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
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.
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.
So, our governor, Janet Mills, had the biggest vagina in the room when she told Trump, “We’ll see you in court.”
Dear Canada
Please buy
Maine. Make an offer to Trump that he
can’t refuse. Remind him Maine did not
vote for him in the last election. Offer
to trade him England; he won't know the difference. Say you will recognize him as King of America
– appeal to his vanity.
Maine has great natural resources and a thriving tourist economy, so it would make sense for Maine to become one of your maritime provinces.
Mainers are so much like Canadians that there would be little adjustment
– though we might balk at God Save the King.
the Ol’Buzzard
As you age, one of the things you worry about is falling.
Getting in and out of a tub is doable but becomes more complicated with
age.
I have seen the ads for walk-in tubs; a woman lying back in a spa-like setting in a sitting tub with a door.
 |
| And an advantage is you can't tell the farts from the bubbles! |
This seemed the perfect answer to replace our bathtub.
Fortunately, we live in an information age.
I have never seen one of these tubs, and I don’t doubt
they give you a safe and comfortable bathing experience, but there are
downsides.
The tub volume is forty to sixty gallons, and you must
enter and sit there while the tub fills, which could take five minutes or
more. When your bath is finished you
must sit there while the water completely drains. The
sidewalls are high, so in an emergency, you are pretty much stuck in the tub
until it drains.
These tubs are expensive and the cost of the tub doesn't include the cost of installation, which could double the price of the tub.
We have a walk-in shower, so the tub to me is just a luxury,
a place to sit and soak with a book and a cup of tea.
The walk-in tub looks good, but I think I will pass.
the Ol’Buzzard
Why doesn’t
Tarzan have a beard?
Why is a
nickel larger than a dime?
Why are
ghosts wearing clothes?
If Pluto is
a dog, what the fuck is goofy?
Astrophysicists
are constantly concerned with the possibility of a giant asteroid, similar to
the one that caused the dinosaur extinction hitting the Earth. But what happens to Earth if a large
asteroid misses us but strikes the Moon?
Would it knock the moon out of its present orbit? What happens to Earth if the Moon changes its
orbit even slightly?
Everything
is in equilibrium. We can place
satellites in space where the gravities of space objects cancel each other. If the moon’s orbit changes will satellites
fall out of the sky?
Why do
vampire hunters always enter the vampire’s crypt minutes before
sundown?
Why do working people vote for Republicans?
the Ol'Buzzard
I consider
myself a liberal person and to some extent a Buddhist, but most of all a
free-thinking individual. I refuse to
identify myself with any group think.
Our Maine Governor and Donald Trump are in a standoff about transgender girls competing in girls’ sports. I must admit I have some conflicting feelings on this subject.
However, I
try to isolate myself from feelings and view subjects with a logical mind.
How a person
wishes to dress is none of my business.
The gender a person wishes to identify as is none of my business.
Who a person
wishes to have sex with is none of my business.
Preferred
sex acts of other people are none of my business.
Transgender
athletics is none of my business, and I will not enter into the fray: I don’t
have a dog in that hunt, but I would be uncomfortable strictly from a fairness
position.
Boys have a
different pelvic structure than girls, and boys have a distinct muscular build and
a different hormonal makeup than girls.
A
transgender woman or girl has every right to dress the way she is comfortable,
and every right to associate herself with the gender she is most
comfortable. She has every right to
surgery to make herself more comfortable in the role she chooses.
But, if she
does not have, or has not had, ovaries and an egg that drops every month causing the
hormonal rollercoaster of a period, and the internal organs designed for pregnancy and
carrying a fetus to term, then strictly speaking she is not female.
Males competing against females in a physical sport would likely have an unfair advantage.
But again, I
don’t have a dog in this hunt. and I do support our governor standing up to
Trump.
Maine's governor, a woman, has been the only person who has shown the toughness to answer Trump back to his face.
The
Ol’Buzzard
A GOD COMPUTER
Our biggest threat is not climate change or WMDs, it is likely Artificial Intelligence. We can program a computer to self-learn but still do not know the internal process taking place.
Over a short period, Google Chess AI downloaded every chess game ever published, taught itself the rules of chess, and is unbeatable by any human Chess master.
So far, we are controlling AI by programming them to operate within a narrow function. We presently know how to program a supercomputer to allow AI to teach itself independently, but we do not have a supercomputer capable of handling the capacity required for a totally independent AI.
Assuredly, computer science will advance to that capability. A
supercomputer that could download all human knowledge. A God computer? It is a given that bots can replace humans, with
greater efficiency, in most jobs. What
assurance do we have that a Supercomputer would not decide that humans were an
unnecessary annoyance and decide to eradicate us?
All we have to fear is fear itself; or perhaps a nuclear holocaust, a worldwide pandemic plague, total climate destruction, an asteroid collision, or: I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.......
As yellowdog granny would have said: We're Fucked.
the Ol'Buzzard
My wife and
I occasionally eat at restaurants. While
waiting for our meal I often observe the other diners, and there is a pattern I
have observed.
At every
table with four or more diners, especially diners forty years or older, there
will be a person holding court, and dominating every conversation.
For every
table of six or more the self-appointed master-of-ceremony will talk louder than
anyone else – controlling the conversation and allowing no dead airtime to
exist. If drinking is involved, at that
table there will be a person who brays like a donkey, booming laughter at something that's probably not that funny.
People under thirty do not fall into this loquacious category, as they sit at their table with their cellphones, probably texting each other rather than talking.
And then
there is the family with young undisciplined children…
Your bill will total over one hundred dollars
and you are sitting next to this!
Bon Appetit
the Ol’Buzzard
We are all
time travelers. We are on a never
pausing spaceship traveling into the future.
Einstein postulated that if light speed is constant then time is not. If time is not a fixed standard, then it will vary by the speed of one object moving away from another.
RELATIVITY
An astronaut leaves Earth traveling at 8/10 the speed of light. After 30 years on the spaceship, 50 years will have passed on Earth.
People belonging to the know-nothing party, which is the base of the Republican Party, will say that Relativity, like Evolution, is just a theory – somehow they will weave god into it.
But time travel is a
standard calculation that allows GPS to operate and allows us to land a space
probe or ship with precise accuracy on another planet or moon.
Time is
bendable and can be affected by gravity, opening the possibility of wormholes,
but that is another formulation.
To my way of
thinking, time is truly relative to the individual. When I was eight years old the time between
one Christmas and the next was an eternity.
Now in my eighties, it seems I wake up and another month has
passed.
Then perhaps
this is all just a simulation. Zeus's son is
playing a computer game and we are just avatars.
the Ol'Buzzard
SNOWS THEN
AND NOW
Old men remember. Over a half century ago when I was a young man in Maine, you could not go into the woods in the winter without snowshoes. Not the puney little aluminum snow shoes of today. You needed a set of trail shoes or trappers – if you were just over 100 pounds you could probably get by with bearpaws.
If you stepped off your snowshoes you would sink
to your crotch or deeper. We don’t have
snow like that today.
The snow storms
don’t come as often and are not as severe, then are followed by a warmup.
That said,
today we have an old-time storm coming into Maine. The snow just started here
in western Maine and is forecast to last all day, dropping 10 to 16 inches.
I am located just below and east of the town of Rangeley. In the 10-16 inch area.
On the southern coast, the snow will turn to sleet and then freezing rain. Undoubtedly causing power outages.
So, this will be a goodun; but I remember when this would have just been considered a standard storm.
the Ol’Buzzard
I am late posting about winter gloves, but Trump sucked the oxygen out of Blogging last year.
I do not advertise for any company, but when I find something that serves me well I occasionally post it.
I have cold weather experience and have spent years in the Arctic. That is years of having cold hands.
Two years ago I bought KOMBI Men's Sanctum Glove. There is a soft lining with a wrist cuff and a snow cuff to seal out snow. The glove also has a waterproof inner glove and a water-resistant palm. A six-inch cord from the cuff ends with a wristband, so I can take off the gloves and hang loose from my wrist.
In 2007 the
Democrat Party dared to run a black man for President.
Seeing the
opportunity to coalesce the racist base of the Republican Party into action, the Koch Brothers financed a Tea Party movement.
They hired
organizers to reach out to their more gullible constituents. They paid for buses
to transport protestors to targeted areas and furnished them with signs, placards, and support.
Without realizing it, the Koch brothers were training the inmates to take over the asylum.
People who had never been the center of attention suddenly had a chance to be filmed by major news networks. Not the brightest bulbs in the Republican light show, these people showed up with tea bags hanging from their hats, don’t tread on me flags, dressed as Uncle Sam, etc. They screamed and yelled and received their fifteen minutes of fame. But they also found they had a movement they could belong to. And by remaining organized they had a controlling power over the Republican Party.
More and
more of the lunatic fringe joined the movement.
The only thing lacking was a leader.
Then came
Donald Trump; not a particularly bright person, but as P.T. Barnum said, you
only have to be smarter than the rubes you are conning.
The circle
was complete. The Tea Party became the
MAGA cult.
After
attempting a coupe, there was a chance to eliminate MAGA, but Republicans, still
afraid of the MAGA base, refused to impeach Trump and remove him from
office.
But not just
the Republicans: the milk toast Attorney General Merrick Garland had the
chance, but delayed holding Trump accountable for the insurrection of January 6
for two years.
So now we live in a MAGA republic, whether we like it or not, and Trump’s desire to delete the Department of Education pretty much says it all.
the Ol’Buzzard
Trump's federal government just proposed spending $400.000,000.00 to buy Musk's Swasticars.
Is this blatant corruption, or what?
While we are deporting immigrants, why not the man from South Africa?
the Ol'Buzzard
Jackiesue Denny (YelloowDog Granny) a great liberal warrior has been carried to Valhalla by Valkyries. We will fucking miss her.
I can not pay tribute any better than Debra. Please see her blog;
Fuck!
the OL'Buzzard
I predict that, within the next four years, Donald Trump will design himself a military uniform. He will award himself numerous ribbons and medals and have double the number of stars (and bigger stars) than the highest-ranking General.
He will also
probably declare himself more than just President Trump: Remember Doctor
Generalissimo Presidente Idi Amin?
How about:
Grand Leader Supreme General and President by Divine Proclamation Donald Trump
The man is a classic case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Delusional Disorder is a mental health condition characterized by persistent false beliefs (delusions) that are not based on reality. These delusions can be of various themes such as delusions of grandeur.
And I can spot an asshole quicker than a proctologist.
the Ol’Buzzard
