It's All The Fault Of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Not The Electric Reliability Council Of Texas)

 For years, apparently, Pacific Gas and Electric has been a giant cash cow - it has generated massive, dependable revenue (people on average always feeling it prudent to pay their electric bills).

And the beauty of that revenue, from PG&E's point of view has been, over the years, that there has been little offsetting expense; they cut and minimized all maintenance and upgrade costs as the money just kept rolling in.

 A couple of years ago that giant cash cow turned into a giant scavenging bird and came home to roost with a vengeance: massive fires killed people and destroyed homes, even to the extreme of destroying an entire town.

PG&E's chronic underinvestment was great for the quarterly reports and the stock price but it allowed for infrastructure that is prone to setting fires to be the company's mainstay out in the field.

That pretty well sums up capitalism at it's worst.

Texas, however, as always the biggest, has just recently gone a step beyond even a major California company; the entire state of Texas has managed to illustrate what not being messed with can produce from the standpoint of robber capitalism fettered by delusional politics.

Texas long ago rolled out an energy grid that has no external supplements or complements: when use becomes too great the grid has to depend upon itself; when the projected use becomes too great the grid has to depend upon itself; the upside to that, I guess, is that Texas doesn't have to share power with anybody else; the downside is, apparently, that when conditions get stressful the whole grid freezes.

The operator of the Texas grid has made a lot of money over the years; as with PG&E the money rolled in  non- respective to what investment in maintenance and upgrades had been made; and as with PG&E, that sort of investment has been minimal or lacking altogether.

So when the grid recently got stressed, and the grid had no external backup, and the pumps that needed to be pumping natural gas to the power plants froze - ERCOT (the acronym for the ironically named Electric Reliability Council of Texas) could have invested in freeze resistant pumps, but that would have been a hit to profits - the whole grid stopped gridding.

(Governor Abbott went on Fox and blamed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Texas' investment in wind power for the debacle; facts seem to point elsewhere.)

And as with PG&E, the cash cow of ERCOT has just changed into a giant bird that has come home to roost.

Only it was ice this time.

Meat Counter In La Defense

 

Some Paris Pictures

Eglise St. Severine: these windows are as beautiful as their ancient counterparts in the church, but these are from the Twentieth Century; I think I know that they were replacements for window broken by the nazis and are by Marc Chagall.  But maybe not.

 

Commerce on la Seine; Pont Neuf is upriver there in the haze.  The tip of Ile de la Cité is its right foot.

Passerelle des Artes at sunrise.

A vestige of greater times.

I was walking back from Jardin des Plantes to Le Depart St. Michel - I was on rue Monge - when two magpies landed in the planters of a first story apartment.  I was able to get this fairly clear picture of one of them.

Paris crows are one of my favorite - and most difficult - subjects.  This one might have been in la Ville de Puteaux on the island of the same name; or it could have been in le Jardin de Luxembourg; or it could have been somewhere else.

Carrots and baskets are my favorite still life subjects.

This is downriver from the naval of the universe.

Piranas at le Aquarium Tropical

Ol' Ted Comes Home

 I almost wrote this as a fiction follow on to my "Don't Mess With Texas" post earlier today.

But I didn't.

I wish I had.

Now it's just news - not even fake news; it's the real undeniable Ted Turnaround.

Wednesday Ol' Ted got so cold he flew off to Mexico - with his family.

Left his dog behind in the house.

"Dogs don't freeze" he assured the family.

They might need water, though.

But there isn't any water in Texas homes right now, so even if the dog could turn the spigot, the question of whether they need water is moot.

The fact that Ol' Ted had his family with him was fortuitous for him because after his constituents got wind of his taking up residence in the Cancun Ritz to ride out the Game of Thrones like climate in Houston he had to slither back post haste.

The politics of his Mexico slither got pretty hot pretty fast.

So, with singed tail feathers Ol' Ted slithered on to a plane and slithered off in Houston.

After completing that come back slither he had to have some rational explanation for his went to Mexico slither.

The truth of course is that patricians like him and his family don't need to contend with frozen pipes; that's almost an admission of being a commoner.

And besides a cold freezing house is really uncomfortable.

The truth then was obviously politically untenable.

So he trumped up a facile lie; he said he had to go to escort his daughters to Mexico.

That's exactly what I thought he would say.

The minute I heard that he had slithered off to Mexico I imagined that it was going to get so politically hot that Ol' Ted would have to slither back to Houston real fast.

I had the whole story formulated; I just didn't write it and post it.

I so regret that.

But now it's too late.

Now it's actual news: slithery ted has slithered north and given his family as the reason that he had slithered off to Mexico in the first place.

Real Black Swans

 They live in Parc Montsouris.

Don't Mess With Texas

 It's good to see the sterling results that can be had from a government of, by and for the republicans.

Texas is doing really well in the face of a weather catastrophe: all republican beliefs are standing up in spite of a whining onslaught from some feckless and backsliding everyday citizens.

Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas had some things to say to those mewling minions of mediocrity (I'm calling on the spirit of Spiro Agnew here) recently.  Apparently some were sniveling about not having electricity, heat or water; "what would you expect from such extreme conditions as has been the weather in Texas recently", is the obvious question to ask, not to ask "what is going to be done in amelioration"; amelioration after all costs big bucks.

From CBS comes this snippet: "In a Facebook post made Tuesday morning, Tim Boyd wrote that it is “not the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice!”

A little deeper in to the CBS article we find this "As for the power outages that have left thousands of Texans in the cold, Boyd wrote, “The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe.”

And finally "Boyd didn’t stop there, calling those who “have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you” lazy. “Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish (sic),”  

(As with most republicans Boyd is quite religious - thus the use of 'parish' rather than 'perish'. And you have to admire him for the nod to the militia mentality)

It's so good to have that quality of stiff upper lip and steel rodded backbone in charge at the local level.

But Texans are doubly blessed; they have Ted Cruz a paragon of bearded, independent thinking, bootstrap pulling up conservative, and yes, I'm not afraid to say it, CHRISTIAN values in a leadership role at the national level.

Ted left the cold Texas darkness and got on a plane to Mexico the other day.

But there is also superb leadership at the state level: Texans are lucky to have a man of the timbre and quality of Greg Abbott as governor.

I saw him interviewed yesterday saying that the whole problem is being caused by that damn renewable energy stuff: it just doesn't work.

I admire him for asserting the truth of the situation; he is being constantly undermined in his clear eyed assessment by the fake media: I have seen and heard multiple reports with the same fake news information - the renewable component of the Texas grid, which is 10% of the system - is performing as designed; the other 90%, which is mostly natural gas driven, has frozen up and is not working.

I think it is appalling that Governor Abbott has to put up with that level of insidious attack upon him and his god fearing, republican loving state; and don't get me started on the unique brilliance of Texas being the only entity anywhere with a power grid with no external complements or supplements; that is republican thinking of a level that brings tears.

In support of the Governor's assertion of the failure of the renewable component Fox news has run a number of times a video clip of a wind turbine being de-iced by a helicopter; what more evidence could there be in support of Governor Abbot's assessment of the situation?

The clip is archival footage from an incident in Sweden several years back, but it illustrates the mortal nature of pursuing pinko-green liberal socialist energy policies.

I am sure the people will rise up in his defense.

Once they thaw out their pipes.

The KKK Law Under Which trump And rudy Are Being Sued

 I don't know whether this picture of donnie back when he was running for re-election would have any effect on the outcome of the lawsuit, but it's an interesting possibility, isn't it?

Paris Picture Of The Day

 

The Trial As A Cartoon

 From: @Nick_Anderson_

This was on The Daily KOS this morning.

I think I summed up the trial result pretty well with:

A Few Images

In Paris: Eglise St Severine 

That's Pont Neuf

I think the Ferris wheel looks good through the trees.

This parrot flew out of le Jardin des Plantes to inspect a nesting site down where I was on the river/

A Lopez Island song sparrow.  It would be a fox sparrow if it had a yellowish lower mandible.

Lopez Island sunset

A red breasted nuthatch

One of my favorite picnic spots in Paris

Christmas on rue Faubourg St Honore

On The Other Hand: The Antithesis Of Exoneration

I don't know about something because I haven't been paying attention: we have been buried in snow and more practical matters like keeping the fire burning have taken most of my attention.

And a vegan Spanish rice/chili dinner that we had last night filled in a lot of time and attention.

It was really good.

And the "Coup" episode of The Crown was an exceptional diversion for the balance of yesterday evening; it's too bad 47 us senators didn't get to see the Queen's dressing down of Lord Mountbatten.

They might have voted differently.

What I don't know, because I have been otherwise engaged, is whether the "e" word has begun to creep into the commentary related to donnie's most recent impeachment trial.

But fifty seven percent of the US Senate DID vote guilty.

That's a lot.

Of Senators voting guilty.

That's probably why the highways of America will soon be festooned with a new road sign.

The trump defense: The Prosecution Committed Perjury?

 I can't find this to be true by searching.

But I have heard the BBC say it twice in the last couple of hours.

The trump defense says that the prosecution's case is a "preposterous lie".

So I guess that entire team is going to be tried for perjury?

trump defense: Coda

 I forgot to mention that in addition to the defense not even mentioning the excruciatingly detailed and compelling case laid out by the prosecution, let alone attempting to counter it, but instead mounting a defense based upon a series of assertions about how donnie is being mistreated, they almost immediately augmented that line of defense with the tried and true ol' "whattabout" defense: they played a video/audio mélange of Joe Biden as President of the Senate in 2016 denying multiple certification challenge requests.

I wasn't at all clear on what the point was to them documenting that our current President had previously properly conducted himself in the constitutionally prescribed certification of the electoral vote count that certified the election of donald trump as president, but I guess if you throw enough spaghetti against the wall some will stick.

Seems like a shaky defense in an impeachment trial.

However, as I noted previously, after about ten minutes of that useless and pointless gabble (that's almost an homage to Bob Dylan) I turned the debacle off.

I understand from sources that the mélanges have continued, Elizabeth Warren being subjected to a particularly pathetic example.

The ol' "whatabout" defense only works in dimly lit bars replete with half drunk denizens, I should point out; the ol' "whatabout" usually gets augmented, after heated invocation, by drunken fisticuffs; and we all know that that always settles things.

In America.

At this point, however, needs to be brought in the ultimate defense, steeped in the distant, hoary recesses of the Common Law:

What a great day in the neighborhood.

trump's Defense: We Sure Hope That Nobody Was Paying Attention

 In 2019 the attorney general of the United States called a press conference a few days before the release of the Mueller Report - the report of a special counsel investigating donald trump's involvement with Russia during the then recent Presidential Election Campaign.

Fat Billie told the gathered members of the press that the report found nothing and exonerated donnie from any malfeasance. 

I guess he was betting that no one would read the Mueller Report because the report didn't say what billie said it said.

The Mueller Report said that there were ongoing and extensive interactions and contacts between various levels of the trump campaign and a large array of Russians but conspiracy is so hard to prove in a court that there would be no use in pursuing conspiracy charges.

Then the Mueller report moved on to the second issue - one that had been induced by the investigation itself: at multiple points throughout the investigation donnie indulged in acts looking a lot like obstruction of justice.

Mueller documented ten of them.

He said that although any or all of those trumpian activities were likely to be provable as obstruction, accepted practice in the justice department precluded indicting a sitting president.

I think, but I can't remember for sure, he concluded that any pursuit of prosecution would need to be conducted by some agency properly accoutered and authorized to conduct such activity.

That would have been the republican senate.

We all know how that came out.

Apparently the trump defense team in donnie's most recent impeachment trial are employing the same hopeful tactic, that nobody saw or heard two days of meticulously, excruciatingly documented evidence for the case that back in June of 2020 donnie began to see that he might lose so he concocted and sold to his base the idea that if he lost, the election was rigged; he beat that drum incessantly through November 8, tried to stop the vote count long before most of them had been counted (he brought his goons in actively at this point - "stop the steal") and when he finally was certified as a loser, he made brief ridiculous feints at the courts and then called in the death star; in December he called a rally of the faithful to come to DC on 6 January and stop the steal. On 6 January hoards of donnie's goons showed up, as requested, in front of the White House.  Various warm up goon speeches, from Don Jr. and Rudy, among others were delivered at high decibel. Then donnie himself wrapped things up: he gave the speech that a lot of us have seen parts of incessantly ever since; in it he called for his goons to go to the Capitol and fight like hell - among other exhortations.

They did and the United States got lucky: the goons couldn't find Mike Pence or Nancy Pelosi or any of the rest of the elected government; they did get some good licks in at the walls, windows, floors and hearts of the Capitol Police; they killed one and injured 140.

It was a good day for the goons.

donnie watched the whole thing on TV.

When they had finished defecating here and there he told them to go in peace and that he loved them.

This morning I heard the trump defense start their case for a not guilty verdict.

It made no reference to the two day case from the prosecution, outlined above; there was no attempt to argue against that case.

Instead it was a series of assertions about how donnie was being mistreated; none of the assertions have any basis in truth or fact, and, anyway, who cares if everybody is picking on donnie?

The buck used to stop there.

And the buck in this case is the Prosecution's case outlined above, not the drivel and whining from an incompetent defense team trying to argue in defense of an undefendable  impeachee.

After ten minutes I had to turn it off; like Bagheera the panther I have no time for the green slime around the water hole.

You Guys Seem To Like Images

On Lake Washington in Seattle: a golden eye.

I have said this before here: I think dandelions shouldn't be considered weeds.

A shop window on rue de St Romaine in Rouen, not far from the best crepe restaurant that I have ever experienced.

This was on a major chic commercial street in Rome: priest stuff. 

There is a second crow arguing with several pigeons in the far left center of this image; it was more dramatic in real life.

Cinq: he was featured in "My Grandmother's Oatmeal Bread" post a few days ago.

Wild fires aren't fake news.

An altar avec Notre Dame.

trump Trial Verdict

 So far the case presented  for conviction has been brilliantly clear, coherent, indominable and undeniable.

Too bad the republicans have already voted not guilty.

Putting that aside, though, it looks to me that there are two other questions highlighted by the evidence presented and those questions cry out for their own yes or no verdicts, and they will be verdicts in the court of public opinion  a beast that can't be controlled by partisan spin and denial.

The questions are:

Is donald trump a sociopath? 

And,

Is donald trump a mob boss? 

The evidence presented to the Senate says the answer to both of those is "yes".

The Charlie Brown Defense

 donnie's lawyers main defense is that everybody is picking on donnie.

The Coasters "Charlie Brown" - Bing video

The Bill Of Attainder Artifice

 In Stuart England times were fraught.

James I pretty well pissed everybody off but he lasted out his reign to a normal death.

Charles I, James's son, pissed everybody off, got his head cut off and that ushered in 40 years of Cromwell, the rise of the Whigs and a lot of trans channel war.

Charles II, Charles I's brother got brought back to the throne from where he was living in France because the Brits had had a belly full of Cromwell, and when he died, and his son proved almost immediately to be incompetent they wanted to get back to normality: a king on the throne.

Charles II dodged and wove and avoided pissing anybody off too much (in fact he had his moments; he went out into the streets and fought the London fire with everybody else) but he did sign a secret deal with Louis XIV of France swearing his fealty to Louis for a lot of money that he needed to keep up his life style which included enough royally controlled military power to make him feel safe from the threat of the people.

Charles II died and his brother James II took over and immediately pissed everybody off again.

He lasted a little while but some secret negotiations between various British politicians - Marlborough among them - induced a Dutchman, William of Orange (married to James's daughter) to invade the island and run James out.

James cut and ran to France where he became house guest of Lois XIV (James knew about the secret agreement).

William of Orange became William III, king of England; he and his wife were installed as co-monarchs and had a quite successful reign; she ran the kingdom while he organized and executed the first world war in history, checkmating Louis XIV from establishing what Napoleon did establish 120 years later, and what Hitler tried to re-create in our not distant past.

That's all interesting, at least to me, but the really interesting part of those times is the machinations of the British Parliament during that era.

When if wasn't prorogued it was in control of the Whigs, or sometimes it was in the control of the Tories.

And they really hated each other, so when one was in power, if one were of the other faction it was a good idea to watch what was going on behind one.

One of the favorite tricks of both factions, when in power, was to pass bills of attainder.

These were legislative sentences passed upon people, mostly enemies; they frequently contained death sentences.

They were heinous examples of non judicial punishment: the legislature was passing judgement and and prescribing punishment.

That's not a real solid practice according to common law.

In any event, most of the targets of attainder never felt its pain because they usually were people of substance and could slither off to Romney Marsh and sail over to France or somewhere nice and wait for their party to come back to power.

All these years later attainder is one of two interlinked objections that trump's lawyers are lodging against going forward with his trial for inciting an insurrection.

They say that he is a private citizen and therefore immune to the impeachment remedy for high crimes and misdemeanors prescribed by the Constitution.

They further say that if the trial were to commence it would be an act of attainder, which is prohibited by our Constitution, since a hapless citizen (donnie) would be entangled in the tentacles of a legislative process (the Senate) which tries impeachments and is part of the legislature, so any punishment they might deal out would be non judicial and therefore attainder.

What unmitigated drivel.

Long standing precedent and 150 or so current Constitutional scholars say that donnie has been properly impeached and can and should be tried.

He committed the crime while "president", was indicted (impeached) while "president" and can be tried for his crimes.

The attainder argument is just alluding to irrelevant history. 

But talking about it sounds good when you are way over your head and substituting shouting for coherence.

I Predict This Will Be In The Evidence Of donnie's Trial

 I would put it at the very end.

It really is a summary.

Shouting Without Breathing Will Carry The Day: What donnie's Defense Did Today

 It was an inauspicious start: they felt compelled to concede that their opponents had skewered them.

And that, therefore, they were going to abandon whatever it was that they had said in their pre-trial brief.

And then they started shouting at the top of their lungs; and every other word was "due process".

They also constructed an artifice in which, if it had been anything but an artifice, trying donnie would be implementing a bill of attainder.

Since I have read MacAulay's History of England three or four times I was dazzled by the utterly bogus nature of the artifice.

And they kept shouting: donnie hasn't gotten due process (he has) he hasn't been given a chance to tell his side (he has and has refused to take it) and he is being tried even though as a private citizen he can't be tried by the Senate (historically not true).

And that whole loop, all false, was looped back to be exhibit A in the bill of attainder argument: a rats nest of lies make the big lie - must be or they wouldn't have said it (and they WERE shouting) - true.

All in all it was what one might expect: a closely rolled ball of threads, none of which mean anything on their own, or aren't true in the first place, or are true but irrelevant.

When I was an IBM salesman back in the last century, when we got into a really dicey competitive battle in a marketing situation we frequently employed FUDS - fear, uncertainty and doubts; it sometimes worked ( I always tried to use only true FUDS, by the way).

I guess we will see how an accretion of today's lies, closely rolled balls of fiction, non-sequiturs, quotes from an obscure Congressman and VERY LOUD SHOUTING can carry the day.

Since forty six of the jurors are of dubious human quality I am pretty sure that only 56 senators will vote to convict.

FUDS usually works.

The Trial: A Pincer Action

 The republicans say that the trial is unconstitutional.

donnie is a private citizen and can't be tried for high crimes and misdemeanors - he's not president.

So, if you time it just right, you can, as president make an attempt at a coup d'état, fail, and be not responsible.

I'm not a lawyer, but I occasionally listen to some - lawyers - and that argument, apparently doesn't stand up.

But if one is a republican,  and one wants to keep the base ravening in one's favor, one talks that trash.

***************************************************************

Given the plethora of You Tube video, Facebook video and text posts, and tweets of, by and for the ex "president' the prosecution's case is going to be rich.

In incriminating, excruciating detail.

And that's all evidence.

Evidence of donnie calling for a coup d'état.

Of the United States of America.

**************************************************************

All but five republican senators are over hard that the trial is political theatre.

That is a description so subtly rich that it had to come from someone other than the republican senate: they are too stupid to think up a phrase like that.

The "theatre", though, is going to get interesting when we get into the thick of things.

To repeat:

Given the plethora of video and Facebook posts and tweets of  by and for the ex "president' the prosecution's case is going to be rich.

And when that evidence is inexorably and relentlessly presented, on national real time media, a lot of reality TV fans are going to be influenced.

They might even start to shout "you're fired".

*****************************************************************

The house managers of the trial, unlike their republican senator opponents, are not idiots.

I imagine that they have a compelling video/audio case against the dildo.

And the dildo has a two lawyer team of deviant cretins - lawyers for the mob and dead convicted sex criminals.

But one never knows.

But when the mostly multi-media case has been presented and absorbed by the nation, I believe that a large majority of the nation is going to scream "guilty, guilty, guilty".

(That's an homage to Doonesbury.)

I doubt not that the senate republicans will all vote "not guilty" they all being idiots, and bereft of any moral code beyond white supremacy.

But in the long run the jaws of what actually happened are going to close down on them and their lies.

Like a pincer action in a battle of tanks in a war. 

And they are going to be crushed.

This I believe.

Two Crows At A Pigeon Meeting

 Hey, you guys; quit picking on Harry!!

Images For Super Bowl Day

 Five days after Ground Hog Day: Today The Goround Hog Won?

Smoke from US, Canada and Oregon, just in case you think that the fires were fake news.

I think I remember this to be in Jardin de Luxembourg.

I know that this was in le Bois de Boulogne; it is at the northern end of Lac Superiore (wild guess on the spelling); Mysti and I rowed this lake in March 2012 and were amazed at the number and the size of the carp.

My favorite chez des champignons; it's in Parc Montsouris - of course.

Cynges de la Seine.

This little flower was on the rue that ultimately leads to Parc Montsoris; I can never remember its name; but it is after you have traversed Avenue d'Observatoir for awhile; you move right.

I just looked it up; it's Avenue Denfert-Rochereau.

I posted this previously but I felt compelled to do so again.  I lived for a couple of months once four floors up in a building on Ile de la Cité; sunrise was a magic experience, every day.

Reflections Of Pont St Michel

A while back I lived on the fourth floor - etage trois - on Quai aux Fleurs.

This was at sunrise one morning.

 

Two Images For Today

Tres pensive, je pense.

 

Put the shutter speed correctly and you can get some pretty good pictures; I usually don't have it set correctly.  This is what we call up here on the Salish Sea a Junco.  She's a girl Junco.

Follow On To My Eisenhower Post: The Greatest Goat Rodeo Of Them All

 I just got this email from my "health care provider".

"The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) announced the next phase of COVID-19 vaccinations on Jan. 18: Phase 1B/Tier 1.  

"Both DOH and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) require (name deleted) and other medical facilities across the nation to follow this phased vaccination approach. 

"Phase 1B / Tier 1 includes people 65 years and older and individuals 50 years and older who live in a multigenerational household.   

"If you are interested in getting a COVID-19 vaccination, follow these three steps:

Visit the DOH Phase Finder tool to verify your vaccination phase eligibility.

If you meet the DOH phase requirements and are eligible to receive the vaccine at this time, visit the WA DOH COVID Vaccine Locator to choose a preferred clinic location.

If you need assistance or don’t have web access, please call DOH at 1-800-525-0127. We recognize many are eager to get vaccinated and prefer to receive a COVID-19 vaccine sooner than later. We appreciate your patience and ask that you please respect and follow the state’s phase requirements, which are aimed at prioritizing the most vulnerable people in our community."  

This was today at about 1700, 5 February.

As the email says, the State announced the Phase 1B/Tier 1 , blah, blah, blah, blah on 18 January.  

I know that to be true because I was sitting in a ferry line in Anacortes, watching another significant portion of the time I seem to have left melt away as the sun was setting and the loud speaker was confirming what everybody already knew - we all had been in that line a lot of other times and it's always the same - that the ferry was 45 minutes late.

So I had time on my hands.

I was listening to KUOW on my iPhone and I kept hearing about the DOH Phase Finder Tool.

It was brand new that very day, the 18th of January 2021.

It was being touted as the portal to immediate vaccination Nirvana, and that sounded good to me.

So I invoked Safari, keyed in WA DOH COVID.

That got me to a site that walked me through a series of steps designed to get me to attest that I am over 65 years old - how could they just believe what I said?

After successfully completing that attestation I got one of these:

Kinda like a gold star in grade school, it seems.

I would have preferred a gold star.

Since the whole purpose for this inane exercise -  inane from my point of view - was to get in some vaccination reservation line somewhere, sometime, I keyed in WA DOH COVID.

That led to a page that had Washington Counties listed, each one with a caret to its right on the page.

If you clicked on the caret, I guessed, as I sat in the ferry line, that you would get a sub list of vaccination points.

Since San Juan County, where I am living, was not on the list - which I thought to be exceptionally odd since Lopez Island Pharmacy over the last several years has built a nice business out of being the premiere vaccination provider in our part of the state - I did the next best thing: I clicked on the caret next to Skagit County, where I was in the ferry line (I had forgotten that I was in Island County) and found all sorts of places on the CONUS side of the water - like Costco in Burlington, who were not taking appointments and were proffering that they had no idea when of if they ever would be, taking appointments; but they did suggest that if one were to refresh the screen for an infinite period of time, the appointment gods might smile on one.

I thought it wise for my limited residual mental stability not to call call DOH at 1-800-525-0127.

I have to say, as a person who has seen a lot of goat rodeos in his time (I spent a year in Saigon in support of "The War Effort" for example) that the vaccination rollout in the United States is the greatest goat rodeo of them all. 

What else can one say about a healthcare system gerrymandered, fragmented, co-opted, privatized and optimized for profitability to the brink of oblivion trying to deliver a questionable - as to its actual existence - vaccine to a fluidly, being re-defined in real time (the 65 year old criterion is only the most recent of a whlole family of predecessor criteria) target population through delivery apparatuses that are pretty much like Brigadoon?

Images For Two Days After Groundhog Day

One of the themes is Screen Saver is chestnuts; golden chestnut leaves on a brilliant blue sky take the theme to another dimension. 

Whenever it's a blue sky day in Paris I go to Sacre Coeur.

This a rental tour boat on the Seine; it's also beautiful.

Wild roses are everywhere on Lopez Island; on a bike ride in May wafts of their perfume abound.

Seagull on Kelp: my master work

The wind was ruffling his hair.