Saturday Open Thread - 11/15/25: Odds and Ends
Good morning, good people!
I hope all of you are in fine fettle, or have some plan to achieve that status.
It is pretty darn hot here for the upcoming week. A bit late in the year for 84 deg. highs, but so be it. Fall for you y'all, not so much here in East Texas.
This week we honored soldiers. I have mentioned before I refuse to work for veteran PTSD guys, as they crack under pressure of court and can be very dangerous. And what did I do? I took a case for a soldier guy accused of recklessly firing a weapon in his yard.
He hasn't been indicted yet. He is out on bail, and it may be months if and when he goes to court.
I gathered up his 6 or 7 different psychiatrists' reports, list of 16 or so meds, record of mental ward hospitalizations, and took it to the prosecutor in charge of taking the case to the grand jury.
Now, what did the guy do? He went into his yard, attempted to blow his brains out, but the gun jammed. He cleared it and shot into a tree trunk. A neighbor called the cops. He had done 2 tours of combat in the middle east bs, then was a cop in Houston for 10 or more years, finally walking away when he was first on the scene at a mass murder school shooting, so he is handy with a gun. He aimed for the tree trunk. Nobody was endangered.
He had some cheap cruises booked for he and his wife, and on that day, he panicked he might be in Mexico on a court date.
So, in a PTSD panic, he came to the office, could barely breath, could barely speak, hit himself with his fists, groaned for 10 minutes. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. My secretary hid away, but I sat there. Eventually, I told him I am his protection against failure to appear charges. Then, I suggested he focus on something worthwhile, such as gardening. His shrink had just signed him up for a veteran's garden project. I told him he might also start learning to learn new recipes and focus on cooking. Well, his shrink had just signed him up for a veteran's cooking group.
Well, I am no shrink, as I said, but I am the daughter of a WWII combat veteran, and his joy in life was food production, bringing it home for my Mom to cook, making recipe suggestions that people told him about.
Maybe, at the end of the day, it is the little things.
I am of the opinion if the Epstein crap takes out Trump, it should also take out Clinton, and anyone and everyone that joined into that pedophile fray. No exception. Harm a child? Off to jail you go.
TPTB just might be getting nervous.
That's all I have to say this morning, but during the day I will drop in links and vids as I find them. All of you feel free to share your thoughts and your info with your friends here on any and all topics and subjects, please!
Let' 'er rip!
Comments
Good morning, friends!
Man, oh man, news is interesting, and sort of sickening, in all directions, ain't it?
So, show us all your interesting/sickening finds in the news, ok?
Your turn!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Hey there
.
Good morning. Crisp and clear here.
Found this article about urban planning.
It points toward a better future. Not applicable
so much for us rural bumpkins, but is an attempt
to replace the car culture for the 'burbs.
Kinda an architecture geek.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/11/this-car-free-neighborhood-was-d...
revolutionize-american-cities.html
Glad your vet is getting into cooking. It can be both nourishing and therapeutic.
Our cooking group met the other evening. I made a shrimp and polenta dish from
Half Baked Harvest Quick & Cozy by Tieghan Gerard. Quite a good rift
on shrimp and grits. The homemade cajun seasoning made it.
Thanks for the OT!
Zionism is a social disease
Good afternoon, Cap'n!
What crossed my mind is that it would get his attention and require physical engagement, as with gardening. I am unsure about being grouped with other similarly injured and ill combat veterans. Will they talk about what they saw? What they did?
My Mom would not teach me how to cook. She kept me entirely away from it. When I was in my late 20s, my neighbor at a town home complex where I lived was a caterer. She taught me the basics of applying heat to raw food, moisture levels, basic seasonings, association of pots, pans, etc...With each passing decade, I would come across a recipe book, a magazine, which gave me more skills, and I have luckily became friends with more caterers and chefs.
I live in an area where authentic Cajun food is common, as is southern cooking and Tex-Mex. I love Thai foods, even took a class in Bangkok. I love Chinese food. Indian cuisine is also appealing, but I would have to drive into Houston to shop for the authentic ingredients to properly prepare such meals.
We do not have local groups for anything but politics and religion. No book club, no art club, nothing but politics, which borders on violence against the "other", and the church groups have gone the way of the Prosperity Gospel.
The only time I will attend any political group event is when it is single topic. A protest of a judge. A protest of a bond proposal.
You are very fortunate to be engaged with locals of like mind. It improves your life, might improve the lives of others, my friend!
Keep up the good work!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
HA! Prosperity Gospel.
.
First I heard of that concept.
Applicable to banksters and political gangsters.
Do they worship in a vault? Don't even have to wait
till Sunday to hear their sermons, thank dog.
Zionism is a social disease
Here's a wiki definition and history of origin
It is a grift.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
good morning...
It was in the 40's when I went to trade day this morning. Headed to the 70's by afternoon. The weather has been pleasant, but dry.
Got a load of manure at a horse camp on the mountain. They went up this year to $50/pickup load, and they load it for you with a bobcat. Took the whole load to cover the garden beds yesterday, and I was a whooped puppy afterwards. Still have to put on new mulch, but the garden will be ready to plant next spring with no more preparation. After years of this our garden soil is dark and rich.
Congrats on helping the veteran. I wish him luck and hope you can resolve his case with minimum hassle.
Y'all take care, and thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good afternoon, LO!
$50 for horse poop? Around here, it's free for the taking. It's the taking that is the hard work.
Maybe the mulching won't be as exhausting, huh?
I suppose your walk at Trade's Day was brisk, given the temp and all. I say I am ready for the cold, but mostly I am tired of unbearable heat. I had intended on clipping some weeds on the fence line, but it may be too hot to bother with today.
We finally had a huge stump removed. We had burned it a couple of time, so now that soil is dark, rich, and fertile. We have 3 more burn piles to go when our burn ban is lifted.
Trump is twisting himself in knots about the Epstein files vote next week. He has become vicious in his attacks on Marjoie Taylor Green and Thomas Massie, even criticizing Massie's new wife. All he can do is call for Bill Clinton to be investigated. Very stupid, since it is an admission being associated with Epstein, as he himself clearly was, is worthy of criminal investigation of someone besides himself. Well, we all knew Trump was stupid.
I feel the prosecutor in my veteran's case will drop the charge. One or more psychiatrists will testify that when he is in full panic attack mode, he is not mentally competent.
I almost cry when some young man or woman joins the military. They are one combat engagement away from this horrible life.
I haven't skimmed for news today, but so far, there are no bombs busting mid-air!
Enjoy your day, my friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
In general terms I'm not sure
...why so many meds? Not asking for any specific explanation, it just seems to be something that goes with the territory. Having some experience in ptsd cases, my reaction is that shrinks just experiment with the meds. I know they think there is some science behind it, but...
My personal opinion is that a companion dog, as the VA calls it, and counseling from professionals, can be helpful if they are not alphahotels. The shrinks are in short supply, and have about 10-15 minutes available per visit. They don't do counseling. It usually goes, review history, like did you try this med? This one? Here try this one. Okay, sorry times up. Personal relationships with someone who gives a crap is the most helpful of all.
I guess the cooking, gardening, and so on work for some. Painting and music also come to mind. Even book discussions, depends on the person. I find these services are not so readily available. Whatever works I guess. Did you say prior psych hospitalizations? And he still had access to a firearm? Whoa!
Glad you took his case, OTC.
語必忠信 行必正直
Attending an organizational meeting today
.
for a local group interested in developing
a primary health network. It is called PC4A
meaning primary care for all. Back in the old days
every sizable community maintained a local heath
source for day-to-day needs. That has all been taken
over by big hospitals, pharma and insurance concerns.
This is an attempt to reverse that trend. Should be
interesting. We have gathered some good minds.
edited to add a C
Zionism is a social disease
Good luck QMS
I'm afraid to admit, I've had no local community involvement for years. I tried a couple of things and they didn't work out. One group, I thought to hook up with because I thought it would be fairly enlightened was promoting the Ukraine war. That was my last effort.
So I'm a bit envious, I think this is the second time you mentioned your community efforts recently. I have to piggyback off my wife's social network, like the church, and one couple we've known here for years, who moved back from CO after a three year hiatus. We're going to move sometime in in the intermediate future, Ms. So's departure will be missed by the aforementioned. We have to move near family for lack of an adequate support network, health and otherwise.
語必忠信 行必正直
It is difficult to develop a sense of community
.
when travels take you away.
That was the first 30 years of my
adult life. Now that I have settled,
it is easier to find like-minded individuals.
We had about 12 together today, which I can
deal with. Action plan going forward.
Good luck.
祝你好运
Zionism is a social disease
Good afternoon, soryang!
All shrinks do is prescribe meds. They offer no counseling, no nothing, but mind=altering pills. My client has some medical conditions, such as heart, bp, bum knee, but most of the meds are mind-altering. I don't consider them safe.
I don't know if the guy has a dog. What he does have is a 35 yr old daughter that was born with birth defects. She is blind, deaf, can't walk, can't talk, and is in diapers. Don't know if he is free to take on the care of a critter. I did remind him as he was having his episode that his death leaves his daughter in dire circumstances, and to focus on her, always, and not himself. That train of thought did distract him, and he said he would remember what I said.
You know moving is one of the most stressful things in a family's life, but you might not know that it is a cause of many divorces and break ups of families. Maybe it is the fear of the unknown.
At any rate, in your circumstances, it must be done. Will you remain in Florida or move to another state? In any event, I hope you and your wife approach it as a relief, an adventure, and feel safe, secure, and happy in your new home, my friend.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Thanks OTC
Sorry to hear of your client's difficult family situation. The place we're looking at is in Florida, that's where my daughter and granddaughter are.
In Florida the storms, flooding and so on, will no doubt continue to be a problem. This is what makes it difficult to find a place.
Wish you and JtC all the best.
語必忠信 行必正直
My experience with
meds in general leads me to believe that some scattershotting is actually necessary, in some cases- meds work entirely differently on every person (psychotropic and otherwise), and the effectiveness of any specific drug is basically a total crapshoot.
My family has always had some interesting nightwierdies about medications: some that work for everybody don't do a damned thing for any of us, and some work better than advertised. For example, my mother's side had little use for painkillers of any stripe- none of them worked at all. My sister and I can use some of them, thanks to Dad, but even the ones that work a little don't work very well (which is where I sing the praises of CBD once again, thank Gawd). And on and on.
I signed up to participate in the Colorado Biobank research project when they started chopping big chunks out of me: might as well use that stuff for something, instead of just sending it to the incinerator. Colorado has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, such program in the country. And in the last 12 months I've finally started getting some interesting feedback from them, with respect to the genetically-driven structures that underlie the metabolism of medicines.
I found, for example, that I do not have any of the genetic makeup needed to metabolize warfarin - both my maternal and paternal lines missed out on that gene. Well, that explains how they killed my maternal grandfather, after his stroke many years ago- there is no "safe dose" for folks like me. Luckily, after my stroke, I've been put on something else- something that I *can* metabolize.
Similarly, I'm lacking a bunch of the makeup needed to metabolize opioids, and also (in particular) acetominophen. That stuff doesn't even work on a fever for us- it just kills our stomachs. So our longstanding family battle with painkillers really does have a genetic basis, after all. And that explains why a lot of the chemical entertainments commonly habituated by rock musicians always left me cold, equally thank Gawd...
But most importantly, I lack a great deal of the structure needed to metabolize most of the SSRI antidepressants- which apparently is why those really never did a damned thing for me, either, other than to lighten my wallet.
The old light begins to dawn, with respect to many of the weird things that we've experienced as a family. Now, I can't argue that the medical care provided to veterans doesn't suck rocks through a straw. But it may well be that a lot of the traditional psychotropic meds have really never worked at all in sizable chunks of the population, other than making money for the vendors, and the actual mechanisms for some of them having any chance of working may not be universally present...
In the case of a doorknob doctor (you know, the kind who is never in the room long enough to even take his hand off of the doorknob), scattershot via a recipe is the order of the day. Got that tee shirt, even without earning it via DD-214. Anyway, food for thought- and worth looking into, for the interested student.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Yeah, if you gotta move
.
be close to family
at least they have your best interests
in heart and mind.
Zionism is a social disease
Sing it,
Barry! One of the classics, from 1965.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Good afternoon otc, et. al. Finally got a peek at some
news and found this:
https://apnews.com/article/ai-cyber-china-hacking-artificial-intelligenc...
one should read the article. I have some quesrions and issues, starting with Why should anybody take anything Anthropic says seriously. An AI company founded in 2021 by fugitives from OpenAI which produces an AI chatbot type thing named Claude, there is no reason to suspect that they have any sort of whiz-bang hacking detection and prevention ability.
The claim that the attackers used their own product, Claude, to do most of the heavy lifting, does this give one reassurance as to the merits of their claims?
The AP article states that China didn't respond -
, as if there were any reason they should, especially aat the level of US embassy staffers.
The techs at Anthropic, whomevere they may be, "linked" the attack to China. Uh huh, just like the DNC attack was "linked" to the Rus by the clowns who propagated all that bullshit.
Meta people, as if they were any better or different, claim that this is kaka and part of an attempt at regulatory capture.
So, some nobodies claim that their own product was so poorly designed that it was used in a huge multitarget attack but they figured it out and traced it, magikly, to China. Yah, suuure.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good afternoon, el!
Uh, I call bull shit on Anthropic, and their community. It's a circular argument to create advanced AI to replace human hackers and then the AI hackers can't prevent hacking by other AI hackers, and we had best get rid of open source and regulate the shit out of it and spy on everybody...or something like that...and it is all China's evil doing!
I am gonna post some Ukraine news shortly. We have had enough of Trump's insanity for one day, methinks. Time for Zelensky's.
I clipped weeds in the fence line and drug a fallen limb to a burn pile, and am pretty sure that's all my physical labor today will entail. I am not lazy. I pace myself.
Enjoy your day and avoid Claude, as he is not your friend. We are!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
This is the new normal.
Hey, Humphrey!
No inflation? Srsly? Every single week we go shop for groceries, and every single week they are more expensive than the week before. Tariffs are taxes. The costs for importers is passed along to we shoppers.
I always knew Trump was a dumb ass, but I thought he might understand profit margins.
Ok, I was wrong.
I figured you might drop in some Thomas Massie Xs today. He and Trump are having an X war!
Enjoy your weekend, friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Well it is not Massie but this is just as good.
The rest of the tweet:
I wonder if Trump is going to have Hegseth bomb her district in Georgia?
Man, oh man!
Strange that security companies are calling her. To help or scare her?
I appreciate the artful way she threw in a jab about Epstein while she was otherwise torching Trump.
Interesting times, humphrey.
Thanks, friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Danny Haiphong's chat today is good, as always.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981