October 28, 2023

Does anyone know anything about a Republican lion?

A few of the local Rs are symbolizing their party affiliation with a snarling lion rather than the usual elephant. I know someone did a painting of Trump riding a lion that winds up on t-shirts; does this just mean the user is a Trumpist?

October 27, 2023

NADQ: Idaho sex offender receives 71 months in federal prison

https://cdapress.com/news/2023/oct/25/post-falls-man-gets-prison-failure-register-sex-of/

According to the Coeur d'Alene Press, Eric L. Heartburg, 63, of Post Falls, ID, was sentenced to 71 months in federal prison for failing to register as a sex offender and for possession of a stolen firearm.

"So...why federal prison?" Heartburg was convicted of first-degree child molestation in Spokane County, WA (Spokane County is on the Idaho border) in 1992. In 2020, the cops claim he "absconded" from sex offender registration. In early 2023 he moved to Idaho and failed to register in this state. Because the crime involves crossing a state line, it's federal.

October 25, 2023

Fun facts about the 2023 World Series

1. This is the first World Series in history featuring two teams named after states rather than cities.

2. Excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season, the last time both the ALCS and NLCS went to seven games was 2004. Evan Carter, the Rangers' starting outfielder, and Jordan Lawler, the Diamondbacks' reserve shortstop, were two years old when that happened. No player on either team was born after 2004.

3. A nearly-level horizontal line can be drawn on a map between Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX, and Chase Field in Phoenix.

4. One of the teams in this game has presidential ties. George W. Bush was named Managing General Partner of the Rangers in April 1989, and sold his share in the team when he was elected Texas governor in 1994.

5. The cheapest ticket you can get at Globe Life Field for Game 1 is $380, and it's a standing-room-only ticket. The cheapest actual seat you can get is in the top row of the 300-level, and it's $567. It's also the only empty seat in its row; the cheapest seat that's next to another empty one is $699. There are three empty seats in the 100-level behind home plate that cost $7119 each. There are almost no seats left.

6. The cheapest seat you can get at Chase Field for Game 3 is $590. It is in the 300 level. Seats in the 100 level behind Home Plate cost $3524 to $4731. There are very few left.

7. MLB adopted the six-team playoff format in 2022, so this is the second year of it. In the NL series, the 2022 number-6 seed was Philadelphia, who went to the Series that year and lost to the Astros in the World Series in six games. The 2023 number-6 seed was Arizona, who beat the 2022 number-6 seed in the NLCS. It seems that the secret to success in this NL playoffs format may be to enter them as the number 6 seed.

8. The Arizona Diamondbacks made its only World Series appearance in 2001, four years after the team was founded. They won the Series. The Texas Rangers have been twice - 2010 and 2011 - and lost both times.

October 25, 2023

Donald Trump in Hell

Donald Trump died from eating a bag of rancid Big Macs and was shipped straight to Hell.

One of the lower level demons greeted him and told him, "Donald, you've been so bad we can't figure out where to put you. Until we do, you'll have to sit in this room." He is led into a small room kept at a pleasant temperature. There's a chair in there for him to sit. Three times a day he is served palatable food. All he has to do is wait for his final destination.

One hundred years goes by. Trump pounds on the door, and a slightly higher ranking demon answers it. "I'm ready to start making Hell great again. I need to make speeches and rally supporters. Why aren't you letting me out of here?" The demon tells him, "no one as evil as you has ever been sent here. We are still creating an environment that will properly punish you."

Five hundred years goes by. Trump pounds on the door again and a deputy to the Devil Himself answers it. "What's taking so fucking long? When I was a building contractor we got buildings up in days! I have to start doing Make Hell Great Again rallies or Hell will never be great again!" The demon tells him that he will hate what they come up with when they're done with it.

A thousand years went by. Trump pounds on the door and Satan answers it. "What, you think I'm scared of a little heat? I'm not! I fucking bought a house in Florida. Heat ain't shit to me. Let me the fuck out of here so I can go to work." Satan looks at him. "You don't get it, do you?" "Get what?" "This IS your punishment. We could throw you in the Lake of Fire and you'd love it. We could bury you up to your nostrils in rancid pig manure and you'd feel right at home. The only way to repay you for your misdeeds is what we did - take away the only things in the world you loved, which were money and attention. You'll be here forever."

October 24, 2023

Why do I feel the need for Dubya to reprise his best act as president?

Yes, this is our esteemed-at-the-time president throwing a strike as his ceremonial first pitch.

October 23, 2023

NASCAR champion Kevin Harvick sets new standard for handover messages

https://thesportsrush.com/nascar-news-cant-be-taught-or-bought-kevin-harvicks-emotional-letter-to-shr-replacement-embodies-true-nascar-spirit/

It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to claim Kevin Harvick saved NASCAR.

On February 18, 2001, Dale Earnhardt, one of the most famous and divisive drivers the sport has ever seen - you either loved Ironhead or hated his guts - died in a last-lap crash in the biggest race of the season, the Daytona 500. One week later, Earnhardt's old transporter parked at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham and a bright-white car with the number 29 painted on the side and Busch Grand National driver Kevin Harvick, who was being groomed to potentially take over Earnhardt's ride in a couple years, had his name painted over the door.

Two weeks later this same car made a very Earnhardt-like pass on the apron at Atlanta Motor Speedway and drove to Victory Lane. At the time winning your first race in your third start was NASCAR's modern era record, but four drivers have equaled or surpassed it: Justin Haley also won in his third start, Jamie McMurray and Trevor Bayne both won in their second starts, and Shane Van Gisbergen won in his first. Still pretty damned sweet. What was more impressive was Harvick's double duty: he was scheduled to run a full Busch schedule and limited Cup schedule in 2001. Neither Harvick nor his team owner Richard Childress wanted to have to go to all Harvick's Busch sponsors and tell them, "someone else is driving the 2 this year, you've got to throw away all the ads you made with Kevin during the off-season" so Harvick wound up running the full schedule in both series...resulting at the end of the season with the Winston Cup Rookie of the Year and the 2001 Busch Grand National Championship. The really amazing part of all this is that Busch (now Xfinity) and Winston Cup (now NASCAR Cup) races aren't necessarily at the same speedway. There were several weekends where he would qualify the Winston Cup car on Friday, fly halfway across the country that night and run the Busch race on Saturday, then fly back to the first speedway and drive the Cup race.

At the end of the 2013 season Harvick left Richard Childress Racing for a newly-created ride at NASCAR champion Tony Stewart's Stewart-Haas Racing. In his first season with that team, he won the Cup championship.

The final tally will be 805 Cup races and 60 Cup wins if he can't pull out a win in his final two events, 341 Xfinity races and 47 Xfinity wins, 124 Truck races and 14 Truck wins.

In 2024 he trades his race suit for a business suit, his steering wheel for a microphone, and starts calling races for Fox Sports - who airs the first half of the season. The new driver of his famous car will be Xfinity driver Josh Berry.

Harvick wrote a personal letter to Berry, which the team has publicized. Here's how it starts:

This seat that you are about to sit in, it's a seat that comes with perceived expectations. One where people will write your story before it's even written. I have been there before.

They will call you my replacement, say you are filling my seat, comparing you and me.

But the truth is they have got it all wrong.

Because the Number Four requires more than simply filling a seat. It requires someone to take the wheel and carry on a legacy.

. . . . .

As my chapter closes and you take the wheel, I'm leaving you in the best hands I can.

. . . . .

My hope is the 4 is as good to you as it's been to me. Remember, you're in control now. Demand a standard, take care of your team, and the 4 will reward you.

Josh, the wheel is yours.

October 20, 2023

Army Private Travis King charged with desertion, possessing child porn

https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-travis-king-army-14794185ea3dfc197a86ba376b1626ea
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-army-charges-private-travis-king-with-desertion-over-dash-into-north-korea-2023-10-20/#:~:text=Oct%2019%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20The,to%20documents%20obtained%20by%20Reuters.

Travis King was a soldier stationed in Korea. He got in a bit of trouble over there and spent some time in a Korean jail. After the Army got him back they were preparing to ship him back to the States, probably to just kick out of the service. But no...this candidate for immortality decided to escape from his escort, jump on a bus to Panmunjom, and run laughing into North Korea.

Two months later the North Koreans gave him back.

The Army has hit him with eight charges. Reuters reports that among these charges are an attempted escape from military custody in October 2022, soliciting a Snapchat user to get him some child pornography, actually possessing child pornography, insubordination for leaving his base after curfew, underage drinking, and desertion for running into North Korea.

October 20, 2023

The only thing I would like to see added to DU4...

...is some sort of indicator that shows when someone's replied to one of your posts. DU3 had it, and it was useful.

October 19, 2023

Sidney Powell becomes highest-profile GA defendant to roll over on Trump

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/sidney-powell-fulton-county-georgia-2020-election-subversion/index.html

One day before her trial was scheduled to start, she admitted two things: that she had taken actions for the purpose of "willfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines with the intention of taking and appropriating information, data and software that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems Corporation," and that she hired a data forensics firm and sent them to Coffee County to "unlawfully access government computers for the purpose of examining personal voter data, with knowledge that such examination was without authority."

This is what Fulton County is looking for as punishment:

1. Six years' probation. The article does not say if they want supervised probation.
2. Compel Ms. Powell's testimony at future trials.
3. Write an apology letter to the citizens of the State of Georgia.
4. Pay nearly $9000 in restitution and fines.
5. Turn over any documents related to this case currently in her possession.

October 16, 2023

My country is gone

We ran this Letter to the Editor in support of the reelection of West Bonner County School District Trustee Troy Reinbold.

https://bonnercountydailybee.com/news/2023/oct/15/reinbold-will-lead-wbcsd-right-direction/

This is the third paragraph:

Troy is also a champion for parental rights with biological bathrooms and proper locker room use. He was instrumental in the newly adopted WBCSD policy that reinforces this. Despite the low test scores and graduation rate, our district has the strongest policy in the state in support of biological sex.

Just so you know: Priest River Lamanna High School, the school in question, has 30-34 percent proficiency in math, 45-49 percent proficiency in reading, and a 60-69 percent graduation rate. The state has grouped six schools that are equally bad together, and this is one of them. In the list of six bad schools, one is a charter school, one is an online-only school, two are alternative schools, one of them no one wants to teach in because it's in the middle of nowhere, and then there's this one.

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/graduation-rate-stats/idaho

So...can Johnny read? Who cares, as long as he knows which bathroom we want him to use!