This morning we cleaned, refilled, and set out the hummingbird feeders for what may be the last time in 2026.
We didn’t see a single, solitary hummer all day yesterday, for the first time this fall, and we fear the beautiful little buzzbombs may have called it a year.
Maybe they stuck around just long enough to see that Combover the Barbarian didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize for starting pointless wars, threatening to shove this and that up people’s arses, and otherwise jacking his draft-dodging jaw on antisocial media while his Secretary of Snapping Little Guys with Wet Towels in the Gym Showers livestreams the execution by firing squad of the Fort Hood shooter, who is confined to a wheelchair.
It recalls the scene in “Blazing Saddles” where Boris is preparing to hang a man on horseback — and his horse, too.
We vote. But not by mail, not in the strictest definition.
Yes, we receive our ballots via the U.S. Postal Service, but only so we can fill them out at the kitchen table, where last-minute research is easier and the lines shorter.
And then we march them over to the local polling place, an easy milelong stroll along the Tramway bike path. We exchange pleasantries with the nice folks doing the People’s Business, thank them for their service, and feed our sealed ballots into the box.
Then we stroll back to El Rancho Pendejo, secure in the knowledge that we have performed one of the most basic — and most important — duties of a citizen. Tossing rascals out and planting a fresh crop.
But you may vote by mail, for one reason or another, and that’s why you might want to check the shed for pitchforks and torches. Because the federal government — executive, legislative and judicial — seems to think that if they keep putting more roadblocks in our path, a critical number of us might not bother to vote at all.
Pucker up, Jeanine. The Great Builder has a boo-boo that needs kissing, and since you put it there — you know where — you’ve got the duty. | AP photo by Jacquelyn Martin
In an extraordinary motion filed Friday evening, the U.S. attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, said she was seeking to dismiss a felony charge against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist who was accused of pulling up a piece of the [Lincoln Memorial Reflecting] Pool’s lining two feet square.
In doing so, Ms. Pirro — a longtime ally of President Trump’s — directly contradicted the president’s repeated claim that the Reflecting Pool’s peeling liner was caused by people slashing its coating with knives. Instead, she said, “the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism.”
Earlier this month, Ms. Pirro herself had echoed the president’s claims, calling a news conference to announce Mr. Hearn’s indictment on July 2. She said that she had “tremendous evidence” that Mr. Hearn had committed a felony, and noted that he faced up to 10 years in prison.
Except, uh, not so much.
But on Friday, Ms. Pirro said that her prosecutors had been misled by the Interior Department, which had awarded a no-bid contract to a first-time government contractor to repair the iconic landmark.
Ms. Pirro said that the pool’s new blue coating had actually started to peel within two days of the project’s completion, and that the Interior Department kept that fact from prosecutors, telling them that “nearly all of the damage” was done by vandals.
Later, Ms. Pirro said, prosecutors visited the pool themselves and saw that could not be true. The lining was peeling in many places, some far from the edge where Mr. Hearn had stood. After that, she said, prosecutors had demanded more information from the Interior Department, which made clear that the pool’s problems had developed during the renovation itself.
Do tell. Polygraphs for everyone!
I guess Jeanine skipped the “Investigate Before Charging” seminar at Albany Law School. Bad case of brew flu, p’raps?
In any case, The Great Builder was not amused. Writing on “Truth” Social, he screeched:
“I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”
Couldn’t agree more. Charge the senile old saboteur who peed in the pool!
And a word to the wise, fatso: Get yourself a real ambulance-chaser if you want this kind of shit to stick to someone other than you. This boozy bag of hot air couldn’t deliver a case of beer to a frat house if one of the brothers was driving. She’d probably drink it all before they got there.
I woke up way too early — 3 a.m. — then rolled over and went back to sleep until 6. Miss Mia was not amused, and said so, loudly, otherwise I might still be asleep even now.
Except Herself would’ve thundered in eventually to kick me up the hole, because she is a working woman and has a full day ahead involving the making of money, the care and feeding of the 401(k), retention of health insurance, and like that there. Some slacker is in charge of breakfast, which clearly was not making itself.
So up, up, I got, and set about my morning chores, which do not dollar up on the hoof nearly as nicely.
The Morning Star Grocery, circa 2025
As I was emptying the litter box, making coffee, toasting bread, cooking oatmeal, brewing tea, medicating Miss Mia, and so on, I was thinking in terms of where to ride today. Forecast was for a slight chance of rain after noon, so I was considering a medium-long outing to the Morning Star Grocery and back. Haven’t been out there all year.
And then it started raining.
Well. Shit. Lucky me. If I hadn’t slept in, I’d have been out in that rain, dodging swings of Thor’s hammer instead of kicks from Herself’s tiny sandals.
• • •
Speaking of hard rains a-fallin’, I don’t expect there’s much that could go wrong — cough, cough, “Armageddon,” cough, cough — with helping Saudi Arabia plunge its bloody paws into Pandora’s nuclear box.
To the outside observer, there’s no reason to trust either end of this deal. The American side is being run by grifters and incompetents. The Saudi side is being run by people who have settled accounts with bone saws and beheadings and who also are sharper about money than the Americans ever will be. The idea that the current Saudi regime will be able to resist the temptations of enriching uranium without using it to build weapons feels laughable. I wouldn’t trust any government on earth that far, let alone an authoritarian theocracy with murder in its heart.
Alas, Babylon, etc. The Gospel according to Frederic Brown would seem germane here, if young Harry Graham were the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and not a bit slow. I take little solace from any headline that includes the null phrase, “Trump says. …”
