Daily Life and the Administration

Greetings Mellow Citizens.  How are you all doing in your respective locations?  After a grisly nine or so days of clouds, wind and not warm, the weather has finally rallied.  We rode to the lake today.  For some reason, zero photos were taken.  Sorry about that.  However, I think all of you have seen the lake before.  

I went to an eye clinic specializing in painful eyes, which I have.  One of the things they told me to do was buy a Bruder eye mask.  You nuke it for 20-25 seconds, place it on your eyes and lay there for 10 minutes.   Then you get up and massage your Meibomiam glands, in the direction of your eyelashes, to attempt to unplug the glands.  My first thought was yeah sure, you betcha, but it's making a difference.  I'm doing it twice a day.  Worth a shot if your eyes are painful.

We're getting a new roof June 4.  We got 6 estimates, it's amazing how much roof reps' ability to make a case for their company varies.  First guy lied by omission, third guy was good and informative, but we went with the last woman.  She's the business owner.  We spent two days watching her crew do the house across the street, and they did excellent work.  Roofers are now using a crane to put shingles on the roof.  The color is Pewter.  It goes with the color of the house, which is barely yellow, and it's not green like the current roof.
 

Here is yet another complaint about Safeway pricing.  Safeway is a chain in the west.  I don't know if they're in the east.  Anyway, compare and contrast pricing.  On the left we have the Safeway house brand, 1 lb. 2 oz of oatmeal for $9.  On the right we have 10 pounds of Quaker Oats from Costco  for $7.  Yes, Costco is a warehouse store with a yearly fee, but really, $9 for oatmeal?  

Things are blooming.  These are in the neighbor's yard.

These are our rhodies.  This year we're not dead heading, it's just too tedious.

Did Amazon brick your Kindles on May 20? 

Amazon has officially ended support for Kindle devices released in or before 2012, including the 1st-5th Gen Kindle e-readers and early Fire tablets. While these older devices aren't completely "bricked"—you can still read previously downloaded books—they have permanently lost access to the Kindle store and cloud services.

Jim downloaded a book on my Kindle this morning, so I guess I've been spared.  

47 continues to deteriorate.  

From twitter we have the following.

China’s population is 1.4B people, America has 320m people. China has been under a surveillance state for decades- 600M surveillance cameras, they can identify citizens w facial recognition w a 98.5% accuracy and they record every move by their citizens Yet China only has 450 data centers What data is the US gathering that would justify the US to need 5,000 data centers - 15x what China has, with only a quarter of the population?
Posted by Mimi J

It is batshit crazy that Texas officials are openly admitting the state is in a major water crisis and facing huge grid issues, but they are still turning around and green-lighting these massive data center projects that suck up insane amounts of energy, drain millions of gallons of water.
Dr. Alex Zeck

Our Republican priority will always be to put government ahead of Americans.
GOP Vice Chair Blake Moore 

Oh yay!  Jim is back from the grocery store.  Tomorrow it's pot roast in the crock pot for dinner.  Jim has cried an anguished "enough chicken" and so there will be a pot roast.

Weather and the Continuing Rise of Stupid

Greetings Earthlings!  We are currently no longer having spring, it's been raining, windy and snotty.  Today the sun is out, the wind is up, and the air mass is cold.  Looks like we're back on the spin bikes for awhile.

We cleaned the deck with the pressure washer.  It was not as great as I thought it would be, of course, I've never used one before.  Here is Jim.

After several hours in the position, it takes a toll on the back.  My biggest complaint is the handle.  The washer is either on or off, you can't feather the pressure.  On/off.  But you must hold the trigger fully, after awhile it hurts the hands.  Since it's on or off, push buttons would have better for the user.  But nobody asked my opinion.  It takes awhile to remove the mold and mung.  This is what the Bradford Pear leaves on the deck.

It's better than doing it with a scrub brush, but it's not a magic bullet.

The red twig dogwoods are having a good year.  When we planted them we thought they would be more tree-like, but they've become a sprawling bush.  They're an excellent screen from the neighbor's yard, which is close.

 Here is an excellent view of price gouging.  On the left is California olive oil, 1 liter.  Safeway wants $34.99 for it.  I bought it last year for about half as much.  On the right are 2 liters of olive oil from Tunisia.  Costco is charging $17 for the pair.  I swear Safeway has just lost their damn minds on pricing.  

We had a sunset last night.  We were late getting there with cameras.  It petered out with a pretty cloud.

Soooooo, 47 is in China.  After Xi spoke, 47 got up and free associated on how many Chinese restaurants there are in the US.  Such a statesman he is.

There is a disturbing trend in the US of newborns dying from brain bleeds.  Why, you wonder?  Their parents are declining the Vitamin K shot, which helps with clotting.  Newborns don't have any.  But, the parents are trusting their research over decades of science and refusing.  It's tragic.  Article is here.

This is a good substack on the death of a superpower.  We are well on the way to irrelevance.  Article is here.

The gold phones sold by the administration have finally shipped.  For awhile it appeared that the people who put down the $100 deposit had been scammed.  But no, a quality product is on the way.
 

It's a refurbed Cricket phone, with a gold sticker on the front.  What could be better?  I think they're charging $500 total for the phone.  P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute.

Well, the wifi seems to be unstable, so I think I'll publish while I can.

Badness on All Sides

Happy Saturday citizens.  I have no new pictures, really all I have is badness.  So, let's dig in.

Putin and Zelenskyy agreed that Ukraine would not bomb Russia during their abbreviated parade, if there could be a prisoner exchange of 1,000 soldiers.  Zelenskyy said that those lives were more important than bombing the parade.  Today Putin cancelled the prisoner exchange, saying that Ukraine was not ready.  Liar, he never planned to do this.

The parade was pitiful.  There were no tanks, missiles any of that.  There was a group of war widows attempting a goose stepping formation in the parade.  This is what Putin looked like, he may have regrets.  His people are beginning to realize how bad things are.

The administration is going to let 47 fly to China to talk to Xi.  This would be the guy who can't walk in a straight line, has trouble with stairs, is carrying 20 or so pounds of water weight, has the back of both hands smeared with makeup, and a dreadful looking rash on his neck.  Other than that, he's fine.

The era of the anonymous phone number could be ending. On April 30, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a proposal requiring telecom providers to verify customers’ identities before activating service.  Government-issued ID, physical address, legal name, and existing phone numbers would all be included. The stated goal is stopping robocalls. The result would be an identity-verification regime covering one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools available to ordinary Americans.  Article is here.  This will include the pay as you go phones that various companies cell.  Journalists use prepaid phones to protect sources, domestic violence survivors use them to avoid being traced, and whistleblowers, activists, or anyone with a reason to separate phone activity from legal identity relies on this.  I can not tell you how much this infuriates me.  I guess this is why we need all of these giant data centers.

Speaking of Box Elder,  "The project will actually produce more than 9 gigawatts of energy, Davies explained, because anytime a gadget consumes power, it also produces energy in the form of heat, whether it’s a toaster, a car or a sprawling rack of computer servers.  All the heat the Stratos Project emits will add up to another 7 to 8 gigawatts of energy in the form of waste heat.  Typically, waste heat is generated far from the power plant itself, in homes, businesses or on roads where it dissipates.  But for the Stratos project, it will get dumped into the local environment of Hansel Valley, in the same geographic bowl as the power plant. That actually makes the data complex a 16 gigawatt thermal load project, the “equivalent of about 23 atom bombs worth of energy dumped into this local environment every single day,” Davies said."  This is in the Great Salt Lake watershed, so that will probably get worse, as well.  What ever happened to environmental impact statements?  Why do three old white men get to force this decision on the citizens who do not want this.  The paper did an article, you can read it for free once, I think.

When the Supreme Court once again gutted the Voting Rights Act, they said it wasn't needed anymore.  Racism and Jim Crow are over, they said.  Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said he hopes the Supreme Court will overturn the 14th Amendment — the historic law that gave Black Americans citizenship and equal protection after the Civil War.  He wants to remove Black people's influence by diluting their districts.  Sort of like Jim Crow all over again.

Two good tweets from twitter.

DOJ wants to pay Trump's $83.3 million judgment to E. Jean Carroll. Taxpayers' money. Your money. Sometimes I feel like we're all watching a Netflix series.
Posted by Jesus Chrysler  

NEW: Iran is preparing to assert full sovereign control over the seven undersea internet cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz, with foreign firms required to obtain permits, pay transit fees, and operate under Iranian law, per Fars. The cables carry 15-20% of global internet and financial data traffic linking Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. Cable management and maintenance would be exclusively assigned to Iranian companies under the proposal. The IRGC previously warned of cutting the submarine cables passing through Hormuz, which Gulf states depend on for over 90% of their internet, banking, and cloud services. Iran relies on them for less than 40%, with the rest routed overland through Turkey. 
Posted by Hormuz Letter. 

And then there is this.

 

 

Spring and the Usual Badness

Well, the wretched cat is back.  It was gone for a week, and now it's back.  Its absence corresponded with the next door neighbors being gone, so maybe it's theirs.  Every neighborhood has a "difficult" household so we can't talk to them.  They won't answer the door, don't respond to emails, they're incommunicado.  They also drive too fast.  Anyway, it's stalking the quail and the turkeys.  Not happy about this.

Last Sunday (!) we went to Costco.  We were out of many things. We drove through the new development that's going in, Mead Works.  It's going to be an enormous thing, 1,400 homes.  There is a range in size of house, but all lots are small.  They're not making dirt anymore.  They're also not putting in any more roads.

The turkeys have decided to poop on the driveway.  Jim bought a pressure washer for the back deck.  The Bradford Pear leaves stain the deck.  It's too hard on Jim's hands to use the scrub brush anymore.  It's electric, it's not very noisy.  But it gets the poop up.

We're back to riding at the lake.  We'd been riding another trail to regain the fitness lost in the car while driving up here.  It was not so bad, the really steep section was ridden without issue.  The lake is still lovely.  

I think this is Quince, but what do I know.

This is crazy talking.  From Variety we learn, "Amazon is considering a potential reboot of the Donald Trump-hosted reality competition show “The Apprentice” for its Prime Video streamer, according to a report late Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal. But the newspaper added that instead of the President at the helm, it would be his son, Donald Trump Jr." It's amazing how much Bezos will humble himself to the Orange Cheeto and how much money he is willing to lose in the process.

Here is a First World problem.  Google is installing a 4gb AI agent on machines running Chrome.  I don't have it on my machine, so I'm not that excited about it.  What pisses me off, is that they didn't ask for permission, no one knows what it's doing there (I would guess spying) and if you delete it, they put it back.  You can get it off if it offends you, and you can prevent them from putting it back.  I really and truly resent this belief that even though we bought the hardware, they decide what runs on it.  Anyway, this is an understandable description of how to repel boarders.

The surveillance state is expanding.  Are you aware of the Flock cameras?  They are license plate readers, and they are everywhere.  Allegedly they are to keep us safe.  I think it's plain old spying and over time, they will keep the data forever, and it allows them to track people's movements.  Currently ICE uses the data to track down dangerous undocumented gardeners to deport them.  This article is good. 

Josh Hawley is pushing a bill that would require websites to verify the age of a user.  Additionally, he wants to ban VPNs, because surely hiding your location must be nefarious. The push back to this, is that now they have private information on everybody.  I personally believe it is the job of the parents to supervise their kids' online life, and not the government.  You can read more about this here.

Why does Utah need a 62 square mile data center that will require more than twice Utah's current total electrical consumption? Why does the country, for that matter?  The Box Elder city council approved this over the objections of the citizens.  They told the people to sit down, shut up and quit being whiners.  I hope they get recalled.  Anyway, examine this graphic.  

This seems sinister to me.  Between the Flock cameras, facial recognition photos, digital IDs,  and all of the other data collection, they have to have somewhere to store the data.  Sort of feels like 1984.

I don't know if the Strait is open or closed.  We may or may not be at war.  Main stream media is doing their usual job of poor coverage.  They are hampered by an opaque administration, but perhaps they could get out in the field. 

Putin asked Zelenskyy for a cease fire for the April 9 parade in Moscow.  Z. said yes, that night Putin bombed the crap out of Ukraine with drones and ballistic missiles.  There were a lot of deaths caused.  I hope they bomb the parade.  Ukraine can reach Moscow now, they've done it before.

So, on this happy note, I think I will quit typing.  

New Cat and the Administration

 I have not shuffled off this mortal coil, I've just been distracted.  There is a new cat in the yard, which displeases me.  It's stalking the birds, scaring the rabbits, and eventually will probably kill the baby quail.  It wasn't here when we went to Tucson.

 Maybe a coyote will eat it.


The attempted assassination has turned out to be a nothing burger.  Here are two paragraphs from Joyce Carol Oates on twitter.

They tracked him, observed him, a mentally ill person whose brother had informed on him the day before; they waited for him to "attempt to assassinate the US president" --(who was, in fact, on another floor & nowhere near)--firing shots wildly & one of these "friendly fire" shots striking the bullet-proof vest of one of their own; with much fanfare they tackled the mentally ill person whom they'd been tracking, charging this hapless person with "attempting to assassinate the president of the US." but all did not go perfectly on script since, in being hustled out of the ballroom upstairs, the US President had no time to raise his fist bravely crying "Fight! Fight" but tripped & fell heavily to the floor & several persons were required to lift his heft, & hoist away to safety backstage.

As a radiologist may set two X-rays side by side to examine, we can see now, placing Butler PA & the WH correspondents incident side by side, that the same scenario was planned in each instance; in the first, the would-be assassin was in clear view for some minutes on a rooftop, before violence broke out; more recently, the would-be assassin (for whom Secret Service officers were waiting) was apprehended before he could draw a weapon & shoot--before he was anywhere near his alleged targets. considering this, it might seem that Butler PA was bungled & that no one was intended to be shot let alone killed; the D.C. event may have been bungled too but at least no one died & of many present, only RFK Jr's abandoned wife suffered a public humiliation.

There is still a lack of clarity of about when SS was notified about a possible shooter.  There are other questions.  Cole Thomas arrived in the area where law enforcement was hanging around, picking their cuticles.  Cole arrived, walked through a door that did not go to the screening area.  The K9 in the area alerted on Cole twice.  In each case, the handler pulled the dog off and apologized to Cole for the dog's response.  Then Cole came back out, and sprinted through the security area.  Law enforcement was able to wound one of their own, and Cole tripped and fell down.  Cole never fired a weapon.

This is a photo of 47 after SS was yelling "shots fired."  Does he look in the least bit concerned?

47 has confirmed that it was him watching the performative evacuation of the Correspondents' Dinner.  It's not credible that SS allowed this.  They always check for more shooters.  

This was faked.  I really believe this. 

In other news, the Supreme Court said gerrymandering for partisan purposes is fine.  Louisiana's governor cancelled the House primaries that were already in progress for the mid-terms.   This was a stupid decision, and will have long term bad results.

The Strait of Hormuz is still closed.  A large percentage of US farmers do not have fertilizer for spring planting.  It's not available, it's in the strait.

The kill switch is coming.  Surveillance on the driver of cars built after 2027 will decide if the driver is fit to start the car.  If it doesn't like what is sees, the car will not shift into drive.  

The controversy over "kill switch" technology began in 2021, when Congress passed the HALT Drunk Driving Act as part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. The provision requires that "advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology"—which the bill defined as a system that can "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired" and "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected"—be installed in new cars. Such systems could involve driver eye tracking, a feature already built into some cars.  

This is kind of bad if you're fleeing a rapist, a tornado, or a fire.   This is not getting a lot of coverage in main stream media.  Call your congress critters and yell at them.  Article is here.

I would like to close with this.

Landscaping and That Man

Thursday C&C landscaping came out and removed a four year old juniper we stupidly placed too near the house.  It grew a whole lot faster than we thought it would.  The president of the HOA is good at getting grant money to pay for tree removal and thinning of the woods behind us.  This trip he had hoped for more people with trees too close to the house to sign up for removal.  We were the only ones to do so.  We have three evergreens that are too close to the house, but they've been there for 20 years, and the thought of getting them out is more than a body can bear.

The juniper in question.  When we planted it, it was about 3 feet tall, and 18 inches wide.
 

Now it looks like this, the short box wood is the new one.  We recently learned that box woods are used in firescaping because they don't burn quickly.  So, in addition to hardy to -20F, deer won't eat them, they're less flammable.  I have to say, planting it made me very aware of my advancing years.  There was a lot of squatting and standing up.

The woods are looking sad.  Many trees have been put through the chipper, and the whole area is looking bedraggled.  I understand the reason, they're trying to prevent crown fires, but the aftermath is pretty sad.  It will never look good up there.

This is the neighbor's yard.  His yellow plants are always so dang cheerful. 

So, this week in the asylum gave us the following.  

Former Secretary of the Navy Phelan was fired.  47 desires to have a battleship.  These were a big deal in the past.  Lots of big guns, could pummel the shore, wreak havoc.  Now they're known as a drone target.  You can't land planes on them.  They're obsolete.  However, 47 has been watching movies again and he wants one.  He wanted it in two years, Phelan told him it could not be done that fast, and so he was fired.  Think about design, finding a yard, finding enough people to work on it, and etc.  Maybe in S. Korea, but maybe not.

The Assistant Secretary of the Navy is a lunatic.  In this clip he's talking to another religious person about how Monterey CA has become a very dark place.  It's full of Wiccans and witchcraft and we just can't let it spread to Virginia.  One wonders when they start burning women at the stake.  So, yeah, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy is concerned about Wiccans.

This week 47 had the reflecting pool drained.  Now he's having the bottom painted blue with swimming pool paint.  The pool will no longer reflect, instead it will look like a resort pool.  He got no permission from any planning board, he just up and did it.

Last night was the White House Correspondents' Dinner combined with another fake assassination attempt.  Fake, fake, fake, fake.  The guy with the gun was definitely on a different floor in the building, and now there is a question about was he in a different building entirely.  (Update, he was in a different building.)  So, where was the danger?  Thirty minutes after the event, 47 did a press call in which he said this is why we need the ballroom, so events can be safer.  Nope, he just wants a ballroom.  

Iran continues to mess with 47's head.  They are not negotiating. They do not care.  47 painted himself into a corner and now he has no real path to getting out of this.  Meanwhile the rest of the world will be seeing famine and high energy prices. 

In news of the good, a big game hunter wandered into a group of forest elephants and calves while hunting a rare antelope and was promptly trampled to death.  Article is here. 

That's it, that's all I've got.