Forecast says we’re in a potential rain area. I hope for continued nice weather. Saturday was nice, cool with the wind blowing, a bit humid and certainly warm in the sun, when it came out. It would be nice to have that again today.
I went to my non-prepping hobby meeting and had a great time talking with people. Almost no masks, fwiw. We had a good turnout and we’re planning our annual convention and swapmeet for September or August. We would normally draw attendees from all of Texas, Louisiana and points east, and some of the other states that share a border with Texas too. Given pent up demand, we’re hoping for a big show.
A couple of the guys in this group overlap with the ham lunch group, and they are talking about meeting in person for lunch next week, for the first time in a year. I am really looking forward to that. It was very nice to get out of the house on Wednesdays for lunch. Working from home can be very isolating. And MEATSPACE is important too.
Hit the HEB for some Mother’s Day flowers and some weekly groceries last night. Even considering it was Saturday evening, there were a lot of empty spaces on the shelves. Clearly they are having trouble stocking, still. Just one more thing to factor into your assessment of the state o the state.
And in the wider world, consider the number of analysts that got the unemployment numbers wrong. Not just wrong, but so F’ing wrong you gotta wonder what they were smoking. If something like 78 of 80 of the sharpest analysts were off by 4x or 8x what does that say about any of their analysis?
Look around and make up your own mind, but I’m pretty sure that bad things are coming (and before good things.) Get ready. Stack it high.
nick
And in the wider world, consider the number of analysts that got the unemployment numbers wrong. Not just wrong, but so F’ing wrong you gotta wonder what they were smoking. If something like 78 of 80 of the sharpest analysts were off by 4x or 8x what does that say about any of their analysis?
The new American dream is “Nomadland”. No one wants to work the jobs currently amenable to automation but still done manually for lack of capital because companies chase buybacks in the market right now.
And do you really think most of the jammie-clad white collar workers are truly “working” from home over the last year?
The fix would be cutting off the unemployment benefits and enforcing evictions, endangering the agenda … and the market.
The “failure” of the unemployment predictions justifies continuing the spending, not only by Congress but at the Fed as well. It smells like the same kind of trick the Dems used to get voters to the polls to support returning the “ban” on outdoor camping in the city limits last week.
When we passed by the campers closest to the house last night, they had all relocated *inside* the city limits. Sure, the Legislature will fix it with a *state-wide* ban which the city will support and enforce.
At the risk of political incorrectness, somewhere, Brer Rabbit is laughing.
The smart CEOs have had enough…
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/business/washingtonian-staff-protests.amp.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/04/goldman-sachs-ceo-is-summoning-workers-back-to-the-office-by-june-14.html
The CDC should be hawking this out loud as a good thing:
The CDC Quietly Changed Its Stats Of “Fatalities From Covid Only” To 5% Of Total Deaths…
It’s still a pandemic, but if it is not as deadly as thought, why not shout it out? It is good news.
@Nick
“And in the wider world, consider the number of analysts that got the unemployment numbers wrong. Not just wrong, but so F’ing wrong you gotta wonder what they were smoking. If something like 78 of 80 of the sharpest analysts were off by 4x or 8x what does that say about any of their analysis?”
Three possibilities:
They lied, possible under duress
Their tried-and-true methodologies were upset by something
They are magic practitioners and their chickens were too old, crossroads not at ninety degrees, mirrors cracked, etc.
Be interesting to hear the excuses.
Global warming!
A vast, right-wing conspiracy!
BadOrangeMan!
The Russians hacked the servers!
The smart CEOs have had enough…
They knew 15 years ago, when my primary responsibility at the Death Star was IBM’s VPN client, but, back then, fighting the Work From Home Mommy (And More Than A Few Daddies) Mafia (TM) was tough. Plenty of Made Women and Men in the ranks of that racket, and IBM knew they had been thoroughly infiltrated and corrupted.
My generation ruined Work From Home. *Some* people are more productive, mostly in IT jobs, but most aren’t. If IBM knew, Goldman Sachs and Citibank did as well.
Heck, the jobs estimates were probably done by “WFH” staff. Wild a** guess ahead of a deadline before loading up for a soccer game.
Once again swimming naked with the towel boys telecommuting as well.
Rick, you might want to allow “ul”, “ol”, and “li” tags. The visual editor has widgets for making lists but they come out as just text when the comment is published.
re: NBC TV series “Debris”
This show got brief mention here back in March.
I found the first episode sufficiently interesting that I’ve continued by watching two episodes every other week. There has been some decent writing but overall it has been marginal. The premise is that pieces of an alien spaceship that went all ‘splodee for some reason have rained down upon the earth, and each one of them–from small twisted bits of metal to larger agglomerations of several apparent tons–does something different. Things like dropping people through 13 floors only to impact on the ground floor, teleportation, mind reading, shifting people to an approximation of the Phantom Zone, creation of human clones, resurrecting the dead in several ways, etc. There’s very little back story, and what is could be replaced with “The most powerful sorcerer in history has been killed and his magical chariot blown to smithereens, with each scattered piece containing remnants of powerful spells that are activated randomly by the people who find them. Governments and rival sorcerers are scheming to collect the objects of power.”
Last night I watched a two-part story as episodes 10 and 11. The primary plot device was a two-day time loop, but not a straightforward repetition. The writing and story was much improved. there were also some bits of the backstory, but only bits.
It will be interesting to see if the show remains improved–I’m going to go back and pay attention to the writing credits, and do so going forward. My practice for years has been to ignore new shows until at least the third season. Last time I violated that practice was with Dennis Quaid in Vegas, which went only 21 episodes 2012-13.
For anyone who hasn’t looked at the show, there is virtually nothing in episodes 2-9 that needs to be watched in sequence, so it would be easy to watch 1 for the setup, skip to 10-11 for a better story, then go back and look at 2-9 if your interest is piqued.
I like Debris. We binged “Jupiter’s Legacy” on Netflix. We like it, but it is a so-so super hero show. I like the backstory more, but the final part of it leaves you wondering “uh, that’s it”.
84F with 71%RH at 10:22am, and I have to cook some Mother’s Day Breakfast.
Blessings and Peace be upon the Mothers, for they rarely find any at home. 🙂
n
Hmm, I’m in the doghouse. Slept in too long. Wife made own Mom’s day breakfast.
n
On the plus side, my back feels better and I’m feeling rested.
Excuse your privileged assumptions! You mean “Birthing parent’s day”.
birthing PERSON, as parent is a loaded word!
n
Saw this elsewhere first…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9558235/Man-attached-iPhone-robbery-victims-car-used-location-settings-track-down.html
FEMA has this to say about the pipleline hack….
Musk-rat love wasn’t enough, this is the best summary of SNL I’ve ever read…
–although I’d say it was also a celebration of massive drug use in addition to the rest of that opening sentence.
n
and why does the “cast” hate Musk and fear to be on the same stage with him? Is he anti-woke in some way?
n
For anyone who hasn’t looked at the show, there is virtually nothing in episodes 2-9 that needs to be watched in sequence, so it would be easy to watch 1 for the setup, skip to 10-11 for a better story, then go back and look at 2-9 if your interest is piqued.
I gave up on Debris on episode 5. When they froze all the people on the farm, that was too weird for me.
⁸ and why does the “cast” hate Musk and fear to be on the same stage with him? Is he anti-woke in some way?
The unachieving monkeys are always scared of the achieving monkeys and must tear them down.
click thru for the post with the clickable links.
n
Excuses? Why? We never get any from the weather forecasters.
“Rocket Debris Lands Off Maldives As NASA Blasts China’s “Failing To Meet Responsible Standards””
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/us-military-expects-chinese-rocket-debris-hit-turkmenistan
“update: Early Sunday it’s been confirmed that China’s huge Long March 5B rocket made its out-of-control entry and plunged into the Indian Ocean Saturday night near the Maldives.”
“China’s Manned Space Engineering Office sought to emphasize in an announcement that most of it burned up when it reentered the atmosphere before coming down somewhere west of the Maldives – the nation of archipelagic islands which lies southwest of Sri Lanka and India, some 700 kilometers off the Asian continent.”
“US Space Command also confirmed it had reentered Earth over the Arabian Peninsula. NASA immediately blasted China for failing to “meet responsible standards” of space activity and operations. “Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations,” NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson in a statement published early Sunday.”
Oops.
I hate mother’s day. Thankfully, my wife doesn’t care, so we don’t celebrate it.
It always seemed very forced, but I gritted my teeth, and always sent my mom flowers. One year, she said that, if I couldn’t use more imagination than that, I should just stop.
Being the literal minded type, I took her at her word, and stopped. Big mistake.
But seriously, WTF are you supposed to do, on such a manufactured holiday?
Brad, ya can’t win fer losin’.
“Trouble Magnet: A Pip & Flinx Adventure” by Alan Dean Foster
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/034548505X?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number twelve (in reading order) of a fifteen book space opera with psi series. I reread the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Del Rey in 2007 that I bought new since I cannot find my copy in my packed books. I will continue to read through the series. BTW, the previous book in the series is “Bloodhype” which was published in 1983.
Flinx has his own FTL spaceship, the Teacher, built and given to him by the Ulru-Ujurrians. Flinx is searching for the Tar-Aiym planet full of Krangs that has moved itself across the Galaxy to a new location. On the way to the Blight, he stopped at the planet of Visaria to see if anyone there deserved to be saved from the threat of the galaxy being destroyed.
The reading order of Pip and Flinx:
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/f/alan-dean-foster/pip-and-flinx/
ADF has a website at:
https://www.alandeanfoster.com/
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (107 reviews)
testing
end of test
…and using the Visual Editor to make numbered lists (or unordered list) works just fine.
It just doesn’t work with the ‘edit after submitting’ thing. So that’s been disabled.
RTFS before you hit the “post comment” button. Or type in another comment if you need to add something.
Alan Dean Foster – Disney update
https://www.alandeanfoster.com/version2.0/frameset.htm
“1 May 2021”
“The issue with Disney regarding back royalties has been resolved. Further news relating to this matter to be released shortly to the public.”
I tried doing numbered lists twice in the past using the text tab and it failed both times.
Here’s a first line of text.
Bullet point
Another bullet
And some concluding text. Typed in one pass using the WYSIWYG editor, no edits.
Nope, no bullets. I clicked over into “text” view and saw the [ul] and [li] tags, so they must have been stripped in the vetting or posting process.
(as reported on Instapundit)
I haven’t watch SNL in
yearsdecades, but that’s funny.Another test.
Hit enter twice and got out of the list.
…and the above is in visual mode.
and why does the “cast” hate Musk and fear to be on the same stage with him? Is he anti-woke in some way?
Tesla is anti union to the point that the company bought and razed the NUMMI plant’s UAW union hall in Fremont.
“Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations,” NASA Administrator Sen. Bill Nelson in a statement published early Sunday.
Nelson has been confirmed alread?!?
Tool.
Yep, that’s what I did, the only difference being that I did an unnumbered list.
Trying a numbered list by clicking the 123 widget.
Item the first.
Item the middle and mostly ignored.
Item the last and preciousest.
Hit Enter twice to get out.
Nnnnnope. Perhaps a permissions thing, as you’re an Editor, Admin, or whatever, whereas I’m a lowly Registered User or whatever?
@MrAtoz
“It’s still a pandemic, but if it is not as deadly as thought, why not shout it out? It is good news. ”
Missed your CDC link earlier–too busy bloviating.
As to “why not shout it out”, the answer is that if you aren’t paying attention and just see the huge drop in Wuhan lying noface ChiCom coronavirus deaths, the lower numbers will be attributed to the outstanding leadership of the vegetable in the White House.
And the Pravdas will do everything they can to make that the message.
The CDC should be hawking this out loud as a good thing:
The CDC Quietly Changed Its Stats Of “Fatalities From Covid Only” To 5% Of Total Deaths…
It’s still a pandemic, but if it is not as deadly as thought, why not shout it out? It is good news.
Yet, the CDC Excess Deaths graphs for 2020 is way more than 5% over the average. Not looking at the exact numbers, the graph for 2020 seems to be around 20% more deaths than average.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
We did the traditional Mother’s Day trip to Hays County for BBQ.
About half of the crowd in Buda Cabela’s were maskless.
I think they should rename it to Martyr’s Day. The only people even close to being as big of martyrs as moms is perhaps nurses and teachers.
@Brad
Skip the cards and the flowers. Call. Find something to say. Put the kids on if you have kids.
You may not have much to say. Thanks okay. Ten years after she’s gone you’ll wish with all your heart that you could just tell her once more how much she means to you. She already knew that, always knew that, but still…
Played my first ever game of Catan. Wife has wanted to play since Christmas. Took 2-3hours. Supposed to take one. Maybe next time it will be faster…
Lamb roast is in the oven. Wife voted for lamb over ribeye beef roast. We did have ribeye steaks last night since HEB had prime bone in for $10/lb. Cook some, freeze some.
Still have to call the grandmoms.
Still need to shower for that matter… better do that and dress before dinner.
n
Installed a different ‘rich text editor’ for comments. Disabled the old one.
Here’s a list
Here’s another list
That’s all folks.
The only thing I noticed is the base template used to change a line of ——————————- dashes in a POST to a horizontal rule, and would change two or three dashes into an em dash. I think the em dash still works but the rule changed and left the dashes……
But none of it matters, as long as the posts post. I’ll get used to it.
n
The history of this day is more complicated than just being a ‘Hallmark Holiday’. I’m headed tothe showers, but iirc it was an international movement…
n
@Rick H
Thanks for all your hard work.
“Antifa owns America’s streets”
https://gunfreezone.net/antifa-owns-americas-streets/
“This is not Portland.
This is Plano, Texas.
Texas.”
I don’t believe this for Plano. Plano is a very wealthy suburb of Dallas. Very wealthy. The cops there shoot first and ask questions later.
Anyway, with public behavior like this, the shooting will be starting soon.
So no more editing of comments ?
I don’t believe this for Plano. Plano is a very wealthy suburb of Dallas. Very wealthy. The cops there shoot first and ask questions later.
The last time we were in Plano, it looked like Orange County, CA, thanks to Toyota and AT&T relocating HQ facilities to the area. Lots of West Coast transplants in the last decade.
I don’t believe this for Plano. Plano is a very wealthy suburb of Dallas. Very wealthy. The cops there shoot first and ask questions later.
The last time we were in Plano, it looked like Orange County, CA, thanks to Toyota and AT&T relocating HQ facilities to the area. Lots of West Coast transplants in the last decade.
I have always thought of Plano as Sugar Land north. Plano used to be very conservative. Looks like it has liberalized up just like Sugar Land has.
They changed nothing. The data that is linked to has been available for quite a while. The CDC has ALWAYS labeled the deaths as “deaths with COVID”. Saying anything else is wrong. I’ve been looking at their death data since they started posting it.
As I have said before, a death certificate can have multiple items on it. My mother’s had mild obesity, diabetes, arthritis, cadiovascular disease, and (as cause of death) heart failure. In other words, all the diagnoses on her chart. Many of those that got COVID had other diseases and chronic conditions. COVID is what pushed them over the edge into death. Maybe only a few weeks early, maybe years early.
In any case, quite a few more people died last year than expected based on mortality information.
Not at this time. I changed the editor to something new, and want that to settle down a bit.
The comment editor gets in the way of the rich-text-editor process, I think. So want to see how this rich text editor works before adding new stuff.
Old tech support thing – change only one thing, then test it thoroughly. Best way to do things, I think. (And I get to decide that … 🙂
In the meantime, RTFS before hitting Post Comment….
I wonder if I can still edit them after the fact from the comment page on the dashboard??
n
Yes, yes I can. Which points out that there are many components here all smooshed together to make up the whole, and like siblings, sometimes they fight.
n
Heh.
A bullet point
Eeeeek! Bullets?! I’m triggered!
Eeeeek! Triggers are on guns! #LiterallyShaking
And a numbered list of things I dislike about people:
They’re breathing bad breath in my face.
They breathe in and when they breathe out, stupid words come with the breath.
They’re breathing.
And that’s it for lists, numbered or otherwise.
“Anyway, with public behavior like this, the shooting will be starting soon.”
—you see the antifa with the small black handgun pointed at the big guy in the blue shirt, right?
Since he was rioting, he doesn’t get the protections of the self defense argument. He could maybe claim disparity of force because the blue shirt guy was big, but as the instigator, it would be murder in any reasonable jurisdiction. Blue shirt could probably have shot him, and a bystander could certainly have shot him acting to ‘prevent a felony’ if he believed antifa guy was going to shoot blue shirt guy. ianal but… and the best course of action seems to be stay away.
OR, I’m not recommending this, but purely as a thought experiment, antifa seems to like throwing fireworks at people (cops in particular) so it seems only fair to throw them into a crowd like that, since they enjoy it. Ditto for spraying them with liquids, throwing objects at them, or ‘distracting’ them with lasers. Heck I’m thinking plastic gallon jugs of some liquid thrown to break in the crowd, or maybe some of that stuff the anti whaling people throw at boats? The left has been insisting that isn’t violence or dangerous, for years.
For myself, I’ve got a police siren, 100watts, and the amp to drive it. I think that is going to be mounted in the engine compartment of my expy. I picked up a ‘train’ airhorn at the last auction, and that might have to be installed under my wife’s hood. I don’t think you’d be very comfortable standing next to either.
n
pAntifa claim that they’re not violent.
So, as a thought experiment, what about a big guy, eg myself, picking up a pAntifa and using him/her/zir as a flail to hit other pAntifa? It would by definition be non-violent, wouldn’t it?
I have always thought of Plano as Sugar Land north. Plano used to be very conservative. Looks like it has liberalized up just like Sugar Land has.
Outside of the Death Star, very few people realize how close the company came to being hit with what would have been a long, crippling nationwide strike in 2009. Among the union’s issues which have since been forgotten and swept under the rug was how a shell company in Plano was buying out execs houses in CA and NJ as part of relocation packages to encourage moves to the Dallas metro. Big money was involved.
Legacy PacBell in CA actually did strike three years later, but it was far too little too late.
For myself, I’ve got a police siren, 100watts, and the amp to drive it. I think that is going to be mounted in the engine compartment of my expy. I picked up a ‘train’ airhorn at the last auction, and that might have to be installed under my wife’s hood. I don’t think you’d be very comfortable standing next to either.
My dad did the diesel train horn/compressor combination in the 70s when my mother complained that the horn in her LTD wagon was inadequate. Driving that required a *lot* of current, and the LTD had plenty of working room even with the V8.
For myself, I’ve got a police siren, 100watts, and the amp to drive it. I think that is going to be mounted in the engine compartment of my expy. I picked up a ‘train’ airhorn at the last auction, and that might have to be installed under my wife’s hood. I don’t think you’d be very comfortable standing next to either.
My dad did the diesel train horn/compressor combination in the 70s when my mother complained that the horn in her LTD wagon was inadequate. Driving that required a *lot* of current, and the LTD had plenty of working room even with the V8.
You are going to need at least a 2 gallon pressure tank, maybe a 5 gallon. There are several videos of guys putting train horns on motorcycles with a two shot tank then five minutes for the compressor to recover.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTRYm_peqGA
“Miniature root vegetables and dandelion leaves ‘to replace potatoes and lettuce because of climate change’”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/05/09/miniature-root-vegetables-and-dandelion-leaves-to-replace-potatoes-and-lettuce-because-of-climate-change/
“Potatoes and lettuce will have to be replaced in the UK by small, mustardy root vegetables and dandelion leaves as a warming climate means we cannot rely on traditional crops, Kew Gardens has said.”
“Horticulturalists and scientists at the gardens are working to see which food plants can be grown to resist increasing pests and diseases, sunnier summers and warmer, wetter winters.”
Are you freaking kidding me ? My great grandparents lived on potatoes in north and south Texas for 12 months of the year. And the UK will never be as hot as Texas.
I had both in one of my cars years ago, albeit the air horn was ‘only’ from an 18 wheeler. In terms of getting immediate attention the air horn won hands down. As for the 100 watt siren, at least in NYC all too good often it was just another bit of street noise that got ignored. If you wanted attention from a siren, the item of choice back in the day was the Federal Signal Model 28. Used back then by the FDNY until it was ruled in violation of NYC noise regulations. I had one briefly but with the other gear plus a Motorola two-way radio, a second battery and a HD alternator I ran out of space under the hood. Btw, I was using a vacuum driven air compressor to fill the air horn air tank.
I had a four gallon tank. Sufficient unless dealing with a more stubborn @ss orifice.
There won’t be any need for diversity coordinators on the moon.
The hard left seems to believe that everything needs to be perfect on Earth before we go elsewhere.
Also, the ecology of all these dead planets and moons must be kept intact. For reasons.
He’s a threat to their mindset.
and that’s enough to scare them to the point they won’t be on the same stage with him? WTF is wrong with people and how do they cope with everyday life?
n
@ech
“They changed nothing. ”
It appears that they did, but it’s evolution of the data rather than revision.
The link in the quote above has this statement:
The webpage referenced by the link provided has apparently been updated from 6% to 5%–the link to the CDC data brings up the most recent data, not the data being referred to when the article was written on August 9, 2020. Presumably when the data is fetched from the web archives it will show that on August 9, 2020 the figure was indeed 6%.
The two data sets–as of August 9 2020 and as of May 2 2021–are certainly not the same. Without looking at week by week changes and absent a definitive claim, we don’t know when 6% became 5%.
It would seem that the data would support more than one significant digit. Since it’s being reported as one and it’s not immediately obvious (YMMV) where to pluck out the data to make the calculation, it doesn’t seem worth fussing over.
There’s also the issue that the average number of comorbidities (referring to the deaths with comorbidities) reported in that CDC paragraph has changed during that time period from 2 to 4. Again, not confirmed until we look at the archived older data. In that case I would expect that there is an interim period where the number was 3.
@Lynn
There’s a name for people that try to mess with my taters…
and that’s enough to scare them to the point they won’t be on the same stage with him? WTF is wrong with people and how do they cope with everyday life?
Everyone working on the SNL set belongs to a union. Closed shop state.
Note that the story posted to Zero Hedge under the Tyler Durden cowardice pseudonym.
The “controversy” got SNL big ratings.
As usual, I slept through “Buck Rogers”. The second season with “Hawk” just isn’t my thing.
Can we start with below average IQ? Oblivious to many of life’s challenges…
“America Hating Communist and Notorious Georgia Sore Loser Stacey Abrams: Absolutely My Ambition To Run for President”
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/05/09/stacey-abrams-absolutely-my-ambition-is-to-run-for-president/
Where are all of these communists coming from ? More importantly, how do we get rid of them ?
Hard at it the last few days. All I’ve got to say about the garage is that a mouse infestation did us a favor. It is easier, if grosser, to purge relentlessly when many items are contaminated by mouse feces and urine.
Need a shower. Maybe multiple -vomit face-
Ahh, bombast!!! Indignation!!! The end of civilization!!! (Yes, I jest.) It is indeed possible that the RCMP and other police forces have kept, off the books, a copy of the long-gun registry. IIRC, many of the police chiefs were lukewarm or uncaring about keeping the registry.
So? They really shouldn’t have, but it is actually of little use, and becomes of less use very year.
Most of us who didn’t care for the registry (and I am an urban, non-gun owner) thought the entire concept to be an over-reaction to one mass-murder event in Quebec. It is difficult to purchase a long-gun legally in Canada and there are hoops to jump through. Many (including me) have considered the long-gun registry silly because what you have is a list of the law abiding citizens. That means if the police check the registry before they visit, and find your name on the registry, it is probably pretty safe to just walk up to the door and knock. Hey, it’s Canada. Since you needed to have a license to purchase a long-gun, the police already had a pretty good idea that you might own a long-gun, just no idea how many. The registry got cancelled because the hunters and farmers (and other rural residents, the primary owners of long-guns) thought the regulations, including very strict regulations on gun storage, were over the top, and there was (I believe) rules that allowed for inspection on demand (no warrant required to enter your residence). Then there was the cost of over a billion dollars a year for administration to no real benefit.
To be clear, due to the difficulty of legally acquiring a handgun in Canada, and the licensing per-weapon for handguns, there has always been a hand-gun registry. Our big problem is with criminals: unlicensed gun owners and in particular illegal possession of hand-guns, sometimes stolen but mostly smuggled-in from the USA. The stolen guns always end up used by gangs. It is an extremely rare event to have a licensed hand-gun owner involved in gun violence here. Of course, stopping smuggling is hard work, so the politicians and the very-concerned citizens place more rules on the law-abiding gun owners, which is pointless, but that’s politics sometimes. That said, I have no interest in Canada moving towards something more like the US Second Amendment as regards guns. What we do works for us. I (and most Canadians) are happy to go unarmed. Don’t fear for us come the zombie apocalypse: Hockey sticks and curling brooms are not licensed or restricted.
Is it Mothers’ Day, or Mother’s Day?
I say it’s the former, because it’s *their* day, yet I could be wrong.
@TV, the problem with registries, and especially illegally maintained when officially told to destroy them registries, is that so far in human history they have always led to confiscation. There are places where it hasn’t gotten that far YET, like Canada, but historically, it’s only a matter of time.
And, as you point out, it’s not LEGAL gun owners that are EVER the problem so it’s all just demonization and showboating.
It was always fascinating to me to read all the Canadian press coverage of biker gangs and the Hell’s Angels in particular. They almost never show up in the US media. It’s like all the crime in Canada is because of bikers…
n
“Videos: Here’s Why Plano Police Did Nothing After BLM Mob Pulled Gun On Angry Texas Driver”
https://www.rightjournalism.com/videos-heres-why-plano-police-did-nothing-after-blm-mob-pulled-gun-on-angry-texas-driver/
It looks like the police chief in Plano is BLM. Freaking amazing.
The citizens of Plano need to swarm the city council meeting and get the police chief fired.
I’ve messed with horns, as have a few friends. Although most air horns are loud, so are some electric horns, and they are very easy to install. These appear to have been either forgotten or undiscovered by the younger generatons. To be fair, these are usually from the 1940s and earlier, and are 6V. When I was a kid in the 50s, an elderly neighbor was the coolest guy on the block. He was a Ham, a hi-fi builder, and retired Pontiac Motors radio tech. He had a beautiful ’57 Oldsmobile Super 88 with three two barrels that was the envy of many of our dads, and he was known to “exercise” it.
He had a pair of very loud horns on it. He showed me how he had adjusted the contacts screw to make ’em as loud as possible, although he admitted that 12V on 6V horns helped a lot. They were very melodious, not raspy. I have looked for horns like he had, but only found one pair, which had one not working.
Then, I found that some regular horns from the 50s through the 70s can be adjusted to make them pretty loud. Spartons, which were used on some Chrysler cars, and probably many other makes, seemed to be the most responsive to this treatment. They normally sound great but get really raspy when cranked up. That makes them seem even louder. The more common unmarked (probably Chrysler manufactured) horns made into the late 70s also responded well. The ones that came on my 77 Dodge D100 were good.
So, turn that screw and see what happens. You might be surprised. If you do this, don’t blow the hotns too long. The ones I have measured draw about double their normal current. That is a lot of heat in a small coil of wire. Have fun!
What we do works for us. I (and most Canadians) are happy to go unarmed. Don’t fear for us come the zombie apocalypse: Hockey sticks and curling brooms are not licensed or restricted.
Well, if the zombie apocalypse happens in the winter then you guys will be ok. The zombies go around naked according to John Ringo’s documentary so they will freeze fairly quickly.
https://www.amazon.com/Under-Graveyard-Black-Tide-Rising/dp/147673660X/?tag=ttgnet-20
We used to play Catan, when the kids were at home. As I recall, it takes a couple of games to get into the rules, but definitely enjoyable.
Now, when they visit, we tend to play a card game: Dalmuti or Tichu. Both are fun. Dalmuti, because you’re always getting up and moving around, and it leads to a lot of insults (king to peasant, or vice versa). Tichu is a seemingly simple game, but leads to some surprisingly complex tactics. Son and girlfriend regularly stomp us oldies.
Third round of the International Math and Logic Games was this weekend. This was the country-level finals. This year, I failed to qualify, but younger son did. I solved the problems anyway – if you’re into that kind of thing, it’s a lot of fun.
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Life’s minor frustrations: Our house has three floors (all small, by US standards). I have a robot vacuum cleaner on each level. All of them have worked well in the past, and all three of them are now confused. Three different models, three different problems – but of course they all have to freak out at the same time…
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I still read a lot of US news and blogs, and I’m seeing an…interesting…debate emerge. It appears that lots of companies cannot fill their open job positions, specifically, the ones that pay poorly. So: fast food places, menial labor, etc..
Living off of extended unemployment, or perhaps welfare, is good enough for a lot of people who used to work those low-end jobs. If you get nearly the same money, and don’t have to bust your butt working for jerks, why not?
Probably, society cannot afford to continue paying people to just exist, when they are perfectly capable of working. Of course, if you stop paying them, what will the result be? Probably unpleasant…
On the other hand: Lots of those jobs pay wages that no one can live on, except maybe in outer Elbonia. Inflation has been buried by government stats for a long time, but it has compounded nicely over the past 3-4 decades.
So jobs need to pay more. Low-level, full-time work – here, anyway, you won’t get anyone under about $20/hour. That’s probably about right for most cities in the US as well.
According to Grammar Monster, which next to Warriner’s and olde Fowler, is excruciatingly exact, the *legal* appellation is
Mother’s Day
Yet as a persnickety curmudgeon I’m going to blithely carry on with Mothers’ Day.
So there.
Aaaand yet another difference between UK and US. You, and most of the rest of the world, celebrate Mother’s Day on the 2nd Sunday in May. We Brits (and the Republic of Ireland, and I think, the former Commonwealth) have to be different, our Mother’s Day, also known as Mothering Sunday, is the 4th Sunday in Lent, so it’s Easter-related, and this year was celebrated on March 14.
As to whether it’s spelt as a singular or plural, I tend to think that, at least in it’s modern incarnation, that one is honouring one’s mother. Historically, it has been a day to visit one’s mother church (where one was baptised, or at least the cathedral at the centre of one’s baptismal diocese. If I were a believer, that would entail a 200-odd mile drive, each way.
@Rick:
Your latest “Rich Edit Add-in” has an American English spell-checker. It spotted 4 errors, the finding which I will leave as an exercise for the reader.
G.
—- GEOFF,I’ve used my SUPER SECRET SUPER POWERS to mark the ones I think it got or SHOULD have caught. —– NICK
Make that 5 spelling errors, one of which iss an error everywhere.
G.
Hah, I bolded the errors in Geoff’s comment!
His behaviour when attending the theatre in the town centre is quite off-colour!
n