Monday, June 01, 2020

I have been laying low.



Almost all of us are under curfew as the burbs are now in the cross hairs. Updated - I'm now under curfew. Which is worse than the pandemic stay at home order. At least then you were free to move around. You were just recommended not to do so.

I was down in San Jose on Friday afternoon before things got crazy. We decided that we didn't want to get stuck in a conflict on the freeway so we have been avoiding that area. I also decided to dash cam up before we fully attempt that, but it hasn't been delivered yet.

The first sign things were weird was this notification yesterday. We are not anywhere near San Fransisco.

All weekend twitter had been filled with people from Oakland putting out the call to loot the burbs. They had mostly set their sites on the fancier ones. Then last night we went to the city next to me to get chicken from my Chickfila substitute. It's closed on Sundays, and Koreans do some pretty amazing chicken.

The police were blocking roads and freeway entrances. At first we didn't know that town was suppose to have a protest. You really have to be dedicated to loot out here. It's the burbs and things are pretty spread out.

The chicken place is right next to some car dealerships and they were blocking all the entrances with trucks. Apparently we were their last order and were told to close. Which sucks for them. They are already hurting from the lockdown.

Apparently there is suppose to be a protest later this afternoon. That city has a Best Buy and they are moving all the appliances off the showroom floor. Which is pretty impressive I have to say. That is a lot of work. The showroom is big.

I'm sure everything will be fine - but this far out I think looters would be somewhat surprised at how many 2A people live out here. Even Democrats are locked and loaded. I wouldn't call the town conservative by any measure, but they all think they are because they own guns. They will still spend all your money though.

14 comments:

  1. Yikes!
    I've been hearing of protests in the nearest big city hereabouts, but no rioting; I guess the Stalinist boogers don't think it's a good place to try starting a war.
    Out here where the population density is low, there's been no sign of trouble, though I assume many of the neighbors are checking their weapons just in case. (I decline to comment on what measures we might be taking, nor on the status of the army of giant robots.)

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  2. Stay safe

    My husband turned to me (Saturday night I think) and said "I'm so glad you talked me into buying a house way out here in the middle of nothing". And so am !

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  3. Thanks Baby. I'm not near the downtown really.

    Our Governor basically came out and told businesses that all the damage was all their fault because of their racism. Not because Cities hire dirty cops.

    Eric - if you are building an army of giant robots maybe I ~will~ move.

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  4. Capital of Texas RefugeeMonday, June 01, 2020 9:28:00 PM

    Eric: "I guess the Stalinist boogers don't think it's a good place to try starting a war."

    Knoxville's really a conservative town, but if you want to see the mess, The Massachusetts of Dixie has a few options.

    Asheville's within easy driving distance, go check it out!

    Response in Florida has varied.

    Miami-Dade sits around waiting for the "protesters" to trash more shit downtown, while Polk County in Central Florida has gone hard-edged and is flying at least one of their police choppers and planes at all times according to ADSB.

    Every Federale with choppers, planes, and drones to spare has been flying over Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties.

    I don't have to do any facilitating down there because it appears during The Rona, I'm just as effective on the phone, so I've been staying put.

    These city powder kegs aren't helping with moving, however.

    BTW, is there a city of any significance on the coasts that isn't Circle D?

    I thought about this because I realized that the entire country has let bigger cities go to shit under Circle D management.

    Circle R moved out of the cities to the suburbs and rural areas after the "civil rights marches" of the 1960s and 1970s, during one of which my father had to shoot a "protester" at point blank range in the face with a 1911.

    Those looters really don't shoot themselves.

    The Seattle Times has an interesting picture of a blonde white chick "protester", BTW -- she had some kind of flammable aerosol that she's using to set some unfortunate blue van on fire.

    Looks like she could afford nice clothing as well.

    That's what professional agitators look like, BTW.

    So let me ask you this: where did you think all of those bricks came from for the riots?

    I know of at least two cities where there were conveniently stacked bricks for "protesters" despite those places being under some sort of health-related lockdown.

    But don't worry about the Koreans, they probably have Korean Rooftop Voters to protect them, and also they might have a new alliance from Italian Bake Shop Voters. :-)

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  5. A couple of updates:
    Apparently there was some vandalism in the Local Big City over the weekend.
    And, unrelatedly I'm sure, there seems to be more than the usual amount of target shooting going on out here in the countryside.

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  6. Capital of Texas Refugee, you can add another city if it's not already on your list. Fort Wayne, IN had a pallet of bricks conveniently delivered downtown the day before the protest. Just left under one of the viaducts.

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  7. Daisy! I haven't seen you in forever. The city next to me allegedly found some too. I didn't see any pictures or corroboration. Good to see you. Stay safe.

    Eric - our area was eventless. The protest was small and peaceful. Although one of the fancier burbs moved their entire car fleets somewhere else. San Leandro apparently didn't get the advance notice and allegedly got their entire fleet of Hellcats robbed. (since you know the area) HERE.

    It's just not that gratifying to damage stuff out here. The car lots are not near downtown, or the malls. So you kind of have to pick your target. And none of those things are walkable from each other.

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  8. "BTW, is there a city of any significance on the coasts that isn't Circle D?"

    Why? You thinking of trying the coasts?

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  9. I'm here, I just tend to lurk. Glad y'all are doing well. Seeing people post helps me know they're okay.

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  10. Capital of Texas RefugeeWednesday, June 03, 2020 3:45:00 PM

    Snarkie: About the coastal cities ...

    I wouldn't have minded being in a coastal city that isn't fucked up.

    While talking with my lawyer friend, we realized that there are no cities of any significance on any of America's coasts that aren't fucked up by Circle D.

    Along with being an anarcho-capitalist, when I have to put up with the existence of The State, I'm more like a Jacksonian democrat: leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, I won't mess with people if they don't mess with me, but violate those rules and I'll bring Blanket Parties for all those involved.

    But the big reason why I'm checking out is that not only are the coastal cities fucked up, but also a lot of the inland cities.

    My family moved out of a city into a remote area just because of that bullshit that went on in the 1960s and 1970s, when you couldn't assume it was safe to go on a walk anywhere.

    That's how I got to grow up in the middle of nowhere.

    Where I grew up, you had to go walking with a rifle because of shit you might encounter along the walk.

    Because nobody could build a tech business in the middle of nowhwere back then, that's how I wound up in Austin and then in Seattle.

    Now with the Internet, that's less of a thing, and we'd been able to run everything out of a few warehouse spaces across Florida and elsewhere after ditching what passed for an HQ.

    Distributed business structures that don't take up space on Biscayne Boulevard or Brickell Avenue are really appealing to people who prefer not to have their businesses targeted by opportunistic assholes, BTW.

    I lived a short distance off Brickell Avenue only because I liked the attractive blondes in the area.

    But no, "the blonde" is not from Miami, she's from a smaller town in Florida.

    Everything that looked like it was attractive in American cities has over time turned out to be considerably not all that attractive, especially the people.

    Know what I'm looking forward to in a few weeks to months when the COVID Crazy stops?

    A few nice long walks in Zurich, because it's not all eaten up with crazy and unsafe areas that you have to be constantly mindful about.

    If Sweden's not a problem, maybe I'll go back and visit my old neighborhood in Stockholm again, and maybe I'll drop in on people I've kept up there.

    I tried doing my long walks in Miami, but I gave up after a while, BTW.

    Those I'd reserve for Key West and Saint Augustine which were much more civilized small towns.

    I moved to where I am so I could head over to Seaside occasionally which is a civilized small town as well.

    America's so fucked up that the police around Los Angeles arrested Ray Bradbury just for walking decades ago ...

    "Walking in L.A. ... NOBODY WALKS IN L.A.!" :-)

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  11. "I'm here, I just tend to lurk. Glad y'all are doing well. Seeing people post helps me know they're okay."

    Awwww. Good to know. You really have been with me a minute. I think you are probably one of my oldest readers. Not in age, just, you are pretty much ride or die at this point. I'm glad you popped your head up for a second. Take care of yourself and your family. Good to see you.

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  12. Texas Refugee - And all the pieces come together. ;-)

    I was going to go see if Middle California was salvageable. You don't hear much out of them. So I don't know what the climate is. I'm generally happy if they just mind their own bidness. (purposely misspelled) I will let you know.

    Everywhere is pretty dysfunctional right now. Covid brought out ALL the crazy. No one really wants to fix things - they just want to fight about it. And generally I think it's the same the world over. At least if things go sideways here, you can move to another region. I'd love to think that you'd find your happily ever after over there. But I give it a greater chance you are just on a plane back here anyway. Because all those Swedes are at every fucking thing I go to. Those stupid fucking bikes that are everywhere. THEY are half the reason we have all this douchie shit here. Don't kid yourself. They aren't happy minding their own business either. They just fly here and try to micromanage us.

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  13. Capital of Texas RefugeeWednesday, June 03, 2020 8:01:00 PM

    "Because all those Swedes are at every fucking thing I go to."

    They're overcompensating: they're doing this because they dream of America with all of those bikes they can't ride safely during the winter, not understanding the vast distances between places where bicycles = certain death from over-exertion and exposure.

    When the streets of Stockholm are barely passable slush and hard-pack ice for all but the most skilled of riders, what do you think they do? They dream of parts of America that don't get frozen over.

    Whereas I can't give a crap about bicycles anyway because I have mild inner ear problems that essentially mean that bicycles = certain death from losing my balance.

    People I know think I'm goofing around and doing some kind of silly dance moves when I am actually catching myself from falling over.

    Besides, I've lived in Stockholm before, remember?

    I'd only be going there to visit.

    But I've been watching the Swiss, and they were really, really worried about Ticino (or Tessin in French). Things got bad there very quickly because that's the Swiss border canton with Italy, and Northern Italy had been hit hard by this mess.

    And yet even with lockdowns, it didn't get crazy stupid in Switzerland, although Bellinzona was in a pretty severe panic for a while.

    They didn't do like the French with their stupid fucking police going crazy with citations, they didn't do like the British with their stupid fucking police going Full Karen, and they are still on schedule for opening everything back up in the next week or so.

    That is what I meant when I said there were better people to be in lockdown with.

    Because the Swiss behaved out of concern and didn't appear to go Full Asshole on everyone.

    I'm not OK with lockdowns, but if you have to have them, they can be done by people who aren't unforgiving bastards with some need to play power games.

    Which is totally unlike this shit going on now in America, n'est ce pas?

    So here's this Fun Fact you can use on Swedes ...

    Bestial porn is legal in Sweden.

    These people think it's 100% OK to have porn involving farm animals.

    AND JUST WHO ARE THE BIGGER REDNECKS HERE?

    I love Stockholm and Sweden for a lot of things, but a lot of people there really are city rednecks whose ancestors long ago formed a small empire and tried to conquer a few things before backsliding into what they always were. :-)

    But as for walks ... I can't think of a city besides Moscow where there's such beautiful stuff on display in the mass transit system as Stockholm.

    Seriously, go look on Google for something like "Stockholm T-Bana art". That and getting my exercise without much of a hassle are good reasons for visiting, along with seeing old friends again.

    Also: there is no happily ever after for me anywhere that's The State.

    There are places that fuck with me less, but that never goes to zero.

    BTW, this is not an excuse to play Ancap Bingo with me by making me claim the "YOU SHOULD MOVE TO SOMALIA" square, because they do have The State and it's much dumber and way more incompetent. :-)

    But yes, The COVID Crazy is what I've been calling the reaction to The Rona for a while.

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  14. "I'm not OK with lockdowns, but if you have to have them, they can be done by people who aren't unforgiving bastards with some need to play power games."

    As I've said before I think the lockdowns have limited benefit. Sort of like a bell curve. There isn't a single person alive who won't try to get around them. So a soft lockdown is preferable at best. And now we are at the stage of backlash. I think companies allowing their workers to voluntarily lockdown is the better way. People will react accordingly. There is no need to be a Karen. People who are afraid will protect themselves. People who are not... well... let's see if this is real or not. They can go first. We all are happy. Right?

    I think the problem is that everyone has so overshared that people think they have a right to someone else business. Just shut the fuck up and get your own house in order. Mind ya Bidness!

    "Bestial porn is legal in Sweden."

    Illegal or not, it still exists. True story from about two weeks ago. My girlfriend was telling me that she went out on a date with this guy who turned out to be creepy. He was sharing videos he had on his phone. Some of it was porn. Then she tells me - then he pulled up this other video of a guy having sex with a chicken. Now I've been on the net ~forever~. There isn't much I haven't seen at this point.

    I literally said to her - I hate that I'm curious about this, but did he kill it? I didn't even know chickens were in the mix.

    The thing with making things illegal is - it doesn't make them go away. That is the reality of the world. It's illegal here, but here you have this story about my girlfriend. I mean I get where Sweden is coming from. Thankfully or hopefully the prevalence of that is not that common. Do you really want a bunch of guys who are into horse porn in lockup?

    "Besides, I've lived in Stockholm before, remember? I'd only be going there to visit."

    Well.... carry on then.

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