Cool and damp again, getting very nice later, and maybe staying nice after dark. That’s how Wed. went, with some clouds during the day. I could use a bit more like this before Winter starts in earnest.
I did some of my stuff. Did a pickup. Spent a lot of time chatting with the guy who runs that office, and learned a few things. One of his competitors is closing a branch office. The reselling game is tough. I still expect a wave of big boys to come in and buy out (or force out) the mom and pops like with house flipping and investment properties. I watch new players come and go, and a bunch came in lately. I don’t expect them to last as they don’t seem to be attuned to the business. And everyone is having trouble getting good stuff to resell.
Today I’ve got pickups on the east side of town. I’ve been buying a lot less, and bidding on a whole lot less. I’ve still managed to buy a few things that should improve my situation and increase the stacks.
I’m sure that I have more plumbing in my near future too. But that’s for later. I had a moment of panic when I thought that Christmas was only 12 days away… but I realized it was just a bad waking thought and not reality. The end of the year will come rocketing along soon enough without me losing a whole month.
My subconscious must be getting nervous.
I’ll have to try the Scrouge McDuck therapy and spend some time swimming in my gold coins — I mean counting cans of food.
Stuff gets spoiled, stuff ages out. Adding to the stacks is always a good thing.
nick
Eek! Friday the 13th! Alien comets! Solar flares! Communists in power in New Amsterdam! We’re all going to die!
In the meantime, have a beautiful Thursday.
We were were supposed to have a warm day, but the weather liars got it wrong. There is a chilly north wind. Winter is coming.
City boy. Real rednecks have a rusty tractor, with the rear wheels separated from the engine block.
And yet the club in Austin continues to subsidize the education grift with property tax “reform” gimmes using money from the state surplus to keep the real estate market plates spinning.
If homeowners realized how far in hock they were thanks to the ISDs spending on nonsense enabled by he bond ghouls, real property tax reform would happen quickly.
A bunch of initiatives were on the ballot last week state-wide which are playing games with property tax exemptions for certain groups, and I’m sure a lot of ISDs had bond measures.
Apparently, San Antonio/Bexar County had an initiative on the ballot to cover a big chunk of the cost for yet another venue for the Spurs.
Reallly, San Antonio?
61F and saturated. Partly cloudy.
I didn’t see any aurora last night, but not much of the sky was visible, and Texas is pretty far down the globe…
———–
Kid’s old school is having their theater show tonight and I completely missed going in to help the sound guy. I kept finding reasons to put it off, not knowing the actual show date. I feel pretty bad about that since I told them I’d help out. No one asked or even mentioned it though including my wife who was there to help with another issue.
Hopefully I wasn’t needed.
————
Time to poke the lions again.
n
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/11/billboard-country-chart-topper-is-completely-ai-generated/
– modern country music is incredibly formulaic and produced to mostly sound the same anyway, so it’s not a surprise.
Pop music in general is the same although there is more room for different sounds.
–that last line is pretty ironic considering the amount of “robotic mimicry” present among the humans in the music industry.
If stuff didn ‘t sound similar, we wouldn’t have “genre” music.
n
Of course I voted ‘no’ on every one reducing property taxes in Texas for special groups, including “farmers” storing feed on their property and widows of service members killed in action.
Isn’t rewarding the potential sacrifice the point of the over-generous off-base housing allowances and sweetheart zero-down mortgage deals which I could never qualify to get on my income alone?
My wife’s nephew is apparently struggling with taxes and other costs on his “portfolio” of properties as he prepares to leave the Army. His blind date with Bankruptcy starts in January … and it looks like she just advance ordered paella for four.
@Alan
I watch Slow Horses for Gary Oldman.
Otherwise I would have turned off the current season. Not being able to id and track a distinctively painted minivan in the most cctv’d city in the world is flipping ridiculous. Not to mention a certain agent that gets an ass-whipping once an episode but hasn’t learned to carry a shive or a yawara.
And yeah, Mic Jagger on the soundtrack.
Just received an email inviting me to vote in the 17th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards.
The first candidate is a book titled “Lady X” described as “A ELECTRIC NOVEL ABOUT FEMALE RESISTANCE”. T’would seem that being only semi-literate is no impediment to being employed at Goodreads.
Modern country music still follows the principles Buck Owen’s worked out in the 50s to make the music play well on commercial AM radio. The genre is arguably more “commercial“ than other types of music.
WSM, the country genre flagship station, was founded by a life insurance company and is currently owned by Ryman Hospitality, about as down home as Cracker Barrel with similar stock ownership by Vanguard et al.
WSM. We Shield Millions.
Yep. One of the biggest VA benefits. Since MrsAtoz is also a Vet, we get to use both, and have had two/three VA properties for years.
We closed on our high rise condo on Monday, funds were wired to our account on Wednesday. We are down to two VA properties, but I expect the house in SA will sell in the near future. Down to one VA property, so it will be time to find a nice ocean front condo somewhere. We’ll have a full VA benefit again, so no down payment.
Realtors get excited when they hear you have VA benefits.
How Indian IT Workers Discriminate Against Non-Indian IT Workers
Nothing new for those of us who have been affected. There are some useful links in the article.
Newsom’s Former Chief of Staff Arrested, Charged With 23 Felonies in Federal Conspiracy and Fraud Case
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2025/11/12/newsoms-former-chief-of-staff-indicted-in-corruption-scandal-n2196140
What did Greasy Gavin know and when did he know it?
Guess Who Else the FBI Targeted in Its Mass Surveillance Operation Under Biden
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2025/11/13/fbi-tried-to-get-at-kevin-mccarthys-phone-records-n2666400
The list grows. Get those civil suits filed before the indictments come down.
“So, Jack. Pity you’re going to the SuperMax while Wray and Garland are signing book deals. Got anything to trade?”
Update:
Looked at profiles without finding anything off.
Then this morning the tool bar and the new tab list were back as before.
Still no history.
Patel: China to Crack Down on Fentanyl Precursor Chemicals
If I were placing bets, I’d bet that any Chinese promise isn’t worth spit.
Nice bridge video, though.
Remember that all of the current pols are piggies at the trough and I’d bet that not one of them is innocent of crimes that would get any of us a stay at the Pen.
n
A bunch of initiatives were on the ballot last week state-wide which are playing games with property tax exemptions for certain groups, and I’m sure a lot of ISDs had bond measures.
Our ISD, Lamar Consolidated, passed 3 out of 4 bond programs. $1.95 billion. They did not get the stadium bond program, $30 million, passed. LCISD has one 60 year decrepit old football stadium for eight high schools and the kids are complaining about having to share it so they play high school games Thursday through Saturday, boo hoo !
LCISD is building a ninth high school, middle school, 6th grade school, and four more elementary schools right now for over a billion dollars. And they are planning a tenth high school and all of the feeder schools right now.
I am wondering how many of the schools will close when Trump deports all of the illegals. Houston ISD has already closed a school due to lack of students due to deportations.
My Windows 10 x64 Pro PC at home rebooted last night with an urgent security update. Microsoft is still working on Windows 10.
I am not on ESU.
Probably just as well. It would be embarrassing if someone else sat at your computer and brought up a browser to search for “how to make beef brisket”, but as soon as they type the H in the search bar the first suggestion was “hillary clinton nudes”.
They will be the first out the door when the Monkey Trick runs out of steam.
My employer‘s stock is tanking hard today after breaking support this week.
I’ve accomplished nothing today except to bring in the eggs. I’ve tried to do a number of things and even started to do a few, but every time something came up to interrupt. Family somethings. Quite annoying.
New search term: how to get my wife and her friends deported
“This Windows Update Screen Is Actually a Hacker’s Trap”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/this-windows-update-screen-is-actually-a-hackers-trap
“The latest ClickFix attack creates a fake, full-screen Windows OS update through the browser to try and dupe the user into executing a malicious command.”
Oh my goodness ! This is not good.
Anyone know how to fully delete browser history? Asking for a friend.
Anyone know how to fully delete browser history? Asking for a friend.
Google still knows. So does the NSA.
Will that work for a MAC? Asking for another friend.
Depends on the browser. Any search engine will tell you. But ask in an ‘incognito’ window; preferably setting your default search engine to DuckDuckGo (which doesn’t save your searches). In Chome, it’s Ctrl+Shift+Backspace.
Several settings in your browser will help with more privacy. Again, ask your favorite (private) search browser in “incognito’ mode.
You might also want to delete items in your email’s Trash folder. And use social media sites in an incognito browser, making sure those ‘private’ settings automatically clear browser history. Some people also manually clear search history often. And close browser – some browsers have a setting that will automatically delete things on browser exit.
Lots of guidance for privacy can be found with simple searching. Although the only way to ensure total privacy is to turn off your computer and read a physical book. And don’t forget good privacy practices on your phone.
W1’s Windows PC was going bananas in the middle of the night, it must have been doing something similar. Stupid thing woke me with its beeps and whirrs…
Our otherwise rock-solid Asus mesh wifi network at the BOL was flaky today until everything was rebooted a couple of times. I can only guess it was the solar particles causing gremlins. Hoping to at least see some Aurora tonight…
“Dinner” was home-made pumpkin soup with crispy fresh baguette. Delicious. In fact, the soup course was so good that we just had seconds and skipped the rest of the menu.
Goodnight, all.
Thermite.
Someone with less than nation state resources could recover the drive if it was merely burned on the outside.
Smashing the platters with an explosion or hammer is still not a guarantee.
When in doubt, melt it.
Most of them are full hogs and after 38 years and $238 million dollars later, Pelosi is a 1200-lb sow,
Remove the hard drive. Open the case and extract the platters if you have spinning rust, otherwise just open the case. Place the media on a non-combustible surface. A tray of sand is ideal. heat the media above the curie point–slag it good. Oxy-acetylene torch or MAPP gas (the new fake stuff is okay). Remove the heat and e=immediately quench with water–a good thermal shock will break things pretty fine. Stir into the sand. Put what remains in a plastic bucket. Cover with muriatic acid if you want to be REALLY sure, but neutralize it before you throw it out.
Long ago I had a business idea for a thermite ‘accessory’ that would fit in a standard drive bay. The idea was you would turn a key, pull a tab, and the thermite would ignite and melt down thru your drive…
There is a legit .mil need for something like that, and there is certainly a part of the population that would be interested.
n
Pickups today included a new 5 gallon water jug, a self inflating camping mattress pad, and some Dr Bronners soap. Still adding to the stacks.
n
I hear you just wipe it. Like with a cloth.
Tonight’s movie was Minority Report. Kind of long. Started slow. “Wordy” like other Stephen King movies. At the end, the cause of the weirdness was reveled. “Based on a story by Phillip K. Dick.”
Whelp.
Onto the Keeper stack.
? Did you mean Steven Spielberg?
This time last night I was falling asleep. Had a dull headache all yesterday, too. Today, no headache and I’m still wide awake.
The scab on my forehead is itching like crazy. But still too tender for anything but a light touch. The puffy swollen eye thing has mostly gone away. It’s all good.
Yes. OK everyone, here’s proof I’m a ‘tard. 🙂
The liability would bury you.
No problem. You fit right in.
Nah. Just sell the directions.
Like hey, it’s like um, telling someone you don’t cut your wrists across your wrist because the veins and arteries contract to stop the bleeding. And you mess up the tendons and muscles you need for your hands to work if you need to try again. And slice the other arm. You cut up your arm, wrist towards elbow, to slice blood vessels the long way.
All a theory. I think. I do know when I broke my leg at the hip all I could do was wiggle my toes. Not even move my foot.
Nerd stuff:
I use Tailscale to access my various devices (including NAS and appleOS’s). It forms a VPN tunnel and you can mount remote drives to your desktop, etc. It is free and highly recommended on a bunch of YT channels.
Since my semi-automated torrent system is still in SA, whenever a TV show that is torrented, but not streaming yet, that I watch, I upload/download via DB. I want a folder sync and just sync shows that don’t stream right away to my Mac in Vegas and run a local Apple TV. There are some excellent apps to do that, but cost $40+dollars. I want free (since the SA gear will be here real soon now), but don’t want to mess with rsync and chron jobs. Enter Resilio Sync. It is free and can ride on the Tailscale VPN, or it’s own, but I like TS. There aren’t any good instructions, so AI to the rescue. ChatGPT had the best instructions, and I am now syncing “The Curse of Oak Island” to the Vegas Mac. S13.
Has anybody watched “Pluribus” on Apple TV? Plot is a signal is received from Aliens that has an RNA sequence in it. Because Hoo-Mons are dumb, it gets out of the lab and infects 99+% of Hoo-Mons. They become a hive-mind of peaceniks.
Two episodes are out now.
Apple had high hopes for that series since it came from Vince Gilligan.
Funny how no alien RNA ever turns humans into warp engine and phaser weapon designers…
Actually, I could imagine a plot that does that.
Swalwell Referred to DOJ for Possible Mortgage and Tax Fraud
Check them all and refer everyone that potentially committed fraud to DOJ. All the representatives, all the senators, all their staff, all federal judges, and all state officials. Prosecute where fraud is found. No one in high office or adjacent gets away with making a “mistake” that just happens to save them thousands of dollars. One instance and they get a public deal that recasts the mortgage terms, charges them every penny that they saved, and imposes a substantial fine. Two instances is a pattern and we go for criminal prosecution and jail time.
Just for S&G’s they should chose a random sample of 1000 federal mortgages and check them, then publish the stats on the two groups, with the former identified by party affiliation.
And I want the data broken down by bank, also. If any of the megabanks are facilitating the fraud, I have a penalty number in mind that has three commas.
Bang Bang!
I hear you just wipe it. Like with a cloth.
Hilary Clinton used Bleachbit. The FBI was apparently stymied.
https://www.bleachbit.org/
Has anybody watched “Pluribus” on Apple TV? Plot is a signal is received from Aliens that has an RNA sequence in it. Because Hoo-Mons are dumb, it gets out of the lab and infects 99+% of Hoo-Mons. They become a hive-mind of peaceniks.
That is a partial ripoff of a Robert J. Sawyer book, “Rollback”, published in 2007.
https://www.amazon.com/Rollback-Novel-Robert-J-Sawyer/dp/0765349744?tag=ttgnet-20
I once read what I think was fanfic, in which the most prolific / primary author of the Perry Rhodan series was cast as an Arkonide castaway on Earth trying to use the series to seed advanced technology to encourage interstellar communications so he could get rescued.
“DHS Slams Federal Judge Who Released 600 Illegal Aliens Detained in Anti-Crime Sweep”
https://conservativeplaybook.com/dhs-slams-federal-judge-who-released-600-illegal-aliens-detained-in-anti-crime-sweep/
“A dramatic intervention by the federal judiciary is forcing the immediate release of over 600 illegal immigrants from detention in Chicago, overriding the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to curb a serious crisis of lawlessness. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered DHS to free the detainees held at the Broadview facility, citing “repeated, material violations” of a previous court agreement.”
“The order applies to individuals apprehended during “Operation Midway Blitz,” a wide-ranging federal effort launched to target undocumented immigrants with criminal records in the Chicago area. The government’s claim that the operation was focused on removing “the worst of the worst” was directly challenged by the judge, who suggested many of those detained were caught in indiscriminate sweeps.”
Unreal. How do the judges think that they have this power ?
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
GNU Parted will do the same thing for free, but it requires a bit more know how.
Someone keeps CAINE up to date if you are curious about what is possible with tools outside of parties with nation state-level resources.
https://www.caine-live.net/
Midway Blitz? Best arcade football game ever!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PwvXTJibiU
I still have my copy and a PS1 to play it. Sadly, yes, Tampa Bay has Dilfer as QB.
A fine Christian man. What a putz.
GNU Parted will do the same thing for free, but it requires a bit more know how.
Someone keeps CAINE up to date if you are curious about what is possible with tools outside of parties with nation state-level resources.
https://www.caine-live.net/
Bleachbit is free and open source.
Bleachbit and Caine are two different products – Bleachbit to remove/clean data, and Caine to do forensic analysis of disk data.
Take a look at the Caine docs to see all that it can do to get data off of a drive. Think of Caine as doing what the “Abby” character does on NCIS (although her capabilities are somewhat exaggerated, of course).
If a ‘friend’ was needing to sanitize their hard disk data, then Bleachbit would be a good start. And if the data gets into the hands of a technical forensic person, Caine is what they would use. And there are other Caine-like products available for computer forensics.
A technical ‘arms race’.
In practice, they do. They issue their orders and for the most part the executive branch (both federal and state) generally follow them regardless of lack of Constitutional support.
Rogue judges are often criticized but are never prosecuted for their rulings and are hardly ever impeached and removed from office. (Only eight federal judges have been removed from office in US history, though some resigned ahead of the conclusion of the Senate’s trial.)
Texas Rep. Chip Roy to Introduce Bill That Would ‘Freeze All Immigration’
https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2025/11/13/texas-rep-chip-roy-to-introduce-bill-that-would-freeze-all-immigration-n2196164
For decades I have said that illegal immigration from a country should be counted against their statutory permitted numbers. On that basis we would not have had any legal immigration from China, Mexico (or most South American countries), Italy and a bunch of others. The pipeline starts in those countries, the governments are well-aware if not actual facilitators. Shutting the door to legal immigration would have gotten foreign government cooperation immediately.
And likewise any foreign government that refuses to accept the return of their citizens that entered our country illegally or overstayed legal visas should have the door slammed shut on immigration and trade.
“In practice, they do. They issue their orders and for the most part the executive branch (both federal and state) generally follow them regardless of lack of Constitutional support.
Rogue judges are often criticized but are never prosecuted for their rulings and are hardly ever impeached and removed from office. (Only eight federal judges have been removed from office in US history, though some resigned ahead of the conclusion of the Senate’s trial.)”
In this case the power allegedly derives from violation of a consent decree between the ACLU and the Biden DOJ. Anyone who thinks that decree was entered into by two adversaries as opposed to friendly conspirators should call me about a bridge. And anyone who believes that the judge wasn’t aware of the deal should get a guardian appointed for their money.
Thing is, none of these people ever believed that they would see another Trump administration, and there’s a 99-44/100% chance that the dirty deal is discoverable. DOJ should be checking the email archives and expose the fraud.
Except DOJ is the enemy, was the enemy, and will be again.
n
Correct on all three counts.
But every direction [by new DOJ leadership] to expose the corruption brings with it the opportunity to expose the Deep State resistance and foot-draggers and root them out.
The consent decree corruption has been going on for a long time.
First, the process needs to be reformed to prevent the fake adversaries scam, or at least make it a lot harder.
Second, consent decrees must not be 3-party conspiracies designed to handcuff the next administration.
“Elections have consequences”
In addition, there has to be a window–12-months?–where they can be abrogated by the next administration, there has to be a way for DOJ to re-open them, and there has to be a limit after which they sunset.
>>Update:
Looked at profiles without finding anything off.
Then this morning the tool bar and the new tab list were back as before.
Still no history.
@drwilliams, if you have the time and patience (i.e. follow their directions) there’s always this place: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/
Past time for bed. Reading is fundamental though, and also fun, so I get distracted.
Time to get focused, as morning comes swiftly.
n
Mozilla is no longer primarily in the browser business:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA54vVI1y_I
You’d do well to find yourself another browser. After decades of being a steadfast Firefox user, I’m now very happy using Brave.
I use firefox for the ad blocking and because it’s familiar and pays some lip service to privacy. I use a non-persistent version from the portable apps platform for stuff I don’t want mined or tracked, although I’m aware there are other meta ways to do so than thru my browser.
I hate the fact that Windows is constantly writing log files no one will every look at except forensically, like the announcement that a browser video window has gone full screen (which captures the video file name). Who would want that “feature”?
I’d love for a version of windows without all the logging. I’m sure it would be faster too.
Not gonna get it though. We can only reduce the flood of leaked personal info, and try to reduce the number of people who collect it.
n
Regarding Windows 11 logging, have you tried this to turn it off?
And then to verify, run this command at the command prompt:
You can also run wevtutil el in a Command Prompt to list all event logs. If logging is off, you may not see these logs populated.
You can also put these commands in a batch file to do it automatically. Make sure you run the command prompt as an administrator:
@echo off
echo Disabling Windows logging services…
:: Disable Windows Event Log
sc config “EventLog” start= disabled
sc stop “EventLog”
:: Disable Diagnostic Policy Service
sc config “dps” start= disabled
sc stop “dps”
:: Disable Windows Error Reporting Service
sc config “WerSvc” start= disabled
sc stop “WerSvc”
echo Logging services have been disabled.
pause
The article is all butt-hurt:
It’s certainly not slop. If you didn’t know it was AI, you would never guess. A black singer, with an interesting style halfway between rap and country. The lyrics tick the usual country boxes: country boy overcoming life’s challenges.
—–
Only vaguely related, on the topic of special groups: apparently the climate conference is having troubles. They want special funding given specifically to women. Why? Only they know. But the conference is apparently having massive disagreements on the definition of “woman”.
I’m having a moment of Schadenfreude.
– – – – –
By Western standards, the work culture from that part of the world is toxic. Also not particularly productive. It’s all about throwing lots of bodies at a problem, while quashing any individual creativity. Do _exactly_ what the boss says, while working stupid hours in crappy conditions.
It is yet another argument for restricting immigration. Too much immigration means importing foreign cultural values that we do not want. Western culture has a value, and our governments ought to have an interest in protecting it.