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Not for the first time, the thought has occurred to me that an empire, defined as any nation with an expansionist and/or colonialist system of existence, bears several striking resemblances to parasitic and parasitoid species. Beyond simple resource theft, I speak mostly of parallels to how these organisms often lose functions from their own genomes in favor of allowing the host to perform them instead...and their subsequent complete dependence on said host species. When the hosts either die out or move on, the parasite too withers and dies.

There has been a pattern throughout history of analogous processes taking place in imperialist nations. What chiefly concerns me here is the effective outsourcing of both manufacture and raw-material procurement, beyond what is necessary due to said resource not existing natively or lack of infrastructure at home. Rome, in its middle and latter days, relied on grain imports and slave labor. Britain's loss of India had much to do with its economic dependence on its colony, for textile manufacture for example. And I don't think I need to paint you a picture of the effects of globalization on the US's economy, specifically with regard to wage depression and overseas flight of production.

What all these have in common is that the people at the top are essentially trading the vitality and independent function of the nation they rule--and make no mistake, the golden rule, that the guys with the gold make the rules, is and has always been in full force--for their own personal enrichment. Whether it be kings or CEOs of multinational corporations with US headquarters, the end effect is the same, because the concentration of power is the same.

(Incidentally, this is why the Citizens United decision was such a complete disaster and why lobbying itself ought to be illegal: making money does not always coincide with the interests of the nation, and very often opposes them in a global society.)

So...where does this end? Eventually, the empire in question allocates more resources to maintaining its "interests" (read: colonies) overseas and across borders than it does internally. And the citizens of the empire, especially the poorer ones, suffer more and more over time. There grows, between the moneyed powers and the average citizen, a great, impassible chasm, a gap of not just material wealth but of anomie and hopelessness. The laws and law enforcement apparatus turn inward, protecting not citizens from criminals, but the haves from the have-nots. Long-term planning by the ruling class for the good of the nation becomes not just impossible, not just unthinkable, but outright mocked. The average citizen completely loses faith in the institutions of the nation, and with good reason, for they have become an enemy and they see the citizens as such.

Add to this that no empire ever truly got its power and resource base by above-board, honest, peaceful means--with the possible exception of the Marshall Plan, and even that struck me, all the way back in sixth grade, as a particularly cynical piece of international brinksmanship. Empires have terrible karma. They become ringed with enemies, many of whom may at one point have been allies. Foolish decisions regarding allies and trade and warfare are made. Eventually, the global order shifts...and the empire in question, overextended beyond endurance, demoralized from within, decadent and incompetent and decrepit from decades of internal misrule, is vulnerable and weak and *completely* unable even to see the coming seismic shift as it happens, let alone respond to it after the fact.

Time flows like a river. History does not repeat, but it does rhyme. Care to guess where the US is in this pattern?

Previously: Thermophilic vs. Mesophilic Yogurt Making

I boiled a gallon of milk in an Instant Pot. I let it cool to about 98°F, and then added the filmjölk yogurt drink "culture" and stirred it. I poured 1 quart of that mixture into a mason jar, sealed it, and left it out at room temperature (around 75-77°F). The remaining 3 quarts were heated back to ~115°F. Both yogurts fermented for about 16 hours before going in the fridge.

Both yogurts seemed to have about the same thickness, but the mesophilic yogurt seemed smoother with less lumps. The big difference is in the taste. The thermophilic yogurt has a clear sour/tangy taste as usual, but the mesophilic yogurt is very mild by comparison. That seems to conflict with what this page says about filmjölk (that it has a mild tartness, which I didn't really detect), but it seems clear that the thermophilic strains put out a lot more lactic acid. Increasing the fermentation time would probably have had an effect as well. My taste tester preferred the thermophilic yogurt, but enjoyed both. You could see the sour yogurt as having more uses (such as replacing sour cream or buttermilk in recipes).

I think the next step here would be to try using random storebought yogurt to make mesophilic yogurt. The stuff I used had 10 strains in it, while most yogurts have just 2-3. However, the safe bet is to just make it using the thermophilic process, since almost all of them should have Lactobacillus bulgaricus or Streptococcus thermophilus.

How cheap can you find a gallon of milk? I've seen whole milk at $1-2, and that's basically how much the yogurt costs (maybe with half of a $0.25 cup of yogurt if you aren't back-slopping). The time spent is minimal when using the Instant Pot. Maybe 5-10 minutes in total to pour milk in, hit a button, set the pot aside so it can cool faster, check the temperature with an instant thermometer, stir starter in, hit another button, pour into jars/containers for the fridge, and rinse the pot out. It just takes a day for it all to go down.

Everyone makes mistakes. If a cashier makes a mistake, you usually bring it to their attention. If it's a mistake that shorts you, everyone brings it to the cashier's attention. If it's in your favor, many of us tell the cashier anyway, right?

But, what about the big corporation that does everything on a computer? The computer makes no mistakes, right?

I need (well, actually, the wife needs) a pet carrier. I've shopped around a little, and the things go by different names - pet carrier, pet crate, pet cage, etc. We will rarely need the thing, there's not much point in getting a high dollar cage. But, it's got to be big enough, so the little cheapo's are out of the question. That puts us squarely in the $75 to $100 range.

I had almost settled on a cage from Tractor Supply for $80, and planned to get it on the way home from work. But, I had to pick something up FOR work, before I could leave town to go home. Wandered by the pet supplies while I was in Wal-Mart, and there was a pet taxi for $64. Hmmmm - it meets all my requirements - guess I'll get it. Grabbed a couple other things while I was there, went to the counter, and ran into difficulties. The stupid card reader didn't like my card.

A bell had gone off in my head that the bill didn't look high enough for my purchases, but the card reader puking distracted me. By the time that was straightened out, I had forgotten the bell. Three minutes later, everything loaded into the Trailblazer, I remembered that the bill didn't seem quite right. Read it - and that pet taxi was listed at $19.

Weird. Neither the cashier nor I had any input - the bar code reader read the sticker, identified it properly, and charged me for it. Hmmmm - maybe I read the price wrong? Not hardly - I've been shopping for these things for the past three days. Screw it - I'm not going back inside to argue with the store manager that he shouldn't have given me about 60% off.

Got home, and looked this thing up on Walmart site. There, it is listed at $88, not the $64 that I read on the store shelf. That price shows that I got about a 75% discount, not the ~66% that the shelf price indicated.

So - ethics. This will kinda nag at me for a little while, at least. If this were a case where the cashier were at fault, and I knew that she would have to take the difference out of her pocket, I would definitely go back and make things right. But - on a computer? FFS, we've all talked about "on a computer" in regards to patents.

But, this IS the corporate world. Computers don't make mistakes, right? It would take ten or fifteen minutes to convince the store manager that there was a mistake. Then what? Do they even have accounting practices in place to make this kind of thing right? Chances are high that the manager would consider it too much of a headache to go through the motions, and tell me to get lost.

Then what? Write a letter to corporate offices?

And, is all of that time and effort worth it? It's a forty dollar mistake, and I'm going to spend a hundred dollars worth of my time and effort making it right?

Screw it. There ain't no minimum wage employee at risk of losing that forty bucks. The Waltons can eat the loss.

If anyone else happens to be searching for a 42" pet carrier/cage/whatever, visit Walmart, and check out the Pet Taxi, by Doskocil. Maybe you can get it for a twenty dollar bill!

AMD Threadripper 2990X leak suggests it'll be much cheaper than Intel's i9-7980XE chip

AN OVERLY-KEEN German retailer has potentially revealed how much AMD's upcoming Threadripper 2990X will cost.

Videocardz spotted the since-removed listing at Cyperport, which listed the 32-core CPU with a €1,509 (around £1,300) price-tag, making it roughly €500 more expensive than AMD's 16-core Threadripper 1950X at launch.

However, it also makes the CPU almost €500 cheaper than Intel's Core i9-7980XE flagship, despite the fact that AMD's 32-core chip will likely offer close to double the performance of the lesser-spec, 18-core chip.

$1,500 USD?

Previously: Intel Teases 28 Core Chip, AMD Announces Threadripper 2 With Up to 32 Cores

Creep travels half the world to harass online teen gamer… and gets shot by her mom – cops

Inside Tunisia's Shams Rad - the Arab world's 'only gay radio station'

...and the shop owner got invited to speak at GOP rallies?

Remembering when a baker turned away Joe Biden and received praise from conservatives

The Red Hen isn’t the first Virginia business to bake up controversy by rejecting a political figure’s business.

The owner of a cookie shop turned down the opportunity to serve Vice President Joe Biden in 2012 — and the right embraced him as their small business hero.

He made the decision “because of conviction and principle,” the shop owner told CBS affiliate WDBJ 7 at the time. “I have a difference of opinion of the folks in that campaign, that’s what it was. Also, taking a stance for my faith, my faith in God.”

McMurray’s story was thrust into the national spotlight with the help of conservative news sites, blogs and the wide-reaching Drudge Report. It eventually caught the eye of Paul Ryan, the Republican Party’s Vice Presidential nominee at the time, who requested that McMurray introduce him at rally in Roanoke a few weeks later.

Normally when I want to make yogurt, I use a thermophilic process:

1. Heat/boil a gallon of milk to kill (reduce) whatever is in it.
2. Let it cool down to about 115-120°F (45-50°C).
3. Stir in a few tablespoons of store-bought yogurt, or "back-slopped" yogurt from the previous batch.
4. Hold it at 115°F/45°C for 8 - 16 hours.
5. Store in fridge.

You can use a yogurt maker, but some Instant Pots come with a yogurt function and if your oven can keep the temperature at 115°F/45°C, then you can just put a covered pot of it in there.

I got a couple of these on clearance with the intention of using one as a starter culture. It supposedly contains these active cultures:

L. lactis subsp. lactis, L. lactis subsp. cremoris, L. lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacetylactis, Leuconostoc subsp. cremoris, S. thermophilus, L. bulgaricus, L. rhamnosus, L. casei, L. acidophilus, Bifidobacterium sp.

My bottle is almost identical (some of the names are reformatted):

L. lactis subsp. lactis, L. lactis subsp. cremoris, L. lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacetylactis, Leuconostoc spp., S. thermophilus, L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, L. rhamnosus, L. paracasei, L. acidophilus, Bifidobacterium spp.

Filmjölk is described as a mesophilic yogurt - with the strains added to cold milk, not boiled, and fermented at room temperature, i.e. 70-78°F (21-26°C). However, some of the strains listed above, such as thermophilus and bulgaricus, are clearly found in thermophilic process yogurts.

So should I just make it the thermophilic way like usual, do it at room temperature, or try to do each version? Is there a middle ground (such as keeping it warm for 4 hours, and then letting it drop to room temperature)?

Blood Moon 2018 prophecy: What is the Blood Moon prophecy and will the world end?

Nibiru is just so passé.

Welp...just got back from a doctor's appointment for some routine bloodwork. Good news is I'm down to 159 lb--this in all clothes less shoes and with a big meal in me. Bad news is, somehow, I've *shrunk* about 2 inches, and can no longer use the phrase "six-foot dyke in steel-toed work boots." I mean, "five-foot-ten dyke in steel-toed work boots" doesn't have quite the same punch to it, you know? But the measure doesn't lie: 178cm, 5'10" on the dot.

And no one can tell me WTF happened there. If my mother's any indication there's almost 20 years still to go to menopause, and I haven't lost any bone or muscle mass. A co-worker about my age says she lost an inch a couple of years ago and the doctor told her it was bad posture, but I don't slouch, so...who knows?

Odd. This bugs me more than it ought to to be honest.

First it was a deterrent. Then it wasn’t.

It was a new Justice Department policy. Then it wasn’t.

The Trump administration was simply following the law. Then it said separations weren’t required by law.

It could not be reversed by executive order. Then it was.

President Trump’s political gambit to force an immigration bill through Congress backfired Wednesday amid a series of wildly contradictory statements — which you can see for yourself in the video above — from a White House that has been without a communications director since Hope Hicks left in March.

The Trump administration changed its story on family separation no fewer than 14 times before ending the policy

Man.....if only someone had pointed that out, repeatedly, over the last few days only to have posters swear up and down that Trump was telling the truth. You all willing to admit you were wrong yet?