October 2022 Archives

Showed up here in 2020 too.  From CD Media:

Forensic Experts Suggest Mathematical “Red Flags” In First Round of Brazilian Presidential Election, Cites Benford’s Law
This dossier was provided to us by a credible expert source and was created by a small group of technical experts in the fields of mathematics, political science, and forensic analysis, all who are well versed in election statistics and electoral anomalies.

The source provided this document and demonstrated the credibility of the authors who are presenting here their statistical findings on the first round of the Brazilian elections (held Sunday October 2nd).

The source group applied Benford’s Law, a highly recognized statistical formula, to analyze publicly available data provided by the Brazilian Electoral Court (TSE). The formula showed inconsistencies in voting tabulation in several regions across the country.

The links to the TSE’s publicly available data is in the document, and other experts are invited to conduct the same Benford’s Law test on the data. The voting tabulation graphs are also available — showing the region, the candidate, and the digit analyzed. Several charts show Benford’s Law curve in a certain format, while the actual curve of the vote tabulation veers completely off from it. This is what points to manipulation according to the expert source.

Much more at the site.
Some very large irregularities in the 2020 elections too - close swing-states that Biden "won".

Benford's Law is pretty immutable when it comes to a random distribution of numbers. 
Some history from InfoGalactic:

The discovery of Benford's law goes back to 1881, when the American astronomer Simon Newcomb noticed that in logarithm tables the earlier pages (that started with 1) were much more worn than the other pages. Newcomb's published result is the first known instance of this observation and includes a distribution on the second digit, as well. Newcomb proposed a law that the probability of a single number N being the first digit of a number was equal to log(N + 1) − log(N).

The phenomenon was again noted in 1938 by the physicist Frank Benford, who tested it on data from 20 different domains and was credited for it. His data set included the surface areas of 335 rivers, the sizes of 3259 US populations, 104 physical constants, 1800 molecular weights, 5000 entries from a mathematical handbook, 308 numbers contained in an issue of Reader's Digest, the street addresses of the first 342 persons listed in American Men of Science and 418 death rates. The total number of observations used in the paper was 20,229. This discovery was later named after Benford (making it an example of Stigler's Law).

It is used a lot in accounting as a "sniff test" for fraud.  It is simple and it works.

Working on stuff and generally feeling lazy.  Getting stuff done but...

No lightning storms in the Continental USA - from LightningMaps
Not unknown, just rare.

From 90 Miles:

The article talks about the lockdowns as though they were a normal part of the last couple of years - to do different would invalidate a large part of the overall narrative. Ignores the fact that Kids Do Not Get Covid.  Never have, never will.  Their self-diagnosis feeds on their own anxieties.
From the New York Times

Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis
About a year into the pandemic, Kianna, a high school student in Baltimore, was feeling increasingly isolated. While sitting alone in her bedroom there was too much time to think, she said, so sometimes she would fixate on her seclusion or start critiquing her appearance.

“I remember just being on TikTok for hours during my day,” added Kianna, 17, who asked to be referred to by only her first name when speaking about her mental health. “That’s when my self-esteem started declining.”

At the time, in early 2021, her 10th grade classes were virtual, and she had begun texting with her friends instead of talking to them. Her anxiety bred headaches, poor sleep and the odd feeling of living outside of her body. Then, she started seeing videos on TikTok about depersonalization disorder, a type of dissociative condition that can make people feel disconnected, as though their body is detached from their thoughts, almost like being in a dream.

“I have this,” she recalled thinking to herself. But mental illness wasn’t the type of thing she would normally discuss with her friends or family. She didn’t tell anyone about her revelation. “I was so in my head that something was wrong with me.”

In recent years, discussions about mental health have proliferated on social media, particularly on TikTok, where the format allows for easily digestible, intimate videos that appear in a never-ending algorithmic feed. And for those researching various disorders, it has become increasingly easy to find bite-sized definitions and self-assessment quizzes online. While this bounty of unfiltered resources can serve to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness, there are downsides.

More at the site - yet another horrible social and financial expense that Pfizer and Fauci and all the others are directly responsible for. This blood is on their hands.

Working on some stuff...

Still invoking the 48 hour rule but the more news that comes out, the stranger it is.

The police were let in by an unidentified third party who was also in the house.  The glass in the entry door was broken but the pieces are on the outside, not inside.  The "suspect" was in his underwear - the neighborhood is heavily patroled and someone dressed like that would be pulled over.  The 911 call indicated that David was a "friend"

You don't need conspiracy theories when reality is this bizarre.

Clueless twit.  To think that he actually tried to run for President. Idiot.
Story number one:  from FOX News:

Judicial Watch sues Biden admin over John Kerry's travel costs, calendar, staffer info
Government watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit to obtain information and documents from Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry's office that have been hidden from public view.

Judicial Watch's lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last month, alleges that the State Department has blocked the group from obtaining basic information about the internal operations of Kerry's office in violation of the Freedom of Information Act. The 1967 law requires the federal government to disclose information and documents upon request.

"The American people have a right to know what John Kerry is up to, what we’re paying to fly him around the world, and who we pay to actually work for him," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.

Kerry used to be Secretary of State during the Obama regime. What is he doing now?  Any unauthorized US Citizen acting in the interests of the USA is violating the Logan Act. A felony.

And story number two?  From The Washington Examiner:

Climate envoy John Kerry weighs departure as Republican wave looms
President Joe Biden’s special climate envoy John Kerry is weighing whether to depart the administration after the COP27 climate conference, according to a report.

The November elections could pose new challenges as Kerry seeks to navigate a political landscape dominated by global energy needs in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine and diminishing traction on cooperation with China, a significant fossil fuel emitter.

He faces the prospect of Republican-led inquiries in Congress if the party wins control in the midterm elections and scrutiny from climate activists frustrated by the scope of his progress.

Hoping to get out before he is prosecuted?  Hoping to avoid prosecution?  The punishment for treason is pretty straightforward.

Pitch perfect:

Two headlines say it all - both from The Gateway Pundit (clickable links):

Christine Pelosi, Daughter of Nancy Pelosi, Celebrated Violent Attack on Senator Rand Paul

Nancy Pelosi’s Home Broken into Early This Morning in San Francisco – Paul Pelosi Violently Beaten, Taken to Hospital …UPDATE: Suspect in Custody

No word as to the identity of the suspect or details of the attack.  I am invoking the 48 hour rule unless something "official" is released.

There is a question if this was a False Flag operation - something to garner sympathy for the Democrats just before mid-term elections.

From America's Newspaper of Record:

PA Senate Candidate Reminds Everyone That 'Fetterman' Is The Name Of The Doctor Who Created Him, Not His Actual Name
Midway through his debate against Dr. Oz this week, the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania's open Senate seat issued a heated reminder that "Fetterman" was the name of the scientist who created him and not his own name.

"Before acknowledging the question, I would like to take this opportunity to remind the moderators, Dr. Oz, and the audience that it is a common misconception that I am ‘Fetterman' – Dr. Fetterman was actually the scientist who constructed me." The debate moderators apologized after they took a few moments to process the inarticulate grunts and groans.

Despite years of pop culture and political reporting using the misnomer "Fetterman" to refer to the hastily-constructed Democrat behemoth, fans of the source material have long called for the Pennsylvania Senate candidate to be called "the creature" or "Fetterman's monster" rather than "Fetterman." Some of the more astute onlookers have raised the question of whether Dr. Fetterman himself is morally culpable for creating a giant zombie from exhumed corpses and then abandoning his creation. These anti-Fetterman fans have summed up their stance with the pithy phrase: "Knowledge is knowing ‘Fetterman' isn't the monster, but wisdom is knowing that ‘Fetterman' is the monster."

At publishing time, the Democratic Senate candidate for Pennsylvania had stormed out, vowing revenge on the scientist who formed him but left him to be humiliated on the debate stage but was later calmed down by Gisele bringing him a glass of sugar water before he could carry out his oath.

Going to be some interesting times in the next 60 days.  From FOX Business:

Elon Musk fires Twitter’s top brass after closing $44 billion deal
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired several top Twitter executives after officially taking control of the company Thursday evening.

A source with knowledge of the matter told FOX Business that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety were fired. Musk had accused the three of misleading him and investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.

And that was just the amuse-bouche:

Musk previously said he had plans to cut Twitter's staffing from about 7,500 to around 2,000 employees, a nearly 75% decrease.

The core application is already coded.  How many people do they need to maintain and upgrade it?  Not like there are going to be any new operating systems anytime soon - an app for iOS, an app for Android, Windows and Linux and you have 99.999% of the market (a few OS/2 stragglers out there).  Figure 100 coders.  Maybe another 30 test monkeys. 50 people part-time for localization (other languages).  100 admin.  100 ancillary (graphic design, marketing, accounting, legal)
Leaving it at 2,000 employees is more than generous.

UPDATE:  Found from another source that one of the three: Vijaya Gadde - was the person who permanently banned President Trump in 2020. She was also the one responsible for the censorship of the New York Post's Hunter Biden Laptop story when it broke in 2020. Stupid moves.  Don't let the door hit 'ya where the good Lord split 'ya...

Her fifteen minutes were up years ago.  She is doing more harm than good.
This is insane - without any shred of reality.   From Breitbart

NY Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul Urges Parents to Remask Their Toddlers
New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul this week encouraged parents to remask their toddlers to protect them from RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), contending that children are “more socialized to the idea of wearing a mask” anyway.

Crazy.  No other word for it.  2,000+ comments back me up.

Remember when this was the normal startup screen for many people:

All the "helpers" and add-ins.  Blech...  Lean and clean for me...

Another look by the London Daily Mail:

Hunter's $11MILLION Chinese connections: DailyMail.com analysis reveals president's son and brother Jim Biden pocketed seven-figure salaries and hefty bonuses from lucrative joint venture linked to Communist Party and Beijing 'spies'

• • A DailyMail.com analysis of bank records tracks the money flow from Chinese business partners and members of the Biden family between September 2017 and November 2018
  • Chinese oil giant CEFC plowed almost $11M into a joint venture with Hunter Biden - which was squirreled away largely by the president's son and his family in just a year
  • As CEFC poured millions into the venture, Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden paid themselves $100,000 and $65,000 monthly salaries, respectively, records show
  • The millions of dollars were ostensibly for the Bidens' efforts to land energy deals for CEFC around the world
  • Hundreds of pages of bank records were released Tuesday by GOP Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson who have been investigating the First Son
  • The lawmakers say the documents lay out 'the Biden family's connections to the Chinese regime and persons connected to its military and intelligence elements'
  • They claim the evidence amounts to 'potential criminal financial activity with respect to Hunter and James Biden,' - Joe's brother who goes by 'Jim'
  • The report said Hunter and Jim's companies received over $4.9M from Hudson West - a company jointly owned by Hunter's firm and a CEFC subsidiary

Much more at the site - this guy singlehandedly personifies the definition of "corrupt"

The "Big Guy" is right behind.

From the Seattle Times:

Facebook parent company fined $25M for WA campaign finance violations
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was fined nearly $25 million Wednesday for intentionally and repeatedly violating Washington’s campaign finance laws.

King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued the maximum possible fine to the social media giant, after finding that the company had, between 2019 and 2021, violated Washington’s longstanding political disclosure law 822 separate times.

It is the largest campaign finance penalty ever issued anywhere in the country, Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office said.

Much more at the site. Facebook and Google have been fined since 2018 for the same reason.

Needless to say, Section 230 needs to be looked at.

Looks really good - ties a lot of things together.  The numbers do not lie:

From Stew Peters - he is very much of the InfoWARS school but still.
What is being dismissed as conspiracy theories are coming true with disturbing regularity.
Makes one stop and think...

IEEE is the  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.  They should have known better than this.

In the current issue of their Spectrum magazine there is this article:

Light Makes Might
For eons, leaves have been creating the fuel that plants run on virtually out of thin air. A little sun, plus some oxygen and water, is enough to keep a plant going strong. Now, scientists are making strides in the ongoing effort to reverse engineer the leaf. The aim is to pull the carbon dioxide from the air and, using a catalyst, generate a cleaner alternative to the fossil fuels on which we so greatly depend. Researchers will continue trying to improve the yield and efficiency of photovoltaic devices designed to produce hydrogen fuel by splitting the water covering about three-fourths of the Earth’s surface. But a team at the University of Cambridge has demonstrated an artificial leaf that sits on the surface of a body of water and does a fairly good job of producing syngas from carbon dioxide and water. The version shown here (floating on the River Cam near the Cambridge campus) has a surface area of only 100 square centimeters. The Cambridge team already has its sights set on bigger models that would each be capable of powering dozens of homes in carbon-neutral fashion.

Emphasis mine — channeling my inner Steve Martin:  Well Excuuuuuuuuuse me

A little sun, plus some oxygen and water  ?¿?¿?¿?¿ 

Photosynthesis takes in Sunlight and Water and Carbon Dioxide.  The oxygen that the author is referring to is a (very fortunate) waste product.  Photosynthesis makes the complex carbohydrates that are the building block of life.  Note the CARBO (as in carbon) and HYDRATE (as in water).  Carbon Dioxide is plant food.

For an organization of their stature, the IEEE really goofed here.  Simple basic high-school biology.

Posted this:

Been a long ride - since then, I moved from Seattle to the farm, from the farm to Camano Island and then back to the farm in preparation for moving to North Carolina.  Two divorces.  Lost both my Mom and Dad - buried them. Digging them up and bringing their ashes with me to NC.  Discovered that I love Blacksmithing and am doing that now.  Still doing a lot of photography and music and playing with electronics and computers (RaspberryPi and Arduino).   I will be turning 72 in a week (11/03) - no sign of slowing down. Having too much fun 😁

Here's to the next 20 years - see what they bring!!!

Pure Schedenfreude - looks like saner heads are prevailing.  From OilPrice:

Germany Is Dismantling A Wind Farm To Make Way For A Coal Mine
A wind farm is being dismantled in western Germany to make way for an expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in a “paradoxical” situation highlighting the current prioritization of energy security over clean energy in Europe’s biggest economy.

The dismantling of at least one wind turbine at the wind farm close to the German coal mine Garzweiler, operated by energy giant RWE, has already started. RWE says that lignite, or brown coal, has been mined from the Garzweiler coalfields for over 100 years.

RWE also said at the end of September that three of its lignite-fired coal units that were previously on standby would return to the electricity market on schedule in October.

“The three lignite units each have a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW). With their deployment, they contribute to strengthening the security of supply in Germany during the energy crisis and to saving natural gas in electricity generation,” RWE said last month.

It all boils down to a simple choice.
Do you want to live through the winter or do you want to continue virtue signaling?
It is as simple as that.

The Definitive Version:

The Democrats are cheating again.  Fetterman can't win in an honest election so they are going to drag his body over the finish line and declare a victory regardless.
From the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; House of Representatives:

Dear Acting Secretary Leigh Chapman,
We, the undersigned members, are writing with great concern about the process used to ensure that only qualified, legal voters vote in the 2022 General Election. Due to the 2018 Directive from your office instructing counties to register voters without verification of identity, the need to verify the identity and eligibility of mail and absentee ballot applicants is even more critical to the integrity of our elections. As of October 21, 2022, records of 2022 Mail Ballot Data shows that counties have already mailed over 240,000 unverified ballots.

Deputy Secretary Jonathan Marks is the Deputy Secretary of State and is the person who is responsible for issuing ballots and making sure that their office complies with said rules and regulations.

Marks said that the unverified voter's ballot will not be counted unless the voter provides a valid form of ID. He minimized the issue and previously testified that the non-matches account for just a "small percentage" of the ballots sent. According to the SoS data, as of October 21,2022, a staggering 24O,OOO ballots are "NOT VERIFIED". That is an enormous number of ballots which, according to the law, must be set aside and not counted for the 2022 General Election unless the voter produces ID.

Again, they have nothing to run on so they have to cheat.

It is not enough that this cheating is brought to light.  People need to be prosecuted and convicted and the sentences need to hurt.  Discourage the cheating. Put them on notice.  This is for the benefit of the entire Nation.

This is gonna be fun - I love his opening act:

Especially given that he said he is going to fire 75% of the staff.
I agree - how many people does a business like Twitter need to operate?

This sums it up perfectly - from Ann Barnhardt:

Nothing catches my eye out there.

Almost feel sorry for Fetterman - the guy is a meat puppet.  His handlers should have the grace to let him retire and not go through this election cycle.

See what tomorrow brings...

From the US Department of Justice. Operation Dark HunTor

International Law Enforcement Operation Targeting Opioid Traffickers on the Darknet Results in 150 Arrests Worldwide and the Seizure of Weapons, Drugs, and over $31 Million
Today, the Department of Justice, through the Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement (JCODE) team joined Europol to announce the results of Operation Dark HunTor, a coordinated international effort on three continents to disrupt opioid trafficking on the Darknet. The operation, which was conducted across the United States, Australia, and Europe, was a result of the continued partnership between JCODE and foreign law enforcement against the illegal sale of drugs and other illicit goods and services. Operation Dark HunTor builds on the success of last year’s Operation DisrupTor and the coordinated law enforcement takedown earlier this year of DarkMarket, the world’s then-largest illegal marketplace on the Darknet. At the time, German authorities arrested the marketplace’s alleged operator and seized the site’s infrastructure, providing investigators across the world with a trove of evidence. Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and JCODE have since been compiling intelligence packages to identify key targets.

The xxxxTor names are a cute play on The Onion Router - a secure web browser used by security concious geeks like me.  This is not your mommy's VPN.  TOR is also used by people shopping on the "dark web" as it makes it very dificult to track a user back to their source. Not impossible, just difficult.

I don't care if someone does whatever they want.  They should not be allowed to offer it for sale through a widely accessed media.  Even corner drug dealers have ethics about selling to little children.

Working on stuff...

The Earth is fine.  It's us that are the problem - channeling my inner George Carlin
Looks like the new Swedish government is seeing the light of reason - from euronews:

'Devastating consequences' as new Swedish government scraps environment ministry
Sweden's new right-wing government has sparked an outcry after scrapping the Ministry of Environment in a move the opposition has branded "devastating".

Previously, the ministry was a high-profile stand-alone department with a minister in the cabinet, but now it will operate as part of another ministry instead.  

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson unveiled his new cabinet on Tuesday, and although he did appoint a Minister of Climate and Environment -- 26-year-old Liberal MP Romina Pourmokhtari-- she will work under Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch, the new Minister for Energy, Business and Industry, rather than lead her own ministry.  

I love it - not only does Ms. Pourmokhtari not head her own ministry, her group is classified under Energy, Business and Industry.  Those evil capitalists.  Could not think of any nicer bedfellows.  And then, there was this little item:

The government has also earmarked more money for nuclear power, with €36 billion credit guarantees to build new nuclear power stations, and also plans to introduce rules to make it more difficult to shut down existing nuclear plants.

And to ensure the safety of electricity supply in the shorter term (and to keep prices low), the government will investigate whether it's viable to reopen two nuclear power stations in the south of the country which were closed over the last few years.

Looking back through history, the one constant; the one thing that has elevated us; has brought us out of poverty, has given us clean air, clean water and better living conditions; is cheap energy.  Nothing else comes close.  Sure, there were some missteps at the outset but the world is a much better place now than 200 years ago.  Nothing else even comes close.

These grifters need to have their rice bowls taken away.  Defund them by 70% and let them focus on the real science and not political posturing and fund raising.

Coming on the heels of last weeks bust in Bellingham
From Seattle station KOMO:

$1.5 million worth of drugs found in Everett apartment
Authorities said they recovered $1.5 million worth of drugs from an Everett apartment on Wednesday night.

Detectives seized "3,000 grams of heroin, 2,500 grams of pure fentanyl powder, over 100,000 M-30 fentanyl pills, 989 grams of cocaine, over 21,000 grams of methamphetamine, and 101 gallons of ethanol," according to the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force (SRDTF), which consists of local, state and federal detectives and special agents as well as personnel from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and the Everett and Lynnwood police departments.

The investigation is ongoing, according to the SRDTF, and "persons of interest" have been identified.

On Wednesday, staff at the apartment were processing an eviction on an abandoned unit. The apartment manager entered the unit and found the drugs before calling 911.

Something for everyone.  Glad that these are getting off the streets.

I sometimes make fences and railings for people.  This would be a fun one to do.
Have to adhere to the 4" rule but still...

Lining the pockets of those close to the seat of power. The latest - from Politico:

Abrams’ campaign chair collected millions in legal fees from voting rights organization
ATLANTA — The voting rights organization founded by Stacey Abrams spent more than $25 million over two years on legal fees, mostly on a single case, with the largest amount going to the self-described boutique law firm of the candidate’s campaign chairwoman.

Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams’ close friend who chaired her gubernatorial campaign both in 2018 and her current bid to unseat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, is one of two named partners in Lawrence & Bundy, a small firm of fewer than two dozen attorneys.

The firm received $9.4 million from Abrams’ group, Fair Fight Action, in 2019 and 2020, the last years for which federal tax filings are available. Lawrence-Hardy declined to comment on how much her firm has collected from Fair Fight Action in 2021 and 2022 — years in which Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, for which Lawrence-Hardy was lead counsel, had most of its courtroom activity

$25,000,000 divided by 250 (working days in one year) divided by 2 years = $50,000 being spent each and every day.  That is a huge amount of money.  What are they getting in return?  Has Allegra purchased a new house recently?  Must be nice...

Earlier, it was reported that Zuck's Metaverse was falling very short on subscribers.
They were expecting 500,000 users and now have about 200,000.

Now this - excerpted from CNBC:

Meta initially aimed to reach 500,000 monthly active users in Horizon Worlds by the end of the year, but the current figure is less than 200,000, according to the report. Additionally, the documents showed that most users didn’t return to Horizon after the first month on the platform, and the number of users has steadily declined since spring, the Journal said.

Only 9% of worlds are visited by at least 50 people, and most are never visited at all, according to the report.

Wince 😝   Not only did they fall short on subscribers, most subscribers went there once to kick the tires and never returned.  Nice business model you have there.  Any connection with reality or did you just pull it from your nether regions.  Sheesh...

Their new PM is a deep-state operative. 
Too young to be sitting at the adults table - this one is just a puppet being groomed.

Dollar General is a chain of stores mostly in the southeast. They are everywhere.
This might explain why:

Talk about stupid move - get woke, go broke. From the London Daily Mail:

Read Gina Rinehart's scathing takedown of 'virtue signalling' in sport as support grows for the billionaire after she terminated $15MILLION sponsorship deal with Netball Australia over racism scandal

• • Gina Rinehart issued takedown of Netball Australia over sponsorship fallout
  • Her mining company tore up $15million deal with organisation on Saturday
  • It came after national netball team raised concern over late father's comments

Gina Rinehart has accused Netball Australia of virtue signalling after its players took issue with her sponsorship deal over offensive comments made by her late father.

Her mining company Hancock Prospecting issued the scathing takedown as it announced it would be withdrawing its $15million sponsorship deal.

It came after the Diamonds national netball team expressed concerns over offensive comments made by Lang Hancock about Aboriginals in 1984.

Part of the $15 Million deal was that the team wear the Hancock logo on their jerseys:

Indigenous player Donnell Wallam had reportedly wanted an exemption to wear the sponsor's logo on the team jersey with her teammates backing her decision. 

Hancock's reply included this:

'Firstly, because sport is at its best when it is focused on good and fair competition, with dedicated athletes striving for excellence to achieve their sporting dreams and to represent our country at their very best.'

'Secondly, because there are more targeted and genuine ways to progress social or political causes without virtue signalling or for self-publicity.'

Got to love it:  "more targeted and genuine ways" and "without virtue signalling or for self-publicity"

I think that Gina hit the nail on the head.  The article also mentions that Hancock has contributed to the Indigenous communities so they were doing right all along if Mr. Wallam had taken the time to check them out. Much more at the site.  Ms. Rinehart and Hancock are the real deal.  The netball team are a bunch of whiners.

If they have to go back to 1984 to find something that "offends" them, they are really reaching. Grow the fsck up...

Hits it out of the park.  He had fun writing this one:

The next epidemic.  They were touting this as being something to be very afraid of.

They actually ran a simulation of a monkeypox outbreak in the USA - calling it by name - back in November 2021.

Turns out it is a disease spread by men having sex with other men (98% in the USA).

But then, kids (infant) and dogs started catching it.

Now?  It has disappeared.  Can't shed a bad light on the privileged class now can we. 
Goes against the narrative.  Can't offend those in power.

Gonna have to make one here - certainly need it:

Minor nit - it is not a "tinfoil hat"  — it is an "aluminium foil deflector beanie"  Terminology please...

Big bowl of popcorn - discovery anyone?  From the London Daily Mail:

Judge grants depositions of Fauci, Jen Psaki and other high ranking Biden officials in case over 'collusive relationship' between administration and social media companies to 'censor free speech'

• • US District Judge Terry Doughty granted the request led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry
  • The suit alleges the Biden administration actively worked with social media companies and encouraged them to censor 'disfavored' viewpoints and were in violation of the First Amendment rights of those individuals
  • Anthony Fauci, Jen Psaki, the former White House Press Secretary, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan, among others will be deposed
  • Before Friday's order, the judge gave the White House 21 days to comply
  • He threw away the Justice Department's attempt to use executive privilege
  • Doughty ruled that executive privilege does not apply to external communications by White House officials

The pushback is starting.  Going to be a fun couple of years.

From Ann Barnhardt:

One of the ways the deep-state pays off their enablers - from The Gateway Pundit:

Radical Cop-Hating “Squad” Member Gets $50,000 Book Advance, Sells Less Than A Thousand Copies
Dem Rep. Cori Bush’s book is struggling to sell — according to industry tracker NPD BookScan.

The autobiography, The Forerunner: A Story of Pain and Perseverance in America sold just 729 copies in its first week.

The second week was even worse with only 288 copies sold.

Bush got an advance of at least $50,000 for the book.

Bet it was ghost written too - can't be bothered doing any real work.  Got money to make.

Photo taken this morning by Tandem Wheels Photography — Picture Lake, Mt. Baker:

Photo by yours truly - Black Mountain:

Local bust - 75,000 fentanyl pills.  Precursors are brought from China into Mexico, manufactured and run up into the USA through our open borders.  Why are Chuck and Nancy keeping the borders open? Money?  Only reason I can think of.

From the United States Department of Justice — Western District of Washington:

Three arrested in connection with ten kilos of fentanyl pills trafficked in Whatcom County
Two men were arrested in Bellingham, Washington, and a third was arrested in North Carolina, in connection with distribution of more than 75,000 fentanyl pills, announced U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. Guillermo Vieyra Salas, 22, and Jaime Alonso Hernandez-Hernandez, 41, appeared in U.S. District Court in Seattle yesterday. A third defendant, identified as Manuel Lugo, was arrested in Wilmington, North Carolina and will appear in U.S. District Court there on Monday October 24, 2022.

The North Carolina connection is curious - moving there soon.  Wilmington is in the east part of the state.  Very long and narrow (500 miles E/W and 150 miles N/S). Eastern part is very blue and crime ridden.

From Bob Moran:

Just a list from a much larger article - these are all facilities that have closed down:

• UNIPROMKAP, the only aluminum smelter in Montenegro, was shut down permanently after failing to pay for the rising cost of electricity. The electricity provider could not provide an economical price for electricity, forcing the aluminum smelter to shut its doors for good.
• MMG LTD LAS BAMBAS, a copper mine in Peru, went offline in February 2022. Activists blocked the road to the mine, shuttering its operations.
• ARCELORMITTAL SA, a formerly large Ukrainian steel plant, shuttered its operations in March after several foreign companies buckled under pressure to Russia’s invasion — rendering the steel plant uneconomical.
• Liberty Steel’s mill at Rotherham in the U.K. could not keep up with rising electricity costs and had no choice but to stop production entirely.
• The SALZGITTERAG Steel Producer in Germany significantly reduced its smelting operations in March at their Peine plant, laying off many workers in the process.
• The ARCELORMITTAL SA’S SESTAO Steel Plant in Olaberria, Spain was forced to close back in March after enduring high electricity costs. Operations have been intermittent since.
• High energy costs also forced the Celsa Group to cut back on steel production in Barcelona. Their furnaces operate intermittently, as the mill adapts to spikes in energy prices.
• The Acerinox Steel Plant, the largest steel producer in Spain, went offline in March. The company has since shuttered its operation in Cadiz.
• The Southern Copper Corps Cuajone Mine, the second largest copper producer in Peru, suspended operations after activists cut off the company’s water and railroad access.
• CODELCO’S VENTANASC, a leading copper smelter in Chile, closed its Ventanas smelter, after the ecological controller reported multiple sicknesses in the workforce.
• The ACCIAIERIE D’ITALIA Steel Mill from Italy shut down nearly all operations after production costs became insurmountable. The company has only one blast furnace still in operation.
• NORSK HYDRO, a prominent aluminum smelter in Europe, shuttered its plant in Slovakia in August of 2022. Electricity prices continue to put pressure on aluminum smelters across Europe.
• The Columbia Steel Casting Company from Portland, Oregon shut down it factory it October, putting an end to an operation that was more than a century old.
• The Talum aluminum smelter is reducing its aluminum production by 20% due to the energy costs. Production is also dropping by double digits for several foundries, including Dundee Precious Metals from Bulgaria, Oz Minerals from Australia, BHP Group, an iron ore producer from Australia, Aura Minerals, a gold producer from Honduras, Vale SA from Brazil, Fortress Minerals from Malaysia, First Quantum Minerals from Canada, and Anglo-American copper smelting operations from South Africa, Cameroon, Brazil and Australia.

All by design - get us dependent on the government.  They know what is best for us.  Ideas so good they are mandatory.

I am not an Md. or a virologist or an epidemiologist but I majored in Biology in college and both of my parents were scientists.  I can read a paper and sus-out what it is saying.  I can track down citations and see what the authors are building on.  This is disturbing - from rescue.substack:

Is Geert Right? Let’s Hope Not
ANTWERP, Belgium—I spent nearly three hours in this historic city on October 11 in an interview with Geert Vanden Bossche, who has devoted years to studying the complex interplay between vaccines and the human immune system. In our talk, this Belgian veterinarian-turned-virologist and vaccine researcher made unsettling predictions for the future.

I can only hope that Vanden Bossche, 62, is wrong. Let’s for the moment assume he is, that there are significant variables that can and often do intervene. That will make this story easier to read as well as write.

From the start, I asked Vanden Bossche to speak, uncharacteristically for him, in as simple terms as possible.

The short version is this: He predicts a vicious wave of covid-19, with cases already rising in parts of Europe. The coming re-emergence of SARS-CoV-2 will escalate quickly, he contends, and make all other waves pale in comparison. It will, he believes, be driven by the vaccinated, or more accurately, by the misdirected and scientifically dubious policy of repeated mass vaccination.

Much more at the site - very well explained.  Here is a bit:

While the unvaccinated gained long-lasting, adaptable natural immunity from covid infection, the vaccinated harbor a confused and mostly unhelpful array of old-variant anti-spike antibodies; Vanden Bossche believes these so complicate the immune response that more serious disease from new variants will result. In the vaccinated, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, he predicts, will imminently turn a corner from more contagious to more virulent.  

Going to be an interesting winter.  Both Lisa and I have various supplements stocked up.  Neither of us are travelling through any large cities at any time in the future — trips to Costco don't count 😎

See what happens and what our "leaders" reaction is.  Fifteen days to flatten the curve is not going to cut it any more.  It didn't the first time.

Rain has been falling lightly and steadily for the entire day - less than half an inch but slowly and consistent.  Just what is needed - settles in to the parched ground and does not just splash and run off.

Did some shopping down there - stocked up on veggies and such for the next week.  Surf for a little bit, unwind and that is my evening.  Back to packing tomorrow...

Doing another trip down to Camano island.  Couple of things to take care of there.

Back later this afternoon...

Hoo boy...  From Breitbart:

Herschel Walker: If Raphael Warnock ‘Can’t Hold the Oath that He Gave to Our Heavenly Father, Do You Think He’s Going to Hold the Oath He’s Given to You?’
Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee running to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate, asked host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s edition of the Breitbart News Daily podcast how Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) can uphold his constitutional oath of office if he is unable to uphold his oath to God.

Marlow invited Walker’s remarks on reports of Warnock’s church’s attempts to evict tenants in 2021 as the senator collected a $174,000 U.S. Senate salary, a $120,000 pastoral salary, and an additional $7,417 monthly housing allowance from the church.

Walker replied, “If he can’t hold to the oath that he gave to our Heavenly Father, do you think he’s going to hold the oath he’s given to you?”

Senator?  The floor is yours.  You were asked a question?

1,500+ comments at the site...

Chinese company, Chinese servers.  From Forbes:

TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens
A China-based team at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, planned to use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens, according to materials reviewed by Forbes.

The team behind the monitoring project — ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department — is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang.

The team primarily conducts investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees. But in at least two cases, the Internal Audit team also planned to collect TikTok data about the location of a U.S. citizen who had never had an employment relationship with the company, the materials show. It is unclear from the materials whether data about these Americans was actually collected; however, the plan was for a Beijing-based ByteDance team to obtain location data from U.S. users’ devices.

TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said that TikTok collects approximate location information based on users’ IP addresses to “among other things, help show relevant content and ads to users, comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and inauthentic behavior."

But the material reviewed by Forbes indicates that ByteDance's Internal Audit team was planning to use this location information to surveil individual American citizens, not to target ads or any of these other purposes. Forbes is not disclosing the nature and purpose of the planned surveillance referenced in the materials in order to protect sources. TikTok and ByteDance did not answer questions about whether Internal Audit has specifically targeted any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or journalists.

Let's just come out and say it.  All social media companies are evil.  We are their product. They do not serve us, we serve them.  The sooner we withdraw from their influence, the sooner they will return to their place in society - a glorified community bulletin board.

From Just The News:

Liz Truss announces resignation as British prime minister
U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation on Thursday after less than two months in office.

She replaced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in September.

Her resignation comes amid heightened economic stress in the U.K. following Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

"I came into office at a time of great economic and international instability," she said during her resignation speech Thursday in front of 10 Downing Street.

"Given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandates on which I was elected by the Conservative Party," Truss said.

Same as here - too much partisan infighting between the various factions.  She is the adult trying to get a bunch of children to agree on things.  Unfortunately, this is not a dictatorship - she can't have a few of the MPs publicly flogged until they wake up to reality.

A brand new technology rushed to market too early:

WordPress does have the ability to import a MovableType website but the code only works with much earlier versions of each.  The last revision of the import code was seven years ago.

My Blogiversary is on the 27th of this month (19 years) so I will continue to post here until then.
I will then archive this as a static site and continue on the new WordPress site.
See you over there in about a week...

Went to post something Tuesday and when I logged into my admin webpage, I was greeted with a wonderful page enumerating all the ways I could make money with Cryptocurrency.  I was hacked...

This is a vulnerability in my software that I have known about - I am running a very old version.  The company used to be very friendly to hobbyists - offering their software for free for non-commercial sites.  Unfortunately, that has now changed and they want $499 for a one-year license and there are additional support charges on top of that.  This is great for a corporate website but not so good for here.

What to do? Succumb to the dark side - I am installing WordPress and at some point soon, will be switching over to that.  Needless to say, blogging will be suspended until I get the new platform up and running.  WP does offer the ability to import entries from other blogging software - we will see what happens...

As they say in Texas: All hat and no cattle
From the London Daily Mail:

Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse is a FLOP! Fewer than HALF the 500,000 users have signed-up - with many making just one visit after complaining it was lonely and avatars had no legs, company documents reveal

• • A new report from the Wall Street Journal says that Meta's Metaverse is more than 300,000 users short of its year end goal
  • The report, which is based on internal documents, found that many users found many spaces empty and said that avatars were unrealistic
  • While some female users complained of sexually aggressive behavior on the platform
  • Recently, a Metaverse exec complained that not enough employees were using the service, which was effecting the amount of overall users

Isolate and Balkanize - it's what the elites want us to do.
Stay plugged in to the matrix eating mothers meat from tubes of plasticon

Not my future.  Not yours either.

Tip of the hat to Terrierman's Daily Dose

Nothing out there catches my eye...  Working at the farm - maybe I'll find something later today.

From 4th largest economy in the world down to what it is today.  Too bad about that bubble...
A long read but really goes into the details - from Jeremy Stern at Tablet Magazine:

Germany’s Apokalypse Now
The worst nightmares of Europe’s sleeping giant are coming true all at once

Being a Germany watcher in the early 21st century can often feel like being an expert on ancient Greece: You kind of missed all the exciting bits. Alas, that seems to be changing. At the same time an economic cyclone is threatening to wreck one of the world’s more deceptively combustible societies, Germany is also emerging as the fulcrum of Vladimir Putin’s strategy to salvage his war in Ukraine by breaking Western solidarity—a gambit that now involves a credible nuclear weapons threat. For a country with an almost uniquely pathological fear of inflationary shocks, populist politics, and nuclear technology, the winter of 2022 is shaping up to be a horror show.

What is currently grist for German nightmares may also turn out to be a genuine tragedy for the entirety of Europe, as well as the United States. For several decades, Germany was able to build strong domestic cohesion, a solid social welfare system, and limited income inequality on the back of a strong manufacturing sector and competitive exports. This kept unemployment low, wages stable, and politics bland. Their high quality of life often came at the expense of poorer members of the eurozone, but few Germans could argue with the result: the world’s fourth-largest economy and one of its most steady and apparently sane political societies.

But the last two years, and the last seven months in particular, have revealed this model to be something of a Ponzi scheme. The entire German system, it turns out, depended on a never-ending supply of cheap Russian gas, immaculate just-in-time Chinese supply chains, and ever-expanding foreign markets. No other country bet more on the end of history, and we all know how that turned out.

Until the end of September, there had been widespread speculation that Chancellor Olaf Scholz was willing to trade sanctions relief in exchange for a revival of the halted Nord Stream gas pipelines. Now that the pipelines have exploded, the loss of the cheap energy that underpinned modern Germany is all but irreversible. Meanwhile, the Chinese market is becoming tighter and more hostile, even as Chinese firms have started to outcompete German firms in everything from cars to machine tools. Because Germany depends so disproportionately on foreign markets, remains ideologically committed to large savings surpluses, and suppresses wages to keep exports competitive, Germans themselves cannot consume enough of what they make—while German workers make things that are especially vulnerable to inflationary pressures. Baseline inflation forecasts for Germany are now in double-digit territory. Steel, fertilizer, chemical, and toilet paper plants are shutting down or on the brink of closure, and German automakers are threatening to shift more production to places like South Carolina and Alabama. The anger and frustration of a large number of increasingly nationalist voters—the worst fear of the German establishment, for obvious reasons—has benefited the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which now polls as the most popular political party in all five states of the former East Germany.

Much much more at the site.  This is what happens when you let the self-avowed best and brightest run things but not suffer the consequences if they are wrong.  On September 25th, 2018 President Trump tried to warn them about dependency on Russian energy and they smirked at him. 

Makes 100% perfect sense when you think about it
The Plantation Owner and their willing slaves:

I love it - from Chris Lynch:

From The Gateway Pundit:

IT WAS ALL STAGED! Pelosi Brought in Daughter, Camera Crew to US Capitol Before the Riot, Son-in-Law Was Set Up Outside to Film
It was all a setup.

From Ray Epps – to opening the magnetic doors from the inside – to the dozens of fed operatives in the crowd – to Ginger Gun – to firing flash bombs and gas canisters on unsuspecting grandmas and seniors – to the mass arrests of hundreds of innocent Trump supporters who were waved into the US Capitol.

Now we have the proof that it was all a setup and the entire thing was filmed by a pre-staged camera crew.

On Thursday CNN released never-before-seen footage of Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 — the two people who refused to call in the National Guard prior to that day and during the rioting.

The footage was filmed by Nancy’s daughter Alexandra. Nancy’s son-in-law was outside filming the insurrection.

It was all staged.

Much more at the site - 3,200+ comments with some good additions to the original post. 
We knew it was staged the moment it happened.

The more the middle-class is punished by the elites, the more the elites are going to be hurting by the consequences of their actions.  From Glen Reynolds at the New York Post:

Elites suddenly realize they need blue-collar workers they derided
“The problem with living under postmodernism,” Dean Hunter Baker commented, “is that everyone is constantly tending the narrative instead of doing something useful.”

It does seem that way, especially if you run in my circles.

But of course, plenty of people are doing something useful. The world is full of those whose diligent and largely unsung work makes the lights stay on, the grocery shelves fill with food, the toilets flush and even the Internet run. They have been ignored, denigrated and even subjected to a species of economic warfare for the last several decades, but suddenly people are starting to notice that they matter.

It’s what Joel Kotkin calls “the revenge of the material economy.”

The material economy stopped being cool sometime in the 1990s. Blue-collar workers were being laid off, but economic pundits like Clinton Commerce Secretary (now Berkeley professor) Robert Reich were describing them as obsolete. Instead, the future was going to belong to “knowledge workers” — Reich called them “symbolic analysts” — who dealt in abstract concepts, not in concrete doings.

This idea seemed very satisfying to people who sat in front of computers for a living, manipulating symbols, like most journalists, academics and bureaucrats. It wasn’t so great for other people.

As manufacturing shifted offshore or to automation, the breezy advice given to the displaced blue-collar workers was “Learn to code.” That is, forget about the grubby real-world stuff you do for a living, and be more like us, the winners!

Heh - and another bubble runs its course and pops.  Leaving a large population who thought that it was the last and final great idea.  That all other ideas were now obsolete.  Sucks to be you...

Great time to Go Galt

His observation cuts through the media bullshit - from Zero Hedge:

"This Is A F**king War": Jamie Dimon Slams Biden Begging Saudis For Oil, Says Investors "Don't Give A Shit" About ESG
Three days after Jamie Dimon sparked a marketwide selloff which sent stocks to fresh 2022 lows after he predicted a US recession in 6 to 9 months citing drivers including rising interest rates, persistent inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and warned stocks could drop another 20%, the JPMorgan CEO who is expected to report earnings tomorrow (and hopefully clarify why his bank refuses to move its deposit rate above 0.01% in the process keeping $2.2 trillion in liquidity locked inside the overnight funding facility), doubled down today saying the Fed can’t cool the red-hot economy without bringing on a recession.

“I don’t know if it could be a soft landing -- I don’t think so, but it might,” the JPMorgan chief executive officer said at an industry conference in Washington Thursday, adding that the alternatives would be a mild or a severe recession. “In a tough recession, you could expect the market to go down another 20% to 30%”, adding an additional 10% to the number he first floated on Monday.

It got worse: besides predicting a hard-landing and a 30% crash, the CEO of the largest US bank also said his “gut” tells him that the Fed funds rate will probably have to rise higher than the 4% to 4.5% level many economists are predicting, as inflation persists.

Much more at the site - his thoughts on ESG are spot on:

And he did say when it comes to ESG “investors don’t give a shit” warning not to "cede governance to do-gooder kids on a committee”.

Yep...  Kids.  Spoken like a true adult in the room.

From the US Navy History site:

Navy Birthday
A 13 October 1775 resolution of the Continental Congress established what is now the United States Navy with “a swift sailing vessel, to carry ten carriage guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, with eighty men, be fitted, with all possible despatch, for a cruise of three months….” After the American War of Independence, the U.S. Constitution empowered the new Congress “to provide and maintain a navy.” Acting on this authority, Congress established the Department of the Navy on 30 April 1798.

In 1972, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt authorized official recognition of 13 October as the birthday of the U.S. Navy. Since then, each CNO has encouraged a Navy-wide celebration of this occasion “to enhance a greater appreciation of our Navy heritage, and to provide a positive influence toward pride and professionalism in the naval service.”

13 October 2022 will mark the Navy's 247th birthday. The central theme of this year is "On Watch - 24/7 for 247 Years," which highlights our Navy's enduring ability to remain fully ready to respond to and effectively deter emergent threats.

I was eligible for service during the Vietnam War.  My Draft Lottery number was in the 300+ range so I was never called.  I would have enlisted in the US Navy had I been asked to serve.  A housemate of mine drew #2.  We drove from Boston to Montreal through some back roads in Vermont and New Hampshire - there were quite a few unsecured border crossings at that time.

The poor guy can't get a break - from the London Daily Mail:

Saudis release bombshell statement saying Biden DID try and delay oil production cut until AFTER the midterms in desperate bid to avoid gas prices spiking - as White House hits back and claims Kingdom knew OPEC deal would benefit Putin

• • Saudi Arabia said US officials 'suggested' OPEC cut should be delayed a month
  • Would have pushed decision back until after the midterms on November 8
  • Kingdom refused, and OPEC slashed oil production by 2 million barrels a day
  • Saudi Foreign Ministry said the decision was made purely for economic reasons
  • White House hit back furiously and said Kingdom was trying to 'distort the facts'
  • Biden administration now scrambling with gas prices set to rise again

A perfect example of strong and wise leadership...  Let's go Brandon...

Just the way Obama and the other deep-state goblins like them;
not that smart and easily controlled:

Florida now has less than 5,000 customers without electric power.

Amazing job of recovery and repair - good work by everyone.  Shows what strong leadership will do...

By comparison, Puerto Rico has 1/10th the population and still has 23K outages from a storm that was weeks earlier.

Murano Glass is famous world-wide.  It lies outside the city of Venice and has been a world center for high-end glass work since the 1200's (yes - running continually for a thousand years)
Now?  From artnet news:

Venice’s Storied Murano Glassmakers Are Shutting Down Their Studios Amid the Energy Crisis—Some Fear It May Be Forever
A storied art material, synonymous with Venetian craftsmanship, history, and splendor, is facing unprecedented challenges amid the energy crisis in Europe. Venice’s Murano glass production has been deeply affected by the rapidly rising price for gas, which has forced most of the lagoon’s glassmakers to shut down their studios for varying periods.

This has had rippling effects in the art world. “Murano glass is like solidified, fluid fire, made possible in a furnace,” artist Ai Weiwei told Artnet News. The Chinese artist has been working with the material and is currently exhibiting his Murano glassworks on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Luckily, the main work was completed before the gas price spike (smaller sculptures have been affected). “The complexity and difficulty of [Murano glass] production is very moving,” he added.

Glass furnaces, like Murano’s, guzzle intense quantities of natural gas to function at consistent, high temperatures, which must be maintained 24 hours a day. For the roughly 100 existing Murano factories, that adds up to about 10 to 11 million cubic meters on a normal year, according to the trade group Consorzio Promovetro Murano. Prices of gas spiked a year ago (even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine), hitting €2.60 per cubic meter in July 2022, about a 1,200 percent increase from the normal rate of around €0.20 per cubic meter set in September 2021, according to the trade group. Now, the industry is faced with a crisis unlike any other it has experienced since its Roman origins.

More at the site - this is what happens when you let credentialed idiots determine energy policy.  They have the right degrees from the right institutions but they have no wisdom, no intelligence and they surround themselves with Yes Men - they never listen to anything that goes against the narrative.

From an email communication:

Normal is just the running average of weird.

About the clearest definition I have run into yet...

Potential for a nationwide railroad strike has been brewing since January of this year.  The story comes and goes in the media.  Some major issues with scheduling and overwork.  This is one case where Union representation is a good thing. Now this - from the Post Millenial:

Biden's railway deal to avert strike spiked by union
Nearly a month after President Biden announced that a deal had been reached between railroad companies and their unions, the deal has fallen apart, raising concerns for a possible strike.

The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division of the Teamsters, one of the nation’s largest railroad unions, rejected the deal on Monday, expressing discontent with the number of paid sick days, according to the Washington Post.

Officials said that members of the third-largest union rejected the proposed five-year contract in a 56 to 43 percent split. Both sides have agreed to continue with negotiations until at least November 19.

So no strike until after the mid-terms.  As things get interesting.  Where is Mayor Pete in all this?

She is smart - figured she would see the light:

The globalists have us all balkanized - separated into "us" and "them".  They have us clutching our pearls and talking about the weather and the evils of plant food carbon dioxide.  They have us wearing useless masks and taking clot-shots and dropping dead in our 20's.  Now? They are trying to tie everything together with a pretty bow...
Welcome to ESG: Environmental, Social, and Governance

From American Thinker:

With ESG, Everyone's a Climate Activist
In 2019, 266 members of the influential Business Roundtable, including the world’s largest fund managers, bankers, communications carriers, even fossil-fuel companies at the risk of their own survival, signed off on a one-page statement reimagining the American corporation. It described a new paradigm of corporate social responsibility to its stakeholders, a perspective that elevates employees, contractors, and suppliers over the interests of profit-seeking shareholders whose investments underwrite a company’s financial health.  It presented a woke capitalist view of the new-age company as beholden to environmental and social whims of the political elite. 

A bit more:

There’s a lot of backslapping going on in the corporate world over Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) business strategies.  ESG provides the leverage used by governments to force-feed a progressive value system on corporations.  It is shareholder extortion, a corporate money pit pushed by the climate commissars at the UN and WEF that assures the erosion of shareholder investments.

And it is big money for them:

Sustainable ESG investing is blood in the water to Wall Street sharks. In 2020, ESG assets surpassed thirty-five trillion and are predicted to rise to fifty trillion by 2025.  For perspective, that’s one-third of all global assets under management.  Stock Exchange giants such as Morgan Stanley, flying under the ESG banner, MSCI, and Standard and Poor’s subsidiary effort, S&P Global ESG Index, have cooked-up a corporate guilt complex that has pushed the Fortune 500 placeholders in the direction of climate activism.

All subsidized with our taxpayer dollars.  Some people are pushing back.  I love that the State of Louisiana divested from BlackRock because of ESG.  It will be interesting to see the lawsuits as companies offering investments are supposed to operate for the benefit of the investors, not for the benefit of themselves and their shareholders.  A big legal distinction and one that they are failing to do.

Much more at the site.

The true history is quite a bit different from what the revisionists would have you believe.
Of course, as the true history negates their own version of history which then negates their position and moral standing.

Don Surber has a wonderful collection of links to the truth.  One excerpt:

What did the New World actually look like when Columbus landed on its shores in 1492? Contemporary accounts from both European and Indigenous sources reveal that the pre-Columbian world was a place where slavery, trafficking, sexual exploitation, oppression, and even genocide was commonplace prior to any European contact. As will be seen, the discovery eventually put a stop to many of these heinous acts—ultimately elevating morality instead of lowering it.

You will never get the cultural marxists to own up to this.

Because I am moving to North Carolina I have been studying the local history.  This (Cherokee County actually) was part of the ancestral home of the Cherokee Nation and is the start of the "Trail of Tears" forced migration.  The Cherokee were allowed to bring their slaves.  Again, the Cherokee were allowed to bring their slaves.  These were native americans from other tribes who were captured in battle as well as negros purchased from the Muslim slave traders.  Noble savages indeed...

From the Washington Post:

In the Ukraine war, a battle for the nation’s mineral and energy wealth
Less than 100 miles east, artillery salvos pound Ukrainian defensive positions as Russian forces inch forward. But below the surface of this sprawling Donbas coal field, a dwindling number of miners are still working, extracting a fuel that is emblematic of one of Ukraine’s biggest challenges.

The Kremlin is robbing this nation of the building blocks of its economy — its natural resources.

After nearly six months of fighting, Moscow’s sloppy war has yielded at least one big reward: expanded control over some of the most mineral-rich lands in Europe. Ukraine harbors some of the world’s largest reserves of titanium and iron ore, fields of untapped lithium and massive deposits of coal. Collectively, they are worth tens of trillions of dollars.

Like they say, follow the money...

How's that alt.energy and Russian sanctions going for you:

I love it - send to me by a friend:

Illustrated by Doug Ross with found images from one of the Choom gang

Music video - balloons are CGI but excellent FPV drone flying:

From Yahoo/Business:

PayPal Pulls Back, Says It Won’t Fine Customers $2,500 for ‘Misinformation’ after Backlash
PayPal has backtracked on a published policy that would have fined users $2,500 for spreading “misinformation,” claiming the update had gone out “in error.”

“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” a spokesperson told National Review in a written statement.

The "error" was that it got noticed and went viral.  They will be very quiet and try to slipstream it in again in a few months.  This was scheduled to take effect November 3rd - a few days before the mid-term elections.

Why?

Great quote:

The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn't know existed
—Evelyn Waugh

I am in denial - I was working at the farm today and processing some clothing.

Got out one of my sweaters an set it aside.

Getting a bit nippy in the mornings when I go out for coffee...  Waaaaaaaa............

Just in time for mid-terms:

Even the 2:10 of the trailer is a waste of time. Pure propaganda for the already brainwashed.

The kids these days - they live in a bubble...

Talk show host Steve Deace:

NPC - Non-player character.
#1) - the "people" in video games who have no active role in the gameplay but who are just there to provide the illusion of citizenry.
#2) - the "progressive" slave on the Democrat plantation

Florida became the first state in the union to come out and state what a lot of people have been noticing.  The mRNA vaccine technology is seriously not ready for use.

From the Florida Department of Health:

Guidance for mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines
October 7, 2022
Florida continues to emphasize that health care providers review all data to evaluate risks and benefits unique to each patient when determining any health care services to provide, including the
administration of COVID-19 vaccines containing Messenger RNA (mRNA) which both the PfizerBioNTech and the Moderna vaccines utilize.

The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety. This studied mortality risk following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. This analysis found there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. Individuals with preexisting cardiac conditions, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, should take particular caution when considering vaccination and discuss with their health care provider.

As such, the Florida Department of Health has issued the following guidance:

Based on currently available data, patients should be informed of the possible cardiac complications that can arise after receiving a mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. With a high level of global immunity to
COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiacrelated death among men in this age group.

The State Surgeon General now recommends against the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines for males ages 18-39 years old.

Individuals and health care providers should also be aware that this analysis found:

• • Males over the age of 60 had a 10% increased risk of cardiac-related death within 28 days of mRNA vaccination.
  • Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks among any population.

Floridians are encouraged to discuss all the potential benefits and risks of receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines with their health care provider. The risk associated with mRNA vaccination should be weighed against the risk associated with COVID-19 infection.

Kind of lays it out there.  The vaccines are dangerous.  More than the disease.
This is backed up with SCIENCE and not narrative.  Numbers do not lie.  Politicians do.

Interesting release from Senator Chuck Grassley's office:

Internal Memos: Rampant Sexual Misconduct At FBI Brings Lighter Penalties For Senior Employees; Many Left Before Disciplinary Action
At least 665 employees left FBI, avoiding penalties following sexual misconduct investigations from 2004-2020
WASHINGTON – Hundreds of FBI employees under investigation for sexual misconduct quit their jobs before facing discipline from 2004-2020, according to internal Justice Department records obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). The records, provided via whistleblower disclosures, also illuminate concerns that senior officials are facing lighter penalties than line employees for similar misconduct, and call into question the effectiveness of the FBI’s response to sexual misconduct by its employees.

The first document, produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Disciplinary Appeals and titled “Retirements and Resignations During Unwelcome Sexual Conduct Adjudications” found that from 2004 to December 23, 2020:

“665 FBI employees, including 45 [Senior Executive Service (SES)]-level employees have retired or resigned following an FBI or [Justice Department Office of Inspector General (OIG)] investigation into alleged misconduct, but prior to [the Office of Professional Responsibility’s (OPR)] issuance of a final disciplinary letter.”

Much more at the site with footnotes to source materials.  That organization needs to have 70% of its funding cut and it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.  There are some very good, very passionate people working there but the "leadership" is flaccid and corrupt and needs to be purged and prosecuted.

Two headlines from The Gateway Pundit this morning:

Major Explosion Destroys Europe’s Longest Bridge Connecting Crimea and Russia

BREAKING – SABOTAGE! Two Communications Lines (GSM-R) Cut in Germany – Rail Services in Northern Germany Suspended

Lots of information at each link.  Someone left this comment at the second one:

Remember when the adults screamed that Trump was gonna start WWIII?

So true - all the stories about Russian collusion.  All the mean tweets.  All the $1.59 gasoline.
I would love to return to those days...   Soon...

Grrrr...  I went to a local car dealership with a specific request - a Ford Expedition in the 2016-2018 range, 5.5L EcoBoost engine, EL and the XLT options package (pretty minimal  -  less to go wrong) Towing package with 4X and 7X connectors.  I had a Toyota Highlander to trade in.  They were able to find it and we worked a deal - they won some and I won some.  Sweet ride but there were a few things that I wanted them to do.

The specific issue is that Ford uses a very odd terminal for their vehicle batteries - works great but it is a bit fragile.  Zero problem with road wear and vibration but if someone is not used to it, it can snap.  Suseptible to breaking.  This one had broken and some bubba had used plumber's hanger strap for their repair.  There were a few other items that needed attention and I gave them a printed list with the battery terminal as item #1 with the requirement that it be restored to factory spec.

Got the text today that it was ready - spent 90 minutes driving down and it would not start.  Pop the hood and their "electrical guy" had taken out the hanger strap but had bubba'd it a different way. What they used had snapped off and rendered the car unable to start.

The dealership owner was completely apologetic and I am betting that their "electrical guy" will be mopping the floors with his own toothbrush for a few weeks.  Got a text an hour later that they had the parts on order and that they would be here wednesday.  Still...  Grumble...

Heading out for coffee and then working at the farm.

New truck is supposed to be done today at the car dealership so driving down to pick it up this afternoon.

Nothing much happening out there...

I would love to have an electric runabout.  Have an e-bike and love it. A road vehicle for long distance?  Still not practical — we do not have the battery technology yet and there is nothing in the wings waiting.
And then, there is this - from FOX News:

Electric vehicles are exploding from water damage after Hurricane Ian, top Florida official warns
A top Florida state official warned Thursday that firefighters have battled a number of fires caused by electric vehicle (EV) batteries waterlogged from Hurricane Ian.

EV batteries that have been waterlogged in the wake of the hurricane are at risk of corrosion, which could lead to unexpected fires, according to Jimmy Patronis, the state's top financial officer and fire marshal.

"There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start," Patronis tweeted Thursday. "That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale."

Lithium fires are intense.  Like I said, we do not have the technology yet.  Nor do we have the infrastructure.

He could potentially be in charge of twitter in a week.  Right before mid-term elections.

This will be fun to see...

From Raconteur Report

Heading out for coffee and read a little bit.  Then to the farm for another day of sorting and tossing.

Dumpster is getting pretty full - it's 20 cubic yard capacity and is my fourth in this whole process.  Got too much crap...

Busy day working on the farm.  Sorting and tossing.

Quiet day in the news - a lot going on but basically, the deep-state being a craven idiot.

More of same tomorrow...

From the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,  Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response
Press Release dated October 4th, 2022

HHS purchases drug for use in radiological and nuclear emergencies
As part of long-standing, ongoing efforts to be better prepared to save lives following radiological and nuclear emergencies, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is purchasing a supply of the drug Nplate from Amgen USA Inc; Nplate is approved to treat blood cell injuries that accompany acute radiation syndrome in adult and pediatric patients (ARS).

No mention of how many doses but the budget is $290 million...
This is under a program started in 2004 so nothing new but why now?  Why $290M worth?

Looks like some IRS employees found the free government cheese a little too tempting.
From The United States Department of Justice:

Five Current or Former IRS Employees Charged with Defrauding Federal COVID-19 Relief Programs
Five current or former IRS employees have been charged with schemes to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program, federal stimulus programs authorized as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

“The IRS employees charged in these cases allegedly abused the trust placed in them by the public,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Criminal Division is committed to safeguarding that public trust and protecting pandemic relief programs for the American people.”

“This matter demonstrates the brazenness with which bad actors have taken advantage of federal programs meant to help those who suffered most from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Director for COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Kevin Chambers. “The Justice Department will continue to work hard to root out PPP and EIDL Program fraud, including that committed by government employees.”

According to court documents, the defendants allegedly obtained funds under the PPP and EIDL Program by submitting false and fraudulent loan applications that collectively sought over $1 million. They then used the loan funds for purposes not authorized by the PPP or EIDL Program, but instead for cars, luxury goods, and personal travel, including trips to Las Vegas.

Again, sometimes wonder about the intelligence of these people...
There is no graceful exit strategy and you will be found out.  Not "if",  WHEN

From Asia Times:

Were Nord Stream explosions really a military accident?
On September 27, two explosions severely damaged Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, setting off wild speculation about possible sabotage.

Another two breaks in the pipeline, a tad to the north in Sweden’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), were later identified but no explosions were reported. According to news sources citing Danish officials, each explosion was equivalent to 500 kilograms of TNT, the size of very large anti-shipping mines.

Not only the US Navy (together with its NATO allies) but also the Russian Navy conduct naval exercises in the Baltic Sea and many believe either the Russians or Americans are clandestinely responsible for the two blasts. Predictably enough, the two sides have blamed each other in loud and emphatic terms – without corroborating or credible evidence.

And of course, there is the idea that it could be basic Russian maintenance (a la Chernobyl power plant #4).
Brings to mind Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

And now this - back to the Asia Times article:

Unmentioned amid the incendiary speculation is the explosive condition of the Baltic seabed, which is loaded with dumped artillery shells, chemical weapons including Tabun nerve gas and mines. Under an agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Britain and the Soviet Union dumped approximately 69,000 tons of Germany’s chemical weapons stockpile into the Baltic Sea in 1947-48.

A second dumping in the same area took place in 1959. Moreover, during World War I and II, Germany laid some 80,000 sea mines including moored contact mines and constructor mines in the Baltic Sea, including around Bornholm. There are known to be Russian moored contact mines in the same area.

Much more at the site - quite the legacy.  Yes, they did a site survey when putting the pipelines in but some of these things drift.  Hanlon's Razor again.

From Arkhaven Comics:

The Cockroaches Just Saw the Bathroom Light Come On
David Zaslav and the Warner Brothers Discovery CFO are being sued by the Collinsville Police Pension Board.

The press is all tickled about Zaslav being named in a lawsuit because he has nuked a number of Woke projects as part of a writedown package for the IRS.

This is actually a lot more important than it would appear on the face of it.

First of all, if you are a pension fund then you are looking for stocks that are low risk but are a good bet to go up in value, and you want them to pay dividends. The smart ones tend to be very conservative fiscally. They don’t take big risks. And they invest on the basis of due diligence research. These guys do go through all the documentation that the company provides.

Now granted these investment projections provided by the company in question are given to sunny optimism but there is a difference between that and fraud. If you cooked the books on the investor documentation, then you have committed fraud.

A pension fund is not some angry celebrity or SJW activist organization (generally). These organizations don’t sue over butt-hurt feelings. They sue over corporate malfeasance.

Here is the super important part: They are suing over the number of streamers that HBOmax claims it had when Discovery and Warner Brothers merged because originally the pension fund was invested in Discovery. Discovery was indeed a healthy company at the time the investment was made, it was marrying it to Warner Brothers that damaged the value.

Is Zaslav going to be hurt? Very doubtful from what I’ve been told. This was just a necessary first step in legally redirecting the investor’s ire to where it rightfully lay: AT&T.

Zaslav is waaay after the fact.  It's AT&T and Warner that is going to be put on the hot spot.  This will not get a lot of media coverage (guess why) but it is a very important suit for Western Culture. Discovery anyone?

From Nashville station WSMV:

Country music community reacts to death of legend Loretta Lynn
Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner’s daughter and a pillar of country music, died Tuesday morning. She was 90 years old.

“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home at her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” her family wrote in a statement.

Lynn’s family asked for privacy as they grieve her loss and remember the good times.

One of the great ones...

One year ago yesterday to be exact (10/03/2021) but close enough...

From PipelineOnline:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 29 times, shame on me
Alberta adds 29th wind farm, and collectively they all put out 0.3 per cent of their capacity on Oct. 1

I had something of a surreal experience on Wednesday, Sept. 28. I was sitting in the SIMSA Energy Supply Forum in Regina, listening to the presenter from General Electric-Hitachi speak about the plan to build four 300 megawatt small modular reactors in this province.

I happened to glance at that moment on my phone to the Alberta Electric System Operator grid website, which puts out minute-by-minute updates on the output of that province’s grid. (SaskPower pointedly does not do this, citing such data as proprietary.)

To my amazement, yet again, Alberta’s wind fleet was collapsing in its output. I watched the numbers fall until it hit 26 megawatts at 1:55 p.m. That was just one per cent of the total 2,589 megawatts of wind generation connected to the grid, across 28 wind farms on that date.

Much more at the site - it got worse, much much worse to the point where two largish diesel gensets could have matched the output from the entire provinces wind farms.  How much did they spend on these? Solar and wind are not baseload.  They will never be baseload.

All of this is Canadian taxpayer money down the rathole for political gain and posturing.

$475 Million - from Bloomberg:

Trump Sues CNN for Defamation, Saying Network Fears He’ll Run in 2024
Former President Donald Trump sued CNN for defamation, accusing the network of smearing him -- including with frequent comparisons to Adolf Hitler -- to undermine a potential run for re-election in 2024.

CNN has tainted Trump’s image by using “ever-more scandalous” labels to describe him in broadcasts, including “racist,” “Russian lackey,” and “insurrectionist,” culminating in false comparisons to the late Nazi leader, according to a suit filed Monday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Comparing Trump to “arguably the most heinous figure in modern history” is evidence that CNN had “actual malice” toward him -- the required threshold for proving defamation against a public figure, Trump’s lawyers claim.

Trump, who has long clashed with CNN over its reports on his behavior and policies, is seeking at least $475 million in damages.

Heh - go for it.  He would not do this if he did not think he would win.  In the bag as it were...

Dropped the Expedition at the dealership to have a few things fixed.  Get it back later this week.  Really happy so far - runs well and handles perfectly.

Quick surf and take care of some things here...

Donch'a hate it when that happens.  Start over from the beginning...

From the New York Post:

NYC migrants pile into vans they say are headed to Florida for Hurricane Ian cleanup
Scores of Venezuelan migrants in New York City are hopping on vans to head down to Florida for Hurricane Ian clean-up, they told The Post.

The migrants had scant information about who they would be working for, but they still piled into vans in Queens that they said were headed to the Sunshine State over the weekend.

“They want us for hurricane cleanup, we’d get paid $15 an hour, overtime and $15 for food daily, I think,” said Javier Moreno, 37, noting that a woman named Camila “from an organization” approached him with a flier.

So typical - the liberals have no moral issue using the illegal immigrants as pawns to play political games.  It's all virtue signaling with them - we saw that in Martha's Vineyard.  They don't really care, they just want to foster the illusion that they care - to show their peers that they are all members of the same tribe.  It's not about helping the community, it's about my tribe first and screw you.

Disgusting losers...

Dropping the truck at the dealership tomorrow morning to take care of a few items.  Otherwise, very happy with it.  Drives like a dream.

Planning to hit the road early here and get my morning coffee at my old place on Camano Island - they open at 8:00AM and I was usually one of the first in line.  Be there scratching at the door tomorrow.  Taking care of a couple other things on the island and then driving my van back here.  They are keeping the truck for a few days.  Getting a lift back down to pick up the truck later this week.

Productive day.  Time to surf a bit and watch some videos...

Sufficiently caffeinated.  Time to put in a couple hours work at the farm. Unpacking totes, sorting and triage.

Got a lot to do but not an insurmountable task - much easier than moving the contents of the island house or the storage barn.  Practice makes perfect.  Slow news day so nothing much happening "out there"

From Western Rifle Shooters:

Did a shopping run into Bellingham.  Wanted to get two new keys for my new truck (came with only one and one of the buttons does not work).  The Ford dealership wanted $200 each and THEN it was an additional $100 EACH to program them.  I can get what looks like an OEM Ford key fob for under $50.  I am checking with a local locksmith to see if they can handle the programming.  That whole "right to repair" issue...

Store is doing well - despite being the slow season, we are busy.  Our Credit Card processor decided to do a firmware update yesterday and it was buggy as hell...  On Friday.  We were unable to process EBT (Food Stamp) cards and most transactions took more than five minutes to clear.  For a retail grocery store.  On Friday.  I really hope that someone got sent to the woodshed for that singularly poor decision.

Quick surf - gorgeous fall day.  Tomorrow looks really good too.

Liberal "thought" - it's all virtue signaling and talking points.  Zero real action.
From the London Daily Mail:

Portland mayor Ted Wheeler LAUGHS at woman who confronts him over homelessness crisis - after she moved to the city for its progressive policies: 'I'm so sick of having politicians pander to a woke agenda that's been an epic failure'

• • Portland, Oregon resident Gillian Rose accused the mayor of scoffing at her
  • She spoke out during public comments at city council meeting on Wednesday
  • Said she moved to the city from the East Coast for its progressive values
  • But Rose said she was shocked at Portland's handling of homelessness crisis
  • Wheeler chuckled as he thanked her for her 'emphatically clear' remarks

The urban failures are by design — classic Cloward-Piven strategy.  Collapse the system - overwhelm it.  When it fails, then it is very easy to institute martial law and tyranny.  Only a temporary measure of course.  It is for your own good of course.  Your own safety of course.