Cold and dreary, light rain possible, and likely to be cold and grey all day. That’s what yesterday turned out to be. It did get a bit warmer in the late afternoon, but I was still cold without a hat and a windbreaker.
I did get a few things done, but it wasn’t a day where I was super effective or worked steadily. I’m not ready for a Christmas tree in the room, which was an important goal. Shouldn’t take too long to do today, but I’m behind… which is the story of my life lately.
Today I’m going to clear a space for the tree. Then I’ll do some outdoor work if it’s not raining. Maybe get to the store to get what I need for the rent house, but probably not, unless I go with to get the tree.
Getting a space for the tree means W and the Ds can get a tree up… which means Christmas is coming… and is a milestone. And I promised W that I would. It’s too easy to get distracted.
Don’t get distracted from stacking. At best, we have a pause in hostilities. At worst, we have a last gasp desperate action on the part of our enemies. Whatever happens, it is likely to be sudden and a surprise. Stacks will help. So will mindset. Work on both.
nick
Our big snowstorm fizzled. Just a couple of centimeters, most of which is already melting. It is supposed to turn cold now, and stay that way for the foreseeable future. But sunshine is back tomorrow, which will melt whatever snow is left at our altitude.
OTOH the ski resorts are happy. Last year and this year are the first years in a while that they have had enough snow for a good Christmas season.
It is also apparently Chinese tourist season? The hotel where I stay while lecturing has been stuffed with Chinese tourists. That town isn’t a tourist destination at all, so I assume they are just staying the night there, enroute from A to B. One bus leave, the next day another bus arrives. Good business for the hotel, but it seems an odd place to stop over.
I see that the Syrian government has officially collapsed. After years of battles, it seems odd that it went so fast. I also wonder who is really backing the rebels. Anyway, it’s a change but hardly an improvement. Assad was a brutal dictator, now to be replaced by brutal Islamists. It’s a shame both sided couldn’t lose.
Spatial audio is annoying when you are walking across the yard and hearing the leaves crush under your feet for the first time in many ears. Or when you are sitting down, watching TV and the sound starts and stops when the dog jumps in your lap for kisses.
I think that my dad got hit by the car since he could not hear the car coming up behind him. His hearing aids from Costco are hit and miss. If, he had them in.
Dad walks real funny since he cannot feel anything below his knees, his neuropathy is fairly advanced. He watches constantly for any imperfection in the surface as he drags his feet too. He does not have drop foot but he is close.
You really need to have your head on a swivel in these gas stations.
BTW, dad called Geico, the ladys insurance, to see what they were thinking. The lady who hit him had not called them yet. That is not good. But the agent offered him $20,000 to close the incident. I am wondering if the agent lied to him and she had called.
54 F and wet and misting. I am going to wear my heavy jacket with a rain hood that I bought last year from Eddie Bauer to church. I wore it to the TAMU game last weekend, it was perfect.
Automation is great until it meets the reality of enforcement.
The brutal dictator was also a gifted Ophthalmic surgeon who did not want to turn back the clock to the 8th century.
Syria is now another failed secular state in the Middle East like Iraq and Libya.
If Assad dies like Khadafy or Saddam, all bets will be off with regard to controlling nuclear proliferation in the region. The message will be to get nuclear weapons as fast as possible.
Buc-ee’s traffic is bad in most locations. They need to bring back the pump wranglers.
Now I’m wondering if my mother-in-law opted for a settlement in her situation with encouragement from my sister-in-law, who pocketed some of the cash.
Everywhere is a tourist destination with AirBnB.
Chinese oldsters don’t do eight hours in a vehicle. If your town is on a common route from Munich to Paris, that probably explains the daily bus load of tourists staying overnight, especially if snow is falling.
Are the lanes divided by physical barriers?
The coin machines are a giant pain in the a** to maintain and politically unpopular.
Opening offer. Even if he would be happy with that, I hope he didn’t accept it just yet. Wait and see what develops…
Since they opened with a $20,000 offer you know they will pay more. Does that include them paying the medical bills?
Generally insurance will offer twice the medical bills, unless a body function is lost and permanently disabled, or disfigurement. There is a year to settle medical. Take at least 11 months regardless of what insurance demands. They know the rules and hope the claimant doesn’t. Take the time to counter with a really high offer, say $100K. Then work your way down with threats of using an arbitrator of your choosing.
The (unofficial) magic number for the County of Ventura for a claim against them used to be $75,000.
Anything below that they’d settle out of court for a quit-claim.
About two lawyer-weeks of billing.
It’s not super cold, only 57F but the dreary part was right. Walkway and driveway is wet, grass is probably wet, but IDK if moisture is actually falling from the sky.
Time for coffee. There’s always time for coffee. And a bit of pie, or cake… with bacon.
———
WRT teflon coated pans, the manf recommends replacement every 5 years. Consensus seems to be that until they chip or peel they are ok, as long as they are never overheated.
I consider them an expendable and keep a stock of replacements. I like the heavy aluminum Kirkland chefs pans in 8″ and 10″. Some things really are better when cooked on them.
OTOH, I have nice thick stainless pans for sauces and anything that needs to brown, I’ve got cast iron for the stuff that is better cooked in that. And I’ve got some enameled iron like LeCruecet for the things that is good for.
They are tools. Sometimes you need the right tool to get a good job, sometimes it doesn’t matter.
n
Rule of thumb for personal injury claims used to be three times your medical bills. One x for the Drs, one x for the lawyers, and one x for you. The type of injury and politics might make for bigger settlements now.
And it probably doesn’t matter if you are in your 80s, but every settlement goes into a database that insurers have access to. It will most likely be used against you at some point.
n
“But the agent offered him $20,000 to close the incident.”
Funny man.
I know your father does not want to get entangled in the legal system, but he needs an attorney who it familiar with the system to protect his rights and negotiate.
@Nick
Thanks for getting me out of jail on the cooking implement post. I lost track of the links and knew after I posted that it was over the limit, but I was too late to edit.
I didn’t get into Kuang’s methodology, but 15-minute immersion in hot olive oil did not strike me as a good sim of real use, which is intermittent. There’s also the questions of bromine fire-retardant mobility within the polymer matrix, and how fast the migration into the oil falls off with repeated use.
breaking at 7:19AM, no updates:
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/12/08/breaking-assad-missing-as-his-airplane-disappears-from-radar-while-fleeing-damascus-n2182945
FDA may outlaw food dyes ‘within weeks’: Bombshell move would affect candy, soda and cakes, revolutionize American diets
https://hotair.com/headlines/2024/12/08/fda-may-outlaw-food-dyes-within-weeks-n3797688
Purely a reaction ahead of RFK, jr.’s appointment. Trump would probably do it by EO ahead of confirmation. This is just an effort by the Biden administration to cop some credit.
DM has the Syrian story ¼ of the way down the page.
n
Insurance will only pay the maximum amount of the policy. Which the insurance companies keep secret. Start high and work down. If the at-fault person has minimum coverage that will max out at $30K for Texas.
The news will come out, but I am not convinced Assad’s plane crashed. VERY few airports actually use skin paint radar sets anymore. Most just use a low power (relatively) radar to trigger the beacon. The plane was quite low, making it hard to track and I bet they just turned all the beacons off to prevent the ability to track the plane.
I also didn’t see any indication that the altitude changed before it dropped off tracking.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/12/08/irans-shiite-crescent-collapses-in-bashars-bye-bye-n3797702
From SRW in The Fort Bend Journal:
“My fear of moving stairs is escalating.”
“BREAKING: Trump To End ‘Birthright Citizenship’ on Day One.”
https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/12/08/breaking-trump-to-end-birthright-citizenship-on-day-one/
“In an interview on “Meet the Press,” President-elect Donald Trump outlined his plan for immigration policy, emphasizing deportation for those in the United States illegally. Trump expressed a commitment to removing illegal immigrants, starting with those who have committed crimes and expanding to others without specifying which crimes would be prioritized. This approach may also involve U.S. citizens choosing to leave with family members who are undocumented.”
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“The Cold, Hard Truth”
https://areaocho.com/the-cold-hard-truth/
“Ok, that last one is me. Still, there is no way that millions of Federal employees, a hundred million welfare recipients, and 70 million Social Security recipients are going to sit idly by while DOGE and DJT tell them that the money faucet is being shut off. Even the medical field, my own profession, cannot survive without government money.”
” In 2022, 53% of Americans received at least a quarter of their income from government aid, up from 1% in 1970.
Government transfers account for 18% of all personal income in the United States
One in four Americans received Medicaid in 2022
One in five Americans received Medicare in 2022
One in five Americans receive Social Security
12% of Americans are on Food Stamps, and 39% of children in school receive free lunches at school
In fact, Americans received $3.8 trillion in government transfers in 2022
Then there are employees. There are 28.5 million people directly employed by governments in the US.
Millions more are employees of businesses that owe their livelihoods to government largesse.”
We are so screwed.
“Sunday Morning Musings on Billionaires”
https://areaocho.com/sunday-morning-musings-on-billionaires/
“The reality is that investment entails risk- and this is true whether the investment is your labor, your money, or anything else of value. The riskier the investment, the higher that the reward must be, or else the juice simply isn’t worth the squeeze. If you remove the reward by telling a person that he will stop getting paid at a certain point, then that person will stop investing at that point.”
Yup.
Truth, and we can’t shut of the tap overnight. I would propose capping all aid: No COLA. Make it harder to get on the programs.
I would also cap the pay of all federal employees except military and first responders for some period of time. Say until tax receipts equal federal payments. Oh, also convert those employees from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans.
Military and first responders deserve pensions because of the damage done to them during their career. Bureaucrats do not.
“Insurance will only pay the maximum amount of the policy. Which the insurance companies keep secret. Start high and work down. If the at-fault person has minimum coverage that will max out at $30K for Texas.”
I told him to wait a year until deciding what to do. He thinks that Medicare will pay for everything.
I just hope that he heals up soon and stops hurting..
I get 90% of my income from the government. Social Security and VA benefits
I am one of the one in five as I am on Medicare.
I am one of the one in five as I receive Social Security.
I guess I really am sucking on the government teat. However, I spent my time in the military and was injured. I spent a lifetime of working paying into Social Security. I spent 47 years paying Medicare premiums. I think I am due something back from the government that ripped the money from my paycheck without my permission.
I just came from the grocery store. The lady in front of me had a bill slightly over $350.00. A lot of junk food and snacks that were obviously for the kids. I could tell by the button presses on the keypad that all that was paid for by food stamps. She was driving a new Lexus, fancy nails, top end Apple Watch and what looked like a new iPhone 16. Now, that is what I call a leach.
They might. It depends on how the hospital codes the cause of the accident. If Medicare finds out the injury was from an auto accident caused by another person, Medicare may refuse to pay anything.
My health insurance refused to pay anything on my accident in 2014 as it was a vehicle accident caused by another driver. The other driver’s insurance paid me and I got a nasty bill from the hospital that pretty much ate up most of the settlement.
That is why the wait of almost a year. Get all the medical bills, get reimbursed for those, or have payment sent directly to the hospital. Then ask for pain and suffering and for any permanent damage. If the insurance is decent it should be no problem paying the bills as they do this all the time.
If the insurance company is one of the low life companies like I was involved with, they don’t pay the hospital and it is a hard fight to get them to pay for the medical bills.
If the insurance company is one of the low life companies like I was involved with, they don’t pay the hospital and it is a hard fight to get them to pay for the medical bills.
GEICO.
The federal government levies an effective tax rate of 15.3% on every dollar of most people’s paychecks. A small part is an insurance program, but most of it is Social Security and Medicare which the workers get returned starting at 66+ years, or more than 40+ years after they start paying in.
So, at a minimum, don’t count those payments as “net receivers of government funds” until the contributions are properly paid back, in inflation-appreciated dollars with a nominal imputed interest rate.
The Democrats have spent decades fighting tooth and nail to keep control of those worker funds so they can bestow them as government largesse. Any time a reasonable proposal has been made to allow part of those funds to be privately invested, even in something as safe as a stock market index fund, the Dems scream like stuck pigs.
Since about 1981 401(k) investments were allowed by direct salary deductions. If performance of the low-risk plans was used to compute the current value of Social Security accounts, the size would be many times what the government claims as your lifetime contributions.
So, to use a well-understood pseudo fusion of English and Spanish: “shovito”. There is no “not reception of government benefits” until that money is paid back, as above, in inflation-appreciated dollars with a nominal imputed interest rate.
Now compare and contrast:
Welfare, food stamps, government jobs paying 40% more than the private equivalent, jagov government workers at home in their jammies on the couch with no measurement of productivity, thieves like FJB stealing millions and paying no tax, billions of dollars in drug money untaxed, the IRS demanding 1099’s for every eBayer making more than $600…
Trillions of dollars in regulations imposed by idiots elected and un-elected with no benefit at all, much less a net benefit calculation.
A medical system that makes a cash customer pay the most for services whereas the deepest discount goes to insurance companies that don’t pay for months?
Nope, can’t fix it overnight.
But how about if January 20 the new president directs the IRS to compute a tax bill for every member of the Biden family criminal enterprise that received documented untaxed funds?
How about if Dr. Anthony Fauci gets a bill for secret service protection? And if he doesn’t pay it make the ones who spent the taxpayer funds to give him that benefit themselves liable?
How about if we get some forensic accounting on the Clintons, the Obamas, the Pelosi’s, and every other elected official that got to be millionaires or moreso while trading on their offices? Many of the dirty deals are well-known and documented, but there has not been the political will to deliver the punishment and the bill. Lick your finger and stick it up in the wind–that may be changing.
Medicare starts at 65. SS can be started at 62.
Yup.
Medicare starts at 65–for now. I note that we have Chicago phone books worth of rules for “extras” like Part B, Part C, Part D., and some of them will result in you never getting some benefits if you don’t get professional guidance.
SS can be started at 62 with a deep discount of 25-30%, or 30-35% for the spouse.
None of which has any bearing on the screwing of the wage-earning American taxpayer.
HEB had two holiday special flavor ice creams in their house brand. Eggnog, which tastes exactly like the HEB brand eggnog in a carton, and gingerbread cookie dough.
I love both…
n
Nope, there was just empty shelves at my HEB. So I had to get some HEB chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
I stopped at Dollar Tree the day before Thanksgiving and they had at least four kinds of Gullon-brand cookies imported from Spain, including regular and chocolate Marias. They haven’t had the Goya brand for more than a year, but these are as good. They also had Butterfly and Duetos, the latter with chocolate filling.
The chocolate Marias are sold out. The ingredients list gives me hope that they will keep well beyond the 6-month “best by” date, so I will see if I can get some put away before they mysteriously disappear…
I get 90% of my income from the government. Social Security and VA benefits
I am one of the one in five as I am on Medicare.
I am one of the one in five as I receive Social Security.
You earned all that.
Austin may freeze Wednesday morning so the milk, eggs, and bread will all be gone Tuesday night.
Blizzard French Toast!
Next two days supposed to be clear across most of Texas.
I can use the outdoor time.
n