Hot and humid, but starting out cooler and drippy. Yesterday we got more rain. The bayous were starting to return to normal levels, but then we got hammered again. Hard enough for localized street flooding, which isn’t uncommon in Houston, but is insult on top of injury… at least Friday ended with a nice evening.
I didn’t get much done but I did get some things started. I made a tiny bit of progress on my office and a closet… which has the temporary result of making the rest of the house look worse. But I’ll tackle that today.
Went out for another 4 bottles of LP gas. I’m using 2 and a partial every day, plus 5 or more gallons of gas. The gennies are getting a lot of wear too. The honda needed some oil added, and the generac has a very small oil leak that will need to be watched. They were not designed as ‘prime movers’ but as temporary use.
My normal activity today would be my non-prepping hobby, but that meeting got moved due to lack of power at the venue. Our annual meeting is getting close and we need to meet…
Lots of things are getting upset or moved due to the ongoing issues.
I keep reminding myself that we were on generator power for 14 days during IKE and it’s still early in the recovery, but then I think about the relative lack of general destruction from Beryl. I’m not the only one getting frustrated that progress doesn’t seem to be happening, and the lack of transparency is not a good thing.
Stacks are helping, like they are supposed to. Stack up some of your own.
nick
Cleaned out the shed. It’s amazing how much space you have, if you just take everything out and put it back in. Should stay nicely organized for…I dunno…a week? Some places just seem destined for chaos :-/
Social media is amusing at the moment. Biden is great! Biden is being replaced! Biden is fine! Biden needs to step down!
I’m no fan of Trump, but he is at least the less awful of the available choices. However, there is a real risk of overconfidence on the part of Trump voters. Biden is so obviously out of it that they will figure they don’t need to bother with voting. Or with monitoring the ballot processing – because there will be cheating.
picked this up from AoSHQ:
Peer review is essential for science. Unfortunately, it’s broken.
There’s no incentive to fix the system, which was never designed to catch fraud anyway.
Paul Sutter – 7/12/2024, 6:00 AM
Author of “Rescuing Science: Restoring Trust in an Age of Doubt”
The final paragraphs:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/peer-review-is-essential-for-science-unfortunately-its-broken/
The scientific publishing industry is driven by university research which is funded by the taxpayers in the U.S. I do not know what percentage that represents internationally, but 10-15 years ago the figure often mentioned was that the Climate science scam alone was a $30 billion dollar con, and the con artists publishing routinely violated rules concerning publishing code’ publishing data, and trying to keep review independent.
So the taxpayers can demand some changes:
The motivation for #4 is fully laid out in the ClimateGate papers.
All right, all right, all right.
https://www.newsweek.com/matthew-mcconaughey-talks-possible-political-run-1924646
The Dems aren’t letting the crisis in Houston go to waste, but the responsibility for the power outages will be tough pin on the “Republicans” who are currently in charge in Austin.
78F and overcast, so slightly cooler to start, but so damp the concrete is wet.
Time for coffee.
n
Which is why I still have a tRump win at less than 50/50. Sending me multiple daily texts begging for money is not a winning strategy.
Now I’m getting daily emails from Dumbos. ‘Hi, this is Pelosi…Schumer…etc send whatever you can…” They must have stolen a Conservative mailing list. Smells like desperation to grift as much as possible off the corpse of POTATUS.
I hope plugs gets buried in a landslide. Along with the Dumbos in both Houses.
Bongo Boy seems to be mostly hot air. Butto 2.0. Waiting to see how the money flows.
I think McConaughey would consider a run if Rafael Edward loses to Collin Allred this year.
The Senate seat flipping would be a signal that the Wine Moms have reached a critical mass in Texas.
Would the Dumbos support him? He doesn’t seem like a hardcore Lefty.
Is he?
My drive around the Med Center/Rice University neighborhoods on Thursday morning showed a lot of damage. Shredded fences, tree branches and entire trees down, stoplights out or flashing, debris in the roads.
We drove to Aldi out here in Katy yesterday, and they were poorly restocked after their extended outage. Also lots of obvious fence damage and tree branches.
So much damage that the trash pickup couldn’t take bags of debris; they only emptied the cans of actual trash. I had 6 bags of debris that they left behind.
re: Aldi: 1) I’m off keto during my birthday weekend 2) Aldi had just been visited by the Blue Bell truck, and they had the new Cookies ‘n’ Cream Cheesecake flavor.
No, but the Dems want to win and haven’t held the Governor’s Mansion since Shrub beat Ann Richards.
The Lt. Governor holds the real power in Austin when the Legislature is in session, hence the reason Patrick was the Gecko’s point man on getting the generator slush fund placed on the November 2023 ballot.
Books. Reading. So much more fun than cleaning house, or taking care of business.
Gah, now I’ve got to get to work.
n
Here’s a bit more weirdness about the storm and aftermath…
My FEMA daily summary didn’t have any info about Texas in it today, or yesterday. There should have been at least a “and this is the final update” slide in the powerpoint… but I didn’t see one. considering that we still have a million people without power, I don’t know why they would stop reporting as if the event was over.
n
FEMA
Say, has FJB made a visit to Houston to show concern and sympathy for our damage and destruction, and our ongoing power issues?
Or is he Katrina-ing us like they accused Shrub of doing?
Maybe the Dems don’t want to emphasize their lack of concern for the 4th largest city in the US. At least, until they figure out how to politicize it.
They don’t have and endless supply of clean blood from young kids…. to waste some on Houston would be unthinkable.
n
(and we don’t need a
distractionexpense although it might be fun to see the people lined up along the motorcade route, and their signs…)W says the Centerpoint outage map is now showing dates thru the 19th, and has our area as “undetermined until after assessment” for a restore date.
This response is very strange compared to all the previous ones, and I’m starting to believe we are being used in a bigger game. I don’t like that AT ALL and it is the kind of thing that leads to people getting shot on the courthouse steps.
I’m running between $40 and $60 per day to feed generators, and while I can keep that up for a while, eventually the gennies will fail. In the mean time, life and normal activities are basically on hold, which isn’t good.
Tempers are going to fray, as evidenced by people yelling at linemen… and then bad things will happen.
Someone needs to pull their head out, and take control of this situation.
Ain’t gonna happen. Centerpoint is doing the best job they can given the fact that the entire city of Houston, three million electric meters, was on the dirty side of the hurricane. Don’t forget, Freeport reported 97 mph. We got the dirty side of a Cat 2 storm. There is serious damage to the infrastructure, much of which dates back to the 1930s.
All of this infrastructure was built over many decades. It will not be fixed in a week, there are lines down and poles snapped all over the place. After Hurricane Ike, one of the River Oaks streets did not have power for SIX weeks. River Oaks in Houston was million dollar homes back in the 1980s.
Centerpoint has now fixed:
Now they are fixing the 4,160 volt to 20,000 volt distribution lines. This is going to take forever because the 10,000 out of city linemen have no idea where these lines run. Thursday, me and my neighbor at the office were telling the Kentucky linemen to go two PRIVATE streets over to get to the downed line. Each time they had to go through locked gates.
My buddy two streets over is running six 5 gallon gasoline cans a day to feed his back porch genny. He is so torqued that he is floating above the ground. We can see the downed line from his backyard that was feeding two dozen homes. They have already been there once to replace the fuses and then see the downed line. They gotta bring in a pole setting truck now and those are in short supply and have to be triaged. It sucks.
People have got to calm down and not mistreat the linemen. Centerpoint got caught with only 1,500 linemen, they should have had double that number. That will be sorted out in the long run, maybe. After all, the new management fashion is to work your people to the bone since overtime is cheaper than benefits.
https://www.chron.com/culture/article/houston-centerpoint-beryl-power-outage-19565741.php
Centerpoint’s new nickname, spray painted on an underpass, is Centerpointle$$.
I’m no fan of Trump, but he is at least the less awful of the available choices. However, there is a real risk of overconfidence on the part of Trump voters. Biden is so obviously out of it that they will figure they don’t need to bother with voting. Or with monitoring the ballot processing – because there will be cheating.
I fully expect Bidden to get 100 million votes in the fall election with places like Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Phoenix generating 2X to 3X votes more than the voting population.
“Richard Simmons, legendary fitness guru, dead at 76”
https://nypost.com/2024/07/13/us-news/richard-simmons-legendary-fitness-guru-dead-at-76/
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
My wife used to use his workout videos all the time. He had real people in them, no gym rats.
If plugs isn’t replaced, the Dumbo Cheat-Machine will have to go into overtime to elect the corpse they said would save Democracy from tRump. I would love a trifecta of plugs, stretch, and schemer assuming room temperature by November.
Simmons just gave a rare interview, so I’m surprised he died.
Dr Ruth the sex therapist died too.
n
I pulled a lot of stuff out of the closet in this room. Enough is going away to almost fill a big green roll around trash can. Shoved stuff back into the closet and it looks almost as full as before. Crazy.
But I can stand in the closet, sort of, now. Which will make clearing clutter from the shelves easier.
I found a meme the other day. It says “If a dementia patient can have access to nuclear bombs, then you can own any kind of gun you want.”. I clicked post and Facebook instantly said “against community standards and you might be restricted for a period of time” “Do you want to post anyway?”
Hey, it’s not sharing a lie. I’ve seen snippets of the debate. Yeah. Sure, post it. I’m curious for the reason it would be censored.
I’ll worry about being restricted when I stop seeing posts with lost and found dogs in New Jersey (of all places, why? Where is New Jersey anyway? ) and posts with “no one loves me and clicks Like on my picture”. I can’t do anything for the dogs, two is plenty. Click Like on your picture? Why? I don’t know you. At all. Sorry that you are ancient. Or have Downs. Or have any other problem. I know nothing about you beyond your complaint the no one clicks Like.
Yeah. Haters R Us.
With whom?
The widely circulated story was that he was living as a woman.
Post-Jenner, I can’t understand why he would feel the need to hide if that was the case.
>> All 27,000 rental kiosks will be closed and then removed as it looks to sell of its assets to bring in cash.
(re RedBox) Is their any secondary market for DVD dispensing machines? Or just for scrap value?
Probably lots of NIMBY about high voltage transmission lines too.
My guess is that someone will buy Redbox intact. Maybe Sony.
Shots fired at Trump at rally in Butler PA.
>> The gas is still flowing. If you have only electric appliances it’s on you to have an alternative for when there is no electricity, or to have food you can eat without cooking.
And I have the “means” to protect all of those stoves.
FIFY
Shots fired at tRump. He’s bloodied but OK. That’s what the Dumbo rhetoric gets you.
>> I have trust issues with John Cornyn, our senior senator from Texas. Does anyone understand what he is trying to do here ? Does anyone trust him ? And why does he think that he can get this through the Senate, the House, and the Presidency ?
He knows better, that many bills are introduced but go nowhere…except as publicity in his newsletters to his constituents.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/less-1-bills-introduced-congress-120017558.html
I watched the guy load a Redbox one day. That is one very cool machine. A super juke box. Four or five carousels of discs that spin as needed with an arm that plucks the disc and moves it to the dispense slot. And for what it’s worth, the machine at the HEB in Burnet always worked.
I can’t say that for the Coinstar machine inside the store. But yeah, the plugs from metal electric boxes did tend to jam the machine.
I liked that the Coinstar usually rejected silver coins. “Oh, sorry about that, let me trade that for cash.” I collected a lot of silver coins over the years. A couple of quart jars.
I guess the down voter of this comment is sorry it was a miss. Sad little person.
I think/feel John Cornyn is a bag of shi(r)t. He’s a politician after all.
But I read an article somewhere about how wealthy the various leaches are.
Cornyn is not all that wealthy compared to oh, say Miss Bartender who is somehow worth several millions on her salary after just a few years in office.
Is he honest or stupid? I lean towards honest.
Maybe the down vote was one of “this is bad”. Like a sad face emoji?
Emojis would be handy to have.
On the other hand, the up-vote could mean “yay, someone shot at Trump”.
Watching the video it was two groups of shots. Someone had plenty of time, but went for the headshot and missed. He doesn’t have the presidential podium, that one was skinny, and he doesn’t have the ballistic cloth barriers that shoot up out of troughs on the stage.
Bet he does next time.
n
also, with all the cams on site, no reverse angle of the crowd?
I stopped both gennies for a bit. Decided to re-tune them and check the oil. Honda needed about an ounce, so did the generac.
Both sound a bit better now. They had drifted off of a nice smooth hum.
Rain drops were hitting me when I was working. At 88F with saturated air, it’s pretty unpleasant out.
n
Violence (or even threats of violence) is not an appropriate action no matter who it is against.
I don’t think anyone should wish violence on another person. And don’t agree when that sort of violence is advocated here – as some have done in the past (many times). I don’t think those types of comments are needed here. They are as inappropriate as those comments from others that have been deleted here.
Use legal processes to take care of offenders, or those that commit offensive acts. But comments by some here that advocate ‘violent ending’ of anyone should not be allowed here.
Several outlets are reporting the shooter is dead.
I had the ClearChannel flagship on the radio driving home from an errand just now.
Nothing compared to what’s going to happen in the aftermath of the assassination attempt.
This could get ugly, fast. Escalation and retribution are real, and emotions are high.
B and T came out today to mess with their deer blinds. They have been friends since kindergarten, so, a long time.
Long enough that I remember when T had dark red hair while in Jr High. It’s all brown going to gray and silver now.
B asked about his dad’s Jeep. It’s a 2000 I think, 2 door Cherokee. Has about 245,000 miles on it. Doesn’t use oil, runs like a Singer. It threw the serpentine belt one morning and his dad decided he’ll just drive the Ford van. So the Jeep is just sitting. All of the pulleys can be moved by had so it’s not “something seized”.
It just needs a new belt.
Well, “how much do you want for the Jeep?”. Dude, your dad said it’s yours whenever you want it. Like almost two years ago. So, it’s your Jeep.
Oh.
We have had this conversation before. It makes me think of the Bill Cosby sketch where he’s talking to his kid that is acting stupid. “Don’t touch that! Why did you touch that?” “I don’t know….”
It’ll all settle out.
Border-crossing militant Hamas rapists and murderers attacking your children?
Doped up meth-heads coming at you with a knife?
BLM rioters pulling white people out of cars to beat them senseless?
Antifa thugs with molotov cocktails?
I can come up with more examples, if you like. I’d mention the KKK but that’s been an actually non-violent FBI front for most of my lifetime.
I think you need to reconsider your POV.
It is entirely appropriate to defend yourself. I think it is at least worthy of rhetoric and discussion to defend your Nation from enemies both foreign and domestic.
Nowhere in my statement did I mention not defending myself, or defending nation-state.
But some of the comments here are not defensive in nature. They are violently offensive.
@rick, are there some pull quotes? I am not understanding your vehemence.
n
@Nick – There are many comments from some commenters here advocating violent ends to specific people, groups of people, nation-states, etc.
Not my site, but have been tempted to use the ‘hammer’ and delete those comments. Haven’t done that, but those comments would have been deleted if they were on a site that I controlled.
What is concerning is that often those comments advocating violent actions are upvoted; I assume by others here.
I’m not sure advocating is the right word, but I’ll pay attention. I guess I have a higher tolerance for rhetoric.
n
IDK how they are going to try to spin this as right wing violence, but I know there will be victim blaming…
“That’s what you get when you …”
n
Dude got 8 shots off before the response.
I read the other day that the cops in some part of Germany are having fits because saying “Auslander raus” is somehow a hate crime. It’s a nice succinct phrase.
Burning a Koran is a hate crime. Burning a gay flag is a hate crime. Burning a Bible or the national flag? No problem….
I don’t see why saying the various aliens need to leave Germany is a hate crime…. I don’t recall any kind of vote by the Volk to admit the world into Germany to collect welfare with the added “benefits” of having your women raped.
But the politicians seem to be mostly women and are are messed up and living alone with a few cats and a box of wine. Anyway.
The cops got called to some party or something and hey, ya ever been to Wurstfest? Anywhere? Chicken Dance song? Anyone? Same thing. They had a song about Auslander Raus.
But really. Who decided to open the borders? I don’t remember having a vote about it. AND why is it that European aka White countries, aka the US and Canada and Europe, need to be filled with “Diversity”?
It can’t be for the food. Ever hear of a recipe book? It’s actually a thing.
We used to pick our own crops. Does Grapes of Wrath ring a bell?
We should know better. We have oh, 13% of the population committing what? 60% of the crime?
Auslander raus.
It didn’t happen after the War Between the States because no-one wanted to pay the boat fares to export the obsolete farm equipment.
It seems the Germans are waking up. Wait and see what happens when Sweden and Denmark wake up, they were Vikings not that long ago.
13% of the population committing what? 60% of the crime?
– you have to qualify by “violent” crime, and it’s worse than that because most of the offenders are males, 50% of the offending population, and then reduce it further to an age range, so it’s really like 4% of the US population committing (and I think it’s 40%) of violent crimes.
n
Most of the homicides in the US take place in only a few counties too. Most counties never see a homicide.
So not only is it concentrated in one population, it’s concentrated locally too.
n
The counties that rarely see a homicide are the un-diverse ones. Because diversity brings increased crime.
People get weird about money and things after a death. This is actually on the positive side…
Peruse X for a recent quote attributed to FJB relevant to today. ‘Nuf said…
>> Maybe the down vote was one of “this is bad”. Like a sad face emoji?
Emojis would be handy to have.
Or Gravitars 😉
(@RickH, no need to respond lol.)
My uncle still is looking for things my grandmother gave to us long before her death. He’s not going to get them either because he’s a piece of sh!t abuser.
Dunno which side of “weird about stuff” that puts me on, but it’s definitely “get weird”.
————-
Put new burners in the grill. These are the fifth replacement set, iirc. Takes about half an hour total, working slowly. Cost about $30. Grill is a Jenn Air that cost a lot back in 2009? even as a discounted floor model. It’s been rebuilt several times. Grills, igniter, thermometer, burners, heat shields. The body is in great shape, the parts that get hot wear out.
Grilled pork chops and canned peas for dinner.
—————
Replaced the burners in the grill at the BOL this month, which is the bigger version of the grill I have here, 4 burners instead of three. Got it super cheap in an estate auction. Not a cheap grill.
Worth fixing stuff if you can.
—————-
WRT the assassination attempt, the timing is pretty good for the dems, isn’t it? We’ll see how long before “dementia joe has got to go” is back in the headlines.
But that’s just me being super cynical. Right?
n
On a lighter note, I am going to make fun of someone’s name…
“Heavens to …”
I can’t be the only one who remembers the cartoon.
n
MeTV Toons has it.
The most disappointing part of MeTV Toons is the commercials from the usual assortment of Weigel clients – Generac, ED meds, and “side effects: death” psoriasis treatments.
Can I have some concrete suggestions and pointers on creating a website and hosting that’s truly anonymous? Not the technical website stuff, but the anonymity part.
I may have decided that if someone is willing to take a bullet for me, I should step up and be willing to risk doxxing to violent commies/antifa/progressives/democrats (some overlap).
But I don’t want to make it easy.
There’s still time to have a positive effect on election integrity if I hurry.
I’ll begin my design work tomorrow, and reach out to some people like Lara Trump and Jim Hoft for support.
All I know is that it’s REALLY hard, and if you f it up once, they have you.
n
“Trump injured in shooting at Pennsylvania rally that left at least 1 dead”
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/election-biden-trump-07-13-24/index.html
“Former President Donald Trump was injured in a shooting Saturday evening during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A gunman and at least one audience member are dead, the Secret Service said, and two other attendees are critically injured.”
“Trump said on social media that he was shot and hit by a bullet in the “upper part of my right ear.” The Secret Service said the former president is safe after he was rushed off the stage with blood on his face. A spokesperson said Trump is “fine” after the “heinous act.””
“The Secret Service said the shooter fired multiple shots from an “elevated position” outside of the rally before he was killed by agents. Law enforcement sources told CNN the shooter was on a building rooftop just outside the rally venue. The shooting is being investigated as an attempted assassination, according to law enforcement officials.”
Shades of Bobby Kennedy.
I think I’m going to re-fuel, shower, and head to bed early. I’m tired, and I don’t really need to sit out for a while to calm down today.
Wife and one kid coming home tomorrow, at least long enough to drop off the kid. She’s got camp for two days, then a trip with a friend, so she needs to be here. W and D2, not so much.
‘Course I’ll be here.
n
I stopped both gennies for a bit. Decided to re-tune them and check the oil. Honda needed about an ounce, so did the generac.
Both sound a bit better now. They had drifted off of a nice smooth hum.
Rain drops were hitting me when I was working. At 88F with saturated air, it’s pretty unpleasant out.
We’ve been off the genny at the house since Wednesday night. We are the last house in our subdivision that has power. All of my neighbors have gennies of some sort running and are envious.
My church does not have power yet but we are going have church in the morning. No a/c and I am wondering about the lighting. I may go in shorts.
Can I have some concrete suggestions and pointers on creating a website and hosting that’s truly anonymous? Not the technical website stuff, but the anonymity part.
https://areaocho.com/hestia-front/
https://areaocho.com/hosting/
“Fewer than 500,000 customers without power, claims CenterPoint”
https://www.chron.com/weather/article/centerpoint-outage-tracker-19569035.php
“On Thursday, CenterPoint Energy said at least 500,000 customers would be without power through the weekend. However, according to its outage tracker, fewer than 460,000 are waiting for the lights to come back on, putting the utility provider one day ahead of its expectations.”
“According to the tracker’s update at 9:24 p.m., 458,747 customers still needed power after Hurricane Beryl tore through the Houston area. Considering CenterPoint has about 2.8 million customers, that means roughly 83.6 percent of its customers now have power. On Friday, CenterPoint announced a goal of ensuring 85 percent of its customers were back on the grid.”
They know exactly to a single electric meter how many meters are up and how many meters are down. Their servers talk with their electric meters every five minutes. If the meter does not respond, it is presumed to be down and a linemen truck is rolled. Very few people have old style analog meters in Texas, too expensive to deal with.
Now comes the difficult time for the linemen for the serious problems that have to be fixed. Replacing poles or sistering poles is very time consuming. I have to admit, I would like Centerpoint to move to concrete poles. Much tougher.