A Seasonal Wish From All Of Us

To all of our incredibly intelligent and fantastic readers,

from deep in the jungles of Borneo!

A Far Side Christmas 2016

We've got ourselves in full-on holiday cooking mode here on the Far Side.  I've just completed a 3-kilo/8-lb. batch of my world-famous Spaghetti Bolognese a la Funghi, made entirely from home-grown vegetables or fresh from the pasar.

I'm also whipping up a massive pot of my equally world-famous mashed potatoes, complete with gobs of green onions, butter, sour cream, egg, rosemary, and a dash of salt and pepper for good measure.  I didn't churn the butter or sour the cream, but pretty much everything else is from the garden.

I'd be doing some baking, as well, but only the most modern, upper middle class homes have ovens, and mine ain't one of them.  Most Indonesian homes only have 2-burner propane stoves, and what passes for an oven is a big box that you place on top of it and control the temperature by turning the flame up and down.  I just don't have the patience for that.

Even though it's the end of December, and we are careening head-long into 2017, it is hot as hell today, with the sun blazing and the barest whisper of a breeze.  Hard to get into the Christmas spirit, especially when the FPI is running around destroying mall decorations and gift displays in the name of some f**ked up interpretation of religious texts.

Three idiots trying to plant holiday bombs in Tanggerang yesterday blew themselves up while running from police, so it's not all bad.  At least us normal and reasonable people get some entertainment value out of the deal.

Mother-in-law is coming in from Tegal Saturday, to stay for a week.  This typically means she stays for 2-3 days, and then wants to leave the Big City and go back to the kampung.  Of course, once back in Tegal, she immediately calls and says she's afraid of all the ghosts in her house and wants to come back to Jakarta.  This goes on for about a week or so.

All part of Life on the Far Side.

It was one year ago today we were sitting in Houston, my first trip home in eight years, and my wife's first trip ever.  She's spent the past year pushing me to move us to Texas, since like any reasonable person, she realized what a great place it is.  I told her as soon as the Yankees get the hell out, we'll be on the first plane home.

This year has just blazed by.  On January 1, it seems like a long haul to Christmas, but at Christmas, it seems like just 10 minutes ago we were thinking how far away it was.  You'd think it would take more than a year to go nearly a billion kilometers.  Hell, at that speed we could be at Pluto in three years, instead of the 15 it took the New Horizons probe.

And so the Christmas of Fear 2016 gets into full swing.  So much for Silent Nights and seasonal joy.  The world has taken a sharp detour into the booby hatch.  From a certain perspective, and one that we here on the Far Side subscribe to, it's all great fun and priceless theater.  Enjoy the show and remember, there ain't no refunds.

All sales final.

A Far Side Christmas 2012

Well, here we are once again at that joyous time of year when the churches and the mosques compete to out-noise each other.  So far, the jury is still out.  We'll update you later in the week as to who won.

Meantime, here on the Far Side, it's time to look back at the Year That Wasn't Supposed To Be (YTWSB).  And we're happy to report that every single prediction we made back in January came true...as usual.  We, of course, are not surprised, but some of the newer readers here might be.  They haven't yet realized that what happens on the Far Side happens to the Universe.

Some of the things we pause to remember:

Movies have replaced Catcher in the Rye as the new trigger for Manchurian Candidates.  We saw The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit become famous not for the great art and story-telling, but for the murder and mayhem they spawned.  Marshall McLuhan was right...the medium IS the message.  Naturally, here on the Far Side, we were way ahead of the curve and have been telling folks to turn it off for a long time now.

Related to that was the Great LIBOR Scam.  Apparently, some folks still believe that the markets and banking system are free and not manipulated.  Dream on, baby!  Just to put a fine point on the whole mess, supposedly both the Batman and Sandy Hook shooters had fathers who are/were scheduled to testify in the LIBOR hearings.  At this point, anyone holding their breath for any real fix in the system should be near the point of asphyxia.  Give it up, dude.

The world didn't end, naturally, and we knew that because Willy and Kate are due to breed.  We can't have the world ending when there's fresh royalty prospects out there.  In a bizarre turn of events, though, a couple of Ozzie DJs spoofed a nurse into giving up the details of the severe case of Royal Morning Sickness.  The nurse was suicided for not knowing the real Liz and Phil voices from a couple of Ozzie criminal classers.  Botany Bay, thou livest on!

And about that 'severe case of morning sickness'...one could imply that carrying the royal seed is so toxic as to put one in hospital.  Our heart goes out to Kate for drawing the short straw on that one.

The Perpetual War continues apace.  We can only stand agape at those who continue to spout the 'support the troops' line, while at the same time vociferously demanding an end to the wars.  Guess what, geniuses...quit supporting the troops and sending your brood to die and the wars will end right quick.  If this isn't Orwellian DoubleThink, nothing is.  It is truly amazing how people can wholeheartedly believe two opposing ideas at the same time and not explode.

Once again this past year we hoped for a change and got the same old sh*t.  We could limit that just to the elections in the US, but it seems apropos to the EU, the Bailouts, and all the other crap that's been shoveled out for the past decade or so.  The only real change is that we no longer have the Mayan Apocalypse to look forward to.

On the science front, NASA achieved a pretty good thing by littering a couple of square miles of another planet to once again land no humans on another world.  What has been notable about this particular event, besides the fact that they labeled one of their big deals the "seven minutes of terror", was that they finally got their cameras white balanced so we can look at some decent pictures for a change.  At the same time, they're actually posting some really interesting photos, though the whole 'earthshaking' announcement thing kinda fizzled and died.  For a minute, we Far Siders almost got our hopes up, for a change.

In a hat's off moment, we salute the Tesla Motors company for releasing an electric car that combines comfort, speed and endurance in a way that Detroit never could.  We suppose that's why Detroit is closing its doors and discorporating.  We look forward to the day when Redmont, WA goes through the same convulsions and dies.  After what Detroit did to Tucker, they deserve it.

Here on the Far Side, we understand gardening and seasons.  We know that things grow and die, and when they die, we don't throw good money after bad.  We mourn, but the corpse in the ground, and move on.

Other tech notes for 2012...China joined the space station club, India joined the asteroid fly-by club, North Korea joined the satellite club, Steve Jobs went to iHeaven and left his yacht bill unpaid, Windows Umpteenth debuted, and somewhere in Bhaktapur, Nepal, Ashis Ansu invented a zero-point energy machine that will never see the light of day since the Men in Black are on the way as we speak.

All in all, it's been a truly Far Side kind of year.  We didn't start this blog for nothing.  We knew it was going to get really weird from here on out, and we wanted to be on the forefront of the action.  Regular readers know they haven't been cheated.  They've gotten their money's worth from the nearly 500 articles and interviews posted here.

And that's where we want to wrap this up (how's that for alliteration).  For the past three years now, we've been hacking away trying to bring readers and listeners the latest and most intriguing ideas and research.  What's more, we've done it all completely ad-free and without charge.

But, we've had help.  We want to thank UrbanSurvival.com, LewRockwell.com, Rense.com, KeeleyNet.com, HenryMakow.com, RT.com, Blog-Zug.com, Palace-Hotel.com, BlogConnect.com, those who have cross-linked to Facebook or Twitter, and thousands of readers and listeners who have made the Far Side a regular part of their lives.

We especially want to thank those good folks who not only read, but write to us, especially Harry, Linda, Peter, Bill, Bob, Ben, Guy, Teka, and Jessica, and all the others who have picked up a pen or keyboard to let us know what they think about things.

Our House to Yours

And our deepest gratitude to Bob, Jessica, Sam, Lily, and Everett who have donated money to the effort.  Your faith and support will not go unrewarded.  In 2013, we will continue to expand and grow with your gracious support.

Finally, to our loving and supportive wife, who puts up with our hobbies and obsessions.  And to our loving and brilliant children: Kat, Jacob, Vanny, Aldo, and Alfred.  We can think of no finer gift than the love of a family.

And with that, we wish all of you and yours a very Merry Christmas.  We wish the best of all things to all of you.  We thank you for your support and readership, and hope that our efforts will continue to enlighten and entertain.  It is our gift to you that we make these efforts.

May all your apocalypses be duds.