Oh Somehow I Don’t Think This Is The First Time

Hillary has written quite a lot of fiction before.

But, hey, at this point what does it matter?

And, JUST LIKE THAT?

They’re not cruel, Trump “CAGES” anymore.

“CAGES?! Why, no. No, they’re not.”

In fact, it’s pretty magical, if you ask me.

You know. How the #rulez change.

And then we all pretend they didn’t.

Naomi Wolf on Tucker Carlson

Gads. Did I really write that?

I did, indeed.

We couldn’t believe it when he said who the next guest was, and then could NOT believe what came out of her mouth. Wow. She is dead on.

Tucker is one of the two shows we still watch on Fox (the other being Mark Levin on Sunday), and THIS is precisely why. You won’t hear these people, or these words, anywhere else.

And they need to be heard.

Truer Words

Rush Limbaugh Has Died

What a loss, but I am grateful his suffering is at an end.

I have never once heard even a minute of his radio show, although one of the highlights of our early Swilling was having one of our scoops featured on it (Folks were kind enough to send us the transcripts.). But these past few years – especially during the latter days of the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton’s run – I came to look forward to his appearances on shows, and read guest columns.

What an intellect. And, oh, how he loved this great country of ours.

And the folks in it. The “you”s, “me”s, and “us”s – all of US regular types.

He told us we weren’t crazy. We WERE seeing what we WERE seeing, and he laid it all out on the table time and again, in clear, concise, take-no-prisoners language that gave voice to the frustration, and resentment felt by a neglected, massive swath of this great land’s hardworking citizens.

He heard, he saw, and he gave such vociferous voice. There was, at last, a true people’s champion speaking. An America first champion.

Rest well, dear sir. God bless you.

ADDENDUM: Here’s the transcript of his speech at the 2009 CPAC. A thing of beauty.

…Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. [Applause] When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people, such as this or anywhere, we see Americans. We see human beings. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims. We don’t see people we want to exploit. What we see — what we see is potential. We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work. We do not see that person with contempt. We don’t think that person doesn’t have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. [Applause]

We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

We don’t want to tell anybody how to live. That’s up to you. If you want to make the best of yourself, feel free. If you want to ruin your life, we’ll try to stop it, but it’s a waste. We look over the country as it is today, we see so much waste, human potential that’s been destroyed by 50 years of a welfare state. By a failed war on poverty. [Applause]

We love the people of this country. And we want this to be the greatest country it can be, but we do understand, as people created and endowed by our creator, we’re all individuals. We resist the effort to group us. We resist the effort to make us feel that we’re all the same, that we’re no different than anybody else. We’re all different. There are no two things or people in this world who are created in a way that they end up with equal outcomes. That’s up to them. They are created equal, given the chance – -[Applause]

We don’t hate anybody. We don’t — I mean, the racism in this country, if you ask me, I know many people in this audience — let me deal with this head on. You know what the cliche is, a conservative: racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen of America, if you were paying attention, I know you were, the racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. [Applause]…

AMERICA’S DEADLIEST CITIES LIST

And the…WAIT, whut?!

WHERE?!?

WHO was that SMARTER-THAN-YOU-ARE-OR-WILL-EVER-BE boy genius mayor again?

100K people in that little burg, and the SUPER GENIUS makes the list. I’m sure it’s someone else’s FAULT – it always IS, but…sure glad he’s in charge OF OUR ROADS, PLANES, TRAINS and AUTOMOBILES, right?

RIGHT?

I’ve Seen This Movie

Bedtime Biden is suddenly postulating that it would be a terrific idea to quarantine the entire state of Florida. Just restrict the whole lot of us to our alligator and pestilence infested borders: pesky, popular governor, whole lot less dead people overall, vastly more grannies still breathing than Killer Cuomo, no leather dominatrix vibes like Michigan’s soul crushing Whitler, people WORKING, EATING, SUPERBOWLING. Just wants to box the whole mess up, for God’s sake, and get it over with.

Not surprisingly, that same popular-because-he’s-competent governor has a problem with Bedtime’s approach to virus management:

As vaccinations in the state continue, Gov. Ron DeSantis rebuffed domestic travel restrictions, to or from Florida, that the Biden administration is considering because of concerns the COVID variants are threatening to exacerbate the pandemic.

“I think it would be unconstitutional. I think it would be unwise and it would be unjust,” DeSantis said Thursday during a news briefing in Port Charlotte. “Any attempt to restrict or lock down Florida would be an attack on our state done particularly for political purposes. We will not back down. If anyone tries to target us, we will respond swiftly.”

Governor DeSantis (MY governor) also pointed out a glaring inconsistency in Sleepy Joe’s erstwhile edict fever dreams (happy emphasis mine):

The governor said he opposes restricting the right of Americans to travel freely throughout the country while allowing illegal immigrants to pour across the southern border “unmolested,” adding that it would be a “ridiculous and damaging farce.” 

And WHY do we love this guy?

HE FIGHTS.

I would expect that the geniuses running Joe Biden (meant as written) will shortly stand upon their pandemic porn soapy boxes to scream as emotionally as they are able that this transcends “constitutional” liberties, because…HUMANITY! HOW DARE YOU! HITLER! FOR THE CHILDREN!!!

And, well…you know…their autocratic, auto- default. They’re already practicing, I KNOW it.

A PSA About, Er, PSA

About, oh, twenty or so years ago our Dad was found to have prostate cancer. One of the “good” things about prostate cancer is that it generally progresses so slowly that one will usually die of something else before it gets you (such was the case with Dad); one of the really bad things is that there are no real discernible symptoms for a long time, so, while it doesn’t trouble you so much while you are busy dying of other things, which is good, if it does trouble you ‘unexpectedly’ then you’re pretty much done for (such was the case with Frank Zappa). As Dad’s was pretty benign they decided to treat it with the trending treatment at the time, a seed implant: they take a little piece of radioactive matter and stick it in there to gently bathe the sucker with some of Mr. Roentgen’s finest emissions to slow the progress even more, and as I mentioned that seemed to have done the trick.

But, of course, me being me, it seemed that for the following Christmas the only possible gift I could get Dad was a chestnut roaster. I think he got the joke…

Fast forward a few years, and I always make sure to get my PSA checked with every physical. It was hovering around the “let’s take a closer look” line for a few years, and this past October it crossed it, so I got the required approval from the Insurance Gods to see a urologist. Based on the family history and blood work he suggested that we do a biopsy, and that was done right before Thanksgiving. Ah, a prostate biopsy…how to describe the joys of such an event in a family-friendly way?

I can unequivocally state that if they instituted mandatory prostate biopsies at Guantanamo Bay terrorism would disappear around the world overnight. No Doubt. I’d probably best leave it at that, other than perhaps adding an allusion to “whack-a-mole”. Two weeks later I had the follow-up with the doctor, and he said that magic word that we all long to hear: “cancer.”

Well, isn’t that special. Sure, one’s mind plays tricks, especially my mind, and of course I went into this thing expecting the worst, but did he really have to confirm it? I don’t mind being wrong; I’m quite good at being wrong; now was not the moment when I wanted to be right. But there it was.

So what to do, how to fight this part of me that was planning to slowly, methodically, stealthily kill…me. Were I 15 years older it would be a different conversation, as, again, it “tends” to move slowly enough that chances are something else would take care of me before this did. So here I was, just a month shy of my 57th birthday, being told that I was Young Enough that something more aggressive was in order, to fight and hopefully turn back this barbarian which had already breached my gates…something, but what?

There were 2 basic paths to go down that we discussed: radiation and surgical, each having a set of advantages and disadvantages. In a way it reminded me of a t-shirt that I bought Daughter in late grade school when she wasn’t quite focusing the way she should: “Hard Work pays off tomorrow; Procrastination pays off today” (I’m proud to say she got the subtle hint). Anyhow, radiation, “cyberknife” or whatever marketing declares it this week, pays off today: a series of outpatient visits over more or less a week that zaps the little bastard and hopefully kills the bad cells and stunts their growth. But there are downsides. Radiation is, well, radiation after all and can potentially have side effects in the future, unpleasant ones. And, at the end of the day, the prostate is still inside me, like some 8,000 lb bomb fallen from the belly of an Avro Lancaster and embedded in the mud of the Rhein since 1943. Could it still go off? Yep. And I’d be thinking about that, expecting that boom every moment of every day for the rest of my days.

The other path was surgery, robotic surgery using a “daVinci” machine where the surgeon never actually touches me: he sits at a computer console a few feet away and manipulates the tools using 3D monitors to delve into me and remove the prostate, reconnect the plumbing, and minimize damage to various nerve bundles. As the t-shirt said, this pays off tomorrow: the prostate is gone, that little cancer-spewing cauldron won’t be able to send any of its deviant little spawn out to wreak havoc in my bloodstream, but the hard work, the side effects, oh those are definitely front-loaded.

I chose surgery.

The next week I was back at the urologist and we scheduled the surgery for January 26th. When one, well, when I at least, think of folks heading into major surgery it follows some sort of trauma, right? Something happens, there is great pain and discomfort, symptoms desperately crying out for a solution. It just didn’t seem plausible that I was feeling great, with no symptoms whatsoever, heading for a date with a scalpel-wielding robot. I had a batch of pre-admission tests scheduled for the Friday before the surgery, including of course a Covid test, so I spent that month basically isolating at home, desperately hoping that the test would be negative so the surgery would happen and not get kicked back a couple of weeks. It came back negative, so I was set to be at the hospital at 6 am on the 26th.

At this point in time, Covid is clearly the tragic event of the 21st century, and not just because of the deaths it has caused; the response to it has been the vehicle for incalculable damage to the physical and mental well-being of literally millions of people. When we arrived at the hospital my Bride had to dump me on the curb. I got out of the car and walked alone into a small, constrained entrance to the hospital. She was not allowed, no one but the patients were allowed. I was only in the hospital for about 32 hours, so ok I can deal with that, but I could not help but wonder at the terrible toll this takes on children, on the elderly, on folks who are already suffering from depression on top of other maladies; what a scary, horrific, and at times deadly additional consequence of this disease.

They tell me the surgery went well (I was knocked out), and I was discharged the next afternoon, and for the next 9 days life was more or less miserable due to the catheter. Painful? No. Uncomfortable? Yes. Depressingly miserable? Yes. I had a date emblazoned on my calendar: 10 days after the surgery I had an appointment with the urologist, where we would go over the pathology of the prostate (now that the sucker was out and the lab technicians could slice and dice it for a complete analysis). I was both looking very much forward to this, for it would also be when the catheter was taken out, and I was also dreading it, for it would be when the catheter was taken out, and I imagined that to be an amazingly unpleasant experience. It actuality it wasn’t that bad.

The report from the lab gave me an upgrade on the tumor, kind of like more legroom in coach on United: my cancer was now Stage 2, malignant, but there was no evidence that it had spread beyond the prostate. I have some bloodwork scheduled in a few weeks, and if all goes well my PSA levels should start dropping to zero. That good news, combined with the removal of the catheter, made a difference of night and day in how I feel. Each day I get more energy, and am able to move around more and drift back to a normal life. Oh sure, there are still some issues with my re-arranged plumbing, but they are healing over time. With the love and care of my beloved Bride I’ll even be returning to work next week, just 3 weeks after the surgery.

The moral of this rather long tale is yeah, the world is a shit pot at the moment, but you can’t afford to ignore your health. Cancer doesn’t quarantine. Go to the doctor. Have your check ups. Get your blood work done…and follow-up. The sooner you catch things, the greater your chances to beat them.

All Our Todays Have Blue-Checked Fools

and tweets by idiots

Google “Best Governor”

Bet it comes up RON DESANTIS.

Who would be my governor, here in the great state of Florida.

What’s he done now? Besides letting us LIVE OUR LIVES in the age of Pandemic Porn and Democratic Dictatorial Darkness?

Just issued some recommendations that may be setting the Lords of the Valley back on their censorial heels a bit, that’s all. They’re going to call it the “Transparency in Technology Act,” and it’s being characterized as “Ron DeSantis declares war on ‘big tech cartel’.” I like the sound of that.

The Governor, addressing reporters at the State Capitol after Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, blasted the “monopoly of communications platforms” that “monitor and control” Floridians.

Among the proposals the Governor outlined were the following: requiring notice of change of terms of services; preventing platforms from rapidly changing standards; allowing people to opt out of content algorithms; $100,000 daily fines for “deplatforming” candidates for office; and creating a “cause of action” pathway for legal action, either from the Attorney General or private citizens under the guise of deceptive and unfair practices.

The moves to “protect privacy” from the expanding powers of Big Tech are necessary because the system is rigged, the Governor asserted.

Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms have “changed from neutral platforms to enforcers of preferred narratives,” DeSantis said.

Gotta start somewhere, right? And it’s particularly delicious that the Left’s favorite governor is going to be the one to throw the first gauntlet down.

Governor DeSantis explained his thinking on Tucker Carlson’s last night. It was GREAT.

Not like they don’t already have the pitchfork and torches out for this guy, so have at it. We love him.

UPDATE: ERMAGERD, loving him even MORE after watching THIS:

“Gimme a break. Don’t whiz on my leg, and try to tell me it’s raining.“

Bananas

No, NOT JOE BIDEN! (C’mon, MAN!)

He’s more of a mushroom, in any event.

These FRICKIN’ KICK ASS brownies I made, that’s what!

NOW, THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about! And NOW you wanna know how to make them, right?

I gotcha covered.

Go get you some a’ this stuff for the icing and the brownies…

• 1/3C butter, browned
• 1C brown sugar, packed
• 3T milk
• 2t vanilla extract
• 2C powdered sugar
• milk for thinning

• 1 1/2C brown sugar, packed
• 1/4C white sugar
• 1/2C melted butter
• 1/2C canola oil
• 2t cinnamon
• 1/8t cloves
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1T vanilla extract
• 2 large bananas, mashed
• 2C cake flour
• 1/4t salt

…and then watch this sweet lady named Donna put it all together.

ERMAGERD!

You are SO gonna owe me for this one…

In Life, Be Rigorous and Never, EVER

…let your front “fall off.”