Fedex changed the world of shipping. They came up with the idea that everything would be taken to a regional hub, sorted, and then sent back out. So wanting to send a package from Orlando to Miami could result in the package going to Atlanta before being sorted and sent back out to Miami.
Even though it seems counter intuitive, it is actually faster and more efficient to do it that way. I fully understand that.
However, I don’t understand what is happening right now. I ordered a tablet computer on Monday.
It shipped via USPS two day air on Monday evening from Pineville, North Carolina.
Six hours later, it arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Twelve hours later, it arrived in Jacksonville, FL.
Nine hours after that, it arrived in New Castle, Delaware
From there, it went to Wilmington, Delaware.
Another 13 hours, and it arrived in Philadelphia.
Twelve hours later, it left Philadelphia.
Now, six hours after it was last seen, and two days after it was shipped, no one appears to know where it is.
This is the tenth package that has disappeared for me in the past two and a half months.
Orlando will soon be paying criminals to not commit crimes, and to counsel others to avoid crime as well. Called “neighborhood change agents,” they will be individuals who have similar backgrounds, come from similar communities as those who are at risk of committing violent crimes. They may be people who got in trouble as youth themselves, who have been arrested, and involved in gangs. According to the program:
Neighborhood Change Agents” (NCAs) who will intervene to disrupt situations when violence appears imminent, and maintain daily contact with participants, serving as mentors, case managers and life coaches. Their goal will be to pivot participants away from circumstances leading toward violence, and instead to non-violent, economically, and socially productive lives.
So this year, as you are filing your taxes, remember that this is where your hard earned money is going: you are paying protection money to criminals in the hopes that they won’t kill you. I don’t even know why we need cops anymore.
Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis remember my credit card problem. If not, let’s recap:
In October, I found a charge on my credit card for $340. It was from Google advertising.
I promptly disputed it.
Three months later, the CC company told me that they investigated the charge and determined it was valid
The reason for that determination was that the vendor had provided documentation.
I asked for a copy of this documentation.
In the meantime, I was not happy with the support I was getting from the credit card company, Barclay bank, so I decided to apply for a card from another bank. I figured that with a credit score of 815, I could get any card I wanted. I was correct. I got a cash back card with a large credit limit and even more favorable terms than the one I was using.
I recently got a call from Barclay’s management team. They decided that the charge was not authorized after all, and told me that the charge would be credited back to the card. When I asked the manager where the documentation was that I requested, the caller danced around it and made vague noises without actually admitting what I already knew: they don’t have any documentation.
Taking the charge off was too little, too late. My new card came in the mail today and I will be taking my business elsewhere. Of course I won’t cancel the card. I will simply stick it in a drawer and stop using it. That way it stays as a positive tradeline on my credit report.
While it is good news that we aren’t going to war, the fact that Biden is a completely inept pussy is bad news for the US reputation. Now that the rest of the world knows that the US is a paper tiger, expect more countries to make this nation into their bitch.
That doesn’t mean that I am trying to say that we should get involved with Ukraine, because we shouldn’t. The point is that Biden should have seen that from the beginning, instead of running his mouth and proving to the world that he is completely impotent.
The problem here is that Putin has just exposed the US for what it is- an Emperor that has no clothes. The US military, though large, is not capable enough to accomplish all of the missions that it has been tasked with.
An email from Jack asks what software I am using for my flight tracking. I tried to answer him, but the email bounced, so I am posting it here. The answer is that I am using globe.adsbexchange.com/ to do most of the flight tracking on this blog.
Another reader sends me a link to an excellent app called skyglass. It can be found online here. The advantage of this software is that it can see aircraft that the first link above can’t see.
Mark sends a link to the following intel briefing, that coincidentally uses skyglass. Check it out, it is definitely worth some of your time.
This supports my theory that the US is increasing its alert levels for CONUS security.
As I have mentioned before, I keep an eye on military air activity in and around the US, and there has been some unusual activity since the weird goings on from the unexplained ground stop on January 11. It’s been cold and raining, so I can’t get any work done outside. I already fixed the faulty sensor in the dishwasher, so I am sitting here online.
There are Russian ships doing what the Soviets did during the cold war: they are sitting just offshore of our Naval facilities, keeping an eye on things, as well as Russian long range aircraft nearing US Pacific bases. The US is responding by flying more P8 and drone patrols off the coast of Jacksonville and King’s Bay, Hawaii, Norfolk, and Puget Sound. For example, here is a track of two aircraft near Cape Canaveral:
The Blue one is a P8 Poseidon antisubmarine patrolling between 8,000 and 25,000 feet. The yellow is an unidentified military aircraft that has been patrolling at 6,000 to 10,000 feet.
There are similar tracks up and down the east coast. For example, here are another pair of P8s patrolling just to the north of Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, which is the main ammunition shipping terminal for the east coast.
Here is a P3 Orion (the lime green one) and a P8, both patrolling off the coast of Jacksonville. The orange aircraft is a P8 that appears to be landing in Jacksonville. What is different about the P3, is that it has a magnetic anomaly detector, while the P8 does not. The MAD allows for the localization of large metallic objects, like submarines.
The P3 is being phased out of service, with only two reserve squadrons left that still operate the aircraft.
Also, last night I tracked an E6 Mercury that took off from Andrews and flew a racetrack that extended from Andrews down to Miami. They were on their second lap when I went to bed last night at around 2200. Here is an E6 taking off at noon from Pax River:
The E6 is a command and control aircraft for America’s nuclear submarines. Keep in mind that the US claims that no nuclear control aircraft are on airborne alert. Other than for training, the US has claimed since 1990 that they no longer maintain a continuous airborne alert. That apparently hasn’t been the case for the past two weeks, at least. The one that I have observed on the east coast flies up and down the coast. A west coast E6 has been seen flying out to sea before disappearing over the pacific, or has been seen appearing out of the pacific and flying back. Here it is, leaving California, headed out into the Pacific at 1315:
There was a surveillance drone circling off the Georgia coast at an altitude of over 30,000 feet for more than 12 hours yesterday. The racetrack ran from about the latitude of Jacksonville, FL all the way to the South Carolina border, about 60 miles offshore. The drone both took off an landed in the Jacksonville area.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this: Either the US military is greatly increasing its training tempo, or its alert status. Either way, this is interesting.
In the event that Russia DOES invade the Ukraine, expect Joe the Potato to use US troops in response. This won’t just be a land war like it was with ISIS. Russia isn’t sending over 100 ships to the region because they think it will be restricted warfare. Expect this conflict, if it happens, to quickly escalate to unrestricted air, sea, and virtual warfare.
There will be severe disruptions of Internet service, virtual attacks on infrastructure, and there is a real possibility of conventional Russian air attacks on US cities, especially cities with US military bases, large air ports, and US sea ports.
The Russians have made contingency plans for this escalating, which is why the Russian boomers all sortied back in late November. Just another thing to be prepared for. Be sure that you have the ability to do without Internet, power, water, and supply deliveries for a period of time.
I awoke this morning to find an email in my inbox from the Florida Department of Health. In that letter, Florida healthcare providers find a notice that the FDA has revoked the EUA for all monoclonal antibody treatments used in treating COVID.
January 24, 2022 On January 24, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reissued the emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for Eli Lilly’s bamlanivimab-etesevimab (administered together) and Regeneron’s REGEN-COV (casirivimab and imdevimab) monoclonal antibody treatments, which states these treatments are not authorized for use in any U.S. state, territory, or jurisdiction at this time. The full FDA press release can be found here.
Corresponding revisions have been made to the authorized fact sheets for bamlanivimab-etesevimab and REGEN-COV. These fact sheets are available of the FDA’s website.
As a result of the reissued EUAs, health care practitioners in Florida are no longer authorized to administer these monoclonal antibody treatments to patients, effective immediately. Further, all state-supported monoclonal antibody sites are closed effective immediately due to the abrupt change from the FDA.
Resources for emerging treatments can be found at HealthierYouFL.org. Pharmacies that have received allocations of antiviral treatments can be found at FloridaHealthCOVID19.gov.
The full Florida Department of Health press release can be found here.
This is important, because to this point, monoclonal antibodies were the only effective treatment for COVID.
So DeSantis simply signed an agreement with the manufacturers to buy the drugs directly from them. The the Governor announced in December that the state of Florida would be giving the treatment free to anyone in the state with COVID.
The Federal government claims that the monoclonal antibody treatments don’t work, but that a new pill from Merck does. So, they ask, “Why is Gov. DeSantis more interested in promoting medicines that don’t work than urging people to take vaccines that do?”
To that, I ask: If the monoclonal antibodies didn’t work, then why did the Biden administration cut off supplies to Southern states in order to supply northern states? Just in August, the Feds were saying
“Four different monoclonal antibody treatments have been granted Emergency Use Authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and have proven largely effective at preventing hospitalization and death from Covid-19. The treatment developed by Regeneron, for example, reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by 70% in studies. “
Let me tell you what this really is: We have a President who has a 33% approval rating and obviously cannot run in 2024 with a snowball’s chance of winning the election, even with massive voter fraud. He may in fact, wind up being the first President ever with single digit approval ratings.
So the remaining field looks like this:
For the Democrats, polling indicates that Harris’ approval for President is 35%, compared to Michelle Obama’s 16%, and AOC trailing at 7%.
For the Republicans, Donald Trump would win against either Harris or Biden. That is going to be taken care of with criminal charges. Before 2024, the Democrats are going to convict Trump of something that will prohibit him from running.
If Trump isn’t in the mix, DeSantis received 30%, Pence grabbed 24% and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz nailed 14%. In a race between Biden and DeSantis, Biden has a 42% to 36% lead, but DeSantis is a virtual unknown to voters outside of Florida. Once a campaign begins, he would gain significant support. In fact, DeSantis has been gaining support for months.
In August, DeSantis was at 27%. Now he is near 40%. This worries the Democrats.
Therefore, DeSantis must be eliminated from the race if the Democrats want to tilt the election in their favor. Taking the wind from his COVID sails is the entire point of cutting off monoclonal antibody treatments.
COVID is a political weapon. It has been since the beginning, and will continue to be. The left will stop at nothing to win elections and get more power. They are going to use every tool that they have: biological warfare, violence, and voter fraud. All of it. They will not stop until they have complete and total control of this country.
A Democrat in the Florida Senate is claiming that “someone” stole nude photos of her way back in 2000 and has been disseminating those on the Internet. She wants to pass a new law in Florida that would make it a felony to steal photos from someone’s phone, or to create fake photos of someone.
The bill sponsored by Book, a Democrat, gets its first committee hearing Tuesday. It would strengthen Florida’s revenge porn law by making it a felony to steal sexually explicit images from someone’s phone or other digital devices. It would also make disseminating altered or created sexually explicit images, known as deepfakes, a felony.
Here’s the thing: Ms. Book was 16 years old in 2000, when she claims her nude pictures were ‘stolen’ from her. It’s already a felony for people to trade in nude photos of minors. She is trying to use what happened to her to insinuate that the pictures were taken of her without her permission by her rapist. That isn’t at all what happened. She claims that she has no idea how the pictures were ‘stolen’ from her.
What really happened is that she took the pictures herself, and then freely sent them to someone else. It was that person who disseminated the pictures further. As proof, I offer this article from the Miami Herald, and a quote:
Book — whose name is redacted — complained to FDLE that she had received multiple text messages from an unknown number that included two photographs of the senator “with exposed breasts” and also threatened to “leak the photos to Fox and her career would be over.” Kamperveen also allegedly texted sexually explicit photos that included female genitalia and the portrayal of a sexual act, and asked for $5,000 in gift cards in exchange for destroying the photos. Book told agents that she recognized the pictures of her breasts as those “she had taken of herself and only shared with a close friend.”
So let’s sum up what actually happened: Ms. Book took some nude phots of herself when she was 16 years old. She sent them to a boy she was infatuated with, and that boy didn’t keep the pictures to himself. This is a story that plays out all of the time in high school.
The Internet is forever, and things like this will continue to haunt her for the rest of her life. This is why I was constantly telling my high school students that putting your entire life on social media, and taking these sorts of pictures is a bad idea. The don’t listen. Teenagers never do, because they think they know everything.
Back to Ms. Book. Ms. Book mindlessly took nude photos of herself and distributed them. It was a foolish, slutty thing to do. She now has to live with the consequences of that. That doesn’t mean that she needs to be extorted for money, but the man who tried to use that to extort money from her broke the law. He will be punished for that.
It’s already a crime to be in possession of child porn. It’s already a crime to extort money from others. That isn’t good enough for Ms. Book, who is now a powerful politician, and wants to pass laws that aren’t needed and wouldn’t have done a thing in her case.
Here is the issue that I have with this proposed law: It would make it a crime to possess any picture “showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area, or buttocks with less than a fully opaque covering; or the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple; or the depiction of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state.”
This law goes too far, and it will be far too easy for people to unknowingly fall afoul of this overly broad law. Think about how this picture would be made illegal by this bill:
Here are some of the bills being sponsored by Ms. Book in the 2022 session:
Eliminating the statute of limitations for sex crimes if the victim was under 16 at the time of the alleged crime. This would mean that a person who is 50 years old could accuse you of a sex crime that occurred 35 years ago. (Think Justice Kavanaugh). How hard will it be to establish an alibi or find witnesses in your defense?
In a side note, Ms. Book also famously voted against 2021’s Senate Bill 86, which requires the state to list college majors that don’t lead to employment. This has lead to degrees like women’s studies and 14th century French poetry being labelled as the waste of time and money that they are.
