I’ve also collected some links over the years in my Chrombox, so those will be added over time (i.e. this afternoon) as will other links. This is a “living page” so will change. Eventually, it will be my “go to page” when I’m wanting to watch some TV, as I’m planning to dump AT&T / DirecTV in about a year (once everything is loaded, tested, happy ;-)
If you find any link doesn’t work, or have links to interesting TV that you use, please put a comment HERE not there. I’ll add them to the page as I test them.
Also note that this is an “open thread” for any discussion of the Debates themselves. Please avoid filling it up with “position pieces” prior to the debate ;-) (Save that for after 9-)
I’ve made no secret of my opinion that Black Lives Matter is a racist activist group, funded by Soros, for the purpose of making race relations a “democratic win” in this election cycle. IMHO, it is a political sewer designed in such a way as to create race riots and get cops killed. OK, we know that already. Now what?
But I can’t leave it at that. There are things The Police are doing that are causing the deaths, and don’t need to.
Some background on me: I was a “Law Enforcement Eagle Scout”. Yeah, not a real cop… but we did get limited police training, we were the traffic cops at the Boy Scout Jamboree, for example. Got to do the MACE training ( i react very badly to it… which is probably the point…). Learned the “10 codes” for radio. AND we watched training films. Including “when to fire” training films. Had my first Judo training with the Scout Master. In short, we were Rooky Cop Wannabees with some training. So I’m not coming from this from no background.
Root Problem
So what’s the root problem, IMHO? Changed police procedures from when I took my training. Especially the change from the idea that anyone, even good guys, might be holding a gun; to what I see on TV now. “Have a gun, get shot inside seconds”. That’s just wrong. For me, this is a sanity issue and a 2nd Amendment issue.
Now I’m not going to use the individual names. Partly as I don’t remember all of them. Partly as I’m too lazy to look them up. But significantly because often the name is just not known to the officer responding. You respond to a situation, not a name.
First up, the guy who robbed a store and fought with a cop for his gun. Clearly a “clean shoot”. When you have a robbery, police are to respond. Even if just a handful of cigars. Then the black kid did what pretty much all the folks who got shot did (notable exception next…): they did NOT follow orders from the cop. In this case, the guy even got into a struggle with the cop for his gun. That is absolutely cut and dried a good shooting. OK, BLM decides to “make it’s bones” on this shooting. Pretty dumb, IMHO. It showed, to me at least, that they were just looking for a foil for their political agenda. To cause marches, riots, and “energize the base” of the Democratic Blacks (even if it cost the lives of Police officers).
Shortly after, like days:
A kid in park is playing with a BB or pellet hand gun. Hey, I did that when I was a kid. THEN, it was expected, now not so much and in some places is a crime. A bystander calls it in and even says it was likely a toy. Next frame, a police cruiser rolls into the park, hot and fast, pulls to a halt and the kids is shot dead. MAYBE 2 to 6 seconds from start to end. IMHO, that is murder in blue. Simply holding a gun is NOT a death sentence and ought not to be a legitimate shoot, ever.
Now why BLM chose to ignore this one, that would have had me marching with them, and push the first one, that causes me to class them as “Political Hatchet Organization” is an interesting question, but one I’m not going to explore here. All I can figure is that they had 2 or 3 days wrapped up in promoting (and it was media promoting) the first one and decided not to shift the narrative they were building. Or perhaps they wanted a ‘wedge issue’ between whites and blacks and didn’t want the one that would have unity in the masses… Whatever.
But in that second shooting, we see just what is wrong. Shoot first, find out the facts later. Hold a gun, gone to the grave.
Why is it that simply holding a gun ought NOT to be enough cause to fire, no matter how scared the officer is? First off, because people can cause themselves to be scared just by imagining things. FEAR ought to NEVER be justification (yet “fear for my life” is in many places the only legally accepted justification…) But in a more practical sense, there are many many reasons a person might legitimately be holding a gun. We trained on this in the ’70s. From what I see today, the Police have decided “Just shoot them and sort it out later” is better for them. Harsh evaluation by me? “Reality just is. -E.M. Smith” so yeah, and it ought to be.
One film, I clearly remember, was that “we” got a call of suspicious man by the railroad tracks. When we arrive, this “20 something” with a dark jacket turns, and starts walking toward us at a normal pace, starts to bend at the waist a bit and one arm drifts back. He looks a bit mean eyes locked on us. “We” (or more accurately, the film actor) repeatedly shouts “Hands Up!” “Put your hands UP!” “POLICE, PUT YOUR HANDS UP”, and he doesn’t… We were all supposed to have our “finger guns” out as the officer had his gun out, and shout “BANG!” when we individually would shoot. The guy keeps coming, reaches behind him toward his back pocket and BANG BANG BANG BANG a chorus of ALL of us “shot” our finger guns… the film continues as he pulls a card from his back pocket and shoves it up the camera saying “I am deaf and can not hear you, please write what you are saying”… Similarly there was a Japanese foreign exchange student near me (real case) who was shot by a home owner. Why? The guy was lost and wanted to ask for help. The homeowner was shouting “FREEZE!”, but the exchange student was new to English and didn’t know that “Freeze” was the same as “Halt” in our slang. Language matters.
Then there are things like undercover officers of all sizes, races, and genders and from many agencies. If you don’t give them enough time to say the daily safe word, or show their badge, or tell you they are an office and the Bad Guy is in the bushes over there, well, it will not end well. And yes, undercovers do get shot by “friendly fire” some times. Or the homeowner who had someone toss a brick through his window (after getting death threats) and is standing in his own yard where it is legal for him / her to be armed in most places. Can you say “2nd Amendment right to keep an BEAR arms?”. There is a very long list of more and similar. Commercial pest control with a license and a pellet or BB Cap gun taking out a pest and the “guy across the street” doesn’t now that when he calls in (a property management friend had a guy deal with a ‘trouble animal’ that way). Someone with a mock gun practicing for a play. Bad Guy throws a piece over a fence and runs, you arrive having got a call of “Bad Guy with Gun” to find someone holding a gun… and don’t realize it’s the homeowner who came out to pick up “whatever” was thrown in his yard and is puzzled at it. Etc. Etc.
Then there is the shouting. “DROPTHEGM” doesn’t say much to many folks. Shouting it faster and louder isn’t as helpful as decent speech. It takes forks a couple of seconds to process a dramatic situation and react. Shouting and acting like Bad Dudes just causes many people to “lock up” as fear stops cognition. For me, I’m partially deaf. A couple of people shouting at once, I get zero information out of it. What have you got against old deaf guys?
OK, moving on…
Nest case, we get the guy who’s walking back to his car and the lady cop shoots him for ‘sticking his arm in the window’. Now lets see, what is THE most common thing a cop does in a stop? Demand “License and Registration”. When I’m pulled over for a ticket, I’m reaching for the glove box to get them “right quick”. Now one guy (not this one) was shot a few years ago for “Furtive Movements”. It was held to be a ‘good shoot’. He was reaching for the glove box. (Since then, I sit, hands on the wheel top center, motionless and only move when told to or when I get agreement to a statement that “I’m going to do this now, OK?”… It is absolutely stupid to expect people to do that or get shot. Now back at this Big Guy and Window: Sure, he’s big. So am I. So what? Maybe he was reaching in the window to get his wallet from the seat. You do not know, and NOT KNOWING IS INSUFFICIENT TO KILL SOMEONE. Was he just leaning on the car, forearmed folded on the roofline away from the officer? From her perspective she would see an arm “disappear” “inside”. I’ve often done that to rest my head on the forearm when I’ve got a headache. Was the guy being stupid? Sure. So you going to shoot every stupid person on the planet? We are ALL stupid sometimes.
Now we’ve got video out of the shoot of the “Guy in car with gun and joint”. This one SOUNDS legit, hell, even sort of looks legit when you look at “just the facts” as of 2 days ago. The guy had a rap sheet that includes shooting at cops and just got out of jail. But wait, there’s more:
He was seen smoking a joint by some unmarked out of uniforms who also (now) claim they saw a gun then. Maybe… but what evidence? Do these folks call for backup then? Do they call for uniforms to talk to the guy? Do they tell their Sergeant? Apparently not. (Slightly speculative). Did they work to deescalate? Nope. What did they do? Pulled away long enough to put on Bullet Resistant Black Vests over their civvies and come back, armed and dangerous, to ‘make their bones’…
Watching the video released today, we see them crouched behind a pickup, guns drawn, shouting loud, angry, and chaotically to “Drop The GUN!!”. The spouse is there, saying to them that the guy has a TBI – i.e. his cognition is dodgy anyway. They KNOW he’s high on weed, so will think slowly and a bit chaotically. Frankly, I look at that and think “Medical Case, needs a Medical or Family coolout”. Now you expect some kind of Faluja Doorcrashing Shouting to work on him? REALLY? IF he looks over and IF he can see straight, he will not see the world POLICE on your vest as it is behind the truck. He will see two angry white men with guns shouting at him. You really think that’s the right approach? How about sit back, you be the back up, have two cruisers roll up and “light him up” with the red (or blue) light, and announce over the loud speaker that he needs to surrender. Maybe put his wife on the horn to tell him it’s OK, but he needs to come in the house now…
This Is Bogus
This comes from the militarization of the police forces. The equipment and tactics are now much closer to what is seen in film from overseas wars in foreign lands than what it was “in my day”. CRASH doors down, guns drawn and ready to shoot, kill anyone with a gun, then say you are sorry. (That killed a white Marine in his home. He ‘reached for a gun’ as a hoard bashed his door down shouting God Only Knows what. They had the wrong house. Sorry! was what his family got for it.)
How about a little subtlety? Have a plain cloths with a “Vote For Bill” hat and pamphlets knock on the door to verify before the big hit. Maybe use all those bits of Spook Gear to verify sounds of drug dealers instead of TV and “Oh, Dear, need to tuck in Mary”. How about just a google of the address before you go in guns blazing? Or Google the name on the warrant and match it to the address?
No, we’ve gone whole hog into “Crash and Shoot First, clean up later”.
That isn’t policing, that’s war.
Yes, I know it’s a hard job. Heck, I was headed that way and got intro training. I have several cops as good friends and a couple of family. But a hard job does not justify “Shoot anyone with a gun.” It just doesn’t.
Fixing It
After decades of indoctrination (at least since Waco… where “to make ane example” of someone a whole tribe was murdered, rather than just send the sheriff who knew the guy up to knock on the door, or even easier, just wait till he drove into town on his weekly run.) after that much time, there are a whole lot of broken cops with broken methods and training. The doctrine of Overwhelming Force First is for the battlefield, not the day job of policing. Too many errors killing too many folks who don’t need killing.
The POLICE need to “deescalate and back off” more on the “man with a gun” calls and be firmer on the “riot in the street” mobs in riot. One, the riot, you let “have space to destroy”, the other doesn’t even get the minute to assess what the hell is going on, who you are, and what “DROMPTHGYNOW” means… It is NOT CRIMINAL TO HAVE A GUN. it is NOT A DEATH SENTENCE TO BE DEAF OR ON DRUGS. And it would really really be nice if you all had decent uniforms. Some “Crabby guy in a baseball cap and black vest” does not say “COP”, it says “BAD DUDE”. YOU shouting “BAD DUDE” via your clothing ought not to get ME shot. There was a reason for the funny hat and the shiny badge, and that reason didn’t go away.
Frankly, to me, it looks a whole lot like a Left Wing Agenda has crept into doctrine. Demonize the Gun, PC Riot is fine. That needs to end. It is causing you to kill people. Maybe they are not nice people, or maybe some of them did bad things sometimes. That ought not to be a death sentence. Really.
Policing needs to be demilitarized. I know, not as sexy as SWAT, but less shooting and killing. You can always fall back to SWAT for the kinds of stuff it was originally for. Bank robbers with hostages. Armed Gangs Attacking. Terrorists at the Mall. Leave the home invasions for the crooks and the street shootings for the gangs. Frankly, watching the news now, the only difference I see between the Blue Gang and the Street Gang is that your equipment is better and sometimes you wear identification that is clear. Oh, and the lawyers and politicos back you up… Now that is from someone who is 100% pro-cop and wanted to be one; what do you think the occupied oppressed communities think of you? And you wonder why they run. Hell, I’d run if I saw folks with guns out shouting like a mad man.
We need to get a whole lot more community policing. There ought to have been a beat cop in that neighborhood who knew who this ‘regular’ was, knew he sat there in his car each day, said “How’s it going?” a few times, knew he was TBI and self medicating, knew the wife’s name and to knock on the door and ask her to get hubby cleaned up… and who knew if a call came in of “strange man in a car” that it was nothing much.
We need traffic cops who, rolling up to a truck stalled in the street, don’t shout at the owner when he gets out and walks toward them (asking for help?). I’ve had cops shout get back in your car (well, really, used a loudspeaker). While I did a perfect pirouette and back to the car, the fact is I was a “Big Guy being shouted at”… for getting out of my car. A perfectly normal thing for people to do. Frankly, the level of paranoia that looks like to the average Joe and Jane just makes them wonder about your sanity and are they going to get shot. Hell, I had that feeling in a traffic stop when a 9 foot tall (or so it looks when seated) Hispanic officer came to the window over my shoulder. Head doesn’t turn that far to say “Howdy” and he looked very tense and fidgety. Look, I get it. Tough job and you want to make it home alive. One in a 1000 will be a Bad Dude and you need to be ready for that. But you are past the point of negative returns. Add in guns drawn and shouting and I’d be frozen or confused too. I’d be thinking “What did I Do?” not “comply with the shouted mumble”… if it were “GET OUT OF THE CAR” would I think “Don’t do that, shout I have a Gun?” (BANG I’M DEAD) or “Do it and he’ll see the gun as the jacket flaps open” (BANG I’m DEAD)or shout “I HAVE A CCL” and hope I don’t get (BANG I’m Dead) for non-compliance with the get out order? Or take a few seconds to work through it all (BANG I’m DEAD). And I’m a white guy with no priors…
Now remember that black guy, shot sitting in his car, in front of his girl friend, for having a Cary License and a legal gun.
The Cops, faced with a street war from the worst of the worst, have now made it their style to approach everyone in street war mode. That just spreads the street war. It is essential to stop spreading the violent behaviours and narrow them instead. Policing is all about DE-escalation of violence, not gearing up for more and faster and causing it to precipitate.
In Conclusion
As a gun owner, the way “modern policing” has moved to “See A Gun And Shoot” is horrific.
As a partly deaf guy, the way “modern policing” has gone to “shout chaotically and then shoot” giving no time to decipher the shouting is horrific.
As a regular guy, the way “modern policing” has “strange men in baseball caps and tee shirts shouting” instead of clear uniforms concerns me. Not just as it just doesn’t say “COPS” without taking some time to read the fine print, but because any yokel can get baseball caps and tee shirts printed (the better to do home invasions with…). Nice patches. Funny hat. Leather utility belt and bright shiny badge, those don’t take ‘think time’.
Then there is that whole “home invasion first” thing… Yes, I know. A friend who collected monthly rent for a living had a shotgun blast come out the apartment door when he knocked. Well, really, a bit after he knocked, then walked two steps away… after that he stood to the side and knocked… So yeah, I get it. But really, a knock and ask can work wonders. (Have a partner to the side with a shotgun, if desired, and others in the bushes outside windows and the back door too, if justified). Do remember, though, that today you will likely be on camera, even if you are a SWAT team streaming toward that door. The days of “surprise breach” are already limited. Being suspected of drug dealing ought not get someone on the wrong end of a broken door, dog shot, kids terrorized, and 10 guys with Assault Weapons (real ones) looking to shoot anything that makes them nervous. (That’s happened).
You, the “boys in blue” and now “girls in blue” too are the ones who have been escalating. IMHO, that’s not the job. It also doesn’t look like it is working out all that well. So much resentment is now in the communities that there’s a lite war between the Black and Blue gangs going on. Both sides getting jumpy and killing the other.
No, I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve pointed out where it looks wrong to me, but I can’t say for sure that would “fix it”. I do know that it has eroded my comfort with Police On Duty. (Still fine with them off duty, but on, the “jumpy” is showing). Now I’m lucky enough to live in an upscale place where the cops are pretty good. I’ve talked to an undercover in his car and asked what he was doing, then caught clue and said “Working, I see, never mind” and me and my flashlight went in the house leaving him and his stakeout alone. (Drug dealing a block down, now gone, so folks have to drive to the other side of town ;-) I’ve helped a cop trying to catch a kid who broke into a car and had a nice chat about flashlights (why he had a short plastic one and I had a 4 cell Maglight… City got sued ’cause some perp got conked on the noggin and it did some damage). I’m lucky. I’m in a place only 1/2 way from My Old Home Town to the methods in Newghetto America… The question is how to get the cops there, to act more like the cops here, and how to get the citizens there as comfortable as the citizens here in working with the cops.
I’d start by having people from a community policing that community.
That trust building, I fear, will take a generation of trust building and NOT shooting “Man with Gun” on sight.. It will take time for the cops there to stop demonizing their citizens, and for the citizens to stop demonizing the cops. It will start one friendship at a time and one deescalation at a time. One “Jimmy, does your wife know you are smoking weed in the car? Look, man, just finish that one and don’t be doing it tomorrow, ok?” at a time. One “If that’s a gun in your car, best take it back to the house. I’ll be back in an hour to check on you.” And maybe one “Officer Obie, I made some cookies for you…” at a time…
So I got a message saying “Hey, check this out!” or something similar. It is a brand of ammo I’ve never heard of before…( 2 of them). So I look. Darned if it isn’t actually a new idea.
Underwood
Underwood Ammo
Note the flutes on the bullet. They are shaped to deflect material hydraulically into side channels. Supposedly gives the effect of a hollow point while not limiting penetration. Very interesting idea, and kind of novel.
Underwood Ammunition is a family owned business started by Kevin Underwood in Charleston, WV. A lifelong shooting enthusiast, Kevin began reloading in his spare time. Quickly, a small reloading press turned into an entire loading operation including presses and stations set up for over 40 calibers. With a rapidly growing business Underwood Ammo relocated and built a brand new facility in Sparta, IL so that we might better serve our customers.
$28.99 for a box of 9mm at this time. Didn’t find a cartridge count, but weight is about 1/2 pound, so about 20? as a guess? Saw one write-up on another site where they did a velocity test and they tested as “as advertised or faster” (some makers products are, er, not quite as fast as advertised…)
Does something similar. Guess I’ve not been watching bullet development for a while… I found it interesting that they have applied their solid copper tech to some older lower power cartridges as a kind of ‘upgrade’. Since I’m fond of older and smaller as it makes for nice compact guns… the .32 ACP interests me. Well, that, and the Walther PPK was James Bond’s gun ;-)
There are many excellent older cartridges with performance constrained by the metallurgy available for the firearms at the time they were designed. Some are so good, as in the 45-70 Government, they have been updated for modern pressures and re-released as modern cartridges, others, like the 32 ACP will probably remain with low operating pressures, due to the number of guns in existence.
Is there a way to bring modern performance to the low pressure cartridges through advanced projectile design and manufacturing? At Lehigh, the world’s most innovative projectile and ammunition manufacturer, the answer is a bold YES.
We are pleased to announce the release of our Xtreme Cavitator family with the first cartridge being the venerable 32 ACP.
The Xtreme Cavitator uses a unique geometry to form a vapor pressure spike at the nose blanketing the flank of the bullet with a long envelope of air as it passes through media eliminating side drag and allowing deep penetration. The heck you say? No, it isn’t voodoo or marketing hype, it is physics. If you are bored, look up super cavitation torpedoes; the dang Russians where there first. The fact is, all bullets create cavitation; we just created a design with a unique nose and an air reservoir groove to accentuate the effect. How does 13.5” of penetration from a 32 ACP in 10% gel sound?
We were not satisfied with a deep penetrating solid, but then applied the science of our XP and XD technologies to use the nose to redirect the hydraulic energy radially, creating a larger permanent wound cavity than any expanding solid. We merged this concave surface into a square nose that defeats barriers by dividing the hoop strength of the contact media.
The end result is a conservation of energy from a square nose to breech entry barriers, to a concave surface directing hydraulic energy outward creating an enormous wound cavity, to a cavitation point that blankets the bullet with a boundary of air reducing flank drag and allowing deep penetration.
That is one mean looking bullet…
Lehigh Defense .32 ACP bullet
They put up gel photos for penetration and channel shape and include feed tests / reports:
*Patent Pending
Note: Feeding Capabilities
The list below will outline which 32 Auto’s we tested the XC’s in and which Guns we have been notified by our customers that there have been feeding concerns:
Nice, that! Finally an ammo maker who tests their product in several real guns (not just a test stand) and takes reports of any feed issues experienced. And gives you more than just wt/velocity info…
On the nightly news they were saying that The Donald was looking for debate guidance from online. Unfortunately they didn’t say from where or how ( probably a tweet? ). Their web site didn’t have anything on the top level about it, and I’m up to cook dinner soon so don’t have time to search. That means I’m just going to put my little bit of advice here.
The Only Advice I’d Give
Everything else is elaboration on just one point:
An election is about electing the national Dad (or Mom). Right now you are seen in many circles as the “grumpy unstable Dad” who’s a bit mean. Nobody likes a spanking… Hillary is coming across as the whining yelling angry Mom. Nobody likes a yelling angry Mom. So your main job in the debate is just to come across as the Dad I see when you are talking with your own kids.
Kind, understanding, proud of them, and generally a guy I’d like to have a beer with.
Talk to us like you talk to them.
Hillary will be trying everything she can to get you into attack mode. You want to let here get ever more shrill and ever more frustrated and become more of the Yelling Mom. For that, humor and embarrassment work better than attack. Remember Mr. Reagan’s “Now there you go again…” with a sly smile and his “I’ll not let my opponents youth and inexperience be an issue” when asked about age. Basically, be seen as having some fun with the debate, not working hard at it, and certainly not being Angry Dad With A Belt.
Yes, folks want a strong Dad. One who can take care of the neighborhood bully for them and rescue them when they get the car stuck in the sand… but they want that Dad to not overtly chastise them in front of their friends for being out at the river in that sand when they were supposed to be somewhere else. Show them you are that Dad. Strong, firm, and understanding…
When someone asks your Dad “What’s the Magna Carta?” and he doesn’t know, they don’t want some lame half attempt at making something up. They want him to be comfortable in his own skin and know his limitations. To say “We had that in 8th grade history, but I don’t remember it any more. Is it relevant? If so, I review it.” Simple statement of fact, not flustered by not-knowing, happy to admit the same human limitations we all have. It makes Dad human, and thus accessible. Then the “I’ll learn it if / when I need it” is reasonable to most of use as we’ve all forgotten what it was too and don’t see how it is relevant to us right now either.
So don’t be afraid to say “That sounds like a policy wonk issue. I’d hire a Policy Wonk to work it.” The crowd will love it.,.
It seems that the Island of Puerto Rico has gone dark in an island wide electrical failure.
Good practice for the rest of us as the Global Warmers work hard to make our electricity unstable, so may be worth watching how it works out. It would also be kind of cool if someone gets pictures of it from space ;-)
Those folks have some kind of ‘get a free story sometimes, mostly not’ policy, so since not all of you can get the free story, and probably less in the future, I’m going to paste the whole thing here.
Puerto Rico hit with island-wide blackout after fire erupts at power plant
Associated Press
A big fire erupted at an electricity plant that powers most of Puerto Rico on Wednesday, and a blackout swept across the U.S. territory of 3.5 million people.
The Electric Power Authority said two transmission lines of 230,000 volts each failed for reasons still being investigated. Spokeswoman Yohari Molina said in a phone interview that it was unclear when power would be restored.
The island’s fire department said it extinguished a blaze at the power plant in southern Puerto Rico that serves a majority of customers on the island. Heavy storms were affecting the area where the plant is.
Authorities said the outage caused 15 fires across Puerto Rico as a result of malfunctioning generators, including at the upscale Vanderbilt hotel in the popular tourist area of Condado and at the mayor’s office in the northern coastal town of Catano. All those fires were put out and no one was injured, officials said.
The blackout snarled road traffic across the island and the government had to cancel train service in the capital of San Juan and close a busy traffic tunnel in the island’s southern region. Businesses, universities and government offices closed early, creating even more chaos on roads.
“I call on people to cooperate and respect drivers and government officials … to avoid any regrettable incidents,” Transportation Secretary Miguel Torres said.
The outage angered many Puerto Ricans who are struggling with power bills that are on average twice that of the U.S. mainland. People took to social media to demand where exactly their money is going.
The power company has faced numerous allegations of corruption and is struggling with a $9-billion debt that it hopes to restructure. Company officials have said they are seeking more revenue to update what they say is outdated equipment.
Puerto Rico is mired in a decade-long economic slump and the territory’s government is working to restructure nearly $70 billion in public debt that the governor has said is unpayable.
It looks like Fox also has an AP story, but without the “pay a subscription or you get cut off” nag:
Each outlet edits the AP / Reuters / Pool stories slightly differently, so one interesting way to see bias or editorial slant at a paper or site is to compare how they edit the same input feed. Fox looks to have a more “what does this mean for folks” edit along with more technical stuff, while the L.A.Times looks more like “well, this happened” and more of the political social connections, at least that what it looks like to me. Fox also looks to have left more direct quotes and attribution of sources in the article. Interesting.
Puerto Rico hit with islandwide blackout after fire erupts
Published September 21, 2016 Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A big fire erupted at an electricity plant that powers most of Puerto Rico on Wednesday, causing a blackout that swept across the U.S. territory of 3.5 million people.
The Electric Power Authority said two transmission lines of 230,000 volts each failed. Executive Director Javier Quintana told reporters that he expected most power to be restored by Thursday morning, adding that airports, hospitals, police stations and water plants would get priority.
“The entire island is without power,” said Angel Crespo, director of Puerto Rico’s fire department.
He said firefighters extinguished the blaze at the southern power plant, which serves a majority of customers on the island.
Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla told reporters the fire began in a switch and initially destroyed a system that provides 30 percent of Puerto Rico’s overall power.
“This is a very serious event,” he said. “The system is not designed to withstand a failure of this magnitude.”
He did not directly answer a question about whether the power company has any kind of backup should another similar situation occur, or if the island was hit by a major hurricane.
“I assume complete responsibility,” Garcia said of the outage. “Everyone knows that the company’s maintenance problems began decades ago.”
The power company is struggling with a $9 billion debt that it hopes to restructure as it faces numerous corruption allegations. Company officials have said they are seeking more revenue to update what they say is outdated equipment.
Garcia, however, said that no amount of money or maintenance would have prevented the fire.
Authorities said the outage caused 15 fires across Puerto Rico as a result of malfunctioning generators, including at the upscale Vanderbilt hotel in the popular tourist area of Condado and at the mayor’s office in the northern coastal town of Catano. All those fires were put out and no one was injured, officials said.
The outage also affected water service across the island, with officials urging customers to be prudent in their usage.
The blackout snarled road traffic and the government had to cancel train service in the capital of San Juan and close a busy traffic tunnel in the south. Businesses, universities and government offices shuttered early, creating even more chaos on roads. A police officer directing traffic was hit and taken to the hospital.
“I call on people to cooperate and respect drivers and government officials … to avoid any regrettable incidents,” Transportation Secretary Miguel Torres said.
The outage angered many Puerto Ricans who are struggling with power bills that are on average twice that of the U.S. mainland. People took to social media to demand where exactly their money is going.
Puerto Rico is mired in a decade-long economic slump, and a newly created federal control board is working to restructure nearly $70 billion in public debt that the governor has said is unpayable.
Now I find it very educational to look at these two articles. Both from AP. I don’t know if the two outlets did the different edits, or if they just chose different variations published by the A.P. One might check even more publishers to see if one or both of these show up verbatim or nearly so elsewhere, then the source of the differences would need to be A.P.
Clearly these two stories paint different pictures, while still having the same basic facts. I suspect the larger truth comes from adding them together.
As for Puerto Rico, it will have a long dark night. I wish them well. Especially now that my family includes some Puerto Ricans…
While I’m mostly interested in things having to do with:
Making money, usually via trading
Weather and climate
Quakes, Volcanoes, and other Earth Sciences
Current economic and political events
(often as those last three have impact on the first one…)
And just about any ‘way cool’ interesting science or technology
If something else is interesting you put a “tip” here as you like.
You can also look at the list of “Categories” on the right hand side and get an idea of any other broad area of interest.
This ought not to be seen as a “limit” on what is “interesting”, more as a “focus list” with other things that are interesting being fair game as well.
The History:
Since WordPress has decided that comments on Pages, like the Tips pages, don’t show up in recent comments, it kind of breaks the value of it for me. In response, I’m shifting from a set of “pages” to a set of “postings”. As any given Tips Posting disappears or gets full, I’ll add a new one. That will restore the broken function.
I will be keeping the same general format, with the T page still pointing to both the archive of Tips Pages as well as the series of new Postings. With that, back to the Tips boiler plate:
This is an “overflow” posting from prior Tips pages as they had gotten so large it was taking a long time to load. Same idea, just a new set of space to put pointers to things of interest. The most immediately preceding Tips posting is: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/tips-august-2016/.
The generic “T” parent page remains up top, where older copies of the various “Tips” pages can be found archived. I have also added a Tips category (see list at right) and will be marking Tips postings with that for easy location.
Why? Well, because it tickles me a little, and because that’s how my memory works (making wide associations between things based on even very small hooks, then filter to the relevant ones), and because Serioso wishes to psychoanalyze me at a distance, and because it is clear that my “civilization” rules here are causing him “discontent”. Besides, I had to read it for some class once and it’s sitting on my shelf and in my brain, though I don’t remember why I was studying psych… though I really liked my sister’s Abnormal Psychology books when I read them. (She was home from college and I was about 8th grade and bored. But I digress, which is how my brain works on pretty much all topics, [though I don’t type them all, or even most of them] until I prune a digression from boredom, which is now…)
In another thread on Soros, Serioso worked very hard to derail the discussion from the topic, to me. Now I personally find me a fairly boring topic and not very relevant to anything, really (more on that below… the empty vessel…) but for some reason, Serioso is fascinated with me, and especially my inner workings. So, OK, in the interest of having that thread not become a narcissistic extispicy, that particular bit of augury will be put here in its own thread.
Sidebar on me about me:
Please forgive the Druid practice references if, for some unknown reason, they offend your sensibilities. Along the way in life I picked up a Master Druid credential and, well, sometimes those thoughts fit a situation… But no worries, I don’t practice sacrifice of living things, animal or otherwise, just the odd sacrificial Cabernet with Leg-O-Lamb ;-) (Mostly I’m just happy that at 50-something I still had a sense of whimsy) I’ll be scattering some bits from me, talking about me, through this posting, in the hope that it helps Serioso to “know me” enough to let go of the fixation on me. Or at least have a reference page to refer to when looking for more about me.
The Quotes
In the other posting, the discussion distilled down to this plaintive bleat, after I’d admonished that he ought to talk about topics, things, thoughts, and basically anything but me, as ‘I am not relevant’:
End of a long comment by me:
Just follow directions, do not “personalize” or insult folks traits and abilities and we ought to be fine. Hopefully the above will help you with those social skills…
Speak about TOPICS, Theories, assertions, facts, claims, etc. No worries.
Oh, and avoid the classical logical fallacies if you can, it saves time…
Got it?
The response from Serioso:
Serioso says:
20 September 2016 at 5:05 am (Edit)
No I don’t get it at all! My mission here is to understand your thinking processes, and to try to figure out why some of these processes seem (to me) irrational, even crazy. So I cannot avoid what you see as insults. I do not know how to avoid making these insults, nor do you. My comments are necessarily personal because I cannot reconcile my two views of you: One view is rational and intelligent, the other irrational to the point of stupidity. It is therefore impossible for me to avoid comments about the person, because that is what interests me the most. So I plan to continue my questions about your ability, sanity, qualifications, etc. These matter to me.
That exchange is the reason for this posting, and for my “self explanatory” remarks at the top about how I chose the title, and the sidebar on choice of Druid terms of art for their descriptive imagery. Since Serioso wants it to be “about me”, and despite my having done one of these postings before https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/its-not-about-me/ (which really is about me), he wants more; so I’m going to annotate this post with some bits about how my cognition functions just so he has a ‘window on my world’. Though I doubt it will help.
Why NOT about me?
My basic persona is humble. I’m fond of Buddhism. “Be the empty vessel” speaks to me. “Mu! The Question Is Ill Formed!” is a fundamental part of my cognition. “Wanting what you can not have is the source of discontent” (something Serioso ought to ponder as he strives to understand inside of me). I also come from Amish roots where “Pridefulness is a sin” and find much risk of pridefulnesses in talking about me. I avoid pride, but some folks take facts as boast and then troubles begin. So at the risk of my mortal soul (we left Amish long ago, but were not shunned… Grandad was a working blacksmith, and that made him OK even if he wasn’t Amish, and Grandma kept a more or less Amish house. But I digress…) I’ll post some things about my abilities.
So we must first start with the fact that “there is no me”.
Certainly, there is a body, and a brain, and some kind of cognition that happens inside of it. But in terms of Ego (to use the Freudian aspect) there just isn’t. That is a fantasy created ex machina. At best, I see myself as a logic engine with a support system (that often demands attention to things like washing and sleeping via shoving discontents at the cognition engine against its will…) To quest for “who I am”, is a Mu! quest, a dive into a fantasy and void. “I’m the urban spaceman baby and now here’s the twist, I … Don’t… Exist!”… This is not MY novel thought. It isn’t even a new thought. It has been around for thousands of years. Embrace it. To understand “me”, internalize it. “I am but an egg in the process of becoming”.
I point at the Grosse Pointe Blank movie in the prior link, and in particular where the star complains ~”Why does everyone always think it’s about me?!”. The reason I point to it is because that is how it all impresses me. Feed data to a logic engine, find associative memory links, reduce to subset that contains all the information pertinent to the question and as little else as possible, type. There is no ‘me’ in that process. Yet Serioso wishes to find the ‘me’ in it… and is discontented when he can not get what he desires…
Oh, and also staunchly refuses to address the only bits that matter: Input data, associated memory findings, logic set (dumping things like non-sequiturs and ad hominems), reduction filter (I was extraordinarily high scoring on the GMAT portion that just looks at relevancy of a datum to the problem solution). All THOSE bits result in the posting he can’t believe comes from me (due to it not matching some ill described things he believes a priori…)
All of that, and a bit more, makes it very hard for ‘me’ to talk about me. How do you talk about something that doesn’t exist?
I can talk about the mechanism. I can talk about feelings. I can talk about the software ( as in: I had a formal symbolic logic class at university. For extra credit, I derived NOR and NAND operators in their symbology since they were lacking, at least in the class, and I was familiar with them from the semiconductor class I’d taken at the local Junior College while in my senior year… of high school…) But what of that has any meaning about this ‘me’ that Serioso quests for? I have no feelings about NOR and NAND beyond the vague feeling they are useful. I rarely use the formal logic tools anymore (mostly since writing them down is slow and simply having the brain set up the syllogism works faster). Saying that I’m that set of hardware, data, and logic gates doesn’t satisfy him. I’m at a loss.
When your core wisdom has realized “there is no me”, just some stickyware, it becomes very hard to talk about what is not real.
Sidebar on Links:
The frequent reader will have noticed a few more random links in this post than in most. I’m using that as an example of the associative memory effect. It’s what ‘fires off’ in the brain when I’m thinking. The nice thing is that hyperlinks let you do something similar in print. Now inside the stickyware, it just comes across as very fast flashes of visual memory, or auditory for things like songs, or smell and taste memories if I use words like chocolate or skunk. So, to understand ‘me’, or at least the hardware / memory parts, internalize the idea of constant flashes of association with every noun and many verbs. Swan Dive has a visual of a man on a board about 10 meters up, and the dive. Swim has a sensation of the pool water over my skin (about 6? years old?) and cool and wet, then a secondary echo of me at about 20 in a wet suit off Coos Bay Oregon, 40 feet down and purple lips from the cold, and shooting a Cabezon… that Cabezon linking to the web page on it that I read years later AND to the taste of it that evening…) Eventually the memory cascade dies down. (That bit on swimming happens in about 1/4 second or less). That cascade of associations then gets tied into understanding “whatever” it was that was the initiating question… It may be ‘that aspe thing‘… I don’t know how it works inside other folks brains.
But say the words “symbolic logic” and I’m back in class, visual of the prof and the paper in front of me, then in the dorm room reading the book, then… all in a rapid cascade. The chain of synapses fires, and is gone. “Like tears, in the rain”
and that clip plays on my internal screen…
The Hubris or The Facts?
Then there’s that thorny problem that I’m not normal. (Where normal is ‘average’).
It isn’t hubris on my part. I don’t have any real ego tied up in it. I’ve often said that “Intelligence is highly over rated; it does not bring joy.” or something similar. Yet “Reality just is. -E.M.Smith”, and I must acknowledge it.
In high school I took the Kuder Aptitude and Kuder Preference tests. (Hope I spelled that right, it’s been about 45 years…). I scored 99.9+ percentile (i.e. off of their scale) on everything but one that was 99.1 IIRC, and the other one, my worst score, 86 percentile in clerical. (Likely because I would get bored with string searching and the mind would wander…)
I know my I.Q. score (the ‘councilor’ didn’t realize I can read things upside down, or backward, or mirror imaged… and a glance at the upside down angled away ledger book in front of him was enough for me to pick them up. No, I’m not going to share them. I was told not to, and, well, it seems like good advice. But they are well away from average… both verbal and non-verbal nearly identical (within 1/10 of the error band).
On the PSAT scores, I was exactly the same, verbal and non, and well above average.
On the SAT scores, I was also exactly the same. They qualify me for Mensa. (99.5 percentile is their cut-off? I need to apply to them some day…)
On the GMAT, my score was high enough that Wharton School of Business solicited me. I’d not applied to them. (Some life issues caused me to not accept. I was making nearly 6 figures a year, and they wanted $50,000 a year (plus living expenses), that’s $150,000 a year net swing and I didn’t have it and would not accept that much debt. Then there was the new relationship with my now spouse…)
So those are the facts. I have hardware that works well. I’ve tried to be fairly careful about the software and got a complete and functional set (in school focused on useful things, like calculus, chemistry, logic, and avoided crap things when possible, though I did have one ill fated Sociology class where I learned they can’t think clearly… I’ve also been very careful about letting crap data in… that FORTRAN class in college and those dirty data traps in the homework had a big impact…)
So that’s “just the facts”. What do I think about them?
I think I’m lucky to have good hardware, I’m grateful to the folks who taught me good software and how to keep a tidy mind (special mention to Mr. McGuire in high school Chem & Physics – he was a champ at calling out Bull Shit and error.) I’m sad that high IQ is more burden than help in finding happiness and friends. (One of the ‘draws’ to Mensa is, as one member put it “Everyone gets your jokes!”) Imagine life where nobody gets your jokes, understands your explanations, or cares about what interests you. That was the first 18 years of my life. Well, really, about 16 for the explaining. Then I started tutoring other kids in math and science and learned how to explain things well…
BTW, that’s another point: Doing the math tutor thing, I’d look at an algebra problem and write down the answer. Then when I had to teach someone how to do it, I realized I didn’t know how to do it. It just happened. By finding ways to “explain how to do it” I taught myself some formulaic ways to go about it. That was the first time I realize not everyone has the “flash” of understanding. Many just plod through methods by hand… So to “understand me”, if you are a plodder, will be very hard, as explaining the “flash” has never worked well. Things just fit, or they don’t, and when they fit, the result is visible. FWIW, I don’t remember any case where “the flash” was wrong when subjected to a longer method proof. It has been wrong on details on first introduction to a field when I’m just learning the ropes of it, but usually it is wrong in a simplified way and does point to a ‘dig here!’ for more elaboration.
So given that, how likely is it that someone who is not 2 or 3 sigmas above the norm, who likely doesn’t have “the flash”, and who believes in the importance of the Ego (and who may not have the associative memory Aspe like firing off all the time) will come to have true understanding of the non-me of me? IMHO, the best response would be: “Mu! The question is ill formed” but I’ll leave it for him to reach that stage of enlightenment.
Specifics To The Quest(ion)
Note the parenthetical. I often have nested parenthetical thoughts. They come in “a flash’ too. 1/10 second or less kinds of things. (Now you can see how painfully slow typing it out can be…). So when thinking of a title “Specifics To Serioso’s Question” and “Specifics To His Quest” pop up in one ‘flash’ as a parenthetical construct, then I drop out the proper name putting in “The” and I’m done. Usually about that point I translate the parenthetical to normal English and “move on”, but here I’ve left it intact as an example of thought process. But internally I always hear the dual echo of “Quest” and “Question” whichever one I’ve typed for this heading…
So I had said, basically, speak to data, logic, processing, or filtering, not about me or personal traits. Serioso can’t (or won’t) ‘go there’. OK, here’s the dissection.
No I don’t get it at all!
I suspect Serioso is quite intelligent enough to ‘get it’ for “data, logic, processing, filtering”, but in fact meant “Oh No Mr. Bill, that’s not what I want!” Sloppy, at best, and being charitable. (Either that, or he’s way less smart than I think.)
My mission here is to understand your thinking processes,
Man on a mission, eh? And self centered too. I, and all of you others, are expected to indulge in a personal mission… OK, you get one posting, this one. (Well, really two, I went through the ‘not me’ one long ago, but I guess you forgot, so ‘one more’…)
Also note the “your thinking processes”, as though there is more than one “thinking” and it is a linear “process”.
First off, I just think. It’s a gestalt thing. I can also do tricks, like calculus and cooking, but those are processes, not thinking. So “on a mission” to decompose a gestalt into component parts… i.e. tilt at windmills.
and to try to figure out why some of these processes seem (to me) irrational, even crazy.
Crazy, eh?
Well, first off, you never bothered to look at the processes in postings, nor the data, nor much of anything of substance posted. Just toss insults at me, denigrate my character, intelligence, or sanity, and then bleat about it. OK, we all have our faults…
BUT, what you also seem to have been impervious to is that I have a set of certifications that make such bleats nothing but noise on the wind. (That last sets this “flash” playing in the sound centers of the mind…)
Along with the intelligence certification by many agencies listed above, I had hours of psych interviews and the MMPI, and more, to be selected for a NASA study to design the tests used to select shuttle astronauts. I’m NASA (the old, reliable one) certified sane, and a nice non-violent guy.
Now you can accept that, and see the absurdity in the “crazy” statement of yours, or reject it and continue wandering in the desert. Your choice. Just wander without me, please… if you chose that path. This is the 4th or 5th time I’ve pointed this out, yet you still like the ‘crazy’ and ‘insane’ line of attack. Slow learner I guess…
[implied subject “I”] try to [figure out why] [noun clause] seem to “me” irrational, even crazy.
Note that this is “all about you” and not about me? I’m only in the noun clause and only as some ill defined “processes” of thought that in fact are indivisible in the gestalt. Now, just for moment, please, consider this:
For YOU to understand why YOU have feelings and / or attitudes about ME has a whole lot more to do with YOU than with ME.
We are all, each and every one of us, 100% responsible for our own feeling, wants, desires, attitudes, and anything else inside our head. I can not “make you angry” and you can not “upset me”. (That is the fallacy of PC speech, BTW, since only the offended can cause their own offense; to accuse someone else of doing it is daft. A Mu! thing.) Only I can let me choose to become upset, and only you can choose to make yourself angry through your choices of response to the world. (Basic Buddhism… really). So I choose to be centered, calm, and happy. (Pretty much all the time… I like it that way) You have chosen to “want what you cannot have” [understanding the ‘parts’ of a gestalt | knowing the inside of another persons brain | find fault in others to explain your fault] and so are unhappy. Sorry, I can’t help you with that. Only you can look inside yourself to find why you make yourself unhappy and seek what does not exist. Only you, the chooser of your mental state, can enquire into it and explain it.
Now, if your puzzlement is about some aspect of the data I selected to display, the associations I make of that source to other sources, or the filtering I’ve done to “leave bits out” (often called “Chiefio forgot” by those less attuned..), that I can help you with. Thus my emphasis on describing the work product posted and inquiry about it, and not “about me”.
So I cannot avoid what you see as insults.
Bull Shit. Flat out lies. It isn’t hard, at all, to avoid saying “You are stupid” “You are ignorant” “You are crazy”. People do it all day long every single day. I’m doing it right now, in fact… It is normal social grace. YOU CHOOSE to say those things, repeatedly, for your own reasons.
For example, it isn’t hard at all to say:
“I think your evaluation of Soros and his motivations is wrong, he is a fine man because of [his deeds]”
instead of
“You must be an ignorant idiot to think Soros is evil, or you are crazy”.
Very easy to choose… Well within your intellectual capacity, if not your emotional quotient.
Now I’ve spent a good 30 years forming, leading, coaching and counseling teams (mostly work teams, but also Pee-Wee Hockey… great fun, that) and happen to know my E.Q. is also quite high. And know that others, not so much, is usually true. I suggest you get an assessment done, it will help you greatly.
I do not know how to avoid making these insults,
Despite my laying it out for you with great clarity. Once again:
Do not address “to the person”, do not “personalize it”, do not attack a person’s attributes (such as intelligence, sanity, capability, etc. etc.) Basically, avoid the Alinsky Method.
I’ve chosen to Ruthlessly stamp it out whenever I encounter it. It is evil. Expect that.
BTW, “ruthlessly” always fires off “I wonder where Ruth is?” ;-)
Next up:
nor do you.
False. I did it just now. (Avoided expressing an insult). I’ve done it a dozen time above. I have also chosen a few times to put one in, since it breaks the boredom, and since they seem to motivate some folks to further learning… though you seem a bit impervious… Knowing how is not the same as choosing… If you truly don’t know how, I pity you and those you interact with. I suspect you are employing a debate device instead, though. (Feel free to correct that suspicion, and prove your limits.)
My comments are necessarily personal because I cannot reconcile my two views of you:
My [behaviour] because I [limited ability] about you…
Notice something again? The subject of that sentence is Serioso, not me… So if you would understand Serioso, why are you looking at me? Wrong target. It is YOUR limited ability to understand that’s the problem, not the “me” it can not grasp.
One view is rational and intelligent, the other irrational to the point of stupidity.
See, now you could just as easily have said:
“One view is rational and intelligent, the other seems to me irrational to the point I lost the plot. Please help.”
This puts the focus where it belongs, on you losing the plot from time to time and not following the connections. That I can help elaborate. However, helping you understand why you find me irrational for your lack of understanding, by looking at me, that is beyond my ability.
It is therefore impossible for me to avoid comments about the person,
“Argue for your limitations, and you shall keep them. -E.M.Smith”
Grow up a bit. Please.
because that is what interests me the most.
Well internet porn interests most people the most (per internet statistics and the $6 Million? price tag for sex.com) yet folks manage to not post it here… This place is, generally, for what interests ME the most. It is my notebook on the world. Feel free to study it to get clue, but do not feel free to insult me, or others, in your quest to attribute to others what is inside your own limitations.
So I plan to continue my questions about your ability, sanity, qualifications, etc. These matter to me.
As I have fully answered (well, mostly fully… I’ve left out some Community College classes and some technical training in things like router configs…) those above. No, I’m not going to post my transcripts nor my resume. They will show a pretty good student at University, a Bachelors Econ., a State College (teaching college) for the teaching theory and Community College Teachers Certificate, and a 1/2 finished MBA. All with good grades. That I learned ASL and See Sign at a local J.C. isn’t all that important… Nor is the Ph.D. Religion as it isn’t an academic qualification.
You also have my sanity and E.Q. rank, via that NASA study. (I’ll leave it for you to find the published peer reviewed paper about it… it isn’t a secret, but likely only in paper form as internet publishing wasn’t that hot then).
And you know a lot about my professional qualification that I’ve posted over the years while you have been a reader.
So any further inquiry along those lines will be met with:
We’ve already fully covered that HERE (where HERE is a link to this posting.
Now you can be a pig headed obstreperous pill and ignore that…
For illustration, I’ll now translate that last sentence to the polite form, so Serioso can see how to do it:
Now you can be stubborn about this topic, continue to bring it up in inappropriate threads…
See how it works? It really isn’t all that hard to avoid “insults to the person”, if you really want to…
But bring it up, and you will get a link back to here. For any given posting, if you discuss the input data, the associations made, the conclusions reached, etc. well, that’s a discussion worth having as sometimes folks find interesting things I’ve missed. (Really missed, not just filtered. Hey, it happens ;-)
In Conclusion or Bits & Pieces
I have strong “novelty seeking behavior”. Now, since I know pretty much all there is to know about me, I find myself a boring as hell topic. Just not interested in me.
That, BTW, is also why I have postings on so many different things. I have a “Squirrel!” moment and just run off chasing after some interesting new thoughts until I’ve caught them in the butterfly net. Then I’ll summarize it and put up a posting. That’s what I like to do.
I’ve said all I have to say already. Most of it here, some in the earlier postings.
“Life is too short to drink bad wine” and frankly, talking about me is thin gruel; and I certainly don’t need piss & vinegar added to that.
I may amend this posting over time, as more things come to me, or some may just end up in comments. But this is THE place to ask questions about me, how and what I think, etc. etc.
Any insult sentences will be ruthlessly deleted as they are semantically null
(Oh, I forgot to mention, I had a formal linguistics class and loved it…)
So don’t be surprised if over time, more bits and pieces like that linguistics note get added here.
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