09:09 – It was 52.7F (11.5C) when I took Colin out at 0630, partly cloudy and breezy.
OFD posted a link the other day to a page that you might want to save: 400 Links Google Doesn’t Want You to Visit
These are sites that Google is “degrading” by placing them far down in search results or eliminating them entirely from those results, “demonetizing” them on Youtube and/or disallowing comments, and so on. In other words, these are sites that Google disagrees with politically, so they’re doing their best to “disappear” them.
Some of these sites are so-called Alt-Right news sites and similar sites that no right-thinking person would visit, but many of them are what any normal person would consider mainstream sites–ones like Ars Technica, Reason magazine, and so on. If this site wasn’t as low-traffic as it is, I suspect it would have ended up on the list.
I’m spending some time this morning getting off Google as much as possible. I have a gmail account that I’ve never used, so I’ll just leave it. Google makes it a real PITA to delete accounts/services. I also have a Google Groups account for business use, and I’m not sure what to do about it.
But I have removed all instances of bookmarks/links/icons for Google search on my system, and converted entirely to DuckDuckGo. I hate Google.
Ditto. Should be done dumping everything Google by tomorrow night here. And yes, Goolag makes it hard to delete the email, etc., just like FaceBerg, and they probably, like FaceBerg, leave our accounts in place while making it super easy to get back on them.
I’m using the Brave browser now, with either the DuckDuckGo search engine or Quant.
And as for putting this site on the bad-boy list, I imagine they’ll get around to it sooner or later, no matter how light the traffic. The commies are nothing if not very thorough.
Pouring rain here so far today w/temps in the low 60s, more like early fall instead of the last three weeks of summer; leaves have been changing for a month now anyway.
Life in the north country. Gotta order more firewood Tuesday, adding to the couple of cords already here. And radically increase food and wotta storage.
Couple of gub-related all-day classes coming up this month, too, courtesy of the NRA.
NRA? That’s that evil Nazi group, isn’t it?
Yeah, I just saw NRAILA on that list of evil sites. I guess I better take that Nazi Second Amendment Foundation off my smile.amazon.com account, too. I just checked, and they’ve gotten a cut of 117 of my Amazon orders so far. Perhaps I’ll change from SAF to Antifa just to show them I’m a right-thinking person. Nah, why bother? As a white guy, I’m automatically a Nazi, and there’s nothing I can do to change that.
Uh, are those sites Google is actually downgrading, or are they just “great independent sites”, which is how the linked article describes them?
Google is opaque about this stuff, but several of the prepping sites I visit have reported dramatic declines in traffic, and particularly in referrals from Google, and several Youtube channels I follow have reported being demonetized, dropped from search results, and so on. Some of those have even posted rants about it. See, for example, the Wranglerstar Youtube channel, and it’s not even really a prepping site. It’s pretty purely about homesteading, and very seldom even touches on politics.
Yesterday, this site got 128 search engine referral visitors, one each from Bing and DuckDuckGo, and 126 from Google.
FIFY
Say, if we’re all de facto Nazis here, can we get some of them snazzy uniforms, too? You know, with the shiny jackboots and skull-and-crossbones motifs? Le rouge et le noir? Oh wait–that’s another suspect literary allusion from some hyper-literate Nazi….
And as RBT says, a goodly number of Goolag’s “hate” sites are just not even close to that; they’re amiable, non-descript, innocuous sites having to do with relatively mundane activities and interests. But to the commies, it’s all Nazi chit, I guess.
Timeline note: we’ve see in just the last fifteen years a number of media companies and organizations go from sorta useful and non-threatening, over to just the opposite. And all of them now minions, lackeys and running-dog stooges of the Deep State.
Further note to bear in mind: if the CIA is the owner of several media organizations and is in fact the counter-intel arm of the Deep State, one of their long-time historical tactics is to divide-and-conquer, setting one side against another and keeping them at daggers-edge so as to foster better control of a country’s population. I think we’re seeing this developing again now, with Right versus Left and Urban versus Rural here.
For now, in situations like the mess down in Texas, a bunch of that kinda stuff goes away. But what happens in the coming weeks and months down there? I guess we’ll find out, but Mr. Nick’s, Mr. Lynn’s and et. al. reports are not encouraging. Not when the police are having to engage in helicopter and drone operations to combat a looting situation that is “real bad.” While the MSM worries itself sick with criticism over the FLOTUS stiletto heels and then has the unmitigated gall to also bitch about tRump’s personal donation to relief efforts.
scanner- they are doing foot patrols, of 4 officers, in some areas. “Get out and let them know we’re here” and all the rest of the shift’s officers are on “traffic traffic traffic.”
People have lost their F’in minds wrt traffic laws. Everyone is zooming, people are blowing stop signs, all kindsa nonsense.
EMS response times are LONG and we still have 29 hospitals closed in the region. That combo can turn minor traffic incidents into life threatening… FFS be MORE careful.
n
Say, if we’re all de facto Nazis here, can we get some of them snazzy uniforms, too?
Damn, I should have kept my flight suits. They’d look cool with some stylized Nazi emblems on them.
We might be able to pick up snazzy uniforms at at the Army/Navy Surplus store. Perhaps something German for authenticity?
I support foot patrols like that and getting them out of the vehicles in most ‘hoods. I’d also support bringing in Guard troops for traffic control. Let the cops do their cop jobs for the nonce. That many hospitals closed in a city that size is mos def not encouraging; let’s hope they get on-line ASAP. I also hope that the usual nincompoops didn’t design and build them in obvious low-lying flood plain locations but that’s probably too much to fantasize.
“…I should have kept my flight suits. They’d look cool with some stylized Nazi emblems on them.”
Ditto, from when I was “enlisted aircrew” on the C130 gunships. On the choppers I routinely wore my tiger-stripe cammy pants, an OD tee shirt, and boonie hat. Caught shit from senior NCOs and officers a couple of times for being “out of uniform” but told them to fuck themselves, literally, seriously. Go ahead, throw me in fucking CC you cocksuckers. This was my last deployment, when Uncle seemed to be trying extra-hard to kill my ass. Tell some obviously wack E4 toting an M60 that he’s out of uniform and will get another Article 15.
I gotta get back to my counseling theory reading homework, damn. How would I counsel my 20-year-old self???
Assigned some homework by the wife- find out what’s going on with our sewer restriction order.
After an hour playing around with the cool maps, http://www.gims.houstontx.gov/PublicUtilityMap/
I’ve determined we are at just about the highest point in our service area. This makes sense, as we are also at the highest point in between the two watersheds. Gravity sewers flow downhill, as does the watershed. We are not upstream of a lift station that could fail, we are pure gravity, and nothing is flowing past us.
It is a bit surprising how far our sewers drain before they get to the processing plant.
So, while I haven’t found the specific reason for our restrictions, I’m less worried about backflow.
n
BTW, I’ve mentioned it before, but Houston has some awesome data sharing, particularly based around GIS systems.
“Perhaps something German for authenticity?”
Not a problem; check out any issue of Firearms News (formerly Shotgun News) and you’ll see ads for that stuff. The SS material seems to be real popular for some reason. I was considering an Afrika Korps hat but remembered my grandpa fighting those guys for three years and nixed the idea.
“…Houston has some awesome data sharing, particularly based around GIS systems.”
Yes. They’re using the ArcGIS sw to build that stuff; my predecessor in my old state gummint job was heavy into this stuff and I am still getting the newsletter in my snail mail 15 years later! Even after “un-subscribing” from it.
This state also has some cool maps which I get from my Planning Commission gig; they’re color satellite images with boundary lines, streets, buildings, utilities, watershed, all that stuff labeled nicely. Contractor/consultant thing with the state and county and town here.
If there really are so many of us “normals”, then why are there not alternatives that have eclipsed the MSM, YouTube, Facebook (this includes all the things like Twitter, Instagram, etc), Google, Microsoft, Apple…
These were all basically started in garages by pimply-faced kids.
I guess that to be “normal” means to be lazy, inactive, and full of excuses.
As individuals, and small groups, we seem to be taking care of ourselves. But we have not figured out how to scale up.
The ugly head of gooberment and the “welfare society” is preparing to raise its ugly heads (Medusa) and show us how powerless we are. Only gooberment can rescue you and you will be beholding forever, just like your mortgage, car payments, and credit card bills. (It was recently stated in the MSM that 80% of people live paycheck to paycheck and have less than $300.00 to meet an emergency)
So let the guys with the monster trucks and the Gator Navy have their 15-minutes of fame. Where is the infrastructure and organization to really change things?
Prayers, good wishes, and donations soon pass and we are back at the same old place.
And WTF? Firefox update broke all the video, everywhere.
n
“Where is the infrastructure and organization to really change things?”
It’s the age old issue of organizing lone wolves and small gov people- they aren’t interested in organizing or building organizations.
add to that you don’t build for the 1 in 1000 event. you apply the 80/20 rule, get 80% of the stuff covered for 20% of the money, then very judiciously start spending the rest of the money on every decreasing gains. Maybe go 90/10 for this purpose.
What kills me is when (prior to the Oakland quake) the voters of Cali TAXED THEMSELVES to fund earthquake upgrades to infrastructure. CalDOT didn’t spend the money, as they were too tied up in watching it grow in their ‘investment accounts.’ Then the quake knocked down a bunch of stuff that should have already been upgraded and the truth came out.
I’m sure something similar happens in every jurisdiction with heavy spending and real needs (that aren’t in your face every day.)
n
Just used my rockpick hammer to break out a circle of concrete on the back patio so that I can fully expose my main line clean out access. Man, it’s hot in the sun.
Got the cover soaking with penetrating oil. I’m thinking a 2×4 wrapped with foam and tape would make a good gate valve if needed. Just shove it down into the line. We’ll see when I can get the cover off.
n
Regarding G-alternative search engines… who is behind them? Maybe I’m paranoid, or not paranoid enough?
A lot of the Youtube demonetization is just plain stupid. Google demonetized a Youtube video for two days because it talked about joints. The problem is that it was about woodworking. I wonder if garden videos not about pot get demonetized for talking about weed problems. The worst story I have heard was about Sahil Mehta being banned by Google for a few days. No explanation, and he blogs about statistics. He actually ran into a Google Vice President and asked about it. As far as I know, he never got an answer.
Google really has to be opaque about this stuff, because if they published the details people would easily find a way to evade the downgrading. It’s like with their search engine ranking algorithms: they started out with those being openly published, but then people started gaming those to gather more clicks (“SEO”), and in self-defense Google had to make them secret. In the present case, it’s not like Google’s algorithms are (or even could be) clever enough to figure out who really is a Nazi. But figuring out those algorithms, whether for the purposes of evading them or for the purpose of making them laughable in the public eye, requires some discipline when it comes to talking about who exactly is being affected by them. A list of 400 sites banned/downgraded by Google really would be of enormous interest, so I was quite disappointed to find out that the title was just clickbait.
The really hard thing to divorce from Google, by the way, is your phone, at least if it’s Android. To load apps from the Google Play market (the normal way of getting them), you have to sign in with your Google account (and sign up for a gmail account, if you don’t have one already). Even for apps that you don’t have to pay for, you have to sign in. Once you’ve signed in, Google doesn’t let you sign out: there is no option to delete the Google account from your phone, other than doing a factory reset. Well, no official option; I’ve read that deleting a certain file on the Android filesystem does it. And there are sites that you can download APK files from, to get apps for which there is no charge. So this stuff can largely be worked around, but it takes a bit of doing.
(This information may be a bit dated, but it’s not like Google maintains a page where I could check the current status of this stuff; they’re not proud of their predatory tactics.)
It’s possible to get phones and laptops and so on that are a lot more secure w/o all the Goolag chit on them. The phones seem to run about the same as the whatchamacallit-type blank phones you can buy w/o phone companies tied to them, roughly $600. Laptops, depending on the RAM run about $1,500. I am looking at the phone currently and lust for the laptop. Maybe I can get Uncle to pay for one or both….lol.
WRT who is a Nazi: there’s those two pics I posted a link to the other night: the MSM zeroed in on the ONE Nazi flag guy and that made the whole thing about Nazis and white supremacists. They didn’t cover the two-dozen or so antifa assholes with hammer-and-sickle flags and guns, proudly lined up for somebody’s cam or phone.
Ima gon take a wild-ass guess and say there are FAR more outright commies on FaceBerg and the Tube than outright Nazis. But they won’t get blacklisted or shut down or de-monetized. Gee, why is that, Grandpa??
_Ground Zero (Tipping Point) (Volume 2)_ by Rain Stickland
https://www.amazon.com/Ground-Zero-Tipping-Point-2/dp/0994950039/
Book number two of a three book apocalyptic romance series. I read the POD (print on demand) trade paperback version. The paper and fonts were good. I am on the fence about ordering the third book in the series when it comes out.
The author writes a story about the power grid in the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area, going down permanently due to power generation issues and the resulting chaos. Her protagonist is a 40 year single mother with a 23 year daughter. Her protagonist realizes that the power issues are cascading and will soon become a permanent grid down event. She buys a large undeveloped property a little over 100 miles away from Toronto and the two of them build a small wet cabin using power from solar panels and water from a nearby river. Several people join them over time as things get worse. Then the protagonist travel via boat to Cleveland, OH to help out a friend who has survived but is running out of insulin.
The author has a website at:
http://rainstickland.com/
My rating: 3.6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars (22 reviews)
My ISP is a wISP. Wireless. A few years ago I had 4 choices…. pretty much just re-aim the antenna. Now? All bought up into one company.
My speed has slowed down. Normal for summer what with tree leaves. But I’m doing 2 Mb, maybe a bit faster, instead of bumping 4Mb once in a while.
I called. My service is “within guidelines”. That Facebook takes a couple of minutes to load is somehow my problem. It use to work.
Oh…. and they are “restructuring” their plans and now I’m on a 3Mb max speed plan. Nice of them to tell me. Nice of them to slap on an extra charge “because so many people are streaming now”. I can’t stream you tube. I have a Firefox add-on that lest me download the vid.
Just grumpy today. ISP is running at most 800Kb. Cell phones a bit faster.
And yesterday, it all just worked.
Scarily succinct:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/09/david-stockman/15-trillion-gallons-keynesian-goodness/
Still thinkin’ good thoughts for our Texicans, Mr. Nick on top of his mountain, Mr. Lynn with his pumps, and the hopefully well insured Mr. echs.
The really hard thing to divorce from Google, by the way, is your phone, at least if it’s Android.
If your Android phone is supported by LineageOS, replacing the corporate cr*pware with open source alternatives isn’t very hard. The cheapest Android phones are often the easiest to reimage.
I always keep one “science experiment” phone around running pure LineageOS and only open source apps from FDroid along with Firefox and VLC, installed via sideloading. The current model is a Moto G4 Play, and a Moto E4 is waiting in the wings for when the warranty expires.
Disclaimer: My daily carry phone is an iPhone 5. I accept the tradeoffs of the privacy invasion for the size, incredible build quality, and battery life. Try a 5 or SE with the slimmest Otterbox for a week and you will be assimilated. Sadly, no Android hardware comes close.
Yeah, I’m currently rockin’ the iPhone 5S and it’s my “they’re tracking me and so what?” phone. If I don’t wanna be tracked, there are other procedures, obviously. And yup, I have the rubber case thing for it so if I drop it on asphalt or concrete, it bounces instead of shatters. I use it for, unbelievably, phone calls, and have Hiya on it to block spam. Also to check emails if I’m out and about, and rarely, to look chit up w/Safari. I also have a load of prepper-type and Linux-related apps on it that I only occasionally look at.
I have not been assimilated, however, and will be grabbing that other phone at some point this fall, and maybe the laptop. If the VA approves the usual Winblows 10 laptop for me, I’ll yank the hd and slap in a big fast SSD loaded with Fedora or whatever. And Crossover for Linux in case I need Office chit on it. Plus the VPN.
Wife was on her jewelry thing all day but also cooked up some chicken sausage chili w/beans over rice, which hit the spot on this dark and rainy day/evening here on the bay. The water out there looked like ocean water, with whitecaps, a gray-green color.
I did my 100 pages of dense psych reading and took notes and wrote down some questions; all these people are, at minimum, Dem/libtard, and more likely, prog types. (I mean the book writers and activist tpes, not my fellow students so far). So I’ll just mosey along and continue being friendly and helpful and avoiding politics. And if somebody tries to ambush me, I won’t rise to the bait, except maybe to assert my disabled old vet status as one of their Approved Grievance Whore Groups.
Happy Labor Day, ladies and germs!
paul wrote:
” I have a Firefox add-on that lest me download the vid.”
What’s the add-on’s name please? Does it work on Youtube?
Nick – wife upgraded her Firefox (on Linux Mint) and now her videos are broken too. She’s really pissed. Let us know when you have a solution.
What’s the add-on’s name please? Does it work on Youtube?
I’m not familiar with a Firefox plugin, but the Python module YouTube-DL still works.
In Windows, using the standard install from python.org in the command shell, I execute
python -m pip install youtube-dl
Then, to download
python -m youtube_dl [URL]
“What’s the add-on’s name please? Does it work on Youtube?”
I use NetVideoHunter on FF. I was turned on to it by the great Chuck, who is on another hiatus, I guess.
Good news for Texans!
http://conservative-headlines.org/new-texas-law-allows-open-carry-of-large-knives-swords/
Oh man, the wife and I just did our two miler. It smells horrible outside. The 1,000 acre cow pasture that is 300 ft away from our house has three to four ft of water on it. The smell is millions of water logged cow patties. Based on last year’s flood, the smell will be us about a week.
http://conservative-headlines.org/new-texas-law-allows-open-carry-of-large-knives-swords/
Yes, I have my eye on a nice back mounted Katana, aka The Walking Dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katana
and
http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Katana
“The smell is millions of water logged cow patties. Based on last year’s flood, the smell will be us about a week.”
Yup. We have a bit of that at certain times of the year here, surrounded on three sides by farms, some of them with dairy cattle. Doesn’t bother us. But where you are, I’d worry about gators coming outta that field or water mocs.
“I have my eye on a nice back mounted Katana, aka The Walking Dead.”
Go for it, dude! Just learn to swing it like that chick did and lop off libturd heads!
Comments, as usual, a lotta fun:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/hatespeech-25/
Yup. We have a bit of that at certain times of the year here, surrounded on three sides by farms, some of them with dairy cattle. Doesn’t bother us. But where you are, I’d worry about gators coming outta that field or water mocs.
The gators cannot make it over the levee, too steep at 12 ft high and 50+ ft wide. Actually, the real problem occurs when a coyote pack comes over it. The coyotes take down calves all the time so a human looks tasty to them if they are very hungry. of course, the ranchers around here shoot coyotes by the dozen at times so they are very wary of people.
I drove my truck down to the bayou at the back of my office property this afternoon to verify the bayou / river level. I don’t have four wheel drive but I do have limited slip on the rear IRS (independent rear suspension). Works great until I bury an axle. Anyhoo, I drove down through the 1.5 ft grass over the ruts to 10 ft away from the water and verified that the office property is 10+ ft over the bayou / river. Was fun going back up in reverse with that limited slip carrying the load. The wife told me that I was an idiot but, she’s been saying that for 36 years.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/29%C2%B032'26.9%22N+95%C2%B039'54.0%22W/@29.540814,-95.6655432,181m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d29.5408137!4d-95.6649964
Holy chit that’s a lotta peeps crammed in that development on the other side! YIKES!
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.808777,-73.1423937,1806m/data=!3m1!1e3
Holy chit that’s a lotta peeps crammed in that development on the other side! YIKES!
Hey, that is where I live, Greatwood. There are 4,000+ homes in Greatwood with 15,000 people. I live a 1/2 mile by crow from my office. Four miles by road and bridge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatwood,_Texas
Damn people tricked me into reading the horrible 70’s Wolfe piece, where he takes 13 pages to get to the point and manages to wallow in perversion the whole time.
Then I get tricked into reading that inconsistent and poorly thought out piece of crap from Stockton over at Lew’s site. Guy’s been beating that same dead horse his whole life, by his own admission. Here’s a clue- federal flood insurance CAN’T be driving the cart if only 15% are buying coverage. That inconsistency and that this is his favorite whipping boy are enough for me to throw that fat baby out with the flood water. His example of wasted money of the Ship Channel is particularly stupid. Fourth busiest port in the nation. HUGE economic benefit to the region and the entire country. I’d like to see the numbers on the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ or the F-35, or the littoral combat vessel if he wants some boondoggle piggy. And it’s not a reservoir ‘lake’ that expensive houses grew up around. It’s a fucking dry field surrounded by a dike. My neighbors getting flooded are in 1800 sqft bungalows with ditches instead of curbs and gutters. Ass.
Fukcers are coming out of the woodwork to use this for their own benefit and twisting it to fit whatever point they’ve been trying to convince people of for the last 40 years. No one was buying it then either.
Oh, and FUCK THE FRENCH. I said it then and I’ll say it again, No je suis charlie hebdo, je suis Americain. Je suis armé!
https://chrishernandezauthor.com/2017/09/02/no-charlie-hebdo-nazis-didnt-drown-in-houston/
I better get to bed. I’m getting cranky.
n
“Then I get tricked into reading that inconsistent and poorly thought out piece of crap from Stockton over at Lew’s site. ”
I saw nothing inconsistent or poorly thought out in that piece. I’ve been making the same points since Katrina or before. The feds shouldn’t be paying anything toward recovery/rebuilding costs. Those should be paid by those who suffered the damage.
Holy chit that’s a lotta peeps crammed in that development on the other side! YIKES!
Modern Texas real estate development.
Florida is pretty bad too, but the job situation is better in Texas.
Including the comments that boil down to “I got mine, kid. Screw you babies.”
It does sound like TheyCallMeRockStar22 needs to straighten out his priorities, but the old guys don’t seem to realize that the economy isn’t quite as cushy as it was a few decades ago. Nor to admit that their generation is doing their damnedest to keep low-cost immigrants flooding the job market.
“It does sound like TheyCallMeRockStar22 needs to straighten out his priorities, but the old guys don’t seem to realize that the economy isn’t quite as cushy as it was a few decades ago. Nor to admit that their generation is doing their damnedest to keep low-cost immigrants flooding the job market.”
And what does the push to get girls into STEM by those same people tell you?
n
This is why we shop almost exclusively at HEB for groceries and pharmacy.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/inside-story-what-took-keep-texas-grocery-chain-running-chip-cutter?trk=eml-email_feed_ecosystem_digest_01-hero-0-null
There are other stories, like when FEMA said they couldn’t get water and ice into Houston after Ike, an HEB said Fuck That and sent their trucks. Or opening stores with no power so people could buy food with cash.
As a plus, they have great prices too.
n
WRT levees:
To approve building anything below the top level of a levee +6-feet is gross incompetence.
To build anything of value below the top level of a levee +6-feet is gross stupidity and should not be covered by any kind of insurance.
There are lots of uses for bottomland, but it is sure not for human habitation or grazing of animals.
My Grandfather used his bottomland to produce bountiful harvests of high-protein alfalfa and feed corn. The rich topsoil was 6 to 10 feet deep and as black as an 8-ball and as sweet smelling as a rose. Sure he lost some cutting of alfalfa and had to plant some corn late, but he never lost any property or animals.
People who consider it their right to build wherever they want should be willing to accept the consequences.
I’ll pull you from the contaminated water and give you a bottle of water, a ham samich, a dry set of clothes, and a blanket. From then on you’re on your own.
“Charity” is not unlimited or meant to make you whole.
@DadCooks
+1,000
One thing that really pisses me off is that everyone in North Carolina subsidizes home insurance for people down on the coast. The NC insurance commissioner won’t allow insurance companies to charge enough to cover their costs for insuring waterfront properties, so everyone else in the state ends up paying extra so the people on the coast can pay less.
The price of insurance, whether life, health, property, or whatever, should reflect the actual costs the insurance company expects to have to cover. Not allowing insurance companies to charge enough to cover their costs just means they spread those costs elsewhere. There’s simply no excuse for forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions or otherwise to assume risks they prefer not to insure.
That’s also my bitch with flood insurance. The federal government (read, we the taxpayers) subsidize it. Depending on the threat, it should cost anything from 10 or 20 times to literally a thousand times as much as it does. That’s if any insurance company would even write the policy. I’d like to see the flood insurance program eliminated. Add to that the fact that taxpayers will end up subsidizing probably a hundred billion dollars or more of uninsured losses just from the Houston event. All of this to allow people to live where they choose to live without risking the consequences. Nice of all of us taxpayers to pay for their decisions, isn’t it?
Like you, I don’t begrudge emergency rescue efforts, but that’s as far as we taxpayers should pay the freight. And, yes, I think the same about North Carolina if Irma hits here. Let the people who made the decisions to build in areas not suitable for building pay the costs of their stupid decisions.
WRT TheyCallMeRockStar22: I sense that he’s a very angry young combat vet and we see them regularly now down at the vet groups. I mainly sympathize with him; he’s running like a mofo just to stay in place and meanwhile that stuff is still in his head waiting to bust out at some point. A couple of the old vets had one or two germane comments to make but otherwise, yeah, a lot of us don’t get just how hard it is now for young people to get a leg up in this offshoring/robot economy; same shitty wages that we got back in the 70s while prices of everything have shot up. With both spouses/partners having to slave just to maintain a “lower-middle-class” life and if they have kids, God help them, with the culture nowadays and having to do something with them during the weekdays when they both have to work.
It’s much WORSE now for them then it was for us.
And yeah, our fucked-up Boomer gen is very, very busy opening up all the gates and windows and letting the rest of the world in here to take up jobs and endless “free” bennies. Among other stuff they’re/we’re doing to destroy the country.
My advice to TheyCallMeRockStar22 is to GTFO of Dodge and move out to either the Appalachian or Rocky Mountain area Murkan “redoubts” and meanwhile learn and do a useful trade, while also immersing himself in the standard Western classics. Screw wasting time in some Eastern college boozing, doping and wenching; I certainly understand the impulse but it’s personally wasteful and destructive at the least. I can promise regret later in life.
He’s still young enough to fight the coming war here and with his experience, as he says, he can probably easily skip the MVT-type SUT stuff and maybe work as CADRE for Max or some other genuine group, and meanwhile could be training other young men and women to do that gig.
I read the post by Mr. DadCooks concerning uses for bottomland and:
I APPROVE!!!
As I said in earlier posts, scrunching thousands upon tens of thousands of houses and people onto land that was once underwater and will be again just boggles the mind. And that goes for all the wealthy derps who bought and own McMansions on our East Coast, from Floriduh to Maine. Rising sea levels (for whatever reason) and bigger storms will be a HUGE problem for them sooner than they apparently think. And that whole Gulf coast from TX to Floriduh with its development and population is always in danger of becoming another Bangladesh.
Thanks @RBT and @OFD. I had to work real hard to not devolve into a rant.
” I have a Firefox add-on that lest me download the vid.”
What’s the add-on’s name please? Does it work on Youtube?
I have
“Download YouTube Videos as MP4 1.8.10”
I just want to make the comment that people don’t live in Houston for the CLIMATE.
They live here to work. That work feeds you, processes the gasoline you drive with, fuels the trucks that bring you food, ships the goods that come thru the 4th largest port, generates electricity for the region. We are net exporter in all those areas.
That doesn’t happen without people, who need places to live. Our economy isn’t based on entertainment, or travel, or retired baby boomers, it’s based on producing and moving STUFF. We are one of the very few bright spots in the national economy, creating jobs
I’m arguing that everyone has a vested interest in keeping that engine of the economy working. Since everyone benefits, and we can’t charge for that benefit, the only way to recover it is thru the federal system of theft and redistribution. Change that and I’ll get behind it.
The unfortunate fact is that we all pay for lots of things we don’t want to pay for. I’m not bitching about Cali being ONE FUCKING HUGE EARTHQUAKE ZONE where fools have managed to build the world’s tenth largest economy on KNOWN shaky ground.
As a side note, a couple of years ago FEMA told state governments that they would be on their own for flood damages going forward. No money left, said FEMA. Doesn’t seem to have happened.
n
“Quick Facts
Texas was the leading crude oil-producing state in the nation in 2015 and exceeded production levels even from the federal offshore areas.
As of January 2016, the 29 petroleum refineries in Texas had a capacity of over 5.4 million barrels of crude oil per day and accounted for 30% of total U.S. refining capacity.
Texas accounted for over 27% of U.S. marketed natural gas production in 2015, making it the leading natural gas producer among the states.
Texas leads the nation in wind-powered generation capacity with more than 18,500 megawatts; in 2014 and 2015, Texas wind turbines produced more electricity than the state’s two nuclear plants.
Texas is the nation’s largest producer of lignite coal. About 40% of the coal burned for electricity generation in Texas is lignite.”
“The region plays an outsize role in the U.S. economy. Its projected gross output of $441 billion this year represents about 2.4% of the nation’s economy. But that doesn’t tell the entire story. It’s among the top three hubs for oil refineries. It’s the largest center for chemical production. It boasts the No. 2 shipping port. And it contains two of the nation’s busiest airports.”
Modern Texas real estate development.
Yup. In spades. There are probably 200,000 people living behind levees along this 30 to 40 mile stretch of the Brazos river. The levees are from 1 foot tall to 25 ft tall. Maybe higher. But, there is rarely water on the levees here unlike New Orleans.
Florida is pretty bad too, but the job situation is better in Texas.
Florida is pretty bad too, but the job situation is WAY better in Texas. This is why Fort Bend County is growing at 30,000 to 40,000 people per year since 2012.
Fixed that for you.
There are other stories, like when FEMA said they couldn’t get water and ice into Houston after Ike, an HEB said F*** That and sent their trucks. Or opening stores with no power so people could buy food with cash.
HEB is a class act. They do their finest job in hiring good people who are “smart and get things done”.
https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/1590598385/
As a plus, they have great prices too.
Yes, they go heads up against Walmart every day of the week. I know this, I have price shopped both of them. I can afford to shop at Whole Foods, I vastly prefer HEB.
“I’m arguing that everyone has a vested interest in keeping that engine of the economy working. Since everyone benefits, and we can’t charge for that benefit, the only way to recover it is thru the federal system of theft and redistribution. Change that and I’ll get behind it.”
That’s the whole point of a free market. If you produce something people want, they’ll pay for it. You (as a region) charge for that benefit with every gallon of gasoline or pound of beef or whatever that you sell.
I don’t have a vested interest in keeping the Houston area working, and I don’t think anyone from outside the area does, either. Historically, the only reason that area has so many refineries and so on is that Texas was for a long time the major producer of petroleum in the US. And, as has become obvious, having such a high percentage of the country’s refining capacity located on the Gulf Coast is a really terrible idea.
A couple of the old vets had one or two germane comments to make but otherwise, yeah, a lot of us don’t get just how hard it is now for young people to get a leg up in this offshoring/robot economy; same s***** wages that we got back in the 70s while prices of everything have shot up.
The automation of jobs is accelerating. The job situation is going to get far, far worse. At least the national administrator is stopping XXXXXX slowing the import of uneducated, illegal labor.
As a side note, a couple of years ago FEMA told state governments that they would be on their own for flood damages going forward. No money left, said FEMA. Doesn’t seem to have happened.
FEMA has to be reauthorized by Congress in a couple of months. Any of the old insured people were grandfathered into their low rates. Congress was reputedly going to get rid of the grandfathering. Now, who knows what will happen ?
The refineries are here on the Gulf Coast because of competition. We had 300 refineries in the USA twenty years ago. Now we have 100. There has been three new refineries built in the USA in the last five years: North Dakota, Arizona, and Beaumont, Texas (that is a majority diesel refinery for export to the UK). It is difficult for any refinery under 200,000 barrels per day to compete now.
“having such a high percentage of the country’s refining capacity located on the Gulf Coast is a really terrible idea.”
Oil is almost always in shitty and geologically dangerous places. Refineries get built where the oil is, and where bulk transportation is. Which means near the sea. Ports are built in coastal areas, because that’s where the ocean is… Exceptions being Port of Chigago, and Port of Houston (which is actually much more sheltered from storms than your average port.) It’s also a truism that nowadays refineries get built (or more often DON”T get built) in the few places that understand the need and desirability of refineries. Should we build more in earthquake prone Cali?
Don’t forget the massive sunk costs in pipelines and other infrastructure. You can’t just build a refinery on a greenfield development in Nebraska without a way to get product in and out. http://cdn.oilprice.com/uploads/AC1008.png
n
The real reason we don’t have more refineries is gooberment regulations (federal and local) and NIMBY (not in my backyard).
I have no sympathy for Big Refinery or Big Oil. They are in bed with the gooberment. There are no more little guys.
We would be far better off with more small local refineries, supplied with crude via a National Pipeline System. Wait, we already have a system that routes crude through every state of the Union (and Confederacy). All we have to do is get rid of the EPA and break up Big Refinery and Big Oil.
Once again, Mr. DadCooks has hit the target, bulls-eye!
Bust up the Fed leviathan, in other words, and their monopolies on everything.
I think we will of necessity in coming years and decades be erecting more local energy sources, as up here in this county with wind and solar arrays. And getting juice from Quebec Hydro up in northern Quebec. I’d also be in favor of building thirty nuke plants a year for the next thirty years.
hey have you mapped your local buried gas lines? depending on how TEOTWAWKI happens, there will be a lot of gas left in those thousands of miles of underground tanks…
n
added – know where your local compressor station is?
Very strange. I know where there is a station, and it seems to be missing from google streetview. I’m gonna have to go look with my own eyes.
I’d also be in favor of building thirty nuke plants a year for the next thirty years.”
Too bad Westinghouse apparently went broke waiting for us to get sensible about it. Oh well, I bet the chinese will be willing to build us plants…
n
Do the Chicoms know how to deal with antifa demonstrators having a fit at their construction sites? Oh wait….
All we have to do is get rid of the EPA and break up Big Refinery and Big Oil.
Um, no. We need a very limited EPA. No more dumping bad gasoline in the nations rivers. I’ve been there, done that, almost got blown up.
And refineries demand incredibly expensive technical talent along with sophisticated materials (catalysts, etc). A tea kettle refinery can only make about 60 to 65 octane gasoline. Large refineries have sophisticated side process plants to make iso-octane (100 octane) out of larger organic molecules to blend into gasoline to increase the octane of gasoline for today’s high performance engines.
Of course, natural gas (methane) has an octane of 130. I would like to see cars and trucks evolve to electric motors with compressed natural gas generator sets such as the Workhorse truck.
http://workhorse.com/pickup/
Too bad Westinghouse apparently went broke waiting for us to get sensible about it. Oh well, I bet the chinese will be willing to build us plants…
Circle-Bar-W is now owned by Hitachi Heavy Industries in Japan. They make a lot of money selling spare parts in the USA and other parts. They still sell smaller steam turbines (100 to 500 MW) and gas turbines.
OFD wrote:
“I’d also be in favor of building thirty nuke plants a year for the next thirty years.”
I would like that too if the government didn’t have to subsidise it. Here in Oz even the friends of nuklear power say it requires cross subsidisation.
Good point, Mr. Miles. Our Feds would be all over every nut and bolt, too. In quaking fear of the anti-nuke imbeciles and their stooges in the MSM.