Saw one of these yesterday…

Posted on by August 28, 2020

And it brought back some fond memories… It was on a trailer, going down the road, but somebody had done a LOT of work on it to restore it! It looked as good as this one does!

Early 70s YZ 250… Sigh…

Fun little off road bikes, and ran like a scalded dog. We used to run Hare and Hounds with them at various bases (well, actually OFF base, they weren’t real thrilled if we played on base). One of the first motocross tracks/playgrounds I ever saw was off Atlantic Blvd in Jacksonville, where the Mayo Clinic now stands. It was, I think, $3/day to come play in the sand and on the course they had laid out. There ‘might’ have been a few races…um…competitions… Ah screw it, we were racing, and the statute of limitations ran out long ago.

One of the BIG no no’s for aircrew was any kind of racing. The funny part was when we deployed to Misawa, they had an actual motocross course ON the base. And I managed to get my hands on a YZ 125 in 1976. Even brought it back to the states from deployment, and found out they were ‘technically’ not being imported yet. Sold it for a nice price, and picked up one of the YZ 250s pictured above.

Fun times…

Huh, ain’t THAT interesting…

Posted on by August 28, 2020

Odd isn’t it, that better coverage of the Kenosha riots comes from England?

Gunman, 17, is charged with first degree intentional homicide after shooting dead two BLM protesters in Kenosha as one victim is identified and video emerges of cops giving rifle-toting vigilantes water before the shooting.

The full article, videos, and pictures are HERE, from the Daily Mail. Of note, this article also has pictures of the ‘paramedic’ holding a gun that he was going to shoot the kid with…

Which reminds me, the most ‘active’ protesters appear to be trying to hide behind being ‘press’ or ‘medics’. This has been seen in Portland, Seattle, and now Kenosha. It probably happened in Minneapolis and other places, but I never saw proof of that. And it’s an OLD tactic, used by Hezbollah and others in the middle east. Often ‘dressing’ as Red Crescent workers or having the armbands on.

And Second City Cop has an interesting post, HERE, of people being bussed in from Chicago to the riot.

Now we just back across the pond to Milwaukee…

Two Kenosha County men were killed and a West Allis man was wounded Tuesday night in a shooting during civil unrest over the shooting of Jacob Blake.

Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old self-described militia member from Illinois, has been arrested and is facing a homicide charge in the Tuesday night shooting.

Touchy feely article, HERE. They were all choirboys, yada, yada, yada…

There are links that prove that Huber had a criminal record, but the other two, I don’t know about.

But, having said that, this was what happened Wednesday night- Bold mine…

As the first peaceful night of protests in Kenosha was drawing to a close Wednesday, a group of demonstrators gathered for a moment of silence near the spot where one of two men were gunned down earlier in the week, allegedly by an armed vigilante.

Full article, HERE from the Chicago Tribune. Makes one wonder if maybe some people were having second thoughts about going out and being stupid? Especially since more pictures came out yesterday of armed individuals on roofs of various buildings, and an increased presence by the NG.

It’s all fun and games until the dude you just toked up with before going out to riot gets ballistically beatified…

DaddyBear put up a post from last year again today, and it’s worth the read. The link is HERE, and I stand by my comment from last year.

And I’ll leave you with this.

Say a prayer for those folks who got smacked by Hurricane Laura, reach out and help them if you can.

Bits and pieces…

Posted on by August 26, 2020

Edumacation… Sigh…

An assignment given to students at a Texas school included a political cartoon comparing police officers to slave owners and Klu Klux Klan members, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Of course it’s a ‘blue’ bastion (Dallas area)… sigh

Full article, HERE. THIS is why you should be looking over your kid’s shoulders re their ‘education’…

And in Kenosha, WI, the gloves came off Tuesday night. 2 dead so far… link HERE, not for the squeamish. And a link HERE from Pennsylvania where the BLM went into a residential area.

Lastly, by the time you read this, Hurricane Laura will be ashore in south Texas/Louisiana.

  • Laura has rapidly intensified into a Category 4 as it approaches landfall.
  • Laura will make landfall Wednesday night into early Thursday near the border between Louisiana and Texas.
  • Catastrophic storm surge and damaging winds will affect areas near where Laura makes landfall.
  • Storm surge could penetrate as much as 30 miles inland in southwest Louisiana.
  • Laura is also an inland flood risk as far north and east as Arkansas and the Ohio and Tennessee valleys.
  • Isolated tornadoes are also expected from Laura. (Isolated my ass!)

Say a prayer for those folks on the coast and north of the coast in Texas and Louisiana.

Now what, Coach???

Posted on by August 25, 2020

Interesting article…

So what are law-abiding citizens to do when caught in the mob’s crosshairs — or our homes and businesses are looted and destroyed by protesters who are also rioters? And what can we do to defend ourselves, our families, neighborhoods and the nation we love? 

Full article, HERE from the Washington Times.

IANAL, and I don’t play one on TV, but… There is this…

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

In Texas, we have the Castle Doctrine, HERE.

We also have Protection of Persons, HERE, and subsection Sec. 9.32 covers this- DEADLY FORCE IN DEFENSE OF PERSON.

I’m sure you can find links to your state’s laws/regulations/rules. This might be a good time to start looking them up… Just sayin…

Bullet dodged???

Posted on by August 24, 2020

Looks like Marco is falling apart, now degraded to tropical storm and failing, but it’s still bringing rain, just not up toward north Texas. The coast is expected to get 3-5 inches.

Laura is not going quietly, however… She’s still heading north and is projected to impact the NOLA area, then up through Arkansas before turning east. However, the 3-5 inches of rain Marco will leave behind isn’t going to help with the potential flooding…

The other little ‘issue’ hanging out there is the potential for the Fujiwhara effect to come into play. THAT could make things interesting, depending on how long Marco hangs around, as the effect is based on the interactions of two storms. A good description of the effect is HERE.

As I said, please say a prayer for those in the path of these storms, with everything else going on, 2020 has NOT been a stellar year and it’s just barely half over.

Sigh…

Posted on by August 23, 2020

I dunno who had hurricanes for August, but looks like you’re about to get your wish…

Re the ‘pandemic’ I only have this…

And Michael Ramirez hits another home run…

Hmmm…

Posted on by August 22, 2020

Looks like we are going to get wet…

Tropical Storm Marco (possible hurricane) is pointed at New Orleans with a predicted landfall of Monday morning, then hooking west and ending up in Dallas on Wednesday. Hurricane Laura is predicted to follow and end up hitting possibly New Orleans on Wednesday then hooking east.

The crossing paths are unusual, to put it mildly, and the potential for damage is just flat huge… One hurricane is bad enough, but a second two days later… sigh…

The right side of the hurricane has the most wind/bad weather (see tornadoes), and that is the stuff that will probably hit us starting as early as late Monday, early Tuesday. That is also the area where the most rain is generated. The amount of flooding through Louisiana and East Texas could be really bad, approaching what was seen with Harvey (which dropped 60 inches of rain on Houston). Louisiana is already putting up evacuation orders, which are complicated by the current WuFlu crisis…

In other news, Three Gorges in China is dealing with flooding unlike any seen since it was completed…

Extreme floods have hit China’s Three Gorges dam, which recorded the largest inflow of water in its history, prompting officials to assure the public it would not be breached.

Inflows to the world’s largest hydro-electric dam reached 75m litres of water a second, according to state media. By Thursday morning, 11 outlets of the dam had been opened to discharge 49.2m litres of water a second, the largest release since its construction.

Full article, HERE.

Here is an 8 minute video on the current status of Three Gorges and downstream…

Thankfully, at least for now, there aren’t any tropical cyclones or typhoons headed their way, but it is early in the typhoon season. Bevi is the only storm in the area, and it’s heading for Okinawa right now.

Folks, take a minute to say a prayer for those in the paths of these tropical cyclones/hurricanes. They’re going to need all the help they can get.

‘Green’ energy…

Posted on by August 21, 2020

Welp, California is looking at continued rolling blackouts if the heat wave continues (and it probably will for another week, based on the weather guessers).

Why, you might ask…

The greenies have gotten the state to go full econazi and ‘transition’ to green energy. Except… They can’t control the wind, or sunshine… And the few natural gas plants they still have are old and tend to break, which is what happened last week. A 470MW gas plant shut down unexpectedly and the wind died.

Oopsie…

After a week of unwelcome drama from a power grid repeatedly bumping up to the edge of of its capacity, Californians weary of living with the specter of rolling power outages–on top of five months with COVID–are wondering what’s gone wrong with the grid and when it can be fixed.

Full article, HERE.

But this statement just floors me… Nuclear is clean energy and they absolutely REFUSE to acknowledge that, or even mention it…

Meantime, advocates of the decades long transition to renewable energy do not doubt the wisdom of California’s commitment to that goal–and the unacceptably destructive environmental impact of doubling down on burning fossil fuels– but do see need for further tuning.

This is the same bunch that lives/works in Sacramento, which has its own power company, SMUD. 80% of SMUD’s power is 56% NG and 24% hydroelectric. They used to have Rancho Seco Nuclear Power station, but it was closed in 1989, after years of mismanagement (projected life for a nuke plant is 50 years).

California has also closed San Onofre and is planning to close Diablo Canyon at Avila Beach in 2024. Diablo Canyon currently produces 8.6% of total California generation and 23% of carbon-free generation. In the early 2000s when California went through the first round of blackouts, I remember the hippies in their Volvos protesting at Diablo Canyon when they brought the second plant on line to ameliorate the rolling blackouts.

The real problem is that dependence on solar (only good 12ish hours a day), and wind (fickle at best), is that unless you have a LOT of battery backup, or contracts for emergency power from the west coast grid, you’re going to be SOL when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

THAT is the situation they are in now. Not enough backup, and, according to a friend in the business, no emergency contracts, so they are paying ‘spot’ prices for power. Palo Verde in Arizona on 30 July sold 30,000MWH of power for $80.00/MWH for example. Other days, the price was under $30.00/MWH…

What long term contracts (LTC) do, is flatten the cost spikes over the long term availability. Here is one explanation-

To put some structure around how LTC prices relate to underlying market dynamics it is useful to deconstruct price drivers into five key categories set out below.

  1. Exposure: The structure of LTC pricing terms in relation to underlying commodity prices (e.g. fixed price, price indexation, upside sharing or cap & floor terms).
  2. Intrinsic value: The degree to which LTC value can be hedged against current forward market prices (i.e. the ‘in the $$$’ of the contract).
  3. Market conditions: The prevailing market pricing of flexibility contained in the LTC (e.g. driven by liquidity, price volatility, pricing/availability of alternative forms of flexibility).
  4. Duration: The term of the contract which influences available liquidity to manage LTC exposures as well as the level of uncertainty over future price evolution.
  5. Portfolio drivers: Other portfolio related value driven by factors such as ‘insurance premia’, risk limits, security of supply mandates or strategic considerations.

In summation, IMHO, California is screwed yet again… Power costs are going to go up, and probably sooner rather than later, they are going to run out of power, the ability to produce it at a sustainable level with just solar and wind, and be out of money to buy power.

Oopsie…

Posted on by August 18, 2020

Portsmouth, VA prosecutors have secured warrants for a number of people in conjunction with destruction/tearing up a confederate monument in Portsmouth…

In addition to state senator Lucas, felony charges were filed against 13 other individuals. These included a member of the Portsmouth School Board, three Portsmouth NAACP representatives and three public defenders. All were charged with either injury to a monument in excess of $1,000 or conspiracy to commit a felony and injury to a monument in excess of $1,000. 

Full article, HERE.  One wonders what ‘gymnastics’ are going to be done to get these #$%$%@! people off??? Will the governor step in and pardon them?

And in Portland, a suspect has been identified that kicked the truck driver in the head!

The Portland Police Bureau is on the hunt for Marquise Love, who also goes by the name “Keese Love,” for his alleged involvement in the vicious assault that was caught on video and circulated on social media.

Marquise Love (Portland Police Bureau)

Marquise Love (Portland Police Bureau)

Officials said in a press release they have made several attempts to reach 25-year-old Love, but have so far been unsuccessful. They have said they have probable cause for his arrest.

Several ‘attempts’ to reach him??? WTF??? Where is the all out search for this POS… His ass should be UNDER the jail!

Full article, HERE.

And then there’s this from, my shocked face, and Engrish professor…

Thankfully the ‘warning’ was reported to administration!

“After reviewing this issue with the faculty member, the syllabus has been corrected to ensure it is consistent with university policy,” the university said. “Moreover, the faculty member is being provided additional information regarding the First Amendment policies of the University.”

Full article, HERE.

And I’ll just leave this one here…