So … FEMA has decided that what this country really needs is a Presidential Alert dohicky on your phone so that the president can text everydamnbody in the USA in case there’s any emergency.

Oh, that’s probably not a good idea.

What if Twitter goes down for 15 minutes and the president needs to say something about Robert Mueller’s illegal witch hunt and 17 angry Democrats?

Here’s the deal.  This access to my phone and the message is decided by the president and president alone.

Remember when President Obama wanted to speak to the school children of America over the television system and Republicans went nuts and kept their children home from school because they didn’t want their children exposed to Barack Obama?  Now, imagine if President Obama had asked for something like this.

You know what?  I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we gave this emergency system to Bill Nye the Science Guy, or Neil deGrasse Tyson, or maybe any person who isn’t batcrap crazy.

Thursday at 2:18pm ET.  Be there or be … I dunno, whatever you are when you are totally dumbfounded.

There’s an 88 year old woman in Austin who got this in the mail.

She thought she got a Travis County Summons.  She thought that because the upper left hand corner says so.

But look closely.  It’s from Ted Cruz and it’s asking for money.

He has no shame, no class, and no money.

In an attempt to “streamline” the Texas social studies curriculum, the Texas State Board of Education decided to cut some people from Texas history.  Namely, Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller.

Members of the volunteer work group that made such recommendations to the board said the state requires children to learn about too many historical figures.

Clinton, as the first presidential nominee of ether major party to have ta-tas and the largest vote getter of the 2016 election, has been taught to high schoolers.  Helen Keller was taught to third graders as an example that handicapped people have made great contributions to society.

Neither statement is true now in Texas, so these women hit the trash can.  Besides, that Keller woman was a socialist.

In what reality can you learn too much about historical figures? Does learning too much turn you into a Democrat or some damn thing?

Texas ranks 43rd in education among the states because – obviously – we are teaching too damn much.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

Well, I’m out of pocket but you guys feel free to to get me up to date when I get a break.

Folks around the shop know that I am a big fan of conspiracy theories.  I subscribe to the History Channel and have a short wave radio just to keep up with where the aliens are and if Elvis has died yet. I was the happiest person in Texas during Jade Helm. That was a very dandy bundle of crazy.

Customer K sent me one this morning.  It starts off like this.  Out in New Mexico there’s all sorts of things looking at the stars because they have stars in New Mexico.  They also have Area 51, White Sands, and a couple of Air Force bases.  They also have ….

The Sunspot Observatory is temporarily closed due to a security issue at the facility that’s located 17 miles south of Cloudcroft in the Sacramento Mountains Friday, an Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) spokeswoman Shari Lifson said.

The Sunspot Observatory is a place where they … uh, observe the sun.  They shut that sucker down for “security reasons” and ain’t telling anybody anything.  And the FBI and Blackhawk helicopters were involved. Isn’t that cool?

The local sheriff was called and asked to “stand by” but they wouldn’t tell him for what. Isn’t stand by kinda what local sheriffs do all the time?  Why would he need a special request unless it’s something, you know, weird.

In fact, the sheriff said …

He said he has a lot of unanswered question about what occurred at Sunspot. “But for the FBI to get involved that quick and be so secretive about it, there was a lot of stuff going on up there,” House said. “There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything.”

Now there’s a helluva start.

But it gets weirder.

They also evacuated a local post office and shut it down.  Nobody’s talking, but people keep saying they are responding to authorities but don’t know who the authorities are.  I admit, if some guy shows up in a Blackhawk and tells me to get the hell outta Dodge, I’m pretty apt to go without asking for identification.

The postal service spokesman said …

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Rod Spurgeon called the situation “strange” after authorities walked into the nearby post office without warning and told the clerk to evacuate.

However, another star gazing facility a mile away wasn’t shut down and has no idea what’s going on.

The observatory’s website said it’s closed “due to unforeseen circumstances.”

Latest report?

[Sheriff] House said they didn’t get any more answers at the observatory, but staff members told deputies the FBI had been there.

“Nobody would give us any information on what was going on,” House said, before the phone call cut out and repeated attempts to reach him again were unsuccessful.

Thanks to K for lunchtime entertainment.

I don’t talk about my own personal congressman much because he’s a piece of furniture.  He’s not smart, he doesn’t say much, he hasn’t carried any legislation, and, bless his heart, I’ve seen better looking mud fences.  His only redeeming social value is that he replaced Tom DeLay so he’s not Tom DeLay.

His campaign slogan is, “Well, I’ve never heard of you either.”

Pete Olson

And my district is so red that Democrats don’t even run anybody with any gravitas against him.

Until this year.  I’m supporting Sri Preston Kulkarni for this seat and he’s being taken very seriously.  That means that Pete has to get out and campaign.  Bless his heart.

He blew it and got caught.

I live in the most diverse county in the nation. Pete was asked to speak at the India House to celebrate India’s Independence Day.  And out tumbled these words.

“September 11th, 2001: 3,000 innocent Americans were killed by terrorists from Pakistan,” Olson told the audience. “26 November 2008, Mumbai: Two solid days of killing by people trained in Pakistan.”

Pete said he misspoke.  It’s just coincidence that he misspoke about Pakistan in front of an Indian-American event.

Republicans are jerks.