Saturday, January 24, 2015

Recap of last week's posts --- 1/24/15

Breakdown by category:


                           this week      last week
videos and movies       6                 1
how to                       5                  3
sugar observation       6                  4
energy                          1               0
politics                        10                9
misc                            4                 3
space                          0                0
markets                       1               5
Seinfeld                       1               1
Basic Concepts          9                 1
Current Events           0                 3


A back to basics kind of week that fell flat on its face.  But that doesn't deter me, I'm good at that.

I try to be humble around here, but that's too easy as I have plenty of material to work with.



Bibi not the first to face Obama threats of retaliation

American Thinker

“Netanyahu spat in our face. There will be a price.” With these words, an unnamed Obama administration official declared war on Israel’s prime minister....“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”...

Comment:

He's a long way off from this image that was given to us back in 2008.  How many people got suckered into that one?  But that's okay.  We've got another campaign coming up!  That's going to fix everything.

We can't fix anything anymore.  But the politicians are "fixing" us, you see.  It seems too much like despair, huh?  Well, I don't know what can be done about it.  Money rules everything, but money can't fix everything.  In fact, money is where a lot of the problems are.  Try getting that message out though without money.

Try to get people to vote on actually fixing our problems instead of having these people dish out money to us because that's all we seem to know.


Checking out a few things

About that Barnhardt video:


What checks out:
Bacha Bazi Frontline story.

What isn't checking out:
A lot of those citations in the Koran relating to sex.  I'm not finding them.

Not saying that she's lying, just saying that I'm not finding them.  Also, I'm tiring of this.  I'm shutting this down.

I may take down that post.  If I do, it will be the first time that I've done that since I started blogging.


With respect to the introductions, here's another stab at it

The very first post of this blog was a short ( very ) introduction of myself.

The brevity of it probably says it all about me.  Never been a man with a lot of words.  In fact, the tendency is very strong on the other side.  If there's anything I don't do enough of, and that is to communicate.  The "Great Communicator" is not me, but the very opposite.  Even though I've written over 8000 posts here, I don't think I've communicated enough about who I am.

Or have I?  How much is enough?

As I've indicated before, I don't really like to go into too much detail about myself.  I am a private person.  However, like a lot of things, that may be an anachronism.  There's no more privacy anymore, especially on the internet.

If I'm going to be known, at least I should get my shots in first before someone decides to define me first.

So, here we go into the Wayback Machine, because I've been around for awhile.  I'll be 60 in July.

I've lived in Texas all my life, and in Houston almost all my life.  But I wasn't born in Houston.  My folks came up here from Corpus Christi before coming here about the year 1958.  I'm not really clear on the exact date, but Wishbone says it was then, and he was attending first grade at the time.  So, this was before the school year ended, and it had to be in about the Spring of 1958.  I've been in Houston pretty much since that time.

But I was born "In the Valley" before the family moved to Corpus.  Near McAllen near the little town of San Juan.  Heck, I'm almost a wetback.

My folks originally came from West Virginia.  There's a lot of Meadows's from that part of the country.  I looked it up recently.  It was said in the household that you could throw a rock and hit a Meadows in that part of the woods.

I'm thinking that my mom had it pretty good, and maybe should be considered pretty well off by some standards.  But rich in money, no.  She grew up on a farm, and it probably wasn't very big.  Yet this farm had its own coal, and they could raise animals and crops.  They had everything they needed.  That's what I mean by being "rich".  If you've got that, you have got everything you really need.  Coming to the city was not really a move upwards for her.  In my opinion, that's how a lot of people went wrong.

Dad grew up in the coal mining camps.  Mom said he had a hard life.  I can imagine.  One thing that he was not is bashful.  She said he was a "big showoff" because he could tap dance.  But he couldn't sing.  Dad had some musically inclined relatives who auditioned him once and said that he couldn't sing.  Mom said that really hurt him.  I couldn't fnd anything wrong with his singing, but what do I know?  Dad ended up as a truck driver.  He handled the big rigs for most of his working life.

So, there was seven of us kids, and I was next to last.  The first born died at six months.  That death was quite a blow, so I am told.

Dad was married previously.  His first wife had two children.  I never knew my half-sister, but I knew my half-brother a little.  He was a "lifer" in the military.  He had something of a reputation, how much of that he deserved, I don't know.  A "soldier of fortune"?  I don't know.   He passed away not that long ago.

As for me, I never went into the military.  It may have been useful to know some of the ways of a soldier about now, in my opinion.  We may have to fight soon.

I went to college like my Mama wanted me to do.  But it wasn't much good.  I ended up like the old man, driving a truck.

As I probably mentioned, I tried a number of things, but nothing ever really stuck.  But the driving part did.

Can I sing?  No, and even if I could, I am not the performer type.  Besides, we don't need singers right now.

It looks like I want to be a leader, but I've never done that either.  Since I'm not much of a talker, that way seems blocked to me as well.

I can write a little, but I am finding out that my abilities here are a bit overextended as well.

One thing I can do is think.  But we need something better than thinkers.

Sun Tzu says we should know ourselves and our enemy.  Best to take that at heart for whoever is reading this.  We are going to need that kind of wisdom in the days ahead.


Sun Tzu on the Art of War

One thing that stood out on that Barnhardt video that I embedded yesterday.  The Islamists are preying upon our ignorance.

Therefore, the following quote from Sun Tzu on the Art of War should be emphasized over and over again until it is completely understood.  KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Know your enemy and know yourself and you will be victorious.  Fail to know your enemy or yourself, and defeat is certain.  Certainly, we have a knowledge deficit here.  There isn't any excuse for this, for the information is out there.  The enemy doesn't present an opaque barrier that prevents understanding him.

We don't have an enemy?  Obama doesn't have an enemy.  The Mohammedans are his friends.  He's not going to do anything that really hurts them.  Killy bin Laden really didn't hurt them, as we are seeing now.

That should tell us about who our enemy really is.  It is the people in charge right now.  These people put Obama in the White House and because of that, we are defenseless.  That's the horrifying truth of our situation.

The Average Joe doesn't get it.   That's our problem, because that's how they get into power and stay there.


Terror Goal: Behavior Modification Of The West

Dick Morris dot com

Money quote:

As Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy reminds us, the goal to terrorism is the global imposition of Sharia Law. By refining the target of their attacks, the Paris bombings represent a very specific escalation. Their goal was not to spread fear and insecurity but to punish violations of Sharia Law...And they have succeeded! 
Astute observation.  You know, the old toe sucker can sometimes say some pretty good stuff. That's why I keep linking to him.

Update a short time later:

It wasn't Paris "bombings", was it?  It was a massacre, whatever it was.  People were shot, not bombed.


Friday, January 23, 2015

Islam analyzed

In the previous post, I mentioned that Barnhardt had everything sourced.  Not everything.  She spends about 20 minutes on an analysis and comparison of Islam with other political cults throughout history.  She contends that Islam is a political cult.

Once again, just look at all the facts that you can muster and decide for yourself.  In our society, we don't have a cult of personality quite yet in our politics, but we are headed in that direction.  This coincides with the decline in morality.  This is no coincidence.  The decline in morality facilitates sharia, as Barnhardt will cover in the video.

Here are some screenshots of her presentation:

An example she uses in Naziism.  Hitler did it.  You don't have to stop there, as Stalin did it, Mao did it, and the Muslims were the first to do it.
That leads to this conclusion.  Again, decide for yourself if you think this is justified.  Islam does not distinguish between Church and State as we do in the West.



If Islam is not political, then why does the following seem to be so true?

If you don't follow their rules, they will kill you.  Witness what happened in Paris.  Yet, how is it illegal to have done what the editorial staff did at that magazine?  The terrorists acted outside the law, but are sympathized with as to goals, if not methods, by the Islamic community there.
If Islam is going to get involved with politics by using the sword, then they should no longer be protected as a religion.  You wouldn't grant the Nazis constitutional protection, now would you?  The Nazis are political, so are the Islamists.


Islam is about peace?  Does anybody really believe this?  Are you blind?

Note that NOBODY is innocent according the Muslims except the Muslims themselves.
What is Islam designed to do?

We should be really worried about B.  That's why we should take corrective action now.



This must lead to the following corrective action



We didn't allow Nazis in the military during World War II.  If you agree with the proposition that Islam is not religious, but political, the conclusion must follow.

If this doesn't convince you, be aware that there is more to come.

Update:

Not everything she said is checking out.  I considered taking this post down, but instead, I'll leave it up.

Maybe I was mistaken to put this up before checking it out.  My bad.


Islamic sexuality

You may not believe this, perhaps largely because I'll forget a lot of it, but the truth is that I spent the entire day on this video.

It should be contrasted with Kareem Abdul Jabbar's editorial that I saw in Time magazine while I was getting an oil change.  Well, the oil change took about an hour, so I really wasn't at this all day after all.

Jabbar says it's not about religion.  Funny thing:  in this video, Ann Barnhardt says Islam is not a religion.  In a way, you've got an agreement there, but it isn't the kind of agreement that Jabbar had in mind.  Jabbar wants Islam to be regarded as a religion, but you should watch this video and determine for yourself whether or not Islam deserves to be called a religion as we in the West understand it.

Everything that Barnhardt says is backed up by evidence.  The evidence is from the Koran itself, as well as Fatwas from Islamic authorities.  None of it is "made up stuff" and thus could be unjustly said to be untrue.  It is Islam in its own words.

Furthermore, those who kill in the name of Islam are not doing in the service of the truth, but in the service of those who want to keep the truth from getting to the public sphere.  For if the public knew the truth about Islam, the public would reject it.  That would be true even in this dumbed down, increasingly dysfunctional society we live in.  The reason we are dumbed down is that the truth doesn't get to us, because of the media and our so-called educational establishment.  The media designation includes such publications as Time magazine here, who won't point out the facts that Barnhardt points out herself.  Remember this:  it is straight from the "horse's mouth".  She's not making any of this stuff up.  It is Islam in its own words.

People need to know the truth, but they won't get it from the mainstream media that does so much to cover it up.

She black, she black, she black

"Oprah give good advice even though she never been nothing"

Excellent.



Sarah Palin on New GOP Majority: ‘It’s Not Just the New England Patriots Who Are Dealing with Deflated Balls’

Or none at all.  ( Maybe they can "cheat" like the Patriots and use deflated balls.  What the heck, it's a game, why not win it? )

Also, this quote seem to stand out:
While in Vegas for the SHOT Show, Palin said she will also feed the homeless Thursday night with “organic” and “healthy” wild game.

Why the scare quotes.  What's wrong with wild game?  Must we always eat what corporate America dishes out?



Pee like a man

Dammit.

The world has not gone completely crazy yet..., but they are a-workin' on it.

Now we have to be grateful that we aren't reduced to being "sitzpinklers".


How to reach people

This is what you would call a good question.

After 4 plus years of writing this blog, it appears to be a problem that I cannot solve.  But I am still looking for answers.

Perhaps if you would start with basic propositions, and then work from there.  It would proceed in the same way as a mathematical proof.  You need certain axioms to start, and then the theorems fall into place one-by-one.

One of the Basic Concepts ( or propositions, if you will ) is humor.  It may not be the most important one, but it is one that can stop a lot of bad stuff.  Certainly, it can neutralize bad feelings.  Nothing like laughter to chipper you up some.

I've also pushed the concept of non-conflict, but that is a losing battle.  It appears that people tend to favor the clashing of ideas, and on a bigger scale, the clash of civilizations.  I've tended to avoid this because I don't think conflict solves problems.  All it does is remove one power source for another, if such be the case.  However, the removal of conflict is not the way it all works.  That concept doesn't seem to generate much interest at all.  Maybe it is seen as too boring.  Others may see it as too soft and "kumbaya".

The third Basic Concept has been to think for yourself.  This is encoded as not trusting conventional wisdom.  It is another axiom that doesn't seem to work in the real world.  The vast majority of people do not think at all, and would prefer that someone else do their thinking for them.  All that has to be done in controlling people is to control the messaging that they hear.  Nobody seems to be willing to take the time to find out both sides of an issue and research it until a conclusion can be found that is based on solid evidence and reasoning.  All this takes time and effort, which is always in short supply.

The fourth concept was scarcity versus abundance.  This goes hand-in-hand with conflict resolution above, because once the basic needs are met, there is little reason for conflict.  This too doesn't seem to work, because those at the top REQUIRE that there be scarcity so that they can control people through the strategic use of it.  Got that?

The fifth one, the one in which I haven't spent much time with, is the concept of morality.  Now, this concept really does fit in, because that is how people really work.  It has the virtue of efficiency, as it doesn't require much thinking, as I have noted above.  It sidesteps the issue of scarcity, as people are willing to suffer when the suffering isn't necessary, as abundance is within reach.  It promotes conflict, because it enables people to be neatly divided into warring camps, and discourages people from thinking for themselves, thus becoming pawns for the powers-that-be.

What I am suggesting is a higher order of being, but that seems to be beyond us all.  Well, you will have to get on the level of the usual non-thinking Neaderthal and move with the flow and get with the program, it seems.  Warfare seems to be the lot of the human race.  We should all gather ourselves into armies and begin slaughtering each other because finding solutions for our problems is just too doggone hard.


Thursday, January 22, 2015

Working the power problem again

Prev  Next

This post goes in the off-the-grid power subseries.

As I mentioned in the last post, the freezer will take up too much power.  However, is that also true of the dehumidifier?

Checking that out.  The Frigidaire model I was looking at draws about 750 watts.  That's less than half of the freezer.  A look at a guide at Home Depot suggests that it may need peak power of about 3 times that much in order to get it started.  Let's say 2250 watts.

In order to run this thing, it has to get started and kept running.  For that, you need at least those 2250 starting watts, plus 750 watts times the number of hours running time for collecting water.  The dehumidifier has a capacity of 70 pints per day, or about 3 pints per hour.  If you want 4 gallons of water, that's 12 pints, so that's about 4 hours.  That's 4 hours times 750 watts, which equals 3 kilowatt-hours.

Three kwh is a lot to store in some batteries.  In order to handle 4 solar panels that I was looking at, it's going to take a couple of 258 amp batteries.   The batteries will have to be fully charged in order to do the 4 hours, and that doesn't count the other uses for electricity.  There won't be enough electricity go around for 4 hours---that's the bottom line.

Now for the big item, which will be the inverter.  A pure sine wave inverter is what is needed, and it looks like it could go from anywhere from a thousand bucks to two thousand.  The one thousand dollar one is on Ebay, and it will be shipped from the far east.

That's where I stand now.  Looks like 4500 bucks or so, not counting other hardware.

The dehumidifier is key, as it is needed for in situ water production.  Take that out, and the electricity issue gets a lot cheaper.


Mistakes, mistakes, and more mistakes

One of these things that I can never seem to get past is this tendency to make a lot of mistakes.

I've got a freezer I can't use.  Also, a generator I can't use.  I am going to have to figure out what to do with this stuff.  Sell it, maybe get some of my money back.  It's not a tremendous sum, but money is getting scarce and everything like this is starting to hurt a bit.

That's what all the studying was about, but it didn't eliminate the mistakes, drat it.


State of the Union Speech

I missed the show.  Always do.  There's plenty of talk about it, so I googled it up and read through it.

One thing that strikes me is how political it is.  Sure, why not?  He's a politician.  Still, there's no real problem solving there.  People watching this are probably going "ooh" and "ah" like it is the greatest stuff ever.

He's the Messiah again and his followers are eating it up.

I checked out the Kitco commentary page just prior to reading his speech.  Millions of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.  It's not so rosy scenario out there as he claims.

Where it isn't so rosy scenario, he acknowledges it with a request to spend more money.  As if spending the money will solve everything.  Where to get the money?  Why, higher taxes of course.

If the GOP doesn't give him what he wants, it's all their fault.  It's already set up.  Everything that happens that's bad isn't his fault.  Great politics maybe, but not so good policy.


Today is a scrub

There's a possible problem brewing in the lower back area, so as a precaution, I went home early.  Maybe I go back tomorrow.  Maybe not.  The odds are less than 50-50.

Looks like I'll be "working" around here for the time being.


Quickie before I go, 1/22/15

Time is short once again...

Ace is making good reading these days.  A couple stories

Were the Patriots cheating when they deflated their footballs in the game v the Colts?  Will it result in a disqualification, and the Colt will go to the Super Bowl instead?  It may matter in terms of integrity of the game.  Well, how about it, commish?

The second story is something that I discussed with Wishbone yesterday.  I could find no story, but Ace has one.  It seems that the Justice Department won't file charges against Darren Wilson in the Ferguson shooting.  Well, I could go on about this subject, but time is running out.

As for me, this old cowboy is trying to stay in his saddle, so it's off to work I go.  Maybe I will get back in one piece by the end of the day.


The perfect answer

But not so easy to implement...

Sometimes you don't know how you are taken when you use the words you use.  The results could indeed make the mountains ring, or angels cry.

New GOP Border Security Bill Removes Border Fences

Free Republic

This was a Daily Caller story, but that website won't work on my computer anymore.

It was about border fencing.  Back when Bush was in office, I was in full support of this, and then we got amnesty from Dubya, and it was all downhill from there.

If there is anything that stitches this all together, it is the love of money.  Big money wants those "immigrants".  But the people don't.  It is a pattern that has repeated over and over again.

Who wins that battle?  Big money is winning it.  The reason is because there's nobody leading the people in the way it needs to be led so that the big money can be defeated, and the border can get secured.


Wednesday, January 21, 2015

5000 Watt Continuous/10000 Watt Peak Power Inverter

5000 Watt Continuous/10000 Watt Peak Power Inverter

May be able to use this.  Yeah, it is rather stubborn of me.


Reagan's Evil Empire Speech

1983 text here.

Not enough time to read it, much less comment upon it.

The short amount I did read shows how far we have slipped since 1992 when Slick Willy took over.

Update:

I think I should pick up where I left off with this, as I have a little more time.  I finished reading it last night.

Even though I didn't vote for Reagan, I think he was the last good President that we had.  He fulfilled what is needed in a good leader:  a complete and comprehensive understanding of where we were as a nation, and where we needed to go.

After 8 years under Reagan, the GOP was riding high.  Upon coming into office, things looked rather grim, but after 8 years, the country was strong and prosperous, and still free.

It seems today that comparisons are being made with Obama.  The comparisons do not favor the current occupant of the White House.  Not if you consider the state of the nation as your point of comparison.  There are many negative trends that appear to have gotten worse.  It is interesting to note how they have gotten worse.

Same sex marriage is one.  After reading Reagan's speech, it can be seen that this is definitely not what the Gipper had in mind:

One recent survey by a Washington-based research council concluded that Americans were far more religious than the people of other nations; 95 percent of those surveyed expressed a belief in God and a huge majority believed the Ten Commandments had real meaning in their lives, and another study has found that an overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of adultery, teenage sex, pornography, abortion, and hard drugs, and this same study showed a deep reverence for the importance of family ties and religious belief....Now, [Applause]…obviously, much of this new political and social consensus I’ve talked about is based on a positive view of American history, one that takes pride in our country’s accomplishments and record. But we must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man. We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin.

[33] There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.

True, it wasn't mentioned explicitly, but how can homosexuality be excluded from the list of items underlined above?  Could it not be a form of adultery?  Can two same sexed people really be married and not living in sin?

Same sex marriage is but one example.  There are others.  What about cop-killing?  Where are we going to be if there is nobody to enforce the law?  Is the "law of the jungle" the new way for our society?  There has to be some type of law and there has to be enforcement of same, or there is chaos.  The culture has degraded to the point where cop-killing is no longer mere lyrics in some hip-hop music.  It is now considered to be some form of right if one is unhappy about the result of some jury proceeding.

What about freedom of speech?  If someone makes a video that insults some group, will that now be a cause for imprisonment?  It has already happened here for that video that was falsely claimed for the attacks in Benghazi.  The First Amendment clearly states that Congress shall make no law respecting the freedom of speech, but that didn't stop a man for going to jail for making a video that some group thought to be offensive.  It didn't happen here, but people did get killed in France because of a similar issue.  Is that too to be the new normal?  Say something offensive, and somebody has the right to kill on the basis of such offense?  For such is called "jihad".  Is "jihad" now a civil right?  Is that to be included with the political correctness we hear so much about?  If you disagree with the party line of the politically correct, are you to be cast into prison for it?  For such was the case in places like the Soviet Union.

Reagan, more than anyone else, ended the Soviet Union.  That was the evil empire of its day.  A new one seems to be rising, but who will lead the fight against it?


Death Cult

Via Ace, I point to the WaPo editorial about this current resident of the White House.  The author points out that the UK Prime Minister referred to Islam as a "death cult", and contrasts that with our limp-wristed "Messiah".

Sure.  But the death cult doesn't end with the Mohammedans.  They have protectors here in the West, and the dude in the Oval Office appears to be one of them.  It ain't "wishing away" terrorism.  It's pure deception in service to it.

The dude is a liar.  The people who put him there either don't care about that, or urge him on.  Either way, we have a large segment of the population who have become a threat to the other segment.  Some type of correction is called for.

How to respond to this?  Calling all warriors to defense of the realm.  There's work to do.

Update:

At this point, "warrior" doesn't necessarily mean violence, but it could.  We really aren't even engaging the left verbally yet.

checking in, 1/21/15

Yep, I'm here.  My computer needed to upgrade the anti-virus program.  I've spent my usual time here on that instead.  I could go into a bitch session about that, but I'll leave it alone.

While the computer was occupied with fixing itself, I gave a short amount of time to the thought that I will still need to get an inverter and a pretty hefty one at that.  It won't be easy to obtain a dehumidifier that doesn't use electricity.  Fortunately, it may be possible to do this, as opposed to the freezer, which was impossible.

Aside from those two items, this Saturday, I will have to go the dentist again for a routine visit.  Not to mention that I have an oil change overdue for my beat up old van.

Taxes are coming up too.  I have to get ready for that.  It seems that my plate is full.  Lots of stuff to do, little time to do them.


Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Home again, 1/20/15

Another work day in the can.  Back at home, and in front of this old, old netbook computer.  It is literally held together with tape.  The keyboard is a bit messed up.  Letters don't always print out on a post.  If I am not careful, my prose will be affected.

There was a story that I had just recollected with respect to the subject of crime and that Ferguson business.  Yes, that.  While I was still going to school at a university, I had a job in a wallpaper store for a couple years.  The reason the job came open was that the girl who ran the store got shot and killed.  How did that happen?

She was robbed at the store.  She felt unsafe, so she got a gun after the robbery.  Trouble is, somebody took the gun away from her, the gun that she had gotten to protect herself, and shot her with it.

Moral of the story?

Well, depends upon who you are.  A liberal will say that she shouldn't have armed herself.  Since she did, the result was her death.  She might be alive this very day if she hadn't bought that gun.

A conservative would say that she should have trained with the gun.  If she had trained with the gun, she may not have become a victim like that.

Of course, I never knew her.  Maybe for her, to get a gun was a big mistake.  I worked that store for two years, and nobody tried to rob me.  Maybe she looked like an easy target and so she got robbed.  The robbery scared her, but she may have been too scared to really defend herself properly.  You can't let fear overwhelm you.  If you are going to fight, you have to prepared to go all the way.  That means that if someone reaches for your gun, he's a dead man.

The connection with Ferguson is that the girl had her gun taken away from her.  Anybody who reaches for your gun is showing the intent to commit murder, as was done to this girl.  In other words, since the black guy reached for the cop's gun, he communicated his intent to commit murder.  If you are going to be a cop and carry a gun, you cannot allow people to take your gun away from you.  You have to have the mentality that will allow you to kill if it comes to that.  Anybody who does what this guy tried to do will most likely kill you.  Just saying that the guy was fair game after he reached for the cop's gun.  I don't know what these people expect.  If you think you have the right to kill somebody, then I'm going to assert my right to get in my shots first.

Better to be judged by 12 than be carried by 6.


Quickie before I go... 1/20/15

About Obama's tax proposals...

Here's something that may be the basis for a deal.  However, as Maha noted, no way the GOP passes taxes on cap gains.  Rightly so, no pun intended.

What I mean about raising taxes is to raise taxes on corporations, and cutting them on everybody else.  The left will probably want to ingratiate themselves with the middle class, because that is one of their favorite tactics.  The tax cuts should be across the board.  In short, cut rates on individuals, raise them on corporations and make it tax neutral.


Cost of electricity in graphics

As they say, one picture is worth a thousand words...

Ace of Spades

Kobayashi Maru

The No Win Scenario.

We could be facing a no win scenario soon.  Just thought I'd mention it, so I could make your day.  Bwah, hah, hah!






Why Ted Cruz is The Only Option in 2016

Last Resistance Via Free Republic

Republicans are either foolish enough to think that if they support amnesty, they will get a chunk of those future votes, or they are too stupid to see what’s really going on. Either way, their idiocy is causing them to side with the left on a “pathway to citizenship.”

comment:

A few thoughts here.

  1. The above quote follows my thinking fairly closely with respect to illegal immigration.  Pathway to citizenship is dumb, really dumb.
  2. With respect to Cruz, he has the "fire in the belly".  I'm not seeing it in other candidates.
  3. Dick Morris analyzes Cruz's prospects.  Cruz has to unite a fractious party.  Then he has to unite a fractious nation.  He has to find a way to do it.  Ronald Reagan redux probably won't work because the nation has changed.  But he can learn from Reagan, and that is that it can be done even though the media is left wing.
  4. It will be a very tough nut to crack, and to cling to ideological thinking won't carry the day.  If you are going to reach people, you'd better have something credible.
  5. Everybody seems to be chasing money.  Money is necessary, but it's the people who decide things one way or another.  The rich guys cannot be allowed to buy the nomination and the election.
One way or another, change is coming to this country.  I'm not too confident anymore about the nature and quality of that change.  Maybe it is a lot like triage in battlefield medical scenarios.  You save what you can.  The rest may have to be sacrificed.  This may cause a lot of moaning and groaning, but if you are not flexible, you stand the risk of losing it all.


Monday, January 19, 2015

Freezer purchase a mistake

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This will go in the power subseries.  Yikes.


No matter how I try, this isn't going to work.  Looks like my hundred bucks is a lost cause.  Will have to move on from that to another possibility.

That possibility is a propane refrigerator.  I thought that these were expensive, but they look doggone cheap now.  Well, if I had taken notes from my off-the-grid book by Lemar Alexander, I would have avoided 120 volt home appliances.  It's going to be really hard to make those work out there.

I may have to rethink the dehumidifiers as well.  They need electricity, too.

Since the dehumidifiers were to produce water, that creates something of a problem.  Or, I could just truck the water in.  I'm going to have to go out for propane anyway.


Boom and bust in oil patch and what it means

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-19/next-time-around-feds-are-going-have-confiscate-stuff
Bad medicine, kemosabe.

Update:

This post was made with my smart phone while I was out there working yesterday, and I had a short break.

It is rather difficult to make posts with that thing, so just pointing to it was about all I could do.  Now that I'm home, and I've had some time to think this over, I can offer a few thoughts on it.

What the article is saying is that the fracking activity is being financed by really shady means, and these shady means could blow up the entire economy.  ( my interpretation, by the way ).  It will do this because of our over leveraged system and an inadequate regulatory system.  When you have a lot of leverage on ANYTHING, even if it is relatively small, it can have OUTSIZED effects.  Just like 2008 had outsized effects.   I remember vividly that OFFICIALS were saying that the sub prime loans represented only a small portion of the loan portfolio.  This is criminal malfeasance, because due to highly leveraged banking, it can only result in disaster even if only 1 slight mistake is made.  If only 1 thing blows up, it can blow it all up.

An example is in trading of currencies.  You may be able to still do this, by the way.  I'm not sure.  Back in 2003, I was able to open an account which allowed me to trade currencies.  This account allowed leveraging on the scale of 1 to 100.  That is, 1 dollar controlled 100 dollars.  Therefore, 1000 dollars controlled 100 thousand dollars.  There's good news and bad news.  The good news is that you can make a lot of money fast this way.  The bad news is that you can lose money fast this way.  Let's say you make a bet that a currency will fall and you make one of these trades.  If you are wrong, and the CURRENCY MAKES EVEN A SMALL ADVERSE MOVE, you will be forced either to exit the trade, or meet a margin call.  This could become ruinous in a very short time.  As a matter of fact, I did lose a lot of money a bad trade this way once, and I quit trading currencies because of it.  Nothing like learning the hard way to correct bad behavior, kemosabe.

People in responsible positions should not allow such things because of the danger they represent to the entire financial system.

What the article is saying is that this may be such a threat.


Quickie before I go 1/19/15

Time flies when you're having fun.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I just looked at that Chris Baker fiasco again, and it occurred to me that we really don't have warriors to go up against the left.

If you look at it, you can see that we are being outfought.  For better or for worse, the system we have depends upon adversarial type relations like this.  You have to be able to duke it out with these people, or the people who make the judgments out there and vote based upon it, are going to come to the wrong conclusions.

What the left has accomplished was to make us helpless against the very thing that happened to us on Sept 11, 2001.  It is the same principle that applies to what happened in Paris recently.

What Baker should have done is to point out history.  Whenever there is a war, civil liberties are going to suffer.  It is always like that.  The Civil War was like that.  Lincoln did things there that would never be permissible in a time of peace.  Wilson did it during the First World War.  FDR did it during the Second.  You have to be willing to acknowledge that you are in a war, and that is where the left is getting away with something that they should not be getting away with.

There was an authorization to use force.  This indicates something, does it not?  Like there's a war or something?  Until that war is concluded, in our favor hopefully, then times will not be normal.  During a time of war, the CNC will have to make judgments like what gets printed in newspapers.  Duh!  Where Bush screwed up was to let them get away with that.  There should have been arrests, or a threat of arrests.  If somebody doesn't get up on their hind legs and fight, we cannot win.  If they cannot even acknowledge that we are in a war, we are lost.  The question should have been this:  are we or are we not in a war?  If we are, then shouldn't somebody be fighting it???????????????????????????????????????????????????

It sure looks like a war to me.  Those who say otherwise need to be called upon to explain why it is not.  If nobody on our side is willing to do that, we will lose this war by default because we don't have anybody willing to fight it.

You don't walk away from the battle like Baker did.  This is like conceding defeat.  That's the bottom line.



Cowboy is slipping from the saddle

Yeah, I must be slipping.

Since June of last year, as a matter of fact.

Yesterday was something of a revelation.  The idea of using a freezer out in the desert may not work at all.  Finding a suitable inverter for it may not be possible.  Even if it is, it will cost a bundle.

This morning, I started paying bills and received some additional shocks.  Electricity has skyrocketed.  Yeah, but we are told that there's no inflation.  Funny thing how there's no inflation when all my bills seem to keep going up and my paychecks keep going down.

We are told that things are great.  Yeah, right.  I'm working pretty much at the same thing with the same lifestyle and so forth, yet somehow I am not making it anymore.  If everything is so good, why is that?

It has snuck up on me.  This old cowboy is slipping up, ya'll.


Sunday, January 18, 2015

What is the difference between a pure sine wave Ac inverter and a Modified sine wave inverter.

The difference is in price and in performance.  Modified is cheaper, but is dirtier electricity.  Your electronics won't like you for this.  I didn't know all this until I started my research.  Sometimes cheaper ain't cheaper.

Update:

This isn't easy.  There's a lot to think about here.  Well, one thing is clear.  The little Honda generator will not run a freezer.  Also, it's going to take a massively sized inverter to do the job and those are hard to find.  Those that can be found are modified sine wave types and these may not be ideal by any stretch of the imagination.

Update:

I found a couple inverters that might work.  Unfortunately, they aren't cheap.  Nevertheless, it could be sufficient for my needs.  It will be probably seem like overkill to some folks if I were to show it to them.  However, even with the size of this thing, it isn't guaranteed that it will power that freezer.  Surge wattage is really high with this type of device.  Your inverter has to be able to handle it.







Win the argument if you should be winning it. Losing it doesn't help truth to prevail.

I was thinking about Chris Baker, radio talk show host just now, so I Google his name and found the video below.  Before I put that video up, it was on Chris Baker's show that I heard a few things about what the Mohammedans think of us.  They don't think we defend our culture is what I heard.  Now this video really, really shows what we are dealing with here.

The segment begins with a clip showing President Bush saying that he wanted to track the terrorist's money.  What the hell is wrong with that?  It turns out to be plenty, as the left caterwauls about 4th amendment rights that they supposedly care so much about.

Chris Baker walks out after about 4 minutes of this garbage, and the left exults at their "victory", read it in the description of the video.  What about the truth here?  Do we, or do we not want to know what the terrorists are doing?  Evidently, "rights" trump truth.  But whose "rights" are they talking about in this video?  What is disappointing here is that the so-called "right" doesn't know how to stay in the ring and duke it out with these people.  Walking off the set doesn't look good.  People are going to conclude the wrong thing from watching this---that Baker couldn't win the argument, and that means that his argument was WRONG.  No, it doesn't mean that all.  What it means is that Baker let this dude get to him and lost his cool.  Lose the arguments and lose the war.

It shouldn't be a game, but it is a game.  You have to learn how to win this game.








Checking in, 1/18/15

Just letting all of youse guys know that I'm out here.  I think I haven't posted because I have this really vain notion that I am a genius, so I want to wow you with my extra special gray matter.

That's a joke, ya'll.

Well, it's a joke, but Rush Limbaugh says that joke is better if there's some truth in it.  Yes, I am a bit vain, especially about me brain.  That vanity isn't always a good thing, so before I get to be too much of a swell head, I will take shots at myself to stay humble.  The idea is like Joe Morgan's with respect for the necessity to remind yourself of something.  Joe Morgan, the hall of fame second baseman, who began his career with the Astros, had the habit of flapping his arm to remind himself to keep his arm from flapping around, if memory of that story is correct.  Sometimes it is useful to remind yourself of something that you need to remember in order to be at your best.

I forgot to take my thyroid pill yesterday, so it may have led me to feel a bit tired.  I couldn't keep my eyes open all day yesterday.  Just wanted to rest my eyes.  My eyes get tired a lot.  I use my eyes an awful lot.  Writing this blog, reading, and driving for a living are all activities that require that your eyes remain open.  It's a problem if you want to keep them closed, you see.

The late start today may be fatigue.  So much for that explanation.  I think I may be getting a bit confused.  Always working doing something.  What's wrong with a little rest?