Solar wind

 

"A piece of Comet ZTF's tail has been pinched off and is being carried away by the solar wind," said SpaceWeather.com.  There's any amount of crazy space stuff right now, including coronal mass ejection.  Sort of puts earthly concerns into perspective. 

Who am I kidding?  Most Earthoids won't pay attention to these wonders unless a solar flare fries the Internet.  Then suddenly we're all North Korea -- no cat videos, no conspiracy theories, no trailers for Star Wars IV Part Six:  Enough Already.  We'd have to leave the house to buy things, play cards with pieces of pasteboard, talk to one another...it's too awful to contemplate.  

And then there's the happy news, like "Dolphins spotted in Bronx River."  Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut for all us misfits, got married on his 93rd birthday (the bride is 63).  Mazel tov, Buzz and Anca!  California vineyards report that all the rain has saved them from disaster, unlike the rest of the state which is pretty much a mess.

This concludes the happy news.

Ten days ago Islamist terrorists in Burkina Faso kidnapped 66 women and children while they foraged for food.  They have now been freed by the army.  Meanwhile, in the "developed" world, children are being abducted, apparently by traffickers, from a hotel in Brighton run by the UK Home Office.  An investigation by the Observer reveals this to be part of a pattern facing asylum-seeking children who arrive in Britain without parents.  One hundred thirty-six have been reported missing, with 79 still unaccounted for.  Far from calling out the troops, Home Secretary Suellen Braverman and the Sunak government seem unconcerned.  Many children apparently have their birthdates changed by the same Home Office so they can be classified as adults.  What was it Gandhi said about "western civilization"?

Asian-Americans in Monterey Park, California, were celebrating lunar new year when they collided with the American custom of mass murder.  A gunman killed ten people and wounded at least ten more before evidently shooting himself.  We are now waiting for the sheriff to announce that he bought the gun(s) legally.

Since he ran out of other things to do, Trump has been crashing wedding receptions at his Florida version of Motel Six to regale the guests with complaints about the "stolen" election and the perfidy of Democrats.  He also likes to play DJ, which is not something I want to think about.  Yesterday he put on his special pink tie (the color of mourning in Queens) and showed up in North Carolina at the funeral of Lynette "Diamond" Hardaway, who died at 51 definitely not from covid or the vaccine.  He gave a classy eulogy which touched on gas prices, inflation, the federal budget, how other countries are shipping their convicts and mental patients here, and the "big line of very, very nice vehicles outside."  Apparently he took credit for arranging the whole thing including valet parking.  "They said about fifteen, twenty minutes, in and out," he groused.  "This is a little longer than fifteen minutes, right?"  Is it possible that Donald Trump has never attended a Black funeral before?

As gatherings go, it could have been worse.  Patrons at Anna's Greek Restaurant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, were startled when the sound of gunfire interrupted their meal.  It was the Republican Women's Club of South Central Kentucky throwing a dinner for Jonathan Mattingly, formerly of the Louisville police.  The festivities included video of Mattingly and his former colleagues shooting up the apartment of Breonna Taylor.  Mattingly has embarked on a second career as a "conservative author and pundit," and the ladies wanted to get his take on the night Taylor died while she slept.  Rather than book a private room, they simply dimmed the lights and treated the whole restaurant to the footage while people tried to enjoy their moussaka.  Mattingly's Facebook comment:  "Food was amazing and staff was even better!"

The woke mob is baying at the heels of poor Kyle Rittenhouse again.  First the Southern Star Brewing Company of Conroe, Texas, backed out of hosting his traveling show "Meet the Killer" or whatever it's called, saying it "does not reflect our values."  Now he's been noped by the Venetian casino in Las Vegas, though they're going ahead with the SHOT Show (Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade).  It's getting so a vigilante killer can't make an honest living anymore.  

I will now say something mildly approving of Trump.  When his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton et al. was tossed and Judge Donald Middlebrooks imposed nearly a million dollars in sanctions, he saw the sense of withdrawing a similarly ridiculous suit against New York AG Letitia James.  Now I read that Alec Baldwin plans to resume shooting on Rust despite being charged with involuntary manslaughter.   Alec, you've spent too much time in the orange clown makeup.