July 2019 Archives

Got nothing

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Did a quick trot around the internet and didn't see anything that caught my eye.

Sleepy so watching a video or two and then to bed.

And back home again - long day

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Productive A. F. though. Got a lot done.

Staying here through the weekend - the community fair, volunteering for three CERT activities, getting the new tires installed Friday. Busy.

Staying on the island for a few more days. Got some things to take care of and there is a really sweet little community fair this weekend. I was there last year and like it a lot more than the bigger fairs (NW Washington or The Puyallup). Less chaotic and smaller crowds.

Nothing much happening in the real world. More later.

That is it for the evening

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Off to the Tube of You for a while.

Racism in the news

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Two stories:

From FOX News:

Shots fired suspect, 'I don't like white people in my hood'
KENNEDY HEIGHTS, Ohio (WKRC) - A man accused of firing shots at four people in a Kennedy Heights neighborhood turned himself in. Devonta Allen, 18, faces four counts of felonious assault.

Police say Allen was caught on video chasing after the four people on Tyne Avenue on July 25. He's accused of firing three shots at the victims, hitting two different vehicles the victims were in. No one was hit.

According to court papers, he can be heard saying "I don't like white people in my hood" on the video right before firing the shots.

From The Washington Post:

‘Kill all white people’: Accused killer who targeted white victims now charged in six deaths
For a year, the walking and biking trails snaking through south Kansas City, Mo., were plagued with bloodshed.

Beginning in August 2016 and continuing deep into the next year, the bodies of hikers and dog walkers were found dead along the city’s Indian Creek trail or on nearby roadways. They were all shot. They were all middle-aged. They were all white.

The killing stopped after the August arrest of Fredrick Demond Scott, a 22-year-old Burger King employee. As The Washington Post reported in September, Scott, who is African American, had allegedly threatened to shoot up his high school and “kill all white people.”

And of course, this book: Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War

The left knows it has little of real worth to offer so one of their strategies is to balkanize the population into little factions set against each other.

The Debates

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Half of the clown posse is debating tonight. I will wait for tomorrow to read the highlights - zero interest in them or their platforms. Big yawn. It is all narative anyway - no real truths or well thought out ideas.

I really like that a hard light is being shone on the city of Baltimore. From the Baltimore Sun:

Auditor: Baltimore hasn't kept track of millions in grant money. (Again)
Baltimore’s top elected officials expressed frustration Wednesday that city government agencies have failed — yet again — to properly account for how they spent grant dollars.

A new audit of how the city manages millions of dollars in state and federal grants has come to the same conclusion that previous examinations have: Grant money coming into government coffers is not balancing out with what city agencies are spending.

“The city is not able to establish accurate balances of grant accounts,” city Auditor Audrey Askew told Baltimore’s spending panel Wednesday.

One possible result, Askew said: “The city could lose its much-needed [grant] funding.”

And that’s a lot of money. The city receives nearly $448 million in grants, or about 16 percent of its $2.8 billion budget.

Knew it was bad but did not realize that it was that bad. 16% of their operating budget comes from us normals. The rest of us. The basket of deplorables. We The People.

People who make decisions in Baltimore are not being held accountable. Many of them are not elected and there is no system of checks and balances. Shithole city writ large.

40 years ago, Baltimore was a gorgeous cultured city with an incredible history. Now? No.

Burrito was good

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Interesting though - I normally like a bit of heat but either their Jalapeño peppers are getting hotter or I am getting more and more sensitive to them. Went through the same thing with Hops and strong beers about five years ago. I used to drink Stone Brewing's Arrogant Bastard Ale and loved it but now? Too much. Now a Coors Light is more my speed.

I have not noticed any shift in my palate - I love to cook and the stuff I cooked 40 years ago still tastes the same as when I cook it now. A perfectly ripe tomato still tastes as good as I remember it from years ago. I guess that my tongue doesn't go to eleven any more...

Back out the door

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Got a farmer's market. It is in the plaza as the library and there are a couple books waiting for me. Had a sandwich while waiting for the car so probably just get a burrito for dinner.

Back in a while - nothing much on the internet.

Well, they are criminals after all

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Good - let them thin the herd a little bit. From Yahoo / Agence France-Presse:

At least 57 dead in Brazil prison riot
At least 57 inmates were killed during a prison riot in northern Brazil on Monday as rival gang factions fought each other, an official said.

Sixteen of the dead were decapitated in the second major eruption of violence to rock the country's severely overpopulated and deadly prison system in as many months.

Not to forget that many of the illegal immigrants have gang ties and 20% of the US prison population are illegal immigrants. They are sending us their best and brightest.

Happy happy joy joy

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Back from the car dealership and doing my happy dance. Turns out that I picked up a nail in one of my tires and since this is an all-wheel drive vehicle, all four tires really need to be replaced at the same time. Just what I need - another $1,000 flying out the window. The tires were getting a bit worn (30K miles after all) but would have been fine for another 10K miles at least.

Drove up to Costco and got a decent price on some Michelin all weather rated for 70K miles. Pick those up Friday or Monday.

The title of this post? That venerable philosopher Stinky Wizzleteats:

Out the door

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Getting the car its 30,000 mile checkup. Back this afternoon.

That is it for me for the evening

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Early day tomorrow

The Democrats are eating themselves (the two dollar word for this is autophagy). From McClatchy News Service:

2020 Democrats keep shifting left. Moderates fret they’ll shift even further at next debate
Bob Buckhorn remembers sitting at home in Florida last month watching the first Democratic presidential debate — and openly worrying about what he was seeing.

The former centrist Democratic mayor of Tampa said the candidates were lurching much too far to the left on key policy issues, damaging the party’s chances of defeating President Donald Trump during next year’s election.

And the meat of it:

But centrist Democrats say the last debate was, even for a primary, unusually fixated on subjects that either didn’t interest or outright repelled voters in the middle of the political spectrum.

“I hope that in the next debate there’s more of a discussion about education and public safety and issues of the economy and those other issues that a lot of moderates are looking for,” said former Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska.

Even more alarming, they said, was the speed at which some once-fringe issues were widely adopted by the presidential field, like decriminalizing border crossings.

Bring it on. Get crazy. Stay out of touch. The current crop of Democratic Presidential Candidates are the best thing that has happened to President Trump's 2020 campaign.

Data breach - Capital One Bank

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From computer security blog CyberScoop:

Capital One announces massive data breach; lone suspect arrested in Seattle
Financial giant Capital One announced a large data breach Monday, with the company saying that one person accessed personal information on up to 100 million people in the United States and 6 million in Canada who had applied for or are currently considered users of the company’s credit cards.

Additionally, the FBI arrested a woman in Washington who is suspected of hacking into the company to obtain that information. Paige A. Thompson was arrested Monday and appeared in federal court in Seattle.

According to the complaint, Thompson allegedly took wide swaths of personal information from Capital One’s cloud storage instances on March 22 and March 23. The company says this information included names, addresses, zip codes/postal codes, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, and self-reported income. The information ranged from 2005 to early 2019.

And the how?

According to the FBI, a misconfigured firewall allowed Thompson to access a list of more than 700 folders, which contained the data. Sometime shortly thereafter, Thompson allegedly posted on GitHub that she was in possession of the data.

My first thought was that it was an inside job. Bad setup on a firewall - sheesh guys...  I got a really sweet job in Seattle by leaving a text message in the root directory of one of their servers. When asked what I could bring to the company, I said that I could increase the security and to look for this file on that server. Their outgoing IT guy (he was leaving to go to graduate school) left the room and came back with an ashen face. Sweet job and wonderful people.

Back home

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All set for an early morning - got a 9:30 appointment for my Highlander about 30 miles away. Gotta get coffee first so doing an early morning.

Out for a couple of hours

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It is cooling off so taking the dogs with me. Heading North to pick up some stuff. Get a bite to eat on the road and stop for a couple of pints on the way home.

Great essay at Guns Ammo Tactical Daily:

Getting your hands dirty: The practical value of impractical hobbies
You take a rusty piece of scrap metal, a hack saw, a file, and you get to work. After hours of cutting, grinding, and sanding spread out of a week’s worth of days, you’re left with a knife that’s probably not quite as good as one you might buy at Walmart for just less than you’d spend on a six-pack of beer. Somehow, you don’t see this is a waste of your time. Instead, you sit back and stare at your accomplishment with a sense of wonder — imagining how much better you’ll be able to do on the next one-armed with the stuff you were able to work out in your head by screwing up on this one.

And you’re proud of how you screwed up less this time than you did the time before.

I’m no knife smith. Likewise, although I’ve torn every gun I own apart a hundred times, replaced parts, modified others — I’m certainly no gun smith. All I am is a guy that spends the better part of his day at a desk. I use these two hands to press buttons, communicate thoughts, and make my living — and despite the real and powerful sense of accomplishment I get from writing something I’m particularly proud of, my profession is, at its heart, a purely intellectual one. I think, I communicate, others read and respond, and through the miracle of modern technology, a dialogue of thought occurs. My thoughts and yours congeal into something new: an argument about how I’m wrong, a nodded head about how I’m right, or the realization that my little piece of the analytical puzzle, combined with a dozen other pieces from other sources, can combine into a greater understanding that, although I may personally lack, I can play a role in helping you to discover. I’m honored to play my part in the song and dance that is our constantly developing understanding of the world beyond our personal horizons… but after ten hours of reading press releases and responding to emails, I find myself growing impatient with the slow march of progress that is our collective understanding.

We have become a nation of consumers and are poorer for it. I love building things. The creative process is energizing.

Tip of the hat to The Silicon Graybeard for the link.

From Woodsterman:

Here are six Conundrums of Socialism in the United States of America :

    1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.
    2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
    3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
    4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
    5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other Countries only dream about.
    6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about, yet they want America to be more like those other countries.

Think about it! And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the USA in the 21st Century.

By the way:

    1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works. And here's another one worth considering...
    2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money, but we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money? What's interesting is the first group "worked for" their money, but the second didn't.

Sounds about right...

Baltimore in the news

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The focus is on this shining example of long-term Democratic management. From Newsweek:

BALTIMORE BURNING: IT'S NOT A MATTER OF MONEY. WE TRIED THAT
With the surety of night following day, the Baltimore riots have been followed by calls for more government spending to fight poverty in our distressed inner cities.

President Barack Obama says "massive investments in urban communities" could "make a difference right now." Representative Elijah Cummings, who represents Maryland in Congress, says, "We have to invest in our cities and our children." And House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, who also represents the state, says, "But we're going to have to as a country invest if we're going to have the kinds of communities we want."

But the idea that we haven't been "investing" in Baltimore is nonsense.

Federal and state money has been pouring into the city for decades. From fiscal years 2003 to 2013 (the last year for which these reports are available), Baltimore received at least $2.4 billion in federal assistance and another $1.8 billion in state aid. The city also received roughly $1.8 billion in federal stimulus money, of which more than $1.4 billion has been spent so far. And this doesn't count the billions of dollars received directly by the people who live in Baltimore through various social welfare programs.

Yet nearly a quarter of the people in the city still live in poverty, 65 percent above the national level. We've clearly been throwing a lot of money at poverty in Baltimore without much result.

Part of the problem, unsurprisingly, is that the city does not make very good use of the money it receives.

The Democrats own this.

He is out of control with his hatred of President Trump. His latest tweet:

I am surprised that there is not an entry for Trump Derangement Syndrome in the DSM-V

Quakes in California

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California is still rattling like a soda truck on a dirt road. From Zero Hedge:

Over 80,000 Quakes Have Hit California Since July 4th, Aftershocks Headed "Toward The Garlock Fault"
The recent seismic activity in the state of California has taken a strange turn.  According to the Los Angeles Times, there have been more than 80,000 earthquakes in the state since July 4th, and most of those quakes were aftershocks of the two very large events that hit the Ridgecrest area early in the month.  Over the past couple of weeks, however, a very unusual pattern has begun to emerge. 

We have started to see aftershocks creep toward two of the largest fault lines in southern California, and this is making seismologists very nervous.  The fact that we are seeing aftershocks “approaching the Owens Valley fault” is definitely alarming, but of far more concern is the fact that the Ridgecrest aftershocks are also headed “toward the Garlock fault”. 

The following comes from a local California news source

According to a Los Angeles Times article , aftershocks of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake near Ridgecrest have been creeping into areas close to two major earthquake faults which is concerning for some seismologists on whether it could trigger another huge temblor.

“Some aftershocks have rumbled northwest of the Searles Valley earthquake, approaching the Owens Valley fault. That fault triggered an earthquake of perhaps magnitude 7.8 or 7.9 in 1872, one of the largest in California’s modern record,” the article explains. “The Ridgecrest aftershocks have also headed southeast toward the Garlock fault, a lesser-known fault capable of producing an earthquake of magnitude 8 or more. The fault along the northern edge of the Mojave Desert can send shaking south and west into Bakersfield and Ventura and Los Angeles counties.”

In the end, this could turn out to be nothing, but there are a couple of reasons why we want to keep a very close eye on the Garlock fault.

First of all, the Garlock fault is the second largest fault line in the entire state of California, and it is a major threat to southern California.

Secondly, the Garlock fault runs directly into the San Andreas fault, and many believe that a major quake along one could potentially trigger a major quake along the other.

More at the site. The Garlock Fault and the San Andreas are both highly stressed and ready to rip. This is a matter of when and not if. Interesting times.

Heh - give 'em a whiff of power

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And they want it all - the downside to Diversity and Inclusiveness. The current Democrat ruling base thought to imcrease their political power by opening the gates to any and all. Playing the identity politics card and balkanizing the party. Needless to say, this was not a well thought out strategy as all of the newcomers are now scrambling to amass as much power and press as they can. This is forcing the current ruling base into the sidelines - witness "The Squad" of AOC, Taliab, Omar, etc... putting Nancy Pelosi on the sidelines.

From Politico:

DCCC in 'complete chaos' as uproar over diversity intensifies
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is in full-blown turmoil.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairwoman Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) was set to make an unplanned trip to Washington from her district Monday amid an outcry from top black and Latino lawmakers over a lack of diversity in the campaign arm's senior management ranks.

Bustos’ sudden return to D.C., just days after Congress left for a six-week-long August recess, comes as aides and lawmakers are calling for systematic changes to the DCCC, the party’s main election organ.

POLITICO reported last week that black and Hispanic lawmakers are furious with Bustos’ stewardship of the campaign arm. They say the upper echelon of the DCCC is bereft of diversity, and it is not doing enough to reach Latino voters and hire consultants of color. In addition, several of Bustos’ senior aides have left in the first six months of her tenure, including her chief of staff — a black woman — and her director of mail and polling director, both women.

In the most dramatic move so far, Texas Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Filemon Vela told POLITICO Sunday that Bustos should fire her top aide, DCCC executive director Allison Jaslow.

Heh - the more fractionated they become, the less overall power they have. Fun to be watching this from the other side of the aisle.

Out for a bit - busy day

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Got the van filled for the dump run so doing that today. Need to put out some flagging for the earth moving person. More on that in a day or so. Coffee first.

Car goes into the shop tomorrow morning so spending the next couple of days down here - farm on Wednesday.

The city of Baltimore - some numbers

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Not racism, truth. From Paul Kersey:

With Nearly 14 Times the Population of 70% Black Baltimore, New York City Had Fewer Homicides in 2017 and 2018
New York City has a population 14 times that of Baltimore (8.6 million to 619,000).

Over the past two years, 70 percent black Baltimore has had more murders than New York City.

Not per capita, not per 100,000, but in actual numbers.

20190729-murder.jpg

For New York City in 2018:

For New York City in 2017:

For Baltimore in 2018:

For Baltimore in 2017:

Does this comparison of hard numbers help provide evidence for supporting President Trump’s Tweets about Baltimore?

Some cold hard facts. America is a very dangerous place for gun violence but strip away the black on black murders and the numbers drop us way down - one of the safest places in reality.

The Democratic party beginning with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society has eroded Black Culture and family values. Most blacks used to be republican. Lyndon Johnson should be remembered for his quote: "This will have the niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years."

A great observation

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From Guns Ammo Tactical Daily:

Getting your hands dirty: The practical value of impractical hobbies
You take a rusty piece of scrap metal, a hack saw, a file, and you get to work. After hours of cutting, grinding, and sanding spread out of a week’s worth of days, you’re left with a knife that’s probably not quite as good as one you might buy at Walmart for just less than you’d spend on a six-pack of beer. Somehow, you don’t see this is a waste of your time. Instead, you sit back and stare at your accomplishment with a sense of wonder — imagining how much better you’ll be able to do on the next one-armed with the stuff you were able to work out in your head by screwing up on this one.

And you’re proud of how you screwed up less this time than you did the time before.

I’m no knife smith. Likewise, although I’ve torn every gun I own apart a hundred times, replaced parts, modified others — I’m certainly no gun smith. All I am is a guy that spends the better part of his day at a desk. I use these two hands to press buttons, communicate thoughts, and make my living — and despite the real and powerful sense of accomplishment I get from writing something I’m particularly proud of, my profession is, at its heart, a purely intellectual one. I think, I communicate, others read and respond, and through the miracle of modern technology, a dialogue of thought occurs. My thoughts and yours congeal into something new: an argument about how I’m wrong, a nodded head about how I’m right, or the realization that my little piece of the analytical puzzle, combined with a dozen other pieces from other sources, can combine into a greater understanding that, although I may personally lack, I can play a role in helping you to discover. I’m honored to play my part in the song and dance that is our constantly developing understanding of the world beyond our personal horizons… but after ten hours of reading press releases and responding to emails, I find myself growing impatient with the slow march of progress that is our collective understanding.

A very thoughtful meditation on crafting. Just an excerpt - go and read the whole thing. We have become a society of consumers - we have no pride in what we make, what we create.

Tip of the hat to The Silicon Graybeard for the link.

Anti-vaccination - unreal

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From the London Daily Mail:

Muslim parents refuse to let their children take part in nationwide flu vaccine drive 'because treatment is not halal'
Muslim parents are reportedly refusing to allow their children to have a nasal flu vaccine because the treatment is not halal.

Concerns were first raised over the spray - Fluenz Tetra - containing pork gelatine last year, but the issue has been highlighted again ahead of a new nationwide drive.

At the time, the Vegetarian Society branded the use of the ingredient in three vaccines as 'disappointing', while the Muslim Council of Britain said the spray would only be permitted if there was no alternative and lives were at risk.

Next month, every healthy child between two and 10 in England will be offered Fluenz Tetra to increase herd immunity.

Christ on a corn dog - these people are not acting on anything factual. They are operating on 9th century tribal superstition. Let them die.

Ordered something cheap ($90 after tax) but fairly heavy (40+ pounds) from Amazon. I had two options for shipping:

20190728-shipping.jpgI think I will stick with the free shipping. Getting it a day sooner would cost me more than twice the original price.

Someone's algorithm needs a little fine-tuning...

And that is it for the night

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Sweet dreams world!

Don Surber was weighing in on the state of the shithole city known as Baltimore, Maryland. Used to be a gorgeous place when I lived in Boston 40 years ago. Lots of history there. Lots of culture. Now? Not so much. From Don:

Trump makes Baltimore the symbol of Democrats
Democrat Elijah Cummings enjoys a safe seat in Congress, so safe that the congressman thought he could front the clan that wants to impeach President Donald John Trump. In response, President Trump showed the nation how third world parts of Cummings' district in Baltimore is.

Baltimore's last Republican mayor was Theodore McKeldin, whose term ended 52 years ago. His successor was Nancy Pelosi's brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III.

The population was 939,024 and mainly white back then.

Now the population is 602,495 and mainly black.

In 2018, USA Today dubbed Baltimore the most dangerous city in America.

WJZ reported at the time, "The paper analyzed police crime data in the nation’s 50 biggest cities, which revealed Baltimore had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation with nearly 56 murders per 100,000 people—a record for the city. The rate outpaced New Orleans and Detroit, with a rate of 40 and 39 killings per 100,000 people, respectively.

"Baltimore’s 342 murders in 2017 was an increase from 318 in 2016."

On March 12, 2019, the New York Times published a piece by Alec MacGillis, "The Tragedy of Baltimore."

It noted that in the four years since the anti-police Freddie Gray "protests," crime ran out of control in Baltimore.

Of course, they were not protests. Even Obama admitted this, saying in 2015, "There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday. It is counterproductive.

"When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting. They're not making a statement. They're stealing. When they burn down a building, they're committing arson. And they're destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities. That robs jobs and opportunity from people in that area."

But Obama and his administration nevertheless sided with the rioters.

Many more examples at the site. Hey Baltimore? You are the shining city on the hill for Democrats. This is the end-game of Democrat rule. Hey Democrats - you OWN Baltimore - it is your creation and there is nobody else to blame.

Some good comments to Don's post too.

President Trump was in the news recently for calling Rep. Elijah Cummings to fix his own jurisdiction - specifically:

Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA  as proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.

Even Baltimore's Mayor agrees with him - The Daily Wire has the video:

WATCH: Democrat Baltimore Mayor Caught On Camera Complaining About ‘Rats, Dead Animals’ Last Year
As the media and Democratic Party tries to portray President Donald Trump's tweets about Baltimore as racist, a resurfaced clip from last year shows Democratic Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh complaining about the poor conditions in part of the city, specifically "rats" and "dead animals."

Pugh made the remarks during a Fox 45 segment while touring a Baltimore neighborhood that was supposed to highlight her "violence-reduction initiative."

As Pugh toured the neighborhood, she said: "What the hell? We should just take all this sh*t down. ... Whoa, you can smell the rats. ... Whew, Jesus. ... Oh, my God, you can smell the dead animals."

Truth, not narrative. Time to get some adults in the room.

Hmmmmm - missing posts

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Posted a couple entries this morning and now, they are gone into thin air. What with yesterday's 403 errors, I hope that this is not an issue with my service provider...

And home again

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Long day - ran some errands, came home and finished loading up the van for a trip to the dump (packed full!) and then had the last of the soup (ham and split pea) along with a salad using lettuce from Friday's market.

Went out again for the usual two pints and finished another of the Alan Lewrie historical fiction books. This one was number fifteen and there are only ten more in the series. The author - Dewey Lambdin - is still alive and still writing so Dewey? Get cracking. I want more! Please.

Out for the day

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Coffee and post office. Still waiting to hear from the earth moving person - they are planning to come out to give me a bid on some work. Lavender Festival today - should be fun. Really nice people. Also, catch some yard sales.

It had been so warm the last couple of days that I left the pups in the garage when I went out. Cool enough today that I am bringing them with me - they will be happy as they love riding in the car.

Heh - Nancy Pelosi

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Eaton Rapids Joe is a daily read for me. This morning, he made a very short and pithy observation about what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is having to deal with - reprinted here in full:

Enriched?
I wonder how Pelosi feels now that she is experiencing the challenges of managing "the selfie generation"?

The four that are tying her into knots are, in number, less than 1% of the US House. Can you imagine trying to bring order to your side of the aisle when 25% of the seats are held by narcissistic, show-boating, ADHD butterflies who never played a team sport?

Nancy, you created it. You own it.

3D software for CNC

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Always been interested in CNC machining and finally bit the bullet and bought a SainSmart Genmitsu 3018. It is light duty (1/8" spindle) and has a working envelope of 11.8" by 7" with 1.7" of Z travel but is fully functional for $240.

Ahhhhhh - software. Found Carbide Create which is a simple 2.5D modeling application for Carbide's own CNC machines. They have chosen to make it available to the general public with the hopes that when you outgrow your cheap Chinesium machine, you will consider buying one of their machines. Looks interesting.

Also, two web-based applications - Image to Lithophane which looks really interesting and KiriMoto which is a basic CNC processor.

Back in 2007, I took a couple classes in the Bellingham Technical College's Advanced Machining program and learned how to run these wonderful machines. A lot of fun and want to get back into it as part of my Blacksmithing and Welding business on the island.

Showers moving through

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Been having a glorious couple of days but it looks like rain is going to move through tonight and some showers tomorrow. Cooling off quite a bit in the last three hours. Got a small craft advisory - always loved those when sailing. Get some good wind. A lot of fun.

Some friends of mine have a farm on the South end of the island and they are having a Lavender Fest tomorrow - planing to hang out with them for a while. Also tentatively meeting with someone about some earth moving that I need.

Farmer's Market was a lot of fun - two new vendors. There was a guy making Mead. I was originally planning to make Hard Cider and Mead so we spent about 20 minutes chatting. There was also a Veteran-owned egg and chicken stand. Didn't have any place to hold either so didn't get anything today but will definitely keep in mind for future markets.

Interesting local online auction so attending the preview Monday - final day is Tuesday so I may need to hang out here to do removal. 99% of the stuff is this companies merch and of no interest to me (they did gift novelties) but there is a mid-range air compressor and some interesting tools.

Tired so heading over to YouTube and then an early bedtime. Full day tomorrow.

Just frickin' awesome - from Breitbart:

Investigation: Washington Sanctuary County Releases Hundreds of Illegal Aliens Charged with Felonies
Washington state’s central sanctuary county released hundreds of illegal aliens charged with felonies such as homicide, kidnapping, and sexual assault over the course of two years, a new investigation finds.

Records obtained by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) reveal that the sanctuary jurisdiction of King County, Washington — which includes Seattle — failed to honor more than 370 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detainers that were placed on arrested illegal aliens — including those charged with serious felonies.

An ICE detainer is a hold that federal immigration officials put on an illegal alien who has been arrested by local or state law enforcement asking that they turn the particular illegal alien over to them for arrest and deportation.

Sanctuary jurisdictions like King County,refuse to hand criminally charged illegal aliens over to ICE agents.

Over a 27-month period ending on December 30, 2017, King County freed hundreds of illegal aliens instead of turning them over to ICE for deportation. Nearly 290 of these illegal aliens taken into custody and then freed by King County officials had been charged with felonies such as homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, drugs, burglary, and fraud.

Tell me - what can go wrong. What can possibly go wrong. Sooo glad that I do not live in Seattle. Half shithole and the other half are living in a bubble of their own making.

Back to work - more stuff to do

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What it says in the title...

Degenerating to the Medieval

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The conditions in large cities are getting so bad that the plagues are starting to manifest - from Denver Post:

Threat of hepatitis A outbreak among Denver’s homeless prompts a massive response
Two public health workers, armed with a satchel full of syringes, found their first patient just steps outside the Stout Street Health Clinic’s front door.

Matt Wilmes explained their mission to David Mai: The city has seen the first signs of an outbreak of hepatitis A and is offering free vaccinations against the virus. Mai nodded his agreement, and, after his records were checked on a tablet, he rolled up his shirt so public health nurse Maggie McClean could prick his exposed flesh.

“It doesn’t hurt, and I don’t want to get sick,” said Mai, 66.

There is a photo of Mai at the site - he looks horrible. I would say he is in his 80's, not 66. The outbreak?

Hepatitis A, an infection of the liver, has swept through homeless shelters and street encampments in other U.S. cities since 2017, sickening about 22,000 people and killing 216 — especially people who are vulnerable because of substance abuse and poor health care. Outbreaks have appeared across the West, including a cluster in Colorado’s El Paso County this year.

Now, there are strong signs that the outbreak has reached Denver, home to some of the state’s largest shelters and camps. With five cases reported now, local health authorities are ramping up a vaccination effort like Denver has never seen before. The massive response may forestall the kind of crisis that racked San Diego and other cities — but it’s a troubling new side effect of Denver’s housing crisis.

The homeless problem can be laid at the feet of the "activists" who closed our mental hospitals.

There has been a justifiable push to remove BPA from food-grade plastics. It makes for a much better plastic but it has serious long-term health problems. The industry has substituted BPS and BPFfor the last couple of years but...

From the US National Institutes of Health, Environmental Health Perspectives:

Bisphenol S and F: A Systematic Review and Comparison of the Hormonal Activity of Bisphenol A Substitutes
We identified the body of literature to date, consisting of 32 studies (25 in vitro only, and 7 in vivo. The majority of these studies examined the hormonal activities of BPS and BPF and found their potency to be in the same order of magnitude and of similar action as BPA (estrogenic, antiestrogenic, androgenic, and antiandrogenic) in vitro and in vivo. BPS also has potencies similar to that of estradiol in membrane-mediated pathways, which are important for cellular actions such as proliferation, differentiation, and death. BPS and BPF also showed other effects in vitro and in vivo, such as altered organ weights, reproductive end points, and enzyme expression.

In plain english, from Science Daily:

Exposure to common chemicals in plastics linked to childhood obesity
Bisphenol S (BPS) and bisphenol F (BPF) are manufactured chemicals used in certain kinds of plastic, in the lining of aluminum-canned food and drinks, and in thermal paper from cash-register receipts. These chemicals have been used as a replacement for bisphenol A (BPA), a well-known endocrine-disrupting chemical that harms human health by interfering with the body's hormones.

"This research is significant because exposure to these chemicals is very common in the United States. BPS and BPF use is growing because manufacturers are replacing BPA with these chemicals, so that is contributing to the frequency of exposure," said the study's corresponding author, Melanie Jacobson, Ph.D., M.P.H, of NYU School of Medicine in New York, N.Y. "Although diet and exercise are still understood to the main drivers of obesity, this research suggests that common chemical exposures may also play a role, specifically among children."

Who allowed this substitution to be done? Doesn't seem like there was much testing done...

The Democrat Presidential Debates

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Round two:

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Interesting - Ilhan Omar

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From the London Daily Mail:

EXCLUSIVE: Ilhan Omar SPLITS with her husband and moves into luxury penthouse as she heads for SECOND divorce with father of her three children
Leftist congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her husband – the father of her three children – have split and are heading for their second divorce, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

The bust-up comes just as critics are demanding answers as to whether she married her own brother in a successful bid to get him into the United States.

Omar has now dumped her current husband Ahmed Hirsi - who she first married in a religious ceremony in 2002 and divorced in 2008 - and moved into a penthouse apartment in one of Minneapolis's trendiest neighborhoods, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

But Hirsi, is also spending time at the apartment, which is in the Mill District sector of Minnesota's largest city, when she is out of town.

No word on what hubby does for a living but it seems suspicious that she is able to afford such rich digs on a Congressional salary. Same with Alexandria Occasional-Cortex - high-end penthouse suite on a bartender's savings? Follow the money...

Delusional - utterly bonkers

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From the National Broadcasting Company:

Pelosi: I'm not slow-walking impeachment inquiry. Nadler: It's 'in effect' anyway
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday that a decision on whether the House pursues the impeachment of President Donald Trump will be made in a “timely fashion” and denied the idea that she is trying to “run out the clock” on the issue.

Her comments came shortly before House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said at a separate press conference that his panel has already "in effect" been conducting an impeachment inquiry of the president — and said in a court filing that “articles of impeachment are under consideration as part of the Committee’s investigation, although no final determination has been made."

How much could we be doing as a Nation if half of the legislative branch wasn't wasting their time on this.

Back again

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Did a little bit of Garage Sale-ing - nothing caught my eye but occasionally, there are the jackpots. Nice day for a bit of a drive too. Eating some lunch while sorting paperwork. Got the van almost loaded for the dump. Farmer's Market later today so will get some salad fixings - soup for dinner.

Heading out for a bit

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Started on some bill-paying and filing - doing the usual coffee run and then back home to finish it. Dump run today too. Been sorting through more of my Mom and Dad's stuff. Making headway.

Planning to head to the farm this weekend - bring down the big ladder so I can finish my WSPR antenna.

England's new Prime Minister

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Liking the cut of his jib - from the UK Times and Star:

New PM Boris Johnson supports calls for a nuclear renaissance
On his first day addressing his new Government, Copeland MP Trudy Harrison asked him: “Does the Prime Minister agree that the time is now for a nuclear renaissance and that Copeland is the centre of nuclear excellence?”

Mr Johnson replied: “It is time for a nuclear renaissance and I believe passionately that nuclear must be part of our energy mix and she is right to campaign for it and it will help us to meet our carbon targets.”

It comes in the week that the Government also launched a consultation into funding large-scale nuclear power stations and a proposed £18million investment into small modular reactors (SMR).

Wonderful - if you are going to use conventional technologies, the SMR is by far the best way to go. Other forms of alt.energy are totally impractical and very bad for the environment when looking at the whole picture.

End of an era - the floppy disk

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Linux will no llonger support floppy disks. From Linus:

Merge branch 'floppy'
Merge floppy ioctl verification fixes from Denis Efremov.

This also marks the floppy driver as orphaned - it turns out that Jiri
no longer has working hardware.

Actual working physical floppy hardware is getting hard to find, and
while Willy was able to test this, I think the driver can be considered
pretty much dead from an actual hardware standpoint. The hardware that
is still sold seems to be mainly USB-based, which doesn't use this
legacy driver at all.

The old floppy disk controller is still emulated in various VM
environments, so the driver isn't going away, but let's see if anybody
is interested to step up to maintain it.

I remember when Windows 3.1 came on about 17 floppy disks. I recently ordered a couple copies of Windows 10 and the box had a thumb drive. A fun time to be alive. Still have a some 8" floppy disks kicking around for shits and giggles.

Looks like Airbus has some problems of their own - from The Register:

Airbus A350 software bug forces airlines to turn planes off and on every 149 hours
Some models of Airbus A350 airliners still need to be hard rebooted after exactly 149 hours, despite warnings from the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) first issued two years ago.

In a mandatory airworthiness directive (AD) reissued earlier this week, EASA urged operators to turn their A350s off and on again to prevent "partial or total loss of some avionics systems or functions".

The revised AD, effective from tomorrow (26 July), exempts only those new A350-941s which have had modified software pre-loaded on the production line. For all other A350-941s, operators need to completely power the airliner down before it reaches 149 hours of continuous power-on time.

Wonder how many other airplanes have issues like this. It is not Boeing, it's everyone.

Aptly named - from Russia Today:

Flesh-eating ‘Obama worm’ invading Europe through Spain, threatens local ecosystem
A 7cm-long flatworm with hundreds of eyes along the length of its body has been accidentally imported from South America and is now threatening soil quality and local wildlife in Spain, with possibly more drastic consequences.

The Obama flatworm (Obama nungara) has been spotted thriving in the rice paddies of the Parc Natural de L’Albufera in Valencia. Conservationist group SEO/Birdlife raised the alarm earlier this week.

The name is a coincidence but...

The parasite, which is named after the Brazilian Tupi words for leaf (oba) and animal (ma) rather than the former US president, threatens to decimate the native earthworm population and, in doing so, disrupt the health and fertility of local soil, which will spark a domino effect for the entire regional food chain.

Nasty pest - bitter so birds do not eat it. It eats earthworms and other beneficials and has no known predator.

Building skills at home

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Better jobs - great news from FOX Business:

US manufacturers pledge to train 1.2M workers amid skilled labor shortage
Manufacturers are promising to upskill nearly 1.2 million workers, a major training commitment that comes as U.S. companies prepare to try to fill millions of open positions over the next decade amid a labor shortage.

The National Association of Manufacturers, which counts Caterpillar, Merck, Salesforce and Boeing as members, is poised to make the announcement during an event at the White House on Thursday.

“Manufacturers proudly make this pledge to the American worker: we will continue to invest in our workforce and provide 1,186,000 Americans with the opportunity to receive training and development that will enhance their skills and prepare them for the next step on their career journey,” said CEO Jay Timmons.

No need to go deep in hock for a useless degree. Learn a skill or improve the one you have. Your potential to earn a living wage goes up substantially. I am going to a local college for some specific welding classes this fall. Looking forward to it.

Looks like Frida Ghitis is feeling a bit of Trump Derangement Syndrome - from CNN:

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I am feeling wonderful - our Nation is in decent hands. Wish that things were moving faster but the wheels of justice and all that great stuff.

Leaving the swamp

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Two articles at Breitbart - wonderful news:

First: Trump’s Bureau of Land Management Leaving Swamp for Western Land It Oversees

The Department of Interior (DOI) announced last week that it will be moving the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) headquarters to Colorado, and a number of senior management staffers will be located in 11 Western states, including 50 people in Nevada.

“A meaningful realignment of our operations is not simply about where functions are performed; rather, it is rooted in how changes will better respond to the needs of the American people,” Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said in a statement. “Under our proposal, every Western state will gain additional staff resources.”

Bernhardt said:

This approach will play an invaluable role in serving the American people more efficiently while also advancing the Bureau of Land Management’s multiple-use mission. Shifting critical leadership positions and supporting staff to western states — where an overwhelming majority of federal lands are located — is not only a better management system, it is beneficial to the interest of the American public in these communities, cities, counties, and states.

Nevada Columnist Thomas Mitchell wrote about the move in a column published in the Sparks Tribune in Sparks, Nevada, on Wednesday. He praised the move, which includes the decision to put BLM’s headquarters in Grand Junction, Colorado.

And this: Joni Ernst Reintroduces Swamp Act to Move Federal Agencies Out of Swamp

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) reintroduced legislation Thursday that would move federal agencies out of the Washington, DC, swamp so federal bureaucrats can focus on helping the Americans they serve.

Sen. Ernst reintroduced her Strategic Withdrawal of Agencies for Meaning Placement (SWAMP) Act to move agency headquarters over geographically diverse areas of the nation so they focus on helping the Americans most impacted by their decisions. Nearly all federal agencies remain headquartered in or around Washington, DC.

“Washington-based federal agencies and bureaucrats make important decisions that impact the lives of Iowans, and all Americans. Yet, how can these rule makers fully consider and understand the effects of their decisions when those who are most impacted by their rules and regulations are out-of-sight and out-of-mind? We need to fix that,” Ernst said in a statement Thursday.

Good - there is no need for these agencies to be in Washington D.C. - they are much better located where their actions have responsibilities. They need to be beholden to their constituents and not the lobbyists.

Having a hard time of it - from Pew Research:

5 key takeaways about the state of the news media in 2018
#1) - U.S. newspaper circulation reached its lowest level since 1940, the first year with available data. Total daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) was an estimated 28.6 million for weekday and 30.8 million for Sunday in 2018. Those numbers were down 8% and 9%, respectively, from the previous year, according to the Center’s analysis of Alliance for Audited Media data. Both figures are now below their lowest recorded levels, though weekday circulation first passed this threshold in 2013.

Digital circulation for daily newspapers is harder to track. It did rise in 2018, though not enough to fully reverse the overall decline in circulation.

Revenue from circulation was steady in 2018, but ad revenue for newspapers fell 13%, according to an analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Though some national publications have seen growth in revenue and in digital subscriptions over the past few years, the newspaper sector overall continues to face challenges.

Gee - maybe if they actually printed stuff that people wanted to read - like real news and not Fake News. Four more at the site. Not surprised. My two local newspapers (here and here) alternate between two designs. Sometimes, they will ratchet down on their subscriptions - putting 90% of the news item behind a paywall. Sometimes, they will allow some measure of access - you can read five articles and then the paywall appears.

Both are now using stronger measures as it used to be that running CCleaner to deleate their cookies would renew your access. Now it is just solid paywall for the last month or so.

CCleaner is excellent software - the free version does all that you would want. Really makes a difference in performance. Their registry cleaner is PFM.

Hmmmmm - Gay Mayor Pete

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Not just another elite, a real man of the people - from The Washington Free Beacon:

Pete Buttigieg’s Campaign Has Spent $300K on Private Jets
Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign has spent some $300,000 on private jet travel in 2019, the Associated Press reports. That's more than any other candidate in the crowded Democratic primary field. That could make Buttigieg an easy target for rival candidates:

The expenditures have enabled the South Bend, Indiana, mayor to keep up an aggressive schedule, shuttling from his campaign headquarters in his hometown to fundraisers and political events across the country. But his reliance on charter flights contrasts sharply with his image as a Rust Belt mayor who embodies frugality and Midwestern modesty.

That could prove to be a liability in a contest in which relatability to everyday people is often key.

Buttigieg's campaign argues the private jet travel is sometimes necessary given the distance between the campaign's headquarters in South Bend, Ind., where the candidate continues to serve as mayor despite significant opposition from his African-American constituents, and major airports.

"We are careful with how we spend our money, and we fly commercial as often as possible," Buttigieg spokesman Chris Meagher told the AP.

This is just CYA public relations spin. They were caught being elite and not representing their constituency.

Class act - Boris Johnson

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Here is his acceptance speech today:

6:38 of brilliance - looking forward to an energized England.

The Clintons have a long long reach

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From the New York City NBC affiliate:

Jeffrey Epstein Found Injured in NYC Jail Cell After Possible Suicide Attempt: Sources
Accused pedophile and wealthy Manhattan financier Jeffrey Epstein was found injured and in a fetal position inside his cell at a New York City jail, according to sources close to the investigation.

Epstein, who is being held in Metropolitan Correctional Center during his trial for conspiracy and sex trafficking, was found semi-conscious with marks on his neck, two sources told News 4. Investigators are trying to piece together exactly what happened, saying details remain murky.

For more of why I think this, check out this website that details all the suspicious "suicides" surrounding people affiliated with the Clinton family - a body count if you will: Arkancide   From the website's introduction:

Arkancide is the unfortunate habit of potential witnesses to the Clintons' dirty dealings in Arkansas suddenly deciding to shoot themselves twice in the back of the head. Police and Coroners in Arkansas, notably Fahmy Malak who answered to Governor Bill Clinton, automatically described these shootings as "suicides."

After Bill Clinton became President the phenomenon spilled over to Washington D.C. when Hillary Clinton's ex-lover Vincent Foster was "Arkancided."

The Arkancide website consists of a history of the Clintons and their misdeeds in Arkansas and the White House, a list of books about the Clintons, a section on Hillary Clinton, which is rapidly growing and becoming increasingly relevant to all of us, and a section on the press and their view of Hillary as "she who can do no wrong."

If you're in a hurry and can't spare the week or two that it would take to follow all these links, at least read the three-part history of Hillary Clinton by Cockburn and St. Clair and the 29 episodes of The Real Hillary Clinton

Arkancide.com is run by someone who doesn't believe in UFO's or that the Moon landings were faked or that JFK was shot by a guy on the grassy knoll or that Elvis is alive (sorry!) or that Princess Diana was liquidated by MI6 or... well any of that type of nonsense.

Here's a good BBC article about conspiracy theories: Conspiracy theories: How to be a smarter news consumer - Sep 14, 2016

Conspiracy theorists are idiots and I'm pleased not to be one of them. There was nothing "theoretical" about the Mena/ADFA conspiracy or the Whitewater conspiracy or the Cattle Futures conspiracy or Filegate or Travelgate or Bloodgate etc.

It will be good when the Clintons are finally brought down. Pour encourager les autres

Mueller's history

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Journalist Don Surber posts an interesting trip down memory lane - when Robert Mueller was head of the FBI:

Mueller owes Trump $5.8 million
The week after Robert Mueller became FBI director, 9/11 happened. A week later, anthrax attacks began, which killed five people. Mueller took personal charge of the investigation.

It was a disaster. After sending agents to interview 9,000 people on six continents, the Mueller investigation publicly named government virologist Steven Hatfill as a person of interest.

Dr. Hatfill was innocent. He sued. The government paid him $5.8 million to drop the lawsuit. The public never got to learn what happened because the Bush administration paid hush money to avoid a trial.

Well yeah, he had to find "someone". Pity he didn't do due diligence and find the right person. It is We The People who paid for this boondoggle (as well as the $31+ million for his latest nothing-burger)

The Mueller testimony

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From FOX News:

Trump tweets cryptic statement as Mueller hearings end
Minutes after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller ended his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday afternoon, President Trump took to Twitter to send a cryptic message.

"TRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE!" Trump said on Twitter.

And Mueller's performance?

In sometimes contentious rapport, where Mueller appeared flustered and asked members of the committees to repeat the questions multiple times, Republicans grilled the former FBI director over the way he conducted the investigation and whether or not personal political bias played into the findings.

Trump seized on Mueller's shaky performance, retweeting liberal filmmaker Michael Moore who called Mueller "A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions...I said it in 2017 and Mueller confirmed it today — All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller — just STFU from now on."

President Trump's tweet:

So true...

Got as far as Bellingham today - did a couple things at the condo and it was getting late. Got a bite to eat and headed back down to the Island.

Picked up a bunch of music CDs from the library - got a bunch of George Clinton / Parliament Funkadelic / Bootsy Collins disks on order. Three of those were waiting for me as well as the next Dewey Lambdin book. About half-way through that series and although the Patrick O'Brian series is incredible, Lambdin is his equal. Different portrayals of characters but both good. Lambdin took about three books to hit his stride - his writing really improves and is consistently excellent.

Surf a bit, glass or two of red wine, YouTube and bed.

Cracks in the facade - Mueller

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Interesting observation from a higly placed Democrat - from Spectator:

Senior Democrat: Mueller is ‘losing his faculties’
Washington DC goes Mueller crazy today, again. The US networks begin rolling coverage with their morning shows. The Mueller report was Mueller, the book. This is Mueller, the movie. Will the special counsel light the fuse for impeachment, as many hope?

Given that this is the question of the day, a remarkable rumor is circulating among some Democrats. This is – in the words of one source – that Mueller is ‘slowly losing his faculties’, that at the age of 74, the former special counsel is going senile. The source went on to say that this was one reason why Mueller had been ‘so intent’ on limiting the time and scope of the hearings today.

And then, there is this from Grabien News:

MONTAGE: CONFUSED-LOOKING MUELLER REPEATEDLY ASKS FOR QUESTIONS TO BE REPEATED
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller frequently appeared confused during his much-anticipated Capitol Hill testimony Wednesday.

Mueller, who is often celebrated in the media for laser-like thinking, had to ask lawmakers to regularly repeat their questions, seemingly struggling to pay attention.

At other points, Mueller got confused about whether the members of Congress were asking him questions or if they were reading from his own report.

In just the first 90 minutes of the hearing, Mueller needed help understanding questions more than 10 times.

In one such exchange, Mueller — under questioning from Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) — asked: “And where are you reading from on that?”

“I’m reading from my own question” the lawmaker reminded him.

“Then can you repeat it?” Mueller asked, eliciting laughter from the audience.

In another painful episode, Mueller had to ask Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee three times to clarify and restate her question.

Under questioning from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Mueller failed to follow a question that was merely 14 words long: “Attorney #2 in the Inspector General’s report and Strzok both worked on your team, didn’t they?”

“Pardon me?” Mueller replied. After Gaetz restated his question, Mueller replied: “And the question was?”

This site has a video montage of his missteps. Amazing how much energy, time and mony is being spent persuing this non-event. There was no Russian collusion - any collusion was on Hillary's part. Hillary is 110% crooked.

Looks like Oberlin College is having some financial difficulties - from Legal Insurrection:

Gibson’s Bakery: “there is serious concern about [Oberlin College’s] ability to pay this sizable judgment three years from now”
The $25 million damages judgment plus the over $6.5 million attorney’s fees and expenses award, puts Oberlin College almost $32 million in debt to Gibson’s Bakery and its owners.

Post-judgment interest in Ohio is 5%, which if my math is correct, on $32 million equals $1.6 million a year just in interest, or $4,384 per day. So that $32 million is going to keep growing as the inevitable appeal winds its way through the courts.

Interest aside, Oberlin College doesn’t want Gibson’s Bakery to start collecting the judgment by seizing bank accounts, college equipment, and anything else they can get their hands on.

Not surprisingly, Oberlin College has filed a Motion for a Stay of Execution of Judgment (pdf.)(full embed at bottom of post). The motion also requests that Oberlin College not be required to post a bond to secure the judgment while the trial court rules on post-trial motions Oberlin College says it will be filing.

Heh - that is what you get for siding with a couple kids who were shoplifting. Was it worth it?

Island time

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Spending this morning running a few errands - coffee, &c, dump run and some paperwork.

To the farm later this afternoon. Cooled off a lot but supposed to be sunny again tomorrow.

Meeting went well

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Getting bids for some drainage work. Get it done before next winter.

Cute mashup:

Quote of the day

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Words to remember:

"Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."
--Friedrich Nietzsche

Heading out for the day

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Coffee, post office, library, 1:00PM meeting. Spending tonight on the island and then up to the farm for a few days.

A really good commentary about the Kyoto killings and the lack of media coverage from USA Today:

Kyoto Anime arson killings didn't get much attention because we couldn't demonize guns
While obsessing over President Donald Trump’s racist rants and his supporters’ hateful chants, Americans could easily have missed the awful news from thousands of miles away in Kyoto, Japan. Last Thursday, as Trump was facing a firestorm over his raucous campaign rally, a 41-year-old man aired his grievance against Kyoto Animation by means of a literal firestorm

Shouting “You die,” the enraged assailant doused the three-story anime studio with gasoline and then set it ablaze. By the time the smoke had cleared, 34 employees — mostly young women — were dead and nearly three dozen others were injured. 

In terms of the death toll, this was Japan’s worst mass killing in nearly two decades, sending shock waves throughout the island nation. Globally, the impact was deeply felt within the anime community, including those attending an international anime convention held in San Diego. Beyond that, the reaction was hardly commensurate with the horrific nature of the crime. 

And the thesis of this post:

Guns get more attention
It would be hard to find adults anywhere in this country who do not remember when 12 victims were gunned down at an Aurora, Colorado cinema in 2012. It would be equally difficult to find folks outside of Nevada who do recall when 12 victims succumbed to smoke inhalation at a Reno hotel in 2006 when an irate resident set fire to a stack of old mattress, causing the building to become engulfed in flames.

Few outside of New York City likely recall the 87 killed at the Happy Land Social Club in a fire deliberately set by a the ex-boyfriend of an employee. The death toll was nearly twice as high as Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub massacre, a crime which remains fresh in our collective memories.

True - a section of this nation wants to remove our legal access to guns and is using any propaganda tool to do this. Believe me, as a nation, there are over 350 million guns in private hands. If guns were a problem, you would know.

From Associated Press:

Mexico sets 1st half murder record, up 5.3%
Mexico set a new record for homicides in the first half of the year as the number of murders grew by 5.3% compared to the same period of 2018, fueled partly by cartel and gang violence in several states.

Mexico saw 3,080 killings in June, an increase of over 8% from the same month a year ago, according to official figures. The country of almost 125 million now sees as many as 100 killings per day nationwide.

The 17,608 killings in the first half of 2019 is the most since comparable records began being kept in 1997, including the peak year of Mexico’s drug war in 2011. Officials said 16,714 people were killed in the first half of 2018.

In particular, drug cartel turf wars have become increasingly bloody in the northern state of Sonora, where the number of homicides was up by 69% in the first half of the year. But in Sinaloa, where the cartel of convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is based, homicides declined by 23% so far this year compared to last.

The decline in Sinaloa shows that if you enforce the law, the crime will go down. Slam shut the borders, build the wall. That will cut way down on illegal drug trafficing. How much are Pelosi and Schumer being paid by the cartels to keep the border open?

And it begins - Ilhan Omar

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Heh - from Judicial Watch:

Judicial Watch Files House Ethics Complaint against Rep. Ilhan Omar over Potential Immigration, Marriage, Tax, and Student Loan Fraud
Judicial Watch announced today that it hand-delivered ethics complaint to Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Office of Congressional Ethics David Skaggs calling for a full investigation into potential crimes tied to allegations that Rep. Ilhan Omar may have married her biological brother.

“The evidence is overwhelming Rep. Omar may have violated the law and House rules.  The House of Representatives must urgently investigate and resolve the serious allegations of wrongdoing by Rep. Omar,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We encourage Americans to share their views on Rep. Omar’s apparent misconduct with their congressmen.”

Make an example of her - you can not have crookedness like this in Congress. Let her example be a warning to other people trying to game the system.

Great news from across the pond

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England elected a conservative Prime Minister - from The Telegraph:

Tory rebels must give Boris a chance, rather than rush to do Corbyn's dirty work
Boris Johnson has secured a greater mandate as Tory leader than Theresa May managed, having not just won a majority among MPs but the wider membership.

He won more than twice as many votes as his rival, Jeremy Hunt. But some Conservatives are acting as if he has seized power in a coup.

Ministers are already storming out of government, with Anne Milton today leaving due to her "grave concerns about leaving the EU without a deal".

"She did not go as far as Sir Alan Duncan, who yesterday took the extraordinary step of following his resignation up with an application to hold an effective confidence vote in the House of Commons on the Johnson premiership before it had even begun."

Three years ago, the citizens of England voted to leave the European Union but P.M. (and closet Commmunist) Theresa May refused to act on the votes of her constituants. Now, we have a true conservative in office.

I'll get that tree down - they said.

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It'll be no problem - they said:

20190722-tree.jpg

RIP - two of the 1960's greats

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End stage of socialism - Venezuela

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Their infrastructure is falling apart - from Reuters:

Widespread blackout hits Venezuela, government blames 'electromagnetic attack'
More than half of Venezuela's 23 states lost power on Monday, according to Reuters witnesses and reports on social media, a blackout the government blamed on an "electromagnetic attack."

It was the first blackout to include the capital, Caracas, since March, when the government blamed the opposition and United States for a series of power outages that left millions of people without running water and telecommunications.

The blackouts exacerbated an economic crisis that has halved the size of the economy.

Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said the outage on Monday was caused by an "electromagnetic attack," without providing evidence. He added that authorities were in the process of re-establishing service.

The Maduro regieme can not admit that their policies have caused this. It is always something external done to Venezuela by their enemies. Propeganda for the masses.

From the Washington Examiner:

Deregulation explodes under Trump, 13 regulations killed for every new one, $33B saved
It was an odd, geeky campaign promise for a populist presidential candidate to make. But when Donald Trump in 2016 pledged to kill two Obama-era regulations for every new one, crowds went wild.

Those cheers stuck with him when he moved into the White House, and he put his promise into an executive order. And now as he opens his reelection campaign, Russ Vought, acting budget office director, has delivered the results sure to win even more rally cheers.

“We’ve hit 13 to 1,” he told a Heritage Foundation conference on federalism. And cutting so many regulations, he added, has saved taxpayers $33 billion.

Departments and agencies including the departments of Labor, Education, Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency have led the war on regulations, according to federal reports.

Great news - the majority of these regulations are not well thought out and are targeted to benefit a specific group of lobbyists. These are allowing the unelected bureaucrats in government to effectively circumvent the legislative process.

Clear the lot of them out - let's get back to business.

No love from Craigslist

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They rejected my offers. They were hoping to recover their costs. This is used equipment we are talking about and no way to tell if it has been "Bubba'd" or not. The air compressor was especially egregious - it looked to be in great shape so I offered 80% of today's list. They said no - it was worth more than that. Over a year old. Zero documentation regarding oil changes (just as important as with car engines - a sure way to blow things up if you do not do them).

Busy day today

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Did some food shopping, more work on the antenna (need to bring my tall extension ladder down from the farm) and getting a large tub ready for planting. I have chives, mint and horseradish all of which are very invasive. Putting them into a medium-size horse watering tub (20 gallons) and that will keep them happy but in their place.

Meeting tomorrow and then farmer's market. Farm Wednesday.

Go medieval - from Breitbart:

Dr. Drew: Los Angeles Faces Imminent Outbreak of Bubonic Plague
Dr. Drew Pinsky said Friday that Los Angeles faces an imminent outbreak of bubonic plague because of the growth of the homeless population and the failure of state and local authorities to deal with rodent problems.

Dr. Drew made his comments during a Periscope broadcast by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who has become a popular political pundit with a daily live audience of thousands of people.

Dr. Drew told Adams that he had predicted the recent typhus outbreak in Los Angeles, which was carried by rats, transferred by fleas to pets, and from pets to humans.

Bubonic plague, Dr. Drew said, like typhus, is endemic to the region, and can spread to humans from rodents in a similar fashion.

Though commonly recognized as the medieval disease responsible for the Black Death in the fourteenth century, which killed one-third of the population of Europe, the last outbreak of bubonic plague in the U.S. was nearly a century ago, from 1924 to 1925 — also in Los Angeles. Only a “heroic effort” by doctors stopped it, Dr. Drew recalled, warning that conditions were perfect for another outbreak of the plague in the near future.

Los Angeles is one of the only cities in the country, Dr. Drew said, that has no rodent control plan. “And if you look at the pictures of Los Angeles, you will see that the homeless encampments are surrounded by dumps. People defecate there, they throw their trash there, and the rats just proliferate there.”

The liberals want to protect us from global warming and pollution but they can not run a city. Not one city.

A Nation of Deplorables

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Looks like Crooked Hillary's Basket of Deplorables is what the current Democratic Party is running on. Town Hall:

The Democrats’ 2020 Campaign Theme Is 'You Americans Are Terrible'
The Democrats’ 2020 theme is that you are terrible and the party’s slogan will be “Americans suck, vote for us.” The precise candidate who will employ it is not important because they all embrace the notion that punishing the essential moral failure of you and me and every other Normal American is the key goal of the Donkey Party. That goes equally for the Handsey Old Prospector, the Socialist Squaw, Crusty the Commie, Spartacus Sharpton, Starchild, the Furry, Not Ms. Willie Brown, the Unfabulous Gay Guy, and the many Unfabulous Ungay Guys.

They all agree that you are terrible because you don’t know your place, which is behind a rock pushing it endlessly uphill for the benefit of people who hate you.

Remember Animal Farm from back when you were in school and they taught it as a chilling warning about socialism instead of as a how-to manual? Remember the horse who got worked nearly to death then got sent to the glue farm?

Guess what? You’re the horse.

Heh - they have nothing. If John Fitzgerald Kennedy was running today, I would vote for him in a heartbeat. The dems really need to take a long hard look at who they are and think about where they are headed.

From NBC News:

U.S. military has begun reestablishing air base inside Saudi Arabia
In June the U.S. military began moving equipment and hundreds of troops back to a military base in Saudi Arabia that the U.S. deserted more than 15 years ago, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the deployment.

Over the coming weeks the deployment to Prince Sultan Air Base, intended to counter the threat from Iran, will grow to include fighter jets and Patriot long-range missile defense systems, the officials said. The Patriots have already arrived at the base and should be operational in mid-July, while the aircraft are expected to arrive in August.

Several hundred U.S. service members are already on site preparing the facility south of Riyadh, which is controlled by the Royal Saudi Air Force, a number that will grown to more than 500 after the arrival of an air squadron.

Looks like the mullahs in Iran are going to be taken down a notch or three. Good. The Saudi's are our allies - they are not ideologically aligned with us but they perceive that there is a common enemy and are working with us to defeat it.

A quiet day today

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Nothing catches my eye on the internet. Heading out for coffee, drop a book off at the library and then home to work on some stuff - finishing off the WSPR antenna. Been reading Dewey Lambdin's series featuring Alan Lewrie. Very chronological so you will want to start with The King's Coat. A lot of fun.

Saw an interesting sale on Craigslist and will be emailing them a bid for some tools. I think that they want too much for their stuff but will see if they accept my offers. Nice small metal lathe and engine hoist. Really nice air compressor. The guy was really trying to up-sell me, telling me how new everything was and how little use it had received all the while there was a lot of accumulated dust and dirt. All boils down to how much he wants to sell his stuff for.

To paraphrase advertising from Lagunitas Brewery - from FOX News:

Republicans raise $20.7M in June -- more than double Dems' $8.5M haul
The Republican National Committee raised more than twice as much as the Democratic National Committee in June – $20.7 million compared to the DNC’s $8.5 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings, Politico reported.

“Our record-smashing fundraising haul is a testament to the ongoing enthusiasm for President Trump and the pro-growth agenda that is delivering for every American across this country," GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement to Fox News last week.

The RNC currently has $43.5 million, more than double the cash on hand as the DNC’s $9.3 million.

And despite this, they are not managing their money very well:

The DNC spent heavily on events related to the debates and the presidential candidates last month, including $221,000 for catering and $61,000 for event decorations for a total of $7.5 million, according to Politico.

“They need to get their s-- together. Now,” Adam Parkhomenko, a former DNC national field director, told Vice.

“When Hillary became the nominee in 2016 she was handed nothing, the DNC was nothing and there was nothing to build on. You’d think we would have spent the last few years making sure this would never happen again, and it has,” he said.

Republicans have one candidate with leadership and ideas. The Democrats have twenty candidates and a progressive narrative - no leadership and no ideas. Want to see what a Democratic Presidential victory will do to our nation? Take a good hard look at how they are running their own party into the ground.

Also, not to quibble but $43.5 million is a lot more than double $9.3 million. It is 467.7% - a lot more than "more than double".

Yes! More nuclear

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Great news from the Idaho News:

Plan to build first small US nuclear reactors in Idaho advances
A plan to build the nation's first small modular nuclear reactors to produce commercial power is a step closer.

A Utah-based energy cooperative said Wednesday that it has sales contracts for enough carbon-free power to begin a license application process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the reactors in eastern Idaho.

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems already has agreements with the U.S. Department of Energy to build the reactors at the federal agency's 890-square-mile (2,300-square-kilometer) site that includes the Idaho National Laboratory.

A small modular nuclear reactor can produce about 60 megawatts, or enough to power more than 50,000 homes. The proposed project includes 12 small modular reactors.

The energy cooperative says it has carbon-free contracts for more than 150 megawatts. Its goal is to begin construction on the reactors in 2023.

The down side is that these are conventional reactors - 60 year old designs with the attendant problems.

The up side is that these are a lot smaller than the 1,200 megawatt units that are being built. If something goes wrong, things move a lot slower so it will be easier to correct. Plus, by using a lot of small cheap identical cores, you have the same redundancy that the US Navy enjoys. They use a lot of identical cores and if there is an issue with a coolant pump bearing or such, they figure out a solution and replace all of them. End of problem. The Navy's safety record is spotless.

My ideal nuke is a LFTR but that is a different story.

And that is it...

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Nothing else on the internet catches my eye. Couple of YouTube videos and then to bed. Been rotating my sleep patterns to get up a bit early - more sunlight to do stuff.

Like Father, like Son - Trump Jr.

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That tweet is going to leave a large bruise:

Obligatory rimshot...

The crazy that is the liberal

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A clickable headline but you do not need more than just that:

Transgender Woman, 26, Who Was Jailed After Dousing Her Ex-Boyfriend In Bleach Then Trying To Set Him On Fire Is Spared Prison Over Lashing Out At Police Who ‘Didn’t Use The Proper Pronouns’ To Address Her

Surprised that there are not several chapters in DSM-V about liberalism. 100% fruit loops.

Happy to be here - Northwest

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Looks like a stretch of some really nice PNW weather and looks like major suckage for the Northeast. From Cliff Mass:

Humidity Storm Hits the Northeast While the Northwest Has the Best Weather in the Nation
For those of you living in the Northwest, this is weather payoff time. Warm, but not too warm. Generally dry, but with a few showers next week to keep things moist enough to keep down the fires.

But the situation back east is different: in several places the humidity will be debilitating, with effective temperatures getting well above 100F.

As I talked about this week, the dew point temperature is a good measure of moisture in the atmosphere, and when summer dew points get into the mid-60s, it starts feeling "sticky" and unpleasant. Dew points in the 70s start getting really irritating and upper 70s, really bad. The National Weather Service dew point analysis at 8 AM EDT today show the national moisture divide. The eastern half of the nation is steamy, with dew points approaching 80F that extends into the New York area. In contrast, low dew points over the West.

More at the site. Yikes - not only high temps but high humidity as well. This is not unusual - used to live in Boston and we would get heat like this every 3-5 years. Glad I live here.

Put the telescope back

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Got high cirrus clouds developing. Latest forecast is for Tuesday beginning a stretch of cloudy with 10% chance of precip. Cirrus is usually a good "omen" for precip in 48+ hours so yeah. Oh well...

Get out the telescope

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Looks like it might be dead-nuts clear tonight. Will put the telescope outside before I leave for dinner so it can come to thermal equilibrium as the air cools. It is unexpected here that I have much better seeing than at the farm. The conurbation of Abbotsford, Coquitlam, Burnaby, Surrey, Maple Ridge and Mission was just too bright for good seeing.

From Powerline Blog:

DAVID STEINBERG: TYING UP LOOSE THREADS IN THE CURIOUS CASE
In four intensely reported investigative columns — here (August 13, 2018), here (October 23, 2018), here (October 30, 2018), and here (November 5, 2018), — David Steinberg has explored the evidence suggesting that Ilhan Omar entered into a sham marriage with her brother in 2009. This is his fifth. He titles it “Meet Leila Elmi: The Missing Link Showing Ilhan Omar Married Her Brother.” Drawing on his research, interviews, and social media evidence he makes the case that Omar has engaged in a variety of fraudulent activities and willful misrepresentations related to her marital arrangements. He writes:

On October 22, 2008, the U.S. State Department stopped accepting applications for the Priority 3/Refugee Family Reunification program — the process by which refugees can apply for asylum if one family member is already a legal U.S. resident. State halted the program because DNA testing — primarily of Somalis — had concluded that perhaps 87 percent of applicants were fraudulently claiming family relationships.

David sets the stage and then begins:

Please read the verified evidence below — and read it alongside the three years of verified evidence published by Scott Johnson, Preya Samsundar, and myself (our work is linked here). The answers to those questions about 2009 appear to give probable cause to investigate Omar for eight instances of perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, up to eight years of state and federal tax fraud, two years of federal student loan fraud, and even bigamy.

This is an incredibly well-researched post complete with links to coroborating data, screen caps of their social media and the documents in question. Omar is not who she says she is. Time to clean house

So true - moon landing

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20190720-true.jpg

Fred Reed said it best: Are White Men Gods?  A most excellent rant and he does have a very valid point when you look at the historical record...

Done for the day

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Heading out for some pasta and a couple beers.

Day turned out gorgeous and the next couple are supposed to be just as nice. Will get the WSPR antenna connected (need to drive and wire the ground rod and run some coax. Cheating and using some crimp-on PL-259's

So true - 50 years of "progress"

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Michael Ramirez has a perfect example of the progress we have made in 50 years:

20190720-ramirez.JPG

Glad to see that we are clawing our way back to some semblance of sanity...

Great article from Reason:

The New York Times Says Heat Waves Are Getting Worse. The National Climate Assessment Disagrees.
Americans east of the Rockies are sweltering as daytime temperatures soar toward 100 degrees or more. It is now customary for journalists covering big weather events to speculate on how man-made climate change may be affecting them, and the current heat wave is no exception. Take this headline in The New York Times: "Heat Waves in the Age of Climate Change: Longer, More Frequent and More Dangerous."

As evidence, the Times cites the U.S. Global Change Research Program, reporting that "since the 1960s the average number of heat waves—defined as two or more consecutive days where daily lows exceeded historical July and August temperatures—in 50 major American cities has tripled." That is indeed what the numbers show. But it seems odd to highlight the trend in daily low temperatures rather than daily high temperatures.

As it happens, chapter six of 2017's Fourth National Climate Assessment reports that heat waves measured as high daily temperatures are becoming less common in the contiguous U.S., not more frequent.

Again, pushing the narrative and not the facts.

Fusion power in the news

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From technology website The Drive:

Skunk Works' Exotic Fusion Reactor Program Moves Forward With Larger, More Powerful Design
Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is building a new, more capable test reactor as it continues to move ahead with its ambitious Compact Fusion Reactor program, or CFR. Despite slower than expected progress, the company remains confident the project can produce practical results, which would completely transform how power gets generated for both military and civilian purposes.

Aviation Week was first to report the updates on the CFR program, including that Lockheed Martin is in the process of constructing its newest experimental reactor, known as the T5, on July 19, 2019. The company's legendary California-based Skunk Works advanced projects office is in charge of the effort and had already built four different test reactor designs, as well as a number of subvariants, since the program first became public knowledge in 2014. The War Zone has been following news of this potentially revolutionary program very closely in recent years.

A lot more at the site - I love that this research is being privatly funded and that this fifth unit is large enough to be self-sustaining. Nuclear is the way to go for energy generation. All of the alt.energy sources (wind / solar) are just pissing taxpayer money away and are worse for the environment than coal.

Another day in paradise

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Supposed to be nice and sunny the next couple of days. Working on the yard and putting up my WSPR antenna.

Dinner was really nice yesterday - new friend on the island.

Puttering around at home for a bit and then out for coffee. Up to the farm for a few days this week.

That earth-shattering Ka-Boom

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This will not end well for Iran - what were they thinking? From FOX News:

Iran's Revolutionary Guard seizes two UK-operated tankers in Strait of Hormuz
Iran seized two British-operated oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz Friday, marking a fresh escalation of tensions between Tehran and the West.

The U.K.-flagged Stena Impero, which has a crew of 23 aboard, “was approached by unidentified small crafts and a helicopter during transit of the Strait of Hormuz while the vessel was in international waters,” Stena Bulk, the shipping company that owns the vessel, said in a statement. "We are presently unable to contact the vessel which is now heading north towards Iran."

Iran's Revolutionary Guard forces, in a statement on their website, say the ship was seized for "non-compliance with international maritime laws and regulations" and is being brought to an unnamed Iranian port, according to the Associated Press. Websites tracking the ship's path showed it turning sharply in the direction of Iran's Qeshm Island, instead of its intended destination of Saudi Arabia.

The Strait of Hormuz is 33 miles wide at its narrowest point. (54 km or 29 Nautical Miles) (one nautical mile = one minute (1/60th) of a degree of latitude)

It will be interesting to see the response. President Trump has forged very good relationships with England, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel and all of these nations are getting very tired of Iran's advancement of terrorism.

Showing on SciFy August 17th:

Out for the day - coffee &c

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Heading out for a little bit and then back home to do yard work and some stuff.

Going out for dinner later - a new friend.

I love technology - memory cards

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From Amazon:

20190719-1tb.JPG

And, of course, this will be down to $99 in six months and $49 in a year.

Actually, yes, shit. From Pampers:

Introducing the world's first all-in-one Connected Care System
Beyond keeping them dry through the night, we wondered: how can we do more to support babies’ daily development?

So we partnered with Verily and Logitech to create Lumi by Pampers - the world’s first all-in-one connected care system that’s revolutionizing baby monitoring by helping parents monitor and track their baby 24/7. By combining a video monitor with an activity sensor, Lumi helps parents blend real-time data with their intuition seamlessly and offers insights tailored to their unique baby using the Lumi by Pampers app.

60 years ago, we reimagined baby care with the first disposable diaper. Lumi by Pampers is the next step in our mission to continue re-inventing baby care.

It does a lot more than just sent a text when the nappies are full. Clever idea actually.

Great photo

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I love bears - this is downright cute. Just want to hang out with the older one and play with the cub:

20190718-bear.jpg

Yikes - huge arson attack in Kyoto

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30+ people dead. From NHK:

Fire dept.: 33 dead in suspected arson in Kyoto
Fire department officials in Kyoto said they have confirmed 33 people died in a suspected arson attack in Kyoto. They say 36 others were injured.

The fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday at the studio of Kyoto Animation. It took firefighters nearly five hours to extinguish the blaze. Officials say about 70 people were in the building at the time of the fire.

Police say one suspect, believed to be in his 40s, has been taken into custody.

The man was reportedly seen pouring a flammable liquid inside the building before it went up in flames. Witnesses also say he was heard yelling "die" in Japanese.

The studio was very well regarded:

Visiting Professor of Meiji University, Ryusuke Hikawa said, "The name of Kyoto Animation is a strong brand with its sophisticated directorial and production techniques."

He added that Kyoto Animation is known as the first successful studio outside Tokyo.

Tragic.

This is so true - President Trump

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From Grabien News:

TRUMP: ‘IF WE DIDN’T HAVE ALL OF THE BULLSH*T,’ WE’D BE MUCH FURTHER ALONG
TRUMP: "And the reason we have to, not only to do new things, which we will, and you know statutorily, and we had all sorts of artificial witch hunts over our head. Can you imagine if we didn’t have to go through that hoax, I don’t know that we would’ve done any better. To be honest with you, I think we’ve done more in two and a half years than any president ever. First two and a half years.

[Applause]

TRUMP: “But could you imagine what it could have been if we didn’t have the witch hunt — you said it. I won’t say it, because it’s a terrible word. So I will not say that this guy said if we didn’t have the bullh*it —”

[Applause]

TRUMP: “No, no, could you imagine if we didn’t have the time wasted, the time and everything. Can you imagine — and you know, a friend of mine said maybe you wouldn’t have done as well. Is that possible? That can happen. Maybe we would have had too much time on our hands. Who knows. But I can say, nobody in their first two and half years has done anywhere close to what we — not me — what we’ve all done."

So true - all of these baseless accusations are slowing down the government.

Meeting tonight

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Getting dinner - ham radio meeting at 7:00PM. Picking up stuff for a craigslist deal tomorrow morning and having dinner with a friend tomorrow night.

The Homeless problem

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Michael Ramirez understands it:

20190718-ramirez.jpg

If you provide free shit, they will come and stay until it is all gone.

Now this is just reaching

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The Democrats are trying anything to ding the Orange Man - from liberal site Daily Caller:

NBC Fails To Mention The Democrat Who Entered Mar-A-Lago Alongside Epstein In 1992
NBC pulled a video from its archives and noted that President Donald Trump was partying with alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 1992, but failed to mention that the man seen entering the estate with Epstein is Democrat Tom McMillen.

Atomic Fungus offers this timeline of the events:

    • 1992: Trump seen "partying with" Epstein at Mar-a-Lago.
    • Somewhere between 1992 and 2008: Trump says he's a "great guy" and has known him 15 years.
    • Also somewhere between 1992 and 2008: Trump has Epstein tossed out of Mar-a-Lago for perving on an underage girl
    • 2008: Epstein arrested and given a gentle pat on the wrist. Trump ceases all association with him.
    • 2016: Trump wins election to Presidency
    • 2019: "Muh Russia!" fails and Democrats need something else, dredge up this.

Nothing there.

Quite the discovery - this is huge

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From The Times of Israel:

A ‘game changer’: Vast, developed 9,000-year-old settlement found near Jerusalem
An unprecedentedly vast Neolithic settlement — the largest ever discovered in Israel and the Levant, say archaeologists — is currently being excavated ahead of highway construction five kilometers from Jerusalem, it was announced on Tuesday.

The 9,000-year-old site, located near the town of Motza, is the “Big Bang” for prehistory settlement research due to its size and the preservation of its material culture, said Jacob Vardi, co-director of the excavations at Motza on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, “It’s a game changer, a site that will drastically shift what we know about the Neolithic era,” said Vardi. Already some international scholars are beginning to realize the existence of the site may necessitate revisions to their work, he said.

And the scale of the site:

Roughly half a kilometer from point to point, the site would have housed an expected population of some 3,000 residents. In today’s terms, said Vardi, prehistoric Motza would be comparable to the stature of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv — “a real metropolis.”

More at the site including some photographs. This is similar to the discoveries of Machu Picchu or Chichen Itza

Out for the day but first

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Big wildfire on Maui

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Heard about it today - 9,000 acres burned. Arson and they got the moke that did it - from Hawaii News Now:

Suspect arrested in Maui arson incident that triggered massive wildfire
Police officials on Maui have arrested a man suspected of starting a wildfire that burned more than 9,000 acres of land and forced temporary evacuations for some Kihei and Maalaea residents.

County officials say Holden Bingham was arrested just before 7:30 p.m. Monday evening on suspicion of first-degree arson.

The 28-year-old man, who has no local address, was released pending further investigation, but is still being held on unrelated arrest warrants, according to Maui County.

Bingham is a convicted felon who has previously been incarcerated at the Maui Community Correctional Center. He recently agreed to be interviewed by Hawaii News Now for a story on the conditions at the overcrowded facility.

Gotta love that last line: for a story on the conditions at the overcrowded facility

Hey, if you are in jail, you did something against society or one of its citizens. Jail time is supposed to be punishment and not three hots and a cot. They need to bring back hard labor - not chain gangs but I bet that if Mr. Bingham were made to clean up some of his mess, he might not be so cavalier in the future. Pay something back to society.

A stroke of genius - I bet the person who came up with this idea woke up at 3:00AM scrambling for a pencil and paper. One of those kinds of ideas:

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Sigh - learning a new language

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A couple of projects I want to do with the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino rely heavily on the Python scripting language.

A couple years ago, I got pretty good with the Lua scripting language and really like it - compact and fast. Used in Adobe products as well as my fave video editor DaVinci Resolve as well as darktable (photo cataloging) and a bunch of other applications and utilities that I use.

Now Python seems to be the go-to language. Unfortunately, there are some libraries for Python that are not available for Lua so having to learn Python in the next month or three. Checked out the O'Reilly bible from the library: Learning Python, 5th Edition. 1,648 pages. Not like I am doing anything with my spare time...

From their website: Flash Drives for Freedom

DONATE USB DRIVES TO HELP US SMUGGLE OUTSIDE INFORMATION INTO NORTH KOREA
Believe it or not, USBs are a significant form of sharing information in North Korea. Many citizens have devices with USB ports. So for many years, North Korean defectors have organized efforts to smuggle outside info into North Korea on USB drives to counter Kim Jong-un’s constant propaganda. But these groups were buying USB drives at cost with limited resources. Flash Drives For Freedom is a campaign that travels the world inspiring people to donate their own USB drives. As a collaboration between the Human Rights Foundation, Forum 280, and USB Memory Direct, Flash Drives for Freedom is significantly increasing the capacities of these North Korean defector groups.

Donate a USB Drive
Mail in your USB drives or donate cash to purchase drives. Every dollar donated in cash is equivalent to one drive.

Drives are prepared
The USB drives are erased, logos are removed, and are filled with content proven to inspire North Koreans to disbelieve Kim Jong-Un's propaganda and take a stand. Content includes e-books, films, and an offline Korean Wikipedia.

Drives are smuggled in
The drives are smuggled into the country using many different methods. A healthy black market distributes the drives throughout North Korea. The majority of North Koreans have access to devices that can read USB drives.

I have a bunch at the farm that I was wondering what to do with. 1-2GB devices are not that useful any more.

Looks like it is going ahead full-steam. From their website:

Expansion Project
The original Trans Mountain Pipeline was built in 1953 and continues to operate safely today. The Expansion is essentially a twinning of this existing 1,150-kilometre pipeline between Strathcona County (near Edmonton), Alberta and Burnaby, BC. It will create a pipeline system with the nominal capacity of the system going from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day.

Sounds like a great project. Also good is that they can shut down one of the lines for inspection without impacting the other so the oil will continue to flow. Not bad - 66 years of continuous operation.

This reduces the cost of Canada's oil - of course the environmentalists oppose it.

The end-game of Fake News

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Produce Fake News, lose your (paying) audience. Nature abhors a vacuum so other media will fill the void.
From Townhall:

Matt Drudge's 'Future' Is Now Realized, And That Has Legacy Media Enraged
"Bringing these groups together is beyond irresponsible; it is essentially conducting a hate summit at the White House," the Southern Poverty Law Center proclaimed Monday morning regarding President Donald J. Trump's social media summit last Thursday.

Based off that line, you would think the president hosted KKK leader David Duke in the Rose Garden for a Sunday interview as if his opinions mattered. No, actually, that was CNN who did that in 2016, but President Trump did something far worse in the eyes of the Left -- he invited citizen journalists, bloggers, and humorous people who make memes to the White House. In doing so, the president sent a loud message to America that internet pioneer Matt Drudge's vision of the world has been all but finalized thanks to social media and the power of the internet. This has legacy media, and their allies like SPLC, terrified that they are losing their power over public discourse.

I have not read a newspaper or watched televised news for about a year. Too much bias.

Their best and brightest

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Glad they got these mokes rounded up and behind bars. From the Los Angeles Times:

An ultra-violent MS-13 gang entered the U.S., then stalked L.A. with blades and bats
One by one, the victims were lured to remote locations: an abandoned building in downtown Los Angeles, an empty rooftop in Hollywood, a quiet park in the San Fernando Valley.

Each was accused of a transgression against the notorious MS-13 street gang. Each would meet their end in a manner federal investigators described as “medieval.”

And their presence in this country:

Nineteen of the 22 defendants charged in the indictment had entered the country illegally in the last four years, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Several of the victims described in the indictment were also new arrivals to the U.S. from Central America, officials said.

Seal the border now. No more excuses. How much are the cartels paying Chuck and Nancy?

Wilson was basically the guy who let progressivism get started in the Democrat party. The majority of the ills today have their ancestry with his time in office. Here he is on the treatment of Blacks - from the National Postal Museum:

The History and Experience of African Americans in America’s Postal Service
During Woodrow Wilson’s 1912 presidential campaign, he promised African Americans advancement. He stated, “Should I become President of the United States, [Negroes] [sic] may count upon me for absolute fair dealing and for everything by which I could assist in advancing the interests of their race in the United States.” Believing in his promise, many African Americans broke their affiliation with the Republican Party and voted for Wilson. He did not, however, fulfill the promises he made during the campaign to the African American community during his presidency. Less than a month after his March 4, 1913 inauguration, President Wilson’s Administration took the first steps towards segregating the federal service.

The question of federal segregation was first discussed in high administration circles at a closed cabinet meeting on April 11, 1913. At the Cabinet meeting Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson argued for segregating the Railway Mail Service. He was disturbed by whites and African Americans working in the Railway Mail Service train cars. The workers shared glasses, towels, and washrooms. He said segregation was in the best interest of the African American employees and in the best interest of the Railway Mail Service. Burleson’s ultimate goal was not only to make the railway lines “lily white” but to segregate all government departments. President Wilson replied to Burleson by saying that he had made “no promises in particular to Negroes [sic], except to do them justice.” He argued that he “wished the matter adjusted in a way to make the least friction”. While President Wilson expressed no direct objections to Burleson’s segregation plans, support came primarily from other cabinet members.

Shortly after the April 11 cabinet meeting, cabinet members Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo and Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson segregated employees in their departments with no objection from President Wilson. Segregation was quickly implemented at the Post Office Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. Many African American employees were downgraded and even fired. Employees who were downgraded were transferred to the dead letter office, where they did not interact with the public. The few African Americans who remained at the main post offices were put to work behind screens, out of customers’ sight.

Much more at the site and full citations for all of the claims. It is about racism - just not what they tell you. The idea that President Trump is a racist is pure psychological projection on the part of the Democrats. They have nothing on him so they resort to flinging poo with the hope that some of it will stick.

Wonderful news - Fast and Furious

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F&F was a really stupid idea from the Obama administration - let Mexican cartel members and criminals buy guns from US sources and then track the guns to see where they go. This was stopped when Border Agent Brian Terry was brutally murdered with one of these guns. Obama stonewalled but justice is prevailing - from The New York Post:

The scandal in Washington no one is talking about
The deadly-but-forgotten government gun-running scandal known as “Fast and Furious” has lain dormant for years, thanks to White House stonewalling and media compliance. But newly uncovered emails have reopened the case, exposing the anatomy of a coverup by an administration that promised to be the most transparent in history.

A federal judge has forced the release of more than 20,000 pages of emails and memos previously locked up under President Obama’s phony executive-privilege claim. A preliminary review shows top Obama officials deliberately obstructing congressional probes into the border gun-running operation.

Fast and Furious was a Justice Department program that allowed assault weapons — including .50-caliber rifles powerful enough to take down a helicopter — to be sold to Mexican drug cartels allegedly as a way to track them. But internal documents later revealed the real goal was to gin up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in America. Fast and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws.

Only the scheme backfired when Justice agents lost track of the nearly 2,000 guns sold through the program and they started turning up at murder scenes on both sides of the border — including one that claimed the life of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

While then-Attorney General Eric Holder was focused on politics, people were dying. At least 20 other deaths or violent crimes have been linked to Fast and Furious-trafficked guns.

Great news - let the sunlight in, find out who was responsible and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. The majority of those guns are still out there. People will die.

Modest earthquake this morning - from the USGS Earthquake center:

M 5.4 - 227km W of Bandon, Oregon

No Tsunami warning at this time

This is where the big one will happen - these Mag 9 quakes happen every 300-500 years and the last one happened in January 26th, 1700 - 318 years ago.

And that is it for my day

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Had a bite to eat and then one beer - feeling very sleepy. It was not the first Tuesday of the month so very simple radio network. Reception was really good - minimal static. Sometimes it is almost unintelligible - we are communicating throughout Western Washington and the net control is South of Tacoma near Fort Lewis (Camp Murray)

Time for a bit of YouTube and then to bed. Cleaning house tomorrow - laundry and vacuum. Radio meeting Thursday and then up to the farm for a few days.

Heh - 100% spot on

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Saw this over at Kim DuToit's - a daily read for me:

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These mokes are nothing but a bunch of clueless socialist useful idiots.

Up and at 'em

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Heading out in a few minutes - coffee, post office and then to the Fire & Rescue building for today's radio net.

Fun stuff and really great people.

And I am outta here

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Got to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow early.

Just sayin' - guns

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Great little list at Grouchy Old Cripple:

Is Logic the same thing as common sense?
1 – Eleven teens die each day because of texting while driving.
Maybe it’s time to raise the age of Smart Phone ownership to 21.

2 – If gun control laws actually worked, Chicago would be Mayberry, USA.

3 – The Second Amendment makes more women equal than the entire feminist movement.

4 – Legal gun owners have 300 million guns and probably a trillion rounds of ammo. Seriously, folks, if we were the problem, you’d know it.

5 – When JFK was killed, nobody blamed the rifle.

6 – The NRA murders 0 people and receives $0 in government funds.
Planned Parenthood kills 350,000 babies every year and receives $500,000,000 in tax dollars annually.

7 – I have no problem with vigorous background checks when it comes to firearms.
While we’re at it, let’s do the same when it comes to immigration, Voter I.D and Candidates running for office.

8 – You don’t need a smoke detector; that’s what the fire department is for.
Now…if you think that sounds stupid, you know how I feel when you say I don’t need a gun.

9 – Folks keep talking about another Civil War. One side knows how to shoot and probably has a trillion rounds. The other side has crying closets and is confused about which bathroom to use.

Now tell me, how do you think that’s going to end?

Of course - Kamala Harris

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From USA Today:

Kamala Harris took money from law firm that represented Epstein on same day she blasted it
Kamala Harris bemoaned the influence of the powerful and connected elite last Tuesday when she called on top Justice Department officials to recuse themselves from any matter related to Jeffrey Epstein. She said their former law firm’s work on behalf of the financier accused of sexual abuse “calls into question the integrity of our legal system.”

Yet the same day, Harris’ husband headlined a Chicago fundraiser for her presidential campaign that was hosted by six partners of that firm – Kirkland and Ellis, according to an invitation obtained by The Associated Press.

Heh - the Democratic roster for the 2020 Presidential Elections is nothing but a circus clown car.

Not at all "into" social media. I still keep meaning to delete my faceb**k account (have not yet) but I have not logged into it for many many months. I think it is really sad when parents use tablets as baby sitters for their kids - an easy fix now but serious problems in a couple of years.

Anyway, from the Journal of the American Medical Association:

Association of Screen Time and Depression in Adolescence
Key Points
Question What is the association of various types of screen time and depression in adolescence?

Findings In this cohort study of 3826 adolescents, a within-person association, based on repeated measures, was found between social media and television use with symptoms of depression in adolescence.

Meaning Use of social media and television in adolescents may enhance symptoms of depression and should therefore be taken into account when developing preventive methods.

Abstract
Importance Increases in screen time have been found to be associated with increases in depressive symptoms. However, longitudinal studies are lacking.

Objective To repeatedly measure the association between screen time and depression to test 3 explanatory hypotheses: displacement, upward social comparison, and reinforcing spirals.

Design, Setting, and Participants This secondary analysis used data from a randomized clinical trial assessing the 4-year efficacy of a personality-targeted drug and alcohol prevention intervention. This study assessed screen time and depression throughout 4 years, using an annual survey in a sample of adolescents who entered the seventh grade in 31 schools in the Greater Montreal area. Data were collected from September 2012 to September 2018. Analysis began and ended in December 2018.

Main Outcomes and Measures Independent variables were social media, television, video gaming, and computer use. Symptoms of depression was the outcome, measured using the Brief Symptoms Inventory. Exercise and self-esteem were assessed to test displacement and upward social comparison hypothesis.

More at the site - 3,800 samples over four years is good statistics. I know several people who are glued to their screens and it is not just adolescents that have this problem.

I am a poster child for computers - dropped out of college when the first ones became available - but I have never been "owned" by them. I turn them on. I use them. I shut them off and do something else - read a book, talk with people either in a tavern or on the radio.

Pedo Epstein in the news

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Interesting development - from The Daily Beast:

Jeffrey Epstein Had ‘Piles of Cash,’ Diamonds, Saudi Passport in Safe
FBI agents found “piles of cash,” dozens of diamonds and an expired foreign passport in Jeffrey Epstein’s when they raided his Manhattan mansion last week, prosecutors revealed Monday.

The passport was issued in the 1980s and gave a residence of Saudi Arabia, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller said. It was not issued under Epstein’s name but did have what appeared to be a photo of him.

The safe’s contents were disclosed during a bail hearing at which prosecutors—and accusers—argued that Epstein is a flight risk and should be kept locked up until his sex-trafficking trial.

Flight risk indeed - keep him under lock and key until the whole thing comes to light. A lot harder for the Clintons to put out a hit on him. (Or anyone else.)

And back home again

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Burrito, a couple beers, some reading and I am a happy camper. Back home with an early bedtime - emergency radio network tomorrow morning. Surf for a bit first.

So that explains it

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It was Arkancide:

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Wonderful fisking of a paper linking wildfires with global warming. From A Chemist In Langley:

Why Confounding Variables Matter – On that UVic study attributing the 2017 Extreme Fire Season to Climate Change
One of the downsides of my investigation of evidence-based environmental decision-making being a hobby, is my real life often gets in the way. This means I am not always able to comment on every interesting paper when it comes out. One such example is the paper that came out in January from the University of Victoria titled Attribution of the Influence of Human-Induced Climate Change on an Extreme Fire Season. The paper has been a topic of intense conversation but very little critique. It is repeatedly cited by activists who have not read it, but feel the conclusions:

that the event’s high fire weather/behavior metrics were made 2–4 times more likely, and that anthropogenic climate change increased the area burned by a factor of 7–11.

help their political narrative. I keep expecting to read a serious challenge of its results because it has a really obvious flaw that essentially eliminates its usefulness in quantifying anything; but I haven’t seen one to date. I am surprised because once you see how it treats confounding variables it is impossible to take its quantification seriously. In the rest of this blog post I will provide an explanation for this statement.

Much more at the site. ACIL proceeds to name four variables that are key actors in wildfire formation and were ignored in the paper. It is almost like they were trying to cherry-pick their data to fit some narrative. Or something.

The storm

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So true:

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Gregorian Voices: Early Roman Catholic Church Song Generator

You can order an MP3 file with your settings if you are a Patreon. Nice stuff to run in the background.

Back to work

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Working from home today - bills and paperwork. Had a late lunch and getting back to work.

Ebola on the move

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Not good - from the London Daily Mail:

Ebola outbreak in the Congo spreads to a new city where one MILLION people live in the epidemic that has killed 1,600
Ebola has spread to the Congolese city of Goma, which has a population of more than a million people, as the virus continues to devastate the region.

The victim is a pastor who had arrived in the city by bus after visiting Butembo, a town around 200miles (320km) north in the centre of the outbreak.

He had been preaching at a church where he would have touched worshippers 'including the sick', the country's health ministry said on Sunday.

Authorities have urged people to remain calm after the government said the chances of the virus spreading were 'low'.

Yikes - the pastor had come from Goma which means that not only the pastor but there is the Goma parishioner. Depending on how long the pastor was there, he could have been contagious which means that the other passengers on that bus may well be infected.

This is a very nasty plague and it is spreading.

Capitalism in the news - India

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From The Hindu:

India lifted 271 million people out of poverty in 10 years: UN
India lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, recording the fastest reductions in the multidimensional poverty index values during the period with strong improvements in areas such as “assets, cooking fuel, sanitation and nutrition,” a report by the United Nations said.

The 2019 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) was released on Thursday.

The report said that in the 101 countries studied — 31 low income, 68 middle income and 2 high income - 1.3 billion people are “multidimensionally poor”, which means that poverty is defined not simply by income, but by a number of indicators, including poor health, poor quality of work and the threat of violence.

Some numbers:

In 2005-2006, the population in India living in multidimensional poverty stood at about 640 million people (55.1%) and this reduced to 369 million people (27.9%) living in poverty in 2015-16. India saw significant reductions in number of people who are multidimensionally poor and deprived in each of the 10 indicators over this time period.

India reduced deprivation in nutrition from 44.3% in 2005-06 to 21.2% in 2015-16, child mortality dropped from 4.5% to 2.2%, people deprived of cooking fuel reduced from 52.9% to 26.2%, deprivation in sanitation from 50.4% to 24.6%, those deprived of drinking water reduced from 16.6% to 6.2 %.

Further more people gained access to electricity as deprivation was reduced from 29.1% to 8.6%, housing from 44.9% to 23.6% and assets deprivation from 37.6% to 9.5%.

Cutting the number of poor people in half in just ten years. Socialism would never do that - it requires a large central government. What we are seeing is capitalism spread throughout the entire system. The corner store, the cook with a food cart, the shoemaker getting a new sewing machine. The rising tide floats ALL boats.

China needs us a lot lot more than we need them. From Russia Today:

China threatens to sever ties with any US firm linked to selling weapons to Taiwan
The Chinese foreign ministry has warned that American firms would be banned from doing business in China if they are involved in any arms deals with Taiwan.

“In order to safeguard national interests, China will impose sanctions on US companies involved in arms sales to Taiwan,”foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters on Monday. “The Chinese government and Chinese companies will not cooperate and do business with these US firms,” he added.

Answering reporters’ questions, Geng said the details about such companies and the timeline of any penalties against them will not be disclosed at present.

Beijing warned Washington last week “not to play with fire” and to cancel a planned $2.2 billion arms deal with Taiwan, accusing the US of interfering in China’s domestic affairs.

And a bit of background:

The planned arms sale would violate Beijing’s ‘One China’ principle, which views Taiwan as an integral part of China.

Relations between Beijing and Taipei have deteriorated since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a member of the island’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, took office in May 2016. China suspects her of seeking formal independence with support from Washington.

We have all seen the ineffectvie "Free Tibet" bumperstickers in liberal cities. In reality, if we sent in our military and liberated Tibet, all the progressives would run around with their hair on fire. Narrative versus reality again.

Now China is getting more insistent about Taiwan being a part of their worker's paradise and Taiwan is having nothing to do with it. China needs the revenues that the Taiwanese companies are getting. Given the choice between Chinese and Taiwanese machine tools and parts, the Taiwanese are profoundly better for not that much more money.

EU GPS satellites down

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Curious - from ZD Net:

EU's GPS satellites have been down for four days in mysterious outage
Galileo, the EU's global navigation satellite system, has been down for four days, since July 11, following a mysterious outage. All Galileo satellites are still non-operational, at the time of writing.

According to a service status page, 24 of the 26 Galileo satellites are listed as "not usable," while the other two are listing a status of "testing," which also means they're not ready for real-world usage.

The European GNSS Agency (GSA), the organization in charge of Galileo, has not published any information in regards to the root of the outage, which began four days ago, on Thursday, July 11.

On that day, the GSA published an advisory on its website alerting companies and government agencies employing the Galileo system that satellite signals have degraded and they "may not be available nor meet the minimum performance levels."

Yikes - GPS is used for a lot more than just positioning. I have several applications that I am running that use GPS for timing - the WSPR transmitter for one. To lose this service would shut down a lot more than people's navigation. Emergency 911 calling on cell phones for one.

Another shake

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An aftershock to the July 12th 4.1 Mag earthquake. From the USGS:

M 2.5 - 3km W of Monroe, Washington

Nothing much else to report.

Sticking it to Russia - oil

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Russia is a cash-poor nation. Their only real source of hard currency is their oil exports to Europe. From Marine Link:

U.S. Oil Makes it to Ukraine, a blow to Moscow
U.S. crude exports are gaining traction in Europe as even Ukraine turns into a significant consumer of American barrels at the expense of Russian supplies amid heightened U.S. political pressure on Moscow and problems over contaminated Russian oil.

Ukraine this month received its first ever barrels from the United States, according to Refinitiv Eikon flows data, as the tanker Wisdom Venture unloaded 80,000 tonnes of Bakken crude in Odessa on July 6 for the Kremenchug refinery, the port said.

Russia often struggles to export oil from the Black Sea via the narrow Turkish Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits due to congestion, making the arrival of the U.S. crude into the Black Sea from the Mediterranean even more extraordinary.

The oil was sold by BP to Ukrtatnafta, sources said, adding Ukrtatnafta will receive a further similar amount of U.S. crude around July 24, and more purchases were likely in August.

Yeah - President Trump and Vladimir Putin were in collusion. Riiiiggghhhhtttt... Trump is drinking Vlad's milkshake and there is not a thing that Pooty-poot can do about it.

A fun day - Highland Games

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Went up there this afternoon and had a wonderful time. The sheep dog trials were a blast - the battery on my video camera was flat and the charger and spares are still up at the farm so no videos. Here are a couple of examples from the 2008 Portland, OR Highland Games:

Jen had an Australian Kelpie and a couple of times, we took him down to Ewe-topia near Fort Lewis south of Seattle. Buster loved it but he was a bit too old to really start training.

Anyway, hung out there for a bit, got a bite to eat and my nightly two pints so back home. Surf, videos, then bed. Supposed to be attending a meeting either tomorrow or Tuesday. Radio network Tuesday morning.

Time for YouTube

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Got a meeting sometime Monday or Tuesday (four people - haven't coordinated yet) as well as the Emergency Communications drill Tuesday morning so staying down here for a couple more days.

Feeling sleepy so watch a video or three and head to bed.

Fun day today

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The air show was a lot of fun. This is not the big Arlington Fly-In in mid-August - planning to attend that as well.

Here are a few photos:

20190713-air01.jpg

20190713-air02.jpg

20190713-air03.jpgSaw this bumper sticker. It would be nice for Local and State politics as well:

20190713-air04.jpgThe Highland Games were a lot of fun as well - planning on going there tomorrow as they are doing a major sheep-herding competition. It is a real treat watching the dogs and the sheep. Bringing my video camera.

20190713-hg01.jpgBurrito and a couple of beers for dinner and back home again.

Recieved a network tap today ($20 from Amazon) so will be looking at just what the cellular local hot-spot is doing with my network. I had been looking at some software to analyze the traffic - so far have darkstat Observium and  Nagios installed on one of my Linux boxen but really looking at WireShark - there is a windows version as well as the Linux so will try both flavors and see what happens.

AOC gets Trumped

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2:02 of perfection:

Some fun to our South - Tacoma

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From the New York Times:

Man Attacking ICE Detention Center Is Fatally Shot by the Police
The police fatally shot a man who was attacking an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Wash., on Saturday morning, the authorities said.

The man, who was armed with a rifle, was throwing unspecified “incendiary devices” at the Northwest Detention Center, according to a police statement. The man, identified by officials on Saturday afternoon as Willem Van Spronsen, 69, of Vashon Island, Wash., continued throwing lit objects at buildings and cars, the statement said.

“One car was fully engulfed in flames,” said Officer Loretta Cool, a spokeswoman for the Tacoma Police Department. “He was also trying to ignite a big propane tank but he was not successful.”

Officers arrived around 4 a.m. and called out to Mr. Van Spronsen, who was wearing a satchel and had flares, the statement said. Shots were fired that resulted in his death, though Officer Cool could not say whether he had opened fire.

More at the NYT but nothing about Mr. Van Spronsen's political leanings. From paragraphs eight, nine and ten from this article in the Seattle Times:

Deb Bartley, a friend of Van Spronsen’s for about 20 years, described him as an anarchist and anti-fascist, and she believes his attack on the detention center was intended to provoke a fatal conflict.

“He was ready to end it,” Bartley said. “I think this was a suicide. But then he was able to kind of do it in a way that spoke to his political beliefs … I know he went down there knowing he was going to die.”

She and other friends of Van Spronsen got letters in the mail “just saying goodbye.” He also wrote what she referred to as a manifesto, which she declined to discuss in detail but predicted would be taken by authorities.

Buried below the fold that the guy was an anarchist, a fascist and wanted to commit suicide by cop.
And yes, there was a manifesto. There is always a manifesto with these whacked-out nut-jobs.

Outta here for the day

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Coffee, post office, dropping off two books at the library and then heading North for the Port of Skagit's Community Aviation Day. This is in conjunction with the Heritage Museum of Flight that I had visited last May. Then, it is off to the Highland Games for a couple hours celebrating my Celtic roots.

Hurricane Barry

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Hitting the Gulf Coast pretty hard - from Breitbart:

Hurricane Barry’s rain and floods hammer Gulf environment
Hurricane Barry could affect the environment of the Gulf coast and Lower Mississippi Valley in numerous ways, from accelerating runoff of farmland nutrients to toppling trees and damaging wildlife habitat and fisheries, scientists say.

But the extent of the damage — and whether it will be at least partially offset by benefits such as disruption of the notorious Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” — is hard to predict, they say. That’s because the region faces a rare one-two-three punch : the storm’s anticipated tidal surge and torrential downpour, combined with record-high water levels in the Mississippi River.

“We don’t know how the system is going to respond to all this because it’s so unusual,” said Melissa Baustian, a coastal ecologist with the Water Institute of the Gulf in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

One of the wettest-ever springs in the nation’s heartland engorged the Mississippi, sending massive volumes of water southward toward the Gulf. Levees and dams were breached and millions of acres of cropland flooded in the Midwest. Barry threatens to hurl a storm surge of up to 3 feet (1 meter) onto coastal regions. And forecasters said the hurricane could stall inland and dump up to 2 feet (61 centimeters) of rain.

Rainfall washes manure and chemical fertilizers from Midwestern corn and soybean fields into streams, smaller rivers and eventually the Mississippi. The nutrients — especially nitrogen — overfeed aquatic plants that eventually die and decompose, leaving a large section of the Gulf with little or no oxygen each summer. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that this year’s dead zone will be roughly the size of Massachusetts.

This could be a nasty storm as the cone has it following the Mississippi River upstream.

Highland Games tomorrow. Also bill paying, yardwork, laundry - all the fun stuff...

And the numbers show it - from FOX News:

CNN mired in a credibility crisis as ratings continue to collapse, experts say
CNN is suffering a credibility crisis as viewership for the once-proud network continues to crater with no apparent plan in place to fix things anytime soon, according to media watchdogs and insiders.

CNN’s audience shriveled in the second quarter of 2019, averaging only 541,000 total viewers, less than half Fox News Channel’s 1.3 million average. But CNN struggled even more during the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET, finishing as the fifteenth most-watched network on basic cable behind networks such as TLC, Investigation Discovery and the Hallmark Channel. CNN averaged a dismal 761,000 primetime viewers while FNC averaged 2.4 million.

When you do not broadcast what people are wanting, they will move to other sources. Like the title says...

The 9th is historically a bastion of leftist thought. So much so that the US Supreme Court between 2010 and 2015 reversed around 79 percent of its case decisions. They made two decisions that are absolutly spot on. From Don Surber:

First9th Circuit sides with Trump on sanctuary cities
Many parts of Los Angeles are lined with the homeless living in tents. Instead of tending the needs of American citizens, the Democrats who run the city welcome illegal aliens. Now the politicians will pay for that decision.

The Hill reported, "The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled in favor of the Trump administration's efforts to prioritize federal dollars for local policing to towns and cities that complied with certain immigration policies.

"The ruling, a split 2-1 decision, said the Department of Justice (DOJ) was within its rights to withhold Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants from sanctuary cities and states over their refusal to work with federal immigration enforcement authorities and instead prioritize agencies that focused on unauthorized immigration and agreed to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to jail records and immigrants in custody.

And Second9th Circuit sides with Trump over Planned Parenthood
The 9th Circuit Court ruled that taxpayers may abort funding for Planned Parenthood.

Our money, our choice.

Reuters reported, "A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected emergency bids to temporarily set aside its recent decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce a 'gag rule' that could strip Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers of federal funding for family planning.

"By a 7-4 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let stand its June 20 decision lifting injunctions blocking enforcement of the rule, which makes clinics ineligible for Title X family planning funds if they provide abortion referrals."

Great news. There are already charitible organizations that can provide money for these two social problems. We the tqaxpayers should not have to be on the hook for them. If anyone out there feels differently? Write a check to them. You have been paying for these services already through your IRS taxes. 

We have a comment - WSPR

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Someone had posted a comment to this post about my building a WSPR antenna.  The antenna is actually for my WSPR beacon transmitter. I am using the desktop unit from ZachTek and been getting solid repeatable spots at 1,000 miles with the occasional spot up to 2,700 miles (Hawaii). The current antenna is just a 4' hank of wire hanging out of my 2nd story window. The antenna I am building is a vertical 20' non-resonant single wire using a 9:1 Balun transformer and ground to get the coupling a bit more efficient.

I am setting up a receiver (KiwiSDR) and will be using a horizontal 60' non-resonant single wire for that receiving antenna. Been playing with some SDRs already - have two cheap Chinese units and been running an SDRPlay for the last four months and just love it. All of the fiddly bits of circuitry are now done entirely in software.

More as I get stuff built and on the air.

Sticky island syndrome again

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Did another productive run to Bellingham but did not get to the farm. Too much stuff happening here.

Slept right through a minor earthquake - it was at 2:51AM this morning. Felt all over the island.

From The Seattle Times:

Officials moved nearly 100 mountain goats from the Olympics last summer. How are they doing now?
Blindfolded, sedated mountain goats will soar over the Olympic Peninsula once again.

Beginning next week, a helicopter crew will capture mountain goats in Olympic National Park and the adjacent national forest. Captured animals will be taken across Puget Sound by refrigerator truck and released in the North Cascades mountain range.

The operation, now in its second year, is part of an ambitious, logistically complicated project that aims to correct historical wildlife-management mistakes, to eradicate mountain goats in a range where they’re not welcome and boost their numbers in another.

More than 100 goats were captured last summer and moved. Between 65 and 70 animals survived the winter, estimated Rich Harris, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist leading the agency’s work to translocate goats. Five of 10 relocated kid goats survived, he said.

This summer, helicopters crews will again use net guns and immobilizing darts to down goats from the air, then sling them beneath the aircraft and fly them to a staging area, where the animals receive veterinary attention before traveling.

More at the site - here is a photo by Ramon Dompor / The Seattle Times:

20190711-goats.jpg

Had goats when I was farming. Fun animals. I love the babies - talk about cute.

More climate news

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An interesting set of research is being published. From Zero Hedge:

Bombshell Claim: Scientists Find "Man-made Climate Change Doesn't Exist In Practice"
A new scientific study could bust wide open deeply flawed fundamental assumptions underlying controversial climate legislation and initiatives such as the Green New Deal, namely, the degree to which 'climate change' is driven by natural phenomena vs. man-made issues measured as carbon footprint. Scientists in Finland found "practically no anthropogenic [man-made] climate change" after a series of studies. 

“During the last hundred years the temperature increased about 0.1°C because of carbon dioxide. The human contribution was about 0.01°C”, the Finnish researchers bluntly state in one among a series of papers.

This has been collaborated by a team at Kobe University in Japan, which has furthered the Finnish researchers' theory: "New evidence suggests that high-energy particles from space known as galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth's climate by increasing cloud cover, causing an 'umbrella effect'," the just published study has found, a summary of which has been released in the journal Science Daily. The findings are hugely significant given this 'umbrella effect' — an entirely natural occurrence  could be the prime driver of climate warming, and not man-made factors

The scientists involved in the study are most concerned with the fact that current climate models driving the political side of debate, most notably the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) climate sensitivity scale, fail to incorporate this crucial and potentially central variable of increased cloud cover. 

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has discussed the impact of cloud cover on climate in their evaluations, but this phenomenon has never been considered in climate predictions due to the insufficient physical understanding of it," comments Professor Hyodo in Science Daily. "This study provides an opportunity to rethink the impact of clouds on climate. When galactic cosmic rays increase, so do low clouds, and when cosmic rays decrease clouds do as well, so climate warming may be caused by an opposite-umbrella effect."

In their related paper, aptly titled, “No experimental evidence for the significant anthropogenic [man-made] climate change”, the Finnish scientists find that low cloud cover "practically" controls global temperatures but that “only a small part” of the increased carbon dioxide concentration is anthropogenic, or caused by human activity. 

I can see that. Geologic record has the CO2 concentration changing about 800 years after the global temperature changes. CO2 is a lagging indicator and not a driver. Besides, Earth's CO2 used to be 9,000PPM instead of today's 460PPM and we are doing just fine.

A Climate Realist - Barnaby Joyce

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From Thomas Lifson writing at American Thinker:

Former Aussie deputy PM becomes backbencher, suddenly tells the truth about global warming
You've probably never heard of Barnaby Joyce, but he has twice been deputy prime minister of Australia, from February 2016 to October 2017 and from December 2017 to February 2018. During both terms, he served as leader of Oz's National Party, which frequently allies with the country's biggest conservative party, called the "Liberal Party." The National Party was formerly known as "The Country Party" and represents farmers, grazers, and other rural residents.

Like the United States, Australia is subject to agitation for CO2 emissions reduction in the name of "saving the planet." As deputy P.M. serving in coalition under the leadership of warmist true believer Malcolm Turnbull, Joyce could not speak his mind for fear of those interests.

But the pendulum swings and now the Australian government is conservative.
Here is Mr. Jones' epic rant on Facebook:

“The very idea that we can stop climate change is barking mad. Climate change is inevitable, as geology has always shown.” These are the views of New Zealand lecturer of geology, David Shelley. A person vastly more competent than me and the flotilla of others telling the kids the world is going to end from global warming.

The central theme of David Shelley’s analysis is that sea levels are rising and have been for thousands of years and will fall during the next ice age which is expected about now, give or take a thousand years.
When the ice age does arrive temperatures will drop around ten degrees. A warmer planet will be a disconsolate chronicle and many, maybe most, will die from starvation as is the usual experience of man or beast in previous ice ages.

The weather is going to brutally win the population problem and the parliament of Australia has no power against it. One may suggest that warmer weather is the better problem of the two.

One of the few graces of being on the backbench is you can be honest with what your views really are. I believe this is one of the greatest policy phantoms, the misguided and quite ludicrous proposition that Australia can have any affect on the climate. If we could we should be the first to make it rain and, more importantly, stop the recurrence of an ice age anytime in the coming millennium.

Politics takes politics to the absurd. We have to absolutely affirm that our domestic settings can deal with a proposition which is stated quite clearly by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that: “In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled nonlinear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

You don’t get the feeling when you listen to the political propaganda or the supporting lobbyists that there is any doubt about their capacity to “fix the climate problem” I do get the feeling that you will be tried for heresy if you dare question the zeitgeist so you basically have to lie about your honest assessment of what the hell we are doing to our economy, standard of living, our basic rights and the real future of our children.

Today, more than in the past, the political debate is set within a predetermined paradigm. Participants can not ague outside these preset boundaries. Maybe it is over cynical but I believe the promotion of the primacy of the state over the individual is very well served by the apparent necessity of climate policy.

Private property rights are removed, by the implementation of vegetation laws, because of “climate action”. The state will limit your access to electricity because of “climate action”. You will drive an electric car because of “climate action”. You will divest the nation of its largest export because of “climate action”. Rather than state there is no prospect whatsoever that any action of ours, and most likely of anyone else, will have any affect whatsoever on the trajectory climate is on.

We have instead the congenial narrative that we are all trying to make the world get cooler, but one path or the other path is the better alternative of cooling policies . We will do this by shutting down all our power stations, replacing them with windmills and rejiggering our nation away from our largest exports of mining and agricultural resources to carbon neutral tourism and the knowledge economy. Australia will be the catalyst to a global epiphany and the totalitarian Chinese regime will follow our lead because of our righteousness followed by India and the United States.

No, I don’t think that will happen. I hate to say it but I doubt the majority of people on the planet, give a toss about the Paris Agreement. I would be amazed if one percent of the planet could competently explain it.

I will make one prediction; after this is published it will be promptly followed by the remnants of the traditional media in furious pursuit of my heresy. Questions will be asked by the fourth estate and high octane derision will issue forth from the climate change actionistas.

No doubt I will be accused of not knowing what I am talking about, and when it comes to predicting the weather more than a fortnight or so out, that is true. But of those who ask the questions, will any of them truly understand what on earth are they are talking about?

A classic example of speaking truth to power. All the measured data point to a cooling period. All the computer models point to warming. Guess what one I believe?

Where'd the day go?

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Hit the ground running this morning and finally back at home. Good meeting. Got a quick grocery run down to WinCo in Marysville. They have some really nice frozen Ahi Tuna steaks and got two of them for dinner tomorrow but one (or both) of the dogs have discovered that plastic wrapped stuff can sometimes contain tasty snacks and when I went to unpack the car, I found the two wrappers but no tuna. Dang...

Heading up to the farm tomorrow. Spend the night and then down for the Highland Games on Saturday - 25th Annual.

My tuesday occasional emergency communications network is on the 16th so spending the weekend down here.

And that is it for tonight

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Work on the WSPR antenna tomorrow - got the Balun built and most of the box to house it. Meeting of the prep group tomorrow evening.

Old Weather

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Very cool project - from their ABOUT page:

The Project
Old Weather volunteers explore, mark, and transcribe historic ship's logs from the 19th and early 20th centuries. We need your help because this task is impossible for computers, due to diverse and idiosyncratic handwriting that only human beings can read and understand effectively.

By participating in Old Weather you'll be helping advance research in multiple fields. Data about past weather and sea-ice conditions are vital for climate scientists, while historians value knowing about the course of a voyage and the events that transpired. Since many of these logs haven't been examined since they were originally filled in by a mariner long ago you might even discover something surprising.

About the Science
Millions of weather, ocean, and sea-ice observations recorded by mariners and scientists over the past 150 years are being recovered by Old Weather. These data are made freely available in digital formats suitable for climate model assimilation, retrospective analysis (reanalysis), and other kinds of research. The performance of data-assimilating modeling and extended reanalysis systems is greatly improved, the uncertainty of results (especially in sparsely observed regions like the Arctic) is reduced, and new long-period calibration and validation data sets are being created. As the historical data resource is extended farther back in time it will be possible to study a wider range of weather and climate phenomena and to better understand their impact on the Arctic and global environment, now and in the future.

Actually, really surprised that this wasn't started 30 years ago. We have lots of historical record spanning the globe. Time to compare it to the current climate and see how the current crop of computer models does.

Be sure to check out: Old Weather  There is also an Old Weather Blog and Forum

Dinnertime

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Heading out for dinner and a couple pints. Putting some beans on to soak for minnestrone soup for tomorrow. Been a while since I made any and with the cool drizzly weather, it will be perfect. Maybe make a Panzanella Salad to start the meal with. I have some crusty bread that is a bit old.

An upcoming suicide

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20190710-arcancide.jpg

For more information (as well as a large list of examples) check out the website for Arkancide.

Security cameras in the news

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Looks like we are (finally) getting serious about Chinese spying. From Bloomberg:

Banned Chinese Security Cameras Are Almost Impossible to Remove
U.S. federal agencies have five weeks to rip out Chinese-made surveillance cameras in order to comply with a ban imposed by Congress last year in an effort to thwart the threat of spying from Beijing.

But thousands of the devices are still in place and chances are most won’t be removed before the Aug. 13 deadline. A complex web of supply chain logistics and licensing agreements make it almost impossible to know whether a security camera is actually made in China or contains components that would violate U.S. rules.

The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which outlines the budget and spending for the Defense Department each year, included an amendment for fiscal 2019 that would ensure federal agencies do not purchase Chinese-made surveillance cameras. The amendment singles out Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., both of which have raised security concerns with the U.S. government and surveillance industry.

Hikvision is 42% controlled by the Chinese government. Dahua, in 2017, was found by cybersecurity company ReFirm Labs to have cameras with covert back doors that allowed unauthorized people to tap into them and send information to China. Dahua said at the time that it fixed the issue and published a public notice about the vulnerability. The U.S. government is considering imposing further restrictions by banning both companies from purchasing American technology, people familiar with the matter said in May.

Good. We have seen this before with other Chinese electronics - specifically servers imported and used by a number of large corporations including Apple and Amazon.

The malicious chips, which were not part of the original server motherboards designed by the U.S-based company Super Micro, had been inserted during the manufacturing process in China.

Glad to see the US finally being proactive.

A big weather system is hitting Louisiana. A couple of clickable headlines:

From The Weather Channel:

Tropical Storm Barry Likely to Form in Gulf of Mexico, May Become a Hurricane; Flooding, Surge, Wind Threats Ahead

    • A broad area of low pressure is likely to develop in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
    • It will eventually strengthen into Tropical Storm Barry, and become a hurricane before landfall this weekend.
    • Tropical storm, hurricane and storm-surge watches could be issued for a portion of the northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday.
    • The track of future Barry remain a bit uncertain.
    • A major threat of rainfall flooding is in play over the northern Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi Valley.
    • Storm surge flooding is also likely, particularly to the east of future Barry's track.

And the cone - from the National Hurricane Center:

20190710-cone.jpg

Time to batten down the hatches. It will be interesting to see if all the post-Katrina money was well spent.

And back to the island

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Spent a couple hours in Bellingham doing stuff and now back to the island. I have a meeting tomorrow evening so staying down for that and then up to the farm for another load.

Youtube and bed

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Farm tomorrow - supposed to be raining quite a bit.

Over 50 earthquakes today. None under 2.5 Mag (my lower threshold for reporting) and several over 4.0. All of them shallow. What is going on?

A word from the wise

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None other than The Woz - from TMZ:

STEVE WOZNIAK:  GET OFF FACEBOOK!!!  Privacy Concerns Scare Me
Steve Wozniak has a warning for anyone who uses social media ... the platforms are eavesdropping on your private conversations, and sending that precious data to advertisers.

We got Steve at Reagan National Airport in D.C. Friday and just had to ask him if he's worried about Facebook, Instagram and others infringing on his privacy ... the Woz says he's terrified, and you should be too!!!

Steve knows what he's talking about ... the dude co-founded Apple, and he's very much plugged into Silicon Valley and all aspects of tech.

Wise words from someone who knows what he is talking about...

Staring down the barrel - JAWS

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Time to cue the soundtrack - it is going to be a wet week - from Cliff Mass:

JAWS is Making Landfall on the Northwest Coast
Yes, JAWS.

A July Abnormally Wet System (JAWS) is approaching the Northwest coast as I write this blog. The view from space is scary and unusual for this time of the year. It looks like a November satellite image.

20190709-jaws01.jpg

The latest high-resolution UW WRF model forecast shows the rain coming into Puget Sound this evening--earlier on the coast and to the southwest.

During the next few days, western Washington and Oregon should be wetted down, with potentially several inches in the high elevations of the Olympics, north Cascades, and mountains of southern BC (see below...total accumulation through 5 PM Friday). The heaviest rain will be overnight tonight, but there will be plenty of showers tomorrow.

Glad to see a brief respite for Saturday - two events I am planning to attend. Sunday will start up with JAWS II and JAWS III is tentatively penciled in for July 19 and 22. It will have even bigger (or wetter) teeth.

Solid overcast and starting to spit some rain.

The perils of a cashless society

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So easy to just put everything on plastic. Unfortunately, with corporations like Google and Facebook, government surveillance is just a heartbeat away. The citizens of Hong Kong are trying to get out from underneath the Red Chinese government oppression. There are large demonstrations going on. This from c w swanson:

Hong Kong Protests Show Dangers of a Cashless Society - Lesson: never allow any government to do away with cash.
Allowing cash to die would be a grave mistake. A cashless society is a surveillance societyThe recent round of protests in Hong Kong highlights exactly what we have to lose.

In Hong Kong, most people use a contactless smart card called an "Octopus card" to pay for everything from transit, to parking, and even retail purchases. It's pretty handy: Just wave your tentacular card over the sensor and make your way to the platform.

But no one used their Octopus card to get around Hong Kong during the protests. The risk was that a government could view the central database of Octopus transactions to unmask these democratic ne'er-do-wells. Traveling downtown during the height of the protests? You could get put on a list, even if you just happened to be in the area.

So the savvy subversives turned to cash instead. Normally, the lines for the single-ticket machines that accept cash are populated only by a few confused tourists, while locals whiz through the turnstiles with their fintech wizardry.

But on protest days, the queues teemed with young activists clutching old school paper notes. As one protester told Quartz: "We're afraid of having our data tracked."

Using cash to purchase single tickets meant that governments couldn't connect activists' activities with their Octopus accounts. It was instant anonymity. Sure, it was less convenient. And one-off physical tickets cost a little more than the Octopus equivalent. But the trade-off of avoiding persecution and jail time was well worth it.

Or, you do something the government doesn't like and the shut down your access to digital money, leaving you absolutely broke.  Or, you get into a tax dispute with the IRS, and they simply take the money they think you owe, and then challenge you to litigate the issue with them.

A cashless society is a tyrant's dream.

These are very wise words. I always like to keep cash on hand for a reserve. Find a killer deal at an auction or yard sale? Cash. Grid goes down for a few days? Cash. Need to buy something questionable? Cash. The OG of financial transactions. Glad to see the people of Hong Kong taking these precautions.

The slap on the wrist that he got earlier - from American Thinker:

The question that must be asked: Was Epstein running 'honey traps' and blackmailing the power elite?
It strikes me as quite unlikely that Jeffrey Epstein's motive for allegedly inviting powerful figures from the U.S. and Europe aboard the Lolita Express on a trip to Orgy Island was mere fellowship — as if they were playing a round of golf together.  My dominant hypothesis is that he was video-recording highly illegal and morally reprehensible rapes for use as blackmail material.  It might have been insurance against serious prosecution for his indulging in his own perversion, which would explain why his punishment the first time he was prosecuted was laughably light.

And the liberals are pointing to a 2002 quote from President Trump where he said:

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” - Donald Trump, 2002

Do not forget that when Epstein acted on his urges at Mar-a-lago, Donald Trump found out and banned him

Court Documents: Trump Banned Epstein From Mar-A-Lago For Alleged Assault On Underage Girl
Bradley Edwards, a lawyer who represented Jefferey Epstein’s victims, stated in court documents that Trump had barred Epstein from his Mar-A-Lago estate “because Epstein sexually assaulted an underage girl at the club.”

Neither Trump nor Mar-A-Lago have confirmed that Epstein had been banned from the club.

During the 2016 election, Trump alleged Bill Clinton might have a strong connection to Epstein, Clinton is reported to have traveled on Epstein’s plane dozens of times. Referring to Clinton, Trump stated, “Nice guy — uh, got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island, with Jeffrey Epstein. A lot of problems.”

This will be fun to watch as it plays out...

...are the wheels of the bus running over Bill Clinton. He is just another old white dude. Past his prime so let's throw him under. From Townhall:

BREAKING: Bill Clinton Denies Knowing Anything About His Pedophile Friend Jeffery Epstein But Flight Logs Show Otherwise
Former President Bill Clinton, who is longtime friends with pedophile Jeffery Epstein, has released a statement about the billionaire's arrest over the weekend and charges related to child sex abuse and trafficking.

"President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffery Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York. In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein's airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation," Clinton's spokesperson said. "Staff, supporters of the Foundation, and his Secretary Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip. He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time, made one brief visit to Epstein's New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail. He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein's ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida."

According to extensive reporting and flight logs, Clinton took at least 26 trips to Epstein's private island where much of the abuse occurred. He ditched his Secret Service detail to do so.

As Bill and Hillary retire from public life to spend more time with their family...

This has been around for a while - surfaces every other year or so. From The Guardian:

Indoor carbon dioxide levels could be a health hazard, scientists warn
Indoor levels of carbon dioxide could be clouding our thinking and may even pose a wider danger to human health, researchers say.

While air pollutants such as tiny particles and nitrogen oxides have been the subject of much research, there have been far fewer studies looking into the health impact of CO2.

However, the authors of the latest study – which reviews current evidence on the issue – say there is a growing body of research suggesting levels of CO2 that can be found in bedrooms, classrooms and offices might have harmful effects on the body, including affecting cognitive performance.

And some numbers:

Traditionally, the team say, it had been thought that CO2 levels would need to reach a very high concentration of at least 5,000 parts per million (ppm) before they would affect human health. But a growing body of research suggests CO2 levels as low as 1,000ppm could cause health problems, even if exposure only lasts for a few hours.

The team say crowded or poorly ventilated classrooms, office environments and bedrooms have all been found to have levels of CO2 that exceed 1,000ppm, and are spaces that people often remain in for many hours at a time. Air-conditioned trains and planes have also been found to exceed 1,000ppm.

OK - let us look at a real-world environment with elevated levels of CO2 in the breathing air. Submarines. They spend months under water and they do scrub the CO2 out of the breathing air but not all of it. This is not needed and much easier to allow a certain level to accumulate. From Anthony Watts, October 17, 2012:

Claim: CO2 makes you stupid? Ask a submariner that question
From Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, something that might finally explain Al Gore’s behavior – too much time spent indoors and in auditoriums giving pitches about the dangers of CO2. One wonders though what the Navy submarine service has to say about this new research:

We try to keep CO2 levels in our U.S. Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 time current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels. – Senate testimony of Dr. William Happer, here

This is backed up by the publication from the National Academies of Science Emergency and Continuous Exposure Guidance Levels for Selected Submarine Contaminants

which documents effects of CO2 at much much higher levels than the medical study, and shows regular safe exposure at these levels…

Data collected on nine nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of 3,500 ppm with a range of 0-10,600 ppm, and data collected on 10 nuclear-powered attack submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of 4,100 ppm with a range of 300-11,300 ppm (Hagar 2003). – page 46

…but shows no concern at the values of 600-2500 ppm of this medical study from LBNL. I figure if the Navy thinks it is safe for men who have their finger on the nuclear weapons keys, then that is good enough for me.

Sigh. Fake Science. Rhetoric and not actual facts. One last quote from the researcher at the Guardian article:

“There is enough evidence to be concerned, not enough to be alarmed. But there is no time to waste,” said Dr Michael Hernke, a co-author of the study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, stressing further research was needed.

Of course "further research was needed" - that is Dr. Hernke's source of income. Salary and operating costs for his lab. He wants a bigger rice bowl and is willing to prostitute science to get it. Do these people have no shame?

As California continues to shake (about 50 quakes today, nothing under 2.5 Mag and very very shallow), Commander Zero has some words of advice regarding his own experiences with the 1994 Northridge quake (not mentioning the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, a stronger one; also in an urban setting):

California rolls
California shimmied like a little hula figurine on the dashboard. I have virtually no experience with earthquakes except for that one time I was flat on my bed in a hospital, with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, and we had the strongest earthquake in 60 years. Its a very queer feeling when something as ‘rock solid’ as the ground beneath you suddenly becomes Jell-o. Its like watching the sun set in the north, or seeing water flow uphill…your brain just cannot comprehend it.

I’ll be cruising the usual discussion boards looking at peoples AARs. It is always good to learn at other peoples expense. Still trying to figure out how the California politicians will blame this on Trump…

Moral of the story: It happens. You’re not wasting your time and money by being ready for it. It DOES happen.

AAR is an After Action Report - people involved in preparedness and communication always debrief after whether it's a training exercise or the real thing. This is where you find the flaws in your system and work to improve them for the next time. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Raconteur Report takes this and offers their own précis:

TL;DR?

    1. No one is coming to help you. YOYO. Plan accordingly.
    2. 72 hours of supplies? AHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Try 14-30 days, minimum. Yes, really. IMHO, if you're not ready for 60 days totally self-sustained, you're selling yourself short.
    3. Northridge utilities/situation overview:
      • Power: Nada. For 11 days. They weren't even sure they could reboot an entire city from scratch when they flipped the switches, but it worked. That time.
      • Water: Boil water orders for 30+ days, thousands of breaks in water mains (18" from sewer mains, btw). 25 years later and L.A. still hasn't found and fixed them all. (Doubt me? Google "L.A. sinkholes" since 1994-yesterday. The prosecution rests, your Honor.)
      • Heat: It was sunny the day after, even in January. If this had been cold, wet winter, like anywhere in 49 other states, or half of even this one, we would have started loosing people to exposure within two-three days.
      • Communication: Ha. Pre-cell era. No POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) for a week. Now, >50% of people don't even have landline POTS. (Might want to rethink that clever strategy, kids.) And cell towers have far less capacity, and maybe 24-72 hrs battery back-up. Maybe.
      • ATMs: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Cash in hand, or do without.
      • Retail business: AHAHAHAHAHA. For two weeks. Only when the power came back on.
      • Transportation grid: Hundreds of normal overpasses condemned.  The I-5 down to one lane in each direction for a month, and 300 yards of 100-foot-tall overpass gone.
      • Gasoline: Did I mention there was no power for 11 days??  You had the gas you had, until it ran out, or you drove 50 miles away to fill a tank, out of the affected area. So, imagine that was not possible, or a lot farther away than 50 miles.  And remember, hundreds of freeway overpasses were out.
      • General destruction: they were still pulling bodies and victims out of rubble two days later, and than was with less than 100 actual rescues or fatalities, and everyone within 200 miles helping out.  Now imagine 1000, or 10,000 victims.

Most of the preparedness strategies are dead simple - buy a few extra cans of food when you go grocery shopping. Save milk/juice containers and refill them with water and a drop of Clorox. Go here and spend about two months, a few hours a week, memorizing the questions and answers and become a licensed amateur radio operator. You can buy a really decent transceiver kit for under $50 (this has a much better antenna, an additional battery and the programming cable - you use free software to set up for your local frequencies instead of having to use the internal keypad). Make sure you have some books and a radio to keep you occupied as well as a source of light and maybe something to heat your food. Do a little bit of this every week and you will be set sooner than you realize it.

Done with lunch

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Heading out for a bit - metal store and Costco

Hmmmm - Iran

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Way too early to tell yet but there is a rumor that Iran might be willing to sit down with the USA and negotiate.

More as it comes to light.

Looks like we are winning big - from the Nikkei Asian Review:

HP, Dell and Microsoft look to join electronics exodus from China
Global consumer electronics makers HP, Dell, Microsoft and Amazon are all looking to shift substantial production capacity out of China, joining a growing exodus that threatens to undermine the country's position as the world's powerhouse for tech gadgets.

HP and Dell, the world's No. 1 and No. 3 personal computer makers who together command around 40% of the global market, are planning to reallocate up to 30% of their notebook production out of China, several sources told the Nikkei Asian Review.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Sony and Nintendo are also looking at moving some of their game console and smart speaker manufacturing out of the country, multiple sources told the Nikkei Asian Review. Other leading PC makers such as Lenovo Group, Acer and Asustek Computer are also evaluating plans to shift, according to people familiar with the matter.

Much more at the site. The article does not mention the IP theft, the spying, and the security issues but I bet that these are major factors as well.

About that climate catastrophe

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The Gang Green keeps telling us that our planet is losing plant life hand over fist. Not so. Carbon Dioxide is a key part of photosynthesys - it is plant food and the more of it that goes into our atmosphere, the more plants grow.
From Human Progress:

Rejoice, the Earth Is Becoming Greener
Amid all the talk of an imminent planetary catastrophe caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, another fact is often ignored: global greening is happening faster than climate change. The amount of vegetation growing on the earth has been increasing every year for at least 30 years. The evidence comes from the growth rate of plants and from satellite data.

In 2016 a paper was published by 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries that analysed satellite data and concluded that there had been a roughly 14% increase in green vegetation over 30 years. The study attributed 70% of this increase to the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The lead author on the study, Zaichun Zhu of Beijing University, says this is equivalent to adding a new continent of green vegetation twice the size of the mainland United States.

Global greening has affected all ecosystems – from arctic tundra to coral reefs to plankton to tropical rain forests – but shows up most strongly in arid places like the Sahel region of Africa, where desertification has largely now reversed. This is because plants lose less water in the process of absorbing carbon dioxide if the concentration of carbon dioxide is higher. Ecosystems and farms will be less water-stressed at the end of this century than they are today during periods of low rainfall.

There should have been no surprise about this news. Thousands of experiments have been conducted over many years in which levels of CO2 had been increased over crops or wild ecosystems and boosted their growth. The owners of commercial greenhouses usually pump CO2 into the air to speed up the growth of plants. CO2 is plant food.

The original paper is at Nature:

Greening of the Earth and its drivers
Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services. Yet how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established. Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). CO2 fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau. LCC contributed most to the regional greening observed in southeast China and the eastern United States. The regional effects of unexplained factors suggest that the next generation of ecosystem models will need to explore the impacts of forest demography, differences in regional management intensities for cropland and pastures, and other emerging productivity constraints such as phosphorus availability.

The "environmentalists" are again promoting a narrative while people like Professor Zhu are promoting facts.

And that is it for the evening

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Running a couple errands tomorrow and up to the farm Tuesday or Wednesday. Scheduling some work to be done on the island home.

Fixing yet another batch of hummingbird nectar. Running low on the second 40 pound bag of Costco sugar - the buggers are drinking me out of house and home. I love them. Also getting some crows hanging around - put out some peanuts and a dish of water for them. The are getting somewhat acclimated to the pups and me being out in the yard.

California is still shaking

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Lots of smaller quakes are rattling California - 2.5 Mag up to 3.8 or so. All relatively shallow so they will be felt a lot more than deeper ones. There are also six smallish quakes (2.5 Mag to 3.3 Mag) running along the subduction zone - activity is starting to spread.

Not elected yet but a shoe-in at the polls. From The Washington Post:

‘Moronic & clueless’: Boris Johnson sparks outrage, saying everyone in Britain should speak English first
English is far from the only language spoken in Britain.

In fact, significant time and resources have been put toward preserving indigenous minority languages across Britain, including Welsh, Gaelic, Scots and Irish. And, of course, many other languages are spoken — among them Polish, Punjabi, Arabic and French.

It’s understandable how Boris Johnson, a front-runner to replace British Prime Minister Theresa May at 10 Downing Street, ruffled some feathers Friday when he said, “There are too often parts of our country … where English is not spoken by some people as their first language.”

And the key line of his quote:

The most important priority for immigrants should be “to be and to feel British,” he said, “and to learn English.”

The usual suspects ignored this most-important point and went on a rant:

The comments sparked outrage across Britain, where they were seen as echoing populist talking points targeting immigrants and disrespecting centuries-old languages indigenous to the region.

Scottish lawmaker Angus MacNeil tweeted, “Boris is just moronic & clueless.”

“Same arrogance of centuries past that did down native Celtic languages for the Germanic import,” he wrote, referring to the English language’s West Germanic roots. “Multilingualism please Boris and drop the cultural imperialism.”

Again, this was never about supressing the celtic languages, it was that people coming in from other lands need to learn the language and culture. Right now, they are getting free shit from the English government (paid for by the English citizen's taxes) and they are not being asked to do anything. Of course they want to come.

From CNBC:

Deutsche Bank will exit global equities business and slash 18,000 jobs in sweeping overhaul
Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will pull out of global equities sales and trading, scale back investment banking and slash thousands of jobs as part of a sweeping restructuring plan to improve profitability.

Deutsche will cut 18,000 jobs for a global headcount of around 74,000 employees by 2022. The bank aims to reduce adjusted costs by a quarter to 17 billion euros ($19 billion) over the next several years.

The German bank’s decision to scale back investment banking comes just two days after investment banking chief Garth Ritchie stepped down by “mutual agreement.”

Deutsche expects its restructuring plan to cost 7.4 billion euros by the end of 2022. The German bank may report a net loss of 2.8 billion euros in the second quarter of 2019. It will release second quarter results on July 25.

18,000 jobs is massive - almost a quarter of their workforce gone. Poof. Actual percentage is 24.32% to pick nits.

Wonder what is up over there - the German economy was supposed to be solid...

Heading out

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Dinner and a couple of beers. Back in a couple hours.

The Left opposes Science

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Great examination from journalist John Stossel:

Morons in California

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What idiots - from the East Bay Express:

That Old Gas Stove Is Not Your Friend
As the United States has begun transitioning away from the use of coal and petroleum as a source of electricity and fuel, natural gas has been viewed as a relatively benign fossil fuel. After all, natural gas produces less carbon dioxide when burned than those other fossil fuels. It remains the energy source in about half of California's buildings.

But scientists have increasingly warned that methane, the main component of natural gas, is itself a key heat-trapping gas — 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first twenty years after release, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. In addition to the carbon dioxide created by its burning, the inevitable leaks as natural gas is extracted and shipped, make gas a serious climate threat in its own right.

State policy calls for the electrification of buildings — the source of about 10 percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from natural gas. Several state agencies and many cities and counties are working on a variety of programs to promote electrification. But none have gone as far as the ordinance scheduled to come before the Berkeley City Council on July 9.

Once again, the City of Berkeley is considering a groundbreaking environmental policy: This time it's a ban on natural gas hookups in all new buildings, starting January 1, 2020.

Aside from the fact that a flame is a lot better to cook on than an electric hob (better heat control), are they seriously proposing electric resistance heating for cooking. Don't they realize that 70% of the electricity in this nation comes from coal and 25%+ from the combination of nuke, hydro and natural gas turbines. About 3% of this nation's electricity comes from "renewables" and it is our tax dollars that are paying the subsidies to make these work. Burn coal to cook food. Stupid self-centered idiots.

ZDoggMD is the online name of Dr. Zubin Damania whose YouTube videos are fun and informative. In this one, he talks about the Dunning-Kruger effect. We see this a lot with our elected officials and in other bureaucratic life.

Be sure to check out his other videos - great stuff and well presented.

Out for coffee &c...

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Was planning to go to Bellingham Monday but went up yesterday instead - having something printed and it was ready so combined a bunch of errands into one nice trip. Raining off and on so a pleasant drive through farm country.

Getting a bite to eat this morning and then doing a dump run.

From the Los Angeles Times:

No deaths reported in the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Southern California
The 7.1 magnitude earthquake that rocked Southern California on Friday night rattled buildings, fractured roadways and left residents on edge, but did not cause any fatalities or major injuries, officials said.

California’s second major earthquake in less than two days struck near Ridgecrest, a Mojave Desert town about 125 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The same area was rattled by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake, the largest in nearly two decades, on the morning of July Fourth.

The Friday night earthquake was about 10 times larger, seismologists said. Shaking was felt as far away as Phoenix, Las Vegas, Baja California and Reno, according to crowd-sourced data on the U.S. Geological Survey.

Again, very glad that the stress is being relieved by a bunch of smaller quakes than by one really big one. There were about 20 smaller but still significant aftershocks with this one.

Grizzly Tools

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I love the place - have a lot of their tools. Well made, hold their accuracy and well priced. They started in the 1980's and are now the largest tool supplier in the USA (for good reason). They just published a very nice video of their founder, his story and the growth of the business - a great example of the power of America. Want to do something? Put in the time? You can do it!

Ka-Boom indeed

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Several tens of thousands of dollars were spent on fireworks in my neighborhood last night. There were a couple houses that really did it up and I was sitting on the deck right in the middle of it. Better than some municipal shows - longer too. Some houses were still going strong at 11PM. 'Murrica!!!!!!!!!

Wet July so far

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That front is starting to move in - the air felt particularly gravid this afternoon.

No updates on Cliff Mass' post yesterday - we will see...

From Associated Press:

Armed Utah teachers practice responding to school shootings
Nancy Miramontes had 30 seconds to find the gunman.

The Utah school psychologist weaved through a maze of dusty halls before spotting him in the corner of a classroom, holding a gun to a student’s head. She took a deep breath and fired three shots, the first time she’s ever used a gun. One bullet pierced the shooter’s forehead.

“Nice work,” a police officer told her as they exchanged high-fives in front of cardboard props representing the gunman and student.

Miramontes recently joined 30 other Utah teachers at a series of trainings where police instructed them on how to respond to an active shooter. Teachers went through the shooting drill inside a warehouse set up to look like a school, then moved outside to a shooting range.

Something that most anti-gun people fail to recognize is that shooting is not just buying a gun and pulling a trigger. If you want to take this sport seriously and not be a danger to your fellow man, you need training. Lots of regular training. I have probably a hundred hours under my belt (over ten years) and consider this to be bare minimum. I also shot regularly by myself at the farm - at least once/month until I started spending my time on Camano and am planning to visit some of the ranges down here.

The a**holes who get their pathetic kicks from murdering civilians are, at heart, cowards. They carefully choose places that have the most "shock value" but are also gun-free zones. The a**hole who shot up the Colorado movie theater avoided a theater closer to his home because the theater's policy was to allow people with guns to watch a movie. That theater was larger, showing the same film and was closer to his house. He avoided it because there was the chance that someone would defend themselves. Instead, he chose a theater further away that was a posted "Gun Free Zone".

We do not need all teachers to be armed. Those that are uncomfortable with carrying a gun can bow out. What this sort of training is doing is sending a message to some screwed up poindexter that, you do not know, there may be someone just inside the door that will stop you. A shot to the gut will not kill you but it will incapacitate you and keep you on the ground until the police arrive. Then you can have a trial and spend the rest of your worthless life in prison.

Glad to see Utah waking up to reality.

Getting pretty loud out there

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Still light but lots of fireworks being set off. Going to get a beer and sit outside for a while.

YouTube after that and then bedtime - got a lot on my plate for tomorrow.

Obama put into place a lot of rules that simply do not make sense. They sound good to the average low-information voter but they do not do good. From The Daily Caller:

Here’s The Next Obama-Era Reg Trump’s Energy Department Is Preparing To Nix
The Department of Energy announced Tuesday a rule-making process that could ding an Obama-era environmental regulation slowing down dishwashers.

DOE decided to grant a petition to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to allow a dishwasher product class with a cycle time for the normal cycle of less than one hour. Former President Barack Obama enacted a rule in 2016 making the average dishwasher cycle more than two hours — Americans enjoyed a cycle time of one hour decades ago.

The Obama-era rule was part of the DOE’s plan at the time to impose 23 different energy efficiency regulations for household appliances by 2018. Obama issued more energy standards for household appliances than any previous administration, all in the name of fighting global warming.

Great news - this is something that the Daily Caller already wrote about in June 10th, 2016:

Obama’s Energy Efficiency Regs Are Making Appliances Way Worse
The Obama administration’s seemingly never-ending wave of energy efficiency regulations for everyday household appliances don’t seem to be working very well, according to congressional testimony.

Energy Department regulators have or plan to impose 23 different energy efficiency regulations for household appliances by 2018, and already the home appliance industry and policy experts find these rules just make appliances cost more and perform worse.

“DOE has never looked back to see what the energy savings actually were or if consumers actually ever benefited from spending more money,” Stephen Yurek, the president of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, told Congress Friday.

“Although energy efficiency standards are often billed as having substantial environmental benefits, these benefits are relatively small and typically are not sufficient to outweigh the costs to consumers of the standards,” echoed Sophie Miller, a senior policy analyst at The George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.

The problem is that the people who make these regulations are not elected. They are hired and there is no accountability for their actions. As long as they toe the narrative, they get a pass.

Earth shattering Ka-Boom

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Lots of fireworks going off and it is not even dusk yet. My neighborhood has a lot of older beach houses interspersed with the occasional mansion. It will be interesting to see what fireworks are let off tonight.

The pups are fine - I used to shoot regularly at the farm so they are very blasé...

Wet times ahead

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A system is forecast to head north through Vancouver Island and it looks wet. Very very wet. From Cliff Mass:

British Columbia is About to Be Inundated
If you are heading north to a vacation in British Columbia, you might turn around. It is going to be extraordinarily wet up there.

Bad for outdoor fun, very good for suppressing wildfires.

You won't believe what I am about to show you. First, here is the predicted total precipitation through 5 PM Saturday. Cross the international border and you will get drenched, with some locations getting 2-5 inches. And this is supposedly the dry season.

Downright soggy. Heading up to Bellingham Monday and then out to the farm. See what happens.

Lots more earthquakes

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Very active system down in California. Seeing 40-50 more quakes since this afternoon. All in the 2.5 to 4 Mag range so nothing life threatening and very happy that this fault is letting off in a series of smaller quakes. One big one with this much stored energy would be catastrophic.

President Trump is pulling out all the stops for his 4th celebration. From the Babylon Bee, July 3rd, 2019:

Imperial AT-ATs Begin Arriving In Capital For Military Parade
Ahead of Trump's planned July 4 military parade, several dozen Imperial walkers began to arrive in Washington throughout the week.

The AT-ATs were dropped off by U.S. Space Force Star Destroyers just outside the city and then slowly marched toward the capital (rather than being dropped right next to their target, for some reason). Military bands solemnly played the Imperial March in honor of their arrival. Trump was seen at the White House, pointing excitedly at the looming all-terrain armored transports through an Oval Office window.

"Wow, look at those guys!" he said while gleefully clapping his hands. "Do you think President Xi has any of those? I bet he doesn't. Ha! Guy is probably sooooo jealous right now. And North Korea only has those little chicken walkers! This is definitely the best military parade on the planet!"

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The Bee is a satire website.

Found over at Irons in the Fire:

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Shake rattle and roll - California

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A whole bunch of earthquakes in Southern California - ranging from 2.6 Mag up to 6.4 Mag. Here is a screen-cap from the USGS quake map (the image is about 30 miles square):

20190704-quake.JPG

From the Los Angeles Times:

Largest earthquake in decades hits Southern California, measuring 6.4 magnitude
A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Southern California on Thursday, the largest temblor to hit the region in two decades.

The 10:33 a.m. quake was centered in the Searles Valley, a remote area of Kern County about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, and was felt as far away as Long Beach and Las Vegas.

There were no immediate reports of fatalities, though authorities in the city of Ridgecrest were responding to dozens of emergency calls.

The quake was the largest in Southern California since the 7.1 Hector Mine quake struck the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base in 1999.

Felt as far away as Long Beach and Las Vegas.

Shake rattle and roll - Canada

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Had a bit of an earthquake last night in Canada. 6.2 Mag and only 10km deep off the coast of Bella Bella on Vancouver Island. No tsunami though.

And back again

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Took a while for them to cut the metal - they were busy. Building a rolling shop table for one of my grinders.

Picked up a couple music CDs at the library and burning those at this moment. Stopped by the butchers and picked up a nice bag of bones so the pups are gnawing away downstairs. Happy dogs.

Heading out for a bite once the disks are burned - Mexican. Got a hankering for some Carne Assada.

Surf for a bit while the disks burn.

Back in a couple

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Heading out to my metal supplier and running a few errands. Back this afternoon.

Overcast and rainy again today. Good. It was getting dry and this will cut down on potential wildfires.

As the nation sobs - Tennessee

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From Knoxville station WVLT:

45,000 barrels of Jim Beam bourbon destroyed in massive blaze
Woodford County Emergency Management Director Drew Chandler tells WKYT two barrel warehouses at a Jim Beam aging facility caught fire around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Chandler says one warehouse initially caught fire with flames spreading to the second structure.

Crews were able to put out the flames in the second warehouse. Flames were still visible in the first warehouse five hours after the fire started.

Chandler says approximately 45,000 barrels of bourbon were in the warehouse that was still burning. He speculated crews could be on scene until late Wednesday night.

Quite the loss. Glad that nobody was injured. Lightning is suspected.

60 years of socialism - Cuba

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Babalu Blog is written by an ex-pat Cuban national who fled to the United States. Here he shows a photo of food transportation in Cuba:

Photo of the Day: How food is transported in socialist Cuba
Food is not easy to come by in socialist Cuba. After sixty years of socialist tyranny, the economy is in shambles and food along with the most basic items is rationed. But on those rare occasions when the communist Castro dictatorship is able to delivery food to the people, it is not always in the most sanitary way.

The photo below shows how ground beef is being delivered to the town of Manzanillo by the socialist state. Sacks of ground beef transported on a dirty truck, unrefrigerated and bursting open in the hot July sun.

20190702-cuba.jpg

Tell me again how socialism is the only proper form of government.

Who is funding this? From The American Mirror:

REPORT: 35,000 MORE Africans on way to US via South America
A report from the Center for Immigration Studies indicates another 35,000 African migrants are on their way to the United States.

According to CIS’s Todd Bensman:

Like the proverbial “bulge in the belly of the snake,” unusually high numbers of non-Latino migrants, obviously not from Central America, are now reportedly passing from Colombia through Panama on their way to the U.S. southern border. Their numbers range to the tens of thousands, whose vanguards we have already seen at the U.S. Southwest Border in recent months: Cameroonians, Ghanaians, Congolese, Haitians, Cubans, and some from the Middle East.

Word of their successful entries into the United States this year clearly reached home countries because now a swell numbering as many as 35,000 is on an infamous migrant passage through which migrants have long funneled from South America to North America: the Darien Gap.

Much more at the site.

All that has to happen is for a few "immigrants" with early-stage asymptomatic ebola come through, spend time in the detention center and then get flown to a sanctuary city. The surge of ebola cases will be sudden and catastrophic. Very glad to be living on an island with a very strong prepper mentality.

That seems to have done the trick

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The cell service up here is lousy. I tried an amplifier but it was spotty at best.

I checked with T-Mobile to see what they could do and they gave me a cell spot - it hooks into my router and is a small cell tower in a box. Works great. Only problem is that it absolutely hogs my broadband. I have 1GB service and everything else was flat-lined at times. Going to take a quick sniff with darkstat and then maybe break out a more detailed analysis tool like Observium or Nagios.

Network problems

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Been up and down like a yo-yo

Going to try something otherwise it's time for a book.

Overcast and rainy

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Spending the day indoors. Laundry and paying bills. Raining outside.

Heading out in a little bit - there is a nice farmer's market today from 3PM to 7PM. Have stuff to pick up at the library and need a run to the hardware store and gas station. There is one close to the house that sells ethanol-free gas - use it for my yard implements.

Roger Ailes founded the FOX News Network. Showtime did a hit-piece on him and the ratings are as to be expected.
From The Washington Times:

Showtime's much-hyped expose on Roger Ailes tanks in the ratings
The unexpected passing of Fox News founder Roger Ailes in 2017 brought out a variety of hostile headlines from news organizations. The press attacked him even in death.

“Roger Ailes is dead, his scourge will live for decades,” The Washington Post wrote at the time.

“Roger Ailes‘ life work was making paranoid creeps look like virtuous men,” Slate noted.

Such negative portrayals appear to be continuing in a new Showtime biography series, “The Loudest Voice,” about the late media kingpin and former adviser to then-President Richard M. Nixon. Not many viewers, however, were interested in such fare.

According to Nielsen Media Research, the series premiered on Sunday before a total of 299,000 viewers. In the much-coveted 18- to 34-year-old and 18-49 demographic, the series only averaged 8,000 and 26,000 viewers, respectively.

Heh - people want actual facts and accomplishments. They are getting tired of 24/7 narrative. Glad to see.

Interesting company - Olsa Tools

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They came up in an Amazon reccomendation email. Their product line is tool organization and storage components. Looks really good - check out Olsa Tools. And yes, they are carried by Amazon. Two thumbs up!

Sort of like FastCap which I blogged about in 2016

Out for coffee, &c

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Heading out for an hour or so - coffee, library, county offices, get a haircut, etc...

Overcast and supposed to rain today - great news as it is very dry and the Glorious Fourth is rapidly approaching. Keep the chance of fire down.

Get woke / Go broke - Nike shoes

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Heh - actions have consequences. From the Phoenix, Arizona ABC affiliate:

Governor Ducey to withdraw AZ Nike plant incentives amid Betsy Ross-Colin Kaepernick controversy
In a series of tweets early Tuesday, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey announced that he has ordered the Arizona Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars to encourage Nike to add a manufacturing plant in the Valley.

Ducey's decision stems from a Wall Street Journal report that said former NFL quarterback-turned-social justice activist Colin Kaepernick convinced Nike to pull its sneakers featuring an early American flag commonly known as the Betsy Ross flag. Kaepernick reportedly found the shoe to be offensive.

The Governor's statement is wonderful - totally spot on:

"Words cannot express my disappointment at this terrible decision. I am embarrassed for Nike," Ducey tweeted early Tuesday morning regarding its decision to nix the Betsy Ross sneakers. "Nike is an iconic American brand and American company. This country, our system of government and free enterprise have allowed them to prosper and flourish.

"Instead of celebrating American history the week of our nation’s independence, Nike has apparently decided that Betsy Ross is unworthy, and has bowed to the current onslaught of political correctness and historical revisionism. It is a shameful retreat for the company. American businesses should be proud of our country’s history, not abandoning it.

"Nike has made its decision, and now we’re making ours. I’ve ordered the Arizona Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars under their discretion that the State was providing for the company to locate here. Arizona’s economy is doing just fine without Nike. We don’t need to suck up to companies that consciously denigrate our nation’s history.

"And finally, it shouldn’t take a controversy over a shoe for our kids to know who Betsy Ross is. A founding mother. Her story should be taught in all American schools. In the meantime, it’s worth googling her."

I just love his line: "Nike has made its decision, and now we’re making ours" You made your bed, now lie in it.

Running Brave

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Posted about the Brave browser yesterday - installed it on my eBay machine and liked it. Now installed it on my two main machines. Works great. Nice and snappy response and say goodbye to annoying pop-ups. Now, I need to find out how to disable autoplay for videos.

Check out: Brave

Marketing liberalism

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The liberal mindset does not have any real facts or figures to back it up so they resort to telling stories - promoting it through a narrative. Sports reporter Jason Whitlock tells it like it is:

20190702-liberal.jpg

Tip of the hat to Don Surber who follows up with a bunch of examples.

Brave is a browser based on Google's open source Chrome but with less evil. Much less evil. The browser respects user privacy and is now implementing quite the ad-blocker. From ZD Net (used to be Ziff-Davis publishing company):

Brave defies Google's moves to cripple ad-blocking with new 69x faster Rust engine
Brave, the Chromium-based browser developed by Firefox co-founder and JavaScript creator Brendan Eich, thinks there's a better way of handling ad-blockers than Google's approach. 

Brave's answer, which it argues massively improves browser performance, is found in Rust, the Mozilla-hatched programming language that was in part created by Eich.   

As ZDNet reported in June, developers of Chromium-based browsers like Opera, Brave and Vivaldi, didn't support Google's plans to cripple ad-blockers outlined under its Manifest version 3 proposal.

Brave now claims to have delivered a "69x average improvement" in its ad-blocking tech using Rust in place of C++. The improvements can be experienced in its experimental developer and nightly channel releases. 

Going to give it a try on a different machine. Big fan of Chrome and Android. Not a big fan of Google.

From The Beeb:

Mexico hail: Ice 1.5m thick carpets Guadalajara
Six suburbs in the Mexican city of Guadalajara were carpeted in a thick layer of ice after a heavy hailstorm.

The ice was up to 1.5m (5ft) thick in places, half-burying vehicles

Civil protection machinery was deployed to clear streets in the city of five million located north of the capital, Mexico City.

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Poor T. Rex.

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Cute:

20190701-trex.jpg

From imgur

Sweet schadenfreude - journalism

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Not unexpected news from Bloomberg:

U.S. journalism job cuts haven’t been this bad since the recession
The news business is on pace for its worst job losses in a decade as about 3,000 people have been laid off or been offered buyouts in the first five months of this year.

The cuts have been widespread. Newspapers owned by Gannett and McClatchy, digital media companies like BuzzFeed and Vice Media, and the cable news channel CNN have all shed employees.

The level of attrition is the highest since 2009, when the industry saw 7,914 job cuts in the first five months of that year in the wake of the financial crisis, according to data compiled by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an outplacement and executive coaching firm.

When you keep spewing out the same Fake News, people are going to get tired of it and get their news from other sources. The advertising revenue is going to plummet. You may be virtue signalling and promoting the narrative of your elite masters in D.C. but it is not being accepted by us normals.

I really love this quote:

With the U.S. unemployment rate the lowest since 1969, the journalism job market is one of the rare weak spots, said Andrew Challenger, the firm’s vice president.

“In most industries, employers can’t find enough people to fill the jobs they have open,” he said. “In news, it has been the opposite story. And it seems to have been accelerating.”

Can't see the forest for the trees? Talk about living inside a bubble. Much more at the site - stories about people being laid off. Savor whilst sipping a nice chilled glass of liberal tears.

Obama's legacy - Iran

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That didn't take long - from The Jerusalem Post:

IRAN VIOLATES NUCLEAR DEAL, EXCEEDS 300 KG LIMIT ON ENRICHED URANIUM
Iran's enriched uranium stockpile exceeded the 300 kg limit set by the nuclear deal on Monday, according to the Iranian Fars news agency. This constitutes a direction violation of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear pact the world superpowers reached with Iran in 2015.

An Iranian source told Fars on Monday that the International Atomic Energy Agency found that the enriched uranium exceeded the ceiling of 300 kg.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif confirmed that the Islamic Republic breached the nuclear deal by stockpiling over 300 kg of enriched uranium, according to ISNA.

Hmmmm... Worldwide sponsor of terrorism, building a bomb? Smells like regime change to me.

Bad model, no biscuit

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I think I would be fine-tuning my model - from the Washington Examiner:

Election model that predicted 2018 blue wave has Trump losing, liberal voters ‘terrified’
A university election model that predicted the blue wave in the House in 2018 almost to the seat is predicting a big loss by President Trump next year due to an explosion of bitter partisanship and Trump hate.

An election forecast model designed by Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, predicted that Trump will lose the Electoral College 297-197, with 270 of 538 needed to win.

Three key states that helped push Trump over Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016, despite her winning the popular vote, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, will turn back to the Democrats, she said.

“Trump’s 2016 path to the White House was the political equivalent of getting dealt a Royal Flush in poker,” said Bitecofer. “It’s probably not replicable in 2020 with an agitated Democratic electorate.”

I just do not see it. Computer models are great for some things but for politics and climate, they just do not work. Their designers are too partisan. The computer is just a shell to hide their agenda.

Word to the wise

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Makes sense - from ABC News (caution: obnoxious loud self-loading video at the site):

'Domestic' terrorists could target July 4 holiday events, but no known plots: Feds
Federal authorities are warning that white supremacists and other political radicals could look to attack Independence Day revelers on July 4, noting in a bulletin to law enforcement around the country that domestic terrorists “have attacked perceived oppressors, opponents, or enemies engaged in outdoor First Amendment-protected rallies or protests during past summers.”

Practice good situational awareness, avoid large crowds, don't travel. Basic common sense.

Back from coffee, etc...

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Nice day so spending it working on the outside. Dump run in the works too. Bite to eat and finish my coffee first.

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