Posts

Posted on

Sanctity of the Vote

Most concerned with politics at some level understand this concept. Some understand it only as a means to their ends. The vote – any one vote, represents the bedrock upon which democracy is built. Confounding factors besetting the vote these days come from people who do not respect this principle.

Respect. What a concept. From time to time, people have described postings here filled with profanity, mocking and derision as “disrespectful.” Barbs and accusations leveled at the highest ranking government officials have at times, been perceived as hateful and violent, even threatening. Ya think?

Face has been lost. It’s gone – long gone. The lines are clearly drawn for all to see. Who and what will no longer be tolerated under any circumstances are those assailing women’s reproductive rights, promoting systemic racism, practicing personal bigotry, enabling public health politicization, monetizing misinformation, gerrymandering, treason, voter suppression – the list goes on.

When the vote didn’t go their way, people proposing insidiously abhorrent illegal positions on these matters became overtly public for political purposes. Circling the wagons under the Trump banner, they formed the new GOP on big bags of cash floating in a floundering economy paralyzed with misinformation. Thanks for putting all the target acquisition work in news and social media! I might not go to church on Sunday, nor do I leverage illegal means to help my vote. But you goddamn well better believe I defend it religiously. Respect that or not, at your peril.

Voting-related violations against democracy and the rule of law committed by the former POTUS and his criminal enterprise are prosecution matters now. But regardless of the topic at hand, Trumplicans will continue playing the politics of fear in any divisive direction they can, because that is all the greedy cocksuckers have left. It is but one facet of our rotten government needing dealt with today. Parrot the big lie and all it engenders, or perhaps consider a little respect.

Posted on

Pets Again!

Gotta keep breaking up the never-ending string of political crime topics! Francie got this shot of Jax last time she was home. Those are the medium-sized goldfish in their 60-gallon winter home above the the basement TV. The big ones are in the 120-gallon, and the little ones are in the 20-gallon, now totaling 37. We have a few too many goldfish.
Posted on

Supply Chain Bite-Back

Pundits are referring to it as a “bottle-neck” at the ports. Potential fallout from a plethora of interrelated factors driven by an uncontrolled pandemic, while significant portions of production were shipped overseas to save labor costs over the past 50 years seems unsurprising. Logistics can have alot of moving parts that don’t respond well to unexpected changes.

As hopeful idealists peer into numbers showing infections declining, the lagging long-term effects of public health stupidity are just beginning.

And why didn’t everybody go back to work after they cut the unemployment money?
Posted on

Rotating Cast of Weirdos

I don’t promote Seth enough around here. His comedic grip on the runaway political train is better than most.

…and criminals, and morons and….
Posted on

Interviewing Getaway Drivers

King Fuckwit held a rally at the Iowa fairgrounds last weekend. Between him and the Covid crises he is so intimately entwined with, it amounts to a social media nightmare. Idiots and criminals have an effective, ubiquitous tool with which to wreak havoc. Most people agree the government should not be allowed to define what is true. So the self-fulfilling prophecy of section 230 has come to pass. A judge by the name of Wilkinson unwittingly set this country on the path to destruction in 1997. There is no legal incentive for Facebook or any Internet company for that matter, to police themselves, and in fact, substantial profit incentive not to.

It’s starting to look like people will come to this epiphany the hard way. It’s a math problem now. The number of gullible morons in this country has exceeded common sense’ capacity to contain the damage. Shutting it down to clean up the mess and start over might be the only solution. How corporate breakups might be informed should be a part of that process. Mr. Kirschner’s analogy to how the situation now unfolds is entertaining, in a sobering sort of way.

Posted on

Indigenous People’s Day

I believe the atrocities committed against native Americans during the settlement and development of this continent were some of the most egregious examples of human evil in all history. Seems like many Christian and White People had some splainin’ to do when they got to the Pearly Gates in recent decades. Words will never do it justice, and the remnants of racism and hate haunt us in every corner of the country to this day.

Save Oak Flat!

Everything has a way of working out in the long run.
Posted on

Downing the Big Front Aspen

Clearing out the deadwood from last year’s early hard freeze was a summer-long project. Most everything I do around here nowadays gets done in small chunks, but I’m usually good to go for up to an hour or so with the girdle on. I was able to accomplish the lumber-jacking by cutting smaller pieces off the tops first, working my way down to the main trunks in a dozen sessions over the past few months. That way there was only an hour’s worth of work each time I started back in on it again.

I took it off about 4′ up so Michelle can use the stump for a plant stand in the spring. This was probably one of the easiest tree fellings ever attempted by anyone, and I still eff’d it up. It was already leaning the right direction, but tried to barber-chair because I didn’t get the hinge lined up straight to finish it. Moving the big stuff once it was down without any lumbar-jacking took a bit of fussing about. That’s how we used to deliver the Oxy/Acetylene tanks without a cart. You could do one in each hand if you were really skilled at it. Mr. Wallington might be less crippled than me, but the stuff he does is 100 orders of magnitude greater. Just have to adapt and find ways to get things done.

Fun starts at about the 5-minute mark.
Almost knocked the phone off the ladder.
Posted on

They Really Just Want to Go Around Killing People

If not outright gunning them down, maybe just the random Covid infection passed along should do. When are these fuckwits going to learn their rights end where public health begins?

LA Co’s Police Motto: “To Serve and Infect”

Play by the rules, if you want to share in this society. Otherwise GTFO.

Posted on

Slack-Jawed, Broke-Brain, Backward…

…would be Trea’s coinage in reference to pinhead parents who don’t like vaccines and think their kids shouldn’t be required to wear masks in school.

Overlooking the fact immunizing schoolchildren against dangerous diseases has been mandatory for decades.

Way too many nazis and people who’s worldview extends only a few feet from the end of their nose walking around these days.

Posted on

Flag-Covered Coffin Budget

Talking about trillions of dollars in Federal budgeting is a political game lacking perspective. Alot of people have trouble wrapping their heads around big numbers at all, much less what they mean. The $3.5t infrastructure package compared to the $8t DoD budget over the same period looks less large to the average Joe wondering why they can’t get an Internet connection at the hovel.

Somebody should ask Manchin if he knows how many West Virginians died in Afghanistan.
Posted on

More Pet Stuff ‘n a Truck Pic

Continued the ongoing project clearing photos out of the Google cloud with that last pond post. This about wraps it up for summer photo fun. Jax nearly bit that black tomcat‘s head off at the age of ten weeks, but he remains defiant.

Jax is in stealth mode on that last shot.

Almost done clearing deadwood out of the front yard. Keeping fingers crossed we don’t have another hard freeze before the leaves are down again this year.

Posted on

Fun With Twitter™

Never been much of a Twit, myself. I tend to agree with Dave Chappelle on the topic – it’s just a digital bathroom wall. But now that Fuckbook’s insidious business practices are finally out in the open, it’s time to pivot. I’ve been using the Twitter for my own algorithm and engagement testing – but the only real goal is delivering depraved insults to selected individuals.

Youtube could be a legitimate service, if they cleaned it up. I deleted my Fuckbook account years ago when it started getting really shitty. Twitter came into focus when the Orange Fuckwit began leveraging it for his misinformation campaign(s) in an epic thumb-nose to Democracy and the Rule of Law. Smart people always knew the only reason these platforms exist is to monetize personal user data without the owner’s consent.

The 1st phase of this little exercise demonstrates how quickly they nail the marketing vectors. I might be Twitter’s least active user. I follow nobody and block everything. My last logon before today was 2 weeks ago. The only football stuff I’ve done online this season were NFL.com to see the schedule reading nothing, and one streaming service (on which I do not even have an account) watching games. It’s no big stretch to imagine what happens when those algorithms get tweaked and applied in even more targeted fashion.

Even more concerning: how and where’d they get a low-interest fan’s info with just a few weeks of minimal online NFL activity that never even touched their platform? We used to call it triangulation in the missile targeting business. In the data-mining business, the payoff is like the Ferrari ultimately produced from stuff taken out of the ground.

Posted on

Health Status Update (for VA purposes)

Curious how all our previous messages disappeared from the system before I logged in to send this today. Doesn’t appear real secure. They were already either relieving themselves of me, or perpetuating the cover-up.

I will be an inactive VA participant going forward. There’s no longer much doctors can do for me.
Posted on

Pond Shutdown 2021

We had the first trouble-free pond season this past summer. There were no leaks, algae blooms, predator attacks or other problematic issues like we normally experienced in previous years. The liner will be properly finished and leak-free for the long haul next year. Algae control was simply a matter of installing a UV light in the sump. Waiting for the Herons to finish migration and keeping the surface covered with water plants effectively thwarted them and the raccoons.

A fourth problematic pond issue was also solved just a couple days ago. Last year I tried putting in a few 1000-watt heaters to hold the water temperature up into October. That was pure folly. It worked, but nearly doubled the electric bill in just two weeks. So I found that running hot tap water into there for an hour raises the water temperature about 6°F. I think the basement water heater is probably more efficient for this purpose than the aquarium heaters. Wish I knew the safe cutoff temp-difference point for moving the goldfish.

We still have at least another couple weeks of warm weather coming, but with temps dropping into the 40’s overnight, the water gets too cold this time of year. The issue is too much of a temp swing transferring them from outside to inside. I can get them within around 6-7° now, then I siphon some tank water into the bucket and let them wait a few minutes to adjust before chucking them into the basement aquariums.

There may come a time we let them hibernate and run it year ’round. Just need to determine how it might be possible to reliably prevent a hard freeze in sub-zero temps.

The population count is around 40 now.

Some of those hazy-looking shots are wildfire smoke. The last pic shows the filter material pulled out of the sump. It takes awhile to get it all hosed down and put away, but not real difficult, overall.

That water tested cleaner than the aquariums. Probably better than tap.
Posted on

A Day Late, and a Dollar Short

With little more effect than Zucky’s offerings over the years. Youtube finally decided enough was enough and started restricting vaccine misinformation. Yay. How long you think they might allow the next propaganda-infused threat to humanity to fester before taking action? I bet it’s until they can no longer get away with ignoring and deliberately overlooking it. Marketing profit dollars rule until the problem becomes existential. Until then, the corporations will continue raking it in.

Social media is a tool often leveraged for evil and a primary driver of today’s societal decline.