On Cement-board Siding

This is the text of an email I sent a friend about my experience and thought on cement-board siding --

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Around here [north-central Ohio], there were two options: "Hardie Board" (James Hardie Co.) from Lowe's, and "Alura" from Menards.  I used the "Hardie Board" on the sunroom (2nd/3rd floor addition), but overall I used the "Alura" even though it was more expensive. 

[Edit: I bought the siding from Menard's even though, ever since they went full "face-diaper nazi" during the Plandemic, I do my best to not give them any business. The prices at Menard's are generally lower than at Lowe's and Home Depot, but I *never* go to Menard's unless I can't find what I want at Lowe's or Home Depot; that's how much they pissed me off harassing me about not wearing a face-diaper. On top of which, while they "officially" ban mere pets from the premises, the use the HIPAA laws as the excuse to ignore that particular policy.  Odd: you don't dare make an assumption -- nor query -- about the health-needs of that person who clearly has brought a mere pet, not a service animal, into the store, but you're fully qualified to determine that *my* health won't be injured by forcibly/artificially restricting my breathing with an utterly useless and pointless cloth.]

I'll try to list what I see as pros and cons.

At Lowe's, the cement-board siding was in stock (*), and I could buy pieces individually, as I wanted/needed them. That (*) is because there are two widths, and in the end they didn't have enough of the width I was using. Or, perhaps it's that they started stocking pre-finished, rather than the "raw" I'd been buying.

On the other hand, the "Alure" from Menards was special order; a full "pallet" being 256 pieces (or, 1536 sq.ft. coverage).

"Hardie Board" — As far as I can tell, it comes only as "textured" to look like aged cedar which had been allowed to weather for many years without a proper coat of paint.  I *hate* the fake "wood grain" they put in vinyl siding, and that hatred is the main, or even only, reason I went with the "Alure", despite it being at least $2.00 more per piece.  Though, as it turns out, once the "Hardie Board" is painted, I doesn't repulse me, as I thought it would.

Pros — cheaper per piece; higher cement content (which results in some 'cons', and what might be a very big 'pro' in the long-term); available as unfinished (which for me was a 'pro', though obviously, other people will prefer the pre-finished);

Cons -- higher cement content: thus, heavier per piece, and more brittle; also more dense, meaning you'd need to drill pilot-holes if you use screws as attachment (just with the 12-15 pieces used on this project, we dulled a cement bit while drilling the pilot holes).  If I recall correctly, they make special nails for this siding, but I much recommend using screws, as one slip of the hammer could ruin your day.

By the way, the reason I put off re-siding the house for so many years after it was clear that I need to do so is that I was fearful of the cement-board being *too* brittle. The vinyl that is on most people's houses was never an option, I despise it that much. I was hoping to find a third option, such as a *solid* (and smooth surfaced) vinyl.

"Alure" — Like the "Hardie Board", it comes "textured" to look like aged cedar, but they also make smooth, untextured.  It can be either pre-finished (Sherwin-Williams paint) or "primed" (I use scare-quotes, because I couldn't see any priming on what was delivered to me).

Pros — lighter, due to being made of more fibers and less cement than the H-B; being less dense, drilling pilot-holes wasn't absolutely necessary, as the "self-tapping" screws we used were able self-tap; being less dense, it was easier to cut the pieces, and it was possible the "trim" or "fine-tune" it with a utility knife.

Cons — more expensive per piece; buying less than a full "pallet" of 256 pieces adds a surcharge for "breaking" the "pallet" 

Potential Con -- it seems to be composed of compressed layers; the potential 'con' is that several times, perhaps because we made some pilot-holes too close to the edges, the layers of small areas at corners de-laminated. 

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As mentioned, I bought unfinished siding, and painted it myself.  As Providence arranged it, right after I ordered the siding, I happened to come across 20 gallons of paint formulated for decks and floors (including for cement) on clearance at Lowe's for $20 per gallon. I bought it all. It wasn't exactly the color I had in mind, but it was close, and I really like how it looks contrasted with the yellow of the trim.

Telemarketers: Why Not At Least Pretend to Respect the People You Annoy

What's with these people constantly calling, pretending to want to buy my property? It goes in waves, one or two per day for a few days, then stops for a while. With most of the calls, you can tell that it's from a telemarketer/call-center before the call-center computer routes the connection to "the next available representative".

One of my *speculations* is that at least some of these call are being made for the county tax-man, as a cheap way to do the property tax re-evaluations.

And, speaking of telemarketers -- the whole "industry" is vile enough as it is, but that they don't even respect me/us enough to bother me/us with "representatives" who at least speak English really annoys me.

Concerning 'randomness' and the freedom of the will

This is a comment I emailed to my internet-friend, Kristor, in response to his recent post, linked below.

A claim of 'randomness' is a claim of lack of correlation between two events or states. Thus, to say that State-A changed to or became State-B 'randomly', is to say that the change happened without cause; which is absurd. 

Making such a claim about state-changes of the will is even more absurd than making it about merely physical state-changes; and, for that matter, more absurd than the typical mere denial that the will is free. For, once again, a claim of 'randomness' is a claim that there is *no* correlation, no relationship, between 'this' and 'that'. But, of course, and even were it true that the will is not free, there is, of necessity, by definition, some sort of correlation between my decision at 'Instant-A' to do 'X' and my subsequent decision at 'Instant-B' to not do 'X' after all.

Kristor: Contra the Most Succinct Argument Against the Freedom of the Will

Tipping is not only un-American, it's downright anti-American

Tipping is not only un-American, it's downright anti-American. Even as a child, I understood it as a vestige of medievalesque class snobbery.

And while tipping in America may go back into the 19th Century, the widespread "tipping culture" -- which so many Europeans see as a baffling and uniquely American custom -- goes back only into my own childhood; that is, about 60 years ago.

I *know* that the general America populace did not tip 60 years ago because, even as a child, I used to read the 'Ann Landers' and 'Dear Abby' columns; and those two broads (*) periodically ran columns to "educate" their readers on: 1) how to tip. 2) when to tip, 3) what to tip, and 4) the "moral" obligation to tip. And, one of the thongs I noticed over time is that the "proper" percentage to tip increased over the years, with the "explanation" being that inflation necessitated it ,,, but no acknowledgement that inflation had worked its magic on both sides of the equation.

(*) those two actually bear a lot of the blame for the present-day moral degeneracy of American culture, for they were pushing "non-judgmentalism" (**). That is, they offered people, especially women, who were their main audience, a new set of "moral" expectations to replace of the ones that God gave us.

(**) which, in the end, turns out to be ultra-judgmental, just with the judgments based on morality turned on its head.

Matt Walsh: The History Of Tipping Culture, And How We Got To The "Tipping" Point

On "You Can't Legislate Morality"

Douglas Wilson: "Few statements are as vapid as 'You can't legislate morality.' As a matter of unvarnished fact, it is actually impossible to legislate anything else."

Amen.

My father was an intelligent man; I would say, a very intelligent man. But, even very intelligent people are products of their times, and tend to absorb and echo the perceived "elite consensus", same as everyone else does. My father was born in 1927, so his "time" was the last few years of the era of Prohibition and the aftermath of the repeal of Prohibition; and in that time, the "elite consensus" was very explicitly that "You can't legislate morality." (*)

Once, when I was quite young, in trying to explain to me why Prohibition turned out to be such an abject social and legal disaster, my father even said to me, "You can't legislate morality." As I recall, I was still at that young age wherein one tends to not seriously dispute one's parents pronouncements about how the world is. At the same time, even then the claim didn't sit well with me. I don't mean to imply that as a child I rejected the claim and could offer a logical and philosophical rationale for that rejection. Rather, my attitude was more, "I'll think about this when I'm older."

And, thinking about it when I was older, yet still in my teens, I came to the conclusion that, "As a matter of unvarnished fact, it is impossible to legislate anything else." That is, all prescriptive and proscriptive law is, in fact, the legislation of some morality or other. The question is never, "Shall we legislate morality?" but rather, "Which morality, how grounded, shall we legislate?"

(*) That "elite consensus", coupled with the fact that nearly everyone in our society accepted it as Gospel, is *why* all the immoral ills currently destroying our civilization were able to be inflicted upon us by our "elites".

Douglas Wilson: How to Bonk Heads With Yourself

So, What's Up With Candace Owens?

I used to catch the Addisons (in the linked video) on the radio when I was driving a lot more than I do now.

Lately, many people (*) are asking, "What has happened to Candace Owens?"

So, what *has* happened to Candace Owens? In a word: Catholicism. To be a bit more precise, much as leftists in general, "right-wing" Catholics tend to imbibe Jew-hatred. Obviously, not all do, but it is a general tendency. Also, as a convert to Catholicism, it's not at all surprising that she is going to start trying to equate Protestantism with Satanism.

(*) Though, Bob Parks is probably not asking that question, as he never trusted her "conversion" from leftism to conservatism was genuine.

Shock: Candace Owens believes Protestantism is rooted in Satanism

The Food Stamp [Recipients] Are Officially Out Of Control

The title of Matt Walsh's linked video is "The Food Stamp Influencers On TikTok Are Officially Out Of Control", but I like my version of it better.

At the start of my 10th grade year, so more than 50 years ago, my father was laid up for months due to a broken hip(*). Then, less than a year and a half later (**), he was laid up again with the *other* hip broken.  

SO, for a while, my family relied on Food Stamps -- and it was damned embarrassing, it was shame-inducing.  Once I was old enough to have a part-time job, when I had the money to do so, I'd buy the family groceries with my own money and return the food stamps unspent to my mother, just to avoid the embarrassment of pulling the damned things out in public.  I also planted a garden in the back yard to grow some of our food.

But, as I said, that was 50+ years ago; and my, how times have changed.  These days, people *boast* about being government dependents (***), living as wards of Big Momma Government, rather than as functioning adults; people *boast* about using their vote to install politicians and bureaucrats who loot you and me to subsidize themselves (meaning, both the voters and the voted-for).

(*) As he was crossing the street -- legally, in the cross-walk, with the crossing-light -- a young woman stopped at the intersection, distracted by arguing with her boyfriend, must have slipped her foot off the brake.  Anyway, she rolled forward, struck my father, and his hip broke.

(**) He was heading downtown on foot one winter day, As he passed the spot where a building had been demolished the previous summer, he stepped on a piece of ice-covered busted-up sidewalk that hadn't been fixed after the demolition, and down he went.

(***) I recently saw a video clip of a couple of fat lesbians (one of whom pretends to be a man), boasting about free-loading off you and me.  The one literally called herself "professionally disabled" -- that is, she's on welfare because she "can't" work to support herself -- and added that "he" (i.e. the other lesbian) is "paid to take care of me" -- that is, she is enrolled in another type of government-run welfare-scam to fleece you and me for the benefit primarily of the bureaucrats and secondarily of their clientele. 

I recently saw another clip of a woman bitching because she could no longer use the EBT card to pay to have her nails done. Horror of horrors, she had to use "her own money" to pay for the utterly useless and pointless nails.  Or, as she lamented, "Now, how am I going to pay the rent?"

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In America, "poor people" aren't "poor" primarily because they have no money, but because of their own choices: either to not work and earn money in the first place, or to frivolously waste what money they do acquire. In America, being "poor" is a choice.  In America, most "poor people" are "poor" because they are damned lazy.

Matt Walsh: The Food Stamp Influencers On TikTok Are Officially Out Of Control

"The Homeschoolers Who Proved That School Is a Waste of Time"

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"Of course, there are disadvantages to homeschooling, too. If enough people do it, tattoo artists, body-piercing parlors, drug dealers, and abortionists may go out of business."
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Also, contrary to their constant whining, teachers are NOT underpaid. Moreover, these days, even the somewhat normal ones, the ones who aren't trying to recruit you children into sexual perversion, tend to be idiots.

I wasn't home-schooled, but three years of my schooling (8th-10th grades) was comparable to home-schooling. And, if not for those three years of absence from the government-union run indoctrination centers, I know that I would not have finished high school, much less college. By the way, overnight, I went from being a "C- student" to being a "straight A student" (and this was without "grade inflation").

The final straw (*) occurred when I was in 7th grade, and the principal told my father, "We don't need students like your son in our school", and my father decided, "You know, I think I agree that my children don't need to be in your school.". You see, I had dared to fight back against a kid who bullied me daily. And worse, I had dared to "call out" a teacher who was refusing to protect an unpopular kid from a mob of "vibrant youth", a few of whom intended to beat the shit out of him (**), and the others to watch and laugh at his pain and injury.

So, my father found places for us for the next school-year in a Seventh-Day Adventist school (we are not Adventists). This wasn't cheap. Or, rather, it *was* cheap, but it was also a *huge* portion of the family income (as I recall, the first year cost $1000 for the four of us).

This is how I think that that "religious" schooling was somewhat comparable to home-schooling: Each class was actually two grades, combined (1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10). Other than the 9th and 10th grades, a single teacher taught the combined classes: sometimes the two grades received the same lesson, but usually one grade had "study hall" while the other had active instruction, all in the same room. As I mentioned, I went from being a "C- student" in 7th grade, to being a "straight A student" in 8th grade. Moreover, I not only had time -- while at school -- to do all my school-work, but I also had free time to do what interested me. What interested me was history, and without knowing what it was, during that free time I read the entire history book that would be the text in 9th grade history class.

(*) Mind you, this was 55+ years ago. The public schools have been shit for a very ling time.

(**) You've surely seen some of the recent videos of gangs of "vibrant youth" knock someone to the ground and then kick the defenseless person in the head . This behavior is not new.

Selwyn Duke: The Homeschoolers Who Proved That School Is a Waste of Time

"They" Don't Need to Keep You Down; You're Doing Fine By Your Own Efforts

Open letter to the American people --

Times are tough, everyone agrees: a person just can't get ahead. Rent, food, gass: everything is just so expensive.

That's why --

You are still smoking (of either/or sort) and drinking. Frequently.

You sit in your car -- sometimes for hours -- with the engine running, so that the A/C can be on ... as you doom-scroll on your phone.

You have the latest cell phone for every member of the family, including the children, with associated *monthly* costs. Oddly, you almost never use those phones to actually *talk* to anyone.

Every year, you spend hundreds of dollars you don't have "doing" Christmas. After all, you "deserve" it.

You also spend a small fortune to have a personal fireworks show, possibly for several nights running.

You insist on taking an expensive vacation every year.

You simply must have your "weave" and claws and spider-lashes, and the nails of your fingers and toes must be artistically painted. To say nothing of the expensive "product" with which you slather your face.

How  many hundreds or dollars, if not thousands, have you thrown away defacing your body with tattoos and piercings?

You eat "fast food", daily ... and pay someone an outrageous amount of money to deliver it to you. Someone could make a fortune offering to shovel it into your gullet for a price.

If you *do* happen to have a "home-cooked" meal, it was made of pre-packaged ultra-processed "convenience foods", rather than of basic ingredients that you could have purchased for a fraction of the cost.

I could go on and on; but the wise have already got the message, and those who haven't never will.

My point is this -- whether or not "THEY" are conspiring to "keep you down", they really don't need to: you do a fine job of that all on your own.

Is Big Organ About to Face a Reckoning?

On this dusty little blog, I've been linking for years to news reports of "dead" people "waking up" as they were about to be chopped for parts. I long ago became one of the "conspiracy theorists" who understands that Big Organ is as corrupt, if not more so, as any other "Big 'X'" industry.

I will never consent to be either an organ donor nor a recipient, for the incentive structure in Big Organ is just to perverse: I don't want to be murdered to "save" another's life, nor do I want another to murdered to "save" mine (*).

Besides which, how awful must it be to spend the rest of your life as, in effect, a drug-addict to anti-rejection drugs? Not only is the organ transplant procedure a big money-maker for Big Hospital, but so too is the life-long prescription for immune-suppression drugs -- and the drugs to fight the subsequent infections -- a big money-maker for Big Pharma.

Always remember, and never forget: Big Medicine is not in the business of curing sick people, they are in the business of "treating disease" ... and a cured patient is a missed profit.

(*) ps: My life has already been saved by the murder of Christ; that's sufficient.

Matt Walsh: Man Is Almost Sacrificed In The Name Of Organ Donation

Matt Christiansen: RFK Jr. and HHS Investigate Botched Organ Harvesting | Whoops, They’re Still Alive