Pardon is Such Sweet Sorrow

We're frankly enjoying the agonized screams of outrage from the Left over President Trump's pardoning of former sheriff Joe Arpaio for committing blatant, willful acts of law enforcement. The rabid media coverage of this non-event is both terrifying and ludicrous - in other words, entirely predictable.

The Washington Post's piece is headlined "What Authoritarianism Experts Think (of Trump's Pardon)," making us wonder who the hell "authoritarianism experts" even are, and what kind of reportage starts with seeking them out for opinions.

Or consider Slate.com's article "Trump's Pardon of Joe Arpaio Is an Impeachable Offense," which relies rather heavily on the hope that readers will only look at the headline, and not the actual story which rapidly falls apart.

It hilariously starts with this absolutely meaningless generalization: "Donald Trump has done many things that, once fully investigated, may prove to be impeachable offenses. We don't yet know all the facts, so final judgment on most of Trump's actions will have to wait."  Wow, we wish we had $10 for every vagary and weasel-word in that statement!

They then dive into the meat of the article: a law professor's theory that the pardon could be an impeachable offense (not "is" as the headline declared), adding that even the law professor "admits that this is a novel theory and, with respect, it simply won't fly." Well that's an interesting nugget to bury in the fine print.

Current estimates are that 11 trillion gallons of rain will fall on Texas because of hurricane Harvey. As nightmarish as this is (and please keep the victims in your thoughts), it's still less than the amount of BS our country is inundated with on a daily basis.

UPDATE: REMODEL PRISONER

"You may notice a slight odor from the paint for awhile."

Our master bathroom was painted yesterday, apparently with some concoction that is one part "Classic White" pigment to 99 parts nerve toxin. Seriously, the fumes from this stuff sear your throat no matter where you hide, and has impressive staying power. We should be throwing cans of this stuff to break up Antifa riots - and screw the Geneva conference.

Our contractor also informed us, with great solemnity, that our home is afflicted - perhaps terminally - with three distinctly different textures on the walls. We apparently have "crow's feet" (a trashy 70's look), "trowel wipes" (which means it looks like diarrhea-afflicted trolls smeared their butts on the wall), and a tiny, blessed bit of "orange peel" (which we're assured is "fashion, not fad!") to redeem us with any blind visitors who use braille to judge our walls and overall worth as human beings. Fortunately, it's not too late to turn all of the textures into "orange peel" by forcefully throwing money at our walls and ceilings. Wow - dodged a bullet on that one!

Mind you, the work on the house has only just begun. One of the next steps will be laying wood-look porcelain tiles pretty much everywhere. So far, this has involved moving all of the furniture from half of the house into the other half of the house, making individual rooms look like we're barricading the windows and doors with our belongings to keep zombies out. In the newly-cleared areas, expensive miracle plastic is being bonded to our concrete foundation to control a longstanding moisture incursion problem we've had because our house was mistakenly built over an ancient Indian sweat lodge.

So today (Monday) the tiles start going down on top of that plastic, but - surprise! - there's a little wrinkle there, too.  In order to create the natural look of wood, there is considerable variation between the tiles. Most are fine, but in every box of 20 tiles, there are 3 or 4 repeating patterns which need to be pulled out before they are permanently glued where our non-blind guests can see them.  And guess whose job it is to stand in a hot Texas garage, tear open the filthy boxes, and sort all 2000 or so tiles one by one before the tile guys need them?

The offending tiles, by the way, have become quite recognizable as they come out of the box. One is basically half-black ("The Barack"), one has a disturbing pattern of concentric whirls ("The Twilight Zone"), and another is The One With Two Highly Noticeable Black Dots Which Will Drive Us Crazy When We Spot Them All Over The Floor ("The OCD").

Even looking at this picture, we're getting the willies

And yes, the basic tile color was chosen to match that of Penny's constantly shedding fur. We may be crazy, but we're not impractical.

Penny, The Heartbroken Dog Who Lost Everything (soon to be a very sad children's book)

The Wreck of the Houseperus

"I've got good news!" our renovation contractor said. "Owing to a change in schedule, we can actually begin demolishing the rest of your home tomorrow instead of weeks from now!"

"Good news," in other words, is very much in the eye of the beholder. We now have to desperately scurry around and prepare every stick of furniture to be moved out of harm's way - including taking apart our insanely complex home entertainment system which, we're guessing, will never really go together again because it was assembled by the much younger and more technically savvy guy that we were 20 years ago. These days, we don't know HDMI from Shinola.

We have to unplug all of those bafflingly-connected electronics so that our entertainment center can be broken down and moved. It's a huge piece of custom furniture that in earlier times might have served as the towering centerpiece of Druid rituals.

The sudden change in schedule also forced a whirlwind of buying today: appliances, doors, locks, toilets, and more. Even now, our wallet is whimpering like a mournful puppy and economists are rejoicing at the sudden uptick of economic activity in the nation's heartland.

All of which is to explain why we don't have any real political commentary today, other than the fact that we basically like what Trump had to say about Afghanistan, and we loved the NY Times's spit-flecked outrage over the fact that Trump, unlike his loathsome predecessor, didn't talk specific troop numbers, specific strategies, or declare an automatic "pullout date" for our nation's enemies to pencil into their day planners.

Well played, President Trump.

And now, with hopes of giving you at least a LITTLE something to laugh at, we present an Earwigs cartoon (the frazzled subject of which looks a lot like our self-portrait at the moment). Don't be surprised if you see a LOT of these for awhile...

UPDATE: WIRE WE DOING THIS?

It was unintentional, but the picture in today's Earwigs turned out to be prophetic. Here's the home entertainment situation I had to wrestle with...

Putting On Our Apocalypse Glasses

Seriously, you're going to put your vision into the hands of America's sworn enemies and the Dollar Store?!

And since Nazis are very popular in the news right now...

Okay, one more, just for fun...

Today is "eclipse" day, which we're having sort of a hard time getting excited about. Not that we don't like looking at shadows, but come on - what's the big deal? At least one "news" outlet we saw referred to the eclipse as "historic," and many sources are calling it a "once in a lifetime event" despite the fact that the next total eclipse in these parts is just 7 years from now. Which, granted, may seem like a lifetime to Trump haters.

As far as we're concerned, the moon's shadow is always somewhere but we just don't see it, in much the same way we don't see a random Chinaman taking his morning poo on the far side of the world. Both are hard-to-see sights unless you're in exactly the right place at just the right time. Even so, we wouldn't go out of our way to catch either one (nor would we observe either without protective eyewear).

Then again, maybe we're just grumpy because this is the week that our personal "Apocalypse glasses" need to be put on during the home remodeling. The master bathroom has come a long way (on Friday, workmen finished tiling the floor of our master closet and the result is breathtaking - in part because it was supposed to be carpeted) and today our giant, expensive granite countertops are arriving - producing a near total eclipse of our wallet.

Alas, Formica, I knew you well...

Putting in the kitchen countertops means tearing out our stove, our sink, disposal, and our dishwasher - none of which will be replaced for days at the very least. Seriously, we're going to be living like North Koreans. Well, North Koreans with access to fast food.

On the positive side, the coffee machine will now be perking in our only working bathroom, which should prove to be a time-saver (assuming that, in an historic first, the aforementioned Chinaman hasn't beaten us in there).