Hot and humid yesterday. Writing this post before retiring early. This head cold is kicking my butt.
Races looked much closer than I expected, and crazy young bug eyes WON?
Holy moly.
At least it doesn’t look like a blue wave…
Animal kingdom today, politics between rides. I think I’ll have lots of time in line.
N
46º and cloudy as I prepare breakfast and cornbread. I got to sleep late, but didn’t sleep in much, so it’s a good night.
Local congressman (R) won, which annoys the snot out of some of my more progressive friends. That doesn’t bother me much. THEY wanted the district redrawn. Had the old districts applied, he likely would have lost. Go figure.
Election Day was mostly uneventful. A few districts had machine problems (not mine, fortunately), but they got them sorted quickly. My precincts had a shortage of “Affidavit of Elector” forms. These forms are required when a voter does not vote for a number of years and is *starred* for removal. They must prove who they are and that they still live in the precinct. It takes YEARS to get starred, then more YEARS to remove them. So a lot of folks came out of the woodwork to vote.
Elections supervisor told me the reason she keeps bringing me back to help after elections (when judges come in) is that she knows I’ll do what she needs to be done, with no nonsense. I’m a smiling guy as they come down the hall, and I’m loudly polite as they approach. But they don’t get past me without verifying that their absentee ballots are ready for the elections office. They fix it before they go on. It saves a lot of time down the line. One judge tried to bull past me. She saw the “not smiling” version. Domingo (the guy assigned to help me) noted that “not smiling” should be avoided. Heh. I like that.
Votes were cast and counted. Problems came and were resolved. At the end of the day, politicians were elected and disappointed. Good day.
That shocked me. How can someone that stupid and ignorant be elected to a congressional office? Only thing I can think of is that the people that voted for her wanted someone dumber than them so they could feel more intelligent. Like filling a room with people on the left side of the bell curve so you can be the smartest one in the crowd.
It will be interesting, or should I say appalling, to what stupid stuff she tries to pull in congress. Maybe then the level of her true stupidity will become known. It would be tough to find enough people to fill a room that would be on the left side of her bell curve.
Starting at the hotel this am. Trying to sleep the cold into submission.
Less of crazy stupid in Congress. Sheila Jackson Lee comes to mind…
N
As I commented to a couple leaving the polling place with me yesterday, “Well now we go home and see if the scoundrels we liked beat the scoundrels we didn’t like.”
This is like watching sausage being made!
For the most part the scoundrels I liked won but I just hate the idea of Speaker Pelosi again. I suppose it could be worse, after all “crazy bug eyes” did win. Better the devil we know than one that might even be worse. Maxine Waters anyone?
Ok, I’ve missed a reference. Who, exactly, is “crazy young bug eyes”?
Hispanic Female Obama
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez
AOC will come out gangbusters. And, then, the Speaker will tell her to shut her piehole and vote the way I tell you. I expect nothing fron AOC except photo-ops and more of the dumbest rhetoric this side of Tennessee (hi, Mr. Ray). I expect AOC will introduce nothing to the floor.
I already read rumblings of Dumbo’s “impeach” “get his tax returns”. This is the shit that will start CWII and blood letting.
One thing for certain is there will be absolutely nothing productive coming out of the House of Representatives for the next 2-years.
An interesting piece I saw in the Washington comPost noted that Trump lost fewer seats in Congress than any recent President (they only went back to Bill Clinton). Personally, I call that a substantive and significant point.
I am still waiting to see the final results of the WA State votes that will start taxing all foods and anything that produces carbon. Then there are the gun regulations that will start the gun confiscation process.
Also interested to see if the Californicators put in year-round Daylight Savings Time because Californicators (the ignorant uneducated gimmie-gimmies) all know that with DST they get an extra hour of daylight every day.
They can’t actually put in year round DST. The current Federal Law allows states to opt out of DST and be ST year round. Florida did the same thing. Congress does nothing, but you knew that.
Darling Alexandria was virtually guaranteed to win last night. In that district, all the action was in the primary.
I’m sticking with my prediction that Speaker Pelosi 2019-20 will guarantee Trump 2020 and a massive Red Wave in two years.
JimL, may I ask what state you’re in?
State of Confusion.
My county, Fort Bend County, went 100% dumbocrat. We’ve been repuglican since 1990. All of the judges got flipped to dumbocrat. Our federal House rep, TX-22, is hanging in there with 4+ points of separation with his gerrymandered district. 2020 might be even tougher. Texas is heading blue, maybe 2020, maybe not.
Plus all the repuglicans in Harris County (Houston’s central county) lost to the dumbocrats. Several federal house seats were lost.
“Trump vs. Acosta Post-Election: “Let Me Run The Country, You Run CNN”; “You Are A Rude, Terrible Person””
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/11/07/trump_vs_acosta_post-election_let_me_run_the_country_you_run_cnn_you_are_a_rude_terrible_person.html
“President Trump and CNN’s Jim Acosta got in a heated argument Wednesday at the president’s press conference following the midterm election over his controversial ad on illegal immigration and a caravan of migrants.”
“”Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN, and if you did it well, your ratings would be much better,” Trump told Acosta.”
WOW !
Legit demographic changes or fraud?
I am still waiting to see the final results of the WA State votes that will start taxing all foods and anything that produces carbon. Then there are the gun regulations that will start the gun confiscation process.
Wow. Sales tax was almost 10% when we left Vantucky (Vancouver, WA), but at least it didn’t apply to food.
Wizard of Id: “what were you thinking ?”
https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2018/11/07
Heh. I would like to have that rig myself.
My county, Fort Bend County, went 100% dumbocrat.
Legit demographic changes or fraud?
California and Michigan immigrants.
And liberals escaping the ultra liberal heart of Houston.
TN taxes food which I think is wrong. TN does not have an income tax except for the Hall tax which no longer applies after age 65. The only food that should be taxed is prepared food you eat at a restaurant. Groceries should be exempt.
Typically, we don’t, regardless. Most of the laws passed become characterized as “…unintended consequences…”
Now, we may have less of that, particularly if nothing gets “DONE”.
It would bother me not one whit if nothing got done for two years.
We need more of that kind of thing.
Miles_Teg – I’m in Pennsylvania. Land of lots of trees and even a few Elk. (We went Elk-watching on our summer vacation. Really cool.) Also a nut in the state house. Didn’t bother to go see them. Been there, done that.
Holy crap my wife told me Ed Emmett even lost. He’s the judge that runs our disaster response and he was widely loved and did a fantastic job. We’re F’d and no mistake.
N
Well, the measure in WA State that will lead to making it harder to purchase a gun and a lot easier for the “State” to confiscate your gun appears to have passed. Add to that a measure that will require Law Enforcement, as well as the general public, to stop and think before they fire their gun is also passing.
At least the carbon and food taxes are failing.
The right side of WA State appears to be staying Right and the left coast is staying Far Left. Logjam politics will continue as normal.
How about that “resignation” of Sessions?
I expect Trump to double-down on his Tweets and positions.
Fun times ahead. Not.
I look forward to the Dumbocrat primaries for 2020. Biden, Cankles, Fukahontas, etc. Throw in Gavin Nuisance. Butto. AOC.
AOC 2020! “Let’s go full Commie!”
How about that “resignation” of Sessions?
I am not surprised. When he recused himself from watching over the Mueller investigation, that was a betrayal of Trump. And the public.
I expect Trump to double-down on his Tweets and positions.
Me too.
Holy crap my wife told me Ed Emmett even lost. He’s the judge that runs our disaster response and he was widely loved and did a fantastic job. We’re F’d and no mistake.
EVERY county wide republican in Harris County and Fort Bend County lost. Every single one. All judges. It is a total disaster.
I blame the millennials. They came out and voted straight democrat because of Robert Francis.
I also blame the immigrants from California and Michigan. They left their states to find a job and a reasonable place to live. But they still voted for the democrats even after the democrats ruined their home states.
I blame the millennials. They came out and voted straight democrat because of Robert Francis.
I believe Robert Francis also had a lot of Boomer support, 70-ish people who still want to believe Camelot is possible.
Abbott’s margins weren’t as high as predicted.
Oh man, go look at the House election results. Specifically California, 45 out of 53 seat are held by the dumbocrats (five seats yet to be resolved). If Texas goes that way then it will be unbearable here.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2018/house/
Good night, the Dow 30 is up 545 points !
https://finance.yahoo.com/
@Greg, MJ Hegar lost TX-31 by 4 points. The repuglican stiff managed to hold his seat.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2018/house/
This machine is a Gateway i5 with 6GB ram. One of a pair. Quad core, 2TB drive hanging on a SATA wire, Win7, blah blah blah. I did nothing to it but un-install a bit of junkware like the install stub for Office. Easy.
The eMachine it replaced? Ha! After a week of trying to get rid o’ crap, it was nuke time with the restore disks and wipe that sucker to get rid of the junk. The second (and same model) eMachine was “restored” after first boot. 🙂 And zero problems with either eMachine for almost six years.
The difference of junk is between something marketed to the office or to the home???
At about the same time, six years ago, the EDC box started to act up. Huh, a used $80 eMachine from eBay that smelled like an ashtray with plenty of cat hair in the fans when I got it acting up? After four years of constant up time? Who wudda thunk it possible.
My brother built a machine for me. A dual core AMD. 4GB ram, 1 TB and a 320 GB SATA drives. Win7. Pokey compared to the i5. But faster than the eMachine Celeron it replaced. And only $150 more than my Gateway.
Well, we had a nice visit when he brought to me and he did buy the steaks we charred on the grill one night. So, there’s that. Then again, he swilled my beer. A wash….
Still here? The boredom continues….
The i5 has always had AHCI enabled in BIOS. The AMD, not, just IDE.
Whatever AHCI means. The box came that way so I left it alone. Just tired of building systems…. so I bought one. I’m tired of crashing and trashing and re-installing just to see what happens.
So, learning stuff to make sure the SSD in this box is running great and well, back to AHCI.
I edited the Registry on the AMD today.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\IastorV
And changed the Start value to 0. From 3.
You have to do this before changing BIOS so Win7 will load the drivers. The reason for the 3 setting is to speed up boot time because Win doesn’t have to load un-needed drivers. Otherwise you get the BSOD…. so they say, I didn’t experiment.
Windows churned for a few minutes installing drivers and wanted to re-boot. Ok. Then I re-started, a couple of times, then went into BIOS and changed the setting from IDE to AHCI.
Interesting. The box seems to boot faster. Not i5 going from 2TB spinning metal to 1TB SSD faster. More like, a tiny bit slower than the i5’s old boot time. Maybe 15 seconds slower? I didn’t have a stopwatch. And Penny wanted petting. But not almost three minutes to have everything up and going.
Ok, it’s ready for a couple of SSDs. Soon, by Christmas….
Oh, and the “real way” to do this is to enable AHCI, install your new SSDs and reinstall Windows and all yer crap.
I have other things to do. Cloning the drive is easier.
I reluctantly voted for him. Reluctantly because he ramrodded through the plan to renovate the Astrodome despite the citizens rejecting that at the ballot box.
OK, the repuglican won the South Carolina governor election. So if Trump appoints Lindsey Graham to be Attorney General then there will be a repuglican appointed by the governor to fill the senate seat. Just sayin …
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2018/governor/
Holy crap my wife told me Ed Emmett even lost.
I reluctantly voted for him. Reluctantly because he ramrodded through the plan to renovate the Astrodome despite the citizens rejecting that at the ballot box.
Doesn’t Harris County owe bonds on the Astrodome ? My brother the banker told me that if the Astrodome is demolished then that triggers the bonds to be paid in full immediately (some $80 million IIRC).
Not as of 2013. There was $6 million owed and none could be accelerated back then. Harris County and the City of Houston are actually in good shape for debt compared to most areas around the US.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Money-still-owed-on-Dome-less-than-previously-4608496.php
I remember at the time of the vote that the outstanding bonds were an issue… but I could be retconning.
EE is an experienced and effective emergency manager and we are gonna miss him next season.
I slept all day and am headed back to bed. Sucks being sick in vacation.
N
@Greg, MJ Hegar lost TX-31 by 4 points. The repuglican stiff managed to hold his seat.
Last night, as returns came in, the local Fox 10 o’clock news had a live shot of a prayer vigil at Hegar’s headquarters in Round Rock. I guess it didn’t work, but the trick is to really *believe* in it and not just go through the motions for the camera.
My wife treats a lot of former military pilots for Ambien addiction so she knows the signs. The Air Force buys dosages unavailable to civilians which would stop an elephant cold and gets the pilots addicted so they sleep on cue.
_Human by Choice_ by Travis S Taylor and Darrell Bain
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1606190474/?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number one of a three book space opera series. I read the well formatted and bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback. The author slate for the second and third books in the series drops Travis Taylor and adds Stephanie Osborn which is a little worrisome as I have ordered the second book in the series.
Wow, this is pulp science fiction at its best ! I loved it !
An alien space ship is passing through the Solar System when its FTL drive catastrophically fails. The aliens rush to the lifeboats and about a hundred of them make it off the space ship before it disintegrates. Many of the aliens and lifeboats perished with the space ship.
Several of the lifeboats land on the planet Earth. One crashes in Kyle Leverson’s yard. He rescues the alien who proceeds to fix her broken body with tools from the lifeboat. Since she has no prospect of communicating with her race, she decides to use her tools and mental abilities to convert her body to a human female. And then things get interesting.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars (35 reviews)
There is a nice compendium of what several countries think of the elections titled “The World Ponders the United States of Confusion ” at:
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/the-world-ponders-the-united-states-of-confusion/ar-BBPsEWs?ocid=News
@Lynn: Thanks for that recommendation – I’m looking for some light SF just now, so I’ll probably order it 🙂
I’ve been re-reading the Honor Harrington series, this time in Spanish, to try to not lose what (little) proficiency I have. But it’s a bit of a slog, so I need something easier in between sessions…
And that is the reason I am not in favor of term limits. Every time the subject comes up, I ask the poser if it’s his rascal that should be limited or just everyone else’s. Inevitably, he doesn’t mind his rascal, but mine should go.
The problem is that good folks, with important skills or experience, get reelected because they are good at what they do. Institutional memory is valuable. Sometimes not, but it’s the exception, not the rule.
That fact that this guy got voted out is annoying, but at the very least he was voted out and not term-limited. Imagine that wholesale, every 4 years (or 6, or whatever). Complete turnover all the time. Florida has that. People just get good at their jobs, and they have to leave. No, thank you.
@JimL: I suppose it depends on the position. Positions with actual skills, like dog catcher – maybe term limits are a bad idea.
Anything political definitely needs term limits. It’s hard enough to unseat an incumbent – once they get corporate graft funding their election campaigns, it can be damned near impossible. This is missing from the US Congress, which is a goodly part of the problem: The Congresscritters get in there, and represent special interests instead of the voters.
I have heard valid arguments both ways.
Term limits to keep them from getting too entrenched and basically worthless only worrying about themselves and friends. Keep them from continuing voting themselves benefits while ignoring those they represent. However it takes them awhile to learn the system, whose back to scratch, male organ to blow, etc. to something accomplished. Churn every eight years at that position does not provide enough time to learn the system.
No term limits makes them complacent, basically serving their own interests or the interests of their region only and to he!! with other areas. Inability to get anything done because they don’t care and would rather take trips paid for by special interest groups (fact finding trips my arse). They become too comfortable and no longer feel like they have to work for a living.
Maybe term limits but with a longer duration, say 10 years, perhaps 12. No retirement other than what SS provides. Put them on Medicare while in office. All stocks and bonds converted to T-Bills while in office with no tax consequences for investments such as IRA’s other than capital gains taxes and conversion back to regular investments within two months of leaving office with no tax consequences other than capital gains. Use of public air transportation required at all times, coach, no 1st class or business.
But that is more akin to science fiction as long as congress controls the spending and allocation of money for their own benefit.
@Lynn: Thanks for that recommendation – I’m looking for some light SF just now, so I’ll probably order it
I’ve been re-reading the Honor Harrington series, this time in Spanish, to try to not lose what (little) proficiency I have. But it’s a bit of a slog, so I need something easier in between sessions…
Thanks, I greatly enjoy pulp SF and this book fits that description to a T.
Good night, the Honor Harrington books are a slog on a good day. I cannot imagine trying to read them in Spanish with all of the extreme technology that Weber loves to dwell on.