Spot-on analysis from a conservative Korean newspaper. "Trump's pushing for naval supremacy over China. Here's what his maritime order misses." https://t.co/QRqnCD2M8r
— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) April 18, 2025
Good morning, good people!
I finally get an actual weekday off Friday, and spent it doing laundry, scrubbing a bathroom, cleaning the kitchen, grocery shopping, and enjoying the lovely view of my back pasture. We discovered we are providing a home for a pregnant doe. A little Bambi is coming soon.
Welcome to Friday Night Photos everyone. Your once a week break from the daily madness of the crazy world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music, or whatever else you find of interest that helps you escape the madness.
The week got off to a rocking start Monday morning with a 5.2 magnitude earthquake centered between Ramona and Julian which is about 30 miles northeast of where I live. I was out with the bird watching group for our monthly bird walk when it happened. It was kinda funny hearing everybody's cell phones all start chiming with an emergency alert messages right after it hit. A moment's pause while everybody acknowledged the message on their phone then right back to bird watching. Oh look! A Common Yellowthroat.
Our bird walk this month was at Santee Lakes. It's breeding season for the Wood Ducks and they were in abundance.
Great Horned Owl. I hear them all the time at night. This is the first time Ive seen one during the day out in nature and not in captivity.
Can you feel it? We're just about there.
I heard it in my best friend of fifty years voice a few days ago. At 74 years of age and close to the end of the 10 year timeline he was given after his major heart attack, I would have thought that he would want to enjoy life in his new found home in the state of Florida. Given his condition I would have thought that he would want to take life easy in what's left of his time in this realm. I wanted to talk of old times, good times, of old friends, of family, about our lengthy friendship through thick and thin, of our lives well traveled. All he wanted to talk about was how ready and willing he was to fight to the end. I could sense the panic and fear in his voice, it was palpable.
I know that Trump talks a lot about world opinion of America and he's going to restore it, but it appears now that MAGA doesn't actually care what the world thinks, and it's going to cost us all.
They are sending billionaires and pop stars into space while the planet burns and Americans ration their insulin.
There are companies marketing AI lovers to lonely people and harvesting their data.
Last night Israel bombed a tent camp in Gaza, and women and children burned alive.
This is a strange, dark place. Strange, dark times in a strange, dark world.
Do We Need To Be This Scared?
I was with a friend a few days ago. She is planning a trip from Seattle to Chicago by train in July. She's 'old'; she's 76 or so. The train trip sounds fun to me and to her! Some of her other friends have advised her to get a burner phone (Gjohnsit posted a comment about these a few days ago) and a burner laptop, with nothing on them but maybe games, in case she's stopped by the police or TSA (really, on an in-country train trip?) and she's detained and her phone and laptop are confiscated and searched because she is 'suspicious'. Do they actually do this kind of searching of people on trains as well as airplanes? Any passenger? I've not heard of it happening on trains, I have to admit.
Daffodils in the garden, because, SPRING!!! 
