So the big celestial news is that there are now THREE, count ’em, planets going retrogade as Jupiter decides that it’s the hip new trend in planetary motion. Now three may not sound like much, but it’s only possible for five of the astrological planets to even go retrograde, so we’re at the majority. Expect Fineagal and Murphy to get hammered and engage in fisticuffs.
On Thursday or Friday there will be a brief moment when things will go exactly right. Enjoy that. Venus retrograde and Mercury are in Gemini. This is typically a time when you will discover infidelities. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that they involve your current partner, just that you may have even more reason to have contempt for an ex. The moon and Mars in Pisces is indicative of either success in sport fishing or an unfriendly encounter with either game wardens or the Coast Guard, or any combination of the three. Make sure your licenses are in order. Capricorns who had been getting too complacent with their stellar enablement will receive a rude awakening as Jupiter goes retrograde, supra. And continued bad luck for those in the drilling and ceramics businesses as Saturn retrograde continues wreaking havoc in Aquarius.
The skies are sparse. The cards are not so good.
Taurus: 5 of Swords – Degradation, destruction, revocation, infamy, dishonor, loss — all that you inflict
Gemini: 9 of Swords reversed – Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame
Cancer: The Tower – Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin, unforeseen catastrophe.
Leo: Blank – This is either good news since it’s not one of the bad cards common this week or bad news since it means you have no guidance.
Virgo: 8 of Cups – giving joy, mildness, timidity, honor, modesty, the decline of a matter, or that a matter which has been thought to be important is really of slight consequence
Libra: King of Cups reversed – Dishonest, double-dealing man, roguery, exaction, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.
Scorpio: 10 of Coins – Gain, riches, family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family
Sagittarius: Queen of Wands – A dark woman, countrywoman, friendly, chaste, loving, honourable. She is well disposed towards doctors, scientists and government officials. Also, love of money, or a certain success in business.
Aquarius: King of Swords – Power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown
Pisces: The Magician reversed -Physician, Magus, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.
Aries: Knight of Wands – Departure, absence, flight, emigration, change of residence
Gemini: imprisonment…. I didn’t do it!
None of us did.
Our fuckstick governor is going to quarantine us. 😡
Don’t get lost. Use GPS.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a32496561/why-magnetic-north-pole-moving/
Anybody here ever see a compass with the red end of the needle pointing South, like the article’s illustration has it?
I’m still pissed at PM for that imbecilic Joe Biden suck-piece they did for their, if I remember correctly, ‘Father and Son’ issue.
Utter drivel.
In hoping for a nice easy week at work since I’m off Memorial week.
Short week of work here, going out yesterday was hopefully a good sign for Thursday and Friday being busy at most locations. DeWine needs to make sure that we behave ourselves, or he’s going to close it back up. Is there a reason why this hasn’t gone down to a county level yet?
“Is there a reason why this hasn’t gone down to a county level yet?”
Because dictators don’t like giving up power.
On the bright side, I haven’t heard of any counties extending the lockdown here.
I was telling someone the other day that this is like arguing with your wife when both of you realize that she’s been wrong the whole time.
You so badly want to do a victory dance and shout “I told you so!” but you realize that if you do, she will dig in and the argument will go on and on. So you try to come up with some face saving way for her to end the argument.
Same here. The Govs know they fucked up badly. They know they can’t admit it and stay in power (and after getting a taste of pure power ain’t no way they are quitting). So they reluctantly say they are going to move the dials to open things up slowly – but they might turn them back if things go badly.
Since you want thing to open up, you just bite your tongue.
Sadly, there’s no way the voters are punishing our POS Cuomo.
You leave my gov alone! He knows what’s best because he’s dealing with the true facts.
He’s not a quitter. Well, OK, that one time but he’s stopped now.
So he even quit being a quitter?
I suspect he’ll fail.
Fourscore, I’m with you. The most disturbing thing about this shutdown is how our Gov bravely ran away when his Nat Guard unit was going to be deployed.
In true Californian fashion, we are still at crazy micromanaging stages with our lockdown. The supermarket has been transformed into a life sized board game, with decals on the floor telling you where to stand and which direction to walk in. The beach is open, but only for individual exercise activities. No sunbathing, resting or groups allowed. They have issued a list of retailers from certain industries that are allowed to reopen. Not the entire industry, just select locations. They are so power mad that even the lefties are crying foul.
I should probably get to work, then.
“The Tower – Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin, unforeseen catastrophe. ”
I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
?
At least I have steak.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/zZ-y3RCWR56GEk5hg_2R5w.ETMEE8w1YUNLGXvm0NgP97
Yummy.
Walther?
HK4
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/VvAKdny8Sty_mnRN4_gHcw.MyhpDDYPFt3UTnk0jMcND1
I hang my head in shame.
?
I’m genuinely surprised.
I would’ve thought you’d move on to 105mm Howitzers by now.
HOA, dude. I’m pretty sure some Karen would complain.
Gemini: 9 of Swords reversed – Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame
Sounds reasonable. This cocktail doesn’t sound reasonable but I want one.
“Capricorns who had been getting too complacent with their stellar enablement ”
I’m starting to believe that Not Adahn works for CNN.
I read it that Jupiter is going to drive to Retrograde ( which I assume is somewhere in the former Soviet Union?) in his Supra. At least gas prices are way down.
Sigh. The more you know….. the more infuriated you get.
It isn’t just the Brits who were taken in by shit models. The model used here in Minnesoda to scare the pants off the govt was coded in a weekend by three research assistants at THE U of M
Yeah, you don’t need to do things really, really quick. Being right is more important when you are talking about vaporizing trillions of dollars of wealth. Their really, really, quick model predicted 70K deaths with no lockdown and 50K deaths with a lockdown. We are at 700 deaths right now.
Fuck. I hope potential future employers are paying attention to this twit.
“As a modeler, says Kirkeide, you have complete control over what your results look like.”
Statistician William Briggs says the same thing, with different emphasis.
Models Only Say What They’re Told To Say
https://wmbriggs.com/post/30826/
https://wmbriggs.com/post/30826/
That is a great point and one that I had never seen articulated before.
A lot of people not afraid to be publicly named as part of this cock up. And there’s a whole boatload more people for every one of those cockups that is or will be hurting really badly as a result. I would be a bit more reticent being ID’d right now.
What’s two orders of magnitude among friends?
At some point when looking at data and analysis, you have to do a gut check and ask yourself whether the results you are getting just look nuts. If the answer is yes, you should go back and do a real, real thorough review, get a second opinion, something.
They are either too inexperienced/naive, or the result didn’t look nuts to them because its what tehywere hoping for.
I can’t tell you how many times I have been trying to use gobs and gobs of IoT data to generate reports and had to scrap everything I thought and go back to the raw data at the micro level to discover why things didn’t add up.
And that was with real data. I can’t even imagine trying to model crap without real data.
You are correct in that they all got stiffies when they saw tens of thousands dying. And the govt power brokers got just as hard because they now had an excuse to finally grab the ring of Power.
Understanding data, and what data is worth while is a skill. Too many supervisors/managers don’t have it, and I doubt that it’s a common skill for government workers.
“Do you want the info fast or right. Only 2 choices”
Their really, really, quick model predicted 70K deaths with no lockdown and 50K deaths with a lockdown. We are at 700 deaths right now.
Proof that the lockdown worked!
Exactly. Which is why we have to double down!
Says every boss ever.
On Thursday or Friday there will be a brief moment when things will go exactly right.
Sure. You’ve got something to sell too right?
Leo: Blank – This is either good news since it’s not one of the bad cards common this week or bad news since it means you have no guidance.
It’s always bad news. Sheesh.
I didn’t even know Tarot decks had blank cards.
They are the jokers.
In UCS’ tarot deck, *all* the cards are blank.
That “brief moment” will last precisely 1.5 attoseconds. Savour it while you can.
OT: A pair of protests coming up in Michigan. One on Monday in Grand Rapids and Operation Haircut on Wednesday in Lansing.
“I don’t think a lot of researchers get to work on something over the weekend and have public figures talk about it and make decisions based on it three days later,” says Kirkeide
Gosh, I wonder why.
The Tower – Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin, unforeseen catastrophe.
So a normal week for me?
garbage in
garbage out
since before my career as an engineer began
no idea how that posted here
it’s solid boilerplate
have it set up under a function key and just stamp it everywhere
Seconded.
You want to get it right the first time.
FAIL.
Remain panic-stricken!
Just as more Americans are allowed to visit beaches, attend church indoors or eat inside a restaurant, health officials say gathering in large groups could send states back to where they started.
Texas had its highest single-day increase in new coronavirus cases Saturday, according to numbers from the Department of State Health Services.
The state, one of the first to start reopening, reported an increase of 1,801 positive coronavirus cases on Saturday.
But it’s not clear whether the surge is simply due to more testing, or if the virus is spreading more rampantly.
What’s clear is that it takes just one infected person to launch a new outbreak.
Stoke that fear, CNN. Think of all the lives you’ll save.
But it’s not clear whether the surge is simply due to more testing,
Actually, yes it is. Texas’ rate of positive tests is still on a downward trend, and their rate of testing has increased.
What’s clear is that it takes just one infected person to launch a new outbreak.
Not at this stage of a viral epidemic. By now, its pervasive. There are no more patient zeros.
You fucking hacks.
They’re still leaning on the narrative that a positive test means the person’s hospitalized in critical condition.
Amen TOK.
If I was being generous, I would say that they haven’t changed their mindset from the period where there weren’t enough test kits and only people who dragged their asses into the hospital were being tested.
Now in Minnesoda they are dancing around the question of mandatory testing because even though they can now do 5K tests/day they can’t get 5K of Minnesodans to take one. They are in phase 1 where they are bemoaning the fact that the rubes won’t come to the mountain and begging them to come in. Phase 2 will be when the mountain of govt decides to drop down on the rubes and mandate that you need to get tested.
Up to about 2 weeks ago I thought we needed more testing, too. But then I realized that pretty much every county in the US has at least some cases. So there’s really no point in trying to track it. It’s much too late for that.
This is why we need an army of Karens to track everyone everywhere and rat them out if they sneeze of if it’s confirmed that they might vote for a Rethuglican.
I read that originally as “an army of Koreans” and nodded my head. I’ve got a one woman squad of Koreans in my house and she’d doing a pretty good job of monitory and “nudging” the rest of the family. I can only imagine what an army of them would be like.
Like this?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2381052/Kim-Jong-Uns-mini-skirted-robot-army-North-Koreas-female-soldiers.html
“Tightly drilled” *snicker*
Sigh, my wife managed to get out of her two years of compulsory service (by going to college and grad school) so I don’t have any pics of her dolled up in a uniform.
Mrs Fourscore did some time in the VN Women’s Guard, a few pictures of her on the range, they only had M-1 carbines for the gals. She says she could re-assemble an M1911 blindfolded, in her earlier days.
health officials say gathering in large groups could send states back to where they started.
Or, they might not.
Imagine if the governments, public health authorities and media don’t repeat their horrendous mistake of enforcing and promoting social distancing when the second wave or another flu arrives. Nah, that won’t happen. We’ve descended into the Dark Ages good and hard.
I think I saw an article somewhere that said Texas had done more testing in the last week or so than in the months before this. So the fact that more cases were detected shouldn’t be surprising.
And (AGAIN) big increases in positive tests without a similar spike in deaths is GOOD news. It means that the lethality of the virus isn’t nearly as bad as was first suspected.
“health officials say gathering in large groups could send states back to where they started.”
Mostly free with some civil rights still intact?
It looks like the new deaths have held pretty steady since limited reopening began in early May:
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2020/03/10/us-coronavirus-map-tracking-united-states-outbreak/4945223002/
Isn’t the incubation period up to 14 days?
It looks like there’s a mean of three to six days with individual cases taking 14 days or even longer:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-incubation-period/
Average incubation time is under 5 days. Some may take longer but we would already see it if cases were gonna explode.
“Libra: King of Cups reversed – Dishonest, double-dealing man, roguery, exaction, injustice, vice, scandal, pillage, considerable loss.”
Can I just catch the Rona instead?
All the protests, both in and out of the US, are encouraging. However, I’m already seeing stories like “record number of cases in Texas”. Suspiciously missing is the number of hospitalizations and deaths. Also reading about “mystery” illnesses in kids that supposedly are caused by the Carona. Even though every single stat in every single reason shows kids are not affected.
‘
I also heard that roller derby will not take place this year unless there are 0 cases in a region. Which is about as stupid as you can get. I doubt that would happen in my lifetime.
Genius!
Police: Man wearing watermelon on his head arrested in Louisa Sheetz robbery
In this day and age when you can wear a full on face covering and not get a second glance that’s especially stupid.
See! Melonheads are real!
White folk be crazy.
Thank doG it was a couple crackers. I don’t think our nation could have survived the perps being black and Trump tweeting about it.
Couldn’t happen here, PJ, watermelons out of season. If a person could afford a WM they wouldn’t be robbin’ a QuikStop
Cancer: The Tower – Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin, unforeseen catastrophe.
Well some of these hit
I just had the paranoid thought that making COVID test mandatory and the vaccine too, were just test runs to gauge public tolerance for the real prize: mandatory Blood testing, during which they go ahead and keep a DNA profile of each citizen.
It’s all preparation for the alien ? invasion.
They’re already among us. Just take a look at Mark Zuckerberg. Does anyone really believe that is a Homo Sapien?, because that thing ain’t human.
“I just had the paranoid thought that making COVID test mandatory and the vaccine too”
This is a recipe for mass civil disobedience. It won’t fly, but no doubt they will try it.
Just make it a smiling needle logo on the Real ID card. You don’t have to get one but you can’t enter a government building or fly or (fill in the blank). Totes not mandatory at all.
No hiway funding for any state that refuses to comply!
Walz “First!! First!! Pick MN! Pick MN”
That’s just paranoid.
*orders more tin foil in bulk and more 5.56*
I doubt that’s what they have in mind right off the bat but I’m sure some douchebag government official will manage to come up with a justification for just that eventually. The constitution isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on so why not?
“We need the DNA info of all citizens so that we can identify those at risk for certain diseases can have their meal rationing and exercise program selected appropriately for the state.
“You guys put us in charge of healthcare, so now EVERYTHING you do is our business. Oh, btw, since you’re already retired, we aren’t going to replace your knee; you are now a drain on the state.”
That last sentence is a pretty good partial look at real existing socialized healthcare, like the NHS. It’s all about numbers, so you get rationing and you’re no longer viewed as an individual, just a number.
It always gets me angry that the US media keep saying that medical costs are lower in Europe where they have socialized medicine. It’s just not true at all, they just ration care to keep the numbers as low as possible, and the enormous amount of tax levied on the citizens to pay for it, is just ignored.
That’s the difference between public health and health care.
It’s all about numbers, so you get rationing
I’m on your side in this, but it’s important to view scarcity as reality no matter the philosophy or the management prerogatives. One of the weirdnesses of the debate has been the rollout of truisms, the scarcity of critical thinking, and the meming of the American mind. For example:
You can keep your insurance plan. Well, you never could and you always could and you still can. Everyone here has had their plans and their doctors changed on them under workplace-provided systems; it would be insane to presume that a government program could do better than that. On the other hand, you are free to go out and buy whatever coverage you want; nothing is stopping anyone for paying whatever that costs.
Death Panels. Maybe they aren’t panels, but scarcity always means choices, the more severe the situation the more obvious such things become. Again: true before and true now as a practical matter. For example, how many tests and how many breathing machines (I’m not arguing those are important, I’m merely pointing out that NBA stars definitely got tested and at least some people didn’t; there are statistics and logistics and a greater than zero chance that your luck could run out under any system).
Healthcare is a right. It always was and it never will be. I can’t get into an ER because of the masses of uninsured folks, indigents, and mental cases milling around in the waiting room; without so much as a nickel, those folks dominate a portion of the system. Conversely, no matter how much money we through at this idea, there will always be marginal cases like birth control and THR for 100 year-olds to weigh; one person’s healthcare is another person’s frivolity.
In healthcare as in all other American things, one thing is sure: the tropes are in control.
I say…meh…I was in the miltary so they have my DNA and my family did the 23 and me thing…so they have our profile
I did ancestry, so I’m on file too. Not a problem unless the government decides to predict medical outcomes or do broad sweeps of citizens based on DNA.
23 rejected me, said it didn’t look real.
/I wish
Can you blame then Fourscore? 23 and Me is used to processing DNA and seeing base pairs that look like ATCGATTGAGCTCTAGCG. When they got to your sample, the base pair was in cuneiform. Their machines aren’t set up to handle that!
Too late. They’ve been collecting DNA from babies since forever. I had a bitch of a time jumping through hoops to get my kids dna destroyed here in Minnesoda. I’m pretty sure my name was added to some lists because of it.
For a while it was stopped in Minnesoda, but then they passed a new law to start it back up again (and again it was opt-out, not opt in).
They are so power mad that even the lefties are crying foul.
Be careful what you… oh, never mind.
Tried to type up my adventures of building the trailer for the business but I get about 6 paragraphs in and reread it and yell at myself.
So I give a photo essay of the progress instead.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/F4reZMsmRqiopKo4rlPQ9w.r2SMB6NiuLHG0Dfu6ifZjX
Nice work! Just gave my dog a bath in the tub last night instead of the DIY dog bath place. Instantly reminded of why it’s nicer to wash her there.
Yeah those places are nice.
Cool.
Very nice!
Had metal studs in some locations but pulled those out for 2x4s. Getting up side walls right now and after that will be the ceiling. Then use left over vinyl plank flooring.
Very impressive. Hope the Scamp people don’t steal your plans. Could be our future living space very soon.
Thank you!!!
Yanno, OBE, I don’t know you except through this here Island of Misfit Toys, but I’m proud of you and your wife. Isn’t that odd? But yeah.
At the risk of sending you to FB if you don’t have an account, this is exactly what I want/dream about, but only as a last resort.
The models had to say social distancing worked because they started with the premise social distancing worked.
“According to my model, my model is correct.”
Finally, actual question begging.
“My initial pre-conclusions are accurate for policy making”
Gemini: 9 of Swords reversed – Imprisonment, suspicion, doubt, reasonable fear, shame
Jesus, d00d, could you at least lie to me every so often?
Horoscope
https://mobile.twitter.com/emilyslist/status/1261327983656214535
Never heard of the woman associated with my sign.
Tulip!!! Where were you last night? The boys on the Zoom thingie were sexually harassing me while I was trying to be a front-line essential hero.
I’m sorry I missed it. I’m old, I couldn’t stay awake.
The fellow whose butt they wanted me to rub is the guy who had the ChiCom Pox and just returned to work. I like him, but I don’t wanna touch him.
“The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months“
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months
A really interesting story that I was unaware of and the ending is much happier than Golding’s version.
“Scientists from all over the world have switched to a more hopeful view of mankind.”
hahahahahaha! Yeah right, you’re all doomed because climate change, because you’re killing mother Gaia!
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this.
Workers of the world, Unite!
A group of protesters rallied outside the Fremont manufacturing plant today, calling for CEO Elon Musk to be arrested and jailed.
Carlos Gabriel is an employee, and has refused to return to work. “I’m worried for my health,” said Gabriel.
Gabriel is worried about the spread of COVID-19 and the difficulty of social distancing in the workplace. “I’m very disappointed in the leadership. I’m very disappointed in Elon Musk putting profits over the health of his workers,” said Gabriel.
Activist groupls United Public Workers for Action and Workers Solidarity Action Network organized the rally outside the plant. “What is going here today is a travesty,” said Steve Zeltzer with Public Workers for Action Advocacy.
They accuse Musk of putting workers in harms way by sending them back to work during the pandemic.
Peepulz not profitz!
lol. the irony.
Isn’t Musk allowing those who feel uneasy about returning to work to not return without penalty? Sounds like Carlos needs to be shitcanned.
yes. and california’s facilities are clearly in no danger.
But Musk does not allow men who identify as women to take 25 years of maternity leave. He’s almost as bad as badorangeman.
Carlos does not have a bright future with Tesla.
Musk is an asshole, but not for this reason.
Splitter!
You know what would be a great constitutional amendment to put onto this November’s ballot? (I’m thinking state by state, not national – yet)
How about something saying that when a vaccine is developed, govt workers are the last in line. This includes politicians. If they are public servants, they should be OK with letting regular taxpayers have first crack at the vaccine.
After Ozy’s series, I’ll take a pass on the vaccine, thanks.
But yes, back of the line for those motherfuckers.
Good point. Maybe we do want the pols to get the first doses….
Agreed…or all workers deemed un-essential ahould have first crack. Cuomo already let us know that it is proven if you have an essential job you won’t kill anyone.
They may have forgotten that a large percentage of antivaxers are on the left. Mandatory vaccinations will not fly because they’ll get too much opposition on both sides.
You realize that Trump has already mobilized the military to deliver the vaccine, don’t you?
I hope it is like boot camp where they tell you to strip down and you walk through endless lines in nothing but your grundies while getting all sorts of shots and exams.
I’m sure that the people around me will appreciate their peep show far less than I do.
Not going commando that day?
I used to work with a guy who had just got out of the military and it was his first private sector job. He enlisted right away when he was 18 and now he was 35. He told me he was having a very hard time adjusting to a life where you were not told what to do and everything was just planned out for you 24/7 365. All of this freedom stuff was really messing with him. He seemed like a good guy, but he really was having a very hard time adjusting. Reminded me sort of like when that guy in the movie Shawshank Redemption got out of prison and couldn’t adjust to life on the outside.
How dare you! That’s not what my ebay feedback says!
A friend of mine got attempted murdered friday night.
The perp drove his car into my friends house and my friend had to roll off the hood to avoid getting squashed.
During the process the magazine of his glock got dislodged and ended up in the rubble. So he was hunting the guy down with a worthless pistol, unless he had a round chambered, I guess.
Shit. Sorry. Good your friend didn’t get squashed.
Did he successfully hunt down the guy?
Police caught him.
He was drunk and possibly high.
Surprisingly, he had valid auto insurance, so thats good.
Can’t get the perp on a Hit and Run count though.
He ran from the scene, so maybe?
I think the attempted murder charge and endangerment of everyone in the home will sort of outweigh anything else they can throw at that guy, including the destruction of private property.
They wouldn’t report on it: too local.
Is your friend a made man or something?
Its Frankfort, Ky. This is a mild news event.
Whoa! No wonder my car insurance refund was so pitifully small! Your buddy and his attacker are taking money out of my pocket!
They got lucky. It broke one water line, which they got turned off fast before serious damage, but the car just missed the gas line.
Did he know the person or was it an accident?
Nope and intentional. The cops are charging with attempted murder along with endangerment charges for others in the house. Along with DUI, of course.
“The cops are charging with attempted murder”
As it should be. Someone just fucked up their life completely. Good to hear your friend didn’t get hurt anyway, sorry to hear about his home.
Motive?
Friday night in Frankfort?
Was anyone making chicken and he thought it as a KFC drivethru?
What, Billy Joel is driving again?!
On mandatory testing: What are the chances that govt will use this as a vehicle for mass collection of DNA profiles?
100%.
In the proverbial ‘rare show of bipartisanship’, Congress just voted to allow law enforcement to view your browsing history without a search warrant. No veto from Trump. For all this talk of the “soft coup,” Trump seems all too happy to allow government to use the same tools on us that were used on him.
I don’t think it’s that deep for him.
Please elaborate.
I don’t think he thinks many things through to their logical conclusion, especially if it doesn’t involve money. Not only do I not think he holds philosophies like “freedom”, he doesn’t think about them at all. He doesn’t have to. His money gives him freedom and beyond that, he doesn’t have to think about it.
When he looks out and sees his baskets of deplorables, he groks what they want at a survival level. Then again, this is the same guy who was all in favor of the Kelo decision and said he’d try to work that around to his own advantage. This is a guy who ran for president practically on a lark.
I’m not pulling out the “privilege” card. I’m pulling out the “that’s not the way he’s wired” card. He doesn’t have to be.
He would not liken the loss of his privacy and freedom to the loss of privacy and freedom to regular peopledom because he just doesn’t think like that.
I believe that he is a surface thinker.
Oh, I agree. In this case, though, we have to remember that a significant faction of his base are LEOs, both union bosses and rank-and-file. He ran on promising to give them every pony they wanted, and he’s kept that promise. What I don’t get, that even for a surface thinker, he experienced those tools used against him, his base is outraged by the use of those tools against him…..so why are there crickets when the Patriot Act, FISA, etc. are not only renewed but expanded? Do they think the Democrats will stop trying to leverage the surveillance state against Trump?
Without regard to Trump per se, for all of the Republicans (and Democrats) who voted to renew these powers, there are several justifications at play:
1. The rank-and-file say they need these powers.
2. If you put the right people in charge, the powers won’t be abused.
3. The powers won’t get used against them or their families/friends.
4. What happened wasn’t actually that bad and can be dealt with using existing processes.
If you pick apart these justifications, of course, they don’t really hold up. For example,
1. The interaction between Congress and the rank-and-file of the executive branch is highly dysfunctional. Both sides lie to the other and, on the rare occasion the truth gets told, it is even more rarely understood but almost always torpedoes one or more careers.
2. The “right people” were allegedly already in charge, you’re gonna have a hard time finding these “right people” in the future, and you won’t really know until it’s too late if they were “right” after all. Then even if you’ve found them, organizations can atrophy faster than people pay attention to them. Hell, we already had intelligence reform in the 1970s which led to FISA which ended up being at the center of the problems today.
3. Me today, you tomorrow.
4. This is probably the biggest factor that prevents serious reform. Institutional inertia combined with don’t rock the boat mentality will keep this system going. Even the few reformers, like Amash, who want to dismantle the system and get elected don’t really recognize the problems as they exist today. Not renewing the USA PATRIOT Act in its various incarnations still leaves FISA intact, after all. It’s a step in the right direction, but I’ve not seen anyone in any real position of power who seems genuinely interested in dismantling the government’s ability to spy for political benefit.
Watch that Trump video on Netflix and you won’t have to think about what Trump is, or not, you’ll get it. I won’t even try to explain it, but if you watch that, you’ll get it.
My point (now that I’ve had meditation time behind a lawnmower) is that he hasn’t made the connection because he doesn’t think that deeply.
Covered lightly as comment 19 above.
They would use it for any number of malicious purposes. It would turn into a China type surveillance situation where you would get unannounced social credit score type things happening. There would be more secret lists popping up where you wouldn’t know how you got on it and no one would know how you could get off it. You’d just be going about your business one day and all of the sudden find yourself unable to get on any public transit, or flights, and eventually banned from buying certain things, like ammo.
Mandatory testing would be abused to no end and we absolutely cannot tolerate that type of invasion of privacy and remain a free society. We’d basically become China or worse.
John Titor has been sending us stuff from 2025 about what life is like around the world during the Ocasio-Cortez administration.
“during the Ocasio-Cortez administration.”
*shudder*
As I’ve observed before, she turns 35 in October of 2024….just in time.
At the rate the divide in this country is widening I am not confident that the country wont break apart before then.
The TDS crowd is going to have to try and suck it up for another 4 years and I dont know if they can do that.
On my store trip I heard that several governors are unwilling to open their states up because the economy might repair itself too quickly, reducing Biden’s chances of winning in November. They really are willing to burn the country to the ground to hang onto their power.
At some point things are going to break.
Earlier on the Matt Taibbi article the comments were frightening. Quite a few there declaring that we can get stuffed about our concern for civil liberties. The contrast between the mindset of the collectivists and individualists is growing ever more stark.
several governors are unwilling to open their states up because the economy might repair itself too quickly
This has to be the most ahistoric line of thought coming out of this whole process. Best case is that this is an 18 month recession. It’s not going to recover by July. It’s not going to fully recover by next July.
I think their main idea is that they will get 100% mail in ballots for the November elections.
This, exactly this.
The best science-fiction has always been non-fiction that arrived to the party 15 minutes early.
Hey HM. I’ve wanted to thank you for the Brushy One String link the other night. Fun Stuff.
I was gone to the store for a bit. After posting I see hayeksplosives already mentioned this.
Scorpio: 10 of Coins – Gain, riches, family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family
This is eerily accurate.
Finally some good news, Mr Grumbles. I’m hearing house prices in Austin are high, high, high though.
You’ll have to change your handle after all of your good news.
The days of quietly hiding out in Dripping Springs and easily commuting to town are long gone. An hour south, the tiny nowhere Hessian farming village of Neu Branfels is suddenly 100k strong, a bedroom community of folk (nicht volk heute) who turn the interstate into a parking lot for several hours a day.
I hate to hear that. If I were to ever move to Texas (I won’t) that would be where I would go. Well, the place it used to be 30 years ago.
When I lived in Temple, an hour north, I sometimes had to work in Austin. I would get off on the north side and and make better time. If I had to cross the river on I35 I’d have to add another 1/2 hour on my commute. Working the other way (north) from Temple to Dallas was a pain too. Glad I was able to get out of there many years ago now.
The I35 corridor is getting pretty jammed up, from Gainesville to San Antonio and maybe even farther south
Turns out that people don’t have the reading comprehension required to know what “needs 2 strong people, and a LARGE suv or pickup” means.
First 3 sets of people showed up with 2-row SUVs and gave up on this commercial, 10 foot long, 400+lb behemoth within minutes.
I have particular schadenfreude for the out of shape mom and her teenage son who drove 75 minutes from Maryland with their CUV, spent all of 90 seconds realizing that we weren’t full of shit when we warned them three separate times that they need a large suv and two strong people, and turned around to drive 75 minutes back home.
Behemoth treadmill*
I have one of the those. I can hardly slide it around on the floor of the garage. It was free and delivered by two strong young men.
“I have particular schadenfreude for the out of shape mom and her teenage son who drove 75 minutes from Maryland with their CUV, spent all of 90 seconds realizing that we weren’t full of shit when we warned them three separate times that they need a large suv and two strong people, and turned around to drive 75 minutes back home.”
You actually know people who would show up to help you with manual labor? Astounding. I tried that last time I moved and suddenly learned that all of my ‘friends’ have back problems or they’re washing their hair that day, or something.
We were giving away the treadmill on Facebook marketplace. Nobody bothered to read past “free treadmill”
Did they think you were going to deliver it? Those thing are heavy as hell, they should have at least known that.
Someone tried to give me one, but I’m living in an apartment on the third floor and there’s no elevator. So I had to pass on that.
Nope, we made extra clear that they needed to bring 2 strong people and a very large truck to pull it out of our carport. Also made extra clear that this was a commercial treadmill and bigger than a basic Nordictrac.
My work was done finnagling the damned thing out of the basement with only a hand truck and my (pregnant) wife’s non-load-bearing help.
In sports news, it’s not just the German Bundesliga that’s resumed; the mighty Faeroe Islands league kicked off on May 9.
I’d watch it if they showed it here.
Memphis Spring
revealed suddenly
cottonwood flurries collect
where the cat has puked
Nice!
More rain today. We had 4-5 years of hot drought and now we are 2 years into a wet cycle.
My paw paws I just planted are doing very well. The cupea ignea bushes have been in the ground two weeks and are already making new flowers.
I need to look at a couple of plots of timber to see how they are growing. When my brother and I planted them it was the first year we could get Weyerhaeuser Super pines. We put in about 200,000 of them. Even with the drought they were growing fast. They aint called super for nothing. 7 years in and some were over 40 feet tall and 16 inches in diameter. If you stand still on a quiet day you can hear the bark cracking they are growing so fast. I need to go have another look.
Very nice. Weyerhauser tree sale in March was cancelled so maybe next year. They have some interesting semi-obscure stuff on their price list from the nursery and was really looking forward to it.
Reminds me I need to clear out some more big leaf maples. Those grow almost as fast as your pines and easily start choking out the firs before the firs get tall enough.
It is Sweetgum and ironwood here. Damned weeds.
I paid particular attention to one plot over the last 40 years. Started with machetes, then hand saws, then chain saws. Clearing out weeds by hand making space for oak, cherry, pine and poplar. It is now some of the most beautiful woods I have ever seen. I am too old for that crap now but I am glad I took advantage when I was able to.
All of the other plots are planted by professional planters monoculture but that one is my own personal garden.
Sweet gum balls are reserved for the ninth level of hell where you are barefoot.
They beat Legos by a country mile.