Heat is running, and temps had dropped dramatically before I went to bed, so 70F is probably not correct… (dang batteries)
Great times to be alive, eh fellows? I mean, headlines like this — History’s 10 Most Culturally Significant Dick Pic Scandals What could more fully validate our innate male superiority? All those xers and zyrs are really gonna have to step up their game to have their genitals be culturally relevant…
Or maybe it’s time for the cleansing fire?
n
And it’s 44F, so chilly!
n
maybe we’re winning the war of words after all, this headline would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. It’s unfortunate that it had to happen at all, but at least some of the newspeak is fading.
I thought we had enough home grown wife-beaters and murderers…
n
30f and frost on the windscreen this morning.
I never have understood the trend for rich celebrities to distribute photos of their wedding tackle. Anyone who has spent time around women know that your bits & bobs are NOT what gives a woman the shivers. As someone once said, the most erotic organ in the body is the brain and women react to different stimuli than men (as a rule). Romance, music, poetry, etc. are much more seductive than a clinical photo of genitalia.
Gavin Nuisance gives his state of the state address. Kills the high speed rail. Well he says current 170 mile phase 1 from Merced to Bakersfield will be finished. HA! Doesn’t want to have to give $3.5B back to Donald Trump. Changes delta water project from 2 to 1 tunnel. Pulls 300 California National Guard troops back from boarder because it’s just a manufactured crisis.
I don’t recall him talking about any of this before the election.
Oh, no boarder crisis…
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2019/02/stop-medieval-diseases-with-medieval.html
One other minor news item.
US debt tops $22T. That’s Trillion with a capital T.
$77 Billion to go from Merced to Bakersfield ?? This is the biggest political graft in US history. Nowhere to nowhere in record time.
RE: “Doesn’t want to have to give $3.5B back to Donald Trump. ”
Means “Doesn’t want to have to give $3.5B back to THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS” !!
UPDATE: Merced to Bakersfield is the easiest, least expensive segment of the proposed route. The logisticts of right-of-way aquisition is the most costly part and the Environmental Impact studies add years (and billions) to the project. This is why I think HyperLoop is fantasy. The technology was proven over 100 years ago but buying expensive in-city right-of-way will kill it.
$77 Billion to go from Merced to Bakersfield ?? This is the biggest political graft in US history. Nowhere to nowhere in record time.
As much as I dislike Rick Scott, he did the people of Florida a huge favor turning down the Tampa-Orlando bullet train money which eventually went to CA instead.
Tampa-Orlando will get semi-high speed rail via Brightline if the company can make the numbers work. With Tampa, the hitch is always that the mucky-mucks want the train ending in Downtown instead of at Tampa Airport which makes zero financial sense.
Well yes, I framed it in GN’s anti-Trump language, on purpose. No, not $77B yet. That is for the entire project that won’t be built now, and it was too low. To finish out what is started will probably end up $20B. If it gets there it will most likely be converted to carry the Amtrak San Joaquin line and take it off the BNSF freight line it’s on now. It would improve it but man, what a price tag.
Yes it was a continued buy off of big labor for the dems.
I never have understood the trend for rich celebrities to distribute photos of their wedding tackle.
Rich *married* celebrities distributing pics to women who aren’t their wife.
My father-in-law made a ton of homemade porn, starring himself and his girlfriends, which we catalogued for the lawyers when he died. Unbelievable quantities, mostly pics but some video. The guy was socially repressed as a kid and, like a lot of Boomers, felt that kids crimped his ability to enjoy the late 60s/early 70s.
I figure Bezos et al aren’t that different than my wife’s father. You gotta know that Bezos got the cr*p beat out of him regularly in Miami schools growing up geek in the early 80s.
Plus, working in tech, I’ve found that high octane IQ usually comes with kinks. Most of the time, fortunately, the kinks are innocuous. All things considered, Bezos doesn’t even move the needle compared to some of what I’ve encountered.
To finish out what is started will probably end up $20B. If it gets there it will most likely be converted to carry the Amtrak San Joaquin line and take it off the BNSF freight line it’s on now. It would improve it but man, what a price tag.
Warren Buffet wins again.
Of course, since I hold BRK-B, so do I.
The newer Amtrak trains can do higher speeds with decent track. $20 Billion should be decent.
All the current build of the Cal HSR is right-of-way. No monies for equipment or even electrification. How are you gonna reduce that carbon if you don’t go all electric? Powered by solar and wind of course.
Still remaining under the current build is the southern terminus. Right now it ends in a farm field between the cities of Shafter and Bakersfield. The original plan called for tearing up and destroying a large swath on the south side of downtown Bakersfield. They already have torn up the western side of Fresno’s downtown. New plans take it north of downtown Bakersfield switching to the Union Pacific right-of-way.
All in all still a flocking mess.
All in all still a flocking mess.
Not really. If you look at this as a way to transfer BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to political toadies and their connected families instead of a transit method, it’s been a HUGE success.
Wizard of Id: spending Valentine’s Day with my money
https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2019/02/13
Oddly, that looks fun for a few moments.
Arlos and Janis: being very sensible
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/02/13
Hmm, the comic strips are focused on money today.
“Democratic Senators Urge Feds to Reject T-Mobile/Sprint Merger”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/366502/democratic-senators-urge-feds-to-reject-t-mobile-sprint-merg
“Ahead of two House hearings on the matter, senators including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar push the FCC and DOJ to reject the proposed merger between the two major wireless carriers.”
Just on who opposes the merger, I support the merger.
“Tesla Model 3 Automatic Braking Prevents Serious Accident”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/366524/tesla-model-3-automatic-braking-prevents-serious-accident
“An accident still happened, but the safety systems on the Tesla prevented this Model 3 and its driver from being involved in a high-speed head-on collision.”
Wow ! Maybe we are living in the future. I wonder if my wife’s new 2019 Toyota Highlander would have performed as well ? It automatically braked for me the other day when an idiot cut in front of me on the freeway.
See, I was thinking something different. On this I can agree with many/most democrats.
There’s a reason “too big to fail” is bad. NO company should be so large that its failure endangers the country as a whole. Phone companies are getting that way. This should not be so.
My thought is that acquisitions and mergers should be permitted up to 10% of the market size. Organic growth should be permitted to 25% of the market size. Beyond that, it should be pruned, and for the same reason that we prune fruit trees.
https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2019/02/13/tues-feb-13-2019-friday-the-13th-falls-on-a-tuesday-this-month/
Am I noticing that today’s URL is Tuesday instead of Wednesday ?
Ssshhh! You’re embarrassing him. He made that mistake (again). Then he fixed it.
Or maybe it’s time for the cleansing fire?
I am sure that every generation at some point feels that it is time for the cleansing fire.
Pray that it does not happen in your generation. Cue the “Book of Eli” movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Eli
Ayyy, you caught me! I didn’t realize until my daughter rejected her packed lunch, as she only wants lunch on Tues and Thurs….
I could have changed the URL, but….
n
(headed back out, more driving.)
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Chasing A Dream
https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-chasing-a-dream/
“Alexandria Cortez says we need to stop cow flatulence in order to save the planet. How does se plan to do that? Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.”
HEH !
“Rats, Public Defecation And Open Drug Use: Our Major Western Cities Are Becoming Uninhabitable Hellholes”
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/rats-public-defecation-and-open-drug-use-our-major-western-cities-are-becoming-uninhabitable-hellholes
The 24 ? year old daughter of my wife’s best friend is living on the streets in Los Angeles. The daughter is a heroin addict, along with her boyfriend. My wife’s best friend and her husband went to LA for Christmas to find her again. They found her after three days and gave her a plane ticket to come home to Texas. Her boyfriend persuaded her to stay in LA at the last minute.
This nightmare has been going on for years. The daughter has been in and out of rehab. She has been arrested several times. They bail her out and bring her home for a while and then she heads back to LA. Absolutely freaking crazy. They can usually find their daughter through a street preacher who is running a ministry to the homeless as she borrows his cell phone every couple of months and calls home.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
There’s a reason “too big to fail” is bad. NO company should be so large that its failure endangers the country as a whole. Phone companies are getting that way. This should not be so.
The consensus is that Sprint cannot afford to a 5G rollout. Therefore it will go bankrupt as customers leave.
Today was not bad. It was sunny and all of 63F. Not warm enough to go shirtless, but not bad.
I wiped out the cobwebs from a couple of “water smokers”. Not sure where one is from. I put them in the tin shed. “Why don’t you sell them for scrap?” Because they pay like a buck per 100 pounds of scrap and there is room in the shed and if the zombie thing happens, we can cook something. “Oh.”
Then it clouded up a bit and the wind kicked up. Brr. But, for February, not bad at all.
Heck, the dogs wanted into the house. So.
The Jeep and the Dodge went for inspection today. They passed. The inspector spotted a leak in my radiator. I’ve smelled the leak since I bought the truck a year ago. Just a seep…. but he didn’t spot that one of the license plate lights isn’t working. The socket is junky and the bulb fell out.
So. $450 or so to replace the radiator. [to be fair, that includes all new hoses and t-stat] Or a bottle of Barrs for about $5. Decisions, decisions …..
Just on who opposes the merger, I support the merger.
Sadly, I don’t see an alternative for Sprint.
Southern Pacific Railroad Internal National Telecommunications. RIP.
5G is a decade away, is it not? Many areas still don’t have 4G or LTE…
Didn’t someone just get sued for the logo on their handsets despite the handsets NOT being 5G ready?
n
The consensus is that Sprint cannot afford to a 5G rollout. Therefore it will go bankrupt as customers leave.
Sprint is CDMA, similar to Verizon, but switching between the two is not as easy as it is with the GSM carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile, and often involves replacing the hardware.
T-Mobile just wants the spectrum held by Sprint. What’s left of the company will be gutted.
5G is a decade away, is it not? Many areas still don’t have 4G or LTE…
Try getting anything other than 2G on AT&T in many parts of West Texas away from freeways.
Just finished watching “Rise of the Rockets” on the local PBS station. The first half was devoted to NASA’s SLS, the second to SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other, smaller companies.
After seeing this I have to agree with one of the regular commenters here (Greg Norton?) that SLS will fly exactly once. Nothing but a make-work program for NASA, a dinosaur, especially compared to the more sophisticated approaches of Musk’s and Bezos’s efforts. Even the latter should be wary of the companies that are capable of launching cubesats cheaply.
Nasa made spaceflight BORING. and by doing so, killed it.
Anyone else remember a show about junkyard hillbillies building rockets and hauling trash in space?? NOT a british show with a cat. NOT a trash hauler in space.
Good ole’ boys saying ‘hold my beer’ and doing it….
n
“Ssshhh! You’re embarrassing him. He made that mistake (again). Then he fixed it. ”
I remember Robert making the same oversight, Nick is only following tradition.
It’s the (not)Friday the 13th curse, I tells ya…
I think I’ve done it 3 times in the last year? Not so bad, considering I’ve been awake an average of 5 minutes and WITHOUT coffee when I type that header 🙂 And I’ve got issues seeing clearly when I wake up (eye cream for a previous and lingering issue, opaque cream.)
The amazing thing is if there is any coherent thought in there at all! Some would say that the early hour and lack of coffee aren’t the only reasons there would be a lack of thought… haters!
I will reap my rewenge’!
Or maybe just sit here eating this huge suspicious sausage…
Sausage??? SAUSAGE????!?!?!?!?!
n
(bonus points for the titles of relevant episodes.)
Anyone else remember a show about junkyard hillbillies building rockets and hauling trash in space?? NOT a british show with a cat. NOT a trash hauler in space.
Do you mean “Salvage One” with Andy Griffith and pre-“Silver Spoons” Joel Higgins?
The “British show with the cat”, “Red Dwarf”, is gearing up for another run of new shows. 30 years! No official anniversary show, but, if you are a fan, find a way to watch “Skipper”, the last episode of the most recent season, regardless of whether you’ve kept up. Instant classic.
Money line: “Hmmm. Yeah. He’s so warm and snuggly”
After seeing this I have to agree with one of the regular commenters here (Greg Norton?) that SLS will fly exactly once. Nothing but a make-work program for NASA, a dinosaur, especially compared to the more sophisticated approaches of Musk’s and Bezos’s efforts.
Once. Maybe.
The crazy thing is that Kennedy doesn’t lack for space geek work right now, even if SLS went away. When we took the tour in March 2017, NASA was p*ssing away money on towers (SLS will have three, eventually) and administration buildings, but that was just a small portion of the activity visible on the Cape.
@Nick: So, not a morning person, then? 😀
Not by nature! Although I have to admit, getting the kids and wife out of the house by 7am gives me a lot more time in the day.
“Salvage One” with Andy Griffith” that is the one! And you can watch it on youtube, so maybe I will. Doubt it holds up, as it barely held together in the first place.
n
“Salvage One” with Andy Griffith” that is the one! And you can watch it on youtube, so maybe I will. Doubt it holds up, as it barely held together in the first place.
The pilot movie holds up okay due to the quality of the actors involved. The same faces pop up in things throughout the 70s and 80s. The producer, Harve Bennett, ran “The Mod Squad” and went on to save “Star Trek” with “The Wrath of Khan”.
IIRC, “Salvage One” was renewed once.
Apollo was just a new Olympics event…..beat USSR to the moon. No scientific or other resultant value whatsoever. Then all to follow were all the same.
NASA has interesting smaller projects – the robotic explorers and such. Those are good stuff, even if government procurement processes along with NASA’s massive bureaucracy make them massively overpriced.
On the big stuff – SLS, manned exploration and such – the problems aren’t really NASA’s fault. These are political footballs, and NASA is told to change direction every couple of years. On top of that, the massive amounts of money involved mean that Congresscritters are always looking to see the pork spent in their districts, so the projects are structured to suit political rather than engineering goals. Seriously, would anyone use ULA for anything at all, if politics weren’t involved?