Not What A Rainy Day Fund Is For

Michigan Democrats are indeed profligate spenders.

The state's budget and spending has increased by 50% just under Governor Whitmer's term to date alone.

But that's still not enough spending for Michigan's Democrats.

Instead they want to increase it, and to do so have to tap into the state's emergency fund to do so.

The Detroit News: Michigan Senate dips into rainy day fund for $88B budget plan.

Everyday budgeting is not what a rainy day fund is for, but the Democrats see a pool of money and want to spend it now rather than wait for an actual revenue shortfall where the funds would be needed. 

That means under this budget state government spending is around $8,800 for  each and every resident of Michigan. If asked I don't believe most residents of Michigan would say they're getting their money's worth under this plan - especially those actually paying the taxes to cover it.

The 19 Democrats in the Senate voted for this increase, and 18 Republicans were opposed, so yet again the headline is a tad misleading.  It wasn't the Senate, but the Democrats in the Senate pushing this through.

The House has not approved this yet, so there's still hope that some responsible budgeting may yet prevail.

Convenient And Interesting Timing On CNN's Part

So, what faction of the Democratic Party wants Mallory McMorrow out of the US Senate race for Michigan that they had CNN run with the dirt it found on her?

CNN: ‘Make me miss California’: In deleted tweets, Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow disparaged Middle America

 MSN: Mallory McMorrow campaign hit with resurfaced tweets showing progressive views

Not to mention the tweets show her clear disdain of Michigan, which is not a good look when you're running as the Democrat candidate for US Senate from Michigan. 

So, after the Michigan Democratic Party endorsed progressive pro-Hamas Defund ICEr Abdul El-Sayed as their preferred candidate, the two remaining opponents in the race for the Dem Primary were Mallory McMorrow who is essentially progessive-lite, and Haley Stevens, who is a mainstream-ish Democrat, with Mallory trailing in the polls right behind Abdul.

So, was this timely drop the progressive pro-El Sayed faction trying to get her eliminated to clear the progressive space on the ballot?

Or, was this the more centrist and less insane pro-Stevens faction that figured hopefully correctly, that Michigan really wasn't ready for an Islamist Progressive Marxist candidate that hangs out with the guy that calls for murdering his political opponents and that America deserved 9/11?

So, anyone got K-Files to retrieve El-Sayed's deleted tweets yet, as his existing ones are bad enough? 

Oh Canada, WTAF?

Canada, under the Liberal party is, in an effort to expand diversity in its military, now running Officer candidate classes full of non-citizen immigrants from Africa and elsewhere.

This diversity plan, begun under Justin Trudeau, was touted as a good thing: CAF diversity up, as permanent residents join military.

This diversity push in reality is going as well as one might expect it to do: 

Juno News:  EXCLUSIVE: CAF training platoon with 83% non-citizens devolved into ethnic infighting

An explosive internal CAF report reveals a Quebec officer platoon dominated by non-citizens descended into ethnic infighting, a lack of "respect for women" peers and abysmal graduation rates.

Outsourcing your military defense pretty much never goes well.

Outsourcing your officer corps, who leads your military, to non-citizen third-world immigrants in an effort to increase "diversity", who have yet to adopt your culture, makes it so much worse:

One French-language platoon, which had over 80 per cent non-citizens, was reportedly wracked by an inability to communicate fluently, a lack of respect towards female CAF members and infighting between Cameroonian and Côte d’Ivoire candidates.

The Quebec platoon saw fewer than one in two recruits graduate, while allegations of racial discrimination were made in multiple directions, from candidates against staff and between candidates of opposing ethnic blocs themselves. Additionally, command saw “challenges” in training permanent residents as they lacked “respect towards women” peers and superiors.

“For many candidates it is the first time they have lived with members of a different sex, and for some it is also the first time they have been expected to treat women as their peers,” explained the confidential report.

“Platoons are also reporting inter-candidate cultural frustrations, with lack of respect towards women being the most common concern.”

The Canadian Armed Forces also reduced standards and the requirement for aptitude tests for candidates in this diversity push.  The results are rather predictable.

We Still Have Got 194 Countries Where This Hasn't Happened

And that ain't bad.

Yes, that happened, and it counts as a pretty major oops.

Reuters:  Polish police chief who fired grenade launcher in office is charged two years later

Poland's former national police commander was belatedly charged on Monday with illegal import and unintentional endangerment after accidentally setting off an anti-tank grenade launcher in his office in 2022. 

Jaroslaw Szymczyk received mild injuries when the grenade launcher, which he said he had received as a gift during a visit to Ukraine, went off as he was moving it. Pictures obtained by local media showed that it had blasted through the floor, damaging the office below.

Talk about keeping your booger hook off the Big Bada Boom switch. 

The New York Times Whistles Past The Trend Of Leftist Political Violence

Today, in The New York Times The Morning Newsletter, the paper decided to discuss the attempted assassination of President Trump yesterday with this lovely example of willfully avoiding a discussion of Leftist violence.

The guests at the dinner included many whose lives had previously been affected by gun violence, including Trump, Erika Kirk and Representative Steve Scalise, who was shot at a congressional baseball game practice in 2017.

The New York Times blithely ignores the common theme in all of these acts of "gun violence" - the perpetrator in question was a leftist in each and every one:

President Trump's current attempted assassin was a progressive leftist from California, spouting Democrat talking points. The prior one in September 2024  in Florida was also from a  registered Democrat. The one before that in July 2024 in Butler, PA was yet another progressive.

Erika Kirk - Charlie Kirk, her husband, was, you guessed it, killed by a leftist.

Steve Scalise - shot by a Bernie Bro. 

Funny how the New York Times fails to both notice and not comment on this trend, but just waves it away with the canard of  "gun violence".

Remember When

The Democrats were all against "Stochastic Terrorism" and political violence?

Good times, those.  These days, not so much: 

Yes, that is an official County-level Democratic Party post lamenting that the latest leftist assassination attempt against President Trump failed. 

Beer Street Journal: Minocqua Brewing Is Going Viral. Not For Their Beer.

On Saturday night, authorities say 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen stormed the lobby of the Washington Hilton armed with guns and knives and opened fire before being subdued by Secret Service agents. Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and several cabinet members were evacuated from the venue. 

Hours later, Minocqua Brewing Company of Minocqua, Wisconsin posted to its Facebook page: “Well, we almost got #freebeerday. Either a brother or sister in the Resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle. We’ll never know. Regardless, we stand at the ready to pour free beer the day it happens.”

The owner of  Minocqua Brewing Company is a Democrat operative and former state-level candidate and runs a Democrat state-level PAC.

Yahoo News:   Kimmel calls Melania Trump an ‘expectant widow’ before White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel mocked President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump in a White House Correspondents' Dinner parody this week, calling her "an expectant widow" and joking about her marriage, just days before the dinner was disrupted by a shooting. 

MSN.com: The left's rising new star Hasan Piker endorses terrorism, violence and suggested the president should be assassinated

The Democrats have continued their tantrum and refusal to accept democratic norms since losing the election, and have continued to advocate for violence against their opponents ever since. 

The Democrats sure are Sowing the Wind, and it is more than high time that they stopped before this gets out of hand. 

Carry Apparel Review: Arrowhead Tactical's Dazzle Camo Concealment Trainer T-Shirt

I bought a one of the new Concealment Trainer Shirts from Arrowhead Tactical, as the weather is getting nicer here and we've gone from snow this weekend to sunny and 75 degrees within a few days and it is now t-shirt weather.

Arrowhead Tactical was out of stock on the short-sleeve t-shirts  in my size (and indeed most sizes, they seem to be quite popular) so I got one of their t-shirts with the long-sleeves. 

The shirt has a dazzle camouflage approach to concealment that is purported to break up the outline of your carry firearm under what is a very thin athletic shirt.

The shirt arrived quickly.

The good:  It is impressively comfortable.  The shirt material is thin, very breathable, and feels great. 

 

Kinda cool looking, and likely to give someone a headache if they stare at you for too long.

The not so good: The thin material really sticks to both your body and to the firearm, rather than loosely draping over it, and it gives a very obvious outline. 

With a Walther PDP:

The smaller but just as print-y Sig P365X:

 

The printing is unfortunately rather prominent with both firearms, even from a  distance. Up close, it is rather obvious that you are carrying, even with the distraction of the dazzle print.

Some of this is likely due to my having some, ahem,  reserve muscle mass around the middle. This likely makes for more printing. Possibly, if you're not quite as soft in the middle as I am at the moment, and have that classic athletic build, it might very well work better for you as demonstrated in their videos of the product.

But it doesn't work for me, so, I'm returning the Concealment Trainer Shirt.  

All is not lost however, their thicker and more standard type of concealment t-shirt is just the ticket for me. That Oversized ConcealTee t-shirt works great and doesn't print nearly as much, if at all, as it is not nearly as tight to the body and doesn't cling to the firearm, so I'm keeping that one for sure.

So, if you've got an athletic body the Concealment Trainer Shirt may work well for you as it is both light and comfortable, with a pretty cool design. But, if you're like me with a not-so-athletic body, the more standard concealment t-shirt is in my opinion the way to go for summer carrying, and they're a tad cheaper, too.

Better Cleaning Through Robotics

I just got a used Roborock S7 robot vacuum cleaner and mop. 

For $100 used, how could I refuse?

Overall the setup took a bit of time.  I downloaded the app, managed to have it find the wifi, and get configured. No manual came with it, so I had to puzzle through a few things.

Once I got it through its initial setup, it then went off and immediately commenced mapping the floor and then returned to its dock all by itself.

It did ok with the initial mapping, identifying tables, couches, etc., and it also avoided falling down the stairs, which was good. 

But, I then needed to go into the app and figure out how to edit the map it made as it thought the kitchen, hallway, and living room were all one room. 

Once I edited it to make it understand these were separate rooms it worked much better.

After starting it after it had completed mapping, it immediately fired off a bunch of errors, namely due to the prior owner not changing the vacuum rollers and filter. 

So, I ordered a maintenance kit from Amazon and replaced the parts and it was quite clear the prior filter had not been replaced in quite some time, if at all. 

It now really hums along. Replacing the wearable parts that had clearly worn out fixed all the issues and error messages, and replacing the parts was very easy.  

The vacuuming it does is impressive and pretty thorough.  It even cleverly figures out how to avoid chairs to be able to vacuum under tables even when the chairs are moved about.

It happily goes around vacuuming and it is doing quite a decent job of it saving me from having to do it.

 

So far I haven't tried the mop function, but will soon. 

It is quite an enjoyable and happy-making watching this little robot going through the house steadfastly doing its cleaning thing, and it now deserves a name.

So Dear Readers, what shall I name my new robot?

Choices so far include:

1.  Vaccy Yoda

2.  Obi Wan Cleanobi

3. The Vaculorian

4. VAFO (Vac Around and Find Out) 

Let me know your thoughts on what you think it should be named.