There's no easy solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, they both have legitimate land claims and have mutually perpetrated atrocities to fuel the fire for decades. That said, there are some very easy non-solutions. One of them is to turn the destroyed Gaza Strip into a casino. This is very easily not a thing that should be done.


When it was first suggested that Israel 'give' Gaza to the president/United States (he bounced between first person singular and plural) I assumed it was part of the Steve Bannon/flood the zone tactic to distract from the P2025 goings ons. Surely no one could be so comedically evil as to evict two million war weary people in order to create a fugazi Dubai. But I wonder if talking about and planning this property development is going to be the dude's hobby/distraction/legacy while everything else has been delegated. In any event...

The video does take a bit of a turn. I'm not sure I fully understand the MAGA platform, but bearded belly dancers was certainly something.

The normal crew put on capes and did some running. Dani and I met them at a couple of the stops.

My political trainwreck du jour is the stuff going on with OPM and DOGE.

Quick recap

1. Years ago a bunch of former Trump staffers created a thing called Project 2025 that outlined, among other things, a conservative takeover of the civil services.
2. During the campaign Trump denied association with P2025 but, well, that means very little.
3. After winning the election, Trump announced Elon and Vivek would head up the team responsible for slimming down the government.

Long ago we had the spoils system, where an incoming administration could clean house and appoint loyal followers to government jobs. That largely ended with civil service reform after which, say, a meteorologist could have a stable USG career of making sure planes don't fly into thunderstorms. The president can still clean out most agency leaders but your everyday food inspector doesn't have to find a new job every four years. P2025 didn't like that, they'd prefer someone who signed up at a state fair predict microbursts and do food inspections and F-35 maintenance.

Fixing the deficit by cutting 5% of the budget by 10%

Source.

The on-again/off-again tariff wars and wild claims of annexing sovereign countries could be real. They could also be the key jingling that we've seen so much with both Trump and Musk. Behind the distraction, the self-styled 'dark maga' boss and a team of tech kids in their 20s have made quite a stir with the civil services. Musk has basically followed his Twitter script, even borrowing the email subject 'Fork in the road' which I presume is a product of him saying he wanted people to 'fork off' and thought it'd be clever. The USG isn't Twitter though. Civil servants aren't at-will employees and their funding source is Congress, not the executive. But the RIF began with the traditional carrot/stick approach:

• Trump announced RTO for most government positions, a tactic employed by a variety of tech companies that overhired during the covid stimulus orgy.
• DOGE, through OPM, offered paychecks through the end of the fiscal year to any non-defense personnel that voluntarily resign.

As of today, about 1% of feds have accepted the offer although it's unclear how many were planning to retire anyway. Additionally, probationary employees seem to be completely out of luck, and I'm not sure if they are in that 1%.

R*ddit

Reddit default front page.

A lot of this has played out on Reddit where /r/fednews has posted fork emails, office rumors, and rants. The initial fork email was heavily criticized for not using fedspeak - precise terms, US Code citations, and typical email window dressing. Surprisingly, it didn't even look like it'd pass legal or HR muster for wide-distribution company email, let alone a RIF solicitation sent to millions. DOGE seemingly realized the same thing and has sent numerous follow-up emails, including one that encouraged govvies to leave their 'low productivity' public sector jobs for 'high productivity' private industry careers.

tossemoutplease

The use of the line "likely unlawful" is screaming AI to me. They honed the prompts and outputs over a few tries but didn't actually read it closely or with a lawyer. Then again, that's the point. Shove shit out and see what sticks and what doesn't. It'll be interesting to see the union challenge in the courts in the next 72 hours, because this is the big one. They didn't just make this about RTO, this was about the broader CBA authority.

Of course, Reddit admins and sitewide moderation system are terrible so when the identities of the DOGE Musketeers made news, comments listing their names were sometimes removed and sometimes left alone:

Source.

The Reddit admin response even included a temporary, complete takedown of one of the most popular subreddits.


I don't know if there's the same vibrant discussion on other social media platforms but WaPo and NBC News stopped by to solicit insider info.

They keep forking up

Earlier I alluded to follow-up emails from DOGE, revising their offer and trying to make it sound more legitimate.

Progressive_Insanity

They provided an unsigned "example" agreement. They are in this subreddit, reading everyone's concerns, then putting them in copy-pasted emails to every agency for them to send out. These people are literally arguing with redditors through official agency correspondence. Absolute comedy.

The DOGE team also seems to be paying attention to the heretofore-obscure sub. The follow-up fork emails have stressed key concerns about the legality and legitimacy of the offer and even included US code citations. One seemingly crucial point came to light though:

Source. Officially posted here.

After Fed/Redditors pointed out a variety of deficiencies with the "reply to resign" paradigm, DOGE provided an agreement document in which the resigning party appears to waive all avenues of legal recourse. Avenues which might not be there to begin with:

yasssssplease

There's actually a 1990 scotus case that says that even if you get erroneous information from OPM, you're not entitled to any benefits if not allowed by statute. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1989/88-1943

Source. (Update 2/5) Seems like Elon indeed went full "trust me, bro".

Outlook

The resignation deadline is Thursday - at the moment anyway. It's unclear if Trump's plan is to simply do a big RIF or if he expects to get a 2026 budget that is the same as the 2025 budget, throw up his hands, and say, "guess we have to hire all those people on the P2025 list".

(Update 2/5) Director Ratcliffe's choice of words strongly suggests they plan not to cut the CIA's personnel budget but rather replace career IC people. It's not surprising.

There are - and will be - numerous court battles and some will undoubtedly land on John Roberts's desk. Questions include:

• Is RTO compliant with the telework act?
• Is the fork letter legal, specifically committing funds that are not yet available as well as putting public employees on long term administrative leave?
• Is the @all email server legal?
• Are the contract's weasel clauses legal?
• How does all of the above apply to union positions?

As things stand, it looks like the administration will have to take additional measures to meet their RIF/replacement targets. Perhaps most of the federal government is going to end up on a PIP. Trump may try his hand at impoundment and leave it to SCOTUS to continue their creativity streak.

It's just so enthralling.

katalysis

My Chinese friend made an interesting remark: its funny to see what trump doing rn is basically what Xi did when he was in power at the beginning. challenge all the departments for efficiency and anti corruption, then he fired those ppl not loyal to him and replaced by his own followers

Pristine-Patient-262

I'm eligible for VERA and I'm definitely NOT retiring or taking the offer. In the words of RATM: Fuck you I won't do what you tell me!

Okay two things, Paul Ryan. First, you are the machine. You might be awesome - I have no idea - but you're still the machine referred to in that song. Second, opting not to take a buyout offer is not civil disobedience.

There was a water park, an aquarium, and the pungent stuff that leaks onto you when you replace a sink.


The Anaheim/Garden Grove Great Wolf Lodge came highly recommended to us by a few friends. Since Danielle had no school on Friday, it was a good opportunity to get some January swimming in - the GWL water park is fully indoors. I think the little one has only been down a plastic slide into the Cooley pool so this was looking to be an important milestone.

Dani and I drove up Thursday around lunch time and happily found that our room was available for check-in when we arrived. After dumping our luggage and getting suits on, we were greeted with a rather uncrowded water park.

Left back: big slides. Left center: medium slides (Fort Mackenzie). Right center: wave pool. Right back: standing wave. The lazy river is behind Fort Mackenzie, the toddler area is on the right out of view.

I wasn't sure if Fort Mackenzie would be impressive or intimidating so I steered Dani toward the toddler lagoon. The little kids' area wasn't boring by any means - it had a smaller climbing structure, water spouts, and a pair of slides. After a little wading time, Dani tried one of the slides. Unfortunately, she chose the straight-down slide and was displeased that I didn't catch her at the bottom.

We switched things up and went to the more familiar setting of the wave pool. Because she is a hair under 42", Dani was required to wear a PFD in the wave pool. As it turns out, the life jacket gave Dani additional confidence and so she opted wear one most of the rest of the time.

After the wave pool we checked out the lazy river. I was mildly disappointed to see that the lazy river has its own little section of the water park rather than rivering around the entire perimeter.

Some relevant documents - the upsells, activities, kids menu, and final bill.

GWL has a sit-down restaurant, a buffet, a pizza place, an ice cream shop, and a Dunkin. Since this isn't a ton of variety, we ventured out of the lodge for second lunch. Needless to say, the moment you step out of GWL you realize you're in the suburbs and strip malls of Garden Grove. The nearby shopping centers have a few hole-in-the-wall food options but it's largely uninspiring. There's a McDonald's across the street but that's just a worse verions of GWL options.

We grabbed some Round Table and promptly returned to the water park.

With the newfound comfort of a life jacket, Dani eagerly tried the other of the slides in the toddler lagoon. This one was a curving red half-pipe that would have been better to start on. Dani spent about 45 minutes doing lap after lap on this slide with an enormous smile on her face. With only two or three other kids riding the slides, there wasn't any waiting between runs.


Abrutly, Dani started walking out of the little kids area towards Fort Mackenzie. She wasn't entirely sure where to go on the giant play structure so I coaxed her toward the smallest of the big kid slides - a short, enclosed tube with a simple u-turn. I wasn't sure how sliding in the dark would sit with the little one but when she got to the bottom she simply said, "that was dark and fast but fun!"

After just a few laps on the first slide, Dani wanted to try the ones that turn 270° and launch one flight of stairs higher. These were probably her favorite but she because she was battling the exhaustion of a half-day of school and several hours in the water, I told Danielle we should probably go check on Mommy's train. In uncharacteristic defiance, Dani simply turned and walked back up the stairs to do another lap. To be fair, my instructions probably felt like a rug pull because I normally put her on the clock when it's almost time to go. Indeed, when she returned Danielle was amenable to being given three more slides but decided that her last one would be from the top of Fort Mackenzie. She came off the blue slide 10% scared, 30% sleepy, and 60% excited.

There's not a ton to say about the next day, we did three water park sessions where Dani retraced the previous day's journey from toddler lagoon to the top of Fort Mackenzie.

Other thoughts and recommendations

Overall the GWL trip was great - it was convenient, inexpensive, and a lot of fun for the little one.


The accommodations are like a lower-end Marriott or Hilton - they're plenty comfortable and better than I'd expect from a kid-oriented venue. The pricing is certainly on par or better than the aforementioned peers; ~$200/night with included water park passes. Part of me wishes I could have paid for a higher-tier room and maybe extended or exclusive water park access. Another part of me is happy that the GWL hasn't been Disneyfied with a half dozen fast pass tiers and 'experiences'.

Like most vacation destinations, the GWL lobby and common areas are well-maintained. The lodge theme is nice but, of course, it's rough cut wood screwed on top of drywall. The staff was uninversally quite friendly and helpful but not in a fake, theme park sort of way.


For bigger kids there's a wizard game that is comprised of running around the hotel with a wand, completing quests at themed kiosks. The staff indicated that there's a littler kids' version of this but we opted to skip it since the only reason Danielle will leave a pool is to get on a waterslide. There will be time for this when she is older and brings a friend to GWL.

On the one hand, the wizard game doesn't have the greatest production value - screens with simple animations, Home Depot astroturf grass, and craft store jewels. At that age I don't imagine it matters, but I hope the level of effort means they change the game somewhat regularly. On the other hand, I distinctly recall the pure joy of running amok through hotels when I was a kid. That experience was completely without purpose, couple it with magic and shit and I'd have been in heaven.

GWL also has a ticket-oriented arcade, a mini bowling alley, and a tiny minigolf course with a fluorescent cave theme. These may attract interest in the years to come, for now it's all about bouncing between the water and tablet/audiobooks.


I mentioned the limited variety of restaurants in the lodge and lack of options within walking distance. I'd kicked around the idea of hitting Downtown Disney but after many hours in the water, driving and dining in didn't seem appealing. Probably a future itinerary could be built around hitting Disney or one of the OC downtowns on the way in.

Some stuff we ate at GWL:

• Half chicken/sit-down: good
• Salad/sit-down: good
• Tenders/sit-down: good
• Fries/sit-down: good
• Burger/pool snack bar: horrible
• Cheese curds/pool snack bar: not great
• Fries/pool snack bar: okay

For the wide disparity in food quality between the snack bar and sit-down restaurant the respective bills differed by all of 20%. And so it was rather disappointing that (on Thursday and Friday, anyway) only the snack bar and pizza place were open before dinner. On the plus side, our room had a fridge and our floor had a microwave so we could have supplemented the dining options with some home favorites.

It'd be neat if the GWL had leveraged the OC food truck scene so we could have gotten some yakisoba or carne asada fries or empanadas.

Turns out d'bears isn't just my fantasy team.

My biggest (fairly unsurprising) takeaway from this experience was to only go on weekdays. Thursday afternoon had a very light crowd. Friday morning and afternoon saw a few more visitors - instead of walking right onto the slides Danielle traveled in a small flock of children who impatiently waited for the attendant to wave them in. The empty lobby and easy slide access ended at check-in time on Friday afternoon. Our last trip downstairs was more reminiscent of my summer days at Windsor Water Works - mainly standing on cold concrete stairs wrapped in a rubber mat waiting for my turn.


It's been pretty mellow around the house. Dani got a plush stingray at the aquarium and we've kept an eye on Watch Duty for any local situations.



Our old sink started leaking and though we are due for a new kitchen, Costco had stainless a steel Kohler so we pretty much had to. I haven't done a kitchen sink before but was intimately familiar with all of the plumbing underneath. No sweat.

Since the counter had absorbed some water over time, I took sandpaper to it and followed up with a little bit of fiberglass.

That is a really dirty window.

1. Surface prep
2. Fitment test
3. Fiberglass
4. Silicon caulk around the fringe
5. Install
6. Tightening of the retaining brackets with Jes pushing down on the top
7. Replumbing

The new sink didn't have an air gap/bubble valve for a dishwasher so per the internet's instructions I ran a high loop to keep any garbage disposal overflow out of the dishwasher drain line.