Joe’s Comment – It is now officially Autumn as of September 22. The week was weather compatible. The world is turning as it should – a very large sphere in the heavens. Not flat.
Not quite the time to batten the hatches for wet or worse weather.
All is good on the Droveria front.
Something can come undone at any time on any day in any situation.
For last week, ho-hum.
Not exactly clockwork, not exactly hum-drum.
A few minor unravellings, but not even one undone.
That is just short of miraculous.
Not a poster week for SNAFU or FUBAR.
Looking for a sign; looking for an escape.
It is the season for “flat cats” – cats on the highways and byways that have been run over – sighted 2 this week, and one skunk (same family).
13 weeks to Christmas.
Same same until Winter.
Not quite ready, but we never ever are.
Quick Dick McDick
Once again, an educational video about farming from Saskatchewan’s ambassador to Canada and the world.
In this video QDMcD follows up his first video about planting oats (Sow Your Seeds) with a primer about growing oats:
Prager U
Why a Republic
This short video explains the attempt by the Founding Fathers of America to create a form of governance that curtails the power vested in those who govern.
By Robert George (Princeton U) for Prager U.
One of many “5 – Minute Videos” that are clear, concise, focused, and accurate:
Socialism vs Capitalism
This short video from Dinesh DeSouza explains the hypnotic allure of socialism in modern discourse:
Slavery
Another short video by Candace Owens about the history of slavery:
Climate Sanity
William Happer is a hero for Joe and me.
He is getting on in years.
We wondered if he was still fighting the good fight…..
Question answered!
We didn’t know he was co-founder of the CO2 Coalition.
In this address from about one year ago to the Heartland Institute, he does yeoman duty to addressing “Noble Lies and the Evil They Allow”.
He has been a champion of educating the masses on the actual role of CO2 in the atmospheric environment and the existence of life on Earth:
Another hero is Freeman Dyson (RIP). He has spent his time studying, using the tools at his disposal. His best tool is his mind.
This talk from 2015 is titled “Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society”.
If you need a new perspective on the climate hysteria pervading Western nations and their politicians (again and again), Joe and I suggest you take the hour required to listen to a learned man tell you where the bear shit in the buckwheat.
The insanity at large seems to be on an ever tightening cycle:
Joe’s Garage
Atomic Bomb
We’ve all seen short clips of these explosions all over de place.
Someone decided to montage them all.
Pretty to watch.
Beats staring at the sun:
Amber Hern and Kelly Hogan
Refining the carnivore diet is tuning in your personal nutrition.
Amber and Kelly talk about making adjustments to your intake, quantity, frequency, duration, and any other metric you can imagine having to do with filling your pie hole.
Every little snowflake is different.
Every little snowflake can identify how they are different, with a little effort.
Every little snowflake can then optimize their fuel type(s) and quantities for maximum results!
Seems so easy.
They’ve both been carnivore for over 12 years.
Joe and I have a lot to learn, for we just passed the 4 year mark and have started experimenting:
Dr. Anthony Chaffee
This video makes the case for the optimal human diet, or as Dr. Ken Berry says, “get your PHD (proper human diet)”.
Dr. Chaffee has prepared a slide presentation video echoing the material he presented at KetoCon in August this year.
Very logical and informative. Joe and I think this might be a useful guide to our nutritional choices:
Milwaukee Boating
Rich Bosch adapts a Milwaukee Hole Hog right angle drill to an old Evinrude outboard motor.
Just because he can!
From the DeBossGarage Ub2b channel:
Joe’s Comment – the above is a dated but pertinent quote from Ayn Rand. I continue to describe myself as a “theoretical Libertarian”. Theoretical because reality often interferes with my fantasy of a world politic based on Libertarian ideals. As Yogi Berra famously stated – Time for a Reality Check.
It has been a while since Joe and I have spoken about IQ.
Lord knows it is a “trigger” word, invoking mental gymnastics in the philosophical, intellectual, ethical, theological, and a plethora of other branches of cultural distinction.
We don’t need a lecture about environment or nutrition or underprivileged cause and effect.
Why? you ask…..
Our short blunt answer is we know and have been in the presence of extremely “smart” people as well as not so smart, dull, stupid, and retarded people.
For the most part they inherited their “intellectual horsepower”.
Ergo, for the most part, it ain’t their fault, it is their inheritance, it is their burden.
The U.S. military will not accept any applicant with an IQ of 83 or lower.
Why? you ask…..
A person at that level is not fully autonomous, i.e. they produce less output than the input they need to be productive.
If any dummies are reading this, it means they need help to do what an “average” or one standard deviation below average IQ person can do alone.
Check out McNamara’s Vietnam dummies – “McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low IQ Troops in the Vietnam War“, a book by Hamilton Gregory.
Concede the point.
You can’t argue away the facts.
Unless you’ve lived an isolated life you’ve met people “smarter” and “dumber” than yourself.
The point we mean to make is the low IQ folks make up a not insignificant number of our fellow travelers.
Here is a Bell Curve representation of “Normal Distribution” in relation to IQ – 84% of a sample population with average IQ of 100 has an IQ over 85.
That leaves 16% of the population below IQ 85.
If Canada has a population of 40 million, that implies there are 6.4 million people within this category. Linda Gottfredson, a professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Delaware, composed the following graph, charting IQ against certain metrics measuring career and “Life Chances” – Joe and I believe it is incumbent in our society, our culture, that people who are in the “High Risk” segment of the population are cut some slack. Based on an estimated Canadian population of 40 million souls, using Joe’s excellent math ability (I’m a good adder!), 5% of 40 million is a staggering 2,000,000 Canadians who have very little chance of grabbing the gold ring.
That ain’t all, Sparky.
The normal distribution of age vs capacity for self autonomy (for the dummies – that means folks can care for themselves) adds an additional two groups of dependents – those too young and those too old. Again, a function of time, not ability for the most part.
Decades ago, generations ago, these realities were faced by families. Families and their communities managed the retarded, the too young, and the too old.
You can imagine that the consistency of care was wildly disparate.
It seemed a good idea to “spread the inverse wealth” across a larger population of tax paying citizens, and it was for the truly desperate and needy.
Without proper management, accountability, and oversight, the current reality was born.
Hugely expensive.
Hugely wasteful.
Bureaucratically top heavy.
And, as the hysteria of COVID19 proved, unaccountable, dangerous, and deadly.
From the perspective of Joe and I, at 73 years of age, we believe it is paramount to unsaddle those who can do without government intervention. There is no “one size fits all” solution for this problem.
Last thought on this subject.
Recent estimates of the number of “Baby Boomers” still alive as of 2021 is 70.4 million – in the United States alone! Here’s a graph from Insider Intelligence – We will assume 10% of U.S. stats for Canada, which is a staggering 4 million Joes and Janes!
Si no hablo español, so we don’t hazard a guess for MEH – HE – COE. The website GobalData has a graph of Mexican population by age. 7% are 65 or older, in a population of 130 million. That’s another 9 million el Boomers right there.
Grand total North America is approx. 85 million people entering what used to be called “Old Age”.
It is time to uncouple from the government and take care of your own.
Us boomers are a selfish lot…..
In Loving Memory
Word o’ the Week
Infracaninophile – 1. A person who loves or admires underdogs
Quick Dick McDick
QDMcD comes out of the closet and condemns the current government of Canada.
Well, maybe not – he has been bashing the Justin Castreau Liberals forever.
QDMcD comes out swinging, sparing no one is more like it.
Astute observations from the ambassador for Saskatchewan we like the best:
Welker Farms
Joe and I have watched the Welker family farm their land for years.
How many people know where and how their food is produced?
We had farmers in our family long ago.
Some of our most precious memories are farm memories.
Here Bob Welker (father) and Nick Welker harvest winter wheat on their land they’ve nicknamed “Montana” (for its shape). Scott is the other son. This episode shows and demonstrates harvesting with combines. The day starts out hot – in the high 80s and early 90s – then the weather flips to a hailstorm!
Joe and I couldn’t farm like this.
We’d have a stroke or heart attack or both every time the weather didn’t cooperate. These men take it in stride:
Sanity4Sweden
Stefan reports on the Swedish election.
He is pleased with the swing toward responsible conservative values in the winning party’s platform.
Joe says Swedish “conservatism” is a long stroke from our same-same, but trending in the right (pun intended) direction.
Of course it remains to be seen that they do what they say:
Mikhail Gorbachev Dead
We in the West remember Ronald Regan’s role in ending the Cold War.
His USSR counterpart was Mikail Gorbachev.
Joe and I believe Mr. Gorbachev was essential, as was Mr. Regan, a pair of bookends, who framed the demise of the USSR, the re-unification of Germany, and the beginning of new hope for eastern bloc countries, especially Russia.
An overview of his accomplishments from CNN via Ub2b:
Theo Sparks website has a short history of Mr. Gorbachev’s life and political career here. A quote from the link –
“…..”The openness Mr. Gorbachev sought — what came to be known as glasnost — and his policy of perestroika, aimed at restructuring the very underpinnings of society, became a double-edged sword. In setting out to fill in the “blank spots” of Soviet history, as he put it, with frank discussion of the country’s errors, he freed his impatient allies to criticize him and the threatened Communist bureaucracy to attack him. Still, Mr. Gorbachev’s first five years in power were marked by significant, even extraordinary, accomplishments: ■ He presided over an arms agreement with the United States that eliminated for the first time an entire class of nuclear weapons, and began the withdrawal of most Soviet tactical nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe. ■ He withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan, a tacit admission that the invasion in 1979 and the nine-year occupation had been a failure. ■ While he equivocated at first, he eventually exposed the nuclear power-plant disaster at Chernobyl to public scrutiny, a display of candor unheard-of in the Soviet Union. ■ He sanctioned multiparty elections in Soviet cities, a democratic reform that in many places drove stunned Communist leaders out of office. ■ He permitted the release of the confined dissident Andrei D. Sakharov, the physicist who had been instrumental in developing the Soviet hydrogen bomb. ■ He lifted restrictions on the media, allowing previously censored books to be published and previously banned movies to be shown. ■ In a stark departure from the Soviet history of official atheism, he established formal diplomatic contacts with the Vatican and helped promulgate a freedom-of-conscience law guaranteeing the right of the people to “satisfy their spiritual needs.” But if Mr. Gorbachev was lionized abroad as having helped change the world — he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 — he was vilified at home as having failed to live up to the promise of economic change. It became widely said that in a free vote, Mr. Gorbachev could be elected president anywhere but the Soviet Union. After five years of Mr. Gorbachev, store shelves remained empty while the union disintegrated. Mr. Shevardnadze, who had been his right hand in bringing a peaceful end to Soviet control in Eastern Europe, resigned in late 1990, warning that dictatorship was coming and that reactionaries in the Communist Party were about to cripple reform. Peter Reddaway, an author and scholar of Russian history, said at the time: “We see the best side of Gorbachev. The Soviets see the other side, and hold him to blame.”
Joe and I celebrate our “mud pecker-ness”.
We are people of the dirt.
The aspirations of the elite, the political class, the “global leaders” fill us with a dread inspired by history and personal experience.
Joe and I think we would have enjoyed meeting Mr. Gorbachev.
We believe he was trying to drag his country into a framework that would enable throwing off the yoke of the tragic history Russia lived.
Reform wasn’t complete.
Just another example of why Joe and I don’t believe in political structures as much as we believe there are only two classes of people – those who succeed in the current “status quo” and resist change, and those who do not succeed in the current “status quo”, thereby seeking change.
It is the vigor with which the haves and have nots oppose each other that creates chaos and ruin.
C’est dommage.
C’est la guerre.
C’est la vie!
Pink Floyd
Of all the bands in all the times and changes Joe and I have experienced, one rises above them all.
Yes, we have niche faves and passions for certain genres like Opera, and classic country (lots of steel guitar and fiddling – not violin virtuosity), and the eternal Classical music of the Great Composers (but only certain pieces – this ain’t idolatry), and doo-wop, and emotionally poignant melodies attached to events that will stay so until the day we die.
But….
Pink Floyd has bridged the time transform for Joe and me.
The 1988 live performance in New York City below has been remastered in 4K.
No matter to us. We’d listen to a gibbled (word coinage right there!) 8 track version or a scratchy popping vinyl copy.
The sax, the back up singers, the band members, and the star of the show David Gilmour, all are spectacular. There is a Wikipedia page listing all performers over the years here.
What a wonder modern technology is, to have preserved this fantastic performance for all to see (thank you Ms. E. Thrasher) and of course, to hear.
The final track is “Run Like Hell”.
Fabulous!:
Various
An example or three of the classic style country Joe and I favor currently –
Joe’s Garage
Internet Tools
Do you ever have concerns about the Internet and what it delivers?
Joe does.
Here is a list of search engines you can use to explore things you didn’t know you wanted to search for, or know about, or learn what they do.
There is no infinity like Internet infinity! Garage Humor
Joe’s Comment – Perhaps it is the overwhelming flood of data and information I get every day. Modern technology is more or less instant – anyone with a cell phone or computer connected to the Internet can broadcast in real time to the world.
Unsettling thoughts are provoking a response, not a productive one at all.
The problem for me is having enough time to filter the valid information from the absolute Tsunami of unverified media.
Another problem is finding better sources I don’t know yet.
My list of trustworthy links has been honed over the last 20 years, give or take.
Some come, some go, but very few are decades old.
This Sunday Rant format goes back 10 years its own self…..
Time is a mystery.
I have noticed that the few old people I have known at the end of their lives seemed to obsess with events in their youths more than current events.
What can it mean?
I theorize that stressful or tragic events that were not resolved satisfactorily create a “stone in the shoe” effect – never did solve or resolve, never did forget, never did eclipse…..
This is opposite of a “creating a pearl” effect, where a totally satisfactory conclusion was achieved despite how stressful or tragic an event may have been at the time.
Winners vs losers.
In the reluctant race to the finish line I must begin tidying up loose ends…..
Elizabeth II R.I.P.
On September 8th, Queen Elizabeth II died.
Ending an era, and perhaps a tradition.
She accepted her responsibility at 24 years of age, donned the mantle of her position, and served her country for 70 years, without flaw. She exemplified the definition of duty, and honor, and country.
She was a stalwart constant her entire life.
I know Joe and I wouldn’t have had the fortitude to do so.
She had and has our admiration and gratitude. For Joe and I, Elizabeth II was Queen for all but 5 years of our life.
Her legacy to us is a reign of peace for all those years.
There are arguments for and against the concept of a monarchy.
Joe and I don’t care too much either way.
As little Robert Zimmerman sang, you gotta serve somebody:
Elizabeth took her oath seriously, and continued the tradition she was born into with grace, humility, and conviction that it was for the good of her country.
Joe and I admire her dedication. We would serve her, and her memory.
Looking through the Internet for snippets of her recorded during her reign, we found this Christmas address from 1957.
It is every bit as pertinent today as it was then.
The direction the culture was trending in 1957 has gained momentum over the intervening 65 years: her observations were solid and precognitive.
Joe and I never met Queen Elizabeth. We weren’t in the same town at the same time, ever. Us mud peckers and dirt people don’t travel in her circle.
Nonetheless, we will miss her and what she represented. Rest in Peace:
The above video is representative of her role to the masses of people. Rex Murphy wrote a thoughtful piece reflecting on her time as titular head of the British Commonwealth –
– Rex Murphy: Queen Elizabeth II was an anchor in an angry and unsettled era
A few quotes regarding dignity and duty from Mr. Murphy’s essay –
“…..As long as she was here, as long as she persisted in full dutifulness to the role she was born to, we could say that there was at least one person in all the high offices of the West who manifested and maintained the ideal of dignity. ….It all came from a second dying virtue, another word and practice that lives more in the dictionary than in our current lifestyles — duty. To see a duty, to know a duty, and to live a duty – to make one’s whole life a servant to the idea of duty, that is exceptional to the point of being unique. Queen Elizabeth II was a true personification of the idea of duty and through the entire 70 years of her reign there is not a moment when she fell short or deviated from its rigorous imperatives. Not one. Duty and Dignity, as the world response to her passing already clearly shows, though both are so unobliged in the tumult of today’s media, entertainment and politics, are the elements of real charisma.”
Amen, Mr. Murphy.
Jordan Peterson reflects on the impact to the world her passing makes:
Her offspring Charles has mighty big shoes to fill.
We aren’t confident in saying “doG save the King” at all……
Nyctalopia
Joe and I have “nyctalopia“.
Also known as “night blindness”.
Or is it “hemeralopia“?
We couldn’t find a word to describe exactly what we are experiencing.
If it is a sunny day, we can’t see into shadow worth a farthing.
If it is night, a bright light washes out all the detail and we only see light.
Our understanding is the details of shadow are overwhelmed by light.
This is a “rods and cones” argument.
I’ll have to ask the great Oracle what special food replenishes vision in 73 year old eyeballs.
We have a contrast problem that only worsens –
COVID Echoes
Ivor Cummins
Super statistician Ivor Cummins analyzes the history of “Lockdown Ideology”.
What in the world would make people believe that incarceration is the answer to the annual flu?
Joe and I like the term he uses to describe the illogical response – “Descent into Anti-Science”. An apt phrase.
There is a distinction between “quarantine” and “lockdown” that begs clarity.
Our view is one term has a medical intervention history. The other is political coercion. You figure it out….
Joe and I love the documents under-girding the United States – The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Amendments to the Constitution.
What is being done in the name of the United States is another matter.
Is it possible to tunnel through this magma of political power madness to sunlight and clarity?
If it is possible, it will be from the efforts of people much like Mr. Cummins:
Thunderbolt
Whatever happened to the’60s?
Do manufacturers do this stuff anymore?
A bracket drag racer from the Ford Motor Company called the Thunderbolt was an amazing factory product.
The now dated FE engine was holding its own during the racing frenzy of the ’60s that involved the Big 3 car companies in North America.
Of course this example owned by Kurt Neighbor is so much more than the original from Ford:
NASCAR Ford Revisited
Lake Speed is getting old.
So is his C3 Ford engine, and NASCAR T-Bird.
All the more reason to revive it and run it again!
This is the first installment showing how the engine is being re-built with modern technology and materials.
Joe is drooling!:
Time for a Reality Check.
84% of a sample population with average IQ of 100 has an IQ over 85.
Joe and I believe it is incumbent in our society, our culture, that people who are in the “High Risk” segment of the population are cut some slack. Based on an estimated Canadian population of 40 million souls, using Joe’s excellent math ability (I’m a good adder!), 5% of 40 million is a staggering 2,000,000 Canadians who have very little chance of grabbing the gold ring.
We will assume 10% of U.S. stats for Canada, which is a staggering 4 million Joes and Janes!
Garage Humor
For Joe and I, Elizabeth II was Queen for all but 5 years of our life.