Chumbawamba Strikes Again

There are worse songs to wake up to.

I get knocked down
But I get up again
You're never gonna keep me down

I’m deaf (remember?) so this is playing in my head, not on some audio device.

And, of course, the next lines to come into my head were:

He drinks a whiskey drink
He drinks a vodka drink
He drinks a lager drink
He drinks a cider drink

At this point in my big old life, I drink more like a Gen Z-er than a Gen Joneser so, to me, this is funny. I’d be passed out cold for many hours if I had four drinks. Many, MANY hours.

What was the Tubthumping about? That doctor visit yesterday regarding my stupid problem toe. I had, naturally, horror show amounts of anxiety as to how things were going to go (based on my last experience). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see a podiatrist but the intern and doc that I met with (both very nice and credentialed up the wazoo) determined that I do NOT have another infection (*PHEW*) and the toe is not broken. I still need to get in to see the foot doc, which they’re trying to arrange, but those folks are seriously backed up AND, apparently, work strict 9-5 hours. 

WHAT?! Are there no foot medical emergencies? Are toes and feet not considered serious parts of the body, worthy of after biz hours care? Are feet now in the same class as eyes and teeth? You know, with dental offices (featuring "Hollywood white” bleaching) and optometry exam rooms closeted behind fashion sunglasses sellers in strip malls?

Is this the future of podiatry? Are they three minutes away from becoming no more than an offshoot of mall concourse nail salons? I mean, I need a podiatrist NOT a pedicurist, goddamnit!

Will America’s rapacious health insurance industry start treating feet the way they do eyes and teeth – that they shouldn’t be insured? I don’t think we’re far from feet being considered mere style supplements. Their primary purpose being to show off Jimmy Choo, Prada, and Christian Louboutin’s three grand sneakers. Right? I mean, those multi thousand dollar shoes aren’t going to buy themselves are they?

We peasants are no more than easily replaceable cogs in the great capitalist machine. By the by, THIS is how the oligarchy ends up shooting itself in the foot. You see, if Sally and Jim (or Donna) can’t afford to get their feet fixed up, they can’t afford to buy the expensive shoes and sneaks. Maybe they can’t afford other important healthcare shit either, like chemo or insulin (or *ahem* brigatinib or levETIRAcetam fer instance), then maybe, probably, they die. If we’re all dead, WHO’S buying the very expensive footwear, the televisions, cell phones, Cool Ranch Doritos, 6-packs of Bud Light? WHO’S going on the expensive cruises, buying tickets to see the latest sportsball game, staying at the pricey spa/hotel? 

WHO’S feeding the billionaire’s and trillionaire’s bottomless pit of capitalistic greed if we’re all dead because they made healthcare a luxury item? Hmmmmmm?

*OOPSIE* I’m off on a rant again, aren’t I? Bound to happen  with Darth Dementia and his astronomically dimwitted Pedophile Protector Party in control of the country.

Anyway, the best part of yesterday was that the very good docs didn’t feel that I needed to be kept in hospital and fed massive amounts of intravenous antibiotics (like last time). I could go home and eat ice cream (which I did). The next best part was the traffic – seriously. It was Friday afternoon rush hour BUT it’s summer in Boston. Everyone who was going down the Cape had either left Thursday night or by noon Friday at the latest. Any later and you’re facing obscene backups at the Bourne Bridge. (NB: around these parts, this is the way we say we’re going down to Cape Cod – we’re going down the Cape. K?)

He sings the songs that remind him of the good times
He sings the songs that remind him of the better times

Don't cry for me
Next door neighbor
~ Tubthumping, Chumbawamba 

Doctorville

Well, Ten and I are headed in to my doctor’s office this afternoon to see about my banjaxed stubbed toe. It’s not getting any better. Joy. Based on past experience, I’m expecting the worst and am preparing for a dull, uncomfortable weekend spent in hospital where they’ll pump me full of antibiotics and remove my toenail AGAIN. 

I suppose I'm as ready as I'll ever be – I have a new library book and I’m about to download the next Murderbot (just finished Network Effect. Fugitive Telemetry is next). I’ll pack up all my chargers and anything else I’ll need for a couple of days away from home. Maybe they won’t make me go inpatient but it’s good to be prepared.

This is all just SO fucking annoying and tedious. I really need a replacement body.

Here are some pics, comix and editorial cartoons in place of non-kvetching content from me today.

You’re welcome.

Nick Anderson

Jack Ohman

This and That

A new four winged feathered dinosaur has been discovered in China. Well, its bones have been found. What they’ve figured so far is that Jian changmaensis (nice name but a bit long – we’ll call them Jian for short), a microraptor, was about the size of a barn owl with a four foot wing span. It’s thought that Jian was a glider, like a flying squirrel, rather than an actual real birdy-like flier.

Jian was hanging around Earth during the Early Cretaceous period. You know, 145 to 100.5 million years ago, back when Sauroposeidons and Iguanodons were frequenting the local watering hole and I was just getting my drivers license or something.
~~~
Annnd another one bites the dust 

A Pennsylvania man was convicted of sexually abusing a teen over a period of years. He was found dead in his prison cell. Kevin Esterly hung himself with a bedsheet. GOOD! Save taxpayers some damn money on his damn trial, inevitable appeals, and incarceration.

This 53-year-old predatory turnip began raping his step-daughter’s friend when she was 14 in 2016. This went on through March of 2018. He groomed her and tanked her up with booze. He'd give her coke and speed so she could stay awake in school the next day because she "would be up with him all night" during the abuses. 

Somehow this bullshit excuse for a human being, this man, a father, was only caught when he took his victim to Mexico. 

NB: The NBC site says the girl was 13 when the rapes began. The Lehigh Valley Live site says 14. The man met the child when she was 8-years-old – how much you wanna bet the grooming started shortly after that?
~~~
In Ukraine war news:

On June 22, signal repeaters on the territory of Belarus that Russia used to coordinate Shahed drone strikes on Ukraine ceased operations.

The operational halt follows a public warning issued by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on June 19, 2026, which demanded the removal of the specialized guidance equipment within seven days, according to RBC. (source) 

Lukashenko, the Prez of Belarus, is a dictator, a weasel, and an incredible bastard (everything that Trump aspires to) but he can smell a loser. Putin is going down. I see defenestration, a nice polonium tea or a sudden unfortunate fatal heart attack in Puti’s future, followed by an end to the war on Ukraine.
~~~ 
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has now been on the Red Planet and working for five years. Neat, huh? 

Last September the robotic science lab found that Jezero crater, at some point, was filled with water, leaving lake sediments at its base. Water and sediments might mean there could have been life on Mars at some point. 

More recent data, from an article posted just yesterday: 

Measurements of two mudstones show hundreds of organic detections, making this the most robust organic detection in Jezero crater.
~~~
"There are multiple potential pathways to form abiotic organics on Mars," the authors state in this paper, clarifying that this, even compounded with other existing data, cannot conclusively say whether or not life created what Perseverance has observed.  (source) 

Desperately fascinating, don’cha know. Go read the column (it's short).

They’re all like this aren’t they?

A headline that's shocking only for the fact that a wealthy Republican donor was jailed for any crime at all:

Top Republican Donor Killed in Prison After Serving Nearly Two Decades for Sexually Assaulting Two Children

All I can think is well, that’s one less predator on the planet.

I just checked the article’s date — he was convicted and jailed in 2001, 25 years ago, and offed in 2021. Dunno why it hit my feed last night. Maybe Tyche (Greek goddess of chance) made a late visit to my hard drive? 

At this point, in the year of our cat 2026, do Republicans even get their wrists slapped for raping children? Doesn’t seem so.

Reading more of the story, Mark A. Grethen was convicted for raping two kids but there were a lot more accusations against him. Dude was a stone predator.

At trial he did what might reasonably be expected; he accepted a plea bargain in which twenty of the twenty-six counts on which he was indicted would be dismissed in return for his plea to six individual charges. (source) 

Mark was a litigious motherfucker in the slammer. It seems most of the cases he brought forward were about trashing his former lawyers as well as the system which enabled him to bring suits while a prisoner. It’s a bit confusing. Did Mark have real, honest complaints or was he just an annoying, lawsuit-happy asshole? I mean, he copped to all his heinous crimes. What did he think? That he could simply admit to raping multiple children, then go back to his golf game, cigars and bourbon down at the country club, and show up for his Monday morning business meetings as though his crimes were no more than a traffic ticket?

Leads me to believe that he would have been the same pedophile coming out of the joint as he was going in. He seemed to have no understanding of consequences.

Citing its own archives, the Virginian-Pilot noted that Grethen was "briefly named Republican of the Year in 2002 by the National Republican Congressional Committee — an arm of the Republican National Committee." (source) 

The award was taken back after the Committee was made aware that old Mark was a serial child raper. I guess in the pre-Prez Pedo days the GOP actually cared if their donors raped children. I take that back. Perhaps they just couldn’t get past the fact that he’d been caught and convicted and that would lead to bad press. Can't have that – oh my, no! Still, how incredibly half-assed of the Republican National Committee. The pedo had already been in jail for a year for raping children and they made him Republican of the Year?!!! Do these people not do background checks or do they just not think? I’m going with the not thinking bit. 

I suppose this is the best we can expect from people who support criminally dimwitted morons like Trump, Tommy Tuberville, Lauren Boebert, Ken Paxton, Moses Mike Johnson, etc.

We now know that Republicans will boldly, wholeheartedly support a presidential candidate who’s been convicted of raping of an adult. Stands to reason they would have voted for Trump if they’d known he’d been convicted of raping a child, which he allegedly has done. Republican Senators and Representatives are still marching in lockstep behind him despite all that’s dribbled out from the heavily redacted Epstein files. They continue to support and bow down to him despite his blatant criming and how obscenely clear it is that he’s lost what little grip he may have once had on sanity.

We’ll never know if Mark Grethen would have been a rapist post-prison or not (unless one of you lovelies can walk into an alternate dimension where he’s alive and now out of Lawrenceville). Bret Cook is the hero who took Mark down and out. 

Coupla Things

Lebanese conservationist Mona Khalil, 76, died two weeks ago Friday after an Israeli airstrike hit her home near Tyre. She created a conservation movement in southern Lebanon that protected sea turtle nesting grounds. Her assistant was also injured in the attack but survived. They were the only people in the house when it was bombed.

Brocken Inaglory

The Israeli military said last week in response to an NPR query that it had no indication it had hit the house but was reviewing its records. It did not respond to a query about when the review might be completed. 

Israel has invaded southern Lebanon and is attacking what it says are Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure. (source) 

Sea turtle conservationists/Hezbollah fighters? Sure, I get them confused all the time too. Sure. Absolutely. Also, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for the Israeli military to get back to NPR journos about the *oopsie* murder of an innocent turtle conservationist.

“They knew exactly who Mona Khalil was,” Lebanese journalist and professor Marwa Osman said on social media following Khalil’s death. “They knew the bright orange house... They knew it was not a military site, not a command center, not a battlefield position. It was one of the most recognizable symbols of environmental conservation on Lebanon’s southern coast; a sanctuary dedicated to protecting endangered sea turtles and preserving life.” (source) 

Taking her out was a targeted power/domination/big swinging dick statement not a mistake, not a war oopsie.
~~~
You’ve probably heard about Prez Carnival Barker’s next assuredly doomed attempt at making us all forget his myriad obscene crimes against the United States, the world, and all of humanity (individually and collectively). Yes, it’s the “Great American State Fair.” I believe this is the event that all the musical acts pulled out of as soon as they understood it was a rah, rah Trump-fest versus an actual bipartisan celebration.

“On July 4th, at The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, in beautiful and safe Washington D.C., we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week (source) 

Yep, the curtain’s been pulled back – this is a taxpayer funded Trump rally (AKA Weaselshit Wankfest).

There’s going to be a Ferris wheel.

First off – do you really want to get on a Ferris wheel that’s been put together, maintained and operated by a company that Trump would hire? I mean, HELLO, Reflecting Pool disaster. Hello Hegseth hire – the idiot who included a journalist in an encrypted group chat about ultra specific war plans. It’s no fucking wonder we not only made war on Iran we’ve now lost that war. Hell-fucking-o CoreCivic and Geo, two for-profit prison corporations who were handed no-bid ICE detainee contracts. We all know how well that’s going (*cough* concentration camps that’d make Nazi’s blush *cough*). In the dictionary under "incompetent" and "on-the-take" there’s a picture of Trump. 

I’m figuring there’s at least an 85% chance someone dies on the ride because a company with zero Ferris wheel knowledge or experience was hired because they’re big Trump donors or have an in with a wealthy Pedo donor. That company in turn hired inexperienced methed up, half-wit ride jocks to put the wheel together. The ride jocks, in their drugged up state, figure two bolts will hold a seat in just as well as four – “Hey, no worries. We're saving the company money! Pass the pipe, man.”

Second Off – imagine you take your life in your hands and take a ride of that wheel of death. You get to the top. The wheel stops and you’re taking in the view. What do you see?

• The rubble of the destroyed East Wing 
• The half assed, not really obscured “8647” lawn
• The banjaxed algae filled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
• The dead White House lawn, what’s left from the stupid white trash UFC Pedo birthday party extravaganza
• Jackie Kennedy’s former Rose Garden, now paved over and turned into a fourth rate mall food court.
• The tarp covered Kennedy Center – apparently put up so no one sees that Trump’s name has been removed. Hilariously, he doesn’t seem to understand that the tarp puts a giant spotlight on the magnificent failure of his grotesque inflated ego.

Trumpfest is free (courtesy of our tax bucks … so, not really free at all) but you have to register for tickets. Wouldn’t it be funny if we all signed up for tickets (maximum of six per person) and, darn it, came down with a cold or stomach bug or had a flat tire or three at the very last minute and couldn’t go? Yep, that’d put a smile on my face ... oh, no, no, no, that was a frowny face! Sorry, I'm old and, don'cha know, I get confused sometimes.

 Not that you or I would ever get up to such mild mischief BUT if you did, here’s the link. 

Just in case. 

OY!

I woke up on the cranky side of the bed this morning. I know, you’re probably thinking “my, how unusual of you, Donna.” Yeah … well, fuck you too. It’s Monday. 

I stubbed my toe last night – the one that’s still recovering from that nasty ingrown toenail debacle from this past winter. The one that put me in hospital for a couple of days. Yeah, that fun time. Healing has been encumbered by having to wear a stupid, tight compression sock due to my stupid vascular issues which are magnified by the stupid nerve damage I have from the stupid brain surgery complications of a few years ago. 

Wanna know how I stubbed my toe? I rolled over in bed funny. Aren't I a major talent? Must’ve caught my toe in the sheet as I tried to avoid booting Cake who was sleeping at the foot of the bed.

Fuck my life.

I just did a search on how to treat a stubbed toe. R.I.C.E. Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. So, today I'll not wear my strangling compression socks, stay off the elliptical, keep my foot elevated and see how things look tomorrow. MEGA sigh!

If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.
~ Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim 

I Only Mention It...

I only mention it BUT it's deeply unsettling to be the same age as old people. 

I write this from deep in my comfy chair, inside my warm fleece tie dye hoodie, underneath a cozy lap rug with a nice, hot mug of tea at my side. I’m wearing my super, extra strength reading glasses, my compression socks are on under my gently forgiving (if unflattering) sweatpants, and I have cute but distinctly unflashy Birkenstocks on my feet.

Lemme just say that one more time, it’s deeply unsettling to be the same age as old people. Okay, that’s outta my system … for now. Pass me another dark chocolate truffle, would you dear?
~~~
I understand the barely sentient full colostomy bag who’s occupying (and stinking up) the White House, is having a bit of a temper tantrum because a *GASP* woman dared to call him out on one of his lies.

Pedo brayed that Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni had "begged" him for a photo op during the G7 summit.  Meloni wasn’t having it and put out a video statement saying, amongst other things, that this shit was “completely fabricated,” ending with “Italy and I do not beg."

THEN Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani cancelled a planned trip to the US saying that Trump’s bullshit (okay, he didn’t use that precise word) was "serious and offensive" toward Meloni and all of Italy. 

CONSEQUENCES! It’s what’s for breakfast!

Pedo's petty, junior high level backbiting bullying is apparently about the fact that Meloni wouldn’t support Trump and Bibi’s invasion and war on Iran. WAAAAAH! You won’t help me kill innocent people so now I’m going to spread nasty stories about you and I can get away with it because I’m a boy and my daddy’s rich! 

Yeah, piss off old man. The whole world has your number now.

The Asshole Who Could NOT Shut The Fuck Up has blown the last US ally in Europe. I mean, how much of a clueless fucking twat are you to pull this misogynistic, condescending, frat boy, stale dog shit on an ally and a fellow fascist at that?! And how completely imbecilic and flat out brain dead is the entire GOP to just sit there with their thumbs up their asses to just let him do this?

Could be that he’s got serious dirt on most of them — blackmailable stuff. How many of them frequented Epstein Island, the ranch in New Mexico, Jeff's townhouse in New York? 

How about Gym Jordan, the Ohio rep from that spectacularly gerrymandered district, who, back when he was a wrestling coach, had NO prob looking the other way when the team’s doc was molesting the boys. NOW good old Gym’s being investigated because his political action committee took a quarter of a million in “dark money” payments from Geo Group. Who’s GEO Group? They run dozens of ICE’s concentration camps. You remember hearing about them? They're the folks who regularly sexually and otherwise physically assault detainees, starve them and feed them maggot infested food, deny them medications and necessary healthcare. Real nice folks, eh?

So Jordan's taking big money off them. Sound pretty slimy and illegal? That’s because it is.
~~~
And yesterday Israel did what it usually does — ignored the ceasefire. They hit the Nabatieh district in Lebanon’s south with drone strikes, killing 16 people and wounding 12. 

The Strait of Hormuz is closed and JDouche is in Switzerland for talks. That ought to go well. Wonder if he'll scold people for not wearing suits or saying thank you. Maybe, as he did at the Munich Security Conference, he’ll boldly, confidently, cluelessly spout that “There is a new sheriff in town.”

 Ohhhh, this is gonna go real well. I think I'll just shut my eyes until it's over. 

Vance said he would only be able to stay in the country for a day or two, but expressed hope that progress could be made on both the Lebanon ceasefire and the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme. (source) 

What’s the big rush to get home? Does he need to get back for emergency upholstery cleanings? A sexy divan is waiting for him? Is he on Pedo Death Watch? I mean, aren't we all? At this point it's clear that JDouche would only be marginally less embarrassing (maybe) but every bit as dangerous as the current Oval Office occupant.

More Fun In the US

I hear tell that, after Trump's negotiations with Iran, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei now owns Mar-a-Lago. Also Trump’s lunch, his clapped out Florsheims, his collection of meter long red ties, but NOT Melania. She still belongs to Putin … at least until Puti gets dog-walked out some 13th floor Kremlin window. You know, that’s the Russian retirement plan for out-of-favor politicians.
~~~
Did you see the news item about the three bodies discovered in the home sold "as is" at a foreclosure auction.

Chris Thogmartin, the court-appointed attorney overseeing the foreclosure sale, told the Connecticut-based outlet that requests for interior access went unanswered before the auction.

"I always send out a letter ... saying, listen, there's a foreclosure auction scheduled. It would be helpful for the bidders to have interior access," Thogmartin said. "We never got a response to that, which is not unusual.” (source) 

First: Imagine being the buyer doing the post winning bid walk though. You walk through the door and find three former humans, now in "an advanced state of decomposition.” 

If it was me, I’d be asking “wut? Did I just walk into a horror movie? Is this a serial killer set up? Am I on the set of Mind Hunter now?” 

Second: Paul and Sally Cash bought the home in 2019, according to Burlington, Conecticut town records. Court records show that the mortgage hadn’t been paid since at least December of 2024. Were Paul and Sally Cash two of those three deadies? If so, who was the third and were they all found in the same room? Murder, murder, suicide? Suicide, suicide, suicide? 

Third: All of the non-paywalled articles I’ve read have quoted the police as saying there’s “no indication of anything suspicious.” OH C’MON! The whole thing positively REEKS! Do the coppers think the public’s actually gonna believe that three people just … what? Passively dozed off after a big lunch and then, whoopsie, died? Had simultaneous killer heart attacks? Maybe they were raptured? (it was just an exclusive, one time only rapture thingie though. Jesus banging Christofascist evangelicals shouldn’t worry – I’m sure he’ll be back for them next month or next year or whenever.) Police shouldn’t be taking their investigative directions from Krazy Kash and his incompetent FBI who can only find a perp when his mommy calls to turn him in.

MAYBE it’s NOT Paul and Sally Cash and some corpse to be named later! Possibly Paul and Sally have actually faked their deaths, after embezzling big bucks from Paul’s accounting firm, and done a runner to Argentina. 
~~~
Bozo Bezos is a fucking ghoul but you knew that.

His latest bit of demonic capitalistic fuckery is to say that we peasants need to cut out all our selfish, wasteful drinking of water, bathing, crop watering, and however else we’re using water. Just STOP IT, you serfs!

“Biological limits are real, but digital potential is infinite. If we starve our data infrastructure of cooling resources just to sustain baseline human comfort, we are actively delaying the birth of a super-intelligence that could solve all of our resource problems in the first place.” (source) 

Yup. Us pesky, inferior humans are standing in the way of him birthing the first nonfictional generation of Cylons.

There IS "zero-water" tech to cool his data centers but it’s more expensive so, guess what, corporations would rather cheap out and rape the planet. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked! 🙄

There are less water-intensive ways to cool data centers, including closed-loop water systems, which require more electricity, and immersion cooling, in which servers are submerged in a bath of liquid, such as a synthetic oil, that conducts heat but not electricity. Immersion cooling allows for a denser installation of servers as well, but is not yet widely used, largely due to cost. (source)  

Fun fact; guillotines use very little water

~~~
Pedo claims the Reflecting Pool has been intentionally vandalized (undoubtedly by “Dumocrats”) and says law enforcement is investigating. Sure, Jan.

Couldn’t possibly be that he gave a $14.7 million no-bid contract to fellow crimers who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing – goodness, no! Can’t be that “American Flag Blue” floor Trump specified was stupid – heavens no!

"The new, darker interior surface is going to absorb more sunlight," Goodale says. "It is going to result in water that's warmer, and that ultimately is going to lead to more prolific algae growth.” (source) 

Meanwhile, big patches of that “American Flag Blue” are peeling up and floating around in the algae.

Trump – he could fuck up a peanut butter sandwich on white bread.