Archives for February 2021

Sunday February 21, 2021

Having just finished watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, which is excellent. Shelby said during the finale, “I don’t even play chess and my heart is pounding.” Yeah, it’s that good.

But this got me thinking more about the Russians. And Satan. Are we, as a nation, as a people, ever going to face the fact, or at least investigate Satan as a Pawn of Russia?

Recently, there were headlines how he had been groomed for forty years by the Russians. 

I mean he does his crimes out in the open. At least the little ones like trying to overthrow our government, but the big ones like betraying our country he does in secret – a bit.

Maybe Ted Cruz can resuscitate his reputation by going on Fox and blasting Satan and asking for investigations? Naw. Nothing will do that.

Moving on. Texas is starting to pull out of the cold. I read an article that talked about what a clever and adroit politician Greg Abbott is. I wondered what they were smoking. 

Maybe Ted can revive interest in making the Yucatan part of the U.S.? Before Mexico was the unified state it is the Yucatan was not part of that country. They had a civil unrest called The Caste War, where the farmers in the area revolted against the overlords and had their own flag, which looked much like the Republic of Texas flag, and they asked the U.S. If they could become a state. A bunch of southern Senators blocked the idea. Didn’t need no rebellious types getting uppity and all that.

I wonder if the people of Texas will swallow another line of Republican BS? “If elected I promise to not only do nothing to help you, but I will pass draconian laws all in the name of freedom which will not allow you to get help from your government and will in fact block most attempts, or at least severely limit them. This includes voting, of course.  I will also promote a pseudo-Christian agenda, which will allow me to back laws meant to restrict women’s rights including that of getting an abortion, or having access to even information about anything sex related. I’ll restrict any and all protective measure regarding sex. Look at how successful that has been! Texas now has the highest rate of unwanted pregnancies and STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) is now running rampant! With the help of big energy providers of fossil fuels we’ve managed to force through non-regulations in the name of free enterprise. This led directly to the rolling blackouts you’ve experienced this winter and with auto-bill pay has led to a bonanza for the few kilowatts available. In Texas we help our own. Well, not you. But you know what I mean.”

Note to self: I wonder if it’s too late to have Cruz arrested for trespassing when he fomented that shutdown during Obama’s term and then trespassed on government property?

Probably so. Let’s go for insurrection, treason, and sedition – okay?

Meanwhile, we are seeing evidence of the numbers in Covid coming down. Just one month in and Biden has turned the country around. Amazing what real leadership can do. (Go ahead, I dare you.)

PS Elephant? I see no elephant.

February 20, 2021

Lack of shame, lack of guilt, hypocrisy – I don’t know what to call it.

When I watch someone like Ted Cruz try to excuse himself out of something there’s an underlying motivation that is hard to put one’s finger on. I can guess, but it’s hard for me to imagine.What galls me is that when caught they make excuses wither trying to gaslight or indirectly asking for sympathy and understanding. Yet, when the tables are turned they have no sympathy, no understanding, and they demand that someone aceed to their “facts” regardless of what is obviously true.

I do have to wonder what Ted Cruz will do when he gets back to Texas. I wonder if he even has anyone in charge of constituent services? My guess is that anyone asking for help is directed to a web site that ultimately gives them a broken link.

I decided to get some computer glasses. The kind that are supposed to filter out the blue light. I have a pair of Foster Grant readers, which I like. I decided to order a pair of blue light readers from them. The pair they sent me is unwearable in that the lens have aberrations in their focus. You can tell these things by holding the glasses away from your face and looking at a straight edge, by waving the glasses slowly up and down, and then again side to side if you get the lines in either direction bending the lens are not made correctly. You can, of course, wear the glasses and wonder why you are getting a headache. 

In the case of the Foster Grants the company sent me I got a headache immediately. I sent them an email. A few days later a box showed up from Foster Grant. Another pair of readers! No explanation. No email reply from Foster Grant. I tried out the readers. Still bad, not as bad as before, and this time there was what appeared to be a drop of water on the lens. It wasn’t. It was some of the coating on the lens, which had dried in such a way that it left a telltale drop on the lens. Naturally, this will distort one’s vision. 

The glasses are made like they were for the guy with the thick glasses in Trailer Park Boys. I have to wonder wouldn’t you take a little extra time if someone complained about your product to make sure that what you sent out the second time were good?

I guess not.

I stopped in CVS to find out what the deal was with the vaccine. I had stopped in two days before. I was told then that they wouldn’t have any openings for two days at least because they had to move everyone that had been scheduled for the last two days due to the ice storm. This time I was told that they were having problems getting the shipment. And the two day reschedule. I thanked the young woman and said it was far easier to do this than to go on line. I asked her if she was a robot, and did I have to identify 17 pictures that either did, or did not, contain bicycles.

She laughed and assured me she was a human.

I also went to Home Depot on the rumor that they had generators. They did. I bought one. Now my power will never go out again. It’s a cheap price to pay.

PS Taking selfies at the caves of ⁨Ellora⁩, ⁨Maharashtra⁩, ⁨India⁩.

Friday February 19, 2021

I see Dan Akyrod in a cheap brown suit, ill fitting wig, and gold rimmed glasses. He’s on a cell phone, talking to a news reporter. “What do you mean price gouging? Look lady, obviously you don’t understand how the free market works. It’s supply and demand. If there’s a lot of demand say because there’s a huge cold snap in Texas and there’s not enough electricity to go around then what’s there is going to cost a little more.”

“Yeah. A megawatt cost thirty bucks, but that was yesterday. Today it’s nine thousand. That’s supply and demand. Or as some like to say ‘how the cookie crumbles.’ Me? I call it a friggin’ gold mine.”

“Look lady, I don’t mean to be rude, but not everyone needs a megawatt. I mean if you and your neighbors pool your life savings you can probably get a few megawatts. Divy it up. I got an easy payment plan…”

“Yes, I heard about Senator Cruz and his family going off to Mexico. His wife was really smart. I think a week at the Ritz down there is cheaper than a megawatt up here. Where would you rather spend your time and money?”

“No, you’re right. It might look bad for him, but he was only thinking of his kids. Real family man. What about his constituents? They could have hopped a plane to Mexico too. Yeah, it is kind of funny. The man who wanted to build a wall to keep the Mexican out went there to get away. Yeah. Funny.”

“Hey, look I gotta go. My Mai Tai is getting warm. Yeah, you too, sweet heart.”

PS The ice covered yard out back this morning.

Thursday February 18, 2021

While Texas is in the grip of a terrible ice storm and freezing cold temperatures Senator Ted Cruz (R – Texas) and his family have left for Cancun, Mexico.

Let’s be clear about the problems in Texas. This is self inflicted. This is the result of years of cozy Republican leadership and business in Texas. 

Could anyone have seen this coming? Yeah. They had the same problem in 2011. They had the same problem in 1989. 

It makes me think of Genghis Khan when he returned to the edge of Europe and was stunned to see that the Europeans had done nothing to prepare to defend themselves. I take that back. They created some racist propaganda about the Moguls, calling them Tartars. Other than that, nothing. 

What did Khan do? His men all were on mounted horses. They had strings of horses. The Germans had heavy draft horses and were weighed down with hundreds of pounds of armor and they had a big lance. The knights had to be hoisted onto their horses. The Moguls lined up against the Germans. Germany at the time was a disparate bunch of principalities. As the Germans charged the Moguls retreated. The Germans chased them. For seven days. Then the Moguls turned and ran down and slaughtered the strung out knightly force.

After the 2011 cold snap the Federal government issued a 750 page report outlining what went wrong in Texas and what they needed to do. Essentially, the electric facilities were not prepared for such cold weather and they froze. The solution was to insulate the facilities. 

What did Texas do? 

They made sure that they had their own in-state electric commission and that none of their electricity crossed state lines. That way the Federal government couldn’t tell them what to do. 

Three months ago Texas was talking about they should succeed from the union. Now? Now they are blaming AOC and the Green New Deal, frozen natural gas pipe lines and anything else they can think of. 

One mayor quit his job and then took to social media to tell the citizens that elected him that they were on their own.

This is Republican state level leadership.

Meanwhile nationally, the numbers of Covid cases is coming down. There is talk of reopening schools and getting back to some semblance of normal by mid-year or at the latest the end of the year. The Biden administration has been in office one month.

PS Blue for you.

Wednesday February 17, 2021

Deep Breath. Let’s look at where we are, where we’ve come from.

We are now vaccinating 1.6 million people a day. Covid numbers are going down like a ski slope, somewhere between bunny slope and intermediate. We aren’t at a double black diamond slope fall yet.

So now what? Folks are starting to look around at the wreckage left by the last administration and thinking about how to clean it up. 

There are scores of cases that Satan bullied the Justice Department to go in and defend him. This is not what most Justice Departments in our country do. You don’t use the lawyers at Justice to take up personal matters. But now, that’s what Justice has. 

It would be nice to think that we are all working together but we aren’t. Various local Republican parties are trying to inflict pain on those who stood up against Satan and for our Constitution. Georgia is going so far as to try and change their state constitution so that the prosecutor in Fulton County, who is investigating conduct by the former president can not convene a grand jury from her county but must include the whole state. What are they afraid of? That if they don’t get some Good Olde Boys on the jury their glorious leader might go to the pokey that’s what.

And speaking of going to the pokey, how will that work?  Let’s say he gets twenty years and he still has Secret Service protection thanks to Mitch and the gang quitting him of impeachment. How will that work?

Then we get to the high level lying. Mitch said on the Senate floor that Satan was guilty, but he thought – thought – that the Senate didn’t have the authority to convict him. This is a novel and incorrect assumption. One he engineeringed and one would say he obviously knows better, but he doesn’t care about that. This is his best way to retain power. Democracy and the Constitution be damned. 

Ron Johnson said he didn’t think the insurrectionists were armed and that it wasn’t that big a deal. Obviously, Senator Johnson is having selective amnesia. Or was that Ron Portman who was lying? I can’t remember.

Out in the rest of the country local Republican officials are opposed to anything the Democrats are doing. But they do want their Medicare, Social Security, and vaccinations. Just to be clear.

Mike Pence has been pretty quiet of late. He’s been hired to fight socialism and is going to have a podcast. How can he do this work if he’s not talking? Well, who really wants to listen to him anyway?

Joe Biden enjoys a popularity rating of 62%. Something Satan only dreamed of. Perhaps the rating were stolen from Satan, like the election?

Texas, OMG Texas, every county is under a winter storm watch. They are having rolling black outs. Texas worked hard to separate itself from the rest of the electric grid. Why? So a few could make a bunch of money. Now? Now there’s the conspiracy theorists trying to blame Biden. Of course. I mean you wouldn’t want to take responsibility for what you wrought? And you wouldn’t want to have to fix it? No. Let someone else come in and clean up your mess.

PS Broken Birches