Friday, May 21, 2021

I’m running late and I’ve had a day. With that in mind, we’ll pop open Google News and see if anything is interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look that way. Ah, well. Fake it ’til you make it, I guess.

As I said the other day, I really try to keep my nose out of the Israel/Palestine business. Part of it is because I don’t have anything better than “y’all stop that, this can’t be the only way” and part of it is because there already far too many people giving their two cents mainly as a way to indulge in antisemitism, racism, or both, and yet claim a moral high ground.

With that in mind, a ceasefire between the Israeli Army and Hamas was called about 2 a.m. local time. This comes after 11 days of both launching what they got at each other to blow up as much as they can. The latest flare-up occurs in Gaza City over Israeli settlers taking up more land from Palestinian residents.

This ceasefire allows Palestinian Muslims to celebrate Eid, the holiday that celebrates the end of Ramadan. Tensions remain high and both sides are claiming victor in the truce, whatever the hell that means. Since the week-and-a-half exchange of weapons started, around a dozen Israelis have been killed with just about 240 deaths on the Palestinian side. Again, I find it difficult to believe that in this day in age the only way this issue can be solved by this sort of death, destruction, and hatred. I could be wrong, I guess, but I’m not seeing where.

Moving on. The faux audit being held in Maricopa County, Arizona by a corporation that actually calls itself “Cyber Ninja” is starting to get too ridiculous for even the Republican Party. In the desperate attempt to find a scintilla of proof that Trump won the 2020 election, no really, the group using the company’s tools to “audit” Arizona votes have come up with some knee-slappers, like evidence of bamboo particles proves they were from China to the pro-Trump ballots being fed to fish. It should be noted that the head of Cyber Ninja spent most of the time after the election spreading the weak bullshit that the election was fixed in favor of Biden, and indeed there was a conspiracy to hide that conspiracy. It’s all very silly.

Though it’s coming up on a full month of looking for something and finding nothing, the people behind it have renewed their lease on the spot at the Arizona Fair Grounds through the end of June. The original plan was to wrap it up today, actually, but that ain’t happening. That all being said, this whole affair has started to get up the nose of some of the soi-disant grown-ups in the Arizona GOP, including Gov. Jan Brewer, herself a faithful Trumpist. It’s gotten so stupid that Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced the voting machines for Maricopa County have been tampered with to the point that they can no longer be used in the next election. Hell, that might’ve been the point. Anyhow, the group was ordered by the court to take a week-long break, and there we are.

Okay, then. It’s getting late and I need to file. I don’t know what the weekend will bring, but I do hope everyone enjoys themselves. I’m inclined to stay in bed all weekend.