I thought the State of the Union went okay for Biden. No doubt, a medically appropriate dose of a 100% legal methamphetamine prescribed by a doctor could help a person get through something like that.
Oh, but the Onion captures the spirit put out by the other party’s senile candidate so well…
Most frightening and/or depressing story: The war on terror continues, and the propaganda umbrella has expanded to cover attacks on any group labeled as “Iran-backed”. Fentanyl gets an honorable mention, but affects mostly the poor and miserable whereas the war on terror threatens to immolate us all.
Most hopeful story: The people who are in charge of the USA’s nuclear weapons still believe in the ideals behind the founding of the country, at least more than the rest of us. Okay, this is lean times for hope, but seriously this at least buys us time to figure some stuff out.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: I am not a great chef by any means, but all hail recipe websites, however pesky they may be, for helping me make edible food.
This is some seriously dark humor. But ha ha, also so true. You have to scroll forever to get to your recipe, and at least for me the mobile version of any recipe site is infuriating because it constantly crashes. And yet…what is also true is recipe websites have made our world better. Instead of winging a recipe, or relying on one book you happen to have lying around, you can find out the ingredients, measurements, and even watch a video of how to make it well. You can even look at several versions of a dish, then wing it, and it will usually come out pretty well. And if you wing it in the future, it will come out better than if the recipe sites did not exist. So thank you, recipe sites.
Lindsey Graham was on Meet the Press on Sunday, October 16 (yesterday as I write this) saber-rattling against Iran. I couldn’t help myself thinking of this catchy little hit from 1980…uh, what year is it now?
I looked up the lyrics to this 1980 song. Pretty offensive. Or, let’s go with intended as parody.
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb
Bomb Iran
Let’s take a stand
Bomb Iran
Our country’s got a feelin’
Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb IranWent to a mosque, gonna throw some rocks
Tell the Ayatollah, “Gonna put you in a box!”
Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb
Bomb Iran
Our country’s got a feelin’
Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb IranOl’ Uncle Sam’s gettin’ pretty hot
Time to turn Iran into a parking lot
Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb
Bomb Iran
Our country’s got a feelin’
Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb IranCall the volunteers; call the bombadiers;
genius.com
Call the financiers; better get their ass in gear
Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb
Bomb Iran
Our country’s got a feelin’
Really hit the ceilin’, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
(Let’s nuke ’em! Whoo!)
Speaking of public.substack.com, they say there is evidence that three scientists engaged in “gain of function” lab at the Wuhan institute of virology were the first to be infected by Covid-19. Matt Taibbi also covers this story.
This narrative holds together logically for me. There is still the problem however that I don’t trust U.S.-based reporting about China. I’m not saying everything we hear is an outright lie, I am saying there is a whiff of propaganda in the air that taints every news story so it is hard to tell truth from half-truth.
Even if this is true, there is the question of whether the research was for civilian or military purposes and who funded it (some reporting suggests the U.S. government played a role). It’s hard for me to buy the idea that this was a bio-weapon because it doesn’t seem to have been a very good one. Is a good bioweapon one that initially did not spread all that fast and kills less than 1% of people it infects, skewed towards the elderly? And one that no vaccine was yet available to the party that supposedly created the bioweapon? If there is anything suspicious, it is that the U.S. government pretty much had the vaccine technology developed and just had to figure out how to commercialize and distribute it. Even though this seemed excruciatingly slow when you lived through it, similar processes in the past took decades that this time around were accomplished in a year or so.
A Secret Service agent walking into the White House might expect to get an ass chewing on occasion, but not literally… Joe Biden’s dog Major apparently bit Secret Service agents in the White House not once but repeatedly. Happily, the dog was able to go live with a “family friend” and the White House is now home to another, less vicious dog of lower rank, Commander.
I’m not sure what to say about The Liver King except that this GQ profile of him is worth a read. It’s slightly mocking, but he may be of the “any attention is good attention” school of marketing, which appears to be serving him well. Along with subsisting mostly on raw liver and testicles, at least when reporters are around. Why? Because “Vegetables don’t have the raw material required to produce a healthy set of testicles,” he explained. His wife, who is a dentist, and their two apparently teenage boys (who sadly, are not named Walker and Texas Ranger) appear to be okay with all this. I will admit that if the photos in the story are not doctored, this family does in fact appear to have outstanding skin. You see a lot of their skin. Unfortunately, one thing that does not produce a healthy set of testicles is steroids, which the liver king himself did admit recently to be taking.
As I was doom scrolling yet again to check if the nuclear missiles are incoming, I came across this helpful website from ready.gov.
If you are experiencing a nuclear explosion and are still able to walk, first you should go to your basement and stay there for at least 24 hours. That makes sense to me. Second, and this is a little weird, you should take a shower if you can. I guess some people have showers in their basements. Third, and this is where it gets really weird, you should stock your basement with a vintage hand-cranked videocassette player and a VHS copy of the 1983 made-for-TV movie The Day After, starring 1983 John Lithgow, who was already not young, playing a plucky ham radio operator who will tell you what is going on. Finally, and this is where it gets unbelievable, you should call your health care provider.
Hello, this is your United States health care provider. Listen carefully as menu options keep changing. If you do not have insurance, press 1 and a recorded voice will tell you to go fuck yourself. If you have insurance, press 2.
Congratulations, you have pressed 2 indicating you have some type of health insurance. If you have a pain in the ass or balls, this may require specialist attention. If your health insurance does not cover this, press 1. Otherwise press 3.
Congratulations, you have pressed 3, indicating you have half decent health insurance. If you are experiencing A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION right now, press 4.
You have pressed 4, indicating you are experiencing or have experienced A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION. If your flesh has not melted from your bones and your bones turned to ash and blown away on the blast wave like in the opening scene of Terminator 2, please press 5 or stay on the line and a scheduling specialist may assist you.
Congratulations, you have pressed 5 indicating that you have experienced A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION but are somehow still alive and in urgent need of medical attention. We’re sorry, all our scheduling specialists are currently assisting other callers. Your call is important to us. The next appointment with your health care provider is in 6 months. But your health care provider’s schedule is only posted for the next 3 months, whatever that means. No, we won’t call you. You can try to call us in 3 months. Or you can try to call us every day and check if we have a cancellation. No, we won’t call you about that either. If you have a problem with that, you can just go ahead and press 1.
The horrible war in Ukraine is obviously the most frightening and depressing thing going on as of early March 2022, both in terms of human suffering and the risk of nuclear war. But I prefer to avoid commenting too much on fast moving current events. I’ll just say that if the world can get past the acute crisis and maybe start talking seriously about arms control again, that could be a possible silver lining. But it seems like we are months or years away from that point. So I’ll pick something else below.
Most frightening and/or depressing story: Philadelphia police are making an arrest in less than 40% of murders in our city, not to mention other violent crimes. Convictions of those arrested are also down. Some of this could be Covid-era dysfunction. But there is a word for this: lawlessness.
Most hopeful story: “Green ammonia” offers some help on the energy and environmental front.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: I found a 1992 Saturday Night Live skit about the Olympics more entertaining than the actual Olympics. May Phil Hartman rest in peace. I checked on Dana Carvey and he is 66 and doing okay.
