FFOT: Miscellaneous

 Migraines.  Migraines can fuck right the fuckety fuck off. I don't get them often, but when I do, they're at the worst possible fucking time, and last a subjective eternity (almost a full three days).  

People who dump kittens can fuck right off.  With a conical cheese grater.  Hell, people who dump any kind of animal.  And they can use Drano as lube.  

Allergies.  Allergies can fuck right off.  My daughter has them.  She's got the same damn symptoms she gets this time every fucking year, and is miserable.  Compounding the misery is that if she goes to school, people will panic.  

Which leads me to...the media.  And politicians.  They can all fuck off either alone or with each other for politicizing a fucking cold.  Yeah, it's a cold on steroids for some, but it's a fucking cold.  

And last, but not least, the fucking shit-for-brains that T-boned my sister's vehicle last weekend can fuck off with the remains of his full-sized pickup jammed up his ass with the bottles of alcohol he'd downed before he got behind the wheel.  May he be visited with all of the injuries he inflicted on my sister and brother-in-law. 

Musings

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 

So.  The notorious RBG is dead.  I've seen celebrations, and I've seen grief.  I've even seen respect, among the social media groups I'm a member in.  As for me...yeah, I'm glad she's dead, but not for the reasons I've seen a lot of people cheering. 

I'm glad she's dead because that woman has been through absolute hell for the past several years.  She's been fighting pancreatic cancer: one of the most painful and least treatable cancers out there.  Because it pretends to be other things until it's far too late to treat.  And she's fought, and fought hard.  And she's done her dead-level best to continue working and being productive during that fight.  I did not like her politics.  I did not like her as a person.  I did not like her judicial choices.  But I have to admire her grit and determination in the face of such suffering. 

It's over, now.  And I'm glad--I rarely wish suffering on others.  And just because she was wrong on most counts doesn't mean she's not human. 

More of us--all of us, on both sides of the aisle,* not just the people cheering her death--need to remember that. 

Federal Funding

 The President is considering cutting federal funding to rioting cities that aren't attempting to control the riots.  Well, aren't successfully controlling the riots.  I can see that they're attempting; however, their attempts are the same as parents giving in to a tantrum to silence the toddler. 

That...doesn't work.  It doesn't ever work.  Not even in the short term.  What it actually does is embolden the little shit and teaches that the tantrums work to get them what they want.  It doesn't get them to stop.  It doesn't buy peace, not even in the short term. 

I don't mean that you have to beat the toddler black and blue to get your point across.  I don't think that's what it would take in these cases, either.

However.  That said.  You do have to say no, make it stick, and set (and enforce) consequences for this behavior.  It wouldn't even be very hard to do: most of the actions taken by the overgrown toddlers throwing tantrums are felonies.  I've seen assault, arson, felony theft, felony property damage (good God have I seen felony property damage!)...there's a list longer than a football field. 

Arrest the bad actors.  Not the peaceful protesters--let them whine and bleat all they like.  However.  The second they throw a rock at someone (or a brick at a window), come down on them like the wrath of God: arrest them, charge them, and send them to jail.  Hit them while they're still committing misdemeanors.  Don't let it accelerate to felonies.  Arrest the little dummies sitting in the middle of streets holding up traffic.  Do it before they start beating on cars, dragging people out of cars and attacking them, or robbing delivery trucks.  Prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law before they get worse. 

Anyway.  Any parent who's successfully raised toddlers past this stage knows this.  And Trump has raised several.  He's setting consequences on the people who should have been stopping this butt-cold, and haven't.  I really hope he sticks to it. 

Defunding Police

This...this is a fucking dumb idea.  I am in favor of disbanding city-level SWAT teams.  I am in favor of revoking qualified immunity.  I am in favor of prosecuting "wrong address" mistakes on no-knock warrants as first degree murder.  I am in favor of ending the war on (some) drugs. 

I am not in favor of defunding the police.  And if the left would fucking think about it, they'd be less in favor of such, as well. 

What do I mean?  I mean if you defund police departments...you're going to have a massive rise in violent crime (several places are already seeing this).  And then, people like me are going to stop calling for help that won't come, and will take care of the problems themselves. There are a lot of crimes that will suddenly come with a death sentence during the commission.  No trial, no pleading, just dead. 

I am in a peaceful area of the country.  So far.  However, my city is seeing an uptick in crime...not because our law enforcement has been defunded like in the larger, Democrat-owned cities.  Because our department doesn't have enough funding in the first place for the size of town we actually are.  Our police department is about half the size it should be. 

Yeah, I will call the cops if shit goes down in my house; however, I will have a gun in the hand that isn't holding the phone, because I know they won't get to me in anything resembling a timeframe that would prevent severe bodily harm.  Chances are that there would be a live creep spread out on the floor waiting for the cops to arrest them. 

In Democrat-owned cities, people are going to simply shoot the son-of-a-bitch, roll him out to the alley, and clean up.  Because they won't have the option of calling the police, and will refuse to lie down and die. 

Most of those would likely be Democrat voters.  And the people defending their own lives would start to grow up into non-Democrats.  Non-statists.  Because they'd have learned the important lesson that they actually are responsible for themselves and their own safety. 

Which is the opposite of what the left truly wants. 

Netflix and California

So.  Netflix. 

We didn't cancel Netflix when they gave political opponents time and space to expound their views.  We talked about it, but decided not to.  Because neither my other half nor I want to live in such an isolated, insulated bubble that we can't tolerate dissent. 

That's a trick of the left, and we aren't leftists.  We are leave-me-the-hell-alone libertarians (note the lack of a capital L). 

However.  We have children.  We have an almost-twelve-year-old son, and a daughter that will be ten in December. 

And Netflix has come out on the side of normalizing pedophilia and grooming children to be receptive victims thereof. 

That. 

We've cancelled Netflix over that. 

I am a survivor of long-term sexual abuse.  It lasted most of my childhood.  What there was of it.  Looking back, I can see the grooming that accompanied it.  Grooming to compete for the abuser's attention and affection, grooming to not tell.  (That failed.  Hard.)

I am...damaged.  I bear scars.  I am not in favor of permitting adults that look at children and think "mmm, sexy" to walk the world.  I am not in favor of things that normalize children as sexual objects to be considered "art."

So.  Neflix is gone.  And we're debating Disney+ because their tween series?  Same thing, but more subtle. 

And California has come out and, instead of raising all criminal definitions of pedophilia to the most strict, have lowered their standards to decriminalize adults fucking children so long as there's no more than ten years' age difference, and the child "consents." 

Because kids, of course, know better than anyone what's best for them.  Kids are capable of informed consent.  Kids are starting to think about sex earlier than ever.  Right? 

Actually, no.  No, they aren't.  Not without external grooming, like you see on Netflix.  And the Disney tween series. 

Unfortunately, grooming is on the rise, and has been for decades.  Like boiling a frog. 

I am about ready to simply buy a whole bunch of safe TV series on DVD and dump the Roku. 

Because I have kids, and I do not want them to have the same mental, spiritual, and emotional scars that I have.

*I've seen hard-line leftists damning her for not having retired during the last years of the Obama administration.  I understand how they feel, and why they feel that way...however, it doesn't mean they're right. 

FFOT: GADDAMN 2020

 Month or two ago, my youngest sister and her mother died in a fire.  Her mother...no big loss, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.  My youngest brother...is really hurting.* 

Yesterday, my oldest sister and her husband got into a nasty car wreck.  T-bone.  The full-size pickup that hit their smallish SUV was very clearly, from video of the aftermath, going faster than they should have been.  Both survived, but my brother-in-law is likely to be a paraplegic (thankfully--it could have been far worse, looking at the SUV), and my sister-in-law is going to require surgery on Monday for broken ribs and pelvis.  

This fucking year.  This awful, horrendous fucking year.  It can fuck off with the pour-spout of a can of gasoline shoved up its ass and a lighter. 

*I met my youngest sister once when she was less than a year old.  I have never met my youngest brother. 

Conveniences

Back in July, my dishwasher started peeing on the floor.  I cleaned around the gaskets and seals, and tried again.  It peed even more.  Come to find out, the seals at the bottom of the door on the left side were pretty much worn out.  Bit of a last straw: it's been acting up since we moved into this house.  I could likely get a repair guy out to deal with it (my attempts were not successful), but it's got a lot of quirks that I don't like, most of which are either caused by or exacerbated by its age. 

Or it could just be the brand--it's not the first GE I've had, and honestly, I haven't ever had a good one from them. 

In any case, I started shopping.  I was planning an Amana...but it seems like those are made of unobtanium.  Nobody anywhere nearby has one for sale until October.  I settled for a Samsung we found on sale.  It should be delivered and installed on Friday.*

The pixie was very helpful...for the first week.  Once we had to do the dishes by hand, it wasn't fun anymore.  She's still pretty helpful, though--just not with the dishes.  She's keeping the family room straightened up a bit, which is actually a huge help.

One thing I never realized is just how much of my energy budget that stupid, barely-functional piece of crap GE dishwasher was saving.  As in: between a third and half of my daily energy budget is currently spent on keeping up with the dishes.  No, going to disposables wouldn't help that much--I cook.  From scratch, a lot of the time.  And that...takes a lot of dishes, whether we're eating on paper plates/bowls with plastic knives/forks/spoons or not. 

Like it or not, I'm not handicapped anymore.  I'm disabled.  Not differently abled.  Full-on disabled.  There are things I simply cannot do.  ME/CFS puts hard limits on me that change from day to day.  As an example, yesterday was a particularly bad day--it took three cups of coffee and a couple more of decaf to have enough energy to breathe and to fix dinner (pasta bake is stupid-easy).  I was not capable of reading new material, writing, or any of the housework (including dishes).  Today, I'll manage the dishes, the cats' litter box, and clearing a good path to get the dishwasher into place.  Probably not more than that, but those are important, and it's the pixie's laundry night, so I don't have to worry about that. 

I've learned over the past month and a half that a dishwasher is, for me, a necessity, not a nicety.  I can keep up with the dishes and the added laundry (kids' school masks need washed daily), but I can't do anything else. 

*It was supposed to have been delivered and installed yesterday, but the installer called Monday night with a "family emergency" and asked to reschedule.  Once is fine.  Twice...will not be.  

I've said everything else.  I still feel the same as I always have.   I won't forget.  I can't. 

Some Christian...

The kids go to a private, Christian school (as I've mentioned before).  Yes, it costs an alarming proportion of our annual income; however, public school is not an option. 

Usually, I have no complaints about the school, the curriculum,* or the other parents, but occasionally...yikes. 

Take this morning, for example.  The school's on the same road we live on, exactly a mile away from us and on the other side of the road.  The road we're on is a fairly busy one--it's one of the ones that connect to the bypass highway.**  And school drop-off time is at the same general time as everybody rushing to get to work.  This year, I could drop them off at 7:30, like I did last year, but they'd be put into the cafeteria (I think separated out by the color of their gaiters--different colors for different grades) instead of turned loose to play in the gym, like last year.  By doing so, I was able to avoid most of the people racing to work. 

I don't want to inflict that on either my kids, or the teachers assigned to watch the cafeteria.  So I've been dropping them off around the time the kids are sent straight to their classrooms. 

This morning, the road was particularly busy.  Lots of traffic.  I got the kids dropped off and was waiting to hang a left to go home.  And waiting.  And waiting.  Through half of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."  Finally got a gap, and made it out onto the road to wait some more behind a couple of cars waiting to make a left into the side road running beside the school that leads to where the high school kids get dropped off.  Finally got past, and a shiny, black Audi pulls out of that driveway, and decided to ride my bumper the entire mile between the school and my house.  Bobbing back and forth like he'd like to pass me (on a damn city street, with only two lanes!). 

I flipped my right-turn blinker on three driveways to the west of mine, then tapped the brakes, then stood on them to make my turn.  He went by so close he damn near clipped my bumper, with his right hand extended as far across the passenger seat as he could reach, flipping me the bird. 

The guy who'd just pulled out of a Christian school parking lot after dropping his kid off. 

Dude.  Do not act like an asshole, even if you do drive an Audi.  I drive a Subaru, and it's several years older than your Audi.  And if you rear-end me with your antics, it's your fault, and your insurance is going to pay for my repairs, then jack up your rates.   I do not care that you are running late, I will not speed up for you when my house is only a mile from the school, and I will not miss my turn just for your convenience.  Seriously, if you are running late to work, drop your kids off a few minutes earlier.

*I love the curriculum.  It's really challenging, to the point that my kids don't get bored and cause trouble.  It's harder and moves faster than most of the curricula out there, to the point that the imp's doctor said it's the equivalent of a public school gifted/talented curriculum for all of the classes, not just one or two.  

**I get why--the town's university is just a half mile further down the road from the kids' school.  BUT.  The road is TWO LANES ONLY from the bypass to the intersection on the far side of the kids' school, with no stop lights before that corner.  Occasionally, traffic can get hairy in the mornings, between people coming in off the bypass to head to college/work, and people heading out TO the bypass to get to the other end of town faster. 

Done.

I'm done.

I will not play chess with pigeons any longer.  I hadn't for a while, but now, I've got serious justification.

Read this.

Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Interesting thing...a lot of the woke-scolds are vegan.  Study after study suggests that, while vegetarianism isn't too terrible for the human body long-term, veganism is.*  It causes serious degradation to the amygdala (fear and emotional processing) and reasoning centers of the brain.  In other words, vegans aren't as capable as others of filtering their emotional responses through reason.  They are, in a word, toddlers in both reasoning capacity and emotional control.

Makes sense of a lot of the riots and temper tantrums we're seeing in woke-run cities, doesn't it.

It also makes sense of the utter panic over a fucking cold-on-steroids, too.  People are reacting with emotion, rather than doing research and using their brains (a lot of people's have atrophied through non-use).  And, when offered research on the effectiveness of measures proposed and/or taken, with an offer to explain anything that the layman doesn't understand (I have a stupidly-high reading comprehension, even for things that aren't in my bailiwick), they screech back with emotion and/or personal attacks:

• "You're a moron." (A response to the assertion that unless you're buying stuff rated for hazmat, your mask isn't saving you or anyone else.  Despite plentiful research showing exactly what I'd posited.)

• "You just wanna kill grandma!"  (No, that was Cuomo in New York and Whitmer in Michigan, both of whom put still-contagious Corona patients in nursing homes...after warning their people to remove their own elderly relatives, of course.)

• "You care more about money than people!"  (The economy is more than money--it's food, medicine, medical care, everything that makes living in civilization possible, and the lockdowns are killing the ability of the nation to manufacture and move everything.) 

• "Just put on the mask!  Show you care!"  (I don't care.  And I don't jump on brainless bandwagons, either.) Or "Put on the mask!  You're killing me if you don't!"  (How long will this take?  Because I haven't worn a mask, and won't wear one.  And it's been five fucking months, already.)

Enough.  I didn't argue with my toddlers.  I won't be arguing any more with so-called adults who've descended to toddler-level in cognition.

*Going vegan short-term, for defined benefits, is not what I'm talking about--I can see an argument for that, if it's go vegan for a year or die of heart disease within that year.  I'm talking about a permanent, lifestyle choice.