Random News and Notes 1 August
Today is the first day of the 8th month of the year. Originally, the month was called “Sextilis” in the Roman calendar, but the Roman Senate renamed it in 8 BC to honor Emperor Augustus.
According to Governor Ron DeSantis, the first 600 detainees have been shipped home from Alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades.
DeSantis also said the repatriations will speed up. Excellent news.
I regularly use Twitter posts from the OKDWC in my Friday Fun pieces. Quite often – including today – they include warnings about messing with the wildlife. Well, here’s one wildlife that you’d be extra dumb to try to boop.
While that is a large bear, it is not as big as most coastal browns. Katmai NP holds a Fat Bear Week competition every fall. We here at MVAP have covered it sporadically over the years. This year, the competition/popularity contest kicks off 4 October. Last year, parts of the competition were called off after one of the larger Brooks river male bears killed and partially ate one of the female bears.
There is a $200 million expansion coming to the White House. President Trump announced the planned ballroom a day or two ago. It flew under my radar mostly because I know how to read and have good comprehension skills. Unlike Chuck Shumer apparently.
Chucky seems to think the $200 m is coming from taxpayers. It isn’t. The funding is all coming from private donors and Trump himself. Well, technically the people who are donating the funds do pay taxes, so in that sense – maybe?
You will note I’m being charitable with Mr cheese-on-a-raw-burger here. The other possibility is that Schmucky here is lying his ass off. Come to think of it, Chuck lying about it is the most likely scenario.
Former Arkansas Governor – and Father to current Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders – Mike Huckabee is the US Ambassador to Israel. He is doing a fantastic job in that position. He is unafraid to call out anyone over anything he perceives as contrary to US interests in the region.
Frankly, the Frogs have “boogered” it up. Kudos to Ambassador Huckabee for the response.
While we’re in the neighborhood, the Israelis have started to airdrop food into Gaza. Aircraft from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and, for the first time in over a year, Spain, Germany, and France, airdropped food in both northern and southern Gaza.
Despite the media drumbeat saying there is incipient famine in Gaza and there is an urgent need for aid deliveries neither are true. There are hundreds of pallets of food aid sitting in Gaza, just inside the Karem Shalom crossing, rotting away. Why? Because the UNRWA – read Hamas – will not deliver it under the restrictions Israel imposed. The airdrops? Yeah, they are eyewash. Each ‘chute has maybe 100kg of food, each plane maybe 40 loads. So 4000kg of food per plane? Alrighty then. . .
Oh, and then there is the fact that the only images to actually show someone suffering from malnutrition to come out of Gaza – not images of someone with other medical conditions or in fucking Yemen – are those of a pair of Israelis being held hostage.
Rom and Evyatar have been held in Gaza since 10/7. I am honestly at the point where the IDF could carpet bomb whatever buildings that are still standing in the Strip and all I’d do is applaud.
The MLB trade deadline was yesterday at 1800 eastern time. There was a lot of movement leading up to the cutoff. My Yankees made some moves to shore up their leaky bullpen, but nothing truly earthshaking. The consensus winners seem to be the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres.
As we head into the final third of the season, the Jays, the Tigers and the ‘Stros lead their divisions in the AL while the Mets, the Brew Crew and the Dodgers lead in NL.
