Cool to cold, grey, with a chance of rain. Avoided rain yesterday, which was nice, but I don’t know if we can avoid it today. I’m still hoping so as I’ve still got things to do with the pickup truck’s open bed.
I was able to do my pickups yesterday but no drop off. I’ve now got a ton of stuff to go to the BOL, and no way to do so this weekend without a lot of “messing around.” Wife will be out of town, so I have the kids with me, so I can’t go up in the pickup. Her Honda is WAY overdue for a timing belt replacement, we both suddenly have bad feelings about driving it on a 300+ mile trip, way out in the country and far from home… the service is scheduled, and she’ll drive it as needed locally until then. Just don’t want to take the chance of blowing up the motor out in the woods. That leaves taking the Expy and a trailer. Which I will consider for the next day or two.
Today will be me moving stuff around and getting ready for the weekend, whatever that ends up bringing. I will try again to get at least a few things dropped off, and if I can’t, I’ll stack them with several other bins, ready for next week.
It’s not like I don’t have stuff to do at home this weekend if I don’t get up to the BOL. I’ve got plenty, including stuff that got pushed from previous weekends. Outdoor stuff, indoor stuff, ‘skull sweat’ stuff… maybe even fun stuff.
And there is the stuff the post title alludes to. It’s a joke, but also a truism, and SteveF reminded me of it this week. At it’s base, it’s an admonition to DO THE THING that needs doing. And to KEEP DOING THE THING that needs doing. Do it NOW and you will find in the future that you DID it 5 years ago, or 10 years ago. Planting a tree is an incredibly optimistic thing. It’s a statement that you spend some of your limited time and resources on something you may never benefit from. It’s the embodiment of your belief that there WILL BE a future.
Get out there and plant a tree. Start the training course. Take something apart and figure out how to fix it. Not all the planting is literal… Some day in the future, you will be glad you did.
nick
(oh, and stack. Always.)
Eh? What did I do? All I’ve done is talk about chickens and try to get through one day at a time.
re taking stuff to BOL, children, and vehicles, do either of the girls want to stay with a friend whose parents are willing to take her for an overnight?
Heinlein wrote something very like that. Probably in Time Enough for Love or some of his non-story commentary in Expanded Universe.
Ah, I think this must be it:
The clip has pretty much disappeared from the Interwebz, but, a couple of years ago, Oprah favorite Ava DuVernay blew up her career by letting too much slip on her CW show “Naomi” with the line “Ten is the new sixteen.”
We reached peak … something … in the last few years, but I believe the ongoing self destruction of the Walt Disney company is a sign that the pendulum is swinging the other way.
I vaguely remember a discussion about Hal’s memory of the events of 2001 in the “2010” movie, but that was a long time ago, maybe in even a network cut to fill time.
and if it does have the book, as well as other YA titles, can the hypothetical 11-year old take out this book?
– IDK for sure, because most public libraries have children’s sections that are supposedly currated to be books appropriate for children. My guess is “yes” but it would depend on the child, the head librarian, and the community. I had access to adult books in my local library, but most kids didn’t.
A better question is “when did kidnapping, rape, torture, and graphic sex acts become appropriate for that age group in ANYONES mind?”
n
The storm clouds are gathered today at the Gigafactory in Del Valle – literally – as Tony hands over the … keys? … fobs? … of the first Jesus Truck deliveries.
https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck-delivery-event
I wonder how many vehicle horny fanboys will be watching the livestream.
Oh … Tony … Yes … Please … Oh, Jesus. $100,000 … $200,000 … anything … take my money and deliver my Ludicrous Mode … Oh … Please.
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/tesla-cybertruck-delivery-event-is-today-see-the-livestream/ar-AA1kMcw9
Consensual sex scenes don’t bother me much. That’s something that nearly all people will experience, hopefully in a positive way. Maybe not appropriate for tweens and younger.
Torture scenes and such? I’ve read some torture scenes in books where I really, really wish I hadn’t. I’m hardly a wilting flower, but there are limits to what I want in my brain. Do people really enjoy reading that stuff? Definitely not appropriate for tweens and early teens.
Irrelevant to cybertrucks, but apropos Musk: I really don’t understand why the guy can’t mind his mouth. If he would think about what he says, he would piss off a lot fewer people. See latest, where he basically told potential X-advertisers to “go fsck themselves”. Seriously?
Musk is one of those people who obviously believe that the only bad publicity is an obituary.
Upset X advertisers should be considered on a case by case basis. How much of the company’s stock is held by Black Rock/Vanguard/State Street? Institutions in general?
@brad, what good is F you money if you can’t tell people to F off?
I think he blew off the “advertisers” who were just posturing anyway. Companies that worry about losing customers THEY NEVER HAD in the first place are spending their energy in the wrong place. Not saying that was the case here, because I don’t care enough to explore it in detail, just that it’s consistent with libprog behavior. Count the celebs who actually moved to Canada after Trump got elected…
The Brady Foundation urges its members to boycott Daniel Defense? Who cares. They were never customers, and never going to be. [for example]
There is a danger in letting your own biases blind you to the reality of who your customers really are, that’s happened too. Nissan didn’t design or market the qwest* to older couples and seniors but that’s who bought it in droves. Drove the nissan execs nuts.
n
*think it was the quest, been a while and my brain is smooth today.
63F and misty light drizzle. Not going to be doing some of my errands today…
I’m sure something will fill the gap.
n
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/just-henry-kissinger-dead-100/
– eventually the lizard wants a new suit, I guess, and even swiss clinics can’t transfuse enough young blood…
n
(just kidding, I welcome our lizard overlords, send me some money please…)
Point. Definitely a point.
– – – – –
Bored today – hence so many posts. With the snow, a lot of students stayed home. It’s lab time, not lecture, so that’s not a surprise. My last group had…two, and both left early. I suppose I’ll head to the office for a bit, then check into the hotel, then…
…then I’ll probably finish the last Murderbot novel. First off, I find out what Murderbot has been redacting.
I find it interesting that the author is a woman. Murderbot has a potty mouth, which is something I associate more with male authors.
– – – – –
Oh, in other news: I had no idea how absolutely huge Vail Resorts is. They just bought the ski area across the valley from us, Crans Montana. It’s a fancy, expensive resort area with a private international school. Supposedly lots of rich Russian kids and the like, getting spoon-fed a Western education. That’s purely hearsay; I don’t have any actual first-hand information.
The VA denied my claim for increased rating on my back injury. It took five years and the claim had to go before a judge. Five pages of typed dialog using terms and legal references that are confusing. It was obviously written by a clerk and just signed by the judge. I was not surprised by the outcome. I had to try because with the VA a person never knows. A lesson I learned years ago.
In the response from the VA, they have not closed the case. Instead, the VA is sending me a form to apply for work disability due to the back injury affecting my employment. I retired early because it was getting painful to sit for hours, which was basically required by the job. It took eight months from my decision to actually retire. The company needed to hire and train a replacement. There was no way I was going to just give the company two weeks’ notice. They treated me too well and I was not going to leave them hanging. It took three months to train my replacement and he indicated if I had not overlapped those three months, he would not have been able to fill the role.
This carrot dangled by the VA for disability from not being able to work is a new one to me and a couple of other veterans. The VA will pay 100% disability for the time I was not working full time, maybe. Will that time be from when I retired until full SS age (66), which is only six months. Or will the VA pay the benefits until my original planned retirement age of 70? Will the VA reduce the benefit by the income that I made working part time during that time period? Or will the VA pay anything at all?
With the VA a person has to apply. People may think it is silly, a waste of time, trying to game the system, etc. In some ways it is just that. The VA has some strange rules on what they will, and will not, pay. Leaving money on the table is just stupid. The only way to know is to file. Sometimes there are surprises, good and bad.
If the VA approves the claim, it could be anywhere from $20K to over $150K. I am not holding my breath.
Apparently, Musk was responding specifically to Disney CEO Bob Iger, present in the audience for the interview, who made some kind of comment about pulling ads from X earlier in the day.
The Weatherman (literally) is wrapping a month in which his company lost $500 million dollars, including release of the biggest box office bomb of all time with “The Marvels”, capping a year of failure in all divisions of Disney. Musk has nothing to lose by telling Iger to go fsck himself at this point.
Iger keeps trying to advance the agenda as his company circles the drain. Ads on X should be the least of his concerns, but nope.
As for Musk, anything goes to distract from the Jesus Truck debacle starting at 3 PM EST today.
@SteveF
When you move the chickens closer to the house, do some proactive rodent control (likely you’ve already got something in place).
Livestock = mice
Consider dropping your coop temperature to as narrow a range at 32° f as you can. It helps with the poop situation. My coop temp is 28°-35°, small coop, small flock, most poop happens outside. I light run and coop. Coop light is on about 30 minutes longer morning / night to reach 14 hours for egg production.
@lynn
I was hoping for a neat movie.
Napoleon was dreadful. The animated star in Wish was a more evocative and believable actor than the guy who played Napoleon. It was poorly acted, jumped time with little to tie together, was really just a mess. It should have been rich, satisfying, exquisite with the subject matter. Huge fail. Glad I saw it on $5 Tuesday.
@Jenny – We saw “Dream Scenario” on Thanksgiving instad of “Napoleon”.
Nicholas Cage was good, but the pre-show at Alamo included scenes from “Moonstruck”, a MUCH better movie.
The pre-show also included Cage reading “The Tell-Tale Heart” for an Alamo event audience pre-pandemic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg12xyGX5CY
“Dream Scenario” kinda falls apart in the last third of the running time. See it on $5 Tuesday.
The PLT LameStreamMedia rags are out in force denigrating Kissinger. Love him or hate him, this is the PLTs Rules For Radicals standard practice: anybody they don’t like is raked over the coals, especially after they die, to avoid lawsuits. He’s gone, let him RIP. The Redumblicans also do this, but to a much lesser degree.
On Musk:
I still have a big chunk of Tesla in my portfolio. I’m almost tempted to have my FA dump it for something else, but he thinks there is still a ton of $$ to be made in EVs.
Musk should just let go of Tesla/X and work on rockets and new stuff. Every time he opens his yap, the stock goes down.
I agree: let Kissinger go. He did some good stuff, he did some bad stuff. Fundamentally, he was just the front-man for government policies of the time. The US interventions in Central and South America were pretty ugly. It’s history now.
So now the US mucks about in the Middle East. China mucks about in Africa. Russia mucks about in the former USSR territories. See earlier quote by Churchill…
The first real storm of the winter is passing through California, although it looks like it will mostly miss us. That and the power outage, the other day finally galvanized me into doing some of my winter preps.
For the first time since late spring I lit up the little cabinet style kerosene heater in the garage got a couple of hours. No muss, no fuss. I was went to put batteries in it and realized on checking that I had left a set in. They lit it without issue.
There is always a bit of an odor on shutdown, I don’t find it objectionable in that venue (fond memories of my dad’s garage), but people differ – I have a poor sense of smell. A small hood and extractor fan would be doable, tho not a priority. It would be useful for other shop activities as well.
I will test the big kerosene unit today, and check the kerosene stash, I have 5 or 6 gallons stored away from the house, 10 would be my preference.
Next is a set of LiFePo4 batteries & solar panel / charger, enough to run the pellet stove for at half day/day or more.
TSLA is speculation with a PE of 77.
Beer money.
Regarding yesterdays book stuff, and materials written for the teen market.
The book my daughter had the sense not to read was the personal property of her friend. Said friend was using it for a school assignment. Book was probably purchased by friends mother.
My daughter and friend are a year apart in grade, and attend the same conservative christian school. It is unlikely their school library carries anything by this author but I intend to check.
I was stationed at our public libraries for years as the resident tech. Did everything from run of the mill desktop to handwriting group policy in notepad to lock down the public use computers to minimize shenanigans and maximize uptime. I wasn’t popular but they liked that most of the systems were usable most of the time, which was the reverse of before I came on board.
Up here at least, library employees are hostile to conservative values. The very few conservative library employees I encountered kept their values to themselves. The ones who didn’t disappeared from the employment rolls.
North of us is a community that is a conservative stronghold for the state. Their public library has been under fire for thinly disguised porn in the teen specific section of the library. This is something that’s spread throughout the state and is getting varying levels of attention in the state. The state attorney general put the fox amongst the hens by issuing some direction on where porn for teen sits in the state Constitution and law. It was a soft warning that jail time could be earned by librarians if they didn’t clean up the stacks.
The head librarian in the conservative stronghold reclassified 2,000+ books marked for teens as adult material, left them physically in place. Shrugged his shoulders and said we have no teen books so law doesn’t apply.
Must Read Alaska or Alaska Watchman has a more detailed write up. It’s interesting gymnastics.
Native American Culture Was Indeed ‘Savage’
When you live on the edge of starvation, as was the norm in North America for about 99% of the time humans were here, niceness goes out the window.
Before 1900, most humans lived on the edge of starvation. It was definitely the norm. Fat people were rare, it was a sign of wealth.
I have decided that we were designed for the tough times, not the good times. Our single heart system requires 150 calories per day, a double heart system would have required 250 calories per day. The difference was given to our brains which use 300 calories per day. A big thumbs up on the big brains.
Of course on me, all that is upped 50%. When I was skinny, I weighed 205 lbs and could bench press 330 lbs.
“Dire Straits – Sultans Of Swing (Alchemy Live)”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=8Pa9x9fZBtY
“The drummer burned 73 million calories in the first three minutes.”
At least.
We are all going to die:
ANOTHER US state reports mystery wave of pneumonia in children: Doctors in Massachusetts and Ohio warn they’re being hit by outbreaks of ‘white lung’ infections – after China and Europe suffered spike in cases
Is it just me, or do all the Killer Kooties come from China? I guess Xi has plenty of peeps to experiment on with biological diseases.
Sounds like a conspiracy to evade the law, a felony itself in some states.
“The drummer burned 73 million calories in the first three minutes.”
– real rockers were skinny as rails, and wore sweatbands. So many of the rock drummers just wore shorts to perform…
n
we were designed for the tough times, not the good times
– I add and drop muscle mass VERY quickly. I attribute that to feast or famine genetics. If I’m working hard and eating, I bulk up. If not, I drop to my baseline. Lately I have overshot the drop a bit, which led to some concerns.
n
Is anyone going to cross-correlate pneumonia patients vis-a-vis mRNA vaccine status?
Or is that too much to ask of medical professionals? You know, actually doing the epidemiology and research thing for the benefit of patients.
One of our school district cops shot and killed a murderer/carjacker/felon this morning.
https://abc13.com/man-shot-and-killed-by-law-enforcement-officer-involved-shooting-northwest-houston-police-activity-campbell-road-shots-fired/14122686/
– and yeah, our school districts have their own police departments. They are NOT a department of another agency, and yes they are fully “cops”, just like our Constables, which some people have a hard time believing. (The Constables are cops for hire, with no assigned local government duties, like a Sheriff or city PD would have. yeah it’s weird. The ISD PDs are not “resource officers” from a more general department, they are full time in the District. They’ve got dogs, their own headquarters, vehicles, etc all in their own livery…) Yes, sometimes I have a problem with that, but most of the time I don’t.
n
– Baimbridge is our new ISD PD Chief, I couldn’t find much on him when the announcement was made earlier this year. The old Chief kinda left in the middle of the night…
The officer that did the shooting seems to have kept up his range time…
n
Dumb criminals…or is that redundant??
https://www.motor1.com/news/698723/carjacking-foiled-manual-transmission-porsche-718-boxster/
I have more information on the VA claim.
Normally the VA does not consider anyone for permanent disability unless they are rated at 70% or higher (I am at 60%) or have a single item rating above 60%, which I do not have. Bummer. Except…
The judge that ruled on my case stated explicitly that even though I do not fall with the VA guidelines, set by federal law, there is enough evidence in my circumstances to remand my case to another board that makes decisions on 100% disability. What the outcome of that will be I do not know.
The compensation, if any, will go back to the date I started the claim, which is about 5 years ago. There is no time limit on the length of the compensation, such as when Social Security started, SS full amount, etc. It is considered unemployable from the time of the claim until death. There is also no consideration for part-time jobs taken in the interim. My subbing at school and former work at the church do not factor into the decision.
Based on my rough calculations the windfall in my case would be over $100K, tax free. I am not holding my breath or spending the money. I am not a leach, or free-loader. If there is money on the table from the VA for valid conditions and claims I am not going to let it go.
I was lied to when I left the service as I was told my back injury happened off-duty and thus did not qualify. How the injury occurs, off-duty, on-duty, is not even relevant. Any injury in the service is considered happening in the service and is eligible for VA compensation. I missed out on 20 years of payments. I am not letting that happen again.
The VA is set up so that if a person does not apply, the person gets nothing. The VA will not volunteer anything about compensation available.
Outwit, outplay, outlast.
>> – I add and drop muscle mass VERY quickly. I attribute that to feast or famine genetics. If I’m working hard and eating, I bulk up. If not, I drop to my baseline. Lately I have overshot the drop a bit, which led to some concerns.
From your summer BOL posts it might seem that you were working very hard and not eating enough to keep up…
I find it interesting that the author is a woman. Murderbot has a potty mouth, which is something I associate more with male authors.
A woman with breast cancer.
“Report on Martha Wells Book Tour”
https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1879r5j/report_on_martha_wells_book_tour/
1. There is a Murderbot TV show in the works
2. She mentioned her recent breast cancer diagnosis and treatment
3. …
4. She based Murderbot the character on herself, as she recalls being painfully introverted as a younger person
5. Sanctuary Moon is inspired by How to Get Away with Murder
6. etc.
Inflation watch:
Just re-ordered my favorite oatmeal, Coach’s Steel Cut.
Price today is $27.99, the invoiced price on Oct. 31, 2022 was $21.47, so 30% year over year.
@Nick
”– real rockers were skinny as rails, and wore sweatbands. So many of the rock drummers just wore shorts to perform…”
Hard enough to rock with a monkey on your back.
The second-best line from Bloom County was “Hose me down, Milo, I’m hot!”
Musk is one of those people who obviously believe that the only bad publicity is an obituary.
Upset X advertisers should be considered on a case by case basis. How much of the company’s stock is held by Black Rock/Vanguard/State Street? Institutions in general?
The head of the disgruntled advertisers on X group is Disney. “Many reportedly canceled Disney+ subscriptions after Elon Musk’s interview”
https://insiderpaper.com/cancelled-disney-subscription-elon-musk/
“However, in that strong verbal attack against the blackmail attempts, Musk specifically mentioned Iger. “Hey Bob, if you are in the audience. That’s how I feel, don’t advertise,” he said. He added that users “already are,” boycotting Disney services. Elon Musk’s remarks came amidst a growing controversy involving him. Major companies like Disney, IBM, and Apple paused advertising on Musk’s platform, X, formerly known as Twitter.”
“Shortly after Elon Musk’s interview, thousands of users shared screenshots of their canceled Disney+ subscriptions. Beyond Disney+, users are also reporting cancellations of subscriptions to services like Paramount Plus and others.”
““Canceled” and “#CancelDisney” are now trending on X.”
Musk is one of those people who obviously believe that the only bad publicity is an obituary.
Upset X advertisers should be considered on a case by case basis. How much of the company’s stock is held by Black Rock/Vanguard/State Street? Institutions in general?
Musk bought Twitter because they were canceling him. Period.
The Saud royal family reputedly owns 5 to 10% of Twitter. I am not sure who owns the other 30%. Musk reputedly owns 60%.
>> A better question is “when did kidnapping, rape, torture, and graphic sex acts become appropriate for that age group in ANYONES mind?”
Appropriate for 14-17 year olds – ultimately the parents’ decision, no?
Allowable for the same age group? Last I checked, there was no age limit in the First Amendment.
Living in a free society ain’t easy. Thank you Mr. Madison.
Gold is back up above $2,000 / US ounce. Interesting.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GC%3DF?p=GC%3DF
I meant how much of the advertisers’ stock is held by the big three with ESG agendas.
Disney is still 65% owned by institutions, down from 80%, with Black Rock/Vanguard/State Street at 17%, down from 20%.
The real price.
https://catalog.usmint.gov/american-eagle-2023-one-ounce-gold-uncirculated-coin-23EH.html
I vaguely remember a discussion about Hal’s memory of the events of 2001 in the “2010” movie, but that was a long time ago, maybe in even a network cut to fill time.
I thought that 2010 was actually a better movie than 2001. When the AI psychiatrist, Dr. Chandra, starts to shut down his personal AI to see what it will be like to wake Hal up, the AI says “Will I dream”. And he says, “I don’t know”. Scary stuff. I need to watch it again.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
The Weatherman was in the audience. Musk knew that.
>> Inflation watch:
Just re-ordered my favorite oatmeal, Coach’s Steel Cut.
Price today is $27.99, the invoiced price on Oct. 31, 2022 was $21.47, so 30% year over year.
@EdH, where ordered from? I know my wife buys this brand from Costco, but I don’t have a receipt handy.
P. S. KJP says you’re a liar.
The real price.
https://catalog.usmint.gov/american-eagle-2023-one-ounce-gold-uncirculated-coin-23EH.html
Here is my conversation in 2035 with my imaginary grandkid in our tiny house.
“Grandpa, what were you doing when the Greater Depression started ?”
“I was watching the price of Gold go up and up.”
Quick! Call the gynecologist!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MinVw6HvLg
I grew up in Florida. I hate that personality type and the feeling is often mutual.
What’s Spanish for ‘Skippy’?
@lynn
I was hoping for a neat movie.
Napoleon was dreadful. The animated star in Wish was a more evocative and believable actor than the guy who played Napoleon. It was poorly acted, jumped time with little to tie together, was really just a mess. It should have been rich, satisfying, exquisite with the subject matter. Huge fail. Glad I saw it on $5 Tuesday.
Eeek ! I am driving 110 miles over to Victoria on Friday to watch it with my Dad. At least there are cannons. Lots of cannons.
I just cannot believe that Ridley Scott can make a bad movie.
>> The real price.
https://catalog.usmint.gov/american-eagle-2023-one-ounce-gold-uncirculated-coin-23EH.html
Total mintage: 10,000 coins
Household order limit: None
Purchase limit per on-line order: 99 coins
As @nick would say, stack’em high!
Go watch “Prometheus”, specifically the scene with the “space cobra” (for lack of a better term).
Ridley Scott is not John Huston, who came up yesterday.
“Prizzi’s Honor”, “Under the Volcano”, and “The Dead”.
I’m sure he also contributed to “Captain Eo”. That would have been hard for Huston to resist.
I agree: let Kissinger go. He did some good stuff, he did some bad stuff. Fundamentally, he was just the front-man for government policies of the time. The US interventions in Central and South America were pretty ugly. It’s history now.
So now the US mucks about in the Middle East. China mucks about in Africa. Russia mucks about in the former USSR territories. See earlier quote by Churchill…
There are 22 wars going on around the planet right now. We, the USA, have boots on the ground in 11 of them. When did we get so war mongering ?
>> The real price.
https://catalog.usmint.gov/american-eagle-2023-one-ounce-gold-uncirculated-coin-23EH.html
Total mintage: 10,000 coins
Household order limit: None
Purchase limit per on-line order: 99 coins
As @nick would say, stack’em high!
I’ve got just enough cash to pay our property taxes over the next 30 days. $35K and rising every freaking year. No extra cash for any investments but I did get 1/3rd of the house driveway (1,200 ft2) replaced before turkey day for $11K. I am tapped out now.
@Alan. The 1A, and in fact all the As are limits on what the Federal government can do, and by adoption what the lesser .govs can do. This is not a 1A or free speech issue.
School libraries already pick and choose and limit which books they put in the library and make accessible to students. As far as I know none have chosen to put Penthouse magazine or Playboy magazine in their middle school libraries which is The Logical extension of your argument. It is in fact up to the parents and the parents are saying we don’t want these particular books in our libraries in schools. That is in fact how the parents are limiting their children’s access to those particular books. Parents are often at odds with their Library particularly over politically charged decisions like conservative versus Progressive agendas. Most of the time in my experience, the school boards and Librarians and teachers are working it odds to the parents wishes. They often obfuscate a struct or otherwise impede parents access to knowledge of what they are doing and why. Try to get a comprehensive list of the current inventory of your Middle School library. Let me know how that works out for you.
N
Peanuts: Snoopy and Napoleon
https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2023/11/28
Groan !
How did Schulz know that there would be a new Napoleon movie now in 1976 ?
Exactly. This comes up all the time on places like X/Twitter with people screeching “free speech, free speech.” The Constitution protects us from our own goobermint. We’d be better off without most of the three letter goobermint agencies which just impinge on our freedoms. Take away 3LA power to make laws and return it strictly to Congress. Make them do their job, and not offload it with some crazy zero tolerance BS that 3LA are in charge.
“Biden keeps spending at crisis levels”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/biden-keeps-spending-at-crisis-levels
“Fiscal 2023 was another bad one, with the deficit increasing by $300 billion to $1.7 trillion. Biden has never had a budget deficit under $1 trillion. In three years, he has run a cumulative $5.9 trillion in deficits, and according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, if he remains president for another term, he still will not run a deficit of less than $1 trillion and will fall just short of $2 trillion in 2028. All this red ink is the result of his continued insistence on spending at crisis levels.”
We are headed to The Greater Depression.
@Alan: I used Amazon Prime. I used to buy it at Costco but it became inconvenient to spend all the time looking for it and then not finding it. Costco just wasn’t interested in my money I guess…
As for K.J.P., well, it is almost an honor to be insulted by such a creature.
P. S. KJP says you’re a liar.
Who is KJP ?
Karine Jean-Pierre 🙁
“The Best Parallel Worlds Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-parallel-worlds-science-fiction-books/
I have read:
12. The Number of the Beast
1. Dark Matter
I have “The Long Earth” in my SBR.
I would add “Outland” by Dennis Taylor, “Wild Side” by Steven Gould, and “Conquistador” by S. M. Stirling to this list.
“The Best Parallel Worlds Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
I would add Keith Laumer’s “Worlds of the Imperium”, and Zelazny’s Amber series.
There was a 100% probability that SOMEONE would make a Napoleon movie at some point in the future.
95% of what the Federal government does and spends money on are not authorized by ANY item in the government, and should be abolished. IN particular, the Constitution does not contain any authorization for a federal police force, so the FBI and ATF are both illegal and should be immediately abolished. The Constitution does not authorize any federal role in education or health care or medicine in ANY form, so the DOE and DHS and Obamacare are all illegal.
Here’s a list of the things the Constitution allows the Federal government to do:
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#article-1-section-8
And the 9th and 10th Amendments are pretty clear at saying AND NOTHING ELSE! https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/
Education, medical care, and abortion are all STATE functions.
If Donald Trump really wanted to loose the cat among the pigeons, he would declare that “All current states of emergency declared by presidential executive order are immediately cancelled.” You’d be AMAZED how much evil is authorized by various presidential executive orders, all the way back to 1911.
“Grandpa, what’s Gold?”
re: parallel worlds
@EdH
Spot on. And add Laumer’s “Lafayette O’Leary”
@Lynn
I would either replace Heinlein’s “Number of the Beast” with “The Pursuit of the Pankera” or leave them both on the list.
Writing lists for a living and leaving C.S. Lewis “Narnia” off this one is so Livingstonesque.
The South Won the Civil War is a list of it’s own.
Pretty much all of Steampunk qualifies from Gibson and Sterling’s “The Difference Engine” forward.
My first nomination to the list would be S.M Anderson’s “A Bright Shore”. The series has five books so far, and has not had the attention it deserves. I would recommend the audio book (available on Kindle Unlimited), which is how I was introduced.
John DeChancie’s “Castle Perilous”
P.K. Dick’s “Man in the High Castle”
Jasper Fforde’s “Thursday Next”
James P. Hogan’s “The Proteus Operation” and several others
Robert J. Sawyer’s “Neanderthal Parallax”
Charles Stross “The Family Trade
Pretty much all of Steampunk qualifies from Gibson and Sterling’s “The Difference Engine”
There’s considerable nuance and ambiguity in “parallel worlds. Parallel implies multiple timelines–not a single timeline mucked about by time travelers–yet there is considerable overlap. Multiple parallel timelines can be subdivided into those branching from a single historical event (Everett’s ”man worlds” interpretation) in which the branching itself is a major part of the story, or the branching is a past event.
@Ken Mitchell
Over the weekend I heard part of an interview where it was claimed that books on Napoleon have been published to the tune of one per week since his death.
add to the above parallel worlds list :
John Barnes “The Timeline Wars”
Parallel worlds novels? James P. Hogan’s “Thrice Upon A Time”. Scientists discover a way to send information back in time, which “resets” the timeline to include the new information.
I would either replace Heinlein’s “Number of the Beast” with “The Pursuit of the Pankera” or leave them both on the list.
I have “The Pursuit of the Pankera” in my SBR.
Robert J. Sawyer’s “Neanderthal Parallax”
Definitely.
I forgot about “Drakon” by S. M. Stirling, the fourth book in the Draka series. That book fits this definition perfectly.
https://www.amazon.com/Drakon-S-M-Stirling/dp/0671877119?tag=ttgnet-20/
Apparently the third book in the Draka series was refused by Jim Baen since the USA was defeated by the Drakas. Jim Baen did not refuse any decent books. Six months later he decided to publish it without a single change.
https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Dogs-Draka-S-M-Stirling/dp/0671720090?tag=ttgnet-20/
I miss Jim Baen and Eric Flint.
I recall trying to watch Alias back in the day, but could never get past what seemed to be continual torture.
So, 20 years at least for the torture bit for prime time TV.
What a world we live in…
https://auctionsunlimitedllc.hibid.com/lot/177755030/-44–vanibiss-organic-vulva-balm—vulvar-vaginal?ref=catalog
n
n
Cybertruck pricing…
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/30/23982569/tesla-cybertruck-delivery-price-specs-features-elon-musk
Haven’t been able to find any definitive reporting of which model(s) were delivered today.
That would be taxpayer money she got…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12806369/Woman-revenge-boss-paid-sick-hours.html
Someone should take a very close look and see if there is anything actionable.
n
My favorite oatmeal in March 2020 was $13.75, currently it is $27.99, which suggests inflation is a minimum factor of 2.04X, meaning the truck is actually cheaper in Oatmeal Adjusted™ dollars today!
I’m the opposite of a cybertruck buyer. I want older, simpler, and diesel. I’ll take gas since I understand gas engines. I like modern safety features though, so I probably won’t be buying a late 60s or very early 70s pickup truck anytime soon.
n
@nick
Vanibiss
That looks like a nice product, truthfully. It’s ridiculously difficult to find a simple product with a short ingredient list for, ahem, -down there-
Getting older brings about lots of unexpected changes.
Pinky and the Brain “Burlap chafes me so” is spoken for truth once you become A Woman Of A Certain Age.
This one’s a big Nope.
https://vanibiss.com/products/vanibiss-butt-sheet-mask
So, the weather forecast changed. Today is more snow, another 30cm or so. We’re well over a meter of snow already. In November.
What’s more fun is that I’m away from home right now. It snowed, then it rained on the snow, then it froze, and now there’s more snow on top. When I get home tomorrow, digging out is going to be…interesting.
Here in UK, no snow. So far.
What we do have, though is cold. Brass monkey cold. Down around 0C cold.
G.