Sharing some political humor from my friend Jill. Most made me laugh, although my teeth were grinding together from the truth behind the humor, but there are a few which really stood out for me. You should go check out the rest.
Sharing Some Humor
WTF, America
In another bit of WTF, America, some new DOGE bullshit springs into the spotlight.
Military to Remove ‘Enola Gay’ Photos for Violating DEI Rules
Images of “Enola Gay,” the aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan are among those targeted by the U.S. military in an initiative to eliminate content related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
They are among a number of photos unrelated to DEI that have been mistakenly flagged, including those from an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project in California, seemingly because an engineer in the image had the last name “Gay.”
I mean, how, how, how amazingly ignorant is the Trusk Regime? How stupid is DOGE?
Beyond the fundamental stupidity of making a decision based on a single word, they are demonstrating amazing ignorance about our heritage. Our history.
Does that history matter to them? No, apparently not.
And that really brings the Trusk Regime’s crock of shit about ‘gay’, DEI, woke into an electron microscope level of insights. Our history is being denied based on some shallow, closed minds? They’ll deny the role of an aircraft in our history because of a single word, literally one of the most critical moments in modern human history, the one and only damn time when one nation used atomic or nuclear weapons on another nation? What are they going to do, rewrite the textbooks so that Colonel Paul Tibbets and his crew flew an unnamed aircraft on that historic mission? How much of a disservice is it to not just the crew that flew that machine but the enemy killed on the ground?
That’s just the damn bottom of the barrel, though. The Trusk Regime and the GOTP is trying to deny the role of anyone who does not fit their narrow, bigoted views. Gay, trans, lesbian military members who fought for the United States are being washed out of history by this pathetic group, most of whom never served in a military capacity.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But those who deliberately wipe it out are bent on creating a new circle of ignorance.
But, I mean, come on. Seriously. What did we expect of ol’ Bone Spurs Trump? His grip on history and logic is pathetically weak.
He who cited the use of aircraft and airfields in the American Revolutionary War.
He who referred to Senator McCain, a navy aviator who was captured and held as a prisoner of war, as a loser.
He who warns of the threats of cancer from windmills, a claim without any merit.
He who used a marker to try to change the projected course of a hurricane.
He who had his staff saying that he suggested nuking a hurricane.
He who was documented to lie over 30,000 times in his first administration.
A man who still lies as much as he breathes.
That individual is a fucking idiot.
And you know what that makes his supporters and enablers.
Thursday’s Theme Music
Mood: sour apple
We’re under one big cloud shield in Ashlandia, presenting us a gray, dim morning. It’s Thursday, June 20, 2024, and the summer equinox. Doesn’t seem it. Seems like spring rushed in for on more jolly. 58 F, though, we’re expecting the temperature measuring devices to show us temperatures in the high 80s.
For now, I’m hitting myself in the head regarding a series of ‘why didn’t I?’
Background: I have a toilet which won’t stop running. I’ve fixed these before so I wasn’t overly worried. That attitude didn’t help. I didn’t provide it the attention I should have. I fiddled with the flush valve and the water ceased flowing. Hurrah, right?
No, fool. I’m the fool. Not you.
I went out and bought replacement parts and I thought all was going well. So I took my time. Decided to address it late in the afternoon. Then I used the toilet and flushed. It started running; wouldn’t stop. Okay, time to fix it.
First move, turn off the water to the toilet.
It wouldn’t go off. I screwed around with that a bit. Then a bit more. And more. In fact, I wasted almost an hour on that. Okay, turn off the water to the house.
Where the hell is my shut off valve?
I walked around the house and looked for it but I’ve lived here a while and have never seen it. I researched on line for all the possibilities and searched them out. Not there, not there, not there, not there, not there. Finally found it where all said it should be, by the water meter, by the street, but it was buried. By now it’s after 8 PM. I tried turning off the water.
Couldn’t do it with my crescent wrench. Not the space to turn a crescent wrench in there, nor any other wrench. You need a special tool.
Of course! This is the age of special tools. (Cue singing, “This is the dawning of the age of special tools, age of special tools,” sung to the tune of The Fifth Dimension’s song, “Age of Aquarius”. My apologies for that. Also add a little snark about Trump and MAGAs being tools. Yeah, shame on me.)
Now this is where I really screwed up.
First, I didn’t think about rushing out and buying the special tool. My wife talked me into waiting until today to take care of it. But I can hear that water running. It’s not just a trickle, either. I can hear that waste.
Why didn’t I go to Home Depot, just a few miles up the road, and buy the tool? Why didn’t I call the city and say, hey, come turn off my water? I’d trapped myself with tunnel vision.
Obsessed with the running water sound, I woke up early and realized those things. Called the city. Asked them to send out someone to shut off the water. ‘Course, that’s not a real emergency, so it’ll take a while. Then I’ll go buy the tool so I have it on hand. And I’ll fix the shut off valve on the toilet and the stupid toilet. But I’m really disappointed in my poor judgement and weak thinking. Must not have had enough coffee.
Turning to the positive side of that, it distracted me from Mom’s situation, Dad’s hospitalization, my ankle, politics, and troubling news from around the world. Always a silver lining, isn’t there?
Finally, though, I harped on myself for not having the special tool on hand and for not knowing where my valve was. What if there had been a burst pipe in the house? I pride myself on being proactive and I was anything but all the way around with this.
People of course, will ask, why didn’t you just call a plumber? And here again, I’m up against myself: I like being self-sufficient. I like DIY. I dislike being ignorant about things and dependent on others. So, yeah, that’s all on the idiot I call me.
The incident of the toilet that won’t stop running inspired The Neurons, of course. They’ve programmed “Urgent” by Foreigner from 1981 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark: stuck).
Update: As I was typing, a worker arrived and shut off the water. I rushed out and spoke with him and learned about the dangers of turning if off myself — like breaking something, you know? A very nice guy, he’d heard the duty call phone ring while he was in a safety meeting and went out to hear the messages. Hearing mine, he left the meeting and came out and addressed my issue. Telling me to call back whenever I went it turned back on, he rushed back to the meeting. So easy; why didn’t I call them last night?
BTW, we did prepare for not having water by filling a water jug, a bucket, the coffee maker, the tea kettle, and the water pitcher in the frig. I hope that this isn’t shut off for long, but you know me, I’m an optimist.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee is in me. I have a few things I need to go take care of now, so I’m gonna go. Here’s the music.
Happy first day of summer. Cheers
Minor Tech Rant
I logged into my wife’s email account to help her sort an issue.
Correction: I tried to log into her email.
They — Hotmail, or whatever mastermind now behind it — wanted to send me a code to my wife’s second email address to log into the Hotmail.
So I filled in the second email account and went to log into it to receive a code to log into the first email account
Voila. The second email account wanted a code to log into it. They wanted to send it to the first email account.
To summarize: to log into one email account, they wanted to send a security code to a second email account but to log into the second email account, I had to log into the first email account to get a code to get into the second email account.
I always knew this was where tech was heading. It’s pretty FUBAR.
Love This
Trump — who didn’t build the great wall he claimed he would, who didn’t have a new healthcare plan even though he kept promising to reveal it in two weeks, who has a lengthy string of failed businesses behind him — well, you know who he is by now and his character — roiled the world with another pompous claim, this time that he could have negotiated a compromise — a deal — that would have avoided the American Civil War. Mind you, multiple deals had already been negotiated, but face it, keeping people as goods, and torturing and raping them was not sustainable in the emerging ethos of the period.
But this cartoon captures Trump’s mind at work on the issue better than anything I could write here.
Makes You Think, Don’t It?
“I am not a crook.” (Nixon, on Nixon)
“I never had sex with that woman.” (Clinton, about Monica Lewinsky)
“It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” (Rumsfeld, about war in Iraq)
“I am a very stable genius.” (Trump, on Trump)
Michael Seidel, writer 