The Yard and Current Events

The wildlife people have been flying helicopters very low to the ground.  As it turns out, they're doing deer management.  So, they fly really low, when they spot a deer they shoot it with a tranquilizer dart.  Then one guy jumps out, attaches an ear tag and a radio collar.  Pretty cool.  We had two in the back yard yesterday, no collars were seen, however.

Look at the size of those ears.

Now that the saga of the irrigation system is done for now, we don't have much to do in the yard.  Since we don't know if we're going to be rendered poverty stricken by President Elon, we're holding off on the rock refresh until next year.  Our rock is looking pretty sparse, it gets ground into the ground and eventually you have to put more rock down.  Our irrigation guy also does rock, I am too old for that.  So, today we washed the car, cleaned some in the house, went back out, washed the bikes and then it was time to use the rowing machine.  It was a productive day.

This is the Brittlebush I mentioned awhile back.  It's hard to get a decent photo, the sun is too strong.  It looks like it will bloom soon.  You can sort of see the hints of yellow.  He's very happy to be on a drip line.  The neighbor's looks like it's half dead.

This is some sort of a cactus.  The long white curly things are its protection from herbivores.  It, too, is difficult to photograph.  I'm pretty sure it's alive, it's tough to know.

Oleanders, highly allergenic and poisonous.  The roots, stems, leaves, flowers, seeds, fruit, nectar and sap are all incredibly toxic to people and dogs.  I guess maybe I should wear gloves when pruning.  They make good hedges and they flower.  These were planted to screen the utility boxes in the corner of the yard.  We also have big ones in the back, who are much happier with their lot now that the giant Sages are no longer blocking the light, and they're on drip lines, too.

Here is a quote from Steve's blog that resonates with me.  I am not going to write about this every day. I am not, I am not, I am not.  And yet, these are things that I will want to recall later.  When I go back to what I wrote in the first reign of terror, it's interesting how much I don't remember.  So, here are highlights.

Feb. 5

Musk people invade NOAA.  NOAA employees receive a directive not to talk to or work with foreign nationals.  47 wants to sell NOAA off, and make people pay for weather reports. 
Musk people are in the Medicare and Medicaid payment software.
Head of DOT says this:

47 now says Palestinians won't be relocated permanently, they'll be able to come back.  He has changed this story about building a Gaza Riviera, I think it's a distraction.
The CIA sent an unencrypted email to the White House listing every person they've hired in the last two years.  This is a major security breach.
The US Military Academy, West Point, has disbanded clubs for women and minorities because no DEI.  I assume the KKK club is still OK.  This is just cruel, petty bullshit.  Cadets need a safe place to congregate.

Feb. 6

A 23-year-old representative from Elon Musk’s DOGE was granted access to the Energy Department’s IT system on Wednesday by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, sources told CNN. This despite objections from people in the agency, which controls access to info about the US nuclear weapons.
47 says we're going to replace the Air Traffic Control system.  All at once, using a single vendor.  What could go wrong?

The dismantling of USAID continues to reverberate. 

So, that's $2B that will not be paid to US farmers.  People will starve, kids will die.  But hey, it was a corrupt agency.  Not.

That's it!  That's all I have to say.  There's more, much more that could be said.

A Walk and More Complaining

It's warm!  It's abnormally warm for February.  This is a screen shot of my phone weather screen.  One wonders if winter is over for good. 

Today we went to Walmart.  I do believe we'll be shopping there more, as much as it offends my sense of how employees should be treated.  We got supplies for painting, and I got a pair of cotton shorts so I can sit in the dirt.  As I have mentioned, when I packed I spaced out yard work.  Anyway, they're lovely shorts from the men's department, so they have pockets (!) and they were $10.  I've given up on clothes for women, no pockets.  

Coming back we saw this.  It's going to be a new neighborhood.  The birth rate is declining, where are all of these people coming from?  I don't get it.  They are hard at work, scraping the desert.

After Walmart we went for a restorative walk in the desert.  It's bleak out there, it needs rain.  The Cactus Wrens have not been his friend.  They make holes for nests, allowing fluids to leak out.

So, what horrible things happened today.

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, met with the leader of El Salvador who graciously agreed to take US citizens and put them in his 40,000 person jail.  Most of them are gang members and are very bad people.  It's unlikely that our criminals would last long there.  So, deporting citizens to save jail space.  Article is here.

47 is planning to sign an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.  What could go wrong?  Do we really need an educated work force and electorate?

From Jared Ryan Sears on twtter:
For anyone about to claim that Trump accomplished something with his tariff threats: 
-Mexico put 10,000 troops at the border under Biden without the threat of tariffs.
-Canada already announced $1.3 billion for enhanced border security before Trump took office.
Trump caused confusion, a major drop in stock markets, and destroyed our relationship with other nations to gain absolutely nothing. And if tariffs were so amazing that they would make America rich and lower taxes, what is the plan to solve America's debt now that Trump has abandoned tariffs? It is all a show to mask Trump's ineptitude.

From The New Republic, we learn the following.

Wired, citing two unnamed sources, reports that Elez has the ability to write code on the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which control government payments that amount to more than a fifth of the U.S. economy. Elez’s level of access could allow him to bypass security measures and possibly cause irreversible damage to these systems. Talking Points Memo further reports that Elez has already used his power to significantly rewrite code for the payment systems.

Elez is one of Musk's boys.  Originally we were told that their access would be read only.  This is not the case.  Elez has admin privileges, he can do anything he wants to do.  He could take everyone's Social Security payments and put them in that Sovereign Wealth fund, or send them to Elon, or anything.  None of which would be good.  This has worried me more than anything else, so far.

But hey!  Egg prices are down.

So, that's what I wanted to complain about today.

These People are Wearing on my Last Nerve

I'm tired.  We rode today, then we came home and worked in the back yard.  We cut down a Sage that had died in place with a pruning saw, buried some drip lines, and generated much yard waste.  So I'm pretty much putting up stuff from twitter and a couple of paragraphs. 

Below is part of the stump and a dead branch from the interior of the Sage.  Dead, really dead.

Yesterday (2/1/25) 47 "released the water" in California.  He opened two dams and let it rip.  Fortunately the Army Corps of Engineers honored the request of California water officials and slowed the release, otherwise there would have been down stream flooding.  So, two dams worth of water were sent to Tulare lake where it will evaporate.  No water went to LA, no water went to any of the fire areas.  Emptying the reservoirs was done after the fires were put out.  In the spring, when planting starts in the Central Valley, there will be no water available for irrigation thanks to this stupid stunt on the part of Fearless Leader. 

Today, Musk's minions attempted to breach an area that has controlled access to classified data within USAID.  Putin and Xi want USAID gone, because if we pull out, they can move in an assert power in developing countries by "helping". The security guards on site attempted to block their passage.  Apparently they called Musk who had security removed and they and the guards' managers were placed on leave.  If this had happened in the Biden administration, the Muskies would have been arrested.  I think the coup is in place.  It appears that they have broken in to the files.

This is shameful.  They covered up the faces of women who worked in the agency.

In the end they took it back, and uncovered the women and POC.  Are we all to be erased in the near future?

Earlier today, Musk posted a list of Lutheran charities whose work he wants stopped, claiming that they are spending billions of dollars on things that don't align with 47's priorities.

Here is a good read on how mainstream media should be covering what's happening, but they are not.

We're fairly depressed.  For the first time in my life I am afraid of my government.

Oh yes, and he's going to bankrupt us all with his stupid tariffs for no good reason.

And then there is this.  This is from bluesky, note that I am not following NYT.

Irrigation and Musk's Minions

It appears that our long national nightmare of the irrigation system is coming to an end.  We found a good service, who doesn't charge an arm and a leg.  This is the PVC tube we thought was broken.  It's not.  There is a flexible line directly below it that was damaged during the removals of the giant Sages.  Andres came out today, found the second line and fixed it.  Took him 3 minutes, we would have been out there much longer.  They're coming back tomorrow to run drip lines to the Oleanders, the Brittle Bush, and they will fix the other leak on the north side of the house.  Then we will be happy.  OK, maybe not, with that man in the White House.

Now I am complaining about the current president.

This is bull shit.  From Yahoo news we learn the following.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his pro-austerity Department of Government Efficiency tried to access key systems responsible for paying out the federal government’s salaries and bills, pushing a high-ranking career civil servant to quit the Treasury Department.

According to The Washington Post, David Lebryk, the current deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, is expected to leave the agency after decades of nonpolitical service.

The head of the FAA was pushed out of service by Musk because they wanted to fine SpaceX for failure to maintain safety standards.  As you no doubt recall one of the heavy lifters blew up on a test flight, causing the FAA to have to reroute air traffic around the flaming debris heading towards Earth.

This is more bullshit.  47 had a server installed that would give him the ability to email every federal employee.  Apparently it's been hacked and a lot of spam and porn also went out from the server.  This is what 47 sent out.

Air traffic controllers were emailed by the Trump administration urging them to quit their jobs and take mass “buyouts” just 24 hours after the D.C. plane crash.

They were among hundreds of thousands of federal workers sent the email at 8.30 p.m. Thursday to push the extraordinary offer by Trump’s aides to get civil servants to quit en masse.

Today he was saying that he wanted everyone to leave the government and get private sector jobs.  Think about this.  If there are no air traffic controllers, no one is flying anywhere.  This includes people and freight.  Someone clearly is deranged.

47 continues to blame the tragic air crash on DEI, Biden and Obama.  Look at this screen scrape, notice the date.  This was begun on Trump's watch.  If it was so terrible, why did he start the program?  If what Obama did with the FAA was so terrible, why didn't he fix it during his first term? 

Musk yes people have done this:  (If you read nothing else, read this one)

Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials.

The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.

"We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said. "That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."

Officials affected by the move can still log on and access functions such as email but can no longer see the massive datasets that cover every facet of the federal workforce.

Musk, OPM, representatives of the new team, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

These are un-elected people, working for Musk, who is also not elected.  The twitter sphere predicts that soon there will be a mass sell off of government buildings for pennies on the dollar.  Hedge funds can buy them and lease them back.  It's what they're already doing with hospitals.  This article sort of confirms that theory.

Today he announced tariffs on a slew of things from Canada, Mexico, & India, including drugs. Why is he hurting people where it really hurts the most?  I think things are really bad, made worse by the fact that main stream media is not covering this in big pulsating headlines.

So, that's what's currently annoying me.

 

Rain and the Latest Atrocities

It rained today.  Not a lot, not for long, but better than nothing.

The administration of 47 continues to violate the constitution.  He froze funds already allocated.  Congress controls the budget.  How it affects Arizona is not too much different than any other state.  Article here. The worst is that all of the Medicaid portals are down.  Doctors use the portals to bill Medicaid.  Several clinics are now concerned about making payroll.  This just sucks.  It's always the poor people that suffer the most.  Another article here.  This is a good article, it talks about the multiple impacts.

He fired Jennifer Abruzzo, general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board.  This he is allowed to do.  He also fired Gwynne Wilcox of the NLRB.  This, he is not allowed to do. A 1935 Supreme Court case known as Humphrey's Executor established limits on the president's power to remove officials who perform quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial functions, as NLRB board members do.  Ms Wilcox plans to take this to court. Until this is resolved, NLRB does not have a quorum and can do nothing about union busting activities performed by the billionaires.  Article is here. 

Is it just me, or are the Democrats being particularly spineless?  They seem to think cooperation and bipartisanship and all of that other happy crap will accomplish something to moderate 47's dictatorial urges.  Several Democrats voted for puppy killer Kristi Noem.  Why?  She would have gotten the nomination anyway, but what ever happened to being an opposition party?

This is an interesting piece about how the election was actually stolen.  Voter suppression works.  It was done with voter roll purges, ballots being invalidated, all of that old fashioned Jim Crow stuff.  Article is here.  It's a long read, and it will make you angry.

We are still in wait state on the irrigation system.  The guy has not called us back. 

More Irrigation and More of That Man

Well, yesterday was a thump on the head from the universe.  We briefly thought we could wrangle the irrigation system.  Apparently not.  There is a leak that flows really fast.  After sitting in the dirt digging with a trowel I found the pipe.  It's a main line and it's PVC.  Black hoses we can fix, PVC no.  The water comes out so fast, that I don't have time to locate the leak before the hole fills up with mud.  This will require outside help.

We did locate the leak in the front yard.  At some point a drip line with no plug or emitter on the end was buried.  So, it's been sitting there underground releasing water.  It's no wonder the Brittle bush down hill looks so good.  Anyway, we were going to join it up with another section of drip line and take water to the Brittle bush.  NOPE!  The line is too old and stiff to accept the barbed connector.  So, we did get a goof plug in it, but now the Brittle bush is without water. So, this is another set back.

On the win side, we did get the bank restored to its previous state.  The brown stuff in the middle is mud.

Now the rocks are back.  It looks good, better than I expected.

The irrigation system is sucking the marrow out of my bones, as is our new El Jefe.  I'm going there, now.  Close the window if you're sick of hearing about it.  I write because I'll forget a lot and it's good to have a record.

Friday night 47 fired 17 Inspectors General.  GOP Sen. Susan Collins reacted by saying: "I don't understand why one would fire individuals whose mission it is to root out waste, fraud and abuse. This leaves a gap in what I know is a priority for President Trump. So I don't understand it."  The IGs have responded with a letter stating that the action was illegal, due to not notifying Congress 30 days in advance, and so they will see them in court.

This is from twitter.  It's about the latest Chinese broadside on the US AI market.

Ryan Grim:  This doesn’t seem to be getting enough attention. The Silicon Valley social contract forced on the public by Obama and then Trump and then Biden (minus Lina Khan) and now Trump was straight forward: We will let these bros become the richest people in human history and in exchange they will develop a tech industry that makes the U.S. dominant for a century. They did the first part, then built monopolies to try to keep out competition rather than continue to innovate at a top level, and then got out-competed by Chinese companies in both AI and social media. They are the losers we always thought they were — and now so are we.

Ashkok Kumar: For those confused why the US state and Silicon Valley are having a meltdown on twitter today. China released multiple AI models that are 50x more efficient than the best American AI models and made them open source, ruining the AI market

If you're on twitter this is an interesting thread about AI.

From the AP we learn:  "The Air Force has removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs — the female World War II pilots who were vital in ferrying warplanes for the military — to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives."  OK, take the training stuff down if you must, but leave the videos up.  I wonder if the statue of MLK will be removed.  Article is here.

Apparently ICE is going after Native Americans who live in urban areas, like Phoenix.  There have been references to people being held for hours on twitter and bluesky.  They are dark complected so they must be illegal, right?  The Navajo are being impacted by this.  Even when they have their government issued ID, and a certificate of Native blood, their citizenship is in doubt.  I really hate these people.  Article is here.  

Colombia denied landing rights to a US military aircraft full of deportees.  Their position is that they'll accept them if they're treated humanely, but don't be bringing them in on military airplanes in restraints.  47 slapped a 25% tariff on them (coffee, cut flowers), so they put one on us.  Good thing he's focused on bringing down food prices.

I will close my doleful post with word salad from the Leader of the Free World.

So, this is what I have to say about things.

Irrigation and That Man

Thursday we rode the mountain bikes.  It was pretty cold, but was a glorious day to be outside.  Cold is relative, the phone said it was 61F, but the air mass was cold from having been at freezing over the night.  So, warm going uphill, cold going down hill.  This is a house with really cool landscaping.  That's an agave, the top part is very tall and out of frame.  I would love to have one of these in the yard, but that would mean digging a hole, which is difficult here.

When we got home, Delores the landscaper called and said he could come now to take out the three ugly sages in the back yard.  It's good to have them gone.

Notice the oleanders, how they're pale on the bottom.  The sages were blocking their sun.  I think they'll sprout leaves on the bottom and fill in.  They're not on irrigation, and we think they probably should be.

Once they were down to the ground, they asked if we wanted the root balls out, which we did.  Unfortunately, a main irrigation line was killed during the removal process.  We haven't found the damage yet, we found other damage, but not that.  So, we're watching youtubes on how to repair a line.  

There has been another leak on the back bank.  I do not understand why you would bury drip lines in an area that is covered in rock like this.

We could see water pooling, so I flung the rocks uphill above the water until the source became evident on the hill side.  Digging revealed a broken T intersection.  The line carrying water has been plugged, and hopefully nothing down stream was depending on the T for water.  Look dead center in the photo.

The plugged tube on the right was releasing a lot of water.  Now I have to put all the rocks back that we removed looking for it.  Pain in the butt!  This is out of character for us.  Generally we call someone; after the last guy came out for another leak and charged $185 for less than an hour, we decided perhaps we would learn to do this ourselves.

Before any work on the bank could begin, new pants were in order.  When I packed, apparently it did not cross my mind that there would be yard work.  We're becoming Walmart shoppers.  Thus far I have two long sleeve tee shirts that are pretty nice for painting, a button down men's shirt, size S that fits really well, and is warmer than what I brought, and now there are pants.  They're 3% spandex, which I usually don't like, but working on the bank involves squatting on one's heals.  Those pants are extremely good due to stretch.  The brand name is George, some good stuff.

This is a Fairy Duster in the back yard.  The hummingbirds like it.

Ok, enough about irrigation and pants, I'm moving on to the useful idiot.  These are in no particular order, and certainly not a complete list.

Hegseth will be the new Secretary of Defense.  So, the military will be headed up by a drunk and a rapist.  What could go wrong?

President Donald Trump revoked Executive Order 11246 which was put in place by LBJ.

In an executive order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” issued January 21, 2025, President Donald Trump revoked Executive Order 11246, which has long provided the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) with legal authority for ensuring government contractors comply with anti-discrimination law and maintain affirmative action programs. Continuing his campaign promise to gut diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government, Trump’s order comes on the heels of his day-one executive orders eliminating DEI programs within the federal government. But this latest move might be the most impactful yet.  Here is more.

Essentially, it's open season on non-male, non-white people.

President Donald Trump plans to pull about 20,000 U.S. troops from Europe, according to a leading Italian news agency.  A European diplomatic source told ANSA that Trump, who entered office on Monday for a second term, wants to reduce the American contingent in Europe by about 20 percent and plans to ask for a "financial contribution" for the maintenance of the remaining troops.  More is here.

As we all know, 47 wants to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th amendment.  The DOJ is in court with this, and apparently this is their argument.

This is quite incredible. The US Justice Dept, under Trump, is defending its birthright citizenship Order by arguing that immigrant children covered by the Order cannot be citizens because... the children of Native Americans aren't US citizens.  Posted by Neal Katyal.  

In 1924 Native Americans were made citizens.  They vote, they're citizens.  An EO does not trump a constitutional amendment.

47 has cut off foreign aid to every country except Israel and Egypt.  This morning, he announced that zero money would be sent to Ukraine.  Before he left office, Biden had allocated money to Ukraine, but I don't know if it had been shipped off shore yet.  I guess 47 got his marching orders from Putin.

Today 47 was in California, talking about water, where he was heard to say, "I'm signing an executive order to open up the pumps and valves in the north. We want to get that water pouring down here as quickly as possible ... you're talking about unlimited water coming up from the Pacific Northwest, even coming from parts of Canada."  Water rights law is so complicated that lawyers specialize in it.  The PNW is in drought, which is getting worse.  Canada is a sovereign nation, it's their damn water.  Where are these mystical valves and pumps? 

 He is continuing to threaten to take Greenland by force, because he wants it.  

Well, it's time to go dig up a leaking irrigation line and see how bad it is.

More Felon

Here is a photo of a backyard visitor.  Knocking on the window did not encourage her to leave.  Walking out onto the back patio did not either.  There is not much hunting allowed here and I think they know it.

Today has been terrible.  This is going to be so much worse than I thought it would be.  I have to ask when the magats who voted for all of this are going to wake up and notice that prices on everything have gone up.  I'm actually wondering if there will be food riots when all of the agricultural workers are deported.  It's starting to feel a little Soviet here.

More from 47 and his shock troops.

• Fired the commandant of the coast guard for too much DEI.  She was a 4 star general.
  
• They deleted the Constitution and the Spanish version of the White House home page
• Threatening 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada
• Cancelled the $35 cap on insulin costs for seniors
• Sending 1,500 active military to the border to assist CBP 
• Prestaging C130s and C17s to California and Texas to deport 5,400 detained immigrants
  
• Dismantled the Office of Gun Violence Prevention
• The health agencies have been forbidden from talking to the public until February 1

 This from CNN, "This is a time of rising bird flu, and Covid. America’s health agencies, including the CDC, FDA and the NIH, routinely release information on food recalls, drug and medical device approvals, as well as updates on evolving public health threats including natural disasters and infectious diseases. Many of the agencies have been closely tracking and reporting new information on the H5N1 bird flu outbreak, which is spreading in the nation’s poultry flocks and dairy cattle and among people who work with those animals. "  Now they can't tell us anything, think about the most recent Listeria outbreak which would have been way worse if no one knew about it.

I read today that there is a recent H5N1 variant with an improved ability to jump from cows to pigs.  So not good.  We're next. 

Grants are made to universities for research.  NIH has what is called Study Sections, their job is to review and either deny or approve grant requests.  They've been suspended indefinitely to save money for the billionaire tax cuts.  This means that campus research labs will not be able to pay graduates who do the tedious grunt work of science.  This means no new treatments for dread diseases, no basic research into what causes cancer, stuff like that.  They're killing science.  

There is so much more, but I wanted to capture the muzzling of the health agencies, and suspension of grant reviews.

Hoo Boy. 

Daily Life and That Man

Well, welcome to the Fourth Reich. There has been riding and biking and going to Lowe's and Home Depot.  We have sorted out the down spout issues through an application of gutter extensions.  I think they're actually down spout extensions, but who am I to argue with marketing.  Hopefully the extension will move the water into the dry stream instead of digging a hole in the bottom of the stream and depositing dirt there.  Prior to our arrival, there was not so much as a splash block there.  Hopefully it will rain someday and we'll be able to see if it's working as designed.

We rode Sunday, and holy cats that was a cold ride.  It's hard to dress for, it's warm going uphill and upwind, and then freezing into the wind down hill.  Poor us.  It was a good ride, both of us were feeling good and we did not suck.

Saturday was a restorative hike in the desert.  For the first time I wore a light weight long sleeved capilene shirt and it was a good choice.  Again, sun and wind makes it difficult to dress appropriately.  We went back up to the saddle of Golden Gate and Bren.

Here we have a giant broken rock sitting out in the desert.  One wonders how it got there.  Was it a lava bomb at some point?

As I have previously mentioned, these are not pleasant trails.  There is loose rock, two foot, or more, high steps, loose sand on the rocks, all things which make life difficult.  On foot, not so bad.  We saw two guys ride it.  I am just astonished at their strength, balance and courage to attempt such a thing.  The first guy we saw told us his girlfriend was doing a 10 hour mtb race, so he had come here, looking for a good ride.  Anyway, the rider is at the bottom of the blue arrow.

All scenery is scene coming down the hill.

I have no more pretty pictures, so I guess it will talk about 47.  That will be his new name, orange ectoplasm has too many letters.  He had himself a day.

As expected his speech was an Airing of Grievances.  Full of bluster, braggadocio, and out right lying.  What we've come to expect.  What was chilling and not good was the seating arrangement in the Rotunda.  The first row was the oligarchs, Bezos, Musk, and others.  The second row was the cabinet.  The cabinet was seated behind the tech bros.  I guess we know who this government will serve.

There are Executive Orders, this is not a comprehensive list.

•     We're out of the Paris Climate Accords.  That aligns us with Iran, Yemen and Libya.
•     We're out of the World Health Organization.
•     A National Energy crisis was declared. 
•     A National Border Crisis was declared.  This allows him mobilize active military and send them to the border.
•     Sets up machinery to investigate past "weaponization" of govt.  So, imaginary weaponization of public power will be punished by real weaponization, including targeted investigations.
•     He declared that there are only two genders.
  

He paused the TikTok ban, continuing to provide the Chinese Communist Party with free access to US data.  The military is banned from installing this app on their phones, it truly is spyware. 

1,600 Afghan refuges that had been previously approved for resettlement, including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump's order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.  These people will be murdered by the Taliban.  Article is here.

At the festivities following the swearing in, that would be the ceremony where 47 would not put his left hand on the Bible, Musk took to the stage to say a few words.  And then he did this.  Yep, that's a Nazi salute. 

The Irish Star headline is bad enough, but wait, it's worse on this side of the pond.  One of these is New York Times, and the other is Washington Post.  This is why I no longer subscribe to either paper.

Ostensibly, you guys are reporters, report!  It was a Nazi salute.  I'm not sure where news will come from over the next four years.

Two days prior to the inauguration, 47 issued a meme coin, whose value increased to $56B.  This made 47 very wealthy.  Then Melania issued a meme coin, which tanked the value of 47's coin.  I can't understand bitcoin or any of that make believe crap, but what I can spot is money laundering.  Any foreign entity can dump money into this unregulated slush fund to curry favor.  Bad, this is bad.

This is funny, 47 fails geography and general knowledge.  Very short read here. 

That's it, I've made this long enough.

MLK Day

The artist is Watson Mere.  I can’t think of anything more appropriate to the day.

 

Furniture and Bad Politics

Greetings Earthlings.  How are we all doing, four days before the end of democracy?  I will miss the old days.  

We have reached the end of furniture acquisition.  I gave up on ever finding a cool TV table, realizing that in the mid-Century, televisions came in consoles.  Then they ended up on heavy tables.  So I bought fake wood and metal.  I like it, it's a good height (20 inches), doesn't have a back so the router went in easily.  I have been unable to take a decent picture of it, so here is one from the website.  We would still like something along the lines of a server/side board/buffet with drawers since we are so sadly lacking in storage.  Maybe next year, maybe not. 

I will say, that this flat pack had the best cushioning I have ever seen.  They used honey comb cardboard, and separated everything well.

Today's key learning is that there shall be no art behind glass.  Between the sky lights and all of the windows, it's difficult to not get a reflection.  Canvas art for the win!  I had a 16 x 20 print made at Snapfish.  I have to tell you, print quality is astoundingly good.  Here is a photo I took of the print.  You can see my arm reflected at the bottom.  In person, I can read the sign for El Charro on the right in the back ground.

Here it is on the wall.

Today we did manual labor.  I sat in the dirt and cut out pieces of a dead shrub to make it shorter, and we rearranged rocks in the dry stream that were dislodged when the irrigation leak was fixed.  Jim completed round two of picking up the fallen leaves from our two trees.  They have a lot of little tiny leaves.

As we all learned in civics, there are three branches of government in the US, the Legislative, Judiciary, and Executive.  They are separate and equal, at least that's how it's supposed to work.  Yesterday, the Speaker of the House (who lacks a spine) called Rep. Mike Turner into his office and fired him from being chairman of the House Intelligence Committee because the orange menace told him to. It's not supposed to work this way.  The president is not supposed to interfere with the workings of Congress.  Of course, the speaker, having no spine, did as he was told.  This is bullshit.  All it would take is for two Republicans to change their affiliation to Independent, caucus with the Democrats, and they could put an end to the reign of terror.  But they won't.

Additionally, the orange one is taking credit for the cease fire between Hamas and Israel.  President Biden had been working on this for 15 months.  The pub-tards are giving all the credit to the orange.  When the hostage swap fails, they'll blame Biden.

Then there is this.  RFK Jr. has been nominated to run Health and Human Services.  This is what he thinks.  Stupid, just stupid.

Here is a giant cactus in the neighborhood.  Look at the size of it.  The arm coming off near the ground is not usual.  That arm has put out another arm.

That's it, that's all I have to say about things.