MaxRedline

A Fool For A Client

The Roof is about to fail, as a federal judge has ruled that it can defend itself in the upcoming death-penalty trial on 33 counts related to murdering nine people and wounding three others as they attended a church Bible study meeting. A separate state trial on the murder charges begins in January. This thing is as good as dead already, since the acts occurred in South Carolina - it just doesn't realize that yet.

South Carolina isn't at all like Oregon, where Democratics simply ignore the death penalty statute.

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Technical Difficulties

Oddly enough, people in the San Francisco Bay area are generally expected to pay to ride transit systems there, which is markedly different in concept from the way things are done here in Portland, where only bus riders are required to pay at boarding - light rail and streetcar is based on the so-called "honor" system; you're supposed to pay, but many don't bother with that. Over the weekend, however, Bay Area transit was giving away free rides.

That's because the technological geniuses got their ticketing machines and point-of-payment systems infected with ransomware:

A message reading “You hacked. ALL data encrypted” appeared on ticket machines Saturday morning, along with a contact email address — suggesting a ransomware attack, in which a hacker can lock out a system from its owners.

Unlike Portland's "honor" system, the folks running the San Francisco Municipal Transportation System (Muni) figured out long ago that in order to recover at least some revenue from riders, you have to force them to pay. So they installed gates. The gates were raised, however, allowing for free rides over the weekend as they addressed the ransomware infection. Since they got things back up and running fairly quickly, it seems safe to guess that they paid the hacker, just as a hospital in southern California did earlier in the year.

And while we're on the subject of electronic fun and games:

SALEM, Ore. -- A Chicago woman is taking the Salem Police Department and Marion County Sheriff’s Office to task over an instance of politically fueled online trolling.

Wah! Little "Liz" got her feelings hurt!

McArthur said it all started on November 20th, when she posted a link to an editorial, written by a contributor to the Huffington Post.

The piece, titled “Women Of The World: It’s Time To March On Washington”, encouraged women to attend the planned “Women’s March on Washington” on January 21st, the day after Donald Trump’s scheduled inauguration.

McArthur’s caption read “I am going.”

She just wanted to feel empowered, you know, because Trump's really scary and hates women and is racist and....

And so it was that she posted on Facebook, because as everybody knows, it's a haven for privacy and self-expression. Sort of a virtual diary, as it were. So she was shocked - shocked, I tell you! - to find that a couple of cops in Oregon stumbled across it during off-duty hours, and they made FUN of her! So she behaved in a typically Lefty version of adulthood:

McArthur swore at the men, told them to stop and tried to ignore it.

Galusha then posted another meme, reading "Just a troll fishing for liberals."

Now she's really mad. As well as not very bright.

News You Can Use

Moroccan TV station 2M aired a helpful segment in which a cosmetologist demonstrated how properly applied makeup can be used to hide signs that a woman has been beaten:

"Use foundation with yellow in it, if you use the white one, your red punch marks will always show."

The piece of fashion advice was not well-received, for some reason.

Moving along to our fun-loving friends in the U.K., a woman there was given a £85 fine for parking her car in the lot of a retail mall twice in one day; she was informed that doing so is against the law. Apparently, parking lots at retail malls are managed by private companies over there, and they seem to make things up as they go along. It's not actually illegal to park in the same lot twice in one day, but it may violate company policy, prompting them to mail you a fine.

She is quite displeased, all the more so as she was visiting from out-of-town. Curious creatures, those Brits.

While we're over there, it may be of interest to note that beginning today, the entire U.K. is expected to see the coldest temperatures in a quarter of a century, this week. This should motivate them to step up their game in the battle against man-made global warming! Oddly, solar activity is at its lowest level in a century.

As well, there is some indication that the Pacific Oscillation referred to as el nino/la nina may be involved in influencing climactic variability:

Portland Gangsters Got No Gun Control

Four shootings since Friday night, one in southwest near the river, the others as usual on the east side. Four shootings, two wounded, nobody dead. These wannabes don't know the first darned thing about gun control - which I define as reliably taking down the target. In this morning's shooting in southwest Portland, one person was injured following an all-night party to which cops responded around 4:30 a.m. The siding at the house, however, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The outdoor fridge is an especially nice touch.

You can see why the owners want half a million dollars for the place. Preferably before the renters destroy it.

Manhattan Project Park Is A Year Old

SPOKANE — The Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford is a year old and proving to be quite popular.

About 13,000 people visited the park in its first year, despite its relatively remote location in southeastern Washington, far from the state’s major population centers.

The park is huge, mainly because it's actually split into three sites:

Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The centerpiece of the Hanford park is the B Reactor, the world’s first full-sized nuclear reactor. It was hurriedly built by the Manhattan Project in the darkest days of WWII as the United States rushed to beat Nazi Germany in developing the first atomic bomb.

B Reactor produced plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, effectively ending the war.

Yes, well they eventually built nine reactors there, and in the process exposed us "downwinders" to atmospheric releases of radioactive iodine, and of course the radioactive sludge that they simply dumped into underground tanks that (surprise!) are now leaking. So a massive cleanup effort is underway out there; has been for years. They're trying to build a couple of vitrification plants there, but progress in that area has been slow.

Still, they've got enough of it cleaned up (they think) that they can turn B Reactor and parts of its surrounding areas into a public park. You might want to take a geiger counter with you, should you choose to visit.

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Up In Arms Over Trump's Family

Must be a lot of construction going on at Trump Tower in NYC...

I reckon they figure it costs a lot of money to park dump-trucks nose-to-tail like that to protect the building. At any rate, people are complaining.

The US Secret Service, tasked with protecting the First Family, is reportedly in talks to rent out two floors of Trump Tower. Mr Trump’s wife, Melania, and son, Barron, are staying in New York until the spring, and Trump has stated that he will travel there regularly during that time. For the Secret Service, protecting the family requires setting up a command center nearby — and Trump Tower has available space.

This is giving rise to more complaints, although the Secret Service would have to pay out more to rent hotel space:

Ron Kessler, an expert on the US Secret Service, told CNN that the plan could actually save the government money, because renting the building means they don’t have to stay in hotels.

But a former Secret Service agent says that the plan's just not realistic:

"This is one of those situations where they really should have an honest conversation with him and just really explain to him that this is not a good idea," Evy Poumpouras told NBC. "To physically re-create the security that exists at the White House in New York City, it's not going to happen."

Um, right - let's talk about that security that exists at the White House, shall we? In the past couple of years alone, we've had a postman land an ultra-light vehicle at the site, there have been several fence-hoppers - with one actually making it into the White House itself - and multiple drone landings.

All in all, Trump Tower might actually be safer for his family.

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Obama Administration: No Recount Needed

The Obama administration has defended the integrity of the presidential election despite fears of Russia attempting to undermine the vote.

As previously noted here, Russia couldn't affect the vote-count even if they had wanted to because the tabulators are not connected to the Internet, but Fidel-loving also-ran Stein is certain that there was something fishy going on. What's especially scary about her is that she was able to garner as much as 1% of the vote. Amusingly, Trump was being urged to accept the outcome of the election when complacent Leftists thought they had it in the bag - but when that turned out not to be the case, they suddenly can't take their own advice.

That seems to be a common malady among them; here in the Pacific Northwest, Democratics in Washington state held three recounts after a Republican was elected governor. Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire ended up being declared governor after the third recount as ballots cast in her favor kept turning up after having mysteriously gone missing - it was truly amazing, the way they somehow kept "finding" more votes, but then she, too, had been considered a shoo-in. The shock and dismay when it appeared that the Republican had won was palpable.

So they're just doing what they always do. It's interesting that the Obama administration is calling it unnecessary.

Clintonworld isn't pushing for recounts because the "optics" of attempting to overturn the election results would be bad, which is why they're instead cheering on the crazy "doctor" Stein to get the dirty work done for them.

There seems to be a rift between the Obamas and Clintonworld; not only in terms of the recounts but in terms of the election itself:

“You need to concede,” Obama told his former secretary of State as she, her family, and her top aides continued to watch results trickle in from the key Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

She finally did, but Obama's call really irked a lot of the folks in the Clintonworld orbit.

So why all the rancor? The reason why Pantsuit lost the electoral college seems pretty clear: she was always going to be president because it was her turn. DNC arranged her nomination, and one of her first orders of business was to lie to the American public yet again: "I will not get down in the mud with them (Republicans)," she solemnly intoned, before immediately leaping in, flinging and slinging. It was supposed to be a royal coronation, but a lot of people simply didn't trust the presumptive queen, whom they perceived as more of the same.

One suspects that people are awakening to the fact that the Founders never envisioned the rise of life-long politicians, and having experienced firsthand what those have wrought over the years, lifers like Pantsuit and Jeb! are not held in particularly high regard. This is a fact that none of the lifers recognized, and a problem that was compounded when Pantsuit, in the process of slinging more mud, famously claimed that she placed over half of her opponent's supporters into "my basket of deplorables". She failed to recognize the fact that most of the Americans she tossed into her basket have had just about enough of lifer politicians and their lies and excuses.

That line, perhaps more than anything else, sealed the case against her. Oh, she tried to "walk it back", but it was too late.

Of course, it was by no means the only tone-deaf comment she offered; what did she think would happen when she glowing stated that when she was elected, they were going to put a whole lot of coal miners out of work? Sorry, Pantsuit - you've nobody to blame but yourself.

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Castro Reportedly Still Dead

But eulogies are still going strong as Canadians and others mock Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau's tender recollection of Fidel on the #TrudeauEulogies hashtag thing over on Twitter.

Jonah Goldberg

@JonahNRO

15 hours

Controversy followed Jeffrey Dahmer but he helped cast a new light on the limits of low carb diets. #Trudeaueulogies

John Schindler

@20committee

21 hours

There were controversies, as with every full life, but above all Adolf Eichmann taught us the importance of planning. #TrudeauEulogies

Today we mourn the death of Jeffrey Dahmer, who opened his home to the LGBTQ community and pushed culinary boundaries. #trudeaueulogies

“A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and health care of his island nation,” Trudeau said in a statement released by the Canadian government. “While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for 'el Comandante.' "

The blow-back seems well-deserved, although as TD points out, we have little reason for ridiculing Trudeau when we have people like Jill Stein running around loose.

 

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Blaming Bush Has Gone Out Of Vogue

As they note over at PeoplesCube, after years of trial and error, the CIA finally succeeded with their "wait it out" technique.

Eventually, they get it right.

Fame!

Olivia Newton-John's 30 year-old daughter, supposedly "an aspiring singer", has apparently moved in with her daddy here in Portland, Oregon. According to The Daily Mail, she "witnessed a terrifying road accident during a trip to her local Starbucks" here earlier this month. She was described as looking visibly shaken after having noticed a man lying in the road following the crash, but that didn't stop her from marching on into the coffee shop, from which she emerged "wearing a concerned expression".

The poor dear didn't call 911, but she did use her phone to take a photo of the guy, which she posted to social media.

At 30 years old, I kind of wonder how much longer she plans to "aspire". Golly, she was so upset that she could scarcely sip her latte. Life's so hard!