Not Normal

 It is incredibly atypical for me to agree fully with anyone on just damn near anything.  That is somewhat intentional.  It makes me very nervous for everyone to agree with me - it makes me assume I got something horribly wrong.

So you should absolutely take it seriously that I am struggling to find something to disagree with in my friend's post on Substack.  You should go read it in full and point out where I should be in opposition since my reflexively argumentative nature is apparently malfunctioning.

You may want to read other of his musings and you could even find yourself wanting to subscribe.  Click this link and share it if you feel so inspired.

Aeronautical Prevarication

 I own weapons. Several as a matter of fact.  Some are traditional martial arts weapons.  Some are my own improvisation.  Some, are firearms.  Some are projectile weapons that do not require chemical explosions.

I legally own and possess those because I am a law-abiding citizen and I can.  All of that to say that my ability to own, possess and wield weapons has not been obliterated in the recent or distant past.

I am 99.999999999999999999999999% sure that if I knew the exact flight path and the exact time and intensely practiced for a year, nothing in my (small) personal arsenal could bring down an F15 or an A10.

No sane person needed the confirmation that Felon47 is an obligate liar but that confirmation is here anyway.   Obliterated weapons systems or obliterated military capacity would not be any better at bringing down either of those warplanes than I am.  Yet, both of them went down and other aircraft have taken fire.

For no reason or for any reason at all, Felon47's first impulse is to lie to you.  (unfortunately it is also his second, third, fourth ad infinitum impulse)

Its Always Darkest, Just Before It Goes Completely Black

 I understand the temptation to cheer at the dismissal of senior misadmistration officials.

But we need to be honest with ourselves. The replacements are always more evil and less competent - even when it seems like no one could possibly be.

Fool Me Twice

 I am not a youngster.  My corporeal form has circled the Sun 70+ times.  Depending on when exactly during those rotations you approached me, there is a solidly high probability that you could well have found me being somewhat less than serious.

Yea, I like to joke around.  Practical jokes, funny memes, satire, or whatever else I thought someone would laugh at are all things you might have to suffer through interacting with me.  This year though, this year is different.  Well, technically this month is different.  I might even suggest that it is just today that is different.  I mean, I said "today" but really, I should say "this date".

Today is 4/1, April the first.  the 91st day of the year.  Today is April Fools Day.  Traditionally, this is a day for practical jokes, outrageous lies and in general a good natured exploration into the gullibility of humans. 

I have been on both sides of the April Fools silliness.  There have been years when I was working enough that I did not notice the date and as a result, fell prey to those paying more attention.  Other years, I was the asshole enjoying the mild discomfort of those trying to give their sense of humor a break.

Today was different though.  For the first April Fools in my memory, I neither saw nor proposed one single date related effort at humor.  Like others on social media, I saw some posts suggesting that what the misadministration is doing is more outrageous than anything I might come up with.  Still, I am not possessed of sufficient ego to believe that the nation would follow my humor lead so, I was prepared to observe and ideally, enjoy the efforts of others.  That didn't happen.  

Regardless of what you actually think of Felon47 and crew of incompetents, that he has reduced the level of humor in the nation (probably world).  We are more polarized and more bitter than at any point in my memory.  We have the biggest April Fool ever.

It ain't funny.

Half The Battle

 If you happen to be a news junkie, as several of those who opine on things political and cultural are, you might have noticed some of the same things I noticed.  Among those things, I have read reports of individuals who served honorably in the USA military but who were not citizens of this nation being deported.  Some of them had combat included in that honorable service.  They were deported anyway.

I have seen reports of folks who have lived in this nation for decades - raised children here, held jobs, paid taxes, and generally obeyed every law that had nothing to do with immigration.  When identified and apprehended they were unceremoniously deported.  

The federal (mis)administration currently in power has undertaken an effort to eliminate birthright citizenship.  They want citizenship to not be automatic upon being born here.  Now this is going to shock no one but, I do not agree with them.  The reason we have lawyers and judges is that the law is neither perfect nor absolute.  Extenuating circumstances exists.  I am not saying to ignore the law.  I am saying that each case should be looked at individually.  

But never mind my issues with the system as is.  I am used to having political disagreements and I understand the art of compromise.  This ain't about that.

What I want to know is the other half of the battle.  If neither military service, abiding by the laws, or being born here is enough to guarantee one citizenship, what will determine eligibility for citizenship?  Will it be wealth?  Skin tone?  Whether or not Felon47 finds you fuckable?  Seriously, what will the qualifications be?

This crew has a consistent habit of claiming something is a problem and in need of immediate banning.  Then they absolutely avoid presenting a fix or a preventative or process going forward that will not result in the same problem in a few weeks/months/years.  They do that because you let them.  I strongly suggest you stop letting them.  Whether you agree with them or not, demand a plan.  Demand that the plan be Constitutional.  Demand that the plan be feasible.  Demand that the plan be something you would be happy to put your name on.

Real Values

 Due to the lamentable lack of any surprising great things AND the lack of unforeseen horrible things, I did indeed attend the No Kings protest in Knoxville, TN.

Historically, East Tennesseans are notoriously publicly apathetic.  Even if we do love something or hate it, we would keep quiet about it.  Getting us to show up to protest something was hard.  Yesterday we showed up pretty good.

Felon47 is for reasons I will never understand, an incredibly polarizing figure.  (I fully and easily understand any hatred expressed towards him.  It is my inability to see anything in him worthy of support by an actual human that escapes my understanding.)  If there is one positive thing about him, accidental though it may be, it is that he is causing my communities to reflect and decide what our values really are.  While I remain dismayed by the number of my neighbors who appear to value greed, immorality, misogyny, dishonesty, and racism, I am also impressed by the number who have decided to publicly reject those things. 

 As I have gotten involved with Indivisible Knoxville, the local organizer of the protests, I had an assigned duty.  I was an observer/counter.  I walked the entire length of the protest with a clicker counter and attempted to get a rough count of attendees.  The snapshots and videos will have to tell the story as the crowd was quite fluid.  Folks crossed the streets and in that manner could have been counted twice or not counted at all.  I did not observe any untoward events.  No LEOs were attacked - physically or verbally.  I observed one well-behaved counter protester who was treated with respect or ignored. 

I started my counting at the official start time of the protest and was done with an hour still to go.  I attempted to count the cars honking their horns or otherwise indicating their support of the protest.  I counted the south side of the protest first and by the time I had gotten through about half of the north side, the south side appeared to have approximately doubled in number.  Again, a rough count was the best I could do.  I got about 2800 with my clicker and I estimated the final number to be better than double that.  5k - 8k is my guesstimate.

BONUS:  As an apparent accident of scheduling, the Washington D.C. Gay Men's Chorus was in town and performed a few songs enjoyed by those close enough to hear them. Click on this link for a sample.

Horses and Hardware

 When Ford Motor Company released their first automobile for sale, there was an issue.  The Model T ran on a refined petroleum product.

I get that  the fact that fuel was needed fuel is not news to you.  That also was not actually the issue.  The issue lay in the acquisition of said petroleum products.  There was no such thing as a gas station or a convenience store with gas pumps.  When an automobile operator needed fuel, a trip to the hardware store to purchase a container or two of fuel.

Now, if the need for fuel was absolute and immediate, say you ran out during a drive (fuel gauges and such did not yet exist), then you would probably need to find alternative transportation to the hardware store or wherever else the source was.  A one horsepower vehicle was a very likely choice.  Although TBF a carriage or wagon could be pulled by more than one horse.  While I was certainly not around in those days, I assume that some folks ended up taking an unplanned walk.

That scenario is what I think about whenever some short-sighted moron suggests that electric cars can't go mainstream because there is insufficient infrastructure to conveniently refuel them.  Then I think about a television commercial from a few years ago.  A rugged individualist type driving a pickup truck that is pulling a horse trailer. The truck and trailer somehow magically (certainly through no fault of the aforementioned rugged individualist) gets stuck in mud/soft ground. Rugged individualist (RI) does not get frustrated or angry. Instead he harnessed up the horses he was hauling and uses the horses to pull the truck out of the mire thus demonstrating his something something tough guy RI.

The morons laugh about out-of-power EVs having to be charged up on road by an internal combustion vehicle carrying a generator. Apparently actually thinking about stuff and Gawd forbid, studying history is just too damn difficult.

Infrastructure has not historically appeared fully formed all at once. Building the interstate highway system, electrifying rural America, or even simple sewer systems, all of that took time and planning and effort to come to fruition. The same will be true of the infrastructure for EVs. Whether we are talking battery swaps or solar powered parking lots or straight grid connections, eventually there will be enough of it that people will act and speak as though it had always been that way.

Look, I get that some folk really like gas/diesel vehicles. I have owned sports cars and currently own a couple of motorcycles. I enjoy my gas powered pickup truck. That does not stop me from seeing that EVs and autonomous vehicles are coming and they are coming in a hurry. Making a stupid argument is not gonna stop it.