Diary of a Fat Slob: A visit to Wal-Mart

A visit to Wal-Mart

Leftovers & Links #49

Here, in one fairly quick read, is the history of oil companies lying about climate change. This ought to be seen as a crime against humanity, or more accurately a crime spree.

Every top-level executive at all these companies should be in prison, and the companies themselves should be fined into oblivion. Genocidal bastards making a fortune by fucking over the future.

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There are a million things screwed up about U.S. politics, and much of it’s intentionally screwed up. The Republicans are trying to do a lot of damned fool things, as they often do — they’re encouraging climate change and the COVID pandemic, and working to dismantle democracy, by restricting your right to vote, while also gerrymandering to make the vote meaningless anyway. In these and other quests for stupidity, Republicans are succeeding, and Democrats (with very few exceptions) aren’t putting up a fight.

I’m old and sad to say this, but if my health holds out for not too many more years, I’ll outlive America.

(click to engorge)

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I do not understand the why of it (like so many other things) but the shower drain in my apartment is prone to plugging. It always drains a little slower tomorrow than today, so I pour drain opener down its maw twice a month.

The cheap stuff, $1.29 a gallon, works just as well as the name brand product that costs four times the price, but for months at my main shopping store, they’ve been out of the cheap stuff due to “supply chain issues."

Do I buy the name brand product? Shirley, you can't be serious. I buy the same cheap product a mile away, where it’s branded Wal-Mart, and where there apparently aren’t supply chain issues. And it’s 99¢.

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My car is a rusted and dented-all-over catastrophe, so trust me when I say that the car in the parking lot was worse. It was a 1990s Toyota, a beater’s beater — a wreck, and missing its left front fender.

It was straddling three spaces in the Wal-Mart lot, and there were hand-painted signs over all its windows except the windshield. Over the driver’s side window, a sloppy sign said Free something, with ‘free’ in huge letters. Everyone likes something for free, so I slowed to read the rest of it — ‘Kyle’. The sign over the second door on the driver’s added, “It was self-defense.”

Then I heard the horn honk. Guy inside the car was honking his horn every five seconds to get people’s attention. Also, the car was moving — very, very slowly, but moving. Someone was inside, driving this missing-fender 1990s Toyota beater across the parking lot at Wal-Mart, while signs blocked all the side windows, and the rear window. Not a great look. Honk. Honk. Honk. And probably illegal, even in a parking lot.

Wingnuts have rights, too, so I hope Mr Windshield-Only View was having a nice afternoon, protesting a trial underway a hundred miles to the east. I also hope he didn’t roll his beater over any Wal-Mart shoppers. Glad my city is sane enough that this was only one guy in one beater in one parking lot, not a convoy or a QAnon conquest of the state capitol a few miles away.

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50 years ago, this is what NASA thought space colonies might look like, and I want to go there.

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As an ex-San Franciscan, I’m of course familiar with Lotta’s Fountain, but I didn’t know that it was built at one height, then made taller, then shortened again. Dang thing is a slow-motion elevator.

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Will anyone be surprised when the Supreme Court aborts abortion rights?

It’s depressing to have to say this in almost twenty twenty-two A.D., but a fetus is as human as a turd or a fingernail, and returning to an era of illegal abortions is returning to the dark ages.

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The diary of the President’s daughter was stolen, and ended up in possession of James O'Keefe, one of the world’s worst humans. He's the founder of Project Veritas, a mysteriously well-funded group that stages hidden-camera videos, edited deceptively to discredit their political opponents.

This article’s point, which I’ll grudgingly agree with, is that O'Keefe is arguably a journalist, and that Project Veritas deserves freedom of the press, same as the New York Times. Same as Larry Flynt at Hustler. Same as me.

A simple fact unmentioned in the article, though: Nobody at the FBI would give a damn or even begin an investigation, if my diary was stolen, or yours. This is one of those crimes that's only a crime if the victim is someone very well-connected.

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My cranky-old-man email to Burger King:

I have two BK CROWN CARDS. That’s allowed, right? Your website allows me to check the balance of just one card, once daily. When I try to check the balance of my second card, bk.com tells me, "I'm sorry. It looks like you have reached your request limit. Please try again tomorrow." Please ask The King, WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A ONE-INQUIRY LIMIT, EXCEPT TO ANNOY CUSTOMERS?

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Any website that opens with a popover blocking the screen has probably lost me already. Close tab, gone.

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Mystery links — Like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going:

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Sing along with Doug:
CIA Man, by the Fugs