Fri. July 5, 2024 – fireworks tonight, yea!

Hot and very humid. Sunny and broiling. This week has been the same, temps around 100F and RH around 85%. Really unpleasant except when the wind blows and you are in the shade. And it will probably continue until we get the edges of Beryl.

I spent the day not working. Oh I did a bit of moving stuff around, but the decorations and flags were already up, and it was crazy hot.

Today I will probably do some small things, but it’s nice to just sit and chat with people.

Stacking some good times, and building community. Worth doing.

Get out and do some of your own.

nick

43 Comments and discussion on "Fri. July 5, 2024 – fireworks tonight, yea!"

  1. Brad says:

    $25K each.  Tesla expects to have hundreds of thousands of them on their production lines in a coupe of years.  Way cheaper than humans, no vacation, no showing up drunk, no not showing up, no getting hurt on the line, etc.

    Unskilled and low-skilled laborers have a problem. Even where the jobs still exist, the materials and techniques get more and more advanced.

    Of course, someone has to program the robots and someone else will maintain and repair them. But those are highly skilled jobs.

    Long-term, the human race needs to make an effort to raise the median intelligence. Encourage high-skill folks to have more kids, and make it difficult for others.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    “Elon Musk vows Bill Gates will be ‘obliterated’ if he doesn’t stop shorting Tesla”

    To paraphrase Orson Wells in “Citizen Kane”, if Bill Gates loses $500 million a year shorting Tesla, he will run out of money in 300 years.

    Quoting OJ, “Watch out!”

    What does BillG know that you don’t?

  3. Greg Norton says:

    Long-term, the human race needs to make an effort to raise the median intelligence. Encourage high-skill folks to have more kids, and make it difficult for others.

    In the short term, the human race needs to get back to work and stop buying things they can’t afford. The long term will sort itself out after that.

    We’ve been in a mid-grade touristy section of Texas this week, and, everywhere we went, I saw lots of families unloading out of newish $100k trim level trucks most likely purchaed on YOLO (You Only Live Once) impulses.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    $25K each.  Tesla expects to have hundreds of thousands of them on their production lines in a coupe of years.  Way cheaper than humans, no vacation, no showing up drunk, no not showing up, no getting hurt on the line, etc.

    And the Jesus Truck was supposed to float like the car in the James Bond movie.

  5. drwilliams says:

    Long-term, the human race needs to make an effort to raise the median intelligence. Encourage high-skill folks to have more kids, and make it difficult for others.

    The United Negro College Fund used to say “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

    Our public education system is run for the benefit of the unions and the Democrat Party, extracting ever more money from the taxpayers because that’s what they need to do the job that they are not doing, and because they work hard at not doing it and deserve more money. Educating children is not like baseball, where you can fail 70% of the time and still be successful. Worthless advanced degrees (calling Doctor Jill) to fatten paychecks without improving teaching skills is a fraud on the public. 

    We have to set children on the path of learning in elementary school or the opportunity closes and we lose them forever. Not being successful at teaching them to learn, and teaching them to read, write, and understand math and science, is wasting minds. As a society we cannot afford to keep doing that. 

  6. CowboyStu says:

    I finished my second read {The RV Park Redemption (The RV Vigilante Book 1)] of his four “The RV Vigilante Books” series.  Then I started the third of my reads “The Dive Bar Redemption (The RV Vigilante Book 2)” yesterday.  No doubt about it, I will then download the fourth as I really enjoy them!

  7. CowboyStu says:

    I left out in the above:  “RickH’s”.

  8. nick flandrey says:

    Today looks just like yesterday – hot and sunny.

    Breakfast is in ma belly, coffee is headed that way, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get some work started.

    Or not.

    n

  9. lynn says:

    Elon Musk vows Bill Gates will be ‘obliterated’ if he doesn’t stop shorting Tesla”

    To paraphrase Orson Wells in “Citizen Kane”, if Bill Gates loses $500 million a year shorting Tesla, he will run out of money in 300 years.

    Quoting OJ, “Watch out!”

    What does BillG know that you don’t?

    Watch out when the billionaires start fighting.  There will be a lot of collateral damage to us crunchies.

  10. lynn says:

    Of course, someone has to program the robots and someone else will maintain and repair them. But those are highly skilled jobs.

    Dont worry, the robot algorithms will keep on getting better over time.  Just wait until we start using them for law enforement.  

  11. drwilliams says:

    Watch out when the billionaires start fighting.

    Much prefer that Musk and BillG team up and take Zuck out.

  12. lynn says:

    “Beryl reaches the Yucatan, and is now likely to make landfall in Texas on Monday as its track shifts northward”

    https://spacecityweather.com/beryl-reaches-the-yucatan-and-is-now-likely-to-make-landfall-in-texas-on-monday-as-its-track-shifts-northward/

    Looks like Hurricane Beryl is going to hit Corpus Christi now.  We may get some of the dirty side here in Fort Bend County.

  13. drwilliams says:

    Chevron has immediate consequences:

    States “could not have foreseen” that Section 1557 would be implemented in the way it has by the Biden administration, they argued. The latest interpretation of the law, the states said, “unlawfully coerces compliance” by threatening to strip billions of dollars in federal funding from state health programs that have come to rely on it. 

    “Plaintiffs have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that HHS exceeded its statutory authority by applying the Bostock holding to Section 1557’s incorporation of Title IX in its May 2024 Rule,” Guirola wrote, going on to quote from the high court’s ruling last week. “’And to the extent that Congress and the Executive Branch may disagree with how the courts have performed [their] job in a particular case, they are of course always free to act by revising the statute.’”

    https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/07/05/federal-judge-blocks-major-hhs-rule-equating-sex-to-gender-identity-n2176404

    Even if you read it to see what was in it, you couldn’t find what was not in it that a lawless out-of-control bureaucracy without a functioning executive would put into it to advance their radical civilization destroying goals.

    January 20

    90% of HHS goes buh-bye, balance is moved to New Mexico. 

  14. Lynn says:

    Just got the aerobic septic tank at the house pumped out.  It was having chunky carryover into the finishing tank, big no no.  1,500 gallons for $725.  Plus I gave them $40 cash for their lunch or dinner.  This is the fifth time that they have pumped out my septic tanks, twice at the office since 2011 and three times at the house since 2019.  

    His 4,000 “bio” gallon truck is a 2000 Mack with a Cummins diesel and a 10 speed transmission in it.  He uses 50 gallons of diesel each day, $450 every two days to refill his two 55 gallon tanks.  His truck has over four million miles on it, his dad bought the truck used in 2006.  No def and no diesel soot burner so low maintenance.  No engine computer, everything runs on compressed air or hydraulic fluid.  Lots and lots of levers.  They have rebuilt the motor once due to oil leaks.

    He hates Biden and Obama with a passion, can hardly wait to get Trump back in office.  He is Hispanic, but was raised speaking English in the house, his dad is smart.  The paperwork and diesel price is killing them.  They are legal, they take the fluid to a city dumping station.  Not everyone does that, some of his competitors just find a ditch and dump it.

  15. Lynn says:

    “How ob-gyns are handling more requests for sterilization after ‘Roe’ was overturned”

        https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/07/02/nx-s1-5025682/tubal-ligation-tied-vasectomy-ob-gyns-more-requests-sterilization-after-dobbs-roe-overturned?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

    Seems fairly permanent for young people.  After 35, sure.

  16. Lynn says:

    “Kamala Harris team considers ‘white man’ VP for presidential run”

        https://www.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-team-considers-white-174513108.html

    “There’s one path out of this mess, and it’s Kamala.”

    ““She is the only candidate who can take the reins right now, instead of in late August with less than three months left to go.””

    “The influential black Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn has said he would back Harris if Mr Biden were to stand down.”

    They are starting to prepare the mail in ballots for Kamala already.  She will be the first candidate to get 100 million votes.

  17. EdH says:

    It is about 110F out … so the neighbor has decided to run his chipper.

    For me, it isn’t as bad as usual, with the whole house a/c running and fans going it isn’t particularly noticeable.

    But 110F!

  18. Lynn says:

    My shaded gauge in the back yard is showing 104 F.  48% humidity according to Wunderground.

    We are getting some atmospheric compression from Hurricane Beryl.

  19. RickH says:

    Regarding the high temperatures that some here have reported – I feel your pain.

    Here in the Pacific Northwest (I’m on the Olympic Peninsula in WA state), there is a Heat Advisory for our area. Temps in my area are expected to reach into the 80’s (F). I had to adjust the house thermostat to get the air conditioning on (set at 77F). 

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  20. CowboyStu says:

    It is about 110F out … so the neighbor has decided to run his chipper.

    @EdH:  Come down and visit me tomorrow and bring JimB.  Currently we are at 72 with a max of 76 this aft and 75 tomorrow.  As you can see, I am 1 ½ miles from the ocean.

  21. Ray Thompson says:

    She will be the first candidate to get 100 million votes.

    From 75 million registered voters.

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  22. drwilliams says:

    Biden goes to Wisconsin to save his campaign:

    https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/07/05/an-hour-late-biden-burns-wisconsin-down-with-his-senility-gets-trolled-by-his-own-supporters-n2176416

    Meanwhile, back at the LSM, Democrat operatives continue to show why they are not journalists and have no claim to First Amendment privileges.

    Johnson needs to call Harris and give her a deadline.

  23. Lynn says:

    She will be the first candidate to get 100 million votes.

    From 75 million registered voters.

    Yes !  I left out that fact.

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  24. paul says:

    My wISP just switched to something called “BGP”.  My take is that it takes an ISP router out of the circuit and now my router has a public address.    23.155.48.xx.  The BGP thing is some sort of DNS and it all has to propagate.   I’m guessing, there’s a lot of bafflegab going on. 

    But now I’m not double NAT, just single NAT.  From the ISP.  To the rest f the web.  I still have my router, that’s a NAT point into my LAN.

    Of course the ISP is going through the up-steam provider…. and through their routers. 

    So now I can open a port and run a web server “right here”.   Maybe? 

    Options are good. 

  25. Lynn says:

    “So much for globular worming and sea level rise”

        https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/07/so-much-for-globular-worming-and-sea.html

    “Courtesy of Pascal Fervor, commenting at Liberty’s Torch, we find this object lesson in reality.  Click the image for a larger view.”

    “Next time a climate alarmist tries to pull “The seas are rising!” on you, show them that picture, and ask them to explain it.  They won’t, of course – because they can’t, unless they admit that sea levels on the whole are not rising.”

    Truth.

    The Devil is known as the Father Of Lies. He has many followers.

  26. drwilliams says:

    Dog in the UK Born With 6 Legs Takes Up Surfing

    https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/07/05/six-legged-british-dog-takes-up-surfing-n2176407

    Dog reveals that he bought a condo in California, registered to vote Democrat, and cast an absentee ballot for Spuds MacKenzie. When asked, he said “Spuds is higher up on cognitive the ladder than FJB.”

    In related news, 

    WH dog Major comes out as non-binary, demands tastier Secret Servic agents

  27. paul says:

    I have a Big River delivery today.   Some time.  It was 3 to 5 and now it’s 5 to 8.  Screw it.  Nothing that will spoil in the heat.

    I’m gonna feed the dogs and crank up a movie.

    Might even feed me.

  28. Lynn says:

    “Again I say it: There is NO, repeat, NO trustworthy news coming out of the Ukraine war…”

        https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/07/again-i-say-it-there-is-no-repeat-no.html

    “… unless and until you verify it through at least half a dozen reliable (well, as reliable as possible) sources.  I don’t care whether Ukraine or Russia is claiming something:  they’re all lying.”

    “The latest example is the “scandal” over Ukraine leader Zelensky’s wife’s alleged purchase of a Bugatti sports car.  It was made up out of whole cloth by Russian propaganda sources.  You can read all about it in this BBC report, which shows how it was created and disseminated, and why it’s “fake news”.”

    “I’ve gotten to the point where, if I know that a news report originated from one or the other side’s official sources, I automatically disbelieve it.  The only people I’ll listen to are those that use independent sources (particularly satellite imagery, reports from people on the ground who’ve established a reputation for reliability, and so on).  If they report and/or confirm something, all well and good.  If they don’t . . . fuggetaboutit.””

    Now I am wondering if Russia truly destroyed those Ukrainian planes on the ground that I noted yesterday.  I do not trust either side either. “Nine Ukrainian Jets Destroyed In 24 Hours, Russia’s Military Says”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nine-ukrainian-jets-destroyed-24-hours-russias-military-says

    I do know this.  I doubt that the 50 or 100 F-16s that we and other NATO members are giving Ukraine will last very long.  That plane is not very stealthy and requires a highly trained maintenance crew.

  29. drwilliams says:

    Biden’s ‘Miserable’ Staffers Turn Their Backs on the President

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2024/07/05/biden-staffers-turn-on-the-president-n2641440

    They’re starting to realize that after Jan 20 when the House starts investigating there will be no attorneys stepping up to represent them.

  30. Greg Norton says:

    They’re starting to realize that after Jan 20 when the House starts investigating there will be no attorneys stepping up to represent them.

    Gregory Marmalard ’63: Nixon White House Aide, Raped In Prison, 1974

  31. Lynn says:

    From one of my sister-in-laws: “If the highest office in the US has a limit of 2 Terms, then all offices below it should have at least the same limit.”

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  32. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    From one of my sister-in-laws: “If the highest office in the US has a limit of 2 Terms, then all offices below it should have at least the same limit.”

    It would take a constitutional amendment. Too bad they didn’t tack it on when they limited the presidency.

  33. Lynn says:

    “Threat to the upper Texas coast, including Houston region, increasing as Beryl nears Gulf of Mexico”

        https://spacecityweather.com/threat-to-the-upper-texas-coast-including-houston-region-increasing-as-beryl-nears-gulf-of-mexico/

    I cannot decide if we are making much ado about something or nothing.  If Beryl is Cat 1 or Cat 2, not much affect for the inlanders like me.

  34. drwilliams says:

    Gregory Marmalard ’63: Nixon White House Aide, Raped In Prison, 1974

    Jeffrey Epstein, Owner of Pedo Island and Pedo Air, Hung himself in prison, 2019

    Document dump this week on the Epstein case:

    https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime/2024/07/03/jeffrey-epstein-why-palm-beach-post-sued-to-unseal-grand-jury-papers/70381877007/

    I fully expect that there will be outlandishly false claims about what is found in those files, and that many of those claims will be about Trump to deflect from others like Bill Clinton and Price Andrew.

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  35. Greg Norton says:

    I cannot decide if we are making much ado about something or nothing.  If Beryl is Cat 1 or Cat 2, not much affect for the inlanders like me.

    Cameron County’s “Judge” issued a voluntary evacuation for high profile RVs before the 4th, but that is the limit of orders through this afternoon.

    More press is out there about the shark attacks on SPI which took place yesterday.

  36. Ken Mitchell says:

    There are a COUPLE of term limits that we need to impose.  

    First, we need to limit how long people suck on the government teat. Starting from age 20, anybody who wants to run for public office needs to have spent at least half of their adult life working for a paycheck with a PRIVATE enterprise. By age 40, the candidate must have spent at least 10 years in the private sector. Government SERVICE isn’t supposed to be a lifetime career;  serve the nation for a FEW years, and then go back to the farm.
     

    Second, there are 330 million people in America; we shouldn’t keep electing the same losers. No candidate may run for ANY Federal office who is a close relative (spouse, partner, parent, grandparent, sibling, 1st or 2nd cousin, child or grandchild) of any President, VP, Governor or Senator. No more Kennedys or Shrubs or Clintons or Romneys or Cuomos. We need NEW “elites”!
     

    And finally, we need a maximum allowable tenancy in Washington, D.C. Every government official of ANY kind may reside within 100 miles of Washington D.C. for a maximum of 30 years. Work for the government for a SHORT WHILE and then GO HOME. 
     

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  37. Ken Mitchell says:

    Jeffrey Epstein, Owner of Pedo Island and Pedo Air, Hung himself in prison, 2019

    No. He received an “extra-judicial” execution, probably arranged by Hillary, to protect Bill Clinton. Security cameras don’t “suddenly fail” at the same time that TWO guards “fell asleep” at the same time that a man hangs himself.  And nobody has even tried to examine the guards’ bank records to see if there was a sudden windfall deposit. 

    The FBI seized all of Epstein’s records, recordings, and video. And NONE of Epstein’s clients have been prosecuted, which stinks to high heaven.

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  38. drwilliams says:

    Biden Interview: “I just had a bad night” – Refuses Neurological and Cognitive Evaluation

    EXCLUSIVE: President Biden tells “The Clinton Coverup Artist”

    the debate was “a bad episode,” adding that he was “feeling terrible” after a busy month.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d be terribly embarrassed to claim a month with that much time off was “busy”. Tough nap schedule?

  39. Ray Thompson says:

    The White House press machine are lying through their teeth about spongey’s poor performance. A cold! That has never affected my mental abilities. 

  40. drwilliams says:

    Yet the notion that last week’s debate was an anomaly doesn’t jibe with the impressions of some Democratic lawmakers who’ve seen him up close and come away doubting his capacity to hold office. 

    Far from a one-off, the debate revealed the same worrying traits — memory lapses, incoherence, a vacant look — these officials say they’ve noticed in Biden’s company throughout his term. 

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/07/05/dem-senators-bidens-appalling-debate-performance-was-no-anomaly-n2641424

    The Kennedy’s took the Democratic Party and turned it into a mafia of vicious lying self-centered filth. They were all perfectly happy as long as they could keep FJB covered up–damn the consequences for the country if that 3AM phone call turned out to be the last one.

  41. nick flandrey says:

    Headed to bed after a long hot day of mostly hanging out with my guests.   Great fireworks show, almost 45 minutes long and about 200 feet away.

    Radio had some good DX tonight, but a lot of noise on the bands.   Ham from Rotterdam was booming in looking for North American contacts.   Ontario CAN was coming in strong.   Lot of commercial SW stations in 17mhz that I haven’t heard but most were low, just above the noise.

    BBC World Service had a guy saying “Trump lied when he was young and he lies when he’s old.  Joe Biden earned the right to the nomination, but he needs to put the debate behind him, with more good performances like today.”  Nuts.

    ————–

    We’ve got some clouds and some lightning in the surrounding area, but it cleared up from the haze and partly cloudy evening.   Barometer slightly higher than yesterday, and temp dropped to 78F tonight.

    My buddy’s wife brought a cake to our viewing party.  It was simple but very tasty.

    —————-

    Time for a shower and bed.

    n

  42. Lynn says:

    My buddy’s wife brought a cake to our viewing party.  It was simple but very tasty.

    I like cake.

  43. Lynn says:

    “Biden dismisses concerns about mental fitness, says he’d drop out if the ‘Lord Almighty’ told him”

       https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-dismisses-concerns-mental-fitness-hed-drop-lord/story?id=111695174

    You know, I am not sure that God is talking to Bidden.  It may be the other guy…

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