Hegar

My thinking exactly. It’s Malibu Stacy, but she has a new hat. This is just a really silly ad for a new product.

I’d encourage you to expand your worldview - a lot of problems we attribute to capitalism are mostly because of hierarchy.

Roche pharma also has a goal to reduce their cost to society by half by 2030.

What does that mean? What metric measures cost to society? What will they actually do? Nothing, nothing, nothing.

They don’t need to insulate the population, just the ruling house and the oil sector. The rest of the country is basically disposable, that’s the nature of the resource curse.

Capitalism just follows the money; the justifications and lies the US makes for war are always just excuses to profit the ruling class of capitalist corporations.

Obviously the ruling class profit from war, but US support of Israel seems to me more about empire than profit. We need allies to justify, enable and support our military presence in this vital region.

Not everything we do is because our society is controlled by greedy bloodsucking parasites. Sometimes we’re just trying to maintain our brutal imperial dominance.

There’s one location on the Oregon coast that grows it in small quantities. They serve it at Zilla Sake in Portland.

At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we’ll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil’s in the chair

China has plenty of earnest nationalists who are as stupid and easily roused by nonsense as nationalists here in the US. The party doesn’t need to stoke this. Also, that’s not how social credit or disappearances work.

People are taking this as a dig on China, but it’s a tale of how fragile nationalists are the world over. This is a level of dumb on par with freedom fries.

Pine pellet for horse stalls is definitely the correct answer. It’s the most effective, easiest litter AND it’s monstrously cheaper.

I’ve tried maybe 5 or 6 different litters, nothing absorbs as much smell as pine pellets. You can ignore it for a couple of days without issue. It doesn’t track or clump. You don’t have to scoop pee, although you should give it a quick stir or sift daily. That’s easy enough to do when you scoop any poop.

Agreed!

We stopped using pretty litter because it didn’t absorb as much smell as pine chips, smells bad itself, tracked everywhere, and the pH changing thing sounds cool but just wasn’t necessary. It’s also needlessly expensive.

The crows loved their cat food though.

People are going to make fun of the conqueror of Anshan, King of Kish, Ruler of Sumer and Akkad? That seems unlikely to me.

I’m very partial to early bronze age names.

Epirmupi

Manishtushu

Tiglath

Inshushinak

Labarna

Naramsin

If you look at the Sumerian or Elamite king lists, you really can’t go wrong.

I see dope, pedo, and pood. Now I wonder why there aren’t more obscene word search shirts.

The kidnapped employees were union members who were protesting workplace mistreatment and calling for higher salaries. They were illegally detained for supposedly defrauding the company and taken to a police station, where they were tortured.

Which republican candidate do you think is most likely to suggest this as policy this election?

‘Inner’ Chapters, written by Zhuangzi with scholarly comments and context: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/23427
‘Outer’ Chapters with chinese text (sorry probably better options out there): https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/outer-chapters
Niether Lord Nor Subject, by Bao Jingyan (another daoist text I find incredibly beautiful and calming. It’s ~8min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs23tDAaEho

Ziyu fell ill. Zisi went to see how he was. “How remarkable!” said Ziyu. “The Creator of things is making me into this hooked shape. A hump has thrust up from my back, my five viscera are top-wards, my cheeks are in the shadow of my belly, my shoulders rise above my head, and my pigtail is pointing at the sky! It must be some dislocation of my yin and yang qi.”
Yet he was calm at heart and unconcerned. Crawling to the well, he looked in at his reflection.
“Oh, my! The Creator’s made me even more crooked!”
“Do you resent it?” asked Zisi.
“Why, no! What is there to resent? If this goes on perhaps he’ll turn my left arm into a rooster and I’ll keep watch over the night. Or perhaps in time he’ll transform my right arm into a crossbow pellet and I’ll shoot down an owl to roast. Or perhaps he’ll turn my buttocks into cartwheels and I’ll ascend into the sky with my spirit as my horse! Why would I ever want a new carriage again?
“I received life because the season had come. I will lose it in the flow of time. Content with the seasons and dwelling in the flow of time, neither sorrow nor joy can get within me. In ancient times this was called ‘untying the bonds.’ There are those who cannot free themselves because they are bound by things. Besides, no thing can ever prevail over Heaven – that’s the way it has always been. What would I have to resent?”
…
“The Great Clod burdens me with form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, rests me in death. So if I think well of my life, for the same reason I must think well of my death. Were a skilled smith casting metal, if the metal should leap up and say, ‘I insist on becoming a Moye-type sword!’ the smith would regard it as most inauspicious metal indeed. Now having had the audacity to have once taken on human form, I should now say, ‘I won’t be anything but a man! Nothing but a man!’ the Creator would surely regard me as a most inauspicious person."

That’s a section I love from chapter 6.

This is the end of the inner chapters. Note that ‘Hundun’ means both chaos and wonton, so think something like a metaphorical primordial meatball.

The god of the Southern Sea was Swift; the god of the Northern Sea was Sudden. The god of the center was Hundun. Swift and Sudden would often meet in the land of Hundun, and Hundun would host them with great courtesy. Swift and Sudden made a plan to return Hundun’s generosity. “All men have seven orifices,” they said, “so that they can see and hear, eat and breathe. Hundun alone has none. Why don’t we bore these for him?”
Each day they bored one orifice and on the seventh day, Hundun died.

Gotta appreciate philosophy that knows how to stick the punchline.

That’s just the bit we think Zhuangzi definitely wrote, but the ‘outer’ and ‘miscellaneous’ chapters have some good stuff. The happiness of fish story from Autumn Floods really sticks with me. The whole chapter on Cutting Satchels is a vicious refutation of the state:

“In taking precautions against thieves who cut open satchels, search bags, and break open boxes, people are sure to cord and fasten them well, and to employ strong bonds and clasps; and in this they are ordinarily said to show their wisdom. When a great thief comes, however, he shoulders the box, lifts up the satchel, carries off the bag, and runs away with them, afraid only that the cords, bonds, and clasps may not be secure; and in this case what was called the wisdom (of the owners) proves to be nothing but a collecting of the things for the great thief.”

this chapter is especially interesting when you compare it in style and subject to Neither Lord Nor Subject.

https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/23427

Here’s a combined translation/commentary from a scholar. It has some important context.

It’s only the ‘Inner’ chapters - this is the section that is generally accepted as written by Master Zhuang himself because it’s “governed by a single creative vision”. The ‘outer’ and ‘miscellanious’ sections still have some great chapters - ‘stealing’ is one of my favorites.

Also, here’s an 8m video of a semi-related daoist text called Neither Lord Nor Master. I find it so relevant. The first sentence is basically: Confucians say heaven ordained authority, but that’s a lie told by people who benefit from oppression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs23tDAaEho

I find comfort in the Zhuangzi, a text that later became associated with daoism.

To me, the zhuangzi is about accepting the inevitablity of change by remembering that the human scale is only a small part of the crazy and unknowable universe we exist in.

It’s hilarious, an obvious work of genius, and surprisingly modern. Unlike the dao de jing, it uses nonsense and satire to make very real and relevant points about the human plight.

Sport is the most boring show on TV by far, and yet the actors are paid insane amounts. The fandom is the most toxic bullshit out there and the show runners encourage it.

Cancel sport already, it’s really dumb.