By hook or Crook…

Posted on by September 7, 2023

First it was the prohibition against moving LNG by rail, HERE…

Now, it’s pulling back/cancelling oil leases in ANWR…

Joe Biden enraged environmentalists in March when he gave the go-ahead to allow the $8 billion Willow Project to drill on Arctic land. The greenies felt that Biden had betrayed a campaign promise of “no new drilling, period” on federal lands.

They needn’t have worried. Biden has never wavered from his goal of destroying the fossil fuel industry, nor has he ever deviated from his position that the U.S. will be weaned off of fossil fuels even if it costs tens of thousands of jobs and an untold amount of pain to consumers.

The Biden administration announced that it would prohibit drilling on 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Furthermore, the administration is canceling all drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Full article, HERE.

And OPEC’s response was predictable. Reducing the amount of oil drilled through the remainder of 2023, and we can expect spot prices to jump from the $85/bbl it was yesterday. Gas was averaging over $3.50/gal for regular unleaded and any premium was over $4.00/gal… Can you say hello $5.00/gal by Christmas? I knew you could…

Sigh…

Too funny…

Posted on by September 5, 2023

RICO is for more than just ex-presidents…

It turns out that prosecutors can use RICO for actual crimes and not just for left-wing political persecution. Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr is using the statute to charge over 60 individuals in conjunction with the domestic terrorism that has taken place over a proposed public safety training center the city of Atlanta wants to build.

“Court officials have confirmed that 61 people have been indicted in a racketeering case tied to protests at the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center,” reports WSB Radio.

Full article, HERE from PJ Media.

This is especially funny since the locals ALL WANT the training ground to go in, because that is jobs and income to the local community, while the opposition is mostly from out of the area, out of state, etc.

Frankly, I’m GLAD to see them getting prosecuted for this and hopefully they get some of the money folks too!

A question…

Posted on by September 4, 2023

For those who’ve read Rimworld Diversions.

I got this for a 3 star review, and, while I can see where he’s coming from, I’m curious if anyone else thought the same thing…

OK. I did like the story lines, but a few things spoiled it for me.
I got to the point where on each of the incredible number of occasions when one of the women would huff a disparaging “Men” as they flounced off, my teeth would grind!

The captain needed to grow a pair. I have never served under an officer who would tolerate being overruled by his crew Running a ship is not a democracy. And for two of his womenfolk, unarmoured and unarmed,, to thrust him out of the way and run into a hostile vessel because a female voice was calling for help… Well, just wouldn’t happen in my world

I use composite characters based on folks that I know, and ‘most’ of the women I know are pretty strong personalities in their own rights. And most of the men I know tend to…shall we say, ‘get out of their way’ on occasion…

And Danny has less comfort dealing with females, either AI or human than most, because of being a loner for years.

Did I go a little too far over the top with this one???

And as an aside, THANK YOU to those who’ve reviewed the book, I’m sitting at 98 review, so ‘almost’ at the 100 level to get wider distribution on Amazon!

A little humor…

Posted on by September 3, 2023

This one came over the transom from the Mil email string…

Banking at the ATM

MALE PROCEDURE:

  1. Drive up to the cash machine.
    2. Put down your car window.
    3. Insert card into machine and enter PIN.
    4. Enter amount of cash required and withdraw.
    5. Retrieve card, cash and receipt.
    6. Put window up. 
    7. Drive off. 


FEMALE PROCEDURE:

What is really funny is that most of this part is the Truth!

  1. Drive up to cash machine.
  2. Reverse and back up the required amount to align car window with the machine.
  3. Set parking brake, put the window down.
  4. Find handbag, remove all contents on to passenger seat to locate card.
  5. Tell person on cell phone you will call them back and hang up.
  6. Attempt to insert card into machine.
  7. Open car door to allow easier access to machine due to its excessive distance from the car.
  8. Insert card.
  9. Re-insert card the right way.
  10. Dig through handbag to find diary with your PIN written on the inside back page.
  11. Enter PIN.
  12. Press cancel and re-enter correct PIN.
  13. Enter amount of cash required.
  14. Check makeup in rear view mirror.
  15. Retrieve cash and receipt.
  16. Empty handbag again to locate wallet and place cash inside.
  17. Write debit amount in check register and place receipt in back of checkbook.
  18. Re-check makeup.
  19. Drive forward 2 feet.
  20. Reverse back to cash machine.
  21. Retrieve card.
  22. Re-empty hand bag, locate card holder, and place card into the slot provided!
  23. Give dirty look to irate male driver waiting behind you.
  24. Restart stalled engine and pull off.
  25. Redial person on cell phone.
  26. Drive for 2 to 3 miles.
  27. Release Parking Brake. 

Not saying this is true… nope… 😉

Umm…er…

Posted on by September 2, 2023

Okay, who had cocaine racoons in Portland for September?

Based on various reports, it ‘appears’ the racoons are rummaging through the homeless areas looking for food and ‘other’ things…

If you haven’t ever seen racoons in action, they will tear the hell out of anything/everything going after what they perceive as food.

Down here we call them trash pandas, and I cannot imagine one on cocaine…

Shudder…

Labor Day weekend…

Posted on by September 1, 2023

What is Labor Day?

Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States. The three-day weekend it falls on is called Labor Day Weekend.

Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labor movements grew, trade unionists proposed that a day be set aside to celebrate labor. “Labor Day” was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, which organized the first parade in New York City. In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty states in the U.S. officially celebrated Labor Day.

It’s also the first week of school in many places, and also the opening of dove season in a lot of southern states… 🙂

However…

Despite the economy adding 187,000 jobs — slightly more than estimated — BLS said the number of unemployed Americans increased by 514,000 in August to a total of 6.4 million.

By those numbers, Americans and the workforce are worse off now than they were one year ago when the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent and there were 400,000 fewer unemployed Americans. 

In more bad news, the August jobs report saw BLS revise its data from June and July, saying there were actually 110,000 fewer jobs added than were reported in those months over the summer.  Bold is mine…

Full article, HERE.

And prices/inflation are going up MUCH faster than paychecks. Gas is over $4/gal in a lot of places, it’s hard to get out of the grocery store for less than $100 now, and ‘events’ of whatever type are quickly being priced out of the range of the average household.

Home prices are skyrocketing and the interest rates are now up around 7%, meaning many folks can’t afford to buy a house, especially people starting out, when the basic house average is now approaching $200,000!

Those of us that live on ‘fixed incomes’ are having to look at ways to tighten our belts, and vacations are pretty much right out the window now, and figuring out a way to keep the old car/truck going. New cars/trucks are priced out of range, and I don’t know of anyone in our group that has ANY interest in an EV, much less spending $1000 to have their houses rewired to be able to charge them effectively.

And I’m not even going to comment on the political BS going on… sigh…

Enjoy the weekend, if you can afford it, and let your friends/family know you care, even if you can’t go see them right now. A phone call never hurts, and many times it is appreciated!!!

No post today…

Posted on by August 31, 2023

Had an appointment for cataract surgery, eyes dilated for way too long in the brightness and one helluva headache last night.

Go read the folks on the sidebar, maybe I’ll post later today.

Well, well, well…

Posted on by August 30, 2023

What a ‘surprise’… NOT!

A coalition of 1,609 scientists from around the world have signed a declaration stating “there is no climate emergency” and that they “strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy” being pushed across the globe. The declaration does not deny the harmful effect of greenhouse gasses, but instead challenges the hysteria brought about by the narrative of imminent doom.

The declaration, put together by the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL), was made public this month and urges that “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific.”

Full article, HERE. Link to report abstract, HERE.

Sigh… A number of folks who actually ARE climatologists that I know and worked with have said since the early 2000s that there is no climate emergency and the data sets are flawed/corrupted and the models are skewed to ‘get’ the outcome the left wants.

Borepatch has followed/posted on this for years, and the post HERE from 2017 does a great job of ‘explaining’ it in understandable terms.

Of note, after the Dems/lefties said Maui was caused by globull warming, but the truth came out that HECO started the fires, you’ll note that none of them have responded… Much like the current hurricane hitting Florida ‘has never been seen’ (at least since 1899)…

Sigh, I’m gonna go take my BP meds and turn off the MSM.

 

YGTBSM…

Posted on by August 29, 2023

Soooo…

Texas Guard folks took some initiative and did some proactive intelligence work…

When officers from the Texas National Guard showed up to their 7 a.m. meeting with federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso, they didn’t arrive empty-handed.

Six military intelligence officials turned over a list of names at the February 2022 meeting. The Texans were part of an intelligence directorate supporting Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbott’s state-run border mission. The officers, which included the group’s top two leaders, told federal agents they’d secretly infiltrated invite-only WhatsApp group chats filled with migrants and smugglers and wanted their help investigating the targets they’d identified, according to a sworn statement attached to a whistleblower complaint filed later that month.

Full article, HERE from Army Times.

Now you would ‘think’ they’d be getting cooperation, right?

Take your BP meds before you read the rest of the story!

Apparently they weren’t allowed to actually DO intelligence operations, since they were only ‘Guard’, not actually deployed overseas. A whistleblower apparently turned them in, so they’re all in trouble, AND were accused of using DOD assets and getting access to ‘classified’ FBI files they weren’t supposed to have.

Talk about tying their hands… Grrrr….

I’m SO glad I’m retired and out of that whole mess!