2021 Keeps Getting More Exciting.

So, we had this going on in the backyard this week:

 

I have three feeding stations for the backyard birds, including this one under the Pinot-Grigio-O-Meter table. We went through 40 pounds of bird seed this week because it was cold and birds use up a lot of energy to stay warm:

The Cardinals were looking particularly picturesque:

Cardinals are cowards, and they won’t scrum with the Blue Jays, Starlings, Doves, and the teeny brown birds for room at the feeder, so I have a trough for them on our kitchen patio because I have a soft spot for dim-witted birds.

Well, the week started off with an acquittal for Trump which I thought was going to be the biggest story so I harvested plenty of snark for you, but then the Texas Shit Show happened and then Rush Limbaugh died, so we have a LOT of content for you today. 

Let’s get right to it:

What was true for Trump’s first Senate trial is true for his second:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy Pelosi has appointed retired Lt. General Russell Honore, who was the commander of the task force in charge of the military response to Hurricane Katrina with leading an independent investigation into the events and actors of the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Honore has a very active Twitter account and in the past he has been quite outspoken about what he saw on TV that day. Now that he’s in charge of rooting out the truth about the insurrection, I think it’s going to go well for Senator Josh Hawley of  Missouri:

But let’s catch up with what ex-Trumpers have been doing to keep themselves busy lately:

 

Yeah, we have to pay closer attention to these scumbags:

 

 

 

 

 

Here on the north shore of Long Island we got a foot of snow on the ground on February 1, and then we got 4 more inches between February 6 and 8, and today we’re going to add about 8 inches on top of that. So when we heard that Texas has its first snowfall since, oh I don’t know, 1812, it seemed funny:

 

 

But then the power went out, and pipes burst, and people froze in their homes, and hospitals had to evacuate because they had no running water, heat, or electricity, and it wasn’t so funny any more.

 

But let’s be clear why this happened in Texas:

 

 

 

 

 

I mean, even ARKANSAS did better in Winter Storm Uri:

 

 

The Republican mayor of Colorado City in west Texas, Tim Boyd, was fed up with constituents whining that they expected to have power and heat from the utility companies that they pay money to every month:

If you have the time, you really should read what he wrote about God and the people who pay taxes for his salary and public services who he was elected to serve. I have taken the time to type it here for you because, lordy, it’s classic Republican political philosophy:

Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute, he begins. (Remember, this is what he posted in a public forum for all to read; he’s PROUD of this):

No one owes you are [sic] your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim it’s your choice! 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 dam handout! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal without and think outside of the box to survive and supply water for your family. If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your [sic] lazy is the direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and he weak will parish [sic]. Folks god has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. this is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water: yes! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and meshed them in to one group! bottom line quite crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family! 

 

Bottom line-DONT [sic] BE A PART OF PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!

Mayor Boyd is now the resigned, ex-mayor of Colorado City, west Texas.

Other Texans found ways to blame the Democratic Representative of New York’s 14th Congressional District, Alexandra Ocasio Cortex, commonly known as AOC:

Dan Crenshaw, another Texan politician, blames, uh, non-fossil fuel energy, but a rocket scientist named Holly Griffith ‘stained it to him:

Here’s Holly’s Twitter bio. Note that she’s actually a real rocket scientist!

Wind mills in Texas got a lot of blame, too, for causing the Texas power outage:

 

A guy who ran (and lost) for congress in Texas’ 14th district, named Joshua Foxworth, tweeted that there were too many illegal people in Texas using up Texans’ rightful electricity: 

Here’s Joshua Foxworth’s Twitter bio. See what he lists as his first bragging point:

Where does Texas get all these shitbags from??? Because we haven’t even gotten to Ted Cruise yet and I am fed up with these guys already.

 

 

On Wednesday, February 17, Ted Cruise, the junior senator from Texas, took a trip to Cancun in the midst of his state’s worst human disaster in decades.

Ted Cruz voted against giving federal disaster relief to New York and New Jersey when our states were ravaged by Super Storm Sandy and we here in Too Many Cats Estates here on the north shore of Long Island did’t have power for six days, and he’s a racist anti-immigrationist, and he voted to exonerate Trump at his impeachment trial, and he also voted to negate the electoral votes of Georgia, so, fuck off, Ted Cruz.

 

All this shit with Cruz blew up on Thursday and as of Friday morning, Cancun Cruz is still trending on Twitter. He might not be able to live this one down — it’s like Al Capone getting busted for tax evasion: his constituents were OK with him being the Senate’s biggest liar and asshole, but this trip to Mexico is what will get them really riled up…

 

 

Also, Don Trump Jr is trending this Friday morning for this tweet of his:

Here’s a small sample of the blowback:

And, lastly, Rush Limbaugh finally died on February 17 and as he shuffles off this mortal coil, let’s give him the send-off he deserves:

 

 

 

OK, are we caught up with the current events? Yes?

Then bring on the cats:

This is an old one but it’s still funny. Because it’s true.

 

 

 

And more Kitten-to-Cat glow-ups:

 

 

 

 

Another Rescue-kitty to Handsome dude:

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend, everyone. May all your brownies be edge prices, and all your days make you feel as good as the day Rush Limbaugh died, and please remember this bit of wisdom I learned on the internet today:

Your chances of being killed by a giraffe are low but never zero.

XXOO

 

 

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I’ve been reading and watching the GameStop story all week and feeling pretty damn happy about it. GameStop is a retail, bricks-and-mortar store that sells computer games to teenage boys. Most of the stores are found in malls and, as you can guess, since malls are dying and everybody can buy games on-line, GameStop, as a stock and as a business, has been in the doldrums for a few years.

It happened that some bros (also known as trolls, randos, and the poors) in a stock-trading group chat (thread) on Reddit were venting against big hedge funds, and they found out that two of them had taken out huge “shorts” on GameStop stock, betting that the value of it would fall; the further the stock fell, the more money the hedge funds would make. 

The Reddit bros decided to fuck with the hedge funds and they started buying GameStop stock in honor of its seminal importance in their wasted youth, in a classic Wall Street action known as a “short squeeze” (which usually involves institutional players, not individual traders). They were able to raise the share price by 100%, putting the hedge funds that had shorted the stock deep into debt (billions of dollars), and that, if you’ve been paying attention to the news, is huge news. 

I had something on my mind that I wanted to talk to you all about this week but first, I have to get GameStop out of my system because I love the smell of Wall Street comeuppance in the morning.  So please bear with me: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reddit bros are now targeting several other “shorted” stocks such as AMC and American Airlines, in over that could again make hedge funds lose billions. And I say YAY! There is too much money being made by people who only make bets in a market that is designed so that only they can make the bets and the money.

As of this morning (January 29, 2021) Melvin Capitol has had to recruit outside lenders for $2.75 billion to cover their GameStop losses, and Citron Research, another hedge fund that had also  shorted GameStop, has not disclosed how much they have lost but have conceded that it’s in the billions, and that its position was a 100% loss. Yay!

I hope this gives you all a serotonin rush as it did me, on this bitterly cold Friday here on the north shore of Long Island. 

The other thing that I’ve had on my mind this past week was something that I heard the comedian Kevin Hart say as he was being interviewed on Howard Stern’s radio program. He and Howard were talking about being famous, and the way fame changes life for the better or worse. Kevin talked about how, at first, being famous can bring out feelings of inadequacy — the well-known “imposter syndrome”, where people feel undeserving of success.

But Kevin’s current theory on fame and success (he’s worth $200 million, according to Wikipedia) is that he does deserve it because  he, like Howard (who is worth $650 million according to the inter webs) are part of the 1% of people who, through hard work and determination, get to be very, very good at what they do. 

Stop right there.

First of all, I think the actual percentage of people who are very, very good at what they do is .0001%, but the sentiment is 100% brilliant. 

Kevin Hart’s words reminded me of a similar lesson I learned, way back when I was a freelance magazine writer in the 1990s, when I was interviewing the brilliant author Lawrence Weschler for an article. Weschler has written five of my favorite six books and I finagled my position as a freelancer to pitch a story about him to the Westchester Times because I wanted to meet him, and so there I was, sitting in his living room, drinking tea, while he talked about his life.

He told me a story about how he was able to introduce two of his friends to each other, the friends being the painter David Hockney and the magician/historian/actor/artist Ricky Jay. Both men are highly acclaimed and supremely accomplished in their fields, and when they met they got along like, well, two things that get along really well. I can’t think of a metaphor. Gin and tonic? Sad songs and a good cry? One diatomic molecule and another diatomic molecule in a sigma bond?

Lawrence Weschler told me that when Ricky Jay thanked him for bringing David Hockney into his life, Jay said, “This is the best thing about being really good at what you do: You get to meet other people who are really good at what they do.” 

That thought stuck with me as being perhaps the simplest recipe for How To Get Through Life, and at the same time the finest explanation of How To Avoid Dealing With Idiots and Morons. 

I’m sure you’ve all noticed that as you up your game, in life or in your job, you spend less time hanging out with stupid people and more time being energized, challenged, inspired, and appreciated by people who are smarter than you, which ups your game even more, and makes it even less likely that you will ever have known a Trump supporter.

If I had kids, that’s the one piece of advise I would give: Whatever you do, work hard and become the best at what you do. 

Because then you’ll get to meet other people who are the best at what they do, and your life will be enriched and rewarding and better than mediocre and you’ll marry someone I don’t have to worry about.

Speaking of better than mediocre, let’s remember that this is true of America, no matter how much it irritates the Republicans:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22 Executive Orders in the first week:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This (below) is funnier when you realize the man replying to Donald Trump Jr. is the former president of Estonia:

But not everything has to be about politics. Sometimes the good stuff is about life in Australia, and wine:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fill up your wine glasses, Dear Readers, and you know that spoon that you dislike for no reason? Throw it out. Because here’s more words of wisdom for a better life from none other than Mick Jagger:

You wake up one morning and you look at your old spoon, and you say to yourself, “Mick, it’s time to get a new spoon.” And you do.

 Have a great weekend, everyone. Enjoy your new spoons.

 

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