Those who know me, know that I’m a bit of a DIYer. Not sure why, but I’m always drawn to trying to build or fix things myself. There are places where I draw the line (like making my own music – I’m a decently talented player of other’s notes, but that’s the extent of it, it seems). But for mechanical things, I seem to have “the knack” and I often can’t stop myself from trying to Do It Myself. Even when it’s less efficient or will take me longer to do it myself, I have this irresistible urge to learn and accomplish it myself. Sometimes it makes sense, such as when I’d save a ton of money or gain an important skill, and sometimes it’s just about improving myself, and maybe proving to myself I have what it takes. Maybe I just took Ronald Reagan a bit too seriously when he said (possibly apocryphally, as I can’t find a quote) words to the effect that the world needs more people who are capable of rebuilding an advanced society from first principles if necessary.
Today’s DIY corner is about re-slinging your patio chairs. You know, the kind that have a polymeric fabric sling stretched across a metal frame? The ones that are comfy and nice looking, until suddenly they’re fifteen years old and falling apart? The kind that rips a little every time you sit down, so you lower yourself ever so carefully into place and try to minimize shifting and heavy laughter once you’re seated? The ones where you’re constantly trying to intercept your guests before they plop themselves down in the one that’s about to finally tear through and drop their fat ass deep into the metal framework, probably requiring a costly and embarrassing call to the local fire department to give them practice with the Jaws of Life?
Yeah, those patio chairs are the best.
Anyway, I have a set of these chairs, and they’ve been coming apart for the last three summers or so, and finally I got around to Doing Something About It. I could have done some local research and found someone who does this professionally. In fact, after I started this process, one of my friends told me about just such a shop. But who needs them; I’m going to Do It Myself.
Somewhere around here’s a picture of the one that hasn’t completely disintegrated yet.
Sit on this.
Instead, I did some Internet Research and discovered that, boy howdy, there are places that will sell you replacement slings for your chairs, and all you have to do is measure them, select a fabric, and type in your credit card. In a few days you’ll have new slings on your doorstep. It’s as simple as that.
Unless you have a particular type of chair. See, companies that make these types of chairs make three main kinds: The first type has a continuous sling stretched between two rails, left and right, and the sling is a single piece from the top of the chair back to the front of the seat. The second type has a separate back and seat, and both are stretched between rails, left and right. The third kind has the seat stretched from left to right, and the back stretched from top to bottom.
This third type is, shall we say, problematic. In the first two types, you stretch the sling from left to right. In order to stretch a sling from left to right, all you need to do is insert a plastic rod (provided with the sling) into the loop sewn into the edge of the sling and then slide the sling and rod into the rail on one side, which is bolted to the chair frame. Then you slide the other rail over the other side of the sling, and insert bolts on that side, and tighten them a bit at a time. Once the bolts are tightened, the sling is tight, and you can move on to your next important home maintenance task, like resetting that toilet that has loose mounting bolts and wobbles a little when you sit on it, and your significant other is concerned every time Aunt Shelly comes over to visit, she’s going to lose her balance and cause the toilet to fall over and spill everywhere, and also possibly crack her skull on the edge of the vanity countertop, because it’s just a little too close to the toilet, and maybe we should do something about renovating that bathroom soon, anyway.
Where was I? Oh, right, sling chairs. The third type was designed by a Very Clever Person who Needed To Be Different because Maybe I Can Get a Patent on This New Type of Sling Mounting System. The back of the third type is secured in a very different manner. The bottom of the sling slides through two parallel horizontal rails, and then the aforementioned plastic rod is inserted into the edge loop. This rod, as in the other sling types, forces the sling to expand to a size that cannot be pulled out of its track, unless, of course, the track is made of two parallel hollow aluminum tubes that have been welded to a frame at each end and can bend enough in the middle to make a slot wide enough that the expanded sling loop can slide between them and make anyone supported by the sling experience a sudden and substantial decrease in lumbar vertebrae support.
In order to prevent this (and also prevent the sling from wrinkling – you can consider this parenthetical to be a literary device known as “foreshadowing”), the designer added the “feature” of multiple pulled rivets to hold the rails together after the sling is inserted. How do I know this feature was added late in the design or manufacturing process? Because if you were going to use pulled rivets from the outset, you wouldn’t bother having a sling loop and rod arrangement, and you wouldn’t bother to weld two parallel rails to the frame. You’d have one rail and a backing plate through which the rivets would be installed. Less custom size rectangular cross section aluminum tubing and two fewer welds in the design, and aluminum welds are expensive, even when performed by slave labor in western China. I’d have done it differently. But don’t ask me, ask Mr. Nobel Prize in Sling Chair Physics over there.
The top of the sling is held by a handy slot formed into an extruded aluminum piece just like the first and second chair types. This extrusion is bolted to the frame via three Allen socket head cap screws. But, for reasons we will understand later, not now, the screws are run through the sling itself as well as the extrusion and the frame. The mental gymnastics required to justify all of this were at one point clear to our Hero Chair Designer, but not to anyone else.
Did I mention that when you search online for replacement slings for these kinds of chairs, most sling suppliers say outright, in large, italicized print, something like the following words:
“If you have slings with top and bottom rods, as opposed to side rods, give up now. There is no possible way we can replicate these properly, and why are you such a dumbass for buying this kind of chair in the first place. I mean, really. I bet you bought those chairs at some place like Lowe’s or Home Depot, instead of a reputable outdoor furniture retailer that understands patio chairs. Unlike you, dumbass.”
I found this little nugget of information out rather quickly, but persisted in my search and finally came across the fine folks at American Slings and Patio Supplies (americanslings.com), who understand patio sling chairs and their owners, and exist only to make us all happier and satisfied. Seriously, American Slings can do these, when all others pale at the thought of top and bottom rods. They just need you to send your old slings back to them, so they can make custom replicas, which are, by the way, sized pretty well, even if your old slings are fifteen years old and badly damaged and stretched. I definitely recommend the nice folks there, who are very helpful on the phone and will happily and courteously sell you the supplies you need to complete your trip into insanity.
So, where was I? Right, remember sling replacement? This is a DIY How-To on patio chair sling replacement.
So, in order to do this job, as with most DIY jobs, you will need some tools. If you’re a DIYer, you might have some tools lying around. If you don’t, you’re probably not a DIYer. Anyway, here are most of the tools I found helpful and/or necessary in my quest to restore the chairs I bought at Lowe’s and not some really nice patio furniture store about fifteen years ago.
Tools you’ll wish you had:
Socket set, socket wrench, socket wrench extension, socket wrench extension extension, drill index, hacksaw, rivet pullers, cordless drill, 90 degree drill attachment, threaded drills for the 90 degree drill, steel rule, Allen wrenches, pair of dykes, open end wrenches, needle nose pliers, adjustable (nee Crescent) wrench, flashlight, lighter.
You’ll wish you had that 90 degree drill, I mean it.
In addition to tools, there are some consumables you’ll need:
Replacement slings, replacement plastic dowel rod, irreplaceable time, beer.
Pictured: Old and Busted, New Hotness
Once you have collected all these things together into an appropriate working space (more on that later), you may begin. If you are an inexperienced DIYer, you may crack a beer at this point. If you are a VERY Experienced DIYer, you will have already cracked a beer at this point. Before you sent the old slings away, you would have discovered the pop rivets holding the bottom rails together and removed them by drilling them out, so we won’t go into that. If you need instructions on drilling out aluminum pop rivets, perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to repair your own patio chairs.
First, use a socket wrench to remove the bolts from the seat rail that’s still bolted to the chair. If you’re an experienced DIYer, you’d only have removed one rail in order to detach the slings to send them to the manufacturer for copying, thinking that it would be easier to only reinstall one rail later on. You’d have been wrong about that. Seriously, just remove that other rail right now. It’s going to be in the way.
Ask Me How I Know
Once the rail is removed, start working on the chair back. Seriously, once you get through the frustration of installing the back, you’ll be happy to just glide down the slope of the seat. If you install the seat first like I did, you’ll end up removing it because it interferes with the back installation, and then you’ll be sad, and half of the work you’ve already done will end up being doubled.
So: Now you’re working on the back, right? OK. The first thing you will notice when you begin installing the back sling is that you have to put the bottom through the rails first, then install the dowel rod, and then tighten the upper extruded rail to pull it tight. But of course, you’ve noticed that the bottom rails can be stretched apart such that if too much force is applied to the back sling, it will pull the sling loop and dowel through the space between the rails. You also know this because of the aforementioned kludge of using pop rivets at the factory to tie these rails together.
What you might not have figured out at first, is that these pop rivets perform a second, also vital function, which is to help stretch the bottom of the sling to keep it conforming to the concave curve of the chair back. If they aren’t installed, not only will the sling pull free of its mounting, it will bunch up in the center of the curve over time, causing unsightly wrinkle lines, much like you might see in a commercial on daytime TV.
“Shut up, Beavis”
At this point, forget about installing the back sling at the top. It’s going to get difficult, and a little weird, so just take my advice and work from the bottom up. First, slide the sling through the slot. Then insert the dowel rod into the sling loop. Use your pair of dikes to trim the rod (“heh-heh. yeah!” “Shut up, Beavis!”) so that it sticks out from each end of the loop just a little bit. You can cut it again later, if you like, to fit better, but for now it makes sense to keep it a bit long.
Center the sling as best you can. Pull the sling toward the front in the center, in order to seat the dowel rod in the center of the curved slot, at tightly as you can. Now, take your cordless drill motor, 90 degree drill adapter, threaded drill, and Bic lighter and heat the drill with the lighter while it is rotating. While the drill is still hot, match drill the hole in the bottom rail through the sling. The hot drill should help cut the plastic fabric and prevent fraying. Now, without disturbing the setup, insert a pulled rivet into the hole and through the sling, into the upper rail. By this point you’ll have noticed that the size of rivet needed is uncommonly long for pop rivets, and you’ll have driven to several supply sources, none of which will have the correct length on the shelf. If you’re exceedingly lucky, you’ll find a plastic bag of appropriately sized rivets in one of the drawers of your auxiliary toolbox, and you won’t have to order them online.
I have no idea where these came from, but they are the right length.
Now, pull the rivet with your rivet puller. You may have a choice of pullers, depending on how insane your tool collection is. Some are simpler, lighter, and easier to handle, others are more flexible.
Choose the Form of the Constructor
Once you have pulled the first rivet, tension the fabric sling on one side of the rivet such that it pulls the dowel rod tightly into the slot between the rails, and that it is not wrinkled. Then install the second rivet. Continue this process, stretching the sling to pull the dowel rod tight and remove wrinkles, until all of the rivets are installed. Mine had five rivets.
Wrinkled
Not Wrinkled
At this point, you’re ready to start on the top of the seat back. This is not easy, unless you figure out a special trick. It’s not really that special, but you might think so if you have had enough beer. The problem is that the seat back needs to be stretched, and the way they design this is to use the screws that hold the top mounting rail in place to pull the sling tight as they’re tightened. Of course, the screws that are provided with the chair are too short to engage the threads in the fixed nuts in the frame of the chair unless the sling is already stretched. Chicken and egg, meet the world’s greatest chair designer. I think he’s over at the hors d’oeuvre table.
The trick I found to doing this was to rummage around in my junk screw and bolt box (you *do* have a junk screw and bolt box, right?) until I found some really long screwsthat matched the threads on the chair screws and were long enough to allow threading into the frame without having to stretch the sling. Oddly enough, the ones I found happened to be leftover toilet base mounting screws (see, I know the tropes, that’s a Chekov’s Gun, right up at the beginning of all this, disguised as a lame toilet joke. I know you thought that was just a useless waste of time and word count, designed to get a half laugh at wobbly old Aunt Shelly. But it was more. So much more.)
Chekov’s Toilet Bracket Screw
So, what you do now (after acknowledging my dramatic and comic genius) is to stretch and drill holes in the upper part of the sling, similarly to what you did at the bottom, trying to
limit wrinkling as much as possible. On my chairs there are three upper mounting screws. Once you have those holes drilled through the fabric, insert the factory screw in the middle hole, and one Mark I Chekov’s Toilet Bracket Screw in each of the outboard screw holes. You’ll note in the photo above that I have threaded a nut onto the screws. You’ll want to do that as well. If you care about the finish of the upper seat back sling mounting rail on its underside, also install a small flat washer above that nut. Then thread the outboard extra long screws into the frame as deep as they will go. Then take an open ended wrench of the appropriate size and turn the nuts to press upward on the mounting rail, stretching the sling in the process. Keep doing this, swapping sides frequently, to maintain alignment, until the center screw is capable of engaging its corresponding threads in the frame. Then tighten that screw completely. Remove one of the outboard screws and replace it with a factory screw and tighten. Then finish the final screw.
Finish Him!
Now you have the seat back installed and stretched. You are about to move on to the seat. Remember what I said about the seat being the easy part? Yep, it is totally the easy part. This is because Mr. Super Chair Einstein took a page from other chair designers and copied their much better shit for the seat. You know what? You don’t even need my advice for the seat. It’s a fucking cake-walk after the rest of this shit. Except for the part where Marilyn vos Savant over there decided to use two different length screws to mount the seat rails for no apparent reason. It’s up to you to figure out why, and if it matters. Asshole.
Seriously. This Fucking Guy.
Anyway, the sincere sense of accomplishment you feel when you’ve completed a DIY project like this will last a lifetime. Or at least five minutes when you remember you still have three more of these chairs to fix. Once you’re done, you can move the chair to a place with a nice view, crack a good beer, and enjoy your handiwork.
Enjoy!
One final note on workspace (I bet you thought I forgot my earlier promise). Those of you who are very observant, or perhaps just so bored to tears over a life poorly lived that you’ll read a DIY guide on sling chair repair because you simply lack the willpower to just end it all, will have noticed that this work was performed on a wooden floor, the boards of which in some places have gaps approximately the size of the screws that hold the top rail to the chair frame. This, you’ll note, may not be the greatest idea since sliced bread. If you noticed this, there’s still hope. Turn off the hot water, get out of the bathtub, and for fuck’s sake put away that razor blade and go buy yourself some new patio chairs.
Fin.
I got a great deal of satisfaction from replacing the upholstry on my desk chair, and I didn’t do half as nice a job as you did.
Come to think of it, I’ve replace the castors, legs, piston, and seat upholstry on that chair since I’ve bought it. It’s like 40% original chair at this point.
UnCiv’s given name is Theseus.
The pup ripped the back off of the recliner, but I figure I can fix it with some faux leather and upholstery tacks.
I need to do this. My deck chairs are growing lichens on the fabric.
Thanks, db.
We just ordered new cushions for our outdoor furniture. After 14 years, it was time.
No way on earth we were going to make our own. I suspect the equipment alone to sew the covers would be more than we paid for the cushions. Which weren’t cheap.
And no, I’m not dropping coin on equipment I may use once every 14 years.
I have a “heavy duty” (notice scare quotes) sewing machine. I had some foam. Bought ripstop nylon for the waterproofing. Bought upholstery fabric, made my own replacement patio cushions. My desire to not waste the foam I had cost more than the foam AND brand new cushions put together.
having a deck is white privilege
*tips hat*
*polishes monocle*
Mines elevated.
Elevated and screened must be extreme privilege.
https://youtu.be/tbazGVrbN-g?t=3
ok lol
Fuckin’ A, baby.
I thought fuckin’ a baby was OMWC’s shtick.
This is why capitalization is important. It means the difference between helping your uncle Jack off a horse, and helping your uncle jack off a horse. Also, there’s a comma, that’s also important.
/pedant
The lichen just adds extra padding.
I have a wooden swing chair that has lichen on the seat. It’s actually pretty comfortable.
I have pondered this idea since I was child who loved electronics and my aunt gave me a schematic that came with one of her TVs. Is there a single person alive who would know enough to build a 70s TV from scratch? I don’t mean from parts, I mean from silica to a TV. Sure, there are people who know how to make the capacitors, people who know how to make the diodes, people who knew how to make the Cathode Ray Tube, but was there a single person alive who knew how to make it all? The market is a beautiful and scary thing.
Was there anyone in the 1970s?
There’s only so storage capacity in a brain. Learning all you need for all that is pretty close to impossible.
That’s what I’m getting at. It’s baffling, and beautiful. We can create so many complex machines, but it’s all based on specialization. The market brings it all together and we never think about it. ‘I, Pencil’ writ large. These are the things I always want post apocalyptic fiction to broach, but it often just gets lazy and they are canibalizing old tech to keep other old tech running.
For a certain span, the cannibalizing for parts will predominate. However, some parts will become single points of failure and dealing with the workarounds to the depleting supply of X will be the driver for rebuilding the base.
I thought there was no known limit to the capacity of human memory?
It takes an average of 10,000 hours of practice to master a new skill. Each element of a process is a heap of new skills, some of which may have overlap with other skills that reduce the marginal time to learn, but you still need to practice it. The intake time to build up to “build a TV from scratch” with the “i,pencil” level of no support is more than you can reasonably expect the brain to be functional.
I’m familiar with the 10,000 hours concept. I get what you mean now ?
Apparently the 10000 hour thing is a myth. It isn’t even a good estimate, except for those skills in which it is. But the idea is solid. We just don’t have time to master more than a few skills.
I think the confounding factor is something I alluded to – transferrable fundimentals. The amount of time to master a new skill can be reduced if you already know something with a lot of elements of the new skill and just need to pick up the new materials and unlearn those items which are counterproductive in the new line.
And it also depends what the starting point is. How long did it take me to master calculus? Assuming I really did, it could be argued it took 24*365*20 hours…a good bit more than 10000.
Or, if you just count time in actual Calculus class and doing homework…Maybe 500-1000 hours?
But even if you just think about occupations. Figuring approximately 2000 hrs in a typical work year, most skills require way less or way more than 5 years to master.
It’s bs. Or is every junior partner at the law firm with 4 years of experience the Mozart of the legal profession?
junior partner at the law firm with 4 years of experience
Where do I sign up?
Making a toaster from scratch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HixAVSdmtl8
that’s pretty cool
Oh, hell, no, there’s no way one person could do it alone. But if enough people learn and retain enough, it’s possible they could preserve enough to ride out some very bad times, after a major global natural disaster, or something. There might be enough capacity to revert to a society at the level of the beginning to middle of the Industrial Revolution.
Pffffttttttt….
No
https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/
Glad I checked to see if someone else linked this before I did.
CPRM on August 13, 2021 at 11:32 am
Look at England after the Romans left, as just one example. Cultural decay is real, and is accompanied (with a lag) by material cultural decay. Having further to fall pretty much ensures the subsequent climb (if any) takes longer.
Counterpoint: we went from first flight to landing a man on the moon in 66 years. But that took a huge material culture base to happen.
And 50 years later, couldnt do it again without serious ramping back up.
Nuff said
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KqvkMQVQhc
“After I got home, I drank six *more* glasses of whiskey”
“People who buy things are suckers”
DIY – stop taking work from honest union professionals
If there were such a thing, I’d be concerned.
Also, stop making urban yuppies feel bad about their existential worthlessness.
the world needs more people who are capable of rebuilding an advanced society from first principles if necessary.
We’ll be lucky if we can arrest the backward slide at the Age of Steam, when it comes.
Sweet! Steam Punk!
Dibs on the monocle with three lenses and the steam-powered auto-gyro.
Why, yes I DO have a junk screw and odd bolt box. Why do you ask?
I have no need to fix a patio chair, but thanks for the guffaw!
Thanks for the kind words.
Dude, you’re funny on the zooms.
Now you funny too!
I saw you downtown; you was leanin’ up against a post.
So… what you’re saying is, is you shouldn’t buy patio chairs from Lowe’s or Home Depot.
Perhaps not. But they are really nice chairs when new, which is why I decided to fix them rather than buying new. Plus they were fairly expensive. Just avoid ones that are assembled the way these are.
I bought a relatively nice set (2 chairs, sofa, coffee table) floor model at WM on clearance for $100. That was 10 years ago. Still nice.
For DYI I do minor things. The doors in my house are old and have chipped paint. I pondered stripping the old paint and painting them myself as it is expensive to pay someone to do it. I reached the conclusion of no way am I able to do that and I aint paying for it so chipped they will stay for the foreseeable future
Are you kidding? That’s dead simple. It falls into the category of “stuff I can do myself”.
Now if it were “I don’t want to do that” instead of “I am not able to do that”, well, that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
Stripping old paint is very hard work. I think you don’t need to do it 100% just enough for the new stuff to keep. But still. I tried a paint thinner and a thing i dont know how to call in English see pic bellow but did not work out great after several coats. Someone suggested a hot air gun maybe that would be easier. or some sort of sandpaper machine. But also painting seems difficult to get right as I never done any.
https://www.metalochimice.ro/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/spaclu-5-cm-imagine-1.jpg
https://www.recochem.com/us/products/solvents_cleaners/zip_strip_paint_stripper
Chemicals are your friend.
when I said paint thinner I mean paint stripper… maybe not the best on the market though
You just need to scrape the loose chips off and get the surface smooth.
But if you want to use thinner, take it off the hinges and let it soak on the surface for best results.
This is as far as i got before i stopped trying
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12K5b8E1zeyHOdDaoH3zHSqSqBRIyrGQH/view?usp=drivesdk
Google drive link. Fed confirmed.
I thought for THE BEST results you huffed it.
You are correct, sir!
“Stripping
old paintis very hard work.”That’s what she said
I saw a place in Bucharest that restore old door but they want like 300 dollars per door and I have 9 that is a bunch of money in poor old Romania
We have similar deck chairs with cushions rather than stretchy seats. The morons who designed it left the ends of the metal pipes open – making a perfect home for yellow jackets. Not welcome guests during a cookout.
I should seal the ends – I usually just flip the chairs over and fill them with insecticide when the wife isn’t around.
Lovely. That reminds me I need to reinstall the end plugs on the rails.
Spray foam. If you can see the color of the foam, spray paint the spray foam.
Bingo!
*RTFA, applauds, whistles, stamps feet*
*Flourishes, bows deeply*
Excellent article. Like you, I am a DIYer at heart, learned it from my dad. I spent my high school and college years working as a handyman for my moms’ property management company (and learned how to break into anything from an ex-LAPD guy). In fact, I was just tightening up the cheap seat bolts on the toilets, and when Prolfeed (?) was talking about his garbage disposal yesterday I know immediately what the problem was.
But, yeah, my old man was the type who could do stained glass, gunsmithing, get a Ph.d. in genetics, and build a deck. Learned a lot from him, except he hated working on his DD and doing electrical. I am good with the later up to 600volts AC or DC, but I do hate working on my daily.
Right now I am working on my hand tool furniture skills. Harder than it looks.
I learned a lot of it from my Dad, my grandfather (the other one died before I was born), and the nice old next door neighbor who let me “help” him rebuild his lawnmower engine when I was 3. My aunt still tells a story about how I diagnosed and fixed her broken dishwasher when I was 4. I used to disassemble stuff and put it back together all the time when I was little.
Oh, that’s what I was doing wrong.
+ 2 or 3 “extra” parts
“…my old man was the type who could do stained glass, gunsmithing, get a Ph.d. in genetics, and build a deck….”
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.”
~ Robert Anson Heinlein
If everyone did that, we would be living in caves. Specialization makes us all rich.
Not that I don’t have that instinct too.
You can have a specialty AND be well versed in general things.
One of my friends tells a story about all these big brained physicists and chemists (he is a big-brained bio-chemist) trying to figure out a way to keep the cooling water for their specialty laser at a certain tank level. He pipes up and says what you need is a carburetor float. He runs out to the parking lot and removes the carb from his truck for a demonstration.
When we are in the camps, I want the generalists and farm kids on my escape team. NOT the professor from Gilligan’s Island.
I could do those reasonably competently. Fighting and dying? I don’t think anyone knows about those until the moment comes.
Try again:
Add program a computer, remove set a bone and you have my list. I might be able to build a wall, as long as you don’t care about stability too much. You know, like the wall in “Mending Walls” that falls down every winter.
Also add brew beer, which is a vital skill that Heinlein left off.
I could stand up a vertical divider. But “reasonably competently” – hard to say. Non load bearing, maybe. Structural? No way.
Around Waco there are a number of minor Christian-offshoot religions and preppers. Quite a few of them offer classes as a way of raising funds. One of them was offering a six week course in which they provided hand tools and a log. Supposedly you’d have a captains chair at the end of the course.
RC Dean:
That seems low. I recall looking at the FJ when I bought my 4 cyl Rav4 in 2008 (around $24k IIRC – baseline). I know the gas mileage on the FJ wasn’t as good (which stopped me – although living in NoVa I wound up not driving too much on a monthly basis till I joined the Navy) but I was pretty certain it was closer to $40k.
RC might be right on the Cruiser, of course the used car market still hasn’t recovered from Cash for Clunkers, so not sure its a good estimate of the real rate of inflation. Well, maybe it is, I think most inflation is caused by government policies, so yeah, that one too.
Which just even more shows just how high the deflation rate is for things like CRT TVs.
Personally, I think the only non-subjective inflation rate is monetary. And even then, do you measure by M2 or M3 or some other measure of money? But way less subjectivity.
It could have been a little higher, but not $40K. I remember the first car I paid $40K for was the 2008 AMG E63 we bought off a least turnback in 2011-2012.
I still miss that car. What a missile it was. I wanted to get “ICBM” vanity plates for it, but it was already taken.
Speaking of DIY, in an effort to avoid pulling the trap off my bathroom sink, I have Drano’ed it, snaked it, and plunged it. The results of the plunging were the sink is drained, but there’s now a primordial sludge in my basin. I’m considering whether I can wait long enough for the sludge to dry so I can just chip it off.
The best way to clean a bathroom sink is Liquid Plumr Foaming Pipe Snake.
NO. STEVE SMITH FESTERING POOP SNAKE WORK BETTER.
Aight – I Amazoned myself some o’ that
Cool. Just be aware that sometimes it seems it works better, the more clogged the drain is. But it’s my go-to for slow drains.
This drain is so clogged that the water level didn’t change for days & days despite the Drano & snaking.
I’m really not willing to invest the sweat equity in pulling apart the trap, since this place will be demolished in a year. It’s just spit & tissue from here on out.
This drain is so clogged that the water level didn’t change for days & days despite the Drano & snaking.
Sounds like at least part of the problem may be further downstream. I suggest the judicious application of explosives.
Your problem might be past the trap, though.
My kitchen sink trap was a soupy mess because of the dishwasher. After I disassembled and cleaned out everything, it was still slow.
Ended up having to run a snake another 25 feet down the pipe at the wall behind the sink before it finally flowed normal again.
But what about the sludge in my basin? I think it might have a chance to produce primitive lifeforms.
Nuke it from orbit…
A lot of sludge is easier to clean before it dries.
Sadly, manual scooping* and scrubbing is in your future.
*depending on the depth of the sludge heaps.
At this point it would come off with a rubber spatula. But do I want to sacrifice one of mine?
You could probably get one from a dollar store for the job.
Paper towels, grocery bag, and hand. It’s gross, but it’s effective.
This is why I keep boxes of nitrile gloves around the house…
That and the fact that they banned reusable plastic grocery bags in favor of heavily taxed unusable paper bags.
This is one of many reasons why I keep boxes of nitrile gloves around the house…
Sandpaper.
Too late, you already posted about it online, there’s no way you’ll get away with destroying that rare endangered habitat.
I found the best is to use a bleach based cleaner along with an ammonia based cleaner. Takes care of all of those problems that need one final solution.
oh boy…
That’s some good advicing right there, Lou.
I’d try a scotch-brite pad that’s safe for porcelain and metal (don’t want to scratch up the drain plug and ring).
If your talking about the p-trap directly below the sink, it is one of the easiest DIY plumbing jobs. You shouldn’t even need tools since it “should” be only hand tight. If it’s too tight, you can try using a rag to help with grip or gently! use a monkey wrench. I have to pull the trap apart every 6 months or so since the kids inevitably lose something down there.
There’s the whole thing about it being full of primordial sludge, though.
OT – I’m on an all staff “meeting” which is really just the upper management talking at the employees. None of the rank and file can actively impact the meeting beyond sending items to the curated mailbox to be ignored, save for little reaction emojis that most people didn’t realize they could send.
When the management had to address the Gov’s resignation, an animated applause emoji crawled up the side of the display workspace. Now there’s a bunch of copycat applause scrolling up the reaction space.
Because he killed grandmas or because he touched bewbs? I’m guessing the latter.
Because he was an awful boss and an asshole nobody who had to deal with him or his initiatives liked.
Of course, we might see a new reorganization when the next Gov takes office. They like to meddle to feel important.
Can relate
Sone who was content to be a <1 term congressman and then NY Lt. Gov seems more desirous of not being noticed than anything else.
Ahh. Just like the ones we have with execs. If it’s not moderated and airlocked, it turns into a bitch fest.
I men there’s only a few thousand people on the meeting.
How bad can it go?
Now, pull the rivet with your rivet puller. You may have a choice of pullers, depending on how insane your tool collection is. Some are simpler, lighter, and easier to handle, others are more flexible.
Somewhere around here, I have one with the rotating head, so you can go straight in. It has come in really handy, a couple of times.
That yellow one has a rotating head, but the seat rail was still in the way. But usually, yeah, that one fits in most places.
What if you’re a born lever puller?
There must be fifty ways to love your lever.
?
These are good euphemisms.
Some are simpler, lighter, and easier to handle, others are more flexible.
Somewhere around here, I have one with the rotating head, so you can go straight in.
Oh, come on! Family friendly, remember?
Nothing to see here, move along….
https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2021/08/nsa-awards-secret-10-billion-contract-amazon/184390/
A cursory scroll through shows me that site is very self-referential. I’ve never heard of it. Is it legit? I see he links to a bid protest filed with the GAO by Microsoft but I don’t know what the contents of it is.
Reminds me of a thought I had the other day. I think if the Dems get enough of a majority we’ll see “secret” bills passed that are not made public. I guess that’s not too far from “we need to pass it to find out what’s in it”.
They’re already passing 4,000-page bills that nobody has read anyway.
It is probably for classified cloud/AWS services. It is not a new thing.
That doesn’t mean that it is not graft though.
Amazon won it several (5 or 6?) years ago and Microsoft has been appealing the entire time. It’s a major delay/hassle in upgrading a lot of systems across DoD.
They’re pretty much the only companies that have the backbone/server space/security quals to manage the network that DoD is asking for – Oracle challenged but I think they acknowledged they couldn’t manage the scope.
And what happens when the contract is up?
Who knows? It’s the first cloud contract out there for DoD – I think it was for 5 or 10 years. Then the recompete would again be for whoever could manage that volume. I don’t know whether that would involve transferring the data if they lost it or if it would be something simpler – either way, it’s a PITA for the grunts and general IT folks.
I am a stauch advocate of not putting data on a cloud solution.
One of the tech with a vendor we use has a Zoom avatar that reads “There is no cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer.”
THIS^^
All the advocates of the cloud always seems to be the same people who shouldn’t have a computer.
“Nice data you have on our server. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Yeah, we don’t use the cloud for anything essential. We wouldn’t even use a cloud-based policy management system. The server farm for our medical record system looks like the IT version of the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
A State Agency which shall not be named got a good dose of that when their 250,000 recipient mailing list kept getting canned by Microsoft because the O365 cloud hosted mailing send limits were 10k/day and 500/hr. It used to be run in-house with throttling fine-tuned to avoid being marked as spam, but once the email was sent to the cloud instead of hosted on-site, the hosting provider simply said ‘No’, and there was no leverage against it. They are now paying hefty rates to a third-party listserv provider for what used to be effectively free (covered within existing overhead for the datacenter)
Makes sense. You have all of the private companies, individuals, and governments’ data already in the cloud and then you have the NSA’s copy offline in their own data storage. Just combine them into one, eliminate the ability to actually delete anything, and let the NSA have full access. Then you only need to maintain one copy of the data.
The cloud is already the NSA’s copy.
White man decrees to oppress POC.
City employees who are unvaccinated will be forced to wear TWO MASKS starting on September 1st.
Trying to suffocate the unvaxxed?
Good God that’s stupid, just fucking moronic and, of course, malevolently punitive.
I found this little nugget of information out rather quickly,
Speaking of nuggets…
Tyson Foods, one of the country’s largest poultry processors, is mandating all employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 1.
It’s a company decision that’s not sitting well with some workers at one of Tyson’s rural Mid-South facilities.
A group of Tyson employees has been protesting outside the Tyson foods plant in Newbern, Tennessee all day Wednesday. These employees say they’re risking their jobs to fight against the company’s recent decision to require a COVID-19 vaccine for all of their employees.
About a dozen Tyson Foods employees walked off the job Wednesday and protested with signs outside the food plant in Newbern, Tennessee.
The employees would not speak on camera, saying their employee agreements open them up to legal action from Tyson if they do.
One local business owner and friend of the group spoke on their behalf.
“Nobody wants to be pressured to do anything, especially to their own body, that they don’t want to do,” said local business owner Jill Blessing.
Alternate headline: ‘Tyson won’t force their employees to show proof of citizenship, but they damn well better show proof of vaccination!’
Don’t have to be a citizen to work there lawfully, just a legal resident – and yes, you do have to prove that.
Avid DIY’r, Type 1 patio chair, but I still had it done by the place I bought them from. Reading your excellent tutorial, I’m comfortable with my decision. Especially since I can’t remember at all what I paid to have it done.
On the topic of patio furniture, mine is 14 years old and I’ve only replaced one sling. It has held up amazingly well. Buying quality is almost always the right decision.
I think my practice of leaving them out, uncovered, year-round probably contributed to the sling degradation. But I bet the original slings weren’t made of UV stabilized resin, either.
True. I cover mine each winter.
Duck Covers are an excellent option. Add a Duck Dome and snow slides right off.
Soon to be found to be totally legit because “muh commerce clause”.
President Joe Biden is weighing vaccines mandates for interstate travel, according to the Associated Press (AP) on Thursday.
“Still, while more severe [coronavirus] measures — such as mandating vaccines for interstate travel or changing how the federal government reimburses treatment for those who are unvaccinated and become ill with COVID-19 — have been discussed,” the AP writes, “the administration worried that they would be too polarizing for the moment.”
Haha, this administration worried about being “too polarizing.” That’s rich.
FWIW, that applies going back several administrations.
Keep digging that hole, idiots. Someday in the future, punitive healthcare rates for those who had abortions.
Well, I’m glad we havent started booking things for our October trip that is looking less and less likely to happen.
/looks at the September trip
/looks at tentative plans to buy tickets to a show outside of Pittsburgh in October
I think my reaction would be to immediately schedule a cross country trip and cross as many state borders as possible.
So, do they think there’s border patrols at the states? And I seem to recall some amendment in some dumb old piece of paper that would be in the way of that rule.
And I seem to recall some amendment in some dumb old piece of paper that would be in the way of that rule
LOL, as if that matters now.
Wait, suddenly borders matter?
Are they really and truly trying to force a shooting war?! For fucks sake, this is Soviet, East Germany level shit they are pushin.
Trial balloon. They’ve done this repeatedly. They are trying to see where the line is, so they can take steps to shift it a little.
Good work db! Both on the chair and post. 5/5 would read you doing the work for me again.
Thanks! But I’m not sure I’d do this for anyone else.
Ugh. I hate industry trade rags.
VP to idiot regurgitator: “Nope, no supply issues at all. We have contracts in place that guarantee us the items.”
Internal reality: “Anyone have XXX available? Vendor says it won’t ship until YYY. Maybe. We’re escalating but they say there’s nothing they can do due to ZZZ upstream supplier.”
Thanks db. I just now discovered our refrigerator isn’t refridgerating. Do not want to buy a new one and having someone fix it lis likely hopeless out here in the boonies. I’ll try some DIY I guess.
Aynbody have any suggestions?
Meanwhle, off to the tubes of you.
I use this site regularly.
https://www.repairclinic.com/
I’ve used that too for appliance repairs.
Bookmarked. Don’t think that was what I used before, but looks like a good starting point for the future.
Thx. It’s got me started in the right direction (I think).
I had this issue in 2014 in the place I was renting. I did some googling – went through some contractor referral tips site (maybe $20) for feedback from a pro – based on model, etc. Wound up being a controller card which was a pretty common issue. IIRC I got one off ebay or amazon and installed it after watching a youtube vid. Pretty simple, but a hassle to move the fridge out.
Course my landlord reimbursed me for the parts….
db – the walls to the left of the new channel are crumbling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHZ9LU4vpf4
Gonna let loose soon? I see the dark cool stuff staring to roll downhill
looks like they moved the camera but I guess it’s just zoomed in now
Yeah they zoomed in on the new wall breach. There’s a big crack all the way on the left, which wasn’t there ~7 hours ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7jidFdOLeU
This one’s pretty cool. Video’s not as high quality, but multiple camera angles, sound, and a stats bar at the bottom showing emissions, estimated mass flow rate, etc.
Very cool!
There’s even a little scrolling seismograph trace.
also, any idea of the scale? Like is that lava waterfall 5 feet high or 20?
There’s a helo occasionally flying around – I think that’s the only thing to get the scale.
I would say the waterfall is probably more on the 20′ side
Who’s your favorite libertarian philosopher?
Mine is Hayek.
For two primary reasons.
I never knew Hayek was involved in patio furniture.
God dammit!
I should have said two obvious reasons.
So just the seen and the unseen?
Don’t know about libertarian philosophers. For pilosophy in general, I prefer concise. So Brennus takes the crown as he summed up the way the world worked in two words: “Vae Victis”.
These days, either drunk or drug-addled seems more on point.
Jacob Sullum.
@ Mojeaux
I saw your response to my homeschool comment. There are alternatives to you being a teacher. I’m also not a great teacher. I get frustrated that people can’t understand things. I don’t plan on teaching them in the school teacher sense. We aren’t going to sit at desks and go over lectures, etc.
I would also say you should not compare the BS “teaching” the kids got from state schools in the last year to true homeschool or especially unschooling. There are many other ways to reach kids and get them excited about learning.
Actively looking what opportunities there are out there to teach in an informal – i.e. out formal school systems, even private, which, in many states, are as embroiled in the stupidity as the public schools. There have to be ‘homeschool’ tutoring/teach enclave type things that are effectively small, informal class rooms for parents to take advantage of the direct benefit of homeschooling without having to be teachers themselves.
We have settled on university model schools. I think they’re all religious, so maybe not for everybody, but the compromise between homeschooling and classroom learning is so much more appealing than traditional schools.
Government schools will be around for a long time but I think we’re seeing a shift in how a lot of parents perceive public education, especially after witnessing the teacher unions outright refusing to teach our children in person despite us taxpayers paying their salaries. What is a huge slap in the face is that whether we take our kids out of the schools or not, the taxpayer is still on the hook for handing over their money to the school districts. Where I live a lot of parents are peeved about that aspect and find it unfair.
I remember years ago proposing among a group of friends that if your kid doesn’t attend any of the schools in the district, their portion of property taxes that goes towards the school district should be cut in half (if it was up to me, it would be zero). My friends all lost their shit when I said that I pointed out that the incentives were perverse because no matter how bad or great the district is, they will continue receiving money thus not having any incentive to change.
There are groups. We have one in our small town of <5k. I haven’t looked into them much but it may be what we do. I’d prefer more of the unschool approach. I am also considering Ron Paul homeschool, but that might be a big leap for my two youngest especially (11, 12).
I did buy Tom Woods’ liberty classroom when he had a one day half price deal recently. I bought the master class, so I have that in perpetuity with full access. I plan on starting that with my oldest (14) after I finish reviewing and deciding what to focus on.
I admire you for doing this. Your kids are so lucky.
Thanks. It’s not going yet, but I can’t sit by and let the state abuse my kids anymore.
My wife told me once that I went to public schools and still came out libertarian (frankly anarchist at this point), so some can resist. I told her it took years to get here and I missed out on so much knowledge that I had to learn after school was done. I’d rather my kids actually learned important stuff and not just how to be a good little robot.
My dad spent many hours undoing public school indoctrination.
I returned the favor by turning him from Republican to libertarian.
Totally agree. When I look back at all the brainwashing I’ve had to fix, both mine and my kids, a non-Prussian approach is critical.
Good work!
I have to refine my google-fu, I mean DDG-fu. “Teaching opportunities homeschooling”, “Informal teaching jobs”, etc don’t seem to hit too much! Maybe
“University model schools” will work in the search terms.
https://schoolsucksproject.com/
https://hslda.org/content/orgs/
I’m amazed at how much information is out there. It’s quite overwhelming.
Thanks!
It was pointed out to me in last night’s thread by someone who does not know me and, I am assuming, does not have children, that I am, in fact, able to afford private school if I cancel my cable and cut my data plan on my cell phone (*checks 1040 Schedule C, sees write-off*). Mike S had the best answer: This is why opposition to school vouchers is evil.
I was also informed that sending children to government schools is only marginally less bad than beatings, rape, and incest.
To all the homeschool advocates and practitioners–good on you. I admire you, I really do. This is not the right path for my family for many, many different reasons that I have not seen fit to enumerate.
Fuck that shit Mojeaux. Do what’s best for your family and don’t let anyone who doesn’t know you or your situation make you feel bad for the decisions you’ve made.
And at the end of the day, if you and your husband are doing your best to instill the values that you want your kids to possess, then no one from those schools can harm your children. Even if they do stray from the path you want them to follow, they’ll always have what you guys have taught them in the back of their minds once shit hit the fan.
Thanks, Ed. I appreciate it.
Do charter schools exist in your area?
My daughter is going to one, we had a private school as a backup plan, that we might still use further down the road.
My high school is in a relatively affluent area and is a “haves” school, not the “have-nots” school, in a county that votes overwhelmingly Republican and by extension, Trump.
XX had a Gen X history teacher who had a Gadsden flag in his room and preached on the evils of socialism and how many people Lenin and Stalin killed, along with all the other usual suspects.
We are luckier than most.
We read Anthem in my sophomore H.S. English class. I can’t imagine that happening these days.
She read Anthem because it was in my bookcase and it looked interesting. She also read Plato and Marcus Aurelius.
My high school was mostly like this, but was starting to show cracks by the time I left. Now, well, It’s woketown
For what it’s worth. Both of my kids were reading when they started 1st grade. I didn’t want to leave it to the government schools ’cause, like Pepper ridge Farms I remembered my own trials/tribs.
My son went a long ways towards teaching his little sister, he would read to her/she would sit next to him and ask questions about this or that. He got to show off his skills and she learned to read too. We loved to go to the library of Sat mornings, they would go through their kids’ books quickly.
Another surprisingly rational take from an unexpected source
Marinating in a toxic brine of fear and uncertainty can make us sick—whether from fatigue and insomnia or irritability and burnout. And when our children hear us processing endless loops of what if thinking, they can become worried and depressed too. Fixating on a single threat to children’s health can keep us from recognizing their broad human needs. I too can be a victim of my own mental gymnastics. (Just ask my kids.)
Reclaiming rational thought amid ongoing uncertainty can be vexingly difficult, yet it is crucial for our health. Parents must first absorb the scientific evidence on Delta. We must cross-check our internal narratives about our own kids against the facts of our local public-health landscape by checking in with trusted health-care professionals.
Next, we must accept the unpleasant reality that risk is everywhere. Children face many serious threats to their well-being, including other diseases, mental illness, and accidents. Vehicular crashes kill more than 1,000 Americans younger than 15 each year. Yet we’ve accepted this risk; we also don’t revisit it with every news story about a car crash.
How did this get the green light from the shit flinging howler monkeys at the Atlantic?
Maybe Tundra’s observation yesterday that even some of his progressive friends are getting antsy is more broadly distributed? Maybe some on the left are looking around and starting to think “What the hell have we LARP’d ourselves into?” I have my doubts, but maybe the grey cinder block wall of the totalitarians are showing a few internal cracks?
Or to be the pessimist, the prog-wing is getting ready to purge the squishy machine Dems out and start going full bore fascist.
I’m sure that’s their wet-dream, doesn’t mean it will ever be reality.
The squishy machine Dems have a lot of money and power. Not saying that they won’t eventually be squeezed out of the party, but it’s going to be a bloodbath because none of them want to lose their grip on power and the ability to graft.
They need to purge them before the mid-terms.
If they are not fully in control of the party after that blood bath it will be the end of the proggies. The squishy machine Dems will have their knives out because they will be pissed that they lost their cushy committee assignments.
Beautiful, db. I’m only a DIYer for very specific things, but this was wonderful writing. Enjoyed it.
Thanks. Glad you liked it!
The fucking weasels at work are demanding mandatory disclosure of vaccination status.
Is lying out of the question?
Lying yes or lying no? I’m opposed to disclosing period. It is none of their fucking business. No other disease or vaccination has ever been required to be disclosed at our company.
Maybe not, but I’d be wary of lying to my employer if asked a direct question.
Yeah. If the lie can be proven, that’s almost a slam dunk for termination with cause.
Any way of just ignoring it? Any possibility of discussion with a supervisor?
No. It’s required input into the HR system. I can bitch to my boss but ultimately he’s powerless on this and will parrot the company line. Maybe drag it out and refuse to respond and see how long it goes on. Or send a pointless email to the HR weasel. The one who says this is in no way a breach of privacy.
What’s the input field? Boolean, Checkbox, Radio button, or text?
Holy fuck. It’s not just yes/no. It’s also brand and date. Jesus H. Bullshit this isn’t a breach of privacy because we coerced you to provide it voluntarily.
Text or drop downs? There’s all sorts of fun if it’s a blank text field.
Hire a lawyer.
It’s also brand and date.
Brand: Yes. It was not a generic vacccine.
Date: No thanks, I’m married. But I’m flattered you asked.
I can sympathize. I had to get the fucking shot because work is requiring it.
Thanks. I’ll buckle under eventually because I really have no choice unless I wish to cast my fortunes upon the sea and even then, there’s increasing likelihood that it will be same elsewhere.
The thing is, as with all of this, is where does it end? Have to disclose this? Well, how about disclosure of HIV status? Or abortion? Or birth control? And what injections can be required? What if I don’t feel like doing heroin today?
I’m getting to the end of my rope. If this is it, why do I want to put up with it for the next 40 or so years? So I can put some more candles on a cake?
It won’t end. The time is now or never.
Sometimes you have to just say “no”.
Also, this may help.
That FBI thing is pissing me off. They are intentionally lying about the federal statute. Printing a form with an agency’s logo is no way the same as applying a seal (like those that emboss or create an impression in wax) to signify something is an official document.
Complete and utter bullshit. This hospital is jammed full of paper, signs, etc. downloaded and printed with the CDC logo on it.
“Put your question in writing, sign it, and I’ll forward to my attorney.”
Otherwise, I got nuthin. Sorry.
I’m thinking this full court press is to get ahead of the vaccine failure that is already showing with “Delta breakthroughs”.
And regardless of any of this, we still have to wear a mask again. Looks like it’s everywhere now. Before it was just in common areas or if you were less than 6ft apart.
Nothing to add except, sorry that you are having to go through this.
I am dreading the day it may become an issue for me. Life would be easier if one was more constitutionally inclined to just go along.
Sorry to hear this. My partner will face something similar by the end of September unless his only in-person class is cancelled due to the lack of interest among graduate students. Some of them prefer to have it online.
Sorry.
Caller on talk radio: “Virus passes through even N95 masks like bees pass through a fence.”
Talk show host: Avoids challenging this assertion by saying “But 94,000 kids got the virus last week.”
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-relative-size-of-particles/
also: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9487666/
Notice the FDA at this link says nothing about the filtration specifications of surgical or N95 masks. https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-surgical-masks-and-face-masks
Here’s a recent (pre-publication ahead of print scheduled for Dec 3 2021) study (linked from the NIH itself) on efficacy of masks pre- and post-COVID. https://www.annali-igiene.it/articoli/2021/4/05-Santarsiero.pdf https://annali-igiene.it/fascicoli/effectiveness-of-face-masks-for-the-population/
“I’m pretty sure you just proved my point.”
What talk show?
Looks like we did accomplish something in Afghanistan: arming terrorists.
Taliban terrorists are now in possession of U.S.-made military vehicles, anti-aircraft guns, armored tanks, and artillery. The munitions were provided to Afghan security forces to secure the country as the United States ends its two-decade war there. The Taliban have overwhelmed Afghan forces, taking over key Afghan provinces and using U.S. weapons to power the offensive.
“These captured systems will increase the mobility and lethality of the Taliban, making them a more formidable adversary,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “We have already seen the Taliban using captured humvees to patrol Kunduz and Sar-e Pol.” …
“Concerns regarding the captured artillery have prompted U.S. airstrikes,” Bowman said. “Hopefully those U.S. airstrikes will increase and continue beyond the August 31 deadline. American support for the Afghan security forces is not charity. It is helping a brave partner fight a common enemy over there so that they can’t target us here.“
The aughts called. They want their moral preening war propaganda back.
Taliban terrorists
Let me know when they start operating beyond the borders of Afghanistan.
They’re probably in Pakistan too.
I thought about that just before I hit post. Undoubtedly.
So brave they’re going to fold in early September if not before. The Taliban obviously believe in their cause, the Afghan government forces not so much.
Why do I have my doubts that they actually have US tanks?
Why not? ISIS did in Iraq.
Those fuckers are hard to transport. In an intentionally botched withdrawal that the army had literally decades to plan for, I would be shocked if we didn’t leave them behind.
If we were indeed leaving tanks behind. I have no idea why we wouldn’t render them inoperable first.
If we didn’t spike the barrels, pull the turbine engines, and light some thermite off over the track suspensions before abandoning them, it’s incredibly foolish.
Hell, even at the cost of some Hellfire missiles, you could convert them into a decent training exercise for the air cavalry.
Perhaps captured from surrendering/deserting ANA units?
Yeah, I guess so. Hopefully we didn’t give out any of the interesting systems with the vehicles (assuming there are any).
Wouldn’t know how to operate/service them and lack the fuel/ammo?
How many hours maintenance/hour operation do they require?
AmEx doesn’t do irony.
American Express, which made a $2.3 billion profit last quarter, invited the great-grandson of the Nation of Islam’s founder to tell its employees that capitalism is evil.
It was part of the credit card giant’s critical race theory training program, which asks workers to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves on a hierarchy of “privilege.” …
At one high-profile “anti-racism” event, AmEx execs invited Khalil Muhammad — great-grandson of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad — to lecture on “race in corporate America.” He argued that the system of capitalism was founded on racism and that “racist logics and forms of domination” have shaped Western society from the Industrial Revolution to the present.
“American Express has to do its own digging about how it sits in relationship to this history of racial capitalism,” Muhammad said. “You are complicit in giving privileges in one community against the other, under the pretext that we live in a meritocratic system where the market judges everyone the same.”
More, Muhammad argued, the company should reduce standards for black customers and sacrifice profits in the interest of race-based reparations.
So race based interest rates…got it.
Oregon Democrats proudly stand behind their brownshirts’ actions and blame their opponents for provoking violence.
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2021/08/oregon-leaders-condemn-resurgence-of-right-wing-groups-political-clashes-in-portland.html
“Mostly unpeaceful protests.”
That entire article is gibberish. Hang the city officials and stop using air-soft guns.
It’s state officials too.
No different than prewar Nazi Germany or 1960’s Bull Connor.
Oregon elected leaders condemned a resurgence of right-wing groups demonstrating in Portland – and the often violent confrontations they provoke among some of the city’s left-wing activists — as the rival political factions plan for another potential showdown later this month.
*”right-wing” groups march with signs and shit*
*Antifa attacks*
RIGHT-WING NAZIS PROVOKE VIOLENCE
“That is why we loudly reject violent anti-democratic incursions seeking to use Portland as a national stage to instill fear and promote bias violence in our city and beyond.”
1. Like Chicago, Portland is a haven for right-wingers.
2. You mean “anti-Democratic”.
So the crackdown on antifa begins in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . ., right?
Oh, Antifa was “provoked”? The poor dears. And “destruction of property” is now something leftists condemn? Since when? And whose property was destroyed? Antifa types posted videos of themselves stealing property from the other group and bragged about throwing it in the river.
I think about that a lot these days. There are some remarkable things going on:
– The economic disaster caused by government lockdowns and the Zimbabwe-level inflation from their “stimulus”
– The drive to exclude an ever-broadening group of wrongthinkers from any type of commerce
– Education being dumbed down and repurposed (even further) into a tool for woke indoctrination
– Radical environmentalism that refuses to see any trade-offs to their policies and wants to drastically limit energy usage
Between all these things, it’s perfectly rational to think that we may not be able to rely on megacorps and government to provide/sell the basics of life. My goals are now to acquire as many of these skills as I can. I’ve gotten a good start on woodworking, and I’m now looking into blacksmithing/forging. It may be important to learn to produce your own electricity or do things without it. Raising crops and animals is another big one, obviously.
Somewhat related, I’ve recently learned that there’s a public archery range just down the road from me. Free to use, you need to provide targets, stands, and everything else. I’ve contemplated picking up a starter bow and seeing exactly how little I remember from about 20 years ago.
If I could figure out how to ship the damned thing without breaking the bank, I’d send you my long bow? recurve bow? (@Kinnath, help me out here, you’ve seen it.) and arrows and arm guard and all the accoutrements I have.
KC to Cleveland isn’t that far, find a wandering Glib to act as courier.
Some preliminary research looks like it would cost about $300 for a starter kit with an adjustable draw weight (which would be useful if the girlfriend wants to try it). Depending on what the shipping estimate would be (if it’s under that), I may be interested and able to cover the shipping.
Send me your email and I will send you pix. moriah at moriahjovan dot com.
Very cool but unhealthy.
I think I’ll just become an old timey brigand. I’ll hang out with my merry men, chase Maid Marion around, drink mead all day, and occasionally jack the sheriff’s Bitcoin or lumber or whatever we’re going to use for currency when the inflation really hits. It’s going to be a blast.
Went out today. Masks 50%. I was dismayed. I will probably have to wear a mask when classes begin, although the community college says “masks highly encouraged”.
Today I am going to visit my friend in the hospital to take her mail and packages. She’s still on high-flow oxygen. I guess her son has been visiting her, which I’m happy to hear.
I’m a bit concerned for the near future. The Indiana stats still show a low number of daily deaths, but the number of “cases” and hospitalizations have been rising so all the counties are in condition yellow or orange. Apparently 45% vaccination doesn’t stop the Delta strain, but this is more evidence of it being less deadly.
So the KC mayor instituted a mask mandate (again) and just extended it 3 more weeks. USUALLY, my county (in the metro area, but not KC) follows whatever KC does, but this time they didn’t. I’m going to assume they didn’t think it would go over well. Missouri’s a hotspot. I heard the other day, “Missouri used to be the show-me state, but it’s turning into the make-me state.” I wish that were more true.
Yeah, masking has been ticking up here, too.
I tell people I don’t wear a mask unless I’m paid to wear a mask. So, unless I’m commuting or at work, I don’t even carry one with me any more.
The last times I’ve even carried a mask with me was when using Lyft/Uber (as both are still saying they require masks, although my experience with most of the drivers is the opposite).
Yesterday at the Y I found myself in need of a hair elastic, so I found the crumpled disposable mask in the bottom of my Everything Bag, ripped one of the ear elastics off, and used it to pull back my hair.
As they say in the RE appraisal biz, highest and best use.
I’m glad you will get to see her.
Same here.
High-flow O2 is a good(ish) sign. It means she doesn’t need a ventilator.
Well shit. They won’t let me see her. They’re taking the mail up to her.
Sorry. I hope she gets better.
If you’re still there, see if she can get to a window, and call her from the parking lot.
She is on the opposite side of the hospital from the parking lot.
dammit. I didn’t refresh before my comment below. I’m sorry to hear that.
Glad to hear you’ll be able to see her! I hope you can bring some cheer, encouragement, and hope to her.
the knack
The knack
Matt Taibbi’s gloriously crapping all over Barack Obama on his Substack:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-vanishing-legacy-of-barack-obama
Awesome. It’s an excerpt, but the first nine paragraphs tell you everything you need to know.
OMG. Vaccines are required to fly in Canada.
I was looking at the route to Honey Harvest, and Google was telling me MN was requiring a 2 week quarantine.
Will be soon, yes. I suspect that’ll ultimately backfire in their faces, but for now, that’s what we’re getting from the Feds.
Who are expected to be asking the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament this weekend for an election call.
This election will actually be interesting. We’ll see how many people in Canada truly want the boot on their necks.
I hope Biden follows through with the threat to mandate vaccination for interstate travel. It will be a real shit show.
How would that be enforced?
Think of all the people who live in river towns on the borders.
Interstate buses, planes, and Amtrak.
I understand that “fear will keep the
systemsstates in line, fear of thisbattle stationsenile potato.”But I like how state boundaries suddenly matter, but not the national boundary or at least a certain portion of it (because fuck the Cuban refugees..).
I live about 7 miles from the Ohio border. Lots of people around here drive across to get cheap gas (PA’s taxes result in a $0.30 to $0.50/gal higher cost). This would not go well here. There are lots of roads crossing the border, too.
Not to mention that here in Ohio we kept the liquor stores open while your governor closed them. There were quite a few very happy liquor store owners up until the counties started banning sales to PA residents.
OK, I know this is crazy talk, but how is it legal to ban sales to people based on where they live?
Did they even bother to come up with something a bit more than FYTW?
Yeah that would seem to be a Commerce Clause violation, wouldn’t it? But I’m not aware of anyone challenging it.
They got cover from the State Liquor Board, which changed the rules in that county. They’re able to make arbitrary changes to the rules, as the legislature ceded all authority to the board. They made the rules in those counties (and temporarily all counties) that out of state ID’s weren’t permitted for alcohol sales at the liquor stores.
Oh yes. I have a colleague who crossed the border practically every night during lockdown to go to her favorite local brewery.
They should have known the risks in living that close to a border! Or is Learn To Code still an acceptable argument (unless it’s to a journalist).
Learn to install solar panels.
I want to see vaccination checkpoints on all the Potomac River crossings.
I want to see the Beltway closed and all gas stations from about Loudoun County in shut down, for the environment. If green shit is so good, do it to government employees first.
Cut the air conditioning too.
I don’t know how people don’t finally engage in mass disobedience with that one. Internal passports were one of the big hallmarks of the Soviet Union. It was even in the dialogue of The Hunt for Red October” “State to state. No papers”.
“he fooled us all”
No, Matt. No, he didnt.
Ha-ha, yeah!
Heel turn? Obama is who he always was, and it was pretty apparent the whole time to, well, some of us.
What’s this about Fidel’s kid calling for a snap election?
Sunday’s the day, according to rumour-mongers in Our Nation’s Capitol™. Been on the news this morning, according to the SU (I don’t watch the news anymore). And Alberta’s decided to stop loosening restrictions, supposedly based on the elevated case levels amongst kids that our CMOH is seeing in U.S. data.
Liberal democracy wasn’t a bad idea. Shame it had to end during my lifetime.
Can’t someone call for trial by walrus-wrestling or something? I think we have the Duke of Sussex around here somewhere, maybe we could send him up to make a few Royal Decrees.