08:38 – It was 62.5F (17C) when I took Colin out around 0630 this morning, bright and breezy. More rain and thunderstorms are in the forecast for this evening and tomorrow.
Barbara is doing a quick house clean and getting packed for her week-long trip down to the Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC for a crafts class. She leaves tomorrow morning and returns next Saturday afternoon.
We finished binge-watching the first three seasons of the Australian series The Doctor Blake Mysteries on Netflix streaming last night. They don’t have season four up yet, so I’m grabbing it with BT just to make sure we have it. Unusually for a modern TV mystery, it plays fair with the viewer. There are lots of cuties. Barbara must get tired of me saying, “Boy, <insert-country-name-here> has lots of cuties.” In this case, Nadine Garner, a 40-something cutie, and Cate Wolfe, a 20-something cutie.
With the downstairs torn up, our prepping activities are on hold until things are back to normal down there. We can’t even get to our long-term pantry. So for now I’m just thinking about what I want to do next.
First priority will be to install more shelving. Frances’ and Al’s bedroom has a large walk-in closet. Barbara calls it the water closet because there are cases of water bottles stacked on the floor, something like 600 liters worth. Call it a month’s supply of drinking water for the 4.5 of us.
I want to install floor-to-ceiling bracket and 1×10 or 1×12 shelving on one or both side walls and the end wall of that closet. Before we do that, I need to measure the height/width of the storage containers we use the most–softdrink bottles in 2- and 3-liter sizes, #10 cans, #2.5 cans, and so on. That way, I can set the vertical spacing and shelf width to minimize wasted space. Then I want to do the same for some unused wall space in the unfinished basement area.
That’ll let me relocate stuff that’s currently stacked in the unfinished area in that closet. There’s currently maybe 18 person-months’ worth of LTS food on the built-in shelves in the unfinished area, and I need that shelf space back for science kit related stuff, large chemical bottles and so on. There’s probably about the same amount of LTS food stacked on the floor in the LTS pantry room, and we can move it to shelves in the bedroom closet as well. So, lots to be done once they finish work downstairs.
They seem to be making good progress getting you back together.
I like the costco heavy duty ‘warehouse style’ rack for heavy items. I prefer to buy the one at lowes though, because you can buy by the piece and add extra shelves.
I’ve got one set up as a workstation, with a shelf at bench height, no front rail at the bottom, and a shelf on the top, with a light under neath. I used a hollow core door as the workbench top.
I’ve got my food stacked on adjustable commercial heavy duty metal shelves I got at auction. That’s not an option for you, but you might want to keep an eye on craigslist. Places like Uline.com have commercial shelving but it’s super expensive for the heavy duty stuff.
Leave enough space extra that you can see into the depth of the shelf.
n
My shelves are roughly 36″wide, 24″ deep, and I spaced most of them 14″. Two flip top plastic bins fit side by side, as does 2 costco cardboard ‘flats’.
We already have two steel shelving units from Home Depot down in the deep pantry room. This 5-foot one, and a similar 4-foot one.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-78-in-H-x-60-in-W-x-24-in-D-5-Shelf-Steel-Unit-MR602478W5/203828237
The issue with buying more of these is where to put them.
Mostly sunny w/blue skies and in the 60s and low 70s today and tomorrow, pretty nearly perfect for here. Some rain possible on Monday, looks like.
Outside stuff again today, including a dump run, undertaken by Mrs. OFD just now.
Common sense from Poland, Hungary, Japan, etc., and our own Ann Corcoran here in this country, totally ignored by Euro and Murkan leaders; again, cui bono?
http://mobile.wnd.com/2017/05/why-this-g7-nation-has-no-problem-with-islamic-terrorism/
Why isn’t the UN hassling the commie and musloid countries to take in their own musloid scum?
Why aren’t our wunnerful MSM “journalists” asking these questions??
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2017/05/27/stunning-news-trump-state-department-opens-the-flood-gates-refugee-admissions-will-explode-in-coming-weeks/
How many more refugee fukstiks can we handle? It would balance out if all the Libturdians who said they would leave if tRump was elected, WOULD LEAVE!
You gotta lol at Cankles squawking “I beat tRump and Bernie.” That’ll increase Dumbocrat chances in future elections.
She apparently just can’t STFU, and neither can Obola. This seems to be a common trait of libturd politicians. Heard anything lately from G.W.? Heard anything from him ever, since he left? Count on one hand, at most. Whereas the rest of ’em are on the MSM nooz almost hourly. Hell, we’re still hearing from Jimmuh.
Nope, G.W.’s been quiet, as have R. Reagan and R. M. Nixon….
How many more rapefugees can we take? Apparently the plans are still on to bring in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, over the next decade. Cui bono?
The prevailing trend seems to be to either dump them in the cities, so as to more easily access freebie services and goods, or drop a whole mess of ’em on some small rural town out in the sticks, so as to overwhelm it.
They try that in rural Southern towns, they’re liable to revive the KKK.
The Law of Unintended Consequences.
I want to install floor-to-ceiling bracket and 1×10 or 1×12 shelving on one or both side walls and the end wall of that closet.
@RBT, I have two of these heavy duty shelves in the garage holding 120 cases of water. I highly recommend them, even at $149 each. And, I think that most Sam’s Clubs actually carry these in stock. “Muscle Rack Heavy-Duty 4-Level Welded Steel Treadplate Rack with Wire Shelves”. The shelves are 24 inches deep by 77 inches by 72 inches high which is deeper than your spec.
https://www.samsclub.com/sams/welded-rack-4-level/prod13130202.ip
I especially like these because the vertical end pieces are one piece. Most shelving units nowadays use two piece vertical end pieces that I view as potentially unstable.
BTW, if I ever get to build my dream house, I intend to build a 20 ft by 25 ft moderately safe room in the center of house. It will also be our pantry. I would like to put 8 or 9 of these shelves into it, plus a restroom, etc. My shelves in our pantry and master bedroom closet are sagging since I have so many #10 cans, etc on them.
Yes, I dream bigger than my checkbook.
How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
IIRC, we looked at the ones Sam’s had, and they had particle-board shelves. We preferred the ones at Home Depot, which have heavy wire-rack shelves.
Yes, the particle board shelves are grossly inadequate for any but light, bulky loads. We got four of the big, heavy shelving units some years ago, and they’re not up to my standard.
IIRC, we looked at the ones Sam’s had, and they had particle-board shelves. We preferred the ones at Home Depot, which have heavy wire-rack shelves.
Um, no, not these shelves. They have heavy duty metal gridding for the horizontal shelves. There are pictures on the website showing this.
https://www.samsclub.com/sams/welded-rack-4-level/prod13130202.ip
You have shelves in your MBR?
You have shelves in your MBR?
My master bedroom closet has a 1 inch by 12 inch board on top of the clothes hanging bars. I’ve just got too much stuff piled up there. I probably need to replace the 1 inch by 12 inch boards with 2 inch by 12 inch boards. The closet ceiling is ten ft tall so there is plenty of stacking room.
http://www.winsim.com/perry_homes_plan_2991.pdf
“they’re liable to revive the KKK.”
No need, it’s alive and kicking and probably growing daily. There are several areas near here that I’m aware of, and I mistakenly ended up in a klan bar in a cornfield in Indiana some years ago.
The old joke that the only Klan members active were FBI and other undercovers, and paid informants, is probably no longer true.
n
In our master bedroom closet I installed wire shelves with a heavier coathanger bar below. Two layers for most of it, as half height is enough for shirts and jackets. There’s over 30 linear feet of hanger… of which a coat and a couple other things of mine take a foot, foot and a half. And my wife thinks I should move my stuff to my office closet, as she needs the space. And my wife says that she doesn’t have any clothes because she never buys anything for herself.
Despite that, my wife is nowhere near as bad as my first wife, who had over two dozen storage bins of clothes in the basement at the time she moved out and her spending became no longer my problem. Some of them never worn, and almost all of the clothes too tight to wear “because they shrank”.
We have 20 ft of single hanging bar, 5 ft of double hanging bar, and 16 ft of triple hanging bar in our master closet (41 ft of linear hanging space). I am allowed to use 12 ft of the single hanging bar since I am so tall and my pants and shirts need the single bar height.
RIP Gregg Allman
“RIP Gregg Allman”
Roger that, MrAtoz!
Related subject: We gotta’ get here, PBRs on me.
https://snssaloon.com/
Right now, listening to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV2zv6sVD_o&list=RDoV2zv6sVD_o#t=2
World Net Daily has an interesting article today: http://www.wnd.com/2017/05/why-an-ignorant-people-cannot-be-a-free-people/
While the atheists and agnostics among us may debate the existence of God, the facts present in this article presents some universal truths. Too bad we have an ignorant majority these days so what is written here is pissing into the wind. As I have said before we are in a wash, rinse, repeat cycle that has been occurring for probably millions of years.
Las Vegas honky-tonk? Nah!
https://www.yelp.com/biz/trouts-and-the-blackboard-stages-bakersfield-2
https://www.yelp.com/biz/ethels-old-corral-bakersfield?page_src=related_bizes
Did I mention that it was hot as Hades here and humid as a progs sweaty armpit?
It’s been dark for an hour and it is still 99F and 53%RH in my driveway. The ‘feels like’ is 110F. I can’t imagine what it was this afternoon with the sun beating down, but it was HOT HOT HOT.
n
“The old joke that the only Klan members active were FBI and other undercovers, and paid informants, is probably no longer true.”
At Waco II something like 8 of the 200 arrested bikers were released at the station almost immediately. The rest are still being charged and prosecuted I believe. One would assume the released were undercover agents and informers, so about 2% of the total.
“Las Vegas honky-tonk? Nah!
https://www.yelp.com/biz/trouts-and-the-blackboard-stages-bakersfield-2
https://www.yelp.com/biz/ethels-old-corral-bakersfield?page_src=related_bizes”
Last time I went to Bakersfield, I went to the Buck Owens Crystal Palace.
http://www.buckowens.com/
Did I mention that it was hot as Hades here and humid as a progs sweaty armpit?
It’s been dark for an hour and it is still 99F and 53%RH in my driveway. The ‘feels like’ is 110F. I can’t imagine what it was this afternoon with the sun beating down, but it was HOT HOT HOT.
Dude, you need to move out here to the burbs where it was only 90 F today. We are still outside the heat island.
In fact, I found a house for you. I thought you might like this because of the moderately sized house with the awesome warehouse. I am not sure if the road name is Helen or Hellen. The property is about five miles further out 59 than me.
Here is a FSBO 2,000 ft one story 3/2/0 in the Rosenberg ETJ on one acre of land for sale with a 2,400 ft2 warehouse for $350K. There is also a 2,400 ft2 overhang on the warehouse. If the house was bigger, I might be interested.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/2201+Hellen+Rd,+Richmond,+TX+77469/@29.5309491,-95.7552615,235m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86411da1615fbf57:0xbfbea3342e845d2c!8m2!3d29.5311248!4d-95.7546752
Street View:
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.5311934,-95.7550297,3a,75y,112.32h,75.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjT0_xExusAh6nA_eDQY0cw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Supposedly the bedroom sizes are 18×17, 12×19, and 11×11.
He said that he built the house 6 years ago using Tilson homes. He built the first stage of the house, he has a plan to add another bedroom with bathroom and media room to take the house up to 3,600 ft2.
The house has its own well and septic system. And propane system. The ceiling heights are 9 ft.
I have the guy’s name and phone number if you are interested.
“Las Vegas honky-tonk? Nah!
https://www.yelp.com/biz/trouts-and-the-blackboard-stages-bakersfield-2
https://www.yelp.com/biz/ethels-old-corral-bakersfield?page_src=related_bizes”
Actually, last year Memorial Day weekend, I was at the Kernville Saloon in Kernville, CA, and it was great, all C&W music!
You might wanna check your math there, guy. Still, it’s much less than “almost all”.
There were a whole bunch of informers at the park thing with the bundy bunch too. something like 6 out of 20…
@lynn, that looks like a nice building but not enough land for me. If we move, it’ll either be to be zoned to better schools (meaning Memorial) or out onto acreage. Wife wants #1, I want #2. What will probably happen is #1, which will at least get us out of the neighborhood if it really is changing.
n
“Did I mention that it was hot as Hades here and humid as a progs sweaty armpit?
It’s been dark for an hour and it is still 99F and 53%RH in my driveway. The ‘feels like’ is 110F. I can’t imagine what it was this afternoon with the sun beating down, but it was HOT HOT HOT.”
My condolences. We did not bust 70°F here today, well, almost. House next door to me is up for rent. 2,000 – 2,500 sq ft, 3 car garage, $3,900/mo. Huntington Beach, Ca, 1 1/2 mi from beach.
Oh yeah, about schools in my area. Both my children have master’s degrees from CSULB after the usual neighborhood schools here.
“Merkel Furious With Trump After “Unprecedented” G-7 Failure To Reach Consensus On Climate Change
“The whole discussion about climate has been difficult, or rather very unsatisfactory” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters Saturday. “Here we have the situation that six members, or even seven if you want to add the EU, stand against one.”
”
and I ask “SO?”
It’s not Trump’s job to make Herr(hair!) Merkin happy. It’s not his job to go along with the majority. We’ve even got a teaching lesson about that, “If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?” The answer to which is supposed to be NO, not, “Sure, if it makes them happy.”
n
I saw the Allman Brothers band about a month before Duane got killed; Boston’s Summer Concerts on the Common Series back then, 1971. Amazing, of course; at one point they grabbed J. Geils out of the audience to jam with them; he also died recently.
Gregg didn’t take very good care of himself, to put it mildly; one of the vets in my weekly group is from Georgia and knew all those guys back in the day. But ol’ Gregg could certainly sing the blues.
…universal truths.”
Long since discarded as patriarchal and superstitious rubbish, of course. Well, I guess we’ll all see pretty soon, won’t we.
Merkel is an old-timey communist apparatchik from the East German regime, her “formative” years, of course. Disgusting fugly old shitbag who needs to…well….jump off a cliff.
“You might want to check your math there….”
Heh. Yeah. Nobody has let me keep score in Scrabble for 20+ years, for some reason….
I was feeling a bit bad about not doing much prepping lately, when a friend showed up with 7 #10 cans from Sam Andy. Found at a yard sale for 25 cents each and so old they predate bar codes. Four still have labels – diced carrots, peas, quick oats, and potato slices. The other three…who knows. Hopefully not beets.
@ed– SCORE!
n
@lynn, that looks like a nice building but not enough land for me. If we move, it’ll either be to be zoned to better schools (meaning Memorial) or out onto acreage. Wife wants #1, I want #2. What will probably happen is #1, which will at least get us out of the neighborhood if it really is changing.
I figured as much. Memorial is expensive ! One of my partners is thinking about selling his 1950 one story 2,000 ft2 house off Bunker Hill Road for $800K.
Keep in mind taking care of a large acreage is expensive. It costs me $650/month to get my 14 acres mowed twice per month. And I have four buildings and a half mile of roads on it that don’t need mowing.
It made it to 91F today when the sun finally came out. Humid? Yeah, like being two blocks from Mobile Bay when I was a kid. So humid it was almost foggy looking from the house to the EDC (maybe 300 feet away).
Hell, the dogs wanted _in_ the house. A/C is set at 78. I forget where I set the humidity level but from Off and just closing up the house, the system will idle along and dry the air for a half hour or so and then kick into high to cool the place. I like my Goodman 2-stage heat pump.
Keep in mind taking care of a large acreage is expensive.
Cattle.
They eat the grass and you can get ag exempted for property taxes. Work it out right and you put some beef in the freezer once in a while. Sure, you need to mow along the driveway and places you have fenced off from the cows. And you still have to wander around with a brush cutter to trim the shrubbery once in a while.
$650 a month? Wow, I work too cheap. 🙂
I’m still waiting for summer temps to get here. I don’t think we’ve cracked 90*F yet, which is really really rare. I did test the A/C for a couple of hours, just to make sure everything is going to work, but other than that still have the windows open and a nice breeze through the house.
I’ve just started playing Scrabble with my daughter, having not played it for 25 or 30 years. We don’t bother to keep score other than counting up the score of each word as it’s placed; that’s mainly a way of getting her to strategize word arrangement to take advantage of the layout. We have a house rule that she’s allowed to use any Latin word, in any conjugation or declension, that she’s learned; this is to encourage her to memorize the vocab each week.
Keep in mind taking care of a large acreage is expensive.
Cattle.
Here is my office place. 400 ft wide and 1500 ft deep. Goes back to 100 ft beyond the second pond. Not easy to keep cattle or horses on the place except the front five acres. We would have miles of fences and cattle guards.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/29%C2%B032'11.3%22N+95%C2%B039'59.3%22W/@29.536468,-95.6684141,671m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d29.536468!4d-95.666464
Sheep. Or crops.
“House next door to me is up for rent. 2,000 – 2,500 sq ft, 3 car garage, $3,900/mo. Huntington Beach, Ca, 1 1/2 mi from beach.”
California is a nice place, except for all the Californians. 🙂
“Keep in mind taking care of a large acreage is expensive. It costs me $650/month to get my 14 acres mowed twice per month.”
You could ask SteveF for some of his superanuated sheep. Problem solved. 🙂
humid as a progs sweaty armpit
Makes one wonder how you know what a progs sweaty armpit operates. Been yearning for a taste of cankles pits?
… I don’t like to talk about it.
Graduate of a fine arts program, spent years in local and regional theatre. VERY familiar with Homo Progressivus…..
n
Non-graduate of two grad skool English departments in the Northeast; also very familiar with Homo Progressivus….
@RBT maybe other solutions are better, smarter and cheaper than using standard shelves. Since you keep LTS food in plastic bottles, maybe you could just store them in a silo type thing. The bottles will lie horizontally there, you load on top and unload from a bottom window. The “silo” walls can be like a grid-type material (fence like). This way the space should be maximally used. Of course, it would be problematic if the content of the bottles is not the same…
Sheep. Or crops.
The neighbor has three goats for her three acres. Plus a mule. They don’t do a good job.
And farming is time intensive. Very time intensive. I tried to get the farmer down the way to farm the front five but he is too busy.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has an important part that basically says: rich countries will give 100 billions USD per year to poor countries for mitigation and adaptation to climate changes, like: irrigation systems, drinkable water systems, production of electricity (sustainable, renewable), floods prevention, etc.. The very important and big consequence of all that is: people will stay in their countries instead of migrate. And all those projects will make the countries more organized and manageable.
… the money will line the pockets of leading politicians, the heads of non-governmental organizations, and other connected people. Less than 10% will make it to any productive project which benefits the nominal beneficiaries.
That’s the case in general with welfare from rich countries to poor countries. In this particular case, the waste would be 100% rather than only 90% because there is no “climate change” to be “mitigated and adapted to”. If you wish to demonstrate that there is any global warming, which is what the weasel words “climate change” mean, show us the data. Real data. Raw data. Not “adjusted” data. And don’t waste our time showing us the output of climate models; I don’t know of any which are even as accurate as economic forecasting models.
No way should we be paying anything at all, let alone hundreds of billions. It’s a lot cheaper just to shoot so-called refugees, who are actually invaders. We’re under zero obligation–morally, legally, or otherwise–to help them AT ALL.
The very important and big consequence of all that is: people will stay in their countries instead of migrate.
Snicker.
And all those projects will make the countries more organized and manageable.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Go ahead, pull the other leg, it has a bell on it.
Weren’t you the person complaining that politicians had stolen money from the people’s Treasury ? And then complained that they passed a law to forgive themselves. They would never steal the money for global warming, they would give that money to Algore immediately.
And don’t waste our time showing us the output of climate models; I don’t know of any which are even as accurate as economic forecasting models.
And we all know how good economic forecasting models are. Didn’t Obola’s budget forecast growth of the USA economy by over three percent every year he was in office ?
Go ahead, pull the other leg, it has a bell on it.
Ah, like aid to Africa?
Let Africa sink.
By the way, in case anyone is interested but didn’t know, Kim Du Toit has resumed blogging.
“Here is my office place.”
@lynn: I was surfing around your area and couldn’t notice a single solar panel. Yes, the energy is so cheap there.
I’ve picked randomly a place near Munchen for comparison. Plenty of solar panels on roofs:
https://goo.gl/maps/34PTh6Cw8mN2
“And don’t waste our time showing us the output of climate models”
No, I know better not to do that. I was pointing out an aspect of the Paris agreement that try to address already existing problems in some countries that don’t have the capacity to solve them. (it doesn’t matter if the problems are cause or not by climate change).
“Let Africa sink.”
I thought about dropping that link here a few days ago. I like his writing.
Afrika is gone, but we keep throwing taxpayer money at it. Insane.
At this point I agree with RBT; shoot invaders. That goes for our southern border, coasts and airspace. Eventually they’ll stop coming. Meanwhile shoot the enablers and apologists here and in Europe, too. I’m deadly serious.
@lynn: I was surfing around your area and couldn’t notice a single solar panel. Yes, the energy is so cheap there.
Yes. We, the USA, do not use taxes on electricity, gasoline, and diesel to fund our healthcare costs. Unlike Europe which has energy costs of 4X the actual costs. However, Europe is trying to limit their energy usage since they are so raw material poor and must import everything except sunlight.
I pay 8 cents/kwh at the house and 9 cents/kwh at the office (the office has a demand charge of 1 cent/kwh since it is commercial).
One cannot tax oneself into prosperity.
“Meanwhile shoot the enablers and apologists here and in Europe, too. I’m deadly serious.”
Someone else is too, killing two yesterday:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/portland-mourns-two-men-killed-defending-teens-from-racist.html
Oh, right, the Bernie Bro who is being painted as a right-winger.
Eugen, a bit of a history lesson in case you’ve not come across it: US left-wingers started out very much in favor of Hitler and the Nazis. Why wouldn’t they be? The National Socialists were running a centralized economy, they viewed negros as an underclass, they grabbed guns, and they were health nazis, so to speak. Hitler’s people hit all the right notes with the American left … right up until he invaded the even-more-beloved-of-the-American-left Soviet Union. Then Hitler became a monster. That’s continued up to the present, where the surest sign of a moronic lefty is that she calls everyone who disagrees with her a Nazi.
“Yes, the energy is so cheap there. ”
And this despite the ‘rapacious’ and ‘obscene’ profits of the energy companies (according to SJW activists). Also, Texas is one of the largest producers of ‘sustainable’ energy in the US (primarily wind) and is growing that business.
Production of solar cells if FAR from a ‘green’ process, which is why it mostly happens in China, far from the watching eyes of the environmental warriors. I will also point to China for the viability of solar as a replacement of fossil fuel. IF it made sense, certainly China would be the place we would see it in widespread use? They are poisoning their people, air, and land with fossil fuels, and yet they are the largest producer of solar panels. Why don’t they USE the panels in preference to coal and nuclear? Solar in its current forms just isn’t practical or economic.
Wind isn’t the answer either. It turns out that the maintenance costs are WAY more than projected, that there are physical problems they didn’t anticipate and can’t fix at present (such as gearboxes self destructing, and bearings destroyed by static electricity.) To add insult to injury, Newtons Law holds for wind power too, and if you take the energy from the wind here, that energy isn’t available there. Downstream turbines don’t produce as well, and the existing ones change the energy of the wind in ways we’ve only begun to explore.
All renewables except nuclear suffer from the problems of storing the energy for later, which usually involves a bunch of messy byproducts too.
In other words, we’ve looked at the issues and decided to pursue it where it makes sense, or is paid for by other people’s money, but go ahead with building more traditional capacity.
This is another example of the difference between the european mindset of a scarcity economy and the US mindset of an abundance economy. This mindset, along with the idea of high and low trust societies, is crucial to any understanding of the difference between the US and the rest of the world.
nick
Hmm, first I’m hearing of the ‘heros.’
Killer was a multiple-times-convicted felon. Why was he on the street? Soft on crime liberal judges? He also doesn’t sound like the poster child for mental health.
Heroes stuck their noses into someone else’s business and got them cut off. That’s a very un-charitable way of putting it, but after all, what’s a little snide exaggeration between commentors?
I suppose you could call the heroes ‘apologists and enablers’, or they could be characterized as simply being chivalrous. Leave the inflammatory reporting out of it and it’s three men who step up to defend two women from an abusive male.
The article linked DOES seem to skate around the issue of whether 1 of the defenders was in the country legally. “Decided to stay” after studying here could be “overstayed a student visa” although he has family here, so who knows. It is a strange way to phrase it though.
The headline could have been written “Crazed knifeman with multiple serious felony arrests, kills 2 busybodies, and injures a third.” point being that I could write that story a dozen different ways to fit the circumstances and the ideology of my audience.
For that matter, it could be “Hero White Warrior kills 2 and wounds a third while standing up against immigrants and blacks” or “Psycho ex-con kills 2 and wounds a third after early release from prison by liberal judges” or “Three busybodies get what’s coming to them after interfering in an argument on a train” or “Only daughter of immigrants threatened and abused on train by knife wielding Nazi sympathizer” or “Black female and muslim friend terrorized by huge white Nazi thug while minding own business” or thousands of other headlines.
ANY time something is newsworthy it’s because of it’s relative RARITY. The news quits reporting stuff that is an everyday occurrence, or that doesn’t match their agenda, like black on white crime, or crimes by illegal aliens.
nick
As far as I can tell from reading the “news” reports, the guy was simply exercising his 1st Amendment free speech rights when he was accosted by a group of three SJW’s. Who knows what really happened. The killer may have been ganged up on, in fear of his life, and simply defended himself. Or he may in fact have gone berserk. But the point is, nowadays no one knows for sure because we have to depend on “news” reports that are of dubious accuracy, to put it politely.
” IF it made sense, certainly China would be the place we would see it in widespread use?”
No. We see the solar panels in widespread use in Germany, for example, because they can afford to buy them, because they are made in China cheap due to big capacities and low wages, and for the latter reason Chinese people can’t afford to buy them (same goes for the many things they manufacture).
And people do buy things that economically might not make sense, but other considerations compensate and provide the motivation for the acquisition.
Agreed. I’m considering putting about 5kW of solar panels on our house and batteries in the basement. Economically it will at best be break-even against the utility costs. Other than economically, it will isolate us from the not-infrequent power outages (usually only a couple seconds, but that’s enough to screw things up), provide insurance against major disruptions, and get me major brownie points with all the hot greenie babes. (OK, that last one was a joke. Even if there were such a thing as a hot ecofreak, what would be the point of impressing her? Seduction? No way — you don’t wanna get stupid all over you.)
@Nick:
Or the title could be:” Man identified likely muslim terrorist teen girl and managed to stab three of her apparent accomplices”.
“I’m considering putting about 5kW of solar panels on our house and batteries in the basement.”
I have 800W of solar panels, but they live in Faraday cages. I won’t pull them out unless and until.
Steve, perhaps only the batteries will be enough for you. Or add solar panels too, but of much small wattage.
Added: perhaps this: https://www.tesla.com/powerwall
I have no idea is that is really affordable or competitive.
Oh, I could do it that way, Eugen, but we have a large roof facing almost directly south. Once I go to the expense of getting the house wiring altered and the initial panel mount on the roof, the incremental cost of adding another panel is small enough that I might as well cover every square foot. 5kW with battery backup won’t quite meet our entire daily electricity budget, but it’ll be close. If the grid went down (for other than an EMP or CME event, to which RBT obliquely refers) we could adjust usage and continue to live our lives. (Aside from needing to shoot a couple dozen mooches who’d demand that we share our electricity for the common good. But I’m already expecting to shoot a couple dozen mooches if there’s a crash, so that’s no change.)
re PowerWall, it has an attractive feature list and an acceptable price, but there have been some consumer complaints and some questions about the lifespan of the batteries.
I’m seriously considering iron-nickel.
Yesterday (Sat) I met up with wife and her cousin in Tejon (about 25 mi south of here where I5 and SR99 split). There’s a Teslas charge station next to where we met. Must be great to have a $80K car and sit for a half an hour ‘refueling’.
A mall nearby has a Tesla charge station. It’s a good idea: the cars will be there a while, so the drivers might as well go into the mall.
“We see the solar panels in widespread use in Germany, for example, because they can afford to buy them,”
No, we see them in germany because of heavy government subsidies. There are many articles pointing to the decline in sales when the subsidies ran out. You can also add social pressure to the mix. The German government might be able to subsidize them with other people’s money, but that situation won’t last forever, and they are blatantly currying favor with constituents at the expense of their long term economic welfare.
In the US solar only makes economic sense with subsidies and tax breaks unless you are in a remote area where wired service is very costly, or in California where electricity costs a lot per kilowatt for mainly political reasons. Which means that the early adopters are taking money from me to satisfy their own emotional needs, and using the power of the government to steal from others who have a different need. If solar makes sense, buy it without robbing me to do so.
nick
Yo.
New York State, home of the not-quite-highest rates in the nation.
Back in the days of Enron and Grayout Davis and all, there were newspaper articles and editorials about the 30% rate increase the Californian ratepayers had suffered and the certainty of another rate increase in the near future and many ordinary people didn’t know how they were going to pay their electric bill. Sounded terrible and I sympathised … until I saw the numbers. Their new, higher, rate was 20% lower than what I was paying and the power company had just announced a rate hike of about 20% starting the next month. Sympathy go bye-bye.
And there was the further information that the reason for the blackouts was not the lack of power. No, there was plenty of power … up in northern California, with all the hydro and such. The blackouts were happening down in the south because there weren’t enough power lines running betwixt the supply and the demand. And the reason for that was … NIMBYs. A 300kV line had been planned. A 300kV line which would have sufficed for the need in the south. A 300kV which was shot down because it would pass through back yards or ancient sacred sophomore mating grounds or something.
(Yes, Enron and some regulators played games with availability and rates, but they wouldn’t have been able to do that without the entirely unnecessary shortage.)
Yep, and PG&E played games with spin offs and delaying maintenance to cook the numbers, and other shenanigans. No sympathy for Cali here, and I lived in SoCal for more than a decade.
n
I don’t plan on messing with either solar or wind alternatives here; for one, wife wouldn’t go for it in a million years: “It looks TERRIBLE!” And if SHTF bad enough, spare parts and suchlike will likely be a problem in a few months or years. Nope, I simply plan on learning to live w/o the juice if SHTF; back to circa 1900, with a few tech contrivances surviving here and there. Maybe we’ll be able to get steam power working again.
Otherwise, a roof over our heads, heat in the winta, three hots and a cot, books to read by candlelight and lanterns, and PLENTY of daily physical tasks and labor. We’ll both be thin as rails in about three months and hard as nails.
When SHTF life will slowly backtrack to a point of TEOTWAWKI, so no matter how well you may think you are prepared if you are not planning for the stone age you might as well take that bullet to the temple now.
As @OFD truthfully and realistically says (with my corrections): “And
ifwhen SHTFbad enough, spare parts and suchlike willlikelybe a problem in a few months or years.”The slide will not be gradual, it will be sudden and drastic. I pity the Amish and other such communities as the ravaging hoards will rape them of their ancient technologies, but the ravaging hoards will not have the skill or the knowledge to use it. More than enough examples of this in history, as I say again: wash, rinse, repeat — learn nothing.
And I am an Optimist 😉
Meh, humanity’ll be alright. The species was down to a couple thousand members some thousand years ago and pulled through that. It’s a pity the Stupid gene wasn’t bred out of the species during the time of hardship, or else that it re-mutated its way back in, but there ya go.
Who was it who said, “The stupid will always be with you, trying to drag the smart ones down to their level.”
Oh, wait. That was me.
When SHTF I predict I will be at least in my mid 70’s. Probably useless for physical labor. Gooberment will keep the food flowing for several years. Don’t want to store a decades worth of food to survive to my 80’s to die a feeble old man. Don’t want a steam engine. Don’t want to farm. If I was in my thirties, things would be different. I store 30 days worth of food for five to get through small scale emergencies.
dkreck wrote:
“Must be great to have a $80K car and sit for a half an hour ‘refueling’.”
Half an hour waiting to reach the plug or half an hour while plugged in?
“I have 800W of solar panels, but they live in Faraday cages. I won’t pull them out unless and until.”
Do you know they’ll work when you need them?
As far as I can tell from reading the “news” reports, the guy was simply exercising his 1st Amendment free speech rights when he was accosted by a group of three SJW’s.
This story would be out of the news cycle if any of the below applied:
Girl wasn’t wearing a hijab
Knife guy was Black
Knife guy wasn’t a neo-Nazi whatever
Dead guys were conservatives
Chicks were conservatives
Knife guy wasn’t a neo-Nazi whatever
He was a neo-Nazi that supported Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. I guess he was into the Socialist part of Nazi and figured the National part would follow ….
@Miles
dkreck wrote:
“Must be great to have a $80K car and sit for a half an hour ‘refueling’.”
Half an hour waiting to reach the plug or half an hour while plugged in?
I wasn’t watching that close but there were empty charge stations and some were there the 30 mins I was across the street. I guess since they’re plugged in they can sit in their a/c and view whatever entertainment they may have. Probably have wifi too.
The weather was absolutely beautiful out there and the mountains spectacular. The warehouses and commercial development not so much. The huge outlet center Tejon Ranch built is on the other side of I5. Seems the charge station might be better over there.
http://www.tejonoutlets.com/