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One of the items in my discussion on the fires in LA, I posted that there are problems with building homes out of fireproof materials. Someone asked what that could be, and I would like to expand on that a bit. Let me begin by saying that I am not an engineer, so I will be giving you a firefighter’s perspective on this, meaning that my knowledge is broad but shallow on the topic.

Building homes to be entirely fireproof has long been a goal. Attempting this is how we wound up with things like Asbestos. One of the things that was tried in the wake of the Chicago fire in 1871 was to build homes with a fireproof roof. In the aftermath of that fire, a great many homes in the US were built with slate roofing tiles. It appeared as though the problem was solved. No more would fire brands land on your roof and burn down your house.

Until 1900, when a hurricane struck Galveston, Texas. The storm was estimated to be a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The winds of the storm, estimated to be over 140 miles per hour, ripped those slate tiles from the roofs of the homes, and many people were killed by these flying stone axes.

It’s difficult to find building materials that withstand all conditions, and when you do, those materials make building homes prohibitively expensive. Even were one to build homes like that, the radiant heat coming through the glass of the windows will ignite materials inside of the house.

It is still a cheaper and easier solution to manage forests, create a defensible space around your home, and take other preventative measures. The issue is that people who move to “the country” like having the woods and other plant materials growing right next to the house.

As we enter the last day of 2024, take a moment and reflect on this:

The last day of the Carter administration was 44 years ago, ending in 1981. In 1981, we were closer to the attack on Pearl Harbor than we are to the end of the Carter administration today.

The actress who played Alice in the TV sitcom bearing the same name has passed away at the age of 87.

I remember watching this show as a child. It seems as though portions of my childhood keep dying off.

Added:

It also seems that she was a detective on the show Barney Miller, but I don’t remember her on there.

What caliber for monkeys who are infected with a deadly virus and escaped from a research lab?

A cop comes to your door after 9 o’clock at night, asking you to step outside. His reason for being there is that he saw your car run a red light 3 hours earlier, while he was off duty and driving his own personal vehicle on the way to the gym. If you go to the Twitter post below, you can watch the video that was captured by the woman’s doorbell camera. The video is in multiple parts. (Sorry, still having issues embedding tweets.)

When the woman refused to step outside, he stated that he is going to mail a traffic citation. The problem that I have is the woman talked too much. I give her a C. What she should have done is:

• Don’t answer the door. This is what doorbell cameras are for.
• Through the camera: “Do you have a warrant? No? Then leave my property.”
• Then stop interacting with him while you record the entire thing.
• In most jurisdictions, cops don’t have the right to arrest for a misdemeanor without a warrant, unless it is happening right in front of them at that moment. This guy is clearly out of bounds.
• You want to mail me a ticket? Go ahead, asshole. I will hire a lawyer for this one. I don’t care what it costs, I will pay it.

This cop is clearly abusing his police powers to settle his road rage issues. The ticket likely won’t hold up in court. I would love to know how this turned out, but I can’t find the rest of it anywhere.

The funny part is the people who are claiming that cops are always on duty. I would love for a cop to make this argument in court. The next question should then be, “Are you permitted to be intoxicated while on duty?”

Then there would be a follow up question: “Have you, since becoming employed as a police officer, ever been legally intoxicated?”

If the answer is yes, then the obvious question to come next is: “So which is it? Were you intoxicated on duty, or could it be that you AREN’T always on duty?”

No, cops aren’t always on duty. A Dallas cop who is in Vegas at a strip club isn’t on duty. A cop on his way to the gym in his private vehicle isn’t on duty. If he were, then he would have performed the traffic stop then. Of course, that is fraught with its own risks.

I had a guy back in 2016 who tried telling me that he was a cop and that I was under arrest. He shit a brick and ran away when I produced a handgun. I don’t believe people who claim to be cops but don’t look like one.

This woman applied for an apartment and was denied. She arrived at the management company’s offices with no fewer than four cops in tow, demanding that the police force them to rent her an apartment. Four cops over a denied rental application, which proves that the Houston police have too much time on their hands and probably need a significant budget cut.

She comes in demanding an apartment, saying that they are in violation of the “disabilities act, 206” and that the woman needs to give her the keys to the apartment “I need you to underlay for me, OK?” She even sounds stupid in Spanish.

It turns out that she was denied the apartment because she submitted paystubs that she had typed up and printed herself. The management company wouldn’t accept those and asked for three months of paystubs in order to verify income. The woman replied that paystubs are unavailable because they are evidence in an upcoming criminal case against some people who had robbed her.

The management company was a lot nicer than I would have been. When the cops asked for copies of her file, I would have told all of them to leave. There is no evidence here of a crime, and if they want the files they can talk to my attorney. Also, would you mind writing a trespassing notice to this woman? She is not allowed back in this office. Ever.

Also notice that some black woman talk with an annoying cadence while using big words salted with legal terms that they are clueless to the meaning of when they are attempting to sound smarter than they are? Don’t do that, it just makes you look stupid.

Donald Trump is Time magazine’s 2024 person of the year and will be ringing the NYSE opening bell this morning.

This is the third time Trump has been on the cover of Time this year. He went from McDonald’s employee to person of the year in only three months!

Peter asks for comments about the income tax, the EITC, and reparations over at his blog. A debate over income taxes ensues in the comments, and it perfectly illustrates our problems. Let me explain:

There are those who advocate for a 10-15% flat tax. This won’t work for one simple reason: that is nowhere near enough money. The US GDP is just over $27 trillion. The Federal government spends just under $7 trillion per year. In fact, it works out that the Federal government spends about 23% of GDP. This means that the flat tax would need to be about 24%.

Then came the people who wanted carve outs. The flat tax, they argue, should not be paid by anyone with large medical expenses, the poor, Social Security recipients, or half a dozen other special categories, which means that it wouldn’t be long before the new flat tax code would be just as byzantine as the current one.

There was a guy arguing that a flat or sales tax wouldn’t be fair because poor people would pay a higher proportion of their wages than rich people. Hogwash- flat tax means everyone pays the same flat percentage. Why do so many people want to punish success and reward failure, sloth, and laziness? Not only that, but many on the left say that the rich don’t pay enough taxes under the current system.

Then there are the types who say since the government always runs a deficit, why not eliminate all taxes and just run the government 100% on deficits.

Most people, even those who claim to be conservative, are wholly ignorant of the situation and only want the rules changed to benefit themselves.

Here is the problem:

The US government spends a total of $6.8 trillion a year. Of that amount, $3.7 trillion was mandatory spending, otherwise known as entitlements. In other words, money that has to be paid out by law: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Compensation, Refundable Tax Credits, Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and other mandatory spending. Another $890 billion is interest on the debt that we already owe, bringing the total outlay for mandatory spending to $4.6 trillion. The government only collected $4.5 trillion in taxes. So without spending a dime on the rest of the things that the government must do: defense, courts, prisons, and all of the alphabet agencies, the government is already running a deficit of $100 billion. Add in all of those expenditures, and the deficit rises to $2.2 trillion. 

There is no amount of cutting that is going to fix this. The math is eventually going to sink this fiscal ship. Those who think it will might as well buy a violin and learn how to play Nearer My God to Thee, for all of the good it will do.

The IRS is stupid and lazy, and your government is evil. Read this story and tell me about justice. You don’t hate our government nearly enough.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.