Saturday - November 23, 2019
The One, The Only
11/23/19
Blog Issue Fixed
I had some trouble with getting the blog to come up yesterday. I kept reloading the page, hoping for the best, but I kept getting this Internal Error message. But I had things to do, so I didn’t take it further. Finally last night I remembered who my hosting company was and contacted them. I use Hosting Matters, which is not the least expensive company, but their customer support is first class. Within a few minutes they had responded to my email, and a short time later they had it fixed. Something about setting it back to use PHP 5.6, whatever that is. So now it’s working again. I need to run a quick test or two to see how well it’s working, but right now this seems good enough.
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Bowling Blogging!
We won one game against the boss team last night, the folks who always “manage” us. My better half threw a 223 in game one, which was enough for us to lose by only 10 pins. I did Ok in game two, and we lost that one by 24. But in the final game our whole team rolled decently, our opponents were getting tired, and our new guy - a 130 bowler so far - pulled out a 219. Awesome. So we won that game by a lot, which gave us wood, and we wound up splitting the points 3-4. Which is almost a win, and against that team is something to be proud of. So it was a good night for us. Talking to Mrs. New teammate, I learned that the place she works isn’t an online real estate web page developer, but a digital storage facility. They are the Cloud. Which is cool.
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This seems like something from a cartoon
Dippin’ Dots Ice Cream Factory Explodes
Four employees were injured in an explosion Friday night at a Kentucky production facility for Dippin’ Dots ice cream, according to reports.
One of the victims was released from a hospital and another was expected to be released soon. There was no word on the type or extent of any of the victims’ injuries, WPSD-TV of Paducah reported.
Dippin’ Dots Vice President of Administration Steve Heisner told WPSD the company first wanted to make sure all employees were accounted for and “ensure that they’re safe.”
Heisner added he hoped a structural engineer could assess the damage at the Paducah facility this weekend.
The extent of the damage was unknown and the cause of the explosion, which happened in the production area, was under investigation.
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Dippin’ Dots are ice cream in pellet form. The treat was invented in the 1980s and is available in multiple flavors.
How on earth does ice cream explode? Did they hire Wile E. Coyote to work the production line or something? Using Acme™ containers or something?
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Red State Oklahoma Follows San Fran Stupid, Sees Lots More Crime
Who needs George Soros when you have Republicans in Oklahoma enacting his number one agenda item – de-incarceration? In case you think the stupidity of downgrading crimes and increasing prison release, and the inevitable crime wave that follows, is limited to San Francisco, think again. Oklahoma is a state where no Democrat presidential candidate has carried a single county since 2000, but when it comes to crime, Oklahoma Republicans might as well be San Francisco Democrats.
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By now, most Americans are familiar with California’s Prop 47 and how the downgrading of drug and theft crimes led to a rise in drugs and theft and has saddled San Francisco with a culture of homelessness and shoplifting. “Sure glad we live in a nice red area, far away from San Francisco values” is what many Americans living in the heartland think upon seeing the endless negative headlines on San Francisco. The problem is that, thanks to a perfidious Republican Party, those San Francisco values have permeated every state in the union, particularly Oklahoma.
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Yet there’s one thing elitist politicians overlook in the criminal justice discussion: crime and its impact on the rest of society. Everything for them is a zero-sum game of sympathy for the convicts. What they don’t realize is that, fundamentally, we are not locking up people for minor crimes, and even those locked up for so-called minor crimes are usually not incarcerated for that long – and it’s usually because they had a longer rap sheet of violent crime and violated their parole with theft, drugs, or driving offenses.Moreover, as we’ve seen in San Francisco, when you decriminalize even low-level offenses, it leads to chaos for property owners, businesses, and public order. Indeed, other people exist in the world who have rights and a stake in public policy aside from criminals.
Gov. Kevin Stitt certainly moved the needle, all right, towards San Francisco. Drugs, theft, and homelessness, brought to you by jailbreak. Last week, the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office announced a new task force to combat the growing burglary trend and placed the blame squarely on the new laws. “Since the threshold of certain crimes changed some felonies to misdemeanors back in 2017 we have seen a steady increase of thefts in Oklahoma County,” wrote the sheriff’s office in a Facebook post on November 13.
I read an article yesterday about how Home Depot is seeing a huge increase in shoplifting because of this, and is trying to stem the tide. Good luck with that!
OTOH, I am actually proud of my New Jersey for not (yet) falling for this crap. NJ has the lowest theft felony level in the nation right now. Steal $200 worth of stuff, and you’ve crossed the line. Other states have jacked up the limit to $2500, in theory to account for inflation. B. S. Steal anything and you get locked up, period. And while you’re at it, get parents and teachers to teach their kids that stealing is wrong. Thou Shalt Not. You are not entitled to it. Not at all.
Over the past 2 decades, Oklahoma has raised the felony theft amount threshold from $50 to $500 in 2001, and then raised it again to $1000 in 2016. And it all went to Hell, which was exactly what everyone said would happen.
In 2016, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 780, which raised the felony threshold for property crime to $1,000 per occurrence. Retailers, law enforcement officials, and private citizens recently told members of a Senate committee that the result of the state question has been an increase in crime.
“We predicted increases in the number and amount of larcenies in our stories, increases in drug crimes, increases in quality-of-life crimes in our communities, and retailers being hurt financially,” said Norm Smalgio, president of the Oklahoma Retail Crime Association. “And all of those things happened.”
They should have left it at $50, and hired a few more judges instead. I could even write them an anti-crime slogan: “Here’s the deal: if you steal, it’s real. Theft over $50 is a class 2 felony and gets you 10 years in jail.” It would be super fun to play with the old Rodgers and Hammerstein song lyrics too. Especially since the lead in chatter from the cast in that play includes the line “plenty of room to swing a rope!”
Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain
And the wavin’ wheat, can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain
Oklahoma, where the price of felony’s intense
And you’ll rot in jail, so what the hell
Would make you think that crime makes any sense?
See? Too easy.
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The Other Kind Of Black Friday
Chimp out at mall causes mayhem.
NEW YORK - Some kind of a disturbance broke out among the hundreds of teens who were hanging out at Queens Center Friday afternoon. The situation was described as a “large disturbance” by police.
Police responded to the mall in Elmhurst because some of the kids were “acting disorderly,” according to the 110th Precinct’s Twitter account, which said a half-day at New York City schools prompted the large turnout.
“Officers and Mall staff are acting quickly to restore normal conditions,” 110th Precinct tweeted at 2:23 p.m.
Videos posted to the Citizen app showed dozens of teens inside the mall. One video showed several police cars with lights flashing outside. Citizen app reports said that some teens were throwing things and “causing mayhem.”
The precinct later tweeted that the mall is open and the inside was clear.
The NYPD arrested one female for attacking another girl, who was hurt and whose phone was taken, the department said.
Another barely news news story. Utterly predictable, TNB. I wrote this post before even looking at the video, and, surprise!!, I was entirely correct.
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11/20/19
I used to know some pretty ballsy women. Love ‘em. I knew this one in college ... she was a saber fencer. Which is some hard core violent and painful stuff. But she had guts, and was pretty and pretty tough. This is from her Facebook:
So I was in the McDonald’s drive-through this morning and the lady behind me honked at me and flipped me off because I was taking to long to order. Wow. (Please God, let me take the high road).
So I paid for her food.
I moved up and she leaned out the window looking all crazy at me because the teller told her I paid for her food. She felt embarrassed.
When I got to the second window to get my food, I showed them both receipts and took her food too!
I paid for it, it’s mine! Now she has to wait even longer. ߘ
So I honked my horn and screamed back, “Patience is a virtue” °ߘ
She’s gonna learn today! °ߘ
Oh hella yeah!!
11/19/19
Arrgh, I spent half an hour online with customer support at Amazon. First the chat mode robot, then a person, then their next level person, and finally they had somebody else call me. All because I wanted to buy a single jar of spices. I love the McCormick Gourmet Cajun Seasoning. It packs a lot of flavor and it’s salt free. But the stuff is hard to find. It’s been out of stock at my local grocery stores for some time, and is not in stock at several other online places or their stores, like Walmart. So I went to Amazon. They had it, and it’s under $4. Great. But the order blew up, because that item was fulfilled by Amazon Fresh, which is not yet in my area. So I went back, and I found I could get it from a dozen other merchants for $15. No thanks. It was also available through Amazon Pantry for only 20¢ more, but I had to fill up a Pantry box. Those things are huge. So I wanted to see if they’d just put the little jar in my regular box. 4 levels of customer support, and the answer is no. I have to get it through Pantry. Now, the lady on the phone told me that as a Prime member, I don’t have to pay for the box. So I put the one jar in. And found there was a $5.99 shipping charge for small orders. Hey, the box was free, just not the shipping. Or so it said. Grrr. So I added a couple boxes of crackers and a few 6 packs of flavored water, and brought the total up. So I’m getting something in that giant box, along with the few other bits in my regular order box. And the instant I finalized the order, I remembered why I went to Amazon in the first place, to get a soil pH meter. So instead of trying to update my just placed order, I made another order just for that. So now I’ve got 3 boxes coming. Meh, sometimes you just can’t beat the system.
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yeah yeah, Chick-fil-A caved in to the gays. Spineless losers. It’s not going to stop the hate, not a bit. And you know who really loses here? The blacks. Because Chick’s biggest charitable funding was to send a bunch of kids to summer sports camp at black colleges. You know those weren’t white kids, please.
Chick-fil-A will reportedly stop donating money to charities including the Salvation Army and Fellowship of Christian Athletes following pressure from LGBT groups.
The company announced Monday that it is refocusing its charitable foundation to a smaller number of charities, focusing exclusively on education, homelessness, and hunger.
Our goal is to donate to the most effective organizations in the areas of education, homelessness and hunger. No organization will be excluded from future consideration – faith based or non-faith based,” Tim Tassopoulos, president and COO of Chick-fil-A, said in a statement.
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As a result, the company will no longer give money to organizations including the Salvation Army, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the Paul Anderson Youth Home.Those charities have caused LGBT activists to target Chick-fil-A due to those organizations’ stances on homosexuality.
In 2018, Chick-fil-A gave $115,000 to the Salvation Army for the Angel Tree program, which provided gifts for 11,000 children during the holiday season. The fast-food chain also gave $1.65 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to provide underserved youth with week-long summer sports camps at historically black colleges and universities (HCBU).
So no Christmas presents for thousands of poor kids, and no sports camp for a whole ghetto full of other poor kids.
And now Chick-fil-A is just another fast food chain that stands for nothing other than profit. And the queers and freaks win.
Way to go Peter, deny Christ three times why don’t you?
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Swedish Prime Minister Denies Reality
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has claimed that there is no link between the high number of migrants the country has taken in recent years and the rising problem of gang violence.
The Swedish prime minister made his comments on Sunday on Swedish television, stating that the problem with rising gang violence was very real and different from the past and that the government “may not have seen it coming”, Nyheter Idag reports.
When asked by the host of the Agenda programme Anders Holmberg about links between mass migration and gang violence, Löfven was dismissive of any connection, blaming poverty and unemployment rates instead.
“The segregation is because there is too low employment and too high unemployment in these areas. But that would have been the same regardless of who had lived there. If you put people born in Sweden under the same conditions, you get the same result,” the Swedish leader said.
So basically he just said that all Swedes are thieving, raping, grenade throwing criminals when they don’t have really great jobs? Gee thanks. Because that kind of thing went on all the time forever before all the A-rabs and Somali scum showed up? Uh, yeah, no. Never actually. Not ever.
11/18/19
A tiny bit warmer today, but on the very edge of rain. That kind of chilly misty November weather that goes right to your bones.
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More pre-holiday experimentation. We made an orange zest infused water bath New York style cheesecake last night. Came out perfect as always. While it ripens in the fridge I’ll make the cranberry / Cointreau topping for it. Should be real good.
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Trying to run through the news this morning. Arrgh. It’s another one of those days when every story is just aggravating garbage.
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Not quite a bridge post
[ $170 and up ] Each bridge is handcrafted and built to order. Our bridges are built with safety in mind. The slats are roped together with paracord rated to hold up to 160 lbs. Twine roping is weaved along the entire exterior of the bridge for added stability and to act as a railing.
This is the number one napping spot in our home. Cats of all sizes can utilize this complex for relaxing.
[ also available with a paracord rope upgrade for enhanced chew resistance. ]
While this might look like a Warren truss, it’s really only a wobbly jungle vine kind of bridge. The upper and lower cords and the diagonals are just rope, so there is no compression strength or any kind of stiffness at all. I don’t think it qualifies as a suspension bridge either except in the most limited manner. But it looks cool, and if kitteh ever gets really brave he might give it a try.
11/16/19
Brr. Cold and very windy today. Looking forward to a fun filled day doing housework and eating leftover Chinese late night takeout. Maybe I’ll go to the car wash if it gets about freezing.
We managed to win one game last night at bowling, as we sink slowly down the position list.
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11/14/19
What started out as a small western Pennsylvania business, has grown like mad over the last decade. Rent The Chicken now has affiliates across the USA and Canada.
You buy a 6 month contract, and they deliver several chickens, a coop, bags of seed, and an instruction manual. Yes, chickens come with an instruction manual. You get the eggs, and deal with the daily chicken shit. Teach your children where food comes from. Several rental packages are available, and if you chicken out - backyard hens are not for us! - they’ll let you out of the contract and take the birds and stuff back. Post rental period chicken adoption is also available. Chicken sitting is also available if you go away for vacation. They also do school partnering.
And they have t-shirts, gift cards, and a short term Hatch The Chicken kit where you get an incubator and eggs, feed, and a special book for kids. Once the eggs hatch and the chicklets grow a bit, they come collect them. Or you can adopt them, or switch to a Rent The Chicken set up.
Looks like they’ve got all their chickens in a row. Well done.
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Judge not, lest you be judged by these low life idiots
Drunken brawling Indiana judges suspended for short times after late night White Castle shooting
Hey, they only went there because the strip club was closed.
An alcohol-fueled evening in May that resulted in two Indiana county-level judges being shot in a White Castle parking lot has now resulted in two male judges, plus a female judge, being suspended without pay, according to reports.
Judge Andrew Adams was suspended for 60 days without pay beginning Tuesday, while judges Bradley Jacobs and Sabrina Bell were suspended for 30 days without pay beginning Nov. 22. All three judges will be reinstated to their respective county-level positions when their suspensions end, FOX 59 of Indianapolis reported.
The Indiana Supreme Court had declared the judges’ actions that evening to constitute judicial misconduct, the Indianapolis Star reported.
After a night of drinking, Adams, Jacobs and Bell headed to a White Castle because the nearby gentlemen’s club they wanted to enter had already closed for the night, the Star reported.
While in the restaurant’s parking lot, the trio got into an altercation with the driver and passenger of an SUV, which escalated when Bell allegedly raised a middle finger toward the pair in the vehicle, according to FOX 59.
After they argued and fought in the parking lot, a suspect named Brandon Kaiser grabbed a gun and shot Adams in the stomach and shot Jacobs twice in the chest, according to court documents reviewed by the Star.
Both Kaiser and his associate, Alfredo Vazquez, fled the scene but were later apprehended.
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As for Vazquez and Kaiser, Vazquez was sentenced Nov. 1 to 180 days of home detention and a year of probation for violating his probation and for misdemeanor aggravated battery. His charges result from a plea agreement, the Star reported.
Kaiser was charged with 14 crimes, including eight felonies, and is scheduled to go to trial in January, court records say.
It’s difficult not to draw some innuendo based on the photographs of the people involved on both sides of this incident. But no hate crime charges were mentioned, so let it pass.
I think Indiana should find some better judges.
11/13/19
Late night surfing
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I just can’t deal with this kind of stupid
AOC: Fight Climate Change By Defeating White Supremacy
What white supremacy would that be?
On Saturday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) claimed that fighting “white supremacy” is a fundamental part of combating climate change. She also attacked “consultants” who would encourage climate activists to focus on solar panels more than social justice.
“The way we inoculate ourselves from continuing to burn up our planet at unsustainable level, triggering feedback loops that we have not even begun to comprehend, is by honoring indigenous wisdom and allowing it to guide our climate policy. The way that we preserve our systems is by transitioning to principles of universality. That means I want you clothed, I want you educated, I want you paid a living wage, no ifs ands or buts. And what that also means ... is directly, consciously, combating white supremacy in the United States of America,” AOC declared.
You know, I wasn’t raised to see skin color in everything. Getting past that divide was what Dr. King’s message was about. And that’s also how political correctness started out. But that’s metastasized, long gone, and now identity politics and competitive victimhood is the name of the game. So after being indirectly labeled a racist for so long, I became ... well, not racist in my eyes, but a race realist. Now, after being bombarded by the anti-American, anti-white, anti-male, anti-hetero diatribes constantly, I have become ... at least White Aware. If the 137 varieties of white people could ever get together we’d be an unstoppable force. Too bad we’ve been warring with each other for the past couple thousand years while creating western culture and inventing nearly everything and getting rich off of it. And that’s the real promise of America: you can come here and be white too, no matter what you look like. All it takes is initiative, hard work, and perhaps a certain level of intelligence. Plus you have to give up your Old Country ideas, like class structure, caste systems, devaluation of women, religious wars, criminality and inherent violent behavior, and socialism.Be an American. And be a Christian. Or at least act like one. It ain’t all that hard to do.
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Bye Bye Greta
Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has left North America to begin her return trip across the Atlantic aboard a 48-foot (15-meter) catamaran sailboat whose passengers include an 11-month-old baby.
Thunberg tweeted that she set sail Wednesday morning from Hampton, Virginia, where she hitched a ride with an Australian family aboard a catamaran named La Vagabonde. They left shortly before 8 a.m.
The boat leaves little to no carbon footprint, counting on solar panels and hydro-generators for power.
The trip could take two to four weeks, and November is considered offseason for sailing across the Atlantic. She’s hoping to make it back to Europe in time to attend a United Nations climate meeting that was moved to Madrid in early December.
The climate conference in Chile she was on her way to got moved to Spain because Chile is having a semi-revolution. “Disaffected youths” went wild in this otherwise stable and relatively peaceful South American nation because the government raised the price of public transport a whole 3%. Wanton rioting and destruction ensued, tens of thousands of soldiers got brought in, thousands of arrests, dozens killed at this point.
Assuming this is an actual single boat sailing, and not a pretend one surrounded by escort ships like last time, we’ll see how they fare. November isn’t the best time to cross a big mean ocean in a little unpowered sailboat.
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
T’was the witch of November come stealin’.
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Pirates attacked an Italy-flagged offshore supply vessel in the southern Gulf of Mexico, injuring two crew members, the Mexican Navy said on Tuesday, in the latest outbreak of robbery and piracy to hit oil platforms and infrastructure in the area.
One of the crew members of the boat, “Remas,” received a bullet wound, and the other suffered a concussion, and both were transferred to a nearby hospital, the Navy said in a statement.
Owned by Italian offshore contractor Micoperi, the boat is a supply vessel for Mexico’s oil industry.
It had a crew of about 35 when the attack occurred off the city of Ciudad del Carmen in the state of Campeche, according to two people familiar with the matter and local media reports.
About eight armed pirates arrived in two small ships and boarded the vessel, robbing the crew, the reports said.
Micoperi and the Italian embassy in Mexico did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mexican state oil firm Pemex has said robbery is increasingly affecting its oil infrastructure. Sophisticated equipment has been stolen and resold, and crews robbed.
Maybe it’s time to rethink that “unarmed merchant ships” thing. Maybe the ports around the world should station one of their navy ships just offshore to work as a bonded arms locker. Armed ship approaches the port, drops off it’s guns and ammo, gets receipt, docks under escort. Heading back to sea they pick up their arms and sail away. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out an acceptable level of defensive weaponry; a dozen battle rifles, 4 50 caliber machine guns, 2 to 4 20mm Bofors guns would be enough to protect even the largest merchant ship out beyond the line. No Bofors guns for coastal freighters. Sure, you’d have to shift the Overton Window of what being a sailor means to something more like what it was 200 years ago, but after that it would be just the way things are. And there wouldn’t be another act of piracy anywhere ever.
11/12/19
Yo, I dint axe you to come in here
Michigan Medieval Reenactor whacks intruder with battle axe
OSHTEMO TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — A man is alive and well after he used an ax to fend off a convicted criminal who broke into his Oshtemo Township apartment late Wednesday night.
Ben Ball, 36, used a replica battle ax to keep the intruder at bay. The 33-year-old suspect, Alex Lavell Rawls, is now in jail facing a charge of first-degree home invasion, which could put him in prison for a maximum of 20 years.
Ball says that the suspect dated his former roommate who left to get away. The suspect showed up at the apartment around 11:30 p.m., thinking she was there.
The suspect knocked on the door repeatedly, then kicked it in, while Ball was in his apartment playing video games and watching Rick and Morty.
Ball said he had reason to believe the suspect had a firearm. “(The) door opened, (I) grabbed the ax, (then) step, step, hit.”
The ax hit the intruder at least once in the torso and then the two started grappling in the apartment destroying the place. “There was a bloody mess everywhere,” Ball said.
Finally, the suspect gave up and made a run for it. A neighbor called 911 and police showed up. Police K-9s followed the trail of blood to apprehend the suspect.
Video at the link. Even ultra-dweebs have the ability to defend themselves. Good for him.
Article says that Ball practices a lot. He should practice more. Hit a guy several times with an axe and then he fights you and then later runs away? Dude, you need a better axe. And a lot more practice. There should have been a pile of chunks. Even a dull axe hit should have broken bones.
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Neener neener neener. Write poor laws, expect people to find the loopholes. It’s called freedom.
The parts are legal, but buying or possessing a new hi cap mag isn’t.
Why sure officer, I’ve owned this one since 2010. Why do you ask?
A state law banning the sale and transfer of large-capacity gun magazines has not stopped the sale and transfer of magazines that hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition.
An undercover investigation by 9Wants to Know found examples of gun stores in Colorado either ignoring the law altogether or finding a loophole to get around the law.
“It’s shocking to see that people are doing this,” said state Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora.
In 2013, a Democratically-controlled state legislature passed four comprehensive bills dealing with guns, including the bill sponsored by Fields banning magazines that hold more than 15 bullets.
The bill, signed into law by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, banned the sale, transfer and possession of a large-capacity magazine as of July 1, 2013.
“We decided that we were going to go out and take on the NRA,” Hickenlooper said during the second presidential debate July 30 in Detroit. “We passed universal background checks, we limited magazine capacity, we did the basic work, that for whatever reason, doesn’t seem to be able to get done in Washington.”
Yet, six years later, magazines that hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition are still being sold in Colorado. Legislators thought that they banned them, but gun store employees describe a loophole in the law.
Colorado’s law allows grandfathered magazines. The things don’t have a production date on them, and the designs haven’t changed in decades. So prove somebody has a new one.
Other parts of the state, bless them, have declared themselves Sanctuary Counties, and are not enforcing what they feel is an unconstitutional law. They sell the assembled magazines and the kits. So far, hardly a single arrest has been made.
A magazine generally has just 4 parts: the body (which is just a metal or plastic rectangular tube), a spring, the base plate, and a follower. The follower sits on top of the spring inside the tube and is shaped to fit the cartridges the magazine is intended for. What, you’re going to outlaw springs? I don’t think so.
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More gunny good news
About 1 in 14 adult Americans has a CCW permit. Adult citizens in 16 states need no permit. Still no CCW in Hawaii, and almost none in NJ (1/3 as many in the whole state as in Washington DC). So it’s possible that the total number might be about 1 in 10 adult citizens. And that’s just the legal numbers.
Violent crime rates continue to drop everywhere citizens can carry.
The number of concealed handgun permits has increased for the third year in a row. The figure now stands at over 18.66 million – a 304% increase since 2007. It’s also an 8% increase over the number of permits we counted a year ago in 2018. Unlike gun ownership surveys that may be affected by people’s unwillingness to answer personal questions, concealed handgun permit data is the only really “hard data” that we have. Sixteen states are missing from the data because people there don’t even need a permit to carry.
16 states ... so far. And we’re not even looking at state to state reciprocity.
h/t to Complete Colorado
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Ok, stuffing Italian Style attempt 2 [ attempt 1 was already pretty good, but I wanted to amp it up a couple notches ]
This half batch got more sausage - “proper” Italian sausages with the casings removed, a good bit more sage and thyme, a couple ounces more portabella mushrooms, and a minced clove of garlic. It’s enough to absolutely pack an 8x8 glass baking dish.
8 cups of unseasoned stuffing cubes (half a big bag) I used half Pepperidge Farm and half Martin’s soft potato bread cubes
2 cups of chicken stock. not broth.
4 sweet Italian sausages
1/2 big yellow onion, roughly diced
4 oz diced celery, about 3 sticks of celery hearts
1 clove garlic, minced
10 oz package fresh portabella mushrooms, sliced and roughly chopped
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1/4 chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp salt
a few good shakes of ground pepper
1 egg
1/2 stick unsalted butter
3 tbl olive oil
Set the oven at 350° F
Add a splash of olive oil to a large skillet, heat it. Skin the sausages and fry them, chopping them into bit with a spatula as they cook. When mostly cooked, push them to the side, add 2 pats butter and a little olive oil, and soften the onions. After a couple minutes add the celery. Give them about 5 minutes. Push them to the side, add some more butter and olive oil and saute the mushrooms. When they’ve reduced about half and let a lot of juices go, clear a space in the middle and saute the garlic for a minute or two. Mix everything up, sprinkle on most of the sage and thyme, and 1 1/2 cups of the chicken stock. Stir, and let simmer about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk an egg in a cereal bowl. Add the last 1/2 cup of the stock. Add the rest of the sage and thyme, and all of the chopped parsley. Stir.
In a really large mixing bowl, add the bread crumbs. Pour the egg mixture over them and stir them around.
Grease the inside of an 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish. Pour the contents of the skillet over the stuffing, and mix it in with a fork and the spatula. Transfer it to the baking dish. Add a few small pats of butter to the top. Cover with tinfoil. Into the oven for 30 minutes. Uncover, increase heat to 375 only if you want the top extra crispy, and bake another 30 minutes.
Now I have to figure out an alternate stuffing recipe for those who don’t like mushrooms or walnuts and can’t handle onions or garlic. I’m thinking apples and dried cranberries along with a slightly lower ratio of Italian sausage.
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Ack, crivens. The littlest cat is in heat again. Opera cat. Raow roaw roaw. I gotta watch the little tramp closely, as she tries to sneak out of the house. Bad kitteh! But she’s my pal now, wanting rubs constantly. Harlot.
11/11/19
Whine wine whine
I had a very disappointing bottle of wine tonight. Even though it was made from the epitome of Oregon’s Pinot Noir crop, the 2016 harvest from the Williamette Valley, the wine was thin, acerbic, and nearly sour. I like richer, more robust reds, and I found the standard bottle of Argyle Pinot Noir to be a real let down. Sure, they make a far fuller variety, their Nuthouse bottling, for just twice the price. Yeah, well, this one was already at the top of my acceptable price range. Double that, and we’re into the land of “you’ve got to be kidding me”.
I read the Wine Spectator magazine in the waiting room at my dentist’s office. It’s full of glowing, superlative reviews of wines that are so esoteric that they don’t exist for us mere mortals. I read some review online today for some wonder bottle, a small batch run of just 100 cases. Dude, that’s 1200 bottles. 800 liters. A bit more than 200 gallons. That’s hobby level production. Get real. Next.
Other reviews go on an on about the wonderful terroir of this or that region. “A full 900 hectares of vines produces this wonderful blah blah blah.” A hectare is a hair under 2 1/2 acres. So 900 of them is 2439 acres. 640 acres per square mile; 3.8 square miles. 2 miles by 1.9 miles. That’s not a “region”, that’s a decent sized field.
Vintage wine is such a crapshoot. I like it, but I hate the risk involved, and you get hosed at least half the time, no matter what the price is. It may be super awesome when it goes in the bottle, but then it gets shipped by orangutans and stored in room temperature warehouses, where it ages 10 times faster than it ought to. And then it goes on the shelf in the nice warm store until it sells. Which means anything in the bottle more than 2 years is at least half dead before you even buy it. I’ll stick to the cheaper stuff, or good bourbon and rye whiskey.
11/10/19
San Fran Elects Son Of Terrorists/Hugo Chavez Flunky As DA
Crivens, they’re all insane.
Progressive candidate Chesa Boudin won the race for district attorney in San Francisco on Saturday.
Boudin and opponent Suzy Loftus were neck-and-neck for days as officials tallied votes from the city’s ranked-choice ballots. (of course. how progressive.)
Boudin, 39, is a public defender who ran on a platform of closing jails, eliminating cash bail, combating racism in the criminal justice system and diverting people from jails and prisons.
Chesa Boudin is the son of Weather Underground killers Kathy Boudin, and David Gilbert. Kathy Boudin was convicted of felony manslaughter and bank robbery and served 22 years in jail for her role in the infamous 1980 Brinks Robbery in which several police and security guards were killed. Gilbert’s role in that was even worse, and he is still in jail, serving 75 to life. Chesa was adopted and raised by “former” terrorist bombers Bill Ayers ("guilty as sin, free as a bird") and his wife Bernadine Dohrn.
Boudin calls himself a Progressive. At the very least I’d call him an anarcho-Marxist.
link.
But wait, there’s more! Chesa was also a key player in Hugo Chavez’s regime, and possibly part of his death squads.
Chesa Boudin, who was quite literally Hugo Chavez’s trusted propagandist, translator and advisor, Cuba-groomed from the start, is now commanding an apparently unbeatable lead in San Francisco’s district attorney’s race.
That’s right, one of Hugo Chavez’s very own will soon be set to be the chief prosecutor for the California city. Yet this guy has also been photographed in Venezuela wielding an assault rifle, and getting guerrilla training, according to Venezuelan sources. He literally hung out with the Chavista goon squads known as ‘colectivos,’ the same thugs who drive around in motorcycles and shoot into crowds who protest. Those are his homies. When Boudin turns San Francisco into a Venezuela-style hellhole as a very lawless D.A., you can be sure that what he achieves will be socialism done by an expert.
Boudin can count on the support of radical black activist Shaun King - aka Talcum X (because he’s white)
YES!!!! @ChesaBoudin has now pulled into a commanding lead as votes continue to be counted in San Francisco.
He’s ahead by 5,897 first place votes and is the clear choice for District Attorney. https://t.co/2MRLg3OMeT
— Shaun King (@shaunking) November 9, 2019
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Another mysterious NJ flying car accident. Junior CSI Drew can’t figure out how this happened. Police are also baffled at this point.
Toms River NJ, Sunday morning 6:30am
TOMS RIVER – A car has crashed into the second story of a Toms River business on Sunday, police said. The Porsche remained lodged in the building at the scene.
Hooper Avenue and Indian Hill roads were closed after the 6:30 a.m. incident, according to the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department.
The crash occurred Sunday morning at EXIT Realty Elite at 1466 Hooper Ave. in Toms River, according to police. No one was apparently in the building at the time.
The car is upside down, fully inside the building, on the second floor, which is at least 12 feet off the fairly level ground. Not surprisingly, reports are that the two people in the car were killed.
There are no apparent skid marks on the road or in the parking lot. The brick marquee out by the road was not damaged. The low bushes behind it do not appear to be damaged. The phone pole wires are not damaged. I don’t see any damage to the low dirt median between the lanes on Hooper Road.
If the car was coming down Hooper Road from the right and swerved right and became airborne and hit the building, it’s about 90 feet from the curb to the corner of the building. If the car was going the wrong way on Hooper and swerved left into the parking lot, it’s about 100 feet from the far streetside corner of the driveway to the building. There is a side street across Hooper, Beatrice Ave, that nearly lines up with the corner of the building, and is long enough - about 800 feet max - to allow a fast car to get up quite a bit of speed. However, there’s that wide dirt median in the way, with a storm sewer, and there’s a phone pole and a fire hydrant by the realty building’s sidewalk too. So none of the 3 entry angles look feasible to me, without leaving quite a lot of skid marks or furrows in the soil. And I can rule out that the car was dropped like a flat arc bomb from a fast airplane, as that trajectory would surely have hit the power lines.
So it’s a mystery. Another real NJ head scratching traffic accident. Sure, I can see there being an accident if they had to swerve to avoid a deer or some of those aggressive wild turkey assaults they’re having. But >12 feet off the ground and upside down? That doesn’t make sense at all.
Monday Update:
The sports car, a 2010 Porsche Boxster convertible, was traveling at “a high rate of speed” when the driver lost control, hit a center median and struck an embankment that sent it smashing through the building, Toms River Police spokeswoman Jillian Messina told Fox News.
...
Skid marks could be seen stretching across four lanes of traffic in the direction of the building, the outlet reported.
...
The victims were later identified as 22-year-old Braden DeMartin of Toms River and his passenger, 23-year-old Daniel Foley, also of Toms River, the department said in a news release. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
There you go. Such skid marks should have been highly visible. Obvious. Even at 6:30 in the morning. So what we have here is another case of lazy journalism; one photograph of them, or even a single sentence mentioning them, would have made things so much clearer. And though we’ll never know, I’m betting this was because of deer or turkeys in the road.
*********
Mmm, coffee and leftover stuffing for breakfast. Oh boy!
*********
11/09/819
Ok, so that sort of worked. Mostly.
I’m trying out recipes in advance (for once) for Thanksgiving. I’ve got the bread down pat, no worries there. And her New York style water bath cheesecake with lemon is the bomb. But I’m bringing stuffing too, and that can sometimes be a challenge. I made one recipe today ... ok, I made half a recipe of it because it’s just the two of us ... and while it came out pretty good, it needs quite a bit more oomph. It called for fresh thyme and sage, which are stupid expensive for the little that you get. I used their quantities but it was no where near the flavor level you’d get in a package of Stove Top. Not that 5 sprigs of runny thyme is going to make 2 tablespoonsful. No way. 1 teaspoon, maybe. So more herbs - my dried ones are probably a decade old, so time to buy fresh (forget Bell’s seasoning in the cardboard box. Cheap, but ancient, always), more mushrooms, and a stronger sausage flavor. Hatfield’s is too mild. I’ll get some good links, and maybe add some Jones breakfast links, which are quite herby. Will apples or cranberries work if added? Have to try. Thing is, even though I love it, we don’t eat stuffing more than once or twice a year other than Thanksgiving, and that’s usually a box of Stove Top. So I don’t have much experience making it from the get go.
I also found out that some of the people coming don’t like mushrooms or onions, so I might have to make a half recipe of this, and a half recipe of something else without them.
The pumpkin humus is good too, and very easy. Recipes online, but make a batch yourself, because the amounts of spice, garlic, and tahini vary a lot. Most people don’t like things firecracker sharp and hot like I do.
Guess I’ll be nibbling on leftover stuffing for the next few weeks. With some holiday humus on crackers.
*************
Your Morning Hypocrisy
Seriously? Projection much?
( this article stems from the Kentucky governor race, which was so tight that just 5K votes separated the condidates. The Republican guy is looking for a re-canvas / recount. )
From the Washington Post, where “Democracy Dies In Darkness”. Article posted at 5:03pm when the sun has nearly set.
**********
Boy am I out of it. There was a “gun incident” hardly a quarter mile from here a couple days ago, and I didn’t know a thing about it until somebody mentioned it at bowling league last night. Where we managed to win 1 game, but I rolled fairly Ok all night. To be fair, the story only ran online at two local news sites.
Shots Fired At Clinton Holiday Inn
Every cop in the county responded, including the state police from 3 miles down the road. Shooter arrested.
A North Carolina man fired several shots in a Hunterdon County hotel after an argument with his co-workers, authorities said Wednesday.
No one was injured when Robert Michalski Jr. opened fire around 11 p.m. Tuesday at the Holiday Inn in Clinton, according to police. The gunfire prompted officers from at least five nearby departments and state troopers to converge on the hotel.
“It was determined a group of co-workers were traveling together had an argument,” Town of Clinton Police Chief J. Cory Kubinak said in an email. “The suspect began shooting at the victim over this dispute and would not allow him to leave for a period of time.”
Kubinak said officers contained the situation and there was no further threat.
Police charged Michalski with multiple weapons offenses, aggravated assault and criminal restraint. The 37-year-old Rocky Mount, North Carolina, man was sent to the county jail, according to officials.
CLINTON, NJ – A suspect is in custody and lodged in the county jail after gunshots were reported at the Holiday Inn here around 11 p.m. last night, according to information provided to Mayor Janice Kovach by Clinton Police Chief Cory Kubinak.
The report prompted response from police here and from Clinton and Lebanon Townships, Franklin, High Bridge, State Police other surrounding police departments.
The suspect is Robert Michalski Jr., 37, of Rocky Mount, NC, Kubinak said. Michalski had a dispute with co-workers, according to police, and shot at a victim multiple times. No one was injured, police said.
A weapon, which police did not identify, was recovered. Michalski was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon; unlawful possession of an assault weapon; possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes; criminal restraint; possession of high- capacity magazines; and aggravated assault.
Wow, so Bubba D and his buds go on a road trip and he brings his AR with him and a bunch of high capacity magazines? To New Jersey?? Horry Clap, now that’s some genius act.
11/07/19
Waldo D. Whistleblower Found!
https://twitter.com/mspdcali/status/1192157500641931264
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMmYpOKBt7N/
**********
But but how is this possible? It’s only those loving, accepting, tolerant, pro-womyn, pro-diversity, progressive types who are being polled? And there hasn’t even been one primary vote or caucus yet. Go figure.
Kamalatoe’s Sinking Ship: It’s Because Raycis !!!
instead of blaming herself, Senator Kamala Devi Harris is blaming America. The vast majority of it which isn’t supporting her. And there’s only one possible reason they aren’t supporting her. Racism.
Harris began her campaign ascendancy by accusing Joe Biden of racism. It’s only fitting that she’s wrapping it up by implying that her lack of support isn’t her fault, but the fault of an intolerant nation.
Electability, a problem caused by her own poor poll numbers, is really a sign of racial unreadiness.
enator Kamala Harris polled at 3% in last month’s Quinnipiac poll. That must make the San Fran and Hollywood donors who stuffed $11.6 million in her pantsuit pockets this quarter feel good about giving to charity.
A quarter of Iowa Democrat caucusgoers have a negative opinion of Harris. That’s up minus eleven points since June. So, Harris is making weekly trips to Iowa while claiming that she’s going to move there. Not even Democrats are stupid enough to believe that she’s going to leave her Brentwood mansion to move to a place where the temperatures are currently hovering around the low thirties.
And her Iowa stump speech is now all about accusing anyone who doesn’t vote for her of racism.
Looks like she’s taking a page from the Hillary playbook. Hey, maybe there will be a mega-million advance on a book deal for Kam? Um, no. Because raycis, right?
**********
Oh Kentucky, The Voters Of Kentucky *
For one thing, Bevin is the most unpopular governor in the country, according to data from Morning Consult, which at last count found that just 32 percent of registered voters in the state approved of the job he was doing while 56 percent disapproved. These weaknesses were likely the biggest factor in his loss to Beshear, who had the added advantage of being the son of the man who served as Kentucky governor just before Bevin. For another thing, until Bevin’s election in 2015, Democrats had held the governorship in Kentucky for almost the entirety of the past two decades.”
So the media’s huge trumpet blowing now sounds a bit off-key, doesn’t it? Their new governor (possibly, let’s do a recount) is the son of their old governor, nobody really likes the current governor, and the state has had Dem governors for a generation. Yeah, that’s a YUGE “flip”. Knot.
**********
There’s not much point in surfing the internet looking for new stuff before 7am Eastern. It’s all yesterday’s posts. Actually, there’s not much point in me even being awake before 6am, but the outdoor kitty is expecting breakfast, and now that 6am is now 5am I’m waking up “early” automatically. I should just go back to sleep. However, plenty of stuff to try and work on here today.
11/05/19
Not Made In The USA: English as she is goodly written
I got a thing delivered today that needs a bit of assembly. It was made in China, or at least the instructions were. It’s a gas. Here are a couple excerpts
The Manual Instruction of GCC-0002
...
CAUTION:
4. Please keep this product away from children and pet, for safely consideration.
...
When you unpack our product, you will find every component. Please classify and divide all the component into groups and screw like we do in the picture first before install.
Well, that’s one way to get the customer relaxed before one of these tedious processes!
**********
Must be an election year. And yes, it’s election day, so get out and vote, even if it’s just local candidates and issues this time around.
After Massive Public Pressure, Maryland County Rolls Back Sanctuary Rules A Little Bit
Following months of national media coverage over the handling of illegal aliens in his custody, Montgomery County, Maryland, Executive Marc Elrich has somewhat reversed a sanctuary policy he signed into law.
Elrich will allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents the ability to access certain areas of the Montgomery County jail in order to apprehend illegal aliens, according to ABC7 News. A county spokesman confirmed to the local news outlet on Nov. 1 that correctional officers have been ordered to give ICE agents clearance to “identified areas” of the jail to “ensure that transfers are conducted in a safe environment.”
News of the cooperation between Montgomery County and federal immigration authorities comes three months after Elrich signed an executive order that prohibited county officials from working with ICE.
However, Elrich’s order soon proved controversial. Authorities arrested numerous illegal aliens in Montgomery County — all of the arrests taking place just weeks after the order was signed — and charged them with rape or other sexual abuse crimes. The string of rape charges shined a national spotlight on the county’s policy toward criminal illegal aliens and its fraught relationship with the agency tasked with removing them.
A public relations battle ensued between federal immigration authorities and Elrich’s office.
...
In a scathing response to national criticism, the Montgomery County Council in early September accused the Trump administration, conservative media, “Neo-Nazi sympathizers” and others of spreading “a lot of inaccurate information” about the county’s criminal justice process.
Pro-ICE demonstrators held a rally in front of the Montgomery County office building on Sept. 13, demanding elected leaders end its sanctuary executive order. The rally, which drew counter-protesters, was held to highlight organizers’ argument that immigration enforcement helps keep communities safer.
It’s not clear if Elrich’s rollback of his sanctuary rules are sufficient enough for federal immigration authorities. ICE did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
It is not up to local or state authorities to choose whether they will comply with federal law. Period. IMO, not only should these sanctuary areas be immediately defunded from all federal largess, criminal charges should be brought against every last one of them and prosecuted to the highest degree.
**********
The article doesn’t say, but it doesn’t need to does it? Another day, another TNB. Guaranteed.
Rude Customer Gets Killed Over Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich
A man was fatally stabbed Monday evening while inside a Maryland Popeyes following a fight over a chicken sandwich, a source told Fox News.
Prince George’s County police said they received reports of a fight at a Popeyes location in the 6200 block of Livingston Road in Oxon Hill, Md., on Monday at around 7 p.m. Oxon Hill is about 20 minutes from Washington, D.C.
When officers arrived at the location they found a man in the parking lot with stab wounds, police told Fox News. He was transported to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
The victim’s name or age has not yet been released. Police said the suspect is still on the run.
According to police, the fight initially began in line when a man cut in front of another man and then the altercation escalated and spilled outside where one of the men was stabbed.
Rudeness? Check. Bullying? Check. Irrational violent reaction over an irritating but totally minor issue? Check.
The rest of us had learned by second grade not to cut the line. This was an absolutely senseless thing to die over, but I have zero tolerance or sympathy with bullies. Too frickin’ bad.
Update: name and photo released. Entire incident took just 15 seconds
The victim was identified as 28-year-old male Kevin Tyrell Davis of Oxon Hill, Maryland, Prince George’s County Police spokeswoman announced Tuesday.
He entered the fast food joint on the 6200 block of Livingston Road around 7pm Monday evening where about three dozen people were in line, many waiting for the newly released chicken sandwich, Police Chief Hank Stawinski said.
He then cut the line and was confronted by a male suspect.
Posted by Drew458
on 11/23/2019 at 07:56 AM
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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