Yes, it’s raining/snowing, but shooting season is underway! If all goes to plan, I’ll have my first USPSA ion the bag and be tearing down a SCSA match when this goes live.
This week is remarkable more chill. It builds on last week’s ending of the misery into a state of blissful boredom.
Sunday – Nothing
Monday – Nope.
Wednesday – A little shakeup around the house, but it all works out.
Thursday – Mercury enters Aries, a particularly lucky day for the sheepish
Friday – Take a nap
Saturday – Mars enters Leo, fire on fire, a good day for aggression.
I don’t understand why this guy doesn’t get the love, so I’m going to post his videos until either he does or I get bored.
Mostly upright this week — very unusual for this group.
Aries: 4 of Coins – The surety of possessions, cleaving to that which one has, gift, legacy, inheritance.
Taurus: King of Cups – Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; creative intelligence.
Gemini: Wheel of Fortune – Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity.
Cancer: Page of Cups – News, message, application, reflection, meditation.
Leo: The Empress reversed – Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings, vacillation.
Virgo: Ace of Wands – Creation, invention, enterprise, beginning, source; birth, family, origin, virility.
Libra: Judgement – Change of position, renewal, outcome.
Scorpio: The Blank card.
Sagittarius: 10 of Swords – Pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation.
Capricorn: 2 of Cups – Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sympathy.
Aquarius: 10 of Wands reversed – Contrarieties, difficulties, intrigues, and their analogies.
Pisces: The Moon – Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error.
Real ID. Papiere, Bitte.
But.
The number of people on X whining about having to gather their papers to get one is mindboggling.
I had mine when I was 16 so I could get mt SS card to work.
I gave my kids theirs when they were 16 to work.
If you’re an adult and don’t have your papers together, you’ve failed as an adult.
If you’re an adult and don’t have your papers together, you’ve failed as an adult.
Guess I’ve failed as an adult. While that explains a lot, doesn’t really comport with Taurus; I’m beginning to question the accuracy of this astrology stuff.
Taurus always seems to cover all bases.
Everything but the kitchen sink.
Somebody just makes that stuff up, I betcha
…and Taurus is bull… every body’s says
Just so I understand, did you not get your SS card until you were 16? I ask because my parents got my sisters’ and my SS cards when we were quite young. Don’t know when my oldest sister got hers, but my next older sister and I got ours at the same time, though we were born about two and a half years apart. Fun fact: Our numbers are identical save for the last two digits. Thus I always assumed parents got them for their kids at an early age, if not right after birth, but maybe that’s not the usual case.
…also, adulting is overrated.
No. I went looking for my first job in 1984. That’s when my mom gave me my birth certificate and my dad took me to the SS office so I could apply for it.
Then, when I changed my name when I got married, I did all the needfuls.
Albeit a necessary evil.
My dad used to call it “housekeeping.” As in, keeping your life in the bare minimum of order.
My kids were put in for SSNs as soon as they were born, so, I find that more odious than having to go fetch one to work. I’m shocked they weren’t tattooed on the babies as soon as they were pulled out.
I’ve described the hoops I had to jump through to finally get my Real ID last fall. (I hadn’t been motivated to do so, not having flown commercially since ’83.) I had to get another birth certificate – I clearly remember having the original either in my baby book or in a file, but must have misplaced it in one of my many moves across two marriages. Luckily, I lived in my birth state and could apply for a replacement in my current county though I’d been born in another. Then, of course, there was the matter of getting copies of both marriage licenses. (I did have the dissolution papers that came in between.) Again, luckily, they were in adjacent counties, including my current one. All that paper is now in a fire-resistant safe/briefcase that’s heavier than a mofo.
To my credit, I somehow managed to keep track of the SS cards bearing all three last names. 😁👍
Then, when I changed my name when I got married, I did all the needfuls.
Think of people who have been married multiple times.
One of my sisters got a divorce back in 1997 and got remarried (different person, obviously; this isn’t Liz Taylor and Richard Burton) a couple of years later. I’d have no idea who got the marriage license when she got the divorce.
Ted’S., as a multiply-married person, I don’t remember ever actually having the marriage licenses in our possession either time until I went forth upon my quest. Apparently couples no longer need to present the licenses in order to check into hotels. (What IS this world coming to??)
No “original” marriage license was given by the clerk after we got married and turned the license/application in. I think we got one souvenir style cert and certified copies. Clerk asked and recommended getting more than one copy for future use without needing to request additional ones later.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t have their necessary papers. It was fun tracking them all down for my RealID.
And we have it good compared to countries like France, where if you lose your papers (and they have lots) it’s a disaster, and the process to get new papers is sometims Kafkaques.
“tattooed on the babies”
Survivors of the death camps would like a word with you . . .
Problem with real ID is its nothing other than a personal info grab. States dont share info. Can have RealID from one state and if you need to get another it is the same process…even though technically that current RealID you have is a substitute for all those documents.
Indeed. That was my point.
I did a lot of travel young, when on my hockey team. Pre 9-11 days when we’d jump up to Canada for a tournament.
One thing we learned was the birth certificate we had for me wasnt ‘official’. It was the original, wet signature and all from the doc, but no official Idaho State Seal or paper.
Since then, and with other travels, marriages, births, etc, all kept safely and accessible.
Like Moj, we got our kids SSNs and when they were 18 we handed them over.
When my kids were born, I ordered 3 for each. XY lost ALL of his (now, I will admit I was hesitant to give them to him because of this very thing). However, we went to the county records department or whatever it was and sat there and got replacements for $15, all sealed, etc.
No offense, Moje, but XY sounds like kind of a fuckup.
I don’t know where my birth certificate is.
I have a passport that expired in the 1990s.
My parents got me my SSN and card when I was about 10. I still have the original card, although the signature is me writing my name in as neat a cursive as I could muster at the time.
Signatures arent anything really. An ‘X’ as written by your hand is as good as you spelling out your name
I also have the fun of going by my middle name, so my driver’s license (not Real Id compliant) has first name, middle initial, surname; my SS card, however, has first initial, middle name, surname.
I think my expired passport has both the full first name and middle name.
How do adults after the age of 18 (or 26) not have at least a file box, if not a filing cabinet, for taxes, paystubs, insurance policies, rental agreement or mortgage, or other important papers?
If I didnt have Mrs OBE they’d be scattered amongst piles of ‘important’ or ‘really important’ piles of papers
“Dude, can’t I keep all that stuff in my phone?”
I’m not getting a REAL ID unless there is no other option.
There really isn’t much of a paperwork difference between a NH non-REAL ID compliant driver’s license and a NH REAL ID compliant driver’s license. It’s not the paperwork that I have a problem with, it’s the Federal overreach.
There’s a big difference between “I can’t manage to do X” and “I choose not to do X”.
Sagittarius: 10 of Swords – Pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation.
I better stock up on glue.
Is that kinda like when the palm reader sees that your lifeline comes to a screeching halt right now, and she’s clearly torn about whether or not she should tell you? 😳
It means we are unbound by fate or cosmic forces! I kind of wish I had qualified as a chosen one candidate when I was younger and doing stuff hurt less, but better late than never.
Second USPSA match of the season was yesterday, I shot a 90.6% on CM24-04. Solid M run.
I tossed a couple of vids up on YouTube, if anyone wants to see what this gun game stuff is like:
https://youtu.be/cmLWNS4TqNg
https://youtu.be/DsrpCu84sRU
https://youtu.be/thSVXxF8Sxg
“ Cancer: Page of Cups – News, message, application, reflection, meditation.”
Blindfolds. Got it.
What about Tuesday?! I need to know!
Blindfolds.
I figured you go with the 8 hour plus tantric angle for this one.
I’m not Sting.
I’m not Sting.
Illusions: Shattered.
This weekend we were treated to Mojeaux actually appearing on the zooms in person on video which is quite rare for her, and the reason (drink!) was that she was combing her wonderful, luxurious head of hair, which we had no idea about.
Butt she showed it to us, and she has the most beautiful head of hair that can only describe a mane. And it’s it was this lovely gray hair but it’s not really gray. It’s like pale gold.
Poor Mojeaux was cursing as she combed, obviously in puain.
And I thought “oh my gosh right now Disney is trying to do some live action shit with Tangled and cast a black lady because that would be bold or something. “
I thought if they really want to a new twist what they need to to do is have middle aged Mormon woman with gray head that actually use to create some sort of new invincible rope. I think that would be more fun. And she’s SEEN SOME SHIT so the dialog would be awesome.
Mojeaux for Tangled!
And definitely she’d write the screenplay. With Justine Bateman as editor,
I thought Mojeaux was worried about her hair thinning.
(I of course was not on the zooms, and I don’t have a webcam or microphone to do it anyway.)
Well, I WAS till I realized that my hair is always in clips and it all comes our when I comb it. People lose lots of hair every day. Me, I have to comb it out.
Awwwww. ☺️
DO EEEET!
🤣
I misread that as ‘would be bald’ and it didn’t even sound odd.
Monday – Nope.
Wednesday – A little shakeup around the house, but it all works out.
Nothing at all on Tuesday? April 15th?
Astrology never meant to contemplate black holes.
Weirdest thing to me about IDs and name changes etc is that the feds are way better at it than the states are.
Passport all the way.
100%. I-9 forms? Passport and done.
Depends. DMV here had no problem with how my wife changed her name after marriage and issued a new license based on the certificate. Passport Agency threw a shit fit and wouldn’t issue one in her name until she went through a standalone name change and had a court order.
People talk about real IDs and they’re trying to understand why they’re different from just a drivers license, so what’s the big deal? And so a lot of people say well its just you you have a gold bear on there in California or a gold star and other states, and in Minnesota they actually went so far and put an American flag on it, because the whole point of the real ID it just so show your citizenship.
However, the backside of the card is the real story. The back of your real ID if you get a real ID has a one of those complex barcodes that can be read in and it is written in in certain situations and who knows what information that contains you can’t even find out what information is encoded.
I’ve asked, because I’m security- minded. And they say they can’t tell me, but I just recently even ordered some food from from DoorDash yesterday which included alcoho,
so they had to check that I was correctly aged and stuff.
OK. I produced my drivers license, and this idiot that likely unemployable, except for DoorDash aims is scan gun at my ID and reads off the back of it all kinds of information about me.
I’s just ridiculous. All they needed is my age, but they scanned my life. if you look at your last normal drivers license from maybe a few years ago and compare it with your new real ID, you will see if there’s a hell a lot more information that you’re caring around on that plastic card now than you used to before. All stuffed in that digital barcode thingy on the back side.
Ok I definitely need to proofread before posting.
But seriously, the “Real ID” has the BarCode of your life on it.
Why?
Bingo…you life is now a scanable, trackable, event.
I suspect (hope?) mine just says, “Mostly harmless.”
Yep, and more and more stores will demand to scan it for alcohol or other things. Lowe’s demands it for their discount program.
Smartphone, either natively or with app, should be able to decode the backside code.
My regular DL has a barcode on it.
It’s the beginning of social credit scores.
I know I sound like a conspiracy theorist but we have been proven right quite a bit lately.
Oh sure. So is purchase tracking and online tracking. Just need to collate it all together.
This world is not the one I was born in.
Gustave, good tip about finding an app! I’d like to know what’s in all those digits.
When I lived in Minnesota (1999-2018) they eventually implemented REAL ID so I went in to my local DMV office with all official birth certificates, marriage, etc. They were very kind but explained that only a few DMV offices had employees qualified to evaluate citizenship documents.
So I got an appointment 2 months later and got my REAL ID. Which is non transferable to California, Nevada, or Washington so I’m basically starting over.
Passport, baby.
So I got an appointment 2 months later and got my REAL ID. Which is non transferable to California, Nevada, or Washington so I’m basically starting over.
The full faith and credit clause is for gay marriage, not for 2A rights or Real Id.
Back when PA put a mag strip on the back of PA driver’s licenses in the 90s, a college friend got a reader to see what was in there. If I remember correctly, it was birthdate, DL number, and SS number.
Even that was a bit annoying.
The current NH non-REAL ID driver’s license has what looks like a QR code on the back which I assume is the equivalent to the barcode you’re talking about.
Which is non transferable
Inexcusable but utterly expected bureaucratic stupidity.
Earthquake, but for once State Farm doesn’t deny the claim?
State Farm has been good to me regarding claims. Farmers can go eat a hogshead of dicks.
Jake is trying to put the moves on Mrs. ZWAK?
Addicted
In recent weeks, as President Donald Trump’s trade war has battered both stocks and business confidence, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has declared multiple times that the U.S. economy needs a “detox.”
You might think he’s using that word to describe the current moment. The market spasms bear a kind of visceral resemblance to a physical illness. Trump has even compared the tariffs to taking medicine.
But, actually, Bessent’s “detox” doesn’t have much to do with trade. It’s about reducing government spending, and — despite all the noise around Elon Musk’s DOGE — that project hasn’t really started.
——-
“We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year in excess of what’s explained by inflation and population growth,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender told me in an interview this week. “So the government’s gotten larger. They have gotten more involved in people’s lives, and there was already bloat to begin with, honestly.”
I’ve been intrigued by Bessent’s continued talk about a detox because it’s such a specific way of talking about public funding, as if it were an unhealthy drug.
——-
“The market and the economy have just become hooked, and we’ve become addicted to this government spending,” he told CNBC last month.
He wants to drag us back to the wild west days when government literally spent nothing. Like 2014 or so.
While it’s a widely held view among economists that the U.S.’s debt path is unsustainable, I found less support for Bessent’s claims that the economy is propped up by federal dollars.
“Government spending certainly occupies an important part of the economy,” said Alan Auerbach, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a longtime coauthor of White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett. “I wouldn’t say it’s driving the economy.”
Pay no attention to all the evidence to the contrary.
Let’s see, the GDP is around $28TT. The federal government spends around $6TT, or over 20% of the total. Probably the largest single sector of the economy. If its not driving the economy, why am I being told cutting federal spending such an economic disaster?
Shush, you.
“…a professor at the University of California at Berkeley…”
Shut it down. We can all go home now. The wise man has spoken.
Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings, vacillation.
This doesn’t sound sufficiently shitty.
From the comments:
“Stephan Hawking had this succinct review while appearing on his show:
Oliver: And there may be a Universe where I am more intelligent than you?
Hawking: There may even be a Universe where you are funny.”
Call Me Chato on how John Oliver uses comedy to lie. About 12 minutes.
There is a bunch of them. I remember when they got started circa 2016 it struck me not just how transparent it was but how completely not-funny they are.
Taurus: King of Cups – Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity; creative intelligence. This King likes to cup the cups. The first two stand out in my fortune cookie, despite my Boss Boss chewing me out this morning. Full-time employment is rather important. As a fun way for my workweek to end before my Tues-Wed ‘weekend,’ Monday morning is as cold as it gets. I was chewed out for being ‘slow’ in Oversize shit, but my direct lead told me he was on my side. That may take me off that duty tomorrow morning, which I would *not* enjoy. I hope it doesn’t alter my fortune for the ‘morrow’s time chart.
“Dispensing” customer orders from our bay to the drivers is my least favorite aspect of my factory work, and I don’t want to be relegated to it more frequently. I like the factory work that doesn’t involve humans. That other shit requires getting names and ID #s from customers OR drivers, who are not the same and have different orders of operation and more. Fuck that shit.
Give me my easy-peasy walz through the store on my own to collect other people’s business. Free to observe, with eyes open for Talent walkin’ by, and plenty of stories. Ooh! Today’s Moment was an Asian man and his whiny 4-5yo. Scolding the boy, finger to his son’s face, the father slapped him on the back of the kid’s head. Quite firm. I wondered if onlookers would react, which they didn’t. Nor should they have, but Noblesville is ultra Blue. I do see lots of ‘treat minorities differently’ activity. Hrm.
A non-bruising swat to the thickest part of the skull is a rebuke more whiny kids could benefit from.
Absolutely concur, and that’s what it was. A solid ‘spank’ to a ~4yo, audible, but nothing absurd. It kinda looked it, and a young lady was right in front of the scene. She didn’t react in any noticeable manner, pleasing me.
(I wrote that I was looking for her facial response, but the euphemism game (and the phrase’s un-goodness) had me retire it.
Speaking of Harrison Bergeron, one of Vonnegut’s tips for short story writing (and in general) is to “Kill your babies.” Don’t love an idea so much that you’re wedded to it in print. Makes things unmanageable. He’s one of Indiana’s rare treasures and I was pleased with the small museum Indy has for him. It’s homey, which seems fitting.
)
*frump’s*
Hard to believe Trump has been President (this time) for less than 90 days. Biden/Harris is a distant memory, isn’t it?
I haven’t seen any of what I was hoping for.
Where are the prosecutions?
https://nypost.com/2025/04/13/us-news/pennsylvania-gov-josh-shapiro-arson-suspect-arrested/
Whoah
Was he wearing a MAGA hat?
It has gotten so bad that the first thing that pops in my head is ‘false flag’. That is how totally and completely the leftists have destroyed their credibility with me.