Scrolling Blog: Late 2024 Entries
The True Christmas Story that Never Gets Old
And the vile reality that is the State that makes it compelling
John V. Denson
When Do Americans Open Gifts?
Tyler Durden
Rather than the ghost story being about Christmas, Christmas is about ghosts; for it is that time of year when the ghosts of those we have lost crowd most thickly around us.
Francis Young
BYCU
Zoe Strimpel
If there’s one thing Generation Z can be relied on to do, it’s make things creepy and weird where they were previously straightforward and commonplace. Having weirded out romantic intimacy, they’ve come for Guinness. It has become so popular among Gen Z that pubs this December are experiencing a Guinness shortage.
Social media accounts like Shit London Guinness show drinkers criticizing imperfectly poured pints. In a trend that is almost too cringey to watch, Guinness-related Instagram and TikTok posters perform the “tilt test” to their presumably American tourist fans, excited to be unleashed on legal drinking after a twenty-one-year wait in their land. The tilt test involves holding the drink at an angle: if it has been poured correctly, it ought not to slosh out. Wow! Crazy, dude!
Then there is “splitting the G,” in which drinkers attempt a single first swig so the remaining liquid ends up intersecting the Guinness logo. It’s a trend that combines a lackluster approach to downing a pint with something that sounds vaguely sexualized. No doubt we’ll soon be told that “splitting the G” is problematic.
BYCU
Eric Scheske
Disney Finally Docking the Woke Ship?
But man, you know they're just itching to bring it back.
Eight years ago progressives denied that such a conspiracy existed and attacked anyone pointing out the contrary. Then they admitted that the woke conspiracy existed but argued that anyone against it was a bigot and a fascist. Today, the agenda is so thoroughly exposed and opposed by the majority of the public that, finally, corporations are starting to reverse course and return to some semblance of normalcy.
Tyler Durden
Repackaged Micro-Essay at Substack
Eric Scheske
Drinking Quote
"I could never see why a man who is not free to open his mouth to drink should be free to open it to talk. Talking does far more direct harm to other people." GKC, Illustrated London News, July 30, 1921.
BYCU
Eric Scheske
Funny Quote
"There's one thing you can say for the people in charge of our government. They're running it like nobody's business." Joe Sullivan
From Whence this Populist Revolution on the Right?
This nifty piece lays out the history and the current situation. The writer concludes with, "This is the fight before us."
And it will be a fight. If this is a revolution (and I think it is), it won't go as expected. No revolution does. But that doesn't mean it won't succeed. It just means we can't get complacent because of the November elections. We're still behind the eightball. I'm just grateful that, for the first time in 30 years, people in my fold are getting a chance to break.
Kevin D. Roberts
And BTW: The man who has been pounding this populist drum since the end of the Cold War is Pat Buchanan. He's been proven right . . . again and again. He's also a devoted son of the Church with a firm grasp of its social teachings. He retired from public life last year. I'm just glad he's lived long enough to see himself vindicated after decades of scorn from the MSM.
Ari Berman
"The very definition of Hell must be energy without joy." G.K. Chesterton, Introduction to Thackeray
Coffee Your Way to Good Health
Tyler Durden
Deadly Sins at Deady Media
The Military-Industrial Complex Gleefully Rubs Its Hands
Jay Solomon
Bitcoin Hits $100,000
I'm "all about" alternatives to the dollar, and Bitcoin is the best alternative out there . . . maybe, I think . . . frick, I don't know, but I'm enjoying my handful of satoshis even though I'll never have remotely enough to retire off these gains. It's mostly just (for me, a guy who rarely bets more than $5) a high-stakes gamble but low enough that it doesn't cause me any stress.
Interlocutor: "Eric, isn't crypto just a form of gambling?"
Eric: "No. Gambling is for smart people."
Tyler Durden
Using DoorDash?
You Might Want to Stop
This funny essay is packed with interesting, disturbing, and funny observations.
David Cole
Interesting
"In 2024, 50 percent of U.S. consumers used food delivery services like GrubHub, DoorDash, Instacart, and Uber Eats daily. 60 percent weekly. That number rises to 67 percent for Gen Z."
Disturbing
"This is a genuine survey: In 2019, 28 percent of food delivery drivers admitted to in some way tampering with the order. In 2022 that number shot up to 79 percent."
Funny
"I’d like to say something smarmy like 'You people should tip better,' but [the drivers] aren’t feeding you semen because they’re upset about their pay; they do it because it’s a compulsion. A fetish. A bigger tip would just be seen as a five-star rating for their jizz."
Read Books
The Soul You Read May Be Your Own
Ed Simon
Our digital lives are mediated through words, whether the tumult of Twitter or the doom-scrolling of Reddit, the ever-present ping of texts and the flux of Facebook. Yet this is an estimably different experience than the immersion in Wuthering Heights or Moby-Dick, Mrs. Dalloway and Ulysses. What’s been sacrificed is not reading in the most prosaic sense, but the particular experience of a certain type of reading, perilously endangered among all of us attracted to the alluring siren-call of the smartphone ping.
Readerly “flow” allows for a submersion in another way of being, an expansion of possibilities and consciousness.
Moloch Again Eats Its Own
Retailers need to keep Black Friday hyped, but if they don't spread Black Friday out on both ends, they'll lose to retailers who do, so everyone cannibalizes everyone. The loser: Black Friday.
Daphne Howland
One of the Best JRE Episodes of All Time
I knew we would have been screwed if the Democrats had won. And I sensed it was very, very bad. This (former) Democrat donor and Silicon Valley Prince provides inside facts about just how bad things would've been.
A CCP Credit Score, for instance, but privatized through a handful of tech companies that the federal government would control. That's just one of a dozen or so jaw-dropping things explained here.
Tyler Durden
BYCU
Thanksgiving Eve
Eric Scheske
Birth of the NHL
From Britannica's 11/26/2024 entry this morning:
The National Hockey League (NHL) was formed on this day in 1917, featuring just four teams: the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators and Toronto Arenas. The NHL added its first American club, the Boston Bruins, in 1924.
Social Justice Warriors, Take Note of This Fundamental Economic Fact
Government spending tends to hurt the poor, and inflation (resulting from deficit government spending) definitely hurts the poor.
Schumacher and McGilchrist
I've long wanted to tie A Guide for the Perplexed to the hemisphere hypothesis. I think the subject deserves a small book of exploration, but I've contented myself for now with this short treatment.
BTW: I finished The Matter with Things. It "only" took me 22 months to get through 1,500 pages. I'm now going back through my Kindle highlights, which print out to 250 pages on MS Word (single-spaced, but with a lot of gaps, like:
Highlight (yellow) - Page 53 · Location 789
One way of looking at paradox is as an indicator that we are dealing with two apparently valid world-pictures which yet do not concur.
Highlight (yellow) - Page 55 · Location 813
The right hemisphere sees the nuances, as well as that we often must embrace two superficially incompatible truths in a ‘both/ and’ – one, moreover, that includes embracing both its own take and that of the left hemisphere: altogether a far harder, and more complex, view to articulate.
)
Eric Scheske
BYCU
Jeffrey Bernard was so forthright in his self-immolation that critic and filmmaker Jonathan Meades described the Low Life column as “a suicide note in weekly installments.”
Eric Scheske
Kuntsler
James Howard Kunstler
Satire
Michael Rodney
Hot War with the Cartels?
Eric Scheske
This is the Most Insanely Optimistic Essay I've Ever Read
I just hope this guy is reasonably close to being right.
Summary: When these high-functioning Aspergerites with a grudge and hatred for DC arrive, they're going to smash the average swamp rats who lazy about there now. Kamala and Co. couldn't outwit Trump. You think they're going to outwit Elon? This might be the greatest theater since . . . well, since forever. Of course, it might be a catastrophe. I have no freakin' idea but I'm excited to see it play out.
DC is about to experience something entirely new, something absolutely unprecedented in its experience. They think the barbarians are coming. And perhaps they are. But not the kinds of barbarians they suspect. Not this time.
DC is going to feel like it’s being invaded by an entire bestiary of mythical monsters with magical powers who can see through walls and huck immovable objects over the horizon. They will come from every side at once. They will replace thousands of federal employees right from the start.
You’ll be fighting against the outside and the inside. They’re going to transfer and move those permanent staters they cannot fire. Have fun in Topeka or Guam. They’re lovely this time of year.
They are not going to play nice or play fair. They are going to get things done. And they are going to clown you while doing it, clown you like “name their agency after a crypto shitcoin that muskrat ran “to the moon” just because they think it’s funny.”
And it will be.
el gato malo
Good-Bye Cheney and Bill Kristol
Ben Domenech
WaPo and the MSM Continue to Label People with Different Views as "Fringe" and "Contrarians"
Taibbi says they need to check the election returns.
Matt Taibbi
It's time to wake up to late 2024. The ancien régime is dead. Well, it has sustained a nasty and life-threatening blow. I guess it's up to people like you and me to make sure we drive a stake through its heart.
More Expansive Treatment of My Trip to Lisbon
Eric Scheske
Something for Sunday Morning
Bill Maher on the Elections
I'm not a fan. He hates Trump and thinks Trump is a threat to Democracy. He buys into many other leftist tropes with a dogmatism that makes the left hemisphere of the brain proud, but he tries to be honest, and he is humorous.
First, the Fascist Trump Came for Massively Obese, and No One Objected. Then He Came for the Morbidly Obese . . . and then He Came for the Overweight . . . and then He Came for Mothers Who Had Just Given Birth and Just Needed a Few Months to Take Off the Baby Fat . . . .
Let's hope RJK, Jr. can help. I can personally testify that the things he rails against were killing me. Since I started following Medicine 2.0, my weight and waist are down to my high school graduation weight, and a host of health problems, from eczema to lower back pain, have improved. I would get cocky and start preaching, but I've been led to believe I'm still mortal and life/fate are fickle things, so I just try to be content with my improvement and thank God for every day.
BTW: I learned recently that nursing school students take turns wearing fat suits so their classmates can learn their nursing skills in a realistic environment (i.e., in an environment of fat patients). Our whole culture has turned obesely grotesque. Thank God for the based men under age 35 who are fiercely determined to take it back or, failing that, to turn their backs on it.
And they don't give a damn what the namby-pambies think.
TDE Reader Quips
Gretchen Whitmer is so concerned about the Republicans getting the Michigan house, she went to Nacho Adoration.
BTW: If someone could mobilize the Amish vote in Michigan like Scotty Presler did in Pennsylvania, that would probably cement things against Whitmer in her next run.
Candidate for Best Post-Election Metaphor
Bridget Phetasy
Men were demonized. Emasculated. Blamed for all society’s ills. Men were told to take a seat and shut up. It was socially acceptable and encouraged to be vicious to anyone with a penis — unless they were a “woman” with a “penis.” . . .
The Democrats realized too late that they had Bud Lighted their brand. You can’t be openly hostile to men for two decades and expect to retain the male vote. And judging by Trump’s gains with both genders, you also can’t be incapable of defining what a woman is and expect women to believe you care about them, either.
Whether the left realizes it or not, the Bud Light moment was the beginning of the end of their long-standing grip on the culture. It lost them 23 percent of their market share and still hasn’t recovered. Trump’s recent win is more evidence. He won decisively, a collective middle finger from an America tired of being lectured.
The Tide Continues to Turn
Joseph Vazquez
Excerpt from his letter to Google, Apple, Et Al
I am confident that once the ongoing transition is complete, the Administration and Congress will take broad ranging actions to restore the First Amendment rights that the Constitution grants to all Americans—and those actions can include both a review of your companies’ activities as well as efforts by third-party organizations and groups that have acted to curtail those rights.
For now, I am writing to obtain information from you that can inform the FCC’s work to promote free speech and a diversity of viewpoints. As you know, Big Tech’s prized liability shield, Section 230, is codified in the Communications Act, which the FCC administers.2 As relevant here, Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in the words of the statute, “in good faith.”
It is in this context that I am writing to obtain information about your work with one specific organization—the Orwellian named NewsGuard. As exposed by the Twitter Files, NewsGuard is a for-profit company that operates as part of the broader censorship cartel.
The Return Eudemon: Lisbon
I got back from Lisbon last night. I'm more jetlagged than Donald Trump after his last two days of campaigning (though according to Walter Kirn, who traveled with J.D. Vance for a short spell during the campaign, jet travel isn't bad when you don't have to deal with airports).
Lisbon is wonderful—flat-out wonderful. We visited during a low tourist ebb, and the weather was spectacular (72 and sunny every day; upper 50s at night, no rain). Those things helped, but I'd recommend Lisbon to anyone, especially since it's only an 8-hour flight.
The problem is, time is running out. The first direct flights by U.S. airlines (United and American) promise a flood of American tourists starting in 2025. That's why we went this year (I read in The Spectator that Lisbon would soon be ruined by tourism). I'm not sure I would've liked Lisbon if it was crowded. It was fairly crowded with just the light tourist load we experienced. I think it's because the Portuguese themselves like to enjoy their capital, and the "happening" area of Lisbon is very small (we were never more than one mile from where we wanted to walk next), with the result that there was almost always a healthy flow of traffic (foot and vehicular). I can't imagine how brutal it would be if the tourism traffic was exponentially higher.
However, I think tourists will be able to find a place to eat even if they go in July 2025. I've never seen such a high concentration of restaurants; they're everywhere, every few feet. Lisbon's eatery density far surpasses Manhattan, London, and Rome.
Dispatches from Academia
A text I received from a student at a Michigan public university today, talking about the reaction to Trump's win:
The dance school is having a more traditional meltdown. Group cry sessions, therapy dogs, professors declaring today a "mental health day," and all the fun.
Trump!
I am stunned. I am encouraged. Thoughts flow through my head like cocaine through Hunter Biden's nose. In no particular order:
- Free Ross Ulbricht "on day one." He violated laws that probably shouldn't be laws (no firm opinion on that) and got FAR more time than the offenses warranted. I would've voted for Trump on this issue alone, though he should've freed Ross during his first term.
- Hail Bitcoin! It is the future of freedom. I truly believe that. If the government doesn't start imprisoning people and chopping off their hands for using it, I think it will pave the way to avoid an Orwellian future. Maybe by 2028, it will be so ensconced that it can't be rooted out.
- Speaking of which, Let's start making Orwell fiction again! Yeah, baby!
- If it weren't for Roe v. Wade getting overturned and putting abortion on the ballot, I'm not sure Kamala would've gotten a single electoral vote (excuse my exaggeration). Trump may not be a "true blue" pro-lifer, but at least he'll let us debate and argue the point for four more years without censorship.
- 25% of black men voted for Trump? I can almost feel my heart melting after getting stone cold after all the BLM and Harris b.s. Similar hat tips to my Latino brothers who crossed over.
Trump walking back into the White House on January 20, 2025! pic.twitter.com/ghSYwysV7E
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) November 6, 2024
Now at Substack
Eric Scheske
When Jennifer Lopez Speaks, Everyone Needs to Listen
Do You Need a Concrete Example of How the Left Hemisphere's Arrogant, Rational, and Language-Driven Presumptions Causes Terrible Harm?
From page 1076 of Iain McGilchrist's The Matter with Things:
I was shocked to learn from an anaesthetist during my medical training that human infants were operated on well into the 1980s without anaesthetics, because, unable to verbalize their pain, they were clearly not capable of feeling it. Their screams and cries were like those of animals, creakings of a machine.
All You Need to Know about Media Matters and Center for Countering Digital Hate
MMA was founded by self-described “right-wing hit man” turned Clintonian convert David Brock and is funded by wealthy blue donors. While it once had a more down-the-line watchdog reputation, it now officially represents itself as an opponent specifically of “conservative misinformation.” From its 2021 tax disclosure:
CCDH, meanwhile, is intertwined both with Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and the Labour Together think-tank, which since August has been boasting about its aid to the Kamala Harris campaign. [Which Labour denies . . . unconvincingly, according to Taibbi]
Matt Taibbi
Stock Cash?
Tyler Durden
A Vote for Trump Isn't a Vote Against Kamala
It's a vote against The Machine. It's a signal to The Machine that they can't get away with this crap any longer.
Tom Woods
Trump Keeps Calling Things Correctly
While discussing Cheney with Tucker Carlson, Trump said:
"She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, ok? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.
"You know they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying 'oh gee, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy."
Tyler Durden
Drudge and other leftists are saying he's calling for her execution. Unbelievable. If that's what they think, then stop sending our youth to fight in foreign wars. Enough.
Free Month of Eric Scheske's Substack or Outside Modern Limits
Look for an email from Substack to get started
If you become a paid subscriber to ESS or OML through a targeted email sent by Substack, I get the monthly subscription fee from Substack . . . it costs you nothing. If you get such a targeted email, please accept. I could use the dopamine hit. The offer is only good until November 4th.
The Ultimate Black Swan
[F]or the atheist, an encounter with God in whatever happens after death might be seen as the ultimate Black Swan event . . . Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things
Gosh, I Wish This Was an Onion Headline
Huey Freeman
Great hat pic.twitter.com/SGLFiVTxos
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2024
Halloween Meditation
It seems like half of my local culture jumped the gun and celebrated last weekend, and the other half is eschewing the macabre side of Halloween, which, of course, is the only side there is. Unfortunate? Yes, but so is death unless there is everlasting life. The macabre throws this ultimate reality into stark relief. We ought not to celebrate the macabre, but we must not suppress it either.
The macabre might also be, in part, a rejection of the Enlightenment and yet another route to re-energize the right hemisphere and its embrace of the trans-rational, much as the occult is a rejection of rationalism and its left hemispheric overlord.
The Gothic genre is particularly suited to depicting these elements. This genre emerged as a knee-jerk reaction to the Enlightenment, expressing a desire for something beyond that which is observable and scientifically quantifiable.
Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
The Internet is 55 Years Old?
From Britannica's October 29, 2024 entry:
Fifty-five years ago today a message was sent from a computer at UCLA to one at Stanford University over a network that would become the Internet.
A Member of That Based Z Generation Sends This Along
Based, adj., Willingness to express unpopular or controversial opinions, often associated with defiance of woke or politically correct dogmas.
Welcome Matilda Joan
The Ocho arrives. My daughter gave birth to a daughter on Thursday. Everyone is doing well. This is grandchild eight. The sexes are tied: 4-4. My third son's first born is scheduled to arrive in February and another baby is scheduled for mid-2024, which will give me ten. I'm hoarding them like a miser does coins.
"Matilda" is named after St. Margaret of Scotland. "Joan" after the Arc.
A common derivation of Matilda is "Maude." The girl's father detests that diminutive. I suspect I'll be using it a lot (smile).
Eric Scheske
I discovered this splendid writer before everyone else (insufferable smug emoji)
Tal Fortgang
With free speech and free enterprise, hope springs eternal
In recent years, the Yale Free Press, Harvard Salient, and Columbia Sundial have emerged to fulfill similar needs at their respective schools. Heterodox and conservative journalism is undergoing a revival in the Ivy League.
Lexi Boccuzzi
The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/18/jd-vance-world-view-sources-00168984
On Hiatus but Still Have a Few Essays in the Barrel
