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• Greetings from Koh Phi Phi
  • No reservations
  • Snagging a “room” anyway
  • Late night Phi Phi
  • Later night writing
• Red Droplets and a Newborn Mouse
  • The mountain rumbled
  • 1000-words
  • Fear, money, and status
  • Red Waves of the past vs. Red Trickles now
  • An election fix, again?
• Some Admin Stuff
  • Newsletter
  • Blog membership
• 3 Months No Booze Update
• Hit & Run
  • Modesty for women at the Buddhist temple
  • Thanks, covid (hilarious)
  • Firing half of everybody yet doing better
  • CIA disinformation eagerly promulgated by US media
  • How essential is sexy sex with a sexy woman?
  • Ungentlemanliness
  • America’s diminishing cachet (two topics)

Greetings From Koh Phi Phi

Phi Phi is the island where that silly DiCaprio film, The Beach, was partially shot. Details are way off throughout the whole thing but whatever. I didn’t intend to be here and I like it just as little as when I was here a year and a half ago during peak covidiocy, and the only tourists were Thai families (the saving grace).

The geology and oceanography is breathtaking but in terms of having an enjoyable time otherwise, not really my thing. Last time it was totally quiet but now, has resumed its rap as a party place…which means the young crowd and you know what that means.

Basically Spring Break shit, though with “adults.” Or something.

Anyway, I’m here on an overnight because in my 40-year penchant for no-reservations travel I suddenly told myself to go to Koh Lanta, packed the backpack, and headed out on the cafe racer to catch the 12.30 ferry at Rassada Pier, 35 minutes away. But the boats to Lanta were booked. Best option was to take the 1 hr speedboat ferry to Phi Phi, stay the night, and check out the famed “party” island post-covidiocy. Then, catch the 30 minutes over to Lanta the next morning, which is happening.

I just remembered that my About Page begins with a few pics from my last trip here if you care to look.

Hopping off the ferry into sunshine at 14.00 with my tripod laden backpack and almost falling overboard, I grabbed an unremarkable bite for 1st food of the day and then walked around to snag a room. Quite an ordeal, with the first two I booked via Agoda—while walking towards them—turned out to have booked their availability to walkins without updating availability in their booking apps. Third try was the “charm,” and you’ll understand the scare quotes in just a minute. Once secured, I walked around all afternoon with only 3 hours sleep under my belt and it’s just typical hyper-tourist. As in…its seule raison d’tre. Essentially, why I’m not a big fan.

I walked past a place I dined at last time…one of those joints that displays their seafood out in front on crushed ice. They were firing up the charcoal and it got me to thinking that I might just need a BBQ’d whole fish.

The food prices in restaurants are reasonable and competitive because there’s a whole lot of restaurants. It was only barely past 19.00 and the weight of exhaustion was accumulating so I did what I do in such situations for a guy with zero immediate obligations. Went back to the “room” and hit it at 20.00.

Awoke at 01.00, felt like shit, but got up anyway. I wanted to see the late night Phi Phi with all those younguns partying it up.

And talk about pathetic. But for a few places, it was all dark. Must be the marijuana in the world’s New Amsterdam. I shit you not. Since the laws became permissive some months back, they let about 3000 offenders out of jail and gave back tons of seized marijuana, shops and bars selling the stuff have been sprouting up like weeds everywhere tourists frequent. That’s a poor pun, because it’s too literally true. It’s shocking.

I don’t care for the stuff anymore so it’s neither here nor there for me.

Nonetheless, it’s 02.00 and I have the munchies.

Then I went back to the “room,” pulled up a chair to the marvelous work space, next to the window with a breathtaking view, and began tapping away…

Actually, no, I did not. I bounced from link to link trying to get a bead on the shitshow that was the 2022 national midterm elections so I could write about it here, below.

[The one advantage of being on an island miles from the mainland in any direction is that there’s less EM interference. Combined with all the phone-in-face 24/7 younguns, you get stelar cell and WiFi service. Still, even though the bouncing was rapid, I chewed up two hours and didn’t even begin tapping away until 04.00, just in time to begin getting drowsy again.

So here I am, it’s 05.00, speedboat ferry to Koh Lanta departs at 09.30 and I better grab a bit of sleep. I’ll have a long-ass walk from the pier to the main drag where the hotels are, once I arrive at 10ish. And, it’ll either be pouring chilly rain or sunny, with 110% humidity.

…And I’m back; I’m in Koh Lanta, and it’s Thursday evening. What a day! Fabulous, actually. The room I snagged at the price more than makes up for last night’s purgatory.

But you’ll have to wait until next Sunday’s Newsletter for the skinny.

“The Mountain Roared, and Gave Birth to a Mouse”

[That’s a take from Aesop’s Tales if you don’t get the reference.]

Before I get started on this I’ll be magnanimous and give you a link to a positive, glass-half-full take from the smart Florida lawyer, Jeff Childers, who called it a Red Splash.

As for me, I don’t know whether to say a little or a lot. No doubt, those of you engaged in that sort of thing have pretty much heard it all.

I offer the following as a way to sortta get a 1,000-word summary of what just happened.

Does that deliver a 1000-word comprehensive analysis and explanation for you in terms of the most incomprehensible, unlikely thing to happen, happens anyway?

What…? How…?

You’re being rational, conservative…and the facts and truth matter to you.

Regardless of whether you feel any sympathy for John Fetterman’s health condition (the prerequisite for my sympathy is him having properly bowed out of the race for US Senate), what happened there is perfectly in line with what happened in that “beauty” pageant.

The problem may be that you think that since you and yours operate rationally, conservatively, and with respect toward facts and truth over feelings and hopes, it’s how the world used to operate but for conspiracies, fixes, smoke-filled rooms, and whatnot. It’s not how the world at large operates anymore…or…and understand this clearly…EVER OPERATED.

Human are by nature self-lying, dishonest, lazy animals. It’s the root of everything that holds back humanity at large from attaining higher and greater good for all. But this was recognized thousands of years ago with the advent of civilization, where people were no longer limited to tribes where everyone could account for the values, ideas, demeanor, and actions of everyone else.

Trust agents were developed; i.e., institutions. There’s a plethora of them from churches to schools to government, et al. You trust them, they take care of the dishonesty and laziness—insomuch as keeping it in check and minimizing its impact on the population at large.

Not anymore, and not for one hell of a long time. Essentially, the notion of democracy is all about attaining positions of trust in order to benefit from the natural dishonesty and laziness of people.

And to benefit, you must persuade them. There are three principal means, in order of effectiveness.

1. Fear
2. Money
3. Status

You don’t have to think back very far. Everything is a crisis to be feared, now. This has been going on for a long time but it was always more localized and even when on a national level, Americans didn’t have much awareness of what was going on in Europe, South America, or even Canada. The phones changed all of that. Everybody has global awareness in their hands at all times that doubles as a publishing platform with global viral potential.

Where I live in the expat community of Rawai, Phuket, all nations are represented and many of us remark regularly how aware we are of what’s going on in other world-stage, important countries. I know Europeans who can rattle off bunches of names of our prominent politicians and even bureaucrats.

And as for me, when was I ever able, before covidiocy, to name the names of governors of some of the states in Australia?

For 2022, all three of those persuasion tactics were in play. You’ll lose your democracy, and that’s only the beginning. Then you lose your children. You’ll be locked up.

I’ll get to money last. Status is what’s also recently been called Biological Leninism. Most basically, it’s elevating stupid fuckers to positions of unearned status in exchange for their undying loyalty to the cause. Sound in any way familiar?

I think money is what has taken an important turn.

I recall back in the early 80’s working at a Shuck’s Auto Parts store east of Portland, OR, while going to college. The other guys were probably 10+ years my senior and we used to have political discussions. To a man, no way Reagan was going to win reelection in ’84.

“How’s that?” I would ask.

“They’ll vote their pocketbooks,” I add.

The economy was a disaster after 4 years of Carter in 1979 and by then, things had improved substantially and there was no reason to think that was going to stop or reverse.

So, easy peasy, I thought; and I was right.

But big but, the sense of government being a facilitator of individual prosperity was more in tune with human aspirations to achieve something for oneself.

What is it now? It’s OPM.

Other people’s money which, in the words of Thatcher, you eventually run out of. But in the spin from the left, you combine that promise of OPM with the fear of losing what’s being distributed to you already.

So much of this is already baked into the cake it’s a wonder that Democrats don’t just simply win hands down all the damn time no matter what.

Which brings us full circle to 2020 and 2022 where I don’t entertain in the slightest the fix being in for the latter because it’s too widespread; whereas, 2020 simply required a few key states to flip it.

But given what I now think I understand and know about 2022, I’m less inclined to believe that had there not been any fix in play (there certainly was) in 2020, that it would have made the whole difference.

And then there’s the other aspect, and that’s that the big loser on the evening: Trump.

It’s time to come to grips with the fact that no matter how excited you were and how much you liked him, the 180 of that is utter disdain. This isn’t preference, chocolate-or-vanilla avenue. Trump is a paved road to hell for far too many for him to be a viable candidate for 2024. It’s deceiving because Trump’s fan base is so damn loyal and energized and lasting that he makes it look as though you’d have to be crazy to not be on board.

Well, the fear (there’s that word), hate, and loathing on the other side is palpable to exponential degrees.

DeSantis would make a much better candidate for 2024.

So in summary, the whole explanation for this is that the world doesn’t operate on classical values anymore and the only reason it kinda did for a long time is that too many important, tried and true values were in play for far too many people.

But now that cultural decline and decay has whittled away enough over the last decades that you can double down by choosing an ugly, obese, transvestite male as the winner of a woman’s beauty pageant and the people cheer.

There’s the root of your problem and nothing short of empty bellies, soup lines, or, nuclear war is gonna fix it.

The tipping point—where there are sufficient voters to vote themselves more and more of your money—has been surpassed.

America is in decline and it’s unfixable. You heard it here and a few places elsewhere, first.

But, again, do take a read of Childers’ post I linked at the beginning of this section. He would not agree with me I don’t think, so it’s up to you to formulate some thinkin’ of your own.

Admin Stuff

Two items to cover, briefly.

This Newsletter

I’ve decided to write it twice per week, Wednesday and Sunday. I’ll hold myself to a publishing deadline of 19.30 my time (UTC+7).

In the US, you’re UTC-5 to UTC-8. So, I’m 12 hours ahead of New York and 15 hours ahead of San Francisco. Except in daylight savings which, since we don’t fondle our clocks twice per year, it’s 11 and 14 hours, respectively, during your annual clock-fondling session.

So, publishing by 19.30 [in the evening] my time lands it in your inboxes between 04.30 and 07.30 [in the morning] your time, west coast to east coast.

Got that? Clear as a bell, right?

Newsletter Content vs. Blog Membership

Once I made the decision to write these long-form Newsletters twice per week, it made the Free Membership Level on the blog superfluous. It’s all right here. Same as for non-members of the public who subscribe to the Newsletter but aren’t any level of membership at FTA.

So, I’ve done away with free membership and there’s only the three paid levels.

1. Monthly at $6
2. Annual at $50
3. Lifetime at $250

Those prices double on January 1, 2023, the 20th Anniversary-Year of Free The Animal. Those who become monthly or annual members by Jan 1 lock in that recurring price forever so long as they maintain the membership. After Jan 1, there will be a limited time to upgrade from monthly to annual or lifetime, or, annual to lifetime, at these original prices.

For those currently on free membership, nothing changes. Login still works, no difference in what’s accessible. It’s just that what’s accessible is the same as it is for the public.

Clear? Good.

MY EASY WAY To Stop Drinking: Nothing To Be Proud Of

— Rather, It’s About Time…

This occured to me as I was making my list of what to cover in Todoist, a fantastic new app I’m using to keep track of almost literally everything. More on that later.

So this was a rather hefty milestone…to make it 3 months with zero booze, not even a whiff or sniff. And as I have emphasized over and over: it has been effortlessly easy and I mean Effortlessly. Easy. I shit you not and my cachet here over many years is that I don’t fucking lie to you.

Read the damn testimonials, some by folks who’ve been readers for over 10 years.

This affirmation I make is not the typical hyperbolic, lying bullshit that’s 99% of marketing on the internet these days. I don’t blame you for being skeptical…jaded, even. I really get head-shaking fucking tired of it myself and even more, that it apparently still works, why so many marketers operate like that.

Can nobody just do a straight-up, take-it-or-leave-it, no-hard-feelings offer and deal, anymore?

So, Ok…

The more I contemplated and considered how I would present this 3 months in the can—both here in writing and in the video below—I became increasingly uncomfortable with being in any way proud, triumphant, exemplary, et al.

Instead, I had feelings of thankfulness that I’d apparently stumbled into a “method” of my own dumb-luck design…only to gain awareness of it in retrospect.

Perhaps that’s why the location to do the video popped into my head and I immediately knew that yes, that’s the only place to do it. Then as icing, I got cooperative weather (though I got soaked and chilled to the bone on the drive back).

No, this isn’t about any virtue-signaling religious or spiritual experience as I explain in the video. Rather, it’s simply a place that symbolizes socially-shared values so deep and ingrained that appreciation for the fortune of having them rather than not transcends many differences between us.

The List of Topics

• Set yourself up right
• Get calmer and cool
• Dump go-nowhere shit
• Started cooking again, a LOT
• Organizing out the ass – Todoist
• Nothing to be proud of

This is my best and most comprehensive update to date. Go read the rest here. Also, I encourage everyone to use either the print or PDF tools at the end of the post to share nice clean copies with loved ones who might could benefit from what I’ve learned.

Hit & Run

…Gut busting and the first thing funny I’ve seen from SNL in years.

…I humbly ask the simple question, what kind of company can fire its entire executive team, its entire board of directors, and half its “work” force overnight and actually do better? So much better that it’s setting records for all time activity on the platform?

$8.

…“Please watch this detailed explanation from former CIA analyst Frank Snepp about how the newspapers and magazines you were taught to regard as mainstream and reliable have always eagerly served as disinformation megaphones for the CIA and the US Security State. That’s still true.” — Glenn Greenwald

…No lies detected. And I’m in a unique position to know and understand how radically a man needs…REQUIRES…regular exciting sex with a sexy woman.

…Is Some Manosphere, Red-Pilled, Anti-Feminism, and Patriarchal Behavior Ungentlemanly?

…Scholz Refuses to Follow America’s Lead on China

“No country is the “backyard” of another. What is true in Europe regarding Ukraine is also true in Asia, Africa or Latin America.  It is here that new centers of power are emerging in a multipolar world, and we aim to establish and expand partnerships with all of them. Thus, in recent months, we have carried out in-depth coordination at the international level — with close partners such as Japan and Korea, India and Indonesia, and countries in Africa and Latin America too. At the end of next week, I will travel to Southeast Asia and the G20 summit, and while I’m visiting China, Germany’s federal president will be in Japan and Korea.”

Well, I’m very gratified to live right in the thick of it and for a host of reasons, a perspective from here is enlightening when you consider what Russia, China, India, et al can do without a gram of help from America. This part of the world does not need America one iota and it’s becoming increasingly clear that America is the chief obstacle to a lot of good stuff on the verge of taking place, taking actual place.

Get familiar and learn this now, because you will learn it.

And it terms of America, its laughing stock status as to that ridiculous Fetterman election will never be lived down, nor should it be and Americans have no just cause to not hang their heads in shame well deserved. The world is in shock in realizing how much worse America is than they even believed.

…The New Cuban Missile Crisis That Isn’t — by Dmitri Orlov for the Saker blog

“The Cuban Missile Crisis is a malicious misnomer. Cuba never had any nuclear missiles; it temporarily played host to some Soviet ones. The crisis started when Americans put their intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Turkey that posed a new threat the Soviet Union, which responded by placing similar missiles in Cuba, evening the score. The Americans flew into a rage but eventually calmed down and withdrew their missiles from Turkey. The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba and the crisis was over. And so it should be called the American Missile Crisis.

“What’s happening now couldn’t be more different. Unless you spent the last few weeks hiding under a rock, you have probably heard that some sort of new nuclear crisis is underway because of “Putin’s nuclear blackmail” or some such. Some people have suffered nervous exhaustion as a result, neglecting their duties and generally letting themselves go. Take former British PM Liz Truss, for instance. The poor silly thing latched on to Putin’s words that “the wind rose can point in any direction” (a factual point about the utter uselessness of tactical nuclear weapons). She then allowed the British economy to go into free-fall while she obsessively tracked the wind direction over the Ukraine. It all ended badly for poor Liz. Don’t be like Liz.

“I am here to tell you that there is nothing going on beyond the usual—the usual Western propaganda fakery, that is.

“In particular, this has nothing to do with anything Putin or with anything nuclear. Instead, this is all part of a desperate attempt to compensate for narrative failure, and a failed attempt at that. The problem for the collective West is simply this: 80% of the world’s population has refused to join it in condemning, sanctioning or otherwise punishing Russia, with some very large countries (China, India) either supportive or neutral on the subject.

“Most of the world, including Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, is carefully watching Russia systematically destroy what was by far the largest and most capable NATO-equipped, NATO-commanded army in the world (the Ukrainian army, that is), understanding full well that what is unfolding is Washington’s Waterloo. Some countries (Saudi Arabia, for instance) are so sure of the result that they are already refusing to obey Washington’s dictates. This is a problem, because all the Washingtonians know how to do is impose their will on the world. Treating others as equals or looking for opportunities to negotiate a win-win is simply not part of their core competence—or any of their competence, for that matter. Once defanged, all they know how to do is bark and drool.”

A very essential read that will help you understand what I’m driving at as an American who used to be proud to be one…now a bit ashamed and embarrassed, to be frank.

Ok, that’s going to do it for this one, at 3800 words even. Sunday should be on time and so, thereafter. Have a good weekend.

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