More on nazis

I should have posted more on the subject of Nazis.

I don't remember much of the politics of the sixties because I was born in 1961. But I remember reading Mad magazine, probably in the early seventies, and seeing them make fun of people making this false claim of Nazi at whomever those people didn't like. This was Mad magazine, not a haven for conservatives. Looking back, the accusations were floating around since the fifties, but didn't become a big public thing until the late sixties.

The accusations did fall off by the early seventies, and I guess they went underground again. I said before that the scare mongering will fade again. I need to correct that. It will morph into something else.

Moving

I wrote before that I was in the process of moving to my brother's house. The move is going slowly, but surely.

youtube comedy channel

I just thought of a video someone needs to do. Have the announcer say "today we are combining two of the most popular video formats on youtube. We're putting a kitten in a hydrolic press." Then show the hydrolic press and put the kitten on it and as soon as you start the machine it scampers off. Do this four or five times and the announcer says "well, that didn't work so well. Tune in next week when we combine two more of the most popular video formats by decorating a cake while flying in a wingsuit." Then show a preview of that activity and cake ingredients are flying everywhere. The thing is you don't need to show that video next week.  You've done  the joke. In a few days you do a  completely different video.

Selling the house

I'm in the process of moving to my brother's house, now. We're selling my dad's house. I hope we can divide the money from the sale so I can pay off all my old debts. I don't know what the rest of the family wants to do though.

Assisted living facility for my dad

My sister found an assisted living facility for my dad. She had looked around at all the facilities nearby and found a really good one. He seems to be doing well there.

Dad is sick

I had to come home early from work on Sunday morning. I had a bad case of nausea. When I got home I realized my dad was sick too. I stayed home two more days trying to recuperate and take care of my dad. I'm beginning to think he needs to be put in an assisted living facility and I told my sister and brother. She's now looking for one.

Raise and Promotion

They raised us to $13/hour. The next week I got promoted to level 2. I'm going to ask for Friday and Saturday off instead of Tuesday and Wednesday. If I don't work Saturday then I can get up early on Sunday morning and get my dad to church.

I also will be getting the "customs" and "driver" endorsements. My badge will have a little picture of a car, plus whatever picture they use for customs. I kept joking that I wanted the car picture so I could take my car out on the runways and spin donuts, so I'm surprised they gave it to me.

Problems with this blog platform

One problem I've noticed is that I can go back to old posts and edit them. You wouldn't think that that would be a problem, but I can see where it might cause one.

Take the last post on Kafka's Metamorphosis for example. It started off as a single paragraph, which I will edit till I am satisfied that I've covered the whole subject. I may have edited it before anyone reads this. I did this in my "good poetry vs. pop music" post. That's good.

If I wanted to commit fraud, however, it would be very easy, and would only take two steps.

Step one is to take an existing blog and change old posts. You can rewrite them to say anything, whether its the exact opposite of what they originally said, or something on a completely different subject. You can take unrelated posts you want to hide and save them as drafts, or cut and paste things from other blogs. The only restriction is that there has to be a post written whatever day you want the new post to be. The reader won't be able to tell.

Step two is to change the name of the blog. You can even change the URL so it shows up as a different blog. The trouble with that idea is that anyone who subscribes to it will immediately see the differences. I, however, have never, as of May, 2019, had a single subscriber. Ten years of blogging and no subscribers. <crickets>

The way attorneys can check this is to subpoena the hosting company to give them copies of changes made to it. Any changes made, especially drastic ones would be obvious if they were all made around the time of, say, a crime committed.

The Metamorphosis

I read Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis years ago. A month after reading it and thinking about it I came to the realisation that the real change that happened was what happened to the family of the main character. Everyone talks about it as if it's some weird, freaky story with odd prose that nobody can understand, but it's actually quite straightforward in it's style. Also, the family starts out as grumpy, whining people who do nothing but sit around complaining, and when Gregor can no longer support them, they buckle down, get jobs and sell off the trappings of upper middle class that they've been clinging to. In short, they go from being parasites to being people.

New job is nothing to brag about

I got a new job. I'm working as a janitor at the airport. The pay is good, and it's the first job I've had in a long time that wasn't with a temp agency. I'm actually working for the company I work for.

Nazis Everywhere

I was born in 1961, so I don't remember much of the politics of the day, but I remember the accusation of "Nazi" diminish to nothing by the early 70's. The accusation will diminish again.

My Political Compass

There's a british webpage that has a test on it. It's called the "Political Compass" test. The first time I took it I was surprised. I was just a little bit to the right of center. I thought I was far more conservative. There is another scale on this test, another dimension with "authoritarian" on one side and "libertarian" on the other. I was dead center on this scale.

I went back and took the test again just now. I was in exactly the same spot on the left/right scale, but I had climbed a little toward authoritarian. I think I was trying to get more conservative and libertarian, so I was answering a bit more extreme. All I managed to do was drive the test toward authoritarian, though thankfully not much.

It's a two dimensional chart with an x and a y component. The horizontal x scale is the typical left/right we are used to in politics. Seeing the y scale is what drew me to this new way of looking at political thinking. The y scale is the authoritarian/libertarian component. Sargon of Akaad, aka Carl Benjamin, first brought this test to my attention, and I mentioned it in a post over a year ago. This is the first time I've taken the test myself, though.

I have a few issues with the way some questions are worded. For example, the question on abortion is a simple yes/no with the only exception being when the life of the mother is at stake. To that I would add cases of rape and incest. I think those ought to be entered into a police report as well. Rape is far too underreported now, and this might be one step in reporting more actual rapes. What we have now is a lot of women using abortion as a form of birth control, which is why we have over a million abortions each year.

I answered the abortion question "agree," even though I have a problem with the way it's worded. It could have been broken into two or three questions, so the degree of agreement can be accuratly be derived.

I think the debate has shifted from a left vs right to an authoritarian vs libertarian perspective. This is a very dangerous thing in a culture to do. I'm not saying it's bad for a debate to occur, just that the debate is so uncivil. And it's mostly one side of the debate that's uncivil. It's childish for someone to continually shout down their opposition, but that's what we hear from the authoritarian side. The reason for this is simple. It's the only way authoritarians can win their arguments.

Also, and I believe I've said this before, the authoritarian side includes Nazis, Fascists, Communists, Socialists, the KKK, Antifa, Social Justice Warriors and anyone else who is likely to use force to get what they want.

Cool video of a machinist building a pasta machine

https://youtu.be/cygx0Ng6qMk

This is part one of the process.

The future, cont.

I've noticed there are a few posts on this blog that are still drafts. One is on Conservative vs Liberal and another is on the subject of Hippies. Look for these posts to be complete by the time you read this.

Also, I got laid off from the airline catering job today.