Maybe a bit cooler? The national map shows chance of thunder storms for the next couple of days. We had several around Houston yesterday afternoon, but nothing at the microclimate my house is in… Had to water the plants.
Did a pickup, and drove around some to check on things. My secondary location is near my propane guy. My rent house isn’t too far from either. Checked on a friend’s house and shop. Got gas and LP gas. Cash money for the LP Gas, and only $12 per bottle. The swap a bottle was up to $29 if you needed to use a card, and most of them were probably sold out.
Pick up extra propane bottles when you see them. Yard and estate sales are where I got mine. If the bottle is out of date or in bad shape, everyone says the same thing, take it to HD or Lowes and swap it for a new one. It works. They have staff to refurb the bottles, if they are saveable and it’s cheaper than buying new.
One advantage of LP gas over gasoline is that it stores well. One disadvantage is there is less energy in it and it can cost more than gasoline. Life is full of tradeoffs, and both have a place in your preps. Lots of things use propane too.
We’ll see what today brings. I didn’t do any work on the trucks because of the sprinkles and threat of rain. Maybe I’ll get to that today. I don’t think I’ll be plumbing my gennie into my gas line unless it will run on a 1/2″ line. Anything bigger would mean taking my service apart and changing out pipes to add a bigger tap. Not sure I’m up for that. There is already a valved tap for 1/2″ pipe. I think it was probably for a patio grill. If I can find the manual for my gennie, I’ll see what it calls for for supply.
Always more to do.
Always something to stack.
nick
@Nightraker
A sensible level of security is good practice and common sense. I would just suggest that you add to your plans and thought processes, that as difficult as you make it for those you don’t want to gain access, you make it equally difficult for those you do (e.g. emergency services). I believe is a balanced approach. Risk vs Benefit.
Following up again on my recent Melanoma diagnosis. I had an ultrasound scan of my lymph nodes this morning. (No anomolies identified.)
I can be very critical as to aspects of socialised medicine and I believe there are opportunities for major improvements in the UK NHS. But the quality of and access to treatment that I have experienced this year has been exceptional and I suspect would be close to matching the best available privately. I do recognise that I live close to one of the leading NHS cancer hospitals in the UK.
@paulthemanc:
I agree, from my own similar experience 5 years ago. I believe that all Britons should be grateful to those who have worked tirelessly for the NHS since its inception in 1948 (Ghod, it’s as old as I am!). Including Aneurin Bevan, the Labour politician who was responsible for the mere existence of the NHS.
That said, I’m not blind to its problems, a lot of which appear, to me, to be politician-inspired. But then, I’m notorious for not trusting politicians, whatever their allegiance.
G.
Harvey was the catalyst for the Central Texas “gas shortage”, created by ClearChannel (or whatever they call themselves now) after one of the big refineries was damaged in the storm and the company saw the opportunity in the crisis to promote the (then) new GasBuddy app.
The idiot husband of my wife’s associate in Vantucky was still yakking about Ike and how their apartment flooded when we first met him in 2012.
I asked, “Where did you live?”
“Baytown. [wife’s name omitted] did residency at Methodist there.”
“I’m not too familiar with Houston, but isn’t that on the shipping channel? Hence the name? Wouldn’t it flood in a strong rain?”
“Yes, but the government should still be prepared …”
Of course, it was all Shrub’s fault.
The “gas shortage” hasn’t been attempted by Clear Channel since 2017. It stopped being fun for the C-suite in San Antonio when the staff stopped showing up for work at the WOAI flagship citing the problem getting gas for their vehicles. This went on into October.
The State of Texas also got involved once the Railroad Commission who oversees these things (?!?) crunched the numbers and discovered that Labor Day 2017 gas sales figures were 50x the normal holiday weekend numbers, an order of magnitude, something the system was never designed to accommodate.
Getting gas after waiting in an hour long line in San Antonio that Monday, I looked over to see cars parked at the entrance to Costco’s gas station across the street, waiting for the pumps to open the next day.
Stopping at Buc-ee’s on the way home, it was weird to see all 200 pumps in New Braunfels, then the chain’s largest store, covered with bags.
Too many people still want to get their strange on with the Shot Girl and the rest of The Squad on both sides of the political aisle. That’s the basis of their power.
With Republicans, if they don’t want to have sex with the women then the “spunk” reminds them of their daughters and granddaughters, no matter how wrong.
Stop it.
We may yet end up with proven Socialist and WEF member Tulsi Gabbard on the Trump ticket because that blue streak in her hair and current schtick on Vanguard-owned corporate media outlets sparks imaginations.
Tulsi Gabbard in the White House and a Democrat Congress will give you Medicaid for All within 60 days of the swearing in at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
I watched some of the press conference. Spongey did better than the debate debacle because there were no hard questions. He still got confused several times with leaders of other countries, which is troubling. There were no long blank stares, just a couple of short ones. There was some mumbling. I suspect there was also an earpiece involved as he quickly corrected himself several times. I think someone behind the stage was correcting him and feeding Spongey some answers.
My aunt used to have moments of clarity. Enough so to order tickets back to Seattle, taxi from Oak Ridge to the airport, and a shuttle from SEATAC to Port Townsend. This may have been one of Spongey’s moments augmented with drugs.
I remain convinced that Spongey has dementia and is not fit for office. He is not fit enough to last the next six months. He should be removed from office as quickly as possible.
It is well beyond time. She stated she would file impeachment if the supreme court decision did not go the way she liked. As if she is some kind of expert on any legal matter. She had to follow through or lose face.
I cannot even comprehend why. Maybe AOC, if the room was really dark. But the rest of the squad…yikes. Nothing is dark enough.
You probably heard Dr Jill got her own music.
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/07/somebody-in-marine-corps-band-has-sense.html
HAHAHA!
Up with the generator this am…
80F and overcast.
my trusty generac has an oil leak between the engine and the generator. Very small leak at the moment, but definitely there. I’m guessing a seal is failing after 25 years. Hard to estimate total run time hours but it’s at least 20 days, maybe as much as 30. Portable generators are not really built for long runs.
——————–
@jenny, thanks for checking in, you were on my mind last night and this morning. I figured you were busy with life during this brief time of good weather up there…
——————–
@nightraker, @paulthemanc- – I don’t worry too much about emergency services gaining access, but it was an interesting point. Last time I called them I gave them the entry code when I spoke to 911. Fire will get in if they need to. PD is a lot less willing to break doors unless they are an entry team with a warrant, and then you might not want them breaking the door…
I’ve linked this site before as an example of entry techniques and tools, and ways to harden entrances. The whole site is interesting to me, but this link is a good example
http://www.vententersearch.com/through-the-lock-on-the-fireground/
————————-
coffee, egg, bacon, and a store donut. Yum.
It’d be nice to see some electrons flowing today though.
n
– used to be only the National Equirer would have a headline like this, and it would turn out to have three exaggerations in it…
n
Since we were talking about Redbox the other day…
Catering to poor people and illegals with no credit seems to have not worked after all.
n
Good catch, but WTF? Google has algorithms to scan for child porn? What else are they looking for or indexing in your google drive?
n
And WHY was the exposed data on a third party server?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13627871/ATT-hack-customers-calls-text-breach.html
n
Texas sure shows up on the power outages map:
https://poweroutage.us
–ok this is getting ridiculous. Since when are power lines not part of the electrical grid?
Anyone with “no way” of charging their phone or “EVEN” cooking food needs to get up off their ass. (love that phone charging is more important than cooking)
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.
I have
electric range.
propane bbq grill
BBQ grill with charcoal
coleman propane camp stoves – plural
Coleman liquid fuel camp stoves – plural
— both white gas (coleman fuel) and gasoline
Butane tabletop burner (restaurant style)
Backpacking stoves
– liquid fuel, isopropanol (canisters), and propane
– more than one liquid too
Alcohol burners (for keeping chafing dishes hot)
Sterno cans (ditto)
hobo or penny stove
emergency stove using solid fuel bars (triox)
a wood fired bbq grill
a bowl for a fire pit
blocks to build a rocket stove
a dirt yard to dig a dakota fire hole
open fire in the street burning tires, wood, or politicians…
————
I’m clearly an outlier, but FFS, food is important, and any ONE of the alternatives would be enough to serve a hot meal.
Most of the alternative methods cost less than $20 with a bit of looking around or foresight.
And beyond that, there are food trucks everywhere in Houston and most of them are operating.
————
charging cell phones can be done in a car or with a cheap power bank. Solar power banks are available. Or just turn the dammed thing on for 10 minutes every couple of hours to do important things, then turn it off. Modern phones should last for days with that usage.
There will be a culling, and it won’t be pretty.
n
Hmm. Headline really isn’t up to the standards of yore, how about:
“Nudists Nix Fiery Friscan!“
And that’s just off the top of my head. I’d forgotten about the boat stove (alcohol) and the kerosene camp stove I have at the BOL.
n
Maintenance data from AT&T Wireless, which reinforces my point that SMS messages do not need a warrant to obtain.
Be aware.
Either AT&T or a vendor were probably sold on using the third party data warehouse on the basis of Hookers-n-Steaks marketing at SxSW or a similar venue.
At a minimum, the deal was cut over glasses of Pappy Reserve served up by a … Shot Girl! Or maybe a Bottle Girl in a private room since C-suite execs at AT&T would be high rollers from Dallas.
It is not desirable that the data is out there, but the “breach” isn’t the end of the world if the article has the details right.
The stock, SNOW, has a surprising amount of retail, but Vanguard is still at the top of the list of holders.
BTW, for compactness and ease of use, I’m really liking the butane tabletop burner. The supports for the pan aren’t as big or sturdy as I’d like on my version, but it works.
One can of fuel and the burner fit into a plastic case about 12″ x 12″ x 5″ and anyone can find a place to store that.
There are even dual fuel versions…
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=butane+stove&tag=ttgnet-20
n
Vanguard/Blackrock/State Street have their usual 20% ownership of AT&T.
I wonder if the vendor was Syniverse. I bailed on that place 24 years ago this Summer, right before the legacy GTE division management cashed out the Verizon pensions held by the employees and sold the whole thing to private equity for further strip mining of equity.
I have one friend still at Syniverse. I guess she’s riding that train all the way over the cliff into the ravine and that will be her career.
Nearly all AT&T cell customers’ call and text records exposed in a massive breach
It looks like they just got metadata and some location data, but not the content of the text messages. The breach is related to a breach at cloud-provider Snowflake. A good reminder that you should be using Signal or Telegram and not SMS or iMessage. I know WhatsApp is popular in many countries, but Meta (aka Facebook) owns it so I don’t trust it. WeChat is allowed behind the Great Firewall in China so that’s enough reason to not embrace it.
Still there are traffic analysis tools that would be able to mine useful info from metadata. If a politician’s phone or office called an escort service, for example.
Or whose lawyers are calling reporters.
Or which celebrity calls a plastic surgeon.
Or even just which numbers does Taylor Swift call? I bet you could build a nice phone book of private cell numbers if you just had even one of the members of the group…
never mind what playing 6 degrees would get you if you started from a known number.
n
Without their phones how do they create TikTok vids about their plight to get the views/likes/comments their adolescent psyche needs for validation.
“A grandfather and his friend, both nudists, thwarted a man attacking tourists with a blowtorch in San Francisco’s Castro area.”
They should have toasted his nuts.
“27,000 rental kiosks”
Coming soon to a video room near you.
THE MORNING RANT: Buck Shots – 7/12/2024
—Buck Throckmorton
Little if any plastic that goes through “recycling theater” actually gets recycled. Most ends up in landfills, even if it was placed in a recycle bin by a conscientious recycler. There is nothing surprising about this story to those of us who have long understood the farce about plastic bottles being recycled:
“This man put a GPS tracker in his recycling. Here’s where it ended up. A Del Mar man bought a GPS device, taped it to a plastic bottle and within a few hours, watched its journey to a landfill.” [CBS 8 – San Diego – 6/06/2024]
“It would be more cost efficient and energy efficient if we stopped pretending that plastic is recyclable and just put it directly into the trash headed for the landfill.”–Buck Throckmorton
Poor plugs: “Here’s President Putin, uh, er, Zelenskyy.”
Teleprompter, notes , canned questions, and a campaign speech are not press conferences.
Even the LSM is trying to say plugs is demented : “We knew nothing, nothing!”
I’m guessing, but there are separate spaces for distribution, controlled by Oncor, and, IIRC the term is “neutral” level connecting to homes.
I never finished my pole climbing scab training before my exemption arrived and I was reassigned to a call center in Van Nuys with a Risk Management handler monitoring my every move. My terminology is not 100%, but I know there are separate zones on the poles.
Hurricane country. No one has any excuse for not keeping 3-4 days per person worth of canned goods around which can be eaten without heating. Sam’s makes it easy to stock up every May.
Of course, Jeb! got in trouble for saying that very thing near the end of his second term as four Cat 2 storms crossed the Peninsula one Summer before Katrina ripped across the Everglades and slammed New Orleans.
Aren’t most of your immediate neighbors in town unprepared for even the slightest emergency.
Someone will buy the machines. All of them were built to spec by Coinstar, the original owners of Redbox.
It may be a regional player, but the rental market for physical media still exists in a lot of places.
Playing a movie from a living room DVD/BluRay deck is still the “greenest” way to watch a flick.
Streaming is hideously inefficient, both in terms of the power required as well as storage and network bandwidth stats.
@PaultheManc:
Emergency services will get in for sure, but if seconds count, could be I won’t care anymore. Saw a YouTube years ago of a SWAT team in Eastern Europe stymied by a reinforced steel apartment door for more than 20 minutes.
A more likely failure mode is getting myself locked out by battery failure, misplaced keys or an unresponsive guest locked in. Once upon a time, I was an assistant carpenter for a contractor rebuilding 2nd floor apartment balcony decks. Somehow, we managed to get ourselves trapped on the balcony. I’d recently seen a description of, ahem, 2nd story work and lifted the patio sliding door out of it’s track and latch. Heavy sucker.
I have been on federal district court jury duty since the first of June. I have not been contacted once. I hope that same trend continues until November 30 when I am released from jury duty.
Do you still have season passes to Dollywood?
I thought of you when the “Daily Dose of Dismal Disney” reports indicated that Dollywood topped the list of best theme parks as rated by TripAdvisor.
Only one Disney park, The Magic Condom -er- Kingdom in Orlando, made the top ten.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/07/12/breaking-from-nyt-the-90-million-shoe-just-dropped-on-biden-n3791707
Don’t worry.
New donors don’t care.
Do they?
I looked around the local HEB and the Redbox is gone. Victim of the remodel job. There was one at Walgreens but I haven’t been there in a while.
You had to have a credit or debit card to rent a movie. I think you had two days to return the movie or be charged full price for the disc.
It was a popular machine.
“ An Open Letter To Ford CEO Jim Farley”
https://www.carpro.com/an-open-letter-to-ford-ceo-jim-farley-u.s.-2nd-quarter-auto-sales-report-plus-2024-chrysler-pacifica-plug-in-hybrid-2024-chevrolet-blazer-ev-and-2024-mazda-cx-30-test-drives
I advise Ford to fire Jim Farley immediately.
Yes, we get them every year. I get veteran and senior discount which brings the price down. Still expensive. I get the top of the line pass which saves me $25.00 parking and I get 20% off anything purchased in the park. This time I got six additional “bring a friend” passes, four of them good for Splash Country. We have guests coming the 18th of this month and they want to go to Dollywood. Those passes save a little over $400.00 for their tickets. I paid $450.00 for the season passes (diamond and gold) so a reasonable bargain.
The diamond pass is the best, gets the 20% discount, free parking and four “bring a friend” passes. Wife has the gold pass which only gets 10 discount, free parking and two “bring a friend” passes.
We actually go to Dollywood, just the wife and I, about four times a year. A couple times during the spring, once in late fall, and at Christmas.
I seriously don’t know exactly why. The park has good rides with many family friendly rides. There is an entire section of the park that has rides targeted at the younger set. A couple of rides will accommodate two year olds. The shows are good with a lot of talent. The park is not huge so there is not half a dozen miles of walking.
The only reason I can think of for the rating is the cost is not really that high compared to Disney and Universal parks. A family of four, with meals and drinks, can go for $500.00. Souvenir drink cups can be refilled all day, unlimited. We have a season cup (part of our season passes) that is good for all season unlimited refills. The food is actually fairly good and with my 20% discount, not excessively pricey. Drink machines are numerous in the park and face the crowds so self serve. Dollywood is also extremely family friendly with a couple of calming rooms for kids with problems.
The park is clean, well maintained, but has aging buildings. Christmas time is the best with the lights, decorations, and the shows. The park also puts up decorations for Halloween. There is also many local craftsman with booths selling products during the spring Harvest Festival.
The other possible reason is that people just adore Dolly Parton. She has done a lot for Sevierville and funds a lot of programs. Kids under 5 can join a reading program and get sent one free book each month. The kids do not have to be residents of Sevierville.
Dollywood is about 90 minutes away from us if there is not a lot of traffic.
“500,000 Texans will remain without power through Sunday, CenterPoint says”
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/centerpoint-power-beryl-19567417.php
As I mentioned yesterday, 1,500 linemen for three million meters is not enough.
The idiot husband of my wife’s associate in Vantucky was still yakking about Ike and how their apartment flooded when we first met him in 2012.
I asked, “Where did you live?”
“Baytown. [wife’s name omitted] did residency at Methodist there.”
“I’m not too familiar with Houston, but isn’t that on the shipping channel? Hence the name? Wouldn’t it flood in a strong rain?”
“Yes, but the government should still be prepared …”
Of course, it was all Shrub’s fault.
Too many people in our society think that if we just double the money sent to the government(s) that we will instantly have a utopia. They are all wrong.
https://cornyn.enews.senate.gov/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100168235.1153044.624&gen=1
“I’m writing to share some exciting news about a bill I recently helped introduce in the U.S. Senate, the Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act (FICRA). This important legislation aims to modernize and streamline our nation’s interstate firearms sales and transactions.”
“For too long, outdated regulations have placed unnecessary burdens on law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights. FICRA seeks to change that by allowing interstate firearm transactions, implementing permit dealer flexibility, and redefining residency for the brave men and women of our armed forces and our dedicated federal employees.”
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 ?
“Hydrogen too costly for clean baseload generation but could serve as long-term storage: report”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/clean-hydrogen-power-long-duration-storage-decarbonization/721057/
“The cost of clean hydrogen-fired generation would far outstrip other forms of clean baseload energy, according to analysis by the Clean Air Task Force.”
“Burning electrolytic hydrogen made with clean energy would reduce lifecycle emissions by 90% relative to unabated natural gas, but at a levelized cost of $350-$470 per MWhe, according to the report. Nuclear power, by comparison, runs $130/MWhe, according to the Clean Air Task Force.”
We pay an average of $30 per MWH in Texas. $330 to $470 would be incredibly expensive.
“SCOTUS Girls Gone Wild: The Right to Crap in the Streets” by Ann Coulter
https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2024/07/10/columnistsanncoulter20240710scotus-girls-gone-wild-the-right-to-crap-in-the-streets-n2641687
“On MSNBC, they’re convinced that the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity will finally usher in the long-feared Trump Dictatorship, though I’m almost certain the Supreme Court explicitly limited the immunity to presidential acts authorized, or even required, by the Constitution.”
“Staging a coup would not be covered. Neither would murdering political opponents.”
“(One of the most alarmed guests was former CIA chief John Brennan. Wasn’t he involved in a bit of unauthorized surveillance of American citizens, as well as lying to Congress about it?)”
Ann, Ann, Ann, don’t you know that the libs only fear what they have contemplated doing themselves ?
“SpaceX rocket accident leaves company’s Starlink satellites in wrong orbit”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spacex-rocket-accident-leaves-companys-184728071.html
”CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket has failed for the first time in nearly a decade, leaving the company’s internet satellites in an orbit so low that they’re doomed to fall through the atmosphere and burn up.”
“The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Thursday night, carrying 20 Starlink satellites. Several minutes into the flight, the upper stage engine malfunctioned. SpaceX on Friday blamed a liquid oxygen leak.”
Almost a decade without a rocket failure is an amazing statistic. Every other space service on the planet is trying to get past a year without an incident.
I guess the checks stopped from Ford Blue Advantage.
Jerry was a shill for Tommy Boy for way too long to be credible now.
Go back a few years and Laura Reynolds did the Blue Advantage ads.
To recap, the alternative to reelecting Cornyn was “Doors”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIYHz6fPAgo
I don’t care what your Veteran friends say, that would have been a nightmare.
Senator Wine Mom would have been there for life, similar to Patty Murray in WA State.
Jerry could get a good look at credibility loss by sticking his head in the Blue Advantage advertising ledger for the show, but wouldn’t he rather take his broadcast professional co-host’s word for it?
I’ve written before that they had to flee Texas despite being lifelong residents of the Houston area.
There were times when I wanted to slap the idiot husband when I’d hear his schtick crank up, “I came from a town called Cut-n-Shoot.”
He’s proof positive that those little towns can spawn some big Socialists. I think he got involved in Antifa in Portland.
Silver Dollar City goes back to when I was a kid. Lots of families hit the Gatlinberg area from Florida in July to escape the heat. Back then, a cabin up there was not a seven figure expenditure and was within reach of a lot of middle class families.
A lot of fond memories are associated with that park, and, if they have kept it up, nostalgia is probably a piece of the ratings.
If he was up for election, I’d assume it was all window-dressing to pretend to be a Republican until elected. In other words, what he always does. So actually getting passed isn’t even on his radar, just giving the appearance of doing something good.
But he isn’t up this time around. So I figure there’s some poison in the fine print of the bill. Like red flag laws or some such.
No way he’d propose something Conservative. Look up “rino” in the dictionary, and there he is.
“Covid Vaccine Linked to Parkinson’s Disease — Study”
https://www.infowars.com/posts/covid-vaccine-linked-to-parkinsons-disease-study/
“Some claim quadruple-vaxxed Biden has Parkinson’s.”
“A resurfacing study from 2021 which is making the rounds on social media documented a link between Covid vaccination and Parkinson’s disease.”
MJ was endorsed by George Takai, which is enough for me to know she’s poison for freedom and conservativism.
n
Little Caesars pizza shop customer pistol-whips staff and kills elite cop over wrong order
A more honest title would be “Violent felon attacks store worker, and kills cop”.
It wasn’t the wrong order. It was the stuff that’s wrong in his brain.
And I’m 100% certain he has a history of violent felonies.
n
If the slick Scorsese ripoff original Congressional campaign ad didn’t give it away, then Takai’s endorsement was a sure sign that California money was involved, specifically Gavin Newsom’s money people.
Not Gavin’s inlaws, however. They moved to Florida a few years ago and wrote DeSantis a $5000 check for his PAC.
“Elon Musk Drops a Bombshell About European Commission’s Attempt to Bribe Him”
https://jdrucker.substack.com/p/elon-musk-drops-a-bombshell-about
“Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, I have been skeptical of his intentions. But a Friday morning bombshell highlights a reason that my skepticism may be misplaced.”
“Margarethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, declared that Musk’s X platform, formerly Twitter, “doesn’t comply with the DSA in key transparency areas. It misleads users, fails to provide adequate ad repository and blocks access to data for researchers.””
“She added, “It’s the first time we issue preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act.””
“In response, Elon Musk dropped a bombshell.”
“”The European Commission offered an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us,” he said in a post on X. “The other platforms accepted that deal. did not.””
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
Just remember, all of these elites just want to use your children as their footstools.
Cornyn is sweating 2026 already, especially if Rafael Edward goes down running against Colin Allred.
In two years, Cornyn could be facing Greg Cazar out of Austin in a midterm that will be about either extending Big Mike’s majority or putting Trump out of business for the last two years of his second term.
Little Caesars pizza shop customer pistol-whips staff and kills elite cop over wrong order
A more honest title would be “Violent felon attacks store worker, and kills cop”.
It wasn’t the wrong order. It was the stuff that’s wrong in his brain.
And I’m 100% certain he has a history of violent felonies.
And why was he out of jail ? A sheriff’s deputy had to pay the price for that.
Who is “MJ” in this context? Thanks.
Two Journalists Sue ChatGPT Over Plagiarism
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2024/07/12/two-journalists-sue-chatgpt-over-plagiarism-n3791697
First, there is a term for “at least some results are attributed.”: Plagiarism
Second “ChatGPT is an algorithm, not a person. It has no assets of its own to seize.” Algorithms do not write themselves, people write them. And training libraries are put together by people. And people own the algorithm, which itself is an asset that can be seized, if it comes to that.
Third “How are the courts supposed to identify who the actual “thief” is in these cases and force them to pay up?” If you constructed a remotely piloted vehicle that was used to rob a bank, or a programmable bank-robbing machine, I doubt the courts would have a problem in identifying the thief.
There are more points I could make off the article, but I’m going to finish with this:
If I constructed a device to read the memories of the machine running an AI, copy those memories, and then turned the contents to my own use, including providing it free in competition with the “owners” of the AI, I strongly suspect that those owners would have some issues and believe that a theft of IP had occurred.
@Lynn
“the libs only fear what they have contemplated doing themselves ?”
That would probably explain Rachel Maddow’as claim that President Trump will put all the PLT’s in camps.
I think we should build towns on the prairie with high fences around them, and fill them with PLT’s. They could have electricity, but only from wind and solar, with no storage ‘cuz de environment does not resonate. They would also get every other green weinie fantasy, including the reusable toilet paper made from PET soda bottles–but no soda for them, ‘cuz CO2 bad, donchano?
Trump Offers to Take Cognitive Test With Biden
Congress next!
Who is “MJ” in this context? Thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._J._Hegar
“Chairman Nehls Statement from Hearing on California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) In-Use Locomotive Regulation”
https://nehls.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-nehls-statement-hearing-california-air-resources-boards-carb-use
My congresscritter has a severe problem with the fact that CARB (California Air Resources Board) has mandated the usage of zero emission locomotives in California despite the fact that none are available. Futhermore, he is concerned about the cost and efficacy of said zero emission locomotive should one become available.
California is freaking nuts !
>> Outside of cataract assembly line shops, a dozen patients is a busy day in a specialist‘s office.
My neuro books full hour appointments as the norm. Half an hour is an occasional exception.
>>Joe Biden’s press conference tonight was a worst case scenario for the Democratic Party. Biden rambled incoherently, frequently made no sense, was often unable to finish sentences. He whispered weirdly. His aides finally pulled the plug and got him off the stage. But he remained upright! He was still standing after 45 minutes! So it was a triumph for Slow Joe.
Yeah, what the heck was with the whispering?? Does he do that in a closed-door meeting with Putin or Xi. Their translators would have fun with that!
Killer Baldwin skates, too many improprieties. Funny, not for Tattoo Girl. Airtight.
Another Baseless, Classless Insult of Harrison Butker – by Serena Williams
“[Normal looks like] going to my daughter’s school. I want to be, like, volunteer of the year. Obviously, now, that’s my new goal, being No. 1 at being the volunteer of the school,” the mom of two joked. “I got to be the greatest.”
https://redstate.com/jimthompson/2024/07/12/another-baseless-classless-insult-of-harrison-butker-by-serena-williams-n2176745
from Ace today commenting on Violet Affleck’s unhinged COVID death-rant to the LA County Board of Supervisors:
“Hollywood liberals’ kids are all lunatics, foul*-ups, drug addicts and transgenders — but definitely take their advice on every important topic, especially about schools and pronouns.”
*you know what he really wrote
I used to say that, but…
These people know what damage they are doing.
Call their actions by their true name.
Say EVIL.
Is Abbott back yet? Is Patrick gonna be the ‘fall guy?’
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/article/abbott-hurricane-beryl-acting-governor-patrick-19561623.php
“Can You Shoot An Active Shooter Even If You’re Not The Target?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93qqNYfjLog
“It’s everyone’s nightmare: an armed madman disrupts church services and begins firing a gun. Church security returns fire, but can – or should — you enter the gunfight with your concealed carry handgun? In this video, U.S. Concealed Carry Association Director of Content Kevin Michalowski and former Wisconsin state prosecutor Tom Grieve review footage of a heart-pounding training drill in which an armed gunman opens fire in a church. What do you do? Should you shoot?”
>> Got my non-prepping hobby meeting on Saturday anyway.
How goes the new website? 🙂
“Police: Trans Teen Shot, Killed Mom & Her Boyfriend, Blamed Fake Home Intruder for Murders”
https://www.infowars.com/posts/police-trans-teen-shot-killed-mom-her-boyfriend-blamed-fake-home-intruder-for-murders/
“Police in Palm Bay, Florida, claim a transgender teenager shot and killed her mother and her mom’s boyfriend last Saturday, then called 911 to falsely blame the murders on a home invasion.”
I know that we live in a country of 350 million people and crazy stuff happens all the time. But this freaks me out.
>>Wife says they changed their return rules. Open the box and it’s yours, no matter what.
Costco and the other big box retailers changed their super bowl returns policies years ago. No returns.
From Costco.com… No mention of the Super Bowl. Maybe they change it come January?
What is Costco’s return policy?
Risk-Free 100% Satisfaction Guarantee
On Membership: We will cancel and refund your membership fee at any time if you are dissatisfied.
On Merchandise: We guarantee your satisfaction on every product we sell, and will refund your purchase price*, with the following exceptions:
@nick, re the ‘cool app,’ check your aol mail…
Did you see the “Despicable Me” movie?
Take the kid several times this weekend. I have Comcast stock and need the dividend checks for the vet bills on the new kitten. 🙂
The Harris County “Judge” and the Corn Pop Administration have been attempting to make the Governor and Lt. Governor into “fall guys”.
The Harris County “Judge” and the Corn Pop Administration have been attempting to make the Governor and Lt. Governor into “fall guys”.
The Harris County judge is a lite-weight. She spent two months in a mental institution earlier this year before anyone realized that she was gone. She will not be elected again without severe voter manipulation, like last time.
“Can You Shoot An Active Shooter Even If You’re Not The Target?”
–haven’t watched the video yet, but in Texas the answer is “yes”. Basically anything you can lawfully do to defend yourself, you can do on behalf of another. IANAL, but that means you can shoot an attacker.
——————
How’s the new website?
– I “froze” development when the thing blew up because they sent out direct links to the old site to people nationwide. I didn’t have time to re- implement the store, and the changes to htaccess solved the issue temporarily.
After our regional show at the end of August, I’ll clean up the mess and get everything moved and active.
The main ‘root’ issue is that the active url was redirecting to an earlier url and site, so when I took control of the active url it broke.
I’ve advised them not to directly link anymore, but to point to the main url, and once our only source of outside funds is completed, I’ll poke at it some more.
It sucks because now we’re paying the old host a lot of money to keep the old URL and site alive, and paying bluehost to handle the new active site. I was hoping to be out of that and done before now… but the universe hates plans…
n
“President Trump Names Four VP Finalists During Interview – Wants to Do Cognitive Test With Dementia Joe on Live TV (AUDIO)”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/07/president-trump-names-four-vp-finalists-during-interview/
“Trump told co-host Clay Travis of “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” that he is down to “four or five” candidates and specifically named four finalists, all male: GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, JD Vance of Ohio, and Tim Scott of South Carolina. He also mentioned North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.”
“None of these names will come as a surprise to Gateway Pundit readers but Trump could always throw a curveball, like Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.”
Gonna be Marco Rubio or Dr. Ben Carson. JD Vance would be the best but would not bring any new voters to the election. Sean Hannity said today that none of Trump’s VP choices will help him, it comes down to Biden versus Trump for the voters.
@Nick – re your ‘hobby site” – Bluehost will move everything from the old host to BlueHost for a fee ($100?) so you don’t have to pay for both places. That will let the old site be active until you get the new place done – which you can put in a new folder on your BlueHost directory.
Once the new place is done, a simple configuration change will point the domain to the new folder location on BlueHost.
I’ve used that moving service once, and it worked well. Took them a couple-three days to move everything (including changing nameservers) and activate the new site.
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.
This is why I have a natural gas cooktop. We also love cooking with gas. The double oven is electric but that is not as important.
@rick, I’ll look into it, but the old site used a proprietary website builder that uses a db to build pages on the fly from obscured files. I couldn’t just copy out all the directories as there isn’t any html for each page.
I’ll call bluehost support Monday or Tuesday to be sure, but the host did everything they could to lock clients into their service.
At least that’s what I found a couple of months ago when I was looking.
n
>> Outside of cataract assembly line shops, a dozen patients is a busy day in a specialist‘s office.
My neuro books full hour appointments as the norm. Half an hour is an occasional exception.
My eye doctor, an eye surgeon, does eye exams, glaucoma, and 25 to 35 cataract surgeries a week. He sees 80+ patients on clinic days. He makes me go see him once a quarter for my glaucoma. He also looks at my cataracts. It is a zoo in his office as he has 12 to 15 technicians running tests, getting initial results, doing eye dilation, etc.
Killer Baldwin skates, too many improprieties. Funny, not for Tattoo Girl. Airtight.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13629747/Alec-Baldwin-Rust-case-dismissed.html
Baldwin was handed a loaded gun, believing it to be loaded with blanks. I do not know if the cinematographer told him to pull the trigger as he posed for her but he did. At least one of the cartridges in the gun was not a blank and the cinematographer was shot dead.
The problem is that the set armorer was allowing the guns to be used for target shooting before the scene was shot. That should have never been allowed. Baldwin was a producer, he has some civil responsibility in that. But, at minimum the armorer should have dumped the gun cylinder and reloaded it with blanks.
This is an incredibly important lesson to anyone handling a gun. Never point a gun at someone unless you are planning on shooting them. And, all guns are always loaded.
David Strom Admires an Epic Troll
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/07/12/i-should-hate-this-but-i-dont-n3791728
In his ruling, Grueber also lambasted a group of women who had attended in support of Kaechele wearing matching business attire and had silently crossed and uncrossed their legs in unison throughout the hearing. One woman “was pointedly reading feminist texts,” he wrote, and the group left the tribunal “in a slow march led by Ms Kaechele to the sounds of a Robert Palmer song.”
I only have one question:
With Bob gone, what’s the chance of getting a video?
– this case should never have been brought. It was an industrial accident and they treated it like a potential homicide from the beginning. Politics and grandstanding were involved. There was no reason for his bail to require that he avoid using alcohol for example. They already found pinkie to be responsible for the negligent act. Without her mistakes, it wouldn’t matter what baldwin did with the prop.
Executive Producer is a vanity title used to stroke someone or put them in line for money later on. The people that had actual legal and moral responsibility for the safety of the workplace skated. The armorer works for the Property Master, and she was never investigated or tried (outside of the OSHA investigation, where they did presumably consider job functions and responsibilities). They all work for the Unit Production Manager who sets schedule and budget, and crew. S/He was never investigated. Again, outside of OSHA. The OSHA investigation found serious issues and fined the company the max possible. I haven’t been able to find a copy of the OSHA finding.
Baldwin has crap politics. From the outside it looks like he has a great and loving home life (with a nut for a wife) with a passel of kids and years together. If it weren’t for his politics, I think there would be a lot less outrage and gnashing of teeth from the gun culture, and a lot more people glad that corrupt and fame seeking prosecutors got their comeuppance.
n
yahbut…
It’s his politics that put him squarely into the “can’t they both lose?” camp.
I completely bought into your and Aesop’s theories of the case. Tragic accident caused by multiple failures of responsibility, and The Bad Baldwin got caught through no significant errors of his own. Pointing toy guns at people and pulling the trigger is what the trained monkeys do, and it’s what he thought he was doing.
We know that travesties of justice happen all the time, like the J6 prosecutions. The fact that one finally hit a PLT is just karmic payback. I shrug my shoulders and say “oh well”.
Next comes the civil suit, and it could be a doozy. I hear he has stated in the past that he never points even the fake guns at people, and that he knows better. That could come back to bite him.
Currently 76F outside, but dripping wet. I am thinking I might have a tiny little fire on my front porch, and then shower and some reading before bed.
My non-prepping hobby meeting was moved to next week, and I can sleep til the gennie runs out of fuel… or I can get up and keep working on stuff I started today.
Hmm.
Choices.
n
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.
n
“all guns are always loaded.”
“Without her mistakes, it wouldn’t matter what baldwin did with the prop.”
“I think there would be a lot less outrage and gnashing of teeth from the gun culture”
The gnashing of teeth occurs largely* because one of the fundamental precepts of gun safety was ignored.
Rephrasing the above, “If Baldwin had treated the gun as loaded, it would not have mattered what anyone else did”
“they treated it like a potential homicide from the beginning”
A dead body with a bullet hole will properly get that response outside a war zone in civilized countries. The bar for proving it otherwise is going to be high.
There are eight billion people on this planet. Life is cheap. In this case it was so cheap that the two seconds was not taken to properly check the weapon, nor was it precious enough to consider that maybe, just maybe, the next death would be preventable if the two seconds was taken.
Jeffrey Epstein didn’t hang himself, and Alec Baldwin’s gun didn’t shoot itself.
*and is compounded by the fact that the person pulling the trigger was known for pretending that he knew something about guns outside of the soundstage
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/07/12/nyt-taking-sledgehammer-to-biden-campaign-pledges-and-prospects-n3791714
The “definite problems” are all in the polls. There would be no discussion about removal if the polls weren’t bad–the Democrats give not a fig for truth, justice, the American way, or mental incompetence. There is no mechanism to involuntarily replace the winner of a party’s primary simply because he is doing badly in the polls. There is a mechanism to replace a president that is mentally incompetent, and that would probably remove him as a candidate also (I haven’t seen a convincing argument for that being a sure thing).
The real “definite problem” is that the house of cards that the Democrats constructed with the full support of their media lapdogs has fallen flat. The people who rabidly denied that Biden has serious mental deterioration are now proven liars who have no credibility. No credibility when they claim they didn’t know, and certainly none when they claim they should be given the power to emerge from a back room with a new candidate that was not even in the primaries.
The only person with any ethics or credibility is the one man who stood up and entered the Democratic primaries in an attempt to convince his party that Biden’s mental deterioration was real. His voting record is sterling–100% with FJB–but that ship would never sail.
First Round action in the “Who Gets to Replace FJB” Tournament
https://x.com/OntWtf/status/1811823852349235245