spreadoutgoddamit

Blown away by the response, thank you all for your prayers and thoughts. Today was/is a little rough. It is interesting seeing what sets you off and down the hurt of memory lane knowing there will be no more created, with my wife at least. A smell, a shadow, an empty chair.

I cannot wait for Hope to come out! The trailer just dropped. It’s a new Korean sci-fi thriller from Na Hong-jin, the director of The Wailing, set in a remote village near the DMZ where a strange local emergency turns into something much darker. The cast is insane: Hwang Jung-min (The Wailing), Zo In-sung (Escape from Mogadishu), Hoyeon (Squid Game), Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, Tomb Raider), Michael Fassbender (X-Men, Prometheus), Taylor Russell (Bones and All), and Cameron Britton (Mindhunter). This looks like the kind of movie that makes you stare at your ceiling for 40 minutes after it ends.

In Japan, train stations sell meals in boxes. But they're not sad snacks. They're hand-arranged multi-compartment lunchboxes designed for one specific train route, made with ingredients from the region the train is passing through. Grilled fish from the coast. Pickled mountain vegetables. A small cup of soy-simmered beef. Sticky rice with a perfect umeboshi on top. About $10 to $15. You buy one at the station, get on the bullet train, unwrap it as the countryside flies past at 200 miles per hour. Every region has its own. Some stations have over 30 to choose from. Think about the last airport meal you ate. In Japan, the train ride is the meal. That's not lunch. That's a small love letter from the place you just left.

Me: in Japanese supermarket at midnight. only people there: me, one exhausted cashier, and mysterious old woman moving silently between aisles. I grab frozen food. suddenly hear old woman behind me whisper: Not that one. I turn around, she points at different brand. Woman: That one tastes like regret. then disappears behind shelves. five minutes later she reappears beside instant noodles. Woman: Too salty. vanishes again. this woman was operating like supermarket ghost spirit. eventually I reach checkout. Cashier sees my basket and nods approvingly. Cashier: Ah, Grandma got to you. Me: ...what. Cashier: She protects young bachelors from bad purchases. I look around, woman gone. Cashier: Last week she made student cry for buying raisin potato salad.

The Soviet whaling fleet killed 180,000 whales between 1948 and 1973, delivering rotten carcasses that nobody wanted to eat. Soviet citizens had zero demand for whale meat. The ships hunted anyway, fulfilling quotas handed down from central planners who counted tons of dead whale as economic output. This was bureaucratic box-checking that nearly drove multiple whale species to extinction. Soviet whalers targeted endangered right whales and humpbacks specifically because they were larger, helping them hit tonnage targets faster. The meat rotted on deck during long voyages back to port, where officials dutifully recorded the numbers and sent reports to Moscow declaring another successful harvest. Central planners measured success in tons harvested, not consumer satisfaction or long-term sustainability. Factory managers got promoted for exceeding whale quotas, regardless of whether anyone actually wanted whale meat (they didn't). The feedback mechanism that normally connects production to human needs had been severed entirely. When bureaucrats replace market prices with administrative targets, you get mass slaughter with zero purpose. You still see this today every time politicians promise to "create jobs" in industries that lose money year after year. When government agencies measure their success by dollars spent rather than problems solved. When university administrators chase enrollment numbers instead of student outcomes. Remove the profit motive and price signals, and you get 180,000 dead whales rotting in the sun while commissars celebrate meeting their targets. You don't get rational planning. Socialism is fundamentally destructive to the environment and inevitably leads to ecological disasters.

I thought it was illegal to manipulate the mileage on a vehicle?

Did you know Koreans have dry earwax, and it’s linked to why we have less body odor? It comes from a variant in the ABCC11 gene, which changes how certain molecules are secreted from the body. In the ear, that means the wax is usually dry and flaky instead of wet and sticky. In the armpits, it means less material for skin bacteria to break down into body odor. Researchers have suggested this variant may have become common in Koreans and other East Asians through a mix of cold-climate adaptation and mate preference. So yes, the “Koreans don’t really need deodorant” thing has actual biology behind it. And many Korean babies are born with a “Mongolian spot,” now called congenital dermal melanocytosis: a harmless blue-gray birthmark caused by pigment cells sitting deeper in the skin that usually fades as we grow. Dry earwax, lower BO, and a baby factory stamp. Korean genetics apparently felt the need to be memorable.

@Ray_BlueThunder @stephanegaddis I did home hospice for two months. She died at home surrounded by loving family. My drinking was to kill the pain of that first night, so fuck you.

@39mudmarine @stephanegaddis Sorry for your loss. Getting drunk is not going to bring her back.

My wife of 48 years died this morning. I'm on my way to being drunk. Not a permanent condition. I'm 78 my wife 76. It is always the shoulda, coulda, wouldas. Nevermore so than with the loss of a cherished companion. Do it now. don't think there is some sort of waiting period, where you get to collect your thoughts, express them well... and be understood. It doesn't work that way. I am now drunk. I just wrote a lot of bullshit and deleted. My wife was so fucking real. An RN of forty years, attuned to all but herself, ironically, or not. I don't wish to disparage her memory, so will stop now. I will love her forever. She was a gifted soul.

Don't listen to Al Gore. Al Gore is not a scientist. But I am. There is no “climate crisis.” That is political jargon, not a legitimate scientific term. In fact, in the United Nations IPCC AR6 WG1 report—considered by most academics to be the “gold standard” of climatology—the term “climate crisis” appears exactly ZERO times. 🔗ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1… The Clean Air Act of 1970, as explicitly written, does not classify CO₂ and “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) as “air pollutants.” 🔗govinfo.gov/content/pkg/ST… (p. 1690 / 15 in .pdf) But in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA (2007), the Supreme Court was asked whether or not the EPA had authority under the Act to regulate CO₂ as an “air pollutant.” The Court ruled in a narrow 5–4 decision that under Section 202(a)(1) of the Act, the EPA had the authority to regulate any emissions from motor vehicles should they “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” 🔗oyez.org/cases/2006/05-… The Court's ruling to allow unelected bureaucrats at the EPA to make regulations without Congressional approval was a direct artifact of the 1984 Chevron Deference framework. Obama decided to take advantage of this and ordered the EPA to cook up a so-called “Endangerment Finding” to advance his administration's climate agenda items along without having to go through Congress to properly amend the Clean Air Act of 1970. In June 2024, however, the Supreme Court decided to overturn Chevron in a 6–3 ruling in the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo case. As such, bureaucrats can no longer interpret vague laws and interpret them to implement desired regulations. This, however, did not apply to cases like Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) that were decided under the Chevron framework. 🔗oyez.org/cases/2023/22-… The Supreme Court needs to overturn Massachusetts v. EPA (2007) as soon as possible, and force Democrats to go through proper channels to impose regulations, not lean into executive powers like petty tyrants to get what they want (something they accuse Trump of doing on the daily). They can go back to the drawing board and amend the Clean Air Act to classify CO₂ as “pollution,” or they can let it go. As for whether or not climate change is an urgent problem, while the IPCC WG2 and WG3 reports (used for policy) have taken an activist stance and say it is, there is not much in the way of actual observational evidence to suggest that we are facing a humanitarian crisis. The quality of life continues to improve despite the modest warming (mostly seen in overnight lows) over the last century. Key figures include: 1⃣ Average life expectancy has more than doubled on every continent since the 19th century. 🔗ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy 2⃣ The total number of deaths resulting from weather or weather-related natural disasters have decreased by over 96% since the 1920s. That figure is despite a six billion-person increase in global population over that time. This trend has mostly to do with the advent and the improvement of warning coordination systems, but any increase due to supposedly “worsening” extreme weather is masked by it. 🔗ourworldindata.org/natural-disast… 3⃣ Global crop yields have been at all-time record highs in recent years, despite droughts and floods (which have always been a thing). This is because many crops have been genetically modified to produce higher yields. Innovation wins. 🔗ourworldindata.org/crop-yields Anyone who claims that we are facing an “existential crisis” because the planet is a little warmer than it was a century ago is either an uninformed stooge OR is a charlatan. It just so happens to be that Al Gore is the latter. He is a liar.

Wipe Out! I love when teens come together creating something amazing 🔥

Just learned about the beautiful personal library of a German mining engineer called Bruno Schröder. His entire house was covered in custom shelves he built himself, housing his life’s work – a 70,000 book collection. Bruno died in 2022 at 88, while in the midst of digitally cataloguing his massive collection. Sadly, he had no relatives and the house, including the books, was handed to an estate manager and put up for sale. That’s when his story and these photos surfaced.

Kyoto Tachibana, a band made up almost entirely of girls, shines as one of the finest musical ensembles to have visited the United States—celebrated not just for their outstanding performances but also for their impressive discipline.

🇺🇸🫡 When the National Anthem audio completely fails at a high school basketball game … this absolute legend steps up, belts out a powerful rendition like it’s his job, hand over heart from the stands. Then? He casually sits back down and goes right back to his popcorn like nothing happened🍿😅 Pure American moment. Respect.

You don't actually have to go all the way back to Mozart, here's a depiction of Islamic enslavement and sale of conquered and captured Christians from Cecil B. DeMille's 1935 epic The Crusades. 1935. We used to get it.

@MaryTilesTexas Mary, you're such a jewel.

Men are amazing and we should say it more. Grateful for being raised the way I was.

You know, I'm still drunk. I'll be better tomorrow. My wife was my life.

@GOLDBABYO Great reminder that every job is important. From the lowest to the highest. Forget at your peirl.

My 16-year-old son with Down syndrome was so excited to apply for his first job at the local grocery store, but after three interviews, he kept getting turned down. Each rejection crushed him a little more, and he started saying he’d never be good enough to work anywhere. I was heartbroken watching his confidence disappear. Then we walked into Murphy’s Hardware Store, and my son lit up seeing all the organized tools and supplies. The owner, Mr. Murphy, noticed him carefully straightening a display of screws that had gotten messy. ‘You’ve got a good eye for organization,’ he told my son. ‘Are you looking for work?’ When I explained about the previous rejections, Mr. Murphy just shrugged. ‘Their loss. Can you start Monday?’ For the past eight months, my son has been their most reliable employee always on time, never calls in sick, and customers love his genuine enthusiasm for helping them find what they need. ‘Best hiring decision I ever made,’ Mr. Murphy told me recently. ‘He sees the job as important, and that makes all the difference.’ My son comes home every day proud of his work, finally understanding that the right place will see his worth.

Did you know that in Ancient Sparta there were laws that prohibited pederasty, even though today some claim it was an institution, something that is not supported by any primary source? Let me show you what's the truth: 1. "I think I should also speak about eros (love) for boys, since this too has to do with education. Other Greeks, either the Boeotians who live together in close pairs of men and boys, or the Eleans who enjoy the bloom of youth, have different customs. Some completely forbid lovers from conversing with boys. Lycurgus, however, in contrast to all these, approved of the following: if a worthy man admired the soul and virtue of a boy and tried to make him a perfect friend and associate with him, he praised this relationship and considered it the best form of education. But if someone appeared to desire the boy’s body, he considered this shameful and legislated that lovers should abstain from their beloved boys in the same way parents abstain from sexual relations with their children or siblings with each other. I am not surprised that some do not believe this, because in many cities the laws do not oppose desires toward boys." Source: Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, Chapter 2 2. "The Spartan love had nothing shameful in it. If ever an adolescent dared to commit lewd acts with another, it was in no one’s interest for the two to disgrace Sparta; they were either exiled from their homeland or, even worse, lost their lives." Source: Claudius Aelianus, Varia Historia, Book 3. 3. "You may take this matter seriously or as a joke, but you must always remember that when a man unites with a woman to produce a child, the pleasure they feel is entirely natural. Homosexual intercourse, however, is contrary to nature and is committed because men and women cannot restrain their desire for pleasure." Source: Plato, Laws 636c. 4. "If someone appeared to desire the body of the boy, Lycurgus considered this very shameful and legislated that the lovers of the boys should abstain from sexual acts (Aphrodisia) as much as parents abstain from their children and brothers from brothers." Source: Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 2.13.5–14.1. 5. "It was permitted to fall in love with the noble soul of a boy, but to approach boys erotically was something shameful and disgraceful, because in that case they loved the body and not the soul. Whoever was convicted of approaching a boy in a shameful erotic way was punished with lifelong atimia (loss of civic rights)." Source: Plutarch, Ancient Customs of the Spartans, Chapter 7. 6. Solon restricted many practices of society that created an atmosphere of “disorder” (lack of order and organization, but also meaning marital infidelity) and “akolasia” (lack of moral restraint and surrender to pleasures, especially sexual ones). The prohibition of excessive female laments and dirges at funerals of strangers aimed to limit excessive passion, which the ancients identified with the emotional female nature and considered dangerous to the male life that had to be based on reason, calculation, and composure. Plutarch specifically notes in the ancient text that it does not befit men to display excessive passion in mourning (but of course nowhere else either), because it was “unmanly” and “womanish” (something that did not fit the Greek ideal). Source: Plutarch, Solon 21.4. I also cite some words from ancient Greek that carried the etymology of "gay" with a very negative meaning: 1. κίναιδος (kinaidos) = κινεῖν τὴν αἰδῶ = the lewd man, the one who stirs pleasure, the fornicator. The "ai" is a diphthong. The one who stirs shame and disgrace for himself. It is derived from moving the shame (αἰδῶ), or from moving the genitals. 2. ἀνδροβάτης (androbates) = ἀνήρ + βαίνω = the active kinaidos (the active homosexual male). 3. ἀρρενοκοίτης (arrenokoites) = ἄρσην + κοι- (from κεῖμαι, to lie down) + -της = the man who lies with males, who has intercourse with men, homosexual ≈ synonyms: sodomite. 4. καταπύγων (katapygon) = κατα- + πυγ(ή) + -ων = lustful, vulgar, worthless, lewd, kinaidos. In short, what I’m saying is that homosexuality and pederasty were not institutionalized practices in Ancient Greece as many say. Rather, they were seen as morally reproachable and, in many cases, legally marginalized as being "against nature." Why do some "historians" and academics insist that homosexuality and pederasty were normal and institutionalized, even though our primary sources prove the opposite? Isn’t that an agenda? I’ve shown you the proof. Now it’s your decision: you can either learn Greek so you can read the truth for yourself from the original texts, or rely on secondary sources from gay activist academics who are pushing their own agenda.

Son’s accomplishments this week has brought me so much peace. It might seem so small to many, but to us, the big things are always found in the littlest of achievements. He earned his driver’s license, received his very first paycheck, and was soooooo chuffed that he is paying taxes. He celebrated by taking Mama out for pie and coffee, a simple moment that meant the world to us. Now “we” are out car and house hunting, stepping into this exciting new chapter, beginning again, but this time, he has the freedom to do and become whatever he wants to. (He has given himself 2 years to own his own ranch). We are filled with immense gratitude to @POTUS and the American people. 🇺🇸❤️ Americans have been so incredibly welcoming and helpful to him every step of the way, even two liberals have warmed up to him and shown real kindness, one cutie offering to show him around. Your leadership, strength, and support for families like ours have opened doors and created these opportunities for us. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We are truly blessed to be part of this great nation, we know it, and will never, ever take any of this for granted, especially the generosity of the American people. 🙏❤️ We are not here to take.