Wed. Oct. 13, 2021 – getting back to normal

By on October 13th, 2021 in decline and fall, ebay, personal, WuFlu

Hot and humid later, but a cool and humid morning. I expect several days or more of this, drifting cooler each day. Eventually it will be winter. Until then, I’m enjoying the cooler temps while they are here. BTW, it was 95F in the sun yesterday afternoon, so I’m not sure some of you would recognize this as “Fall” quite yet.

Spent most of yesterday getting caught up with stuff. I’ve got an ebay shipment lost somewhere. The post office didn’t scan it in when I dropped it off, so it will either arrive or not. At this point it’s fairly late, even by USPO standards but there was a holiday in there. I told the guy to give it one more day and I’ll refund him. Since it wasn’t scanned in, the PO can’t track it or find it. The best I can do is file for money back on the shipping label postage. The buyer has been very cool about it so far. Looks like I have to go back to getting receipts for every package.

I’ve got to get some more listing done and try to counteract the hit my sales take when I shut down my ebay store. It sucks to be dependent on them for sales, but that is where I’ve spent my effort for these last few years. I still haven’t checked out FB Marketplace, and I’m reluctant to do so because it’s Facebook. I should be able to take more to my local guy, and get the pallets listed this week since my wife is WFH and can get the kids managed in the afternoon. Both of those things will help too.

It sure feels like time is getting short before something big breaks loose. Biddn and Kamel faking videos. Pilots and ATC both possibly staging walkouts. Hospital staff and teachers sure went from heroes to zeros quickly didn’t they? .Mil and the police forces are going to start shedding people too. Someone pointed out that much of the historical unrest surrounding the Depression was fueled by having a whole bunch of p!ssed off veterans at home. Hmm. History sure does rhyme.

Or it could be that we just simmer along like Venezuela did. No sharp changes, but after two years they were in ruin. Maybe TPTB continue to lie and we continue to pretend to believe them, all the while, everything gets worse. One of the things that amazes me is the number of online commentors that profess to recognize that this or that bad thing is here/coming/or just a heartbeat away, but who don’t seem to have processed that reality. They seem to think they can just continue talking sh!t on the internet while the world burns, without having made any plans or preparations. They are USED to moaning and complaining, and they think that will go on forever.

If you think CWII is only a spark away, WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN? No trucks, or severely reduced, even from today’s levels. No food, no stuff, starvation, and desperation. Bank holidays and insolvencies. Street violence, and street justice. Killings. Seizures of people and assets. Texas rebels and all Texans’ out of state accounts get frozen…. no money for you! Maybe the big red switch gets pulled and all of the internet goes dark for a while, and when it comes back up the Great Firewall of China looks like a toddler’s attempt. No more alt-news. No more high speed. Packet shaping and speed limiting for all! If you claim this might happen and you aren’t prepping for it, I will not take you seriously.

Ditto for the other scenarios for what might be coming.

If you think some bad thing is coming, get ready. If you are sure it won’t, get ready for good times. Doing nothing won’t help or save you.

Stack it up while you can.

nick

(more Disney report later)

97 Comments and discussion on "Wed. Oct. 13, 2021 – getting back to normal"

  1. Nick Flandrey says:

    76F and 89%RH this morning.  Small chance of rain later.

    as an observation, I'm seeing the phrase “slowly and then all at once.” or some variation in a lot of places lately.  It's in the zeitgeist.   And of course it's describing a lot of things, but mainly how you go broke, or generally, how something ends.

    Hmmm.

    n

  2. dcp says:

    “slowly and then all at once.”

    One of the most poignant bits for me from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
    Different context, but it still seems relevant.

    "Was it sudden?"

    "No. Yes.  It's always sudden."

    https://youtu.be/ALdbv-PPbg8

     

  3. Greg Norton says:

    Does anyone know when and why frozen fried chicken disappeared from the grocery store?  I went looking and can't find any… I used to keep Banquet in the freezer for a quick snack and wanted to put some away.

    Chicken wings are almost three times the cost per lb as the rest of the chicken. That might be the part of the problem.

    OTOH, Conagra (Banquet parent) is trying to keep a lot of plates spinning right now so the processing plant might be prioritizing something more popular.

    Pork was a problem in 2019, before the pandemic started being a factor. The Chinese were buying everything they could get their hands on and having it shipped back home. The same processing plant that handled flash freezing chicken would probably be capable of handling pork.

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    'The president remains proud of his son'

    –what does it say about the mind of the father to be proud of a crackhead philanderer who abuses family and makes sex tapes with hookers while using drugs?

    n

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  5. Greg Norton says:

    @greg, the restart tiny script you gave me seems to be working.  I haven't checked the recordings to see if there was much time that didn't get recorded, but the NVR was running when I got home and has been running since.

    Thanks again!

    Long term, you'll need a crontab. If you're thinking about this for clients, a Systemd process that starts when the system reboots.

     

  6. Greg Norton says:

    Someone pointed out that much of the historical unrest surrounding the Depression was fueled by having a whole bunch of p!ssed off veterans at home. Hmm. History sure does rhyme.

    Google for the "Centralia Massacre" in WA State.

    That story would have been forgotten if it weren't for the efforts of my wife's grandfather and other members of his high school graduating class. No doubt there were other stories which have been forgotten.

     

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  7. ITGuy1998 says:

    Babylon 5

    Definitely one of my all time favorite shows. JMS was active on the usenet during those days, and there was a lot of ongoing active discussion about the show. In my opinion, much of the content of season what should have been season 5 was crammed into season 4. At the time, PTEN was in the process of folding, and the future of B5 was truly uncertain. The series finale was filmed during year 4, which is why CC was in it. When TNT came to the resuce and season 5 was assured, a season 4 ending was filmed and the series finale was saved for the end of season 5.

    Season 5 was ok. Not B5 in its prime, but some good moments.

    Also, see The Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5. This site was updated daily back then, and was a HUGE resource for the show.

    http://midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html

     

  8. Greg Norton says:

    Definitely one of my all time favorite shows. JMS was active on the usenet during those days, and there was a lot of ongoing active discussion about the show.

    Straczynski was slated to run "Walker Texas Ranger" for CBS when "Babylon 5" was greenlit.

    In a weird coincidence with the announcement of the reboot, H&I is about to slide "Walker" into the prime 7 PM ET slot currently occupied by TOS "Star Trek", breaking up the "All Star Trek" evening that the network currently runs six days a week.

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    This from the CDC finally talks about racial differences in wuflu outcomes, but of course it has to be seen thru the lens of "it's for the children"

    That means for every four deaths from COVID-19, one child is left without a parent and/or grandparent who provided the child’s home and basic needs, including love, security, and daily care. Orphanhood and caregiver loss can have significant and severe long-term impact on children’s health and well-being.

    There were significant racial and ethnic disparities in caregiver deaths due to COVID-19. When looking at both primary and secondary caregivers, the study found that impacts varied greatly by race and ethnicity. Compared to white children, American Indian and Alaska Native children were 4.5 times more likely to lose a parent or grandparent caregiver, Black and African American children were 2.4 times more likely, and Hispanic or Latino children were nearly 2 times more likely.

    Caregiver death affected:

    • 1 of every 168 American Indian or Alaska Native children
    • 1 of every 310 Black or African American children
    • 1 of every 412 Hispanic or Latino children
    • 1 of every 612 Asian children
    • 1 of every 753 White children

    The current study follows closely in line with a similar study which found more than 1.5 million children around the world lost a primary or secondary caregiver during the first 14 months of the COVID-19 pandemic

    n

  10. Nick Flandrey says:

    If you are surprised by this, you shouldn't be investing….

    Delta Slides After CEO Unexpectedly Warns Of Rising Fuel Costs

    n

  11. MrAtoz says:

    what does it say about the mind of the father to be proud of a crackhead philanderer who abuses family and makes sex tapes with hookers while using drugs?

    What's amazing about Hunter, son of plugs, is people still pay large sums of money to him. And the  ProgLibTurds try to run interference that it isn't because plugs is President. Grift to the nth degree.

  12. MrAtoz says:

    We head back to SA from Grand Praire this am. Gonna try the State 130 tollway from Georgetown to SA.

  13. MrAtoz says:

    I read Southwest's CEO is still trying to spin flight cancellations "aren't due to a vax mandate." I wonder what *wheels* will do? There is no Federal vax mandate that is enforceable at this point. Will *wheels* deny them landing rights? What can he do? Fine them $$ millions a day?

  14. MrAtoz says:

    Is anybody else watching the penis rocket launch just to see if it explodes on the pad?

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  15. drwilliams says:

    what does it say about the mind of the father to be proud of a crackhead philanderer who abuses family and makes sex tapes with hookers while using drugs?

    10% for The Big Guy!

  16. Greg Norton says:

    I read Southwest's CEO is still trying to spin flight cancellations "aren't due to a vax mandate." I wonder what *wheels* will do? There is no Federal vax mandate that is enforceable at this point. Will *wheels* deny them landing rights? What can he do? Fine them $$ millions a day?

    I believe that Abbott's order about vaccine mandates means that TWC will pay fired employees unemployment claims since they will not be terminated "for cause" as far as the State of Texas is concerned.

    Certainly, TWC is not going to make the termination process painless for Southwest. Everyone gets a hearing, and the HR department at SWA is not going to want to spend the rest of their careers sitting in the tribunal process.

    The same thing is going to happen in Florida with Southwest.

    I checked this morning. Herb Kellerer is dead. I can’t imagine the airline doing this if he were still alive, even retired. When did SWA turn into United?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHnqnyzegfc

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  17. drwilliams says:

    The H&I Star Trek lineup was not sustainable. The original series had three years— 79 episodes. It cycles much faster. If the series had been made two decades later, the episode count would have been more like 66-69. 

  18. MrAtoz says:

    Can I buy one:

    Robot Dogs Now Have Assault Rifles Mounted On Their Backs

    I want a belt fed version.

  19. MrAtoz says:

    Well, it didn't blow.

  20. ~jim says:

    Well, it didn't blow.

    Damn, damn, damn. Guess I'll have to look elsewhere for my minimum daily requirement of schadenfreude. 

  21. ech says:

    Looks like I have to go back to getting receipts for every package.

    Two of the local post offices no longer do that if you have prepaid the postage. Don’t know if all of them are not doing it.

  22. Greg Norton says:

    The H&I Star Trek lineup was not sustainable. The original series had three years— 79 episodes. It cycles much faster. If the series had been made two decades later, the episode count would have been more like 66-69. 

    "Enterprise" has the same problem, possibly worse if you consider episodes people actually *want* to watch.

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  23. Pecancorner says:

    Looks like I have to go back to getting receipts for every package.

    Two of the local post offices no longer do that if you have prepaid the postage. Don’t know if all of them are not doing it.

    I have the mail carrier pick up at my house. She scans each package before she lifts it off the bench I set them on.   I used to do the Pickup Request online, but  my carrier told me to just put the flag up and leave a note on the mail box. So that's what I do. Works great.  And no worries about the lazy postmaster who won't check her computer for pickups before the carriers leave.

    I've never gotten receipts at the post office, but I have always stood there and asked them to scan while I watch.  We began that practice after losing a valuable package my husband dropped in the outside drop box. 

     

  24. drwilliams says:

    Enterprise is past my bedtime.

    They’re more than thirty years newer, and there are still a couple I haven’t seen. 

  25. Greg Norton says:

    Looks like I have to go back to getting receipts for every package.

    Do you have a contract Post Office nearby?

    I hate our assigned standard USPS anymore. They are beyond overwhelmed.

  26. Nick Flandrey says:

    I normally go in and drop the package on the counter for anything bigger than a padded flat rate envelope.  I stopped watching them scan it a couple of years ago.  If my route carrier picks up on his route, he doesn't scan.  I don't know what happens if I make a pickup appointment, never did that.

    I used to drop off at a local mailbox franchise but they (or the USPO) lost a package and I went back to just going to the PO.  MUCH harder to do when CHL…

    And another employee went postal, so the CUSTOMERS need to be banned…

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10086129/Two-postal-workers-killed-colleague-sorting-facility-gunman-shoots-self-dead.html

  27. Greg Norton says:

    They’re more than thirty years newer, and there are still a couple I haven’t seen. 

    The only "must see" "Enterprise" episodes are the premiere, the controversial finale, and the two part "In a Mirror, Darkly", a very important "Mirror Mirror" universe story that not only serves as a nexus for plots in the original series, “First Contact”, and the Stage 8/9 era, but fills in a few gaps on "Discovery" as well as possibly being relevant for back story in the new Michelle Yeoh "Section 31" series.

    Rumors abound that part of the reason “NCIS New Orleans” was cancelled without a lot of fuss from the lead is that CBS will have Bakula recur as “Admiral Archer” (JJ Abrams “Star Trek” reference) on Michelle Yeoh’s program. Of course, there are the obligatory “Quantum Leap” reboot rumors.

  28. Nick Flandrey says:

    This is the third high-profile shooting to take place in or near Memphis within the last few weeks

    The franchise owner of a sushi counter inside a Kroger grocery store in the suburb of Colierville fatally shot dead Olivia King, and wounded 14 others before killing himself on September 23, investigators said. 

    A week later, a teenage boy was shot and critically wounded inside a Memphis school, and police detained a second boy believed to be the shooter. 

    Guess I missed the middle one. 

  29. RickH says:

    Not happy about choice of colours for visited vs, unvisited links. Blue is, conventionally, unvisited, red visited. Green vs. blue is not a normal thing.

    And I've just noticed:spell check defaults to American ("colours" above). Is there any way to use browser locale instead?

    The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them. Here's an example:

    Links are underlined.
    Unvisited links are blue.
    Visited links are purple.
    Hovering a link makes the mouse pointer change to a little hand icon.
    Focused links have an outline around them — you should be able to focus on the links on this page with the keyboard by pressing the tab key (On Mac, you'll need to use option + tab , or enable the Full Keyboard Access: All controls option by pressing Ctrl + F7 .)
    Active links are red. Try holding down the mouse button on the link as you click it.

    From https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/Styling_text/Styling_links

    But then there is this from W3Schools: https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links_colors.asp which are sort of the same…

    By default, a link will appear like this (in all browsers):

    An unvisited link is underlined and blue
    A visited link is underlined and purple
    An active link is underlined and red

    Which doesn't include info on 'focused links" (an outline, which I don't like).  And there are other sites that hae their own 'standard' colors.

    Most browsers let you define (and override) the link colors.  And there is mention that web developers can decide on their own (standard) colors.

    So……

    As for the spellcheck language, don't know if that is an option in CKEditor. Have to look.

  30. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10088133/Bidens-Social-Security-Administration-70-million-retirees-5-9-boost-payments.html

    and that right there tells you that anyone who says it's "transitory" is lying.

    n

  31. Nick Flandrey says:

    WRT PO, I usually go to the bigger PO near my buddy's fun store, and the Goodwill outlet, but I was trying to avoid temptation… so I went to my neighborhood office, which the neighborhood universally agrees is pretty bad.   They don't usually lose stuff from the counter though.

    n

  32. Nick Flandrey says:

    Slo Joe is gonna COMMAND the problem be fixed….

    Can Joe save his Christmas nightmare? Biden will tell Walmart, FedEx and UPS to up their services and push LA's port to run 24/7 at White House meeting to try and prevent supply chain holiday catastrophe

    • Biden reached a deal with business leaders and unions to expand shipping hours
    • White House officials say the changes could increase output from the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach by a combined 3,500 containers per week
    • The president is addressing the agreement in a speech at the White House today 
    • COVID-caused delays in the global supply chain have produced shipping bottlenecks that have meant empty shelves and higher prices for Americans
    • The consumer price index rose in September and is up 5.4% from a year ago, the highest annual increase in 13 years, the Labor Department said Wednesday
    • Parents have been warned that many toys could be out of reach come Christmas 

    n

    added– that got all borked up by the quote button.

    I clicked in the editor field, clicked the ” button, ctrl v to paste, then clicked the ” to close. All the text after the headline ended up outside the blockquote somehow… and the dang thing kept the formatting of the original text.

  33. Nick Flandrey says:

    SHOULD have looked like this

    Can Joe save his Christmas nightmare? Biden will tell Walmart, FedEx and UPS to up their services and push LA's port to run 24/7 at White House meeting to try and prevent supply chain holiday catastrophe

        Biden reached a deal with business leaders and unions to expand shipping hours
        White House officials say the changes could increase output from the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach by a combined 3,500 containers per week
        The president is addressing the agreement in a speech at the White House today
        COVID-caused delays in the global supply chain have produced shipping bottlenecks that have meant empty shelves and higher prices for Americans
        The consumer price index rose in September and is up 5.4% from a year ago, the highest annual increase in 13 years, the Labor Department said Wednesday
        Parents have been warned that many toys could be out of reach come Christmas

    n

  34. RickH says:

    Take a look at the 3rd through 5th buttons in the comment editor. Hover to see the tooltip. Choices on how to 'paste' – with or without formatting. Default is with formatting (default = Ctrl+V), as you can see with the hovering tooltip.   If the copied text has formatting, then the default paste will have formatting.

    Or you can paste without formatting (Ctrl+Shift+V) – again, as shown by the overing tooltip.

    You can always highlight the text after you pasted it, then use the Styles dropdown to change the style. Or click the 'Normal' button to change the paragraph to normal text.

  35. drwilliams says:

    There’s a form you can print that aggregates multiple packages and only has to be scanned once at the counter. Works if you just have one package. 

     

  36. RickH says:

    Putin agrees with @Lynn:

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that oil prices could well reach $100 per barrel as demand for all energy commodities grows.

    Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/13/russia-putin.html and other sites.

  37. ech says:

    and that right there tells you that anyone who says it's "transitory" is lying.

    SSA has no choice in the COLA increase. It's baked into the law, so without Congressional action to change the COLA formula, they have to give whatever the formula says. It's based on CPI-W, which is urban wage earners/clerical workers.

     

  38. Nick Flandrey says:

    @rick, those buttons don't work for me.   I get a pop up that says

    "Press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste. Your browser doesn‘t support pasting with the toolbar button or context menu option."

    That would be Firefox 92.0.1

    n

  39. Nick Flandrey says:

    @ech,

    It's baked into the law, so without Congressional action to change the COLA formula, they have to give whatever the formula says.

    Does the formula tell them WHEN to act?  I'm thinking that if it was truly transitory, they'd wait for it to go back down.   I can't recall a COLA ever reducing the amount of the payout…

    (and I was sure that the last line of that linked article had a quote from the Atlanta Fed chair that he no longer called it 'transitory' but when I just checked it wasn't there.)

    n

  40. lynn says:

    Questionable Content: Employee Newsletter

        https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4633

    I don't know, I just think that I would bypass any coffee joint named "Coffee of Doom".

    BTW, Hannelore’s employee newsletter is awesome !

  41. lynn says:

    "California Bans Small Off-Road Gas Engines, Including Lawnmowers And Chainsaws"

        https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/california-bans-small-road-gas-engines-including-lawnmowers-and-chainsaws

    I can just see the lawn people showing up at your house.  The first thing they do is plug in their battries all over the place.

    BTW, they are banning new gasoline and diesel generators also.  I am not sure about natural gas generators.

  42. SteveF says:

    Rick, a suggestion: make unvisited links green and visited links yellow.

  43. Rick H says:

    “Press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste. Your browser doesn‘t support pasting with the toolbar button or context menu option.”

    Turns out that is a blockage by the browser; it is blocked because allowing a button to paste might be a security issue. This has been true since about 2017.

    From the dev bug place on GitHub (https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor4/issues/469 ):

    Ideally we’d like the browser to just paste and that’s ait – however, due the security reasons, modern browsers do not expose any means to paste other than using native ways, so:

    Platform specific hotkey ctrl/cmd + v
    Native context menu

    Will trigger paste, but the website can not initiate it on it’s own.

    The exception here would be Internet Explorer family, as it supports triggering paste command which we use.

    To answer your next question: why have the buttons there? And it’s probably because the CKEditor can be used in a non-browser session/app, so the buttons are there by default.

    But hovering over the buttons will give you the tooltip which shows the key combo to use for the paste options.

    And I don’t know how to bypass the right-click only having the ‘paste’ option, not the others.

    As for link colors: there may be a change to the ‘not-a-standard’. Have to remove my browser color overrides to test. But, you can set your own colors in your browser. And yellow is hard to see on a white background for these old eyes. (The same eyes that don’t know why sites use a grey-black ( a dim black) for text.)

  44. Greg Norton says:

    BTW, they are banning new gasoline and diesel generators also.  I am not sure about natural gas generators.

    Maybe new installs, but I'm sure Pelosi, Newsom, and The French Laundry all have generators similar to yours.

    The generator at the cell tower near my house now has a Generac where they didn’t have one before.

  45. brad says:

    What's amazing about Hunter, son of plugs, is people still pay large sums of money to him.

    I can only assume that they are buying favor from Biden and Dr. Jill. Why didn't they disown that waste of flesh years ago? Kids cannot be saved from themselves.

    Biden reached a deal with business leaders and unions to expand shipping hours

    I don't get this at all. Having freight sitting in shipping containers only costs companies money. Surely there is already a huge financial incentive to getting the stuff moving? Why does this take government intervention? What am I missing?

    Somehow, this seems to be a problem very specific to the US. The UK has problems due to Brexit. I am not aware of any similar logistical problems in Europe.

    Rick, a suggestion: make unvisited links green and visited links yellow.

    Please not yellow. Yellow on white has very little contrast.

    Anyway, I'm used to visited links being red; they've always been red, iirc.

  46. lynn says:

    If you are surprised by this, you shouldn't be investing….

    Delta Slides After CEO Unexpectedly Warns Of Rising Fuel Costs

    n

    Southwest used to buy futures for all of their expected fuel usage for years on end.  I have no idea if they still do it.  Buying the futures allowed them to plan their own future instead of reacting to the daily price of things.

  47. Greg Norton says:

    The generator *PAD* at the cell tower near my house now has a Generac where they didn’t have one before.

    Ack! Distractions.

     

  48. Greg Norton says:

    Southwest used to buy futures for all of their expected fuel usage for years on end.  I have no idea if they still do it.  Buying the futures allowed them to plan their own future instead of reacting to the daily price of things.

    All of the airlines have oil futures trading desks, but maybe Delta was "swimming naked".

  49. lynn says:

    The generator *PAD* at the cell tower near my house now has a Generac where they didn’t have one before.

    After hurricane Harvey, the FCC started getting serious about their cell phone tower generator with a week of fuel mandate.  If your cell phone tower does not have a generator then expect a BIG fine from the FCC.  I suspect that the Texas Freeze caught a few cell phone tower owners with dead generators also.

    When I was negotiating with Verizon to put a cell phone tower on one of my properties a few years back, they were going to put a generator with a 500 gallon propane tank at the tower.   They are moving away from diesel, too hard to get started at 10 F. And diesel fuel needs to be winterized below 25 F (I found that one gallon of regular unleaded per ten gallons of diesel works well).

    Summer diesel (D2) has lots of paraffins (waxes) in it that start forming solids at 25 F (the cloud point). When the fuel filter gets full and plugs, you are done. Regular unleaded will cut the parafins and keep them from forming solids down to 0 F or -10 F. Maybe even -20 F. Winter Diesel (D1) has a lot less paraffins in it.
    https://www.dieseldoctor.ca/blog/key-differences-between-winter-diesel-fuel-and-summer-diesel-fuel

  50. Rick H says:

    New feature today: browser-based spell checker now enabled. Internal one (via the button) is disabled by default.

  51. lynn says:

    "SICKENING: Loudoun County Schools Covered Up Rape of a 14-Year-Old Girl and Prosecuted Her Father To Protect Male Transgender Student Who Was Permitted to Use Ladies Bathrooms"

         https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/sickening-loudoun-county-schools-covered-rape-14-year-old-girl-prosecuted-father-protect-male-transgender-student-permitted-use-ladies-bathrooms/

    What in the world is going on in Virginia ?

  52. Alan says:

    >> If you think CWII is only a spark away, WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN? No trucks, or severely reduced, even from today’s levels. No food, no stuff, starvation, and desperation.

    My wife’s been binge watching The Walking Dead. I gave up on it after the first season, I find the pace of the show too slow. Anyway, when she’s watching and I’m in the room I catch snippets of what’s going on and one thing I noticed from a recent storyline is the raiding of goods from those that ‘stacked’ by those that didn’t. Time to think more about defending your castle when things get desperate.

  53. Alan says:

    Found a work-around for the Internal Server Error which I was getting trying to add the above comment. Cut/paste/cut/paste through Notepad did not help.

    Cut the text again, typed just a period and was able to post that and then immediately pasted the comment text into the Edit box and was able to click Save and not get the error.

    @Rick, maybe this helps to further debug this issue?

  54. Alan says:

    >> What in the world is going on in Virginia ?

    The Governor's race…

  55. Alan says:

    >> Having freight sitting in shipping containers only costs companies money.

    Heard this tidbit yesterday during a story on the radio about the supply chain issues which is something I'd been wondering about.

    Question was asked as to what was the benefit of companies such as Walmart hiring their own container ships if the ports are bottle-necked?

    Response was that there's an expectation that these ships will get to a US port faster (how not mentioned) than other ships, and while still will have to wait at the port, will be closer in line as compared to other 'slower' ships.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs-ANd7ZncQ

  56. lynn says:

    "SICKENING: Loudoun County Schools Covered Up Rape of a 14-Year-Old Girl and Prosecuted Her Father To Protect Male Transgender Student Who Was Permitted to Use Ladies Bathrooms"

         https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/sickening-loudoun-county-schools-covered-rape-14-year-old-girl-prosecuted-father-protect-male-transgender-student-permitted-use-ladies-bathrooms/

    What in the world is going on in Virginia ?

    The Governor's race…

    The Governor's race in Virginia has nothing to do with the coverup of a rape of a 14 year old girl by a male pretending to be a girl at a school.  And the coverup of the rape of another girl by the same male student pretending to be a girl at another school.

    We are losing common decency and protection of the weak among us.

    Any facility that lets boys into the girl's restrooms and the girl's changing rooms is just asking for trouble.

    10
  57. Alan says:

    >> BTW, they are banning new gasoline and diesel generators also.  I am not sure about natural gas generators.

    There's always those electric-powered generators.

  58. Alan says:

    >> The Governor's race in Virginia has nothing to do with the coverup of a rape of a 14 year old girl by a male pretending to be a girl at a school.  And the coverup of the rape of another girl by the same male student pretending to be a girl at another school.

    We are losing common decency and protection of the weak among us.

    Any facility that lets boys into the girl's restrooms and the girl's changing rooms is just asking for trouble.

    And who put the policy into effect / signed the EO or law / etc. that allowed this restroom nonsense in the first place?

  59. ech says:

    Does the formula tell them WHEN to act? 

    Yes. It's done each year at the end of the 3rd quarter, effective with the December payment, which arrives in January. From the SSA website.

    A COLA effective for December of the current year is equal to the percentage increase (if any) in the CPI-W from the average for the third quarter of the current year to the average for the third quarter of the last year in which a COLA became effective. If there is an increase, it must be rounded to the nearest tenth of one percent. If there is no increase, or if the rounded increase is zero, there is no COLA for the year.

  60. Pecancorner says:

     

    Any facility that lets boys into the girl's restrooms and the girl's changing rooms is just asking for trouble.

    Even when I was in school, I never understood why city schools did not assign someone to stand guard in restrooms during every break, to prevent robberies and fights.   There is really no excuse for not doing so now.

    I also remember when the restrooms in nice stores, bus stations, and clubs/at dances had paid Attendants who stayed in them all the time.  The attendant not only kept things clean, but their present guarded against abuse of the space for any nefarious reasons.  

    Seeing how those private spaces were protected was why I didn't understand schools allowing the bullies free reign to rob us in the bathrooms.

  61. Alan says:

    >>  Parents have been warned that many toys could be out of reach come Christmas 

    Let the arbitrage begin … the eBay execs must be salivating already.

  62. lynn says:

    If you think CWII is only a spark away, WHAT DOES THAT REALLY MEAN? No trucks, or severely reduced, even from today’s levels. No food, no stuff, starvation, and desperation.

    My wife’s been binge watching The Walking Dead. I gave up on it after the first season, I find the pace of the show too slow. Anyway, when she’s watching and I’m in the room I catch snippets of what’s going on and one thing I noticed from a recent storyline is the raiding of goods from those that ‘stacked’ by those that didn’t. Time to think more about defending your castle when things get desperate.

    Buy and read "Lights Out" by David Crawford

         https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-David-Crawford/dp/0615427359//p?tag=ttgnet-20

    The book goes into detail how the MZBs (mutant zombie bikers) amongst us will go into total thievery, murder, and mayhem without The Rule Of Law. 

    They will start at lone farm houses first and move to the outskirts of small towns when the farm houses are picked clean.

  63. Alan says:

    >> I read Southwest's CEO is still trying to spin flight cancellations "aren't due to a vax mandate." I wonder what *wheels* will do? There is no Federal vax mandate that is enforceable at this point. Will *wheels* deny them landing rights? What can he do? Fine them $$ millions a day?

    Southwest Airlines says it will follow federal vaccine mandate, ignore Texas ban

    https://fortune.com/2021/10/12/southwest-airlines-vaccine-mandate-biden-abbott/

    and

    Biden employer vaccine mandate a step closer to reality as OSHA submits rule text to OMB for review

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-employer-vaccine-mandate-one-step-closer-to-reality-as-osha-submits-rule-text-to-omb-for-review

     

  64. Greg Norton says:

    >> BTW, they are banning new gasoline and diesel generators also.  I am not sure about natural gas generators.

    There's always those electric-powered generators.

    Portable Power Stations like Bluetti's. They exist.

  65. lynn says:

    "The final front-tear! Star Trek's William Shatner, 90, is the oldest person EVER in space as he and three others spend three minutes 65 miles above Earth: Tearful actor tells Jeff Bezos 'I hope I never recover from this' as he opens capsule door"

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10087899/William-Shatner-three-set-launch-62-miles-Earth-Blue-Origins-New-Shepard.html

    Three minutes in space is all ???  Pretty short experience for a $50 million ride.

    Hat tip to:
    https://drudgereport.com/

  66. lynn says:

    >> BTW, they are banning new gasoline and diesel generators also.  I am not sure about natural gas generators.

    There's always those electric-powered generators.

    Portable Power Stations like Bluetti's. They exist.

    New cell phone towers in California are going to need about 200 Tesla Powerwalls (SWAG) to meet their one week without grid power requirement.  At $8,000 each, that is $1.6 million just for the backup power.

  67. SteveF says:

    Rick, a suggestion: make unvisited links green and visited links yellow.

    Please not yellow. Yellow on white has very little contrast.

    You didn't think I was offering good advice, did you? I'm offended!

  68. Rick H says:

    @Rick, maybe this helps to further debug this issue?

    Who knows? 500 errors are mysterious to begin with. I looked at a few of the requests/responses in the server error log a couple weeks ago, and they seem to indicate a firewall rule issue. The contents of the message were being caught as a hack attempt. Of course, they weren't; they were from known posters. 

    One of them seemed to be a combination of CR/LF's that caused the firewall rules to get mad. Any firewall blockage of a request results in a 500 error.

    I will be talking with the hosting place next week. This week is family week – daughter and her family (husband and 5 kids under 9  – are visiting. Much more noise around here than usual.

  69. Rick H says:

    @SteveF

    You didn't think I was offering good advice, did you? I'm offended!

    No, all of your suggestions are cleverly ignored. We all know that you are offensive!

  70. Rick H says:

    WRT to Shatner's space odyssey – I find it very humorous that the pix I saw showed him in a yellow shirt (with a name tag), and the crew members were in red (with no name tags).

    I am easily entertained…

  71. Rick H says:

    I just noticed that with the browser-based spell checker enabled, a right-click on an incorrectly spelled word doesn't give you correction choices. You have to enable the spell checker (with the button) to see right-click suggestions.

    On the list…

    And just discovered that the normal/browser right-click context menu can be seen/used inside the comment editor by using Ctrl+right-click .This will show spelling suggestions, and also the other context menu choices – like paste, etc.

  72. Greg Norton says:

    WRT to Shatner's space odyssey – I find it very humorous that the pix I saw showed him in a yellow shirt (with a name tag), and the crew members were in red (with no name tags).

    I am easily entertained…

    Ah, if the color were a crayon, it would be Ensign Ricky Red. Of course, the color would disintegrate after a few minutes.

  73. PaultheManc says:

    "Seeing how those private spaces were protected was why I didn't understand schools allowing the bullies free reign to rob us in the bathrooms."

    Wow. Would that be regarded as normal in the USA.  I am unaware of this as a common feature in UK schools.

  74. Alan says:

    >> I am wavering between putting W10 or W11 on the PC that I will be assembling before the end of the month.

    Exact same dilemma here – do I 'waste' time tweaking W10 to my liking only to have to redo things when I get to W11 or just jump into the deep end? Depends on how cold the W11 pool water is right now I guess…

    @Ray, fyi, decided to take the plunge and go with W11, main factor being able to have a clean install of the OS rather than the eventual 10 to 11 upgrade. So far (knock on wood), everything is going smoothly. Created a bootable USB drive as per the MS instructions, rebooted and the install took maybe five minutes. Still tweaking various settings (DDG is your friend, plus the system that this new PC replaces was still on W7). 256 GB m.2 SSD for the C: drive, 512 GB 2.5" SATA SSD for the D: drive and 32 GB RAM and things are speedy!

  75. ech says:

    Three minutes in space is all ???  Pretty short experience for a $50 million ride.

    Not $50 million. Probably closer to $300k to $400k.  $50 million is the rough cost per seat for the SpaceX orbital/ISS missions.

     

    5
    1
  76. lynn says:

    Three minutes in space is all ???  Pretty short experience for a $50 million ride.

    Not $50 million. Probably closer to $300k to $400k.  $50 million is the rough cost per seat for the SpaceX orbital/ISS missions.

    You are telling me that rocket did not cost $50 million to develop, test, launch into orbit, coast in space for three minutes, and land with three very expensive parachutes ?  Plus a full ground crew with extensive monitoring ?

    Shoot, the parachutes alone were probably a million dollars each.

    And don't even factor in the cost of the five story hardened launch facility.

    Depreciation is very high on equipment like that.

    The cookies and patches were the only cheap things there.

  77. lynn says:

    Three minutes in space is all ???  Pretty short experience for a $50 million ride.

    Not $50 million. Probably closer to $300k to $400k.  $50 million is the rough cost per seat for the SpaceX orbital/ISS missions.

    And I posed $50 million as the total cost of the flight including depreciation.  I have no idea how many people that capsule seats.  The SpaceX Dragon holds up to seven people, why would the Blue Origin capsule hold less people ?

  78. ~jim says:

    Not $50 million. Probably closer to $300k to $400k.  

    Still, that's a lot of autographs! 

  79. Greg Norton says:

    Biden employer vaccine mandate a step closer to reality as OSHA submits rule text to OMB for review

    You kids. This time Dad really means it. Shape up or he'll get *the rule*.

    This parenting technique worked so well on Hunter.

  80. Pecancorner says:

    "Seeing how those private spaces were protected was why I didn't understand schools allowing the bullies free reign to rob us in the bathrooms."

    Wow. Would that be regarded as normal in the USA.  I am unaware of this as a common feature in UK schools.

    Yes, it is worse in bigger schools or schools with a high percent of discipline problems, but bullies and thugs of both sexes set up shop in the school bathrooms. They've done it for generations.  They beat people up (or threaten to), take their money or their things, and get away with it.  I guess the administrations consider it normal because they ignore it, and ignore the criminals, and ignore the crimes committed there.   Like bullies everywhere, they pick on the weak or the friendless. Smart kids learn to “hold it” or pick a bathroom near the school office that hasn’t been taken over.

    This is one reason girls get in the habit of taking a friend or friends with them to the bathroom.  Safety in numbers.

  81. Greg Norton says:

    And I posed $50 million as the total cost of the flight including depreciation.  I have no idea how many people that capsule seats.  The SpaceX Dragon holds up to seven people, why would the Blue Origin capsule hold less people ?

    Blue Origin's current generation capsule is about tourism as is Virgin's vehicle.

    As I posted the other day, Virgin just hired Joe Rhode, who masterminded Disney's Animal Kingdom and other attractions over a 40 year Imagineering career until some kind of falling out with Cheapek in January.

    Besides, from what I understand, seven is a tight fit in Dragon.

  82. lynn says:

    And I posed $50 million as the total cost of the flight including depreciation.  I have no idea how many people that capsule seats.  The SpaceX Dragon holds up to seven people, why would the Blue Origin capsule hold less people ?

    Blue Origin's current generation capsule is about tourism as is Virgin's vehicle.

    As I posted the other day, Virgin just hired Joe Rhode, who masterminded Disney's Animal Kingdom and other attractions over a 40 year career until some kind of falling out with Cheapek in January.

    The Blue Origin New Shepard holds six people, each with a window seat.  And it can go way higher than 100 km, spending days in space.  I wonder where the potty is ?

            https://www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard

    And they are now taking reservations:
    https://www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard/reserve-a-seat

  83. ITGuy1998 says:

    @Ray, fyi, decided to take the plunge and go with W11, main factor being able to have a clean install of the OS rather than the eventual 10 to 11 upgrade. So far (knock on wood), everything is going smoothly.

    I installed win 11 on my main desktop last night. Actually, I upgraded. Everything worked fine, with one exception. Rainbow Six Seige kept crashing. I rolled back to win 10, and it actually worked. I’ll try upgrading that system again in a few weeks. For now I have it running in a VM.

  84. Greg Norton says:

    I installed win 11 on my main desktop last night. Actually, I upgraded. Everything worked fine, with one exception. Rainbow Six Seige kept crashing. I rolled back to win 10, and it actually worked. I’ll try upgrading that system again in a few weeks. For now I have it running in a VM.

    Did you activate the serial in the VM?

    Microsoft considers licenses for VMs and the bare metal to be separate with Windows 10, even when running on the same machine and disk space such as the Boot Camp partition under VMware Fusion on a Mac. It is one reason I have Windows 8 installed as the BC partition on my MacBook.

  85. Greg Norton says:

    And they are now taking reservations:

    Whatever Shatner's flight cost, Blue Origin got priceless PR and gave an entertainment legend — and pilot — the thrill of a lifetime.

    Blue Origin could use the positive press right now.

  86. Alan says:

    >> Not $50 million. Probably closer to $300k to $400k. 

    Still, that's a lot of autographs!

    I heard he got a good deal on Priceline. Of course he didn't know which rocket it was until he paid. (Probably with his AmEx Black. I've seen people use one a couple times, both in Tiffany's in NYC.)

  87. ITGuy1998 says:

    Did you activate the serial in the VM?

     Nope, strictly for demo. 

  88. Greg Norton says:

    I heard he got a good deal on Priceline. Of course he didn't know which rocket it was until he paid. (Probably with his AmEx Black. I've seen people use one a couple times, both in Tiffany's in NYC.)

    Black has a minimum spending level IIRC. I had to laugh when an invitation for the card addressed to my wife showed up at our house in Vantucky.

    Right into the shredder.

  89. drwilliams says:

    Truly ROFL:

    Couric did reveal after her 2016 interview with Ginsburg that the justice thought kneeling during the anthem was “dumb and disrespectful.” But she kept Ginsburg’s full remarks a secret until now, per her forthcoming memoir — not because she was looking to make a buck by monetizing the more controversial quotes but because she didn’t want to make political trouble for Ginsburg. Or for herself.

    https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2021/10/13/katie-couric-ginsburg-disparaged-activists-who-kneel-during-the-anthem-and-i-cut-the-quotes-from-our-interview-n422233

    Worthy of a t-shirt.

    Ginsburg went on to say that such protests show a ‘contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.’

    She said: ‘Which they probably could not have lived in the places they came from…as they became older they realize that this was youthful folly. And that’s why education is important.’

    Couric claims in the book that she ‘lost a lot of sleep over this one’ and still wrestles with the decision she made.

    According to Couric, she ‘wanted to protect’ Ginsburg and felt that the issue of racial justice was a ‘blind spot’ for her.

    Condescending little scrivener, isn't she?

  90. lynn says:

    And they are now taking reservations:

    Whatever Shatner's flight cost, Blue Origin got priceless PR and gave an entertainment legend — and pilot — the thrill of a lifetime.

    Blue Origin could use the positive press right now.

    I figured out the three minutes in space.  That is so that they can stay in Texas and not get NASA involved, takeoff in Texas, land in Texas, no circumnavigation of the globe.  And, they do not need a potty, they just give everyone diapers.

    That capsule is good for at least three days in space, it is ISS rated for the New Glenn also.  There is a potty in there somewhere.

        https://www.blueorigin.com/new-glenn

  91. Nick Flandrey says:

    Weellll, that was interesting. 

    D1 cut her leg on a  piece of corel dish that was poking out of the trash bag, while taking it out.   One inch long slice, vertical on the back of her calf.   Looked about 1/16th to 1/8th inch deep, and was pulling apart about an 1/8 in the middle.   Not much pain as there are few nerves back there…

    Grid down, I'd have butterfly bandaged it and used steri-strips.  Grid up, I figured between 4 and 6 stitches, depending if the paramedic working in the ER did it or some passing plastic surgeon.  Daughter did NOT want stitches.  "I don't care if it heals with scarring.   I don't care if it gets infected…"  "I don't like needles.  You said it would hurt like hell!"  (I don't sugar coat medical, if I think it will hurt, I say so.)

    I looked at it.  The skin would be under some good tension to  pull it back together.  Surgical glue would not hold.  Steristrips would probably hold, and do a good job of alignment (straight and clean cut, like a scalpel.)  But, grid up…

    So off to the urgent care walk in.  All the appointments for all the facilities near us were taken.  Didn't take long for W1 and D1 to be seen.   Initially the NP doing the care thought no stitches, but after exam, put in 4.  Wife says they weren't the neatest, but I'll get a look when we change the giant bandaid over the cut tomorrow.

    Aesop is adamant that no one stitch without a knowledgeable medico determining the safety of closing the wound.  Grid down, I'm going to take that to heart.   In this case, I'm glad my assessment matched the NP (Nurse Practitioner), that it was ok to close it, and the method chosen.

    Supply wise, having the suture tray, sutures, numbing agent, antibiotic gel, ABX for afterward, and the bandage to cover the result would be a 'well prepped' condition.  Having the knowledge and skill to do the actual stitching would be "very well prepped", and having a medical professional along to do the work would be "REALLY exceptionally well prepped."

    In addition, I'd like a surgical stapler 'cuz I can't stitch myself….

    For arguments sake, let's just say…  grid down, I would have had the bases covered, but still would have been reluctant to do more than steri-strips.  And if it was dirty or ragged, I'd probably damn the scarring and just leave it open but covered in triple antibiotic and a bandage.  But again, not very deep, clean, and grid up…

    So that was fun.

    n

  92. Greg Norton says:

    According to Couric, she ‘wanted to protect’ Ginsburg and felt that the issue of racial justice was a ‘blind spot’ for her.

    Condescending little scrivener, isn't she?

    Ginsberg sat in the Payola seat, but the press tried to make her appointment about more than Bill Clinton's political debt to Ross Perot. Millenials weren't even alive when she was appointed.

    Don't stop thinking about tomorrow…

  93. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10089399/Several-people-killed-man-goes-rampage-bow-arrow-Norwegian-town.html

    –bow and arrows.

    n

    and why do I think this "Danish" man is likely named Mohammad?

  94. Greg Norton says:

    Anytime someone asks me why I think San Antonio/Austin is the next target of NFL expansion, I always respond "Coach Pop, preferably as miniority owner".

    https://www.outkick.com/gregg-popovich-compares-christopher-columbus-to-hitler/

     

  95. Alan says:

    >> Black has a minimum spending level IIRC.

    Reportedly $250K/year, not to mention the $10K to join fee plus the $5K annual fee. Things are tough when you live the 1% life.

  96. Rick H says:

    Power outage here. No storms, so likely a tree across a line somewhere. Local PUD working on it, I guess; they are pretty responsive to outages. According to their web site, 33% of those in this grid area are out – about 1100.

    Happened a bit after midnight. After waking up a bit, and giving the wife the portable oxygen machine, found one of my FLASHLIGHTS, which led me to the LED headlamp (on top of the fridge with other FLASHLIGHTS). Out to the garage, manually raise the garage door (not too hard – springs were replaced a couple years ago), and roll out the generator a few feet into the driveway.

    Choke on, gas on, switch on (sometimes forget that last one), and two pulls of the starter cord get the generator on. Choke off, let it settle down a bit while I hook up the 30 amp cord to the bypass switch I installed about 4 years back (about $500 – and wired it myself). Flipped a couple of switches, and the power is on to essential circuits.

    Let the generator running – smoothly, pulled down the garage door (to keep the noise and fumes outside), and back into the house. Fired up the oxygen generator, swapped it for the portable one.

    All is well. Although I did notice that the fridge is not on a generator-powered circuit. Or the bulb is out. Hopped on the computer to check the local utility's outage map. (The cable modem and wireless routers happen to be on a generator-powered circuit.)

    About two hours in. Figure the local PUD will get things going in another 2 hours. But all the preps worked as they should have.

    And all the FLASHLIGHTS are working.

  97. MrAtoz says:

    Popovich red pilled himself long ago. CC was like Hitler. Now, let me enjoy my millions, peons.

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