"the subject of an investigation"

mueller said this today- "when the subject of an investigation obstructs"

anyone else remember all the wailing about whether twitler was a subject, or a target, or a witness?
yeah, twitler was the target.

"this isnt reading rainbow"

"read the report"

ari melber's tl:dr on mueller's statement.

the inflexibility of monocultures will be their undoing.

read this by charlie pierce today, and it sorta scared the bejeebus out of me-
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27611439/american-farmers-climate-change-effects/

watching the real farmers in my state and elsewhere, struggling to get anything into the fields in this mud, specialized and mechanized to the point of being paralyzed by bad weather, i wonder what can be done. what are the alternatives that could withstand completely unpredictable climate?

this spring has really sucked for my little farm. had a great crop of seedlings, busting w life. when i got them into my hoop house, and my little lean to greenhouse, the sun went out and the temps dropped, and everything is just shivering. i am dodging the raindrops, trying to get it done a little at a time.
find myself agonizing over my need for a real, year round greenhouse if this project is ever gonna meet it's potential. i mean, it is an insurance policy that i am pretty sure i would cash and more than once.

but dang, the big guys are getting creamed.
million dollar machines, mired in the muck.
or tossed by a tornado.
operations so specialized and mechanized that they are just stuck growing what they grow, or nothing at all.

so, what would i want?
i would be looking for shorter and shorter season varieties, so that i could still plant in june, even late june and have something, even if it isnt as good as my regular crop.
i'd want equipment advances that let me get cheaper, interchangeable tools to allow for more flexibility.
grants, loans, or even co-ops for tools and info.
how about saving some of those old fashioned machines, which care more adept?

but the dreamer in me also floats off to the perfect universe.
what if refugees from rice growing cultures could get into these soggy fields? could they pull off a crop? what would it take to facilitate that? the civilian reclamation and emergency planting corp?

i wonder how some of the permies are doing. seems to me that if i am ready to plant a green manure/soil enhancing fallow crop on a regular basis, i am ready to pounce on this, all this topsoil that the floods just gifted me, plant my daikon, my alfalfa, my clover, and wait it out for a year, w/o a complete backslide.

maybe some govt grants to plant more permanent crops, on at least parts of farms that lay in the path of repeated weather/water issues?


how would the blue do it?
what do we offer farmers? i think that any that still wondered about climate change are thinking again after inland icebergs.

oh, john fugelsang. if only.

by the time nancy springs this trap, twitler will be grateful

that he isnt looking at the 25th amendment.
he may just plead guilty rather than be proven nuts.

just heard something really interesting- no vet w a service dog

has committed suicide.
i dont even doubt this. w/o my dogs, i dont know where i would be. curling up w them, i can breathe and relax, and recenter.
i dont know how i would sleep at night w/o them there.

on msnbc right now, talking to a couple medal of honor winners. one has a service dog, so they were talking about that.

been known to say it would be a different world if every child was assigned a boxer dog at birth.
i think i will add all discharged vets. or at least all troubled vets.

really simplistic, i know. but sometimes love really does heal, and is simple. undoubtedly a net positive anyway. that's something.

i posted this on fb today, i thought it might get an amen here.

got into a fight w my best friend this morning because i woke up w a knife of pain in my back, so i thought i might need to explain to more than just one person.

i feel like i ought to put this out there.
i dont like to bitch about my health, or, frankly, to talk about it.
but i feel like maybe some of my friends are scratching their heads about stuff i am or am not doing, and i think it might help if i explained.

i have had a lot of ups and downs in my health for nearly 20 years now. i got bit by a mosquito, and came down w west nile. i never felt good again. i have fibromyalgia, and some autoimmune irregularities as well as 3 separate autoimmune conditions.

i have had creeping osteoarthritis for the last decade, starting w 2 vertebral disks that fell apart in '08.
2 years ago, i had to have my shoulder reconstructed, and now i have 2 hips and a knee that are a daily drag.
and i cant take most pain meds, as my intestines are sorta falling apart.

the last 2 years have been a steady downward slide.
at this point, i am barely functional.
tho i marvel at the number of seedlings and plants that i was able to produce this year, i also know how many failed, and why, and how much more i could have done w just a little more energy, and how much extra help it took.

i am grateful as all holy hell that i have the kind of support for everyday life functions that i have now, but i think everybody knows that that is a rose w many thorns.

through all this, i have never doubted that there was a fix out there that could at least make things better.
both surgeries were very successful, and made a massive improvement. meds have helped keep the fibro at bay for a long while.

but i turn 65 in a few short weeks, and it feels like there are no more peaks out there for me to climb. just a deeper and deeper valley, w no passes out.

so, if i miss your thing, even tho i said i was gonna be there a couple of hours ago, or it takes me several hours or even days to answer your messages, or it seems like i am always napping, now you know why.

no sorries or prayers or suggestions needed.
i just thought there were more than a couple people on this feed that might read this and go- ooo00ooh.

ps, if you post something that is the kind of thing that makes people w chronic illness groan or cry, imma delete it.
i have heard them all, i know they are well intentioned. but they can make us sickies a little nuts, and i dont want that to happen to any of my sicky friends.
i aint mad at ya. it's ok, but it's my thread here.

a great little field guide i found this am when posting about the hummers

visit the sad last blossoms on my magnolia.

i dont know about you, but the warblers are crazy here this year.
we birders have an amazing local resource in the field museum. they collect the birds that crash into the skyscrapers downtown. they have a great record of migratory birds for decades and decades.

so, they put out this little guide of all the warblers that you might see around chicago. so great to sort the little buggers out quickly from the highly unlikelies.
printed a couple out for the grandkids.

https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/999_usa_warblers_of_the_chicago_region_0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3pLk7KULnGdu7k8WjUSQfkxNGhRXwHGpFO4vGKbE-CF5jetgEpX1mtK80

x-post from e/e- here's an idea for the green new deal-

help farmers re-electrify rural america.

so, when that draft of the green new deal made the rounds, and everyone started stockpiling cheeseburgers, and drawing up plans for their govt home remodeling, msnbc had the good sense to track down the facts about cow farts and climate change.

first off, it's not the farts, its the belching. and there is good research underway to find better feeds that fix that.

but second, as we all know, it is manure and cafo runoff that are killing our waterways.

perhaps some of you have noticed that i have an obsession w 2 particularly glaringly stupid environment nightmares that have, imho, simple solutions.
one is coal ash, which is a mineral mine laying around waiting for someone to get rich on.
the other is manure. pig shit in particular, but manure in general.

a fairly simple anaerobic digester system makes free methane in a bottle.
the sludge that comes out at the end is far more useful as a fertilizer than raw manure. put it in a bag, and make a good buck w your green fertilizer.
such obvious low hanging fruit.

so, the msnbc spot was-
talking to a couple huge dairy farmers in iowa. got the facts about part one.

then this- the entire small town there was powered by electricity from a single dairy farm.

the barns were piped up so that the manure was automatically pumped into the digester.
the whole set up cost $20M.
it made sense for this farmer to invest in that system. so should the tax payers.

this is my pet theory, but there is plenty of good stuff down this same road.
like, how about the green new deal gives green farmers low interest loans and grants of "seed money" for green innovations to agriculture.
how about transition funds for organic farms?
how about increased conservation easements?
how about more wind and solar subsidies? (how about solar for rural schools and hospitals?)

seems like all these things are rich in opportunities for rural economies.

talk about reaching out to the rural voters. (i know, i know, they are crazies. but there are dems out there everywhere, and this could show everyone what we are made of in a way that pokes the dummies in the eye.)



https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127127536

how about this for an immigration plan-

if you are a victim of america's endless wars and destabilization, you can seek asylum here.
no exceptions, little to no questions asked.

we really ought to be cleaning up our own mess.

we should have to take climate refugees, too, considering our particular responsibility for it. but i can wait till we have set the precedent.