“Be leery of the man that says he doesn’t like dogs for he is exhibiting at least one character flaw.”
–gs, 2099
John A. FlemingAugust 18, 2023, 9:35 AM
I’m a little annoyed with all the chatter about Biden and Maui, and the island folks begging the Federals to come and save them.
For one part, it’s tit for tat, Bush and Katrina then, Biden and Maui now. Just stupid politics. The Federals have nothing to do with problem, they didn’t start the fire, the only military interest is up on Mt. Haleakala. It’s a local disaster. Where’s the Federal intersection?
Another part is all island folks begging for Federal help. C’mon guys, you live on an island at the far edge of the world. No one is coming to save you. The old gods Pele and Maui decided to teach you a lesson. You don’t have the Cajun Navy as a backup. You’re also all commies, you voted for bad government based not on competence and merit, but on political adherence. You’re getting it gooder and harderer now. You want someone to come and save you so you don’t have to suffer the consequences of your poor decisions, and you can continue to go right on living your fantasy island commie life.
Also as commies, you think big daddy government is supposed to give you everything you need and take care of you. You *’ed up, you trusted Biden and Co. You’re all reliable voters and you will vote commie to your dying day no matter what happens, ol’ Biden and the rest of the Federals don’t care one whit about you. Biden’s sitting in his easy chair worrying about whether it’s time to change his Depends, and that’s about as far out as he can think.
So guys, get off your duffs and start saving yourselves. Don’t wait for your incompetent governments city/county/state/federal, the only thing they want to do is shiv you and get you out of the way so they can buy your property at fire-sale prices and make bank selling to the mainland chumps. Go local, local, local, and work together. Get your municipal water working again, get the electric power back online, clear the ashes and fire debris off your property, and rebuild just like your ancestors did when Pele whacked them.
Oh, and one more thing. Comes the next election, vote out every single one of the incumbents and replace them with anybody else. Vote for the guy who wants competent limited government, not useless commie government with empty promises of free stuff. But you won’t do that, will you? No, you’re island people, and commie is how you roll.
TerryAugust 18, 2023, 10:29 AM
Excellent John. But there is much we do not know in regards to the fire. A dot gov cover-up is now in place and there are many very odd “things” being hidden from the so called media. Take a look at the creep the Fed dot gov has placed in charge of the “fire” investigation for instance.
ghostsniperAugust 18, 2023, 11:06 AM
Correct Terry. I mentioned this a couple days ago. There may be a massive land grab behind it with several billionaires doing the reaching. The rumor is that Oprah, yeah, THAT ho, may be one of the reachers. Another is that Ellison chap, I think he owns Oracle, and both of them already own thousands of acres in those islands as well as some others. When it comes to the upper echelon things are never what they seem.
azlibertarianAugust 18, 2023, 11:31 AM
Caveat: I discount 60% of what I read on the internet right off the bat.
That said, I’ve been reading occasional references on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called of the death toll going to between 500 and 1000. And many of those may turn out to be kids. If so (and with my caveat in mind), that may explain what appears to be a media blackout/.gov cover up.
“…Officials fear that many children are among the dead. “We found remains that are maybe smaller than other remains” amid the devastation, Pelletier said during a press conference, per ABC. He confirmed that these smaller remains were children killed in the blaze.
School on the island was set to start the day of the fire but was canceled when the electricity went out, reported The Wall Street Journal. Many children were home alone while their parents left for work….”
Yeah, it could be bad. That’s not a good sign, the kids were home alone. Or they were trapped in the cars that burned up when the cops blocked the outlets. This could be bad. Typical commies, hiding the truth of things.
With my complete loss of civic faith, I have no idea of how any help I can provide wouldn’t just get grifted. I reckon there will be plenty of fly-by-night grifters as well as the big traditional organizations, that all will be happy to take my money and none of it is used to help the people I intended it for. Feh, it’s the new world now …
I do not believe in coincidences. “Everything in life had a pattern and a coincidence was simply the moment when the pattern became briefly visible.”
From USA
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier is no stranger to responding to mass tragedy. Nearly six years before disaster struck in the form of wildfires that ripped through parts of the island and killed at least 99 people, he was on the ground in the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Pelletier was named chief of the the Maui Police Department in 2021 after more than two decades working in Las Vegas. On Oct. 1, 2017, Pelletier was the incident commander covering the Strip when a gunman unleashed a hail of bullets on a country music festival, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.
Pelletier over the weekend referenced his experience in Las Vegas while describing the the long, painstaking process of identifying the remains of the dozens of people recovered from the burned area so far, and asked for patience with the process. Officials said they’ll start releasing names Tuesday, after families have been notified.
TerryAugust 18, 2023, 3:13 PM
Food for thought
By Mikki Willis:
“Theories are spreading online that the devastating fires on Maui allegedly started “too suddenly” and “burned too harshly” to be classified as a natural wildfire. The general consensus among Maui locals is that these deadly fires were not a natural disaster, but a deliberate act.
As we all seek the truth, it’s important to stay grounded in facts and reality. Here are some details worth contemplating:
A viral video suggests that it depicts lasers setting fires to Maui… is actually a video of a transformer exploding in Chile.
The head of the Maui Emergency Management resigned just one day after he defended his decision of not deploying evacuation sirens.
Cell communications went down.
While the fires were raging, the water supply was turned off, leaving residents and firefighters unable to save businesses, homes, and lives.
Citizen-chartered boats on course to rescue residents were turned away.
Maui’s Police Chief also oversaw the controversial Las Vegas massacre in 2017.
President Biden offered only $700 in emergency assistance per Maui household the same week he allocated another 24 billion dollars to Ukraine.
The World Economic Forum was spearheading a plan to use Maui as a prototype for AI-controlled clean energy.
In January 2023, a conference held in Maui focused on transforming the entire island into a “15-minute smart city.”
Real estate developers have been pushing hard to acquire Lahaina. Indigenous locals have denied every offer to sell their sacred land.
Only time will tell what really happened on the beloved island of Maui. Do technologies exist that could be responsible for these fatal fires? Yes, they do. Are there people heartless enough to orchestrate such an unthinkable act of mass murder? Unfortunately, there are. Man-made catastrophes – which often present similar signs as these tragic fires – occur more often than any of us would like to believe.”
———————————————————————–
Last summer the largest wild fire in the USA during 2022 was a few miles (3 to be precise) from my front door near Salmon, Idaho (Moose Fire).
Many persons in this area get employment as wild fire personnel. The Moose Fire was more than suspicious in how it started. I will not state what everyone here knows as fact. If you believe the dot gov is saintly, I have some “learned” experience from south east Asia during the 1964-68 era that I will never be able to deny seeing, committed by ‘see * A’ operators in country. L*os and Cam b*dia.
Wake up people, we are being groomed for extermination. Fifteen minute cities to HELL- Fake police chiefs running fire investigations. Get informed. Smash your TV.
Wildfires in Tenerife,Canary Islands.Wildfires in British Colombia,Canada.
Gerard documented his very real escape from the Paradise fire.He sure as hell made it real to me.
Noticed that none of the lovely domiciles of upper crusties in Maui were ashed. How fortunate for them. Lahaina is the original capital of the Hawaiian Islands. King Kamehameha made it so in 1802.
Much indigenous history there.
It will be interesting to see if the young/old commies of these islands wake the fuck up.
On the other hand,so much is fake and gay (as planned) I doubt it is possible.
Prayers for the good people.
Demons will be served notice.
ghostsniperAugust 19, 2023, 7:09 AM
Ugly to the core.
Leftists Scramble to Explain Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals
Progressives claim their opponents just don’t care about people.
More than five decades of social psychological data have demonstrated that conservatives report greater levels of happiness and emotional health than liberals. All of this has been so well documented that, for the most part, modern social scientists have given up trying to dismiss the data and have instead tried to explain why.
Some researchers have suggested that conservatives simply tend to provide responses on surveys that are more socially desirable. But the data dispute this. It is a simple statistical strategy to control for social desirability in analyzing the data, and most researchers know this.
Others have claimed that conservatives are more likely to rationalize inequality and feel “justified” in feeling good about themselves and their lives — even at the expense of others.
Drawing from system justification theory, some researchers claim that the disparities in levels of happiness are associated with the endorsement by conservatives of a “fairly wide range of rationalizations of current social, economic and political institutions and arrangements.” These researchers claim that conservatives have developed an “ideological buffer against the negative hedonistic consequences of social and economic inequality.”
In other words, liberals think that conservatives just don’t care about others, and that is why they are happier.
Liberals Are Just Unhappy
Progressive researchers may have suggested that liberals’ “unhappiness reflects social concern,” as they more conscious of “social injustices and dangers,” but in a 2022 survey of a representative sample of 1,831 Americans, Tufts University researchers concluded that even when controlling for social consciousness and concern for the plight of others, “being liberal is still also related to being unhappy … specific concerns seem to accompany unhappiness but do not explain away the ideological ‘effect.’”
The Tufts researchers pointed out that it is not just that liberals are unhappy; liberals are much more likely to have been diagnosed with clinical depression. Suggesting that people with depression “cluster on the Left,” the Tufts researchers reported that of all Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, 16 percent reported having been diagnosed with clinical depression.
Liberals are just unhappy people — and it is not because they care for others more than conservatives. In the Tufts study, the researchers conclude:
[I]f a liberal and a conservative have the same income, education, race, gender, age, marital status, and religious attendance, the conservative will feel more fortunate … liberals are people who—regardless of their actual social positions—rate their own circumstances relatively poorly, and that attitude drives their ideology and makes them unhappy or else reflects their unhappiness.
These data cannot be easily dismissed because they are so consistent. Liberals are unhappy because they are just unhappy, and this correlation holds true for liberal teens. A study by Columbia University researchers entitled “The Politics of Depression,” published in the journal Social Science and Medicine in December 2022, found that conservative teenagers (defined in the study as those who support individual liberty, religion, and free markets) are in general significantly happier than their liberal peers. Findings indicated that conservative teens reported “lower average depressive affect, self-derogation, and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups.” Between 2011 and 2018, female liberals had a steep increase in depressive affect. Interestingly, the researchers found that the more educated the families were, the more likely their child was to be depressed.
Families make a difference when it comes to the emotional health and happiness of their children. University of Virginia sociologist Bradford Wilcox, who also directs the National Marriage Project, suggests that “two family factors” have a lot to do with the ideological happiness gap: “marital status and family satisfaction.” Wilcox continues:
Given that conservatives aged 18-55 are about 20 percentage points more likely to be married as well as 18 percentage points more likely to be satisfied with their families, the lesson here is obvious. Marriage and family are strongly linked to happiness and to personal mental health in particular.
The American Family Survey found that 48 percent of conservative men are “completely satisfied” in their marriage, and 42 percent of conservative married women are completely satisfied. Only 36 percent of liberal women and 38 percent of liberal men said that they are completely satisfied with their marriage.
Conservatives Are Statistically More Physically Attractive
One area in happiness research that seems to get little attention is physical attractiveness. Physically attractive people are more likely to claim that they are happy. And the most recent research by Danish and Swedish researchers, published in May 2023, found that conservative women (or those identified as “right-wing”) were significantly more attractive than liberal women. Using artificial intelligence (Face API by Microsoft Azure’s Cognitive Services) and a publicly available scoring system, a European study of thousands of faces revealed that AI was correct 61 percent of the time at predicting the political leanings of a person based on just one photo of his or her face.
The researchers — a group of three psychologists and political scientists — selected 3,323 publicly submitted headshots of political candidates for analysis in a neural network capable of facial expression coding and classification. The researchers found that “right wing women [were more] attractive.” The results were even more accurate for men — 65 percent of the time, researchers could identify right-wing men from left-wing men. The report concluded:
The team was much more confident in the neural net’s findings linking a high attractiveness rating with conservative views.
“These results are credible given that previous research using human raters has also highlighted a link between attractiveness and conservatism,” the authors wrote.
The results of the physical attractiveness study revealed that 80 percent of the faces displayed a happy expression, while 19 percent read as neutral: “The deep-learning algorithm did catch one unusual distinction, however: female, left-wing political candidates were slightly more likely to be read by the neural net as having a face expressing contempt.”
While trying to explain the fact that physically attractive people are more likely to be conservative, a Washington Post reporter concluded that since numerous studies have shown that attractive people are likely to earn more and, thus, are happy because they “have more” than others. Since people who earn more are typically more opposed to redistributive policies and welfare, these attractive people are more likely to be conservative.
Two professors from universities in the Midwest have attempted to claim that attractive people are more likely to be conservative and, therefore, happy because “they are blind to life’s struggles.” Suggesting that physically attractive people have had it “too easy” in getting jobs, raises, and partners and cannot identify with those who struggle, these professors conclude that beauty makes them less empathetic toward those who find life a struggle — and, therefore, they are attracted to a conservative ideology.
It is easy to reject the simplistic conclusions that attractive people do not care for others and that freedom from concern about social injustice is what makes attractive people happy conservatives. A face that is viewed by AI as “showing contempt” is always going to be an unattractive face, no matter how much that individual claims to care for others.
The reality is that true happiness, and a truly satisfying life, comes from caring for others — being physically present to them. Conservatives know that marriage and family life make one happy. Taking care of one’s own children and one’s own elderly family members is what makes us happiest and most fulfilled. Conservatives are significantly less likely to use the state or other non-familial institutions to do this kind of caregiving.
They know that true happiness comes from selflessness — living for others. And this is why they are happier.
The best take down of the Lahaina Fire is by YouTube content man Mike Glover. I don’t love everything he posts, but he has the chops to assess what happened. Not because of his Green beret, but mainly because he’s got a degree in municipal crisis management. He would write crisis protocols, and implement same.
He said the IP point was at power wires uphill from the city, at a solar power station (hmm), where power lines went down and started the fire. The cops blocked the uphill egress, but the two sides to the left and right were choke points, and the people went into the ocean to avoid the flames. Many drowned, and many were taken in the flames. No consiparcy talk in his video. He explains that if Lahaina had a plan for this, they damn sure didn’t practice it, and the sure as hell didn’t implement it.
But, as badly as I feel for them, it has been all in the abstract until yesterday for me. You see, I’m here with the big eastern Washington fire. The Gray Fire destroyed, essentially, and entire small city ( a la Paradise, CA), yesterday. Today the fire is a rank of flame marching Southward and now threatening, perhaps, the college town my daughter lives in. She’s almost 21, and rooming with 4 other coeds, and they’re on deck to evacuate but since the fire is skirting her city, they haven’t pulled the trigger yet. It has some parallels to Lahaina because the city has compromised egress routes, due to the fire, and yesterday the city went through several evacuation orders (levels) all from the rumor mill, except the college and the city said two different things and it’s chaos. The take away from Lahaina is: you’re totally on your own, pilgrim. The municipality is as likely to get you killed as it is to help you.
I have told my daughter all this, and went specifically into how to monitor the wind, how the fire maps, the behavior of the fire so far, the egress – everything. But, she’s now a young woman and insists on making her own decisions, and mom and dad can only advise. At this late stage, the freeway has been closed, and the roads that usually get us to the university in 35 minutes are now over 2 hours of maybe no-go and crowded roads, all in threat of shut-downs. In most ways, she is in God’s Hands. But, if the evacuation order goes down, this old soldier may have to saddle up. My wife and I are keeping Fire Guard watch tonight in shifts. Oh – also the fires in Canada have cut our internet, but not our cell service. that slows stuff down tremendously.
Here’s the time to pray for us, if you’re so disposed. my thanks. BTW, my home is not in the fire path.
ghostsniperAugust 20, 2023, 4:29 AM
Casey sed: “…mom and dad can only advise.”
=======
Frustrating isn’t it? You can only go so far in your help toward others, then it is infringement. Everybody gets to make their own decisions, good or bad. shrug
My youngest sister lives in a 10th floor apartment in downtown San Diego and hurricane Dora will be arriving there today. Last night I emailed her and told her to grab her mutt and important stuff and go inland to a motel for a few days. She skoffed, said the ocean water was cold (whatever that means) and she can’t afford a motel and she doesn’t own a car (everything she needs is in walking distance). I sent her another email this morning saying it’s better to be safe than sorry. I doubt I’ll hear back from her. She has a short fuse and probably dislikes my meddling – I’ve known her for 64 years. Fambly can bring the best of times and the worst of times.
Casey KlahnAugust 20, 2023, 8:48 AM
All my best, and my prayers, to your sister. She’s bull-headed, just like me.
HossAugust 20, 2023, 8:21 AM
Prayers for sure Casey. I hope this morning has brought less worry for you and family.
ghostsniperAugust 20, 2023, 4:43 AM
Frivolous woman.
First thing I noticed was her willingness to trade her child’s life for a cellphone.
Second things was that her last name is different from her child’s.
For all of the child’s life his mother has been putting him in 2nd place in her life, so he’s used to it.
When I was in public school and when our son was in public school shootings were not a thing, but that changed in the late 90’s. Now it’s a thing and I can’t for the life of me understand how “caring” parents can risk their children’s lives so.
Hell, we pulled our son out of that sorry system for far less than a shooting.
But for us caring was more than just a word, it was an action, and it was backed by logic.
30 years later, he has been married for 10 years and has rewarded us with 2 grand daughters, we are benefitting from our many decisions regarding him in his formative years.
Parents worried about Martinsville student cell phone policy
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. (WISH) — One week into the new school year and some parents are questioning the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville’s new policy on cell phones.
Students cannot have phones in the classrooms and must keep them in their lockers until school is done for the day.
“My success teacher saw it in my pocket and I got in trouble,” said Wiatt Byington, an 8th grader at John R. Wooden Middle School.
The board approved the policy in July. Wiatt’s mother Tabitha Maxwell didn’t know about it until class started August 14.
“After the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where the students were able to update their parents, call 911, update authorities on where the shooter was, and check in with their peers, I don’t understand why you would take that away from a child,” said Maxwell.
Bell Intermediate Academy, which has 5th and 6th graders, introduced a similar policy in 2015. Martinsville High School requires students to put their phones in a designated area in each classroom.
“Keeping students engaged and learning throughout the school day is just part of the push to keep cell phones out of the classroom. Bullying through social media, inappropriate recording of other students, and video-chatting has negatively impacted schools due to the past availability of cell phones,” said Eric Bowlen, superintendent of the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, in a statement to News 8.
“I don’t disagree. It is a distraction, but I don’t see how having it physically on them in a classroom causes that distraction. Just have a firm set of rules about having it out, and follow those rules,” said Maxwell.
Maxwell circulated an online petition protesting the policy. She believes having a phone nearby could save a child’s life in case of a school shooting.
“I don’t want to think about losing my child. I don’t want to think about anyone losing their child, but that’s the world we live in now. If the only thing I get is the ability to say I love you and goodbye, I want it,” said Maxwell.
The school district said classrooms are equipped with phones and an intercom system should there be an emergency. Students and staff are also being trained on a safety app called ALIC
I dont think its bad politics to, when comparing Bush to Biden, to say, “So why isnt this Biden’s “Katrina moment?” They torched Bush when he simply chose to fly over the city on the day after Katrina, because he obviously didn’t care .. and hey, he was also so incompetent the way he “handled” Katrina
Of course the Dems all “knew” that Katrina would make an unprecedented 90° turn northward and explode from a CAT3 to a CAT5 in a matter of hours. And obviously Democrats would have been able to organize a gigantic relief effort in a manner of hours and safely fly relief supplies in the face of 150 MPH winds. Just look how well thay handled this fir- …. Aaaugh, dont get me started.
We all know how this became the “Katrina Moment” (TM), but what struck me at the time was how immense and how sophisticated the MSM’s PSYOP apparatus had become. There was a quantum leap in the whole thing that raced ahead of almost every American’s understanding of what was happening.
ghostsniperAugust 20, 2023, 12:06 PM
A little known fact…
After digging to a depth of 10 feet last year outside Buffalo, New York, scientists found traces of copper cable dating back 100 years. They came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago
Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, a Los Angeles, California archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet somewhere just outside Oceanside. Shortly afterward, a story in the LA Times read, “California archaeologists, reporting a finding of 200 year old copper cable, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.
One week later, a local newspaper in Montgomery, Alabama reported, “After digging 30 feet deep in his pasture near the community of Prattville, Alabama, Andrew Bullock, a heck of an engineer and a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Andrew has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Alabama had already gone wireless.
Things ain’t been going so good. Been down horribly sick with the covid. Docs useless AF. Just praying that Mary doesn’t come down. I’ve been taking IVM, and it has kept the worst of it at bay. Still sick as fuck. I have been trying to delete fb from my computer. It is nearly impossible to do so. It runs you around and around dead ends, and encourages you to “deactivate” so It can continue data mining your shit, but you can’t get to a “delete” command at all. I’ll need to get my computer guy out here to delete the account. It is evil. Flat fucking evil.
JWM
Casey KlahnAugust 20, 2023, 2:02 PM
Dood! Get well very soon. I’ll miss your input on Facebook, but then again I don’t want to be the pusher-man.
ghostsniperAugust 20, 2023, 2:24 PM
Double up on the dose John. Beat it’s ass. Good luck, fast!
ghostsniperAugust 20, 2023, 2:34 PM
Ever heard a Kookaburra?
I did, once. In a pet store. LOUD! Scared the bejeebus out of me. Didn’t know where it was at, went looking for it. Found it on an open perch by the cash register. Odd looking little creature. Strictly carnivorous. Sort, squat body, no neck, wide triangular head, oversize thick beak. I didn’t engage it (carnivorous) but apparently they are fairly friendly.
The elementary school I attended in PA when I was a child was all about getting kids involved with music from day one and through 6th grade by being acclimated with all the basic sound producing devices, all the way up through the various ways of singing. Solo – Rounds. One of the hundreds of songs we learned in those 6 memorable years was “Kookaburra”.
Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree lyrics
Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Eating all the gumdrops he can see
Stop, Kookaburra, Stop, Kookaburra
Leave some there for me.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Counting all the monkeys he can see
Stop, Kookaburra, Stop, Kookaburra,
That’s no monkey, that’s me.
First, let me say you are in our prayers–both of you! Casey try not to worry too much–the folks over in SEA are a bunch of corrupt and mean SOBs, but they are not stupid–they will get control of that fire pronto! Those people hate/fear bad press!
Second, I would like to ask for your help regarding the VA. Last year my DH received a bill for medicine and services from the VA that was two years old. The VA had just found it and it was about two years old. We also carry an outside insurance policy to cover any charges the VA doesn’t cover. Thank G*d he is still in good health so any extra charges are usually quite small ($35), which our secondary insurance covers. We paid the $250.
Recently, he just received another “old bill” for another $250.
He called the VA and asked for an audit to see what has gone on. Why hasn’t he been told about these bills immediately–why has it taken a couple of years for the VA to find them? He has been told that the VA will do an audit once he submits our INCOME TAX REPORT FROM THE LAST YEAR!!! Excuse my language, but WTF is that? The VA is calling it a “Means Test” to see if he should be charged for any copay at all. If the VA was processing it’s bills on time and billing his secondary insurance as called for, there would not be a need for an audit. Now that he has asked why they aren’t doing their job he is being penalized by having to submit his Income Tax Form. Have any of you heard of such a thing–this “means test”? Have you recently been asked for your Income Tax Forms by the VA?
Thank you for your help!
ghostsniperAugust 20, 2023, 5:20 PM
Anne, let me preface this by saying the VA, which is an arm of the gov’t, is probably the most FU part there is. None of it makes any sense, and if it seeming ly does make sense, just wait a bit and it will prove it again.
I take a blood pressure pill and a cholesterol pill once a day that are provided to me in 90 day bottles which they charge me $15 each. So, in theory, every 90 days I should renew the prescription (which I do) and I should also receive a bill for that prescription too (not necessarily). Sometimes I don’t receive a bill for several more months. During covid I didn’t receive any bills. But when covid was over I got a flood of “back pay” bills. What was the point of suspending the bills only to charge me for them later on???
A little diff, but not really. My wife does our income taxes with that popular software. I just give her my paperwork and she does the rest. During covid we received several checks and/or autodeposits to our account from the gov’t. We didn’t ask for that money nor did we want it. Once, they sent us a debit card with a $600 balance on it and I cut it up and through it away. I do not want any FREE money.
Well, out of the blue, about 3 months ago the IRS sent my wife a letter demanding $XXX.XX of money with no explanation what it was for. She spent hours on the phone getting nowhere and I finally told her to just pay it. Then, last week she got another IRS demanding $XXX.XX. Again, phone tag, and then just paying it. Are these payments for the FREE money that was forced upon us during covid? I don’t know.
Any involvement with the gov’t from here on out is perilous at best and criminal at worst. Will a tribe of those new 83,000 heavily armed IRS agents be doing no-knock raids at 3 am on people like you and me?
I need a new country. One that isn’t overrun by lying assed criminals.
Casey KlahnAugust 21, 2023, 9:34 AM
Thank you, Anne. Not Seattle: Spokane area. But I also have many in Spokane on my list of “Too Woke”. When the idjits in Olympia started posting about global warming – official state agencies taunting, joking and meming about global warming and how they told ya so (!), I did see red for a moment.
Anyway, today the situation is much better for my circle of friends in the fire zone. We’re relaxing today after days of high stress.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Yes he would have.
I linked it several days ago.
https://americandigest.org/open-thread-8-14-23/
QotD
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“Dogs are better than most people.”
–gs, 2099
QotD2
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“Be leery of the man that says he doesn’t like dogs for he is exhibiting at least one character flaw.”
–gs, 2099
I’m a little annoyed with all the chatter about Biden and Maui, and the island folks begging the Federals to come and save them.
For one part, it’s tit for tat, Bush and Katrina then, Biden and Maui now. Just stupid politics. The Federals have nothing to do with problem, they didn’t start the fire, the only military interest is up on Mt. Haleakala. It’s a local disaster. Where’s the Federal intersection?
Another part is all island folks begging for Federal help. C’mon guys, you live on an island at the far edge of the world. No one is coming to save you. The old gods Pele and Maui decided to teach you a lesson. You don’t have the Cajun Navy as a backup. You’re also all commies, you voted for bad government based not on competence and merit, but on political adherence. You’re getting it gooder and harderer now. You want someone to come and save you so you don’t have to suffer the consequences of your poor decisions, and you can continue to go right on living your fantasy island commie life.
Also as commies, you think big daddy government is supposed to give you everything you need and take care of you. You *’ed up, you trusted Biden and Co. You’re all reliable voters and you will vote commie to your dying day no matter what happens, ol’ Biden and the rest of the Federals don’t care one whit about you. Biden’s sitting in his easy chair worrying about whether it’s time to change his Depends, and that’s about as far out as he can think.
So guys, get off your duffs and start saving yourselves. Don’t wait for your incompetent governments city/county/state/federal, the only thing they want to do is shiv you and get you out of the way so they can buy your property at fire-sale prices and make bank selling to the mainland chumps. Go local, local, local, and work together. Get your municipal water working again, get the electric power back online, clear the ashes and fire debris off your property, and rebuild just like your ancestors did when Pele whacked them.
Oh, and one more thing. Comes the next election, vote out every single one of the incumbents and replace them with anybody else. Vote for the guy who wants competent limited government, not useless commie government with empty promises of free stuff. But you won’t do that, will you? No, you’re island people, and commie is how you roll.
Excellent John. But there is much we do not know in regards to the fire. A dot gov cover-up is now in place and there are many very odd “things” being hidden from the so called media. Take a look at the creep the Fed dot gov has placed in charge of the “fire” investigation for instance.
Correct Terry. I mentioned this a couple days ago. There may be a massive land grab behind it with several billionaires doing the reaching. The rumor is that Oprah, yeah, THAT ho, may be one of the reachers. Another is that Ellison chap, I think he owns Oracle, and both of them already own thousands of acres in those islands as well as some others. When it comes to the upper echelon things are never what they seem.
Caveat: I discount 60% of what I read on the internet right off the bat.
That said, I’ve been reading occasional references on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called of the death toll going to between 500 and 1000. And many of those may turn out to be kids. If so (and with my caveat in mind), that may explain what appears to be a media blackout/.gov cover up.
“…Officials fear that many children are among the dead. “We found remains that are maybe smaller than other remains” amid the devastation, Pelletier said during a press conference, per ABC. He confirmed that these smaller remains were children killed in the blaze.
School on the island was set to start the day of the fire but was canceled when the electricity went out, reported The Wall Street Journal. Many children were home alone while their parents left for work….”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/more-than-1000-still-reported-missing-following-lahaina-fire-names-of-the-dead-start-to-be-released-tuesday/ar-AA1fiUkF
Yeah, it could be bad. That’s not a good sign, the kids were home alone. Or they were trapped in the cars that burned up when the cops blocked the outlets. This could be bad. Typical commies, hiding the truth of things.
With my complete loss of civic faith, I have no idea of how any help I can provide wouldn’t just get grifted. I reckon there will be plenty of fly-by-night grifters as well as the big traditional organizations, that all will be happy to take my money and none of it is used to help the people I intended it for. Feh, it’s the new world now …
I do not believe in coincidences. “Everything in life had a pattern and a coincidence was simply the moment when the pattern became briefly visible.”
From USA
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier is no stranger to responding to mass tragedy. Nearly six years before disaster struck in the form of wildfires that ripped through parts of the island and killed at least 99 people, he was on the ground in the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Pelletier was named chief of the the Maui Police Department in 2021 after more than two decades working in Las Vegas. On Oct. 1, 2017, Pelletier was the incident commander covering the Strip when a gunman unleashed a hail of bullets on a country music festival, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.
Pelletier over the weekend referenced his experience in Las Vegas while describing the the long, painstaking process of identifying the remains of the dozens of people recovered from the burned area so far, and asked for patience with the process. Officials said they’ll start releasing names Tuesday, after families have been notified.
Food for thought
By Mikki Willis:
“Theories are spreading online that the devastating fires on Maui allegedly started “too suddenly” and “burned too harshly” to be classified as a natural wildfire. The general consensus among Maui locals is that these deadly fires were not a natural disaster, but a deliberate act.
As we all seek the truth, it’s important to stay grounded in facts and reality. Here are some details worth contemplating:
A viral video suggests that it depicts lasers setting fires to Maui… is actually a video of a transformer exploding in Chile.
The head of the Maui Emergency Management resigned just one day after he defended his decision of not deploying evacuation sirens.
Cell communications went down.
While the fires were raging, the water supply was turned off, leaving residents and firefighters unable to save businesses, homes, and lives.
Citizen-chartered boats on course to rescue residents were turned away.
Maui’s Police Chief also oversaw the controversial Las Vegas massacre in 2017.
President Biden offered only $700 in emergency assistance per Maui household the same week he allocated another 24 billion dollars to Ukraine.
The World Economic Forum was spearheading a plan to use Maui as a prototype for AI-controlled clean energy.
In January 2023, a conference held in Maui focused on transforming the entire island into a “15-minute smart city.”
Real estate developers have been pushing hard to acquire Lahaina. Indigenous locals have denied every offer to sell their sacred land.
Only time will tell what really happened on the beloved island of Maui. Do technologies exist that could be responsible for these fatal fires? Yes, they do. Are there people heartless enough to orchestrate such an unthinkable act of mass murder? Unfortunately, there are. Man-made catastrophes – which often present similar signs as these tragic fires – occur more often than any of us would like to believe.”
———————————————————————–
Last summer the largest wild fire in the USA during 2022 was a few miles (3 to be precise) from my front door near Salmon, Idaho (Moose Fire).
Many persons in this area get employment as wild fire personnel. The Moose Fire was more than suspicious in how it started. I will not state what everyone here knows as fact. If you believe the dot gov is saintly, I have some “learned” experience from south east Asia during the 1964-68 era that I will never be able to deny seeing, committed by ‘see * A’ operators in country. L*os and Cam b*dia.
Wake up people, we are being groomed for extermination. Fifteen minute cities to HELL- Fake police chiefs running fire investigations. Get informed. Smash your TV.
Over & out-
How would you know if it didn’t happen?
Read ALL of it, links included, form your own opinion.
Are the Lahaina Fires Fake?
https://voxday.net/2023/08/15/are-the-lahaina-fires-fake/
Wildfires in Tenerife,Canary Islands.Wildfires in British Colombia,Canada.
Gerard documented his very real escape from the Paradise fire.He sure as hell made it real to me.
Noticed that none of the lovely domiciles of upper crusties in Maui were ashed. How fortunate for them. Lahaina is the original capital of the Hawaiian Islands. King Kamehameha made it so in 1802.
Much indigenous history there.
It will be interesting to see if the young/old commies of these islands wake the fuck up.
On the other hand,so much is fake and gay (as planned) I doubt it is possible.
Prayers for the good people.
Demons will be served notice.
Ugly to the core.
Leftists Scramble to Explain Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals
Progressives claim their opponents just don’t care about people.
More than five decades of social psychological data have demonstrated that conservatives report greater levels of happiness and emotional health than liberals. All of this has been so well documented that, for the most part, modern social scientists have given up trying to dismiss the data and have instead tried to explain why.
Some researchers have suggested that conservatives simply tend to provide responses on surveys that are more socially desirable. But the data dispute this. It is a simple statistical strategy to control for social desirability in analyzing the data, and most researchers know this.
Others have claimed that conservatives are more likely to rationalize inequality and feel “justified” in feeling good about themselves and their lives — even at the expense of others.
Drawing from system justification theory, some researchers claim that the disparities in levels of happiness are associated with the endorsement by conservatives of a “fairly wide range of rationalizations of current social, economic and political institutions and arrangements.” These researchers claim that conservatives have developed an “ideological buffer against the negative hedonistic consequences of social and economic inequality.”
In other words, liberals think that conservatives just don’t care about others, and that is why they are happier.
Liberals Are Just Unhappy
Progressive researchers may have suggested that liberals’ “unhappiness reflects social concern,” as they more conscious of “social injustices and dangers,” but in a 2022 survey of a representative sample of 1,831 Americans, Tufts University researchers concluded that even when controlling for social consciousness and concern for the plight of others, “being liberal is still also related to being unhappy … specific concerns seem to accompany unhappiness but do not explain away the ideological ‘effect.’”
The Tufts researchers pointed out that it is not just that liberals are unhappy; liberals are much more likely to have been diagnosed with clinical depression. Suggesting that people with depression “cluster on the Left,” the Tufts researchers reported that of all Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, 16 percent reported having been diagnosed with clinical depression.
Liberals are just unhappy people — and it is not because they care for others more than conservatives. In the Tufts study, the researchers conclude:
[I]f a liberal and a conservative have the same income, education, race, gender, age, marital status, and religious attendance, the conservative will feel more fortunate … liberals are people who—regardless of their actual social positions—rate their own circumstances relatively poorly, and that attitude drives their ideology and makes them unhappy or else reflects their unhappiness.
These data cannot be easily dismissed because they are so consistent. Liberals are unhappy because they are just unhappy, and this correlation holds true for liberal teens. A study by Columbia University researchers entitled “The Politics of Depression,” published in the journal Social Science and Medicine in December 2022, found that conservative teenagers (defined in the study as those who support individual liberty, religion, and free markets) are in general significantly happier than their liberal peers. Findings indicated that conservative teens reported “lower average depressive affect, self-derogation, and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups.” Between 2011 and 2018, female liberals had a steep increase in depressive affect. Interestingly, the researchers found that the more educated the families were, the more likely their child was to be depressed.
Families make a difference when it comes to the emotional health and happiness of their children. University of Virginia sociologist Bradford Wilcox, who also directs the National Marriage Project, suggests that “two family factors” have a lot to do with the ideological happiness gap: “marital status and family satisfaction.” Wilcox continues:
Given that conservatives aged 18-55 are about 20 percentage points more likely to be married as well as 18 percentage points more likely to be satisfied with their families, the lesson here is obvious. Marriage and family are strongly linked to happiness and to personal mental health in particular.
The American Family Survey found that 48 percent of conservative men are “completely satisfied” in their marriage, and 42 percent of conservative married women are completely satisfied. Only 36 percent of liberal women and 38 percent of liberal men said that they are completely satisfied with their marriage.
Conservatives Are Statistically More Physically Attractive
One area in happiness research that seems to get little attention is physical attractiveness. Physically attractive people are more likely to claim that they are happy. And the most recent research by Danish and Swedish researchers, published in May 2023, found that conservative women (or those identified as “right-wing”) were significantly more attractive than liberal women. Using artificial intelligence (Face API by Microsoft Azure’s Cognitive Services) and a publicly available scoring system, a European study of thousands of faces revealed that AI was correct 61 percent of the time at predicting the political leanings of a person based on just one photo of his or her face.
The researchers — a group of three psychologists and political scientists — selected 3,323 publicly submitted headshots of political candidates for analysis in a neural network capable of facial expression coding and classification. The researchers found that “right wing women [were more] attractive.” The results were even more accurate for men — 65 percent of the time, researchers could identify right-wing men from left-wing men. The report concluded:
The team was much more confident in the neural net’s findings linking a high attractiveness rating with conservative views.
“These results are credible given that previous research using human raters has also highlighted a link between attractiveness and conservatism,” the authors wrote.
The results of the physical attractiveness study revealed that 80 percent of the faces displayed a happy expression, while 19 percent read as neutral: “The deep-learning algorithm did catch one unusual distinction, however: female, left-wing political candidates were slightly more likely to be read by the neural net as having a face expressing contempt.”
While trying to explain the fact that physically attractive people are more likely to be conservative, a Washington Post reporter concluded that since numerous studies have shown that attractive people are likely to earn more and, thus, are happy because they “have more” than others. Since people who earn more are typically more opposed to redistributive policies and welfare, these attractive people are more likely to be conservative.
Two professors from universities in the Midwest have attempted to claim that attractive people are more likely to be conservative and, therefore, happy because “they are blind to life’s struggles.” Suggesting that physically attractive people have had it “too easy” in getting jobs, raises, and partners and cannot identify with those who struggle, these professors conclude that beauty makes them less empathetic toward those who find life a struggle — and, therefore, they are attracted to a conservative ideology.
It is easy to reject the simplistic conclusions that attractive people do not care for others and that freedom from concern about social injustice is what makes attractive people happy conservatives. A face that is viewed by AI as “showing contempt” is always going to be an unattractive face, no matter how much that individual claims to care for others.
The reality is that true happiness, and a truly satisfying life, comes from caring for others — being physically present to them. Conservatives know that marriage and family life make one happy. Taking care of one’s own children and one’s own elderly family members is what makes us happiest and most fulfilled. Conservatives are significantly less likely to use the state or other non-familial institutions to do this kind of caregiving.
They know that true happiness comes from selflessness — living for others. And this is why they are happier.
Read the comments at the link.
https://spectator.org/leftists-scramble-to-explain-why-conservatives-are-happier-than-liberals/
The best take down of the Lahaina Fire is by YouTube content man Mike Glover. I don’t love everything he posts, but he has the chops to assess what happened. Not because of his Green beret, but mainly because he’s got a degree in municipal crisis management. He would write crisis protocols, and implement same.
He said the IP point was at power wires uphill from the city, at a solar power station (hmm), where power lines went down and started the fire. The cops blocked the uphill egress, but the two sides to the left and right were choke points, and the people went into the ocean to avoid the flames. Many drowned, and many were taken in the flames. No consiparcy talk in his video. He explains that if Lahaina had a plan for this, they damn sure didn’t practice it, and the sure as hell didn’t implement it.
But, as badly as I feel for them, it has been all in the abstract until yesterday for me. You see, I’m here with the big eastern Washington fire. The Gray Fire destroyed, essentially, and entire small city ( a la Paradise, CA), yesterday. Today the fire is a rank of flame marching Southward and now threatening, perhaps, the college town my daughter lives in. She’s almost 21, and rooming with 4 other coeds, and they’re on deck to evacuate but since the fire is skirting her city, they haven’t pulled the trigger yet. It has some parallels to Lahaina because the city has compromised egress routes, due to the fire, and yesterday the city went through several evacuation orders (levels) all from the rumor mill, except the college and the city said two different things and it’s chaos. The take away from Lahaina is: you’re totally on your own, pilgrim. The municipality is as likely to get you killed as it is to help you.
I have told my daughter all this, and went specifically into how to monitor the wind, how the fire maps, the behavior of the fire so far, the egress – everything. But, she’s now a young woman and insists on making her own decisions, and mom and dad can only advise. At this late stage, the freeway has been closed, and the roads that usually get us to the university in 35 minutes are now over 2 hours of maybe no-go and crowded roads, all in threat of shut-downs. In most ways, she is in God’s Hands. But, if the evacuation order goes down, this old soldier may have to saddle up. My wife and I are keeping Fire Guard watch tonight in shifts. Oh – also the fires in Canada have cut our internet, but not our cell service. that slows stuff down tremendously.
Here’s the time to pray for us, if you’re so disposed. my thanks. BTW, my home is not in the fire path.
Casey sed: “…mom and dad can only advise.”
=======
Frustrating isn’t it? You can only go so far in your help toward others, then it is infringement. Everybody gets to make their own decisions, good or bad. shrug
My youngest sister lives in a 10th floor apartment in downtown San Diego and hurricane Dora will be arriving there today. Last night I emailed her and told her to grab her mutt and important stuff and go inland to a motel for a few days. She skoffed, said the ocean water was cold (whatever that means) and she can’t afford a motel and she doesn’t own a car (everything she needs is in walking distance). I sent her another email this morning saying it’s better to be safe than sorry. I doubt I’ll hear back from her. She has a short fuse and probably dislikes my meddling – I’ve known her for 64 years. Fambly can bring the best of times and the worst of times.
All my best, and my prayers, to your sister. She’s bull-headed, just like me.
Prayers for sure Casey. I hope this morning has brought less worry for you and family.
Frivolous woman.
First thing I noticed was her willingness to trade her child’s life for a cellphone.
Second things was that her last name is different from her child’s.
For all of the child’s life his mother has been putting him in 2nd place in her life, so he’s used to it.
When I was in public school and when our son was in public school shootings were not a thing, but that changed in the late 90’s. Now it’s a thing and I can’t for the life of me understand how “caring” parents can risk their children’s lives so.
Hell, we pulled our son out of that sorry system for far less than a shooting.
But for us caring was more than just a word, it was an action, and it was backed by logic.
30 years later, he has been married for 10 years and has rewarded us with 2 grand daughters, we are benefitting from our many decisions regarding him in his formative years.
Parents worried about Martinsville student cell phone policy
MARTINSVILLE, Ind. (WISH) — One week into the new school year and some parents are questioning the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville’s new policy on cell phones.
Students cannot have phones in the classrooms and must keep them in their lockers until school is done for the day.
“My success teacher saw it in my pocket and I got in trouble,” said Wiatt Byington, an 8th grader at John R. Wooden Middle School.
The board approved the policy in July. Wiatt’s mother Tabitha Maxwell didn’t know about it until class started August 14.
“After the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where the students were able to update their parents, call 911, update authorities on where the shooter was, and check in with their peers, I don’t understand why you would take that away from a child,” said Maxwell.
Bell Intermediate Academy, which has 5th and 6th graders, introduced a similar policy in 2015. Martinsville High School requires students to put their phones in a designated area in each classroom.
“Keeping students engaged and learning throughout the school day is just part of the push to keep cell phones out of the classroom. Bullying through social media, inappropriate recording of other students, and video-chatting has negatively impacted schools due to the past availability of cell phones,” said Eric Bowlen, superintendent of the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, in a statement to News 8.
“I don’t disagree. It is a distraction, but I don’t see how having it physically on them in a classroom causes that distraction. Just have a firm set of rules about having it out, and follow those rules,” said Maxwell.
Maxwell circulated an online petition protesting the policy. She believes having a phone nearby could save a child’s life in case of a school shooting.
“I don’t want to think about losing my child. I don’t want to think about anyone losing their child, but that’s the world we live in now. If the only thing I get is the ability to say I love you and goodbye, I want it,” said Maxwell.
The school district said classrooms are equipped with phones and an intercom system should there be an emergency. Students and staff are also being trained on a safety app called ALIC
https://www.wishtv.com/news/local-news/parents-worried-about-martinsville-student-cell-phone-policy/
I dont think its bad politics to, when comparing Bush to Biden, to say, “So why isnt this Biden’s “Katrina moment?” They torched Bush when he simply chose to fly over the city on the day after Katrina, because he obviously didn’t care .. and hey, he was also so incompetent the way he “handled” Katrina
Of course the Dems all “knew” that Katrina would make an unprecedented 90° turn northward and explode from a CAT3 to a CAT5 in a matter of hours. And obviously Democrats would have been able to organize a gigantic relief effort in a manner of hours and safely fly relief supplies in the face of 150 MPH winds. Just look how well thay handled this fir- …. Aaaugh, dont get me started.
We all know how this became the “Katrina Moment” (TM), but what struck me at the time was how immense and how sophisticated the MSM’s PSYOP apparatus had become. There was a quantum leap in the whole thing that raced ahead of almost every American’s understanding of what was happening.
A little known fact…
After digging to a depth of 10 feet last year outside Buffalo, New York, scientists found traces of copper cable dating back 100 years. They came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago
Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, a Los Angeles, California archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet somewhere just outside Oceanside. Shortly afterward, a story in the LA Times read, “California archaeologists, reporting a finding of 200 year old copper cable, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.
One week later, a local newspaper in Montgomery, Alabama reported, “After digging 30 feet deep in his pasture near the community of Prattville, Alabama, Andrew Bullock, a heck of an engineer and a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Andrew has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Alabama had already gone wireless.
Things ain’t been going so good. Been down horribly sick with the covid. Docs useless AF. Just praying that Mary doesn’t come down. I’ve been taking IVM, and it has kept the worst of it at bay. Still sick as fuck. I have been trying to delete fb from my computer. It is nearly impossible to do so. It runs you around and around dead ends, and encourages you to “deactivate” so It can continue data mining your shit, but you can’t get to a “delete” command at all. I’ll need to get my computer guy out here to delete the account. It is evil. Flat fucking evil.
JWM
Dood! Get well very soon. I’ll miss your input on Facebook, but then again I don’t want to be the pusher-man.
Double up on the dose John. Beat it’s ass. Good luck, fast!
Ever heard a Kookaburra?
I did, once. In a pet store. LOUD! Scared the bejeebus out of me. Didn’t know where it was at, went looking for it. Found it on an open perch by the cash register. Odd looking little creature. Strictly carnivorous. Sort, squat body, no neck, wide triangular head, oversize thick beak. I didn’t engage it (carnivorous) but apparently they are fairly friendly.
You can see and hear one of these strange creatures here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lZt-JLhsg4
The elementary school I attended in PA when I was a child was all about getting kids involved with music from day one and through 6th grade by being acclimated with all the basic sound producing devices, all the way up through the various ways of singing. Solo – Rounds. One of the hundreds of songs we learned in those 6 memorable years was “Kookaburra”.
Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree lyrics
Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Eating all the gumdrops he can see
Stop, Kookaburra, Stop, Kookaburra
Leave some there for me.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Counting all the monkeys he can see
Stop, Kookaburra, Stop, Kookaburra,
That’s no monkey, that’s me.
You can hear that song here:
https://wordsforlife.org.uk/activities/kookaburra-sits-old-gum-tree/
First, let me say you are in our prayers–both of you! Casey try not to worry too much–the folks over in SEA are a bunch of corrupt and mean SOBs, but they are not stupid–they will get control of that fire pronto! Those people hate/fear bad press!
Second, I would like to ask for your help regarding the VA. Last year my DH received a bill for medicine and services from the VA that was two years old. The VA had just found it and it was about two years old. We also carry an outside insurance policy to cover any charges the VA doesn’t cover. Thank G*d he is still in good health so any extra charges are usually quite small ($35), which our secondary insurance covers. We paid the $250.
Recently, he just received another “old bill” for another $250.
He called the VA and asked for an audit to see what has gone on. Why hasn’t he been told about these bills immediately–why has it taken a couple of years for the VA to find them? He has been told that the VA will do an audit once he submits our INCOME TAX REPORT FROM THE LAST YEAR!!! Excuse my language, but WTF is that? The VA is calling it a “Means Test” to see if he should be charged for any copay at all. If the VA was processing it’s bills on time and billing his secondary insurance as called for, there would not be a need for an audit. Now that he has asked why they aren’t doing their job he is being penalized by having to submit his Income Tax Form. Have any of you heard of such a thing–this “means test”? Have you recently been asked for your Income Tax Forms by the VA?
Thank you for your help!
Anne, let me preface this by saying the VA, which is an arm of the gov’t, is probably the most FU part there is. None of it makes any sense, and if it seeming ly does make sense, just wait a bit and it will prove it again.
I take a blood pressure pill and a cholesterol pill once a day that are provided to me in 90 day bottles which they charge me $15 each. So, in theory, every 90 days I should renew the prescription (which I do) and I should also receive a bill for that prescription too (not necessarily). Sometimes I don’t receive a bill for several more months. During covid I didn’t receive any bills. But when covid was over I got a flood of “back pay” bills. What was the point of suspending the bills only to charge me for them later on???
A little diff, but not really. My wife does our income taxes with that popular software. I just give her my paperwork and she does the rest. During covid we received several checks and/or autodeposits to our account from the gov’t. We didn’t ask for that money nor did we want it. Once, they sent us a debit card with a $600 balance on it and I cut it up and through it away. I do not want any FREE money.
Well, out of the blue, about 3 months ago the IRS sent my wife a letter demanding $XXX.XX of money with no explanation what it was for. She spent hours on the phone getting nowhere and I finally told her to just pay it. Then, last week she got another IRS demanding $XXX.XX. Again, phone tag, and then just paying it. Are these payments for the FREE money that was forced upon us during covid? I don’t know.
Any involvement with the gov’t from here on out is perilous at best and criminal at worst. Will a tribe of those new 83,000 heavily armed IRS agents be doing no-knock raids at 3 am on people like you and me?
I need a new country. One that isn’t overrun by lying assed criminals.
Thank you, Anne. Not Seattle: Spokane area. But I also have many in Spokane on my list of “Too Woke”. When the idjits in Olympia started posting about global warming – official state agencies taunting, joking and meming about global warming and how they told ya so (!), I did see red for a moment.
Anyway, today the situation is much better for my circle of friends in the fire zone. We’re relaxing today after days of high stress.
Thanks Ghost–we are just going to pay it.
Extortion.