Tag: Books

Government

I Need To Stop Reading

I’ve come to the realization that I need to stop reading. And watching podcasts. It makes me angry and probably isn’t good for my blood pressure. I’ll give you an example. I started out my week by reading the book “The only plane in the sky“. It’s an oral history of the 9/11 attacks. Minute by minute recounts of the events of that day by everyone from survivors, police, fire, and government officials. Excellent book that at times was hard to read. Going through the transcripts of peoples last phone calls to their loved ones is heart wrenching. It rekindled the anger we all felt after that day. I’d forgotten how big and devastating the attack was. Hard to believe that was more than twenty years ago now.

After finishing the book, a long-form interview popped up from Shawn Ryan. He interviews Sarah Adams who is an ex CIA targeting officer who specialized in Libya and Pakistan. This is her second interview with Shawn. It’s basically a masterclass in how we managed the end of GWOT and what the Islamic armies are up to now. Want to be angry at your government? Go watch this.

In a nutshell our government is corrupt, incompetent, and so driven by politics we’ve dumped everything we did since 9/11 into the wastebasket. Al Qaida is now more powerful than they were pre-9/11. And the best part? We’re funding them. Yep, we fund the Taliban to the tune of $40-87 million dollars… A WEEK. Yes you read that right. A plane with pallets of cash land every 7-10 days. Ostensibly it’s for humanitarian work, but it’s all siphoned off by the Taliban, to terror leaders, by ISIS, and the bin Laden group. We’re funding everyone we’ve been at war with. Isn’t that special?

It’s hard to comprehend the magnitude of the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. Two decades of fighting and untold loss, blood spilled, and trillions spent – for what? We’ve now rearmed the Taliban, funded them, and Afghanistan is once again the terror training capital of the world. In a previous post I described how we developed our biometric monitoring systems over there during the long GWOT. Massive databases containing biometric data on virtually everyone in the country. The Taliban now has those systems and in the last six months, with the help of the Chinese and Iranians, have gotten it all back up and running. Every poor soul the US paid or was a member of the Afghan army, the Taliban now knows exactly who they are. Tens upon tens of thousands of people have already been “disappeared”. It’s simply disgusting what we’ve done.

Here’s an even better one – the United States Government pays a monthly stipend to the families of Taliban members who were killed… fighting against us! It’s hard to believe it’s real. It makes your head spin it’s so outrageous.

I don’t understand how anyone involved can think this is ok? Where are the whistleblowers at the State Department? The CIA, the FBI, DOD, there isn’t anyone who raises their hand and says this is not right? Where are our elected officials whose job is providing oversight of all this? Isn’t there anyone willing to put party politics aside and be an American first? Never mind, don’t answer that. There’s a reason the deep state exists and exerts the power it does.

I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have served during the GWOT and now see this. What a punch to the gut. What a waste of blood, lives, and trillions of dollars.

So that’s it. Until my blood pressure returns to normal, no more reading unless it’s weight loss or gardening books. And definitely no more podcasts. Or Twitter. I was much happier with my head in the sand. At this point I wish I could take the blue pill and go back to blissful ignorance.

Government

They’re Watching

I spent the last week on a beach outside of the USA. Good food, too many margaritas, and plenty of time by the pool. With nothing but time on my hands I consumed a number of books. One was about the United States biometric data collection practices and another was Edward Snowdens book. Both were fascinating and frightening. The allegations Snowden makes about US surveillance capabilities almost seem made up… and then we experienced it firsthand crossing back across the border.

Mrs Troutdog and I both enrolled in the Global Entry program so we wouldn’t have to stand in the passport line coming back from vacation. This trip was our first time using it. We walked up to a handful of empty kiosks and a customs agent. He instructed us to look into a camera. In under five seconds a green light came on and we were done and on our way. Instant facial recognition indexed against a database of god knows what information about us. (also used by the Clear airport security program) It was creepy, especially knowing that this technology is probably being used on us daily as we walk around minding our own business.

If you weren’t aware, the NSA/CIA/DIA invested heavily in biometric harvesting and analysis during the global war on terror, primarily in Afghanistan. One of the offshoots of that is a company called Palantir founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. They created AI that takes biometrics and metadata, indexes that against intelligence data, and creates predictive behavior models – basically tracking your movements and predicting that you’re very likely to plant an IED or attack soldiers in the future. That battlefield program has now been turned over to police departments under the auspices of “predictive policing”. A number of big departments, LA, New York, New Orleans, have been experimenting with it to target gang activity. It’s unclear at this point to what degree it’s been implemented beyond trials.

Another fun company, also funded by Peter Thiel, is Clearview AI. They’ve scraped billions upon billions of images from Facebook and other social media sites to build a massive neural network of facial and location recognition. Give the algorithm a face and it will spit back all known locations that person visited and their associates/friends. It’s currently being used by law enforcement and private companies. Wonder why you didn’t get that job? Maybe one of your friends is too controversial. Maybe they know you visited that seedy massage parlor or attended a protest of some sort several years ago.

But where does the government get this data about you? Besides companies like Clearview AI, thanks to Mr Snowden we now know that the NSA is intercepting all internet traffic. There is a series of servers sitting at all major US telecom sites that internet traffic is routed through. The first is called TURMOIL and it intercepts your web request and makes a copy. The second is called TURBINE which parses through your data looking for keywords, metadata, and flagged web sites. If you trip the algorithm, the TURBINE server can insert malware which is then downloaded to your device and voila, the NSA is now actively monitoring you.

The NSA and CIA are monitoring and collecting every single bit of data you produce and storing it at a massive data center south of Salt Lake City (reportedly capable of storing yottabytes of data). Internet searches, phone calls, location data… basically anything that makes contact electronically with the outside world is harvested. Add on top of that facial recognition data and license plate readers from a sea of cameras planted throughout your city and it’s fair to say you are being tracked and monitored most of your waking moments. All in the name of “security”.

Going into Snowdens book, I wasn’t sure how I felt. I love my country and after 9/11, of course I want to ensure the terror tactics seen in Europe or on the battlefield don’t spread here. Snowden signed the NDA’s and swore an oath – you don’t then get to just violate that because you think you’re being righteous.

The problem is that our country lied. James Clapper, director of national Intelligence, sat in front of congress and swore we did not collect data on Americans. But they do. They collect all of it. Everything. The justification they now give is that they collect and store it, but they don’t use it unless there’s a reason. Uhm, yeah right.

When you see the overreach and abuses we’re currently witnessing from the FBI, the weaponization of the DOJ, the illegal FISA searches, NSA monitoring and leaking info about journalists, and the alphabet agencies partnering with social media to censor news… my trust level for the government is about as close to zero as you can get. So as far as Snowden goes, I went from ambivalent to firmly on team Snowden.

We have a minor little thing called the fourth amendment in this country. The government does not have the right to spy and collect data about you without due process. The people have the right to understand what information is being harvested about them and how it’s used.

While the founding fathers may appreciate that pithy little paragraph, it’s meaningless. We’ve already crossed the point of no return. This genie isn’t going back in the bottle. We officially live in a big brother state. You are going to be watched, monitored, and have predictive AI make decisions about your life from the moment of birth until your death. It’s Orwellian stuff of science fiction novels. It’s all fine and dandy I suppose, as long as it’s used against bad guys. But what’s that old quote? “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely“

It wouldn’t take much for an administration to decide some segment of the population was getting a bit too subversive and to take action. Write the wrong thing in a blog post, say something about the government in your living room with Alexa listening, order a flagged item from Amazon – you’re going to get a knock on your door from the feds. Good luck booking airline travel or applying for a job when you’re on an enhanced watch list.

Can you honestly say we’re very far away from that reality? What makes you think we’re not already there?

So yeah, I approve of what Snowden did. We need more of that. More sunlight. More details. More exposure. Because I like quotes, here’s another one for you: “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” Those in power do not want this and will fight it tooth and nail, in the name of security. Understand this and reject any and all attempts to expand the security state.

Now excuse me, I’m off to feed the Facebook algorithm false information to confuse the feds. Just kidding. I watch cute Vizsla videos and mountain bike crashes.

Or that’s what I want you to think.

Daily Life, Government, woke

Now What?

Susan looked down at the desk. Three different color highlight markers were lined up precisely on the right hand corner. The book was centered on the desk, propped up at a slight angle. She had a notebook just to the side for jotting down important things to reference later. Susan loved studying in the library. The quiet. The purposefulness of being there. Her roommates were too loud and not always the most studious, so the library was her refuge. In truth, she’d always been a good student and spent more time in the library than with friends or playing sports. She didn’t mind. This was where she was comfortable.

Feeling the light haptic buzz on the wrist from her smartwatch, she glanced down at it. She saw the partial title from the new email and breathed in a quick involuntary gasp. “From: Columbia School….” This was it. She’d been waiting for this moment ever since pushing the application submit button yesterday. Well, truthfully ever since starting high school she’d wanted to be a journalist. She worked with singleminded focus ever since. Joining a few carefully selected clubs. Writing for the school paper. An internship at a human rights organization. She been very careful with social media from the beginning. Always adding a like to the important social issues of the moment. Making sure to have the correct flags and symbols in her profile at all times. She prided herself in properly honoring peoples pronouns when emailing them. While she didn’t have many friends, she did have several acquaintances who were people of color. She’d made sure her photos with them were prominent on her social media feed.

Susan pulled out her phone to read the message. Her hands trembled as she opened up the email. “Thank you for your interest in The Columbia School of Journalism. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a spot in the next cohort. Our Admissions Team found several things in your record that did not meet Columbia’s high standards of admission…”

She felt the hot tears starting to fall down her cheeks. How could this be? She’d done everything right. She’d sacrificed. She had straight A’s. She’d stayed off social media other than the carefully curated time she planned out so she’d have the exact right online presence. Only to have her fate decided by an AI engine in less than a day. An AI engine that took her name and national ID number, which is all the “application” consisted of, and instantly scanned her entire on-line history. An algorithm designed to evaluate if she fit the current DEI profile Columbia needed in order to maintain their federal journalism license.

The wave of despair she felt was paralyzing. Now what? She hadn’t applied anywhere else. It wouldn’t matter at this point. A rejection is now in the system and no other school was going to take her with that on her record. The reality of a lifetime of blue collar work began to set in. She struggled to catch her breath.

Matt’s finger hovered over the submit button. Was this going to work? His parents had been smart, purchasing a second ID as soon as he’d been born. His entire life, he used that ID to surf the internet, log into online games, and shit post on X and various counter culture forums. His real ID had been cultivated like a rare flower. Even though it was illegal to use one of the dark web ID coaches, his parents thought it was worth the risk. Everything his real ID did online was carefully calculated for maximum effect. His online self was a perfect being.

Like Susan, Matt didn’t apply anywhere else. A few years ago he’d briefly thought about simply applying to one of the merit based schools, but those were mostly in the midwest flyover part of the country. Graduating with a bunch of deplorables only to be some sort of materials engineer wasn’t going to make his parents happy. It had been important to them from the moment he was born that he be a lawyer and part of the East Coast establishment. That was only real path to power and money.

The second ID had been a risk for sure. The AI engines were smart and able to collate and cross-reference millions of online interactions he or his parents had and look for irregularities. Even with spoofed IP addresses, was there a chance the fake ID could be somehow linked to him? Matt hoped not. His parents had paid a lot of money over the years to the ID coaches to ensure his real persona was squeaky clean.

Like Susan, he didn’t have a backup plan if he didn’t get accepted. The thought of having no other options other than being a blue collar drone or autonomous vehicle operator was not something he wanted to think about.

His finger hovered over the submit button a little longer before he pushed it.

Daily Life, Motivation

It Really Is A Drug

This is going to be a little embarrassing. But I suppose, like any good twelve step program, the first step is admitting you are powerless over your addiction. My morning routine every morning, day in and day out, 365 days a year is as follows; Up at 4:30-6, make coffee, surf news sites and X/Twitter until 8-9:30am. At that point I start my day. Why is this embarrassing? That routine means that I average 1,095 hours a year mindlessly scrolling through news sites. I give up six and a half weeks of my life every year to an algorithm designed to keep me scrolling.

But it’s worse than that. I’ve noticed lately that I can’t stop checking in on my phone. Sit down for a few minutes and I compulsively find myself quickly scrolling through X/Twitter to see if anything new happened. During commercial breaks or pausing a TV show to let the dog out, I’m instantly on the phone flipping through stupid Instagram reels of funny animals, car crashes, and people doing stupid shit. Waiting in line at the grocery store, boom, out comes the phone. It truly is a drug.

What a waste. I suppose on the other hand, it’s not like I was going to invent an amazing new chemical compound that solves the problem of plastics in our landfills during that extra six weeks a year. But still, there must be something more productive I could be doing with that time. Watching cat videos and reading three sentence “news” blurbs is not exactly making me more informed. Sure, I can chat casually with someone at a cocktail party about current events (if I was to actually go to a cocktail party) but that doesn’t mean I actually know anything about the subject. X/Twitter has given me the back of the milk carton condensed version of the news. Which is usually just enough to make me angry and/or to start a fight at the holiday dinner table.

I believe it’s time for a detox. We’ll start with the phone. First step, put it away. I’m going to keep it on my dresser in the bedroom all day. Sure I’ll make a point of glancing at it occasionally to see if there was a missed call or text message, but I don’t need to obsessively carry it around with me in the house. I’m not a doctor on call 24×7 who needs instant access. There is literally nothing so important that it couldn’t wait the 45 minutes I was in the backyard working on the garden. Sure I might miss out on that hilarious meme I came across during a commercial break while watching Seinfeld reruns, but I’m sure I’ll survive.

Now for the harder one – the morning computer screen time. I’m not changing my wake up time or the time I start my day. I’m a slug, I admit it. I need several hours before I can get moving. The question is, what to do with those hours? I’m not going to give up the news entirely. I am a news junkie after all. I think the recovery approach will be twofold. First, limit the amount of scrolling through X/Twitter. Anything major or newsworthy that’s happened will show up in the feed within about five minutes. So let give ourselves a thirty minute budget to flip through some news sites and scroll through tweets. Done, I know now roughly what’s happening in the world. Now what?

I think the remaining time will be spent on reading long-form essays. Probably going to have to be subscription based. In reality anything worth reading takes a writer days to weeks to compose. A banger tweet, or paragraph posted on CNN.com, probably didn’t have a whole lot of thought put behind it. I’m at the age where I’m better off reading quality over quantity.

I’d also be much better served by spending my morning time working on creative pursuits than reading speculation about the latest celebrity gossip. Writing, maybe editing a photo or video. Anything to get the brain juices flowing. At my age I don’t have many brain cells left so I may as well exercise them.

So there you go. The confession of a news/phone/Twitter junkie. The first step is to admit you have a problem. Now let’s make a change. If you see more frequent posts here, you know it’s working. If I’m radio silent, you’ll know that I’m still mired in the addictive world of Russian dash-cam crash videos and reading pithy one-liners about how evil the other political party is.

Wish me luck. The algorithms are powerful, fueled by AI, and designed to prevent you from breaking out of the matrix. It’s time to take that red pill.

Cool, Daily Life

Random Things And Observations

Very often I can’t remember my phone number or why I walked into the kitchen. Yet, I’ll always know how many feet in a mile, a quote from a movie I saw in high school, and the quadratic equation. (just kidding on that last one) Needless to say, there’s a lot of useless crap and random thoughts that float around in my head much of the day. From time to time I need to purge. Enjoy.

  • How did men in the 40’s and 50’s walk around with fedoras all day and not have hat hair? Watch any old movie. They walk inside, take off the hat, perfect hair. For me the morning decision of hat/no hat is an all-day commitment.
  • We may have our first big winter storm inbound. Thank god because this is the worst start to a ski season I can remember. The flip side is that next weekend is forecast to be in the negative temps. I’ll accept that if it means snow.
  • Speaking of weather – do you notice that the mainstream news only covers weather if it hits the East coast? We’re going to get hammered by a series of storms this week here in the mountain West. Not a peep. The East coast gets an inch of snow and it’s wall-to-wall coverage. The exception is tornadoes in the mid West or mudslides in Los Angeles.
  • You do know that asylum is coming, right? I don’t care what party is in charge. At some point they’ll decide that the numbers are too great to attempt deportation and that the humane thing to do is grant some sort of asylum.
  • I have no idea what’s going to happen with the first few primaries. I do remember that Trump lost Iowa to Ted Cruz in ’16. The future is not set.
  • I ordered a casual wool vest from Amazon in an effort to stop dressing like a homeless teenager. When I walked out to show my wife, her look of horror and puzzlement was priceless. I’m returning it today.
  • My dog hates carrots. He will dig through his food and make a point of spitting them out on the floor. He’s not messing around with that orange bullshit under any circumstances.
  • In the last six months I’ve started wearing Crocs, drinking tea, siting in front of a UV lamp in the morning, (ordering vests) and have had no alcohol in the last six weeks. I’m not entirely sure why, and don’t think it’s helped or improved me as a human in any way. So I’ve got all that going for me.
  • Don’t ask why, but one of my random resolutions was that I need to add more heat (spice) to my food. There is now a bottle of sriracha in my fridge. I’ve used it once. This may take some willpower.
  • Speaking of resolutions, I also decided that music needs to be more of priority in my life. I’d also like another tattoo, but older saggy skin is not ideal. I’ll probably have to let that one go.
  • I got it in my head the other day that we needed chopsticks. I’m not sure why. Anyway, we’re all set in case we decide to have a large asian-themed dinner party.
  • A non-flattering video snippet of Madonna dressed in some head-to-toe sliver outfit and gyrating wildly showed up on Twitter/X the other day. Someone commented that it reminded him of forgetting to remove the aluminum foil from his burrito and putting it in the microwave. I’m still laughing. I showed it to Mrs Troutdog. She was not amused. Some pop icons you don’t mess with I guess.
  • I didn’t get asked to appear on a single podcast last year and I’m crushed.
  • I’ve earned .79 cents from this blog thing. (no, not kidding) Clearly this is the year I’m going to crush it – I can feel the momentum.
  • I learned that there are people out there who stand in the shower facing the water. What’s wrong with them?
  • I stood outside the other day and chatted with a friend about a particular model of car. He said that night his YouTube feed was nothing but videos about that car. They’re always listening.
  • Did you know you can buy a battle axe on Amazon? Not saying I would, but it’s good to know.
  • I guess we forgot about Ukraine.
  • How many modern day navy SEALs would it have taken to win the Revolutionary war? Also, who would win in a head to head battle – Samurai or Vikings?
  • Everyone knew EXACTLY what Epstein was. Yet they interacted with him anyway. Power, influence, money, corruption, blackmail, perversion… been going on since the beginning of time.
  • The Norse gods are starting to grow on me.
  • Just finished a book on the history of the Israel six-day war in ’67. The parallels to what’s happening today are frighteningly similar. Israel is the only country that’s constantly expected to lose a war and then beg for international approval.
  • Does anyone know if you can play a harmonica if it gets wet? The acoustics in the shower would be amazing. I haven’t pulled the trigger on a harmonica yet, but I’m considering…

And that’s a wrap. A successful purge of randomness in the brain. Until the mental hard drive fills up again, thanks for reading along!

Cool, Daily Life

Lists And Things

Too many random thoughts buzzing around in my head this morning to think coherently. We shall purge them in an attempt to clear the mechanism.

  • I’m thinking of taking up a musical instrument. Guitar was my first thought (I very briefly played as a kid), and then I saw this clip. Stop what you’re doing and take a listen. Seriously. I am now contemplating the harmonica. Is there an electronic version of the harmonica that I can hear via headphones? I fear that Mrs Troutdog would divorce me if she had to listen to hours of amateur harmonica every day.
  • I was able to resist a donut (doughnut?) last night. It was an apple fritter, which is hands down my favorite deep fried treat. That level of discipline is hard to describe. Probably close to what it takes to get into Navy SEAL selection. Full disclosure, I did have an apple fritter the previous night. But in my defense, that was the first one in at least a year.
  • It doesn’t happen that often, but I’m back in a weird sleep cycle. I fall asleep in about 30 seconds, always have. But recently I’m waking up at 3-4am every day, regardless of what time I go to bed. Done, no chance of falling back asleep. Leaves me barely able to keep my eyes open in the afternoon. Started magnesium bisglycinate last night to see if it would help. Dr Huberman suggests magnesium threonate as it crosses the blood-brain barrier easier. May try that next.
  • Abdominal surgery went well, recovery is going ok (I think). Went for an easy bike ride the other day and probably overdid it. Don’t think I’m ready for ski season yet.
  • Speaking of ski season – we don’t have one. As in, no snow. And nothing on the horizon. Yay El Niño. Probably for the best. If we had great snow I’m not sure I’d be able to resist.
  • I caught myself getting sucked into the X/twitter morass this morning. Someone I followed for a while has been posting nonstop anti-Israel hate since Oct 7. Like at least 10 posts a day. I actually wanted to see what his latest post was this morning – specifically so I could be angry. It was a weird feeling realizing that I wanted to be angry at this guy. It’s probably a feeling that if he just reads my one brilliant comment, he’ll see I’m right and change his mind. I suspect that feeling describes 70% of X/twitter commenters. I took a deep breath and unfollowed. No need to encourage that level of negativity in my life.
  • Following up on my fashion post the other day, I am ordering a new pair of boots today. No it won’t fix the hot fashion mess that currently describes me, but it’s a start. At least it’s better than the $20 cheap Amazon shoes I wear most of the time (when I’m not wearing Crocs or flip flops). Fun side note, once upon a time in the ’90’s I had a trench coat. It was actually kind of a pain because it was so big, but I thought I looked good (narrator: he in fact, looked like a dork).
  • I learned from my nephews that there is such a thing as a professional Esports league. As in, professional gamers. AND you can get a collegiate gaming scholarship. We are finished as a society.
  • The Ukraine comedian/mafia boss is back in the US today looking for more money. Can anyone provide a plausible scenario in which Ukraine defeats the Russian army, pushes them back to the original border, and Russia just simply gives up? Anyone? Anyone? Please tell me why we need to borrow more money to give to a lost cause? Is it just to see another couple hundred thousand people die?
  • The holidays are my absolute least favorite time of the year. Always been that way. I do my best to not be a grinch, but sometimes I can’t help it. I am also not drinking right now to help the fashion/weight loss scenario. Please send prayers.
  • I’m reading a number of books right now. The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam and The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic. Recommend both. They’ve spawned a huge jumble of thoughts that I want to capture, but have been unable to. It’s like I have a sense of what I want to say, but it’s just out of reach and slightly foggy. I guess I’ll just have to keep contemplating. I’m always impressed by people who can articulate complex ideas. We clearly don’t teach that any longer. We’ve moved into the University of Tik Tok phase of the empire.
  • We started watching the older series, Vikings. A few thoughts… A) I wonder if I could sport the viking haircut at my age. B) I cannot sport that haircut at this age or any previous age. C) What a brutal time to have been alive. D) Fascinating that the Romans in England were a more advanced society than the feudal/tribal times that followed them. Anyway, a good series. No spoilers please.

Ok, that’s enough purging. Time to move on to something more productive. Like arguing with people on X.

Confirmation bias, Daily Life

It’s Not What I Thought

Every once in a while, a book manages to surprise me. A great example is “World War Z“. I saw the movie first, so when I started the book imagine my surprise when I realized the only thing the book shares in common with the movie is the title. Seriously. Someone bought the movie rights to a great book and said, I love it. Let’s change everything. I don’t get that. Interestingly, it was written by Max Brooks. Son of Mel Brooks.

This week I found another gem to surprise me. Someone suggested “Starship Troopers“. I was very reluctant as the movie was awful. It couldn’t decide if it wanted to be campy, a spoof, or an actual science fiction flick. The end result was just stupid. Like World War Z, the novel version of Starship Troopers shares the name with the movie and that’s about it. It’s a great read with some pretty deep insights. In a nutshell, the book covers societal structure, the morality of war, and moral breakdown.

First published in 1959, it’s eerie how closely it parallels some of the issues society today is facing. At one point I had to go look up the publish date because I didn’t believe it wasn’t written recently.

And since this seems to be the week of surprises, I had another one yesterday. I had a preconceived notion of someone’s political leanings, and was gob smacked to find out I was completely wrong. If you haven’t followed cartoonist (creator of Dilbert) Scott Adams’ controversial blow up this week, it’s a doozy. On his live stream he made some controversial statements. You can listen here. I had just assumed he leaned towards the right side of the political spectrum. When he made those comments, I thought oh great – more ammo for the left to claim republicans are racist.

After making his comments, Adams sat for a long podcast interview, and I was shocked. He’s very left-wing. Contributed to BLM, supports reparations, and strongly believes systemic racism is the cause of many issues. The exact opposite of what I assumed his beliefs are. It’s a good interview and worth listening to. His rational for making those comments are certainly not how the media is portraying them.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his premise, he intentionally risked everything to say it. Within a day his comic strip has been dropped from every newspaper in the country and his book publisher canceled him. It takes guts to throw yourself on the sword in the name of starting a national discussion about race.

It’s only Wednesday. If there are any more surprises coming… I hope they’re good ones.

Daily Life, Lists

What’s Your Taste?

Music. Food. Blogs. YouTube. What’s the one thing these all have in common? They all satisfy a particular taste at a moment in time.

Take music. I have a very eclectic music playlist. Everything from reggae, blues, old school punk, OG rap, to hard core metal. What I find interesting is that on any given day I have a “taste” for a particular genre of music. I rarely just randomly listen to my playlist. When I have a taste for punk, that’s all I want to hear. If some other genre pops in, it just doesn’t sound right. Often the current taste lasts for several days and then I burn out and a new taste kicks in. It’s the same with reading or watching YouTube. I’ll get on a political kick and simply can’t get enough analysis of some weird arcane political topic. Day after day. And then suddenly, I can’t stand it anymore and move on to reading motorcycle tire reviews or the history of the Crusades or something.

The brain is an amazing thing. I find it fascinating that your brain can crave a particular input. Why do I get that dopamine hit listening to Rage Against the Machine one day, but the next it might sound like screeching static to me? Why do I have a taste for reading nothing but autobiographies for a month, and then suddenly the only thing I can stand to read are escapist spy thrillers? Does everyone’s brain work that way, or is it just me?

The real killer is when you lose your taste. That feeling of flipping through the radio, channel after channel, and nothing sounds good. Music, talk radio, sports, nothing is working. When you cycle endlessly through twitter, blogs, news sites and nothing seems even remotely interesting. What causes that? Is the brain on overload? Are you tired and don’t realize it? Dehydrated and the receptors aren’t firing? The brain is a complicated creature.

I have very little point to any of this. I started thinking about it this morning as I scrolled through YouTube. YouTube’s algorithm drives me nuts. You’d think at this point they’d be more sophisticated. I get that If I search or click on a thumbnail about a particular thing, I’m expressing interest and they want to serve me more videos about that topic. Fine. Except that they flood you with that topic.

Search for how to repair a lawnmower, and for two weeks your feed will be flooded with nothing but videos about lawnmowers, lawn care, gardening, lawnmower reviews, lawnmower racing, secrets to the perfect lawn, the best oil for lawnmowers, women in bikinis mowing the lawn (ok, I might have clicked on that one), redneck lawnmowers, careers in lawnmowing, etc… Do they not understand that taste is fleeting? How come they can’t figure out that if I haven’t clicked on a lawn mowing thumbnail in two days, I’m probably no longer interested in that topic?

Maybe rather than the random babble I push out from time to time, instead I’ll start posting nothing but my current daily “tastes”.

Daily Life, Government, Health, Politics

Death By Jingle Bells
  • Time of death was 1735. Ten and a half hours into the shift. The Christmas music loop playing over the hospital loudspeakers had just begun the forty seventh repeat of Jingle Bells for the day. He was found slumped over his desk, eyes rolled back, drool pooling in the corners of his N95 mask. The charting system was open and his last known note had not yet been saved… “Patient observed laughing while on phone call. Patient informed this nurse that pain was 10/10. This nurse provided education on pain medication schedule and alternative pain relief strategies. Patient was observed yelling obscenities at staff members. This nurse will continue to monitor patients pain levels closely….”
  • Thank god we finally have some diversity at the highest levels of government. The media proudly gushed that Pete Buttigieg will be the first openly gay cabinet member. Pete himself made a point of saying this during his acceptance speech. Apparently Richard Grenell as DNI doesn’t count because, well, he was appointed by Trump. And he even though he’s gay he probably secretly hates the gays. And he’s a racist obviously. Does it worry anyone else that Mayor Pete, who couldn’t even get the potholes fixed in South Bend, is now in charge of Transportation? Optics and symbolism are clearly what’s most important.
  • 8 inches of snow overnight. I’ve got stuff do this morning, so the first downhill day will have to wait until tomorrow. We’ll get some skate skiing in with the hound this afternoon.
  • The backlash over Jill Biden insisting on being called ‘Doctor’ has been hilarious. Reviews of her dissertation have not been kind. Tucker Carlson’s skewering of her academic prowess was pretty damn funny. You didn’t really think, after four years of being called racist, and trashing the first lady, folks would just magically unite did you? Silly rabbit.
  • Remember the days of riots, looting, and police officers being shot over the tragic police shooting of Breonna Taylor? Well, it turns out when someone does actual journalism (remember that?) reality doesn’t match the mob outrage. Poor miss Taylor doesn’t seem to have been the innocent bystander she was portrayed as. Will the media report on this? Nope. It doesn’t fit the narrative and we wouldn’t want to upset people with minor details like the truth.
  • While a bit long, this thread is worth reading. It asks some interesting questions about the flu and why it’s been nearly non-existent this year. It shows how little we actually know about Covid and if our myriad of strategies for dealing with it are even doing anything. You know, science.
  • Magically after the election, Twitter returns the retweet button back to its original functionality. All is well, nothing to see here folks, move along. Twitter will add a “fact check, disputed claim” to a video posted by a conservative. They don’t when the exact same video is posted by a liberal account. If you’re an honest, thinking person this should bother you.
  • I don’t normally read James Bond type books, but I’ve been hooked on the Gray Man series by Mark Greaney. Been binge reading. I’m on book 8 of 10. Good stuff when you want an easy escapism read.

Song of the day: Beastie Boys “Root Down”

Cool, Daily Life, Lists

Notions Of Cool V.017

A random list of things and shower thoughts that an old Gen X dude finds cool or worth pondering.

  • Spring appears to be here (in the West anyway). Blue skies and no signs of further snow in the forecast. As much as I like winter, I’m done. Been thinking more of the bike than the skis.
  • Speaking of skis, my new ones are scary fast. Super stable at speed with no chatter. Several times yesterday I caught myself at ludicrous speed and thought… crashing would be bad right now. They are forcing me to be more aggressive, which is a good thing I suppose.
  • We had to hire a crew to remove our snow disaster at the house. These folks worked their asses off for days. The vast majority of the population in this country has lost that all-day farmer strength we used to have. We’re doomed when the zombie apocalypse hits.
  • Speaking of zombies, a great book to read is “World War Z” by Max Brooks son of Mel Brooks. It’s what the movie was loosely based on. And by loosely I mean they share the same name, that’s about it. One of the neat concepts in the book is that post-apocalypse, society flips. The blue collar folks become the sought after leaders because they know how to actually fix and build things. The white collar workers are useless without electricity and become the new ditch diggers.
  • I’m fascinated by the Instagram algorithm. How is it that an account with 1 post has several hundred followers, but others with many hundreds of posts have only a few?
  • My shoulder is still messed up several years later. I can’t do pull ups or back squats due to pain. I need to fix this somehow.
  • Hard to gage who will be the democratic front runner. Kamala would be their better choice, but Bernie has the dollars. Beto, Booker, and Warren will be busts. Yang and Schultz could be interesting. Biden is corrupt as hell and I’m not convinced he’ll run.
  • An interesting interview by CNBC with GOPRO founder Nick Woodman. I still think the main problem is the learning barrier to editing and creating a watchable video. People buy the camera, use it a few times then it sits. I may or may not be referring to myself.

Song of the day: Rebelution “Feeling Alright”