Time Changes
The Czar has been pretty well out of it lately. Sure, there was a time change—for you, you gain and hour of sleep and the worst that happens is you get hungry an hour earlier. When a Gormogon goes through a time change, he winds up in some bizarre century. And that’s nothing compared to a dimensional stasis change.
So with that, he’s been preoccupied. However, Operative B has contributed a couple of items worth your time:
Your Fearsomeness,
Both the car and the gun were legal products and are sold legally in the US. The drugs are illegal in all of the 50 states, And of the three, only one is Constitutionally protected. We can blame the driver for not taking his anti-seizure medication, or the doctor for taking illegal drugs. And we will eventually discover why the man was shooting at people. There are those who would legalize most illegal drugs under the aegis that legalization would reduce crime, or to at least reduce mandatory sentencing for those who distribute and sell illegal drugs. But statistics show otherwise: where drugs are legalized, crime does not decrease. It does, in fact, increase. Ask Colorado. There are also those who would make the ownership of guns illegal under the aegis that restricting gun rights would reduce crime. But again, statistics show otherwise: where guns are made illegal, crime does not decrease. It does, in fact, increase. Ask Australia. Knowing these facts, this lowly one wonders whether society has become insane. Society dismisses the sales and use of illegal drugs even knowing that crime rates will increase and the availability of illegal drugs will not be stymied. Society increases restrictions on legal ownership of guns by law-abiding citizens while knowing that crime rates will increase and people will be unable to defend themselves from attack. In short, some in today’s society want the illegal to become legal, and the legal to become illegal. The shame of it is that there are politicians, many of whom claim to be democrats, who support this inversion of values. Others in today’s society see this attempt at morality inversion and loudly proclaim its insanity, only to be accused of being vile and horrid human beings. And, just like oil and water, the two philosophies – hedonism vs self-discipline – cannot mix. With politicians trying to undo hundreds of years of values that have held society together, is it any wonder that society is falling apart? |
Yeah, it’s been falling apart a lot longer than that. And while the Czar is tempted to say fortunately other events occur which push things back a little bit, the reality is that these correcting events are often quite catastrophic.
But on the other hand, the so-called Overton Window is really a window: you can go in or out. And conservatives have made monumental strides in waking Americans the hell up. But there’s so much more to go that it’s difficult to see how far we’ve come. Think back to the late-1960s or early-1970s for a sense of how far we’ve come back.
| Your… Majesty? What’s up with what I just saw at the Castle? I was riding by on my 2-cylinder smog-maker and the bridge over the moat was up – and the moat was on fire! Are we roasting misbehaving minions again, or did the Flaming Peacock send over something truly and seriously spicy? Yeah, I know it’s late in the year and it’s time to rotate the petrofuel, but do you really think it’s such a good thing to just pour the old petrofuel into the moat and light it on fire? Isn’t that dangerous? And doesn’t that piss off the dragon(s)? I’m partly jealous, I guess. I have some old petrofuel from last winter in a few of those accursed CARB-compliant canisters – the ones with nozzles that are absolutely impossible to operate either with or without gloves. But petrofuel is considered a hazardous compound, so the local lithium-is-no-problem put-your-tires-over-there landfill won’t take it. Last time, I just poured the contents of those red plastic canisters into my infernal-combustion powered horseless chariot. BIG mistake. The canisters are opaque so I didn’t see the water at the bottom of the canisters. After dumping the canisters into my chariot, the water was pumped directly into my GDI engine. I had to tow the chariot to a 3rd party chariot service center, have it’s gas tank removed, upended, emptied, cleaned out, and reattached. Once burned (pun intended), twice shy: I’m not doing that again, even if someone guarantees that there’s no water in my petrofuel. I know gasopetrol is too thin to be used just like naptha for the torches in the Castle corridors. But since I saw the flames in the moat… well, wanna burn this too? I only have about 30 gallons.. Operative B |
The Czar isn’t the only one dealing negatively with the time change, it seems.
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.