Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
After a series of (abnormally) warm and sunny days, we caught 0.19" of rain late yesterday and awaken to a cool (47°F), cloudy, and blustery morning. Online weather shows 3-4 mph breezes with gusts to 10, but it seems that it's much windier than the anemometers on rooftops are showing.
All in all, a good day to stay indoors. The plan: laundry and cooking crepes. At some point I'll dash over to the UPS to drop off an Amazon return and then swing by the dry cleaners to pick up some items. Almost certainly there will be some Ingress along the way.
Despite last night's showers, there's still plenty of pollen in the air, at least so my itchy eyes tell me. The last numbers I saw for juniper were 1100 on Wednesday, 1800 on Thursday, and 800 Friday morning. I'm taking the full complement of allergy meds these days.
In other news, the Grey Lady published an article today that revealed how DHS is subpoenaing social media providers (Google, Meta, etc.) for information on hundreds if not thousands of user accounts. These accounts are those that allegedly are critical of DHS, provide ICE tracking and alert services, or are otherwise considered a threat to DHS. They are administrative subpoenas, not backed up by judicial orders.
Already there has been successful push-back, but the threat to our 1st Amendment rights is real. One wonders what web-scraping tools this administration is using to assess their targets?
In yet more distressing news, this time environmental, TCF revoked the Clean Air Act Endangerment Finding. Apparently, the lawsuits are already flying. First thoughts on this run towards awful-horrible, but upon reflection, companies like auto manufacturers are not going to stop building cars that are fuel-efficient or not put catalytic converters on them, because the next administration will immediately reverse this ill-advised policy.
I for one am hoping my 10-year old Prius lasts 3 more until the automotive landscape tilts back to EVs and a robust network of charging stations. Then I can buy a decent all-electric plug-in for what will likely be my last car.
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