July 2021 Archives

And tired - busy couple of days

| No Comments

Next week is going to be busy as well.  Sleeping in tomorrow though - day of rest.

Now? Videos and sleep.

Object of desire

| No Comments

I saw.  I want.

20210731-sign.jpg

And...  Should have figured.  It's a thing - Twelve bucks at Amazon:

20210731-sign01.jpg

Needless to say, it is on its way...

And still waiting...

| No Comments

20210731-sense.jpg

Oops - what kind of Doctor?

| No Comments

A tweet from Dr. Debby Burnett of Colorado.  Who happens to be running for office.
Sean Davis noticed something a bit off and tweeted back:

20210731-burnett.jpg

Yup - from Burnett's campaign site

Dr. Debby Burnett is a fourth generation Coloradan. As a veterinarian of 18+ years, she's worked with farmers and ranchers across our district

Shades of: "I just left the ER" from a few days ago.

Farm animals are now getting COVID?  OMFG - it's worse than I thought.....
Working on the COVID floor of your hospital? Pants on fire.

The opening three paragraphs of a wonderful observation.  From Old NFO:

“So he’s a dementia patient who is under a very public regime of elder abuse, with a brain dead wife who wants to be called doctor but thinks cardboard hearts will heal the country; followed by a clueless hooker who cackles when nervous…which is all the time because she has no clue what she’s doing; they have a doctor who is caught lying about everything, pretends it doesn’t matter, doubles down on debunked science to push experimental drugs for his own profit.

A bunch of pretend representatives who demand peons submit to national socialism while they are given free reign to spend insurmountable amounts of other peoples money; all while silently swapping national socialism for militarized dictatorship using “mostly peaceful protests” to prove the peons cannot govern themselves or the legal system. With a whole bunch of people who rigged elections, got caught, pretend it didn’t happen, then fight like it’s armageddon to keep people from seeing what is already known and when that fails start screaming about those evil, national terrorists known as white people.

Teachers are refusing to go to work until they can freely teach children that its okay for adult to groom them for sexual assault, to take life changing drugs before their bodies are fully developed, that only white people should be judged on the color of their skin and not the content of their character, that their parents should never be told what is being done and said to them, and that lowest common denominator isn’t low enough, we must aim lower because…race, 12 trillion “genders”, and more race.

Yeah - that about sums it up...  Crazy times... 

We are going to have one hell of a national hangover when we come to our collective senses.

Break for dinner

| No Comments

Ran some errands this afternoon - the Pelican case for my new phone came in so picked that up.  Fixing a baked potato for dinner - the day stayed cool and overcast.  A welcome change but...

Quick surf while the spud bakes.

And out the door

| No Comments

Much cooler today - nice and overcast.

Bringing the dogs with me for the day - walkies and then coffee.  Voted yesterday - a Primary election for school board candidates.  Interesting range of people and a lot of fun reading between the lines for what they want to bring to the classroom.

Working at home today - trip to the farm Tuesday. Back Wednesday.  The arts group is having a picnic Wednesday evening - see what the weather does...

I am outta here

Some people...

| No Comments

They need to be reminded of what they unleashed:

20210731-vote.jpg

Mortality in Washington D.C.

| No Comments

Don Surber brings to light some numbers for the two weeks from July 14th through the 28th:

20210731-dcdeaths.jpgHis comment:

Masks? Wear Kevlar.

Exactly, COVID is not the problem facing D.C. Once again, I keep thinking this:

When the people who are telling me that there is a crisis start acting like there is a crisis;
then, maybe, I will belive that there is a crisis.

And that is it - sweet dreams

| No Comments

Watch some videos and sleep, perchance to dream.

Camera on the new phone is pretty decent. Not giving up my Nikons anytime soon (pry cold dead fingers department) but it is a marked improvement over the old phone.

Some numbers from the Sacramento, Ca CBS Affiliate:

Higher COVID Rate Found In Some Counties With Higher Vaccination Rate – Why, And What It Says About The Delta Variant
State workers and health care employees will now be required to show proof of vaccine or get tested for COVID at least once a week.

The governor announced the new guidance today and is urging private employers to “replicate the example.”

And the numbers:

Statewide data analyzed by the Bay Area News Group found five counties, Los Angeles, San Diego, Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco, have both a higher percentage of people who are fully vaccinated than the state average and a higher average daily case rate.

Compare that to these five counties: Modoc, Glenn, Lassen, Del Norte, and San Benito, which have below-average vaccination rates and decreasing case rates.

I want to shake the hand of the person who thought to take the adverse reactions to the vaccine and to brand them as a new COVID variant.  Pure marketing genius.  There is no Delta Variant, it is your bodies reaction to being vaccinated. Simple as that.

Fun fun fun - new phone

| No Comments

Just discovered it has a "Developer Mode" and you can port into it via a USB cable and SuperTerm on Windows.

Time to get rid of some bloat and have a bit of fun...

Go there later - emailed and one thing I was looking for was not there yet. It is about 90 minutes away so need to group errands together before heading up there. Home Depot to see if they have the 1" conduit fittings that were not in stock at Lowe's.  Also looking for some parts for the van. Mandatory stop at Costco and food coop.

The State gets some people off - they love the tenuous connection to power:

20210730-harder.jpg

These useless idiots do not realize that they will be the first to be lined up against the wall and shot when the elite feel comfortable in their acquisition of power. They have no inkling of history.

Tip of the hat to Peter Grant.

Lunch break

| No Comments

Had a fun day at the store - getting quite the crop of regular customers who come by to shoot the shit and occasionally lighten the shelves. Sold a couple hundred bucks worth of stuff - the store raises funds for the local center which does the meals on wheels program, various health services for island residents, education, etc...  Good people.

Ham sandwich, couple diet Pepsis (am still too white for Coke) and back on the road.  Got some wet weather moving in sometime next week which is welcome.

Quick surf - see what's happening out there...

And out the door - long day

| No Comments

Volunteering this morning and then driving up to Bellingham.  Looking at a camera lens and picking up an order from a hardware store.

Lunch in between. Leaving the pups home - going to be a hot one today.

Visiting the 1/6 prisoners

| No Comments

This administration are holding many people from the 1/6 "riot" behind bars - keeping them incomminicado.
Some Representatives tried to visit them and were turned away. From the London Daily Mail:

Accused of trespass: Reps Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert blocked from entering DC jail while trying to visit accused January 6 rioters

    • Gohmert, Gaetz, Gosar and Greene tried to visit detention facility on Thursday
    • Footage showed Gohmert and Greene being intercepted by a guard while they tried to enter the building
    • Greene told the group she has 'great concerns' if the attitude is any indication of how they're treating their prisoners inside
    • More than 535 people have been charged in taking part in the January 6 riots where protesters stormed the US Capitol

A group of House Republicans were accused of trespass by a detention facility in Washington D.C. while trying to visit some of the people held over the January 6 Capitol riots.

Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene attempted to visit some of those arrested following the unrest in the capital.

Footage showed Gohmert, of Texas, and Greene, of Georgia, being intercepted by a guard while they tried to enter the building.

Why?  Why are they not being alowed to contact those people being held.  Without bail. Without representation.

The left likes to go on and on about "political prisoners" but they show no qualms about locking people away.

A little dialog - guns

| No Comments

Simple really - about five or so:

20210730-guns.jpg

Videos and bed - working tomorrow

| No Comments

And then heading up to Bellingham for a few things.

Watch some video and then sleep - early start tomorrow.

Much to learn little grashopper...

I figure I jumped over about four or five generations of Android and associated apps so spending this evening finding out where they moved everything.

I understand upgrading software.  I understand adding features.

Why to they have to fsck things up and move shit around.

Trying to send a text message is a voyage of discovery.

Got it (mostly)

| No Comments

My voicemail to text app only runs on T-Mobile so have to find something new dammit.

Been going through about 20 minutes of system upgrades.  Some nice new features.  Welcome to the 21st century and I have the old phone to play with. And yes, four out of five bars cell service where I live.  Woo Hoo!!!

Nothing much on the internet except it is interesting to see Nancy Pelosi turn into a mad queen.  She is the putative leader of the Capitol Police and she has started opening up branch offices in California and Florida. Now, she is going fscking bonkers with the mask protocols and many representatives are having nothing to do with it. Four headlines:

Is this a great nation or what? Sadly, we are closer to the "or what" than ever before.

Ran some errands as well as getting my usual morning routine.  Did a bit of yard-sailing - there was an estate sale nearby so stopped in there but it was all old-person's frilly stuff.  No tools or anything of interest.

Finally bit the bullet and stopped at Costco and picked up a new cell phone - my old one only went up to 3G and coverage has been getting spottier and spottier in the last couple of months.  They are halting it as of February 2022 so time to move.  Charging now - spend the next day porting apps and trying out the new camera. Fun fun fun...  I do love learning new technology but I had the old phone dialed in just the way I wanted it. Now I have to start all over again. Grumble.

Quick surf while it charges and then dive in.

And out the door - the bomb

| No Comments

Been noticing some fleas recently so bombing the house while I am out today.

Dog walk, coffee and a few errands.  Heading up to Bellingham tomorrow.

Did not take any cordyceps this morning - still had problems sleeping last night and very vivid (but good) dreams. The dreams are nice.  Laying awake at midnight staring at the wall is not.

Refill the hummingbird feeders before I leave - made nectar last night.  The buggers are eating me out of house and home.  Huey, Dewey and Louie (the barn swallow chicks) are flying a lot these days.  Amazing growth rate from frail new hatchlings to almost adult size in about a month. Was thinking that it would be fun to put up a camera when I do the nesting boxes for them for next spring.

Just the headline is enough - from the London Daily Mail:

Moment man in yellow floral dress is arrested 'for stealing school bus then driving front loader through home he shared with his estranged wife' after being discharged from psychiatric hospital

All hail diversity

| No Comments

I will be so happy when this bullshit blows over and we can go back to content of character.
From The Heritage Foundation:

Diversity University: DEI Bloat in the Academy
The promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on college campuses has become a central concern of higher education. Universities have created administrative and staff positions tasked with developing programming and offering services related to DEI. While it is widely understood that universities have devoted significant resources and attention to DEI goals, there has been little systematic examination of the scope of DEI staffing in the academy. Similarly, it is unclear how DEI staffing varies across institutions and how levels of DEI personnel compare to other staffing priorities.

University DEI Staffing
This Backgrounder presents information on DEI personnel at 65 universities representing 16 percent of all students in four-year institutions in the United States.1
National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 303.25: Total Fall Enrollment in Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions, By Control and Level of Institution: 1970 Through 2019,” Digest of Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_303.25.asp?current=yes (accessed July 19, 2021).

After reviewing publicly accessible websites, these authors found that the average university they sampled listed more than 45 people as having formal responsibility for promoting DEI goals. DEI staff listed by universities totaled 4.2 times the number of staff who assist students with disabilities in receiving reasonable accommodations, as required by law. DEI staff levels were 1.4 times larger than the number of professors in these universities’ corresponding history departments. Moreover, the average university had 3.4 people working to promote DEI for every 100 tenured or tenure-track faculty members.

Much more at the site - the numbers do not lie.  Diversity has morphed into a big business.
They need to go back to their core purpose - educating the next generation.
Providing them with the skills to deal with life.

Got enough J Boxes?

| No Comments

This is all within code but still...

20210729-jboxes.jpg

I am assuming that this assembly has not been secured yet. The mud ring is obviously about an inch back from where it need to be when the rock goes up. J Boxes? Junction Boxes. Handy things. Bought a few yesterday - always using them.

Thinking

| No Comments

Great quote from Fyodor Dostoyevsky by way of Chris Lynch:

20210729-thinking.jpg

This group is receiving Federal money to promote socialism?
Our tax dollars to people who violate our Constitution?
From The Washington Free Beacon:

Federal Government Gives Millions to Group That Supports Defunding the Police
The federal government provides tens of millions of dollars each year to a nonprofit group that supports the movement to defund police departments and dismantle the criminal justice system.

Officials with the Brooklyn-based Vera Institute of Justice have urged the government to "radically dismantle" police departments in order to fix a system they say dehumanizes people of color. The institute is heavily funded by the federal government. So far this fiscal year, the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies have awarded the Vera Institute more than $89 million in contracts and grants. The organization has received $811 million in federal funding since 2008, according to USA Spending, a federal budget database.

Vera’s support for the "defund the police" movement comes amid a contentious political debate over policing in America. Democrats see the issue as a political third rail and have tried to distance the party from anti-police rhetoric popular on the left. While members of the Democratic Party have embraced the defund movement, President Joe Biden claimed this month that Republicans are "lying" when they say Democrats support the concept.

The Vera Institute, which calls itself a "justice reform change agent," also received stipends from traditional progressive donors, such as George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. The billionaire’s philanthropy gave more than $10 million to Vera from 2016 to 2019.

Audit them. Defund them. Prosecute their ringleaders.
They are nothing more than communist agitators living off the taxpayer dollar.

The word "justice" is overused these days.  Makes me want to reach for my Browning.

It was deep and the tsunami warning has since been canceled but still.
From the Alaska Earthquake Center:

LARGEST EARTHQUAKE IN 50 YEARS: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
At 10:15pm Alaska time on July 28, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck offshore of the Alaska Peninsula, the largest U.S. earthquake in 50 years. The Chignik Earthquake depth was approximately 28.5 miles, an intermediate-depth earthquake.

The Chignik Earthquake occurred relatively close (about 45 miles) to the location of the M7.6 Simeonof Island Earthquake that ruptured July 21, 2020. The Chignik Earthquake seems to be related to the earlier earthquake; both occurred along the interface between the subducting Pacific and overriding North America plates, although the Chignik Earthquake was the deeper of the two. The Alaska Peninsula is a seismically active region where thousands of earthquakes occur each year. The largest earthquakes are located along the interface, which is called the Aleutian megathrust. The M8.2 event ruptured this interface in the region between the Shumagin Islands to southwest and Kodiak Island to northeast. Previously, the 1938 M8.3 earthquake ruptured this section of the interface.

Perryville and Chignik are the nearest communities to the epicenter of the Chignik Earthquake, and felt the highest intensity shaking. There were also multiple felt reports from Alaska communities as far away as the Mat-Su Valley in Southcentral Alaska. So far, the aftershock rate has been active, so residents of the region may continue to feel shaking. The largest aftershock at the time of this article was a M6.1 about four minutes after the mainshock.

Because of the offshore location, the National Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for much of coastal Alaska. Several communities issued evacuations. Recorded wave heights were under a foot, however, and the warning was downgraded a couple hours after the event.

Still waiting for the big one down here.  We live on a fairly young and active planet.

One more for Dusty

| No Comments

La Grange - fun story behind the song

Thanks for the wonderful music!

Pushing the narrative - Delta

| No Comments

Funny how so many of the tweets are saying the exact same thing.
Looks like a robot bot farm.  Or a bunch of Democrats at their computers.
Same thing really:

20210728-ER.jpg

Funny if it was not so true - from Not The Bee:

Should have been obvious to anyone with half a brain. From BizPac Review:

Seattle mayor begs for more cops after six weekend shootings, 250 officers gone in 17 months
Democrat Seattle Mayor Jenny Durken is calling for more police after six shootings over the weekend and a loss of 250 officers within the last 17 months has left her city in chaos.

Five of the six weekend shootings occurred within blocks of one another and left four people dead and seven injured in their wake.

“As a city, we cannot continue on this current trajectory of losing police officers,” Mayor Durkan said at a press conference. “Over the past 17 months, the Seattle Police Department has lost 250 police officers which is the equivalent of over 300,000 service hours. We’re on path to losing 300 police officers.”

What's the matter Jenny - your magic narrative not working out as they promised?

Pathetic - zero leadership ability. They are running without a feedback loop.
Unable to examine the consequences of their actions.

Not a good day for cultural icons - from TMZ:

RON POPEIL - INFOMERCIAL KING DEAD AT 86
Ron Popeil, the Renaissance man who created the Pocket Fisherman and Hair in a Can, has died ... TMZ has learned.

Family sources tell TMZ, Ron experienced a severe medical emergency Tuesday and died early Wednesday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. He was surrounded by his family.

Popeil created the famous Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ and coined one of the most iconic catch phrases ever -- "Set it and Forget it!!!" The product grossed more than $1 BILLION in domestic sales, shattering QVC and other sales records.

Ron was born in New York City in 1935. His first entry into business was with his dad at his manufacturing facility in Chicago, where they sold kitchen products. It obviously made an impression on him, because Ron learned and then perfected the art of kitchenry.

Ron created the famed Chop-O-Matic in 1959 and it sold like crazy -- 2 million units. He followed that up with the Veg-O-Matic and another great catchphrase ... "But wait, there's more!!!" And that one's become an infomercial industry standard ... reused by product after product.

His secret to sucess? His stuff was actually pretty good - well designed and durable.

Quite the welcoming committee:

Well crap - RIP Dusty Hill

| No Comments

ZZ Top basist.  Really good musicians.  Their songs sound similar to me so getting through more than an album side is a bit of a chore but each song by itself is a polished gemstone. They were the first major band to use the pentatonic scale for blues.  Billy's guitar tone is incredible.

From their website:

Dusty Hill has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX
We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX. We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature, and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top'. We will forever be connected to that "Blues Shuffle in C."

You will be missed greatly, amigo.

Frank & Billy

Roling Stone has a nice obituary.

The Cleveland Redskins changed their name to show the world just how stupid woke they are.  Only problem is that the team was named in honor of Louis Francis Sockalexis who was the first American Indian to play commercial baseball. They are now known as the Cleveland Guardians - after some statues: "The Guardians of Traffic"  They watch a bridge.

Thanks to Don Surber, we find out that there is already an athletic team called The Cleveland Guardians.
From the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

Social media buzzing over another Cleveland Guardians team in wake of Indians announced name change
Social media is still buzzing over the Cleveland Indians’ choice of the Guardians name, since a roller derby team seems to already bear the moniker – and website.

But whether that poses any problems for the Major League Baseball club remains to be seen.

Heh - should have looked before you leaped.

And back - lots 'o stuff done today

| No Comments

Productive day - volunteered at the thrift store, quick run to Lowe's for electrical wiring but they were out of some critical stuff so heading to Bellingham Friday and shop at Platt (and a couple other places - out of pickles so a pilgrimage to Trader Joe's is mandatory).

The person I was doing the desktop publishing for is Chinese and she made me a big bag of pot stickers so having some of them for dinner tonight. Yummy stuff.

Quick surf first.

And out the door - quick dog walk

| No Comments

And then drop them off at home.  Going to be a warm day and volunteering at the local center so they would be in the car in the sun for a few hours.  Garage is less fun for them but a lot cooler.

Did not do any cordyceps this morning - was really hard to get to sleep. Had nice dreams with it though.  Last night, I dreamt that I was doing the sound for a small concert by Joan Baez. Other dreams too but that was the last one I had when the alarm clock went off. Only got about five hours so no shrooms for me this morning.

Heading North after that - need to get some more stuff for wiring the garage. Doing stage two.  Also loading up the van for another dump run as well as a metals recycling run.

The California Drought

| No Comments

I had written that this is a cyclical weather event and nothing to do with global warming.
Just found these this morning: Lake Oroville in 2017, April 2021 and now:

20210728-oroville.jpg

These people never learn

| No Comments

There was already an established precedent. From National File:

Capitol Hill Police Officer Claims, Without Evidence, That Crowd of Trump Supporters Repeatedly Called Him N****r On 1/6
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told the January 6 Select Committee, without evidence, that a crowd of Trump supporters repeatedly called him a racial slur during the protests.

Dunn, a Capitol Police officer who is an admitted Democrat, spoke during the first hearing of the January 6 Select Committee on Tuesday, and described various scenes that strain credulity and supposedly occurred during the protests. Dunn said that he told many of them to leave the Capitol building, but in response they allegedly yelled, “no man, this is our house. President Trump invited us here. We’re here to stop the steal. Joe Biden is not the President. Nobody voted for Joe Biden.”

He then claimed that after he informed the protesters that he, in fact, voted for Biden, the revelation prompted a “torrent of racial epithets” being thrown from the crowd towards him. “One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled, ‘you hear that guys? This n****r voted for Joe Biden’,” he said. “Then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, joined in screaming, ‘boo! F**king n*****r!’ No-one had ever, ever called me a n****r while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” Dunn added.

EGAP = Everybody's Got A Phone
You would think that the liberal media would be frothing at the mouth to be able to air some footage of a Trump supporter calling a uniformed Capitol Police Officer the "N" word.  CNN would have paid $100K for that video file - just to reinforce their narrative. The person who recorded it would be able to write their own ticket - talk shows, maybe even a book deal. They would never have to worry about that student loan for their MA in Gender Studies.

Instead? Crickets.

And the precedent? From March of 2010

McClatchy:
Tea party protesters call Georgia's John Lewis 'nigger'
Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol, angry over the proposed health care bill, shouted "nigger" Saturday at U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama march in the 1960s.

Breitbart:
No More Beer Summits: Tea Party 'N-Word' Incident Didn't Happen, And the Congressional Black Caucus Owes America an Apology
Rep. Andre Carson wants to change the subject. I don’t blame him.

On April 13, 2010 he told AP reporter Jesse Washington, “I think we need to move toward a dialogue that explores why this kind of divisive and reprehensible language is still making it into our political debate.”

The “divisive and reprehensible language” that Rep. Carson is referring to is his claim that while he left the Cannon office building on March 20 with Rep. John Lewis, they were verbally assaulted by health care protesters hurling the “N-word” at them. He said the scene was so hostile he “expected rocks to come” when he was coming out of Cannon.

I wanted to see the evidence. I wanted the truth. In the course of our search we have actually uncovered further video evidence that casts serious doubt on Rep.Carson’s claims

And Andrew's offer:

When I offered a reward of $100,000 to be donated to the United Negro College Fund if anyone produced video and audio evidence that this occurred, I was accused of a publicity stunt (because everyone knows that the best way to get publicity in America is to accuse a civil rights icon of lying about racism). Rep. Carson himself suggested that my challenge was “a veiled attempt to justify actions that are simply unjustifiable.” Get it? He calls protesters racist and if you ask him to prove it, you’re a racist, too.

Needless to say, no one has claimed the $100,000.

Photographs of the event showed a lot of cell phones being held out to record the goings on.
Nobody claimed the $100,000 reward.

The internet is forever - the idiots who make these claims (and yes, they are idiots - they are simply not that intelligent) would have been wise to study where tactics like this have been successful and where they have failed.  Never go full retard.  You do not want to go full retard.

CNN better come up with something quick if it wants to survive.  They certainly are not making any money with what they are doing now.  From American Greatness:

CNN’s Sparsely-Attended Biden Town Hall Flops in the Cable News Ratings
CNN’s town hall event with Joe Biden bombed Wednesday night, trailing not only Fox News, but also MSNBC in the Nielsen ratings.

The town hall train-wreck, which was moderated by Don Lemon at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, reportedly averaged only 1.5 million viewers from 8-9:30 p.m. ET, compared to 2.7 million viewers for Fox News during the same time period.

MSNBC averaged 1.6 million viewers, placing CNN’s highly promoted event in third place among the top cable news stations. A CNN town hall with Biden in February did significantly better, drawing 3.5 million viewers, and beating the audience of both Fox News and MSNBC.

The sparsely-attended event was dubbed a train-wreck after Biden repeatedly struggled to focus, babbling incoherently when asked to address important issues.

And we already saw the video of Biden with Alan Jones' commentary earlier today.

The guy is having serious problems and to all of his handlers?
I want to see them brought up on charges of elder abuse.

It will be interesting to see if anyone tries to invoke the 25th Amendment. Harris is in waay over her head and not at all popular. Pelosi?  Maybe this is what she is angling for. Wouldn't put it past her - she is #3 after all.

An observation - you will comply

| No Comments

From My Pensieve:

20210727-comply.jpg

Hard to argue with the truth...

Dog walk and coffee - temp outside is 62°F.  See how the coffee Karen is today.

Doing a quick run up north and then finishing C's flyer and brochure. Meeting up with her tomorrow afternoon. Find a birthday card and something for her.

Nothing else to report - kind of quiet out there newswise.

*Resident Biden's CNN Town Hall

| No Comments

Summed up in seven minutes - Australian broadcaster Alan Jones

A thing of beauty - coffee

| No Comments

Ahhh - the giver of life:

20210727-coffee.jpg

Thank you Daily Timewaster

Turns out some states are putting restrictions on the power consumed by some computers.
From Zero Hedge:

59 Million Americans Prohibited From Buying High-End Dell Gaming PCs
Approximately 59 million Americans spanning five states can't buy Dell's high-end Alienware brand desktop PCs "due to power consumption regulations."

When one goes to the Dell Alienware online configurator to buy an Aurora R12 gaming desktop, a special notice appears which reads:

This product cannot be shipped to the states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont or Washington due to power consumption regulations adopted by those states. Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled.

Among other state policies, the prohibition puts Dell in compliance with California's Energy Commission regulations which took effect on July 1. Under the new guidelines, annual energy consumption cannot consume more than 75 kWh/year, and cannot exceed an "expandability score" (ES) of 690, which includes idle power consumption.

This is especially egregious as it is not targeting gaming systems specifically, it is targeting all high-end computer systems. Excuse me - I buy gaming systems every couple of years.   I do not play computer games - never had any interest in them - but the requirements for a good gaming system meet my needs for photographic and video editing as well as the music recording and editing. Gaming systems are usually a lot cheaper than any custom-built system.  Economy of scale and all that good stuff.

And why is WA State kowtowing to California's unrealistic diktats.

Tip of the hat to Don Surber for the link.

Lights out (shortly)

| No Comments

Dinner was delicious - should do it more often.  Been getting lazy with cooking.

Almost done with the page layout - turns out that today is her Birthday.  Fun conversation. Meeting up tomorrow.

Couple of videos and lights out.  The cordyceps worked great for regulating my energy today.  Nice and mellow energy lift - not at all like any of the energy drinks or having more than my usual dose of caffine.  Feeling pleasently sleepy now - spend an hour watching some videos and then to bed.

See how things go with the canine Karen tomorrow - bringing them with me for coffee. I put a kitchen thermometer in the van so if there is any question, I will know exactly what the air temp inside is. Some people...

Two headlines - about a month apart

| No Comments

Cities and mental health

| No Comments

A new study - same as the old study.  Same test, same results. From CNN (July 20, 2021):

City children have better mental health and cognition if they live near woodlands
City children who have daily exposure to woodland have better cognitive development and a lower risk of emotional and behavioral problems, according to a new study published in Nature Sustainability.

Researchers studied 3,568 adolescents aged 9 to 15 at 31 schools across London over four years to examine the associations between natural environments and cognitive development, mental health and overall well-being.

Old study?  From this blog - February 26th, 2019:

No surprise there - urban mental health
No brainer article at The London Times:

Growing up near green spaces is linked to better mental health
Children who grow up in greener surroundings have a greatly reduced risk of developing mental illnesses later in life, research suggests.

A study that tracked almost a million people found that those who were raised among the lowest levels of green space were as much as 55 per cent more likely to develop disorders such as substance abuse, stress-related illnesses and schizophrenia.

Also interesting:

The link to good mental health was just as strong for those who lived in green areas of cities as for those who grew up deep in the countryside.

The article I linked to looked at millions of people - the later one was just 3.5K - different study.  Same conclusion.

No surprises at all.  People in cities are crazy. No polite way to put it.

Your tax dollars at work - Chicago

| No Comments

A bit over $12,500,000 worth of Illinois State tax money was shipped off to Chicago to fix a specific problem and the problem got worse. Quelle surprise. From Law Enforcement Today:

Chicago got nearly $13 million and federal support to stop expressway shootings. They are skyrocketing.
Following two shootings that occurred on interstates in Chicago on the same day earlier in July, reports show that the number of expressway shootings in 2021 have already surpassed the total that occurred in 2020 and nearly tripled the number of occurrences in 2019.

Expressway shootings with regard to 2021 is looking grim for Chicago, as after the two shootings incidents that occurred on July 22nd, the city has now played host to 137 expressway shootings as of July 26th.

For the sake of context, there were 128 expressway shootings that occurred throughout all of 2020 and 52 that transpired throughout all of 2019.

And they are doing?

These sorts of shootings have continued to surge in 2021, despite the Illinois State Police receiving a $12.5 million grant in February from the Illinois Department of Transportation to acquire the likes of license plate readers and programs, as well as specialized cameras.

In a statement from the Illinois State Police regarding the matter, the agency said that they “proactively patrol and saturate the Chicagoland expressways with the goal of ensuring public safety” and that they’re working to increase manpower and continue to strengthen strategic partnerships with state and federal agencies.

Urp - proactively patrol and strategic partnerships.  Please excuse me while I barf - seem to be allergic to buzzwords these days.  How about doing something about the crime.  Don't arrest them and let them out on bail five hours later. Pulling crap like this is not painful for the urban pavement ape.  Make it painful and they will stop.

Home for the night

| No Comments

180 pounds of crap was dumped.  Felt good hucking it over into the pit.

Looking forward to the tuna for dinner - got the rice pot on. Quick surf before prepping.

Aaaand dump run

| No Comments

Got the van loaded up for another run.  Despite the clouds burning off and it getting reasonably warm outside, where are the dogs hanging out?  In the van of course.  The oven.  The fiery furnace of doom.

Irony - the Karen who called on my dogs is probably a card-carrying liberal and has been sucessfully indoctrinated to think that Capitalism is evil and that large corporations are enablers of the evil patriarchy.  After all, why would the head of Amazon fly into space in a rocketship shaped like a giant penis*

Saw some cheap remote loggers on Amazon and bought three of them. WiFi connection so I can walk out to the vehicle, connect with my phone and see the history of the vehicle's temperature and humidity for the last three days.

Hey Karen?  Stuff it! Your actions caused me to engage in pure Capitalism.  Bezos offered something for sale in the public marketplace that I desired.  The price was acceptible to me.  I entered into the transaction and your actions caused a billionaire to get even richer.

*giant penis rocket ship - very simple explanation.  The crew capsule at top is designed to work with several generations of rocket motors.  Bezos' current rocket is smaller in diameter hence the incongruous appearance (and why it only flew so high given the load).  The next generation of rocket to fly will be larger in diameter and will mate perfectly with the capsule.

And I am busted - back to work

| No Comments

From Eat Liver:

20210726-sniff.jpg

Get them while you can - I have been looking at a few capital purchases for the blacksmithing business and it seems that now is the time to buy. From Charles Hugh Smith:

America Has Lost the Trade War with China, and the Real Pain Has Yet to Begin
Corporate America sacrificed national interests in service of greed, and so did the U.S. government

As we all know, the source of Corporate America's unprecedented explosion in profits in the 21st century is the offshoring of manufacturing to China. If you doubt this, please study the chart below of corporate profits. Apologists claim many excuses in an attempt to evade the central role of offshoring production to China, but they all ring hollow: no, it wasn't increasing productivity or automation or Federal Reserve magic, it was shipping production to China and other low-labor-cost nations.

And now that China has grown to a point where it can start to dictate the rules?
C.H.S. is quoting from an associate:

China is laying siege to the USA by slowing down production and delivery of goods. It doesn't take much to hang up US production, just one missing item can do it. So much stuff is sourced through China they can affect all supply chains. Semiconductors are just the canary--because the chains are so long and complex, and specialized materials are required, etc. But it is happening everywhere.

I have a little manufacturing company and I am seeing this in supply lines. I sent an order to China for printed circuit boards (US prices are astronomical because of various factors). They don't get back for a week, then they quote, then I send money, then they sit on it, then I call and they say they are having problems with some process... etc. But all the suppliers are like this, it is not an isolated incident. They are sandbagging.

So just as in laying siege, the attackers have the food outside the castle and wait for the people inside to starve.

As prices rise the Chinese manufacturers take bigger profits so the slowdown effects on that end are mitigated. For products they do not have a monopoly on, like PC boards, they slow down. for things like LCD displays and NFeB magnets, the items become unavailable (try buying magnets on Amazon).

I have to say this is a brilliant idea on China's part, and no one on this side has realized the situation yet. This plan is straight out of Sun-Tzu. implications? inflation and shortages will continue for a long time... maybe forever. The only long-term solution is repatriation of manufacturing to the US. But it is going to cause some serious hurt, vastly more than the sanctioning of Chinese tech companies.

And it will get worse before it gets better.  I am seriously looking at a largish laser cutter and a hydraulic press.  I will be buying replacement parts as well. If you are budgeting for something, get it now and buy spares.  Lots and lots of spares. Much more at the site.

Light lunch and loading up

| No Comments

Got the tuna thawing out in some marinade (ginger/soy) - pick up some greens at the local farm stand and do it all over a pot of rice.  Cut up some apple slices with fresh peanut butter for a light lunch.

Load up the van and haul the stuff to the dump.

Quick surf while I munch...

When I go for coffee, there is a nice place in the shade where I park.  In the last couple of months, there is someone who has been leaving notes on my windshield about how cars are death-traps for dogs and how they should not be left in a car when it is sunny. Never leaving a name or a phone number or any form of contact information. Perfect example of passive aggressive and downright stupid.  Running on narrative and not facts.

Whenever it is hot out, I leave them in the garage.  When this person started their vendetta, I started carrying a kitchen thermometer along with me - the air temperature never gets above 90°. Again, I park in the shade.

They have left a pre-printed card which says that (I am paraphrasing here) in a car in sunlight, the temperatures can get up to dangerous levels in 30 minutes. Over 110°F in 30 minutes.  It can kill dogs.  It is interesting too that the card itself shows no indication of origin - no logo or "For more information contact:" - again, pure passive aggressive. Anyway, sure - that card is correct.  If you are parked on asphalt, in Phoenix, Arizona, at high noon on a cloudless day.  In August.  This person is operating on emotion and not fact.

Today?  They called Animal Control.

I had a nice convo with the responding Officer, dogs are up to date on their vaccinations and duly licensed in the county and the air temperature in the van was 82°. Case closed.  I gave the Officer a little background and he rolled his eyes.

Some people.  I am halfway tempted to get my coffee to go and sit somewhere outside in sight of the van just to see who this person is. I do appreciate their concern but they are operating from a position of ignorance and intolerance.

Nothing new and I like it that way. Sun starting to peek through - working outside some more this afternoon.

Cordyceps kicking in nicely - good energy lift to combat the excessive sleepiness.

Think I might thaw out some Ahi Tuna and grill it for dinner - make sure to have a light lunch so I am hungry.

Cloudy days in the forecast

| No Comments

Next three days are showing as cloudy and cool with more in the long-range.  Noooooooooooo...

All I need is to go to Costco this week and see their Back To School display set up.

This summer has not been long enough - did not get done what I was hoping to do.

Grumble...

Told 'ya - false positives

| No Comments

Looks like the U.S. Food & Drug Administration finally called for PCR COVID tests to be pulled.
Too many false positives. Up to 90% in some tests.  This has been going on for a long time.

Gymnastics - press corps edition

| No Comments

From My Pensieve:

20210725-gymnastics.jpg

The cartoon is Bruce Tinsley's Mallard Filmore - great stuff...

And done for now - productive day

| No Comments

Meeting with my friend Tuesday for the go-over of the materials I am creating. Did a little bit today - she had sent me some more photos so picking and choosing which to use (promotional materials for her business).

Also started getting the van loaded up for the dump run.  Do not want to pack it too full as I will be using it for morning dog walk and coffee - got a lot of bags staged outside ready to load in after I get back. Spending this week down here (couple things to take care of) and then heading back up for yet another load.  It seems never ending at times.

Quick canter around the internet and see what catches my eye.

Haute cuisine for dinner

| No Comments

The acme of culinary expertise on display here - thawed out some Costco shrimp.  Mixed some hot horseradish with some ketchup and had that for dinner along with a protein bar. Yummy.  (actually, it hit the spot - exactly what I wanted)

Spending some more time outdoors working - moving stuff around and getting ready for a dump run tomorrow. Some from the last trip to the farm, some triage here and some crap that I have been dragging around for way to long.
Lighten my load.

Still feeling a little bit tired. Going to take some cordyceps with breakfast tomorrow - really nice soft energy lift but it lasts 16 hours for me. Take it in the afternoon and it is a bear to get to sleep that evening. Back to work...

Still sunny with no clouds in the sky but getting a nice marine breeze so it is cool - mid 70's.

Doing some laundry, been puttering in the garage and now it is time to do some work outside.

Big lunch so just a salad for dinner. Something light. Maybe thaw out some shrimpies...

And back down to normal price

| No Comments

I was at Costco yesterday and had been noticing a sharp price increase in my favorite cut of meat - Tri Tip. It started at $9.99/pound and went up sharply from there.  Several weeks it was a buck more each week.  Took a long time to come down too.

Yesterday, it was back to $9.99:

20210725-tt06.jpg

The whole sordid story can be found here, here, here, and here complete with photos.
Again, I had asked several times (both the butcher and the member services window) and nobody had any information - nothing from corporate.  It was just an odd bubble in the price of beef.

And again, these are all the same SKU #33708 and the same store #662 - only variation is the price.

Michigan again - Governor Whitmer

| No Comments

Two stories in the news these days - first, from BuzzFeed News:

WATCHING THE WATCHMEN
In the inky darkness of a late summer night last September, three cars filled with armed men began circling Birch Lake in northern Michigan, looking for ways to approach Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s three-bedroom vacation cottage, subdue her — using a stun gun if necessary — and drag her away.

One vehicle stopped to check out a boat launch while a second searched in vain for the right house in the thick woods ringing the lake. The third car ran countersurveillance, using night vision goggles to look out for cops and handheld radios to communicate with the others.

Earlier, they had scoped out a bridge over the Elk River, just a few miles away, scrambling down under the span to figure out where plastic explosives would need to be placed to blow it sky-high. That would slow police response, giving the men time to escape with the governor — who had infuriated them by imposing COVID lockdowns, among other outrages — and either take her to Lake Michigan, where they could abandon her on a boat, or whisk her to Wisconsin, where she would be tried as a “tyrant.”

But wait, there's more:

The men planned for all kinds of obstacles, but there was one they didn’t anticipate: The FBI had been listening in all along.

For six months, the Iraq War vet had been wearing a wire, gathering hundreds of hours of recordings. He wasn’t the only one. A biker who had traveled from Wisconsin to join the group was another informant. The man who’d advised them on where to put the explosives — and offered to get them as much as the task would require — was an undercover FBI agent. So was a man in one of the other cars who said little and went by the name Mark.

A very long article but one well worth reading.  The whole thing was an FBI operation.  They planned it, set it up, recruited useful idiots and tried to crucify them as terrorists when, in fact, it was an FBI operation all along. If anyone was operating outside the metes and bounds of the law, it was the FBI and not the useful idiots. A chilling read - our Nation is seriously off track from its stated goals.  Too many elite setting up their own personal fiefdoms.

Second - from The New York Post:

Michigan repeals law that gave Gov. Gretchen Whitmer emergency powers
In a rebuke to Gretchen Whitmer, the Republican-led Michigan state House of Representatives repealed a 76-year-old law that gave the governor broad emergency powers used to lock down much of the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a 60-48 vote mainly along party lines, the Emergency Powers Act of 1945 was officially scuttled. The state Senate had already voted to kill the act last week.

Though the legislation does not take effect immediately it was a clear shot at Whitmer, whose strict shut-down policies stirred protests last year, but also made her a political darling among Democrats.

Good - she was overstepping her bounds. Get the power back into the hands of the people. Do not circumvent the legislative process.

Big doings in Michigan

| No Comments

Checked the power outages before I left - they had 115,422 people without power last evening.

That number is now up to 121,328 - this is the same utility which had major problems (multiple with over 20K outages) in the last couple of months that I had been tracking them.

Boy howdy

| No Comments

Did I ever sleep in - 12 hours of solid Zzzzz.  Feeling great, just sleepy.  Curious.

Too hot for dog walk so leaving them in the garage and heading out for a coffee.  Working at home on the layout today - yard work later when it cools off a bit.

Back in a little while.

Was looking online at some machine tools and happened on this from Ali Baba:

20210724-jw-blue.jpg

The 500 unit minimum is going to be a deal-breaker as I sincerely doubt that this is filled with anything better than fuesel oils and rotgut.  Still...  Makes you wonder how many bars are out there serving this stuff - the same vendor has a lot of other alcoholic beverages for sale as well.  Patron, Jack, various rums.

Oh. Yeah.  A 750ml bottle of Blue is about $200.  Let us not forget the wonderful commercial from 2014 featuring Robert Carlyle:

Feeling downright sleepy now.  Woke up nice and rested this morning but my tail is dragging now.

Heading over to the Tube of You to see if there is anything of interest. Sleeping in tomorrow for sure.

They now have 115,422 people without electricity. Scattered all over but the hot spots are about 60 miles NNW of Detroit in the Waterford area. South of Flint and East of Lansing.

This is the same utility that has had numerous other problems: here (52K), here (20K) and here (47K).
All the same utility and all different parts of their coverage area - does not look like a Single Point of Failure issue.

First, from The Daily Caller:

China Seethes At NBC For Showing ‘Incomplete’ Map Missing Taiwan During Olympic Opening Ceremony
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials are furious with NBC Universal for showing an “incomplete” map of the country during Friday’s opening ceremony at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

As Chinese athletes entered the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, the NBC broadcast displayed a map of China that did not include Taiwan or the South China Sea as recognized parts of Chinese territory. The CCP considers both territories to be a rightful part of their country, despite that claim being disputed by various members of the international community.

'Scuse me? Last time I checked, Taiwan was a Sovereign Nation with its own government.  Back off there bubba...

Second - and this is wonderful and about fscking time that someone did this.
From The Jerusalem Post:

Olympics: Moment of silence for Munich massacre victims for the first time
A moment of silence was observed in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics for the Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich massacre.

During the 1972 Olympics, 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were murdered by eight Palestinian terrorists in Munich.

This is the first time the victims were honored in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

The families of the 11 victims had long asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to hold a minute's silence at the opening ceremony, but had until Friday been turned down.

It only took what - 49 years - for someone to offer this basic memorial and remembrance?

Japan is a very classy Nation - wonderful people.

Juggling numbers versus narrative

| No Comments

Who 'ya gonna believe - from The Epoch Times:
(my bet is on the numbers - especially given the source of the narrative)

California is Experiencing a Crime ‘Tsunami’: Sacramento DA
California is experiencing a wave of crime despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claims of a decrease during the past three decades, officials say.

“You’ve got violent crime off the charts,” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert told The Epoch Times. “You’ve got this tsunami of things that are happening. Violent crime, illegal guns, [and] rampant theft.”

On July 21 in Los Angeles, when asked if state policies are making crime worse, Newsom denied the state is seeing a rise in crime.

“The evidence doesn’t back it up. Last three decades we’ve actually seen a significant decline in crime in the state,” Newsom said.

But... Those pesky numbers:
(PPIC is Public Policy Institute of California)

Data provided by PPIC shows that in 2020, Los Angeles reported a 40 percent homicide increase in comparison to 2019; Oakland reported a 36 percent increase. San Francisco and San Diego both witnessed increases from 41 to 48 percent and 50 percent to 55 percent, respectively.

More at the site - links to cooroborating data and source materials etc... Not only is crime up, they are releasing a lot of bad people early for "good behavior". Revolving door policy. Hopefully, California will get some adults in the room soon. Larry Elder looks great as a Governor.

Never made it yesterday, heading out now:  Costco, food coop, Lowe's (they are a more progressive business than Home Depot but I prefer their choice of electrical parts). Might even get dinner at the Thai restaurant - have not eaten there for a while. Working at home today and tomorrow - the store was fun today.

Temps in the low 80's with clear skies - gorgeous weather. Some neighbor kids paddling in the ocean with their dog.  Nice and quiet around here. Very low tides - full moon.

Doing the desktop publishing for the friend - she liked the proofs so getting the page-ready draft for this week. Take it to press if it gets approved.

So true - K. Marx

| No Comments

Socialism sounds really good to people who do not think very much.

20210724-marx.jpg

Look into Karl Marx's personal history and you find someone you really would not want to know.
Scumbag, blowhard and loser.

Great article reminding us that the current government's use of a pandemic is not a new thing.
This has been done before and will happen again if we let them. From The Western Journal:

In 1979 a COVID-Like Scenario Played Out Complete with Communists, Bioweapons, a Cover-Up & US Scientists Believing the Lies
A mysterious airborne illness plagued the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg in spring 1979.

People died in droves days after presenting with mysterious pneumonia at local hospitals. Then, the secret police stepped in.

Doctors, ordered to keep silent, had their patients’ records stripped from them and kept under wraps as the communist government searched for a “more mundane” explanation — a scapegoat — to feed the media.

The public could never know a Soviet military lab leaked deadly bacteria, so covering their tracks only seemed like a natural solution.

A pathogen had jumped from animals to humans from contaminated meat sources and caused these ailments — or so they said — but American spies picked up cues offering a different account.

A lot more at the article. Coincidentally, the name "Fauci" crops up.  The guy is not a competent physician, he is a consummate administrator and takes great care of his power and position but he is not the person you want to have dealing with any kind of epidemiological event. Quite the contrary. Serious ethics issues with that moke.

Heading out to the store for another day of volunteering - fun work and some great people.

Their pronouns - politicians

| No Comments

Here are the correct pronouns for most politicians (and those people who enable them):

20210724-pronouns.jpg

Determining my mental state

| No Comments

It is easy - here's the key:

20210724-coffee.jpg

Up and at 'em - fresh start

| No Comments

Feeling nice and rested - ready to attack the world and beat it into submission.

Or just fix some breakfast, go out for a dog walk and get a coffee.

Quick surf first...

#1) - videos #2) - Zzzzzz

| No Comments

That is it for me for today

Today in a nutshell

| No Comments

This sums it up perfectly:

20210723-productive.jpg

The current immigration scandal

| No Comments

The more you hear about what is going on, the more you want to start stringing people up on lampposts.
From Ace of Spades:

Biden Administration Covertly Trafficked “Unaccompanied Children” To Tennessee Then Turned Them Over To Sexual Predators
Did you hear about the Biden administration trafficking minor children across state lines into Tennessee in the middle of the night, in defiance of the governor’s refusal to accept “unaccompanied immigrant” children, after which the administration stonewalled questions raised by Tennessee’s Senators. That’s bad, right? It got worse. Some of the children were sexually molested when they reached their destination.

In the very early hours of Friday May 14, an airplane landed at Chattanooga’s airport. Rather than unload at the terminal used by commercial passengers, its passengers were secretly unloaded at a private terminal, where a waiting bus took the children to La Casa de Sydney shelter in Chattanooga. No official at any city, county, or state level was advised of the incoming flight, but word quickly started leaking out. Three more planes made similar landings over the next few days.

Just a few weeks before, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee had specifically denied the Biden administration’s request to send unaccompanied children to the state, because Lee objected to Biden’s open border policy. The Biden team sent the children anyway – under cover of darkness, withholding information along the way.

Much much more at the site - bad policy making, people not being held accountable for their actions, predators allowed to predate, stupid decisions.  All with links to coorborating data and evidence. This is the progressive government at work. Nobody is holding these people accountable and they are acting as if they will get away with it.  And they do.

Three hours was just right

| No Comments

Still a bit sleepy - should be fine tonight.

Still nothing online - unusually quiet for a newsday.

From The Washington Free Beacon:

House Dems Reject GOP Effort To Compel Probe Into COVID Origins
Top House Democrats voted against a Republican-led effort to compel the World Health Organization to conduct a "transparent investigation on the origins of COVID-19."

All but one of the 33 Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee voted down an amendment introduced by Rep. Ben Cline (R., Va.), which would have withheld U.S. funding to the WHO "until the Secretary of State certifies that the WHO has conducted a transparent investigation on the origins of COVID-19 and implemented regulatory changes to improve transparency and international cooperation."

If there was nothing to hide, they would welcome the vote - just to clear the air.
Just like the election audits.

Farmer's market was fun as always - lots more booths today than usual.  Guessing about 40-50 vendors. Crowded with shoppers. It being a gorgeous day helps a lot.

Was going to head north to the coop for some groceries and maybe Costco and Home Depot but I can barely keep my eyes open.  My reaction time while driving was noticibly impacted so did not do that excursion.  Napping for two or three hours - see what happens. Feel great otherwise, just downright nappish.

And nothing - dead out there

| No Comments

Overslept - woke up at 7:00 AM as usual but I was really dragging my sorry a** so sent an email to the store letting them know that I would be running late.  Crawled back under the covers for a blissful three more hours. Still feeling tired - staying up so as not to mess up my sleep schedule but it would be very easy to go down for a couple more hours.  All that clean living...

Heading out to the farmer's market and run a few errands. Out of fresh-ground peanut butter.

Did a surf and didn't see anything.

Ann Barnhardt points to one such course being offered for lawyers:

Mailbag: The Lawyers Are Gearing Up For What They Know Is Coming…
Hi Ann:

Wanted to let you know, the lawyers are gearing up for what they know is coming. This CLE (continuing legal education) seminar is sponsored by the Colorado Bar Association. It’s a six hour course. They have never offered this course before.

Remedies for Vaccination Injury Cases in Colorado: An Overview

As the late-night television commercials start up:  "If you or a loved one have been..."

China may have fscked up in the lab but nature is having a last laugh.  From Associated Press:

‘Superbug’ fungus spread in two cities, health officials say
U.S. health officials said Thursday they now have evidence of an untreatable fungus spreading in two hospitals and a nursing home.

The “superbug” outbreaks were reported in a Washington, D.C, nursing home and at two Dallas-area hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. A handful of the patients had invasive fungal infections that were impervious to all three major classes of medications.

“This is really the first time we’ve started seeing clustering of resistance” in which patients seemed to be getting the infections from each other, said the CDC’s Dr. Meghan Lyman.

The fungus, Candida auris, is a harmful form of yeast that is considered dangerous to hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems. It is most deadly when it enters the bloodstream, heart or brain. Outbreaks in health care facilities have been spurred when the fungus spread through patient contact or on contaminated surfaces.

More on this little bundle of sweetness and light at the Centers for Disease Control.
Today's word is nosocomial - you do not want nosocomial.

Wildfires in Washington

| No Comments

Crap - I love the town of Winthrop.  Great little mountain community - there was an awesome blacksmith (DJ Stull - here is the website of one of his students) there for a long long time.  There is a glass artist in the same spot now - really good but not the same. From The Seattle Times:

Like Mordor: A Central Washington town had the worst air quality in the U.S.
The air quality in Central Washington’s Winthrop was so bad Thursday that the National Weather Service of Spokane compared it to Mordor, the evil realm of a dark wizard in “Lord of the Rings.”

Thanks to several fires burning in Okanogan County, Winthrop had the worst air quality in the country Thursday morning, according to Air Quality Index’s real-time map.

One of my managers is camping there this weekend - their favorite campground burned in the fire so they are playing it by ear.

Unpacked the car, doing some laundry and had a big salad for dinner.

The pups ran themselves ragged at the farm so they are both napping - Truffle snores.

Spending the next couple of days doing some serious triage at the house - been dilly-dallying a bit too much and need to get my butt into gear before winter rolls around.

I'll do another trot around the internet in an hour or so - see if anything new comes up.

All grown up - barn swallows

| No Comments

The three chicks are a lot bigger now - they were lined up when I came in this afternoon.  Since the nest is on the screen door to my main entrance, I am in and out of there a couple times/day.  Mom and Dad still squawk at me and fly away - these little guys have grown up with me so they are like: meh...

20210722-boids.jpg

As soon as they are fully fledged and have migrated south for the fall, that nest is coming down and some nest boxes are going up for next spring. Did not notice the nest being built until it was already occupied. DOH!

Back to the island life

| No Comments

Short trip but productive.

Working tomorrow and Saturday mornings but spending the rest of the time doing triage and general house-cleaning. Quick surf first.

A day at the farm

| No Comments

Minimal posting today - working

The Drought

| No Comments

OMG - we are running out of water.  Lake Mead is drying up. Global Warming is all to blame.
Some people don't know their history - from John Steinbeck's East of Eden:

I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sagebrush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.

Published in 1952.  This is not some forgotten 70-year-old history either.  Anyone remember the Oroville Dam crisis of 2017 - higher than normal rainfall and snowmelt triggered it.  This is not climate, this is weather and it has cycles.
Plain and simple.

Two stories today - first: the Washington Examiner:

Voting machines in Pennsylvania's Fulton County decertified after audit
Voting machines in Pennsylvania's Fulton County were decertified after local officials complied with a GOP-backed ballot audit and allowed a third-party contractor to access data.

The rural county, which borders Maryland, must do away with its Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5A voting system, employed in the 2020 presidential election, after Wake TSI, a software company, was allowed in December to gain access to and look over its “election database, results files, and Windows system logs," acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid told county officials in a letter on Tuesday.

The company, which has largely worked with clients in the healthcare sector, had "no knowledge or expertise in election technology," said Degraffenreid, who concluded the ballot hardware was "compromised."

And this, also from the Examiner

Arizona attorney general receives records on 'potential violations' of election laws
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich received records related to "potential violations" of the state's election laws.

A letter from Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs's office — which was sent on Tuesday in response to the Republican attorney general's request on July 14 asking for "any and all records … related to potential violations of Arizona’s election laws" — states the documents are partly related to a "pressure" campaign by former President Donald Trump's allies regarding the 2020 election aimed at officials in Maricopa County, where a partisan audit is underway.

I hope that they grow a pair and start putting people in the slammer - ten years would be an excellent start and a good deterrent to other people considering this. The party of slavery has nothing to offer today so they have to cheat.

Gone to ground - deep country

| No Comments

Paddle faster - I hear banjos...

Ran into a lot of friends this evening.  An old restaurant has reopened and is doing a good job with it.  The woman who owned it passed away and her son mismanaged it horribly.  He shut it down and then rented it out to a couple different people who tried to make a go of it but the building was in sad shape, he had gutted a lot of the equipment and nobody was able to make a good go of it.

Shame really as it was a focal point of the town when I first moved out here. See what happens.

Surfing for a bit tonight and then spending tomorrow at the farm - working and bringing down another load 'o crap.

And out for a day or two

| No Comments

Heading to the farm - back Thursday or Friday.

I'll have the laptop with me but blogging will be sporadic - this is a working trip.

Great quote - been there, done that

| No Comments

Found at Chris Lynch's site

"Sometimes success is 3% brains and 97% not getting distracted by the Internet."
-- Shane Parrish

Election audits - North Carolina

| No Comments

North Carolina says no - from The Epoch Times:

North Carolina State Board of Election Denies Audit Request
Citing overriding federal authority under the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the North Carolina Board of Elections (BOE) has denied a North Carolina House Freedom Caucus (HFC) request to examine voting machines.

Chairman of the caucus, Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort), told The Epoch Times that although there is a statute that requires state employees to comply with requests for data from the North Carolina General Assembly, Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the elections board, declined the request to inspect voting equipment used in the November 2020 election in a July 7 letter.

And they seemed initially to be open to the idea:

Before the denial, the HFC met with the BOE twice, and Kidwell added that Elections Systems & Software (ES&S), the largest election vendor for North Carolina, agreed to provide access to three voting systems it manufactures.

At the time, ES&S indicated that they would be willing to take any inspected system at a randomly selected precinct by the HFC and recertify the equipment so that there would be no cost to the BOE or county, Kidwell said.

ES&S, he said, “seemed eager” to have the inspection to relieve the public concerns about the equipment.

But they are now saying no.  Why? Simple question. Why?

The North Carolina laws are very clear on this - again, why are they stonewalling?

System32Comics

| No Comments

Wicked sense of humor - here is one:

20210721-fbi.jpg

Nice write-up at Bored Panda, and his website (actual comics at WebToon and several other links).

And that is it for this evening

| No Comments

Had a massage this afternoon so I am wiped.  Feeling very good but very mellow and drowsy.  Worked me over like nobody's business. Feeling a lot better than I was two weeks ago when I went for my first one.  Thinking of doing it weekly for another month and then stepping back to every other for maintenence.  See how that goes.

Driving to the farm tomorrow - planning to sleep in tomorrow so heading up in the early afternoon.  Stop in Bellingham first.

Senator Paul has him by the short and curlies:

Fauci tries to dance around it but you can see the panic in his face. Deer in the headlights.  The sheen of sweat.
Time for him to pay the piper - he has been playing fast and loose with our tax dollars as well as sending our technologies to the Chinese. Ten years in the slammer would be a great start.

Caution: Drink Alert

| No Comments

Put down your morning beverage before reading this - from MRC's Newsbusters:

CNN Says CNN+ Service Will Not Be Liberal, 'We're Not an Opinion Network'
CNN announced with great fanfare that they’re creating a “CNN Plus” streaming subscription service for the first quarter of 2022. Chief digital officer Andrew Morse laid it on thick in the press release: “As the most trusted and recognized name in news, CNN has unrivaled global reach, world class talent and a deep existing library of content, including award-winning series and films.”

But it became truly bizarre/hilarious when Morse told the "Strictly Business" podcast at Variety there would be no “political slant” to CNN Plus content.  Andrew Wallenstein tried to define the personality of the new venture.

WALLENSTEIN: Is it more irreverent? Is it less traditional? Is it more ideological, I have to ask? Is it going to be something that, you guys are known as the liberal network, and if you really want to go "deep lib," here's CNN Plus?

MORSE: I don't think anyone who's looking for "deep lib" would seek out CNN. It's just not what we do. But no, it’s not going to be ideological. We’re just not in that game. We’re not an opinion network, we’re a news network.”

So you’ll be able to watch Kamau Bell ask giggly softballs to Antifa or the CNN Films love letter to RBG, but “it’s not going to be ideological.” Morse claimed people turn to CNN for "trust," for "credibility," for "authenticity," for programming that's "smart and entertaining."

CNNs ratings are tanking - they have lost about 70% of their viewers since President Trump left office. They are flailing trying to bring back some revenue for their investors. They should just do their jobs and tell the truth.  They would become epic.  Screw the narrative - the truth is the new narrative. (and you can quote me)

Superspreader - Texas Democrats

| No Comments

Could not happen to a nicer bunch of children - from The Gateway Pundit:

Pelosi Aide, White House Official Who Welcomed Texas Democrats to Capitol Test Positive For Covid-19
A fully vaccinated aide for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a White House official tested positive for Covid-19 after welcoming Democrat Texas lawmakers to the Capitol.

Last Monday 60 Democrat members of the state House of Representatives fled Texas to Washington DC to block Republicans from advancing new voting laws through a special session of the legislature.

And the Democrats are now up to six persons testing positive.  Let's get some adults in the room please.  Now?

A quiet morning by the ocean

| No Comments

Hanging out.  Nothing much happening out there. Overcast and cool - forecast for the next few days.

Feels good to not be beholden to the arts group any more - I am a member but need to spend my time working on my own stuff and not taking care of their administrative needs.  Maybe later when I am up and running - not so much now.

Nothing much happening out there - two sub-orbital rocket flights.  Kudos to Musk and Bezos but NASA was doing stuff like this 60 years ago.

Prince Harry has written a "tell-all" book - I am reminded of this wonderful meme:

20210309-007.jpg

Had a small quake North of here - Ferndale, WA North of Bellingham.  Pretty deep so only 19 people reported feeling it.  Still waiting for the big one - we are a bit overdue.

Nothing much else happening - some phone calls and finishing off the proofs for the marketing materials. Work in the yard for a bit now that it has cooled off. Farm tomorrow and Thursday.
Dog walk and coffee for now - farmer's market later this afternoon.

Tonight was the first board meeting with the new president.  I was there as the old president but will not be serving on the board of directors in any capacity.  Good.  I love the people in this organization but the new president's meeting was two hours and forty-five minutes long.  I try to keep my meetings to 30 minutes max and I get twitchy if they get to 45 minutes.  Start running roughshod over people if they try to bring up non-essential items.  Stick to the agenda people.

Again, really great organization and really nice people, different ways to run meetings. I am running the committee for one event but that is it for now. Need to get my own stuff in gear...

When I lived in Boston, I used to work for a place where the boss just loved meetings - these would last 4-5 hours.  I was responsible for some of the public displays (this was a public aquarium) so I arranged to be paged 30 minutes into the meeting.  I would talk to some poor soul the next day and in 15 minutes, would find out what was decided.

Anyway, quick trot around the internet, some video and bed.  Busy day tomorrow and Farm Wednesday and Thursday.

Classic gold - from CNN:

Is Hunter Biden's art any good?
Hunter Biden has been many things over his 51 years. But, in the last few years at least, he has been an artist.

"For years I wouldn't call myself an artist," he told The New York Times, from his Los Angeles home and studio, last year. "Now I feel comfortable saying it."

Boy howdy.  Some more:

So I reached out to Sebastian Smee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for The Washington Post, to get his evaluation of Hunter Biden, artist.

And the interview:

Cillizza: Let's start simple: Is Hunter Biden's work any good, aesthetically speaking?

Smee: For me, not really.
I've only seen it in reproduction, so I'm sure I'm missing a lot: texture, layering, detail. Parts of them look technically impressive. But the style is eclectic in a way that makes his work feel neither one thing nor another.
Most great artists, whatever style of art they make, have been trying to make art all their lives. They are fully devoted to what they do. To me, Biden seems a bit of a dabbler.
His work has the feeling of an afterthought. It doesn't feel like it needed to be made, except perhaps as a therapeutic exercise. I have no trouble with that. It's as good a reason to make art as any. But if I were a museum curator, I would struggle to find compelling reasons to share it with the public.

And this:

Cillizza: The New York Times last year described Biden's paintings as "leaning toward the surreal." Is that how you would describe them? Why or why not?

Smee: People sometimes say "surreal" when they mean random.
From what I've seen, Biden's work is less surreal than decorative. Decorative is OK: Matisse was decorative. But Matisse was not random. You can feel the internal logic in every work he made, and from work to work throughout his career. In Biden's case, I'm not feeling that at all.

And this:

Cillizza: Finish this sentence: Hunter Biden's work resembles the work of ____________." Now, explain.

Smee: "... a cafe painter."
By which I mean, you see a certain kind of art in coffee shops, and some of it is OK and a lot of it is bad, and sometimes it's surprisingly good. But you wouldn't, unless you were related to the artist, spend more than $1,000 on it.

Heh - it is not art, it is paying for access.  Nothing less, nothing more.

Back to work...

| No Comments

Meeting tonight at 6:30 at one of the board member's house. Gathering and organising paperwork for the transition.

Finishing off the page layout for the friend.

Productive day.

From America's Newspaper of Record:

Desperate Humanity Sends Robot Back To 2004 To Stop Mark Zuckerberg From Ever Inventing Facebook
With humanity languishing under the evil tyranny of Facebook, everyday citizens have pooled their resources together to send a killer robot back in time to 2004 to prevent Mark Zuckerberg from inventing the wicked technological scourge in the first place.

"We've created the ultimate bionic A.I. humanoid to find Zuckerberg and prevent this dark future before it begins," said Bubba Crullers, head technician on the project. "We're not trying to kill him or anything-- instead, we've programmed the robot to befriend young Mark and try to get him really into World of Warcraft, or introduce him to a really beautiful but controlling girlfriend, or make him take up bass guitar and join a lousy punk band, or convince him to study abroad in Tibet and become a monk."

"Whatever works-- we don't care. We just have to stop Facebook."

Experts predict that as soon as the robot's mission is completed, utopia will instantly break out around the earth, no one will ever believe any misinformation about anything ever again, and conservative uncles will have more time to watch World War II documentaries.

(Update: According to sources, the robot has completed its mission, which unfortunately caused young Zuckerberg to focus his energy on uploading his consciousness to a globally-connected supercomputer and he now rules the world. So, that backfired. All hail Zuck!)

At least they tried.  Well - maybe the next robot will be able to alter the course of robot #1
Started out as a fun idea but got waay out of hand.  This robot would solve a lot of our problems.

And out - morning routine

| No Comments

Getting a bit warm so doing a dog run and then bringing them back home to hang out in the garage while I sit and read over my morning coffee.

Back in an hour or three...

Stupid stupid move - these people are toxic and incurable. From The London Daily Mail:

Biden transfers his first detainee out of Guantanamo Bay: Moroccan man, 56, accused of being a Taliban fighter is sent home after 19 years in custody in sign administration will start releasing more prisoners

    • Joe Biden for the first time transferred a prisoner out of Guantanamo Bay prison
    • Abdullatif Nasser, 56, was repatriated to his home in Morocco on Monday
    • The detainee was cleared for release in July 2016, but remained in the Cuba prison throughout Donald Trump's presidency
    • Nassar was accused of being a former Taliban fighter who fought U.S. invading forces in 2001 in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan
    • He was never charged with a crime
    • The release exhibits Biden's commitment to closing the prison for good

The Biden administration on Monday transferred a detainee out of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility for the first time, sending a Moroccan man back home five years after he was recommended for discharge.

So far, we have turned Afghanistan over to them with all of our equipment, electronics and intellegence.
Now, we are releasing the worst of the worst.
Do we want to fight the same war again in ten years?
Do we want another 9/11?
This administration certainly seems to be asking for it.

Word of the day

| No Comments

"Fact Checkers" did not exist until the Truth started getting out.

Major flooding in Europe

| No Comments

And the coverup that ensues - from American Thinker:

Merkel blames 'climate change' for Germany's bad floods, but real reason was botched local warning system
Germany has made a big deal about how global warming is the reason behind the region's catastrophic floods.

According to NBC News:

"The German language hardly knows any words for the devastation that has been caused here," [Chancellor Angela Merkel] said.

She said the force of the storms suggested that they had "something to do with climate change," adding, "We have to hurry, we have to get faster in the fight against climate change."

And a few more examples, also citing Biden as well as Merkel's finance minister.

Clearer heads prevail at The London Times:

Germany knew the floods were coming, but the warnings didn’t work
The first signs of catastrophe were detected nine days ago by a satellite orbiting 500 miles above the tranquil hills around the Rhine river.

Over the next few days a team of scientists sent the German authorities a series of forecasts so accurate that they now read like a macabre prophecy: the Rhineland was about to be hit by “extreme” flooding, particularly along the Erft and Ahr rivers, and in towns such as Hagen and Altena.

Yet despite at least 24 hours’ warning that predicted, almost precisely, which districts would be worst afflicted when the rains came, the flood still caught many of its victims largely unawares.

Germany got its preparations “badly wrong”, one of the experts who built Europe’s sophisticated flood prediction model told The Sunday Times. Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at Reading University, said that a “monumental failure of the system” had led to one of postwar Germany’s deadliest natural disasters, which had by last night claimed at least 133 lives since Wednesday and left hundreds of people unaccounted for. At least another 24 people were dead across the border in Belgium, a figure that the country’s national crisis centre expected to rise, while the rains forced thousands from their homes in the Netherlands.

They had the warnings, they didn't do anything. They would rather natter about global warming and one world government than actually do their jobs and protect their citizens. For all that I grouse about this Nation, we have it good compared to others.

Having fun - desktop publishing

| No Comments

Used to do a lot of it - had a computer store in Seattle before mail-order was a "thing".  When Dell and Gateway started undercutting the market, I got into DTP in a big way and emphasized the computer consulting aspect.

Doing a brochure and some marketing materials for a local business. Used to use the Adobe products until they went with the Software-as-a-Service model where you do not own the license, you pay a monthly fee. Fortunately, companies like Serif make excellent alternatives with their Affinity series: Designer, Publisher and Photo. Fantastic stuff, have used it on a couple of "prime time" projects before and it has performed flawlessly.  Integrates well with the Adobe ecosystem so zero issues there so far. Been using Serif products for the last five years - nothing bad to say. Good stuff.

Winding down for the night though - time for one last surf, a few videos and lights out. Long couple of days.  I picked up the stuff for the electrical work so start that when I get back from the farm Thursday.

From the trenches - tech support

| No Comments

Been there - got the tee shirt:

20210718-tech.jpg

The *Resident's security detail

| No Comments

Properly labeled:

20210718-security.jpg

Make that five - Texas kiddies

| No Comments

Used to be just three, now it is five lawmakers testing positive. From FOX News:

Two more Texas Democrats test positive for COVID after fleeing election vote
Two more Texas Democrats have tested positive for coronavirus during the trip to Washington, D.C., just one day after three of their colleagues learned they had contracted the virus as well.

According to the Texas Tribune, the number of COVID-positive Texas state lawmakers in the nation's capital is now five. The news comes on the same day that Vice President Kamala Harris visited Walter Reed Medical Center for a "routine" visit after meeting with the group of lawmakers just last week.

And of course, if these were Republicans, this would be all over the news - major superspreader event.  OMG what were they thinking? The reporters would be clutching their pearls and shrieking. But, of course, Republicans would not do such a childish thing as chartering an airplane to avoid their responsibility.

But then again, gee - could this be a political stunt so they do not have to return to Texas and face the results of their actions? Talk about acting like a five-year-old kid.

Start them young - Hasbro

| No Comments

This is heinous. I hope that they go broke big-time.  They need to suffer for even letting this be considered.
From Project Veritas:

Critical Race Theory ‘Indoctrination’ EXPOSED Within Children’s Toy Manufacturer Hasbro; Insider Leaks Internal Training Given to Employees … ‘By Age Four, Kids are Showing a Strong and Consistent Pro-White, Anti-Black Bias’
Project Veritas released a new video today exposing children’s toy manufacturer Hasbro, which is currently partnering with “Conscious Kids” to force Critical Race Theory [CRT] upon its employees during mandatory trainings.

David Johnson, who is a Harvey Nash packaging engineer contracting with Hasbro, sat down with Project Veritas founder and CEO James O’Keefe, to discuss the CRT training in which he was forced to participate. Johnson leaked a video to Veritas showing “Conscious Kids” co-founders Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens lecturing Hasbro employees about infants’ inherent racism.

“I decided to come to Project Veritas because I oppose the indoctrination of children that they wanted to push, and I felt that more people needed to know about it,” Johnson said.

“They want to introduce children into racial bias at an early age before they're really able to understand what race and racism is,” he said.

Much much more at the site.  I feel sick.  This is beyond comprehension.

I think that the key issue here is trust.  We trust companies like Hasbro to provide safe and entertaining toys for our children.  Now, it seems that they are producing toys that are avenues for marxist indoctrination.  We can no longer trust them. Once you lose the public trust, you can not get it back.  Simple as that. Hasbro is dead.

The gift that keeps on giving - Texas democrats hold meeting with VP Harris.
And then this - from FOX News:

Harris visits Walter Reed for 'routine' doctor appointment days after meeting with infected Texas Democrats
Vice President Kamala Harris is going for what a White House official told Fox News is a "routine doctor's appointment" at Walter Reed Medical Center on Sunday.

The visit to the Bethesda, Maryland, hospital comes after she met with Texas Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday. Three of the Democrats had tested positive for coronavirus, with one testing positive Friday night and two others Saturday morning.

And of course:

Fox News asked Harris' office if the vice president is showing any symptoms of COVID-19 but they did not immediately respond. 

President Nixon's dirty tricks committee could not have planed this better

But but but - they were vaccinated...

Back out for a while

| No Comments

Meeting with someone in 20 minutes - a fellow member of the arts group who is selling some of their display panels.  Metal grids so perfect for my work. Unload at the storage unit and then head North for electrical stuff, dog food and some groceries.

And of course - Wuhan Flu mortality

| No Comments

Talk about inconvenient truth - from The Toronto Sun:

More young Canadians died from 'unintentional side effects' of the pandemic, not COVID
A new report shows that during the pandemic, there were more deaths from “unintentional side effects” than COVID-19, particularly among younger Canadians.

The latest data from Statistics Canada, released Monday, is titled “Provisional death counts and excess mortality, January 2020 to April 2021,” and found there were 5,535 deaths in those younger than 65 years of age.

There were 1,380 COVID-related deaths for that same age group, according to StatCan.

That’s more than four times the amount of deaths.

The report from the Canadian Vital Statistics Death Database suggests that “the excess mortality is, in large part, related to other factors such as increases in the number deaths attributed to causes associated with substance use and misuse, including unintentional (accidental) poisonings and diseases and conditions related to alcohol consumption.”

Much more at the site - the cure was much worse than the flu. But...  The ruling elites needed a crisis to get distance us from the successes of That Horrible Orange Man.

The city has gone to hell in 10 years.  The people in charge own this. From One America News Network:

1 Dead, Several Injured In Downtown Portland Shooting
One woman has died after being treated for serious wounds at a local hospital following a shooting in Portland, Oregon. Additionally, the Portland Police Bureau has said six others were wounded during the shooting on Saturday morning.

Authorities originally said eight people had been injured, including one critically. That number has since been updated.

Reports said Portland police responded to word of gunfire in the downtown area around 2 a.m.

And of course:

The incident currently remains under investigation and authorities said they have made no arrests at this time.

No word on who, what or why.  We know where and when. Incomplete reporting. Peaceful protest? Gang activity? Black on black violence again? Inquiring minds want to know.

Meanwhile, Chicago enjoys another week of peace and quiet:

Shot & Killed: 16
Shot & Wounded: 100
Total Shot: 116
Total Homicides: 18

We really need to get some adults in the room - this Nation is falling apart at the seams just like the communists want.

The Democrats may cherry pick and spin their numbers but this really puts things into perspective.
From SocketSite (Plug In to San Francisco Real Estate Tips, Trends and the Local Scoop):

Visualizing All the Vacant Office Space in San Francisco
As we outlined yesterday, there is over 17 million square feet of vacant office space now spread across San Francisco, which is up from around 16 million square feet of vacant space three months ago and as compared to under 5 million square feet of vacant space at the start of last year.

That is a lot of empty office space.  They were booming a few years ago.  Now? Rampant mismanagement, ancillary costs are too damn high, cost of living is too damn high.  Time to get some adults back in charge and bring things back to some semblance of normalcy.

And the usual quiet weekend

| No Comments

Nothing happening in the real world that I can see.

Slept in - meeting up with some people at 1:00 PM and also working on some page design for a friend. Paperwork for tomorrow's meeting.  The usual stuff...

Dog walk and coffee first - got my priorities after all.

Out of conduit for my wiring project so heading up there after the 1:00 PM meetup. Need about 30' of #8 stranded wire (50 Amp service to the welders), some 1" EMT conduit, some 1" angles and couplers and other assorted gubbins.

Also picking up 40' of 1/2" EMT (electrical metal tubing - AKA conduit) - need about five feet for my current work but like to keep a couple sticks of it on hand for future projects.  The farm mentality is strong with me.  If I am in the big shitty buying any hardware, I like to buy more than I need so I have a reserve here for future needs.  This has saved my bacon many many times.

The barn swallows are getting huge - they were so tiny in their nest but I can see the reason for the size of the nest now.  Smart parents.  It is about 20-30 days between hatch and fledge so they should be ready to leave the nest pretty soon.  I'll be destroying it as it is right in my doorway.  Put up some nesting boxes this fall for next year.

Back in a few hours for lunch.

Happy music - Feelin' Allright

| No Comments

Quite the roster - they are having way too much fun:

Did some wiring in the garage - planning to get a heat pump installed sometime this fall and also running two dedicated circuits for my welders.  Tired of running temporary cords and I will be welding here even when I get my "real" shop built.

Was warm this afternoon but is cooling right off - 62°F and falling.  Clear skies with high whispy clouds - cirrocumulus to be precise. Turned on the little space heater - Truffle saw me and came over and curled up in front of it. She likes her heat. Sleeping in tomorrow - do some paperwork and run a few errands. Meeting on monday and then to the farm Tuesday evening.

Videos on the computer screen and then videos on the inside of my brain.

And people were so upset about President Trump being "mean" From MSN/Newsweek - July 3rd
Talk about burying a story - she introduced it in April and they "report" it the day before the Glorious Fourth.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'Fire Fauci Act' Gains Co-Sponsors After Email Dump
Representatives Buddy Carter and Bob Good signed onto fellow Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's legislation that would reduce the salary of Dr. Anthony Fauci, America's leading infectious disease expert, to $0.

The release of thousands of Fauci's emails ignited renewed criticism of his response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the early dismissal of the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the origin of the outbreak.

Some legislators have called for Fauci to be fired from his position as director of the National Institute of Virology, and Candace Owens, a conservative commentator, went as far as to advocate for his imprisonment.

Greene is a longtime critic of Fauci and has been advocating for his termination since December. In April, she introduced a bill in the house called the Fire Fauci Act, which didn't expressly call for his termination but would reduce his salary from more than $400,000 to nothing.

Just heard about it now - seems to be gaining quite a lot of support. Fauci is a tool. Nothing more.
I love MTG - she is bringing things to people's attention that the deep-state would rather leave alone.

Very handy for electrical wiring

| No Comments

Wound up doing some more wiring in the garage.  A little too hot for yard work in the sun.

The current-carrying ability of a conductor is known as its Ampacity. Here is an excellent table to determine what wire size to use for what size of breaker and what expected load.  They also have a Raceway Fill calculator that allows you to see how many conductors of any given size should be placed in any kind of raceway (including flex and conduit (EMT)).

You are welcome 😁   CerroWire Tables and Calculators

CerroWire also makes a really good product - prefer them over other brands as the insulation is of high quality - consistent. Makes for fun shopping as CerroWire is carried by Home Depot which is my general go-to box store. Unfortunately, my favorite receptacles are made by Eaton/Arrow Hart which are only carried by Lowes. Eaton has better build quality than Leviton which is at H.D.

And of course, panels? Schnieder/Square D  Don't even bother asking for anything else.

Finished lunch and getting ready to work outside for the rest of the day.  Nice, cool and breezy. Getting the van ready for next week's trip to the farm. Need to do an oil change on both vehicles so probably get to that this weekend as well. Paperwork this evening.

Have yet to spray the acid - been windy the times I was thinking of it.  See how it goes tonight or next morning.

Nothing much else happening out there.  I love that some of the Texas Democrat representatives tested positive for Wuhan Flu - especially since they met #2 and various other DC sycophants.

People are going to look back on this part of our history and scratch their heads.

Sounds like a fantastic idea - right? From the Philladelphia, PA NPR affiliate WHYY:

SEPTA’s cracking battery buses raise questions about the future of electric transit
At the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, executives from SEPTA gave free rides on gleaming new battery-powered buses. The PR stunt was meant to herald the transit agency’s intent to purchase 25 all-electric Proterra Catalyst buses, which, at that time, would have given SEPTA the largest fleet of its kind in the United States.

A bright green vehicle wrap proclaimed SEPTA had “plugged into an emissions free future.” A new lobby exhibit inside SEPTA headquarters showcased a decades-long “evolution” of its 1,500-vehicle-strong bus fleet — the vehicles from Proterra, the nation’s largest electric bus maker, were presented as the next step in that evolution.

But, today, what was meant to be the future of SEPTA’s fleet is closer to extinction than evolution.

It’s been nearly a year and a half since a passenger set foot inside one of SEPTA’s Proterra buses, which cost nearly a million dollars apiece when they rolled out in 2019. Most are now gathering dust in a South Philly bus depot, riven by cracked chassis and other defects. The diesel and hybrid buses that SEPTA planned to replace with the all-electric fleet remain in service, with no timeline for the e-buses to return.

Yet another example of poor management.  The people making the decisions are not held accountable for them. Always leads to crap. A bit more:

But even those routes needed buses to pull around 100 miles each day, while the Proterras were averaging just 30 to 50 miles per charge. Officials also quickly realized there wasn’t room at the ends of either route for charging stations.

Even cherry-picking the routes resulted in epic fail. Gasoline and diesel are mature technologies. As much as people might want electric buses, they are not practical. The numbers simply do not work. Add to this the energy density and you are pushing a very large rock up a very steep slope. All of the following numbers are in Mega Joules per Liter.
1 MJ = 0.28 kiloWatt Hour.

  • Diesel = 35.8
  • Gasoline = 32.4
  • Hydrogen = 5.6
  • Lithium Ion battery = 1.0 to 2.6
  • Lead Acid battery = 0.56

I am looking at volume as weight is not as much of an issue with wheeled or tracked vehicles. For a given storage volume, this is how much recoverable energy can be stored.

The Wuhan Flu - I'm a believer

| No Comments

Now people are starting to recognize the truth - from The New York Post:

Top Biden officials now believe COVID lab-leak theory
The Biden administration took one giant step closer to admitting that the coronavirus was leaked from a Chinese lab, a theory once derided as fanciful fiction.

An increasing number of senior administration officials engaged in a probe of the virus are now backing the theory that the virus could have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a CNN report.

Has to be true if CNN is finally reporting it.  How long did it have to take?
How many tens of thousands of lives had to be lost?

All because they thought they could use this against That Mean Orange Man.

This is the truth - the border

| No Comments

From My Pensieve:

20210717-biden-border.jpg

And gone - disappeared - vanished

| No Comments

But back in a few hours.

Guess why I use Infogalactic all the time. From the New York Post:

Wikipedia co-founder says site is now ‘propaganda’ for left-leaning ‘establishment’
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has warned that the website can no longer be trusted — insisting it is now just “propaganda” for the left-leaning “establishment.”

Sanger told UnHerd’s Lockdown TV Wednesday that he started the “encyclopedia of opinion” in 2001 purely on the basis it would offer true neutrality and offer “multiple points of view” on “hot button issues.”

Now, he insisted, conservative voices are “sternly warned if not kicked out” if they try to add a different take on establishment views — which Sanger deemed “propaganda.”

“You can’t cite Fox News on socio-political issues. It’s just banned now,” he insisted of the apparent clampdown on respected conservative voices.

Got to love the liberal echo chamber. Pushing the narrative, one willfully ignorant person at a time.

When the fecal matter hits the fan, ham radio is one of the only surefire avenues for reliable communication.
Looks like the Cuban government knows this and is clamping down on its citizens.

Website to report jamming: Cuban Government Jamming 40 meter US HAM BAND

And that's all folks

| No Comments

Long day tomorrow - early bedtime so I do not sleep in so late.

Got a graphic design project in the works - comping out three samples and meeting on Tuesday. Local business.

Last large meeting for the arts group on Monday and farm on Wednesday.

Back in 10 hours or so...

China goes green

| No Comments

They sure are virtue signaling it but...
Not fscking likely - this little news item. From Nasdaq:

China to release more than 10 mln T of coal from reserves
China will release more than 10 million tonnes of coal from state reserves to ensure steady supply to the market, the powerful state planner said in a statement on Thursday, the year's fifth such release.

The coal will come from dozens of reserve hubs and key ports nationwide, the National Development and Reform Commission said, adding that the government would arrange further releases from reserves in line with market demand.

In April, the state planner urged power plants, coal miners and major coal transport hubs to boost reserves of the fuel, spurred by concerns over tight supplies and an expected demand surge.

It had vowed to build coal stockpiles to more than 120 million tonnes in government deployable reserves in 2021.

Not only ten million tons of coal being sent to the furnaces of industry, this is the fifth time this year so almost once per month. And then, there is this graph:

20210716-co2-emissions.jpg

The so-called activists in the US do not know how good they have it.
They need to go sit in the corner. Or, move to China and harass the government there.
I would even contribute some money to their plane ticket as long as it was one-way.

Press release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department:

LOS ANGELES COUNTY HEALTH OFFICER ORDER MODIFICATION MASKING WHILE INDOORS
Forcing the vaccinated and those who already contracted COVID-19 to wear masks indoors is not backed by science and contradicts the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines.  The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) has authority to enforce the order, but the underfunded/defunded Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will not expend our limited resources and instead ask for voluntary compliance.  We encourage the DPH to work collaboratively with the Board of Supervisors and law enforcement to establish mandates that are both achievable and supported by science.

Short and to the point. No. We will not enforce your stupid mandate.
Love it.

Liberal autophagy

| No Comments

Always happens when you go for divisiveness.  The various factions which are all supposed to be on the correct side of the narrative start eating each other.  Like I said, this always happens.  All you have to do is to study the history of Russia or China or Cuba or Cambodia or...

Once the people in power feel secure in their power, they start killing off those people - Stalin called them "useful idiots" - who helped them gain power but who were hoping for the power themselves.  They were promised the power and the money and the elitism but there is only so much of that to go around and the people in power want it all for them selves.

Thanks for your service comrade. Against the wall please. Bang. Next.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Classic case in point from The Right Scoop:

Facebook ENDS Joe Biden in HILARIOUSLY harsh response to him calling them murderers
On Friday, Jen Psaki and Joe Biden decided to use social media as a scapegoat for the perceived failure of the gov’t to get the vaccine into every human arm on these shores.

Biden said that Facebook is killing people, and Facebook has now struck back at him, essentially telling him to shove it where the vaccine don’t shine.

“We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts. The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine,” it reads.

In a direct response to Biden saying Facebook kills people, they responded that “The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period.”

Biden is a flaccid fool - a meat puppet. Facebook is saying that it has more power than he does.
After all - they helped elect the poor fool.
Social media running the world is straight out of Orwell's 1984. Almost word for word.
I have a tee shirt that reads: "Make Orwell fiction again" - it always gets a good response.

Autophagy - a micro phenomenon that also happens in the macro world.

Food coma - pasta

| No Comments

Been coolish the last couple of days so a big bowl of pasta sounded delicious for dinner.

Made enough sauce for several more meals. The local food coop makes their own fresh pasta - night and day between that and dried.

Pleasantly stuffed.  A glass or two of wine would have been a nice accompaniment but I am still abstaining.  Drank way to much earlier in my life and my body finally said NO.  I am listening for once and the end result is a lot better. A lot cheaper too.

Feeling a bit chill so kicking on the space heater - not enough to turn the HVAC on for the house but a little warmth hits the spot as the sun sets and it cools off.

Picked up some fresh bones for the pups so they are gnawing away contentedly.

From FOX News:

'Squad' member Cori Bush, a 'defund the police' advocate, recently spent $70,000 on private security
Missouri Rep. Cori Bush spent nearly $70,000 on private security over the past three months as she advocated for defunding the police, campaign filings show.

Bush's campaign sent $54,120.92 in payments between April 15 and June 28 for "security services" to RS&T Security Consulting, a New York-based firm with a mysterious online presence, Federal Election Commission records released Thursday show. The Democrat's campaign also paid $15,000 to Nathaniel Davis for "security services" over the same time period.

The $69,120 in security payments accounted for more than a third of Bush's $197,000 in campaign expenditures during the second quarter, the FEC records show. It's also nearly double what her campaign spent on private security during the first quarter of 2021.

And of course, after recieving $54K, they go dark - but - the internet is forever:

RS&T's website is no longer active, but a cached version of its now-defunct website shows that the group provides "executive protection agents" that provide "first class executive protection and security for national and international figures."

No word at the site but I hope someone does some digging into RS&T's corporate structure.  I would not be surprised if there was a Bush cousin or uncle standing to benefit from Rep. Bush's security needs. Why doesn't she just call 911.  That is what the majority of We The People have.

Must be nice. Especially on the taxpayer dime.  Our dollars at work.

Been a really quiet last week or so

| No Comments

A lot of shit happening - election audits showing massive fraud, Haitian Presidential assassination by American agents, etc... but these have yet to have all the details so I am only mentioning them in passing.  Nothing else really catches my eye.

So true - flat squirrels

| No Comments

Choose or get the fsck out of the way:

20210716-flat.jpg

Aaaand back

| No Comments

Left work around 1:30, went to the farmer's market, stopped off to check mail and get some groceries and back home.

Spaghetti for dinner tonight - picked up some fresh 'maters and cukes for a salad.  Been eating really well - time to load up on some carbs for a change.

Quick trot around the internet.

And outta here - overslept

| No Comments

Heading out.  Minimal dog walk, coffee and to the store. Was having such nice dreams I stayed asleep.

Oops. My bad.

More in a few hours...

Time to check YouTube and see what is new.

Feeling a lot better since the massage - definitely going back in a week and starting up a regular schedule for a while.

Volunteering at the thrift store tomorrow morning - paperwork in the afternoon.  The arts group's fiscal year switches on July 1st and this coming Monday is the first meeting of the new board of directors.  The old board hands over all the paperwork.  I want to make sure that all my I's are crossed and the T's dotted.  I did all the meeting agendas, etc. on the computer so need to print out paper copies.

Nice and cool - warmed up to the mid-80's in the afternoon but it is own to 59° and supposed to get cooler.  Actually sprinkled a little bit this morning - not enough to trigger the rain gauge but was evident on the car windshield when I went out in the morning.

Must maintain control of the masses

| No Comments

Can't let them think the crisis is over.  We have to exert our power and keep them cowed.
From the Los Angeles Times:

L.A. County will require masks indoors amid alarming rise in coronavirus cases
Just a month ago, Los Angeles County and the rest of California celebrated a long-awaited reopening, marking the tremendous progress made in the battle against COVID-19 by lifting virtually all restrictions on businesses and other public spaces. Now, the coronavirus is resurgent, and the nation’s most-populous county is scrambling to beat back the pandemic’s latest charge.

Starting Saturday night, residents will again be required to wear masks in indoor public spaces, regardless of their vaccination status.

The latest order not only puts the county further at odds with both the California Department of Public Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — both of which continue to maintain that vaccinated people need not cover their faces indoors — but puts officials in the precarious position of asking the inoculated to forfeit one of the benefits recently enjoyed.

“This is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” said Dr. Muntu Davis, the county’s health officer.

Once again.  Masks do nothing. The vaccines work but they are experimental, the companies manufacturing them have no liability for injury or death.  Many covid diagnoses are false positives and over 90% of "covid deaths" are actually a result of one or more co-morbidity.  Gun shot wounds, automobile accidents, heart, lung or liver disease, cancer, etc...  These deaths have all been coded as covid deaths to fudge the numbers.

The Democrats needed a crisis to cover for the fact that they have nothing.

Once again:
"When the people who are telling us that there is a crisis start acting like there is a crisis, then I will believe that there is a crisis."
Hard to argue with that simple truth

A new book - American Marxism

| No Comments

Big fan of Mark Levin.  He can get a bit passionate (more like hyperbolic) on his radio show but when he writes, he is incredibly good at laying out the truth and backing it up with meticulous research.  He knows his history and how various groups with their own agendas have been able to hijack the American political system without most people being aware.

I had pre-ordered a copy of his latest book: American Marxism and it came in today's mail.  Skimming it now over dinner and will start reading it seriously tomorrow over coffee before work.

20210715-amarx.jpg

I love that it is at #1 nationwide on Amazon. Hard to argue with the numbers.

20210715-destroy.jpg

And it starts - Texas Democrats

| No Comments

Could not be happening to a more deserving group of children - seeing the consequences of their actions.
From Bryan Preston writing at PJ Media:

Major Texas Democrat Stripped of Leadership Post for Fleeing the State
State Rep. Joe Moody (D-El Paso) has been stripped of his position as speaker pro tem in the Texas House following his decision to flee the state in order to stymie the ongoing special session that Gov. Greg Abbott called.

House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, announced the removal of Moody as speaker pro tem in a memo Thursday morning before the House was set to return on Thursday. He gave no statement but said the removal was effective immediately.

“The most important titles in my life will never change: Dad, Husband, El Pasoan,” Moody said in a statement. “Nothing political has ever even cracked the top three, so nothing has changed about who I am or what my values are.”

Moody is (or was) one of Speaker Phelan’s closest Democrat allies. Two of the terms he used to describe himself — Dad and husband — are gender-specific terms forbidden by the rules adopted by the Democratic leadership in the United States House of Representatives.

Calls to strip Democrats who fled Texas from their House leadership posts have been growing throughout the week. Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi clarified that yes, leaders appointed to their posts by Speaker Dade Phelan can be stripped of their leadership assignments. Moody is the first Democrat known to be subjected to it. Speaker Phelan did not start small with this move.

More. Faster. Please.  Good - they want to act out, give them a taste of their own medicine.

The auction is done - the model of the Nautilus sold for $1,130.00

42 bids - must have been pretty spirited towards the end.
People get caught up in the moment and enter a zone of unreality.
Buyer's remorse sets in about 48 hours later.

Tempting but too high

| No Comments

The auction I have been watching is closing in about an hour.  The model of the Nautilus is now at $378 - more than it is worth to me (that would be $200) but still...  I feel a little frisson of desire but...

Out for coffee - slept wonderfully.  Feeling better - the massage worked wonders.

Got some fall weather happening outside - 59°F and overcast. We will have 15:44 of sunlight today.  Down from 16:09 less than a month ago. Waaaahhhhhh...

Taking the pups out for a nice long walk and then the usual coffee and reading for a while.  Heading to Costco, food coop and Home Depot for some shopping.

Shit got real - brain to speech

| No Comments

I had posted about Pager playing pong three months ago.
From the University of California - San Francisco:

“Neuroprosthesis” Restores Words to Man with Paralysis
Researchers at UC San Francisco have successfully developed a “speech neuroprosthesis” that has enabled a man with severe paralysis to communicate in sentences, translating signals from his brain to the vocal tract directly into words that appear as text on a screen.

The achievement, which was developed in collaboration with the first participant of a clinical research trial, builds on more than a decade of effort by UCSF neurosurgeon Edward Chang, MD, to develop a technology that allows people with paralysis to communicate even if they are unable to speak on their own. The study appears July 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“To our knowledge, this is the first successful demonstration of direct decoding of full words from the brain activity of someone who is paralyzed and cannot speak,” said Chang, the Joan and Sanford Weill Chair of Neurological Surgery at UCSF, Jeanne Robertson Distinguished Professor, and senior author on the study. “It shows strong promise to restore communication by tapping into the brain's natural speech machinery.”

These are baby steps but still, amazing work.  There are several technologies that had to come together to do something like this - a confluence.  Fun time to be alive.

BLM is really outing itself for what it really is - a bunch of Marxists trying to take over the government by sowing racism and division. From The Post Millenial:

BLM comes out in support of the Cuban communist regime—'condemns the US'
Black Lives Matter (BLM) issued a statement condemning the US federal government, not Cuba's communist regime, over its "inhumane treatment" of the Cuban people. Pro-freedom demonstrations have been ongoing on the island nation since Sunday.

If Cuba was such a workers paradise, why didn't Patrisse Cullors - trained marxist and co-founder of BLM buy her three mansions there.  I bet the imperialist Yankee Dollar would buy some really nice properties on the island.
Bunch of stupid wankers.

Ouch - Baghdad Bob

| No Comments

I remember his broadcasts from 2003 - so full of hope and denial and propaganda.
From Robert Stacey McCain:

20210715-bagdhad.jpg

And that is it until the morrow

| No Comments

Feeling nice and drowsy after the massage. A bit cool outside (57°F) and have a small space heater kicked on at my feet.  Truffle is curled up next to it. Putting on clean bedding soon - watch a few videos and no alarm clock for tomorrow.  Sleeping in.

You mean that I am actually getting away with living like this?

Depressing thought for the day

| No Comments

20210711-star.jpg

Gotta admit that this is true...

Meatgrinder

| No Comments

Massage was excellent - going to feel it tomorrow but she really drilled down into the places that needed it. I could see this being an every-other week event. A bit pricey but I'm not drinking any more and rarely go out to restaurants so affordable. Planned tomorrow as a sleep-in day so got that covered.

Surf a bit - see what is out there.

And still nothin'

| No Comments

Light lunch - massage is scheduled for 4:30 today. Turned into a warm day so leaving the pups at home.  Heading out in 45 minutes or so - picking up a book from the library, check the mail.  Usual stuff...

Nothing happening out there - working upstairs in the loft.  Paperwork. Bleagh.

Cloudy and cool this morning

| No Comments

Got windy last night - had gusts up to 35mph but the wind then shifted to the West and then to the South.  My place faces the North and it blocked by a high bluff so blocked from the brunt. Got another small craft warning issued for today too but this is all South winds.  

Working at the thrift store - heading over soon. Errand early afternoon and then the massage at 4:00 PM - looking forward to it.

Lots of peaceful protests rioting happening down there.  What is happening there that did not happen in the USA is that the rioters are destroying the infrastructures.  A lot of ATMs are gone, supply lines are broken, no money, no food, no gasoline.  Going to get nasty.  A real worker's paradise.

Same thing as here - an elite with a communist agenda are pulling the strings from behind their compound walls. They think that they will be sitting on top of the world when the dust settles.  Little do they know that they will be the first against the wall. Happened in Russia, happened in China, happened in South East Asia, happened in Cuba, happens everywhere. Ignore history at your peril.

The Texas State Representatives fled to Washington D.C. in a very public move to try to block a voting security bill.  Their thought was that if they were not there, the Texas House would not have a quorum and could not vote. The Texas Senate had a much higher percentage of Republicans so that bill passed 18-4 - from FOX News:

Texas Senate passes Republican-backed voting reform bill
Texas state senators passed a GOP-led voting reform bill Tuesday, following Democrats' departure from the state in a move to stall passing the House's version of the bill.

In a party-line vote, 18-4 Senate Republicans passed a bill that would more heavily regulate voting laws, an effort that Democrats have dubbed as ‘Jim Crow 2.0.’

Yeah - another case of the Democrats not having anything to offer so they cheat. Their argument is funny as the Jim Crow 1.0 laws were passed by Democrats and not Republicans.  The history of the party is worth looking at.

Where we are - the narrative

| No Comments

20210713-narrative.jpg

And it starts - slow at first

| No Comments

Give people time to recognize the signs and portents.
Decide which side they are on.
A few headlines with links:

What is really curious is that the side of the building was hit, not the roof.  There is a traffic light about 20 feet away - metal pole - no indication of damage.  There are also tall trees near at least one side of the building - these generally take the strikes as they are the tallest conductive element in the area. No.  The wall with the mural was what was destroyed.

Not quite that bad but the wind is picking up quite a bit.  From the North which is unusual.  High tide too so going to be some salt-spray onto the deck.  Did a quick run out to make sure I had retrieved all my yard tools - get them out of harm's way. Quick spritz of WD-40 on the shears and lopping saw as a precaution until I can tend to them properly.

Forecast is calling for a small craft advisory:

Small Craft Advisory until WED 6:00 AM PDT
Affected Area
Northern Inland Waters Including The San Juan Islands and Admiralty Inlet

Description
...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM PDT WEDNESDAY...
In Admiralty Inlet, northwest winds 15 to 25 kt. In the Northern Inland Waters, south winds 15 to 30 kt.

Ten knots is about 11.5 miles per hour.  Definitely seeing that range - steady 10 and gusts to 20mph.

Knots tie into navigation as one nautical mile is equal to one minute of arc on the Earth's equator. 360 degrees, each degree is divided into 60 minutes. For smaller measurements, each minute is divided into 60 seconds of arc. The interrelations of timekeeping, navigation and geometry (and spherical trigonometry once you get off the equatorial plane) are beautiful. Sparse. Elegant.

All of the greenies in the USA are yammering about HOW WE MUST DO SOMETHING
Meanwhile, in the real world...  From the London Daily Mail:

Just 25 'mega-cities' produce 52 per cent of the world's urban greenhouse gas emissions — and 23 of them are in China

    • Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University recorded the emissions of 167 cities
    • The largest carbon emitters were found to be Asian megacities like Shanghai
    • Cities in Europe and the US emit more than those in most developing countries
    • Of 42 cities with data spanning 2012–2016, 30 showed emissions reductions
    • Yet the team warned we are not on track to meet global climate change targets

Just over half of the world's urban greenhouse gas emissions come from just 25 mega-cities — 23 of which are located in China — a study has reported.

The cities that emit the most greenhouse gases included Handan, Suzhou, Dalian, Beijing and Tianjin in China — but also Tokyo, Japan, and Moscow, Russia.

China's President Xi Jinping has pledged to cap carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 — part of its commitment to the Paris Agreement.

Yeah... Riiight... The old joke about how to tell when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.
Full list at the site. New York City is the first American city at #26 on the list. San Diego at #41
I think you get the picture.

And another productive day of sloth

| No Comments

Enjoying some lazy days but puttering. Getting a lot done around the house.

Farmer's market was nice - I like seeing familiar faces each week.  Picked up some fava beans - blanche them and make a pasta salad for the next few days' meals.  Picked up some walla walla sweet onions, a nice small savoy cabbage and a bag of mixed lettuce.

Thrift store tomorrow morning.  Signed up for a massage in the afternoon - been quite a while since I had one.

Taking care of some emails, clean the kitchen and that is my day.  Woo hoo...

Don't mess with Texas

| No Comments

Got to love it - some Texas State Representatives learn that actions have consequences.
If they want a seat at the adults table, they have to be...  'ya know... adults.
From Tyler O'neil writing at PJ Media:

Texas Dems Vote With Their Feet... for a Federal Takeover of Election Law
Almost every single Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives plans to leave Austin on Monday in an attempt to stymie the special session that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) called. As PJ Media’s Bryan Preston reported, Abbott called the special session in order to advance legislation on election integrity, border security, social media censorship, family violence prevention, protecting women’s sports, fighting critical race theory, and curbing access to abortion-inducing drugs, among other things.

At least 58 of the 67 Democrats in the Texas House plan to skip out on their jobs, an echo of the stunt Democrats pulled in 2003, NBC News reported. The move would paralyze the chamber.

Most of the Democrats plan to fly to Washington, D.C., in order to rally for H.R. 1, the federal takeover of elections that Democrats dub the “For the People Act.” According to NBC News’ source, most the Democrats plan to fly on two private jets.

Under the Texas Constitution, the legislature requires a quorum of two-thirds of lawmakers to be present to conduct state business. Absent lawmakers can be legally compelled to return to the Capitol, so state police may arrest the Democrats who skip out on their jobs.

And, considering that last paragraph - from American Military News:

Texas House votes to track down, arrest 58 Democrat members who fled if they don’t return
Members of the Texas state House voted 76-4 to deploy law enforcement to track down and arrest 58 Democrat members who fled the state to break quorum to prevent a vote on a Republican-backed election bill.

The House members voted on two motions brought by Rep. Will Metcalf, chair of the House Administration Committee to record present session members, ban members in attendance from leaving the chamber without first obtaining approval, and enable “the sergeant at arms, or officers appointed by him, send for all absentees … under warrant of arrest if necessary.”

Heh - they had their fun.  Love the photos from the bus with the case of Miller Lite on the seat and from the private airplane. Now, it is time to pay the piper. Want to act like a six-year old? You get time-out.

From The Washington Free Beacon:

‘Complete Shithole’: Biden’s Namesake Rest Stop in Disarray
At the September 2018 naming ceremony for the Biden Welcome Center off the highway in Delaware, the now-president said having his name on the rest stop was "one of the most meaningful" things to happen in his life. Once billed as a "rest stop of the future" by the enthusiasts at Roadside America for its "environmentally sensitive and sustainable design," the stop has devolved into a dysfunctional dump, according to a Washington Free Beacon investigation.

The restrooms, equipped with an overflowing used-needle deposit box, were abnormally crowded during a mid-week July trip to the Biden Welcome Center. This was likely due to the fact that only half of the bathrooms were open, and a majority of stalls in open bathrooms were either out of service or too filthy for public use. One gentleman who entered the men's room kicked open a bathroom stall door, let out a muffled yell at whatever sat inside the toilet, and left the facility altogether.

Near the exit of the men's room sat a box for biomedical waste filled to the brim with hypodermic needles, which constitutes one of the more sanitary parts of the entire bathroom. The state of the bathrooms observed by the Free Beacon was tame compared with what's been seen by others, according to online reviews. One visitor said the lack of attention paid to the bathrooms created an unsafe situation for her children.

"The bathrooms need to be cleaner. … My sons told their father there was a creepy man trying to look at them in stall, and when we went to the bathroom the man was exiting the bathroom to purchase food and eat it in the bathroom!" wrote the mother's online review. "If you had regular cleaners for the bathroom this could possibly have been reported sooner."

A Virginia couple who stopped at the Biden Welcome Center on the tail-end of a 10-hour drive from New England said it was the worst rest stop they've ever encountered.

"The place is a complete shithole," said the Virginia man. "Just so filthy—we felt like we needed a shower before we got back in the car."

More at the site - photos (eye-bleach alert) and comments. Somehow, this really seems appropriate.

Taliban again

| No Comments

Great meme from Knuckledraggin'

20210713-taliban.jpg

So true - thanks Joe. This is only one example of his legacy.

Heading out again

| No Comments

Back from coffee &c. Out for a few errands and then the farmer's market and library.

Staying nice and cool - 75°F and breezy - still not spraying the acid on the horsetails as too much wind.  It will eat through my shoes and pants so I want to keep it where it belongs.

Still pretty quiet out there - about halfway through the internet so far.  Going to surf for a little more and then head out - market opens at 3:00 PM.  That will be my last stop so the produce doesn't stay in the hot car. Errands first.

And outta here - another lazy day

| No Comments

Dog walk and coffee. Woke up to overcast - Whidbey Island is still obscured by fog but the sun is out and shining. Not supposed to be quite as warm today so taking the pups with me after their walk. Working at home this afternoon.  Farmer's market later so heading back out for that.

Some news out of Haiti but it's too soon to get anything real.  People from the USA were definitely involved, no real word yet how much our government was involved.

From Newsmax:

Inflation Soars 5.4 Percent, Biggest Jump Since 2008
Prices paid by U.S. consumers surged in June by the most since 2008, topping all forecasts and showing higher costs associated with the economy’s reopening continue to fuel inflationary pressures.

The consumer price index jumped 0.9% in June and 5.4% from the same month last year, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the so-called core CPI also rose 0.9%. The core increased 4.5% from June 2020, the largest advance since November 1991.

Yeah - welcome to inflation.  What you get when you print money - it loses its value and takes the economy down with it. Some people never learn.

As a heads up - take the official government numbers and multiply them by 3.5x - that will get you a lot closer to the real numbers. They always use numerical trickery to make things seem better.  More in line with their latest five-year plan.

Joe Biden's legacy

| No Comments

Just one example of Joe really fscking things up

Taliban fighters scream 'Allahu Akbar' as they execute 22 Afghan commandos who were surrendering after running out of ammo: Footage emerges as the terror group urges city leaders to surrender

Those Afghani got off easy - the information we left behind at Baghram and the other bases will ensure that those Afghan citizens who helped us and who aided the fight for freedom will be tortured to death.  They will suffer, their families and friends will suffer. They will long for a quick death.

Joe fscking things up? Direct quote from Obama - here, herehere and here for starters.
Google it - it's a thing.  All over the internet.

An observation

| No Comments

Now the truth comes out - from The Conservative Treehouse:

Wow, It was McSwain – President Trump Releases US Attorney Letter Notifying Him of Bill Barr Efforts to Block Investigation of Election Fraud
Yesterday we were uncertain if it was US Attorney William M McSwain who notified President trump of Bill Barr’s corruption and blocking of election investigations. {Go Deep}  Today President Trump released the letter confirming it was McSwain.  [pdf HERE]

In previous comments attributed to AG Bill Barr,  he claimed to have seen no evidence of election fraud.  The Atlantic Article cites Bill Barr stating to an AP journalist December 1st 2020: ” To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” and then the article covers the fallout with the White House from that AP interview.

There’s a big difference between not seeing election fraud and purposefully blocking a United States Attorney from investigating allegations of fraud with a motive not to see it.  This is blood-boiling:

Wow - and meanwhile, *Resident Biden is in Philidelphia tomorrow to try to stop the election audit.  Again, if there is nothing to hide, why is the deep state scrambling so hard to prevent an examination. I have to love President Trump's timing on this though - kind of takes the wind out of Joe's sails if he tries to use the line about honest and fraud-free elections.

I was looking at this auction - specifically this model of the Nautilus from Walt Disney's  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. (wonderful movie) It is a several-hour drive past Seattle - almost to Tacoma.  I would definitely want to attend the preview before committing to a bid.  I would then need to return in a few days as they do not ship.

I set my limit at $200 and now, with more than 48 hours left, it is at $203.00  A good 80% of the bidding happens in the last hour so I can only imagine what it will get up to. Kudos to Murphy and to the owners of the property - they will make some decent money.  As for me, I'll just sit here looking out over my slice of the Pacific Ocean and dream.

From Reason:

Critics Warned the Largest Tax Increase in San Francisco History Would Be Ill-Spent.
It's Now Funding $60,000 Tents for the Homeless

When San Francisco voters were considering a 2018 ballot measure that would impose the largest tax increase in city history to fund homelessness services, critics warned that the initiative's spending plan was vague and unaccountable. Now, a chunk of that money is going to fund some very expensive tents.

On Wednesday, staff for the city's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing went before the Board of Supervisors' Budget and Appropriations Committee to request $20 million over the next two fiscal years to continue operating six "safe sleeping" tent encampments.

This safe sleeping program was launched early in the pandemic as a way of getting people out of crowded shelters, and into open-air, socially distanced camping sites where the homeless had access to showers, meals, and around-the-clock security.

The total cost of the program in its first year was roughly $18.2 million for around 260 tents, which the San Francisco Chronicle notes is about $61,000 per tent per year or twice the median cost of an apartment in the city.

Well gee - I'm getting tired of the yard work.  How about I hitch a ride down to SF and get signed up.

Let's see - that is $100 for a decent tent and siphon off the other $60,900 for other "social programs"
We need to document this and my cousin has a video camera. He only charges $750 per hour.
My uncle owns a camping store and the delivery fee for tents is $2,000. Each. That is the going rate. Honest.
My neighbor is an unemployed McDonalds line cook - we can pay him $120K to study food services to the campers.
And then, ...

Like I said - Democrats grift.  They do this very well.

Had coffee, picked up the pups and ran a few errands, worked at home and fixing dinner now.

Nothing is happening out there. A lot of low-level stuff but nothing really catches my eye.

Taking tomorrow off too - working at home and generally luxuriating in utter sloth.

And there is nothing happening

| No Comments

Looks like they identified the American who arranged the Haiti assasination.
Fall guy? Remember the Benghazi filmmaker dumpster fire? This should be fun.
The FBI is still holding to its story about drugs with the Denver guns in the hotel room.
Nothing else is happening out there.

Out for my morning routine and working at home the rest of today.  One of the artists in the local group is having email problems so may head over there to help - they have had security issues before so dreading what I will find on their laptop.

Forecast is for warm weather so the pups will be hanging out in the garage most of today.  Taking them for a walk now but back here before I go for coffee - no good shade at the coffee place and want to hang out there and read and socialize for an hour before heading back home. Swing by the storage unit too - getting some more things ready for sale.

Trying to watch it but it keeps breaking up.  Do not know how many people are logged in but I am guessing that the servers are experiencing a bit higher than usual load.  I'll try again tomorrow.

Funny too - for shits and giggles, I looked on YouTube and there he was: President Donald Trump's Full Speech At CPAC | The New York Times

Clicked and turned out it was a speech from Feb 24, 2017 that had been posted.  Trust the New York Times to do something like this.  Of course, if they ever do own up to it, they will call it an IT Error and publish an apology at the bottom of page 17.

Now this is curious - Saudi Arabia

| No Comments

From France24 / Agence France Presse:

US alarmed as Saudi lawsuits threaten to expose secrets
Two lawsuits pitting Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler against a former intelligence czar threaten to expose highly sensitive US government secrets, prompting Washington to consider a rare judicial intervention, documents show.

The cases in US and Canadian courts centre on corruption allegations levelled by state-owned Saudi companies against Saad Aljabri, a former spymaster who long worked closely with American officials on covert counterterrorism operations.

That marks the latest twist in a long-running feud between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Aljabri.

Aljabri's patron, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN), is currently in Saudi detention after being deposed as heir to the throne in a 2017 palace coup.

The legal drama sheds light on Shakespearean rivalries in the top echelons of the Saudi royal family, but Washington fears that a bitter courtroom showdown risks exposing sensitive information related to its covert operations.

Heh - going to have to keep an eye on that one.  Do not think that I will be seeing anything on CNN any time soon.

And done with the outside work

| No Comments

Wind has picked up a bit (usually does around 4PM or so) so not spraying any acid today - do that tomorrow before I do my morning routine. Catch it in the still of the morning. A wonderful discovery for dealing with the horsetails - they are an ancient plant - almost indestructible as no herbicide will touch them. Fascinating life-cycle. They incorporate silica in their cellular structure (same as bamboo) and hydrochloric acid eats right through that.  You get immediate visual confirmation within two hours and the plants are deader 'n a doornail in 24.  Have not tried vinegar - I know that regular vinegar does not work.  I have used higher concentrations with some success for other weeds - put a pan of it in the freezer and the water freezes before the acetic acid.

Not hungry so going to putter around for a while. Got some paperwork that needs to be done but ignoring it for now. Anything but.

Made some compost bins out of shipping pallets two months ago and have one completely full now and another well on the way. The stuff will settle as it ages so will continue to top them off throughout summer and fall.  Going to have some really nice compost for next spring's plantings. Still more stuff to cut back - major changes to how the place looks. Cleaner.

Quick break for some apple slices with peanut butter and a diet Pepsi (I'm still too white for Coca Cola). Need to clean and sharpen my pruning shears tonight or tomorrow. Mixing up some more acid to spray on the horsetails - lots of them around.  10% muriatic acid in water with a squooge of dish soap to cut the surface tension works wonders. Add the acid to the water - just like you aught'er.

Always something to do.
Sometimes that can be sitting by the water and basking in the quiet deep energy, peace and light.
Life is good.

Cuba sees the light - protests

| No Comments

From The New York Times:

Cubans Denounce ‘Misery’ in Biggest Protests in Decades
Shouting “Freedom” and other anti-government slogans, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets in cities around the country on Sunday to protest food and medicine shortages, in a remarkable eruption of discontent not seen in nearly 30 years.

Hundreds of people marched through San Antonio de los Baños, southwest of Havana, with videos streaming live on Facebook for nearly an hour before they suddenly disappeared. As the afternoon wore on, other videos appeared from demonstrations elsewhere, including Palma Soriano, in the country’s southeast. Hundreds of people also gathered in Havana, where a heavy police presence preceded their arrival.

“The people are dying of hunger!” one woman shouted during a protest filmed in the province of Artemisa, in the island’s west. “Our children are dying of hunger!”

One clip circulating on Twitter showed protesters overturning a police car in Cardenas, 90 miles east of Havana. Another video showed people looting from one of the much-detested government-run stores, which sell wildly overpriced items in currencies most Cubans do not possess.

In a country known for repressive crackdowns on dissent, the rallies were widely viewed as astonishing. Activists and analysts called it the first time that so many people had openly protested against the Communist government since the so-called Maleconazo uprising, which exploded in the summer of 1994 into a huge wave of Cubans leaving the country by sea.

And of course, this being the NYTimes, they do not mention that the government of Cuba is communist until the fifth paragraph and only in passing.  Cubans are not denouncing 'Misery', they are denouncing the Communist rule that has given them nothing but misery for the last 60+ years - ever since Fidel Castro and his cronies took over.

I would love to visit there some day - almost flew in there once but that is a story for a different time...

Fantastic luck in Denver, Colorado

| No Comments

From the London Daily Mail:

Maid praised as a hero after she alerts authorities to massive weapon stash in Denver hotel close to Coors Field - four days before MLB All-Star game

    • The unnamed maid on Friday reported the find she stumbled upon at the Maven
    • She found 16 long guns, over 1,000 rounds of ammo and body armor
    • On Tuesday Denver hosts the MLB All-Star game at Coors Field, near the hotel
    • Initial fears were that the three men and one woman were planning an attack
    • On Sunday the FBI said they now believe there was no plan to attack the game
    • Instead authorities believe the haul was connected to a drugs deal

A maid at a hotel in Denver has been praised for reporting to authorities a significant weapons stash in one of the rooms, which authorities initially feared could be used for a Vegas-style mass shooting.

Four people have been arrested - with one of the four, a recent divorcee, posting a cryptic Facebook message saying he would 'go out in a big way.'

On Sunday the FBI in Denver said they did not believe the arrests were connected to Tuesday's MLB All-Star game at Coors Field.

'We have no reason to believe this incident was connected to terrorism or a threat directed at the All-Star Game,' they tweeted.

Naaa - the FBI does not want to admit that they had not been aware of the danger so they concocted this phantom drug deal.  Who brings that much firepower to a drug deal?  You want repeat business on both sides, not a confrontational one-time operation. A handgun or two for sure.  Rifles? Not useable for short-range shooting in a hotel room - rifles are for reaching out and touching someone. Handguns are not accurate past ten feet or so - not useable for sniping.  This was a long-distance shoot.

From the Washington Examiner:

Hunter Biden's art gallery vandalized, employee attacked
A man accused of vandalizing Hunter Biden's art gallery and attacking an employee has been arrested, police say.

Rodrick Webber, 47, was detained at approximately 3:40 p.m. Friday at the George Burgess Art Gallery in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City after he defaced artwork inside the gallery, representatives for the New York Police Department said in an email to the Washington Examiner.

Webber allegedly spray-painted the word "Daddy" on a wall inside the gallery, damaging a painting worth $14,500, and when a gallery employee approached him, Webber assaulted him, authorities said.

#1) - didn't know which were Hunter's "art pieces"
#2) - didn't complete his painting - tried while someone was nearby -and-
#3) - committed the assault

Could have been pulled off a lot better if Webber had done some basic research and had had some forethought and planning. Now, any other attempt at this will be a wanna-be copycat and not a brilliant and true art piece. Webber flubbed it big-time - flubbed it for all of us.

Aaaand to work

| No Comments

Craigslist deal was seamless - I had what they wanted, cash was exchanged. Piece of cake.

In the mid 70's and sunny - working in the yard again. Cutting back a lot of the old landscaping - decided what I want to keep and what I want to get rid of so finally getting my butt in gear and out there with a shovel and other implements of creative destruction.

Do not think I will get to the farm this week - the island is proving to be very "sticky" again. Lots to do up there but lots down here as well.

Check back in in a couple of hours...

Heh - versions

| No Comments

From The Epoch Times:

Pennsylvania Department of State Tells Counties Not to Allow Outside Access to Voting Systems
The Pennsylvania agency in charge of elections has issued a new directive telling counties not to let outside parties access electronic voting systems or components of such systems, such as tabulators and ballot printers.

The directive from the Pennsylvania Department of State, released on July 9, states that county boards of elections “shall not” provide any access to third parties that are seeking to examine the systems or system components.

If the counties do allow access, the voting equipment that’s examined “will be considered no longer secure or reliable to use in subsequent elections,” and the department will withdraw its certification for the equipment.

“Such access by third parties undermines chain of custody requirements and strict access limitations necessary to prevent both intentional and inadvertent tampering with electronic voting systems,” Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid, appointed in February by Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf, said in a statement. “It also jeopardizes the security and integrity of the systems and will prevent electronic voting system vendors from affirming that the systems continue to meet Commonwealth security standards and U.S. Election Assistance Commission certification.”

Their reasons are epic in their bogosity.  If the auditors were able to make changes in the way the voting machines operate, the Secretary of State could determine this and correct the next time the machines were used in an election.  A simple matter of resetting them to factory specs and reloading the software.

If there is nothing to hide in the 2020 Presidential Election, why are so many Democrats throwing up such a hissy fit over a simple audit. They reveal themselves in their protest.

The two-page directive can be found here:  "DIRECTIVE CONCERNING ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEMS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMAGING OF SOFTWARE AND MEMORY FILES, ACCESS TO RELATED INTERNAL COMPONENTS, AND THE CONSEQUENCES TO COUNTY BOARDS OF ALLOWING SUCH ACCESS"

Suprised that they are not invoking a kitchen sink - they list everything else.
The equivalent of throwing a handfull of poo and seeing what sticks.
See what happens in a court of law.

And out - usual stuff

| No Comments

Slept in - almost ten hours. Delightful. Dog walk and an extended time lingering over coffee.
Been reading Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary - a lot of fun and very well thought out science.

Meeting with someone at 1:00 PM this afternoon - working at home after then.

Quick surf turned up nothing of interest - really slow news weekend.

Good - it will be expensive but they should have maintained their infrastructure.
From Los Angeles station KTLA:

Miami-Dade courthouse closes due to safety concerns after condo collapse
The Miami-Dade County Courthouse will begin undergoing repairs immediately because of safety concerns found during a review prompted by the deadly collapse of a nearby condominium building, officials said.

An engineering firm that examined the 28-story courthouse recommended that it undergo immediate structural repairs and that floors 16 and above be closed. All courthouse employees, including those who work on lower floors, will return to working from home, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and other leaders said in a joint statement late Friday.

In its report, engineering firm U.S. Structures Inc. said that during its June 30 inspection, it found structural distress in various structural members such as support beams and joists, including steel columns that are in “poor condition” and concrete columns that have numerous cracks.

All you Drama Student graduates working as a barista?  Should have hit the math books a little harder and become a structural engineer.  Be rolling in the money now.

And videos - productive day

| No Comments

Time to vege out on some YouTube videos.  Sleeping in tomorrow.  Meeting up with someone at the storage unit for a Craigslist deal (I have several units at the facility and this one is a very small one that I keep almost empty - not advertising anything else there).

Looking at heading to the farm sometime Monday evening for an overnight - bring another van load of stuff down to sort.

Still thinking about adopting the new Shepherd dog - she has a really high drive.  Neither Bear nor Truffle are high drive and I do like my peace and quiet.  Mandy would be best with a growing family with active kids. Sweet critter but not a good match for this household.

Did a couple loads of laundry, refilled the hummingbird feeders.  Have a bee feeder out as well but not getting very many - I was slammed last year. Nice weather - I like the cool mornings with the clouds burning off around Noon.

Finally took a photo of the baby barn swallows:

20210710-boids.jpg

Greedy little buggers - using the porch light.  Did not want to use a strobe so they are a bit blurry.  Three of them.  Mom and Dad were close by letting me know of their displeasure.  After these babies are fledged, that nest is going to be taken down and I will make a point to watch next spring in case Dad tries to rebuild it.  Make some nest boxes over winter and get them up before they come back.

Had a very nice Marantz turntable come in to the thrift store. Belt driven turntables sometimes have problems with the drive belts ageing and falling apart.  This one was no different:

20210710-6200.jpg

This particular model is quite sought after (eBay):

20210710-6200-sale.jpg

A replacement belt is on order and I will spend a few hours cleaning it up.  Everything else works great on it so it will be a sweet deal for the new owner.  Going to list it for $200 - we could get more by selling online but we have such a large volume of items coming in that it does not make sense to spend the time packing and shipping.  Someone local will come in, buy it and treasure it.  Our group does a lot of really good work for the community and the store is one of our major sources of income.  Price things cheap and move them out - make our money on volume.

See what the YouTube faeries have brought for me tonight...

Just another swamp rat. "She" sounded conservative but it was only a show - from Big League Politics:

Caitlyn Jenner Admits ‘She’ is Running for California Governor to Aid Transgender Agenda, Not Because of Republican Values
California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner recently appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Live where he admitted he doesn’t care about the GOP, Trump or America First.

Jenner confirmed that he only cares about promoting LGBT insanity and that is what is driving his run for governor. This is what the Republican Party is promoting as political leadership in this day and age.

“My loyalties do not lie with Donald Trump. My loyalties do not lie with the Republican Party. My loyalties and what I’m fighting for are my community, the LGBT community, and particularly the trans issues that are out there because there are many of them and so that’s where my fight is,” Jenner said to Carlson.

Video at the site.  Like I said, this is good to know now as he was sounding pretty good as a candidate - California needs a strong dose of conservatism.  Get things turned around and back on track.

I am all for people having freedom of expression and being free from discrimination but come on now.  About 4% of the US population is homosexual.  The percentage of THAT population that are gender-confused amounts to a rounding error. About 0.1% of the 4%

US Population:  332,500,000
# of homosexual: 13,300,000
# of gender-confused: 13,300

You are shoving all of this in our faces for only 13K people?  If all of the trannies in the USA moved to San Francisco (about 900,000 people), they would only amount to about 1.4% of the total S.F. population. Sure - have your parades and seriously rock out.  Have fun but do not shove your issues in our faces.  We do not hate you, we know some of you and care for you but this constant beating of the drum is getting tiring.

I think that people could be justified in thinking that there was some issue of mental health at play here - Narcissistic Personality Disorder perhaps? I know that there is a much higher rate of suicide.

Seeing all sorts of traffic.  Nothing military in this screen-shot - have the cloaking device running for now:

20210710-adsb.jpg

Now all I need is to integrate the Vessel Tracking network and I'll be all set:

20210710-ship.jpg

The radio service is called AIS (Automatic Identification System) and there are some receivers out there but they are for commercial maratime and yacht use and priced accordingly. My ADS-B receiver was under $30 with sales tax and shipping included.  Looking around to see if there are any SDR/Raspberry Pi scripts - I have a couple extra Pi's (older versions) and two or three SDRs I have been using for Ham Radio services.

Found this one - I'll keep looking though - it just receives the signal and outputs an NMEA code string.  Looking for something that can integrate with a chart.

What can I say - I want it all. Now 💩

Do not forget - Fascism

| No Comments

Swiped from Mostly Cajun:

20200710-fascism.jpg

Happy 100th birthday - Harvey Ball

| No Comments

You may not know the man but you have certainly seen one of his works.
From Infogalactic:

Harvey Ball
Harvey Ross Ball (July 10, 1921 – April 12, 2001) was an American commercial artist. He is recognized as the earliest known designer of the smiley, which became an enduring and notable international icon.

Yeah - this lil' bugger:

20210710-smiley.jpg

A few days ago, it was announced that Pennsylvania would be going through an audit of the 2020 November election. Needless to say, for some strange incomprehensible reason, a certain wing of the government is throwing up all kinds of roadblocks.  Almost as though there was somthing that they wanted to hide:

The good news is that the State of Pennsylvania is going ahead with the audit.
State Senator Doug Mastriano:

Wonderful news - take our country back from the corrupt hands and get it back into the hands of We The People.

If there was nothing to worry about, the Democrats would not be moving heaven and earth to stop these audits.

A Malthusian timeline

| No Comments

Malthusians are never right - their predictions always turn out wrong.
A little list:

    • 1960’s no more oil in 10 years
    • 1970’s another ice age in 10 years
    • 1980’s acid rain will destroy all crops in 10 years
    • 1990’s The ozone layer will be destroyed in 10 years
    • 2000’s Ice floes will be gone in 10 years.
    • 2000 Y2k (millennium) will destroy everything!
    • 2001 Anthrax will kill us all!
    • 2002 West Nile virus will kill us all!
    • 2003 SARS will kill us all!
    • 2005 Bird flu will kill us all!
    • 2006 E. Coli will kill us all!
    • 2008 The financial crash will kill us all!
    • 2009 Swine flu will kill us all!
    • 2012 Mayan calendar will end. We will all die!
    • 2013 North Korea will start the 3rd world war. We will all die!
    • 2014 Ebola will kill us all!
    • 2015 ISIS will kill us all!
    • 2016 Zika will kill us all!
    • 2018 Global warming will kill us all!
    • 2019 CO2 will kill us all!
    • 2020 Corona will kill us all!

Fear kills us more than these.  These are just bullshit.

The timing is a bit curious - Haiti

| No Comments

From the London Daily Mail:

Haitian opposition leader hired Washington DC lobbyist two days before president's assassination and is now set to be questioned by cops over the murder

    • Pierre Reginald Boulos signed up Art Estopinan to lobby in DC on his behalf some 48 hours before the murder
    • Boulos was angry at Moïse's decision to stay on as president past February 7 - which he saw as end of his term
    • Politician has strongly denied any role in the killing, which has left the island nation on the brink of civil war
    • Boulos said he hired Washington veteran Estopian to give him access to President Biden's' administration

The leader of Haiti's opposition hired a Washington DC lobbyist two days before the island's president was assassinated - and is now due to be questioned by cops in connection with the murder.

Pierre Reginald Boulos signed up Art Estopinan, a former chief of staff to former Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), to push his interests on Capitol Hill on Monday - some 48 hours before President Jovenel Moïse was killed by hitmen during a dawn raid on his house.

Boulos - leader of the MTVAyiti party - is a controversial figure who, in the aftermath of a 2004 coup, oversaw the import of weapons into the country so they could be distributed to the Haitian National Police, according to a 2005 US diplomatic cable exposed by WikiLeaks.

There are deep-state fingerprints are all over it - how much has to be revealed before people revolt and toss these corrupt goblins in jail where they belong. Lampost + rope. Some assembly required.

A very thorough job - from The Epoch Times:

Arizona Senate Conducting New Count of Maricopa County Ballots
The ballots cast in Arizona’s largest county in the 2020 election will be counted for a third time on orders from the state’s Senate.

Nearly 2.1 million ballots submitted in Maricopa County for the presidential contest were tabulated, as normal, by election officials. They were recounted by hand by audit teams hired by the Arizona Senate in a process that was completed late last month.

Now the Senate will do its own recount that will provide a number to compare to those from the county and from the auditors.

“Maricopa County says there’s 2,089,563 ballots. We did the hand count, and they’re finalizing that number, but we just wanted a third number to tie everything together, make sure we have more—the more data points, the better,” former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, the Senate’s audit liaison, told The Epoch Times.

The new count will focus on the number of ballots and will not count the actual votes, unlike the first two tabulations.

Very good idea - if there was a swath of ballots brought in at the last moment to sway the vote towards Biden, the democrats would want to make them dissapear.  To do a total tally now at the end of the process will showcase this if it has happened. There have been enough reports of ballots on different paper, ballots with xeroxed votes, mail-in ballots with unfolded paper, etc... to know that something was very rotten.

Clever and simple idea.

Surfed while having some breakfast - nothing out there.

Cool and cloudy this morning - heading out soon for a dog walk and then my morning coffee.

More yard work this afternoon - looking good.

The barn sparrow chicks are getting big - they are very demanding and their parents are doing a great job of raising them. See if I can take a photo or two - been coming and going through a different door most of the time so as not to disturb them too much.

Got the script installed and running for the unfiltered ADS-B service - it shows all aircraft within range of my antenna (still need to build a better one and get everything permanently mounted). Looks to be doing fine - checked the logs this morning and everybody is playing nice.

Volunteering this morning so heading out.  Got a nice telescope on the bench for repair - they left the batteries in so replacing the clips - corrosion.

More spew in a couple hours...

It fits over Google Maps - quite clever:  mapcoordinates.net

Does one thing very well.  Simple, fast, free. Love it.

Not surprising

| No Comments

20210709-arkancide.jpg

If this comes to pass, I hope they let us live long enough to point and jeer at the useful idiots and yell nya nya nya as they are lined up against the wall to be shot. Words from someone who was there, who survived Marxism and who has the tee-shirt - from Vanderleun:

20210709-commies.jpg

Here we go again 😍 - James G. Murphy and this puppy in particular:

20210709-nautilus.jpg

Bidding is at $65 right now - I will need to drive to Fife, WA to take an up-close and personal look at it.  It looks to be made from model-grade plywood so not something that is really of interest. It would be worth $200 to me - if the bidding stays down, I might go and look at it.

Big fan of Jules Verne and Captain Nemo.  This is a favorite website of mine: Vulcania Submarine
Celebrating their 45th anniversary, their Nautilus submarine's 30th anniversary and their website's 20th.

And nothing out there

| No Comments

Fun day at work - getting to know the regular customers and holding stuff aside when I know they are looking for something. Lots of really good stuff coming through so it is always something different.

Had lunch and surfed for a bit - there is nothing happening out there.  I have seen slow news days but this takes the cake.

Heading out to the bank and to run a couple of errands.  Up to the farm Monday evening for an overnight stay - time to bring another load-'o-crap down from the farm.

Nice and sunny outside - yard work today.

WTF - Michigan

| No Comments

They now have 52,566 people without power

Lots and lots of small scattered outages and then a big swath in the Farmington Hills area about 50 miles Northwest of Detroit. Looks like their whole grid has been unstable for the last month or so. Constant outages everywhere.  The first time I noticed this it was due to a large rainstorm taking out a few substations in the Dearborn area but this is a month later and they are still having major problems.

Spend any money on infrastructure or is it all going to those sweet sweet six-figure salaries for your administrative staff.

I like it - a simple sign

| No Comments

20210708-vaccine.jpg

As the details come out - Haiti

| No Comments

As things get interesting - from the London Daily Mail:

Moment baying mob captures Colombian 'mercenaries' accused of 'assassinating' Haiti president Jovenel Moïse along with two Americans - as power struggle breaks out between rivals over rule of troubled nation

    • Police said 26 Colombians and two US citizens were involved in the raid on Jovenel Moise's mansion in the early hours of Wednesday, without providing any motivation as scepticism grows among the populace
    • And power struggle is developing in Haiti with two men both claiming they are Moise's legitimate successors
    • Under the constitution, Haiti's chief justice René Sylvestre would normally take charge after the President's death - but he died of coronavirus two weeks ago
    • Now interim prime minister Claude Joseph is claiming power, however he was due to be replaced within days by prime minister-elect Ariel Henry who Moise had selected in an attempt to appease his critics
    • There are growing questions over who had a motive to order Moise's assassination after the mercenary execution squad are slowly rounded up
    • Eleven of them were captured in a special forces raid on the Taiwanese embassy, and four were captured by mobs on the streets of Port-au-Prince

This is the moment a baying mob captured Colombian ex-military mercenaries in Haiti, dragging them bloody and beaten through the slums of Port-au-Prince, amid chaos in the power vacuum left by the president's assassination.

Police said 26 Colombians and two US citizens were involved in the raid on Jovenel Moise's mansion in the early hours of Wednesday, without providing any motivation or information on who ordered the hit as scepticism grows among the populace.

And a power struggle is developing in Haiti with two men both claiming they are Moise's legitimate successors.

Under the constitution, Haiti's chief justice René Sylvestre would normally take charge after the President's death - but he died of coronavirus two weeks ago.

Now prime minister Claude Joseph is claiming power, however he was due to be replaced within days by prime minister-elect Ariel Henry who Moise had selected in an attempt to appease his critics.

There are growing questions over who had a motive to order Moise's assassination after the mercenary execution squad are slowly rounded up.

More at the site - lots of photos.  No one really knows the motive or who organised it.  Yet.
This has one of the USA TLAs (three-letter agencies: CIA, FBI, etc...) written all over it.  In crayon.
Yes, they achieved their goal but - the whole world will know who did it very very soon.

That zone is really active - USGS Earthquake map again:

20210709-quake.jpg

From the USGS Earthquake Map (zoomed in):

20210708-quake.jpg

Paging Messrs Dunning and Kruger

| No Comments

Messrs Dunning and Kruger to the white courtesy telephone please:

20210708-smash.jpg

And that shopping list is just beginning.  How much for the leather backpack.  Those boots are a couple hundred.

Who knows, maybe this is just a phase and she will wise up.

Looks like the London Daily Mail is doing the journalism that nobody in the US is even bothering to do. They are actually going out and getting the story and reporting it to us - timely and unbiased.

American 'mercenary' and former head of security at Canadian Embassy arrested over assassination of Haiti president Jovenel Moïse as five other 'hitmen' are picked up by police and four are shot dead

    • James Solages, a US citizen of Haitian descent and president of a local charity, was taken into custody, according to Haiti's Minister of Elections and Inter-party Relations Mathias Pierre
    • Solages is the president of the board of directors of Jacmel First, a charity founded in south Florida in 2019
    • The charity focuses on ending childhood hunger in Haiti including through education, its website reads
    • Solages' bio describes him as the ex-chief commander of bodyguards for The Canadian embassy in Haiti, a 'certified diplomatic agent' and a budding politician
    • Pierre said at least one of the other suspects arrested is also believed to be a Haitian American
    • Six suspects arrested, four killed and two remain at large following Wednesday's assassination, cops said
    • At least two of the men brought in alive were found hiding in bushes by civilians who roughed them up before turning them over to police
    • Moïse was shot 12 times in Wednesday's early morning raid on his mansion in the hills above Port-au-Prince

An American 'mercenary' and former head of security at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti is among the six 'assassins' who have been arrested over the murder of President Jovenel Moïse, according to a government official.

James Solages, a US citizen of Haitian descent and president of a local charity, was taken into custody over Wednesday's early morning raid on Moïse's mansion in the hills above Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Haiti's Minister of Elections and Inter-party Relations Mathias Pierre told the Associated Press.

Solages is the 35-year-old president of the board of directors of Jacmel First, a charity founded in south Florida in 2019 which is focused on ending childhood hunger in Haiti.

Pierre said at least one of the other suspects arrested is also believed to be a Haitian American.

The minister would not provide additional details about Solages' background, nor would he provide the name of the second Haitian-American arrested. He also did not detail either of their alleged involvement in the assassination or what evidence led to their arrests.

Wanna bet that there is a financial connection between Jacmel First and The Clinton Foundation?
Let me be the first to say that Mr. Solanges did not hang himself while he was in jail awaiting a hearing.
Oh.  And by the way, I tried going to the Jacmel First website and got this 404 page:

20210708-jacmel.jpg

I tried looking at The Internet Archive and they only show three captures all of which are from this month.
They do have what looks to be a complete website though.

It will be interesting to see the connections between the Clintons and all of this - they have quite the history in Haiti.
I mean, even The Huffington Post is critical of their "work". More here, here and here for starters. Evil people.

The guy has the golden touch - knows exactly when to buy and when to sell. That is why Nancy can afford her $50,000 freezers filed with $13/pint gourmet ice cream (here and here).

Turns out there is a much simpler explanation - from Breitbart:

Pelosi’s Husband Bought Amazon Call Options Weeks Before Pentagon Announced Contract Likely Benefitting Company
Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), bought Amazon call options just six weeks before the Pentagon announced it was canceling a multi-billion dollar contract with Microsoft and starting a new one that opened a door for Amazon’s participation.

The Biden Pentagon on Tuesday abruptly announced it was canceling its multi-billion JEDI cloud services contract with Microsoft and starting a new one that Amazon could compete for.

Amazon had been favored to win the JEDI contract after the idea for a single cloud infrastructure was first conceived in 2017, but it was ultimately awarded to Microsoft in 2019. Amazon sued, arguing they lost due to then-President Donald Trump’s personal dislike of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. A Pentagon inspector general report found that Trump did not interfere in the contract.

Nope - no insider trading at all.  That shit is illegal - after all, Martha Stuart spent five months in jail and another five months in home confinement (153 acre estate - really roughing it) for essentially the same thing. Nancy and Paul would never do anything like that now would they?

Jail for both of them.  Now.

Who knows - maybe it will fall off into the Pacific Ocean after all.

Started at 3:49 PM this afternoon with a 5.9 Mag only 9.83 km (5.7 miles) deep and it has been rattling the china every few minutes since then.  Glad that these are frequent - a lot of strain and it would have been major if everything had let go at once.

The Sacramento, CA CBS affiliate has the story with some videos:

5.9-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Near California-Nevada Border
The US Geological Survey reports that a 5.9-magnitude earthquake happened on the eastern side of the Sierra in California, 19 miles SSW of Smith Valley, Nevada.

There were also more than a dozen aftershocks ranging from 3.1 up to 4.2, which were near the towns of Walker, Markleeville, Dardanelle, and Coleville. They all happened just within minutes of each other.

5.9 is enough for some structural damage, stuff falling off shelves, some buckling of roads.
Keep waiting for the big one to hit here - overdue...

Sweet pup - Mandy

| No Comments

A friend I work with is looking to rehome a 3-year old German Shephard and I think that I will be taking her.

She is a bit high-drive - Bear is definitely low drive so we are meeting up a few more times to make sure they are compatible but so far, so good.  They were on their best behavior this afternoon so we need more hanging out. Everyone played together well and wore each other out.

More in a few days...

Fascinating work with AI

| No Comments

Using text to generate images - one example:

This text input:  “a cityscape at night” produced this image:

20210708-AI-art.jpg

More here: Alien Dreams: An Emerging Art Scene

Fudging the numbers

| No Comments

Heat deaths in Washington State.  From Seattle station KOMO:

Washington's heat wave death toll rises to 78
Washington State health officials say at least 78 people died from heat-related illnesses during last week’s extreme heat wave.

In comparison, 39 people died from heat-related illnesses from 2015 – 2020, including seven last summer, according to data from the state health department.

They cut their numbers off at 2015.

The major heat wave of July/August 2009 would be - how shall we say - an inconvenient truth...

Creepy porn lawyer is learning about Karma firsthand. From CNBC News:

Disgraced Trump foe Michael Avenatti weeps as he is sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for Nike extortion scheme
Michael Avenatti, the brash attorney who had been a leading foe of then-President Donald Trump, was sentenced Thursday to 30 months in prison for a brazen, botched scheme to extort athletic apparel giant Nike out of up to $25 million.

That sentence was much lower than the nine years that was the bottom of the sentencing range suggested by federal guidelines, and not anywhere close to “a substantial” prison term sought by federal prosecutors for the California lawyer.

And he is not out of the woods yet:

At his trial next week, Avenatti is accused of crimes that include defrauding clients out of millions of dollars. One of those clients was a mentally ill paraplegic.

Avenatti next year is due back in Manhattan federal court to be tried on charges related to allegedly swindling Daniels, out of $300,000 in proceeds for a book she wrote.

Hope he enjoyed the ride because it has been a short meteoric and fast one.
Lots of time to contemplate his actions.
Pray for redemption - there is always hope for that.

Tracking military aircraft

| No Comments

I am subscribed to a forum on the topic.

Someone was breathless - they posted that they saw a whole bunch of the Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion and the Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft flying into Florida.  Was this anything to do with the assasination in Haiti?  Was there something brewing?  Is the deep state planning a coup?

Another member of the list posted back that no, you dumbass, the airplanes are based in Florida.  They had flown away to escape potential damage from Hurricane Elsa. They were returning home.

Have yet to see a reply from the original poster. This is turning into quite a fun little hobby.

Puttering around at home

| No Comments

Woke up early and decided to stay awake - reset my sleep schedule.

Cloudy and cool today - down to 52° last night. Dog walk, coffee and some yard work.

Heading over to a coworker's house to look at a dog.  She has a 3-year old German Shepard who was rescued recently and is looking for a good home.  I had been thinking about getting a puppy as Bear is approaching 10 years old.  Truffle is a sweetheart but she is not a working dog and will never be. See how everyone gets along.  Just another handful of kibble after all.

Also planning to work on the ADS-B receiver some more - getting the script written to feed the other site.  Had an email from someone outside the country asking if I would "pretty please" install a script to feed their own site.  My antenna is about 30 miles from a large military airport.  I think not...

Seen online

| No Comments

One of the social media websites - I unsubscribed earlier this year and do not miss it one bit:

20210708-facebook.jpg

A list - the "pandemic"

| No Comments

From Zuby Music by way of My Pensieve:

20 Things I've Learned (Or Had Confirmed) About Humanity During The 'Pandemic'

    1. Most people would rather be in the majority, than be right.
    2. At least 20% of the population has strong authoritarian tendencies, which will emerge under the right conditions.
    3.  Fear of death is only rivalled by the fear of social disapproval. The latter could be stronger.
    4.  Propaganda is just as effective in the modern day as it was 100 years ago. Access to limitless information has not made the average person any wiser.
    5.  Anything and everything can and will be politicised by the media, government, and those who trust them.
    6.  Many politicians and large corporations will gladly sacrifice human lives if it is conducive to their political and financial aspirations.
    7.  Most people believe the government acts in the best interests of the people. Even many who are vocal critics of the government.
    8.  Once they have made up their mind, most people would rather to commit to being wrong, than admit they were wrong.
    9.  Humans can be trained and conditioned quickly and relatively easily to significantly alter their behaviours - for better or worse.
    10. When sufficiently frightened, most people will not only accept authoritarianism, but demand it.
    11. People who are dismissed as 'conspiracy theorists' are often well researched and simply ahead of the mainstream narrative.
    12. Most people value safety and security more than freedom and liberty, even if said 'safety' is merely an illusion.
    13. Hedonic adaptation occurs in both directions, and once inertia sets in, it is difficult to get people back to 'normal'.
    14. A significant % of people thoroughly enjoy being subjugated.
    15. 'The Science' has evolved into a secular pseudo-religion for millions of people in the West. This religion has little to do with science itself.
    16. Most people care more about looking like they are doing the right thing, rather than actually doing the right thing.
    17. Politics, the media, science, and the healthcare industries are all corrupt, to varying degrees. Scientists and doctors can be bought as easily as politicians.
    18. If you make people comfortable enough, they will not revolt. You can keep millions docile as you strip their rights, by giving them money, food, and entertainment.
    19. Modern people are overly complacent and lack vigilance when it comes to defending their own freedoms from government overreach.
    20. It's easier to fool a person than to convince them that they have been fooled.

Bonus thought:

21. Most people are fairly compassionate and have good intentions (this is good)

As a result, most people deeply struggle to understand that some people, including our 'leaders', CAN have malicious or perverse intentions (this is bad).

Printed in full because it was impossible to excerpt.
This is the complete list of what we are dealing with.

A clever idea

| No Comments

Photoshop your pertinent data, print and laminate:
(bonus points if the QR code goes to someplace fun)

20210707-control.jpg

A bit of good news - Haiti

| No Comments

They got two of them.  From the Daily Mail:

Four assassins who killed Haitian President Jovenel Moïse are shot dead in fierce gun battle and two more are arrested after they took cops hostage: First lady arrives at Miami hospital in critical condition

Moïse was for law and order.  A conservative and a business man. He was investigating the corruption regarding the 2010 earthquake and how the Clinton Foundation became so heavily invested in the Nation and how they made so much money.  The Clinton Foundation came there to do good and they wound up doing well.  Very very well. Maybe my earlier link was correct - I would not be surprised.

I doubt the two goblins in custody will talk but you never know...

Chicago helps Mr. Biden

| No Comments

Mr. Biden helps Chicago - Newsmax:

Biden Giving Chicago Billions to Address Mayor Lightfoot's Crime Wave
Just hours after three undercover law enforcement officers were shot in Chicago on Wednesday morning, President Joe Biden visited with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot at an airport stop to discuss gun violence and federal support.

"During a greet with Mayor Lightfoot on the airport tarmac, President Biden expressed his personal support for the two ATF officials and the Chicago police officer who were shot earlier today," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Wednesday.

That is the official story - the payoff?

Psaki told reporters. "Cook County is getting over $1 billion, and the state government of Illinois is receiving an additional $8.13 billion."

90% of this money will go to pet projects and graft.  There will be 10% spent on a very showy grand opening of some new agency to specifically address the growing problem of __________________ (fill in the blank). This agency will overspend its budget and next years budget will be increased to account. This agency will never be terminated.  This agency will never do anything useful. This agency will employ more and more people, outgrow its space, move into its own building and never, ever do a damned thing. At least (eventually) you get a Drivers License from the DMV.

Lightfoot has no leadership skills.  No management skills.  She can not even delegate to those who do. She is credentialed and hits the politically correct talking points but otherwise?  In seriously over her head and not that smart.

The Biden family - another look

| No Comments

From the London Daily Mail - they are doing a lot of journalism that American media outlets simply are not touching. Does not fit the narrative I guess.

'It's a disease from mommy and me.' Joe Biden's shocking admission of addiction is disclosed in texts to son Hunter - as it's revealed FIVE members of the Biden family have been to rehab for drug or alcohol abuse

    • Joe Biden's children Hunter and Ashley, his brother Frank, niece Caroline and late son's widow Hallie have all had stints in rehab, DailyMail.com can reveal
    • All five of the Bidens have suffered from either drug or alcohol addiction and had spells in treatment centers – some at the orders of a judge
    • In text messages to Hunter from June 2018, Joe Biden referred to his son's addiction as a hereditary 'disease from mommy and me'. President Biden himself is reportedly a teetotaler
    • Hallie - Beau's widow who became Hunter's lover - has been to rehab four times, costing over $100,000 and some of it allegedly paid for by Joe Biden, texts reveal
    • Texts from Ashley, 40, on Hunter's laptop reveal that she has also had to get sober after falling prey to addiction and having run-ins with the law and sent Hallie scathing messages
    • Joe's brother Frank has had multiple alcohol-related driving offences and was ordered by a judge to attend rehab for three months after a 2004 arrest
    • Caroline Biden, 34, daughter of Joe Biden's other brother, Jim, has also attended court-ordered rehab after a DUI and has struggled for years with addiction

Five members of Joe Biden's close family have been to rehab for drug or alcohol abuse, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The president's brother Frank, children Hunter and Ashley, his niece Caroline and his late son's widow who also became Hunter's lover, Hallie, have all suffered from addiction issues and had spells in treatment centers – some at the orders of a judge.

In text messages to Hunter, Joe even referred to his son's addiction as a 'disease from mommy and me.'

Much much more at the site - screen caps, texts, the whole sordid story. I really wish that the whole thing would be released at once - let all of us dig through it. Incredible that the deep state let this person become *Resident.  They are not that bright. They think otherwise but no, they are really not that bright.

Country of origin - of course

| No Comments

20210707-corona.jpg

Good points - election

| No Comments

From 90 Miles:

20210707-election.jpg

Can't lead.  In over her head. Calls "the big guy" for help. New York Post:

Chicago mayor asks Biden for help after bloody July 4 weekend
President Biden was met at O’Hare International Airport Wednesday by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot following a deadly Independence Day weekend in the Windy City.

The president was greeted by Lightfoot and Illinois’ Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker as he arrived in Chicago but he didn’t focus much time on the more than 100 shootings over the holiday as it was just a quick stop for him en route to suburban McHenry County for an event touting his Build Back Better initiative.

According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Biden reiterated his commitment to working with Lightfoot and city leaders to counter gun violence and added that the Department of Justice would soon be in touch about a recently announced strike force meant to crack down on gun trafficking in Chicago and four other cities — including New York.

Let's see now - July 4th weekend. 108 shootings. 17 fatalities.  How many were by legally owned guns? Zero.  How many were done by police officer? Zero. And yet, they want to take our legally owned guns away to "solve" their problem. Their problem stares at themselves in the mirror when they brush their teeth.

Bad news for Hati

| No Comments

Haiti has always been a corrupt bannana republic - ever since United Fruit company got in there.
It continues to this day - from the Miami Herald:

Haiti President Jovenel Moïse assassinated in middle-of-the-night attack at his home
Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated and his wife wounded during an armed attack in the early hours of Wednesday at their private residence above the hills of Port-au-Prince, throwing the Caribbean nation, already in the throes of a political crisis, into fresh uncertainty about its leadership.

Acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who first told his fellow Haitians about the president’s assassination, said he is in charge and that the country is now under martial law.

Early Wednesday morning, Joseph said in a statement that the attack occurred around 1 a.m. Wednesday, and some of the unidentified assailants spoke Spanish. The head of state, the statement said, was “fatally injured.”

First Lady Martine Moïse was flown out of the country Wednesday afternoon to Miami and taken to Jackson Health System’s Ryder Trauma Center.

And this is curious:

The assailants apparently claimed to be agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to videos taken by people in the area of the president’s home. Moïse, 53, lives in Pelerin 5, a neighborhood just above the hills in the capital.

On the videos, someone with an American accent is heard yelling in English over a megaphone, “DEA operation. Everybody stand down. DEA operation. Everybody back up, stand down.”

Did Moïse not pay his bribe to Schumer and Pelosi in time? Did they get a better offer from Joseph? My guess is that it was probably done with the consent of our deep state if not directly by our deep state. Classic test to find out: Cui Bono  Walks like a duck, looks like a duck, smells like a duck, sounds like a duck...

And of course, one has to ask: What did he know about Hillary?

The Election Audit is almost finished in Georga and it points to a rigged election.
Now? Pennsylvania - from The Epoch Times:

Pennsylvania Senate Chairman Initiates Forensic Probe of 2020, 2021 Elections
A Pennsylvania senator announced on July 7 that he has triggered a forensic investigation of the 2020 and 2021 elections.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, issued letters to several counties requesting information and materials that he said would enable an investigation.

“It’s distinct from an audit or forensic audit. It’s a big deep dive, like we saw in Arizona, but even deeper,” Mastriano told The Epoch Times.

“It takes a hard look at software, machine, scanners, in addition to looking at all the ballots themselves to see if they were hand-filled-in or copied by a machine. So a scientific approach to get to the bottom of what happened, what went right, what went wrong in an election. It takes out all bias.”

Damn right skippy - this is great news.  The Democrats stole the election. Something out of a bannana republic.  Biden won by 81 million votes? Get fscking real. Let's keep digging until the whole sordid mess is revealed and people start going to jail.

Back in the door again

| No Comments

Do not know why I slept in - it was delicious but a bit of a panic when I woke up. Usually wake up around 4 to 6 AM, let the pups out and then go back for a 2 hour nap. (Segmented Sleep) That nap turned into almost four hours. Unexpected.

Ran up North after - dog food, some grease for the string trimmer, groceries, etc... Home for the day (and tomorrow).

See if today has anything of note.

Yikes - slept in

| No Comments

Out the door.

20210706-pizza.jpg

Latest stats here.  July to date: Shot & Killed: 25, Shot & Wounded: 124, Total Shot: 149, Total Homicides: 28

Slow day for news

| No Comments

And I thought that weekends were slow on the news cycle.  The day after our National Holiday (and long weekend) is downright brutal.  There is nuttin' out there.

Feeling sleepy and working tomorrow morning so early bedtime for me - more yard work tomorrow afternoon. Making progress.

Good news from New York City

| No Comments

The good guy won the vote even through the deep state tried to fix it.
From The New York Post:

Eric Adams declared winner of the primary, most likely next NYC mayor
Eric Adams won the Democratic nomination in the race to replace Mayor Bill de Blasio — squeaking out a narrow victory in the ranked-choice primary, according to a preliminary count of the final vote tally Tuesday evening.

Adams emerged narrowly ahead of Kathryn Garcia, 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent, according to unofficial figures posted on the BOE’s website.

Adams declared the primary race over in an evening statement.

Garcia was the deep-state choice - Adams is a Democrat but he is a retired Police Officer and is very conservative. A classical liberal. Needless to say, there were some voting "irregularities" which almost tipped the race to Garcia.

Oh no. Oh HELL NO! - housing

| No Comments

Are the people running *Resident Biden this stupid? The banks will not care, they will get bailed out. It's the investors, the homebuyers, and later the homeowners who are going to get screwed over. AGAIN. We did this already in 2006 and it fscked up housing prices through 2012. We are only now just recovering. From Politico:

Biden’s new dilemma: How to slash housing costs for low-income borrowers
President Joe Biden’s move to fire the top U.S. mortgage regulator is triggering calls from fellow Democrats to use the agency to expand access to loans for lower-income people, who have struggled to buy homes since the financial crisis.

That’s setting up a clash with Republicans over how far the government should go in shaping an industry that makes up one-fifth of the U.S. economy.

A long-awaited Supreme Court decision last month gave Biden the ability to remove the Trump-era leader of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and he wasted no time. The president installed as interim director an agency veteran who says she’ll make affordable housing and combating discrimination a top priority, but who has underwhelmed those on the left, who say she is a mere caretaker.

Progressives are concerned that Biden will be too timid in changing course at the powerful agency overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two companies that stand behind half of the $11 trillion U.S. mortgage market. Top Democrats are calling on Biden to quickly name a permanent leader — a position that Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown's spokesperson said is “vital to the administration’s goals of building an equitable economy and must be filled quickly.”

Of course Brown wants this.  He is salivating at the prospect. The Obama administration bailed out the banks in 2008 (Remember, Brown is the Senate Banking Chair - he just wants to take care of his friends.  The ones that get him all the sweet hookers and blow). Brown is operating under the impression that this will happen again.

Again, we have seen this all before twelve years ago and a lot of the same players are lining up to run the scam again.

Don't you want to guarantee affordable housing to the poor? If they can not afford it? No.
This is leading up to a very large bubble and will burst. Not if. When.

I have ragged on Michigan as they have been showing some unreliability to their customers.
Looks like New Jersey and Pennsylvania are right up there - dems love to maintain infrastructure:

Pennsylvania - 15,691 outages (2M customers)

New Jersey - 68,292 outages ( 1.1M customers)

New York and Connecticut are also showing more than 10K outages.

Let them try

| No Comments

This will be fun - time to make a big bowl of popcorn and sit back for the show if they try
From Breitbart:

Joe Biden to Send Government Officials Door to Door Across America to Pressure People to Accept Vaccination
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he would be sending officials out to knock on people’s doors across America to pressure them to take the coronavirus vaccine.

“Now we need to go community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and often times door by door – literally knocking on doors to get help to the remaining people,” Biden said during his speech about coronavirus.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki used a similar phrase Tuesday in which she said coronavirus preventative measures will entail “targeted community by community, door to door outreach to get the remaining Americans vaccinated.”

Talk about out of touch.  They will probably do a couple of "show trials" in some of the bluer counties and call it quits.
I would almost welcome the intrusion - camera recording every moment of course...

And another day begins

| No Comments

Ready to head out.  Nothing on the internet. Super overcast this morning - socked in at 7:00 AM but it is burning off and looks to be another sunny day.

Heading out for some errands - super low on dog food and some comestibles for me.

And another day draws to a close

| No Comments

Productive.  Time for some videos and to bed.

Did about 15 feet of bed clearing.  These are old plantings that are next to the house and are growing up against the wooden siding.  Clear those out before rainy season. Also cut out some holly bushes - do not like these and they are an invasive weed in this area so better to remove them entirely. Building up a burn pile with all the trimmings. Holly doesn't compost well so burning it and incorporating the biochar in my compost for mulching next spring. Couple more days and the house will be looking a lot better.

The barn swallow nest by my front door has at least two hatchlings - saw them today with their mouths open.  Mom and Dad had gotten used to my comings and goings but now they fly away trying to decoy me.  I will be using another door for the next two weeks until they fledge.  Cute little buggers - I will see if I can get a photo without disturbing the parents.  Needless to say, that nest is going to be taken down this fall and I will be watching out come spring for any attempt at rebuilding.  I love them but having them this close to the door just doesn't make sense.  I'll look into building some nesting platforms for them this winter.

Time to see what the YouTube faeries have brought for my amusement...

On the heels of the last major outage (here, here and here) Michigan now has 20,779 customers without power. A whole bunch of outages scattered over the Dearborn/Detroit area and a some large swaths in the rural areas to the North.

The only news items I can find are for the 06/20 storms that caused the prior outage - this was two weeks ago.
Fun and games with infrastructure. 
They paid to build it in the first place.  Cheaping out on maintaining it is downright stupid.
But I want to fund this music festival. This food give-away. This social program.

And they wonder why their inner cities are such 3rd world shitholes.

Compare and contrast

| No Comments

*Resident Biden won with 80,000,000 votes - or so they tell us.  He recently did a whistle-stop tour through Michigan (a very safe Democrat state) and here are the people lining up to see him during his stop at the ice cream stand/grocery store:

20210705-stop-jrb.jpg

Here is President Trump speaking to the 45,000 people filling the stands at the Sarasota, Florida Fairgrounds:

20210705-stop-djt.jpg

Meanwhile, another 375,000 people tuned in to the live broadcast and watched him speak online.  Good speech. I was one of them.

Tell me again, who is the more popular?  Who won the election?

Sunny and in the high 70's - came in to check email and change to something cooler.  Working on the yard some more - pruning and cutting back some landscape planting.  Keeping some of it but getting rid of the other 80%.  Really nice roses (old varietals - looking to propagate next spring) but nothing else gives me the fizz. Plant edibles next spring.

Dealing with some emails too - since I am no longer el presidente de por vida, there needs to be an orderly hand-off of power to the new regime. Ars longa, vita brevis.

20210705-environment.jpg

We just need you to give us more money and cede more power - we'll have everything perfect by next election.
Yeah. That's the ticket...

Falling apart - Afghanistan

| No Comments

The way the current administration handled this is idiotic.  Tragic. The people responsible need to be hung and their rotting corpses kept on public display "pour encourager les autres". From Reuters:

Tajikistan calls up reservists to bolster border as Afghan troops, fleeing Taliban, seek refuge
Tajikistan's president on Monday ordered the mobilisation of 20,000 military reservists to bolster the border with Afghanistan after more than 1,000 Afghan security personnel fled across the frontier in response to Taliban militant advances.

The crossings on Sunday underscored the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, where foreign troops near a complete withdrawal after 20 years of war and with peace negotiations stalled.

Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon made a flurry of international calls to discuss the situation with allies in the region, including Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin whose country has a big military presence in Tajikistan.

Putin assured Rakhmon that Moscow would support the former Soviet republic to stabilise its border with Afghanistan if needed, both directly and through a regional security bloc, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Russia operates its largest military base abroad in the impoverished Central Asian country, where it stations tanks, helicopters and ground attack aircraft.

Tajikistan is looking into setting up camps for potential refugees from Afghanistan, government sources told Reuters earlier on Monday.

If we had a better president, these people would be flown over here with their families and given refugee status.  They have proven their dedication to freedom already - they would be incredible citizens. 

My real concern is that we left intellegence behind when we abandoned Baghram Air Base - the Taliban is going to come in and find out who in what village was sympathetic to the cause of Freedom. These people will now be tortured and murdered but not before their wives and children are tortured and murdered before their eyes.  This is what we are facing and this is what our current military leadership will not see.  Does not fit the narrative.

Traffic on the roads

| No Comments

Driving from coffee to home I cross over the main feeder road to the island.  Packed up solid in both directions for some strange reason.  Glad to be living here, also glad I am not running any errands today - amateur hour out there.

Everything was going great guns until *Resident Biden pulled the plug.
Now? The company behind the pipeline is pointing out a few violations and asking for compensation.
From TC Energy:

TC Energy commences NAFTA claim following revocation of Keystone XL Presidential Permit
TC Energy Corporation announced today it has filed a Notice of Intent to initiate a legacy North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) claim under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to recover economic damages resulting from the revocation of the Keystone XL Project’s Presidential Permit.

TC Energy will be seeking to recover more than US$15 billion in damages that it has suffered as a result of the U.S. Government’s breach of its NAFTA obligations.

$15 Billion is not chump change - this is about $50 for every taxpaying man woman and child in the United States. Waste and mismanagement like that adds up quickly. Good on them - I hope that this becomes a very public persuit.  Not only the lost jobs, the lost revenue, the lost tax money.  Not to mention that the oil is going to flow anyway and without a pipeline, it will be carried in Warren Buffet's rail cars.  How much is he paying *Resident Biden to make this happen?

And out for the usual stuff

| No Comments

Back in an hour or three.  Little bits of cardboard all over my deck for some strange reason.

Nice out - cloudy and 63°F so it's more yard work today. Forecast is for same tomorrow.

They demolished the Florida condo last night - good idea as the rest of the building could have come down on the rescuers. Now, they can work unhindered. Still, very erie to see the demo.  I bet the people at CDI must have felt very divided. Very interesting company - run by one family since 1947. Their YouTube channel is a lot of fun.

Nothing much else happening out there. 

A national symbol recuses itself

| No Comments

Swiped from Bayou Renaissance Man:

20210705-donkey.jpg

Not to forget - Independence Day

| No Comments

A small taste

| No Comments

Heading back outside - gettin' good:

20210704-fw01.jpg

Sit back and watch the show

| No Comments

Smell of flashpowder in the air.  Two County Sherriff's cars went speeding past 20 minutes ago - doing 60+ in a 35MPH zone. Blinky lights and sirens. Not even dark yet and fireworks are going off constantly all across the bay. Lots of people moored out to watch the show.  There is one neighborhood which pools their fireworks and sets them off on the beach.  There is also one family who must spend a couple $K each year on this - spectacular and it goes on for an hour. My only gripe is that these are on opposite ends of the beach.  I have to turn around in my chair to follow the action (grumble).

So far, Truffle has had zero problems and there have been some very big bangs - universe creating in their intensity.  Hear the echo rumble off the shoreline for a good five/ten seconds after detonation.  Not a Black Cat by any means. I would almost guess an M-80 or even a quarter stick.  If they were legal to buy in the United States. (snark snark snark)

Getting dark - time to head out and enjoy the display.

Everywhere else but - t-storms

| No Comments

What with all of the hot air and the fronts, I have been expecting a nice thunderstorm or two.
It has been completely quiet.  AAMOF, the rest of the USA is sparkling and we are an island of quiet:

20210704-lightning.jpg

From the ever-wonderful Lightning Maps website.
Planning to build a detector and start working with this network sometime in fall.
The Northeast was getting its love a few days ago - thunderstorms all over the US but nothing here...

Break time again...

| No Comments

Time to shift gears - got enough sun and tired from yard work.  Been nibbling all day (nuts, sandwich and some apples) so not super hungry for any dinner.

Productive day - gotta love those.  Feel so good when you are done.  Going through the freezer in the garage, organizing it and cleaning house a bit. A neighbor usually does a huge display at night so going to play with getting some photos for that.  See how Truffle is with the noise - so far, so good and she has been fine at the farm with me shooting.

Back to work - quiet out there

| No Comments

Changed into shorts and a tee-shirt - 79° and sunny. A glorious fourth. Lots of people on the water.

Like it says on the title line - back to work.

So true

| No Comments

20210704-sowell.jpg

And the naifs like AOC are too willfully stupid to not see this simple fact.
What they are coming up with is not unique - it has been tried before.
It has failed before. At great cost.

Federalism in one meme

| No Comments

20210704-federalism.jpg

Statement from Buckingham Palace

| No Comments

TODAY HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN ISSUED THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT:

On August 24th, 1814 units of the British Army , in conjunction with the Royal Marines, came ashore in the American State of Maryland, and proceeded to capture the American Capital of Washington D.C. Once in possession of the city, as a legitimate reprisal under the laws of war, Our forces proceeded to set afire every public building in the city, including both the White House and the Congressional Chambers; sparing only the Patent Office, in the name of scientific advancement.

Given that the bicentennial of these events has recently passed, I would like to take this opportunity to assure the citizens of the United States that, in light of the deep and permanent ties that have since arisen between our two nations, it would be quite impossible for Our Armed Forces to again burn all of the governmental offices in Washington D.C. and certainly not while they are occupied.

So please stop asking.

Thank you.

H.M. Elizabeth II

Tip of the hat from Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man

And it was #1

| No Comments

Open for business and slammed.  Good for them - nice people, excellent bakery and good coffee.

Lunch and to work. Quick surf.

Great day for a nice long dog walk - overcast and cool.  See if #1 Coffee Place is open, got #2 and #3 lined up in case but still - got my preferences.

Perfect day for yard work - no rain but not blistering sunshine either. First entry in my agenda is in three days and that is only for a couple hours.

Totally unnecessary but the feckless idiots from the deep-state are pushing us that way.
From American Military News:

Japan warns US a ‘Pearl Harbor’ style attack from China and Russia could happen
On Wednesday, Japan’s number two defense official said China and Russia are showing increased signs of military cooperation and their activities in the Pacific could show signs they plan to launch a Pearl Harbor-style attack on the U.S., similitar to how Japan did on Dec. 7, 1941, propelling the U.S. into World War II.

Speaking at a Hudson Institute event, Japanese State Defense Minister Yasuhide Nakayama said, “Seventy years ago, we attacked Pearl Harbor, but now the U.S. and Japan [are] very good allies, one of the best allies all over the world.” Nakayama went on to say now Russian naval forces “are really exercising just right in front of the western part of Honolulu, and so I don’t want to remind the 70 years ago, but we have to be careful of the exercising of the Russians.”

The link goes to a transcript of his talk - sobering.

Looks like the *Resident's handlers stepped in it again - from the London Daily Mail:

Afghanis LOOT Bagram airbase HOURS after US troops pull out and leave the site 'without telling local officials' - as experts fear America's withdrawal could plunge the country into new crisis

    • Since 2001, Bagram airbase has served as a linchpin for the US war in Afghanistan
    • At its peak in 2012, Bagram saw more than 100,000 U.S. troops and NATO service members pass through its sprawling compound
    • This week, however, the final group of US soldiers left the base as the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan comes to an end
    • The solders allegedly left without telling local officials, meaning its gates were left unsecured
    • On Friday morning, locals moved in under the cover of darkness and looted several buildings
    • The US-backed Afghan National Security and Defence Forces have since gained control of the base, but it remains a shell of its former self
    • Photos taken on Friday show the base eerily quiet and almost abandoned
    • There are now fears it will be taken over by the Taliban who are gaining increasing control across Afghanistan

Dozens of looters have moved onto the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan just hours after the final group of American troops vacated the base - without telling local officials.

Bagram, located 30 miles north of Kabul, was the strategic hub for the US war in Afghanistan, which is poised to come to an end in the coming months after President Biden vowed to have every American soldier out of the country by September 11.

The US war in Afghanistan began 20 years ago, and is America's longest running conflict. It has killed 2,312 US troops and cost the military an eyewatering $816 billion.

But experts fear Biden's 'gut decision' to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan could bring renewed chaos to the region - as evidenced by the looting on Friday morning.

Yeah - about that.  2,312 lives and $816 Billion of our tax dollars.  The military makes no money of it's own - everything it spends comes from us and with about 350 million men women and children in these United States, that is about $2,331 right out of each and every one of our pockets - wasted. That money was pissed away.

This will just become a trouble-spot again and how much more of our money will have to be spent when it flares back up. To be just abandoned like that - not turned over, abandoned.

Cooler today - overcast and 63°

| No Comments

Great day for fireworks. Got a couple more days like this and then the sunshine returns.

Great for yardwork. Heading out in a little while. Working at home today.

Want to be bad but don't want to spend the time in Jail?
From CNS News and Governor Mike Huckabee:

Huckabee: ‘Any Time You’re Investigated, Simply Say, I Identify as Hunter Biden’
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had some advice for anyone connected with former President Donald Trump who might be investigated: identify as Hunter Biden.

“I do have a strategy that I would suggest that everyone in the Trump orbit use. Any time you're investigated, simply say, I identify as Hunter Biden, because if you can do that, you’ll never be investigated. Nobody will ever lay a finger on you. Nobody will care what you can do. You can do things in broad daylight, and the FBI and everybody will turn a blind eye and let it go. So just take the simple advice, identify as Hunter Biden”.

I do wish they would drop his whole hard disk into Wikileaks.  It is a lot of fun reading the contents as they are "leaked" out but I would love to have a copy of the whole thing to peruse.

Out of touch - New York Times

| No Comments

Wonderful - they bash the flag on this of all days - from Breitbart:

New York Times Politicizes the American Flag On July 4 Weekend
The New York Times politicized the American flag over Twitter on the eve of Independence Day by saying the “flying the American flag” shows a “person’s political affiliation” nowadays.

The Times, which has had no problem politicizing religion in the past, now tweeted that “flying the American flag from the back of a pickup truck or over a lawn,” which Americans have graciously done with Old Glory on holidays — such as Independence Day to show their support for America — is now “increasingly seen as a clue” to which they call an “imperfect one” to “person’s political affiliation.”

They are not the authority. They are not the majority.  They are just sad and out of touch.
Living in a bubble for so long does that to you.

Lights out (almost)

| No Comments

Time for some videos. Sleeping in tomorrow.  Don't know if my #1 coffee place will be open - play it by ear.

Why people hate capitalism

| No Comments

In a society based on caste and status, the individual can ascribe adverse fate to conditions beyond his own control. He is a slave because the superhuman powers that determine all becoming had assigned him this rank. It is not his doing, and there is no reason for him to be ashamed of his humbleness. His wife cannot find fault with his station. If she were to tell him: “Why are you not a duke? If you were a duke, I would be a duchess,” he would reply: “If I had been born the son of a duke, I would not have married you, a slave girl, but the daughter of another duke; that you are not a duchess is exclusively your own fault; why were you not more clever in the choice of your parents?”

It is quite another thing under capitalism. Here everybody’s station in life depends on his own doing. Everybody whose ambitions have not been fully gratified knows very well that he has missed chances, that he has been tried and found wanting by his fellow man. If his wife upbraids him: “Why do you make only eighty dollars a week? If you were as smart as your former pal, Paul, you would be a foreman and I would enjoy a better life,” he becomes conscious of his own inferiority and feels humiliated.

The much talked about sternness of capitalism consists in the fact that it handles everybody according to his contribution to the well-being of his fellow men.
--Ludwig von Mises The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality

Much more at the site and yes, intellectuals are just that shallow in their understanding of capitalism.
The reason Marx is so popular is that his ideas sound good to people who are not that bright.

Apple slices and fresh-ground peanut butter for a light dinner. Got a lot done today.
Stopped in at Costco and the beef Tri Tip roasts are still at $10.99/# - see if this holds when I am up there next week.
Also saw something interesting in the tomato isle. They have been carrying the San Marzano 'maters for a while.
Now, it seems they are carrying some more and those are not quite exactly as advertised:

20210703-sm-real.jpg

The real deal - there is a D.O.P. serial number stamped on the back of the label.
Absolutely delicious and totally worth the price ($4 for a 28oz. can).

20210703-sm-nope.jpg

Not even attempting to fake it - CENTO is a decent brand. There is no mention of San Marzano.
Also, San Marzano tomatoes are only canned as whole fruit or as filets.  Never diced or crushed.

20210703-sm-fake01.jpg

20210703-sm-fake02.jpg

Here, CENTO is faking it.  The name San Marzano is being used as a brand and not a Designated Place of Origin.
There is no D.O.P. certification.  It says Certified on the can but certified what? Certified fake?
I was tempted to buy a pack and see how they are - maybe next time I am shopping there.

Shame on CENTO and shame on Costco - this is a new product and I hope it is only a test batch as this is not good.

And out again - errands

| No Comments

Done with a late lunch/early dinner. Hot outside - 89°F and strong sunlight so glad I left the pups at home this morning.  I keep a thermometer in the car and had the windows shut this morning.  Came into the car and it was 110°F inside.

Heading out for groceries, library, bank and back again. More work on the yard this evening.  Planning to sleep in tomorrow and concentrate on the yard - looking pretty ragged. Back in a couple of hours...

Need to give time to the other half:

20210703-triggered.jpg

A Glorious Fourth

| No Comments

From the fine people at Black Rifle Coffee:

The usual - volunteering today so back here around 2:00 PM.

Weather is calling for partly cloudy and 76°F but the air pressure has been rising and it has the halmarks of a hot sunny day.  Leaving the pups at home this morning and doing a long walk when I come home - afternoon if it is not hot, evening if it is.

Looks like our Southern border is opening up even further - happy happy joy joy. Breitbart has the story.

Otherwise, a slow weekend news day - more spew when I get back home.

At least it may prevent future disasters - from Miami, Fl station WPLG:

North Miami Beach condo ordered shut, 300 residents need to leave immediately, city says
A North Miami Beach condominium building has been ordered immediately closed by the city’s building and zoning department.

Now, about 300 residents in the Crestview Towers Condominium have to find somewhere to go. They have been told that they need to evacuate the building by Friday night.

According to a press release from the city, the condo at 2025 N.E. 164th St. is structurally and electrically unsafe.

The release stated:
“Following the tragic collapse of Champlain Towers South on June 24, North Miami Beach immediately launched a thorough review of all condo high-rise buildings to determine if they are in compliance with county and city 40-year recertification process and certified as safe for occupancy. Today, Crestview Towers submitted a recertification report dated Jan. 11, 2021, in which an engineer retained by the association board concluded that the 156-unit building was structurally and electrically unsafe.”

And of course, there is this little bundle of joy headed their way - meet Hurricane Elsa:

20210702-elsa.jpg

Wind is probably not going to be too bad when (if) it hits Miami but a couple inches of rain will do "wonders" for cracked structural concrete.  The people who put up these sub-standard buildings, I really wonder how they can sleep at night knowing that the end result of their corruption is people losing their lives.

And a delightful evening - warm (74°F now) and sunny. Light particulates in the air - I can see the Olympics but there is a definite haze. Breaking down some cartons for a recycling run tomorrow. I love the idea of downsizing and it will be awesome when it is done.  The process can get daunting at times. Mountains and mountains (seemingly) of crap to be triaged and disposed of.

Making some decent spending money on Craigslist and will be focusing on my surplus tools once the shop is built. Still, there is too much stuff crap with just not enough value to go through the process of selling. Needless to say, there have been several boxes brought to the thrift store. Need to start on some clothing.

Nuttin' much on the web - quiet day.

Looks like Canada's education system is just as rotten as ours.
Political indocrination and not education. The Long March through the Institutions writ large.

From CNN:

Statues of Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth toppled in Canada
Protesters have toppled statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II in the Canadian city of Winnipeg as anger grows over the discovery of the remains of hundreds of children in unmarked graves at former indigenous schools.

A crowd chanted "no pride in genocide" before pulling down the statues of the monarchs.

The action took place on Canada Day on Thursday, when traditionally celebrations take place across the country.

Like these Monarchs has anything to do with the teachers and administrators at that school.  Also, not mentioned is the rate of childhood death - a lot higher then then today and probably even higher for indigenous children. 

Here is an article at NBC News, June 24th, 2021. Running a few numbers, we see 751 graves.  The School operated from 1899 to 1996. 97 years of operation. Assuming an even distribution, that is 7.74 deaths for each year of operation. There were no reports of the enrolment numbers.  These numbers are tragic but they are not out of range.  An outbreak of cholera or fever would wipe out many more than seven children.

As for the unmarked graves - the article stated the following:

and the nearby cemetery had been run by the Roman Catholic Church until Cowessess took it over in 1981

And:

He said the Catholic Church first removed the cemetery's headstones in the 1960s.

But this does not fit the current narrative.  We must promote the current narrative. Narrative uber alles.

They are coming for the statues. Next, they will come for the books. They will then come for the people.
This is what communists do as they cement their power.

Looks like a fun rabbit hole

| No Comments

From Assistant Village Idiot - presented in toto:

James Mellaart
I had never heard of him until listening to an archaeology podcast today, in which James Mellaart was mentioned in passing, with much humor.  He was a legitimate and important archaeologist specializing in Anatolia.  He also fabricated artefacts and then "discovered" them, and made up stories about what he had seen and the sources for his knowledge.  That's right, he just made stuff up, and in the 1960's the Turkish government banned him from doing research there. He had help from his Turkish wife in the forging. As is usually the case, it started small and then got completely out of hand.  He was eventually described as living in a fantasy world.

Note:  The first link goes to "Luwian Studies," an interesting site in itself. Luwian is one of the sister languages to Hittite in Anatolia and is such is either the first or one of the first to split off from Indo-European in the North Caucasus, then migrating counter-clockwise around the Black Sea down into Anatolia.

The podcast also mentioned that the artist Tracey Emin became very impressed with a megalith nearby and married it.  One of the presenters wanted to pursue this and find out what she was thinking, but the other waved him off, saying "You don't want to know anything about why she did this.  She's as mad a box of squirrels," which I thought a useful phrase to pass on to the rest of you.

Save this for reading later tonight or tomorrow - looks like a lot of fun.

No rest for the wicked

| No Comments

Late lunch is done - back to work.

Busy at the thrift store - lots of things dropped off.  A nice telescope setup, lots of various hi-fi and television stuff. A lot of hardware including some stainless and brass - got my eye on those.  This is one of the more expensive workplaces I have encountered. Get the first pick of cool stuff as it comes through...

The new Walmart employee

| No Comments

A recent hire:

20210702-biden.jpg

Looks like the Biden interregnum is experiencing extreme inflation.
Same as his policies are forcing on us. Saw this at the London Daily Mail:

Jen Psaki tops the most expensive White House payroll in HISTORY: Press secretary is one of 22 Biden staffers getting $180K a year in list of 567 staffers that cost taxpayers $49.6M
President Joe Biden has the most expensive payroll in White House history with 22 aides, including press secretary Jen Psaki and chief of staff Ron Klain, making the maximum yearly salary of $180,000.

The White House on Thursday released its annual staff report to Congress, revealing the salaries of 567 White House employees, which cost taxpayers $49.6 million.

The projected four-year costs of Biden's White House payroll could top $200 million, according to an analysis by Forbes, which would top the staff costs of the past two presidents.

Adjusted for inflation, the Trump administration spent $164.3 million during his one term in office and the Obama administration spent $188.5 million in his first term.

I got curious and looked for President Trump's numbers - everything points to around 370 people, not 567.
One article here at Heavy (from July 31st, 2017):

Donald Trump White House Staff: Full List of Employees
President Donald Trump is continuing to shake up his staff, with White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci departing the administration on Friday.

This is the third high-profile White House departure to take place just in the last 10 days alone. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus also recently announced their resignations.

Clearly, this White House has been a bit chaotic, with firings and hirings happening almost every week. But there are also hundreds of White House employees who we never hear from and whose names have virtually never been in the news. Recently, the White House released its full list of employees, also including their salaries and pay basis.

According to this list, there are currently 377 people working in the White House. This includes five people who contribute to speech writing: Brittany Baldwin, Vincent Haley, Ryan Jarmula, Theodore Royer, and Ross Worthington.

President Trump was able to accomplish a lot more with 66.5% of the staff. All President Biden's staff have to do is give him his meds, make sure he gets his pudding and keep Harris from propping her feet up on the Resolute desk.

A good definition of the term:

20210702-audit.jpg

The Antifa Academy

| No Comments

From JP Sears - spot on:

Remember Pouty McPoutface who came in third and turned her back on the American Flag?
Yeah, me neither even though this happened just a few days ago.

Seems she wasn't always an America hater - from the New York Post:

Old Gwen Berry photo shows her beaming while holding US flag amid Old Glory controversy

20210701-gb-flag.jpg

An old photo showing Olympic hammer thrower Gwen Berry beaming while holding the American flag has gone viral in the wake of her shunning the Stars and Stripes last week during the national anthem.

The image — which was posted to Berry’s old website in June 2015 — shows her exuding joy as she holds up the flag after she achieved her dream of representing the country at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Fox News reported.

Berry, 31, a two-time Olympic-qualifying athlete, incurred widespread wrath when she snubbed the flag on Saturday while the anthem was played at the Olympic trials in Oregon.

She reacted to the backlash by writing on Twitter: “At this point, y’all are obsessed with me.”

And she doubled down later by insisting the anthem is “disrespectful” to black Americans.

Amazing what seven years will do. Like I said in my earlier post, she lost any chance at endorsement with her little stunt.  Nike may be WOKE but WOKE is rapidly nearing its sell-by date. Predicting that it will be anathema in two years. Toxic shit that the liberals latched on to for some bizarro-world reason. Even they are waking up now.

Nothing much on the internet but getting shit done here.

Volunteering tomorrow and Saturday AM - working at home in the afternoons.

Got some serious fireworks displays on either side of me for the 4th so staying home and enjoying them.  Maybe take some photos.

Did some canned tuna, garbanzo beans, olives, blanched veggies and some local lettuce for a salad for dinner.  It has been blissfully cool yesterday and today - currently 76° and was down to 62° last night. Kicked the space heater on for a little while last night and probably the same tonight.

Knock off a couple more things before I sit down to watch some videos. Nice out so on a bit of a roll. Clean the hummingbird feeders, trim some bushes. Basic yard stuff...

From the Chicago NPR affiliate WTTW:

Aldermen Demand Hearing on Crime as Lightfoot Dismisses Rancor at City Hall
Chicago and other major cities are experiencing a “pandemic-spurred surge” in violence that officials are having success in fighting despite a rising number of shootings and homicides, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during a one-on-one interview Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.”

In other words, the policies she (and her handlers) came up with are not working so they have to find something to blame rather than assume the responsibility themselves. Not my fault - I tried. And then, there is this:

“About 99%” of the criticism Lightfoot gets as mayor is motivated by racism and sexism, Lightfoot told WTTW News. 

No - it is her incompetence.  Has nothing to do with race or gender.
Go here to see the current numbers: Hey Jackass: Illustrating Chicago Values

Two memes - I relate

| No Comments

From Knucklegraggin'

20210701-oregon.jpg

20210701-pinecone.jpg

Going to have to remember the second one - fun idea...

Follow the money - Stacey Abrams

| No Comments

From FOX News:

Stacey Abrams now owns two homes totaling $1.4M after starting 2018 campaign in massive debt
Former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams now owns two homes in Georgia collectively worth $1.4 million despite having been hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt before her unsuccessful run against Gov. Brian Kemp.

And the money:

According to her 2017 financial disclosure forms for her campaign, Abrams had a net worth of just under $110,000 with just above $410,000 in total liabilities. She also had an IRS debt of $54,000 that she settled in 2019.

Must be nice to have such money just flowing to you.  All you have to do is prostitute yourself to the deep-state.  What value does a human soul have? Nothing that you can see. Satan has a very glib tongue. Abrams is Gríma Wormtongue made flesh.

FOX News not fair and balanced?

| No Comments

Hmmm - going against their charter are they?
From The Western Journal:

Fox News Cuts Trump Border Visit Feed After He Starts Talking About Election
Fox News cut off its live coverage of former President Donald Trump’s remarks at the nation’s southern border on Wednesday after he began discussing his allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.

Despite heavy promotion of the event, the network abruptly returned to studio coverage after Trump claimed he had won the 2020 presidential election.

“We had an election where we did much better than we did the first time and amazingly we lost,” the former president said during his remarks.

What they do not realize is that many people probably stopped watching so their advertisers lost that revenue.
People tune in to FOX News for a reason - not good to piss them off.

Time sure flies...

Meeting up with someone from the arts group - it has a storage unit and spending some time going through it and doing some inventory and organization. This is in about an hour so the morning dog walk and coffee will transpire afterwards. Heading North to pick up an order from Home Depot and then working at home the rest of the day - dump run.

Quick surf first.

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 July 2021 listed from newest to oldest.

June 2021 is the previous archive.

August 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