Another Implementation

The go-live I talked about a few weeks ago was only for the lodge bar staff. The wait staff were still using the old "system" (which wasn't really much more than slips of paper and a spreadsheet that I fill out every morning). That changes on May 1st. So the next couple weeks will be filled with training people whose attitudes range from positive thru indifferent to openly hostile. That's OK; business is slowing dramatically now that the snow birds are heading back north and we have more people than we have shifts. If someone feels strongly enough to quit, both I and the kitchen managers are in agreement: let 'em.

Of course that means all sorts of crazy hours for yours truly, with the first of May being another hell week of long days and little sleep. What will save us this time around is that we only serve food until 7pm, so at least the administrator and myself won't have to take turns being up all night.

We still don't know what is going on with my mom and if my parents will be going back to Michigan anytime soon. It's just endless tests and doctor appointments with no meaningful information coming back to us. In other words, business as usual for the medical/industrial complex. As I'm the one tasked with driving them back, that leaves me and my job hanging in limbo while all these clowns are maximizing their Medicare billing.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate these guys? Anyway.

One of the things I like about the web pages I routinely read (that list over there on the right) is how people coming from radically different starting points can all end up more or less at the same place. (That place would be "We're completely screwed" by the way.) First up, we have John Michael Greer, fresh back from vacation and already busting American taboos:

...the word “racist” in the mouths of the pundits and politicians who have been applying it so liberally to the Trump campaign is a dog whistle for something they don’t want to talk about in so many words. What they mean by it, of course, is “wage class American.”

That’s extremely common. Consider the recent standoff in Oregon between militia members and federal officials. While that was ongoing, wags in the blogosphere and the hip end of the media started referring to the militia members as “Y’all-Qaeda.” Attentive readers may have noted that none of the militia members came from the South—the only part of the United States where “y’all” is the usual second person plural pronoun. To the best of my knowledge, all of them came from the dryland West, where “y’all” is no more common than it is on the streets of Manhattan or Vancouver. Why, then, did the label catch on so quickly and get the predictable sneering laughter of the salary class?

It spread so quickly and got that laugh because most members of the salary class in the United States love to apply a specific stereotype to the entire American wage class. You know that stereotype as well as I do, dear reader. It’s a fat, pink-faced, gap-toothed Southern good ol’ boy in jeans and a greasy T-shirt, watching a NASCAR race on television from a broken-down sofa, with one hand stuffed elbow deep into a bag of Cheez Doodles, the other fondling a shotgun, a Confederate flag patch on his baseball cap and a Klan outfit in the bedroom closet. As a description of wage-earning Americans in general, that stereotype is as crass, as bigoted, and as politically motivated as any of the racial and sexual stereotypes that so many people these days are ready to denounce—but if you mention this, the kind of affluent white liberals who would sooner impale themselves on their own designer corkscrews than mention African-Americans and watermelons in the same paragraph will insist at the top of their lungs that it’s not a stereotype, it’s the way “those people” really are.

I see this a lot here in Florida. While "nigger" is as verboten here as it is most other places, "cracker" is fine because, ya know, all poor whites from Florida are a bunch of crackers. Therefore, is isn't racist/classist to point that out. Thems just facts.

Speaking of dog whistles, Counterpunch (which, as a relative pointed out to me, is an extreme liberal, probably socialist, maybe even communist web site) steps up to the plate with a beautiful example of exactly what John Michael was talking about with an article entitled Why Bill Clinton is Full of Shit. As much as I agree with the sentiment expressed in the title, I have to take exception to the article's insistence that drug laws are exclusively aimed at blacks. Plenty of poor whites have had their lives destroyed by our War on (some) Drugs. This article doesn't mention my favorite example (but plenty others on the site do); the difference in sentencing guidelines for powder vs. crack cocaine. This is always presented in terms of racist suburban whites beating down poor urban blacks. Again, I'm quite certain that substantial numbers of poor urban (and rural) whites did a nickel in the state pen for being busted with a couple rocks of crack while Wall Street types were getting slaps on their wrists for equivalent amounts of powder cocaine.

Then today over at Taki's Magazine (which, as a friend pointed out to me, is an extreme right-wing, probably fascist, maybe even neo-Nazi web site (it's so nice having all these people looking out for my mental/emotional well-being; like being a well-cared-for child)), there is this bit on what the author calls The Bubbafly Effect:

This need to surveil and control isn’t applied just to white people in power, but to any white person, male or female (though more commonly male). Why? Why does it matter so damn much to the members of racial, ethnic, and gender victim groups what average white folks are saying and doing?

Well, that’s where the Bubbafly Effect comes in. This is the belief that the words and actions of any white person, no matter how seemingly insignificant, can have ripple effects that will eventually harm a member of an officially sanctioned victim group. The words of the lowliest random white person—an average “bubba” from a hick county—can, like the seemingly inconsequential wind generated by a butterfly’s wings, grow in strength until some poor innocent nonwhite non-cis non-male is swept off “thems” feet (to use the proper PC pronoun) by a hurricane of hatred.

If Bootless Clem in Owsley County says “nigger,” it could create a ripple effect that leads to a proud young African-American genius being barred from admission to a prestigious Ivy League university. If Fartmaster Chad at Kegger House wears a tiny sombrero on his head during his frat’s “tequila sunrise” party, the ripple effects might lead to a brilliant Latino tech wizard being passed up for a job at a major Silicon Valley firm.

“Progressives” really believe this; they’ve just never given their operating theory a name. You’re welcome, lefties.

Again, all things must be seen through the lens of racism. Unless you happen to be John Michael Greer, who posted a follow-up to his post previously quoted from called American Naratives: The Rescue Game:

Here’s how it works. Each group of players is assigned one of three roles: Victim, Persecutor, or Rescuer. The first two roles are allowed one move each: the Victim’s move is to suffer, and the Persecutor’s move is to make the Victim suffer. The Rescuer is allowed two moves: to sympathize with the Victim and to punish the Persecutor. No other moves are allowed, and no player is allowed to make a move that belongs to a different role.
....
There’s one other rule: the game must go on forever. The Victim must continue to suffer, the Persecutor must continue to persecute, and the Rescuer must continue to sympathize and punish. Anything that might end the game—for example, any actual change in the condition of the Victim, or any actual change in the behavior of the Persecutor—is therefore out of bounds. The Rescuer also functions as a referee, and so it’s primarily his or her job to see that nothing gets in the way of the continuation of the game, but all players are expected to help out if that should be necessary.
....
A variant of that game still goes on in the pseudoconservative end of American politics. When Hillary Clinton went out of her way to characterize African-American youth as “superpredators” not that many years ago, she was playing a version of that same game, in which law-abiding white citizens were the Victims, black youth were the Persecutors, and white politicians were the Rescuers. On the other end of the political spectrum, of course, the roles are reversed; in games played on that field, people of color are the Victims, working class white people are the Persecutors, and affluent white liberals are the Rescuers. The players have changed places but the game’s otherwise identical.
....
It’s only fair to note that each of the three roles gets certain benefits, though these are distributed in a very unequal fashion. The only thing the people who are assigned the role of Persecutor get out of it is plenty of negative attention. Sometimes that’s enough—it’s a curious fact that hating and being hated can function as an intoxicant for some people—but this is rarely enough of an incentive to keep those assigned the Persecutor’s role willing to play the game for long.

The benefits that go to people who are assigned the role of Victim are somewhat more substantial. Victims get to air their grievances in public, which is a rare event for the underprivileged, and they also get to engage in socially sanctioned bullying of people they don’t like, which is an equally rare treat. That’s all they get, though. In particular, despite reams of the usual rhetoric about redressing injustices and the like, the Victims are not supposed to do anything, or to expect the Rescuers to do anything, to change the conditions under which they live. The opportunities to air grievances and bully others are substitutes for substantive change, not—as they’re usually billed—steps toward substantive change.

The vast majority of the benefits of the game, rather, go to the Rescuers. They’re the ones who decide which team of Victims will get enough attention from Rescuers to be able to start a game.  They’re the ones who enforce the rules, and thus see to it that Victims keep on being victimized and Persecutors keep on persecuting.  Nor is it accidental that in every Rescue Game, the people who get the role of Rescuers are considerably higher on the ladder of social privilege than the people who get given the roles of Victims and Persecutors.

All of which goes a long way in explaining the Bubbafly Effect.

OK; I'm going to quit before this gets as long as War and Peace. As always, follow the links and read the quoted articles in their entirety.

Summer Arrives

Typical of Florida, we went to bed during the middle of winter and woke up in the middle of summer. I don't think we've ever lived anyplace where you can have a frost/freeze warning one night, then 48 hours later it's getting up into the high 80's during the day and only down into the low 70's at night.

Which means the grass has grown about a foot since Sunday, so I should really be outside doing that instead of doing this. But this involves less sweat.

A nice little bit about Millennials in the workplace:




Anyone who happens to have the "pleasure" of working with 20-somethings probably won't find it all that humorous. We don't have many as members at the lodge, but we do have a fairly steady stream of them coming to us to do their community service for various legal infractions, like shoplifting (the preferred shopping method of Millennials). "You want me to clean? I have a bad back/asthma/fibro/sensitive skin! Is there something else you have for me to do?" Oh, sure snooky. Tell ya what; set your thieving ass down at my desk and count all the cash that came in yesterday, and I'll go clean up spilled beer.

Not that Boomers (who used to refer to themselves as the Me Generation) are much better. Of all the personality types that don't age well, it's hard to top narcissism. Trust me on that; I'm surrounded by it all day every day. "Ugly" is the most polite term I can come up with.

I had to laugh this morning at a headline on Yahoo Finance: Trader: Listen to Yellen, ignore fundamentals. It ends with this bit of day-trader wisdom:

I suppose that fundamentals and the cash flow of a company will once again reign supreme in valuations, but until the market sheds all the outside influence that has been baked in over the last 7 years, I will continue to look at the market influences that have little to do with the operations of a company.

The author of this drivel is none other than Keith Bliss (no, seriously; you can't make this stuff up), Director of Sales and Marketing for cuttone & company. (The mis-capitalization of the company name is from their website. Um, guys? The all-lower-case-cuz-we're-so-cool thing stopped being cool about two decades ago.) What Keith (keith?) is saying is that price discovery has been completely shattered by the Fed attempting to prop up the stock markets. But that's OK; all retail investors have to do is keep chasing yield while racking up lots of brokerage fees for Keith and his buddies at c&c.

We're so screwed.

And this post is now a week old. I forgot to hit publish.

Survival

So I survived my first go-live in about a decade. Everything is more-or-less up and running and the bartenders are getting comfortable with the system. We still have some back-end issues to work out, but we are already getting some good information that we've never had before. Like just how much free alcohol we give away. And how much just goes missing. I predict the next bartender meeting will be rather... um... lively.

In other news, Debbie is back to work after another bout of whatever it is that is wrong with her neck/arm/wrist/whatever. This is the third time she's been through this. The first two times, she just took a few days off and it got better. This time was far worse and is still hanging on over a month later. We spent a few bajillion dollars on bone guys and nerve guys and x-rays and the consensus is that there isn't anything wrong. Nothing, that is, other than the debilitating numbness, tingling and pain that goes from the side of her face, down her neck, across her back and down her arm to her fingers. But other than that, everything looks good. We could spend another bajillion or so dollars on still more tests that may or may not reveal anything more useful than the universal shrug she's gotten so far. Or we could spend a few tens of dollars on the only person in Pasco county that is actually doing something to alleviate her symptoms: The Frank Clinic of Chiropractic & Natural Health Care. So much for the medical/industrial complex accomplishing anything useful with the 20% of GDP they consume every year.

Speaking of which, my doctor down at the ghetto clinic was concerned about a spot on my foot and referred me to a local podiatrist. I went a couple weeks ago and of course the only solution was to drive down to Tampa so I could hand over $3K for them to chop on my feet. Oh, and I wouldn't be able to work for a couple weeks. No big deal, right? I flat out told them, "No." From their expressions, you would have thought I had farted in their faces. Debbie's been off completely or on a reduced schedule since the first part of February, and money has been flowing out of our bank account like water from a fire hose trying to get some answers. We don't have an extra $3K just lying around, nor can I take two weeks off work during the absolutely crazy-busiest month at the lodge. Not. Gonna. Happen.

After a lot of arm waving and dire warnings that they might have to chop off my entire foot if I delayed surgery, they agreed to monitor my foot for now and do the surgery later. After two weeks, my foot is essentially healed up and the podiatrist was forced to admit that surgery was not, in fact, immediately necessary, and told me to call when I was ready for the surgery or if my foot started oozing anything.

And the secret ingredient in the secret ingredient noodle soup? Honey. Did it actually help? Who knows? All I do know is that instead of $3K+2 weeks lost wages for a foot surgery, we spent five bucks on big Band-Aids and used a few drops of honey we already had in the pantry. So don't expect the medical/industrial complex to jump all over that.

So I hear there's this whole Trump thing still going on. Last time I saw his bad toupee, he was making excuses for the implosion of yet-another of his "brilliant" ideas that made him millions while wiping out the fools who invested in whatever boondoggle he had cooked up. On the one hand, I just don't see how anyone can take this ass clown seriously. He obviously doesn't take himself seriously, with all the insanity and lies he spews every time a TV camera gets within a half-mile. On the other hand, given the endless failures of... well... pretty much everything the US has attempted in the last couple decades, Trump's string of failures, loose grip on reality and inability to tell the truth may make him the most qualified candidate we've seen in a long time. Especially when the alternatives are complete nut-jobs like Cruz. Not that the Democrats have anything better to offer; there it's either Ms It's-My-Turn staring down an indictment for numerous breaches of national security, or some fossilized socialist who hasn't said anything relevant since I was in elementary school. One reason why I'm just staying home. Again.

And my home town is back in the news:


If no one ends up in prison for this, we owe Charles Manson an apology.

Well, I was able to escape from work a little early today, so I should do something productive, like get our tax return filed. Or maybe just take a nap. One of those things.

Twas the Night Before Go Live

'Twas the night before go live and all through the house,
   Not a program was working, not a keyboard or mouse.
The programmers stared at their tubes in despair,
   With hopes that a miracle soon would be there.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
   While visions of QIOs danced in their heads.
When out of the basement there arose such a clatter,
   I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
   But a super programmer (with a six-pack of beer).
His resume glowed with experience so rare,
   He turned out great code with a bit-pusher's flair.
More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
   And he cursed and muttered and called them by name,
On Update/ On Transfer/ On Build/ On Delete/
   On Batch Jobs/ On Closings/ On Functions Complete/
His eyes were glazed over, fingers nimble and lean,
   From weekends and nights in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye and a twitch of his head,
   Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
   Turning specs into code; then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger upon the "ENTER" key,
   The system came up and worked perfectly.
The updates updated; the deletes, they deleted;
   The transfers transferred, and the closings completed.
He tested each whistle, and tested each bell,
   With nary a bomb, and all had gone well.
The system was finished, the tests were concluded,
   The users' last changes were even included.
And the user exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt,
   "It's just what I asked for, but not what I want!"

So yea. Today is likely the last day I will see the sun for a couple weeks. The lodge is going live on their new Point of Sale system tomorrow morning, which means I will likely be living at work for the next several days, at least.

I think we are ready, but something like this you never really know. I do know there is going to be push back from some employees as well as some of the patrons. The pricing of certain items has been, shall we say, flexible to the point that many of the members shop around to find who will sell them what they want the cheapest. Or give it to them for free. There is a lot of that as well. The system won't fix that completely, but it will make it much easier to spot and to put an end to it one way or another.

So that will consume my life for the next week or so. It's going to be worth it in the long run, but getting there is going to be interesting.

In other news, Debbie is back at work half-time after a three-week hiatus due to pain, numbness and tingling all down her right arm. The current theory is that there is some sort of nerve issue going on in her neck, but of course just confirming that means endless visits to multiple doctors and money pouring out in every direction like water. The worst part is we already know there won't be any real solution; once again the pain will subside on its own with no help from the Medical-Industrial Complex until the next time it flares up for no apparent reason. (This the third time this has happened since we moved to Florida. Each time it's a little worse and lasts a little longer.)

Assholes. Have I mentioned lately how much I loath healthcare?

In any case, she will be back to full-time work on Monday. The only place she has been that has any idea what to do or seems to help is The Frank Clinic of Chiropractic & Natural Health Care. Each visit costs us a fraction of what any of the "mainstream" "health providers" charge, and they actually do something rather than just talk about endless tests and visits to talk about the tests. Or if we are talking about the local ghetto clinic, charge for the tests then never give the results until we've nagged them for a couple weeks.

Shifting gears over to solar electricity for a bit: Back in January, John Michael Greer predicted that grid-tied utility-scale photovoltaics would be the new fracking now that the air is whooshing out of that particular bubble. He posted a follow-up last week. It seems things are moving even faster than he expected:

Climate activist Naomi Oreskes helped launch that new tone with a diatribe in the mass media insisting that questioning whether renewable energy sources can power industrial society amounts to “a new form of climate denialism.” The same sort of rhetoric has begun to percolate all through the greenward end of things: an increasingly angry insistence that renewable energy sources are by definition the planet’s only hope, that of course the necessary buildout can be accomplished fast enough and on a large enough scale to matter, and that no one ought to be allowed to question these articles of faith.

You really need to hit the link and read the entire article. Once again, here is my take on solar in general and photovoltaics in particular from the perspective of someone who has actually lived off-grid. It can be done. It is impossible. Depends on what "It" is. If "It" means living in less than 500 square feet and making modest amounts of electricity to run a laptop, a couple lights, a small high-efficiency 'fridge and a small TV used only on sunny days, then yea. It can be done. If instead you define "It" in the same way that the typical environmentalist does, meaning a 3,000 square foot McMansion lit up like an airport runway, with central air, a half-dozen 100" TV's, at least one computer, gaming system, tablet and smart phone per resident all running flat out 24/7, with enough juice left over to charge up a couple electric minivans, then no. It is impossible. Not even if you covered every square inch of the state of New Mexico with PV panels bought with money waved into existence with the Fed's magic QE wand.

Not that solar is useless. Some people use renewables for their entire energy budget. But they don't live anything like a typical middle-class American lifestyle. The idea that utility companies can just take their coal-fired plants offline and slap up a few solar panels and no one will ever know the difference is completely absurd. There is a Duke Energy ad that runs every once in a while down here in Florida. The basic message is that there are all these smart, hard-working people with all the latest high-tech gear that keep the power on so I don't have to even think when I reach for a light switch. First, anyone who has ever lived off-grid will never again take for granted flipping a light switch and having a light come on. Trust me on that. There is no colder cold or darker dark than the cold and dark when the batteries run out of juice at 3am when it is -20F, and you are outside trying desperately to get a cranky generator to start so the water pipes don't freeze. Been there, done that, ain't goin' back.

But more importantly, that unthinking switch flipping attitude does not work when your power is being supplied by intermittent renewables like wind and solar. Electricity from fossil fuels is essentially unlimited. (OK; not really, as a hundred or so households find out every Christmas when they plug in too many lights and burn their house down. But so abundant that it takes real effort to hit the limits.) It doesn't matter what time of day, or what the weather is like, or the time of year. If you want to plug something in and turn it on, you just do it. Renewables don't work that way.

And that's leaving aside the insane notion that the massive amounts of money needed to build out significant solar and wind electrical generation will just fall from the sky. For many years, there has been a large (taxpayer-subsidized, of course) build-out of windmills with the average year-over-year increase in capacity running more than 25% for a decade, and yet wind accounts for a measly 4.5% of electricity generated in the United States. Photovoltaics, at less than on-half of one percent, are a rounding error. Boosting those number up to a significant fraction of current electrical generation would involve an unimaginable increase in manufacturing and installation capacity over anything that exists today.

None of which will make any difference. After all, if there is anything left of your pension after the fracking bubble gets done with it, it will need to be invested in something, so why not put the last of your life savings in some nice, safe debt used to build out a bunch of solar farms so Jamie Diamond and the boys over at Goldman Sachs can make a few more billions while you take yet-another hit to your net worth when it all goes spiraling down the drain in a few years?

Happy New Year!!

It's only two weeks into the new year, so I'm not too late to wish everyone a happy 2016, right?

I'm not sure what happened to 2015. It just sort of disappeared after I finished up tax season. We really didn't get much of anything done on the house. In fact, we barely kept up with the day-to-day stuff. And now the first two weeks of 2016 are already gone.

As far as books, Debbie held up her end, but I was seriously slacking for some reason. For one thing, I've been doing more reading on the Kindle, and I have to say, I'm not really a fan. It seems to take me forever to finish up a book. At first I thought it was just getting used to not holding a physical book, but after a couple dozen books things haven't improved. It doesn't seem to be an eye-strain thing, and I'm not any more distracted than when reading a regular book. I just read painfully slow. Anyway, I only managed to read 49 books; less than my annual goal of one book a week on average. According to my Goodreads page, the least popular book that I read in 2015 was Shavertron: The Pre-Gafiation Years. Only two people other than myself read all about Teros living underground and being rayed by evil Deros, etc. Frankly, I'm surprised that there were that many. The most popular was Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. Than surprises me as well. I figured with all the Lee Child, Clive Cussler and other pop fiction writers in my 2015 reads, one of those would take the top spot, not something published in 1813 that (like most books of the time) takes a great many pages to tell a fairly simple story. (Dear Dick from the Internet: This isn't a criticism; I enjoyed the book and think a great many modern pop fiction authors could learn a thing or two about story-telling from Jane Austin. I'm just saying that her style of writing as well as subject matter doesn't seem to appeal to kids these days as evidenced by the first link the googles came up with when I typed in "pride and prejudice publication date".)

(And get off my lawn!!)

(And yes, we are going to see that when it comes out. I'm not that old....)

Last year, I stated that our only goals for 2015 were to not end up homeless and not murder our wacko neighbor. I'm happy to say that we managed both of those things!! Woohoo! Go us! In fact, the neighbor situation actually improved slightly in recent months after she figured out that no one in the park or at her church would do a damn thing for her, so she is better off not actively harassing us. She still ignores us, but I can live with that.

The big news for 2016 is that for the first time in a long time, I won't be working for a tax prep outfit. I'll still be doing the dozen or so returns that I do under my own EFIN, but no more Walmart Cubicle from Hell. Instead, I'm working an actual full-time, year-'round job for the first time in a long time. In fact, I started as the Administrative Assistant at the Zephyrhills Moose Lodge almost exactly nine years after leaving Munson. So far, it's going well and I'm back doing what I've always been comfortable with; spreadsheets, databases, making CAT5 cables, messing with routers and switches, etc. We have a new point-of-sale system that I've been setting up over the last six weeks that is going live at the end of January. I'm assuming I'll be living at the lodge for the first week or so after we go live. This is going to be a big change for the bartenders and a huge change for the waitstaff. But I think that ultimately, it will be good for the lodge and will give the board a much better handle on what is going on from week to week.

Debbie is still cranking out cruises and expects to keep on cranking out cruises until the entire cruise industry belly-flops or she becomes eligible for Social Security.

Or we hit the $1.5 billion Powerball tonight. Which is really a $930 million jackpot. It would be tight, but we could probably get by on that.

It's the beginning of a new year (or at least close to the beginning...), so that means one thing: predictions.

My personal predictions are fairly straight-forward. The air will continue to leak out of the fracking bubble, resulting in more bankruptcies, layoffs, etc. The former boom towns in the various frack fields are already starting to turn back into the near-ghost-towns they were a decade ago. As I said last year, this will impact more than just the oil companies; the junk bonds are lurking everywhere. Due to over-supply and increasingly, under-demand (is that a term?), I'd expect oil prices to stay low, continuing to damage the oil industry's productive capacity. At some point down the road, the production and consumption lines will cross and oil prices will jump back up to where they will benefit the oil companies at the expense of the rest of the economy. But I seriously doubt that will happen in 2016.

The twenty percent of the country doing well will continue to do well. The eighty percent who have been getting beat down will continue to get beat down. How much longer all the various debt-fueled plates can be kept spinning is anyone's guess. Some will inevitably fall while others will be kept going a little bit longer. One thing about doing taxes at Walmart; I saw a lot of what those crashing plates do to families in the 80%. It ain't pretty. I won't have a front-row seat this year, but I expect those folks are in for yet-another rough year.

Stocks are sure looking sad so far in 2016. As we know from the last several years, stock prices are fairly easy for companies and the Fed to manipulate, so it's probably significant that a) the annual Santa Clause rally was a no-show, and b) nothing seems to be able to halt the decline in the markets. My personal opinion is that the indexes are simply returning to rational levels, but I also know that a lot of people bought in well above those rational levels and will be wiped out in the process. The talking heads can say all they want about "paper losses", but that doesn't mean it has any less of a psychological effect on the person watching his 401K falling. The bottom could really fall out of the markets this year, but I expect instead we're in for another exciting roller coaster ride with the stock indexes flying all over the place with no relation to the underlying economy.

And that's probably enough from me. Some predictions from others:

John Michael Greer: Down the Ratholes of the Future

The ongoing depletion of fossil fuels and other nonrenewable resources will keep squeezing the global economy, as the real (i.e., nonfinancial) costs of resource extraction eat up more and more of the world’s total economic output, and this will drive drastic swings in the price of energy and commodities—currently those are still headed down, but they’ll soar again in a few years as demand destruction completes its work. The empty words in Paris a few weeks ago will do nothing to slow the rate at which greenhouse gases are dumped into the atmosphere, raising the economic and human cost of climate-related disasters above 2015’s ghastly totals—and once again, the hard fact that leaving carbon in the ground means giving up the lifestyles that depend on digging it up and burning it is not something that more than a few people will be willing to face.

James Howard Kunstler: Pretend to the Bitter End

Those terms might be somewhat negotiable if we could accept the reality of this re-set and prepare for it. But, alas, most of the people capable of thought these days prefer wishful techno-narcissistic woolgathering to a reality-based assessment of where things stand — passively awaiting technological rescue remedies (“they” will “come up with something”) that will enable all the current rackets to continue. Thus, electric cars will allow suburban sprawl to function as the preferred everyday environment; molecular medicine will eliminate the role of death in human affairs; as-yet-undiscovered energy modalities will keep all the familiar comforts and conveniences running; and financial legerdemain will marshal the capital to make it all happen.

Oh, by the way, here’s a second element of the story to stay alert to: that most of the activities on-going in the USA today have taken on the qualities of rackets, that is, dishonest schemes for money-grubbing. This is most vividly and nauseatingly on display lately in the fields of medicine and education — two realms of action that formerly embodied in their basic operating systems the most sacred virtues developed in the fairly short history of civilized human endeavor: duty, diligence, etc.

Dmitry Orlov: My Prescription for 2016: Collapse Early and Often

Not too many people, I expect, will want to follow my prescription; not too many of my family members, or friends, or acquaintances, or you who are reading this. And that's fine because, as I have learned over and over again, there is no strength in numbers. Quite the opposite: the probability of any given trick working is in inverse proportion to the number of times it is tried, or the number of people who try it. And so, if you are reading along and think “I can't possibly do this because of [insert lame excuse]!” then—good! Fine with me. Fewer people equals more oxygen.

And that applies to the few people who will actually bother to read this. Lots more people will not want to read this, because—what collapse? Gasoline prices are low, Obama has shut down most of the wars, the economy is strong enough for the Fed to have started hiking rates, and once Bernie Trump gets into the White House, everything else will be set right too. To the people who think that, someone like me, who predicted collapse a while back, was clearly wrong, and needs to be psychoanalyzed, not followed. Again, fine with me, so long and thanks for all the bullshit.

Gail Tverberg: 2016: Oil Limits and the End of the Debt Supercycle

What is ahead for 2016? Most people don’t realize how tightly the following are linked:

1. Growth in debt
2. Growth in the economy
3. Growth in cheap-to-extract energy supplies
4. Inflation in the cost of producing commodities
5. Growth in asset prices, such as the price of shares of stock and of farmland
6. Growth in wages of non-elite workers
7. Population growth

It looks to me as though this linkage is about to cause a very substantial disruption to the economy, as oil limits, as well as other energy limits, cause a rapid shift from the benevolent version of the economic supercycle to the portion of the economic supercycle reflecting contraction. Many people have talked about Peak Oil, the Limits to Growth, and the Debt Supercycle without realizing that the underlying problem is really the same–the fact the we are reaching the limits of a finite world.

And that should keep everyone busy for a little while.

(Yes, Debbie. I know. tl;dr)

Christmas Moon

The first full moon on Christmas since 1977; the next one won't be until 2038. We thought we weren't going to be able to see it. It was supposed to be cloudy and raining. But that never happened and instead we had sunny skies and highs in the upper 80's for Christmas.

Tomorrow, vacation is over and it's back to the grind.

Merry Christmas!!

Because nothing says Christmas like boring repitit... er... Tradition:








A new one for this year we heard Wednesday while we were at Busch Gardens. This recording doesn't capture the seriously amped-up bass. I'd be surprised if there isn't some sort of structural damage being done to the building.



I've had no luck trying to find out who performed this. My first thought was Trans Siberian Orchestra. They have a version of Carol of the Bells, but this isn't it. Not often the googles comes up completely empty.

Well, today is a full day, so I need to get at it.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Yo Saturnalia or whatever holiday greeting floats your boat.

Fundraising Update

Our lodge's final Toys for Tots fundraising event was on Saturday, December 12. I don't think that many (or more likely, any) of our members read my mini-sermon I posted. We certainly didn't come anywhere near my $40K-plus-toys challenge. We did, however, raise more than we have ever raised in the past: over $17,000 in cash plus another $6,000 (very conservative estimate) in toys. Given how badly the Marines were freaking out, it's probably a good thing we didn't raise any more than that. In any case, a bunch of East Pasco kids who would have nothing Christmas morning now will. And yes, it was all we could do to not tear into the boxes and play with some of the toys ourselves. Not to sound like a bitter old fart, but Holy Crap Do Kids Have Cool Stuff These Days!!!!

On the home front, Debbie is gearing up for her busy season at work with some days crazy busy, while other days she may as well have stayed in bed. I'm getting deeply into a new point-of-sale system the lodge purchased. I had hoped to have it all up and running by now, but it appears that my ten-year hiatus from the computer industry has not improved the ethics of computer software salesmen. (Salespeople? Salespersons? Anyway, "salesman" is an accurate description of our particular liar.) It's partially my fault for us getting strung along for so long. The second I saw the default inventory app, I knew there was no possible way it could do what we were told it could do. I've written enough inventory/purchase order systems that I should have immediately twigged to the fact that we had been had by Clover. Not that the system is useless; for small businesses, it is plenty capable. And there is a third-part app that adds the functionality we were promised, but it costs an additional $20/month over the cost of the system. I realize $20 a month may not sound like a big deal to, say, a software salesman pulling down six figures a year, but to a small non-profit it's not nothing. Add in the fact that either my boss or myself have to go back to the board and explain that we were suckered and to make the system do what we thought it would do for us, we have to spend more money.

The other option is that I roll something in-house, but being out of the game as long as I have will make that a challenge. Certainly not impossible, but not easy. I'm not even sure what sort of data we can get out of the system. I know there are reports that can be exported as Excel spreadsheets, but until I have some data to work with, I have no idea what those look like. There is supposedly an API built into Clover, but you have to be a developer to learn anything about it other than that it exists. I should know more by the end of the week. (Meaning the end of my work week, not the end of the calendar week.) One other thing we were promised was that all our data would be loaded into the system for us. I don't know how long that normally takes, but I sent some of the data off last Friday and hadn't heard anything by Tuesday morning. So I decided screw that, and loaded it myself in about four hours. Not sure why I need Pakistani child labor, or whatever Clover uses, to type in a couple dozen categories and less than a hundred items. Anyway, I'm rollin' now and look to have the system ready for training and installation probably this weekend.

I had to giggle earlier today while reading an article linked to by The Automatic Earth. It seems that all those pushy, self-righteous lefty vegans who claim meat-eaters are destroying the planet are full of crap. Growing vegetables takes more energy, water, etc. than "growing" the equivalent number of calories in the form of meat. The trick that has been used to hide this little fact is to compare the weight of vegetables vs. an equivalent weight of meat rather than the number of calories from each. Granted, Americans consume too many calories, regardless of what form they come in, and it is certainly easier to over-eat meat than it is vegetables. However, simply reducing caloric intake would be more beneficial to the environment (and the person) than switching to plants instead of animals. Of course, my take-away is that this is an indictment of how we produce food in the good ol' USA rather than what a person is eating. A salad or chicken dinner that I grow in my backyard has far less environmental impact that a 3,000-mile Caesar Salad or KFC made from Chinese chicken. But that conversation is not allowed.

Well, gotta go make the donuts. (Actually, pork chops, but WhatEvar...)

The Least of These

³¹When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: ³²And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: ³³And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

³⁴Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: ³⁵For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: ³⁶Naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. ³⁷Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, and fed you? or thirsty, and gave you drink? ³⁸When saw we you a stranger, and took you in? or naked, and clothed you? ³⁹Or when saw we you sick, or in prison, and came to you? ⁴⁰And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.

⁴¹Then shall he say also to them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: ⁴²For I was an hungered, and you gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink: ⁴³I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not. ⁴⁴Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we you an hungered, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you? ⁴⁵Then shall he answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. ⁴⁶And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Matthew 25:31-46 KJV

I generally don't start out my posts with long quotes from the Bible (or any other book, for that matter), but there is a specific reason in this case. The Moose Lodge that Debbie and I belong to just had our big kick-off event for the East Pasco Toys for Tots on Saturday. The event was successful beyond anything we could have possibly imagined. We're not entirely sure how many people came through the lodge during the 12-hour event, but we started with 350 wrist bands, then had to send someone on an emergency run for 500 more. Monday morning when the administrator and myself were sorting through the debris, we found a couple dozen wrist bands left over. We thought the original 350 bands would be more than enough. Shows what we know.

In any case, the event was a band marathon running from noon to midnight. We ended up with 18 bands participating. Half were rock bands that we ran on the social quarters side of the lodge, and the other half were country-western and/or oldies acts that we put on the hall side. Both sides were filled to capacity for most of the day. The event was open to the public with admission being either an unwrapped new toy, or a minimum $5 donation. Once you were inside, we had several 50/50 raffles every hour and an entire banquet table of stuff that people had donated that was also being raffled off. In short, the money was really flowing in, and so were the toys.

This is the first of five fundraising events that our lodge is hosting for Toys for Tots between last Saturday and our big, grand finale Christmas Ball on December 12. Our goal was to collect $20,000 in toys and cash. At Saturday's band marathon, we came close to half our goal. Everyone is really stoked about that, as am I.

But I'm also not. Allow me to explain. Yes, it's great we set an ambitious goal, a goal that is much higher than anything we've raised in the past for Toys for Tots. It's fantastic that we look to easily beat that goal. However, before we dislocate our collective shoulders patting ourselves on the back, lets do a little basic arithmetic. Our lodge and chapter have well over 3,000 members between them. I realize that number includes people who are not active and will likely allow their dues to expire next time they come due. And that some of those members are physically or mentally incapacitated and can't realistically be expected to participate in lodge activities. But I think I'm on fairly solid ground when I say that at least 2,000 of them do not fall into either of those categories. (If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will quickly set me straight. There are people in the lodge who love nothing better than to correct everyone else, and as a natural-born people-pleaser, I try to make everyone happy.) So we'll use 2,000 as the number of active members. A mere $20 per member is not $20,000. It's $40,000.

No matter how you slice it, if you are an active member of a fraternity, $20 is chump change. It's the loose change in your car's ashtray. It's less than you spend every Saturday at Steak Nite. It's the $20 that you just stuck in the pull tab machine or used to buy another round of drinks. I'm not asking for $20 every week, or even every month. All I'm asking for is $20 once a year.

So here it is: I'm issuing a challenge to the members of the Zephyrhills Moose Lodge 2276 and Women of the Moose Chapter 1682 to raise $40,000 in cash plus toys for the East Pasco Toys for Tots for Christmas 2015.

Now lets take a minute to back up and explain the relevance of that long quote at the start of the post. At the beginning of every men's meeting in every Moose lodge, there's this little bit where a guy opens a Bible and declares, "This is the Holy Bible; our inspiration and our guide." Well, that quote is certainly part of the Bible and therefore, is to be considered an inspiration and guide to anyone who is a member. (I'm assuming that the women's meetings have something similar. Never having been to one of their meetings, I can't say for sure. Again, if my assumption is wrong, I'm certain that I shall be set aright.) The writer of the Gospel of Matthew is pretty clear about what we are to do, whom we are to do it for, and what the consequences are if we fail to do so.

[Side note: Yes, I am aware that certain factions of Christianity have a real problem with this passage. As someone who spent the first forty years of his life in one of those factions, I've heard all the overly-intellectualized meanderings I care to listen to as to why this passage isn't saying what it obviously is. So please... just... ya know, don't.]

I know that it is popular just now in these united States to blame the poor for their plight. Anyone with several hours to spare can ask me what I think about that particular bit of neo-liberal bullshit. Regardless, we are not talking about adults; we are discussing children. No child has ever asked to be hungry, naked or homeless. However much we may choose to blame their parents, I see no rational way the parents' "sins" can be imputed to the children, and I'm quite sure I don't want to be associated with anyone who would even dare make the attempt.

And because this is the internet, I need to include the following:

Dear Dick from the Internet,

Nothing in this post should be construed as a criticism of what our lodge has done for Toys for Tots (or any other charity) in prior years. If my wife and I were not impressed with how much the lodge has done and is doing in East Pasco, we wouldn't be members. All I'm saying is that it is not just possible, but falling-off-a-log simple to do so much more.

And yes I understand how poor you are and how dare I ask for money so some poors can have a better Christmas than your own kids. All I can say to that is you have a computer and internet access. If your kids have a crappy Christmas, you need to rethink your priorities.

Sincerely,
Ric

And before this turns into a book, I'll wrap up with this:

C'mon Zephyrhills Lodge! Lets Loose the Moose!!

Triskaidekaphobia

Friday the 13th was on a Friday this month. The day we had at the lodge seemed to fit pretty well with the date. It started out bad, then went to worse, then proceeded to horrible. But we survived; and I get to go back tomorrow and do it again. Wee.

Debbie and I have been traveling, though not together. I flew up to Michigan to drive my parents down here for the winter, while Debbie and her mom enjoyed a free 2-day cruise. I got back here around midnight Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and Debbie and her mom rolled in Wednesday evening. We both were back at work on Thursday. I played catch-up at my work while Debbie won another free cruise on the Carnival Vista. We have from January 2, 2016 to December 30, 2017 to take whatever 7-day cruise we want that leaves out of the Vista's regular port. Usually, these freebees are for an inside cabin, but this one is for a balcony! Woohoo!!

I was going to write up one of my diatribes about the nonsense at the "University" of Missouri, but my usual procrastination paid off and Fred Reed beat me to it:

How many of the black athletes, or black radicals at Missouri, or anywhere, have any business being at a university? How many have IQs below ninety? How many are way below? How many are studying real subjects, such as chemistry, languages, philosophy, literature, or history—as distinct from subjects for the enfeebled, Black Studies, Sociology, Education, and Breathing for Credit?

How many of the jocks can read? In many universities the black athletes are kept in special dorms and get high grades for courses they never attend and can’t spell. Is that happening in Missouri? Can we see their SATs? No one, I promise, will want to check.

Stray thought: If universities accepted only those with intelligence and interest, the noise level would drop appreciably. I am for it.

I know I keep saying it, but I'll say it again: Anyone who insists their child go into debt for life for the "privilege" of participate in this stupidity is guilty of child abuse. Get 'em a library card instead and apprentice them to a local tradesman.

And I'm off to bed so I can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow.

Following Up

I know I said I was going to try to post more than once a month, but life keeps getting in the way. Namely, this whole job thing. Not that I'm unhappy with being a productive member of society once again (whatever that means); it's just that I only found time to write a post once a month or so when I was working part-time, seasonal jobs. Working full time year-'round hasn't really improved the situation. Anyway. I'll be doing some rearranging of what I spend time on over the next couple months which will hopefully get me back on track here.

I know y'all are excited. Try to stay calm.

One thing that I've pretty much given up on (again) is Facecrack. I know this makes something like the third time I've sworn off the thing, but this time feels different. There wasn't any conscious decision that "I'm never logging onto Facebook again!" I didn't even "delete" my account. I just stopped taking the time to look at it. And guess what? The world didn't end. Who knew?!?!

I've also gotten rid of a couple blogs. One hadn't been updated in nearly a year and the second had been idle even longer than that, so it wasn't like either of them were taking up significant amounts of time. But having them sitting there staring accusingly at me just added to the whole inertia thing. So they're gone forever (-ish; nothing on the internet ever really goes away, but it would take some effort to find them). I'm keeping the Uncle Charlie blog, because there is some family history there that isn't readily available from other sources, and I still intend to make some additions when I get the time. (It always comes back to that...) Besides, that particular project doesn't seem as urgent. The information is static; what exists I pretty much have in my possession and Uncle Charlie certainly isn't doing much writing these days, so I don't feel the need to post more than once or twice a year. Which means that the information should probably be on something other than a blog, but hey; Blogger is what I know and I'm not interesting in wrestling with something new. That would give me another reason to procrastinate, which I'm already pretty good at, thank you very much.

The new job: As I mentioned last month, I'm back where I started doing bookkeeping and spreadsheets, along with some other internal stuff specific to the Moose Lodge like processing memberships, etc. None of it is rocket science, but Moose International has certain ways that they want to see things done. Some of them are common sense once you understand the nuances of IRC 501(c)(8). Others are... um... more subtle in their logic. In any case, I'm feeling pretty settled in at this point. Of course yesterday the lodge administrator signed the paperwork committing to installing a brand new shiny point-of-sale system covering the bar and kitchen portion of the operation. The lodge has never had anything even remotely like this before, so this is one of those standing-broad-jump-type installs. In some ways, that makes things easier; in others, not so much. But it will get done and it will be an over-all positive for the lodge. And the lodge administrator and I will be busier than a couple one-armed paperhangers for the next few months.

A couple posts ago, I wrote a long rant on Cecil the Lion. In that, I talked about how the revenue from trophy hunting supported local villages and also incentivised the locals to not kill lions and other nuisance "Disney animals", like elephants. Unintended consequences being what they are... well, best to hear it from a local:

“Before, when there was hunting, we wanted to protect those animals because we knew we earned something out of them,” said Jimmy Baitsholedi Ntema, a villager in his 60s. “Now we don’t benefit at all from the animals. The elephants and buffaloes leave after destroying our plowing fields during the day. Then, at night, the lions come into our kraals.”

Once again, Americans decide what is best for people living on another continent with no knowledge, or even any interest in knowing, the real-world effects of our actions. We are far too busy patting ourselves on the back for being so morally superior to those poor, dumb nige... um... Africans of Color.

I haven't posted much on the anthropogenic climate change jihad lately because not much has changed, other than how outrageous the lies are getting:

There are two stories floating around about the state of the earth’s atmosphere. Both are believed true by government-funded scientists and the environmentally minded. The situation is curious because the stories don’t mesh. Yet, as I said, both are believed. Worse, neither is true.

Story number one is that this year will be the hottest ever. And number two is that the reason it is not hot is because “natural variation” has masked or stalled man-caused global warming.

Which is it? Either it’s hotter than ever or it isn’t. If it is, then (it is implied) man-caused global warming has not “paused.” If it isn’t, if man-caused global warming has “paused,” then it is not growing hotter.

And just to be clear on where I stand: Yes the climate is changing. At no point in the 4 billion-year history of the earth has it not been changing. Sometimes those changes happen over such long periods of time that they would seem like stasis at human timescales. Other times the changes have been very rapid. Both have happened numerous times long before humans began burning fossil fuels. Yes, we are messing with the chemical make-up of the only breathable atmosphere we have access to, which probably counts as some level of stupid. Yes, fossil fuel extraction causes enormous damage to the biosphere. If you don't believe that, Google up images of the aftermath of tar sands extraction or mountaintop removal. Or even conventional oil extraction in countries with dysfunctional governments like Nigeria that allow oil companies to take every possible short-cut. None of which justifies so-called scientists changing data in order to make it fit some politically-correct result, or engaging in literal witch-hunts aimed at anyone who refuses to toe the line.

It would also help if everyone who proclaims that fossil fuels are the ultimate evil would stop using them!

It really is that simple. If, as we are repeatedly told by the mass media, renewables are now as cheap or cheaper than fossil fuels, then by all means, lead the way! Slap some solar panels on the roof of that McMansion of yours and go off-grid! Drive nothing but your electric car that you also charge from those same solar panels! Never fly on an airplane, ride a train, sail on a cruise ship or use any other fossil-fueled means of conveyance ever again!! Do that, and I swear I will become one of you!

Note that I'm letting you off incredibly easy. I didn't say that your solar panels had to be built entirely from raw materials mined and refined with renewable energy and built in a solar-powered factory. I didn't insist that your electric car likewise be built in a renewable-powered car factory. I didn't even tell you that you have to give up the massive energy-hog called the internet. All I'm asking you to do is give up your personal, end-user fossil fuel consumption for powering, heating and/or cooling your own home, and stop using fossil fuels to haul your ass around. That's it. Now get to it and leave me a note in the comments when you've accomplish that incredibly modest goal.

Oh, and as one of the .0001% of North Americans who have actually tried to live off-grid, let me just say, "Good luck with that."

And that should be enough for now.

Full Circle

Well, I'm back doing essentially what I was doing as a job back in 1984. Our Moose Lodge administrator came to me a couple weeks ago and asked if I would be interested in working in the office full time. I'd sub'ed a couple times when he was off at conferences, so I had a pretty good idea of what would be required. Given that they are willing to pay me more than I've made in most of a decade and the job is literally right around the corner, the answer was pretty easy.

So no more tax seasons sitting in Walmart Hell. I'll still do some returns on the side, but not the hundreds I've done over the last few years. That by itself makes the change worthwhile; forget about the higher pay, better hours and year-'round work. I do have to work every Saturday and Sunday, but I have Wednesday's and Thursday's off. Debbie gets Thursday off whenever she works a Saturday, so she'll just work more Saturday's so we have a day off together. It's not like what day of the week it is really makes a difference to us anyway.

So other than all that, not much else going on. Other than the obvious Florida summer stuff like it's frackin' HOT and RAINS EVERY DAY. Except today; it's just HOT with bright white hot sun and not a cloud in the sky. Not sure that's really an improvement. [Before I was able to post this, a thunderstorm blew in and is currently dumping a couple inches of rain on us. Remember the old joke about how if you didn't like the weather in Michigan, just hang around for a minute and it will change? Florida has Michigan beat six ways to Sunday on that score.] Of course in a few months I'll be whining because it's so cold that I have to wear a shirt and enclosed shoes. Maybe even socks. We'll just have to tough it out somehow....

I stopped watching, listening and reading (and quite frankly caring in any way about) anything from the mainstream media around 15 years ago or so, and last walked into a voting booth in 2004. So you know things must be completely crazy if I'm hearing about it. As far as I understand, some significant portion of the US population over the age of 35 is running for the GOP nomination. I was at work and some 24-hour news station was playing over the bar showing pictures of everyone running. There were, like, three screens of postage-stamp-sized photos. Other than Trump and three or four other people, I had no idea who any of these people even were. Have the GOP party hacks lost complete control of their party? Can we go back to the good ol' days when parties decided who their candidates were going to be in some smoke-filled room? Oh, right. This is supposed to be more democratic. Which just proves that there is such a thing as too much democracy.

But even a recluse like me can see that there is a shift occurring, and not just in the United States. John Michael Greer took a break from his series of posts to comment on the upset in Britain's Labor Party:

...a sign I’ve been awaiting for quite some time has appeared on the horizon—the first rumble of a tectonic shift that will leave few things unchanged. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t happen in the United States, but I was somewhat startled to see where it did happen. That would be in Britain, where Jeremy Corbyn has just been elected head of Britain’s Labour Party.

...

Logically speaking, if the policies you propose don’t yield the results you expect, you change the policies. That’s not what’s happened so far in this case, though.  Quite the contrary, the accelerating failures of neoliberalism have been met across the board by an increasingly angry insistence from the corridors of power that neoliberal policies are the only options there are.

What Jeremy Corbyn’s election shows is that that insistence has just passed its pull date. Corbyn’s an old-fashioned Labourite of the pre-Blair variety, and he’s made it clear for decades that he supports the opposite of the neoliberal consensus: more regulation of finance and industry, higher tax rates and fewer handouts to the rich, more benefits for the poor, and a less aggressive foreign policy.

As JMG points out elsewhere in his essay (and has been repeating endlessly since the start of his blog in 2006), different should never be confused with better. And even if a proposed change seems to be better, the follow-up question ought to be for whom. We do seem to be living in interesting times.

Speaking of interesting times, is everyone enjoying the crazy and completely illogical swings in the stock market? Now that we're pretty much fully in greenbacks, I know I've been enjoying the high-pitched squeals and puckered-sphincter looks from all the talking heads every time markets take another plunge. Oh, and anybody remember all the Saudi America crap that was being ladled out so generously a while back? Wonder why you haven't heard anything about that lately? Lessee if I understand what all the excitement was about: Borrow billions, use the money to over-produce a fungible commodity thus crashing its market price, then produce even more of it in a (mostly-vain) attempt to service those borrowed billions. Rinse and repeat. What could possibly go wrong? We should all be stinkin' rich in no time!

And this is from what are supposed to be the smartest people in the room? No wonder Trump is leading in the polls.

Anyway, I need to get things cleaned up and go to bed early so I can get up for another exciting day in the office!

Cecil the Lion

The internet was set aflame by the story of Cecil; a lion supposedly beloved of locals in Zimbabwe killed by a dentist from Minnesota. As usual in these cases, facts are hard to come by. There are no longer any sources you can trust for information. Every media outlet, internet or otherwise, reports unsubstantiated rumors as unvarnished Truth. The hunt was illegal, the guide a well-known local poacher. The lion suffered in agony for 40 hours. Dr. Palmer is a pedophile. Zimbabwe is looking to extradite Dr. Palmer. Zimbabwean locals have no idea who this "Cecil" was. The hunt was perfectly legal, conducted by a licensed guide.

I could go on for pages, but anyone who has tried to get to the bottom of any news story in the last ten years or so already knows the drill. True journalists, people who bother to fact check and at least try to get to the truth of a story, are like unicorns or honest politicians. They simply don't exist.

Meanwhile, for the safety of himself and his patients, Dr. Palmer has closed his dental practice, as he, his family, and anyone who has ever been a patient are now considered fair game. Literally. The local police have lost count of the thousands of death threats. Personal details of not just Palmer's life, but every member of his family are being shared on the internet. But it's all good; Palmer, the internet assures us, is filthy rich and can move himself and his family off to some foreign country to live incommunicado, safe from death threats and/or legal repercussions of his hunting trip.

This is the new "animal rights" movement in all its glory: Demonstrate your love of animals by dehumanizing people, destroying their lives and the lives of anyone close to them, or anyone who makes any attempt to defend them. Carriage horse owners in New York City. Elephant trainers in circuses. Owners of ponies who give rides to children at fairs. Hunters. Small-scale farmers. (Factory farms are kept safe behind a wall of bought-and-paid-for politicians.) Trainers who work with animals used in movies or TV. All these groups have been and/or are being subjected to the tender ministrations of these so-called animal rights activists. The tactics used are predictable. The person or group are horrible people, beneath contempt, outcasts, drunkards, racists. Their actions are indefensible to all right-thinking people. Inevitably, the person or group being demonized is labeled (always without even a shred of evidence) pedophiles or rapists. Which probably says more about the accusers mental state than the accused, but does little to mitigate the damage such accusations cause.

The favorite tool of the modern "activist" is, of course, social media. Anyone remember when the internet was supposed to eliminate arbitrary barriers and brings us all together in peace and harmony, singing Kumbaya? Instead, it became a place for international mobs to form over random news stories (even if it happens to be completely fake, like the UofV rape case), demonizing random individuals or groups and completely destroying their lives, then just as quickly moving on to the next outrage. The mainstream media, so focused on being "relevant" and eager to fill up all those 24-hour news channels, jumps on board without so much as the most cursory of investigations, never bothering to retract even blatant lies.

Left behind is the wreckage that was once some human being's life. And no one even had to leave the comfort of their living room couch or work cubicle to make it happen.

I'm a hunter and unrepentant meat-eater. I'm comfortable with killing game for food. I see no difference in killing, gutting, skinning, cooking and eating a rabbit, squirrel or deer, and going to Walmart and picking up a package of chicken, beef or pork. Other than in the later instance, I've paid someone else to do the dirty work for me. However, I will say that I'm uncomfortable with pure trophy hunting; killing an animal only for the purpose of displaying some part of it on your den wall. Note that I'm not talking about getting the head of a deer mounted that was killed primarily for the dinner table. I'm referring to what Dr. Palmer's hunt appears to have been; the killing of an animal purely for the sake of displaying some part of it on a floor or wall.

Note that I said, "uncomfortable with" rather than "violently opposed to". I fully understand that trophy hunting (as well as the less-lethal version, the photo safari) provides much needed income for countries like Zimbabwe. That it is much easier to convince locals to accept the loss of some cattle to predators from the neighboring preserve if they receive some benefit from them being there. That safari income is what pays the salaries of staff who go after commercial poachers. That some "Disney animals" like lions, tigers and elephants are over-populating certain areas, meaning some must be culled for the benefit of the remaining animals. That large predators can go rogue by hunting humans and need to be killed. I fully appreciate all of it. That doesn't mean that I would ever participate in such a hunt. However, should someone else choose to, I'm certainly not going to label him a murderer and try to destroy him and everyone around him.

In this instance, the part of the story that I do find disturbing is the length of time from the first shot to the lion being killed. If the forty-hour figure flying around the internet is even close to being true, something went terribly wrong out in the field. Someone, either Dr. Palmer or the guide (or both), at a minimum displayed bad judgement and more likely, incompetence. "Never take a shot unless you know it will be lethal" was pounded into my head at a very young age. Know your weapon, know its limitations, know your limitations, were simply givens. Leaving an animal wounded by a bad shot to suffer and die slowly was considered the worst sort of slob hunting. Because we are not living in some Utopia, things go bad from time to time. But you take every possible precaution to reduce the likelihood of things going sideways. Most importantly, if there is any doubt of a clean kill, if anything feels off in any way, don't take the shot. That something so basic seems to have been ignored is certainly troubling to me. Assuming there is any more truth to the forty-hour pursuit "fact" than there is in the accusations that Dr. Palmer is some sort of sexual predator.

Now I'm seeing Facebook petitions calling for the elimination of all trophy hunting. First of all, is there anyone over the age of twelve that believes "signing" any sort of online petition or sharing a post on Facebook has any impact whatsoever, other than making you feel good about yourself for "doing something" while not actually doing anything? Secondly, definitions matter. What, exactly, is a trophy hunt? If I take home a pound of giraffe meat along with the head and hide, is it still a trophy hunt? How about two pounds? Three? Thirty? If the goal is to ban all killing of "Disney animals", what do we do about over-population or rogues? How many local children killed and eaten do you think it will take before locals start killing animals? How much dead livestock or destroyed food crops? Third, given the success of the ban on sales of ivory and rhino horn in turning poaching into a multinational cartel, does anyone think a ban on trophy hunting would have the intended effect?

And once again, I've probably pissed off enough people and should head off to bed.

Family Events

July so far has been Family Event Month. On Sunday, July 5, Debbie's niece got married:

Jerrica and Mike

Jerrica doing her "I'm shy" bit

I wasn't able to attend due to prior commitments at the Moose Lodge, so Debbie flew up on Saturday, attended the wedding on Sunday, then flew back on Monday.

Then on July 11, we had another of Debbie's niece's graduation open house. When we checked on airfare, the prices completely sucked, as in over $300 each. Why airfare was reasonable on a major holiday weekend, then completely out of sight the weekend after a major holiday weekend is something only the Gods of the Airline Computers can really answer. So we decided to drive up and back to save on money. We left Thursday night after Debbie got off work, drove all night and landed at Debbie's mom's place Friday afternoon. We slept there a bit, jumped up early Saturday to drive the rest of the way to Alpena for the open house. We couch-surfed there, then up Sunday morning to drive straight through all the way to Zephyrhills. We managed it, but it took a toll on our aging bodies. I remember being able to do silly things like this when we were in our 20's like it was nothing. Not anymore.

In any case, a couple pictures:

Devin

Polacks doing what polacks always do in groups: eating, drinking, and BSing.

Today is a rain day, which is why I'm doing this instead of working outside. Before we left, I got a fresh coat of stain on the porch which is finally dry enough to move all the porch furniture out of my shed and back on the porch. If it ever stops raining. It will be a joy to finally be able to get into my shed again.

John Oliver hits another one out of the park, so to speak. This segment is on the insanity of taxpayer-funded sports stadiums:



Maybe I'm turning into a curmudgeon, but I find myself caring less and less about professional sports. Not that I've ever cared that much in the first place, but I would at least watch a game or two and have some vague notion whether the home team was doing well or not. Now I can't even muster that little bit of interest. Most of the players and all the team owners act and talk like narcissistic sociopaths rather than someone that ought to be looked up to or celebrated in any way. The massive amounts of money sloshing around, not just in professional sports, but college and even high school sports as well, has corrupted everything and everyone involved to the very core. Players suffering permanent brain injuries seem to be the rule rather than the exception, no matter how much padding you wrap the them in. And all so some lard-ass who can't walk ten feet without running out of breath can live vicariously through "his" team, and spend weekends screaming such uplifting sentiments as, "Rip his head off, Kowalski!!" while spraying everyone in a ten-foot radius with half-chewed nachos.

And that's probably enough on that.

All Done with F*&King IRS (and some other stuff)

I'm officially done with the IRS. I'm tired of the constant bullshit and expense with this whole Enrolled Agent thing and it turns out that it's been all for nothing anyway. All done. Kiss my ass.

In other news, we went to Alaska and tramped around a bit:

Anchorage, Alaska

Denali from Mt. McKinley Lodge

Talkeetna

View from our room at the Denali lodge

Denali from inside the park

Margaret Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier

Ketchikan Lumberjack Show

The weather was completely unbelievable. We went packed for 50's and rain and instead got 80's and sunny skies. We were able to see all of Denali the entire five days we were there. Normally, there is only a clear view of Denali for something like eight days a year. We managed to dodge the wildfire as well, although our train from Denali to the cruise ship did get held up for a couple hours because the fire was burning near the tracks. We finally got through and they held the ship for us (advantage of using the cruise line's transfers), so it worked out, but we were getting a little nervous. These are from the train:

Since we've been back, I've done a whole lot of nothing. I need to get outside and get things in shape. The jungle took over a bit while we were away and I need to get things back under control, get a coat of stain on the porch, get some painting and caulking done, etc. Lots to do, just not a lot of motivation to do it.

Over at John Michael Greer's Archdruid Report, he's had a series of posts on the five phases of the decline and fall of a civilization. He calls the phases the Eras of Pretense, Impact, Response, Breakdown, and Dissolution. Our current western industrial civilization is firmly in the Era of Pretense, but as John Michael repeatedly points out in his books and on his blog, the process isn't linear or coherent. Different places will run through these phases at different times and rates and on different scales. For example, right at the moment, Michigan is in a later phase than the rest of the US:

One city neglected to inform its residents that its water supply was laced with cancerous chemicals. Another dissolved its public school district and replaced it with a charter school system, only to witness the for-profit management company it hired flee the scene after determining it couldn’t turn a profit. Numerous cities and school districts in the state are now run by single, state-appointed technocrats, as permitted under an emergency financial manager law pushed through by Rick Snyder, Michigan’s austerity-promoting governor. This legislation not only strips residents of their local voting rights, but gives Snyder’s appointee the power to do just about anything, including dissolving the city itself -- all (no matter how disastrous) in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”

I knew it was bad, but not living there anymore, I hadn't realized just how far gone things really were. I'd put Michigan as a whole in Greer's Era of Response; frantic attempts to prop up the status quo by any means necessary; fair, foul, unconstitutional, etc., while failing to realize that the status quo is the root cause of the state's problems.

But, in keeping with Greer's idea of the fractal nature of decline, most of the state is still a blooming paradise when compared with Detroit:

Highland Park is a tiny 3-square-mile municipality located within Detroit. Extremely dangerous, blighted, and 94% black, Highland Park is a concentrated example of the conditions in Detroit’s poorest neighborhoods—what some call the “Detroit of Detroit.”

In late 2011, the impoverished little municipality was so deep in debt to its public electric company, DTE Energy, that the local government was forced to decommission all streetlights on its residential streets. Not only did DTE cut the power to street lights in Highland Park, it sent out workers to physically dig up and remove nearly 1,000 light-poles from the neighborhood. Highland Parkers now live in permanent, debt-induced darkness.

Six miles away, in Detroit’s rapidly gentrifying downtown area, DTE Energy runs a very different public policy. The same company that repossessed 1,000 streetlights from Highland Park, condemning its residents to permanent darkness, has recently launched a pro-bono security program in the increasingly white area.

And here we see the fractal pattern being repeated at the level of individual neighborhoods, with different parts of the Detroit Metro area in different eras of collapse.

So what about where you live? Is everyone still gliding along with their head in the sand pretending all is well, or are things a bit further along? It's a fun little game the whole family can play!!

Before May is Gone...

Not sure where the month of May went to, but I thought I'd post something here before we slip into June.

The primary reason it's been quiet on the blog is that we've busier than one-armed paper hangers for some reason. I seems like every time we think we have some spare time, something comes up that we have to head out on some errand or take care of some emergency or another. Even when we do get a day to ourselves, we're so far behind on the normal household crap that our "day off" winds up being consumed with dishes, laundry and other such fun tasks.

Most of the busy has involved the Moose Lodge. As I mentioned last post, I went and got myself elected Treasurer, so now I'm working in the office for a few hours in the morning one or two days a week, plus meetings, meetings and more meetings. As well, there are various expectations made of all elected officers to show up at certain events, volunteer for this, that and the other, etc. On top of that, we've had a pretty significant dry spell this month. Other than a couple sprinkles that didn't even get through the leaves on the trees, it didn't rain from April 29 (the day I headed out for Michigan with my parents, natch) until Tuesday evening. That means that for the first time since I've been on the Moose landscape crew, we've been able to get out into a large, overgrown area between the lodge and the highway. So lots of fun stuff there cutting neck-high grass and pulling out scrub and trees that have been growing since the last time anyone bothered to cut out there. It doesn't help that in Florida, any area with tall grass is assumed to be a public landfill; we've pulled truck-loads of garbage, broken concrete, chunks of asphalt, steel posts, you name it. We are making some serious progress, but I'm also spending about twice the usual time on the job. The hope is that with all the vegetation cut back, the sun will dry things out between rains instead of the water just piling up all summer. We're also working on drainage issues, like a blocked culvert, so all the runoff from two miles of highway will go down the ditch instead of flooding the front yard. We'll see if any of it does any good once the rainy season finally gets here.

One thing I did get to do was play with the new mobile hotspot while I was in Michigan. I did all the driving, so other than an hour or so during our stop in Alabama, I didn't get a chance to mess with it until we were in Kalkaska. After we stopped at G's for lunch, I let my dad drive out to the house and I crawled into the back seat and jumped online. I wasn't sure what sort of coverage I would have in northern Michigan, but it worked great all the way out of town, was still going good on the two-lane county road, even kept working on the dirt road. Then about halfway up my parents' driveway, "BEEP!" No signal. It's like my parents' place is a little cellular back hole. But at least I had something to do while I was sitting at the Traverse City airport waiting for the flight home, then sitting in Detroit waiting three hours for my connection to Tampa. I've also been using it on-and-off here at the trailer. The data is use-it-or-lose-it after 60 days, so I may as well burn it up. Besides, Brighthouse is trying to say that the reason that Debbie's work phone (an IP phone) works like crap is because I'm sucking up all the bandwidth reading blogs on my Kindle. Of course the real problem is that IP phones SUCK!! Businesses get talked into the things because they are so much cheaper than traditional phones. As with nearly everything in this universe, "cheap" and "works" rarely go together. So I get to listen to Debbie spend an hour asking some poor sot how to spell their last name over and over and over and over because their voice keeps cutting out or there is so much line noise she can't hear what they are saying. It doesn't help that the person she is talking to is usually on one of the New and Improved smart phones, which are neither smart, nor are they intended to ever be used as a phone. Our ten-year-old flip phone has ten times better voice quality than any "smart" "phone" on the market. Add in that the moron she's talking to is invariably driving down the expressway while trying to book a cruise. With the radio on full blast. And kids in the backseat watching a movie with the volume cranked even louder so they can hear over the radio.

Yea, I spend a lot of time at home with my headphones on trying to drown out the endless stupid with something soothing like System of a Down's Chop Suey so I don't go postal.

One of these days, I need to do a post on our attempts to grow small bits of food here in the Land of Poisoned Soil, but that will have to wait for next time. Right now, it's time to start getting things ready for tonight's stir fry chicken.

Recovering

I'm still recovering from one of the busiest tax seasons I've seen in a while. Our numbers at the Walmart location were completely off the charts this year. But it's finally over, and, like I say every year, over the next nine months, I'll forget the hell of the 2015 tax season and eagerly sign up for 2016.

In the meantime, we're trying to dig out of the accumulated chores that we've both neglected since January. It mostly involves sweeping, raking, mowing, trimming, weeding, planting, etc. Our dry season this year really wasn't all that dry, then summer showed up a month early and everything went kind of crazy on us. But we're slowly getting everything beat back into shape. Today should be the final push, then we can return to maintenance mode.

And because there isn't enough going on already, I'm now the Treasurer of the Zephyrhills Moose Lodge. There's some sort of installation thingy tomorrow, then another meeting on Monday. There's also the regular meeting on Tuesday, but I'll be missing that as I will be in a car with my 'rents somewhere between Florida and Michigan. With some luck, I should be back here by Saturday evening. We decided that it's OK for my dad to drive around locally, but the snowbird thing just ain't gonna happen no more. I'll drive them up in the spring and fly back, then fly up in the fall and drive them down. The male parental unit is gripin' about it, but it's happening anyway.

So yea, don't expect a flood of updates here. Or maybe there will be. I bit the bullet yesterday and ordered a mobile hotspot to cart around with me. It's all part of The Plan to allow me more flexibility doing taxes under my own EFIN, along with now being able to process credit card transactions, offering over-priced "bank products", and all the rest. At some point over the summer, there may be a laptop/tablet acquired and a digital signature pad. (Any recommendations appreciated for the laptop/tablet; keep in mind this will be used for data entry, so a good keyboard with ten-key is a must.) Printing is still a bit of a stumper. I understand that with all the other stuff, it shouldn't be necessary, but I know I wouldn't want my tax information being sent to my e-mail account as a PDF file, so I doubt many of my clients will either, even if the PDF is password-protected. I guess a wi-fi ink-jet running off an inverter plugged into the car is a possibility. Still thinking on that part. Anyway, if the hotspot shows up before Tuesday, I can at least use my Kindle on the trip up to Michigan to post updates here as well as keep up with my famous witty Facebook repartee. I fully expect that it will be delivered about two hours after we pull out of the park, along with the books I ordered so I would have something to read on the trip.

Well, need to get off my butt and go get stuff done.