10:16 – Barbara is still driving the 4X4 to work. She called this morning to let me know she’d arrived safely and said that the main roads were in good shape but there’s still ice on some of the neighborhood streets. When I took Colin out this morning, all four feet skidded out from under him and he went down. I suspect there’ll still be quite a few fender benders today.
We finished series two of Mr. Selfridge on Amazon Prime streaming the other night and we’re now about halfway through series five of Justified. Next up is series two of Vikings. I like having both Netflix and Amazon streaming. When we start to run short of stuff on Netflix we watch Amazon and vice versa. At about $15/month combined for both of them it’s a no-brainer to have both.
Someone posted a link to Another Perspective : The Case Against IMMINENT Economic Collapse, which gets it mostly right. The only exception is the author’s comment on the eurozone, which in fact is imploding right now. But the euro is not the dollar. The federal government can create as many dollars as it needs, instantly and at any time. That means the dollar can’t suffer a sudden collapse. What it will suffer is a gradual loss in value because of ongoing high inflation, which is essentially a tax on anyone holding dollars or dollar-denominated debt. That’s why I expect a slow but inevitable slide into dystopia rather than a sudden economic collapse. That’s also why I’d prefer to hold most of our assets in things like property and physical goods rather than in dollars or, worse, in electronic values in a bank database.
Imploding? Bah. While it would hardly be a good idea, the ECB could print as many Euros as it wants, just at the Fed can print dollars.
The Greek situation is theater, high entertainment. In the absolute worst case it will lead to a wave of countries leaving the Euro, which frankly would be no bad thing. Some of those countries would then do poorly, others would do ok, it all depends. What they won’t get, is relieved of their debts, but they could simply renounce them. In which case the ECB buys up the worthless bonds with inflated Euros; and the world continues to turn.
The European Common Market was a good idea. The European Union was a dumb idea, adding yet another layer of government on top of all those that already existed. With luck, Greece may move Europe one step back in the direction of the former…
Yes, the ECB can print as many euros as it wants, but the individual countries cannot. Imagine if the US were instead 50 sovereign “countries”, but none were allowed to print their own currency. Instead, they all had to use the US dollar, which was under the control of the fed rather than the individual “countries”. That’s the situation the eurozone is in. I and many others pointed out that a shared currency without centralized fiscal, tax, and spending policy was completely unworkable on this basis, and current events simply confirm that.
Barbara is still driving the 4X4 to work. … When I took Colin out this morning, all four feet skidded out from under him and he went down.
In ice not even 4×4 works. Even with four wheel drive you still only have brakes on four wheels, same as every other vehicle on the road. Most collisions result from not being able to stop, not from not being able to go. if the conditions on the road require four wheel drive to go, it ain’t worth going.
Tell that to the countless bozos up here, usually Not-From-Around-Here, who evidently believe their 4×4 vehicles can zip through anything at whatever speed they want. I saw the results of that last week as I was cruising down the interstate; a steady business for the police cars and fire trucks and ambulances in several locations. And this was with flashing warning signs for black ice, plus seeing the OTHER vehicles spinning around and off the road into the median.
A recruiter from my old outfit is after me now for yet another long-term, temp/contractor gig at IBM, this time for a “data warehouse operations support specialist” gig, running IBM’s AIX, the Korn shell, SQL database stuff, and something with HTML, in support of their chip fabrication units. Going through the motions again, that’s it.
Fifteen years ago I picked up my son from the evil witch’s house in western Pennsylvania. Perfect timing, as a winter storm rolled through just as I was coming back. It took several hours to travel 15 miles of county highway and 20 miles of interstate from south of Erie to the NY border, and I saw more than one car off the road per mile. Almost all of the ditched (or medianed) cars were SUVs, presumably with 4WD, presumably with drivers who thought 4WD means “I can go anywhere in any weather”.
Meanwhile I toodled along in an ordinary passenger car, admittedly with traction control but I didn’t need it, and I don’t recall so much as wobbling as I drove along. What’s that you say? Skill and attentiveness beat 4WD?
I’ll also note that as soon as I hit the NY border, the roads were clean. Say what you like about the NY Thruway (and I say plenty of bad about them), they do a good job of keeping the road plowed.
We didn’t put snows on either vehicle this wintuh and have been be-bopping around with nary a problem; of course we don’t go out during storms, just common sense. Yet we see 4×4’s and SUV’s off the road all the time or flipped over completely.
Try mentioning the words “skill” and “attentiveness” to any of these cretins and you’ll likely get a blank and clueless stare. Such concepts are outdated, doncha know; corporations and gummints got to make the world utterly painless and nice and comfy for us all, as evidenced lately by the plethora of college and university campuses now run for all intents and purposes, by the students. I saw the beginnings of that over twenty years ago during my aborted grad skool experience and it wasn’t pretty then.
How would you like to answer a knock at the door and see this guy there:
Beep, beeb, boop…Greetings Mr. OFD…beep…
you are under arrest for illegal firearms…boop…
your move creep…beep
Haha, these things won’t last long in this country; can you imagine???
The inner-city gremlins will have them completely dismantled and sold for parts in a jiffy. The rural goblins likewise, for their meth and crack and pills habits. Guys like me will be testing new ammo loads on them and seeing how much explosive blast they can take, stuff like that. Hipster geeks in their moms’ basements will be hacking them and using them to pick up girl robots that look like their comic book heroines.
I don’t see this going anywhere except in nice, quiet, “upscale” residential ‘hoods, mostly white-bread areas.
I dig the little sales pitch there, though, about employing disabled cops and vets…I’ll bring that up at group tomorrow…haha….should be a hit….
Haha, these things won’t last long in this country; can you imagine???
Yup, Robbie the Robot will look like all our stop signs around here, 40 to 50 holes in all of them (shotgun blast).
I like having both Netflix and Amazon streaming. When we start to run short of stuff on Netflix we watch Amazon and vice versa. At about $15/month combined for both of them it’s a no-brainer to have both.
Sling TV just got more channels but no DVR capability: “Sling TV is now available to all, and AMC sweetens the deal”:
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2015/02/sling-tv-is-now-available-to-all-and-amc-sweetens-the-deal/
Maybe that’s what the hipster douchebag geek wanna-bes will do, but the real hacker geeks will be remodeling those suckers themselves. That’s what hackers do! You sometimes mention the fembots, OFD, but I’ll show you fembots!
and now for something outrageous…
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398862/new-jersey-man-faces-jail-time-transporting-antique-pistol-charles-c-w-cooke
We also have both Netflix and Amazon streaming here but rarely watch anything.
“…but I’ll show you fembots!”
Yep, I imagine the genuine hackers will have them taken apart, modified extensively, and then returned to the police departments. Or not.
Lock up that brazen old scofflaw in New Jersey and throw away the keys! How dare he break the law….in one of the most corrupt and rotten government states in the nay-shun….bastards….
“…According to Van Gilder, the detaining officer told him that he wanted to search the car, and threatened him with dogs if he refused.”
This smells extremely fishy. Out of a clear blue sky they’re gonna ransack these old guys’ car and meanwhile threaten the use of dogs. WTF? And subsequent events with the over-the-top raid and treatment the next day also smell fishy, like some kind of witch-hunt. This is yet another case where I agree with Mr. SteveF; the sooner we put cop bastards and lawyers like these against a wall will be none too soon.
This story reminds me of a saying mum drilled into me many years ago: If you sup with the devil use a long spoon…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-19/parents-fear-for-israeli-teen-named-as-spy-by-islamic-state/6144644
The guy with his antique pistol: NJ laws clearly suck, and they suck more because they actually enforce them in cases like this.
That said, the guy made one huge mistake: pulled over for a traffic violation, the cop asks if he can search the car. The guy said yes. Whatever possessed him to give permission for an unnecessary search, I cannot imagine.
On the conspiracy theory side of things: why would the cop ask to search the car of some 70-year-old guy? Was he hoping for a wad of cash (a little asset forfeiture for the office Xmas party)? Or did someone tip the cops off that this poor sot had an antique pistol in his car?
Agreed on both counts, Mr. brad; you never consent to a vehicle search without a warrant, period. And yes, the actual stop is very suspicious; I can imagine “revenue enhancement” combined with the Low Hanging Fruit Theory of Law Enforcement. Why anyone would dime them out is hard to figure, though.
The real mystery here, besides the stop, is why in the first place the law dawg got called off it and then the Big Raid the next day anyway.
Cops sometimes search a car (or backpack or house) and later claim the owner gave consent. Cops would never lie, of course, so the prosecutor and judge accept their assertions despite objections from the search-ee.
And prosecutors and judges never lie, either, so there’s that.
I hope those old guys are lawyered up real good now; this is just malicious stupidity.
Malicious stupidity – absolutely. And where is the governor in this? I mean, the whole point of an governor’s ability to pardon is to prevent blatant injustices. But he didn’t pardon any of the other innocents nailed by this law either, so…
The gov down there is desperately trying to save his foundering Prez campaign attempt but failing. He has no time for old guys being railroaded by thug cops over nothing.