Metal Art

Yesterday, we got to have dinner with my parents - Hi, Parental Units!

It was lovely.

MP brought them a couple pieces he'd made for them, and I grabbed some pictures before they took them away.

For my Mother Unit:

Awwww....

For my Father Unit:

TIM-BERRRR!

The little saw is so cute! Also, surprisingly sharp.

Youch...

MP has some talent, hey?

In other news, tomorrow in April Fools' Day. I won't be playing any pranks - but some people have apparently gotten started early, so: An updated (and depressing) list of all the April Fool’s pranks on the Internet Be careful, y'all! Also, the Google Maps Ms. PacMan is harder than I thought it'd be...

Links!

• Library Land
• Top 10 things to know (and do) about saving library funding  "The talk of Washington and the library community (when people aren’t talking about the President’s tweets, anyway) is the recent recommendation by the President to completely eliminate funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), including their library funding implementing the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and the Innovative Approaches to Literacy program within the Department of Education. Here are the top ten things that you need to know about saving IMLS and more than $210 million in annual federal library funding that will be going on all year."
•  ALA and ACRL join higher education, library groups to urge FCC and Congress to uphold net neutrality "The groups signing today’s letter support the FCC’s February 2015 Order and believe that it has served the interests of consumers, broadband providers, libraries, and higher education. In addition they note that the process to get to this point produced unprecedented public support for strong net neutrality protections: the rulemaking process that led to the 2015 Order generated the greatest number of public comments in the agency’s history, which were overwhelmingly pro-net neutrality. And the ruling was subsequently affirmed by a federal appeals court. The proposed principles call upon the FCC to ban blocking, degradation, and 'paid prioritization'; ensure that the same rules apply to fixed and mobile broadband providers; promote greater transparency of broadband services; and prevent providers from treating similar customers in significantly different ways."
• President Trump vs. Big Bird "The humanities do not immunize a society from cruelty and overreaction; early-20th-century Germany proves that. But on balance, the arts humanize us and promote empathy. We need that now more than ever." 
• Long-Lost Letters from Suffrage Pioneers Discovered  "The collection includes 26 letters from Susan B. Anthony and 10 from Elizabeth Cady Stanton written to advocate, abolitionist and lecturer, Isabella Beecher Hooker (the half-sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe). What makes these artifacts so unique is that they are political, not personal. They provide a unique look into the behind-the-scenes, day-to-day maneuvering, by both key players and lesser-known suffragists, that went into securing women the right to vote."
• International
• Gulf airlines Etihad, Qatar work around U.S. cabin laptops ban "Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways are lending some passengers laptop computers and tablets to use on board following the U.S. ban on most electronics devices from being taken into the cabin on United States-bound flights." 
• U.S. News
• In Atlanta: I-85 collapses after massive fire: ‘The entire bridge is compromised’ That's not good... Luckily, no one was hurt - but this is going to be a massive headache for commuters and truckers. Related: LIVE UPDATES: Plan for traffic mess after I-85 fire, collapse
• This Is Almost Certainly James Comey’s Twitter Account "... I care deeply about privacy, treasure it." That's sort of amusing, coming from the head of the FBI, isn't it? Anyway, this should be interesting. I looked around a bit, and it appears the Twitter account named just happened to delete all its tweets after the article came out, which I think is pretty good evidence she's on to something, hey?
• Senate votes to eliminate Obama-era retirement rule "Senators by a 50-49 margin approved the House-passed resolution, which rolls back a rule meant to encourage a state's 'political subdivisions,' like cities and counties, to create retirement plans for private-sector workers whose employers do not offer their own retirement plans." I don't even think Republicans are looking at what they're rolling back, at this point - they're just voting to eliminate anything they can. 
• Tom Price Intervened on Rule That Would Hurt Drug Profits, the Same Day He Acquired Drug Stock That's not shady at all. 
• Flynn offers to cooperate with congressional probe in exchange for immunity "'General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,' Flynn’s attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement Thursday evening."
• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spends his first weeks isolated from an anxious bureaucracy "Eight weeks into his tenure as President Trump’s top diplomat, the former ExxonMobil chief executive is isolated, walled off from the State Department’s corps of bureaucrats in Washington and around the world. His distant management style has created growing bewilderment among foreign officials who are struggling to understand where the United States stands on key issues. It has sown mistrust among career employees at State, who swap paranoid stories about Tillerson that often turn out to be untrue. And it threatens to undermine the power and reach of the State Department, which has been targeted for a 30 percent funding cut in Trump’s budget."