relive part of my life that are best left as experiences to learn from? I’d already moved on in life having parted ways once. Those memories of my early life don’t make me want to try and pretend it didn’t happen for me. I was glad it was over, dead and buried. It’s easier for me to deal with.

They kept wanting to connect. I did, but muted everyone, but finally I put them back in the history box where they belong, for a good reason. I had to dump it and remain true to myself.

If we were really friends, we wouldn’t need social media. I’m still friends with those who were my real friends. The rest are people I don’t connect with because we mutually don’t want to. To be fair, I mostly don’t want to connect with them, but that is my nature as an introvert.

I have listed other reasons in different posts that point out how fake people are on social media and that it is a time suck.

My life is better not seeing others. Let’s keep it that way.