Twenty Five Years Ago Now

Twenty Five years ago:

8:46 am - the Islamic hijackers crash American Airlines Flight 175 into the North Tower.

9:30 am - The South Tower is then struck.

9:37 am - The Pentagon is struck.

9:57 am - the heroes on board United Airlines Flight 93 fight back and try to take the plane back from the hijackers, or at the very least stop them from using the plane in yet another attack.

9:58 am  - The South Tower collapses.

10:03 am - United 93 crashes into a field in Pennsylvania,  all aboard perish, but the Islamic hijackers intent to crash the plane into a monumental building in Washington DC is foiled.

10:15 am - Five stories of the Pentagon collapse due to the fire from American Flight 77.

10:28 am -  The North Tower collapses.

At least 2,977 were murdered that day, twenty-five years ago, the youngest being two and a half years old, a passenger on Flight 175.

We may not be at war with Islam, but Islam sure as heck has been and still is at war with us.

The majority of the denizens of New York City have forgotten.  25 years later they have voted in a Muslim, who in commemoration of the event, he as a progressive Islamic Mayor of New York directed his Jewish police chief to hand the pen that he signed mayoral orders marking 9/11 to Mamdani's chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem who previously represented al-Qaeda operative Ahmed al-Darbi.

You cannot make that up.  

Hopefully, unlike the progressive Democrats of NYC, and the Democrats of Michigan looking to be voting for El-Sayed, you haven't forgotten.

Nashville - The Iconic Recession Lunch

After the riverboat, I headed to an iconic Honky Tonk.  As one does.

Robert's Western World.

 

The place was jam-packed, standing room only, and barely enough room to stand. 

After a while, manged to get a seat at the bar. The bar tenders never stopped working for an instant, but they were attentive and friendly the entire time which was cool.

Great music,  a fun atmosphere, and it was time to order lunch. 

Probably the cheapest lunch on Broadway:

Yep, I ordered the famous Recession Special.

It arrived reasonably quickly as the cook was also jammed up with people ordering the special, among other dishes.

 

It's the iconic order there. 

But, the fried baloney served with lettuce and tomato was tasty, filling, and the included PBR worked with it,  as did the chips and Moon Pie for dessert. It was the cheapest lunch I've had out just about anywhere.

Stayed for some tunes and then decided to do a bit of a bar crawl.

Next stop was Tootsies Orchid Lounge, back in the day, prior to 1979, the hang out for the Opry performers as the Ryman Auditorium where the Opry had been located, was next door. 

A solid live band was performing:

 

Had a local brew, Hap and Harry's Lager, which was ok, and listened to some tunes. 

Then headed off to do some more wandering around. 

Nashville - To The River

The Cumberland River that is, for a riverboat tour.

 Walked on down Broadway to the riverfront. This should have been easy, but lower Broadway leading to the riverboat and the river was blocked and fenced off due to the America's Tailgate event.

So, there was quite an extensive detour to get around the stage area and then make the way to the boat. Quite a few people heading to the boat were all trying to figure it out, and while the setup people were helpful, a few gave contradictory instructions on how to get around the area to the boat.

 But we all did eventually get to the boat.

 

And a fine riverboat it is, a nice stern paddle-wheel steamer. We were checked in and welcomed on board. With three decks accessible it was easy to find space to relax and enjoy.  The bar on board didn't hurt the effort at relaxation either.

Soon we were off.

 There was a fair bit of history and information given during the tour about various buildings on the riverbanks 

Like Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans and Tennessee State Tigers Football teams.

We also learned about the many barges and such that we passed along the way.

 

You can tell the difference between a concrete barge and a sand barge very easily.

Heading down the river, we also got to see a fellow on a Sea-Doo doing some impressive stunts.

 

In addition to jumps he did complete flips.

The fellow was able to do a series of complete loops as he flipped the Sea-Doo in the air multiple times in a row, landing successfully each time until:

 

He mistimed this one and then wiped out most impressively, leaving a splash behind as he completely buried the Sea-Doo and himself underwater.

He got up, shook himself off, got the Sea-Doo going, and headed on his way. 

Quite fun to watch and he did do 10 successfully, so a single wipe out is no diminishment of the skill demonstrated.

We then headed back to the dock and debarked in good order.

The River Boat tour was fun, informative and a great time. A highly recommended activity if you're visiting Nashville.

It was a darn nice river tour.  Then everyone was walking around the stage setup again, and it was on to Broadway for lunch. 

Nashville - To The Opry!

I spent this weekend in Nashville,  taking some time to enjoy the city.

Arrived there on Saturday after a pleasant flight and checked into the hotel.

I then walked from the hotel to the WeGo bus station which was about a 20 minute walk along Broadway and Rep John Lewis Way. It was sunny and hot in the low 90s.

On my walk, I passed by quite a few homeless people and meth-heads, of which there was a strong overlap.

One in particular was busy loudly arguing with himself most vociferously, and a but further on a meth lady was getting in another homeless person's face and barking like a dog at him which was interesting to watch as I strolled on by.  I decided not to remain around and see the entire interaction play out, as it was the very definition of "Not my circus, not my monkeys", leaving plenty of space between me and the meth-heads.

Got to the bus station and then hopped on the #34 bus to Opry Mills.  Pretty easy system to figure out and the bus ride was pleasant with few people on the bus.

Got off at the last stop at  Opry Mills.

Since this was the south, I had a meal at Mission BBQ, which was very good, with great friendly service and a nice atmosphere.  I made short work of the Brisket platter which was excellent.

Then it was off to the Opry.

Getting there was a tad complicated as the easy walkway from the Opry Mills Mall to the Opry was closed for some reason, necessitating a wide detour around a pretty trafficy road on foot without much room  for pedestrians.  But, I made it.

 

The Opry is a live radio show that has been running since the 1920s.

Went in and got seated for the show. 

The show is broadcast live on air and the announcer would announce the performers and also read out advertisements from sponsors in between performances in a most warm and welcoming voice.

Before the show officially starts, the announcer gave a nice audio/visual show giving the history of the Opry which was a nice introduction.

The On Air signs lit up and the show began. 

 We got to listen to some great performers:

It opened with Mark Wills:

Stefanie Quayle, who sang a Dolly Parton song -- and absolutely nailed it. Dolly had encouraged her to keep on singing early in her career and this was a wonderful tribute.

 

Medium Build did his debut at the Opry and you could tell he was all sorts of excited to do so, and he really gave a performance.

Charles Esten, who first performed solo and then in a duet for Islands In The Stream in honor of Dolly.

 Note he's not using a strap to hold the guitar in place.  He didn't use one the entire time he was on stage which was impressive.

 

Keith And Kristen Getty along with two of their daughters, for the daughters' first time on stage at the Opry and they did great. 

 

Tommy Emanuel, who dazzled  everyone with his amazing guitar playing.

 

John Conlee who did a very meaningful and emotional rendition of A Lot of Things Different that boright down the house:

The Oak Ridge Boys who sang Elvira, with one of them sporting the most epic beard to grace the stage closed out the show

It was a great performance.

After the show, I went to the Opry gift shop, and then after having some after show beverages decided to take an Uber back to the hotel as walking late at night back through the meth-elated area didn't seem like the wisest decision.

It was a great first day in Nashville.  If you happen to be in Nashville and the Opry has a performance, be sure to go to it, it is really worth it.

Gov Whitmer In Favor of Blocking Entry Of At Least Some Illegal Immigrants

So long as they are just fish, she's otherwise just fine with illegals coming to and staying in this state.

The Detroit Free Press:  Why stop-work order on Great Lakes carp barrier was suddenly lifted

Work on a more than $1 billion project to deter invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes is set to resume in Illinois, after the Trump administration lifted a stop-work order following a direct appeal from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to President Donald Trump. 

She's in favor of effective barriers to keep invaders out, but again, just for fish. 

Funny, that. If only the invasive carp could just be relabeled as "Undocumented finned immigrants"  she'd be all for letting them flood in.

What's Missing From Consumers Energy's Announcement?

The Detroit News: Consumers Energy plan calls for more than doubling capacity by 2040

Consumers Energy says it will more than double its system capacity by 2040 by using an “all-of-the-above” mix of natural gas, solar, wind, pumped and battery storage as part of a long-term supply proposal.  

Energy matters.  America's economy, businesses, and consumers all depend on available, reliable, and (relatively) inexpensive energy.

And we as a country have been deliberately negligent in maintaining that available, reliable, and (relatively) inexpensive energy - whether going for the Greenies with their no building of power plants whether coal or nuclear at all, to the Green New Deal with its demand of having unreliable solar and wind to replace reliable baseline power.

That Consumers is announcing they will double production capacity is welcome news, especially as all coal plants in Michigan have been set to close by 2032 and we're down to two nuclear plants from five and energy demand has not decreased.

In short, there's not going to be much in the way of reliable baseline production aside from some natural gas plants.  

Certainly that will be badly needed, as there's been scant increase in reliable production capacity. But notice that nuclear is missing from the  “all-of-the-above” mix.

Nuclear provides excellent baseline power and is reliable and yes, safe, and verily non-polluting and not even making those greenhouse gases the Greenies fret about, so long as you don't put communists in charge of it. 

A pity Consumers isn't leading the way with the new SMR reactors or even the large safe reactor designs. 

Tornado Warning

We are now under a Tornado Warning.

The sirens are going off, the sky is all sorts of dark, the wind is whipping impressively, and the rain is coming down in solid sheets.

So, I thought it was a good idea to quickly review tornado safety procedures:

 Good advice, that.

 Happy to be working from home today, and it is down to the basement I go.

Update:  I Did lose internet yesterday, but I didn't lose power more than a few short moments, and a few trees near me are down, but everything is back to normal with just some thunder storms around today.

At Least Some Michigan Democrat Supporters Are Waking Up

Crain's Detroit Business:  Democratic donors break with party to back Rogers over El-Sayed in Senate race

It remains to be seen whether the defections amount to an isolated break or a broader problem for Abdul El-Sayed. 

Hopefully it will indeed be considered a broader problem as all but progressives realize who he is and what he represents.

Good to see how some at least are waking up and not falling for the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and "Sacrifice Yourself for the Democratic Party" lines.

Nessel Bends The Knee To The Democrat Party

For the Democrat stalwarts, it is Party over principle, every time.

And they are calling on Democrat  Jews to be chickens for KFC.

The Democrats have their Kapos publicly urging Democrat Jews to put aside their very valid concerns over El Sayed including his support for Iran and even more locally, excusing and rationalizing of the attack on Temple Israel, so long as the Dems get to keep a Senate seat.

MSN/Detroit News: Nessel urges Jewish Dems to place world's needs above self-interest

Attorney General Dana Nessel suggested in a private speech to Jewish Democrats on Aug. 30 that they should sacrifice their own safety and comfort in exchange for what she described as "the opportunity to save the rest of humanity."

Nessel, Michigan's top law enforcement officer who is also Jewish, was honored by the Michigan Democratic Party's Jewish Caucus during a celebration in Birmingham. Members of the media were barred from the gathering.

In other words, bend the knee, vote for El-Sayed because he has a (D) after his name even though he is without a doubt extremely contrary to Jewish and indeed American interests.

This is the same Attorney General Dana Nessel who announced she was not going to the Michigan Democrat Convention due to threats against her for being Jewish due to the progressive wing of the party going full on anti-Israel and anti-Semitic in their fervor for Abdul El-Sayed.

We will also note that Ms. Nessel is a lesbian -- not that there is anything wrong with that -- yet she did not call on lesbians to sacrifice their safety and comfort to the Democrat Islamic wing of the party, the same one that has banned pride flags from flying in Hamtramck.  Funny that.

At this point Vote Blue No Matter Who has now nominated a man with a Nazi tattoo (only removed by the Dems from the race when all the polls showed he would lose); an Islamic terrorist supporter, Adam Hamawy who testified and provided material support for the World Trade Center bomber; and of course, Mamdami in NYC.

No, Don't Do That

The Detroit Free Press: Teenage e-bikers on Oakland airport runway force plane to abort landing

Teenage e-bikers on an Oakland County airport runway last week forced a pilot to abort his landing, taking the potential perils of e-bike misuse to a whole new level.

"This is very, very dangerous," Oakland County Airport Aviation Manager Cheryl Bush said. "They aren’t respecting the impact they could have on aircraft trying to get in or out or what it could do to them."

Unfortunately, the idiots made their way in to the Oakland/Southwest Airport in New Hudson from a trail at the southeast of the airport. They then crossed a taxiway and proceeded to do wheelies on the runway, forcing a landing aircraft to do a go-round to avoid them on landing.

Not smart at all to enter airport property and then go onto an active runway and mess about. 

Morons. 

That Was A Tad Unusual

Saw a rather unusual thing during a Blackbeard's night dive.

While on a night dive back on July 8 with Jim and Kevin, we came across a quite large underwater worm.

 Quite a big worm, eh?  It got quite  close to us and our lights and was wiggling along its way through the ocean. 

Things then got weird with what it did next:

 

As you can see, at 36 seconds into the second video, the worm quite simply explodes into multiple pieces right in front of us which then dissipate into the water.

None of us had seen something like that happen before and we all looked at each other like "WTF just happened?".

It turns out, some underwater polychaete worms apparently do this, and they do it on purpose.

They explode like this in order to scatter their gametes (eggs and sperm, whichever they happen to have on board), into the ocean to try and reproduce with other worms.  

You could say the experience blew this worm's mind, and verily the rest of it, all over the place.  

You could say it went out with a bang.

First time seeing it happen and quite neat to catch it on video.  

If You Owe A Bank $100 That's Your Problem, If You Owe The Bank $100 Mllion That's Their Problem. But If

Anthropic is going to end up owing the Banks $10 Billion, I expect it may become everybody's problem.

Fintech Blueprint:  AI: Banks scramble to lend $10B to Anthropic

Anthropic is asking Wall Street for more than $10B of credit.

Reuters reported that Anthropic is arranging a revolving credit facility expected to exceed $10B ahead of its IPO. The largest banks have reportedly been asked to commit around $1.25B each, second-tier banks around $1B, and others $750MM or less.

What could possibly go wrong?  

Dolly Parton Day

Dolly Parton, was by all accounts, a fantastic human being who did a lot of good things for this country and was well-liked by sane people.

With the sad news of Dolly Parton dying I'd like to join the movement for Congress (they might as well do something useful)  to introduce and then pass "Dolly Parton Day" to have a day on the calendar in her honor.

The day to be marked in her honor should be 9/25.

Sorry Abdul, It Just Doesn't Work That Way

Abdul El-Sayed is drawing some flack due to his campaign buddy Hassan Piker threatening people on his behalf, in addition to Hassan's love of communism; hatred and threats against Jews and Israel; being fine with rape as long as it is for the cause,; advocating killing capitalists (while he himself is a millionaire nepo-baby); hating white people; and saying America deserved 9/11. 

 The Hill:  El-Sayed weighs in on Piker controversy: ‘Nobody speaks for this campaign besides me’  

“But I want to be crystal clear, nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople,” he added. 

Nice try Abdul, but you were constantly on the same podium and have been arm-in-arm with Hassan Piker throughout your campaign.  Hassan Piker has campaigned and he continues to campaign on your behalf and you certainly haven't told him to stop.

As indeed are others with similar extremist and anti-American views you hang around with on the regular.  

Hassan Piker is a spokesperson for your campaign. He's a spokesperson for you to the Islamists and radical leftists and progressives out there, but he is turning off the moderate Democrats whose votes you need. Can't have that, so now you're going to play the age-old game of "Hassan doesn't speak for me " even as he continues to speak for you to your more radical and hard-core supporters.

This is the typical game of saying one thing on a subject to a credulous western  audience, and saying the more radical and contradictory thing on the same subject to  core supporters - or having alter-egos like Hassan Piker say them for you, and it isn't going to work for most people. 

Except, of course,  it will work and provide cover for the credulous fools and kapos looking for an excuse to justify supporting you, more's the pity.

Roasting Hatch Peppers

It is Hatch pepper season.

My local grocery store was having a sale so I bought a bunch.

Had a few raw that I  chopped and had on a burger for some extra taste and had the in a few other dishes.

Nice amount of heat, nothing to much bu enough to know its there, great flavor, and it tastes better than a jalapeno, IMHO. 

I had a lot leftover so I decided to roast them.

 I grilled them on a friend's propane grill.

Once all roasty,  I had them sweat in a bowl covered in plastic wrap for 15 minutes.

Then I proceeded to skin them and the burned parts came off quite easily, leaving behind wonderful and tasty roasted peppers.

 These then got placed in quart ziploc bags and put away for later use.

 I did, however, forget one rather important step.

Yep, I wasn't wearing gloves. There were no food gloves available.

So, after peeling the peppers and putting them away, I washed my hands repeatedly with dish soap, dried them and washed them again with the soap. Did that cycle 5 times. 

This should have been sufficient. 

Should have being the operative words, but it was not. 

A few hours later, I went to take out my contacts, again washing my hands well before doing so.

Nope, that didn't help either, the peppers got their revenge. 

Fingers removed contact lenses and then instantly: 

Ouch. Frack, Ouch.

I think this is probably what being pepper sprayed feels like.  

Ouch, more Ouch, and F me even more Ouch. My eyes, they were a burning, they were tearing, they were burning some more. The burning feeling  continued.

And these are Hatch peppers, not even really hot peppers!

Anyhoo, the burning sensation eventually went away. A useful lesson was learned. 

I'm now going to make sure I have some plastic food handling gloves available and on my hands whenever handling even mild peppers.

So I'd count that as a success with eight roasted peppers and a practice exposure to pepper spray all in one go.

I would however suggest to most people to forgo the exposure part and just process the peppers while wearing gloves for a far more sedate and less painful process.

Imagine, If You Will, If It Had Been Three Puppies

That Lindsay Clancy had strangled to death instead of her children.

Do you really think all these women would be lining the entry to the courthouse and sitting in wearing pink on her behalf?

PBS: Women rally in support of Lindsay Clancy at her trial

Court TV:  ‘Team Lindsay’: Hundreds line the street outside courthouse in silent support of Lindsay Clancy 

Note the pictures, every single one attending is indeed a white female and almost certainly can be classified as an AWFUL - an American, White Female University-educated Liberal.

The Suicidal Empathy of the AWFUL is fully on display here.  

But now, with ten states allowing abortion up until the very moment of birth, there is room for the suggestion of a modest proposal here:

We simply need states to respect women's choices and bodily autonomy, and to do so to meet the AWFUL's needs. We therefore must extend that cut-off to permit post-partum abortions until the child reaches real viability. 

 Perhaps that should be six years old where the child can prove they can sleep through the night and get up and feed themselves without their mother's intervention. Perhaps longer, maybe even up to 18, for after all, it depends on how the mother is feeling at the moment, and it is her choice, of course.

In all seriousness however, while she has certainly committed murder and had a multitude of options to handle the situation other than killing her children, this is again a case where mental health care in this country needs a major rework. 

It is well past time that choices are made and resources are dedicated to the  institutionalization and treatment of those who are a harm to themselves or others until it can be shown they will not be such a harm.  It is long overdue.

Lobster, No Lobster. Yes Lobster

After the shark feed we dove Lobster No Lobster.

Did you know that lobsters migrate?  They do, and neither European nor African swallows are involved.

Jacques Cousteau named this site because on one dive he found this reef just teeming with lobster. The next time he dove it there wasn't a lobster to be found.

Yes Lobster do indeed move around and migrate. 

We first dove Lobster No Lobster during the day and didn't see a single lobster.

There was a rather healthy reef system there.

 And smiling fish

 

There were also some quite large Lion fish.

 

Each spine on a lion fish is venomous and if you touch it, it hurts, a lot. So avoiding these invasive species is a really good idea, and there are unfortunately quite a few of them around.

 No lobster in sight.

Still a nice dive. 

The night dive however did have lobster.

Big. Lobster.

 

And a big Crab:

And a tiny Stingray

 

And best of all, a tiny and cute Octopus!

First time seeing an Octopus in the wild.  Very cool. 

That was a night dive for the books, we just kept finding cool creatures.

Day Dive: 44 minutes, average depth 27 feet, and a max depth of 32 feet.

Night dive:  1 hour, average depth 24 feet, and a max depth of 31 feet. 

Shark Dive

The highlight of the Blackbeard's trip is the Shark Feeding Dive.

After seeing some sharks while you dive, there's nothing like watching a bunch of them go after a nice chumsicle.

The boat headed to Split Coralhead for the feed. Split Coralhead is one of two shark feeding sites Blackbeards go to, the other being the Henry Smith wreck.

Just like the drift dive, the entire boat of divers gearded up and lined up to jump in together with a negative entry to drop to the bottom as quickly as possible. 

As we dove in, the sharks were already there waiting. 

 All the divers sat or knelt on a circle and then the chumsicle was brought out.

 

With only four sharks hanging out to be taking care of busienss, the shark feed lasted a long time. it was interesting that only four showed up, normally it's about a dozen.

They got to eat well. 

 

This made the chumsicle last awhile, and even split apart and fall to the ocean floor and the sharks really chowed down on it.

 

This had the sharks get nice and close. 

The expression on this yellow snapper's face as the shark was close behind was like "Dude, I'm outta here!"

 A very enjoyable dive.

It's always an experience seeing eye to eye with sharks.

Seriously eye to eye.

 Yep, that one came rather close.

Dive time of 1 hour and 2 minutes, the longest shark dive I've had yet, with an average depth of 49 feet with a 56 foot max. 

Diving: Cut 'N' Run

On July 7, we dove the Cut 'N' Run site.

Named because there's an anchor and chain on the bottom left there by a merchant ship that upon spying a pirate ship in the distance cut the anchor and ran for it. 

The site has a 50 foot depth by the anchor that slopes down to 70 feet and then 90 at the ledge, and then drops straight down to 1000 feet plus. 

We dropped down the anchor line to the anchor and chain.

 We were joined by a local resident:

 The shark was curious, but as more divers came it took off.

We then headed off into the deep two more recent additions to the bottom. 

Ran and sailed great when last run, prior to sinking in 2024, this sailboat is now available to the discerning diver.

 

 No lowballs, we know what we've got.

Leaving the sailboat behind, we then inspected another wreck.

 

 

A nice airplane wreck.

 it's been there longer than the sailboat by quote soem time.

 There was a nice Black grouper by the wreck.

 

We then headed to the ledge, and off it dropping down the wall.

No bottom in sight.

Dropped to 90 feet along the wall still no bottom in sight.

But there was a big Barracuda.

 Still no bottom, just a blue void below.

After being at 90 feet for a couple minutes I got a NDL (no decompression limit) alarm on my computer so we needed to ascend to avoid a decompression situation that we were really no equipped for handling.

We then went back up and started tracing our way back to the boat. 

We saw some pretty fish on the way.

 

Ended up doing a 5 minute safety stop at 20 feet.

Total dive time of 41 minutes and got to see a shark, fish, two wrecks and an anchor chain.  Quite a nice and enjoyable dive.