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One wonderful thing
Yesterday’s election had the usual results here in the “state” of Washington. Crazy monsters and crazy referenda won. With one beautiful exception! Referendum 2066 to protect natural gas from the crazies PASSED. Somewhat narrowly, but still enough to settle the issue. From the official description: The measure prohibits state and local governments from restricting access…
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Got what they wanted
Well, the media and Wall Street got what they wanted. Now they can have fun for four years, and the empire can decay even faster for four years. I hope and pray that harsher rulers and nastier media and more destructive billionaires will speed up the growth of effective alternatives and bottom-up organizations like Mutual…
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More idiocy from book fanatics.
Book Fanatics have reached a new level of arrogant stupidity. Right now they’re ferociously maintaining that hearing a text is hopelessly empty. Audiobooks don’t count as reading. Only seeing a hardback book with your eyes counts as absorbing the material. 1. How did people absorb knowledge before books were common? They obviously had no brains…
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Random thoughts on ___graphy
Telegraphy and photography both started with a union of chemistry and optics. Telegraphy didn’t involve sound until later. The first photograph was by Niepce in 1826, and exposed a pewter plate coated with tar to light from a pinhole camera. The tar changed color where the light was stronger. (Probably a thermal effect, not a…
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AI is criminal.
We already knew that, but good old Craig Wright proves it. His latest spewing of bizarre complex objections to his own lying seems to have been written mostly by criminal accomplice ChatGPT. This is DELICIOUS. Via Protos: = = = = = START QUOTE: Additionally, 16 links to various CoinDesk, The Block, Bitmex research, and…
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More from IOOF in the 1920s
Continuing from previous item. The annual report of the Wisconsin state IOOF for 1921 proves that the organization was truly an insurance provider and a mutual company, along with its social functions. Note the payments of sickness benefits and life insurance. The income was well beyond the payouts, and the lodge maintained a large investment…
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Where Harding got his purpose
Eureka Lake started me reading about the Odd Fellows. They have maintained their original functions pretty well for 200 years. They work for peace, tolerance, mercy, and fellowship. A 1920 magazine from the Virginia state lodges shows how their steady purpose responded to Wilson’s brutality and unceasing propaganda. This attitude may have been widespread at…
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Finally a match!
I’m constantly bitching that nobody ever reads the blog items I put some craft into. Putting together a tech history or neuroscience piece takes research and graphics work. I’m accustomed to seeing all readers skip the “good stuff” and read the random shit. Finally a reader in Las Vegas is hitting, with remarkable accuracy, only…
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Henry Wallace is smiling
Alexandra Fasulo has been starting up a small farm, and reports frequently on Substack about problems and blessings. She finds the USDA is a huge blessing, ready to provide all sorts of material assistance and information to new and old farmers. Henry Wallace would be proud. He built the USDA into a massive servant of…
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YAFS
Via Protos: Yet Another Fake Satoshi. This one is low-budget and low-effort compared to the fantastically industrious superliar Craig Wright. = = = = = START QUOTE: A London businessman accused of fraud in Singapore was ‘revealed’ today to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto at a £500-a-ticket unveiling event in Central London. Stephen Nour Mollah…
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Indirect salute
Old folks have trouble with a slow-moving gut. Normally I can keep things going well enough with good diet and walks. The long hot summer messed with the diet and walks, and then a series of closely spaced difficult dental appointments built up tension to the point of definite constipation. I tried lots of different…
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Mysterious Fairmont
While looking at old maps around Manhattan, I noticed another area that always seemed mysterious. It occasionally appeared in dreams. Next to the highly formal city there were a few highly informal rural areas with scattered houses and undefined streets. Just across the river to the southeast was an area called Fairmont on maps. It…
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Mutual is NOT dead.
While researching IOOF for Eureka Lake I realized that the IOOF is NOT dead yet. It hasn’t devolved into a drinking club or sold out to commercial insurance firms like most other societies. It still runs modern retirement homes in at least three states, and has active lodges and new members in many cities. Trinity…
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More basic sales rules
Speaking of physical vs virtual…. I randomly noticed a substack thread of Dem campaigners. They’re tired and discouraged because nobody will listen. They’re mainly worried that Trump will implement Project 2025 which is a world-ending apocalypse in their minds. Phone banks are simply useless, but door-to-door CAN bring results if you’re clearly offering something that…
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Does this sound familiar?
The 1923 issue of the Fraternal Monitor is appropriately alarmed at the threats to the movement from commercial insurance. An article points to another threat, which sounds mighty familiar today. = = = = = START QUOTE: Radio adds another agency for entertainment and instruction. In this way it is comparable to the phonograph and…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 