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What changed?
Two sudden changes of policy look coordinated. 1. This year Avista is scheduling BIG planned power shutoffs every time the wind blows. They don’t always pull the trigger on the shutoffs. The yellow areas are potential shutoffs. 2. This year the wildland firefighters are declaring BIG evacuations for ordinary fires even when there’s not much…
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Alligator / 0
The AI demons keep preaching about TheSingularityTM. They’re using the word backwards to attract satanic investors. In math a singularity is a point on a graph where you can’t figure it. The result is heading toward infinity, or toward 0/0, or some other value that can’t be calculated or handled or conceived. When a real…
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Schadenfreude is sweet
Even the inconceivably brainless and incomprehensibly evil Spokane “city” dysgovernment has to face finite budget limits. They hired a whole pack of utterly pointless symbolic creatures to send a “resistance” message to Trump, while simultaneously AMPLIFYING Trump’s worst crime in history and ferociously continuing the worst crime in history for two years after Trump got…
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Plug in lawyer joke here
Via Spokesman: Fucked-up software prevented 645 new lawyers from taking the bar exam IN PERSON. = = = = = START QUOTE: For about 11 weeks, Guile had studied for the exam, which consists of three three-hour blocks and typically takes two days to complete. But after the Washington State Bar Association canceled the test…
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Reported full moon reported!
Via Spokane News. 800 North Sullivan Rd, vehicle collision in the drive through line reported. Reported a vehicle with a person dressed as an oversized bear on the top of a vehicle did not see the other vehicle and hit them. Caller thinks one driver is possibly intoxicated. Reported the occupants of both vehicles are…
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Simple measuring tool
The current fad of AI quibbling strongly resembles Walker Percy’s smartphone apocalypse in ‘Love in the Ruins’, the perfect dystopia for our times, written in 1971. The devil invents a little hand-carried imaginator that can see into everyone’s head. He distributes a bunch of them for free, then watches the accusations turn into a war.…
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When prison is better
Well-written press release from the county describing an odd incident. Dude wearing a backpack stood in the parking lot of the precinct station. Pulled out a gun and loaded it slowly. A deputy who was watching from inside took the dude down. Eventually the dude said he just wanted to talk to a cop and…
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Vinyl siding
Zoning codes and insurance companies quite properly worry about defensible spaces. In a fire-prone area you need to avoid spreaders. I don’t understand why vinyl siding is allowed ANYWHERE, let alone fire-prone zones. Today a large apartment building burned, leaving two dozen people homeless. It appears that embers from the fire drifted north and torched…
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Toadbird
What I want from a real newspaper is features, not articles. Since I subscribed to the real Spokesman-Review last month, it’s been coming through in fine form. Today’s issue has a lighthearted locally written feature on a WEIRDASS local bird, the Common Poorwill (apparently too poor to afford a whip). Unlike the romantic-sounding name, it’s…
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Pay structure
In school we “learned” a list of alleged propaganda methods. None of them were real. The list itself was propaganda to distract us from real propaganda. One effective REAL method is distorting verb aspect, treating a permanent or habitual process as something new and unknown. Weather becomes CLIMATE EMERGENCY! Flu season becomes VIRUS PLAGUE! Corruption…
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Not AI
With all the witch hunting and quibbling, it’s nice to see clear proof that a writer isn’t using autocorrect. From Spokane News: North Nine Mile Rd near West Rutter Pkwy, tree down blocking the road reported. Reported shitting the roadway down between Rutter Pkwy and Indian Trail Rd. Lots of comments about Taco Bell. The…
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Traces
In 1976 most fireplugs were painted to celebrate the bicentennial. When I moved here in 1990 those colors were still sharp and bright. I hadn’t bothered to look closely until this morning’s walk. The colors are still vaguely visible, reddish traces on top and whitish traces below. Since I’m taking PAINS to be positive and…
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Reward crime, punish honesty 2
We’re into fire season now, expected at some point every summer. We had a blessedly cool June, but nature eventually catches up. Tomorrow we’ll get some wind, not enough to notice in cool weather, enough to explode fires right now. The Weather Bureau is giving a precise and clear warning: When you see a Red…
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Drive-thru Day
Today is Drive-Thru Day, so I’ll reprint one of my favorite Lost Places. = = = = = START 2014 REPRINT: In the era of satellite pix and Flickr and Instagram, odd places are thoroughly documented online in precision digital form. Mysterious places that disappeared before the current era have to be pulled back to…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 