tracker7 | Entries tagged with news

The New York Attorney General filed suit to dissolve the NRA this week. The suit cites some truly massive financial misdeeds which violate the ever-loving hell out of the organization's charter, arguing that the NRA is so deeply and completely and irredeemably corrupt that it must be broken apart. From shallow dives into writings by people who know more about things than I do, there's a good case to be made here - leadership siphoning off lots of funds for personal use, among other things. Related, the DC AG is going after the District-based NRA Foundation for essentially operating as an ATM for the parent organization without any effective oversight.

Some 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate, stored for a few years in a dockside warehouse, exploded in the port of Beirut this week. There's some incredible video of the event, showing the shock wave pushing out from the detonation, a condensation cloud, and the kind of destruction that I'm used to seeing in proper nuclear war depictions. Of all things, a massive grain elevator seems to have kept the damage from being worse by absorbing and deflecting much of the force of the blast.

Things finally sorted out so that I could take the Canyon back to Dad. It's a great little truck, no doubt, but for reasons that make perfect sense to me, I'm glad to have my Mariner back.

The drive to and from Liberty was rather nice. I took the old 64-151-127 route instead of 31/150-127 this time - both legs - and it just seemed to go faster coming and going. This was the first time I'd opted to listen to podcasts instead of NPR or music on the drive, and that probably helped, too. Spent a good few hours with Mom&Dad and the dog, and those are precious times.

Met up with Aaron H for our X-Wing match on Friday afternoon. The First Order squadron that I had good luck with Josh S failed badly on this outing. I scored half points on two ships, but otherwise, I brought shame upon my ancestors. Oh well. On to the next squadrons.

The ongoing civil unrest here got a little hotter yesterday. The bluntly named Not Fucking Around Coalition showed up in force - 350-400 armed black folks, and of course the threepers ("security force," my ass) had to be there, too. NFAC outnumbered the threepers about 7-1, and unsurprisingly the cosplaytriots aborted out, as they tend to in the face of any real resistance. Having said that, I'm not going to wholeheartedly lionize the NFAC. While they were assembling at Baxter Park, one of their guys dropped his gun and it went off, injuring a couple of his fellow travelers. On top of that, the organization's leader has espoused some pretty heinous anti-Semitic stuff, and may be a Hebrew Israelite, and there's not much good to say about them.

I really wish that I was getting ready to head to Indy in a few days.

The Mariner's alternator has been replaced, so there's one more thing taken care of. It's equipped with a V6, so that job required dropping the front axle. If the little SUV had a four-cylinder instead, Dad and I could have probably the job ourselves, since the alternator on those models is mounted on the back of the engine block instead of the bottom.

We had a decent handle on COVID-19 here in Kentucky, infection, hospitalization, and death rates way below the national level. People had to go and fuck that up, though, because tyranny and muh freedumz and all that, so Governor Beshear made mask-wearing mandatory for 30 days, and from the meltdowns that have happened already, you'd think that he'd ordered public bloodletting and maybe putting leeches into the drink dispensers at convenience stores. I am just done with these jerks who one the one hand proclaim their moral superiority because of their Christianity, yet refuse to even pretend to follow the example and make the least sacrifice to help others.

We saw a heck of a thunderstorm blow through last night. Came on really fast, high winds along the storm front, crazy stuff. LG&E reported about 12K customers losing power over the course of the thing. Taylorsville Road was closed for a while this morning to clear a couple of downed trees.

This morning, a trip to Aldi. Too many impulse purchases, but I include those in my budget when I go to Aldi because I know me. Man, there will be a lot of tasty burgers consumed in the coming weeks.

Listening to the Appendix N Book Club podcast has me taking shallow dives into the works on that list. I read Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions last week, and boy-howdy did Gary Gygax mine the heck out of that one. The big troll at the end - regeneration, severed limbs reconnecting, vulnerable only to fire - if you've played D&D, that all should sound very familiar. Next up, probably starting tonight, is The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser Volume 1. I've read some Leiber here and there, and I'm looking forward to getting into this volume.

Except for the obligatory fireworks all over the metro area, last night was pretty quiet. Demonstrations are still going on, and LMPD seems to understand that most of the city's population is not here for their aggression. There's always going to be some fuckery, of course, on all fronts, but things are moving forward. Metro council has announced an investigation into the mayor's office and its handling of the Breonna Taylor killing. The council is also arranging meetings with community - and protest - leaders to work on making real changes to how things operate here. I'm cautiously optimistic.

We're getting a Major League Baseball season, albeit a shortened one. 60 games, 40 played within the division, 20 against the other league's divisional counterparts. Travel is the biggest concern, obviously. Both leagues will use designated hitters, and extra innings will see a runner posted to second base at the start. The runner rule has been in place in the minors for a few seasons, and I like it. It moves the extended game along, and as much as I love the game, if things have gone into extra innings, we need to get to a winner sooner rather than later. No word yet on how MLBTV will adjust.

Minor League Baseball, on the other hand, is not happening this year. I'm afraid that will cause some organizations to fold, especially those on the MLB bubble from last year. The Lexington Legends are on that list, and that hurts.

Amy McGrath won the Democratic primary for US Senator. Charles Booker had one hell of a good run, and I do not think we've seen the last of him. McGrath had the national-level party support, and only managed an 11,000-vote margin of victory out of about 470,000 votes cast. I'm not excited about McGrath - she lost a general election for the Sixth Congressional District a couple of years ago - but, damn, anyone but McConnell.

Demonstrations continue. Monday, a group blocked the Second Street Bridge for a few hours - all quite peaceful. Yesterday, there was an outbreak of blue flu - or swine flu, as an acquaintance put it - and a small number of cops called in sick in a west division. Didn't stop their fellow officers from using a Lenco BearCat to ram and run citizens' vehicles off the road last night, though. Another sickout today, too.

A story in yesterday's C-J had a comment from a LMPD officer that they want the bad ones removed from the force as well. I want to believe him, but, well, yeah.

I finished Death's End, and therefore the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, last week. The whole thing is a darned good read even if some of the science involved made me slow down or even stop reading a few times. There are some big ideas at play in these books, and I enjoyed the read, but I don't think this is one I'll revisit.

I'm now about a quarter of the way into Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higginbotham. The Chernobyl disaster was a defining event for this child of the Cold War, even if it was years after the event before I realized how important it really was. I've read a few accounts of the disaster, and Higginbotham's book is pretty highly regarded.

I should pick up my Mariner this week. I'm enjoying the Canyon I'm driving right now, though, and I don't really want to give it back.

The small group size of my Delta Green game showed its first real weakness in Friday night's session. There are some things that more players and their agents would have probably been very helpful with; the existing team didn't fail, but they haven't had the easiest time with the start of the operation, and it's only going to get tougher. I have a guest player in this week, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things go.

Hell of a day in Louisville yesterday. A group of cosplaytriots calling themselves the American Freedom Fighters (cue George Carlin's bit) had announced that they were going to make an appearance at our ongoing demonstrations yesterday, to bring back order and retake the city and all that. The good news is, well, they didn't. All 15-20 of them camped out in a parking lot along River Road and "had briefings" and wandered around feeling like tough guys before going back to whatever logs they live under. Around 9PM, down at the demonstration, a homeless man who had been removed from the area a few times for aggression and theft came back with a gun and opened fire. He killed a photographer and wounded at least one other person before a demonstrator shot him and others disarmed and held him until LMPD took him into custody.

Then LMPD decided that the tent city that had sprung up in the park was the problem and wiped that out. Good job.

Days go by. I'm spending time with PSNow, trying to get a handle on Cities: Skylines among other things. It's fun and plenty relaxing, and it keeps me from thinking too much.

Mutant Crawl Classics has been a fun read, unsurprisingly, and it's reinforcing my feeling that I just don't want to play D&D again, at least not without an incredible hook. There's a real energy and infectious sense of fun in the writing.

Some small steps are happening. The cop who killed Breonna Taylor is going to be fired. I hope it leads to prosecution. Louisville's city council has eliminated no-knock warrants. It's too late, and too slow, but it's progress.

Gulfport, Mississippi, took down the state's flag from all municipal buildings, replacing it with the Magnolia flag. One less government flying the traitor's rag.

Kentucky is sitting at 13,197 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 520 deaths, 3,506 recoveries, 2,482 hospitalizations. Nationwide, we're seeing spikes in infection rates following loosening of lockdowns, to the surprise of absolutely no one who paid the least bit of attention. This thing isn't going away, not for a long while, if ever.

Yesterday, some hundred or so people descended on my state's Capitol grounds to demonstrate their support for their understanding of the Second Amendment and to cosplay as ... fuck 'em, I don't know or care anymore. Because this is how things are now, a few of these chucklefucks got the idea to make an effigy of our Governor, attach a sign reading "sic semper tyrannus" to it, and hang it from a tree in front of the Capitol building. A straight-up fucking lynch mob. Then, because that's not horrible enough, some of them went to the Governor's Mansion for a while, chanting for Governor Beshear to come out and ... something. Terrorists, every goddamned one of them.

I just cannot understand these people.

Our governor, Andy Beshear, is conducting daily briefings on the progress of COVID-19 and responses to the pandemic. He's doing a terrific job of delivering information, using plain language and graphics, being consistently hopeful and reassuring, and just being a leader. In this age of fast-moving social media, Beshear's steady hand has led to a Facebook group dedicated to memes about him, universally positive, and last week, Salon published an article titled "Govern me, Daddy," and it's a surprisingly good piece of writing on this very strange phenomenon.

"Strange" really is the world for things now. Well, if not, it's my word and I like it and I'm going to use it a lot.

One of our local pizzerias, Spinelli's, is opening a non-profit bodega at their Baxter Avenue store. Paper goods and canned goods, mostly, but eggs and fresh fruit, all at their suppliers' prices. Pretty great thing to do, I think. We also have distilleries using their waste alcohol to make hand sanitizer, and one of my favorite distillers is giving away cases of their 180- or 190-proof pure grain booze to first responders, hospitals, and nursing homes. As their announcement read, this is not hand sanitizer by any means, but it will clean the hell out of hard surfaces.

Things are getting better. I went to Aldi yesterday morning, and they were about as busy as a Before Time weekday morning. Low stock of some things, and a hard limit on purchases - 4x of most items, 2x on some - but the meat case wasn't barren and people were behaving.

Non-essential business (like my FLGSs) had to close up by 8PM last night. Both are offering curbside pickup options, and I hope that will be enough to keep them alive.

Conglomeration's committee made the right decision and scrubbed the con.

Dad's employer is paying off the wrecked truck. The kid that hit him is going to be paying a big chunk of money to the company for a long time.

Today's COVID-19 update included an executive order banning social gatherings, so that puts the kibosh on our weekly minis game nights. Heroes is changing hours, since, as the owner put it when I dropped in today, there's no point in staying open until 10PM or 2AM since no one can be there playing games. I don't like it, but it's good policy.

Still a lot of panic-buying going on. I had some luck going to Meijer around 5:30 this morning. Some people are just fucking crazy.

There are some positive goings-on, though. Libraries and museums are opening electronic collections and virtual tours and exhibits. 2000AD is giving away one of the better Judge Dredd collections, and there are gaming companies putting freebies out. Heck, I've seen several free downloadable coloring books.

So, that's where things are today the first day of Spring, 2020. Empty places are the new normal. One of my favorite restaurants has decided to close completely instead of going to reduced hours and delivery/takeout only, while another favorite built a functional drive-through station in their parking lot. Things are going to be strange for a while, and when we get back to more-normal conditions, those will be strange for a while.

Kentucky saw our first COVID-19 fatality over the weekend - a 66-year-old man, comorbid with a stroke and pneumonia. So, plenty of complicating factors, but there's the data point.

Per this morning's gubernatorial briefing, bars and restaurants are being closed except for delivery and take-out at 5PM today. This is going to be a huge economic hit to a lot of people, and I expect some businesses won't survive this. By a quirk of lawmaking, food trucks are considered take-out-only restaurants here, so they're possibly going to have some better luck.

The local nerd con is still planning to go on over Easter weekend. I think this is pretty irresponsible, to be honest, but I can also see where they're coming from. This is the last incarnation of the con, so the committee wants to give every chance for it to go off and for attendees to have the chance to say goodbye. I'm not saying that I agree with the thinking, but I do understand it. I had planned on going, but I strongly doubt that I'll go. Not worth the risk of contracting, or worse, spreading something.

On a smaller scale, my Hex Games family had planned a private micro-con this coming weekend in Cincinnati. The planned site is somehow affiliated with UC, and they're going to online classes and other measures, so, so much for that. Looks like we're going to try for some Discord games and conversation instead. It'll have to do.

Took my SUV in for what I thought would be a simple front-end alignment last week, and it turned into a much more serious repair. Control arms and bushings were nearly shot, the inside third of my front passenger-side tire was worn down into the belts - explains the recent tendency to fight against holding straight in the rain, I guess. Fate really must smile on fools, small children, and starships named Enterprise.

Dad's newer truck was wiped out last week. Some dumbass kid came around a curve on Dad's side of the road, scraped down the side of the truck and trailer, and forced Dad off the road. Uninsured, of course. His company's going to pay off the truck, at least.

COVID-19 has claimed its second life in the US, an elderly person in a nursing home in Washington. The first fatality was a resident of the same facility, and about 50 residents and staff are showing symptoms. Looks like we have our first outbreak center.

Iran's getting hit now, if social media is to be believed. About ten percent of their parliament is symptomatic, with nothing in the way of effective containment procedures in place.

Here, no cases are being reported, but the metro health department is putting out advisories and the primary airport is checking out passengers arriving from affected or high-risk areas - so, just about every international or connecting flight. Add in the UPS international hub and a large university with plenty of international students and domestic students studying abroad, and I figure it's only a matter of time until we have cases here.

A few weeks ago, I was blase about this thing. Not now.

As expected, the minor flooding has arrived. The Ohio is noticeably high, and parts of River Road are closed and under water. I think the most recent forecast called for a crest on Monday afternoon, so we can count on River Road reopening around Wednesday.

I'm about to lose another cousin - the third of six brothers. 40 years of unrelenting alcoholism and a couple decades of various antipsychotics have caught up with him. This morning, his hospice nurse told the family that his lungs were filling with fluid, and he could be gone in a day or two. Mom's in no shape to travel to the impending funeral - she fell getting out of the shower a couple of days ago - and to my surprise, she understands and acknowledges that.

Got in a couple X-Wing matches last night. Lost a close standard game, and won an Epic game through the U-Wing's maneuvering.

Coronavirus COVID-19 is spreading. About 67K cases and 1500 fatalities worldwide, depending on your source. Public health agencies - including China's - are doing the right things: aggressive triaging, quarantining, pushing out as much information as possible. There are a couple of cruise ships quarantined at sea over this, and from what I'm hearing, the passengers and crew are taking it in stride. Communities are forming around social media platforms, mainly WhatsApp, and we aren't seeing the kind of freakouts that I'd almost expect to see. China has seen this before with SARS, so, while a respiratory epidemic isn't something you want to grow accustomed to dealing with, having this kind of knowledge and preparation in place is never a bad thing.

It's all darned interesting.

If you have a couple million bucks sitting around doing nothing, you can bid on a whole college campus. St. Catharine shut down a couple of years ago after a drop in student enrollment led to big cuts in financial aid availability for the school. I drive past the campus on most trips to or from my parents' home.

A few months ago, there was a plan in place for purchase of the campus, but I guess that fell through. They potential purchaser was, I think a for-profit college, and they're under real scrutiny lately. I'd like to see the state's community and technical college system snap it up, or maybe a couple of the public universities pool resources. It's in a good location, and its classroom building is less than 15 years old. Good place for a nursing or allied health program to set up - the new classroom building was actually designed for it.

The next-to-last Thursday night X-Wing league session was tonight. I had a heck of a good showing in my first game and managed not to bring shame upon my ancestors in the second, and, hey, I won the night's raffle! Picked up a Fang Fighter for my small Scum & Villainy collection, further validating my decision to pick up a S&V conversion kit a few weeks ago. I've had a good time with this league, and haven't missed playing in the Friday night counterpart. I'm debating going to a tournament on Saturday; its format allows me to run my current pretty capable triple X-Wing squadron.

Came home from playing with little plastic spaceships and tuned in to some seriously terrible football. The 49ers tore the Raiders to ribbons, 34-3. Oakland looked utterly inept, their head coach and defensive coordinator had words right there on the sideline, and the 49ers just did as they pleased. The Raiders used to be my team - there are Los Angeles Raiders items in my possession even now - and I had hopes that with the death of Al Davis (no relation) and the rehiring of Jon Gruden as head coach that the team would get back to being watchable, but it looks like that is not going to happen. They're winning the race for April, I guess, but that's cold comfort.

Also playing really bad football, the UofL Cardinals. Rumblings of replacing the coach, of course. Probably (hopefully) won't happen.

This afternoon, about four miles from where I live, some dude went into a Kroger and started shooting. Killed two people. LMPD arrested him a few minutes later. No word on motive. Just ... fuck. Over in J-town. A store I've dropped into couple of times. My barber is in the same shopping center.

Word is getting around that the target was the father of the city's chief racial equity officer. He was with his grandson - age 12 - shopping for poster board, when this motherfucker walked up and shot him in the back. The shooter ran from the store, exchanging fire with an "armed citizen" pursuing him. A woman got caught between these two and was shot and killed. Yet another "armed citizen" confronted the shooter in the parking lot, and says the shooter told him "Don't shoot me. I won't shoot you. Whites don't shoot whites." Couple of good guys with guns, I guess.

This happens on a day when pipe bombs show up in the mail for George Soros, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michele Obama, at CNN (addressed to former CIA director John Brennan), and at Deborah Wasserman Schulz's office. None of them detonated, for whatever reason, thank goodness. But there we are. Domestic terrorism, aimed at those the sitting President has threatened or declared to be enemies or whatever his shitty little mind comes up with. And less than two weeks before the midterm elections.

Taking a short break from the Star Wars campaign to let me get in some GMing time with 7th Sea. I'm on the hook for a couple of sessions at an upcoming local con and would rather test things with my regular group than just about anyone else.

Fucking fabulous, my Dodgers just lost the second game of the World Series. Heading home to LA down 0-2. If they lose Game 3, the Series is effectively over and ... dammit.

Hurricane Florence hit along the Carolinas' border, having weakened quite a bit. It's dumped a lot of rain, and as of right now, there are 17 deaths reported throughout the affected area. There's flooding, bad floods, and more to come - what's left of Florence is going to push towards the Appalachians, dropping more rain, which will then flow towards the coast, into already-flooded ares. My handful of family members that live in the Carolinas got outta there before the thing hit; most are heading back in the next couple of days.

It never rains but it pours, I guess. Dad went in to the Leestown VA hospital for a checkup last week, and while there, started feeling some chest pains. So, transported to the Cooper facility for an overnight stay and tests. No sign of heart damage, maybe some kind of reaction to a new statin. Something to keep our eyes on.

John McCain died yesterday. I've sometimes wondered what the Republican party bosses did to or promised him in order for him to tank his 2000 Presidential run. I have no doubt he would have been less bad than the second Bush - the World Trade Center attack probably would have happened, but the endless war in Iraq wouldn't. I'll credit him forever for knocking Mitch McConnell's legs out from under him by voting to keep the Affordable Care Act alive, but at the same time, he's responsible for Sarah Fucking Palin gaining a national audience, so ... yeah. He wasn't a politician I can say I would have often agreed with, but he had some measure of integrity and loyalty to country over party, and I can respect that, and it's sure as heck more than any other Republican on the national stage can say.

Got in a couple of Armada matches today; store championship in Lexington. Only three players, so we opted for a round-robin tournament. I went 1-1; gave my second-place double-sided alt-art card to the 0-2 player - he is new to the game, and I don't need two of the cards. The eventual winner forfeited the Regional bye to me, since he doesn't think he'll be able to use it. To be honest, I don't know if I will, either, but let's see what happens.

Had an attack of something last weekend. Spent most of Friday helping one of Housemate's friends work on a pickup, and that turned out to be a mess for a handful of reasons. Got in some gaming time that evening and Saturday afternoon. Got home Saturday night, and within a few minutes I could barely keep a string of thoughts together, I felt heartbroken, and my limbs turned leaden. I couldn't shake any of this, so gave up a little before 9PM, took some sleep medicine, and went to bed.

Harlan Ellison died today. Always loved reading him, and seeing him at a couple of DragonCons was great. Cranky, irascible, and a brilliant writer.

As I write this, the roof of the Kentucky Center for the Arts is on fire. Main Street is closed, and thick smoke is billowing across I-64 along the riverfront.

I think my first visit to the KCA was during my time at GSP ... 30 years ago. A long bus ride from Murray and back, and IIRC, the Scholars from Centre were there, too, letting us catch up with our counterparts.

E3 was last weekend. The new look at Cyberpunk 2077 was the big takeaway for me - more nods to the old RPG and a lot of love given to Night City. A theoretical release date for Kingdom Hearts 3, and plenty of excitement over Fallout '76. I'm curious as to how that one comes out, and how they'll make post-apocalyptic West Virginia measurably different from pre-apocalyptic West Virginia.

Closer to both homes, I spent much of the weekend at the farm. Saturday night was lovely - lit off the firepit and roasted hot dogs, watched fireflies take flight and fill the yard. Saw an acquaintance from way back at his restaurant on Sunday.

My Delta Green Kickstarter reward arrived yesterday. Both the Agent's Handbook and the Handler's Guide, in a solidly-made slipcase. I'd forgotten or missed the change in my reward; my pledge was for what was going to be a single-volume core book, but due to the success of the campaign, I got the two-book set! It's a gorgeous package.

I'm getting back behind the GM screen. The Louisville Game Shop is kicking off a new player initiative, starting with D&D 5, and I'm going to help out with this. I'm starting to think it's time to reactivate the Star Wars game, too.

I've got the chance to do some wrenching! A friend-of-a-friend has a project in the works, and it's just inside my skill range.

Last Thursday, the remnant of Tropical Storm Alberto blew through the region, and it spun up some isolated storms in the immediate area. Around 2:45, a cell blew through the neighborhood, and knocked out power to a few thousand customers - including us. Took nearly 24 hours for service to be restored. Trees were down - and lines, I presume - up and down Dutchmans Lane.

It wasn't a bad experience, to tell the truth. The day was warm, but not terribly so. Gas and water weren't interrupted, so no problems staying hydrated and getting clean. Displaying his normal degree of mindfulness, Housemate came home - knowing that the power was out - and opened the refrigerator, then tried to turn on two lamps. Sigh. A couple large bags of ice and my Coleman camp cooler ensured that my perishables stayed safe.

I do love storms, but I'm going to be a little nervous when the next one comes through.

My iPod Nano got plenty of use during the outage - hooray for its FM radio! Used my LED torch when needed, and read via my iPhone's Kindle app. The humor of using a pocket computer to read because it was too dark to read from paper didn't escape me.

For some reason, maybe nothing more than it sounding like a good idea at the time, a Virginia National Guard officer took a M577 APC out for a drive around the Richmond area this morning. No San Diego M60-style rampage, just ... a joyride. I expect that this will not lead to career advancement.

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