78F at 7AM spells ‘big hot sweaty day’ in Houston.
More driving and more stuff to do today.
Headlines are more of the same too. The local polarization continues, with the left threatening political staffers and appointees, for doing their jobs. Note that a version of this has been advocated by certain elements of the right, for once the war goes live. Not sure you can complain that the left is doing what your side has advocated…
World stage is getting more polarized too.
I’ve been focused on other things than prepping (yep, really) and am beginning to feel nervous. I’ve eaten down some of my stocks, and not been out to the range, or stacking much of the 3 “b’s” lately.
Gotta fix that.
n
Overcast and 76f this morning by the Mississippi. Forecast for the high 90s and very humid. Far too much like Singapore for my liking. At least here we get some respite in the winter months.
I’ve been far too wrapped up with home & work issues to look at the news much. It’s just more depressing shit anyway. I’ll be putting my Harley Dresser up for sale when I get a chance to clean it up. I need the spending cash and never felt comfortable on it. Sticking with my Softail.
No prepping this week so far … sigh
73º and raining up hyah. Looks to rain most of the day.
Yesterday was a hit with the kids. Eldest son decided that he wanted to wander the water park alone for a while yesterday, giving Daddy a bit of a start. Took a while to find him. He didn’t see anything wrong with it. Obviously, the “stick together” part of my parenting instructions missed. I have to work on that. ALWAYS with a buddy, even if you ride the slide alone. Find the buddy when you come down.
Tonight is one of the 4 races we do together as a family. Youngsters run a half-mile race, while the adults get to do the full 5k. Afterward, we stop at a frozen custard place for cones. If you don’t run, you don’t get ice cream. The kids will run for that. My first wife & I run for the fun of it, and would whether we get the custard concoction or not.
@Lynn — An outright Socialist just took out the leading Dem proponent of “Medicare For All”.
No one would be happy with expanded Medicare, especially the Progs.
If Trump falls in 2020 and the Dems get a supermajority in Congress again, the plan will be UK-style single payer with the addition of the old Clintoncare regulations making private payments to doctors for better service a Federal crime.
To get the new trainwreck passed, they’ll double down on “You have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” Stretch Pelosi will crawl into the chamber if she has to, with that giant gavel clinched in her claws.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/26/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-crowley-new-york-14-primary/index.html
I just read something on social media that I find to be an indication of how bad things are in the US today. A person in a neighborhood where I used to live is opening a business. Apparently because they are a mixture of Puerto Rican and Arabic, they are getting unsigned notes from racist jerks them they don’t support black business owners, and to close before they open.
I find this distressing that things like this still happen, but I don’t thing that all the left wing posters are right that this is a sign of Trump’s America. There have always been people like the ones leaving the notes. Though I realize that before I was born, the situation was even more dire. Back then the note would have been even more threatening, and used more offensive words than black. And it would have likely been attached to a brick or rock.
“31% Think U.S. Civil War Likely Soon”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2018/31_think_u_s_civil_war_likely_soon
“Thirty-one percent (31%) of Likely U.S. Voters say it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years, with 11% who say it’s Very Likely. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 59% consider a second civil war unlikely, but that includes only 29% who say it’s Not At All Likely.”
“But 59% of all voters are concerned that those opposed to President Trump’s policies will resort to violence, with 33% who are Very Concerned. This compares to 53% and 28% respectively in the spring of Obama’s second year in office. Thirty-seven percent (37%) don’t share that concern, including 16% who are Not At All Concerned. ”
Keep your powder dry !
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
From BH in today’s Fort Bend Herald:
“Oops, I didn’t make it to the gym this week. That makes it five years in a row.”
“Wi-Fi Is Getting a Major Upgrade”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/362098/wi-fi-is-getting-a-major-upgrade
“The new security protocol is called WPA3 and will be widely adopted across the tech industry, likely starting in late 2019. It replaces WPA2, which arrived back in 2004.”
Cool. Nothing is uncrackable but it will make things tougher. I would like to see them use 1,024 bit encryption keys like we use in our software but, I doubt it.
Here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about folks from Texas …
http://www.city-data.com/forum/texas/550235-jeff-foxworthy-has-say-about-folks.html
If someone in a Lowe’s store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you may live in Texas ;
If you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you may live in Texas ;
If you’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you may live in Texas ;
If ‘Vacation’ means going anywhere south of Dallas for the weekend, you may live in Texas ;
If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Texas ;
If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you may live in Texas ;
If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked, you may live in Texas ;
If you carry jumper cables in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you may live in Texas ;
If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph — you’re going 80 and everybody’s passing you, you may live in Texas ;
If you find 60 degrees ‘a little chilly,’ you may live in Texas ;
If you actually understand these jokes, and share them with all your Texas friends, you definitely live in Texas.
“Marzipan as a path to ARM-based Macs”
http://www.osnews.com/story/30524/Marzipan_as_a_path_to_ARM-based_Macs
“Windows has already made the move to ARM, and macOS will be joining it over the coming years. There is a major architectural shift happening in desktop computing, and there are quite a few companies who have to worry about their long-term bottom line: Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA.”
It may be time to short Intel.
A lot of people have sung Intel’s death knell over the years. None of them have been right yet.
The Texas jokes look familiar. Many of them apply to PA – the world capital of white-tailed deer. In the winter, for instance, I _do_ wear a parka & shorts at the same time.
It may be time to short Intel.
I’ll believe Apple is serious about going ARM when they cut off their last “professional” grade laptops (as opposed to the current disposable models) from OS updates.
AFAIK, my 15 inch 2012 MacBook Pro, the last Apple laptop with a matte screen option, will be supported by the upcoming Mojave, but the machine to watch will be the 13 inch “101” MacBook Pro introduced the same year as my laptop.
The “101” has been the last refuge of pro users who still need big hard disk capacity and/or an internal DVD-RW, and Apple sold those new until last year. Burning those users will be a tough choice for Tim Cook — the machines run Windows 10 and Linux flavors extremely well.
As for Intel, I never count out Chipzilla. Core2 was a surprise that emerged at just the right time out of a mostly-forgotten R&D facility in Israel, and the company’s biggest problem right now is that the i5/i7 CPUs from six years ago are still powering screaming machines.
Heck, my primary desktop is a Q6600 that I’ve never had a reason to upgrade.
Plus, Intel has an ARM license through one of their recent acquisitions. If they *really* got into trouble, they could play the TSMC game better than TSMC.
The Texas jokes look familiar. Many of them apply to PA – the world capital of white-tailed deer. In the winter, for instance, I _do_ wear a parka & shorts at the same time.
I saw parkas and shorts all the time on the Oregon Coast. Part of the reason is weather, but I noted outerwear brands such as North Face and Mountain Hardwear are status symbols in the Northwest.
Interesting. Kennedy wasn’t expected to resign, but he may be worried about the election. Moderate or not, he wrote the majority on Bush v. Gore so he knows something about politics.
I don’t mean to sound ghoulish, but the McCain problem should resolve itself fairly soon. He’s survived long enough to allow the seat to be filled with an appointment by the AZ Governor which would last until 2020 IIRC.
https://apnews.com/43de809e3c144a1f9048055386394263
Interesting. Kennedy wasn’t expected to resign, but he may be worried about the election.
I don’t mean to sound ghoulish, but the McCain problem should resolve itself fairly soon. He’s survived long enough to allow the seat to be filled with an appointment by the AZ Governor which would last until the end of his term.
https://apnews.com/43de809e3c144a1f9048055386394263
Kennedy is 81 years old. I cannot imagine working full time in my 80s. Shoot, I can not imagine working full time now at 58.
If John McCain were an honest man (see the Keating Five), he would resign and let the AZ governor replace him.
“Liberal Meltdown Over Justice Kennedy Retirement”
http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/27/liberal-meltdown-over-justice-kennedy-retirement/
If John McCain were an honest man (see the Keating Five), he would resign and let the AZ governor replace him.
If McCain had resigned prior to the beginning of June, filling the seat would have required a special election in November. He did the party a favor by not resigning.
Who knows why he clings to the seat now. Maybe he wants a state funeral on Capitol Hill in return for staying in office past the beginning of the month. I could see that happening, complete with speaking opportunities for Obama and Biden. Biden ’20 kickoff!
Nothing is going on in the Senate right now. It will take at least a month to get the Supreme Court ball rolling. McConnell is playing it right.
No one would be happy with expanded Medicare, especially the Progs.
If Trump falls in 2020 and the Dems get a supermajority in Congress again, the plan will be UK-style single payer with the addition of the old Clintoncare regulations making private payments to doctors for better service a Federal crime.
Isn’t Medicare a Single Payer system already ? There are several exceptions as many of the unions have their own healthcare systems that are slowly failing.
And the UK NHS is a single provider system. Kinda like the VA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service
If McCain had resigned prior to the beginning of June, filling the seat would have required a special election in November. He did the party a favor by not resigning.
Gotcha, I did not know that. Ok, McCain can resign now. I’ll bet that he does not resign.
Kennedy is 81 years old. I cannot imagine working full time in my 80s. Shoot, I can not imagine working full time now at 58.
I’m a better programmer now, pushing 50, than I was 10 or 20 years ago.
I’m a much better programmer than the 25 year-old girl who started with me at the current job four months ago, but management sees her as the future whereas I’m grudgingly accepted to get the job done.
I’m a better programmer now, pushing 50, than I was 10 or 20 years ago.
I am not better at 58 than I was at 42. Two junior programmers and I converted our 200,000 line Win16 Smalltalk user interface to Win32 C++ when I was 42. Took us a year and a half. Only a 50% code expansion from no data typing to strong data typing. And it worked and was 100X faster since the Smalltalk code was tokenized, interpreted, and garbage collected. Nowadays I would be too apprehensive to even start a project like that.
My big problem is concentrating on the task at hand. I do suspect that my heart drugs are interfering with me though.
One of the things I fear as I age is drugs. My late mother told me that some of her medication made her feel dumb. I had enough of that when I quit smoking. I don’t want to go through that again.
“Ford Gets It Right with the First-Ever 2018 F-150 Power Stroke Diesel”
https://www.carprousa.com/ford-gets-it-right-first-ever-2018-f-150-power-stroke-diesel
30 mpg on the highway for a full size 4×4 pickup ! Sounded great until I got to the $67,000 price. I can guarantee that there will be no discounts for quite a while.
Gotcha, I did not know that. Ok, McCain can resign now. I’ll bet that he does not resign.
He’ll die in the office. If he resigns before then, a deal was cut to put Mrs. McCain in the seat for the two years.
The AZ Governor used to work for McCain’s wife’s family. The Senator has publicly floated the trial balloon of having his wife take the seat, but the politics are dicey since the “thumbs down” on the Obamacare repeal last year.
I probably disagree with McCain more than I agree with him, but I find it plausible that he was a part of the Keating Five, because if it were the Keating Four, they would have all been Democrats.
30 mpg on the highway for a full size 4×4 pickup ! Sounded great until I got to the $67,000 price. I can guarantee that there will be no discounts for quite a while.
$67k is sticker. Wait until 2.5% car loans stop — they might even show you the *real* invoice (there are usually two). I’m guessing wholesale is just across $50k.
Plus, 2018. Give it a couple of months and see how hungry the dealers are to move those with 2019s starting to show up on the lot. They borrow money to put the vehicles in the showroom, and, as Hannibal the Cannibal said, “Tick tock, Clarice”.
My friend’s wife used to work for Ford, and we’ll see her next week. I’ll ask what the “real” price on that truck would be if the dealer had to move it in a hurry.
@Greg Norton: I upgraded my mid-2012 13″ MacBook Pro this spring with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD drive – it’s like a new laptop.
I used to have a Win 7 partition on it, but got tired of the issues with it every time Apple upgraded the OS, and just bought a cheap Win10 laptop. Win10 is horrible, but if you just use it for work stuff, acceptable.
At 62 I’m a much slower programmer than I was. As someone said, medications may be part of it. Plus I recognize obvious BS when it’s foisted on me by languages and can’t get excited about “new” stuff much.
$67k is sticker. Wait until 2.5% car loans stop — they might even show you the *real* invoice (there are usually two). I’m guessing wholesale is just across $50k.
Gas, yes. Diesel, no. There is a huge pent-up demand for 1/2 ton Ford diesel pickups. And the diesel pickups don’t even show up until July.
Jeez, the cops are running a surveillance op in the sh!tty apartments about a mile from my house.
Sounds like a drug deal.
Looking at the crime reports, almost all the crime in my area is in or around the big sh!tty apartments.
n
@Greg Norton: I upgraded my mid-2012 13″ MacBook Pro this spring with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD drive – it’s like a new laptop.
I run a hybrid drive in my 2012 15″ which I purchased as a refurb in 2014. I don’t trust Apple’s new file system yet.
I ran a 2007 “Santa Rosa” as a Windows 7 machine until a couple of months ago when Microsoft and Intel started attempts to patch the CPU bugs, and their efforts did strange things to the video driver.
Sounds like the sh!tty apartment building should be razed.
Oh yes, and the illegals imprisoned or expelled.
Vast swaths of the local economy are dependent on the illegals, from the churches who support them, to landlords, stores, beauty parlors, and ice cream stores. Don’t forget the schools and daycares either, as those are also paid for by taxpayers.
n
I’m sorry, but I see a logical fallacy in that statement. If it is funded by the taxpayers, the economy is NOT dependent on the illegals. The illegals are dependent on the economy.
McCain, Pelosi, Teddy “Hick” Kennedy et al. Greedy power hungry ego swollen fukstiks all. Rather than spend their golden/final years with family and friends, they want to be rulers. I think they rolled Teddy in on a gurney for some votes at the end. “Look! Look! He drooled *yes* on this vote!”
And the ProgLibTurdians are gnashing their teeth over SCOTUS Kennedy’s retirement. They won’t be able to do jack shit and tRump should have a majority court if he nominates Gorsuch 2.0. Not that Roberts didn’t turn out to be a doosh.
/off soapbox
” the economy is NOT dependent on the illegals. The illegals are dependent on the economy.”
Nope. The illegals are dependent on the taxpayers. They get (to them) free or subsidized housing (section 8), free healthcare, free food (wic, foodstamps, school lunch (which includes breakfast and meals at the library all summer)), free cell phones, and free legal advice, which leaves them able to send money back to their sh!thole of origin, and spend cash in the local economy. What money they earn, again illegally, is often not taxed, and they are free to spend it on discretionary items locally.
The landlords couldn’t rent their sh!thole apartments without section 8, the schools get paid by butts in the seat (and also get extra money for bi-lingual and special ed), the cops hire more officers because of the demonstrated crime problems, and local businesses hoover up all that extra loose cash. EVERY business I’ve been in locally has predominantly spanish speaking customers. Auto parts, ice cream, restaurants, auto repair, phone stores, grocery and convenience stores, all the way down the line, I’m usually the only white person in the place. If any percentage at all of the spanish speakers is illegal, then losing them (whether 10% or 50% of customers) would be enough to put the business in bankruptcy.
n
edit- in other words, the illegals are a conduit to move taxpayer money into the local economy
@MrAtoz – weren’t you the one calling Gorsuch the reason for Trump, and everything else being gravy?
I like gravy on my biscuits.
@Nick – thanks for putting me in a sad mood. Think I’ll get back to work.
Mr. JimL, lol!, that’s Mr. Lynn. I like gravy on my biscuits, too. Lots of gravy. How old is Ruthie Ginsburg?
Then Mr. Lynn may be getting some gravy as well.
Mr. JimL, lol!, that’s Mr. Lynn. I like gravy on my biscuits, too. Lots of gravy. How old is Ruthie Ginsburg?
I believe that she is 85.
Then Mr. Lynn may be getting some gravy as well.
Ahem. Hillary Clinton is not President. That is gravy enough for me.