Aaaahhhh

Aaabb

ah

AAÂÆAAAAA!

American Fried Baltic Menu

 For reasons best not get into, particularly because I would rather not discuss them at border crossings, my wife and I have contemplated what kind of restaurant we would run in a beach community on the Adriatic Sea in a former Soviet bloc state.

I can't speak for her, but I do have a few things I would want to serve.

Breakfast:

The ability to quickly run in and grab a cup of strong coffee and a breakfast sandwich. Said sandwich would consist of salted meat, with melted cheese between two pieces of leavened bread. It would be wrapped up to be eaten later, and the more deserening clients would choose one with egg. Of course, it would taste better sooner rather than later. Particularly the ones with an egg. 

Lunch:

There would be no lunch. We don't serve it. It interferes with breakfast service, naps, and getting ready for dinner.  

Dinner:

People would be able to sit down and shake off their day.  It ain't got to be fancy, but I would want people to settle into their chair and whatever was stressing them before, isn't forgotten, but put onto the back burner. The menu would need to be varied but tight. 

My additions would be: 

A marinated flattened piece of poultry doubled fried on a bed of mashed potatoes with a tomato gravy drizzled on top.  

A chili cheese coney so over the top that anyone from Cincinnati would consider it sacrilege. It would use the sausages of Europe and bread that might be able to hold it, but cinnamon-spiked chili drizzled over it with raw onions and a handful of shredded cheese.  

Dessert:

A white russian. There are other desserts, but goddamn vodka, kahlua, and half-and-half might be the most perfect after-dinner accompaniment. 

I never knew what I would be when I grew up, but I think my wife and I would make decent restaurateurs.

Brisket

 

It is the most pure Platonic Form of them all.  

Used Cars Fanfiction

 

The Capital

Rudy learns that the freeway interchange is being delayed because “historically important” artifacts MIGHT have been identified on the site, so an anthropological survey has to be completed before construction can commence.  

“Senator Russo, I’m so sorry for disturbing you, but the Consolidated Refuse Depositors lobbyist, the rep from Amalgamated Ice Producers, and Mrs. Warren are still waiting.”

“Did Mrs. Warren bring a pile of books again?”

“No sir, she brought a chalkboard.”

Rudy has his secretary delay the people waiting <music plays> and then he slips out the window, down the gutter of the capital, through the bushes, and into his car. He is speeding out of the parking lot.  

New Deal Used Cars

The sales team reacts to the information that the interchange is being delayed. Rudy had spent the last of the mortgage money on the giant pole hoisting an American Flag the size of a basketball court. Jim has gotten the “mile of cars” operational but nobody is on the lot, mainly because of the construction.  Jeff comments that their insurance policy on the “shit pile of cars” isn’t going to do any good if construction isn’t throwing debris across the road to crack windshields.  

“Jeff, get Freddie and Eddie on the phone.”

Roy L. Fuch’s Lot

The sales team is standing around a hole, dressed in dark clothing, along with a new person whose casually resting on a wooden crate and black case at his feet.  The area around them is bare earth and the remains of the former car dealership. The hole in which they are all focused is about 2 feet deep. Inside is a sandstone slab. You can’t see the edges because they are hidden by the bare earth exposed by the construction workers.  Upon the stone’s surface are etchings and drawings, all written and drawn in arcs that spiral towards the center of the hole. 

“Jesus.”

“Looks like a bunch of scratches.”

“Is that scratch doing what I think to that other scratch?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I don’t think they knew who Jesus was.”

The sales team sets charges and retreats to a safe distance.  KA-BOOM.  Falling debris and windshields cracking.  

New Deal Used Cars

The next morning the New Deal lot is empty but across the road, nerds are scouring the entirety of the area.  Multiple vans with Arizona State University logos are parked in a neat row.  Completely incompetent young people are attempting to install a fence.  The sales team bicker amongst themselves because the explosion didn’t seem to have the desired result.

-BZzzZZxTtTT-  -BZzzZZxTtTT-  

Rudy grabs for his hip and looks at his beeper.  Makes a quick call and says he has to go across the road. 

Roy L. Fuch’s Lot

Rudy crosses the highway and an awkward early-80s college student attempts to stand in his way. Without ever breaking his stride, Rudy focuses his seduction force upon this poor student, who falls to the side. He approaches the crude base of operation, and Rudy strolls right into it.  He is quickly shut down and put into his place.  But, when the anthropologist realizes he is a State Senator, their demeanor changes and shows him why the location is important.  

In addition to the numerous pre-Clovis artifacts unearthed, is the pit descending into the earth whose bottom you can’t see because the mist is swirling in the way.  

“This shouldn’t be here. It is a Mesopotamian god of destruction.”

“This looks like the ground floor for investing in destruction to me.”

New Deal Used Cars

The sales team is giving Rudy shit for not shutting down the archeological dig.  He barely convinces them that the lot across the road needs to be left alone. 

-Wrrrchrrrchhhwrccch- flip -Wrrrchrrrchhhwrccch- flip

Rudy grabs the fax and reads it in silence. 

“The Arizona Legislative Sub-Committee on the Appreciation of Historical and Indigenous Importance is voting Monday morning to protect that lot from damage. This second page is Roy L. Fuch’s contract to construct the freeway interchange. He is allowed to start construction on Sunday, August 23rd.”

“What day is it?”

Construction Parking Lot

Roy L. Fuchs is moving between employees standing next to their construction equipment.  He seems almost like a general before troops make an advance into enemy territory.  

“Bob! We have to make it to the lot. A bunch of pussies aren’t going to stop you again are they?”

“Boss, we have 6 hours and it's 45 minutes away. We have bulldozers, excavators, and dump trucks.  The bulldozer has a .45, the excavators have shotguns and the dump trucks have bazookas.”

“Roy, you are on probation!”

New Deal Used Cars

Jeff takes off as scout in his dune buggy that remarkably doesn’t have a bit of red on the entire vehicle. Jim is throwing toolboxes and chains into the back of the pickup.  Rudy is fitting a brass knuckle when Barbara asks,

“Rudy, what is going on?”

ACTION SCENE

The sales team corrals the bad guys into a valley of strip malls because Rudy stops traffic and Jim quickly disables the vehicles in the intersection.  Roy L Fuchs stayed at the back of the line and when the New Deal traffic jam happened, he was just able to veer around in his bulldozer and head straight towards the construction site. His bulldozer is pulling a trailer full of wooden crates with *Dynamite* on the side.  

Fight with Rudy and Roy, the steering mechanism of the bulldozer is broken and the accelerator is jammed into full throttle.  All seems lost.  The bulldozer is on a direct path to the archeological site.  

Except, there is one thing standing between Roy L Fuchs machine of destruction and the temple of unknown mythology.  The American Flag.  There is a squeal of metal as the bulldozer hits the pole, and while it bends, it holds and the bulldozer gives a cough of smoke and stops.  

EPILOGUE 

Camels are walking around. Cheap plywood pyramids scatter the parking lot.

“This is as close as you can get to the mysterious ancient site!  Take a test drive in one of our previously owned automobiles to get a ticket to climb a pyramid to see what the nerds are excavating!”

The present.

 

Trump Fucks McConnell (and Kentucky) Again

This isn't going to come as a shock, but Donald J. Trump has fucked Mitchell McConnell Jr. up the ass once again.  Mitch has not enjoyed his previous copulations with Trump but they were profitable. Sure there was some clean up afterwards, but in the end Mitch was richer.  That may happen again, but this time, the fucking was on a 6 month delay and McConnell's constituents will take it the hardest.  

Leading up to McConnell's reelection, his crowing legislative achievement for the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky was the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (or the 2018 Farm Bill for normal people).  He strolled across the state extolling the virtues of how Kentucky farmers will be able to reach their former glory.  Remember how your Pa made a living raising tobacco?  I'm bringing those days back again!

The Kentucky legislature fell in line and passed legislation to make sure KRS was in line for this big beautiful tomorrow.  And immediately afterwards it seemed to work.  There was a CBD boom.  Every strip mall in the state seemed to have a CBD shop.  When I went on vacation, it seemed every other state had a CBD shop.  My mother-in-law started swearing that CBD was curing her bum knee.  McConnell's vision of a replacement for tobacco seemed to be coming true and he had forced it through Congress.  He not only owned it, he wanted credit and distribution rights.  

Unfortunately, CBD ended up being less valuable than Dollar General olive oil. The fad had faded. 

I don't know who did it, but somebody, figured out that the 2018 Farm Bill created a loop hole.  Those commie heathen states allowed marijuana but if we switch this little amino acid, then all the products they are selling, we can sell and it ain't marijuana.  It's an industrial hemp product. It isn't taxed like marijuana.  So it is also profitable in those blue hell holes that allow the devil weed.  In fact, two of the biggest distributers of Delta-8 (I will explain what that is in a minute) come from Kentucky.  

The 2018 Farm Bill did what it promised.  Farms were springing up.  Processing plants were being built. And jobs were being added. 

But what is Delta-8? Good question.  

The Cannabis sativa L. produces a bunch of chemicals (quit your worrying and remember your high school chemistry class (almost) everything is a fucking chemical).  Among those is Delta-9.  Thousands (maybe hundreds, this is a blog) of years of cultivation bred plants to produce more and more Delta-9. Just like we turned a plant that looked like blade of grass that we hadn't cut into an ear of corn, civilization concentrated Delta-9 into Cannabis sativa L. 

Because it got people high.  There are many things civilization has spent an enormous amount of energy on in order to get high.  European colonization of the Americas for tobacco and sugar.  The insane effort that goes into vineyards.  The Sackler Family.  The point is that humans will figure out how to get a buzz on if the opportunity is there.  

So Delta-8.  That 2018 Farm Bill narrowed the definition of what is hemp and what is marijuana so that good Kentuckian farmers could grow this industrious product.  Problem is, there is a bunch of Delta-9 in industrial hemp, but Delta-9 is what people spent thousands of years developing because it got them high.  What to do?

The solution was to say that you can grow Cannabis sativa L. for whatever purpose your entrepreneur  mind can come up with as long as the plants and whatever product you make, contain less than 3 tenths of one percent of Delta-9.  If it contains more than that, it is the Devil's Weed.  

What McConnell didn't consider is that the people he represent are smart and entrepreneur and human, which means it didn't take long for people to realize that Delta-8 also got you high.  There just wasn't a lot of it in the plant.  It took humans thousands of years of breeding to get high concentrations of Delta-9. But humans now have something that McConnell tends to ignore.  Science.  

What had took 1000s of years before, people had figured in about 9 months. Just this time they concentrated Delta-8.  

And suddenly, those sad CBD shops in the strip malls all across America were able to pay their leases. In fact, they seemed to flourish.  You could walk into a well lit store, with lots of glass and professional displays.  A friendly associate would welcome you and ask what you were looking for.  Oh, this product here will help you sleep, but this one here is better for focus, however this one is great for easing pain.  Plus you could purchase the product with your credit card, in packaging that'd be recognizable at the checkout ailse of Walmart and they have a rewards program.  

For Kentuckians it seemed the fucking started on April 19, 2021, but the foreplay started the previous August.  On February 19th, the General Counsel for the KY Department of Agriculture mailed a letter to all of the farmers and processors of hemp in the Commonwealth of Kentucky that if they were growing or processing hemp to concentrate Delta-8 (the only profitable market) they should know that the federal government now considers it a Schedule 1 drug and therefore so does the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Furthermore, if you engage in such activity, you are jeopardizing your license to grow or process hemp. Just wanted you all to know.  

What changed?  

The DEA under the DOJ under Bill Barr in August of 2020 introduced this Interim Final Rule which would reinterpret the DEA regulations on how it viewed the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (figured we should give its official title here) that would make all Tetrahydrocannabinols that don't occur in natural concentrations in Cannabis sativa L (I should have come up with a shorthand for that plant by now) a Schedule 1 drug.  Basically like heroin.  

Or basically all the things that are allowing those CBD shops to pay their leases.  

The comment period for this ended in October (I lost the link for this, sorry), and as of April 2, 2021, Delta-8 was added to the DEA's Controlled Substance List. Along with all of the other avenues that the farmers and processors thought they could use if Delta-8 was shut down.  

Members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to AG Garland and Sec. Vilsack on March 29 basically saying "Whoa, slow your roll," but I ain't been able to find any news articles that have reported on that at all.  And I subscribe to a fair number of news organizations.  

I am now tired of typing.  

At the end of the day, there are hundreds of Kentuckians, and I am sure it is the case all around the country, that are terrified and not able to sleep.  Scratching out out a living and now told it is illegal.  

There is a whole shit ton of things that are awful in this world and we need to pay attention to them.  This is just one that I noticed this morning and it piqued my curiosity and couldn't let it go.  Looking into it today, Ms. Bougenies saw it coming here and here.  But I will admit, I hadn't read what she was saying until this morning.  

A Time Travel Story

Me: Fuck. ... It's fuckin worked. 

Me2: Hey?!? 

Me: Look, I only have a moment. I'm you from the future and you have to prepare now. If you put down... 

Me2: Whoa!?! So, my future self found it important to talk to me! I knew that I was... 

Me: Wait? No. Shut UP! Shut up and listen. This moment is almost over and you... 

Me2: Ah, so your here to tell me how to save the world. 

Me: No! Well yes. But shut up. You have no idea how bad it gets, which is why you have to start now by...  

Me2: What happens? 

Me: What do you mean? 

Me2: Uh... I mean... if shit gets so bad that "I" feel the need to travel back in time to warn "me" of the future. What the hell happend? Did IT happen? 

Me: No, who cares about.. You need to immediately walk down to the ATM at Casey's. I really honestly have no clue how much we had in a bank right now. But empty it! It has to be enough to... We can go to the bank tomorrow for...

Me2: STOP! I ain't gonna lie, I am weirded out by you. You do seem like me. 

Me: I am you.

Me2: Logicially, this is a scam. If you separate each... 

Me: For fucks sake, we don't have time for this. Just listen to me. 

Me2: Why?!? Tell me exactly what happens and why I should belive you! 

Me: Ok. Well, in four years the... you won't believe that. Wait, the President is going to go on TV and... no. That is absurd too. Ahhh, CERN is going to annouce that neutrinons react with... nope. 

Me2: Honestly, that convinces me more than anything else you said. What do I need to do? 

Me: ...