Fri. Feb. 15, 2019 – just like that, another week gone

By on February 15th, 2019 in decline and fall, government, Random Stuff

62F and pretty damp this am…

Going on 60Minutes and talking about your conspiracy to remove the President from office is a pretty big deal….taking steps to do so is treason. Either we take this sort of thing seriously and start locking people up, or it’s a free pass for anyone to give it a try.

Or, expect a series of cancer deaths, single vehicle crashes, and unexplained assaults…..

Whatever happens, the rest of the world powers will know about the attempt and make decisions based on that.

File this one under “Decline and Fall.”

n

33 Comments and discussion on "Fri. Feb. 15, 2019 – just like that, another week gone"

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    Meanwhile, back in January,

    “Moment Arizona cop shoots ‘ISIS-supporting terrorist’ after the 18-year-old charged at him with a knife

    WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
    Authorities on Thursday released video of the January 7 confrontation between suspect Ismail Hamed and a sergeant at a police station in Fountain Hills, Arizona
    Police say Hamed had 911 and asked to speak with a law enforcement officer
    A sergeant responded to the call and his body camera recorded the incident
    Hamed threw rocks at the sergeant before approaching him with a knife
    The officer fired two shots at Hamed after he ignored multiple warnings
    Hamed, who was born in the US, was described by police as a violent extremist
    He was taken to a hospital and charged with aggravated assault the next day “

    I didn’t find any reference to the shooting on the day, only later when the charges were announced. It’s almost like no one wanted to publicize it.

    n

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  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    Preppers talk alot about WROL or Without Rule of Law. As some of these folks have discovered, WROL might be very local, and if you mistake it for a bigger thing and act as if there were no consequences, you might find out differently…

    “White man, 56, who shot three black men while screaming racist slurs after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans is sentenced to 10 years in federal prison

    Roland Bourgeois Jr, 56, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday
    Days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, Bourgeois Jr opened fire on three black men evacuating the Algiers Point neighborhood “

    No where does the article actually discuss him “screaming racist slurs” but he did apparently make stupid and racial statements before and after.

    What do we learn from the article? There are people who are just waiting for an excuse to kill people. I’m quite sure that includes people of all different appearances. Reading further down, we also see that in a disaster, some of those people are cops.

    And we further learn that actions during a local breakdown in ROL can indeed F you up later, and are most likely to do so if you are stupid.

    n

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    Mentally Ill Attention Whore gets shot for doing stupid stuff– oh, right, I’m not writing the headlines–

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6707267/Transgender-YouTuber-films-getting-shot-security-guard.html

    “Budding Youtube star films herself getting SHOT in the leg by a security guard who warned her to ‘back away from the gate’ outside California synagogue

    This is the moment a YouTube personality films herself getting shot by a security guard
    Zoe Perez, 35, known as Furry Potato on her channel, was live-streaming outside the Etz Jacob Congregation
    The shooting happened Tuesday afternoon at the synagogue in Los Angeles
    The security guard was later detained and questioned by police. It’s unclear whether he faces charges
    Perez was arrested last July for making threats at a US Marine Recruiting Station in Valencia”

    What’s interesting about this?

    nobody wannabe provacateur plays stupid games, wins stupid prizes…

    Not much damage if actually shot, as noted probably just a fragment.

    “Warning shot”– get this idea out of your head. You are either lawfully justified to use deadly force or you are not. EVERY shot is potentially deadly, therefore there is no such thing as a “warning shot”. I expect the guard to face charges.

    Note the gloves the guard is wearing. There is no good reason for a security guard to be wearing weighted or armored ‘tactical gloves.’ This speaks to mindset for me. Don’t hire guards who think they’ll be punching people.

    “Budding star”, with 4k subscribers- I watch an old british tinkerer, who messes around in his shed fixing things and working on boats, and HE has over 14K subs.

    Meta question about culture- why report “transgender” at all? Unless the guy goes out of his way to make sure everyone knows he’s a guy who thinks he’s a woman, by their own standards shouldn’t the reporting be of a ‘woman’? (of course, we know it’s an attempt to increase sympathy and victimhood and virtue signal all at the same time.)

    lastly, be aware that even some seemingly random crazy that starts messing with you could have an agenda and an ulterior motive.

    n

  5. JimL says:

    46º and cloudy / light rain. Warm enough that it’s not unpleasant to be out in, so I may get out later.

    Landing leg/jack for the trailer came in yesterday. At 12 years old and banged more than a few times, so failure during freezing weather is just about right. The new one is electric, so I’ll have to wire it when I install it. Luxuries as I age.

    Decline? Sure. Fall? Don’t count us out yet. Just be ready if we do.

  6. Greg Norton says:

    Last night was one of those nights where I wonder if I really should have accepted the Junior Programmer gig at the current place. Being 50, expectations are inifintely higher for me than the 25 year-old Junior Programmer, but they wan to pay me the same money.

    Ten days until my 401(k) matching vests 25% at the year anniversary.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    Meta question about culture- why report “transgender” at all? Unless the guy goes out of his way to make sure everyone knows he’s a guy who thinks he’s a woman, by their own standards shouldn’t the reporting be of a ‘woman’? (of course, we know it’s an attempt to increase sympathy and victimhood and virtue signal all at the same time.)

    Rally support for a fellow member of the ‘T’ spectrum?

    Researching her patients, my wife learned that a lot of people who identify as such are not approved for surgery due to a variety of mental health issues. That ‘T’ is a big umbrella of different.

    Those accepted for surgery and complete the process will identify as women, not trans.

  8. nick flandrey says:

    “Ten days until my 401(k) matching vests 25% at the year anniversary.”

    So NINE days until they march you to the door?

    I hope that doesn’t hit too close to home, but be on the lookout for any transgressions they can nail you on, or could gin up to prevent that. They sound like the kind of total sh!tbags that would do it..

    I’d be cleaning up my personal stuff at work, just in case.

    n

  9. MrAtoz says:

    Day Two in Chicongo. Julian Castro is the luncheon keynote. MrsAtoz has a table right next to his. I’ve excused myself since it will be tRump bashing from start to finish. Plus I don’t want to listen to the twerp. He probably thinks Obola will endorse him.

    I can’t wait till MrsAtoz starts to slow down and do more local stuff. I’m getting tired of travelling in the ProgTurd circles. Now, with tRump declaring a “National Emergency”, the talk at the conference will turn to nonstop bashing. I’m tempting to run on stage and yell “MAGA”. lol! One way to start a riot. Progs are so accepting and inclusive.

  10. Greg Norton says:

    So NINE days until they march you to the door?

    I hope that doesn’t hit too close to home, but be on the lookout for any transgressions they can nail you on, or could gin up to prevent that. They sound like the kind of total sh!tbags that would do it..

    I’d be cleaning up my personal stuff at work, just in case.

    Management is just cheap, not vindictive.

    I wrote before that, after I left, the next person to turn in notice at CGI had their expense reports examined closely and got walked to the door 30 minutes later for theft over a $2 drink at the bottom of a receipt from Office Depot.

    Now *that* is vindictive. CGI is a Canadian company, however, and that manager was subsequently encouraged to “spend more time with his family”.

  11. Greg Norton says:

    Day Two in Chicongo. Julian Castro is the luncheon keynote. MrsAtoz has a table right next to his. I’ve excused myself since it will be tRump bashing from start to finish. Plus I don’t want to listen to the twerp. He probably thinks Obola will endorse him.

    The Castro brothers no habla Espanol. That’s their political Achilles heel which prevented either one of them from running with Hillary.

    The irony of it is that they are the sons of the La Raza co-founder.

  12. lynn says:

    From yesterday, So, what’s the chances this goes anywhere??

    “Dershowitz: If McCabe’s Interview Is True It Clearly Shows an Attempted Coup d’Etat of Trump Administration “

    “On Thursday night Alan Dershowitz said if the statements by McCabe were true then the Department of Justice was attempting a coup d’etat of the Trump administration.

    Tucker Carlson: Now the suspicions of many are confirmed by one of the players in it. The Department of Justice discussed trying to remove the president using the 25th Amendment. What’s your reaction to that?

    Alan Dershowitz: Well, if that’s true it is clearly an attempted coup d’etat… Any justice department official who even mentioned the 25th Amendment in the context of President Trump has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution.”

    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.

    Rush Limbaugh stated yesterday that McCabe is under a criminal investigation by the FBI Inspector General. In fact, the entire crew (McCabe, James Comey, Peter Paul Strzok, Lisa Page, etc) is under criminal investigation by the IG. That is a very bad place to be. Apparently McCabe went to the Presidential cabinet trying to talk them into a 25th amendment coup. They will all testify at his trial. Sessions should have been all over this and just washed his hands of the matter. Barr will not allow this to continue without charges. The real question is, was Rod Rosenstein involved ? If so, we are now talking about the Director of the FBI.

    Civil War II will not happen without a trigger. We do have a trigger coming in the form of a financial apocalypse in the next 5 to 10 years. Right when that idiot AOC is president.

  13. lynn says:

    Wizard Of ID: The Wizard Has Left the Building
    https://www.gocomics.com/wizardofid/2019/02/15

    Yup, some days you want to just leave through the nearest wall.

  14. lynn says:

    Breaking Cat News: the rescued kitten from the snow bank
    https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2019/02/15

    All together now, AWWWW !

  15. lynn says:

    “Ruth Bader Ginsburg Isn’t Looking to Retire Yet, But Is Another Supreme Court Justice Ready to Go?”
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/ruth-bader-ginsburg-isnt-looking-to-retire-yet-but-is-another-supreme-court-justice-ready-to-go

    “No one tells a Supreme Court Justice when to retire. But there are currently two retirement dramas under way at the Court—one semi-public and the other semi-private—and they both have the potential to reshape the meaning of the Constitution for decades.”

    No, please no. Not Clarence Thomas. I love his dissents.

  16. lynn says:

    And we further learn that actions during a local breakdown in ROL can indeed F you up later, and are most likely to do so if you are stupid.

    Yup. Be sure to bury the bodies deep in the woods.

  17. lynn says:

    Last night was one of those nights where I wonder if I really should have accepted the Junior Programmer gig at the current place. Being 50, expectations are inifintely higher for me than the 25 year-old Junior Programmer, but they wan to pay me the same money.

    Ten days until my 401(k) matching vests 25% at the year anniversary.

    Please, please, please do not quit your day job until you have a new one.

    There is an extreme ageist hiring bias against programmers starting at around age 45. But you know that already.

  18. lynn says:

    Not much damage if actually shot, as noted probably just a fragment.

    “Warning shot”– get this idea out of your head. You are either lawfully justified to use deadly force or you are not. EVERY shot is potentially deadly, therefore there is no such thing as a “warning shot”. I expect the guard to face charges.

    I don’t expect the security guard to face charges. Synagogues have become sensation attractors as antisemitism is rising in the country. We will find out that the guard was afraid of IT pulling a gun or weapon and shooting him. The only wild card is the fact that the event happened in LA.

    And yes, there is no such thing as a warning shot.

  19. lynn says:

    “A.F. Branco Cartoon – Green Means Stop”
    https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-green-means-stop/

    “High-speed rail projects are collapsing across the country, as the Green New Deal is asking for more rail projects and no air travel. Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.”

  20. Greg Norton says:

    Please, please, please do not quit your day job until you have a new one.

    There is an extreme ageist hiring bias against programmers starting at around age 45. But you know that already.

    I learned my lesson in Vantucky, with the big HP facility literally around the corner from our front door.

  21. lynn says:

    “Phil Robertson Explains America’s NEED for a WALL Better than Anybody”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=f9d1Wof7S4o

    “I determine who comes, who goes.”

    “You just don’t willy nilly come and go. Humans are just too mean, too wicked, too evil.”

    “It is the United States of America. We need to know who is coming and going at all times.”

  22. dkreck says:

    “It is the United States of America. We need to know who is coming and going at all times.”

    …but NO Irish.

  23. mediumwave says:

    …but NO Irish.

    It’s been said before, but it’s worth saying again: That movie could not be made today.

  24. nick flandrey says:

    Weird estate sale today. Turns out guy was rich, locally famous, I’d mentioned his death here, and his “long time girlfriend” was at the sale. I didn’t realize who he was or she was until later. The guy clearly lived his life to maximize his ‘fun’ factor. Unfortunately for her, it looks like others are making the decisions about the estate.

    Folks, get prepped. Part of that is recognizing that you will die. Get your stuff in order, and protect the people you love. There may not be time to get to it later.

    n

  25. lynn says:

    Just looked at the early forecast for my 500 mile drive up to Norman, OK next weekend. They are still in the 20s ! Cold, very cold up there. Next Sunday appears to be sunny though.
    https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/ok/norman?cm_ven=localwx_10day

  26. lynn says:

    That five acre 1970s property that I mentioned earlier has an open house tomorrow afternoon. So the wife and I and some friends are going to take a look. If nothing else, we like going to open houses and tormenting the showing agent with stupid comments.
    https://www.har.com/702-Tori-Road/sale_73978411

    I’ve figured out that the property is only a half mile away from a railroad intersection where they blow the train horns long and loud. Not good. The wife is hoping that a couple of trains go by (we average 38 trains per day around here) while we are there so we can see if the house is insulated at all.

  27. nick flandrey says:

    Funny you should mention trains. Growing up there was an intersection and high speed (for freight) tracks about 4 or 5 blocks from my house. Trains were just part of the background noise.

    The neighboring city where my grandmother lived was crisscrossed with tracks, and you got stopped all the time. Now it’s a ghost town, with no rail traffic. But you can drive across town…if you had a reason to.

    My wife was commenting that she always gets stuck at a particular crossing here in the morning. I was surprised, because even when I see them working on those sidings, I don’t see them blocking the intersection. Houston was an important rail city. The city seal has a loco on it. Lots of freight still moves thru here, but it doesn’t impact most peoples’ lives the way it used to .

    n

  28. lynn says:

    ““Biggest Drop In More Than Nine Years”: America’s Retail Apocalypse Is Greatly Accelerating In The Early Stages Of 2019”
    https://freedomoutpost.com/biggest-drop-in-more-than-nine-years-americas-retail-apocalypse-is-greatly-accelerating-in-the-early-stages-of-2019/

    “All over America retailers are going bankrupt and closing stores. Of course, this has been happening for years, but as you will see below the numbers have dramatically escalated during the early portion of 2019. Our landscape is already littered with countless numbers of hollowed out stores and abandoned malls, and it is about to get a whole lot worse. Retailers were hoping that a strong holiday season would turn things around, but that didn’t happen. In fact, we just learned that retail sales in the United States suffered “their biggest drop in more than nine years” during the month of December…”

    “Every time I write an article like this, a few commenters chime in and blame this entire trend on the rise of online retailing. And without a doubt online retailing has been growing in recent years, but it still accounts for less than 10 percent of the entire industry.”

    “If online retail sales were to blame for this latest drop, you would expect to see that reflected in the numbers. But instead, when we look at the numbers what we find is that online retailers experienced “the biggest drop ever” during the month of December…”

    “December online internet sales (non-store retailers) tumbled 3.9% MoM – the biggest drop ever”

    “So brick and mortar retail sales are going down and online retail sales are going down.”

    “It is starting to smell a lot like a recession, and many in the industry are starting to panic.”

    Uh oh.

  29. nick flandrey says:

    Car sales are down, and all those loans they made to poor credit risks are starting to go bad too.

    n

  30. Ray Thompson says:

    Latest scam from Delta Airlines. Booked a trip to the west coast in June. Two travelers. Well the Delta system provided us with two seats that are not together. I went on the Delta app and found the plane almost empty. There was no reason to have two seats in different locations. Delta says I can request specific seats, as in together, but that will cost me $30.00, each person, to pick my seat.

    Thus Delta is separating people traveling together in the booking system. If the people want to travel together that will be another $30.00 per person. For a family of four, traveling together, that would be an additional $240.00, round trip, almost the cost of an individual ticket, to allow the family to sit together.

  31. Ray Thompson says:

    all those loans they made to poor credit risks are starting to go bad too

    Many of the loans, by the “no credit, no problem” car lots are not really a problem. The GPS tracker lets the dealer know where the car is located. There is probably a kill switch that will not allow the car to start that is activated by the dealer when the loan goes sour. From what the person has paid on the overpriced vehicle, the dealer did not lose any money. The car will just be sold again, extremely high interest loan. The value loss on the vehicle is no big deal, the interest on the loan, and the forced mandatory insurance by the dealer, is the real money machine.

  32. Greg Norton says:

    Car sales are down, and all those loans they made to poor credit risks are starting to go bad too.

    People can’t afford $60,000 trucks. Duh. Lots of GM Arlington truck plant product is at the Austin Airport as rentals with free upgrades from mid-size sedans.

    Also 84 months is the wall for car loans. Beyond that, the banks look at the vehicle’s paper value as 0. My father and the old school Ford guys thought that 60 months was insanity.

  33. ITGuy1998 says:

    Many of the loans, by the “no credit, no problem” car lots are not really a problem. The GPS tracker lets the dealer know where the car is located. There is probably a kill switch that will not allow the car to start that is activated by the dealer when the loan goes sour. From what the person has paid on the overpriced vehicle, the dealer did not lose any money. The car will just be sold again, extremely high interest loan. The value loss on the vehicle is no big deal, the interest on the loan, and the forced mandatory insurance by the dealer, is the real money machine.

    This. I knew a guy who used to own a JDByrider franchise location. Buy here, pay here. I did his it work for him (consulting), so I got to know his business. Customers were low income, uneducated, and generally had no idea how to make money work for them. Part of every deal was to sit down with the buyer and do a budget. They wouldn’t even sell a vehicle like a normal dealer. You had to finance it there. Warranty and maintenance was built into the finance price, and yes, there was a gps device on the vehicle. The owner also owned his own collection business. It’s main purspose was handling collections/repossessions for the Byrider store, though it also handled collections for his other regular dealerships, though that was a small percentage of the business.

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