Cool and damp again. Overcast? Maybe. Was overcast and threatening all day Wednesday. It was 45F when I went to bed, but not bad during the day. Jacket weather for sure. It’s cold enough that my fingers are cracking again.
Did my pickup, mostly stuff for my non-prepping hobby. Did my drop off and then went to meet the auctioneer where she was going through a house to get ready for an auction. I was able to help her
ID some stuff. And turned down her job offer for the week… My other auctioneer wanted to hire me too, but I’d go nuts in his shop and I doubt he could afford me. I’m always better off either looking after my client, or listing, or working on my house.
Today is household stuff in the AM, then client’s house if the weather is ok for outdoor work. Other than networking, and the next round of gear replacement, I’ve only got a few items left to complete. I can leave the net stuff as is for the time being, and we’ll straighten it out when the fiber gets installed. The new speakers should be installed though.
The other thing I did yesterday was spending some time talking to the manager at the storage company. She’s going to review the video, and if she gets anything usable, then I’ll call my constable’s deputy buddy and see if they want to investigate. I’d think that going after an organized group would be an easier sell than going after individual crooks. The Constable formed his investigative group specifically to go after the stuff HPD wouldn’t touch. It’s another data point that everyone agrees that HPD won’t do anything. They are stretched at the moment, and have been for years.
The manager is an interesting character. She spent 20 years working in city politics then walked away about the time I moved to Houston. She’s got some interesting stories and an interesting perspective. Black, single mom, three successful grown kids. Meatspace baby. Get out and TALK to people.
And stack some stuff, because that pantry ain’t gonna fill itself.
nick
Sorry to hear about your travails with the storage space, Nick. I hope your Constable can get the criminals.
Blue sky, sunshine, snow on the ground and temperature right around freezing. Lovely day, and I'm going hunting in the afternoon. Hurray. Just have two more hours of writing documents to survive until I can knock off to get out my cool weather clothes and a rifle.
40F and saturated this am. D1 is slow to rise. So is her mother, so maybe she can ride with her and D2 instead of the bus..
n
I have to say, I have long since lost sympathy for criminals. Yes, to me, my property probably *is* worth more than their life. If they live by crime, their life is worth approximately nothing.
Semi-related: I subscribe to a couple of English-language social media groups about Switzerland. There are always people "I dream of living their, how can I immigrate". Most recent along these lines was a person who has been travelling on tourist visas his/her whole life. They can't return to the US for unstated reasons, so presumably outstanding warrants. They have never held a job, and state outright that they will not do so. They have spent their life wandering from country to country, scraping by with begging. Only now they are getting on in years, have some health problems, and want some country to gift them with residency, so they can get welfare and free health care.
Oh, to top it off: even after all these years, they still only speak English. So whatever country generously takes them in must have a lot of English speakers, or they won't consider it.
Can you hear the sound of the tiny violins playing?
Only a very wealthy expanding economy can afford the non-productive like that.
n
HPD pension obligations contribute to the insolvency status of the City of Houston. My guess is that payouts and benefits haven’t declined with the service.
We have those here in TN. I call them welfare leaches. Mainly concentrated in the projects. Mothers with 8 kids, the maximum for which welfare will pay, by 48 different fathers. Free housing, free food, free medical, free transportation, free cable, free cell phone. (Free, as in they don’t pay, taxpayers pay). While sporting gold teeth, expensive nails, expensive hair extensions, and fancy clothes. And a fist full of lottery tickets. While pushing a stolen grocery cart full of beer and alcohol back to their home.
Then complain the system unfair and deserve more. Having never worked more than 27 hours the entire year.
Tyler Durden cowardice protecting the source of some bad news.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/tesla-removes-2022-production-date-cybertruck-its-website
WRT catalytic converters being stolen, only those in my neighborhood who have had them stolen are the hoarders that park their vehicles outside. . I haven't started hoarding yet, so we put both cars in our garage for the night.
I can keep all 4 of our vehicles in the garage if I need to. In reality, only 3 do on a regular basis. The 4th bay is my work garage, and the 4th vehicle is my son's truck. He's fine parking outdoors – builds character!
We haven’t had any reports for converters being stolen in our area, but it’s been on my mind. His truck would definitely be an easier target.
“As of last year, student loans accounted for 36.8% of all Federal government assets.”
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/01/13/progressives-warn-biden-to-forgive-student-loans-or-else-n441266
I have yet to see a legal theory that would give the president power to give away 36.8% of government assets to a group overwhelmingly composed of his brain-dead Democrat constituency.
But maybe we could make a deal and let people cancel their debt if they sign a contract:
1) Giving up any claim to government benefits in the future, including Social Security (yup, they still pay in).
2) Giving up the right to vote in federal elections.
I’m sure there’s a3,4,and 5, but that’s a start.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10396809/Microsoft-introduces-new-woke-feature-Word-tries-suggest-PC-alternatives.html
Yet another reason why I stay on 2013. Obtained cheap through the employer buy option.
Probably does everything you need, and then some. If you need I have a static activation key that will not phone home and can be activated as many times as you desire.
@itguy1998:
I'm still using 2007, courtesy a free student 3-install licence I got from d2, when she was at University. It was the latest and greatest (sic) then, and it does way more than I need – in fact Office 2000 does more than I need.
G.
plugs is rambling about "one billion" COVID tests and the test factory in Germany(?) This is crazy. It's a waste of tax dollars. The Feds are taking in record tax dollars and blowing it on useless stuff. I've taken one COVID test at the beginning when our intern tested positive. One of our friends in SA has taken a dozen and is triple jabbed. Under 65, they talked their doctor into a third jab before it was even recommended. People are crazy.
Is the overall death rate 2019-2021 that much out of the norm?
I'm slowly removing MS Office from my Apple devices. I'll use Apples simple stuff that comes with their hardware. Keynote opens PowerPoint just fine. Numbers opens most Excel sheets. Macros don't work in general, but if there are that many, it's probably a sheet I don't need. As soon as I'm done, I'm cancelling my subscription. I can always torrent in an emergency.
The Federal student loan program was nationalized to fund Obamacare and allow the bill to pass as "revenue neutral" under reconciliation. Forgiveness would require a bill in Congress since new debt would have to be issued to buy up the student loan paper.
Forgiveness isn’t happening with this political cycle or, most likely, the next Congress. The Progs would need a sweep in a Presidential election year similar to 2008 in either 2024 or 2028, and that would require a new “chose one” figure at the top of the ticket.
Ack. A new "chosen one" figure at the top of the ticket.
This, of course, is not new…
Breaking…
Vaxx mandate blocked by SCOTUS for businesses, upheld for health care workers…
Still don't see how " upheld for health care workers" is Constitutional. Can't wait to see the reasoning and who voted for.
That was predicted by many. The affected healthcare workers are at facilities accepting Medicare dollars IIRC.
Did my pickup, mostly stuff for my non-prepping hobby. Did my drop off and then went to meet the auctioneer where she was going through a house to get ready for an auction. I was able to help her
ID some stuff. And turned down her job offer for the week… My other auctioneer wanted to hire me too, but I’d go nuts in his shop and I doubt he could afford me. I’m always better off either looking after my client, or listing, or working on my house.
Hey, you are being a blessing to your girls in a tough time of their lives. Junior High / Middle school is incredibly tough on girls as they start pecking on each other. It is great that Dad is home when they get out of school. Don't ever discount that.
And if one of them has tells you that she hates you, oh well, let it slough off. My daughter told my wife that all the time in middle school. In fact, it may become a regular occurrence.
Pearls Before Swine: Pronouncing the L in Could
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/01/13
Yup, nobody pronounces the L in Could.
Hermione Granger, The "Roe" Seat, and The Wise Latina were in the minority on the OSHA mandate. Again no big surprise.
Roberts and Kavanagh joined the liberals in voting for the mandates at facilities accepting Medicare and Medicaid money.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/supreme-court-blocks-bidens-osha-vaxx-mandate
"Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park Is a Terrible Masterpiece" by Sean Guynes
https://www.tor.com/2022/01/11/michael-crichtons-jurassic-park-is-a-terrible-masterpiece/
"In the three years between its release and its film adaptation, a novel about paleontology, theme park logistics, and the ethics of genetics science in the hands of private corporations sold around nine million copies. Jurassic Park (1990) was a banger. A novel by the late twentieth century’s preeminent airport thriller writer, Michael Crichton, it transcended even his usual wide readership—bored businessmen and others craving some semblance of intelligent-but-not-square “high octane” plotting—and spawned a franchise worth billions. Yet Jurassic Park’s success has always been predicated less on the novel’s actual content and concerns—Can and should we clone dinosaurs? If we do, are they really dinosaurs? What happens when we try to put them in a theme park?—and more on the bare fact that it has dinosaurs. Who doesn’t love dinosaurs?"
Great book and a even better movie even though the velociraptors scared the you know what out of me.
👍🏼👍🏼
Unfortunately, many of the ones stolen around here were stolen when people were out and about and parked at work or play. Dealer overflow lots used to be targeted a lot, but since most dealers don't have crap for inventory anymore that's less of a problem. Rural dealerships parking excess pick-up trucks in adjacent undeveloped fields would go to move them onto the lot and discover some of the cats were missing and not know if it happened the previous night or a month ago. Heck, it was probably their own employees taking them. lol
Maybe the Court upheld 'this' vaccine mandate for healthcare workers to keep them having to take the annual flu shot. Lots of folks really dislike being forced to get that one, and I doubt SCOTUS wanted to open a door for ways to avoid that or any other 'traditional' vaccine.
Specially since more mandates are in the pipeline, with WHO/UN's 2030 Immunization agenda list of " 500 national or subnational introductions of new or under-utilized vaccines " they want 90% of humans to have to "build back better".
Universal parks have very effective "raptor encounter" experiences. The animatronic in Florida is better, but the raptors in Hollywood are mobile.
The core scare effect is a subwoofer embedded in the neck.
My wife won’t go back in the encounter area in Florida.
Not everyone can have a flu shot due to allergy issues so the worker usually has a choice of a jab or a mask when seeing patients during flu season.
I just put $70.00, 25.6 gallons, $2.73/galllon, of regular unleaded gasoline in my truck. I have a 36 gallon tank. We had a visiting preacher at our church a couple of weeks ago from Los Angeles. He told us that the gasoline by his house is $5.10/gallon. That is freaking crazy.
@lynn:
Join the "crazy club". This is something we in UK have had for years, except we pay by the litre. And I know why – HMG puts fuel duty and tax (but I repeat myself) on petrol, to the tune of at least quadrupling the price. And even more on diesel.
G.
I saw $4.99 9/10 in Vantucky at the peak in … 2013 (?). No one seemed to want to cross that $5.00 number at the time.
>> The other thing I did yesterday was spending some time talking to the manager at the storage company.
Get ahold of an empty iPhone box, weight it accordingly, include a GPS tracker, seal the box and leave it prominently placed in front of your storage unit. Wait for it to move.
>> Oh, to top it off: even after all these years, they still only speak English. So whatever country generously takes them in must have a lot of English speakers, or they won't consider it.
I guess that leaves out North Korea, especially attractive for having had zero Covid cases.
I am reading "The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047" right now. It is the story of four generations of the Mandible family from 2029 to 2047. I am halfway through, I read until 430 am last night. The author does not miss a trick. A third generation single mom is feeding her family boiled cabbage which was $20 in 2028 but is $37 in 2029 after the USA repudiates the $40 trillion federal debt. It turns out the federal debt is 90% held by USA citizens and banks, both of which immediately enter hard times. The federal government has soldiers going door to door seizing all gold including wedding rings and other jewelry. Etc, etc, etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Mandibles-Family-2029-2047-Lionel-Shriver-ebook/dp/B01824RDKK//p?tag=ttgnet-20
>> https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/01/13/progressives-warn-biden-to-forgive-student-loans-or-else-n441266
"or else" just go back a bit and see how their threats to hold up the bipartisan infrastructure bill worked out for them. They folded to Nervous Nancy like a cheap umbrella.
@alan:
They claim. Given that DPRK is notoriously secretive, can you trust what they say?
G.
>>plugs is rambling about "one billion" COVID tests
The goobermint website to order one of these tests goes live next week.
Under/over number for how long it takes to crash?
For 2020, it sure was: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1137
>> Hey, you are being a blessing to your girls in a tough time of their lives. Junior High / Middle school is incredibly tough on girls as they start pecking on each other. It is great that Dad is home when they get out of school. Don't ever discount that.
+1… that and keep them off of social media until they turn 18.
During the gas price spikes around fifteen years ago, after Hurricane Katrina or a big oil spill or a refinery fire or something, Congress hauled oil executives in to justify their pricing and convince Congress not to clobber them for gouging consumers. Someone put up a chart showing the what went into the $4.50/gallon price: extraction cost, payment to land owner, shipment, refining, transportation, gas station profit. And tax. Lots and lots of taxes. Taken together, taxes were the largest portion of the price the consumer paid, much larger than the combined profits of the corporations who got the fuel from the ground to the automobile.
Unsurprisingly, this did not put a stop to politicians accusing the oil companies of making obscene profits.
Bleh. I tried reading it. Couldn't get past 20 pages or so. I may have approved of what Shriver had to say, but I'll never know because of the way she said it.
You can do that if you want, but I think that if you're going to do it, do it right.
Chuckie and Stretch are trying a Hail Mary on voting rights/filibuster with some wacky "shell bill" where they amend a bill on NASA to include voting rights. I can't believe these people get paid with our tax money. Why don't they just declare Redumblicans illegitimate and pass anything they want. plugs can sign it. OSHA can enforce it. Geez.
DPRK reported the Tubby got 12 holes in one when he was playing golf. I don’t doubt that Tubby thinks that as one of his slaves probably moved the ball before Tubby got to the green. The other six slaves were executed.
About an hour if that.
Resale gold. Our society has a serious problem.
Well, seeing as how our Fair and Honest (for real conspiracy freak, because we say so) seems to lie about every thing….
What can I say? They ALL lie. 24/7/365.
"For 2020, it sure was: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1137"
Excess deaths associated with covid-19 pandemic in 2020: age and sex disaggregated time series analysis in 29 high income countries
“The graphs below show the total number of excess deaths and the age standardised rate per 100 000 population, as calculated using the model by Islam and co-authors.”
And the U.S. is number 6. Nice model. Same one they use to prove global warming?
@paul:
At least, when their lips are moving. Otherwise, I agree. Even though I don’t major in cynicism
G.
Bleh. I tried reading it. Couldn't get past 20 pages or so. I may have approved of what Shriver had to say, but I'll never know because of the way she said it.
Ditto.
@Nick
I acquired a nice piece of high-end audio equipment, which, unfortunately, seems to have a short that trips a thermal overload. A friend recommended adding a pound of magnesium turnings to dissipate the heat. I think he was joking, but I'm not sure. I put it in my storage unit until I have time to figure it out.
>>plugs is rambling about "one billion" COVID tests
The goobermint website to order one of these tests goes live next week.
Under/over number for how long it takes to crash?
I give the new website about two seconds before it crashes.
An up to date engineer would put the goobermint website on AWS. Instead, some white house flunky will put it on Hillary's server in her downstairs bathroom.
Bleh. I tried reading it. Couldn't get past 20 pages or so. I may have approved of what Shriver had to say, but I'll never know because of the way she said it.
I am going to stick it out. In fact, after Space Opera, dystopic apocalyptic fiction is my favorite genre.
In fact, the book is pushing me to do something. My wife is inheriting quite a bit of money from her father. We decided today to take most of that money and pay off about half of the mortgage on our large commercial property. We are in our middle 60s and would like to get out of debt before we are in our 70s.
>> You can do that if you want, but I think that if you're going to do it, do it right.
I thought about the whole 'glitter bomb' approach, but that might get the package tossed out the window, ending the tracking.
Bleh. I tried reading it. Couldn't get past 20 pages or so. I may have approved of what Shriver had to say, but I'll never know because of the way she said it.
I am going to stick it out. In fact, after Space Opera, dystopic apocalyptic fiction is my favorite genre.
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Lynn!
They'll use AWS, running layers of interpreted code built from layers of libraries no one understands completely inside a hierarchy of "containers", essentially lightweight virtual machines. That's the problem.
>> Chuckie and Stretch are trying a Hail Mary on voting rights/filibuster with some wacky "shell bill" where they amend a bill on NASA to include voting rights. I can't believe these people get paid with our tax money. Why don't they just declare Redumblicans illegitimate and pass anything they want. plugs can sign it. OSHA can enforce it. Geez.
The 'shell bill' only gets them to the 50 yard line – the Dembos can force a floor debate with this trickery but unless/until they change the filibuster rule they can't get in the end-zone without 60 votes. And so far Manchin and Sinema are standing firm to any and all arm twisting, prime steaks and brown envelopes regarding the filibuster. Not to mention Uncle Joe's numerous prior objections to any filibuster changes. And this also forces them to combine both bills into one and Manchin or Sinema (forgot which) has some objections to one of the bills. A pox on all of them. [sigh]
What’s the issue? That suggests the U.S. healthcare system mitigated, but could not completely prevent, excess deaths.
No home test for you, only goobermint approved labs:
Minneapolis mayor: Kids between 2 and 5 need to show a negative COVID test done in a lab to enter restaurants
I could smell this a mile away. Next only goobermint approved masks. I can't wait for the riots at chicken joints.
Just a cursory glance at the linked research, the opening graphs are a bit confusing, but starting half way down the page it gets a lot clearer.
They looked for deaths and found them. They also had surprising results (the 'fewer than should be" countries.
I'm always suspicious when there is a lot of adjusting and correcting for and various fudge factors applied. I'm assuming they lay out their methodology somewhere, but I'm too tired to look very closely.
Always appreciate links to stuff rather than just assertions.
nick
Wrt mitigation… I'm surprised by the fairly uniform shape of the curves for deaths, and cases, hospitalizations, etc. (pretty much every one I've seen) If we or anyone mitigated or flattened anything, Or run out of capacity anywhere, I'd expect plateaus in the curves not sinusoidal and very normal looking curves…
n
They do, in the section labeled “Methods” (1,066 words).
Bleh. I tried reading it. Couldn't get past 20 pages or so. I may have approved of what Shriver had to say, but I'll never know because of the way she said it.
I am going to stick it out. In fact, after Space Opera, dystopic apocalyptic fiction is my favorite genre.
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Lynn!
Once More Unto the Breach !
I read the Mandibles over T-giving break. Freaked me right out. She wrote it in 2009? and got way too much right.
It's not the best or most engaging writing, the characters are mainly unappealing, and the energy falls off a cliff right before the end, but it was worth finishing.
n
Fell down a lefty snowflake rabbit hole on someone's social media page? I think that is what it was… a collection of memes mixed with her commentary and some original stuff, imgur crossed with something else? Weird doesn't even begin to describe it.
Hates the unvaxed, Trump is still ruling her thoughts every day, celebrates her mental illness, loves cats, hates spiders, is physically and mentally weak, occasionally sees the problem but not the cause (failing schools in democrat run cities forex), thinks the rest of the world is tons better than the US in every way (but never mentions islamic countries or any of the latin countries with machismo), has a million micro causes she supports by posting a picture with words on it, loves the straw man, and is generally someone who hates or despises everything but won't actually do anything about it.
Some of the stuff I don't even have context for and can't tell what the heck she's even trying for.
I feel gross reading thru it and I couldn't look away. I could have been in bed asleep. Instead I feel like I was rolling around on a bus station bathroom floor for a couple hours, tasting each wet spot to see what it was.
Seriously messed up.
n
And I just realized, a big part of it was to avoid thinking about the sudden issue that I'll mention tomorrow.
n
I read the Mandibles over T-giving break. Freaked me right out. She wrote it in 2009? and got way too much right.
Coming up on $30 trillion !
https://www.usdebtclock.org/