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No Zero Days

Friends,

I joined the hundreds of thousands of people across the globe who essentially took 2020 off. Not from work, at least not on purpose, but from the creative pursuits that we used to enjoy before the darkest year in living memory. Now that that The Orange Menace has been stopped at a single disastrous term in the White House, it’s time to get back to it.

Was I actually waiting for an election? Not really, but it does seem like a good place to plant a marker for a new start. Besides, being sad, out of shape, angry, cooped up in the house, and jobless (Twice! For the same pandemic!) has to end sometime. Why not now?

That’s why I’m taking the opportunity and nudge from C. Spike Trotman of Iron Circus Comics on Twitter to do something creative every day. Writing is the thing I’m doing today. Yesterday it was reinventing my old vegetarian chili recipe to make it gluten-free after almost a decade hiatus. I made it every New Year’s Day for fifteen years or so based on Carrol Shelby’s Chili Mix but without the meat. Now it’s got a big helping of Impossible Burger browned and mixed in. Pretty good!

Tomorrow, I start working on a special project that I’ve been hoping get off the ground for years. This year is the year. It’ll be stupid. I hope you like it.

More later.

Your best pal,

– bob

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Nature Is Healing: Buzzard Edition

Friends,

It’s Wednesday, and as we start returning to normalcy (at least in 45 days or so), there are a few loose ends in this terrible disaster script that need tying up. Things like Murder Hornets.

Never fear, nature has come to the rescue. Meet the Oriental Honey Buzzard:

Oriental Honey Buzzard raiding a bee's nest.

And it just so happens that the Oriental Honey Buzzard is the natural enemy of Vespa Velutina and can wipe out a nest in an afternoon.

Now if we could just do something about Ted Cruz…

Your pal,

– bob

P.S. I didn’t take these remarkable photos, but they came from a tweet by Foxfeather Zenkova. She has neat stuff in her store called The Foxloft, which is worth a visit.

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The 2020 Jaunty Election Guide – How’d We Do? Edition

Friends,

It’s time to tidy up around here and where better to start than with a bit of self-flagellation for our lack of sway over the electorate. Apparently, besides voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, you pretty much ignored the rest of our thoughtful advice. This is going to be bad news for a lot of people pretty quickly, but as we know, reading is hard and it’s sometimes a thrill to vote against your own interests to “own the libs.”

So let’s check in with the Big Decision Tally-Uppers™ to see how we did:

Candidates

Here, we’re three for four. It’s encouraging.

  • President of The United States – Joseph R. Biden, Vice President – Kamala D. Harris
    Winner! Although they won by over four million votes, it seemed like a squeaker because of the Electoral College tally. It’s probably way past time to ditch that and elect presidents based on the popular vote. This will make sparsely populated states in the center of the country feel bad, but they’ve been telling us for four years that they don’t care about what we think. It’s probably time to return the favor.
  • United States Representative, District 36 – Dr. Raul Ruiz
    Also a winner, by a pretty big margin.
  • United States Representative, District 50 – Ammar Campa-Najjar
    Mr. Campa-Najjar has conceded defeat to Darrell Issa in CA-50. Issa ran an attack ad-heavy, fact-light campaign that people apparently believed. A lot of people.
  • San Diego County Board of Supervisors, 3rd District – Terra Lawson-Remer
    Winner! There’s now a progressive Democrat majority running the County, which is a big change from the last few decades. They’ve already been told by Republicans how to behave in the few days since their victory. Being a gracious lot, they have yet to recommend that their colleagues pound sand.

California Propositions

There’s a big list this year, so let’s get to it…

  • Prop 14 – Authorizes Bonds Continuing Stem Cell Research – Initiative Statute: We picked this one, and it was a winner with 51.0%
  • Prop 15 – Increases Funding Sources For Public Schools, Community Colleges, and Local Government Services By Changing Tax Assessment Of Commercial And Industrial Property – Initiative Constitutional Amendment: This one lost, only getting 48.2% of the vote. The GOP’s plan to destroy civic structures by calling taxes theft is still working.
  • Prop 16 – Allows Diversity As A Factor In Public Employment, Education, And Contracting Decisions – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: This one lost, getting only 43.5% of the vote. It looks like 56.5% of Californians are pretty sure that institutional racism isn’t a thing anymore. Or they’re okay with it continuing.
  • Prop 17 – Restores Right To Vote After Completion Of Prison Term – Legislative Constitution Amendment: This won with 58.9% of the vote, which is great, but I’m still not sure Duncan Hunter should get his voting rights back.
  • Prop 18 – Amends California Constitution To Permit 17-Year-Olds To Vote In Primary And Special Elections If They Will Turn 18 By The Next General Election And Be Otherwise Eligible To Vote – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: 44.5% said yes to this, not enough to let fired-up teens vote in the primary.
  • Prop 19 – Changes Certain Property Tax Rules – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: This won with 51.3% because it was billed as the Meemaw Gets To Keep Her House Proposition in the ads.
  • Prop 20 – Restricts Parole For Certain Offenses Currently Considered To Be Non-Violent. Authorizes Felony Sentences For Certain Offenses Currently Treated Only As Misdemeanors – Initiative Statute: This one lost by big margins, with 62.2% voting against.
  • Prop 21 – Expands Local Governments’ Authority To Enact Rent Control On Residential Property – Initiative Statute: This one failed as well, with a 59.9% vote against. (hey, for all your wailing, you’re not doing to badly. -ed Just wait. It’s downhill from here.)
  • Prop 22 – Exempts App-Based Transportation And Delivery Companies From Providing Employee Benefits To Certain Drivers – Initiative Statute: Ridesharing companies poured a ton of money into this with wall-to-wall misleading ads, and it worked! This measure passed with 58.5% of the vote. Sorry gig workers! Looks like you’re going to be wage slaves forever.
  • Prop 23 – Establishes State Requirements For Kidney Dialysis Clinics. Requires On-Site Medical Professional – Initiative Statute: This failed with 63.9% of the vote against the measure.
  • Prop 24 – Amends Consumer Privacy Laws – Initiative Statute: This passed with 55.9% of the vote, which is going to be a problem if you want your data off of the Internet. This Google and Facebook-sponsored measure means you have to opt-out of data collection, and can only appeal to a new agency. Sorry privacy advocates!
  • Prop 25 – Referendum On Law That Replaced Money Bail With System Based On Public Safety And Flight Risk: This failed with only 44.2% voting in favor. I can’t tell if it was a victim of its scary ballot language or if the scheme itself wasn’t fully baked. Proponents will probably try again when they have an actual plan.

Looking back, we only had two really wild misses with independent contractors and with privacy. Good thing nobody needs those things.

Also, the 45th president needs to get packing, so that’s pretty good.

Your pal,

– bob

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It Seemed Like A Good Idea

Friends

Here we go! I’m using a 33-year old Apple M0110A keyboard with a Drakware adapter to type this on my iPad, and it’s glorious. Spongy keys making noisy noises is just the start. The other great part of this is the keyboard’s physical height, which is absolutely perfect for typing from the couch in front of the teevee. The election is next week and this is looking like my weapon of choice to push my dumb thoughts to the blog that you (probably) can’t get enough of.

Except for one thing: There’s no good blog editor for self-hosted WordPress that works on an iPad. Not without crashing. Not without a lengthy session repairing the problems imposed by the editor.

Maybe this keyboard will work great on a laptop…

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: What’s that you say? Where’s the love for the Apple Desktop Bus? You know me, I’m down with the ADB. I picked up an adapter for ADB as well as the original Mac straight-through phone cord connector and I’m enjoying the Apple Keyboard II with the Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II. What’s missing? The second button on the mouse, which is easily solved with a Ctrl+click. Scrolling is a harder problem because windows on modern Macs have disappearing scroll bars. Grab them before they go away, because they will go away. Vintage computing is fun.

Macbook Air with an M0480 ADB keyboard and mouse

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The 2020 Jaunty Election Guide – The Rest Of The Propositions Edition

Friends,

Before you dive into the remaining propositions on this year’s California ballot, we recommend that you start with the first part of the 2020 Jaunty Election Guide, then come back here.

A couple notes before we dive back in. First, the president’s doctors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center hosted a press conference that painted a picture so rosy of the president’s health, you’d think they were talking about Ray Milland. Second, the Vice President of the United States, who is next in line, should the president meet with a sub-suboptimal outcome, isn’t under recommended quarantine for a fortnight but is jetting around, being irresponsible. I guess the GOP really does want to install President Pelosi to complete their next-level 4-dimensional chess strategy that is totally escaping me at the moment.

Well then! Let’s get to the rest of the propositions…

California Propositions

There’s a big list this year, so let’s get to it…

  • Prop 19 – Changes Certain Property Tax Rules – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: 1978’s Proposition 13 property tax freeze takes another little hit here, but overall, it seems like a nice idea to allow the over-55 set to take their tax rate with them to a new home anywhere in the state. This could hurt non-farm family businesses passing down property though, but there’s no light green color in the palette.
  • Prop 20 – Restricts Parole For Certain Offenses Currently Considered To Be Non-Violent. Authorizes Felony Sentences For Certain Offenses Currently Treated Only As Misdemeanors – Initiative Statute: Wow. Do you want to incarcerate a lot more people for longer? Do you want to reduce the chances that shoplifters get parole? Do you want law enforcement to collect more DNA samples? Then this one is for you! With so many bad ideas wrapped up in one proposition, it’s hard to know where to begin. By creating new felonies for the state to incarcerate in already-crowded prisons, we’d have to turn to the private prison industry to make up the difference. During a pandemic, that already sounds like two bad ideas. How about limiting parole board discretion when releasing non-violent offenders? There’s a third bad idea for you. We suggest a no vote on this one.
  • Prop 21 – Expands Local Governments’ Authority To Enact Rent Control On Residential Property – Initiative Statute: I know I’m dating myself again, but there was a time when you could rent a nice apartment in San Diego for less than half of your salary. That’s no longer the case and it’s grinding the entire local economy to a halt. This proposition allows new rent control boards to be established, which is fine, but that might reduce earnings that some homeowners rely on. This one also doesn’t provide eviction protection for tenants living in rent-controlled units, which is bad news. This is a big nope.
  • Prop 22 – Exempts App-Based Transportation And Delivery Companies From Providing Employee Benefits To Certain Drivers – Initiative Statute: The Uber Protection Act exempts Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and others from providing basic protections and benefits to their workers. The Attorney General has determined that gig workers are employees, the companies disagree and are fighting with this proposition. We think that employees should have unemployment benefits, sick time, health care, worker’s compensation insurance, and protection from discrimination and harassment at work. We strongly urge a no vote.
  • Prop 23 – Establishes State Requirements For Kidney Dialysis Clinics. Requires On-Site Medical Professional – Initiative Statute: The last time this came up in 2018, it failed. It should probably fail again.
  • Prop 24 – Amends Consumer Privacy Laws – Initiative Statute: As you open sites on the web over the last few years, those that collect your information (but not this one! – ed That’s right, we never collect your information because our files are already overflowing with information and we can’t possibly store one more bit.) have had to put banners on their home pages to ask your permission. Proponents would like for you to think of this proposition as the California version of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and very well might be. This proposition limits sharing, allows you to correct data, and limit use of your sensitive information with new penalties and a new agency. The problem is that this essentially forces you into arbitration with the privacy agency as your advocate. It also circumvents existing protections and creates new classes of information that are exempt. Probably a good idea to reject this one.
  • Prop 25 – Referendum On Law That Replaced Money Bail With System Based On Public Safety And Flight Risk: I like the idea of eliminating money bail and am extremely uneasy about the implementation. We don’t have a recommendation on how to vote, but do recommend that you read the text of the referendum.

That was a lot, but we did it everybody. Please vote this year. Please tell your friends to get out and vote.

Only 29 days left.

Your pal,

– bob

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The 2020 Jaunty Election Guide – Can We Panic Now Edition

Friends,

Remember when our politics were normal? There was a time, wait for it, when we Americans wouldn’t punch each other in the face for supporting the other party. When we wouldn’t bring long guns to protests. There was a time when we wouldn’t have to worry about somebody coughing on us during a pandemic just to prove a political point.

There was a time before the president of the United States was being hospitalized for a deadly illness that he and his administration made much worse. (there was a time when you used to use an initial capital letter when spelling president. – ed Seems like a long time ago!) I remember when inaction by a president that resulted in the death of over 200,000 Americans would have been immediately disqualifying. Have a seat and let me tell you a story about how the nation would be scandalized by a president that used curse words. There was a Vice President who left office in disgrace for tax evasion. A President who left office for campaign violations and another who was impeached for lying to a grand jury. These things happened before the Republicans coalesced on a plan: lie, block, obstruct, and disenfranchise anybody who won’t keep them in power.

You have to give it to them that their project has been very successful. They’ve appealed to the worst impulses of the American electorate, ensuring GOP minority rule for years. Xenophobia, white nationalism, and a vague reinterpretation of public comity into their familiar bugbear they like to call “socialism” has kept their older, whiter electorate coming back for more. I have hope that it ends this year.

That’s why everyone here on The Best Political Team on this Blog™ has been working double-overtime to analyze your choices in this election and to provide you expert analysis so you can make an informed choice in this crucial election.

Candidates

We haven’t picked actual candidates in actual races for a while, but if you’re wavering on who to choose in this election, maybe this’ll help push you over the edge.

  • President of The United States – Joseph R. Biden, Vice President – Kamala D. Harris
    In the primary, I voted for Elizabeth Warren because I wanted somebody to prosecute the case against the 45th president, but the wisdom of selecting Joe Biden as the nominee seems brilliant in retrospect. He’s (almost) everything the current president isn’t—informed, compassionate, gentle, steadfast, and devoted to service. Sounds weird writing that because we’ve been missing those qualities in our current craven, self-serving, grifter government. I’m ready to not have to worry about the next politically damaging tweet or dumb trade war. I’m ready for competence in government.
    I’m going to miss Senator Harris’ representation of California, but she’s perfect for Vice President at this moment.
  • United States Representative, District 36 – Dr. Raul Ruiz
    The good doctor is the incumbent and has been doing a remarkable job for the Coachella Valley. In addition to his stewardship of the Salton Sea restoration project, he’s taken on veterans’ health issues, and protections for the workers in the fields who put produce on our tables. There are two groups how don’t like him—GOPs who see a seat ripe for the picking and activists who don’t think he’s moving fast enough. The former need to become comfortable pounding sand for the foreseeable future and the latter need to just cool it.
  • United States Representative, District 50 – Ammar Campa-Najjar
    We don’t know too much about Mr. Campa-Najjar except that he lost in the mid-terms here in California’s deeply red and disturbingly nuts 50th district to indicted, later convicted felon, Duncan Hunter Jr. Now he’s running against carpetbagger Darrell Issa who bailed out of his own coastal district when it was clear he was going to lose to Mike Levin in 2016. Fortunately, Mr. Issa has plenty of cash on hand for a comfortable retirement. It’s only right that we help him do that.
  • San Diego County Board of Supervisors, 3rd District – Terra Lawson-Remer
    The County Registrar of Voters seems to be having a very tough time getting voter information out this year. Ms. Lawson-Remer’s opponent, a weird GOP acolyte, is having no trouble putting out campaign hit pieces and polluting the discourse. We’ve had it up to here with that nonsense and we’re endorsing Ms. Lawson-Remer, who seems to have had quite a history of mixing things up for the good of average Americans. Keep an eye on her.

California Propositions

There’s a big list this year, so let’s get to it…

  • Prop 14 – Authorizes Bonds Continuing Stem Cell Research – Initiative Statute: 2004’s Proposition 71 caused the anti-choice activists in this state (And there are a lot. Just drive 25 miles away from the coast and you’ll find them.) to writhe on the floor and choke on their tongues. The idea was that the state would support and protect a burgeoning, but legislatively at-risk biomedical industry with the trade-off that the state would share in the profits of any therapeutic discoveries developed with our money. Well, the money has run out and they’d like a new bond issued. We don’t normally support bond issues, but this one seems important. We knew progress wouldn’t be quick, now we’ll need to put up the cash.
  • Prop 15 – Increases Funding Sources For Public Schools, Community Colleges, and Local Government Services By Changing Tax Assessment Of Commercial And Industrial Property – Initiative Constitutional Amendment: It’s surprising that this proposition isn’t getting more ink, since it’s intended to start unravelling the infamous Proposition 13 from 1978 that essentially locked in property tax rates to a maximum of 1% of values, and annual increases of 2%, prohibiting reassessment unless property was sold. Great news for your grandparents who own their house outright. Bad news for school districts who rely on local property taxes for funding that haven’t kept up with inflation (or the cost of technology, training, removing asbestos, pandemics, etc.) The original proposition was intended to protect homeowners from gouging by evil county tax assessors, but it also included commercial property. The new proposition, firmly treading on the third rail of California politics, seeks to remove those protections from commercial properties worth over $3 million to provide somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 billion in new funding to schools. It’s a slippery slope and could be bad, but we feel it’s worth the risk to provide a quality education to kids in California. Hell, they may even reinstate civics classes. Remember, despots dig low-information voters. Just sayin’.
  • Prop 16 – Allows Diversity As A Factor In Public Employment, Education, And Contracting Decisions – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: Remember when institutional racism ended in 1996 and California voters approved Proposition 209, which banned consideration of race in hiring? In cart-putting before horse voting, Californians were convinced somehow that we didn’t need to protect minorities and underrepresented groups because something magically happened and there weren’t any racists anymore. This proposition fixes that.
  • Prop 17 – Restores Right To Vote After Completion Of Prison Term – Legislative Constitution Amendment: I’m all for restoring voting rights for people who have served their time, unless it’s Duncan Hunter, so it’s a toss-up. Not sure how I feel about this one.
  • Prop 18 – Amends California Constitution To Permit 17-Year-Olds To Vote In Primary And Special Elections If They Will Turn 18 By The Next General Election And Be Otherwise Eligible To Vote – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: Also known as the Expanding The Field And Democrat Protection Act, this one allows kids to vote (for Democrats) before they turn 18 if they’ll be 18 before the general election so they can vote (for Democrats). It’s so crass and blatant if you spend any time at all looking at polls, that you have to love it—or at least you should love it.

Lordy. We’re not even half-way through. Check back in tomorrow when we weigh in on the remaining seven propositions, provide some handy voter information from The Handy Voter Information Desk™, and throw in a couple surprises.

Only 30 days left. We can do this.

Your pal,

– bob

UPDATE: The second part is online now! Just head over there when you’re done here.

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Secret Federal Police Squads Making Trouble

Friends,

Remember back when rolling out a secret Federal police force in the United States was illegal? Get this, it still is! The super fun part is that the current president has done it anyway. But why?

The narrative on the pro-fascism media is that the protests against police brutality targeting Black and brown people aren’t largely peaceful, but “destroying our cities.” This leads to chaos, which leads to anarchy, which leads to the unraveling of the social fabric, etc, rinse, repeat.

They play the scenes of a police station and a Wendy’s burning down over and over again to prove to their viewers that society is crumbling and lo! the president steps in to rescue us from societal collapse! Aren’t we fortunate!

The justification that the acting administrators (Ken Cuccinelli and Chad Wolf, who are political hacks who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate because even Mitch McConnell has *some* standards) have offered seem to change by the hour. The latest, and arguably more egregious than “proactive arrests” is to “teach them a lesson.” That said, this will make your skin crawl…

So here we are. A failed game show host in hock up to his eyeballs to foreign interests has gone full rogue and made a play for the elderly white people already afraid to step outside because of the pandemic: Society would be in ruins if it weren’t for his tiny iron fist.

It’d be a pathetic and transparent play if consumers of the state media outlets took a moment to come up for air, which I don’t see happening until 2021.

Your best pal,

– bob

P.S. Is it just me, or did the name “Department of Homeland Security” creep you out from the day it was introduced? Didn’t it seem like a nod to 1930s Germany? Just me? Okay.

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Creaky Old Weirdos

Friends,

An update on Le Musée des Ordinateurs Anciens:

  • The Toshiba that caught fire after I soldered on the battery jumper backwards—in my defense, the battery terminals were mislabeled—is still on hold. Once burned, twice shy, I suppose.
  • The Toshiba Satellite I started work on has a bad and expensive to fix display, so that’s on hold for a bit as well.
  • But look here! The old Amiga 1200 is working! Sorta!

I cleaned up the Amiga after it spent some unfortunate time in the garage and it started right up. Its whopping 170 megabyte hard drive made a lot of clicking and clacking noises, but didn’t boot the machine. Time for a new hard drive.

Luckily, there’s a seller in the UK that sells brand new CompactFlash cards with the Amiga Workbench installed, and the hardware needed to hook it all up. I ordered it up and it arrived a month later. Can’t wait to see how the old gal runs after all this time.

BTW, got a spare a 72-pin 128 MB SIMM laying around? I’ll trade you a box of double density floppy disks.

Stay safe. Wear a mask, please.

Your pal,

– bob

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Decisions

Friends,

If you’ve spent any time at all following this hot mess over the years, I’m sure you will have at one time or another said to yourself, “My goodness, he sure uses a lot of words to get to a point.” My proclivity to go on and on keeps my editor out of the pool halls (that, and a global pandemic. mostly the virus. -ed). It’s this longstanding criticism that gnaws at me like a piranha on Ritalin, forcing me towards—gasp—brevity.

This got me into trouble at work.

You see, sometimes you have to explain the joke. Sometimes some folks aren’t on the same continent where your playful jibes were supposed to land. I was reprimanded over the period of four days for something that you would have either laughed at or ignored. Something’s gotta give. How do I communicate with my colleagues in a department-wide forum without running afoul of somebody’s version of decorum? How do I spare these sensitive nerve endings scanning chat transcripts? I conducted an impromptu investigation!

What are the traits of the people in my department who never get called out? What they have in common is that they are largely absent from group chats. Have nothing to say in team meetings. They’re invisible.

I’ve been sheltering in this place since the beginning of March (for reasons!) and I have mostly enjoyed the banter with coworkers during the slow periods since then. It’s been a nice way to stay connected. That is now over. I’ll have to go into hiding as well. Sure, I can do my tech support job, but no more “typing in public.”

I’ve tried to be the friendly, outgoing team player, so this is going to be a big adjustment. The bosses don’t like it and they’re deciding right now if I’ll be furloughed, so I’m keeping to myself.

And this blog. And Twitter. You know, like a hermit.

Stay safe. Wear a mask. We’ll get through this.

Your pal,

– bob

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Nature Is Healing

Friends,

I’ve been sheltering at home for the last couple months and didn’t realize that some things were happening out in the world without me. Businesses from Souplantation to Pier 1 Imports aren’t just closed for the duration of the business closure order, but are closing for good.

These have been popular franchises, but they just couldn’t make it. One, because they can’t see how their business model can coexist with public health guidelines. The other seems to simply be out of money. Those aren’t the only businesses that will fail due to this pandemic crisis. They don’t represent the only jobs lost forever.

The people who are doing fine? The people who make and sell toilet paper. We panicked at the beginning of this thing and ordered toilet paper from wherever we could find it. I went the “natural” route and hit up all the weirdo websites offering recycled, up cycled, green cycled personal hygiene products. My sweet bride attacked the problem with a hammer and ordered Chinese toilet paper from Amazon. My method failed with oleaginous apology emails. Her package finally arrived. I have concerns.

Your pal,

– bob

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Getting A Little Stabby

Friends,

At least 90,000 of our fellow Americans have died as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as of today. It’s likely that many more will perish before this crisis is at a point that we can call “over.” That makes the president’s comments today, complaining that the numbers are so high because we’re doing so much testing, not because of the administration’s failed response, that much worse.

A small number of nitwits claim that the public safety response by local governments to have them stay at home represents abridging their fundamental freedoms. Freedom to get a haircut, freedom to get a new tattoo, freedom to get a bucket of wings, and ultimately the freedom to get infected. These are the “covidiots” you’ve been hearing so much about — mostly because they’re so loud, not because there’s so many of them. It only takes one mask-free demonstration to spread a virus, of course. We’ve already seen new outbreaks among the impatient science/math/statistics denier set, and their parents, grandparents, and children. Dopes.

Because most people are indoors and over 20% are unemployed, spending has gone down, which means tax revenue has gone down in the state. This leads, as the Governor noted in his May budget revision speech today, to a $60 billion budget shortfall. As it stands right now, it looks like we state employees are going to take about a 10% haircut (speaking of haircut, what’s going on with your ridiculous mane, wayne gretzky? – ed I wish! I’m merely cultivating an homage to The Great One.). I kinda don’t mind a temporary pay cut as long as it comes with fewer hours. I guess it depends on what the union has to say about it. Complicated!

Your pal,

– bob

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Greetings From The Nation-State!

Friends,

Good news from Sacramento today. Vote by mail ballots will be sent to every registered voter for the election in November 2020. Here’s the nut from Cactus Hugs…

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced the California will send every voter a mail-in ballot for the November election. Newsom said sending postage-paid ballots will be the best solution to the anxiety voters may feel if they had to go to the polls. Republicans criticized the move, with Donald Trump’s campaign saying that it could “undermine election security.” At least 67 people got coronavirus after going to or working the polls during Wisconsin’s election on April 7.

It is important to note here that the president can keep his cries of election security to himself. Also, Republicans are answering this important question with their criticism.

Your pal,

– bob

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Remember That Time When We Crashed Into Jupiter?

Friends,

Today has been a big day for authoritarianism. Guilty friends of the president got their charges dropped. A beloved institution gets a new boss who is likely to try and destroy it to punish an enemy of the president and disenfranchise voters who are reluctant to expose themselves to the public health risk. States are relaxing stay at home orders prematurely under pressure from the administration to throw workers into the maw of this teensy, devastating beast that has killed over 80,000 Americans.

Experts on these things, who track the rise of authoritarian governments throughout history, note that budding potentates need to get the population used to death. They need for citizens to stop being alarmed and simply shrug off a D-Day’s worth of dead Americans every day for a month.

Maintaining outrage is hard and draining and really annoying to people around you. It’s not healthy, but I think that it’s important to be very angry right now. We need a lot of people to be brave, put on a mask and gloves, and vote these ghouls out in November.

Your pal,

– bob

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What Are You Doing? Worldwide Quarantine Edition

Friends,

Like everyone else on the planet, we’ve been holed up in the house for the last month (Could be a few weeks, or two months. Hard to tell.) and I find that the years spent sequestered in my Secret Alpine Laboratory served me well. What started out as temper tantrum to withdraw from big cities/life/commitment turned into a meditation. “What do you do when you’re by yourself for a couple years?” First, particularly when it’s snowing outside, you get depressed. “What happens when you’re alone and it’s snowing and you have no real income?” That’s much worse

What that means now, that it’s pretty important not to go out and mingle, but to have the benefit of a job that can easily be done remotely and the benefit of a sweet and loving partner, is that staying in is easy. The state’s Stay At Home order isn’t going to last long enough to forestall another huge wave of infection because politicians will cave to the loud minority agitating to get a haircut and line up at Golden Corral. That’s bad news for people like me who, by my latest count, are vulnerable times three. Too old, too asthmatic, and too diabetic.

Here’s the fun part: Will my employer be indemnified from providing unemployment insurance to people who are vulnerable to infection who demur from a return to work order? What choice will that leave me, a person terrified of being broke and sequestered once again?

I’d just begun a program of going out and mingling now that I’ve identified some folks at work who I’d like to mingle with. I’m certainly not going out to mingle any time soon.

As I write this, more than 75,000 Americans have died from complications from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Some people online have wondered why, as a country, we’re not mourning. Why no big obituary pages? Why no profiles on teevee with sad violins in the background? I think the answer is simple: The slow-motion tragedy isn’t over yet. The car is still crashing. The towers are taking months to collapse.

The Federal Government is doing not much at all to help. Political donors were made whole, but the response was late and not enough. Scientists who dare speak out are removed. Doctors who complain are dismissed. A vaccine is months away and I’m not going to play this game of Hot Lava Where Everything Is Lava Everywhere until there’s a safe vaccine that works, and I’m able to get one.

So, anyway, it’s been a while. How are you doing?

Your pal,

– bob

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What Are You Doing? Playoff Weekend Edition

Friends,

It’s a lovely January weekend here in Northern San Diego County. Even though the anticipated rain storm never really materialized, we still did inside stuff, like making ravioli. We’re going to wait a bit to try the ravioli (and tortellini made from the same ingredients), but the filling is going to top a pizza in about twenty minutes, so we’ll see how it tastes after the pie is baked.

Speaking of food, we both suffered from brunch at the in-laws’ in-house dining facility. Imagine getting punched in the gut for a few hours and you’ve got something of an idea. Note to self: Next time, skip the omelette bar. No, really.

That wasn’t really the point, though. Being the family tech support, I got to fix music streaming problems (get rid of the web browser and stream from iTunes to Airplay receiver instead), and palm rejection on the laptop (it doesn’t work, hit fn+F3 to turn off the trackpad on the Dell laptop thing).

We also spent some time watching football. So. Boring.

That’s mostly it. Maybe we’ll have a chat about the Hiroshima Carp baseball club and why you should care.

Of course you should care.

Your pal,

– bob