Nooks and Crannies
29/05/22 07:06
Bumbles Biden is on an Asian tour and we're not hearing much about anything about what he's saying or not saying day in and day out. It's almost like there's a media blackout to make sure that his usual garbled drivel doesn't make it back across the pond so we here in America can say what we've always said about Joe Biden. He's a fool. Yep, that's the demented old fuck that we all know as the guy whose minions stole the election from Trump in 2020. Hillary tried to do the same in 2016, as we're all learning now but we've suspected since day one, as it comes out in the trial of one of her henchmen, Michael Sussman.
One story I'm seeing in The New York Times this morning is about comments made by Joe Biden about our country's policy regarding the defense of Taiwan in the event of an attack by China. Our country's policy towards China and Taiwan has always been intentionally ambiguous (Strategic Ambiguity) since waging a full blown war off the coast of China against China was considered a fool's errand by any strategist worth their salt. But leave it to Bumbles Biden to take our country to the brink of war against a country like China because he is simply not capable of articulating the policy of his predecessors as it relates to Taiwan. His remarks, as the NYT puts it, were "unscripted." Got it.
Then again, Bumbles has made a lot of comments off the cuff which people just ignore because they know how late stage senility can take one off one's game. Were he not the President of our great nation, he'd blend in with the rest of the patients wandering around the ward with their johnnies open and with their ass cracks in full view. I don't know that anyone on his team has walked back or tried to clarify or clean up his comments as they typically do so that's a problem. It does seem like Biden is desperate to get our country into a full blown conflict so there's that. Whatever it takes, really, to take the many problems he's created in our country off the front pages and out of the headlines. God help us.
It's doubtful we'll see Hillary Clinton perp walked into the courtroom in this Sussman trial currently underway in Washington, D.C., but one can hope. The revelations thus far have simply validated everything everyone has ever known or suspected Hillary Clinton of doing as it relates to the Russia hoax that she and her people perpetrated against one Donald J. Trump. It was a ruse to steal the 2016 election and, when that didn't work, she doubled down on her hoax in order to disgrace and disable the fledgling Trump Administration. The media and the intelligence agencies played along like the sycophantic poodles that they are and, while it made for riveting headlines, none of it was true.
You'll have to look far and wide to read anything about the Sussman trial and that is, not surprisingly, by design. Hillary is allegedly looking to run again for president again although the more we see and hear about this so-called trial the less likely it is that she'll be out of her orange jump suit in time to hit the campaign trial before the 2024 election. There I go again with my wishful thinking. Elites like the Clinton's can bring our great republic to its knees and never spend a day behind bars for her skullduggery. That has to change. We don't know about Trump either as to whether or not he's planning to run in 2024 but, if he does, he'll be better positioned with one of his better known refrains when it comes to Hillary, All together now, "Lock her up"!
This is another one of those days when there are three or so primaries in various states and I'm on the edge of my seat wondering how they are all going to turn out. I have lots to keep me busy today so that's a good thing. A little raking, a little mowing, a little of this and a little of that and we can call it a day. I'm not looking to rush anything but I am happy to say that between now and the time they call some of these races later this evening I'll be busy as a bee and then some. I might even put up a bit of fencing to keep the critters out of our garden this summer. That would, no doubt, please the missus to no end.
I took a longer than expected bike ride yesterday. I drove up past the horse farm on Atlantic Avenue and that took me some half mile or so beyond my usual destination. I had no wind to contend with and the temperatures were comfortably in the sixties with little to no humidity. In other words, it couldn't have been a better day to extend my ride if for no other reason than to see what I was capable of and maybe test the waters so to speak for taking longer rides more regularly. If you take the same ride day in and day out, am I really pushing the envelope? Am I really getting the most out of the one exercise that I count on to keep myself in shape? The only way I'll ever know the answer to that question is if I challenge myself each and every day and in every conceivable way.
I don't know if I'm doing myself a favor or not by having the door open as I sit here morning in and morning out writing in this here journal. The silence of the early morning is punctuated minute in and minute out by the sounds of the local bird population. One minute it's the Pileated Woodpecker whacking away at some dead tree limb off in the distance. The next minute it's a Carolina Wren whistling Dixie on a bush that is within spitting distance of where I'm sitting. Who knew that a little bird the size of a Wren could make so much noise? Other bird noises are less easy to identify and many are hidden in the lushness of the lilac bushes that straddle our property line. Much of what I'm hearing is probably part and parcel of the larger fabric of what goes on in the world of birds during mating season. It is that time of the year after all.
I'm surprised when I think about it that birds in general seem to give their human counterparts short shrift. More so, I guess I would say, than the inordinate amount of time that we as humans spend observing and admiring them. They almost seem distrustful of us as a species although history might be on their side when the jury finally comes back. There have been countless songs about Blackbird pie over the years so take from that what you will. We humans and birds also seem to be of two minds on the sticky issue of what we humans refer to as "coexistence." And, to a species, they seem equally and uniquely skittish when it comes to interacting with we humans. I would hasten to add, not intolerant, just skittish. Truth of the matter is that they have more to fear from one another than they do from us. That's the God's honest truth.
I'm not happy this morning. Those two twats down in Georgia, Kemp and Rothensberger, won their primaries last night. That probably has something to do with the fact that Trump's endorsed candidates were not all that appealing but let that go. Is it my imagination or were the margins of the wins a little weird? Kemp got something like 70% of the vote. The goal was to keep him under 50% and force a runoff. Perdue, Kemp's opponent and Trump's guy, couldn't get but 22% of the vote. I don't know, it just seems a little too fishy to me. These are the same ass clowns that participated and maybe even engineered the steal in Georgia in 2020 that put Biden in the Oval Office. Are they up to their old tricks again? Inquiring minds want to know.
I wasn't too happy last night that the entire primary night business was preempted by the shooting at the elementary school in Texas. How selfish does that make me? Oh, just another shooting at an elementary school. How about all the young people killed over this past weekend in cities like Chicago and New York City? Where are the tears and the outrage for those victims? The democrats were out in force on every television station with the same talking points they always use when we have a shooting like this. What is their obsession with taking guns away from law abiding citizens? Did you hear Biden's comments? He went on and on, or so I was told, about deer wearing Kevlar vests on prime time television on the night that 20 children died in a mass school shooting. You can't make this stuff up.
I don't know why but the missus thought that it was kind of important to hear Biden speak in the aftermath of the school shooting. You know, do what a president does when this sort of thing happens. Something short and sweet that brings our people together in the wake of an unspeakable crime in one of our communities. It was a hard pass for me since I knew what to expect. Everything that comes out of Biden's mouth these days is just completely cringeworthy. I walked into the other room until he did his thing and then I returned to the bedroom where the missus was just aghast at what she had just watched on television. I tried to warn her. I'm not sure what she was expecting but suffice it to say that Biden's bullshit didn't do it for her. He really is a disgrace.
I don't think taking away all the guns is going to stop these types of things from happening. People will find a way to kill other people if they are so inclined. Mental health issues are seemingly at play here so someone knew something about what this killer was maybe up to or maybe capable of. I'm a little curious to about the fact that this happened in Texas where people carrying guns is not all that uncommon. Someone should have been armed in the school and ready to go at the drop of a hat. I like the idea of having armed security in schools and that would have gone a long way towards preventing the kind of bloodbath we saw in Texas yesterday. They kept replaying this one reel on the telly last night about a ten-year old girl who was missing. What the fuck does that mean? With any luck, she found a place to hide and she's since been found safe and sound. Duck and cover, baby!
One thing you weren't hearing a lot about last night was the ethnicity of the shooter. The media went crazy two weeks ago with the shooting at the supermarket in Buffalo when the shooter was white. It's all about white supremacy, they cackled hour in and hour out for days and days. As to the ethnicity of Mr Ramos and his rampage at the school yesterday, not a fucking word about his ethnicity. All you got was, "The investigation is ongoing." If the media can't opine on his nationality, and he was an American citizen as I understand it, then they pivot to gun control. Some of these mass murderers, like the black guy who mowed down people attending the parade in Waukesha Wisconsin, just disappeared from the news cycle the day after it happened. That's just how the American media rolls.
I got a good jump on cleaning our garage yesterday so I feel good about that. Getting the party started is always the most difficult part. Now that I've swept the garage floor of the dirt and leaves that have accumulated there over the past couple of months or more I'm ready to attack everything on the periphery. The things we tend to accumulate when we're not paying attention to such things can be quite overwhelming and they need to be culled every so often. You can only turn a blind eye to the unnecessary things in your life for so long. Ask any octogenarian if they have things that they think they need to get rid of and you'll likely get an earful. The thought of keeling over and leaving your mess for someone else to clean up can be quite a motivator. If that someone else happens to be your better half, all the more important that you get a move on.
The missus has been after me to put the fence up around the garden so I suppose I ought to add that to my to-do list. The garden isn't in yet but it will be by the time this weekend rolls around. I think I need an extra plant or two to reach full capacity in the garden so I'll have to think about what I want to add to the plants that we already have on hand. Today would be a good day to go looking for plants since the weekend is likely to be a horror show with hordes of last minute shoppers looking to find things to plant before the growing season moves on without them. Yes, we draw the line at Memorial Day hereabouts. If we don't have the plants in by then then it's likely a no-go for the garden for the season. We even have a watermelon plant going in this season. That's a first.
The missus bought a sun block lotion online last week and now she's decided that she doesn't like how it smells. I don't want to tell you how much it cost so we'll leave that alone. It's not important anyway since the missus contacted the company and complained about this and that until they agreed to reimburse her for the cost of the product. They didn't even request that she return the product but they did ask for the lot number on the bottle so they could do their own in-house inquiry. I think they refer to that as "due diligence" in the business. Thinking that the missus was overstating the smell issue, I thought I might like to give it a try. I didn't find it nearly as offensive as she made it out to be and I've decided that I'll use it instead. I even suggested to her that she contact the company to arrange for payment since we're using the product. Curiously enough, she seems singularly uninterested in following through on my suggestion.
This particular product has as its main ingredient, Titanium Dioxide. There is a fragrance to it and I would agree with the missus ever so slightly that the smell is just a little off putting. I would only ever apply this lotion to my face given how expensive it is. It's also a mineral based sun lotion which, I'm learning, is better that the over-the-counter chemical based lotions which get absorbed into your skin with each application. Given how much I bike and how often I've used these chemical based products on my face over the years, it has me wondering just how much damage I've done to my internal organs as a result of my using the wrong products on my skin. I've been a little too focused on SPF values when I should have been focused elsewhere. I like the way it feels going on too. It's not greasy like all the others. While I wouldn't personally spend this much for lotion, and I know that it was reimbursed for better or worse, I might be willing to spend a little more now that I'm better informed as to the dangers of this and that lotion currently on the market.
Someone posted a class picture online of the children killed in the shooting in Texas the other day. I think I was a little surprised at the fact that there wasn't a Caucasian face in the crowd. For all intents and purposes, that very same picture night have been taken in a school in Juarez or Mexico City. It's funny how we American's associate things with things. We associate blacks with inner cities, caucasians with the Middle West and along our respective eastern and western coastlines, and maybe a smattering of Mexican and South American faces with geographic locations along our southern border. Maybe the picture to which I refer is more illustrative of the Mexican and South American influence we're experiencing these days along our southern border thanks to the open border policies of Joey Biden and his crack team of socialists sitting in the White House. Who was it that once said, "if you don't have a border, you don't have a country?" Maybe that's the goal.
The story of how this so-called shooter and how he was able to do the things that he did behind closed doors continues to unfold. What do you mean that there was no school resource officer on the premises? Why not? How did the shooter get into the school? Why was there a door unlocked when it's standard practice to have all the doors of the school locked after the students are in their respective classrooms? How do you explain the fact that the shooter was active in the school for the better part of 40 minutes at a minimum while armed officers stood outside keeping parents from entering the school to save their children? They must have heard the gunshots. POP POP POP POP POP POP.
Was this a PsyOps operation? Is it possible that this was a government run warfare operation in order to force the politicians on both sides of the aisle to start the process of doing away with the 2nd amendment? The democrats have long been just fine when it comes to doing away with the 2nd amendment. Their wet dreams of a one-party government would be much easier were they able to disarm the population. Just ask the Australians how losing their right to bear arms has put them at the odds with an ever repressive governmental regime who, most recently, beat their citizens in the streets after taking away their rights to free speech during the Covid crackdowns. Certainly, seeing some 20-odd fourth graders killed in cold blood inside their classroom would push the politicians to coalesce around one or more laws to make sure that this sort of thing never happens again. Right? I guess you'll never know unless you put the wheels in motion to make it happen. Gotta start somewhere. Is that what we're talking about here?
We picked up some dogs and chicken for the barbie we're planing to have here at the house this Memorial Day weekend. I also grabbed a couple of chopped sueys for the Ev man should he show up. I paid $16 for a couple of marinated chicken breasts. If I had to guess, I'd say this was some six dollars more than I might have paid for the same product some six months ago. If you're paying more for some things then that means you're buying fewer or less of other items because budgets only stretch so far. We picked up a smattering of veggies and I'll probably make kebobs if the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise. Had I noticed that the missus only put one zucchini and one summer squash in the basket, I would have had her get more. Who doesn't like left over grilled veggies? I've also got some nice organic red onions and tomatoes that I can add to the skewers so that's good.
I've been on a tear of sorts these last few days when it comes to cleaning, organizing, and throwing a thing or two out with the trash. I have to be careful since the missus has an eagle eye when it comes to me and my throwing things out that she would prefer that I not throw out. Adding to my woes is the fact that Mrs G is also getting rid of things and we've offered to assist her with the removal of said items. When I see those bags of this and that coming into our house rather than going directly to the recycling center it annoys me to no end. I've got my hands full staying ahead of the hoarding that the missus is responsible for so I certainly don't need Mrs G's stuff on top of it all. I'm making considerable progress in the few rooms that I have to square away so I feel good about that. It's all about the nooks and crannies now. It's not a joint effort by any stretch but hope springs eternal.
We're seeing a nice little counter trend rally in the financial markets these last few days. That has to feel good for the people who have seen their investments go into the toilet over these past few months. We're still in a down market so caution is in order when it comes to going full hog into a rally that likely has limited upside. I've seen counter trend rallies in these past couple of months that have lasted but a day. There has been but one multi-day rally and all that did was suck in the crowd only to bury them again with multiple and successive 90% downside days. It does make you wonder what the markets would be doing were the fed heads not out there talking smack about the markets and how all of these rate increases are going to end and we'll all be fat and happy again real soon. I'm looking for capitulation and that's never going to happen until you see the end of the kind of froth and speculation that we're still seeing in these markets.
I'm looking forward to listening to the War Room radio program this morning. Steve Bannon will spend some two hours talking with experts about the threat of China invading Taiwan. He seems to think that an invasion is imminent and he plans to talk about the things he's seeing that lead him to believe that it's just a matter of time now. China has long believed that Taiwan is a territory of China and has pushed back rhetorically on countries like the United States who have as their policy what's known as "strategic ambiguity." That's a nice way of saying that we're not sure what we're willing to do should China invade their closest neighbor, Taiwan. The implications both economically and militarily of engaging China should they invade Taiwan are topics that we Americans should all be concerned about. The fact that 90% of the world's semiconductor's chips are produced in Taiwan is a good place to start this conversation.
Mrs G asked that we pick up some tartar sauce for her in our travels. She mentioned that she was having fish and chips for dinner at her place last night so I hope she wasn't expecting us to drop the tartar sauce off at her unit. She didn't say as much so I'm guessing that she has some but will need more before sitting down to her next fish and chips meal. I scoped out several brands of tartar sauce at the stores we visited yesterday and I chose the brand that did not have as one of it's ingredients high fructose corn syrup. It's a hideous chemical and one that I assiduously avoid when I'm out and about so, I guess I would say, what's good for the goose is good for the gander? On the other hand, is it for me to say what Mrs G should and should not be having when it comes to this sort of thing? Would she care if she knew that I was making decisions on her behalf? Maybe I'll say nothing and we'll let the chips fall where they may. See what I did there?
In retrospect, Governor Abbot of Texas probably came out a little too soon to speak to the public about the shooting at the elementary school. As such, he gave an incorrect account of what transpired during the first hour or so when the shooter was inside the school doing what shooters do. There is something to be said for getting all the facts before speaking publicly. He may have felt that it was politically expedient to do what he did and given the enormity of the event it's easy to understand why he said what he did when he did. Nonetheless, giving people bad information only makes matters worse.
Governor Abbot subsequently confessed to having bad information and admitted to being "livid" about not being better informed. One question I have is, was Abbot deliberatly misled by the people who were informing him? The truth was destined to come out so why would someone purposely mislead him? Was it because the truth, once known, would be almost worse than the crime itself? Truth of the matter is that sheer incompetence on the part of the agencies on site that day contributed to the number of children that were killed that day. That's just a fact.
A couple of years ago I saw an Oriole hanging around our deck area for a couple of days. I'd never seen an Oriole hereabouts so wondered if this was an outlier of sorts in the scheme of things. Maybe global warming was pushing certain species in one direction or another based on the new patterns of prevailing wind patterns coming off the Atlantic. I'm making this stuff up as I go along, of course, since I think global warning is every bit the hoax that we deniers suspect that it is and always has been. Anyway, I've always wanted to attract more Orioles to our deck area but have not found the right feeders or whatever to get the job done. That all changed when I bought a feeder at a local nursery the other day. Now, I just need to find the right food to use in the feeder. The instructions say that I can use Smucker's jelly or jam but all I found on the supermarket shelves was jelly and jam that contained, yes, you guessed it, high fructose corn syrup. I want to attract the birds, not kill them. And, the sugar-free jams and jellies didn't look like they would work either. I'll sort this out in due time. Baby steps. Right?
One story I'm seeing in The New York Times this morning is about comments made by Joe Biden about our country's policy regarding the defense of Taiwan in the event of an attack by China. Our country's policy towards China and Taiwan has always been intentionally ambiguous (Strategic Ambiguity) since waging a full blown war off the coast of China against China was considered a fool's errand by any strategist worth their salt. But leave it to Bumbles Biden to take our country to the brink of war against a country like China because he is simply not capable of articulating the policy of his predecessors as it relates to Taiwan. His remarks, as the NYT puts it, were "unscripted." Got it.
Then again, Bumbles has made a lot of comments off the cuff which people just ignore because they know how late stage senility can take one off one's game. Were he not the President of our great nation, he'd blend in with the rest of the patients wandering around the ward with their johnnies open and with their ass cracks in full view. I don't know that anyone on his team has walked back or tried to clarify or clean up his comments as they typically do so that's a problem. It does seem like Biden is desperate to get our country into a full blown conflict so there's that. Whatever it takes, really, to take the many problems he's created in our country off the front pages and out of the headlines. God help us.
It's doubtful we'll see Hillary Clinton perp walked into the courtroom in this Sussman trial currently underway in Washington, D.C., but one can hope. The revelations thus far have simply validated everything everyone has ever known or suspected Hillary Clinton of doing as it relates to the Russia hoax that she and her people perpetrated against one Donald J. Trump. It was a ruse to steal the 2016 election and, when that didn't work, she doubled down on her hoax in order to disgrace and disable the fledgling Trump Administration. The media and the intelligence agencies played along like the sycophantic poodles that they are and, while it made for riveting headlines, none of it was true.
You'll have to look far and wide to read anything about the Sussman trial and that is, not surprisingly, by design. Hillary is allegedly looking to run again for president again although the more we see and hear about this so-called trial the less likely it is that she'll be out of her orange jump suit in time to hit the campaign trial before the 2024 election. There I go again with my wishful thinking. Elites like the Clinton's can bring our great republic to its knees and never spend a day behind bars for her skullduggery. That has to change. We don't know about Trump either as to whether or not he's planning to run in 2024 but, if he does, he'll be better positioned with one of his better known refrains when it comes to Hillary, All together now, "Lock her up"!
This is another one of those days when there are three or so primaries in various states and I'm on the edge of my seat wondering how they are all going to turn out. I have lots to keep me busy today so that's a good thing. A little raking, a little mowing, a little of this and a little of that and we can call it a day. I'm not looking to rush anything but I am happy to say that between now and the time they call some of these races later this evening I'll be busy as a bee and then some. I might even put up a bit of fencing to keep the critters out of our garden this summer. That would, no doubt, please the missus to no end.
I took a longer than expected bike ride yesterday. I drove up past the horse farm on Atlantic Avenue and that took me some half mile or so beyond my usual destination. I had no wind to contend with and the temperatures were comfortably in the sixties with little to no humidity. In other words, it couldn't have been a better day to extend my ride if for no other reason than to see what I was capable of and maybe test the waters so to speak for taking longer rides more regularly. If you take the same ride day in and day out, am I really pushing the envelope? Am I really getting the most out of the one exercise that I count on to keep myself in shape? The only way I'll ever know the answer to that question is if I challenge myself each and every day and in every conceivable way.
I don't know if I'm doing myself a favor or not by having the door open as I sit here morning in and morning out writing in this here journal. The silence of the early morning is punctuated minute in and minute out by the sounds of the local bird population. One minute it's the Pileated Woodpecker whacking away at some dead tree limb off in the distance. The next minute it's a Carolina Wren whistling Dixie on a bush that is within spitting distance of where I'm sitting. Who knew that a little bird the size of a Wren could make so much noise? Other bird noises are less easy to identify and many are hidden in the lushness of the lilac bushes that straddle our property line. Much of what I'm hearing is probably part and parcel of the larger fabric of what goes on in the world of birds during mating season. It is that time of the year after all.
I'm surprised when I think about it that birds in general seem to give their human counterparts short shrift. More so, I guess I would say, than the inordinate amount of time that we as humans spend observing and admiring them. They almost seem distrustful of us as a species although history might be on their side when the jury finally comes back. There have been countless songs about Blackbird pie over the years so take from that what you will. We humans and birds also seem to be of two minds on the sticky issue of what we humans refer to as "coexistence." And, to a species, they seem equally and uniquely skittish when it comes to interacting with we humans. I would hasten to add, not intolerant, just skittish. Truth of the matter is that they have more to fear from one another than they do from us. That's the God's honest truth.
I'm not happy this morning. Those two twats down in Georgia, Kemp and Rothensberger, won their primaries last night. That probably has something to do with the fact that Trump's endorsed candidates were not all that appealing but let that go. Is it my imagination or were the margins of the wins a little weird? Kemp got something like 70% of the vote. The goal was to keep him under 50% and force a runoff. Perdue, Kemp's opponent and Trump's guy, couldn't get but 22% of the vote. I don't know, it just seems a little too fishy to me. These are the same ass clowns that participated and maybe even engineered the steal in Georgia in 2020 that put Biden in the Oval Office. Are they up to their old tricks again? Inquiring minds want to know.
I wasn't too happy last night that the entire primary night business was preempted by the shooting at the elementary school in Texas. How selfish does that make me? Oh, just another shooting at an elementary school. How about all the young people killed over this past weekend in cities like Chicago and New York City? Where are the tears and the outrage for those victims? The democrats were out in force on every television station with the same talking points they always use when we have a shooting like this. What is their obsession with taking guns away from law abiding citizens? Did you hear Biden's comments? He went on and on, or so I was told, about deer wearing Kevlar vests on prime time television on the night that 20 children died in a mass school shooting. You can't make this stuff up.
I don't know why but the missus thought that it was kind of important to hear Biden speak in the aftermath of the school shooting. You know, do what a president does when this sort of thing happens. Something short and sweet that brings our people together in the wake of an unspeakable crime in one of our communities. It was a hard pass for me since I knew what to expect. Everything that comes out of Biden's mouth these days is just completely cringeworthy. I walked into the other room until he did his thing and then I returned to the bedroom where the missus was just aghast at what she had just watched on television. I tried to warn her. I'm not sure what she was expecting but suffice it to say that Biden's bullshit didn't do it for her. He really is a disgrace.
I don't think taking away all the guns is going to stop these types of things from happening. People will find a way to kill other people if they are so inclined. Mental health issues are seemingly at play here so someone knew something about what this killer was maybe up to or maybe capable of. I'm a little curious to about the fact that this happened in Texas where people carrying guns is not all that uncommon. Someone should have been armed in the school and ready to go at the drop of a hat. I like the idea of having armed security in schools and that would have gone a long way towards preventing the kind of bloodbath we saw in Texas yesterday. They kept replaying this one reel on the telly last night about a ten-year old girl who was missing. What the fuck does that mean? With any luck, she found a place to hide and she's since been found safe and sound. Duck and cover, baby!
One thing you weren't hearing a lot about last night was the ethnicity of the shooter. The media went crazy two weeks ago with the shooting at the supermarket in Buffalo when the shooter was white. It's all about white supremacy, they cackled hour in and hour out for days and days. As to the ethnicity of Mr Ramos and his rampage at the school yesterday, not a fucking word about his ethnicity. All you got was, "The investigation is ongoing." If the media can't opine on his nationality, and he was an American citizen as I understand it, then they pivot to gun control. Some of these mass murderers, like the black guy who mowed down people attending the parade in Waukesha Wisconsin, just disappeared from the news cycle the day after it happened. That's just how the American media rolls.
I got a good jump on cleaning our garage yesterday so I feel good about that. Getting the party started is always the most difficult part. Now that I've swept the garage floor of the dirt and leaves that have accumulated there over the past couple of months or more I'm ready to attack everything on the periphery. The things we tend to accumulate when we're not paying attention to such things can be quite overwhelming and they need to be culled every so often. You can only turn a blind eye to the unnecessary things in your life for so long. Ask any octogenarian if they have things that they think they need to get rid of and you'll likely get an earful. The thought of keeling over and leaving your mess for someone else to clean up can be quite a motivator. If that someone else happens to be your better half, all the more important that you get a move on.
The missus has been after me to put the fence up around the garden so I suppose I ought to add that to my to-do list. The garden isn't in yet but it will be by the time this weekend rolls around. I think I need an extra plant or two to reach full capacity in the garden so I'll have to think about what I want to add to the plants that we already have on hand. Today would be a good day to go looking for plants since the weekend is likely to be a horror show with hordes of last minute shoppers looking to find things to plant before the growing season moves on without them. Yes, we draw the line at Memorial Day hereabouts. If we don't have the plants in by then then it's likely a no-go for the garden for the season. We even have a watermelon plant going in this season. That's a first.
The missus bought a sun block lotion online last week and now she's decided that she doesn't like how it smells. I don't want to tell you how much it cost so we'll leave that alone. It's not important anyway since the missus contacted the company and complained about this and that until they agreed to reimburse her for the cost of the product. They didn't even request that she return the product but they did ask for the lot number on the bottle so they could do their own in-house inquiry. I think they refer to that as "due diligence" in the business. Thinking that the missus was overstating the smell issue, I thought I might like to give it a try. I didn't find it nearly as offensive as she made it out to be and I've decided that I'll use it instead. I even suggested to her that she contact the company to arrange for payment since we're using the product. Curiously enough, she seems singularly uninterested in following through on my suggestion.
This particular product has as its main ingredient, Titanium Dioxide. There is a fragrance to it and I would agree with the missus ever so slightly that the smell is just a little off putting. I would only ever apply this lotion to my face given how expensive it is. It's also a mineral based sun lotion which, I'm learning, is better that the over-the-counter chemical based lotions which get absorbed into your skin with each application. Given how much I bike and how often I've used these chemical based products on my face over the years, it has me wondering just how much damage I've done to my internal organs as a result of my using the wrong products on my skin. I've been a little too focused on SPF values when I should have been focused elsewhere. I like the way it feels going on too. It's not greasy like all the others. While I wouldn't personally spend this much for lotion, and I know that it was reimbursed for better or worse, I might be willing to spend a little more now that I'm better informed as to the dangers of this and that lotion currently on the market.
Someone posted a class picture online of the children killed in the shooting in Texas the other day. I think I was a little surprised at the fact that there wasn't a Caucasian face in the crowd. For all intents and purposes, that very same picture night have been taken in a school in Juarez or Mexico City. It's funny how we American's associate things with things. We associate blacks with inner cities, caucasians with the Middle West and along our respective eastern and western coastlines, and maybe a smattering of Mexican and South American faces with geographic locations along our southern border. Maybe the picture to which I refer is more illustrative of the Mexican and South American influence we're experiencing these days along our southern border thanks to the open border policies of Joey Biden and his crack team of socialists sitting in the White House. Who was it that once said, "if you don't have a border, you don't have a country?" Maybe that's the goal.
The story of how this so-called shooter and how he was able to do the things that he did behind closed doors continues to unfold. What do you mean that there was no school resource officer on the premises? Why not? How did the shooter get into the school? Why was there a door unlocked when it's standard practice to have all the doors of the school locked after the students are in their respective classrooms? How do you explain the fact that the shooter was active in the school for the better part of 40 minutes at a minimum while armed officers stood outside keeping parents from entering the school to save their children? They must have heard the gunshots. POP POP POP POP POP POP.
Was this a PsyOps operation? Is it possible that this was a government run warfare operation in order to force the politicians on both sides of the aisle to start the process of doing away with the 2nd amendment? The democrats have long been just fine when it comes to doing away with the 2nd amendment. Their wet dreams of a one-party government would be much easier were they able to disarm the population. Just ask the Australians how losing their right to bear arms has put them at the odds with an ever repressive governmental regime who, most recently, beat their citizens in the streets after taking away their rights to free speech during the Covid crackdowns. Certainly, seeing some 20-odd fourth graders killed in cold blood inside their classroom would push the politicians to coalesce around one or more laws to make sure that this sort of thing never happens again. Right? I guess you'll never know unless you put the wheels in motion to make it happen. Gotta start somewhere. Is that what we're talking about here?
We picked up some dogs and chicken for the barbie we're planing to have here at the house this Memorial Day weekend. I also grabbed a couple of chopped sueys for the Ev man should he show up. I paid $16 for a couple of marinated chicken breasts. If I had to guess, I'd say this was some six dollars more than I might have paid for the same product some six months ago. If you're paying more for some things then that means you're buying fewer or less of other items because budgets only stretch so far. We picked up a smattering of veggies and I'll probably make kebobs if the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise. Had I noticed that the missus only put one zucchini and one summer squash in the basket, I would have had her get more. Who doesn't like left over grilled veggies? I've also got some nice organic red onions and tomatoes that I can add to the skewers so that's good.
I've been on a tear of sorts these last few days when it comes to cleaning, organizing, and throwing a thing or two out with the trash. I have to be careful since the missus has an eagle eye when it comes to me and my throwing things out that she would prefer that I not throw out. Adding to my woes is the fact that Mrs G is also getting rid of things and we've offered to assist her with the removal of said items. When I see those bags of this and that coming into our house rather than going directly to the recycling center it annoys me to no end. I've got my hands full staying ahead of the hoarding that the missus is responsible for so I certainly don't need Mrs G's stuff on top of it all. I'm making considerable progress in the few rooms that I have to square away so I feel good about that. It's all about the nooks and crannies now. It's not a joint effort by any stretch but hope springs eternal.
We're seeing a nice little counter trend rally in the financial markets these last few days. That has to feel good for the people who have seen their investments go into the toilet over these past few months. We're still in a down market so caution is in order when it comes to going full hog into a rally that likely has limited upside. I've seen counter trend rallies in these past couple of months that have lasted but a day. There has been but one multi-day rally and all that did was suck in the crowd only to bury them again with multiple and successive 90% downside days. It does make you wonder what the markets would be doing were the fed heads not out there talking smack about the markets and how all of these rate increases are going to end and we'll all be fat and happy again real soon. I'm looking for capitulation and that's never going to happen until you see the end of the kind of froth and speculation that we're still seeing in these markets.
I'm looking forward to listening to the War Room radio program this morning. Steve Bannon will spend some two hours talking with experts about the threat of China invading Taiwan. He seems to think that an invasion is imminent and he plans to talk about the things he's seeing that lead him to believe that it's just a matter of time now. China has long believed that Taiwan is a territory of China and has pushed back rhetorically on countries like the United States who have as their policy what's known as "strategic ambiguity." That's a nice way of saying that we're not sure what we're willing to do should China invade their closest neighbor, Taiwan. The implications both economically and militarily of engaging China should they invade Taiwan are topics that we Americans should all be concerned about. The fact that 90% of the world's semiconductor's chips are produced in Taiwan is a good place to start this conversation.
Mrs G asked that we pick up some tartar sauce for her in our travels. She mentioned that she was having fish and chips for dinner at her place last night so I hope she wasn't expecting us to drop the tartar sauce off at her unit. She didn't say as much so I'm guessing that she has some but will need more before sitting down to her next fish and chips meal. I scoped out several brands of tartar sauce at the stores we visited yesterday and I chose the brand that did not have as one of it's ingredients high fructose corn syrup. It's a hideous chemical and one that I assiduously avoid when I'm out and about so, I guess I would say, what's good for the goose is good for the gander? On the other hand, is it for me to say what Mrs G should and should not be having when it comes to this sort of thing? Would she care if she knew that I was making decisions on her behalf? Maybe I'll say nothing and we'll let the chips fall where they may. See what I did there?
In retrospect, Governor Abbot of Texas probably came out a little too soon to speak to the public about the shooting at the elementary school. As such, he gave an incorrect account of what transpired during the first hour or so when the shooter was inside the school doing what shooters do. There is something to be said for getting all the facts before speaking publicly. He may have felt that it was politically expedient to do what he did and given the enormity of the event it's easy to understand why he said what he did when he did. Nonetheless, giving people bad information only makes matters worse.
Governor Abbot subsequently confessed to having bad information and admitted to being "livid" about not being better informed. One question I have is, was Abbot deliberatly misled by the people who were informing him? The truth was destined to come out so why would someone purposely mislead him? Was it because the truth, once known, would be almost worse than the crime itself? Truth of the matter is that sheer incompetence on the part of the agencies on site that day contributed to the number of children that were killed that day. That's just a fact.
A couple of years ago I saw an Oriole hanging around our deck area for a couple of days. I'd never seen an Oriole hereabouts so wondered if this was an outlier of sorts in the scheme of things. Maybe global warming was pushing certain species in one direction or another based on the new patterns of prevailing wind patterns coming off the Atlantic. I'm making this stuff up as I go along, of course, since I think global warning is every bit the hoax that we deniers suspect that it is and always has been. Anyway, I've always wanted to attract more Orioles to our deck area but have not found the right feeders or whatever to get the job done. That all changed when I bought a feeder at a local nursery the other day. Now, I just need to find the right food to use in the feeder. The instructions say that I can use Smucker's jelly or jam but all I found on the supermarket shelves was jelly and jam that contained, yes, you guessed it, high fructose corn syrup. I want to attract the birds, not kill them. And, the sugar-free jams and jellies didn't look like they would work either. I'll sort this out in due time. Baby steps. Right?