Has it really been 11 days since my last post? OMG.

Trump survived the assassination attempt by 1/4”. God was watching out for him. Thank you God.


Do I suspect the insane left assclown posse was behind it? Without a doubt. We have a moronic brain addled thug for a “president”, and the MSM, the Wide Latina, and plenty of other commie fuckwad Dimocraps have been calling for his elimination for quite some time.

I’ve watched all the videos from the rally many times now. Whoever the counter terrorist snipers were, they suck. They waited and waited, until the shooter started shooting. One of them took his eye off the scope at just the wrong moment, and the other one cringed down like a fucking pussy. Yeah, they took out the bad guy, Jack Ruby style, but waited until AFTER President Trump had been hit. You failed. On purpose. And if you were “only following orders” like a good little Nazi, then your bosses suck too. All the way up to the top.
And you should all hang for this. All of you. People knew the shooter was on the roof. they could see him. They tried and tried to get the cops, feds, and SS to do something. Nope. And this was the closest roof to the podium. It is utterly impossible that this was an accident. Utterly. Impossible. They set up a hit and let it go down. Good thing just-barely-20 moron was such a crappy shooter under pressure.

######

When the Medicare ran out, I took mom back to the memory care place. She had been out of there since the 27th of May. They still hadn’t done her laundry. Holy shit. But hey, the only way the rehab place could make sure all her laundry was in her room by her release date was to NOT DO ANY for another week. So she was there 5 weeks … they did one load. ALL THESE PEOPLE SUCK SHIT. She was dressed in ill fitting crap from the lost and found when I went to pick her up. WTF.

Whatver. I loaded up a great big luggage cart with all her dirty clothes, and left them in the hall for the minions at the memory care place to do. I took all the hangers from the other place (most were hers anyway) and put them in her closet.

We had a pretty good visit. She was coherent, and we could actually talk. Sadly, I was in need of my medicine by the late afternoon, and I hadn’t had anything to eat other than coffee since 5am, so when I had to walk to the other end of the building to notify people that she needed changing, I just kept going. Out to my car and drove home. It took me 2 hours. “Rush hour” my ass.

#######

Ok, time to give kitty her evening pill. Then I’m going to bed.

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July 3, 2024

Happy Fourth Of July!

Hello old blog, it’s me again. I know, I’ve been away. Usually about 15 feet away, but away nonetheless. Nothing new here, nothing has changed. Maybe I’ve fallen into a funk, or some seriously low energy period. I can’t seem to get much of anything done anymore. It took me 3 days to get around to doing a load of dishes. I haven’t put the hose reel back together yet that I took apart a week ago. Oh well. At least we have food to eat, the bathroom is reasonably clean, laundry isn’t too far behind, and I get the garbage and recycling out every couple of days. I don’t like that I seem to be slowing down, from slow to damn near comatose. I want my energy and motivation back please.



So anyway, what do I have around here that seems patriotic? Something red white and blue? Ah, I think I might have something over here …

Seems patriotic to me. I know I’d salute that given the chance.

Enjoy the holiday. Be safe. Try to afford the typical holiday cook out. God bless us, and God bless the USA.

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June 22, 2024

Not a lot of new to report. Wifely and I had Friday off, and for once the demands of senior care placed upon us were absent, mostly. So we were able to get a lot done around the house. We spent most of the day outside getting the gardens and the patio fixed up. It was mighty hot and I got a little bit of sunburn. But we got the last 2 dozen annuals in the ground, after we broke up that ground, worked in some good topsoil, and watered it deeply. It hasn’t rained here in about a week, and it won’t rain again for another several days, so things are getting dried out. Which drove me to to work on the hose reel and get that cleaned up but not repositioned yet. We’ve got it sitting on a slab which isn’t in quite the right spot, and the plastic reel box doesn’t weigh enough to stay in place when we try to pull out some of the 150 feet of hose inside. Needs glue or bolts or something. It lives in a nook between the chimney fascia and the lower end of the patio, keeping out of sight. That slab needs another slab next to it so the reel can move over about 10”. And we need to get moving on putting down anti-weed mat, gravel, and some more paver slabs to pretty up the area. We have a couple rolls of the mat stuff but just haven’t got around to it yet.

We did manage to attach a few hanging plant hangers to the split rail fence at the edge of the gulch beyond the patio, and mixed up some good soil, fertilizer, and potting soil to fill them, then put a couple annuals in each one. So it looks nice.

As part of that hose task I put a two-way splitter head on the patio faucet and got hold of a 10’ hose to go from there to the hose reel. The 6’ was too short, so that’s now the stub hose for the patio for filling watering cans etc. Next part of that project is to scrub down the 75’ hose that was the inner length on the reel. Somehow it has become extremely filthy, caked with mud and maybe mold. So I’ll set up a big bucket of water and detergent, and put a couple pumps of D128 in there, which will kill any mold or fungus. ( D128 is the greatest cleaner/disinfectant ever. It will literally take the stink off of poop, and kills every germ, virus, mold, mildew, fungus etc. A gallon lasts nearly forever. ) Then I’ll give the whole hose a serious scrub and lay it out in the hot sun to dry off, soften up, and work the curls out of it. Not sure if I’ll put it back on the reel or find a spot for it in the garage. We really only need that second length when watering the garbage garden which is across our small parking lot from our garage.

Note to self: find 2 or 3 10” galvanized lag bolts and install them to support the air conditioner’s air handler drain extension. I’ve had it propped up with the sprinkler to keep the sag out of the PVC drain pipe, but after I used the sprinkler for a couple hours the other day and put it back several gallons of water came rushing out. I do NOT want the condensation pan in the attic to overflow, so it’s high time I put in a permanent solution.


#############

Mom isn’t doing too great. She lost another 2 pounds in her time in the hospital, so she’s down to barely 100lb. Skin and bones, hardly any muscle left anywhere on her body. While we did have a nice visit with her Thursday – I dragged my brother along in his wheelchair, as he hasn’t seen her in over a month – she has reached a darker level of dementia. She was off in her own world when we got there, drumming out a tune by bouncing her plastic juice glass on the roll up table on her bed. And spilling juice everywhere. Once we got her attention, reintroduced ourselves, and started feeding her fancy chocolate she was able to focus and be a little conversant for about 90 minutes. We brushed her hair and held her hands and were loving and patient; people in her condition need physical contact and kind attention. And endless patience. I took him because she has reached the angry and violent phase of things. The psych nurse called me up the day before, mom was screaming and thrashing and insanely mad. When I took the phone call I had to ask if it was puppy day, as I could hear barking in the background. No, no dogs. That was my mom. They had no chocolate, which so far has done the trick. So I got up there the next day.

And the day after our visit I got another call from the psych nurse. Mom having another violent angry fit. Tried to kick and bite the nurses. This is not cool. They’re starting her on some Avitan, an anxiety med that’s lighter than Xanax and lasts twice as many hours. This rehab place is really NOT set up for dementia patients, so I’m going to have to call them Monday and arrange a meeting with this one and that one. She’s there for physical therapy, but if she fights against it (she’s done so several times now) then her progress will plateau or even drop, and that’s what fires off the kill switch from Medicare. So it will be back to the memory care home, where she’ll probably become a bedridden resident. That’s pretty awful, as she was making really good mobility progress before she fell and fractured her femur. And there are no TVs in the rooms at the memory home, not that she would watch anyway. And the comfortable double bed there is not a hospital bed so she’d have to be put in a wheelchair to eat or move around. And I’d have to get a wheelchair for her, but Medicare will pay for it if one is prescribed. This is a sad way for her to exist in her final days but not much else can be done. And I’m thinking that the hospice nurse’s evaluation 2 months ago is going to be pretty accurate. She gave my mom 6-9 months to live, based on her 25 years of dealing with thousands of getting-near-the-end seniors.

What happens after she’s gone? That’s the next row to hoe. I’ve been pushing my highly handicapped brother to think things out and come up with a plan. He can barely barely manage on his own in that house, living on just the ground floor and not doing much cleaning. Even with me going there at least once a week to do laundry, some more cleaning, etc., it’s a marginal situation at best. And now he needs cataract surgery and maybe has a prostate situation coming? Great. A couple more things for me to take care of. My needs? Eye exam, replace my falling apart 16 year old glasses frames, my own healthcare, and anything I’d like to do? My knee surgeries that I really need to have done that each have a 12 week recovery? Back burner it all. I am their servant.



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June 17, 2024

It wouldn’t make any difference but someone should try anyway
My delayed response to Sotomayer’s “walks like a duck” dissent on the SCOTUS bumpstock overturn



As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the other day the Supreme Court threw out the ATF’s ban on bumpstocks because making such a ruling was beyond their jurisdiction. Such rules should be laws, and such laws must be passed by Congress. That’s it, beginning and end.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a bump stock does not transform a firearm into an automatic weapon, striking down a federal rule that banned bump stocks.

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Congress has long restricted access to “‘machinegun[s],’” a category of firearms defined by the ability to “shoot, automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger.”

In his opinion for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote what most people who understand and are familiar with firearms have been thinking all along.

“Semi-automatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machine guns,” Justice Thomas wrote. “This case asks whether a bump stock—an accessory for a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)—converts the rifle into a ‘machine gun.’ We hold that it does not.

“A bump stock does not convert a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun any more than a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does.”

Thomas further wrote: “We hold that a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a ‘machine gun’ because it cannot fire more than one shot ‘by a single function of the trigger.’ And, even if it could, it would not do so ‘automatically’. ATF therefore exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies bump stocks as machineguns.” [ emphasis mine ]

Lead by their lead Affirmative Action hire on the Court, “wide Latina” Sonia Sotomayer’s moronic and unreasoned dissent lead the entire Left cabal of statist Marxists into an apoplectic keyboard meltdown. Perhaps the most egregious of these turbo-stupid rectal oral suction essays was penned over at the beyond-the-horizon leftist rag called Slate. One diarrhea diatribe being deemed insufficient, Slate has now squeezed out three putrid wet ones on the subject. Each stinks worse than the one before it.  Brown stain 1, Brown stain 2, Brown stain 3.

I propose a few video examples to be made that show the complete lack of knowledge of physics and firearms that went into her willfully benighted dissent. The woman, with the support of the other two knowledge resistant leftwing women on the big bench, should not be allowed to publish an opinion on anything, especially anything to do with the 2A or firearms. WTH, the left thinks Alito should recuse himself over anything because his wife flew a flag upside down for a couple days once. 

My examples would use a bumpstock equipped AR-15 and a single shot musket just to highlight that physics works regardless of the device employed.

First a tiny bit of information about bumpstocks. All they really are is a spring loaded stock with a sliding cover around the top of the AR-15 handgrip. They only work (when and because) you use your other hand to continuously apply forward pressure on the forearm grip of the rifle. You pull the trigger but don’t relax your finger pressure afterwards. Recoil pulls the rifle backwards a bit, compressing the springs in the stock AND relieving pressure on the trigger which allows it to reset. Your forward pressure on the forearm pulls the rifle forward after it has cycled a new round into the chamber, and that forward pressure causes your unmoving trigger finger to depress the trigger and fire the next round. And so on and so on, until you a) lift your trigger finger, b) stop pulling the rifle forward, c) run out of ammunition.  You may not have consciously pulled the trigger repeatedly, but physics did it for you. One pull per shot, not matter what.

The Gun Control Acts define a machine gun (operative word “machine”) as a firearm that can shoot multiple times from a single pull of the trigger. That’s the definition. Period. The automatic firing part is built into the weapon. It is NOT an add-on accessory, such as wearing a special shooting vest covered in springs. Or putting a rubber band around your beltloop and your trigger finger and shooting from the hip. There are exhibition shooters who can fire guns very rapidly. They are just really quick; they are not machines.



Ok, first experiment. Roll the video.


Take both these rifles, load them, and put them on a sturdy wall hanger. Design the hanger so that it loosely cradles the guns, and has a fixed post (eg a dowel) in the trigger guard ahead of the trigger. Have someone push the rifle from behind. Bang! It goes off, because shifting the weapon forward is the same thing as pulling the trigger back. Basic, right? Repeat this with the bumpstock rifle. Same thing happens.

Reload the musket and return it to the wall hanger. Now stand next to the rifle and pull it forward by the forend. Bang! It goes off, for the exact same reason as pushing it from behind. It’s the forward movement that actuates the trigger being pressed, not the location of the force that moved the guns forward.



Next experiment.

Load the rifles and hold each one one handed, as if each was a pistol. Pull the trigger. Bang! The musket goes off. Pull the trigger on the bumpstock rifle and it goes off too. Once. Wait, isn’t this thing a web-footed machine gun according to Ms Wisdom? What happened? Lack of forward pull is what happened. Without that the bumpstock doesn’t work.



Next experiment.


As machine guns are defined BY LAW as being able to fire repeatedly with a single pull of the trigger, devise a device (similar perhaps to the old school cable used as a remote shutter button for cameras) that presses the trigger very firmly and stays depressed. Maybe it needs a ratcheting clamp, maybe it needs a significant spring. The point is, it pulls the trigger once and doesn’t let go. The trigger stays pulled. On an actual machine gun, the weapon will continue to fire. On the musket the gun will fire once, but that’s moot as the thing only has one shot. On the bumpstock rifle, even when held properly with lots of forward tension, the rifle will fire only once. This is because the trigger is unable to reset, as that action of being reset pushes the trigger a little bit forward. The action will probably cycle in a new round, but the firing pin in the bolt will not be cocked, by design. Because it’s not a machine gun, by design.



Next experiment.

This one relies on gravity, and requires the guns to have a trigger pull force less than the weight of the weapon. This is not hard to achieve; there are special weight gauges to measure trigger pull, muskets are fairly heavy to begin with, and gravity is ever present. You would need to figure out a safe place to point the muzzles downwards so that you wouldn’t get hit with any ricochet from the ground. Maybe use blanks instead of real bullets. 

Turn the wall hanger to a vertical position. Load each weapon and place them on that hanger with the muzzles pointing straight down. Do this very carefully so that the trigger peg is just barely in contact with the trigger but is not pressing it. Release each rifle. Bang! the mass of the weapon and the pull of gravity overcome the trigger resistance, and they go off. Does the bumpstock rifle hang there and shoot off a whole magazine? Of course not … although it is slightly possible IF the recoil impulse is enough to bounce the gun up enough to allow the trigger to reset and then fall back down on the trigger peg again. Might want to think this one through a bit more first. But it shows the old “common sense” practice works, that you never carry a firearm by the trigger. That’s just stupid.


######


These videos wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference to Sotomayer or her brainless “feelings” minions on the Big Bench, or to Slate. Because feelings trump reason, feelings trump physics, feelings trump reality. Yeah, such wisdom. Such deep reasoning. Such jurisprudence.

Actually, several diagrams, GIFs (possibly animated ones) were presented to the high court when hearing this case. Slate was offended and dismissive of these. Guess it tasted like mansplainin’ to the willfully benighted. Gee, too bad. It’s called reality, the ultimate actual “based”.

Hey, if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Kill it, pluck it, fry it up nice and crispy, and serve it with a nice helping of HOLY SHIT ARE YOU STUPID sauce.

There. I just felt the need to show that I can actually write a normal blog post once in a double blue moon.

Next thing you know I’ll be back to writing about politics. Crivens!

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NYC Ship Sinking, Rats Long Gone

New York City is home to 118 billionaires, more than any other American city. New York City is also home to nearly one million millionaires, more than any other city in the world. Among those millionaires some 8,865 are classified as “high net worth,” with more than $30 million each.

They pay the taxes. The top one percent of NYC taxpayers pay nearly 50 percent of all personal income taxes collected in New York. Personal income tax in the New York area accounts for 59 percent of all revenues. Property taxes add in more than a billion dollars a year in revenue, about half of that generated by office space.

…

The budget for a city as complex as New York is a mess of federal, state, and local funding sources. It can be sliced and diced many ways, but the one that matters is the starkest: the people and companies who pay for New York’s poor are leaving even as the city is already facing a $7.4 billion tax revenue hit from the initial effects of the coronavirus. The money is there; New York’s wealthiest individuals have increased their net worth by $44.9 billion during the pandemic. It’s just not here.

…

While overall only five percent of residents left as of May, in the city’s very wealthiest blocks residential population decreased by 40 percent or more. The higher-earning a neighborhood is, the more likely it is to have emptied out. Even the amount of trash collected in wealthy neighborhoods has dropped, a tell-tale sign no one is home. A real estate agent told me she estimates about a third of the apartments even in my mid-range 300 unit building are empty.

…

Fewer than one-tenth of Manhattan office workers came back to the workplace a month after New York gave businesses the green light to return to the buildings they ran from in March. Having had several months to notice what not paying Manhattan office rents might do for their bottom line, large companies are leaving.

I miss my mom, I miss my dad
I miss the road, I miss my band
Giving hugs and shaking hands
It’s a mystery I suppose
Just how long this thing goes
But there’ll be crowds and there’ll be shows
And there will be light after dark
Someday when we aren’t six feet apart

Now UPS has brought out “Follow Me”, a real time, self-updating, GPS driven mapping application, that let’s you see the big brown truck driving all over with your package in it. Not sure if this is going to help or hurt, because most people won’t realize that there are 300 other boxes in that truck, and yours is almost guaranteed to be last in line. It was already a bit frustrating just following the data, watching my box go from Florida to Edison NJ in hardly over a day, but then on to Allentown PA, right past my home, and then have to go on to another truck to come back to NJ days later and to get delivered … later today?  Maybe. “Out for delivery” for 3 days? Oy vey.

I thought I posted this the other day, but it seems to have evaporated. Whatevs.

Anyway, this is actress Kelsey Asbille Chow. She had a small but regular role in the One Tree Hill drama a few years back, and was in the 2017 film Wind River. Currently she has a supporting role on Paramount’s cowboy drama / Kevin Costner vehicle Yellowstone.

We watch Yellowstone, it’s great, and it’s interesting to see her character developing from a whiny liberal into someone more normal. That’s going to be long journey. She is super attractive though. 

Funny, I kind of thought it was the President’s job to keep people aware of new possibilities and to give them even temporary hope. But the Left may be right on this one. Like the blind squirrel …

Most Americans have been praying for a cure to the Chinese Communist Party virus. Such a prospect turns out to be horrifying, however, if you are a Deep State bureaucrat, someone invested in open-ended and lucrative research into unpromising medicines or vaccines and/or a political opponent of President Trump.

Hence the vehemently hostile response of a leftist publication called Axios to information about Oleandrin, a natural supplement that has proven in clinical experiments and limited human trials in Texas to crush the CCP virus. Rather than celebrate this development and call for an urgent effort to validate such findings with widespread, life-saving trials, Axios touted the uninformed criticisms of naysayers determined to snuff further work on this apparent breakthrough.

To the alarm of some government health officials, President Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to permit an extract from the oleander plant to be marketed as a dietary supplement or, alternatively, approved as a drug to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works.

Driving the news: The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July. It’s embraced by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, a big Trump backer, who recently took a financial stake in the company that develops the product.

OMG, if Mike Lindell is behind it, you know it’s deathly anathema.

Oleandrin is an extract from the oleander plant. Researchers have suggested that it could be useful to treat cancer because of the way it affects cells, and that it could enhance the effects of other cancer therapies.

Professor Sharon Lewin, the director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, is an international authority on antiviral drugs and has a laboratory working on COVID-19.
Asked about oleandrin’s potential efficacy as a COVID-19 treatment, Lewin told Axios, “Oleandrin looks to have antiviral activity at high doses in a test tube model. You’d certainly want to see more work done on this before even contemplating a human trial.”

A July 2020 study from the University of Texas at Galveston shows, in a laboratory setting, that oleandrin can inhibit the coronavirus in monkey kidney cells. This study has not been peer reviewed and one of the authors of the study, Robert Newman, is chairman of Phoenix Biotechnology’s scientific advisory board — the company developing the oleandrin product.

The bottom line: Scientists around the world are in a race for cures, treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Government regulators are investigating hundreds of products. When a biotech executive like Whitney can take his case directly to the president, it casts doubt over the scientific rigor of the drug development process.

From the research study:

Using Vero cells, we found that prophylactic oleandrin administration at concentrations down to 0.05 μg/ml exhibited potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, with an 800 fold reduction in virus production, and a 0.1 μg/ml dose resulted in a greater than 3,000-fold reduction in infectious virus production. The EC50values were 11.98ng/ml when virus output was measured at 24 hours post-infection, and 7.07ng/ml measured at 48 hours post-infection. Therapeutic (post-infection) treatment up to 24 hours after infection of Vero cells also reduced viral titers, with the 0.1 μg/ml dose causing greater than 100-foldreductions as measured at 48 hours, and the 0.05 μg/ml dose resulting in a 3578-fold reduction.The potent prophylactic and therapeutic antiviral activities demonstrated here strongly support the further development of oleandrin to reduce the severity of COVID-19 and potentially also to reduce spread by persons diagnosed early after infection.

In years past the FDA has been dinged for major slow walking and foot dragging when it comes to testing and approving new medicines. Many drugs are available to the rest of the world that are not yet available to us. With this pandemic that slowness has become an issue, but I don’t think the best idea is to throw caution to the wind and let anything fly. That way leads to snake oil. There has to be some level of significant proper, fair, testing.

OTOH, the Axios article does mention how this could easily be marketed as an herbal supplement, which could NOT focus on any curative ability. To which there’s an easy work around; “We’re NOT ALLOWED to mention that this cures Covid, and thus cannot recommend a dose of 2 pills a day for 2 weeks. This product is for dietary supplemental use only, and we bear no responsibility for it’s use in any other manner.” kind of advertising.

OTTH, shouldn’t President Trump know by now when to keep his fat mouth shut?

Consumption of even one Nerium oleander leaf can be fatal. Onset of toxicity occurs several hours following consumption. Symptoms include vomiting, abdominal pain, cyanosis, hypotension, hypothermia, vertigo, respiratory paralysis and death.

However, a carefully controlled tea made from the flowers could be an effective cancer and AIDS treatment. But more trials are needed!!

A hot water extract of the plant, known as Anvirzel™, has been developed as a potential treatment for cancer, AIDS, and congestive heart failure. It consists of a mixture of oleandrin and the glycone oleandrigenin. Experiments suggest that a combination of Anvirzel and cisplatin may be more effective than cisplatin monotherapy . In an earlier study, Anvirzel appeared safe in humans when injected intramuscularly, although adverse effects such as injection site pain, fatigue, and other GI symptoms were reported.

Anvirzel™ is not an approved cancer treatment in the United States. Until more data regarding its efficacy and toxicity are available, this product should not be used outside of clinical trials.

Anvirzel may be a modern version of a medicinal extract of oleander that goes back to the dawn of history.

Historical records prove that Oleander plant has healing powers; thus it was highly regarded by the Mesopotamians in the 15th century B.C. During the age of the Babylonians up to the Romans it was used as a relieved for hangovers. To the Arabs it has better worth since the plant was used for cancer medication in the 8th century A.D.

OTOH, the Romans also used it to commit suicide.

I looked up the entry at Wiki … and I think I’ll pass on this one. There may be too much risk in a cure made from just a little bit of deadly poison.

De Blasio’s New York has finally hit an all-time low: the once bustling city is now on the verge of looking like a demilitarized zone. Between the pandemic and the riots in the city, iconic 5th Avenue now looks more like a dystopian nightmare in a recently shot video posted to Twitter.

The video follows a car driving down a deserted 5th Avenue, with almost all of the area’s high end stores boarded up and shut down. There are few people seen on what is usually a busy street.

“Look at everything. Everything’s boarded up. Even the hotel. Boarded up,” the video’s narrator, who is obviously fed up with how the city looks, says.

He continues: “This is all Manhattan, boarded up. Have you ever seen Manhattan look like this? The media will not report this.”

“Everything boarded up. They don’t want to show this to you people because they’re afraid. Saks 5th Avenue – boarded up from end to end. They put up barbed wire. Everywhere you see boards, windows are gone. Look at New York City – what happened,” he says.

The video runs over 2 minutes and shows dozens of boarded up businesses.

No, it’s not a war zone — it’s Manhattan.

Video shows once-bustling Big Apple streets nearly deserted and dotted with boarded-up, spray-painted and bashed-in buildings after days of looting.

The footage taken Tuesday and Wednesday in Midtown and Soho shows the windows of popular stores shattered while others — such as Burberry, Sephora and Sunglasses Hut — are covered in plywood to protect against looters.

…

Only a handful of masked pedestrians and police officers are seen walking on eerily empty sidewalks. Some plywood panels put up by shops were tagged with graffiti reading, “Justice for George Floyd” — the black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground for nearly nine minutes.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many Big Apple retailers have been closed for months prior to protests over Floyd’s death.

These riots happened at the end of May …

Sidewalks across the SoHo neighborhood, Union Square and Fifth Avenue were covered in broken glass. Multiple police cars had been burnt to nothing but ashes. Stores, including a Duane Reade, Urban Outfitters and Swatch, were looted. Banks were ravaged. An Equinox gym had been broken in to. Graffiti covered retailers’ logos up and down some of the glitziest shopping districts, which normally would be hosting a hotbed of tourist activity this time of year.

The New York Police Department has since said it arrested almost 350 people Saturday evening, following protests across parts of Harlem, Brooklyn and Staten Island. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in a press conference held Sunday that more than 30 officers suffered minor injuries due to clashes with demonstrators.

It’s now the middle of August. More than 11 weeks later. And these businesses are still closed, still boarded up. Whatever stock that wasn’t looted has been sold online.

Do you really think these storefronts are coming back? Even if the beneficent dictator of NYC allows them to open, with 25% customer capacity and ridiculously paranoid levels of isolation and plexiglass protection inside the stores? Somehow, I kind of doubt it.

Greatest city in the world, killed by policy in half a year. This was not an accident.

In NJ, everyone speeds. Everyone. Nearly everywhere. The only place we make up for it is in those 25mph zones near schools, parks, and downtown. People generally do about 17 in those.

NJ has a scheme in place on the highways. They “let” you drive 65mph, but fines are doubled. Should there be a traffic cone by the side of the road, or a permanent sign saying that bit of highway is also a construction zone, fines are doubled again. So getting a speeding ticket on the highway can be a darn costly experience.

Generally, highway traffic moves at 75mph in good conditions, even in the slow lane, but on the weekends it flies. 85 is typical, 95 is not unheard of, with cars maybe two lengths apart traveling in packs.

And NJ keeps points for 5 years, with a big long list of how many points for whichever of the 65 or so moving violations they have. Get more than 6 in a 3 year period, and get an extra fine to pay. There are a fair number of 0 point offenses, but they are not on the list. Good luck trying to find them, although we all know that the seatbelt one and the red light camera one are no-pointers.

How many points are on your license? Like many other states, you have to pay the DMV to find this out. Gosh, wouldn’t you think that this would be part of their regular job? Available online for free, given that this is a microscopic database inquiry? Heck no.

But there’s a game involved. There are a good number of offenses that don’t have points. Just a fine. So most cops short circuit the plea bargaining process, and give you a break and just write you up for some 0 point offense. It puts donut money in their coffers, nobody wastes time going to court, an you just go online and pay the fine with your credit card.

So I got pulled over for doing 85 in a 65 zone on a demarcated highway. I wasn’t racing, or playing artful dodger, or zooming down the road alone. I was just cruising along with traffic. The Statey did his job in about 2 minutes and I was back on my way.

He wrote me up for the 0 point offense of Delaying Traffic.

Haha, very funny.

I haven’t had rhubarb in … probably 45 years. Pretty sure my parents used to grow it in the vegetable garden, but that’s loooong ago in the past.

So we’re making strawberry rhubarb pie, and, since we have so much of the stuff, we’re making a strawberry rhubarb crumble as well. Both are a great excuse to get hold of some good vanilla ice cream.

Rhubarb has an unusual taste, but it’s one that I’ve always loved. Can’t wait to get to baking things up and trying them out. Might even have enough to send her to work Monday with another crumble.




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Oh goody, and I guess I’d better go look outside. Amazon says my copy of Law of Nations and John Locke’s Two Treaties of Government were delivered today. Along with my new Solo 2L hand sprayer, as the old one died after a decade of use.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser for the White House coronavirus task force, said this week that there is “no reason” Americans are not able to vote in person for the 2020 presidential election in November.

Fauci emphasized that voting in person would not need to be avoided as long as voters followed CDC guidelines and maintained social distancing.

“I think if carefully done, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that not be the case,” Fauci told ABC News. “If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing, and don’t have a crowded situation, there’s no reason why shouldn’t be able to do that.”

Fauci noted, however, that those who are at high-risk if exposed to coronavirus or have a compromised immune system should stay indoors and use mail-in voting.

OK, 99% right. I think most absentee ballots should be dropped off well ahead of time at the polling centers, logged in, and signed for … once proper ID and voter registration is checked. The USPS is highly leftist, so I would not trust them too much.