Still cool and wet. Damp at least. This time of year is monotonous and tedious if you like sun. That’s probably true of winter everywhere but Southern California and the desert… We had overcast and misty drizzle most of the day yesterday and I don’t think I saw the sun.
It was a pretty non-stop day. Kids and wife in the morning, doctor visit, client visit, kid taxi, dinner, more kid taxi… just a bit more non-negotiable tasks than usual. Never made it to the grocery store. That’ll be today.
Today should have a bit more flexibility. I have pickups to do, so I’ll be out and about. That helps with grabbing a quick visit to the grocery store. It also helps with stuff like getting gas, and other everyday sort of tasks. I usually try to combine trips and tasks as a way to save time and money. My kid taxi duties are reduced on Mon, Wed, and Fri, so that helps, and D1’s new choice for after-school activity moves her pickup to 5pm from 3pm. That helps a lot by not shortening my afternoon “me” time.
Super compelling content, I know…
The first week of the new administration is just freaking insane. More real change, or attempted change, in one week than in a couple of decades. My only feeling is that it won’t last. It won’t hold up. Too much inertia, too many rice bowls getting slapped out of peoples’ hands. Too much change too fast. On the other hand… lot’s of pent up demand might mean it really does change. For a while anyway. It will revert to the mean. Everything does. Maybe though, the new mean will be lower than the old one. Any thing will be an improvement.
Not a reason to stop stacking though. Stuff is going to be massively disrupted. Preps will help, as they will in any disaster. Disasters are just REALLY quick and massive change after all…
nick
First post. Nothing to say.
The MSDN disc I used to have for Office 2013 stopped working reliably on Windows 7/8. Fortunately, I scored an academic installer disc from an abandoned file cabinet at the university which would accept the activation string from the MSDN envelope without a problem.
I only use Word to check the *.doc format on my resume file.
That reminds me – I need to update that file.
Spoiled rich kids.
My wife’s spoiled rich associate in Vantucky went to U of H for undergrad as did her idiot husband, the “spirit blogger”.
Replacing my wife in that slot took seven years. The new girl looks like the poster child for “fell off the back of a turnip truck”, but, at times, my wife can be howlingly naive too.
Vantucky would have been funny if it hadn’t cost me so much money.
Turnip Truck went to Oklahoma Baptist for her Bachelors, one of the few schools who meet the criteria and are allowed to discriminate against LGBTQXYZ@! for religious reasons.
The irony is that Oklahoma Baptist’s most notable graduate to date, Jim J. Bullock, peddled what was possibly the most stereotypical gay man schtick on TV in the 80s and early 90s.
– um, too late.
——————–
Up and moving. 59F, Still wet out, shiny streets, and a slow drip from the eves…
Coffee is ready though…
n
Mountain House has a “build your own kit” promo going.
https://mountainhouse.com/products/build-your-own-7-day-kit
You are supposed to get 20% off at checkout. Ordering directly from MH’s website is rarely the best price but if you get exactly what you want, it might be worth it to pay a little more.
I’m really sad that Costco no longer has the MH boxed kits- they were a great base for a week long emergency.
n
Netflix paid for “Emilia Perez” rights, and Gomez just alienated half of their customers.
The movie is a piece of garbage, but curiosity from the Oscar buzz would normally drive people to Netflix.
I know a guy who knows a guy that works from home for Uncle Sam. Here’s the email he received from the Office of Personnel Management HR:
My wife received the same email. It looked like spam at first when she showed me on her work laptop.
The “working” from home people are the targets for the program.
So the east coast drone invasion was just the FAA doing “research” and “various other reasons”?
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/white-house-clarifies-dronegate-new-jersey-drones-authorized-faa-research-purposes
This makes no sense to me. What sort of ‘research’ requires large numbers of drones flying, secretly, at night? And what, exactly, are the ‘other reasons’?
I don’t have a guess as to what is going on myself, but this is information-free deflection/obfuscation from the WH.
This means that whatever is happening the new administration is on board with the previous administrations secrecy and only paying lip service to their promise … which is somewhat worrisome.
ADS-B “Out”. My rejected thesis topic was that the system was vulnerable to tampering.
My thesis advisor rejected the possibility, but I have not seen any major changes in the last decadevbesides law enforcement being able to turn off their transponders.
They are either testing the drones themselves, or doing something you can only do with drones. Since our remote sensing is second to none, IDK what that could be.
Maybe small sensors that need to be close to their target? Some kind of trace element ?
n
Expanding on Greg, something you don’t want a tail number associated with.
n
Or the Feds are moving receivers around to positions they don’t want known.
Commercial and private aviation is mostly daylight, so nighttime operations would have less congestion to deal with.
I’d like to think that they were testing the new fentanyl repatriation drones for their Mexico mission.
I got a good scare last night when I was leaving the office at 1 am. My main road is a ¼ mile long, double laned, and very dark. I was turning onto FM 2759 from my road when I saw a face in my passenger side window. A lady around 20 to 50 was standing there, I thought I hit her with my mirror. I slammed on my brakes, backed up and rolled down my passenger window.
Then a car stops in front of us and the lady runs to the back, trying to open the door which was locked. I rolled my driver side window down, pulled out on 2759, and asked her if she was ok. She said yes so I took off. I guess that she was getting picked up by an Uber.
Very weird.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14334585/dr-phil-selena-gomez-trump-ice-migrants.html
– Dr Phil is just another media attention whore, but he does have more credibility and respect than most.
n
“A.F. Branco Cartoon – Smoked Em’”
https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-smoked-em/
“A.F. Branco Cartoon – The new Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, is on stage and fired. Gringe is gone, and the intellectual adults are back in the room dishing out the hard cold truth, destroying the left’s propaganda media to their face.”
I watched her a little bit. I would not dare to verbally fight with her at all.
On the other side of the blanket, as it were, I had a couple of weird experiences just after nightfall when walking in Lancaster.
It was the best time of day to walk, particularly in summer after work, but even in the halcyon law abiding days of 20yo it got bad enough that I stopped.
The want-to-buy-drugs types were bad enough, but the ones that were (I finally realized) trying to pick up a (supposed) male prostitute were really really creepy, a few with a vibe that made me happy to be carrying a weapon.
“F-35 Crashes at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska as Pilot Ejects Safely”
https://rumble.com/v6elj97-f-35-crashes-at-eielson-air-force-base-in-alaska-as-pilot-ejects-safely.html
Well, now we have 198 F-35s as two have crashed in the last six months.
We desperately need the plane for its stealth and long legs. The Israelis love it, they used F-35s to bomb Sudan / Yemen a while back. No way the F-16s could make it and their F-15s are tired.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Today’s task is crawling around the smallest bedroom on hands and knees fixing the old baseboards. They were never ‘finished’, just partially primered maybe 30yo, the nail holes not filled, and some old termite damage is evident in places.
So for now I am just patching, and replacing the worst of it, and putting in temporary carpet, since it will all come out when I get uniform wall to wall carpet down the road a bit.
Weather is back to the usual freezing to 60F mode, clear skies, the storm is gone.
Netflix paid for “Emilia Perez” rights, and Gomez just alienated half of their customers.
The movie is a piece of garbage, but curiosity from the Oscar buzz would normally drive people to Netflix.
Selena Gomez is a billionaire like her BFF Taylor Swift. Not sure she cares.
Sounds like one of her handlers got to her.
So the east coast drone invasion was just the FAA doing “research” and “various other reasons”?
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/white-house-clarifies-dronegate-new-jersey-drones-authorized-faa-research-purposes
This makes no sense to me. What sort of ‘research’ requires large numbers of drones flying, secretly, at night? And what, exactly, are the ‘other reasons’?
I don’t have a guess as to what is going on myself, but this is information-free deflection/obfuscation from the WH.
This means that whatever is happening the new administration is on board with the previous administrations secrecy and only paying lip service to their promise … which is somewhat worrisome.
Apparently if a drone sees you in Ukraine, you are dead from a dropped grenade or a missile from the larger drones.
My thought is that they are testing anti-drone detection and defense weapons and need a huge area to do so. Usually they would use the Mojave Desert for this but there are no trees and Joshua Trees do not count as a real tree.
“Gov. Greg Abbott said to be exploring deal to send Houston water to West Texas”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/houston-water-abbott-20020802.php
No, no, no. We need to put desalination membrane systems in at Corpus Christi. They can drop the Gulf of America sea water from 30,000 ppm salt to 15 ppm salt for $4.00 per thousand gallons. I do not understand why they would run a six foot diameter water pipeline from Houston to Midland. That is a 2,800 foot elevation change.
And Houston’s pipes will never stop leaking. Some of those transmission pipes (pipes over one foot diameter) have been in place since the 1920s.
“Too Fast To Keep Up”
https://areaocho.com/too-fast-to-keep-up/
“Trump is getting things done so quickly, that it is difficult to keep up. The latest is how the left has its panties in a bunch because the President has ordered the CDC to cease all collaborative work with the WHO, effective immediately.”
“The left is pointing to possible set backs to work on investigating and trying to stop outbreaks of Marburg virus and monkeypox in Africa. They also point out that health authorities around the world are monitoring bird flu outbreaks among U.S. livestock.”
Preach on, bro !
I am trying to get my mind around the $10 trillion annual spending that the USA has now. That just is insane.
>>I watched her a little bit. I would not dare to verbally fight with her at all.
She could probably take you out in a physical alteration as well.
RIght after she deals with Behar.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/media/article-14339177/amp/Joy-Behar-view-karoline-leavitt.html
Stay out of the bathhouses.
And, please, don’t give me the BS that the bathhouses closed 40 years ago.
“Elon Musk’s DOGE Already Saving $1 Billion a Day”
https://www.infowars.com/posts/elon-musks-doge-already-saving-1-billion-a-day/
““DOGE is saving the Federal Government approx. $1 billion/day, mostly from stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations, all consistent with the President’s Executive Orders. A good start, though this number needs to increase to > $3 billion/day,” the Department said in a social media post Tuesday.”
“BREAKING: Lee Zeldin CONFIRMED for EPA Administrator”
https://therightscoop.com/breaking-lee-zeldin-confirmed-for-epa-administrator/
“The vote mirrored the cloture vote of 56-42, meaning Fetterman, Gallego and Kelly voted with Republicans to put him well over the top.”
Schumer must be going nuts. I am surprised about Kelly though, he is fairly liberal even though he is a retired NASA astronaut.
The Dumbos play dirty. They will do anything to get what they want. The confirmation hearings are for Kabuki. No one’s vote is ever swayed. You can bet the Dumbos are behind the 100’s of lawsuits coming for tRump. tRump has learned from his first term and is firing everyone and putting in the right peeps. Internal sabotage by the Dumbos is failing, woke is dead, DEI is dead, trannies are done, and the pussification of our military is over. The Schemer’s net worth is $81 million, his salary is $210,000, but makes close to $9 million/year. I bet he is in Congress to grease that $9 million.
DOGE for the win!
Kelly is 60 and he doesn’t want to face a candidate backed by Hensley Beverage in four years when he runs for reelection in a Presidential year without Trump at the top of the ticket.
Gitmo for the win:
Trump says he’ll send 30,000 illegal migrants to Guantanamo Bay
He should cut a hole in the back fence and let them into Cuber. An aircraft carrier could take them all at once. Call DOGE!
the pussification of our military is over.
–this is consistent with the build up to Bigwar III. When cadre gets called back to train up the influx, it’s getting close.
n
(may not be necessary if there are enough guys in the “rehire after NoVax dismissal” group have enough trainers)
Cubans want them in their country even less than Americans.
Venezuelans are not Cubans, and vice-versa.
@lpdbwre: Ozark Trail 7.5 inch Slide Lock Folder Folding Knife with Ball Bearing 3.3 inch D2 Blade Belt Clip
Exclusive to Walmart.
I looked at reviews on the Walmart website and a couple of independent reviews, including this one:
https://gearjunkie.com/knives/walmart-ozark-trail-folding-knife-review
which says a lot about the state of the U.S knife market today. $180 is a “medium duty knife”.
The main criticisms are that the blade grind is too blunt, which is correctable with a resharpening, and the scales suck. The latter was predictable as the description does not state the material of construction.
A few years ago I would have made a mold and cast scales in other materials. Now I’d 3D print them, probably TPU, and I would not be surprised if people haven’t already done so, have posted the file, and been talking about the results. With a couple of mods this looks like it could really put the hurt on some fat-and-coasting knifemakers. If Walmart has a team with any sense they will be working with the Chinese manufacturer to get a bigger brother into production and have a few million in stock for next Christmas.
@lpdbw, Let us know what you think. If they ever get back in stock I may buy a dozen and scatter them around in the vehicles and toolboxes, as well as the BOB’s.
@EdH
First house was a late-50’s ranch bought from the couple that had purchased it new. The lady was allegedly a creative type (nice depiction of dogs at the bar on the block wall of the basement rec room) but evidently paint mad. The gutters and old-style removable storm windows sported no less than three colors. The baseboards had two good coats of varnish and held up well as I went around the living room and bedrooms on hands and knees removing 3-4 colors of paint spatters with careful scraping and steel wool. Then I masked them off and painted each room white like God intended.
My sibling bought a house where every room had very expensive, and very well installed wall paper- in at least 2 and usually 3 patterns per room. Ceilings were papered. The massive two story foyer with oak paneling and mouldings was papered…
Every outlet and switch cover, every A/C register- covered.
It took a year to strip it all.
n
ugh
Hope the price was commensurate.
absolutely textbook
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14334403/selena-gomez-crying-video-donald-trump-deportation-real-reason-deleted.html
n
That would be the things they VOLUNTARILY undertook to face… that they went to great lengths to face. .. That had an astonishingly huge payout with a grand kid worth 1.3 BILLION dollars.
cry me a river.
n
Security Agents Escort USDA IG Out of Office for Defying Trump’s Termination Orders
comments:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2025/01/29/usda-inspector-general-escorted-out-of-office-n2651342
wrong, rushman.
K.C and the Sunshine Band:
“Oh, that’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh
That’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh
That’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh
That’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh
I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh”
@drwilliams, nick:
That’s funny! I guess too much attention is as much (or more) of a hassle as little-to-none.
Mostly done. I keep reminding myself that it’s probably all coming out and that overkill isn’t needed. Tomorrow the caulk & patches will be dry and I can sand and paint.
One 18″ piece was completely rotted out. Fortunately the previous owner had used baseboard around a door in one spot (!) and when I replaced it with standard door molding I had the foresight to put the old bits up in the rafters for future use.
PSA: Nothing works to remove closed cell gap-filler foam when it hardens on ones’ hands. Acetone can was empty.
JD Vance Has Appropriate Reply After ‘Journalist’ Equates Milley’s Portrait Removal to ‘Erasing’ History
https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2025/01/29/jd-vance-has-appropriate-reply-after-journalist-equates-milleys-portrait-removal-to-erasing-history-n2184978
Remember when I asked for pipe-hitters?
Nail. Head. BAM!
Macron’s TikTok disaster: Bid to look cool backfires after president chats with ‘influencer’ who calls him a ‘dwarf married to his teacher’ who ‘runs a country the size of a potato’
https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=413447
Wonder if he practiced for an afternoon by stepping in a roomful of rakes?
Michigan State U. Dismisses Plagiarism Allegations Against Dean of College of Education
Now if some of the people that he plagiarized–whole pages, fercryinoutloud–would file suit against MSU and the appropriate journals for copyright violation, and seek as a partial remedy to require that every freaking copy held in libraries be hunted down and annotated to show the true authorship of the stolen passages. Not just a tipped-in errata sheet, but an indelibly stamped declaration that the work contains stolen material.
Putting the same notice into online copies is trivially easy.
The next student accused on plagiarism should get a legal team working pro bono to shove it back at MSU.
Brother Kash’ll meet me when the prison boat lands
Keys to the cell block will be in his hands
AStrapped to the water board and talk all night
It’s all on the Trump side in Guantanamo Bay
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Come sing me la!
Come sing me Guantanamo Bay
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Thanks to Bobby Bloom and Montego Bay
Helo and plane collide in D.C.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/01/29/reports-of-a-serious-aviation-accident-at-reagan-airport-tonight-n2651379
There is no excuse for this.
If you look at the 22-second video pay attention to the plane low near the horizon, and watch the faint track coming in from the left.
ADDED:
https://redstate.com/joesquire/2025/01/29/breaking-multiple-agencies-responding-to-crash-at-dc-airport-n2184983
That is some dramatic video.
n
About halfway down the page is the radar tracking:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/01/29/reports-of-a-serious-aviation-accident-at-reagan-airport-tonight-n2651379
If I’m reading it right, the helo made a 45-degree turn to the right about 5-6 seconds before the collision.
Army statement:
“We can confirm that the aircraft involved in tonight’s incident was an Army UH-60 helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, out of Davison Army Airfield, Fort Belvoir during a training flight. We are working with local officials and will provide additional information once it becomes available.”
From Flightradar24 on X:
The FAA confirms tonight’s collision near DCA involved #AA5342 and a US military H60. The helicopter was not broadcasting ADS-B data. The last received ADS-B position from the CRJ was at 01:48 UTC.
(emph added)
I have a bad feeling about this. I am wondering who was on that flight.