Cool and then warmer. Maybe not as cool as yesterday, and a bit warmer in the afternoon. Maybe not. Space weather is the big story today.
Yesterday I did my two pickups. Did some stuff around the house. Made dinner (frozen shrimp sauteed and served with Jack Daniels bacon creme sauce over bow tie pasta. Yum.) Read for a while.
Today I’ll be doing more pickups and more of the work I didn’t do yesterday. My ability to work seems to be “bursty” for lack of a better term. I used to be quick and steady.
The sun apparently spit out some cosmic loogies, and they are headed this way. Now, we’re all gonna die, eventually, except maybe SteveF, but probably not today. There might be communication impacts and might be some auroras visible in places that don’t normally get them. Keep an eye and an ear open, and if you rely on GPS or starlink, maybe make sure it’s not life or death that either keeps working. Otherwise, most of us probably won’t even know it’s happening.
You should be fully stacked to stay home a couple of days anyway, right?
Unless the invading spacecraft missiled our sun during its slingshot… in which case we’re all F’d anyway.
Still, stacks will help if there are issues, at least for a while.
nick
My mobile phone was acting flaky this morning. Solar storm, alien not-comet, or just old age? Who knows…
Nick, that sounds delicious. I have trouble cooking bowtie pasta / farfalle; somehow the edges are always overcooked, and the “knot” is still hard. What’s the trick?
Let’s hope the big fusion reactor in the sky doesn’t get us all today.
A shot in the face will put a stop to that. Keep it near the front door in case of surprise invasions.
Why do you assume that it would stand out at Greg’s?
Or is that Ray’s?
I lose track.
I think you are the chicken guy…
Who didn’t post first again this morning. Did you sleep in? 🙂
57F and saturated this gutte morgan… so not quite as cold. Damp as heck though.
——-
n
I didn’t wake until almost 0500 today. Shocking but true!
You’re not using a large enough pot of boiling water. Does the boil stop when you add the pasta? Bigger pot or bigger burner.
Pretty good article on 50-year mortgages:
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/11/12/50-year-mortgages-are-a-horrific-idea-n3808795
Forty years ago I posed a question:
Q: Why aren’t there 40-year mortgages?
A: There are. They are called rent.
“No” works if I don’t mind looking rude.
I don’t mind.
I’ve been thinking. And what I’ve been thinking is that I want to be acclaimed as a playwright or novelist, as a world authority on some subject, as an innovative inventor, as a military leader, and as a world-class athlete. Of course, accomplishing all that would be a lot of work, and I’m famously lazy.
So here’s my plan: I’m going to take over some small turdball of a country, rule with an iron fist, and have the fawning media proclaim my accomplishments in every field of endeavor.
Does anyone have Kim Jung-Un’s telephone number? He can probably give me some tips.
I don’t do anything special when cooking pasta, except to use enough water. And stir so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
—-
Developers vs testers
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VRXi7ytV290?feature=share
The field install and service guys were called in to test and get familiarized with our company software. It was at the “gold master” stage ie. ready to ship, and I blue screened it with one click.
Developer asked me what I did, and I told him. I right clicked on a blank part of the GUI. “Why the hell would you do that????????” “Why wouldn’t I?” I was probably looking for a context menu, or just clearing a selection…
They shipped it anyway. Patched it later.
n
@StevF
Easier to just write up the bio that you want, post it on wikipedia, and let the editors know that messing with it would be a life shortening experience.
I am sometimes prone to accidentally clicking or right-clicking as I’m dragging the cursor around the screen. So a BSOD sounds like a SIGNIFICANT failure.
Testing is hard to do correctly, and, over the past 30 years, it has become the over-40 ghetto at a lot of companies.
I’ll admit to walking out of the job in Seattle when I realized I had been hired to test.
First world problem. I needed the job to keep the career going, but it wasn’t a question of not eating.
I would start with Transylvania, my Count.
Drac Is Back! 2026
Developers vs. Testers
I was on a ground-up software project with another developer, and we had 2 SMEs. One was our manager, the other was helping manage requirements and customers.
We developed a requirements document, a design document, and a test plan, all in concert.
The first version we produced that passed the test plan was presented to our SMEs for their approval.
They crashed it in 20 minutes.
With the amount of effort I had to go through, the multiple examinations, imaging, combing through service medical records, it is difficult for fraud cases to make it through the system. It took me seven years. I have a stack of documentation, letters from the VA, my responses, my filings, that is about 2″ thick. My back injury was while I was in the service. It did not bother me for many years. I used to water ski, ride roller coasters, etc. About 2010 I really started noticing the problem and experiencing pain. By 2015 it was difficult to sit at my desk for more than a couple of hours. Even then there was much squirming involved to relieve the discomfort.
Were my back problems due to the injury, or is it just a problem of getting old? You could make a good argument either way. The VA has to err, if there is room to err, on the side of the veteran and consider the condition service connected.
My hearing loss and tinnitus I firmly believe was caused by my time in the service. The exposure to very high levels of noise, for extended periods. Such loss and ringing did not manifest itself until years after my service ended. That is not that uncommon. Mr. Lynn was exposed to very high levels of noise that caused his tinnitus years later. In my case the VA has to err on the side of service connection where the exposure to the loud noise occurred as I have had no loud noise exposure since leaving the service.
Those are the three conditions for which I pursued as service connected. The broken back was documented in my medical records. The tinnitus and hearing loss are service connected. The hearing loss was provable by hearing tests and confirmed by my inability to sometimes understand people. The tinnitus is related to the hearing loss. My inner ear has been damaged and will not get better.
I never initially claimed against my knee as I had no injury to my knees in the service. The VA decided that the knee was service connected when I had my knee replaced. The VA’s opinion is that my back injury affects my gait, and thus probably caused the knee issue. I found out that the knee was a compensable affliction by dumb luck. When I was informed I could get compensated, I made the claim for the knee.
I am rated at 20% for each shoulder. Again, something I never claimed. That was given to me as part of my claim against the pain in my back causing numbness in one arm. The condition is considered bilateral and thus the rating for each shoulder. The federal VA law judge made that decision.
Those last two conditions were initiated by the VA system based on examinations, treatment, and medical records.
It should also be stated that my final rating was decided by a VA federal law judge. There are very specific regulations regarding conditions that the VA, and the judge, has to follow. These are quite detailed regarding the condition, range of motion, rating, and compensable amount.
I was lied to by the VA when I left the service. My back injury was clearly documented. I was told by the VA when I left the service I could not get compensated for the back injury because the injury did not happen while “on duty”. Not being “on duty” was true as several of us were at the lake doing a “bubba watch this stunt” that did not turn out well. However, all injuries while in the service, are covered by the VA, regardless of how the injury occurred with the exception of purposely self-inflicted. The VA lied.
Because the VA lied, I missed out on 20+ years of disability payments.
Yes, there is some fraud in the VA system. There always is in as large a system as the VA. I think it pales in comparison to SSDI fraud. And food stamp (SNAP) fraud. When I see someone pay for their groceries with a SNAP card, then buy $100.00 in lottery tickets, there is something wrong and someone is abusing the system. These people gave nothing for their monetary benefit other than being damned liars.
A veteran on the other hand, signed a contract that gives their entire body, and mind, to the US government. Even to the point of giving up the veteran’s life. No other job in the US comes with such employment terms. Military training is dangerous as there is no OSHA. Military conflicts are extremely dangerous, rampant with injuries, many significant, sometimes fatal. No other job in the US is offered full well knowing that such issues are very real possibilities.
My wife does that all the time. Clicks in places that make no sense. Clicks on boxes that are not applicable. Sometimes it causes problems.
And speaking of stupid developers. My credit union has the ability to notify me whenever there is a transaction on my account. I set the limit at $10.00 for credits and debits.
Monday night the wife’s SS deposit gets posted. This morning, Wednesday, I finally get a notification of the deposit. 36 hours later to get the notification. What idiot thinks that is a good idea and is a good feature? That is basically worthless as I check my account every morning. I knew Tuesday morning the deposit was posted, long before I get the notification.
The goobermint is working out reopening the joint after 40 days of shutdown. I got my SS and milspec pension twice during the shutdown. I say keep it shut down and start firing the excess. Of course, the spineless Redumbo’s will vote to give EVERYONE back pay. Throw in a bonus, too. Apparently working for the Feds is a guaranteed lifetime job with bennies.
Got the chicken run moved. Dragging the run itself was as much of a pain as expected, more because of the melting slush on the grass (the temperature got above freezing. Wah-hoo!) than because of the mud. Moving the coop, with me lifting and pulling one end while the other was held up by a rolling cart, was no problem at all. I’m not sure why the wheels didn’t get hung up in the mud but I’m not complaining.
The chickens enjoyed their 45 minutes of freedom (enclosed in the garden) but came running when I shook a bag of their super-most-special treat, dried black fly larvae. Om-nom-nom. All except the oldest, who certainly likes her treats but isn’t as much of a voracious greedy-gut as the younger hens. I had to go and get her from the garden, and then she om-nom-nommed with the rest of them.
And I did my weekly chore of cleaning their coop, by which I mean pulling out the straw, by which I mean pulling out the mass of poop held together by straw. As almost always, 90% of the poop was in a strip parallel to and a few inches offset from the roosting rail in the coop. They perch at night, all lined up in the same direction, and just let loose whenever they want to. This makes it easy to clean, anyway.
Also as usual, a couple of the hens started up the ramp into the coop and stopped when they saw that Things Had Changed. They’d walk almost all the way up and crane their heads this way and that, not quite putting their heads within the coop. And then jump down. “Nope. New thing. Not messing with the scary new thing.” It could be worse. Before she was killed, Red Hen would do the suspicious look thing and then go in and start kicking the new bedding out the door. It wasn’t a matter of just scratching at the new straw or wood chips and some would fly out. No, the Red Menace would deliberately kick it out, keeping at it until a large fraction was on the ground. The Child complained mightily about this because she was the one who had to stick her upper half into the cage and throw the bedding back up; I’m much too big to get through the cage door. (Sure, I could have used a 6″ wide hand rake to get most of the bedding but I didn’t have a small rake and did have a teenage daughter.)
Why the chickens, Mr. SteveF?
They are a pain in the ass. Isn’t family enough drama for you?
Modern society frowns upon eating family.
Apparently the New Glenn launch was called on account of weather … space weather.
I guess NASA’s probes, supposedly designed for two years of flight just to get to Mars, aren’t up to a measly 1-in-20y solar flare on their first day.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15283911/China-Bridge-Collapse-Hongqi-Bridge.html
Huh, who’d’a thought that a culture that avoids telling the truth to superiors, that believes in appearance over substance, and is rife with cheating fraud and theft might have a problem with mega-engineering projects.
n
Damage to the back can take decades to be apparent.
I did stuff to mine in my late teens and 20s, and only 50 years later is it becoming a mildly big deal, limiting activities to some extent.
At the very least it is responsible for causing a lot of opportunity cost calculations: if I fix the chimney trim today I have to wait for tomorrow to clear out the garage, etc.
Well, yes.
Casey Jones, a civil engineer, has a nice YT channel on stuff like this, fun to watch a professional analyze and talk about these kind of things.
https://www.youtube.com/@CaseyJones-Engineer
I think for this specific bridge it’s early yet but he thinks it was actually a foundations issue. The hill slid out from under, which is either a geotechnical analysis failure, or a failure of the engineers company to appropriately address a correct geotechnical analysis.
Nicolae Ceaușescu tried that in Romania.
It didn’t end well for him and Mrs. C.
The US is heading down the road to being that kind of culture,
Compare the fiasco of replacing the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge rebuild in Florida 40 years ago.
Agreed. After my injury, crushing two vertebra, I spent a month in a neck brace. After a couple of months I was OK and felt no discomfort. I was told by the orthopedic doctor at Willford Hall (Lackland) that there were two options. Surgery to fuse the vertebra, or let the back heal itself and the vertebra would fuse themselves. The risk in self-healing was maybe improper healing. The risk of surgery was infection and damage to the spine. I chose the self-healing.
The injury occurred in 1973. I did not have any discomfort until about 2000, 20 years after getting out of the service, 27 years after the injury. By 2010 the discomfort was becoming significantly annoying at times. By 2014 sitting for long periods required getting up and moving around. By 2015 I was being forced to lay down a couple of times a day for 30 minutes or more after sitting for long periods. That is when I decided to retire. I left work August 2016.
I have since sold the boat as I can no longer water ski. Roller coasters are chosen carefully or generally not at all. There are a couple of coasters at Dollywood that if ridden are really painful. I needed to add a suspension seat to my lawnmower to enable being able to mow. That is getting to the point I may have to pay to have the lawn mowed.
All from a “bubba watch this” incident back in 1973, 50+ years ago.
Digging for worms in Sweden, a fisherman found 20,000 medevial coins and other jewelry:
(link)
I ordered this on Monday around 2pm and Big River delivered it Tuesday evening. A first. Beats the original date of Saturday.
“EMF Detector, Detect All 3 Types of Electromagnetic Radiation Field in 1 EMF Meter for Cell Towers, and Smart Meters, EMF Reader for Home, Office”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4L12RB4?tag=ttgnet-20 It’s $25 but with coupon $20.
Why? Why not? For $20, assuming it’s anywhere near accurate, I now know my monitor doesn’t register from 6 inches away.
The Ubiquiti UniFi I have for wi-fi doesn’t register at all from 2 feet away.. Nails the meter into the red at a few inches but I expected that. So I’m cool with it on a shelf 7 feet away from me.
The LED 40w incandescent equivalent bulb in the range hood doesn’t register. The fan on high speed does but not from a normal user distance, I mean, if the fan is on you are cooking and who sticks their head under the vent hood over a hot stove?
I have not yet tried it while the microwave oven is running.
So for $20, if this gizmo is accurate, I now know all the screaming and running around with hair on fire about Wi-Fi and 5G causing brain cancer is pure Bullsit(+h).
It looks well made. The packaging is nice. A nice box, the unit was in a plastic bag the feels like “silk” (ok, polyester) boxer shorts, and then in a stout fake suede flannel drawstring bag. The directions are in mostly proper English. A 9v battery was included.
I got my $20 worth.
I got the TriField Meter since they use it on The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. Dr. Travis Taylor is a real redneck scientist. Write more books, Travis. I guess he needs the money since he is on all those History Channel shows. I’m looking at you, Ancient Aliens.
Why? Because I am a nerd with some disposable income.
“Lakewood Church says it ‘made an error’ in response to viral baby formula video”
https://www.chron.com/culture/religion/article/houston-lakewood-church-baby-formula-tiktok-21168609.php
So this lady ran a scam over the phone to a church and expected them to jump up and feed her fake baby. Why would you run a scam on somebody and expect good results ?
Lakewood Church, just like my church, supports several food pantries across the Houston area. They, and we, do not do this directly as they do not have the personnel as the federal government edged out the charitable programs in the churches with the WIC and SNAP programs several decades ago. Very few people come to us anymore, they go to the government handouts first.
In fact, we are having a food drive at our Church this Sunday to support the main place that we help out. They are asking for protein which I am considering dumping my entire canned chicken stash into.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15283911/China-Bridge-Collapse-Hongqi-Bridge.html
The CCP will probably use an entire magazine of bullets for that disaster.
Our 16 year old male Siamese cat, Remy LeBeau, passed away last night. My daughter is distraught. She is having him cremated and will turn his ashes into a necklace. Which, I find creepy, but it is her right.
“Mamdani’s Victory Proves Mass Legal Migration Is Just As Dangerous As Illegal Migration”
https://thefederalist.com/2025/11/12/mamdanis-victory-proves-mass-legal-migration-is-just-as-dangerous-as-illegal-migration/
“No matter how great our principles sound, they mean nothing to a population that doesn’t understand or value them.”
Man, is that ever true. The muslims do not respect anything in our country and have the goal of bringing in the Caliphate.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Eh? Casey Jones is a locamotive engineer. He was drivin that train, high on cocaine.
“An alternative point of view concerning extremism”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/11/an-alternative-point-of-view-concerning.html
“An anonymous reader, commenting on yesterday’s article, provided a link to this post on X.com by a user calling himself “Wokal Distance”. I thought it made sense. The reader who posted the link thought it rebutted Rod Dreher’s perspective, but I think it does more to sustain it overall. I decided to re-post the whole thing here, so you could compare and contrast them for yourselves.”
We are getting closer and closer to Civil War 2.0 in the USA.
Stay away from dumbrocrats, they are dangerous.
xkcd: Car Size
https://www.xkcd.com/3167/
Many of the eighteen wheelers around here are now using six inch spikes for their lug nuts on their wheels now.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3167:_Car_Size
“Government shutdown latest: House begins debate on reopening that Trump hopes to sign ‘later tonight’”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/government-shutdown-latest-house-begins-debate-on-reopening-that-trump-hopes-to-sign-later-tonight-100414153.html?guccounter=1
“The bill to end the shutdown would give federal workers back pay and keep the government open until Jan. 30 of next year. It would also fund some federal programs like the Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments for the entire year, and put limits on Trump’s ability to fire federal workers for the next few months, among other provisions.”
“It’s part of an agreement that includes a promise from Senate Majority Leader John Thune to hold a separate vote on the issue of healthcare before the end of the year.”
So we are going to do another shutdown on Jan 30. Lovely.
For some reason, an AT&T contractor is installing fiber internet into my office complex today. I sure did not ask for it, I wonder if one of my neighbors did. They are putting the fiber cable underground using the Centerpoint power line easement on my property so I cannot say anything. I hope that they do not destroy my existing dedicated copper 25 pair cable going to the CO but you never know about these contractors.
“Listen to this rant, then read all of the comments about how “Boomers” have ruined it for today’s youth because they used up all of the opportunity by living life on “easy mode.” .”
https://areaocho.com/whiny-children/
All of a sudden, I am hearing and seeing a lot of complaints about boomers, of which my wife and I are. We bought our first 850 ft2 house in Sweetwater, Texas for $28,000 in 1982. I think that it is crazy to expect that your first house is a 3,000 ft2 mansion with a pool.
From the “HaveIBeenPwned’ alert service:
You can get details on this particular exposure, and also check if your email is on the list, as well as check your passwords here. This is a safe site to check email and passwords (done separately), as they do not store any searches.
It’s probable that you will find your email address, and perhaps also several of your passwords if you check there.
People.
I offered to give away an old sailboat, without a trailer, on October 17. No takers for ten days or so.
Called a salvager and started arranging to pay to have it scrapped. Old fiberglass boats are a pain.
Now the forum I offered it on has people wondering what happened and calling me a scammer.
You had three weeks people!!!!!
Well, I did promise pictures, and if I don’t have to pay …
But I’ve been known to cut off my nose to spite my face. Grrrr.
Ed, how practical would it be to scrub off any serial numbers and such and dump the boat on some annoying jerk’s front lawn? Say, a town executive who concealed numbers and ran the township into a $12M debt while telling the voters and taxpayers that there was $18M in the bank? That happened where I lived about 17 years ago. The exec and the township accountant (comptroller, maybe?) were investigated for the obvious lies and probable corruption and conspiracy but – shock, shock – never charged and the exec was held to be immune to civil suits by virtue of her position. The legal system having failed, the extralegal system dealt with it. A couple tons of something, I think kitchen compost, were dumped on her front yard.
Amusingly – that’s really not the word for it – the new exec and town board increased the property tax rate by a quarter percent, that is, a quarter percent of the assessed value, as a one-year-only emergency measure because the township was deep in the hole. Sixteen years later, the increased rate is still in place.
Absent an extreme intervention by the Fed buying mortgage paper again, haircuts are coming for existing homeowners.
The worst thing that could happen for “Gen Z” in terms of buying a first house is the much talked-about $20k first time home buyer tax credit, which would make most existing homeowners – including many Boomers – into paper millionares.
Once someone has Dos Commas, they don’t give that up easily.
Tres Commas is much harder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mVk9ypz2FA
Tonight’s movie was The Purge: Anarchy.
I missed the part of how the Gov crashed. Had to go pee and forgot to hit pause. But the new Gov has an annual 12 hour time of kill anyone. This movie is set in Year Six of The Purge. Someone you hate? You’re free to kill them. You don’t even have to hate them, it’s a skin color is your uniform thing. Not many negroes in this movie. Just noticing.
I think I read the book or a story in a magazine way back in 1975 or so. I’ve never seen this movie.
Anyway. It was entertaining. I liked most of the lead characters. The story line had big holes. I don’t want to live in that world. It’s a well made movie, the audio is good. Onto the Thrift Shop stack.
A power line easement sometimes does not extend to other uses. It must generally be a utility easement granted by the city. I fought this battle with Comcast and won, requiring Comcast to move an overhead cable from my property.
TN pulled that stunt, raising the sales tax by another full percent as a temporary measure to make up a shortfall. 32 years later the temporary tax is still in effect.
Knoxville had an election recently and one of the items, floated by the mayor and her cronies, was to raise the local sales tax by one percentage point. The selling point was to create affordable housing. Which everyone knew would not happen with the money. The measure failed by two to one.
No trailer, sadly. And the Governor’s mansion(s) are hundreds of miles away.
UC San Diego: Incoming Students Can’t Do Basic Math
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/11/12/uc-san-diego-incoming-students-cant-do-basic-math-n3808826
UCSD found 25% failed this question:
7 + 2 = [FILL IN THE BLANK] + 6
That’s a prescription for death of the nation. Declare a national emergency and:
To start.
Well, first off, anything on main stream media is a LIE. Propaganda. Ivesta (sp) or Pravda? MSNBCABCFOX, same same. And DDG is polluted. I tried looking for the correct spelling of of Ivesta and it’s all window drapes.
I was born in late ‘57. I’m not apologizing about anything. Lots and lots of years of just making ends meet while raising kids and of course some fun like having the SeaRay. Now I have everything paid for.
The boys get it all when I croak. They know this. How they split it is their problem. But they will get it.
Pitch black dark at 6PM. I want to go to bed. But first I need to walk the dogs.
Carefully.
Just saying.
@Lynn
BRM: The original video poster is a student. Students are always broke. Living on Ramen noodles and hot dogs is what people do when in college. Get a roommate. Stop being a whiny bitch.
I would have said “Stupid whiny bitch”.
I spent most of my chlldhood sharing bedrooms with a brother. Shared a dorm room. Later I shared an apartment. Step 1 is to keep living expenses low, and that means roommates for most people.
If you can’t afford to be a student, then maybe you shouldn’t be. You may not be smart enough if you can’t figure out how to live.
Got you beat, Lynn: First house was 950 ft2. Lot was extra-wide: 50ft.
Texas sold is regulatory soul for fiber optic pr0n.
The power company easements around here are commonly used by the cable and phone companies, and AT&T Fiber is not the same company as the AT&T running the copper land lines.
On my commute to work, someone has a large building under construction wedged between a high voltage power line easement and the main rail line into downtown.
A data center would make sense, but it isn’t fortified like the Switch.com facility which has been under construction at the edge of my employer’s campus for four years (!).
Jerbs, son. All about them jerbs.
Windows 10 crashed sometime this afternoon.
Firefox updated during the reboot.
My browser history is gone, I have no bookmarks on the toolbar, and the links that used to show when a new tab was opened are gone.
Any ideas before:
heh:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uQ4DdmRFHTc?
just like potato chips, so are the YT rolls:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cra0nRsdHug
I disagree on this point. A classroom of horrible students can make any teacher look bad. Especially teachers that have mostly freshmen. Sub for a school for a year. The teachers hands are tied by state regulations and the department of education rules. Rules made by people that have never taught a day in their life. Subbing is an eye opener. Kids with uneducated parents who leech off welfare as career, see no reason to not continue that career path.
That old adage about leading a horse to water applies. You cannot teach students who do not want to learn. I have experienced several just this year alone. Thrown a couple out of class. And that is just my few subbing days.
Paul, “The Purge: Anarchy” is a sequel, I’m pretty sure. I haven’t seen it myself, but you can see that “The Purge” is from a year before and has the same director.
Stop Making Cents: U.S. Mint Puts an End to a 232-Year-Old Institution
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2025/11/12/new-judge-orders-release-of-hundreds-of-captured-illegal-aliens-n2196138
“Rounding up” aka “theft”.
How many transactions will it take to transfer $56 million (xs cost of making pennies) into merchant pockets?
Credit card transactions are electronic and unaffected by coin shortages, and have at least three reasons I can think of that the stores will not want to go there: violation of the cc agreement, violation of state law, and violation of federal law.
As to cash transactions, people should simply pull out the appropriate number of pennies, or, if they don’t have them, stake the receipt, write the number of cents they are owed at the bottom, and save them. The next time they go to the merchant use the receipts like pennies. If you get too many receipts, use a cc and ask for the balance after the “pennies” are deducted.
Maybe Green Stamps will make a comeback.
Actually, the article shows the fallacy:
The Treasury makes a lot of money on quarters, and schemes to make more with the constant special issues that started with the “State Quarters” and continues with parks, and every other thing they can think of. Every quarter that get collected and taken out of circulation is a zero-interest loan to Fedgov, and currency devaluation due to inflation makes the actual rate negative.
300 billion pennies in “circulation” and we “use” about 9 billion per year.
We don’t use them. They get lost or accumulate in drawers, jars, etc.
And how many pre-1982 copper pennies are simply sitting in buckets as arbitragers try to make it legal to melt them for the copper? A small change in tax law to make storage costs unqualified tax deductions might flush them out.
I disagree on this point. A classroom of horrible students can make any teacher look bad. Especially teachers that have mostly freshmen. Sub for a school for a year. The teachers hands are tied by state regulations and the department of education rules. Rules made by people that have never taught a day in their life. Subbing is an eye opener. Kids with uneducated parents who leech off welfare as career, see no reason to not continue that career path.
That old adage about leading a horse to water applies. You cannot teach students who do not want to learn. I have experienced several just this year alone. Thrown a couple out of class. And that is just my few subbing days.
I’d agree without some of the other changes. The bad students will get removed, and if not, parents will remove the kids that want to learn and take their tax dollars with them.
The one argument the teachers never make out loud when the issue of performance based review/compensation/advancement comes up is the poor quality and variability of the students. EVERYTHING they do is based on the provably false assertion that the kids all being the same. That’s why NYFC keeps trying to kill G&T programs. G&T demonstrates the kids aren’t all the same. On the other hand, the G&T kids and white/asian kids in general keep a school and a district’s metrics up.
We were actively recruited to schools that needed some smart kids to counter their deadwood. Principals called us, took us on tours, made themselves available to us…
(in our district there are a number of ways to change schools if you don’t like your zoned school, and we used them.)
n
Just got back from picking up D2 from a school activity. It’s a very pleasant night at the moment, and I think I will have a tiny little fire in a bit.
Dinner was steamed cha shu buns from the freezer. Yummy.
n
The intarweb advice for getting the printer running again didn’t work. I’ve got $13 in it for ink, so it’s going to the dump. Less than 500 pages printed and kaput. Crap. Pure crap.
n
brother mfc-j475dw for the record
The intarweb advice for getting the printer running again didn’t work. I’ve got $13 in it for ink, so it’s going to the dump. Less than 500 pages printed and kaput. Crap. Pure crap.
n
I threw away three Epson inkjets at dad’s computer area. He would get a couple of thousand pages from each of them and then they would gum up , fail to feed, or start having network issues.
I heartily recommend laserjets. Three of my five Laserjets are over 20 years old. Most of them are over 100,000 pages printed each. No telling how many laser cartridges that I have bought over years, maybe a hundred of the pricey little monsters.
My Laserjet 4100DTN has been down for over ten years, I think I bought it in 2000, it is at 300,000+ pages printed. It needs a new feeder roller. I will get to it any decade now. All of the rest of my Laserjets are color printers.
A lot of the debate around schooling would go away with the abolishment of public schools.
“Shutdown Is Ending”
https://thelibertydaily.com/shutdown-is-ending/
“The House passed a funding package to end the 43-day shutdown late Wednesday.”
“In a 222 to 209 vote, six Democrats voted with almost all Republicans to send the bill to President Trump’s desk. Two Republicans voted against its passage.”
“The package, which made it out of the Senate earlier this week, includes three full-year appropriations bills, while extending the remainder of government funding until Jan. 30, setting up another funding fight early next year.”
The only thing more permanent than a “temporary tax” is a “temporary home for a stray cat”.
When you cash out at the ticket machine in Vegas casinos, you only get paper bills and another ticket for anything under a dollar. The ticket can be played or save them up until you get a dollar and cash out. The cash cage has to pay coins for those little tickets. That will be dropped in the future.
???? What, is the boat up on cinderblocks in your front yard? What kind of redneck hell is this?
@Nick
I’ve had good luck with the Epson Eco-Tank ET-2850.
Seems to be reliable and ink cost is comparatively low.
Plus, when you homeschool you can beat your
kidsstudents without repercussions.It Won’t Be Long Before Jack Smith Gets a Whiff of the Stink Bomb His Spying Victims Snuck Into a Bill
https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2025/11/12/it-wont-be-long-before-jack-smith-gets-a-whiff-of-the-stink-bomb-his-spying-victims-snuck-into-a-bill-n4945925
A stout wooden chair, a few coat hangers, a 5,000 gallon water tank, and a hose would be more fun.
Seems that there are multiple potential jurisdictions for each senator, but I’d say the smart move would be for each to file in the home state as each one would have made many calls there. Ole Killer Eyes would dispute, but would go broke flying lawyers to eight different states., or make it effectively nine if Blackburn and Tuberville flip to see which one either delays or finds a reason to file in a state other than TN.
Any recommendations for The Kingsman series?
I’ve seen a couple clips and it looks like it might be worth watching.
>>Any recommendations for The Kingsman series?
I’ve seen a couple clips and it looks like it might be worth watching.
I do a quick mental average of the various review sites (this is on the first page of a Google search) and W2 gives a final aye or nay. If only one of us wants to continue it gets parked for singular viewing later.
Kingsman: The Secret Service | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX
2:29
7.7/10
IMDb
75%
Rotten Tomatoes
60%
Metacritic
83% liked this movie
If it’s looking like we decided wrongly, either of us has ‘veto power’ at the halfway point of S01/E01.
Too much quality content to waste too much time on the carp. (e.g. Slow Horses)
>>Nick, that sounds delicious. I have trouble cooking bowtie pasta / farfalle; somehow the edges are always overcooked, and the “knot” is still hard. What’s the trick?
Buy tariffed pasta, Mr. tRump says it’s better.
https://nypost.com/2025/11/11/us-news/big-trouble-in-little-italy-as-fears-of-pasta-price-hike-shortage-are-giving-everyone-agita/
A lot of the debate around schooling would go away with the abolishment of public schools.
It is time to outsource the public schools to private entities. Texas is starting this in the Fall of 2026 by giving $8,000 ??? to any Texas student who wants to attend any private school. Homeschooled students get $2,000 ???. There is limit for now but I see this rapidly growing.
Our governor thinks that it is time to start phasing out the public school property taxes. I agree with him. They are large ravening beasts, wasting much money.
Nice night for a tiny little fire, I didn’t light the MrHeaters at all. The mosquito spraying truck came down the cross street, and I don’t want a lung full of that, so I came in. And it was 12:30. Reading definitely extends my sitting out sessions.
——-
The dem machine got what they wanted. I’ve heard the phrase “longest shutdown ever” several times already. It’ll be like “convicted felon” and keep popping up like it means something.
——-
Time for bed though.
n
Added – I watched bits and pieces of the Kingsman show, iirc correctly. I enjoyed it in bits, but the kid that gets ‘rescued’ and inducted is annoying.
We have what must be a lot of male teachers in our district. It’s enough of them that it caught my eye.
n
???? What, is the boat up on cinderblocks in your front yard? What kind of redneck hell is this?
Real rednecks have a 57 Chevy on cinderblocks in front of the picture window. The boat is sitting in the single lane driveway on a trailer with four flat tires. Cinderblocks are optional.
There are at least two more cars or trucks on flat tires in the backyard behind the chain link fence for safety (as if somebody would steal them).
And piles of mystery ‘stuff’ under faded and frayed blue tarps.
n
Thursday. Lots to do today. Up before the sun…
Wishing you all a good day!