Month: August 2022

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I had this weird dream last night…

I guess the dream was brought about by a conversation I had with my Sister. She’d mentioned that my Niece (her Daughter) was very Pro Green Energy and extremely left leaning.

My Nice is no dummy, but she is in college, I suppose I can forgive her for being leftist. I hope she grows out of it.

I’d asked my Sister how my niece justified being so Pro Green given that she’s amazing at math.

My Sister missed my meaning.

I explained that the current total energy output from “renewable” sources provides less than 20% of the current energy we use in America. That number includes Nuclear power. Some say Nuclear isn’t green, but for the sake of argument let’s include it in the discussion because it doesn’t emit carbon like those evil coal and oil burning power plants.

My Sister said my numbers must be wrong. I sent her the following chart from the Government.

My Sister rightly pointed out that the chart speaks of energy consumption, not specifically how much is generated by each source. She’s right! I countered with you can only consume what is available and cannot pick and choose what source the energy comes from.

She considered my point and grudgingly agreed.

I went on to say that we could shut down all of the coal, oil, natural gas power plants. My Sister said that’s exactly what my niece was in favor of.

Because I’m the uncle that likes to stir up trouble I suggested my sister tell my niece that I was in favor of using only green energy. My Sister knows me well enough to ask, “Buuuutttt???”

I continued, “Tell her I’m just not sure how to manage cutting my energy consumption by 80%. Do I turn off my cellphone when I’m not using it? Should I turn off the internet and my computer 80% of the time? Do I not listen to anything but live music? Do I go to bed at sundown? Turn off the air-conditioning and heat? I suggested my Niece send me the specifications on the solar panels she’s using because they must be more efficient than mine.”

My Sister laughed, “You’re so evil! I’ll ask her… Probably at dinner.” My sis also commented that my Niece had invested in a new iPhone but that she did so because her old iPhone wasn’t holding a charge anymore.

My sis said, “I wish I’d thought about the solar panel angle. That’s why you should live here! You’d have suggested she buy an external battery and solar panel to carry with her instead of buying a new phone.”

I chuckled at the thought. My Niece would have taken a very dim view of the suggestion because it wouldn’t have been convenient.

Full disclosure… My Sister likes to rattle people’s cages too.

I suppose I was still chewing over the conversation when I went to sleep.

In the dream I was living in a world where 80% of the power had been removed from the grid.

Our leaders touted this as a victory because the entire country was now using 100% renewable energy.

It was a true statement. Ignoring that the 80% we weren’t using, shut down many aspects of the country. Shipping, Manufacturing, Hospitals, etc.

In the dream, I was scheduling my day to empty the water collected in my refrigerator and wishing I’d opted for the drain tubes to send the ice melt to the plants. I had to carry the water not saved for drinking down stairs in a bucket to the yard.

I was annoyed because my solar panels had the capacity to power my refrigerator. In fact the panels could power all the electrical devices in my home during the daylight hours.

A state mandate had come out saying that in the interest of “Community Good”, all of our houses had to be connected together so that those less fortunate without solar power, could benefit from those of us with solar panels.

This resulted in my house having few operable electronic devices, and my refrigerator being nothing more than an old style Ice Box. The upper shelves now contained blocks of ice.

The melt water, I hand pumped through the reverse osmosis system for drinking and cooking, the waste water from that process was carried in a bucket down to water the plants.

But the ice blocks were free. They were delivered every 2 days courtesy of the state.

While my lighting was generally candles and occasionally an LED lamp, the local State representative enjoyed air-conditioning, an electric vehicle, and a real refrigerator. Their holiday season lights were spectacular.

We were told this was because of the importance of the work and the burden of responsibility the local State representative shouldered.

For my part, I was anticipating being able to fire up my internet for an hour or two. By using my portable solar panel, the battery pack was finally charged.

It took two days of moving the panel around in the sun to get the pack and my computer charged. I hoped to be able to catch up on the national news and if I was lucky, I could possibly watch a show on the computer before it and the power pack died.

Unfortunately, some of my power would have to be spent logging onto the state taxation website to pay my monthly taxes. I hoped the state site would work properly this month because I was already carrying late charges from last month.

The State didn’t accept that their site was broken, or completely down, as an excuse for not paying your monthly tax. After all, “The law was The Law.”

I’d probably be okay though because it had been a very sunny month. The offset and efficiency of my solar panels was in the upper 1% of the producers in my community, so I had credit to declare and both tax months would be covered.

Every household had a single electrical socket that worked. The socket was only powered during the daylight hours.

It was a nice socket, provided by the State and wired to my Solar panels by State Technicians. The socket provided a single A/C current outlet, there were four USB ports that allowed for charging of cell phones and tablets. Usually, the A/C socket couldn’t power the coffee pot until around noon.

While I was filling the toilet tanks with some of the waste ice water, there was a knock at the door.

When I answered it. On my front porch there were several armed workmen. They presented me with a “Reallocation Order”.

The order said that 3 of my solar panels were to be removed and taken to another less fortunate person’s home. It had been determined that my offset and energy production was inequitable to the rest of the community.

Looking toward the State representative’s house, I could see workmen on his roof installing rails, cabling, and standoffs, all necessaryto accommodate additional panels…

A car alarm sounded somewhere in the neighborhood waking me up.

It was 3am. A cool breeze was blowing through the front windows of the house. Shaking my head to dispel the dream? Nightmare? I got up and peed. Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to sleep for a while, I put some ice in a glass and poured myself a stiff bourbon.

I hate having dystopian dreams! They make me cranky the next day.

The next time I’m talking to my Sister, I’m going to suggest that she and my Niece watch the movie Brazil. If I recall correctly, there was some interesting retrofitting of devices.

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I’m getting more Retro

God knows there’s a lot of convenience having our schedules on our phones and all of our contacts and “ToDo” lists in the cloud. Our online calendars make sure that no matter where we are, we can add a doctor, or car service appointment or know when our next meeting is.

I’ll admit it’s really nice and for many years now I’ve relied almost exclusively on these modern conveniences.

I’ve noticed that my handwriting has gone absolutely to hell. My handwriting was never beautiful either cursive or printed. Both looked like I’d strangled a palsy stricken chicken then dipped it’s feet in ink. My writing was so bad even doctors had a tough time reading it.

Now days, my writing is worse. Much worse! I’d bet that a future Archaeologist, upon discovering anything of mine that was handwritten, would assume they’d discovered another type of writing for which there was no Rosetta Stone.

I’d been aware of the degradation for many years. Last year it all came to a head when I’d written some notes during a phone call and found that I couldn’t read them an hour later.

At the time I was annoyed at myself. After ten or twenty minutes I was able to decode my chicken scratch and make sense of it. The problem wasn’t spelling it was formation of the characters themselves. I immediately recognized the problem as one of fine motor skills.

Without actually writing by hand, I’d begun to loose fine motor skills, not due to any malady, but due to lack of use. I proved this hypothesis by writing large on a piece of paper, then scaling the size of the characters down to fit in a single ruled line. (And yes, I was wearing my glasses!)

For those of you old enough to remember learning to write letters in grade school this is why all of us, as children started out with paper ruled in 2” lines. It wasn’t that our vision was terrible, it was that we needed the space to train the fine motor control in our hands.

I’d also noticed some other effects of the loss of fine motor control. Chief among these was soldering . I used to be able to solder the finest circuits by hand. If I made a repair on a board, you had to look really hard to see it. Cold Solder joints? Not on my work!

Now… Not so much.

A year ago, recognizing the problem and its cause, I dusted off my old Franklin Planner. I cleaned out the 10 year old notes and calendar, then wondered if Franklin Planners could still be purchased.

A quick web search reassured me that Franklins were in fact, still a thing. There wasn’t nearly as wide an array of page designs as there once was, but Monticello, (an old favorite) was still available. I placed an order and was pleasantly surprised when the package arrived two days later.

So I began writing by hand again. My penmanship has improved over time as a result. (I’m still not going to win any awards!)

I still receive digital Calendar invites and my household still uses common shared ToDo lists. But I transcribe the Calendar invites into my Franklin. Yes, this is redundant but it keeps pushing the ball forward on improving my penmanship.

Now when I’m on the phone scheduling something I’m noting it in my Franklin daily notes. I’ll add the event to the Franklin first, then move it to the Online Calendar if needed.

Admittedly, it’s hard to switch back to Paper and Pen. Digital services are cloyingly seductive. I’m willing to eschew the ease and convenience in trade for penmanship.

Another benefit of the trade is that my soldering ability is coming back. It’s not the quality it used to be, that’s something you acquire by doing it 8 hours a day 5 days a week. But it’s improved to the point that I’m not ashamed of anyone seeing my work.

This year’s Franklin refill arrived Monday. It’s not the old standby “Monticello” this one is something new. It’s clean and elegant with a bit less visual “weight” on the page. I noticed when I placed my order that there was a larger number of design variations on the Franklin web site.

I wonder if more people like myself are going “Retro” as a way to keep old skills?

As I mulled this over, an article notification popped up on the phone about a sitting congressman being served a warrant by the FBI for his phone.

According to the article, The congressman was traveling with his family and all the FBI wanted was his phone, this struck me as odd. Then I recalled that almost every “High Profile” FBI search and seizure over the past few years has also included seizing the person’s phone.

Thinking about it, I realized of course they’d want his phone. His phone would have a log of all his calls and their duration. The FBI would have access to all of his private text messages including those between him and his wife or children. His entire Calendar would be available as would his contact list. The phone would even have a GPS log of places that he’d been recently.

That single device provided the FBI with anything and everything the FBI could want and it’s 1000 times better than the old McCarthy era tactics which required your friends or colleagues to serve you up. Your contact list could provide the FBI with 100 or more additional people to investigate due to “guilt by association”.

I rarely have more than 100 contacts in my phone. I just don’t interact with that many people. Folks I haven’t heard from in a year or so… I delete. My Calendar, Text Messages, Photos, and ToDo list are another matter. There are literally years of data in those systems. The GPS issue isn’t much of a problem because I delete that log whenever I think about it.

I wondered, “Why don’t people execute a remote wipe of their phones when the FBI seizes them?” (I would just for spite!)

All of this got me to thinking. Will the handwritten word and perhaps day planners experience a renaissance?

I find myself wondering if it is time to move my data out of the cloud. Is it time to memorize important phone numbers and addresses again? Does Thomas Brothers still make their excellent Thomas Guides?

I’m not guilty of anything, I’m not likely to have my phone seized by the FBI. It’s a matter of privacy and principal. Why make it easy for them, or for any other 3 letter department of whatever?

It occurs to me that true protection of privacy is only possible if everything is in your brain. Anything and everything put on the ‘net lives forever. Has it come to the point that the only way to ensure our privacy is to disconnect?

The FBI these days looks more like an enemy of the people and the enforcement arm of a socialist/communist government than law enforcement.

That is a chilling thought. Perhaps my switching back to writing on actual paper in my day planner is a good thing.

I can burn the day planner. I can write notes that only mean something to me in it. I can refuse to decode those cryptic notes. I can choose to not clearly recall details, I can invoke the fifth amendment.

My digital devices, not so much. They can only do as they’re commanded. My devices have no concept of Constitutional Rights and no ability to determine if they should obey valid commands or not. (I’m not even sure that I’d want them to have that ability) There are some things only a human mind can, or should do.

Have the powerful little bricks in our pockets become a liability? I was reminded of Blade Runner.

Will someone in the near future be visiting Apple and having an exchange like this:

Rachael: It seems you feel our work is not a benefit to the public.
Deckard: Replicants are like any other machine – they’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem

I’m going to be thinking about stuff like this for a while. In the meantime, I’m going to be using my Franklin a lot more.

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Oh Brittney!

Brittney Griner has been sentenced to 9 years in a Russian jail.

OMG! The Horror!

Yeah, right!

The story is here

Griner, had a prescription from a US doctor for medical Cannabis. However what she was carrying was a vape pen with hash oil cartridges.

Yeah, Hash Oil is cannabis so technically she was carrying what the doctor’s note said she should have been carrying.

That being said, Cannabis is illegal in Russia. She must have known that. Her excuse was essentially, “I forgot that was in my bag.”

I’m sure everyone in the Russian court rolled their eyes when she said that. I know I would have.

Every country that you travel to has different laws.

It pays to make sure that you aren’t prescribed or carrying anything in your bags or on your person that is illegal in a country you plan to visit.

I checked that my BP medication was in fact legal when I went to the Netherland Antilles a few years back. It was entirely likely that the medication was legal, checking to be sure took exactly 1 minute and I did that 4 weeks before my departure. The Netherlands Consulate was very kind and helpful. At the same time I also made sure that I’d been vaccinated against any diseases endemic to that area of the Caribbean.

If you’re traveling internationally you must adhere to the local laws and regulations. Most countries make zero exceptions for Americans. I suspect this in part, because so many Americans are so poorly behaved when they visit other countries.

Helpful hint my fellow Americans. We’re guests, we should act like it. We should not act like we’re above the law, because uhh we’re not!

Anyway. This lady was carrying an illegal substance into the country. It doesn’t matter what the quantity was, or the form it took, or anything else. The questions are:

  1. Is the substance illegal?
  2. Did the person bring the substance into the country.

Item 1 is true. Brittney Griner admitted that item 2 was true. Therefore she’s guilty of breaking Russian law, and she has been sentenced according to that law.

Seems like a pretty cut & dried case. I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about.

I’m sure that Brittney thought since she was a basketball “Star” she didn’t have to obey silly Russian laws. “What to they know anyway?”

It must be hard for her to deal with the fact that in Russia she’s not accorded special privileges.

Well Brittney, not all countries are as insane as America has become.

Here’s your prize… 9 and a half years. At least they gave you 6 months off your sentence for time served!

I’m sorry that I can’t muster much concern or outrage over this lady’s punishment.

Little Brittney is going to learn something about real oppression in a Russian prison. From what I understand, the Russians don’t mess around. On the bright side, she will probably learn Russian while she’s in prison so she may have a new career as a translator at the UN when she gets out.

I have to wonder what would happen if I was returning to the United States with ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine in my bag after having traveled in Africa or South America.

Both of those drugs are available without a prescription in many areas of the world, because of their utility and commonplace usage. Would I be detained at the US border and thrown into jail for smuggling?

There was a time when I could say without hesitation that I wouldn’t be. But these days… In the age of COVID? Honestly, I’d expect to be whisked away to the gulag in Washington D.C. and placed in a small cell with the Jan 6th protesters.

After all the CDC and FDA have said these drugs are forbidden.

The Biden administration is involved trying to negotiate a prisoner trade for Brittney.

If I was her I’d be very worried about that. 9 and a half years could turn into 20 years, the way this administration bungles things.

Perhaps if we modeled our drug responses after Russia we wouldn’t be drowning in fentanyl, meth, crack, heroin, and whatever the hell else is being imported.

I know, it’s a crazy idea. Actual punishment for breaking a law???

Get outta here!

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Finally!

18 months or longer after the news broke of Hunter Biden’s laptop, the DOJ has actually done their job. They’re investigating the laptop and Hunter Biden.

One could assume that there’s now enough pressure to force the DOJ to take action.

I suspect darker motives.

We went from, “The Laptop is Russian disinformation,” and memory holing the information contained on it.

To, “The laptop appears to really be Hunter’s.”

To, “Hunter is being investigated for tax fraud.”

To actually investigating the data on the laptop that appears to implicate Joe Biden being somehow involved in Hunter’s business dealings.

In part, this investigation may have been caused by hackers busting into Hunter’s cloud accounts and then spreading the information around. But I think it’s more than that.

I think that Joe has outlived his usefulness and now the laptop serves as a convenient way to dispose of Joe.

This will allow the appearance of the Democratic Party actually doing something constructive. They’ll have the opportunity to say to the American people, “See we don’t tolerate corruption,” while elevating Kamala to the Presidency.

The timing is nice. If they pull this off before the midterms they might be able to win back some of the voters they’re losing, and pull their asses out of the fire. They’ll also be able to parlay dumping Joe over corruption charges into some legitimacy for the Jan 6th committee.

Think about it. “If we dumped Joe, and he was from our party. Of course our investigation into Trump and the insurrection is legitimate. We wouldn’t lie to you.”

Uh Huh.

It’s what I’d do. Put a woman of color into the Oval Office. You win the female voters, the pro abortion voters, and theoretically the person of color votes all at the same time.

The Republicans can still be painted as evil, and the “Red Wave” hits the rocks before it really starts. The Democratic Party retains their power while maintaining a sock puppet in office who is remarkably even less popular than Joe.

Joe gets to retire. Hunter goes to jail, then is released after a few months to house arrest. Trump is mired in court cases, a little blood is spilled to appease the American People and at least in theory, all is right with the world.

Keep telling the people via CNN and other news media that the Democratic Party is strong, and takes action running up to the mid terms and there will be voters that buy it.

It’s actually pretty clever.

That being said, given the way this administration has handled the simplest of things. I doubt they or the Democratic Party have the ability to pull it off seamlessly. So the cleverness will be lost in the cluster fuck that would define the attempt.

The enemies of our country must be rubbing their hands together with absolute joy in anticipation of Kamala Harris potentially being President given her abject failure in almost every diplomatic encounter she’s had.

Well, at this point only time will tell. In the mean time, I suspect the screwing will continue and we’re all on our backs with our legs in the air.

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Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

It is with some amount of schadenfreude that I’ve been observing the reaction of the LGBTQI+ (whatever the hell other letters are in it now,) reaction to Monkeypox.

There was an interesting article in Outspoken that I read with some sadness.

In my opinion, the author is pretty dead on.

The trouble is that so few people who lived through the early days of HIV are listened to, or taken seriously these days.

I’ve written elsewhere in this blog about those early days, I’ll not repeat myself.

What I will say is that in the early days when no-one was really sure how HIV was spread there was a lot less touching. In fact there was a lot less of anything if you were concerned for your life.

Monkeypox is far more obvious. HIV wasn’t something that you could see someone had, until they were in the latter stages.

Monkeypox also has a very defined life cycle. Onset, Symptoms, Resolution of Symptoms, and finally the person generally returns to health. (Yes, I know there have been some deaths.)

The strange thing is that Monkeypox has a fatality rate of about 10%. That rate is less if the person seeks appropriate treatment.

So let’s compare and contrast. For the sake of argument let’s say Monkeypox is 90% survivable. COVID is 98% survivable. Monkeypox is generally transmitted via physical contact with an infected person or biological residue from an infected person. COVID is transmitted via airborne particulates.

With COVID we shut the world down for two years.

With Monkeypox we’re nowhere near shutting the world down.

What can we derive from this?

One

Since Monkeypox is mostly affecting the LGBTQI+ community, the government’s response is pretty much the same as it was during the early days of HIV, laissez-faire.

One might infer this means that the powers that be are only interested in the LGBTQI+ community at election time. So perhaps the LGBTQI+ community should remember that at the midterms and beyond.

Two

If the LGBTQI+ community were as smart, educated, and responsible as they claim to be. They’d put the word out that the quickest and easiest way to shut this down is to stop congregating. It would probably take less than 2 months.

Just 2 months of solo, or Zoom sex and Monkeypox wouldn’t be sweeping through the LGBTQI+ community. Remember, this is the community that joined the “Karens” on masking, vaccinations, and self isolation during COVID. Why aren’t they following the rules now?

I’m not suggesting that the LGBTQI+ community never have sex again. I’m suggesting that by abstinence for a couple of months the Monkeypox virus would burn itself out like all viruses do, when they are unable to inhabit new hosts.

For those who may have a problem thinking this through, allow me to elaborate.

Monkeypox infects a person. That person makes antibodies naturally that kill the virus. The virus is eliminated from the person’s system, leaving immunity from further infection. The person can no longer be infected, nor can they spread the infection.

This is called immunity.

If the person does not spread the virus during the time they’re infected. The virus dies. Think of this as starving the virus…

If, on the other hand the person continues to interact with others and isn’t very careful about cleanliness, (maintaining their own laundry, properly disposing of any disposable materials that came into contact with their sores or bodily fluids,) then the virus finds new hosts and spreads.

It’s a simple fucking equation.

It was not so long ago when we were all being told to wear a mask everywhere and go get vaccinated to prevent the spread of COVID.

Remember? It was our patriotic duty to forego our petty desires, it was patriotic to subject ourselves to discomfort for the protection of others.

Monkeypox is no different. In fact the straight-line solution is simpler.

STOP fucking around!

The LGBTQI+ community in New York, San Francisco, and every other large city needs to step the fuck up. Quit your bitching and moaning about the availability of vaccines and take responsibility for yourselves.

Take a couple of months off! It won’t kill you to not go out to the bar, the disco, the local orgy, or whatever.

What better way to flip the bird at the government than to essentially say with your actions.

“Fuck you! You bunch of useless old political hacks. You wouldn’t take action so we did!”

How better to demonstrate that the LGBTQI+ community is in fact responsible?

An added benefit is that it buys time. Time for the big Pharma to get enough of the vaccine into the system so that everyone can get a proper effective vaccine against not only Monkeypox, but Smallpox as well.

I’d remind you Smallpox is still a thing is small pockets of the world. While it was effectively eliminated from the Western countries, it still exists elsewhere.

That should factor into your thinking when you look at the southern border and realize that the folks making that journey aren’t only from Mexico or South America.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into the whole mess regarding the border, but having a border and enforcing the law isn’t only about people. It’s also about diseases for which our population may have zero immunity.

Minor things like Ebola, Smallpox, Cholera, Malaria, Typhoid, you know, nasty shit.

One Hundred years ago on Ellis Island the primitive medicine of the time recognized that some people would have to be turned back and denied entry into the country to prevent plagues gaining a foothold.

The indigenous peoples of North America learned that harsh lesson. Smallpox & Measles decimated their population. Diseases, carried on blankets given to them by the immigrants coming from Europe.

Just food for thought…