Saturday 23 August 2025 22:40:22 1756006822

To be fair here's the context: "There is a virus here. It kills people and the only way we prevent it is: get vaccinated, wear masks, do social distancing, washing your hands all the time, and not just to think about, 'Well my freedom is being kind of disturbed here.' No, screw your freedom," Schwarzenegger said. In retrospect the context is all the more damning since it was entirely false except for the "screw your freedoms" part. That is how the elitist Arnold actually felt.

Do I excuse his being brainwashed with the rest? OK, for a doctor or scientist who at least had the ability to know better and went along for whatever reasons I do have more contempt. The same goes for politicians and other people in positions of power or authority or power who did so. Schwarzenegger is a mixed bag - he was near or past his peak in showbiz when I was born and aside from the Terminator movies (the first two anyway) I haven't seen much of his work or don't remember what I did see. Most people I know share a similar opinion:

Outside of the Terminator movies about the only things I cared for were Conan and True Lies and the former was due to having the physique and accent to be Conan in a John Milius film and in the latter he was upstaged by Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Arnold. The film was sufficiently enjoyable that I've watched it a dozen or so times but not because of Arnold. As governor of California he probably did as well as any Republican could but that's not saying much. His infamous statement during the Plandemic destroyed what little respect normal people had for him. As they say about keeping one's mouth shut and being thought a fool rather opening it and removing any lingering doubts....

Alex@MyndCryme
Some have opined that the Plandemic was an intelligence test that 60-70% of the population failed. I am more in agreement with those believe that it was a test of intelligence and character and in some cases it may be difficult to know if a person was really that dumb or if they took advantage of the situation to improve their situation even if it was just self-gratification of bossing other people around and punishing them if they transgressed. There was a lot of that and I avoided public places not from fear of getting sick but because I was sickened by the behavior of those people. To make a SWAG I'll go with Schwarzenegger not being all that bright (not dumb but nowhere near a genius) and being a pliable tool... actually those pretty much go together.

While I'm thinking about what to write about I'll mention that my friend Enak has an interesting book on his latest post. I read it a while back it reminded me of the "health care" situation these days. If you have a lot of money - so much that you can pay out of pocket for the best doctors and services available - you can probably live a long time but still you can only put it off so long. Howard Hughes only made it to seventy but his being more or less crazy for much of his life - apparently more at the end - may have had something to do with it. Some people I know - one of them being me - wondered if the infamous Ruth Bader Ginsberg didn't expect to die as she didn't take the opportunity to retire while a Democrat was in office and thus avoid being replaced by a Republican president (something I hope that Justice Clarence Thomas will do) but explanations of why she didn't vary.

Just a guess but I suspect that a desire to ensure a Democrat appointment for her replacement wasn't something she cared about. For all that she was a willing tool of the enemies of the Republic (and all that is good and decent) and they wanted and expected her to do she she simply didn't care. The fact her beliefs and motivations coincided with theirs didn't matter - they weren't important to her. Still it's possible that she didn't think she was ever going to die. Strange as it seems some people do live that way.

Alex@MyndCryme

Some guy named William Saroyan reportedly said shortly before his death "Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case." I have never read any accounts of his saying that in which it was suggested that he was being humorous.

As usual events are moving fast and so many threads are running simultaneously. President Trump ended a few wars but the one in Ukraine continues. The people being affected can't be so lucky as to have Putin or Zelenskyy suddenly assume room temperature - whether a Putin demise would end the war depends on who the successor is and we have no idea who that would be so it's probably 50-50 - it's possible that even if the chosen one is of the same mind as Putin he might take the opportunity to get out of an ugly situation. Should Zelenskyy expire I would guess that the chances are much higher - the Ukrainian people can't take much more and with the USA no longer subsidizing the Euro/NATO operations they might have no choice.

For a while deportations dominated the news but then President Trump had to go and put things in order in the nation's capital. The enemy was directing most of its energy on ICE operations and trying to prevent ONE SINGLE ALIEN from being deported again. Their failure to see how ridiculous they are:

Now they are objecting because the government plans to send him to Uganda because he doesn't speak the language. The official language in Uganda is English. The guy has been living here for years and doesn't speak English.

MAGAHurtz@MyndCryme
At any rate that's on a back burner while they agonize over the president taking over law enforcement in DC. Probably they objected on principle at first but when criminal activity dropped to a trickle they really got upset. The average of .5 homicides per day went to zero for the first twelve days. Even the mayor publicly admitted to the improvement, something that must have really hurt. Sadly it will be difficult to maintain the situation past the 30-day limit on such action but the point has been made. And while President Trump has been floating the idea of doing it elsewhere it won't be possible in most states as the governor would have to request it and outside of Tennessee (which really needs Memphis cleaned up) and possibly Georgia or Louisiana it is unlikely to happen. Fixing Memphis would be a good followup and the Tennessee governor and legislature could have some separation from it but I suspect it would be nasty. The state agonized for a year or more before taking over the schools and it didn't go as badly as some expected but taking over law enforcement would be another matter.

Cracker Barrel was the target of the latest attack on all that is good and decent as the CEO tried to tank it like Bud Lite. I don't know how much that hurt the bottom line as the figures aren't public (supposedly they claimed 1%) but it must have hurt. Unfortunately Bud Lite is one of many brands and people continued buying Busch and Michelob and the other brands. I was surprised when the CEO backed down so quickly but maybe the owners put pressure on her. In any case I don't believe it was done out of stupidity - to be sure most of these people are pretty dumb but I suspect the idea was to wreck the company.

I'm as country as cornbread and I always found Cracker Barrel - or people's perception of it - a source of amusement. The food and service was decent but I preferred the one-off places like Lamberts in Sikeston. I spent years with suits (almost all city people) and when we were traveling and often someone would suggest Cracker Barrel which to them was country. I do agree that it was infiltrated - the quality had declined for a while before the big debacle.

Alex@MyndCryme