Tag: Israel

Twozdaz Theme Music

Howdy, sports fans. It’s Twozda, September 9, 2025. 62 degrees F holds forth in Ashlandia. Marbled clouds headline the moment. Never fear: it’s going to move to 69 degrees F by the day’s end, although we may need to navigate more thunder and rain while we get there. Feels like autumn has got its dandruff up and is out to end summer’s hold on Ashland.

Yesterday early afternoon found us with a huge downpour. People rushed into the coffee shop bursting with news about how intense, sudden, and cold the rain was. Brief was added to its description as the rain ceased after ten relentless minutes.

Then, 2:30 AM. A sound is covering the house. My sleepy mind thought it was a giant fan. Asking, what fan is that, I roamed through the house and realized, that giant fan sound was rain hissing down with Biblical efforts. I returned to bed and sleep only to awaken a while later to my wife in the kitchen getting water.

A sharp, high squeal noise had awakened me. I asked my wife if she’d heard it. “It’s raining,” she said.

I listened. “It stopped.”

“No, it’s still going.”

Papi and I went out back to prove the rain was stopped. It was. Cool breezes swept by with friendly helloes. Moonlight bright enough to walk on broke out. Rain clouds were splitting up and racing away in different directions, leaving a starry dark gray feast for my eyes. “This is nice,” I said. Papi didn’t disagree.

After I was back in bed, a sound like a brassy chord being strong on an electric guitar awakened me. “What the hell was that?” The Neurons asked the dark room. Nobody was giving any answers about noises.

Dad remains hospitalized. Not much can be done about a fractured pelvis. He’s due to be moved to a rehab center today. Andy is also being moved to a rehab center to help him recover from his hip fracture. Sis is mum about her medical procedure and its results.

Gritting my teeth and swallowing my GRRRRR, I peruse the news. Trump is suing the WSJ and anyone attached to the story about his ‘alleged’ birthday card/notes to Epstein. I’m sure Trump is betting that the story will be withdrawn and apologies issues. Meanwhile, he donated the Bible his mother presented to him in his boyhood to a Bible Museum. The net responded with laughter and mocking about the Bible. Most doubt that Trump opened his Bible, read it, and went to church, except for publicity when it suited his needs.

More attacks have been carried out in several wars. None of the war reporting arrives with a sense that the fighting is going to end soon. The major aggressors, Russia and Israel, are well past reasonable lines about their intentions. All can see that Russia will not stop until it has Ukraine. Israel won’t stop until Hamas are all dead. Neither nation displays concern or empathy for the innocents they’re killing.

Economic news will take over today’s media top spots. 911,000 fewer jobs were created between April 2024 and March 2025, BLS says. US job growth through March was significantly weaker than previously thought. Economists and analysts are telling us that it means the jobs markets was even worse than realized. A large downward revision was expected, with many citing sampling errors resulting from declining survey responses, weaker-than-inferred job creation at new firms, and adjustments related to asylum-seekers and other undocumented workers. The pandemic’s impact on the global labor market and residual adjustments were also blamed. Trump’s WH thinks that it proves Trump was right, the Biden economy was a disaster, and the BLS reporting is broken. That’s certainly puzzling, isn’t it: the Trump Regime is depending on a system they claim is broken to prove they’re right. Classic MAGAt non-thinking.

All this has culminated in The Neurons’ song choice for my morning mental music stream. It stormed in Ashland, with more storms coming. Trump is riding a storm of criticism about Jeffrey Epstein. We the People are riding through the storm of data about what’s going on with the economy. Hence, The Neurons summoned The Doors and “Riders on the Storm”.

Coffee has dropped in for an extended visit. May grace and peace visit and stay with us all for a while. Here we go again. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I just want to note. Children are dying of starvation around the world, but most especially, most visibly, in Gaza. And the self-described ‘pro-life’ party in power, the ones who hounds every woman seeking an abortion with religious zeal while screaming about the sanctity of life is doing fuck all about the dying children. No, the greedy Republicans like Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump are focused on making money and saving money, and protecting Trump from the Epstein Files fall out and exposure as a pedophile.

As always, actions speak louder than words. The GOP’s actions scream with hypocrisy.

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Twosdaz Theme Music

Welcome friends, come in, come in, to Twosda, July 29, 2025. I suspect many of you are like my niece and l’il sister, plotting back-to skool strategies for buying gear and deciphering starting days, agendas, and schedules. We have a while yet here in Ashlandia. The first signs will be the changing of the signs at the schools, making their public announcements for their start dates. Then comes newspaper articles and the police staking out the school zones to remind everyone that those are school zones.

Weird thinking of BTS activities when we’re still in summer’s hot throes. 68 F now, we’re humping up to 93 F tomorrow. The dry conditions have caused red flag warnings about fire dangers. As we heard about this, my wife remarked, “I don’t even know what our evacuation zone is.”

I replied, “We’re Ashland Zone 4.” Her look back pleased and delighted me, as she was clearly impressed that I knew. I added, “There’s a sign on every road intersecting with Siskiyou on the south end of town, telling us what zone the road is in.” Siskiyou Boulevard is the main drag through town, becoming highway 99 as it leaves the northern end.

Her eyes widened. “There is?”

I’ve been enamored with the WSLS Sky Cam focused on some bobcats. Three bobcats were rescued from dire circumstances with deceased or missing mothers in southwest Virginia and are being raised to be released back into the wild. They’re not related bobs. Here’s their story at this link.

The young cats sleep during the day and are active and playful at night, and the camera isn’t at its best at night. But I like to look in when I can and wish them a good life, fingers crossed and all that. This is their live video feed: https://www.wsls.com/watchlive/ The page has several there so you need to look around for the enclosure and click on it.

Seeing those little ones prompted The Neurons to spin up “End of the Tiger” by Survivor from 1982. Most people know the song as one of the Sylvestor Stallone Rocky theme songs. It won some grammys and was nominated for an Oscar, and is often used in sports and politics, usually without permission. The vocalist, Jimi Jamison, based away from a brain stroke in 2014, 63 years old.

I have political thoughts but I’m not going in to them now. Lot of gun violence out there in the United States this week. More critically, we’re waiting for news about the economy. Even more urgently and critically, we’re searching for leadership and answers about the horror-show starvation in Gaza. The U.S. used to be humanitarian enough to try to assuage such situations. Under Trump and his right-wing United States centric thinking and desire to ‘cut fraud, waste, and abuse’ *cough cough cough*, Trump and the Grand Old Greedy Party are disinclined to help any but the wealthy, white, and right wing.

I’m gonna try to have the best Twosda that I can. Hope you do the same. Coffee has been drunk. Time to press to test one more time. Cheers

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

It’s Wenzda, aka humpday, but also July 2, 2025. Cooled down to a comfortable level last night some and the morning ingredients are calling birds, blue sky, sunshine, and 72F. High will be 83 F, a drop from what I saw yesterday at my casa, 95 F.

I realized this morning that I’m in a metaphorical holding-my-breath state. So many balls in the air. I scan horizons for ‘the next’ in six different directions. Out there is the One Big Beautiful Bill, known in some places as the Big Ripoff, the Great Screwed Up Give to the Rich bill in others. Trump was again idiotically blithering on TV like someone who shouldn’t be allowed out on their own again. Russia and Ukraine’s war continues. Iran and Israel are still out there glaring at one another. Israel bombed some more people in Gaza. Don’t worry: they’re ‘investigating’ how it came to be that they bombed a cafe and killed reporters and workers and such. Yep. Tariffs hang all over everything like toilet paper from trees after Devil’s Night. Supreme Court rulings have been issued and the storms building behind those will come out. It’s Hurricane Season. Europe is suffering record heat and it’s not that cool in ‘Merica, either. Wildfires burn and FEMA is ready to shrug because Trump says states should be doing it for themselves. DOGE has had access to personal data; can that be good? The U.S. measles outbreak has ‘plateaued’ according to the gov’t but has it really? And what will happen with all that new guidance from the science and medicine skewed HHS led by worm brain Kennedy? Killer Noem’s ICE Troops seem more reckless, sanctuary and blue states are being threatened by Trump, he has a new eua-du-shit out, and Musk and Trump have taken their insults to new levels. Then there’s the personal and family stuff.

Hold my breath. Wait to see. What. Is. Next.

Quickening to my mood and thoughts, The Neurons unleashed “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons into the morning mental music stream. The song came out in 2012. Led by Marcus Mumford, the band has a different sound but it works for me and enough others that they’ve established a solid career. Hope you find it okay for your Wenzda’s beats.

My follow up dental appointment went well yesterday. All is healing, no problems, no complaints. Biopsy showed nothing of concern from the cyst removed from my gum. Have another appointment, different dentist, for a cleaning.

Coffee-fueled energy is ascending. I’m off to early morning yardwork. Have the best day you can. Cheers

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Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

As I survey life in the United States from my home in 2025, it feels to me like we’ve gone from Nanny State to Bully State. Trump demonstrates his bully tendencies with everything that he does.

Donald Trump Makes Legal Threat To CNN And The New York Times Over Their Reporting On Iran Intel Assessment

Along the way to becoming a bully nation, the Trump Regime is energetically dumping facts. Trump’s own regime’s Intel said Iran wasn’t near completing a nuclear weapon. Trump claimed that he knew better without offering any facts.

After the bombing, Trump said that the mission resulted in Iran’s nuclear capabilities being “obliterated.” The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment said that Iran’s program was probably only set back a few months. Trump insists, without evidence, we must believe him.

On June 20, a reporter asked Trump: “What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your Intelligence Community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.” Trump responded, “Well then my Intelligence Community is wrong,” and he said that Gabbard was “wrong.”

You can see why doubt is blooming like flowers in the spring. The Trump Regime’s response to everything among its directors, press secretaries, and cabinet members is, hey, trust us. They really dislike questions and react with violent anger when questioned, especially when facts get involved. Yet, we have several parts of the government saying one thing while TACO insists its otherwise. We have metrics saying one thing while TACO and his trumpizens insist their alternative set of facts say differently.

Polls are showing, for now, that more U.S. citizens believe the United States is on the wrong track. We see more of the same in the latest consumer confidence index.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ view of the U.S. economy worsened in June, resuming a downward slide that had dragged consumer confidence to its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index slid to 93 in June, down 5.4 points from 98.4 last month, which represented a brief uptick.

Of course, as a group, the U.S. electorate is a jelly-filled crumbly invertebrate. Many critics will say of this group and my gross generalization, there are so many issues, the issues fracture us. Yes, and that’s normal in any democracy. But shouldn’t history, truth, and facts mean more? As we’re frequently finding, truth and facts only matter to same when they slap people in the face like a used diaper via personal experience.

We see this especially demonstrated in the Immigration issue, as orchestrated by Killer Noem and her banditos. After teaching people to question authorities and question mask-wearing gunmen, we’re now supposed to just accept that it’s okay for ICE to disappear people? We used to fill milk cartons with people who went missing. Now, like a lying president and mass shootings, disappeared people is becoming a new American norm. Doesn’t matter if the disappeared are criminals; doesn’t matter if due process is followed. Who needs law and order in this growing lawless nation?

Remember when we used to say, “Innocent until proven guilty”?

Do you recall the days when “Everyone has their day in court”?

What about that old idea that, “If you’re not doing anything illegal, you don’t have anything to fear”?

Hey, that shit is gone. This is what happens when history, facts, and truth no longer matter. Little by little, day by day, decision by decision, act by act, truth, justice, and due process matter less and less.

And then a point is reached when nothing matters except the bully in charge.

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Twosda’s Theme Music

Greetings from Ashlandia, where it is Twosda, June 24, 2025. I don’t know what it is in your part of the world. For that matter, maybe this is just my reality.

It’s bumping up against 60 F outside under a fine blue sky and an earnest sun. Today’s upper crust will top off in the upper 80s. Maybe we’ll see 90. Good summer weather in my mind, in my reality.

I don’t know about other parts of the world and reality, but my breath is being held in my reality. Trump was crowing about an Iran-Israel cease fire after the B2 bombing run. Everyone else was mum. Then Iran said, yes, there is a cease fire, after some further attacks. Now a tenuous cease-fire is in place. Will this be a Russia cease-fire, where it holds until one of them believes they have some military advantage and break it to attack? Time will tell.

Outside of war, we await the impact of the tariffs and trade wars as the northern hemisphere slides into summer. Rural communities are holding their breath to see what happens with Federal funding cuts to their hospitals and school systems. People who are aware of the One Big Beautiful Bill are waiting for news about cuts to Medicaid. Immigrants in all situations and of all colors except white are keeping their ears open for masked ICE raids. Farmers are studying their situations, watching the weather, and holding their breath as they see grants dry up and workers disappear. Then, we face heat waves in the U.S. and hurricane season. All wait to see how the decimated Trump FEMA responds when a major disaster takes out an area. Maybe, given Trump’s luck, such a storm won’t strike. Meanwhile, we hold our breath.

We also hold our breath against the idea that Trump will decide that using the military was fun and profitable, and will order attacks against others. Will the newly identified enemies be U.S. citizens exercising their First Amendment rights?

TACO loves issuing threats. His storm troops have been more arrogant about arresting Democrats who oppose him. That’s a nasty trend and has us all holding our breath.

Issues before the Roberts Court have us holding our breath. There are injunctions and judicial orders being issued and challenged and counter-challenged. I’m holding my breath to see how these roll out and if Trump and the Greedy Old Trump Party complies or flips the rulings the bird.

Today’s music comes out of the news. Another rock scene guitarist passed away. Guitarist and songwriter Mick Ralphs was part of Mott the Hoople and Bad Company. Mott the Hoople as a band name always encourages a grin on me. Reading of the news of Ralphs carried The Neurons back into the 1970s section of the gray vault. They dug out “All the Young Dudes”. Written by David Bowie, the song vibes with Ziggy Stardust nuances. So that has to be the theme music, a nod to a passing time and some interesting rock.

Got my coffee. Time to rock on. Cheers

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Munda’s Theme Music

Munda, June 23, 2025, has burst open with sunshine in Ashlandia. Climbing already, the temperature has surged from 50 F to 68 F with a final destination of 84 F. Blue sky is all I see, except for Sol rising in the east.

There’s early evidence that PINO Trump’s risky decision to bomb Iran did little outside of increasing the chances for war. Monitoring groups say that no radiation was detected coming from the bombed sites. Radiation would be expected if radioactive materials were being stored there. Trump had been telegraphing his intentions and the stealth B2 Spirit bombers’ movements were being tracked and reported in the media. Iran said it had evacuated from from Fordo and the attack did little damage to its nuclear aspirations. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, Iran has fired missiles at U.S. bases. Trump has never been a student of history, but come on, man. Did he really think that after his failed negotiations that bombing them once and warning them, “That’s it, it’s done,” was really going to do it? He’s obviously never been in fights or seriously competitive situations. One rarely gets knocked back once and say, “Gosh, well that’s over. I’m done.” No. The first knock down usually pisses the other party off. Iran has a definite macho history of being just like Trump, declaring, “If you hit us, we’re going to hit you so much harder.”

Trump has bought into the whole idea of ‘war is peace’. Not surprising. He’s been demoing upside down backwards thinking for years. And he’s thrived because backward thinking is plentiful among voters and business people. In a sidebar, Trump now has us at war with science, education, common sense, economic and world history, and Iran.

Another sidebar: hey, MAGAts and Trumpettes, remember when Trump promised to keep the U.S. out of Middle East wars and conflicts? How’s that playing out for you? Trump used to warn that President Obama was going to bomb another country because negotiations had failed. Classic Trump projection. Maybe he should send in Jared Kushner to broker another peace plan, because that first one is so robust. Yes, that was snark.

Displaying a remarkable sense of whimsy, The Neurons have place “Upside Down” in the morning mental music stream. No, not “Upside Down”, the disco hit by Diana Ross. No, this is the chill Jack Johnson tune of 2006 made for the animated film, Curious George. Guess Les Neurons thought that calming down and relaxing in the face of rising enshittification of the world would be good for my blood pressure or something.

Coffee has been served. Hope you all have the best day you can amidst the chaos and enshittification. Cheers

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Sunda’s Theme Music

Greetings from Ashlandia on Sunda, June 22, 2025. Speaking weatherly, it’s a better day today than yesterday. Sure, dark clouds still clot the sky with potentially ominous intentions. But sunshine is striking, driving the air into warmer realms. We’ve already broken past 60 F, three degrees above yesterday’s high. 72 F is in sight as a possibility.

Papi the butter butt floof is much happier. He’s snuggled into the vinca where just his tiny triangular orange face is marginally visible. Yesterday, he came in and stayed, finding a place to sleep until the rain, wind, and cold had gone away.

Well, Trump attacked another country but we’re not at war, oh no.Yet.We just bombed another country. Just a strategic ‘surgical’ strike on someone Trump thought was being a bully. On a whim. A hunch. Like a bet was being made.

A bet has been made. A bet that Iran’s nuclear program was more advanced than intelligence claimed. ‘We’ – because it was our government, acting on behalf of the United States, so we’re all involved, like it or not. So ‘we’ made a bet that we knew where the facilities were, and could reach and destroy. We bet that Iran and its allies would not respond. We made a bet that the mission would be successful and cow the Iranian leadership into not striking back. Will June 21, 2025, go down as an infamous act that triggered WWIII? Time will tell. If you bet on past history, this will get messy, but it might be down the road a few years. 

We always knew Trump would attack. He’s been eager to use the military in whatever way he could to bolster his self-image. In the space of six months, he’s deployed troops against protestors and bombed another country, after, of course, threatening to invade Greenland and take it over and joking, “Maybe Canada should be our 51st state.” Ha, ha, what a brilliant funnyman. And then he claims he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Please, someone shut him up before I pee my pants from laughing.

Today’s musical offering comes from — ta da — Der Neurons. For some reason that isn’t plain to me, they were kicking the morning mental music stream with “Basket Case”, a 1994 song by Green Day.

Alright. Had a double helping of warm oatmeal for breakfast. Risked some blueberries in it. Mouth took it all well, knock wood. Out to the coffee shop to write out the stuff piling up in my head. I wish for good things for you today and all days. Cheers

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Saturda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Here it comes and here we go again.

BREAKING: Donald Trump says America’s Intelligence Community is “Wrong” on Iran From The Parnas Perspective:

When a reporter referenced U.S. intelligence findings that indicate no current evidence of Iran building a nuclear weapon, Trump responded: “My intelligence community is wrong.” When informed that this assessment came from his DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump reiterated: “She is wrong.”

Gosh, it all makes me flash back to the turn of the century. Dubya Bush, asleep at the wheel, missed intelligence warnings about major terrorist attacks on the United States. We know the results of that day as 9/11. That security failure was used as a platform to attack Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraq was attacked because the Bush Administration alleged Iraq had or were developing Weapons of Mass Destruction. WMD. Everyone remember that? Remember also that our intelligence showed that wasn’t the case. Just months after telling the world that Saddam Hussein wasn’t a threat, Colin Powell did a 180 and went on a campaign to convince everyone that he now was. As then VEEP Dick Cheney cherry-picked info to give us the rational for attacking, the United States steamrolled toward war on lies, flawed intelligence, and poor reasoning.

Now, here we are, in the wake of Israel’s surprise pre-emptive attack on Iran, contemplating joining the fray. Trump, now playing a dumber version of George Dubya Bush, thinks he knows better, as TACO always does. He can’t spell, he has a poor understanding of history, he doesn’t like to read, is a terrible negotiator, has an inflated ego and lies like a Persian rug, but this fool is insisting that he knows better.

Having just closed one disastrous chapter on war in that region, he seems hellbent on dragging the United States into another. Well, time will tell, won’t it?

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

It’s another golden morning of cool night air. Wenzda, June 18, 2025, has us at 60 F. Sunshine is expected to lift us up to 83 F. These days of mild warmth and cool nights reminds me of living in Mountain View, CA, while we were stationed at Onizuka Air Base in California in the early 1990s. Starting in May, this would be our weather until fall began descending into winter and the rains started slashing us. It is not bad at all, though.

Just gotta ask people a few questions. Anyone remember when Trump said, “In a golden age of America, the entire planet will be more peaceful and prosperous as a result.” Yes, that’s right, it was on his inauguration day in January of this year. 2025.

He also claimed in that speech, “In the United States of America, as we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust.” Then he unleashed Elon Reeve Musk and DOGE and gutted the government’s services and cut payments to people who trusted the government to pay them as it said it would.

In that speech, Trump also said, “For American citizens, January 20, 2025, is Liberation Day. It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country — as our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda, with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society: young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural, and, very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states and the popular vote, we won by millions…”

‘The entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda…’ Yes, that explains why so many Americans were out there protesting him and his policies on No Kings Day, June 14, 2025, right? That explains why he’s minus ten in approval ratings in polls, right? Only in Donald World is the nation more unified now than it was last year.

Trump is such a liar. He’s full of bullshit. He’s incompetent, and for Trump 2.0, he’s installed incompetent loyalists.

When will this peace he promised the entire world begin? Well, you know Trump; based on his record of lies and promises, it’ll come at about the same time as the terrific, great healthcare plan which he never revealed. The one he promised almost ten years ago.

Today’s music is “Emotional Rescue” by the Rolling Stones. I admit, the song has grown on me through the years. Still not real fond of Mick Jagger’s falsetto. But I like the 1980 song’s funkiness. None of this explains why The Neurons selected it for the morning mental music stream. The Neurons work in mysterious ways.

Well, rock on. Brace yourself for more shitty news from PINO TACO. And hang on. Looks like it’s gonna be a bumpy fucking ride.

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