Blue skies, si; smiling at me, no

Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

Some mornings — maybe most mornings — eyeballing the news first thing is a real bad idea.

For openers, The Duck! City’s coppers told KOAT Action News that the 11-year-old suspect in Scott Habermehl’s death had already been considered “a danger to the community” thought to have a number of antisocial pasatiempos, among them “shooting one person, shooting at another person, as well as burglarizing multiple homes, vehicles, and a business.”

Next, a Las Cruces auto show turns into a shooting gallery. The body count varies wildly depending on your source of information, but The New York Times apparently had someone on the scene and counts maybe two dead and six injured.

It will tell you much about the state of today’s newspaper business that the Las Cruces Sun News had to run with a story from its El Paso cousin before finally getting its own report online around 8 this morning. Check out the staff directory. The El Paso Times now reports three dead and 14 wounded.

And finally, the DOGEbags are busting balloons over at NOAA, as John Fleck tells us in his latest wrecking-ball report.

Writes John: “Daily radiosonde launches from National Weather Service sites across the country, coordinated with similar launches at the same time around the world, provide critical data input to weather forecast models. While satellites and other data sources play an increasingly important role, the tried and true twice-a-day weather balloon launch provides the vital skeleton on which our weather forecasts depend. … The benefits of good weather forecasts vastly outweigh the costs of collecting and analyzing the data.”

NOAA shit?

Weather? Or not. …

Maybe it’s just that NOAA has been swept away by a tsunami of unitary-executive idiocy, but the weather reports around here lately are bordering on the comical.

Sure, that photo up top looks plenty ominous, but lots of stuff does first thing in the morning, especially since Jan. 20. By 10:30 the temps were in the mid-40s, and after checking the forecast I decided to drop my plans to go for a run and instead took my old road-racing bike out for what I said would be “a short ride.”

In terms of First World Problems this was an iffy proposition. Last time out on this rig I flatted the rear tire just a mile or so from El Rancho Pendejo, and trying to lever the sonofabitch loose of its rim to swap tubes was like trying to pry a Texas Republican’s lips from Beelzebozo’s diapered ass.

I did not want to be doing this in wind and rain. Or snow. But tomorrow’s weather looked worse, so off I went.

And whaddaya know? It was glorious. Bit of a wind, but going out and up it was mostly behind me. And when I turned around to head home I was able to duck in and out of various suburban neighborhoods and mostly keep it out of my face. Stayed out for 90 minutes of hills and even felt a bit overdressed.

Also, I didn’t flat. So, bonus.

When I got home, my iPhone told me it was raining. Huh. News to me. And fake news at that.

Herself, coming back from a run, said her iPhone was telling her the same thing.

I made us some lunch, then she hit the gym, and I rolled out to the bakery and the grocery. Still not raining.

By 4 p.m., it was still sunny enough for a haircut, so Herself broke out the clippers and had at me. Near the end of that process, which is like shaving a particularly lumpy and unlovely blue-eyed coconut, we thought we heard some raindrops on the skylight.

Rain me bollocks.

Nope.

And now my iPhone promises it will be raining in 26 minutes.

Huh. I guess it’s true what they say. You can’t believe everything you read. Especially if it has to do with stormy weather, in The Duck! City or the Oval Office.

P.T. Barnum was right.

• Postscript: And naturally, as of 7:24 p.m., it’s snowing.