Inauguration? What inauguration?

The Ohio State vs. Notre Dame National Title Game Has Michigan Fans Hoping for a Meteor

“Most people would probably prefer a meteor,” said Ben Freedman, a die-hard fan raised by two Michigan professors in Ann Arbor. Alternative outcomes he’s seen suggested online include infinite overtimes or mass toilet malfunction at the stadium.

Something about an inauguration on Monday will not be the most important event of the day. Everybody knows how the inauguration will turn out (well, probably). This one, however, is still very much in doubt.

Blew up

Uncrewed SpaceX Starship explodes minutes after launch from Texas

In a statement later Thursday, SpaceX said initial data indicates a fire occurred in the rocket, "leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly."

More evidence we're all still stuck in high school

Kamala Harris signs ceremonial vice president's desk ahead of leaving office

In the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Harris signed the drawer of a desk that has been used by each subsequent vice president since Lloyd B. Johnson in the 1960s, though the tradition goes back to the 1940s.

Many tried, but no one ever escaped. 

A minor rant about congressional hearings and Pete Hegseth

I didn't watch them. The hearings. So all I know is what I read in the newspapers. And random video clips on the net.

And what concerned me was not what I heard or read, but what I didn't.

What I didn't read was anything about:

• Recruiting shortfalls
• Drones
• Shipbuilding 
• Manufacturing capacity
• Cyber Command
• The role of the Space Force

Or much of anything else except a lot of garble about culture war stuff and “lethality,” whatever that means. And auditing.

In other words, just a coven of politicians arguing among themselves about what makes them feel important, themselves.

For the record, I am much underwhelmed by Mr. Hegseth's qualifications to be SecDef.

But what you don't ask you don't know. And may or may not get.

Life in the blue dots

 Turns out I've spent 98% of my life living in blue dots.

At least, according to this precinct-level map of the 2024 election appearing in today's New York Times.

What have I been missing?

PS. My subscription to the Times expires tomorrow, and seeing I don't expect anything newsworthy to happen in the next few years </snark> I do not plan to renew. 

There are 535 voting members of the U.S. Congress

 "[A] study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, found that adults over 55 had a 42 percent lifetime risk of developing dementia."

– New York Times

So the question arises, how many of them are over 55?

And how soon can we pass a term limits amendment? Or law? Or rule, even?

Before we forget all this.

Not easy to sort all this out…

Los Angeles Is Still Burning. Where Are the Leaders?

…but here's a piece by a Los Angeles screenwriter in the NYTimes.

"Trump" and "charm"…

Trump charms GOP rebels at Mar-a-Lago, with Musk in tow

…seems like a difficult matter to parse, somehow. But Politico manages. Even cites one attendee who mentioned "team building."

Whether this counts as another flash of ring-kissing (looking at you, Zuck) is yet to be determined. But there seems to be a trend.

Yes it does

Palisades Fire leaves residents devastated as homes, neighborhoods burn: "It looks like a war zone"

Exactly. That's what a war zone looks like. Right there.

Pay attention.

Atlanta snow

Powerful winter storm that dumped snow in US South maintains its icy grip

In Atlanta, Mikayla Johnson, 12, was making snow angels and snow figures.

“My first thought was, ‘Wow!’” said Mikayla, who was outdoors with her father, Nate. “We haven’t had snow since I was, like, 4 — good snow, at least. So I was really happy.”

 Photo, Associated Press

Pretty impressive snowman person. Otherwise…

Am I being a snow snob here?

Drag the vertical lines left and right

Before-and-After Satellite Images Reveal Destruction of California Wildfires

The tok ticks down

TikTok Is Facing Legal Backlash Around the World

TikTok is challenging a possible ban or forced sale to new owners in the United States, but has for several years been waging other fights in at least 20 countries.

 Somehow Be Like Albania is not the battlecry I expected to hear.

Texas gets a snow day

Schools cancel classes across the Southern US as another burst of winter storms move in

Texas schools canceled classes for more than 1 million students in anticipation of [?] icy and potentially dangerous conditions that could last into Friday. (Closures also kept students home in Kansas City and Arkansas’ capital, Little Rock, while Virginia’s capital, Richmond, remained under a weather-related boil advisory.)

Boston native Gina Eaton, now living in Dallas, said “Even if there is ice, I’m very comfortable driving in it. It’s just other people that scare me.”

We have now arrived in kindergarten

He started it.

Now…

Mexican president suggests renaming the United States after Trump’s Gulf of America threat

[Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum] showed off a 1607 map with the Gulf of Mexico being identified as such and North America labeled as Mexican America.

Canadian Politician Shades Trump With New Plan to Take Three U.S.States

“Donald, think about it. You could get rid of all these states that always vote Democrat,” [Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's Green Party] said. “You know what else? We’ll take Bernie Sanders off your hands.”

 Wasn't there anything in the rules about adults?