Looking through the parts Og gave me with it, I am reminded that there is a voltmeter included with them, and it probably would not take much to install it on the bike so I could monitor the status of the charging system. WTF, it's two wires, and I have everything I need to put it on the bike. (Except maybe some way to mount it, but that's also easily rectified.) This will bear thinking about.
* * *
"It's the seriousness of the charge!" The left is moving the goalposts, because the whole Russia thing is a big fat wad of nothing, so now they're saying that "whether or not a crime was committed, Trump's behavior is alarming!"
Well, hell yeah it should alarm you, the way he's crushing all your commie bullshit. I know that's not what you're trying to say, but that's what you mean, and you desperately want to find a way to get him out of office so you can have President Mike Pence.
I just thought I'd remind you of that fact: if you somehow managed to impeach Trump and remove him from power, you'd just get Mike Pence as President--and to remove him you would then have to impeach him, and go through the whole process again. And while you were doing that, Pence could appoint whomever he likes as his VP, up to and including Donald Trump himself, and you would have to accept that; and let's just say that at this point the American people still haven't lynched your dumb ass and you somehow manage to remove Pence from office--you then get whoever he appointed as his VP.
And if I were Mike Pence in that situation--becoming President because Trump was removed--I would appoint someone so right-wing, the left-wingers would piss their pants at the mere thought of him being President. That'd be my insurance policy against my removal: "Kick me out and you get HIM."
The people who are focusing on impeaching Trump don't seem to be thinking that far ahead, though. They want Trump out, and it seems as if they think that were Trump to be removed from office it would magically undo the election and put Hillary in. Or, who knows? Perhaps they'd try to force a constitutional crisis by claiming that since Pence didn't run for President, he's not eligible to serve. Sure, there's a bunch precedent for the VP taking over, and it's explicit in the Constitution how and why that works, but since when has the black-letter law of the land mattered to these people?
No, you get rid of Trump and Pence is your President. It's really unlikely you'd be able to remove him in a timely fashion; certainly you could not hold a vote to impeach as soon as he was sworn in as President; and even if you did, he could appoint his VP and have him sworn in before you could vote to impeach.
And impeachment assumes you have the votes in Congress, which you do not, and an impeachable offense, which you most assuredly do not. "Trump's behavior is alarming" is not impeachable, not by a long shot, and given how the press squandered its credibility supporting Obama and Hillary, you're not likely to get much traction with it.
So what we're going to have is a continued drumbeat of manufactured scandals, because there has to be SOMETHING he did wrong!, and exaggerated in importance because no one cares outside of the D.C. press corps and the Democrat party BIRM. All it's going to do is to further erode the public's confidence in the media, and their interest.
It's why so many Democrats are now saying, "Enough about Russia!" It's played out, there is nothing there, and only the hard left dyed-in-the-wool Democrats think there is anything to the allegations--and there aren't enough of them to do anything, much the same way there aren't enough white supremecists to bring back Jim Crow. It's so obviously nothing that they're getting to the point of making themselves look unhinged. (Well, they are unhinged, but they're starting to make it obvious.)
* * *
In a state without a budget, lottery winners don't get paid on time. So, Powerball ticket sales stop in Illinois tonight. Mega Millions tickets stop on the 30th, which is Friday.
...because the state literally cannot afford to pay winners.
If you win $25,000 or more, you have to wait for the money, because Illinois doesn't have it. (I bet you get taxed on it right away, though.)
Illinois Democrats still refuse to compromise on a budget.
* * *
Long story:
This morning, perhaps around 11, the power went out with a "bang", then came on after a couple of moments, so I went back to sleep. (I was up late last night.) When a power failure goes "bang" it's a fuse; but for whatever reason it wasn't a circuit that supplies power to the bunker. They must have some kind of automatic cutout in operation for when a fuse lets go on a different but related circuit. The failure must've been on a phase that doesn't supply the bunker.
Anyway, BANG, UPSes made some noises, then everything came back on and I returned to the land of dreams. That was probably a mistake, as I had another oppressively bad dream.
When I finally got up, I saw a mailing tube standing on the porch; a print of a painting Mrs. Fungus ordered some weeks ago had arrived. Brought that in and thought nothing of it.
Then, sitting here writing the post, I hear a big truck outside--driving up, stopping, backing up--and went out to see WTF was going on. ComEd truck, no doubt here to check the lines. I went back inside, reflexively checking the mail and seeing that it had been delivered, probably at the same time the mailing tube had been. And in the mailbox was a padded envelope containing the rectifier I bought from eBay yesterday.
Fast service.
The return address is from the town immediately north of the Fungal Vale, which explains why it went to Bedford Park first, but hey--it got here in a day, so why worry?
So once I've had something for breakfast, I'll head out to the garage and try it out, and see how we do. Further bulletins as events warrant.