February 2021 Archives

And there is just nothing out there

| No Comments

Talk about a slow news day - nothing except for the CPAC conference.

Watch some videos and take an early bedtime. Not super tired but some tea and a melatonin pill will take care of that. Lots of stuff on the agenda for tomorrow.

Productive day

| No Comments

Looking forward to tomorrow and might even take a few more days off just to get sh*t done.

Van is filling up nicely - will have a good load ready for tomorrow.  Bunch of laundry done and put away. Visited the Secretary of State website and formed my blacksmithing company - Type S Corporation. Did some other correspondence and two telephone calls. A lot of other stuff too. Wednesday is fairly busy with the grocery deliveries and a meeting but thinking of taking three or four more days off to knock out a bunch more stuff.

Last of the bean soup for dinner - surf and see what the internet fairies have brought for my amusement…

Silliness in Seattle. From Law Enforcement Today:

Seattle councilman votes to defund police – then blames cops for not taking care of homeless encampments
Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis is blaming the Seattle Police Department (SPD) for their lack of attention in handling the city’s exploding homeless problem, however he specifically voted to block SPD from handling those exact issues. 

After three recent raids in tent communities where the police confiscated many drugs and weapons, leading to more than a dozen people being arrested, Lewis tried to point his finger at SPD and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan when he was asked about long-term solutions to homelessness taking over Pioneer Square.

According to reports, long before the raids dismantled the criminal enterprise hiding under some of the tents, at least three business owners trying to stay afloat in the area said they have been begging the city to intervene for months, but nothing has been done.

Pioneer Square is a major hub for Seattle. King Street Station links the transit system with the light rail. It is just South of the business district and is a major transit center for office workers.  It is a major retail center for those workers - lunch places which also offer fine dining. There are two large stadia which take advantage of the transit nexus.  Due to its history, it is also a major tourist center - within walking distance to the waterfront.

I worked there for two years back in 2003-5 before moving to the farm. Great job and wonderful people but even back then, that company was looking to move out.  I stayed with them to help them set up their IT system in their new office. I parked in a secure parking lot but even then was broken into twice. I can not imagine what it is like now.  Talk about pigeon problem - if you feed them, they will come.

President Trump's speech

| No Comments

Really really good - covering a lot of things.  I love this line:

Somebody said: "Well, that's going to be controversial"
"That's OK - you haven't heard anything yet"

He is on top of his game and ready to rock and roll. Screw public opinion.
The liberals are not going to know what hit them except that it smells like utter defeat.

Got nuttin'

| No Comments

Quiet news day.  The CPAC convention has had some good sound-bites.  Waiting for President Trump's speech - that should be fun to say the least.

Got the laundry running and some stuff loaded into the van for a dump run.  Dog walk and coffee in about an hour. Need to make the nectar for the hummingbird feeder so it will have time to cool down by this evening.  I boil it to sanitize it.

Bock to work...

Now this should be fun

| No Comments

President Trump is scheduled to speak at the CPAC Convention this evening. Looking forward to it.

Taking today and Monday off to work on things here - dump run, garage, living room, laundry, cleaning, some desktop publishing and some paperwork. Been accumulating a bit too much.

The hummingbirds are ravenous - set out a second feeder after the snowfall two weeks ago.  Having to fill both of them every five days or so. Need to make some more nectar today.

Overcast and cool - 43°F - damp but no rainfall. Really nice weather yesterday - sunny and warm.

Something that I love about the island is that there are quite a few vintage automobiles around here. Saw this gorgeous example yesterday - perfectly tricked out:

20210228-woody.jpg

Time to fix breakfast and get on with the day - coffee in a couple of hours...

And that is it...

| No Comments

Watch some videos and good night.

But that's racisssss... Or sumpin'

| No Comments

From Boston radio station and NPR afilliate WGBH:

Citing Racial Inequities, Boston Public Schools Suspend New Advanced Learning Classes
A selective program for high-performing fourth, fifth and sixth graders in Boston has suspended enrollment due to the pandemic and concerns about equity in the program, GBH News has learned.

Superintendent Brenda Cassellius recommended the one-year hiatus for the program, known as Advanced Work Classes, saying the district would not proceed with the program for new students next year.

"There's been a lot of inequities that have been brought to the light in the pandemic that we have to address," Cassellius told GBH News. "There's a lot of work we have to do in the district to be antiracist and have policies where all of our students have a fair shot at an equitable and excellent education."

New students will be admitted in the fourth grade by standards to be determined at the school level, according to a BPS spokesman.

NOTE: pandemic = smoke screen = diversion = look!!!  a squirrel!!!

And the real reason:

A district analysis of the program found that more than 70 percent of students enrolled in the program were white and Asian, even though nearly 80 percent of all Boston public school students are Hispanic and Black.

Heh - talk about an inconvenient truth. The selection process was about as unbiased as you can get - an exam:

The program was open to all students in the Boston Public Schools who took a test known as Terra Nova in the third grade and received a high score. Those students were placed in a lottery conducted by the central administration office, and lottery winners received letters inviting them to apply to the program. Last fall, 453 students received invitations, 143 students applied and 116 enrolled this year, officials said.

Does not fit the narrative.  Must be obliterated.

Actually, what this does expose and it exposes it very plainly is that the latest educational fads simply do not work. When there is discipline in the classroom.  When there are expectations for the students to do their work and to study and learn, you will get good results. Regardless of race.  Regardless of gender.

The people who buy into these new programs are doing nothing but damaging the children in their care.  Education is simple. Dealing with a sclerotic bureaucracy is not. I would like to know the ratio of teachers to administrators in the Boston School System - I bet that it is 8:1 or worse.

A statement - prove me wrong

| No Comments

Great observation at American Thinker:

The Democrats Are Not Governing
Let’s just state this unequivocally right up front: The Democrats have no interest in governing the country with the aim of enhancing the country’s fortunes for the benefit of the entire population. Instead, the Democrats have two aims and they’re quite clear to anyone who is paying even the most casual attention:

    1. Pander to their selected special-interest groups with over-the-top rulings and executive orders for the express purpose of buying their votes and hopefully cementing future electoral victories.
    2. Undo every possible policy put in place by President Trump for the purpose of eradicating any vestige of his presence on the American political scene.

Most of Biden’s executive orders accomplish both goals at the same time -- they pay debt service to the voting blocs that are key to future Democratic victories, while simultaneously dismantling President Trump’s America First accomplishments.

More at the site but this is the basic thesis.  Come on now.  Tell me where this is wrong.  Change my mind.

Show me what you got...

Two memes

| No Comments

From Mostly Cajun:

20210227-reason.jpg

20210227-kamala.jpg

Aaaand back

| No Comments

Dinner at home.  Got a lot done - productive day.  Hardware Sales had all the circuit breakers I needed so spent a good bit of money there.  I will not want to leave the garage when it is all finished.  Going to be nice.

Got the dogs food out and the last of the soup heating up. Picked up a nice loaf of rustic bread at the food coop so that is dinner. Quick surf first - see what has happened in this world of ours.

Never got to the dump - that will be a day in itself.  Planning to catch up on some things tomorrow and Monday and that is one of them.

Off for the usual routine

| No Comments

Dog walk, coffee, read (a book on the Python programming language - I really like Lua but Python is the de-facto scripting language these days so when in Rome...), storage unit and then heading to Bellingham for a few things - meeting someone at 2:00 PM. Also planning some retail therapy - neither Home Depot nor Lowe's had the circuit breakers I was looking for so checking a few places up North.

Probably get dinner on the road - Chinese sounds good...

Yet another paper - lockdowns do not work

| No Comments

Lockdowns simply do not work - a very comprehensive analysis at the European Journal of Clinical Investigation:
Abbreviations:
Non Pharmaceutical Interventions = NPI
less restrictive NPI = lrNPI
more restrictive NPI = mrNPI

Assessing mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID‐19
Abstract
Background and Aims
The most restrictive nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for controlling the spread of COVID‐19 are mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures. Given the consequences of these policies, it is important to assess their effects. We evaluate the effects on epidemic case growth of more restrictive NPIs (mrNPIs), above and beyond those of less‐restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs).

Methods
We first estimate COVID‐19 case growth in relation to any NPI implementation in subnational regions of 10 countries: England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden and the United States. Using first‐difference models with fixed effects, we isolate the effects of mrNPIs by subtracting the combined effects of lrNPIs and epidemic dynamics from all NPIs. We use case growth in Sweden and South Korea, 2 countries that did not implement mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures, as comparison countries for the other 8 countries (16 total comparisons).

Results
Implementing any NPIs was associated with significant reductions in case growth in 9 out of 10 study countries, including South Korea and Sweden that implemented only lrNPIs (Spain had a nonsignificant effect). After subtracting the epidemic and lrNPI effects, we find no clear, significant beneficial effect of mrNPIs on case growth in any country. In France, for example, the effect of mrNPIs was +7% (95% CI: −5%‐19%) when compared with Sweden and + 13% (−12%‐38%) when compared with South Korea (positive means pro‐contagion). The 95% confidence intervals excluded 30% declines in all 16 comparisons and 15% declines in 11/16 comparisons.

Conclusions
While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs. Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less‐restrictive interventions.

Some variation as with any population but in general, no lockdowns? No problem.

Disgusting - from FOX News:

House OKs $1.9T coronavirus bill -- with 2 Democrats voting against it
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a massive $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package early Saturday -- the sixth COVID bill passed since the pandemic began a year ago.

The vote around 2 a.m. ET was 219-212.

Two Democrats voted against their party's plan: U.S. Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon. Both lawmakers also opposed a $3 trillion bill last May that ultimately failed.

Basic pressuring technique - keep them up way past their bedtime and their mental resistance weakens.  Just pass the damned thing and we can all go home. The general commentary:

Not a single Republican backed Saturday's bill. About two hours before the vote, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy derided the proposal as "Pelosi’s Payoff Bill."

McCarthy, R-Calif., further described the legislation as "Democrats’ costly, corrupt and liberal spending package," one that he claimed signified, "The Swamp is back."

"Congress won’t actually vote on this bill until 2 a.m. Saturday," McCarthy said. "Why? Because Democrats are so embarrassed by all the non-COVID waste in this bill that they are jamming it through in the dead of night.

"We ran the numbers," McCarthy added. "The amount of money that actually goes to defeating the virus is less than 9 percent – Less than 9 percent! So don’t call it a rescue bill. Don’t call it a relief bill. Call it the Pelosi Payoff."

Yeah - big money to unions, Dem donors, government employees.  Fsck-all to the American People.

*resident Biden in Houston yesterday

| No Comments

Hat tip to Kyle Becker for this short video:

It has been suggested that at some point, the 25th Amendment, Section 4. will be invoked and Kamala Harris would ascend into the Presidency.  She is ideal for the progressives but would not have been able to win the election regardless of how much they cheated.  This was their game plan.

I do not think that they thought this through completely - the last sentence of the 25th reads as follows:

If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

The Democrats do not have a two-thirds majority of both houses - they have a few more than 50%. All the Republicans need to do is to sit tight and keep Biden in office. In those wonderful words of H.L. Menken:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Good and hard indeed - you wanted socialism? Here 'ya go. Enjoy.
Call us when you want some adults in the room again.

The dwindling twilight

| No Comments

Faded to black a couple hours ago.  Coming up on a full moon in about four hours - the Snow Moon.

Some video and then to sleep. Bellingham tomorrow to the storage unit and working on the garage. Also dump and recycling run.

It was fun being here for the panel installation yesterday - got to meet the local lineman as well as the local electrical inspector.  Both really good people - I talked with the inspector about the work I wanted to do and it doesn't look like there will be any problems.  The people in Seattle and even for the farm were very much sticklers for the Code. They were not happy until they found something that needed correction and a trip back. Job security I guess but still...

He has a point there

| No Comments

A civil war would be short and sweet and we would be laughing about it for years to come.

20210226-civil.jpg

In praise of the Allium family

| No Comments

What is it about garlic and onions that smells so wonderful and tastes so good.

Our lives would be poorer without the members of the Allium Family.

(and yes, tonight's soup was delicious)

Now this should be interesting - Arizona

| No Comments

From the Phoenix, AZ FOX News affiliate:

Judge rules that Arizona Senate can access 2020 election ballots
A judge ruled Friday that the Arizona Senate can get access to 2.1 million ballots and election equipment from Arizona’s most populous county so it can audit results of the 2020 election that saw Democrat Joe Biden win in the state.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Timothy Thomason’s decision comes after a protracted battle between the Republican-controlled state Senate and the GOP-dominated Maricopa County board over subpoenas issued by the Senate.

The five-member Board of Supervisors argued that the ballots were secret, that the Legislature had no right to access them and that the subpoenas issued by Senate President Karen Fann were for an illegitimate purpose, among other arguments.

The Senate’s lawyers contended that the constitution gives the Legislature the role of maintaining the purity of elections and make sure voter integrity is protected, that the subpoenas were legal and a proper use of legislative power.

In his ruling, Thomason agreed with the Senate on all those arguments, saying the subpoenas "are legal and enforceable."

It will be interesting to see if they preserved the original ballots - they are required by law to do so.
Judge Thomason's ruling can be found here: HONORABLE TIMOTHY J. THOMASON - some fun reading even for a layman.
He cites prior cases and outlines his position with great specificity and detail (channeling my inner Sean Hannity).
Very clear, well written and persuasive.

Why are they so reluctant to comply?  They do not have anything to hide now do they?

A curious bit of video with voiceover narration:

Tip of the hat to Blazing Cat Fur for the link.

Skynet smiles - AI and balloons

| No Comments

From The Beeb by way of Bayou Renaissance Man:

How Google's hot air balloon surprised its creators
The gaggle of Google employees peered at their computer screens in bewilderment. They had spent many months honing an algorithm designed to steer an unmanned hot air balloon all the way from Puerto Rico to Peru. But something was wrong. The balloon, controlled by its machine mind, kept veering off course.

Salvatore Candido of Google's now-defunct Project Loon venture, which aimed to bring internet access to remote areas via the balloons, couldn't explain the craft’s trajectory. His colleagues manually took control of the system and put it back on track.

It was only later that they realised what was happening. Unexpectedly, the artificial intelligence (AI) on board the balloon had learned to recreate an ancient sailing technique first developed by humans centuries, if not thousands of years, ago. "Tacking" involves steering a vessel into the wind and then angling outward again so that progress in a zig-zag, roughly in the desired direction, can still be made.

Under unfavourable weather conditions, the self-flying balloons had learned to tack all by themselves. The fact they had done this, unprompted, surprised everyone, not least the researchers working on the project.

"We quickly realised we'd been outsmarted when the first balloon allowed to fully execute this technique set a flight time record from Puerto Rico to Peru," wrote Candido in a blog post about the project. "I had never simultaneously felt smarter and dumber at the same time."

I love that quote: "never simultaneously felt smarter and dumber". AI is a very fun ride and things are now getting really good. More stories at the Beeb - some fun reading.

Yet another example of racial fraud - from Breitbart:

2018 ‘Eating While Black’ Incident Exposed as One More Race Hoax
Back in 2018, Oumou Kanoute, a black psychology student at Smith College in Massachusetts, made a false allegation of racism. Naturally, the college immediately embraced the accusation as fact and now numerous lives have been destroyed.

It gets worse…

Even though an independent investigation cleared everyone of wrongdoing all the way back in October of 2018, only now is it being reported that this was yet another race hoax — only now after our fake media presented the hoax to the public as gospel and never followed up with the truth.

What happened was this…

Kanoute was eating in a closed area of the college when a security guard questioned why she was in an unauthorized area.

That’s it.

In response, she leapt to social media to accuse a bunch of people of racism, complete with their names and photographs (including people who had nothing to do with anything), and the university and the fake national political media went wild with it.

Do any of these supposed "racial incidents" ever turn out to be true?
There is no racism in America - that is why the racists have to invent it.

Expensive day

| No Comments

Spent almost $600 on electrical stuff. The garage will be fantastic and the house will be on its first push for rewiring. Looking forward to making some serious progress this spring.

Stopped in at Costco for gasoline and it came to over $60 for the full tank. Gasoline is now about $3.80 - thanks Joe.  All the pipeline workers thank you too.  The oil will move - killing the pipeline will not stop that.  The oil will move on Warren Buffett's railroad at a cost of about $30/barrel where the pipeline would have cost about $10/barrel. Nothing like having the rich get richer - all under the guise of environmental protection / social justice / socialism.

Also interesting - was looking at plywood - started putting it up on the walls of the garage to make a French Cleat system.  I had purchased four sheets about a month ago and they worked out great.  Want to get two more to finish off that wall and the same stuff was now $10 more/sheet.  I asked the sales people and they said that all wood products have spiked in price recently. Thanks again Joe...

Quick trot around the internet and then start in on the garage. Making some bean soup for dinner tonight.

Who let the dogs out

| No Comments

Woof woof - dog walk, coffee, pick up some conduit and assorted bits and pieces and then back home.

So much for sleeping in...

| No Comments

Woke up bright and early at 6:00 AM

Working at home today - love the new electrical panel.  Been out looking at it.  (I can be easily amused at times) Heading out for a nice long dog walk and then coffee in two hours.

Up to Home Depot to get some circuit breakers and electrical gubbins to wire in a panel for the garage (first project). Prices there are equivalent to those on Amazon.  I keep looking at Walmart+ but their prices and selection are nowhere close to Amazon Prime let alone any box-store.  I want Walmart to succeed in putting a dent in Amazon but they need to try a bit more seriously.

Yet another dump and recycling run this morning too.  Up to Bellingham tomorrow to bring a few items down from storage.

Story is 100% true:

20210226-viceprez.jpg

The same old lies - communism

| No Comments

Communism knows that it cannot let people know the real ideologies and practices of its "leaders", that it is a nice fluffy name for tyranny. That it is abject tyranny dressed up in a colorful clown suit (For The People Baby!!!). The true knowledge is revealed only once the tyrants are ensconced in power.

Here is an aide-mémoire from a few years ago - note that it is printed in English.  Presented to gain sympathy for the communist movement in the United States:

20210226-cuba.jpg

And we are back to the endless wars

| No Comments

Didn't President Trump get us out of the Middle East? Didn't he restore peace over there including four treaties between Israel and Arab Nations?  What the hell are we doing bombing them?
From Haaretz:

U.S. Strikes Iranian-backed Militias in Syria; Sources Say at Least 17 Killed
The United States on Thursday carried out an airstrike in Syria against a structure belonging to what it said were Iran-backed Iraqi militias, at the orders of President Joe Biden, which a militia official said killed one of its members and wounded several others.

A statement from Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby confirmed the strike in Eastern Syria "destroyed multiple facilities located at a border control point used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups," naming Kata'ib Hezbollah (KH) and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS).

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 17 people were killed in the strike, all Iraqi nationals. Local sources and one medical source also told Reuters at least 17 died.

Why do Democrats love wars so much.  Obama had that famous quote: "Turns out I’m really good at killing people"

UN delenda est

| No Comments

The United Nations needs to be broken up, it's good elements preserved but the Security Council and all of it's Manhattan offices be scattered to the winds. There is a lovely little island off Cuba, some perfectly useable places in BagdhadTehran, lots of locations. The UN's Manhattan real estate would make an excellent spot for a Trump Tower.

Here is just one reason - from The Epoch Times:

Leaked Emails Confirm UN Gave Names of Dissidents to CCP
Leaked emails prove that, contrary to United Nations denials, UN human-rights officials did in fact give the names of Chinese dissidents to the communist regime in Beijing before those activists were set to testify in Geneva against the Communist Chinese Party’s abuses.

In fact, it appears from the leaked documents that the practice of handing over names of Chinese dissidents to the dictatorship was viewed as a “usual practice” by all involved. The whistleblower told The Epoch Times that it continues to this day, despite UN denials.

Chinese communist authorities used the names received from the UN to prevent the dissidents from leaving China. At least one dissident identified by the UN and detained by the CCP before leaving for Geneva, Cao Shunli, died while in detention.

If the dissident expected to embarrass Beijing at the UN was already abroad, the CCP frequently threatened or even kidnapped and tortured the person’s family, according to UN whistleblower Emma Reilly, who first exposed the scandal.

Critics of the regime whose names were handed over by the UN included activists concerned about Tibet, Hong Kong, and the Islamic Uyghur minority in Western China—all of which are being targeted by the CCP for various reasons.

If these people were not out-and-out murdered by the Communist Chinese, their families have been placed into bad situations.  Of course, the name of the leaker is well known to the UN Bureaucrats but they will never tell the world who committed this heinous crime. This is an act by a person with no soul, no morals.  This is a truly evil act.

C'est tout

| No Comments

I am done - been a busy couple of weeks. Sleeping in tomorrow.  Couple of videos and that is that.

The Rao's marinara sauce was actually pretty decent but mine is better.  Keep the other jar in the pantry for 'emergencies' but not buying any more.

Picture of the electrical wiring

| No Comments

Here is a before photo (just kidding)

20210225-wiring.jpg

It felt like this.  Trying to make improvements was three steps forward, four steps back.  Now it is all clean and pretty.

Fat chance bucko... From Newsmax:

McConnell Says He Would Support Trump If He's Nominated in 2024
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he would “absolutely” support Donald Trump if he were the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2024.

His remarks, in a Fox News interview, marked an about-face from less than two weeks ago, when he delivered an impassioned speech from the Senate floor in which he held Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6th.

You revealed yourself for what you are.  It is game over for you a**hole.  Don't let the door hit 'ya where the Good Lord split 'ya.  You could have been a force for good but you wanted to keep feeding at that sweet government trough.

A reminder, there are several kinds of influenza out there.  Some are coronaviruses, some are not.  All that the term corona virus means is that the walls of the virus have little protrusions on them making it look like a "crown". From Seattle's KING-5:

US has 'lowest flu season' on record during COVID pandemic
February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors' offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year. Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades.

Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling — were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say.

Influenza usually kills about 50,000 to 80,000 people in the United States each year. What has been happening is that the accepted test for the Wuhan Flu has such a high false-positive rate (as high as 90%) that people coming in with regular influenza are getting diagnosed with the 'rona.  As well as heart disease, gunshot wounds, traffic accidents, blunt-force trauma, liver disease, hypertension, etc...  For every death listed as COVID-19, there are an average of 2.6 contributing co-morbidities. This is from the CDC itself.

The take-away? We had a bog-standard flu season. We also had this new disease from China at the same time. Nothing to bother yourself with.  Masks do not do anything. Areas that lock down do not do any different from areas that do not lock down.

Heh - in recognition for his service

| No Comments

This will sting a bit but he has zero grounds for complaint - from the Lexington, KY Herald-Leader:

No CPAC invitation for Mitch McConnell. ‘Next year would be a better year.’
Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s Republican leader, has not been invited to this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, two sources familiar with the event’s organizing tell McClatchy.

The annual conference, set to kick off this Thursday in Orlando and run through Sunday, will feature speeches by former President Donald Trump, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and more than a half a dozen senators.

But McConnell wasn’t granted an invitation when CPAC organizers began compiling their roster for the four-day gathering last fall. An organizer said the decision was not directly tied to McConnell’s rebukes of Trump in recent weeks in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Leader McConnell did a great job confirming judges, and we know he will be a strong supporter of restoring appropriate election laws. Next year would be a better year for him to address the improvements to election laws once the states have time to act,” said Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which puts on the event.

Yeeeaahhhhh - "not directly tied to"  Believe that and I have a bridge in downtown Manhattan that you might be interested in buying. McConnell revealed himself for what he has always been. Now we know.  Santa has him on the "naughty" list.

And outta here - wiring done, dinner time

| No Comments

Bagging the Chinese food for tonight - fixing dinner at home.  Out to the store for some fresh pasta and trying out a jar of Rao's Marinara sauce.  Got a really good review and Costco carries it so figured I would give it a try.  Add some soy protein for nutrition.

Wind is picking up a good bit - choppy water. Cold (42°F) and damp (73%RH).  Back in a few...

There is still hope for California. From FOX News:

California special election to recall Newsom to be held this fall, movement leader says
A special election in the effort to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom will likely be held this fall, according to the movements' leader Randy Economy.

Economy joined “Mornings With Maria” Thursday to explain how once the required signatures are counted for Newsom’s recall, a special election will be triggered under the California constitution and held in October or November this year.

“The process has begun,” Economy told Maria Bartiromo. “We’re going to continue to work as hard as we can and to make sure [Newsom] is held accountable and to make sure our rights as an electorate are granted because we’ve done the heavy lifting to make sure that this special election is going to go ahead and move forward.”

Not an "official" announcement from the State but wonderful news nonetheless...

A thing of beauty

| No Comments

Power is back on and the panel is gorgeous.  Very happy with the work. Lots of room to expand.

Quick surf and head out for some Chinese food. Eating out two times in two days? Living the life...

Nothing on the internet so getting to work prepping for the electrician.  Fire is going nicely - move some stuff around and get ready for the great blackout of 02/25/2021.  It will be really nice to have a modern electrical panel as well as a full 200 Amp service and room for expansion. More power is always a good thing...

So true

| No Comments

Our eyes have been opened:

20210225-nuts.jpg

Well that didn't take long - rehired

| No Comments

From The Federalist:

VOA Exec Fired For Reports Of Misconduct, Fraud, And False Credentials Quickly Rehired Under Biden
Officials at the congressionally funded international broadcaster Voice of America quietly rehired an executive this week who had recently been put on administrative leave for misconduct and slated for firing over multiple whistleblower allegations of misconduct, fraud, and false education credentials, as well as a damning Office of Personnel and Management report.

John Lippman, acting VOA director of programming, announced that former Persian Division Director Setareh Derakhshesh Sieg would return as special assistant to the director of programming and director of program review.

Sieg’s return to the VOA comes shortly after she was placed on administrative leave at the beginning of January by former Deputy Director Elizabeth Robbins while under investigation for “multiple forms of misconduct.” The misconduct allegedly included allowing certain staff to “charge excessive overtime,” engaging in “potentially fraudulent expenditures,” abusing government funds, and falsified education credentials.

It is not about what your performance is like. It is about how you toe the party line.  Communism 101.

O-Dark-Hundred

| No Comments

Up and getting ready for the electrician. Working on a couple of projects in the living room while the power is out.  Getting the fire going and moving some stuff around.

Breakfast and a nice hot shower first - surf a little bit too.

And that is it for me now

| No Comments

Got the alarm set to 5:00 AM - the electrician is planning to be here at 7:45 so gives me some time to get breakfast and take care of some stuff.

Got a lot of hummingbirds using the feeder - I usually throttle down to one (from three) in winter but I will be putting a second feeder up tomorrow. Made some fresh nectar today.

High winds in the forecast - March coming in like a lion.

Governor Cuomo's fifteen minutes of fame

| No Comments

Fame is not necessarily a good thing. They are tearing him to shreds publicly. What amuses me no end is that your typical man on the street will have zero clue as to why he is being turned into a non-person. From The Gateway Pundit:

New York Democrats Hold Outdoor Presser Calling for Charges Against Governor Cuomo
New York Assembly member Ron Kim, a Democrat, and Jessica Ramos, a Democrat, held a rally at City Hall on Wednesday. Kim was joined by fellow elected officials, advocates, and the family members of seniors, to announce a key list of demands from the Cuomo administration. The victims want justice!

These asshats would not recognize justice if it punched them in the mouth.

Step one was the denunciation - we have already had that.
Step two is the formal charges.  We are here right now.
Step three is the show trial.
Step four is the execution.  We do not do that any more officially (see: Arkancide) Instead, Andrew will become a pariah.  He will be revilled in the narrative.  He will be excised from the recorded party history and he will become a non-person.

As for my opening comment? What amuses me no end is that your typical man on the street will have zero clue as to why he is being turned into a non-person.

Simple really.  Cuomo was getting too close to the reigns of power.  The people in power now see that he could claw his way to the top and take their power (and prestige and status and money) away from them so little Andy needs to go away and be rendered into a non-entity. Castrated. Funny too as just under a year ago, he was being touted as a potential Presidential candidate.

This is why you never see any American leftist actually up and move to a Socialist workers paradise.  The pyramid of power there is already occupied and the struggle for power in these nations is ongoing, bloodthirsty and dynamic.  Some poor schlub from the US would never be able to get a toe-hold. Even with the best of credentials. Socialism is never about what is best for "the people" - instead, it is about naked lust for power and money. Always has been, always will be.  Read your history.

Thai food was yummy

| No Comments

Did some retail therapy up North and got some Phad Thai for dinner. Drove my van to a place down by the river and hung out there.  Delicious.

Coming home, it was a delight to note that there was useable light at 6:00 PM - been a while since that was the case.

Picked up a couple of these sawhorses: Kobalt 37.8-in W x 32-in H Adjustable Steel Saw Horse (1100-lb Capacity)

Not a big fan of shopping at Lowe's - their management gives a lot of money to liberal causes.  Much more so than Home Depot but...  These units had been getting good reviews, I bought two of them and tried them out and yes, they are really really solid so I picked up a couple more tonight. Home Depot has this but it doesn't have the feature set that the Lowe's product has. Close but no cigar.

Got wind in the forecast for tonight.  Got the electricians coming tomorrow very early to pull the electricity and install a new panel. Be nice to have something solid to start from when remodeling.

Surf for a bit.  Power will be off all day tomorrow so no posting until afternoon.

Enough surfing - to work...

| No Comments

Did not get to the dump this morning so loading up the van and heading over there now.

Working in the garage later - got an electrician coming over tomorrow morning to replace the panel at the house.  It was an odd configuration and looking to get a nice Square-D unit with plenty of expansion capacity. Downside is that the house will be without electricity for most of the day.

Thai food sounds really good but I'll see how the day develops...

Looks like Hunter has been having fun

| No Comments

Enjoying his dad's new digs:

20210224-hunter.jpg

From Knuckledraggin'

His handling of the Wuhan Flu was an epic fail regardless of how you look at it.  His star is falling and falling fast.  He has been repeatedly criticized by the media (OH NOES!!!) and now this - from Medium:

My story of working with Governor Cuomo
“Let’s play strip poker.”

I should have been shocked by the Governor’s crude comment, but I wasn’t.

We were flying home from an October 2017 event in Western New York on his taxpayer-funded jet. He was seated facing me, so close our knees almost touched. His press aide was to my right and a state trooper behind us.

That ba-dump ba-dump was Cuomo's body under the wheels of the bus.  The left always eats its own.  Always has, always will.  The people at the top know that their political power is just an illusion and that there are always people who covet their position.  They are ruthless to stay in power. It is the name of the game.  Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

Adult babies

| No Comments

I had first run into this fifteen years ago and wrote about it here:  A curious aberration of behaviour...

I looked around and it is still very much "a thing" - a few links:

I have zero problem with people acting out their fantasies and it could be really nice to shed adult responsibilities and regress back to a time when everything was nice and warm and simple.  There were many times in my life where it would have been really nice to crawl back into bed and hide out for a couple of years.

I also have to hand it to this community that they are not being politically active.  Having to put up with the incessant shrieking and pearl-clutching of the WOKE crowd is bad enough, I can only imagine a bunch of adult toddlers marching on Washington (although I would love to see it on the news).

What is prompting me to write this is curiosity - is there a link between AD/DL and WOKE.  They are very dissimilar in their outward actions but there is this desire to return to a simplistic world.  A world where all of their needs are taken care of by an all-powerful state (or Mommy). A Utopia (even though utopia have never worked). The only difference I see is the toxic level of narcissism in the WOKE - everyone else needs to know that they are promoting "social justice". Remove the self-aggrandizement and the social justice and you are left with infantilism.

Instead of a raised fist, how about a raised fist holding a baby rattle. We are seeing similar levels of high-level cognition.

The usual morning routine

| No Comments

Wonderful - a quiet coffee and read for a bit.  Missed this a lot.

Grocery deliveries this afternoon.  Stopping at the storage unit and the dump as well.

That business had been in trouble for many many years. Wrote about it here and here.

From Ars Technica:

Confirmed: Fry’s Electronics going out of business, shutting down all stores
Fry's Electronics, the decades-old superstore chain with locations in nine American states, has gone defunct. Bay Area TV station KRON-4 was the first press outlet to confirm the news late Tuesday, saying that Fry's will shut down all 30 of its American locations. The retailer followed that news hours later by offering its own Wednesday-morning announcement via the Fry's website.

Rumors began flying on Tuesday in the form of anecdotes from alleged Fry's employees, who all reported that they'd been summarily fired earlier in the day with zero notice. One anonymous report posted at The Layoff alleged that every remaining Fry's store in the US was "permanently closing tomorrow," and that statement was repeated hours later at a Fry's-related Reddit community. The Reddit post included the allegation that one store's staffers were tasked with shipping any remaining merchandise back to suppliers during their final day at work.

Sacramento freelance journalist Matthew Keys followed these posts by citing an unnamed source—someone who had worked at Fry's up until "this week"—who claimed that the electronics chain would make a formal announcement "this week" about closing all of its stores and liquidating any remaining assets. As the wave of rumors exploded, the official Fry's website began serving failure notices—yet some of its subsite content, particularly years-old press releases, remained active through Frys.com subdomains. As Tuesday wore on, the Fry's retail site flickered in and out of normal service, even letting customers buy products after KRON-4's report went live.

They had a good run but they should have pulled the plug ten years ago. Privately owned.

And it's Wednesday

| No Comments

As Piglet would say:

20210224-pooh.jpg

And feeling downright nappish

| No Comments

Early bed. Going to be sore tomorrow - moved a couple heavy pieces.  Took some aspirin and been drinking a lot of water so shouldn't be too bad.

Sleep in - got grocery deliveries tomorrow afternoon.  Dump run in the morning - a lot of stuff from Bellingham and some things piling up here too.  Lots of recycling.

Couple of videos and that is my day. Back to a more normal schedule now - the farm goes on the market next but I need to be up there for a couple weeks of serious work before I even think about listing it...

Great quote - good times ahead

| No Comments

This was a reader's comment to a post at Watts Up With That regarding Google purging its ranks of employees who are a little bit - - - too - - - WOKE.  After all, WOKE is the show you put on for the media and the rabble.  Being WOKE inside the corporate body is just never done.

All the low hanging realist people have been cancelled so what else is a hateful organization to do but eat their own? We are at the beginning of Progressive self immolation and it will only get better from here. No one, no one, will be aware enough to pass the woke litmus test and they’ll all be looking over their shoulders for people trying to take their place. The circular shooting gallery is gaining steam. AGW is poised to be outed by its’ progenitors as they realize they’re next on the hit list.

I find it amusing to watch these people strut on the stage completely ignorant of the fact that they are only the umpteenth time that this same exact character has been played. They are ignorant of history.  Another comment brought up Lady Bracknell - what a delightful and prescient character. One of Wilde's best creations.  This quote comes to mind:

‘The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.’

And we have been seeing it happening here for the last 40 years.  The students are revolting.
Tell me something I do not know...

I am hanging out here, being a Gray Man and watching it all unfold.

So true - hypocrisy

| No Comments

From Woodsterman:

20210223-eagle.jpg

A simple proposal

| No Comments

Let's see if BillG would agree to this:

20210223-BillG.jpg

I really like their President - from The Guardian:

Mexico was once a climate leader – now it's betting big on coal
The men on the midnight shift smoked cigarettes and cracked jokes in the glow of their helmet lights as they prepared to go underground. They were loading safety equipment and coils of pipe on to wheelbarrows, in readiness for a second shift due to start working later that week.

“We’re reactivating the industry,” said Arturo Rivera Wong, who had just taken on 40 more workers at the mine he owns in the scrublands of the border state of Coahuila.

As the climate crisis worsens and clean energy prices plunge, governments around the world have been weaning their economies of coal and other fossil fuels.

Mexico is moving in the opposite direction.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, has unveiled plans to buy nearly 2m tons of thermal coal from small producers like Rivera. He also plans to reactivate a pair of coal-fired plants on the Texas border, which were being wound down as natural gas and renewables took a more prominent role in Mexico’s energy mix.

Wonderful news - makes a lot of sense.  We have loads of coal and the modern plants are efficient and clean. It is a stop-gap until we deploy nuclear but perfectly fine for the next 500 years or so.

And back for a few days

| No Comments

The signing is done, they have the keys and are moving in.  YES!
I will need to be there sometime this weekend but that is a few days of rest and relaxation until then.

Back home - unpack the van, feed the dogs and get some dinner started.  Doing some oven-roasted vegetables tossed with big fat egg noodles, Kerrygold butter and some fresh parsley.

Been quite the mix of weather - hail, rain, downpour, sunshine, spring shower, lather, rinse, repeat.

More later

And on the road again

| No Comments

Back up to Bellingham again - last trip for a while.

More later this afternoon...

(as visions of a 3-shot 16-oz latte dance before my eyes - so close, I can almost taste it...)

So true

| No Comments

Words to live by:

20210223-stupid.jpg

And that is it

| No Comments

Longish but very good meeting. Tired. Tomorrow will be the last full day of dealing with the Bellingham property.

Really disappointed with the Supreme Court decision to not hear the election fraud cases.  Really ticked off. I thought that we had some solid judges on the bench.

Watch a video or two and then to sleep. Another early morning.

And just one trip after all

| No Comments

Wised up and rented a storage unit a few blocks from the property so I can clear it out without having to spend two hours round trip driving it to my Island storage unit.  I'll keep it for one month and this will take a huge load off.

Had a really fun "date" with my realtor - might be interesting if there was not a 40+ year difference in age.  We have a lot of fun talking. Signed everything - they pick up the keys tomorrow afternoon so I will be up there at 9:00 AM to finish cleaning out the garage. End of an era. Beginning of a new...

Picked up some food at the local coop - dinner for me.  Got a board meeting in 45 minutes so time to hustle and get set up - trying out a new microphone (getting a lot of feedback with my old setup).

Points North - Bellingham

| No Comments

Two trips up there again today. Signing the title. Woo Hoooo...

Board of Director's meeting tonight so busy day.  Nothing much out there online.

Out the door to Coffee and the highway.

The swamp

| No Comments

Great meme from Bayou Renaissance Man

20210222-swamp.jpg

Good night Irene...

| No Comments

The long days are coming to an end (at least this tranche of them) - sleep in sometime after Friday.

Doing two trips to Bellingham again tomorrow - meeting with someone for lunch and then signing the final papers for the house sale.  Good to have it out of my wheelhouse finally. Two trips because there is a lot still to empty out of the garage. The fun never stops.  And, Oh Yeah, there is a board meeting tomorrow night so I am doing the agenda and will get it sent out tomorrow AM before I leave here.

It is of great comfort to know that my #2 coffee place opens at 4:30 AM - I will not be that early but pretty close...  A few videos and I am outta here.

I can identify with this

| No Comments

Disney teeters on the brink of peak WOKE

| No Comments

That high-pitched hum is Walt spinning in his grave.  God rest his Soul. From The London Daily Mail:

Now even The Muppets are branded racist: Disney slaps popular show with an alert about 'offensive content' and it can only be seen on an adult account
The Muppet Show appears to be the latest victim of political correctness with new warnings over its historic content.

The adventures of Kermit the Frog, Animal, Miss Piggy and friends now come with an alert about 'offensive content' and can only be seen on an adult account.

The move came to light when Disney made five series available last Friday on its streaming service, which costs £5.99 a month.

Viewers are greeted with the disclaimer: 'This programme includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.

'Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.'

The warning is believed to refer to Muppet characters designed as stereotypes of Native Americans, Arabs and East Asians.

This mentally ill minority who point and shriek and who demand that we follow their diktats need to be taken out in to a field and shot.  Best thing for everyone concerned - puts them out of their misery and puts us out of ours.

This is not equality.  This is perversion.  This is mental illness.  This is a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy in someone who was never given the mental tool-kit to deal with life's little peaks and valleys.  This is what happens when everyone gets a trophy and nobody fails.  Society fails as a result. Simple as that.

From FOX News:

New Mexico Dem governor spent taxpayer cash on groceries, booze
New Mexico’s Democrat governor is on the defensive after a report this week detailed her office’s spending from a taxpayer-supported expense fund.

Records show Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spent nearly $13,500 over a six-month period in 2020 on items such as groceries, dry cleaning and alcohol, the Sante Fe New Mexican reported.

The booze spending included a purchase in September of more than $200 for five bottles of tequila, two bottles of vodka, two bottles of Merlot and single bottles of whiskey and gin, the report said.

In the same report, the newspaper disclosed that Grisham was hosting in-person staff meetings at the governor’s mansion at the same time that she was urging the public against mixing households in order to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

About half the $13,500 went toward food for the governor’s Cabinet members and staffers during those meetings, Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki told The Associated Press.

But these meetings were important doncha' know.  We could not be pouring two buck Chuck now could we?
(and the story behind the wine)

And back home for now

| No Comments

Two trips again tomorrow - I need a bigger truck... Almost had to tie the dogs to the front bumper with this last load. No room at all.

Chef Mike will be heating up some spaghetti sauce and I picked up some fresh pasta on my way home this last trip. Quick surf and then fix dinner.

Another day, another couple hours driving

| No Comments

Heading to the condo twice today - picking up the last of the boxes in the garage and then another trip for the furniture and to install the kitchen hardware.  Signing tomorrow.

Needless to say, no posting until much later today.

Whoops - energy reliability

| No Comments

The problems in Texas would have been moot if President Trump's administration had their way.
From Eric Worall:

The Trump Energy Resilience Plan which Could have Saved Texas
Has Trump derangement syndrome cost Texan lives? Back in 2017, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry proposed paying Coal and Nuclear Power Stations to keep at least 90 days worth of coal fuel onsite, for disaster resilience.

At the time the resilience proposal was widely criticised as being a thinly disguised Trump scheme to pump government money into the coal and nuclear industries. But in hindsight, a bit more resilience might have saved Texas from days of painful electricity blackouts.

Keeping several months of fuel is costly - Perry's plan was to eliminate that cost via Federal Subsidy. The goal was grid reliability and not money.

Keeping several months worth of fuel onsite is a cost which does not contribute to company profits. The cost of all that reserve fuel represents money which could instead have been used to pay down capital debts, or pay out dividends to shareholders. Power companies which choose to wear this kind of expense are at a competitive disadvantage compared to power companies which run leaner operations, by running their reserves down to the bare minimum. The expense of keeping fuel in reserve impacts market share and company growth; consumers frequently flock to the lowest price energy service, without considering the long term consequences.

Rick Perry’s plan would have eliminated the financial penalty for keeping a fuel reserve onsite, by compensating power companies for the cost of maintaining substantial fuel reserves.

More at the site.  alt.energy is not reliable. Fun stuff to play around with but...

But it's OK when Bill does it...

| No Comments

Great examination into the hypocrisy of BillG:

As they say: "I wll believe it is a crisis when the people who are telling me it is a crisis start acting like it is a crisis"

Half measures? Not even close - Texas

| No Comments

This ties in to my post earlier this morning.
Biden's effort was a 30.314% measure. From Texas Governor Greg Abbott:

White House Partially Approves Governor Abbott’s Request For A Major Disaster Declaration
Governor Greg Abbott today announced that President Biden has partially approved Texas' request for a Major Disaster Declaration. The Governor requested the Major Disaster Declaration on Thursday for Individual Assistance and Public Assistance in all 254 counties. The Biden administration approved the request for Individual Assistance in 77 counties and for Public Assistance (Emergency Protective Measures Only) in all 254 counties.

The Governor and the Texas Division of Emergency Management will continue to work to ensure the federal government provides appropriate assistance to individual Texans as well as to the state and local governments.

"I thank President Biden for his assistance as we respond to impacts of winter weather across our state," said Governor Abbott. "While this partial approval is an important first step, Texas will continue to work with our federal partners to ensure all eligible Texans have access to the relief they need. The funds provided under the Major Disaster Declaration may provide crucial assistance to Texans as they begin to repair their homes and address property damage.”

The Individual Assistance is immediate and very proactive. These people will get taken care of now. The other 70% of Texas will have to wait for their individual claims to be processed. No word as to how many Washington Bureaucrats will be available for this work load.

FEMA is a very well-run organization but it is controlled by the people who run it and what they do is up to the Biden administration. My guess is that if President Trump were still in office, there would have been FEMA trucks sitting there a week ago.  Again, the storm was very well forecast. No surprise there.

Dinner at home tonight

| No Comments

Didn't stop for Thai food - got some left-over soup and finishing that off. Got a lot done today.

The new owners' daughter and her family are doing some remodeling of the place - adding some lighting and a new coat of paint.  Looks great. 

Back in a bit - time to get Chef Mike working his magic on the soup and fire up the toaster oven for some bread. Dogs fed - they got a nice long run today as tomorrow is going to be busy - two trips to Bellingham. Up there Monday for signing. Nice to have that part of my life closed out and done with.

Back in a bit...

The students are revolting

| No Comments

Silliness in the silly city - from Campus Reform:

Students demand removal of George Washington statue...at University of Washington
The University of Washington's Black Student Union has garnered nearly 8,000 signatures on a petition that demands the school remove a statue of George Washington, the school's - and the state's - namesake. 

The petition claims the statue "perpetuates white supremacy and preserves its historical imposition," because George Washington owned slaves.  

The offending statue is part of the university's history: It is the product of a years-long campaign by the Daughters of the American Revolution, which raised $6,000 by "encourag[ing] schoolchildren from all over the state to contribute their pennies, no more than five cents apiece." The statue has stood on campus since 1909. 

The petition also proposes cutting ties with the Seattle Police Department, disarming the university police, increasing funding for the American Ethnic Studies Department, and hiring more Black faculty members, among other policies.

Geez - what a bunch of whiney little self-important babies. So glad I moved out of there 20 years ago - the place has seriously gone downhill. Don't even visit anymore.

Update from the Mars rover

| No Comments

Perseverance went offline earlier today - NASA scientists are going over the data:

20210220-NASA.jpg

Now this will be fun to watch

| No Comments

Guessing that it will be a real stemwinder - from FOX News:

Trump to speak at CPAC conference in first public appearance post-White House
Former President Trump will make his first major public appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) conference later this month, Fox News has learned.

Traditionally held outside of Washington, D.C., the 2021 CPAC conference will kick off in Orlando, Fla., on Thursday.

Trump is expected to address the conference on Sunday, Feb. 28, two sources told Fox News.

Be catching that one live - figured he would be there in one capacity or another. Time to start holding their feet to the fire - get the deep state identified, personalized and moved out of power.

And out for the day - Bellingham

| No Comments

Heading out for a dog walk, coffee, read for a little bit and then to Bellingham.  Want to get there around 1:00 PM or so.

No posting today - should be back sometime around dinnertime.  Maybe stop for Thai food on the way back - have not been there for a while.

Cold and overcast - supposed to start raining this afternoon. Got that pineapple express headed our way.

Relaxing sanctions with Iran? Done. Taking care of the people of Texas? That will take a while - from The Federalist:

One Week Into Texas Winter Disaster, Biden Finally Plans To Meet With FEMA
One week after a winter storm made its way across the United States to Texas, leaving millions without electricity, heat, and access to food and water, President Joe Biden finally signaled his intent on Friday to meet with Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Bob Fenton and potentially sign a major disaster declaration following pressure from Texas officials.

“The major declaration that the governor is requesting now allows me to not only do more things to repair permanent infrastructure, but also the ability to help individuals. So we just got that this morning, and we’ll be evaluating that and meeting with the president here to discuss it later on today,” Fenton said on “CBS This Morning.”

They had a solid forecast for the storm two weeks in advance of it hitting.  FEMA can not operate without direct orders from the State and from the President. Governor Abbott was very proactive in getting them in there but the act of Declaring a National Emergency can not happen without an order from the President.  This declaration will free up a lot of resources - aid, supplies, infrastructure reinforcement, cash. Why did Biden delay until just now? Can't be bothered with a Red State?

Here are two examples of President Trump's actions:

That is how you do it. You don't sit around on your thumbs taking naps and avoiding the press.

The emperor's new clothes

| No Comments

People are starting to notice - from Australia's Sky News:

‘Never before’ has the leader of the free world been ‘so cognitively compromised’
It is clear US President Joe Biden is not up to the task he has been “sworn in to do”, according to Sky News host Cory Bernardi.

“Never before has the leader of the free world been so cognitively compromised,” Mr Bernardi said

“It’s clear to me at the least that US President Joe Biden is struggling with dementia and is clearly not up to the task he’s been sworn in to do.”

More at the site (talking about the Town Hall) as well as a great video.

And it is NADAs all the way down

| No Comments

Surfed and surfed - I really did. Looking for anything that caught my interest but nothing. NADA Zip Zero.
From the very first page to the very last page.  Nothing.  It's a fscking desert out there I tell you.

Bellingham tomorrow so watch some videos (really hope that the internet fairies have been prolific in that department - they have been slacking off these last few days) and then to dreamland.

ALSO:  Interesting bit of trivia.  I have serious drainage issues at the house here. I knew this going into the project so it is not a surprise.  Just a bit of applied engineering that needs to be done. I will be using French Drains for the yard. Run into a sump and discharged through part of an earlier system and into the ocean.

Turns out that the term of art French Drain comes from their inventor: Henry Flagg French who literally wrote the book on farm and land drainage. One of Henry and Anne's four children was the renowned sculptor Daniel Chester French. Daniel's best known work is the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Washington D.C. Lincoln Memorial.

Still NADA

| No Comments

The Supreme Court was supposed to decide today whether to hear the voter fraud cases in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan - still no word.

Heading out to get some stuff for dinner and to check the mailbox - got some things in transit for the garage.

Got nothing so far

| No Comments

A break for a late lunch and a surf.  NADA

Doing laundry and working in the garage. Got a pineapple express moving through this weekend but it is expected to only hit the highlands - showers forecast for lowland areas but nothing out of the ordinary.  We will see. Back to work.

Morning routine

| No Comments

Got the fire built back up, had breakfast and heading out for a dog walk and some coffee.

Working at home today - some communications.  Got another meeting Monday so getting the agenda together for that. The usual stuff... Might even get to a welding project (got a couple in the queue) or some of the painting in the garage.

More spew in a couple of hours.  Nothing much happening out there so far.

Posted at Prepare for Change:

I’m a clinical lab scientist, C19 is fake, WAKE UP AMERICA
I’m a clinical lab scientist

I have a PhD in virology and immunology. I’m a clinical lab scientist and have tested 1500 “supposed” positive Covid 19 samples collected here in S. California. When my lab team and I did the testing through Koch’s postulates and observation under a SEM (scanning electron microscope), we found NO Covid in any of the 1500 samples.

What we found was that all of the 1500 samples were mostly Influenza A and some were influenza B, but not a single case of Covid, and we did not use the B.S. PCR test. We then sent the remainder of the samples to Stanford, Cornell, and a few of the University of California labs and they found the same results as we did, NO COVID. They found influenza A and B. All of us then spoke to the CDC and asked for viable samples of COVID, which CDC said they could not provide as they did not have any samples. We have now come to the firm conclusion through
all our research and lab work, that the COVID 19 was imaginary and fictitious.

The flu was called Covid and most of the 225,000 dead were dead through co-morbidities such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, emphysema etc. and they then got the flu which further weakened their immune system and they died. I have yet to find a single viable sample of Covid 19 to work with. We at the 7 universities that did the lab tests on these 1500 samples are now suing the CDC for Covid 19 fraud. the CDC has yet to send us a single viable, isolated and purifed sample of Covid 19. If they can’t or won’t send us a viable sample, I say there is no Covid 19, it is fictitious. The four research papers that do describe the genomic extracts of the Covid 19 virus never were successful in isolating and purifying the samples. All the four papers written on Covid 19 only describe small bits of RNA which were only 37 to 40 base pairs long which is NOT A VIRUS. A viral genome is typically 30,000 to 40,000 base pairs. 

With as bad as Covid is supposed to be all over the place, how come no one in any lab world wide has ever isolated and purified this virus in its entirety? That’s because they’ve never really found the virus, all they’ve ever found was small pieces of RNA which were never identified as the virus anyway.

No attribution at the site but it sounds plausible.  The PCR test is horrible - up to 90% false positive.

A specific difference

| No Comments

Just so we are clear on this - from My Penseive:

20210219-dementia.jpg

Downright nappish

| No Comments

Woke up two hours earlier than usual so I'm done for tonight.

A few videos and then sleep in tomorrow. Back to my usual routine.

The rise and fall of a narrative

| No Comments

Defund the police a very few and very loud people said.  It is for social justice a very few and very loud people said.
Should have thought about the consequences all the rest of us said (hint: vast majority)
Tracing the narrative from June 26, 2020 to February 13, 2021 - from Ian Miles Chong:

20210218-popo.jpg

Comedy gold. Such clueless idiots - they beclown themselves.

Speaking truth to power - a two-fer

| No Comments

Spot on - two from Woodsterman:

20210218-jameswoods.jpg

20210218-hillary.jpg

Hell - I'd pay $50 to watch her get arrested. The knock at the door. The disbelief. It would be delicious.

Watermelon environmentalist

| No Comments

Green on the outside.  Bright Red inside.
Cutting our energy use is their pathway to cutting capitalism.
Nobody would stand for a direct attack on capitalism - you want to do what?
So they have to sneak it past us - a sugar coating.

20210218-greta.jpg

Meanwhile, our Sun continues to be quiet.  Very very quiet. Looks like we have a period of global cooling in order.
From Electroverse:

WORST SNOWFALL IN 50+ YEARS HITS MOSCOW, MANITOBA SETS 20 NEW COLD RECORDS ON SATURDAY ALONE (IN BOOKS DATING BACK TO 1879), AND CARS HAVE BEEN BURIED UNDER SNOWDRIFTS IN BRITAIN
Record cold and snow has buffeted much of the Northern Hemisphere of late: from northern Asia, to the majority of Europe, to practically ALL of North America — the NH is suffering a truly historic winter of 2020/21 as the Grand Solar Minimum intensifies.

At a time when Solar Cycle 25 should be “ramping-up” the Sun has instead been eerily quiet — it has been “blank” (devoid of sunspots) for the past 11 consecutive days now (as of Mon, Feb. 15) which makes for 28 spotless days in 2021, or 61%.

Low solar activity has serious implications for our climate via forcings such as cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays and meridional jet stream flows (to name just two) — the upshot of which is always global cooling

We need to prepare for this. Warming is not a problem.  Cooling is. We are seeing the first stages.  All that the global warming people have to offer for proof is the output from their computer models.  Actual data - boot-on-the-ground measurements tell a completely different story. Our planet is getting colder. Some places are warmer, some places are colder - this is weather.  Overall? Temperatures are down. This is global cooling.

And nothing catches my eye

| No Comments

Dinner started - doing some pasta with ahi tuna and veggies. Slow news day.

Back home - good day

| No Comments

The new panel looks awesome.  I do love Square-D equipment -the gold standard.
Also stocked up at Trader Joe's as well as Hardware Sales.

Quick surf and then make dinner.

Back later this afternoon

| No Comments

Out the door... Coffee, blessed coffee...

Clueless - Alexandria Occasional-Cortex

| No Comments

Those crazy eyes - this woman is certifiably nuts.  From The Daily Wire:

Ocasio-Cortez Slams Texas: That’s What Happens ‘When You Don’t Pursue A Green New Deal’
On Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took a swipe at Texas political leaders, propounding that the suffering Texans are experiencing because of the freezing cold and concomitant power outages could have been addressed by her “Green New Deal.”

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal. Weak on sweeping next-gen public infrastructure investments, little focus on equity so communities are left behind, climate deniers in leadership so they don’t long prep for disaster. We need to help people *now.* Long-term we must realize these are the consequences of inaction.”

Excuse me but the reason Texas is in such a world of hurt is that they went all renewable and alt.energy and alt.energy does not work in cold weather. Alt.energy has been publicly shown to be the epic fail that it always has been and the big fools say to push on.

There is hope - college campus sanity

| No Comments

From The College Fix:

‘We demand not to be coddled.’ UChicago students’ new publication fights cancel culture, supports free speech
A group of conservative and libertarian students at the University of Chicago have recently launched the Chicago Thinker, an online news and opinion publication that aims to exercise and uphold the values of the school’s famous free speech Chicago Principles.

“We demand not to be coddled,” its editors state on their about page.

“Embracing the experience of unfettered inquiry and free expression is precisely the point of these years of intense study: to rigorously confront and challenge our most deeply-held beliefs—and to emerge from the experience as more thoughtful, informed human beings.”

Good - let a 100 flowers bloom and let us hope that this time, there is no ideological crackdown. Mao was a big asshole and an idiot. If there is one place in our culture for intelectual freedom and for the exploration of new ideas, it is the college campus.

And my day begins

| No Comments

Long day today - breakfast, quick surf, shower and out the door for coffee and Bellingham.

That is it for this evening

| No Comments

The electrician wants to start work at 8:00 AM tomorrow.  The Bellingham property is about 90 minutes away. Fortunately, my #2 favorite coffee place* opens at 4:30 AM so I will be good to go.

* #2 only because they are drive-through only - no place to hang out, sit and read.  Great coffee though.

From the New York Times:

Cuomo Faces Revolt as Legislators Move to Strip Him of Pandemic Powers
The Democratic leaders of the New York State Senate are moving to strip Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of unilateral emergency powers granted during the pandemic, setting up a remarkable rebuke for the governor from members of his own party.

The Senate’s measures, which could be voted on as soon as next week, underscore the deepening division between Mr. Cuomo and state lawmakers since the governor admitted to intentionally withholding critical data on virus-related deaths from the Legislature.

The moves came even as it emerged that the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York had opened an inquiry into the Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic. It was not known whether the inquiry, which was confirmed by three people familiar with the matter, was focused on Mr. Cuomo or any individual, only that it was in its earliest stages.

And the good citizens of New York State will elect a conservative who will institute a balanced budget and get the State back into solvency and proper leadership.  Two years after that, some knucklehead will come along and offer all sorts of free shit to the electorate and will get voted into office and the damned cycle will repeat again.

Some people have no sense of history.

Schadenfreude in Venezuela

| No Comments

Looks like socialism is failing yet again.  From Bloomberg via the Foundation for Economic Education:

Venezuela Turns to Privatization After Being Bankrupted by Socialism
Early in 2007, after winning a second six-year term as president, Hugo Chávez announced his plan to nationalize Venezuela’s largest telecommunications company, CANTV, hinting at wider nationalization plans to come.

“All that was privatized, let it be nationalized,” announced Chávez, who had run under the banner of democratic socialism.

Nearly a decade and a half later, on the brink of mass famine and a growing energy crisis, Venezuela is now moving in the opposite direction.

According to Bloomberg News, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has quietly begun transferring state assets back into the hands of private owners in an effort to reverse the country's economic collapse.

“Saddled with hundreds of failed state companies in an economy barreling over a cliff, the Venezuelan government is abandoning socialist doctrine by offloading key enterprises to private investors, offering profit in exchange for a share of revenue or products,” write Caracas-based journalists Fabiola Zerpa and Nicolle Yapur.

And a bit of that stuff that socialists never like to talk about - you know...  History:

In 1950, Venezuela was one of the most prosperous nations in the world. It ranked among the top 10 in GDP per capita and had a labor force with higher productivity than the United States.

Venezuela’s economic growth began to stall in the mid 1970s, however, after it nationalized the petroleum sector, which resulted in a surge of government revenue and public spending. It’s estimated that Venezuela brought in $7.6 billion in 1975 alone from nationalization ($37 billion in 2021 dollars). This led to an unprecedented surge of public spending. John Polga-Hecimovich, a professor of political science at the US Naval Academy, said the Venezuelan government spent more from 1974 to 1979 than in its entire previous history.

Despite the growth in government spending, the political situation remained relatively steady. In the late 70s, University of Michigan political science professor Daniel H. Levine asserted that “Venezuelans have achieved one of the few stable competitive political orders in Latin America.”

However, Venezuela’s flirtation with socialism would eventually turn into a love affair.

Much more at the site - socialists never ever learn.  It will never work. Never has. Never will.

A wonderful Rush Limbaugh obituary

| No Comments

From one of his frequent guest hosts and major talent in his own right Mark Steyn:

The Indispensable Man - Rush Limbaugh, 1951-2021
It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Rush Limbaugh, a giant of American broadcasting, a uniquely talented performer, and a hugely generous man to whom I owe almost everything.

Rush died this morning, after a year-long struggle with lung cancer. I was scheduled to guest-host today's show. Instead, as you can hear, his beloved Kathryn will be introducing a special program put together by the EIB team to celebrate a great man's life and legacy. It's a hard thing to do - compressing a glorious third-of-a-century into three hours - but Snerdley, Kraig, Mike, Allie and everyone else I've worked with there for so many years will do their best.

Usually, in this line of work, if you're lucky, you get a moment - a year or two when you're the in-thing - and you hope to hold enough of that moment as it slowly fades away to keep you going till retirement. Rush did something unprecedented in the history of TV and radio. Commercial broadcasting began in the United States in 1920: The Rush Limbaugh Show came along two-thirds of a century later, became the Number One program very quickly, and has stayed at the top all the way to today - for a third of the entire history of the medium. And throughout all those decades Rush and his show stayed exactly the same: a forensic breakdown of the day's news, punctuated by musical parodies, satirical sketches, and Rush's own optimism and good humor, even through this last terrible year.

Much more at the site - he was one of a kind.

And the stars aligned in heaven

| No Comments

Scored bigly this afternoon - was not expecting it but sometimes, things happen.  Was up to Costco to get gas and blueberries (been eating a lot of them recently) as well as picking up some stuff from Home Depot. I like to stop at thrift stores if I am nearby. 95% of the time I do not buy anything but it is always interesting to see what is new.

This time, it was a 4X5 view camera with two lenses, film holders and hard custom carrying case.  I had been looking for one of these for a project but the fscking hipsters have driven the price of these through the roof - literally. You are lucky to find a used bare camera for under $500 and there are usually issues (mechanical or bellows problems). My purchase today? $180.

My project?  I like making light fixtures - table lamps, etc... and want to offer them as a regular part of my blacksmithing business. One idea I had done many years ago was to silkscreen an image onto a piece of stained glass and use that for the shade. It is possible to do something with an ink-jet or laser printer but it is hard to get solid saturation in the black areas and the resulting screen usually needs a lot of touching up.

I have done commercial printing in the past and am very familiar with litho film.  Litho film has no gray tones - when it is developed, it is either solid clear or solid black.  Perfect for exposing a silk screen.  Having this camera will allow me to expose sheets of litho film - photos of barns and scenery, litho prints of computer images, all sorts of good stuff. 

Time for dinner but I will shoot some photos in a few days and post them.  Very happy with my purchase.

And I am outta here for a while

| No Comments

Need to make some phone calls - no cell service at the house.  Dog walk, coffee and then schedule some stuff for the Bellingham property.

Turning into a busy day...

Some headlines for today

| No Comments

Well crap - RIP Rush Limbaugh

| No Comments

Nice obit from FOX News:

Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk radio pioneer, dead at 70
Rush Limbaugh, the monumentally influential media icon who transformed talk radio and politics in his decades behind the microphone, helping shape the modern-day Republican Party, died Wednesday at the age of 70 after a battle with lung cancer, his family announced.

Limbaugh's wife, Kathryn, made the announcement on his radio show.

The radio icon learned he had Stage IV lung cancer in January 2020 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Trump at the State of the Union address days later. First lady Melania Trump then presented America’s highest civilian honor to Limbaugh in an emotional moment on the heels of his devastating cancer diagnosis.

"Rush Limbaugh: Thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country," President Trump said during the address.

Limbaugh is considered one of the most influential media figures in American history and has played a consequential role in conservative politics since "The Rush Limbaugh Show" began in 1988. Perched behind his Golden EIB (Excellence in Broadcasting) Microphone, Limbaugh spent over three decades as arguably both the most beloved and polarizing person in American media.

The program that began 33 years ago on national syndication with only 56 radio stations grew to be the most listened-to radio show in the United States, airing on more than 600 stations, according to the show’s website. Up to 27 million people tuned in on a weekly basis and Limbaugh has lovingly referred to his passionate fan base as "Dittoheads," as they would often say "ditto" when agreeing with the iconic radio host.

One of the greats. I missed his earlier years - was raised by two academic liberals and 9/11 was my Red Pill moment but listening to him after that was always interesting and a lot of fun.

He will be missed. There are some other really good people out there on the air but Limbaugh paved the way.

Got nothing so far

| No Comments

Surfed the internet from one end to the other and nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Sunny out - had a nice dog walk yesterday but only 30 minutes or so, cold and rainy.  Going to bundle up and go for a good long one - get them run ragged.

Grocery deliveries later this afternoon.

That's all she wrote...

| No Comments

Watch some video and go to sleep.  Got grocery deliveries tomorrow - the usual suspects. The new stereo is a great addition - having some music playing makes it a lot more conducive to work and creativity and all that good stuff...

Power in Texas - the Green Nude Eel

| No Comments

Tucker Carlson weighs in:

Statement issued today:

"The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'leaders' like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm. McConnell's dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse. The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle—they’ve never had it so good—and they want to keep it that way! We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell’s Beltway First agenda or Biden’s America Last.

"In 2020, I received the most votes of any sitting President in history, almost 75,000,000. Every incumbent House Republican won for the first time in decades, and we flipped 15 seats, almost costing Nancy Pelosi her job. Republicans won majorities in at least 59 of the 98 partisan legislative chambers, and the Democrats failed to flip a single legislative chamber from red to blue. And in 'Mitch’s Senate,' over the last two election cycles, I single-handedly saved at least 12 Senate seats, more than eight in the 2020 cycle alone—and then came the Georgia disaster, where we should have won both U.S. Senate seats, but McConnell matched the Democrat offer of $2,000 stimulus checks with $600. How does that work? It became the Democrats’ principal advertisement, and a big winner for them it was. McConnell then put himself, one of the most unpopular politicians in the United States, into the advertisements. Many Republicans in Georgia voted Democrat, or just didn’t vote, because of their anguish at their inept Governor, Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and the Republican Party, for not doing its job on Election Integrity during the 2020 Presidential race.

"It was a complete election disaster in Georgia, and certain other swing states. McConnell did nothing, and will never do what needs to be done in order to secure a fair and just electoral system into the future. He doesn’t have what it takes, never did, and never will.

"My only regret is that McConnell 'begged' for my strong support and endorsement before the great people of Kentucky in the 2020 election, and I gave it to him. He went from one point down to 20 points up, and won. How quickly he forgets. Without my endorsement, McConnell would have lost, and lost badly. Now, his numbers are lower than ever before, he is destroying the Republican side of the Senate, and in so doing, seriously hurting our Country.

"Likewise, McConnell has no credibility on China because of his family’s substantial Chinese business holdings. He does nothing on this tremendous economic and military threat.

"Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again. He will never do what needs to be done, or what is right for our Country. Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First. We want brilliant, strong, thoughtful, and compassionate leadership.

"Prior to the pandemic, we produced the greatest economy and jobs numbers in the history of our Country, and likewise, our economic recovery after Covid was the best in the world. We cut taxes and regulations, rebuilt our military, took care of our Vets, became energy independent, built the wall and stopped the massive inflow of illegals into our Country, and so much more. And now, illegals are pouring in, pipelines are being stopped, taxes will be going up, and we will no longer be energy independent.

"This is a big moment for our country, and we cannot let it pass by using third rate 'leaders' to dictate our future!"

That is going to leave a mark  Good...

Two memes for today

| No Comments

Found on the internet:

20210216-capitol.jpg

20210216-nouns.jpg

The first one is sooo true...

Of course not - Washington State

| No Comments

They are going over the edge with this crap - from The Post Millennial:

Washington state only picks radical BIPOC non-profit organizations to receive federal COVID relief funds
The Washington State Department of Commerce (WADOC) hand-selected non-profits to aid in COVID-19 relief through federal funding, selecting only those with radical political agendas. Washington State’s Equity Relief Fund awarded nearly $12 million to 358 non-profits statewide.

In a news release, the WADOC stated they teamed up with Philanthropy Northwest to provide $11.85 million in grants from the Washington Equity Relief Fund for Nonprofits. The organizations they selected are all led by Black Indigenous People of Color and only serve BIPOC communities.

Why is a non-profit philanthropic organization steering Federal Tax Dollars? A simple question.

Words. Fail.

In other election news... Arizona

| No Comments

From One America News Network:

Maricopa County Continues To Block Ariz. Senate
Maricopa County and the Arizona state Senate remain at a stalemate over the election audit in Arizona. The county is now requesting an injunction to try to block the Senate from investigating claims of election fraud.

Four minute video at the site - they are stonewalling hoping that it will all go away.

Good deal today

| No Comments

Nice older Sony stereo system.  About 20 years old from the days when the gaudier the better but still has decent sound, is loud enough and was cheap enough that if it gets knocked around a bit, I will not be upset.  Perfect for the garage. I have a computer there for doing labels and running the job tracking software so will be storing my MP3 collection and listening to that.

Up to 49°F now - snow is melting. We had our winter - time for spring.

Bite to eat and then working in the garage today.

About those elections in Georgia

| No Comments

Things are afoot - from the Atlanta, GA NPR affiliate WABE:

Fulton Board Fires Elections Director After Voting Improvements
Rick Barron managed two of the most significant and scrutinized elections in Fulton County’s history without major incident, weathering conspiracy theories spread by former president Donald Trump, as well as lawsuits, death threats, and a pandemic.

But on Tuesday, the county’s board of registration and elections voted 3-2 in favor of firing Barron, going against the wishes of the Fulton election director’s staff, who in recent days signed onto a letter in support of their boss.

In their letter, the staff described overcoming a pandemic, death threats, hostile poll watchers, a coronavirus outbreak in the county’s warehouse, and the death of a beloved employee in order to conduct a “fair and unbiased election.”

“The person who is responsible for our success,” the staff wrote in a letter to the board, “is current Director Richard Barron who has shown his ability to guide, motivate, steer and maintain the course of integrity, honesty, and fairness,” the staff wrote in their letter to the board.

The election was dirty as hell.  They know it.  We know it.  They know that we know. We know that they know that we know. They are hoping that we will accept Barron as their fall guy. Not so fast.

Those RINO Senators who voted for impeachment?  From One America News Network:

Nearly All Republican Senators Who Voted To Convict President Trump Now Face Censures
Nearly all of the Republican senators who voted in favor of convicting President Trump during his impeachment trial are facing censures.

Reprimand came quickly for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) who was censured by Louisiana’s Republican Party shortly after President Trump was acquitted. While speaking to reporters Saturday, he claimed the President’s legal team had a luck-luster defense strategy.

Typical - blame someone else for your screw-up.

Murkowski (RINO-Alaska) has not been censured yet but she is up for reelection in 2022. Primary her a**.

Out for a little bit

| No Comments

Got my mud boots on and heading out for a nice long dog walk followed by some coffee and sitting and reading for a little while. Meeting someone at 1:00 PM for a local deal (small component stereo set - perfect for my garage) and then back home. Enough snow has melted that I'll be able to drive the van tomorrow - another run to Bellingham after grocery deliveries.

Back in a bit...

A little experiment

| No Comments

By Jonathan T Gilliam (here and here for starters):

20210216-twitter.jpg

Bias? Censorship? You bet.

City life / country life - a comparison

| No Comments

Eaton Rapids Joe is a daily read for me.  He tells a story this morning.  Snow. Tractors. City slickers.
Just go and read: And just like that! I am hoping for more snow

Stupid, bad leadership and an epic sense of elitism. From The Detroit News:

Gov. Whitmer asks Detroit business leaders to 'lean in' on promoting civility
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made a direct appeal to Detroit business leaders Friday morning, asking them to get more involved in promoting civility in state politics.

"I think that it's really important in this moment that the chamber and the members of the chamber lean in and hold people who espouse rhetoric that is dangerous accountable, and play a real role here," Whitmer said. 

She made the comment during a virtual "address for the business community" held by the Detroit Regional Chamber. The Democratic governor spoke for about 15 minutes before taking questions from Sandy Baruah, the chamber's president and CEO.

So she knew she was going to be asked questions about her leadership abilities and she asked the rabble to be "civil". Thanks to the incredible efforts of the Bad Orange Man, national unemployment is down to about 6% (down from 14.7% during the height of the Wuhan Flu panic). Michigan is at 7.5% - higher than the national average and much higher than some surrounding states.

If she is that thin skinned about words, maybe people should start using sticks and stones. Anything to get her out of public office and out of harm's way (the public's harm, not hers).

Back to normal - snow

| No Comments

Still some snow on the ground but 80% of it has melted. 37°F outside now.

Meeting last night was good - some issues needed to be resolved so we scheduled another meeting for next Monday.  Good group of people.

Absolutely nothing planned for today outside of coffee and reading for a little bit. Got a lot happening starting tomorrow - final push on the Bellingham property. Closes on the 22nd.

Been up for two hours - going back to nap for two more.  A bit drowsy.

From the cover of the May 2020 Rolling Stone to the February 2021 The New York Post:

20210213-rolling.jpg

20210216-nypost.jpg

I love the body language in the first photo.  Whenever anyone is steepling their fingers like that, they are indicating that they feel superior to those around them. That they are elite. Above the crowd. Superior. This is a very common tell.

And then, there is this article by Jared Dyson at The Liberty Loft:

Cuomo Lives in a Fantasy World Where He Does No Wrong
On Monday, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo made his first comments after a scandal broke about his administrations handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and releasing of patients back to nursing facilities. To be clear, it was not necessarily releasing them, but rather forcing nursing facilities to take them. It resulted in thousands of deaths of New Yorkers.

Those thousands of deaths were covered, hidden from the public and state lawmakers who were asking for information surrounding the cases. Now, Cuomo insists that the cases are fully and accurately reported. He also admitted that his team had made a mistake but not the mistake he should have admitted.

Cuomo should have admitted that he purposefully misled the public in an attempt to hide how grave the situation was in New York. He should have admitted that the decision to send patients to nursing facilities was the wrong one and that he is the one to blame. He should have come out and resigned from his position.

Instead, he said that the mistakes that were made simply created a void for conspiracy theories. Yes, those conspiracy theories that the left likes to blame for everything since President Donald Trump took office. They have been great at manufacturing them as well as hiding behind them.

To think that people were floating the idea of him running for president at one time. He might have been better than Obama but not by much.

A thought for these times

| No Comments

From My Pensieve:

20210216-bart.jpg

But...  There are so many of them out there...

Less pond scum on the face of this planet. Adding to the two events posted here (here too).
From the London Daily Mail:

30 Taliban militants are killed in explosion during bomb-making class at Afghan mosque
At least 30 Taliban fighters have been killed in an explosion at a mosque in Afghanistan during a bomb-making class.

The 209th Shaheen Corps - part of the Afghan National Army - said in a statement that 30 fighters including six foreign nationals who were expert mine makers, had been killed in an explosion on Saturday morning.

The blast happened at a mosque in the village of Qultaq in the Dowlatabad district of Balkh province.

The statement said the bodies of the six foreign nationals could not be identified because of damage caused by the blast.

Over 400 comments and you can guess the general level of sorrow and prayer.

I have zero problem with Islam.  Terrorists are a different story.  Christianity had a very dark side but we went through a reformation.  It is way past time for Muslims to do the same thing and grow up. Become world citizens.

The latest and greatest

| No Comments

Wonderful article dissecting high-speed rail and those people who would advocate it.
From Randal O'Toole writing at the CATO Institute:

A Global Leader in Obsolete Technology
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wants to make the United States the “global leader” in high-speed rail. That’s like wanting to be the world leader in electric typewriters, rotary telephones, or steam locomotives, all technologies that were once revolutionary but are functionally obsolete today. High-speed trains, in particular, were rendered obsolete in 1958, when Boeing introduced the 707 jetliner, which was twice as fast as the fastest trains today.

Aside from speed, what makes high-speed rail obsolete is its high cost. Unlike airlines, which don’t require much infrastructure other than landing fields, high-speed trains require huge amounts of infrastructure that must be built and maintained to extremely precise standards. That’s why airfares averaged just 14 cents per passenger-mile in 2019, whereas fares on Amtrak’s high-speed Acela averaged more than 90 cents per passenger-mile.

Highways require infrastructure but not this level of precision. While a four-lane freeway costs about $10 million to $20 million a mile, California ended up spending $100 million a mile building its abortive high-speed rail line on flat ground, and it predicted building in hilly territory would cost at least $170 million per mile.

In 2009, President Obama proposed that the United States build 8,600 miles of high-speed rail lines in six disconnected networks in the Northeast, South, Florida, Midwest, California, and the Pacific Northwest. Without ever asking how much this would cost, Congress gave Obama $10.1 billion, which (after adding $1.4 billion of other funds) Obama passed on to the states. Except in California, no one expected that these funds would produce 150-mile-per-hour bullet trains, but they were supposed to increase frequencies and speeds in ten different corridors.

Now, more than ten years later, what has happened with those projects? One corridor saw frequencies increase by two trains a day. That corridor and two others saw speeds increase by an average of 2 miles per hour. Three other corridors actually saw speeds decline by an average of 1 mile per hour. Four corridors saw no changes at all. The one corridor that saw both frequencies and speeds increase also saw ridership decline by 12 percent. Effectively, the $11.5 billion was all wasted.

Yeah - our tax dollars wasted again. And these are supposed to be the best and brightest?  Grifters gotta grift. Wonder how much Mayor Pete will be worth at the end of his tenure. Millions?

Great website for tracking power outages in the USA: PowerOutage.US

Portland, Oregon is still in a world of hurt...

alt.energy in the news - Texas

| No Comments

Looks like there is some Schadenfreude regarding the Lone Star State as well. From Anthony Watts:

Texas frozen wind power – outages ensue, electricity now at unheard of $9000 per megawatt-hour
There’s a saying in the lone star state “Don’t Mess with Texas” which actually started out as an anti-littering campaign but has become sort of a slogan for the rugged, no-nonsense way of life that people have there. Now with dead wind turbines littering the state, the focus on deploying unreliable renewable energy in the name of “saving the planet” has literally “messed with Texas” in a huge way.

Ice storms knocked out nearly half the wind-power generating capacity of Texas on Sunday as a massive deep freeze across the state locked up wind turbine generators, creating an electricity generation crisis.

Wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of energy in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies last year, behind natural gas, which represented 45%, according to Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) figures.

ERCOT reports today the spot price for electricity in Texas is currently a stunning $9000 per MegaWatt-hour. Even in the high demand summer months, $100 per MW-hr would be high.

And they are sitting on huge reserves of natural gas and petroleum. How much bad weather to people need to experience before they start to question the Global Warming narrative? The data is all around us.

alt.energy in the news - Germany

| No Comments

From Australia's Sky News:

World’s ‘solar and wind capital’ freezing due to snow ‘blanketing millions’ of solar panels
Germany is held up as the world’s solar and wind capital by “renewables luvvies” but Germans are freezing through winter due to “millions of solar panels blanketed in snow” and turbines sitting idle, according to Rowan Dean.

“Germany’s long been held up by the likes of these renewable luvvies, they say Germany’s the world’s great wind and solar capital,” Mr Dean said.

“But as we speak millions of solar panels are blanketed in snow and 30,000 wind turbines are sitting idle because there’s no wind.

“Freezing Germans shivering in their lederhosen’s are desperate for coal fired power to heat up their wurst and sauerkraut.”

The word we are thinking of is Schadenfreude.  The word they are thinking of is baseload.  We have Schadenfreude.  They do not have baseload.  They used to but they shut all of theirs down because it did not conform to the environmental narrative. It was not green.

Time to build some coal and gas power plants as temporary measures and then go for modern nuclear - molten salt reactors using Thorium as fuel.

They got me - so true

| No Comments

The buck stops here was a sign that President Harry S. Truman displayed on his desk (not the Resolute Desk (get your own here)) during his tenure.   We need some of that in New York State - from The Post Millennial:

Gov. Cuomo blames 'disinformation' and 'toxic political environment' for COVID nursing home deaths scandal
NY State Gov. Andrew Cuomo spoke to press on Monday and blamed the "toxic political environment" for the nursing home deaths cover-up, saying that he wanted to get the "facts" straight regarding the nursing home scandal in his state.

"This past year, there is a toxic political environment," he said, "and everything gets politicized. And there's political spin, and there are facts, two very different things. I just want to make sure people have facts."

New York State Attorney General Letitia James launched an investigation into the nursing home deaths in New York state, finding that the state drastically underreported the number of dead in nursing homes, but up to 50 percent.

A top Cuomo staffer then said that the deaths were intentionally obfuscated, so that there wouldn't be an issue with regard to that undercount. On Monday, Cuomo was asked to account for this, and to take responsibility for these acts of his administration.

More at the site.  Typical obfuscation and backpedaling from a career bureaucrat. Rope. Tree. Some assembly required.

Used to think he was just stupid.  I have a facial diaper that says as much.  Turns out that he is criminal.
From Seattle station KTTH:

State funneled federal COVID relief to radical political groups, all based on race
The Washington State Department of Commerce gave federal COVID relief tax dollars to nonprofits pursuing radical political agendas. Tax dollars even went to indirectly bail criminals out of jail.

The selection process for funding was based on race. And some of the vetting seems influenced more by ideology than by need.

The Department of Commerce, led by Lisa Brown, aimed to “distribute COVID relief funds equitably to the communities hardest hit by the pandemic.” But to qualify to the Washington Equity Relief Fund, a group of “reviewers” made sure the nonprofits were “led by and serving Black, Indigenous and people of color.”

In other words, if the nonprofit is run by majority white people or serve entire communities, it wouldn’t qualify for assistance. How equitable.

Should federal tax dollars go to political nonprofits, chosen by hand-selected “reviewers” who share the political beliefs of the very nonprofits they’re rewarding, all under the auspices of COVID relief? No.

A lot more at the site - names of people, names of organizations, numbers, links.  Well researched and very bad optics for the Inslee administration. They have been treating our tax dollars like some huge slush-fund for their favorite political activists. Time to clean house.

And back home again - good to be out

| No Comments

Sure, I have reserves of food and water for over a month.  Do I want to spend a month holed up? Nope.

It was wonderful sitting inside reading and enjoying my coffee.  Ran up to Costco (the roads were wet but clear) and did some grocery shopping.  Done and back home for now - making some hot and sour soup for dinner but I will be adding some white beans to it - see how that goes. I had them soaking for a white chili but keep pushing that menu to the back of the queue.

Got the Shitake mushrooms soaking - surf for a bit. Meeting at 6:30 PM

Temp is now 38°F and it is supposed to get up to 41 today. Light rainfall.

Got a board meeting tonight so getting the agenda together for that - send it out and then try to go out for coffee.  See how that goes.

More posting later this afternoon - very quiet out there in the real world.

Posted about it here: Two workplace accidents 
From One America News Network:

Afghan, Iranian Authorities Probe Fuel Tank, Say Terror Attack ‘Possible’
Iranian and Afghan authorities are investigating a major explosion at their shared border. On Sunday, Iranian rescue teams arrived at the Afghan border checkpoint, just hours after a fuel tanker reportedly exploded and set hundreds of other vehicles on fire.

The blast took place while the tanker was going through customs proceedings at the checkpoint. Officials said it’s still not clear what caused the explosion and they are not ruling out the possibility of it being terror-related.

As of Sunday evening, at least 500 other fuel tankers have burnt as a result of the initial blast.

“People have suffered millions of dollars in damages,” stated Afghani truck driver Mohammad Daud. “The losses are endured by people and traders, not the government…all the burnt tankers belonged to people and nobody cares about it.”

I hope that the terrorists enjoy their eternity in hell. Those 72 white grapes of exceptional purity must be really sweet.  Imagine the expression on their faces when they find that they killed themselves over a simple translation error.

The swamp - everyone is connected

| No Comments

Another deep-state denizen - from National File:

Biden’s Science Advisor Met With Jeffrey Epstein
Eric Lander, Joe Biden’s Science Advisor to the President and choice to head the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, met with Jeffrey Epstein, the late pedophile and accused human trafficker. Epstein claimed that he funded geneticist Lander’s work, though a representative for Lander denies it. Photographic evidence shows very clearly that Lander had an immersive meeting with Epstein years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for solicitation of prostitution with a minor. Archived documentation shows that Lander was listed as a funding recipient of the Jeffrey Epstein Foundation.

And of course:

On the topic of his 2012 meeting with Epstein, Lander feigned ignorance, saying he went to the meeting based on an invitation from Epstein-funded Harvard scientist Martin Nowak and that “I later learned about his more sordid history. I’ve had no relationship with Epstein.”

In other words - pants on fire. More at the article including lots of photos and additional links to corroborating stories.

Rain sweet rain

| No Comments

Still 36°F outside, still a lot of snow on the ground but the rain is falling and the snow is melting away.

Got some stuff to work on here but then will try to head out for coffee in a few hours. Quick surf first.

Well crap - RIP Rupert Neve

| No Comments

You have heard his work without knowing it.  He was one of the top designers of Recording Studio mixing boards and audio processing equipment.
From Sound on Sound:

Rupert Neve 1926-2021
We are very sad to report the death of Rupert Neve, perhaps the most important and influential designer in recording-studio history. Mr. Neve passed away at the age of 94 in his adoptive home of Wimberley, Texas, but his name will be forever associated with the British company he founded in 1961. He was quick to see the potential of solid-state electronics, designing his first all-transistor console in the mid-’60s, and would go on to create seminal designs such as the 1073 and 1084 preamp/EQ modules. Neve consoles became first choice for recording studios and broadcasters all around the world, and by the time he and wife Evelyn sold Neve Electronics in 1975, the company employed over 500 people. 

Rupert Neve remained active as a consultant and equipment developer, and in the 1980s he founded Focusrite to bring his latest designs to market. The Focusrite consoles were among the most advanced analogue mixers ever made, but their unrivalled quality came at a cost, and in the end only eight were made. Modules from those consoles are now highly sought-after, and Neve's designs for both his original company and Focusrite are still in production today.

Neve was then instrumental in the success of Amek Systems, where his console designs offered unprecedented quality for the cost, and also worked with Taylor Guitars before designing a line of premium microphones for sE Electronics in 2011. He and Evelyn moved to Texas in 1994 and in 2005 he established Rupert Neve Designs, where he continued to develop innovative products and pass on his 70-plus years of accumulated experience.

Rupert Neve is survived by Evelyn and their five children, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

A true legend.  His worlk lives on long after he is gone.

Now that is one way to get rid of them...

| No Comments

A bit of a faux pas in England - from The Guardian:

Fury at ‘do not resuscitate’ notices given to Covid patients with learning disabilities
People with learning disabilities have been given do not resuscitate orders during the second wave of the pandemic, in spite of widespread condemnation of the practice last year and an urgent investigation by the care watchdog.

Mencap said it had received reports in January from people with learning disabilities that they had been told they would not be resuscitated if they were taken ill with Covid-19.

The Care Quality Commission said in December that inappropriate Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) noticesx had caused potentially avoidable deaths last year.

DNACPRs are usually made for people who are too frail to benefit from CPR, but Mencap said some seem to have been issued for people simply because they had a learning disability. The CQC is due to publish a report on the practice within weeks.

There will be the usual tut-tutting and maybe even a strongly-worded memo but such is socialized medicine.

It amazes me that people still think that socialized medicine is a good thing.

Fuzzy Slippers writing at Legal Insurrection reminds us of Senator Graham's testemony during the Kavenaugh hearings and has some interesting (and very encouraging) thoughts:

Lindsey Graham: “I don’t know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached” If Republicans Retake House in 2022
During the horrendous indignities heaped upon and lies spewed about now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh throughout his confirmation hearings, something snapped in Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The way the Democrats behaved offended him on some deep level, and he unleashed on them in a magnificent, blistering rebuke of their vile, base attacks on Kavanaugh.

I must have watched this video ten times since its release, and each time, I am struck again by how absolutely incensed he is, how deeply affected he is by all that happened.  This is not political theater, and you don’t have to understand Southerners (though that helps) to see the force of will he exerts to maintain his composure.

From that moment in September 2018 to this, Graham has not wavered. Sure, he might wake up tomorrow and revert to being Lindsey “Grahamnesty,” but watch that video again. This strikes me as a road to Damascus-type conversion, granted a secular, political, personal one.

Indeed, not only has he stood fast and defended Trump even after he left office, but on Sunday, Graham doubled down on his support for President Trump, for Trump’s goal to “rebuild the Republican Party,” and for the MAGA movement.

The Business Insider reports:

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” the South Carolina Republican told host Chris Wallace that Trump “was grateful to his lawyers” and “he appreciated the help that all of us have provided.”

Graham added: “He’s ready to move on and rebuild the Republican Party. He’s excited about 2022. I’m going to go down to talk with him next week, play a little golf in Florida. And I said Mr. President, this MAGA [Make America Great Again] movement needs to continue.”

During the same interview, he observed that with Trump’s second impeachment Democrats had opened Pandora’s box, and he illustrated his point by stating that should the GOP take back the House in 2022, he doesn’t “know how Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached.”

So true. The Democrats are not that smart.  They fail to realize that the pendulum will swing back again and Republicans will control the House and the Senate - maybe as soon as two years from now. I can think of a couple of high-profile show trials I would not mind seeing. Especially if there was some serious prison time meted out at the end.

Nancy and Chuck have not represented their constituants for so long now, they have forgotten what it feels like.  They consider themselves to be "above" the common man. Elite. Our anger is rising. They would do well to remember what prompted the founding of our Nation in the first place. We The People do not like tyrrany.

Starting to see a little snowmelt

| No Comments

Some things are peeking through - air temp is still solidly at 36° but that is conducive to a bit of melting; especially when in contact with the ground.

See what happens tomorrow - coffee here was good but I miss the ritual and the socialization.

Making some pasta for dinner.  Oven roasted veggies on top of some marinara. Or just toss the noodles with some butter and have the veggies with that.  Sprinkle with fresh parsley.

Interesting if correct - from the Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.

A Precolumbian Presence of Venetian Glass Trade Beads in Arctic Alaska
Abstract
Excavation at three Late Prehistoric Eskimo sites in arctic Alaska has revealed the presence of Venetian glass trade beads in radiocarbon-dated contexts that predate Columbus's discovery of the Western Hemisphere. The bead variety, commonly known as “Early Blue” and “Ichtucknee Plain,” has been confirmed by expert examination and comparative Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). The beads are present in sites throughout the Caribbean, the eastern coast of Central and North America, and the eastern Great Lakes region, where they are commonly found in sites dating between approximately AD 1550 and 1750, although a diminishing presence continues into the early 1800s. Beads of this variety have not previously been reported from Alaska. Ascribed to Venetian production by their precolumbian age, the beads challenge the currently accepted chronology for the development of their production methodology, availability, and presence in the Americas. In the absence of trans-Atlantic communication, the most likely route these beads traveled from Europe to northwestern Alaska is across Eurasia and over the Bering Strait. This is the first documented instance of the presence of indubitable European materials in prehistoric sites in the Western Hemisphere as the result of overland transport across the Eurasian continent.

Now this is going to stir up some history theories. From Venice through the Bering Strait?  Glass beads would be an excellent trade-good - durable, compact and not locally produced.

I love when stuff like this happens. Turned 70 a few months ago which means that Plate Tectonics was a brand new thing when I was in grade school. Part of the reason why I majored in Physical Oceanography and Marine Biology.  Dropped out but that is another story.

Revolutions in thinking keep our minds engaged. More, faster please...

right on schedule.  Slight problem, they are frozen. Snow coming down, starting to accumulate and it has not gotten above 35°F - high altitude temps are a lot lower.

Looks like snowbound for another day.

Electricity is being restored - Power to the People - yeah!!!

Snohomish - 1,589
Puget Sound Electric - 4,729
Oregon - 18,324
B.C. Canada -  37

Oregon has suffered the most - they had a lot of ice rain which makes the power lines go down faster than a prom dress. They started with 37K so 18K is doing pretty good.

See what happens tomorrow morning. Doing fine here.  Checked on a couple of neighbors and they are fine too.

And nothing much happening here for now

| No Comments

Temp is rattling around 35°F - sometimes a degree or two higher, sometimes lower.  The occasional flurry but no real accumulation or snowmelt.

Working on some things at home - sorting crap, organizing, all good things that need to be done but I do miss my morning coffee and the pups are getting very restive. They miss their walkies.

Quick lunch break (sammich) and back to work.  Feeling a bit drowsy which is odd as I have been drinking some coffee and some tea - should be fairly caffinated.  Open some windows a bit and see if that has any effect.

Check back here in a couple of hours...

Public transportation is a money sink regardless of how you look at it. Busses work great but they are not the new sexy thing. Light rail is The Next Big Thing these days and it is us taxpayers who are paying the price. From The Seattle Times:

Sound Transit faces a $11.5 billion shortfall. Now what’s it going to do?
When Sound Transit unveiled a $54 billion tax measure in 2016, even its most tenacious critics said the rail and bus budgets were so larded with financial cushions the agency couldn’t possibly run short on cash.

Only five years later, Sound Transit faces an $11.5 billion budget shortfall caused by soaring land costs, alignments in sloppy soils, community requests for add-ons and a projected $6 billion reduction in tax revenue due to the COVID-19 recession.

The shortage was revealed last month in the midst of environmental studies of the voter-approved Sound Transit 3 projects. Transit board members face difficult decisions to close the budget gap, such as delaying lines or stations, raising taxes within Seattle or amassing more debt for a half-century.

To put those three paragraphs into plain English:
#1) - Sound Transit decided to cut to the chase, ask for everything it wanted and then to keep asking for more so there would be zero chance of running short.  This was their one-time letter to Santa and by God, they were going to get that pony they were wanting.
#2) - five years later, their spending was so high, their inability to follow a budget, their lack of fiscal sense caused them to go into the hole by 21.3% of the total budget   -- and --
#3) - now, their only options are to delay the implementation (causing costs to rise), raising taxes (on an already burdened base) or, kick the can down the road (causing costs to rise).

I do not have the link handy but someone did a nice study of the light rail implementation in Albuquerque, NM and found that for the cost of this program, they could have given each regular rider a Prius and for the annual cost of maintenence of the lines, they could have given each regular rider (now a Prius owner), $10,000 for maintenence costs and gasoline.  Public transportation is a financial burdon on everyone.  The cost to ride is just a fraction of the total cost to operate.

I understand the need.  What gets me is that busses are the most cost-effective way to handle this - why do city planners keep looking at fancier and fancier alternatives. They need to stick with what works.

Happy February 14th

| 1 Comment

Why celebrate today?  This:

20210214-browning.jpg

A classic design - I own one. Tip of the hat to Kim DuToit

Oh...  And happy celebration of St. Valentine's Day to you as well.

So much for rain today

| No Comments

Woke up to 32°F and snowfall.  About two inches accumulation. 

Forecast is for 37°F later this afternoon transitioning to rainfall. We will see...

Was hoping to get out for coffee - our governor has opened restaurants to 25% seating capacity today and I would love to be sitting inside reading for a bit but this is not in the cards.

Surf, shower, breakfast, coffee here and to work.

Makes perfect sense - the impeachment

| No Comments

Of course:

20210213-win.jpg

I may grouse about the weather but...

| No Comments

I am glad I am not in Texas - from Texas Storm Chasers:

MAJOR WINTER STORM FOR ALL 254 TEXAS COUNTIES TONIGHT, SUNDAY, AND MONDAY
Winter Storm Watches or Winter Storm Warnings are in effect for nearly all of Texas. Technically, they include at least a portion of all 254 counties in the state. However, the watch technically does not yet include the city of El Paso.

For simplicity and for the fact I’ve been running on little sleep for days, we’ll go ahead and say the entire state. Those within a winter storm watch will likely be upgraded to a winter weather advisory or winter storm warning later today. Those upgrades occur when we’re within 24-36 hours of the event.

Don’t get hung up on the terminology of what ‘winter weather’ alert affects your location. The bottom line is we’re expecting accumulating winter precipitation and brutally cold weather across all of Texas over the next several days. Another significant winter storm is on the table for Tuesday Night and Wednesday.

Makes what is happening in our little island paradise seem like a spring shower. Looks really bad. Also, because it is so widespread, what snow removal equipment Texas does have is going to be spread very thin. It is not just the United States that is getting hit - the entire Northern Hemisphere is freezing. Australia is having problems too.

In England, the River Thames has frozen over - first time in 60 years. During the Maunder and Dalton minima, it used to do this on a regular basis - they would have Frost Fairs - booths on the ice and a grand promenade down the middle as people walked over the water. More here.

Our Sun drives our climate and our Sun is entering a quiet period.  We can look forward to an extended period of cooler than normal weather. Any idea that we, as a human race, can affect the global climate by our actions is simply pure hubris on our part. This planet is so much bigger than we are it is not funny. More people die from cold than they do from heat so this is something that needs to be addressed ASAP.  Being environmentally clean and not polluting is a good thing but the idea that we are having a negative impact on our climate is absurd.

Two workplace accidents

| No Comments

Could not be happening to nicer people.  The first - from Northern Iraq's BasNews:

21 IS Militants Killed When Suicide Bomber Toots Farewell Horn
At least 21 Islamic State (IS) militants were killed after a suicide bomber blew his car-bomb’s horn in farewell to other jihadists in a remote area of Samarra, Salahaddin province.

Commander of Samarra Operations Command, Jabbar Daraji, said the suicide bomber and his vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) were prepared for an attack on a police checkpoint.

“The suicide bomber blew a horn to say goodbye to the other IS militants, and this detonated the bombs,” the commander explained.

IS has recently carried out several devastating attacks on both civilians and security forces of Iraq. The largest of which was a twin suicide bombing in central Baghdad last month which killed 32 people and injured more than 100.

And the second seems to be just an accident but a horrific one - from Zero Hedge:

"Powerful Enough To Be Spotted From Space": Fuel Tanker Convoy Explodes At Afghan-Iran Border
A fuel tanker truck explosion on the Iran-Afghanistan border on Saturday caused a chain reaction of blasts so large it could be observed from space.

According to the Associated Press, "Two explosions at the border crossing were powerful enough to be spotted from space by NASA satellites. One blast erupted around 1:10 p.m. Afghan time (0840 GMT), the next around a half hour later at 1:42 p.m. local (0912 GMT)."

Iranian state TV is reporting that over 500 trucks transporting natural gas and fuel caught fire as the explosions intensified.

The blaze continued through the day at the Islam Qala border crossing, which is among the busiest border and commercial transit routes connecting Iran and Afghanistan.

While multiple injured have been rushed to the hospital, emergency workers have struggled to assess casualties given the blaze's intensity made the whole area difficult to access.

I can not imagine the stupidity of bunching up 500 fuel trucks together like that. Prayers going out to the drivers, the customs officials, the other travelers trying to get clear.  Talk about a catastrophe.

From President Trump's lips to our ears

| No Comments

He released this statement after the second impeachment fiasco imploded:

This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country. No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few months ago.

I also want to convey my gratitude to the millions of decent, hardworking, law-abiding, God-and-Country loving citizens who have bravely supported these important principles in these very difficult and challenging times.

Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it!

We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future.

Together there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

We remain one People, one family, one glorious nation under God, and it’s our responsibility to preserve this magnificent inheritance for our children and for generations of Americans to come.
May God bless all of you, and may God forever bless the United States of America.

Great words from a great man.

Snow-pocalypse - Day two?

| No Comments

Initial forecast was for the snow to taper off, the temps to warm up and for us to be done with all of this foolishness.

The snowfall almost stopped this afternoon but now it is picking back up and the temps are dropping slightly.  It is now 32°F outside.  It had gotten up to 34°F around 2:00 PM. Forecast is for 38°F tomorrow and rainfall.  See what happens. Getting stuff done here but do not like being stuck inside.

There are reasons why I moved from Boston to the Pacific Northwest 45 years ago. This is one of them.

Hummingbird feeder has been very popular.  Putting out some heat lamps (have them, I forgot to do this before) as well as making some more nectar.

And he is acquitted for a second time

| No Comments

You would think that they would learn by now - show trials do not work.

The next couple of months will be really interesting - they know that they are guilty.  They know that we know and that we have really hard evidence that they are guilty.

See what happens next...

The big +1 is that now we know for sure who is a RINO and who is a true conservative.  Time to primary like Hell in 2022. Throw those bastards out.

Snow so far

| No Comments

Warming up the Highlander just because. Not planning to go anywhere - the driveway is essentially impassible but want to be able to make an effort if it was required.

A pop can is a bit over 4¾" tall (4.83" to be precise) so this makes it a little over ten inches accumulation:

20210213-snow-can.jpg

Also, this is one of the last cans of Coca Cola products that I will willingly purchase.  I do love their product but they are too woke as a corporation.  Pandering to the very vocal and very few minority.  Here, here and here for starters.

An alternative to Siri

| No Comments

Got a mid-west accent?  Meet Sheryl:

Video thanks to NBC News:

I would love to just sit and watch that guy order lunch. Great speaker. Michael van der Veen

Also, Senator Lehey does not sound well at all - looks like he doesn't have much time left and they gave him this position in this drama as a final gesture.

Snow-pocalypse update

| No Comments

Updated power outages - the numbers are creeping down:

Snohomish - 6,158
Puget Sound Electric - 11,804
Oregon - 34,003
B.C. Canada -  698

This storm was predicted well in advance so standby crews were able to be dispatched. This one did not take them by surprise.

Heading outside in a little bit - try shoveling the driveway and spreading some salt.  There is regular traffic on the main road so people are getting out.  Traffic cameras show the roads to be somewhat passible.

So true - Blazing Saddles

| No Comments

That movie would never ever be able to be made these days and the world is that much poorer for it.

20210213-blazing.jpg

And now the fun begins

| No Comments

Air temperature is now at 33°F - still snowing but not as hard. See what happens through the day.

And good riddance

| No Comments

Why he is so revered is beyond me.  I actually tried to read some of his stuff and it is poorly thought out and turgid writing. His central ideas were based some something that is completely wrong.

20210213-byebye.jpg

Snow snow snow snow

| No Comments

Got about ten inches on the ground and more coming down - 31°F air temp so this will be sticking for now.  Some traffic on the main road - it has been plowed and sanded.

No updates from Cliff Mass for now. Forecast for today has it warming up to 33°F and tomorrow changing to rain - a short-lived disaster. Seattle station KOMO has some videos of the Seattle snowstorm. Some power outages around Puget Sound:  Snohomish PUD - 6,440, Puget Sound Energy - 14,257, Pacific Power in Oregon - 37,502 and BC Hydro - 3,686

The Traffic Cams look downright nasty out there - especially since it is still coming down. Good day to hunker down and work from home. Not going to bother with hiking in for coffee this morning. Although I do enjoy the ritual, I also enjoy being nice and warm and dry.

Build the fire up, quick surf, nice hot shower, some breakfast and then work at home.
Not like I have any lack of things to do here...

Fading fast - sleepy

| No Comments

Slept a good ten hours last night and was sleepy all day today.  Feel great otherwise - nothing nosing around my immune system. Took some cordyceps which gave me some good mellow energy for a couple of hours - that is now wearing off and I am about ready for dreamtime.

Couple of videos first. 31°F outside - no sign of snowfall but it is not seriously expected until tomorrow. See what I wake up to.

Now that most movie theaters are all digital, this makes perfect sense to get some revenue flowing while people are avoiding the 'rona.  From the Beeb:

The cinemas now hiring out their screens to gamers
Eui Jeong Lee and three of her friends sit in an otherwise empty 200-seat cinema auditorium and play a video game on the giant screen.

As Ms Lee blasts her gaming opponents with her wireless controller, the sound whips loudly around the dark room from the numerous cinema speakers.

"The sound quality is particularly amazing," says the 25-year-old student. "The sound of the gunshots is just so vivid, and when something flew directly at me from the screen I even screamed."

Ms Lee and her mates had hired the screen for two hours at a branch of South Korea's largest cinema chain, CGV.

With many cinemas across the country closed due to coronavirus restrictions meaning that they can only open with 50% capacity, and far fewer movies being released to tempt cinemagoers, CGV came up with the idea of renting out its auditoriums to gamers to bring in a new revenue stream.

Some numbers:

Before 6pm up to four people can hire a screen for two hours for around $90 (£65). This then rises to $135 in the evening. Users have to bring their consoles, games and controllers with them.

The auditoriums being hired out have between 100 and 200 seats, and by comparison CGV movie tickets cost around $12 each. So a 100-seat screen half filled for a film would bring in revenues of $600, rising to $1,200 for a 200-seat one at 50% capacity. And that is before the filmgoers buy their drinks and popcorn.

This actually works out really well as when the theater shows a movie, a chunck of each ticket goes to the movie distributor so the theater is not pocketing the whole $12. I would bet that fewer people need to be employed by the theater. I do not know what the labor laws are but they might not even be required to hire a "projectionist" as they are not showing movies.

Surprised that this has not taken off here.

True that - being wrong

| No Comments

History will not be kind to Dr. Fauci's legacy - wrong much more than right.  He had is moment in the sun 30 years ago with the outbreak of AIDS.  He actually did decent work back then. Coasting ever since and he needed to retire from the public stage years ago.

20210212-fauci.jpg

Snowstorm

| No Comments

Update on the forecast from Cliff Mass:

Snowstorm Tonight
The models have converged. Uncertainty is less. A snowstorm will hit western Washington tomorrow.

But it will be a snowstorm with a twist: radical differences in snowfall within a matter of tens of miles.

The theme from the movie JAWS should be playing as I show you the latest infrared satellite image (see below), with lots of moisture ready to move in tonight.

Spotty snowfall but looks like this little island might get several inches of white stuff if not 8" to 10". Should be fun.  Got my snow shoes dug out and ready. A nice walk in for coffee.

These people do not read their history.  Whenever a new tyrant assumes the mantles of power, they start killing off anyone who might be a challenge.  It starts with their political opponents but soon, they start bumping off members of their own party.  Stalin did this, Mao did this.  Every communist did this.

Looks like Andrew Cuomo is about to learn from history - from The New York Post:

NY Dems want Cuomo to lose COVID powers after Post nursing home bombshell
A group of Democratic state senators demanded Friday that Gov. Andrew Cuomo be stripped of his emergency authority to deal with the coronavirus crisis in the wake of The Post’s revelation that his administration covered up nursing home death data because of a pending federal probe.

“While COVID-19 has tested the limits of our people and state — and, early during the pandemic, required the government to restructure decision making to render rapid, necessary public health judgments — it is clear that the expanded emergency powers granted to the Governor are no longer appropriate,” the 14 lawmakers said in a prepared statement.

“While the executive’s authority to issue directives is due to expire on April 30, we urge the Senate to advance and adopt a repeal as expeditiously as possible.”

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Can not be happening to a nicer guy - he handled this with no leadership and no competence.

Looking for the same thing to happen here in WA State - got a face mask that reads: "My Governor is an Idiot" and I still get a lot of thumbs up for it.  A lot of people agree with me.

Such a deal - dishwashers

| No Comments

Took this photo when I bought my new dishwasher.  It was a mistake and the sales person and I had a good chuckle over it but still... Some poofreading is neaded:

20210212-dishwasher.jpg

The gun and ammo shortage

| No Comments

In one photo - since *Resident Biden was "elected", gun and ammunition sales have spiked.  I was in Walmart today:

20210212-walmart.jpg

This is a fairly large store - not a "Superstore" but still, very large. Picked clean.

We though Barry was the gun salesman of the decade.  Move over - meet Joe.

Home and tired

| No Comments

Still feeling downright nappish - will not go to sleep as I do not want to get my sleep schedule messed up but something is happening. Curious. Feel like I could go to sleep for a solid six hours.

Ran some errands, stocked up on some fresh food for the weekend and hunkering down for the snow-pocalypse.  Met with the electrician about the work this Thursday.  His son will be doing the work.

Quick surf and then heat up the last of the soup for dinner.

Out the door

| No Comments

Running a couple of errands, taking the dogs for a walk and getting some coffee.

Working at home this afternoon. Big meeting Monday so starting to gather stuff for that.

Nothing happening out there. Back in a few...

Nothing this morning

| No Comments

Feeling really sleepy - it's a bit after 9:00 AM and seriously considering going back for another two hours of nap-time.

Nothing much happening in the real world.

UPDATE: Much better...  32°F outside. High overcast but good visibility - Mt. Baker is shining in her majesty. Take a hot shower and get some coffee. Truffle has calmed down a lot since last night.  See how she is today.

And that is it for this evening

| 1 Comment

Dealing with a fractious puppy for the last two-three hours.  She is about 13 months old and generally a really good pup but this afternoon and evening, something has gotten into her. Defiantly pooped in the house, would not come when called. She has been spending the last two hours in time-out in the garage. Does not like this one bit.  I need to convey to her that she is NOT alpha.  I am ALPHA.  Bear is lying on his pillow near the heater with a: "Whatever dude" expression on his face. I'll give Truffle another hour and then let her in with us - play with her a little bit. See how she is tomorrow.

Being a puppy must be a hard thing - no ability to talk back.  At least with a terrible two, there is some language back and forth.

Time to see what the YouTube fairies brought for me tonight...

Dinner - more soup

| No Comments

The bean soup keeps getting better and better. Almost done with it - time to do something else for a few meals but would not mind having that on rotation for the next month or so.  Cheap, delicious and good for you.

Surf for a bit - tend the fire. Got nothing planned for tomorrow.

Cliff Mass Update: The snow is hitting South of here - South of Seattle and into Oregon. Light dusting expected for tonight and tomorrow. Saturday is another story - couple of inches. Should be interesting...

BillG - not a force for good by any means

| No Comments

An excellent quote and some links to other projects of his that have not done well for anyone.

From  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. writing at Lew Rockwell's site:

Bill Gates and Neo-Feudalism: A Closer Look at Farmer Bill
“Gates has a Napoleonic concept of himself, an appetite that derives from power and unalloyed success, with no leavening hard experience, no reverses.” — Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, presiding judge in the Gates/Microsoft antitrust-fraud case

The global lockdowns that Bill Gates helped orchestrate and cheerlead have bankrupted more than 100,000 businesses in the U.S. alone and plunged a billion people into poverty and deadly food insecurity that, among other devastating harms, kill 10,000 African children monthly — while increasing Gates’ wealth by $20 billionHis $133 billion fortune makes him the world’s fourth wealthiest man.

Gates has been using that newfound cash to expand his power over global populations by buying devalued assets at fire-sale prices and maneuvering for monopoly control over public healthprivatizing prisonsonline education and global communications while promoting digital currencieshigh tech surveillancedata harvesting systems and artificial intelligence.

A very long and very damning article with links to data to back up Kennedy's assertions.

I hold to what I have said earlier - BillG is not that smart.  He is competitive as all hell and he has a cutthroat business sense.  Neither of these are bad things at all and they have served him very well. BillG started with a very simple idea and purchased the core for MS-DOS and the core for Windows and built these up into a world standard.  I am typing this on a Windows machine and have zero problem with using it or with BillG's success. He put in thousands of sleepless nights building MSFT into what it is today.

That being said, he is not that smart.  I am betting that he read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series as a kid and he pictures himself to be another Hari Seldon.  Unfortunately, Seldon is a fictional character and although Isaac let him be wrong a few times, these were never catastrophic - they were more literary devices to accentuate the Hero's Journey of the tale.

There is a saying that: "In theory, there is no difference between theory and the real world. In the real world, there is." I bet that in BillG's mind, he does not see the distinction.  He patterns himself after a fictional character in a fictional story and is expecting everything to work out just peachy.  He needs to get the fsck off the world stage, hang out with his family and stop trying to meddle with the rest of us.  He is not that smart and he only messes up when he tries.

Nature photography

| No Comments

Got a nice photo of a Falcon in a nearby madrona tree:

20210211-falcon.jpg

From here - one of the comments:

These people would be either in asylums or living under bridges if society wasn't subverted by liberalism.

So true - the inmates have taken over the asylum.  People who are so triggered by the slightest imaginations.  Who are in their 30's and deeply in debt for a useless University degree. People still living in their Mom's basement spending their days on the internet, smoking pot and playing video games.

We need to bring back public asylums - we shut them down because the inmates were kept there "against their wishes"  This began in the 1960's and marks the beginning of the long downward spiral.

The original post is worth reading - an excellent primer on how to deal with these miscreants.  Do not try to compromise.  Shut them down totally.  Mock them. Basically, give them a dose of their own medicine and show them how it feels.

Biden and China - then and now

| No Comments

From CNN - May 2nd, 2019:

Biden downplays Chinese economic competition, drawing criticism from Republicans and Sanders
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden argued on Wednesday that China is “not competition” for the United States, downplaying the threat from the world’s second-largest economy.

And Joe's trademark expression:

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said while campaigning in Iowa City, Iowa, arguing that China has problems of its own.

“They can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean in the west,” Biden said. “They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not, they’re not competition for us.”

And today - come on man: The New York Post - February 11th, 2021:

China is ‘going to eat our lunch’ on infrastructure, Biden says
President Biden on Thursday warned that the US would need to “step up” and fix its ailing infrastructure or be left behind by an economically surging China, which will “eat our lunch.”

Good that he finally recognized this but it certainly took him a little while...

Follow the money and the power brokers - from National File:

George Soros Met With Deposed Myanmar Leader, Now His Influence There Is Overthrown
Globalist billionaire George Soros held meetings in 2013 and 2017 with Myanmar’s deposed State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and held great influence over her regime, records reveal. Soros’ son Alexander visited Myanmar in 2020. Suu Kyi has been a neoliberal cause celebre feted at Buckingham Palace and championed by Hollywood actors Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell. Now, the military has overthrown Suu Kyi, alleging election fraud. This is causing concern in Soros-world, and thus it is causing concern with the Biden White House.

The Biden administration is strongly involving itself in Myanmar affairs. The Biden regime is threatening Myanmar’s military to give up control of the country and revert back to the government that Suu Kyi led. The Biden administration has announced sanctions on Myanmar generals. Biden’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken is working the phones including with the Japanese Foreign Minister.  There are protests among Myanmar natives outside the United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan, where neoliberals have long struggled to compel Japan to accept mass immigration.

In Myanmar, anti-military protesters are holding very neoliberal-sounding signs in English.

Of course (that last line) - the protests are being staged for our media, not for the citizens of Myanmar.

Just as a heads up, Myanmar (used to be known as Burma) is one of the worlds reserves of copper and tin (tin is used a lot in circuit board manufacturing) as well as the raw materials for Rare Earth Elements - they sell REEs to China for processing.  Burma shares land borders with India, China and Thailand. Of course Soros is going to stick his pustulant dick into their business.

And of course, Joe's handlers had to get their 2¢ in with an Executive Order today:

Executive Order on Blocking Property with Respect to the Situation in Burma
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, find that the situation in and in relation to Burma, and in particular the February 1, 2021, coup, in which the military overthrew the democratically elected civilian government of Burma and unjustly arrested and detained government leaders, politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, and religious leaders, thereby rejecting the will of the people of Burma as expressed in elections held in November 2020 and undermining the country’s democratic transition and rule of law, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

In other words, got to preserve Big Businesses interests over there.  They made sweetheart deals with the regieme and now that the millitary is restoring civil rule to the nation, they are looking to hold on to their deals.

Hard to keep a good man down - Fake Woke

| No Comments

I wrote about this song January 30th:  Powerful message and it is getting noticed

Just hit a milestone - Apple deplatformed it.  No longer on iTunes. From Big League Politics:

Rapper Tom MacDonald’s “Fake Woke” Hit Removed from Apple Store in Left-Wing Censorship Move
Big Tech is now censoring music that criticizes the hypocrisy and stupidity of the political Left.

Apple removed Tom MacDonald’s “Fake Woke” from the Apple Store sometime on Wednesday night. The smash hit criticizes anti-white prejudice on the part of the cultural left, cancel culture, censorship, political intolerance, and the violence of the Black Lives Matter street terror movement.

Powerful stuff - remember this:

Censorship of music is a defining feature of many totalitarian regimes throughout history, anxious to shut down creative expression that defies the official state ideology. Liberals now have Big Tech monopolies to do their dirty work for them.

Powerful message indeed - they seek to silence us.  We will not be silenced. Ever.

Could have told you that - New York City

| No Comments

DeBlasio did nothing to shut down or sanitize public transportation during the Wuhan Flu outbreak.
The nuts and bolts here:

The Subways Seeded the Massive Coronavirus Epidemic in New York City
Abstract. New York City’s multipronged subway system was a major disseminator – if not the principal transmission vehicle – of coronavirus infection during the initial takeoff of the massive epidemic that became evident throughout the city during March 2020. The near shutoff of subway ridership in Manhattan – down by over 90 percent at the end of March – correlates strongly with the substantial increase in the doubling time of new cases in this borough. Subway lines with the largest drop in ridership during the second and third weeks of March had the lowest subsequent rates of infection in the zip codes traversed by their routes. Maps of subway station turnstile entries, superimposed upon zip code-level maps of reported coronavirus incidence, are strongly consistent with subway-facilitated disease propagation. Reciprocal seeding of infection appears to be the best explanation for the emergence of a single hotspot in Midtown West in Manhattan.

Yep - New York State has the worst leadership and the most deaths. The numbers are out there for anyone to see.

And back home for a little while

| No Comments

Lunch and then a meeting.  Should be interesting.

Got the dogs run ragged - they are nice and tired.

See what happened in the rest of the world - no news about the supposed explosion in D.C.

Gone fishin'

| No Comments

Heading out for a nice long dog walk as well as some coffee and sit and read for a little bit.  Warmed up to a downright toasty 34°F degrees so stripping down to shorts and a tee-shirt. Got the fire going so the house will be warm when I get back.

Got a meeting at 1:30 PM this afternoon - a possible business proposition. Arts group board meeting next Monday and then electrical work here Thursday and Bellingham Friday. Getting a new panel installed here. The existing wiring is... interesting...

Going to be moving some investments from stocks (Vanguard index fund) back into tax-free municipal bonds.  Much much safer considering what the economy is going to be doing for the next couple of years. Last four years was an excellent ride though - very happy. Might even be able to afford a potato or two to go with my thin gruel. What a sumptuous Sunday dinner that would be! Salivating just thinking about it. Mmmmmmm... Potato...

Heh - Nancy has a reflection?

| No Comments

From 90 Miles:

20210211-pelosi.jpg

I look at this and see a target-rich opportunity. Take out this room and you go a long way to restore Constitutional Democracy in the United States.

Grifters gotta grift - from the Atlanta, Georga Journal and Consititution:

Election board investigates Warnock and New Georgia Project
The State Election Board voted Wednesday to move forward with a case against U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and the New Georgia Project based on an allegation that the organization was slow to deliver over 1,200 voter registration applications to election officials in 2019.

The board referred the case to the attorney general’s office for further investigation and potential prosecution.

Warnock, a Democrat elected last month to the U.S. Senate, is named as a respondent in the case because he was listed as the CEO for the New Georgia Project at the time.

Tip of the iceberg.  Of course #1):

The organization has said its corporate document filings with the state misidentified Warnock as its CEO when his actual position was board chairman.

Got to cover for 'da Boss-man.  And, of course #2):

Warnock and the New Georgia Project didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

When do these people respond for comments?  Never.  Doesn't fit the narrative to have them be caught out for cheating.

Said it before and I will say it again - the Democrats have nothing to offer us.
That is why they have to lie and cheat to get elected.

The real crisis is that this all happened on President Trump's watch - from Watts Up With That:

Biden & Democrats conceal U.S. CO2 decreases of 3.4 billion tons from natural gas
In his first week in office Biden and his Democrats ordered the suspension of leases for fossil fuel development on federal lands and offshore waters and a “rigorous review” of leasing and permitting practices. He also created a civilian “climate corps”, directed federal agencies to procure American-made zero-emissions vehicles for their fleets, and scrapped a permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Biden asked Congress to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies.

Joe's three-letter word in play here.  J.O.B.S. - as the power behind the throne kowtows to the radical environmentalists.
But wait... There's more:

In September 2020 the Energy Information Administration released a report largely ignored by the climate alarmist main-stream media titled U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 2019 presenting an analysis of the nation’s CO2 emissions from 1990 marking the 30 years that have passed since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change benchmark year.

The data showed that U.S. CO2 emissions for year 2019 were down 2.8% from year 2018 or 150 million metric tons (MMmt) with changes in electricity fuel mix being the most important factor resulting in coal-related CO2 emissions declining by 15% or 184 MMmt. 

The most significant fuel mix contribution to this CO2 emissions reduction result was the continued increased use of lower emission higher efficiency natural gas in replacing coal fueled electricity generation followed by increased use of non-carbon CO2 emissions reductions.

Win/win - cut down on the use of "dirty" coal and cut emissions of CO2.  What's not to love.

Unfortunately, Biden and his handlers want to make the United States of America more like California:

Biden and his climate alarmist Democrats have initiated a grossly misguided purely political war against natural gas that will deprive the American people of a clean, efficient and cost-effective energy resource that can and should be used to further reduce the use of coal in the future and bring about even greater reductions of CO2 without damaging the economy through ill-advised government mandated use of high-cost unreliable renewables.

California has been pursuing its climate alarmist campaign of reducing CO2 emissions since 2006 by mandating the use of high-cost unreliable renewables while implementing a plan to eliminate the use of all fossil fuels in electricity generation. In 2019 renewable energy accounted for about 32% of the California’s electricity while renewables accounted for about 11.1% of  total U.S. electricity generation. 

In the last decade California average residential electricity rates have risen at 3 times the rate of U.S. average residential electricity rates with present California rates being about 50% greater than the U.S. average.

Additionally California has now reached the point where the excessive use of renewables has created electric grid reliability and blackout problems which plagued the state last summer.

Kind of hard to say no to the numbers.  Facts do not lie.

If I were King, I would implement Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors all over the place and just be done with it. Cheap safe energy - what's not to love.

Mild morning

| No Comments

So far (knocking on wood), nothing bad with the weather. Wind is out of the North so woke up to the sound of rollers hitting the bulkhead. 33°F outside - no frost and didn't get down below 30°F last night. Forecast is calling for the snow to start sometime tomorrow.  We will see.

Meeting at 1:30 PM this afternoon - got a couple of errands to run before then so busy morning. Not raining so take the dogs out for a nice looong run.

Three memes for the morning

| No Comments

From Woodsterman:

20210211-w01.jpg

20210211-w02.jpg

20210211-w03.jpg

A bunch more at the link.

I really miss K-Mac - Psaki may well be a nice person but she is dumb as a post and comes to work totally unprepared for anything except the most softball of questions. And, enough with the "circling back" avoidance tactic - find something else please.  We are getting bored of you using the same verbal tic every time you do not have the answer.

That's it for now

| No Comments

Video and bed.

Meeting tomorrow afternoon. Working at home rest of the day.  Out for coffee but see how long I hang outside reading.

Only down to 34°F now - got the house and garage nice and toasty. See how it goes Friday and Saturday. Got plenty of firewood laid in last spring so it is nice and seasoned. Get it going with the wood and then switch over to coal - best of both worlds.

Big explosion in D.C.

| No Comments

Nothing further - more as it comes in...

Wonderful news from California

| No Comments

Getting rid of Gruesome Newsom. From The Gateway Pundit:

Newsom Recall Leader Says His Team Now Has Over the Needed 1.5 Million Signatures to Force a Recall Election This Year
Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the Rescue California PAC working to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, said his team now has over the needed 1.5 million signatures to force a recall election this year.

Fox LA reported that those signatures still have to officially be verified so the recall organizers are working to get 2 million signatures by March 17 just in case the California swamp tosses out “invalid signatures.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recall is unavoidable – his poll numbers are tanking amid efforts to oust him from office.

According to two trusted California polls, Newsom’s approval rating has sharply dropped in the last few months.

Only 46% of California voters approve of Newsom’s job performance, down from a 67% approval rating from September.

The guy is not that bright and he has zero leadership ability. He was put there by the big businesses and social media companies to do their bidding.  He was not put there to represent the Californian citizenry. The sooner he can be removed from office, the sooner California can go back to being one of our great states.

And this is my surprised face - Wuhan flu

| No Comments

Caught me by surprise - zero conflict of interest here at all.  From American Greatness:

WHO COVID Investigator Is Recipient Of Chicom Grant; Worked With Wuhan Lab For 18 Years
An influential member of the World Health Organization who claimed to have no conflicts of interest regarding China, has accepted research grants from the Chinese Communist Party and runs a U.S.-based research organization that been working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology for 18 years, the National Pulse reported.

Peter Daszak recently traveled to Wuhan with other WHO researchers to uncover the origins of COVID-19. The investigative team concluded that it is “extremely unlikely” COVID-19 came from a Chinese Communist Party lab.

The article has links, photos and videos of Daszak with his Chinese minders.  He is in deep and dirty - a mouthpiece for whatever the Chinese Communists want to say. A meat-puppet.

The new AFDB

| No Comments

Absolutely:

20210210-AFDB.jpg

AFDB? Go and read here.

Word:

| No Comments

Dr. Thomas Sowell is a national treasure:

20210210-immigration.jpg

And dinnertime

| No Comments

Taking a break from the bean soup.  Delicious but felt like something else. Went out to the store, picked up 40 pounds of de-icer and some broccoli.  Doing a bit of chicken from the soup served over rice with steamed broc.  Toss the florets into the rice cooker for the last five minutes.  Gets 'em perfect. Get a pot of tea going, check the heaters and the fireplace and sit down to a delicious repast.

Mask rules

| No Comments

One way to do it:

Another great one from Blazing Cat Fur:

20210210-greta.jpg

Watermelons - green on the outside and bright red on the inside. Always have been. Always will be.  The environment is just another route to achieve personal power for these tyrants. They claim to have our best interests at heart but that is just their sociopathy and narcissism talking to us - nothing else.

A change in the weather - snow

| No Comments

A few times today, there have been 10-20 minute sessions of small drifting snowflakes. Maybe five or ten per cubic yard of atmosphere - noticeable but nothing substantial or accumulative. Now, we are getting the same density but very large fluffy snowflakes.

Staring down the barrel - I think we are going to get hammered in the next couple of days.  Just a feeling for now but there is this vibe in the air...

Heh - totally nailed it:

| No Comments

I used to watch these people (megachurch fundraising) just for fun. 100% pure theater.
Looks like Joe and Jill (Doctor Jill - sorry) have been taking lessons:

20210210-bidens.jpg

Grifters gonna grift...

A good infographic from Blazing Cat Fur:

20210210-censorship.jpg

This was codified by Joseph P. Overton and is known as the Overton Window.
Once you learn about it, you will see it everywhere...

Heh - NBA - 1, Cuban - 0

| No Comments

You can be as woke as you want but, even in this society, there are limits.  From FOX News:

NBA requiring teams to play national anthem after Mark Cuban axed song for Mavs games
The NBA is requiring that all teams play the national anthem before games "in keeping with longstanding league policy," just one day after Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told The Athletic the team decided not to play it at home games.

NBA Chief Communications Officer Mike Bass released a statement on Wednesday, just a day after Cuban said he had no plans to play the national anthem at any future home games.

"With NBA teams now in the process of welcoming back fans into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy," Bass said.

Smart move from the NBA - with commercial sports in a free-fall, pissing off your fan base is not prudent.

Working at home for the rest of the day

| No Comments

Done with deliveries.  New air compressor is nice.  Very quiet too which is a treat.

Temp is up to a steaming 38°F - can't stand this heat.  Fire has the house nice and warm and the garage is comfy too.  Propane space heater running in there.

Cliff Mass has an update to the upcoming snow-pocalypse (we all gonna die!!!)

From The New York Post:

Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl ad scrapped from Jeep’s YouTube page amid DWI bust
Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl LV Jeep commercial was yanked from YouTube on Wednesday after the rock legend’s DWI bust came to light.

The clip for “The Middle ft Bruce Springsteen” on Jeep’s YouTube page now reads: “Video unavailable. This video is private.”

The Hollywood Reporter first reported that the ad had been taken off Jeep’s page at around 1 p.m.

The commercial wasn’t on Jeep’s Twitter Wednesday, either. However, it was still available on Springsteen’s Instagram account.

The “Born to Run” icon appeared in and narrated the spot, which aired during Sunday’s game.  

It was revealed days later that Springsteen, 71, was arrested Nov. 14 at a national park in his home state of New Jersey and charged with DWI, reckless driving and consuming alcohol in a closed area.

The liberals love history - they must - they spend so much time lovingly crafting it. Editing it. Revising it. Changing it to fit their narrative. Bruce who?

Getting on with my day

| No Comments

Warmed up to a balmy 36°F outside - got the van warmed up so time to start work on the air compressor.  Going to pick up a few gallons of water at the store just in case the forecast cold snap is worse than expected.

More posting in a couple hours or so.  See what happens out there in the big bad world...

From Russia Today:

Twitter reports $1.14 billion net loss for 2020
American social-networking company Twitter announced on Wednesday its financial results for the fiscal year 2020, saying it recorded a net loss of $1.136 billion against net income a year earlier.

According to the company, “2020 net loss was $1.14 billion, representing a net margin of -31 percent and diluted EPS [earnings per share – Ed.] of -$1.44. This compares to 2019 net income of $1.47 billion, representing a net margin of 42 percent and diluted EPS of $1.87.” Both periods were affected by non-cash, tax related adjustments, it said.

Costs and expenses totaled $3.69 billion, an increase of 19 percent year over year, while revenue amounted to $3.72 billion.

The social media are being kept on life support because they are needed to project the narrative. Cost of doing business. Odd that this is not being reported in the American media.  Or not odd at all.

From Don Surber:

Democrats improve upon Reichstag fire
On February 27, 1933, communist Marinus van der Lubbe set ablaze the Reichstag, which was the home of the German parliament. Newly installed Chancellor Hitler used this event as an excuse to remove communist members from parliament, giving the Nazis a majority. The Nazis then began suspending civil liberties.

Democrats want to turn the storming of the Capitol on January 6 into their own Reichstag fire, and the Republican establishment is willing to go along with the gag.

And gag it is.

They want to silence everyone. The American press is a willing accomplice.

Don highlights the central aspect of what is happening here:

Making money no longer matters to Corporate America. Political power does.

The conformity is a lot like Germany nearly 90 years ago. Hitler was not particularly brilliant nor a very good administrator. Corporate Germany was. You have to realize, the Germans in 1930s were the best educated people in the world.

But they were bitter about the outcome of the Great War, as it was known then. Their hate consumed them, and in the end it left Germany in rubble and divided in two.

Dissent is now hate speech, and hate speech is now violence, and violence is now domestic terrorism.

Amazon profits were way up during the lockdown.  Political power is all that they crave.   Much much more at the site - ignore at your peril.

The bit of hope at the bottom of the box is this.  Soviet dissidents had mimeograph machines, we have the internet. President Trump's 2020 re-election was a landslide.  People will not forget that.

Slow news day again

| No Comments

President Trump is reportedly spitting tacks at the incompetence of his "defense team"

Other than that, nothing much on the internet. Getting some breakfast, take a nice hot shower and put the new air compressor together. It will be a nice addition to the shop.  I have a portable one which is great for nail guns, etc... but underpowered for any kind of spraying or air tool useage. It served me for a good 30 years at least and I am going to keep it for portable applications but not using it as much any more - a well-deserved retirement.

Surf for a little bit - see what is happening out there.  Got grocery deliveries happening noon-ish.  Really cold outside so sitting and reading while enjoying a coffee is probably not gonna happen. Got down to 27°F last night - hard frost on the ground.

Supposed to be a cautionary tale

| No Comments

And not an instruction manual - George Orwell's book 1984

20210210-george.jpg

From My Pensieve

Last couple of days have been slow for news.  The impeachment "trial" is a big fat nothingburger.  Looking for it to blow up in their faces on primetime television. President Trump has to have something up his sleeve.  He is being very quiet.

Watch some videos and go to sleep.  Assemble the air compressor tomorrow morning, coffee and then grocery deliveries in the afternoon.  Got a meeting on Thursday afternoon but that is it for my schedule. Working on stuff at home.

Wow - looks like snow

| No Comments

Major snow from Thursday on.  Not so much for my little island paradise but Sunday is supposed to be six inches or so. Had a dusting two years ago - stayed at home for a day and by then, the roads and highways were cleared off and dry.  See how long this lasts. Certainly have enough food, water, firewood, generator, etc... See if the internet stays up - so far, it has been really good.

Please, sir, I want some more

| No Comments

Grifters gotta grift. From The Sacramento Bee:

California high-speed rail asks Newsom to release $4.1 billion as cost continues to swell
The California High-Speed Rail Authority is asking Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators to release about $4.1 billion in state bond funds to ensure that there is enough money to complete construction that’s now underway on the bullet-train route in Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties.

If the governor, the state Assembly and the state Senate ultimately concur this spring, the money would come from Proposition 1A, a $9.9 billion high-speed rail bond approved by California voters in 2008. The rail authority’s board unanimously approved the request in a Zoom video meeting Tuesday.

Still pending in the state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal, however, is a legal challenge over whether the state can use the Proposition 1A money for what critics say is not a fully usable section of what voters intended as a statewide system of electrified trains between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

They are trying to run this through prime agricultural land.  There is absolutely zero need for this - airplanes work well for those that have to make the journey and the railroad would need constant subsidization to even operate. A money pit now, a money pit forever.

Title of the post?  Oliver Twist. Charles Dickens spotlighted conditions in England and his writings helped to bring about changes in the way that the poor and institutionalized were treated.  We could do with some of those lessons now instead of blowing taxpayer money on useless crap like this.

It was not enough that they cheated and got away with it for now - they need to destroy the horrible orange man.
Just the headline is enough - good story at the link:

If President Donald Trump had not won the 2020 Election, the Dems wouldn’t be impeaching him

As they say in the meme: "Change my mind"

Quiet evening. Got the fire going as well as a space heater in the garage near where the water pipe comes in to the house. Supposed to get a bit chilly tonight - already down to 32°F - coldest time is around 4AM or so. Both pups are laying in front of the radiant space heater near my computer.

Time to eat.

Pants on fire - Joe Biden in church

| No Comments

Look at the dates - conveniently circled to draw your attention:

20210209-liar.jpg

No clue as to whom Mr. Jackson is but they like to play fast and loose with the truth. 
But wait.  It advances the narrative so it's OK.
Hat tip to My Pensieve

And in the door

| No Comments

Got a lot done - HVAC person fixed everything called for in the property inspection and found, in addition, that it was not one duct that needed repair, it was three.  Looks like the new owner's property inspector was asleep at the wheel - they missed a couple other things too.  Not going to say what until after closing but (very minor stuff and not covered by the disclosure statement).

Quick surf - leaving the new compressor in the van for tonight.  Some assembly required - do that tomorrow before grocery deliveries.

And out the door

| No Comments

Points North.  Coffee at my favorite takeout place (different from my favorite sit-and-read for a while place). Harbor Freight confirmed that two of the new compressors arrived on last night's truck.  One of them has my name on it!!!

Spending an hour or two at the condo while the HVAC person works their magic and then back home.  Last night's chicken, bean and kale soup came out wonderful - had two bowls and looking forward to it for dinnter tonight.  Stop off at the coop and pick up some bread.

Hydroxychloroquine - two memes

| No Comments

From 90 Miles:

20210209-HCL01.jpg

20210209-HCL02.jpg

Riffing on my post from two days ago - here is yet another Biden appointee with serious issues.
From the Foundation for Economic Education:

California Labor Secretary Promoted to Biden Administration After Overseeing Massive COVID Fraud Scandal
Millions of Americans have struggled financially since the March outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But new reporting reveals that rather than successfully helping those truly in need, the California government sent up to $31 billion in taxpayer money earmarked for “COVID relief” to fraudsters and crime rings.

The Golden State has paid out an astounding $114 billion in expanded unemployment benefits since the crisis began last spring. Of that sum, officials have confirmed 10 percent as fraudulent. That’s $11.4 billion definitely lost to fraud. The state has identified another 17 percent of the paid out funds as potentially fraudulent, meaning there’s roughly $20 billion more in suspected losses.

And this is beyond belief:

In one particularly egregious example of just how easy the system was to game, the Golden State sent roughly $1 billion to criminals currently behind bars in jails and prisons who filed false claims. 

The author talks a little bit about how government spending is usually problematic. And then, the promotion:

Indeed, the aforementioned California official who oversaw this scandal, Julie Su, is actually receiving a promotion. President Biden has nominated her to serve in his administration in the Department of Labor.

Let alone a promotion, this kind of waste and dysfunction could simply never occur in free-market enterprise over the long-run. Any business that engaged in it would lose out to competition and go bust. Of course, there’s no such check on government bureaucrats.

Yeah - never efficient.  There is no reason for it to be.  Nobody is ever held accountable for waste and/or fraud. The solution? Get their grubby mitts off my money. Downsize the government.  Move 80% of it out of Washington D.C. and into places like Kansas or Missouri. We do not need what we have.  Time to get rid of it and get these blood-suckers out of the Federal trough.

Beginning the day

| No Comments

Got down to 34°F last night - more to come in a few days.

Take care of a couple of things here and then heading up North.  Picking up a new air compressor from Harbor Freight and then to Bellingham to work on the condo while the HVAC person takes care of a few things.

I have a small portable compressor which is great for running a nail gun but it doesn't have enough sustained output to do anything else. This unit was just released and it hits some major sweet spots. Saw it a couple weeks ago and they were offering a substantial discount through their subscription "Inside Track Club" - got them to write me a raincheck so I am picking this up today for about $80 off list price. When I build my shop this spring, I'll install a full-size 80 gallon / 7.5 horsepower unit but this will be a good stop-gap and I will continue to use it here at home after the shop gets built.

Time for some emails, breakfast, hot shower and then out for coffee to go. Long day.

And the usual evening around here

| No Comments

Pot of tea, some videos and that is it.  Got a nice fire going - house is warm.  Supposed to get quite cold in two or three days. Nothing like what everything East of the Rocky Mountains is doing but that is part of why I live here and not back in New England as I used to.

Picking up a special order at Harbor Freight tomorrow morning and then to Bellingham for a 1PM appointment.

The Democrats are trying this with President Trump but they are letting one of their own slide bigly.
From Bryan Preston at PJ Media:

If Impeaching Trump Is About Preventing Him From Holding Future Office, Why Is Democrat Alcee Hastings So Powerful in the House?
To hear Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats explain why they’re still hellbent on impeaching Donald Trump despite the fact that he’s no longer president, they say it’s about what he might do in the future. She and the Democrat caucus wants to make sure he doesn’t hold office again. The media picks up that part of the story frequently.

Bryan establishes the territory and the dramatis personae and then, takes a look over here:

Hastings was appointed to be a federal judge in 1979. In 1981, he was accused of soliciting bribes and obstructing justice in the trial of an associate.

In 1981, a federal grand jury indicted Judge Alcee L. Hastings, appointed to the federal district court in 1979, along with his friend William A. Borders, a Washington, D.C. lawyer. Hastings was charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice for soliciting a $150,000 bribe in return for reducing the sentences of two mob-connected felons convicted in Hastings’ court.

FBI sting operation, continued corruption and malfeasance and subsequently, this recommendation:

The panel recommended further action to the U.S. Judicial Conference, which, in turn, informed the House of Representatives on March 17, 1987, that Judge Alcee Hastings should be impeached and removed from office.

And then this happened:

He was impeached by the United States House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate. He was kicked out of his judgeship in 1989.

So what happened after Hastings’ shameful episode in which he was convicted of serious criminal corruption in office? Was he tossed out of polite society never to be heard from again? Did the Democrats shun him and prevent him from ever holding federal office again?

Sadly, no. Four years later he ran for the U.S. House — a federal office — from Florida and he won. He joined the House Democratic caucus and is still in the House to this very day.

So to recap, Hastings had a federal office — he was a federal judge, appointed by President Jimmy Carter and confirmed by the Senate. He was impeached and convicted on serious and substantiated charges of public corruption, and he was removed from that office.

The Democrats pretend Hastings was never impeached and have had no problem counting him among their number ever since he won his House seat in 1993, going on 28 years now. He’s not just a rank-and-file member. Hastings is one of the Democrats’ more powerful members.

This same Representative Hastings is still up to his old tricks - he was using Federal dollars to employ and maintain his mistress.  This came to light in 2019. A fun article to read. Bryan points out that they are doing this to President Trump because they fear him.

They fear that he will expose their corruption and piss-poor leadership and take their rice bowls away.  Or, will red-pill enough of We The People that they will demand satisfaction. Schumer, Pelosi, et. al. fail to realize that regardless of the outcome of this little charade, Obi-Wan Kenobi's line from Star Wars is prophetic: "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

President Trump tried to elevate everyone in DC to his level.  They (and the media) tried to drag him down to theirs.
They know no other way.

I had heard about it and will be looking for a copy.  Right now, all I have are these - from ABC News:

First - ABC News - January 27, 2021

Capitol Police Union calls it 'unconscionable' leaders didn't better prepare for riot
The Capitol Police Union blasted the department's leadership one day after congressional testimony by acting Police Chief Yogananda Pittman, who said that the department knew two days before Jan. 6 that there was a "strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target."

"The disclosure that the entire executive team (former Chief [Steven] Sund, now Acting Chief Pittman, and Assistant Chief [Chad] Thomas) knew what was coming but did not better prepare us for potential violence, including the possible use of firearms against us, is unconscionable," union Chairman Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement Wednesday.

He said it was "inexcusable" that nobody relayed this to officers prior to the insurrection.

The acting chief of the U.S. Capitol Police apologized to lawmakers during Tuesday's hearing for not being more prepared for the attack.

"Let me be clear: the Department should have been more prepared for this attack," acting Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said in written testimony to the House Appropriations Committee obtained by ABC News.

"I am here to offer my sincerest apologies on behalf of the Department," she said in the remarks.

But then, the plot thickens - ABC News - February 6th, 2021:

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund says entire intelligence community missed signs of riot
Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund sent an eight-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional leaders on Monday, providing a detailed account of the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riots as well as a detailed timeline of events as he saw them unfold on that day.

Pelosi immediately called for Sund to step down on Jan. 7. Later that day, Sund submitted a letter of resignation.

ABC News obtained a copy of the letter, which was first reported by The New York Times.

In the letter, Sund said he knew about the intelligence leading up to the violent event and explained why he relied on assessments, as well as his efforts to secure support before and during the incident, from the National Guard and other law enforcement partners.

But... Sund had done his homework - from the same ABC News article:

On Jan. 4, the Capitol Police Intelligence and Inter-Agency Coordination Division "assessed "the level of probability of acts of civil disobedience/arrests occurring based on current intelligence information," as "Remote" to "Improbable" for all of the groups expected to demonstrate on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021," according to Sund.

Sund said he directed the department to be placed on "all hands on deck" status, which meant every sworn officer would be working. He also said he activated seven Civil Disturbance Unit platoons, approximately 250 officers, with four of those platoons equipped in helmets, protective clothing and shields.

Sund alerted Pelosi et. al. and they let the riots happen.  This was their "evidence" for their show trial.

And, of course, the New York Times article was not supportive of the progressive narrative so, we get the following:
UPDATE: Bad link - fixed.

More on this story can be found here: Growing evidence Capitol attack was pre-planned undercuts Trump impeachment premise

And that is it for today

| No Comments

Getting some chicken thawing out for soup for dinner - beans, kale and some chicken.

Heading to Bellingham again tomorrow - the HVAC contractor had a cancellation so we decided to bump their appointment up a couple days.

Got a nice fire going - get a good bed of embers going and I'll then start feeding it with coal for the rest of the evening. Lots of BTUs in anthracite and very little smoke. 12,700 BTU per pound.  Hardwood is 7,870. Oil is the winner with #2 Fuel Oil getting 138,500 BTU per gallon (under 8 pounds) so about 18,000 BTU per pound (here).

Heh - late night TV in a few years

| No Comments

And a couple of headlines for today

| No Comments

Brilliant - an app for Twitter

| No Comments

I do not "do" any social media any more but this is spot-on perfect - from Legal Insurrection:

New App Allows Twitter Users to Block All NY Times Reporters With One Click
Someone has developed a new app called “Block The New York Times,” which allows Twitter users to block “New York Times-linked accounts” to help “control the flood of corporate disinformation online.”

Over 800 people on Twitter posting under their own names but they are actually employees and mouthpieces of the Times - no longer America's Newspaper of Record, they are now just political apparatchiks pushing the progressive narrative.

The app website has a lot more including a wonderful collection of stories where the New York Times did not get their facts right - where they shilled for the progressives and ignored the truth.

Let us face it - The Babylon Bee is America's Newspaper of Record now.  They are certainly doing their job.

Another day in Bellingham

| No Comments

Heading out - coffee to go at my other favorite place and then points North.

Puffy clouds and no rain so far - rained last night.  Supposed to get a lot colder.

Wish I could be spending a few days at Mt. Baker - new powder and sub-freezing temps. 

Back later this afternoon...

Is the historical record inconvenient regarding the current narrative?
Change it - years of communism have shown this to be a quick and easy fix.
From Breitbart:

China’s U.S. Envoy Joins Chorus Pressuring W.H.O. to Seek Coronavirus Origin in U.S.
China’s Ambassador to America Cui Tiankai repeated an increasingly vocal demand out of Beijing on Sunday for the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) to treat the United States as a potential origin location for the Chinese coronavirus, despite no scientific evidence suggesting this is possible.

The Chinese coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. The first confirmed case of Chinese coronavirus, according to leaked Chinese documents revealed by the South China Morning Post, was identified on November 17, 2019. No evidence exists anywhere in the world for a confirmed novel coronavirus case emerging anywhere else in the world before this date.

The Chinese Communist Party has not confirmed – or denied – the legitimacy of the South China Morning Post leak and does not consider that date a viable origin point in investigating where the virus first began infecting human beings. Chinese government officials have pointed to reports suggesting that early cases of the virus occurred in places like Italy and Brazil, but those reports do not specify a date before November 17.

They do not need scientific evidence, they have their ideology and their narrative. Facts?  We can change those to fit our needs.  Remember the date - November 17th, 2019. It was just under seven weeks later, on February 4th, that President Trump addressed the United States with his State of the Union address and said: 

“Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.”

This is the speech that Nancy Pelosi tore up on national television. Petulant little bitch.

Two Three memes for this morning

| No Comments

Found on the internet:

20210208-masks.jpg

20210208-season.jpg

And found this one too:

20210208-comments.jpg

From France24:

Attempted coup foiled in Haiti
Haitian authorities said Sunday they had foiled an attempt to murder President Jovenel Moise and overthrow the government, as a dispute rages over when his term ends.

The plot was an "attempted coup d'etat," according to justice minister Rockefeller Vincent, with authorities saying at least 23 people have been arrested, including a top judge and an official from the national police.

Some backstory:

Moise has been governing without any checks on his power for the past year and says he remains president until February 7, 2022 -- in an interpretation of the constitution rejected by the opposition, which has led protests asserting his term ends Sunday.

And, of course, the USA extended professional courtesy:

The United States on Friday accepted the president's claim to power, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying Washington has urged "free and fair legislative elections so that parliament may resume its rightful role."

free and fair legislative elections - what a concept.  We should try this here.
No word as to who made the Voting Machines but I have a guess or two...

The down side to environmentalism

| No Comments

And what is that?  Why, the environment of course.  Try to get rid of baseline reliable power generation and move to unreliable "natural" sources and every so often, Mother Nature sends a wake-up call.  Germany this time:

Winter Storm Threatens Germany’s Power…Freezing Hell Threatens If Already Rickety Grid Collapses!
A winter blizzard is set to strike Central Europe, bringing with it the potential to wreak power outage havoc. Temperatures will plummet to as low as -15°C accompanied by bone-chilling high winds. Closed shops due to COVID-19 are leaving citizens unprepared. A protracted power outage would be devastating.

In the coming hours, a high pressure system situated over Scandinavia and storm Tristan to the south will collide over central Europe and develop into dangerous weather conditions over one of Europe’s most populated regions, North Rhine Westphalia Germany.

There are some major problems with this storm that will test the German power grid stability and even possibly the citizens’ ability to fend for themselves.

Power grid at risk: hours of freezing rain
First will be the band of freezing rain that is forecast across the Ruhr region of North Rhine Westphalia. According to Kachelmannwetter.de, the freezing rain period could last hours and thus lead to heavy weight loads on power transmission structures as ice builds up. Lines could collapse.

High winds – even heavier loads
To make matters worse, high winds will further exacerbate the loads on the already ice-coated power transmission infrastructure – thus increasing the probability of power line structural failure and an ensuing power blackout, which in turn could cascade and threaten the European power grid.

Winter blackout not unprecedented
Such a blackout would not be unprecedented. In 2006, a major European blackout was caused by a disconnection of a powerline crossing in northwest Germany. The power outage quickly cascaded across Europe, extending from Poland in the north-east, to the Benelux countries and France in the west, through to Portugal, Spain and Morocco in the south-west, and across to Greece and the Balkans in the south-east.

More at the site - like the author said, these things have happened before but that was back when we had a lot more fossil fuel and nuclear power plants in operation and the dependence on non-baseload generating capacity was not as dire.

The basic truth is that more people die from cold than die from heat.  This will be a horrible event but it will (hopefully) serve as a wake-up call.  The environmentalists will never go away - there is always a subset of the population with mental illness and a willingness to believe doom and gloom stories. Thomas Malthus initially wrote his bullshit back in 1798 and we still have faithful little Malthusians regurgitating his dreck today.

At least this will serve as a wake-up call to the rest of us.  There are activists out there for every fringe belief system out there.  Where are the activists for the rest of us.  Us normals.  Where are OUR activists?

That about describes it for me

| No Comments

From Pearls Before Swine - one of my daily reads:

20210207-pearls.jpg

Link to this comic.  Link to current comic.

Dinnertime

| No Comments

Fixing some oven-roasted vegetables and baked marinated tofu for dinner. Another trip to Bellingham tomorrow should do it.  Need to spend some time at the storage unit organizing things there.

Local excitement in that two of the major east/west highways are closed.  The smaller of the two (Route 20) due to a landslide and the primary one (Interstate 90) for bad weather - spinouts and crashes Oh. My...

Otherwise, a slow news day and a nice quiet afternoon for me.

Cliff Mass has some encouraging words about later this week:

Convergence Zone Snow Tonight and Major Lowland Snow Event Possible Later this Week
A major lowland snow event is increasingly possible starting on Thursday and Friday, but uncertainly is still substantial.  But before I get into that, let us start with the potential for light snow tonight, particularly for higher elevations north of Seattle.

Cliff then presents us 27 8X10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back...
(whoops - wrong decade).   And then, Cliff drops this on us:

All of this is just a "warm up" for the real action
Our region is going to be hit by the coldest air this winter and by Thursday we won't get out of the 30s and perhaps even the 20s. I mean cold, really cold. Windy.

And major forecast systems are now going for major lowland snow. The latest European Center forecast has around 15 inches of total snowfall over central Puget Sound by Friday afternoon! How much would pile up? Perhaps half of that.

I am very glad that I have been insulating the garage - the water comes into the house through the wall there.  Not good to have the pipes freeze. Funny too as I just picked up two more propane tanks - I now have enough to keep the garage warm-ish for several days. Plus to run the cookstove. I even have coffee here if I can not get out.  But I also have snowshoes and my place is only two miles away.

...doesn't her past job performance raise any  questions? From The Washington Examiner:

Biden pick for unemployment program lost $600M to Nigerian scammers
President Biden faces growing questions about the appointment of a Democratic donor to oversee billions of dollars in unemployment benefits despite her role at a state agency that lost hundreds of millions in coronavirus relief funds to Nigerian scammers.

Suzi LeVine departed Washington state’s Employment Security Department last month, leaving behind a trail of audits and questions about how $600 million of unemployment funds could be siphoned off by cybercriminals.

This week, she took up a post as acting assistant secretary at the Employment and Training Administration within the Labor Department. The position puts her at the forefront of Biden’s coronavirus recovery plan and provoked an immediate wave of criticism.

“Washington residents who have had seen massive error after massive error from LeVine’s Employment Security Department are dumbfounded that she would be getting a promotion,” said Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington. “This isn’t a ceremonial title or a cushy spot for donors, it’s a crisis management role and one she’s already failed miserably.”

And the next paragraph explains it all:

LeVine and her husband are prolific Biden donors and served until January as deputy finance chairs for the Democratic National Committee, according to her LinkedIn profile.

There 'ya go.  This is no longer a meritocracy. Now, it's just a matter of bringing in the benjamins.

I have to hand it to the Nigerians - they know us well and know how to social engineer. Kudos and they are welcome to what they can scam. What gets me is that idiots like this are not held accountable for their stupidity.

There is no punishment when bureaucrats screw up.  In most cases, they are publicly removed from their post, kept out of the public eye for six months and then quietly rehired with a nice raise "for their troubles" a bit later. Here, they didn't even have the grace to wait for a while.  Do they think that we are that stupid?  Or are they actually that stupid. Or both.

Iran, the World, and the next two years

| No Comments

Going to be "interesting" to say the least. From National File:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Declares ‘Post-US Era Has Started’ As World Paradigm Shatters Under Biden
Since Joe Biden assumed the office of the President of the United States, China has grown increasingly hostile against Taiwan and India, Europe has snubbed the United States repeatedly, and the United States is once again invading Syria. This has led the Supreme Leader of Iran, one of the United States’ top geopolitical adversaries, to declare that the “post-US era has started.”

From The Daily Wire:

‘Evidence Of Undeclared Nuclear Activities’ Discovered At Locations In Iran That Raise New Concerns
International inspectors from the United Nations have reportedly found new evidence of nuclear activity in Iran that the nation has not reported—in violation of its international obligations — and that could be indicative of work on making nuclear weapons.

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovered the “new evidence of undeclared nuclear activities” at two sites during inspections last fall, The Wall Street Journal reported, according to multiple diplomats briefed on the situation. The two samples “contained traces of radioactive material” that they believe “could indicate Iran has undertaken work on nuclear weapons, based on where it was found.” The report did not state what specifically was discovered at the two sites.

Iran, which blocked the investigators from inspecting the two sites for more than half of last year, has also reportedly threatened to restrict inspectors ability to access sites later in the coming weeks.

And from Reuters:

Iran takes 'final' stance on nuclear deal, says U.S. must lift sanctions before Tehran rejoins
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that Tehran’s “final and irreversible” decision was to return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal only if Washington lifts sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Iranian state TV reported.

The rest of the world is laughing at us.  It is inconceivable that we could elect such a weak government. Our "leaders" are nothing of the sort - they are only concerned about their own rice bowls, they have no love for this Nation.  They are doddering old fools most of them.

I have great hopes for the mid-term elections but that is still two years away.
We are only in day 18 of the interregnum and already the wheels are starting to come off.

Heh - arming school staff

| No Comments

An excellent idea - it would cut school shootings down to almost zero:

20210207-librarians.jpg

Tip of the hat to Ace of Spades

Nothing out there this morning

| No Comments

Talk about a slow news day - calm before the storm?

Taking care of some emails, getting underway with my morning.

On the road to Bellingham in a couple of hours - need to do a bit of laundry so get that in first.

Rules are for the small people - from FOX News:

Calls for Pelosi to pay fine she imposed after bypassing metal detector intensify
Republicans are promising a "huge push" to pressure House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pay the fine she imposed for bypassing magnetometers installed after the Capitol riot to enter the House floor.

Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., detailed to Fox News his firsthand account of watching the speaker enter the House floor from a forbidden entrance on Thursday.

"She opened the session on the floor, she came through what is known as the Speaker’s lobby," Davis said. "We are all told, one Republican was fined for doing this just yesterday, that you cannot walk through those entrances unless you are disabled."

Pelosi’s office has not yet denied the account, despite requests for comment.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, was slapped with a $5,000 fine Friday for bypassing metal detectors when he said he’d left the House floor to use the bathroom.

Such a narcissist. An idiot. She does not represent her constituents. If there was any real justice in this world, she and her friends would have spent the last 20 years behind bars.

Heading to Bellingham for another load to the storage units. Finish off tomorrow or Tuesday.  Feels good to finally have that place empty.  Still a lot of sorting to do. 98% stuff of zero value and 2% complete and total treasure and it is all admixed.

Reasonably clear and dry this morning - was pouring down rain last night.  Take the pups for a good run on my way up there.  Coffee too of course.

As for the new dishwasher, I have to say that it did an excellent job of cleaning the dishes - the glassware sparkles. Something that was not accomplished with the old unit.  The extra long cycle time is an annoyance but I'll load everything and set it to run at night - there is a 4-hour delay button so I can have it go after I am sound asleep.

Quick surf, breakfast, nice hot shower and the I am outta here...

Calm winds and fair seas

| No Comments

Looks like the wind blew itself out.  Got up to 25MPH at the max. Checked the local utilities and nobody had more than the usual number of households without power.

Forecast is for a bit of the cold - maybe a snowflake or two. Nothing much - clear skies later this week.

New dishwasher? 6 out of 10

| No Comments

Yeah, I got the cheapest unit I could find from the scratch and dent pile but still...  I am not liking the new "Energy Saving" crap - the old dishwasher used to take about an hour when I selected all of the options for Heavy Wash, extra hot water and Sani-Rinse. This puppy took almost three.  The inside is a bit smaller - not able to get as much in there.  This is just a temporary unit until I get the funds together to remodel the kitchen so I am just slightly vexed, not annoyed or peeved, just slightly vexed. Still... I keep thinking of the big Hobart machines in restaurants and how fast they run. It would be nice to have a home machine that would finish in 45 minutes. I would not mind spending the extra 20¢ worth of electricity to have it run faster.
[SET RANT = OFF]

Back to work - cleaning the kitchen

| No Comments

Got a load running in the new dishwasher. Getting the old wiring attached to the new was interesting to say the least. Looking forward to getting the new electrical panel in the house (18th of this month!) and then a gradual rewiring of the whole place - bring everything up to code.

Quick surf and time to clean up the kitchen - been getting too cluttered for my taste (which is saying a lot).

She does not seem to be guided by morals or ethics.  Why is she sitting in the House of Representatives?
From FOX News:

Ilhan Omar's campaign contributed nearly 80% of political payments to husband's consulting firm
Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 2020 campaign contributed to nearly 80% of the total political payments her husband's consulting firm received ahead of the November election, according to federal filings.

E Street Group, owned by Omar's husband Tim Mynett and entrepreneur Will Hailer, received more than $3.7 million in campaign spending over the course of the 2020 election cycle, filings show.

Nepotism is OK so long as you keep it in the family.  Tim is hubby #3.  One of her earlier husbands was her brother so he could get a green card. More here, here and here. This is just scratching the surface - this woman is dirty.  Came here from Somalia and is showing no thanks for being in America - for her and her constituents, she is gaming the system and getting free handouts from the rest of us.  Our tax dollars supporting her lifestyle.

Yowza - global warming anyone?

| No Comments

Watch them try to spin this one on greenhouse gasses:

20200206-cold.jpg

-40 at the heart of it. One for the record books.  Until next year.

Wind is picking up

| No Comments

Rollers from the Northwest.  High tide now so it will be lower when it is really windy.  Wind is steady at about 15MPH for now.  Bad weather usually comes in from the South here and I am well shielded by the bulk of the island. There were some other places I looked that were just plain nope. Rain has let up for a while.

Official transcript from the White House:

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Council of Economic Advisers Member Jared Bernstein, February 5, 2021
12:50 P.M. EST
MS. PSAKI: Good afternoon. We have another special visitor and guest with us here today. The January jobs report, which we all saw came out this morning, is disappointing and underscores the need to act swiftly to deliver immediate relief to American families. The bottom line is our economy is digging out of a hole worse than the depths of the Great Recession at a crawling — and moving at a crawling pace.

Gee - the last guy in office didn't have any problems with the jobs numbers.
Such bad numbers so soon in the new administration? I can only imagine what next fall is going to bring.

Anyway:

Q: And the third — the third more meaty question, if I could just follow up on a quote from the President in December. He said, quote, “My son, my family will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict, where there’s appropriate distance from the presidency and government.”

Just recently, there were reports that the President’s son still owns a 10 percent stake in the Chinese investment firm formed with state-owned entities. Do you have an update on the divestment from that investment?

MS. PSAKI: He has been working to unwind his investment, but I would certainly point you — he’s a private citizen. I would point you to him or his lawyers on the outside on any update.

Tip of the hat to The Epoch Times for the link to this little question and, of course:

Hunter Biden didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

And a bit more:

George Mesires, the lawyer who represents the president’s son, said in an Oct. 13, 2019 statement that Hunter Biden intended to resign from the BHR board of directors on or by Oct. 31, 2019.

Business records show Hunter Biden left the board of directors on April 20, 2020.

However, he still holds a 10 percent stake via his company, Skaneateles LLC.

Hunter Biden is the sole beneficial owner of Skaneateles LLC, according to Washington, D.C. corporate records obtained by the Daily Caller.

The president told CNN’s Jake Tapper that his family would refrain from foreign business to avoid conflicts of interests.

“My son, my family will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict, where there’s appropriate distance from the presidency and government,” he said during the Dec. 3, 2020 interview.

Pay to play.  They can not give money directly to Joe - that would be too obvious.  Instead, they give it to his kid and "the big guy" (here, here and here for starters) takes his cut.

And, from FOX News, the icing on the cake:

Hunter Biden, family move into $5.4M Venice, Calif. home
Hunter Biden and his family reportedly have moved into a pricey home in Venice, Calif.

Biden, 51, moved into the $5.4 million canal-front, three-story property toward the end of last year with his wife, Melissa, and their 10-month-old son Beau, the Daily Mail reports. They are under 24-hour protection by the Secret Service.

Must be nice - it will be interesting to see how they fare when it all comes tumbling down.

And back to Chaos Manor

| No Comments

Jerry Pournelle's term for his house but if the shoe fits...  Sweet deal on everything.  A good scanner.  This one is for documents - pass-through only.  Not for photographs but it has an ADF (automatic document feeder) so nice for doing business paperwork.  The laser printer is an older Ricoh - solid and heavy.  Built to last.  They used the same engine for their copy machines and this puppy has had just over 30K impressions.  Not even warmed up - the print engines usually last 300-500K impressions and then, they can be rebuilt for about $200 in parts. With my projected use, I will be more concerned with the Heat death of the universe than this unit's EOL. I have a couple B&W lasers but was looking for a color unit.  Got it.

Quick break for lunch, build the fire back up and finish the dishwasher.

And out for now

| No Comments

Nothing on the internets caught my eye. Getting some coffee, hanging out to read for a bit and then South for the craigslist deal. Color laser printer and stand-alone document scanner. Both very useful - I had a nice flatbed scanner but that was loaned out to someone and never returned (friend of an ex) so this will be an OK replacement.

Back home and finish the dishwasher - got all the parts needed yesterday. Washing dishes by hand is not a problem - I usually do that for dishes, plates and silver anyway but I do like having a sanitizing cycle as well as for pots and pans. Major convenience factor as well.

See what the day has to offer.  I'm heading South so maybe stop in at WinCo. The road I will be taking is a nice drive through the countryside so spending some time just driving and enjoying the sights.

Coming down slow and steady. Right around 0.5" for the last 24 hours which is not a lot but it is enough to flood the farmland.

Change in plans this morning - heading South for a craigslist deal so taking care of that at Noon. Bellingham tomorrow and Monday instead.

And then, there is this little bundle of joy from the National Weather Service:

...WIND ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM THIS MORNING TO 10 PM PST THIS EVENING...

    • WHAT...West winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 45 mph expected.
    • WHERE...San Juan County, Western Whatcom County, Western Skagit County, Everett and Vicinity and Admiralty Inlet Area.
    • WHEN...From 10 AM this morning to 10 PM PST this evening. 
    • IMPACTS...Gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result.

All the weak branches have already been blown down so should not be any problems but still... Keeping the candles and flashlights handy.

Two hours but worth watching so far

| No Comments

UPDATE: Finished it. Pretty damning evidence for what we already knew.
Interesting to see how this plays out in court.  I do not think that President Trump is quite done yet.

About 40 minutes into this but so far, so good - he did his research:

Lindel is so correct - the Democrats were totally unprepared for the size of the President Trump landslide. They had to stop the counting and go into high gear for falsification. Had the election outcome been closer, we would never have suspected.

Campus hate crimes

| No Comments

We all hear about the hate crimes that turn out to be fabricated. Alexandria Occasional-Cortex is just the latest in a long long list. Smollett, that race car driver with the "noose". The fake attacks on University Campus' are even more prevalent - from Campus Reform:

MSU had nearly 1,200 racial incident reports in 5 years. Here's how many were valid
Over the past five years, nearly 1,200 Michigan State University students and staff members reported racial discrimination incidents. Only eight instances, however, truly violated the school’s bias and discrimination policies.

According to data provided to the Lansing State Journal by Michigan State’s Office of Institutional Equity, affiliates reported 1,187 instances of race-based bias and discrimination between 2015 and September 2020. Of those instances, 76 revealed issues with conduct, and of those 76 issues, eight instances — less than 1 percent of all reported — constituted violations of the school’s policies.

Campus Reform independently confirmed this data with Michigan State University Office of Institutional Equity spokesperson Christian Chapman.

The narrative is that there is rampant racisism. The facts do not bear this out.  The facts must be discarded and the claims must be made up to justify the narrative. Lather, rinse , repeat.

Identity Politics - they want to seperate us, to Balkanize us so we do not work together, so we do not think together, so we do not act together, so we do not vote together and kick these bums out of office.  Keeping us divided is the only way they can hold on to their power.

Done for the day

| No Comments

Didn't get as much done as I was hoping but... progress was made. The old dishwasher was "interesting" to remove.  It is out and the new one will be hooked up tomorrow - got the parts needed from the local ACE Hardware. The house has quite the mix of wiring. The person who installed the dishwasher left about a foot of slack in the old wires. Fun getting it moved out.

Next two days will be in Bellingham and then more work on the music room.

The deep-state is good at protecting their own - from Just The News:

Transparency thwarted? Two weeks after Trump declassified Russia memos, most aren't released
More than two weeks after Donald Trump officially declassified the evidence, the vast majority of documents detailing FBI and Justice Department failures in the now-discredited Russia collusion investigation remain out of public view in a delay that has thwarted the former president's goal of sweeping transparency.

Multiple officials tell Just the News that the documents yet to be released include:

    • less redacted versions of the flawed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants that allowed the FBI to target former Trump adviser Carter Page and the Trump campaign for a full year without producing any evidence of wrongdoing._
    • the confidential human source handling documents for informant Stefan Halper showing the specific requests the FBI gave to Halper to spy on Trump campaign officials and the cover story used to justify his contacts with Trump officials during the election.
    • the confidential human source handling documents for informant Christopher Steele, including what he told the FBI at his first meeting on July 5, 2016, when he first approached agents about the dossier.
    • a spreadsheet used to assess the many allegations Steele provided in his infamous dossier showing most were uncorroborated, debunked or traced to open-source Internet rumors or unreliable sources.
    • hundreds of digital messages exchanged on the FBI's internal chat network among the most senior officials in the Crossfire Hurricane probe, including fired Director James Comey, fired Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, fired lead agent Peter Strzok, former bureau lawyer Lisa Page and others.

Quite the list - much more at the site including choice tid-bits from the 15% of the documents which have been released. The Russian Collusion is a complete and total fabrication. Always has been.

That TIME Magazine article

| No Comments

The best analysis I have seen so far - from Ace of Spades:

Time Magazine: You're G**damn Right We Ordered the Code Red on Rigging the Election.
And We Should Get Medals for It.
Will Time be deplatformed for admitting this?

Nah.

But will we be deplatformed for noting Time admitted the left rigged the election?

Probably.

Leftwing "journalist" -- really, a Democrat operative with a press pass -- Molly Ball brags about how she and her friends rigged an election to ensure the "proper outcome," as one of her buddies says.

"It was all very, very strange," Trump said on Dec. 2. "Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted."
In a way, Trump was right.

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain - inspired by the summer's massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests - in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump's assault on democracy.

The Establishment of the GOP takes all of its cues -- and a lot of money, coincidentally -- from the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce wants absolute corporate sovereignty with zero accountability, and the GOPe takes their paychecks and gives them their political payoffs.

The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election--an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.

Here's what they did before the election, according to Time:

For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America's institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.
Lie.

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.

Like censoring the Hunter Biden story.

Much more at the site - an excellent Fisking of this disgusting story. They cheated, they got away with it (for now) and they are gloating about it.  Time for the pay-back. Make it nuclear.

In other words - job numbers? Shut Up. From Breitbart:

Joe Biden: It Will Take Ten Years to Get Full Employment at Current Job Growth Rate
President Joe Biden sounded a dark note on the future of the economy Friday, after a bleak jobs report came out.

The United States economy added 49,000 jobs in December with only 6,000 jobs in the private sector, according to the latest report released Friday morning.

“At that rate, it’s going to take ten years to get back to full employment,” Biden said. “That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact.”

Gee - the previous guy did pretty well.  What's up with the Democrats? Pretty lackluster performance given all their hype and rhetoric.

When you lose Time Magazine

| No Comments

Now this is interesting - from Red State:

TIME Claims a Secret Cabal Manipulated the 2020 Election to Stop Trump, and People Have Questions
This seems like the sort of thing you don’t say out loud but, like a serial killer, many in politics are just too absorbed in their own egos to not try to take credit for their deeds.

TIME wrote a very interesting piece making some very alarming claims. Namely, that a secret cabal banded together across the country to stop Donald Trump from winning re-election. This included everything from manipulating media coverage to getting election laws changed, at least according to TIME’s account.

Interesting.  Some screen-caps of some tweets but no link to the TIME article. Still... curious...

Out the door - couple of hours

| No Comments

Time for a dog walk and some coffee.  Got the old dishwasher out and the new one inside - will install when I get back home.  Need some hardware gubbins - fortunately, there is an ACE Hardware near where I have my mailbox. Finish the counter tops for the music room today - they are looking really beautiful. Was careful to sand them after each coat of wipe-on poly and they now have a nice smooth satin finish. The finish soaks into the wood and gives a lot of strength to the surface as well as the appearance.

The sun went away - it clouded over but these clouds are a lot higher. I can see Whidbey Island and the Olympics are peeking through. Still a nice day for working indoors.

And another quiet glorious day

| No Comments

Sun is shining  - it was raining earlier this morning but looks to be clearing up.

Installing the dishwasher and getting my bad haircut repaired are my two main priorities for the day.  Working up in Bellingham tomorrow and Sunday - final push.

Nothing much happening online.  The Senate passed a huge "stimulus" bill (this IS Obama's third term after all) but it still has to go to the House and then on for Jill's signatureDr. Jill - sorry. Quick surf and the out for a dog run and the usual.

That is it for me - got a pot of tea and going to watch some video.

A non-starter from the Washington, DC NBC affiliate:

Elevated Radiation Levels Detected in Neutron Reactor Containment Building at NIST in Maryland
Elevated radiation levels were detected in the containment building of the research neutron reactor at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, during a restart of the reactor Wednesday morning, according to a spokeswoman.

Several trained radiation workers were exposed to elevated levels and were undergoing standard decontamination and evaluation, a spokeswoman said. Authorities say there is no threat to the public nor to workers on the NIST campus.

In other words, everything happened as it should happen.  The radiation was contained in the... er... Containment Building.  This is the building that was designed to contain any radiation in the event that some was to leak out somewhere. In other news, water is wet, the sun will not rise until around 8:00 AM tomorrow morning so it is dark out and I have finished dinner so my stomach is full.

Must be a slow news day for them. And, before you start going on about how ANY radiation exposure is so bad for you, explore the concept of Hormesis.  You can Google it.  It's a thing.

And dinnertime

| No Comments

Cheated and got a baked chicken breast from the store.  Doing some Orzo pasta with veggies as a side.

Picked up a cheap dishwasher at a local appliance store (from their scratch and dent section) - run with that until I remodel the kitchen. Install that tomorrow.

The dogs are sleeping - had a good hour-long run this morning. Got their ya-ya's out.

Hmmmm...

| No Comments

A quest:

20210204-housewife.jpg

Managed to find a few - one was bat-shit crazy and one just didn't work out. Still looking...

Tip of the hat to Knuckledraggin

Looking at taxes - a wonderful idea

| No Comments

We need to look at their taxes - there is no accountability.
From Woodsterman:

20210204-taxes.jpg

Congressman Jim Jordan

| No Comments

Great presentation

He shares a little bit of history from four years ago. Same bullshit people, same bullshit narrative.
He represents Ohio - website: Congressman Jim Jordan

I should have gone with my gut feeling

| No Comments

I was getting a bit shaggy so went to my barber.  He was not there but someone else was cutting hair.  I like my guy so figured that this guy would be good as well.

Whoops.  I am letting my hair grow out a bit (had it short for a year or so - been growing it long for the last 3-4 months).  I explained to this fingy* what I wanted.  Leave the length, clean it up and get it over my ears.  He proceeded to "neaten up the back a little bit" - took off about two inches. Needless to say #1) - I didn't let him do anything else, #2) - he didn't charge me and #3) - I look pretty stupid.  Going to another barber to get it repaired sometime in the next few days. And, all the while he was talking about how he went to this party and got blackout drunk on Tequila.

He was working on someone else when I walked in and I had this feeling that I should excuse myself and leave.  Serves me right for not listening...

fingy = pronounciation of the acronym FNG (Fscking New Guy)

A blast from the past - Barry Goldwater

| No Comments

“The currently favored instrument of collectivization is the Welfare State. The collectivists have not abandoned their ultimate goal-to subordinate the individual to the State, but their strategy has changed.”
--Barry Goldwater

He ran for President - would have been a good one. Instead, we got Lyin' Bastard Johnson - the implementer of the modern Welfare State and the mis-manager of the Vietnam War.

Senator Goldwater was also a ham radio operator.

And out for a bit

| No Comments

The rain has let up a lot so taking the pups to a large field nearby and letting them run themselves ragged. Very overcast this morning - cannot see the mountains or islands.  3-4 mile visibility.

Coffee and the usual. Saw that the dishwasher broke last night - the heating element in the bottom has a half-inch gap in it.  Must have been quite the arc when it broke through... Planning to go to the food coop and Home Depot anyway so see what they have.  Was not budgeting for this but shit does happen. Check Habitat for Humanity too - they have used appliences.

A couple of memes to start your day

| No Comments

From the internet:

20210104-knockoff.jpg

20210204-leaders.jpg

20210204-oil.jpg

20210204-unemployed.jpg

An interesting bit of news from The New York Post:

Greta Thunberg faces criminal conspiracy probe in India over farm protest tweets
Greta Thunberg accidentally shared a message showing she was getting told what to write on Twitter about the ongoing violent farmers’ revolt in India — leading Thursday to her being probed for criminal conspiracy by police there, according to reports.

The 18-year-old left-wing eco-activist shared — and then quickly deleted — a message that detailed a list of “suggested posts” about the ongoing protests, according to the posts that were saved by Breaking 911.

The list gave a series of tips on what to post, asking her to also repost and tag other celebrities tweeting about it, including pop star Rihanna.

As well as the Twitter storm, the “toolkit” she shared also suggested highlighting planned demonstrations at Indian embassies.

So let me get this straight...  You seriously think that an autistic teenager from Sweden was able to spring onto the world stage and become the poster child for all the usual leftie causes?  They shopped around for her, found her, groomed her and are using her to advance their causes.  She is just another meat puppet and she will be discarded when her usefulness is up.

Pay to play in the news

| No Comments

They can't just hand money to *resident Biden - that would not look good at all. Instead? From Breitbart:

Hunter Biden to Chronicle Personal Demons in Memoir ‘Beautiful Things’
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, has a memoir due out April 6 which will chronicle his life and times, despite his father assuring the nation his family would not cash in on presidency.

AP reports the book is called “Beautiful Things” and will center on the younger Biden’s well publicized struggles with substance abuse, according to Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Acquired in the fall of 2019, “Beautiful Things” was kept under wraps even as Biden’s business dealings became public before, during and after the election and his finances a matter of investigation by the Justice Department.

Yeah - give Hunter a couple million advance and let his Dad know that there's a lot more where that came from.
Oh, by the way, there is this legislation that we are interested in...

Sure worked for Barry - he has a new book out every other year or so. Raking in the millions for what?

Lazy morning so far

| No Comments

Woke up to the sound of rain so dozed for another hour or so.  Half-sleep - some dreams but not a full sleep.  Delicious.

Fix some breakfast, take the pups out for a nice long walk - still raining but not heavy. Coffee.  I'll be putting the final finish onto the music room desk tops - they are looking really nice.  There is a big one for my workstation - it goes between two equipment racks which hold the computer and various MIDI and audio interfaces.  There are two smaller ones which will go on top of the steel frame to hold my synthesizers. Butcherblock so nice and sturdy. Nice to be able to walk in and play music again - I miss that a lot.  I have one keyboard set up but it's not the same - I want all my toys up and running...

Lazy couple of days

| No Comments

The worst of this week is over - time to kick back a bit. Processing the video I shot last Tuesday but that's the work of an hour or two spread out over a day or two.

The dogs really need a nice looong walk - been taking them out but not getting them bone tired. Today was gorgeous but supposed to be raining tomorrow - we will see.  Work on the music room furniture. Watch a couple of videos for now and sleep in tomorrow.

Thinking that all of District of Columbia probably has them. But naaaaaa...  the rules do not apply to THEM.
From The Daily Caller:

In Historic First, Janet Yellen Becomes First Female Treasury Secretary To Request Ethics Waiver For Wall Street Speaking Fees
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sought and received an ethics waiver before she called a meeting between top federal regulators to discuss market volatility surrounding GameStop and other so-called meme stocks, according to Reuters.

Yellen’s move to obtain an ethics waiver followed reports that she received more than $800,000 in speaking fees from Citadel, a hedge fund directly connected to the GameStop saga. Citadel is invested heavily in Melvin Capital, another hedge fund that saw 53% of its $12.5 billion portfolio wiped away in January amid the GameStop short squeeze.

What pearls of wisdom would she have to be worth so much for a 45 minute speech?  Nothing.  Those speaker fees are strictly pay-for-play.  They figured Biden's puppetmasters would cheat "his" way into power and that she would be the new go-to person for the Treasury. They were looking to buy her favoritism. Accountability? Not spoken here.

They missed out on a small bit of information that would explain their question.  From NPR:

The Mystery Of India's Plummeting COVID-19 Cases
Last September, India was confirming nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day. It was on track to overtake the United States to become the country with the highest reported COVID-19 caseload in the world. Hospitals were full. The Indian economy nosedived into an unprecedented recession.

But four months later, India's coronavirus numbers have plummeted. Late last month, on Jan. 26, the country's Health Ministry confirmed a record low of about 9,100 new daily cases — in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. It was India's lowest daily tally in eight months. On Monday, India confirmed about 11,000 cases.

"It's not that India is testing less or things are going underreported," says Jishnu Das, a health economist at Georgetown University. "It's been rising, rising — and now suddenly, it's vanished! I mean, hospital ICU utilization has gone down. Every indicator says the numbers are down."

Scientists say it's a mystery. They're probing why India's coronavirus numbers have declined so dramatically — and so suddenly, in September and October, months before any vaccinations began.

India trusts its citizenry to not be dumb.  Many drugs are sold over the counter to anyone who walks into the pharmacy and asks.  Drugs like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine for example.

India followed the advice of the World Health Organization and watched what we were doing in the United States (paging Dr. Fauci, Dr. Fauci to the white courtesy telephone please). They then tried some of the anecdotal cures, found that these actually work.  That they are cheap and available over the counter in India. Ka-Boom. No more Wuhan Flu.

Dispatches from the alt.energy front

| No Comments

Hint - alt.energy simply does not work.  It only survives with huge taxpayer subsidies - our dollars being dumped down a rathole.

From Gizmodo:

The Only Carbon Capture Plant in the U.S. Just Closed
Early last year, the Trump administration’s Department of Energy celebrated a special birthday. “Happy Third Operating Anniversary, Petra Nova!” the agency trumpeted in a press release. The release boasted of a coal-fired power plant in Texas that seemed to have done the impossible: It successfully removed carbon dioxide from the plant’s emissions for three years, safely storing them.

The celebration was early—Petra Nova barely made it to its fourth birthday before being shuttered. Last week, NRG Energy, which owns the project, announced that it would be shut down indefinitely, in what may be one of the last gasps for carbon capture and storage technology in the U.S.

On paper, carbon capture and storage, or CCS, sounds like the solution to all our problems. If we could just suck the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels and put it somewhere else, we could cut warming without shifting away from old methods of generating energy. In practice, though, the results have been less than promising and failed to scale at anywhere near the levels needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

And these morons still think that carbon is a bad thing.  CO2 is plant food.  Without it, photosynthesys would not happen.  No green plants. The effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is minimal.  Water vapor is much more effective but the greens can not control that so that inconvenient truth is swept under the narrative rug.

The article includes links to some of the spectacular failures. The technology simply does not work.

Break for dinner

| No Comments

Doing a baked potato with some canned baked beans.  Cheap and good.  Salad as well.  Meeting in 90 minutes - I am well prepped so it should be good.

Quick surf while the spud cooks - the meal with appeal...

Break for lunch

| No Comments

Coffee consumed, groceries delivered.  Back home doing some emails for tonight's meeting and eating lunch.

Out for an hour or two - nice day so working outside for a little bit. The rest of the week should be nice and quiet.  Looking forward to that...

Working this morning

| No Comments

Slow news day so far.  Working on tonight's meeting - want to get the agenda out ASAP.

I'll reward myself with some coffee in a few hours...

Gorgeous morning - puffy clouds in the sky.  Clear.  The Olympics and the San Juan Islands are beautiful in the morning light.

Heh - the COVID family

| No Comments

Someone had fun with this:

20210203-covid.jpg

...go for the State.  Great news from Florida - from Palm Beach station WFLX:

DeSantis takes aim against social media platforms
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Tuesday to announce the support of legislation to protect social media users’ privacy, saying “big tech has come to look more like big brother with each passing day.”

The governor said the legislation will seek a slew of changes that DeSantis says will protect privacy and censorship by social media platforms.

He called out Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple and Amazon for being "nameless, faceless boards of censors."

"Over the years, however, these platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provided Americans with the freedom to speak to enforcers of preferred narratives," DeSantis said.

The governor said he believes social media has played an "increasingly decisive role in elections and negatively impacted Americans who dissent from orthodoxy favored by the big tech cartel."

Wonderful - can't get Section 230 repealed at the Federal level, go after them at the State level.
Zero Hedge has the list of what DeSantis is looking to accomplish:

    • Mandatory opt-outs from big tech’s content filters, a solution to tech censorship first proposed by Breitbart News in 2018.
    • A private right of action for Floridian citizens against tech companies that violate this condition.
    • Fines of $100,000 per day levied on tech companies that suspend candidates for elected office in Florida from their platforms.
    • Daily fines for any tech company “that uses their content and user-related algorithms to suppress or prioritize the access of any content related to a political candidate or cause on the ballot.”
    • Greater transparency requirements.
    • Disclosure requirements enforced by Florida’s election authorities for tech companies that favor one candidate over another.
    • Power for the Florida attorney general to bring cases against tech companies that violate these conditions under the state’s Unfair and Deceptive Practices Act.

"What began as a group of upstart companies from the west coast has since transformed into an industry of monopoly communications platforms that monitor, influence, and control the flow of information in our country and among our citizens, and they do this to an extent hitherto unimaginable," said DeSantis, adding "These platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provided Americans with the freedom to speak to enforcers of preferred narratives. Consequently, these platforms have played an increasingly decisive role in elections, and have negatively impacted Americans who dissent from orthodoxies favored by the Big Tech cartel."

Tip of the hat to Don Surber for these two links.  If I didn't have such a nice place here in WA State, I would seriously think about moving. Voting with my feet.

A somewhat busy day tomorrow

| No Comments

Working this evening as well - the scheduled monthly meeting for the arts group is tomorrow evening.  Plus, I have grocery deliveries tomorrow afternoon so a full day.  Not hectic.  I do not need to start working with the photos and video I took today for another couple of days so I have some breathing room.

Heading over to watch some videos and calling it a night.

Heh - so so true

| No Comments

Kind of glad that none of my critters can see the monitor right now.  They would be laughing:

20210202-own-good.jpg

The gift that keeps on giving

| No Comments

Such an incredible difference from KMac. From Breitbart:

She is so clueless it is painful to watch. The Dumb.  She reeks of The Dumb.

460+ comments - people are having fun with this.

I was expecting the pendulum to swing the other way but I was not expecting it to have such help and/or for it to start swinging back to normalcy quite so soon.  Looks like a lot of people are going to be suffering from cognitive dissonance. From Paul Joseph Watson:

If people stopped following these morons, they would dry up and blow away.

In the words of *Resident Joe Biden: "C'mon Man!"

Out the door

| No Comments

Doing a mix of still and video this afternoon.  The artist wanted some of her work shot and we will be doing some establishing video in her studio (B Roll).

Heading North after that - Costco is calling me.  Been eating a lot of blueberries these days - have them with breakfast but now I am keeping a bowl of them in the kitchen and grab a handful couple times/day.  Costco has really good prices on them so stocking up. I'll let you know when my skin turns purple. Food coop and Home Depot as well.

Nice couple of lasy days - got a bid on some electrical work here.  Going with it (replacing an old panel with a much larger Square D board).

An interesting warning to the deep-state from China.  From The Epoch Times:

Beijing Tells Biden Administration to Play by the CCP’s Rules
China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi warned the Biden administration not to cross Beijing’s “red line” in a half-hour speech on the evening of Feb. 1.

“The United States should stop interference in the affairs of Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang,” Yang said, calling the issues regarding the three regions China’s “internal affairs.” He made the remarks while speaking at a virtual event hosted by New York-based nonprofit the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Yang added: “They constitute a red line that must not be crossed. Any trespassing would end up undermining China-U.S. relations and the United States’ own interests.”

He also told the United States that it should “strictly abide by the One China principle” with regards to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims is part of its territory.

I think that the deep state in the US is going to be in for a very very large surprise in the next six months or so.  They imagined themselves to be on top of the world.  The "true leaders", the "power behind the throne" of the greatest Nation in History.  They aligned themselves with China (and other nations) for individual personal gain but they were too stupid to see the consequences.

China's little incursions here and there are actually an organized plan for world supremacy and they are, at this point in time, being very successful.

The players in the deep state: Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell, Gates, Fauci, Cuomo, Inslee, Whitmer, Newsom, etc... had been imagining themselves as kings of the world but, in reality, they are now the abject pawns of a much larger power.  They did this to themselves.  This is the result of their own actions and they failed to see the consequences. They are now being told what to do, what to say, what to think and who to worship.

The Schedenfreude would be enjoyable if we were not at the bottom of this great big pile of communist rot.

Quite the library

| No Comments

From 90 miles:

20210202-library.jpg

Everything East of the Rocky Mountains is getting hammered with snowfall (blame global whatever right?). Here is one idea to make digging out a bit more pleasant:

20210202-beers.jpg

What is up with all the "B"s?

| No Comments

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit writes about a communication he recieved and offers some images:

This is Odd: Joe Biden’s Signature on Latest Official Documents Is Raising Eyebrows
It’s common knowledge for anyone paying attention this past year that Joe Biden is suffering from mid-to-late stage dementia.

This explains why Democrats hid Joe in the basement all year while they schemed on ways to manufacture votes. It is also common knowledge that Jill Biden, his wife of over 40 years of marriage, is his constant companion and personal aide to help Joe out during times of confusion. This is typical with those spouses who are married to dementia patients.

But is Jill Biden more than her husband’s handler?

A Missouri pharmacist sent us this keen observation.

I am a pharmacist in Missouri. I read a few days ago that none of Biden’s Executive Orders have been posted to the Federal Register, so I looked, then, a few days ago. Those Executive Orders are showing up. However, I believe I have accidentally discovered his signature may be a forgery. I just sat on this discovery, thinking someone else more important would notice it. I guess no one has yet.

Part of my job as a pharmacist is to watch for forged doctor signatures and I am pretty sure Joe’s are forged. I suspect that he is embarrassed by his shaky signature and had his wife sign for his signature stamp used for official business. As you can see on the attachment the last three signatures are identical, indicative of a stamp, and that’s fine as long as it is his signature. Maybe that’s easier to submit to the Federal Register. Otherwise, I believe it is illegal to have someone else sign for a signature stamp that binds a legal document. I have seen the signature of doctors get shaky at the end of their careers, but never change in a single year as Joe’s purportedly has done.

And some photos - notice the Bs:

Known Joe from last year:

20210202-jb01.jpg

Joe and Jill from 2019

20210202-jb02.jpg

From the Federal Register - Joe's current signature - Jill's B:

20210202-jb03.jpg

Jill "gets" the slash for the J but she screws up the B on her Biden. She is signing these Executive Orders. That is the only explanation that makes sense. Time to just get it over with.  Call up Operation 25th and get Knee-pads sworn in as 47th...

Puttering around here

| No Comments

And getting ready to head out for coffee, etc...

Raining pretty hard again so no dog walk for now - maybe later this afternoon.  Supposed to let up.

Back for lunch and then pack up the video stuff. Fun project.

Batteries - the solution to everything

| No Comments

What are you going to use to charge them?  And, where do you get the lithium?

20210202-pipeline.jpg

Lazy morning - delicious

| No Comments

Raining outside - quite heavily earlier this morning as I was waking up.  Love the sound.

Sunrise: 7:37 AM, Sunset: 5:10 PM    Compared this to the Solstice: 8:00 AM and 4:15 PM - 1 Hour and 17 Minutes more daylight.  Very noticible.

Heading out for the usual in an hour or so - getting the video camera stuff packed up and ready for this afternoon's shooting. Fun project.

Surf a bit, hang out with the dogs, build the fire back up.

BillG is one of the worst. A clueless tool.  From MSN:

Bill Gates Warns That a Next Pandemic Could Be 10 times Worse
Bill Gates - He warned that an upcoming pandemic could be 10 times worse and that humanity is not prepared for it. He also insisted that people must learn the lesson that COVID-19 is giving us, according to a quote from the RT portal to an interview with the tycoon for a German media.

According to the billionaire, "we are not prepared for the next pandemic," in the same way he hopes that this situation will change in a couple of years and indicated the axes of opportunity such as drugs, tests, vaccines, epidemiology, and follow-up.

"This pandemic is bad, but a future pandemic could be 10 times more serious," said the magnate, who urged governments to protect their citizens against possible new diseases.

Keep us living in fear and dependent on the big government and big pharma to survive.  If we do not toe the line politically, we go to the back of the vaccination line. Ann Barnhardt has this to say:

Evil always tells you what it is up to: Bill Gates “predicting” forthcoming plague 10x worse than CoronaScam. Clearly this is the intended result of the Quaccine – boosting lethality of the common cold
Bill Gates is priming the propaganda pump for a soon-to-arrive any-minute-now mega-plague “ten times worse” than Corona Scam.

Now… if CoronaScam really were a once-per-century event like the Spanish Flu, how could Bill Gates know that ANOTHER event is about to happen?

How did Gates know in MINUTE DETAIL everything about the CoronaScam on October 18, ARSH 2019 at Event 201? Because Event 201 was a FINAL PREPARATORY BRIEFING for the media and government before launching the CoronaScam war on humanity.

He “knows” because the Quaccine is intended to do what all previous attempts at a CoronaVirus vaccine have done: cause enhanced viral uptake of Corona Viridae when encountered in the wild subsequently. Yes, that’s right. Gates and company are fulfilling their Luciferian (and I strongly suspect erotic) fantasies to inject people with a concoction that will, with full malice aforethought, make the common cold a lethal proposition for healthy adults.

That’s how he “knows” a plague “ten times worse” is just around the corner.

Because it’s the plan and has been all along.

Evil ALWAYS announces itself and its plans.

She does have a very good point and her predictions have been spot-on so far. Evil is afoot.

Wonder how much is coming in these days - another sure way to crash the economy and create a crisis.
From the U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

Two Packages, $136K of Counterfeit Currency CBP Officers in Chicago Seize Shipments Containing Funny Money
At Chicago’s International Mail Facility (IMF) U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers recently seized two parcel arriving from China that held different denominations of counterfeit currency totaling more than $136,000.Bogus Money

On January 28, officers at the IMF held two parcels for inspection that were arriving from the same shipper in China. The officers inspected the shipments to determine the admissibility of the parcels and its contents. The first shipment contained 957 counterfeit $100 dollar bills and 44 counterfeit $50 dollar bills totaling $97,900. In the second shipment were 384 counterfeit $100 dollar bills. In total, $136,300 of counterfeit currency was seized under Counterfeit U.S. Currency, Coins or Government Securities.

Like I said - is this the tip of the iceberg? Flooding the nation with counterfeit currency would be a sure way to force us to use digital currency for any and all payments.  Which is exactly what they want as cash payments can not be traced. Cards can.

Interesting times in Burma - from The National File:

Burmese Leader Ousted By Military For Vote Fraud Had Close Clinton, Soros Ties
State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted on Monday by the military for purported fraud in Burma’s November elections, had close ties to both Hillary Clinton and George Soros.

Former Secretary Hillary Clinton had developed a close relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi following the first meeting between the two liberal female politicians in 2011, and upon meeting, they began “strategizing”.

“After so many years of reading and thinking about this celebrated Burmese dissident, we were finally face to face,” Clinton wrote in Hard Choices, her account of her tenure as Secretary of State. “I felt we had known each other for a lifetime, even though we had just met…Soon we were chatting, strategizing and laughing like old friends.”

And of course:

Ultimately, the Obama administration engineered Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to power in 2015, by placing sanctions on Myanmar and insisting on only removing them if Aung San Suu Kyi was given a political role in the country.

Gotta look out for each other 'ya know - and finally, the gnome of Budapest:

Another important ally of Aung San Suu Kyi was progressive billionaire George Soros and his global NGO network, which strongly supported her activities.

“I have been and remain very much guided by her vision in my involvement in Burma,” Soros said after meeting her in 2012.

Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) has had a ‘Burma Project’ since 1994, which worked for years to undermine the government of Myanmar. According to Myanmar’s Eleven Media, over 100 NGOs active in the country have received Soros funding.

Just another totalitarian communist who can not win by popular vote so they cheat. Fortunately, the Burma military was a lot more proactive than our own.

Went pretty well all things told...

| No Comments

Only lasted 60 minutes. Going to make some tea and watch a few videos. Early bedtime.

Heading over to an artist's house to shoot some videos tomorrow - got the camera ready, batteries charged, good to go.

Meeting in one hour

| No Comments

Long day - just want to nap and sleep through it but need to be there. We will be covering a lot of area but some people really really really want to voice their input so all thoughts of this taking less than two hours are out the window. See if I can mediate without really pissing people off.

Big sandwich for lunch so had the last of the hot and sour soup for dinner. Some Triscuits and that's it. Got some nectar ready for the hummingbird feeders tomorrow.  Soaking some beans for the chicken chili - fix that tomorrow.

Just wonderful - WA State

| No Comments

I was talking with someone yesterday.  The computer systems that WA State uses are byzantine.  There is an old core of COBOL running on a mainframe and then there are various "clown suits" - shades of a digital Matryoshka Doll.  Each new call to upgrade the system does nothing to start from scratch, all they do is add another layer. The last time I looked into this was a little over ten years ago but it had been that for 30 years and I suspect that it is still the same.

From localized news source: patch.com/Renton, WA:

Hackers Steal Data Of 1.6 Million WA Unemployment Applicants
The Office of the Washington State Auditor confirms that a data broach may have exposed the data of the more than one million Washingtonians who applied for unemployment last year.

The news is the latest development in a long debacle for Washington state's unemployment system — one which began during the massive spike in unemployment at the start of the pandemic. As thousands of Washingtonians lost their jobs last spring and started filing for unemployment, scammers saw an opportunity. They filed an estimated 122,000 "known or probable" fraudulent claims with Washington's Employment Security Department (ESD) which ended up paying the scammers a combined $600 million.

The theft was discovered shortly afterwards, and the ESD has since reworked their vetting process for new claims and recovered $250 million of the stolen money.

To learn more about how those scammers slipped through the cracks, the State Auditor was tasked with investigating the ESD — which is why the auditor's office had the unemployment data that hackers have now stolen.

According to the SAO, the breach is partially the fault of Accellion, a third party provider the office had been using to transfer files. Hackers reportedly used a software vulnerability to access files that were being transferred by Accellion's service sometime in late December.

Sigh... Nothing changes...

These are not a Carte Blanche - they have to be constitutional. From the Nashville, TN Tennessee Star:

Six Attorneys General Warn Biden Administration of Lawsuits over Executive Orders
Six attorneys general sent a letter to President Joe Biden warning him that many of the executive orders he issued in his first week in office will be challenged on constitutional grounds.

Any actions he takes that might exceed statutory authority, are inconsistent with constitutional law or risk civil liberties could result in legal action brought by states, attorneys general from West Virginia, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana and Texas warned in the letter.

Litigation is never a first option, the attorneys general said in the letter, and they offered to help the new administration implement polices that are “consistent with the Constitution and the rule of law.”

But if such policies are not implemented, and the president signs “unconstitutional laws passed by Congress, it will be our responsibility and duty to challenge those laws in court,” they wrote.

Poor Joe doesn't know what he is signing.  These EO's are from the fevered dreams of the deep state. Let them bring their corrupt ideology out into the public eye and let them fail spectacularly. Ridicule them. Mock them.  Drive them from the public forum.

From The New York Post:

Pennsylvania official at center of Trump election concerns resigns
The Pennsylvania secretary of state who emerged as a villain to supporters of former President Donald Trump said Monday she will resign for failing to comply with an unrelated state election law.

Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, will leave office on Feb. 5. Her office botched the handling of a state constitutional amendment that would allow more sexual abuse victims to sue their alleged abusers.

In a statement, she said, “I’ve always believed that accountability and leadership must be a cornerstone of public service. While I only became aware of the mistake last week, and immediately took steps to alert the administration to the error, I accept the responsibility on behalf of the department.”

In other words, the stolen election is not going away.  People will be prosecuted and she is trying to fall on a much smaller sword. Trying to dodge the big sword of a corrupt and fraudulent Federal Election.  That would be some serious jail time.  She knows.  We know.  She knows that we know.  She knows that we will not forget.

Mike Lindell - marketing genius

| No Comments

The My Pillow guy adjusts to the current political climate.

From America's Newspaper of Record - The Babylon Bee:

In Effort To Appeal To Socialists, Mike Lindell Introduces ‘OurPillow’
Mike Lindell, more commonly known as the “My Pillow Guy,” is making headlines once again with his newest line of pillows. MyPillow is now targeting the socialist demographic with the release of OurPillow.

“MyPillow did really well in the Trump era, but now with a new administration, it’s time to try out OurPillow, my comrades!” said an exuberant Mike Lindell. “And we are proud to announce that we are transitioning to overseas factories so every Our Pillow will be made 100% in the communist utopia of China!”

A recent "As Seen On TV" commercial revealed that OurPillow will no longer perfectly adjust to fit individuals, but instead it will conform to the masses. It also boasts a patented, quick-drying, liberal tear absorbing foam. "It’s guaranteed the most comfortable pillow the State will ever own and let you use!" said Lindell.

“We love how inclusive Our Pillow is, and now that the government is paying for it, everyone can enjoy!” said democratic socialist Millie Lenin. “Not to mention-- the built-in deodorizer is a nice touch.”

When asked how to order Our Pillow, Mike Lindell replied: “Look for OurPillow today being distributed at a breadline near you!”

You keep using that word.

| No Comments

From USA Today:

Oregon law to decriminalize all drugs goes into effect, offering addicts rehab instead of prison
For Janie Gullickson, rock bottom came both slowly and all at once.

A longtime drug and alcohol addict, Gullickson pushes back on the idea that one terrible day on the street leads to an epiphany and a climb back to normalcy. That’s what happens in movies, not real life.

“I lived in the bottom for years,” says Gullickson, 52. “For me and people like me, I laid there and wallowed in it for a long time.”

And the upshot:

Now Gullickson, executive director of the Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon, is determined to give other addicts the same opportunity. That’s why she pushed for the passage of Measure 110, first-of-its-kind legislation that decriminalizes the possession of all illegal drugs in Oregon, including heroin, cocaine, meth and oxycodone. Instead of a criminal-justice-based approach, the state will pivot to a health-care-based approach, offering addicts treatment instead of prison time. Those in possession will be fined $100, a citation that will be dropped if they agree to a health assessment.

The law goes into effect Monday and will be implemented over the next decade by the state officials at the Oregon Health Authority.

One of the things I love about our Nation is that we are a Republic of States - each State makes its own laws and can try out new ideas.  We will see what happens in a few years. Great idea, the devil is in the implementation.  Will this be an effective operation or will it be mired in typical leftist bureaucracy, inertia and waste

Dog walk, coffee, etc...  Been spending the morning working on tonight's meeting. Time for a break.

Back in an hour or three...

March 2023

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
      1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31  

About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from February 2021 listed from newest to oldest.

January 2021 is the previous archive.

March 2021 is the next archive.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Monthly Archives

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 5.2.9