I walked out back last night and good thing the dogs didn’t follow me, because there was a snake just outside the kitchen door. Good also the outside light was on or I might not have been able to see it and keep my distance. I went back in and called Donna. She grabbed a flashlight and together we went out to see if we could identify it. We got a good look at it as it tried to find a place to hide. I got a photo of it under our garden wagon. Polly joined us and was able to get another photo. Whatever it was, it appeared to be young, since it was only about two feet long.
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You can’t see its tail in the photos, but we observed black and white stripes and what appeared to be a rattle, and that, plus the photos, helped us with the ID: it’s a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, probably juvenile, common to this area, quite venomous. We locked the dogs in overnight, and this morning Donna, Polly, and I searched the back yard and patio, prepared to call the fire department to have it removed if it was still here, but it seems to have moved on. Fingers crossed.
Not that they’re anything to worry about, but you know what we haven’t seen around here for years now? Tarantulas, juvenile or otherwise.
A friend and fellow Hash House Harrier is writing a book about the history of hashing, a subject I’ve long been interested in, and has asked me to review a draft of his work. He’s really getting into detail, beginning with the history of running itself — literally going back to cavemen days — so there’s a lot to read. When I wrote about the history of hashing, I always tried to keep it short, fearing hashers wouldn’t want to read anything too demanding. Donna was always after me to write a book, but I was content to blog or contribute short pieces to the various hashing magazines that have popped up (and quickly died) over the years. I like to write, but a book? It’s not me. Anyway, if you want to see what I’ve written about the history of hashing and the Hash House Harriers, click here. Also here. And last but not least, here.
I admit it. I’m a conspiracy theorist. Can you blame me? Could the staging of the famous “assassination attempt” photo at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, be any more obvious? Never mind the other tells — the odd behavior of the Secret Service agents, their failure to keep Trump out of the line of fire, the cowardly target’s defiant fist-raising “bravery,” the miraculously-healed ear, that fact that Trump doesn’t talk about it ever — this short video shows it was all about getting the money shot that clinched the election.
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People are talking about this now because it happened one year ago, and I expect pretty soon the conversation will move on to other outrages, but I thought it was staged from the get-go, and said so, and as time goes on my opinion has only hardened. I’m just surprised no one with insider knowledge has blabbed yet, and that the media hasn’t dug into it. Is everyone really so afraid of Trump?
Kinda hard to mention the staged assassination attempt and not Epstein, the other thing everyone’s talking about. My opinion? We’ve known all the important stuff about Epstein for years, since Trump’s first term and possibly before. Trump’s long friendship with Epstein, his flights on the Lolita Express, the involvement of other prominent men — Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew and all that crowd — the 13-year-old girl who said Trump raped her and then threatened her and her family to keep her quiet, etc. What more are we going to learn from the Epstein files? What will change if they’re released? Will a single man join Ghislaine Maxwell in prison?
Ha! You know the answer to that as well as I do. More likely, MAGA will decide pedophilia is just fine (as long as you’re Republican, of course).
I sort of figured he offed himself thinking about his past life as Master of the Universe, with more young cooz than you can shake a stick at, jetsetting the globe with the movers and shakers.
Compared with his coming lifetime of sad jailhouse faps, or being an elderly bottom.
Or maybe some of the cons got to shit-talking him about the fate of ‘short eyes’ in lockup, and weaponizing toothbrushes. He took the easy way out because he was an immoral coward.
Someone as canny, slimy, powerful and rich as this subhuman was, he probably made multiple copies stashed in different places as life insurance.
With audio and video and DNA attachments ala Big Bill Clinton’s humanstain blue dress. Powerful blackmail and coercion material. Trump is in there for sure and plenty more top Grifting Old Party and Dem statesmen alike.
But it won’t make any difference to the base. Late stage capitalism’s panoptigon propaganda has made the ordinary citizen nearly as stupid as trump, combined with our oligarchs’ successful destruction of our educational system.
Just about able to see they are being conned and the fix is in, they got no chance and their lives will only get worse, and they are in a constant rage state about it, abetted by Fox News etc.
But the fascist cultists and Fox never blame Elon or their God-King for giving all the money to rich cronies. It must be those illegal immigrants, gays and trans people, and lazy minorities, the reason I can’t get ahead.
Sure, the dotard’s brain turns into more rice pudding every press conference and he’ll be dead soon. But Putin’s Republican party will soon find another traitor like trump.
Because nearly half of Americans just really like the Roman Games spectacle of fascism: the manhunts and roundups, broken families, busted heads and red red kroovy at ICE protests, the hatred, racism, misogyny, massive theft from the lower classes. Blame it all on the other.
They quite enjoy the human suffering because they are sadists. They lack empathy and it is not being taught to them. This is the party of the left side of the bell curve: the <100 spectrum of IQ. But they vote.
We’ve always been like this. But with the open degradation and treason of the Republican party, they no longer feel the need to hide their master race, neoconfederate beliefs.