Git er Done
05/06/18 07:41
I'm not a big Supreme Court watcher but you can't plug into our collective media bubble these days without taking sides on certain issues. In a 7-2 decision that came down yesterday, the Court decided a case that focused on the rights of a baker in Colorado to deny service to customers based on his religious beliefs. The baker had refused to bake or design a wedding cake for the gay couple given his religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. He offered to make them any number of things but they were insistent that he make the cake as requested and sued the baker when he refused to comply with their request.
I think we have to put this one down as a win for those people who hold that the rights of the individual are sacrosanct and should not be abridged by big government. This is a significant victory as well for the rights of religious groups who, under previous administrations, had seen their rights continually eroded through mandates on everything from birth control to proposed sexual orientation and gender identity laws. It was not a broader ruling on the equal rights amendment and, for now at least, we can take some satisfaction that the bullies on the left will have to go back to their respective corners and rethink their strategies to impose their will for the "greater good." We'll be waiting.
I'm getting more and more disillusioned by the day watching the machinations in our country's capitol as they play out in real time. There are any number of investigations ongoing involving the Clintons, the FBI's role in investigating the Clintons, the role of the Justice Department and the FBI in spying on the 2016 Trump campaign, the felonious leaking of documents and data, and the ongoing Mueller investigation which is suspect at best on any number of levels.
My fear is that we will never know the truth and justice might never be served or even restored to our great republic. We essentially have agencies investigating themselves and agencies pushing back when faced with a broader review by an independent counsel or other. I swear to god that if one or more of Obama's minions don't go to jail for the damage they have done to our democracy I will be the first to get on a bus with my pitchfork heading to Washington, DC. The IG report, which focused on the FBI's investigation of the Clinton e-mail thing over the last year or so, is due out any time now. Let's hope my pessimism doesn't pan out starting now.
So much to do, so little time to do it all. It's the same old story year in and year out. Some days, it seems like I am busy from the minute I get out of bed in the morning to the moment I lay down at the end of a long day. I'm not complaining, mind you, and I suppose having so much to do could be considered a blessing when one has no other commitments professional or other. I don't now what took me so long but I finally got around to staining our back deck.
I had been dragging my feet not wanting to use any cleaning agents that might poison the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks that come around with some regularity. I decided that I was attracting one too many little critters to our back deck area so I took down the bird feeder and took away the bird bath but left up a thistle and hummingbird feeder. I also decided that the deck was pretty well worn such that a cleaner was probably not necessary and I could stop worrying about poisoning the little critters. So the stain went down and it looks much better - thank you for asking.
I'm thinking breakfast burrito in a bit. I took one of Nancy''s muffin pans with rectangular muffin shapes and decided that that it would be well suited to making some egg soufflé kind of thing as a prepackaged deal. A grab and go meal so to speak. I sautéed lots of veggies, mushrooms and broccoli mostly, and filled the holes halfway and topped the concoction off with whipped eggs to the brim before putting in the oven for a half hour or so. Whether or not Nancy and Evan decide that they are interested in same remains to be seen.
It makes eight little egg loaves the likes of which you can eat cold in a pinch, microwave for 60 seconds, cut in half and make a burrito sandwich with melted cheese and diced Canadian ham, and I suppose a half dozen other things I haven't even thought of. I tried making my own cold brew coffee in the last week and I'm not sure it is any better than the very same drink I can buy at Dunkin Donuts. Not sure where I'm going with that idea. There is nothing quite like a nice cold brew on ice as a pick-me-up on a summer afternoon.
Lastly, before I go off to work on my list of to-do's, I should say that I met with a fella yesterday and scheduled a date in September to have our driveway re-done. It's cracked here and there, has some pretty rutted out spots at the end where it meets the road, and is in general just showing its age. It's just one more thing that should have been done long ago. I can tell you with absolute certainty that it will make snow blowing the driveway a lot easier. I can stop worrying about picking up chunks of asphalt with the snow blower and maybe even getting stuck in one or more of the holes while doing my snow blowing. Oh, and I never did get used to the water that collected at the end of the driveway forming a small pond more often than not. I went so far as to buy a water pump to get rid of the water once. The best I could hope for was that the water would collect at the end of the driveway and freeze for the winter covering up the holes and making for a glide path of sorts for the snowblower.
Did I tell you that the queen is dead? Not sure where her soldier ants went but they are gone too. Good riddance.
I think we have to put this one down as a win for those people who hold that the rights of the individual are sacrosanct and should not be abridged by big government. This is a significant victory as well for the rights of religious groups who, under previous administrations, had seen their rights continually eroded through mandates on everything from birth control to proposed sexual orientation and gender identity laws. It was not a broader ruling on the equal rights amendment and, for now at least, we can take some satisfaction that the bullies on the left will have to go back to their respective corners and rethink their strategies to impose their will for the "greater good." We'll be waiting.
I'm getting more and more disillusioned by the day watching the machinations in our country's capitol as they play out in real time. There are any number of investigations ongoing involving the Clintons, the FBI's role in investigating the Clintons, the role of the Justice Department and the FBI in spying on the 2016 Trump campaign, the felonious leaking of documents and data, and the ongoing Mueller investigation which is suspect at best on any number of levels.
My fear is that we will never know the truth and justice might never be served or even restored to our great republic. We essentially have agencies investigating themselves and agencies pushing back when faced with a broader review by an independent counsel or other. I swear to god that if one or more of Obama's minions don't go to jail for the damage they have done to our democracy I will be the first to get on a bus with my pitchfork heading to Washington, DC. The IG report, which focused on the FBI's investigation of the Clinton e-mail thing over the last year or so, is due out any time now. Let's hope my pessimism doesn't pan out starting now.
So much to do, so little time to do it all. It's the same old story year in and year out. Some days, it seems like I am busy from the minute I get out of bed in the morning to the moment I lay down at the end of a long day. I'm not complaining, mind you, and I suppose having so much to do could be considered a blessing when one has no other commitments professional or other. I don't now what took me so long but I finally got around to staining our back deck.
I had been dragging my feet not wanting to use any cleaning agents that might poison the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks that come around with some regularity. I decided that I was attracting one too many little critters to our back deck area so I took down the bird feeder and took away the bird bath but left up a thistle and hummingbird feeder. I also decided that the deck was pretty well worn such that a cleaner was probably not necessary and I could stop worrying about poisoning the little critters. So the stain went down and it looks much better - thank you for asking.
I'm thinking breakfast burrito in a bit. I took one of Nancy''s muffin pans with rectangular muffin shapes and decided that that it would be well suited to making some egg soufflé kind of thing as a prepackaged deal. A grab and go meal so to speak. I sautéed lots of veggies, mushrooms and broccoli mostly, and filled the holes halfway and topped the concoction off with whipped eggs to the brim before putting in the oven for a half hour or so. Whether or not Nancy and Evan decide that they are interested in same remains to be seen.
It makes eight little egg loaves the likes of which you can eat cold in a pinch, microwave for 60 seconds, cut in half and make a burrito sandwich with melted cheese and diced Canadian ham, and I suppose a half dozen other things I haven't even thought of. I tried making my own cold brew coffee in the last week and I'm not sure it is any better than the very same drink I can buy at Dunkin Donuts. Not sure where I'm going with that idea. There is nothing quite like a nice cold brew on ice as a pick-me-up on a summer afternoon.
Lastly, before I go off to work on my list of to-do's, I should say that I met with a fella yesterday and scheduled a date in September to have our driveway re-done. It's cracked here and there, has some pretty rutted out spots at the end where it meets the road, and is in general just showing its age. It's just one more thing that should have been done long ago. I can tell you with absolute certainty that it will make snow blowing the driveway a lot easier. I can stop worrying about picking up chunks of asphalt with the snow blower and maybe even getting stuck in one or more of the holes while doing my snow blowing. Oh, and I never did get used to the water that collected at the end of the driveway forming a small pond more often than not. I went so far as to buy a water pump to get rid of the water once. The best I could hope for was that the water would collect at the end of the driveway and freeze for the winter covering up the holes and making for a glide path of sorts for the snowblower.
Did I tell you that the queen is dead? Not sure where her soldier ants went but they are gone too. Good riddance.