Tues. Mar. 1, 2022 -… makes a man healthy wealthy and wise…

Cold again, getting warmer throughout the day.  And then back to cold at night.   It ended up being a gorgeous day yesterday, once the sun warmed everything up.  Hoping for more of that today.

Did my pickups, and spent  the afternoon with my daughter.   We did go grocery shopping at the “small” HEB store near our house.    There were a lot of empty spots on shelves.   I’ve never seen the veg and fruit area with so many empty areas.   They flipped the trays over to take up the space, something I’ve never seen before, so they weren’t just slow restocking.     They were putting the items on the front of the shelf with nothing behind too.

The weirdest thing though was the meat cooler.   They usually have about 6ft of cooler for beef steaks, and featured cuts.   Yesterday they had ONE foot with a couple trays of NY strips for $12/pound, choice grade.  They had filled the rest of the space with packaged food from other parts of the store.   There was still beef in the “cheap” section of the upright display cooler, lower grade and lower cost cuts, but not the usual number of choices either.

Canned veg was stocked as it has been, there was some dried pasta on the shelf.  I was able to get the last 4 bags of egg noodles, which have been out of stock for a long time.  Soda was ‘new normal’ or maybe a bit better.  Snacks had big holes in every category.   Seafood was in the cooler but prices were crazy high, snow crab clusters were $17/pound.  They used to be $7.    Cat food and litter was back on the shelf, with gaps scattered throughout.

The milk cooler had brands I’d never seen before as well as the usual.  Eggs were stocked but limited choices.  Still no cinnamon rolls or regular biscuits in the fridge rolls.

All in all, the absence of choice or better grade beef was the most disconcerting, with the flipped over trays in the fruit and veg display areas coming in a  close second.   Never seen that before.

Dinner was hamburger helper beef stroganoff flavor and grilled skewers of chicken hearts.  D2’s favorite.

Today I’ll be pulling stuff for a local auction, and dropping that off, then doing a pickup.   I won a bunch of scanners in another auction, but don’t know yet if I have to go get them or if they will transfer them to Houston for me… it’s a mix of analog handhelds and digital base/mobile units.  Most I will list on ebay, but several will be added to the ‘shack’ here and at the BOL.

Speaking of the BOL, the title company is moving forward but we still don’t have a closing date.   It’s been a month, and that’s without inspections or bank financing.   I don’t remember this house taking that long, and I don’t know if the title company is dragging their feet  or just swamped with work.

I did notice a bunch of newly closed businesses around town.  There are some new places opening, and new construction continues in some areas, but the level of trash on the ground, car parts in particular, and on the  roads is higher than at any other time I can remember.  The empty storefronts, and signs with the company name removed are definitely increasing, at least in some areas around town.  There seems to be a lot of illegal dumping too.  The slide is continuing.

 

In the face of continued shortages, buy what you can when you see it.   With the idea that it’s getting worse, not better, stack it high.

And keep your eyes open and brain engaged.   Things are getting stranger and more desperate every day.

n

69 Comments and discussion on "Tues. Mar. 1, 2022 -… makes a man healthy wealthy and wise…"

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    35F this morning with 97%RH.   Cold and damp.  It's the time of year, so I shouldn't complain, but DANG. 

    n

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  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    40-mile convoy of Putin’s artillery snakes towards the capital amid fears Russia will ‘use medieval tactics’ to bomb the city into submission as supermarket shelves run empty

    — are we on the 3rd or 4th day since I predicted 4 days? In any case, it’s gonna get ugly.

    Uglier.

    n

  3. drwilliams says:

    Fat Tuesday

    National Pancake Day

    I’m starting a just-for-fun pool. Make a non-exclusive guess about the length of the Brandon World SOTU address and win one ToldYaSo. 

    PJB (which is not peanut butter brain) has had a gaffe-filled week leading up to tonight, and I have no doubt that the speech has off-ramps and the teleprompter is loaded with a thankyouverymuch goodbye EXIT NOW slide that can be called up at any time. 

    My Guess: 50 minutes. 

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  4. Greg Norton says:

    Did my pickups, and spent  the afternoon with my daughter.   We did go grocery shopping at the “small” HEB store near our house.    There were a lot of empty spots on shelves.   I’ve never seen the veg and fruit area with so many empty areas.   They flipped the trays over to take up the space, something I’ve never seen before, so they weren’t just slow restocking.     They were putting the items on the front of the shelf with nothing behind too.

    My wife blames the Curbside service not having any fees for the weird stock situation at our local HEB. They never seem to have enough people working that side of the store — the job fairs are up to once a month.

    Plus, the whole country can't move to Texas, but it seems like they are trying.

  5. mediumwave says:

    New York Times faces more criticism over today's 'ridiculously hard' Wordle – with some claiming it isn't even ENGLISH

    Considering the Borg-like propensity of the English language to assimilate words from other tongues, t'would seem that some Wordle players aren't particularly well read.

  6. mediumwave says:

    I’m starting a just-for-fun pool. Make a non-exclusive guess about the length of the Brandon World SOTU address and win one ToldYaSo. 

    PJB (which is not peanut butter brain) has had a gaffe-filled week leading up to tonight, and I have no doubt that the speech has off-ramps and the teleprompter is loaded with a thankyouverymuch goodbye EXIT NOW slide that can be called up at any time. 

    My Guess: 50 minutes. 

    But how many of those 50 will consist of hemming and hawing and long pauses?

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  7. drwilliams says:

    @mediumwave

    "But how many of those 50 will consist of hemming and hawing and long pauses?"

    Length of State of the Union Addresses in Minutes (from 1964)

    https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidential-documents-archive-guidebook/annual-messages-congress-the-state-the-union-0

    I'm sure the word length is compiled somewhere, with rules on counting "ums" "ahs" and other mouth flatulence. Go for it.

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    New York Times faces more criticism over today's 'ridiculously hard' Wordle – with some claiming it isn't even ENGLISH

    –so is "peso"?  what about ruble?  Dollar started as spanish "dolar" iirc. 

    And what is political about using the name of a foreign currency?

    If the game is too hard for you, improve yourself or stop playing ffs. 

    n

  9. mediumwave says:

    Length of State of the Union Addresses in Minutes (from 1964)

    https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/presidential-documents-archive-guidebook/annual-messages-congress-the-state-the-union-0

    I'm sure the word length is compiled somewhere, with rules on counting "ums" "ahs" and other mouth flatulence. Go for it.

    No doubt the SOTU will last exactly as long as Crazy Uncle Joe's handlers feel it's safe to expose him to public scrutiny. Your mention of "exit ramps" was very much on point.

    I usually avoid empty rhetoric like the SOTU, but I'll definitely be watching tonight, if only to see if the Resident can speak for an hour or so without becoming a babbling idiot–kind of like watching the Indy 500 waiting for the crashes to happen. I may even make popcorn. 😀

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  10. MrAtoz says:

    Is nothing sacred?

    –no.  Anything sacred to you must be destroyed.  For reasons.

    I like the clips from "Big Trouble in Little China" in the video…

    I still can't get over black Nick Fury. Nothing against Sammy.

  11. MrAtoz says:

    Ric Flair had the "Figure-4 Leg Lock"

    Baron von Raschke had "The Claw".

    Dory Funk Jr. had the "The Texas Cloverleaf"

    Let's not forget Reginald "The Crusher" Lisowski and his bolo punch.

    Nor George “Scrap Iron” Gadaski, nee Kosti, and his signature getting beat to a pulp move. He occasionally won a match.

  12. MrAtoz says:

    The good old days of rasslin'.

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Last time FJB spoke at length he started to fall apart at about 40-50 minutes.

    n

  14. Nick Flandrey says:

    "Breadbasket Of World" Choked Off By Russian Invasion As Wheat Prices Soar

    by Tyler Durden

    Tuesday, Mar 01, 2022 – 07:26 AM

    Ukraine has earned the nickname "breadbasket of Europe" for its rich dark soil, vast wheat fields, and other farm goods. The Russian invasion has cut off the world from cheap and abundant wheat supplies.

    Ukraine and Russia are vital to the global food supply, accounting for more than a quarter of global wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally, according to Bloomberg

    — I'm even more convinced the 'invasion' is about securing food as much or more than anything else.

    n

    Are YOU food secure?

  15. Nick Flandrey says:

    State of the Union Address – Washington, DC
    Current Situation: The President will deliver the State of the Union
    Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Mar 1 in Washington,
    DC. The event has been designated a National Special Security
    Event; FEMA has primary responsibility for the coordination of
    federal emergency management planning.
    State / Local Response:
    ▪ DC EOC will go to Full Activation at 3:00 p.m. ET
    FEMA Region III Response:
    ▪ RRCC at Level III (COVID); will also activate for SOTUA, Mar 1
    ▪ IMAT will deploy to DC EOC and arrive by 3:00 p.m. ET
    FEMA HQ Response:
    ▪ National Watch Center (NWC) will go to Enhanced Watch (3:00
    p.m. to 11:00 p.m. ET) with Threat Monitoring Team
    ▪ NRCC at Level III (COVID-19)
    ▪ NRCS Blue Team, ESFs, National IMAT Red, CMCU, DEST, and
    US&R issued ESF#9 Advisory
    ▪ MERS is providing communications and mobile command post
    functions to Region III and other federal agencies
     

    From my daily FEMA brief.   That's a lot of security and monitoring.   Anyone have a quick date for T's first SOTU?  I might have the brief for that to compare…

    n

  16. dkreck says:

    Turning my 'Far Side' desk calendar today I learn it's St David's Day. How can a guy with that name go 70 years and never hear of it? Obviously overshadowed by its far more notorious cousin and a lack of beer consumption. Besides it's Mardi Gras. 

  17. Nick Flandrey says:

    From my investment advisor's links … regarding inflation

    When will we get some relief?

    Inflation could begin to ease as spring turns to summer. We estimate the Consumer Price Index (a measure of inflation) to end 2022 at a year-over-year rate of about 3.8%.  This would still be nearly double the Federal Reserve’s target of about 2%, but significantly lower than the 7% inflation rate at the end of 2021.

    As virus conditions ease, some consumer spending is likely to shift back to services such as vacations, movies and concerts. This should allow the supply chain to further recover and reduce the pressure on prices for goods.

    Is this a repeat of 1970s inflation?

    The current U.S. inflation is not a repeat of 1970s inflation, in our view. Both periods have their own unique circumstances. Most notably today, the U.S. is largely energy independent. That is a drastic difference compared to the energy shortages of the ‘70s, which was a contribution factor to high inflation at that time.

    Are certain products or services seeing more price hikes than others?

    Automobiles, energy and food have experienced the largest price increases. In December 2021, new-vehicle prices were a remarkable 25% higher year-over-year, according to the Consumer Price Index. Used-car prices were up even more, rising 37% from the prior year. 

    What’s the outlook for car, energy and food prices?

    Cars are in short supply due to reduced availability of semiconductors used by virtually all major automakers. It’s a global phenomenon but is slowly improving as more semiconductors become available. Auto and food prices should stabilize in the months ahead before declining modestly for a time. Energy prices, however, remain a wildcard as producers have yet to provide more crude oil and natural gas to help bring market prices down.

    –I am not so optimistic

    n

  18. Chad says:

    I always mused to myself that if I were POTUS I would deliver the "State of the Union" to Congress via a single page handwritten letter every other year. After all, the Constitution (Article II, Section 3)  just requires that POTUS report the state of the union to Congress from "time to time." It doesn't state how it should be reported or have anything specific about how often. There's certainly no requirement for a media circus. I would also forego the inauguration circus and opt to just get sworn in at the White House with just my immediate family and the Chief Justice there. Maybe a photographer. F*ck the MSM.

  19. Ray Thompson says:

    Screw (or use another term beginning with "F") the IRS and this estate tax shirt(-r). The number of forms, contortions in instructions, confusing (this and this or this and this unless this or that except when this) instructions. Actually should blame congress for the tax laws. I doubt any of those clowns do their own taxes so why should they care how complicated the forms and instructions have become. The tax laws are designed to keep an entire industry (tax accountants employed) and an entire group of government workers (IRS) employed.

    Plus not being able to use Turbotax, manual calculations, transferring from form to form to form to form, it is a real challenge. It is little wonder people play H&R Block for even simple returns. With the deficient math knowledge coming out of high school mere mortals are screwed.

    Based on my crappy calculations and (probable mis)understanding of the forms and instructions and based on the tax forms the estate received, I am not going to file the return. I will let the IRS figure it out, send me a bill. The interest and penalties will be less than paying an accountant to do the return. It will certainly be less taxing (clever, huh) on my sanity.

  20. nick flandrey says:

    Snake Island border guards who were feared dead after telling Russian navy to 'go f**k yourself' are ALIVE and are being held as prisoners of war by Russia

    The group of Ukrainian border guards defending a small island in the Black Sea, and were initially thought to have been killed, are actually alive and being held captive, the Ukrainian Navy confirmed

    —  not "feared dead" but CELEBRATED for their 'deaths'.  Which turned out to be not true.

    I'm not even looking at the coverage much more than a scan because it's likely ALL lies.   The body politic is being manipulated everywhere very effectively.

    n

  21. Greg Norton says:

    — I'm even more convinced the 'invasion' is about securing food as much or more than anything else.

    Wheat is a global market, and the Russians had the oil necessary for modern agriculture. A barrel of oil equals a bushel of wheat. It used to be both were 1/10 ounce of gold, but things are distorted for most of the last decade.

    Germans and their missiles inside the old borders of the Soviet Union as part of NATO was never going to sit well. Memories are long just about everywhere except the US. Better to nip it now than with a Hofbrauhaus in Downtown Kiev.

  22. lynn says:

    New York Times faces more criticism over today's 'ridiculously hard' Wordle – with some claiming it isn't even ENGLISH

    Considering the Borg-like propensity of the English language to assimilate words from other tongues, t'would seem that some Wordle players aren't particularly well read.

    Paging James Nicoll to the white phone, James Nicoll to the white phone.

    James D. Nicoll > Quotes > Quotable Quote
    “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
       https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/694108-the-problem-with-defending-the-purity-of-the-english-language

  23. Kenneth C Mitchell says:

    — I'm even more convinced the 'invasion' is about securing food as much or more than anything else.

    Russia has plenty of farming ability. What it DOESN'T have is farmers. The demographics for Russia are terrible; the fertility rate there is said to be south of 1.6 children per woman, and they're apparently in or approaching a population collapse.

  24. lynn says:

    Screw (or use another term beginning with "F") the IRS and this estate tax shirt(-r). The number of forms, contortions in instructions, confusing (this and this or this and this unless this or that except when this) instructions. Actually should blame congress for the tax laws. I doubt any of those clowns do their own taxes so why should they care how complicated the forms and instructions have become. The tax laws are designed to keep an entire industry (tax accountants employed) and an entire group of government workers (IRS) employed.

    Plus not being able to use Turbotax, manual calculations, transferring from form to form to form to form, it is a real challenge. It is little wonder people play H&R Block for even simple returns. With the deficient math knowledge coming out of high school mere mortals are screwed.

    Based on my crappy calculations and (probable mis)understanding of the forms and instructions and based on the tax forms the estate received, I am not going to file the return. I will let the IRS figure it out, send me a bill. The interest and penalties will be less than paying an accountant to do the return. It will certainly be less taxing (clever, huh) on my sanity.

    My wife is paying a CPA here in Houston $400 to do her dad's 2021 estate tax return.  Do you want his name and phone number ?  He gave her a really good deal because we are friends at church.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    —  not "feared dead" but CELEBRATED for their 'deaths'.  Which turned out to be not true.

    I'm not even looking at the coverage much more than a scan because it's likely ALL lies.   The body politic is being manipulated everywhere very effectively.

    Chances are that the members of the garrison on the island knew the local Russian Navy personnel who came ashore to take possession of the island, Even if they didn't, knowing the situation was hopeless, the leader probably went down to the dock first to negotiate terms, bottle of alcohol in hand to smooth over the situation created by the jerk on the radio.

    No sense in getting a dozen kids killed for an oversized rock.

    Nobody in that part of the world wants to live in the 8th century.

  26. CowboySlim says:

    Paging James Nicoll to the white phone, James Nicoll to the white phone.

    Name is spelled wrong.

  27. paul says:

    I had an idea the other day.  Bowling was on the TV.  Yeah, I know.  But it was on and it is more interesting than golf.  Neither are a thing to sit and watch but passing through the room, a couple of minutes at a time is plenty.

    I haven't gone bowling in years.  But it was always fun.

    Let's have bowling as an Olympic event.  But with a twist.  There is no official bowling team. 

    Perhaps draw the short straw to be on the team… from the swim team, the high divers, the track dudes, the weight lifters, volleyballers, and etc.  Whatever kind of teams your country sends, pick a few guys  randomly to go bowling.

    Just have a team of guys that haven't trained together as a bowling team, get out there and go bowling on live TV. Have Gold and Silver and Bronze medals.  Hula dancing cheerleaders!

    I'd watch that.

  28. Chad says:

    New York Times faces more criticism over today's 'ridiculously hard' Wordle – with some claiming it isn't even ENGLISH

    Considering the Borg-like propensity of the English language to assimilate words from other tongues, t'would seem that some Wordle players aren't particularly well read.

    I got today's Wordle. Third try. Though, it was mostly due to the two random words I used to ascertain which letters are in the puzzle worked out really well for me today. Regional words do tend to piss people off in word games. People are okay with "currency" and "coin" as words, but start saying "yuan", "krone," or the like and you're going to have some mad people.

  29. Ray Thompson says:

    CPA here in Houston $400 to do her dad's 2021 estate tax return.

    No, but thanks. The amount owed, plus penalties and interest would probably be less than $150.00. Let the IRS figure out their convoluted mess. I will send in a check for the amount I think is owed, but no return. Let the IRS calculate the return. They will get all the information from the investment firm involved.

    There is no real property involved, just funds from gains, and losses, in investments from a single firm. That does eliminate some hassles but not much.

    There are even a couple of forms that must be filed where the amounts are basically zero. But must be attached to 1041. Screw that as they are some of the most convoluted and complicated forms. If the amount is zero, why bother? If the IRS does not like it, the IRS can fill in the blanks.

    I thought filing regular taxes was difficult. Estate taxes put the stupidity and complexity at an entirely different level.

  30. Ray Thompson says:

    Just have a team of guys that haven't trained together as a bowling team, get out there and go bowling on live TV. Have Gold and Silver and Bronze medals.  Hula dancing cheerleaders!

    And beer. And pizza. And nachos. From my last time at a bowling alley those were mandatory accessories.

  31. paul says:

    I seem to have lucked out with my Mom's estate.  We put me on the title of her van and on the house a few years before she died.  And now, it's my van and my house.

    What do taxes do when you sell a house?  I don't know.  It doesn't matter, the house is going to be sold.  If the realtor ever does anything, that is.

  32. Ray Thompson says:

    I seem to have lucked out with my Mom's estate.

    The taxes are on the gains in stocks and dividends. Everything else was considered inheritance and there were no tax issues. Reading through the 1041 and all the little nooks and crannies is just confusing as anyone can imagine. Most of the items have to do with investments and divesting of the investments. Investments that have not been taxed and gains on the investments. There are some subtle deductions. Of course earnings before the death are not involved except for dividends and interest on accounts that were in the estate and could not be settled.

    The house should not be an issue unless it is over $1 million dollars because at some point inheritance gets taxed. The amount has changed over the years and no one in my family will ever hit that boundary. State may be another issue. Best to liquidate as much real property as possible before the person croaks.

    We sole the MIL's car after she died using the POA. Such POA being invalid upon death. If we had not sold it we would have needed to store the vehicle. I would not have been able to get insurance, register the vehicle, and thus not drive the vehicle. The car would have needed to remain in Texas until we could go back and get the car. I have no idea what kind of wrangling is required to change a title after probate. So we made the decision to just sell to CARMAX and not tell CARMAX the owner was dead.

  33. drwilliams says:

    Every time I start to think about writing this post a multi-page screed tries to insert itself. Not written, you understand, just the topic and a few sentences and a general outline and then I can see off to the races and a couple hours pounding the keyboard. Public television. Teacher's unions. Green zealotry. The fornicating Clintons. And all the rest that have purposefully conspired to get us here.

    Not that it isn't wonderful, captivating, Pulitzer-level* writing, but we'll save it for another time.

    *Don't laugh unless you want to weep. 1619 Project got a Pulitzer. Fully woke.

    So one purpose only to this post:

    Follow the link below:

    https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/

    watch the 17:23 minute interview with Bill Browder, CEO of Heritage Capital Management:

    02.28.2022 Unprecedented Sanctions Send the Russian Ruble Tumbling

    Mr. Browder has some history with Putin. He was invested in Gazprom 12 years agoe, uncovered huge corruption, and was tossed out of the country. His attorney was imprisoned, tortured for 358 days before being killed, and three years afterwards, he was tried and convicted in state court, the only posthumous trial in Russian history.

    The whole show is worth watching, but the second-best segment is behind a paywall.

  34. drwilliams says:

    @paul

    I'd want to see Megan Rapperho on the team. First throw zhe discovers that some wag has juiced the thumbhole with quickset, and zhe ends up throwing zheself down sixty feet of oiled maple into the pin resetter, which gets stuck and makes repeated attempts to set pins.

  35. drwilliams says:

    apropos of nothing, this tidbit got a laugh as I looked up a date in Idi Amin's wiki entry

    In July 1975, Amin staged a £2 million wedding to 19-year-old Sarah Kyolaba, a go-go dancer with the Revolutionary Suicide Mechanised Regiment Band, nicknamed "Suicide Sarah".[111] The wedding was held during the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit meeting in Kampala, and the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Yasser Arafat served as Amin's best man.[112] Before she met Amin, Sarah was living with a boyfriend, Jesse Gitta; he vanished and it is not clear if he was beheaded, or detained after fleeing to Kenya.[111] The couple had four children and enjoyed rally race driving Amin's Citroën SM, with Sarah as navigator.[111] Sarah was a hairdresser in Tottenham when she died in 2015.[112]

  36. Denis says:

    Perhaps draw the short straw to be on the team… from the swim team, the high divers, the track dudes, the weight lifters, volleyballers, and etc.  Whatever kind of teams your country sends, pick a few guys  randomly to go bowling.

    Not quite the Olympic Games, but… when I was in school, on the day the yearbook photos were being professionally taken in my final year, I gathered a few buddies who were as rotund as I, and, like me, also not on any of the sports teams. We snuck into the queue for the photographer, and introduced ourselves with straight faces as the "darts team", and he duly took our photo.

    Had the Headmaster not subsequently looked carefully at the galley proofs of the Yearbook, we would have made it in too! He was laughing too hard to give us a credible bollocking… and he gave me the print of the photo (quite a nice one!), which I probably still have somewhere in my archives. Happy days…

  37. lynn says:

    40-mile convoy of Putin’s artillery snakes towards the capital amid fears Russia will ‘use medieval tactics’ to bomb the city into submission as supermarket shelves run empty

    — are we on the 3rd or 4th day since I predicted 4 days? In any case, it’s gonna get ugly.

    Uglier.

    n

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10564035/Ukraine-war-Supermarket-shelves-stripped-bare-panic-buying-grips-Kyiv.html

    They need to be fleeing Kiev right now. Putin will flatten the city with 155 mm howitzers. Putin wants farmers, not city dwellers.

    And the only place to go to is Poland. Six months ago.

  38. lynn says:

    Is nothing sacred?

    –no.  Anything sacred to you must be destroyed.  For reasons.

    I like the clips from "Big Trouble in Little China" in the video…

    I still can't get over black Nick Fury. Nothing against Sammy.

    I love Sammy in that role.  His mean streak is perfect.

  39. drwilliams says:

    Lord Monckton weighs in:

    As competition from coal inexorably diminished, the price of Siberian gas sold to Europe no less inexorably rose. The law of supply and demand is an iron law. It is not up for repeal. Even before the Chinese-virus pandemic, Europe was paying Putin four times the world price for its gas. Now it pays more like eight times the world price; and, on a day in December 2021 when Europe was under a blocking high and the wind did not blow, it rose to 200 times the world price. Putin, on the pretext of addressing an unspecified technical fault in the pipelines but in reality to serve notice on Europe that it was now utterly dependent upon him and him alone to keep the lights on as he prepared to invade Ukraine, had turned the gas off for a few hours. The price had duly and very profitably surged.

    Had it not been for the West’s capitulation to Communist propagandists paid by Russia and China to peddle the official global warming narrative and profiteering by the ineffable strategic immaturity, scientific illiteracy and economic innumeracy of our current generation of politicians, trembling in fear of being unpersoned, the West would never have given Putin the means to rebuild his forces. But it is we who elect the politicians. Irresponsibly, we chose a close-to-Communist administration led by a fumbling geriatric in the United States and an etiolated, clapped-out, effete, no-longer-Conservative administration led by a notorious and all-too-exploitable sexual incontinent in Britain.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/the_strategic_threat_from_netzero_emissions_.html

    IMHO, should be required reading. The first third is fascinating background on the evolution of Soviet methods of propaganda, but you can save it for later and skip down to the current situation, brought to us by decades of communist bankrolling of green zealot idiots.

  40. lynn says:

    Paging James Nicoll to the white phone, James Nicoll to the white phone.

    Name is spelled wrong.

    ???

    Here is James’s website of science fiction reviews. He will review any book (and has) for $100.
    https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/

    Maybe some day I will post what he has taunted me with. I must admit, his reviews are works of art. My reviews are just a notation that I read this book.

  41. lynn says:

    I always mused to myself that if I were POTUS I would deliver the "State of the Union" to Congress via a single page handwritten letter every other year. After all, the Constitution (Article II, Section 3)  just requires that POTUS report the state of the union to Congress from "time to time." It doesn't state how it should be reported or have anything specific about how often. There's certainly no requirement for a media circus. I would also forego the inauguration circus and opt to just get sworn in at the White House with just my immediate family and the Chief Justice there. Maybe a photographer. F*ck the MSM.

    You would suck getting reelected as a politician.  Therefore, you would probably be a good politician. Probably on the level of Winston Churchill.

    I watched “Darkest Hour” again the other day. Simply amazing.
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4555426/

  42. lynn says:

    I thought filing regular taxes was difficult. Estate taxes put the stupidity and complexity at an entirely different level.

    Try filing a return for a million dollar per year Sub S business where the books are kept on an accrual basis but the taxes are paid by the stockholders on a cash basis.  Difficult does not even start the process.  I pay my CPA $1,300/year to file.  He can get the numbers to work, I can't.  And I have an Excel spreadsheet that I calculate the same numbers on every Friday.

  43. lynn says:

    I seem to have lucked out with my Mom's estate.  We put me on the title of her van and on the house a few years before she died.  And now, it's my van and my house.

    What do taxes do when you sell a house?  I don't know.  It doesn't matter, the house is going to be sold.  If the realtor ever does anything, that is.

    The wife sold one of her Dad's rent houses last year.  The CPA says that it is a $7,000 loss from the county tax records since the foundation was broken with three inch cracks in the sheetrock all over the house.

    She sold another rent house (duplex) the other day for a $30,000 gain since her father passed away in September 2020.  The CPA is going to figure out how to negate that gain.  Plus she is getting ready to sell her dad's house.  Maybe for a $100,000 gain since her father passed away.

    BTW, if you owe back property taxes on the property then the Title Insurance company will withhold money from the buyer’s payment to pay those taxes.

  44. lynn says:

    The futures price of crude oil is up $8 to $104/bbl so far today …

       https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CL%3DF?p=CL%3DF

    People are trying to avoid buying Russian oil and distilled products of 5 to 6 million barrels per day. Not gonna happen.
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russian-oil-trade-disarray-over-152005390.html

  45. Chad says:

    The futures price of crude oil is up $8 to $104/bbl so far today

    No worries. My life runs on wind, solar, hopes, dreams, and pixie dust.

  46. lynn says:

    You know, if somebody wanted to cripple Russia and put a stick in China's eye, blowing up the ESPO pipeline would be a move in that direction.  A million+ barrels of crude oil per day from Russia to China. Doesn’t the USA have some stealth bombers ?

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Siberia%E2%80%93Pacific_Ocean_oil_pipeline

  47. lynn says:

    "White House Quietly Calls On U.S. Oil Companies To Increase Production"

         https://finance.yahoo.com/news/white-house-quietly-calls-u-180000579.html

    So that 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day that we were importing to the USA from Russia is going to hurt us ?  I wonder if the tankers on the high seas that were loaded three weeks ago will be allowed to dock on the east coast of the USA ?

    I wonder if creepy joe will mention this in the SOTU tonight ?

  48. drwilliams says:

    SOTU basket-case bingo:

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/03/your-state-of-the-union-bingo-card.php

    @Lynn
    Feel free to make your own substitutions.

  49. Greg Norton says:

    I did not make early voting as I planned last week so I had to go today to vote in the Republican Primary.

    I wasn't aware that my neighborhood in Williamson County was split and placed into the 10th, running all the way to the outskirts of Houston.

    No more walking corpse Congressman John Carter, but the redistricting is weird.

    Williamson County is Dem anymore. Voting against the incumbent, Right Reverend Gravell, in the Judge primary probably wasn't necessary, but I did it anyway.

  50. SteveF says:

    the Revolutionary Suicide Mechanised Regiment Band

    I understand each of those words, but taken as a whole they raise a few questions…

    But it is we who elect the politicians. Irresponsibly, we chose a close-to-Communist administration led by a fumbling geriatric in the United States

    I was with him, especially about the Russians having paid the US progressives for a century to wreck the nation and the Chinese commies having paid for thirty years or so, but he blew it with the claim about elections. I don't know about the Brits, but the American people demonstrably did not elect the senile criminal. The only thing we the people can be blamed for is not rising in armed revolution to throw off the cabal.

  51. Greg Norton says:

    I don't know about the Brits, but the American people demonstrably did not elect the senile criminal. The only thing we the people can be blamed for is not rising in armed revolution to throw off the cabal.

    300,000 Georgia Republicans staying home for the runoff along with 11,000 Libertarians "voting their conscience" in the November election in the state gave us the mess in the Senate and tipped the balance of power.

    Not voting on the basis that the revolution is coming to wipe the slate clean is insanity.

  52. drwilliams says:

    @SteveF

    "The only thing we the people can be blamed for is not rising in armed revolution to throw off the cabal."

    That was the last thing.

    Preceded by years of electing spineless RINO's, spineless election officials, spineless officials in worthless little sinecures as first steps to the real power and cash (remember Slick Willie "maintaining his viability"?), and years of watching judges make it up wholesale.

    And in how many states did Democrats change the election laws without recourse to the state legislature, as clearly required in the constitution?

    The next time the voters get shafted because the don't have "standing" to bring a lawsuit they should rise up and show their grasp of history by registering their disapproval with an old-fashioned auto-da-fé.

  53. drwilliams says:

    In a series of tweets, Rogozin suggested the ISS could plummet from orbit if Russia withdrew its cooperation from the joint effort.

    “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled de-orbit and fall into the United States or Europe?” Rogozin tweeted in Russian, according to a translation. “There is also the option of dropping a 500-ton structure to India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, so all the risks are yours.”

    Musk replied to Rogozin’s thread with an image of the SpaceX logo – and later confirmed his firm would step in to assist if Russia withdrew its support in a way that endangered the space station.

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/03/spacex-ceo-elon-musk-rescues-ukraines-internet-and-may-save-iss/

    I'd chip in if the "Russian Segment" was properly returned to Putin as a steered but unbraked re-entry.

  54. RickH says:

    The car-carrying "Felicity Ace" that had the vehicle fire has sunk. Here's the location, according to Marine Traffic: 37.44144° / -29.48938°

    Google Earth shows the depth there about 5000 feet.  Contents are insured, about $155 million, according to https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cargo-ship-luxury-cars-sinks-atlantic-ocean-portugal/ .

  55. RickH says:

    Someone (yesterday?) was complaining about entering comments on an Android phone (or maybe just a phone).

    This is a known issue with the CKEditor version 4. It has been corrected in version 5. But the upgrade is not easy; all the parameters for the configuration of the editor have changed. So I have to adjust those, then do the usual amount of testing on the development site.

    It's on the list for the next update to the theme used here, after the current project.

    I finished up the FormSpammerTrap version 14, which has tons of new features. (It is a way to spambot-proof contact forms. Easy to implement, but lots of powerful features. Works with WordPress also, with a bit of programming that is easy enough by following the instructions). That version was released this weekend.

    Current project, just about finished, is the "FormSpammerTrap for Comments" (FST4C). It's a spambot blocking plugin for comment forms, plus some customization of the comment form. Not installed on this site, as the other plugin ("Block Comment Spam Bots") that I updated a couple weeks ago does that function. (It's why you – and the admins – never see comment spam here.)

    After I finish up FST4C, the next project on the list is an update to the theme that is used here, including updating to CKEditor version 5.

    And, with the upgrades to the SSDs on my laptop (C is now 512GB, and D is 2TB), I may also upgrade to Win 11. That is also on the plan for March.

    And then there are the fiction writing projects. Which I procrastinate while working on web sites and programming.

  56. Greg Norton says:

    “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled de-orbit and fall into the United States or Europe?” Rogozin tweeted in Russian, according to a translation. “There is also the option of dropping a 500-ton structure to India and China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS does not fly over Russia, so all the risks are yours.”

    Doesn't NASA run the ISS from Houston?

    One of the people we hired at the previous previous job came from NASA. He did a bunch of number crunching on health stats for the ISS crews.

    Shakes the Clown dished out even more humiliation than normal on him — 10 year KBR career contracting at NASA. MIT undergrad (albeit Biology), and a MSCS from U of H Clear Lake — *Junior* Developer with the word in the title filed with HR.

    Kharma is coming for Shakes in a big way.

  57. MrAtoz says:

    The car-carrying "Felicity Ace" that had the vehicle fire has sunk. Here's the location, according to Marine Traffic: 37.44144° / -29.48938°

    Oof. Gas, oil, and lithium batteries in Davy Jone's Locker. Pollutionus Maximus.

  58. Alan says:

    SOTU…

    What will Nancy do tonight to top her speech-ripping tantrum?

    2
    1
  59. SteveF says:

    Shit herself in solidarity with the *resident?

    4
    1
  60. Greg Norton says:

    What will Nancy do tonight to top her speech-ripping tantrum?

    Nothing. Any deal for a new Veep if Kamala moves up before next January has to go through her.

    3
    1
  61. Alan says:

    >> Screw (or use another term beginning with “F”) the IRS and this estate tax shirt(-r). 

    @Ray, see now that’s another .gov watch list you’re likely to get on.

    ADDED: And btw, got a 500 error posting this…just a coincidence, right??

  62. RickH says:

    And btw, got a 500 error posting this…just a coincidence, right??

    Uh, sure, you betcha. I have no knowledge of that which you purport as truth.

    Maybe.

  63. lynn says:

    Oh gosh, Not A Number is back.

  64. lynn says:

    "Greg Abbott, Beto O’Rourke easily win gubernatorial primaries, setting up November race"

        https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/01/texas-governor-greg-abbott-election/

    Abbott versus Bozo.  This should be interesting.  I foresee many thousands of texts in my future.

    Looks like everyone that I voted for today won or took first place. Looks like Ken Paxton is going to have a runoff.

  65. Jenny says:

    Busy day no time for recreational surfing. Friends were posting memes of Zelensky and his anatomy over last several days. 
    Reminded me of a NSFW song by a folk artist, Dan Bern, I really like. He is a skilled writer, not all his songs are rude, but even his rude ones are intelligently crafted. 
    This particular song came to mind today. 
    NSFW. Or children probably. But will likely make you grin. 
    https://youtu.be/oNweMSYu7uE

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