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People try to put us d-down
Hard for us to get around
Things kids say sound awful c-c-cold
'cause I didn't die before I got old

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all f-fade away
I can't dig what kids all s-s-say
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

Why don't you all fu-fu-fu go away
Forgot what I was going to say
I'm not trying to cause a b-big s-s-sensation
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-generation

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

People try to put us d-down
Hard for us to g-g-get around
Things they say sound awful c-c-cold
I didn't die before I got old

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

A photo of me with a phone from 2020

Note: Typed this out last year but never got around to posting it.
        I’ve been meaning to install Linux on this notebook for quite some time, and finally got around to it Friday.
        I started using Linux back in 2002 with Mandrake, and I loved it. They later renamed it Mandriva, and I kept using it. Then I found out that they were disbanding and patches would stop coming, so I switched to kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with a KDE desktop instead of that God-awful Gnome desktop. It ran happily on an old HP tower for years until the old tower had a severe hardware failure. I still need to take its hard drive and video card out and install them in the old Dell, which isn’t on my network because it’s running XP.
        My first notebook I had like this one was stolen in a burglary five or six years ago. It was the same model as this, and it ran kubuntu very well, far better than its native Windows. With Windows I had to run a program from the ISP to get wi-fi working on it, but it just worked fine on kubuntu without my having to do anything.
        So Friday I put it on this notebook dual-boot, since I need Microsoft Word even though I hate Microsoft Word. Knowing it would take a while I plugged in its power, and plugged it into the network for more speed. It took ten minutes to get my part of the installation done, and watched the news as Linux installed.
        I booted it up when I was done, and egad, KDE! What have you done?! Yes, it’s a beautiful desktop, but it isn’t the same KDE I’ve been using for almost fifteen years.
        What the hell, you stupid wet behind the ears software designers, are you NUTS? Look, you dumbasses, changing an interface all around for no good reason is just brain-dead stupid. I don’t want to learn a brand new God damned interface unless it’s instantly recognizable as an improvement, and this is about the same stupid move Microsoft made with Windows Eight. Look, you morons, if I wanted to learn a new interface I’d install Gnome or something.
        Next I wanted to hear music, so I needed on the internet. I tried to connect to my server but simply couldn’t get on with the wi-fi. Strangely, I was able to connect with someone else’s unsecured wi-fi. It had gotten on the internet easily with the network card plugged in.
        Someone had said that Libre Office could read and write .doc files well, so I tried it. First I opened an Open Office document, and the font face was some cartoonish sans serif font instead of Gentium Book Basic.
        Then I opened a .doc file, and it opened, although instead of Courier it had a different sans serif face.
        I wanted to get at some files on my external hard drive, so I plugged the network cable in. It indicated a connection, and I could get on the internet through the router, but the external drive didn’t show up.
        I doubt that’s the OS’s fault, though, since it wouldn’t let me connect with my own wi-fi but was fine with someone else’s. I’m pretty sure it’s that damned modem-router that the cable company makes me rent. I’d change ISPs if I weren’t planning to move next Spring.
        At any rate, KDE now sucks. Someone said XCFE was good, I’ll have to try it.

(Note: I've been way too busy)

Mediocrity loves company, and the way it leverages the weak-minded is through highly selective compassion. But so long as you have no memory, no power of reason and no experience of life, this selective compassion sounds, well, compassionate.
I have a new favorite word: mediocracy. It means ‘rule by mediocre people’. I like it because it describes one facet of what I call Total Insanity – or that system under which we are, for now, living.

Under a mediocracy there are no objective standards. There are just feelings. It can – and will – use them to justify everything from opening the floodgates to an invasion of Europe, to feeling the pain of a 52-year-old father of seven who abandoned his family so he could live authentically as a six-year-old girl.

By waving the flag of selective compassion, mediocracy is forever misty-eyed at some new reason to undermine real culture, decency, manliness, and discipline.

However, what it hates more than anything is achievement. It talks about achievement, but only in a bland, touchy-feeling sort of way. In reality, its achievements are merely expressions of new ways to facilitate being weak and deluded; or roundabout ways of expressing such things in terms of ‘compassion’.

New no-tackle rugby
When you understand the agenda, it all gets quite dull after a while. But I was amused to see where the guns of compassion have now fixed their sights: school rugby.

The problem with rugby – at least within the context of schools – according to the self-appointed gurus of gush, apparently, is tackling.

In a Guardian piece about a letter – one breathlessly entitled UK health experts call for ban on tackling in school rugby – we are told: “The letter is the first stage of a campaign that will include a petition on the change.org website which, if it receives 100,000 signatures, will trigger the consideration of a debate by MPs on the issue.”

Now the gush police love online petitions. You can get 100,000 people to sign practically anything if you make it sound worthy enough. So long as it doesn’t require any effort or financial input on the part of those whose buttons you are pressing, they will press yours in return to give you the votes you need.

The driver for this new round of tosh is the fact that ‘more than 70 doctors and health experts have called for a ban on tackling in school rugby games.’

Most people who read the article will just scan the list of names featuring the title Doctor and think it must be a good cause. But, in reality, the document has two core signatures: those of two professors in areas which sound more related to social engineering than to anything physical (Sport and Masculinities – whatever that is – and Public Health Research and Policy).

The remaining signatures are ‘supporting’, of which two are actual practicing doctors (i.e. people who receive patients).

The rest are academics in such hard-hitting disciplines as Institute of Human Identity (Dr. Charles Silverstein) and Health Inequalities Group (Robin Ireland). The closest most of these people will have come to a sporting injury will be a paper cut from picking up a dissertation from the wrong angle.

This, clearly, has nothing to do with rugby and everything to do with imposing yet more unreality on the human tribe.

I was not a rugby player myself; I preferred soccer and athletics at school. But I have played rugby, and I am bright enough to understand one of its key features: it is meant to hurt. That’s why boys play it.

Getting punched and kicked when you’re nine is no great tragedy. Living in a hermetically sealed, bubble-wrapped environment without punches and slaps and kicks until you are twenty-something, and having no chance to test yourself, to build up stamina, courage, strength and will: that is a tragedy.

By the time these social engineers finish with school rugby, there will be no goal posts; you’ll just pass the ball around in a big circle making sure everyone gets a turn – being particularly careful to see that people in wheelchairs get two turns. You’ll score a try by explaining how much you feel you deserve one. But it won’t be a try for your side. The points will be shared among the players on the basis of who is most deserving. And when it’s over everyone will get a medal.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/334733-education-mediocrity-rugby-feelings-compassion/

Imam Mohammed writes:

Following are excerpts from Sahin's article, titled "Monkeys Evolved from Humans." [2]

"Chromosomal Anomalies" In Monkeys "Have Never Led To The Birth Of Human Beings Or Of Monkeys Resembling Human Beings"

"Monkeys are animals that look like humans. Humans have 46 chromosomes and monkeys have 48. Since these chromosomes are similar in structure, these species can transfer from one to the other. When we, physicians, examine anomalies in chromosomes, we find that human chromosomal anomalies lead to the birth of humans similar to monkeys, as in cases of microcephaly, in which newborns resemble monkeys in form, intelligence, behavior, and social life. Such [deformed humans] must be kept under strict control. The numbers of such cases is not negligible.

"In monkeys too there are chromosomal anomalies, but these have never led to the birth of human beings or of monkeys resembling human beings. We understand from this that humans are not derived from monkeys, but that monkeys come from humans. There are many factors in the creation of such anomalies, among them divine, environmental, and chemical."

"Those Among You Who Violated The Saturday [Sabbath] Prohibitions... Will Become Miserable Monkeys [Koran 5:60]"

"Our God, the Creator of the universe, has also confirmed these truths. 'You know those among you who violated the Saturday [Sabbath] prohibitions. For them it is said that they will become miserable monkeys [Koran 2:65].'

"Also: 'Whomever Allah has cursed and punished, and those He turned into monkeys, pigs, and Satan worshippers, occupy the worst place [in His eyes], and they are perverts that have deviated from their path [Koran 5:60].'

"'And when they became arrogant and did not change their ways, they were told to become low and contemptible monkeys [Koran 7:166].'

"The [Koranic] verses above show us that monkeys have come from humans. Allah always tells the truth."

The Theory Of Evolution Is "An Opinion" By "A Jew Called Darwin"; "The Gorillas And Chimps Living Today In The Forests Of North Africa Are Cursed Jews"

"The theory of evolution was put forward by a Jew called Darwin. Therefore, it is an opinion. The aim of this theory is to turn the non-Jews away from their religion, to harm their faith, and to make them suspicious about their religion. Darwin, being a Jew, believed, lived, and was buried according to his religion. His real targets were the Muslims. Most likely, Darwin knew about these Koranic verses. In the Holy Koran, Allah responded very well to these perverts.

"Jews, who are well organized in the world's financial and scientific institutions, are so powerful that they terrorize the world of science. Through propaganda and through the reiteration of this nonsense, they have brainwashed and imposed this opinion as a rule, and sold this deception as scientific reality. Even some ignorant theologians have believed the propaganda of this theory...

"I believe that the gorillas and chimps living today in the forests of North Africa are cursed Jews. They are perverted humans that have mutated. This thought is much stronger and scientific than Darwin's theory. But we the Muslims, who believe this, do not have banks, money, or the organization inside the world of science [like the Jews have]. Neither do we have propaganda outlets, in order to scream this truth. But we have our intellect, we have our faith, and we have our Allah. Alhamdullillah [with the grace of Allah]."

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/9008.htm [memri.org]
http://www.antisemitismwatch.com/tag/seyfi-sahin/ [antisemitismwatch.com]
https://www.rt.com/news/332514-turkey-darwin-jews-monkeys/ [rt.com]
http://www.diken.com.tr/vahdet-yazarindan-tersine-evrim-teorisi-afrikada-yasayan-sempanzeler-lanetlenmis-yahudi/ [diken.com.tr]

The caucuses? There's something wrong there.

Hillary got schlonged in New Hampshire, but she came away with more delegates than Bernie? What's up with that? Did Hillary pay for all those delegates in advance?

Ohhh, so THAT is why she's been getting zillions of dollars for prostituting herself to foreign interests! Makes sense now!

Hey, you really need to look into the corruption at Demcratic headquarters. Find out who got all that money for the delegate sale!

Ya know, this is mildly humorous. So few people understand why Trump is so popular. Prepaid delegates explains a lot of that. People are tired of the elites deciding in advance who is going to be president. We, the people, are quite tired of choosing between a shit sandwich or a shit sandwich. You don't understand it, Shrillary doesn't understand it, the DNC doesn't understand it, nor does the GOP understand.

We are simply tired of the corruption.

Super delegates my ass.

I get his newsletters. I don't know why, I've thought several times about unsubscribing. He whores himself to various corporations, pushing junk that almost nobody needs. Tactical pens? Today, it's a tactical crossbow. Ehhhh -

But, he does make some observations that are spot on the money. Today's email:

  Hillary Lost Because She Lied
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on February 11, 2016
New Hampshire exit polls in the Democratic Primary indicate that Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton among self-described liberals by 60-39. Okay. But he also beat her among moderates and conservatives by a nearly identical 60-37 margin.

They also show that among the one-third of all voters who said "honesty and trustworthiness" were the most important qualities of a candidate in determining their vote, Sanders beat Clinton by 95-5.

  These data indicate that Sanders' victory was not the result of an ideological vote for a socialist but was due to a personal repudiation of a liar. It was Hillary's dearth of personal ethics and her lack of veracity, not her political ideology or her issue positions, that led to her smashing defeat in New Hampshire.

So when Hillary sought to co-opt and plagiarize Bernie's rhetoric in her concession speech, she did nothing to solve the problem that brought her low. Nor will any shift in her message or beheadings of her staff do much to help her.

It is not her position on the banks, TARP, Glass-Steagall, or campaign finance reform that is dragging her down. It is her email scandal, Benghazi, and her personal speeches for fees that are causing her candidacy to crash.

Hillary can change her issue positions as frequently and as totally as she changes her hair style. She can flip on the Keystone Pipeline and flop on the Trans Pacific Trade Deal. But she cannot go back and delete her lies, evasions, half-truths, and distortions. They live on video tape and in our memories, ready to spring to life as soon as she lies again.

This personal reputation is not something a new consultant can fix. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put Hillary back together again.

New Hampshire means Hillary is outed. It's downhill from here.

_{[Not a big news story but one that set me off ("I've been writing a lot today but all I got was this lousy journal entry"). My own thoughts on velvet revolutions maybe could have made a journal entry but meh the stuff I've got is too obvious. There's other stuff too (the US transsexual the cops murdered (white btw, some ppl must be wearing very strong sunglasses), China reverting to full-on communist dystopia, "Problems of Democracy" (named as a nod to the old US DoD/CIA publication "Problems of Communism"), and something titled "Sinking the Ocean") but all are too complicated and/or unfinished; been hammering away instead of doing sensible things (like checking the 9 SN notifications and 60 or so unread stories, and I'm beat now).]}

Quoting the RT news item (might be good to read it all) quoting Varoufakis:

“The European Union is disintegrating, and it is doing so quite fast,” he [Varoufakis] said. “The process of depoliticizing decision making at the heart of Europe, at our core European institutions” has been ongoing for decades, he said, adding that the EU’s “bureaucratic, technocratic decision-making process” has amounted to “authoritarianism.”

I've realized (some time after writing the following but before posting it) that Varoufakis more than likely knows all of this —he's a smart guy afaik— and maybe he thinks he can do better or add a touch to it or promulgate the core of it more widely into the left. Good for him (and maybe everybody else too), not so much in the quote but in the rest of the linked article he gets the main points right and I'm not going to stand in his way but I'll still say what I say (and I think others would too but that's an assumption although a fairly secure one).

The movement Varoufakis is asking for in the article already exists, it's called the alternative right (or new right) and he's more than welcome to join (I know he partially has of sorts with the Syriza & ANEL combo thing) but he has to leave behind his fear of walls because proper walls would and should keep the roof up above our heads :)

I know he wouldn't be the first.

I know of a person who at least claims to be communist/marxist who votes for the same alternative right party as me (a light™ version though, but decidedly not anything like an old-school conservative party and not particularly ideological). The communist is only voting for them because of their stance against immigration. There should be a lot more like him by now. In fact many of the alternative right parties are very much centrist or even leftist on some issues, much more so than one would think from eating the garbage served by MSM as well as all the competing non-alt-right parties.

The simple general summary of alt-right politics is: "people want to keep what they had and which they and those before them fought for, thank you very much".

That might sound conservative but the "conservatives" (in Europe as in the US) are rotting away what should be preserved (the puns are illustrative as well as true so I'll leave them there). Issues like "immigration", and/or welfare, and/or tuition fees, and/or international treaties all point back to the central issue of sovereignty which in turn is tightly coupled with freedom and actual democracy: rule by the people (which is what Varoufakis is asking for).

Also note that the "conservatives" (Republicans, Tories, whatever) are doing the damage together with their "supposed enemies" the social democrats (or still worse: "christian" democrats) and labor movements, even Corbin (and maybe not Yaroufakis either) doesn't seem to get exactly what is going on yet —that's ideology for you.

When you realize they're all operating way past their sell-by date (and they don't keep) you vote alternative. Sucks for those in the US, they've got none but have to make do with weird ones be it Green ("yuck") or Libertarian ("need more meds") or maybe Trump as a King Kong Godzilla hybrid.

_{[feel free to skip over these personal tidbits]
While I've never been voting to the left myself I've long long ago voted for a socially and partially financially libertarian party before I figured out they (locally, but later on the same happened in Britain) were predominantly idiots and liars pandering to the powers-that-be.}

_{Sure I was a better person back then, perhaps. And I was an even better person when I was a four year old. That's what experience, knowledge, and insight should do to people if you ask me; they should wise up. The fact they don't always do is quite depressing for the rest of us but oh boy must they live charmed lives or be incredibly dense. Sorry to any insulted septuagenarians (I know at least one which should be deeply insulted and rightfully so) but it's true :P
[personal stuff done with]}

Anyway the EU in the form as it exists will not, can not, and should not continue to exist. It is more broken that functional and it has created bigger problems than it solved. It has much more in common with nazism and international/soviet communism and their shared feverish and quite deranged dreams of "unity" (under their boot) than anything remotely democratic. The sensible things can be done without them on a completely voluntary opt-in basis. Forced "cooperation" isn't, and neither is forced "charity".

_{Alternative Internet Archive link. I notice that some people are doing various things to attempt to secure documentation and others again are talking openly about lists of people and actions. A single particularly offensive incident but there are tens of thousands more "hidden" away (even if Rotherham should be unique which is kind of a wild assumption).}

The EU is the failure of the totalitarians (authoritarians is too weak a description for them) no matter what political color and ideology they hide behind. We got there quicker than the US that's all.

Now if only more actual nazis, few as they are, could realize that the powers they imagine fighting themselves against are the marriage of the descendants of the old nazis and and the old commies, and if they (as well as the far left) could in such a manner realize their own folly then we would be even better off here in the alt-right camp.

The door is still open for now.

Sort of off topic: if anyone has any particularly insightful to say (or link to) regarding the velvet revolutions at the fall of the Soviet empire then I'm all ears, especially if it's anything non-obvious. Living through it in western Europe (as well as as before it) only goes so far and a few years later I moved elsewhere out of Europe for some years before returning so there might even be things in the aftermath that I've completely missed (although I don't think so).

The situation in Europe is already violent (still mostly from the "refugees") so it won't be exactly the same but there are some similarities, maybe, if the governments know what's good for them.

P.s. fuck Turkey & pipsqueak "Adolf" Erdogan ("Hitler in falsetto"), I hope Russia nukes him (I know they won't, and yes I'm exaggerating) :)

I received a strange note, made of cut up magazines pasted to paper and slipped under my door. It read “Your muse has been kidnapped. If you want her back, meet under the Facebook Street Bridge after dark. Bring your wallet, passport, and an umbrella.”
        Crap, my muse was gone? I looked, and sure enough it was missing. It's really important to me, so I got my passport, made sure my wallet was in my pocket, and took an umbrella, even though the weatherman said there was no chance of rain. I went to the bridge around sunset and waited.
        The weatherman was wrong. As I waited under the bridge it started pouring. A little after dark a black limousine pulled up, and the rear door opened. “Get in,” a woman's voice said. I did.
        A mean looking short haired blonde in the front passenger seat was pointing a very large black handgun at me. “You're not Neo,” the skinny dark haired girl in the back said accusingly.
        “Me?” I replied, scared to death. Or scared of death, maybe. “No, I'm mcgrew, I don't know any Neo. I'm missing some property and someone said to wait under this bridge and I could get it back.”
        “Oh,” said the blonde, putting the gun away. “Morpheus said to give you this,” and handed my muse to me!
        I put my muse in my jacket and started to open the door. The blonde had her gun out again. “Fifty bucks, asshole!”
        I gave her two twenties and a ten. “Why was I told to bring a passport?” I asked. The dark haired skinny girl laughed. “Morpheous was just fucking with you. Now get out!”
        I still can't figure out what that was all about...

So, looks like the 16.02 site upgrade is mostly going to be a features upgrade rather than a bugfix upgrade, though there's some of that as well. There's one thing going in that there's an outside chance may annoy some people though: the new mobile layout. To be very clear on this, the mobile layout will be served to anyone with a horizontal screen (not browser window) resolution of 800 pixels or less. The only way you'll see it on your desktop is if you're still running 800x600 or lower resolution, in which case you really should get with the whole 21st century technology thing.

We're going to be doing the site upgrade the first weekend of February but if you want to give it a look early head over to https://dev.soylentnews.org/ and have a look around. Bear in mind we ain't foisting beta code on you lot with this, we're foisting pre-alpha code that took all of maybe half an hour to do up on you. This is not what the finished product will look like, it's just something to make life easier on mobile users while we write up something that doesn't suck. If it sucks too hard and you all bitch that you want the old layout back though, it's a matter of minutes to fix and revert until we have something worth calling a proper mobile interface.

Let me know what you think here.