Bullet Points:
** 56 million years ago a period of abrupt global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), was caused by a massive release of greenhouse gases, likely triggered by volcanic activity. Climate activists (yes, Mike_C, they are oppressed) equate that with backyard BBQs, lawnmowers, and automobiles – I sometimes wonder how their ancestors were smart enough to reproduce. Then again, a lot of them are queer, and don’t reproduce so maybe nature is seeking equilibrium?
** h/t Claudio – Chinese propaganda aimed at Japan. The Chinese hope to back Japan down but all it’s doing is fueling Japanese armament. We know that the Celestials in the propaganda ministry can’t be wrong when they threaten to nuke Japan (and Australia) — but it’s not a way to win friends.
** Liberals are concerned about laser-printed handguns being homemade in the US to challenge the status quo. America responds, “Hold my beer.”
I expect that the Democrats will want to seize all tools now…
** China has a lot of problems. One problem is the male/female ratio situation which is a holdover from the one-child family that led to massive abortions of female babies in utero. Another has to do with Americans and Europeans cutting back on orders from Chinese factories which led to unemployment. The traditional Christmas ordering didn’t come this year.
The youth unemployment rate (for those aged 16 to 24) hit a record-high 21.3 percent in June, following which the government announced that it would no longer publish the statistic.
(h/t Claudio) Reviving a flagging economy is of great political importance for the Chinese Communist Party, not least because of the risk that the younger generation will question the legitimacy of a system that cannot meet its basic aspirations for gainful employment. Yet the signs are that their prospects will continue to deteriorate.
President Xi’s purge of Westerners living in China is all but complete. Anyone in Big China who interacts with a Westerner is accused of being a spy formally. The Bamboo Curtain is going back up.
** “The new ‘AB 1228’ legislation has been voted into law and will result in a devastating financial blow to California McDonald’s franchisees at a projected annual cost of $250,000 per McDonald’s restaurant,” the advocacy group representing some 1,000 McDonald’s franchisees said in the memo obtained by FOX Business.
Among the bill’s key components:
It would raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour.
It would apply to restaurants with at least 60 locations nationwide, except for restaurants that make and sell their own bread.
It would also create a 10-person council to govern fast-food chains and set guidelines for working conditions and wages.
Don’t accept cash/currency.
** Climate change is the preeminent global existential threat. That’s why ALL the world’s banks continue to underwrite 30-year mortgages for oceanfront property in Malibu, Maui, Martha’s Vineyard, Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya to Bermuda, Bahama, c’mon pretty mama!
** These jabs will be administered to foster children. The State has to rid itself of useless eaters.
** Vikings – The famous Varangian Guard, described by Roman writers as ‘axe-wielding barbarians’, ‘the emperor’s wine-bags’, and so forth, seem to have survived the fall of Constantinople. Along with other Roman institutions, they found a new home in Nicaea under the Laskarid emperors.
The main reference comes from George Pachymeres (born 1242), who records the presence of ‘axe-bearing Celts’ guarding the imperial treasury at Magnesia in 1258. Roman writers made virtually no distinction between English, Norse or ‘Celts’ – so far as they were concerned, these men were all hairy Western barbarians, good at fighting and drinking and not much else. They might have said that; I could not possibly comment.
Magnesia itself was an imperial residence north of the main Laskarid palace at Nymphaion, along the valley of the Hermos River at the foot of Mount Sipylos. It was an important center of commerce and the location of the imperial treasury and mint; Theodore II Laskaris called the city the “golden Magnesia”, and spent much time there in the later years of his life.
It’s time for Gumballs again:
3 billion people on the planet make less than $2.00 per day.
Mars on the left, Earth on the right
Identify the Aircraft
1
They only built four, but apparently, those were deployed to operational squadrons. I can only guess that the aviators were not too keen on flying them.
2
Lying dog-faced pony soldier…
(1) Vickers Vampire (the other one)
(2) Vickers Windsor
It’s Vickers Day!
-Kle.
I was one generation removed from the correct ID of aircraft 1. Congrats!
I only remember it because of the jet.
-Kle.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Vickers F.B.12
2. Vickers Windsor
Herein we’re I.D. – ing aircraft, ships, tanks ,APC vehicles. How about that tool on the bench? Spec’s, features, caliber ect? If all lives matter, then surely firearms do too. ;). P.S. there’s a little black somewhere on every one of these tools. Just trying to align with the SEG and DEI B.S.
ID Tool. MG-3
The Bamboo Curtain is going back up.
How does that affect your business, if I may ask?
Ed, my business is complicated. The answer is that it remains to be seen. For part of what I do, the business isn’t impacted at all. The (largely) domestic legal consulting and investigation side of things has almost nothing to do with China. I work on it every day so it is viable, profitable, and ongoing. I have to charge more because you and the readers here understand that the costs of everything rise because USGOV causes them to rise due to policies that many of us view as malicious. So far, people have paid the rate.
Some of the work that I do in Asia has been all but cut off because of the rise of the Bamboo Curtain. Other things have presented themselves, though and the Asian part of the business grows through fits and starts. The cost of things in Asia has caused the profit margin to shrink. But there is new business and that means new opportunities for growth. Managing overhead is a continuing problem. Keeping people FOCUSED on task can be difficult too because I can’t be hands-on nearly as much as i’d like to be.
If I recall correctly, and I may not, it was Deming who said the only rational way for a company to price its products is at what the customer will pay.
Presumably, that only works if a reasonable profit can be made at that price point…….
I’m amazed at how many people mistake me for a communist and want me to work for free. (They can pretend to pay me and I’ll pretend to work) Or if not that, they keep expanding the scope of work for the original price – Oh, you want tires with that car? (WSF strategy)
Apparently, it’s about time for me to retire, again. Just this morning, I told a person masquerading as a customer that we weren’t gonna accept his terms and conditions document and he could either accept ours or go elsewhere. I think he’s going elsewhere and good riddance.
I wonder what Deming would think of that……
Perhaps a sternly written letter signed by the Lord High Executioner Beans, with his professional seal, can help keep your people focused.
It would work better if he decimated the work force. There is a historical precedent for that and he is the Lord High Executioner.
Simple answer is, Death to every MBA and Accountant-turned-Boss.
Death to everyone who is a Human Resources person. People are NOT resources, but persons, thus Personnel is the new hotness in the world of Beans.
Getting rid of pointy-haired bosses and bosses with 50mph hair (hair that stays in place at 50mph, like on the golf course) will solve lots of issues.
On Sino-Japanese relations: the Japanese seem to have zero interest in “reparations”, much less self-flagellation, for the terrible things their recent ancestors did in China and throughout Asia. While this may make them bastards, it is also the case that the West might benefit by taking a leaf from their book.
Mike_C, the way I look at it, every person on the planet is “due reparations” if they drift back far enough riding the Way-Back Machine.
Dealing with the present and trying not to make the same mistakes is a far more mature way to view things. The Japanese who raped Nanking are all dead. At the same time, Japanese warships still “render honors to USS Arizona” when they arrive and depart Pearl Harbor.
PS – Our current playbook is 1984. The FBI is recruiting K-12 teachers to infiltrate American schools and report on the political suitability of administrators, teachers, and school boards.
As I’ve said before, no Japanese person, nor the nation-state itself, owes me (a genetically Chinese person whose family on both sides lost much because of the Japanese — disclosure for the non-regulars) a damn thing because of (admittedly horrible) things that their countrymen did 80 years ago. I certainly don’t need nor want to see the Japanese indoctrinated into (actual) self loathing, nor do I want them culturally and spiritually destroyed.
In that vein, not one single white person alive bears any guilt nor even responsibility for antebellum slavery in the US. Other examples of externally-imposed false guilt abound, of course.
As far as FBI serving as political enforcers, who trains (or at least boasts of training) the FBI in these issues?
I don’t know. I’ve been out of that business for a long time.
About the Way-Back Machine: once in a while I will insert tongue in cheek and say that, as the historical birthplace(s) for mankind are in the warm climate regions, and as we can see that in later times white people were all in northern regions where people starve from reduced growing seasons as well as freezing to death in winters, there must have been a massive purge against white people that drove them up north to inhospitable regions. Therefore the original victim class that deserves reparations are white people. You can get interesting looks from people with that one…maybe they’re trying to figure out what size straitjacket I would need 🙂
That is nasty. I love it.
Brilliant!
Living in and around ‘wake up and eat all the things around me that I can collect in 15 minutes’ does not drive progress. Why? It only takes 15 minutes to get a meal, so why bother?
The cold, semi-frozen North was the greatest driver of progress, as one actually had to work, and work hard, to survive (Plymouth Colony being an example of how not working hard meant lots of survival failures.)
But what about the big equatorial-based civilizations, you may ask? All of those started because for one reason or another, life became hard there. North African culture didn’t really start until the climate changed enough that the people couldn’t survive a hunter-gatherer culture. Same with Central and South American cultures, life got hard, progress to meet the hardness occurred.
Places where life didn’t get hard, or the people failed to adapt, like North America, show no progress culturally.
Simple test. Does the culture have the concept of the wheel (or rollers?) If not, well, culture has never progressed past pre-stone age. Even the Pacific Islanders had the concept of rollers. The Aborigines of Australia? The Sub-Saharan Africans? The North American Natives? No idea of wheels or rollers. And it shows.
Any progress of culture comes from outside these cultures.
Prove me wrong.
Mules are genetic dead ends. The cultures you mentioned were cultural dead ends. ex: We want to eliminate the resistance of plains Indians. Shoot the buffalo. Resistance ended. It wasn’t THAT difficult once somebody figured out that they were a one trick pony.
$20/hr- What part of “entry-level job don’t these morons understand? The problem is that any idiocy that starts in California leaches across the nation, like some red wave of pain and suffering and stupidity. Now we have infiltrators in LA and DC acting like squeeze walls towards the middle, crushing everything in their path in the name of progress, regardless whether it’s Constitutional or not. Most of what these people demand is none of their damn business, and by all accounts are willfully destroying the Middle Class. By extension we can’t help those less fortunate (aka, the small gumball folks) anymore because we are too busy trying to stay afloat while TPTB keep doing stupid things like this. There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine…but officials believe they exist, especially at their doing.
Mars/Earth- We’re in trouble if one of those mysterious stainless obelisk shows up on Mars like it did in that Utah desert slot canyon.
In-N-Out and Chick-fil-A are already paying around $20/hr, and it’s their business decision, not the government’s. Keeping the government out of our lives by reducing its size should be the goal of the rising generation…but I dispair.
It’s another side of inflationary stupidity for what… flipping burgers and chicken patties while frying fries, when a decent carpenter with serious skills makes maybe $5 more. In the end guess who pays the differential. But proper Econ isn’t taught in school (AOC apparently has an Econ degree from BYU, and look what comes out of her mouth).
Ex: Needed a jug of charcoal starter, $8 – same price – for 1/3rd less volume. They think we’re stupid. But what are you gonna do when this is the trend due to government “oversight and policy” that makes everything worse? Your solution is the only viable one.
One of the local firemen quit the FD to work full-time at Chick-fil-A.
In-N-Out managers make on average $160K/year as of 2018. I know that in some stores today they top $200K/year for supervising burger flipping.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/01/25/n-out-mangers-make-160-000-per-year-reports-show/1065434001/
I think that AOC graduated from Boston Univ. and not Brigham Young Univ.
Yes, BU. Brain stick…due to not having my coffee and a 16 hour day yesterday, where the only pay was gratitude to still [mostly] be able to climb a roof and help my brother. “Pay it forward” when necessary still works. Aspens are changing at 8000 ft, weather today, snow possible tomorrow. Autumn in the Rockies..never a dull moment.
Management in fast food outfits can be quite the career path, has often led some to own a franchise. The other jobs are not high skill oriented and it was understood they paid accordingly. Now, a good short-order cook is worth their weight in gold…saw one on Hell’s Kitchen, could cook circles around the others but had no formal “chef” training. Ramsey (who’s a good guy once past the “we don’t have time for slackers” TV persona) was so impressed he sent her to culinary school.
They’re managing a multi-million dollar enterprise.
Yes, they are. And this is the point. If the company thinks they’re worth $200K a year, that’s great and it makes sense. If the GOVERNMENT FORCES you to pay them $200K per year, then it’s a bad thing.
I gotta admit, so far each In-N-Out I’ve been has been clean, efficient, and provided competent, courteous service. Compared to that, some few McD’s have been nearly as good, most are 60-80% the overall quality, and some are purely terrible. Apart from the available substrate, clearly the manager plays a role in the function of each location. So if a dude (or dudette) is running an efficient, reasonably harmonious, and profitable ship, then more power (cash) to him. That said, I may be in the wrong racket. Just mentioned this to a friend and colleague. She had the same reaction.
If you’re an area manager at In-N-Out, in a larger market, total compensation could come close to cresting $300K. I had a neighbor who was a regional manager of Jack-in-the-Box restaurants in the Los Angeles Area and he was bringing home $200K+ plus stock options, car, etc. He had a lot of restaurants under his umbrella. In-N-Out has always paid well.
An LA Times senior reporter who was also a friend (old school kind of guy) has a wife (very smart) who started turning burgers at McDonald’s, worked her way up, and is pulling in $450K+ perque package. He quit to babysit their child. Her total compensation with stock is almost double her direct salary.
Problem is in California you need half a million just to survive a semi-middle class existence.
Truth.
You can live in the middle class for $500K/year in SoCal. Usually, you’re looking at 2x$250K incomes to pull it off. Maybe there’s a third job wedged there. Who raises the kids? And therein lies the problem.
I worked for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, I was a lieutenant commander in the US Naval Reserve with a 5 drill weekend (paid for 5 full days of service a month) plus could do Navy stuff and double dip from both jobs because I had 30 days paid military leave from my day job and my wife was an executive with a national brand who had a western states territory. We lived ok, but nothing special. I didn’t need donations of food or old clothes to survive. But yeah, that’s what it took.
Scrooge! Raise it to $100!
Heck yeah, why not…the skies the limit!
Happens when those generating “dictates without understanding” are clueless or ignore the consequences of a free market system that will ultimately try to rebalance the load. This is apparently the belief of half the country and all public “servants” who think money magically grows on trees (as in, gets printed when supplies run short due to forcing the market to do what it can’t.) The result is we get dinky Snickers bars or 3oz Subway hoagies for the same inflated price while being told the economy is just peachy…it’s like paying the same rent and utilities for just the living room.
“Western barbarians, good at fighting and drinking and not much else.” No whoring? That is sooo barbaric.
How many young Chinese men are victims of ‘died suddenly’? Not enough? Pfizer has a cure for that.
The Chinese living in the PRC are very resentful toward the Communist Govt. because of covid handling. I think that’s one reason for the return of the Bamboo Wall.
CHICOM GOV wants to focus people’s anger on the external enemy rather than on their own government.
The single men shouldn’t be mad at the West, it’s the communists who aborted their potential mates.
On the Acela to NYFC. Two finance bros got on one stop before Stamford. They are conversing loudly. Very loudly. I remarked to my seat mate (a young white woman wearing a surgical mask) “I guess indoor voices are not a thing.” She snickered then said “I think people have gotten louder post-Covid.” This may be true but I have no baseline because the NYC thing is new to me.
Oh gawd, now they’re talking about ESG. Approvingly. Anyway, I told her about your (LL) pretending to have done jail time with random passengers which made her laugh out loud. At any rate, I have a conference call at 0930. I was feeling guilty and planning to decamping to the café car to take it, but no longer. Given the Finance Bros I’m pretty sure I won’t be the most offensively loud person in the car. Thanks, guys!
It’s the small things in life that bring the most joy. Not being that guy would be one.
My morning voice is, well, not subtle. In an attempt to mitigate I’ve been (occasionally anyway) practicing the tv “guy” personality low gravel(grovel) voice, otherwise I sound like an Eastern bred kid until the coffee kicks in (or the Gammel Dansk pipe cleaner, whichever comes first).
Before the smoking ban on commercial flights my father related an incident where two businessmen sat behind him, puffing away on cigars. One would brag about what a Big man he was at his company, puff, puff, puff. The other would then brag about how he was a Bigger man at his company, puff, puff, puff. As the bragging continued the smoke cloud got heavier.
My meeting was rescheduled. And I did remove myself to the café car for it. Got a look at the Finance Bros while trekking ALL the way to the next car. Both were uncommonly good looking and fashionable men. The conversation indicated that they didn’t know each other. I now suspect that there was a mating-ritual element to the whole, er, affair.
The most annoying commercial flight I’ve been on was Southwest from BWI to BOS back when the FAs still wore those goofy shorts and sweater vests and they did those annoying jokes. Some Wang (computer company) execs had gotten some sort of bailout from fedgov. They were ecstatic, and stinking drunk. A chain of balding middle-aged men in gray suits formed a literal conga line in the aisle. The FAs cheered them on. After that I avoided SWA for about a decade.
Did they have the requisite – currently fashionable – 3-day beard unshaven look with shaved sides & long pomp top coiffure? Should have asked them how much bath and shower “product” they use each day or when their next manipedi and manicure was scheduled.
Hah! (Or maybe I should squeal “OMFG!!!👨❤️💋👨😍) It’s as if you were there.
Yes, the dark-blonde/unruly curls aisle-seat guy had 3-day stubble, untucked check shirt and tight slacks. Window-seat guy was dark-haired, clean shaven and was wearing a very trim/fitted medium blue suit, open collar dress shirt. Both had the shaved-sides haircuts. I didn’t see what kind of shoes they were wearing.
I recall one train ride from White Plains to NYC where an obviously homosexual black male was on the phone with his therapist wearing an ear piece. He spoke loudly and everyone listened. He was a “glory hole hotline volunteer”. Apparently other homos would call the hot line in NYC to find out where a glory hole was manned. There was a glory hole in the Goldman Sachs HQ and he wanted to man it but it was only manned sporadically by other Goldman employees and they wouldn’t let our train rider into the building – causing him to be frustrated.
We only heard one side of the conversation that drifted into helmets and ant eaters. At some point, I just moved to the lunch car on the train.
“ There was a glory hole in the Goldman Sachs HQ”
I’m surprised to hear there’s demand for a glory hole there. Considering how much action they get screwing us 24/7*, I’d have thought their major concern would be staying hydrated and replete with electrolytes.
* and not even the courtesy of a reach…
Well, you get the idea.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: “I’m gonna give you three seconds… exactly three fucking seconds to wipe that stupid-looking grin off your face or I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull-fuck you.” Full Metal Jacket The point can be made that the drill instructor didn’t drop his trousers and carry through losing credibility.
Knowing Goldman Sachs as I do, there is a lot of skull penetration after gouging out eyes (metaphor).
Conga line – some things should never see the light of day.
No, some things should only be discussed in the form of a quiet word laying on the shrink’s couch, clutching a crying towel.
Hopefully your conference call discussed all sorts of nasty and gross things, and the lady laughed while Finance Boys turned geen.
Sorry to disappoint. Call was rescheduled firm tomorrow morning. And nothing puke nor “Eeew!” worthy is expected (so far as I know). Budget and data transfer logistics for an early feasibility study (term of art for a class of clinical trial). So! Much! Excitement! in my life I don’t know how I can not just burst from sheer exuberance.
Big disappointment…
ID The Planes:
1. Ugly
2. Uglier
For some reason, the Brits seem to excel at making ugly planes.
Slightly off topic…Our “buddy” Epps got a slap on the wrist 2 1/2 years after the fact (likely due to pressure optics), charged with “one count of disorderly conduct”. A putrid tiny slap on the wrist while those he egged on in the Pelosi et al PsyOp have been political prisoners languishing in effectively Turkish jail cells for all this time, hunted down like escaped Chester County illegal aliens (well, not exactly, they were truly hunted down while that actual double murderer POS ran around on the lam for two weeks).
Where is the justice? Where are the Republicans? Instead we get this guy, Epps, getting basically a parking ticket and now off to enjoy his life. Seems we need to revive the Varangian Guard, only the axes get swapped for modern weaponry.
Given that I’ve done the same thing in the past, let me point out that the FBI mismanaged the Epps thing to the max. What morons. It is common for the police to protect an informant such as Epps by arresting him and charging him (reduced to a misdemeanor, no time) when they arrest EVERYONE ELSE in order to “clean the informer” up. Then PEOPLE DON’T SUSPECT THEM of being police stooges/informers. They were arrested and convicted TOO.
Waiting until the entire planet knows that Epps is an FBI informer and then arresting him, charging him with a minor infraction, and releasing him to “clean him up” is a waste of time.
I wonder if Epps did something that ticked off the FBI enough that they wanted to ruin him like they did. Now either side, and yes in my mind the situation has devolved enough that there are sides, will never trust the guy.
Wonder if there is a J6 flag I could fly below my POW flag?
Almost like We The People are getting the Indian treatment from 100 years ago. As much as The Left/Dems talk about “slavery” and “reparations” (that no one deserves for long ago sins they had nothing to do with), that is exactly what they want for us.
If you find the flag I want a dozen.
“The only good patriot is a dead patriot” plays inside the Beltway.
Ed+Campbell – I think that the American Flag or possibly that combined with the Gadsen Flag were the flags of January 6. They really hate Old Glory with 13 stars in a circle. That is always linked in FBI internal literature with domestic terrorism.
And I fly both.
Exactly.
One add: Only certain informants or whistleblowers get that treatment…the ones doing the nefarious and subversive. The other’s pointing out blatant criminality get tossed, cancelled, or jailed to shut them up. Despite modern “enlightenment, certain aspects of the human race has not changed a whole lot.
“They” own the media, from now on they can say that “he arrested and found guilty” & that PROVES that the J6 demonstration was not a cabal controlled exercise to make an example of the people who actually watched the election being stolen.
Classic misdirect…and people still fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book.
I’ve thought for a long time that the whole reparations argument comes down to historical ignorance. It doesn’t take much reading to find the concept of slavery is pretty widespread. All cultures seem to have it in their history, if you look back. Makes me think that the vast majority of people probably have an ancestor who was a slave at some point. It wouldn’t be shocking at all to find lots of us had one ancestor that was a slave and another that was a slave owner – probably at very different times.
This insanity of people who never owned a slave paying reparations to people who have never been a slave brings with it a bunch of other insanities to justify those payments; things like the legend of white privilege and the patriarchy.
Historical ignorance or The Big Lie?
Both.
I used to think it was based on historical ignorance. I now think it’s a shakedown racket.
The rank and file, many probably ARE ignorant about history. Agreed. But those at the top of the various guilt-farming operations? Cynical shakedown. And that’s another reason we Must Have War With China. The Chinese don’t care how much suffering your ancestors went, or supposedly went, through, so they need to be taken down.
Regarding BATFE and some Law Enforcement Agencies and tools, apparently having tools, a manual or instructions on how to make happy-fun-stuff and a collection of metal sheet, pipe, rod and blocks is, yes, indeed, possibly means the owner/worker will construct happy-fun-stuff and therefore can be arrested and have all of his/her property and assets siezed.
There’s a paintball mechanic/maker in Alaska who has a nice website and he absolutely refuses to play with anything potentially happy-fun-stuff except for a few things, like making a scope mount or cutting down a long-barreled pistol or making brass cartridges for a very old rifle. Anything approaching solvent-traps or suppressors or cutting down rifles or making giggle switches he adamantly refuses to touch, even think about openly, because BATFE has destroyed small machine shops and their owners.
If you’re going to do that, buy the stamp, pay the tax, and put it in a Silencer Trust or an Automatic Weapons trust under the control of an attorney who specializes in that. Thus, the trust owns the weapons. That’s how it’s done in Arizona.
Yet it still comes down to “the why”. How is it firearms control and regulation is any of the Federal governments business? (Yeah, stupid question, just wanted to posit the question for the record, say the unsaid out loud for a change. The simple answer is the modern government – meaning those elected to serve us – hate competition.)
The ‘bamboo curtain’ can’t be helping your stuff. Sorry to hear that. Re Mickey D’s in CA, that ‘could’ lead to them leaving California entirely, and THAT would get some folks attention!
And that hot humid climate was instrumental in getting the Earth repopulated after the K-T extinction. Life thrives when it is hot and moist. And the heat helps create the humid.
“The youth unemployment rate (for those aged 16 to 24) hit a record-high 21.3 percent in June, following which the government announced that it would no longer publish the statistic.”
Historically when a nation has a surplus of educated unemployed Military Aged Males that nation must start a war or risk internal turmoil.
The Chinese do read history.
They need a distraction from internal woes. The question is whether they’ll attack Taiwan or Russia.
There’s an awful lot to like in this post, not least the photo of your new MG in the machine shop. Tight.