Thur. May 9, 2024 – time keeps on slippin’ into the future…

Warm. Damp. Supposed to get into the 90s, with overcast but no rain. Pretty much how yesterday went. Muggy. Grey. Too warm. The heavy rain got into my Ranger and the carpet and floor mats got wet. I can’t get them to dry because the humidity has been so high.

I did my home stuff, then did a pickup. It was too far away for what I got, but I wasn’t paying attention when the auction closed and didn’t win the second item that would have make it worth while. That’s a bummer.

Made it to my client’s house and did some troubleshooting. Gear failure. Same mode as 4 or more other times. Don’t know what to do to prevent it that we haven’t already done. We’ll replace the gear again, and see what happens.

Picked up the kid and there had been another fight at her school. That’s about 4 in the last couple of days. We finally got a vague note from the Principal about how they don’t tolerate safety risks, but they actually do as the kids involved are still in school. The video is at least as dramatic as any viral school fight video. Principal doesn’t want the kids sharing the video around… yeah, that’ll stop. Our cops were there, and they did break the fights up, but kinda too little too late. D1 doesn’t have any clue to the root causes, but now there is retaliation for the earlier fights happening. So much fun. Mostly invaders fighting, with a couple of white boys involved too. Girls throwing vicious punches too, not the clutching and hair pulling you normally see. It will be nice when school is out for the summer.

While waiting for dinner to cook I started assembling one of the 3D printers. It’s a small Creality filament machine. I got it together and was just about to turn it on and start the alignment and checkout when dinner was ready. I’ll try to find some time today to get it finished. I’ll try to find some time today to do a bunch of stuff that has been pushed back. Hey, it could happen…

I should prioritize, but it seems that grabbing little bits of the various tasks when I can is about the best I can manage at the moment.

Do what you can. Stack some food this week, and some ways to cook it. Or learn to like the taste of bugs…

nick

123 Comments and discussion on "Thur. May 9, 2024 – time keeps on slippin’ into the future…"

  1. SteveF says:

    > …the sickening gang rape of a 14-year-old girl. …the suspects were ‘believed to be young people of immigrant origin’.

    … “How are we going to solve this?”

    Convict, then immediately and forcefully deport. Easy.

    My policy for decades has been “Old enough to rape, old enough to die.”

    I won’t come right out and say that the group of rambunctious youths that I cleared out one night had some members who looked to be in their early teens, but…

    (“Group of rambunctious youths” was the phrase used on the TV or radio news at around the same time in referring to a mob which had assaulted dozens of white people, raped quite a few, and robbed and trashed a number of stores. Pretty much like “protests” has been used in the past few years.)

  2. Greg Norton says:

    “Printing press money. It wasn’t real. The Fed bought the mortgage paper and the unsold Treasuries.”

    So? Compared to now?

    The printing is worse, but no one should pretend that the Orange Man practiced any sort of fiscal restraint.

  3. Greg Norton says:

    I was watching the press conference with the interim guy while testing video this afternoon.   Interim guy has a deficit of pigmentation, so probably won’t become the actual chief.

    Austin has been through multiple “Interim” Chiefs since Art Acevedo fled to Houston. Except for the currently serving Interim Chief, all have suffered pigmentation deficit issues, including the White Hispanic who had the office until August of last year.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    Remember our previous chief, the gun grabber, left in the night for Miami, where his tenure was very short.   No idea where HE ended up.

    Art Acevedo had issues in Miami with the Cuban mobsters. Austin tried to bring Acevedo back to City Hall as Interim City Manager when the last pigment deficient individual was scapegoated/fired for Austin Energy’s problems during the freeze last year, but many in the city saw it as a scheme to eventually return Acevedo to APD administration.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    Wow, ERCOT is pulling more than 3,000 MW off the battery systems right now.  The solar collapsed when the sun went down (the solar was 16,000 MW today at peak) and ERCOT got into a squeeze.  They shot the price up to $5,000 / MWH ($35 / MWH is normal).

    69,000 MW demand load in May. Unreal.

    But they’re saving so much money on gas…

  6. Greg Norton says:

    ERCOT is pulling more than 3,000 MW off the battery systems right now.  The solar collapsed when the sun went down (the solar was 16,000 MW today at peak) and ERCOT got into a squeeze.  They shot the price up to $5,000 / MWH ($35 / MWH is normal).

    Um…were they *surprised* when the sun went down? Don’t they have natural gas plants just for such situations?

    Yes, but not enough to cover all of the new demand in Texas.

    Among other stupidity passed by voters in November was a initiative to give the Geico Gecko his long sought-after slush fund to install gas generators in Texas. Of course, the Gecko, being a wily old lizard, doesn’t have to deliver a single kWh to the grid until 2029 IIRC.

    Meanwhile, the slowing of EV sales seems to have cooled the Gecko’s interest in actually building the generating capacity which I believe is part of his scheme to overhaul Pilot/Flying-J into a competitor for Buc-ee’s, Kwik Trip, Wawa, etc geared towards the Amiga Forever EV owning crowd who will actually try to cross the country in the vehicles, 150 miles at a time.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    (“Group of rambunctious youths” was the phrase used on the TV or radio news at around the same time in referring to a mob which had assaulted dozens of white people, raped quite a few, and robbed and trashed a number of stores. Pretty much like “protests” has been used in the past few years.)

    “Rambunctious”. Man they get a new word in the talking points fax and beat it to death.

  8. Ray Thompson says:

    Do they not have a value component when registering ICE autos?

    No. I pay $29.00 a year for one vehicle, $0.00 a year for the other vehicle due to DV plates.

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    Shaping up to be a warm and moist day.  Sun is peeking thru the overcast.  All the windows are covered with condensation on the outside.

    ———

    WRT pain, yes.   For decades.   And yes, mostly back, but knees, neck, hands, shoulders.   Chronic pain changes your personality and sours your whole life if left untreated.   That’s why I was so cross with my Dr for using my meds as a lever to get an office visit.   Bad enough to be coerced, but to be coerced with your own pain is maddening.

    ———

    Fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles, neighbors.   Not enough of them around and not enough of them feeling passion about family to keep the low trust invaders in check in western countries.   And india apparently.

    n

  10. Greg Norton says:

    Do they not have a value component when registering ICE autos?

    No. I pay $29.00 a year for one vehicle, $0.00 a year for the other vehicle due to DV plates.

    Driving home from work the other day, I ended up behind the pricey Model X Tonymobile with DV plates.

    One of my wife’s nephew’s planned schemes for post-military life is to get classified with a disability.

  11. brad says:

    Fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles, neighbors.   Not enough of them around and not enough of them feeling passion about family to keep the low trust invaders in check in western countries.

    Understandably so. In a civilized society, we are taught to leave such matters to the police. Barbarians, of course, are not civilized. Politicians were not supposed to let barbarians through the gates. That’s what borders are supposed to be for.

    I am optimistic. It’s not entirely too late, and European politics are shifting. However, the next couple of decades may be painful…

    By the way, the girl has apparently committed suicide. Maybe they can add murder to the charges.

  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    Lawyer Kelly De Caluwé, who is defending a 16-year-old suspect of Somali origin

    Caluwé said her client said things he did not mean during the questioning and has asked for a re-examination.

    ‘I asked for a re-examination because due to the language barrier he said things that did not match what he meant,’ she said, according to Nieuwsblad.

    ‘To me he is not a rapist. Although he realises that something very wrong has happened. That realisation comes gradually.’  

    they’re depraved on account of they’re deprived…”

    Seen it before.  Rejected it then.

    n

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  13. Greg Norton says:

    I am optimistic. It’s not entirely too late, and European politics are shifting. However, the next couple of decades may be painful…

    My rule of thumb is that half of the white population of the planet aspires to be Rolf Gruber, the little sh*t with the whistle in “The Sound of Music”, and, as the pandemic proves, that demographic doesn’t need much of an excuse to start issuing the gold stars and building Ze Kampfs.

    Spelling deliberate.

  14. MrAtoz says:

    WRT pain, yes.   For decades.   And yes, mostly back, but knees, neck, hands, shoulders.   Chronic pain changes your personality and sours your whole life if left untreated.

    I’m pretty much pain free except for the occasional injury. I don’t count sleeping crooked and getting up with crick in my neck. I understand pain. I hurt my back early last year. The pain was nausea inducing. Luckily, I completely healed, but it took six weeks. I friend gave me some lido patches that helped a lot.

    My joints are fine (I turn 69 next month, knock on wood). Perhaps working out a lot in the military and taking various supplements for decades has helped. I try not to overdo it working around the house. Age sneaks up on you.

  15. Ray Thompson says:

    One of my wife’s nephew’s planned schemes for post-military life is to get classified with a disability.

    I don’t blame him. Almost every veteran I know is on some sort of disability. Many get 100% for reasons I really don’t understand. One guy flies for Delta Airlines and is rated at 90% disability. To me that would seem to be a risk to the airlines although he does not have to disclose the VA disability. To me, if he is healthy enough to fly commercial aircraft, then he is not disabled.

    The VA is a massive game of Survivor, “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast”.

    I never planned to get disability. I found out by accident that breaking my back in the military qualified me for disability. I was lied to when I had my exam interview and was told I did not qualify. I lost out on 20 years of disability payments.

    Since then I have been going after the VA for anything. It has to be that way. The VA will not tell a person if they qualify. The VA scheduled, and paid for my knee replacement. Again, I found out by accident that the knee qualified for disability. I never injured the knee in the service but skeletal is skeletal according to the VA and the knee deterioration was due to the back injury.

    Thus, everything, regardless of how trivial, needs to be applied for disability. Even items diagnosed by a VA doctor will not automatically get disability. The VA is not a person’s friend in getting disability.

    To get DV plates in TN a person has to have 100% disability. When I had my knee replaced I was rated at 100% for six months. During that time I acquired the DV plates. A person is allowed two DV plates, one permanent, the other a yearly fee. Since the one plate is permanent I don’t ever have to apply again. I do have to pay the yearly fee on the other vehicle.

    I generally do not park in handicap unless there is no other option. What I do avoid is paying for parking on any publicly owned space. I never have to pay a parking meter. I also do not pay at UT hospital which charges for parking. There are also some venues that have events on city owned property that charge to park, which I do not have to pay.

    The exception seems to be the University of TN which charges handicap parking fees, just like regular parkers. Of course, UT is greedy and parking is the second largest source of revenue on campus. Between the parking fees, parking fines ($78.00 if caught without a parking pass) there is a lot of money coming in from that source. UT wouldn’t want to miss out gouging as many as possible.

  16. lpdbw says:

    Chihuahua/dachshund mix had a baby possum in his mouth he was shaking to death.

    People who don’t know doxies think they’re just cute little joke dogs.

    They don’t realize they were bred to fearlessly hunt, dig up, and kill badgers.  Pursuing them into their holes, if necessary.

  17. Nick Flandrey says:

    Pursuing them into their holes,  

    – oh yes.   This dog, with known parentage, pushes his way into holes, between objects, under shelves…     the last dog that LOOKED like the same mix but was of unknown parentage would NOT stick his head into or between anything.   He wouldn’t squirm or force his way thru or into anything.   

    It’s the major difference between them.   That and this one is a piddler.

    n

  18. lpdbw says:

    re: pain

    “Shocking poll: Nearly 1 in 3 Americans live in constant pain”

    I believe it is more than coincidence that so many Americans are fat, and eat a carb-heavy diet, and are in pain.

    The more I follow the Carnivore and low carb dieters online,  the more I see about recovery from Type II diabetes, arthritis, other immune disorders, joint pain, and depression.  Also IBS and GIRD.  In fact, one of my favorite canrivore YouTubers is an orthopedic surgeon who discovered he could avoid some surgeries altogether if he could get patients to stop eating carbs.

    My knees are shot after 60 years of obesity.  But they only hurt now when I kneel, and I can do squats and deadlifts.

    I’ve lost 16 additional pounds so far this year and still have a bunch to go.  Down 79 from my peak weight.

  19. Chad says:

    One of my wife's nephew's planned schemes for post-military life is to get classified with a disability.

    This is out-of-control. There are entire websites and forums dedicated to coaching veterans on how to score as much disability as possible. Go to the doc before you're discharged. Complain about every ache and pain. Make some up. Just make sure it's noted in your military medical records before you're discharged. It’s easier to "prove" if it was documented while you were still on active duty.

    PTSD fraud is also an issue. It's sort of hard to disprove, so many vets just file a disability claim for PTSD. All you have to do is tell the psychologist about some traumatic event(s) and how it interferes with your ability to go to work or hold down a job. There's not even a requirement to receive any kind of counseling once you're determined to have PTSD. They simply cut you a check every month. Since PTSD is such a “sacred cow” with the mainstream media nobody dares question it.

    All of this started off as a good thing. Uncle Sam was a real piece-of-shit for decades when it came to taking care of vets. So, all of these resources sprang up. Legislation was enacted. Well-intentioned doctors would ask leading questions so you'd score the most disability. Vets on disability would coach other vets on what worked for them. Unfortunately, it's been perverted into every veteran trying to get a monthly disability check. Though, monthly checks from the government tend to do that to people (VA Disability, SSDI, Welfare in all its forms…).

    Too bad too. Resources are finite and there are veterans out there with some legit service-connected mental or physical disabilities.

    I am on VA disability. 10% for hearing. Though, mine is fairly straightforward. Baseline hearing test when I joined. 4 years in close proximity to jet engines. Final hearing test just before I separated. Clear evidence of hearing loss in a certain frequency range.

    My rule of thumb is that half of the white population of the planet aspires to be Rolf Gruber, the little sh*t with the whistle in “The Sound of Music”, and, as the pandemic proves, that demographic doesn't need much of an excuse to start issuing the gold stars and building Ze Kampfs.

    This. +1000

    The speed and ease with which neighbors started turning-in neighbors was horrid. “Hello, police, the lady in the house next door is a hair stylist and I think she's secretly having clients over and cutting their hair. I took pictures and wrote down license plate numbers.” Un-fucking-believable. Thanks for reinforcing my misanthropy.

    It's a mostly suburban white phenomenon too. Minorities and those in low income urban and rural areas know to keep their mouth shut (which has its own set of problems).

  20. lpdbw says:

    It’s a mostly suburban white phenomenon too. Minorities and those in low income urban and rural areas know to keep their mouth shut (which has its own set of problems).

    It will come as a shock to the Karens of the world (male and female) when White people learn “snitches get stitches”.

  21. MrAtoz says:

    The speed and ease with which neighbors started turning-in neighbors was horrid

    And people still wear face diapers and want you to wear one, too. F all of them. Never again.

    I took the double clot-shot for work. I wish I would have said no at the time. No boosters, ever.

  22. EdH says:

    Chihuahua/dachshund mix had a baby possum in his mouth he was shaking to death

    The yip of Chihuahua’s that I sometimes have here (to watch over during my friends vacations) take a ground squirrel on occasion.   

    And the owners paid to have chicken wire staked down around the fencing to keep the little b*st*rds from burrowing out. It is needed.

  23. EdH says:

    So, my sister lost her job on Sunday (Home Depot).  

    My neighbors son lost their job last week(history teacher in Tx, non-coach).   

    My college roommates son-in-law lost his job (CFO) last month.

    Starting to look bad out there.

  24. drwilliams says:

    January 2025 is going to be a real p!sser in the job market when Trump closes the FBI, most of the DOJ, the EPA, about half the rest, and closes the federal student loan program. The bright spots will be openings for intruder fence building, deportation camp construction, and prison farms* for alien invaders.  

    *Layout a grid of lines 6’ apart in the desert. Auger a 12” hole every 6’. Plant one alien invader head down. Backfill. The farm sells carbon credits based on the lower use of resources for each planting. 

    6
    2
  25. Ray Thompson says:

    Plant one alien invader head down.

    Is that to provide a hole for flag pole? Asking for a friend.

  26. nick flandrey says:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/scarf-lady-dr-deborah-birx-now-says-thousands/ 

    – more gaslighting.

    Birx responded, “That’s why we need all the people to come forward that have had reactions because I’m not sure all of them have been reported. Do I think it’s millions? No. Could it be thousands? Yes.”

    Yessss, because coming forward and talking bad about the nottavaxes was so well supported before now…

    n

  27. nick flandrey says:

    Starting to look bad out there.  

    – starting to look WORSE out there.   And starting to affect the people who thought they were safe and that bad things would only happen to other people.

    @EdH, I hope they have been getting ready for this eventuality.   I hope they return to jobs quickly.   

    My feeling is that business will  grind to a standstill as everyone waits to see what November brings.

    No new hiring, no new facilities, no new expenditures.   Texas and Florida will probably not be affected as badly, but I am seeing signs of slowdowns everywhere except new residential construction.   That is still ongoing for now.

  28. nick flandrey says:

    “snitches get stitches”   and wind up in ditches.

    n

  29. Geoff Powell says:

    @drwilliams:

    January 2025 is going to be a real p!sser in the job market when Trump closes the FBI, most of the DOJ, the EPA, about half the rest,

    Why do you assume that Trump will win a second term? I suspect that, if there is a concerted campaign (note the “if”) they will be pulling out all the stops to get Biden (or some other controllable non-entity, probably Democrat) elected for the second time.

    In addition, if they exist, they need to keep Trump away from the levers of power, in order to keep their a$$es away from even the possibility of legal action.

    I say this as a Brit., and thus by definition without a dog in this fight.

    G.

  30. Brad says:

    when Trump closes the FBI, most of the DOJ, the EPA, about half the rest

    Dream on. Trump will do exactly none of that. Remember how, in his first term, he was going to drain the swamp? He has a big mouth and zero follow-through.

  31. nick flandrey says:

    Presumably he’s learned not to trust anyone who is currently in a fedgov job, nor should he trust anyone the GOP puts forward.   It’s the party’s job to propose candidates for all the thousands of positions that change with the occupant of the big house… and they worked against him at every juncture.  Many of them bragged about it.

    I don’t think he’ll be inaugurated no matter what happens at the polls or doesn’t happen.  If bidden can continue to lie, and they run him and support him, I don’t think anything is beyond the realm  of possibility.   

    I think there are several equally likely possibilities and I don’t like any of them.  Trump actually getting sworn in is not one of the likeliest.

    n

  32. nick flandrey says:

    Got the filiment printer running – 4 ½ hours to print the test cat file.

    Got the resin printer running – if I’m reading it right, 19 hours to print the eiffel tower test file.   19 HOURS.

    Um, yeah, not quite ready to replace trad manufacturing….

    n

  33. lpdbw says:

    I say this as a Brit., and thus by definition without a dog in this fight.

    There’s an old saying: “When the U.S. sneezes, the world catches a cold.”

    What you described is unprecedented and obvious manipulation of the election, with no deniability.

    That is one of the likely triggers of a shooting war.

    You don’t want to see the overflow of a U.S. civil war on the rest of the world.  The power vacuum in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, along with the market disruption, will be unprecedented.

    Not that it matters to you.  Great Britain is already lost.  It’s only a matter of a decade or so until the entire country is Muslim.

  34. MrAtoz says:

    Dream on. Trump will do exactly none of that. Remember how, in his first term, he was going to drain the swamp? He has a big mouth and zero follow-through.

    I think every Redumblican forever has sqawked “I’m closing the Dept. of Education.” None have even attempted it. And it is up there as one of the most useless Departments.

    I still place a tRump 2nd term at less than 50/50. The Redumblican National Committee has done nothing to ensure a fair election. I assume they want tRump to lose and go away, even if they have to suffer through another plugs term.

    Only a plugs replacement (voluntary or room temperature) will get tRump back to at least 50/50.

  35. lpdbw says:

    In support of the above, from Laurence Fox:

    The Mayor of London is a Muslim.

    The mayor of Birmingham is a Muslim.

    The Mayor of Leeds is Muslim.

    Mayor of Blackburn – Muslim.

    The mayor of Sheffield is a Muslim.

    The mayor of Oxford is a Muslim.

    The mayor of Luton is a Muslim.

    The mayor of Oldham is Muslim.

    The mayor of Rochdale is Muslim

    All this was achieved by only 4 million Muslims out of 66 million people in England:

    Today there are over 3,000 mosques in England.

    There are over 130 sharia courts.

    There are more than 50 Sharia Councils.

    78 percent of Muslim women do not work, receive state support + free accommodation.

    63 percent of Muslims do not work, receive state support + free housing.

    State-supported Muslim families with an average of 6 to 8 children receive free accommodation.

    Now every school in the UK is required to teach lessons about Islam.
     

    10
  36. MrAtoz says:

    Got the filiment printer running – 4 ½ hours to print the test cat file.

    Woof. That is a long time. What are the cat’s dimensions? My Bambu test file is the “benchy” tugboat. Around 1x1x1 it prints solid in less than 30m.

  37. MrAtoz says:

    In support of the above, from Laurence Fox:

    This is, of course, the Mooslim plan. Just invade a country, suck on the goobermint teat, take shit political jobs, and wait. They don’t even have to fire a shot, just rape and maim their own women because they are sub-human.

    France, Germany, and the Former USA are going to learn hard lessons in that 10 years.

    Act now or pay tribute, convert, or die.

  38. lynn says:

    Trump, yeah not a great President. He did give us some good things though, with the greatest being….

    Hillary will never be President.

    Everything else is gravy.

    The big one for me is that we got THREE conservative SCOTUS judges.

  39. lynn says:

    ERCOT is pulling more than 3,000 MW off the battery systems right now.  The solar collapsed when the sun went down (the solar was 16,000 MW today at peak) and ERCOT got into a squeeze.  They shot the price up to $5,000 / MWH ($35 / MWH is normal).

    Um…were they *surprised* when the sun went down? Don’t they have natural gas plants just for such situations?

    100:1 price changes show lousy planning more than anything else.

    They expected the wind turbines to come on at dusk.  They did not so they went to the new batteries in a panic.

    They are running studies about scheduling the wind turbines for making electricity but nothing works so far.  Grin.

  40. Denis says:

    Our cops were there…

    I find it mind-boggling that schools in the US have their own police. Something is very wrong indeed. Looking from here, it seems too wrong to be recoverable.

  41. drwilliams says:

    @brad

    I’d be interested in seeing how you would focus on your to-do list if you were impeached on phony charges (twice), unjustly accused of collusion with Russia, resisted by Democrats, the military, and the MSM, and try to respond to a pandemic when your experts are too busy covering up their part in the origins. 

    9
    1
  42. drwilliams says:

    @lynn

     Call is 2.5 conservative SCOTUS judges despite Mitch McConnell.  

  43. lynn says:

    BTW, the new gas turbines that can start in six minutes were probably running.  But the old gas turbines take 22 minutes to start.  That is a planning event.

    Plus, the 300 simple cycle gas turbines in Texas are limited to 10% power generation per year for their environmental permits.  Gotta only make CO2 under emergency conditions.

  44. Ray Thompson says:

    I find it mind-boggling that schools in the US have their own police.

    The schools in TN have resource officers. Which are county deputies assigned to a school.

    What is even more troubling is that the IRS has an armed police force. I have heard that department of education also has armed people and a significant cache of weapons. It probably is that way for most federal agencies. Each one thinks they are important enough to warrant their own lethal force.

  45. drwilliams says:

    “Plus, the 300 simple cycle gas turbines in Texas are limited to 10% power generation per year for their environmental permits.”

    Which just coincidentally drags their utilization down to the level of wind and solar. 

  46. paul says:
    69,000 MW demand load in May. Unreal.

    Don’t blame me.  I have yet to turn the a/c on.

  47. Greg Norton says:

    I don’t think he’ll be inaugurated no matter what happens at the polls or doesn’t happen.  If bidden can continue to lie, and they run him and support him, I don’t think anything is beyond the realm  of possibility.   
     

    The Senate doesn’t have to certify, but the President vote would go to the House, where the Republicans hold the votes via control of state delegations.

    One vote per state.

  48. Lynn says:

    “TELL CONGRESS: RECOGNIZE THE 2A RIGHTS OF ALL AMERICANS”

       https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=22666

    “Please add your name to our pre-written letter urging your Representative to recognize concealed carry rights for ALL Americans.”

    “We just learned that Republican members of Congress are making plans right now to pass HR 354 – a bill that would expand a special national carry permit which applies ONLY to off-duty and retired police officers.”

    “Please make no mistake: Gun Owners of America would NEVER oppose the expansion of Second Amendment rights.”

    “But what we object to is Congress showing special favoritism to one class of citizens—like police, military, judges, or prosecutors—but leaving every other gun owner like YOU in the dust.”

  49. Lynn says:

    69,000 MW demand load in May. Unreal.

    Don’t blame me.  I have yet to turn the a/c on.

    It is 93 F here.

    My generator is ready to go.  I ain’t a part of this virtual power pool, yet. VPP is the plan to start all home, office, and emergency generators in times of deep crisis.

    My daughter cannot control her body temperature anymore. She lost that portion of her brain during the strokes 20 years ago. So we have to keep her cool. In the winter time, we can bundle her up.

  50. Lynn says:

    Driving home from work the other day, I ended up behind the pricey Model X Tonymobile with DV plates.

    One of my wife’s nephew’s planned schemes for post-military life is to get classified with a disability.

    That is one of Robert Heinlein’s recommendations to live a life of ease.  He was a graduate of the Naval Academy and then came down with tuberculosis on his first extended cruise in a destroyer in the 1920s.  The military promptly retired him.  He could not figure out what to do after the treatments left him weak so he started writing short stories for the science fiction magazines.

  51. Lynn says:

    We are so freaking hazy with all of the smoke from the Guatemalan and El Salvador farmers burning their fields for the plantings.  They cannot afford fertilizer so they use the nature’s fertilizer, the old crop burnt is a great fertilizer.  Then all the smoke comes up to south Texas.

    https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-smoky-haze-19448506.php

  52. RickH says:

    @Lynn … the PM2.5 display on windy.com shows that it’s everywhere. Looks like the air currents are sending stuff west from Africa across the Atlantic to Central America, where the PM2.5 starts heading north up to your area. 

    Interesting display: https://www.windy.com/-PM2-5-pm2p5?cams,pm2p5,25.968,-78.838,5

  53. paul says:

    It’s smoke?  I thought it was humidity.   I don’t smell smoke. 

  54. Lynn says:

    It’s smoke?  I thought it was humidity.   I don’t smell smoke. 

    You can smell the smoke here.  We are just 30 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico.

        https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/houston-smoky-haze-19448506.php

  55. Lynn says:

    “Astronomers worry SpaceX Starlink satellites are ruining view of the cosmos”

        https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/starlink-satellites-spacex-19446275.php

    “There are thousands of satellites already in low-Earth orbit—and thousands more are on the way.”

    Bummer.

    I love my Starlink at my office. Fast and a big pipe. I am getting 1,000 KB/s uploads and downloads.

  56. nick flandrey says:

    The cat is about 1 ½ “ tall and just completed.    I stopped the resin printer to see if it was ”resume after an interruption” and so I could move it from the kitchen to the toy room.   It was not.   Resin STINKS.   The whole house smells like resin.   The print quality is very good though, the lower first part of the eiffel tower looks great.  

    ————

    I’ve got some dope grower duct and fans and carbon filters that I was planning to use with the laser engraver, but I think I’ll be putting the resin printer in an enclosure and sharing the duct with it.  Or moving it to the cooktop so I can use the kitchen fan during printing.

    ———-

    Since I’m at home  today, I also fixed the pond pump.   Well, replaced it after poking at the dead one.  Took about two bushels of leaves, acorns and other “stuff” out of the pond (55 gallon capacity) and I think I’ll replace the goldfish.  I miss checking on the old boy.

    ———–  

    My temporary epoxy repair to the hole in my tub has come off, so I need to try something else.   I’ll try some devcon or similar next.  If I could get it, Sikaflex has a white adhesive sealer that is used to glue vehicle body panels together that cures flexible but stiff.  That might do the trick but the last time I tried buying it, it wasn’t the same stuff I’d used in the past.  It never got to “stiff”.

    Marine sealant is also a possibility.

    ———–

    Our Independent School Districts have their own police because HPD is running very lean, chronically understaffed for the size of their jurisdiction.   I think NYFC has 7 times the officers?  And this way the officers are intimately familiar with the grounds and the schools.   They are also focused on schools vs all the things that HPD does.   I have given it a lot of thought and would rather have a police force specifically for the schools than get random officers from the general department assigned to campus as a “resource officer”.

    The reasons for a police presence are generally because of racial mixing, cultural mixing (brown vs black vs other shades of brown), keeping felons and troublemakers in the general population of the schools, and all the social cohesion breakdown we see in society in general.  Diversity is not a strength, it is a cause of strife.   In other districts around us, the violence is almost always gang related, and usually hispanic on hispanic.   HISD has a lot of blacks in their district, but the surrounding areas don’t.  Hence despite calling them “hispanics” the columbians are very different from the mexicans are very different from the salvadorans are very different from the indios, etc. and that leads to violence and strife.  

    However, when you do have a lot of blacks in a school district, you statistically get a number of things along with them, and violence is one of those things both black on black, and black on brown as the hispanics move in and push the blacks out of their niches.

    I’ve mentioned before that our district seems to be just fine with racial strife and discrimination as long as brown people are doing it.  D1’s black friend says someone calls her n!gger to her face pretty much every day.   I’ve also mentioned that it’s been my observation that hispanics in general don’t like blacks, and as demographics shift, blacks are going to be very unpleasantly surprised that whites with their white guilt are not in charge any more…  and their 13% of the population absolutely won’t be able to dictate policy any longer.

     n 

  57. Ken Mitchell says:
    69,000 MW demand load in May. Unreal.

    It’s 95 degrees here in San Antonio. 

    We are so freaking hazy with all of the smoke from the Guatemalan and El Salvador farmers burning their fields for the plantings.

    When we lived in Sacramento, CA, we got the same kind of smoky days when the rice farmers burnt off the old stubble to prepare for the new planting.  Well, that, and all the wildfires. 

  58. nick flandrey says:

    Then all the smoke comes up to south Texas. 

    – I wondered what all the smoke was from.   Holy cow the air is thick.

    —————-

    wrt astronomers and starlink, that’s old news.   They raised the issue and Musk said “suck it”.  Well, really he said they might maybe try to reduce the satellites’ albedo, if it was easy, and convenient.  Otherwise, suck it.   Which is one of the reasons I’m sure it’s really mostly a .mil project- he got permits for tens of thousands of satellites, and the world’s astronomers were told to p!ss off.

    n

  59. nick flandrey says:

    Dripping wet outside and in the middle 90s.   I’m very glad to have A/C.  

    n

  60. drwilliams says:

    “Please make no mistake: Gun Owners of America would NEVER oppose the expansion of Second Amendment rights.”

    Shall not be infringed can only be expanded after it has been unlawfully restricted. 

  61. Chad says:

    I’m very glad to have A/C.  

    It is perhaps mankind’s greatest achievement. 

    https://youtu.be/CasGB8GahZw?t=43

  62. drwilliams says:

    @Nick

    “Marine sealant is also a possibility.”

    3M Fast Cure 4200. HD used to carry the small tubes so you didn’t have to buy a 10-oz caulking cartridge. 

  63. drwilliams says:

    The Founders put the capitol in a swamp to discourage residency. A/C effed up that plan. 

  64. Lynn says:

    I’m very glad to have A/C.  

    It is perhaps mankind’s greatest achievement. 

    https://youtu.be/CasGB8GahZw?t=43

    Pressurized potable water to people’s homes is number one.

  65. Alan says:

    >>People paying for sex has been happening since the penis was invented.

    @Ray, who was the inventor again?

    Asking for a friend… 

  66. Lynn says:

    “Amazon’s New Fees on Sellers Likened to ‘Kick in the Gut’”

        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-fees-sellers-likened-kick-163120031.html

    “Earlier this year, the e-commerce giant rolled out changes to the fees its charges them — essentially shifting more of its operating costs onto the small businesses that account for most of the products sold on the site. Making matters worse for merchants, shoppers are trading down.”

    Labor, transportation, and other costs are rising rapidly and no one wants to pay.

    And pudding brain refuses to admit that his green energy nonsense is throwing gasoline on the fire.

  67. Lynn says:

    Among other stupidity passed by voters in November was a initiative to give the Geico Gecko his long sought-after slush fund to install gas generators in Texas.

    The new gas turbines have to be powered by either natural gas and/or diesel.   I think that they are required to have a week’s worth of diesel on site too.  The costs are incredible.

  68. Lynn says:

    they’re depraved on account of they’re deprived…”

    Seen it before.  Rejected it then.

    Their culture says that it is ok to rape and kill infidels.  I do not think that you can change the culture very easily.

  69. Lynn says:

    I’ve lost 16 additional pounds so far this year and still have a bunch to go.  Down 79 from my peak weight.

    Congrats !

    I dropped 40 lbs over six months in 2004 using the South Beach Diet.  I need to do it again.

  70. paul says:

    The wISP has a Discord room.  Channel.  Whatever.  There’s the Watercooler where everyone can chat.   Not much  chat, actually.  And then you have a room for whatever antenna you are on with even less traffic.

    So.  One guy scrounges old PCs and fixes them up to sell cheap to folks w/o a lot of cash or just gives them away.  He’s not getting rich, just breaking even and having a good time messing with PCs.  🙂  

    I have a pile of stuff for him.  Two i5 towers and a Celeron tower that I kept as a spare when I bought the i5s.  None have hard drives.  Deliberately.  Four monitors.  Even that sweet ViewSonic 19″ flat screen.  It all worked when replaced with newer parts.  
    A bunch of cables and stuff.  All the RAM sticks I can find.  I’m pretty good at stashing stuff away, I know I have more RAM  sticks somewhere. 

    Some of the cables are SCSI.  I paid too much to toss them into the trash.  Maybe he does eBay? 

    I found my lost stash of extension cords.  Not where I ever thought they were.  

    I don’t need to keep a spare monitor anymore.  If this 32″ monitor smokes, I have a 27″ in the next room.  Shrug.

  71. Lynn says:

    It’s a mostly suburban white phenomenon too. Minorities and those in low income urban and rural areas know to keep their mouth shut (which has its own set of problems).

    It will come as a shock to the Karens of the world (male and female) when White people learn “snitches get stitches”.

    This is the truth.   If we have a Rule Of Law down time period, many grudges will get settled.

  72. Greg Norton says:

    The schools in TN have resource officers. Which are county deputies assigned to a school.

    A sworn deputy would be better than the district having its own police answering to the boards and the superintendants, as is the case in many parts of Texas.

    Our ISD is the infamous one who had the parents arrested by district police at their home for protesting armbands -er- masks at board meetings.

    Of course, the couple did first retaliate by dumping the details of the superintendant’s extramarrital affair online, but is that really something that justifies Hut Hut Hut/

  73. Greg Norton says:

    My temporary epoxy repair to the hole in my tub has come off, so I need to try something else.   I’ll try some devcon or similar next.  If I could get it, Sikaflex has a white adhesive sealer that is used to glue vehicle body panels together that cures flexible but stiff.  That might do the trick but the last time I tried buying it, it wasn’t the same stuff I’d used in the past.  It never got to “stiff”.

    Marine sealant is also a possibility.

    I used Flex Seal to temporarily patch a hole in my kids shower left by the soap dish falling off the wall one night.

    That stuff is nasty to work with, however. You have been warned.

    Make sure to have mineral spirits to get the excess off of the tools and your hands.

  74. Lynn says:

    I find it mind-boggling that schools in the US have their own police. Something is very wrong indeed. Looking from here, it seems too wrong to be recoverable.

    My son wants to shut all public schools down.  I want to give money to parents for private schools that can throw out the trouble makers.

    HISD in Houston fired all the custodians today.  HISD fired 100+ principals recently and a bunch of teachers.  This will be interesting as HISD has been run as a minority employment agency for several decades now.  The amount of fraud was apparently breathtaking.

        https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/hisd-custodian-layoffs-19448413.php

  75. Lynn says:

    Starting to look bad out there.  

    – starting to look WORSE out there.   And starting to affect the people who thought they were safe and that bad things would only happen to other people.

    @EdH, I hope they have been getting ready for this eventuality.   I hope they return to jobs quickly.   

    My feeling is that business will  grind to a standstill as everyone waits to see what November brings.

    No new hiring, no new facilities, no new expenditures.   Texas and Florida will probably not be affected as badly, but I am seeing signs of slowdowns everywhere except new residential construction.   That is still ongoing for now.

    This is still the Good Old Days.  We are getting closer and closer to the event horizon.  If, we have an event.  Or else we just slide into the Greater Depression of the Financial Apocalypse.

    I just bought six new shirts from Land’s End.  No spare buttons sewn in the shirts.  Just one more sign of things getting worse and worse.  

    8
    1
  76. Greg Norton says:

    “Amazon’s New Fees on Sellers Likened to ‘Kick in the Gut’”

    A lot of arbitrage goes through Amazon third party sellers, both legitimate and five finger wholesale.

  77. Lynn says:

    “Plus, the 300 simple cycle gas turbines in Texas are limited to 10% power generation per year for their environmental permits.”

    Which just coincidentally drags their utilization down to the level of wind and solar. 

    If you need to run your emergency generation equipment more than 3 to 5% of the time then that is a sure fire sign that you need more base load generation equipment.  We have shut down half of the coal based power plants in Texas with no replacement, over 10,000 MW, in the last 15 years.  

    We should have had more nukes in the construction phase.  We did have four more nukes (STP3, STP4, CP3, CP4) in the design phase, all four were canceled due to federally subsidized wind turbines and solar power plants.  The federal subsidies have horribly distorted the power generation market out there.

  78. Greg Norton says:

    I just bought six new shirts from Land’s End.  No spare buttons sewn in the shirts.  Just one more sign of things getting worse and worse.  

    Dodgeville was a ghost town when we drove by that HQ complex a couple of times in November.

    A Monday afternoon? Two weeks before Thanksgiving?

    Lands End no longer has an outlet in Dodgeville but holds sale events in the park downtown every once in a while.

    Duluth Trading has a real outlet, located at the address where they have customers send returns, but the prices were not spectacular.

  79. paul says:

    I just looked.  I’ve dropped from almost 165  to 152 in not quite three weeks.  The scales vary a few pounds either way.

    I’m just not hungry.  Snack on pretzels or Cheeze-its or pork rinds and chunks of cheese is all I want.  Not in the mood at all to cook.   I have some leftovers in the fridge that I’m working on. 

    But hey, I was at 130 when I graduated high school. Blossomed to 170 and felt FAT and then had my motorcycle wreck and dropped down to 120 after a month in the hospital.  I’ll get hungry when I get hungry.

    I have a schedule.  Make coffee.  Walk the dogs.  Feed the cats.  Feed the emu.  Morning cookie snack if the dogs ask. Afternoon cookie appetizer snack about 4 to 5 PM.   Their supper about an hour later.  And then bedtime potty walk.

    🙂   

  80. paul says:
    I just bought six new shirts from Land’s End.  No spare buttons sewn in the shirts.

    I like the spare buttons.  I have never needed a spare button. 

  81. nick flandrey says:

    The buttons are like umbrellas, you only need one if you don’t have it.

    n

  82. Lynn says:

    What you described is unprecedented and obvious manipulation of the election, with no deniability.

    That is one of the likely triggers of a shooting war.

    Was Lincoln’s election manipulated at all ?

  83. Lynn says:
    I just bought six new shirts from Land’s End.  No spare buttons sewn in the shirts.

    I like the spare buttons.  I have never needed a spare button. 

    I have used the space buttons too many times to count.  I wear my shirts until there is at least one inch long hole in the collar.

    I do have my button down shirts washed and pressed at the local Cleaners.  They are rough with the buttons when pressing.

  84. paul says:

    I have an old bathtowel in the truck.  Coming out of the HEB and it’s raining a flood, I get a bag for my shirt and dry off in the truck.

    Weird?  Moi?  

  85. Lynn says:

    I have a schedule.  Make coffee.  Walk the dogs.  Feed the cats.  Feed the emu.  Morning cookie snack if the dogs ask. Afternoon cookie appetizer snack about 4 to 5 PM.   Their supper about an hour later.  And then bedtime potty walk.

    I do not see any meal prep or eating for you on that schedule.

  86. nick flandrey says:

    HISD got taken over by the state because they are so bad.   I bet there is a LOT of featherbedding in the district.

    n

  87. Lynn says:

    The wISP has a Discord room.  Channel.  Whatever.  There’s the Watercooler where everyone can chat.   Not much  chat, actually.  And then you have a room for whatever antenna you are on with even less traffic.

    So, did the wISP get your radio wifi receiver fixed yet ?

    Starlink may be putting them out of business.

  88. Lynn says:

    HISD got taken over by the state because they are so bad.   I bet there is a LOT of featherbedding in the district.

    HISD died when the forced busing started in 1974.  All the kids left whose parents cared and everyone started looting the corpse since then.

  89. Denis says:

    I like spare buttons too. I have a spare tyre, so why not a spare button?

    Here’s one for the adhesives buffs… a friend damaged his binoculars. To effect the repair, I need to deal with the threads of tiny metal screws that have pulled out of some kind of plastic material. I can’t drill and tap new holes, because the base material is thin, and I can’t go all the way through it.

    I am looking for an adhesive that I could use to fill the damaged threaded holes in the plastic base material and that would also retain the little screws. Loctite 380 Black Max came to mind, as it can adhere to plastics and to metal, but it has no capacity to fill a hole.

    Any suggestions?

  90. nick flandrey says:

    They were P!SSED when they changed from being a Robin Hood recipient to a Robin Hood donor.   Then it was the most unfairest thing evah…

    F them and the horse they rode into the ground.

    n

  91. nick flandrey says:

    @denis, gel cyanoacrylate in black?  the off gas might affect the optics though.

    Can you heat the plastic and push some back toward the hole?   Clock repairers have a punch with a beveled edge that moves brass back toward the hole to tighten up worn holes.  Maybe do something similar.  Or plastic weld the holes?

    n

    Loktite’s red permanent thread locker has some thickness iirc

  92. paul says:

    I haven’t run the stereo much at all for the last three or five years.  I’ve been wondering if it even still works.  I had to gently thump on the LaserDisc player last week to encourage it to open the tray.  Player is fine.

    His hearing made it all just echo in his head.  But the earphones connected to the TV worked great for watching TV.

    Just no Rumble Rama Surround, ya know?  

    So I can play the stereo.  Six-channel surround.  I need to fiddle around because the furniture has changed over the last few years.  But.  It sounds great.  Patricia by Perez Prado is awesome .  And then some Blondie and Supertramp and Heart.

    Now I need to figure out when to watch movies.  I have a lot of DVDs.  I’m thinking about 3PM is a good start time. Because the dogs….  

  93. drwilliams says:

    Let Them Destroy Each Other

    Kurt Schlichter

    Contrary to popular conservative opinion, I don’t want this college chaos to end anytime soon. I want it to increase and metastasize and continue right up until these entitled, ugly, mutated communist jerks totally alienate every normal American. It’s already happening. The frat boys have turned. The normals are turning. At one of these colleges, you had the theater major graduation ceremony invaded by Palesimpians and the parents began chanting, “USA! USA!” Will this and the administrations’ feeble response help flush these institutions’ bloated reputations down the crapper? Yes, please! So, keep it up, communist dipwads. I’m loving this.

    https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2024/05/09/let-them-destroy-each-other-n2638755

    Mostly peaceful protests with burning buildings for $100, Kurt.

    College President: “Any progress on our request to clear The Quad?”

    Chief of Police: “Great progress! We’ve identified a use-of-force expert with the proper ethnic background for this situation!”

    College President: “Well get him over here, then!”

    Chief of Police: “We will as soon as he gets permission to leave Gaza.”

  94. Greg Norton says:

    HISD got taken over by the state because they are so bad.   I bet there is a LOT of featherbedding in the district.

    Every district in Texas has lots of fetherbedding.

    The state just gave the surplus away to the schools.

    Friends in Florida have a kid who is struggling to find a band director gig in that state after graduating with a Music Ed diploma last year so they have their sights set on establishing him in Texas with a graduate degree and trying again for the brass ring, even if it means they relocate themselves.

    Go back about a decade, and Texas is the last place the couple ever wanted to live, the wife being especially against even setting foot in this state more than necessary.

    They were surprised that we were thinking about getting out. This place has always been the compromise at my house.

  95. drwilliams says:

    Princeton Students on Hunger Strike for Palestine Complain School Officials Not Monitoring Their Health

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/05/princeton-students-on-hunger-strike-for-palestine-complain-school-officials-not-monitoring-their-health/

    When you don’t fit through a door less than two ax handles wide and you put your jeans on with a sausage stuffer you should know you’re not healthy.

    Now, Miss Denim Disaster, point that bullhorn at the red end of the other one for a free physics lesson.

  96. drwilliams says:

    Lowest is $1.91 in The Pak but it’s probably a beef-free “Big Rat”

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/the-daily-chart-big-mac-bidenflation.php

  97. Lynn says:

    Go back about a decade, and Texas is the last place the couple ever wanted to live, the wife being especially against even setting foot in this state more than necessary.

    They were surprised that we were thinking about getting out. This place has always been the compromise at my house.

    Where would you go from Texas ?

  98. paul says:
    So, did the wISP get your radio wifi receiver fixed yet ?

    No.  But I’m on their list of things to do.  Was going to be today.  Uh, nope. 

    I’m sorta screwed up here.  They needed some extra cash to buy more radios.  So I sent a grand.  And yeah, the monthly bill is about $92.  And yeah, I got two months credit applied to my account.  Beats heck outta t-bills, just saying.  I’m paid up for a year…..  

    Starlink seems pretty pricey.   And when it rains like hell, what?   I’m leaning more to a cell phone gizmo from Verizon that I can plug into my router.

    Ain’t no one here watching Nascar all weekend anymore, ya know? 

  99. drwilliams says:

    Send Greta to Gaza GoFundMe mysteriously short of goal:

    https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/05/09/shes-back-the-doom-pixie-resurfaces-and-shes-protesting-against-israel-n2173988

    Green Weinies SHOCKED When TOTALLY UNEXPECTED Storm Destroys Floating Solar Plant:

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/09/worlds-largest-floating-solar-farm-wrecked-by-a-storm/

  100. paul says:
    Where would you go from Texas ?

    Corpus Christi.

    Or Lubbock.

  101. Greg Norton says:

    They were surprised that we were thinking about getting out. This place has always been the compromise at my house.

    Where would you go from Texas ?

    We aren’t seriously looking right now, but we aren’t going to stay once the “Republicans” get an income tax to play with in Austin.

    Might as well live in a blue state that’s honest.

    November 2027.

  102. nick flandrey says:

    So I popped the new 8gb memory into the all in one pc, and fired it up to see if it made a difference.

    and since I don’t own my pc, bill gates and company do, they decided that this would be an excellent time to max my cpu and disk while they update and download office 360 on demand– which I’m not using, nor will I ever use it.   And then 24% of my cpu to windows compatibility telemetry for another half hour or more… and then more updates.   All making stuff I want to do happen VERY SLOWLY.  

    The 8gb does make a difference, but an SSD would make more.  If I keep the machine, I’ll do that next.

    Currently it’s been working for an hour to turn off indexing on every file on the disk.  I usually do it immediately but forgot.   File indexing is about the most useless thing they’ve ever wasted cpu cycles on, and it’s always been a problem.

    ———-

    HEB had t bone, choice, on sale for $4.89/lb so I bought the limit.   Some is already in the freezer, some is tonight’s dinner.

    n

  103. EdH says:

    Where would you go from Texas ?

    <PA> Phil Sheridan to the white courtesy phone.   I repeat, General Philip Sheridan to the white courtesy phone…

  104. Greg Norton says:

    The 8gb does make a difference, but an SSD would make more.  If I keep the machine, I’ll do that next.

    Replacing the integrated graphics with a 2 GB GT 730 or AMD equivalent would also help if you have the PCI-E slot.

    I like the GT 730 because the boards do not require external power and most still ship with a VGA port, but YMMV.

  105. Lynn says:

    Starlink seems pretty pricey.   And when it rains like hell, what?   I’m leaning more to a cell phone gizmo from Verizon that I can plug into my router.

    I have not noticed any rain fade on Starlink yet.  Nothing like the rain fade problem that DirecTV had.

    I suspect that since Starlink is constantly moving to the antenna to the optimal position, rain fade may not be a problem.  Of course, since I am not watching TV over Starlink, I do not get any apparent signs of rain fade.

    The Starlink antenna will also melt the snow off itself but, that is a rare problem around here.

  106. Lynn says:

    “23 states, rural co-ops sue EPA over ‘unlawful, unreasonable’ power plant rules”

         https://www.utilitydive.com/news/rural-electric-cooperatives-nreca-sue-epa-power-plant-rules/715651/

    “This rule intentionally sets impossible standards to destroy the coal industry,” North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said.”

    “NRECA, which represents almost 900 not-for-profit rural electric cooperatives and public power districts, said EPA’s rule undermines the foundation of the American economy.”

    ““EPA’s power plant rule is unlawful, unreasonable and unachievable. It exceeds EPA’s authority and poses an immediate threat to the American electric grid,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said in a statement.”

    “EPA’s rule would require certain baseload coal and gas plants to limit emissions beginning in 2032, meeting a carbon dioxide emission standard equal to installing carbon capture and sequestration technology and running it at 90% efficiency.”

    “Utilities have warned that CCS technology is “not yet ready for full-scale, economy-wide deployment,” however.”

    My understanding of CCS technology is that it runs great for three to six months at which point it collapses and you rebuild the entire collection apparatus.  Building it out of stainless steel gets you to three years or so at a cost of billions of dollars.  Plus there is the problem of what do you do with the collected CO2 as many of the CO2 disposal wells are causing small earthquakes.

  107. lpdbw says:

    I’ll get hungry when I get hungry.

    As long as you get to the point where you have one meal a day with sufficient protein, this is a good attitude.   It may take a while.  Trauma does this to a person.

    Long term failure to get sufficient protein can lead to loss  lean body mass, which is bad for those of us past a certain age.  

  108. SteveF says:

    Paul, instead of cheezeits, can you keep something more nutritious on hand to nibble on? Cook up a dozen sausages, keep them in the fridge, and grab one when you think of it. Rub seasoning on half a dozen chicken thighs, bake them for 80 minutes at 375F, and grab one when you want it. Worse come to worst, get a package of protein drinks and have one with your cheezeits. Aside loss of muscle mass, protein deficit can cause cognitive problems, which you don’t need on top of your current disruption.

    Lynn, Tucker Carlson interviewed a woman who looked into the source of Lyme Disease and other tick-born diseases. Teaser video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxszhv9D1k

  109. Alan says:

    @nick, does your client have professionally installed lightning protection? Rods, cabling and grounds? 

    Hopefully he’s not the highest house in the area? 

    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1771175/

  110. Ken Mitchell says:

    Farm burnings, poor air quality behind haze across Austin, San Antonio

    https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/weather/article/texas-air-quality-alert-19448406.php

  111. Ken Mitchell says:

    Where would you go from Texas ?

    The cemetery. Or the crematorium.  We’re never moving again; I’ve given away all of my moving boxes and threw away the styrofoam containers for all of my wife’s delicate baubles.  I’ll make my stand here. And I’ll die here, one way or another. 

  112. Alan says:

    >>That stuff is nasty to work with, however. You have been warned.

    Make sure to have mineral spirits to get the excess off of the tools and your hands.

    What?? That’s not how it works in the commercials…you calling out Phil Swift? 

  113. nick flandrey says:

    My client is out in the country, the supply lines don’t have a lightning ground wire above the conductors like many areas, so we have a lot of electrical protection…

    Whole house surge suppression, UPSs and surge protection, solid grounding.

    The house is surrounded by taller trees, mostly pines.   So when one of them gets hit, there’s quite a flash and pulse… that was what took stuff out a couple of years ago.

    The DSL line got hit once too, that jumped all over the rack, having ridden in on the phone…but followed the network cable.

    I suspect the HDMI output on the Denons just isn’t particularly robust.   The power available at the connector might get over-drawn, or back fed by EMI, or some combination.  The stuff is built down to a price point… the connectors aren’t sturdy to begin with physically, and I suspect there is something electrical that is cheap or underdesigned too.

    I might tear this one down to take a look.   Unfortunately some search terms are almost useless with all the spam and AI crep sites online, and mass market consumer goods  are right up there for useless results, so I can’t find any repair videos.  I found one forum reference to the denon output boards having well known issues, but that was it.

    Anyway, the house itself isn’t getting hit, or my client would have put in some lightning protection by now.   The roof replacement this year would have been a good time for that.

    He’s “self insured” so we do  the replacements bit by bit.

    n

  114. Alan says:

    >>Or the crematorium.  

    What, the Progs haven’t gotten FJB to ban this yet? 

  115. Alan says:

    >>Some of the cables are SCSI.  I paid too much to toss them into the trash.  Maybe he does eBay? 

    Last resort, if he’s ambitious enough, is for him to strip (or burn, if he’s out in the sticks) off the cable insulation to get at the copper conductors. 

  116. Alan says:

    >>Last resort, if he’s ambitious enough, is for him to strip (or burn, if he’s out in the sticks) off the cable insulation to get at the copper conductors. 

    https://m.vevor.com/electric-wire-stripping-machine-c_10767/electric-wire-stripping-machine-1-5mm-38mm-cutting-speed-15-m-min-automatic-p_010612321300

  117. Nick Flandrey says:

    Just ordered replacement burners for my JennAir grills.   I have replaced the burners in the one here at the house about 5 times.  The heat deflectors once, the grills several times.  The body of the grill is still in good condition and it works well when tuned up.

    I scored the 4 burner version in an auction for the BOL, and it needs one new burner.  I ordered a set of 4 anyway, with deflectors and piezo spark ignitors  for only $7 more than the set of three.  

    About $50 to keep two nice BBQ grills running for a couple more years is not only good finances but green as well as it keeps them out of the landfill or recycler.  Either one loses all the embodied cost of making and transporting the objects, even if they are all metal and recyclable.   Most of the time repair is the “greenest” option.

    It’s an easy fix too.

    n

  118. Nick Flandrey says:

    ‘Severe geomagnetic storm watch’ – the first in nearly 20 years – is issued with NOAA warning the world’s power grids, communication networks and satellite operations could be impacted

     

    NEW The ‘unusual event’, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  put it Thursday, would be the first in nearly 20 years if it comes to fruition. It follows a series of solar flares that began on Wednesday, during which several large expulsions of plasma from the Sun’s corona – the outermost part of its atmosphere – were spotted That paved the way for the alert for Friday, where officials said the expulsions of matter and magnetic field could cause geomagnetic storms and problems for earthlings. Those storms could cause electronic devices like GPS and parts of power grids to malfunction, they warned –  while citing how it may drape a huge portion of the country in a spectacular swathe of light stretching from California to Alabama.

    joy

    n

  119. Nick Flandrey says:

    Harry snubbed, alone and utterly irrelevant… and our Discount Duchess Meghan seemingly less popular than Lauren Sanchez 

    – “discount duchess”  love that.   I think she won’t escape that.

    n

  120. Lynn says:

    Lynn, Tucker Carlson interviewed a woman who looked into the source of Lyme Disease and other tick-born diseases. Teaser video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoxszhv9D1k

    Thanks, good teaser.  Obviously Tucker Carlson knows someone with Chronic Lyme disease.

    My son actually did a lot of research and is very up on Lyme Connecticut Bioweapons Lab conspiracy theory.  Of course, he says that the number one mission of the CDC is Bioweapons Research which terrifies me.

    I am amazed at the number of people that have told me that they had Lyme disease.  But they took antibiotics and it went away.  My daughter is the only person that I know of that cannot get rid of it.  Or, we have gotten rid of it but she still has to live with the brain and body damage of five years without treatment.  We just don’t know.  We stopped treating her for Lyme about three years ago.

    Of course, a number of people online claim that they have Lyme and cannot get rid of it, calling it Chronic Lyme.  I have no idea what to think of this.

  121. Chad says:

    I did google once, several years ago, about why so many celebrities seem to have Lyme Disease. I didn’t really get any definitive answers, but one theory of note is geography. What’s right across the water from Lyme, Connecticut? The Hamptons.

  122. Alan says:

    >>Just ordered replacement burners for my JennAir grills.   I have replaced the burners in the one here at the house about 5 times.  The heat deflectors once, the grills several times.  The body of the grill is still in good condition and it works well when tuned up.

    Here, let me show you my “favorite” axe… 

  123. Jenny says:

    Bull moose in the backyard for four or five hours this afternoon. Dogs needed to piddle, the rabbits were hungry. Moose don‘t care about my problems. He was happily eating his way through my slash pile from the tree massacre a few weeks back. 
    Eventually I got tired of it. Hazing moose is a big no no. 

    I practiced cello, badly, on our second story deck.

    He left when I started playing out of tune chord triads.

    There was much rejoicing. 

    15

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