So…I guess ya heard that the queen died last week and there’s a new sheriff in town over in the UK…and it seems to me that the monarchy has probably changed for the worse with her death. She was polite, courteous and non political and her people generally liked her…and I don’t get the sense that Charles is held in the same esteem as she was. There was some unpleasantness towards Harry and his wife even though they were in the country and he ended up not being able to get to her bedside before she died…then was forbidden to wear any military uniforms as part of her funeral proceedings despite his two deployments in the Middle East and his ongoing charity work for disabled veterans.

I guess you also read about how the governors of FL and TX bused or flew a bunch of illegal immigrants to Marthas Vineyard, Chicago, DC, and NYC…and how unconscionable this ‘political stunt’ was against the poor immigrants…despite the fact that they crossed the border illegally and despite the fact that TX and AZ are bearing the brunt of almost 2 million illegals detained this year. Seems our friends on the left are eager to just let the border be opened up…but not in their back yard…no, don’t want them sent to where the progressives live.

And we continue to hear complete blathering from both sides in the former President vs the DoJ/FBI issues. Yes…he was probably wrong to keep the documents he did…but it’s certainly possible that he declared them to be unclassified…all the POTUS has to do to declassify anything is say so. There are some additional administrative requirements that should have been carried out afterwards…but if those weren’t carried out it’s an administrative problem and not a legal problem. Having seen the repeated claims of complete and undeniable proof of various misdeeds that’s been leaked to the media by various anti Trump folk and the investigating committee…I think it’s not entirely clear that whatever ‘evidence’ they have is either admissible in court, proves anything at all, or implicates him in an actual crime. I’m certainly not going to say he didn’t break any laws…but that whether he did cannot be determined by The NY Times or various other media sources…and it can also not be determined by the investigating committee since they have no power to indict or convict anybody. The decision to indict rests…despite claims to the contrary we’ve seen in the media…with the Attorney General Mr. Garland. The likelihood that charges will be filed without his specific approval is just about zero…Neil worked for the government and understands how it works. Mr. Garland is going to have to balance a whole passle of factors…any charges will be immediately decried as a political ploy and there would be a lot of truth in that objection. Add in the fact that the ‘evidence’ may…or then again may not…be either admissible or convincing to a jury…and you really don’t want to be the Attorney General that  brought charges against a former President and lost the case. We’re not fans of the former President…he was a better choice than Mrs. Clinton but in reality it was a choice between two bad alternatives…sort of like saying would you like to be hung or electrocuted if you’re on death row.

But the biggest problem is that any charges that are brought must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt by an unbiased jury of his peers…and looking beyond the evidence and reasonable doubt argument…finding an unbiased jury I’m going to say is pretty much impossible. For better or worse…I’m thinking that pretty close to 100% of the people in the country have already made up their minds about the man. His supporters on the right won’t believe any of the evidence and will vote to acquit…and his detractors on the left will vote guilty before the trial starts. So…my personal guess is that eventually the whole thing will just blow over and die down. The DoJ or state prosecutors are much more likely to be able to have convincing evidence of some sort of financial crime…but there’s still the jury problem to some extent and the evidence problem to some extent because it isn’t enough to prove that his company broke the law…the prosecution has to prove that he personally directed and ordered the breaking of the law…and that might be a bit harder than the left thinks.

The Russians are still getting their butts kicked in Ukraine…and now they’ve warned the US that if we provide the Ukrainian forces with long range missiles that can reach Russian territory that it will be “a red line and make the US a party to the conflict”. You know…only the Russians are allowed to invade other countries…it says so right in their laws I guess. 

Connie and Neil got their new estate planning paperwork signed/notarized/executed today. Their old wills were written back in 2009 or so before they went on the road in the RV and were out of date. They were still valid but some things with probate issues now that they’re Florida residents made putting together a better plan a sound idea both tax wise and post life wishes wise. Plus…their financial folks added a new department late last year to do estate planning as part of their normal client services so the net cost of redoing things basically came down to paying an hour of a Florida lawyer’s time to review the paperwork and draft a different deed for their home here…and the net effect is that probate here in Florida is now a non issue for them.

The Elks lodge move to new digs is going…well, do the words Chinese fire drill or as we used to say in the Navy Charlie Foxtrot mean anything to you. Things are progressing but in our view at least there’s some wool being pulled over the eyes by some people and some dubious statements being made…but it’s Elk biz so I’m not going to put it all in here. It’s not worth arguing with them over though…as Neil is fond of saying “their minds are made up, don’t bother them with facts or differing ideas”.

Out west…well the water problem is getting really bad…and despite what some claim it isn’t solely because of climate change. Part of the problem is that people insisted in turning a desert into a tropical wonderland with tens of thousands of acres of grass, golf courses, and pools. I understand the people that live out west need water…but some of the ideas we’ve seen in the news the past month or so are ludicrous. One group wants to pump 100,000 cubic feet per second from the lower Mississippi River out to California…and they claim that this is less than 1% of the flow in the Mississippi. However…they used the maximum spring flood season flow to make their request seem less unreasonable. In reality…that much water could almost surely be diverted without harming the Mississippi River’s other uses but the trouble is that it would cost good knows how many hundreds of billions of dollars to build a sufficient pipeline to get it there and the operating costs of the pumps that would be required to pump the water from sea level up to 5,000 feet or whatever it is to get across the lowest pass in the Rockies is just being ignored along with the ‘how do we generate that much additional electrical power’ problem since the left is insisting that we need to shut down all fossil fuel powered generation and enter the renewables age completely. They seem to believe that they can legislate scientific progress in battery or other storage technology and still haven’t solved the problem of what do you do when the wind doesn’t blow or it is after dark…not to mention the fact that it isn’t the west’s water to divert. And we see that AZ and NM and CO have been been ordered to reduce their consumption from the Colorado River by up to 35% or 40% in 2023 while the PRC has been ordered to reduce their consumption by the massive amount of ZERO. Yep…no cuts for the progressive bastion out on the left coast.

And down here in Tampa…some guy drove a woman around to several gas stations around the county demanding she get him some money for drugs…and when she didn’t get it he crushed her car with an excavator. He has been arrested though…moron.

And out in the state of Hawaii…a contractor has filed a lien against Mark Zuckerberg. Seems he hired a contracting company to build him a cabin, tree houses, and house on his compound on the island if Kauai…then refused to pay the bill. His office claims that he’s paid all bills submitted but apparently the contractor doesn’t think so and there is a hearing in a couple of weeks to sort things out. I hate it when rich jerks refuse to pay their bills.

And we did have a wildlife sighting yesterday…our local Great Blue Heron decided to put in an appearance on our side of the pond so Neil got some nice shots.

Interesting things found on the net.

Some thought required for this one.

Seems a bit harsh.

And as you can see from this chart that shows the transportation costs in calories per gram per kilometer traveled…believe it or not a human on a bicycle is the most efficient means of transportation by a factor of 3 over salmon which are in second place…and by a factor of about 4 over the next most efficient means which is an airliner.

For the math nerds…here is another way to calculate the value of Pi.

So sad…

Those sneaky Chinese.

And again…what is it with those Chinese people?

In an amazing display of evolution…elk and caribou up in the arctic have developed vision that extends well into the ultraviolet. So this means that the wolves…which change their coats to white for the winter…actually still look black to the prey since the fur absorbs UV light wavelengths. Up top is what humans see…below is what elk/caribou see.

And finally…this has to be the most amazing resignation letter…ever. Written by somebody named Chris Holmes who has the moniker of Mr. Cake…because he bakes and decorates cakes starting as a side hustle but is resigning to do it full time.

Cyas.