Monday Morning Madness

Good morning from my office between the two stadiums in Seattle. It’s another Monday in the Realm® and I am about to head back home to my Hunker-Bunker as soon as I pick up my breakfast from the restaurant.

I’ve been here four hours and I will have to come back around 10 PM this evening to supervise the removal and replacement of an almost brand new geothermal heat pump in the back kitchen. It “single-phased” a few weeks ago, taking out all three compressors and a blower motor.

We’ve spent the better part of $40k for this unit and another $12k to have it installed. You would think that spending that kind of money on a 3-phase HVAC unit, that some engineer might have thought it would be a good idea to include a phase monitor with it. Apparently, spending an additional $200 bucks was too much for Water Furnace. Now they get to spend another $20k to fix their shortsightedness. This time, I insisted they install a phase monitor. It’s not that I give a shit if Water Furnace loses money on repairing their units under warranty, it’s mainly because I need a functioning unit all of the time.

From the Hunker-Bunker. I am now safely ensconced in my Hunker-Bunker. The front security gate is secured. My attack raccoons are patrolling the perimeter, and I should be free from any outside disturbances for the rest of the day. Except for that Amazon driver. He should be showing up soon with my newest order from Bezos.

Life is good. At least until you peruse the news. Then, you will want to pull the pin and toss a grenade into it all…

Yes, this is perfectly normal…

Trump Threatens to Jail Kamala Donors

Trump pledges to jail opponents, baselessly suggests election will be stolen from him

 I have trouble reading something where the first letter on random words are capitalized for no apparent reason at all. Then there is the ominous message:

“Those involved in unscrupulous behaviour will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our country”

“Never seen before” is a phrase he’s often used to explain how crazy he’s going to become if he is ever allowed back into the Oval Orifice again.

Holding the US People Hostage – Again

 Government shutdown looms as Congress faces funding fight

House GOP leadership Friday rolled out a plan that involves linking a six-month stopgap, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), with legislation backed by former President Trump and hard-line conservatives that calls for stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements to register to vote.

“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said after the bill was unveiled.

Has this tactic ever worked before with Republicans? Don’t bother looking, the answer is no, it never has worked. If anything, it’s done more to piss the population off, than anything else. Republicans will always cave in when the noise from the population gets too loud.

But nobody has ever accused House Republicans of being awfully bright. Which makes you wonder how fucking stupid they have to be to try and pull this stunt right before an election.

What are the demands now? Massive cuts? Nope. House Republicans want to change the election rules less than sixty days before the next election. Hasn’t anyone pointed out yet that a law like this requires at least sixty days after it is signed into law before it can take effect?

Fucking dimwits.

The Problem here is Netanyahu 

Benjamin Netanyahu at odds with Mossad over ‘forever war’

The hostage negotiation team, run by David Barnea, the director of Mossad, and Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet security services, want to strike a compromise deal with Hamas to end the war but they are frustrated by Mr Netanyahu.

“It’s clear that both the negotiation team and government are frustrated with each other,” an Israeli source privy to the ceasefire talks told the Telegraph.

“Books will be written” about the negotiations, the source added, and general “mistrust” among everyone involved.

Benjamin Netanyahoodilihoo is stuck between a rock and a hard spot. At his rear, he has the government he set up by banding together a couple of fringe, hard-right parties that will rip apart this government the moment he makes a deal to end the hostilities — for any reason, short of wiping every Palestinian off the face of the Earth. At his front is the people — and most of the world — demanding that he quit, NOW.

I’ve pointed this out before numerous times: Netanyahu is desperate to stay in power so that he can get out from under his pending criminal matters that are on hold as long as he remains in office.

This is pretty much the same reason why Donald Trump is trying like hell to get back into office: to escape his pending criminal issues.

Who thought this was a good idea?

CHAOS: Dolphins star handcuffed by police outside stadium

So why did they pull him over in the first place? It wasn’t ‘reckless driving’, that lie has already been debunked.

Oversaturation of College Degrees

A Gen Xer with an MBA can’t get a job despite over 1,500 job applications. He said his degrees have been useless.

• Despite having an MBA, Marcial Quinones has struggled to find stable work after 1,500 applications.
• Quinones said his job search may be hindered by AI, lack of recent experience, and overqualification.
• Men’s employment rates have dropped since the 1950s, with degrees now more crucial for jobs.

Marcial Quinones, 48, used to have few problems getting jobs in the 1990s without a high school diploma. Now, after what he estimates is over 1,500 applications since the early 2010s, he can’t land any stable job in his field even with an MBA.

Quinones, a father of four who lives in rural eastern Pennsylvania, said he’s struggled to land a long-term job in tech or counseling. He has held part-time positions and built his own inventory software to sell to companies, though he rarely gets interviews, even after redoing his résumé two dozen times.

You can’t swing a dead cat around by the tail without hitting some fool with an MBA. Same too, with computer programmers. Every kid leaving high school has aimed for college and either the MBA track or the programming track because for a generation, the money was in either of those fields. I mean, who wouldn’t want a job paying upwards of $150k a year to start for coding? I’ll tell ya, if I were even twenty years younger, I would have switched to it in a heart beat, knowing what I know now.

But do you know where the money is soon to be at? The Next Big Thing™? Jobs like construction, electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs are severely understaffed. All those people are dying off, and it is getting harder to find new apprentices to learn the field and carry on.

Same too for factory workers. If the US is ever going to wrest back the manufacturing mantle from China, we are going to have to start training up a shitload of people to fill positions and actually do the manufacturing.

A Public Service Announcement

Defeating the Paywalls

I did some rough calculating a while back and found that if I wanted to read every article on Drudge, or Google News on a regular basis, it would cost me about $80 a month in subscriptions that I would forget all about until Rocket Money reminded me that I had all these subscriptions that I’m not using.

For example, raise your hands if you have a Wall Street Journal subscription. Or a New York Times or a WAPO account. Maybe even all of them. Get rid of them.

Whether you’re a student conducting research, a professional seeking industry insights, or an enthusiast exploring diverse topics, the Paywall Reader is your gateway to a vast repository of knowledge. From academic articles and news stories to research papers and beyond, it empowers users to access valuable content for educational, informational, and research purposes—all completely free of charge.

Biomarkers and the Mark of the Beast

Amazon Wants Your Palm and TSA Wants Your Face. What Saying Yes Will Mean.

I don’t need to bring my wallet or phone when I shop at Whole Foods anymore. I can pay with my palm instead.
All I had to do was sign into the Amazon One app, give Amazon permission to use my body’s unique data—aka biometrics—and take a photo of each of my palms. Amazon used those photos to generate a number-based representation called a “palm signature” in its cloud, then deleted the images, the company says. [emphasis mine]

Are we supposed to feel better that Amazon is going to delete the images after they’ve categorized, codified, and cataloged them? Don’t they understand that the ‘number-based representation’ is by its very nature unique and as identifiable as the actual photo? Or the palm print? Would you be as comfortable having your fingerprints taken every time you wanted to buy something?

Is there really any difference?

Occurring with more frequency:

Kentucky I-75 gunman charged as ongoing manhunt closes schools

We had one of these freeway shooting incidents around here last week. People just driving along, minding their own business and some clown out and about just shooting random cars…

… if there was ever a need for instant justice, these freaks should be summarily put down as soon as they are caught. Just drop them where they stand. No trial, no excuses.

The Culture of the Elite Force in Policing

Ex-Memphis officers face trial in death of Black motorist Tyre Nichols

There isn’t really a race problem in this country. What we have are some clashing culture problems. Race is often secondary, and usually just an excuse.

Take, for example, this incident in Memphis a while back. As I recall, these cops were a “special teams” group of cops whose sole job was to make it rough on gang members. The problem is, these special teams seldom have any responsible oversight and things often spiral out of control.

They obviously took the black driver of a car to be a ‘gang member’, and proceeded to beat him to death.

In Case Anyone Gives a Shit:

Princess Kate says she’s completed chemotherapy treatment for ‘tough’ cancer journey

LONDON — Kate, the Princess of Wales, announced Monday that she has completed her chemotherapy treatment and will undertake a light schedule of engagements until the end of the year.

“Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus,” she said in a video message, some six months after revealing she had an unspecified form of cancer following intense public speculation about her health.

Yeah, me neither. I only posted it here because it popped up in my feed.

Excess Memes Left Over:

These are the memes left over in my memebox this morning. If they seem to be Trump-centric, it’s because he’s been saying and doing more ‘abby-normal’ shit lately, that’s all. Some might even call it ‘weird’.

Trump is now supporting the legalization of pot:

I can remember 2016 Trump’s feelings on legalizing pot. I can also remember 2020 Trump and even 2024 Trump saying he was against legalizing pot.

Same too about abortion. I’m old enough to remember 1980 – 2010 Trump’s views on abortion. I even remember a Howard Stern show where Trump admitted to paying for “probably a hundred” abortions over the years. Then, in 2016 he became the anti-abortion Trump, and by the time he left office he had put three justices on the Supreme Court specifically to do away with Roe v. Wade. Remember all that?

Fast forward to just this past week when he’s backpedaled on several things like this.

But does he mean ANY of this shit?

Nope. Not one thing. He’s going to say and do the craziest things just to get his ass elected. From then on, it will be ALL about himself.

Trump couldn’t even keep her grave tidy?

Buried in the rough means that you don’t have to do anything in the way of upkeep.

Well, he did trash every single one of them…

So has Trump lost the support of Nick Fuentes?

Sometimes contradicting himself in the same paragraph.