April 2022 Archives

A long but really fascinating post from Adaptive Curmudgeon

Just go and read. Be sure to read the 30+ comments too.

I'll wait.  Really good thoughts and links that will have you chasing down several rabbit-holes.

Yes, as a matter of fact, the United Nations has been lying to us.

Oh Noooeessss...  A three-fer - first from the London Daily Mail:

Mystery Antarctic 'swarm' of 85,000 earthquakes 'was triggered by magma from a long-dormant underwater volcano'
A 'swarm' of 85,000 earthquakes in Antarctica that lasted about six months in 2020 was triggered by magma from an underwater volcano, a new study says.

The swarm occurred at Orca Seamount, a deep-sea volcano near King George Island in Antarctica, in the Bransfield Strait, which has been inactive for 'a long time'.

Researchers have used seismometers and remote sensing techniques to determine how long the swarm lasted, and what caused it.

Swarm quakes mainly occur in volcanically active regions, so the movement of magma in the Earth's crust is therefore suspected as the cause.

During the swarm, ground on neighbouring King George Island moved 4.3 inches (11cm) - suggesting a 'finger' of magma almost reached the surface, the scientists report in their new study.

And the area of interest:

Second?  From Newsweek:

Huge Earthquake Swarm Detected in Antarctica as Inactive Volcano Awakens
A huge earthquake swarm was detected in Antarctica, which researchers say was likely the result of a long-dormant volcano awakening.

An earthquake swarm refers to incidents in which many seismic events occur in the same small area over a relatively short period of time without an accompanying main shock.

According to a study published in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, the swarm affected the Bransfield Strait—a body of water around 60 miles wide that is located between the northwestern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands.

And this little nugget:

While it may seem like Antarctica is totally devoid of volcanic activity, there is substantial evidence of volcanoes below the Antarctic Ice Sheet, according to NASA's Climate Change and Global Warming website. Some of these are currently active or have been in the recent geologic past.

The exact number of volcanoes in Antarctica remains a mystery but one recent study identified 138 of them in West Antarctica alone. Despite this, it appears from the available evidence that there have been no dramatic volcanic eruptions in the region in the recent geologic past.

Actually, there is a lot of well-known volcanic activity in West Antarctica.  (August 12, 2017;  November 17, 2013;  August 18, 2021    That is where all of the massive ice sheets are breaking off into the ocean.  The media puts all the cause on anthropogenic global warming but having 20-30 active volcanoes underneath the ice might be a contributing factor as well.

And third - FOX News:

Is there a supervolcano buried in Antarctica waiting to erupt?
Antarctica is behaving oddly. Like its North Pole counterpart, it’s being affected by our changing climate. But not in ways science expects.

It has lakes. It has rivers. All of liquid, flowing water. It’s just that they’re beneath the ice sheet. Not on top. How did they get there?

A new NASA study is adding evidence to a theory that there is an enormous geothermal heat source sitting beneath the ice.

Too many people pushing the agenda and not sticking their heads outside with a thermometer to actually get some hard data.  Computer models are one tool in a toolbox but they need to be reconciled with actual data and adjusted if there is no match.  The global warming people have these fancy forecasts.  We have over 200 years of very good global historic data.  The global warming forecasts do not work with this data.  They do not hindcast. They always show warming when zero warming has happened...

The volcano will be interesting if it goes.  Keep telling people that we need to prepare for a period of global cooling - this would greatly exacerbate things.  More people die from cold than from heat.

The director of our new Ministry of Truth - from 2015:

Ten days ago, I saw that there were a lot of ships holding off the port of Shanghai, China.
Here is the image from shiptracker live which tracks each vessel's AIS data:

The numbers are a lot bigger than I thought. From Fortune:

China’s COVID-19 lockdown is inflaming the world’s supply chain backlog, with 1 in 5 container ships stuck outside congested ports
After the pandemic, and the chip crisis, and the war in Ukraine, “disrupted” seems to be the default state of global supply chains. But the pandemic isn’t over yet, and a COVID outbreak in China is only making supply constraints worse.

According to shipping analytics firm Windward, 20% of the world’s roughly 9,000 active container ships are currently sitting in traffic jams outside congested ports. Close to 30% of that backlog alone is in China—double the domestic congestion rate in February—where a virulent Omicron wave is snarling supply lines.

Ships have been piling up outside Shanghai, the world’s largest port, and other container docks across China as authorities have forced multiple cities into lockdown to counter the country’s worst COVID outbreak since the pandemic began.

Shanghai has been under lockdown for close to four weeks, having recorded over 35,000 COVID cases since March. Residents in the city of 25 million have struggled to secure food and access to health care as authorities prohibit them from leaving their homes.

I doubt it's covid.  China is up to something nefarious and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Nothing new - they refuse to treat the drug addicted and mentally ill.
They house them and then, the consequences surprise them.
From City Journal:

San Francisco’s “Housing First” Nightmare
To residents of San Francisco’s Sixth District, the deplorable conditions of single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels are no longer a great shock. In the Tenderloin, Civic Center, and South of Market neighborhoods, where most of the approximately 70 SROs are located, these city-run buildings have been terrible for as long as most can remember. And they’re getting worse.

The horrors of SROs were put on display to the public in a recent San Francisco Chronicle feature. The story tells of people living in buildings with collapsing ceilings, toxic mold, vermin, noxious odors, constant noise, broken appliances, and unchecked violence. It also notes that at least 166 people fatally overdosed in these hotels in 2020 and 2021. This official number, however, is suspicious for being so low. San Francisco’s medical examiner reported at least 1,300 overdose deaths citywide in the last two years, most commonly for illicit fentanyl combined with other drugs.

How can the places that the city has deemed appropriate for the economically distressed be so bad? It’s not because of a lack of funds. San Francisco has an eye-popping $1.1 billion homeless budget, much of it spent on such supportive housing.

And this ray of truth:

The dilapidated state of SROs is only a symptom of the disease. Housing isn’t a cure. Unless cities address the underlying problem of untreated mental illness and addiction, every building set aside for the homeless under the Housing First approach will deteriorate, and the people desperately needing help won’t get it.

The mentally ill and adicted need to be institutionalised but nobody has the stones to do it.  This all started under President Kennedy's Community Mental Health Act of 1963.  Gotten worse since then. I have written about the Community Mental Health Act and its fallout several times before:

• • Taking care of mental illness
  • Trump Derangement Syndrome on display
  • Another failure of leadership - WA State
  • A perfect case for more proactive mental health provisions
  • Quote of the month

Sometimes, the old ways are the best.  This whole failure was started by activists.  We need to remember this quote:

Activists are just people who have learned how to use the media to their own ends. They are not "more" correct. They are not in the majority. They are not smarter. They are just loud.

From America's Newspaper of Record:

Hunter Biden To Receive $50K Per Month Salary For Seat On Disinformation Governance Board
The Department of Homeland Security has formed the Disinformation Governance Board to bravely combat incorrect opinions on the internet. According to sources, the board's Executive Director Nina Jankowicz has appointed Hunter Biden to sit on the board for a salary of $50,000 per month.

"We are proud to welcome Hunter to our Ministry of Tr-- um, our Disinformation Governance Board," said Jankowicz. "As the victim of a Russian disinformation campaign that claimed his laptop held evidence of horrific sexual crimes and international corruption resulting in tens of millions of dollars being funneled to the Biden family, he is uniquely equipped to speak to these issues."

The President's son will be paid a salary of $50,000 per month. His appointment has caused several prominent conservatives to cry foul, claiming the deal and the entire board itself seem "gross", "creepy", and "corrupt."

The Disinformation Governance Board dismissed the criticism as "dangerous disinformation."

Walter Duranty was unavailable for comment.

Slow news day.  More later

From American Military News:

Gary Sinise Foundation moving headquarters out of California
The Gary Sinise Foundation, which serves “our nation by honoring our defenders, veterans, first responders, their families, and those in need,” announced on Tuesday that it is moving its headquarters from Los Angeles, Calif., to Franklin, Tenn.

“It will be very, very good to be in a state that’s connected to seven other states, all of them with military bases and many, many veterans and all those communities around Tennessee,” actor Gary Sinise said in a statement. “Having our foundation more centrally located in the country will be a very, very positive thing for the work that we do.”

The foundation has been located in Los Angeles since it was established in 2011, and while it is moving to Tennessee, the organization will maintain existing chapters in San Diego and Orlando.

Sinise said he is moving his family to Tennessee, as well.

“I’ve been in California for 35 years and was thinking of next steps that might be exciting for the family. We have little grandchildren,” Sinise said. “I had a lot of friends there (in Tennessee). It’s a great entertainment industry there. They’re very, very supportive of veterans and would be a good place for the foundation and the family.”

Good call - Tennessee is a gorgeous and well-run state.  I prefer North Carolina but Gary is moving to a more urban area. Franklin is about 20 miles South of Nashville.  Starve the tyrants.

How long before he steps down to spend more time with his "family"   Doctor Jill does not want that and Major will probably bite him for losing the cushy White House kennel privlages. *Resident Harris?  Christ on a Corn Dog...

It is nice that they self-identify — here is what they really mean:

Prophetic:

Lyrics at the website: "Anti-Fascist Blues" by Five Times August

What happens when people act on a first-order problem and do not consider that there might be second- and third-order consequences down the road.  From Reuters:

Almost 200 cases of unexplained acute hepatitis reported in children
Around 190 unexplained cases of severe hepatitis have been reported in children around the world, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on Tuesday.

The outbreak was first reported this month in Britain - which has registered 111 cases, mostly in children under 10 - and has since been identified in at least 12 countries worldwide.

Some 40 cases have been recorded in the European Union and European Economic Area, ECDC director Andrea Ammon told reporters in a virtual briefing.

The United States and Israel have also seen cases.

That is the first four paragraphs of the article - let's scroll down to paragraph nine:

She said a theory that COVID-19 lockdowns may have weakened children's immunity, because they were less exposed to common pathogens while in isolation, was one of several being considered.

BINGO!!!  Our immune systems require constant challenges.  If we isolate.  If we place ourselves in a bubble and constantly sterilize ourselves and our environment, we weaken our immune system and the first case of a common cold will lay us out flat if not outright kill us.

The virus causing these infections is a common one — an adenovirus — not hepatitis.

Open source too.  $400 - from here: Sky's Edge:

The Rotary Un-Smartphone is a followup to this personal project. It's a production-ready ground-up design with all new parts (yes, the rotary dial too) and many neat bells and whistles.

• • Pocket-sized
  • Full LTE connectivity. Obsolescence-proof for at least another decade.
  • Access and call your personal contacts faster than with a smartphone
  • Use your own SIM card with your favorite carrier's "Bring Your Own Device" option
  • Real (mechanical) ringer bell made gold or silver-coated brass; externally visible
  • Receive basic SMS messages and send pre-typed messages and numeric strings
  • 2 displays: Front-side OLED and back-side ePaper
  • Physical disconnect switch for the microphone
  • Mechanical power switch
  • MicroSD card stores contacts list as a text file
  • TRRS headset jack
  • USB-C charging port
  • Incandescent-like indicator LEDs
  • Weighs 163g [6oz]
  • Injection molded parts available in several striking colors

Halfway tempted.  Great fun to pull it out to receive a call...

The *Resident Biden regime is going full Orwell.
You should never go full Orwell:

It must taste like ashes in their mouth to report this - from CNN:

New York grand jury hearing evidence in DA's investigation into Trump Organization expires this week
A special grand jury seated to hear evidence in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into the Trump Organization's finances is set to expire at the end of the week and will not be extended, people familiar with the investigation tell CNN.

They have nothing.  Never did.  They were throwing poop against the wall and seeing what stuck.  This is like the impeachments, the Mueller Investigation, the Russian Collusion.  All of the taxpayer money spent chasing fever dreams.

President Trump acquired his power by being intelligent and by being an effective manager.  This is something that most liberal politicians do not have.  They rely on corruption, insider deals and carefully maintaining a narrative for public consumption.  Also, they are not afraid to cheat when there is minimal chance of being caught. The liberals can not see how President Trump was so successful so they are projecting their own deviancies on him.

From Music Radar:

Klaus Schulze, German electronic music pioneer, has died aged 74
German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze has died at the age of 74. Briefly a member of Tangerine Dream and Krautrock outfits Ash Ra Tempel and The Cosmic Jokers, he also operated under the alias Richard Wahnfried.

Schulze’s solo career saw him release more than 50 albums across five decades, as he explored ambient and techno and soundtracked a number of films. His 1979 record, Dune, saw him take inspiration from Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel of the same name, and he went on to collaborate with Hans Zimmer on the soundtrack for the 2021 film adaptation.

A new album, Deus Arrakis, was in the works, and was said to be a continuation of his recent work with Zimmer.

Despite being tagged as an electronic artist, Schulze was known for using both synth and acoustic sounds in his compositions. He also experimented with sampling for a time.

One of the greats.  74 is a bit early to go.  Here is 10 minutes from a live concert:

And here is a whole show (1:46:00) with him and Lisa Gerard

Sums things up pretty well:

Reedy Creek had its purpose - the initial Disney park was a big gamble.  Taking almost 40 square miles of swamp and ag land and turning it into a world-class tourist destination.  Yeah - they needed some incentive to build there but that was created in 1967 —  55 years ago  —  they had their free ride.  Now?  Time to start supporting their community and paying their fair share.

An interesting looks - Pooty-Poot may have gambled a bit too much by demanding payment in Rubles.
From Fortune/MSN:

Gazprom ‘blackmail’ backfires as EU vows to end energy dependence on Russia
A gamble by Kremlin-backed Gazprom to “blackmail" Europe into paying for gas in rubles shook markets but may have backfired, as Brussels vowed to end its Russian energy dependency.

Benchmark prices for Dutch TTF gas futures surged well over 20% after Gazprom said it would cut Poland and Bulgaria off, warning other European countries they, too, could be affected if they tried to help.

The stunt was all the excuse EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen needed to justify her decision last month to strike new import deals for liquified natural gas from reliable allies including the United States.  

“It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us,” she told reporters on Wednesday. “But Russia is only hurting itself.”

A few months of pain until the new deals are struck but Russia's actions will be remembered and will not longer be counted on as a major supplier. Ever.  Russia has very little hard currency and the energy exports was one of their reliable sources. Putin gambled and seems to be losing.  Bet he wishes he could turn back the clock a year or two.

From CNS News - the headline is a bit misleading.  Story is worth reading:

Is Nancy Pelosi Establishing a Religion?
When the House of Representatives convened for a three-minute session on Monday, the proceedings opened with a written statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"I hereby appoint the Honorable Andy Kim to act as Speaker pro tempore on this day," Pelosi declared.

As recorded by C-SPAN, Kim, empowered by Pelosi, then instantly announced: "The prayer will be offered by Chaplain Kibben."

The Rev. Margaret Kibben stepped to the podium. "Would you pray with me?" she asked with a smile.

"God our creator, redeemer, and sustainer, great are Your promises to us," said Kibben in words now immortalized in the Congressional Record.

Her prayer, as recorded by C-SPAN, lasted about 1 minute and 20 seconds.

"So, may our work be effective and our lives beneficial, as we seek to serve our communities, our country, and You. In the strength of Your name we pray," she concluded.

Not only a prayer:

When Kibben's prayer was completed, Kim called for the chair to lead the House in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The members in the chamber then turned to the flag behind the speaker's podium and put their right hands over their hearts. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," they said, "and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Slightly more than a minute later, Kim adjourned the House.

Not establishing a religion - instead, honoring the Faith of our founders as well as restoring the Pledge of Allegiance to its proper place in public convocations.

Encouraging.

The usual chatter but nothing catches my eye.  Heading out for coffee - back home for more work here.

Just learned about Blackberry Smoke.

Been exploring various bands from the North Carolina area and there is some amazingly good music happening there.  These people are two hours to the south near Atlanta, Georgia.  Great version of a Tom Petty classic:

Two treasure hunters have a good idea where an 1863 shipment of gold might be found.  They reported the location and the FBI got involved.  From the Daily Wire:

Judge Orders FBI To Turn Over Evidence Regarding Search For Civil War Gold
A father and son team of treasure hunters may soon discover the details behind a potential hunt for gold dating back to the Civil War era from the records of an FBI dig in 2018

A federal judge has required the FBI to promptly release its records regarding the lost treasure to a team operating under the name Finders Keepers led by Dennis and Kem Parada. The father and son have accused the FBI of intentionally delaying its request for information.

Finders Keepers said in a court filing in March that the FBI stated that its records of the dig included 17 video files and 2,400 pages of information. The agency now claims there are just four videos with no explanation for the missing video content, the treasure hunters claim.

“This raises the obvious question of whether videotapes were destroyed in the interim,” wrote attorney Anne Weismann, Finders Keepers’ lawyer.

“There’s been a pattern of behavior by the FBI that’s been very troubling,” Weismann said in January. She questioned whether the agency is “acting in good faith.”

The saga began when the two men reported finding a location they believed was part of an 1863 shipment of Union gold that was intended for the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. An FBI contractor reportedly confirmed a large mass of metal at the site that suggested the findings could be accurate.

The gold, if found, has a current estimated value of $55 million.

The Paradas traveled to the site in 2018 in Dents Run, Pennsylvania. Rather than being given access to the location, the FBI required the two men to stay in their vehicle while the agency’s officers excavated the site, according to the report.

The FBI claimed the dig was unsuccessful, but the agency’s secrecy has made the treasure hunters suspicious regarding whether gold was found.

Much more at the site. Unsucessful.  Yeah.  Right. Our tax dollars at work.  Not to mention, they probably destroyed anything of archeological value. Their original Freedom of Information Act request was filed on May 8th, 2016 and was met with 100% stonewall.

From America's Newspaper of Record:

Elon Musk Makes All Of Bill Gates's Tweets Autocorrect To Say 'Poopy Butt'

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In the first step toward a world blossoming with freedom of speech, Elon Musk, the proud new owner of Twitter, ordered the company’s tech team to make all tweets by Bill Gates autocorrect to say “Poopy butt.”

“Poopy butt poopy butt, poopy poopy butt butt,” read a subsequent tweet by Bill Gates.

“Odd, I could have sworn I typed out a hopeful message on the benefits of global, forced, clandestine sterilization of women,” said a confused Gates, staring at his Windows Phone® while his tailor fitted him for a custom brassiere. “Why does it say, ‘Butt, butt, butt, poopy butt poopy butt, poopy poopy poop.’?”

While millions praised Musk’s decision as steering the social media company toward much-needed free speech, others have voiced concerns that untethered misinformation could lead to rigged elections and mistrust of giant pharmaceutical companies.

In one example, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki reiterated President Biden’s support for government regulation of social media in a tweet that said, “I smell like sauerkraut and farts.”

Eyewitnesses claim a frustrated Bill Gates posted in the secret group chat for members of the Dark Council of Global Dominance, ranting about the dangers of granting Elon Musk control over free speech, but his messages autocorrected to the following:

“Man boobs man boobs, booby booby man boobs.”

Heh - spot on.  Didn't this whole thing start with Elon being pissed off that Twitter banned the Babylon Bee for some reason?  As ye sow...

From People's Dispatch:

Mexico nationalizes lithium industry
Mexico has officially nationalized its lithium industry. On April 21, the bill, proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), that modified the mining law to give the state the exclusive right to explore, exploit and use the valuable metal entered into force. According to the law, published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, the executive or the president now has 90 days to create a decentralized state company that will deal with all lithium-related matters.

The reform was approved in a record time in both houses of the Congress. President AMLO presented it in the Chamber of Deputies on April 18. The same day, the lower house discussed the reform, voted on it and passed it with 275 votes in favor, 24 against and 187 abstentions. The next day, on April 19, the Senate also debated the reform and sanctioned it with 87 votes in favor, 20 against and 16 abstentions.

Interesting to see what will happen - their Petroleum industry is nationalized.  Lithium?  Key ingredient for batteries for electric vehicles. More:

The new mining law recognizes lithium as a heritage of the nation, and reserves it for the benefit of the people of Mexico. It elevates lithium to the category of “strategic mineral”, and prohibits granting concessions, licenses, contracts, permits, assignments or authorizations for its exploitation to private corporations.

Current Lithium mining?

There is only one lithium mine in Mexico, operated by Chinese firm Ganfeng Lithium, which is slated to produce 35,000 tonnes of the metal per year starting in 2023. In the coming days, it will be discussed if that will be taken over by the government.

Heh - sucks to be them...  Good for Mexico.  We have Lithium too but the enviro-weenies don't want anything done here.  They are 100% OK with irresponsible mining in South America stripping out the forests and putting children to work hauling rocks (this is for Cobalt - also needed). After all, they covet their neighbors Tesla. A responsible mine here? Not gonna happen.

While we are talking about the scandals of the Obama presidency, let us not forget this one:

Ambassador Stevens was sent to Benghazi to secretly retrieve US made Stinger Missiles that the State Dept had supplied to Ansar al Sharia in Libya WITHOUT Congressional oversight or permission.

Sec State Hillary Clinton had brokered the Libya deal through Ambassador Stevens and a Private Arms Dealer named Marc Turi, but some of the shoulder fired Stinger Missiles ended up in Afghanistan where they were used against our own military. On July 25th, 2012, a US Chinook helicopter was downed by one of them. Not destroyed only because the idiot Taliban didn’t arm the missile. The helicopter didn’t explode, but it had to land and an ordnance team recovered the missile’s serial number which led back to a cache of Stinger Missiles kept in Qatar by the CIA.

Obama and Hillary were in full panic mode, so Ambassador Stevens was sent to Benghazi to retrieve the rest of the Stinger Missiles. This was a “do-or-die” mission, which explains the Stand Down Orders given to multiple rescue teams during the siege of the US Embassy.

It was the State Dept, NOT the CIA, that supplied the Stinger Missiles to our sworn enemies because Gen. Petraeus at CIA would not approve supplying the deadly missiles due to their potential use against commercial aircraft. So then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus when he refused to testify in support of Obama’s phony claim of a “spontaneous uprising caused by a YouTube video that insulted Muslims.”

Obama and Hillary committed TREASON!

THIS is what the investigation is all about, WHY she had a Private Server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and WHY Obama, two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was the result of the YouTube video, even though everyone KNEW it was not.

Furthermore, the Taliban knew that the administration had aided and abetted the enemy WITHOUT Congressional oversight or permission, so they began pressuring (blackmailing) the Obama Administration to release five Taliban generals being held at Guantanamo.

Bowe Bergdahl was just a useful pawn used to cover the release of the Taliban generals. Everyone knew Bergdahl was a traitor but Obama used Bergdahl’s exchange for the five Taliban generals to cover that Obama was being coerced by the Taliban about the unauthorized Stinger Missile deal.

So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised, as well and a Sec of State that is a serial liar, who perjured herself multiple times at the Congressional Hearings on Benghazi. Perhaps this is why no military aircraft were called upon for help in Benghazi: because the administration knew that our enemies had Stinger Missiles that, if used to down those planes, would likely be traced back to the CIA cache in Qatar and then to the State Dept’s illegitimate arms deal in Libya.

Forward this again and again and again until everyone reads the true story of Benghazi.

No one place to point to for the entire story but the individual shards and tranches are out there for everyone to see.  A bit here, a bit there.  Piece them together and it is time for the entire Obama presidency to spend the rest of their lives in Gitmo.

Again, what's another word for conspiracy theory these days? Spoiler alert.

From The Danish Morel Project:

Controlled Indoor Cultivation of Black Morel (Morchella sp.) All-year-round
The morel mushroom is known as one of the world’s most coveted edible mushrooms. During the last hundred years, it has only with limited success been possible to cultivate black morel mushrooms under controlled, indoor conditions. We are therefore very pleased to announce that we finally, after many years of intensive research at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University and the University of Copenhagen, have invented and developed a method for controlled indoor cultivation of black morel mushrooms all-year-round under well defined conditions in climate chambers. We are able to produce 4.2 kilos of first-class morels per square metre within a total cultivation period of 22 weeks, corresponding to an annual production of 10 kilos of morels per square metre. The method is so well developed, that a commercial production can be started after an appropriate automation of the cultivation process.

This post is from four months ago - no additional news yet.  Just heard about it.
Probably looking for licensing and funding now.

From English-language Mexico News Daily:

Elite anti-narcotics unit was infiltrated by organized crime: AMLO
An elite anti-narcotics unit that was disbanded last year was infiltrated by organized crime, President López Obrador said Thursday.

He confirmed a Reuters report that Mexico’s organized crime-fighting Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU) – whose officers collaborated with and were trained by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration – was shut down.

“That happened more than a year ago,” López Obrador told reporters at his morning press conference conference.

The cartels probably recieved all sorts of insider information as well as funding and training in how the US operates. Priceless information. How much are the cartels paying the members of Congress to keep the borders open?  Chuck? Nancy?  That is the only explanation I can come up with. Wonder if Barkey's Operation Fast and Furious was part of this?

One of the willing instruments of the deep-state — Google — is kowtowing to their masters and starting to try to influence people's use of language. I hope those chains binding them are nice and soft. Wonder what it must feel like to be a Judas to society.  From Breitbart:

Google Launches ‘Inclusive Language’ Function to Promote Political Correctness
Google has announced the launch of an “inclusive language” function to help users eliminate politically incorrect words and expressions.

The feature is being introduced initially to Google’s “enterprise-level” users and will include both warnings and suggestions as part of Google’s new assisted writing features in Google Docs.

Typing in the word “landlord,” for instance, generates a warning the term “may not be inclusive to all readers” as well as the suggestion to replace the offensive locution with “property owner” or “proprietor.”

Similarly, Google takes issue with the word “mankind” and proposes substituting it with the more appropriate “humankind.”

Use of “policemen” and “housewife” provokes a correction as well, and Google will urge replacing them with the gender-neutral “police officers” and “stay-at-home spouse.”

Thought police anyone? I am reminded of this great quote from Peter Kreeft:

Control language and you control thought;
control thought and you control action;
control action and you control the world.

Change my mind.

Moving more stuff, sorting, packing. Coffee first.  There is a large field at the barn I am renting for storage so the dogs get their excercise there.

Back in a couple of hours...

Illegal to use the word Marijuana in WA State any more.  It's Raycisssssss...
From Seattle station KIRO-7:

Lawmakers strike the word ‘marijuana’ from all state laws, calling term racist
“Pot,” “weed,” “grass,” “Mary Jane,” “flower” — there is no shortage of terms to describe cannabis. However, Washington state is taking one word officially off the table: “marijuana.”

Legislators recently passed a law that changes every Revised Code of Washington with the word “marijuana.” The change gets rid of the term, swapping it out for the word “cannabis.”

Supporters say the word “marijuana” has a long history of racism.

“The term ‘marijuana’ itself is pejorative and racist,” said Washington state Rep. Melanie Morgan during testimony in 2021. Morgan is a Democrat representing the 29th Legislative District and sponsored the bill — House Bill 1210. Morgan discussed the history of the word, which originates from Spanish.

“As recreational marijuana use became more popular, it was negatively associated with Mexican immigrants,” Morgan said.

Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill that passed unanimously into law March 11. The changes will take effect in June.

“Even though it seems simple because it’s just one word, the reality is we’re healing the wrongs that were committed against Black and Brown people around cannabis,” Morgan said.

Now you can get an inkling of why I am so looking forward to moving out of here.  Used to be a nice place.

This looks like fun - I have been having a lot of fun with my ADSB Flight data reciever and my account at FlightAware

This looks like it kicks things up a notch:  SkyGlass  It takes the flight data and presents it in a 3D environment instead of a flat map. Lots of options for filtering out all but specific aircraft. $55/year for unlimited access.  They do full tracking of military aircraft which the people at FlightAware have chosen not to do.  There is a 14-day free trial which I might activate once I am moved to NC.

Not into drinking but halfway tempted to get a bottle: Knobel Spirits:

From Ann Barnhardt:

Text for testing “the new Twitter” released. Copy, publish, and report results

Ivermectin works and is safe.
The “vaccine” is not safe and is killing people- don’t get it.
We are living in medical tyranny.
Fauci is evil.
Take off your masks; they don’t work.

Heh - tempted to rejoin in a couple of months.  See what changes have been made.

From Bayou Renaissance Man

Looks like our *Resident is universally adored - from the New York Post:

Biden says Macron didn’t take his election-night call, talked to staff instead
President Biden said Monday that French President Emmanuel Macron didn’t come to the phone when he called to congratulate him on his landslide reelection.

Biden said he spoke with Macron’s staff instead on Sunday night as the French president partied at the Eiffel Tower — requiring the US president to call back Monday.

Almost feel sorry for the guy.  Almost...

From PR Newswire:

Elon Musk to Acquire Twitter
Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter's closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.

Bret Taylor, Twitter's Independent Board Chair, said, "The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon's proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter's stockholders."

Parag Agrawal, Twitter's CEO, said, "Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important."

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," said Mr. Musk. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."

And the fun begins...

Amazing volte-face - shows how consistent these people's thought processes are.
Talk about a careful analysis and rejection of propaganda - from Don Surber:

From 90 Miles:

One thing that is certain about Malthusian predictions - they never, ever come true. For every limit that some pundit can imagine, human ingenuity always comes up with a solution.  For every climate catastrophe that the pundit can imagine, they always seem to overlook something that was outside their little bubble and was deemed unimportant at the time. Scary stories get publicity and if your prediction is sufficiently far in the future, people will not remember when it fails to transpire.

To aid your memory, here is a list of 50 of the more egregious howlers.
From Mark Perry at American Enterprise Institute:

50 years of failed doomsday, eco-pocalyptic predictions; the so-called ‘experts’ are 0-50

1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000
4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8. 1974: Another Ice Age?
9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life (data and graph)
10. 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link)
12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link)
13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024

30 more at the site. The media still prints this garbage and people still lap it up.

Like I keep saying:

I will believe that there is a crisis
when the people who are telling me that there is a crisis
start ACTING like there is a crisis.

From The Federalist:

Amid Public Concern About Grooming Kids, American Library Association Picks ‘Marxist Lesbian’ As President
A large organization that drives the training of U.S. librarians and their use of public funds has chosen a self-described “Marxist lesbian” as its next president amid growing concern about libraries actively connecting children to sexually explicit activities and materials.

Emily Drabinski was elected president of the American Library Association last week by the organization’s members. She will take office in July 2023.

ALA’s approximately 54,000 members include librarians, libraries, library graduate schools, members of library boards and associations, and library students. The vast majority of its membership fees, therefore, are provided by taxpayer funds.

Drabinski won with 5,410 votes from such an electorate, compared to her opponent’s 4,622 votes, according to an ALA press release. The election was conducted online.

The interim chief librarian of The Graduate Center at City University of New York (CUNY), where she was previously the “critical pedagogy librarian,” Drabinski posts openly on her Twitter feed in support of sexually exposing children, union-led political strife, socialist politicians, and libraries pushing explicit and far-left material on unwilling taxpayers.

More at the site - they go into some of Drabinski's record. 
Keep a wastebasket handy - you may suffer a sudden case of emesis.
Her ideas on education are exactly what cause this graph:

It comes from page two of this report:
State Education Trends - Academic Performance and Spending over the Past 40 Years by the CATO Institute.

I feel horrible for the people of Ukraine but the government is about as corrupt as can be.  Their National Gas company has Hunter Biden as a board member.  John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney all have children making money over there.  It is the money-laundering nation for the deep state. Putin is fighting a war against the deep state, not against the Ukraine people.

This sums it up - from John Helmer writing at Russia News Now:

THE UKRAINE WAR CLOCK IS A TIME BOMB – IT BLOWS UP ON NOVEMBER 8, US ELECTION DAY
If you understand the war in the Ukraine as the US operation to fight to the last Ukrainian for as long as required to save the Democrats at the November election and conceal the most incapacitated president since Woodrow Wilson’s stroke in October 1919, how well is it going?

And if you understand the war as the Russian operation to defeat the NATO attack against Russia through the Ukraine, and its neighbours, what is the parallel answer?

In Washington, the war has steadied President Joseph Biden’s falling approval rating. If not for the war, Biden’s job approval on inflation and jobs, the direction of the country, and immigration would be crushing the small hope remaining that the Democrats can stave off the loss of both the House of Representatives and the Senate on November 8, and preserve their defence against the rising approval for Donald Trump’s re-run for the presidency in 2024. Biden is desperate for Ukrainian and Russian blood to keep flowing; and European too, if need be.

Score the war the best the Americans can hope for right now — but they have only six months left.

Much more at the site. This can also be found at John Helmer's website but that has been up and down all day.

About the author: 

John Helmer is the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. He first set up his bureau in 1989, making him today the doyen of the foreign press corps in Russia.

His family has many links to Russia. The founding father was a soldier from Denmark in Napoleon’s Grande Armée, who in 1806 decided his chances of survival were greater if he didn’t try to keep Napoleon company on the return home. Other family members were killed by the Germans during the invasion of the Soviet Union of 1941.

Born and educated in Australia, then at Harvard University, Helmer has also been a professor of political science, of sociology, and of journalism, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia.

So he knows what he is talking about...  Not surprised at all.  The Democrats are scrambling to hold on to their power.  They will even start a potentially nuclear war to do this.  Ukraine is a prima facie example.

So true - this is the end-game of progressivism - an all-powerful central state and a dependent poor.  No middle class.  No entrepreneurs. No small businesses. No independence at all.
Your dependence gives them the power to stay in power.

Their choices are a guy who is in the same league as Canada's Trudeau (elite highly-credentialed dumbass - petty tyrant - globalist) and a Marine Le Pen - a solid conservative. There is a third candidate who I really like but his chances are not good. What I do like is that the election is being done on paper, no absentee or mail-in ballots allowed, held for one day and photo ID is required. From Breitbart:

French Go to the Polls After Nervous Macron Makes Last-Ditch Bid to Court Young Voters
Polling stations have opened for the second and final round of the French presidential election after Emmanuel Macron made a last-ditch effort to court young voters in a bid to save his presidency.

France’s presidential election has entered its final stage, with polling stations opening Sunday morning to allow voters to choose between globalist incumbent Emmanual Macron and national populist challenger Marine Le Pen.

Polling in the race has been continually tight, with Macron seemingly nervous about the prospect of an upset defeat and making a desperate last-ditch attempt at courting France’s youth vote seemingly in the hopes of securing reelection.

Fingers crossed - this will be big if Le Pen wins.

Yeah - it was stolen. Change my mind.

Another name for conspiracy theory these days? Spoiler alert.

From John Sexton writing at Hot Air:

Washington Post: A Chinese lab identified COVID in December 2019 but the government kept it quiet
The Washington Post editorial board has a detailed story about a laboratory in Guangzhou, China which was one of the first in the country to genetically sequence COVID-19. The lab had been sent a sample from a hospitalized patient in Wuhan who had some kind of lung infection. A researcher at the lab saw the sequencing results and recognized it as a variant of SARS on December 26, 2019.

When she checked the test results that morning, they indicated the man was infected by a virus similar to the one that causes SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which was first identified in China in 2002 and ultimately killed 774 people worldwide. The researcher was alarmed. She wrote to a co-worker on WeChat, a messaging service, at 9:28 a.m., saying the sample was brimming with something that looked like SARS…

The researcher went by the online moniker Little Mountain Dog, with an avatar of a furry pup sitting alone in a field of lush grass. Her reflections and observations were posted in a blog on Jan. 28, 2020, which she took down two days later, saying it was written “for myself to read in the future, but it spread online and I didn’t want to get involved in anything, so I deleted it.” She asked that no one reprint it, and said the company’s leaders were “understanding and forgiving” after she posted it. “I don’t want to cause trouble to anyone, and I don’t want to stir up public opinion,” she added.

The researcher known as Little Mountain Dog decided to investigate more thoroughly before raising the alarm. After further work she was convinced it was an unknown relative of SARS. The lab decided to sterilize everything and monitor workers to make sure no one showed signs of infection. The also contacted authorities:

The media were not reporting on this but lots of people knew.  There is a big disconnect - most people unfortunately still trust the mainstream media for their daily narrative and they do not have the will, interest or time to do their own digging.  Those that do are painted as nut-jobs and conspiracy theorists by those working to maintain the narrative.

One of my favorite writers - some great news:

Pure schadenfreude - from The Post Millenial:

Disney LOSES nearly $50 billion in stock value since waging war against Florida's anti-grooming law
The Walt Disney Company has lost nearly $50 billion dollars in stock market value since the start of March, when executives shifted gears and became more actively involved in politically-charged ideological culture warfare against Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida leadership.

They picked the wrong hill to die on.  It is not good (or legal) to play social games with your shareholders investments.

Lagniappe? A small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase (such as a 13th doughnut when buying a dozen), or more broadly, "something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure (a curious etymology as well).

There is a fee-based stock trading website called Unusual Whales 

If you click on the "building" glyph in the top menu bar (between Options Profit Calculator and Alerts) you will be brought to this wonderful set of pages: I am the Senate    What follows is an in-depth tracking of the trading records of our Senators and Representatives. Most of them are doing a lot better than the various indicies.  Helps to have an inside line on what legislation is going to be passed and when.

Worth checking out.  I'll be looking into this once I am done with the move.
Got a bunch parked in some index funds now but getting nervous...

It goes back to that old saying:

I will believe that there is a crisis
when the people who are telling me that there is a crisis
start ACTING like there is a crisis.

Song being referenced here: Jesus take the wheel

For your fun and enlightenment:

The source materials are from 2007 - this has been going on "under the radar" for longer than most people know:

Source here: FLASHBACK: Obama Pushed Graphic Sex Education to 5-Year-Olds in 2007

Evil is walking this Earth.  No other explanation.

Overcast and cool - heading out for morning routine and then drop a bunch of stuff at the thrift store.

Feels good to be lightening the load.  House is getting empty.

Back in a couple of hours...

He took $32 Million of our tax dollars and over two years and all we have is this:

Could have told you that in a few days.  Only would have charged you $1 Million - I'm not greedy.

Three headlines that certainly brightened my day - links to the stories:

Elon Musk Lines up $46.5 Billion in Financing, Exploring Tender Offer for Twitter

CNN+ Shutting Down Only 30 Days After Its Launch

‘Go Woke, Get Broke’: Netflix Stock Plunges and Subscribers Flee

I know that the whole WOKE crowd has a very good Public Relations department and they are frequently in the media but they only represent a very small percentage of us.  You know — We The People — and we subscribe to media as well.  We vote with our dollars. This truth is becoming very apparent to the BODs of these corporations.  Some very pissed shareholders out there.

Oh. Also.  This from the Media Research Council:

GET WOKE, GO BROKE! CNBC Anchor: Disney Is ‘Worst Performing Dow Stock’ After 31.5% Tumble

They had a core competency and should never have left that...

Could there be a deep-state connection between the social media companies and the deep state?
No shit Sherlock - Glenn Greenwald explains:

Former Intelligence Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big Tech Monopoly Power is Vital to National Security
A group of former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their centralized censorship power is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy. The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S. by Russia as illustrated by the invasion of Ukraine, and it repeatedly points to the dangers of Putin and the Kremlin to justify the need to preserve Big Tech's power in its maximalist form. Any attempts to restrict Big Tech's monopolistic power would therefore undermine the U.S. fight against Moscow.

While one of their central claims is that Big Tech monopoly power is necessary to combat (i.e., censor) “foreign disinformation,” several of these officials are themselves leading disinformation agents: many were the same former intelligence officials who signed the now-infamous-and-debunked pre-election letter fraudulently claiming that the authentic Hunter Biden emails had the "hallmarks” of Russia disinformation (former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Obama CIA Director Michael Morrell, former Obama CIA/Pentagon chief Leon Panetta). Others who signed this new letter have strong financial ties to the Big Tech corporations whose power they are defending in the name of national security (Morrell, Panetta, former Bush National Security Adviser Fran Townsend).

This follows this interesting post from Sundance a few days ago:

Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop
The metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business.  Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.

It didn’t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn’t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there. Few people thought about such things. Curiously, it didn’t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack’s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.

Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter. Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers. A debate began.

Alternative coffee shops opened around town. It was entirely possible to duplicate Jacks Coffee Shop, yet no one could duplicate the business model for the free coffee. Indeed, there was something very unique about Jack’s Coffee Shop. Thus, some underlying suspicions were raised.

The deep state is using social media companies to control the narrative.  Simple as that.

From the Beeb:

Queen celebrates 96th birthday in Sandringham
Britain's longest-reigning monarch travelled by helicopter to her Norfolk estate, where she is being joined by family and friends.

She is thought to be staying in a cottage particularly liked by her late husband, Prince Philip.

God Bless and Protect her. She has Britain's interests at heart.

Found over at Chris Lynch's

With all the complaints about the traffic jams at US Marine ports, China is not doing that well either.
Here is ship traffic off the coast of Shanghai

You can see the two lines of ships coming into the main port area as well as two "clusters" of ships at anchor waiting.  There are a lot more of these "clusters" all over the Chinese coastline. I am using shiptracker.live which aggregates each ships Automatic identification systems (AIS) data.  The supply chain problems are global. The New World Order is doing this. A bunch of credentialed self-centered idiots with delusions of grandeur. Things are crumbling to dust under their "leadership" and they have no idea of what is happening or of how to fix it.

From the London Daily Mail:

Former McDonald's CEO who invented the McNugget sets up new group to fight back against woke corporations and buys enough Bank of American shares to formally propose that firm scraps staff CRT training

• • Ed Rensi, who served as the CEO of McDonalds in the 1990s, is partnering with conservative groups to fight back against woke corporations
  • He formed the Boardroom Imitative - a partnership between the Job Creators Network, The Free Enterprise Group and Second Vote
  • The goal of the group is to protect share holders and employees of publicly traded companies from 'woke' policies and ensure corporate accountability
  • It comes as left-wing groups continue to buy up stocks in businesses until they raise enough clout to lobby the board to adopt leftist policies
  • Companies are also being forced to the left so they could receive a high ESG score, which would make them more profitable
  • The group has already bought out nearly 2,000 shares of Bank of America, which has come under fire for teaching critical race theory
  • It is also planning to look into claims that Allstate is denying coverage to companies with low Environmental Social Governance scores

Wonderful news - let's have everyone stand up and say NO!

SImple as that.

From Newsweek:

7 Injured in Explosion as Fire Engulfs Food Plant; Smoke Visible for Miles
Multiple workers are hospitalized following an explosion at a food processing facility that has nearby residents on alert for possible evacuation.

The explosion occurred Tuesday evening at Shearer's Foods in Hermiston, a city in agriculturally rich eastern Oregon. No deaths have been reported from the blast, but the extent of the damage to the plant and its future were not clear. City officials are concerned what the fire could mean for the community and local economy.

From the Phoenix, AZ CBS affiliate:

50,000 lb of food destroyed after fire ripped through Maricopa Food Pantry
It’s a long road to recovery for Maricopa Food Pantry after a fire destroyed around 50,000 lb of food. The fire happened just 15 minutes after their food bank closed on Monday morning. Smoke was still coming from the rubble 24 hours later. “It had to be 40-50 feet in the air, just pure black smoke. It engulfed the entire neighborhood,” said Maricopa Food Pantry President Mike Connelly. “The heat we could feel down at the corner.”

Taylor Farms in Salinas, CA

Farmed Chickens and Turkeys - CNet:

27 Million Birds Are Dead. And It's Only Going to Get Worse
A virulent bird flu epidemic has reached at least 30 states and resulted in nearly 27 million chickens and turkeys being destroyed to check its spread.

New Hampshire's WMUR:

Crews battled fire for 16 hours at East Conway Beef and Pork
Neighbors banded together to support crews as they battled a fire in Conway for about 16 hours Monday night.

More than 12 departments and agencies worked together to put out the fire at East Conway Beef and Pork.

This is just a quick search of the net for stories going back 30 days.  A lot of large food producers are being hit.

What is happening here?  Who authorized this?  Who is doing this?

Great source for bulk organic foods - good prices and top quality stuff. Unfortunately, they will be running at reduced capacity for a while.
From Oregon's Columbia Gorge News: 

Fire destroys Azure Standard Headquarter Facility
The headquarters of Azure Standard, the nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire overnight. There were no injuries. The cause of the fire is unknown and under investigation. The loss of the facility and the impact on companywide operations is being assessed and expected to be limited and temporary. No other Azure Standard facilities were affected.

Azure Standard founder and CEO David Stelzer issued the following statement: “While the HQ facility is a total loss, and a few product lines will be affected for the short term, other Azure Standard facilities are operating as close to normal as possible. Most importantly, we are grateful no one was injured. Our dedication to providing the highest quality food and products will continue as always. We ask for your patience and prayers as we take steps to adjust and rebuild. We appreciate our Azure community and the many expressions of support we are receiving and will continue to update our vendors and customers as needed. We expect the impact to be short-term, limited in scope and manageable.”

What is nice about them is that they maintain a fleet of delivery trucks and run a nationwide route.  Communities can get together and place a large order and then everyone meets the truck to pick their order up.  They handle payment and labelling so it's easy to keep track of who gets what.  Keeps the costs down a lot over buying ones and twos.  Good people too.

And she does not want to dignify his comments with a reply:

Hey Jackass is an excellent independent tracker of Chicago crime stats. Not a good place to live.

From the Daily Wire:

Florida’s Senate Passes Bill To End Disney’s Self Governance
Florida’s Republican-led Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that eliminates a special taxing district that allows Walt Disney Co. to govern the land where its theme park is located.

“The measure potentially delivers a blow to the company’s operations in the state,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The special district, created in 1967 and known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District, exempts Disney from a host of regulations and certain taxes and fees related to emergency services and road maintenance.”

The report noted that the special taxing district reportedly saves Disney tens of millions of dollars per year.

The bill now heads to Florida’s Republican-led House where it is expected to pass. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has already signaled that he will sign the bill into law.

Go WOKE, get broke.  They will have to compete with all the other rabble.  I hope that the WOKEsters at Disney enjoyed their fifteen minutes of fame. Now get back to work and manage the company for us shareholders. Get your fscking mitts off of our kids while you are at it.

Great day to pack boxes and move...  Feeling a lot better - still have a stuffed head and body ache but will feel better once I start moving.

Quick surf turns up nothing - Disney is learning a hard lesson about being WOKE, so is Netflix. Schadefreude.

Heading out for some coffee and then to work.

From the USA Census Bureau (latest hard figures):

Population Estimates, July 1 2021, (V2021) — 331,893,745

From the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Nearly 1 million people identify as transgender in the United States (US)

So we are looking (using government numbers) a total of about 0.3% of the population is transgendered.  Why are they shoving their lifestyle down our throats as if they were in the majority?  They are not in the majority and the majority of the general population that I do know care little about someone's sexual and gender preferences.

To the trannies out there?  You have had your fun.  You got "awareness" but I think you pushed a little too far.  The pendulum is going to swing back.  Hope your fifteen minutes was worth it.

I could have told them - from July 2020 - a scant two years ago:

But that's what you get when you play with Keynesian Economics.
Me? Old school Austrian. Hayek worked then and still works now:

Don Surber summed it up best:

DeSantis moves to end Disney's privilege
My rule about bears is simple. Don't poke them.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek poked the bear down in Florida. A few gay activists bitched about Florida's Parental Rights in Education law, which stops the grooming of kids ages 4-9 by teachers in public schools. Libs did what they usually do to bring down a state law. They mislabeled it (Don't Say Gay!) and pressured CEOs to come out against it. Finally, libs started a boycott of the state. The city of Los Angeles is boycotting Florida. Whee!

DeSantis' comments when he made the announcement:

DeSantis said, "This state is governed by the interest of the people of the state of Florida. It is not based on the demands of California corporate executives. They do not run this state. They do not control this state."

We The People - I love it!

Feeling a lot better this morning - heading out for coffee and the usual routine.

Don't know if the suppliments helped any - it took around four days to run its course.  Less than the seven of a usual cold but it is not over yet and it might have been just a light one. We will see.

Nothing catches my eye out there.  More in a few hours...

Same event, two different news articles:

New Scientist (which used to be a really good publication):

Carbon removal project in Iceland suffers setback due to harsh winter
The world’s biggest facility for removing carbon dioxide directly from the air is running behind schedule in Iceland, after punishing Arctic conditions froze machinery and forced the Swiss company behind it to make modifications.

Launched in September 2021, the Climeworks “Orca” plant to the east of Reykjavik was hailed by Iceland’s prime minister Katrin Jakobsdottir as a “milestone in the fight against climate change”.

And Carbon Herald:

World’s Largest Carbon Removal Plant ‘Orca’ Freezes Over In Iceland
The world’s largest carbon removal plant located to the east of Reykjavik, Iceland, has frozen, putting its operations behind schedule.

Climeworks, the company behind the ambitious plant named ‘Orca’, had set out to capture 4,000 metric tons of CO2 every year directly from the air – a process known as direct air capture or DAC.

By the end of the decade, in fact, the project’s capacity is expected to reach as much as 1 million tons of carbon dioxide.

However, as it became apparent, the plant was not equipped to handle the harsh weather conditions in Iceland and some of the machinery froze.

One Million Tons of CO2 - just as a heads up, 2016 is the last year I have positive numbers and in 2016, world citizens emitted 35,753,305,000 tons of Carbon Dioxide.  All the money spent on this plant, all the environmental impact of this plant, will only ameliorate 1/35,753 of this supposed problem.

Me?  I smell grift.  I smell me a big 'ole grift.  Someone made a lot of money in this feel-good/do-nothing project.  All it had to do was appear to work during the ribbon cutting ceremony and then the principals laugh all the way to the bank.
Solyndra anyone? I can name a few others if you want.

Definite lack of motivation.  Was on a roll yesterday but feeling downright slothful today.  Getting stuff done, just not anything involving heavy lifting.

Cleaning house, couple loads of laundry?  Done and done.  Heading north to Costco and the food coop to get this week's comestibles.

All the talk about about public school curriculum?  Here is but one example:

Do no evil?   That went by the wayside years ago - when they started feeding us all the propaganda and starting sucking on the government teat.  Now?  All they do is agenda and propaganda.  Keep pushing that narrative...

Neuralizer? here
Part of the trove recovered from Area 51.  The MIBs are still pissed that it was used in the movie.  That was need-to-know but it fit so well into the storyline that Sonnenfeld included it anyway.  Who would believe it after all...

From Knuckledraggin:

Nothing happening out there in the big world.  Busy here - packing stuff and moving it to the storage garage.

Feeling a lot better - what should normally be a five to seven day cold is almost gone - felt the nigglings of something crawling around my immune system Friday evening. Woke up feeling crappy yesterday and now?  A lot better.  Hard to say if it was ivermectin's known anti-viral properties, the zinc and quercetin, the clean living or what... See how I feel tomorrow.

Back to work...

Moved from a sore throat to congestion - still a lot of body ache.  In other words, a classic cold progressing as usual.

My typing has improved so brain function (such as it is) is back to whatever passes for normal.

Time to get up and get moving - feel a lot better when I start working.

Still feeling cruddy - stuffed head, sore throat, body ache.  Early to sleep tonight.

Can't type worth shit - thank Dog for spall chuckers.  See how it goes tomorrow...

An amazing and good news story but it doesn't fit the current narrative.
CURRENT NARRATIVE: It's OK to be sexually attracted to children.  It's normal for an adult to engage in sexual relations with children.  With that as the current narrative, no wonder stories like this never get published.

From the U.S. Marshalls Service:

U.S. Marshals MCU Operation ‘Fresh Start’ Recovers Sixteen Missing Endangered Children and Makes Five Arrests
New Orleans, LA – U.S. Marshals Service Eastern District of Louisiana New Orleans Task Force (USMS)-led, Missing Child Unit (MCU) Operation “Fresh Start” was conducted in the New Orleans, Louisiana metro area from January 01, 2022, until March 31, 2022, resulting in the rescue or recovery of sixteen (16) missing/endangered children. In addition, six (6) children self-returned, three (3) children were recovered as other status, and three (3) more were recovered by other law enforcement agencies. Five (5) arrests were made during the operation. Investigations as part of the three-month MCU operation also uncovered allegations of human sex trafficking in several of the cases.

Much more at the site.  Some of the goblins got away and were not arrested.  Time to bring back hanging in the public square. Justice.  Ed Buck unavailable for comment...

From Labzilla:

Your Smart TV is probably ignoring your PiHole
If you’re using PiHole on your network to block ads and prevent your various smart devices from sending tracking information to their manufacturers, you might be surprised to find out that some of these devices are using a sneaky tactic to bypass your PiHole entirely.

Smart devices manufacturers often “hard-code” in a public DNS server, like Google’s 8.8.8.8, and their devices ignore whatever DNS server is assigned by your router - such as your PiHole.

Nearly 70% of smart TVs and 46% of game consoles were found to contain hardcoded DNS settings - allowing them to simply ignore your local network’s DNS server entirely. On average, Smart TVs generate an average of 60 megabytes of outgoing Internet traffic per day, all the while bypassing tools like PiHole.

Say what? "60 megabytes of outgoing Internet traffic per day"

PiHole uses a cheap linux machine (Raspberry Pi) to intercept the traffic to and from the machines in your house.
It blocks 99% of targeted advertising and speeds things up a lot.  Highly recommended and easy to set up and administrate. An alternative on a machine by machine basis is to use a HOSTS file on each computer - MVPS HOSTS is an excellent one and is free to download.  Good stuff.

From FOX News:

Boston Police uniforms stolen ahead of marathon; FBI, Massachusetts cops offering $5K reward for suspects
The FBI has joined Massachusetts law enforcement agencies in investigating the theft of Boston Police Department uniforms, which were stolen from a Weymouth business, just weeks before the city’s annual marathon is set to kick off.

Friday marked nine years since the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013, when three people were killed and more than 260 were hurt. Ahead of Monday’s 126th Boston Marathon, Boston Police Superintendent-In-Chief Greg Long is urging attendees not to hesitate to report someone acting suspicious, even if they are dressed in a uniform.

The Weymouth Police Department announced earlier this week that it was working with the FBI in investigating the theft of several Boston Police Department uniforms that were stolen from a local uniform supply store.

No word as to number of uniforms taken or if anything else was taken.  Timing does not look good.

What's the difference between a conspiracy theory and reality? About 41 years in this case:

Another name for conspiracy theory? Spoiler alert.

Time to start making those AFDBs

Hit them where it hurts - the textbook market - from Don Surber:

Florida DOE rejects 54 indoctrination textbooks
41% of the textbooks publishers submitted in Florida were inappropriate and rejected, the state Department of Education announced.

The rejected books included those pushing CRT, Common Core, and what the DOE called "the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics."

Its announcement said, "Overall, Florida is initially not including 54 of the 132 (41%) submitted textbooks on the state’s adopted list."

• • 28 (21%) are not included on the adopted list because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
  • 12 (9%) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards (Florida’s Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking).
  • 14 (11%) are not included on the adopted list because they do not properly align to B.E.S.T. Standards and incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT.
  • Grades K-5: 71% of materials were rejected.
  • Grades 6-8: 20% of materials were rejected.
  • Grades 9-12: 35% of materials were rejected.

Good for Florida for sticking to its guns.

More at the site. Good news.  It will be interesting if the textbook publishers try to put this agenda under wraps and obfuscate the materials in future editions.  Might be good to build a database of known authors and publishing companies.

Something to remember, just as Joe's kid is involved in money making scams in the Ukraine (along with John Kerry's stepson, Nancy Pelosi's son and Mitt Romney's son).  Atty. General Merrick Garland's son and daughter are deep into the textbook publishing business - they are making money off the whole woke grift too.

I have someone housesitting my farm while I am clearing the island house out.  Got a photo this morning:

Couple hundred feet away and a cell phone camera but yeah - black bear just out of hibernation. Probably about 200-250 pounds. Hungry and foraging.  Seen plenty of bear poops around the farm but never seen one out in daylight.

Classic spring cold - stuffed up head, body aches and sore throat.

Heading out today but not going for coffee or being around any people - don't want to spread the love. Heading to the storage garage to sort some stuff and then back here to continue boxing up and packing.  I'll feel better when I start moving around.

Slept over ten hours last night - going to take some more supplements (zinc, quercetin) and ivermectin.  It's not the Wuhan Flu but 'mectin has very well documentated anti-viral properties as well as being a horse wormer. Colds are caused by a virus so...

This summer's blockbuster movie:

Good productive day. Got something crawling around my immune system so taking it easy for the next couple of days.  Took some ivermectin and other supplements so see what happens.

Nothing much happening out there.  Lots of chatter but nothing that really catches my eye.  The Twitter meltdown is fun to see - really shows who are the good guys and who are the baddies.

An odious piece of work.  From the Los Angeles ABC affiliate:

Ed Buck sentenced to 30 years in prison in overdose deaths of 2 men at his West Hollywood apartment
Former Democratic donor Ed Buck was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in federal prison in connection with the overdose deaths of two men at his West Hollywood apartment.

Buck was found guilty last year of supplying methamphetamine to Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean, who died in separate incidents in July 2017 and January 2019, respectively.

Buck, now 67, lured young Black men who were often experiencing homelessness, addiction, and/or poverty to his apartment for sexually charged sessions in which he would inject them with methamphetamine and drug them with sedatives, with and without their consent, federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Down towards the end was this:

Buck -- who has donated more than $500,000 to mostly Democratic causes and served in 2016 as one of California's Electoral College members -- was convicted of two counts of distribution of controlled substances resulting in death.

"more than $500,000" - it was a lot more than $500,000 - the guy was a major bundler and fundraiser as well as money-man. Deeply involved. Doubt he will serve more than a couple years but it's a start...

Oopsie - that did not work out as planned...
From Gizmodo:

NFT of First Tweet Ever Secures Bid of Just $277 After Selling for $2.9 Million Last Year
Crypto investor Sina Estavi bought an NFT of Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet ever for $2.9 million in March of 2021. And after a year of constant hype for NFTs, most people would naturally assume Estavi might be able to turn a nice profit on his investment by now. But most people would be wrong.

Estavi put the NFT up for auction last week, and bidding ended on Wednesday. The highest bid? Roughly $277 worth of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, at current prices, according to crypto news outlet CoinDesk.

Estavi had hoped to get as much as $48 million for the NFT and pledged to donate half of the price to charity. But that’s obviously not happening anymore. The crypto businessman has a couple of days to decide whether he wants to accept just $277 for his multi-million dollar investment. But we’d guess he’s just going to keep it.

Never saw the hype. Guess that fad has run its course... What's next?

Brittan has been having a big problem with "refugees" entering and demanding asylum.  There is a whole cottage industry revolving around providing these people with free housing, aid, money, etc. so no wonder there is a sizeable problem. Boris has an excellent idea - London Daily Mail:

Boris says threat of a one-way ticket to Rwanda will 'save countless lives' by deterring migrants from trying to cross the Channel in dinghies – despite left-wing charities and politicians branding plans 'cruel'

• • PM invoked spirit of Brexit as he unveiled a £120million scheme to send immigrant men to East Africa
  • Speaking in Kent he said that while the UK's compassion may be 'endless', its capacity to host people was not
  • Ministers have struck a 'world-first' deal with the government of Paul Kigame to host economic migrants
  • Royal Navy will take a policing role in the Channel from today to stiffen up resistance to crossings

Boris Johnson today insisted the threat of a one-way ticket to Rwanda for immigrants caught trying to sneak into Britain by crossing the Channel in dinghies will 'save countless lives'.

Under a £120million agreement with Kigali, economic migrants arriving in the UK illegally will be refused asylum and detained in a former military base before being flown directly to the African nation.

In a speech this morning - as more migrants arrived on the south coast - the Prime Minister invoked the spirit of Brexit in support of the scheme, saying: 'The British people voted several times to control our borders.'

He said that while the UK's compassion may be 'endless', its capacity to host people was not, adding: 'We cannot expect the UK taxpayer to write a blank cheque.'

Excellent idea and very true.  Compassion is a good thing, establishing a precedent of allowing people to enter and live off the taxpayer dime is not.  And of course, there are complaints:

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the plans were 'cruel and nasty', and accused the Government of 'lurching from one inhumane policy to the next'. 

I am betting that Enver's organization gets a pretty penny from the British government for every "refugee" they process.  They are simply complaining that their rice bowl is being taken away.  This is not about human rights, this is about virtue signaling, money and power.

We have the same issue here with the homeless "problem".  It is not a problem, it could be fixed in six months but nobody has the political will to do it and meanwhile, the various NGOs are making buckets of money farming these poor souls.

Loading the van today, meeting someone at the farm at 5:00PM tonight.

Got another meeting at 10:00AM tomorrow and then back to the island for more packing.

The fun never stops around here...

From America's Newspaper of Record:

Twitter Headquarters Suffers Severe Water Damage From Liberal Employees' Tears
Twitter headquarters has sustained extensive water damage following Elon Musk's $43 billion bid to buy out the company. Early reports indicate that the source of the water is the tears of the company's liberal employees who are devastated at the news.

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!! I refuse to work for Elon Musk!" screamed Evie Mandrake (they/them) falling to her knees, tearing at her clothes, and sobbing uncontrollably. "He can't keep getting away with this! We can't let him allow free speech!"

Witnesses claim that tears are currently pouring out all the exits and windows of Twitter's HQ. Structural engineers at the scene are not sure if the building can be salvaged. "In this case, the high salt content of the tears already threatens to corrode the steel structure of the building. I guess we'll have to gut the place and turn it into a homeless shelter after all." said Mark Powell, senior engineer.

Of the few Twitter employees that were still able to still speak coherently, they explained that they fear what may happen to this platform now that people they don't like can't be silenced on a whim. "Now anyone could be subject to being banned. Even the accounts we have been protecting by turning a blind eye to are at risk now!"

At publishing time, the local news channel was forced to put out a flood warning for the Twitter headquarters surrounding area for the foreseeable future as the weeping and gnashing of teeth continues.

Heh - Musk is the polar opposite of the Bond Villains like BillG, Bezos, etc...
He sees the truth and is not afraid to speak.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Elon Musk Offers to Buy Twitter for $43.4 Billion
Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter in a deal that values the social media giant at $43.4 billion.

In a “best and final” offer that Musk sent via text message to Twitter board chair Bret Taylor, he wrote that “since making my investment, I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

He added: “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”

And, if they do not accept the offer, he dumps his existing shares and opens up his own site.  Betting that is already in the wings waiting to go live. To paraphrase a classic:

I felt a great disturbance in the Internet. As if millions of voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

The wailing and lamentation of the liberals will be sweet music to my ears.

I wish...

Smart in a sense - they are going where the money is.  Only problem is that the rich elites only want crime in the middle-class neighborhoods and in the retail stores.  Once these gangs are targeting the elite's homes?  Different story entirely.  Quite surprised that a few of the thugs have not been shot on sight.  From the London Daily Mail:

Beverly Hills bandits: How a DOZEN gangs are targeting city's rich and famous for their designer handbags and watches - with 221 follow-home robberies in just four months

• • A group of at least 17 gangs are behind LA's recent string of more than 200 'follow-home' robberies, cops said Tuesday
  • The comments came during a brief discussing the department's work to put an end to the attacks
  • In November, a division designed to combat the robberies - Follow Home Robbery Task Force - was formed
  • The force - which includes 18 detectives - was created on November 23
  • Since then, a total of 221 follow-home robberies have been reported - with a further 45 coming before the task force's creation
  • During Tuesday's brief, cops from the city-formed unit criticized laws that saw two suspects the task force arrested in the past month put back on the street

A group of at least 17 gangs targeting Los Angeles' wealthiest are responsible for the city's recent string of 'follow-home' robberies, cops said Tuesday.

'In my 34 years in the LAPD, I have never seen this type of criminal behavior in such large groups coordinating to conduct attacks on unsuspecting citizens to take their property and/or vehicles,' said Capt. Jonathan Tippet of the attacks, which started in September.

In November, Tippet was tabbed to head a division designed to combat the robberies - Follow Home Robbery Task Force - which has seen armed suspects stalk victims leaving ritzy boutiques, hotels, and restaurants before striking.

Clever strategy - put a tracker on their vehicle or just follow them home.  The elites live in a bubble so the concept of situational awareness is alien to their nature.  They just got home so will be flustered when someone breaks in.

See how long they are able to keep this up before the goblins start dying. The gang leaders are planning this but most likely keeping themselves from harms way - sending out their new recruits to do the dirty work.

Turns out that he had quite the social media presence - none of it was very good.
From Twitchy:

‘O black Jesus, please kill all the whiteys’: Andy Ngô shares disturbing content from Brooklyn suspect Frank James’ purported social media
As we told you, Touré was beside himself over yesterday’s mass shooting terrorist attack in a Brooklyn subway station. No, not because of the casualties … because the suspect is a black man, Frank James. But if you thought Touré was upset then, just imagine how out-of-his-mind he’ll be when he sees these tweets from Andy Ngô about Frank James’ purported social media activity:

Much more at the site if you have the desire to peer into a racist cess-pit of uncoordinated thoughts and rambling manifestos.

Probably thought he would go out in a blaze of glory as a martyr to the black nationalist cause.  He will be spending the next 20 years in some federal penitentiary - just one of the criminals.

Expect the media to start burying this story in a few days.

Next Monday — what shooting?
That?
That's old news...

Doesn't fit the narrative - black criminal with a long-established history of anti-white racism.
From the London Daily Mail:

Subway shooter Frank James, 62, is arrested after New Yorkers spot him STROLLING AROUND Manhattan's East Village more than 24hrs after gunning down ten on packed train: Charged with terrorist attack on mass transit

• • Frank James, 62, was taken into custody on Wednesday, nearly 30 hours after the shooting in Brooklyn
  • He has now been charged with federal terrorism charges and is due to be arraigned
  • James opened fire on Tuesday at 8.24am after unleashing a smoke grenade on the subway
  • The 62-year-old evaded the NYPD, FBI and other law enforcement teams for more than 24 hours
  • James rented a U-Haul in Philadelphia and is believed to have driven to New York before dumping the vehicle near Kings Avenue
  • He is then thought to have entered the subway at 6am, riding it for two hours, before the attack
  • Ten people were injured but none were killed; among them was a 14-year-old
  • James posted dozens of unhinged videos on YouTube ranting about race, Eric Adams, and prison

The media will be doing the old:  "Look!!! A squirrel!!!" routine in 3... 2... 1...

Unreal - the entitlement of these corrupt grifters. From PJ Media:

BLM Co-Founder Says She Gets 'Triggered' by Charity Transparency Laws
Patrisse Cullors, the Black Lives Matter co-founder who cashed out and got millions of dollars in media contracts, says that the recent scrutiny of BLM’s “charitable” finances upsets her.

Black Lives Matter is embroiled in several scandals involving the $90 million they raised in 2020 to end police brutality and racism. The most recent eyebrow-raiser was the revelation that the group purchased a $6 million mansion in California that has rarely been used for the purposes they say.

There’s also the matter of the $60 million in funds that no one at BLM Global appears to be in charge of.

Cullors says she gets “triggered” when anyone mentions the IRS form 990 — the form charities must complete that reveals donors and sources of money.

Laws are for the little people.  She is entitled to this money. Gets her feelings hurt if she can't have her mansion.

It's what communists have always done.  The middle class is a threat to their power grab.
From the Toronto Sun:

Trudeau is planning a tax on trucks
The Trudeau government is planning to hit Canadians with a big new tax on their trucks and sport utility vehicles.

The proposed tax would cost an extra $1,000 on a Ford F-150, and a Ram 3500 heavy-duty pickup truck would get hit with a $4,000 tax.

For most people, this new tax will come as a surprise, as neither Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nor Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault held a big press conference to announce their latest war on working folks. The recommendation to whack trucks with a big tax is buried deep in a new 271-page report from the Ministry of the Environment that was posted on the Government of Canada website March 31, 2022.

Of course they burried it - they know that it would never stand on it's own two feet.  Nothing a liberal comes up with does.  They can not win on the popular vote, they always have to cheat. Unfortunately, nobody on the conservative side has the stones to call them on it so they get away with it.

Heh - let them deal with it - from FOX News:

First Texas bus drops off migrants blocks from US Capitol in Washington, DC
A bus from Texas arrived in Washington, D.C. Wednesday morning, transporting dozens of illegal immigrants as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s new plan to counter federal immigration policies during an ongoing border crisis.

Abbott announced last week that he was directing the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) to transport migrants released from federal custody in Texas to the nation’s capital and other locations outside his state.

The bus pulled up at approximately 8 a.m. local time, blocks away from the U.S. Capitol building. Fox News has learned that they came from the Del Rio sector in Texas, after coming to the U.S. from Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

More of a symbolic act then actually transporting all of them but still.  Gets the issue in front of the media in a big way.

Only reason for letting these people through would be that Congress is being paid off.  How much Chuck?  How much Nancy? Is your $48,000 ice cream freezer (here and here) worth that much to you?

Looks like the deep-state is trying to plant the seeds of Russian Collusion in people's brains again.
Just in time for the November 8th mid-term elections.  From Market Watch/Associated Press:

U.S. intelligence agencies warn Putin may use Biden backing of Ukraine as pretext for new round of election interference
Russian President Vladimir Putin might use the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine as a pretext to order a new campaign to interfere in American politics, U.S. intelligence officials have assessed.

Intelligence agencies have so far not found any evidence that Putin has authorized measures like the ones Russia is believed to have undertaken in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in support of former President Donald Trump, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive findings.

Condition of anonymity??? Give me a fscking break.  They did not want to talk "on the record" because they have nothing. Zip. Zero. There was no Russian collusion in 2016 or in 2020 and there is none now.  Mueller report anyone?  Over two years and $32 million of our tax money and they found nothing.

Who stood up to Putin more than any other President? President Trump.  Why would Putin seek to help him get elected?  President Trump being in office does not benefit Russia or Putin.

But given Putin’s antipathy toward the West and his repeated denunciations of Ukraine, officials believe he may see the U.S. backing of Ukraine’s resistance as a direct affront to him, giving him further incentive to target another U.S. election, the people said. It is not yet clear which candidates Russia might try to promote or what methods it might use.

Lies all the way down.  They are building the narrative.  Getting the seed planted in people's brains.

Joe signed an Executive Order shutting down construction on the Keystone Pipeline.  This was done on his first day in office. He campaigned on cutting off our fossil fuel use.  Got a simple question:

People are waking up and CNN's ratings are in the toilet. What to do?
Start doing real journalism? Get rid of the progressive bias?  Naaaaa...
Rebrand (repackage) - say hello to CNN+   From CNBC:

CNN+ struggles to lure viewers in its early days, drawing fewer than 10,000 daily users
Fewer than 10,000 people are using CNN+ on a daily basis two weeks into its existence, according to people familiar with the matter.

The people spoke with CNBC on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss nonpublic data.

There is no longer a good market for progressive narrative. People are starting to wake up and see the man behind the curtain.

Best and brightest - really.  Take our word for it.
From Media Right News:

PRESUMPTIVE GOP GOV NOMINEE LEE ZELDIN CALLS OUT NY DEM GOV KATHY HOCHUL’S ‘TERRIBLE JUDGEMENT’ AFTER LT. GOV. ARRESTED FOR CAMPAIGN FINANCE ‘SCHEME’
U.S. House Rep Lee Zeldin (R-NY), who is the presumptive nominee for Governor, didn’t hold back in his assessment after New York’s Dem Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin was arrested for a campaign finance “scheme.”

“New York Lt Governor Brian Benjamin was just arrested on corruption & bribery charges,” Zeldin began in a tweet.

Zeldin pointed out, as we did in our earlier report, that “As a State Senator, he championed the defund the police movement.”

“He was a horrible selection to be LG when he was first picked by Kathy Hochul & he’s an even worse choice as time goes on,” Zeldin explained.

Zeldin then noted that “Just last week, Kathy Hochul was tripling down on her support for Brian Benjamin despite all of the known corruption.”

Hochul claimed last Monday that she was unaware prosecutors had issued subpoenas related to Benjamin’s failed comptroller campaign before his appointment to his current post last year.

However, the New York Daily News reported that Benjamin has been plagued by scandal since long before being appointed to his current post by Hochul.

"she was unaware" - she was fully aware but figured that the "little people" did not have anything to do with her decision. She is not representing the citizens of New York, she is a tool of the deep-state.  A useful idiot as she will be among those lined up against the wall should they take power. She is a useful tool for them but she is not a party insider. She needs to study her history.

Never a big fan but I still drink Diet Pepsi (used to be Coke before they went WOKE).
This will raise a few eyebrows - from SciTechDaily:

Researchers Uncover How Sugar Substitutes (Artificial Sweeteners) Disrupt Liver Detoxification
Results from a new study suggest that two sugar substitutes disrupt the function of a protein that plays a vital role in liver detoxification and the metabolism of certain drugs. These sugar substitutes, also known as non-nutritive sweeteners, provide a sweet taste with few or no calories.

“With an estimated 40% of Americans regularly consuming non-nutritive sweeteners, it’s important to understand how they affect the body,” said Laura Danner, a doctoral student at the Medical College of Wisconsin. “In fact, many people don’t realize that these sweeteners are found in light or zero-sugar versions of yogurts and snack foods and even in non-food products like liquid medicines and certain cosmetics.”

The mechanism?

They found that acesulfame potassium and sucralose inhibited the activity of P-glycoprotein (PGP), which is also known as multidrug resistance protein 1 (MDR1). PGP is part of a family of transporters that work together to cleanse the body of toxins, drugs, and drug metabolites.

“We observed that sweeteners impacted PGP activity in liver cells at concentrations expected through consumption of common foods and beverages, far below the recommended FDA maximum limits,” said Stephanie Olivier Van Stichelen, PhD, who leads the research team. “To our knowledge, we are the first group to decipher the molecular mechanism by which non-nutritive sweeteners impact detoxification in the liver.”

The experiments also showed that the sweeteners stimulate transport activity and likely bind to PGP, and thus compete with and inhibit the transport of other substrates such as xenobiotics, drugs and their metabolites, short-chain lipids, and bile acids.

These are just the preliminary findings but still, if they bear out in clinical studies, it will shake up the "diet" sweetner industry quite a bit. Some big money there and they do not want anyone fscking with their rice bowl.

Taking it easy today.  Doing taxes and puttering around the house.

Dog walk and coffee first.  Priorities.

Having tasted the power, a tyrant wannabe will not want to go back — Seattle station KOMO:

Emergency powers for Gov. Inslee remain in place although COVID crisis has eased
Now that Oregon’s governor has rescinded the emergency powers declaration that she issued at the onset of the COVID crisis, some are wondering will Washington state be next?

Gov. Jay Inslee’s emergency declaration remains in place some two years after the state logged its first reported coronavirus case..

Even though there is a slight uptick in cases in some areas of the state, it is nothing like what we saw with the last surge.

Yeah - riiggghhhhht...

The Democrats killed the urban nuclear family when Lyndon Baines Johnson created The Great Society and offered free gubbmint cheeze to welfare mothers when they had children.  No incentive for the dad to stick around.  He was quoted as saying that his policies: "'I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years."

Of course, his programs did not work (War on Poverty, War on Drugs, etc... anyone?) so what did subsequent Democrats do?  What they always do when one of their programs fail — they doubled down and increased the size and scope of the program. Funding?  Just sign here...

Fast forward to today and a real leader - from The Post-millenial:

DeSantis signs bill investing $70 million into programs to support fatherhood
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday investing $70 million into programs to support "responsible fatherhood" in a statewide awareness campaign. DeSantis signed HB 7065, a child welfare bill that promotes responsible fatherhood in the state and encourages their "active participation in their children's lives."

That is what an effective leader does - identify the root cause of the problem, find a solution and implement it.

Potential volcanic action - from Global News:

I have been following the quakes for the last month or so - a very similar thing happened last year on the Spanish island of La Palma.

From 90 Miles:

Reminds me of that wonderful quote from Simon Cameron

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

From the New York Post:

NY, Calif. failed in handling of COVID — but Florida was among best
New York, New Jersey and California failed in their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic because of stringent lockdowns and policies, while Florida was among the best-performing states in the country, a new study has found.

The study, published by the Committee To Unleash Prosperity, graded states by comparing COVID-19 outcomes based on the number of deaths, the economy and impact on education.

Overall, the bottom 10 on the study’s “report card” were dominated by states that had the most severe pandemic lockdowns and were among the last to finally reopen schools.

“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during COVID, particularly in blue states,” Stephen Moore, one of the study’s authors and co-founder of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity, said Monday.

The report can be found here: "A Final Report Card on the States’ Response to COVID-19"

Pretty damning to those advocating masks and social distancing and lockdowns. Herd immunity works.
Top-down control does not.

No BOD membership after all - from The Daily Wire:

Musk’s Decision To Not Join Twitter’s Board Signals Potential Major Move He Can Now Make On The Company
Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s decision to not join Twitter’s board reportedly means that the world’s wealthiest man is no longer restricted in how much of the company that he can buy.

After becoming their top shareholder with control of more than 9% of the company, Musk signed an agreement with Twitter for the following terms as long as he served on their board: “Mr. Musk agrees that, for so long as Mr. Musk is serving on the Board and for 90 days thereafter, Mr. Musk will not, either alone or as a member of a group, become the beneficial owner of more than 14.9% of Company’s common stock outstanding at such time, including for these purposes economic exposure through derivative securities, swaps or hedging transactions.”

Not bound by the agreement. Looking at acquiring a controlling interest?

Looks like the media are using this as their reporting guide:

From the London Daily Mail:

Don't you know who I am? Pompous Penn State professor tries to shame Marriott on Twitter for showing Fox News in NYC hotel gym while bragging that he has more followers than chain

• • Michael Mann, a professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, went on the Twitter rant Saturday, blasting Marriott for showing Fox News in the hotel gym
  • The professor was staying at Marriott Times Square in New York City
  • Mann claimed that he only one TV was showing news, and it was Fox News
  • He said the conservative network promotes anti-American, pro-Russian propaganda
  • When Mann asked to changed the channel, he said he was told that employees were not allowed to change the channel
  • Mann continued to post on Twitter, tagging the hotel, in hopes of a response, while bragging about his follower count in an ego-crazed manner
  • Nearly 24 hours after his initial rant, Mann said he had a response from Marriott
  • Mann said he was informed by Marriott that it is not the hotel's policy to have one single news channel on the TVs in the gym
  • He added that contrary to what the employee said Saturday, the channels can be changed in response to the requests of their guests

Mann was the guy who came up with the infamous "global warming" graph in 1998 - the Hockey Stick:

People started asking for his data and his methods and he stonewalled.  Since this work was produced through Federal (taxpayer) funding, by law, these are public domain and should have been released.

A number of people have found serious flaws in this work and in subsequent work from this moke.  A wonderful book was compiled by Mark Steyn called: A Disgrace to the Profession

The "hockey stick" graph of global temperatures is the single most influential icon in the global-warming debate, promoted by the UN's transnational climate bureaucracy, featured in Al Gore's Oscar-winning movie, used by governments around the world to sell the Kyoto Accord to their citizens, and shown to impressionable schoolchildren from kindergarten to graduation.

And yet what it purports to "prove" is disputed and denied by many of the world's most eminent scientists. In this riveting book, Mark Steyn has compiled the thoughts of the world's scientists, in their own words, on hockey-stick creator Michael E Mann, his stick and their damage to science. From Canada to Finland, Scotland to China, Belgium to New Zealand, from venerable Nobel Laureates to energetic young researchers on all sides of the debate analyze the hockey stock and the wider climate wars it helped launch.

Yeah - Michael Mann displayed a profound lack of scientific rigor - his paper showed what he wanted it to show.  He wanted to reinforce the narrative.  It is especially funny in that Mann filed a lawsuit against Steyn and lost. A bit more with some excerpts and additional materials can be found here: Mark Steyn’s new book on Michael Mann

Dr. Mann was also in the news for claiming to have won the Nobel Prize.  He did not.
From National Review:  Mike’s Nobel Trick

Getting bitter in his old age.  Hey Mike?  Your fifteen minutes were over in 1999. 
Time to give it a break. Everyone is on to the climate scam. It's over.

Print eight trillion dollars and put them into circulation?  You are going to have huge problems with inflation.  No way around it. Joe did this in one year with the stimulus and the Wuhan Flu funding. Now, it is time to pay the piper and they are casting about looking for someone to blame - PUTIN!!!  Yeah...

From the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization:

FAO Food Price Index posts significant leap in March
World food commodity prices made a significant leap in March to reach their highest levels ever, as war in the Black Sea region spread shocks through markets for staple grains and vegetable oils, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reported today.

The FAO Food Price Index averaged 159.3 points in March, up 12.6 percent from February when it had already reached its highest level since its inception in 1990. The Index tracks monthly changes in the international prices of a basket of commonly-traded food commodities. The latest level of the index was 33.6 percent higher than in March 2021.

Of course, Vladimir is to blame - ABC News:

Food prices soar to record levels on Ukraine war disruptions
Prices for food commodities like grains and vegetable oils reached their highest levels ever last month largely because of Russia's war in Ukraine and the “massive supply disruptions” it is causing, threatening millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere with hunger and malnourishment, the United Nations said Friday.

Hint for you all:  Sure, Russia's incursion into the deep-state playground of Ukraine certainly has repercussions but the problem was happening long long before this ever started. Go to the links and look at the numbers for yourself.

There is a reason why some things are considered classics.  They have reached their apex of perfection.

Shrimp Cocktail?
Dry Martini?
Bach?

Looks like the Beeb is pandering to the shriekers - New York Daily News:

BBC’s new ‘Doctor Who’ spin-off podcast will be ‘very gay, very trans,’ says producer
A new spin-off audio version of the long-running British sci-fi show “Doctor Who” will be “very gay, very trans,” according to its producer and director, Ella Watts.

The beloved time-traveling television series is entering a new dimension as a 10-part podcast, “Doctor Who: Redacted.”

The series, set to premiere on BBC Sounds on April 17, promises to give “Doctor Who” fans action-packed adventures that have been “left” from the long-running television series, according to a news release.

Transgender writer Juno Dawson, the bestselling author of “This Book is Gay,” was hired as the lead writer for the podcast, which will explore “the relationships between ordinary people unknowingly immersed in the ‘Doctor Who’ universe,” with a strong emphasis on “diversity and regionality.”

The BBC is publically funded so they do not need to worry about advertisers.  Good, because they are not going to get any.  Not with a listenership of maybe 2% of the UK population.

Don't forget kiddies:  WOKE = BROKE

Vax and mask, vax and mask.  That's the way 'ya do it!
From Washington Examiner:

New York City Mayor Eric Adams tests positive for COVID-19
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced Sunday.

The Democrat woke up on Saturday with a "raspy voice," and, out of an "abundance of caution," he took a PCR test that came back positive, according to a statement from his team.

Nothing about Vitamin D, Zinc and other supplements for general health as well as a monthly dose of Ivermectin for it's well known and well documented anti-viral properties.

I take Ivermectin once/month two doses a day apart.  I also do this if I feel that I have been exposed to something (near someone with a wet cough)  Have not caught the Wuhan Flu but, more importantly, have not caught a cold or anything in over two years.  I have had two days where I was feeling under the weather but I felt fine in 2-3 days and never had any symptoms (anosmia, fever, etc...), just a sense of malaise.  That my body was fighting something off.

Had the Polio vax as a kid.  Never caught it.
Had the MMR vax.  Never caught it.
Stay current on my Tetanus vax.  Never caught it.
Got the Shingles vax.  Never caught it.

That is what vaccines do. Period. End of discussion.

#1) - From Knuckledraggin

#2) - from 90 Miles:

He seemed to be what NYC needed - he campaigned on cutting crime.  Instead?
From the New York Post:

Spare us the faux outrage over Adams being the new Giuliani on crime — we should be so lucky!
The usual suspects say darkly that Mayor Eric Adams is Rudy Giuliani in disguise, and it is to laugh. Really, New York City should be so lucky.

The city’s progressive cabal and the usual media claque claim the rookie mayor’s unfolding public-safety policies amount to warmed-over Giuliani-era jackbootery that reinforces past failures and fuels present anger.

Oh? Which failures — and, really, what anger?

It seems that eight years of de Blasio dystopia isn’t enough for some people. They need a steady diet of preventable public disorder to be happy — and they mean to do everything they can to gin it up.

Typical Democrat - says things that sound good but does not understand the big picture and does not do what is needed. All mouth and no will. So afraid of "offending" someone that they are paralyzed.

Hunter, the communist Chinese and a wire transfer for $1,000,000.00 - here:

From ABC News:

Voting in France: Paper ballots, cast in person; no machines
French voters in Sunday's presidential election will use the same system that's been used for generations: paper ballots that are cast in person and counted by hand. Despite periodic calls for more flexibility or modernization, France doesn’t do mail-in voting, early voting or use voting machines en masse like the United States. President Emmanuel Macron is the clear front-runner, though an unprecedented proportion of people say they are unsure who they will vote for or whether they will vote at all.

PAPER BALLOTS
Voters must be at least 18 years old. About 48.7 million French are registered on the electoral rolls of the place where they live.

Voters make their choices in a booth, with the curtains closed, then place their ballot in an envelope that is then put into a transparent ballot box. They must show photo identification and sign a document, next to their name, to complete the process.

Volunteers count the ballots one by one. Officials will then use state-run software to register and report results more efficiently.

But legally only the paper counts. If a result is challenged, the paper ballots are recounted manually.

Love it - simple and foolproof.  The reason the Democrats have done all the modifications to our voting process is to make it easier for them to cheat.  They have no merit to run on — nothing that We The People want. They have to cheat.  It will be interesting to see the results.

From Atlanta, Georgia's WSB-TV2:

Emory University limits internet access for unboosted students
Emory University has launched a program to limit internet access by students who have refused to get a COVID-19 booster shot, the school said.

The program is designed to encourage students to get a COVID-19 booster shot. The school’s policy requires students and faculty to have a COVID-19 vaccination and a booster shot.

Students who have not gotten three vaccinations were notified in February that their internet access would be limited, or the speed slowed if they did not either show they had the booster or had requested an exemption from getting the shot.

About 1,300 students had their Wi-Fi restricted around the week of March 14.

Considering that network access is essential for school participation, this is actionable.
Like I said, an interesting lawsuit.

Certainly not into the hands of those that need it.  Chris Lynch has the meme of the day:

Klaus Schwab is definitely a Bond villain in the mold of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Where to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos fit in?  Don Surber nails it:

Musk vs. Bezos (aka Batman vs. Lex Luthor)
Under the enemy of mine enemy is my friend rule, I suppose I can call Elon Musk a friend. A tertiary one as Sheldon Cooper refers to Howard Wolowitz on the Big Bang Theory show.

Musk's purchase of enough Twitter stock to warrant a seat on its board of directors has given conservatives and other Real Americans hope that free speech will return to the public square.

To be certain, Musk set his fellow billionaires atwitter. They own propaganda media outlets and fear he will return Twitter to its old self which was used by Real Americans to get around their Pravdas. 

Heh - more at the site...

From The Epoch Times:

Pfizer Hired 600 Employees Due to ‘Large Increase of Adverse Event Reports’
Pfizer hired 600 employees in the months after its COVID-19 vaccine was authorized in the United States due to the “large increase” of reports of side effects linked to the vaccine, according to a document prepared by the company.

Pfizer has “taken a multiple actions to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports,” according to the document. “This includes significant technology enhancements, and process and workflow solutions, as well as increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues.”

At the time when the document—from the first quarter of 2021—was sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer had onboarded about 600 extra full-time workers to deal with the jump.

“More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021,” Pfizer said.

The document was titled a “cumulative analysis of post-authorization adverse event reports” of Pfizer’s vaccine received through Feb. 28, 2021. It was approved by the FDA on April 30, 2021.

The document was not made public until the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency sued the FDA after the agency claimed it needed decades to produce all the documents relating to the emergency use authorization granted to the company for the vaccine.

We would never know if not for the FOIA suit against them. What else is there.  Why are they scrambling to do such a broad cover-up.

Drink alert:

The internet is forever and stuff keeps surfacing...
From Emerald Robinson writing at Substack:

Why Was Ghislaine Maxwell Doing Fundraisers For Disney in 1985?
Photos of convicted pedophile Ghislaine Maxwell hosting an event called “Happy Family Disney Day” in 1985 have surfaced on the Internet today. It’s the ultimate PR nightmare.

It’s going to be very hard for Disney to claim that it’s not a pro-pedophile organization when it literally took donations from the world’s most infamous (still) living pedophile and “groomer to the stars.”

Much more at the site including this "curious" connection:

And, finally, what if I told you that Disney owned and operated a cruise line for families in the Caribbean? And what if I told you that those cruise ships offered a snorkeling trip for adults and kids to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island for years?

Makes perfect sense - they are "in bed" with each other - share a common interest.  Epstein lets Disney run the excursions and the Disney ships help to resupply the island. win/win

A few years old but a great exploration of just how practical solar and wind can be:

Shades of the Awan brothers - from the London Daily Mail:

Stash of assault rifles, body armor, passports with multiple visas, and sham uniforms found in penthouse of 'fake' Homeland agents - including one with 'links to Pakistani intelligence' - who 'infiltrated Biden, Kamala and Jill's Secret Service details'

• • A motion for detention shows two men impersonating federal agents had a slew of damning evidence in their apartments, including images showing several different passports and IDs
  • 'They are not law enforcement agents, and they are not involved in sanctioned covert activities,' the motion for detention filed Friday claims. 'Neither Defendant is even employed by the United States government'
  • 'But their impersonation scheme was sufficiently realistic to convince other government employees, including law enforcement agents, of their false identities,' the memorandum added.
  • At least two Secret Service agents assigned to Biden and Harris' protective detail were caught up in the scheme by two men posing as DHS agents
  • One agent receiving free rent, sources say, was regularly stationed at VP Kamala Harris' residence at One Observatory Circle at the Naval Observatory
  • Another who was often seen partying with the two men is on the presidential protective detail
  • At least four Secret Service agents have been placed on administrative leave
  • Haider Sher-Ali, 35, and Arian Taherzadeh, 40, were arrested Wednesday for impersonating federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security
  • The duo claimed to be involved in an investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack
  • Agents with the FBI, NCIS and USPIS swarmed several floors and units of luxury apartment building Crossing DC in southeast Washington, D.C.
  • A former representative of Crossing DC who worked at the building since the start of Taherzadeh's lease confirmed that none of the units were being paid for
  • When asked why they were not paying rent on the units, the individual responded with one word: 'Government'
  • According to sources, the Tishman Speyer-owned building cooperated with Taherzadeh and Ali believing the guise that they were federal agents
  • Building management, the sources allege, provided the duo with access to surveillance cameras and codes to access all doors in the building

Awan brothers? Short memory - they were yet another Obama-era scandal that you never heard about.
Here,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here,  here and here for a start.

From bloody energy:
Hat tip to Bayou Renaissance Man

At the White House this morning:

A great sugestion from Joy Pullman at The Federalist:

Cancel Your Disney Vacation And Go To Dollywood Instead
Our family ended up at Dollywood recently by happenstance. We were visiting family in Tennessee. The morning after we had arrived long past the children’s bedtime, we awoke groggily and sought coffee. Quickly provided this necessary brew by my attentive young second cousin, I turned to his mom and said, “Okay, what do you all want to do this week?” She exclaimed, “Let’s go to Dollywood!”

I hadn’t expected that, but we were here to spend happy time with them, and if that’s what they wanted, that’s what we wanted, too. So my cousin spent about an hour calling friends for advice about how best to do Dollywood, then putting together our day trip package.

Disney?

By contrast, Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California have long been on our “over my dead body” list, and with Dollywood as an option they will most certainly stay there. It’s not just the recent visibility of the longstanding fact that Disney’s post-Walt corporate leadership works to undermine sexual wholeness, but also about the greedy commercialization of the Disney brand.

Even setting aside their recently revealed support for destroying human happiness through sexual chaos, Disney’s products push a lifestyle that doesn’t reflect my goals for family life. I don’t want my kids taught to be whiny brats whose biggest lesson to learn is that all authority figures are dumb or evil. That’s a main message of almost every major Disney property, and it’s very bad for kids.

The upshot - a lot cheaper, cleaner, no "branding" or merch being pushed at you. Also, the surrounding area is gorgeous so there are a lot of things to do beside the amusement park.  Looking forward to checking it out when we move.

We all know that Elon Musk is now the majority shareholder for Twitter.
Who else is out there - no surprises.  From FOX Business News:

Elon Musk becomes Twitter's largest shareholder: Who are the other top holders?
Elon Musk's newly acquired 9.2% stake in Twitter has suddenly made him its largest shareholder, catapulting him above the social media company's co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. 

The list:

• • Vanguard Group — 8.4% stake
  • Morgan Stanley Investment Management — 8.1%
  • BlackRock Fund Advisors
  • SSGA Funds Management
  • Aristotle Capital Management
  • Jack Dorsey at 2.25%
  • ARK Investment Management
  • Fidelity Management & Research
  • ClearBridge Investments

The usual suspects - large money management corporations.
Do they have input on what Twitter does? Censoring President Trump? Legal?

From the New York Post:

Puerto Rico plunged into darkness after power station fire
A major power outage hit Puerto Rico late Wednesday, plunging nearly 350,000 customers into darkness after a fire erupted at one of the largest power plants in the U.S. territory.

The outage was one of the biggest in recent months for the island’s crumbling electrical grid, which has seen its periodic blackouts grow worse the last few years. The outage elicited a collective groan from people across Puerto Rico as many who depend on insulin or respiratory therapies once again worried about how long it would last.

“Apagón!” wrote many frustrated customers across social media, using the Spanish word for outage.

Beautiful tropic island, wonderful people, lousy government.  This is not a new thing:

Another fire at a power plant in September 2016 sparked an island-wide blackout. A year later, Hurricane Maria hit, razing the island’s frail electrical grid and leaving some customers without power for nearly a year. Emergency repairs have since been made, but reconstruction efforts have yet to start.

In addition, Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority is trying to emerge from bankruptcy and holds some $9 billion in public debt that it is trying to restructure. The utility has long struggled with mismanagement, corruption and aging infrastructure that has not been maintained.

Got to maintain the infrastructure.  Tempting to spend the money on something shiny and public to get attention for the next election cycle but better to keep the lights on.

There has been a bunch of mailbox and package theft on the island.
Two encampments of sketchy people and nobody has the political will to do anything about them
This would be fun to do:

From 90 Miles:

From KTLA:

2 men arrested with ‘enough fentanyl to kill 4.7 million people’
In what’s being described as the largest Orange County drug bust in 16 years, two Buena Park residents were arrested last month after authorities recovered “enough fentanyl to kill 4.7 million people,” authorities announced Wednesday.

About 821 pounds of methamphetamine, 190 pounds of cocaine and 21 pounds of fentanyl pills were recovered after Buena Park police pulled over a minivan leaving a home on March 17, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

The precursors are being shipped from China to Latin America.  The cartel chemists are manufacturing it and bringing it north to our cities. Tell me again why our Southern border is so open?  How much are the cartels paying Chuck and Nancy?

From The Daily Wire:

Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed To Supreme Court, 3 GOP Senators Break Ranks
The Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday in a vote of 53-47.

Jackson’s confirmation was buttressed with the help of three Republicans: Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Susan Collins (R-ME). Jackson is the first black woman to be confirmed to the nation’s highest court.

Romney’s vote in particular is unusual because it’s a flip from his earlier vote against Jackson to take a spot on an appeals court. Senators rarely support a nominee for the Supreme Court after voting against the same nominee for a spot on a lower court.

Thirty pieces of silver anyone? Wonder how much they were paid.  What they were promised.  RBG is smiling as much as she can while standing chin-deep in a pool of burning sulfur.

The numbers for Puerto Rico are getting worse. They went from 435,838 outages this morning to 467,971. No news but this is major.  No word as to whether these are new outages or just additional outages now being reported.

Heading out. Supposed to be getting some nice warm weather for a few days so working outside getting the yard cleaned up a bit.

Huge power outage in Puerto Rico - the utility has 1,468,223 customers and 435,838 are without power.  Does not look like any heavy weather - curious to find out what is the cause...

Nothing else really catches my eye - Putin keeps fighting the deep-state in Ukraine.  Lots of false-flag events being reported — staged "massacres" on both sides. The Biden Crime family keeps getting outed.  Looks like a regime change is going to happen.  President for Life but whom - Barkey or Shrillary. Do a cage match and put it up on PPV. I'd pay $5 to watch.

Grifters grift - it's what they do.  From Washington Examiner:

Patrisse Cullors blasts 'despicable' coverage of BLM's $6 million mansion
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors railed against a "despicable" report from a liberal magazine that exposed her charity had purchased a $6 million Los Angeles mansion with donor cash.

"Yesterday's article in New York Magazine is a despicable abuse of a platform that's intended to provide truthful information to the public," Cullors said in a statement Tuesday on her Instagram page. "Journalism is supposed to mitigate harm and inform our communities."

This mansion is above and beyond her other three properties - Topanga Canyon, and two others.  Ritzy properties in nice neighborhoods while precious little money gets granted to the poor communities that need it.

Donate to Black Lives Matter?  Sucker...

The level of talent on this island never fails to amaze me.

Tonight's presentation was from a new member who makes custom lighting.  This is something I love to do as well so it was fascinating to hear her talk about her journey.  Gorgeous work.  The hybrid meeting went well - 20 warm bodies present and a maximum of 27 ethereal spirits on Zoom.

Quick surf and early bedtime - busy day tomorrow.

Local group.  They are trying to do the meetings part Zoom and part live and I was "volunteered" to make it happen.  Been trying to train someone but nobody is taking it seriously. They watch me put the laptop together but they don't ask questions, they don't want to do the work themselves.  Maybe they are learning by osmosis but I do not think so.

Joke's on them as this is absolutely the last one of these I will be doing.

The gift that keeps on giving.  From the London Daily Mail:

Whistleblower who handed Hunter's abandoned laptop to congressmen and DailyMail.com reveals he has 450 gigabytes of DELETED material including 80,000 images and videos - and has fled to Switzerland fearing retaliation from White House

• • Whistleblower Jack Maxey gave DailyMail.com a copy of the hard drive from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop in the spring of 2021
  • DailyMail.com has published dozens of stories exposing Hunter's drug use, sex obsession and questionable business dealings
  • For the past two weeks, Maxey has been in hiding in Zurich, Switzerland, working with IT experts to dig out more data from the 'laptop from hell'
  • He says he intends to post them all online in a database in the coming weeks
  • Maxey says he has found '450 gigabytes of erased material' including 80,000 images and videos and more than 120,000 archived emails
  • The former podcast host says he fears retaliation from the Biden administration
  • He says that after contacting DailyMail.com about the laptop last year, black suburban SUVs appeared outside his house

Probably the most corrupt family in American history.  Change my mind.

Bill & Hillary?  #2

Coffee and then farm.  Working there, Bellingham this afternoon and back to the island.  Meeting tonight.

Busy day

He is not our enemy:

They call us racists?  Here 'ya go:

From the White House - almost feel sorry for the guy - looks lost:

Dems are desperate - they are bringing Obama out to try to build some enthusiasm.  November is going to be interesting especially with Durham starting to draw blood (does Hillary actually have blood any more or is it all corruption?) and Hunter's laptop gaining traction.

Internet access seems to be good so far - trying some stuff and see what happens...

Up to the farm.  Spending the night up there and back tomorrow afternoon.

Probably going to have the same access issues — I think I have that figured out and will be trying something when I get back home.  If that is the case, it will be interesting.

From 90 Miles:

Become ungovernable

Seems like a lucrative gig.  I would have problems with my ethics though...
From Associated Press:

Stacey Abrams reaches millionaire status before 2nd campaign
When Democrat Stacey Abrams first ran for Georgia governor in 2018, her lackluster personal finances and a hefty bill from the IRS gave Republicans fodder to question how she could manage a state budget when she struggled with her own debts.

As she launches a second bid this year, that’s no longer an issue.

Abrams now says she’s worth $3.17 million, according to state disclosures filed in March. That’s compared with a net worth of $109,000 when she first ran four years ago.

Books and speeches - political money laundering.  Say what the elite want you to say, be a slave on their plantation and you are richly rewarded. Promote their narrative and you can take cash to the bank. You don't even have to write the book or the speech - they have "people".  You don't even have to sell the book - the money comes in the form of a hefty "advance"

I love citizen science. Interested people can do useful participation in scientific observation. I already belong to a few of these programs and just discovered this new one:

From the Camaliot website:

Collect data from satellites for scientific research in weather forecasting
The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is a set of satellites that orbit the Earth.

These GNSS satellites provide valuable information to many different location-based applications from the satnav in your car to flying a plane. But we can also use the data for scientific research.

We developed the CAMALIOT app to gather data from these satellites, taking advantage of new developments in mobile technology to collect and access the raw GNSS data from Android phones.

All the data are gathered by individuals like you. You don't have to be a scientist, you just need to have access to an Android mobile phone with your GPS turned on.

In return, you are helping to build better weather forecasting models, and there is a chance to win prizes at the end of the campaign.

To use the app you need to keep the phone stationary with a direct view of the sky so not something you can have as a background task while you are running errands.  Still... 

Google Play store if you are interested.  Android only...

Just became aware of his work - wonderful stuff.  Just one example:

His website: Tom Gauld
His work can be found at New Scientist

Don Surber articulates what had been puzzling me:

The Kamala under the tent
Ketanji Brown Jackson and Kamala Harris are awful people and incompetent at their jobs. I finally figured out why they got their jobs. They are human shields for the fascist socialism -- aka communism -- that Democrats now openly push.

Both are a camel's nose that once inside brings the whole camel.

Their status as FIRST BLACK WOMEN for their respective posts is a shield against criticism.
Given their records, they should not be holding public office, and yet one is vice president and the other is about to become a Supreme Court justice.

They got there because of their sex and race. Kamala cannot complete a sentence. It is a race between her and Biden to see who is the most inarticulate. Dementia and a lifetime of stupidity give Biden the edge, but Kamala continues to baffle people with answers that make Professor Irwin Corey sound downright articulate.

More at the site - what he said...

Found this over at Terrierman's Daily Dose:

Patrick and I differ politically but we agree on critters.  A daily read.

On March 26th, Elon Musk posted this:

Today, it was announced that (from the Beeb):

Elon Musk snaps up $3bn Twitter stake
Elon Musk has taken a 9.2% stake in Twitter, according to a US securities filing.

The news sent Twitter shares soaring about 25% in pre-market trading.

The Tesla founder bought 73,486,938 Twitter shares on 14 March, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The stake is worth $2.89bn (£2.20bn), based on Twitter's closing price on Friday.

The stake makes him one of the largest shareholders in the company and is more than four times the 2.25% holding of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

Musk is a regular Twitter user with more than 80 million followers, although recently he said he is giving "serious thought" to building a new social media platform.

I love it.  War of good versus evil.  We have the evil villains like Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates, we have the good villains like Elon. Things are going to get interesting...

Had dogs all throughout my adult life.  Prefer working dogs but currently have a German Shephard as well as a Pug/Boxer mix. This really resonates:

From Conservative Treehouse:

Hungarian Prime Minister and Economic Nationalist Viktor Orban Easily Wins Reelection – NATO, Globalists, World Economic Forum and Western War Alliance Very Upset
The working class of Hungary have spoken. The people are not going to stop supporting Prime Minister Viktor Orban, their grandfatherly, pragmatic economic nationalist and populist leader.  However, the U.S., NATO, Globalists, World Economic Forum and western alliance group, run by and from the CIA/State Dept operational headquarters, are not happy. Not happy at all.

Orban represents a visible middle finger to the interests of the one world order society, as he refuses to accept the era of western controlled “democratic norms.”  You know, the modern catch phrase popularized by those who weaponize democracy in order to attain totalitarian objectives via modern multinational fascism (see: COVID mandates, rules and lockdowns).

Given the option, a well-educated populace will reject globalization and communism for the fraud and corruption that it is.  That is why our current elite are so careful to control the media, the schools and social media.

Looks like Mi az Emberek spoke loud and clear. Interesting in that Bond villain and Nazi sympathizer George Soros spent a lot of money trying to get Orban defeated.  Soros was born in Hungary so this was personal.

They entered public service to benefit themselves, not to serve us.

Back in 2018, Milo Cress made an announcement based on some research he had done in 2011.
The research was a series of telephone interviews of straw manufacturers.
Americans were using 500,000,000 disposable plastic drinking straws each and every day and many of them were subsequently appearing in waterways and oceans.

Horrifying data.  We all knew that the numbers were probably high but this high?  Something MUST BE DONE.

Unfortunately, every action has consequences and we are seeing this today - from Chemical & Engineering News:

‘Biodegradable’ drinking straws contain PFAS
As consumers turn to alternatives to single-use plastic, drinking straws made of plant-based materials like paper are coming into wider use, and many are marketed as biodegradable or even compostable. But an analysis of drinking straws available in the US detected 21 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—called “forever chemicals” for their extreme resistance to environmental breakdown—in 36 out of 38 brands of plant-based straws tested.

University of Florida toxicologist John Bowden was fascinated by the durability of today’s paper straws compared with older ones that would break down quickly in a drink, and he wanted to know whether the new straws’ water resistance might come from PFAS (Chemosphere 2021, DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.130238). So he and his colleagues tested them, as well as plant-based straws made of materials including poly(lactic acid), rice flour, and reeds. They extracted PFAS from the straws with methanol and measured PFAS levels in the extracts.

It is worth noting that at the time, Milo Cress was not a Doctor.  Not an Engineer.  Not a degreed scientist.  He may be pursuing a career in academia but when he did his research in 2011, Milo Cress was nine years old.  Sixteen when he "published" his results.

Lots to read and it really shows how progressives will latch on to something that fits their narrative.  The better it fits the narrative, the less critical they are in their fact-checking.  Some fun reading here, here, here, here and here.

Just fell in love - she is awesome.  Here is her speech from last night's rally in Washington, MI:

The venue was packed - 7,000 seating capacity with 21,000 people watching from outside.

Comprehensive analysis of Foo Fighter's Taylor Hawkins' death from Steve Kirsh:

Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins dead at 50: The inside story on what likely caused his death
Here is a summary of the evidence I’ve pieced together from both public and private sources (who knew him personally).

You can draw your own conclusions. The evidence is consistent with the primary cause being vaccine-induced myocarditis. It fits the facts like a glove. No other hypothesis I’m aware of can explain the evidence. His drug use, which as far as I have been able to determine was limited to smoking weed, played only a minor role.

All the stuff I love - links to data, corroborating information and a logical thought process.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

The clueless ponces running Europe are trying to legislate something that they do not comprehend.
From Bleeping Computer:

EU draft law adds security checks to all crypto transactions
The European Parliament has taken the first steps for new legislation against money-laundering that covers cryptocurrency transactions, which are an important part of illicit activities today.

Members of the European Parliament from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) have agreed on adopting (with 93 votes in favor, 14 against, and 14 abstentions) draft legislation for more transparent crypto asset transactions.

“Under the new requirements agreed by MEPs, all transfers of crypto-assets will have to include information on the source of the asset and its beneficiary, information that is to be made available to the competent authorities,” reads the Parliament’s announcement.

The new rules will cover transactions from private-held cryptocurrency wallets without considering transaction thresholds, which erases any limits for anonymous transactions - previous proposal allowed up to €1000 to be transferred without giving any details about the sender and the recipient.

In other words, both sides of the transaction will have to register with the EU to perform any blockchain transaction.  This is a perfect example of something that "sounds good" as opposed to something that "does good".  I covered this very liberal problem in this post (excerpt):

Doing something that "sounds" good is a very liberal thing to do.  There is little or no thought put into the program, all that is needed is for it to sound good.  After the fact, there is no accountability. People do not do the basic research to see if this new program is actually doing what it intended to do.  More often than not, it is not addressing the problem and additionally, adding some new layer of confusion and harm.

The liberal reaction when this is brought to light is to expand the offending program.  They could not have made a mistake - after all, they are the brightest and the best.  It must be that the program was just not given enough money or resources. They need to take the failing program and make it bigger so that it can do even more fail.

And of course, this registration will be hacked in 3... 2... 1...

Europe got rid of their pesky coal and nuke power plants figuring that they would get enough energy from moonbeams and the occasional breeze.  Turns out that these are not sustainable no matter how much people wish it so.  Reality = 1, alt.energy Dreamers = 0

They started buying gas from Russia as a stop-gap but they turned around and pissed of Russia issuing sanctions designed to weaken Russia's currency.  Vladimir Putin took this and applied some logic on his part and required that all purchases of gas be paid for in Roubles, not Dollars.  Oopsie...

From Zero Hedge:

Gazprom Halts Gas Shipments To Europe Via Critical Pipeline
After European nations imported the most gas from Russian sources yesterday in months, scrambling to stock up on supplies as Russian President Vladimir Putin's deadline to either pay for gas in rubles (or be cut off) came and went, Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.

The word that comes to mind is schadenfreude. Don Surber has done an excellent analysis:
A brief excerpt:

Here's the thing about virtue signaling. You only do enough to appear virtuous. You never risk real money.

The perfect protest would be to boycott Chick-fil-A but only on Sundays.

If it actually costs you anything, it is not virtue signaling. It is sacrifice. Who the heck wants to sacrifice anything anymore?

The Ukraine sanctions are a perfect example of virtue signalling.  Are the Europeans that stupid?  Sure looks like it...

Was thinking about it last night and looked it up:

• • Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
  • For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
    against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
    against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Boy - did he call it or what...

Lisa and I were first looking at Florida but the summers are just too hot. North Carolina is a lot better in terms of climate.  Still looking at getting a winter camp down there though - love the people and love the winters and the politics are spot on.

Lynyrd Skynrd just did a campaign song for Governor DeSantis:

One could almost make the case that this is intentional by ourgovernment.
From FOX News:

Florida warns of new drug much more powerful than fentanyl
A new drug 20-100 times stronger than fentanyl is now making its way into common street drugs across the United States.

Isotonitazene, referred to as ISO, is creating problems for spring breakers in Florida and even leading to second-hand overdoses.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody issued a warning on ISO earlier this month, as law enforcement agencies warned the drug could be driving the recent increase in overdose deaths.

"For years, we have been warning about the dangers of fentanyl and how just one pill laced with this synthetic opioid can kill. Now, there is a new, deadlier drug being found in Florida. Isotonitazene … is so strong that it can kill just by coming in contact with someone’s skin or being accidentally inhaled. ISO has already been linked to overdose deaths in Florida, so please, never take any illicit drug and know that using just one time could cost you your life," Moody said.

What possible reason do the democrats have for leaving our border so open? How much are they getting paid to do this? This is the only explanation I can come up with.

We need some adults in the room ASAP

He still identifies as a progressive but he does tell the truth from time to time. More often these days than before.
Earlier examples: here, here, here, here, here and here.  Now? From the New York Post:

Bill Maher says Jada Pinkett Smith ‘lucky’ to just have alopecia
HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” tackled the infamous Oscar slap Friday night, with the eponymous host cracking that Jada Pinkett Smith should “thank God” that alopecia is the worst she’s dealing with.

“If you are so lucky in life as to have that be your medical problem, just say ‘thank God,'” Maher cracked to his guests, attorney Laura Coates and former presidential and New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang.

“It’s not life threatening. It’s part of — for most people, 80 percent of men, 50 percent of women — it’s part of aging.”

“Aging is, trust me I know, it’s the degradation of the flesh. It happens to all of us,” the 66-year-old political comedian added.

“And you know, just put on a f–king wig like everybody else at the Oscars if it bothers you so much.”

Exactly.

I'm still thinking that it was a pseudo-event staged for the benefit of the show's sponsor: Pfizer

Don't hear very much about it anymore - the people involved were able to keep it under wraps for the most part.

The Democrats are running scared.  They are going to get more than shellacked in November's midterm elections and they are doing everything they can to mitigate the damage. From The First TV:

House Approves Measure to Legalize Marijuana Nationwide
The US House of Representatives approved a measure Friday that would legalize marijuana nationwide, a measure whose fate is unclear as it heads to an evenly divided Senate.

The bill passed 220-204 mostly along party lines with three Republicans siding with the Democrats.

Yeah - do the "flashy" stuff and don't bother with anything hard like the economy or energy or the border. Why not do your fscking jobs and start representing those who voted you into office.

No dog in this fight - haven't smoked in 40+ years.  Personally, I think all the drugs should be legal.  That would put the cartels out of business, cut down on crime and allow us to treat the addicts more humanely. Everyone would win.  Of course, they will never go for this - the cartels pay them way too much money to keep the borders open.

I did have high hopes. From the London Daily Times:

New York City moves just FIVE people into shelters after clearing 239 homeless encampments in sweep championed by Eric Adams

• • Mayor Eric Adams leveled 239 of the 244 homeless encampments identified in the city
  • Only five people have accepted shelter in the city's system since the initiative began two weeks ago
  • Adams said that he's in 'the first inning of a nine-inning game'
  • It's unclear how much the effort to get the homeless off the street has cost
  • The mayor says it's necessary to bring city's economy back from the pandemic doldrums
  • If the homeless insist on living on the street, the mayor will consider civil commitment

Our appearance of careful management is just a careful management of appearances.
I did have hopes for Adams but he is just another liberal useful idiot. All image, no ability.

A little bit of digging from Steve Kirsch:

Aphasia can be caused by the COVID vaccine
I wanted to make sure everyone knows aphasia is one of the thousands of symptoms whose reporting rates were elevated after the COVID vaccines rolled out. It’s #1574 on that sorted list of symptoms elevated by the COVID vaccine that we calculated back in November 2021.

But I also very distinctly remember, very early on after the vaccines rolled out, a story from Dr. Byram Bridle of a teenage girl, perfectly healthy before getting the vaccine, who couldn’t speak shortly after getting vaccinated.

Of course, we now know this wasn’t just a coincidence.

The numbers of reports to the VAERS system bear this out.

Here’s a “baseline” year 2019 for all vaccines put together:

Yup - not uncommon at all. But of course, that would go against the narrative to say any such thing in public.  Might scare the sheeple.