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.