Category Archives: General

General

Politics… Beware…!

What a week it’s been, no?

After so many months of the Mueller investigation which, once released, was kneecapped by Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr -who issues a self-serving memorandum that while incredibly dishonest about what Mueller uncovered admittedly helped push the Trump narrative positively- this whole Ukraine phone call seems to have really hit its target.

I suppose that’s the way things go.

I mean, when you get a professional investigator of high repute in Mueller to investigate a matter as serious as the Russian interference in the 2016 election yet he proves too deferential to stonewalling witnesses -including the President, who refused to be interviewed and instead only provided written (lawyered up) answers to question- it seems in retrospect one can not be surprised the report fizzled to some degree in Joe Average Citizen’s mind.

Too complicated. Too much information. Not enough of a snappy, quick answer to the question.

Joe Average Citizen can be forgiven in thinking Trump’s gotten away with it, whatever “it” was, because the report was too damn long and who in their right mind is going to read -much less make sense of- all that stuff…?

And then, out of nowhere, clarity.

Thanks to someone within the Trump White House, a whistleblower’s concern, plus an oblivious White House releasing transcripts of what turns out to be a pretty damn incriminating phone call (in what world did these people think releasing that transcript would somehow prove Trump did nothing wrong?!), we suddenly have that clarity.

First, the whistleblower’s complaint was that Trump was holding up Congressional approved monies to be sent to Ukraine to help them defend against Russian provocations so that they would help him find “dirt” on Joe Biden and his son, whom they think did some underhanded stuff there.

The accusation was shocking but Trump’s team of Einsteins felt that they had the perfect proof he did no such thing and released their summation of the phone call between Trump and the Ukranian President Zelenskyy. The following part of the transcript and Trump’s statements to President Zelenskyy clearly shows us what the whistleblower feared Trump was up to:

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they s_say Crowdstrike … I guess you have one of your weal thy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There- are a lot. of things that went on, the whole situation ..

Understand, THIS IS WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE ITSELF RELEASED TO PROVE TRUMP DID NOTHING WRONG…! (You can read the full transcripts here, if you’re so inclined).

We’re not talking about some Democratic operative’s leak or some underhanded theft of private property skewed to make “President” Trump look bad, we’re talking the actual material they themselves chose to release.

“I would like you to do us a favor” Trump states, while he is holding back aid to Ukraine. The favor involves getting help from the Ukraine which Trump can use against Joe Biden in next year’s Presidential Elections.

Suddenly, the wrongdoing is incredibly obvious and -better yet for Joe Average Citizen- easy to see.

So easy to see, and so easy to show, that over the weekend those who tried to defend Trump found themselves having a very hard time doing so. I won’t go over all of them, but suffice to say this White House, which has been (I hate to admit it) pretty good at hitting back against outrageous actions they’ve been involved in, were suddenly having a great deal of trouble putting this particular fire out.

Now we have a full blown Impeachment inquiry in the House. I suspect things will go fairly quickly. Hell, they don’t have to do much but show the White House’s own transcripts as exhibit “A” of why Trump needs to be impeached.

How will the Senate subsequently react? The Senate has a Republican majority and a Majority Leader who is loathe to do anything against this administration.

But when faced with what is clearly -to anyone with a set of eyes- a deeply illegal action, how will the other Republicans vote?

I suppose like so many other things, time will tell.

General

Life on Mars? How…?

Let’s consider the idea of humanity heading to and creating a habitat on Mars.

To do so, one needs, obviously, some kind of shelter. A place where humans can both breathe and not freeze. Oh, and not get bombarded by pesky radiation. They’ll also need food.

The fact is that we can’t send these things on a consistent basis from Earth to Mars. In other words, we would need to figure out how to produce a safe living environment along with food to sustain our Mars inhabitants.

Curious about how this is done?

I found a couple of interesting articles regarding this very subject.

First up, Erika K. Carlson offers this intriguing article over at astronomy.com which posits:

We could feed one million people living in colonies on Mars

I don’t want to give the article completely away, but suffice to say this would involve some planting (I suspect many out there already know about some of this via the movie and book The Martian) along with edible insects, algae, etc. It’s an ambitious plan and -again, giving away some of the points of the article- it is theorized we could get this amount of food available in a matter of 100 years.

Sounds like a long time, but I find that an incredibly optimistic timeline!

Fascinating stuff!

Now, how about the habitation itself and the radiation exposure? The folks over at marsone.com offer the following guide to dealing with these issues:

How much radiation will the Mars settlers be exposed to?

There are a bunch of other links on this site and its a fascinating read.

As bad as the internet can be, there’s gold in them thar hills, too!

General

Tesla some more…

If you’re tired of me talking about my car, please skip this post!

Otherwise…

So last week I did another long -but not quite as long as the trip up the coast- in the Tesla and today I did another long -but not quite as long as the previous two- trip.

Some thoughts: I-95 around these parts has a double line on the left side which is going to be used, very soon I imagine, for the “express lanes”, ie lanes where cars pay to theoretically bypass the worst of rush hour traffic. While we have two lines between the far left lane and the one immediate next to it on the right, eventually that space between the lines -a large space, by the way- will have cones within it separating that lane from the others.

Related image
Here is the express lane with the cones installed. Where I was, the cones weren’t there yet

My Tesla’s Autopilot seems to really get confused with the double lines and, likely, the space between. When in Autopilot, you hit the change lane indicator (right or left), and the car will make sure there are no cars in the lane you want to go into and will make the lane change for you.

However, when I wanted to switch from the second to the last left lane to the furthest left lane and past the double lines, the car seemed to freak out a little. On the screen would appear a note saying “Attempting lane change, prepare to take over” and once the car gave me a red alert (the screen literally went red) and stated something to the effect that Autopilot had disengaged and I had to take over.

Once I was on the far left lane, the Autopilot kept wanting to switch lanes and get back into the second to the last lane from the left, ie beyond those double lines. It was like the Autopilot sensed we were in the wrong place and kept asking to switch lanes. Perhaps it thought I was on the wrong lane, moving toward a head on collision?

Regardless, it was quite aggravating.

Yeah, yeah. First world problems and all that.

Still, using Autopilot remains, with the above exception, a delight. In the trip I took two weeks ago today (the longer of the two trips) we didn’t have to deal with any weird double lines with big spaces between them and the car moved more than well: It did the trip on Autopilot quite well.

The trip was about an hour and a half, give or take a few minutes, to Naples and we did some shopping before heading to the convenient Supercharger the city has in a covered parking lot. We charged the car up and walked around the place as it charged, seeing some restaurants -but truthfully not all that much more around there that day. We did go to some more shops afterwards, had a nice lunch, and saw the beach before heading back home.

I might have been able to make the trip there and back with the full charge but I suppose I’m still a little skittish about the car’s range, even though I had something like 140+ miles left of range when I started up the charge.

Today, the trip lasted one hour there and another hour (of course) to get back. No need for a Supercharger but, as mentioned above, I did have to be careful with the double line/future express lanes.

Out of curiosity, I went on Tesla’s webpage and did a dry run order for their upcoming Model Y. I’m thinking that will be our next vehicle but I was curious to see what the specs on it are.

Incredibly, I found the car in the configuration I wanted would cost around $55,000, or about four thousand more than my Model 3 was (though with the trade in, I wound up getting it for considerably less).

Still, the fact that Tesla is offering an SUV that has a range of 300 miles with full charge (mine, at full charge, has a range of 310, only a 10 mile difference!), and offer it at a price that isn’t that much higher than a Model 3 when I bought it is something.

Yeah, the price is still a little high and I’m hoping it will continue to come down in time.

The big question: When will the Model Y be available? According to the Tesla website:

Model Y production is expected to begin in late 2020 for North America, and in early 2021 for Europe and China. Standard Range production is expected to begin in early 2021 for North America, and in early 2022 for Europe and China.

So I suppose you can theoretically get the long range version of the Model Y (the more expensive one) by late 2020.

Don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to it!

Books/Literature, General

Ah… Friday… and Corrosive Knights #8 Update…!

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It feels like I haven’t stopped moving these past few months… maybe years… and when the weekend is in view, as it is this Friday morning, I can’t help but feel relief and look forward to unwinding.

I suspect I’m not alone in this!

I haven’t offered much information of what I’m doing, writing-wise of late, but suffice to say I’m neck deep into what will be the 8th book in the Corrosive Knights series.

A while back I was offering the following image to give a hint as to what this 8th book was going to be…

Note the “Epilogue” statement.

Welp… it no longer applies.

There is indeed an 8th book in the works and I’d say I’m a little more than halfway -roughly- through writing it and it most certainly will not be the promised Epilogue to the series.

Why?

Because the Epilogue, which as I’ve stated before is pretty much written already (and has been for a while) kinda ends the whole Corrosive Knights series and I’m not feeling like the series should end just yet.

In fact, the ideas I’ve come up with in Book #8 are fascinating to me, a sure sign that the book is “working”. If I didn’t feel excited about what I was writing, I’d have given it up a while ago.

Yet the same things always rear their head when writing: I try my best to deliver a story that will zig when readers think it will zag. A story that will hopefully surprise them with the many turns and, likewise, give them compelling characters along with a compelling story with a strong beginning, middle, and end.

Any hints as to when the story takes place?

Here’s the thing: With the Corrosive Knights series, I have this broad timeline where I can fit in stories. The story could theoretically take place in pre-historic times. It could take place in the 20th Century and from there, five thousand plus years into the future.

So it could take place the very day after the final events of Legacy of the Argus or before the events of Chameleon (those who have read the books know what I’m talking about).

I’ll offer more updates soon enough…!

Suffice to say I’ve found a good subject/plot and am pushing forward as quickly as I can. Once that first good rough draft is done, things will start coming together more quickly, even if I do require considerable polishing before I feel a book of mine is ready to be released.

I’m working really hard on this one and I want it to be ready perhaps by the middle of next year, if I can manage this.

I’ll give it my all!

In the meantime, have a great weekend!

General

Absolutely fascinating…

Back in November of 1997, William Moldt of Palm Beach County, Florida, disappeared without a trace and, for the years since, no one knows what happened to him.

Now, thanks to Google Earth, they do.

Amanda Watts, Natalie Johnson, and Amanda Jackson provide this absolutely fascinating article for CNN.com which reports on how…

The remains of a man missing for 22 years have been found – thanks to Google Earth

As always, and at the risk of giving it away, Google Earth provided the following picture of a neighborhood in Palm Beach County (I’ve taken this image from the article above):

The submererged car is on the top left side of the pond. See inset.

As you can see in the close up image in the square on the upper left side, what appears to be a car on its side is visible along the bank of this pond.

The vehicle turned out to be Mr. Moldt’s Saturn. The vehicle was lifted from the pond and his remains were found inside.

A tragic situation, certainly, but at least now the family/friends of Mr. Moldt will have closure and now know what became of him.

General

Do as I say…

One of the more infuriating things one comes across in life is hypocrisy. Most specifically, people who say one thing and do another.

Perhaps the most infuriating hypocrisy is the type you find in politics and, sadly, religion. People who talk about honesty and are the last people in the world you should trust with your money. People who talk about living a pious, religious life and, well…

In these past few days one Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late, notorious Jerry Falwell, he of the so-called “Moral Majority”, has been in a wee bit of trouble for these very things.

He took over his father’s Liberty University and is a (who would’a guessed) strong supporter of “President” Donald Trump and talks about all the things that get religious conservatives’ blood pumping. How liberals are evil and sin so very much. How you have to follow the bible. How homosexuality/lesbianism is evil. How low taxes are wonderful and social services are bad.

You know the drill.

Thing is, Mr. Falwell Jr. is starting to feel pressure. People once in his circles (or perhaps still are, I dunno), are starting to whisper about his own… hypocrisy.

The latest salvo against him involves a trip he made to The Wall Club in Miami in 2014. Photos surfaced of him within the club and he vehemently denied being there on that date and with his son. He went so far as to publish an article in Politico stating that the photograph showing him in the club was “Photoshopped”. He is pissed because a religious conservative such as himself would never stoop so low as to go to a heathen, Bacchanal club such as that one. Never, never, NEVER…

Well…

The problem with making such vehement denials and by implication accusing those who presented the photograph that showed you in this *ahem* position is that they may take umbrage at being called liars who Photoshop someone into their photographs to tear a “good man” down.

In fact, they may take such umbrage at this accusation that they decide to go back to their files from that day back in 2014 and see if maybe, just maybe, they have even more pictures which show our good “Christian” moralist in this club that he swears he would never set foot in and anyone accusing him of doing such a thing are liars with Photoshop skills.

…and maybe when searching through those pictures, they happen to find few more more showing Mr. Moral Majority right there, exactly in the club he swears he would never be in. And maybe, just maybe, when they do find these additional pictures they post them online for everyone to see…

Rebuke to Jerry Falwell Jr.’s comments to Politico’s “Someone’s gotta tell the truth”

Here’s the thing: There is no law against absolute moralists like Jerry Falwell Jr. and his son going to a popular Miami club. There is nothing wrong with him being there and drinking a little and (perhaps) dancing a little and having a fun time.

It’s not like these photos show him groping an underage boy or doing a line of cocaine or reaching for money to pay a well known prostitute as she’s unzipping his pants.

All we see here is Mr. Falwell Jr. and his son in a popular club alongside many other partiers. No big deal, right?

Sadly, for people like Jerry Falwell Jr., even showing up at such a “heathen” establishment runs counter to his strict, moralistic facade.

And, based on the photographs, it is a facade.

Had Mr. Falwell simply come out and said: “Yeah, back then I went to a club in Miami with my son and it was glitsy and loud and I didn’t really like it all that much and wouldn’t go there again” you wouldn’t have this mini-blow up.

He would likely be lying. He doesn’t look like he’s having a bad time at the club and what exactly did he expect to find there?

But it might have saved him this fresh embarrassment.

General

Do you vape…?

Maybe you should stop.

Shannon Palus at Slate.com offers the following article concerning the rash of illnesses which are now appearing and seem to have a common denominator: People who vape.

What’s going on with these mysterious Vaping-related illnesses?

I’ve noted before that I don’t smoke. When I was younger, like most young foolish people, did try out cigarettes. Thankfully, I never got into it and, after trying it out a couple of times, simply gave up on it.

I’m thankful because in my later 20’s I developed an incredible allergy to cigarette smoke, to the point where my sinus blows up painfully and I sometimes came down with debilitating migraines that literally sent me to the bathroom to throw up or were so painful I had to get in bed to let their effect wear off.

Anyway, I’m glad I never got into smoking and, based on the above, maybe its best that those who are into vaping pause their behavior with that as well.

At least until they figure out what’s causing these illnesses.

Better to be safe than sorry, for certain.

General

Deep Insecurity…

So the other day, “President” Donald Trump was briefed about the projected path of Hurricane Dorian. Here’s a photograph of that projection and our illustrious leader looking at the graphic. This was the original graphic by the way…

Trump Dorian briefing 2

Here’s a close up of the actual graphic:

Hurricane Dorian

Pretty clear, no?

Welp, “President” Donald Trump goes on to state that, among other states in potential danger is… Alabama. Very promptly, NOAA issues a statement saying Alabama is NOT in danger from this storm. And later on “President” Trump shows up with this chart to PROVE that Alabama was indeed in danger…

U.S. President Donald Trump looks at a tracking forecast map on Hurricane Dorian as he receives a status report on the storm in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Can’t make it out? Here’s a close up:

Image result for trump weather map

See that black line at the end of the projected path, the one that bulges out and has Alabama now in its…

…sigh…

I just don’t know anymore. Look, Donald, you made a freaking mistake. Nothing big. Hell, if one were to take the original not-childishly-altered chart and project the movement of the storm forward, you could argue that Alabama might be in danger and, hell, a true adult would say so and say its good that Alabama isn’t in the path after all and, hey, no biggie.

Subsequent projections showed the storm didn’t take the path illustrated here after all, and that is what these things are: Projections which can be proven wrong in time (this is why, by the way, the final few projections in these charts are presented without the solid white background. They are far more theoretical at that point).

But no, childish Donald just had to prove when he said Alabama was in danger he was right, dammit, and the evidence he submits to prove it is this outrageously and obviously altered projection map with a (control your laughter) marker line added in to show/justify Donald’s statement that Alabama was in some kind of danger after all.

This is the United States today, folks.

I repeat: Sigh.

General

Hurricane Dorian some more…

It seems like the past few weeks have been nothing more than updates and fears regarding Hurricane Dorian.

As of today, the storm is moving generally northwardly after coming to a deadly stop over the Bahamas and, with its category 5 status, lingered there for nearly two full days.

It breaks my heart to think of the damage and loss of life which we will surely read about in the coming days and, given how close I personally live to that area, also think that I -and the people around here- were incredibly lucky.

Over at CNN.com, Patrick Oppmann, Madeline Holcombe and Jason Hanna have the following grim article:

The death toll in the Bahamas is likely to rise as Hurricane Dorian recovery begins, authorities say

I hope this proves not to be the case but, given the devastation we’ve seen so far, I suspect its sadly all too possible.

General

Strap yourselves In, Part Trois

Today is likely the last day before parts of Florida feel the impact of Hurricane Dorian. The lastest NOAA predictive map shows the following:

cone graphic

Essentially, by Monday morning the storm should be close enough to the US coast to feel some tropical storm-type impact, if not hurricane level winds. How close the storm eventually does come to the coast will determine just how much of the monstrous 180 mph sustained winds (maximum) will be felt. I read there were gusts up to 220 mph, and that’s completely nuts.

The fact of the matter is that hurricanes have become much bigger and far more fierce in the previous years. There can be no doubt about that. A few years back it was nearly unheard of to have a storm react Category 5, the highest level a hurricane can reach, and now it seems like every other year we’re getting a storm in that category or, as is the case with Dorian, on the far end of that scale.

The reason the storm is as powerful as it is, one presumes, is because of the warm water which fuels these monsters, and this past July was on record as the hottest July ever recorded.

But of course, one thing doesn’t have much to do with the other, right?! There’s definitely no such thing as global warming, right?!

Right?!

Yeah. Right.

The Bahamas are going to take a major beating for a while, and my heart truly goes out to them. We’ll see what happens with Florida, and beyond, in the next couple of days.