53F and damp. No preconceived notion of what the day will be like. I’m opening myself to the universe today đ
This is a good day to take special notice of your romantic loved one(s). Of course it should be year round, but no reason why we can’t benefit from a reminder. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day of work, kids, prepping, collecting sportscars, or however you spend your precious life, and to forget why we do those things.
If like a friend of mine you can collect antique race cars and antique radios because you don’t have a romantic partner, well, there are advantages to that too!
Enjoy the day.
n
56f and clear this morning.
Feb. 14th started early with a gift from my loved one of 47 years. She still knows how to surprise me. I am a very lucky old man.
Follow up to two year old story, this is why I like the DailyMail, they always follow up.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6702933/Navy-officer-guilty-manslaughter-bridge-plunge-deaths.html
n
Hmm, maybe the kids are getting tired of the diversite’
Minnesota high school is put on lock down and students ‘scuffle with cops’ as brawl breaks out over racist n-word social media posts made by white students
Wonder if this has anything to do with the ‘birth tourism’ busts that are going down in NYC?
“masked gunman executes a man by shooting him in the head at point blank range”
NYC cops are not known for their accuracy, and are further burdened with modified guns that require a LOT more trigger force, which decreases accuracy. Keep in mind, EVERY shot was from NYPD…
“Cops unleashed fusillade of 42 bullets during Queens robbery that killed NYPD detective – as suspect wielding a fake gun is charged with murder”
They shot the suspect, the responding plain clothes officer, and the Det. WHO WAS OUTSIDE shooting in…
And sometimes I just shake my head in disgust, WTactualF DailyMail-
“Testimony also revealed that Miles repeatedly engaged in sexual relations with the 14-year-old over the duration of five months. Mile’s semen was found on the girl’s underwear that she was wearing at the time that she was found. His semen was also found at the campsite where the trio had been hiding. ”
NO HE DID NOT. He repeatedly RAPED the 14yo. WTF.
“Texas man, 45, is found guilty of kidnapping two girls, 7 and 14, after allegedly killing their mother by repeatedly hitting her with a flashlight”
Couldn’t get a gun? Flashlight just as effective. And look at the history on this guy, wife beater for decades, and possible murderer twice… no one thought it was suspicious when the woman he’s accused of trying to kill and make it look like a suicide later SUICIDES to keep him from being prosecuted?
n
My wife and I had been dating 9 months when our first Valentine’s day rolled around. She told me ” I think the holiday is stupid, do not get me anything.” Being the brave soul that I am, I didn’t. What happened next? Nothing. She actually meant it. We’ve been together over 20 years, and not a single Valentines day card/gift/bribe has been exchanged. She’s a keeper…
The kids like to see us do the holiday rituals. They helped pick out my card, and got a huge kick out of watching me open it. We treat it as fun, no pressure, no real meaning behind it except making smiles.
I’ll be picking up a bouquet and some choco strawberries when I do some grocery shopping later today.
n
Our 6 year old great granddaughter was excited about Valentines day this year. She told me I had to get her Nana some pretty flowers and something sparkly. Nana wants a Beretta Tomcat (21-A) and I have been trying to find one in stainless steel for the sparkly bit.
I bring my lunch every day except Fridays. Last night, I didn’t feel like putting any effort into it, so along with a couple cheese sticks, I put a can of keystone turkey into my lunch sack. It’s good. No aftertaste. Good to know so I won’t have any worries about stocking up and actually using it.
There’s nothing quite like telling a company that its 10,000 jobs are not welcome.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-headquarters/cities-shunned-by-amazon-revive-hopes-for-hq-given-new-york-opposition-idUSKCN1Q22KJ
Idiots. You didn’t have to GIVE them anything. Just let them come in & start paying people. Gentrification? Shoot. That’s a GOOD thing.
“An Inside Look at the Backblaze Storage Pod Museum”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-storage-pod-museum/
From 45 TB in a storage pod to today’s 840 TB in a storage pod. Amazing.
>”Just on who opposes the merger, I support the merger.” (from yesterday)
That is a dangerous philosophy that leaves you open to manipulation. Even evil people can have the right idea now and then.
The issue with mergers creating monopolies is not really one of freedom. Corporations are entities that are created by the government for the purpose of enhancing commerce. Putting restrictions on them is only reasonable. My opinion is that companies should not be allowed to merge if the combination would have as much as 10% share of their market, and a company that has more than 20% share of its market should be required to split up. Market forces cannot regulate markets if customers do not have choices.
Thereâs nothing quite like telling a company that its 10,000 jobs are not welcome.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-headquarters/cities-shunned-by-amazon-revive-hopes-for-hq-given-new-york-opposition-idUSKCN1Q22KJ
Idiots. You didnât have to GIVE them anything. Just let them come in & start paying people. Gentrification? Shoot. Thatâs a GOOD thing.
Our cities are cesspools of freeloaders. I do not know how to fix them.
https://www.sovereignman.com/tax/heres-why-the-wealthiest-city-in-america-is-screwed-24523/
McCabe: There were 25th Amendment discussions at DOJ to remove Trump from office
https://news.yahoo.com/mccabe-25th-amendment-discussions-doj-remove-trump-office-140646145.html
This is what a politburo looks like. McCabe needs to go to jail for conspiracy to remove the President.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
a company that has more than 20% share of its market should be required to split up.
Nonsense! If Ford has 25% of the Light Truck market with it’s F150 line the Government should step in and “break up” Ford Light Truck division (how do you do that) to ensure that consumers can’t have their truck of choice? You want the government to destroy a company because consumers choose it over it’s competitors? I applaud your goal, choice, but can’t see that your method does anything but destroy choice.
The issue with mergers creating monopolies is not really one of freedom. Corporations are entities that are created by the government for the purpose of enhancing commerce. Putting restrictions on them is only reasonable. My opinion is that companies should not be allowed to merge if the combination would have as much as 10% share of their market, and a company that has more than 20% share of its market should be required to split up. Market forces cannot regulate markets if customers do not have choices.
I only get worried if an entity has 50% of the marketplace.
Look how well that work for the Bell Telephone system and Bell Labs. Broke into 7 entities that eventually merged into AT&T which is pretty much worthless as it turned into just a media company. Meanwhile the world lost the innovation of Bell Labs and the telephone system was really screwed up for a long time.
Idiots. You didnât have to GIVE them anything. Just let them come in & start paying people. Gentrification? Shoot. Thatâs a GOOD thing.
Please, God, don’t let Amazon reconsider Austin.
We have enough big companies here, establishing offices in order to write off excursions to SXSW and Austin City Limits.
I don’t take phone calls from companies whose presence in town is mostly telecommuters and tables at WeWork. They’re not serious about the community and here to partake in the bacchanalia.
The Prog World of Green Misery
Please, God, donât let Amazon reconsider Austin.
Nah, gonna be east coast.
Please, God, donât let Amazon reconsider Austin.
Nah, gonna be east coast.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/14/ocasio-cortez-new-yorkers-defeated-jeff-bezoss-corporate-greed/
“Amazon, which was awarded close to $3 billion in tax incentives for the project, said it isnât seeking out another location, and instead will continue expanding its footprint in the cities of Arlington and Nashville.”
I like the first comment:
“Many times in my life I have wondered: ‘How stupid can you actually be?”
AOC has solved this life question for me.”
I’ve yet to understand why Austin City Limits is such a big deal. And I moved to Texas in ’72 and then to Austin in ’82.
SxSW is just a tourist trap event.
When Divestiture happened I said hide and watch Ma Bell put herself back together in 10 to 15 years.
What do we have? Verizon. Which along the way sucked up GTE. AT&T (by name but formerly Southwestern Bell but now with the AT&T “We don’t care. we don’t have too, we are the phone company” attitude).
I wasn’t exactly on mark but pretty darn close.
Losing Bell Labs was not a good thing.
Oh. I know four guys that have retired from SBC. Three took the “this is all you get forever” lump sum when they retired and “gonna get rich with the stock market”. Eighty grand or so is a lot of money…. and the three are still working. I understand the allure.
The other guy? He gets like $1050 a month and has medical insurance from SBC/AT&T ….. and has since 1995. So, call it 24 years at 12,600 per year. $300,000 later, what is that about the stock market?
Holy Cow, I go shopping and to a couple of parent teacher conferences and the news goes wild!
NYC – so long, we hardly knew you….. and all the speculators are crying. Well, that’s why it’s called “speculating”….
Big mouth, small role, and big lie- “BREAKING: Jussie Smollett Staged Attack Because His Character Was Being Written Out of Show âEmpireâ” — that thing stunk like week old fish from the beginning.
The Dems acted in bad faith, no surprise, and now — “Trump Will Declare State Of National Emergency To Fund Border Wall; Pelosi Threatens Legal Challenge”
n
I got a call letter from Bank of America when I turned 55 asking what to do with my retirement money. WTH? I never worked for Bank of America. As it turns out the assets of the holding company (which owned a bunch of banks) that I worked for from 1982 until 1988 had been bought by someone, which got bought by someone …. and eventually wound up with BofA.
When the bank started having problems the IT department was sold to MTech. Everyone with less than $3,500.00 in the company funded retirement account got a lump sum settlement. I had more than the limit and thus got nothing. I envied those that got paid figuring I would not see a dime. I was wrong.
I had the option of taking the retirement money when I turned 50 or wait until 65 for about twice the amount. I opted for the earlier option. Thus I am getting $118.00 a month for the rest of my life. Not a lot. But thus far it has totaled over $18K. I am glad I did not get paid.
I received a statement at one time and it seems the retirement money from the holding company got folded into the BofA retirement funds. There was about $45 billion dollars in that fund. What was more astounding is that some law firm was getting paid $25 million a year to manage the fund. I sent a letter offering to manage the account for $1 million a year but never heard back so I guess my offer was rejected.
It can go the other way too…
Dad got an offer, decided he liked his pension agreement… then “HUGE Major Company” went bankrupt, and all his stock became worthless, and the Pension Guarantee Corp took over the pension. Did you know they have a maximum that they will pay? Yup, no matter what promises you were made, or plans you had, you get what they give you. In dad’s case, about HALF of what he was promised.
I don’t know the details of the offer, but lots of people took it.
n
One of my newsletters has this to say–
“Measles outbreak hits 10 states
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 101 measles
cases in 10 states so far in 2019. For comparison, 2018 had a total number of 372
cases. This outbreak is linked to foreign travelers bringing measles from countries
experiencing large outbreaks of their own.
Measles is highly contagious, spreads through coughing and sneezing, and the virus
can live for up to two hours in the air. The CDC reports âmeasles is so contagious
that if one person has it, 90 percent of the people close to that person who are not
immune will also become infected.â Most of the current cases reported by state
health departments are unvaccinated children”
emph added.
n
A friend of mine worked for Allied Signal in the Knoxville office. The company made safety restraint systems for vehicles. He was six months from retirement when the company was sold to another company. His retirement account was entirely company funded by company contributions. That money is considered an asset and was sold to the new company, not as retirement funds. He got nothing. Almost 30 years of work and no retirement or 401K. The new company had a 401K plan but did not roll the accumulated retirement money into new accounts. He, along with others, got the shaft.
A friend of mine worked for Allied Signal in the Knoxville office. The company made safety restraint systems for vehicles. He was six months from retirement when the company was sold to another company. His retirement account was entirely company funded by company contributions. That money is considered an asset and was sold to the new company, not as retirement funds. He got nothing. Almost 30 years of work and no retirement or 401K. The new company had a 401K plan but did not roll the accumulated retirement money into new accounts. He, along with others, got the shaft.
I left GTE in the middle of the BellAtlantic merger, before my division was spun off into the trainwreck that is Syniverse. I escaped with my pension balance intact, but my friends who rode the mess down were cashed out to IRAs for 30 cents on the dollar, the rest pocketed by Syniverse management and private capital owners.
Most of the current cases reported by state health departments are unvaccinated children
That was the deal in Vantucky, but we think one of the clinics handled the initial case(s) poorly leading to the current problems. My wife’s former employer, The Vancouver Clinic, along with Kaiser and Legacy, a hospital-based group out of Portland, are all equally likely suspects with offices listed on the state’s registry of contagion points.
As much as I loathe my wife’s former employers, we’ve had friends killed or nearly killed by Kaiser’s penny pinching antics, and their previous practice (since discontinued) of immunizing out of large stock bottles contributed to the antivaxxers’ fears.
So, what’s the chances this goes anywhere??
And what do you think open discussion of the coming Civil War II (my buddy’s high schooler came home talking about it after her teacher raised the issue in class) and now this 60 Minutes interview laying out what looks like a coup attempt (and some have characterized the deep state shenanigans that way for some time) will do to world stability? Seriously people, get prepping.
For the “the dollar is the world’s reserve currency” crowd, see also — https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-14/pence-berates-european-allies-warsaw-urges-eu-confront-iran
zerohedge has been reporting on the move away from the dollar for a while.
n
RIP. This one slipped in under the radar.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/fr/bruce-williams-radio-host-mayor-dies-at-86/