• Willful incel stupid

    You would have voted for Kamala. But you are a stupid incel, so Trump is president-elect.

    racist

    It isn’t Democrat messaging that caused people to turn away from Kamala in droves, no, it was you were racist. Against the woman who can’t figure out if she black, brown, Indian, or something else.

    uneducated

    The uneducated population of America is holding the rest of the country hostage.

    You uneducated want to weaken education, ban books and outlaw teaching BLACK history.

    entrenched in tribal superstition, irrespective of all facts

    You wouldn’t have voted for Trump. Because your mortgage, grocery, fuel prices will go up under Trump.

    You need to understand just how wonderful the economy is right now.

    didn’t vote for a convicted felon

    Those 34 felony counts are real. For you to vote for a convicted felon is horrible.

    knew that Trump is coming for your Social Security and Medicare

    You wouldn’t have voted for him.

    white supremacist and full of toxic masculinity

    You would know that Kamala is right for America.

    able to recognize bullshit coming from Democrats

    The meltdown is incredible. My favorites have been the leftists claiming there was something fishy about this election because 15million votes have “disappeared”. There is no ability on the left to look at the numbers and think that 2020 was the outlier.

    Why did they lose? Not their fault. It is your fault they lost. If only YOU had.

    There is no introspection going on, only blame.

            

  •         

  • And… it’s over. Election season is done. Yesterday (or earlier) everyone cast their votes. Today, we have a new President elect.

    Of course, I’m writing this in advance. At the time of writing this, we’re still in the throes of early voting, and Election Day is still a bit away. I can’t say that I’ll be unhappy to see the election mess over with. I may change my mind about that by the time this is published, of course.

    Here are my prediction, made about a week before election. Take from it what you will.

    I think that Trump is going to get in. I’m afraid to hope for that, right now, but I just feel like that’s what’s about to happen. I can’t find a poll that I trust, so I really don’t know. Everyone I do trust is saying that this election is too close to call. Still, I’ve seen lots of Trump signs and a lot fewer Harris ones over the past few months. That must mean something… right?

    If Trump gets in, I believe we’re going to see the cities burn. I doubt that the mayhem will erupt into rural areas, if only because rural folk don’t put up with that crap. I think that the cities will be hugely damaged by rioters of the Left. I expect there to be some loss of life in the days to come. I am sure that a number of people will play stupid games and win stupid prizes, and we’ll hear all about it on the news.

    If Harris gets in, there are likely to be challenges over voter fraud. I am going to assume that if Harris gets in, even by a slim margin, all the challenges will be dismissed. I have some major concerns about a Harris presidency. She and her group have spent a lot of time calling the Right Nazis and racists, and that means they themselves are likely those things. We tend to accuse others of doing the things we don’t want to admit we’re doing ourselves. I’m concerned she’ll actually attempt to round up Trump followers and reeducate them.

    I’d like to say that I don’t believe things will be All That Bad, but I suspect no matter who’s in office, it’s going to be bad. Trump, for better or worse, has become the face of divisiveness in politics. I know that’s 99% to do with the Left media distorting things, but it is what it is. It’s why I wanted to see Nikki Haley or Ted Cruz up there rather than Trump. But this is where we are.

    (more…)

            

  • The last four years have been a shitshow. On the first day of Harris’s term as VP, Joe started signing executive orders to undo what Trump had accomplished.

    Since that day, I’ve heard nothing but hate from the left with lies, more lies, and still more lies.

    This article will be updated after we know the results.

    Trump Wins

    Keep your head on a swivel. Stay out of the cities, if you can. Stay away from stupid people doing stupid things at stupid times of the day. Hell, stay away from stupid people doing stupid things.

    I expect the cities to start burning at any moment. The left is known to be very joyful as they burn down our cities and tear apart our country.

    Please keep your Democrat neighbors in your prayers. They are hurting right now. Only laugh and dance in private. They need time to grieve.

    Harris Wins (God, I hope this isn’t true)

    Kamala has told us that she would not have done a single thing differently. It is going to hurt. Pray for the justices of the Supreme Court that hold our Constitution dear and treat it with respect.

    Keep your eyes on a swivel. The left is known for being joyful in their destruction. They might decide to joyfully stomp those who disagree with them.

    Remember, we will survive this.

    Conclusion

    This was writing at 2100 East Coast time. The first returns are coming in, and it looks good for Trump so far. The problem is that we haven’t heard from any of the battleground states.

    I remember when Florida was in play as a battleground state, after they cleaned up their voting methods to reduce the chances of fraud, it seems to have gone strong Red. Correlation is not causation.

            

  • From the north to the south, from the east to the west, we all need to vote.

    North

    South

    FELLOW CITIZENS: I am very greatly rejoiced to find that an occasion has occurred so pleasurable that the people cannot restrain themselves. [Cheers.] I suppose that arrangements are being made for some sort of a formal demonstration, this, or perhaps, to-morrow night. [Cries of `We can’t wait,’ `We want it now,’ &c.] If there should be such a demonstration, I, of course, will be called upon to respond, and I shall have nothing to say if you dribble it all out of me before. [Laughter and applause.] I see you have a band of music with you. [Voices, `We have two or three.’] I propose closing up this interview by the band performing a particular tune which I will name. Before this is done, however, I wish to mention one or two little circumstances connected with it. I have always thought “Dixie” one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it. [Applause.] I presented the question to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. [Laughter and applause.] I now request the band to favor me with its performance.
    —Christian McWhirter, “One of the Best Tunes I Have Ever Heard.”, Civil War Pop (Apr. 10, 2015) – Abraham Lincoln

    East

    West

            
  • @vine.of.liberty I know I got cut off at the end. Go vote, that’s it. Wake up Wednesday and do your normal things. Do not let fear be your master. #vote #vineofliberty #politics #peaceful ♬ original sound – The Vine of Liberty

    Look, you may not agree with some of the things I say, or value my opinions, but by all that’s holy, go vote. Everyone: left, right, centrist, whatever. VOTE. Not because the country is divided, but because it is your God given right to vote, and because it is your responsibility to vote. Make an educated choice, after listening to unbiased media, and/or listening to both (or all) sides involved. But vote!!!

            

  • I love this soup, and it can be made with just the squash, or with the pears as well. I think the sweetness of the pears really adds a depth to the soup that the squash alone doesn’t have. If you want to impress your family, serve this in a hollowed out large squash (such as a pumpkin or hubbard squash). What a centerpiece!

    Ingredients:

    • 2 lbs butternut squash
    • 3 tbsp butter
    • 1 onion, diced
    • 2 cloves garlic, minced
    • 2 tsp minced fresh ginger root
    • 1 tbsp curry powder
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 4 cups chicken broth
    • 2 Bartlett pears, peeled, cored, chopped into 1″ cubes
    • ½ cup half and half

    Preheat your oven to 375F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut your squash in half lengthwise, remove the seeds and stringy bits. Place the squash halves, cut sides down on the prepared baking sheet. Roast in your preheated oven until very soft, about 45 minutes. Allow the squash to cool slightly, and then scoop out the meat into a bowl. The skin can be discarded.

    Melt the butter in a stout soup pot over medium heat. Stir in the onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder, and salt. Cook and stir until the onion is soft, about 10 minutes. Pour the chicken broth into the pot, and bring it to a boil. Stir in the pear chunks and the reserved squash, and simmer until the pears are very soft, about 30 minutes.

    Puree your soup into a smooth liquid. This can be done in a blender, but you must be careful and do it in batches with the pitcher only half full. I prefer to use a stick blender, which can be done right in the pot. You could also use a food processor, but I’d be careful not to have back splash.

    Stir in the half and half, and gently whisk to combine. Reheat the soup before serving, if necessary.

    If you want to make this pretty, to each bowl add a drizzle of heavy cream over the top and swirl gently with a spoon to make circles of white. Add a sprig of mint or oregano and a couple of pomegranate seeds, and serve.

    Notes:

    When I make this, I always double or triple the amount of curry I use. You want to be able to really taste the curry flavor. If you have people who are unable to tolerate heat, try using a shwarma blend of curry spices.  It packs a hearty flavor punch without burning the lips off. A spicier curry powder can be added at table, or red pepper flakes, for those who like heat. Alternatively, you can sprinkle a good quality chili pepper oil over the surface instead of cream.

    An alternative and more meaty approach to this recipe is to add in leftover Thanksgiving turkey, and serve it the following day with leftover rolls or sliced bread.

            

  • I have had good luck with picking up discarded computers, upgrading them, and making them functional members of the computer or services farm.

    A computer consists of persistent storage (disk drives and SSD), dynamic storage (memory), a processor (CPU), and I/O devices.

    Data is read from disk into memory, the processor then either executes it or processes it, the results are sent to an output devices. I/O devices allow the input from disks, keyboards, persistent storage devices, networks or other devices. They also send output to video devices, networks, printers, and storage devices.

    The thing that defines how a computer can be configured is the motherboard. The motherboard accepts one or more processors, one or more memory devices, one or more I/O devices.

    Some motherboards come with built-in I/O devices. For example, A motherboard will come with built-in disk controllers, sound cards, video drivers, USB controllers, P/S-2 keyboard and mouse, serial drivers and many more. These are the connectors that you see on the back of your computer or elsewhere on the case.

    Many of these drivers lead to a connector or a socket. If your motherboard has SATA disk controllers, there will be SATA connectors on the motherboard. If your motherboard has built-in video, the back will have an ISA video connector and/or an HDMI connector. It might have a DVI connector as well.

    The covers most of what you find on the motherboard. The rest are the important sockets.

    There will normally be extension slots. These are where you would plug in extra I/O devices, such as network cards, disk controllers, or video cards. There will normally be memory slots. Depending on the amount of memory supported by the CPU and motherboard, this could be two, four, eight, or even more. Finally, there is normally a socket for the CPU.

    For me, I have found that the cheapest way to upgrade a computer is to give it more memory. Most software is memory intensive. If you exceed the amount of memory in your machine, your machine has to make space for the program you want to run. Then it has to read into memory, from disk, the program or its data before it can continue.

    The more memory, the less “paging” needs to happen.

    Upgrading the CPU is another possibility. This is normally a fairly reasonable thing to do. Consider an AMD Ryzen 7 3700, which is the CPU in one of my machines. It runs $150 on Amazon, today. I purchased it for $310 a few years ago.

    Today, I can upgrade to a Ryzen 9 5950x from a Ryzen 7 3700x for $350.

    Buying the latest and greatest CPU is expensive. Buying second tier, older CPUs is much more price effective.

    The motherboard in this particular server is nearing its end of life. It has an AM4 socket, which has been replaced with the AM5 socket. This means it is unlike that any “new” CPUs will be released for the AM4.

    Bad Design

    The first place I see bad computer designs is in the actual case. This is not as bad as it used to be. It used to be that opening an HP case was sure to get you sliced up. Every edge was razor sharp.

    The next major “bad design” is a case and motherboard combination which is non-standard. The only motherboard that will ever fit in that case is a motherboard from that company. Likely the only place to get such a motherboard is from E-Bay.

    The next issue is when there are not enough memory slots, or worse, not enough memory addressing lines. Apple was actually famous for this.

    In the old days, Apple used a 68020 class CPU. The CPU that they were using had a 32-bit address register. This is 4 Gigabytes of addressing. More than enough for the time period. Except…

    Apple didn’t use all 32 bits, they only used 24 bits, leaving 8 bits unused. This gives 16 Megabytes of addressable memory. More than enough in a time period where people still remembered Billy saying “Nobody will ever need more than 640 Kilobytes of memory”.

    Apple made use of the extra 8 bits in the address register for “Handles”. Not important.

    Most CPUs today use a 64-bit address registers. I don’t know of a CPU that uses all 64 bits for addressing.

    Which takes us to bad designs, again. Some motherboards only bring enough address lines to the memory slots to handle what is the “largest” memory card currently available. This means that you can have slots that support 16 Gigabyte DIMMs, but the motherboard only supports 4 Gigabyte DIMMs.

    Often, it is worse. Cheaper motherboards will only have 2 DIMM slots. There is nothing more frustrating than having a machine with 8 GB of memory and finding out that it isn’t one 8 GB DIMM leaving room for another 8 GB, but instead two 4 GB DIMMs. Which means that when you receive that 8 GB DIMM you have 12 GB total instead of the goal of 16 GB, and you have a 4 GB DIMM that isn’t good for anything.

    Sub Conclusion

    If you want to be able to upgrade your computer, buy a motherboard with the latest socket design. AMD or Intel. Buy one that has enough DIMM slots to handle 4 times the amount of memory you think you are going to need. Buy a CPU that is at 1/4 to 1/3 the price of the top-tier CPU. Depending on the release date, maybe even less than that.

    Make sure it has a slot for your video card AND having one PCIe-16 slot still open. You might never use it, but if you need it, you will be very frustrated at saving yourself $10.

    Source of the rant

    My wife is using an employer supplied laptop for her work. All of her personal work has to be done on her phone. With the kids off to university, their old HP AIO computer is available.

    The only problem is that word “OLD”. A quick online search shows that I should be able to upgrade the memory from 4 GB to 16 GB and the CPU from an old Intel to an i7 CPU. This means that I can bring this shell back to life for my wife to use.

    At the same time, I intend to replace a noisy fan.

    Looking online, the cost of a replacement CPU will be $25. The cost of the memory, another $25. Plus $25 for a new keyboard and mouse combination. $75 for a renewed computer. Happiness exists.

    Before I order anything, I boot into my Linux “rescue/install” USB thumb drive. I run lscpu and it spits out the CPU type. Which is AMD. AMD sockets do NOT support i7 CPUs. This means that my online research does not match what my software is saying. I trust the software more than the research.

    Turns out that there are two versions of this particular All In One model. One is AMD-based, the other is Intel-based. The Intel-based version has a socketed CPU. The AMD version has the CPU soldered into place. It cannot be upgraded.

    These maroons have rendered this machine locked in the past. With no way to upgrade the CPU, it is too slow for today’s needs. Even with maximum memory.

    Conclusion

    An old computer is sometimes garbage. Put it out of your misery. Use it for target practice or take it to the dump.

            

  • A few weeks ago, I went up to the Fort at #4 to use their warping board. I have a warping board, I just do not know where it is. I could make a warping board, I didn’t want to spend the time to do so.

    On the way up, I stopped to pick up some more yarn for the warp. I have some yarn for the weft and I intend to spin more and have my wife dye it.

    They didn’t have what I needed in stock. While the clerk went down to the warehouse to get more, I was introduced to the fiber club. This was three or four older women who had been working in fiber arts for some period of time.

    “YES!” I thought, I was going to have a chance to learn something about spinning or weaving, or fiber prep. There must be a wealth of knowledge there.

    But first I had to teach them how I clean my fleeces before combing or carding.

    Then they wanted to know why I combed my fleeces, they had tried, but it didn’t work for them.

    So then I ended up teaching them how to comb the fibers.

    And I taught them how to put the flocks properly on the comb so that they aligned correctly.

    When the clerk finally arrived with the rest of my yarn, I had spent the entire time in teaching mode. I had learned more about teaching. I hadn’t learned anything new about fiber prep, spinning, knitting or weaving.

    At The Fort

    As we drove into the fort to offload, the blacksmith waved at us. I figured this was meant that I would get a chance to play at the forge. It has been years since I was in a position to do any blacksmithing.

    As I drove out, there was nobody at the smithy. Darn.

    Back to Ally, in the house. I start combing some wool, just to keep my hands doing something. Shortly, our blacksmith comes in.

    It is a younger man. We get to talking, and it is cool to hear about his skills.

    We started talking about types of steel. The neat thing is that I know which steels I want and what their characteristics are. He was telling me the composition of the different steels. Amazing. I gave him some references to metal sources that he might be able to use.

    He is primarily a blade smith. I’ve seen too many so-called “knife makers” to think it has any real meaning. Hell, even my brother makes knives. So I took the “trust, but verify” path.

    Later, I went over to the smithy with him to sharpen a froe and to get him started on making a reproduction to use in the jointing shop.

    It was interesting because this froe blade had seen some “repairs”. By repairs, I mean that somebody had wielded strange metal to the tip and maybe along the entire cutting edge.

    Sam was using a file to sharpen and kept asking me if I thought the metal was hardened. It is a sort of test. People who work with metal can feel how hard a metal is based on how it files. He was doing a very polite test.

    Then I was invited to actually do something at the forge.

    Before I began, he taught me how to create a good, hot, fire. This is something I’ve done. But a method he used, of reaching under the fire to lift it, causing the crust to crack, is something I didn’t know how to do. I’ve always cracked the crust with my poker.

    He wasn’t teaching, he was just doing.

    Next he put a piece of iron rod in there to let me work it. On my first heat he couldn’t handle my lack of skill. I thought I knew what I was doing, I did not.

    In 30 seconds, he demonstrated four or five things I was doing wrong. I learned.

    I was intending to make a J-hook. There was a call for lunch, so he finished it up quickly, with me watching and taking mental notes. It was a wonderful learning experience.

    History

    After lunch, I was peopled out, I had worked with some visitors, now it was time to escape the people. I headed to the truck. Except, my keys are back in my jacket. Not with me in my 1700s garb. I go to see Sam at the shop.

    After a bit, some visitors came to see what he was working on. The then proceeds to give a 30-minute lecture on trade knives of the 1750s. How they were made, what the differences are, why they were made the way they were, and who would be using them, and why.

    He had manipulatives (knifes without handles) to show the visitors. He explained each type clearly.

    I’ve been collecting knives since the 1980s. I learned more about knives in general, in that 30 minutes, than I have in the past 40 years.

    It is wonderful to have somebody to learn from.

            

  • There are many left-leaning people out there. Many are broken. They cannot see what is in front of their faces and refuse to accept any fact that is counter to their current world view.

    These are the people that can look you dead in the eye and tell you that calling you a racist piece of shit is just fine, but it is unacceptable for you to call them ignorant. This is why their riots were “mostly peaceful” while the January 6th protests and walk through was an “insurrection”.

    There is another class of left — leaning people who aren’t really into calling you names. They are just so deep in the left bubble that they cannot believe that what you say could possibly be the truth. These are the people that watch nothing but CNN and will report what CNN says as being unbiased and fully truthful.

    It is these people who still believe the “fine people on both sides” hoax. They have never seen anything to indicate that it could be anything but the truth.

    There are the evil ones, who know exactly what they are doing. They are willing to lie to accomplish their goals. And are greatly offended when they are called on it.

    The remaining are what I like to call “thinking leftist”.

    These are not as uncommon as you might believe. They are often silent, they seldom get in your face. If you challenge them to check a primary source, they will. If you give them sources, they are willing to view them.

    The Bubble of the Left

    There is an information bubble that exists for everybody. This is the set of sources for news that we are presented with. It is how we get our information. It is from this body of information and opinion from which we build our world view.

    Back in the olden days, there was a TV show called Murphy Brown. It was a show about a hard charging investigative journalist and news anchor.

    She also happened to be female.

    A strong female lead that was “believable”.

    This isn’t a joke, “women are just as good as men in every field,” it was a profession where sex did not matter.

    Single Mothers

    What the character did was to have sex, get pregnant and decide to keep the child. Becoming a single mother.

    This was a huge political message, though most didn’t understand it. Even today, most people consider it to be a major milestone in taking the stigma away from being an unmarried mother.

    The biggest predictor of being successful in life is having a two parent family unit. There are so many things where two parents can accomplish something, while it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do it as a single parent.

    Back in my single days, divorced from my first wife, she would sometimes decide I could have my kids for the week. This was always highly disruptive. I had to find temporary childcare, or I had to take the week off.

    I always made it work because my children have always been that important to me.

    Being a single parent is hard, difficult, all consuming, and will cost you more than you expect. If you are male, it might even be worse, it is harder to get help as a single father.

    So what Murphy did, was she made it “ok” to be a single mother. Dooming hundreds of thousands of children to lives of hardship and lowering their chances of success.

    This is part of that bubble. “Think of the single mothers.”, “Single mothers are so amazing.”

    No, they are losing. Not always their fault. But those are the facts.

    Firearms

    Ignoring the magic technology of most procedural cop shows, there is a political message in most of them: All Guns Are Registered.

    The scene: the duty room of NCIS, Washington, D.C. Abby has come upstairs with the identification of the type of firearm used in the latest murder.

    “He was killed with a 9 mm slug from a Glock 17 with a 6-inch barrel,” she dutifully reports.

    “Ge me a list of all owners of Glock 17L’s,” Gibbs says.

    Ten minutes later, he is presented with a list of names which are then reduced to just a few, depending on plot needs, to investigate.

    I have a few firearms that are registered with the state police of Maryland. That’s because they do not have anything to stop them from creating such a registry. Every firearm sold by an FFL in Maryland requires you to fill out an ATF-4473 plus an MD-4473.

    The state is not allowed to keep records of the ATF-4473 information. Indeed, they request for that background check only states who you are and what type of firearm you are purchasing, pistol, rifle, et so forth.

    The MD-4473 is sent to the state police, and they do keep a record. There are also waiting periods involved.

    I have personal knowledge that they have a registry. I had purchased a featureless AR-15 during the assault weapon ban. That required the MD-4473 and a waiting period.

    No big deal, I didn’t understand. That information bubble at work.

    When the D.C. Sniper was killing people, they were having a difficult time tracking the sniper down. They were able to determine that the bullets were coming from a .223/5.56 rifle. They even suspected that it was an AR-15 platform.

    I, personally, received a call from the MD state police because I owned an SUV and I had purchased an AR-15 platform rifle.

    Impossible without a firearm registry.

    Abortion

    I would have a hard time finding a single show or opinion piece in the media that was pro-life. Even in the cases where there are characters who are pro-life, they are almost always portrayed poorly.

    Take a look at how the annual March for Life was covered. (is covered?) The organizers estimated attendance at 650,000 for 2013. The media reported it as “tens of thousands”. The pro-abortion groups protesting the march normally get more media attention than the march itself.

    It isn’t uncommon for a small pro-abortion march to get significantly more media coverage than the largest pro-life march.

    The amount of positive coverage of pro-abortion positions makes me cringe.

    Women’s Reproductive Health Care/Planned Parenthood

    Planned Parenthood is an abortion business. While they claim that only 3% of their services are “abortions”, you need to dive into what “services” are. Services include handing out literature or condoms, answering calls, and all the other myriad things that are just part of being a business.

    In 2014-2015, the received over half of a Billion dollars from the government. Every cent of that is fungible. That means that they had millions of dollars from us that freed up money to fund abortions.

    When the federal government looked into shutting down that flow of money, they went into overdrive. The selling point was, “If Planned Parenthood shuts down, there will be no women’s reproductive healthcare.”

    There are more women’s reproductive healthcare clinics in my state than there are Planned Parenthood clinics. The difference, most of them offer real women’s healthcare. Teat squishing, pap smears, and all the rest of taking care of unique women’s health issues.

    Misc

    The list goes on and on and on. Everything from gun owners are fat, stupid, and ignorant to people who watch Fox News are not as smart as the rest of the smart, to their elite know better than you.

    Laughter

    Ally went on a rant last night. What was she ranting about? The stupid Kamala ad which says that the wives of conservatives can vote for Kamala without telling their husbands. That conservative/Republican wives are just robots of their husbands.

    It wasn’t a great video because she was so upset she was fumbling her words. I think the strongest message in the rant was, “…give me a break.”

    At morning conversation, she started ranting about it again.

    And I broke out in a giant smile.

    “Stop laughing at me!”

    Ally was a thinking leftest. She took the blinders off a short time ago and is seeing everything with newly cleared eyes.

    For years, I’ve been listening to her responding to my indignation over things the left has done. And for years the response was always the same, “What about this thing that the right is doing?”

    No matter who the Republican candidate was, she found a reason to disapprove of them. Of course, she couldn’t go to the Democrat candidate because they were just horrible. So it was always a third-party candidate.

    For years, I bit my tongue so that I wouldn’t go too far, “can’t you just accept that they did something evil, bad, or stupid?”

    She couldn’t.

    The reason seemed to be that she was fearful of what “The Right” was going to do. They were going to take her rights away, They were saying mean things about people. They stood on the wrong side of an issue that she was passionate about.

    Watching her accept her own views without those blinders has been invigorating. It makes me smile, every day.

    And yes, she would have ranted at herself of a year ago. And the person she was a year ago would have written this Ally off as evil, bad, stupid, and moronic.

    So smile and laugh. It feels good.