Mastery of the Con

 We're in the 2nd day of our current Polar Vortex.  The high today will be in the mid 20s (F), and, as in past winters when we had long periods of sub-freezing weather, I am climatizing.  While I know it's cold, I'm no longer experiencing the bitter Brrr when I go outside.  As a species, we are quite adaptable, otherwise we would never have survived for so long.  Still, I am looking forward to Spring and the warmer temperatures it will bring.

I had my hair cut yesterday.  Haircuts are one of those things I have always had dislike for, unfortunately I don't like long hair either because it takes more time to maintain.  A simple shampoo and air dry is fine with me.  Having to spend money in order to maintain a certain appearance should not have to be a priority in life.  With prices predicted to rise, I will start giving myself buzz cuts again.

Also, much was accomplished yesterday.  A new pump and filter was bought for the big aquarium.  The overly large pump and filter that sits on a shelf beneath it is going away.  I've always hated having to change the filtering medium.  Its replacement will hang off the back of the tank.  

I also got a 6 mile bike ride in.  That was nice.  In Corsica.  I've done the ride before, but Tacx has updated it.

And I went to see Captain America:  Brave New World.  I liked it at lot, possibly because right now it might not be a bad idea if there was a super hero Democracy could count on. Anthony Mackie does a good job transitioning a character many identify with Chris Evans.  Harrison Ford played against character, which was interesting.  Not all of the reviews have been kind because, in the end, this is still a Marvel movie with a superhero.  I mean, what were these reviewers thinking?  That Marvel might decide to do a version of Jane Eyre?  

As for politics, for the most part, I stayed away form social media, however, what I did see and notice is that certain outlets are beginning to push back and Orangie and his cultists.  I did watch a short clip of Stevie Miller shouting over a correspondent about how much fraud they were finding, shouting over a question about prices and the fact that they were still climbing.  They are getting frustrated.  As I've said countless of times before, he and his cultists have always failed to understand there are both consequences and ramifications to their actions.  For example, they evidently fired essential people who were researching Bird Flu.  These fools, however, don't just terminate the position, they eliminate all information regarding the unemployed individuals, including phone numbers and email addresses, so, when they discover these people are necessary, there's no way to contact them.

And Orangie and Elonia had some sort of love/bro fest on Fox where the only thing they didn't do was canoodle. Even though some think they'll be at each other's throats soon, I'm suspecting they are too enraptured with each other's mastery of the con. 

The Damage Done

 Well, it's a chilly willy 16 (F) outside and the temps are only expected to climb up into the mid 20s (F).  We have the same forecast tomorrow.  However, after this mini polar vortex slides east towards Europe, our temps are supposed to bounce back into the mid to upper 40s (F).  That will be nice. 

Much more was accomplished yesterday than I had been expecting.  2 long loads of laundry, you'll notice I'm back to long loads is an effort to cut down on my water bill.  The big tank was vacuumed.  Oh, and I worked, selling an $8000 flooring installation to a very nice, but very odd woman.  She's involved in local theater.  A long time ago I was involved in local theater, and so we had several old acquaintances in common.  It would have been nice to have conversation with her, but other customers showed up.

That irascible Howie chewed off the back of my left slipper.  This is the first time he's actually damaged something, so he got a  swat that he ignored.  Now I have a good right slipper, and the left one is more of a slipper flop, if you know what I mean.

Not surprising, about 25% of Americans have stopped shopping at their favorite store because of politics.  Can you hear me laughing?  This is because many retailers wanted to support the Orange Anus because... well, he's going to give them a whopping big tax cut, and so they dumped their DEI policies.  You would have thought that at least one executive in these retailers would have pointed out that this might hurt sales.  Or maybe they thought that the tax break would compensate for their loss in revenue.  However, when such a large number of your customers stop buying from you, you're going to have problems.  I'm sure many of these retailers are now focusing on Damage Control, and how this bad decision is going to hurt their stockholders.

Yesterday was a day of protests against Orangie and Elonia.  Hundreds of thousands of people, all over the country, gathered and quietly held up signs.  So far, these protests are peaceful.  However, I agree with James Carville in that as more and more people are screwed over by this administration, these protests are going to get louder and angrier.  As he said, they are "going to turn into an out of control freight train," and the damage they do to this administration will be great.  

There's a saying that if you want to be successful, you need to read the room.  This has always been a problem for conservatives, they want to be authoritarian without understanding they need to have a majority of the people behind them.  Orangie doesn't.  His approval rating continues to slide.  And Elonia?  The hatred for him is growing hour by hour.