THE GARMIN DRIVE 53 GPS

 

Most new cars come with a GPS installed, but I have an old car.

  

Back in 2012, I bought a Tom-Tom GPS for my car, and it has served me well.  Lately, the avatar that speaks directions has been stuttering, so a replacement seemed prudent.

  

I would have preferred a Tom-Tom, but their prices were quite high.  Instead, I found a Garmin Drive 53 on sale at Best Buy for under $100, and I purchased it online.

The Garmin is unnecessarily complicated in selecting a destination address.   With the Tom-Tom, I entered the city name, the street name, and then the number, and was connected.   With the Garmin, I have to first enter a street number; next I enter the street name; then it asks for the country (USA); next, the state; and finally, I have to scroll down through a list to find the destination address.   It seems like the input system for the Garmin was designed by a committee of middle school children.

 

Once you are finally past the hurdle of selecting a destination address, the Garmin works fine.   The display is bright, even on sunny days.  The voice directions are distinct, and the visual directions are easy to follow.

I have seen some wonders in my eighty-plus years: from telephones with operators to smartphones; from computers the size of an automobile with punch card inputs to my desktop that has a hard drive with gigabytes…  But I think the most awe-inspiring device is the little portable GPS, about the size of a deck of playing cards, that is able, in real time, to direct me with oral and visual directions to any address within Canada, the United States, and Mexico.  

Happy trails

the Ol’Buzzard

AN OLD MAN LOOKS BACK

 

I have no regard for the human race.  We are a virus on this earth, destroying everything we touch.   In our conceit, we try to control nature for our benefit.  Like a virus, our population grows unchecked, and we constantly evolve into new strains, more resistant and more destructive. 

In our greed, we have decimated the forest, polluted the land, water, and the air.  We have brought about most animals on this earth to the verge of extinction. 

War is our nature.  There are only two animal forms on this earth that commit war and genocide against their own kind: humans, and chimpanzees which share 98% of human DNA.

We readily kill our own kind in the name of our gods, some ethnic supremacy agenda, or to amass power and wealth. The powerful survive with no thought for the week and the vulnerable.

There is a strain in every human being capable of extreme cruelty.   Millions celebrated the bomb that killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 men, women, children, babies - and no birds sang - in Nagasaki, Japan. 

In reality, this is who we are.

 

the OL'Buzzard

THERE IS NO EPSTEIN LIST

 

 The QAnon / MAGA nut case extremists, for years, have been convinced that a cabal of prominent Democratic lawmakers and Hollywood actors have been molesting and even eating children.  Epstein and his Island have played a big part in their fantasy.   The conspiracy followers have, for years, been encouraged by the right-wing fringe networks that have made a fortune by feeding this conspiracy. 

MAGA  believes that an Epstein list exists that will tell all.

There is no list.

 

BUT...

 

FACTS:

Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking minors to his island.  

 

Epstein was known for hosting the rich and prominent people on his island.

 

Flight manifests with passenger names are available for discovery.

 

Pilots flew Epstein and his guest to his island.

 

Cooks and servants served Epstein and his guests on the Island. 

Epstein's girlfriend/associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently incarcerated, has firsthand knowledge of parties on the island, including who attended, with whom, where, and when.

There are over a thousand victims of Epstein and Maxwell - some would surely be willing to talk.

Many people must have secondhand knowledge of who visited the island.

 

There is a trail to follow even if there is no Epstein File. 

 

BUT WARNING TO DEMOCRATS

 

Leave this to the Republicans.  Focus on Medicaid cuts, cuts to personnel and funding for the Veterans Administration, cuts to clean energy projects, and defunding PBS radio and television to pass a massive tax cut for the mega-wealthy. 

 

 

PBS BUDGET WILL BE ZEROED OUT BY DONALD TRUMP'S  BILL.

 How many adults grew up watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers?

 

 

The Ol'Buzzard

 

 

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

 

EPSTEIN WHO?

the Ol'Buzzard

TRUMP THREATENS RUSSIA WITH TARIFFS

 

Trump has been humiliated by Putin and now threatens to get tough by imposing tariffs against Russia.

This is a balloon full of hot air – all for show.

We do not trade with Russia.

We do not buy Russian goods.

We do not sell goods to Russia.

Therefore: a tariff against nothing equals nothing.

150% x 0 = 0

 

The Ol’Buzzard

 

It looks like Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is going to pass and MAGA is going to get in the ass.  Unfortunately, the rest of us will have to suffer as the cost of living goes up, rural hospitals close, and medical care becomes more expensive. 

 

Nothing we can do about it, so there is no need to beat that horse any further.

 

I would like to think the passage of this bill would give the Democrats a positive majority in the House and Senate at the midterms; but the reality is that half of the US population are on the downside of the IQ curve, they get their news from Fox, and they are easily manipulated to vote against their own best interest.   Trump and Republicans use shiny objects like: Let’s lock up dark people that are not like us – good white MAGA Christians love that part – to dupe MAGA into blind followship.

 

Meanwhile, his bill cuts Medicaid, which rural hospitals and nursing homes depend on to stay open; It raises the copays on the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) and medications; It drastically raises everyone’s electric bills by killing the subsidies on solar and wind energy; It cuts food programs for kids in school and food assistance for the very poorest in our society… 

 

But millionaires and billionaires (and Trump himself) make hundreds of thousands from the tax cuts.

So here we are…

 

 MAGA

PRESIDENT TRUMP STRIKES IRAN'S NUCLEAR SITES

 

Donald Trump is an ignorant megalomaniac, a self-serving buffoon.  There is nothing he has done during his presidency that I agree with - until now.

 

The most dangerous threat to human existence is not global warming or AI; it is an unstable man or a religious fanatic with a nuclear weapon.

The Middle East is a region of turmoil and religious mania, destabilizing the entire world.

 

Nations have pussyfooted long enough, trying to delay Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.

Iran can not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon – ever - as it would bring the whole world one step closer to nuclear annihilation.

 

Finally, someone, Donald Trump, has taken a decisive step to prevent Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapon.  

How much safer are we?

 

The largest nuclear bomb ever exploded was Russia’s Tsar bomb in 1961, releasing the power of 50 million tons of TNT.  Today’s nuclear weapons range from 1.2 megatons to …? 

 

There are enough nuclear weapons in existence today to destroy the entire world one hundred times over.

 

 

It could start with the use of ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons, the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.   Then escalate. 

 

Look at the history of mankind.  How long will it be? 

the Ol'Buzzard

CASSANDRA WARNING

 

 

Cassandra was a woman who seduced the god Apollo into giving her the gift of prophecy.  When she refused His further advances, He placed a curse on her that her prophecies, though true, would never be believed. 

 

Liberal Democrats are shocked at Trump’s use of the military: ordering a military parade on his birthday, 

and in complete defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of active-duty military personnel for civilian law enforcement, ordering active-duty Marines to deploy within the United States to confront American citizens.

This is a move by a President away from democracy as we have always known it: using the military in a first step toward authoritarian takeover – a presidential grab for absolute power.

 

This is happening in the short term, and Democrats are protesting with hollow rhetoric. 

No one seems to be focused on the long term?

Warning – Warning – Warning!

 

Donald Trump is an ignorant man, but he is a survivor.  He is planning to use the military to remain in power at the end of his presidential term of office. 

Claiming fraud, he may also use the military to confiscate voting machines after the midterm elections, in states where the results do not suit his desired outcome.

It doesn't take a Delphic Oracle to see this future.

the Ol'Buzzard

 

HAVE YOU SEEN CLIFF CASH?

 

The best thing you can do to MAGA is make fun of them: then they appear as stupid and ridiculous as they actually are.

P.T. Barnum said you don't have to be smart to con people, you just have to be smarter than the rubes you are conning.  That means that most MAGA are dumber than Donald Trump; the rest are just riding his train.  

Think about that.  

the Ol'Buzzard

 

ANOTHER ONE OF MY GEN GONE. 

RIP SLY

the Ol'Buzzard

SEE YOU IN COURT

 

IT TAKES A WOMAN

 

Could we be looking at the next Democratic Presidential candidate?

Main Governor Janet Mills is the only person to stand up to Trump face-to-face.      Democratic Senators and congresspeople will talk about Trump but will not defy him to his face.   It takes a Maine woman.

 

Maine political women have a history of standing up to corruption.  This is a legacy from Margaret Chase Smith, who stood up against McCarthyism in the 1950s

 

 the Ol'Buzzard

FAHRENHEIT 451

 

Fiction books have been written about a dystopian America led by a charismatic sociopath and a cabal of oligarchs that serve as his minions.

Fiction often precedes reality.    Fahrenheit 451, 1984 – it couldn’t happen here!  

 But it is happening.

 

The asylum has been taken over by the inmates; Congress has relinquished its role as a check-and-balance on the executive; the legal system has become corrupted from the top; and law firms are capitulating to executive pressure. 

 

You don’t have to burn books when you can defund libraries.  You don’t have to tell the truth when your oligarchs own the news media.   You don’t have to abide by the rule of law when the top judicial court of the land is your proxy.

 

Laws, rules, and norms no longer matter when they constrain Dear Leader.

We are entering a new dystopian America, and we are advancing with our eyes wide open. 

 

It happened in Germany in 1938, and in Turkey and Hungary in the last three decades.  We are in the midst of an American coup led by a conman supported by half the population. 

 

Trump will disenfranchise or outright prevent the mid-term elections.  Supported by his MAGA minions and a Republican Party wishing to retain power, Trump will not leave office at the end of his term.

A Fascist dictatorship brought to you by American oligarchy, individuals seeking power, the religious right, the uneducated, and the ignorant.

The damage is already too extensive.  We can’t go back and make it right.

 

Welcome to the new America.

the Ol'Buzzard

IT TAKES A WOMAN TO NEUTER TRUMP

 

With dozens of men in the room cringing at Trump's gaze, it took a woman, the governor of Maine, to stand toe-to-toe with the egomaniacal President and answer him with defiance. 

Afterwards, certain news outlets said that Governor Mills had more balls than the men in the room.

That was wrong.  She had more vagina than anyone else in the room.

 

The image of big balls being tough is just a fantasy.    A well-placed slap on a man’s genital area will have him on the ground in agony.   

A woman, however, can push a twenty-inch, ten-pound bag of bones, blood and flesh through her vagina one day and be up the next day feeding her family and getting her kids off to school. 

That’s fucking tough

 So, our governor, Janet Mills, had the biggest vagina in the room when she told Trump, “We’ll see you in court.”  

Maine has always been known as the state of hardy men and strong women.


the Ol'Buzzard