Saturday Open Thread 1/17/26: Odds and Ends
Good morning, good people!
The roast is in the crock pot, morning coffee is always good, and during the day, all of us will get info about bombing Iran (or not), our economy on the brink of crashing (for sure), the genocide in Gaza (for everyone with a brain who understands the definition of the word), our theft of Venezuelan oil (Retaking what is ours?), Ukraine begging EU for money (to getaway), NATO upset with Trump about Greenland (and "sending over "hardened soldiers" that have never seen combat), and ICE doing the work of...Satan? ,(or Marco Rubio, who knows good people of color from bad people of color. )
Here is an example of why you hire a local attorney, either as lead counsel or second chair:
Steve hires me to offer up his mom's will for probate. Next day, he is given notice to vacate his home or be evicted by his niece, Tiffany, claiming to be the owner. He brings me a deed that his mom signed giving him the property at her death. The notice to vacate was written by niece's agent, her mom, Terri. Terri and Steve are siblings. 3 days later, Steve is served by the constable to come to court in a particular justice of the peace court room. The judge is married to Terri. The "owner" is his step-daughter.
Since I have known the judge all my life, I totally get the picture, and already have the responses to get this case dropped. The judge is up for re-election. As it happens, he has an opponent who is my client. The courtroom should be packed.
Years ago, my client had the audacity to divorce his crazy Pentecost wife. Her fellow church members picketed my office and chanted along these lines:
I study almost daily to keep abreast of legal stuff, so learning anything techie is boring, my eyes glaze over, and someone else who gives a shit can do it, just leave me alone.
So, this is a 2 minute clip of exactly what JtC sounds like to me when he is mansplainin' anything about my computers:
So, my friends, we all come across useful and interesting info, and since an open thread is for every topic you find in those categories, this is your drop box to share the wealth of info.
Comments
Good morning and Happy Saturday!
Monday is a holiday, so this is the first of three days I do not have to go to the office. Of course, the Steve vs. Tiffany case file is on my home office desk. Oh, well...
It is your turn, friends!
Let 'er rip!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good morning..
A pleasant morning here after a light rain last night. Trade day was thin but bought an old aluminum table to keep at the camp fire area, and got the weekly avocados.
Saw my sisters this week for my Mom's funeral, and we had hoped to avoid having to probate her will, but there was one CD account she didn't delineate her heirs. So, I contacted her lawyer, and she'll get the probate case started next week.
My youngest sister is winging her way back to S. Korea to resume her teaching position. I think she said it was 14 hour flight.
It is sunny with a blue sky. Very nice and not so cold. Last week was pretty chilly.
The Duran says Starmer has canceled UK elections. I guess he can see the Reform party sweeping the floor with him.
(12 min) Starmer popularity problems... Solution, delay elections
So much for western democracy.
Well, thanks for the OT! Good luck with your case. Sounds like a slam dunk to me.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The difference between a small community and large community
the connections of corruption, denials and diversions to hide are easier to see in small communities, less layers. Fewer people to unsuspectingly become foot soldiers for diversions to hide behind. Good luck (laboring under correct knowledge) with your case.
Roast in the crockpot sounds good. I will pull one from the freezer for tomorrow. Drop in some bay leaves, allspice, black peppercorns and garlic, too bad I have someone in the household at the moment intolerant of grapes.
Yesterday I spent trying to find the cattle who decided to roam from the designated grazing pasture. They did show up in the donkey pasture just in time for evening feeding. Ground is frozen and I am not a great tracker, today I am going to find out where they escaped. I do not need trouble with neighbors or them causing an accident with a vehicle.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Good afternoon, soe!
We have a neighbor from Indie with a 60 acre tract, more or less. He runs just enough head of cattle on it to qualify for an agriculture exemption on his property taxes. He and is wife are never there. They do not have a ranch foreman to do the feeding, check the fenceline, etc...They have a handful of registered black angus cattle who are constantly breaking through their raggedy fence. Just yesterday, we saw a mama cow and her calf. They were skin and bones. I might call the sheriff.
So, good luck on your icy hoof tracking! And yes, auto/cow crashes are an extreme safety hazard. I hit a cow once during a heavy fog, right at the middle of a bridge...from the dashboard to the front bumper of my car was flattened. I got bruised knees, am lucky to be alive. It was a 1200 pounder. Locals know what is going on. My concern is what that judge did years ago to an opponent running against him. She found poisonous snakes in her mail box. Her home was hit by bullets fired in the night. She received both mail and phone anonymous death threats. She was a private investigator with former deputy friends. They tried to help her stay safe but were very worried.
Steve has suffered severe brain injury and needs lots of help understanding his situation. He is very vulnerable. I have the sheriff, constable, and district attorney covering my back.
Rocky road ahead!
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
I forgot to mention
that I use red wine as the liquid for the crock pot roast. Someone in your household would be unhappy about that.
Salt/pepper/garlic powder on both sides of the roast. Flour both sides. Brown the roast in melted butter. Browning keeps a lot of the moisture in the roast from seeping out, making the meat more tender.
To make the gravy, I use the drippings in the sauce pan and crock pot, whisk in some flower, seldom need to add much water to make the gravy.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good morning, LO!
If you have mentioned your Mom's passing prior to today, I missed it. So, a little late, but I want to offer my condolences to you and your family. I hope this came as no surprise and that you and all your family and friends had long since been emotionally prepared.
I know you must have enjoyed time with your sister, despite the event that prompted her visit. I would love to hear her stories! All world travelers are my soul mates.
I hope you got a deal on your table! Last week, I moved a desk from the office to bring it home. I am seated at it now. So, I thought I would occasionally stroll over to the resale shop in town to see if anyone had donated a small desk. I found exactly what I wanted on the first visit. $10. Perfect.
Google headlines say Starmer has cancelled elections. Friday I read Starmer was putting 65 yr old retired vets back on active recall duty. Russia must be shaking in their boots, but from cold, not 65 yr old Brits.
More craziness to come, dear friend!
Enjoy your weekend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Hola ETX amiga. It's your ECFL
fellow amiga checking in. How is JtC? Good luck with your court case. My dad died when I was a teen, so that one went smoothly legal-wise. I have got to give tons of cred to my late mother.
Her will was air-tight so it soared through Probate. My sis and I have always been close, and mom knew and counted on it. It sure is sad, but the Grim Reaper always seems to bring out the worse in families. Greed has got to be death's BFF. I hear ya about hi-tech geniuses. I'm hitched to one, too. He's now retired but could figure out any video and audio device. He's a natural tech troubleshooter, and a lot of his buds are/were engineers. I'm the one with the English degrees, but I sure do know the computer basics. Notice I wrote basics cos I'm not even close to being on JtC's/Hubster's level. Weather has been bee-u-ti-ful here though the natives hate it. LOL. Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Good morning, OBF!
Today is the overnight 28 deg. freeze of the week. Afterwards, we return to fall-like weather. In fact, the temps didn't drop enough to pollinate cedar trees, so everyone allergic to cedar is coughing up their innards. I am one of those, unfortunately.
AVOID PROBATE is a scam dreamed up by trust attorneys. Probating well-written will can assign a representative to pay estate bills, distribute what remains of the estate in accordance with the will in a 5 minute court hearing. One can transfer a vehicle title with a signature on the back of the title to a person with right of survivorship. It doesn't have to be notarized. Deeds to transfer land parcels upon death are easy peasy. All banks and fund managers can pass the funds to a named survivor as designated by the owner of the funds. The protection afforded by creating the estate, even when it appears there is nothing to transfer through probate are situations like these: Years after death, an IRS refund check comes; a cooperative fund distribution that shows up years after death, etc...Without probate and designation of an executor, nobody has legal authority to negotiate the checks. Creating an estate years after the fact is super expensive, legally complicated, and is not guaranteed to work.
JtC's 6 weeks radiation zaps will likely begin next week. That treatment does not appear to have side effects. However, he will be taking pill form chemo for the duration, so we are gonna find out the hard way what side effects that causes.
I got the English and History and Law degrees, and zero interest in learning a damn thing about computers. That video is hilarious!
Take care, amiga, and enjoy your weekend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good morning otc. Nada mucho going on hre, just back
from farmers' market and I will soon start making some gringo style pseudo goulash based around ground beef, black beans, macaroni, sweated baby spinach and a slightly cheesy white sauce. I'll also refresh my 100% hydrated sourdough starter so that I can make some pancake batter for tomorrow morning (our version sits and ferments all night).
Good luck to Johnny re 1) getting cured and 2) minimal side effects. All of that tech stuff, btw, is simply the 21st century equivalent of "bent torsion rod" and can be ignored unless it is your personal job to fix it. Unlike biology which is kind of haphazard sloppy hit-or-miss, tech stuff is extremely high precision requiring a lot of very expensive tools, equipment and training, or, at times, just a bigger hammer.
Meanwhile, out entire local environs will undergo a form of paralysis at 5pm local when all extraneous activity ceases so that everybody can gather around the electronic oracle and watch the latest installment of the niners' excruciatingly improbable run for ye olde sportsball title. That will include my wife and I as well, eating the above goulash from bowls in the living room.
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, e1!
I wish I had taught myself the are of bread making. I have worked since I was a pre-teen. I never had the time to cook anything time consuming. Even now, I seldom prepare elaborate recipes.
Dear One's family for generations cooked a simple goulash consisting of ground beef, pasta shells, diced tomatoes, green pepper, and onion. A German version, it seems.
I am glad for any high tech medical procedure that is tested over time. Any of them can go wrong, but the biggest cause of death in hospitalizations is human error.
The oddest thing about this radiation is his special trip to get measured and ink marked for the radiologist's zapper machine. The ink marks have been washed away, and he will have to be re-marked. Why did they call him in 3 weeks ahead of the zaps to get marked with ink that would not be there in 3 weeks? I just stay out of it, as drs. typically despise me.
Well, enjoy the game with your wifey, and I am sure the meal will bbe perfect game food!
Always great to "see" you, dear friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Actually, as described, I was thinking of a different dish
because of the spinach, but when I started to gather my stuff realized that cheese sauce was just all wrong and will be using chopped tomatoes instead, plys assorted herbs and spices including some dried red pepper flakes given that we failed to get any jalapeños today.
good to see you too
be well, both of you, 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 --
Don't do wrong cheese!
I will prepare mashed potatoes and brown gravy and instead of cooking up a fresh green veggie, we will have Bird's Eye creamy cheese spinach bake. Believe it or not, that frozen dish gets it's thumbs down for being heavily salted. Not preservatives, additives, or food dyes. Most everything we eat is very lightly salted anyway, so we should come in under the sodium daily limit.
Remember when we were growing up and every parent, every school nurse and athletics coach, passed out salt tablets to us?
But then, they recommended Dr. Pepper, so there's that.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
good Larry Johnson interview
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Food for thought
Thanx for this interview with Larry, OtC! I think the DW article doesn't go as far as he says it does, but obviously Jordan, and SA are in awkward positions. It's one thing to shoot down incoming from Iran overflying your territory, but another to allow strike groups loaded with bombs and missiles flyover to attack Iran.
In any case, they can just overfly Syria and Iraq. Isn't that why the Syrian government was overthrown? A division of labor could be worked out between targets in the north and south.
I've never heard any reports of North Korean threats of proliferation to Iran, but I haven't been looking. That would be quite sensational I think if the South Korean news media were aware of it, but maybe I missed something. I've heard reports suggesting Pakistan has made such a threat.
To me, I would much prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, and not risk another outbreak of war with Iran. Let the awkward relationships continue. The risk of some use of nuclear weapons as an outcome, is just not acceptable. I have referred to the elephant in the room as the Failsafe risk, after the old cold war best seller for some time. I wonder how many policy advisers have read the book and understand this risk? Coincidentally, I had heard a youtuber a couple of days ago, talking about not having a backup for Starlink which was necessary because China already knew how to shut it down. How many times can one play the same hand?
己所不欲，勿施于人。