Tuesday Open Comments

Let me first say thank you to all y’all people for providing me my healthcare from this day forward.

Super Dave

#1 GJT You’re welcome, oh wait. BTW; Are you officially retired as in not working at the forklift/manlift shop? Oh about the O.C. Pix, dad is doing it right. 😉

Mornin’ Gang!

GJT

My wife got a call from a past client yesterday to list her house. She’s known her for years, we’ve gone out with her and her husband a few times, normal couple. He was very obese, I don’t think abusive but demanding. She’d tell my wife bluntly she couldn’t wait for him to die. Why she stuck around I don’t know.

Well, day before yesterday he did die from congestive heart failure. She donated his body for parts, called my wife, almost as an aside said he’d died and wanted her to sell her house lol. I guess she meant it.

GJT

#2 SD

Yessir, officially retired March of ‘22. Just didn’t have it in me to start over, can’t really do the physical work to go back to mechanicing and I was sick of babysitting at a desk. Happiest I’ve been for many years. Not as productive as you on the farm but I stay busy when I want, don’t when I don’t.

Super Dave

I mentioned that my sister came over yesterday to help with the pond and I happened to have on my overall’s. She said she’d never seen me in overalls and wanted a picture so here is lil’ sister and Dave in the side yard of the farm house. Earlier I had asked her if she remembered the last time I wore overalls before retiring and she said she didn’t know that I’d ever worn them so I told her I had one hand-me-down pair before I started to school and I hated them because they were too hard to get off. My summer uniform of the day was shorts, no shirt or shoes. 😉

Super Dave

GJT

Happiest I’ve been for many years. I stay busy when I want, don’t when I don’t.

I here ya’! I had planned to retire when I hit 66, my normal retirement age but right after I turned 64 a lot of things were changing in my part of the Rocket Ranch and not for the better so one morning after our morning ~~flogging~~ meeting I told one of my work buddies that when I hit 65 I was gone. I retired about a month after turning 65 and it was the best thing I’d done in a log time. I lost a couple hundred bucks in SS but the extra year was well worth it.

Life is Good in my World! 😉

GJT

Great picture Super Dave. My PaPa and my wife’s PaPa both wore overalls every day.

GJT

I hated that I hated work so much over the last eight-ten years, I always loved working and the more hours the better. When I got out of high school, I wanted no part of college, went right to finding a career job. Actually, my SS statement says I been working since I was fourteen.

GJT

And going into the oilfield at the beginning of the boom years, I found more than enough hours to work lol. Mercy!

Super Dave

Here is an Alabama map of interest. Did you know that Alabama was the site of one of the early gold rushes in the United States? Gold was found in Georgia around Dahlonega GA in 1829 and was one of the factors that prompted the Indian Removal Act in 1830. That same year, gold was also discovered in Blue Creek in Tallapoosa County. The map shows the section of Alabama where gold has been found and that includes Chambers County. One of the boom towns that sprang up was Goldville in northern Tallapoosa County. The population of this town was estimated to have reached 5,000, making it one of the largest towns in the state at the time. At the height of the gold rush, the temporary post office in Goldville was said to have handled more mail than New York City! The value of the gold removed from the area around Goldville in today’s dollars is estimated to have been 50 million dollars. With the discovery of gold in California in 1849, the population of Goldville almost vanished overnight.

H/T Historic West Point & the Chattahoochee Valley

FWIW; The State Capitol’s Dome is finished in gold leaf from Dahlonega.

I was going to water the garden, but Junior is out there and I don’t want to spook him.

Super Dave

Biden Makes Things Up To 7th Grandchild By Appointing Her Head Of Ukrainian Shell Company.

U.S. — After years of denying the existence of his 7th grandchild, a 4-year-old girl named Navy, Biden has now announced he will be making it up to the youngster by making her the head of one of his Ukrainian shell companies.

“It was wrong of me to disown my own grandchild,” said Biden after several political consultants held focus groups that determined it was wrong for him to disown his grandchild. “To make up for the lost years, I will be naming little Navy the CEO of a very important little company called Міжнародні пральники, which is in charge of laundering millions in US foreign aid and sending it back to my family! There is no one more qualified to take care of this for me! Atta girl, sweetie!”

Biden was then lured away from the microphone with an ice cream cone by a handful of desperate aides.

Navy will be assuming control of Міжнародні пральники at the end of this week in exchange for $80,000 and a box of Goldfish crackers per month. As a condition for this arrangement, Navy must agree to never admit she’s related to Hunter Biden.

At publishing time, Navy had been let go from her position after accidentally spending 3 million dollars of foreign aid money on a mobile children’s game on her mom’s iPad.

Emphasis mine. 😀

Super Dave

HA! My #11, Міжнародні пральники translates into; International laundromats. 😀

Retirement …

Hubby and I had a discussion yesterday. He’s found a listing for a promising rental property. He asked if I wanted to go take a look at it.

I asked him if he really wants to take on more maintenance and tenant issues. He finally had time to do what he wants- work on his car and this house. Go to car shows. When we sold the big property the relief was palpable. His body can’t crawl under sinks any more. We have a handyman who is happy working part time for us and who is also near retirement age. Hubby wouldn’t want to hand maintenance over to anyone else.

We are holding onto the properties we have. For now. They pay their bills and we are gaining equity as they appreciate in value. We are willing to sell, but the price won’t be cheap.

We are in a good place. No need to add to our stress. We decided not to pursue the lead.

BTW – my weigh-in this morning was quite surprising. I’ve been indulging myself quite a bit lately, and I’d moved the scale upwards a pound or two. Yesterday wasn’t quite as indulgent, and the scale was down almost four pounds this morning. “Yeah, right,” I muttered to myself, and nudged the scale slightly to see what the real reading was.

Same reading. Another nudge.

Same reading.

If I get three readings that match, I call that my official weight. So, I’m officially happy this morning. I have a ways to go to get to where I want my weight to be, but it’s slow going. This is the lowest I’ve been in a while.

And yes, there is something flat underneath the scale. Always has been.

If I used Hubby’s scale, I’d weigh even less. 😉

Super Dave

Paul Reubens, Pee-wee Herman Actor, Dead at 70

The actor passed away on July 30 after a private fight with cancer.

THE FAMILY BRAND ☙ Tuesday, August 1, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS

Today’s column should be exceptionally good, with all of the material provided in yesterday’s news. The snark will practically write itself:

Roundup:

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday, the first of August! We bravely head into the sweaty dog days of summer, when the grass is greener, the bushes are bigger, the butterflies more numerous, and the climate change fanatics are most hysterical. So hang on.

Your vacation-inspired (but truncated) roundup today includes: Devon Archer testified before Congress in the Biden Bribery hearings and despite DOJ threats testified Joe Biden might be the crookedest politician in history, or words to that effect; another senator with a weird medical issue that is very similar to a jab injury; another pro football player with cardiac problems; an update on the first pro football player’s cardiac problem; and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page runs an anti-climate-change op-ed.

News:

Well, Devon Archer, bestie of crackhead First Son, survived being Arkancided and managed to make his testimony yesterday. Instead of pleading the Fifth, he probably lived up to his plea deal and spilled the beans on the most corrupt political family ever. And considering the competition, that’s saying a lot! I don’t know why it was closed door, but maybe that’s the price the Dems demanded in lieu of finding Archer Suddenly & Unexpectedly dead.

… As we work through this convoluted story, and what it means, remember that the democrats (plus Mitt Romney) impeached Trump for just asking Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s involvement in Ukraine. So, they set the standard. The Republicans now have vastly more grounds to bring impeachment.

Archer joined Hunter in the raking in of millions by joining the Burisma Board with Hunter. The Three Musketeers, Hunter, Archer, and Christopher Heinz (stepson of global terrorist and fraudster John Kerry) founded a questionable investment (interpret “investment” as you wish) firm by the name of Rosemont Seneca. Archer survived a conviction for a fraud scheme meant to defraud an indigenous tribe of money. There are rumors that Archer blames Hunter for not protecting him from prosecution in that case.

It sounds like Archer doesn’t like suffering the consequences of his actions. He and Hunter were meant to be best friends. Birds of a feather, etc.,

In 2020, after Judge Abrams (who may have some conflicts of interest) abruptly overruled the jury and sprung Archer, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Abrams, and reinstated Archer’s conviction. Not so fast, Devon. Since 2020, Archer has been fending off the sentence through a series of appeals, with the most recent rejected by the Second Circuit earlier this year. Archer’s lawyer promised a further appeal is in the works.

Last Friday — just one business day before his scheduled Congressional testimony — the Department of Justice sent Archer a highly unusual letter inquiring when he plans to report for prison.

Or, maybe Joe Biden was just reminding Archer that his drawn-out criminal case could wind up going the good way or the bad way. You never know. Something to think about. In any case, Republicans immediately identified the letter as Biden Administration intimidation trying to frustrate Devon’s testimony.

The blowback from that rather obvious and heavy handed attempt to tamper with a witness was huge. So huge, in fact, that the DOJ had to crawdad their efforts back a bit. But I’m sure Archer got the message.

But despite the DOJ’s threatening letter, Archer testified yesterday. According to a written summary released by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, Archer carefully testified that:

— Hunter Biden put Joe Biden on the speakerphone nearly 20 times, while speaking with various sketchy “business associates,” to prove that Hunter had immediate access to his dad whenever necessary.

— “Burisma would have gone out of business sooner if the Biden brand had not been invoked. People would be intimidated to legally mess with Burisma because of the Biden family brand.”

— Joe Biden joined in on various phone conversations with Burisma managers to “sell the brand.”

— Hunter said Che Feng, a PLA-connected Chinese tycoon who helped them secure a multi-million-dollar venture in the communist state, loved Hunter for his “last name” and for “always traveling with handsome godlike Aryan men.”

— Joe Biden attended other business meetings with Hunter in person—in Beijing and in Washington, D.C.—with shady Chinese and Russian businessmen.

— Burisma pressured Hunter to “get help from D.C.” dealing with Ukrainian corruption prosecutor Viktor Shokin.

Mr. C. points out the spin after the testimony is dizzying, and the crawdadding frantic.

Conservative commentators, even restrained ones like George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley, are convinced Archer’s testimony, as noncommittal as it was, substantially moved the investigation forward. In an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox last night, Turley explained the testimony proved Biden was involved with “almost two dozen calls with these corrupt business figures from Ukraine, Russia, and China … the question is what did they get for their money? We have to find the answers… This is shaping up to be one of the greatest corruption scandals in the history of Washington — and that is saying a lot. ”

I recall one of our family’s favorite sayings: “No S**t, Sherlock!” How many bodies will this avalanche bury? I just had a brief discussion with Hubby, and I mentioned that the real wrench in the works will be if/how/when TBO gets dragged into this. We all know Obama is pulling the marionette strings. He hates America and would love to see it destroyed and rebuilt in his image. But he’s still lionized and beloved by a lot of useful idiots.

I think Turley accurately predicted where this goes next. Now that Republicans have a list of figures connected to a Joe Biden “brand call,” lawmakers can start looking for policy changes that benefitted those figures, like Joe’s lobbying for Shokin’s removal. Remember “quid pro quo?” It’s clear the Bidens tried to be careful, but you can’t think of everything.

At some point, Republicans will need to wrestle with whether under the Democrat standard, they have enough to start impeachment. The democrat-controlled Senate may not vote for removal, but that didn’t stop the democrats in their multiple Trump impeachment cases.

Shannon

Sadly, UT refuses to fire Texas-hating chief historian from the TSHA.

Now, from the Suddenly & Unexpectedly Department…it’s sad and frightening that this list just keeps growing and growing…

Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, only 41, had a medical event of “sudden numbness” in her face. She is recovering at home now, but she was rushed to the hospital. Her jab status is unknown, but she was against the mandates. But being in Congress, she was probably forced to get the juice. The official report was that the numbness was due to “swelling of a facial nerve, probably from a post-viral infection”. That’s the official report. Her recovery will take several weeks. For “numbness”.

How many senators is that now with weird disabling health injuries in the last 24 months, out of a total of fifty? And even though they have the best free medical care in the country. (Hint: 8%).

***

Another, another one! Yesterday, super-speedy Denver Broncos receiver K.J. Hamler announced on social media he is temporarily “stepping away” from the team, so he can get some treatment for his sudden and unexpected pericarditis.

Pericarditis! The preferred consequence of the jab in young adult males. Especially, it seems, the healthy, athletic type. He is fully jabbed, so I guess it could have been worse. /sarc off/ He is optimistic about being able to return to the team, but…

But not everyone seems to share Hamler’s optimism. USA Today cryptically reported that “the Broncos are planning to waive Hamler with a non-football illness designation, although the team has a desire to bring him back.”

I am not an expert in sports law, but as far as I can tell, that sentence means the Broncos are terminating Hamler’s contract for a “non-football” injury. In other words, he’s fired. Once he’s healthy enough to play again, any NFL team can claim him for a period of time, and then Hamler will become a free agent.

***

The Buffalo Bills player who collapsed on the field, Damar Hamlin, is returning to practice. Scared, but he’s back.

I don’t doubt he has some worries, considering what he’s been through. Never mind another cardiac incident, even a bad test would probably spell the end of his professional sports career. They won’t take a chance he’ll collapse on the field again.

***

Praying for recovery for all affected.

And now, in some truly surprising news!

The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed yesterday titled, “Climate Change Hasn’t Set the World on Fire.”

The article quickly dismissed another recent corporate media trope, that the number of global wildfires is increasing every year because of climate-change. Apparently, and unsurprisingly, that is 100% not accurate:

It seems that despite the pearl clutching and highway sitting of globalist climate activists, there have been fewer acres burned recently, not more. Even more shocking:

Furthermore, contrary to corporate media’s constant whining, climate policy is NOT the “only way” to reduce fires. Prescribed burning, improved zoning and enhanced land management are much faster, more effective and cheaper solutions for fires than climate policy, explained the authors.

For good measure, the authors worked in the facts there are now more polar bears than ever, and the number and strength of hurricanes has been falling, not rising. Thanks, Science™.

Hubby is off purchasing drywall for Elsa’s room. I had to explain – AGAIN! – why I wanted window screen over Elsa’s ventilation hole. I guess in his head it’s “garage space” and why would he worry about bugs out there?

No, dear, I don’t want bugs just happily flying/creeping/crawling in and out of the area where I’ll be working with food, thank you very much.

Then we go shopping for master bathroom cabinetry. Progress!

#12

Okay, thanks for the interpretation. Makes it even more amusing.

Adee

Good August 1st Hamsters,

Despite this ghastly and dangerous heat, we are now one day closer to the first cool front arriving this far south. Keep thinking of that as we all are dripping wet from just sticking our noses outside, or worse, actually going outside in a dash to the car that is running so the AC is already on duty before you get in. This of course is the reverse of dashing through the cold and snow to get into the car with the heater already on so fingers and toes and noses do not suffer. As we well know if they suffer, everything head to toe suffers within a few minutes.

Weather guessers say we shall go over 100 again today, somewhere around 103.

mharper42

Morning, gang. After 3 days of yard work — mowing and watering — on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — I was exhausted on Monday. Stayed in bed most of the day. So now I want to shake a leg and go to the store and get back on the merry-go-round. But having trouble getting started…

Bonecrusher

Slept a little late this morning. Didn’t get home till after 9pm. We both decided to take today off. I dropped off wife to pick up her car then back home, picked up puppy from the kennel – she lost her mind when she saw me.

Back at home and enjoying being inside out of the heat; really missing the spectacular scenery and weather.

Life is real good.

GJT

Bones, I forgot to mention before you left, I went to Seattle to visit my aunt in the early 90’s. Got to your the Boeing plant, they were just starting the 767 at that time. They cooled the buildings by opening the big doors just so much, operated by temperature controllers, must be nice. Also, I’ve told it before, they had a couple of neat coffee shops called Starbucks. Yeah, could’ve got in on the ground floor of that one but didn’t.

Shannon

From a great essay in the new First Things….

We are already sliding toward a post-political mode of governance in which expert administration replaces democratic contest, and political sovereignty is relocated from representative bodies to a permanent bureaucracy that is largely unaccountable. Common sense is disqualified as a guide to reality, and with this disqualification the political standing of the majority is demoted as well. The new antihumanisms can only accelerate these trends: They serve as apologetics for a further concentration of wealth and power, and the further erosion of the concept of the citizen—by which I mean the wide-awake, imperfect but responsible human being on whom the ideal of self-government rests.

That older ideal has its roots in the long arc of Western civilization. In the Christian centuries, man was conceived to be fallen, yet created in the image of God. You don’t have to be a Christian to see that this doubleness—this awareness of sin and of our orientation toward perfection—can help us to clarify the effects of our current antihumanisms, criticize their presuppositions, and look for an exit from the uncanny new forms of tyranny that are quickly developing.

GJT

#18

Correction, must have been the Boeing 777 according to Wiki.

Adee

Ugh squared: We will have temps to and over 100 pretty much all week, so it is a good time to stay inside in the AC as much as possible. If it is truly necessary to go out, if at all possible make it during the morning before the heat of the day is in full command. Heat like this is sneaky: very sneaky and can pounce to higher temps quickly before you realize it.

I have had several brushes with heat exhaustion over the years at outdoor activities (summer horse shows) and was able to get into the AC and drink cool water in the show office and rest a while. The show office was set up for seating and taking care of overheated folks. A vet was always there for the horses and a nurse for the people. And an ambulance on standby 🙂

GJT

Mom, what is normal?

It’s just a setting on the dryer honey.

The sky was pleasantly ominous this morning, but the clouds out there now are just being mean, teasing me by their presence.

I may hit the bees this evening, after the shadows cool the yard and closer to the bees’ bed time. It looks like they’ve had some babies hatch, as their numbers seem to have grown.

We just got back from shopping for cabinets for the upstairs. We get a landlord discount at a place (now) called Home Outlet. Cabinets (3 kitchen sink bases, one 1″ set of drawers) and two sinks for about $750. We’re going to get some more floor tile to put down as the counter top. We were looking at some other counter options, but after a little discussion, the idea of putting yet one more texture/color change in that bathroom was nixed. There is so much going on in that space now that I’ve taken to calling it “the fun house room”. We’re repainting one “accent wall” to match the other walls. There’s a thing I call the “racing stripe” where I want to do the same, but Hubby wants to keep it. We’ll see. After a while he may get tired of it, too. Sometimes picking my battles involves keeping my mouth shut and waiting until he realizes I’m right.

Texpat

Tedtam @ 8:42 AM

There is zero doubt Senator Katie Britt is “not just identifying as female, but an actual woman”, but a very cute, attractive one at that. She is further proof conservative women are far better looking than their Leftist counterparts.

No winking or innocent flirting, Super Dave, since her husband looks to be about 6’7″ and 270 lbs of solid muscle.

There have any number of reports of Bell’s Palsy from around the world attributed to “mRNA vaxx” side effects. I’m hoping this isn’t Ms. Britt’s problem and that she gets well.

From Childers’ column:

The first-term senator said Baptist Medical Center doctors determined her symptoms were “a result of swelling of a facial nerve, most likely caused by a post-viral infection.” Uh huh. “Most likely.” Of course, there are other possibilities.

Britt is the first female Senator from Alabama, and the youngest female Republican in Senate history. And not just identifying as female, but an actual woman. “My condition is not life-threatening, and recovery could take several weeks,” Britt explained in a statement.

Recovery could take several weeks. For “numbness.” Maybe she was dehydrated?

How many senators is that now with weird disabling health injuries in the last 24 months, out of a total of fifty? And even though they have the best free medical care in the country. (Hint: 8%).*

*Anybody understand what he is talking about here ? Alabama has 35 senators and the US has 100 senators. Eight percent of what ?

Texpat

I’m not 25 years old with a pro athletic career. I was just hospitalized with a somewhat mysterious and unexplained bout of pericarditis. I am really furious for this young man and hope he is able to overcome this.

From Childers C&C bad sports news department:

Another, another one! Yesterday, super-speedy Denver Broncos receiver K.J. Hamler announced on social media he is temporarily “stepping away” from the team, so he can get some treatment for his sudden and unexpected pericarditis.

sadly,

But not everyone seems to share Hamler’s optimism. USA Today cryptically reported that “the Broncos are planning to waive Hamler with a non-football illness designation, although the team has a desire to bring him back.”

I am not an expert in sports law, but as far as I can tell, that sentence means the Broncos are terminating Hamler’s contract for a “non-football” injury. In other words, he’s fired. Once he’s healthy enough to play again, any NFL team can claim him for a period of time, and then Hamler will become a free agent.

Texpat

The governor of New Jersey, who somehow swindled his way through Goldman Sachs before they found him out, left a few days ago to vacation at his villa in Italy or somewhere. He left the Lt. Governor to serve as governor while he’s gone. The day after “Half in the Bag Phil Murphy” left town, Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver entered the hospital and died the next day. It’s not known at this time when “Pickled by Lunch Phil” will return to resume his duties.

Texpat

Tedtam @ 12:06 PM

We’ll see. After a while he may get tired of it, too. Sometimes picking my battles involves keeping my mouth shut and waiting until he realizes I’m right.

I usually have to wait until the logic and reason I planted in her mind a few weeks or months before bubbles back up in her mind as “Her Idea”. It almost always works.

Texpat

It is weird is all I’ve got to say.

(Bold emphasis in the original)

Breitbart Business Digest: Goldilocks Has Arrived in Texas

The Contradictions of 2023 Capitalism

Marxists used to insist that the “internal contradictions of capitalism” would inevitably lead to collapse and the rise of socialism. Now markets are convinced that the contradictions of our current economic situation will bring about a “soft landing.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas on Monday released its monthly Texas Manufacturing Output Survey. It provided a great illustration of the contradictory currents running through our economy at the midway point of 2023.

The general business activity index came in at -20.0, the fifteenth straight negative score. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, held “fairly steady” at -4.8. That’s a reading indicative of a mild contraction in output. The new orders index, a critical metric of demand, stumbled down to -18.1 and has been in negative territory for over a year.

The capacity utilization gauge improved but remained negative at -.24. The shipments index did the same, registering -2.2. Capital expenditures came in -2.4, with the Dallas Fed saying the index has “continued to bounce around in the same low or slightly negative range since February.”

Texpat

Now the good news !

This fall, the Supreme Court will hear several cases affording promising opportunities to rein in the federal administrative state. The court has agreed to decide cases that challenge the practice of federal courts showing judicial deference to agency interpretations of the laws they are charged with enforcing as well as the constitutionality of an agency funding scheme that’s free from the congressional appropriations process and regular congressional oversight.

The court also has agreed to hear a case that may restore one of the greatest innovations of free people—the jury trial—to a whole class of civil cases currently prosecuted by administrative agencies and presided over solely by judges employed by those agencies. The potential of SEC v. Jarkesy to instate the right to a jury trial in administrative civil cases could make it one of the most consequential cases of the upcoming term.

If SCOTUS rules as expected, these cases will have earth-shaking impact on the way the federal bureaucracy functions and will do more to shrink the powers of the federal government.

This would be overturning the notorious “Chevron Doctrine” (Chevron Deference) used as a shield by the Deep State to wreak havoc on American lives and businesses for the last 39 years. Congress has had opportunity after opportunity to repair this damage and they have refused to do it. Once again, the branch of government meant by the Founders to be the most dominant and strong, the legislative, has abdicated its responsibilities and left the most important issues to be resolved by the judiciary, the branch intended to be the weakest.

Chevron has been used to justify the amount of water used by your toilets, the vehicle fuel mileage standards, emission control systems, washing machine & dryer regulations, the continued use of gas stoves and ovens…ad infinitum.

#28 Texpat, there you go again… getting our hopes up that decades of gov’t over-reach MIGHT be ruled against

Texpat

29 bsue

I won’t predict the end of government overreach, but the correct decision on the Chevron precedent and closing down the administrative judges/courts takes away the biggest, most powerful weapons they have.

The Left will never stop trying to overreach, ever. They’ve discovered new ways via COVID to terrify people into submission.

Shannon

.

Also from my # 19:

Following the publication of Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler in 2009, both the Obama White House and the government of David Cameron in the UK immediately established “behavioral insight” teams. Such units are currently operating in the European Commission, the United Nations, the WHO, and, by Thaler’s reckoning, about four hundred other entities in government and the NGO world, as well as in countless private corporations. It would be hard to overstate the degree to which this approach has been institutionalized.

The innovation achieved here, at scale, is in the way government conceives of its subjects: not as citizens whose considered consent must be secured, but as particles to be steered through a science of behavior management that relies on their pre-reflective biases.

GJT

After a few weeks of arguing and demanding the gutters on our new front porch just got redone to our satisfaction. There was one section where the downspout angled down in mid air at about 45 degrees and just looked stupid as you could not imagine, finally got them to see it our way, did have to pay an extra hunnerd dollars for materials but much less than what they said originally. I hate gutters but these look really good.

Shannon

The porch from hell!

#28 Texpat

I had actually bookmarked that story for a future OC thread.

Ah, well. I shall search for something else.

Texpat: re picking battles

I thought we were heading towards a divorce level disagreement years ago. Hubby wanted to retire to our property on the river, and I vehemently opposed it.

I figgered why start a war now? We could always have it out when the time came. We rented and maintained that property for years, and one day Hubby up and decides he’d rather die in the Dome than down at the river, with the constant maintenance issues down there.

I was very, very much relieved. Even more so when we sold the property.

If I was smart, I’d set up a solar oven in the back yard and cook out there.

But that means I’d have to walk out there.

I’d wear out my flame proof suit.

Texpat

The cases described in my #28 won’t have the broader public impact of overturning Roe v Wade and the Affirmative Action ruling, but the effect will be just as tremendous throughout the political left, the federal bureaucracy, the NGO industry, the related legal posse, the huge ecological money-sucking network and all their affiliated hangers-on, lackeys and sycophants.

There will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of the teeth.

Shannon

Tedtam

You wouldn’t have lasted a month down there.

The mosquitos would have sucked you dry.

Texpat

If you haven’t seen this…

James O’Keefe’s former company, Project Veritas, has finally released the audio of Joe Biden’s daughter calling them and demanding her diary and personal possessions be returned.

Texpat

An old friend of mine, late of this world, told me the story of getting his first job as an asst. ranch manager straight out of Texas A&M back in the 1950s. It was a huge, old historic cattle ranch down on the coast. The 3rd or 4th generation heirs all lived in River Oaks and the family estate had a big office in the elegant, old Niels Esperson building in downtown Houston.

When he and his young wife arrived down there, they found all the buildings were not as old they expected. In fact, the original Victorian home, bunkhouses, barns and sheds had all eventually collapsed due to a local infestation of aggressive termites. Subsequent construction didn’t last either so everything was made out of concrete and metals. He said it was weird as hell and his wife almost left him over it. He finally got a job north of Houston running a ranch near Tomball and saved his marriage.

Texpat

Hannah Nightingale at Post Millenial broke this story..

A female staff member of Barack Obama has been revealed to be the second person with chef Tafari Campbell when he drowned while paddle boarding in Edgartown’s Great Pond near the former president’s Martha Vineyard estate last month.

The woman, who had been with Campbell on a separate board, desperately tried to reach Campbell after he fell in the water but was forced to return to the shore to call for help, according to the Daily Mail.

Sources told the outlet that it was a Secret Service agent who then called emergency services from the Edgartown estate to report the incident.

The witness spoke with investigators on shore and was lucid and clear, and showed no signs of intoxication, insiders told the outlet.

GJT

#33

The porch from hell!

Ha! Ain’t that the truth. Through it all, though things took a different route than we intended, it ended up beautiful and I am very confident in its base structure. All that’s left is staining the deck boards, eventually we will end up agreeing on which flavor. Started it one year ago this month lol.

Shannon

Oh, no !!!!!!!!

It still isn’t finished !!

Hamsters invited for the official christening upon the arrival of the first cool front.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

Lots of vagueness about the paddle boarding chef who was allegedly writing a tell all book about the Kenyan family.

And then there were some recent photos released of the Kenyan playing golf with bandaged fingers and a black eye

will bill jelly roll II barr be called in to rule the death a suicide?

it’s amazing how many people end up dead or suicided when cavorting and/or hobnobbing with prominent totalitariancrats.

And the details usually don’t add up, are very vague or just swept under the rug like a bag of coke left in the White House.

Shannon

No, wait….

🙂

GJT

Only staining, not sure when that will happen. We love it! I put two 54” ceiling fans up, they put out a lot of air and actually make it bearable in the evenings.

GJT

Astros traded to get Verlander back! I had no idea.

Thanx for the head’s up GJT – now that we look (the sports-cast hasn’t come on the news yet) it seems they traded 3 prospects (never heard the names before, anyway)…

Texpat

44 GJT

I heard him briefly interviewed yesterday and the host said there was trade in the works. Verlander played innocent, but I think he knew because he sounded too happy.

That’s what I took from it anyway.

#35 Shannon

You wouldn’t have lasted a month down there.

The mosquitos would have sucked you dry.

That’s reason #1. Reason #2 is the bionic spiders that inhabit that area. I remember way back when I was merely dating Hubby, I was going to do MIL a favor and clean her 24 patio doors. There was a jungle of spider webs on the backside of the house. I grabbed a hefty branch and swung hard to try to knock them all down.

That sucker BOUNCED BACK! With force. I decided that those glass doors would just have to survive with a coat of river film on them.

I took another swipe at the bees. There were more buzzing around afterward than I expected, so I figger it’ll take more than a few more hose trips to take ’em down.

I did that after I finished my treadmill time. Walking outside after that was quite an event. Five in the evening and it still felt like an oven outside.

The cold shower felt incredible. Now, on to dinner.

GJT

Verlander-

I can’t quote details but they got him much cheaper than if they’d given him his payday before the season. Mets eating most of his salary, plus, somehow, it’s easier on the Astros’ luxury tax (or whatever they call it) numbers.

Texpat

With some exceptions, I think most players not born in the area are plenty glad to leave NYC. The local sports media, and the public for that matter, are absolutely brutal to their local players. If you hit 50 homers last year but only 41 this year, you’re a loser and a bum. Fire him, trade him…

Shannon

I have my thermostat set on 78°. It is cycling, but not as often as usual.

At 103°, it is 25 degrees hotter outside.

Shannon

It’s set at 74 at bedtime. Whether it runs all night or not.

(But it doesn’t.)

Texpat

For the historical record, this story is showing up frequently.

It has been revealed that the Biden administration is refusing to provide funds for hunting and archery courses offered at elementary and secondary schools across the nation.

The federal government claimed it was simply abiding by the recently passed Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to add the use and training of dangerous weapons to the list of activities and programs ineligible for funding.

The first bill, the Education and Secondary Education Act of 1965 EASA, was originally legislation to prevent federal funding of sex ed and contraceptives. In 2021, Marco Rubio offers a bill, Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, to have a federal building named after some guy in Florida. No problem.

After the shooting massacres in Buffalo and the Uvalde, the House Dems went crazy and decided to amend Rubio’s bill after it passed. (I’m not sure how or why). Senators objected and it died.

This is the Wikipedia version:

On May 24, 2022, Senator Kyrsten Sinema met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Whip John Thune for advice on which Republican senators would be willing to negotiate a gun control bill. They directed her to Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis. Thirty minutes later, Senator Chris Murphy texted Sinema to join the negotiation, as Murphy had been one of the Senate’s most prominent gun control advocates since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in his state in 2012. Cornyn, Murphy, Sinema, and Tillis began negotiations the next day.

McConnell attributed Republican support of negotiations to a willingness of Democrats to avoid more controversial gun control measures and to include Republican-backed measures such as school safety and mental health support. McConnell supported the negotiations, as did Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, with both Senate leaders pursuing a hands-off strategy of trusting their respective senators to reach a deal that would be agreeable with the party. Senator Susan Collins proposed a criminal statute against straw purchases that was included in the final bill. The National Rifle Association was also involved in negotiations, though it opposed the final bill.

On June 12, a group of 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans came to an agreement on a framework outlining the provisions of the bill. Provisions regarding red flag laws and the boyfriend loophole were contentious during Senate negotiations, and Cornyn walked out during talks on June 16. The text of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was released on June 21.

John Cornyn was booed loudly later that summer and eventually censured at the Republican Party of Texas convention.

Almost 2 million primary and secondary students across America will lose funding now for their firearm and archery training courses because John Cornyn is a weak, spineless, lily-livered bastard.

GJT

Verlander is old enough and been around long enough to understand the pitfalls of the NYC fan base/media, taxes and all the rest. It’s all about bragging rights.

I’m almost through the TV series “Scarecrow and Mrs. King”. I am really enjoying it. I’ve always liked Boxleitner and Kate Jackson, and the show is light enough that I don’t feel my evening is darkened by a heavy show.

Hubby has never seen it, as his childhood was deprived of much of the usual TV fodder that most kids would’ve been exposed to. He didn’t even know who the Brady Bunch was. I’ve had to explain a lot of cultural stuff to him over the years. He was more likely to be working on his parents’ apartment, or on his car, or on a trip somewhere. They’d rather get in a car and drive than sit and watch TV.

I’m wondering why Kate made so few appearances in these last shows. I think I’m within the last few episodes, and the last 3 or 4 has her making cameo appearances. I guess it gives me something to go look up.

Speaking of old TV shows, I wonder what kids today would make of these shows. Cassette tapes, pay phones everywhere, and when they finally introduced car phones, they were of the brick variety…

Ah, Kate discovered she had breast cancer.

Shannon

Damn I must getting up there.

Besides re-runs of Amos and Andy, my first sitcoms had to have been The Danny Thomas Show, Blondie, I Love Lucy, Dennis the Menace, Donna Reed (woof), Burns and Allen, Father Knows Best, Topper, Hazel

I thought I heard thunder and got all excited. I went to the backyard to take a gander at the sky. Nope, no clouds that were thunder worthy, so I guess it was a plane from the airport.

But I did see Junior taking his nighttime stroll in the backyard, so that made me happy.

Adee

Gave up on going anyplace farther than the garage today, too darned hot and dangerously so. More of the same heat tomorrow, except we’re planning on lunch out at a local place to be decided on.

Thoughts of which is worse to contend with: too hot or too cold weather. Well one can reduce garments to the minimum and stay in the house when heat is prowling outside. Or when it’s cold lurking about you can always keep putting on more clothes to warm yourself. Staying in a comfortable house is of course ideal.

Super Dave

Busy day for me I was finally clearing up the storm damage from the Bear Creek Trail and when I headed to the house, I’d not seen the wife all day and as I was heading up the Whispering Pines trail I met her coming head-on from the house. The trail goes between planted pines and is only wide enough for one Mule at a time but where we met there’s a dogleg over to another row so my wife just pulled in between a couple of pines and squeezed through behind her. Who’d a thought we’d have a traffic jam out here in the sticks? 😉

I’d’a never made it as a pioneer.

Super Dave

No winking or innocent flirting, Super Dave, since her husband looks to be about 6’7″ and 270 lbs of solid muscle.

I wouldn’t even think of it. 😀

From a tweet from Johnathan Turley:

Special Counsel Jack Smith just issued the first criminal indictment of alleged disinformation in my view. If you take a red pen to all of the material presumptively protected by the First Amendment, you can reduce much of the indictment to haiku…

Super Dave

#51 Texpat thanks for that update. NRA’s Eddie Eagle is the best elementary and preschool class on firearm safety and won awards in the past but now it’s bee banned in a lot of schools because of, well you know,….The NRA!!!

Any notation of the NRA spends the nut jobs screaming and running away in fear.

Super Dave

I’ll leave y’all with this nice 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. Man they did know how to make automobiles in the 60’s. 😉

School Reports is one of my FDing Youtube channels. Part of the fun of watching him is his “dad shirts”.

Tedtam – I’m just totally awed by his having FD’ed enough to have the filing system he has, so that he knows what he has, where it is, and when it was done… I have a notebook that has the times and weights but I never thought to start putting WHAT – guess I need to go back and write down the info from the bags and get somewhat more organized 😉

I’m trying out a numbering system, but not nearly as complicated as his. #1=raw meats, #2=cooked meats, etc. When I start getting multiple tubs that are going to be stacked, it’ll be tub 1A, 1B, etc. I’m trying to keep all of my similar meats, soups, etc., together. All of the shelves and tubs’ll be labeled.

Because Hubby would never keep up with a list like SR has, and I don’t have the patience to keep that close a tab on my inventory. I will say, moving all of my jars has made me realize how much I’ve done so far. I have a lot of chicken curry, which is a soup/stew that we like, but it looks like canning breaks it down. From now on, it’s gonna get freeze dried.

Mmmmm chicken curry… (is it deja vu all over again or have we had this conversation before????) My 2nd mother-in-law made some wonderful chicken curry… Can you share your recipe????

I’ll have to go find the book I got it from. I am so not motivated to get up right now, but I’ll try to remember tomorrow. I really need to do Latin before I nod off.

Thanks – no rush at all…. I’m up to my ears in roasted pork loin, with taters and carrots at the moment 😉 (and I have my spare trays in the freezer but I’ll be hanged if I can remember what’s in them, aside from hashbrown patties… Prolly more of the pork loin)

I’m hoping I can get Elsa going again in a day or so. We did a lot of looking at measurements, door clearance, draining tube options, etc. Handyman will be doing drywall tomorrow. She’ll have a screened ventilation door so she can blow all of her hot air into the garage, and Hubby’s gonna put the pump outside that wall as well.

I’ll also have vent from the a/c handler, or I can just open the door to the house. I shouldn’t get any more high temp warnings once things are all done.

Hubby’s gonna put a slide out or flip up shelf, or maybe just a drawer on which I can put a board to make a flat space under Elsa for me. That way, when I need to pull out the shelves, I will have a place on which I can rest the shelf assembly while I reach behind and unhook the harness. I also asked for, and will be getting, a shelf above Elsa. I don’t like wasted space, so to avoid the void, the men are going to give me an open shelf. I can put extra supplies up there: mylar bags, jars, lids, and the like.

Sounds good – just make sure it’s not deep enough to trap the heat…

mharper42