Month: July 2025

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No Kings? Fight the Oligarchy?

Recent behaviors of judges and SCOTUS justices have highlighted a profoundly stupid credence given by many (most?) to the idea of judicial supremacy, especially the supremacy of the SCOTUS in deciding what is/is not constitutional.
The Founders saw such a view as repugnant and dangerous, and the Constitution in no way, shape, fashion, or form bestows such a power upon the courts, including the SCOTUS. Jefferson, for example, variously wrote such comments as,
“You seem … to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions: a very dangerous doctrine indeed and one which would place us under the despotism of an Oligarchy.”
And,
“Certainly there is not a word in the constitution which has given that power to them [SCOTUS] more than to the Executive or Legislative branches.”
Want to “fight the oligarchy”? start with the judicial branch, especially the SCOTUS.

Read Article III. Heck, read,
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The View from Here

I want to say this clearly: there are only two kinds of “good Muslims.” On the one hand are those who have discovered too late that the reward promised by The Butcher of Medina was a lie. On the other hand are apostates who affect cultural quasi-Islam in order to get by in a Muslim society, perhaps loosely embracing the moderately peaceful Meccan verses in the Koran that Mohamed later abrogated with his hate-and-violence filled post-Medina proclamations. They are, at least mostly harmless (apart from their mild, passive support of the evil Islamic milieu).

That’s it. “Good Muslims” = the dead or the apostate.

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Circular File

Christopher Stasheff wrote (d. 2018) a more-or-less lighthearted scifi-fantasy mashup series that reflected the ethics/morality of his religious convictions without beating folks over the head with his principles; he just had characters that lived their fictional lives to a high standard of morality and ethics. What made that work, though, was that he told cracking good stories.

Fast forward to today’s introduction to a plot that attempts to use the same strange premise as Stasheff’s most popular work. . . and does so. . . poorly. *sigh* Four chapters in and I am about to ditch the book. I do not like the main character because the character is just about (well, almost) empty—there is no “there” there to the character, just *poof*, and I am still waiting for the story to get beyond the setup. Four chapters in. Just no.

Yeh, goodbye.

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Recovery

July has been a month of pesky health issues. My Wonder Woman is still recovering from respiratory and ear problems that completely sidelined her for three weeks.  During that same time, I managed to get a contact rash (I’ve identified the plant I foolishly did NOT wear gloves to deal with) that I, urm, transferred to rather sensitive places—inflammation and even fever with LOADS of swelling, and NOT in a good way. *smh*

As soon as that abated just a wee bit, I seemed to contract what my Wonder Woman had been battling. Fortunately, we already had a plan to deal with that based on her experience, and I have been able to carefully reinstate the exercise program I had re-re-re-started. *heh*

Today: 45 minutes of sustained yardwork (string trimmer and chainsaw in 90°+ heat). Waxed my butt, but. . . 161 BPM and 96 O2 levels. 30 minutes’ recovery: 113 BPM and same O2 level. BP 134/67 (pre-meds).

I can live with that, for now. Don’t know how it would have played out if sleep had been better last night, though. (AC conked out. Sweaty time “paying my water bill” in the middle of the night, and sleep lost getting back to it. ¯\_(”/)_/¯  oh, well 😉 ).

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Probably Won’t Do This, butt. . .

Saw Aussie Lap Puppy licking my Wonder Woman’s cat’s butt again, and thought, “Hey! Could save $$ on toilet paper if. . . ” Nah. While it would be a $$-saver, I just think. . . nah. After all, I have enough problems with his “cat-butt tongue kisses” already.

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I DGARA

Under “use it or lose it,” because we have not been using a particular CC, the company lowered our credit limit. *yawn* Let’s see if we can do that with our other CCs, too.

Still “Diamond Preferred,” though (whatever that means).

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That Thing. . .

Title of a chapter in a kind of “cars for dummies” (NOT a part of the “Dummies” books, just a book of that sort—name forever withheld to protect the guilty) that had me put the book down. “The Thing That Makes the Car Work.” Nah, there IS no “thing” that makes a car work. It is a complex machine that requires MANY things.

*meh* Not a harmful book, just a book for REAL dummies.

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Dealing With SuckyInternet(and TV)® Provider

Called to remove one of two cable services subscribed to.

CS: I need to verify your account. (This after referring to me by name.)
C: Why? You already identified my account [by name] from caller ID; you know I called from a number that is registered to the account. What else do you need?
CS: I can verify the account with the serial number of one of your devices.
C: ?!? Specify “device.” Which of the fifteen connected devices are you referring to?
CS: [Mentions the ONLY device my network allows them to see]

Downhill from there. But at least it finally got done. Probably. Maybe,

Until just last month, the only other –semi-legit– Internet service has been our local baling wire and chewing gum telco’s “DSL.” Yeh, I watched ’em try to hook up their “fiber” line to our POTS service a few years ago. No. Completely outside standards. Crappy phone service anyway. Dropped their POTS.

Looks like I need to take down a couple of trees [junk elms I do not want, anyway) to effect best placement for a Starlink setup. Then I can cancel EVERYTHING with SuckyInternetCompany®.