Furnace Filters and SCOTUS

This is Jim, yesterday morning.  He's not fond of this photo, but I think he's adorable.  The point of my posting this is to serve as a reminder that it does get cold enough to require the heavy polar fleece camo pants, and so we must continue packing them.  Please make a note of this.

We also changed the furnace filters yesterday.  One of these days, I will get a video of the filter levitating into its position with some force.  It's so different than when installing one in the vertical.  Anyway, the point of this is to remind us that when we are using the rubber mallet to force the cold air return grill back where it belongs, apply force in the direction of the second bedroom, as well as straight up.  Please make a note of that, as well. 

We had interesting skies yesterday.  I was hoping for a good sunset, but, alas, it was not to be.

So, the Supreme Court over ruled 47's use of IEEPA to levy tariffs at will.  There are a lot of legal words, and closely reasoned arguments for and against, but essentially they said a tariff is a tax, and taxation belongs to Congress.  It says so in the constitution.  He has other paths to levy tariffs; what I don't know is if Congress has to approve the use of those laws.  Here is a 70 second clip of 47 going off the rails this morning.  Later in the speech, he was having trouble reading the words on the page because he was so angry, and apoplectic.  SCOTUS side stepped the issue of whether the tariffs have to be repaid to the companies and consumers who paid them.  So, he has lost his bludgeon that he was applying to other countries to make them bend to his will.  Previously negotiated trade deals are now in jeopardy.  

A person who tweets under the name Boston Smalls had this to say about it:  Corporations are already filing lawsuits and they're going to win them. This is going to be a disaster. Taxpayers will once again get screwed. We will be on the hook and pay billions for these lawsuits. Not to mention corporations are not going to lower prices because they never do. While at the same time, the damage is already done with trump's illegal trade war that he has waged for the last year and the world is passing us by now. They're moving on because maga has turned America into a dumpster fire. Canada, Europe and the trans-pacific (40 countries) are currently working out deals with each other. This 6x time bankrupt pedo has ruined us. Elections have consequences and your stupidity has driven us off a cliff. Thanks maga.

Justin Wolfers, an economist had this to say: Key issue to bear in mind as you watch today's political response to the Supreme Court tariff decision: The Court didn't say that the US can't issue tariffs, simply that the President has to convince (the Republican-controlled) Congress first. If tariffs are a great idea, that should be an easy argument to win. (Spoiler: They're not.)

So, that's it then. 

  

 

Cactus and the Administration

Hola!  How are you doing in this time of everything going off the rails, all at once, for no good reason, other than the cranky orange baby trying to distract us from the number of times he appears in the Epstein files?  My feeling of existential dread has returned with a vengeance.  It's feeling like 1965 all over again when Barry McGuire was singing this song.

First there are a few photos.  Jim took this last night.  It wasn't a great sunset, but it's what there was.  I think sunsets used to be better, must be global climate change.

Our Mexican fence post cactus is blooming and making fruit.  We did not see this last year.  I don't know if we just were not looking, or if it was a fallow year for it.  Notice the hummingbird.  That's the one sitting on the nest.  We spent a week making hummer juice and putting out a feeder, but she will not partake.  Our windows have a UV coating, which is very mirror like, and I guess her reflection scares her.  I tried putting on the electric meter, but she didn't like that, either.  So, no chow for her. The feeder is one of those small ones that you stick on a window.

The fence post cactus is about 15 feet tall.  It amuses me that the blossoms are so small and non-descript.

The cactus is in the process of loosing two more arms, which is bad.

47 and Netanyahu have decided that something must be done about Iran.  The US will have two carrier groups in the area.  February is when Iran, Russia and China hold their yearly joint military operations in the Strait of Hormuz.  One fifth of the global oil supply goes through the strait.  See that pointy land mass almost in the middle of the map?  That's the Strait.  There's not a lot of room to maneuver in there.  

After the recent Iranian crackdowns on the protests, when thousands of people were killed, 47 told the citizens that help is on the way.  I guess help consists of the US bombing Tehran.  The Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group is currently in the Arabian sea, the Ford carrier battle group is on the way.  So, stand by to be amazed.  We'll have Iran, Russia and China and the US within spitting distance of each other.

This is from Axios via Meidas Touch on Facebook.  It gives you a pretty good idea of how much equipment and time may be involved.

Here is badness from the home front.  "A few weeks ago, the Heritage Foundation—the powerhouse organization behind Project 2025—released a 250-year roadmap to “save America.” Written by authors with close ties to the Trump administration, the document is a how-to guide for subjugating girls and young women: a detailed plan to push them out of college, funnel them into early marriage and motherhood, and then trap them there."  They want us out of the work place and back in the kitchen, with no ability to determine our destiny.  There's a good substack on the subject here.

ICE is buying up giant warehouses.  They plan to convert them into detention centers.  If the goal here is to deport people here without documents, why do they need detention centers this large.  I scraped this off twitter.  Why do they need this many square feet?  Where is all this money coming from?  The tax payers, of course.  I would like to see some detail on these buildings.  The only good thing happening, is the locals don't want these built in their neighborhoods, and so some of the sales have been cancelled.  

Last week Vinay Prasad, who is head of vaccines in the FDA, unilaterally chose to not review Moderna's new flu vaccine study.  He did not like the control arm that was used in the trials.  Never mind that the vaccine in the control arm is one currently in use, and was previously approved for the drug trial.  Moderna's response was: “Moderna’s CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: ‘You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market.’ Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.”  So, way to go Vinay.  However, today someone higher up in the food chain at HHS as announced that the new vaccine trials will be reviewed.  Perhaps all is not lost.

There is a list of Notable People, and the locations of their graves, at Arlington Cemetery.  The Secretary of Defense, Petey Hegseth, has removed Colin Powell's name, as well as every person of color and women from the list.  Only white men remain.

 

Clouds and Spying

The climate today was just delightful.  We were up and out on the bikes, now that the hideous garage painting project is done.  The clouds were glorious.

By now, most people know that Savannah Guthrie's Mom has been kidnapped.  The Pima County Sheriff did their usual inept job by allowing people back into her house, before FBI forensics had been there, and the entire crime scene was compromised.  Anyway, footage from a door bell camera has been recovered.  What is interesting is that there was no subscription for the camera.  However, it recorded anyway.  When you subscribe, you're being allowed to look at that footage, the FBI can get it anyway.  Additionally, we have learned that the FBI can can retrieve footage from any camera at your house at any time even if they were not set to record and even if you do not have a subscription.  So, don't think those cameras in the house aren't recording, even if you let the subscription lapse, they are.  

Ring, a major purveyor of door bell cameras ran a commercial during the Super Bowl.  In this commercial, they told us they are building a surveillance network.  This is an excerpt from a paywalled article.

At Sunday’s Super Bowl, Ring advertised “Search Party,” a cute, horrifyingly dystopian feature nominally designed to turn all of the Ring cameras in a neighborhood into a dragnet that uses AI to look for a lost dog: “One post of a dog’s photo in the Ring app starts outdoor cameras looking for a match,” Ring founder Jamie Siminoff said in the Super Bowl commercial. “Search Party from Ring uses AI to help families find lost dogs.” Onscreen, an AI-powered box forms around a missing dog: “Milo Match,” it says. “Since launch, more than a dog a day has been reunited with their family. Be a hero in your neighborhood with Search Party. Available to everyone for free right now.”

Although Ring says they don't use human biometrics, they do give police access to Ring data.  It's only a matter of time before we're all surveilled all the time.  China  already does this.  Having a cell phone is bad enough in terms of being spied on, but this is a next level.  We don't have Ring, or Alexa, or any of those spy devices.  Here is a free article.

There is more, so much more, but I'm just not up to talking about that man.

Random Stuff

Hola!  Are you aware of how many magats do not know that Puerto Rico is a US territory, and as such, all people born there are US citizens?  It's just amazing to me how strong the stupid is with these people.  They are all having a cow because Bad Bunny is performing at Super Bowl half time, and most of his set will be in Spanish.  Kid Rock is counter programmed opposite him, to bring good wholesome Christian entertainment for the impressionable children.  Look up some of his song lyrics, the guy is a pedophile.

Jim took these photos a couple of days ago.  It was pretty impressive.

We put up the hummingbird feeder, but she hasn't found it yet.  We're hoping she'll accept free chow, now that she's sitting on the nest.

Here is a very interesting substack.  The writer lives in France with her six children, she's a US citizen by birth.  She has previously written about the importance of responsible ejaculation.  Do the math, a man can impregnate a woman (different women) every single day.  Pregnancy takes 9 months.  So who is making all the unplanned babies?  Her new essay is on why men are the secondary sex.  It's an interesting read, and made me think some.   Here is an excerpt.

Let’s start with the timeline. The system of patriarchy didn’t exist for 97% of the history of human beings. Our species, Homo Sapiens, has been around for at least 260,000 years. Once patriarchy makes its appearance, we follow a very quick path to pervasive violence and destruction via climate change, nuclear bombs, oppressive religion, forced starvation, preventable disease, etc.. And we’re not just destroying humankind, we’re destroying thousands of other species too. Picture it: we managed to go along for ~250,000 years, then we introduce patriarchy and we can’t even make it ~10,000 years without bringing our species to the brink of total annihilation. Patriarchy is very bad for humankind, and for the Earth as a whole.

What is it about patriarchy that makes it so harmful? I’ll tell you. Patriarchy is built on hierarchy, competition, and domination, which is how we get horrors like white supremacy and racism, class systems, war, unregulated capitalism, pervasive violence, and rape culture. Patriarchy is also harmful because it puts males in charge of everything. But males are the secondary sex and aren’t supposed to be in charge of anything.

In nature, males are interchangeable and somewhat disposable laborers, while females are primary, and essential for a community to thrive and grow. Females are so essential that human DNA perpetually preserves the maternal line—females pass down an unbroken genetic chain that is traceable by lineage, while “interchangeable” males do not. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to child without recombination. Autosomal (or nuclear) DNA is contributed by both parents, but every generation it gets recombined, so it doesn’t preserve a single unbroken ancestral line. 

Those of you who have read me for some time, are no doubt aware of how much I do not enjoy painting.  Today we started on the garage.  The baseboard in there seems to go on forever.  Today we did all the cutting in of cabinets. the water heater, the baseboards, and the inside corners.  My feet are tired.  Here is Jim, painting around the garage door track, standing backwards on a ladder. I did the other one.

We got an excellent paint match, so I think we're not cutting in the ceilings.  It's a garage!

This is from twitter:  I don’t understand why it’s not being reported … the reason why perpetrators names are redacted and the reason why the entire case is not being pursued is because of non-prosecution agreements. If you go back and read Epstein‘s original NP agreement (that Pam Bondi signed off on) it includes Epstein and “all associates and co-conspirators known or unknown.”  This is just pathetic.  On news of the good, the Europeans are all over this, the resignations have begun over there. 

Here is the picture 47 posted in the wee hours of the morning this week.  He did this. Then he blamed it on some un-named staffer, but we know he did it.  He won't apologize, either.  I'm fairly certain that Mr. Obama is living rent free in 47's head.
 

And finally, here is a nice photo of ravens that I screen shotted.  They are majestic birds.

That's it, that's all I've got. 

Nope, I just saw this Guardian article about Epstein world.  Worth a read. 

Random Stuff and the Administration

Well, I have not dropped off the face of the earth, I've just had too much ennui to buckle down and put words on the screen.  

Yesterday I saw the ENT, good thing.  My left ear canal has collapsed, so wax can't easily leave the area.  ENTs are good for removing the build up.  It looks like I'm back on the once a year torture plan.  I also picked up my new ear plug.  No water is allowed to enter that ear ever, so showers require a swim plug.  The technology has changed.  The top one is from 2015, the new one is from now.  It's smaller and more flexible.  It works, so that's good.  It's also easier to get in the ear, since it's flexible, and the old one is not.  The black mark on the new one is a serial number.  The ENT did say that the hole in my ear drum is not terrible, which is good.  

We have a nesting hummingbird.  This year the bird has picked a better place to build her nest.  It's really difficult to get a photo of her because of all of the leaves.  Look in the middle of the photo, about 1/3 down from the top.  Her face is in the sun, so look for the bright spot.  She's in there.  Unlike last time, I won't be taking photos of the babies, the nest is too high.  If you want to see the last nest, look at the labels, and click on the Baby Hummingbirds.

Jim took this the other night, there wasn't much color, but it was a nice sky.

47 has said, out loud, that he thinks Republicans should run the elections.  Any Democratic win is always fraud.  The Speaker of the House said he had not evidence to support that opinion, but it made sense to him.  These people are idiots.

Other odds and ends from twitter; Mark Kelly tweeted "We had a hearing on what happens when the last major nuclear treaty between the U.S. and Russia expires this week. It's nothing good. Unfortunately, reducing nuclear risk doesn't seem to be a priority for this Administration."  Then there was this: The last nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia expires today. For the first time since 1969, there will be no treaty constraining the nuclear arms race. It's worth remembering that when Trump scrapped the Iran nuclear deal in his first term, he said he'd get a "better deal." It never happened. 

Ukraine is freezing to death.  47 is not sending any weapons, the EU is busy having meetings and clutching their pearls.  There are two primary factories producing the missiles that are taking out all of the electrical production in Ukraine.  With long range missiles, these could be destroyed.  But no.   

What they say: just give Donbas to russia to end the war. What they mean: stop defending yourself, reward russia with land it can't take from you, condemn your people to a silent genocide under occupation which we'll look away from, & start a countdown to russia's next invasion. It's just appalling.

The Washington Post has gutted the reporting it used to do.  No more coverage on Asia, Ukraine, the Middle East and many other areas.   I guess Bezos needed to save some money after spending all those dollars on the Melania movie.   

Oh, and then there was this from Dr. Oz.  "Seniors should retire later and kids put off schooling and work right out of high school. They should do this in order to make up for federal debt." Oprah owes us an apology for this fraud. 

Cactus and the Administration and Science

Greetings Earthlings.  It's been a week hasn't it?  Oh wait, it's only Tuesday.  There has been some hiking.  We're trying to get more weight bearing exercise, so we've been lifting weights more consistently, and walking more.  We've not seen much that's interesting.  

The tall plants are Chollas.  They're very unattractive, but also very successful survivors of the desert.  Each spine has a tiny hook on the end, so they can latch on and travel with you.  Carry a pocket comb to remove a pup, slide the teeth under the pup and pull it away.  Never use fingers for that.

A member of the Mammilaria family.  They're small, and sometimes live under other plants.  If you look for them, they're everywhere.

A Teddy Bear cholla.  These are wicked for sticking to your skin.  

Other than that, I have not much of interest to recount.  So, on to the horrors that is our country.

The shootings in Minneapolis have been documented up the ying-yang with video.  And yet, the administration continues to lie about it, blaming the victim of brandishing a gun and like that.  They're contemptible.  Bovino has been sent back to El Centro California, which almost counts as cruel and unusual punishment.  There are rumors that the poison dwarf, Stephen Miller, may be thrown under the bus for his role in inciting violence by ICE.

Trump  has been threatening us with a $300 billion tax increase (a 100% tax on Canadian imports), the largest tax hike ever, because Mark Carney made a fool out of him at Davos.  Apparently he has backed down on this threat after Canada said they were not pursuing a free trade agreement with China.  

The soon to be announced EU / India trade agreement will see a seismic shift in global trade. The impact on both China and the US is going to be felt for generations to come. This opens many markets for trade.  The US has no involvement here, as you recall, the EU put the recently negotiated trade agreement with the US on hold.

This is not good.  "The International Monetary Fund is preparing for the possibility of a rapid sell-off of US dollar-denominated assets, its managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said," per Euractiv. Also not good is the current price of gold and silver.  When people have lost faith in the dollar, they head for metals.  

This is a good article about how Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, is not helping things.  I enclose an excerpt.

It doesn’t reflect well on a treasury secretary when the price of gold goes through the roof. As I explained in October (“Gold Is Booming and That’s Really Bad News”), it means people expect higher inflation and are losing faith in the stock market along with the overall health of the economy. In such moments, Wall Street longs for a steady hand at the helm. Instead, they get Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hurling insults in every direction and giving every impression that he’s about to have a nervous breakdown.

Bessent previously enjoyed a reputation as the sole grown-up in Trump’s Cabinet. But at Davos last week, Bessent engaged in a frantic sort of MAGA minstrelsy, or possibly he converted under duress into a true-believing thug. I’m not sure it matters. But the more Bessent shoots his trash-talking mouth off, the more the dollar’s value falls and the higher the price of gold rises. Probably the best thing Bessent could do right now—for himself, for the dollar, and for your 401(k)—is to shut the fuck up.

Canada is still mulling over which aircraft to buy.  The F-35 order appears to be in jeopardy.  Sweden makes the Gripen, which is a seriously good airplane, and it's not from the US.  I cut and pasted this off twitter.  

The Gripen E outperforms the F-35 in key areas: quicker acceleration, higher top speed, longer range, shorter and narrower runway requirements, superior maneuverability, lower maintenance downtime, and better value - we can acquire more jets per dollar. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra warns that if Canada skips the 88 F-35s, American F-35s will need to fly over our airspace to defend the Canadian North. Good luck enforcing that! It appears Americans are intent on terminating the Canada United States relationship.

From whom would the US be defending Canada?  Greenland, perhaps.  You don't get to violate a country's airspace.  They could shoot us down.  The F-35 is a maintenance hog, their reliability numbers are bad.

I find this to be extremely interesting.  There is still a fair amount of science posted on twitter, which is where this came from .  It's worth a read, especially if you're plagued by kidney stones.

For decades, doctors believed the most common kidney stones (calcium oxalate) were lifeless lumps formed purely by chemistry—minerals building up in the kidney. ​A groundbreaking study published this month (Jan 2026) by UCLA Health has proven this wrong. ​ Using high-tech fluorescence microscopy, researchers discovered that these stones actually contain live bacteria and fungal-like biofilms "entombed" inside them. The bacteria act as a scaffolding (nidus), allowing the minerals to crystalize and grow layer by layer. ​ This solves a long-standing medical mystery: Why do patients sometimes get severe infections (sepsis) after stone-breaking treatments (lithotripsy), even when their urine was sterile? The answer: breaking the stone releases the bacteria trapped inside. ​This could revolutionize treatment, shifting focus from just diet changes to targeting the hidden microbiome within the kidney.                                      Journal Reference: Wong, Gerard C. L. et al, Intercalated bacterial biofilms are intrinsic internal components of calcium-based kidney stones, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2026). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2517066123. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2517066123

Pretty cool, eh?