Mississippi is one of the reddest states in the US. Coincidentally, it also happens to be the blackest state in the US, boasting a black population that makes up 37.9 percent of the population. Somehow, Mississippi hasn’t sent a black Senator to Congress since 1875. (Yeah, it’s a mystery.) But the sweep continues and they’re about to. Scott Colom (D), a black man, has been elected and will represent the state. His opponent, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R), has conceded, making her slightly more honorable than Donald Trump. But then, who isn’t?

Mississippi is one of the states that answered Trump’s call to cheat by redrawing districts to block Democrats – yet another failed Trump effort. The red states had all been VERY effectively gerrymandered to the Republicans favor. They had to give up a little to Democrats in a few areas but not enough to wield any real power. After the mid-term re-draw Trump demanded, the new districts were still red, but they were also thinned out a little. Clearly, a concerted effort by the people they were trying to sideline enabled a flip that might not have been possible had the districts been left alone.

As a sidebar, the Democrats have gained control over several once-red state houses. I hope they’ll use some of their power to redraw the maps – this time with some impartial oversight that results in fair maps. I don’t want them redistricting to the Democrats favor. I don’t like cheating in elections and I don’t care which side we’re talking about.

Democrats, alone, still don’t have a veto-proof majority in Congress. But there will be so many Dems in the next Congress, only a small handful of Republicans have to do the right thing should certain votes become necessary. There have always been honest people in the Republican party. They’ve just been pushed to the edges by the loyalists. Now a small number of honest Republicans can work with Democrats to exercise control over this out-of-control regime. Fingers crossed…

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Air traffic across the entire US was grounded Friday afternoon due to what is being described as a “communication issue.” Recently, Team Evil announced a shiny new Air Traffic control system was being deployed – likely, whichever one Trump recently invested in – supposedly to reduce traffic issues. The new system is AI based. Has the AI gone rogue?

I do want to say this about the Air Traffic Control communications failure. Team Evil is blaming the age of the system. Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, said, “What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system.” Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, quickly turned to a plea for funding from Congress to “fully fund a full build of a brand new air traffic control system.”

I have no doubt the one we use is outdated. That’s been part of the plan all along. What did you THINK was going to happen when the GOP chose to financially starve the government “until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub?” Services got cut. Maintenance got deferred. But maintenance deferred forever leads to an inevitable collapse and now we’ve seen our first glimpse of that in the ATC system failure.

Think of it as a canary in a coal mine. We still have a chance to correct course, but that’s going to mean funding things that need funding and THAT’S going to mean taxing the people who have any money: the One Percent. Otherwise? We’d better get used to our once-First World nation – when we DID tax the rich correctly – descending into failing status. How embarrassing. The suicide of our superpower was an incredibly stupid idea…

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Remember all of that slashing to spending? DOGE? Cuts? Loss of services? Loss of agencies? Loss of opportunities? Deferred maintenance? Trump was going to rein in the budget, remember? So now, with the government not doing much for day-to-day Americans and nearly nothing for anybody else, how did the Trump regime start the new year with a $404 billion dollar deficit?

Hell, the GOP is STILL cutting and with an almost artistic cruelty. They waited until Veteran’s Day to <checks notes> cut benefits to veterans! Do you suppose that means an even higher deficit? That money is going somewhere. If not to the services the US once provided, where is it going? I think we’d better check the pockets of regime workers. They’re making off with the treasury…

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Just for fun, yesterday was Friday the 13th. There’s much conversation about why people think Friday the 13th is a bad luck day. Some tie it to Judas Iscariot being the 13th disciple. Some tie it to Loki, the Norse god, an uninvited 13th guest at a divine banquet. Those seem less likely, to me. Those are more of an attack on the number 13, in general, than the specific Friday the 13th. That means Thursday the 13th, for example, could be bad luck, too.

Some say Jesus was crucified on that day. We know the Friday part from the Bible, but it doesn’t give the specific date and, oh, by the way, the world used a different calendar back then. It’s also relevant that Christianity works diligently to surreptitiously take over special or significant days and claim them as Christian. It’s entirely possible Jesus was crucified on a Tuesday, but that doesn’t fit the narrative.

I’m partial to the idea that Friday the 13th is considered bad luck because that’s the day and date (recorded in history) that King Philip IV of France ordered the mass arrest of Knights Templar across the country in 1307. Word is, King Philip had borrowed an awful lot of money from the Knights and was in no position to pay it back. It marked the end of Knights Templar dominance as a force in Europe. The Knights, themselves, along with their support network, were brutally tortured into confessions of all kinds and most were violently executed.

Friday the 13th was certainly a bad luck day for the Knights Templar. Somehow, the tradition seems to have continued into the present. I don’t know, for sure, that’s the actual origin, but it makes a lot of sense and it fits the elements, so I’m going with it until better evidence becomes available…

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I’m not a fan of ‘the Cloud.’ People store digital things in the Cloud. Financial information, important papers, private documents, whatever. All of it gets stored in the Cloud because it offers easy access from everywhere. It really does, too. If (when) your computer crashes unexpectedly, all of your documents are backed up to the cloud and you can just download them to retrieve them. Lovely. So what’s my beef?

The BEST definition of ‘the Cloud’ is “someone else’s computer.” You want to store your financial information on my computer? Insider corporate information? Nude photos you took of your lover? You want those on my computer? I’d bet not. I’ll even promise not to access any of it unless I have to for maintenance or some such – or the photo is REALLY hot. Still no? Yet, you happily upload all of that stuff to someone else’s computer every time you save to the cloud.

Worse? If your connection fails or their servers go down for some reason, you don’t have access to those important papers you need until they get it going again. I know, that sounds a bit…overwrought, but it happened, this week, to Microsuck. Officially, they have no idea what caused the outage. My guess is a hack, but they’re not going to confess that any time soon. (You’ll get a letter next May, ‘Dear You, Oh, by-the-by…”) No, thank you. I’ll keep my stuff on my computer – and put the nudes on a jump-drive…