TREE HOUSE NEWS 🏡

Land of Whispering Pines 🌲

Good morning! I pray that you be well, at peace, provided for, & blessed 🙏🌅

It's primarily cloudy🌫 out there, but the temp is where it should be for this time of year; even with the overcast, expected high of 70°F, it was still nice to be able to sit out in my green space with just a light jacket on, sipping my coffee. It was so quiet at this time of morning that it reminded me of the homestead where I grew up. The sound of the great whispering pines,🌲 the early sunrise, 🌄 , and the birds 🦜 just coming out of their roost. 🌳

This morning was just me, the trees, the birds, and a couple of squirrels at play in the trees, so silent I could hear the creek hidden in the foliage 🌿🌱🍃 that is now in full leaf. Everything is so beautiful, with its different pastels of healthy green, and some trees still holding cherry blossoms. This place is as grown as it's going to get; the building is built on the side of parkland in a residential area. North of us is Lake Ontario. Can't go farther than that unless you have a rowboat 🛶 and row across Lake Ontario 🏖 to Toronto. 🏙

BY THE WAY: Beginning Friday around lunchtime, we are going to Toronto to spend four days visiting Toronto's PATH, a vast network of pedestrian walkways, tunnels, and shopping concourses beneath downtown Toronto.

NOTICE:

My news reports may be intermittently short on most of those four days. Beginning Friday, May 16 until... I should be back on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, full-time. That is about all I have to report for the moment here from the Newsroom this morning. Thank you for reading the News.

TODAYS DISCUSSION:

A Mental Holiday

Everyone needs to take some time off to rest mentally as well as physically. It is impossible to remain composed physically if you are fidgeting in anticipation of worry, and other mental blocks like concerns, anger, confusion, mental anguish, or aggravations, some call the aggravations pet peeves.

A Pet Peeve is like bang my knee, smack my elbow, and bust my shoulder in the doorway, bang my nose on the cupboard door getting a cup for my coffee, but ain't we a little putzy today, eh! Oh me, oh my, I can't bend down or go around corners like I used to and I don't do 90 ° angles too well anymore either, I get dizzy as a rat in a round shithouse if I do.

My Mental Holidays.

I take a mental holiday whenever I have quiet time. Either when I'm alone and Paula is out gathering some provisions for the refrigerator or at an appointment, that is when I do most of my wool gathering. The wool gathering is taking me to places I don't really get to go to as deeply when I'm busy with the present world. Thoughts, theories, analysing, researching, contemplating, and even getting into the sci-fi side and going past the limits of quantum mechanics, the physical and energetic world, for "a what-if world".

No one ever said you had to stick to the rigid known rules of physics. What about the imagination? The imagination took Einstein to the micro, the subatomic level. "Imagination."👩‍🔬

So if you get sick of the lunacy in this world, take some time off, and go into the land of the imagination, preferably with another like-minded person, to play toss the ball⚾️ back and forth.

As for the insanity:

"WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

😖😫😭😱😵‍💫🫨🙄😵‍💫🙃😲

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqQdbevaB-Q

BREAKING NEWS:

Trump’s Middle East trip: President to speak at Saudi investment forum after crown prince meeting

What you need to know:

• Trump in Saudi Arabia: The Trump administration signed several new agreements with Saudi Arabia’s government Tuesday, including on military cooperation, as President Donald Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seek to highlight close ties between the two countries. Trump is expected to speak at a US-Saudi investment forum soon, where Elon Musk is also listed as a speaker.

• High-stakes Middle East visit:

• Weapons sale: T

46 min ago:

Trump signs several agreements with Saudis, including on military cooperation

The Trump administration entered into several new agreements with the government of Saudi Arabia Tuesday as President Donald Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seek to highlight close ties between the two countries.

At a formal signing ceremony in a gilded ballroom at Riyadh’s Royal Court, the two leaders signed memoranda of understanding, letters of intent, and other executive agreements spanning different government agencies.

Multiple focused on the two countries’ military cooperation, including the “modernization and development of the capabilities of the Saudi armed forces through future defense capabilities,” enhanced cooperation on “ammunition training, support services, maintenance system upgrades, spare parts and education for land and air systems of the National Guard,” and the “development of the health capabilities of the Saudi armed forces.”

Updated 9:54 AM EDT, Tue May 13, 2025

-CNN-

Tariffs have already made mattresses, strollers, and power tools more expensive.

Photo:

A US flag is seen above mattresses at Charlie Wilson's appliance and TV store in Clarksville, Indiana.

President Donald Trump's unpredictable trade policies and public threats against companies have made it nearly impossible to set prices.

The Trump administration temporarily reduced tariffs on China over the weekend, but import taxes have already made baby gear, power drills, mattresses, and other everyday products more expensive for Americans. Companies have been raising prices to survive cost increases from both 10% universal tariffs on every product entering the United States and higher levies on Chinese goods, at 30%, even after an agreement between Washington and Beijing.

The Federal Reserve said last week that tariffs have led to a 0.3% increase in prices this year.

Published 7:00 AM EDT, Tue May 13, 2025 - CNN -

CANADIAN NEWS:

Updated4 minutes ago:

Carney's cabinet, to be sworn in shortly, has 24 new faces

Core and secondary group of ministers will likely focus on fighting U.S. tariffs

LIVE:

11 minutes ago

Who's in and who's out in Carney's cabinet:

Analysis: How Carney tried to turn the page with 1st shuffle

The Latest:

• New cabinet will be Prime Minister Mark Carney's second — but his first since being elected. It is expected to be small and focused, according to an official with the Prime Minister's Office.
• The 24 new names include Shafqat Ali, Jill McKnight, Tim Hodgson, Eleanor Olszewski, Mandy Gull-Masty, Joël Lightbound, Gregor Robertson, Evan Solomon, Wayne Long, and Nathalie Provost.
• Thirteen are newly elected MPs. There are 10 secretaries of state, nine of whom are new faces.
• Carney's first cabinet was composed of 24 ministers — 11 women and 13 men, including himself. Trudeau's last cabinet had 39 when sworn in.
• There will be a core group of senior ministers and a secondary group of more junior ministers, with smaller groups of staff and no new ministry created for them.
• The swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall is expected to begin soon.

Updated May, 13, 2025, 8 minutes ago: - CBC -

Separatists release potential Alberta referendum question, expect Danielle Smith to join cause

Alberta Prosperity Project says premier should hold referendum in 2025, with UCP base heavily pro-secession

Jeffrey Rath, lawyer for the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project, released his group's proposed question for a potential referendum on Alberta separation at a Monday news conference.

An Alberta separatist group released on Monday a referendum question on independence from Canada that it will petition to get in front of provincial voters, but only once it has garnered support from 600,000 Albertans.

That's more than triple the number of signatures the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) would need under a new United Conservative Party government bill that makes it much easier to force a referendum on the ballot.

The group also said it would push Premier Danielle Smith to allow a separation referendum later in 2025, instead of next year as she's suggested. They said a critical mass of separatist UCP members can persuade the premier to fast-track the referendum — and to join their cause as well.

The pitch:

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she'll hold a separation referendum in 2026 if enough petitioners demand one. The group that will lead the petition drive wants the vote this year instead.

• Analysis Will Danielle Smith steer Alberta away from separation, or will this train keep gathering steam?*
• Alberta separation would send Canada into uncharted territory, say legal experts*

Posted: May 12, 2025 2:45 PM EDT | Last Updated: May 12

- CBC -

I am getting quite annoyed with these cowboy hat wearing shitbagers<- conservatives, republicans, they're both the same breed of butt suffing bacteria stiff shirted cocroaches.

NATURE'S SOUNDS AND MUSIC:

💫✨ ~ Sit for a while, relax, and allow the release All Bad Energy From Your Body~ 💫✨

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8nuQxEqbdw