71F and 95%RH with overcast and gusts. Got just a sprinkle of rain yesterday.
I’ve got a bunch of errands to run today, so mostly it’s up to you guys… anyone watch the Oscars? I worked in the business and never watch them. Add the political element, and I’d go out of my way to avoid them.
Seems that there are larger and larger chunks of popular culture and society that I avoid, either passively or actively. Not sure if that’s just Grumpy Old Man Syndrome, or general pushback against people and institutions who don’t share my values.
nick
No desire to watch the Oscars anymore. It has become too political and pussified. Apparently films are now judged not on the current but on how much racial and gender diversity the film uses. Never did much agree with many of the awards in the past on some of the social conscious films with a message. It has gotten worse over the years. The white male is a dying species apparently.
Next year Black Panther will sweep the awards. Not so much because it is a good movie but because it contains almost no white people. Hollywood will pat themselves on the back by bending over backwards to show they are not racists. All the while enjoying large homes with black servants and grounds keepers.
Just like Hollywood types demanding that guns be eliminated while being escorted by armed security personnel while they are out and about.
Hollywood has lost all connection with reality. What these overpaid performers think is of little value. Their lives revolve around a very easy lifestyle with people doing the dirty work, no concerns about health coverage, no concerns about where their next meal is coming from, no concerns about traffic, filling a tank of gas, paying their electric bill. These weirdos can not even conceive of what it is like to live as a real person. They are too lost in their fantasy world while people worship at their feet.
When I lived in Wrightwood CA Lee Marvin had a place that was next to my house. Occasionally Lee would be in his house for a weekend or a week. He would invite my family over for dinner on occasion (my dad was the sheriff). He wanted to be treated as a regular person and treated us the same. Few in Hollywood today have that same demeanor.
Hollywood and their habit of patting themselves on the back with their clueless liberal mindset is just not something that I want to watch.
WRT to watching the Oscars: I preferred last night to Hulu watch fights on old Jerry Springer shows.
I’ve never watched the Oscars. My wife however, use to watch all the reward shows. Last night, she watched a couple reruns of ER with me instead.
I too am more actively choosing who gets my views/money. I take it on a case by case basis. Part of my purchase decision process now includes a “can I stomach your politics” clause. That applies to all levels – from the biggest corporation to a small local business.
A funny not from the home show yesterday. One of the landscape vendors turned out to be someone who lives in our neighborhood. And who is that person? Why, one of the fence nazi’s, of course. So, even if he had a better price and better workmanship, do you think I would choose him? I wonder, in his mind, if he really thinks he has a chance of earning my business?
A comic once joked about the Oscars: “Oh, another Hollywood show about giving each other blowjobs.”
21º and fair – partly cloudy here.
I don’t follow the awards shows either. The politics of most entertainers means little to me. The only ones I actively avoid/hang up on are the ones that trash the country/ govt/president overseas to outsiders.
It broke my heart when the Dixie Chicks claimed Bush “wasn’t our president” while overseas. I change the station or turn my back when they come on, and (except for the anthem), talk over their music at every opportunity. This Markle actress that’s going to marry the British prince ruined Suits for me. I won’t watch it ever again.
For the others? So we disagree. Big deal. I don’t watch them for their politics. I simply don’t care. They get more attention than they deserve in any event. I certainly don’t want to see them patting themselves on the back for going to work.
And I see where Finland has opened a luxury resort island for women only, no men allowed. If there was a man only island the women would be protesting heavily. I hope this women only island only uses female workers to construct the facilities on the island and do all the maintenance. To do otherwise would sort of defeat their message.
I have never understood this lopsided approach. You can have NAACP, Black Congressional Caucus, Black History month, society of Black Engineers. Yes, they do allow white people to join and participate, not because they want to, but because they have to legally. But simply change black to white and suddenly they become racist organizations.
I am for color blind in all aspects of everything. Skin tone, ethnic background, gender, etc. should never make a difference in anything. Hiring, recruitment, appointments should all be done on qualifications and nothing else. If you are not qualified, too bad. Getting a job or a position simply because of some arbitrary body feature is just stupid. If society wants to enforce racial quotas how about making the NBA 20% hispanic, 20% asian, 20% white, 20% black. Oh wait, those people are not the best qualified. Should work the same everywhere.
I worked for a small 8A firm in Oak Ridge. They got the contract because they were a minority owned company. They also needed to employ a certain percentage of minority, disadvantaged and female employees. They had one person, the perfect trifecta as it were. She was black, female, and disabled. She did nothing all day. But she was probably the most valuable employee they had in terms of meeting the contract requirements. And she was paid well for just showing up, made more than I did. Company did not want to lose her as I am sure she was in demand for other companies with the same contract guidelines for hiring.
Hollywood has lost all connection with reality
When I read about some megastar taking a nutty because the wrong brand of bottled water was in the dressing room, or that the cost of some dress with less fabric than a pair of socks costs $10,000 it just boggles my mind. And then to have that person lecture me about how evil I am because I don’t fit their narrow view of what is “acceptable”. Bah Humbug.
I watch less and less TV and movies as more of the political correctness dogma begins to creep in. Books, especially older books, have been my retreat lately.
Observations after a small disaster.
Parts of New England were hit by high winds on Friday. As of this morning some places still had no power. I never lost power but most of my neighborhood did. I went walking around on Saturday morning and was surprised to see and hear many generators running. More than I have ever heard before. That’s good, people are learning that you have to be prepared. Also I saw several generators running with an extension cord running to the neighbor’s house. People helping each other, that’s also good. Makes me feel that in a larger disaster my area will likely do well.
I had reason to drive to a Walmart on Sunday afternoon (not for emergency supplies, just looking for a specific brand of something) and the camping area was all empty shelves. The women in that section kept repeating “we have no more camping stoves”. Lesson: get what you need before trouble strikes, although I’m sure most people here already know that.
Seems that there are larger and larger chunks of popular culture and society that I avoid, either passively or actively. Not sure if that’s just Grumpy Old Man Syndrome, or general pushback against people and institutions who don’t share my values.
I checked to see if Allison Janney won. Anyone who has seen “I, Tonya” and whose mother was born ~ 1940 knows Janney nailed that part.
What if Hillary had won … https://amgreatness.com/2018/03/05/woman-high-castle/
oh my.
The power restored here last night by an out of state crew (I think from Ohio). So at 9:40pm I turned off the generator and reconnected the refrigerators/sump pump back to the grid. I had to undo the temporary wiring for the gas burner motor and control (that was unsuccessful anyway). Now I have to figure out a way to power the gas burner in the future so I don’t need to go through this again. The house was down to 52 deg F and took about 8 hours to get back to 60 deg F (think large old house, almost no insulation).
The generator burned fuel at a much slower rate than I expected. It is rated at 3250/2500 watts with a 4-gallon tank. When I filled it Saturday at 2pm, it ran until about 10am Sunday and still was running when I turned it off to refuel. I used it to power two refrigerators, my sump pump, laptop, and phone charger. It used very little oil, but I will top it off before I put it back in the garage.
I have to think through this so I am better prepared next time. I at least had enough gas to fuel the generator, extension cords, kerosene lamps and fuel to last through the storm.
Another northeaster is expected on Wednesday. Our current forecast is for 5 – 8 inches of snow.
Anyway, more later.
IT_Pro, I didn’t know you were in New England. Massachusetts? I reside in the fine community of Plainville MA.
Yep, Another dose of winter is planned for Wednesday. Could be a big one.
“and the camping area was all empty shelves” I’ve been noticing the shelves in that section being not stocked for several months – seasonal you know. Still sucks.
“Things I Have Learned About Gun Control”
http://blog.dilbert.com/2018/03/04/things-learned-gun-control/
For the first time in a long time, Scott Adams has disappointed me. He does have a good analysis of the possible gun seizure results:
“Gun owners worry about a slippery slope from background checks to gun confiscation. But with hundreds of millions of guns already in circulation, and a gun culture in our DNA, we already have Mutually Assured Destruction if the government were to attempt confiscation. The government itself would fall within a week, in my opinion. ”
And I love this comment:
“>>he proposes do nothing more than mildly inconvenience the lawful gun owner”
“Here’s the problem for you guys.”
“We. Don’t. Trust. You.”
“You don’t want common sense gun control. You want them all seized. You don’t want kids to not get shot in schools. You want to seize all the guns. You can and will propose any toe-in-the-door step that lets you achieve that goal, laughing about how you successfully deceived everyone into taking another step toward only government men having guns.”
“There’s no real conversation possible because you guys are not coming into the discussion in good faith. You will say ANYTHING that allows you to get to your goal. If not you, then your allies and leaders. But you’re known by the company you keep.”
“We don’t trust you. You’ve earned that.”.
@IT_Pro – you need to install a generator bypass switch panel. You hook up the 6-8 breakers in it to the house wiring in the panel (bypassing the house circuit breakers). Then during an outage, you hook up the generator to the bypass panel (big cable, twist-lock connectors), turn on the generator, then flip the switches in the bypass panel. Now those house circuits are running on the generator, and you have isolated the power from the gennie from the ‘grid’ (so you are not feeding power back into the grid, which is not good for the power company workers).
It takes some effort to isolate the circuits you want to run off the generator, and you have to consider the load on those circuits so that you don’t overload the gennie.
I used this one: http://www.reliancecontrols.com/Catalogs/transfer-switches/?page=1 . They have good tech support to help you get the right one. Installation was fairly easy (don’t forget to turn off the main breaker!), and that company has installation videos to watch.
I also replaced all of my lighting (mostly can lights) with LEDs to reduce load. Set up my bypass switch to run the freezer, fridge, and the outlets in the den (where I have DirecTV and an LED TV, so I can watch the tube during an outage), and bedroom (to run the CPAP), along with some lighting. I have power-outage-sensing FLASHLIGHTS in a couple of spots, along with the rest of the FLASHLIGHTS.
Didn’t set up the HVAC system on the gennie; it’s a heat pump with no backup heat source, so would take a much bigger gennie to run that. But in the Olympic Pennisula in my subdivision, there haven’t been extended outages…the longest was about 8 hours.
Haven’t had to use it yet, but I am ready, I think. Getting the bypass switch will make it much easier to run off the gennie.
I didn’t know Grumpy Old Man syndrome had come into common parlance.
“You: get the h3ll off my lawn!”
I have friend in Dublin, a former student from India!, who’s called me a GOM for years. He uses the acronym, not the phrase.
In other news, has anyone tried the new 32bit Chrome w/ad-blocking built in, on a Win7 machine? I meticulously save old versions, on top of which I have a HOSTS file about a yard long.
“This may be the dumbest thing that any politician could ever do…”
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/this-may-be-the-dumbest-thing-that-any-politician-could-ever-do-23047/
“Week before last, I told you about how the brand-new President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, made an impassioned speech calling for the confiscation of real estate from white land owners.”
I predict that this will not go well. And the landowners in South Africa are in militias and reputedly have crew served weapons.
“You’d think the new president would take the opportunity to address more immediate, more critical issues– for example, the fact that Cape Town is about to run out of water.”
No, never.
QFT
What if Hillary had won … https://amgreatness.com/2018/03/05/woman-high-castle/
“Hillary Clinton is not only the nation’s first woman president, she also has claim to be its most environmentally conscious. Not only did she make a massive investment in the sustainable, earth-friendly technologies of wind and solar power, but she also slapped a 300 percent tax on the mining or sale of coal within the United States and had her technology experts draw up plans for the total elimination of fossil fuels by the year 2024. Under the direction of Michael Mann, the Environmental Protection Agency put the battle against man-made climate change at the top of its agenda and, with its budget doubled, will be able to prosecute climate deniers for furthering an anti-science agenda that put not only our children, but also the entire planet at risk.”
So if Hillary had won, I would be going to jail now. Lovely.
I’ve got a bunch of errands to run today, so mostly it’s up to you guys… anyone watch the Oscars?
They gave the best picture award to a movie about beastiality. I’ll pass.
“Darkest Hour” was the best movie I saw last year followed by “The Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol II”. I never realized how bad things were when Churchill assumed the Prime Minister’s spot. And the active destabilizing in Parliament by the peace at any cost crowd.
It broke my heart when the Dixie Chicks claimed Bush “wasn’t our president” while overseas.
Me too. I still love their music.
I didn’t know Grumpy Old Man syndrome had come into common parlance.
“You: get the h3ll off my lawn!”
Clint Eastwood made a great movie about this, “Gran Torino”.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gran_torino
Highly recommended.
I predict that this will not go well. And the landowners in South Africa are in militias and reputedly have crew served weapons.
The resources and determination of the Afrikaaner Diaspora are also seriously underestimated.
SA will not go the way of Rhodesia.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Diaspora had a stray Russian nuke or two stashed should genocide break out. Madela knew *something* that kept him from going down the confiscation road when he came to power.
Your opinion doesn’t count because a) you’ve never walked around San Francisco in a gimp outfit* and b) you can’t even spell bestiality.
* Or do I assume too much?
Your opinion doesn’t count because a) you’ve never walked around San Francisco in a gimp outfit* and b) you can’t even spell bestiality.
You had me at “you can’t even spell”. And I don’t want to know what a gimp outfit is.
And hey, I duckduckgo’d beastiality. Came up with thousands of web sites.
SA will not go the way of Rhodesia.
I would not bet money on that. If anything, the recognized government of SA will bring in UN troops to “keep the peace”.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Diaspora had a stray Russian nuke or two stashed should genocide break out. Madela knew *something* that kept him from going down the confiscation road when he came to power.
Nuke your neighbor, nuke yourself. But, desperate people do desperate things.
And I would be surprised if the Afrikaners had a nuke.
“Your opinion doesn’t count because a) you’ve never walked around San Francisco in a gimp outfit* and b) you can’t even spell bestiality.”
You had me at “you can’t even spell”. And I don’t want to know what a gimp outfit is.
Watch “Pulp Fiction”. Wait for the “pawn shop” scene.
“Bring out The Gimp.”
My opinion might count. During our sentence in the Northwest, we went to the Portland Erotic Ball once.
And I would be surprised if the Afrikaners had a nuke.
If they detonate one, it will be a wake up call to the world. Black market nukes will become a real possibility.
bestiality
Ah… so that’s what being a “bestie” means.
As long as they stay off of my lawn.
Ha! And I am abashed that I didn’t think of it first.
Interesting chart – submitted without comment.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-biased-is-your-news-source-you-probably-wont-agree-with-this-chart-2018-02-28
InfoWars = the KINGS!!!111!!1!!1 They’ll probably consider that winning.
Daily News ends up a bit more conservative than I thought and some of the liberal sites are a bit further up than I’d have picked, but I don’t see any that shocked me. The article seems to suggest I’d be shocked…
n
added- I finally saw Fox News. Funny that they are in the red with infowars. I’d say that their REPUTATION is for right leaning but if you actually watch them they are pretty left. Been a while though since I spent any time watching.
Al Reuters is FAR more into the propaganda section than they listed it. And CBS and ABC are left leaning.
CBS allowed Rather to try and sabotage a presidential election that they didn’t like, and ABC broadcast the kidnapped American contractors begging for their lives because it fit their agenda in Iraq. BBC fired their director after his public comments that it was his job to undermine Reagan/Bush/Bush. Christiana Amanpour said the same thing on camera for CNN.
in my opinion, ALL the primary news sources skew left, to varying degrees.
n
Hey all you need to know about being safe is ‘just don’t be there’ right?
“Shocking moment fists fly as fight breaks out on a Southwest Airlines flight to LA after passengers missed their connection”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5465647/Fight-breaks.html
And my least favorite place, Chucky Cheeze, in the news again….
“Two women were arrested after a massive brawl of 20 people broke out at a Chuck E. Cheese and ended with one woman getting stabbed in the hip”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5464339/Chuck-E-Cheese-restaurant-brawl-ends-2-hurt-2-arrests.html
fer pete’s sake.
n
Speaking of fun at parties, this dumb@ss had this happen only a few blocks from my rent house….
“Partygoer dies after donning a bulletproof vest and telling a man to shoot him during a stunt gone wrong at house party”
” Jason Griffin, 39, was charged with manslaughter after ‘fatally shooting a man’
The incident occurred near West 23rd and Rutland streets in The Heights, Houston”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5463853/Man-charged-fatally-shooting-man-party-Heights.html
What the heII is wrong with people?
n
I am forced to reach the conclusion that the people inhabiting my state, and our leaders, have lost their collective minds. And either don’t know history, or hope the rest of us don’t.
Because of course if this law passed, it would never ever be abused.
http://mustreadalaska.com/tarrs-bill-give-judges-right-take-guns/
They keep hammering away, hoping to chip off another piece.
Their focus on “mental health” is frightening too. Like that’s never been abused by a state before….. forget Stalin, look farther back at the English royals….
We’ve already re-instituted the Star Chamber. Now we should declare people mentally unfit and throw them in a tower? Then what, a tax on tea?
No, we’ve been down this road before. We’ve seen where it ends. This is the battle between good and evil, free and slave, king and commoner. The really sad part is they think they’ll end up wearing the boot. Their masters will send them to the gulag too once their usefulness is up…
n
Parkland Kids: Past Stupid and Arrogant and Straight to Full Rutabaga [VIDEO]
No, we’ve been down this road before. We’ve seen where it ends. This is the battle between good and evil, free and slave, king and commoner. The really sad part is they think they’ll end up wearing the boot. Their masters will send them to the gulag too once their usefulness is up…
Or they will be licking George Soros’s corns …
“Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor: TSA put me through “demeaning” body search”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/holocaust-survivor-eva-mozes-kor-tsa-put-me-through-demeaning-body-search/
Shameful, just shameful.
Hat tip to that hyper partisan conservative website using unfair persuasion and propaganda *:
http://drudgereport.com/
* https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-biased-is-your-news-source-you-probably-wont-agree-with-this-chart-2018-02-28
added- I finally saw Fox News. Funny that they are in the red with infowars. I’d say that their REPUTATION is for right leaning but if you actually watch them they are pretty left. Been a while though since I spent any time watching.
I bailed on Fox News when they fired Bill O’Reilley and Eric Bolling. Something weird was going on there and the replacements are not interesting. Laura Ingraham is ok but she kinda hits me wrong as an anchor. She was always a better commenter to me.
We just got our semi-annual power bill (yes, really, a bill every six months). I took the time to look at the prices in detail. We pay 10 cents during peak hours, and 5.5 cents off-peak.
Of course, then come all the various fees, taxes, renewable energy subsidies, and so forth. By the time they are all done, the price is 25 cents peak and 15 cents off-peak. So we pay a lot more in fees than for the actual product – typical.
I am especially annoyed by the fact that more than 1/10 of the total is the subsidy for renewable energy. I thought renewables were considered fully competitive by now? Apparently not: the subsidy nearly doubled from last year. Of course, that’s what subsidies do: they get bigger, they almost never go away…
If they let the market decide, some greenies would put up their own money out of spite, and some investors would put up their own money in the hope of future payoff. It will (eventually) pay off. It just won’t pay off as fast as the greens want it to, so the government MUST get involved.
I would submit that SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, ULA, and their brethren are an excellent example of what happens when government gets out of the way. Enron, GM, US Healthcare, and their brethren are an example of what happens when a government steps in to “make it better”.
Shoot – there may be a government subsidy on some product that does some good. I’ve never seen it, though, and I’ve been watching for a long time.
the price is 25 cents peak and 15 cents off-peak
The rate I pay is $0.1032 per KWH. I am guessing that you are using the same units as I don’t think there is a metric equivalent. If that is the case your rates are high. I pay about $188 a month. Having to only pay twice a year would make my bill aver $1,100. I use about 1,800 KWH a month. Less in winter, a lot more in summer but it averages out to the above figures.
some greenies would put up their own money out of spite
You can pay for renewable power here. I don’t remember the exact cost but seem to remember it comes to about $0.14 per KWH. Thus you can pay more if you want and get the same power as everyone else. Why anyone in their right mind would do such is beyond my comprehension.
That extra payment is a clear indication that renewable is not cost effective. It would fail to stand on it’s own economic merits and thus would fail without additional money from some other source.
It is like finding gas for $2.20 a gallon on one side of the highway but a station on the other side of the highway is selling the gas for $3.00 a gallon. However, the government is going to subsidize the cost of the gas in the more expensive station so the owner will make money. Only reason people would buy that gas is that every fifth vehicle is made to use the more expensive station.
I am especially annoyed by the fact that more than 1/10 of the total is the subsidy for renewable energy
I rest my case.
Yep, the rates are high. Actually not – it’s all the fees and taxes that are high, which is just more annoying. We use about 1000 kwh/month, and yes, the unit is the same everywhere. We don’t need AC, so that helps, but it still actually seems like a lot of power. I’m slowly working on figuring out how much goes where.
We also have the option of paying more for purely renewable energy. What a joke. The power in the net remains the same. It’s just a stupid accounting trick, to claim that one person got all the “renewable” electrons.
Anyway, nearly everything in Switzerland is either nuclear or hydroelectric – only in rare instances do we import from elsewhere – and I’m just fine with nuclear. Seeing as we live only a couple of miles away from the Gösgen nuclear plant, I had better be 🙂
Yah. Virtue signalling is usually done in such a way that someone else pays the cost.
Money is fungible. So is electricity.
Why would anyone do anything that’s not the cheapest or most benefit?
Because of the belief that their small part helps to make the world a betters place.
I help the county on election day. Not because they pay me a bunch. They don’t. I lose money every time. But it helps make the world a better place.
I pay more for some food items because I would rather support my neighbor (who raises chickens) than buy from a factory farm.
So yes, I can see people paying more for electricity (voluntarily) to promote the tech. Someday it will probably be the best option. Paying now for future benefit is not all dumb. Making OTHERS pay for it is what really bothers me. It’s not the most effective way to get it done.