I don’t believe that’s Keir Starmer. He’d never turn right.
I do believe the collided bullets from Gallipoli. I saw the same thing in a museum display at Gettysburg. Must admit, though, the perpendicular impact at Gallipoli is very impressive. (I guess Americans are just more direct.)
And finally, my hat is off to that amazing quintuple-pun coroner meme. I’ll be seeing that one in my dreams.
Or at least label them properly! Yes, there are times I want oatmeal-raisin-spice cookies. But not when I’m having “Give me a chocolate chunk cookie Or Else!” day.
I like oatmeal, especially the oatmeal cereal (corn flakes, coconut flake) cookies. I like raisins. But I do not like oatmeal raisin, or oatmeal cereal raisin cookies. Now substitute chocolate chips in place of raisins, these I like.
I’ve never cared for oatmeal (or cereals of any type, hot or cold), and particularly can no longer stand oatmeal after an, unpleasant, experience at SERE school.
Cookies are basically the only form I can stand it. And if it has chocolate chips, CINCHOUSE will likely get those first, so raisins not only “meet” the fruit requirement, but means I have some left for me.
I don’t need the sugar, and $SPOUSE has a good recipe that uses unsweetened applesauce as part of the sweeteners. It works. When I want my chocolate fix, it’s either homebrew cocoa in coffee or straight.
The Reader deems them passable substitutes for someone (the Reader in this case) in whom chocolate triggers migraines. The closest he gets to a chocolate chip cookie these days is the odor in the house when he makes batches for other people around Christmas.
Oatmeal raisin cookies are great. Man, I could taste one when I read the meme. And then I was sad, because I had no oatmeal raisin cookie in the house.
Re: Mathematicians vs Physicists — works in my career too (cost analysis and estimation). How did I estimate that cost? I made it up. Do you believe it? Okay, we’re good then.
Re: One right after that — at my age it hardly makes any difference.
“How long do you think it will take to do this programming project?”
How did I guesstimate the time? Yep. Make it up, triple it, divide by 20 (what? Expect to get to work on just the new project? Oh ye little innocent. Bless your heart.) That gives me # of weeks, add outstanding vacation weeks. Check the calendar. Pin that many weeks out. If I’m feeling good about it, only added another month, otherwise add two.
Good news, whenever actually allowed to hold to that date, whatever the project was, was ready for release (which includes having gone to formal testing, dealing with the person writing documentation, and the installation process). Not that any project whatsoever was set to a reasonable deliverable date. Never mind that actually getting done was closer to my *WAG than the “official” date. How does one’s WAG get accurate -ish? Lots and lots of experience. (Luckily a skill I no longer need. I’m done giving programming WAG’s.)
Well there are also the SIIKSWAG – S@ if I know SWAG, or the more polite version DIIKSWAG – Dang/D@ if I know SWAG. I never did work for any armed force service either directly or company contract. Government, through company contracts (feds, county, and city). At least my last job IF there was an estimate, was never held to it. Could give realistic estimates, and admit WAG, accepted, not that the boss said quote it that way (reasons beyond making it “look good”*) and never held to the WAG. Just billed amount quoted when completed. Also why when retired, if boss asked if I’d accept projects at an hourly rate, I said yes, but for hours actually worked, not fixed hours for specific project (I knew how that worked, I’d be working full time for a 6 hour “project”, no, no, no, no, not happening. Never got called. Hmmmm?)
(*) Reasonableness of the request. Who the client was. How often had they called on support questions and quick change requests. Technically there was an hour limit per year on the annual support contract before they were suppose to pay for onsite additional training. Never tracked. Rarely enforced. Which means a lot of “I think 6 hours”, became 2 or 3 hour quote. Then there were a few easy changes that every client would benefit from. Again, hours quoted, were cut from the SWAG. There were more than a few that came under “if they really really want this” quote 4x the SWAG. Essentially that client paid for a major change that other clients eventually benefited from because they wanted, had to have, it “right now”, VS request going on the “Annual Change List”. Of coarse by the time I retired, some of the items on the “Annual Change List” had been there longer than I’d worked there (12 years).
You know, that Michigan judge made an impressive decision.
I’ll be even more impressed when all 26,000 of those names show up as having voted (because Democrats ignore the court order, like they did with student loans) and the judge declares the whole election invalid and forces a do-over.
A new one for the cork board, thank you. (Proper definition of “multitasking.”)
Been busy and not commenting for a few days here – looks like I just made it under the wire for my invite? (I like being invited to events, but don’t expect me to attend them; I have a very poor grasp on things like dates…)
The reason why it’s good in stories and not in real-life is that deadly sin of sloth. Stories aggravate it by letting you do it in your imagination and deluding yourself — also, making it more exciting than in real life.
Note that doing lots of stuff does not mean you are not engaging in sloth. Sloth is sorrow at the spiritual good — therefore anything that distracts you from your duties is sloth.
The Snow White Mirror-mirror if the darned thing was being accurate:
“Well, there’s this albino girl over in MediumFarAwayDale that’s so fair skinned she makes both you and the chick cohabiting with those dwarves look like George Hamilton…”
…
But yeah, casting on the Disney “live action” flick is truly mind boggling, even putting aside the disastrous DEI idiocy that’s reportedly doubled the shooting budget so far with reshoots and now CGI rendering everything.
I get signing big names to get a project greenlit, but Gal Gadot is jealous of that plain dumb little park-princess-castmember who can’t keep her mouth shut? Yeah right.
I speculated that it’s the youth thing. Where the scriptwriters think it’s totally believable that [random guy] would go for a plain-faced teenager over a stunningly gorgeous thirty-year-old…who LOOKS thirty.
There’s a reason why Tchaikovsky named his ballet ‘The Sleeping Princess’ — because the prima donna might not be a beauty, but she can be declared, by fiat, a princess.
The point of divergence between the mirror universe Earth Empire and the Trek UFP was in the mirror one, George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4b, and in the UFP one, he kept it.
Those numbers are way low. Cumulative inflation since the Biden* Regime was installed is at least 60% if not more. Some examples:
Store brand bread, 16 oz loaf; was 89¢, now $1.79
Eggs, dozen; was $2.50, now $3.79, down from over $5.00
Orange juice, gallon; was $3.00, on sale $2.50, now $7.99
Gas; was $2.80 a gallon, now $4.20, down from $5.37
Plywood, 4’x8’x1/2″ utility grade; was $18, now $38
Every single thing I commonly buy is up 50% – 80%, some have more than doubled. Big Lots and the 99¢ store have gone out of business. How could even the Democrats fuck up the 99¢ store?!
We’re not quite as bad in Flyover County, Oregon, depending on the item.
List where I can compare (with variations)
1,3: No idea. Don’t buy.
2. Eggs: 18 count at the big independent store: $4.38*. May have been 20cents higher. Free range requirements forced price up, but shortages are over. Maybe.
((*)) For the first box. Additionals $6.78
4. Fred Meyer’s FM-stop gasoline (Kroger) $3.59. Has been $4.59 in the past.
5. 7/16″ OSB, $16.58 currently. Was < $8.00 pre Covidiocy. Peak was approx $50. No takers barring emergencies. 1/2″ BCX plywood $45. Don’t recall past prices.
Canned veggies: Used to be 50 cents, now 89.
Yogurt: Kroger light yogurt was 45 cents/6 ounce. Now yogurt-like Carbmaster is 80/6 ounce.
Some things haven’t moved as much. Storebrand cheese at the independent is now $5.98/2 pound brick. Up $1.10
Skewing things, stores will sell a common, popular item at a loss, reasonably certain you will not buy just that item.
“Loss Leaders” work. But it’s an art, not science. And it can skew slice-in-time inflation numbers if several stores do “milk” or such. (More commonly, just one brand of moojuice)
And our Dear Leaders keep changing the base for “official” inflation, ever since at least Mister Karter and the Sweathog economy.
It is -really- hard to paint Trump as a threat to Seniors pocketbooks when he is saying to take their SS money off the table.
The potential downside is making a group tradionally fearful of tax increases into one more likely to say “why not?”
Also leads to “Well, why not soldiers? Military pensions? Government pay?”
Tell Joe Sixpack that his government tormentors are tax free by law, while -he- is paying for stuff he loathe and paying Bigly, and you -will- trigger the Boog. That is “Sherrif of Nottingham” level stupid.
_I_ would prefer an outright ban on income tax, by Constitutional Amendment. Not just repeal the 16th amendment, but declare Income Tax to be involuntary servitude prohibited in perpetuity.
Failing that, a flat tax on all income, all persons, same-same-same, -no- exceptions, -no- eductions, no credits, no no no.
“_I_ would prefer an outright ban on income tax, by Constitutional Amendment. Not just repeal the 16th amendment, but declare Income Tax to be involuntary servitude prohibited in perpetuity.
Failing that, a flat tax on all income, all persons, same-same-same, -no- exceptions, -no- deductions, no credits, no no no.”
………………..
Agree. 100%
Didn’t say that the elimination of SS taxes was a good thing (for exactly the reasons you state). Just said the is COLA a joke.
Admit Taking SS would help us immensely dropping our taxable income and thus the income *bracket which affects percentage owed. (Oregon does exempt SS and government pensions/PERS. FYI, Those that state the SS paid was already taxed haven’t looked at their pay stubs, or paid attention when they paid taxes. It is not.) I still don’t agree with exempting one category of income from taxes. Would much rather prefer to see either of the two you listed.
One additional note. Eliminate all estate taxes too, state and federal. That is Taxing money already Taxed.
Make governments get rid of programs.
(* These days we do not have enough deductions to come close to the standard deduction, even with a mortgage. Medical deductions help state, but doesn’t come close to touching federal.)
Failing that, a flat tax on all income, all persons, same-same-same, -no- exceptions, -no- eductions, no credits, no no no.
Personally, I’d rather see an elimination of all income tax, and its replacement with a population tax, i.e. each state would owe the federal government a certain amount of money each year, same amount per capita, “capita” to be determined by what population each state claims on its ten-year census.
With the additional proviso that any federal funding for people-matters be limited by that same census number.
This would at least give states a balanced incentive WRT inflating census numbers.
Fuel: $3.59/gal current, down from $4.89/gal, up from $1.98 from 2020 under Trump (Costco runs $0.10 – $0.15/gal less. But 4x fuel points garners $0.80 – $1.00/gal discount at Freds).
Hamburger (10 – 12%): Costco $4.99/# up from 2020 $2.99/# Costco (Freds has it for $3.99/#, in 3# rolls, on sale occasionally).
2# block cheese (Tilamook): $13.99, usually on sale for $10.99. Can get for $6.99 digital coupon up to 5. Up from $5.99 full cost (forget what usual “sale” and digital sales dropped it to).
Whole Milk: $6.09 2-gallons Costco, $3.69/gal Freds (do have $2.59/gal on sale occasionally)
Soda (Pepsi or Coke) don’t ask, it is way up. Get it at Costco unless Freds has it on sale for < $0.50/can. (I don’t drink soda, but hubby and son do.)
What I do know is that Costco is no longer the $100 minimum grocery store, but $200. Freds I can’t get out for under $100 either, closer to $200 even with only shopping steep discounts. Per week.
This is not counting Power/Water, and Natural Gas, cost increases.
We, even on fixed income retirees (the COL SS increases are a joke), can afford this mess (for now). Wasn’t true the last time we faced this.
I take in information much more effectively by reading it than by hearing it. I can read it myself; I don’t need some dweeb with a grating voice to read it for me.
Bandwidth limitations mean that video is expensive. If I go over 10Gb/month in primetime, it’s an extra $10/Gb), so there’s already a bias. I have 50G offpeak, but I’d rather read than watch a talking head telling me something. If it’s important, I’ll try to find the transcript.
Not having good hearing makes video without captions even tougher.
Perhaps the doggedly-literate among us should start developing habits and language of our own…
TL;DW — too long, didn’t watch
“Perhaps you could write a simple executive summary of the HOUR of VIDEO in your link… or send a link to a transcript?”
And speaking as someone who until recently had a blistering-fast DSL link at 0.75 Mb/s (half what it started out being)… yes, the “bandwidth to burn” assumption does indeed get pretty old, awful fast.
“If you’re stupid and you know it, vote for Kams. If you’re stupid and you know it, vote for Kams. If you’re stupid and you know it, Just go ahead and blow it. If you’re stupid and you know, vote for Kams.”
[Actually, no. If you’re stupid and you know it… STAY HOME!]
The Dems are staying home for the primary early voting in my parents’ county, so far. Somebody with a sense of irony (or appropriateness) stuck the ballot boxes in the county’s risk management building – with video and in-person monitoring.
Re: Timmy — doesn’t he look a little like JFK? Does that mean something?
Re: Tesla Minivan — more stylish than the Cybertruck, which looks like it was the result of a junior high metal shop group project. They got a “C.” For Pete’s sake, that horror makes a Pacer look good!
Materials science driven design. Once they picked that stainless steel they were stuck with no compound curves/one direction linear bends, so it basically had to be origami-esque.
But I’m seeing them nearly every day in the commute out here, sometimes multiples, so some are selling.
OT and for praying folks, Devin Ericksen’s wife Sara is in the hospital with bleeding in the brain. Looks like cancer came back (per his post on Twitter). He’s being a devastated writer…trying to put the unthinkable in words and words are failing him. Prayers up.
May the doctors, nurses, specialists and all be blessed with competence and compassion beyond measure. May the family be given the strength to endure what may be and the grace to accept both joys and pain with a calm and enduring heart. May all those involved hold truth and memory in their hearts for what is to come.
No no no, she very clearly said “The first ever Federal Ban on Price GAUGING on food”, so, like, putting little gauges on bananas and other fruit will be illegal now.
It’s not ‘the first ever’ — Nixon tried the same thing in 1971. Instead of solving problems it made them far worse. Of course, Kackling Kamela is historically illiterate, to go with every other kind of incompetence.
No. Yes Nixon put in price controls on price GOUGING. Kamala is putting the first price controls on price GAUGING. (Just because we “know” she meant GOUGING, she said GAUGING. So no gauges on prices. As already pointed out. Gouging OTOH is perfectly legal.)
Yes. As often as I always get called out for my gaffs, *HRKH Kamala gets called out.
Maybe she meant she was going to make it illegal to construct price gauges out of food? Like, the big signs at gas stations made solely out of cantaloupes would be completely illegal with Federal enforcement if she wins. And those giant signs that say “Big Mac price reduced to $15.99” made out of pickles, rutabagas and passion fruit would be right out.
No prices gauged in food. At last, the long national nightmare would be over.
“The horrors persist but so do I” turns out to be an outlandishly effective trigger for a (somewhat precocious) vignette (based on yet another nascent story), so:
“The odd rubber suit, Mr. Houston,” she said, voice somewhat covered by the hubbub of dark, swirling water, “is to keep me a little bit warmer, in all that.” She’d said his name as he had, like the street in Atlanta, not the city in Texas. And she had not, of course, stopped struggling with the stubborn, sticky drysuit, now well settled as far up as her thighs.
“You’ll already know it, Miss, but that water is hardly above freezing. Maybe even a little below, at North Atlantic sea temperatures.” The burly man had a strong accent, and a rough and gravelly but even tone.
Interesting, Adrianna thought. How little his fair-ish speech would seem to fit a brutal black-ganger. But of course, he’d be adept at pitching it to be as expected by who’d-ever be listening to him, by now. Perforce.
He’d dropped all his fitting-in, to her, though. As had she, mostly.
“Water that cold, Miss, as you’d likely know, it does things after only a little while. Your feet, your hands, feel like they’re being squeezed in a vise.” There was no trace of baiting in his voice, little emotion at all.
But there was a something, that’d told her he ought to hold her lifeline.
“Yes, Mr. Houston, in the end it does. No matter all our clever gear and our reasoned plans, sooner or later it does. As if you’re being crushed, not even close to numbly, on and on without any real hurt from it.” She could as well be talking about the weather, or the price of a tin of tea.
And something made Adrianna half-turn, so she could see him face to face, though her half-naked body was mostly hidden by the suit below her waist and her turning-away above it. Still, an alert observer could’ve seen, in the dim light of the electric lamps in this far corner of the coal-bunker, enough to trace her single-mastectomy scar, residue of that grazing X-ray laser hit half a decade ago to her and two centuries ahead to history.
Earnest how where she came from, women were not spared the wounds of war.
And Adrianna smiled wide, softly and warmly and strong, with nothing held back and nought left at all of innocence or indulgence in it.
“And yet, Mr. Houston, we persevere. As and how the work needs doing, we do. Nevertheless and despite it all, still we persevere.” And turned back away, still grinning brightly, to drag the clinging suit over her arms and shoulders.
“Yes, Miss, we do.” She couldn’t see the expression on his face; but from then on he would’ve followed her into the mouth of Hell, woman or not.
The art of command can be analyzed, codified, practiced, honed, freed of beginners’ mistakes and expert’s flaws. It cannot rightly be taught.
“And we do have a ship to save, Mr. Houston. Time for us to disprove Mr. Andrews’ ‘mathematical certainty’ — you and me and my kit.” She picked up the clever little box that could freeze water at a distance, only a short distance, but far enough to staunch even a long gash in a ship’s hull, for long enough that ragged rip could be patched and braced and mended.
Adrianna figured her great-grandfather wouldn’t mind too much, at that.
((And, yes, if I said the name of the ship you might well find it rather familiar… at least on our timeline.))
WPDE. This is so vastly misplaced I won’t even try to explain where it was supposed to go. So much for trying to reply in Jetpack instead of the uncooperative WP browser interface.
According To Hoyt 
¡Qaplah’ Carajo!
(scowl)
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“Intelligence is banned in Great Britain.”
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I don’t believe that’s Keir Starmer. He’d never turn right.
I do believe the collided bullets from Gallipoli. I saw the same thing in a museum display at Gettysburg. Must admit, though, the perpendicular impact at Gallipoli is very impressive. (I guess Americans are just more direct.)
And finally, my hat is off to that amazing quintuple-pun coroner meme. I’ll be seeing that one in my dreams.
… yes, during R.E.M. sleep.
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Snow White’s mom has got it going on
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Oatmeal raisin cookies are horrendous deceptions. I want chocolate chips not raisins, dammit.
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Or at least label them properly! Yes, there are times I want oatmeal-raisin-spice cookies. But not when I’m having “Give me a chocolate chunk cookie Or Else!” day.
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My Doctor told me I should eat more fruit and oatmeal.
Oatmeal rasin cookies is how I responded.
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I like oatmeal, especially the oatmeal cereal (corn flakes, coconut flake) cookies. I like raisins. But I do not like oatmeal raisin, or oatmeal cereal raisin cookies. Now substitute chocolate chips in place of raisins, these I like.
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I’ve never cared for oatmeal (or cereals of any type, hot or cold), and particularly can no longer stand oatmeal after an, unpleasant, experience at SERE school.
Cookies are basically the only form I can stand it. And if it has chocolate chips, CINCHOUSE will likely get those first, so raisins not only “meet” the fruit requirement, but means I have some left for me.
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Give me the Oatmeal ones. I like them. It’s probably some kind of birth defect…
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Dan too.
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Maybe a raised in CT thing? Mind you if Toll house chocolate chip show up I’m not gonna say no… I’m a cookie omnivore.
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I don’t like the raisin type but love the ‘scotch’ type…
https://www.quakeroats.com/cooking-and-recipes/oatmeal-scotchies
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First thing I thought of was ‘oatmeal raisin cookies, but with haggis’ :-D
Yes, I know I’m weird. Deal with it. :-P
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I don’t need the sugar, and $SPOUSE has a good recipe that uses unsweetened applesauce as part of the sweeteners. It works. When I want my chocolate fix, it’s either homebrew cocoa in coffee or straight.
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I like the oatmeal ones, but with chocolate chips, not raisins.
Also they’re better before they’re cooked.
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The Reader deems them passable substitutes for someone (the Reader in this case) in whom chocolate triggers migraines. The closest he gets to a chocolate chip cookie these days is the odor in the house when he makes batches for other people around Christmas.
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Oatmeal raisin cookies are great. Man, I could taste one when I read the meme. And then I was sad, because I had no oatmeal raisin cookie in the house.
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I will take care of those oatmeal raisin cookies for you. You will never have to worry about them again.
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….
Cookies! OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!
…
(grin)
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Aaaand now I have R. E. M. playing in my head. Yes, I’m Gen X.
And the dumpster fire challenge coin. To go with my MHI dumpster fire challenge coin.
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I have my Operation Enduring Cluster(HONK!) coin.
(grin)
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“Nice crop a’ memes ya got there. Be a shame if sumpthin’ wuz ta happen to ’em, wouldn’ it?”
— The Memefia :-D
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Living the dream. Technically, Nightmare on Elm Street is a dream…
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Nightmare on Sesame Street is what I read. Took me a while to read it right…. Sigh.
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Oscar found that discarded kitchen knife set….
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Cookie Monster’s secret life as a ruthless mercenary was exposed…
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Ernie, serial killer.
(Cheerfull Ernie) “I sharpened the axe real good. Goodnight, Bert.”
(Bert, eyes wide open in the dark….)
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🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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That Star Trek viewscreen meme:
“Lock phasers on target. Load photon torpedoes. Destroy that thing while we’ve still got a universe to save!”
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Spock: “Fascinating captain. Sensors detect no sign of intelligent life.”
Checkov, quietly: “And even you wouldn’t hit that…”
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The donk ticket is a Saturday morning cartoon thst no one watches!
Blue Falcon and Gynomutt!
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Re: Mathematicians vs Physicists — works in my career too (cost analysis and estimation). How did I estimate that cost? I made it up. Do you believe it? Okay, we’re good then.
Re: One right after that — at my age it hardly makes any difference.
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“How long do you think it will take to do this programming project?”
How did I guesstimate the time? Yep. Make it up, triple it, divide by 20 (what? Expect to get to work on just the new project? Oh ye little innocent. Bless your heart.) That gives me # of weeks, add outstanding vacation weeks. Check the calendar. Pin that many weeks out. If I’m feeling good about it, only added another month, otherwise add two.
Good news, whenever actually allowed to hold to that date, whatever the project was, was ready for release (which includes having gone to formal testing, dealing with the person writing documentation, and the installation process). Not that any project whatsoever was set to a reasonable deliverable date. Never mind that actually getting done was closer to my *WAG than the “official” date. How does one’s WAG get accurate -ish? Lots and lots of experience. (Luckily a skill I no longer need. I’m done giving programming WAG’s.)
(*) JIC – WAG = “Wild Ass Guess”
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Then there’s the SWAG = “Silly Wild Assed Guess.”
I worked for the Army.
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I’m familiar with it as the “Scientific Wild Ass Guess”. Because Science!
RCPete, retired engineer and no stranger to SWAGs.
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Well there are also the SIIKSWAG – S@ if I know SWAG, or the more polite version DIIKSWAG – Dang/D@ if I know SWAG. I never did work for any armed force service either directly or company contract. Government, through company contracts (feds, county, and city). At least my last job IF there was an estimate, was never held to it. Could give realistic estimates, and admit WAG, accepted, not that the boss said quote it that way (reasons beyond making it “look good”*) and never held to the WAG. Just billed amount quoted when completed. Also why when retired, if boss asked if I’d accept projects at an hourly rate, I said yes, but for hours actually worked, not fixed hours for specific project (I knew how that worked, I’d be working full time for a 6 hour “project”, no, no, no, no, not happening. Never got called. Hmmmm?)
(*) Reasonableness of the request. Who the client was. How often had they called on support questions and quick change requests. Technically there was an hour limit per year on the annual support contract before they were suppose to pay for onsite additional training. Never tracked. Rarely enforced. Which means a lot of “I think 6 hours”, became 2 or 3 hour quote. Then there were a few easy changes that every client would benefit from. Again, hours quoted, were cut from the SWAG. There were more than a few that came under “if they really really want this” quote 4x the SWAG. Essentially that client paid for a major change that other clients eventually benefited from because they wanted, had to have, it “right now”, VS request going on the “Annual Change List”. Of coarse by the time I retired, some of the items on the “Annual Change List” had been there longer than I’d worked there (12 years).
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I have indeed learned to live with a very flexible definition of “Okay.”
Only one meme beaned with the Book of Farces’ Hammer.
You have no idea how many years I thought “Forever in Blue Jeans” was a song about Reverend Luigi.
Annual Group Orgy? That’s okay, my wife handles almost all my social engagements.
Just goes to prove that evil queens are mentally ill. As if we didn’t know that already.
This is also why I didn’t get a degree in Archeology.
Left Brain? Right Brain? Strange, I see something else entirely. :-)
False. There are some women whom if I saw them naked, I’d run screaming in terror long before they got close enough to offer me any fruit.
And here’s my SSN. Have fun dealing with the IRS you fairy.
Go with a wolfman who was asking for my help? Probably. You don’t get many chances for great adventures after turning 65.
Tesla minivan? It had better have a ton of solar panels installed on top. They’ll never find a large enough bank of charging stations.
Cute pussy in a school girl outfit. Too, Many, Manga, and, Anime!
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Way to go Timmy!
Remember the Holodomor. 3 to 4 million dead, slowly, by starvation.
Kamala Harris: Brought to you by the CCP and Islamic Jihad.
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Why does, “Tesla minivan,” cause me to think, ….”and 14 long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse micro-bus?”
(“…better move that microbus behind (handle), he’s hauling dynamite and he can use all the help,he can get.”)
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I remember the lyrics, but I can see why you’d edit them.
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You know, that Michigan judge made an impressive decision.
I’ll be even more impressed when all 26,000 of those names show up as having voted (because Democrats ignore the court order, like they did with student loans) and the judge declares the whole election invalid and forces a do-over.
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And now all we need is a clone in Cobb County GA.
https://headlineusa.com/big-georgia-county-to-start-charging-costs-to-people-who-challenge-the-eligibility-of-voters
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Cobb is West Atlanta. Fulton (of the Water Leak) is East Atlanta.
Billy Sherman should’ve brung a helluva lot more salt.
Have to admire the Brave Sir Timmy one: after all,
He was not at all afraid to spread COVID in nasty ways.
To have his citizens burned out, and their economy broken.
Their stores destroyed and their schools locked out
And their laws s#(#- on and their cops locked up
And their masks enforced and their neighbors snitched
And their prices…
“That’s enough for the present, lads!”
For bold Sir Timmy ran away! He boldly ran away, away!
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Sir Timmy is not the least bit afraid, or hesitant, to impose hardship and torment on other people.
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Who won’t shoot him.
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A new one for the cork board, thank you. (Proper definition of “multitasking.”)
Been busy and not commenting for a few days here – looks like I just made it under the wire for my invite? (I like being invited to events, but don’t expect me to attend them; I have a very poor grasp on things like dates…)
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SFBS
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The Reader thought that Darwin was the lifeguard in the gene pool. Did he not show up?
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The reason why it’s good in stories and not in real-life is that deadly sin of sloth. Stories aggravate it by letting you do it in your imagination and deluding yourself — also, making it more exciting than in real life.
Note that doing lots of stuff does not mean you are not engaging in sloth. Sloth is sorrow at the spiritual good — therefore anything that distracts you from your duties is sloth.
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Oh, that is EXACTLY the right message for axes. Admittedly, I might be biased.
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The right message is “be careful, Eugene.”
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I agree on the intrusive thoughts one, so much….
Great fun here!
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The Snow White Mirror-mirror if the darned thing was being accurate:
“Well, there’s this albino girl over in MediumFarAwayDale that’s so fair skinned she makes both you and the chick cohabiting with those dwarves look like George Hamilton…”
…
But yeah, casting on the Disney “live action” flick is truly mind boggling, even putting aside the disastrous DEI idiocy that’s reportedly doubled the shooting budget so far with reshoots and now CGI rendering everything.
I get signing big names to get a project greenlit, but Gal Gadot is jealous of that plain dumb little park-princess-castmember who can’t keep her mouth shut? Yeah right.
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I speculated that it’s the youth thing. Where the scriptwriters think it’s totally believable that [random guy] would go for a plain-faced teenager over a stunningly gorgeous thirty-year-old…who LOOKS thirty.
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Well, if you had a woman angry enough about growing old — but that would be a take on Snow White, not the original tale.
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There’s a reason why Tchaikovsky named his ballet ‘The Sleeping Princess’ — because the prima donna might not be a beauty, but she can be declared, by fiat, a princess.
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Mirror Universe Disney swapped places.
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The point of divergence between the mirror universe Earth Empire and the Trek UFP was in the mirror one, George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4b, and in the UFP one, he kept it.
Uh-oh.
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Not the Bee – it takes a while, but this is how we eventually win…
https://instapundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IMG_2387-768×1221.jpeg
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re “Make Brisket $1.97/lb Again”, for those needing bar chart ammunition on inflation, see:
https://www.statista.com/chart/31264/change-in-us-consumer-prices-by-expenditure-category/
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And here’s the chart itself:
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OK, trying again,
And here’s the chart itself:
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??? WPDE.
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https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/31264.jpeg
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Those numbers are way low. Cumulative inflation since the Biden* Regime was installed is at least 60% if not more. Some examples:
Every single thing I commonly buy is up 50% – 80%, some have more than doubled. Big Lots and the 99¢ store have gone out of business. How could even the Democrats fuck up the 99¢ store?!
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We’re not quite as bad in Flyover County, Oregon, depending on the item.
List where I can compare (with variations)
1,3: No idea. Don’t buy.
2. Eggs: 18 count at the big independent store: $4.38*. May have been 20cents higher. Free range requirements forced price up, but shortages are over. Maybe.
((*)) For the first box. Additionals $6.78
4. Fred Meyer’s FM-stop gasoline (Kroger) $3.59. Has been $4.59 in the past.
5. 7/16″ OSB, $16.58 currently. Was < $8.00 pre Covidiocy. Peak was approx $50. No takers barring emergencies. 1/2″ BCX plywood $45. Don’t recall past prices.
Canned veggies: Used to be 50 cents, now 89.
Yogurt: Kroger light yogurt was 45 cents/6 ounce. Now yogurt-like Carbmaster is 80/6 ounce.
Some things haven’t moved as much. Storebrand cheese at the independent is now $5.98/2 pound brick. Up $1.10
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Skewing things, stores will sell a common, popular item at a loss, reasonably certain you will not buy just that item.
“Loss Leaders” work. But it’s an art, not science. And it can skew slice-in-time inflation numbers if several stores do “milk” or such. (More commonly, just one brand of moojuice)
And our Dear Leaders keep changing the base for “official” inflation, ever since at least Mister Karter and the Sweathog economy.
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Which is why COLA are jokes. Getting a SS COLA? Medicare will take away whatever raise you are getting, or most of it.
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“No Tax on Tips” was smart.
“No Tax on Social Security” was brilliant.
It is -really- hard to paint Trump as a threat to Seniors pocketbooks when he is saying to take their SS money off the table.
The potential downside is making a group tradionally fearful of tax increases into one more likely to say “why not?”
Also leads to “Well, why not soldiers? Military pensions? Government pay?”
Tell Joe Sixpack that his government tormentors are tax free by law, while -he- is paying for stuff he loathe and paying Bigly, and you -will- trigger the Boog. That is “Sherrif of Nottingham” level stupid.
_I_ would prefer an outright ban on income tax, by Constitutional Amendment. Not just repeal the 16th amendment, but declare Income Tax to be involuntary servitude prohibited in perpetuity.
Failing that, a flat tax on all income, all persons, same-same-same, -no- exceptions, -no- eductions, no credits, no no no.
(smiles and walks away with the arming pins…)
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Agree. 100%
Didn’t say that the elimination of SS taxes was a good thing (for exactly the reasons you state). Just said the is COLA a joke.
Admit Taking SS would help us immensely dropping our taxable income and thus the income *bracket which affects percentage owed. (Oregon does exempt SS and government pensions/PERS. FYI, Those that state the SS paid was already taxed haven’t looked at their pay stubs, or paid attention when they paid taxes. It is not.) I still don’t agree with exempting one category of income from taxes. Would much rather prefer to see either of the two you listed.
One additional note. Eliminate all estate taxes too, state and federal. That is Taxing money already Taxed.
Make governments get rid of programs.
(* These days we do not have enough deductions to come close to the standard deduction, even with a mortgage. Medical deductions help state, but doesn’t come close to touching federal.)
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Failing that, a flat tax on all income, all persons, same-same-same, -no- exceptions, -no- eductions, no credits, no no no.
Personally, I’d rather see an elimination of all income tax, and its replacement with a population tax, i.e. each state would owe the federal government a certain amount of money each year, same amount per capita, “capita” to be determined by what population each state claims on its ten-year census.
With the additional proviso that any federal funding for people-matters be limited by that same census number.
This would at least give states a balanced incentive WRT inflating census numbers.
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I’d note that the population tax is mentioned in the US Constitution as a valid Federal Tax.
Congress never set it up, but it is in the Constitution.
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Fred Meyers (Kroger)
Fuel: $3.59/gal current, down from $4.89/gal, up from $1.98 from 2020 under Trump (Costco runs $0.10 – $0.15/gal less. But 4x fuel points garners $0.80 – $1.00/gal discount at Freds).
Hamburger (10 – 12%): Costco $4.99/# up from 2020 $2.99/# Costco (Freds has it for $3.99/#, in 3# rolls, on sale occasionally).
2# block cheese (Tilamook): $13.99, usually on sale for $10.99. Can get for $6.99 digital coupon up to 5. Up from $5.99 full cost (forget what usual “sale” and digital sales dropped it to).
Whole Milk: $6.09 2-gallons Costco, $3.69/gal Freds (do have $2.59/gal on sale occasionally)
Soda (Pepsi or Coke) don’t ask, it is way up. Get it at Costco unless Freds has it on sale for < $0.50/can. (I don’t drink soda, but hubby and son do.)
What I do know is that Costco is no longer the $100 minimum grocery store, but $200. Freds I can’t get out for under $100 either, closer to $200 even with only shopping steep discounts. Per week.
This is not counting Power/Water, and Natural Gas, cost increases.
We, even on fixed income retirees (the COL SS increases are a joke), can afford this mess (for now). Wasn’t true the last time we faced this.
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“We grew up in an all-print world. We read really fast.”
Yes. And many of us can skim a lot faster than we read.
Really hard to skim video of someone talking at you faster than 1.5x to 2.0x. Therefore, big waste of time if there’s really nothing there.
There’s a reason they invented writing, folks, and inventing video did very little to un-invent the reason…
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I take in information much more effectively by reading it than by hearing it. I can read it myself; I don’t need some dweeb with a grating voice to read it for me.
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And, of course, some of us are visual learners. So you are slowing us down AND giving us less knowledge.
And some of us find having to learn through videos sheer torture.
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Bandwidth limitations mean that video is expensive. If I go over 10Gb/month in primetime, it’s an extra $10/Gb), so there’s already a bias. I have 50G offpeak, but I’d rather read than watch a talking head telling me something. If it’s important, I’ll try to find the transcript.
Not having good hearing makes video without captions even tougher.
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Perhaps the doggedly-literate among us should start developing habits and language of our own…
TL;DW — too long, didn’t watch
“Perhaps you could write a simple executive summary of the HOUR of VIDEO in your link… or send a link to a transcript?”
And speaking as someone who until recently had a blistering-fast DSL link at 0.75 Mb/s (half what it started out being)… yes, the “bandwidth to burn” assumption does indeed get pretty old, awful fast.
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Every time Kamela starts in with that “On day one…” bullshit, a heckler needs to holler “Today is day 1,304!!”
1,303 days overdue and still counting… :-(
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Kammunism!
We’ve tried Marxism all the smart ways, so now let’s try stupid.
If its stupid and it doesn’t work, you didn’t try hard enough.
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“If you’re stupid and you know it, vote for Kams.
If you’re stupid and you know it, vote for Kams.
If you’re stupid and you know it,
Just go ahead and blow it.
If you’re stupid and you know, vote for Kams.”
[Actually, no. If you’re stupid and you know it… STAY HOME!]
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The Dems are staying home for the primary early voting in my parents’ county, so far. Somebody with a sense of irony (or appropriateness) stuck the ballot boxes in the county’s risk management building – with video and in-person monitoring.
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One might get prosecuted for suggesting they are smart enough to take advantage of “Catch-up voting Wednesday”.
(grin)
And right out is introducing them to the idea we added a Leap Day between 4 and 5 November to fix the calendar. So don’t.
(Grin)
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Record it and stick the player under a chair, set to yell the truth when certain words are used. Better yet, stick it under her podium.
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Re: Timmy — doesn’t he look a little like JFK? Does that mean something?
Re: Tesla Minivan — more stylish than the Cybertruck, which looks like it was the result of a junior high metal shop group project. They got a “C.” For Pete’s sake, that horror makes a Pacer look good!
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The cybertruck looks like an origami project gone really wrong.
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Materials science driven design. Once they picked that stainless steel they were stuck with no compound curves/one direction linear bends, so it basically had to be origami-esque.
But I’m seeing them nearly every day in the commute out here, sometimes multiples, so some are selling.
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Uglier than a Delorean.
But just in time for a remake! Great Scott!
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Waiting for the 1.21 gigawatt (hour) battery pack before I order one…
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Egad, I recognize that model of “mobile” home or that set.. having lived in such a thing once upon a time.
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OT and for praying folks, Devin Ericksen’s wife Sara is in the hospital with bleeding in the brain. Looks like cancer came back (per his post on Twitter). He’s being a devastated writer…trying to put the unthinkable in words and words are failing him. Prayers up.
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🙏
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Prayers up.
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Prayer flag raised.
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May the doctors, nurses, specialists and all be blessed with competence and compassion beyond measure. May the family be given the strength to endure what may be and the grace to accept both joys and pain with a calm and enduring heart. May all those involved hold truth and memory in their hearts for what is to come.
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Prayers and purrs
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Ringo / Weber… Laughed out loud for that one.
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Yep:
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No no no, she very clearly said “The first ever Federal Ban on Price GAUGING on food”, so, like, putting little gauges on bananas and other fruit will be illegal now.
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Listen for yourself:
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1824839155467145340
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It’s not ‘the first ever’ — Nixon tried the same thing in 1971. Instead of solving problems it made them far worse. Of course, Kackling Kamela is historically illiterate, to go with every other kind of incompetence.
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No. Yes Nixon put in price controls on price GOUGING. Kamala is putting the first price controls on price GAUGING. (Just because we “know” she meant GOUGING, she said GAUGING. So no gauges on prices. As already pointed out. Gouging OTOH is perfectly legal.)
Yes. As often as I always get called out for my gaffs, *HRKH Kamala gets called out.
(*) Her royal Kackling Highness. FWIW.
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Maybe she meant she was going to make it illegal to construct price gauges out of food? Like, the big signs at gas stations made solely out of cantaloupes would be completely illegal with Federal enforcement if she wins. And those giant signs that say “Big Mac price reduced to $15.99” made out of pickles, rutabagas and passion fruit would be right out.
No prices gauged in food. At last, the long national nightmare would be over.
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😂😂😂
Of coarse my comment was sarcasm (forgot the tag).
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“The horrors persist but so do I” turns out to be an outlandishly effective trigger for a (somewhat precocious) vignette (based on yet another nascent story), so:
“The odd rubber suit, Mr. Houston,” she said, voice somewhat covered by the hubbub of dark, swirling water, “is to keep me a little bit warmer, in all that.” She’d said his name as he had, like the street in Atlanta, not the city in Texas. And she had not, of course, stopped struggling with the stubborn, sticky drysuit, now well settled as far up as her thighs.
“You’ll already know it, Miss, but that water is hardly above freezing. Maybe even a little below, at North Atlantic sea temperatures.” The burly man had a strong accent, and a rough and gravelly but even tone.
Interesting, Adrianna thought. How little his fair-ish speech would seem to fit a brutal black-ganger. But of course, he’d be adept at pitching it to be as expected by who’d-ever be listening to him, by now. Perforce.
He’d dropped all his fitting-in, to her, though. As had she, mostly.
“Water that cold, Miss, as you’d likely know, it does things after only a little while. Your feet, your hands, feel like they’re being squeezed in a vise.” There was no trace of baiting in his voice, little emotion at all.
But there was a something, that’d told her he ought to hold her lifeline.
“Yes, Mr. Houston, in the end it does. No matter all our clever gear and our reasoned plans, sooner or later it does. As if you’re being crushed, not even close to numbly, on and on without any real hurt from it.” She could as well be talking about the weather, or the price of a tin of tea.
And something made Adrianna half-turn, so she could see him face to face, though her half-naked body was mostly hidden by the suit below her waist and her turning-away above it. Still, an alert observer could’ve seen, in the dim light of the electric lamps in this far corner of the coal-bunker, enough to trace her single-mastectomy scar, residue of that grazing X-ray laser hit half a decade ago to her and two centuries ahead to history.
Earnest how where she came from, women were not spared the wounds of war.
And Adrianna smiled wide, softly and warmly and strong, with nothing held back and nought left at all of innocence or indulgence in it.
“And yet, Mr. Houston, we persevere. As and how the work needs doing, we do. Nevertheless and despite it all, still we persevere.” And turned back away, still grinning brightly, to drag the clinging suit over her arms and shoulders.
“Yes, Miss, we do.” She couldn’t see the expression on his face; but from then on he would’ve followed her into the mouth of Hell, woman or not.
The art of command can be analyzed, codified, practiced, honed, freed of beginners’ mistakes and expert’s flaws. It cannot rightly be taught.
“And we do have a ship to save, Mr. Houston. Time for us to disprove Mr. Andrews’ ‘mathematical certainty’ — you and me and my kit.” She picked up the clever little box that could freeze water at a distance, only a short distance, but far enough to staunch even a long gash in a ship’s hull, for long enough that ragged rip could be patched and braced and mended.
Adrianna figured her great-grandfather wouldn’t mind too much, at that.
((And, yes, if I said the name of the ship you might well find it rather familiar… at least on our timeline.))
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This explains everything.
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WPDE. This is so vastly misplaced I won’t even try to explain where it was supposed to go. So much for trying to reply in Jetpack instead of the uncooperative WP browser interface.
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Heads up. My data was affected.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2024/08/17/social-security-hack-national-public-data-confirms/74843810007/
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Our credits are frozen. PIA to unfreeze when we want a loan or new phone. But frozen regardless.
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