30 August 2019
Dark Knell
Ever since the day after the election of 2016 I have been hopeful.
Not optimistic – optimism is for idiots – but hopeful.
In the now-eternal interim, that hopefulness has waxed and it has waned.
But it has remained as a factor in my ongoing assessment of the viability of the Republic.
The mid term results in the House were a harbinger of hope – weren’t they?
Beto O’Rourk’s, Stacy Abrahms’ and Andrew Gillum’s near misses seemed to be reason for hope, didn’t they?
If Georgia and Florida republicans were not so effective with voter suppression it is likely we would today have the first African American Governors in those two states; that is almost hopeful, isn’t it?
Bright spots among the drab hoard of Democrats running for President - those bright spots being Mayor Pete, Crazy Bernie, Elizabeth the Capitalist and Andrew the Droll - are reasons for hope aren’t they?
That’s the sort of thing that I have been saying to myself since 9 November 2016.
But recently I realized that all of that stuff is just dust in the wind: when the real chips are in the game, as they are in the battle to keep control of the Executive Branch of the Government of the United States of America – probably, if I understand what Mitch, donnie, Bret and the boys have in mind – hope disappears.
Here is what is going to happen election night 2020.
Beginning almost as soon as the Polls begin to close there are going to be exponentially increasing reports of ransom-ware attacks on the polling apparatus of America.
That is going to create a rolling tide of “results in abeyance”.
Remember 2000 and the “hanging chads”?
“Results in Abeyance” is going to be their latter day descendant.
The problem is that “results in abeyance” has an optimistic tinge to it (optimism being for idiots, remember).
“Results Held Hostage” is a catastrophe.
So donnie will tweet out that he is declaring a national emergency, martial law, and calling out the military to take control of the cities; that will be a dog whistle call to the militias; they will take over the country-side.
By midnight on the East Coast it will be over.
Since there will be no way to unscramble the ransomware mess “results in abeyance” will become the basis for the “New American Compact” (the hurriedly promulgated replacement for the Constitution).
I don’t need to describe that document: its source tells the tale; but the terms “president for life with dynastic ascendancy” stand out.
As the history books will say, “it was endgame; bells everywhere were heard to be tolling darkly; the inaugural crowd in 2021 was the largest crowd ever assembled on this planet”.
28 August 2019
Un Gros Poulet
When I am in Paris I buy a rotisserie gros poulet almost every week.
I get them at Boucherie Claude.
It's a short walk from where I live.
And they are the best chicken I have ever had.
The first one I ever bought there cost 30 francs.
Now they cost 8 Euros.
The first night I eat one hind quarter.
The second night I eat the other hind quarter.
That leaves the breast for a sandwich poulet.
I take those to Parc Montsouris with a small bottle of wine and have a picnic.
I have learned to save the bags from my daily baguette.
Several bags, each inside the other, make an ideal carrying container for a sandwich poulet.
With tomato, moutard de Dijon and mayonnaise they get pretty leaky.
When I get to the Parc I look to see if my favorite bench is available for lunch.
It has a good view of the little lake.
The pigeons and ducks come up and look for crumbs and beg.
It's a fairly sublime experience.
I spent D Day 2014 doing this.
That was one of my best blog posts.
I think, anyway.
Seventy Years To The Day
I spent D Day 2014 doing this.
That was one of my best blog posts.
I think, anyway.
Seventy Years To The Day
27 August 2019
26 August 2019
Paris Magpie
Charismatic relative of the crow.
This one flew onto a window ledge above me as I traversed the street below.
25 August 2019
24 August 2019
Puty In Space?
From USA Today:
“Russia has sent a humanoid robot to the International Space Station as part of tests on a new rocket that is expected to replace the current vehicle.
The Soyuz capsule, which typically carries a space crew, blasted off from the Russia-leased launch pad in Kazakhstan at 8:38 a.m. Thursday carrying the Fedor robot.
The capsule was launched by a new Soyuz 2.1a rocket that has been used only to launch unmanned vehicles.
The new booster rocket is expected to replace the Soyuz-FG rocket next year.
The robot, which was in the commander’s seat, holding a small Russian flag in its right hand, sent out a tweet shortly after the orbiting saying that the first part of onboard tests went as planned.”
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Due to plummeting poll numbers Puty has opted to make a great escape.
The humanoid robot is really Putin; that was an easy to execute artifice since Puty has always been thought to be a Soviet robot.
Anyway, the rest of the story is that he will be sent back to earth on the next SpaceX shuttle that arrives at the station, and be returned to Phoenix to run for the Senate in Arizona and head up the re-elect donnie campaign in Arizona.
He has also been awarded a Lexus dealership.
When asked about this a man on the street in Yuma was captured on video saying that he had always thought Puty was governor of Arizona.
Paris Crow In Bronze
On the way to Bois de Boulogne is a little parc.
In that parc there is a work of public art; this is a crop of that work.
Too bad that we - the United States of America, but really, to their first time realization, to the total disadvantage the whole world - have an idiot like donnie masquerading as POTUS:
his shortcomings are of a magnitude to elude enumeration, but one of the hoard is that,
he doesn't know about public (but he will talk about pubic) art.
So it - public art - must not be of any use.
Since donnie doesn't know about it.
I think this image disproves that ignorant and false premise.
I see donnie sitting with his arms folded, his visage orange, and his comb-over flitting in the wind and snarling as he tweets:
"we don't need no fucking public art around here".
"we don't need no fucking public art around here".
If Somebody Sent You This Email…
…what would you conclude?
I did send this just moments ago to my son, daughter in law and daughter.
There being a real story here, I probably am going to follow up with related posts, but we’ll see what happens.
“Just in case you don’t have enough to do …
“… I thought you might find this to be entertaining.”
(I am referring to two attached emails not part of this post.)
“As a side piece of information, when I talked to Jesus (yeah, I’ve waited my entire life to say that) he said that the two most difficult places to service in the US are the San Juan Islands and Martha’s Vineyard.
“I guess that puts us in good company.
“As a retired IBM Marketing Manager it turns out I have an important residual skill for dealing with modern life.
“As a further aside, in my conversation with Jesus I said that the icemaker that is currently installed – and it was a warranty replacement – was a piece of shit.
“He heartily agreed.
“We had a comradely mutual laugh.
“Then we talked about the rusted railings.
I think he is sending replacements”.
23 August 2019
Let’s Tally The Results So Far
Now that we are almost three quarters through donnie’s charade let’s look at all the things he promised.
I assume we got them all.
A beautiful wall across our southern border paid for by Mexico.
4% or more quarterly GDP growth.
A fabulous health care plan.
Total redo of our infrastructure.
A massive resurgence in coal industry jobs.
Elimination of the National Debt.
Let’s look at the tally sheet.
The wall hasn’t happened and if it did ever happen Mexico has made it clear that they aren’t paying for it.
GDP is in fact –except for one quarter, the one after the rich folks’ tax cut - 2% and expected to be less by half a point for the next decade, if there isn’t an intervening recession.
donnie has done everything he can to cripple ObamaCare and is in court trying to kill it; there is no plan on the table for its replacement.
Several months ago donnie stormed out of an infrastructure meeting before it had been convened and said he was not going to do infrastructure anymore.
Last month several thousand coal mining jobs disappeared in Wyoming; and there were only about 19,000 in the mines when donnie took the helm, so a few thousand gone is what Kelly Ann calls negative progress.
The annual deficit this year is going to be about a trillion, and will exceed that for the foreseeable future. (That’s Swampland speak for “the next decade or more”; given that the aggregate national debt is currently about 22.5 trillion, those deficits might add up to real dough; but remember, donnie is a brilliant bidnessman; I am sure he has a plan or a lie, or he can blame somebody else).
So what has gone awry in the trump swamp"?
I think I heard him tweet recently that everybody is picking on him..
Today he DID order American business out of China, though.
That’s pretty bizarre, one would think.
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Please tell me what I have just written is the treatment for pitching some weird reality show pilot or some off center comedy successor to Veep.
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