Month: October 2025

Piling On

Architecture

I don’t know how much more of this I can stand:

The White House on Tuesday reportedly fired members of Washington, D.C.’s Commission of Fine Arts, which advises on architectural developments in the capital, including the White House.

The White House has fired all six commission members who were installed under former President Joe Biden, and whose terms were expected to end in 2028.

“We are preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump’s America First Policies,” a White House official told The Hill.

So… does this mean no more government buildings that look like this?

Fire away, then.

At Long Last

Weather

Yesterday was our first actual day of fall here in north Texas, oh yes it was.  Temperatures in the low 60s, night time in the low 40s, and brisk, cold winds from the northwest… hell, I almost had to wear a light coat to the range, fer gosh sakes.  (A gilet was all that was necessary.)  From the forecast, it seems as though there’s no chance of any high temperatures popping up from now on, either.  Yippee.

And all you guys in the northern states can quit your sniggering now.  If ever I leave Texas — highly unlikely, absent a lottery win, and maybe not even then — it would be to escape the sweltering Texas summers, which are no damn joke (as much as we make jokes about them).

So the end of summer and the long-awaited fall — my favorite season, regardless of which state I’ve lived in — comes as a welcome relief.

In celebration of fall, my laptop’s wallpaper is this:

…although how I really feel is this:

Wouldn’t mind a little drizzle now and again, either.

More Like This, Please

Crime, Elections

It seems as though some people — quite a lot, really — have been Very Naughty and fraudulently voted in more than one election and on more than one occasion in each election.

Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Tuesday announced that he has referred more than 1,200 criminal cases related to election integrity to the Department of Justice for consideration of federal prosecution.

The state election official’s recommendations include 1,084 noncitizens who appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio, including 167 noncitizens who appear to have voted in a federal election in the past four election cycles.

LaRose said nearly 100 other people also appeared to have voted in a federal election twice in two separate states, and 16 people who allegedly voted twice in Ohio in the same election.

And if this has happened in Ohio, I’d suggest that it’s happened more often and for a longer time in garden spots like California, Illinois and New York, to name just the most likely suspects off the top of my head.

Of course, voting fraud is an actual felony, but if you think that anyone is going to see the inside of a jail cell for this crime, I would suggest that it’s time for you to go and clean out your unicorn’s stable.

As to which party might have benefited from all this skulduggery… let’s just say that I’m not accepting bets.

Woke Up

Eco-Crap, Watermelons

I guess we can all sleep easier in our beds now:

Billionaire Bill Gates has dramatically changed his position on climate change, acknowledging for this first time there is no “doomsday” risk from global warming.

In a memo published by Gates Notes Monday night, the Microsoft co-founder, who has poured billions into combating global warming, urged a move away from what he called a “doomsday outlook” and toward improving living conditions in developing nations.

“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” Gates wrote. “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”

Hey Bill:  as long as you use your money and not taxpayer money to improve living conditions in developing nations (what we call “shitholes”), knock yourself out.

I wonder what made him change his mind about the looming catastrophe that is Global Warming Climate Cooling Change©?

Whatever it was, it has to do with money.  Count on it.

Well, Now

Immigration, Legal Stuff

Seems as though there’s a teeny hole in the Constitution after all:

Twenty-five Republican attorneys general have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, challenging birthright citizenship.

“The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn’t square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War.

“If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country. Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents’ immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship. This case could allow the Supreme Court to resolve a constitutional question with far-reaching implications for the States and our nation.”

I have to say that this little feature always nagged at me (despite being a one-time immigrant myself).  The idea that anyone born in the U.S. had automatic citizenship seemed on its face to be unreasonable — I mean, I think that we are the only country in the world that allows for this in our legal system.  (There might be a couple of others, but I suspect that these might be countries where nobody wants to live anyway.)

Whatever, I’d like to see this whole “anchor baby” situation disappear.  The child should be a citizen of the home country of either the mother or the father (if known).  If nobody knows who the father is (a regrettably-common feature of modern-day life) and the mother were to die during or soon after childbirth, then I might be prepared to accept automatic citizenship for the baby, if only for humanitarian reasons.

Anyway, I’m glad to see that the issue may soon be resolved one way or the other.  I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out who might oppose this initiative by the various attorneys-general.