SubscribeStar Saturday: Feelin’ Musky

5 November 20222 November 2022 The Portly Politico2 Comments

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It’s official: Elon Musk owns Twitter!

After months of wrangling and negotiating, including Musk incorporating some dread game and walking away from the deal, it’s finally done. Musk walked into Twitter headquarters last week carrying a kitchen sink, in a fun visual pun. It’s the kind of lighthearted whimsy for which the innovative billionaire is known.

The Left is melting down, thinking that a man who not long ago supported the Democratic Party is suddenly going to turn the platform into a recruiting site for Neo-Nazis (all four of them that actually exist). No Leftists panicked when Jeff Bezos—a far less lovable, far more tyrannical—figure purchased The Washington Post, turning it into a propaganda organ for Amazon.

Ah, but Elon Musk supports free speech—or, at the very last, far freer speech than any progressive wants. Free speech is anathema to the Left, because their ideology doesn’t hold up to the scrutiny of daylight. Free inquiry undermines the carefully constructed narratives of the Left—human-caused climate change; diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE); systemic racism—and, therefore, represents a major threat to their political power and control.

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TBT^2: Hungry Like the Wolf

16 June 202215 June 2022 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Seeing as yesterday was my dog’s birthday, I figured I’d throw back to a piece that I seem to come back to each June, “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Tech magazine Gizmodo ran a piece some years ago that poses the question (in its title) “What Happens to Wolves When They’re Raised Like Dogs?”

My thinking on dogs has done nearly a 180-degree turn—maybe a 150-degree turn?—over the past few years. I’ve always liked dogs (so I was already thirty degrees in their favor), but I disliked dog people. I still would not classify myself in that way, though I do serenade my dog, so maybe I’m just in denial.

Regardless, what chapped me was the way people would use dogs as surrogate children, or would invest huge amounts of their personal identity in their dog. Again, perhaps I’m in denial, or blind to reality, but as much as I love my dog, I’d like to think I’m not pouring misdirected paternalism into her.

But dogs do provide wonderful companionship, and can be a great deal of fun. Murphy does something comical or amusing just about every day. And her adenoidal snoring and “talking” crack me up. I actually sleep better when Murphy is snoring her brains out—she’s like a living white-noise machine.

Pretty crazy these chunky furballs used to be wolves, eh?

Here’s 24 June 2021’s “TBT: Hungry Like the Wolf“:

TBT: Hungry Like the Wolf

24 June 202124 June 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

After writing about whales yesterday, I thought I’d look back at some animal-related posts. I stumbled upon this post from last June, in which I waxed scientific on the origins of dogs, and how we are all the descendants of the people the wolves didn’t eat.

My entire perspective on dogs has changed dramatically in the past year. I used to think dogs were fine, but I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. After dating a woman who was clearly using her poorly-trained dogs as surrogate children, I swore I would never date a single woman with dogs again.

Indeed, when my current girlfriend and I started dating, she had recently adopted her puppy, a German Shepherd. According to her, whenever she mentioned the dog, I immediately changed the subject. That sounds about right.

I was skittish around the dog initially, but now I love that critter. Sure, I still find it a bit sad when single women approaching The Wall start channeling their unfulfilled maternal instincts into a four-legged fur ball, but I can now appreciate these wonderful creatures for the positive qualities they possess. As Gavin McInnes—no lover of dogs—often says, we bred dogs to love us unconditionally, so it’s little wonder that they do.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to be loved.

Here is 29 June 2020’s “Hungry Like the Wolf“:

TBT: Populists and Elites

18 February 202115 February 2021 The Portly Politico3 Comments

One of the blessings of the Trump administration was that Trump reminded us how fun regular people are. Sure, I love the symphony and all that stuff, but a representative government should be basically populist—it should care about the people it governs, and look out for their interests. Leaders should reflect the people, not set themselves against the people. At most, our officials should strive to set examples for how a good life can be lived.

The thrust of this piece—written one year ago today—is that elitism is shockingly ignorant: it presumes that anything that does not interest the elitist is somehow barbaric and simplistic. That our own elites embrace the vulgar and raise up vice as a virtue suggests their elitism is supremely misguided—or lacking entirely.

Few remember now Michael Bloomberg’s disastrous run for the Democratic primary last year—it was so long ago!—but it was the political embodiment of clueless elitism against Trumpian populism. Bloomberg had the resources and the softly center-Left stance to buy himself into the White House, or at least the Democratic nomination, but he bungled it so badly, even his supporters were in awe of his ineptitude.

Well, now we have a senile, fraudulent feebster leading a puppet regime, so it seems gross incompetence is no longer a barrier to entry to the highest office in the land. Perhaps a healthy dose of elitism is needed after all.

Regardless, here is 18 February 2021’s “Populists and Elites“:

Lazy Sunday C: Valentine’s Day

14 February 202112 February 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

It’s Valentine’s Day—and the one-hundredth installment of Lazy Sunday! Because I did the “Best of Lazy Sunday” prematurely due to The Great Misnumbering, I decided to take a look back at Valentine’s Day posts.

Unfortunately, I only have two posts for Valentine’s Day, which I don’t celebrate with the same gusto as Halloween or Christmas. So I’m also going to toss in a sales pitch for one of my albums, which you’re welcome to ignore.

“TBT: Family Matters Follow-Up Part I: Divorce and Marriage; Sex Education” (original post) – A post about divorce is probably not the best Valentine’s Day fodder, but surely we can all appreciate the cheekiness of this selection. It was part of my Family Matters series (not the 90s sitcom, but my posts about social conservatism and the traditional family), which includes the “TBT: Family Matters”, this post, and a second follow-up about welfare and the family. The series of posts originates from the TPP 2.0 Era on Blogspot, and generated a ton of discussion on Facebook (back when I was brave enough to post these links directly to my personal Facebook page, and not just to the selective audience that follows The Portly Politico page there. There was so much discussion, I wrote this post to elaborate on some of my positions.
“Phone it in Friday VI: Valentine’s Day” – When I wrote this post on Valentine’s Day 2020, it felt like a different world. It was in The Before Times, in The Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus. I was single, which I always find to be a bit of a blessing on Valentine’s Day, as it releases me from the oft-unreasonable demands and expectations the holiday places upon men. I linked to several great pieces and one podcast about love, marriage, and all that mushy stuff, and I think those pieces still hold up, especially photog’s piece on matchmakers. Read the comments!
Electrock Retrospective, Volume II: Technological Romance ($2.14) – As promised, this one is an attempt to sell my music—or at least get you to listen to it! Way back in college I started producing some of my MIDI compositions into albums, Electrock Music and Electrock II: Space Rock. I then released my personal favorite, Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse, in 2012, naïvely believing it would somehow rocket me towards musical and financial success (ah, to be young again). In an effort to generate more tracks (and to preview tracks from the never-completed Electrock III, which would have been my two-disc magnum opus), I came created the Electrock Retrospectives series, which itself petered out at this second volume, Technological Romance. It contains one track, “Pwrblld (Ballad II)” from the unfinished EIII record, and four other tunes. I’m selling it for a mere $2.14 this weekend—but can we really put a price on love? Since we probably can’t, you’re welcome to pay more—a true act of love.

That’s it for this very special Valentine’s Day edition of Lazy Sunday. Snuggle your sweetie today—even if she is a robot.

Love,

TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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More Tech Censorship

1 July 20201 July 2020 The Portly Politico6 Comments

Another round of tech censorship is upon us. The Trump campaign has been banned from streaming service Twitch (which I thought was just for gamers and girls with big boobs). A bunch of conservative and Right-leaning personalities have been banned from YouTube, including Gavin McInnes, who built his own platform at Censored.TV. Immigration patriot website VDare may lose its domain registrar, forcing the website to the Dark Web and TOR browsers.

Probably the most shocking is the digital defenestration of Stefan Molyneux, the grandiloquent Internet philosopher. Molyneux’s Freedomain Radio touts itself as “the world’s number one philosophy show,” and Molyneux’s output is ponderously prolific. Within hours of major news events, Molyneux will have long “The Truth about [Insert Controversial Figure or Event Here]” videos uploaded, meticulously researched and supported with fact-filled PowerPoints.

Lately, though, Molyneux has been posting videos of his daughter’s tadpole pool, or of the two of them building a turtle garden. He’s also been livestreaming Doom—controversial in the Tipper Gore era of schoolmarmish censorship of video games and music, maybe, but not thirty years later, and certainly not grounds for deplatforming.

So why did the Left decide to destroy Molyneux’s livelihood? The simple answers: because he’s Right-wing, and because they could.

Hungry Like the Wolf

29 June 202029 June 2020 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

I’m puppy-sitting today, watching my parents’ ten-week-old rat terrier while they’re working and attending various doctors’ appointments. I pray that the day I go to the doctor and various specialists as frequently as my parents do is still decades away.

Dogs are interesting critters. It’s kind of amazing that our ancient ancestors domesticated wolves and bred them to hunt on behalf of humans, instead of merely hunting humans. It’s even more interesting how breeding for selective traits led to various breeds. There’s a whole art and science to animal husbandry that is fascinating.

The rat terrier, for instance, is the result of various combinations of terriers (for hunting), greyhounds (for speed), and chihuahuas (for compactness—the rat terriers had to be small enough to get into rat holes). According to my dad, who has become something of an authority on the breed since getting the puppy, rat terriers used to be very common in the United States—most farmers had one or two to help kill pests. Theodore Roosevelt kept one named Scamp around the White House to kill mice (although Scamp may have been a different variation of terrier).

Of course, the question that interests me is thus: if we domesticated dogs once, couldn’t we do it again from their cousins, wolves? Naturally, there’s no need to do it again—it was surely a long process—but doing so would help us to understand how difficult domestication was, and why our ancient ancestors thought it was worth the effort.

Trump Takes Action on Big Tech

29 May 202029 May 2020 The Portly Politico1 Comment

President Trump finally did it—after years of calls from blackballed conservatives, GEOTUS signed an executive order yesterday removing liability protections for social media companies that censor users based on their political views.

Here is a lengthy excerpt from Fox News‘s reporting:

The president’s order, which also cuts federal funding for social media platforms that censor users’ political views, came just two days after Twitter took the unprecedented step of slapping a “misleading” warning label on two of Trump’s tweets concerning the fraud risks of nationwide mail-in balloting. The move immediately backfired: Experts disputed that Trump’s tweet was actually misleading, in part because mail-in balloting has been linked to ongoing fraud; Twitter’s fact-check itself contained false statements; and Twitter failed to apply the standard of review to other users.

At Thursday’s signing ceremony, Trump called the fact-check “egregious,” and held up a photo of Twitter executive Yoel Roth, who heads up the site’s fact-checking and rules-making operation. Fox News reported on Wednesday that Roth has mocked Trump supporters, called Trump’s team “ACTUAL NAZIS,” slammed “scary trannies” in New York City, and called GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a “bag of farts.” (In a statement, Twitter did not dispute Fox News’ reporting, but called it “unfortunate.”)

“My executive order calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make it so that social media companies that engage in censoring any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield,” the president said.

Essentially, social media platforms have always had a choice: either act as a publisher, in which case you’re liable for what users post, but you can remove and censor content as you see fit; or act as a neutral platform, in which case you’re protected from liability for what users post. Twitter, Facebook, et. al., are trying to have the best of both worlds—ban political posts and users with which they disagree under the companies’ “Terms of Services,” while disclaiming responsibility for everything else.

SimEarth

27 May 202027 May 2020 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about SimRefinery, the oil refinery software lost to time (I’m praying it’s sitting on a long-forgotten floppy disk somewhere). What I didn’t tell you was that I had succumbed to a mild but annoying stomach virus, so I was essentially useless for the rest of the day.

Of course, what better way to spend one’s time when sick than with video games? After writing about SimEarth and doing some nostalgic reading about the world-building simulator, I tracked down a playable DOS version. A helpful commenter also linked to the game’s 200-plus-page manual, which is necessary for accessing the game. Anyone familiar with 1990s-era computer technology will recall that, in order to prevent piracy, games would often ask users to look up some piece of information buried in the manual, the theory being that if you owned the game legally, you’d have the manual.

During this sickly walk down memory lane, I realized how much I had forgotten about SimEarth. The game is more complicated than I remember. It’s not that deep, but what makes it difficult is balancing all the different inputs to your planet—the amount of sunlight, how much of that sunlight is reflected by the clouds and the surface, how much cloud cover to have, how quickly animals mutate and reproduce, how frequently meteors strike the surface, etc., etc.

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: technology