Category: Idiots

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Random Stuff

Power is off, The electric company is replacing poles and lines that were burned in the fire.

Looks like it’s going to be a long outage. On the plus side we had internet for about 12 hours! Whoo Hooo. With the power down, now we don’t.

I’ve still got 5G on the phone. That’s a serious improvement from the 1 bar of LTE that I’ve had since Saturday.

Saw an article in Apple News this morning, about a pet store in Thousand Oaks, CA where the owner has made addendum to their pet adoption policy. Part of the adoption questionnaire asks about gun ownership, gun control, membership in the NRA etc. They will refuse to allow you to adopt a pet if you don’t agree with their views on the matter.

They go so far as to say if you’re a member of the NRA and lie to us on this form we’ll prosecute you for fraud. Because we will find out…

That seems a bit improbable, but whatever.

I applaud the owner for taking a stand. I think it’s partially incorrect, especially the part about the NRA. Then again that organization has been demonized for so long, then plagued with their own scandals… I supposed it makes sense that a liberal couldn’t help but see the NRA as a boogyman.

It will be interesting to see if the owner’s stance has any impact on their business, positive or negative.

I think they may find that their traffic will drop because some folks, regardless of their gun ownership or views on gun control, will look at these rules as an infringement on their privacy. That alone may be enough to drive business away. There are a lot of shelters, and breeders to select from.

Inadvertently this pet adoption place may add to the number of pets that eventually need homes if folks go the breeder route.

Nonetheless, This business owner’s policy is clearly stated and they have the right to refuse to do business with anyone they choose. (Unless it’s a member of some specially protected group.) It’s probably a good thing they’re a pet adoption business not a baker of wedding cakes…

So I support their right. I also compliment them on putting their money where their mouth is.

The insanity over the FedEx package that’s missing continues.

Yesterday I spoke with someone who seemed to think I should go back to the store where I handed the package to a person acting as their agent, who scanned the package while I watched, and start searching the place.

Frankly this rebooted my brain. This FedEx corporate moron was suggesting that I essentially perform an illegal search of a place of business where I was not an employee, nor was I law enforcement, nor was I that business owner.

When I asked the person very specifically if that was what he was suggesting he decided to back down on that completely unreasonable request.

I’m still blown away that a FedEx corporate employee would tell a customer that, the Customer should go search the premises of one of their Agent locations.

This however is demonstrative of the lack of training on the part of FedEx and may provide insight into why FedEx has become so damn unreliable.

I wonder if that’s why there are so many private bonded carriers operating in LA, Orange County, and San Diego. I was surprised recently when some documents were delivered to me via courier instead of UPS or FedEx. It was pleasant but the first time that’s happened.

I’ve got the BMW… Perhaps I could get a nice tailored suit and become “The Transporter” What are the rules? “No Names, Never open the package,” seems pretty easy to me. Gas prices on the other hand… hmmm.

Speaking of gas prices. I paid 6.79 a gallon recently. Amazing! Not in a good way. The only reason I’m not bitching up a storm about it, is that It had been more than a month since I’d last purchased gas. I figured, ehh, if I amortize it over the time since I last filled up it’s a big deal, but not world ending.

I was tinkering with going on a road trip just to blow the cobwebs out of the car and my brain. But I’m thinking that would be excessively extravagant.

I’d still like to do a road trip. I suppose if I drove straight to the California border then filled up in another state a road trip might be more reasonable.

I caught another article on Apple News I think it was originally printed in The Wall Street Journal, (I’m not too sure about that,) that reported a record number of Californians were taking up residence in Mexico. Apparently, the real estate market south of the border is booming.

Some of the reasons cited were, lower cost of living, lower cost of real estate, lower gas prices, lower food prices, and better quality of life.

One person interviewed for the article said that his family had saved 50% per month on their living expenses from their previous living arrangements in California.

He still commutes to San Diego daily for work, but in terms of better quality of life for his family, he said it was a reasonable trade off.

I’ll admit that when I first moved to San Diego, I considered renting a place south of the border. At the time I could have gotten a 2 bedroom 1 bath condo for $800 a month. The place was 2nd floor, 4 blocks from the beach, you could even see the ocean from the lanai.

Instead I settled for a 1 bedroom 1 bath for $1500 a month in Escondido. It was a choice that was about avoiding San Diego traffic. Had I done the Mexico condo, I’d have to drive through the nightmare of downtown San Diego morning and evening. In the end, I worked a goofy schedule which would have made the Mexico option viable… But that’s another story entirely.

In a twist of unintended irony. The article mentioned that with so many Californians going south of the border. It was pricing Mexican citizens out of the housing market and contributing to rising prices in other things.

Free market capitalism can be a stone bitch! I suppose the Mexican government hasn’t gone “Woke” yet and started regulating for the greater good.

For shits and giggles, I watched Atlas Shrugged I, II, & III last night. These movies are adaptations of Ayn Rand’s book of the same title. The production quality is good. The disconnect with different actors playing the key parts is a bit disconcerting moving from one movie to the other but it’s easy to get over. I prefer Grant Bowler’s portrayal of Hank Reardon over the other two actors. Not that the other actors didn’t do good jobs with the character, I simply liked Bowler the best.

I know, there are lots of people who say that Atlas Shrugged is a Republican propaganda piece and that it has no merit in today’s world. Blah Blah Blah.

To them I’d say, “Turn off your bias, read the book or watch the movies and then tell me you don’t see some parallels between what happened in the story and what our government is becoming.”

Lots of regulation, ever expanding government, lofty idealistically admirable yet unachievable goals, do nothing committees, hearings which produce nothing and go nowhere, politicians making decisions without due consideration of the effects those decisions will have. Shaming of the wealthy for their achievements, etc. etc. etc.

I’ve read some biographical information about Ayn Rand, in some cases it’s said she was just writing fiction. In other cases it’s said she based the fiction of Atlas Shrugged on things she remembered from her childhood in Russia. Still other say she was prescient.

I don’t know which, if any of these conclusions are true. What I do see is, at best life is imitating art. At worst whatever madness led Russia to communism and all the horrors that we now know happened in soviet Russia, may well have taken hold in American politics.

Perhaps it was never a matter of IF it could happen, instead it was only a matter of When.

I know I’d like to be spirited away to “Atlantis”, by someone like John Gault.

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Oh… This is getting So out of hand.

The other half got a haircut yesterday.

You’d think something as mundane as that wouldn’t be fraught with controversy…

You’d be wrong

We live in a mad mad world.

The stylist was talking with another stylist about a customer she’d had the day before.

The customer in question, was apparently transitioning from one gender to the other. “Okay, this is probably going to go off the rails,” I think.

As the story unfolds, apparently the stylist referred to the customer as a “She”. OMG! The horror!

The customer corrected the stylist’s use of pronoun defiantly proclaiming the proper pronoun was “IT”.

At this point in the story I’ve got my “What The Fuck” face on. The other half ignored me and continued the story.

The stylist, of course apologized explaining that she meant no offense. This wasn’t good enough for the mortally aggrieved customer. (He/She/It… whatever) Continued to manufacture outrage over this insignificant incident, turning everyone’s trip to the hair place into a crazed social justice nightmare.

A) How was the stylist to know “It” was the preferred pronoun?
B) The Stylist did the professional thing by apologizing.
C) The aggrieved customer had all the social decorum of a turd in a punchbowl.

The other half was laughing and said to me, “All I could picture as this story was being told was YOU sitting in a chair during the actual incident.”

Good Point!

I wouldn’t have been able to let it pass. I hate shitty behavior and the shitty people exhibiting it.

The first thing that popped into my head was that since “IT” didn’t have their pronoun tattooed on ITS forehead how was anyone to know? I’m sure that my expressing that thought would have added fuel to the fire.

The second thing that popped into my head is that “IT” usually refers to an object. Then I remembered being a boy in the Deep South.

The first word I ever learned to describe a Black person was the “N-Word”. But the context was that one went to get the “N-Word” to clean up a mess.

For Example: “Bill, please go get the broom to sweep up this mess on the floor.”

My childhood memory has the statement from my Grandfather telling me, “Hey boy, go get the “N-word” to clean up that mess.”

In my experience the “N-Word” was used to reduce a kind thoughtful human being, (Eddie would tell me jokes and ride me around on his shoulders and we’d laugh the whole time,) to nothing more than an object on par with a mop or broom. (For the sake of clarity, Eddie was an employee of my Grandfather, and I probably wasn’t more than 5.)

As I thought about the implications of a human being demanding to be called “IT” I couldn’t help but notice the similarity.

What completely astounds me, is that any human being would willingly demean & diminish their own humanity in this way.

People like the aforementioned customer, would loose their shit if I, a white CIS male, were to refer to an African American as “IT”. They’d be saying I was racist or any number of other ugly things. (Then again, most of the ugly words they’d call me have lost much of their former impact and meanings.)

Then they’d turn around and make a spectacle of themselves in a public place demanding to be called “IT”.

All the while annoying the rest of us “normal” people who use pronouns based in history and languages dating back 5 thousand years or more.

The other half is right…

It’s a good thing I wasn’t there for the incident itself.

Depending on how screeching they were, I could easily see myself leading off with,

“Nobody gives a fuck about your pronouns! Now sit the fuck down and shut the hell up. There are actual humans in this business, trust me they do not consider themselves the equivalent of a dildo or pocket pussy. Both of which, by the way, are ITS.”

No, I don’t think it would have ended well at all…

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Time to take a deep breath – Did Biden say we’re putting troops in Ukraine?

In remarks to the 82nd Airborne Biden did his usual rambling type of speech. It’s Here if you’d like to read it for yourself. I personally find that reading his speeches, like listening to them, makes my dang head hurt.

You’ve been warned…

The part of the speech that made my blood run cold was this:

And — so, you know, with the Ukrainian people — Ukrainian people have a lot of backbone. They have a lot of guts. And I’m sure you’re observing it. And I don’t mean just their military, which is — we’ve been training since back when they — Russia moved into the — in the southeast — southeast Ukraine — but also the average citizen. Look at how they’re stepping up. Look at how they’re stepping up.

And you’re going to see when you’re there. And you — some — some of you have been there. You’re going to see — you’re going to see women, young people standing — standing the middle of — in front of a damn tank, just saying, “I’m not leaving. I’m holding my ground.” They’re incredible. But they take a lot of inspiration from us.

Remarks by President Biden During Visit with Service Members of the 82nd Airborne Division. March 25, 2022

Did President Biden just say to the world, including President Putin that the United States was going to deploy troops?

Wasn’t that one of the things that Putin said was going to trigger a vigorous, Possibly nuclear Russian response?

I’m used to idiotic saber rattling. But DAMN!

If you’ve poked the bear and managed to not get eaten, it’s probably not a good idea to poke the bear again.

Thus far the Russian / Ukraine war has been largely an affair between two affiliated countries. Ukraine was, after all part of the old USSR. The tipping point for Putin, (if there is a geopolitical one,) appears to have something to do with the possibility of Ukraine becoming a NATO nation.

I doubt seriously that NATO would accept Ukraine, but that’s a different issue. Putin on the other hand has reason to prevent Ukraine becoming part of NATO.

NATO troops sitting that close to Moscow would give Putin endless headaches and he would likely perceive it as an ongoing threat. It’s a little too close to home. I go so far as to say Putin is telling the world, “Not in MY backyard!”

The long history between Russia and Ukraine is too intricate and soaked with too much blood for me to begin to understand the underlying issues between them. That’s the job of political historians and I’m so not qualified.

I have begun to think that Zelenskyy and Putin may well be cut from the same cloth.

I don’t know if there can be a peaceful resolution to the conflict between the two countries. That’s for diplomats from Ukraine and Russia to work out, Send some decent and savvy ambassadors to assist in brokering a deal, but keep Biden himself 10,000 miles away.

Who knows? It might be something as simple as Ukraine saying they won’t join NATO.

I feel compassion for the Ukrainian people that have been conscripted, killed, displaced, and had their lives and homes destroyed.

I however, don’t think that it’s smart in any way for The President of the United States to add fuel to the fire.

I’m not ready for World War III. I haven’t finished building my hyperdrive!

Joking aside, we need a strong cogent statesman. We do not need a President that isn’t respected, (or perhaps feared,) by the leaders of the world.

There are reports that the Saudis aren’t taking calls from Biden, and other reports that suggest General Miley is not having his calls returned by his counterparts in Moscow.

It bodes ill that two former superpowers heavily armed with nuclear weapons aren’t talking with each other.

We can only hope at this point that Biden did not mean what he said in his remarks to the 82nd, and that the world leaders assume it was a doddering senile old fool speaking.

Who knows, it might be the one time when Biden’s apparent state of mind does some good.

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Where do we go from here?

The headlines are screaming, “Putin invades Ukraine.”

“Putin intends to decapitate the Ukrainian government”

To the second headline… My response was simply, “Duh,” That’s straightforward tactics. Destroy the command and control and the rest is simple.

I’m personally sad about the invasion , I have several friends from Ukraine and I’m sure they’re worried out of their minds. I hate seeing them upset and in limbo regarding their families still in Ukraine.

My question is; What’s Putin’s endgame?

Unlike our President, I think Putin is no fool. There has to be a political or economic reason for his actions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning the action. I just don’t think Putin is a moron. As such, I can’t see Putin invading another country unless he has a clear goal in mind.

That goal could be land, oil, or making sure that he has unimpeded access to the warm water ports along the Black Sea. After all, wasn’t that what the old USSR did?

I said previously in this blog that after Biden’s demonstration of his weakness and mental incapacity, other world leaders would recognize it and take advantage.

Putin’s actions are no surprise, except to the idiots in the Biden administration. Biden handed Putin a gift when his Administration said Russia would invade Ukraine on a specific day.

I pictured Putin laughing his ass off in the Kremlin and telling his Generals, “Oh, let’s wait a little while. We can use this as an opportunity to embarrass the Americans on the world stage. By waiting, we humiliate Biden, and undermine faith in the intelligence communities of the west. This too serves our purpose, and can be used in the future.“

It’s pretty obvious Putin has less respect for Biden than he did for Obama. Anyone remember how quickly Putin stepped over Obama’s, “Line in the sand”? Putin did that for no other reason than to piss on Obama’s parade.

I honestly don’t know what to make of Putin. I know he’s technically a dictator. I know he was part of the old USSR. I know he’s wealthy and that wealth has in part been made in questionable ways. (Funny that we say that as a bad thing about Putin, but look the other way in doddering Joe’s case,)

I know Putin was KGB and that he spent a lot of time in Germany in that role.

That’s about it. Nothing more than you could get from a Google search. Observing Putin over the years, I’ve come to respect him as one respects a strong adversary. Putin is a leopard that doesn’t change his spots when the wind blows. I respect that as well. At least you always know you’re dealing with a leopard.

What drives Putin is a bit harder to follow. He’s not insane like Hitler, he seems to have plans and goals. I’d never play poker or chess with him. Unless, I wanted to get my ass handed to me.

This brings me back to what are Putin’s intentions?

Were I in Putin’s place, I’d be looking to increase my arable land. I’d be working towards complete energy independence. I’d be trying to secure the ability to manufacture a wide variety of technology within my own borders.

If a country has these things in place and the ability to ship goods year round, then they become a world economic player. They also wouldn’t need to bend a knee to any other government or economic consortium.

You know, kind of like China has done.

Who knows, in the next 10 years maybe we’ll be seeing Национальный бренд  on all of our products, instead of Made in China.

Given the chaos the world has descended into. It could simply be that Putin has decided to adopt a “Russia First” agenda.

He may have concluded that financially it makes more sense for Russia to have the ability to isolate from the insanity. That would serve Putin, and the people of Russia.

If a country is dependent on no-one, then it is in the catbird seat when the shit hits the fan. There’d be a considerable bit of Schadenfreude for Russia to have America, Germany, France, England, and other NATO members, with their hats in hand asking for food, and manufactured goods.

The Schadenfreude would be even sweeter if the reason they were asking, was due to shitty economic, energy, immigration, and manufacturing, policies that drove their own countries into the poor house.

Putin is 69, he might even live to see that day.

We can only hope that the moronic Biden Administration takes Putin at his word about interference. Putin effectively castrated Biden, the only thing Putin hasn’t done, is bent Biden over a desk and metaphorically fucked him.

That’s probably on the agenda for next month.

If the timing works out right, maybe Putin could do that, the same day Biden is delivering the State of the Union address.

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I read the “News” today… I Feel like I’m in a time warp.

Everything I read was reminiscent of the Obama Years.

Perhaps this time around is a little more chaotic but nothing has changed.

Reading the news was a bit like watching a soap opera. You can skip days or weeks, but when you do get around to watching, you haven’t missed much, if anything at all.

I did happen to notice that Kamala Harris is notably absent and has been for at least a week or two.

President Biden is still bloviating on about the Russian / Ukraine issues, While the President of the Ukraine has been quoted as saying the issue is resolving.

Justin Trudeau is being heckled in Parliament and openly laughed at. I’d guess his career is at an end. Doesn’t Canada have a no confidence vote?

Ah well, the soap opera goes on, and nothing changes, except the price of goods and fuel. They keep going up.

I’m as disinterested in the “News” and politics as I was during the Obama years. The nut jobs have full control of the asylum and the midterms can’t come soon enough.

Maybe this time we can get some people in office that actually do their jobs. I’m not holding my breath or anything but I’d love to see a bunch of non-politicians swept into office. You know, folks that had businesses and employees and actually produced something.

That is, of course, until they were forced out of business by mandates and lockdowns.

It seems to me those are the people who have the time, the knowledge, logic, and will, to stand up to the establishment powers and say, “NO!”

Maybe, they’d be able to set things back on course by applying their business acumen and common sense.

The one thing I’m certain of, is that all of the career politicians of any political stripe need to get THE BOOT.

I’m probably just whistling past the graveyard. There are a lot more people caught up in their individual divisiveness and specialized causes than there are people who look at the larger picture. I’m fairly sure that whoever is elected in the midterms will just be more of the same old crap.

Well, back to ignoring the news for a week or so unless something really interesting captures my attention.

I’m over the soap opera.