Going to be an Interesting General Election Season (plus Caturday)

When the main selling point for the three major candidates (Trump, Clinton & Cruz) is essentially "I'm less despicable than the other guy!"

The polling seems to focus on Clinton, Cruz, Rubio and Trump. Guess they're eliminating Sanders and they think that the Rubot may get a new OS upload and get back in the race.

Anyway, I went home for lunch, since I live less than ten minutes from the office. I went through the drive-thru and bought a couple of junior whoppers from Burger King. In the past, Jake has liked it when I'd break off some pieces and let him have them.

Not today. He sniffed at them, then he snuggled under the top cover of the bed, like this:

and went back to sleep.

UPDATE: He ate a little for dinner. And if we could add another day or two into this week between today and tomorrow, that's be great.

UPDATE II: It's 9PM. Jake was on my bed this afternoon and evening. I laid there with him, read and listened to a couple of podcasts. Jake must have gotten tired of that much togetherness, for he went out to a chair in the living room for another snooze. It has a heated cat pad on it.

If you've been through this before, you know how much it sucks.

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend, Even if He Was My Enemy Beforehand

Former SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny, whose exploits during the Second World War are the stuff of legend, later worked for Israel as a spy and a hitman. His biggest accomplishment, as far as is known, was crippling Egypt's rocket program.

It's probably a safe bet that, when he helped found a Spanish neo-nazi group in 1966 and the Paladin Group soon after, that he was passing information about them to Mossad.

(H/T)

Caturday. Because Reporters are Idiots.

From the Guardian:

The US military will keep three heavy army brigades in Europe on a continuous basis, reversing Barack Obama’s reduction of forces after concluding that Russian aggression poses an enduring threat to continental stability.

Spencer Ackerman is an imbecile who doesn't seem to understand that in this country, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. It the President didn't sign off on this, the Army would be saying exactly squat. The military commanders don't get any more say in it because of whatever Trump is spewing, regardless of what the reporter might think. Stupid twit.

Here's Jake, cleaning up some yogurt from my breakfast this morning.

He's not hardly eating anything, now. I can feel the side of his shoulder blade, he's that skinny. If I wasn't taking him in tomorrow, I don't think he'd be long for this world.

A Feline Buffet

Top to bottom: Water, the dry food he likes as treats, his regular (prescription) dry food, canned fish, and his wet food from tonight and this morning.

Whatever he wants. Right now, he's snoozing.

Caturday; The News is Bad

Jake has been diagnosed with bladder cancer.

This is him, lying against my leg, a few minutes ago.

He's purring away. I'm a wreck.

His last day is Friday.

Unless war breaks out, don't expect much from this blog for awhile.

UAE Building Codes

They probably suck.

A large fire has hit at least two residential towers in the United Arab Emirates, in the third such incident in a little more than a year.

The fire struck one tower in Ajman emirate, north of Dubai, before spreading to an adjacent block.

Or they are "adjustable", in that the building inspectors will develop a sudden case of situational blindness if the situation warrants.

Because We All Know How Much Courts Love Intervening in the Electoral Process; Donald the Cry-Baby Edition

Donald Trump is doing what he does best: Threatening a lawsuit - this time, challenging the way delegates are awarded in Louisiana.

The Republican front-runner took to Twitter Sunday to complain that he won the most votes in the state's primary, but could emerge with fewer delegates than rival Cruz. "Lawsuit coming," he wrote.

Trump's campaign spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to questions about the grounds on which Trump might sue.

Translation: "Waaahh!! No Fair!!!" Ima gonna SUUUEEEEE!!!1!"

I gather that he's just a spoiled, self-entitled rich brat. "10 uncommitted delegates" means that those ten can vote for whomever they want and if it's not The Donald, well, sucks to be him.

Beyond that, by threatening to sue every time things don't go his way, it's a good bet that Drumpf is torquing off a lot of people who will remember this. Especially since the GOP officially doesn't like lawyers (except when they need them to rig an election).

Minimum SAT Score for Admission: 402

(Found here)

Throwback Time

Going back eight years to five or six inventions that changed the world.

Cirrus Jet and FAA Gobbledygook

The FAA is proposing a special rule that doesn't require Cirrus to flight-test the operation of the parachute system of its new SF-50 jet:

The applicant (Cirrus) does not have to prove or demonstrate that the system works in flight.

Maybe I'm not fully functioning this morning. But what I gather is this: Cirrus is making a single-engine jet. A big selling point of the airplane, for Cirrus, is that if shit goes sideways, the pilot only has to trigger the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System and float down onto whatever is below (open fields, power lines, day-care centers, etc.). They don't have to demonstrate that it really works because in the SF50, the parachute is only a marketing tool, not a required system.

The FAA doesn't think it's worth testing because the parachute gizmo, in the SF50, isn't a standalone system, like it is in Cirrus's prop jobs. The parachute system in the jet interfaces with the flight control system and so they think it's not worth pulling the pin for a live flight test.

I suspect what really happened is that Cirrus, and their congressional reps, whined about a test probably ending up destroying a two-million dollar airplane. To which I say: "So what? That's life in the big leagues." Destroying multi-million dollar bits of equipment to prove that they're safe is par for the course.

Comments to the proposed rule are open through May 2nd.