They call me Mr. Cribbs

This is Charlie Cribbs, the orange asshole who decided to adopt us a few months ago. He was living next door but after his favorite human landed in a nursing home Charlie started spending more time at our place. 

My cat Beelzebub was Charlie's bestie. Charlie shadowed Bubba for several years. He adored Bubba. I think it's probable Bubba was the only cat Charlie ever met outside his immediate family (mother and littermates). I know cats can wander amazing distances but I'm not sure just how far Charlie ever ambled because cats are not nearly as common up here on The Rock as they were a few decades ago. Back in the '70s the only neighbors who did not have cats were the households with inhabitants severely allergic to cat dander, like several of the S.O.'s cousins. Now the people who do have pet cats are the exception. No active farms around either so no barn cats. Lots of dogs, but very few felines. Given how much time Charlie spent hanging around our house over the course of several years, I don't think Mr. Cribbs ever succeeded in finding any other examples of Felis domestica.  

In any case, the first time we saw Charlie he was still kittenish. He was probably about 8 months old at the time and had the most amazing tail. He's a long haired cat so of course his tail was fluffy. Nothing notable about that except there seemed to be enough fluff for multiple cats, not just one. It was like he was a 5 pound cat with a 20 pound tail. He's still fluffy, but the tail is more in proportion with the rest of him now.

Charlie apparently wandered over the hill when he got old enough to want to explore beyond his front yard and realized Bubba existed. Cats are surprisingly social. Feral cats will form colonies. Even unneutered males get along with a lot less fighting than one would assume. Charlie met Bubba and it was like, Dude! Once Charlie and Bubba became best buds, Charlie hung out at our house a lot. There were times when it seemed like Charlie was on the porch every day and other times several weeks would go by without him coming around.

Then Charlie's human experienced a CVA severe enough to put him in a nursing home. Family members were making sure the cat got fed, but no one was living in the house. Charlie actually likes people so it was not a good situation for him. I talked with one of the neighbor's adult daughters about rehoming Charlie. The Plan was to make sure Mr. Cribbs was up to date on shots and healthy in general and then place him for adoption. We'd just foster him for awhile. 

Right. And pigs will fly. Mr. Cribbs obviously isn't going anywhere The little orange bastard has decided we belong to him and he's not likely to change his mind, not when being an orange cat means he's got rather limited neural processing capacity to begin with. 

I know there are a lot of jokes about orange cats not being the brightest but I am wondering if the jokes are true. Charlie is the first cat we've had that can't figure out how a pet door works. We put a cat door into the bathroom door because in an RV the best place for a litter box is in the bathtub. The cat door is to provide access for the cat but still allow the bathroom door to be closed so the cat box odor isn't quite as noticeable. Bubba had no problem with cat doors. Charlie does. We keep shoving him back and forth through the door but he still hasn't figured out he can push it open himself. I guess his one brain cell really is fried. 

A disquieting thought

One of the recurring themes regarding the current debacle with Homeland Security in Minneapolis has been that the big problem is new recruits. Everyone knows Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a massive hiring campaign going on, complete with bizarre ads that look like they've been lifted straight from the Third Reich, so the collective assumption is the Big Problem is poorly trained new recruits. When an ICE agent murdered Renee Good there was lots of confidence that it would turn out the agent was a newbie, an inexperienced rookie who had been rushed through an extremely superficial training program.

Except it wasn't. Turned out the man who murdered Good had 18 years experience with Customs and Border Patrol. He was about as thoroughly trained as it was possible to be. He shot an unarmed woman basically because he believed could. He believed he would suffer zero consequences on the job. No review, no administrative leave, he thought it would be business as usual, perhaps a commendation from his supervisors. 

And then Alex Pretti got shot in the back multiple times while being pinned face down to a sidewalk by half a dozen ICE agents. More inexperienced trigger happy rookies? Nope. Once again the shooters had multiple years of experience. 

These two shootings have me thinking a rather uncomfortable thought: all three men have worked for years along the Texas-Mexico border. How many dead mojados are out there in the sagebrush? How common is it for CBP and ICE to eliminate processing paperwork by dropping illegal immigrants in the desert rather than apprehending them and dealing with filling in forms? Maybe it was so easy for Good and Pretti's killers to shoot a couple of unarmed people because they already had lots of practice. 

CBP has had a shit reputation for decades. It's known for corruption and brutality. But what if it's even worse than we thought? 

Welcome to Wag the Dog

Does YamTits really believe stealing Venezuela's oil will make the Epstein files go away? Or is he assuming this is just another grift he can manage to get away with?

Years ago I read a book called, if I remember correctly, The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight. It was about a group of incompetent New York gangsters. If those guys were around today they'd be in the Trump administration. The Maduro fiasco is yet another example of Trump minions (and Trump himself) thinking that cosplay is all it takes. Planning? Considering what to do besides providing news media with dramatic footage of things blowing up in Caracas? Not in their skill set.

I have been wondering just what they planned to charge Maduro with. There was a lot of blustering about a cartel. Rubio designated said cartel as a terrorist organization a couple months ago. Turns out said cartel does not exist. The "cartel" was a nickname South American journalists had coined to describe the loose collection of corrupt officials and businesses that were taking advantage of the system in Venezuela to enrich themselves. No actual organization, no coordinated narco trafficking, Just a conspiracy fantasy. 

Then when you toss in the overall incompetence of the current crop of U.S. Department of Justice attorneys you know that any Maduro trial will be a shit show of stupidity of epic proportions. Does Court TV still exist? I smell a ratings boost. 

As for more evidence that the whole escapade was meant as a squirrel and not to cause serious regime change in Venezuela, the only change is that Maduro is gone. Maduro's vice president is now president, the Maduro administration remains intact, and other than about 80 people being dead (killed in the attack on the Presidential home) nothing has changed in Venezuela.