Unemployment

Via TJIC:

Lots of people suffering out there, I hear, because the jobs they thought they could depend on collapsed out from under them and they don't know how to get out of that comfy box that suddenly ain't so comfy anymore.

I sympathize with the situation, if not necessarily with the individuals trapped in it, because oh, how I've been there. This lady's been unemployed for over 99 weeks and can't find any job? It's tempting to get all self-righteous and say she can't be looking very hard. But I've been there, and it's possible she was looking desperately - just not in the right places.

I spent much of last decade, starting around 2000, in an increasingly desperate state of chronic and apparently incurable underemployment or unemployment. This while living in one of the most expensive places on the planet. My living arrangements went from a cheap apartment to a cheaper apartment to a converted garage to a rented room in a pensioner's house. Frequently it was only my landlord's patience that kept any sort of roof over my head. I finally had to face up to the deeply unpleasant fact that my old career had left and wasn't coming back. Root, Hog, or Die.

The only way I could find out was to go around. If I can't work in my old field anymore, what can I do? It was time to go back to core competencies, and resolve that Mr. Respectable Suburban Man wasn't ever again gonna admire the furnishings of his respectable home in a respectable neighborhood. But I didn't have to starve or live behind a bus stop bench if I faced the new reality and made the adjustments that needed to be made.

Those adjustments are jarring - I remember them well. But putting it off, living on unemployment (and dreading the day when it inevitably ends) only makes a bad situation worse. We're conditioned to be picky about where we live and what we do for a living, but that pickiness is a terrible trap. It's a thousand times worse if you've got a family to maintain, which the lady in the linked article doesn't. Except for all that useless debt she took on she's actually in a pretty good position to start over fresh, though I don't expect her to do what's needed to take advantage of it. She'll do what I suspect most people will - She'll keep going further and further downhill till she finally latches onto enough of an eight-to-fiver to resume some parody of her former lifestyle. And she'll spend the rest of her life whining about it.

Truth is I kinda got to liking that path less traveled, and decided to take it to extremes. There's great comfort in simplicity, if you can become the sort of person to first seek it and embrace it, and then relax and enjoy it. But it requires a restructuring of a helluva lot of old and ingrained habits and assumptions. A lot of people aren't going to be willing to take that trip.

The first and most important of those adjustments: You are not what you do for a living. When people ask, "What do you do?" they're really asking "Who/what are you?" Me, I'm not about what I do for money. Cut wood, shovel shit, tend weekenders' gardens, haul trash - hell, I don't care. That's not who I am, it's just how I keep the pantry stocked.

And I'm not here to pat myself on the back for my rugged individualism. Without the kindness of friends I wouldn't be in anything like as good a position. I've been living in somebody else's RV on somebody else's land for going on four years. Now I'm building on a patch of land provided by another friend. It's not pure sponging - I do try to give value for value received. But there's no denying I started out as a charity case. There's not that much charity left in this overtaxed world.

So, like TJIC I sympathize with the situation this lady's in, if not with all the choices she made that helped her get into it. I hope she finds her way out - but I'm not at all confident she will.

"It's helpful to hear you say it out loud..."

...Says Jim Treacher at the DC Trawler.

Here's a video of a U.S. congressman getting caught saying something he thinks is true.



I'm tellin' ya, people. Spinning blades are the way to go.

Sometimes I think I'm not too tightly wrapped...

So I'm hauling my shit-wagon up hill and down dale, shoving horses out of the way so I can get to their offerings. Most people would not find this a particularly appealing way to spend a morning; in fact people pay me to do it for them because they'd rather not do it themselves. But maybe halfway through I start getting this song in my head (to the tune of the Wassail song):

Here we go shit-shoveling across the dusty plain
Here we go shit-shoveling in sunshine and in rain
Horses shit – Constantly!
And that's very good for me
For it keeps me in flour, rice and beans from day to day
Yes, it keeps me in flour, rice and beans!

I am not a beggar living on the rulers' dole
Or working in an office in a gray upholstered hole
Raise your tails, ladies, do!
And I'll scoop behind you too
For it keeps me in sugar, coffee, cigarettes and brew
Doggie snacks, bourbon, cigarettes and brew!

Never quite got to a third verse.

How to tell when you've got a pretty weak argument...

...When this guy can make himself look good by comparison.





No, I was never a fan.

Anybody speak Latin?

Okay, I am finally ready to commission the sign that will be planted in stucco above The Secret Lair's door.

Problem is, I'm not certain of exactly what it should say. The closest I've been able to come, and this comes from a forum discussion about two years ago, is "Ultimum Responsum Regibus."

Sounds about right to me, but I am not entitled to an opinion since I slept through my single semester of high school Latin and that was in the 'sixties.

So - can any of you educated types tell me? What is the proper latin translation of "Ultimate Answer to Kings?"

(BTW, the sign will be quite cool. Engraved sandstone, and cheap!)

Been reading some freebie blovels...

...and I have to say...



Yes, I know it's a shooter cliché, and these weren't shooter books. But still. Fingernails on a blackboard, it is like.

Picture cred to this guy.

And speaking of cats and dogs...

Here's a cat getting her point(s) across in no uncertain terms.



Next step: Roll on your back and use your rear claws to end the encounter.

This is insanely cool...

Yeah, I know. I'm a foe of the whole "projection of power" thing. But I'm an old mechanic, and I love good machines. The P51 Mustang was the climax state of the piston powered fighter. The only way to do it better was to do something completely different. I've always wanted to fly in one, and never have. Cool machines are cool, regardless of who commands them.

While walking to a flea market...

Me: (Looking at a billboard for a local candidate) "He's got a kind of Andy Griffith thing going on, don't you think?"

Claire" "Yeah, and apparently a boatload of money. Heard he's paying for his campaign out of his own deep pockets."

Me: "I don't mind that so much, as long as they empty his pockets before they feed him into the spinning blades."

Claire: (After a rather long silence) "Um...spinning blades?"

Me: "Yeah. I mean, I can get along with a traditionalist. Ropes and lamp posts have their charms. But spinning blades have a twenty-first century thing I find very attractive. Elections should definitely involve spinning blades. At a minimum they should be fought with guns."

Claire: (More silence) "Oh. Yeah, okay."

My god. Is this still around?

I can't believe it. I went to this attraction when I was a little boy - saw the "mermaids," which is the only part I remember, and wondered what was so great.

The only thing I really remember about it was how the announcer kept saying 'I'd never forget it.' And all the way home I wondered, "Why will I never forget this, when I've seen 'way cooler things I've already forgotten?"

Guess it worked.

H/T to ASM826

On the Keeping and Bearing of Weapons.

I keep dogs. This is going to be funny as hell to some of my friends, because when I first came here I wasn't a particular fan of dogs. But I haven't really changed: before that I kept cats, and the principle applies to them as well.

Despite some argument with my now ex-wife, I have never declawed a cat. That's because cats need their claws even more than they need their fangs, for defense. Defense is the absolute right of a cat, so much smaller than many of the animals that would aggress against them. They mostly defend themselves very efficiently; their claws are like razors. I knew a big gray tom that sent a German Shepherd to the vet to have its guts sewed back in one time. Up till then that dog thought it was the biggest, baddest SOB in the valley, but it barely survived the encounter. The dog challenged the cat, and the cat attacked the dog. The cat had claws, and also superior tactics. Bet that dog didn't do that again.

Point being, the small and weak need weapons to defend themselves against the large and strong. That's just the way it is. I'm not a big fan of Thomas Hobbes, but he wasn't entirely wrong. We do exist in a state of nature. The word for the one who believes that weapons aren't needed because nature has been tamed, is fool. Nature always has the last laugh. And my life may be solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish, but I'd rather it not be short. Hence, like my dogs and my cat, I carry my weapons openly and at all times.

It is the privilege of all immature creatures to be protected by their parents, to the extent possible. It is the absolute right of all mature creatures to be protected by themselves. Adult dogs possess teeth. Adult cats possess razor-sharp claws. Humans...well, humans seem to have been short-changed by our Maker in this regard. But what we lack in natural weapons we compensate for by our ability to make artificial weapons. And we further have the ability to stand on the shoulders of giants. Left to my own devices my weapons would be clubs and maybe sharpened rocks. But fortunately I have access to the labors of Messrs Browning, Freeman, Garand, and Kalashnikov.

This morning my pup Little Bear killed and ate a large rabbit. Rabbits seem to have been designed to be prey animals, since they have only two means of defense: Stealth and speed. They have no effective weapons. So this rabbit, which was certainly mature and probably older than LB, went down his throat. If it'd had weapons, the outcome might have been different. I might have been rushing LB to the vet. I might have been burying him. Instead I'm just planning to buy some wormer medicine because LB had all the weapons in that encounter. It should be a teachable moment.

Look, I don't care about the Constitution. This predates and supersedes the Constitution, or any other writing of man. I am what I am, a mature creature walking the earth, and predators would hunt me if they could. But they have a poor chance of success, because I am frickin' armed.

That's all I'm trying to say.

Big ol' Glutton...

Little Bear has turned out to be quite the predator. He was such a floppy, clumsy puppy that when he started showing up with dead rabbits I wondered how they'd died. These days there's no question left about that. I was working on the Lair early before it got hot this morning - Ghost started clamoring for a walky, and so I dropped what I was doing, took up my canteen and my rifle, and we went out into the wash. Up the hill and across the ridge we went, and Ghost took off after a rabbit with LB right behind. Ghost chases rabbits all the time but never catches them - the one time he almost accidentally caught a rabbit he didn't really want it. Walked around holding it by the scruff for a while, then dropped it next to Magnus who promptly killed and ate it.

With LB, though, there's no uncertainty. He likes to chase rabbits too, but he's in it for the food. So this time they went blasting after this bunny, I sat down to wait, and five minutes or so later LB came trotting back with a big, very dead cottontail in his jaws. Having done that, of course, he loses all interest in walkies. All he wants is a shady spot to lie and chow down. I had no intention of sitting there for half an hour while he made his meal, so I insisted on heading back to the Lair. Once LB got with the program he disappeared entirely, which pissed me off somewhat: I stood at the top of the ridge overlooking the Lair, calling and calling but he didn't come. Then I looked down to the Lair - and there he was, in the shadow of the cabin, looking up at me as if to say, "What? I'm just where you wanted me to go, right? What are you yelling about?"

Dumb as a box of rocks, but he still manages to be smarter than me sometimes. 8^}

On this date...

Arizona joins Vermont and Alaska in treating adults like adults.

The new non-law has fallen pretty much off the national radar because of all the talk generated by that other thing Arizona did. But this is good, anyway.

Next?

When did progressives become warmongers?

The Portland Progressive Examiner has a surprising take on HR5741, the latest Universal National Slavery Service Act, sponsored by that lying, thieving, hypocritical ditch manure The Honorable Congressman Charles Rangel.

The bill, or something like it, is an interesting proposal, and should not be dismissed out of hand. There is a great deal to be said for the proposal. Such a measure would help build character and citizenship in a whole new generation of Americans. To be an American is a privilege, and Universal National Service may be a way to bring that point home.

My answer:

To be an American is an accident of birth, and does not obligate me no matter how often that lie is repeated. I owe you nothing, Bubba. You can call it hysteria - you can call it Shirley for all I care, but how is involuntary servitude NOT slavery?

I've a feeling this fella would look at it differently if the majority in congress had "R" behind their names.

The song in my head...

...Just Isn't Fair.

There are so many fun songs in this movie - which I haven't seen in I don't know how long - and this is the one I end up humming...



Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

Yeah, that'd be a pretty good wake-up call...

He said, "I always thought you were an alarmist when you talked about being prepared for a shitstorm, but I was in Sam's Club a few weeks ago and I saw something that scared the bejeezus out of me."

"What was that?" I asked.

"I saw (NAME REDACTED) and he had one of those big flat-bottom carts stacked with big bags of rice, beans, salt, cases of canned meat and tuna, you name it."

"Who's (NAME REDACTED)?" I asked.

"He's my banker."

Huh? Whazzat?

Well, it's a pretty damned poor commentary on life when our hillbilly-rigged wifi works just fine, but it says there's no WAN to connect to. Only part of the whole kludged-together contraption that doesn't work, and it's the only part we actually paid to have installed. Sad, that's all.

Yesterday afternoon the satellite took Lughnasadh off a little early, or something. Yeah, blessed be and all that, but we're not paying the damned thing to collect seeds and mourn for the dying sun. Seems okay this morning, though.

Got some fairly good work done on the Lair yesterday morning, but came back to the Jeep to find the battery near dead. My own damned fault - it's been cranking slow the past few days for lack of longer drives to charge it, so naturally it gave up the ghost when the Jeep was fairly deep in the boonies. Claire's gonna come on back sometime this morning and give me a jump, but in the meantime it's shank's mare and like it. And I've got to be three different places today I'd rather not walk, since I've got pressure sores acting up and don't like to walk when I can ride. Walking hurts lately.

Even so I can't bitch too much. The Lair's looking more like a house inside every day and less like a lazy hippy's nightmare. I moved most of the short pieces of interior siding outside under the tarp and got things more-or-less swept out after paneling one of the bathroom walls yesterday, just so I could get a better idea how much room there'll be. Last weekend Landlady and M brought me a big honkin' recliner they scrounged. I set it up in the corner, sat and admired for half an hour before going out and discovering the dead battery.

I got paid for a couple of jobs on Monday, so I've got a little money even after paying Claire what I owed her. I can pay MK half what I still owe on the chainsaw and still have something rustling in my pocket for the wallboard I need behind the wood stove. So that's nice. I still have a commissioned article I've got to sit down and write, and that's the last big-ticket payday I have on tap so it'll have to be enough.

But now I need to go to work on the ceiling, and that's gonna be pure hell that'll take several days even if I stick with it like the fanatical worker I'm not. Ah, well. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

Ever have one of these days?

Then you might want to spend some time with this guy, who shows you various methods of getting yerass free.

Might also consider having one of these taped to the inside of your belt.

Some days yer paranoid. Some days yer not paranoid enough. ;^)

H/T to Lawdog.

America: The OTHER Yugoslavia

I've gotta go shovel shit, but allow me to take just a moment to foment major sociopolitical upheaval.

In this LRC article, Michael Rozeff spells out the problem:

I don’t think Americans can improve their lot by participating in national politics under the current rules of the national game. I think they have to change the rules. They have to end the Union and get out from under the existing Constitution, which is now entirely controlled and interpreted by the national government.

Since there is no consensus for going back to the original Constitution and since it would have to be rewritten and renegotiated, which is a process of uncertain outcome and which is impractical anyway, this leaves one viable path: ending the Union and ending this Constitution.

...and then cogently proposes a solution that I've been toying with but haven't been able to string together coherently:

A viable means is the withdrawal of consent by Vermonters or Texans or Alaskans or Arizonans or Californians or the citizens of any state to (sic) the U.S. government. People gain leverage and power against the national Leviathan by acting as citizens of their respective states. They need to act through their state legislatures, not as citizens of the United States.

Yes, the state governments. Stop laughing. I know I'm not being ideologically pure in endorsing this, but I console myself that all the worst atrocities in human history were carried out in the name of ideological or philosophical purity. The man's got a point, and we can always strip-mine the state governments later. Hey, I'm advocating Fabian tactics here. It worked for the Socialists.

A tax revolt that works from and through the state legislatures directly undermines the Union. It directly challenges the power of Congress to tax. That’s a far stronger political platform for restructuring the United States.

Outright secession is one political measure in a spectrum of possible actions by which one or more states stand up to the U.S. government. Nullification is another. Withdrawal from the banking system is another. A separate payments system at the state level is a fourth. Refusal to obey any of hundreds of U.S. directives is a fifth. The formation of alliances among states is another.

In fact, there are so many possible ways by which one or more states stand up to the Union that, given enough time and the right conditions, a breakup is all but assured. The same cannot be said of any movement that seeks to work change by confronting Americans as one large group with their national government.

Divide. Conquer. But first, divide.

Our problem in trying to get our liberty back is that our enemy is mighty and united. No, the government is not some Borg-like monolith. But on this subject, all its multifarious warring parts are in agreement: They know they absolutely must hold us down. We're the chickens in the coop. The farmer's family may argue among themselves, but none of them are arguing for us. We need to get them arguing with some other families.

The political factionalism of the past few decades is working for us in this regard. Increasingly, Americans are becoming divided to an irreconcilable degree. What do westerners have in common with the contented denizens of Chicago, or NYC, or DC? We're all carbon-based lifeforms, and that's just about it. I, for one, am heartily sick of being outvoted by people with whom I share not one single idea or belief. I've never been a Free Stater, but do occasionally think maybe they've got a point. Concentrate our numbers in the political subdivisions that can plausibly be nudged in our direction. Some of them are already nearly there - Arizona, Wyoming, Montana are practically in revolt against their "federal" masters already, though not necessarily on topics I sympathize with. That sort of dissension needs to be encouraged. If some state governments get the idea that their people endorse individual action, they'll become more bold. Nullification will follow, and the withholding of tax money. Secession will gradually - maybe not so gradually - become less unthinkable.

Maybe we can't kill Leviathan. But it'd be fun to try and saw his frickin' legs off.

Utopia in our lifetime? Oh, hell no! It'd be chaos. But like I've said before, we need to get comfortable with the idea of chaos. We need to embrace the chaos. We've been normal for a long time now, and change is good.

I've got a new shiny!

I've just received the final functional parts of my third donated camera. I swore when the dust killed the last one that I'd buy a point'n'shoot digital without a mechanical zoom lens, because that's the part that always goes bad. The first one I don't feel too badly about; who knew you shouldn't carry it in your pocket? The second, a gift from the Grey Lady, I was more careful with but it died anyway. I never got around to buying that cheap no-zoom - there was always something else to spend the money on.

Now Claire has gifted me with a very nice used camera and extracted from me a solemn vow that I'll keep it in a freakin' Zip-lock bag if that's what it takes to keep the dust out of the worky parts.

Here's hoping I've learned enough lessons to keep this one going. Thanks, Claire! Turns out my old data transfer cable works fine, BTW.