Hammer Mill Days

That was firecrackers, right? It's getting closer to fourth of July, I guess. Or maybe it's someone's birthday. Please tell me that was firecrackers, because if it wasn't ... ugh ... there goes the neighborhood. Yeah, well ... we went to bed to the sound of gunfire last night. Some knucklehead pulling a Yosemite Sam imitation right out in front of the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. Could be they thought the place was empty - it is, after all, abandoned. Anyway, we sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out there to have a look. He's kind of like one of those tactical bomb-sniffing robots, except that he doesn't have a tactical bone in his body and he hates the smell of explosives. Anyway, he tottered out there and took a look around, then came back in with a couple of bottle caps. Not 100% sure that was related to what we sent him out there for, but there you have it. We may be looking for a gunman who enjoys drinking soda while he/she is shooting up the p

This one is for Ilhan Omar, who is currently bearing more than her share of attention from Donald Trump's racist, xenophobic campaign to re-elect his sorry ass on the bodies of brown people everywhere. It's hard to know where to begin, but I think it needs to be said first that Trump appears to be deliberately inciting violence with his various ignorant statements and tweets regarding this first-term congressmember. He may be an ignoramus, but I suspect he knows what effect his words can have on the disturbed, the deranged, and the prone to violence among his supporters and admirers. We have seen the results in Pittsburgh, in Florida, and elsewhere. Targets of Trump's tirades are descended upon by legions of social media trolls, including some trigger-happy bottom-dwellers like would-be pipe-bomber Cesar Sayoc. Rep. Omar is an ideal target for Trump, as many have pointed out. She's (1) a Muslim, (2) black, (3) an immigrant / refugee, (4) someone from "a shithole