Monday - March 27, 2023
Once Again, The One And Only Post
March 28, 2023
UPDATE: Body Cam Videos Released
The Nashville PD is doing a wonderful job of sharing as much information with the public as soon as they are able to. And they did a heroic job of taking down this shooter in a very short amount of time.
The first one is here.
The second one is here.
They’re very similar, and one may just be the longer version of the other. Neither show anyone getting shot or any blood. It seems “Aiden” was shooting out through an upstairs window while the police were entering the building. About a dozen shots can be heard as they race room to room, floor to floor, to clear the building and find the shooter.
They ran to the sound of gunfire and did not hesitate. I hope somebody runs these clips in Uvalde TX 24-7-365 to shame those worthless sacks of crap forever.
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School shooting update: videos released
In a bit of rather amazing transparency, the Nashville police have released the CCTV videos from the church school of the earlier parts of the incident. No victims or shootings are shown. For now you can see this video nearly everywhere, including at The Feral Irishman.
In the video you can see her drive her tiny little Honda Fit around the parking lot, then the camera cuts to her shooting out the double glass doors to gain entry ( gee, maybe glass wasn’t such a good choice from a security perspective?? ), and other camera angles as she walks in and around. Little Miss Tactical has on her bright red ballcap (target!) and her white T shirt (target!) under her “tactical” black vest, and her urban camo lounge pants with her sneakers. She’s got gear in the vest or on a belt pouch, has a carbine length AR slung over her left shoulder, and a pistol on her right hip. She’s carrying another rifle.
Fox News has pictures of the rifles released by the Nashville PD. The one carried at her side is a Lead Star Arms Grunt AR, a rifle usually chambered in 5.56 NATO / .223 Remington. She’s decorated the rifle with a sticker on the magazine and her man-name Aiden written on the stock in white nail polish. Unknown if this weapon was used. The rifle she is carrying and using when she enters the building is a KelTec Sub2000 carbine, a very minimalist lightweight carbine chambered for pistol cartridges, usually 9mm NATO or .40 S&W. This weapon is also crudely personalized with a piece of red tape on the receiver that has “Hell Flies” or “Hellfires” written on it, and some graffiti on it’s magazine. The pistol is said to be a S&W Shield, a semiautomatic in 9mm.
The next part of the video shows her stalking the halls carrying the Grunt rifle. You can tell the difference in weapons, not just by the decorations on them: the KelTec magazine is in the handgrip, the Grunt magazine is ahead of the trigger guard. Why switch weapons? Who knows.
So earlier reports that she had “two AK style weapons” are wrong, but the media goes out of its way to not know one gun from another. They’re both black, therefore AKs, therefore assault weapons. But 3 different types of guns that use 2 or 3 different kinds of ammunition is just one more of the pretend tactical going on here, and we’re dealing with a crazy person, so that doesn’t really matter.
The school is now identified as being aligned with the Presbyterian church; earlier reports said it was Catholic. This doesn’t matter either.
The names of the victims have been released. This matters.
Police identified the victims as Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, Hallie Scruggs, 9, William Kinney, 9, Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.
She started shooting at the police from an upstairs window when they arrived.
Some news sites report that she left a manifest. Of course she did. That’s the #3 item on the Mass Shooter’s Checklist, right? This document has not yet been released.
CNN is reporting that Hale had made contact via Instagram to a woman she had played basketball with in middle school. Guess they stayed in touch all those years. Anyway, this woman works in local radio, and the contact content said Hale was going to suicide.
In messages shared with CNN affiliate WTVF, a former middle school basketball teammate of Audrey Hale provides chilling new details regarding an exchange she had on social media with the shooter prior to yesterday’s school shooting in Nashville.
Averianna Patton said she saw a message on her phone that Hale had sent to her on Instagram Monday morning that stated Hale was planning to die by suicide and that she would see it on the news. A screenshot of a message published by WTVF appeared to show that the message was sent at 9:57 a.m. local time.
And that’s about all I know of the developments since yesterday.
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March 27, 2023
Breaking The Narrative, Again
28 Year Old Woman Kills 3 Adults 3 Children At Nashville Catholic School, Shot To Death By Police
A female shooter opened fire at a private Catholic grade school in Nashville on Monday, killing three children and three adults, officials said. The suspected shooter was fatally shot by police, authorities said.
Authorities have not released the names or ages of the victims, but all three adults who were fatally shot worked at the school. Police have identified the shooter as a 28-year-old woman from Nashville, and officials said that she was armed with “at least” two assault rifles and a handgun.
Officials responded to the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville’s Green Hills neighborhood on Monday morning.
Anybody can get hold of a gun and go on a school shooting rampage. They don’t have to be white, male, or even older than age 6. Hell, they don’t even need guns, as knives work too. And for all the “security measures” and all the school cop “resource officers”, it looks like damn near anybody can just scroll into just about any school anywhere at any time and start killing.
This whole incident lasted about 15 minutes. At this point, the public doesn’t know who the shooter was, who was killed, or what the motivation was if there even was any (I Don’t Like Mondays). Or a manifesto on social media. Or even if she was “known to the FBI” as is often the case.
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UPDATE:
She’s a he on a killing spree.
Shooter is Audrey Hale, just turned 28. Using he/him pronouns and calling herself Aiden, she left behind a manifesto and was apparently acting out against Tennessee’s just passed ban on “gender confirming” mutilation surgery for minors.
Unknown at this point if “Aiden” was on male hormones, but that will be the “excuse” that rationalizes her murder spree. Because that’s how all men act, right? No.
I’ve read that the school is attached to a church. Is the Catholic church against this kind of thing? I sure hope they are!!
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Pulling back the curtains, twice
I’m feeling quite a bit better finally. Don’t know what bug, cold, or other unspecified illness we had this time around but it’s letting go of me. At least somewhat. I didn’t go to the family event this weekend, as I was still coughing a lot and my nose was running like a faucet. By Saturday evening I’d coughed things loose and could breathe acceptably well for the first time in at least a week. It was like opening the curtains to let the light in. Suddenly I had more energy, could think better, felt less emotional, etc. Oxygen is your friend! She’s still sick, and last night when I had to get something from my car for her, I marched right up the stairs and across the parking lot and back. And wasn’t gasping for breath or having to stop at least twice along the way, which couldn’t be 150 feet each way. Yeah, that’s how it’s been for me. I had another middle of the night breathing episode last night, getting up at 4am to use the bathroom and then having a coughing asthma attack. So I sat on the bed and blew my nose and coughed and hyperventilated for several eternities, probably 5 or 10 minutes, and finally got another layer of mucus out of me. These episodes are no fun at all, but this one wasn’t as “I’m about to die” as the others have been. A few toots on the rescue inhaler got me through it, and once I’d recovered I did my Anoro puffer. And once again it was like opening the curtains. My O2 levels were bouncing around 99% and holding steady at 97%. For me this is outstanding. So I went back to sleep. My morning cough routine was pretty minor, but I can feel that there’s still another thin curtain left to open. So I’m much better.
Part of the endless illness cycle we’ve had this winter is probably due to the remodeling project. Lots of dust, lots of old dust from within the walls. Try to clean as much as we can, and we’ve haven’t always had the energy to do it, but there’s a layer of powder over nearly every surface in our home. That can’t be good to breathe. So I’m going to attack it one small area at a time, and keep attacking it every day until it’s defeated or at least beat back to a major extent.
I’m sick and tired of us being sick and tired. And I’m really really tired of these midnight attacks. Never had one of those before this project, not in my entire life. Never want to have another one if I can.
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March 25, 2023
Short takes to some links
More dead water mammals in NJ. Now it’s Flipper not just Moby
Don’t eat the frozen strawberries! Recall in effect because of poop contamination.
This isn’t the first time this has happened this year, either.
Students failing in NY schools. Solution: lower the standards again. Because actually teaching is, like, totally hard.
Did Harley Davidson go woke a couple years ago? They now have an electric scooter. Ok, it’s actually cool looking. But it’s an electric scooter. From H-D. ITEOTWAWKI.
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Ah Spring. The weather is as changeable as my health, and drags my sinuses along with it. It’s been the old nasal waterfall for me for the past few days, which also leads to a whole lot of coughing when all that yuck drains down in my sleep. Sucks. It might be time to find the Mucinex, somewhere in all the boxes of our stuff that are piled up around the house.
So I guess I’m sick enough to not go to the St. Patrick’s Day thing at her dad’s, which got delayed a week because his wife was sick with the same kind of thing. I’m not bringing a fresh dose of germs into their house.
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Just because I’m not going doesn’t mean I get a pass on bringing the bread. So I made up some sourdough dough last night, left it out an hour or so, then put it in the fridge overnight. What’s called a retarded ferment. I was up coughing at 4am, so I took the ice cold lump out and put it on the kitchen counter. Of course, we don’t have any heat in the kitchen or on that middle level of our condo right now, so when I got up again at 9am it was still a cold lump, and hadn’t risen a bit. So into the bread rising machine, my trusty Brod & Taylor. Set it for 83F. An hour later and the dough still hasn’t done a thing. Sourdough can be a real pain in the tail, persnickety and fussy. Crank it up to 87. So it’s time for emergency speed loaf instead, a hybrid rocket dough. Use 3 times as much starter for flavor, throw in a full measure of yeast, and it can go in the oven in just over an hour after kneading in the mixer. 100 minutes from flour to table.
Usually you use at most 10% starter and let the dough ferment forever. This gives it plenty of time for the temperature insensitive bacteria to do their thing, and for the natural yeasts to eat up the starches and sugars and pass lots of gas. Yes, bread rises because of yeast farts.
Two loaves with similar ingredients and flour proportions. Starter’s most recent feeding was with whole wheat flour.
Observe:
Regular sourdough
300gm King Arthur’s Sir Lancelot commercial bread flour
100gm Pillsbury unbleached all purpose flour
100gm King Arthur’s Whole Wheat flour
12gm salt (about 2.5%)
50gm sourdough starter ( hopefully half flour, half water )
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525gm flour
x 0.65 desired minimum hydration level
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341gm water
- 25gm in the starter
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316 100°F water to add (70% works out to 342gm water)
Hybrid Rocket Sourdough
285gm Sir Lancelot
90gm All Purpose
75gm Whole Wheat
1 measure SAF Instant yeast
12gm salt
150gm sourdough starter ( 75 + 75 )
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525gm flour
same-same for the water
While the sourdough just sat there for 13 hours, the rocket bread had doubled in size in 40 minutes, and then rose again to fill the banneton in about 20. So into the oven. It’s almost done baking now, and the scores have opened up to form a nice gringe*. And maybe the straight sourdough is ready to go into the banneton for shaping. (nope, it’s still a cool lump a full hour later. Beats me; it’s warm inside the box. Take the temp down to 75 and leave it there until dinner time.)
*gringe is French for ears. When you take a blade and score the loaf before baking, so that the growth of the bread in the oven won’t result in cracks all over the skin, and you cut into the top of the dough at a low angle, and the dough is at that perfect level in the rise, then the edge of the score will curve backwards, curl upwards, and brown faster than the rest of the loaf. This is much desired cool thing for bread bakers. A really big gringe can be used as a handle to carry the loaf. Scores that don’t open up or bloom usually indicate over-proofed dough. Moister dough tends to make bigger gringes, as all that water turns into steam and creates big bubbles inside and pushes the scores wide open. Those bubbles are called the crumb and people like that too, even though a loaf full of bubbles won’t hold butter or jelly anywhere near as well as a nice tight slice will. And that’s the core of artisanal bread: regardless of the kinds of fancy flour used or the add-ins (nuts, berries, oatmeal, whatever), these doughs are close to flour soup. Very wet. And very hard to shape. But full of bubbles when baked. Very open crumb. Wow.
OTOH, there’s something a bit van Gogh going on here with the gringe thing. Instead of slicing off an ear out of spite, you slice the dough to make ears for delight.
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Boweling Blogging!!
We got slaughtered last night in No Longer Cheap league, with just 5 weeks left in the season. Only the wifely was on average for the night, and just barely. The rest of us had the runs in the worst way. But our opponents were way over average, throwing gracefully and effortlessly, and whooped our butts.
They’re a family team. Daddy, who I was on teams with in years passed, is a very smart guy and has made the effort to get plenty of professional coaching. To the point where he has sponsors. So he’s semi-pro. And a gold certified coach. And knows everything about bowling, from the machines to the lane patterns to the balls to ... you name it, he knows it. So it’s always a learning opportunity to talk bowling with him, albeit one the quickly gets boring as that’s all he ever talks about.
His daughter, mid 20s, is also a certified coach and works with at least one of the local school teams. Had a bowling scholarship for college.
Her long time boyfriend she met while bowling. Guess who taught him to roll. Yeah.
Mom isn’t athletic, doesn’t really like bowling, but uses most of their method. So she isn’t at all good, but her low average keeps their team average down to minimize handicaps, and she can do fairly well when she throws the ball in the right direction.
So the team is 3 bowlers with 270+ potential and one who can hit 160 once in a while. The 3 of them run most of the season with averages in the 190s - 205 range. And they bring out that potential when necessary.
It was interesting watching them roll. They all use a dropped shoulder, slightly open shoulder style with a full leg kick to the off side, a wide hand, cupped wrist, no wrist turn, and a full follow through. Open shoulder means their torso is not parallel to the foul line, but a bit on the diagonal. Thus their arm swing is straight to the out-and-back path of the ball they throw. Dropped shoulder lets them swing perfectly plumb, without hips or butts getting in the way. A full leg kick means their back leg gets scooted off to the other side when they get to the last step of their approach. Combine that with a wide hand and a cupped wrist and it means they don’t swing the ball along the side of their bodies, but under them. Well, under their dropped shoulder and under their hip bone, as that leg is out of the way. That leg, along with their off arm out the side, acts as counterbalances, so even though they’re leaning to the side they’re not falling to the side. The cupped wrist gets their hand fully under the ball, which supports it but more importantly gives them a longer arc for their fingers to travel before they come out of the ball, which leads to more revolutions imparted. And while the wide hand also supports the ball, what it does is let them lead the swing with the index finger pointed in the direction of the throw, and makes the other 3 fingers do the revs. Or they could just turn the wrist to the left just as the release begins, which would let them stay entirely behind and under the ball in the whole rest of the swing. More support. So it’s a zero stress, relaxed throw that makes the ball hook quite well, and dig in real good at the pins. The bottom line is that they’re not just real good, but quite consistent.
And they’re been training on it for years. He didn’t bowl like this when we were on a team together 13 years ago.
This is what proper bowling looks like. And it works. I want to learn this as much as I can. Without spending thousands on coaches.
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March 24, 2023
Is this thing on? 
Looks like the fridge pocket I’ve designed will handle a 27 cubic foot fridge. That’s huge for a 2 bedroom condo. So it’s all good.
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March 22, 2023
Project update
Ok, it’s time to destroy the kitchen now. Most of the alcove wall is down. The plan is to start there and get as much of that side of the room done first, and inspected, and then tear out the cabinets on the other side and the walls and ceilings. It’s bigger but less complicated. This side is precise down to 1/2” and lots of little details everywhere. Plus now she wants a nook on the hallway side of the alcove, which is probably possible. Deep enough to put a purse or a shopping bag just inside the door, perhaps tall enough for a Shaker peg or two to hang a light jacket from, or a couple of shelves for tchotchkes.
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Cross when the bunny is happy, not before
In Utrecht in The Netherlands, they have Miffy the bunny instead of Hello Kitty. That’s because Utrecht is where Dick Bruna is from, the artist who created her. He’s written many children’s books featuring the adventures of Miffy, and the character has become iconic and is everywhere. So everywhere that it’s even on the crossing lights. Don’t cross when Miffy is red and angry, but do cross when she’s green and happy.
The ring of white lights works as a timer, counting down to when the light turns green.
That’s fun.
Holland vs The Netherlands: The Netherlands is the whole place, The Kingdom of the Netherlands. Holland is just two provinces within The Netherlands, Noord and Zuid-Holland.
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Aw nuts, I missed St Pancake Day last week.
Remember when you learned the real story, and not the propaganda version?
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March 19, 2023
Best thing I’ve read all day
You have heard that President Trump is predicting he gets arrested in a couple days, right?
If it were not already startlingly evident that the permanent Deep State, Uniparty, and leftist legal mercenaries had jettisoned American liberty long ago for some sinister, repressive, WEF-inspired, corporate-fascist regime, the desperate and despotic efforts to take down the one politician in America who has put himself in the crosshairs — for no other reason than to save and rebuild the crumbling nation before it’s too late — would take the cake!
And it gets a lot better than this little snippet. Go read.
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Forbidden Science?
Make your own oil or natural gas in 4 years? Turn sewage into oil in a couple days? Or turn lousy brown coal into clean burning anthracite?
And this How To has been known for decades??
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March 18, 2023
Bowling situation resolved itself last night. It was just missing observation and less than perfect and precise communication. So literally, no harm no foul.
Sadly we lost last night 2-5. Our bowling pal Tim on the other team was on fire, rolling a white hot 660 series. That’s the best I’ve seen him bowl in a very long time. He’s been in a slump for a couple years now, and has dropped to a 159 average. He threw a 255 in the 3rd game. We couldn’t catch him. So way to go Tim, and welcome back I hope.
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I made an improved recipe of Irish soda Bread today. Has a good amount of raisins and a few TB of brown sugar. So it’s better than classic Irish soda bread. It still wasn’t all that great though. More of a great big scone than a loaf of bread. Still. if you put enough butter and honey on it, it tastes like butter and honey. And that’s a good thing, Martha.
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March 17, 2023
Probably Not. Probably Not. Probably Not. Probably Not. Probably Not. Probably Not.
My health insurance company sent me mail saying that I can get onboard a free remote mental health assistance program. Well, the initial consultation is free at least.
They sent me 2 copies of the letter on the 10th, 2 copies of the letter on the 12th, and 2 copies of the letter on the 14th.
I don’t think I want mental health assistance from a group with OCD.
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If you remember the 80s
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March 16, 2023
Sorry, I’ve been too stressed out to post these past few days.
Yesterday I went along in the contractor’s old junk truck and returned the last 2 very large pieces of cabinetry that we got replacements for several weeks ago. So that’s all done, finally. His truck is a rotted out hoopty, with major exhaust leaks, every warning light on the dashboard lit up, filled with junk and mess, loose steering, slushy transmission, and not even able to go 65mph on the highway. Come on, I don’t care if you want it to last 300,000 miles before getting rid of it, at least put some muffler bandage stuff on the exhaust pipes so we don’t all die from exhaust fumes inside the cab. Holy. Smokes. Literally.
So after some crazy back alley round about route to the local Home Depot that took 3 times as long as going down the highway at highway speed, to return those pieces, we went over to Somerville by an even more convoluted slow motion path and picked up the shower door kit. It came in a big wooden crate, heavy as all get out, and the warehouse guys carefully loaded it into the back of the truck. Thankfully the tailgate didn’t fall off. This time. We eventually got back to our place, and carefully brought the crate into the garage. The door got installed today, not without the typical shortcuts and “these screws will work good enough” that he’s infamous for, and now it’s all done except for a bit of adjustment and some sealing caulk. Good enough I guess, and it’s a lovely thing. Saving $200 by picking it up from their local warehouse was icing on their already super low price, and we got a killer door for less than half what a similar one goes for, and less than 25% of having one custom made that looks exactly like it.
Meanwhile over in bowling, my team on Old Guys league should maybe be renamed the Mets, as we did great in the mid-season but are choking here at the end. We lost 0-7 against a team we only got 15 pins handicap from, even though I bowled way over average all night, and racked up a 615 series. My other 3 guys were all way under average. WTH?? And the other team “suddenly” knew how to bowl really well, and those guys were all throwing 240-265 games the whole night. Come on, they rolled a 970 scratch game. Their low bowler threw a 245. Tactical bowling. Sandbaggers. Whatever, aside from me my team sucked and their team shined. So my average went up another point, and our team dropped a place in the standings.
But that’s the least of my bowling problems. Our team on No Longer Cheap league has been accused of cheating, because of the scoring decision we made for one of our bowlers in one frame of one game. Which we lost anyway. Wifely and I have been bickering about it and debating it for days, but there’s an officer’s tribunal tomorrow night. A captain’s meeting, and she’s our captain this year, under duress, because I wrote her in as a joke. The captain never ever has anything to do, but this year naturally there’s this situation. And she jumped to conclusions because the rest of us had a discussion and made a decision without her there, even though she’s admitted that her view of what happened was blocked. And she was off making a reset request at the front desk for what she presumed was the situation, without discussing it with the rest of us first. But I’m always wrong; that’s a husband’s job. Always. Wrong. So it hasn’t been a happy time for me. I hope at least I get a chance, along with the other two bowlers on our team, to tell our side of the story to this probably kangaroo court. For a situation so bad, so blatant, so wrong, that not a single person on the other team could be bothered to come over and ask what was going on, even though I’d approached them to ask what they’d seen, which was nothing. No, instead they went behind our back and made accusations. And I know that if she, both as captain and as an employee of this bowling alley who might perhaps lose her job over being part of a “conspiracy” is the only one of us giving our team’s input, then I know we’re screwed. She’s already told me she’s convinced we cheated, and is going to stab us all in the back. So honestly, I’m sick of the whole thing, the whole league, and all of it. We made the ethically right decision, but if the de facto league leader, her manager, who has disliked me for unknown reasons for more than 20 years, gets the board to go against me, and the 3 of us get the boot, I’ll flip them all the bird and walk away with my head held high. At some point, you just have say I’ve had my fill of your bullshit.
It has not been a good week for me.
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March 11, 2023
More Bowling Blogging!!
We lost 3-4 last night in No Longer Cheap league too. This time it was at least half my fault. Not only could I not find the right lines most of the night, I had a really hard time even holding on to the ball. I don’t get it. My hands were clean, the ball was fairly clean, but my skin was so dry I just couldn’t feel anything. Maybe it was the weather, , which has been all over the place here once again. Whatever. I rolled a 466 series, which is a 155 average, 23 under. That’s awful.
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Livin’ On The Edge
The forecast for The Big Killer Snow Storm due to arrive here on the 14th has been all over the place this past week. As the air masses wobble around, the prediction has gone from 4” to 9” to 2” to meh, maybe a few flakes, back and forth up and down several times a day every day. Activities and scheduled events now come with a weather caveat. “We’ll meet Tuesday night, unless the big storm hits”. This is likely the last big chance for a big snow this season, so maybe the weather wienies are pulling out all the stops to cause as much fear as they can, while they can. Got to wonder if the local grocery stores aren’t big advertisers on the weather networks. My hope is that this thing will totally fizzle, just like every other snow has done this season, and we’ll get rain instead. And maybe not even that.
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Project Update: fears alleviated
We gave in to our impulsive nature and ordered a really nice sliding glass door for the bathtub. These things are NOT cheap, and the good ones are darn spendy. But I shopped around online quite a bit, learned what the good features are that you want, learned how these things work, learned how they need to be installed, etc. Then I found one as good as the best ones out there for half the price. And found that it’s in stock at their local warehouse, where we can pick it up and save another $200 (the shipping on a big crate that weighs a couple hundred pounds is steep!!). The installation is a bit complicated and tedious, so you really do want to read the 17 page instructions several times, and have all the proper tools available, like a metal cutting blade in a chop saw, a laser level, glazier’s suction cups, plus the usual hand tools.
When we had the alcove built we had our contractor put in extra studs close together right where the apron of the tub would be, so it’s solid wood behind the 1/2” concrete backer board behind the 10mm thick wall tile. So we can go with a longer screw of very high quality if we want, which will do the job no matter what and never rust. We’ll use 4 screws from a 1lb jug, leaving me with a lifetime supply of killer screws I have no use for. I don’t care. The door weighs a whole lot, and even the best safety glass in the shower still makes me a bit nervous. I’ll waste $40 for my peace of mind.
Oh, and the wonderful customer service lady at the online store has been super helpful, and let me know that the stop end of the guide block is reversible. That’s the part that gets mounted to the middle of the edge of your tub, that both pieces of glass rest against. The door piece of glass slides by in a groove, and the other piece of glass which doesn’t move is held in place by it. With tub doors, one glass panel is on the inside, one on the outside. The inside one ALWAYS has to be on the end where the water is coming from, to keep water from spraying out the opening where the two panels overlap. So there are actually 4 ways a single sliding door unit can go in, depending on your plumbing: Shower on the left, door on the left; shower on the left, door on the right; shower on the right, door on the left; shower on the right, door on the right. The last one is what we have, but to make it work the stop groove in the guide block has to be reversed. This was not mentioned in their sales blurb, nor is it in the instructions. I kind of figured it out from the picture, but better to find out before buying and not get stuck again with a piece of gear we can’t use (this is the same place we got the swanky modern toilet from that didn’t fit, which we can’t return now).
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March 9, 2023
Nope, another sad “not much here” post. Sorry.
Bowling Blogging!
So we lost 3-4 on Old Guys league last night, because my team sux. I won the first game almost by myself, bowling my ass off to pull out a 235, which is 57 points over my average. Strike in the 1st, 8/ in the 2nd, then 6 more strikes in a row. Then I messed up in the 9th and 10th, getting spares in both frames. So I flush YET ANOTHER 250 game down the toilet. But the rest of my team was asleep at the switch. The other team wasn’t even bowling well, but our side sucked pony dick. We won by 42. And I was 57 over.
We lost the 2nd game. I threw a 194, 16 over average. Opponents were bowling now, but our 2 200+ average guys were not cutting the mustard. And to hell with teammate PP, who had texted us about how great he’d done on his Monday league, and was going to hit a 550 series tonight etc. Then threw in the low 100s al night. Captain Gutter Ball. WTF. By game 3 my hand was hurting, and my ball was all oiled up, I was tired, and getting fed up. So try as I might, I could only muster a 157, 21 under. And we lost that one too. So for the night my series was in the mid 500s, a 543, which is a 181 average. So I was over for the night. But not very happy.
Our anchor finally got it together and pulled off a 257 in game 3, but we lost anyway, though we did take wood. So it was 3-4 for the night. If we had won 2 games, we’d be in first place. So we’re still in 2nd, but down by 1 point instead of tied for 1st but with less scratch pins.
Not to mention that we were on lanes 23/24 again, which effed us up the other week. This time the pin camera was on the blink, missing entire frames. Much fixing of the scores. So it was a bad night.
Let’s hope next week is better.
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March 8, 2023
Busy bunny once again. Today is our last chance to get things as straightened up, put away, and cleaned up before the contractor is back tomorrow morning. Oh sure, we had soft plans to do it all ... but we just lazed around most of the time. I guess we needed a rest from all of it.
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Glowing Good News
Georgia has been building a new nuclear generator since 2009. Aside from massive cost overruns, it looks like most of the problems have been ironed out. When complete the 4-pile facility will provide power for over 1.5 million homes.
A nuclear power plant in Georgia has begun splitting atoms in one of its two new reactors, Georgia Power said Monday, a key step toward reaching commercial operation at the first new nuclear reactors built from scratch in decades in the United States.
The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. said operators reached self-sustaining nuclear fission inside the reactor at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta. That makes the intense heat that will be used to produce steam and spin turbines to generate electricity.
A third and a fourth reactor were approved for construction at Vogtle by the Georgia Public Service Commission in 2009, and the third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016. The company now says Unit 3 could begin commercial operation in May or June.
Unit 4 is projected to begin commercial operation sometime between this November and March 2024.
Vogtle is the only nuclear plant under construction in the United States. Its costs and delays could deter other utilities from building such plants, even though they generate electricity without releasing climate-changing carbon emissions.
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March 6, 2023
Neato engine tech if it works, if it lasts, if it’s even slightly economical to produce or run
We turned the traditional Wankel inside out. Traditional Wankels have a triangular rotor in a “peanut” shaped (trochoidal) housing. We have a peanut-shaped (trochoidal) rotor within a tri-lobed-shaped housing. By turning the rotary “inside out”, the X-Engine has stationary apex (tip) seals that can be directly lubricated. Furthermore, the long, skinny, rotating combustion chamber of the Wankel - becomes a stationary combustion chamber within the housing that can be optimized for better fuel-air mixing and combustion. In this way, we address many of the challenges of the old Wankel rotary including sealing, cooling, lubrication, emissions, and efficiency.
There’s a lot of high precision computerized machining involved. Right now the engine appears to be air cooled, but I’m guessing that a water jacket design could work for vehicle use, which would cut the price quite a bit.
I watched the videos, and my only quibble is that the crankshaft seems to wobble around a bit, and I didn’t see an eccentric on the end to centralize this. That looks like a major vibration issue to me. OTOH, you don’t get all the fine details in a simple page designed to attract investors.
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Nothing from me yet. I’ve been noodling and doodling around with a story on the pyramids for the last couple days. While the story is simple, the background is a bit complicated. But I think I’ve found an angle that shows human nature hasn’t changed much in the last 4500 or so years, which could be proved by further explanation. But I haven’t made much progress, seeing that I have all these other things to do here before the contractor returns from vacation. Hey, I’m staying on top of dishes/garbage/laundry and moving boxes of tools and stuff to the garage. Then we have to move two large plastic racks and the stuff on them up to the laundry room. Then we have to clean 4 months worth of project stuff and papers off the dining table. Have to create space for the next go-round, which will eat all of that right up once again, and more.
####
Ok, looks like the masons will be working behind our unit for the next couple days. The village is replacing some old rotted out timber baulks used as lawn edgers with some nice stone blocks, and regrading the fill gravel a bit. I think we’re getting at least a bit of concrete pad too. Fine by me; we’d already been granted permission to do this work ourselves, so if they want to spring for it, it’s one less thing we have to pay directly for.
The cat finds this fascinating, and her little head has been poking through the curtains since they arrived.
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AGAIN, ALREADY??
Biden goes to Alabama to tell more lies in Selma, then trips again on stairs to Air Force One
[p]Resident Joe Biden tripped again Sunday on the steps leading up to Air Force One, potentially putting his 80-year-old body in danger of a severe tumble that could hospitalize him.
Despite the lengthy steps up to the presidential plane, neither the Secret Service nor the first lady accompanied the president when he made his latest stumble as he prepared to depart Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.
...
Though a physical exam declared Biden “fit for duty,” it did say that the president suffers from a stiff gait and neuropathy in the feet, which calls into question as to why the Secret Service will not at least stand close to the president as he ascends a lengthy staircase.As Breitbart News reported, the president previously tripped and caught himself on his way up the stairs to Air Force One just last last month [ not even 2 weeks ago ] while visiting Poland.
He did the same thing in 2021 when he stumbled multiple times boarding his transport:
“In March 2021, Biden fell three times as he boarded the stairs of Air Force One, for which the wind was also blamed,” Breitbart News reported.
Maybe they should find the clown some better fitting clown shoes. Or put some of those no-slip treads on the stairs. A simple cable winch on the underside of the plane, using a hemp rope? Something.
The lies? Sloe Joe tells another whopper in Selma about his involvement in the Civil Rights Era.
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March 4, 2023
Bowling Blogging !!
Running hard to stay in the same 2nd place spot in this league too.
We had an “emergency bye” as the 12th team in No Longer Cheap league quit a few weeks ago. They weren’t ready to play in a league yet; I hope they improve and come back when they’re ready. Meanwhile, we’re still in 2nd, 8.5 points out of 1st, and the 4rd place team is still 4.5 points behind us.
So we played unopposed and had to beat our absentee averages, which we did handily. So we won all 7. So did the first place team. And the 3rd place team. So none of us moved up or down, but we all got further away from the lower ranked teams.
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Early morning coffee and science!
A blog I frequent was talking about lithium resources around the world. To make an informed comment I spent over an hour learning about lithium, lithium in it’s natural states, the two kind of mining of it, and just how much of either method is needed to get enough for a typical EV battery. Duh, just like solar and windmills, there are enormous hidden costs. Environmental, human, financial. So now I know a lot more. Come on, did you know that lithium is a metal, that it can exist in a pure form as a solid, but it’s only 3/4 heavier than helium?
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March 2, 2023
A bit on the drizzly dim and dank side today. Most of the “big snow storm” from 2 days ago has melted away. This winter has been quite mild here; this paltry 1.5” was the first snow this calendar year, and nearly a full year since the flakes we had in late March 2022. I’m pretty sure we got a couple inches at some point a bit before Thanksgiving too. And we did have nearly a whole week of morning temps in the single digits to low teens a week or so before Christmas. Other than that, temps have held from a few degrees below freezing to the middle 40s, with a few days in the 50s and a couple where it even hit 60. I can get used to this! You’d think our utility bill would be much less, but the rates have gone up so much it made no difference.
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Always check your stats for cherry pits
Seems like ONS (the Office for National Statistics) did some agenda driven cherry picking for their latest screed on vaxxed vs unvaxxed mortality analysis.
[ ONS is a UK NGO, which means they work for the government but aren’t part of the government. Non-Governmental Office. But they have as much weight as any other part of the government. ]
They have all the data. They only chose to use some of it. And the some of it they chose to use is ... somehow ... biased in favor of their viewpoint. Ain’t that a miracle?
The new ONS data seems to have a bias such that deaths in the unvaccinated are more likely to be included in the ONS sample, whereas deaths in the vaccinated have the opposite bias and are more likely to be excluded from this dataset. Oddly, the bias is different for covid deaths. Differences with the accuracy of record matching could be enough to explain the bias.
The ONS data is based on only a sample of the population, albeit a large one. If it were representative we would find the mortality rates in the population included and excluded from the sample to be the same. But it turns out this is not the case.
For simplicity, going forward those excluded from the sample are referred to as the “ghost population”. Analysis which compares the mortality rates (per 100,000 people) between these groups shows a systematic bias.
One major difference between covid deaths and all cause deaths is the proportion that occur in hospital, which is 44% vs 71%. The ONS have previously said that 94.6% of their ONS records match to the NHS database. If we make the simple assumption that a higher proportion of death certificates are correctly matched to an NHS number and vaccination status for in-hospital deaths than for deaths outside hospital, we can recreate this bias. In fact even an assumption of 95% matching for hospital deaths and 94% for deaths outside of hospital is a sufficient difference to create these biases. The ONS recorded someone as unvaccinated if they did not match to a vaccine record. That means that there will be a risk of vaccinated deaths being wrongly classified as unvaccinated which would artificially increase the unvaccinated mortality rate and decrease the vaccinated mortality rate. The only oddity that could not be replicated in this way was having a significantly higher vaccinated mortality rate than unvaccinated mortality rate in the excluded ghost population.
If we take a hypothetical population with identical mortality rates for the ONS and ghost populations, then the discrepant mortality rates seen above can be created simply by having a higher failed match rate to the vaccine database for in-hospital deaths compared to other deaths. Even only a minimal difference in matching has this effect.
If you like your numbers crunchy and al dente then here’s a link you might NOT like. It is pretty high level, and introduces the term “ghost populations” for the data that was conveniently left behind. Several interesting simple graphs, but not loads of raw data. Which makes it easier for nearly everyone, but makes me wonder if they did a little cherry picking themselves.
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Posted by Drew458
on 03/27/2023 at 05:39 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - August 19, 2020
Gee, Oops
A total non-surprise. We saw this coming back in early March. The richer you were the earlier, faster, and further you ran. Problem is, it’s worse than anyone thought at the time.
NYC Ship Sinking, Rats Long Gone
New York City is home to 118 billionaires, more than any other American city. New York City is also home to nearly one million millionaires, more than any other city in the world. Among those millionaires some 8,865 are classified as “high net worth,” with more than $30 million each.
They pay the taxes. The top one percent of NYC taxpayers pay nearly 50 percent of all personal income taxes collected in New York. Personal income tax in the New York area accounts for 59 percent of all revenues. Property taxes add in more than a billion dollars a year in revenue, about half of that generated by office space.
...
The budget for a city as complex as New York is a mess of federal, state, and local funding sources. It can be sliced and diced many ways, but the one that matters is the starkest: the people and companies who pay for New York’s poor are leaving even as the city is already facing a $7.4 billion tax revenue hit from the initial effects of the coronavirus. The money is there; New York’s wealthiest individuals have increased their net worth by $44.9 billion during the pandemic. It’s just not here.
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While overall only five percent of residents left as of May, in the city’s very wealthiest blocks residential population decreased by 40 percent or more. The higher-earning a neighborhood is, the more likely it is to have emptied out. Even the amount of trash collected in wealthy neighborhoods has dropped, a tell-tale sign no one is home. A real estate agent told me she estimates about a third of the apartments even in my mid-range 300 unit building are empty.
...
Fewer than one-tenth of Manhattan office workers came back to the workplace a month after New York gave businesses the green light to return to the buildings they ran from in March. Having had several months to notice what not paying Manhattan office rents might do for their bottom line, large companies are leaving.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2020 at 10:52 PM
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Permalink • The ‘Rona Song
Leave it Country music to be perfectly topical and metaphorical at the same time
When the dogwoods start to bloom
And the crickets hum their tune
That’s usually about the time
That I feel most alive
But the news has all been bad
And the whole world seems so sad
I ain’t had much else going on
So I sat down and wrote this song
I miss my mom, I miss my dad
I miss the road, I miss my band
Giving hugs and shaking hands
It’s a mystery I suppose
Just how long this thing goes
But there’ll be crowds and there’ll be shows
And there will be light after dark
Someday when we aren’t six feet apart
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2020 at 10:27 PM
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Permalink • Follow Me !
One of the benefits of our universally computer driven modern world is package tracking. Mated with theoretically optimized routes and warehousing, we now can get our deliveries much faster than in decades past. For the impatient, most of the deliver services allow you track your boxes or letters step by step as they wend their way in your direction. [ OTOH, this also allows you to watch the Post Office send your stuff all over the country willy-nilly, leave it at distribution centers for days or weeks at a time, and sometimes take days to move something just 7 miles from one center to the next, and then take a full week to deliver it a whole 42 miles away. Sorry, my pet peeve, after recently pulling my hair out when a letter took more than a month to get delivered. Just wait until the whole country tries to vote by mail this November. Guaranteed disaster. ]
Now UPS has brought out “Follow Me”, a real time, self-updating, GPS driven mapping application, that let’s you see the big brown truck driving all over with your package in it. Not sure if this is going to help or hurt, because most people won’t realize that there are 300 other boxes in that truck, and yours is almost guaranteed to be last in line. It was already a bit frustrating just following the data, watching my box go from Florida to Edison NJ in hardly over a day, but then on to Allentown PA, right past my home, and then have to go on to another truck to come back to NJ days later and to get delivered ... later today? Maybe. “Out for delivery” for 3 days? Oy vey.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2020 at 09:22 AM
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Permalink • eye candy, high plains edition
I thought I posted this the other day, but it seems to have evaporated. Whatevs.
Anyway, this is actress Kelsey Asbille Chow. She had a small but regular role in the One Tree Hill drama a few years back, and was in the 2017 film Wind River. Currently she has a supporting role on Paramount’s cowboy drama / Kevin Costner vehicle Yellowstone.
We watch Yellowstone, it’s great, and it’s interesting to see her character developing from a whiny liberal into someone more normal. That’s going to be long journey. She is super attractive though.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/19/2020 at 09:08 AM
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Permalink • Monday - August 17, 2020
Flowers For Algernon?
Funny, I kind of thought it was the President’s job to keep people aware of new possibilities and to give them even temporary hope. But the Left may be right on this one. Like the blind squirrel ...
Most Americans have been praying for a cure to the Chinese Communist Party virus. Such a prospect turns out to be horrifying, however, if you are a Deep State bureaucrat, someone invested in open-ended and lucrative research into unpromising medicines or vaccines and/or a political opponent of President Trump.
Hence the vehemently hostile response of a leftist publication called Axios to information about Oleandrin, a natural supplement that has proven in clinical experiments and limited human trials in Texas to crush the CCP virus. Rather than celebrate this development and call for an urgent effort to validate such findings with widespread, life-saving trials, Axios touted the uninformed criticisms of naysayers determined to snuff further work on this apparent breakthrough.
To the alarm of some government health officials, President Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to permit an extract from the oleander plant to be marketed as a dietary supplement or, alternatively, approved as a drug to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works.
Driving the news: The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July. It’s embraced by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, a big Trump backer, who recently took a financial stake in the company that develops the product.
OMG, if Mike Lindell is behind it, you know it’s deathly anathema.
Oleandrin is an extract from the oleander plant. Researchers have suggested that it could be useful to treat cancer because of the way it affects cells, and that it could enhance the effects of other cancer therapies.
Professor Sharon Lewin, the director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, is an international authority on antiviral drugs and has a laboratory working on COVID-19.
Asked about oleandrin’s potential efficacy as a COVID-19 treatment, Lewin told Axios, “Oleandrin looks to have antiviral activity at high doses in a test tube model. You’d certainly want to see more work done on this before even contemplating a human trial.”A July 2020 study from the University of Texas at Galveston shows, in a laboratory setting, that oleandrin can inhibit the coronavirus in monkey kidney cells. This study has not been peer reviewed and one of the authors of the study, Robert Newman, is chairman of Phoenix Biotechnology’s scientific advisory board — the company developing the oleandrin product.
The bottom line: Scientists around the world are in a race for cures, treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Government regulators are investigating hundreds of products. When a biotech executive like Whitney can take his case directly to the president, it casts doubt over the scientific rigor of the drug development process.
Using Vero cells, we found that prophylactic oleandrin administration at concentrations down to 0.05 μg/ml exhibited potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, with an 800 fold reduction in virus production, and a 0.1 μg/ml dose resulted in a greater than 3,000-fold reduction in infectious virus production. The EC50values were 11.98ng/ml when virus output was measured at 24 hours post-infection, and 7.07ng/ml measured at 48 hours post-infection. Therapeutic (post-infection) treatment up to 24 hours after infection of Vero cells also reduced viral titers, with the 0.1 μg/ml dose causing greater than 100-foldreductions as measured at 48 hours, and the 0.05 μg/ml dose resulting in a 3578-fold reduction.The potent prophylactic and therapeutic antiviral activities demonstrated here strongly support the further development of oleandrin to reduce the severity of COVID-19 and potentially also to reduce spread by persons diagnosed early after infection.
In years past the FDA has been dinged for major slow walking and foot dragging when it comes to testing and approving new medicines. Many drugs are available to the rest of the world that are not yet available to us. With this pandemic that slowness has become an issue, but I don’t think the best idea is to throw caution to the wind and let anything fly. That way leads to snake oil. There has to be some level of significant proper, fair, testing.
OTOH, the Axios article does mention how this could easily be marketed as an herbal supplement, which could NOT focus on any curative ability. To which there’s an easy work around; “We’re NOT ALLOWED to mention that this cures Covid, and thus cannot recommend a dose of 2 pills a day for 2 weeks. This product is for dietary supplemental use only, and we bear no responsibility for it’s use in any other manner.” kind of advertising.
OTTH, shouldn’t President Trump know by now when to keep his fat mouth shut?
Oleandir is poisonous !!! !! !
Consumption of even one Nerium oleander leaf can be fatal. Onset of toxicity occurs several hours following consumption. Symptoms include vomiting, abdominal pain, cyanosis, hypotension, hypothermia, vertigo, respiratory paralysis and death.
However, a carefully controlled tea made from the flowers could be an effective cancer and AIDS treatment. But more trials are needed!!
A hot water extract of the plant, known as Anvirzel™, has been developed as a potential treatment for cancer, AIDS, and congestive heart failure. It consists of a mixture of oleandrin and the glycone oleandrigenin. Experiments suggest that a combination of Anvirzel and cisplatin may be more effective than cisplatin monotherapy . In an earlier study, Anvirzel appeared safe in humans when injected intramuscularly, although adverse effects such as injection site pain, fatigue, and other GI symptoms were reported.
Anvirzel™ is not an approved cancer treatment in the United States. Until more data regarding its efficacy and toxicity are available, this product should not be used outside of clinical trials.
Anvirzel may be a modern version of a medicinal extract of oleander that goes back to the dawn of history.
Historical records prove that Oleander plant has healing powers; thus it was highly regarded by the Mesopotamians in the 15th century B.C. During the age of the Babylonians up to the Romans it was used as a relieved for hangovers. To the Arabs it has better worth since the plant was used for cancer medication in the 8th century A.D.
OTOH, the Romans also used it to commit suicide.
I looked up the entry at Wiki ... and I think I’ll pass on this one. There may be too much risk in a cure made from just a little bit of deadly poison.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/17/2020 at 01:06 PM
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Permalink • The Death Of NYC?
This is what happens when you elect a communist as mayor. One who encourages rioting and lawlessness. Riots after weeks of extended lockdown. Retail is dying. Populations are fleeing. Violence is everywhere, at unprecedented levels. It’s anarchy and depression.
De Blasio’s New York has finally hit an all-time low: the once bustling city is now on the verge of looking like a demilitarized zone. Between the pandemic and the riots in the city, iconic 5th Avenue now looks more like a dystopian nightmare in a recently shot video posted to Twitter.
The video follows a car driving down a deserted 5th Avenue, with almost all of the area’s high end stores boarded up and shut down. There are few people seen on what is usually a busy street.
“Look at everything. Everything’s boarded up. Even the hotel. Boarded up,” the video’s narrator, who is obviously fed up with how the city looks, says.
He continues: “This is all Manhattan, boarded up. Have you ever seen Manhattan look like this? The media will not report this.”
“Everything boarded up. They don’t want to show this to you people because they’re afraid. Saks 5th Avenue - boarded up from end to end. They put up barbed wire. Everywhere you see boards, windows are gone. Look at New York City - what happened,” he says.
The video runs over 2 minutes and shows dozens of boarded up businesses.
Check the video. Manhattan is boarded up. Block after block of high-end retail closed down and barricaded.
This isn’t exactly new. Similar video from more than a month ago.
No, it’s not a war zone — it’s Manhattan.
Video shows once-bustling Big Apple streets nearly deserted and dotted with boarded-up, spray-painted and bashed-in buildings after days of looting.
The footage taken Tuesday and Wednesday in Midtown and Soho shows the windows of popular stores shattered while others — such as Burberry, Sephora and Sunglasses Hut — are covered in plywood to protect against looters.
...
Only a handful of masked pedestrians and police officers are seen walking on eerily empty sidewalks. Some plywood panels put up by shops were tagged with graffiti reading, “Justice for George Floyd” — the black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground for nearly nine minutes.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many Big Apple retailers have been closed for months prior to protests over Floyd’s death.
These riots happened at the end of May ...
Sidewalks across the SoHo neighborhood, Union Square and Fifth Avenue were covered in broken glass. Multiple police cars had been burnt to nothing but ashes. Stores, including a Duane Reade, Urban Outfitters and Swatch, were looted. Banks were ravaged. An Equinox gym had been broken in to. Graffiti covered retailers’ logos up and down some of the glitziest shopping districts, which normally would be hosting a hotbed of tourist activity this time of year.
The New York Police Department has since said it arrested almost 350 people Saturday evening, following protests across parts of Harlem, Brooklyn and Staten Island. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a press conference held Sunday that more than 30 officers suffered minor injuries due to clashes with demonstrators.
It’s now the middle of August. More than 11 weeks later. And these businesses are still closed, still boarded up. Whatever stock that wasn’t looted has been sold online.
Do you really think these storefronts are coming back? Even if the beneficent dictator of NYC allows them to open, with 25% customer capacity and ridiculously paranoid levels of isolation and plexiglass protection inside the stores? Somehow, I kind of doubt it.
Greatest city in the world, killed by policy in half a year. This was not an accident.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/17/2020 at 09:11 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Pandemic Pandemonium •
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Permalink • Very Funny Officer
So I got another ticket yesterday. Me and my red car manage to get pulled over a couple times a year. Yes, I’m an inveterate speeder, but I do it properly. I don’t tailgate, I don’t cut people off, I use my turn signals, I almost pass anyone on the right, and of course my car is in perfect working order and my papers are current. And I don’t go flying around corners on two wheels, or anything close to reckless driving. I’m just an impatient driver, like everyone else in the state.
In NJ, everyone speeds. Everyone. Nearly everywhere. The only place we make up for it is in those 25mph zones near schools, parks, and downtown. People generally do about 17 in those.
NJ has a scheme in place on the highways. They “let” you drive 65mph, but fines are doubled. Should there be a traffic cone by the side of the road, or a permanent sign saying that bit of highway is also a construction zone, fines are doubled again. So getting a speeding ticket on the highway can be a darn costly experience.
Generally, highway traffic moves at 75mph in good conditions, even in the slow lane, but on the weekends it flies. 85 is typical, 95 is not unheard of, with cars maybe two lengths apart traveling in packs.
And NJ keeps points for 5 years, with a big long list of how many points for whichever of the 65 or so moving violations they have. Get more than 6 in a 3 year period, and get an extra fine to pay. There are a fair number of 0 point offenses, but they are not on the list. Good luck trying to find them, although we all know that the seatbelt one and the red light camera one are no-pointers.
How many points are on your license? Like many other states, you have to pay the DMV to find this out. Gosh, wouldn’t you think that this would be part of their regular job? Available online for free, given that this is a microscopic database inquiry? Heck no.
But there’s a game involved. There are a good number of offenses that don’t have points. Just a fine. So most cops short circuit the plea bargaining process, and give you a break and just write you up for some 0 point offense. It puts donut money in their coffers, nobody wastes time going to court, an you just go online and pay the fine with your credit card.
So I got pulled over for doing 85 in a 65 zone on a demarcated highway. I wasn’t racing, or playing artful dodger, or zooming down the road alone. I was just cruising along with traffic. The Statey did his job in about 2 minutes and I was back on my way.
He wrote me up for the 0 point offense of Delaying Traffic.
Haha, very funny.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/17/2020 at 08:23 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - August 15, 2020
Rhubarb !!!
She came home from work with an armload of rhubarb that a coworker had brought in from their garden.
I haven’t had rhubarb in ... probably 45 years. Pretty sure my parents used to grow it in the vegetable garden, but that’s loooong ago in the past.
So we’re making strawberry rhubarb pie, and, since we have so much of the stuff, we’re making a strawberry rhubarb crumble as well. Both are a great excuse to get hold of some good vanilla ice cream.
Rhubarb has an unusual taste, but it’s one that I’ve always loved. Can’t wait to get to baking things up and trying them out. Might even have enough to send her to work Monday with another crumble.
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Oh goody, and I guess I’d better go look outside. Amazon says my copy of Law of Nations and John Locke’s Two Treaties of Government were delivered today. Along with my new Solo 2L hand sprayer, as the old one died after a decade of use.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/15/2020 at 05:41 PM
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Permalink • Fauci Gets One Right
Fauci: Voting In Person OK If Social Distancing Done
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser for the White House coronavirus task force, said this week that there is “no reason” Americans are not able to vote in person for the 2020 presidential election in November.
Fauci emphasized that voting in person would not need to be avoided as long as voters followed CDC guidelines and maintained social distancing.
“I think if carefully done, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that not be the case,” Fauci told ABC News. “If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing, and don’t have a crowded situation, there’s no reason why shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Fauci noted, however, that those who are at high-risk if exposed to coronavirus or have a compromised immune system should stay indoors and use mail-in voting.
OK, 99% right. I think most absentee ballots should be dropped off well ahead of time at the polling centers, logged in, and signed for ... once proper ID and voter registration is checked. The USPS is highly leftist, so I would not trust them too much.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/15/2020 at 01:04 PM
Filed Under: • FREEDOM • Government •
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Permalink • Friday - August 14, 2020
toldja so
As reliable as the coming dawn, the willfully stupid and the left biased media and “the experts” have once again yelled real loud to subvert the proper understanding of the law. And that noise will do the job.
I said it yesterday: This application of the Constitution will be ignored and denied by the media and everyone else. Because “birthers”. People are so terrified of being called a name that they are willing to ignore the law, the history of the law, and the true meaning and intent of the law. That’s beyond sad. It’s beyond cowardly. It’s apathetic, pathetic, and bathetic.
And here it is.
Trump slammed for not rejecting conspiracy theory Kamala Harris is ineligible for vice presidency
Biden campaign calls Trump comments ‘abhorrent’
That’s right; it’s a conspiracy theory. And he’s abhorrent. Because he referred to a statement made by somebody about the natural born issue, and then said he didn’t know if that was correct or not. So slam him for even implying that this could be a problem.
And then the lies come out by the bucketful. And the overwhelming noise of indignation and implicit raycis drown out the truth, once again. We are totally fucking doomed.
President Trump would not reject a conspiracy theory Thursday that Kamala Harris is ineligible to serve as vice president because her parents were born outside the United States.
Asked about the unfounded and widely refuted claims during a press briefing at the White House, Trump responded, “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements” before adding, “I have no idea if that’s right.”
Harris is a United States citizen born in California in 1964, making her eligible to serve as president or vice president under the Constitution. [ Fox you are wrong ]
However, a professor of law at Chapman University, John C. Eastman, wrote a piece for Newsweek this week after she was named to the Democratic ticket questioning whether Harris is a “natural born citizen” because her mother was born in India and her father was born in Jamaica.
[ Editor’s note: Some readers reacted strongly to this essay, seeing it as an attempt to ignite a racist conspiracy theory. ]
...
The fact that Senator Kamala Harris has just been named the vice presidential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some questioning her eligibility for the position. The 12th Amendment provides that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” And Article II of the Constitution specifies that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen...shall be eligible to the office of President.” Her father was (and is) a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalized U.S. citizen at the time of Harris’ birth in 1964. That, according to these commentators, makes her not a “natural born citizen"—and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president.
Newsweek also ran a counter essay by noted lawyer Eugene Volokh. IMO, as its typical for greasy lawyers, and all lawyers are greasy because the law is merely a tool to them, and not something held sacrosanct, Volokh makes his counter from the wrong direction. He’s throwing shade and puffing smoke, and emphasizing aspects that have no real bearing. Argument by non sequitur.
Some people have argued that Kamala Harris is ineligible to be vice president of the United States. The Constitution requires presidents and vice presidents to be “natural-born citizens”; Harris was born in the U.S., but her parents (who had come to the U.S. to study) weren’t U.S. citizens at the time. Does “natural-born citizen” include Harris, and others like her?
It does. “Natural-born citizen” was a familiar legal phrase to the Framers—an adaptation of the English term “natural-born subject.” Sir William Blackstone, an English treatise writer who (in Justice Scalia’s words) was “the Framers’ accepted authority on English law and the English Constitution,” explained:
Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king. ...The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such.
It’s possible that “natural-born citizen” has since been broadened to include children of U.S. citizens born overseas (a 1790 Act of Congress specified that, “The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens").
He is wrong. It is not an adaptation of natural born subject, even though natural born citizen shares two of the three words with the other concept. Oh, and that 1790 Act was overturned in 1795, which he fails to mention. Even the best lawyer is a weasel dick. They argue for or against a topic. Searching for and declaring the actual truth has nothing to do with it.
What is a natural born citizen? It is someone born in this country whose parents are already citizens of this country. Period. Full stop. And that’s all there is to it.
I am a natural born citizen because I was born in this country and both my parents were born here as well, and their parents were citizens when they were born which thus made them natural born citizens. All my grandparents were born here too, although one of them might not have qualified as natural born because her parents came here from Germany, and I have no idea who things worked in the 1890s and I don’t know if they were naturalized citizens by the time granny popped out. But that was generations ago, so it isn’t germane.
It seems we go through this every presidential election cycle. I think what is needed is a SCOTUS decision. And that will never happen, because an honest decision, true to original intent would also torpedo the anchor baby concept that’s been around for 4 decades now. And probably squash the legality of dual citizenship too. And we do not have brave, honest, true Americans on the Supreme Court who are willing or able to make bold, proper decisions. Without the slightest doubt in my mind, this should be a 5 minute, 9-0 decision, made for clarification purposes alone - not delayed forever until some case with standing worms it’s way upwards.
I’m going to add this to my list of life truths:
• Sulfur is properly spelled sulphur.
• Eohippus is the Dawn Horse. No other taxonomy name is correct. There is no relation to the rock hyrax, so putting the original horse in the order Hyracotherium was a mistake.
• The big long dinosaur was a brontosaurus
• A shark is not a fish, dammit, it is an elasmobranch. Real fish have scales, gill pumps, and a swim bladder. Creating a new intermediate order called “bony fishes” to include both is cheating, especially if you don’t also include dolphins who, by that redefinition should also be fish. Fish who are mammals. No, this is wrong.
• Ok, I now grudgingly nearly accept that Pluto is not an actual planet, “merely” a dwarf planet or planetoid, because somebody either moved the definition goalposts or because science has advanced enough to go there and find out how big the thing actually is. Pluto 1473 miles across, 2/3 the size of our moon. Mercury still counts as a planet. Mercury is 1516 miles across, a whopping big 43 miles larger. Oh puh-lease. So my grudgingly is very grudgingly. OTOH, given that Pluto has 5 moons, one moon called Chiron which is half the size of Pluto, perhaps it should be called a double planet or a multi-planet.
• A natural born citizen is someone who is born within the desmenses of a country and both of whose parents are already citizens of that country.
I got so worked up about this yesterday I went out an bought a copy of Law of Nations, and while I was at the digital bookstore I got a copy of the writings of John Locke.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/14/2020 at 10:43 AM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People •
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Permalink • Thursday - August 13, 2020
Of course she isn’t, but you’re uninformed and intellectually lazy so she’ll get away with it
Here we should be going again with the natural born citizen thing. And just like Obama, Kamala Harris does not qualify as such. Not that most anyone else can understand the concept, or knows that it is very important to care about this and why. So should be going won’t even get off the ground. This will not even be brought up in passing, much less discussed, debated, and ruled on. It. Does. Not. Exist. Because ... raycis!!!
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
14th Amendment, Section 1, 1868
It is abundantly clear that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means exclusively subject to the jurisdiction thereof, which means not in any way beholden to the whims or powers of a foreign government. This was clearly understood by all until fairly recently.
Yes, she was born in the USA. Neither of her parents were citizens at the time. This makes her an anchor baby. According the the 14th Amendment, anchor babies are not citizens. This isn’t a “strict” reading of the amendment, it is a plain reading thereof. Original intent is easy to find in the Congressional Record of the day. The only “reason” that they are considered such these days is due to a single footnote in the 5-4 1982 SCOTUS decision Plyer v. Doe, added to the majority opinion by Justice Brennan:
“no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”
This weakening of the meaning of jurisdiction within the 14th - that it sees the term as meaning subject to the laws of this nation, and not solely subject to those laws (ie not being also subject to the laws of some other country, as is the legal situation of illegal immigrants) - was a part of the Plyer case, which dealt with Texas’s claim that school funding should not be granted to illegal immigrant children. And of course, Brennan’s footnote comment overlooks that such illegals have no right to be here at all.
Right.
Harris’ parents were a citizen of India and a citizen of Jamaica. While she herself was born in California, and shortly thereafter went to Canada, where she spent nearly all her formative years, she qualifies as a citizen by the anchor baby misconception. Being a citizen does not make you a natural born citizen.
The entire concept of natural born citizen comes from a French book called The Laws of Nations, which was written in 1758 and is the only book or exterior document referenced in the US Constitution. It was used extensively by the Framers, far more than the code of English Common Law, which they strongly felt did not apply to the USA, although they borrowed large parts of it ... as our own law. Anyway, in The Laws of Nations it says:
“Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays, de parens citoyens”
A direct translation is “The natural, or indigenous, are those who are born in the country, of parents who are citizens”.
While there was an 1797 update to the english version of the book, which clarified that line to read “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
This is a rather strict definition. To be a natural born citizen, you need to be born here and both your parents need to be citizens when you are born. Not just born here, and not with just one parent a citizen, regardless of where you were born.
Later extensions to the concept allowed “here” to include territories of the country (eg Guam and Puerto Rico), areas controlled by the country (eg military bases), land considered part of the country that was in other countries (eg consulates and embassies), and things controlled by the government of the country (eg military aircraft and ships that happen to be outside the confines of the country at the moment of birth). This is how John McCain, born at a military base in another country, was deemed a valid candidate.
[ “naturels” is the masculine form of the word, “naturelles” is the feminine form. French is so sexist, but both words mean the same thing. ]
Merely being born to two citizen parents is insufficient. Merely being born within our country is insufficient. This is a precise and sharply focused concept, and about the only time it every applies is when someone is considering running for President or Vice President, although it should probably apply to any elected representative who could possibly be in the chain of succession.
This application of the Constitution will be ignored and denied by the media and everyone else. Because “birthers”. People are so terrified of being called a name that they are willing to ignore the law, the history of the law, and the true meaning and intent of the law. That’s beyond sad. It’s beyond cowardly. It’s apathetic, pathetic, and bathetic.
Read more if you want, in great detail with clear explanations of case law over the years, plus how we’ve now been lead astray, when and by whom:
Posted by Drew458
on 08/13/2020 at 11:25 AM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •
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Permalink • Wednesday - August 12, 2020
Walter White Moved To Holland?
Dutch police have uncovered what they described as the biggest cocaine laboratory ever discovered in the Netherlands, leading to the arrest of 17 suspects from Colombia, Turkey and the Netherlands.
The drug lab was hidden at a former horse riding school in Nijeveen, some 75 miles from Amsterdam, police said in a statement Tuesday.
Police raided the riding school on Friday, discovering tens of thousands of liters of chemicals and 220 pounds of crack cocaine. Sleeping quarters and recreation areas were also found at the site.
The facility was equipped to produce up to 440 pounds of cocaine a day, officials said.The facility was equipped to produce up to 440 pounds of cocaine a day, officials said. (Politie Landelijke Eenheid)
“This is the largest cocaine laboratory ever found in the Netherlands,” police chief Andre van Rijn said in the statement.
Van Rijn said the lab was equipped to produce 330-440 pounds (150-200 kilograms) of cocaine a day, with a street value of $5.3-9.4 million (4.5-8 million euros).
Posted by Drew458
on 08/12/2020 at 11:29 AM
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Permalink • TLH? Typical Leftist Hypocrites
This sounds like it could be one of those urban legends.
How Dare You!!
An anonymous poster on Reddit’s “Am I the A--h---” subreddit said he started a meat-eating club at his job in response to a coworker’s vegan-only club.
He claimed that one of his colleagues started a vegan dinner club exclusively for their coworkers following a vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian diet. Other coworkers “will not be able to join the club,” the poster said the group’s “statement of purpose” read.
In response, the poster claimed that he and some other meat-eating coworkers started a burger and steak club to go out and try new restaurants each week. They only allowed meat-eaters to join. However, members of the vegan club filed a complaint with the company’s human resources department.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/12/2020 at 11:20 AM
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