Our Glorious Government at Work

(Only... Maybe that should be "Our Glorious Government at Work on Furlough"?  Or "in Shutdown Mode"?)

In need of a little righteous indignation?  Try the story of the closing of the WWII memorial in Washington, D.C.  (I imagine most have heard all about it already, but there it is, to remind myself at a later date...)

This entire thing is absolutely shameful.   I mean, really!  Wouldn't you be blushingly ashamed of yourself, if you were charged with putting up these extra barricades and "CLOSED" signs?  I know I would...

While the higher-profile WWII memorial is carefully blocked, the barricade at the WWI memorial looks like this.  (It's a single unit of fencing-- about six feet long, standing all by its lonesome in a wide-open area, decorated with an "official" sign indicating-- I assume-- that all national parks are closed, and looking-- well, completely stupid.)


So... We couldn't afford to pay someone to staff the WWII memorial.  (For what purpose?  To collect garbage every couple of days?  To make sure there hasn't been an act of vandalism?)  Yet we had the money to pay them to put up the barricades-- then to come back the next day and put up more barriers, since the first ones apparently weren't enough.  What a wise use of federal dollars! I hope the brains behind this brilliant decision are proud of themselves. 

Newsflash!!

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse:
"National Zoo panda cam goes dark in government shutdown."

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Why?!   WHYYYYYYYY?!?!?!
 

Vacation from the News

Yay, Obamacare.  "Free" healthcare for all... except not really.  Well, ok... "affordable", then?  Ha ha ha!  Good one!  (And if you fall into certain unlucky brackets, the government may punish you for being married, but what else is new?)

Yeah, time for another "vacation" from the news-- or at least most of the news.  Just makes me too blood-boiling angry, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. 

Once-in-a-Blue-Moon Post

I'm slowly but surely editing and uploading (to Flickr) photos from our July trip to Sweden.  Still not done, but getting there...

One of the latest is this photo of Donald standing next to a huge ant hill by the side of the long driveway down to his parents' place:

It's not a very good photo (for some reason, Donald is underexposed, so it looks like a not-very-well-done cut-and-paste job), but I promise that I didn't do anything to the photo except sharpen it and adjust the colors a little (to make him look a little less like a ghost (g)).  The ant hill really is that big.  There were lots of ants going up and down the road.  ~shudder~ 

Donald says that in Sweden, ant hills can stay in the same place (though under constant repair, I would imagine) for years.  There was another, smaller hill down closer to the lake, and Donald says he remembers that one being there when he was a kid-- so 30 to 40 years ago-- and it's still in the same general spot.  That's just amazing.  I don't think ants would do that, around here.  Maybe if they live out in the middle of nowhere, with no people trying to get rid of them, they'll stay in one location longer, but I get the impression that "our" ants don't settle down in one spot for decades.  Even if they get a really big "bed" established, sooner or later, a storm will wash them out (or maybe an animal will disturb them)-- something happens, and they'll move on to another place. 

There are more (and I hope better) photos in my Flickr photostream (link in the sidebar).  :o) And more still to come!

Random Music Obsession

Music Obsession of the Month:
M83-- particularly the soundtrack for Oblivion: