About three weeks ago Barb and I went on a hike to Mirror lake. It was suggested by one of her sisters and we happily headed east from Bellevue traveling over Snoqualmie Pass to exit 62. As we went deeper and deeper into the woods we started thinking “We might have been here before.” When we came to the parking area we were sure of it. We didn’t remember the name of the hike or lake when we made the choice for this destination.
Oh well, we are here so we might as well go on the hike.
If you plan to visit this location heed this warning:
From the lower parking area, you’ll notice a small sign pointing toward the Mirror Lake trailhead. Follow the wide, rocky dirt path approximately 0.5 miles to meet the trailhead for Mirror Lake. There is a small parking area adjacent to the trailhead that saves the extra 0.5 mile walk; however, it is strongly recommended that this not be attempted unless you have a jeep or other all-terrain vehicle.
Emphasis added. The road has huge ditches and large rocks in it. It is also overgrown with bushes that will probably scratch your vehicle if you push through them.
We walked the half mile or so to the small parking area adjacent to the trailhead and promptly went on up the hill to the right following the road:
Once those activists believed the high court was on their side, their willingness to change their unconstitutional laws would vanish faster than you can say “come and take them”. Hopefully the Supreme Court sees through the transparent plans of the gun control activists and will move ahead with the New York City case.
The world in which most liberals live is one of magic and fairytales — where socialist systems have starved millions of people and destroyed every economy forced into its model, but which certainly will work the next time. It is a world in which using fascist tactics to silence opponents actually makes you an anti-fascist; and where presidential candidates can promise everything for everyone, and still have enough money left over to cut taxes. In this fantasy land, anything is possible if you just feel it to be true.
It’s a little over stated. I figure I lose about 20 IQ points as soon as the buzzer goes off. Hence, my plans for the stage are made such that the average first grader should be able to follow it without too much trouble.
From a sociological perspective this is no different than a doomsday cult. And when the prophecy failed to materialize the reaction from the Democrats in their bubble is exactly as predicted:
Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.
Short of some religious faiths this has to be one of the largest instances of this phenomena in human history.
These people need intervention. If one or more of these five conditions is broken the hold of the cult on these people will be released. The question is whether we can accomplish this without ripping our nation apart.
I look at search. And I look at Google News. And I look at what it’s doing. And I see Google executives go to congress and say that, “It’s not manipulated. It’s not political.” And I’m just so sure that’s not true.
Greg Coppola Senior Software Engineer, Google Assistant July 2019 [Also, a follow up from Coppola. He announces has been suspended from his job at Google. Then he goes on explore the hypothesis that Google News has a political bias using data science, with only publicly available information and tools.
Last Friday Barb and I flew into Victoria B.C. to attend daughter Jaime’s wedding. While waiting in baggage claim a guy walked up to us and ask, “Are you Joe Huffman?”
“Uh…. yes”, I replied.
I was a bit concerned. I was already uncomfortable that I had to leave my gun, knives, and even pepper spray behind. And now some strange guy has approaching me, correctly identified me, and is verifying my identity. It took a couple seconds to think it through and realize that he just got off the same plane I did and almost for certain doesn’t have any weapons either. Together, Barb and I should be able to handle the situation should it go sour.
It turns out, as you might have already guessed, he reads my blog and just wanted to say hi. He lives in Texas and had traveled to Victoria to be with his daughter while she attended a ballet class for a month.
As computers continue to permeate every aspect of our lives, society, and critical infrastructure, it is much more important to ensure that they are secure from everybody — even at the cost of law-enforcement access — than it is to allow access at the cost of security. Barr is wrong, it kind of is like these systems are protecting nuclear launch codes.
I have it on good authority that conflating Special Forces with Special Olympics in the presence of a half dozen or so Spec Ops people has the potential to be hazardous to your health.
The person who tested this hypothesis told me he was concerned he might be killed for couple of minutes. He managed to talk his way out of the situation without injury but does not recommend others attempting to repeat the experiment.
To the best of my knowledge the reverse conflation has not been tested. I would like to suggest this is a new field ripe for original research with a lower potential for health hazards.
SUMMERFIELD — Marion County sheriff’s officials say a homeowner armed with an AR-15 shot and killed two intruders and was injured himself during a home invasion robbery in Summerfield Wednesday night.
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Sgt. Micah Moore found Doyle with a gunshot wound and a shotgun next to him on the ground. Deputies entered the home and found Jackson dead on the dining room floor. Detectives said he was wearing a “Jason” mask on top of his head, gloves on both hands, jeans and a black shirt.
Near Jackson’s head was a semi-automatic pistol, detectives said.
Continuing into the home, deputies found the 61-year-old homeowner in a bedroom.
He had an AR-15 rifle on his legs and was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the stomach, according to sheriff’s officials. Doyle and the homeowner were transported to Ocala Regional Medical Center, where Doyle died.
Four young and armed thugs broke down the front door and attempted to rob the one disabled old homeowner. An AR-15 evened the playing field.
According to the study, older adults over the age of 55 who consumed more than 50 grams of chili per day displayed nearly double the risk of developing poor cognition and a decline in overall memory. Interestingly, slimmer adults indulging in a spicy diet exhibited even more significant memory loss.
It wasn’t until I was well into middle age before I finally figured out that some people interpreted the eating of things like chili and black peppers as having a taste. To me (and both of my brothers) there is no taste associated with many peppers. There is only “hot” and pain. It had long been a source of great perplexion to me, “Why do people deliberately cause themselves pain for no apparently benefit?” I will feel the pain in my mouth and throat from food that has pepper concentrations that no one (other than my brothers and I) can even detect. In fact the concentration can be one tenth below the detection level of “normal” people and I still feel the “heat”.
Hence, for all my life, I have avoided spicy hot foods.
I’ll remember this when people who told me, “It’s not at all spicy!” and called me a “wimp” are drooling idiots. Don’t expect me to have much sympathy. I knew that stuff was bad for you decades ago.
That’s why everything has become politicized in the US. Americans have come to see the State as their parent, so they’re constantly pleading with it, like children, asking it for favors and benefits. Like children, they expect the State to magically support them.
They don’t seem to understand that the State isn’t a cornucopia. It’s the opposite. It’s a dangerous parasite. A huge tapeworm in the body of society.
Big gun = small wienie Embarrassing #RVA #Virginia again surrounding unarmed @MomsDemand & children who are fighting to keep kids & workplaces safe #gunsense laws
KarenVCU (@KarensHavoc) Tweeted on July 9, 2019 [When the arguments are weak, the weak lash out, and then we get another Markley’s Law Monday! And they delete their tweet because these cowards know they can’t defend themselves in the free marketplace of ideas.
Americans have always come together as ‘one’ when we have a identifiable threat or a common enemy and the Democratic Party fits the bill perfectly. #Truthdom#WalkAway
Isaiah Washington @IWashington Tweeted on July 13, 2019 [I don’t think it is quite that simple and clear cut, but I can see a good case being easy to make.—Joe]
This is what House Democratic leadership fears: that Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad, through their dominance of social media and their centrality on conservative media, will become the faces of the House Democratic majority.
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Trump took a fight House Democrats were having with each other and turned it into a fight they are now having with him. In doing, he rallied House Democrats around the Squad, and made himself the Squad’s chief opponent. “The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four ‘progressives,’ but now they are forced to embrace them,” Trump tweeted. “That means they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the USA! Not good for the Democrats!”
Ezra Klein July 16, 2019 Trump vs. “the Squad”–Trump reunited the Democrats to further his narrative. [“The Squad” is the far left wing of the Democrats and their politics will be unacceptable in the vast majority of U.S. political jurisdictions. Speaker Pelosi knows this. She has data, from the quoted article, which says:
…the weird poll that Democratic officials apparently leaked to Axios to emphasize the damage Ocasio-Cortez was supposedly doing to the party. The poll was of non-college educated white men, and the post-publication controversy has swirled around whether it’s appropriate to call this group, which went heavily for Trump, “swing voters.”
But more telling was the framing of the poll by whoever leaked it. The Axios headline read “AOC defining Dems in swing states,” even though the results didn’t include any data to that effect. What the poll did show was that 74 percent of the respondents knew of Ocasio-Cortez, and 53 percent knew of Omar. How many other House Democrats have that kind of name recognition?
“If all voters hear about is AOC,it could put the [House] majority at risk,” an anonymous “top Democrat” told Axios. “[S]he’s getting all the news and defining everyone else’s races.”
Trump apparently saw this and made three tweets (and here and here):
So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
Trump is just castigating them as foreign because he says racist stuff.”
I find it telling that the tweets have to be explained as racists rather than demonstrate the racism directly. Ordinary people can clearly see they aren’t racist. The political left is like a paranoid person who imagine they see “people out to get them” everywhere. Healthy people don’t see the imaginary threats but that doesn’t reassure the paranoid. To the paranoid, as is the case with the political left, they interpret the fact that only they can see the “threat” as proof of their special powers.
With these three tweets President Trump bonded, essentially, all Democrats with “The Squad”. This bonding is a political albatross.
Congresswomen, who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our Country. Get a list of the HORRIBLE things they have said. Omar is polling at 8%, Cortez at 21%. Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party. See you in 2020!
Tim Pool describes it as 4-D Chess:
Via email from Chet who also asks, in a somewhat different context:
Would it be possible to do this for the first and second amendments? For example coming up with really, really outrageous positions that would distract the opponents of the bill of rights?
The vast population of this earth, and indeed nations themselves, may readily be divided into three groups. There are the few who make things happen, the many more who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no notion of what happens.
On a good day I watch things happen. To accomplish the analog to President Trump’s manipulation of the Democrats but in defense of the First and Second Amendment is beyond my capacity. Suggestions?—Joe]
In the comments Gerry asked if the bales at Boomershoot would be square or round. I’ve only seen round for at least 10 years. The renter appears to have finished the baling at about 7:30 PM today.
Turns out the California county with the most concealed carry licenses has a lower homicide rate than LA County, where it’s easier to win an Oscar than get a CHL.
Cam Edwards @CamEdwards Tweeted on July 16, 2019 [Reference article, also by Edwards, is here.
