A truly heartwarming story about a family facing military deployments and real life challenges.

Good luck to them.

A couple leftovers from the big government shutdown here.

We went up to Duluth for the Fourth to get away from the heat. Damn gorgeous weather there and we had a good time.

Driving up the North Shore we saw a lot of cars parked on the highway with folks going into the closed parks, in some cases in front of state patrol cars.

Well, you know me.

Along with many, many others, we went to Gooseberry Falls State Park and enjoyed a good hour hiking to the falls and playing in the water. Mono came along too, which was a really nice extra perk for us.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat. No Tea Bagging asshat is going to ruin my family’s vacation!

How Republicans here deal with competing views on balancing the budget: they set fire to the governor’s old house.

Yes, he doesn’t even live there anymore. Not only is it not constructive, it targets the wrong people. Classic GOP reactionary violence.

Further reporting shows that three fires were set, presumably by the same asshat(s). Nice.

I have probably linked this before, but since we’re struggling to get past zero today I was reminded of this story about how unexpectedly bad winter can get up here.