The Shitstorm of American Life

 Ironically I have not blogged much, because the machine I use was damaged by a pulsed energy weapon.  More likely it was static electricity in the air, and there has been much lately.  It could have been that the Magsafe charging port in my Apple Macbook Pro computer just bit the dust.  It was a refurbished unit, Mid 2012, but Affordamac was in full swing when I bought it.  It had a new Seagate hard drive and upgraded components, the most important of which was the Nvidia graphics chip.  My previous Macbook Pro was only a year apart, but it used a Radeon chip.  They fail!  I saw the strong blue arc when I plugged in the Magsafe charger.  I was not careful about it either.  It is magnetized, so you just get the plug in close proximity to the Mac's internal port and it seats itself like magic.  It is highly likely the little pins in either the socket or the charging port were bent, worn out, or loose.  I expected to have an issue with this computer in the near future, and this was it.  You are never prepared.  I will spare the details, but repairing and out-of-date Apple is a challenge.  Apple is not the company it once was.  You must find a dedicated PCB technician who can solder on computer circuit boards.  My first attempt produced a working computer at the cost of a new upgraded 140 watt charging brick and a USB-C to Magsafe 1 adapter.  This is what the repair technician suggested.  It worked for one week sitting on my coffee table, and I used it to listen to my extensive music collection.  The laptop computer has revolutionized the world, and if we stopped to count the many things it will do, living without a computer would suck.  It would also undermine the American economy, except that laptop computers magically have been shrunk to the size of ipods and cellular phones.  The tool of choice for most everyone today is this "Smart Phone."  Never was I a fan of this little device.  The first cell phones I had were a joke, and my identity was stolen with the purchase of my first Samsung flip phone.  The Nokia was better, but it needed a headset.  My sister insisted I buy my aging mother an iPhone, and I did.  She loved it, and it took me many hours of work to transfer her contact list and other data.  Only a few months ago I resurrected that exact phone and found a new more cost effective mobile carrier.  Interestingly I use it to text more than anything.  My second attempt at having my Macbook Pro repaired was successful, and only because I did most of the research myself on the internet from my other Apple computer.  Actually it also was my mother's computer, an iMac I bought for her when her Dell failed.  Also many hours transferring her pictures from that computer to the iMac.  Once they were there, she never looked at them again.  I still use this computer for business, and it functions well.  As it turns out when a Magsafe charging port burns it damages several protective circuits on the logic board including a fuse and eventually, as we discovered, a resistor tasked with "handshaking" the CMS to the charger itself.  It took several passes and two different repair shops to get to the bottom of this.  It was my information that helped the second tech isolate the remaining problem quickly in one day.  Needless to say it was a month of neurosis, worry about never finding another laptop that would serve my needs, and money.  It is interesting popular trends, and they do not always serve the professional community.  I use external webcams and audio interfaces to make music videos of myself playing a variety of instruments, so this computer is important to my work flow.  It would be difficult to drag a Mac Pro tower computer and a large monitor to different locations in the house.  (although you could with some effort)  The Apple Macbook Pro is a marvelous and useful tool for many things, and this is my first test of the new repair.  "Will the green light come on?"  Rest assured I have taken pains to be careful in the future about charging this laptop, which includes as close as the consumer can get to power conditioning.  A  home this is my age, 63, does not have 3 wire grounded receptacles, nor does it have the third ground wire installed in the junction boxes.  I have replaced many of these aging receptacles, and ironically and to my fault, this laptop was not plugged into one of the new ones.  The reason was other equipment was monopolizing the newer outlets including recording equipment for my Knabe grand piano and my DVD player and screen.  The Macbook Pro somehow took second status and was plugged into a normal outlet.  If there had been a ground wire, the static charge may have been sent to this ground harmlessly into the earth.  Immediately I bought my upteenth Furman "power conditioner," and it was a Series 2 which is the more expensive model with better filtering.  The repaired laptop now is getting as clean power as I can provide without spending thousands installing a 3 wire grounded system in the house.  The components that were damaged were the charging port itself, or "DC in board," the MOSFETS, a fuse, and a resistor.  They were replaced in that order with an ascending order of repair.  I also spent $50.00 on the new 140 watt charger which now is unnecessary, and I am afraid to use it.  In the meantime the battery got changed twice.  It is plausible that a "Pulsed Energy Weapon" could cause such damage, but most likely if you were targeted with such, it would fry everything.  America is in denial and headed down the wrong path for various reasons.  The first is obvious.  Donald Trump is trying his best to implement a Communist fascist system in America.  This is a system where an all powerful government and its oligarchs control everything.  They own everything, provide everything, and expect your allegiance to "The Party."  In these systems the people are secondary and neglected.  In the most dire cases in history we see what happens when a deranged dictator is allowed to progress.  Nations devolve in civil war and eventually mass murder of the people by the government.  We have seen these autocrats in our lifetimes including Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad.  The sole directive of indoctrinating and exploiting the common people continues.  It is the services of the people, for the people that are being exploited, stolen, and embezzled in full view with no remorse.  This is Donald  Trump.  One only has to look at the mockery of the North Carolina Education lottery to see the metaphor.  Giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to an often uneducated common person, instead to allocating that equally and efficiently to the populace.  This is what it has come to be about.  No part of the lottery in North Carolina is going to education, unless a powerful, wealthy, and persuasive elite demands it. The majority of this money goes directly into the statehouse and into the hands of Phil Berger and his band of thieves.  Still we do not have a state budget, and they can't decide whether to rescind the Medicaid Expansion Program.  Depriving millions of North Carolinians of healthcare they all ready have it not in their political favor.  At least outgoing Senator Thom Tillis has been outspoken about this.  The continual rise of prices for everything soon will complete the decimation of America's middle class.  The traditional America economy, while at times has worked, all ready has been transformed into a huge federal govermental slush fund.  The tariffs Trump has placed on imported goods is collected by the Department of Homeland Security.  It is cash in hand, and there is no accountability for this immense monthly revenue.  With all of this uncertainty, there is one certainty.  No data center or AI complex will run without electricity.  If a huge Pulsed Energy Weapon is used, it will wipe out the power grid, and Americans will be left to fend for themselves.  This is a stark realization, but it is realistic.  It should give us perspective on AI and its need.  It will not be long before we will have a food shortage.  The herding of illegal aliens, working or not, has hobbled the food industry and the availability of quality groceries.  The problem is if President Trump is impeached or removed from office, his replacement is worse.  Pete Hegseth is in hiding, and the clown of an Attorney General puts Bill Barr to shame.  It's hard to believe through what we are living. 

The Amazon Parcel Express

Why is it we, as a dumbed down society, have to reduce everything to an acronym?  The military is the best at this.  They have an acronym for every conceivable operation.  It's like a Tony Robbins video.  ICE.  This is new and convenient, but it means Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  Is it coincidental that the acronym ICE spells the word ice?  Ice is cold, dangerous, and sometimes deadly if you are not careful.  "If you are not careful," are the operative words of this sentence.  The ICE we are seeing today I don't feel is an honest and authentic depiction of an American government agency.  We don't know much about them.  We have heard about the Border Patrol, and sometimes they are coupled with the Department of Homeland Security, a Bush Jr. creation after the 9/11 attacks.  I don't know exactly what they do, and why America needed another agency or department in addition to what we all ready had.  Evidently he felt the protection of Americans at the domestic level was not efficient.  What is ICE?  Have we heard a mission statement or speech describing the need for ICE?  Its basically hearsay from the President of which we cannot believe.  "Dangerous criminals."  No one knows who and how they are tracking these supposed illegal aliens, except that DOGE came from nowhere and raided the Social Security files.  That should be a clue.  This has been going on for long time, detention camps, torture chambers, and the splitting up of families.  It's like the Holocaust except here on the down low.  It is not time to be afraid.  It is time to pay attention to the infringement of our civil rights.  Lynching is nothing new, and the police were killing black men left and right.  Not the focus has changed to illegal immigrants.  The immediate results of this new ICE campaign is the apprehension of immigrants who do much of the work in American society.  Similarly Trump's tariffs only have raised prices for Americans.  Nothing this President has done has helped Americans.  Nothing.  Tariffs and ICE equal spoiled produce.  I haven't been able to buy fresh lettuce for three months, because Mexican illegals pick and process much of the food.  We have not shored up American agriculture.  We have done the opposite with the Farm Bill and pay farmers not to grow fresh food.  In what country are we living?  Where is the peoples' representation and government?  We don't have it at the moment, and the Trump regime is working for someone else.  It has become such blatant thievery, I feel like I am watching a foreign corrupt government run amuck in Washington, DC.  There was a coup.  It was unlawful, violent, and aggressive and it was achieved by skullduggery and slight of hand.  The thieves still are in power.  If we can't find Hip Hop gangs to defend Americans, where is Robin Hood?  I guess we are going to have to do it ourselves.  With the infiltration of Washington there has been the systematic dismantling of needed government agencies to serve the people.  FEMA comes to mind and all of the residents of Western North Carolina who need hurricane assistance.  The most egregious disservice has been the weakening of the Environmental Protection Agency.  We were on the right track with a new chief from North Carolina.  Trump changed the laws and erased most of the protections for our environment.  As I sit and type, for three days soot from two GP-38-3s is blown into my eyes as they switch cars in the CSX's Milan Yard on North Street in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  These micro-particles penetrate walls and find their way deep into the lungs.  This is with the windows down and the doors shut.  A GP series locomotive originally was made in the 1950's and 60's, thus its Tier level requirements for emissions are nonexistent.  We are up to Tier 4, and a GP-38-3 emits 90% of it pollutants from a roots blown, sixteen cylinder, two stroke diesel prime mover.  While Wabtec has rebuilt some of these units and installed some upgrades, the industry as a whole has side steeped regulation almost completely.  An ES44ACH is no better.  While its carbon emissions are improved using a more efficient GEVO 12 cylinder engine, the EMF footprint of AC locomotives is brutal.  Imagine a combination of infrasound, vibration, heat, magnetism, and multiple frequencies of alternating current that decrease to 0.  That is alternating AC electricity IN THE AIR creating overvoltages which tamp down the power grid, infect consumer AC power, and affect the mental and physical health of human beings.  No such things, saith the Trump regime, and CSX will be in accordance.  Somebody has to transport all of those amazon packages.  

The Trump Trials

 I do believe the snow will come.  Last time it came it was a day late, and like a covert operative, accomplished its task after sunset and was gone in the morning midst.  Stealth snow?  Is this a new thing, snow that teases you and deprives you of fundamental human pleasure, a God given pleasure?  Whence is this snow?  It is snowing in Chapel Hill.  It is snowing at the beach, but its not snowing in Fayettenam.  I hope it does snow, because after the third major failure of the meteorological community, they need a success.  The credibility of weather forecasting always has been sketchy.  You can stick your head out of the door and discern the weather in a few seconds.  Many times it is more authentic and immediate than a weather prediction on media.  They need their jobs, so we watch their spectacle with good faith and earnest.  After a few failures it becomes time to move on.  The meteorological society has been bought and paid for.  They talk about models, but there is no way for them to foresee untimely heat waves, unless someone is telling them.  Often it is the military.  When it is 70 degrees in February in Fayettenam, it is because of the military.  Operation Rolling Thunder often occurs now.  Six  hundred vehicles in the field at the same time all producing emissions and heat.  While I do not particularly like Apache helicopters, and I would tolerate them more if I knew they were not targeting me for practice, but I like to think the jar-headed recruits sent to Fort Bragg possess no ill will toward us.  They are not old enough to have become indoctrinated, yet.  The indoctrination comes from the top of the military food chain, and it was this contingency of officer elites who decided John F. Kennedy had to be eliminated.  It was in collaboration with many factions, including the intelligence community (CIA, FBI), Special (or black) Operations in the military, the Mafia, and anti-Castro expatriots who got burned at the failed Bay of Pigs.  More importantly there was a group of private businessmen who were CIA informants or operatives.  Lee Harvey Oswald fell into this category, although he was not a prominent citizen.  Instead he was an orphan who learned to speak Russian, and along with his piloting skills became a double agent for the USSR.  Many of these businessmen played both sides of the fence.  Broadly they characterized a gay mafia, an entity with sardonic tendencies feigning goodness and virtue but impressionable and tempted by lust.  This behavior harks back to the Ancient Greeks and today is a steadfast aberration of human society.  This sexual deviance is rebelliousness against abuse, inequality, injustice, and discrimination.  It means they have lost faith in God, so there is nothing to loose.  Cole Porter among others was tempted by this ill.  We must ask ourselves who, no matter what their visible virtue, would be capable of orchestrating the murder of a sitting American President.  Big oil and the defense industry were major players, so extreme wealth and power in America did not always come easily through steel, oil, electricity, and banking.  The other dynasties had to stoke the revenue fire, and Viet Nam became a necessary unnecessary war which maimed and killed thousands of naive innocent American boys.  War is a tool of the enemy, because it virtually annihilates your healthy future population as proven in both our Civil and Revolutionary Wars.  It should be no surprise that the dwindling population of America has become scraggly illegal aliens and uneducated inbred hillbillies.  We have done nothing as a nation in solidarity to strengthen our own population and cause.  There can be no question that Donald J. Trump is working for Vladimir Putin destroying America from within.  It was imperative he win the White House a second time to stay out of prison and to earn back the money he was given to escape prosecution.  That the ring leader of an underage sex trafficking operation managed by Jeffrey Epstein is now in our White House,  nothing should be surprising.  America needs to act before our pinnacle of freedom and democracy is lessened to the likes of gang warfare gunning for the next contract.  God must be a part of this construct.  With His presence all things are possible, and inevitably they will include virtue, transparency, freedom, spirituality, intelligence, creativity, and most of all, opportunity.  It is the lack of opportunity that drives men into the grave through depression.  Obi Wan Kanobi, you are our only hope.  

Where is an American Hip Hop Gang When You Need It?

I am going to blog on my Macbook Pro, although after having been repaired, it is not in good repair.  Its Magsafe charging port is not working, so that ephemeral green light is out.  When I plugged it in several weeks ago, static electricity shorted this connector, and it burned.  I had the computer repaired and a new battery installed to the tune of $230.00, and today it is back to black.  The trouble shooting began in my head, and I tried to make sense of everything the repair technician had told me.  It can be any number of things, and he all ready replaced a fuse on the logic board and the mosfets.  His choice of part was not prudent, and they were from 2021 which are not backward compatible.  I had to buy a new charger, a 140w brick, and it worked for about a week.  I purchased a Furman power conditioner, of which I all ready have many.  This is a more expensive, heavier, and more efficient power filter.  I installed a new battery myself tonight, so I could appraise the one he installed.  Upon opening the computer, which was a challenge, I found the battery connector loose on the mother board.  It was not fully seated, so I thought this might be the problem.  Alas, after spending an hour learning how to and installing my own battery, still no green light.  He offered to fix it at no charge, but now I don't trust his work.  I was blogging on my old Macbook, and it was tedious.  I had to type into text edit, copy this file to an external hard drive, and take it over to my iMac and cut and paste it into Blogger.  Tonight I am going to make use of the 57% battery reserve it came with and type on this again non-charging Macbook Pro.  What a pleasure to come back to it and sit comfortably on my love seat with the computer in my lap like a sleeping cat.  

     The news has been laced with vitriol, and I need to opine.  First they murdered that man in cold blood in Minnesota.  No amount of posturing will save the men who shot him.  As the Trump Administration tries to cover their tracks and shift blame, like they have done for Jan. 6, the family will sue in civil court and win.  This scenario should be the metaphor for the entire Trump Administration during his second term.  They are nothing more than Nazi's and he Hitler.  There tactics are those of Big Brother, and with the ballots they illegally seized in Fulton Country, Georgia, they will try to rewrite history substituting fake ballots for real ones.  The all ready executed "Fake Elector" scheme, which partly was implemented during his first run for President against Hillary Clinton, was a more subjective ploy.  Then I think the Republican Party was astute and cunning enough to use weaknesses in state laws to sway willing cooperating elected Republicans.  If state house politicians found a reason, they could dispute the popular vote and substitute their own opinions and electoral votes.  Not all states have chosen to accept the popular vote, and state law varies greatly.  (still 57%)  As we have watched at the Jack Smith hearings, angry badgering is the tool to which they have resorted.  It is startling and atrocious.  It is a modern incarnation of Nazi Germany and the tactics of Adolph Hitler, the Gestapo, and the Schutzstaffel.  It dawned on my the reason why Elon Musk's DOGE sought the personal information of so many.  It is because with this acquired information from federal agencies and data banks they have tracked their prey.  It is that information ICE is using to locate and apprehend.  We cannot say who, because we do not know.  It is who the Republican Party deems enemies, with some unwanted immigrants thrown in.  It is no different than the Spanish Inquisition attempting to murder their enemies in cold blood.  ICE, as they portrayed themselves in both killings are nothing more than a lynch mob.  How disheartening it is to see such an anachronism, men delighting in hanging Negros after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union's winning of the Civil War.  The Confederacy continued to fight the Civil War for decades as Jim Crow segregation laws unfolded, and ignorant red-necked men got drunk and delighted in coon hunts which ended with a murdered ex slave.  This behavior is the root of our modern day Republican Party.  It is the reason why the Black Panthers formed, and it should be the reason why, if this illegal behavior continues within ICE, that we as Americans will invoke our rights guaranteed in the United States Constitution and pick up arms to protect ourselves.  If I see a tinted SUV near me with masked men in body armor, my most basic instinct is we are at war.  Guerilla war perhaps, and easily remember not long ago when American gangs flashed moxy perhaps more threatening than ICE.  Because the American intelligence community as purchased and distributed drugs into our ghettos, it is difficult to know who is the real enemy.  Rest assured that if there are drugs being trafficked out of Venezuela, mobster Trump wants a taste of it.  

God Comes to Washington?

 When you are dealing with music, there is no substitution for aural sound.  America has modified our perception of music, and it has not been a good thing.  News stories are popping up about people wanting to leave America and specific states.  Tim Walz has deployed the National Guard in his state.  In essence Donald Trump has ignited a war which necessarily is between the states and Washington, DC.  If we were to tally how many laws Donald Trump has broken only during his second term, and recognized how many unconstitutional Presidential actions he has attempted, he is akin to a war criminal.  All ready he is a convicted felon.  We have a convicted felon acting as the President of the United States.  If we try to understand the Trump Administration as a whole by their appearances and actions, it would seem we have elected a juvenile lot of kids to govern the United States.  What does this suggest?  Donald Trump is nearly 80 years old, and many Americans who live this long have Alzheimer's Disease, develop dementia, or have chronic health issues that inhibit their thinking.  Those who do live into their nineties often are celebrities or those with the economic means to ensure their continued health as they age.  What should the Trump Administration and cabinet suggest to the people?  Saturday Night Live does a good impersonation, and it's their job.  The late night, live, comedy show is satirical and often parodies politics.  Trump's Administration is ripe for the picking, but so were other presidential administrations.  Media as a whole embraces disfunction, because it is ripe for commercial exploitation.   Comedy in particular needs material.  When your governing body not only is dysfunctional but entertaining, much of the comedians work is done.  That is not true of the governance of a nation.  America never has had this particular experience before.  I am no historian, but the history books never have documented an improvisatory, Vaudeville-type, comedic troupe governing the United States.  Television today is a watered down minstrel show.  Vaudeville is way too skilled to represent this lot of posers.  What should the Trump Administration suggest to the American people?  First these people are not adults.  They are children.  It's like they never have had the familial experiences that promote growth, intelligence, wisdom, and maturity.  These experiences often to not grow in the family unit alone.  They must be augmented by social situations of which the most important is church.  I did not intend to preach today, and I will not go as far as saying that the Trump Administration lacks spiritual capability.  We can and should characterize the Trump family and administration by their actions, because I do believe a man is what he does, not what he says.  Trump says a lot.  He has done a lot.  What do we see his administration do that suggests they are capable of leading the most powerful nation in the world?  The most blaring omission from his faction is empathy.  After decades of study of the Nazi regime, empathy was named as the one thing of which Nazis were not capable.  They could not foster empathy for their fellow man.  This one simple precept is akin to human spirituality, and most human spirituality acknowledges and often worships a higher being.  Different cultures have different deities, but at the end of the day most of these things are metaphors for God.  The sun, the sea, the earth, and fire are all righteous elements without which humans could not survive.  It stands to reason certain cultures may choose to see these as gods.  In God's Ten Commandments specifically state we should not worship a graven image.  Washington's weakness, their plight, and their ensuing and continuing failure is lack of God.  They have not been saved, so their behaviors merely are superficial attempts to gain temporary and immediate gratification.  Without a deeper, far reaching, philosophical, and intellectual perspective, human existence will be nothing other than cavemen trying to survive.  How is it possible that one of Earth's most enlightened societies, the Ancient Greeks, existed before the birth of Jesus?  The answer is that at a certain point Satan was released on Earth to run amuck and tempt man.  What has ensued is the work of the devil, and the only solution to the devil's work is the acceptance of God as our savior.  We need God to save us, and we must ask for his help.  It has been prophesied that God will return to the Earth, and those who have accepted Him will be transported to a new planet including the dead.  The rest will be left to battle each other in hell fire's flames as the Earth is destroyed.  If you don't believe in a Higher Being, then none of this will matter to you.  If you do, like Donald Trump, you will see yourself having fun playing poker with the devil in hell.  Rest assured it will not be like that.  It is punishment, and perhaps the spoiled brats running Washington never have experience the true pain of punishment.  Multiply that pain times eternity and you have grievous consequences for your actions today on Earth. 

It's Never Too Late to Do the Right Thing

 The entire world has been turned upside down by one deranged American President.  The majority knows that Congress is unlikely to impeach Donald Trump a third time, unless the Democrats win the Senate in the mid term elections.  If they do manage to bring Articles of Impeachment, it is unlikely MAGA will remove the President.  Most people will agree that he needs to be removed.  If J.D Vance was as intelligent as he would like for you to believe, this would be his moment.  This could be his shining moment in history.  Why?  He could orchestrate the removal of the President, but he would have to do an about face and do the right thing.  He would have to rebuke Donald Trump's extreme agenda and begin to care about America and her people.  He could become a real old school politician.  That phrase innately has a negative connotation, but J.D.Vance could restore hope, integrity, and virtue to the American Presidency.  It has become obvious Congress no longer is capable of this, and perhaps age has something to do with it.  J.D. Vance is a young man and an Ohioan.  I lived in Cowtown for ten years.  Ohio is a reputable state and people are intelligent and informed, more than most states.  The coercion by the Alt Right of every Republican is heinous, but it is not too late.  It is too late for Lindsey Graham.  J.D. Vance could break with this anarchy, imperialism, and tyranny and restore faith in the office of the President of the United States.  He could embrace democracy, rule by the people, and the Constitution.  He could become the shining star of Washington, if he chose to do it.  It would mean he would have to grow up.  He would have to find God.  He would forget about himself and dedicate himself to others like historical world figures.  Gandhi.  Mother Teresa.  Winston Churchill.  JFK.  He could aspire to something more than the anarchy that has ensued with Agent Orange.  He could redeem himself, and he could save the country.  Those are tall accolades and certainly are better than the fate of Mike Pence.  The pursuit of excellence always is of value, and it is better than the cabinet of Donald Trump. 

The Necessary "Upgrade"

 I am having to write this blog entry on a 2007 Macbook 3.1.  (That is eighteen years old!)  My Macbook Pro late 2011 is in the shop having its Magsafe charger repaired.  Not so quick!  It is 2026, and I am trying to repair a computer that was manufactured in mid 2011.  That means the Macbook Pro also is almost fourteen years old, thereabouts.  These are older machines, but they still operate fine.  There is no need to "upgrade," because the software I use runs on these respective operating systems, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.  The Macbook 3.1 came from Mac Warehouse, and to begin with it was a dog.  While the price always is cheaper than a new Mac, and never have I bought a new Mac, because I can't afford it, sometimes you get a clunker.  This little polycarbon computer came to life with a software upgrade.  Mac 10.6.8 is Snow Leopard, and when I installed it perhaps a year later, every glitch and bug disappeared, and it began to run smoothly.  It has been working ever since, and this is 2026.  Because browsers now are out-of-date and hardware configurations no longer are supported, it does not get support from the internet.  Some websites come up in Firefox, but mostly this little computer will do what I still need it to do.  What is that?  It is an Editor/Librarian for synthesizer patches by MOTU's Unisyn.  I have coveted DX-7 patches saved on this computer.  That is why I kept it.  It sat for several years not plugged in and charging its battery, but when I fetched it and opened the lid is turned on.  I charged the battery, and here I sit typing on it like I did for several years working on cruise ships.  Why did I upgrade?  I upgraded because my home recording system on a PowerMac with Nubus and an accelerator card failed.  What happened?  The battery exploded inside.  It was time.  I got a Macbook Pro aluminum and used it in clamshell mode to run my new home recording and MIDI studio.  It worked for several years, but because I bought this computer used off eBay its graphic card failed.  It was a an AMD Radeon.  Boo!  It was a known issue as was the issue with my original iBook laptop.  The mother board would flex, and one particular solder joint would separate.  I spent almost $500.00 trying to get this computer fixed, and the Apple Store could not do it.  They put in a new hard drive and still the dreaded black screen.  They didn't tell me it was a known issue.  This last time I was more thorough in my choice.  Affordamac back then was a different company.  It was Charlie McCormick Computers in California, and they were an excellent Mac re-seller.  All three of my computers came from them, an iMac for my mother, a Mac Pro for my new studio, and eventually another Macbook Pro for me.  It would not be in the shop had not the Magsafe 1 charging port arced through the air causing a dead short.  It fried both sides of the charger, the jack in the computer and on the charger.  Here's the thing.  Trying to repair a computer manufactured in 2011 today in 2026 is going to have caveats.  The DC board the repairman put it differed slightly from the original.  It requires a full 19 volts rather than 18.5.  After disassembling the computer and removing the motherboard, repairing the DC rails and a fuse, still it would not charge the new battery.  Little did I know this was purposeful.  It has become a common practice to make it difficult to repair older equipment, because the manufacturer wants you to buy something new, even if you don't need it.  I don't need it, and the new offerings on Mac laptops do not serve my needs.  For one they don't have USB or Firewire ports  Are these obsolete?  The answer is "Of course not."  How can USB be obsolete?  It's all about the adapters.  They just changed the adapters to make you think you need something else.  I had two choices with my 2011 Macbook Pro.  With the newer DC board, no longer would the battery charge with my old chargers.  Eventually he was able to get it to charge but with a more powerful 140 watt brick; that brick is USB-3, and uses Thunderbolt plugs.  You also need a Thunderbolt to Magsafe 1 adapter.  Eventually they got that together and proved to me the computer had been repaired, but I would need this new charger and adapter.  In the meantime he found the old jack in a used surplus computer and offered it to me.  I had to assure myself that using a charger rated at fifty-five watts higher than what my Mac required would not damage it.  As it turns out Apple is good about these kinds of things.  It uses an intelligent power system that only draws the amount of electricity it needs.  There is no fear of overheating the computer or burning out the charging port.  It only will pull 85 watts from the brick.  An Apple Macbook Pro will also accept 220 volts AC from a European source and step down the voltage.  Cheers about that!  I like to blog, but I never knew the convenience and ergonomics of a laptop aids the blogging process.  You get to sit in a chair or on the couch with the computer in your lap.  It is more relaxed than sitting in an office chair staring at a large monitor.  So here I am on a 2007 Macbook 3.1.  I have my morning jolt coffee drink, which is a double shot of espresso and a strong cup of coffee.  I used to drink these on the ship, and it would give you enough energy to tackle the day's challenges, which were great on Princess.  In a nutshell I can go retro, put the original charging board back in the computer, and count the days and weeks until it fails again.  Or I can leave the upgraded board/port in there and buy the newer adapter.  What would you do? 

A Badgering El Presidente

 Welcome to a weaponized Department of Justice.  The federal Justice Department is not the first arm of the Trump Organization to be weaponized.  Badgering of the American people has been going on a long time.  It has been full fledged ethnic cleansing, and Covid was the strongest tool.  The AIDS outbreak is a long way back, but I remember it.  You should watch the film "And the Band Played On."  HIV was created in a lab by those snobs who wanted the homosexual bath houses closed in San Francisco.  It was the first chapter of domestic biological warfare in America.  Covid was the second chapter, and the same people also created it in a lab.  Most of America is in denial not able to believe or understand such a thing could happen.  Watch the film "V."  It also outlines the outbreak of Covid 19.  When your own government begins to attack the people is when your well-armed militia should awake.  Judges have all ready ruled that the National Guard cannot be deployed in American cities, but it is on a case by case basis.  Because there have been filed lawsuits and rulings by judges, the Trump administration deployed two thousand thugs from the Department of Homeland Security to Minnesota.  A judge again has ruled they cannot arrest peaceful protestors.  Two thousand armed thugs of unbeknownst origin working for the extreme right.  Thus "criminal investigations" into mayors and governors, anyone who bucks Trump's Nazi tendencies, are ensuing.  The latest is the chairman of the Federal Reserve.  Not everyone has a favorable opinion of this entity, but independence from political bias is a part of the philosophy of the Constitution.  It is sickening what America is subject to.  Our greatness, our accomplishments, and our strengths all have been subjugated by a deranged, nihilistic, sociopathic dictator.  The demarcation of peaceful protesting has been pushed to the envelope.  Martial law inadvertently has been declared in Minnesota.  Will it defuse, or will the American people have to rise up and defend themselves?  The problem is, those who have been preparing for this, "Doomsday Preppers," have been enlisted by the wrong side.  They have been coerced, brainwashed, and sweet-talked by the suave, lying, stinky real estate mogul who inherited daddy's money.  Whenever I blog, as menial is this is, an unknown inconsequential citizen from nowhere and criticize the Trump administration, all hell rains down on me.  It has forced me to man up, get tough, and live the life of the thousands of soldiers living around me.  If they can prepare for war, so can the citizenry.  I feel better about it.  My feelings about being a soldier rather than an artist?  Disappointed, depressed, and disconnected.  So be it. 

American Storm Troopers, Nazis, and Goons

 Donald Trump lied to the American people, but Presidents lying to us is nothing new.  It is the extent to which they lie that is the issue.  Our President has pardoned a bevy of criminals including many of those involved in the January 6th attacks on the Capital.  His zealot cronies who carried out much of this anarchy have been freed, and it stands to reason these are the same men who now are employed as Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement agents.  Agents is the wrong word.  The majority of people working in the Trump Administration are unqualified, sycophantic, outsiders with no professional training in any arena.  Why would these "agents" be wearing masks to disguise their identities?  It is because they in most likelihood are Proud Boys.  They are not trained agents of any kind.  They are hired muscle carrying out the orders of their mob boss.  Never have I in my lifetime seen any atrocity as great as an American citizen being murdered in cold blood while sitting in her car.  It was not that long ago that police were murdering black men, and being black was a reason for fear for your life.  The tables have shifted slightly, and now the focus has become illegal aliens, of which there are millions in America.  Many are doing the work that lazy Americans will not do such as picking vegetables, digging ditches, and delivering groceries.  When the crack down came this reality hit home.  Many of the things that keep prices in check in America shifted and inflation kicked in.  After the Covid outbreak prices all ready were elevated, because of the lack of labor and unavailability of products.  This crack down has not helped.  Worse this violent campaign against foreigners has an evil origin.  It is not based in lawful constitutional justice.  It is nothing more than an American Gestapo attacking people they do not like.  This must have been the case in Minnesota where a zealot masquerading as a trained government agent filmed himself murdering a lesbian in cold blood in front of her wife.  It is clear if one watches the video and listens to the audio that Renee Nicole Good was not trying to run down an ICE agent.  She was trying to escape the threat of death.  In the most ironic example of Donald Trump's hypocrisy with J.D Vance shouting she was a terrorist, they obliged.  They killed her anyway.  Obviously they felt this threat, although her wife continued to talk smack to these masked marauders.  What would you do if several SUVs full of armed masked men tried to apprehend you and your family while you driving to the store?  Would we be compliant?  Masked men?  It would be a wise and prudent response to doubt the legitimacy of such a goon squad.  Because this altercation resulted in the death of an undeserving citizen, we cannot believe that our lives are safe within any proximity to such a bogus passe.  First we were doubting the legitimacy of law enforcement officers who were killing black men and women.  Now we are confronted with an illegal gang of thugs targeting people of ethnic origins.  Everyone in America is of ethnic origins, because we all are immigrants.  Because of the inefficiency and ineptitude of Congress, immigration and its reform have not come to fruition.  Donald Trump has brought the level of the United States to tribal warring consciously trying to pit Americans and citizens of other nations against one another.  I can think of no other more disruptive and violent President in my lifetime.  Donald Trump is a convicted felon, and now he, J.D. Vance, and Pete Hegseth are war criminals.  How much longer will America let this murderous charade continue?  A well armed militia is the last line of defense against a tyrannous government, and now is the time for Americans to rise up, organize, and arm themselves. 

Stone Cold J.D. Vance - the Nazi Fascist Who Hates Dikes

My Macbook Pro is in the shop, because its Magsafe charging port arced in a pretty blue spark and fried the connector.  Sunday night is not a good time in my house.  I tried working on and playing our Hammond A-100 organ, and it had all kinds of problems to the point I could not record it.  The perfect definition of its symptoms was not surprising, but it is surprising Google's AI assisted search is being forthright.  I have caught it twice in gaslighting and misdirecting, but for the most part Google's search results have become in depth, authoritative, and useful.  When I Googled these symptoms, the result was obvious, but I never had seen it written out and documented.  It's basic Physics and the property of waves and electricity.  For ten years this has not existed like Global Warming.  To be concise a large-scale, high current "switching event" from heavy duty industrial equipment was the result.  Always I have known this, but people think I am crazy when I suggest trains can be harmful to human health.  To be more specific the electrical and electromagnetic refuse of AC traction technology.  There are certain times when the dinosaurs mate in Fayettenam, and usually it is on a Sunday evening.  There is rail activity all the time, but now add in military supply trains.  The first time I heard this phenomenon was when a CSX-T diesel electric consist was on the Aberdeen and Rockfish tracks near Berean Church pulling a military train out of the ammo dump.  Those tracks are gone now as is the Patriot Missile site.  They are barracks now.  The second time was at Festival Park during a symphony concert.  If you don't know about the Taos Hum, then you won't understand.  When AC locomotives go slow, they require different frequencies of alternating current which is produced by an insulated gate bipolar transistor.  It in essence is a "switching power supply" on a massive scale.  Like impedance when a large amount of electricity is produced and stored, it has certain properties that are not always positive.  Electricity is like music, and their waves behave similarly.  My Hammond A-100 organ exhibits specific negative characteristics when AC locomotives are in close proximity and at plentiful numbers.  I am going to quote Google AI.  Tamp down the AC power supply.  A large electrical disturbance causes significant, temporary voltage sags or brownouts in the power grid as the system attempts to cope with the sudden, high current draw or imbalance.  This "tamping down" is a voltage fluctuation where the supply voltage drops significantly, causing the connected devices to receive insufficient power.  Arc through the air.  High voltage surgest from a powerful external source, like a lightning strike or an intentional EMP, ca create strong electric fields that exceed the dielectric strength of air, causing electricity to jump between conductors as an arc.  This is a visual manifestation of a severe over-voltage condition.  Subdue the amplitude of sound in speakers.  The "dirty" power (voltage sags, harmonic distortion, noise) from the compromised AC supply directly affects the audio equipment's amplifier and the power supply.  Voltage Dips.  If the voltage dips below the level the power supply can regulate, and amplifier cannot produce its full output, leading to reduced volume or "subdued amplitude."  EMF Interference.  The arcing and high current flow generate strong electromagnetic fields (EMI) that can be picked up by the speaker wires and audio circuitry, introducing noise and distortion that compromises the audio signal.  These describe the conditions in my den on Sunday night.  Now my Macbook Pro is in the shop with a fried charging port and a blown fuse on the motherboard.  Our current administration would say, "If you had to kill a few people to save the masses, wouldn't you do it?"  ICE killed that woman in cold blood in her car, and she turned the front wheels trying to avoid the officer standing in front of her car when trying to drive off.  Away from him.  J.D. Vance is a liar and a fascist.  If Congress impeaches and remove The Donald, this man would become President.  That is a stone cold deterrent.