A Death Panel Of One

Trump meets with disabled people and their families, his nephew among them. Republicanism ensues:

Azar was still in the Oval Office when I walked back in. “Hey, pal,” Donald said. “How’s everything going?”

“Good,” I said. “I appreciate your meeting with us.”

“Sure, happy to do it.”

He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.

“Those people . . . ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

... something something post-birth abortions something something...

I got him up to speed on what Eric had told me. I said I’d heard the fund for William was running low, and unfortunately, the expenses certainly were not easing up as our son got older. In fact, with inflation and other pressures, the needs were greater than they’d been. “We’re getting some blowback from Maryanne and Elizabeth and Ann Marie. We may need your help with this. Eric wanted me to give you a call.”

Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation.

“I don’t know,” he finally said, letting out a sigh. “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”

To make it clear: "him" is his own grand-nephew.

https://time.com/7002003/donald-trump-disabled-americans-all-in-the-family/

Wow

I did not think Biden would actually step down. I thought he'd dig his heels in and then deliver a landslide loss in November.

This is quite the election.

WOTD: Malicious compliance

Malicious compliance (also known as malicious obedience) is the behavior of strictly following the orders of a superior despite knowing that compliance with the orders will have an unintended or negative result. It usually implies following an order in such a way that ignores or otherwise undermines the order's intent, but follows it to the letter.

Source: Malicious compliance - Wikipedia

Flaming Lips

As bands like to do these days, the tour is based on playing one particular album in full. So, first they played all of "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots" (as seen above), then they did a set of songs from other albums.

Maybe it was the fact that the sun was out for all of Yoshimi, so the stage lights and other visuals didn't hit as hard, but the second set felt much more energetic. Once you could really appreciate the lighting, and how it interacted with all of the various inflatable on-stage props, it was a wild time.

The oldest song they played was "She Don't Use Jelly", which started the second set. And that's when they brought out the giant rubber balls for the audience to bounce around. We were in the fourth row, so there was plenty of hectic giant-ball action.

No opener and they played 2.5 hours. Quality.

They've come a long way.

RIP Brenda

Closet Case

A few days after her birthday (June 9), Pepper went into the closet in our bedroom. And, except for three brief trips, and her sneaky trips to the litterbox, she hasn't left. She spends all day and night, in the corner of the closet, under my wife's dresses.

If we go in to see her, she's happy to see us and she purrs and behaves just as she always did. She's eating more than she had been. She gets brushed and is very happy about it. But she will not leave the closet. On the occasions that she has, she spent only a few minutes out and then literally ran back to her hiding spot. She likes to be picked up, as long as we don't leave the closet.

So, she doesn't seem sick or in pain. She's just... afraid of the house.

Cats.

--

Update:
Three weeks later, she's out. Over the course of a few days, she started venturing out of the closet for longer and longer stays. And now she's 100% out again. I'd like to think it was because I gently coaxed her to come hang out with me just on the other side of the closet door. But who knows. Cats.