Exactly what I was talking about below with my post about rent:
You: My rent just went up 20%.
Econ PhD: No. Rental inflation around here is running at 20%, so adjusted-for-inflation, your rent hasn't gone up at all.
You:
Econ PhD: Did you hear me?
You: What the hell is wrong with you?
Econ PhD: Probably the 20 years of college.
— Rudy Havenstein, Creating problems in town (@RudyHavenstein) August 12, 2018
It was the final depths of the early morning, sometime in 1997. The sky was moonless and the pines hugged that stretch of I-10 between Jacksonville and Lake City, Florida, my headlights dimly illuminating a straight line of muddy gray asphalt through the greater gloom.
Ahead of me as I drove, I noticed taillights lit up my own headlights. From a distance, it looked like a stopped car. As I approached I slowed down a bit to see a woman standing by the side of the road, seemingly distressed, hood of her car up, stranded.
If you don’t know, that stretch of I-10 is not a good place to be stranded, especially for a woman. It’s utterly empty — no towns or stops for miles — and this was a time before most people had cell phones (even today, that stretch does not have good reception). And many unsavory characters use this road as that’s how drugs make their way from Jacksonville to other parts of North Florida and southern Georgia. (And I know this because my mom transported some of them.)
I passed by the woman at first, not wanting to scare her. But I thought as I drove, Crap, I can’t just leave her there, alone. Not on this road. I’d driven less than half a mile. I could see the entire road behind me for more than a mile and over a mile ahead. Remember, Florida is very flat.
So I found a way across the median and turned around, driving east now. I got to the spot where the woman and her car had been — and nothing. No one. Not a trace. I crossed the median again to turn around west and I could find no sign at all of the woman or her vehicle ever having been there. I drove a bit more, though my memory was pretty clear to the location (I hadn’t traveled far) and there was just no indication of her presence at all.
I have pretty good night vision and I would’ve seen her if she’d driven away, even with her lights off. There was no way I was hallucinating her or the car in my original sighting. I was sober, not that tired, and drove by less than six feet from her and the car.
Nevertheless, she nor the car were there.
I have no idea where she went. It was as far as I could tell then impossible for her to have left in a way I wouldn’t have seen.
The only thing I didn’t check was that perhaps she was so scared when I turned around that she managed to roll or start her car enough to get it in the pine forest deep enough where I couldn’t see it. But she would’ve had to have done this very quickly, more quickly than I can really understand how it could be possible. It was perhaps flat enough there to do so, but how someone could do this with such speed, and a likely-disabled car, I have no idea. The forest was not that dense, so it would’ve have to have been driven or rolled in quite far for me to not see any sign of it, probably a hundred feet or more.
I always wonder where the woman and her car went, and what happened to her. It’s one of the strangest things that I’ve ever experienced.
Just donated to Planned Parenthood (Southeast). I don’t need any praise for this, but I am posting this because I hope it pisses off the right people. That’s far more motivating to me!
So go donate yourself, or if you’re pissed off about it, go fuck yourself.
People talk a lot about the rent crisis, and in some places it's really severe. But nationwide, it's only about a 7 percent increase in rent relative to hourly wages. pic.twitter.com/sxWTWhB2fL
— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) May 15, 2019
WHO GIVES A FUCK?
Rent has increased greatly in the cities and urban areas where any decent jobs are, and in the many areas that are on the decline it has fallen. It doesn’t matter that rent in Shitwicket, Iowa, is $300 if the only job available there is part-time assistant hay manager.
In the twenty most populous urban areas in the US, rent has far outpaced the CPI and median household income, which has barely budged since the late 1970s in real dollars. Easy to see if you just look at the data. Why this obfuscation and clever lies, I haven’t a clue.
If this is the best formal “education” can do, glad I stayed mostly far away from it.
Here’s the results of corporate censorship and allyship with the Fat Acceptance movement and food companies.
Note that I am just speculating here, but why else ban this? It’s just a regular carnivore type meal plan. Wasn’t spreading hate, etc.
What it would do, though, is significantly decrease food company profits (the important factor) and incense Fat Acceptance types. As a side point, I’m considering adopting a diet more similar to this as my muscle gains are being held back still by a diet that is not adequate.
(If you don’t understand why it’d decrease food co. profits, notice there are very few processed foods in the list. Processed foods cost much, much less to manufacture and are sold at very high profits. Moving people away from these to better-quality food en masse would be devastating to many food conglomerates’ profitability.)
When people look at someone who is self-disciplined, they tend to react in a shocked manner.
They are astonished because of this person’s capabilities and habits.
You could be this person.
— Zaid K. Dahhaj (@zaiderrr) May 14, 2019
Ha, yes! When people ask me how I work out to get the results that I have and I tell them, their eyes literally bug out a bit because they can’t imagine themselves doing it.
But the truth is, it’s easy. I like working out and I really like being stronger and feeling better. Not hard to hit the weights when those facts hold true. Should’ve started up again sooner, really, as it’s much easier and more fulfilling than I expected. It’s much preferable when someone’s not forcing you to over-train, as occurred in the army.
Sure, there are days where I am lazy or unmotivated. But not many and if I don’t work out I start feeling worse and that’s encouragement to get back on the bar and the bench.
No gym access?
With just:
> A set of 50 pound adjustable DB's
> An adjustable bench
> A chin-up barYou can transform yourself physically.
Under $200 at a second hand store.
— Jason Helmes (@anymanfitness) May 14, 2019
True. It’ll take you longer, but that is all you need — the bare minimum to get it done.
I’ve transformed myself a whole lot in about eight months with more equipment than this, but with the above list I think I could’ve done it in 12-18 months or so. More reps, more exercises to compensate for the lack of equipment is all it’d take.
When people say they don’t have time or the ability to become more fit, that’s just like anything — they’re really just stating that they don’t want to, and that they’d rather do something else. That’s fine but I prefer honesty.
Since 1987, Iowa has lost 84% of its 🐖 farmers. At the same time, the number of 🐖s in Iowa has increased by 37 million.
The single largest 🐖 owner in 🇺🇸 is now a Chinese company pic.twitter.com/Qvb38trzQT
— Austin Frerick (@AustinFrerick) May 14, 2019
I am sure the globalization boosters will shout “racism” from the rafters, but it’s absolutely fucking insane to allow a foreign power to have control of any part of the US food supply. This just should not be something allowed to happen, and any country that does so is in for a hard road ahead.
It’s fundamentally an odd idea if you think about it the belief we have (sub rosa but ever-present) that all scientists should be part-time mathematicians. Usually bad mathematicians, but that is the sorting mechanism we’ve chosen for whatever reason. I guess because what uses quantities is quantifiable.
I haven’t even watched all of Game of Thrones, but LOL at all of you who thought Dany was going to be some sort of Manic Pixie Dream Queen. Everything was pointing to that not being the case.
Did you forget which show you were watching? Come on.