Friday, March 25, 2022

Utilities and World Events

Well, even longer for the no write.  Ukraine, the murdering bastard Putin and the republicans' perfidy and malfeasance have been occupying my head; living there rent free, as it were.  I'm also filled with rage at the fact that the west will not help Ukraine enough to END THIS, before they are all dead, and there is nothing left to save.  Ukraine should have been a NATO member long before this.  

In the June 7, 2021 issue of the New Yorker, there was a short piece about the dedication of the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library phase one remodel completion.  Chris Owens, son of Major Owens (who got his start in politics as a Brooklyn librarian) read from his father's poetry.  "Human history is a long, ugly tale/ Tragedy guided by the frail monster male."  That right there is Vladimir Putin.

In the neighborhood we have been observing utility work.  It's spring, the ground is not frozen, so they're out with power tools.

This is sewer repair.  In order to work on the sewer lines, one must dig.  These two were friendly and did not mind having their picture taken.


Look at the pile of dirt and the size of the hole.  It's amazing how dirt expands when you remove it from its previous location.

New poles were installed while we weren't looking.  I guess these are for more neighborhood safety.  We already have round abouts at most intersections, so I'm not clear on why we needed more traffic calming measures.

The fiber people have been in the area as well.  They will be in ours at some point.  They will take fiber underground, up the street, and then tunnel to junction boxes in people's front yards.  After that, one must sign up for service before they bring it into your house.  We're on the fence about fiber.  For one thing, it is impossible to know how much it will cost.  The first year is full of discounts and one year free for this that and the other, and then it goes up.  Their speeds are higher than Xfinity speeds, but honestly Xfinity is fast enough.  When we lived in the RV and stayed in Issaquah, we would get DSL at 7 meg/sec and it was fine.  I think fiber speeds would be wasted on us.  Here is one of their machines.  I believe that's what they call the missile, that pushes conduit through the earth.

We've been out in the yard.  We took out a large uwanamus, that had an amazingly large root system.  Parts of the roots required saws to get them out.  The deer ate the front half all winter, it grows all over the ground so weeding is difficult, and then it drips leaves into a window well.  It had to go.  We replaced it and the horrible looking rose bush with box woods.  The deer don't eat them.  It was hard, we're still kind of sore from the effort.  Yesterday we deployed bags of rocks in the areas that were thin.  Today I'm not doing any of those kinds of activities.

It's been an interesting week.  During the confirmation hearings, there was the Airing of Grievances on the part of Lindsey Graham; that's a Seinfeld reference, go here for Festivus if you're curious.  Twice he went off on a rant about things not related to Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court nomination.  After the rant was done, he grabbed his drink and stormed out of the room.  Ted Cruz attempted to appear all lawyerly in his interrogation, until he was forced to admit he had the wrong case that he was using to try to make a point.  Then there was Josh Hawley.  Just look at this face.  There is a lot of venom behind that expression.

The media made much of KBJ's ability to remain calm, not roll her eyes, and absorb the lies told about her sentencing record.  Not too much was said about why did she have to endure this?  Why are a bunch of white guys allowed to speak to her like that in the first place?  Why did Cruz get to talk over her repeatedly, and then accuse her of filibustering instead of answering?  Then there was Marsha Blackburn, asking her to define "woman."  It was a weak, failing effort to get her to discuss trans rights.  KBJ was not having it.  Jalyn Radziminski on twitter posted "Don’t get me wrong- the nomination of Judge KBJ is a historic moment. But why are we normalizing a Black woman being verbally & emotionally abused by a committee for the public to see? Why are we applauding composure during abuse? Why must Black women suffer to make history?"  Racism and misogyny run deep in the republican party.

Then the 29 text messages between Ginni Thomas (wife of Supreme Court justice, Clarence) and Mark Meadows were revealed.  She was strongly urging Meadows to not let the orange ectoplasm concede, because they were going to overturn the election.  This is sedition, she's the wife of a justice.  She claims Clarence didn't know what she was doing.  She was organizing a insurrection, which she did attend until she got too cold.  NPR has a piece on it with no pay wall.  WAPO has the original story, but they paywall. Clarence Thomas was the lone dissent in the SCOTUS’s January order rejecting orange guy's bid to withhold documents from the January 6 panel.  He should be impeached.  Mark Meadows should be arrested for voting fraud after registering to vote at an address where he never lived.  North Carolina takes a dim view of this.

Ukraine rolls on, they're holding their own, but Mariupol is paying a terrible price.  Most of the city is gone, and the survivors are starving at this point.  Russia refuses to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered.  They need more weapons, more javelins, stingers and drones.  One man did this.  The only bright side (this is dark humor) is that the Russians are starting to run over their commanding officers.  The conscripts are not highly motivated to do this thing.

This was Mariupol before.

8 comments:

  1. These abhorrent people living in our Heads Rent Free are weighing on the Psyche of all good people! The confirmation hearing is disgraceful and yes, why should any Woman or person of Color have to just endure abuse, why aren't the abusers made to be accountable instead of being allowed to do it and become the spectacle? If a Woman or person of Color were to behave in the same way towards any White Man they would be the one targeted to suffer consequences... none of these abusers will suffer any consequences for what they did to her, not only on the record, but televised so everyone bore Witness to it happening. Yet, there will be those that applaud it and Vote in the likes of these types of Politicians... and we wonder why Democracy is threatened and Justice seems to be hit and miss... depending on whose being held accountable or getting away with everything up to and including Murder. As for Ukraine, Bless them, they are showing the World what real Unity and Courage are all about. Most Americans are right now more concerned about the price of Gas than about a Genocide taking place, we've become so consumeristic that if it would cost a bit less to overlook atrocities, we're quite willing as a Collective to allow the atrocity and not have to make any minor sacrifices ourselves. People do not want to get 'involved' and until it's them suffering, they'd rather imagine it couldn't ever BE THEM. An Evil demented Leader won't just stop, they must BE Stopped... people here didn't even understand that when we had an Evil Leader... until it was almost too late and we dodged a bullet of our own Democracy failing and it being replaced with Vlad's Bromance Puppet installed again. Had that happened, War very well could have broken out on this Soil, we cannot become so complacent and ignorant of the high stakes here Globally and of what Tyranny is attempting to spread Worldwide if it can get away with it. Fascism has become something too many Americans seem comfortable with these days on the Far Right... as if we learned nothing about History and how it can and will repeat itself in the worst possible ways if Lunatics run amok.

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  2. I read a great piece in The Nation about how republicans treated KBJ as opposed to Kavanaugh and even Barrett. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-pause/ Most of what the republicans were throwing at her was false. Complaining about her lenient sentencing for child pornographers, trying to get to say pornografers were pedophiles, when her sentencing was in line with other judges including republican judges that they voted for. At one point taking a sentence or part of a sentence as her opinion about compassionate release in a particular case which was only the preface to her actual judgement which was that they guy should not be released. And that ridiculous Cruz going on about CRT and racist babies when his daughters attend a private school that is all about CRT and teaching about institutional racism as bad. And Blackburn jumping from one hot point issue to the next and Tillis going on about how packing the Court with left radicals is bad for America when he voted to pack the Court with right radicals whom their peers say weren't qualified. McConnell has come out as voting no to her appointment as expected but then he would vote no no matter who the nominee is. None of those republicans who grilled her had any intention of voting for her even before the hearings. They already knew all they needed to know...black, woman, democrat.

    Thomas needs to resign, he certainly did know what his wife was up to. I don't think there's any hope of impeaching him unless we get a 60 vote majority in the Senate. The republicans do like their sexual predators.

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  3. I did not watch the confirmation hearings but saw bits and pieces on Twitter. There was a comparison between KBJ and Kavanaugh's facial expressions. 'nuf said.

    We had fibre optic run in our neighbourhood about two or three years ago here in Saskatchewan. I went for the lowest (10 whatevers) and recently went to the the mid-range. No idea how our prices would compare to yours, but I paid about $55 originally, now it's $65 a month. TBH I don't see much of difference between it and whatever we had before fibre. My son probably does, as he uses his computer for gaming.

    Ah, spring the season of water main breaks, potholes, and road construction. :)

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  4. What Bohemian said in her first sentence- I have no space for such vile nonsense anymore, The orange butt plug wore me out. We must be more clever than they , which is not difficult, a paper bag is more intelligent- and this country needs to be more forceful saving Ukraine unlike the "careful" administration, not sure what an old woman can do other than write letters and send aid but I am ashamed of this countries lack of "clever". World war three- the big threat- Putin has nothing to lose so OK, call his bluff. My bomb is bigger than your bomb sort of mentality. And so it goes in the world of humans, the worst species ever destroying itself for the good of the planet, I reckon.

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  5. I couldn't stomach the hearings but read enough about them to inflame my temper. When did people get to lie and get away with it? The people who should be arrested or removed--will anything happen to them at all? I'm truly losing any faith I had in our protections from corruption and treason.

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  6. It has been one ugly week. KBJ is a marvel! Putin is falling so far short; Ukraine will prevail with an influx of missiles and drones.

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  7. I don't understand Russia and Putrid. It breaks my heart over and over again.

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  8. It's remarkable that one man, a single individual, has enough power to do what Putin has done. (And may yet do.) I didn't watch KBJ's confirmation but I think it's all symptomatic of how some fragile white people are terrified of black success. They still gnash their teeth at having to answer to Obama, an educated black man. They just couldn't handle it.

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