Centipede!

     They've got knees, you know, moving in a forest of long, scissoring legs like a busy assembly line of robots.  This one went zooming across the kitchen floor from sink to stove.  Tamara and both cats alerted on it, with Holden Wu expressing considerable interest in hunting the wriggly insect: a long-legged centipede, almost certainly the House Centipede, Scutigera coleoptrata, and probably lured by our small springtime invasion of "crazy ants."

     They are slightly venomous, with a bite that  can inflict bee-sting levels of pain.  So while Tam herded the cats to safety, I did what was necessary.  While I hate getting rid of a small creature that hunts ants, they're not safe toys for the the cats.

Canada, Ey?

     It looks like Canada has definitively rejected "Trumpisme érable," which should put an end to talk of Anschluss from the White House.  Should, but probably won't; and there's 2025 in a nutshell, with a particular emphasis on the nut trying to hold the controls.

A Little Light Math History

...
Oh
Oh
Fibo-
Fibona-
Oh, Fibonacci
Oh, Fibonacci chi chi chi
Yes, Fibonacci, Fibonacci, math whiz you are!
It's amazing, just amazing, your string of numbers, how it spirals up to the stars!

      (To the rough tune of "La Cucaracha" until it goes off the rails, after which you're on your own.)

      Zero and a one and a one and a two and a three and five and eight!

Pasta Porcini E Formaggi, Plus

     Think of it as mac & cheese on performance-enhancing drugs.  Alessi sells several versions of pasta and cheese: cheese and broccolini, black pepper and cheese, and porcini mushroom and cheese.  It's dehydrated, stays good on the shelf for a very long time, and it's quick to prepare.

     I wanted something a little different for breakfast today, a plan which would have worked better if I had gone to the grocery store yesterday.  But I had bacon, eggs and a packet of Pasta Porcini e Formaggi.  The cheese is Parmesan and Romano, and they've got the dehydrating thing all figured out.  I hard boiled three eggs, fried four strips of bacon, and made the pasta in the microwave, a simple matter of mixing it with water in a bowl, giving it eight minutes, stirring the result and letting it sit for two minutes before snipping in the bacon, peeling the eggs and running them through the slicer, adding a few shakes of truffle powder* and stirring the whole thing together.

     The pasta is curly but skinny, so it's not quite American mac & cheese.  I think it's better; the ingredients compliment one another well, the crunchy bacon and al dente pasta add interest and the flavor is wonderful.  I ate two small bowls and a couple of forkfuls more before realizing I'd eat all of if I didn't stop -- and it makes enough for four people.  You can vary the ingredients, and, depending on how you make the dehydrated mix and how hot it is, even add raw eggs and let them cook just enough from the heat of the dish (this is tricky and carries some risk from undercooked eggs; or, if the mix is too hot, you end up with scrambled eggs and not a silky sauce, though that's okay for brunch).

     It is dish heavy: a small saucepan for the eggs, a skillet for the bacon, a bowl for the pasta and cheese.  But it's worth the effort and the extra dishwashing.
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* A pure indulgence.  I bought the stuff quite a while ago and I will darned well use it up.

It Takes It Out Of Me

     Already flirting with fatigue, chairing the writer's critique group yesterday left me tired and out of sorts.  It's fun nevertheless; the group are interesting people who write interesting stories, and they have good insight into how well a piece of fiction is working.  It's worth the effort.

     The entire club meets after an hour's break and this time, the business portion went down a byway that I find annoying.

     Robert's Rules of Order is a great way* to run group of any size over a few people -- especially if you stay in the well-greased tracks.  Take a little-used siding, and you can hear the wheels screech: despite multiple revisions, RRO uses specialized and somewhat archaic language that often requires an arcane specialist -- a parliamentarian -- to work out how to apply the rules (or sometimes, just to explain what Brigadier General Robert actually meant, a topic on which he published two books himself).  That's fine, except for one little hitch: the parliamentarian ought not be taking part in the particular debate in which such clarifications are needed.

     In practice, it's always the other way around: the participants in the debate address not only the specific and particular issue, but the rules as well.†  This runs headlong into things as (presumably) simple as the difference between "calling into question," an ordinary bit of language inviting debate, and "putting (or calling) the question," the term describing how the chair ends debate and puts a motion up for vote.  If the debaters are trying to wring victory from the rules instead of the merits of their position -- or are perceived by others as trying to -- it starts to feel like cheating.

     One solution is to name one (or better, several) parliamentarians, and hope at least one of them won't have picked a side when matters become contentious.  Another -- and one I have encountered on City Councils -- is for the chairperson themselves to handle the job.  That works well if the chair is strongly motivated and reasonably impartial (and has a loud gavel), and stinks on ice if they favor one side and lack the gift of persuasion.

     It's frustrating, and more so if you -- or in this case me -- happen to be cranky and impatient.  Ten or fifteen minutes later, the matter was resolved, but not before I began to think I could have just as easily stood in bed.  They had an interesting speaker later, so, so I'm glad I didn't.
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* It is not, however, the only way.  Many Quebecois prefer the Morin Code, which among other things has the advantage of not needing to be translated into French from some other language.  I like consensus-based decision-making, but it can be slow, awkward, and lacks -- much as you might expect -- any definitive central reference like, say, a single book.  Versions that insist on unanimity invite schism; versions that allow for small dissenting minorities can create festering resentment.  No system is perfect and RRO has the advantage of taking simple majority rule (for most things) as axiomatic.
 
† Complicating this, the most competent parliamentarians are liable to be people who have read for the law; and while there must be attorneys somewhere who do not enjoy spirited debate, I have yet to meet one.

Drat That Infection

     Tam and I both fought viral bronchitis and I have to say, too many more victories like this and we will be undone.  We're both struggling to get back to the lung capacity we had before it struck.  I can't speak for her but I tire easily at present and I get foggier when I am tired.

     I struggled to finish manuscript critiques for the writer's group I chair, and then I discovered I've run the black ink tank dry on my color printer.  I still have the big, fancy all-black laser printer, at least, so I got everything printed out.  The highlighting doesn't work quite as well, but it should do.

Bloop Is Now Fucus!

     I had to put Microsoft Teams on my home computer for work and now every time the computer starts up. there's a splashy notice that Skype has gotten hitched with Teams and taken its name, or possibly the two have done something hasty and lurid at a bus station.  Whatever, Microsoft wants to make Very Very Sure I know it has happened, is happening or will happen with the videocall app I don't have -- on this computer that doesn't have a camera connected to it.

     It's Philip K. Dick's world, cheesily intrusive ads and all.  We're just living in it, long after he moved on.  I suppose we should be glad we got that part and not the The Man in the High Castle part, though sometimes I wonder if there's not a surplus of fools who want that as well.

Carrying On

     Not today, ever-increasing sense of futility.  Not today.  I will enjoy the sunshine as much as I can.

     Also, the eagle flew on schedule, so that's a good sign.  But I refuse to count on it.  With the flakes and weirdos running around Washington, wreaking havoc, it could dry up at any time.

Weighing In Lightly

     He wasn't the leader of my religion; I don't even have much in the way of religion.  But I will note the late Pope Francis as a man who put in an honest day's work and wasn't particularly impressed by the trappings of his office, at least the ones that weren't intrinsic parts of the rites and rituals of his faith.  He seemed genuinely concerned by human suffering and he tried to help alleviate it.  I admire that.

Ears

     As my hearing slowly goes wonky, I get delightfully surreal flashes: "Funding provided by Bakery Drinker, supporting the upcoming Ham and Egg Conference in Indianapolis."  I'd go to that one, but they're gonna have to promise to lay off the sauce.

     It's largely a phenomenon of listening to radio streams and podcasts on the tiny speaker of an Alexa "Dot" while washing dishes or cooking: lots of background noise and audio with a wider bandwidth than the transducer can handle.  With a better audio system and earphones or bigger speakers, I'm fine.  I probably won't always be fine -- and I remind myself, as I am reminding you, to take time to listen to music you like, at volume levels that are suitable but do not endanger your hearing.  Later replays will trigger memories, allowing you to "hear" even the parts your ears can no longer accommodate.

See Previous Post

     I meant it.

     Today brought new evidence of arrogant incompetence.  If they'd take their jobs seriously, it would make up for a lot -- not everything, but at least show up, pay attention, and color inside the lines!

A Wig Made Of Fire

     Some commenters tell me to calm down about the politics; one guy claimed that the country had "suffered greatly" under President Biden, and what was ahead was going to be much, much better.

     Better hang onto your hat, buster -- especially if it was made overseas, which is likely.  Ask the longshoremen; ask the truckers: goods move much more slowly than a President's whim, but the flow is dwindling and will come to a near stop by and by.  We "ain't seen nothing yet," in the most literal sense: China-made stuff is going to vanish long before there's anything to replace it, and we'll have plenty of nothing in the meantime.

     Adam Smith wasn't wrong.  Trade will still move.  But it will have to pivot.  If a factory in Country C can churn out out blivets for a nickel each, and people in Country A are willing to pay five bucks apiece, once tariff barriers go up there's still a market at six-fifty per when somebody sets up a warehouse in low- or no-tariff Country B where they buy blivets from C, stamp 'em with the complex and unmistakable sigil of Country B Blivet Works, and export them to Country A.  But it takes time to set that up, especially since whoever's doing the stamping needs to get it done for no more than a few cents if they're going to turn a profit.  And when it's got to be done in a hurry, on everything from saucepans to sponges to steering wheels?  Ouch.  We're going to have a summer of empty shelves and if we're lucky, the five and dime will be restocking stuff, junk and sundries at only slightly inflated prices in time to make a head start on Christmas shopping.

     It's going to be ugly.  Even if the Administration finds a way to blink on tariffs and claim victory -- and they're good at that, a sleight-of-mind with a couple centuries of polishing in Washington -- there's a big glitch coming, one that will do damage to a country and society I hold dear.

     Damage to the big Commissions and Departments being savaged and hacked by a half-baked bunch of "efficiency experts" culled from Silicon Valley is likely to be more lasting.  They're heaving institutional knowledge overboard with zero regard, and by the time those chickens come home to roost, the "experts" will be long gone.  Many of us have seen smaller versions of it in our workplaces and the outcome is rarely an improvement.  It's not going to be an improvement when it's Grandma's health care and Social Security, Junior's baby formula and your tax return.  Political meddling is destroying the stable future I was counting on for my own retirement, and I resent the hell out of it.

     Look, Joe Biden was what you get when you ask Central Casting for an Elder Statesman Democrat President, and Kamala Harris is who they send as the Next Generation of the same thing.  But they took their jobs seriously and put in an honest day's work.  The 2024 election was Herbert Hoover or Harry Truman vs. Mussolini, a choice between George Bush (either one) or Stalin: neither candidate was a perfect wonderful choice, but one of them was much, much worse, and hadn't made any secret of it.  That was the test my country was put to, and we failed it.

     I'm not going to try holding my tongue until the the problem passes -- because I am none too sure it will pass at all, especially if nobody's willing to get out and push.  Congress is too damn comfortable; they have been for years.  There are very few things that will rile up enough Senators and Representatives to get a plurality of them engaged in vigorous debate, let alone take action.  It's why they're all so happy with stalemate, with tiny majorities who can make a valid-seeming claim to the utter, futile impossibility of accomplishing anything, as they yawn, turn over, and let the White House run unbalanced and unchecked.  It's up to you and me to do what we can.  I won't miss a vote -- and I won't shut up, either.

     There are other things to write about here and I will pursue them.  But politics will keep on coming up as long as it's a problem, and it's unlikely to stop being a problem for the next several years.