Sat. Mar. 22, 2025 – taking my life in my hands… or rather putting it in D1’s hands

By on March 22nd, 2025 in culture, decline and fall

Cool and clear, should be a nice day. Yesterday started cold, but ended mid 70s. Really nice to drive around with the windows down. Hoping for more of that today.

Did some stuff yesterday. Drove around and did a big loop of pickups. Got some good stuff. Talked to one of the guys and he’ll take the two biggest things in my foyer on consignment. Talked to another, and he’s giving up on the reseller life.

Ventured out into the community to buy some Friday night fish fry and ran into two people I know, one a friend from my hobby club, the other I saw at Costco for years. I’m bumping into people I know when I’m out and about. That used to be my signal to start thinking about moving. Now I’m firmly rooted, and it’s a signal my meatspace plans are working. Now these are ordinary people not movers and shakers, but those aren’t really the folks I wanted to meet. I don’t really want to come to their attention. I like recognizing someone from a store or business outside that context. It tells me I’ve been paying at least a little bit of attention, and that I’m getting out among the people.

It’s very easy to isolate at home with a few contacts. I think that’s not a good idea though, as comfortable as it may be. Who you know and who knows you might be vitally important in a world run face to face. Time to get out there and practice.

Speaking of practice, today I’ll be letting D1 drive me around to my pickups. One is in Seabrook, about an hour and a half away, then the other is due north an hour to Baytown, then back across town to the west side and home. I don’t know how much of that I’ll let her drive, it’s pretty exhausting when you are a new driver. It will give me some time to coach her on the expressway. I have only been able to coach her on surface streets so far. Pray for light traffic, and calm drivers…. and my composure.

——-
Get out and about. Talk to people. Stack relationships.

nick

60 Comments and discussion on "Sat. Mar. 22, 2025 – taking my life in my hands… or rather putting it in D1’s hands"

  1. Denis says:

    Good luck, Nick! It has been nice knowing you 🙂

  2. Greg Norton says:

    Regarding Waco,   think long and hard about that.   There is more than a hint of corruption, old school families running things, and lots of shenanigans.   If you  aren’t one of them, you are sheep to be sheared. Boss Hogg runs Waco.

    I get weird vibe when I am in Waco.  I would probably prefer Temple even though it is not far from Austin.  In either case, I would live outside the city boundaries.

    Waco is Baylor. Baylor is Waco.

    The school name doesn’t mean as much as it used to, but it is still a Fancy Lad institution.

    Among other issues, the scandal of sex change surgeries for kids at Texas Children’s will be a really slow unwind because of Baylor’s involvement with the hospital.

    Temple is heavily dependent on Federal spending at Fort Hood and the massive VA complex. DOGE is eying both for cuts.

  3. Greg Norton says:

    Temple is heavily dependent on Federal spending at Fort Hood and the massive VA complex. DOGE is eying both for cuts.

    Temple healthcare is dominated by Baylor, Scott & White.

    The original BSW hospital is up there.

    At CGI, the $300 “facilities charge” to access care at BSW clinics was a running joke in the office.

  4. brad says:

    The F-47 will supposedly have a price north of $300 million. To expensive to risk, and almost certainly too low a production rate to matter anyway.

    Regarding the latest activist judges: Has anyone heard any sort of legal analysis? Seems to me that it must be possible for the President to simply ignore obviously erroneous rulings. Saying he cannot dismiss trans military members, for example.

    On a related note, I was shocked at a picture published a few days ago, purporting to show three seriously obese military folk. Are the fitness standards no longer in force? In my day, so 35 years ago, you either passed annual fitness tests or you were out.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    Do people put bars on windows before or after the first robbery ?

        https://www.har.com/homedetail/4348-state-hwy-53-temple-tx-76501/312998?lid=9360904

    If you are looking on the Rogers side of Temple, you will want to work with a realtor who has been there a long time and knows the plans for I-14 as well as whatever is left of the Trans Texas Corridor/Central Texas Turnpike boondoggle.

    In theory, the TTC is dead, but a lot of soup bowls were tied to that mess for more than a decade, and right of way acquisitions and land speculation out near Rogers generated a lot of hard feelings between locals.

  6. Ray Thompson says:

    In my day, so 35 years ago, you either passed annual fitness tests or you were out

    Same when I was in the USAF some 45 years ago. If the 1st sergeant did not like the way a person looked, he would send them in to get weighed. If the person was overweight, they were given just a few months to get down to the maximum weight for their age. My neighbor had the fat from his stomach sucked out, private pay, so he could stay in the service. The bruising was substantial as was the discomfort.

  7. Greg Norton says:

    The F-47 will supposedly have a price north of $300 million. To expensive to risk, and almost certainly too low a production rate to matter anyway.

    The US doesn’t have a real replacement for the F-15. The plan was to limp along with another update of that platform to supplement the F-22 numbers, but the Houthis may have brought down more than one F-15, meaning their Iranian masters can take those out.

    A war with Iran would currently involve F-15s and F-22s operating out of Saudi Arabia to establish air superiority over the Gulf. The Navy doesn’t have an adequate replacement for the F-14 in that role.

    The pea brains at the freak show commands in Tampa still toy with the idea of a hot war with Iran. They nearly got Trump to go for it in his last term.

  8. drwilliams says:

    Politico Astonished By Academia’s ‘Stunning Speed and Scope’ In Surrender to Trump

    https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/03/21/politico-academia-cant-wait-to-surrender-to-trump-n3801007

    Make an administrative determination that they are in violation of the law, then take them to court and get a binding consent decree that obligates them to ongoing monitoring with immediate loss of funds if they falter in their adherence to  Title VI, Title IX, littering laws, and anything else they can think of.

  9. MrAtoz says:

    Yup, the wife is very concerned about this.  We have more net worth than I can believe and she is very concerned that we will run out of money after 10 or 20 years.  Which, is a valid concern, she is a saver and I am a spender. 

    That’s why I put most of my IRA into an annuity. Split between income and growth. Enough money to pay expenses for 15+ years, then the growth portion fills the income. That is enough until I croak at around 90+. A portion remains in the IRA and I can take it out for a one-way to Mars.

    It’s all about planning (Hi, Mr. Ray).

    11
  10. MrAtoz says:

    Regarding the latest activist judges: Has anyone heard any sort of legal analysis? Seems to me that it must be possible for the President to simply ignore obviously erroneous rulings. Saying he cannot dismiss trans military members, for example.

    I posted yesterday about Alan Dershowitz’s podcast on this. Another is one of my favorites, Mark Levin, who has written many books on the history of SCOTUS and the courts “Men In Black” and the history of the Constitution and it’s abuse, “Liberty And Tyranny”. Both quite good books. They both say the Executive has certain immutable powers, ie, immigration and the military. If a judge can declare “there are more than two genders, what about their pronouns!” and stop removing of trannies, how soon before she is directing military operations she doesn’t like. They both say POTUS should ignore those judges, and work on getting SCOTUS (Roberts) off his dead ass and rein in these nuts.

    On a related note, I was shocked at a picture published a few days ago, purporting to show three seriously obese military folk. Are the fitness standards no longer in force? In my day, so 35 years ago, you either passed annual fitness tests or you were out.

    Trannies have it made in the military since they only have to meet female standards of body composition. A 6’ tranny could weigh 300 pounds no problemo. tRump will end this and make the US military strong again. When I was in my 19th year as a O-5 at Fort Hood, I still had to make weight and physical standards or suffer consequences.

  11. Nick Flandrey says:

    It’s a gorgeous day.   62F, sunny and not a cloud in the sky.  No wind.   Really nice.  I should be working in the garden.

    But I’m not.

    Time to get the kid up. 

    My coffee in hand,

    With the family asleep.

    Time to start the day.

    n

  12. drwilliams says:

    The FDA Can Save Lives by Keeping Copycat Drugs Off the Market

    The newest U.S. wonder drug — Zepbound — is extraordinarily effective in driving major weight loss. This drug is now being used by millions of people — about 70% of Americans are overweight — and contributing to an improvement in the country’s health. Users of the drug treatments, which suppress appetite, typically lose 10%-20% of their body weight after taking the shots. This miracle drug is reducing lives lost from obesity, heart disease, cancer and stress — while allowing millions of Americans to become more active and feel better about themselves.

    https://hotair.com/stephen-moore/2025/03/22/the-fda-can-save-lives-by-keeping-copycat-drugs-off-the-market-n3801020

    Spend an afternoon watching 1960’s and 70’s shows on retro tv and you’d have to be blind and slow not to notice that people weighed 20-40 lbs less on average and the very obese were a fraction of the population today. I remember a famous photo from the late 60’s early 70’s of a pair of twins that lived in Florida. They each weight 500-600 pounds and the photo showed them riding side-by-side on extremely abused minibikes.

    The question is not “How can we increase the supply of obesity drugs”? The question is “Why do we have this problem”? 

    Part of the answer is the drug market itself, which supplies whole classes of drugs that treat one problem and have multiple side effects. One of the big side effects is messing up the body’s natural weight regulation mechanisms.

    and there’s this:

    Here’s the problem: The cost of developing new drugs and getting them approved typically exceeds $2 billion — and takes 10-15 years — according to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. (There’s also a high failure rate — 90% of drugs that reach the clinical trial phase never come to market.)

    I have a partial solution and Big Pharma ain’t going to like it: Raise the bar for drug approvals in two ways. First, new drugs don’t get approved if they are merely equal to existing drugs–they have to show significantly higher efficacy or lower side effects, and cost is a factor in approval. Second, the larger the market the more drug interactions have to be tested. It’s not uncommon for people to be taking 5, 10, or even 15 different prescription drugs (and using spreadsheet to keep track and a $300 pill dispenser with more computing power that the freaking Apollo system used) and there isn’t anyone on earth that can predict what the drug interactions are. Every new drug and every old drug that wants to be on the market should be minimally tested against a small core of drugs that are likely going to be co-prescribed, and after rollout there should be active monitoring of use with a larger group. 

    Having RFK in the HHS slot is the first chance in years that we will apply some real sense to our food supply. One of the targets should be sodas in all forms, both “diet” and regular soda. Another should be to update the labeling requirements to take the mystery out of exactly how much of some of that shiite is in there. 

    Yet another is to require much more extensive testing for purity. The Chinese will ship the most adulterated crap that they think they can get passed, and try to hide stuff that is even worse. We need better testing, and we need a retained sample program. And why do I very strongly suspect that those precursor chemicals for fentanyl are being produced in the very same factories that produce “legitimate” items for export? How about we do some parts per trillion testing and turn back anything contaminated with those chemicals?

    The cost of drugs and hospital care is obscenely distorted by the insurance companies collusion with the providers. Insurance companies add layers and layers of non-medical costs for approvals and compliance, then take weeks and months to pay submitted claims. The providers charge much higher rates to the uninsured who are willing and able to pay cash. Anyone willing to pay upon receipt should get the lowest price offered as a matter of law.

  13. Greg Norton says:

    Spend an afternoon watching 1960’s and 70’s shows on retro tv and you’d have to be blind and slow not to notice that people weighed 20-40 lbs less on average and the very obese were a fraction of the population today. I remember a famous photo from the late 60’s early 70’s of a pair of twins that lived in Florida. They each weight 500-600 pounds and the photo showed them riding side-by-side on extremely abused minibikes.

    The question is not “How can we increase the supply of obesity drugs”? The question is “Why do we have this problem”? 

    HFCS.

    Archer Daniels Midland used to sponsor every Sunday talking head show on the major networks in the 80s and 90s, as HFCS began creeping into processed foods.

    Another big one IMHO is fast food outlets taking credit cards.

  14. lpdbw says:

    In early February, I took a trip from Houston to Orlando for a few days.

    The Google directed me several times to take tollways. Not a problem, though I would have preferred to skip them.  I had hopes (unrealized) that my Texas EZ tag would be useful, as it is on Oklahoma tollways.  /tge fallback was they’d send me a bill for “Pay by Plate”.

    A week or so ago, I got a bill from the Central Florida Expressway Authority which included a picture of my truck and license plate and a bill. I paid it online.  It was somewhat less than I expected to pay in a tourism-driven state, where “out-of-state” =”sucker”.

    Yesterday, I got a bill from FDOT for a completely different set of charges.  Some were tolls, and some were “Expess Lane Violations”.  The accompanying notes say I’m being charged a $25 daily violation charge, but the detail shows that line item as zero dollars.

    Tolls + violations total less than $13, so I’ll just pay that one too.  

    Why two different authorities, why the confusing billing, why do they offer “Pay by Plate” and then list using the tollways as “violations”?

    Please note that I’m aware the answers to those questions boil down to “It’s government.  Don’t expect rationality or efficiency.”

  15. Greg Norton says:

    My concern is that all of our investments are tax infested and that we are going to get IRMAAd to death.  It is a given that we will pay taxes on our Social Security.  However, this is a nice problem to have.  Having no investments would take away the retirement option which is the average condition from my understanding

    The average retirement savings for my generation is $40k according to the last number I saw in a Forbes article, which is kinda scary when you consider that the oldest of us is turning 60 this year.

    Most of the people I work with are clueless about the 401(k) plan which is kinda surprising since it is the only decent benefit the company offers beyond the paycheck.

  16. Greg Norton says:

    Why two different authorities, why the confusing billing, why do they offer “Pay by Plate” and then list using the tollways as “violations”?

    The last time we were in Florida, the (then) new express lanes had sign posted that transponders were required.

    “Pay by plate” often involves manual intervention which adds to costs.

  17. Ken Mitchell says:

    Why are people so chubby these days? The USDA’s “food pyramid” has to be one of the worst culprits, emphasizing high-CARB, low protein diets. Humans aren’t vegetarians; we are omnivores, and we’ll eat anything that doesn’t eat us first. 

    That, and high fructose corn syrup, are the primary causes of obesity. Grain-heavy diets promote cheap food, not GOOD food. Good foods include meat, eggs, and dairy products.

  18. Lynn says:

    And we have our second candidate for Guantanamo.

    Judge Reyes grilled DOJ lawyers last month and said that Trump’s executive order asserting there are only two genders is “not biologically correct.”

    She’s crazy. More than two genders is crazy. Match two has been lit telling the CinC he can’t command the military.

    What Will Roberts Do?

    Nothing.

  19. Ken Mitchell says:

    Another big one IMHO is fast food outlets taking credit cards.

    https://babylonbee.com/news/mcdonalds-now-offering-36-month-0-interest-financing-on-all-value-meals

  20. MrAtoz says:

    I bought a Boox Go Color 7 e-reader.  I’m trying to leave the Kindle f’d up garden behind. It connected to Calbre on my Mac Mini, but I had to use their cable. It wouldn’t connect with a C to C cable. Botox has a C port, but the cable has a A side. My trusty Anker data converter worked fine. I’ll try other cables, too. I also had to add the Transfer To Android app (free) on the MM to add the Bookerly font to the Boox. I like that font for reading.

    There are three books in different series I want to buy, but I’m in Vegas right now and didn’t bring my Kindle to try and suck books off it now that you can’t download and transfer by USB. I’ll also look at other stores and research how to get their ebooks into Calibre. 

  21. lpdbw says:

    During the worst trauma of my life (so far), I got a lot of support from a particular website.

    Each member was anonymous and had a screen name, and there was provision for a tagline on each post you made.

    One member’s tagline was “The truth will set you free; first it will p*ss you off.”

    Except he didn’t use the asterisk.

    This applies in many areas of life.

  22. Greg Norton says:

    I bought a Boox Go Color 7 e-reader.  I’m trying to leave the Kindle f’d up garden behind. It connected to Calbre on my Mac Mini, but I had to use their cable. It wouldn’t connect with a C to C cable. Botox has a C port, but the cable has a A side. My trusty Anker data converter worked fine. I’ll try other cables, too. I also had to add the Transfer To Android app (free) on the MM to add the Bookerly font to the Boox. I like that font for reading.

    Not all USB-C cables are created equal. That’s the can of worms Apple opened by moving from their proprietary, licensed connector to USB-C.

    Not that the EU gave Apple much choice.

  23. Greg Norton says:

    She’s crazy. More than two genders is crazy. Match two has been lit telling the CinC he can’t command the military.

    What Will Roberts Do?

    Nothing.

    The Judiciary is the end result of a foolish choice made by scared voters in 2020 and mostly left in place in the 2022 midterms.

  24. paul says:

    My gate opener died a couple or three years ago.  I couldn’t tell if the problem was the arm or the control board.  Looking online wasn’t a huge help.  I could buy either part used on eBay for about $250.  Used.  Which do I need?  I think the problem is the control board but if I’m wrong?  I might as well buy a whole system for about $500 and have a warranty. 

    But I have other stuff to do and things happened.  I disconnected the arm from the gate and laid it on the grass.  It’s been a to do project but not very high on the list.

    The neighbor’s gate opener died last week.  Her husband stocked a spare system before he died four years ago.  A friend was visiting and installed the new system and would I like the old one for parts to try to fix my gate opener?  Sure!

    Uh.  Well.  By his description, told after he installed the new system, my guess was all she needed was a new battery.  12 volt, 7 amp.  Oh well, it’s done. 

    The battery in the box with the new system was dead.  Hey, it’s six or seven years old, go figure.  He seemed astonished the Official Mighty Mule battery is $35 at Tractor Supply.  Yeah, I know, that’s why you go to the feed store and the same size battery sold for deer feeders is $14.  And no tax because “ag use”. 

    I installed her “dead” gate opener.  The gear in the arm makes a grinding feel and rumble sound.  I swapped in my arm and it sounded as whiny as I remember.  Just for kicks, because it is in the sun, I opened it up and gave it a bit of wheel bearing grease.  It looked brand new inside.  It sounds smooth now. 

    I guessed right.  My control board went bad.  I’m going to open and grease her old arm and we will have a ready to go spare.

    Exciting stuff. 

    11
  25. drwilliams says:

    I’ve looked at the HFCS chemistry and the research. I can’t find anything inherently bad about the product, which is simply corn syrup with part of the glucose converted to fructose by enzymes.

    As far as I can see, the problem with HFCS is that there is too much of it in our food. Soft drinks took a big jump upward in the late 1980’s, peaked in the 90’s, and has been slowly falling. 

    https://www.ibisworld.com/us/bed/per-capita-soft-drink-consumption/1786/

    but I suspect the slow decline is more than offset by increases in the “energy” drink market, most of which contain sugars.

    The rise in obesity would also seem to correlate with the decline of recess and gym class in elementary and secondary schools. And have you noticed that we can’t build a two-story school anymore? How many calories of exercise does that take out of the school day?

    But the big change at school is that no one walks to school anymore.

    5
    1
  26. drwilliams says:

    “The [Australian] federal government must push back on the Trump administration’s blatant foreign interference in our independent research in the strongest possible terms,” NTEU president Alison Barnes said.

    https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/prime-minister-urged-to-call-emergency-meeting-after-trump-administration-cuts-funding-to-seven-australian-universities/news-story/2849b3274db1cc6a1774b1991106b6da

    Here, let us help you with that: We’ll keep our $600 million and you can be totally independent. [How much Chinese money did you get last year?]

    I’d submit that we could get a lot of bang for the buck if we asked Dr. Peter Ridd to submit grant applications to study the suppression of honest data about the corals in the Great Barrier Reef.

  27. Greg Norton says:

    As far as I can see, the problem with HFCS is that there is too much of it in our food. Soft drinks took a big jump upward in the late 1980’s, peaked in the 90’s, and has been slowly falling. 

    Sugar got expensive in the late 70s, and the corn producers needed a new outlet for their product.

    Enter Archer Daniels Midland.

    Healthwise, HFCS wasn’t worse than using cane sugar, but it was cheaper, enabling more products to hit grocery store shelves. Plus throwing away perishable product became an option for the manufacturers.

  28. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14526083/Oh-la-la-Young-women-France-sexual-partners-did-20-years-ago-nearly-one-five-not-identify-heterosexual.html 

    Now ⅓ of respondents had 10 or more partners by age 29,  then only 6%.

    Lump them all together to get a big number.

    More than 14 per cent of participants identified as gay, bisexual, pansexual or another minority sexual orientation.

    This was most common among Gen Z women, of whom 81 per cent identified as straight, compared with 92 per cent of men.

    Meanwhile, 10 per cent of French women identified as bisexual, two per cent homosexual and five per cent pansexual. 

    Two per cent of women said they identified as asexual. 

    — they don’t list increases in STDs…

    ———————

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14525523/snow-white-disney-box-office-woke-remake.html

    I’ve been waiting for some real world numbers and reactions.  Not quite there yet, but we can see the shape of it…

    Disney’s live-action ‘woke‘ remake of Snow White is shaping up to be one of the franchise’s worst-performing movies in recent years, according to initial box office figures.

    Snow White has been mired in controversy due to comments from its star Rachel Zegler and the absence of the iconic song ‘Someday My Prince Will Come.’

    The first results from theaters have been revealed, and they’re not great.

    The movie made just $3.5 million in Thursday previews and is projected to earn a disappointing $45 to $55 million during its opening weekend. 

    That places the film below Disney’s Little Mermaid remake, which premiered in 2023 and made $95 million during opening. 

    Disney’s 2019 Dumbo remake made $2.6 million in previews and profited a total of $45 million on opening weekend. 

    However, Dumbo only required $170 million to make, while Snow White cost over $250 million, excluding marketing costs. 

    Despite the underperforming figures, Snow White did rank higher than Disney’s Cinderella remake, which only grossed $2.3 million in previews. 

    Looks like live action remakes don’t make the grade.

    n

  29. Ray Thompson says:

    This applies in many areas of life.

    Life’s a bitch, then you die. 

  30. Lynn says:

    “Speaking of immigration, a Trump program not even finalized yet is already working. Financial Express ran the story under the headline, “US Commerce Secretary claims many takers for $5 million Gold Cards, says 1,000 sold in a day.””

        https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/fiat-veritas-saturday-march-22-2025

    I expected that but I did not expect it to work this quickly.  

    Of course, these people will pay income and social security / medicare taxes, right ?

  31. Nick Flandrey says:

    Home from my trip.   It was harrowing to say the least.    Kid did ok, with me spotting.    There would have been blood and expensive repairs had I not been there.

    To be fair, the last third was on some of the roughest and most industrial parts of the Houston area expressway system.   Everything east of downtown is a mess.  I told her I wanted to drive it as it was so dangerous, but she insisted, and I acquiesced.   there were a couple of shouted corrections…

    And I drove from my secondary location home.   She admitted to being tired and worn out at that point.

    She drove about 3 out of five hours with breaks for my pickups.    Some was easy “highway miles” some was in the rats nest of highway into and out of Baytown back to north Houston.    I find that area challenging.   There were a couple of wrecks messing things up and leading to some really awkward routing too.

    Still, she did ok, and has a much better idea of her skill level than her inflated level before.

    —–

    I’m going to sit and relax for a bit now that I’ve hit the head and the ‘fridge.   I was VERY stressed.

    n

  32. Lynn says:

    I installed her “dead” gate opener.  The gear in the arm makes a grinding feel and rumble sound.  I swapped in my arm and it sounded as whiny as I remember.  Just for kicks, because it is in the sun, I opened it up and gave it a bit of wheel bearing grease.  It looked brand new inside.  It sounds smooth now. 

    I guessed right.  My control board went bad.  I’m going to open and grease her old arm and we will have a ready to go spare.

    Exciting stuff. 

    “Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make it Do, or Do Without”

  33. Lynn says:

    “Regulations needed to spur airlines to use SAF, Japan oil refiners group head says”

       https://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/news/2025/03/regulations-needed-to-spur-airlines-to-use-saf-japan-oil-refiners-group-head-says/?oly_enc_id=8020E7639790J0C

    You want to me to put biogrease into my $300 million airplane engines as fuel ?  

    And then fly across the ocean ?  

    Are you crazy ?

  34. Lynn says:

    “Alarming Situation: Elon Musk Says He’s Suing Democrat Jamaal Bowman for Calling Him a ‘Nazi’ on CNN”

       https://twitchy.com/warren-squire/2025/03/22/elon-musk-suing-jamaal-bowman-for-calling-him-a-nazi-n2410255

    I hope that Elon’s lawyers take this guy to the cleaners.

  35. drwilliams says:

    Stephen Miller Calls Biden Border Policy ‘Pure Evil’ As Another Horrific Murder Is Revealed

    https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/03/22/stephen-miller-calls-biden-border-policy-pure-evil-as-another-horrific-murder-is-revealed-n2186983

    Violators of our national sovereignty who commit capital crimes and are convicted should be fast-tracked through the appeals process to the death penalty. The requirements should be that judge, prosecution and defense counsel work 100% of the time on the appeal and all motions have responses within 24 hours, with 30-days for all procedural appeals and sanctions including jail time for frivolous motions. If the claim is wrongful conviction based on innocence, a special team of investigators is called in and has 30-days to report to the court. 

  36. Nick Flandrey says:

    Nike’s sales dropped 9 percent, a staggering $1.16 billion fall in the value of shoes, tracksuits, and t-shirts.

    Executives said the slowdown was likely because Chinese consumers are cutting back on spending. There are several reasons for Nike’s struggles.  

    For years, conservatives have criticized Nike for its partnerships with political activists and athletes, such as Colin Kaepernick, who protested during the national anthem, viewing it as a shift toward ‘woke’ culture

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-14524813/Woke-mega-brand-sees-sales-slump-left-warehouses-clothes-shoes-no-one-wants.html 

    – go woke, go broke

    n

  37. drwilliams says:

    “I hope that Elon’s lawyers take this guy to the cleaners.”

    Bring back dueling and make calling someone a Nazi the equivalent of a challenge, giving the choice of weapons to the respondent.

    Elon could chose de-orbited satellites and turn half the Democrat party into smoking craters.

  38. drwilliams says:

    @Nick

    “I’m going to sit and relax for a bit now that I’ve hit the head and the ‘fridge.   I was VERY stressed.”

    I’ll hoist one for you tonight.

  39. MrAtoz says:

    You want to me to put biogrease into my $300 million airplane engines as fuel ?  

    And then fly across the ocean ?  

    Are you crazy ?

    Doesn’t Japan import 97% of it’s fuels? They probably don’t produce any renewable fuels, either. Yet, we should use shit gas in OUR planes for their climate nonsense?

    Missing your nukes yet, Japan?

    When tRump makes us energy independent again, we should triple any fuel Japan buys from us.

  40. MrAtoz says:

    “I’m going to sit and relax for a bit now that I’ve hit the head and the ‘fridge.   I was VERY stressed.”

    Five daughters later and I have no hair.

  41. lpdbw says:

    I’ve looked at the HFCS chemistry and the research. I can’t find anything inherently bad about the product, which is simply corn syrup with part of the glucose converted to fructose by enzymes.

    As far as I can see, the problem with HFCS is that there is too much of it in our food. Soft drinks took a big jump upward in the late 1980’s, peaked in the 90’s, and has been slowly falling. 

    I believe sugar is inherently bad, and HFCS is worse.  Producers confuse the issue by not specifying the fructose/glucose ratio of their product, and the fact that the fructose and glucose are already separated in HFCS, while in table sugar (sucrose), the fructose and glucose are chemically bound together, requiring some digestion on your body,s part.

     I agree that there is too much HFCS and sugar in our food.

    The rise in obesity would also seem to correlate with the decline of recess and gym class in elementary and secondary schools. And have you noticed that we can’t build a two-story school anymore? How many calories of exercise does that take out of the school day?

    Unintended consequences of ADA and schools being publicly funded.  School districts don’t have to worry about  lot sizes; they use unlimited free money to buy land.  But they do have to pay attention to ADA, and elevators are expensive and become a scarce resource.

    You can find lots of factors that correlate to the obesity crisis.  I won’t argue with yours, but most sane doctors have finally learned that exercise alone has zero, zip, zilch affect on weight loss.  After you tell patients to exercise more, eat less, for 40 years, and fail 99% of the time, you finally learn.

    cf. Banting

  42. MrAtoz says:

    I hope that Elon’s lawyers take this guy to the cleaners.

    Who would say that on national TV without a lot of cash waiting for the trial? Uh, yeah, Bowman is a certifiable idiot.

  43. Lynn says:

    Missing your nukes yet, Japan?

    Japan has restarted about a quarter of the nukes.  Importing LNG (natural gas) at $35 per mmbtu will make you do things.

       https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h02183/japan%E2%80%99s-nuclear-power-plants-in-2024.html

  44. Greg Norton says:

    Looks like live action remakes don’t make the grade.

    The Looney Toons movie featuring hand drawn animation was not terrible. We went today.

    Warner Discovery pulled the plug on the flick Wednesday night and took down all of the classic cartoons from HBO Max.

    Writeoff coming, but if Warner dumps Looney Toons, what’s left?

  45. MrAtoz says:

    Yeah, nothing is better than the original hand drawn classic Disney Snow White. All the remake/spins don’t compare.

  46. drwilliams says:

    @lpdbw

    “You can find lots of factors that correlate to the obesity crisis.  I won’t argue with yours, but most sane doctors have finally learned that exercise alone has zero, zip, zilch affect on weight loss.  After you tell patients to exercise more, eat less, for 40 years, and fail 99% of the time, you finally learn.”

    Three things:

    One, it’s not exercise alone.

    Two, it’s not weight loss, it’s never getting obese in the first place by living a lifestyle that includes exercise. The time to take care of a car, or a house, or anything, including a human body, is before the corrosion is too far gone.

    Three, it’s the incidence of morbid obesity that concerns me, not the screwed up pseudo-standards that classify perfectly healthy people as obese.

    And, yeah, lots more factors: power steering in everything, electronic calculators, too much tv, and not enough good barbeque.

    ADDED:
    And I have to think that a solid 50-80 feet of grocery shelves packed with breakfast cereals that are obscenely overdosed with sugar is a major contributing factor to destroying young bodies and programming them for early failure.

  47. Nick Flandrey says:

    Last time I priced it, name brand breakfast cereal cost more than bacon pound for pound.

    n

  48. Greg Norton says:

    Yeah, nothing is better than the original hand drawn classic Disney Snow White. All the remake/spins don’t compare.

    Iger could have cut his losses at $200 million and moved on, but, again, I didn’t think they believed that they would lose the election. “Snow White” was supposed to be the victory lap with Dana Walden announced as the new CEO at the shareholders meeting this week.

    If they think the “Snow White” reaction is bad, wait until they put up the fences and start draining the river in the Magic Kingdom.

  49. paul says:

    I replaced the GFCI in the boatshed with an outlet today.  The GFCI was zapped along with two Battery Minders.  Same time the radio for my wISP that is on a push-up mast blew up and I lost a brand new 10/100/1000 eight port switch and my router.  That was a loud nearby lighting strike.

    No harm to the tractors that were being charged. 

    It only took almost a year to get it done.  The silly GFCI is held in with pop rivets which is a chore by time you gather everything and drill the rivets.  Not difficult, just a chore.

    Why is a no-name Decora outlet $3.49 when a no-name standard outlet is 99¢?  I mean, I don’t think the box was worth $2.50 but maybe I’m just full of hate.  Or something. 

    It would have been an easier job if I had moved the van.  But go to the house and get the keys?  Nooooo!!

    Anyway.   Something else scratched off of the list. 

  50. paul says:

    Last time I priced it, name brand breakfast cereal cost more than bacon pound for pound.

    Now I have to look.  

    I bought a dozen store brand eggs yesterday.  What price drop?  40¢ down isn’t far from the usual up and down pricing. 

  51. Ken Mitchell says:

    I bought a dozen store brand eggs yesterday.  What price drop?

    I’m retired military, so I do a  lot of my grocery shopping at the local military commissary store. Two weeks ago, a dozen large eggs were $6. Yesterday, they were $4. Of course, last year, they were $2.50/doz. 

  52. Lynn says:

    The F-47 will supposedly have a price north of $300 million. To expensive to risk, and almost certainly too low a production rate to matter anyway.

    The US doesn’t have a real replacement for the F-15. The plan was to limp along with another update of that platform to supplement the F-22 numbers, but the Houthis may have brought down more than one F-15, meaning their Iranian masters can take those out.

    A war with Iran would currently involve F-15s and F-22s operating out of Saudi Arabia to establish air superiority over the Gulf. The Navy doesn’t have an adequate replacement for the F-14 in that role.

    The pea brains at the freak show commands in Tampa still toy with the idea of a hot war with Iran. They nearly got Trump to go for it in his last term.

    Israel has been using the F-35 against the Houthis and Iranians with impunity.  And the F-35 has more range than the F-22.

    I just saw why the new fighter is the F-47.  47 for the Trump Presidency.

  53. Nick Flandrey says:

    47 because that’s the number of years until it actually flies?

    ——————

    It would have been an easier job if I had moved the van.

    nope.   Tasks are fractal.   If you had to move the van, you’d have to do three things first,  two things during, and then something else after.  Saved half a day of other jobs by not moving it 🙂

    @paul, you made the right choice.

    n

  54. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14527345/Fire-Disneys-Epcot-park-Florida-sends-crowds-fleeing.html 

    – a cooler in a backstage area caught on fire.  Wonder if it was using cyclopentane instead of a safe refrigerant?

    n

  55. Ken Mitchell says:

    I just saw why the new fighter is the F-47.  47 for the Trump Presidency.

    Call it the “Thunderbolt III” after the WWII P-47 Thunderbolt.

  56. Lynn says:

    “China and Russia Are Scared”

       https://areaocho.com/china-and-russia-are-scared/

    “This is the state of our military. These are three female Masters at Arms (Navy MP’s). This picture was taken right after they got out of a Navy Law Enforcement vehicle. Massive change in the military is required to end this nonsense.”

    I am sorry but these ladies are not qualified to be in our military forces.  Being in the USA military requires a certain amount of physical conditioning.

  57. Lynn says:

    I just saw why the new fighter is the F-47.  47 for the Trump Presidency.

    “Second presidency of Donald Trump”

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_presidency_of_Donald_Trump

    Donald Trump‘s second and current tenure as the president of the United States began upon his inauguration as the 47th president on January 20, 2025.”

    Trump was also the 45th President of the USA.

  58. Nick Flandrey says:

    Former US attorney who served under Biden found dead at home in Virginia

    By JAMES GORDON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 

    Published: 00:32 EDT, 23 March 2025 | Updated: 00:32 EDT, 23 March 2025 

    A former US Attorney who served under President Joe Biden was found dead Saturday morning at her home in Alexandria, Virginia.

    Jessica D. Aber, 43, stepped down from one of the most…

    –housecleaning getting started?

    n

  59. Nick Flandrey says:

    Finally got to sit down and relax.   Had to do taxi service for both kids, but eventually got time to sit my the water feature and have a tiny little fire while I read for a while.

    It’s 67F and very pleasant out.

    n

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