WTF-Beta

And not to mention--a big one--the increased risk of nuclear war. Iran isn't going to take this sitting down, and Trump is throwing out some damned scary language, which will in turn, no doubt, be met with retaliation. This could very quickly escalate to the level of unimaginable horror. Trump is not a stable man. (For that matter, none of these players are very stable.) A war of madmen.

@Steve-Miller She has indeed made a spectacle of herself and she still holds views that boggle the mind. But I am glad she's speaking out against Trump; she's one of the few from that pack of magats to be doing so. I give her credit for calling out the blatant lies and hypocrisy of Trump, Vance, et. al.

@Daniel Not to mention the increased risk of terrorism.

@AndyD There is little disputing the ugliness of the regime, but the solution is not having two megalomaniac criminals attacking a sovereign state to save their skins. Netanyahu is a war criminal+, and Trump is tanking at home and the Epstein files are getting closer and closer to the inner circle.

I have read that the Iranian regime has 7 levels of contingency for every major office. They will not be thrown into disarray over the murder of the Supreme Leader. There is someone right behind him to take his place.

What we are doing is promoting more violence as an answer to violence. More hate as an answer to hate. It will not work. And Americans will again, be asked to pay, innocent Iranians will be asked to pay. Both with money and lives. It's gross. And a violation of our constitution to continue without Congressional support.

18 years ago. . .

Link to video

Major General (Ret.) Paul D. Eaton, an Army commander during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and senior adviser to VoteVets PAC, said in a statement:

Men who know more about war than Donald Trump ever will warned him repeatedly about the risks to American lives by starting a war with Iran. Indeed, Trump himself predicted casualties in his speech to America. The Constitution could not be more clear. When launching wars of choice, especially with American lives in the balance, the president goes to Congress and Congress authorizes it. That did not happen, and these operations are blatantly unconstitutional.

More to the point, these operations seem to have no focus. Trump says they’re to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but just last year he said we ‘obliterated’ that program. It seems to be targeting missile sites, but Trump says it is to stoke regime change. A war without focus is a war with no tangible goals. And a war with no goals ends up a Forever War.

@AndyD War will not solve the problem, especially if based on lies. How damned many times have we tried that route at great human and monetary cost? Usually based on lies. This action is no different.

If the US is going to continue to meddle where we don't belong, let's do it the right and legal way: Congressional debate and approval or unapproval. Seeing how 90% of Americans are opposed to Trump's illegal acts, I would say an alternative to war must be pursued. We are very choosy in deciding where to attempt regime change. This war will be a disaster if not stopped.

Not to take away from the horror of more innocent people being killed in the middle east, but doesn't it seem this illegal war will hurt Trump's standing among MAGA?

Marjorie Taylor Greene on X:

“We said ‘No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!’ We said it on rally stage after rally stage, speech after speech. Trump, Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again. My generation has been let down, abused, and used by our government our entire adult lives and our children’s generation is literally being abandoned.

“Thousands and thousands of Americans from my generation have been killed and injured in never ending pointless foreign wars and we said no more. But we are freeing the Iranian people. Please. There are 93 million people in Iran, let them liberate themselves. But Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons. Yeah sure.

“We have been spoon fed that line for decades and Trump told us all that his bombing this past summer completely wiped it all out. It’s always a lie and it’s always America Last. But it feels like the worst betrayal this time because it comes from the very man and the admin who we all believed was different and said no more. We thought the victory won in 2024 would be finally time to put America First.

“And we thought that meant the common American man and woman and their children. Not the elites. America has suffered and they don’t even care. Hundreds of thousands of American small business owners lost their hard earned businesses during tyrannical covid lockdowns, that by the way, started under Trump with 15 days to slow the spread and continued under Biden and Democrats. There is no difference between them.

“Vaccine injuries, deaths, delays and loss in our tax payer funded education, record high suicides, record high Big Pharma profits and ZERO accountability for anyone from the MAGA America First administration as they run off to start wars and the board of peace at the same time. Create the crisis and the solution simultaneously and then build condos to profit. MAGA!

“For years we demanded to release the Epstein files, demanding transparency and justice for thousands of victims, women and children, by the richest most powerful men in the world and we had to fight Trump himself to do it, even after we all campaigned on it. And not a single person has been arrested and likely won’t be, no accountability, no justice.

“Instead, we get a war with Iran on behalf of Israel that will succeed in regime in Iran. Another foreign war for foreign people for foreign regime change. For what? Does it lower our inflation that our government caused? Caused by BOTH Democrats AND Republicans with their decades of corrupt government spending that has enslaved us all in nearly $40 Trillion in debt and reduced the value of our dollar to nothing. No, war with Iran does not lower inflation and make cost of living affordable.

“Does war with Iran fix our healthcare system and make health insurance affordable for Americans?? No war with Iran does not do that and the MAGA admin and Republicans aren’t even working on it in any serious way at all. Does war with Iran stop AI from replacing your job? Nope.

“Does war with Iran help you to be able to afford to buy a home? No, but you’ll see TikTok videos of nice penthouses when Gaza is rebuilt. Does war with Iran help the mental health crisis in America or help the drug addiction pandemic in America? Nope.

“Does war with Iran do anything to help American families stay together and survive? No, not at all. But within hours of war with Iran it was reported approximately 40 innocent girls, school children, in Iran were killed by bombs from Israel. And they don’t care, they killed thousands of innocent children in Gaza, and apparently our Pro-Peace administration doesn’t care either.

“And, since they won’t solve America’s problems clearly they don’t care about our kids either. Now, America is going to be force fed and gas lighted all the “noble” reasons the American “Peace” President and Pro-Peace administration had to go to war once again this year, after being in power for only a year. Head-spinning, but maga.” – Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Beautiful. Very nice! Lovely British decorating style.

Quite the saga. Emphases mine.

MANCHESTER, N.H. —

A federal judge is telling New Hampshire that the state needs to get its vehicle inspection program back up and running.

The ruling on Wednesday does not immediately change anything for New Hampshire drivers, who currently do not need to get their vehicles inspected.

The judge denied a request to pause her original injunction, which ordered the state not to suspend the program.

Despite the initial ruling, inspections have not resumed, and the state has not approved a new contract to continue the program.

Gordon-Darby, the company that had been contracted to run New Hampshire's vehicle inspection program, sued the commissioners for the departments of Safety and Environmental Services after New Hampshire suspended the program to comply with a new state law to end it.

The judge agreed with Gordon-Darby that the state was violating the Clean Air Act by ending the program without a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency. The state applied for that waiver in December, but the EPA said it could take up to 18 months to review it.

The Executive Council has since ended the contract with Gordon-Darby.

In her ruling, Judge Landya McCafferty noted that the commissioners said they don't have the legal authority to find a new vendor, but she said the commissioners have the authority to comply with her first ruling.

The Executive Council is responsible for finding a new vendor. State officials said the program will remain suspended while they figure out what their next steps will be.

As New Hampshire continues to resist the orders issued by the judge, a constitutional crisis is brewing, according to University of New Hampshire law professor Daniel Pi.

"Where the state is openly defying the orders of a federal court, and this implicates Article VI of the U.S. Constitution and all sorts of things that just don't get litigated very often," Pi said. "Usually, states kind of understand what the federal structure is and agree with it."

For New Hampshire drivers, nothing changes. The state is sticking to its earlier guidance that the program is suspended.

That means inspection stations are no longer authorized to issue state inspection stickers, and vehicles are not required to get an annual state inspection at this time.

Shortly after I wrote my OP, my internet connection started getting really wonky! Could no longer access WTF and some other sites. Some sites worked, some didn't. I started to think there was a major outage somewhere. Next morning, the situation had not changed. So I drove to the Spectrum office where I was told my modem and router were obsolete now what with the upgrades they've been making. Came home with new equipment, set it up and it took far longer than it should have to get it working.

I'm pretty sure, now, that I will ditch the internet phone (VOIP) and see how life goes with just the cell phone. My phone usage is so very low I probably won't even notice! The biggest hassle will be logging in to all my important accounts (there's a whole page of them) and updating my account information (banks, insurances, utilities, websites, etc.)

@Daniel The internet phone is not portable. The handset is plugged into the router. I have the cell phone for traveling.

@CHAS Email is my main means of remote communication these days.

@wtg Privacy issues is a big concern of mine. My trust in Google in pretty much non-existent.

@wtg Very kind offer, wtg, but I honestly don't know what I'd do with five handsets. As I mentioned above, I think I've used the internet phone maybe twice in the past few months.

Thank you.

He insists he’s not really a betting man.

He's a betting man.

I don't think I've ever balanced my checking account. Maybe once, or twice years ago.

So it looks like I'll be switching my internet service from Spectrum to NH Broadband. Spectrum has increased my bill four times since last fall and their performance seems to be lagging. Getting a lot of notices about slow load speeds on youtube.

As I may have mentioned in the past, I'm not a phone person. I've probably used my internet phone twice in the past 2 months. So I'm thinking of ditching it. That will leave me with the cell phone, which grudgingly, I'll have to leave on all the time -- and remember to charge. Adding internet phone to my new NH Broadband account will be around $30/mo.

So, a poll:

1. Keep the internet phone
2. Ditch the internet phone

Also, I can save $20/mo by providing my own wifi-router. Poll #2:

A) Pay the $20/mo for NH Broadband router
B) Save $20/mo and supply my own router

Fear sells.

I wonder how many people who buy this clothing have a cell phone stuck to their head most of the day?

@daniel
Well, I'm very French. My family came over from France in the late 16th Century to Canada. All four of my grandparents were born in French speaking Canada. I only knew my paternal grandmother and she spoke only French (except for a small amount of English, which I never heard her speak), and my maternal grandfather, who like my parents, was bilingual. I spoke only French until I was 6. Our surname (Dauphinais) is meaningful in France (the Dauphin = heir to the throne) and there are several locations in France bearing some form or another of the name. (When I visited Paris, I stayed at Place Dauphine).

None of this necessarily indicates a relationship to our family, though. It was common back then, when immigrating to Canada, to take a new surname--often related to where the family emmigrated from. There is a Dauphine region (south eastern France). But who knows? It is, at the moment, lost to history. But it does make me feel a little bit connected to France.

During COVID lockdown, I got hooked on Chateau Diaries with Stephanie Jarvis. Her chateau, Chateau de La Lande, is in the Creuse department. Her channel led me to vlogs of other ex-pats from England renovating properties in Normandy, Bordeaux, and Creuse. These vloggers showed me day-to-day living in France and I'm hooked. They celebrate food, they don't have to worry about healthcare, their education is very affordable, and it's beautiful in the countryside.