Category: Uncategorized

Since I’m unaware of any major disaster in which FEMA was more help than hindrance, it seems wise to force them to keep their distance.

“Road Closed” signs

“FEMA called me and told me they wanted to inspect my house, then called me back to say they couldn’t drive around the ‘road closed’ sign. They weren’t allowed,” she told The Post.

“You can drive it by car for sure, it’s not that bad, you just have to drive around the ‘road closed’ sign. I explained that to them. They said they couldn’t.”

Such signs are supposed to be a warning to people won;t don’t need to be tyhere; not an impermeable barrier against those whose effing job is to go there. Imagine if the sign worked against road repair crews.

Buy good for us who don’t want FEMA stealing our shit. You might even want to stock up on official-looking signs.

An imaginary industrious FEMA boob might be inclined to disregard a home-made sign.

Or not.

What fun. We got 80-something MPH winds (added: my sister saw 89 MPH; my niece saw 87) when Hurricane Helene blew past. Fortunately, rain wasn’t too bad since half the backyard was already flooded from Debbie (and the heavy rains since that).

But I’ve got at least four downed trees to deal with, along with a lot of branches. And much of that will have to wait as they’re in the flooded area.

On the bright side, our roof appears to be intact.

Listening to the scanner it sounds like trees and power lines are down all over the county; with several roads completely blocked.

I did hear an amusing EMS call this morning: Dispatch for “difficulty breathing.” After the squad arrived on scene, they called back in clear… and reported, “We showed him how to turn his oxygen machine on.”

Always RTFM.

My television crapped out. Being cheap, I went to Goodwill and found a replacement. It’s much smaller than what I had, but that actually suits me.

But I started playing around; poking through settings. I discovered that this thing has wifi. Huh. So I connected to the Internet.

It also, like most newer TVs, includes specific apps for various streaming services. I clicked on Amazon.

And it brought up the usual selection of television shows and movies. Um… what?

I clicked the Prime button and got the subscriptions movies. I clicked a random movie and it played.

Prime is a paid subscription service. Why is it letting me watch subscription movies? I poked around a little more and found the answer.

The previous owner of this TV is a Prime subscriber and left his login on the machine. Turns out he’s a Net Flix subscriber, too. I haven’t gone through other services yet, but I suspect he subscribed to more.

And left those logins when he donated the TV.

Never ever do that.

Prime for example: Subscribers get a lot of material, but they can also pay out more money to rent or buy even more. If I were less principled, I good charge up a lot of stuff on “daniel’s” account. The good news is that the app won’t show me his actual login credentials; so I can’t use it to order any other items off Amazon with my computer.

Would “daniel” donate his old computer to Goodwill, and fail to delete (and wipe!) his personal data… like bank records and logins?

TV’s now are computers. You need to clear them when you toss them out.

Irony alert.

Hillary Clinton suggests civil or criminal penalties for Americans who spread foreign misinformation
“I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda, and whether they should be civilly, or even in some cases criminally charged, is something that would be a better deterrence,” Clinton said. “Because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States.”

Yeah, I think the hag who paid a foreign national to prepare “Russian misinformation,” in order to meddle in an election, should go to prison.

Preferably for the rest of her life.

An interesting bit about the wanna-be Trump assassin:

“According to federal prosecutors, the sniper nest with two backpacks, an AK-47 and Go-Pro was set up 12 hours before the foiled plot.”

No one noticed him there for twelve hours?

Shots fired at Mar-a-Lago while Trump was golfing. It appears someone with a gun penetrated the Secret Service’s security perimeter (which extends beyond Mar-a-Lago proper), but no one pulled Trump inside until after shots were fired.

But who knows. It’s been three hours, and “news” reports are all over the map.

SS saw the guy and investigated, then fired when they saw a possible gun barrel. Or…

The suspect began shooting at the golf course, and SS returned fire. Or…

It was just a shoot-out between the suspect and the SS agent. Or…

Only the SS agent fired.

Alternately, both shooters were off Mar-a-Lago grounds, or the suspect was on the grounds. (I think some reporter is Googling “mar-a-lago shooting” to see other reports to plagiarize and don’t realize they’re seeing reports of a July shooting outside of Mar-a-Lago mixed in with the recent results.)

Most stories seem to agree that no one was shot. The suspect supposedly fled in an SUV, but was caught in another county.

The suspect’s weapon was an AK-47/AR-type/assault rifle/high-power rifle. He may have left his magically morphing weapon at the scene with a Go-Pro camera.

By tomorrow, I hope they’ll have settled on the preferred version of the events. Which you can choose to believe or not.

Update: Apparently the “AK-47/AR-type/assault rifle/high-power rifle” was actually a SKS.

Right?

Secretary LaRose Reminds Elections Officials to be Vigilant After Investigation Uncovers Illegal Voter Registration Forms
The office’s Election Integrity Unit recently concluded an investigation into the origins of an illegal voter registration form translated into the Haitian Creole language. The Clark County Board of Elections reported this form to our office after rejecting its submission by a local applicant.

“The Board confirmed they’ve only received one of these unauthorized forms, but they rightly recognized it as illegal and worked with my team to track down its source with the help of a county government assistance office,” said Hun Yi, Director of Investigations for the office’s Public Integrity Division, in a memo to elections officials. “The form was erroneously included among others outsourced to a foreign language translation service. It garnered national attention considering the high number of Haitian refugees that have recently migrated to the Springfield area, and it serves as an important reminder that boards and designated voter registration agencies should be vigilant about the use of forms submitted to their office.”

One does not “erroneously” print, distribute, fill out, and turn in an illegal registration form. It was deliberate, every step of the way. And yes, Springfield — noted for recent trends in unusual cuisine, and newly 25% Haitian — is the county seat of Clark County, where this form turned up.

Funny thing: fluency in English is a requirement for naturalization. So why is anyone printing any foreign language voter registration form?

I knew a pretty Vietnamese lady who had long since met every other requirement,  but still had trouble with English. She used to spend her breaks practicing English with me. Finally she came in to work, and proudly announced she passed the proficiency test, and had become a citizen at last.

I don’t think these idiots are going to get much sympathy from the public.

Boeing workers vote to strike after contract negotiations rejected by members
Factory workers at Boeing will walk off the job Friday after members voted late Thursday evening in favor of a strike, according to a report.
[…]
He then announced roughly 30,000 workers who produce Boeing’s 737 MAX and other jets on the U.S. west coast voted 96% in favor of striking and subsequently halting production of the planemaker’s strongest-selling jet.
[…]
Initially, IAM leadership recommended that its members accept the contract, but many workers responded angrily. Many of the dissenters argued for the originally demanded 40% pay rise and lamented the loss of an annual bonus.

If the strike slows, or better yet stops, the fielding of lethally defective aircraft on the market, I’m all for it. The longer they go without building another, the better.

I don’t think clowns assembling planes, that when they aren’t falling out of the sky are shedding parts, really rates a 40% pay jump. Bonuses? Maybe their “reasoning” is that a bonus is due when they don’t kill anyone that year.

I don’t think they rate the 25% raise Boeing was willing to give them.

I don’t follow baseball, but the first story I heard about this was weird enough to catch my eye: a guy was about to make MLB history by being the first to play for both teams in the same game. Then I saw this follow-up story.

He did it.

Quirky History: MLB Catcher Plays for Both Teams in a Game

Not only did he play for both teams, but by an odd coincidence…

He played catcher for himself at bat.

Sorta. His old team used a pinch hitter to sub for him.

Since my voter registration status has ZERO to do with health, that’s a pretty serious ethical breach.

Did You Know? Democrats Are Using Organization with 50,000 Physicians and Software Giant Epic to Sign Up Patients to Vote – Includes a Script for Undocumented Aliens – Led By Harvard Dr. Linked to Kamala Harris
Vot-ER is a group of 50,000 physicians who are signing up patients to vote in the 2024 election. The group is led by Dr. Dr. Alister Martin who served as a White House Fellow in the office of Kamala Harris.

Added: This aspect is interesting.

“Doctors have used Vot-ER’s tools to register patients in cancer hospitals, emergency rooms, substance abuse clinics, palliative care departments,”

Palliative care? They’re registering dying people? So they someone can vote after they die?

But there’s more!

“…even neonatal intensive care units.”

I’m fairly sure that no state allows newborns — that being what any patient in a neonatal ward is — to legally vote.