09:48 – Barbara is off to the gym. When she gets back, we’ll go back to work on science kit stuff. Our goal is always to have about a month’s worth of each type of kit in stock, so we’re building them in relatively small batches now. Come the mid-July to mid-October period, we’ll be shipping so many kits that we’ll have trouble avoiding back-orders, but for now things are (unfortunately) rather calm.
I see that the odds-makers are now predicting a high probability of a Trump-vs-Clinton general election, with Clinton hugely favored to win. Historically, these folks have been far more accurate at predicting elections than the media, probably because they have actual money riding on the results. That outcome wouldn’t surprise me, given that the GOP establishment would far rather see Clinton elected than either Trump or Cruz.
On that basis, I continue to expect a slow (or not-so-slow) slide into dystopia rather than a sudden collapse. Of course, a Black Swan event remains a real possibility, in which case all bets are off. So I’m quite happy that we’re now living in a rural area a good ways from major population centers.
Today in history in Pasco WA (one of the Tri-Cities):
Ninety years ago today, a Swallow biplane left the Pasco airfield with 9,285 pieces of mail weighing 207 pounds.
The 5 1/2 -hour flight, which ended in Elko, Nev., went into the history books as the first commercial U.S. Air Mail flight.
See the link for the rest of the story.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article70185012.html
I’m still convinced Trump is a shill for the Clintons. He supported them in the past, says stupid things that alienates many voters and is a buffoon of the highest order. He is criminally stupid, as opposed to Hillary who is stupidly criminal.
@bgrigg
+1000
and welcome back. Long time, no see.
At least we don’t have Trudeau. 😉
Trump has too big an ego to be a shill for anyone.
He is riding a wave of populist revolt against the now entrenched ruling class. He didn’t create the discontent but was the first to voice it so he has become the defacto leader. Cruz has better ideas and credentials but is as charismatic as a dog turd. In either case, Trump or Cruz, the Republican masses are showing their visceral hatred of the elite. But to no avail. The game is rigged at the highest level, as Bernie Sanders is finding out. No matter how many states you win, you won’t get the nomination that has already been promised to a member of the elite ruling class. On the unbelievable chance that the Queen is indited before her coronation I have no clue what could happen.
“I’m still convinced Trump is a shill for the Clintons.”
I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Sanders may be another stalking hoss/shill, too.
“…and welcome back. Long time, no see.”
Ditto.
And as Mr. Harold says, things are very fluid and we really have no idea what will happen this nine months/year.
If I was thirty years younger and knew what I know now, I’d think seriously about moving to one of Sovereign Man’s foreign countries and starting over with some kind of business. But that hoss has left the bahn, so we’ll be hunkering down here and doing the best we can to prep for simply ordinary/normal circumstances in this area and climate, with a little extra for possible societal collapse and breakdown of law and order.
Pahtly sunny and windy, temps more like early March than early April so fah. Off shortly to do more car-related stuff at the Toyota dealership and then back here to putter around the house.
On a tech note, Tails would not boot on this Windows 8.1 machine, not at all. And I ran through all the usual work-arounds and checked various options in the BIOS. I’ll try it on the Linux boxes when I get a free minute.
On that basis, I continue to expect a slow (or not-so-slow) slide into dystopia rather than a sudden collapse. Of course, a Black Swan event remains a real possibility, in which case all bets are off.
+ 1 and +1 equals +2
I’m still convinced Trump is a shill for the Clintons. He supported them in the past, says stupid things that alienates many voters and is a buffoon of the highest order. He is criminally stupid, as opposed to Hillary who is stupidly criminal.
I think that Trump is going to ride Hillary like a pony.
Oh wait, that is a micro aggression.
Trump has too big an ego to be a shill for anyone.
He is riding a wave of populist revolt against the now entrenched ruling class. He didn’t create the discontent but was the first to voice it so he has become the defacto leader.
Trump’s two main messages until recently were about illegal immigrants and offshoring taking away our jobs. These resonate very much with the working class. They have not had raises in umpteen years and are being continuously laid off.
I find Trump’s solutions with a big wall and a 35% tariff on ALL imports to be curiously interesting. And yes, I know the history behind the Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act
Cruz has better ideas and credentials but is as charismatic as a dog turd.
Yup. I picked up three this morning from my dog. I never have figured which is the clean end.
BTW, Cruz is wearing his religion a little too thick for me. In fact, way too thick.
Laying on of hands is definitely scriptural, my church did it last Sunday when we appointed new elders. But the speaking in tongues freaks me out big time and the NT says that time has passed.
On that basis, I continue to expect a slow (or not-so-slow) slide into dystopia rather than a sudden collapse.
How about replacing dystopia with poverty in your sentence ? I see the middle class moving into the bottom class right now. We will be like Mexico in just 20 years. Maybe sooner if the Dollar fails.
Now some serious news…
Merle Haggard dead on his 79th birthday
“I think that Trump is going to ride Hillary like a pony.”
IF he gets the nomination, which is anything BUT a sure thing. And she may have the demographics locked up like Obola did.
“These resonate very much with the working class. They have not had raises in umpteen years and are being continuously laid off.”
True, but we know, do we not, that neither Trump nor any of the other corporate oligarchs give a blind rat’s ass about us in the end. All they care about is their own power and wealth, period.
“Cruz is wearing his religion a little too thick for me.”
No chit, hermano. He’s a fundie Prod, who gets read out of Christianity by a Mormon cult fanboy like Glenn Beck. It’s funny to see them squabble among themselves.
“…But the speaking in tongues freaks me out big time…”
Glossolalia. Almost always b.s. these days and easily faked. Another one is when they lay a hand on ya and you slump to the floor, being “slain in the spirit.” Seen both tricks done in my time. There is true healing and there is genuine exorcism; accept no substitutes; ex ecclesia non salus.
“I see the middle class moving into the bottom class right now. We will be like Mexico in just 20 years.”
I think more like Brazil. A nuclear armed fascist oligarchy, with large areas an awful lot like failed state Mexico and the cities festering favelas. With a dash of 1970s Argentina, where various dissidents are tossed outta helicopters over the ocean and their kidz farmed out to various generals and secret police commissars. You might still be around but I’ll probably be dead as the proverbial doornail, one way or another. I’ll leave the light on for ya.
“Merle Haggard dead on his 79th birthday”
Damn. Serious news and serious bummer. A giant of music and you can count on one hand anyone else in C&W even close to him. RIP, Merle.
And a horrific mental image, besides.
No kidding, but great for putting us off our food, eh?
Lynn wrote:
“I think that Trump is going to ride Hillary like a pony.”
Now you’ll give OFD and SteveF nightmares… 🙂
Ummm.
I think I’ll answer this the same way I answer the race-based questions:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/06/lawmakers-want-census-bureau-to-ask-about-sexual-orientation.html
If it is unlawful to discriminate based on race, there is no need to ask about race. And my orientation is nobody’s business by mine, my wife’s, and that of our 3 children.
Outlaw Country is dying off fast… 🙁
Maybe when the USA is gone, people will still remember it in the future:
http://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/06/27/it-came-upon-a-midnight-clear-a-blast-from-the-past-12212014/
The census is Constitutionally authorized to get a count of the population. Nothing else. I’ve had two census takers get really pissy at me for filling in the number of people residing at my address, and nothing else.
Survivalists/Prepers in Oz…
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/meet-survivalists-massing-bee-pollen-preparing-for-apocalypse/7303642
[snip] I’ve had two census takers get really pissy at me for filling in the number of people residing at my address, and nothing else. [snip]
Same reaction when I’ve given that response. And the State of Florida got really upset when I responded ‘100% Human’ in response to their query about the racial breakdown of my employee population.
I think I’ll answer this the same way I answer the race-based questions:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/06/lawmakers-want-census-bureau-to-ask-about-sexual-orientation.html
If it is unlawful to discriminate based on race, there is no need to ask about race. And my orientation is nobody’s business by mine, my wife’s, and that of our 3 children.
I wonder if they will have 58 different types of sexual orientation?
My wife is 1/4 Cherokee (undocumented). Two of her great-grandmothers were full blooded Cherokees according to her maternal uncle (his grandmothers). I’ve always wondered if we should designate her and our kids as Native American on the census forms. I imagine Fauxcahontas (“Dances with Lies”) does it.
“Outlaw Country is dying off fast…”
Bummer, but hey, we still have David Allan Coe.
“I’ve had two census takers get really pissy at me for filling in the number of people residing at my address, and nothing else.”
“…the State of Florida got really upset when I responded ‘100% Human’ in response to their query about the racial breakdown of my employee population.”
Haters.
“I imagine Fauxcahontas (“Dances with Lies”) does it.”
No doubt. I have Algonqian/Wampanoag ancestry from southeastern MA and the Islands but not much written documentation for it and not enough to warrant getting in on any of the casino ownership capers. Some of my Quaker forefathers married squaws down there in the 18th-C and you can actually see it in my face and my next-younger-brother’s but nobody else’s. And there are full-blooded Western Abenaki up here that look whiter than us.
But pointless, as the vast bulk of my ethnicity and cultural bringing-up has been New England Yankee by way of Anglo-Saxon, 3/4 English and nearly 1/4 Irish.
Snow squall here blowing sideways off the bay; everything is white again, yay!
(oh crap, another micro-aggression, and I didn’t issue a trigger warning or the availability of a safe space, my bad…)
Yah, my Amerind ancestry is also minor and undocumented, too. And possibly doesn’t exist. My mom’s memory seems to be going, and she recently denied having told us kids about the Amerinds in our father’s family tree. (And we can’t ask anyone in his family because they’re all dead, of alcohol or stupid. Not that those are mutually exclusive causes, mind you.) -shrug- Doesn’t much matter.
An issue that might possibly matter is whether I got polio (from the vaccine), when I was little. Depending on what day I ask my mom, I either did or didn’t, which pretty well covers all the possibilities, and pretty well makes asking her pointless.
“My mom’s memory seems to be going…”
Ditto. Mine has Pick’s Disease, a lovely variant of Alzheimer’s, and she’s a treasure trove of info about stuff half a century ago and longer but five seconds ago, not so much. Oh wait–that describes me, too.
My dad’s family are all gone, too, and nobody to ask about anything. I do know, however, that we have other relatives, descendants of my paternal grandfather’s brothers and sisters, living in the New Beffa area with the same surname as me, but we never had any contact with them whatsoever growing up. I might try doing so before it’s too late, although again, I dunno how much it might matter. Mr. SteveF’s case regarding medical treatment, though, would be a good reason to ask about stuff.
There might actually be more relatives among the Wampanoag bands in southeastern MA and the Islands but again, never had any contact with any of them.
My mom’s side of the family is a black hole in space; her dad was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, yeah, home of the “four-thousand holes” in the moor there. But as to anything else about them or my maternal grandma’s family I got zip, zero, zilch. And there would be possible good reasons to ask questions there, too, because of the mental stuff that went on with my mom and her sisters. Just a tad on the nutty side. And there goes another micro-aggression….yikes.
Allegedly have some in my background too, but not enough for some of that sweet sweet casino money. Not much point in spending the effort.
n
@SteveF – in the early days of the live polio vaccine there were many cases of it causing a case of polio. Since I had polio before the vaccine and a relapse when given the vaccine I am of the opinion that many people who came down with polio after being given the live vaccine actually had very mild/non-evident forms of polio and the live vaccine just triggered it.
My Dad was an obsessive record keeper. I have all of my medical records from the time I was born in 1950 until I joined the Navy in 1973 (yes, I was an “old fart” in Boot Camp, but it had its privileges as in being a Platoon Leader directing the deck swabbing rather than doing it 😉 ). In some ways I wish I didn’t have the very early records of my polio that started before I was two. They did a lot of “experimenting” and trial and error on me. Oh well, I guess that is why I sympathize with lab rats.
My family on both sides had ancient Family Bibles that pretty documented my ancestry and some other history. In addition to my European, Scandinavian, Germanic blood there is some “colored” and a couple of lesser known East Coast Indian Tribes. So I’m a mutt and proud of it 😉
“Ann Coulter: Moonies for Cruz”
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/06/ann-coulter-moonies-cruz/
“The Cruz-bots don’t care. They don’t care that they’re being used as a cat’s-paw by the Never Trump crowd, and that a brokered Republican convention is more likely to end with Bernie as the nominee than Cruz.”
OK, Bernie as the nominee from a brokered Republican convention is funny.
BTW, I agree with Coulter. The first thing that the Republican RINOs will do is exempt any candidate who won eight or more states.
The Stupid Half of the Party is bound and determined to lose again, this time to Cankles, and they are making all the right moves so far. One wonders what the payoffs are for them.
If any. Or are they just fucking stupid?
I left those treasonous bastards nearly twenty years ago and good riddance.
The Stupid Half of the Party is bound and determined to lose again, this time to Cankles, and they are making all the right moves so far. One wonders what the payoffs are for them.
Go read the 250,000 page TPP document. It is all in there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
Obola is out of his fucking mind! Why not just make the whole planet eligible. What a dooshnozzle.
Obama Claims Power to Make Illegal Immigrants Eligible for Social Security, Disability.
http://cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/obama-claims-power-make-illegal-immigrants-eligible-social-security
lol! You just don’t know what those Catholics are up to.
On Monday, students at Indiana University Bloomington mistook a priest for a Ku Klux Klan member, taking to social media to express their fear of the alleged Klansman, who they claimed was carrying a whip, and dressed in “white robes.
“What a dooshnozzle.”
No, we’re out of OUR minds for not putting this creepy little shit up against a firing squad wall, alongside all of his living predecessors in that office.
“You just don’t know what those Catholics are up to.”
Verily, this is like unto, methinks, the dustup down at Emory, when the poor confused imbeciles posing as college students, wet their panties over some pro-Trump chalk graffiti on their campus. I should show up on some campus in Confederate uniform with my hair down, on horseback, with a sabre, and watch the fun. All done quite easily here with material and livestock at ready hand.
“Senators Slam NATO ‘Free-Riders’ in Closed-Door Meeting With Secretary General”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/06/senators-slam-nato-free-riders-in-closed-door-meeting-with-secretary-general/
“Donald Trump has spent much of his campaign deriding NATO allies for “ripping off” the American taxpayer and failing to contribute to the world’s most powerful military alliance. But on Wednesday, his fellow Republicans joined the chorus during a closed-door meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Capitol Hill, according to sources inside the room.”
We need to leave NATO now. Before Putin invades Estonia and Lithuania. Those will be quagmires. Don’t even get me started on Turkey poking the Bear repeatedly.
Shoulda left NATO many years ago and pulled ALL the troops outta Europe, South Korea, etc. Ditto the commie/hadji thug UN and tip the UN building into the East River with its occupants. Also ditch the IMF and World Bank.
As for Prince Vlad, he’s a much cannier mofo than ANY of our top dawgs here and knows what he is about.
>”… a 35% tariff on ALL imports …”
We don’t need that much protection. It would be better to set tariffs for maximum revenue, adjusting periodically to keep them at the sweet spot. The tariff couldn’t be zero, since that would mean zero revenue, and couldn’t be too high, as that would cut the import volume so much that revenue would taper off. Such tariffs would tend to control imports, rather than eliminate them or subsidize them. We need some imports, and need to be able to export what we do make under reasonable foreign tariffs.
Some more intel on the “Panama Papers”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/04/no_author/wikileaks-exposes-panama-papers/
World War IV coming right up…cui bono???
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-06/world-preparing-conflict-global-military-spending-rises-first-time-five-years
Yo, someone sayin’ earlier ’bout how we gon end up like Mexico or Brazil???
https://readfomag.com/2016/04/essential-elements-of-community-security/
Think the cops up here can or will do a better job of it than the cops down in Mexico City or Rio? In the latter city, they stage up prior to major events and then sweep through the favelas and simply blow away troublemakers on the spot. And get kidnapped by narcotrafficantes in the failed state to our south and escape/run to the cops and they’ll torture you to death themselves if they don’t turn you right back over to the gangsters.
Our guys will be different, though………
Sadly this institution of higher lunacy is less than an hour from where I live.
“Long time no see”
Thanks, guys. I’ve been around, lurking. Just haven’t had much to say lately. Or more truthfully, I’ve been too busy making snarky comments about Trudeau on Canadian web sites!
HA HA HA…
Heading out to Costco to buy a Socialism Preparedness Kit. Not surprisingly, it has all the same items as in the Earthquake Preparedness Kit but only in half portions.
“…it has all the same items as in the Earthquake Preparedness Kit but only in half portions.”
You forgot to add that it costs twice as much!
“Heading out to Costco to buy a Socialism Preparedness Kit. Not surprisingly, it has all the same items as in the Earthquake Preparedness Kit but only in half portions.”
I picked up one of those so I could say I was “down for the struggle”. However, Costco had it on a coupon for 4-times regular price. When I opened it up to check it out, half the bags had holes in them and were leaking sand. I opened one of the undamaged packages and get hit by a blast of hot air.
/my attempt at comedy off/
“You forgot to add that it costs twice as much!”
I think the price is the same, just: ‘Now! With 60% More Tax!’
You should gladly pay twice as much for half as much because it’s your duty to help the less fortunate. I’m sure that the other half of the stuff you thought you were buying went into a kit which was donated to a member oppressed class, and the extra price is for, ah, overhead.
“You should gladly pay twice as much for half as much because it’s your duty to help the less fortunate. I’m sure that the other half of the stuff you thought you were buying went into a kit which was donated to a member oppressed class, and the extra price is for, ah, overhead.”
Any time you hear something like that, check your wallet. A Bureaucrat is reaching for it, as well as a SJW willing to spend your money before hers.
Haters.
Whenever I hear of duty… I unlock my Browning.
Dahn it! I always thought that Goering had the original. Lahn sumthin new every day!
>”… a 35% tariff on ALL imports …”
We don’t need that much protection. It would be better to set tariffs for maximum revenue, adjusting periodically to keep them at the sweet spot.
Trump is a deal maker. That is his first offer …
It’s all moot. It will be Empress Cankles and Commissar Sanders. They’ll double down and triple down on the damage rendered by Obola, both Bush crime families, and her great big lovable lug of a husband, Larry Jeff Klinton. What’s gonna be fun is that Roger Stone is one busy beaver finding new chit to lay on her and Larry Jeff, from their decades of robbery, chiseling, perversion, serial adultery and rape, pedophilia, and being in bed, literally, with organized crime and hadji scum like the Musloid Brotherhood. Except ya know what? Nobody cares. She has the demographics, as did Obola before her, and there’s nada the Stupid Half of the Party can do about it nor do they WANT to do anything about it. It was all programmed from the start, and history nuts can find the root causes and ideologies and invasive subterfuges all the way back to our 1930s. No big conspiracy, just cold and calculated subversion and treason.