At the last minute, after the first gusts arrived, the storm system that was aimed like an arrow at my house jogged west a hair and completely bypassed me last night.
Weather station says ‘no precip’ for me.
Today is 74F and 91%RH to start my day, and it’s sure to be hot and humid later.
A quick review of headlines shows a pause in reporting, probably due to the weird split week. I’m sure the slide continues.
I’ve been mulling the idea of ‘crowdsourcing’ and the ‘wisdom of crowds’ as presented in the business press, and I think they are making a fundamental error, but I don’t have my thoughts organized yet. Perhaps later.
In the mean time, the rain and heat here have put a damper on my preps. (hah) Zukes not thriving. Grape vine going wild but no fruit. Everyone but me has garden produce… waaaa.
Anyone do anything interesting to prep this week? Anyone signed up for learning a new skill or going to a new community meeting?
n
67º and sunny. High of 75º around lunchtime. I’m in heaven.
Dinners this week accompanied by lettuce out of the garden. Not much, but it’s something.
After the sportiness of schools telling parents that they’re not allowed input into their children’s education, I’m redoubling my efforts to be involved in the school board. I don’t know that I’ll say anything, but I won’t be unaware of decisions involving my children. I know half of the board members as it is, so there’s that. Conversations to be had…
School:
I think we expect the public school system to teach children too much. They’ve taken over the role of teaching children things their parents should be teaching them and things the children should be taking the initiative to learn themselves. They need reading, writing, basic arithmetic, basic science, and some high level history. That will give them the tools they need to pursue whatever they are interested in on their own. That could all be accomplished by age 12 (if that late).
However, since we’ve saddled our public schools with the role of parent, daycare, cafeteria, competitive athletics, and so forth it’s become the useless giant turd we turned it into.
Trade “war” with China and the EU:
Someone who knows more about international trade and macro economics can weigh in here, but we had a $375B trade DEFICIT with China in 2017. So, don’t tariffs hurt them exponentially worse than they hurt us?
Yes, and they are running fast just to stay in place, as I understand it. They NEED massive volumes of overseas sales to keep the whole thing together.
n
the reasons I like the DailyMail and dislike it in one article–
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5924021/Suspect-Charlottesville-attack-pleads-not-guilty.html
Like- follow up on previous story
dislike- battlespace preparation by prosecution, very prejudicial language.
I still believe from looking at the video of the events with my own eyes that this guy was attacked and panicked trying to get away from the violent protesters.
I also believe he’ll be railroaded. He’s already spent all this time in jail and had his life destroyed.
One more reason to ‘not be there’ if it’s something you KNOW can go pear shaped.
n
Re: blood thinners:
I was at the cardiologist last week for my annual checkup. I have atrial fibrillation, but well-controlled with Flecanide. For the occasional afib episode, I take a Metoprolol. Was taking full strength aspirin the past several years; had been taking Coumadin, but previous cardio guy said to change to full strength aspirin.
Current cardio guy punched a few things into an app on his phone, and said that with my Type 2 diabetes and current age (66) I had a 2% risk of stroke, so should go back on blood thinners as a precaution.
He recommended Elquis, Pradaxa, or Xarelto, depending on my drug coverage. All of those do not require INR testing or dietary restrictions. Looking into which one would be better covered by my drug coverage.
And, noticed an article the other day that bananas have a lot of potassium, and the ripeness of the banana changes the effect on diabetics. Turns out that greener bananas are better for the diabetic than riper bananas.
YMMV. And IANAD.
@Rick
Turns out that greener bananas are better for the diabetic than riper bananas.
Decades ago, high school science class, a unit on plants. Bananas are unusual. They continue to increase in sugar as they ripen. I think the starch in the fruit converts but don’t quite remember.
So if the goal is minimal sugar, yeah, less ripe bananas would be lower in sugar and ‘better’ for diabetes.
I’ve got another day or two of sun then a week of rain according to the weather liars. I’ve got three sets of windows that are long overdue for fresh paint, and about 65’ of 8” board on the roof edge (mind blanking on the correct word) that needs to be sanded, primed, painted. I’m not going to get it all done this weekend but I really don’t want it to stretch into ‘next summer’ like I’ve been doing for the last 9 years.
I was glad the weather has held for our farmer friend whose sheep we herd. They got many hundreds of square bales of hay harvested. They broke their backs dawn to dusk for about five days and got nearly all of the hay in. They were round baling the last field when the round baler blew its bearings after the 13th bale. I hope they can do the repair and get the rest of the hay in. The hay represents a substantial amount of money, not only as fodder for their own animals, but as income and affordable fodder for their buyers. If they lose some harvest it’s a loss not just to them, but to others who depend on them – their buyers may have to bring up hay from the lower 48 with the increased transport costs.
They are finding it virtually impossible to find young people who are physically capable of doing haying work. Lifting even one bale overhead and onto the trailer, much less doing it for five or six hours with breaks, is outside of the kids strength. My farmer friends are in their sixties and work circles around the kids. Have another friend who, a few years ago, lost 1/4 of her hay to rain because the men she hired simply didn’t show up. She got in 3/4 of her harvest single handedly before the rain came. She has since switched to round baling (square bales require a different more hands on technique).
We encourage our kiddo to be physically active. We let her stretch and risk failure. We demand she spends time outdoors running around. We’ve got multiple generations who grew up inactive, influenced by home and school. Still can’t get over the irony of the public school system preaching 60 minutes of physical activity a day (as if that were enough), while imposing single 20 minute recesses in 7 hours on five year olds.
Get up. Go move.
From BH in the Wednesday edition of the Fort Bend Herald, “Your Choice”:
“What was the greater likelihood: The Arctic would have no ice in 2018 or Al Gore lied to people to get richer ?”
The Arctic has an incredible amount of ice in it today.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/18/study-arctic-sea-ice-was-thinner-in-1955-than-in-years-2015-2017/
He recommended Elquis, Pradaxa, or Xarelto, depending on my drug coverage. All of those do not require INR testing or dietary restrictions. Looking into which one would be better covered by my drug coverage.
If you are taking those drugs, don’t fall and hit your head and cause a brain bleed. The neural surgeon cannot operate on you until the drug is out of your system. I took Pradaxa for years not knowing this. I switched to Warfarin 4 or 5 years ago.
https://www.houstonpress.com/news/pradaxa-patients-cant-stop-the-bleeding-6594403
Pradaxa now has a reversal agent. But at $3,000 per dose, no one is carrying it.
They are finding it virtually impossible to find young people who are physically capable of doing haying work. Lifting even one bale overhead and onto the trailer, much less doing it for five or six hours with breaks, is outside of the kids strength. My farmer friends are in their sixties and work circles around the kids. Have another friend who, a few years ago, lost 1/4 of her hay to rain because the men she hired simply didn’t show up. She got in 3/4 of her harvest single handedly before the rain came. She has since switched to round baling (square bales require a different more hands on technique).
That is one tough lady. I have thrown thousands of square bales over the years when I was young on my grandfathers farm while walking along the baler and throwing the bales to the back of the trailer. And then help him to turn the bale stacks over in his barn. Fun, fun, fun. Not, not, not.
And, noticed an article the other day that bananas have a lot of potassium, and the ripeness of the banana changes the effect on diabetics. Turns out that greener bananas are better for the diabetic than riper bananas.
I love slightly under ripe bananas. The wife and daughter prefer fully ripe.
At the risk of oversimplifying…
We’d be in a different state of affairs if our ruling class were still farmers and merchants.
We’d be in a different state of affairs if our ruling class were still farmers and merchants.
I have often thought that you should be required to own land in the USA in order to vote in any election. And not just a single square foot.
ADD: And I have often thought that you should be required to own land in the USA in order to run in any election. People need to be invested in the country in order to participate in running it.
I have often thought that you should be required to own land in the USA in order to vote in any election. And not just a single square foot.
Just that square foot would disenfranchise half the population. I cannot decide if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. Assuredly, it would ensure that voters have skin in the game.
I am more of a mindset that you have to pay property or income tax, state or federal, to be able to vote. Too many people who pay no tax are voting money for “free to them” programs. Not their money so why do they care? That would eliminate a lot of freeloaders from voting and that is just fine with me.
Just that square foot would disenfranchise half the population. I cannot decide if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. Assuredly, it would ensure that voters have skin in the game.
Eliminate withholding for income tax and make everyone file quarterly returns with the IRS.
Capping deduction of “SALT” (State And Local Taxes) at $10,000 will be a bit of a jolt next April 15, but it won’t be nearly enough to wake up the sheeple.
I guess that the thought of property tax was universal. I should know better. Likely there are states that don’t tax property.
I can go along with that. If you are a net producer, vote. If you are a consumer…
I have often thought that you should be required to own land in the USA in order to vote in any election. And not just a single square foot.
It’s also been suggested that some minimal amount of money in a bank account–$1000, say– be a requirement to vote. But here again, vast swathes of the electorate, disenfranchised.
Jenny wrote:
“They are finding it virtually impossible to find young people who are physically capable of doing haying work. Lifting even one bale overhead and onto the trailer, much less doing it for five or six hours with breaks, is outside of the kids strength.”
I did that in 1973, when I was 15. Only had to lift the bales to waist height, but it was hard as I was out of condition.
I’m not a fan of property tax. You effectively never own the property if it can be taken away from you for not paying.
Agreed on the variations of having skin in the game to vote. Our current situation is designed to shift wealth to the indolent unproductive losers who compound the insult by stealing everything not nailed down.
Bob once suggested that people be given votes in proportion to taxes paid.
We’d be in a different state of affairs if our ruling class were still farmers and merchants.
The tech industry in the US is mostly about selling things made in China, and just about everyone’s retirement is dependent on the success of the “FANG” companies, both stock prices and employees dutifully paying half their incomes or more on West Coast mortgages. We’re pretty much ruled by merchants now; I’m not sure if it was a good idea.
Amazon already announced that they will print a substitute for the big Toys R Us catalog now that they’ve driven Geoffrey the Giraffe out of business.
Agreed on the variations of having skin in the game to vote. Our current situation is designed to shift wealth to the indolent unproductive losers who compound the insult by stealing everything not nailed down.
And Jenny wins the word of the day contest ! I haven’t seen the word “indolent” in quite a while. And it certainly describes the situation.
There is a major downfall with my scheme of owning property. Here in Texas, when you turn 65, the property taxes can be just accumulated at 8% interest per year until you pass or sell the property. It is usually a neat surprise for the inheritors.
In my youth, starting at about age 13 until I went into the USAF that was my primary source of income. Not only did my farm produce about 10,000 bales each year that had to be hauled into the barn, myself along with two others had a “crew” that would go to other farms and bring in their hay.
I could go all day hoisting 70 pound bales of hay well over my head. With the right technique. some really good hay hooks (custom made to my specs), it was possible to do a bale with one arm. It was all about momentum and geometry to get the bale over my head. When the hay on the trailer got past arms length over the head I would usually get on the trailer and pull the bales the last couple of rows. Stacking on the trailer was critical to keep the hay from falling off on the trip to the barn on some of the hillsides.
For the barns we had hay elevators, electric powered conveyors that would move the hay horizontally or up a fairly steep angle. Generally necessary in all barns as the stacks of hay can get quite tall.
Myself and the other members of the crew worked for $1.50 an hour (this was in 1962-1969) or $0.10 a bale for the entire crew. The choice was dictated by the distance the hay had to travel. Lunch was always provided as that was an unwritten work clause. The better the lunches the better the farmer had of getting a crew when there was a shortage.
I generally made about $2K a summer, none of it taxed, so it was not too bad. A new car could be had for that amount of money.
I also hired out to two of the neighbors when they needed work accomplished. Summers never lacked for something to do either on my farm or working for another farm. Days ran from sunup to sundown and up north in Oregon those were long days. Very little time for personal activities and social life was non-existent. I survived.
Voting
There is current and past precedence for voting being related to property ownership. All the Irrigation Districts I have ever been familiar with only allow the actual owners (or mortgagor) of property within the district to vote and the number of votes an owner gets is based on the amount of property they own (a person with 1 acre or less gets one vote and an additional vote for each acre they own). This works well in most ways but does give the big landowners a lot of leverage. Renters have no vote.
Bucking Bales
I was bucking 90-pound+ bales of my Maternal Grandfather’s prime alfalfa every spring, summer, and fall from the time I was 7 until I was 18. The tractor pulled baler pulled a large flat wagon and we took the bales from a chute on the back of the baler and stacked it high (I don’t remember how many bales high but it was well over 6-feet). There were 2 to 4 of us on the wagon. The first couple of years I could only push/pull the bales back to the older guys who did the stacking. I was probably 10 before I could lift the bales to a useful height.
“Security guard, 57, previously jailed for murder ‘beats to death thieving customer, 33, who stole a bottle of booze from a liquor store’ and is charged with murder again
A man died after receiving blows from a liquor store security guard on the South Side of Chicago
Christopher Emmons, 57, is charged with the murder of Herbert Lemon, 33
The beating happened after a security guard recognized Lemon as a someone who shoplifted from the store a day before
Emmons, who was previously jailed for an unrelated murder, is alleged to have punched Lemon and then beaten him up
A day later, Lemon was taken to hospital for head injuries”
“He previously served 23 years in prison on a murder charge and has other convictions for arson and unlawful use of a weapon.”
Ummm, SECURITY GUARD????!?!?!?!???!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5926319/Security-guard-charged-murder-beating-death-customer-stole-booze.html
n
Re: Out of shape youth. The elder son of a lady I’m trying to get serious with is about to learn this lesson in a big way. He turns 18 in a couple of weeks, and like too many kids, his main exercise has been literally twiddling his thumbs. (He he has been doing some weight lifting in the last year, but he’s done very little running in his life.) He has an appointment in August to spend some time with the instructors from Uncle Sam’s Miscreant Children. I’m not sure that either he or his mother understand that he’s going to do more exercise in those 13 weeks than in his first 18 years.
And Jenny wins the word of the day contest ! I haven’t seen the word “indolent” in quite a while. And it certainly describes the situation.
I suspect that Jenny’s just too polite to come right out and call them “lazy”, and certainly too much a lady to use the modern version of the word, “lazy-@$$”! 😉
From the Wikipedia article on Nevil Shute’s “In the Wet”:
Multiple vote:
“Perhaps the most interesting (and enduring) feature of the book is the “multiple vote”, seen as a necessary reform of democracy. A person can have up to seven votes. Everyone gets a basic vote. Other votes can be earned for education (including a commission in the armed forces), earning one’s living overseas for two years, raising two children to the age of 14 without divorcing, being an official of a Christian church, or having a high earned income. The seventh vote, which in the book is awarded to <character’s name elided *> for his heroism, is only given at the Queen’s discretion by Royal Charter.”
* I’ve left out the name because, while it was fairly common in the Anglosphere back in Shute’s day, nowadays it is <Elmer Fudd voice>a vewy, vewy bad word</Elmer Fudd voice>!
Aside: In general, anything by Shute is a good read.
Nope, unpaid, volunteer executioner.
CowboySlim, who is a master of linguistics.
”The a/c is emitting a horrible mildew smell.”
Try removing the “cowl plenum cover” whatever it is called, between windshield and hood. Probably held by plastic rivets, and the wiper arms might need to be removed to get it off. Shovel out any debris, cover the duct into the a/c, and hose the plenum area out with a little (unscented) detergent. Even without trees or mice, that area is probably full of debris.
65’ of 8” board on the roof edge Fascia board.
You effectively never own the property if it can be taken away from you for not paying. Yep. Every year when I go in to pay the property taxes they ask if they can help me. I tell them I here to pay the rent. They use to act annoyed. “It’s not rent!” Well, it is because if I don’t pay you take my house and land. Now they remember me or I’m not the only person saying they are paying rent.
A/C mildew smell I have yet to have the problem. The nearest would be a whiff of “stuffy refrigerator”. Looking on the ‘net yields plenty of hits written for stupid people. I’m pretty sure spraying Lysol into your air vents is going to be very useful. I would spray into the cowl or put the system on re-circ and spray into that intake. My aim is to get the coil wet with Lysol, turn everything off and let it sit overnight. But what do I actually know?
Spook’s idea is good. Maybe a shop vac and a trip to the car wash (or, hey, rain!) would be enough. Check for clogged drains, too.
One more. I don’t know how Ford does it. Chrysler use to have an elbow shape soft rubbery tube that pinched shut at the end. Keep out bugs? The water could run out, esp with the blower on, otherwise it was closed. On my Cordoba the tube fell off. Not a problem around town. But from Austin to Edinburg, it held enough water at highway speed I had to stop in Alice for a pan. I replaced the part and never had another problem. Hmm. I need to check the truck…
I have seen older Ford trucks with a rubber flap at the ends of the cowl plenum. Cowl top was not removable, but the flap was obvious with the fender off. It could get stuck and not drain.
On my obscure GM car, there’s no baffle to keep mice out. There is a little “Welcome” sign…
In any case it’s good to try to clean out the cowl plenum, even if all you can do is hose water in, often.
Perfume (like Lysol) does not solve the real problem. Clean does not have a smell!
If it’s easy to remove the cowl plenum cover, it’s well worth that effort.
And, yeah, shop vacuum everywhere you can reach in the cabin air system,
and replace (or clean) cabin air filter, if any, of course.
There is a major downfall with my scheme of owning property. Here in Texas, when you turn 65, the property taxes can be just accumulated at 8% interest per year until you pass or sell the property. It is usually a neat surprise for the inheritors.
That could explain what we’ve seen with some of the large properties around us.
One large ranch right next door to our neighborhood just got turned into H1B housing. I’m guessing someone died.
It isn’t the large, cr*ppy houses in the development that bother me as much as the new roads that opened up our neighborhood to the mess out on US 183.
”The a/c is emitting a horrible mildew smell.”
Try removing the “cowl plenum cover” whatever it is called, between windshield and hood. Probably held by plastic rivets, and the wiper arms might need to be removed to get it off. Shovel out any debris, cover the duct into the a/c, and hose the plenum area out with a little (unscented) detergent. Even without trees or mice, that area is probably full of debris.
I will get off my lazy butt Saturday and try that out.
And, yeah, shop vacuum everywhere you can reach in the cabin air system,
and replace (or clean) cabin air filter, if any, of course.
The wife gave me a new shop vac for Christmas 2016 after mine walked off with one of the guys working on our house addition. I have yet to use it. Sounds like time to open it up.
Dadgum, now I have to find a generalized correlation for calculating the acentric factor of a high molecular weight (300 to 850), high boiling point (1000 F to 2190 F) hydrocarbon. I am still working on a project for a Fortune 50 company and our software just blew up with their extensive crude oil boiling point curve (218 points !). Our old correlation was just fine for up to 1500 F. Sigh, I feel like I am a rat on a exercise wheel with this project that I have been working on since last November.
Funny, our users in Iran never complained about this and they have fairly heavy crude oil. Of course, they used a cracked version of our software from Russia and generally do not contact us very often. The prof at the University of Tehran wrote a very nice paper using our software as the basis for his article in Oil and Gas Journal a few years ago.
I certainly have no objection to requiring skin in the game to vote. I also think of the less than flattering commentary on voting from Twain, Bierce and Menchen (sp?) , too.
Property tax, like any tax, is an abomination. I pay it only by proxy as a renter, but as a onetime manager for this joint I’m aware that, during my tenure, now long ago, it ran to 2 months full occupancy income. 1/6 of income for some indolent (heh!) snow removal seems a bit high.
The usual argument is that government is necessary and that it has to be paid for somehow. Most of the arguments focus on how much government is needed and what it should be doing and the how and how and how much of paying for it.
I propose the now-radical proposition that government is necessary only if population density is too high. If you keep the number of people down, or keep the living space up, you can get along fine with mutual agreement in voluntary groups.
What’s that population density? Something under 1% of current, I suspect. That’s based on agrarian society being able to support 100X or more the population of hunter-gatherer society on the same land.
Therefore, I propose reducing the human population by 99% as a first step, giving it a little time to see how things shake out, and taking further steps as needed.
(And now Rick is going to grump at me about being grumpy. Bah. If I were grumpy I’d propose reducing the human population by 100%. There’s a huge difference between 100% reduction and only 99% reduction — it’s the difference between genocide and merely winnowing the chaff.)
Therefore, I propose reducing the human population by 99% as a first step, giving it a little time to see how things shake out, and taking further steps as needed.
This sounds like how “Logan’s Run” started. Since we are all over 21 here, oh well.
ADD: This dude agrees with you, “Pope warns climate change turning Earth into desert, garbage”:
https://apnews.com/2dc33645a7e140ffa63e9f5f3b8d2504
If the pope was a tv show, he jumped the shark some time ago. I just shake my head every time I hear him quoted now.
n
Don’t give ’em ideas! Youtube would have a hard time saying he didn’t fit “community standards”.
Is it? Really? Please show your work. 🙂
@Paul
Fascia board
Thanks – it’s been driving me batty I couldn’t remember the correct term.
Cars and clogged intervals – I used to own a 1973 VW Squareback. It was a gutless vehicle but I loved it so much. Did all my work on it. During rainy season I wore gumboits while driving it. Every time I turned left it dumped a quart of water on my feet. I learned how to repair the problem years after the car was gone but at the time was mystified. Still miss it.
@SteveF
The bad dude in the Marvel movies was more conservative. Thanos only felt it necessary to kill half the population to restore balance.
@Lynn
I’ve got lots of other words for those living on societies teat but they aren’t polite. Nope. Not even a little bit.
My favorite word is pusillanimous but you can’t really work it into a conversation without looking officious.
As expected, Lynn is part of the problem.
Seriously, follow the link and try to make it to the bottom of the article, reading every word, without going into convulsions. If I were hiring, learned that a candidate had gone to VTech, and then learned that he/she/zir had gotten a passing grade in that lunatic’s class, I’d view that as a hard disqualification right there.
If the pope was a tv show, he jumped the shark some time ago. I just shake my head every time I hear him quoted now.
This fake Pope fiasco has gone on too long. It only took the Vatican’s assassins 33 days to bump off John Paul I.
I guess the complication is that the real Hitler Youth Pope is still alive and bumping off the fake Pope could result in another fake Pope who would be even more radical.
Therefore, I propose reducing the human population by 99% as a first step, giving it a little time to see how things shake out, and taking further steps as needed.
The last decent Clancy book, before his divorce, “Rainbow Six”, featured bad guys who wanted to wipe out most of the human population except for their core group.
Sigh, I feel like I am a rat on a exercise wheel with this project that I have been working on since last November.
I’ve spent most of my vacation pondering a data stream prioritization algorithm for work. Fun!
Our management has a remote “tiger team” developing something that the salespeople sold to several customers but will require ground-breaking Computer Science research to make work. Their vacations must be a blast … if they take any.
I had a ’74 Super Beetle. Every time it rained hard as it was prone to do in south Texas water would collect on the floor. Dealer could not find the problem as I went back several times with the issue. Finally the warranty expired and the dealer just said tough. This was before lemon laws.
Finally I just drilled a 1/4″ hole in the floor so the water could drain. Helped for awhile but the damage had been done. Floor rusted out below the battery. So I installed a sheet of plywood that had been heavily coated. Worked until I sold the car.
Two weeks after I sold, well traded, the car I went back to the Honda dealer where I had purchased my new vehicle. Salesperson said my old car had caught fire and burned up two weeks after I traded. I was not surprised. At one time I had a fuel hose crack and leaked a lot of gas. I replaced that hose but ignored the other hose. I suspect that ignore hose cracked and spewed gas on a hot exhaust.
The early 70’s were really crappy years for VW products. Quality went down and the dealer service went down just as far and fast. I threw a tantrum in the dealer showroom because problems were not getting fixed. Got the owner’s, Rod East, attention and we had a long discussion in his office. Many of the problems got fixed because two customers walked out while I was complaining about the crappy product and service.
There you go, getting all cerebral on us.
Wow, just wow. And some big words thrown in. These lunatics are teaching young minds, the future of humanity. I long ago came to the conclusion that the white male is an endangered species.