From the Teat of Republican Hatred

Thursday.  Outside the temp is 31 (F) and we have freezing rain.  Supposedly, this is not going to amount to much.  A glaze, perhaps.  Looking out onto the veranda, there's a lot of shine, but it seems more wet than slick.  I'm not about to go out to see how slippery things are.  I am scheduled to work today.  If around10 ish the roads seem slick, I'll take a personal day.

I went to the dentist yesterday morning to have a filling replace; it was old and had started to leak around the edge making the tooth sensitive to hot and cold.  Well, that's fixed now, however, he wants to put a crown on the tooth.  Well, that's not going to happen.  He didn't like the fact that I'm switching to Blue Cross dental insurance, "they don't pay so we dropped them," he said, "and I'd hate to see you go to another dentist."  Maybe if he didn't charge so much that people need to rely on insurance, there might be no problem.  A really bad fiscal policy is to charge as much as insurance companies will pay.

I found this nifty! The sound of a wind devil on Mars.  This is what it looked like.  Someday we will be walking on this planet.

The Orange Anus is going to make some sort of big announcement today.  There notified the world of this big announcement with an animated video:  him ripping open his shirt to reveal large T (like Superman) while lasers shot out of his eyes.  I'm not posting it.  Very amateurish, possibly hoping to suck Marvel fans into the MAGA cult, some think he's going to announce that Kari Lake is his running mate.  Others believe he might be announcing his intention to run for Speaker of the House.  Still, others think he's going to re-announce his candidacy, since the first announcement floated like a turd in a public swimming pool.  Or, perhaps, he just needs a boost to his ego since recent polls shown DeSantis leading him among the Cracker Jack Crazies.

And then there's this:  Deep controversies in the Republican party are causing serious rifts.  Usually, after a stunning defeat in the midterms, a political party re-evaluates their positions, they pinpoint mistakes which need to be corrected, they understand the need for softening their rhetoric in order to appeal to more centrist voters.  This is not so for a majority of Republicans in the House.  Instead, they are gathering as many dead horses around them as possible:  Hunter Biden's laptop, Fauci's wisdom, disagreeable election results, and they are going to continue kicking them as hard as they can.  For them, this is survival mode; hold onto the base by giving them what they want.  Expect nothing less from the party which has suckled supporters on the teat of Republican hatred for years.  After Trump is indicted, these same people will be desperately searching among the ruins for survivors.

To Go Out There

 We had snow yesterday... between 6 and 7 inches.  And I did go to work.  The little storm that went through?   Right from the start we knew it was only going to last a few hours, not like the last 2 which went on for days.  We also knew the temps were supposed to climb into the mid to upper 30's (F), which they did.  One of the benefits of going to work on a snow day?  There are very few customers.  Smart people don't drive in snow unless they have to, the dumb shits?  Well, why do you think we know them as dumb shits?

My new desk arrives today.  I'm looking forward to the assemblage tomorrow.

For those who haven't seen the landing of Perseverance yesterday, here's the video.  I can never repeat often enough that this is the reason we are here... To Go Out There.  We are like a seed of grass.  Plant it and watch it grow and spread.  Our purpose is not to be born so we can die and go to an afterlife.  Where is the future.  Our purpose is all important and so many religions simply don't get that.

The Supreme Court handed down 2 decisions yesterday primed to piss off Republicans.  Trump needs to hand over his taxes and all related forms, and Pennsylvania Republicans trying to overturn the vote were told to stick their complaints up their... in their... hell, every single orifice they have is filled with shit, so I have no idea where they're going to stick it.

As expected, Trump geysered a stream of lava level hatred at the Supreme Court.  You see, he thought he stacked it with judges who would kiss his ass every time he bent over.  I'm betting they can't wait to shove from the frying pan into the fire.

Particularly about: Bikes, customers, and Trump

Today's Sunday and I get to work a split shift.  That means I go in at my standard 10:30, work 6 hours, go home, and then go back to work at 8 this evening.  Today is our Success Sharing meeting, where they hand out our bonuses for the previous 6 months.  Mine's going to be nice, not nearly what it used to be, but still, for an hourly associate, rather nice.  I'm going to use it to pay off my Amex because I'm going to add a toasty bit to that account when I purchase my new bike.  As for the particular Cannondale I'm going to buy?  Well, I've pretty much settled, in my head at least on the Synapse Carbon Disc Ultegra.

As you can see, it's red.  Red is very important.  There's a Synapse that costs about $600 less, and that's very nice, but it's blue.  I'm not a blue person.  My eyes might be blue, and I might wear shirts that have blue in them, and blue jeans, but that's about it.  My favorite colors are red and green, mostly red, the color of Mars, the god of War...  what can I say?  Maybe it's because I'm a Scorpio.
So, I had a particular customer yesterday.  I knew she was particular because she told me so.  "I'm very particular," she'd said, as she jostled the baby swaddled to her bosom.  She had another sitting in her shopping cart and right of the bat that she was showing her particularity by being as racially diverse when it came to having children.  When her mother pointed out to her that the carpet she particularly liked would cost over $7000 she sighed and said "but it's what I like."  Her parents need to get her off of her meds and into counseling as fast as possible if they don't want this particular person to have life that's totally screwed.  I mean, I can't even imagine her attempting to raise children.
And I saw this interesting opinion in Bloomberg this AM, on how the Idiot Jerk in the White House is on the verge of selling out his base.  And, of course, I had to laugh.  While the media was reporting on his treatment of contractors, how he reneged on contracts, and sought legal action when contractors fought back, his Trumplodite Bonga Wongas listened only to his Tweety words consistently trumpeting 'fake news.'  And now the Idiot Jerk says "the wall can wait."  The EU says he's shifting on his Paris Climate Control opinion.  Oh, and maybe immigrant children should be allowed to stay.  They are throwing up a crazy shit storm on John Kelly, Trump's Nanny, or at least that's what some are calling the White House Chief of Staff.  Of course, they didn't want to believe the truth.  They wanted to believe the Idiot Jerk, a turd of a human being who has only one true loyalty, and that's to himself.

Nasa gets a Kickstart

Guess what, NASA is going back to work.  This doesn't mean they haven't been putting in some time over the past couple of years putzing around with the International Space Station.  They had, however, put their exploration programs pretty much on hold.  This came as a result of the Augustine Commission's report back in 2009 that the current program was terribly underfunded.  The United States would have to spend trillions of dollars to keep it moving forward.  Do you remember 2009?  Middle of the worst recession in American history?  Given the time it made sense, some what.  The monies which could have been spent on the development of a heavy lift vehicle could be better spent going to General Motors.  Of course there was also the housing market crash, we couldn't let those banking and financial institutions responsible for that shit hole mess to die, we needed to keep them afloat.

In the five years since then the country has pretty much recovered, though not as much as some Republicans would like, and we are in a better financial place.  Hence, in the budget approved and signed by the President, space exploration programs have once again been funded to a tune of over 1 trillions dollars.  Have we finally gotten it right?  Kind of, I think.

I don't think for a second Congress muttered to itself "hey, we got a little spare cash lying around, let's give it to the space program."  No, not at all.  I think what really happened were China and India.  You see about two months ago the Chinese landed a rover on the moon and... it's roving around up there.  Even though the American news media gave it some airplay and most people probably didn't even notice, you can be some pudding head down in Washington said "Holy Shit!"  The next thing you know they'll be sending men there, Chinese Men, and they'll be setting up a Moon Base.  And where are we?  Dicking around with the likes of small minded Ted Cruz.  India has launched a probe to Mars!  I tell people that and their response is almost universal disbelief.  "India?" they ask.  Yeah, they are more then just a Call Center for American Companies.  So, Congress and the government really had no choice, it was either kickstart the program with a big boot, or sit back and eat dust.

China leaves us behind

Something other then a snowstorm blustering up the eastern seaboard is happening today.  What can that be?  China is landing a rover on the moon.  From what I can tell this has not been getting a lot of press, not because the news isn't covering the momentous occasion, they are, but just skimming over the importance.  There was a time when an announcement like this would have received screaming headlines, not any more.  Why the lack of coverage?  Not so much because it's a Chinese venture, but rather out political landscape has made us a dispassionate people when it comes to exploration.  The richest country in the world doesn't want to spend the money, we want to let private industry take over.  While we wait for this to happen, the Chinese are going to surge ahead.  They will be landing men on the moon and SpaceX will be shuttling supplies back and forth to an aging space station.  They will begin mining operations, India will be landing exploratory rovers on Mars, and we will be stuck in the back seat watching out a smudgy window.  This means we will not even be able to clearly see all of the wonderful things that are happening everywhere but here in the good old USA.

A year doesn't go by without us seeing some report reminding us how our students are falling behind other countries.  What do our political parties do?  Well, one kind of wants to do something, and the other just wants to dictate.  One wants to be liked and the other wants to give orders. Because of this all they do is fight with each other, like little kids.  This inability to get along, to understand their political philosophies need to be secondary in order to move the country forward, is failure at it's prime.  One of them has knotted itself so tightly with special interest groups it has become a useless anchor.  Whether they want to admit it or not, both parties kiss the asses of American Capitalists.  It is all about making as much money as possible.  And for a vast majority of Americans it's about spending money they don't have now, nor will they ever have, because they want immediate gratification.  It's as if we're in a car with a broken transmission, unless we can change gear, we are going to be left puttering down the road to tomorrow being left farther and farther behind.