May 14th

Well…darn, just can’t get started this morning and didn’t even get out of bed until 6:30…so I feel like I’m late even though I don’t have anything to do today but ride the bike….I’m glad I decided to mow the lawn yesterday so I don’t have to do it today….and the mower survived it with the repair holding for now so that was cool….not sure if the lilac cuttings are going to survive the rooting process but I had to give it a try since they would look pretty cool along the back fence….haven’t looked at them yet this morning but they were looking pretty sickly when I put them in dirt yesterday…I do have a couple more sunflowers coming up down there, too, that I will need to plant outside in a couple of days and figure out what to do about the tomatoes since the ones I planted are iffy at best and I need to have tomatoes in the garden….I did see a couple of dead seagulls along the water yesterday and I wonder if it is the bird flu that has people pretty alarmed? That would suck since it seems to be attacking eagles pretty hard and we have some of them out here….not much to do today…just need to get going and get on the bike so I can get two rides in before the FA cup final at 11….so that gives me a half hour to pour more coffee into me and read the news before I have to get out of here….more later…

The repubs show they truly are evil…

Well…damn, just when you think the repubs have hit peak evil, another day goes by and they are even worse…and their newest racist, evil thing is to play on the baby formula shortage, caused by the FDA shutting down the biggest plant in the US that makes it for a huge contamination problem where two babies were killed by the contamination. The equipment in this plant owned by Abbott was worn out twenty years ago and should have been replaced with new machines that are easier to keep sanitary…but, the company thought spending almost 6 billion dollars on stock buybacks was better for the stockholders and execs running the company so that’s what they did instead. I’m sure you remember that asylum seekers at the southern border come here with their children to escape the violence in their countries, and the US government buys formula by the pallet load and sends it to keep those children alive…but, that is just too much for the racist asshole repubs and they are using the fact that Biden is feeding children who we have a responsibility for to attack him…shouting that those “brown” children should be left to starve until white babies have all they need…yep, they actually said that…now, I may be off base but that sounds evil to me. And the actions of the company that is supposed to be making the formula to pay off the rich guys instead of investing to make sure there is enough for all babies is evil, too…so, do you see the difference between the parties? Our side cares about everyone and our politicians do, too…and Biden is working overtime to help this company get back in production…not sure what a repub would do…surely not give a damn….evil…

Shouldn’t the SEC investigate Musk?

Well… with ole elon manipulating the stock price of both tesla and twitter with his loud mouth, moronic proclamations, shouldn’t the SEC start an investigation into what the hell is going on? Since this moron announced he was going to buy twitter using tesla stock as collateral, the price of tesla is down almost 40% which is the trigger for elon having to pay back the entire loan immediately…and there is no way he can come up with 44 billion dollars in cash…so today, he announces that the twitter purchase is on hold for some bullshit reason, and tesla stock goes up by 10% getting him out of the danger zone….and the kicker is that twitter stock dropped by 12%, making the company worth much less than the amount that ole elon offered for it…if this is not illegal stock manipulation, than what the hell is? This is not the first time he has done this, and with the established pattern of him doing the over and over, now is the time for the SEC to launch a criminal investigation and stop another rich guy from thinking the law doesn’t apply to him…geez…

May 13th

Well…didn’t get up til after 6 this morning and I feel like I’m running late again today…and I really am if I’m trying to get out on the bike before 7:30…and then I need to run an errand to depot to try to get some rooting compound since I want to try to get some cuttings from a lilac bush in front of an empty house across the street so I can line the back fence with them….I think it would look cool to have lilacs back there and the next owner will have a nice privacy fence made of them….I did get some work done yesterday but I don’t really have a lot of motivation right now…not sure how many of my tomato plants are going to survive so I may have to make a plan to replace them….and should get on that today if I ever want tomatoes this summer….at least the flowers I planted out back are coming up and that is going to look cool when they get bigger…I did have to kill a couple of flies in here yesterday so I’ll need to get some home defense poison to spray on all of the windows to keep them out of here….have been using some stuff I bought 10 years ago and I  am almost out so I need another gallon….not much to do today…need to get going to get the first ride in and then run the errands…and then back out on the bike for ride two and more work….I really do need a day off….more later….

Got everything done…

Well…started out again today with a full schedule…at least til around noon as I planned and got everything done that I wanted to…two bike rides and then I planted 12 bean plants, 12 regular tomato plants, 6 cherry tomato plants, and 3 sunflowers in the back of the house….and I put a bunch of green pepper seeds that I took out of a green pepper that I used to make pizza a few weeks back….that worked last year so I thought I’d try it again this year….still don’t have any jalapeno plants up yet but I still have hope they will come up…and it looks like I have a couple more sunflowers that are sprouting so I’ll have a half dozen or so of them in the back this year…and I planted giant Russian ones I’ve never seen before so that could be cool….but, I’m done for the day after getting everything done I wanted to….don’t feel the need to do extra…will save that for tomorrow so I won’t be too bored….

I guess repubs don’t think women deserve rights…

Well…with the vote in the senate today on codifying roe into federal law, and every repub voting against it, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that repubs don’t think women have inherent rights like men an don’t think they deserve them. The next question is what are the dems going to do about it? We really can no longer just wring our hands and blame other people for what we can’t do even though the structure of the senate puts us at a huge disadvantage and gives the small, rural states an effective veto of what over 70% of the people want…and that is to preserve the right to an abortion that was decided in Roe. So, what do we do about it? First, stop ever thinking the repubs will do the right thing for once and vote to protect their constituents…that is not going to happen…so we need to plan how to get things done without them…and we need to get the message out of who they really are and hammer them about it every day…but not the piecemeal approach that just doesn’t work in the media environment we have…but find a damn theme and pound on that daily with a set of daily talking points so that message will get reported and repeated across all media whenever any reporter talks to a dem….and then go out and talk to people and explain why the promises the dems made during the election are not being kept…that the repubs control enough of the government and the kinda dems like manchin won’t allow the filibuster to be killed so the agenda can’t be passed…and then make it clear that the only thing that will change that is for the people to elect more dems to the senate so we never have to talk about Manchin again…so dems, get after it…show some righteous outrage for a change…there is no civility left in politics and no matter what you do you are going to be attacked by the right so you might as well get something for the attacks….

May 12th

Well…didn’t get to bed until midnight last night and up at 6 but slept okay…still feel a bit worn out and I’m not sure when I’ll get on the bike…probably by 7:30 or so since it’s already almost 70 out there….I did get my herb garden planted yesterday and today I’ll get the first of the veggies in the garden…have 9 bean plants and tons of tomatoes that are up but no cukes or peppers yet so I am going to plant some more seeds directly in the garden for both…will have to take a look at the weather to make sure it’s going to stay above freezing before I do that….I do have flowers coming up behind the house and can’t wait to see what it looks like or if the sunflowers I planted earlier in the week will sprout…I do have a few that have come up downstairs and will plant them today, too…I could have a jungle in that 2 foot wide little patch along the house and that would be cool…..it looks like a take it easy day today after the bike rides and I need to get the food I bought Monday into the freezer but that is about it…I should clean windows today and I may get to the dining room and living room ones today and I need to decide what to do with the bird feeder since it is stuck to the window and a pretty big mess….and I’m not supposed to be feeding the birds anyway with the bird flu going around…not much to do today…just need to get on the bike and then get into planting and should have everything done by noon or so….it will be interesting to see how many plants survive the transplanting….had way too many tomatoes last year and will probably have the same this year…can’t have enough beans so I may even put a few more seeds of them in, too…we’ll see….more later….

Did they build a wall north of Muskegon?

Well..I think I’ve talked about this strange weather phenomenon before….we have a storm that is sitting about 5 miles north of here and just sitting there…as it tries to move southwest, it’s like there is a wall that it is running up against and the storm falls apart on the same line…and this has been going on for over an hour…the rest of the storm to the east is moving southward but out here it just stops at the same location along a line that runs from the northwest to southeast…I can see the storm from here and the dark clouds and lightning but nothing here…I’ve seen this before out here but out over the lake where when it reaches the shore, the storm just falls apart while it rages out over the lake…I’d like to find out what the heck is going on…and maybe I will go out and do a search for it when I’m done here…and then I’ll come back and update if I find anything….hmmm….

Feeling a little better…

Well…after getting a couple of rides in, finishing up mowing the lawn, and planting the herb seeds next to the back door, I feel a little better and less depressed but still about an 8 on a 1-10 scale…and I really don’t see it getting better in the near future but at least it’s at a level that I can deal with it….now I need to start planning how to fix the mower next time it breaks…and make it permanent…might be some rain coming…

Pregnancy checkpoints?

Well…don’t know if you have been following the proposed new laws attacking women that are in the pipeline in the US when Roe falls, but if you substituted China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran into the story you it would fit just as well. One of the worst of these is a proposal from a repub, of course, that forbids women from traveling out of state when they are pregnant since they could be going to a state that still allows abortions….and how would they enforce that? By pregnancy checkpoints where every car with a woman in it is stopped and the women have to prove they are not pregnant before they can leave the state…and the only way to do that would be to take a pregnancy test. Now, I’m sure you’re saying “they could never get away with that”….and maybe before the right wing takeover of the courts it would be true…but since that has happened, the treatment of women as second class citizens is the biggest goal of the right and they have no problem with allowing these restrictions…..like Mississippi that has already passed a law that makes it illegal for a woman to leave the state for an abortion and allows anyone to sue the women and anyone who helps them for 10,000 dollars…just like the Texas law the SC left in place. So now I guess the constitution means nothing anymore and it’s gutting will not stop with abortion….so if any women are here reading this today, please get out  to vote in the fall and let’s keep any more of these assholes from being elected…geez…