More clearing is required

'Rental cars used by Secret Service to drive President around catch fire after turned in'

I'm sure there'll be the usual "Assassination attempt!" stuff, but I doubt it.  They must've been gone over in detail by the Service before use(if not, why the hell not?), and I can't see them missing something on ALL the vehicles.

I'm sure we'll hear something about it.  Unless one or more was electric and that's where the fire started, in which case we'll hear nothing that isn't pried out of them.

History is messy, and some people really don't like it when

non-PC parts of it are pointed out.  They get insulting and nasty, especially on the subject of slavery.

It's amazing to me how many are either ignorant of the Arab/Muslim slave trade, or try to ignore it completely.  Of course, it really messes with their preferred 'Slavery began in North America/the United States was worst of all!' bullshit, but still.

As some of you are aware, (updated)

surgery, especially joint surgery, followed by dueling cold & warm fronts = unpleasantness.

Right now it's downright warm outside; then the next front comes in and the low tonight is expected to be about 24.  And the leg woke me up about 0400, and is aching like a bastard since.

Update:

Oh yes, in the past I'd become quite familiar with weather-forecasting joints.  At its then-worst, I could tell a cold or warm front approching 2-3 days ahead, very reliably, by my knees telling me they wanted to suicide.

The save then was some people told me about glucosimine, and I started taking it.  I'd been told it would take two to three months to tell any change, and at two months things were easing.  It felt miraculous as, over the next couple of months, they improved a lot.  I kept taking it, and they staved off the worst for years.

Time finally, as it always does, won, as they hit the point of very little cartilage left between bones, which led to the two surgeries.  The glucosamine doesn't heal things, but it really helped for a bunch of years, so I'm happy I tried it.  Now, if I  can get through the next couple of months, this one ought to ease off like the other did.

And on that note, good night. 

Internal dialogue

"But I don't want to do this!"

"You have to or it won't get better."
"It'll hurt, and ache, and it'll be sore for hours after."

"You have to or it won't get better."

"After the last three days at work, I could just stretch a bit and do the actual PT with the people at the PT place..."

"You have to or it won't get better."

"Dammit, shut up!"

"You have to, or -"

Sigh.

And yet more from those wonderful bureaucrats in Canuckistan,

where it's becoming "You're too young to drink, or decide about a tattoo or sex, but mutilate your genitals?  No problem!  And now we'll let you decide about suicide!"

And just think how much money the 'free' healthcare system will save when all those troubled kids off themselves with state help.

I did take something noisy to try out on break,

and it appears I can still put them on paper.  Though not for long, as standing there in a shooting stance, after a bit, caused the leg to tell me to go sit down.  Basically just took a sack with the pistol in a rug and a box of ammo, because I realized my shooting bag is above the 'how much you should lift' limit.

Ah well, the ability is still there.

I remember when he was awarded the Medal, a reporter said that just before the ceremony started

President Reagan came out and told them "You're not going to believe this."

That line from Firefly about 'big damn heroes' comes to mind, Master Sergeant Roy Benividez definitely fits.

One of the things on the "If you go back to work" list

is "Don't lift or carry things above 'x' pounds."  Which also covers "Don't carry your range bag" because it weighs more than that.  For that matter I've handled rifles far above that limit("No, you can't take that shooting, all by itself it's three pounds over your limit!  And then you add in the ammo...")

Which has, along  with other things, meant no, or very little, shooting.  Did a bit the other day, minimum gear, and the standing did annoy the joint a bit.  But I was still able to put them on paper decently.

Still cold today, but it's not raining, maybe that'll help.  Of course, last night it would've helped if I'd put the ice pack back in the freezer after its last use.

Ah well.  Hopefully the torturers will help this get over with before too long.

For these clowns "EVERYTHING IS RACIST!"

Kayla Patrick has worked at the DOE's Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development since February 2022, according to her LinkedIn. In 2021, she said, "school discipline is a symptom of a racist and punitive system that often fails to see children as children."

"Instead of helping students to learn and grow from mistakes, educators send them into the office, or send them home, or even sometimes call the police. And Black students are more likely to be offended, affected by that," she said.
Etc.

"Pay attention in class" is racist.  "Don't start/get in fights in school" is racist.  "Be on time for class and get your assignments done" is racist.  Which sounds like they consider everything that helps kids actually get ahead is racist in the eyes of these morons.

Wonder how many kids lives they've trashed already with this crap?

It is now a cold, wet seventh evening,

and my leg and a few other parts ache.  Therefore, go look because I'm not likely to do anything else this evening.

At the very least, Fauci ought to be prosecuted for all the times

he lied under oath.  That'd be a good minimum to happen to him.
Fauci, the outgoing director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has downplayed the possibility that COVID-19 originated in a lab setting in Wuhan, China, and has generally denied any wrongdoing or miscalculation in funding dangerous gain-of-function (GoF) research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). New emails from early 2020 obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by reporter Jimmy Tobias show Fauci was deeply concerned about the possibility of a lab leak at the time.

The emails contain communications between Fauci, scientist Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust, infectious disease researcher Kristian Andersen, then-Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Francis Collins and others. At one point, Farrar sent an email to Fauci and Collins warning of the “wild west,” seemingly referring to either the landscape of infectious disease research in China as a whole or the WIV specifically, according to the documents.

On February 1, 2020, Fauci floated the idea of alerting the FBI and MI5 about Andersen’s “concern” regarding the furin cleavage site on the spike protein of COVID-19. Proponents of the lab leak argue the furin cleavage site mutated in such a way that it was likely the result of GoF research at the Wuhan lab, according to The Atlantic.

Andersen also expressed concern about “serial passage” being conducted with coronaviruses in a BSL-2 level lab in Wuhan, which is far less secure than a maximum-security BSL-4 level lab. Serial passage, in layman’s terms, involves repeatedly infecting a host with a particular virus in order to induce mutations without manually genetically modifying it. Some proponents of the lab leak believe that serial passage may have caused the highly-dangerous furin cleavage site mutation responsible for COVID-19’s high transmissibility, The Washington Post noted.

Damp and cold is not good weather

for a joint to be healing in.  Damn.

Be it noted, this evening after Thanksgiving, that the traffic was nuts today,

and work busy as hell, and I'm about to sit a while with my leg up.  So here's the sixth eve stuff

Meanwhile, in the Brit NHS, things are not going all that well

Record waiting times for basic NHS services are set to continue for years to come, ministers have admitted.

Targets are unlikely to be met before the next election as the government seeks to scrap wait time goals altogether.

The number of ambulances reaching those with severe conditions including heart attacks within 18 minutes will stay well below targets until at least spring 2025, according to Whitehall briefings sent to the health service.
Etc., etc. as the king said.

Which brings us to
His 16-year-old son was referred to the hospital trust for assessment of a urology-related problem – but will be 18 when the day of his appointment comes around in 951 days.

SaTH, where the NHS's worst maternity scandal took place in which 201 babies and nine mothers died over two decades, has apologised and said it recognises 'that the current waits are not acceptable'.

No shit? 

I can think of a number of things to be thankful for, but in this case

I'm going to keep this simple

Nice boomsticks, 

Good groups at 200,

and such things, followed by lovelies