Warmish, but maybe clearer than yesterday. Maybe not. One forecast has rain over us for the next two days at least. As usual, we’ll see.
Spent the day doing indoor stuff. Had some banking in the morning, and early pickup for D2 in the afternoon, so that pretty much precluded getting out and doing anything that would take more than a single hour. The early rain meant I wasn’t going to work outside either.
Today I’ve got to do most of this week’s pickups. Since I’m going up to the BOL on Thursday, I’ll get the stuff that is up that way then, but I have to get the rest before that. And I’ve got to sort and box a few bins worth of stuff to drop off at one auctioneer today, so there is that as well. It never rains but it pours.
Add the shopping, and prep for the Easter weekend (not going to the BOL, D2 wants another holiday here at home, and no septic system…) and it’s going to be a busy couple of days.
And there must be some shopping. I’ve let my stocking levels of some staples drop because we’re eating less of them, and because we got busy and were out of town last week. The result is fewer eggs in the house than at any time during the last two years. Milk is similarly low, and there are a couple of other things, like supplements, that I let run down. Of course I need EXTRA eggs now for Easter too.
Speaking of Easter, I better get a lamb roast out of the freezer.
No guests for Easter this year though.
Life goes on, even with the threat of WWIII, during a worldwide pandemic, with runaway inflation and the prospect of famine on the horizon.
Preps smooth out the ups and downs, and provide a great deal of comfort. When they run low, I get extra nervous though, so there is balance in the world 🙂
Go out and stock up. There may come a day when “Prepping, it’s what’s for dinner” saves the day.
Stack it up.
n
73F with 88%RH.
Stuff to do.
n
Achtung! Mask up citizen!
Philadelphia, but coming soon to where you live.
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2022/04/11/philadelphia-indoor-mask-mandate-reinstated-covid/
“Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole said the city will provide businesses with a one-week educational period before the mandate goes back into effect.”
Hilarious, but Austin would do it in a heartbeat if the Travis County Judge had the legal standing.
In my county, Williamson, no, but that’s because Judge RINO, the Right Reverend Bill Gravell, was exposed as a hypocrite early. My wife and I still haven’t decided whether to give the Right Reverend the boot in November, but that would mean a Dem for four years working with the Dem replacement for the Sheriff who was deposed two years ago.
Transgender oil heir Nats Getty flips the bird at Caitlyn Jenner as he blasts her stance on trans athletes and for saying Penn swimmer Lia Thomas was not the ‘rightful winner’ of her NCAA title
– ah, let me rephrase that – “Mentally ill trust fund baby few have ever heard of opens mouth and removes all doubt…”
n
We have TXU as well, with no contract, and they have not mistreated us. There’s no better option for us, as our use is so low. I’ve never understood why they “encourage conservation” on the one hand, while giving quantity discounts only for higher use.
They’ve sent us one of those cards for $32. It is not a real gift card, but requires activation with a third party and personal info. I haven’t made a decision about whether to give our info out or not. My cash rewards from other companies don’t require that, so I am skeptical. They should do like the car insurance, and just mail us a courtesy refund check.
The gas bill is infuriating. Our actual usage is small – only for the hot water – and the cost of gas even with the “rider” is low, usually less than $10 a month. But the snakes have steadily increased the monthly fee for the privilege of having their service to where it adds an extra $20 or so to the total every month.
And, ATMOS reads the meter without getting out of the truck every month, but it isn’t very accurate, because each year in April or May we get the biggest bill of the year. I’m guessing that’s when he gets out and walks up to actually look at it.
Setting aside the mental health issues … of both Jenner and “Nats” … I can’t help but wonder why, with all of the Getty money, the end result of the transition process looks like a patient ready to visit the doctors on “Botched”.
As for Jenner, I’ve stated my belief here before that he really wants to be a conservative pundit on the level of Rush Limbaugh. All of the surgeries he’s had to date could be reversed or left in place and Jenner would still be a less freaky-looking male than Kenny Rogers was for the last decade of his life.
The money doesn’t exist in radio to develop another Limbaugh commanding the same contract terms so the next show on that level would need a hook.
Sex change regret?
Or not. Who knows with that guy.
(Sorry, until I see ’em in a jar, I’m going to categorize him as male.)
Even then, still a male.
The plugs admin is pushing the “Putin Price Hike” narrative for highest inflation in 40 years. The sheeple will believe plugs.
WAKE UP SHEEPLE! plugs is a lying a**hole. Vote these liars out in the coming years. People are so dumb. Not ignorant, just plain dumb thanks to public schools.
Enjoy your masks, Philly. You deserve them so much.
I’ve been following this family for a while. they are Australians who emigrated to Russia. In this video, they take a shopping trip and show the stores, which things are in short supply, what prices are, etc.
Backyard Russia: 1 Month of Sanctions
I can’t give you more than two points out of six for this. A frothing screed is expected to meet certain standards.
– All caps: point
– “WAKE UP”: point
– Gratuitous profanity or obscenity: no point because of self-censorship
– Random misspellings: no point
– Garbled, rambling pseudo-sentences: no point
– Ambiguous call to action: no point because of lack of ambiguity
Plus one for the dog whistle of “sheeple” though! 🙂
Mr Atoz, you are going to have to up your game, or be lost in the roar of the crowd!
n
wrt inflation, I bet the fed raises rates friday afternoon.
n
wrt gmail filtering of political stuff … not seeing it in my account. I check the spam folder, and only find spam there. Rarely find an actual message that is not spam.
Have used gmail for many years. No issues, and the spam filtering is great. The occasional American Family Insurance email gets into my inbox. They have figured out the way to bypass spam filters.
But, I haven’t signed up on any political sites with my email address.
I do get postal mail from AARP all the time, though. It goes directly to the shredder, and is recycled.
I am seeing political email filtering in my gmail account. A couple state players emails (Repub’s) go straight to spam (and I signed up for them). Emails from the DNC, Pelosi, and Biden do not get filtered (and I never signed up for them). Oh, and Beto. A metric crap ton of email from that idiot. Never filtered. Manually flagging it works for a bit, then it finds its way back to my inbox.
What? A fraction of a point?
Wake me when 13% 30 year fixed mortgages return. That was what was required to squelch inflation in the 80s, and the mess wasn’t nearly was bad as what we have now, with the Fed holding a $7-8 trillion balance sheet, the real source of inflation.
Volker spiked the discount rate to 20% at one point. In today’s media environment, a Fed chair doing that would literally have pitchforks and torches on his front lawn.
People really aren’t ready for their houses to lose more than half of the market value or tech stock-heavy 401(k) balances to tank.
If they’re doing it right, you wouldn’t really notice. There’s two levels going on here.
Google may be marking conservative political stuff to put it into your spam filter.
Google may be just deleting some of it. How would you ever know? Google has zero, no, nil, nada, zilch accountability.
I made the mistake of making my first political contributions in 2016 to get rid of McCain and Paul Ryan in primaries. [Kelli Ward (RINO) and Paul Nehlen (fruitcake)]. My name got sold to every RINO and wannabe on God’s green earth. Most of those ended up in my spam folder.
But how many were outright deleted before I saw it, without spending time in my spam folder? I’ll never know.
If a fraction of a point is all you can do, it is still a fraction of a point. I’m not saying it will be effective, only that they will do it.
And the NYFC subway attack, “definitely not terror related” . Of course. Crystal ball tell you that?
I was just thinking yesterday that it was about time for another attack of sudden jihadi syndrome, and I hope that this wasn’t it. Simple sh!thouse rat crazy and Escape from New York levels of criminality and violence are enough to explain it. But hey, I wonder why people don’t want to start commuting to work in the city again?
n
added- NYFC is an abusive spouse. All the arguments for staying there are the same.
As Rick H says, I just see the usual stuff there in the spam folder.
eHarmony (dating?), truGreen (lawncare?), and linkedIn (job hunting?) seem to be the big three.
I’m not in the dating scene, have no lawn, and am retired…so I guess the filter is doing a good job.
Interesting about linkedIn though – I’ve never been a member but apparently 9 people have viewed my profile recently…
Amsterdam’s cannabis tourism goes up in smoke as tourists face ban from city’s pot-selling coffee shops in ‘necessary intervention’ to drive down serious crime and violence, city’s mayor insists
Amsterdam’s cannabis coffee shops are set to ban tourists in a ‘necessary intervention’ by Mayor Femke Halsema to get a grip on the local soft drugs market and drive down serious crime.
—-but but but I thought legalizing drug use would lead to a paradise on earth with DECREASED crime? Did they LIE to me???????????
n
Just checked my gmail spam folder, first time ever. Couldn’t even find it right away. 27 items and they are ALL commercial mailings that I signed up for, and a group email for my ham radio lunch group.
In other words, none of the emails are actual spam. grrr
n
The gas bill is infuriating. Our actual usage is small – only for the hot water – and the cost of gas even with the “rider” is low, usually less than $10 a month. But the snakes have steadily increased the monthly fee for the privilege of having their service to where it adds an extra $20 or so to the total every month.
And, ATMOS reads the meter without getting out of the truck every month, but it isn’t very accurate, because each year in April or May we get the biggest bill of the year. I’m guessing that’s when he gets out and walks up to actually look at it.
Be glad that you can buy natural gas. You are probably paying $5/mmbtu, it was $3 in 2021. In Europe, Japan, and China, they are paying $35/mmbtu for LNG (yes, seven times as much). It costs about $2/mmbtu to convert natural gas to LNG so people in the USA are building $12 billion LNG liquefaction plants as fast as they can.
LNG Liquefaction plant number twenty in the USA just came on line and is running full speed. There are seven or eight more plants under construction in the USA and eight or nine more plants are trying to get permitted but have run into the new FERC climate change regulations.
I’ve been following this family for a while. they are Australians who emigrated to Russia. In this video, they take a shopping trip and show the stores, which things are in short supply, what prices are, etc.
Backyard Russia: 1 Month of Sanctions
Why did they emigrate to Russia ? I have a friend who adopted two children from Ukraine about 16 years ago when he was working in Germany. The kids are undersized due to malnutrition, the girl is 4’10”, the boy is 5’1″ (they are in their 20s now). He said Russia was worse at the time.
As for Jenner, I’ve stated my belief here before that he really wants to be a conservative pundit on the level of Rush Limbaugh. All of the surgeries he’s had to date could be reversed or left in place and Jenner would still be a less freaky-looking male than Kenny Rogers was for the last decade of his life.
The money doesn’t exist in radio to develop another Limbaugh commanding the same contract terms so the next show on that level would need a hook.
I miss Rush. He was a GOAT (greatest of all time). There will never be another like him.
People really aren’t ready for their houses to lose more than half of the market value or tech stock-heavy 401(k) balances to tank.
The Fort Bend CAD just increased my house value by 12% (limited to 10% by Texas state law since it is my homestead). And they just increased my large commercial property from $900K to $1,095K. I will be protesting the large commercial property. They did not change my small commercial property value for some reason.
Our home’s assessed value also went up just over 10% this year.
“’Do not touch’: Rare man-o’-war-eating species washing ashore on Texas coast”
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/rare-man-o-war-seen-Texas-coast-17067108.php
“Beachgoers have been seeing some painful stingers, known as the species that eat Portuguese man o’ war, along the shores of the Texas coast”
If you go to the beach, take your meat tenderizer for if you get stung. I got wrapped up in a man-o-war one day and thought I was on fire. Mom sprinkled meat tenderizer all over my chest and brought it down to dull roar.
Yippee Ki Yay, Mellon Farmer!
Point for TV show reference.
Also,
fuck.
The ad revenue money just isn’t available in talk radio to develop a show like Limbaugh’s anymore.
IIRC, “Clay and Buck” have lost about a third of the EIB stations, and, even more telling, in my market, the “My City is Gone” baseline does not play at exactly 12:05 Eastern.
“A Beautiful Friendship (1) (Star Kingdom)” by David Weber
https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Friendship-Star-Kingdom-Weber/dp/1451638264?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a three book young adult space opera series. This series is part of the huge Honorverse series of books, probably approaching thirty books now. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Baen in 2012 that I bought new from Amazon since all my books are packed away in the garage. I did go in the garage and find books two and three this morning, only the second box I looked in: Weber, Williamson, Williams, etc. I will be rereading those books next.
Twelve year old Stephanie Harrington has just moved to a new planet, Sphinx, in the Manticore binary star system. There are barely two million people living on Sphinx, in part due to the harsh five Terran year cycle around Manticore-A, and the deadly plagues that Stephanie’s mother was brought in to help cure. The Harringtons live far out of the nearest town and grow a lot of their food in a greenhouse. Somebody is stealing their celery and Stephanie aims to find them out.
The animals on Sphinx are quite unusual, all of them are hexapods, six legged. The number one predator on the planet is a very dangerous five meter long feline named the hexapuma. Other predators such as the three meter near bear exist also. And many uncatalogued mammals also.
My review from 2013: “Book number one of a new series of two books set in the Honorverse. I suspect that this will not just be a mini-series of two books but will go more. I do note that Mr. Weber has a co-author on the sequel.
I believe that this is David Weber’s first young adult novel? In any case, I loved it. This novel is an expansion of an old novella by DW of the same name. And it can be considered a prequel to the excellent Honor Harrington series.”
The author has an excellent website at:
http://www.davidweber.net/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (596 reviews)
People really aren’t ready for their houses to lose more than half of the market value or tech stock-heavy 401(k) balances to tank.
The Fort Bend CAD just increased my house value by 12% (limited to 10% by Texas state law since it is my homestead). And they just increased my large commercial property from $900K to $1,095K. I will be protesting the large commercial property. They did not change my small commercial property value for some reason.
Whoa, I misread my new house value severely. The FBCAD raised my home value from $408K to $552K, an increase of 35%. Luckily Texas limits annual homestead increases to 10%. Still, an annual increase max limit of 1% would be much better.
>> WAKE UP SHEEPLE! plugs is a lying a**hole. Vote these liars out in the coming years. People are so dumb. Not ignorant, just plain dumb thanks to public schools.
And getting most of their “news” from their FaceCrack feed.
>> Point for TV show reference.
How about another point for the latest Gravatar?
>> I miss Rush. He was a GOAT (greatest of all time). There will never be another like him.
Wait, isn’t Tom Brady the GOAT?
Florida “Save Our Homes” limits increases in assessed to 3% or CPI, whichever is less, but that is only homesteaded property, not rental or commercial. Plus, during his previous term as Governor, RINO Charlie Crist promoted and signed a bill making the exemption dollar value portable to another homestead, about which I’m of the shool that believes it nukes the constitutionality of the entire exemption law, probably Crist’s real intent.
Also, unlike Prop 9 in California, Florida’s exemption cannot be inherited.
And, as I’ve stated before, the tradeoff vs. living in other places without similar exemptions is that property insurance from the state’s carrier of last resort, Citizens, the only truly non-insolvent carrier in FL, was quoted to me at $5000/year for 2011 before we sold our house a few weeks before the end of the year.
I remember there was a trend back in the 90s and early 2000s for westerners to adopt children from various parts of the former USSR, which fell apart in 1991. Since everything had been run by, and paid for by, the state, there was a lot of deprivation in the following years. Assorted international charities marketed the poorest orphans to the US, and there was a lot of effort to help the children.
Russia seems to be in good shape now. Putin has put them on solid footing. But that wasn’t always the case. We can imagine if suddenly our federal government just stopped, a lot of agencies that rely on the feds would flounder. It’s a sobering object lesson.
Something to do with their religion, but they don’t talk about it much. He originally went there with a group to build a church. Went back a couple of times, and they liked it so decided to give living there a try.
Apostolic Lutheran? There is a sizable community north of Vantucky (Portland Metro on the WA State side of the river) so our household has experience with the followers. If the wife is always in skirts in the videos, that is a sure sign.
Apostolics are essentially a cult spanning multiple countries, with heavy concentrations in Eastern Europe and the Northern US along the Canadian border. Lots of international migration between local communities.
They’re notoriously anti-outsider, including doctors, so the cult was the origin of the Measles dress rehearsal pandemic in Portland in 2019.
“Another State Adopts GOA-Supported Constitutional Carry”
https://www.gunowners.org/na04122022/
“And now there are 25!
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) today signed Constitutional Carry legislation into law, making the Peach State the twenty-fifth state to abolish the need for carry permits.”
“Florida also appears to be close to passing Constitutional Carry, potentially bringing the total number of states to twenty-six. Stay tuned!”
“Gilbert Gottfried, iconic comedian, dies at 67 after long illness”
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/gilbert-gottfried-iconic-comedian-dies-67-long-illness-rcna24111
“Gottfried died at 2:35 p.m. ET on Tuesday from Recurrent Ventricular Tachycardia due to Myotonic Dystrophy type II.”
RIP. He always said the craziest stuff in that extreme nasal tone.
I used to have tachycardia due to atrial fibrillation until my heart ablation surgery in 2018. Horrible, just horrible. Your heart is in total panic mode and you cannot breathe.
Gottfried was cancelled pre-cancel culture, apparently over some things he said following the earthquake in Japan.
Beyond his “day job”, Gottfried had an encyclopedic knowledge of old horror movies and appeared with Svengoolie from time to time in recent years. However, the pandemic limited Svengoolie from producing new shows until this Spring, and I imagine being based in Chicago brings further restrictions on guests even when in production courtesy of Mayor Beetlejuice.
>> I miss Rush. He was a GOAT (greatest of all time). There will never be another like him.
Wait, isn’t Tom Brady the GOAT?
There are GOATs in many categories. Tom Brady is the GOAT of professional football. Rush Limbaugh is the GOAT of talk radio.
“Message From Ukraine — Nukes Do Deter” by Patrick J. Buchanan
https://buchanan.org/blog/message-from-ukraine-nukes-do-deter-159277
“In Beijing, this question is surely being debated: If the Americans, who have no treaty commitment to defend Ukraine, are inhibited by the threat of war with a nuclear-armed Russia into limiting their military aid to Ukraine, will the Americans be similarly intimidated by a nuclear-armed China — from going to war for Taiwan?”
A man??? Since when does NYPD employ biologists?
Yippee Ki Yay, Mellon Farmer!
– of course the original un-Bowlderized version was Bruce Willis in the fabulous Christmas movie, Die Hard. The “mellon farmer” substitution first occurred, to my knowledge, when they dubbed Repo Man for TV.
Repo Man, Real Genius, and Buckaroo Banzai being three of the greatest films of the era…. “Ordinary F’ing people, I hate ‘em.” -one of Harry Dean Stanton’s best lines evah.
n
>> A man??? Since when does NYPD employ biologists?
It’s only KBJ that needs a biologist. Most other intelligent people can figure it out for themselves.
I thought “UHF” was in there, but that wasn’t until 1989.
“Mr. Mom” deserves a mention. A script so good that it has a prominent reference in the Win32 API.
Just got a invite to a “Server-Side Swift with Vapor” tutorial.
I‘m old enough to remember when vapor-ware was a bad thing…
Wow, they just released a description of two home invasions in Sugar Land:
“Hi all, in two recent home invasions along Dulles Ave., both incidences involved the criminals turning the power off to the home prior to breaking into the home. I have always done this for years, I think more of you should do so. ( @ see my picture, not talking of your robbery skills) Put a lock on your electricity box outside so that its a little harder to turn it off.”
“On another note, cable and phone lines were cut too. It doesn’t matter for most of us since our alarms use GPRS to signal the monitoring provider; nonetheless they have caught on to people with older non-updated alarm systems still use phone lines. Does anyone even use home phone lines anymore? @.”
“It is imperative that we test or have our alarm system tested at the least once a year. I had not checked mine in three years, and dodged a bullet because my backup battery still kinda worked ( lost voltage sharply after load for about 20 minutes). If your backup battery doesn’t back you up, it’s kinda useless to have an alarm system. Don’t be like me, call your alarm company and have them tell you what to do OR just have a tech check it.”
Both my home and office have inside breaker boxes. The office has a wireless alarm system that we use religiously when we are not here. At home, somebody is always there.
“America’s Huge Natural Gas Reserves”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/12/americas-huge-natural-gas-reserves/
“”Greg Wrightstone, the Managing Director of the CO2 Coalition, has a new blog post describing the sadly underdeveloped super-giant natural gas fields along the U.S. East Coast. The combination of the Marcellus and Utica Shale reservoirs have more recoverable gas than any other gas field in the world, except for South Pars/North Dome in Qatar and Iran. With government restrictions removed we could easily replace all the gas current purchased from Russia by the rest of the world and have plenty more for our own consumption.”
We have enough natural gas in the USA to last a thousand years.
Y’all know I supported the masks and the vaccinations. That said, the initial pandemic is over, and Covid is now going to just be part of life going forward. We’ve eliminated all restrictions here, and are just leaving things up to individuals. IMHO, that’s how it should be. Some people still wear masks (in crowded trains, for example). Some people will want an updated vaccination in the Fall. Others don’t, and won’t.
The only mandate I support: Require vaccinations for all personnel working in health care. Vulnerable patients catching respiratory viruses in hospitals has always been a problem. Flu shots should have always been required, and now Covid as well.
Require vaccinations for all personnel working in health care.
—but this vaccine doesn’t prevent you from getting or spreading the virus. That has been shown pretty clearly. And other than in the vague “herd immunity” way, vaccines were NEVER to protect others, only to protect the receiver.
It’d be more effective if you required all the patients to be shown to be disease free before entering the hospital, but that kinda defeats the purpose of a hospital. People don’t get sick in the hospital from the workers, they get sick from other patients, and from contact with disease causing agents that linger in hospitals. Covid doesn’t linger on surfaces or in air ducts.
Read Aesop, he’s STILL disease free after 2 years on the front lines because he uses the personal protective measures required to prevent transmission. Not because he or his patients got injections, and there are thousands like him.
n
And apropos of nothing, it is froggy mating season again, and the air is full of the mating calls. REALLY FULL. Like “keep you awake it’s so loud” full.
n