Tues. Jan. 5, 2021 – nuthin’ ta do Abe, nuthin’ ta do…

Nice and sunny, reasonably warm and some breeze.  That is my fervent wish anyway.   Basically I want it to be just like yesterday.

Monday I got a slow start to my week.   Kids were home, wife was home, and my plan was to not be home.   I did my instacart orders from Costco and HEB.   No bulk meat this order.  Prices were a bit high.   I did try to buy a turkey from Costco, but once again they were out when the buyer actually tried to get one.     I was supposed to head out after that, but for ‘reasons’ it took longer than I wanted to to get clear of the house.

Once out and about one of my tasks was to meet with my barber and pick up some things.  He was trying to sell some stuff for me (we split the proceeds) and then wuflu hit, and anyway, it was time for me to get the stuff out of his store.  I’ve been going to him regularly for about 18 years now, and consider him a friend.  He’s pretty well connected in the community as he was born and raised and lived his whole life in the area.  Anyway.  He said almost all of his extended family have caught the covid now.  He had it in April, before re-opening his shop.   He’s lost 5 members of his extended family to it since then.  Many of his family had classic symptoms but no hospital and no tests.  That means they weren’t counted.  Something to keep in mind when complaining about all the extra deaths and cases in the totals,  is that there are a bunch that aren’t being counted either.

Anecdotally and locally, we are being told that our hospitals have plenty of capacity, but patients are being diverted to as far away as San Antonio according to neighborhood red bus drivers.  They also might have to wait in the back much longer than normal before being admitted.

Shifting gears, January 6 is going to be an interesting day in DC.  It should be a great opportunity to collect some intel and see first hand what 2021 might look like.  I think I’d recommend Ol Remus’ advice, Avoid  crowds.  And the venerable, don’t stand next to the guy doing stupid sh!t, or some might spatter on you…   If anyone here does go, or gets a first hand account, if you can write it up and email me, I’ll put it up.


Today both kids are going to start “in person” learning for the Spring semester.   That will give me some more time to get out of the house, but will also mean being back in time to get youngest from the indoctrination center when her daily session is over.  My wife will be seeing they get to their schools in the morning.   Specifically today I’ll be headed back over to my secondary location for more cleaning, scrapping, and throwing out… so I’ll be AFK for most of the afternoon.

We may have a few new readers join us, Commander Zero kindly added our little part of the intarwebs to his blogroll.  Please make them welcome if I’m not around.

Bonus geek points if you know what I’m quoting in the post title…

nick

 

 

 

(ps.  Keep stacking.)

75 Comments and discussion on "Tues. Jan. 5, 2021 – nuthin’ ta do Abe, nuthin’ ta do…"

  1. nick flandrey says:

    Children out the door, breakfast eaten. A brisk 45F and I can see my breath, but it’s clear and bright and should warm up.

    It was interesting to see my neighbors leave for work while I was waiting for the bus with oldest. More of them on our side of the street than I thought, and fewer on the other than I expected. Older folks leaving the house, younger families staying home.

    n

  2. Greg Norton says:

    “More riots are on the way”

    “From Kenosha, Wisconsin:

    It seems that the Governor might have been tipped off to this fact and is bracing for massive riots.”

    Beyond the decision to indict the cop, Georgia will be called for the Dems tonight if the fix is truly in.

    I expect riots nationally either way, win or lose in Georgia, but, again, Raphael Warnock will not sit well with the old school Dems in the state, even in the African American community. His victory will be a question mark unless he comes back and legitimately wins in 2022.

    Ossoff isn’t going to sit well either, *especially among African Americans*, but he’s acceptable to the suburban Atlanta women so only a little fraud in Fulton will be necessary. The Governor also probably has eyes on that seat in 2026 and would have a tough time unseating Purdue in the primary.

  3. brad says:

    I love the one star review… “book not received”.

    If the only negative reviews are stupid stuff, then the book/product/whatever is likely good. I look at the positive reviews as well: the ones with a lot of text and information are unlikely to be purchased. But the negative reviews are generally a lot more informative.

    January 6 is going to be an interesting day in DC

    The man has a talent for understatement.

    Apparently, a minority of Congresscritters are going to oppose the Electors. My civics is too rusty, and I’m too lazy to look up what happens. Is this just grandstanding? Or is there actually a potential impact?

    Brexit

    On this side of the pond, Brexit is fact. We’re now waiting to see what (if any) real impact it has. Personally, I’m expecting not-very-much. Transport to and from the UK has more paperwork attached to it, and there is now apparently a direct ferry from Ireland to France. Otherwise, much ado about nothing.

    Some folks in Scotland are making noises about another referendum, one that would separate them from the UK and allow them to join the EU. The last one only failed because of all the English folk living in southern Scotland, so a second one might well succeed. OTOH, it’s the usual problem: there is no right of secession. And there’s the next problem: Scotland is full of socialist politicians who love to spend other people’s money. England would be rid of a huge money-sink, at the price of a huge loss of pride. Would the EU accept Scotland as a member? Another money sink, but it would be a poke in the eye to the English politicians?

    And finally: If Brexit does work out well for the UK over the next 2-3 years, I fully expect to see other countries following suit. The EU is a grand idea, but has turned into a huge layer of bureaucracy on top of already bureaucratic national governments. Some of those governments have had enough…

  4. Ray Thompson says:

    And this stupidity headline from CNN:

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/05/us/los-angeles-county-california-human-disaster-covid/index.html

    In reality the ambulances are not transporting patients that have cardiac arrest, have not responded to resuscitation efforts for 20 minutes, or are declared dead at the scene. Patient (victim) has to be over the age of 18. Thus the headline “little chance of survival” used by CNN is stupid. When a person is dead, the chance of survival is generally zero.

    But a headline of “Los Angeles County ambulance crews told not to transport patients with little chance of survival” gets much more attention and instills more fear in people. Especially those that don’t read the real story.

  5. nick flandrey says:

    “But a headline of “Los Angeles County ambulance crews told not to transport patients with little chance of survival” gets much more attention and instills more fear in people.”

    Well, yes but it’s more than that. To actually change legal standards of care like that is an important step. They are working their way thru this document, somewhat out of order, that I highlighted WAY BACK WHEN.

    https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2018/02/16/fri-feb-16-2018-pandemic-flu-preparedness/

    A couple of trigger points – when they start isolating senior staff to protect the collective knowledge and experience, and when they put up the fences and security to keep people out. Fort-ing up with staff would be REALLY bad too. Those are signs things are gonna go full mad max.

    So if the trucks start bringing in pallets of Mountain House, and the guns start pointing out, it’s time to bunker up at home for a while.

    n

  6. Greg Norton says:

    But a headline of “Los Angeles County ambulance crews told not to transport patients with little chance of survival” gets much more attention and instills more fear in people. Especially those that don’t read the real story.

    UK completely locked down again, and the media is prepping the masses for another US lockdown sometime after Jan. 20.

    We’re weighing a March trip to FL, but the whole country is going to be down there this Spring if DeSantis doesn’t enforce a state-wide lockdown.

    And, yes, I’ve seen the recent pictures in the Daily Mail from Miami, but that’s Miami. Whatever laws and orders that come out of Tallahassee have always been treated like an interesting suggestion down there, and what is going on in Miami would happen unless the National Guard deployed.

    Nothing really changed in South Florida over the last year.

  7. nick flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9113201/US-sets-record-COVID-hospitalizations-128K.html

    –has the same info and story without feeding the CNN coffers.

    I draw your attention to the number of deaths from/with/by…. whatever. How many would you discount? Half? STILL 150K … 2/3s? STILL 100K.

    Remember the straw man question “If this was that bad, how come all the homeless aren’t dropping like flies?”
    — well … https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9114059/LA-homeless-sites-overwhelmed-coronavirus.html

    Bales said: ‘The unexplainable protection that people who are homeless have had from COVID is disappearing’

    –maybe despite what it looks like from outside, the homeless aren’t as touchy feely as we thought? Or maybe the sick don’t last long on the street and so the existing population is pretty damn tough? I mean, when was the last time YOU hugged a homeless person or got within breathing range? Maybe they weren’t getting it because no one with it was getting close to them?

    In any case, it’s gotten a LOT worse in Cali very quickly. And the problems the ambulance drivers complain about are the same issues people on our local FB groups are complaining about here in Houston.

    I’m going to, and I urge all of you, to take a step back and look at the current situation with open eyes and mind. I was ready to revise my ‘covid posture’ down, and had actually started going out a more, but I think I’ll get ready to get back on my little lifeboat.

    n

  8. Pecancorner says:

    Notes from Brown County & Mills County, in rural Texas:
    A long time ago, I stopped looking at anything except local official numbers, and what I hear from people about their own or their families’ experience with the Chinese Virus. In Brown County, the death rate (ratio of deaths per number of people who have actually tested positive) is 2.6%, or 75 out of 2881 who actually tested positive.

    Mills County was late to the party, and that is where my husband came through it, but their ratio is 12/278 or 4.3% – which makes sense, as most of their outbreak is in the 2 nursing homes. Brown County went through that early on, and then as staff and travelers spread it around the community, the death rate has slowly dropped from 5% to 2.6%.

    On the other hand, the hospitals are not full, and in Mills County most of the sick have been able to remain in isolation in the nursing homes rather than go to the hospital. Today in Brown County, there are 527 active cases, and only 19 of those are hospitalized. The official “prevalence rate” is 7.57%

    Locally, there is no manipulation of numbers, none of the CDC’s inflationary guesswork, no pretense to scare people, so these are pretty trustworthy. If anything, our local authorities and health dept play down the illness, so will tend to err on the side of fewer cases than more. And families are choosing to keep COVID out of the obituaries.

    The real question and issue (I think) is still the method of transmission. Some people get it, and some do not. Some survive it, and 2 or 3 out of every hundred… do not.

  9. Ray Thompson says:

    The real question and issue (I think) is still the method of transmission. Some people get it, and some do not

    A friend of ours experienced the same issue. The wife has COVID, has tested positive three times. The wife has only one symptom, lasted about a day, and that was just a fever. The husband has not tested positive, has no symptoms, is perfectly fine. This in spite of close contact with someone that has tested positive.

    This is not the only pairing that I have personal knowledge. A married couple, one person gets the disease, the other does not.

    Thus I think getting the disease may have something to do with genetics. A certain gene, or combination of genes, makes a person more susceptible to getting the disease.

    The conspiracy portion of my thinking is that China engineered the disease. Engineered to target specific people with specific traits or genetic markers. Perhaps for population control. Perhaps for genetic cleansing. A far stretch for even my way of thinking. There is so much that is unknown about the disease that at this point almost anything is possible. It will be interesting when the smoke and dust settle.

  10. CowboySlim says:

    WRT the KungFlu intensity in LA County, don’t worry about me. I’m 5 miles from there.

  11. nick flandrey says:

    PBR is a known prophylactic…. you’re safe!

    n

  12. drwilliams says:

    I knew a few girls in high school who might disagree

  13. lynn says:

    January 6 is going to be an interesting day in DC

    The man has a talent for understatement.

    Apparently, a minority of Congresscritters are going to oppose the Electors. My civics is too rusty, and I’m too lazy to look up what happens. Is this just grandstanding? Or is there actually a potential impact?

    The Vice President has the power to throw out electors that he / she feels are fraudulent. It has been done twice before, Richard Nixon in 1960 and Thomas Jefferson in 1800.
    https://www.rollcall.com/2020/10/26/we-the-people-what-happens-when-a-state-cant-decide-on-its-electors/

    I think that Pence should throw out the five states that have been manipulated with fake ballots. But I doubt that he will do it.

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  14. Greg Norton says:

    I think that Pence should throw out the five states that have been manipulated with fake ballots. But I doubt that he will do it.

    If one of the GA races keeps the seat Republican, Biden will be declared the winner tomorrow and everyone hunkers down to wait for 2022 with Pence heading to Sanibel for R&R. Congressional fundraising and talk about Dem challengers for Little Marco has already started in Florida.

    Not that Little Marco is going anywhere. The FL Democrat Party is done for a while, and the Republicans completely control redistricting

  15. Chad says:

    WRT the KungFlu intensity in LA County, don’t worry about me. I’m 5 miles from there.

    No worries here. The California nanny state will protect and care for you. If only the rest of us lived in a liberal paradise. 🙂

  16. JimM says:

    I look at the positive reviews as well: the ones with a lot of text and information are unlikely to be purchased.

    When I bother to write reviews, I have always purchased the product and I nearly always include detailed information. I tend to be terse, though, so usually not “a lot of text.” I find reviews that just say “great product!” or “I hated this thing” to be nearly useless. What is really useless and annoying are the people who answer questions with something that amounts to “I don’t know.” What they really don’t know is that they should not answer if they don’t know the answer.

  17. JimM says:

    The EU is a grand idea, but has turned into a huge layer of bureaucracy on top of already bureaucratic national governments.

    It is a grand idea that was taken too far. It allowed the economic enslavement of richer states for the unwarranted benefit of low productivity states. It compromises states’ border control. It should have managed trade relations, common infrastructure, standards, and defense.

  18. lynn says:

    I look at the positive reviews as well: the ones with a lot of text and information are unlikely to be purchased.

    When I bother to write reviews, I have always purchased the product and I nearly always include detailed information. I tend to be terse, though, so usually not “a lot of text.” I find reviews that just say “great product!” or “I hated this thing” to be nearly useless. What is really useless and annoying are the people who answer questions with something that amounts to “I don’t know.” What they really don’t know is that they should not answer if they don’t know the answer.

    I have written 852 reviews on Big River to date, mostly books. My reviewer standing is currently 21,012. I have no idea if the reviews are helpful but I would like to think so.

    I do emphasize two items for a book, the quality of the printing (the dead trees and ink), and the position of the book if it is in a series. Since I started doing this 20 years ago, Amazon has started listing series positions for books also. But, their information is wrong about 10 to 20% of the time. And another 10% of the time, they do not list the series information for a book at all.

  19. lynn says:

    We may have a few new readers join us, Commander Zero kindly added our little part of the intarwebs to his blogroll. Please make them welcome if I’m not around.

    https://commanderzero.com/

    And the blog entry is:
    https://www.commanderzero.com/?p=8176

  20. nick flandrey says:

    One of the problems with amazon reviews is the chinese sellers that all end up with their reviews lumped together.

    Like for baofang radios, 15 different sellers and 20 models and all the reviews are together. Useless.

    Lots of china junk with huge variations between models but all reviews in the same place.

    Look at the cheapest “4k” projector for an example. It’s a scam product, a lightbulb, mirror, and chip in the crappiest possible enclosure. The mirror is often just hotglued to its adjustment rod. All the listings are for essentially the same product, different sellers, slightly different names, but very similar ad copy. Can’t get a review saying it’s a projector the same way Mattel’s EZ Bake oven is a kitchen appliance but that is the truth.

    n

  21. lynn says:

    Anecdotally and locally, we are being told that our hospitals have plenty of capacity, but patients are being diverted to as far away as San Antonio according to neighborhood red bus drivers. They also might have to wait in the back much longer than normal before being admitted.

    Neighborhood red bus drivers ???

  22. nick flandrey says:

    “Neighborhood red bus drivers ???”

    –ambulances – from way back when most of the calls were for ‘frequent flyers’ or deadbeats that just wanted to get to the ER for a drug fix or a place to sleep.

    “This shift I’m just driving the red bus to the ER….”

    n

  23. lynn says:

    “H-E-B owners among richest families in US, according to Forbes”
    https://www.chron.com/business/article/H-E-B-owners-among-richest-families-in-U-S-15844346.php

    “On Dec. 17, the business magazine listed the family at No. 15 out of 50 families in its 2020 ranking of the richest families in America. The last time Forbes complied this ranking was in June 2016. At that time, the Butt family was the 23rd wealthiest family in the U.S.”

    I wonder how they keep the wealth in the family with death taxes. I am guessing good lawyers.

  24. Pecancorner says:

    Thus I think getting the disease may have something to do with genetics. A certain gene, or combination of genes, makes a person more susceptible to getting the disease.

    I agree. That might help explain some of the wide range of effects the disease has, too. My husband is breathing clear, with no cough and no difficulty. Yet, friends say their son, in his 50s & military, in good health, has been trying to get over it since early Dec., and still gets short of breath and has a bad cough.

  25. lynn says:

    The real question and issue (I think) is still the method of transmission. Some people get it, and some do not. Some survive it, and 2 or 3 out of every hundred… do not.

    I agree. If you have whatever the covid is looking for, you are screwed. And whatever it is seems to be very prevalent in Hispanics.

  26. lynn says:

    Thus I think getting the disease may have something to do with genetics. A certain gene, or combination of genes, makes a person more susceptible to getting the disease.

    I agree. That might help explain some of the wide range of effects the disease has, too. My husband is breathing clear, with no cough and no difficulty. Yet, friends say their son, in his 50s & military, in good health, has been trying to get over it since early Dec., and still gets short of breath and has a bad cough.

    If I had the covid back in February, I was over the fever in three days or less. But I had a wet cough for a month. And my sense of smell is still not working very well, seems to come and go. Before I was sick last Feb, my sense of smell was my superpower.

  27. lynn says:

    I think that Pence should throw out the five states that have been manipulated with fake ballots. But I doubt that he will do it.

    If one of the GA races keeps the seat Republican, Biden will be declared the winner tomorrow and everyone hunkers down to wait for 2022 with Pence heading to Sanibel for R&R. Congressional fundraising and talk about Dem challengers for Little Marco has already started in Florida.

    The GA races will be counted through the weekend so they can continue throwing in votes as needed.

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  28. Geoff Powell says:

    We’ve just heard from Jenny. She has tested positive for CV-19, suspected to be the new variant. AFAIK the tests don’t distinguish between variants at this early date. She has been told to report to A&E (Americans, read: ER) for rehydration therapy. This is a trip of some miles, and we can’t help (I’m supposed to be shielding) so she has to try to find a cab service that will accept CV-19 positives. I don’t know whether such a thing exists.

    G.

  29. Greg Norton says:

    The GA races will be counted through the weekend so they can continue throwing in votes as needed.

    The counties were *ordered* to prep the mail-in and early voting ballots by 7 PM tonight whereas in the November election, the Secretary of State issued a *suggestion* to have the mail-in and early voting ballots ready by the time polls closed.

    They’ll know in the Secretary of State’s office by Midnight ET, barring pipes breaking.

    Go spend a long weekend in Midtown Atlanta if you ever want to understand how that *suggestion* went down in Fulton County.

  30. Geoff Powell says:

    We’ve just heard from Jenny

    again.

    The doctor doesn’t think she’s dehydrated, so no A&E visit, but he’s prescribed more pills. So Jenny is still at her flat, and Jane is going out to collect those pills.

    G.

  31. ech says:

    Is this just grandstanding?

    Yes.

    Or is there actually a potential impact?

    No.

    Joe Biden will be President-Elect when the EC votes are tallied.

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  32. ech says:

    The Vice President has the power to throw out electors that he / she feels are fraudulent. It has been done twice before, Richard Nixon in 1960 and Thomas Jefferson in 1800.

    No, he doesn’t have that power. What happened in 1960 is that there were two sets of electoral votes sent in for Hawaii, one for Nixon and one for Kennedy. Nixon, as presiding officer of the count, asked for (and got) unanimous consent from the assembled Congressmembers to count the Kennedy votes.

    No state has sent in two slates of electors this time.

    I think that Pence should throw out the five states that have been manipulated with fake ballots. But I doubt that he will do it.

    There is no evidence that has held up in court of fake ballots. None. It’s over. Biden becomes President-Elect this week. They aren’t shredding ballots in Georgia. Dominion isn’t taking posession/replacing the guts of voting machines in Georgia. There wasn’t a suitcase of ballots produced from under a table (it was a ballot container, not a suitcase). Georgia Sec of State Brad Raffensberger doesn’t have a brother that works for China. (He doesn’t have a brother, in fact.)

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  33. ech says:

    AFAIK the tests don’t distinguish between variants at this early date.

    They don’t.

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  34. ech says:

    The conspiracy portion of my thinking is that China engineered the disease.

    That’s been looked for. Researchers don’t see that in the genome.

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  35. lynn says:

    They’ll know in the Secretary of State’s office by Midnight ET, barring pipes breaking.

    Go spend a long weekend in Midtown Atlanta if you ever want to understand how that *suggestion* went down in Fulton County.

    Nope. I spent a week in Atlanta a couple of decades ago on business. I drove through downtown Atlanta to the meeting location on a Sunday afternoon. I won’t be doing that ever again. I thought downtown Houston was bad, it is nothing compared to downtown Atlanta.

  36. lynn says:

    The Vice President has the power to throw out electors that he / she feels are fraudulent. It has been done twice before, Richard Nixon in 1960 and Thomas Jefferson in 1800.

    No, he doesn’t have that power. What happened in 1960 is that there were two sets of electoral votes sent in for Hawaii, one for Nixon and one for Kennedy. Nixon, as presiding officer of the count, asked for (and got) unanimous consent from the assembled Congressmembers to count the Kennedy votes.

    No state has sent in two slates of electors this time.

    Um no. You are dictating what the President of the Senate, Mike Pence, may and may not do. There is no Constitutional basis for that. “Explaining the Twelfth Amendment for Those in the Media Who Seem to Be Reading Impaired”
    https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2021/01/05/explaining-the-twelfth-amendment-for-those-who-seem-to-be-reading-impaired-n304483

    “The lists of votes were sealed and transmitted from the States to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the attention of the President of the Senate.

    The Amendment directs that he open them and they be counted.

    Beyond that …..

    Stay tuned.”

    The President of the Senate can do what he or she wants to do. There is no dictate in the Constitution on how to count the electoral votes.

    I think I know what Mike Pence will do. But I am not in a position to dictate what he does. No one is, except for, Mike Pence. Not the President, not the Senators, not the Congresscritters. Not SCOTUS.

    Do not forget, come Jan 20, 2021, half of the USA is going to be extremely upset. Mike Pence can decide who that half is if he wants to.

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  37. Greg Norton says:

    Nope. I spent a week in Atlanta a couple of decades ago on business. I drove through downtown Atlanta to the meeting location on a Sunday afternoon. I won’t be doing that ever again. I thought downtown Houston was bad, it is nothing compared to downtown Atlanta.

    Afternoon? The CHUDs come out at night in Midtown.

    I’ve never seen underarm deodorant kept under lock and key at Walgreens.

    Well … except for Axe. Even the homeless don’t want to smell like that.

    At least the Death Star put us in the Georgian Terrace’s failed condo conversion floors which meant I had a kitchen I stocked from the Publix (Florida HEB equivalent) just out the back entrance of the hotel.

    If you watch “Baby Driver”, most of the street scenes were filmed around the AT&T building in Midtown. The peanut butter jar in the main character’s apartment even has a Publix logo.

    And if you haven’t seen “Baby Driver”, find a way to watch it. Best Harrison Ford movie that Harrison Ford never made. Watch the kid carefully and you’ll get it.

  38. paul says:

    I drove through downtown Atlanta to the meeting location on a Sunday afternoon. I won’t be doing that ever again. I thought downtown Houston was bad, it is nothing compared to downtown Atlanta.

    I’ve driven the loop around Atlanta a few times on the way to South Carolina. In no way did I want to get off of that highway. The whole area has a bad vibe. About as bad as I-5 through LA.

    Downtown Houston? I went to visit some folk on the Galveston side, around NASA about 20 years ago. I missed my turn and well, let’s do this. About 4pm. Breezed right through…. nothing like I-35 from the river north to Braker.

  39. ech says:

    Here is the relevant text of the 12th Amendment:

    The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;

    It says shall. Pence has no choice. Shall is an imperative. No discretion.

    This also ignores the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that codifies how the votes are counted and how challenges can be made.

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  40. ITGuy1998 says:

    I thought downtown Houston was bad, it is nothing compared to downtown Atlanta.

    Going to Turner Field was always an adventure. I’m glad they built the new stadium north of Atlanta. Access is still not great, but it’s loads better than being downtown. The trick is staying at a hotel within walking distance so you don’t have to worry about parking on game day.

  41. lynn says:

    Nope. I spent a week in Atlanta a couple of decades ago on business. I drove through downtown Atlanta to the meeting location on a Sunday afternoon. I won’t be doing that ever again. I thought downtown Houston was bad, it is nothing compared to downtown Atlanta.

    Afternoon? The CHUDs come out at night in Midtown.

    The CHUDs were out in downtown Atlanta on Sunday afternoon. It was grim. I thought that our meeting was in downtown Atlanta so I went there first and then discovered that we were 20 miles north of downtown. I went into a drug store in downtown Atlanta to buy a map and it was CHUD central. Everything in the store was caged.

    Wow, I had forgotten that memory. Thanks for bringing it back !

  42. lynn says:

    Here is the relevant text of the 12th Amendment:

    The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;

    It says shall. Pence has no choice. Shall is an imperative. No discretion.

    This also ignores the Electoral Count Act of 1887 that codifies how the votes are counted and how challenges can be made.

    The word ALL is not in that phrase in the Constitution. If Pence carries a trash can in to the combined congress critter meeting, watch out !

    Also, prior Congresses cannot obligate future Congresses except through Amendments to the USA Constitution. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 is not worth the paper that it is printed on.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Count_Act

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  43. SteveF says:

    What I’d like to see is Pence telling everyone they had to remain 75 feet from him as he counted the ballots and then shredding them before they can be audited. Sauce for the goose, bitches.

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  44. lynn says:

    “This is how far Left the Democrats swung in eight years”
    https://gunfreezone.net/this-is-how-far-left-the-democrats-swung-in-eight-years/

    “A new proposal in the House of Representatives could eliminate gendered language from its rules”

    “The House of Representatives on Sunday is set to vote on a series of changes that would eliminate all gendered words like “mother,” “father,” “he,” and “she” from its rules.”

    Wow.

  45. ech says:

    The House of Representatives on Sunday is set to vote on a series of changes that would eliminate all gendered words like “mother,” “father,” “he,” and “she” from its rules.

    Eh, not that big a deal. There are gender-neutral equivalents: parent, they, person, etc.

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  46. ech says:

    The word ALL is not in that phrase in the Constitution.

    It is according to the National Archives:

    the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted

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  47. drwilliams says:

    @ech
    “There wasn’t a suitcase of ballots produced from under a table (it was a ballot container, not a suitcase).”

    There was:
    1) a phony report of a broken pipe that was used as an excuse to shut down vote tabulation for the night
    2) a pause during which the tabulators did nothing (might have been whistling, but there was no audio) as the observers were cleared out
    3) a sudden resumption of activity as Miss Blondie Pigtails gave the all-clear
    4) a huge statistically improbable* shift in the voting percentages after the illegal resumption of counting

    So, yeah, looked like a suitcase, turned out to be a ballot container. BFD. Never did hear how they came to be so conveniently tucked under the tables.

    *yeah, and no one has ever proved that Maxwell’s Demon doesn’t exist

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  48. Alan says:

    The real question and issue (I think) is still the method of transmission. Some people get it, and some do not.

    And now the virus has mutated to become more transmissible:
    https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/01/02/sars-cov-2-is-following-the-evolutionary-rule-book
    And I heard today that there’s at least one case of the new strain in, where else, Georgia.
    Maybe the Chinese hid some malware in the virus.

  49. nick flandrey says:

    And I’m not a lawyer, so I have to just pass along, but there are lots of people who have commented on the court cases. Most if not all were thrown out or dismisses on procedural or other grounds, not because they didn’t find fraud.

    I find it very depressing that people seem to think that VOTING is somehow different from every other endeavor humans engage in. EVERY SINGLE THING humans do, they try to cheat. Voting is so riddled with cheating that there have been memes about it since before there were memes, and yet people will insist that the possibility is preposterous and far fetched. Some thing so important needs to be beyond reproach, and this hasn’t been.

    And yeah, whatever happens will happen and then us mice will be left to deal with the fallout while the elephants pat themselves on the back and take another round of the dance floor.

    n

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  50. lynn says:

    And yeah, whatever happens will happen and then us mice will be left to deal with the fallout while the elephants pat themselves on the back and take another round of the dance floor.

    Looks like the fix is in for Georgia. “Georgia: Dominion voting machines ‘in three of the largest Republican precincts are down’ ”
    https://www.worldtribune.com/georgia-dominion-voting-machines-in-three-of-the-largest-republican-precincts-are-down/

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  51. SteveF says:

    Most if not all were thrown out or dismisses on procedural or other grounds, not because they didn’t find fraud.

    Quoted for truth.

    And it’s “all” so far as I know. So far as I know, not a single claim or request for emergency stay made it as far as examining the (alleged) facts, every one being denied for lack of standing, lack of damages, claimed errors in the paperwork, or other technical grounds which are usually worked around by correcting the paperwork when it’s filed with the court clerk … but which can always be found and used as grounds for refusal if the clerk or the judge doesn’t want the case to come before the judge.

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  52. drwilliams says:

    from Lynn’s link above:

    ” In GA…I would have found a seat until it was repaired and fed the ballot myself,” a voter tweeted.”

    Abso-freaking-lutely.

  53. Alan says:

    (from Sunday…)

    For the rest, it’s partly paranoia, partly prudence, partly curiosity. For the curiosity, I have all my Costco receipts. I can look back years and price check stuff to see if it really is getting pricier or not.

    @nick; pretty sure it doesn’t apply to Costco but do you save other similar receipts that are printed on lesser quality(?) register printers that fade over time? I used to save all my store receipts until I went looking for one several years old (for warranty purposes) and while I found it, parts of it, including the date, were unreadable. Now anything that may be needed for a warranty gets scanned right away.

  54. MrAtoz says:

    It says shall. Pence has no choice. Shall is an imperative. No discretion.

    The Second Amendment also has “shall” in it. That doesn’t stop Dumbocrats from stepping all over it.

    Eh, not that big a deal. There are gender-neutral equivalents: parent, they, person, etc.

    Yes it is. It’s dumb woke nonsense to emasculate the country to appease the few.

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  55. Harold Combs says:

    There is no evidence that has held up in court of fake ballots.

    Not one court has ruled on or even examined the evidence. All were thrown out on technicalities, not on facts. Only a couple of state legislatures have actually examined the factual allegations.

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  56. Harold Combs says:

    Eh, not that big a deal. There are gender-neutral equivalents: parent, they, person, etc.

    Please give me the non gendered word that describes a mother, father, brother, etc. Laws may need to specify a gender. To neuter the glorious English language by PC fiat is reprehensible.

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  57. Ray Thompson says:

    Eh, not that big a deal. There are gender-neutral equivalents: parent, they, person, etc.

    To describe gender neutral congress critters and senators I think cretin, idiot, fool, clod, dimwit, leech, loser could all be used without being specific to gender.

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  58. MrAtoz says:

    No no no. There’s no possibility of fraud tonight.

    There it is right in your face. Blatant violations by Dumbocrats. Why aren’t Redumblicans all over this? Makes you wonder. The spineless SCOTUS will refuse to hear any case that makes it that far. The fix is in for HARRIS. plugs gets to die in office as the “Hero of COVID.”

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  59. Rick Hellewell says:

    There’s no context in that Tweet that I could see with a quick look. When was this taken? Where? At what point in the counting process is shown (or are they just prepping)? No info that this is real time, or in the past.

    Without that info, the picture just serves as another ‘visual conspiracy theory’, where one can make any assumption that you want, and not prove anything.

    I can show you a picture out my back porch when it’s sunny outside, and tell you that the weather outside is just peachy today. But, without any context (date/time/location), it’s not necessarily accurate. (In fact, it was rainy and blustery today here.) The ‘great weather today’ title on that picture is not necessarily based in fact. But it would make a good ‘conspiracy theory’ that the weather here on the Olympic Peninsula is always sunny.

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  60. Alan says:

    To describe gender neutral congress critters and senators I think cretin, idiot, fool, clod, dimwit, leech, loser could all be used without being specific to gender.

    Ray, you’re being much too kind…

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  61. drwilliams says:

    @Rick
    Don’t you recognize the location?
    It’s the same stage that was used in 1969 to fake the moon landing.

  62. nick flandrey says:

    I’m beat. I’m going to try to get to bed early tonight.

    n

  63. lynn says:

    Looks like both of the Republicans lost in Georgia.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/georgia-results

    Democrat House, Democrat Senate, Democrat Presidency.

  64. lynn says:

    The Pennsylvania Senate refused to seat a new Democrat Senator today in a contested and “certified” race.
    https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2021/01/05/pennsylvania-senate-swearing-in-ceremony-chaos-jim-brewster-nicole-ziccarelli/

    It is getting spicy out there.

  65. Rick Hellewell says:

    @lynn …. not from the reports I see. Like this one https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/georgia/senate-runoff-map-loeffler-warnock-20210105/ .

    That site shows a very close race in GA, (within 0.8% in one race, 50/50 in the other) with 95% counted.

    Other media at this time all have a “too close to call” conclusion.

  66. lynn says:

    @lynn …. not from the reports I see. Like this one https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/georgia/senate-runoff-map-loeffler-warnock-20210105/ .

    That site shows a very close race (within 0.8% in one race, 50/50 in the other) with 95% counted.

    Other media at this time all have a “too close to call” conclusion.

    NBC has greater than 98% counted. Warnock (D) 2,205,935 over Kelly Loffler (R) 2,170,803.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/georgia-results

    Perdue (R) 2,189,226 over Ossoff (D) 2,187,338. I figure that the mail-in ballots (over 1 million) will be 70% D and dominate both races. Although, all mail-in ballots were suppose to be counted by this morning but I doubt it.

  67. MrAtoz says:

    How could Mr. Greg be so wrong about Warnock? Reverend DooshNozzle cheated!

  68. Alan says:

    If the only negative reviews are stupid stuff, then the book/product/whatever is likely good. I look at the positive reviews as well: the ones with a lot of text and information are unlikely to be purchased. But the negative reviews are generally a lot more informative.

    Anyone with any experience with FakeSpot? I’ve heard of it but haven’t had the chance to try it out to see if it was useful.

    What is really useless and annoying are the people who answer questions with something that amounts to “I don’t know.”

    This is fairly easy to fix using AI. Why Jeff chooses not to is anybody’s guess.

  69. Alan says:

    Not one court has ruled on or even examined the evidence. All were thrown out on technicalities, not on facts.

    With Rudy at the helm? How could this have happened??

  70. Nick Flandrey says:

    Well, I haven’t made it to bed yet.

    Maybe I’ll go to bed fairly certain of an election outcome and wake to find the opposite…

    Oh, no one, not even Greg knows the title quote? It’s a very common character retort in a game, Oddworld:Munch’s Oddysee I’ve got hundreds of hours in that game, and in its follow on, Stranger’s Revenge. There’s a new version out, and a whole new game coming “Spring 2021″…

    I can always retreat into navel gazing immersive gameplay! All is not lost!

    -as long as the grid stays up anyway

    n

  71. brad says:

    @Lynn: Listing the series position of books is really helpful. Although sometimes unclear – there is the writing order, and there is often a different chronological order. I like reading a series the first time in the order it was written. If I re-read it later, I am likely to read it in chronological order.

    I wonder how they keep the wealth in the family with death taxes.

    Set up some external entity that is run by and for the benefit of family members, and hide all your wealth there. There are all sorts of ways of handling this, as long as you have enough wealth to justify the overheads. The Clintons have two: the Clinton Foundation (that everyone has heard of) and the Clinton Family Foundation (basically zero public information available).

    It’s dumb woke nonsense to emasculate the country to appease the few.

    Awomen. Actually, Awowowowowowowowo…

    No Republican observers are present at Georgia World Congress Center

    (From SteveF’s link)

    And whose fault is that? This is the reason that fraud become possible. Both major parties need to have observers auditing the process, and taking their role seriously. If they don’t, it may not excuse fraud, but they really don’t have a lot of room to complain when it happens…

    Of course, Rick’s comment is also valid: The video doesn’t specify place/date/time, although it is implied.

  72. Ray Thompson says:

    Ray, you’re being much too kind

    I was avoiding using words that I really wanted to say in keeping with keeping the vulgarity on this place to a minimum.

  73. Ray Thompson says:

    I figure that the mail-in ballots (over 1 million) will be 70% D and dominate both races

    I figure that the mail-in ballots (over 1 million) will be 100% D and dominate both races.

    Fixed it for you.

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  74. ech says:

    There was:
    1) a phony report of a broken pipe that was used as an excuse to shut down vote tabulation for the night
    2) a pause during which the tabulators did nothing (might have been whistling, but there was no audio) as the observers were cleared out
    3) a sudden resumption of activity as Miss Blondie Pigtails gave the all-clear
    4) a huge statistically improbable* shift in the voting percentages after the illegal resumption of counting

    There was a broken pipe.

    The video of the ballot containers coming out was not at the same time as the broken pipe.
    Observers were never told to leave. (I heard this from a conservative radio host in Atlanta who interviewed people in the room at the time. The ballot opening staff was sent home.)

    The vote totals didn’t shift at that time.
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/16/fact-check-claim-ga-vote-spike-biden-after-pipe-burst-false/3879081001/

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