Going Fast And Breaking Things Has Consequences

While Trump is right to be proceeding with reforms, in doing so he and his administration are going a tad too fast. This is causing a lot of own-goals and public embarrassments, not to mention unnecessary disruption and collateral damage, which serves to reduce the enthusiasm and support for the reforms.

For example it has caused some major and completely unnecessary turmoil at the National Institute of Health :  The Transmitter: U.S. health agency purge includes 10 lab heads at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

This firing included one of the world's top researches on Parkinson's disease.

This firing led a lot of people to calmly ask:  "WTF?".

Well, turns out the firing was apparently a mistake caused by a "coding error" that mislabeled employees -- once people started making noise about it they were rehired.

The Transmitter: Coding error caused layoffs at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke this week, source says  

Thirty employees—including 11 lab heads—at the institute should “immediately return to work,” according to an email the institute’s Office of Human Resources sent to top administration at the institute Wednesday evening.

Reform is a good thing,  doing it stupidly and making the reformers look incompetent in doing so is not helpful to actual reform of the many, many, real problems in government agencies.

The blanket reductions and stoppages in research funding is having a major effect on good solid research in addition to the wasteful stuff that should be defunded.

"Hasten Slowly" is good advice.

Chesterton's Fence, while usually applied to progressives tearing down institutions, also applies to the Right when they tear down stuff without understanding the direct and indirect effects and implications of what they are doing.

Getting rid of fraud and waste and ridiculous programs that are little more than grants to progressive organizations along with associated graft  is a good thing, burning down the entire research "village" in order to do so is quite another.

Do it smartly, and quickly if need be, but make sure above all that you do it competently and show positive results. 

DEI Might Be Off To Die At UofM

DEI may be done at UofM or about to get a name change and be squirreled away until the Dems are again ascendant, we shall see.

But for the now, the sad and oft-overeaction of the progressives to the loss of one of their treasured tools is  enjoyable to watch.

The Detroit Free Press:  Decision to scrap DEI leaves U-M students and faculty scrambling to respond

As a policy of discrimination and racial graft may be coming to an end at the University of Michigan, those who benefited from it aren't very happy.

The decision is certainly causing much sadness and anger among the bien pensants of the left who claim ending it is all about the hobgoblin of white supremacy:

Professor Rebekah Modrak, the chair of the Faculty Senate, called for the meeting after Thursday's announcement and said the federal government is trying to control higher education in America.

"They are using the power of the government to engineer a sweeping culture change towards white supremacy," she wrote in an email inviting people to the meeting.

Well no, no it is not. But then again when anything one doesn't like is white supremacy, well, what can you do?

Verily, ending this discriminatory program is the same thing as losing civil rights on campus, as per the local ACLU.

Some scholarships based on DEI are being properly cancelled, to some beneficiary chagrin:

“LEAD scholarship was for students who demonstrated leadership in high school,” Trujillo Garcia said. “I felt it was merit-based. Yeah, there was a significant diversity component to it, but there was a merit component, too. You had to show leadership and achievement.”

Ah, "a significant diversity component" In other words, it was awarded based on "diversity" first and foremost, hence why it is being done away with now.

Meanwhile,  a lack of DEI  is apparently causing trouble with progressive jargon-filled activities

"Jade Whittaker-Mitts, a 21-year-old senior from Cadillac, agrees."

. . .

“A lot of my work in those organizations has been, like DEI-focused, in a kind of adjacent way,” she said. “Doing a lot of food sovereignty work, that doesn't exist if you don't have DEI.”

Interesting the claim of how the concept of  "food sovereignty" doesn't work without DEI.

Apparently "food sovereignty" is progressive jargon for Marxist food policies - food policies that, you know, typically lead to starvation in socialist systems that adopt them, for the people, naturally:

“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.”

It gets even more jargon-y from there.

Progressives really hate free markets in absolutely anything, and the Food Sovereignty movement is yet another leftist globalist intersectional approach to nowhere good.  If DEI ends it at UofM that's a positive thing.

Cruise Day 6 - Costa Maya

We pulled into Costa Maya in the morning and hit the pier after 9am.

 No excursions booked so we just wandered around the port area.

The port area is rather lively.

There's flamingos:

 

There's Mayans hanging from ropes on high doing a traditional acrobatic act:

 

Neat to see.

So we wandered around the numerous stores in the port, lots of touristy stuff, sat down at the bar and have some ice cold beverages, and then went back to the ship.

Back at the ship we had lunch at the diner above the pool with some excellent burgers and fries. 

After that we sat in at an art auction.

 Lots of art for any budget from mas low as $300 up to and including an original Romero Britto for $20k. There were quite a few works by Thomas Kincaid, Peter Max, and others.  Fun to watch and learn a bit about art as the auctioneer gave plenty of info about the artists and the works.  

Then it was time to chill at the Skyy Vodka Ice Bar.

 

As the name goes, it's a bar, made out of ice. 

The Skyy Bar is an extra and requires a reservation. The reservation includes 2 drinks. You check in and get a smock and hood to wear to keep warm whie you're in the ice bar.

 

 The bar had a neat seating area:

The ice bar was a fun and cool experience.

Cruise Day 5 - Belize

On Day 5 we arrived at Harvest Caye in Belize.  

 

After another time change and breakfast we headed to the excursion.

Snorkeling the reef.  Checked in did the waiver and got in a boat to take us 

We passed by the Norwegian Gateway on the way to the reef.

 Got out to the reef, geared up with mask, fins, snorkel, and a snorkel vest and jumped in the water. I had brough my own fins, s and snorkel as, after all, I had schlepped them along for the dive so used them on this swim, and they were better than the ones provided from the tour in any case.

Nice bath water temperature water, pleasant sunny day, calm waters, and barely any current at all. A very easy snorkel experience.

The reef was pretty shallow with quite a lot of healthy coral on it.

 Shallow, so not a ton of fish, but the guide would duck underwater to point them out.

Lots of fire coral that needed to be avoided.

 Touching fire coral would suck, and everyone successfully avoided it.

Compared to the dives the amount of ocean life was underwhelming but it was still a fun experience and the corals were rather nice to look at.

 

The tour lasted an hour and the boat came to pick us up and we headed back to the pier. 

On the way we saw some people doing boat parachuting.

 Probably had the best view around.

 Then we went to a Belize chocolate shop and sampled and bought some excellent locally made chocolates.

The sea salt and lime was excellent.

After that we headed back to the ship, got some food, and went to watch a comedy show.  After that we again headed to the Howlin' At The Moon show and belted out some tunes.

Quite a good day.

Cruise Day 4 - Great Dinner and Great Craps.

For Day 4 after a great dive we had a specialty dinner to celebrate.

We went to the Moderno Churrascaria on board and were served meats on skewers until we could eat no more.  This was a fantastic Brazillian-style Steakhouse and to say it was awesome would be an understatement.

Feeling lucky I then headed to the casino.  I had lost $300 the night before so it was time to try and make it all back.

It began badly, with the table going cold and players leaving until it was just me, the dice and the crew.

A few rolls I crapped out on and it looked like this was going to end in disaster.

Then, I propitiated the dice by making a field bet for myself and for the crew - it hit.

Did it again and the 12 rolled and we made a double payout.

I was happy, the crew was happy, the dice were happy.

Then I began a great roll. Made point after point and nailed  a darkside shooter on a series of come out rolls by rolling three sevens in a row and then making the point.  Soon had a crowd back at the table and I was making money for everyone.

Walked away from the table very happy.

 

 

Bought in at $400, walked away with $1147, so after losing $300 the night before, I had netted $447.00 which was darn nice. Kept the two single chips as souvenirs of some great rolls.

Heckuva way to end a great day. 

If You're Gonna Be Dumb You Gotta Be Tough Example The Umpteenth

This heartwarming story of how a supposed GPS navigation error is leading an illegal to be deported is a lovely example of how if you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.

MILive: Mother of 2 takes wrong turn into Canada, now faces deportation from U.S.

A mother of two is facing deportation after a wrong turn that took her into Canada, FOX 2 Detroit reports. 

The Guatemalan woman accidentally ended up in Canada when she selected the Costco in Windsor (rather than Detroit) in her GPS, Attorney Ruby Robinson told the TV station, identifying his client only a “Sarahi.” She crossed the Ambassador Bridge. When she attempted to reenter the United States via the bridge, she was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“Sarahi” entered the United States illegally in 2018

The story is a bit suspect as there are no Costcos in Detroit at all. So you would think she would have figured that part out on the way at some point. 

On top of that, every single highway leading to the Canadian border has a sign with the words "Last Exit Before Canada".

If you've been illegally in the country for the last 7 years and still you can't read enough English to understand you should exit when seeing that sign because you're an illegal and you don't want to get checked at the border, well, then it is on you. 

This sign is only in English because:

"Esta es la última salida antes de Canadá, así que date la vuelta, es ilegal antes de que te atrapen, Pendejo!"

Is just too much to put on a sign by the border, really.

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan - Dive 311

Dive 311 would take place at Overheat Reef.

I got a close encounter with quite the sea creature of song and legend.

As the song goes: 

"When you swim in the sea and an eel bites your knee...

That's a Moray!"

 That was a rather active moray eel,  he didn't remain hidden for long.

He came out to say hello. 

 

He wasn't hiding at all but was swimming right up to people.  Got a little disconcerting, especially when it swam between people's legs.

No one's knees were bitten in the process.

In addition to the Eel, there were some very large groupers that liked to hang out with the divers.

 

 Both liked to swim right alongside the divers, and would stand their water and you'd have to go around them if they decided to hold their position at times.

And there was another Turtle!

 It was a great dive.

Max depth 50 feet, average depth 25 feet, 52 minute run time. 

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan - Dive 310

My 310th dive would take place at Gibson's Bite.

We geared up and we got in the water. The water was a lovely 83 degrees.

Following the divemaster we headed along to see the sites.

 The reef looked nice and healthy.

We went through a swim through which is always fun.

Turtle!  One of my favorite creatures to see underwater.

Quite a large number of fish were seen.

 It was a great and easy first dive. We then went back to shore for a surface interval and got some refreshments and soon headed out for dive 311.

 Max depth 58 feet, average depth 36 feet, runtime was 35 minutes

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan, Honduras

Got up early on Day 4 and had a good breakfast.

Then I packed up my gear, got off the ship, and headed out on the pier to get to my pickup point. 

A beautiful sunny day it was.

My first time diving in Roatan. 

NCL had selected Anthony's Key Resort to be the operator for this dive and they certainly had chosen well.  Very professionally run operation and they really know what they are doing.

We first did the standard paperwork and one diver couldn't go as they didn't have their C-Card and PADI had no record it had actually been issued. Allegedly she had gotten trained at a resort and it may have been a paperwork issue - or she might not have actually been certified - so she couldn't go. Her boyfriend stayed behind as well (its possible they went off with the Discover Scuba group), bringing the number of divers down to 8.

Met a nice guy there diving who was with his kids, Colby from Louisiana.   I teamed up with the three of them so I technically had a buddy.

I had brought my own gear along, while most of the other divers had not.

We got on board the boat, and I setup my gear on my tank and everyone got ready for the first dive of the day.

These would be cruise ship type dives - guided by a divemaster and well within Open water limits. We got our safety brief, which was well and properly done, and headed off to the first dive site.

 

Trump Is About To Help The Liberals Win The Canadian Election

So mark Carney, the elite replacement for the hapless Justin Trudeau as the head of the Liberal Party of Canada, has called a snap election.  

After the Liberals have run the country into the ground, so much so that the RCMP in a report has noted the potential for unrest due to their mismanagement of the country, the Liberals hope to capitalize on Canadians' dislike of Trump calling for them to be the 51st state.

This cunning plan may very well work.

Until Trump started  his quixotic claim for Canada to be the 51st state and threatening  massive tariffs over some very dubious claims over fentanyl allegedly coming across the border form Canada (the major source of illegal drugs coming into the US, including Fentanyl is from Mexico), it looked like the Liberals were in for a massive and very well-deserved drubbing.

Indeed the Conservatives were ahead 45% to 11% in December 2024.

Now, not so much: Angus Reid Institute: Liberal lead over CPC increases to eight points, but is Carney’s house of dreams built on concrete or sand?

and 

338Canada

This change can all be laid at Trump's feet.

Trump is very much setting himself up for an own goal if he persists in calling for Canada to be the 51st state and continuing the tariff push, as well as some recent announcement about stupid visitor restrictions on Canadians visiting the USA that are really not helping.

The joke about the 51st state was perhaps funny for a very short bit, but no longer. 

In fact, Republicans would not want Canada as a 51st state right now - they;d vote en masse, with the exception perhapos of Alberta, for Democrats.  

Canada's Liberals and its even farther left wing party, the NDP,  can at times make Bernie Sanders and AOC seem downright erudite and centrist. Short of making Canada a US Territory until such time as we teach them to become Americans and get off the socialist bent, bringing them in as a state (or realistically a few states) would be disastrous.

So, instead of Canada getting  a conservative and fiscally responsible government that would be much more likely to work with him on important issues, Trump's about to be the reason a massive globalist and elitist, who has likely spent far more time outside of Canada as a member of the global bien pensants than in  Canada, into power.

The Liberal party has spent decades downplaying and indeed disdaining Canadian nationalism and spreading a multi-cultural and woke globalist outlook about the country while pushing unfettered immigration and a tax and spend policy that would make Democrats, including Adam Schiff,  moist.  

But, even when the Librerals are putting their country into the toilet,  Canadians tend to get a knee-jerk nationalistic reaction when the US criticizes them (and especially so when the criticism is unfair which is the case currently) and the Liberals are using that to try and win an election that by all rights they should lose badly.

Trump really needs to knock this off, and quickly it's not helping US political or economic goals at all.

Cruise Day 3 Cozumel - The ABCs

On the third day, we arrived in Cozumel.

 And had another time change.   An hour change going forward, back and forward again occurred almost every day on the cruise. 

We disembarked in Cozumel and walked down the pier.

 We had some extra time before the excursion began so we checked out some shops around the port.

The farmacia was doing some brisk business and had some pretty decent prices inside.

 Then we met up with the excursion and boarded a comfy tour bus.

We were headed for a tour of the ABCs - on this case Alcohol (Tequila), Bees and Chocolate.

Our first stop:

 

The Mayan Bee sanctuary, home of the Melipona Bee.  The melipona are small, native to South America, don't sting, shy, and produce less honey than your typical honeybee.

They live in hives inside tree trunks.  

We got to sample the honey and compare it to the standard honeybee honey.  Allegedly in addition to being delicious, Melipona honey has therapeutic effects including bee-ing good for wounds and being applied to your eyes.

That was a neat stop.

Then we stopped for lunch. 

Had some great fish tacos on the beach along with a margarita.

 Absolutely delicious.

We then headed onward to discover Mexican chocolate.

 We saw a presentation on the history of chocolate and got to try some that was made in the traditional manner, with the beans grinded on a stone platter. 

Different from the chocloate you have today for sure, not sweet but very good. We then got to sample and buy some premium chocolates made in the modern and very tasty fashion.

Then on to the A in the ABCs of the day.

Tequila.  As it turns out ,Tequila can only legally come from the Blue Agave plant. If its not the blue agave its not tequila.  If its made with less than 51% agave, it also can't be called Tequlia.  Most types of Jose Cuervo is often referred to in Mexico as 51/49 or mixto as it just makes the cut. Mescal also comes from agave but not blue agave. The more you know I guess.

We got to sample some nice tequilas including 100% agave ones, as well as some flavored liqueurs made from tequila.

 The caramel one was rather exceptional.

 

 

That was the end of the excursion, and we headed back to the ship and soon were underway heading to our next stop.

After dinner, we went to the dueling piano bar.

 Helluva good time. All three of the singers were personable, funny, and really talented. All three could play piano, drums, guitar and sing which is pretty damn impressive. They could work a crowd and everyone was singing along to the many rocking tunes they played.

That was a great day and a great night.

March Cruise Day 2

Day 2 of the cruise was at sea.

 

It started with  full English breakfast in the Irish pub on board.

 

We wandered around the ship, walked the decks, and had a nice time. 

Lots of things to see and do on board.

Exploring around the ship, we found a niche with a small seating area and lots of plaques commemorating ports the Getaway has visited, as well as a scale model of the ship.

After dinner we went to see a comedy show.

The comedian noted it was his first time performing in the Gulf of America. Yes when you're in the Gulf, weather apps are now referring to it as the Gulf of America - no dead-naming the Gulf now.

It was a good and quite funny show.  We then stayed for the later R-rated comedy show from a second comedian (they would switch throughout the cruise, with one doing the PG show and one doing the R-rated one every other night.with fresh material each time) and it was laugh-worthy as well.

The Good Ol' College Hockey Game

Yesterday I went to East Lansing to attend the Big 10 Men's Hockey Tournament game of MSU v Notre Dame. First time I've been back to the Munn Ice Arena in years.

College hockey tends to be a lot of fun to watch.

We got there pretty early and before that got lunch at Raising Cane's the ne plus ultra of chicken strip restaurants. Yum. We then parked and headed to the arena, with plenty of time to wander around.

 Free rally rags were provided to all the fans.

 

We got to watch the warm up.

 

And the game began.

It was a very low-scoring game with a lot of action.

 A couple small fights, a few penalties and both teams were excellent at killing the power plays.

The Spartans won 1-0, with the single goal taking place in the third periods, with 46 shots on goal to Notre Dame's 19.  Should have been a much higher score, but defense on both teams were seriously on point. 

It often seemed the Spartans were taking shots when off balance and not ready to receive the puck after a pass to take a shot at the net.

Still, a win is a win, and they advance in the tournament to play again next week. 

A nice Saturday day trip.