Archive for April 2021
Post Covid Intervention Ergo, Propter Covid Intervention
"Shortly after he began eating a Paleo, Primal, Whole Foods, Low-Carb, Ketogenic diet, he died."
Get it?
The point is, it's very hard to assign proximate cause for the whole bunches of effect we practice in a modern human life.
Want a clear and unambiguous cause of death? It's easy.
Post bullet to the head ergo, propter bullet to the head
CovidCon:
- Post Covid ergo, propter Covid (catch all)
- Post maskless ergo, propter maskless (or the inverse, with masks—so it's heads we win, tails you lose)
- Post close contact ergo, propter close contact (and inverse)
- Post gameday ergo, propter gameday
- Post obesity ergo, propter Covid
- Post diabetes ergo, propter Covid
- Post heart disease ergo, propter Covid
Well that's a perfect seven but the list goes on indefinitely. All cause of death is Covid, now. At least a very Big Lots of it.
The reason—post hoc ergo, propter hoc—is still quoted in Latin is because the logical fallacy is about the oldest on the books. For some reason, having an average IQ of 100 (increasingly perilous, that) subsumes, apparently, this most human inability to be critically thinking about cause.
There was not a whole lot of excess total all-cause death in 2020 worldwide, if any, really—and they are trying hard to hide that fact. Had there been, for sure it would have been gleefully chalked up to Covid by those who clamor for as much death as they can get in order to go in front of a camera to tell you about it with a masked face (even when only a facade). But because there is not that yearned for, pined for, and excruciatingly hoped-for data for a lot more death, they can't post-and-propter you so easily.
So, ALL-CAUSE mortality has not yet been "adjusted" for Covid.
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90-Year Old “Takimika” is Badass!
...And with an infectious smile that begs you to say, "just tell me what to do, ma'am!"
She didn't even start training until the age of 65—25 years ago—and became a personal fitness instructor at 87. Hahahaha, how joyous to get to laugh while at the same time, realizing that no matter how good at life you get, there'll always be someone to shame you—well, perhaps except for her. She's potentially the most quintessentially shameless human on the planet.
Born January 15, 1931. That would have made her 10 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and touched off a war with the United States. Funny enough, by the time I left Japan in 1989 after 5 years, She was 58—7 years away from her husband's idle comment about her weight creep that began this mission accomplished.
It’s still dark when 90-year-old Mika Takishima gets up at 3:00 am for the first of her two daily workouts. Every day it’s not raining, she walks 4-km, followed by a 3-km jog, and finally walks backwards for 1-km. In the afternoon she’s in the gym for 2-hours, stretching and lifting weights. In order to concentrate on the exercises, she does not listen to music while she trains—hardcore!...
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Masks As Socially Distasteful As Smoking?
Remember when smoking was cool?
If not, watching old movies will get you up to speed on that in a hurry. I still recall in 1970, at the age of 9, tobacco ads being banned on television.
While smoking perhaps never enjoyed the high-virtue status that wearing silly cloth masks looped around one's Dumbos does throughout the world today, it sure went the other way soon enough, especially in public, indoors even more so—but of course they had to overdo that, banning them in bars too, regardless of the wishes of the owners and customers. "Sure, go ahead and drink your poison, but don't inhale any." Yea, yea, I know, it's always about OTHERS!!! Well, sure, but in a damn bar? Aren't the most ambient bars the smoke filled ones? We even have a phrase for it: smoke-filled bar.
Well, Tucker Carlson triggered everyone the other night by essentially making this sort of comparison. Also, directly equating it to child abuse in the case where kids are compelled to wear them.
We should start asking people to stop wearing masks outside, it makes us uncomfortable
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Oscar Is Dead, Now Rolling In Its Grave
What an anti-spectacle it has become.
Who needs to even get into it, when a picture is worth a thousand words?
A WSJ opinion piece by William McGurn, entitled "Give Bill Maher an Oscar," carries the very pithy sub-title:
Unlike Hollywood’s woke, at least its Communists could make good movies.
I goes on.
Defenders of Hollywood would say this year’s Oscars represent the choice of art over mass appeal. But the assumption that they are in conflict is belied by Hollywood’s own history. The best-picture nominees from 1939—“Gone with the Wind,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Stagecoach,” “Love Affair,” “The Wizard of Oz”—point to a time when Hollywood did not despise its audience and produced many movies that had both popular appeal and artistic merit.
Surely it says something sad that professionals skilled in the visual arts can’t even hold an audience for a night. That’s because wokeness inevitably degenerates into virtue-signaling, which has never been a crowd-pleaser. So as the Academy was busy applauding itself for “the most diverse Oscars ever,” Americans changed the channel.
“Academy nominations used to say, ‘Look what great movies we make,’ ” says Mr. Maher. “Now they say, ‘Look what great people we are.’ ”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/give-bill-maher-an-oscar-11619476061
He's referring to this hilarious New Rule bit by Maher, who seems to be getting both funnier and more piercing, lately (though I usually only watch stuff I get from sources I follow).
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What’s Behind The Mask?
Have you considered that there's another aspect to this whole mask insanity besides the typical theater and virtue signalling you already suspect or understand?
Let me tell you about an exchange I had in email just today with someone who's a known published author and who has a good newsletter comprised of astute book reviews. That's true, in spite of his behavior, and I'll continue to browse his book reviews when they come out. I'm an adult with a brain, that's why. Moreover, I don't, without hesitancy, shut out people I may otherwise have a level of disdain for, provided they offer me something of value in spite of what it is that rubs me the wrong way.
It's called growing up. Everyone is supposed to do it. Try it if you haven't.
So, the Ryan Holiday had had a dream to start an Indy bookstore and by God he's done it and by the photos, it looks to be a perfect place. It's called The Painted Porch in Bastrop, TX.
I'd love a visit. Unfortunately, at least for now, I can't. It's not the fact that I live in Thailand and not in Texas that would necessarily prevent it. It's because I'm a bad person.
Now, he's all big on Stoicism and has written books on it, and he's prone to making lists and principles. The following exchange will demonstrate how faux and what a poseur he is in that regard. Woke trumps all.
Our store The Painted Porch is now open on Main St in Bastrop, Texas and doing great. The obstacle was more than the way—it's been an incredibly rewarding (although deeply challenging) experience. All are welcome (masked and preferably vaxxed!) and you can also support the store here with the recommendations at the top. Just remember, we're small and just getting going…be kind.
I've never corresponded with the gentleman prior, even though I've subscribed and have usually browsed his newsletter for a few years, upon the recommendation of another friend. I hit reply and popped off a quickie.
"All are welcome (masked and preferably vaxxed!)”
That actually means: All are NOT welcome.
I got an equally quickie reply.
Correct--we don't welcome people who can't muster even the most basic regard for other humans.
So the mask comes off, doesn't it? It reminded me of news I was seeing at the same time where Biden's press secretary admits that Creepy, Senile, Child Sniffing Joe was wearing his mask during a Zoom call with bunches of other world leaders—all unmasked—to "SEND A MESSAGE!!!"
Of course I pounced.
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Public Service: Oracle Films Soundly Obliterates Covid
While any Oracle can be wrong, the thing to achieve is to be incrementally more right or prescient, rooting out being wrong and self-serving chronically. While I tongue-in-cheek repeat often that 2020 transformed my misanthropy—from focussed and targeted, to blurry and generalized… …in the large it’s a good thing because, being somewhat deferent to the……...
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As The Covid Petrification Peters, What’s The Next Petrifying Thing?
One thing we know since about November of 2016, is that this world with its ubiquitous "smart" phones—with far more people below 100 IQ on them than above—combined with its fully mature Social Scare and Cancel Media, is that the elite, the political class, the media, and the corporate giants love to keep the world petrified in fear and loathing...but not in Las Vegas. That has to go, too.
So I'm kinda mostly done with Covid. It is what it was, I doubt vaccines are going to be required in most places and if not, the idea of vaccine passports widely in use just won't fly unless everyone's really ready to reset back to far more primitive and sparse times economically. No sense beating an almost dead horse, so far as I can see. Perhaps we'll go back to the good old days of "respiratory, flu-like illness and onset pneumonia" as a catch-all kind of cause of death, since that's what is it and there has never been anything particularly remarkable about Covid, still dwarfed by magnitudes compared to other pandemics like the Spanish flu during WWI.
Bill Maher occasionally has a clip well worth watching. Yep, plenty of BS in it, but plenty that's dead on straight up.
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Milk: Object Lesson In Protein to Energy Ratio
The following is a rabbit hole I went down on my most recent post, CHILI CON CARNE, EXPAT STYLE, for those members subscribed to the Health Bundle. I'm excerpting it and editing a bit into a full post for Member Free Content.
I'm asked a lot why I drink low-fat or sometimes, even skim milk. Admittedly, it's not as luxuriously silky as is whole milk. First, us brothers grew up principally drinking 2%, and at one point even skim, as we were buying fresh raw from friends and mom used the cream to make butter. Don't know why that was mom's call, but it was, and it tastes just fine and delicious to me. I don't feel as though I'm missing out (I do with skim, though—but I still like it) and so whole milk is more like an indulgence, or treat.
But there are dietary reasons. First, the fat portion, or cream, has no protein and little to no nutrients. Fat alone is nutrient poor, empty calories. Like refined sugar. It also pushes out protein in volume, but with over twice the energy density. Let's compare ONE CUP of whole milk, alongside a cup of low-fat, and skim.
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Chili Con Carne, Expat Style
I've always been a big fan of making basic chili con carne with beans, starting with canned chili beans, then add meat and other stuff to make it actually good!
Being an expat makes that skill a pretty good thing. While there are some decent farang (Thai racial slur for white person) restaurants here that serve up chili, it's expensive and usually not up to my standards.
Now, doing this is near to impossible out in the rural countryside. There just aren't these things in any store—not even the ground beef. You can get beef, but you would have to hand chop it, like making steak tartare. Of course, you could make Texas chili and have cubed beef—just braise it long time. In Bangkok or a few other metro areas, a cinch. Otherwise, you can order everything but the ground beef online (I use Lazada).
Rawai Beach, southern Phuket, makes everything available, generally. While I would prefer to start with either Dennison's or Stagg, all they have is Bush's. I loathe their baked beans—which should be called candied beans—but we'll see.
Recipe
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Billions of People Pissed at Texas
I recall last spring when the typical seasonality of the virus naturally attenuated and principalities around the world started easing their various commie, totalitarian measures...and how those who love everything commie and lockdown measures—never good enough—pronounced dire warnings: JUST WAIT 2 WEEKS!!! —a pathetically veiled hope and prayer that a lot of people die so they're right in a comment thread on the internet and get to say I TOLD YOU SO!!! ...People this lowly lay awake at night fantasizing about getting to bolster their meaningless life for likes because people died and they're miserable—in spite of getting paid to sit at home and wank off to porn at their leisure. It's likely that anyone of those writing those sorts of comment posts was a relative of yours—parent, sibling...maybe a close friend who's getting paid by a high-tech company that "fact checks."
Once again, the Internet was awash with PAID stay-at-home-wankers proclaiming JUST WAIT TWO WEEKS!!! in-between their jerk-off sessions to porn in their incognito tab, always open. I reiterate: maybe your mother, on a retirement pension, who embraces the fear that a Covid Great Reset means her pension has dried up.
Reset for thee, not for me!
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In A Recent Study Of Combined Moron…
Who didn't know that Democrats aren't the stupidest fucks who ever walked the planet? Ironically, they are the Big Corp stooges, now, but that's easy to understand since, they were always fucking dumb as nails and Big Corp simply exploited it. And now they are not only onboard, they riot and loot for Big Corp overlords who pay millions by means of ad buys to Big Media to keep everyone in a high state of political antagonism.
The Narrative Must Go On!!!
Yes, they are that fucking stupid. And by that I mean: your mother, father, sister, brother, granfather, grandmother, aunt, and uncle. If any are Democrats, then they are that fucking stupid and worthless, a sore on the planet and society.
Deal with it.
Scorecard:
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How Do You Change Someone’s Mind?
Most smart people make the common mistake of believing that just Huge Lots of more time bestowing your superior logic and reason upon your unwashed interlocutor will do the trick. Never happens. Because, it’s counter-productive. In fact, the more you argue reason and logic, the more they become entrenched, so do you, and it’s no……...
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George Floyd and Derek Chauvin: The Video Summary
Here is the free-access 10-minute videoI put together for the previous post: GEORGE FLOYD AND DEREK CHAUVIN: THE VERDICT. No, it’s not a sales pitch for that post which is paid access in the Politics and Social Relationships category. It stands on its own and gives the main points for my judgment that all sides……...
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George Floyd and Derek Chauvin: The Verdict
Never paid much attention and never wanted to get biased one way or the other.
We lose any possibility of genuine satisfaction for justice being done when "justice" itself is debased to a level that is politicized by our very State and Federal levels of government; moreover, when it becomes sensationalized by media from so-called news to click-bait outlets who're selling more advertising the more intense the social antagonism. This is Democracy, Republicanism, Federalism, and Capitalism?
Do amoral Big Corp advertisers who fund all media have any conscience in this regard? Fuck no is the correct answer. Both the victim and defendant are expendable, stage props. Their stock price is a non-negotiable must. I'm not big on holding Big Corp to high morals because who decides, what is the cost, and who pay it? I would, however, prefer and insist that they mind their own business, to re-coin a forgotten slogan.
...And I'm a fan of free-market capitalism. But at the same time, not a fan of Corporatism, where Big Corp is merely a "private" arm of the State—i.e., fascist. Ironically, not a single person in this ridiculous #Antifa For Bed Wetters actually has the slightest clue of what fascism is. It's State control by other or extra-legal or unconstitutional means: principally, denial of service, cancellation, and dictation or editing of private public messaging to craft or uphold narratives that serve the political antagonism, left or right.
I tweeted this the other day:
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Thanks For Your Membership and Premium Levels
I didn’t know if I was completely off my rocker, or what. The only thing you can do in those—for me—oftentime circumstances is grit your teeth, close your eyes, and hit PUBLISH! That post went up late afternoon my time here in Thailand, and the email out to my ~10,000 contacts, set for 9pm my……...
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Now For Members Only
Many have said that I ought to have done this a long time ago, including my best ex-wife. Maybe getting to 5,000 total posts in 18 years of toil over this thing gives me more justification that most—those who want to razzle, dazzle, and lie to get to Six Figures in 3 Months!!! Only $499……...
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Fear Fatigue: When People Just Aren’t Afraid, Anymore
The allegory is timeless because it's packed with lessons about the human condition. What motivated the boy? What motivated the villagers? What's in play and, what, eventually, gets undone?
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Songkran 2021 – Isaan Village Style
I just came to visit. Sure, I knew Songkran was going on, but I also knew that it was suspended by government policy last year, with alcohol bans and curfews. By that time, about 30 people had died of this mystery, in a country of 70 million.
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The GoPro Hero 9 Black Is Just Crazy
I don't care to elaborate on the things that made the 1st gen too much to work with, for me. Doesn't matter. That was 9 years ago. I'm here to tell you about the latest and greatest. The new GoPro Hero 9 Black is a revolution by comparison.
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Une Petite Balade En Moto à La Baguette Magique
C’est-à-dire: A little motorcycle ride to Magic Baguette. As the video explains, one of my favorite little places, a nice French cafe and bakery right here in Rawai, Phuket, Thailand. One of the few places open early, like 7am. Mostly, all is dead prior to 10am. And in addition to the fine bakery and deli……...
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