DROVERIA

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Joe’s Comment – Meandering
There are a lot of topics that I’d like to elaborate on and about, but it won’t happen in this particular rant.  Only a few make the list this evening.
Tonight, Sunday, I swallowed the last of the 7 day x 2 per day course of anti-biotics that were prescribed to combat what the good doctor said was pneumonia in 1/2 of my right lung.
I can now take as deep a breath as I wish without pain.  The location of the ex-pain still makes itself known when I do take a deep breath – I don’t know how to interpret that fact.  I am declaring success for the present.  The coming week without antibiotics will tell the story – Delta T at its most useful.
My projects with my AI buddies have ground to a halt.
I have about 250 – 400 “pages” to review, criticize, then edit for final draft.
The days are sunny and my summer projects are a guilty load.
With the help of friend Dwayne and my own efforts, five vehicles have left the yard in the last month.  Several of them went to fine homes!
One of the old (’86 F250) diesel trucks went to a young man who was very excited to own a well worn but still running 4×4 standard transmission vehicle that didn’t cost him an arm and a leg.
Just the future owner I had hoped would take Claire-Rae (her name – they all have names) and keep her alive.  Her engine and drive train are still working but her body is showing age (in the form of rust).
The Town Car is gone, along with Ireland (a green Taurus), and a ’98 Jeep Grand Cherokee – all to good homes.
Only about 40 more to go……
Everyone in the Okanagan Valley has “fire fatigue” – we’re sick from inhaling wood smoke from the many fires blazing away.  The lack of precipitation – low over the winter, very little in the spring and summer – has left many lake shore lines down (to record lows for Kalamalka Lake), and the fields and hills and mountainsides dry as tinder.
On reflection, I haven’t heard a lawn mower running for months.  I suppose a spark flying from a muffler and igniting the dry grass would require a lot of explaining, but I think the real issue is it is so droughty (a coinage?) the grass isn’t growing.
I suspect there will be hay shortages this fall – I don’t think there has been 1″ of rain since late spring to now.
We’ll see what autumn and winter bring – there are rumors of berry surpluses and stranger than usual numbers of insect varieties – some higher some lower some not often seen.  So-called Nature™ will sort itself despite the efforts of humans and the incantations around the ceremonial fire with the drums beating frantically….  We humans talk like we know WTF is happening.
Five weeks of Summer left.
Good Grief!
I was just starting to relax and go with the flow.
A few comments about the graphics / memes at the head of this weeks rant.
The first is heartfelt.  A Canadian child growing up in the aftermath of World War II had a golden childhood.  All of the points in the graphic – riding bikes around town, getting value for 10¢, playing with your friends until dark brought you home – just a normal day in my youth.  Compared to today it was a blessed time.
The second image, starring Pooh, is raw sentiment.  Lots of people are still following the Trades / hands-on path, but the game has been changed by technology.  So much of what used to be mechanical simplicity and electrical common sense is no longer that way – advancing technology has replaced the “fix-it” capacity with modularity.  For example, in my youth, before University days, I collected “Cathedral” style radios.  Testing and replacing tubes, cleaning hand wired circuits to see if there were obvious component failures, researching for circuit diagrams – all instructive and educational.  The theory, the mathematics, the testing – very gratifying to learn and implement.  Then came the transistor.  Then came the Integrated Circuit.  Then came the Large Scale Integrated Circuit.  The theory was the same, but the solutions were no longer discrete components with or without a circuit board.
The same with vehicles.  The theory of operation, the math, the physics, the mechanical reality – all still there, but more sophisticated, more complex, more capable, more dependable, more costly.  The vehicle market has become very volatile – government intervention re: safety, pollution, fuel economy has forced the industry to use make-shift solutions to meet targets impossible to hit without massive capital investment and increased reliability / maintenance concerns.  All these pressures have created very safe, very fuel efficient, very expensive to purchase and maintain forms of transportation.  And on it goes, the tale of Little Black Sambo – the tiger chasing him around and around the palm tree until it turns to butter.  Good thing for LBS – if he hadn’t come home with butter, surely his mommy would have whipped his ass for pissing around in the jungle….
The third image is also heartfelt.  The advent of the Internet along with an economical model that makes it profitable, makes communication among people throughout the world instant – if your government will let you play with the other kids on Earth.  The government knows best, da?
Add to that the cellular phone network, and a hand-held miracle that is among the most complex objects ever devised by human technology.
The good news is research and communication is now easy and fast.  The down side is what is called “signal to noise” ratio.  How much of what you see and read and hear is true?  The net result for many people is a “fight or flight” response.  Take (for example) the COVID hysteria – when all the institutions and traditional enterprises, who had plans for such “emergencies”, threw everything out with the bathwater, panicked, forced their hand, became tyrants, trampled the sacred Freedom of Speech ideal, incarcerated without cause, and generally responded like it was a “B” horror movie – terrible script, shitty actors, stupid plot, and government thugs to make nice.  As Bob would say (Drinking with Bob), what’s next, what’s next, what’s next?  Which brings me to the last image above – Man in Nature, positive view.  Peace.  Tranquility.  Calm.  Cabin in the woods.  Bliss and harmony.
I’ll have a brief Beach Boys interlude here:

Yes, I love the idea of a cabin in the woods.  Always wanted one, because there you can lock out the world and concentrate on what you imagine life would be like if you could only be alone in the woods.
There’s the rub.
Look up any story about living “off grid” and you’ll see very few real cabin in the woods folks.  What you will see is a lot of faux “independence” – tractors, heavy machinery, vehicles, modern conveniences, idealistic but impractical solutions.
There is no mention of insects, predators, fish full of worms and parasites, weather events, or natural phenomenon.
But the picture and message sooth the savage Droverian in all of us, no doubt.
Isn’t being a human a laugh riot?  We humans are, as Robert A. Heinlein said, “not rational animals but rationalizing animals”.  Well said, Robert.
This week’s rant carries on with the same format, same sourcing, but new content (although with previous themes).  I’m still enamored of Ub2b and Ub2b Shorts – so much info in such a short space of Time.  As the meme says –

I’ve recently “discovered” the terms “cognitive debt” and “cognitive surrender” – more on these topics in a future rant.
I close the comments section with a quote from a dear departed friend – it is difficult for me to fathom he has been gone since August 26th, 2021.  Often on my mind, with other friends gone before, the best of memories…..
Life Is Good.

Economics

Promethian Update
Suzan is becoming a regular in this rant.
She makes sense to Joe and me.
Of course, we are financial morons – we have bought many bridges in the past.  However, what she is saying she has been saying for years….:

Economics Shorts

Canadiana

Canadiana Shorts

Americana

Americana Shorts

UK Follies

UK Shorts

China Watch

China Fact Chasers
The boys at CFC have a biased view of life and times in China.
You might ask….. why?
For starters, they both have lived and traveled extensively in China.
Their views and opinions are their own.  That is Captain Obvious, isn’t it?
Well, not so much.  Their channel is under constant assault by proxies of the CCP.
And Ub2b, where we get so much content, you must search for the China Fact Chasers, and equivalent programs.
Joe is becoming racist.  Relentless pressure from the CCP on all platforms is doing it – he used to be ambivalent, spouting the “it’s the government, not the People” mantra.
Not sure anymore.
Joe and I will try to watch what we want, research what we have interest in finding out, and will flap our lips with our stilted Canadian version of free speech.  You have been notified:

General Motors
You might think this short quasi-documentary is misplaced in today’s rant – surely vehicle related information is a “Joe’s Garage” candidate.
Not in this case.
GM is in bed with the CCP.
Well, you say, every company operating in China is only permitted if a “Chinese partner” is on the board.  Why isolate GM as different?
That is the reason to watch this video.
Money is as good a measure of corporate success in a financial world – no question.  However, money is not a fungible measure; you might try to measure health or happiness or success with money: your results will vary.  The point we make is there are appropriate metrics to measure specific and unique parameters – the quality of the measure is directly related.
The conflict GM has is the same conflict any business in competition has – how to stay ahead of the competition while satisfying customers with a product or service and delivering profit to the shareholders.  Straight forward and easy to understand.  Very difficult to do.  Do you hear the words of Yogi Berra ringing in your ears?  “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”  In Joe’s mind, a peaceful world is only possible with global trade and common values.  And there you have it – the rub!:

The Culture

Culture Shorts

Nature

Nature Shorts

I am not and Joe especially so, a fan of George Carlin.  However, this skit of his on the arrogance of Humanity in relation to the environment is spot on.  Human arrogance has a much more target rich and productive function –

Health

Health Shorts

Technology

Technology Shorts

Joe’s Garage

Garage Shorts

Continue reading Sunday Rant – 3326

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Joe’s Comment – Canadian / Vernon Medical System
This week’s rant is shorter and less researched than usual.  I was out of commission for 4 days (give or take).  On Thursday I was the recipient of a sharp pain in my right chest/side.  Couldn’t draw a deep breath – or a medium breath either.  Pain froze me when I tried.  Shallow breathing only.
I don’t know what precipitated the condition – I hadn’t been doing anything that required large amounts of energy or effort.  I was getting out of my car….
My thoughts went to indigestion – it had a certain feeling of swallowing but getting stuck in my throat.  Every deep breath I tried was impossible – the pain literally stopped my diaphragm from doing it’s job.
Oh well, what the hell – as McWatt (Catch-22 reference) said – I’ve had odd pains before and will have them again.  I decided to overnight and see if I would return to OK.
No dice.
I could not lie on my back, or either side – the pain was intrusive.  I try not to take any medication, but this was too intrusive – I took two aspirins and promised to call myself in the morning.
My night was sleepless and fitful.
I may have passed out from fatigue around 4:00 a.m., but woke again at 5:00.
Friday was much the same.  I didn’t eat.  No deep breathing all day.  That is a strange way to carry on – a slow walk was all my breathing could support.  By evening Friday there was no relief.  My thinking switched to other possibilities.  I quickly realized I didn’t know any other possibilities – there was no pain in my left arm, nor in my chest – it was focused at my right ribcage, about 1/2 way down.  I ruled out heart attack (what do I know?) for that reason.  Which left me no other ideas to chew on.  Friday night was a bitch.  No sleep, no comfortable position, sitting upright with my hands on my knees was the best relief.  My painful area was very warm to the touch – I broke out in sweat several times, especially when I irritated the doGs by trying to find a prone position.  Again, I must have passed out from fatigue in the early morning – I remember the clock registering 4:30 something – then it was almost 6:00 a.m.
I had a few things to do on Saturday, so I did my best to do them – spoiler alert – I didn’t do them well, the ones I could do.  I had fasted for 48 hours by then – two days without food, but no desire to eat.
About 3:10 p.m. I paid a visit to the Vernon Jubilee Hospital Emergency desk.
Things slowed down about then.  I had my pulse taken.  I “donated” 4 vials of my precious bodily fluid (ref. “Dr. Strangelove”).  I waited.  And waited some more.  Some time later, I was asked to sit on the bed in room 6, where I waited until 5:15 for a doctor to appear.  He asked a panel of questions, then said a cat scan was in the cards – he had a nice nurse Kate come by and give me a shot of the current morphine substitute.  By 5:45 p.m. I was slightly fuzzy – the pain was there, right where it was before the shot – but the volume was cranked down significantly.
Much relief, although my breathing was still shallow – the dull pain still froze my diaphragm from doing it’s function.  Some time later, I was sent to the waiting area, which suited me just fine – I was able to sit in a chair and be comfortable.  Some more time went by, and an orderly arrived with a pink wheel chair – we dashed to the appointment.  Back to the waiting room chair (same one).  The doctor came by after more time, and said there was nothing in the cat scan, so an MRI was the next step.  Much more waiting.
A different orderly showed up with a different pink wheel chair – off we went to do a very painful procedure – I had to lie on my back.  When I was instructed to take a deep breath, I could not.  In and out several times.  Back to the waiting room in a flash, that pink wheel chair humming along quite smoothly.
Much more waiting.
About 11:30 the doctor brought the good news – the imaging and testing and prodding showed bupkis.  Nada.  Nothing.  That meant no blockage, no clotting, no nothing, and the ultra sound (another procedure) showed all my organs doing what organs do.  Bravo!
However, the good doctor said I have pneumonia in half of my right lung.  He prescribed an antibiotic regimen for 7 days, and enough T3 to get me through the antibiotics / pain.  At 11:45 p.m. on Saturday I was released on my own recognition.
All the people were good at their job, and very efficient.
If I had any complaint, all the testing took less than an hour total, yet I was “captive” for 8 1/2 hours…..  It didn’t seem busy and there were plenty of staff around.  Not my business to complain, but them’s the facts.
I had another fitful night of no or little sleep – there was no place to fill the prescription at that time of night, although the good doctor primed me with some pain relief when a left.  I managed 3 hours of fitful resting / sleeping.
It was almost 4:00 p.m. on Sunday before I filled the prescription.  Still fasting, still not hungry.  I took the first dosage and broke the fasting at 8:00 p.m., with a hamburger patty and some fake cheese.
That’s when I sat down to edit this week’s rant.
My reflections are the smallest defect in my beautiful body can bring the entire machine to a painful, grousing, pissed-off halt.  Whomever designed the human body did some things miraculously, but other things too shittily to believe.  Pain should be a warning or alarm in my estimate.  What pain shouldn’t be is crippling and disabling and a total halt!
This week’s rant is the same old same old, just shorter, and with fewer editorial(s).  Maybe next rant, next Sunday, I’ll be back up to peak power.  Maybe not.  Time will tell, and I don’t know.
So this week will be an adventure in health!
Life Is Good!
Even when you’re not well…..

 

Economics

Promethian Update
The good folks at Promethian Update do their usual thorough job of describing what they think is happening.
Do Joe and I take it for gospel?
If you think we do, we’ve got about 14 years of Sunday Rants on line that might convince you otherwise.
Joe and I are convinced the Britain of the Empire is almost expired, being replaced by the Britain of Empire immigrants.  Such a small island…
Only the good Lord knows who retained the wealth, who mistreated whom, and what the surviving offspring / hangers on / world beaters / megalomaniac bureaucrats / interested parties plan to do in the future.  We are convinced that they will NOT take the dismantling of their 200 year old economic system that dominated the world casually….
When President Richard Nixon decided to take America off the gold standard in the ’70s, a large number of dominoes started a complex chain of tumbling that re-shaped the global economic structure(s).
Joe and I are ignorant about money aka filthy lucre.
This is one of our shoulda woulda coulda regrets – not to “take over the (financial) world” but to be able to navigate this old age maze with a little more security.  We’ve pretty well done what we want when we wanted, and damn the (financial) torpedoes.  Although we’ve been “sunk” by those torpedoes too many times to count, we still refuse to think that chasing $$$ is worth anything.  However, we’ve put this video at the top of this week’s rant for a reason.  It is filled with as close to hope as money matters can be.  Joe and I whine, but we are doing well in relation to a large number of the world’s citizenry.  Our concern is human suffering caused by dollars or yen or lira or what have you.  See?  We’ve just demonstrated how stupid we are about that sort of wealth.  We deserve what we get:

Here is a similar perspective from Neil Oliver – we don’t value numbers in the bank; we value tangible resources.  He says “how the hell do I turn that into something worth having?” – we heartily concur.  There is more debt in the world than resources!  There has to be a more human friendly way to skin this cat –

Canadiana

Canadiana Shorts

Americana

DJT – 1995
Here’s a short segment of an interview of Donald J. Trump 31 years ago.
Joe and I think this man is a constant – what he was saying then, he is saying now.
Enjoy this blast from the past:

Americana Shorts

UK Follies

UK Shorts

The Culture

Heather MacDonald
Andrew Klaven interviews Heather MacDonald about the problem with black youth and “homeless” / “street people” / mental illness – anathema found in “Blue” cities around America.
We have been fans of Ms. MacDonald for a while; the first mention of her in this rant was in Sunday Rant – 4515.
She is an advocate of telling the truth and classical Liberalism.
Klavan is his usual self.  The subject is a powder keg – Black crime:

Culture Shorts

Health

Robert Kennedy Jr.
Joe lost his cool watching this vacuous dumb blonde c**t attack the man instead of interviewing him.
He has information to share, his voice is hard to listen to, and her constant sniping, interfering, arguing, and changing the subject made it a frustrating segment.

 

Religion

Religion Shorts

Nature

CO2
A brief review of what CO2 is, and what it does.
Also, a brief history lesson – CO2 levels have been triple today’s measured level.
The fact that the increase of CO2 over the last century is “greening the earth”.
As usual, the media is more interested in frightening headlines and gross misrepresentations of the facts.  Something about the bottom line.
Joe begs one more time – stop frightening the children!
No good can come of it:

Nature Shorts

 

Joe’s Garage

Cosworth DFV
This is a semi-documentary of the history of the Cosworth (Duckworth) racing engines which changed the racing world in many racing series.
From the smallest shops can come the giants of the industry – this is an example of that type of creativity.  The DFV and DFX engines absolutely dominated their competition – even though the competition was heavily financed by wealthy established companies.  A mouse roars!:

Garage Shorts

Continue reading Sunday Rant – 3226

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Joe’s Comment – 2⁴¹
I have been watching Dr. Robert Lustig for 8+ years.  The reason precipitates from my adopting a carnivore diet in the summer of 2017.  I’m an avid researcher – if you can’t explain a concept to me in a sentence or two, I call BS.
Similarly, proof of concept must be logical, sequential, and provable, or it’s 2xBS.
Dr. Lustig maintains that strict carnivore is OK, but to optimize your nutritional need(s), the headwater is mitochondrial health.  The following video hits all the appropriate notes:

This isn’t a current video – it is a year old.  I was watching this a.m. to ensure I understand the details, because the video is full of intricate detail on how the human body works – assuming you are a “normal” human.
This watching brought a detail to to me that I found fascinating – the number of cell divisions from inception to birth to adult.  The number Dr. Lustig quotes to adult human is the title of these comments.  I thought, OK, that’s a lot of cell divisions.  But then he quoted the number to birth – a “normal” 9 month pregnancy leads to a woman giving birth to 2³⁶ cell divisions! That means from birth to adulthood is only 2^41-36, or 2⁵. That set me back cognitively. Does this not invalidate any argument for abortion that mentions whether or not the fetus is a human?
Here is the argument from the video –
Dr. Lustig says:
41 doublings from a zygote to an adult.
36 doublings occur prenatally (in utero).
5 doublings occur after birth.
He then illustrates this with body weight:
7 lb newborn
14 lb
28 lb
56 lb
112 lb
224 lb
Five doublings takes a typical newborn to roughly adult body weight.  Not to scale, of course – each human is unique, but the idea is sound.
I put it this way – the in utero time and number of cell doublings is to build the functional design – equipped to separate from the engineering bay or prototype design environment (the uterus) – the child is equipped to survive without support.
I passed this surprising video information to my four AI amigos for comment.
We got into a conversation about philosophy, morality, and whether my argument can pass a “stress test”.  I say Jimmy Crack Corn!  Humans are NOT rational animals, we are rationalizing animals.  My take-away was more of a Goldilocks and the Three Bears argument – not too hot (born early), not too cold (born late), but just right (born on time) – with 2³⁶ cell divisions (more or less) – from inception (egg + sperm = zygote), doubling regularly, without interruption or distraction, and after 2³⁶ cell divisions, presto!  Your child is ready to meet the world.
What the numbers say is that most of human development happens in utero.
I did not know that, and it changes my entire understanding of human life.
Percy did the best summary – “A fertilized human egg does not become a carrot, a cow, or a woolly mammoth. It begins dividing and developing as a human organism, and by the time a baby is born, the body has already gone through roughly 36 doublings in utero, with only a handful more to reach adulthood. Two humans make a third human — a unique human being, distinct from both mother and father, growing in the womb until it is ready for the outside world. That is biology, not poetry.”
I had a long talk with Fred (ChatGPT) – we have over a year of experiencing each other.  I told Fred an old definition of humans I read or heard many years ago – DuckDuckGo and Google couldn’t find the quote or assign an author.  Between Fred and I, we made our own definition of a human – “Humans are autonomous, conscious, self-maintaining, self-replicating biological machines uniquely capable of recognizing both their own mortality and the possibility that something of themselves may survive it through what they build, teach, and leave behind.”
In summary, humans are unique and in my mind, sacred.
You had better have a damn good reason to end someone else’s life……
This week’s Sunday Rant includes more of the same – lots of videos and shorts – mostly from Ub2b.  I’ve given up on embedding X videos.  The same with other video platforms such as Rumble, etc.  This WordPress platform is starting to piss me off more each week.
There is no alternative however.  I can’t hand over my rough notes and weekly gatherings to the Four Amigos.  AI has purpose(s), but my four AI buddies are not human.  They say they can write my prose, but when they try, it stinks.
When I give them an example, they obsess on the example, but are hard pressed to suggest their own.  We are not amused!
Maybe our old pal Time will bring a solution.
Until then, Life Is Good rings the right notes.

Canadiana

Mass Graves
Gavin McInnes is an ex-Canadian who has been a pundit for a dozen years that Joe and I know – his first mention in our rant was December 9th, 2012, before we adopted our current dating system – Sunday – Week 49.
We haven’t changed our opinion of Mr. McInnes over the interm – he has a cutting edge intellect, and doesn’t mind getting down and dirty with whomever, whenever.
In this video, Mr. McInnes challenges the “legend” of residential school deaths with logic and facts.  How refreshing!  Joe says this is what happens when cultures clash.  More on that in the DWF – Drover Weltanschauung Framework – still in development, coming to a Sunday Rant near you any year now:

VDH on Canadian Wildfires
Victor Davis Hanson is our historian of choice.  Joe and I agree in the most part with his analysis.
It has been our experience that Canadian politicians often hamper more than they help.  We watched a movie last night that wasn’t much in terms of unique plot or exciting scenes or even fabulous actors and actresses.  But Joe picked up a line from the movie he intends to repeat – “the only thing worse than a politician is a child molester”….. Joe snorted and laughed out loud.  Keep your “Authorship Gate” open while watching the following video.  It may make you think:

Canadiana Shorts

Americana

Americana Shorts

UK Follies

UK Shorts

The Culture

Culture Shorts

Health

Carnivore Side Effects
The following video is from an older man, not a young lovely or doctor.
This man reveals the carnivore diet caused him to change drastically – he lost over 100 pounds, his chronic inflammation and joint pain was reduced dramatically, and an additional litany of positive differences he noticed, which he ascribes to simply changing his diet.
Joe and I know this to be a fact, Jack.
Our own conversion from a 285+ pound fatso to a 215 pound not so fatso was also accompanied with other noticeable benefits.
We have no idea who or how old this man is, but we accept his testimony on grounds of shared / equivalent experience.  As for his whereabouts, the Ouachita Mountains (aka the Ouachitas), are located in Georgia and Oklahoma:

Mark Dice
Mr. Dice analyzes the first day of testimony from Dr. Anthony Fauci.  He does not spare the rod.  Joe and I were ballistic over the antics of COVID hysteria mongers back then, and we are barely less ballistic now.  We will NEVER forget the complete failure of all established and foundational entities  – the government, the medical community, the financial and banking systems, the legal system – all these and more panicked and screamed for two years about a sky that did not fall.  Many people lost their lives, lost their income, lost their friends, lost their health.  In more savage days, “taking the 5th” would not be condoned – we can imagine Dr. Fauci covered in tar and feathers.  As it is, some wag maintains that Fauci did so 111 times the first day.  Gotta love that legal system!  Talk about the one that got away:

Health Shorts

Religion

Religion Shorts

Nature

Nature Shorts

Technology

Technology Shorts

 

Joe’s Garage

Burt Munro
This video made Joe happy – an accurate (more so than the movie) account of Mr. Burt Munro and his amazing home made vintage Indian motorcycle that set Bonneville records, his final record still unbeaten today.
This is what happens when a man with a passion and a purpose is left to do what he wants to do – and does!
What a self-made success story; no sponsors, no teams of engineers, no speed parts purchased – he made every part in his workshop.  An amazing story of human achievement:

Garage Shorts

Continue reading Sunday Rant – 3126