The passing scene is hilarious, until it careens through the front yard and crashes into my living room.
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Monday, December 12, 2022
Saturday, December 10, 2022
The thing on the right is now facing two charges for luggage theft
That's some weird fetish :
Sam Brinton [is] the deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy.
The 39 House Republicans Who Voted for the Same-Sex Marriage Bill, annotated
Representative Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota
Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska [re-elected 2022 with 51.3% of the vote]
Representative Ken Calvert of California [re-elected 2022 with 52.3% of the vote]
Representative Kat Cammack of Florida
Representative Mike Carey of Ohio
Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary]
Representative John Curtis of Utah
Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois [defeated in 2022 primary by fellow Republican in redistricting-forced battle]
Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota [House GOP Majority Whip]
Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
*Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin [flipped from Nay in summer to Yea now]
Representative Andrew Garbarino of New York
Representative Mike Garcia of California
Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida
Representative Tony Gonzalez of Texas
Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio [voted to impeach Trump, retiring]
*Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary, flipped from Nay in summer to Yea now]
Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa
Representative Darrell Issa of California
Representative Ch[r]is Jacobs of New York [retiring after flipping position on guns after Buffalo mass shooting and angering supporters]
Representative David Joyce of Ohio [leader of House Republican moderate caucus]
Representative John Katko of New York [voted to impeach Trump, retiring]
Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina
Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York
Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary]
Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa
Representative Blake Moore of Utah
Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington [voted to impeach Trump]
Representative Jay Obernolte of California
Representative Tom Rice of South Carolina [voted to impeach Trump, defeated in 2022 primary]
Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York
Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin
Representative Chris Stewart of Utah
Representative Mike Turner of Ohio
Representative Fred Upton of Michigan [voted to impeach Trump, retiring]
Representative David Valadao of California [voted to impeach Trump, re-elected with 51.5% of the vote]
Representative Ann Wagner of Missouri [Republican phony of the year LOL: “This district is home to me, and there is no better feeling than representing our conservative, Midwest values in Congress.”]
Representative Tim Waltz of Florida [LOL: NYT has Democrat Tim Walz, Minnesota Governor, on the brain; the actual name is Republican US Rep. Michael Waltz, who ran unopposed in FL-6 and was re-elected in 2022; the newspaper of record smdh]
Friday, December 9, 2022
Thursday, December 8, 2022
If you haven't saved enough for an emergency, it's on you, and borrowing money for an emergency when you have it is another stupid thing which is on you
Two stupids don't make a smart.
“It’s a terrible idea to take money out of your 401(k),” said Ted Jenkin, a certified financial planner and co-founder of oXYGen Financial, based in Atlanta. ...
Households should weigh all their options for cash before resorting to tapping a 401(k) plan, said Jenkin, a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council.
For example, households without an emergency fund might be able to free up money for a relatively small short-term cash need by canceling or reducing membership plans, or by selling little-used or unneeded items on Facebook Marketplace or a garage sale, he said. A short-term loan or home equity line of credit would generally also be better than tapping a 401(k).
More.
There's nothing like paying a steep price for a mistake to keep you from making it again. Only morons pay twice.
What else would you expect someone to say who makes his living selling retirement products?
39 House Republicans join 12 Senate Republicans to pass Democrat bill overthrowing the Defense of Marriage Act
The Respect for Marriage Act passed the Democratic-led House in a 258-169-1 vote, as 39 Republicans joined all Democrats in supporting it. It also won bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled Senate in late November: 12 GOP senators crossed party lines to vote for the legislation. ...
The Respect for Marriage Act formally repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. That bill denied same-sex couples federal benefits and permitted states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
The Supreme Court would later go on to invalidate the key provisions of DOMA in two watershed rulings, United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges in 2013 and 2015, respectively.
Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented in Windsor against Kennedy in 2013, same in Hodges in 2015.
There's always a minority of Republicans who exist only to advance the Democrats' godless agenda.
It's never the other way around, unless it has to do with money.
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Sunday, December 4, 2022
KGRR climate update through Nov 2022
2022 mean average temperature eleven months through Nov = 50.4
Mean average temperature through Nov since 1892 = 50.0
28 inches of snow, second highest November on record, all melted now.
Friday, December 2, 2022
Thursday, December 1, 2022
The traditional 60/40 portfolio is now down only 13.76% in 2022 through November, not adjusted for inflation north of 6%
Total stock market index, VTSAX: -14.51% through November
Total bond market index, VBTLX: -12.64% through November
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Jay Powell is a bitter disappointment, pledging today to moderate rate hikes when he's hardly begun to fight inflation after waiting a year to start
Jay Powell is such a clown:
Making sure his pals profit under the umbrella of inflationary pressures is worse than insider trading, because we all pay.
We're the marks!
I haven't been this disappointed in a federal official since Donald Trump betrayed his immigration promises in 2017-2018.
And how did stocks respond?
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Monday, November 28, 2022
Life insurance payouts soared past $100 billion in 2021 as pandemic took over 800,000 total US lives by year end
More.
Sunday, November 27, 2022
An unappreciated factor in the relatively poor Republican performance in Election 2022 is the death of many of their voters due to the pandemic
Older voters skew Republican, and COVID-19 victims skew overwhelmingly older.
A 3- to 4-point Republican advantage among a million deaths of older Americans is up to 40,000 voters nationwide who didn't vote in the election, which doesn't seem like much until you consider that 15 US House races were won by margins of 50% and a fraction.
Republicans won 6 of those races, with one additional race undecided with the Republican leading by just 600 votes.
But Democrats won 8 of those races, and each one by approximately 1,300 to 7,000 votes versus all competitors. In four of those races, with Republican opponents only, the Democrats won by just 1,300 to 3,000 votes.
Saturday, November 26, 2022
Friday, November 25, 2022
WaPo: We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated
For the first time, a majority of Americans dying from the coronavirus received at least the primary series of the vaccine.
Fifty-eight percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted, according to an analysis conducted for The Health 202 by Cynthia Cox, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
It’s a continuation of a troubling trend that has emerged over the past year. As vaccination rates have increased and new variants appeared, the share of deaths of people who were vaccinated has been steadily rising.
In September 2021, vaccinated people made up just 23 percent of coronavirus fatalities. In January and February this year, it was up to 42 percent, per our colleagues Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating.
“We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Cox told The Health 202.
Being unvaccinated is still a major risk factor for dying from covid-19. But efficacy wanes over time, and an analysis out last week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights the need to get regular booster shots to keep one’s risk of death from the coronavirus low, especially for the elderly. ...
Around 35 million people have received the updated boosters that became available to people 12 and over in September and to children as young as 5 last month. That’s a little over 10 percent of the U.S. population, amid concern that cooler weather will bring a surge of covid cases as people move indoors and respiratory infections spread.
More.
The progress of the pandemic has demonstrated the following facts.
There has been an annual increase in the percentage of the population infected every year, from 6% in 2020 to 10.5% in 2021 to 13.1% in 2022 to date, per Our World in Data and the US Census Population Clock.
Clearly the introduction of vaccines from early 2021 has not stopped the spread, and spread is probably a lot worse than the 2022 data suggest because of a complete breakdown in the testing regime.
On the other hand, while the percentage of the population which died from the pandemic surged by 35% in 2021 from 0.106% in 2020 to 0.143% in 2021, 2022 to date has marked a huge reversal with just 0.076% dead. That's down 47% from 2021 and 28% from 2020.
Why is that?
Vaccine advocates will credit the vaccines, yet vaccine uptake in the United States is at record lows throughout 2022. Since we know that vaccine protection wears out in mere months and requires repeated boosters, hence the continued drumbeat to get vaccinated, the dramatic decline in deaths cannot be ascribed to the low-uptake environment, especially with the transition from a pandemic of the unvaccinated to a pandemic of the vaccinated admitted publicly by the likes of Kaiser and WaPo.
There could be any number of other reasons for the decline in deaths which when combined account for the improved death numbers. These include fewer vulnerable people, more widespread natural immunity, and improved clinical practice and treatment, especially with drugs such as Paxlovid.
But perhaps the most important consideration continues to be virus mutation, which explains both the higher percentage of infections and the lower percentage of deaths.
The virus has continued to mutate to spread, at the expense of relative lethality.
That's what 254k record low deaths in 2022 with 43.6m record high cases tells you.
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
The Trump witch hunt continues: Garland's new special counsel is linked to Lois Lerner while the wife is linked to antisemitic Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib
Mr. Smith set up a meeting in October 2010 with IRS official Lois Lerner “to discuss how the IRS could assist in the criminal enforcement of campaign-finance laws against politically active nonprofits.” ... Federal Election Commission records show that Ms. Chevigny contributed $1,000 each to Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign, Biden for President and the Biden Victory Fund super PAC, in September 2020. She also donated $150 to a campaign committee supporting Democrat Rashida Tlaib in 2008, when Ms. Tlaib was running for the Michigan House of Representatives.
More.