Observation Concerning The Debate From Last Night

Two movie related themes emerge from last night's debate; oddly they both are Tom Cruise movies:

Trump sounded like Dustin Hoffman in "The Rain Man"  ("I'm a very good driver")  when he said "I have a winning temperament";

and,

Hillary apparently deployed the Tom Cruise strategy from "A Few Good Men"; that was the strategy that brought the Jack Nicholson character out into daylight and exposed him for the nut that he was.

Trump lapped it up and went unglued about midway through the evening.

I think he ran out of gas after about twenty minutes.

I guess the cocaine wasn’t doing the – sniff, sniff – job.

Maybe "Silence of the Lambs" is next.

Check That Camel One More Time

Back in August 2014 I made some observations about Mosul Dam.

Now that the Iraqi ragtag is saying they are going to take Mosul back from the Islamic Nuts it might be worth wondering if anybody is going to make sure the Nuts don’t blow up the dam as they depart the area.

http://noellivefromparis.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-highs-your-camel-mama.html

More On The Little Green Men

This post starts with a reading assignment.

And that’s not good – for me.

It’s not good for me because, as someone who is long on thoughts and opinions, and short on (“lacking of” would be more accurate) followers, I am starting a post by asking whoever comes net surfing along to do something abhorrent to most people these days.

I am asking them to read a midsized non fiction work.

And then – I am out of editorial mode in just a few more characters – I am going to ask them to do something even more abhorrent: after reading The Invention Of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom To Putin’s War (the reading assignment) see if, after forming a distillation of the author’s message (Arkady Ostrovsky) you don’t get a creepy feeling about the sort of country that this year’s American election seems to be causing to be birthed.

Or maybe it is just finally being revealed.

I favor the former viewpoint.

In any event, then read the first leader and the related briefing in the “Art of the Lie” 9 September 2016 edition of The Economist.

And then ask yourself a simple question: “Why does donnie have the hots for Puty? Do donnie’s years of Russian contact have a deeper meaning than his cockamamie ‘I was there on business’ assertions”?

Cats

I'm listening to Terri Gross on KUOW.

She is interviewing a woman who has written a book about how to train a cat.

"Dog's" she said, "are descended from social animals - wolves - and cats are descended from non-social African Wild Cats."

"That's interesting" I said.

Rosie, who was sitting staring into space in the "sun room" (a glass covered deck off the kitchen here on the island) mumbled something.

"So, Rosie, what do you think?" I said.

She made her "it's time for me to be brushed" sound.

So I said, "let's go" and set out for the bathroom where her special little brushing ledge sits just above the drawer where we keep her brush.

She got there just before I did,

We had a nice brush.

Her brother Alfie came in and sat on the floor until Rosie was satisfied with the quality of her experience; when she was satisfied she jumped down and Alfie jumped up to the brushing station.

He said, as I started brushing his lush orange pelt, "You know, I think it's a waste of time trying to train a cat; it makes more sense for cats to train their humans".

Contemplating The Seals

There is a place I know of that is not hard to get to.

All one needs to do is walk a mile or so from where the car was parked.

And the place can be - and usually is - magic.

There are seals.