Regarding The Iran Bombing Campaign

What worries me is that no one holds a grudge like the Shiites. They will remember long after you’ve moved on.

Uptick in Enthusiasm at This Week's Tesla Protest

More protesters at Tesla this weekend; more flags; more support. I think it's the beating of the war drum that's responsible for the uptick.

 

Whither America?

It will be interesting to see whether Trumpian America's approach to immigrants will be more like Nazi Germany's genocides or more like pre-Civil-War America's abuse of Fugitive Slaves, or some creative blend of the two models:

"Can a nation committed to human equality treat human beings like chattel? “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” Abraham Lincoln famously said in 1858, “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I expect it to cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

The federal government is now committed to treating immigrants almost precisely as the antebellum South treated slaves. They are to have fewer rights than others; to their jailers, they are not even truly “persons”; they need not receive due process, or indeed any process, before being detained indefinitely or even deported to countries they have never seen. And under the Trump executive order on birthright citizenship, this subordinate status is to be permanent and hereditary—passed down, the way slave status was, from parent to child. 

Truly, this house cannot stand. These conflicts will recur. They will grow more, not less, corrosive to a free, democratic republic. Americans—red or blue—are not accustomed to heel-clicking compliance to the orders of some jack-in-office with a Sharpie."

I Like This Rant About The Inept Democratic Party Establishment

It's a "distraction":

Scan the footage of the largest protests in United States history. Read the signs. How many of the unprecedented crises alluded to by those signs have been called distractions by the political figures most charged with responding to them? What percentage of those crowds is, according to Democratic strategists, foolish for caring about their issue more than the party-authorized real issues? 

It is cowardice. Party strategists are so obsessed with maintaining control over what party voters are allowed to challenge or not allowed to challenge that they have fossilized at their desks, unable to respond to anything that was not already on the spreadsheets. And it is certain, absolutely certain, that if this authoritarian moment is beaten back down it will be those elected officials willing to channel the true, visceral outrage of the public who will do it.

Welles' "Deja Vu"

@jessewelles #siNgErsOngWriTer #OrIgNaL #CoUnTRy #FoLk #SonG ♬ original sound - Welles

The Southwestern Monsoon Is About To Start

The GFS model weather predictions for the next two weeks show that the Southwestern Monsoon is primed for an early, vigorous start on June 22nd (at least over New Mexico; it'll generally be later, in July, for Arizona). 

The high pressure system that will make life miserable next week in the Ohio River Valley strengthens at the same time, and indeed, appears integral to the initiation of the monsoon. (I wonder if something like this is true for all southwestern monsoons?) 

I'm hoping the best for abundant southwestern rainfall, but you can never be certain how it will all play out. I remember the 1984 southwestern monsoon had a similarly-vigorous start, but the cloud cover that accompanied it depressed the orographic uplift of thunderstorms. It didn't rain much at all in the southwest in June, 1984. Instead, high pressure hurled all that the moisture far, far into Canada before much rain managed to fall. I know the Canadians need rainfall, but can't we get some too? 

And there may be a Global Climate Change aspect too. Michael Mann is out with a brand-new paper entitled "Increased frequency of planetary wave resonance events over the past half-century." Mann asserts that resonance events (like next week's heat wave in the Midwest) have increased three-fold over the last half-century, especially in the summer, due to global warming. I'm sure the report will make good reading on a miserably-muggy Cincinnati evening next week. 

Southwestern rainfall is exceedingly erratic, and always has been, at least as far as post-Ice-Age records reveal. Still, I'm thinking there is a slow, decades-long increase of rainfall underway. You look at century-old photos of the southwest and things just seemed less lush in the bad old days. We are getting hotter temperatures these days, but we are getting a bit more rain too. 

Change can seem slow. I hope we like the new world we are creating.

I Was Momentarily on Reddit with My Tesla Protest Picture

I Like Visiting the DMV

I like visiting the DMV. It’s a way to see my neighbors and stay grounded. 

And in the typical manner, I apparently already have a Real ID, and so there’s no reason for me to be here at all. Learn something new every day!  All I'm doing here is gumming up the works and slowing things down.

Brute Force 0; Lucky Escape 1

This morning, Jasper and I started our morning walk down the alley. Two sparrows sat on a wooden fence as we approached. 

Suddenly, * THWACK! * A big bird’s wing hit the fence and its owner tumbled into the yard behind. The sparrows tumbled too. Was the big bird a chaotic pigeon? Perhaps a not-so-intelligent crow? No, it was a HAWK, trying to catch the dazed sparrows. Fly away! 

One sparrow immediately fled from the yard and the other sparrow squeezed through a tiny crack in the fence before using our presence to shield its escape down the alley. The hawk gathered itself, summoned its dignity, and flew up to a utility line. The hawk then gazed down in disdain on us. Brute Force 0; Lucky Escape 1. 

This event doesn’t provide an answer as to why pigeons are challenged in my neighborhood, but it is a data point. Life is cheap out here on the bird seed frontier!

Pictures of Protest Signs from the "No Kings" Protest at the California State Capitol, June 14, 2025

Green Valley Theater’s "Summer Camp"

A few minutes before show time at St. John Lutheran's meeting space.

Initial Speculation on the Air India Crash

What pops out immediately looking at the video of the Ahmedabad Air India crash is that the plane's flaps aren't extended. Speculation starts immediately from there. Two quotes from BBC: 

"When I'm looking at this," aviation analyst Geoffrey Thomas said, "the undercarriage is still down but the flaps have been retracted." 

Another expert, Terry Tozer, said: "It's very hard to say from the video for sure, it doesn't look as if the flaps are extended and that would be a perfectly obvious explanation for an aircraft not completing its take-off correctly." 

Airliner crashes have been caused before by the simple failure to have flaps extended on takeoff. In the old days it was usually caused by distraction or forgetfulness. I have trouble imagining that with modern computerized aircraft that such an obvious failure wasn't accompanied by blaring alarms. But who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Where is Jill Stein?

@pearlmania500

🚨 Missing Person Alert 🚨 JILL STEIN

♬ Dvorak-Slavonic Dances OP.72-2 - 中央芭蕾舞团交响乐团

Pigeons Under Stress

A pigeon is down near my feeding spot this evening; the sixth pigeon in about a month. Similar to the others, this pigeon has an intact body, a partly-severed head, and is lightly-scavenged. I don’t know why this is happening: whether it’s disease or an attack. If a pigeon goes down every five days, or so, and nothing else changes, given that the local flock is composed of about forty pigeons, by the end of the year I’ll be out of pigeons. And then where will I be?

Strawberry Moon

An iPhone pic of June 11th's “Strawberry Moon” (apparently an Algonquin term, not a color reference). 

The Moon looks pretty white tonight; not pink. We’ve been at Major Lunar Standstill for the past year, meaning the Moon is swinging as far north to south as it possibly can: north at New Moon and south at Full Moon. Even though the extremities of the swings were reached earlier this year, the Moon is still swinging pretty wide: -29 degrees on June 11th, which is almost as far south as it can possibly get.

Before and After Jasper’s Annual Visit to Anthony Gonzales and His Dog-Grooming Shop

Totalitarian Trump Wants to Turn the American Military Against its People

@cpscott15 #Trump #California #LosAngeles #LA #Constitution #Military #NationalGuard #newsom ♬ original sound - Chad Scott

The Hong Kong Take On Donald Trump

Protest at Tesla Dealership - June 7, 2025

I've been enjoying protesting weekly at the Tesla dealership on Arden Blvd., in Sacramento. A lot of protests are arduous - even hopeless - with little to show for lots of work, but there is palpable movement with this one. Elon Musk has supposedly left DOGE's terrorism and returned to masterminding Tesla's collapse, due mostly to our pressure. Then this week, Musk's and Trump's feud became public. I see our protest goal as separating Musk entirely from Tesla. Even though that's a big ask, I think we've never been closer to success. 

It's fun to see people's reactions when they drive along and come upon our protest. Many honk their horns and wave in support. Others throw middle fingers in opposition. Some people get mixed up, and honk and throw middle fingers, which we pass off as support. Some of these people you have to worry about. Last week, someone let go of their steering wheel in order to throw both middle fingers in opposition. A little worrisome as they weaved along the boulevard. Also last week, a few people wagged their fingers at us, as if we were just being naughty. It made me want to stand in the corner somewhere. 

It's important to update the signs every couple of weeks, because the overall situation evolves with time. My new sign this week has two sides: "Captain Ketamine VS. TACO the Tyrant - PASS the POPCORN!!!" and "WOMP! WOMP! TESLA Batteries Obsolete - Sodium-Ion is the Future." It's too complicated, but whatever. You go to protests with the signs you have. Lithium-ion batteries for vehicles are likely to get decimated by the recent technical revolution in favor of sodium-ion batteries. Goodbye, the boom in rare-earth minerals. 

So, I put on my black Ukrainian Tryzub T-Shirt, festooned it with anti-Elon buttons, put on my orange "Impeach Both!" cap (from the Bush/Cheney days of 2005, and also noting that orange is a color of Ukrainian support, given the Ukrainian Orange Revolution of 2004) and headed over. 

The ketamine angle was unfamiliar to people, and it sparked conversation. A fellow approached in dress clothes and wearing a tie - evidently either a Tesla salesman or a man on a religious mission - or both! He asked about ketamine (an unfamiliar term) and asked why we were protesting. I mentioned, 1.) the attack on US AID that has killed so many refugee children around the world, 2.) the attack on Medicaid in order to fund billionaire tax cuts, and 3.) the attack on Ukraine. The man seemed mostly sympathetic to the battle for Ukraine. Then he started asking questions with a religious angle. He asked if I hated Elon Musk. I said no. Musk came out of Silicon Valley. He's basically a technical person and someone I could sympathize with, since I come from that background too. I want Musk to stop his attacks, but if he repented and relented, then my job would be complete. I wouldn't carry hatred of Elon in my heart. The fellow really liked this angle and cited Bible verses in support. 

Later, about 1 p.m., three women in a car stopped in order to turn onto Arden Blvd. There was something about their manner that made me think they were nightclub habitués just starting their day. The woman in the back seat rolled down her window and asked about the ketamine. I explained Captain Ketamine is Elon Musk and TACO the Tyrant is Donald Trump. "Ah, fuck Trump," she replied. "Yes," I replied. "I'm on ketamine," she said. Surprised, I asked "You're on ketamine? Do you like it?" "Yes," she replied. I guess I'm going to have to learn more about this ketamine. Right now, I know nothing about it. 

There's another fellow protester who is like me. He's a dead-ender, willing to be the last one standing when everyone else has gone home. We watched a teen girl and her mom shop for a Cybertruck, and poke at the finish of a vehicle. I repeated to them what one of the other protesters had said to me about Cybertrucks: "You can just peel the skin right off." (A bad glue job, apparently.) They looked at me with disdain, as if I had just crawled out of a manhole. A Good Humor truck drove by. The driver shouted, "Get a life!" Like, you call what you do a life? Then, a passing driver slowed for the traffic light and leaned on his horn for a full minute in support of our protest. Good times! 

After three hours in the sun, I went to the ice cream parlor, to order a treat. The clerk said, "I like your buttons!" I told her, "I took one off before I entered the parlor because I worried it might be offensive." I showed her the button (it said "Fuck Elon Musk.") She said, "That's the best one of all!" So, when I picked up the treat, I gave her the button. 

Now, it's time to rest the feet. Next week, we'll have the anti-Donald-Trump-military-parade-on-his-birthday "No Kings" protest at the California State Capitol building (with similar protests at many other places around the country).

Tesla dealership on Arden Blvd.

Captain Ketamine VS. TACO the Tyrant - PASS the POPCORN!!!

Resist! (Do Not Co-operate With Them!)

It's Musk Or Us!

Tesla Funds Fascists.  Fight!

WOMP! WOMP! TESLA Batteries Obsolete - Sodium-Ion is the Future.