Saturday, January 6, 2018

Why You Should Be Sympathetic Toward Cliven Bundy

Powerline via Instapundit

Looks like a good argument.

Another reason for sympathy could be that he could win if the law was enforced fairly, which I suspect that it is not.

originally posted 4.15.14, updated

1.6.18:

I hear that the judge may dismiss the case entirely with "extreme prejudice".  I think the use of words when I saw that was quite interesting.

A lot of things could be dismissed with "extreme prejudice".  Know what I mean, Vern?









Sugar Tax now reality in Oregon

People are getting a shock when they go buy some Coca-Cola in the Blue State of Oregon.  This is thanks to the new Sugar Tax that has gone into effect.  It nearly doubles the cost of a Coke.

Sure, it might be healthier.  But sugar is still food.  The government should not tax food on principle.

You know what?  I once said you should never burn gasohol, either.  Gasohol is made out of ethanol, which is derived from food.  People are starving in this world, and what do these people do?  Burn it!  Now they are taxing it.

Crazy!



Don Surber: How the Russian dossier may lead to locking her up...

Don Surber: How the Russian dossier may lead to locking her up...: Reading the transcript from the debate more than a year later, I realize it was America's Margaret Dumont-Groucho Marx moment. Hillary...



comment:



Wishful thinking...



Hillary won't go to jail, as I have been saying all along.  This is because the venue will be DC, and that town is full of partisan Democrats.  Nobody in that town is going to indict Hillary, and even if there was a grand jury that would, no petit jury will convict her.



Unless the venue is outside of DC, she walks.  But, where would the venue be?  That's the trick.  My guess is that they can muddy the waters enough for her to walk.



Hillary going to jail?  Ain't gonna happen.



But try anyway.  Who knows, maybe the public will get it.  So far, they don't seem to be getting it.  The media will see to that.



The guilty walk, the innocent are punished.  It can only happen in a debauched, corrupted society.




Friday, January 5, 2018

Obligatory, 1.5.18

This week moved right along.  Here it is, Friday night already.  The new year is already nearly a week old.

The weather has moderated quite a bit.  I took a long shower.  You can be assured that with all this cold, I was in need of one rather badly.

It might be a little "soft" to not want to take a shower when the weather is cold.  Can anybody smell your B.O. if you have a lot of clothes on?  I didn't ax such a question.  If I did, I may not have gotten an answer, but a funny look.  Like, what's your problem, dude?

Times like this remind me of how soft it was living in the city.  It also reminds me of rigors awaiting me if I go out west like I plan.  Yes, that is still in the works, but it has been delayed.  As of this writing, it is at least a year away at the earliest.

I could make a trip out there this year, if conditions permit.  So far, they have not.  Unless things get a bit better, they still won't.

Nevertheless, I will continue to think and plan ahead.  It may be for naught, but I got nothing better to do, so what the heck?


Thursday, January 4, 2018

Democrats Have Painted Themselves Into A Corner – Lunch Alert!

Democrats Have Painted Themselves Into A Corner – Lunch Alert!



comment:



The only argument that might be worth something is a conservative one that I have proposed.



But the Democrats can't make an argument like that without abandoning their questionable political positions.  Their only hope is that these cuts won't work.



As for whether or not they work, I'm not so sure either.  If they do, then they won't have a leg to stand on.  Hence, the Morris argument that they have painted themselves in the corner.  Morris argument assumes that they will work and work big time.



We'll have to see on that one.




Nice little snark

Bill and Hill's house is on fire.  It might be on the floor where they keep things they don't want anybody to see.  Bwah, hah, hah!

That really wasn't very nice. lol


Propane use way up

Updated,
Originally posted 1.3.18,

Update: 1.4.17:


The idea now is to find other ways to heat up my environs.

There was a way to run an extension so that I wouldn't be using the circuit that is causing problems.  This enabled the use of the space heater last night.  A welcome relief without the need to be so wasteful of energy.

There are other ways to get some heat.  Today, I noticed that the sun defrosted the ice pretty well.  So, I moved the car into the sun, and the ice went away fast.  This gave me an idea to sit in the car while it is in the sun during a cold day.  I'm doing that now while I type this.

May seem strange, but a dollar saved is a dollar earned.  Know what I mean, Vern?

Original post follows:

It is quite expected, but still a shock.  It took only one week to use a 30 pound bottle of propane.

So, I did a few calculations based upon what that really means.

One gallon of propane weighs about 4.2 pounds.  It contains 91.5k BTU.   That's 7.1 gallons of propane in a bottle of this size.  The BTU content is 654k BTU times 1055 joules per BTU equals approx. 690 megajoules.  Divide this by 3.6 megajoules per kwh giving 192 kwh rounded.  Divide this by seven, gives 27 kwh thermal energy use per day.

About ten times what I wanted to accomplish!  Dern.

But consider that it takes about 3 kwh thermal to get to 1 kwh electric, and you get about 9 kwh use per day.  More than 3 times what I wanted to accomplish.  Also consider that I was heating a larger volume by a significant amount, and then the numbers don't seem so bad.  Still, that is a lot of friggin' propane.

If this was a normal week and I used this much ,I would be alarmed.  This week was pretty cold, so it wasn't normal.  Nevertheless, this is a performance that could use a lot of improvement.


Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Don Surber: Three reasons Hatch is retiring

Don Surber: Three reasons Hatch is retiring: Orrin Hatch has represented Utah well in the Senate for more than four decades. The experts are going on about how his decision not to seek ...



comment:



Check out the comment section of this post.  There is an anonymous comment that is full of venom.  You see, that is why I do not permit anonymous comments.  Not that I am afraid of them, no.  No, I won't do it because I won't give an opportunity for that kind of thing on this blog.  If these people have any courage, they will put their own names on what they say.  But they won't.  They use the cloak of secrecy the same way the KKK does.  Nobody decent acts that way in public.  So the cloak allows them to be indecent because they don't want to be seen as so hateful.  Evil loves the dark, which is in the heart of this individual.  Shameful!




Monday, January 1, 2018

The Fake Society

If there is anything that defines this country right now, it is that the truth doesn't matter anymore.  People prefer the fake, so that is what will be served and in great abundance.

Does that mean that Trump himself is fake?  His enemies will say so.  I'd like to defend Trump, but I just don't know how genuine he is.  Again, there are those who will say he isn't.  In my opinion, for whatever that is worth, is that the guy is trying.

But, and this is a big but, he has an enormous amount of headwind to overcome.  The institutional inertia of this government and society is such that a turnaround may not even be possible.  We may well be experiencing an avoidable slow motion collapse, not unlike the fall of the Roman Empire.

For a long time, the Roman Empire was crumbling from within.  Yet, its strength enabled it to endure for quite some time before it collapsed.  In those days, it took centuries.  In these days, which move at a much faster tempo, it is taking mere decades.

Things got so bad in the ancient empire, that, if anyone good showed up, he was quickly mowed down.  The parallels with this country cannot be ignored.  Therefore, if anybody in politics attempts to do something good for the country, the people in positions of power will quickly shoot it down.

What explains all this?  Why would a nation allow itself to be destroyed?  After all, we have a lot that the Romans didn't have.  This country ought to be able to bounce back.  But alas, that is not happening.  Recent events seem to confirm that things are on the downswing again.  Even though the GOP got its tax cut, it is a paradoxical one.  They are counting on the said tax cut to turn things around for them.  Perhaps it will, but I am not so sure.  At any rate, the POTUS' approval ratings are rather stubborn.  So is the right-track wrong-track poll.  If this was to be a good year for the GOP, the signs don't seem to be there yet.  If those signs don't show up, it could be a bad year.

Indeed, a good portion of Trump's own party does not support him.  However, he does have the GOP with him for the moment.  The danger to him appears to be at bay for now.

However, not enough is being done to improve the president's prospects.  The loss in Alabama was not helpful.  It is testimony to the power of the fake society that so many people who voted for him failed to show up and support him in the vote in Alabama.  Without enough friendly faces in the Congress, the hill may become too steep to climb.  The fake society can only become a real society if truth mattered, but that doesn't matter anymore.  Instead, it is whatever the tribe seems to say.  Yes, and the tribe seems to follow their leaders without question.  Whatever the leaders say seems like gospel to these people.  What gets lost is what really matters.  What is left over is fakery dished out by fake leaders for a people who are content with the phoniness.

The big part of Trump's problem is a revolt in his own party.  In order to get unity, he had to sacrifice whatever independence he might have had.  Now he is captive to them, and this could sink him.

Unless he is capable of exerting just enough independence to avoid the pitfalls that may await him this year.

He must avoid war.  Not easy with all the commitments he is bound to, and the ever present push upon him to honor each and all of them, or risk losing that precious support.  The warmongers will push him to war in order to keep his fragile unity.

His best chance is to deliver as much peace and prosperity as there is available.  But will the fake society allow him the room to do it?  Or will the fake society listen to their fake leaders once again, and follow the footsteps of the late Roman Empire?  Will they let a promising leader be destroyed because they are not strong enough to support it?  Is truth too hard, or is the allure of fakery too strong?

Trump got elected to make America Great Again.  The America of days gone by was not the world's policeman, nor the world's savior.  That America followed its own self interest.  It seemed to be what Trump wanted for the country, but the fakes will try to get him to divert course.  If he allows it, he may be doomed.  Even if he doesn't, the fakes may win anyway.  His best chance is not to be fake and be who he is really is.  Hopefully, that will be good enough to stave off the inevitable for at least awhile.

The Deeper Awakening, if it ever comes, must come later.  Incidentally, the prediction that America will fall has been a recurring one on this blog.  Nothing in the last few years has convinced me that this has changed.  Not even the election of Trump, which was a good sign.  But as welcome as that was, it may turn out to be a last hurrah.



Dang, it is cold

Updated, 1.1.18,
15:30:

Lest anyone think I am going off half-cocked with some of what I say on this here blog, let me remind you that I don't make shit up.  That is something the commie pinkos like to do.  But I don't do it.  I have reasons and facts to back up what I say.

Now, as far as so-called conservatives who claim to be conservative and aren't--- here's some evidence to support the assertion.   You may not need a link for this because it may be common knowledge.  George H.W. Bush voted for Hillary, or so I heard.  Now, there is no doggone way the guy can claim anything about being conservative if he does that.  Hillary is definitely not any conservative.  Makes no difference if he personally doesn't like Trump.  The point is his value system: is it conservative or not?  A vote for Hillary is definitely not a conservative vote.

There was another example which will require that I do some looking.  It is some guy in the media somewhere ( New York Times!) who claims to be a conservative and then says he wishes Hillary were president.  I'm sorry, but the guy doesn't have a claim to be a conservative.  I will get a name when I find it. ( done see link above )

I say this because people may think I make shit up.  No.

Did you hear that Sheila Jackson Lee claim that she was a queen?  Now, how do conservatives claim to be conservatives if they are not willing to take that on?  I don't give a rat's rear end if she is black, and some of these spineless wimps are afraid to take on blacks for this kind of crap.  The Constitution says plainly that there is no royalty in this country.  Every member of Congress takes an oath to support this Constitution.  If you are conservative, you don't countenance this type of talk, no matter who says it.

Nobody does that.  They are too intimidated.  Therefore, if all so-called conservatives are too intimidated to defend the Constitution, then they have no claim to leadership on the issue of conservatism.

This isn't an isolated example.  The country has moved so far off into the weeds that this kind of thing is deemed acceptable behavior now.  Sorry, but it isn't.  If you allow it, then you allow subversion of what you claim to believe.  This isn't John or Jane Doe here.  This is a member of Congress.


The original post follows:

Good morning, and Happy friggin' New Year, ya lunkheads.

Yes, it is friggin' cold in here, Mr. Bigglesworth.  But, I did okay last night.  Only cuz I am a fart smeller, er, smart feller.

One thing I thought up, which makes me proud to be a smart feller, was to use a little 7 watt, battery powered fan to push warmer air down from the ceiling like a ceiling fan.  Didn't cost me anything, didn't use much electricity, and didn't do anything bad that I would regret later.  What else could you ask for?  Instead of a temperature inversion, with the ceiling at 80 and the chair at 45, I now have an even 60 degrees or so.  The propane powered stove isn't even all that revved up.

Now, I know people think how deprived that sounds.  But I am having a good time here.  I love this stuff.  Fixing a problem gives me a boost.  It is better than being a dependent slob who has to be waited on like a little bitty baby.  That is what the government and the liberals want all of us to be like, a bunch of little bitty babies.  Then, they can abort us, like they abort all of those helpless little babies each year.

Yeah, Alyssa Milano, the actress, is in a fetal position, so I hear.  What did I tell you?

Yes, I am hitting hard.  Maybe even below the belt.  But why place nice with these people?  Hit them hard.  And keeping hitting them.  Not that they care any.  But if you can hit them in right spot, you can bring 'em down.  And boy do they need to go down.

It might get you killed, though.  The people of Iran are rebelling against their own insane leaders.  Just watch them for a preview of what these liberals have in store for us if they get our guns.

Of course, the media wants to collude with the hardliners in Iran.  Just like our so-called conservatives who want to collude with the commie pinkos on the left in this country.  If we could only put some backbone into these wimps.

What do I predict for the New Year.  Only that we will all get one year older by this time next year.  Actually, that is being an optimist.  But I like to think positively.


Sunday, December 31, 2017

WaPoo: "What's wrong with Alabama?"

Originally post 12.10.17,
Updated 12.31.17:

I guess I must be out of step with the rest of the country.  But that is okay, because this popular culture shift is not one that I approve of, nor ever could.

If I had to do it over again, I would do the same thing, but harder.  I didn't write too much about Judge Moore because the whole thing was nuts.

Maybe that was the intention.  A lot of crazy talk can be a diversion from what should be the central issue of the campaign.  Which is this:  Will the people of what used to be called "Christendom" actually try to even defend even for a little while their heritage?

Being Jewish is no excuse.  It was Jews who brought us the Ten Commandments.  If they abandoned it, it doesn't mean that Christians should too.  The same goes for traditional marriage.

Judge Moore defended these at the expense of his job.  Something for which he should be commended, not criticized.  Too bad that Ann Coulter types feel that they must be ashamed for being unabashed Christians.  So-called "gays" have their gay pride.  So, why can't Christians be proud to be Christian?  Alabamans should not have let themselves be talked into being ashamed, if that is what happened.  They have nothing to be ashamed about, unless it was being fooled into being ashamed.


The original post follows:

Wrong question.  It should ask: "why wasn't this done sooner?"

Go Judge Moore.  Beat the commies..

Better still, you have to go after the corporatists fascists.  They are the ones who want this popular culture to degrade the way it has, and even make it worse still.

Cutting the tax rate on corporations is a mistake.  Doesn't matter if it improves the economy.  It only feeds the leftist propaganda machine with ammo for their class warfare.  Yet, the lefties love corporations.  All the big corporations seem to have lefties as CEOs.  Why is empowering them good for conservatism?  It isn't.



MC4 follies

Originally posted 12.30.17:
Updated,
12.31.17:



Well, I have put together the rest of those connectors that I figure I can salvage. I need some more, so I ordered them.  They should arrive in about a week.  I wanted to get some sooner than that, but they want a ridiculous amount of money for them, so I will wait.

My luck is that this crazy Texas weather will get warm by then.  And stay warm.  As of now though, it has gotten cold.  Below freezing frickin' cold, Mr. Bigglesworth.

Also, I may be able to scare down a deep cycle battery for a reasonable price.  This too, however, will have to wait.

In the meantime, in between time, ain't we got fun.  cold?

Hey Algore, when will the polar bears get down here?  They are going to eat me, or I will eat them.  It is a matter of who get the drop first.

The original post follows:

Well, here I am again.  It is about to get a bit colder, and I am still wanting to figure out something to help with the warming up of the place.

The idea is to NOT spend a beaucoup bunch of money that I really cannot afford.  Just got a bill for that MRI in October.  Why they decide to wait almost three months is something I cannot figure.  I guess they like to annoy people like me who get annoyed a bit too easily.

Not being content with being annoyed with the doctor's bills, I decide to try these mc4 thingies again.

Anyway, there some mc4 connectors that I have left over from earlier attempts to make electrical connections with them.  These look like they should be a snap, but for some strange reason, I am not getting them to work properly.  I have bought maybe twenty of these boogers, and maybe, ( maybe!) two of them work right.  So, with these leftovers from previous attempts to work with them, I am going to attempt to learn how to ( once and for all ) to master the ( skill?) of putting them together properly.  ( fancy that )

Just before I wrote this, I must have spent the better part of the morning studying these dern things.  I think ( think? ) that I have these figured out.  But I thought I had 'em figured out already.  Not such luck.  I noticed that my thingies that I put together previously weren't fitting properly.  I think.

Let me see if I can remember this for future reference.  Because after all this aggravation, I would prefer not to forget it again.  ( fat chance)  The female end has the SMALLER of the metal piece thingies that fit inside it.  The male end has the LARGER of the metal piece thingies that fit inside it.  The female metal piece thingie must insert into the plastic holder thingie that holds it all together, as does the male metal piece thingie that fits into its own plastic holder thingie.  The female metal piece thingie must stick in its plastic thingie far enough ( which is hard to tell because you cannot see in there at all ) so that the male metal piece thingie will slide over it.  The male plastic holder thingie will slide into the female plastic holder thingie, and when that happens, the juice can flow.  That's provided that all the pieces are put together correctly, and the wires are connected properly, and the battery is connected properly, etc. etc. etc.  I thought some of these pieces were interchangeable, now I am not so sure.  There's some plastic cap thingies that fit over the end of the plastic holder thingies that hold the metal piece thingies that all connect together.  Seems that they may be of different sizes, but to tell you for certain, I am not sure right now.  Doesn't matter, they come preassembled.  You have to disassemble before you reassemble so that you can make it all work.  But you must not get them mixed up, or something may not fit right.  If it doesn't fit, you don't get shit get out of them.  Please do not disassemble one plastic holder thingie at a time.  Just in case you forget which is which, don't even think about doing that.

Hopefully this is all clear.  I wouldn't want to get annoyed trying to make sense out of these directions.  These mc4 connectors don't seem to have directions.  If they did, they would be in Chinese, which I cannot read.  Even when they write in English, they get it wrong.  But don't get me started on that.