I’ll bet this was a really cool place to be back in the 70s!

Any clouds help but yeah. The highest I’ve seen since we moved here. Fortunately, it appears to be dropping a bit 🤞🏽

Photo of weather station showing local temperature of 105.1F

It just hit 105F in our back garden in northern #FortCollins #COwx

I’ll express disappoint that we didn’t get rain up here but I’d never blame you for it. You can take the thanks for it raining now, though 😉

Yeah, fond (and not fond, at times) memories. I felt this when I got the Microsoft email that the were bricking it.

🚀🚀

Ha ha ha! Awesome cat name!

And nothing in FoCo, as usual *sigh*

I will no longer purchase HP printers because I don’t want to give them remote access to my printer. I don’t need any intrusions into my home network.

And it’s a really good indie bookstore with plenty of seating upstairs. 📚☕️🎧

Staircase with paintings of book spines on the steps at Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe in Bend, Oregon. The bottom step says Welcome to Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe. The titles on the subsequent steps going up are: American Gods, Fahrenheit 451, Wildwood, Travels With Charley, The Sheltering Sky, Shantaram, To the Bright Edge of the World, Americana, Dharma Bums, The Dog Stars, Mink River, and Desert Solitaire.

The staircase in Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe in Bend, OR.

Screenshot of a request for feedback form from Square. It asks how their Help page was and gives a choice of 1 to 5, with 1 being worst. If you click a number, they thank you for your feedback but give you no opportunity to comment.

This is what happens when you automate “support services”.

Note that there is no facility for telling them *why* they rated a 2 out of 5. It was because I spent the better part of half an hour trying to figure out how to mark a comment as spam, with their “help”.

Photo of Conan O’Brien accepting a Mark Twain Award.

CDC division responsible for asthma control and lead poisoning prevention effectively eliminated The CDC division responsible for asthma control and lead poisoning prevention has been effectively eliminated as part of the layoffs at HHS.

CDC division responsible for asthma control and lead poisoning prevention effectively eliminated.
Workers say no other HHS unit has capacity to respond to such public health crises.

Trump Tariffs Hit Antarctic Islands Inhabited by Zero Humans and Many Penguins The Heard and McDonald Islands are among the dozens of targets of President Donald Trump's latest round of tariffs. But they have no exports, because no one lives there.

I, for one, welcome our penguin overlords….

www.wired.com/story/trump-...

He is amazing!

HHS starts layoffs of thousands of workers across its agencies Layoff notices began arriving early Tuesday for thousands of employees of HHS and its subsidiary agencies, with as many 10,000 workers potentially expected to be hit by the cuts.

Sadly, this does not appear to be an April Fools post, although it’s is April and it is clearly the work of fools.

www.statnews.com/2025/04/01/h...

This warms my heart. It’s a great thing Guster did. I wish I could see the musical. Hopefully, they’ve found another venue.

Colorado man declared dead by Social Security still fighting to restart payments: “I’m at my wit’s end” Alex Vukovich’s Social Security check disappeared from his bank account in late January after the federal agency mistakenly placed him on its list of deceased recipients.

The Social Security Administration snatched Alex Vukovich’s January payment right out of his bank account and hasn’t made February or March payments — because the government insists he's dead. (He's not)

Myanmar Is in Ruins. And America Isn’t Coming. A 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar on March 27. Buildings pancaked in Mandalay. Temples in Bagan shattered. Entire villages buried.

Our hearts are with Myanmar today. Also filled with tremendous sorrow and shame for our country that USAID isn't there to help.

Trump executive order on Smithsonian targets funding to programs with ‘improper ideology’ Trump’s order puts Vice President JD Vance in charge of the effort.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order putting Vice President JD Vance in charge of an effort to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.

Thanks so much!

Webinar: Medicaid on the Chopping Block In this webinar, Justice in Aging experts explain how proposed Medicaid cuts would harm older adults and outline key messaging strategies to protect this vital program.

Yep! You can watch the full webinar and access the slides and transcript here:

I’m just seeing this now. Is there a recording posted somewhere? TIA

Cuts to Medicaid will set the U.S. back 35 years in dementia care “We’re the richest country in the world. It’s callous to say it’s costing too much for poor disabled people to do chair yoga.”

Opinion: Cuts to #Medicaid will set the U.S. back 35 years in #dementia care
Reducing, rationing, or even closing services will be catastrophic for patients, families

www.statnews.com/2025/03/25/a...

Trump Leads a ‘Machinery’ of Misinformation in Second Term (Gift Article) President Trump’s first four years in the White House were filled with falsehoods. Now he and those around him are using false claims to justify their policy changes.

The @nytimes.com highlighted @cip.uw.edu co-founder @katestarbird.bsky.social's recent 2025 UW Faculty Lecture where she described how a “machinery of bullshit” has become "intertwined with digital media."

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/b... [1/3]

How to… delete your 23andMe data But truly deleting your personal genetic information from the DNA testing company is easier said than done.

How to… delete your 23andMe data
But truly deleting your personal genetic information from the DNA testing company is easier said than done.

Opinion | Why Did Elon Musk Go After Bunkers Full of Seeds? (Gift Article) Gene banks are like a survivalist cache: our nation’s safeguard against all future challenges to growing the food we need.

This is terrifying. What happens to the food supply if these lines aren’t maintained and we have a disaster or a pandemic worse than the last?

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/o...

I've started to realize that Anne Frank and her family wouldn't have been safe around a lot of people I know and loved and once respected.

That's not something you get over.

Five books to help young readers understand wildfire - High Country News Age-appropriate narratives and beautiful illustrations teach children how wildfire touches people’s lives.

Five books to help young readers understand #wildfire