One year ago today: May 30, 2019, talk about irony.
Five years ago today: May 30, 2015, nobody ever has more?
Nine years ago today: May 30, 2011, potheads behing potheads.
Random years ago today: May 30, 2007, half-right?
This is how far I got toward St. Augustine this morning. Lake Wales, or 15 miles . Dang fan belt, which should be a half-hour repair but Ford messed up. While 15mm is a popular socket size, it is not readily available as a wrench. We had similar trouble in Tennessee just a few months ago. Most wrench sets leap from 14mm to 17mm. Several helpful strangers came by but no way we could find something that would work on that tension pulley. A few standard sizes came close, but would slip off at the last moment.
It’s sad for America, the story of the missing woman discovered 30 years later by a faded photograph. She went missing after a medical appointment and was found with dementia in a nursing home. Should that not be happy news? Yes, the sad part was the police announcement that they “have no idea” how she could possibly have “escaped” any contact with the police for so many years. I’m on the other side, I say unless a person is a deliberate criminal, they should in America be able to live their entire lives without ever talking to a policeman. That’s a big part of my definition of freedom.
How about these riots? Listen to the liberals moan while the looting carries on. Rioting does not work, so think about what is happening. Have not these people learned anything [about rioting] in fifty years? By now, you’d think they’d have studied the situation in Hong Kong and picked up the right way to go about it. I watched minimal footage which was all you need to see these folks are no more organized than in the 1960s. How do you go that long without learning anything?
I saw no barricades, no body armor, no diversions, no scanners, no lookouts, no coordinated tactics, nothing. Most of them were not even wearing masks. How do they expect success? No evidence of a direction or goal, no designated leaders of tens or leaders of hundreds. No trained video cameramen, no human shield for the nasty ones, they seemed bent only on destruction and looting. That creates a problem, because Trump is not your lily-livered libtard who’ll back down. Like the Miami police chief said so many years ago, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
[Author’s note: at time of writing I was unaware Trump had repeated those words. I don't do CNN.]
Trump, nor most Americans, would have any problem with looters being shot. They are not misunderstood wayward boys, these are thieves who have gotten used to liberal immunity. Nothing short of ferocity is going to stop them. They are not protesters, they are brutal criminals engaged in a violent act. I am not siding with the police, my opinion is that the police already have far too much power and are guilty of consciously abusing it. The most feared event in most people’s lives is being pulled over for a traffic violation. Once you are stopped, it is you who gets violated. They train intensively to turn the encounter into something more serious, to question you without a warrant or a lawyer, and to illegally seek excuses to conduct a search by tricking you into saying the wrong thing.
It is so touching to see the Iranians holding a vigil for an American black. How do they find the time for this with the hundreds of their own citizens slaughtered by their own security forces in Tehran six months ago, often holding the bodies for ransom before returning them to the grieving families? We wouldn’t want folks thinking them Iranians would stage-manage anything for the American press.
These riots in the northeast are beyond what the media is telling us. People often propagate state control by blindly doing what they are told. The American Constitution practically commands them not to do that, but they never listen. My fear is that there is a breaking point, and that could happen if a fire-breather replaces Trump. It could mean 1933 all over again.
My opinion is that liberalism is largely discredited as being ineffectual at solving real-life problems. They create the need for violent overthrows and populist leaders. Now they are squawking about Trump’s “shoot” tweet, but ignore the 89 times this month alone that people have posted on Thought Catalog (no link) that they would kill Trump. For a lark, I scrolled through those 89 posts. Nearly half were from types who have a reputation for trying to get away with things at America’s expense, for example, demanding that their particular religion, race, or culture has a right to enter America.
Swinging stools.
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There’s my new fan belt, or more correctly, serpentine belt. When it gives out, so do most functions of the car, including the water pump. I had to coast four miles to get off the freeway, then two hours later the engine was still too hot to touch. Unusual event of the day, and this one is a doozie. One of the guys who stopped to help was taking his grandfather out for dinner. They were two Irishmen who once lived in Delaware “more than fifty years ago”.
“Was this in Merida”, I asked.
Yes, he began to explain where the Yucatan was and I stopped him. I'd been in that little store 37 years ago. This stunned everybody. That was 1983, my second trip to Chichen Itza. When he mentioned the weekend promenade with the locals, I got flashbacks of the cathedral and the open air university. To the amazement of ourselves and many people around us, we were able to reminisce about specific sites and streets in that unknown city so many years ago. I vaguely remember finding and buying an English-language book just to have something to read. I don’t remember the bookstore, just roughly where it was, 37 years ago.
He told how he worked for the embassy and there were only 400 Americans in the entire peninsula. I had the sad duty to tell him no more. The place is satellite dishes as far as the SUV drives these days. Little Merida has been discovered by the condo-retirement bunch. This is not some stock photo, I was there in 1983 and took this picture myself.
Stated quickly, if you try to form this type of duo with a guitar player and a bass player, you get a 2D sound. The analogy is it sounds like two vocalists singing unison instead of in harmony. Nice, but a waste of an opportunity. This band was squarely in that category. I take it they had seen Texas bands since the influence was there. The bassist was a guitar player who had completely memorized the various guitar modes. But that’s like paradiddles for drummers—great if you can do them, but useless on stage. He had a five string bass which he played with his fingers, a sure sign of GC (Guitar Center) brainwashing. But he was good at riffing through every song many of which I don't think he'd ever heard.
Except for one chorus, I did not recognize any of the music. Plus, he had the bass set up in mid-range and played some of the lead breaks. Again, that Texas influence. The guitar player was, well, give him a B-minus for trying, and neither of them could sing. Having said that, they were having fun, they knew they were crummy, but the non-discerning Polk County crowd were having a good time. Any live music is better than the alternatives. And they were getting paid (though I did notice nobody tipped them). I could not find out how much they were paid, but local groups I know who charge $150 to $200 are regulars there.
My conclusion is I’ll approach the ownership with my act. While this duo played music at a bar, unlike my show it was not music specifically geared for that environment. As for my rating of all-over sound and performance, they were easily the most low-effort band I’ve heard in this area.
Hooray for the successful SpaceX launch. One has to like that clutter-free interior. May this spell the downfall of NASA and its insufferable foot-dragging and featherbeadding. That’s one small step for man, hopefully one giant step away from the bloated bureaucracy of NASA. Boo to Google and to Forbes, who just published a warning about the Chrome browser. Forbes points out Chrome 84 (or whatever) is basically designed to “mislead, trick, or force users into allowing notifications”. Misleading prompts, fake messages, phishing, all are built into Chrome. So why rag on Forbes? Because this blog issued the exact same warnings the day Chrome came out in 2008, a warning that included to not even allow it onto your computer in any form.
I would like to issue a warning to the spacecraft crew and builders. The touchscreen concept is flawed. Get rid of it or court disaster. Touchscreens cannot be operated without looking at the screen and that has already caused too many collisions and casualties. You done been told.
