Outside the temperature has warmed up to a sunny 32°.  I did close the window last night, but had no need to turn on the heat.  Now the sun has been hitting my wall, warming the brickwork, and radiating heat into the room, where it is now 75°.  I may have to open the window.  Now, perhaps you understand how hot things get here in the summer.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:15 (average 6:13).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Washington Post Channel): Meet the business tycoon Trump nominated to be ambassador to The Bahamas

Donating big bucks to the Fuhrer, abusing women, and lying during Senate confirmation is the Republican path to an Ambassadorial post. RESIST!!

From Chicago Sun Times: Facebook will soon rely on centuries-old technology to try to prevent foreign meddling in U.S. elections: the post office.

Baffled in 2016 by Russian agents who bought ads to sway the U.S. presidential campaign, Facebook’s global politics and government outreach director, Katie Harbath, told a meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State in Washington on Saturday that the company would send postcards to potential buyers of political ads to confirm they reside in the U.S.

The recipient would then have to enter a code in Facebook to continue buying the ad. The method will first apply to ads that name candidates ahead of the midterm elections in November, said Facebook spokesman Andy Stone.

So what? It would be child’s play for Russian Republicans to maintain US mailboxes to receive the automated Facebook mailings. The Trump Reich would probably provide staff to monitor and reply, without colluding, of course. RESIST!!

From Gizmodo: Asteroid mining is about more than just heading up into space and bringing back a rock full of platinum—you actually need to land something on just the right asteroid.

Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful rocket launched by Elon Musk-led SpaceX two weeks ago, may have changed the game, says one astronomer.

“Instead of a few hundred we may have thousands of ore bearing asteroids available,” Martin Elvis from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told an audience at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Austin, Texas.

This is what I meant when I said that transporting billionaires into space for the day will be just the means to pay for the project’s real work, obtaining natural resources. RESIST!!

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I’m a naughty Puddy Tat.   Because a Sunday without Wendy coming is so weird, I decided to treat myself to another pizza!   Yum!!  The Squatch has slammed Portland with an arctic blast, and we are entering the coldest days so far this winter.  The lows for the next four days will be in the 20°s.  I may actually have to shut my window!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:08 (average 5:06).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Inequality Media Channel): Have We Lost the Common Good?

It’s not available in Audible yet. I want it. I believe that the common good is worth fighting for, and will do so as long as one person will stand with me. RESIST!!

From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): President’s Day Special – A New Verse for the National Anthem from Parody Project

Amen! To achieve that, the Republican Reich MUST me obliterated! RESIST!!

From LA Times: Ever since Sam Paredes crossed into the U.S. illegally from Mexico nearly 30 years ago, he followed a simple philosophy of keeping his head down and trying to stay out of trouble.

The 39-year-old put in long hours for little pay as an office manager at a clothing wholesaler. He paid his taxes and hoped that after many years of waiting, there would come an immigration reform that would grant him a pathway to becoming an American citizen.

But one glimmer of hope afforded many young immigrants escaped him: Because the New York resident came too long ago, he did not qualify for immigration relief under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA.

Now he watches as the White House and Congress continue to grapple and negotiate and argue — but at least talk about — the future of the so-called Dreamers.

"I’m very bitter. These DACA kids definitely have this sense of entitlement," Paredes said. "People fought for them and they got DACA and they got their work permit and then they went to sleep, instead of working to fight for the rest of us."

I think Sam’s anger is misplaced. DREAMers rejected the Trump plan that would have saved them. They were too decent to throw the undocumented workers like Sam under the bus, or should I say into the ICE bus? Since they wouldn’t, we shouldn’t either! RESIST!!

From Buzzfeed: An Australian politician joked about shooting "greenie punks" just days after one of the deadliest school shootings in the United States.

George Christensen is a conservative Nationals MP in the Australian parliament with a reputation for controversial remarks about gay marriage, immigration and firearms.

On Wednesday a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in south Florida allegedly shot and killed 17 students, in one of the deadliest school massacres in US history.

Christensen has been a prominent defender of firearm ownership in Australia. The country introduced strict gun control laws in 1996 after the Port Arthur massacre, and has not had a mass shooting since.

On Saturday Christensen posted a Facebook post from a shooting range of Australia’s peak shooting lobby, the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, setting out his support for legitimate firearm owners.

In the initial post he defended sporting shooters, writing that "Gun owners aren’t criminals. They are olympians, Commonwealth games medallists, conservationists, farmers and many of them veterans."

But in a further comment below the photo, he posted an image of himself with a handgun, writing "You gotta ask yourself, do you feel lucky, greenie punks?".

I’m so sorry this creep is in their parliament. Are most Australian Conservatives also Republican Ammosexuals?  ¡¡ꓕSISƎꓤ

Cartoon:

I got up a little early, so I decided to publish today, but I am in a hurry, as WWWendy will be here shortly.  She lest and I’m a scrubbed Puddy Tat!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:44 (average 5:27).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (CSPAN Channel): Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein: “The indictment charges 13 Russian nationals…”

Not definitive, but it I expect it to become so. RESIST!!

From YouTube (NY Times Channel): Survivors of the Florida School Shooting Speak Out

Put petty partisanship aside? One party favors gun control. The other, the Republican Party, favors allowing the NRA to keep killing children. RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Lawrence: Donald Trump’s Fears About What Vladimir Putin Knows

The only other explanation is that Putin is blackmailing Trump over financial activities. My estimate is that Trump is Putin’s Pee Pervert, and Putin is threatening to release the pee-pee tapes.  RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Completely by accident, because it stopped!

I overslept this morning, but I’m doing OK, because I planned to skip my morning nap, anyway.  Tomorrow WWWendy is coming a day early, and I may have no more than an Open Thread or a Personal Update.  We have lots of chores to do, including the dreaded task.  In addition, we are celebrating Valentine’s Day.  I’ll just have to see how the day progresses.  TGIF!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:10 (average 5:05).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (Media Matters Channel): Right-wing media: It’s never the time to talk about gun violence

Bullshit Bag Alert!! ??

Lets not just talk about it. Lets DO something! RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Paul Ryan: No ‘Knee Jerk’ Reactions On Guns.

Bullshit Bag Alert!! ??

Lyin’ Ryan is doing what he always does: lying and prioritizing blood money over dead children. RESIST!!

From People: …“Consumers have no information,” said Thixton. “A consumer has to become a private detective to learn what’s really in their [pets’] food.”

To save pet owners the aforementioned detective work, ABC7 partnered with Ellipse Analytics, a lab specializing in food testing, to test pet food.

The station tested 62 samples of wet dog food from over 24 brands for pentobarbital multiple times over several months. Only one brand of food, Gravy Train, repeatedly tested positive for trace amounts of the euthanasia drug. Sixty percent of the Gravy Train samples came back positive.

And while the amount of pentobarbital found was not a lethal level, any trace of the drug is not permitted in pet food.

Gravy Train is made by the company Big Heart Pet Foods, which is owned by Smucker’s. Big Heart Brands is also responsible for the production of Meow Mix, Milk Bone, Kibbles’n Bits, 9 Lives, Natural Balance, Pup-Peroni, Nature’s Recipe, Canine Carry Outs, Milo’s Kitchen, Alley Cat, Jerky Treats, Meaty Bone, Pounce and Snausages.

The question still remains how the drug made its way into the food, since it is often only found in the systems of cats, horses and dogs put down by the drug. Some worry this means these animals are being put into pet food, reports ABC 7, while others are more concerned that the drug is there at all and what its presence means about the quality of the food we are feeding our pets.

Shortly after ABC7 shared its findings, Smucker’s announced Wednesday that it is voluntarily recalling shipments of Gravy Train, Kibbles ‘N Bits, Ol’ Roy, and Skippy dog food over concerns about the presence of pentobarbital, according to WebMD.

Since so many of our friends are animal lovers, I found this too upsetting not to share it. Click through. Isn’t it ironic that, just a few days ago, Infidel commented that Republicans could be putting cat meat in food boxes for the poor. RESIST!!

From Think Progress: There were many memorable moments during the first full week of the 2018 Winter Olympics, but the most indelible image might not be from the ice or the slopes, but rather, from the stands; it’s simply impossible to ignore the North Korean cheerleaders who have descended upon Pyeongchang.

Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten is so jealous of Kim Jong Un! He wants his own nubile “Army of Beauties” wearing MAGA hats and waving Nazi flags. RESIST!!

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