Election Day!

Happy Election Day!

It’s a cold rainy day here on the mountain. On the plus side, at least I’m not having to walk through snow to the polling place and back. Yes, I’ve done that in past elections. It’s been raining enough here that if it was only a few degrees colder we’d have a foot or more of snow.

If it’s raining where you are, don’t let that stop you from casting your vote!

I don’t buy the hyperbole about voting for the soul of the nation. 

In fact I don’t care what your politics are, or your party preference. 

What I do care about is that you vote. Vote your conscience, vote for candidates that represent your beliefs, vote because it’s your civic duty.

If you can’t be bothered to do this one thing, then you have no voice and I’m not going to listen to you whining about the results after the election.

IVoted

Personally, I’m hoping to see Gavin Newsom tossed out, unfortunately here in California that won’t make much of a difference because there are a lot of bad ideas that have ossified into the dreaded, “We’ve always done it this way,” mindset in this state.

I would enjoy seeing Gavin standing there with his hair blown back in surprise. I know it’s kind of a cheap shot but I’d love to see his smug arrogance take a nice uppercut. For clarity’s sake, I’m not advocating physical violence to Gavin, I’m speaking metaphorically about his attitude and arrogance taking a hit.

There was a time when such disclaimers weren’t necessary, these days though, people seem to be searching for anything they can spin into something it’s not.

I pray that Newsom takes such a drubbing that any presidential aspirations he may have, get flushed down the toilet. The whole country knows what Newsom has done to California. I’m hoping that they remember it in 2024 and decide they don’t want the rest of the country to follow California’s lead. Let the wonder that is Kamala Harris be a warning to everyone.

I’ve been fascinated by the Democrat messaging over the past week or so. (Spending hours on end in a car means you listen to a lot of radio.) The message seems almost like they’re expecting to take a major hit. Some candidates sounded like they just expected to win without really putting in the work.

These candidates seem quite surprised that they’re being challenged strongly by their opponents. When asked why their opponent is doing so well in polls they’re unable to answer. To me that speaks to a profound disconnect between the incumbents and their constituents. In a nutshell, that’s the answer.  Many of them appear to be blindsided that their voters are interested in much more basic issues than special interest stuff. Most of us are really focused on basic necessities.

How can so many candidates have missed or ignored that?

The Republican Party appears to have capitalized on the concerns most Americans have. What remains to be seen is if they were lying to get into office or if the candidates really meant what they said on the campaign trail. 

Time and vote counts will tell.

There was a piece in Politico that says in part, “The 2020 presidential election was rife with allegations of voting machine hacks that were later debunked. Yet there are real risks that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday’s vote.” 

That one was a head snapper. I thought there was no possibility that the election could be tampered with. Isn’t that what we were told after the 2020 election? So what’s changed?

More from Politico

Wireless modems enabling hacks of voting machines or vote tallies

At least seven states and Washington, D.C., use wireless modems to transmit unofficial election-night results to their central offices. These modems use telecommunications networks that are vulnerable to hackers, and malicious actors could exploit them to tamper with unofficial vote data, corrupt voting machines or compromise the computers used to tally official results.

Really? So are we to assume that since the 2020 election which was “perfect and secure”, that some states have taken steps to make the voting process more vulnerable? If these states haven’t made the process less secure, then can we assume that these states were as vulnerable in 2020 as they are today?

Does that mean that law suits filed by Trump which were dismissed as having no standing should be re-evaluated? 

I’m sorry, but I’m kind of a binary guy. Either something is a problem or it’s not, Politico seems to be playing both sides depending on which party wins. How about we just settle for reporting the actual facts, and let the chips fall where they may? That would seem to be a simpler way to deal with politics and life in general. 

President Biden’s speech may have muddied the voting waters as well. Listening to his speech I couldn’t help but think he was setting us all up for endless challenges about ballot counts and election integrity. As if we haven’t had quite enough of all of that over the past two years. What happens when the Democrats become “Election Deniers”? How does that play out?

If both parties become election deniers, does that mean both groups are domestic terrorists?

I’m looking for a change in this election.

I’d like to see someone tap the brakes on the excessive spending in Washington.

Instead of hiking the interest rates to curb inflation, how about we fix the supply chain issues? More products on the shelves and in the pipeline would also curb inflation.

I hope that our politicians pay more attention to the immediate issues that we’re all facing.

Go Vote, and have a good day!

 


The rain has picked up quite a bit. The normally dry creek bed behind the house is roaring, rocks the size of small cars are tumbling down the mountain. It’s causing the ground to shake almost as if there’s an earthquake.

When I think of all the water rushing down to the desert floor, I’m hoping that it makes it into the ground and replenishes the aquifers a bit.

Before all the streets and rain culverts, water ran down and soaked right in. On old aerial maps a perfect example of an alluvial plain was clearly visible. Today, with all the streets, parking lots, and pavement, localized flooding is becoming more common at the base of the mountain. Builders and City officials literally paved over the alluvial plain and now spend tons of taxpayer’s money combating the flooding. It would have been simpler to take the hint from nature and not allow building there in the first place.

For all our knowledge, humans miss the obvious more often than not.

I’ve often thought there should be wilderness buffer zones between communities. I picture areas that provide habitat for wildlife and access for runoff to soak into the ground. Zones as I envision them, would provide places for walking, hiking and communing with nature. I’m not talking about miles wide buffers, I’m talking about 1/4 of a mile or so green belts.

I guess the problem is that some people would see wilderness areas as places to dump their trash and do bad things.


What a surprise… As if anyone expected anything different.

Color me surprised

There is no doubt Democrats, are quite orgasmic over the January 6th committee issuing a subpoena to former President Donald Trump.

As if there was ever any doubt that’s exactly what they would do.

Was anyone surprised? Did we need the theater? Did we need to waste  untold millions of dollars? Did we need to see the further debasement of the the rule of law? Does anyone believe that the timing of this is anything more than a “Hail Mary” play just before the midterms?

Liz Cheney is toast, this is her last grandstand play and I hope that we never see her in the political arena again. The rest of these “lawmakers” and I’m bastardizing the term by applying it to them, are probably toast as well.  Not over the Jan 6th committee bullshit but over terrible policies and lack of service for their constituents.

Surely all, but the most rabid supporters of the Democrat party realize at some level, the January 6th Committee was a Soviet style, kangaroo trial. Hopefully everyone finds it as distasteful as I do.

Nothing I’ve heard or read of the “testimony” in this hearing appears to be anything more than hearsay, and as such, is inadmissible in actual court proceedings.

This whole Jan 6th hearing has been beneficial in one way. It has provided ample demonstration to America of the absolute rot in our government.

I don’t mean to say that the government is rotten because the hearing is about Trump,

It was the manner in which the hearing was carried out. Closed door sessions, allegations made with no opportunity to rebut or cross examine, witnesses whose testimony was second hand, various people referenced in testimony who were not called as direct witnesses.

This is not justice, nor is this hearing indicative of the American Justice System we portray to the world. This is exactly the kind of Stalin-esq hearing that American denounced during the era of the U.S.S.R.

The Jan 6th hearing and all the protestors being held in what amounts to a gulag speaks to me of a system that is corrupt beyond imagining.

If there is a “Red Wave” in November I will tune in to C-SPAN every day to watch the hearings investigating the Jan 6th committee and every single member of Congress responsible for it.

My problem is this;

I don’t think that Congress should be investigating Congress. That’s having the fox guard the henhouse.

I’d be a lot happier if the Supreme Court of the United States oversaw the State Supreme courts, and State Attorneys General investigation into Congress.

I think looking at their actions over the past 8-10 years would be a great start. Every state has an interest in the integrity of Congress, and 50 states looking at Congress at the same time, pulling on threads, digging into facts, might have a chance of burning out all the corruption and saving our Constitutional Republic.

No doubt this would take a lot of resources. However, I think the American People need to see that justice is served to all regardless of their station in life. It would go a long way toward restoring the people’s faith in government, if corrupt members of Congress were marched off to prison, just like everyone else.

Just to make it fair, I’d like to see Congress members accused of corruption, tired by jury outside their home states.

Hell, I’d volunteer to sit on a jury of a Congress member. I’d hear the evidence and vote based on the evidence presented. I’d be in favor of any guilty Congress member serving out their time in general population federal prisons.

I know, that probably makes me a radical, and 15 minutes after I post this, the FBI will be kicking my door down.

Our Republic is worth it.

I received my Voter information guide

Yea…

127 pages long. I guess I’ve got some reading and research to do.

I’m so angry at both political parties, I’m tempted to just vote Libertarian or Independent down the line so long as it is against all incumbents. Not that it would matter.

I don’t necessarily believe that the 2020 election as stolen. I believe that there were simply that many people who hated Trump and would have voted for road kill consisting of a rancid opossum instead of Trump. In Biden, what they got isn’t far off.

I do believe that there were enough voting irregularities to justify asking questions and really investigating. I’m still super pissed off that so many courts dismissed out of hand allegations of voter fraud and now guess what?

Turns out that there was voter fraud, though not on the scale that Trump alleged. As we’ve now heard in a limited way (thanks to our incompetent news organizations), there were irregularities in MN, AZ, and WI. We’re not talking minor gaffes, we’re talking really illegal stuff that has no business being allowed in the voting process. Oh, and to be clear, these irregularities happened on both sides of the political divide.

Turnip

I can only conclude, the American people apparently wanted a turnip as President. Well, now we’ve got a Turnip in Chief and how’s that going?

I ashamed that my Mother voted for Biden. In her case, he was familiar and he was old, and she believes 100% anything that CNN says. She’s too tired to actually fact check herself.

Prior to the election, I was chatting with someone that I know more or less well. He was happy to vote for Biden, but knew nothing about Harris. I told him that she was an idiot. He’s new to California and didn’t know anything about her. He was surprised when I called Harris a tramp that apparently had a golden hole and slept her way to power.

“Dude, that’s pretty strong!”
“Well, I’m entitled to my opinion,” I replied.

We haven’t talked politics for a while. In fact we haven’t seen each other in over 2 years. I’d be interested in pouring him a stiff drink and asking if he still thought I was wrong.

The shittiest part of the midterms in California is that I have zero faith in voting.

I notice that in this election, I will not be able to cast my vote against Adam Schiff, maybe I’ll be in California long enough to write in “broken dildo” as a candidate against him. Hey if we can elect a turnip from president, why not something equally useless as a senator?

I suppose that I’m like a lot of other people in the country. It’s not that, “My Candidate” isn’t elected, it’s that the elected candidates aren’t listening. They spend decades doing the same thing over and over again and call it important work even when the victims of that important work are telling them, “This shit isn’t working!”

Their answer is always the same, “Let’s spend more money on this plan that isn’t working,” then hamstring everyone to more rules and regulations that insure the plan can never work.

This is why I’m in favor of smaller government, when something is too big its course can’t easily be changed. The nasty truth of big systems and lot of rules and regulations is that they inevitably lead to graft and corruption.

Mr. Scott from StarTrek famously quipped, “The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the works.”

We all know when the works get stopped up, things flow into places they were never supposed to. This is true of money flowing through a government.

The difference is that corrupt politicians are more than happy to scoop clogged money into their pockets. While they will immediately run from a clogged toilet. In Nancy’s house, the screeching probably sounds like, “Where a Mexican to clean this mess up?”

That doesn’t sound too different from my Grandfather telling me as a 5 or 6 year old to, “Go get the ’N’ word to clean that up.”

Nothing has changed.

Huh, World War III?

Art biden0429 gi

Is the Biden Administration saying?

“Lets see how far we can push Putin.”

I honestly don’t know, but you’d think they’d be at least a little concerned that Putin is being backed into a corner.

The Biden Administration and Joe Biden don’t seem to know how to properly sabotage something. Here he is painting a target on the United States.

Even if our dumbass in chief had nothing to do with what is commonly defined as sabotage. Putin will have to look no further than President Biden’s own words, before deciding to launch his ICBMs.

Uhh Dumbass in chief, you never tell someone you’re going to fuck them except in a street fight. Saying you were going to fuck Putin on international TV is probably about as stupid as it gets. Then continuing to send billions to the Ukraine to fund your proxy war is just rubbing salt in the wound.

Putin’s Ukraine war is taking more resources than Putin anticipated and he’s suffering more losses. Now with the loss of NordStream 1 & 2, he’s strapped for cash as well. Ukraine applying for expedited entry into NATO isn’t going to calm Putin down. 

190620 Nuclear test iStock 936338912

Have you idiots in Washington ever seen an injured wasp sting itself to death? Have you ever seen a badly injured Scorpion sting itself to death? 

Have any of you ever read Melville? 

To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.” — Herman Melville

I thought you people were supposed to be the Crème de la Crème of our educated elites. I thought you were supposed to have at least some capacity to see how one thing leads to another. Although based on your handling of the economy, apparently I’m in error.

When Hitler realized the war was lost, he killed himself. Putin has the capacity to go out in a “Blaze of Glory” and take the rest of us with him. Hitler would have launched nukes if he had them, then shot his sorry ass.

You morons in Washington need to get your shit together.

It’s time for you “Leaders” to stop ass raping the American people. Sit down, talk with Putin, Talk with Zelenskyy, and the rest of the world leaders and come to some kind of reasonable diplomatic solution.

That solution will involve compromise and not everyone is going to get everything they want. However, everyone walking away from the table with some semblance of dignity will go a long way toward not nuking the planet. 

Joe and the rest of the western leaders say climate change is the single most important issue facing us. Well I’m willing to bet that a nuclear winter classifies as catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. Of course the likelihood of anyone being around to give a shit might be fairly low.

Gettyimages 504772082

I personally don’t think Putin is an idiot, but I do think if you give him no other choice he’d launch some or all of his nuclear weapons. Logically speaking, if he launched one, he might as well launch them all because a NATO retaliation would probably deprive him of using the rest of his stockpile.

Remember the wasp, and the scorpion I mentioned earlier???? 

Are any of you paying attention?

Invite Putin and Zelenskyy to Geneva. Guarantee their safety. Meet under the old rules of Parley and instead of telling them what they have to do, ask them how we might navigate out of this insanity. 

Then LISTEN

(As an aside, Trans rights, Democracy, Donald Trump, the Jan 6th hearing, green energy, abortion, and all the rest of your pet causes, will not matter in the least if this escalates.)

Do your fucking jobs, you bunch of moronic, self entitled, inbred, loads your mommas should have swallowed!

Totally a first world problem…

As most readers know, long ago I switched over to Apple for most everything in my personal computing environment. Wherever you look in my home office, you’ll see an Apple logo. 

Exceptions are of course in monitors, printers, and these days my router. Apple no longer makes their Airports or Time Capsules. So I ended up changing components as the Apple devices wore out.

Apple Monitors are spectacular but far too expensive for my needs. There was a time I even had an Apple LaserWriter.

This is not to say Apple makes the best products. I do find however that Apple products tend to remain useful far beyond their non Apple competitors. It’s nice having a unified ecosystem too. Being able to update everything from a central source is on the one hand a little spooky but on the other hand it’s super convenient. I like knowing that my devices have updated themselves and typically don’t require a lot of intervention on my part. (HomePods, I’m looking at you when I say “Typically”)

All that being said, I’ve been noticing that lately the configurations of Apple equipment that I’d be most likely to purchase haven’t been available off the shelf.

The latest example has been the Apple Watch Ultra. The 13” MacBook Pro with the M2 processor 24GB of RAM and 2 TB of disk storage. One can argue that the Apple Watch is brand new, okay I’ll give you that one. The MacBook Pro 13” on the other hand has been out for a long while. Why then is the maximum configuration still not readily available? Oh right… COVID. 

Another item just showed up on this list. The Mac Studio. It’s been out for almost a year. You’d think I could pull up at an Apple Store, and plunk down 3K then walk out with one containing the M1 Ultra Chip, max memory, and 2 TB of disk. Well you’d be wrong. 

Macstudio

This configuration is apparently order only and has a mid October delivery date. Why? Surely I can’t be the only person to realize that with Apple Products these days you have to buy what you’re willing to live with from the get go. Modern Macs don’t allow for upgrades, they don’t allow you to buy a mid grade unit then max it out later. You have to buy it knowing that if you outstrip it’s capabilities you’re going to have to buy a new machine.

So what the hell? After the recent debacle with me purchasing a maxed out M1 MacBook Pro and then having it stolen when I needed to ship it back to Apple because it was defective. I don’t want to buy anything new unless I can exchange it in a store.

(I’m still having to pay for the computer even though it was stolen. Fed Ex denies responsibility and so does their agent Dollar General. Word to the wise, if you have to return something to Apple, drive 100 miles to the nearest Apple store to return it. Make sure Apple gives you a receipt on paper. For that matter if you’re shipping something back to a manufacturer for refund or exchange don’t accept “We’ll send you a text message or an email,” demand a paper receipt because that’s your only proof that you handed the product to FedEx or UPS or whoever. Text messages are complete bullshit as receipts.)

In my case, I don’t want to order anything from anyone online. Sure there’s convenience in having something delivered to your door, but if whatever it is, is broken, or dies, the hassle of returning it and waiting for a replacement greatly destroys the convenience. 

I prefer to be able to take something back to the store and get an exchange on the spot. 

In the case of Apple, I prefer to unbox the machine in the damn store and power it up. I want to Know it works before I leave. Setting something up in the store allows me to know that and do a trade in, if desired, at the same damn time.

Apple products are generally reliable right from the get go but given the sloppy Chinese manufacturing I’ve seen lately, and the fact that most all of Apple’s products are made in China… Well, I really want to verify things are working while it’s still easy to exchange.

Therein lies the problem. Since the Apple stores don’t have representative examples of the top of the line configurations in stock and I’m gun-shy about ordering something custom for which there is no backup I’m not likely to buy the item in the first place.

That’s how I came to be screwed with my M1 MacBook. I had to return it and have another one built, it’s not like I could get another one off the shelf at an Apple Store.

Yes this is a first world problem. 

Nonetheless, it begs the question why isn’t Apple stocking the high end configurations at their stores? I mean at least ONE in stock at each store?

When I bought my Intel MacBook (Max configuration) it was literally as simple as walking in to the Apple Store and stating what I wanted. They had 4 in stock. I powered the machine up, checked it for functionality, and walked out with my purchase.

Granted that was in 2019. I’m sick and tired of hearing about COVID. I’m sick of hearing about supply chain issues. I’m sick of excuses! 

If Apple knows it’s got a problem, they should fix it. If we know we’ve got supply chain issues then the people in charge of supply chains should get off their asses and fix the problem.

If Apple can’t get products from China, then they should move the damn factories to places where they can get products built and reliably delivered.

That goes for every stinking manufacturer of anything.

I, like many Americans, never really paid much attention to government, or governments, or the supply chain. Stuff just freaking worked.  

But now… Oh this shit has my full and undivided attention.

Perhaps in November we’ll see just how many other Americans are suddenly paying attention. If the Democrats in America get beaten into the ground and Tech companies suffer major losses in sales because a) they can’t get products into consumers hands in a reasonable time, or b) people can’t afford those products, then I’m pretty darn sure they’ll get the message. When their stock prices take a dump and the economy sinks further because products aren’t available and people won’t or can’t pay the prices, the message should be very clear.

It’ll be signed, “The American People”


Really? Mid November for an new iPhone or Apple Watch? 

There’s no point in companies spending on marketing. By the time the product is actually available, people will be anticipating next years’ model and will hold off on their purchases. That by the way is called “Marketing Window”

That’s probably where I’m going to come down on this.

See ya next year Apple, maybe…