I just know some of you have earned one of these…
I suspect almost all of us are back to the grind, with Christmas and New Year’s behind us. I already have several annoying requests from my Swiss Masters to attend to. Speaking of annoying requests…we are getting a bit low on post material. So, shake off the winter lethargy and commence to writin’, please.
Here are your links;
- Happy Sportsball Black Monday.
- Oh no, not this!
- Compare and contrast…
- Swiss FedGov springs into action (don’t worry, we’ll keep it safe – no, really).
Music – you will have to supply this today.
Comments – All yours.
“Music – you will have to supply this today.”
Since the Dow shot up 600 points today, here’s one…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUxkFCBPgx4&list=RDiUxkFCBPgx4&start_radio=1
I transferred $750 to my Ira this morning. Should have done the max amount. Oh well. Better than nothing.
Sah!
GlibFlick posted, titled “WTF” Sah!
More material can be made this week, Sah!
Thanks, R.J.
The Swiss Comspiracy?…
Please master may I go off topic? J/k!!
First day back to work in over two weeks and upper management who approves all our leave is wonder why we are behind for….two weeks
They only hire and promote the best.
Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdwzko9DZ0s&list=RDPdwzko9DZ0s&start_radio=1
There are certain things that I miss from the 70s.
Qualuudes and pudding pops?
Avocado colored appliances and orange shag carpet, naturally.
Don’t forget the wood paneling.
Pintos and porn ‘staches?
That cow looks malnourished.
You’ll go blind looking at that.
Don’t tell me what I deserve!
My dad worked at the Eagle Island prison farm outside of Boise back in the day.
He said that there was an inmate there that told him that “once you fuck a sheep you’ll never go back to cows.”
He said that you meet the nicest people in prison.
He just liked them wild and wooly.
I’m not sure if he was the same guy as the chicken fucker.
Quite a headline. I know that J.D. enjoys cosplaying as a hick, but I figured that the family home would have cost him a little more than a buck-forty…
Right?!
Here in Hicksville ID where I live the average home in my neighborhood is going for around $800k. The last one I know what it sold for was a cool million and there is one for sale for $1.2 currently.
Some of the nicer homes on the nicer lakes are in that price range.
Rural property not so much, unless there is biggetty land included, which is getting harder and harder to find.
Smaller parcels are in the 10K an acre range.
The smaller parcels demand the premium here.
5 acre lots are going for $180,000-250,000 with no well or septic.
Farm ground is $5000 an acre now.
seems a fair price. Not to crazy expensive for a professional family.
It also contrasted with a reaction from French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot who on Saturday condemned the US operation – saying it undermined international law, while stressing that no solution to Venezuela’s crisis can be imposed from the outside.
When a state actor misbehaves enough to annoy or impose upon its neighbors, solutions are regularly imposed from the outside.
See: Moustache Guy in ’45, other moustache guy in ’04, yet another moustache guy in ’26…
It’s almost like we should ban moustaches…
Oh no!
https://x.com/i/status/2007756751177990259
That is fantastic.
Who knew a Frenchman could ever be right? We only ‘fixed’ post WWII Germany and Japan in the veterinary sense.
We went too far with Germany and Japan post war for sure. To the detriment of the world
Purpose of NATO (British view) – keep the Soviets out, the Germans down and the Americans in.
So M Barrot, if Algeria started chucking nukes at your country, would you still be against regime change?
GD virtue signaler.
You do remember, we’re the only ones to chuck nukes at anyone.
And no one has used them since.
seems it was a pretty good deal, no?
I’m not sure I consider that good fortune to be predestined, or ordained to last indefinitely.
So you would have supported going forward with Operation Downfall, or just sit back and let the Japanese starve?
And I’m not talking about nukes to end a war but nukes to kill and destroy in the name of a creed.
The nukes were no worse than the firebombing of Tokyo from a moral standpoint, and ending the war was paramount.
I said earlier today, I fear bio weapons more than nukes, though I certainly understand why say North Korea has a nuclear program – it deters us.
On topic?
It can be fun.
On the shoulders of a giant
Hear the name La Guardia and you probably think of the airport, and your associations may not be all that happy. But the airport – and much of modern New York’s spectacular rise – are the legacy of a five-foot-two bundle of dynamite, former three-term Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Among his devotees: newly sworn-in Mayor Zohran Mamdani who, on Election Night, promised “the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia.”
And what an agenda that was. During the La Guardia era, New York built bridges, tunnels and highways, schools and hospitals, playgrounds, pools and beaches.
According to Kenneth T. Jackson, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, and the editor of the two-million-word “Encyclopedia of New York City,” under La Guardia’s watch, New York City became the greatest city in the world.
Greatest city in the world, and it’s only going to get better!
And in the succeeding 80 years almost nothing of any importance was built thanks to crippling regulations and graft.
Meanwhile, Z’s agenda is not to build anything, it is to steal from the productive and enrich himself and his buddies.
Venezuela: With immediate effect, Switzerland is freezing any Swiss-based assets linked to Nicolás Maduro.
The Swiss could’ve done this on their own, but I wouldn’t bank on it.
Something tells me that the U.S. had a franc discussion with certain Top. Men. in Geneva and Zurich.
*strongly narrows gaze*
You think they went gnome for the holidays instead?
I remember when Swiss banking privacy wasn’t as full of holes as their cheese.
They do seem to have quite the raclette going on.
He said that there was an inmate there that told him that “once you fuck a sheep you’ll never go back to cows.”
“Ride 100 horses and you’re still not a cowboy. But you fuck one sheep…”
I can’t quit you.
President Trump’s message to Venezuela.
https://x.com/i/status/2007980733999272271
https://screenrant.com/lego-star-wars-debut-new-smart-brick-technology/
Huh.
Is it just me, or did that article tell you FUCK ALL about what a smart brick does?
Sensors to identify different lights/sounds to play depending on what it’s near. It comes across as “Meh.” to me.
It’s SMART!
AND IT WANTS RESPECT!
Or it wants to bang cocktail waitresses two at a time…. one or the other.
It would be pretty spiffy if the SMART Bricks were programmable by the user.
EvilSheldon:
Wouldn’t that have been the Lego Robotics kits that they sold for a while? Are those still made?
I remember some really neat Technics Lego kits back in the day.
Neph that was likely Boost. It was loosly programmable but kinda lame. I got an nos one for the boy last year and it’s pretty weak. Good for a kid that has no other experience with tech but not good for one that has ever played with video games or used the internet.
It extracts more money from your wallet?
The Danes extract money out of my wallet.
I am powerless to stop them.
It’s a disease.
I can’t do anything about it.
Yeah no.
It’s going to go over as well as the Life of George stuff did.
I got the kids Princess Peach and Luegi Lego interactive characters as they were fifty percent off for Christmas. I’m pretty impress with what they do. They are a big step up from what the Duplo trains’ color sensor is capable of. The Mario guys can identify not only color but shade of Lego brick. Blue, light blue and purple all have differing functions. Getting the kids to play the “game” is funny. They have no concept of Mario outside of the movie and now the Lego sets.
We may introduce the NES and SNES to the boy this summer.
Challenge accepted. Glibs Dance Party commences Friday night at 9 PM ET.
“Glibs Dance Party”
No. Just, no.
I’m down.
But I dont dance.
Hurricane Donald
Donald Trump has presided over a dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters, according to emergency management experts.
The first year of his second term was marked by crackdowns on climate science that produced world-class weather forecasts and the gutting of frontline federal agencies – policies that have left the country, already struggling to keep pace with severe storms, even more at risk.
Deep budget cuts and massive firing sprees shrank emergency response agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the agency tasked with coordinating national disaster responses, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), considered a global crown jewel for climate science.
People will die!
Oh noes…. less FEMA people to deliberately shun their political opponents! Whatever shall we do?
Do the math. Without the ability to deny assistance to people based on what yard sign they have, they’ll quickly run out of resources.
What budget cuts?
The 5% they cut was the important part.
Where I find this fantasy world the Guardian inhabits? I want to live there.
This is the best response to that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
Outrageous
Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is pledging to fight back after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced he’s taking administrative action against Kelly.
Hegseth claims that Kelly’s public statements, including a video message telling troops not to follow illegal orders, amount to sedition.
——-
In response, Kelly issued a statement, saying he had earned his rank in combat and as an astronaut, and that Hegseth and the Trump administration were trying to stifle free speech and dissent among retired military officers.
“My rank and retirement are things that I earned through my service and sacrifice for this country. I got shot at. I missed holidays and birthdays. I commanded a space shuttle mission while my wife Gabby recovered from a gunshot wound to the head — all while proudly wearing the American flag on my shoulder,” Kelly said.
“Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way. It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that,” Kelly added.
It was a completely innocuous statement, no different than “Don’t forget your raincoat.”
Bust him to E1
Recall him to active duty.
Issue safety glasses, a hammer, and a big rock.
Clean the shitters at the Pentagon on the 2100-0500 shift.
I’m sure he’ll get plenty of support from the people his party kicked out of the military for not getting a shot.
I’m not sure who decides, but he might actually win. The whole thing looked spontaneous and heartfelt, but it was carefully crafted by lawyers to ensure deniability. They never specified *which* unlawful orders, that was the job of the rest of the party when they spent the entire summer declaring every Trump action to be “unlawful” (and they actually used that word).
Spaceman Mark should be glad that he’s getting a military administrative review instead of the Duke Cunningham treatment.
I think it swings on his use of his former rank in the ad, as opposed to his being a senator. Officers obey the commander in chief, and do not foster rebellion. Senators can do whatever they want.
Should have rethought the ad before they placed it.
The thing is, Kelly and the rest got it wrong.
It’s not “illegal” orders. It’s “manifestly illegal” orders. It’s arguably v obviously. And it’s big difference.
Issue safety glasses, a hammer, and a big rock.
Do they still paint rocks white for borders?
I didn’t see any of that in my time in but I did see a guy with a sledgehammer and a 5’ diameter boulder out in front of one brigades HHC for a couple weeks.
Gotta love the classics.
Sadly punishment is only for E4 and below.
The punishments I saw for E6 and above were promotions, change of duty station and moving from a warehouse to the air conditioned TOC and a promotion.
TPTB,
Content? I have stuff ready right now
A while back I wrote an article about a Spartan DEKA event that I attended. Today our little gym just got a bit bigger.
https://www.spartan.com/en/race/detail/10392/overview
Woo-hoo!
We’re already having a good year. A few new members already. My wife is doing our taxes, and we might actually be in the black this year.
Good to hear, TOK. Success is hard to beat!
In the black? This is great news.
My wife has been a medic for a number of those. That’s close enough for me.
AUSTERITY LOOMS
Because of how the federal tax cuts interact with Oregon’s tax code, the bill is expected to reduce income flowing into the state general fund this budget cycle by $890 million — blowing a hole in the state budget.
Lawmakers will come into the month-long legislative session in February looking to paper over that hole.
They could opt to disconnect from the federal tax code in order to reclaim money that would otherwise be lost because of the federal changes. That would effectively hike taxes on Oregonians at a time the public has indicated it is in no mood for taxes. Or they could lay off state employees and slash services.
Budget writers have already directed state agencies to submit ideas for slashing their budget by up to 5%.
Slashing and burning. It will make Sherman’s visit to Atlanta look like a Sunday School picnic.
Good GODS, they want us to return to spending levels of 2 or 3 years ago!!!! Decimation of the state govt!!!!
It would be nice for them to explain how federal tax cuts impact the revenue brought in by the state, because I’m not seeing how that works.
I’ll defer to folks from Oregon, but I think Oregon is one of the states that uses the Federal definition of taxable income for the base of what is taxable under the state income tax. I think there are state adjustments to that number, but the base is the Federal taxable income.
Screw Oregon.
They like most states got bloated by federal covid cash and baked it into the next years budget.
Don’t threaten me with a good time…
https://www.9news.com/article/news/nation-world/corporation-public-broadcasting-formally-votes-shut-down/507-47835ef2-6f7f-416e-b4b1-ea0d8b00fb94?tbref=hp
But… Didn’t they say that federal funds were an insignificant part of the budget??!??!
Were they… LYING??!????
So, okay, Mom’s in the hospital, but it’s because they can’t figure out if she’s got pneumonia or bronchitis. All tests, including x-ray, covid, flu, rsv, came back negative. Her lungs are wheezy, and pneumonia doesn’t wheeze. On the other hand, clinically, she presents like she’s got pneumonia. Anyway, she’s on oxygen and is getting steroids and breathing treatments and her mood is mostly just annoyed.
Hopefully she gets some antibiotics too. Hoping for the best!
Oh, yes, she’s getting those too.
Best wishes
I dunno about lungs not being wheezy from pneumonia.
But anyway, best wishes.
….and I popped (+) for Covid
Been nice knowing ya.
Im not sure what our company policy is in the days after the Big Scare. I dont feel extra horrible (beer helps) but Id rather not derail my project over a cold.
Canada has a policy for sick people like you.
Shoot the juice to me, Bruce
RoaT – earlier today you made a comment about speaking to what “is” not what “ought” to be. I of course have been doing the exact opposite. Neither perspective is wrong, just different.
Music Link for tonight,
https://youtu.be/LTrk4X9ACtw?si=GSl8yc-hYd81CFvf
I remember when my mom bought that album.
It must have been the first non country tape she had bought in a decade.