Weekend Open Comments

Lost Maples is one of my wife’s favorites places. She discovered it by accident on one of her Solo Road Trips she started after she sold her insurance agency. I had to explain to her how they were swept down to Texas during the Ice Age and somehow survived.

It’s the Weekend!

Mornin’ Gang

bsue54

Back in the dark ages, when I lived in Bandera County, we used to go up to Lost Maples semi-frequently and it was amazing… and that was all decked out in regular colors because I never made it there when the fall colors were showing.

I want to thank Texpat for putting up all of this week’s posts. Every time I went in, he was already at work.

I’ve always wanted to see Lost Maples. Sounds like a good road trip. Maybe I should talk to Hubby…or maybe my sisters. An away weekend with them has been a long time coming.

Texpat

I don’t know what happened here but it is clearly a big failure on the part of the Texas Attorney General’s office.

One of the ways that states have successfully fought back against big banks and other firms blacklisting gun industry businesses is with Firearms Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) laws. If a lender — say, for instance, Bank of America, Citibank, or JP Morgan Chase — refuses to do business or calls the loan of a company that makes, distributes or sells guns because they’re involved in the firearms business, that lender is no longer eligible to do business with the state.

This was all a result of the Obama era Operation Choke Point effort to starve the gun industry of the services like banking, insurance, and credit card processing it needs to operate.

and now,

One of the companies that says it’s been the target of exactly this kind of anti-gun discrimination is Ruger. According to an article at The Texan, Ruger was told by Wells Fargo that they would no longer be extending working capital credit to the firearm manufacturer despite being a highly profitable, publicly traded business with lots of cash and zero debt.

(The Texan news site article linked in this column is in front of their strict paywall.)

plus this,

As a result of Paxton’s refusal to find Wells Fargo in violation of the law, Ruger sent a letter to Texas lawmakers last month, in effect saying WTF and requesting that the legislature “exercise its oversight authority and investigate whether the Attorney General’s office has appropriately applied” the FIND law. You can read the full letter here.

The AG’s office needs to remedy this mess immediately.

DISASTER CONCERN ☙ Saturday, September 30, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS

Good morning, C&Cers, and welcome to the Weekend Edition! Your jam-packed roundup this morning includes: barely functioning Senator Dianne Feinstein takes a dirt nap, but who will she vote for next year?; signs of life in House Republicans as Ukraine funding falls out of the budget; squad member confounds CNN’s Jake Tapper by insisting that the U.S. border is totally secure; plaintive post by multiple jabber draws scorn and criticism on lefty bulletin board; Putin opens Russia’s border to draft-dodging Ukrainians; Biblical imagery of flash floods in New York City; Biden impeachment inquiry hearing updates; Kennedy throws political bomb teasing independent run; Loudon school superintendent criminally convicted; appellate court upholds two more state bans on sterilization of children for “gender”; and a fabulous idea for a badly-needed translation app.

News:

The column begins with the usual delightful snark reporting on Feinstein’s passing, then quickly goes into the political jockeying for the replacement:

The most popular possibilities include disgraced Representative Adam “Shifty” Schiff (D-Ca.), who has worn out his welcome on that his of Congress and has started shiftily sidling toward the Senate. A more creative theory involves Vice President Kamala “He Haw” Harris resigning to take Feinstein’s now-vacant Senate seat, Biden appointing Gavin Newsom as Kamala’s replacement as V.P., and then Biden stepping down to allow Newsom to become the Resident. Whereupon, if Newsom were certifiably insane, he could then re-appoint Harris as VP.

And Bob’s your uncle, all lefty problems solved!

Well, that would be one solution. And since Newsom has designated melanin over qualifications for the replacement, Harris would be one candidate among several being discussed.

Whichever, Newsom finds himself under the proverbial gun to act fast, since the Senate’s majority hangs on a razor’s edge and could conceivably pass a hated Republican budget if Feinstein’s seat stays open for too long.

We can’t have the Senate doing its job, after all.

Skipping Ukraine (again), and on to border issues:

And speaking of woke Representatives, in a CNN interview this week Ayanna Pressley insisted to an increasingly incredulous Jake Tapper that the U.S. “border is secure.” Pressley is more concerned about paying illegal migrants to cross the border.

You have got to see this clip to believe it. The blatant lie is mind blowing.

Give it to Tapper, he pushed the issue:

TAPPER: I’m not disagreeing with anything you’re saying except for the idea that the border is secure. I mean, if you have people crossing the border, it is by definition not secure. An argument worth considering is that because our border is so porous, millions of people make this unsafe journey … because the border is not secure. It just seems like such a refusal to acknowledge reality to say the border is secure when we know that millions of people are crossing the border every year.

Duh.

Texpat

Here is another shot of the Lost Maples at Vanderpool.

This other photo is also pretty cool from an elevated distant perspective.

Regarding the flooding in the NY area, a humorous story emerged about a sea lion that escaped from its zoo enclosure:

Don’t worry about her, the adventurous sea lion swam back into her enclosure after taking a little tour of the swampy surrounding area. She got scared straight. After getting a look at the rest of the City, she felt safer back at home.

/snuffle snort

Re: Impeachment hearings

I won’t bore you with the details of the democrats’ comedic shenanigans and the Republicans’ short opening presentation of evidence. It was more interesting to watch the narrative shifting in real time. Instead of parroting the original mantra of “no evidence,” NPR has moved on to Adjective City, now claiming Republicans haven’t presented “clear evidence” of bribery, or “impeachable evidence” of bribery, or “concrete evidence” of bribery.

In other words, they are admitting there’s evidence.

And the R’s continue seeking more evidence. There’s still a mountain of emails and documents suitable for slogging through. What else will they find?

NPR didn’t quote Committee Chairman James Comer’s cogent summary:

“We have established in the first phase of this investigation where this money has come from: Ukraine, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, it didn’t come from selling anything legitimate…it was funneled through shell companies and third parties to hide the Biden’s fingerprints. This deserves investigation, this deserves accountability, the American people expect this Committee to investigate public corruption…the witnesses today have all identified the evidence the Committee has uncovered as deserving further inquiry. And that is what this Committee will do, no matter where the evidence leads.”

It is a well-established legal principle that evidence of an attempt to conceal something is also evidence of consciousness of guilt. So.

The committee provided evidence of over 20 shell companies receiving beaucoup amounts of money from our enemy countries, and also Biden’s direct participation in such schemes.

Under any standard, that is evidence. It’s a LOT of evidence. And this is only the beginning. Cue President Newsom, I mean Governor Newsom, to the rescue. The script writes itself: Now that Biden is no longer president, what’s the point?

Childers opines on the looming 3rd party run of RFK, which I mentioned yesterday and Childers, I, and news media all opine that this is disastrous for Biden. Like he needed any help being a loser.

On to the next topic: Loudon county illegalities

One of incoming Virginia Governor Glenn Younkin’s first official acts was to impanel a grand jury to review the various crimes committed by the disgraced Loudon County school board and its cohort of insectile officials, which together infamously shielded a serial-rapist student because he was “gender binary.”

As a result of the grand jury’s work, Virginia’s attorney general has now convicted the former Loudon County superintendent Scott Ziegler of misdemeanor retaliation, for firing a teacher who’d complained about being sexually assaulted by a “special needs” student. The teacher, Erin Brooks, unsuccessfully reported to uncaring officials that the student “inappropriately touched” her and her teaching assistant up to forty times a day. So of course, Superintendent Ziegler promptly non-renewed Ms. Brooks’ contract.

So much for “believe the woman,” the most grotesque of all the democrats’ fake virtue-signaling mantras.

Even better, Ms. Brooks is now suing Superintendent Ziegler for a million dollars in damages, and his new criminal conviction will be terrific evidence for her case. Plus, Ziegler’s career as a superintendent is now effectively over.

Anyway, it’s looking more and more like the woke Loudon County school apparatus is hopelessly compromised by deviants and perverts.

And the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals injected some sanity into the tranny political mess:

Thursday, in a 2-1 vote, the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a legal challenge from transgender families and allies who argued that the new Tennessee and Kentucky bans “discriminated on the basis of sex.” But the 6th Circuit panel agreed with supporters of sterilization prohibitions and genital mutilation bans, who successfully argued the treatments are unproven and risk permanently harming kids.

According to the Sixth Circuit’s written decision, the plaintiffs failed to prove that transgenderism is an “immutable characteristic” or even describes any “discrete group” of people:

To establish a new classification, plaintiffs must show that transgender individuals “exhibit obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics that define them as a discrete group.” Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U.S. 587, 602 (1987). It is difficult to see, at least at this stage of the case, how transgender identity fits that description. Unlike existing suspect classes, transgender identity is not “definitively ascertainable at the moment of birth.” Ondo at 609. It is not necessarily immutable, as the stories of “detransitioners” indicate and as plaintiffs do not dispute. See Detransitioners’ Amicus Brief. Instead of defining a “discrete group,” Bowen at 602, “transgender” can describe “a huge variety of gender identities and expressions,” 2022 WPATH Guidelines.

This fantastic ruling was the second in a row by a federal appeals court, after another 11th Circuit ruling recently revived a similar Alabama law, overruling the lower court. The two appeals court decisions make it very likely that the Supreme Court will agree, if the issue ever gets that far due to a split in circuits.

Matt Walsh has a very good argument against this “they’re all gonna dieeeeee” arguments by the gender mutilation forces, to wit: If not providing “treatments” that destroy the body’s natural functions will result in suicide and mental health issues, why haven’t we seen a string of dead bodies over the past many, many years when it was not considered at all?

Nope, no streets full of dead kids slitting their wrists because they were gender confused. Most of those kids either escape their confusing environments, or grow out of that phase. There are, however, a lot of folks with “gender affirming” remorse.

Texpat

I sure would like to know if this is true.

Garcia comments on the lawsuit filed to remove Lina Hidalgo from the County Judge position.

Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia released a statement regarding the lawsuit.

“Another dumb political stunt by election-denying Harris County MAGA extremists. Legally this has a less than zero chance of success starting with the fact that the petitioners cite a Texas Government Code Section that does not exist. If they want to be taken the least bit seriously, they should also try spelling the word “Judge” correctly in the opening of the filing. This nonserious filing is a waste of taxpayers’ time and money and we look forward to it being thrown out immediately,” Garcia said.

I guess I need to get off my butt and do stuff now. Coffee time is over.

Texpat

10 Tedtam

“transgender” can describe “a huge variety of gender identities and expressions,” 2022 WPATH Guidelines.

I very much enjoyed this citation of the Sixth Circuit judges in their opinion. They have used a quote from the materials of World Professional Association for Transgender Health to buttress their ruling against a bunch of tranny activists. This is the largest, well-funded organization promoting the evil mental and physical destruction of children everywhere via surgeries and drastic drug treatments.

Turn their own fraudulent tools against them.

Texpat

You have to look at these photos.

I have a great affection for big sky West Texas and the first time, many years ago, I drove out to Abilene on the way to Odessa and was confronted with a huge horizon of windmills, I wanted to scream bloody murder. Ted Kennedy successfully fought windmill farms off the coast of Massachusetts for decades, but the bastards can ruin the Texas skyline with these ugly contraptions.

Industry ~~executives~~ hustlers were warned and interrogated about this problem and yet it didn’t slow anything down.

About forty miles west of Abilene on Interstate 20, Sweetwater has unwittingly become home to what is possibly the world’s largest collection of unwanted wind turbine blades. When forklifts deposited the first of these in a field behind the apartment complex where Pamala Meyer lives, on the west side of town, in 2017, she wasn’t initially bothered. But then the blades—between 150 and 200 feet in length and mostly made of composite materials such as fiberglass with a binding resin—kept coming. Each was cut into thirds, with each segment longer than a school bus. Thousands arrived over several years, eventually blanketing more than thirty acres, in stacks rising as high as basketball backboards. Every few dozen feet, a break among the stacks leads into an industrial hedge maze.

“It’s just a hazard all the way around,” Meyer said. She worries about neighborhood children exploring the unfenced piles and says that stagnant pools of water inside the blades breed swarms of mosquitos. Matt Jackson, who works in a nearby warehouse, has other concerns. The piles create shaded nooks and crannies, perfect for Sweetwater’s unofficial mascot. “It’s just a big rattlesnake farm,” he said.

General Electric paid this company, Global Fiberglass Solutions (GFS), over 16 million dollars to dispose and recycle these blades. They didn’t do it. GFS just piled them up on rented land, stole the money and then filed for bankruptcy. GE and a bunch of other outfits have filed suit against them.

We wouldn’t be talking about this and power outages in Texas if these colossal blunders had never been installed in the first place.

Another thing, if ERCOT was going to insist on these wind farms all over Texas then they should be responsible for the oversight and regulation of all the crap that goes along with it – like millions of pieces of fiberglass blades lying around the state creating a public menace. Once again, the State of Texas, its executive branch and Legislature have failed the people of Texas.

GJT

Texpat @ 10:36

And here is more proof these have nothing to do with renewable energy, clean environment. It’s all about skimming the public trough, and double dipping at that..

But the IRS determined that it would restart the clock on the credits if a wind farm “repowered” its turbines—replacing most of their equipment with newer parts. So, despite the expected two-decade lifespan for turbine blades, wind farms across Texas and other states began replacing many that remained in good shape years early.

Texpat

One of my favorite players when I was kid just passed away. I loved playing third base or shortstop, but coaches would always put me in left or center field because I could throw farther. Brooks Robinson and Bob Aspromonte were third base legends for me.

Brooks Robinson, the legendary third baseman and Hall of Famer affectionately known as “Mr. Oriole” for spending his entire 23-year big league career in Baltimore, has died at 86.

“All of us at Major League Baseball are saddened by the loss of Brooks Robinson, one of the greats of our National Pastime and a legend of the Baltimore Orioles,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “Brooks stood among the greatest defensive players who have ever lived. He was a two-time World Series Champion, the 1964 American League MVP, and the winner of 16 consecutive Gold Gloves at third base. He was a model of excellence, durability, loyalty and winning baseball for the Orioles. After his playing career, he continued to make contributions to the game by working with the MLB Players Alumni Association.

Robinson signed with the Orioles in 1955 for $4,000 a year. In today’s currency, it’s about $46,000.

Texpat

THE WEEK IN PICTURES: CODE VIOLATION EDITION

As several observers have already mentioned, the Senate’s new Fetterman-friendly dress code, which made casual Friday look like the prom, lasted less than a Half-Scaramucci (Washington’s new favorite measure of time, though I’m holding out for a revival of “fortnight”). Speaking of someone not wearing any clothes, Justin Trudeau looks pretty foolish not noticing an actual Nazi in his midst, having been so good at spotting them among Canadian truckers not that long ago.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

yo

uncklo

Texpat

We don’t need no stinking windmills if we have these reactors.

Speaking of West Texas and energy generation, this is where we need to put our imagination, creativity and money. The article below is a 2022 piece.

Abilene Christian University (ACU) has applied to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a construction licence for a molten salt research reactor (MSRR), to be built on its campus in Abilene, Texas, as part of the Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing (NEXT) laboratory. ACU plans for the MSRR to achieve criticality by December 2025.

and,

The ACU-led NEXT Research Alliance (NEXTRA) – which also includes the Georgia Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas-Austin – is working with a USD30.5 million research agreement sponsored by Natura Resources, with USD21.5 million going to ACU and the remaining USD9 million to the other consortium universities. The NEXTRA partnership was established to design, build and license the first-ever MSRR.

Abilene Christian University is already well into the construction of research facilities on campus.

Here is the latest.

mharper42

Morning, gang. Today I will watch myself hit “Post Comment” before I turn my back on the screen…….

squawkbox

Bonecrusher

Texpat 1036: why couldn’t those blades be repurposed as fencing? 50 -70 foot sections of solid, mostly rot proof, solid slabs could be used for building materials.

I understand the surfaces aren’t completely flat, but that could be accommodated.

Texpat

16 BC

Maybe we could build the rest of the border fence with them.

Bonecrusher

It’s a start. Waste not want not.

Texpat

Squawk

Back in the late 1970s when I met my first wife in Dallas, we spent a lot of time at her parents home in North Dallas. Their next door neighbor was from New Iberia, had been an aspiring comedian when he was young and actually was the opening act for Justin Wilson for a couple of years.

We had more fun than allowed by law. I wish I could remember all the jokes he used to tell. We called him Boudreaux and he could do an hour long monologue of coonass jokes without stopping.

Texpat

Cajun Translation:

couyon means idiot and is really the same French epithet coullion

What I didn’t know is the origin derives from the French word, couille which means testicle.

Heh.

Shannon

I was reading about Eisenhower.

In September of 1955, President Eisenhower had a heart attack and spent seven weeks in the hospital. He was subsequently re-elected to a second term, which he finished on Jan. 20, 1961.

Y’all make me laugh.

I’ve been more productive than most Saturdays. I haven’t made it outside to my garden or onto my treadmill, but I’ve spent some hours moving jars and writing them down. Now I have to log ’em into my spreadsheet. Three of my trays were ready to remove from Elsa, but the last one needs more time. So, I have four jars of chicken veggie soup vacuum packed into canning jars.

I also cooked the package of bacon ends ‘n pieces. I need to remember to wear long sleeves next time; those little pieces popped grease on my hands and arms. I’m glad I was wearing glasses. Handyman wanted the bacon grease, so I left that jar for him just now, when I dropped my car off so Hubby can change the oil and check my catalytic converter for leaks.

So now I get to update the spreadsheet and start thinking about dinner. I’m glad I didn’t go outside to garden. The brief bit I was outside made me happy to come back inside.

I’m watching “The Juror” – a 1996 Demo Moore suspense thriller. Egads, 1996 doesn’t sound like it was that long ago, but…

A dem is caught pulling a fire alarm to delay the CR vote. Jamaal Bowman.

Because if you can’t win in the arena of ideas, you cheat.

Whether or not you agree with the vote, doing something like this is not the right way to do things.

/spits

Adee

Good Afternoon Hamsters,

Channel-11TV weatherman goes far out on a limb yesterday and predicts that the Canadians will open the door to a cold front that should get down here around Thursday, October 5th. And then we shall finally have some real Fall weather. It should be the turning point away from the unseasonably nasty hot and humid summerlike weather we have been stuck with, forever it seems. So that should have all sorts of folks making bets on it rather than making bets on football or baseball games in hopes the change of pace will pry some good fortune loose.

We shall see, or not.

Here’s Matt Walsh taking down the trans arguments.

“The French Connection”

Heard of it, always wanted to see it- it’s coming on now. Sounds like a good one to walk a few miles to, while I watch.

I do like having my treadmill at home. Much better than driving to the gym, parking, checking in…

Texpat

A couple of weeks ago, Her Highness was asking me what is the meaning of sapper. I told her it was a slang term for a combat engineer, originally the guys who dug trenches under enemy battle fortifications and then the trench warfare of WWI, of course. I just discovered the Brits borrowed it from the Spanish army that calls their combat engineers zapadors.

MTG showing her male parts again, on the Capitol steps (ref my post at 3:24 pm):

Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulled the fire alarm in the Cannon building this afternoon and interrupted the official proceedings of the House as Republicans worked to keep the government open. I’m calling on the DOJ to prosecute him using the same law they used to prosecute J6 defendants for interfering with an official proceeding. The Democrats literally will do anything to shut OUR government down because billions aren’t going to their favorite country: Ukraine.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-ukraine-funds-mccarthy-throws-11th-hour-hail-mary-avert-shutdown

Meanwhile, the House cleared the ‘clean’ stopgap bill without funding for Ukraine or the border, by a vote of 335-91. One Democrat and 90 Republicans voted against the measure.

McCrathy works with totalitariancrats to pass 45 day cr.

shocked I tell ya, shocked.

kabuki deep state theatre Vampyre clown show version 1000.00

this is what we pay for? Sheezzzzz!

Dr phil Good-E=1984

shocked I tell ya.
shocked that McCrathy”s the traitor we all knew he would be.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

McCrathy says gimme a clean bill Luntz baby.

gimit to me.

freakin clown show.

Texpat

#23 Tedtam

RE: My comment @ 10:15 AM

I said: “They have used a quote from the materials of World Professional Association for Transgender Health to buttress their ruling against a bunch of tranny activists.”

“First, the ruling establishes that voters have the right to ban medical procedures they believe are immoral or dangerous. That’s true regardless of what the ‘experts’ at Big Pharma say,” Walsh wrote. “Then the court explains that voters have very good reason to believe that so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ – including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones – are dangerous. The court notes that many countries have started banning them.”

“The court goes on to state that WPATH – the standard-setting organization for ‘trans healthcare’ – counseled against using hormones and puberty blockers on minors from 1979 to 2000. Even now, WPATH admits there is ‘limited data’ supporting their use.”

Dr phil Good-E=1984

One of the house clowns pulled the fire alarm.
get the firehouse.
freakin Vampyres of the undead clown show.

Texpat

Dr Phil Good

If you are Kevin McCarthy and you have 36 hours before a “government shutdown” (when 18% of guvmint workers get a paid vacation) and you have only a 10 vote majority in a body of 435 members, what do you do ?

What if you truly believe the Democrats will be able to peel off, one by one, enough of your weak Republican members under the media pressure of the “shutdown” to vote in some spending budget bill that is totally unacceptable to you, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green or any other stalwart conservative ?

What if you truly believe that is the reason a potential House Speaker would risk his reputation by pulling a fire alarm because he thinks he can destroy your plan by only turning 5 or 6 members to his side ?

The shutdown of the federal government is only as good as the total votes you have and McCarthy’s margin is less than razor thin.

What if you were Speaker and thought the ONLY way to save this whole deal was to buy some time to come up with legislation that can actually pass and contains all the border enforcement measures we want, with all the weak RINOs and a few red state Dems worried about their re-election.?

I’m no big fan of McCarthy or ANY member of the House, for that matter, but there may be a lot more going in the background than any of us know.

What he said.

It’s so easy to criticize, a lot harder in real life.

Texpat

For all I know Kevin McCarthy is a loser. I don’t really know. I do know Matt Gaetz (who is the Republican representative from Matt Gaetz) doesn’t have a plan and has not offered one other than to play Russian roulette and bluster his way through whatever disaster is burning around him. I think Matt is more interested in furthering his career and name recognition than genuinely accomplishing anything.

I actually believe, much to my own surprise, Marjorie Taylor Green may be a little “tetched in the head” but is sincere in her bloomers on fire methods.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t care of they shut down the federal government for the rest of the year.

It would take one hell of a lot more money than McCarthy makes to get me to take the Speaker of the House’s job. Frankly, the Speaker’s position is far more difficult than the president of the United States or the Majority Leader of the Senate.

Shannon

Crazy mama, I sho’ need you

Texpat

Biden and his pet Michigan Moron have come up with a new plan to screw the American citizen. Since even Democrats threw a fit over ruining the availability of gas range/ovens in the USA, they have decided to go after natural gas furnaces that heat homes and keep millions of Americans from freezing to death in the winter.

Hey, who cares about blackouts, brownouts and total outages if you don’t need the pipelines or the gas they carry anyway ? It doesn’t matter since folks are using chainsaws to cut up their furniture to make bonfires to stay warm.

Never, ever in the history of the American nation have we had such a collection of genuinely stupid, ignorant fools filling up The Cabinet in Washington DC

DOE’s finalized regulations, which are slated to go into effect in 2028, specifically require furnaces to achieve an annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) of 95%, meaning manufacturers would only be allowed to sell furnaces that convert at least 95% of fuel into heat within six years. The current market standard AFUE for a residential furnace is 80%.

Because of the stringent AFUE requirements, the regulations would largely take non-condensing gas furnaces — which are generally less efficient, but cheaper — off the market. But consumers who replace their non-condensing furnace with a condensing furnace after the rule is implemented face hefty installation costs.

This nonsense won’t last either, but they’re not going to stop trying.

Never, ever in the history of the American nation have we had such a collection of genuinely stupid, ignorant fools filling up The Cabinet in Washington DC

Once again, Texpat has hit the nail on the head.

Shannon

I need to take a trip to Barcelona and interview this percussion lady for my band.

Texpat

33 Shannon

She’s pretty cute. Maybe if you went to Nashville and talked to Keb’ Mo’, he could give you some tips on how to lure Sol Homar down to Bellville.

I’ll meet you in Nashville.

Sol Homar website. She’s from Uruguay.

Shannon

The largest sea evacuation in history happened on 9/11.

Super Dave

From the Week in Pictures; Weapon Detectors are RACIST!!!

I got the last tray out of Elsa. I never thought I’d be saying that I’d be crumbling chicken soup into a jar. But I did it five times today, so there ya’ go.

I see they are rebooting one of my favorite shows, “Quantum Leap”.

The new guy is going to have to overcome my bias for one of my favorite actors, Sam Bakula.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-ukraine-funds-mccarthy-throws-11th-hour-hail-mary-avert-shutdown

Wow. @SpeakerMcCarthy made a side Ukraine deal with Democrats and didn’t tell House Republicans until after his Continuing Resolution passed. More deceit.

The deceitful Mcrathy deserves all the criticism he gets.

a Vampyre clown show.

Texpat

38 Dr Phil Good

Assuming all the reports are true, then McCarthy needs to go and go now.

GJT

Our racing series was supposed to run at Texana Raceway Park out of Edna tonight but storms earlier this week tore up a bunch of the facilities so they had to cancel. We decided to go run at 105 Speedway in Cleveland with a class than runs the same power train as ours but way more hopped up, just to get some laps in with our new suspension as racing season is rapidly coming to a close. In the feature race we finished, placed 14th out of 17. Don’t sound good but again, we are way outgunned. He got clobbered about mid point when the leaders were coming up on him to lap him, 2nd place guy tried to use us as a pick to get by the 1st place guy but did not go as planned as he climbed up over our left rear tire throwing both cars into spins and almost turned both cars over. Looking at the car afterwards, his wheel dented the top of our hood! Anyway, track said it was the other guy’s fault and he went to the back, we were able to continue. Got good track time, he ran with them pretty good actually, can’t wait until we can run with our class again, I think we will be very competitive.

I ain’t built for these 3 in the morning nights y’all. Good night.

Adee

Good bright and beautiful morning, Hamsters:

One day closer to the arrival of that cold front and rain. Please don’t let any northern state hold them captive.

Texpat

In a 5-2 Vote, Michigan Becomes First State to Require Judges to Use Pronoun Preferences of Lawyers and Parties

…the following amendment of Rule 1.109 of the Michigan Court Rules is adopted, effective January 1, 2024.

Parties and attorneys may also include Ms., Mr., or Mx. as a preferred form of address and one of the following personal pronouns in the name section of the caption: he/him/his, she/her/hers, or they/them/theirs. Courts must use the individual’s name, the designated salutation or personal pronouns, or other respectful means that is not inconsistent with the individual’s designated salutation or personal pronouns when addressing, referring to, or identifying the party or attorney, either orally or in writing….

Social chaos is a Marxist tactic. Take down civil order by psychological warfare.

Current Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer are examples of the intellect of 21st century Michigan political leaders.

Texpat

I still can’t get over this woman in a Jack-in-the-Box in Houston trying to shoot and kill a customer. He came back around to the window because they left off an order of fries. The employee gets mad and decides to kill the customer.

He is, of course, suing the company and that’s why it’s back in the news.

Story here.

Texpat

My comment @ 10:43 AM cont’d

Ford-Theriot was initially charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, which is a felony, but pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of deadly conduct, ABC13 reports. The former Jack in the Box employee has completed one year of deferred adjudication community supervision.

Kallinen has told the media that Ford-Theriot pleaded guilty to terroristic threat back in 2012, before she was hired by Jack in the Box.

It’s good to know one can pull out a weapon in Harris County and start shooting at people over French fries and only get 1-year community supervision with deferred adjudication – a clean record after one year.

A shooter might, just maybe, have to go to jail if they actually murder someone.

mharper42

Morning, y’all. October 1, 2023… That sounds like FALL!

mharper42

NOTE: I am adopting this raggedy l’il old 42…

Texpat

This piece is special and it comes from a young black man in Manhattan writing about the pilgrimage he and his father took to Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry. The author is still a college student but a remarkable writer.

Country Music and Me: My Great Migration in the Wrong Direction

I’m black. Country music is supposedly white. But this summer my father and I reveled in the sounds of the South.

As the opening notes of “You Are My Sunshine” pour from the stage across the audience, my dad and I glance at each other.

“Do you remember your mom singing this to you before bed?” he whispers.

“Of course,” I say.

The thing is, I’m not supposed to like country music. Country is the South, and the South is slavery and burning crosses and church bombings. Morgan Wallen, the reigning king of country, recently went viral for saying the n-word. And by the way, I’m black, and country music is white.

But country music isn’t truly white, because nothing in America is entirely white or black or anything else, and nothing that endures—nothing with value—is about race at all. It goes beyond that.

and,

When my mother drinks one too many glasses of rosé and lets herself travel back through memories buried below the Mason-Dixon line, she inevitably returns to her childhood in Texas. Backyard baby back ribs in a homemade vinegar sauce cooked by an auntie or cousin down the road. A block full of friends. A potbellied uncle. It is a wonderful place cocooned by a much more dangerous place shot through with lynchings and segregationists and people who pine for the old Dixie. It seems incongruous.

The South, maybe more than anywhere else in America, is where the old black and white cultures and heritages overlap, intertwine, become something transcendent. This is what I felt while enveloped by the sounds of William Lee Golden singing a song my mother once sang to me. This is where I finally grasped the ethos of country as explained by the great jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis—that even in the face of deep suffering, “optimism is not naive.”

I’ve always thought Wynton Marsalis was a very smart man.

mharper42

Well, Billy Cat is a no-show for his breakfast so far today. He was in the backyard several times till quite late last night. Now, this is not the first time he hasn’t responded to my first call-out for breakfast, but any time I have food for him but he doesn’t respond to my chow call, I worry about him.

mharper42

I did the sudoku with no errors today, so at least I know that if I concentrate, my gray matter is still functional.

squawkbox

Texpat

RE: Jack in the Crack shooter woman.

ABC13 has bored me to tears with that story (vidiot here). The woman is on TV screaming I just want to get my story out. Moral of her story is “they called me names I can shoot at them”.

“I’m not going to pull out no gun and shoot at somebody over no curly fries. Come on,” Ford-Theriot said in response to the allegations.

The 30-year-old met with ABC13 Tuesday afternoon to defend herself. She said Ramos was threatening her and calling her racial slurs, which he denies. The video shows her checking her gun. She said she asked him to drive away several times. He refused. The video captures the gunfire.

“The video does show you shoot at them. What if you had hit them?” ABC13 Reporter Jessica Willey asked.

“If you hear the audio, you didn’t hear the gun go off at all,” she replied.

There is no audio on the video that Kallinen released, but it does show a muzzle flash, and according to court records, Houston police found a spent shell casing.

Texpat

David Mamet is the greatest living playwright in America. He has no peer and won a Pulitzer for Glengarry Glen Ross. Mamet is a screenwriter, director, filmmaker and autodidactic Jewish scholar.

He is also a red-pilled, old time former leftist who, along with the British Tom Stoppard, also a disenchanted lefty, represent the two finest theatrical writers of our time.

Last April, David Mamet wrote this column published at his site on Unheard.com. He has to be flabbergasted by now.

The naked persecution of Donald Trump

American democracy is no stranger to thuggery

Those who have served as jurors realise: “Oh. There’s nobody here but us chickens…” We’re instructed to put prejudice aside, and rule on the facts as presented under the stringent rules of jurisprudence. But we are flawed and prejudiced, and many of the procedures we are instructed to follow are, of course, absurd.

and,

Back in Vermont, in the Sixties, the Old-Timers used to refer to a fellow’s lawyers as His Liars — a designation in which there is more truth than fiction. At what point does a shading of evidence, or the gentle preparation of a witness, tick over from a healthy prosecution or defence into misconduct?

also this,

The Old Texas Verdict had it: “not guilty, but don’t do it again”. We know its application was not limited to Texas, for the law can free both Jean Valjean and Teddy Kennedy, and isn’t life like that? Where there is law, there is injustice. Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

What of overt and unapologetic prosecutorial misconduct? The aim of the current legal thuggery is suppression of a politically threatening individual by an administration usurping power. Our democracy is no stranger to it. Gene Debs, the Socialist leader, was jailed in 1918 by the Wilson government for his opposition to participation in the First World War. He was convicted under the Sedition Act, which criminalised expression of opinion questioning our involvement. The act was passed under President, elected in 1916 with the slogan, “He Kept Us Out of the War”.

Woodrow Wilson ran for president promising America he would not involve us in the war in Europe. Wilson, the first Democratic President of the 20th century, set the pace for a century of lying bastards from his party.

Nearly 117,000 Americans were killed on the fields of Europe and 204,000 came home injured. So much for keeping Americans out of the war.

But, as Passover is here, we might ask: “why is this night different from all other nights?” Answer: the indictment of President Trump demolishes the line between prosecutorial sharp-practices and naked persecution. The fig leaf of judicial probity is, granted, often transparent. But its glib removal yesterday announces an advance past that last firewall against thuggery: shame.

RTWDT.

Texpat

Squawk

I’m going to be extra careful the next time I pull through a Jack-in-the-Box in Texas. For some reason, there aren’t any in New Jersey.

Popping in late, I stayed after mass for some adoration time, and when I did leave I found some of my favorite people outside conversing. I joined them, of course, and got to hug some kids and the toddler came to me for a hug and allowed me to pick her up and hug her. That was a first for her. The itty bitty baby was still strapped to Mommy and was sleeping, so I just had to adore her while standing next to Mommy. She is a beautiful little thing.

Just finished watching “Phil at 4800 feet” give his tutorial on FDing cheeses.

Texpat

Be sure to go full screen and turn up the volume !

Squawk is right, you gotta hand it to those folks at Apple. At least they’re thinking, unlike the zombies over at Microsoft.

When all the little trainee felonious criminals threw a riot the other night in downtown Philadelphia, they totally trashed an Apple store and stole all the iPhones, iPads and laptops in the place.

But what happened out on the streets of Philly when the punks turned on the stolen Apple gear ? Oh no.

squawkbox

Apple it just works fits

Shannon

So, Grandpa, I’m cooking one of the boneless Pork Tenderloins that I got on sale a couple weeks ago.

I was double-checking the proper finished internal temp online, and this lady sears her first to guarantee a nice crust. I decided to try it.

Fay never seared hers (Salt/pepper, 350° in a casserole dish until done.)

I can assure you she always seared her Beef Chuck Pot Roasts before baking.

Green beans and Greek Pasta Salad for sides.

Will let you know how it turns out.

Texpat

47 Squawk

Heh.

Found the lost bite of the Apple and Jobs wasn’t here to see it.

GJT

I knew it all along. Astros take division lead over the Rangers on the final day.

squawkbox

Shannon

I’m shocked, shocked!!

That, once more, we’re going to end up at the Holiday season. With another government shutdown budget kabuki.

Texpat

Ronald Reagan shut down the government 6 times. A lot of good that did. As far as I can tell, all the civil service trough feeders are still there.

Shannon

# 50

SQK

The Dome.

I wish.

I’d try to go if it was in the Dome.

Shannon

The mid-90’s are hanging on to the bitter end.

Bring on the bitter end.

mharper42

Wahoo, Billy Cat is alive! I went to the back windows over the patio when I got up from a wonderful nap. And there he was. Rushed out with a bowl of canned meat and a bowl of crunchies, stayed out to watch over him. Almost immediately, a juvenile raccoon came down from high up in the oak tree in the back yard. It was sizing up Billy, the 2 food bowls, and me. Decided to go work on some corn kernels that the pigeons had not eaten all of it. But kept looking at Billy, who soon got so nervous that he headed for his favorite loose fence board into the east side adjacent yard. I tried to get him to stay and finish his food, but he declined. At least he ate most of his meat, and I brought the 2 bowls in with me. I’ll try again later to get him to eat some more with me standing guard.

Texpat

Man, I do miss those early days of the Astrodome, sitting in the seats behind 3rd base when our father actually spent a little money on something non-essential in life like the ‘Stros season tickets.

The scene, the sounds, the tastes, the smells, the players and the announcers. It was so exciting for kids and not just the little ones. Gone but not forgotten.

Many other children will have the same memories of the Minute Maid stadium.

GJT

Loads of memories in the old place. It is just not right to let it sit there and rot.

Texpat

Tucker says now Biden nor Trump will be there in 2024. ???

I keep thinking the Dems will have to get rid of Kamala before Joe is forced out, but why not let her just run into the early primaries and die on the vine quickly. Once the DNC starves her out for cash, she can’t run anyway and will have to bow out and walk off.

I know they won’t allow Joe to run. I can’t believe they’re going to go with severely damaged Newsom so what do they do ?

Her Highness and Ted Cruz say they’re going to parachute in Michelle Obama at the convention.

squawkbox

Speaking of the dome. Here we go again

‘Built to last,’ Dome redevelopment eyed 15 years after last event

Ideas have been tossed around over the years about what to do with the “8th Wonder of the World,” but now, a pitch is being made that would be privately-funded and publicly accessible.

How the Astrodome is impacting Houston’s next Super Bowl bid

The World Cup is part of the events on tap in the Bayou City. But what about the Super Bowl? One official believes the “8th Wonder of the World” actually holds the key to another successful bid.

Adee