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Batting .500
So I had cheese pizza for lunch, had something small with no meat before going to work, and at 3 minutes to midnight I was thinking I could eat meat again and maybe go out for a burger, and suddenly remembered the bag of beef jerky on the desk that I had been snacking on about an hour beforehand.
So close.
Capping It Off
Today is the birthday of curmudgeon economist and Djarum Black smoker Captain Capitalism. ‘Tis always fun to see his rants and rails against fluffy-minded liberal “thinkers.”
He promised me several kilos and enough hookers to snort it all off of in exchange for the pimpage. I expect delivery by Saturday.
High Resolution Screening
Dannyfrom504 wrote –
…a song by red house painters called “medicine bottle”. medicine bottle was one of my staple “oneitis” songs. yet i recently had it pop up on a playlist and listening to it now…i see it from a different angle.
it’s simply about an introvert who’s in love but his lover can’t get him out of is shell (mark kozelek routinely wrote songs that were autobiographical), i’m thinking she’s of the impression that he’s not really all that into her, or can’t deal with his gloominess (and we INTJ’s can be GLOOMY AS FUCK), and leaves him. but what she doesn’t get, is the fact she he let her in in the first place is how we express our affection. we are solid pillars of stone when it come to our feelings. NO ONE gets in unless we’ve screened you beyond any screening you’ve ever experienced.
I took the Myers-Briggs test – two different versions – and both times I scored as an INTJ. One test rated me at 90% Thinking over Feeling. I don’t think it’s quite that high, but I am definitely always thinking and analyzing.
I screen constantly and automatically. Everyone does, but INTJs take it to 11. As far as online interactions go, I’m scanning everything you write, watching how you choose your words, who you reply to most and who you ignore. I’m studying your general attitude, what makes you laugh and what pisses you off. I’m scoping out your friends. By the time I leave a comment on your site, I’ve probably read at least half of your posts, and probably seen your comments on other sites. If you comment here and I don’t know you, I’ll go read your latest batch of posts before replying.
I’m not saying I shut out strangers. Far from it. I’ll talk music, movies, and the like with total strangers anytime. But there’s a limit to how far I’ll let someone in before I really know them, and that limit doesn’t go very deep. I discuss little about my personal views until I know someone.
I rarely email someone out of the blue, and always with my WordPress name at first. If I give you my Skype name, you’re on a short list. If you know my name, you’re in a very small club. If you can send me a text message on my phone, you’re probably gold, but it takes a while to get to that level (and besides, why would most people even need to text me? But I digress…).
The thing is, if I do give these out to someone, they usually don’t realize what it means. Once I’ve decided someone is in, I tend to hand out more personal things, not like candy on Halloween, but without hard restrictions. There’s no context to show how how guarded I can be. To a non-INTJ, it probably looks like I’m open (maybe too open), but it actually means I’ve decided you’re up to snuff. Not that anyone would know this. So I have to watch myself.
Interacting with someone in person is different, of course. But that’s a subject for anyone who actually meets me in person.
Danny also wrote “sad depressing music is an INTJ’s heroin.” I’m not quite sure about that, but I do have my share of unhappy favorites. Even as a kid, I never cared much for most love songs – I might like some for the music, but the lyrics were usually too sappy for me. A song doesn’t have to be unhappy, but over-romanticized fluff is right out. Here’s a few favorites of mine, to give you an idea.
Ok, I like some happy songs too.
Friday I’m In Lent
Today I will try not to eat meat. Not a big deal to most, I’m sure. but to me it’s like not breathing. I’m hardcore carnivore.
I’ve gone a few Fridays without eating meat a few times here and there, but never stuck to it. Most likely, I’ll busts open a can of chili or get halfway through a cheeseburger and be like “aw, crap.”
Broken Premises
Years ago I worked with a girl I really liked. A lot of things happened (and yet Nothing Happened), but that’s a story for another post. After a couple months of spending all our time together and yet not so much as shaking hands, she got with an utterly useless guy. A guy that, not too long before, she had told me about his history of drinking, substance abuse, and violence. Ok, fine, whatever. Her life, her choice.
Not too long after that, she showed me (I prefer to think she wasn’t waving it in my face) her engagement ring. I asked her when the wedding was. She said they weren’t planning a wedding. I asked why not. She said it was a promise. This went round and round for a minute or two. I asked what the hell is an engagement ring a promise of if you’re not planning to marry? No real answer to that, just more vague waffling.
I had gotten used to this type of unlogic from her by now, so I let it drop.
This came soon after another twisted dating misadventure (tip for girls – if you go out with a guy a few times and like him, don’t let his moonstruck friend hang all over you at a party until you show up and then say “but I like you better.” He won’t believe you). These two incidents so close together were probably my first up-close, unflinching gaze into the hamster den, where anything goes as long as it keeps going without a second look.
Gunning For Superman
Superman actor Dean Cain keeps his guns.
Even Superman sometimes faces someone tougher than he is.
Tip of the ….cape?… to Bookworm Room.
We Can’t All Be Heroes
I’m just gonna copy from What Do You Do For An Encore? because he said it so well, and add a couple thoughts afterward.
Nightsky brought this to my attention. Kids, an inflected form of the “F” word appears approximately 4 times in this song. The “S” word appears once. So, I wash my hands.
The way it happened was I was trying to find a Youtube for Twaughthammer he was telling me about and then I thought that a video of Wax performing live was the one he meant based on the search terms I was using and I said to Nightsky is this it and Nightsky said no but this is good and then he checked out some more by Wax and recommended the above and thanked me for turning him on to it even though it was Nightsky that turned me onto it and the other Wax thing that I did turn him onto was just a mistake because I thought it was the Twaughthammer thing he was telling me about.
So somewhere in there credit is due to someone . . . for something.
Now that I got that out of the way, I like “We Can’t All Be Heroes.” I like to hear rap turning back to soul and horns. Rap is not really my thing (even though I liked some of Eminem’s stuff) but I certainly realize it’s my generational handicap.
In this case, I’m still dealing with the shock of finding a practical, realistic message coming from a rap song, or any song for that matter. [emphasis mine]
I’ve never been much into rap – I did like some of the 80s and early 90s stuff before it all turned into fake posturing by fur-wearing, champagne sipping poseurs, but most of it was just the same old themes of thug life over recycled music samples. This song is different. There’s a wealth in the lyrics if one really pays attention. This guy is telling his story. The story of a lot of guys.
Read the lyrics. It’s practically a manosphere anthem. Plus it’s got a nice retro-70s style groove.
Flash Drive Bullets
So I was reading this post by Elusive Wapiti, where he discusses assault weapons bans and totalitarianism. Good post, go read it. It’s about digitally fabricating guns, and how efforts are already underway to outlaw it. As usual, the self-anointed Guardians of Society build a house on a foundation of sand – the best way to ensure the safety of law-abiding citizens is not to disarm them, leaving them at the mercy of the lawless. Rather, if everyone has access to a gun, and knows that everyone else around him could be carrying as well, the chances of assault drop dramatically. But there’s a lot more going on here than a statist power grab.
A group named Defense Distributed is designing digital blueprints for firearms for 3D printing. The goal is to create a file via 3D modeling which can be distributed, and a working gun printed for anyone who wants it.
They sum up their goals, and the potential impact –
Insofar as possible, we hope to facilitate a printable firearm creative commons. Our weapons project’s namesake, a “wiki” is likely the best platform for preserving and collaboratively producing knowledge related to 3D printable firearms for years to come.
…This project might change the way we think about gun control and consumption. How do governments behave if they must one day operate on the assumption that any and every citizen has near instant access to a firearm through the Internet? Let’s find out.
I like funny cat videos as much as anyone else, but we’ve barely scratched the surface of what the internet is capable of. Printable guns! Store ammo files on your flash drive. And that’s just the beginning. There may come a day when 3D printers are capable of producing organic structures – people could keep digital scans of their bodies – including MRIs – on file. If they suffer an accident, replacement parts could be printed out, such as a new heart. Or new lungs for smokers. Lose a few teeth in a bar fight? Dental records on your phone. Your body could be scanned at age 20 and kept on file until you’re 50 and take a trip to Posh de Leon’s Fountain Of Youth and Rejuvenation Spa.
Some people are not too happy about this, however. As National Review writes –
The idea of crowd-sourced plastic rifles and pistols being zapped into existence, Weird Science–style, in workshops and garages across the nation unnerves Representative Steve Israel (D., N.Y.) — so much so that he’s sponsoring an amendment to the Undectectable Firearms Act in order to regulate 3-D-printed gun components and establish penalties for their private fabrication. But as others have pointed out, such a law would be a nightmare to enforce.
The utter lack of imagination among bureaucrats and progressive types (but I repeat myself) is stupefying. Not only do they not have the capacity to remotely visualize the possibilities such technology offers, but they make heavy-handed, short-sighted attempts at regulating or even outlawing it –
In an effort to outflank the likes of DD, a zealous government could move to mandate that manufacturers design 3-D printers to leave secret, unique watermarks on every object fabricated, as the Secret Service convinced manufacturers of color laser printers to do in an effort to catch currency counterfeiters. But technological control begets technological revolt: The secret laser-printer codes were discovered and revealed by a digital-rights group in 2005, and their existence prompted a public outcry. Besides, what good is a watermark when a 3-D assembler can assemble another 3-D assembler? [emphasis mine]
Seriously. It’s like filing off the serial numbers, but better. Make a new assembler. Or two. Or three. Destroy the original. Start a black market selling illegal, untraceable 3D printers along with all the other cool things you’re designing. Pair this up with an alternative currency like Bitcoin (I noticed one of the people on DD’s “About” page has some experience with it) and who knows what could happen? This could spark a tectonic shift in economic systems.
It looks like they’re running all this super-ultra-high-tech with Windows XP, which cracks me up.
Pranking will become a High Art
Stolen Car
From here –
…if your car is ever stolen, your first calls should be to every cab company in the city. You offer a $50 reward to the driver who finds it AND a $50 reward to the dispatcher on duty when the car is found. The latter is to encourage dispatchers on shift to continually remind drivers of your stolen car. Of course you should call the police too but first things first. There are a lot more cabs than cops so cabbies will find it first -and they’re more frequently going in places cops typically don’t go, like apartment and motel complex parking lots, back alleys etc. Lastly, once the car is found, a swarm of cabs will descend and surround it because cabbies, like anyone else, love excitement and want to catch bad guys.
Now you can (kind of) live a classic scene from the movies – “Taxi! Follow that stolen car!”
All Life Is Not Equal
This Salon piece by Mary Elizabeth Williams is one of the most vile pieces of self-righteous garbage I’ve ever seen – So what if abortion ends life?
Of all the diabolically clever moves the anti-choice lobby has ever pulled, surely one of the greatest has been its consistent co-opting of the word “life.” Life! Who wants to argue with that? Who wants be on the side of … not-life? [ellipsis in original]
…Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.
She writes that pro-choicers tend to fall into illogical contradictions around “the life question” (her words). She misses the contradiction in saying a fetus is a life and then condemning anyone who would oppose destroying that life by claiming they have co-opted the concept of life that she defined herself. I suppose she resents anyone holding her to her own words. She continues about these illogical contradictions with this –
I have friends who have referred to their abortions in terms of “scraping out a bunch of cells” and then a few years later were exultant over the pregnancies that they unhesitatingly described in terms of “the baby” and “this kid.” I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages. Why can’t we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different, but that it’s pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn’t the same? Fetuses aren’t selective like that. They don’t qualify as human life only if they’re intended to be born.
… It seems absurd to suggest that the only thing that makes us fully human is the short ride out of some lady’s vagina.
That is a key component of the pro-life argument. They question why it’s a baby when the mother intends to carry it to term, but just a clump of cells when the mother doesn’t want to keep it. Williams has firmly and unequivocally stated that a fetus in utero is a life. I’m not sure why a hardcore supporter of abortion would go to so much effort to define a fetus as a human life. So how does she get out of the corner she’s backed herself into?
Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. …a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides.
That’s it. All life is not equal. A fetus does not have the same rights as the mother the woman in whose body the fetus is taking up space. A bit of verbal sleight-of-hand there. “Mother” sounds too emotionally charged, so make it a woman whose personal space is being encroached on.
She ends with this –
I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.
As the Anchoress astutely observes –
A point of order, please: One may certainly sacrifice one’s own life for another. That is what makes it a sacrifice. Sacrificing “another’s” life is not a sacrifice, unless that other person actually (like Jesus Christ or a soldier who has volunteered to serve, or a mother like this one) says, “yes, I will be sacrificed for the sake of others.”
Absent that permission, though, it’s not a sacrifice. It’s just an expedient, and wasteful killing.
In fact, the notion that someone else’s life is “worth sacrificing” for the furtherance of one’s own situation — the mindset that can advance that thinking — is precisely one that deserves the name “diabolical.”
The Bookworm Room follows this line of thought to its inevitable end, in a post about euthanasia –
The writer’s approach to human beings — we must sacrifice innocent lives for the greater good — has the same stark utilitarian logic found in the heartless and soulless socialist state that readily puts humans on a death pathway because they’re too expensive to care for.
All life is not equal. Per Williams, some must be sacrificed for the greater good. But whose greater good? Who decides which of us have greater rights than others?
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
– The Declaration of Independence
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The quote from the Anchoress includes a link to another post of hers, about Chiara and Enrico Petrillo. They had already lost two children. She became pregnant with a third, but soon developed cancer. She declined treatment because of the risk to her pregnancy. She died soon after her son was born. Her husband said [emphasis mine] –
Chiara’s husband, Enrico, said he experienced “a story of love on the cross.” Speaking to Vatican Radio, he said that they learned from their three children that there is no difference in a life that lasts 30 minutes or 100 years.
nightskyradio 