robert mueller was an asshole.

i agree with that.

while i don't think that civilian energy infrastructure is a valid target and therefore oppose trump's ultimatum, iran's delusional response merely demonstrates the point.

if the americans wanted to control the strait, they should have had that as an immediate objective and the fact that they didn't is a failure at central command. trump approves the strikes, but he doesn't write the contingency plans. i'm sure the contingency plan exists - 100% sure. somebody failed to put it in motion.

it's really little more than a minor annoyance. the americans will easily take control of the strait once they get the process in motion.

however, i have been clear that i think the americans should be blockading the iranians. my best guess as to why they aren't is that they don't want to upset the chinese, which is just another layer of nonsense in the americans' thinking. who do they think just launched a missile at diego garcia? 

the houthis? 

the taliban?

i mean, c'mon.

if the americans towed away a few tankers worth of iranian oil intended for the chinese market to it's strategic reserve, that would be a long-deserved kick in the teeth. truly.

in the end, these outcomes are't mutually exclusive. the americans can take control of the straits and blockade iranian oil exports. but they don't appear to be interested in the latter. in fact, that waiver for iranian oil is to replace kuwaiti or gulf oil. the americans are actually functionally encouraging the iranians to eat into the market controlled by their gulf allies, who they are bombing on behalf of. it's all absurd.

right now, it's a matter of time before they take control, and the media's analysis and suggestions otherwise are idiotic. it's a mixture of anti-semitism, anti-americanism and rank morally righteous conservatism. 

i find myself with odd allies today, but i'm driven by ideas and not by allegiances, and i call them as i see them. there's a right-wing, conservative giddiness setting in at the idea of decadent america losing to the religious extremist islamists. it's absurd wishful thinking, but it lets us know what these people are thinking about when they're wishing. it's a longstanding problem in the west; the secularism is in many ways a thin veneer that hides a longing for a return to complete backwardsness.

the sooner that trump stops pretending he can negotiate with these psychotic lunatics, the faster the americans are able to get in there and take over. if he continues to delude himself and delay the inevitable, he runs the risk of looking weak and stupid, as he eventually goes in with a whimper rather than a bang. and if he waits long enough, he might find the chinese beat him to it.

i've been trying to figure out what the hell's been biting me and there's no evidence besides the bites.

there were some spiders in here, but they've been gone for a while. i've seen no signs of roaches since i moved in. i have looked thoroughly for bed bugs and there's nothing. further, the bites don't look like bed bug bites to me, and are mostly on my lower body.

i'm tentatively concluding i'm being bitten by rat fleas, but i haven't seen one. it seems like the least wrong answer.

i have no potential exposure to scabies or anything like that.

this morning, as i've been waiting for the temperature to come up, i took a closer look and realized that all of the bites have a commonality - there's an ingrown hair in every single one. so, are they just ingrowns? it seems unimaginable.

i really want the summer to come in asap and the junkies upstairs to leave asap so i can clean up in here and rule out potential causes.

i'm told the junkies will be forcibly removed by the sheriff on april 5thish. the eviction date is april 1st. i have called the sheriff, and they cannot confirm that.

i'm making a tactical decision to completely lock myself inside until may to be sure that they're completely gone and i don't have any interaction with them as they're being removed. there may be some physical altercations, as there's a lot of people in the back yard and in the garage. there's going to be desperate people trying to get in places and drug addicts trying to get something to sell for dope. i don't want them to even know i'm here at all, and they might not. the windows are shuttered or boarded up. one or two of them know i'm here but i think most of the junkies think the basement is currently empty.

if somebody tries to smash in here, i'll have to smash their head in like i smashed the rat's head in. but i don't want to give them access points or ideas. i want to stay quiet and wait until they're out of here, and then give it a few weeks to be sure they're gone.

the issue i'm primarily concerned about is theft. junkies just steal everything. you can't trust them and you're stupid to try to.

i have made it a point of principle to completely avoid interacting with them. when they talk to me, i ignore them. i hope the message is clear enough that i'm not their friend and don't want to help them.

once they're gone, i'll be able to finish setting this place up.

i do think the rats are gone. the reality is that they'd rather be outside. but we'll see.

donald trump is 80 years old. he's the stubbornest, grumpiest, dickiest old man at the geriatric facility. he doesn't learn new things. he's set in his ways.

these are poor characteristics for a president, but the united states has become a gerontocracy, and we'll all have to navigate that. his replacement will be old, and their replacement will be old. trying to run a young person is just going to be unsuccessful, until the boomers die, at the least.

the democrats should run bernie sanders because he's old. it will increase his chances, because the voters are old, and they want old. that, and the young people are a bunch of shitheads themselves, but that's not even the issue, as of yet.

so, don coyote wants to negotiate. he wants to be a bully. then he wants to make a deal.

he wants to give iran an offer it can't refuse.

ok. i don't agree. but ok.

threatening to bomb the power plants is dumb. they don't give a fuck about that. that is just going to maximize misery.

if donald trump wants to be a bully and create leverage to make a deal tell him to threaten to bunker bomb the presidential palaces. tell him to blow up the governing infrastructure - the halls, the meeting places, the eating houses, the hotels of the rich and the powerful.

i think they probably still won't listen.

but they might. and if they don't, let the hell rain down on the decision makers, not the people.

the sun is not always this important in the weather. it's often not and it's effect is lower closer to the equator, and in the summer, which might be confusing.

but the forecasts are specifically getting the solar weather wrong in the northern hemisphere in spring after and during flares.

that radiation will dissipate, but it has a strong short term effect and the models just aren't getting it.

saturday was the opposite of friday. on friday, it was sunny, so the forecast (17) was less than the high (23). on saturday, it was cloudy, and it never hit the forecasted high of 11, but instead only got to 6.

they were off by five degrees on both days and, on both days, they were wrong because they didn't correctly calculate the sun.

sunday is going to be humid and cloudy. that's trickier. but i've been waiting all day for it to warm up to take a shower and it just didn't because the sun never came out.