[Charlie Brown AI morphs (cumulative) via Deep Dream Generator.]
Sorry I’m late, yinz! I just got home last night from working at our hospital where the LLWS was taking place. I was fortunate to get assigned there at this time. I can tell you, the players are wide-eyed and amazed that they are there. The families are, frankly, in shock. I talked with one dad at
the big old hotel bar after he put his player and wife to bed; he told me a great story. He said that he played baseball through high school but was never good enough to get a look at scholarship or the minors but he always would dream of playing in the LLWS. His son, and the team made it to Williamsport, PA. Dude is a welder in the south, he said they had to hustle to get enough cash to pull this off. He worked 6 days x12 hours plus freelance work starting back when he had an inkling that there might be an outside chance that his could maybe, just might, happen. He said that Mom threw herself into fundraising and was relentless and driven. I was sad when their team got eliminated. However, this same story repeats all through this scene.
I met a few players. WOW! They are living the dream for a few short days. Wonderful young men who are quick with a ‘yes sir’ ‘no sir’ ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. I was treating one young ball player who did his ankle a bad turn. I asked for his autograph and he and his family laughed. I was serious. I had him sign the inside of the metal paramedic folder that I always have with me at work. I will look at that later and often, when the shit gets bad in the ER…a talisman of sorts to keep me focused and happy and to remind me why.
So, now I’m home for the next assignment. Today is recovery and goofing off after 4 days x 12 hours and a long drive home. The Puti and I played 9 at the CC, no hole in one for her! I have ribs on the smoker at the request of FiaFia. I am having the Aladino cigar that Bunk Five Hawks X sent me paired with a Tanqueray Rangpur Lime gin and tonic, the Connecticut version goes very well with a G&T. Thanks, Bunk! A perfect way to start a day of goofing off.
Enjoy this open.
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on Monday, August 28th, 2023 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Baseball, Open thread.
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NEW THREAD
…and, much to the chagrin of yinz guys…college football is week one!
😆
i’m gonna try to repair one of my very heavy duty surf casting rods, something big and higher on the food chain in the water than me broke the top two eyelets and was pulling me into the water. i had to cut the line, two of my fingers on my right hand still have lacerations from the line going out at high speed. if you go in the water, you are no longer the top of the food chain. i am quite happy that one of my girls was with me to see it.
coldwarrior wrote:
Which is why I stay the hell out of it
Finally, in the last 7 weeks of pre-election nonsense this ‘train wreck’ of a government, looking for a switch to totally de-rail on ….. got at least one thing right. Stopping all Danish bottom trawling and purse sean trawling in 85% of the Hauraki Gulf to allow the fishery to rebound.The Orca will be overjoyed as there are lean pickings currently in the fish stocks over 2,000 Sq Km of Gulf. Still fish close to shore but the Snapper fishery is currently on its knees with thin and hungry fish stocks and a broken fishery. Too many commercial fishers taking too many fish leaving top predators hungry and none too happy. 🙂
Our super-pod of 98 Orca are hungry as they strip out the breeding hammerhead and tiger shark juveniles as they do the dash for the open ocean. It’ll take a decade to totally bounce back to the plenty that used to exist in the Hauraki Gulf, when day fishers could easily get a limit bag of good eating fish in 2-3 hours. The cray stocks too are on their knees. Used to be just a matter of course to free dive down and pull a ‘pack-horse’ cray from beneath the rocks for a feed for the family. Not so much now!
At least the train wreck of a Labour Government did one thing right, before they will be kicked to the curb in 7 weeks. I mean, these degenerates are totally incompetent and couldn’t hold down an actual job in the real world so they pretend to be politicians!
Pathetic!
🙂
Exclusive: Maui Resident Says Police Chief’s Claim that Officers Knocked on Doors Is a ‘Total Lie’
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/08/28/exclusive-maui-resident-says-police-chiefs-claim-officers-knocked-doors-total-lie/
“Lie. Total lie. Total lie. That is false. No loudspeaker, nothing,” said Dale Hermo-Fernandez in a phone interview from Maui on Friday evening. He said there was “no warning, no sirens. Nobody knew.”
During a news conference last Tuesday, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier claimed that police officers drove up and down streets, knocking on doors and using loudspeakers to tell people to leave, according to the Associated Press. He did not say exactly where and when officers did that.
I’ve been told that in a previous life Pelletier was responsible for overseeing the multi-agency response to the Las Vegas shooter who killed around 50 people from his hotel room window before offed himself.
@ coldwarrior:
Nope.
The outer 1/3 of that 14ft Diawa pro japanese is shredded under the outer coils.
I’m impressed
@ coldwarrior:
Just finished another successful nap and re-read your story. Glad the cigar is being put to good use – it would have been wasted on me (and irritated the missus at the same time).
Bunkarina just called from NOLA, said that because of the local brush fires “it smells like California here.” Said things have been pretty dry and lightning set it off. Now they have rain.
She negotiated a nursey job at a hospital in the Sacramento area (she’s an RN) and she & hubble, doggles and cat will be moving next month.
@ coldwarrior:
BTW, that kid will remember the Autograph Incident for a long time too. Nice work.
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
Great cigar.
I’m humbled by the kid, the family, the experience.
It’s America at her best
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
CA has ratio limits by law.
PA needs that.
It’s dangerous here
@ coldwarrior:
What are ratio limits?
Bunk Five Hawks X wrote:
Acuity V staffing
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
@ coldwarrior:
Ever wonder why there are unions?
A company or industry gets the union they deserve by how they treat labor.
You shits who think the UPS contract is absurd. Ok, do it. I worked ground delivery for a year. Go ahead, try it. Do it. You’ll be DEAD on day one. CRUSHED. The UPS Teamsters are right. You’re done after 20 years, destroyed knees and hips and a cripple.
And now comes the RN to patient ratios…
Time to organize
@ coldwarrior:
I’ve been management and labor on both sides of the delivery business. Please, I’ll answer any questions.
@ coldwarrior:
Now I’m decade+ into the RN thing. No difference.
Work is work
Tasks per hour is task per hour.
7 to one in the ER? Hope your mom isn’t gonna die.
It used to be 4 to 1.
coldwarrior wrote:
What does that mean?
coldwarrior wrote:
You going shark fishing off the beach again?
🙂
S-l-o-w learner ehhh?
🙂
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
Imagine if he does make it to the big leagues.
@ coldwarrior:
I worked preload for a month or so with UPS. No frickin’ way I could handle that
And in my corner of the world, my biking for GCC may be off for the year
I saw my cardiologist today. A new guy, seemed pretty sharp. He actually showed me the scan they did, and there’s a narrowing in one of the arteries.
They want me to get in for a heart cath and maybe a stent in the next week or two. Recovery time for stents (vs bypass) is usually about a week. At least I have ST disability this time.
coldwarrior wrote:
How come the GPs who were prepared to prescribe Ivermectin et al got their arses thrown under the bus by the GPs Association and government. But now that the effectiveness of the range of alternative therapies is proven why can’t you access alternatives like Ivermectin therapies STILL?
Proscribe = prescribe
Bloody computer
Today thought…..
Eating alone is no fun.
@ Possum:
It’s my preference. People always want to talk, or tell you how to eat.
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
Yeah, but some help eating the can of sardines would have been nice.
https://twitter.com/Lucy_Dynamite/status/1696394191314534710
@ Possum:
The twittex is broke for me tonight.
https://downdetector.com/status/twitter/
Movie night…
Just started watching Hindenburg, the two part 2011 dramatization on Amazon.
It is a German production but dubbed excellently.
Well, by 55 seconds into it you know how it ends.
Not to give the plot away but there is a lot of explosions, running, screaming and crispy dead bodies.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0B8RSDFRW
@ Possum:
That doesn’t sound like a biopic of Otto.
@ Possum:
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
The TwitX works now.
I’m going to see what Lucy has to say.
[…]
Nice photo. Very artistic.
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
Presentation of food is the key.
Gordon Ramsey kiss my ass, I knows food.
Possum wrote:
Mom: “Here’s supper. Shut up and eat it.”
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
You from Yorkshire too?
@ Possum:
Tunbridge Wells, Ohio.
A thought….
Seen many adverts for Almond Milk and how it is better than cow milk.
So without being silly and stating the obvious how can you milk an almond if it does not have tits. Ok that was the stupid part.
Serious, how can we produce enough almonds to totally replace all the cow milk we consume?
Vaccines at the Improv.
“Make a 20-track comp of your all-time fav tracks, each artist can only feature once.”
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1696222955405984084
@ Possum:
We can’t. Almond farming is extremely water-intensive. Producing one pound of almonds requires 1900 gallons of water.
lobo91 wrote:
I was just going to say that. Plus don’t they produce almonds in arid areas so they have to bring in the water? Where are the enviros on this one?
@ Deplorable Martian Overlord:
Yup. They hate the almond industry in California. It apparently uses as much water each year as the city of Los Angeles does
@ lobo91:
I think California produces half the world’s almonds. The US produces 70%.
Had a CT scan yesterday morning, got the report. It was only one page:
“No significant change compared with prior examination. No CT evidence of recurrent or metastatic disease in the abdomen or pelvis or pelvis.”
Works for me.
Psycho Puppy trashed my houseguest’s luggage and brought all her lingerie downstairs/outside. Hubby, who has just got home from a 4-day meetup in NY and is utterly exhausted, wasn’t paying attention and thought she had new toys.
And ripped up a puppy pad all over the living room (I set them out at nite)
Because she wasn’t getting the attention she thinks she deserves. Mum is paying attention to this interloper.
She is currently giving me the side-eye. She’s trying to blame it on Willow.
Bunk Five Hawks X wrote:
W00T!!!
That’s the best news EVAH!!
Sleep well. Here’s a hug. [hug]
@ eaglesoars:
@ coldwarrior:
I figured that 200 years was far enough back to draw a line under modern history as 1815 and Napoleon, and all that, was a definite node. After all one can just keep chasing one’s tail down multiple rabbit holes and getting lost in historical mirror mazes, if one just keeps looking backwards historically. Every now and then one must draw a line in the sand and begin another historical era, and 1815 Waterloo seems a rational place to begin again.
The Treaty Westphalia seems a rational place to base subsequent treaties upon as well. Sure we miss out on the 18th. Century and the demise of Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish hegemony and the basis of the British Empire, but there has to be a hegemon that bridges historical eras and Imperial Britain seems a suitable bridge. That double century allows plenty of room to develop the modern German state from Bismarck’s gaggle of minor Princelings, and the establishing of multiple French Republics of varying success or not! A still born Russian outlier, quasi-European State, even after the failed efforts of Peter and Catherine, that degenerated into an imported communistic hegemon, that had too many contradictions to survive. .The rise and strange fall of the British Empire, with an echo that remains the Commonwealth and of course the burgeoning US pop-cultural imperium, that seems to also have too many contradictions to last very long.
No, 200 years … and counting …. seems about a reasonable period for a historical node.
From Andrew’s perspective may I opine …. ‘follow the money’ when it comes to why the US gets involved in the wars in which it engages. The US took from its 1918arrival (late as ever) on the WWI battlefields until the 1990s, when Britain finally paid off its last WWII war loans to the US, to be destroyed by Wall Street machinations designed to pauperise the British Empire and make space for the US ‘pop-cultural’ takeover. Surely a very strange rise of what is increasingly looking like a short term Imperium indeed.
From an Australian perspective the sleight of hand, and sheer stand over tactics by the US, against both Britain and Australia, regarding the nuclearization of Australia in the early 1960s, sure put both of these two second par Nation States in their places. The US sought to use British technical, atomic knowledge to jump start the US WWII wartime rise as a monopoly nuclear power.
Britain had ‘just enough left in the tank’ for one last push, with their independent nuclear force. Much to the chagrin of the US government. There was no way that the US would countenance a 1960s nuclear Australia as well, and the US fiscal threat was manifest to Australia and especially Britain. Australia’s Sir Mark Oliphant and Butler were both first ranking nuclear technical tyros who worked at the apex of the Manhattan Project, and Britain shared its atomic and thermonuclear technology with Australia, as the British tested all of their nuclear devices in Australia.
Barefaced threats from the US however saw Nowra’s, twin Plutonium Breeder reactors, stopped in their tracks, by raw US political and fiscal threats.
Always remember that there are no real allies, just ‘friends’ who are either vassal states or nations who have temporarily aligned national interests. When national interests no longer mesh then expect a falling out, often at the most inopportune time!
Notice how only the nuclear powers own the ultimate guarantee to their security. Just as long as no nuclear power actually gets involved in another nuclear power, when there is a lack of imagination.
When one refuses to acknowledge the historical realities of the past 200 years, be they Russian, Polish, Chinese, British, German or American and demand a fairy tale, then everyone is in peril. Reality tends to be the ‘cream’ that eventually rises to the top of the historical record. The alternative is ongoing bloodletting on a horrific scale, with nation states trapped in a recurring loop of war and never ending retribution.
Poland and Lithuania have been both Central European angels and devils. Perfidious Albion have certainly earned their Yin and Yang reputation for winning, and rewriting history from the position of a victor on many occasions. The Germans still suffer from a Two-Nil drubbing and never seem to achieve their potential because of their geography. China remains a Han, ethnically isolationist, state surrounded by either vassals or opponents, and has itself been a vassal state, more often than it has been an tyrannically oppressive, ethnocentric Imperialist State. The Russians tend towards an inward looking ‘boyar’ dominated tyranny, with a rather nasty case of paranoid fear of having no truly defendable borders.
And then we come to the USA, optimistic, gifted with both talent and wealth, but with a shameful perchance for throwing allies under the nearest bus when it suits America. They do however have great PR, and they almost convince their ‘done unto’ allies that by really knifing allies in the back is the best course for their friends. The greatest deficit of the US, is that they can comfortably survive as a soliton nation state. They don’t need the rest of the world as they exist as a world of their own. They do however ensure that long reach and low animal cunning, keeps any potential contender off balance and dependant. They are always late to serious war and first to collect the profits from consequential war.
The US remains a destabilizing power that ensures ongoing ‘brush-war’ keeps the rest of the globe both unbalanced and far from the US homeland. The historian who opined that there are no allies just friends who are either vassal states or have temporarily aligned national interests.
Bunk Five Hawks X wrote:
I was grateful growing up in Thailand with Thai maids/cooks because my mother’s (from Boston) idea of cooking was to boil or roast everything to death.
Bunk Five Hawks X wrote:
Excellent news!
I want to get shot by a foam projectile for $3.75 million.
https://thepostmillennial.com/jury-awards-3-75-million-to-rioter-shot-with-foam-projectiles-by-lapd-in-2020?utm_campaign=64487
@ right_wing2:
The award is absurd but the story is funny. Kid was being a dick to his LAPD uncle who authorized popping his nephew with hard foam pellets.
“He was struck once in the hand, knocking his phone onto the ground. As he bent over to pick it up…”
they shot him in the ass.
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
Props to the uncle.
I’ll bet family reunions will be… interesting.
@ right_wing2:
The pain and suffering award would have been a lot lower if Dafuqua Jefferson had done it instead of LAPD.
@ right_wing2:
The jury’s decision came after reviewing Shakir’s Instagram live footage and that from officer bodycams.
I sooo want to see those!
Sis says USAF is/was moving planes to Wright-Patterson AFB until the hurricane passes Florida. A regional alert was sent to cell phones, presumably so people don’t tie up emergency lines to report an attack.
@ Bunk Five Hawks X:
Where did they move them TO? I think Eglin is in the pan handle.
Off to visit the NZ Battle Training Facility (BTF) of the New Zealand Special Air Services this afternoon. Looking forward to seeing the $46 million dollar ‘Killing House’ multiple live fire simultaneous scenario facility in action. This is a digital ‘Holodeck’ type building, with attached operational diving and marine counter-terrorism training centre, urban counter terrorism rappelling and explosive breaching training annex. There is also a scenario training annex for helicopter assault training and repelling , aircraft ops and digital train, bus and public vehicle assault training on the ‘holodeck’. After the smoke clears and the brass is collected we all get to repair to the All Ranks Mess for a silver service dining-in.
These SAS families really know how to look after the troopers families as they tend to live within spitting distance of the Regimental Camp, because they don’t like to expose families to external threats. Most of the guys making the noise today will not actually be from the SAS Squadrons but will be from the Counter-terrorism Commando Company. We will also get to poke our noses into the Logistics Company’s deck of the ‘Starship Enterprise’ complete with their ‘friendly robots’ outside theRegiment’s hard fence.
Looking to see the difference between the retired analogue ‘killing house’ and this computerised ‘holodeck’ training facility.
🙂
@ eaglesoars:
Did you see the Blue Super Moon very early this morning. You can get a great view tonight just after sunset as well. The Moon is about 24,000 Km closer to Earth than normal tonight and is a Blue Moon as well (the second full Moon in the same Month)
Blue moon tonite!
Rare ‘blue supermoon’ to rise Wednesday night
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2023/08/30/blue-supermoon-astronomy-stargazing/1861693396864/
ok, do yinz think Hillary is gonna run again?
Aussie Infidel wrote:
HAR! Shoulda read the thread……….
eaglesoars wrote:
Wright-Patterson in Dayton Ohio. Probably others as well.
@ eaglesoars:
I will ‘volunteer Mrs. AI as the ‘rescuee’ in the holo-killing house tonight. The Regiment always ask for a volunteer to be rescued by the counter-terrorism Commandos firing live ammunition amid dark, smoke and a LOT of noise. Hopefully she’ll get to be selected to be ‘rescued’. Having actual live rounds flying around her head in the smoke noise and dark will be a little ‘disturbing’. It should give her something to discuss with the kids at Christmas dinner!
🙂
She’ll be fine just as long as she doesn’t try to stand up and run! I’ll make sure she has her hearing aides turned OFF.
HEH
🙂
Update on the kid with the Gadsden Flag patch on his backpack.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/08/29/the-gadsden-flag-kid-just-secured-total-victory-n2163216
@ Aussie Infidel:
No. Don’t do that.
Look at this video. Mitch McConnell looks awful.
https://twitter.com/OldRowSwig/status/1696937955388989713
McConnell looks as if he’s having a TIA.
This is NOT the first time that he’s just switched off totally.
I agree. He HAS to be retired immediately.
@ Aussie Infidel:
Where is his wife?
eaglesoars wrote:
No idea.
Just the two media handlers trying to protect him and get him off the stage.
ok, I busted a gut……
interviewer:
are there any accomplishments from your last job that you’re particularly proud of?
me:
i’m responsible for ten new rules in their employee handbook
interviewer:
that’s great! you wrote them?
me:
that’s not what i said
https://twitter.com/UncleDuke1969/status/1539236354000883712
Oh wonderful………
⚠️WARNING ⚠️
If you own a hybrid or electric vehicle that has come into contact with saltwater due to recent flooding within the last 24 hours, it is crucial to relocate the vehicle from your garage without delay. Saltwater exposure can trigger combustion in lithium-ion batteries. If possible, transfer your vehicle to higher ground.
https://twitter.com/HCSOSheriff/status/1696915958521081959
eaglesoars wrote:
That’s a good idea.
When the car bursts into flames flame burns up hill so if you are already at the top of the hill the fire doesn’t spread far. It’ll probably burn for at least 3 days. Best to just leave it alone and just clean up the melted metal when it’s done!
🙂
And I effing missed the blue moon. It’s full but I missed the window I guess. Dammit.
In other news:
Yep
Tucker Carlson: The ruling elites will launch a hot war between the US and Russia in the next year in order to assume war powers to maintain control
5 min video
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1697076201997635600
But – IMHO – they will have to get rid of Trump first. Whatever ‘get rid of’ means. Prison or coffin is fine with them.
Off to bed. nite.
Wait. Does this look staged to anybody?
3 to 7 black teens have been targeting elderly Asians in south Seattle. There have been 14 reports of armed robberies since June (eight in August). The victims are accosted outside or inside their homes. Somehow, SPD says this isn’t a hate crime. This is a video of the latest.
https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1696750903330771252
WTAF is ‘enforced disappearanced’?
On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, we call on governments around the world to put an end to this practice, hold those responsible to account, and respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons.
Yeah, anybody want to talk about the J6 prisoners? You total fucking asswipes.
Ron DeSantis super pac of $50 mil is shutting down due to ‘rookie errors’ by DeSantis. May move support to Trump
via Bannon
eaglesoars wrote:
here’s the link for that brilliant vomitous
https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1696871297324626148
@ Aussie Infidel:
Mitch, Pelosi, Boxer…
wha?
X Plans to Collect Biometric Data, Job and School History
“Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes,” the company said in its new policy. X doesn’t define what it considers biometric, though other companies have used the term to describe data gleaned from a person’s face, eyes and fingerprints.
A representative of San Francisco-based X confirmed the new policy change.
uh huh. Define ‘consent’. Is having an X account ‘consent’?
DarkWords is still MIA. Dezez is missing, too.
Any news?
Well, back to the Harry and Meghan saga, which I’m sure you’re all dying to hear.
So, Netflix is streaming Heart of Invictus and the opening ceremony is Harry giving a speech. In which he moans about: losing his mother at 12 (again); the media didn’t care about the returning injured British soldiers; he suffered from PTSD and didn’t get the mental health support he needed blah blah blah
AAnnndddd…all hell has broken lose in the UK media and they are flat out calling him a liar – which is true – and backing it up with all the articles they ran and the charities they started/supported.
And no one is letting him forget the time he blew off a memorial to the marines to attend the opening of The Lion King so he could pimp his wife to Bob Iger. “Did you know she can do voice overs? Yeah she can!” Well, thank god for that because she sure as hell can’t act.
But this – this is the funniest thing I’ve seen all day. Go on and bust a gut. Yer welcome.
Turns out Harry didn’t shoot 25 Taliban after all. He captured them and spent the next few hours telling them what an awful life he’d had…they shot themselves
https://twitter.com/4448canta/status/1696903098403262697
History from the streets of Harlem.
This woman should be on the lecture circuit.
https://youtu.be/8OHjVZBV6h4?si=xq4SEGVN5c18qlU7
OOOF!!
someone from Dusseldorf wrote to Lady C that Das Bild reports Meghan was insisting on a red carpet for her arrival to the city and got told to piss up a rope.
Bunk Five Hawks X wrote:
This guy Cuomo? He was nuthin’ And he’s worse than his father.
OMG, what a treasure!
eaglesoars wrote:
Here’s Lady C’s video, it’s right at the beginning at Lady C is hilarious in her scorn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3-IhGZxddw
eaglesoars wrote:
Harry is attempting an end run to become the ultimate victim …. Why?
Because there is serious $$$$ in victimology! The guy is a total screw up and a wastrel. He seriously deserves that loser wife of his. Bloody Masonic, Agenda 30, turd!
🙂
I go in for the heart cath on Tuesday morning. Might have to stay overnight.
right_wing2 wrote:
Is there anyone who can be with you?
Aussie Infidel wrote:
That’s not it. The money is from the wife thing. Harry’s total motivation is his raging jealousy/hate of his brother. And Catherine.
Harry is mentally ill. His ego is beyond anything you can imagine. There was one interview I watched where he said that his and Meghan’s popularity showed they could be the next in line and that he felt responsible for William’s children because at least one of them would end up like him – the Spare – and he wanted to be involved in raising them.
At the time, I said that ignited my hair. I said Catherine would never let him or the wife anywhere near her children because if I could recognize the mortal threat, she certainly could.
And Harry is just that. A mortal treat. I have said from the beginning that the sole purpose of Harry and Meghan was to take down the monarchy. I’m now assuaged that THAT won’t happen, but the personal vendetta that Harry has against his family is not to be sneered out.
He is one sick son of a bitch, full of venom.
@ eaglesoars:
Interesting evening in the Bombay hills South of Auckland. Mrs. AI broke down on the Bombay hills south of Auckland yesterday afternoon. Didn’t take care to top up her coolant and radiator and her BMW protected her car from her by shutting it down and forcing her to get help from 3 truckies and a garage. She finally turned up at a Countdown carpark in Papakura where we were going to meet. Alas there were two different Countdown Supermarket carparks in Papakura. We finally found each other and just crept into the NZSAS Battle Training Establishment by the skin of our teeth. My GPS refused to even admit that the road into the hills existed but my GPS phone did admit to the road existence.
Turns out that the new BTE was NOT where the Regiment lives and where the old training area still exists. It was squirrelled away in a huge former quarry in a dense area of really thick high scrub. Ran across a SAS Captain with some troopers in tow and he captured the image of both of us and the registered car’s validated registration. We then drove a further 5 Km deep into this deep heavily wooded valley, came around a switchback road corner and there it was. A huge 5 storied solid lump of concrete with helicopter landing areas on the roof and a Boeing 757 sticking out of the back of the building and an actual train and tracks in front. Sounded like WWIII coming from several huge 2 storied electrically operated doors.
Inside there was a huge VERY deep cube of water sunk into the floor of the building for rebreather training and explosives training on the hull of a ship that boarded the edge of the 20M cube of water, and reached two stories above the water surface, all inside the building. There were several annexes that were 3 stories high where explosives entry training was happening.
There were walls of screens showing every part of the approaches to this location. No 14′ electric fences here, as space traded warning time. There were loads of sand coloured SAS berets from obvious instructors but you couldn’t tell the difference between the SAS and the CT Commandos. We did the ‘eye of god’ view down onto the battle floor far below and then joined the ‘bricks’ under shooting practice. I assumed that we were looking at Counter Terrorism Commandos under training as the SAS have passed off their CT tasking and passed it to the CT Commandos. One of whom was FEMALE! Unless she was a ring-in from an Alphabet Agency being trained up by the Regiment. Who knew? They were all kitted up in Operation Kit and looked much the same.
Interesting afternoon and some seriously difficult training. Didn’t get to see the Hi-Tec Logistics Company attached to the Regiment, nor did we get into the Regimental Compound this time. Had a crowd of about a hundred of visitors and we all seemed to enjoy being down on the deck of the sharp end of the establishment with the shooters doing their thing. Given the numbers of rounds used individually on a daily basis the old requirement of taking weekly blood tests to monitor lead levels in the shooters’ blood, is now moot. The control of weapon gas removal from the establishment is truly awesome. WWIII indeed but with the huge doors closed you couldn’t hear anything from right outside.
🙂
The rest I’ll have to leave up to your imaginations.
@ eaglesoars:
My wife’s taking me and will hang around. She’ll probably come home overnight to feed the army and will come back in the morning. She’s got the whole week off. And the following week she’ll be taking care of her friend, who’s getting a knee replaced.
I have all next week and Tues the week after for PTO. Anything more will be sick time, and if it’s anything over a week, it goes to ST disability.
Let’s hope it’s nothing more than a stent. I don’t want another 2 months recovery like after my bypass surgery.
@ Aussie Infidel:
I am BEYOND jealous!
right_wing2 wrote:
If there’s anything I can do……….
@ eaglesoars:
Thanks.
right_wing2 wrote:
eaglesoars wrote:
Go alone. The night staff is more fun when you don’t have a chaperone.
right_wing2 wrote:
if this is any ‘consolation’ – Hubby has been thru this – it’s’ scary as all get out in the beginning – but actually it turns out to be fairly minor.It’s a ‘normal’ procedure now and no big deal.
Unless, of cousre, you’re the person who has to go thru it. That sucks canal water.
ok, *smooch’
off to bed…nite
Bunk Five Hawks X wrote:
oh shut up. He can do the ‘night staff’ stuff later- if he even needs it. Don’t scare him more than he already is……….sheesh
@ eaglesoars:
Eh.
I had quintuple bypass surgery in 2011. If it’s ‘just’ a stent, this is cake.
Carrot cake. Sounds yummy.
https://doriangrey1.substack.com/p/you-shall-not-pass
right_wing2 wrote:
I prefer chocolate, but you do you.
@ eaglesoars:
Chocolate is great too.
A ex-friend’s late fiancé made ‘the monster’, a 17 pound chocolate cake. With a bag of Oreos mixed in to the frosting between the layers.
She had the best carrot cake recipe (we have that one) and an incredible strawberry shortcake that was low fat, & low calorie but you’d never guess. And damn it, we don’t have that one.
She made a torte once that had something like 1500 calories per serving.
Cheesecake. Space bimbos in particular.
right_wing2 wrote:
oh! be still my heart!
Wow, everyones getting in on the compensation bandwagon now!
In the news today….
Poland’s Europe minister ARKADIUSZ MULARCZYK insists Germany must pay £1.1TRILLION in reparations for damage wrought by the Nazis as his country marks anniversary of Hitler’s attack on Gdansk which triggered WWII in 1939.
Speaking of WW2 and compensation, not too many people are aware that both Ford and General Motors demanded compensation for damage to their factories located in Germany, that was incurred during the wartime bombing raids by the Allies…..and they got it!
But then…..not too many people are aware that Henry Ford was also awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in 1937 by Hitler, who, previously in 1931, told an American Journalist:- “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration.”
And speaking of Ford, Edsel Ford continued to receive dividends from the German Ford Company, right up till 1943!
Ahhh history and compensations….so illuminating eh?
@ Aussie Infidel:
Didn’t Ford send people to the Soviet Union?
eaglesoars wrote:
Yes he did
Ford Motor Company signs agreement with Soviet Union
After two years of exploratory visits and friendly negotiations, Ford Motor Company signs a landmark agreement to produce cars in the Soviet Union on May 30, 1929.
The Soviet Union, which in 1928 had only 20,000 cars and a single truck factory, was eager to join the ranks of automotive production, and Ford, with its focus on engineering and manufacturing methods, was a natural choice to help. The always independent-minded Henry Ford was strongly in favor of his free-market company doing business with Communist countries. An article published in May 1929 in The New York Times quoted Ford as saying that “No matter where industry prospers, whether in India or China, or Russia, all the world is bound to catch some good from it.”
Signed in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 31, 1929, the contract stipulated that Ford would oversee construction of a production plant at Nizhny Novgorod, located on the banks of the Volga River, to manufacture Model A cars. An assembly plant would also start operating immediately within Moscow city limits. In return, the USSR agreed to buy 72,000 unassembled Ford cars and trucks and all spare parts to be required over the following nine years, a total of some $30 million worth of Ford products. Valery Meshlauk, vice chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy, signed the Dearborn agreement on behalf of the Soviets. To comply with its side of the deal, Ford sent engineers and executives to the Soviet Union.
At the time the U.S. government did not formally recognize the USSR in diplomatic negotiations, so the Ford agreement was groundbreaking. (A week after the deal was announced the Soviet Union would announce deals with 15 other foreign companies, including E.I. du Pont de Nemours and RCA.) As Douglas Brinkley writes in “Wheels for the World,” his book on Henry Ford and Ford Motor, the automaker was firm in his belief that introducing capitalism was the best way to undermine communism. In any case, Ford’s assistance in establishing motor vehicle production facilities in the USSR would greatly impact the course of world events, as the ability to produce these vehicles helped the Soviets defeat Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II. In 1944, according to Brinkley, Stalin wrote to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, calling Henry Ford “one of the world’s greatest industrialists” and expressing the hope that “may God preserve him.”
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-signs-agreement-with-soviet-union
@ eaglesoars: Yes, I suspect they did. The Soviets were reverse engineering and otherwise stealing Western tech, so it’s no stretch of the imagination that the Soviets would smooth talk a Western corporation into sending engineers to the USSR.
@ eaglesoars:
@ eaglesoars: I’m sure that “honey traps” were used tactically, as well.
Canoe Convoy wrote:
Yes, they were and now I remember. I read the book.
The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia
In 1934, a photograph was taken of a baseball team. These two rows of young men look like any group of American ballplayers, except perhaps for the Russian lettering on their jerseys. The players have left their homeland and the Great Depression in search of a better life in Stalinist Russia, but instead they will meet tragic and, until now, forgotten fates. Within four years, most of them will be arrested alongside untold numbers of other Americans. Some will be executed. Others will be sent to “corrective labor” camps where they will be worked to death. This book is the story of lives-the forsaken who died and those who survived.
Based on groundbreaking research, The Forsaken is the story of Americans whose dreams were shattered and lives lost in Stalinist Russia.
https://www.amazon.com/Forsaken-American-Tragedy-Stalins-Russia-ebook/dp/B002TZ3D80/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2D9I9O48N8UXO&keywords=the+forsaken+an+american+tragedy+in+stalin%27s+russia&qid=1693628489&s=books&sprefix=The+Forsaken+An+Am%2Cstripbooks%2C134&sr=1-1
It’s not on my kindle so I bought the dead tree version for Hubby to read. I don’t think it made it thru the move.
Food post.
Nearly supper time and craving mushroom risotto.
No mushrooms…..
No rice either so lots more beer then grab an unlabeled zip lock of mystery leftovers out of the freezer and Mr Microwave will feed me.
I need to buy a Sharpie pen so I know what I am eating.
Maybe not, I like surprises
So. Anybody want to talk about inter-dimensional entities, aka UFOs/aliens?
I haven’t encountered any personally, but I do tend to think there’s SOMETHING….
OK. Thoughts……….
We are told that the universe is endless and infinite. So take that further then there is an infinite numbers of planets in an infinite numbers of star systems and galaxies that could have some kind of life on them.
I really cannot get my mind around the fact that the cosmos is endless. Humans always think something is inside something else.
This “big Bang” theory where something went bang and created the endless universe isn’t something I can believe. Where was the thing that went bang? It had to be in somewhere.
A few months on here I said UFOs are real and backed up that claim stating Voyager one and two will probably end up flying past/around/crashing into an other planet in a few million years time and the locals will yell in some alien language
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT”.
eaglesoars wrote:
They sure did! Don’t forget that Hitler and Stalin in the later 1930s were ‘best mates ‘ until they weren’t! Hell Stalin supplied NAZI Germany mountains of raw materials. Most of the transportation assets for Germany were horse drawn. Then Ford and GM provided NAZI Germany with GM and Ford trucks and ALL of the German half tracks were built in German Ford and GM factories. Then after Pearl Harbour and when the US finally got around to joining WWII, GM and Ford continued to run factories in Germany. Don’t forget the big 5 US banks who financed Hitler up until 1943!
When the US Army airforce carpet bomber German industry BOTH GM and Ford demanded compensation from Rosevelt AND GOT IT.
Remember the US ultra secret Norton Bomb sight that was always a big deal when one was lost? Germany was GIVEN the bombsight by the US company Bendix 5 years BEFORE the US entry into WWII! You can’t write this shit?
Edsel Ford continued to get dividends from Ford Germany until almost the end of 1943 when it became clear that Germany was losing and it was going to get a little embarrassing for Ford to explain THAT away. The GM tyro ( and I have forgotten her name … was it Du Pont??) was a raging anti-Semite as were half of the Brit Royal family. That got swept away too in the ‘clean-up’ of the official histories! Of course Henry Ford’ fanboy was named Hitler and Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in 1937 by Hitler. Funny how that bit of US history got bleached away!
How come families of US soldiers who were crushed under the tracks of Ford and GM German halftracks didn’t get compensation from the US government as well?
Track back historically and you’ll find loads of dirty dealing for the sake of $$$$$ by US and Brit corporates. It’s not as if those scandals aren’t STILL happening NOW!
Sheesh!
SPIT
eaglesoars wrote:
I know that the Vatican has hid their fingers in that particular pie and have written extensively both theologically and scientifically on the subject. It’s NOT pretty Eagles!
🙂
Apollo 13. If the engine of the lander had not fired when they were on the back of the moon to enable them to return to earth then in a few million years they would have been an UFO sighted on a planet far away.
Frozen and preserved alien bodies.
Aussie Infidel wrote:
ok, we need to talk but I need to go to bed.
I will leave you all with this – another subject –
P.J. Media’s Paula Bolyard is the first one who gets to the core of another slimy attack on what is perceived as “conservative” media. John Solomon of JustTheNews.com broadcast with partner Real America’s Voice an exclusive interview with former President Trump. They discussed, among other things, Trump’s vow to take on “federal machinery of censorship of political speech.”
Literally, before the sun came up, DNCC sock-puppets at The Daily Beast published a story claiming — with no evidence — that Solomon had been fooled, and talked to either an impostor or an “AI bot.” Did The Daily Beast call Solomon to ask about it? Nope. Did they call the Trump campaign to verify? Nope. That would be asking too much.
Although other media hedged their bets reporting on the alleged punking, Bolyard got right to it. Bolyard quoted the original (and now memory-holed) Daily Beast article as saying:
“Robert J. Sigg, the owner of the network, told The Daily Beast on Thursday night that the “Trump” on the call sounded “like ChatGOP” to him and that “an internal investigation will be needed” into whether his hosts were duped […] “This is not the company values that the American people tune in for,” Sigg added. “This is a major oversight by John and Amanda both. Our news directors will need to go through additional training about journalism practice and how to present the facts and truth to the American people.”
One little bitty problem with that: Neither Sigg nor the network ever said any such thing. The network responded to The Daily Beast‘s smear job saying that:
“These are all scurrilous lies in a fake quote that The Daily Beast never received from our network. Ironically, in a story they wrote about RAV being duped, it was The Daily Beast in fact that may have been “punked” into believing they had a qualified quote from us.”
Here’s the best part: the CEO of The Daily Beast is one of the same people who brought you a shit-show called “Gawker.”
Remember them?
https://instapundit.com/603530/
imbeded links in the article.
In other news…for some reason, Willow has decided to go to bed/sleep in my closet instead of her beds around the house
clueless
Jimmy Buffett passed away yesterday.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F4_8-gXbkAAQINW?format=jpg&name=large
Bunk Five Hawks X wrote:
MARGARITAS AND CHEESEBURGERS ALL ‘ROUND!
new thread
https://www.blogmocracy.com/2023/09/02/ncaa-football-week-1-2023-open/