Life and Stupid

 Ack.  Things are still falling apart, including my beloved husband.  A PA is a Physician's Assistant.  Some are better than others.  PA-1 said it was trochanteric bursitis, and no sign of arthritis.  We've been expecting arthritis because that is the femur that went through the acetabulum in 2006.  PA-2 said it appears to be arthritis in the hip, and was not open to the bursitis diagnosis.  Last night the hip got more painful by an order of magnitude, as well as pain shooting down the leg.  That suggests to us, unencumbered by facts and data, that perhaps it's a herniated disk pushing on a nerve.  So, we're thinking we're going to try to wrap up the summer season here early, head south and have our capable GP send us to a real doctor who can get to the bottom of this.  In the meantime, Jim is not a happy camper.  

The Korean Dogwood is making fruit.  Said fruit then falls off into the rock garden, and at some point I will have to go out and pick them up.  

Yesterday the big burly men came and installed the new microwave.  Since it's a new model, they had to change something.  They moved all of the control buttons from the left side, to the right side.  It's going to take my hands awhile to learn that.  Here is a really terrible picture of it.

The following is from twitter yesterday.  It was an action packed day.

Russia is provoking Japan with the nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile "Bulava" — the aggressor has for the first time sent its newest submarine with modern lethal weapons to the Japanese shores. 

We are bailing out Argentina while Argentina’s farmers sell soybeans to China in the place of American farmers which is putting them out of business, so now we also have to bail out American farmers while Argentinian farmers make bank. Trump’s America First Golden Age.

Ron Filipkowski 

WAPO reports that the US Defense Secretary urgently summoned hundreds of generals and admirals for a closed-door meeting next week, sparking concern among top military brass. WAPO also reports that it appears that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered hundreds of generals to travel on short notice from around the world to hear him make a short speech on military standards and the “warrior ethos.”

Think about this, he's moved all of the generals and admirals to one location at the same time, and everybody knows where they are.  One bomb could take out our entire command and control structure.

Other than this, I have not too much to say, except for the stupid is strong with this administration.

   

The Day in Stupid

Today has been weird, so was yesterday, what with the Klan rally for Charlie Kirk's passing.  Nothing says solemn event better than pyrotechnics on stage.  What was interesting was who didn't speak at Charlie Kirk's event —neither of his parents, no siblings, no old friends, just his wife, Tucker Carlson, and a whole lineup of Trump people he maybe knew getting in their agenda talking points. He really was worth more to MAGA dead than alive.

 

Steven Miller spoke, channeling Joseph Goebbels.  This is part of his uplifting speech. 

“Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello,” Miller continued. “Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry,” he said, pulling “us out of the caves and the darkness into the light.

“We built the world that we inhabit now, generation by generation, and we will defend this world,” he later added.

Addressing “the forces of wickedness and evil,” Miller said: “You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.

There is an article here, that has more of his uplifting oratory. 

Today was the White House announcement that Tylenol causes autism.  It doesn't.  The most thorough study was from Sweden that followed two million kids for 25 years.  Guess what does not cause autism.  The funniest part of 47 bloviating was watching him try to pronounce acetaminophen from his prepared text.  You would think someone would have taught him the word prior to putting him on camera. 

So, HHS will alert doctors and pharmacists that pregnant women should not take it during pregnancy.  Tylenol is the only pain reliever pregnant women can take. Interestingly enough, Tylenol was invented in 1956. Autism was identified in 1943.  Pretty hard to make that case.  When the presser reached the stage where 47 goes off the rails, he said people should not take Tylenol, followed by: "Nothing bad can happen. It can only good can happen. With Tylenol — don't take it."  He also said that his working group knows more about autism than the people who have studied it for years.  I hope the lawsuit is epic.

 

CNN article is here. 

Also announced was a cure for autism.  There have been a few tiny trials of Leucovorin, also known as folinic acid. Leucovorin has been studied in small, heterogeneous trials. Some show modest benefit for subgroups with rare folate receptor autoantibodies, but the evidence is not robust enough to generalize. The “first recognized therapeutic” label is an overstatement. No regulatory body has approved Leucovorin as an autism treatment.  It was found to help a specific type of autism, and did improve speech.  However, it's a very small sample size, and is unlikely to help everyone on the spectrum.  Never the less, it's going to be approved for treatment of autism, and Medicaid and Chips will be directed to cover it.  What could go wrong with a nationwide roll out of an untested drug. 

Today at the United Nations, this happened.

 

Poland just dropped a nuclear-level verbal strike on Russia at the UN. Foreign Minister Sikorski didn’t hold back: “We know you don’t give a damn about international law. You can’t live in peace with anyone. Your sick nationalism is just a thirst for domination. But let this burn in your head, the era of empires is OVER. Yours isn’t coming back.” And then he blessed every Ukrainian drone strike. “Every drone that hits you, launched by the heroes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, may God bless them, brings that day closer.” This was a warning shot, and Poland’s not bluffing. NATO’s not bluffing anymore. You escalate, you pay. No more patience. No more illusions. Poland isn’t the country you think it is. This time, we hit back, we did it before many times in history with Russia. 

So here we are, in the time of the giant stupid.  I will leave you with this.

 

 

First World Problems

Hola!  How are we in this time of impending dictatorship?  I am again reminded of the REM song, it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.  Actually, I don't feel fine.  Life at home has been sub-optimal these last few days.  Forgive me if it doesn't interest you, it does me.

On August 29, there was a coordinated crime wave in our neighborhood, and on the houses below us on the hill.  Even though we have a gate, people can climb over the wall, if they are very determined.  Anyway, two remote controllers that open the gate were stolen from cars.  One family lost power tools and a custom mountain bike from the garage.  Door bell cameras down the street revealed several masked people trying to get into cars to get the garage door openers.  Anyway, there are two neighborhood remotes stolen and out in the universe, which makes me very uneasy.  If you can drive through the gate, you can take big stuff.

So, Jim and I set off to plug the security leak by deleting the two stolen remotes from the gate's lookup table and programming four new remotes with different code. Sounds simple, eh?  HAH HAH, double HAH!  We got two remotes done, and the keypad in the gate controller died,  so no more programing was possible.  At this point, we could give each household one remote and call it good.  But we still need to get the codes from the stolen remotes deleted.  Problem with that is the old records of who has what code are questionable.  Give the wonkiness of the whole lash up, I would hate to delete someone else's code and not be able to put it back.  We have a technician coming out soon, who we hope can improve this.  Adding to my frustration is the fact that we have a perfectly good smartphone based app that will open the gate from anywhere in the world that has cell service.  We're an elderly neighborhood, so adoption of this has been slow.  

This is the gate controller, where we have spent many hours trying to get the wretched thing to work.

Then there was the over the oven microwave.  It died, each attempt to start it up flipped the breaker in the garage, immediately.  It had gone from accepting a breaker reset to being dead.  So,  a new microwave has been acquired, and now we wait for the men to come install it.  People who refuse the over the oven option are smart, remove and replace is so much easier with one on the counter top.  The NO! sticky is to prevent muscle memory from using that button.

Jim has pulled up lame.   I think I have previously mentioned how awful medical care in Spokane is.  We went to a walk in ortho clinic.  The PA-C said it's trochanteric bursitis after looking at an X-ray.  I don't know, it could be that, it could be other things.  So he did a steroid injection into the general area.  Instead of checking the "refer to physical therapy" box, he checked the "refer to surgery" box.  We've called, gone to the office, and asked would you please get him to check the physical therapy referral box on the form.  I am so pissed about this, two weeks later we have no response what so ever.  So, we've consulted the internet.  I gave the LLM (large language model) this prompt "how do you stretch an it band if it is made of connective tissue which neither stretches or compresses" and it spit out a good article with links and videos, so we're going to do that.  Maybe in Tucson we can see someone worthwhile.  We rode today, riding was good.  Walking is still not good. 

The wheels are falling off the planet.  Jimmy Kimmel is suspended indefinitely because the Magats did not like it when he said they (the magats) were trying to point the blame for the shooting of Charlie Kirk on a liberal.  They are doing that, Kimmel spoke the truth.  However, 47 has now decided that no one may say anything bad about him at any time.  So much for the first amendment.  If we had a functioning SCOTUS this would be a non-issue. Disney has lost $3.87 Billion (USD) overnight because of Jimmy Kimmel. People are pissed, and are boycotting the channel.  This whole thing is like when they fired Colbert, it was to advance another merger.  This one advances a merger that also requires a rules change to approve it.

In other news, Russia continues its incursions into Baltic and Polish air space.  I don't know why they just don't shoot them down.  Reuters reports: The Pentagon informs European diplomats the US will partially halt military assistance to Baltic nations and NATO states bordering Russia.  Marvel Studios has announced that it will be leaving Fayette County in Georgia and taking its 20,000 jobs with it to the UK. This will add to the 800,000 layoffs that have been occurring in the US so far in 2025.  Their reason for leaving is the cost of health care in the US.  This cost will get worse with the new proposed annual one time fee of $100,000 for an H1b visa.  Hospitals use quite a number of these visas to bring in foreign residents, because there are not enough native born.  Hospitals can't pay this for a resident.  So expect things to get worse if this takes effect.

Here is a Project 2025 Progress tracker.  Their overall progress is at 47%. 

Ukraine is wiping out Russia's oil infrastructure as well as rail.  Euromaidan has a good article on what they've been doing to hurt Russian rail. 

This is from the front page of the Washington post.  One wonders if they will close and/or destroy Manzanar.  I have several posts from when we visited there, if you're not familiar.

And finally, there is this.
 

So, that's it.  There's always more, but I think I will stop now.

 

Work and Crazy

We have the dreaded list of stuff we have to do prior to leaving for Arizona.  That will occur probably November 4 or 5.  We've got two items done.

We had a gutter that leaked at the corner.  I guess it had been leaking for awhile because the wood had gotten a little punky.  So there was sanding, and filling, and two coats of paint.  Here is Jim, on the ladder, where he does not like to be.  It actually was surprisingly level and stable.

There is a wasp nest under the porch.  They were not out flying while we were there, and happy we were about that.

 We painted out of a small can of primer/paint.  The giant ladle would not fit in it to transfer paint.  An old sterling silver ladle worked well.

Then there was the twice yearly trimming of the hedge.  It still has a wow in it, I'm just not going to look there.

We still have the wrapping of deer netting around the arborvitae, but it's too soon to do that.

It rained today, so it was good that we got the painting done before that happened. 

The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, is covering himself in glory.  The day after the Charlie Kirk shooting he said this.  "For the last 33 hours, I had been praying that this person (who murdered Charlie Kirk) was from another country. That he was not one of us because we are not like that. But it was one of us."

Today on Meet the Press, Cox said this.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sunday that investigators are not ready to discuss the motive behind the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. But he said the 22-year-old suspect had left-leaning political beliefs and disliked the conservative influencer.

“Clearly a leftist ideology," Cox told NBC's “Meet the Press.” On CNN's “State of the Union,” he said, “That information comes from the people around him, his family members and friends."

Cox said Robinson is “not cooperating” and that friends paint a picture of someone radicalized in the dark corners of the internet. “Clearly there was a lot of gaming going on,” Cox said on NBC. “Friends have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep.”

Nothing is known for sure.  We do know that Tyler Robinson was mad that Charlie Kirk was demanding the release of the Epstein files.  Most of the rest is just noise.  It's interesting that Reddit is being besmirched, I like Reddit, they're informative.

On Friday, Brian Kilmeade said this on Fox, sitting on the couch with two co-hosts.  "Involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill them." He wants to kill homeless people.  Neither co-host missed a beat, they, just kept on blathering.  There is something wrong with these people.  Today he issued a half-assed apology for what he said.

Companies are firing or suspending employees for their social media responses to the death of Charlie Kirk.  Seems like a violation of first amendment rights.  Article is here.  Additionally, the Secretary of War is actively scanning social media for unapproved thought. 

Here is my socially acceptable political cartoon about the shooting.  It's based on what the man himself said, in public, and on video, that a few gun deaths were worth it to preserve the second amendment.

This is what an aurora looks like when you're flying a plane.

It's just another day in crazy town.  I would really like to be Canadian.

Covid Vax and More Gun Death and Update

We got Covid shots today.  We were thinking about waiting until Novovax became available, but the rollout is really chaotic.  No one knows anything.  Based on our concern that RFK Jr might just ban all vaccines, we decided to go ahead and get the Pfizer.  My arm is a little sore at the injection site, but it's minor.  Makes me wonder if I still have an active immune system.  Flu is up next, but I want to wait a bit so we have immunity remaining until flu season is over.

My Lenovo laptop, which I bought in December 2021 became unusable while we were in Tucson the winter of 2023/2024.  It was a hinge failure.  See the screen frame on the right which is detached from rest of it. Then it started losing internet.  I bought a new Lenovo in Tucson February 1, 2024.  As of this writing, it's still working. See how the frame has detached from the body of the laptop?  That meant the laptop could not be closed, even if it did keep working, which it didn't.

 

 

Jim's did the same thing a couple of days ago.  His Lenovo is also from 2021.  We took it down to Pruitt PC and he did a Frankenstein fix on it.  He cut off a little bit of the lap top, and then screwed the back to the front with tiny bolts.  Here is a photo.  It's an ok fix, we can live with it.

 I asked Pruitt what he would buy.  His opinion is that all PCs made for the home market are crap.   Hinge failures, which is what Jim and I experienced, are frequent.  Equipment made for business is more durable.  He buys laptops for his use and to resell from backmarket.com.  They're refurbished, and come at a significant discount.  We may start buying from him, because we are spending way too much money keeping these Lenovos alive.  So there you go.

So, last night Putin sent 19 drones into Poland.  This is from Jurgen Nauditt on twitter.

Dutch F-35 fighter jets shot down russian drones over Poland with $2.8 million missiles, media reports say. The cost of a Gerber drone is around $10,000. The fighter jets used $2.8 million AIM-9X missiles to destroy it. The difference between the cost of the target and the method of destruction is 280 times higher. 
And: NATO has a worse success rate in shooting down russian drones than Ukraine, the BBC reports. While Ukraine shot down 93% of 415 drones today and regularly achieves similar figures, the Poles, with the support of allies from other countries, destroyed only four of 19 russian drones. That's hardly an impressive result for Poland, especially considering how much more equipment they had at their disposal compared to Ukraine, the BBC summarizes.

I think it's very unlikely 47 will do anything about this.  Poland has activated Article 4 of NATO.  They can't let this stand.  Putin wants the Baltics. The Europeans need to step up and make/buy weapons.  The head of the EU today said they're taking the $6B in frozen Russian assets and loaning the money to Ukraine.  So, that's good.

 

Charlie Kirk was murdered today, shot in the carotid artery.  He was the Executive Director of Turning Point USA, a far right wing group whose mission was bringing young men into the republican party.  An Evangelical Christian, he believed that trans people have no right to live, that the second amendment is sacred, and the Seven Mountain Movement which calls on Christians to gain influence, or “take dominion,” over seven key areas of culture: religion, family, education, government, media, business and the arts.

Politics in the US have reached an unbelievable state of hate.  Three months ago, a gunman posing as a police officer in Minnesota murdered Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot Democratic Senator John Hoffman and his wife. Do you think one republican anywhere had anything nice to say about Ms Hortman? Nope.  The husband of the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi, was struck in the head with a hammer by a man who wanted to kill his wife.  Any sympathy for him?  Nope, Charlie Kirk said that MAGATs should post money for the assailant's bail.  The republicans thought it was funny.  They posted Halloween memes about the attack.  The level of hate emanating from the republican party is just vile.  Also occurring today, a high school shooting in Colorado has left two students and the student shooter in critical condition.  Charlie Kirk said that a few deaths from guns was a small price to pay for the protection of the second amendment and our God given rights to own guns.  Ok, then.  It's a given that shooting people is bad, but so is the rhetoric as of late.

I am not saying he deserved it, no one does.  But I am saying that the republicans need to stop agitating and raising the political temperature. People are crazy enough as it is.

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

9/11/25 Update.  I have suffered mightily today from the Covid Vax.  This was the worst so far.  Low grade fever, felt like death, with a big red splotch at the injection site. After doing some yard work this morning and deteriorating some, I spend the afternoon in my recliner.  Now it's about 7 pm and I'm feeling much better.  Please make a note of this for next time.

 

Ride and Current Events

Today we finally were able to ride outside.  There is still some smoke, but it's much improved.  The geese were out being very vocal.  They always sound like they are complaining about something.

We saw two young women carrying kayaks in bags.  They are made by Oru Origami Kayaks.  They actually fold up into the bag you carry them in.  Click on the website, there is a graphic of how it folds.  I have no idea how good they are, but it is easier than carrying a kayak around.

This morning the quail were visiting.  It's the beginning of September, and they still have babies being born.  We saw a line of quail in the neighbor's yard that were barely adults out on their own.  Given how much they reproduce, they must have a low survival rate.  This one keeps watch.

Bottom left is the baby chick.  There are more under the hedge.

Nepal has gone up in flames.  Unemployment is rampant, the young have no prospects, and they are sick of the corruption in government.  The politicians banned social media, and that was it.  They're in the streets, burning buildings, and chasing politicians down the street.  There is an excellent article here.

Russia has invaded Poland's airspace with Shaheed drones.  NATO is sending jets to shoot them down.  Who knows what Putin is thinking?  Israel bombed Qatar trying to kill some Hamas leaders.  Who knows why Netanyahu does what he does.  The corrupt Supreme Court has ruled that it's perfectly fine for ICE and the other thugs to racially profile people, arrest them with no warrants, and deport them somewhere - anywhere.  They also ruled that 47 can hang on to $40B for foreign aid that Congress approved. The Financial Times reports that the US is ending its cooperation with Europe in countering disinformation from Russia, China, and Iran.  We're two weeks out from a government shutdown, and 47 is spending his time calling congress people about covering up the Epstein thing, rather than working on a budget that can be passed.  Tonight 47 was driven to a restaurant a block away from the White House for dinner, to show how safe DC is now.  The press pool went there, as well, in the motorcade.  47 and guests were vociferously booed by people on the streets.

This will foul up airline schedules for awhile....

There's more, but my laptop is too hot, sitting in my lap.  

September 5, 2025

The air is poisonous today.  I think it's smoke from the British Columbia fires.  Anyway, something somewhere is burning.  This was the sun going down today.  It's a terrible picture, but it makes the point.

Did you see any of the interrogation of RFK Jr yesterday.  He's clearly lost his mind, the worm has eaten too much of his brain.  This was an interesting exchange.  It's unfortunate that Cassidy voted to confirm RFK Jr.

Sen. Bill Cassidy: "Do you agree with me that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?" 
RFK: "Absolutely." 
Sen. Bill Cassidy: "But you just told Sen. Bennet that the Covid vaccine killed more people than Covid?"

This is how things currently stand.  If anything, the numbers are probably understated.

Be careful out there.  Covid has been proven to increase your risk of stroke, heart attack & sudden death for years after an infection. It is also proven to cause nervous system damage including to your heart, brain and gut. It can cause acute kidney & liver injury, as well as blood clots.  All of this is proven, along with a massively increased risk of dementia & cognitive impairments seen early after infection, the virus is proven to damage brain cells, conclusively. Thankfully deaths are lower than in 2020/2021 but they sadly continue every day still.  While deaths & disability from the post acute infection period are rarely connected back to the causal event (the Covid infection), as most people firmly believe what they’ve been told - that Covid is over. Except it’s not, deaths, acute & chronic illness prove that it’s not.

Hot and That Man

It's hot here, really hot.  Today it's hotter than it is in Tucson, 102F.  We've been riding the spin  bikes instead of going outside.  We would have to get up way earlier than I enjoy to beat the heat.  The downstairs is where most of the air conditioned air goes, so it's chilly down there.  This is from the last ride to the lake.  Those are kayakers out there by the milfoil.

 At present we are upgrading Jim's laptop to Windows 11.  I really hope this goes ok, otherwise it's a trip to the PC doctor.  I'm also hoping I don't have to re-download a bunch of software.  If you're still on Windows 10, you have to move to 11 by October to get the upgrade for free.  I don't know if that's the beginning or the end of October.  Update:  It worked!  It was seamless.

Two cars were broken into here in our neighborhood August 29.  The worst was they got two remote openers for the gate, and one garage.  We're going to have to change the frequency on the gate controller to render the stolen openers useless.  Unfortunately, everyone else's opener will be in-op as well.  Most of the openers are too old to be programmable, so the home owners will have to buy new ones, and Jim will have to program them.  This is such a pain in the butt.  People who park outside should consider bringing their remotes inside.  Or they could install the software app that will open the gate using the smart phone.  However, we're an elderly community and thus far, adoption of the product has been limited.  It's easy to use, open app, touch open on the screen, gate open.  

Costco still does not have Covid vaccines up on their web site.  I want this to happen soon, before the lunatic head of HHS bans vaccines entirely.  Florida is lifting vaccine mandates for public schools.  Bring back tetanus!  Looks like fun, eh?

California, Oregon, and Washington just announced they are forming an alliance to coordinate vaccine recommendations in direct defiance of RFK Jr.  New England, with the exception of New Hampshire is doing the same.  
 
So, last Tuesday, 47 disappeared from view.  He was gone from public view until yesterday, when he hosted a press conference to announce he's moving Space Command from Colorado to Alabama.  All that infrastructure to detect missile launches is now mooted by 47's decision to go to Alabama.  Who knows why he does what he does.

Anyway, mainstream media did not comment on his disappearance, twitter certainly did.  The general consensus was stroke.  His voice changed, it's more raspy, which happens after a TIA or stroke.  There is also a droop.   If he stroked out in the White House they could pump him full of clot buster medication in minutes.  He looks like crap, worse than before.  I've tried to quit posting video from twitter, because they frequently vanish.  However, play this one.  47 is not speaking, so you do not have to hear his voice.

These are enlargements from the video.  Look at the horizontal swelling over both eyebrows.  That was much more pronounced when photos were taken of him getting in a car over the weekend.  

The right arm suit jacket is rumpled.  He's aware of it.  If you watched the video, can see him tug on it with his left arm.

Update to post 9/11/25:  This is him, dozing through the reading of the names of the dead.  Look at the right side of his mouth.  Stroke, for sure.

So, he made it through that presser.  Today he was in the oval office with the president of Poland.  He was typically off the rails.  

Xi, Putin, and Kim Jong Un had a lovely time celebrating China's victory day this past weekend.  Guess who was not invited.  Apparently the US is being squeezed out of world leadership and replaced.  One wonders if 47 can appreciate the seriousness of this.

Also this weekend, the US sank a Venezuelan boat in international waters.  The claim is that it was carrying drugs.  Former Philippine President Duterte is in custody in The Hague, having been charged by the International Criminal Court for ordering the summary execution of alleged drug traffickers. Trump just ordered the summary execution of 11 alleged drug traffickers.

That's it!  That's all I've got.