The MSM just doesn't have the credibility or legitamacy it did in the past. No, they don't. Nor does Tucker Carlson, he has spread as much disinformation and hate as anyone on the far right. I don't know about Candace Owens.

@Mark thank you!! I would love to hear your Chopin!!

Some of our "Social protection" category is paid with dedicated taxes in trust funds. The % shown is abysmal, not withstanding. I'm surprised the "Defense" category is such a low %, when the defense budget was 1 trillion and was recently (during Trump II, year 1, passed and signed) raised to 1 1/2 trillion. I'm not sure why a 50% increase was deemed necessary. To add to this category, I believe but could be wrong that the budget for some or all of the intelligence agencies is kept secret. The politicians have a fainting couch on hand when it comes to domestic spending, but it seems the sky is the limit for debt creation vis a vis defense spending, including, of course, foreign wars, and decades of tax cuts.

@AndyD Ooohh...you could set Mrs A loose on @adagiom 's website: https://pdxknitterati.com/ Some truly amazing stuff there!

Looks great. After having to cancel trips to Japan in September and April we are going to Denmark, Oslo, and Stockholm in June.

Talking to a brother in law last week, we realised we are often the only people in a collar shirt (when not at work). I went to a busy local food festival last weekend and everyone else was in t-shirts.

Tomorrow we hit 75. I'm going golfing in the afternoon.

Just another bullshit term to classify people. We're all mixes of various traits and not necessarily consistent from day to day or situation to situation. . For instance, I'm normally a fiscal and foreign policy conservative, mostly social liberal. What does that make me? Certainly not today's Trumped-up idea of a conservative.

@Axtremus The early LED lamps were prone to “singing” when used with certain dimmers or dimmed down very low. Sometimes it could get pretty loud. The problem seems to have gone away with newer lamps. Or maybe not. Maybe they just sing very softly now and your hearing is sensitive enough to pick it up.

True story. My Doc of eight years had a receptionist with a bigotry problem and she didn't hide it. Well, one day she was upset about something, and followed me into the examination room, as if that was her business. The RN (I've known the whole time) being above her, bosses her. She said, "Get out!" I looked right at her, and with the same tone and volume, said, "Get out!" She never messed with me after that.

I haven't paid much attention to this American Pope to be honest. I'll find out more about him one day. The Pope, head of the Catholic Church, and secular head of state of Vatican City always interested me. The friction between HH and Trump doesn't surprise me. Is there anyone Trump gets along with who isn't a sycophant except Netanyahu who's in a category by himself?

We've destroyed or better to say badly damaged UNESCO sites. Does UNESCO condemn these acts stemming from a war of aggression? No. UNESCO issues tepid statements about its "concern." UNESCO has, in effect, abandoned its remit. It's yet one more example of the troubles the West's institutions seem to be having these days. I knew this would happen. It happened in Iraq. Who knows how much more destruction of historically and culturally significant significant sites and objects will occur. Iran (It's Persia, actually-- "Iran" is a word the British made up) is a target rich environment. This happened in Gaza (Gaza City). The amount of damage of centuries old sites at an ancient crossroads of civilizations will take decades for historians to recount on paper only for some record to survive for the future.

I finally figured out what I needed in a pen. Ballpoint, not gel, fine (.7?), black ink, not retractable, the cover fits on the top (to not get lost). I had to pay almost $4 for it. I have retractable colored gel pens. A basic set of colors. I got rid of the yellow because the ink was almost invisible. I got rid of the purple because I knew I wouldn't use it. I have orange, red, blue, and green. I have enough #2 pencils to last the rest of my life. I'm rotating two and keeping one sharp at all times. The weak link in my system is the fact that my pencil sharpener is plastic, little, and cheap. I'm getting bored of these colors. I'll add more at some point. I'll definitely buy a duplicate to my black pen even though it's refillable. All of my pens are Pentel brand. I recommend them. They are well made and ergonomic. The black one and the colored ones are different product lines as you'd expect but each pen has an indented rubber grip for your thumb and index finger. This collection was completed recently when I bought my black pen. I started off eight year ago buying boxes of Bic pens. They were uncomfortable to use. Sometimes they would write and sometimes the same pen wouldn't do anything but scratch holes in the paper.

21! 21+2+7= 30 years this has been a hobby of mine.

@andyd We only equaled you during the Gilded Age. We were only able to do it for two reasons. We had your (and other) history to simulate, and our industrialists had the wealth to travel Europe and buy everything related to furnishing a house, including architectural details, furniture, and art, at bargain prices. Link to video

The idea is to swap out a group of powered devices all at once — hence the nickname — turning some things off and replacing them with lower-power alternatives to keep the spacecraft warm enough to continue gathering science data. "... replacing them with lower-power alternatives...." Sounds odd to talk of replacing equipment on a machine that's 15 billion miles away. They must be alternatives that were built in to the original build?