"Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!"

I just saw something... NASA wants to land on the moon in 2028!

That year rang a bell... Hmm...

Naw... it couldn't be for that reason. Now could it? No not possibly... no.

NASA Administrator ‘extremely confident’ in Artemis 3 mission in 2027

Space Flight

August 14, 2026

NASA is potentially less than a year away from the trio of rocket launches that will encompass the Artemis 3 mission and the agency’s leader said he is “extremely confident” that the mission will happen in 2027.

Isaacman made the statement alongside Brian Hughes, the Kennedy Space Center director, as well as members of the Florida congressional delegation on Friday. He was there to announce a new NASA-supported, privately run air and space show, called “Max Power” taking place in early November.

“I’m extremely confident that we are we are going to be able to launch Artemis 3 next year. That’s why we stepped into stacking operations,” Isaacman said, referring to the assembly of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket happening in the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC.

[...]

“I had a chance to visit with the Blue Origin team earlier, walked the assembly line floor today, looking at components that will make their way into the Blue Origin test lander that we will be rendezvousing and docking with,” Isaacman said. “And I’ll tell you, if you spoke to Blue Origin, they would say the same thing. What we are going to learn from that mission, the amount of risk we’re going to be able to bring down in advance of Artemis 4 will be significant.

“I think in fact, if you coupled that with the uncrewed landing demonstration, you’d be very confident in what they’re going to be able to achieve potentially in 2028.”

Back on the moon! In 2028... there's that year ago.. why in two years... that seems pushing it.

Naw it couldn't be because Trump wants to stand next to the astronauts and bask in their glory as his own... naw. it couldn't be that! 

Reuters reported...

Trump urges 2028 astronaut moon landing in sweeping space policy order

By Joey Roulette

December 19, 2025

President Donald Trump enshrined the U.S. goal to put humans back on the moon by 2028 and defend space from weapon threats in a sweeping executive order issued on Thursday, the first major space policy move of his administration's second term.

[...]

The goal to land humans on the moon by the end of Trump's second term in 2028 bears resemblance to the president's 2019 directive in his first term to make a lunar return by 2024, putting the moon at the center of U.S. space exploration policy with a timeline many in the industry regarded as unrealistic.

Development and testing delays with NASA’s Space Launch System and SpaceX’s Starship gradually pushed that landing target date back.

NASA's goal had been 2028 under former president Barack Obama.

No, it must just be a coincidence,

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Blueberry Hill (1956)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun… 

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

This month Saturday 9 will be tasty, featuring songs with food in the title.

1) Fats Domino sings about a hill named for blueberries. According to the Old Farmers Almanac, blueberries can grow just about anywhere in North America, as long as they have plenty of direct sunlight. Do you have a garden?

No I tried a couple of times but I ended up just feeding the wildlife.

2) Blueberries are low in calories and rich in fiber. Are they a regular part of your diet? 

Yes, on the breakfast plate this morning were blueberry pancakes. There are a lot of wild blueberrys on the Cape… the street behind me is Blueberry Hill Way. Of course there are no blueberries and no hill, but it sounded good.

3) They also have a high moisture content. Staying hydrated is important to human health. Do you drink the standard recommended 8 glasses of water every day?

No, but I keep hydrated (My favorite drink currently is 1/3 crushed ice, cover it with cranberry juice and fill the glass with club soda, it is really a cranberry soda.)

4) Fats originally had a big hit with "Blueberry Hill" in 1956, and then enjoyed the record's renewed popularity in the mid-70s, when "Blueberry Hill" was often referenced as Richie Cunningham's favorite song. Without looking it up, do you remember what show Richie Cunningham was on? (Extra non-existent Saturday 9 points if you can also name the actor who played Richie.)

Oo… Oo… I know and I’m very happy to remember, it made my day for both answers… Happy Days and was played by Ron Howard,

5) Born Antoine Domino, he took the name "Fats" not just because of his physique. Growing up, jazz pianist Fats Waller was one of his heroes. If you were to adopt the first name of someone you admire, what would we call you?

Wow, that’s a hard one because I never gave it any thought and I draw a blank.

6) Despite his warm and friendly stage persona, Fats was shy around strangers and hated giving interviews. Tell us about something you did only because it was part of your job, not because you enjoyed it.

Fire people.

Every year at the end of golf season I had to send a technician to detox because of the 19^th hole. He liked his Bourbon. Well one year he said NO! And we had to fire him. I begged for him to go but he said no.

I cried and I cried, we worked together for over 25 years. One of the other techs said he was drunk all the time. Just sits in front of the TV bad mouthing me and the company.

Me… I blame the other three people for always ending their game in the clubhouse bar. For them it was like a joke. He can’t hold his liquor. I found one of his golfing buddies had his license suspended for DWI. It was a habit… play eighteen holes and go to the watering hole.

And I believe alcoholism is a disease, that is what I never wanted to fire him but it was unsafe to work with him. He was a hazard to himself and other, we worked with high voltage.

7) In 1956, when this record was topping the charts, the Olympics were held in Melbourne. Have you ever been to the land down under?

The only “Land” that I have been to is Canada.

8)  The star of the 1956 Olympics was Austrian Toni Sailer, who won all three gold medals in Alpine skiing. Do you prefer snow skiing, water skiing, or just watching other people ski?

Now watching them ski, I used to snow ski and water ski, but at my age now... I watch them on TV.

9) Random question: Do you believe everyone has a jealous streak?

Like all thing… it is relative. Some really have a terrible jealous streak, while others it is only a dream.

Stop And Think For A Moment

When I saw this cover on Facebook the first thing that popped in to my head was... and that is why the Republicans pass "Don't Say Gay" laws.

That is why all the censorship. If we only hear the lies they say, the hate will be passed on down. But if they see they truth they won't hate, if they see the truth they will see it is safe to come out.

We are not "grooming" we are awaking. 

Dis In Death

I just found out they were trans, but from media reports, you would never know it.

WMTW:

Court documents reveal the jarring details of last week’s killing in Portland’s Back Cove. A newly released affidavit shows Julian, Juju, Nadeau suffered a single stab wound to the chest while walking in Portland last Wednesday.

Flowers lay at a spot under Tukey’s Bridge, where Nadeau was heading to open Pokémon cards and hang out.

WGME:

Court documents detail the events leading up to last week's murder of a young adult on Portland’s Back Cove Trail.

Twenty-one-year-old Julian "Juju" Nadeau was walking with friends on the paved trail near Tukey's Bridge when police say a man on a bicycle approached the group and pulled out a knife.

Portland Press Herald:

Julian Nadeau held close what she loved.

Her clothes, which she wore until they were tattered. Her pins, which she collected and displayed on her backpack. Her friends and loved ones, who she hugged often.

The 21-year-old Portland resident, also known as Juju, was fatally stabbed last week while walking with friends to one of her favorite spots in the city: the colorful wall of graffiti underneath Tukey’s Bridge.

Them:

In the aftermath, initial media coverage misgendered and deadnamed Nadeau, a common macroaggression trans people face after becoming the victim of a violent crime. But for Kasper DeWitt, Juju’s partner of two years, she was so much more than a name in a headline. To her loved ones, DeWitt says, Nadeau lit up the world. She was “divine.”

For us in the community, it is doubly hard to lose a friend and have her dissed. Them goes on to write:

Her loved ones plan to honor her energy by sewing some of Nadeau’s fursuit into their own, retiring the well-loved hyena by burning it, and throwing the biggest party ever.

But the mainstream media... not a peep out of them. It is almost as if somehow she was dirty or unclean.

Why Incorrectly Identifying Transgender People Who Have Died Is a Lack of Respect

"Dead naming is done as a means of denying their gender identity."

Teen Vouge

By Brittney McNamara

June 28, 2017

On June 25, Ava Le'Ray Barrin, a 17-year-old transgender girl, was fatally shot in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Athens, Georgia, according to TransGriot. Ava is the 14th transgender person allegedly murdered so far in 2017. But news reports have been incorrectly identifying Ava, using what's known as her deadname. Deadnaming, unfortunately, is a common practice when transgender people are killed, and it highlights the lack of respect transgender people experience both in life and in death.

[...]

"Many trans people fear that in death their full identities will be erased, subtracted from, or diminished," Alex Schmider, a senior strategist for transgender media at GLAAD, told Teen Vogue. "We've seen this happen."

Yet still, the press continues deadnaming us!

Here We Go Again!

[Editorial;

Bathrooms, bathrooms, bathrooms! Back in the Jim Crow era, it was bathrooms… “Oh, my little Janie will be in a bathroom with a Black lady!” That was the cry all the way up to the 1960s when Civil Rights legislation started to pass (now the Supreme Court is dismantling a chunk at a time, but more on that in another blog post), and now we are the victims of the same injustice.

In Kansas, the guys are showing the “absurdity” and bigotry of the laws. In Kansas, the guys have come out in our defense!

“Bearded, burly” trans men enter women’s facilities to show “absurdity” of bathroom bans

They’re part of a protest group illustrating the absurdity of Kansas’ anti-trans bathroom ban.

LGBTQ Nation

Daniel Villarreal (he/him)

August 11, 2026

The manager of the Long Branch Lagoon Water Park in Dodge City, Kansas reportedly screamed and rushed children out of the women’s restroom and changing area on August 8 after three self-described “bearded, burly” transgender men wearing yellow “Compliance Crew” t-shirts followed state law and used the municipal facilities matching the sex listed on their birth certificates, trans journalist S. Baum reported.

The men neither removed their clothes nor made any crass comments while in the facility, but they had to provide police “uncomfortable descriptions” about their bodies and genitals in order to avoid arrest. The three are part of an activist group that has been entering girls’ and women’s facilities elsewhere in the state (as required by law) to protest the absurdity of Kansas’ transphobic bathroom ban. The police in this incident had neither heard of the ban’s passage last February nor their expectation to enforce it.

This is how crazy this all is… “neither heard of the ban’s passage last February nor their expectation to enforce it.” Us using bathrooms never had been a problem until they created it.

We need you guys! We need you to keep doing this, get arrested, and sue the pants off of them for false arrest. An opinion article in The New York Times wrote…

“Additionally, please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the letter said. “This means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credential will be invalid immediately.” The law was going into effect the next day.

Kirchstein, who is 41, had transitioned in 2023. She had changed her legal name and her gender marker in the Social Security system, on her passport card and on her Kansas driver’s license. It required jumping through a lot of bureaucratic hoops — the name change alone required a court hearing and proof that Kirchstein had notified her bank, credit card company, landlord and others — but it was worth it, to make it official.

[…]

July: “It was soft fascism.” It was. Fascism usually begins with redefining the nation by excluding certain groups, which are branded threats to national health and unity. The Trump administration has fixated on two groups most of all — immigrants and trans people — in just this way, smearing us (I am a member of both groups) as predatory, sick, at once subhuman and terrifyingly powerful. Even before Donald Trump was elected for the second time, more than half the states had considered or passed legislation limiting the rights of trans people. The process has intensified in the last year and a half, and the law enacted in Kansas in February is one of the most restrictive pieces of anti-trans legislation passed in any state so far.

And they never even thought of trans men… because their transphobia is rooted entirely in misogyny and an obsession with policing women. When they write these laws, they are hyper-focused on controlling women's bodies, meaning trans men completely break their narrow mental models. Their disdain is so great they don't even think of the guys!

But trying to define Mother Nature is impossible.

These laws are not really about us or public safety; instead, they enforce rigid gender norms. Even if they start testing everyone’s DNA, it still will not show a person's true biological sex. For example, the SRY gene is a key part of male sex development. Without it, the developing embryo typically follows a default female developmental path, even though the DNA still shows XY.

Then we have the “gender police” going after women who don’t look like women! I have written about this many times: 2018's Caught Up In Frenzy, 2015's The Bathroom Police…, and back in 2006's Crossing the Gender Norms!

This is nothing more than conservatives trying to enforce their “1950s” anti-LGBTQ+ views upon us. but the modern legislative push goes far beyond simple 1950s conformity—it’s actively authoritarian.

[/Editorial]

Setting Us Up As Patsy

I retired in 2007, after taking advantage of my company's favorable IRAs and 401(k)s and building up a sizeable nest egg. The company had done away with its traditional retirement plan and moved entirely to IRAs and 401(k)s. At the time, the conventional wisdom was to put your retirement savings into interest-bearing investments. So I did, and I went for what I thought was the very best: AAA-rated, AIG-guaranteed Lehman Brothers bonds. The gold standard.

Then came 2008. In one week, I lost two-thirds of my life's savings. Now guess what? Trump wants to make it even riskier!

Wall Street Wants to Change the Rules for Your 401(k). It Could Put Your Retirement at Risk.

Financial firms want a bigger piece of the $10 trillion in America’s 401(k) plans, and the Trump administration is planning a regulatory rollback to encourage  less-regulated — and often riskier — investments.

ProPublica

by Paul Kiel

July 8, 2026

Most Americans don’t look to their 401(k) plans for excitement or experimentation, instead relying on the promise that steady saving and sober planning will guarantee security in their golden years. But the Trump administration wants to transform the well-worn patterns of retirement investing. 

To do so, it is moving to weaken the main protection workers have over their retirement money. The man in charge of the regulatory rollback is an industry insider whose former clients are among the large companies likely to benefit from his plan.

Since taking office last year, President Donald Trump has loudly called for plans to include less-regulated — and often risky — investments like private equity and cryptocurrency. To achieve that goal, the administration is softening one of the strongest legal protections American workers have: the right to hold an employer accountable when retirement savings are mishandled. The change is designed to give employers cover if their workers’ 401(k)s are deflated by expensive, opaque or unproven investments.

“What they have done is lower the standard for everything,” said Ali Khawar, a former senior official at the Department of Labor, which is charged with enforcing the federal law that governs retirement savings.

Of course he wants to do it! The billionaires make money whether the markets go up or down! You pay a commission on the trades.

But that's not all. Trump is rigging it so you are buying “a pig in a poke!” You see, at the same time they want to make this change, the SEC is changing its reporting requirements. The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance writes,

>    What could change? Meaningful relief is on the table. The Proposed Amendments would increase two important thresholds: first, the overall threshold for the requirement to file Form PF would increase from $150 million to $1 billion in private fund assets under management, and, second, the threshold for filing as a “large hedge fund adviser” would increase from $1.5 billion to $10 billion in hedge fund assets under management. The Proposed Amendments would also, among other things, eliminate quarterly event reporting obligations for private equity fund advisers and streamline a number of other reporting requirements applicable to other filers.

[...]

>   Adviser-led Secondary Transactions, Continuation Vehicles, and Other Liquidity Solutions: With respect to adviser-led secondary transactions, the Release indicates that the SEC in particular recognizes the increasing use and growing importance of continuation vehicles and other liquidity vehicles in the market, noting specifically that these vehicles “maximiz[e] the value of a high performing asset or provid[e] existing investors liquidity while attracting new investors.” This development is critical for private equity sponsors, not just under Form PF but also because it signals a broader acceptance by the SEC that these structures are ordinary-course portfolio management tools and not necessarily indicators of market stress. The proposed changes suggest a more practical regulatory view of these structures, contrary to the approach taken by the prior SEC, which subjected them to enhanced regulatory attention under both Form PF and the now-vacated Private Fund Adviser Rules.

What this boils down to is less reporting. Instead of quarterly reporting, it will no longer be required in some circumstances. And if the funds own any other funds, they used to have to report them, but not anymore. ProPublica goes on to write;

Tim Hauser, a 34-year-veteran of EBSA who was the highest-ranking career staffer there before retiring last year, said such ideas undermine the heart of ERISA. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, EBSA was “dedicated to protecting plan participants,” he said, but that has changed under Aronowitz. The ability of courts and regulators to hold employers accountable for using bad judgment when choosing 401(k) investments is “fundamental to this whole system,” Hauser said. “They are proposing to deprioritize it at the same time that they are encouraging plans to invest in more complicated, opaque investments. It’s infuriating.”

The shift at EBSA has also been evident in court. Over the last year, the Labor Department has filed amicus briefs — friend-of-the-court filings that lay out legal arguments for judges — in several class-action lawsuits on the side of the defendant company. In the past, the Labor Department’s briefs had generally sided with the employees. These amicus briefs can be influential. Recently, the agency interceded on Home Depot’s behalf in a case pending before the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs then dropped it.

The New Times wrote;

Pressed by his Wall Street supporters, President Trump is moving to liberalize the types of investments Americans can make with their individual retirement accounts. Instead of betting their retirement savings on plain vanilla stocks and bonds, account holders would be allowed to move their funds into sexy sectors like private equity, private credit and cryptocurrency — no matter their complexity, risk and illiquidity.

Supporters of the switch make the case that individuals should have the same access to private assets with potentially higher returns as institutions and the wealthy. But this argument rests on the false premise that most Americans are equipped to evaluate these complex, opaque investments. They are not. And expanding access to them risks doing more harm than good.

What does it mean to us? It means that the billionaires are going to make even more money from us peons. They are playing us for shill, patsy, and rubes and stacking the deck against us.

Soft On Crime!

That is the conservative mantra… the left is too soft on crime! How many times have you heard that? That states like Connecticut are pansies, that we are too soft on crime.

First, I looked at the recidivism rates for the states. Which states have prisoners returning to the justice system? It turns out you can’t figure out that simple question. Some states record something as minor as getting a speeding ticket as a return to the justice system, while other states look at additional felonies. So, it wasn’t comparing apples to apples. That doesn't mean recidivism numbers are useless. It means we need to understand exactly what each state is measuring before declaring a winner.

Next, I looked at the crime rate, and there the differences stood out!

State	Regional/Political Grouping	Violent Crime Rate (per 100k)	Homicide Rate Profile
Connecticut	Northern / Liberal	~181.6	One of the lowest in the nation.
Massachusetts	Northern / Liberal	~322.0	Regularly ranks in the top 10 safest states.
Vermont	Northern / Progressive	~222.0	Frequently named the #1 safest overall state.
Florida	Southern / Conservative	~380.0	Sits right around the national average.
Texas	Southern / Conservative	~430.0	Higher than the national average.
Mississippi	Southern / Conservative	~245.0	Features one of the country's highest murder rates.
Louisiana	Southern / Conservative	~620.0	Consistently holds the highest state murder rate.

Whoa. That is an amazing difference.

This morning’s CBS Sunday Morning had a segment that showed the harm that “lock ’em up and throw away the key” can do to people.

One woman accidentally ate an edible at a party where pot is legal. She went home to Idaho, where they test every baby for illegal drug use. BINGO!

How THC tests have landed more than a thousand new mothers onto child abuse registries

CBS News

By Erin Moriarty

August 9, 2026

Giving birth to her fourth child in January of 2021 was life-changing, says Nicole Hamann, but not in the way she ever imagined. While still at the hospital, Hamann was informed that both she and her newborn tested positive for a trace amount of THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. [A urine test is given to mothers, which is followed up by testing the umbilical cord.] "I felt like, all of the sudden, I was a criminal," Hamann said.

Hamann lives in Idaho, where marijuana is illegal. But a month before giving birth, Hamann, who has no criminal record, says she accidentally ate a pot-laced brownie at a relative's home in Oregon, where marijuana is legal. She says no one was interested in hearing her explanation of why she had THC in her system.

Child and Family Services began an investigation immediately, because in Idaho (and a number of other states), a single positive test result of THC in a newborn is considered presumptive evidence of child abuse.

[…]

Although social workers found no evidence of drug use, Hamann's name was still placed on the agency's child protection central registry – a list of child abusers. That means she can't work in hospitals or daycare centers. Even volunteering at her children's school is not allowed.

And Hamann's name remains on that list for a period of ten years. "It hurts … it hurts," she said. "It's heavy. It feels like somebody placed a big boulder on my shoulder and I have to carry it around for 10 years."

Hamann is not alone. At least a thousand new mothers in Idaho have been placed on that same registry, many for using marijuana products to relieve pain and severe nausea.

The harm that their get-tough policy is causing people is excessive! Yeah, pregnant women shouldn’t… But should they be sentenced to 10 years? Period. No courts, no hearings to explain. Just pot in your baby’s blood… guilty.

We are tough on drugs! But what does it do to the people?

Like Nicole Hamann, McGrath and her fiancé were investigated, and then cleared, by social workers. But McGrath says having her name on the child abuse registry has had devastating consequences. "My career as a healthcare worker is not just at risk; it's completely thrown away," she said.

What would happen here in Connecticut for a situation like this? Well, for one thing, you wouldn’t be reading about it here. Why? Because this type of drug use would never have automatically elevated the situation to the level of law enforcement. Yes, they do refer cases to the police, but not at this level! So, no criminal records!

Yeah, you can look at the numbers from above… but the numbers do not reflect the human costs!

---

I have one word for you... strawberries!

You know what is back in the news... the Reflecting Pool! Yes, Donny had a hissy fit over the case being dropped. So little Donny dragged the Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney to the carpet... how dare she let that evil criminal get off!

Jeanine Pirro calls secretive grand jury in unusual move after Reflecting Pool debacle put her in Trump’s crosshairs: report

After repeatedly losing Trump-priority cases in DC, the DOJ may have discovered a workaround through Pirro’s office

The Independent

Alex Woodward

13 August 2026

Under-fire acting U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has taken a highly unusual next step after being sternly and publicly rebuked by President Donald Trump for dropping the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool case against a former Olympic rower, citing a lack of evidence.

The former district attorney, judge and Fox News personality — who now answers to Trump’s ex-criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche after his confirmation as U.S. Attorney General this week — is leading a special grand jury that could be used to investigate the president’s political enemies, according to The Washington Post.

Such a secretive special grand jury could be used to draft damaging reports about Trump’s critics, including current and former Democratic officials. The subject and scope of the special grand jury’s inquiry is unclear. The Independent has requested comment from Pirro’s office and the Justice Department.

Do you remember Captain Queeg in the movie "The Caine Mutiny" and Captain Queeg's obsession over strawberries... do you remember?

Do it remind you of anyone now?

Pirro brought box of evidence to show Trump what caused Reflecting Pool damage

By Sarah N. Lynch, Jennifer Jacobs

August 4, 2026 /

CBS News

The top federal prosecutor in the nation's capital carted a box full of evidence to the White House on Monday, in a bid to prove to President Trump that the damage to the Reflecting Pool was caused by shoddy construction and not by vandals, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News on Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, a staunch ally of the president, made the case in a sometimes heated private meeting in the Oval Office Monday, hours after Mr. Trump had publicly rebuked her for dropping criminal charges against Olympic canoeist David Hearn. 

She was later photographed leaving the White House carting a large white box and other bags, which sources said contained all of the evidence collected from the Interior Department that exculpated Hearn and several others from criminal vandalism.

Think of a can of strawberries!

Mr. Trump earlier in the day had accused Pirro of folding "like an umbrella," after her office on Friday filed a motion dismissing the felony case against Hearn. 

Even with all this drama... remember in court the U.S. Attorney said it was poor workmanship, not vandals, that caused the damage, and that cannot be unsaid.