Chilly and damp. Was 46F when I got here yesterday, and just slightly warmer when I went to bed. Should be the same until the sun warms the earth…
I got all the pickups done that I couldn’t reschedule or move into next week. Nice hunting tool. Kayak is a bit more worn than it looked in the pix, but not so bad I’m unhappy. Other stuff is what I expected.
Hit the lowes for plumbing parts before heading up. Spent some time last night walking through the project and discovered I need a couple more parts. Natch. Will have to head into town and get them.
Got caught up with my fishing neighbor.
Played a game of Rumikub with D2 and the wife. Read a bit. Nice day.
Oh, and I smashed what was left of my terminal clamp into a solid bar, jammed that into a new clamp and installed the new, fat, terminal clamp in the Ranger. Worked great. Stacks came through.
Today I’ll be working on plumbing, and may move an electrical outlet or two. May take a break and do something else on the list, like moving broken concrete. Dunno, might rain according to the wife… Flexible, that’s me.
Brought up a couple of things to add to the stacks here. Add to yours whenever you can. There are no indications that things are getting better.
nick
The shutdown tricks go back to Clinton. The new twist with the Jesus President in 2011 was closing the then-new WW II Memorial even though it is an open air exhibit on the mall lacking any doors or gates. I remember nightly footage on the local Faux News in Portland showing local vets whose Honor Flights to visit DC had been cancelled during that shutdown, with the reporterette (always young and female) emphasizing how “The Greatest Generation” was starting to die off and how that year could be their last chance to visit.
Yellowstone is a weird hot button issue with a lot of people in the 20% of the population who actually pretend to do something productive for a living, especially lately around here since a family road trip to the park involves driving through Colorado and stopping overnight each way on the most direct routes if they only have a week.
(Among our kids’ friends, we’re the only parents without a Colorado Jones lately. And, yes, Texas is stepping up enforcement at the choke points in the panhandle, where SE Colorado is just a quick hop across Oklahoma, so imbibing is risky unless you stay there.)
BTW, add Glenn Beck to the list of “screechers”. I listened while he spent the better part of an hour one morning last Summer complaining about how the budget cutbacks and reservations system at Yellowstone had made the park crowds “worse than Disney”, the implication being that the Park System needed to increase fees until people stopped going like The Mouse does with the prices of admission and food.
Recently, I started to wonder how long Toyota would be able to continue defying the agenda of the all EV future, especially with stories about the hybrid RAV4 Prime fetching ADM of $40,000+, almost doubling the price and making it more desirable than any Jesus Truck.
God forbid someone actually sell affordable cars people want to drive *and* make a profit at the same time.
The answer: Not very long.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42673244/toyota-ceo-akio-toyoda-steps-down/
Source selected because it demonstrates how the trade press are lapdogs for those setting the agenda. Brock Yates must be doing cartwheels in his grave.
Not just closed. The scum put concrete barriers on the road to block the turnoff to get to the memorial.
If the gov’t is closed then how do you have employees and equipement working OT to get concrete barriers into place?
Should have impeached the mf right then.
Elections have consequences, and no one stood up to the Jesus President for fear of being called a raaaaycist.
Pay attention to the news. Oprah has a new Jesus Candidate she’s grooming in the Governor’s Mansion of Maryland. Same type vague qualifications and background as The Chosen One.
Here in Texas, I’m increasingly convinced Greg Cazar, Gregorio Eduardo, will go after Rafael Edward’s Senate Seat in 2024 on the Jesus Candidate ticket. I’ve seen a lot more of Cazar on the local Faux News as of late.
I swear I remember the National Guard deploying the concrete barriers in DC.
The military will be first in line for a paycheck from incoming tax revenues in any shutdown situation even if the government defaults in a few months.
58F and 88%RH with solid overcast. Slept well, no fire or radio last night. Late start so I better get busy.
y’all mind your p’s and q’s.
n
I noticed today that one of the neighors has a new Bronco.
No clue on the trim level or if it is one of the 2.3L trubo-ed 4-cyl models, but it is definitely a garage queen, taking the place of the wife’s mid-size Cadillac SUV which was the previous reigning protected monarch but has been banished to the driveway/carport for a few weeks now.
The king, an early 00-s Camaro convertible, is ensconced in the rest of the available space inside the garage. I know it moves, having seen the car rolling out top down on nice Sundays, but the vehicle rarely leaves the throne room during the Winter.
Well, that plan did not work.
We had planned to cut the old 2’x4′ tiles in half and use them in the ceiling after having installed new supports to make the ceiling a 2’x’2 grid. The tiles that were removed have been in place for 25+ years. Unfortunately, the sagging that has occurred over time is really quite noticeable when the cut pieces are placed in the 2×2 grid.
Another trip to Lowe’s to get 110 new 2’x2′ tiles. That means taking down the tiles we just installed, cutting new holes for the lights and heating vents, then installing the new tiles. A lot of wasted work for something that did not work. Lesson learned.
Internet friends are as real as real life friends. Sometimes much more real. Communities of choice and all that …
Internet friends are as crazy as real life friends.
Fixed that for you.
Yes, I agree. I would never have met Mr. Ray in person without this site/internet. I’m better for meeting him and knowing him.
“Pixie Noir” by Cedar Sanderson
https://www.amazon.com/Pixie-Noir-Cedar-Sanderson/dp/0615920438?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a three book dark fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by Stonycroft Publishing in 2013. I have ordered books 2 and 3 in the series.
Lom is a bounty hunter, a good one. He always finds his fae for, Lom is a Pixie himself, all four foot six inches of him. Actually rather tall for a Pixie. Unlike most of the fae, Lom does not spend all of his time in Underhill, Lom spends most of his time among the humans, hunting for rogue Fae and bringing them back to Underhill. Lom has a debt to pay and has already been working at it for over 200 years.
Fairies, Pixies, Goblins, Trolls, and Old Ones, oh my ! And of course, magic and lots of it.
The author has a website at:
https://www.cedarwrites.com/
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (154 reviews)
Well, that plan did not work.
Lowe’s did not have the tiles in the 2’x2′ to match some existing tiles. In fact, Armstrong does not make tiles in the pattern we need in the 2’x2′ format, only 2’x4′. So, we bought 60 2’x4′ tiles and will slice each one in half. The tiles come in packages of 10. Bummer. Oh well, a few extra
ifwhen we screw up. 52 tiles to slice in half. Oh joy. At least it can be quickly accomplished on a table saw.The year is young, young Jedi.
They won’t default. There is enough tax revenue coming in to make debt payments.
The Republicans in Congress are being stupid and ignoring the past. They are Charlie Brown to the Democrats’ Lucy with the football. When the last spending bill was passed, it could have had an increase in the debt limit. But the Democrats know that if things start to get shut down because the limit is reached, they won’t be blamed – the Republicans will, as happened in the past. MTG and her crowd have run up and Lucy is pulling away the football.
The Republicans have shown that they aren’t serious about restraining spending – they did nothing when Trump was president and they had control of Congress. They spent and spent. It’s arguable that some of the COVID emergency spending was needed to keep the economy from going into a depression, but Trump said that Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security/Defense were untouchable and no tax increases. Fine. If those are off the table, you could balance the budget – by cutting all other spending by 90%. Parks. The FAA. NIH. NSF. NASA. The weather service. The VA. Agriculture. And a lot more.
None of that is possible. The entitlement programs need to be fixed, but neither party wants to fix them because it will cost votes and to do so would require bipartisan effort. And current party primary politics make doing either impossible.
The VA is part of the Defense budget, one of the few Constitutionally mandated places the Government spends money. The last 20 years of “wars” have meant a lot of new patients entering the system so substantial cuts would be difficult.
Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, however, are not guaranteed and payouts are completely at the discretion of Congress. In a default, debt service and Defense would have first claim on any incoming revenue followed by the rest, including the “third rail” entitlements.
Tax revenue is roughly $250 Billion per month. The Feds will have to make do.
Here in Texas, I’m increasingly convinced Greg Cazar, Gregorio Eduardo, will go after Rafael Edward’s Senate Seat in 2024 on the Jesus Candidate ticket. I’ve seen a lot more of Cazar on the local Faux News as of late.
I’ve never heard of this person. But, Texas is becoming more conservative with all of the conservatives moving here from blue states and battleground states. As a result, I doubt that that any one can easily take Rafael Edward Cruz down in Texas.
Nationwide, no conservative stands a chance for prez in 2024. As a result of the conservatives leaving the blue states and the battleground states, they have become more liberal. I give you Georgia and Arizona as examples. The rot is spreading from within and without as the blue states allow the illegal immigrants to vote.
Today is the 37th anniversary of the Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
https://history.nasa.gov/reagan12886.html
“And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.”
@Ray Thompson
First, thanks for the additional info on you light selection,
I had a renovation project about ten years ago that had the old 2×4′ rigid ceiling tiles. I got rid of a few that had mouse droppings and worse. Some that were warped were recovered by taking them down and misting the backs lightly with water (plus a drop of Dawn per quart) before pressing them flat on a half sheet of melamine-coated MDF.
@Greg
“I swear I remember the National Guard deploying the concrete barriers in DC.”
The National Guard being under the control of the states and in this case, the DC, it would have created a firestorm if they had been dragooned into this kind of petty carp.
In addition, the memorial by law was built and is maintained by private funds held in trust, so defunding the government should have no impact.
https://nypost.com/2013/10/03/obama-shuts-down-wwii-national-memorial
RE the Challenger disaster; I guess the thing that still puzzles me is, why wasn’t NASA better prepared for the risk, the inevitability, of a Shuttle crash? If I’d been running the space program, every astronaut would have been required to prepare a videotaped message.
Something on the order of “Well, if you’re seeing this, then I must have died doing what I loved, in space. It’s a risky business, but it’s worth doing, and it’s STILL worth doing. Don’t mourn my death too much; celebrate what we have accomplished and will accomplish in space. We must go on, and continue exploring our solar system.”
RE the Challenger disaster; I guess the thing that still puzzles me is, why wasn’t NASA better prepared for the risk, the inevitability, of a Shuttle crash? If I’d been running the space program, every astronaut would have been required to prepare a videotaped message.
Something on the order of “Well, if you’re seeing this, then I must have died doing what I loved, in space. It’s a risky business, but it’s worth doing, and it’s STILL worth doing. Don’t mourn my death too much; celebrate what we have accomplished and will accomplish in space. We must go on, and continue exploring our solar system.”
NASA calculated the risk of a Space Shuttle total failure at 1 in 99 on a per trip basis. They had 2 failures in 135 missions. That is a fairly harsh number but getting people to deal with it before a failure is not easy.
BTW, I am wondering how SpaceX will improve the chances of a total failure at less than 1 in 99 for manned missions. Those odds are just too high for me to jump on the daily 35 minute long ballistic from Houston to Tokyo and back.
Re the WWII Memorial being closed because of the “budget”. I have a lovely meme of an old-time boxer with the caption “WWII Memorials closed? So was Omaha Beach!”
Challenger was preventable. Feynman covers a lot of it in his second memoir book, but even he got caught up in the politics protecting Sally Ride’s soup bowl. Pun intended.
The BBC Scotland “Challenger” movie starring William Hurt as Feynman ends with an interesting exchange between the principals, making it seem like Feynman knew he had been played by Kutyna to protect the General’s source on the O rings. “It was a good use of science..”
That’s about as much of an epilogue to Feynman’s Shuttle story as we’re going to get now.
Sally Ride was still alive when the film was in production, but she died before the premiere. The last scene fades to a title card finally revealing who gave the information to Kutyna.
“Environmental Extremism Jeopardizes Energy Independence and Reliability”
https://cnsnews.com/commentary/jon-sanders/environmental-extremism-jeopardizes-energy-independence-and-reliability
“The past few weeks’ convergence of energy and environmental news reminded me of the irony of that book title. Rolling blackouts, which the 2022 State of Reliability report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) had previously warned about, affected several states on Christmas Eve. Days later, a White House announcement on December 29 hailed Pres. Joe Biden’s “goal that 50 percent of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in 2030 be electric vehicles” and advertised new and revised tax credits for people buying electric vehicles (EVs). Then on January 9, a Biden appointee to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) openly talked about possibly banning gas stoves, which are used by an estimated 40 percent of households across the country.”
Pretty good review of what is going on at the federal level. Not good, not good at all especially the work to stop all new fossil fuel pipelines.
Challenger was preventable? Yes, ALL aircraft accidents are preventable. I was involved in a Navy aircraft accident board, and the board ruled that there had been six errors made in preparing the aircraft for flight, and that preventing any one of those errors would have prevented the accident. I have no reason to believe that any other aircraft mishap was inevitable.
Background:
U.S. 2020 per capita annual electricity consumption is about 4500 kWh with a wide state-to-state range of 2000-7000.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=49036
China has been adding on average one coal-burning power plant per week for more than a decade. Their per capita annual electricity consumption nearly doubled from 2782 in 2009 to 5331 in 2020
https://www.statista.com/statistics/867590/china-per-capita-electricity-consumption/
Compare the two graphs and note that the slope of increase for China has accelerated whereas the U.S was been flat 2005-2020. Note also that the population in China has been increasing much more slowly 2000-2020 than the U.S
Main:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/28/indias-uncompromising-commitment-to-coal/
Throttling U.S. conventional (gas and coal) electrical generation and substituting “green weinie” non-solutions will provably have no appreciable impact on atmospheric CO2 levels as any fifth decimal place perturbation is lost in the overwhelming increase of third-world development.. But the U.S. educational system has been fully taken over by leftist operatives who have simultaneously ensured that kids are not being educated–and so cannot think critically and examine the data–and indoctrinated them with climate warming hysteria.
When the purported reasons for policy do not hold up to examination it is very enlightening to look for the real reasons. In this case, two emerge very quickly:
First, the economic gap between the U.S. and the ChiComs narrows as the green weinies implement policy that drags the U.S. economy down. Small wonder that there is numerous evidence that the global warming zealots are heavily funded by the ChiComs and their fellow travelers.
Second, the motivation for the politicians becomes obvious when you look at the pronouncements out of Davos last week and other recent news. In a nutshell, the goal is for the elites to make energy for the masses much more expensive and control the production and distribution in every way to ensure that they control the entire world.
One example: Natural gas is the cheapest and most efficient way to generate electricity and provide heat and hot water for residential and commercial use. The U.S has an abundance of natural gas due to the innovation of fracking. Democrats have done everything possible to restrict fracking and the production of natural gas. We are being inundated with propaganda, phony science and bad engineering studies purporting to show 1) “green” energy is cheaper; 2) electric vehicles are cheaper; 3) electric heat and hot water are the future for homes and businesses.
When all your heat and light come from electricity and you have been imprudent enough to allow remote control of that vital resource, the odds are that you will find that the reason for that control is to control you.
The latest bit of crap spewing from the pols mouths is the “dangerous air quality” produced by gas stoves. This latest was the pre-determined goal of a study done by a biased “consultant”. I’d suggest 1) That he be hunted down and hounded by mobs exercising their First Amendment rights; 2) That the plastic sheeting enclosure used to concentrate cooking emissions from gas stoves for the study be employed to study toilets in Democratic statehouses, condemn their use, and force the construction and use of unheated outdoor loos with a darn good cross-ventilating wind; 3) That progressive politicians who are simultaneously jumping on this bandwagon and using gas stoves in their own kitchens be similarly unremittingly hounded at every turn until they are forced to give up their gas stoves and buy induction cooktops at 3-5 times the cost out of their own pockets before they say another freakin’ word about climate change.
One of the three things you need to know to be a plumber is “Shit flows downhill”. The elites know that they are destined to rule from the top of the hill and keep the rest of us in the shit.
When your enemies tell you what they are going to do, ignore them at your peril.
Measuring eccentricity of large steel sections was well-understood and practiced but not known or used by NASA.
The loss of the Challenger vehicle was completely preventable. I believe that even more was known about the o-ring issue than has been shared through various accounts.
I don’t remember what launch it was, but I remember an earlier launch. Dad and I watched all of the early ones, and he taped them too. We noticed, before SRB separation, what looked to be a flame from the side of one SRB directed at the external tank. He took the tape to the local planetarium and had several people there look as well. Since it happened right before SRB separation, it didn’t have time to burn a hole. Do I have any proof? Nope. Do I think an accident was avoided by luck? Yes, I do.
Bad Technology, very Bad…
https://www.10tv.com/article/news/crime/atf-warns-columbus-police-are-finding-a-new-dangerous-device-for-guns/530-afbd7035-8cf0-4d09-8dee-5cf5054dcd42
@Nick quipped that he was equipped to apply appliques with his muscular physique.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M9LqUnUvGIo
Good night one and all!
““Those weapons are as Congress said unusually dangerous. They’re for the military and the government.””
–Maybe if they are so dangerous, the military and the government (and who does he mean by that? Postal clerks? Auditors? Congress?) shouldn’t have them. They have proven themselves to be incapable of managing their own affairs, and certainly shouldn’t be allowed to manage mine.
“misused technology” that is a terrifying phrase coming from government.
n