The blog has rolled over.

And The Evening

Makes it day one.

It has been an interesting collection of speeches this afternoon and evening, and being kindler and gentler, all I can add and not violate a tenet is to remark how lovely MTG looks with the blonde hair. The things that she said, fuggetaboutit.

That was the end of my active participation in the RNC circus.

My evening started with a lovely dinner, and when I turned my head, I saw that a governor was quoting the Declaration of Independence. He did so with the look of a person who knew what life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were and in full awareness that that's just not on the menu.

It has been like that the rest of the evening: Stepford or mind control, or what?

I also noted in particular that at some point, someone mentioned thanking God for saving the leader and mentioning the real god while standing on a stage-filling blowup of the back of a one-dollar bill.  

That about sums it up. 

Ol' Yeller Is In The Building 

What a treat, Mr MissedMeByThatMuch tempts fate. Perhaps what he thought was saving redemption was a warning. Perhaps metaphysical.

OMG, this is so corny. 🤮

Day One of Hypocrisy 101

It is Republican party party day, or rather week. We're all excited to meet the reborn, kind, loving, sensitive Donald Trump. He's a padawan learner, so maybe he won't be helping old ladies across the street or winning pod races. He'll probably be more interested in getting the power to choke people with his finger from across the table, Darth style. 

Born again.  

Honestly, let's discuss how long before he cracks and lets someone have it that didn't bow low enough. The convention lasts a week, and by the end of it, Ol' Yellowstain will be back; heck, in the high target environment of the convention, he could be two or three new confidentiality agreements deep by then.

Time has a way of correcting things, right?

The Countdown 

We're building up to the biggy, The Celebrity President 2024, and we've been checking our tickets; all day, we're rubbing those same three names, but it turns out to be the least qualified, with the biggest TV mouth. 

I guess that's not such a stretch. It's also the pick I predicted weeks ago. It's because he's the smartest dumbass in the room, malleable and green. Kamala with even fewer qualifications. Right about here, I could mention how an ugly frog should be able to beat Trump, and JD Vance is !#(%ing close. Let's break down the logic of it.

Vance

I don't know the history of this man, or which face is the one he wears to bed: the Never Trumper or the MAGAniac. 

Some suggest, JD is the next in line in the Trump empire, if it lives that long, and if he is elected. It's mentioned that he's Donald's son's pick, and I'm wondering where the strings attach -- who are we kidding, he's a glove. There is no why, he shall be assimilated. I wonder what the Donald has on 'im.

Dougy 

Consider Dougy Burgum, a person with money who sucks up to people with more money, like Rupert Murdock and Elon Musk. Someone mentioned that, in the end, it was a battle of the billionaires. Money and influence again. This is a broken record. Dougy would turn out to be too honest, expecting life to go on after office. Not a pick.

Rubio 

This is so easy to break down and seems so obvious I'm retiscent to mention it. Marco has a brain and wouldn't just be a head on a swivel. I skipped an obvious scatological reference; if not accurate, it's approximate.

Entertainmen'

I have to admit, this is huge fun, more fun than I remember as a child waiting for the elephants and the clowns and the little car at the circus. We always went; even as a child, I wondered why. Why would you want to hang by your teeth in front of all these people and spin?

I guess we can ask them.

A New Era In Republicanism 

Someone suggests, JD Vance will set the mold for the future of the MACA party. This is confusing. I'm not sure the content, or even the real objectives of the MAGAniacs, has ever been codified and committed to paper. It may exist solely as the fever dream of forgotten politicians and late-blooming den mothers. This is the incomprehensible part of this madness; the progenitors of the concept can't define it.  If it existed, I'm sure almost none of them would agree with it.

Something that produces only conflict cannot exist in nature.

Morning World 

Much love 💃🕺

The Sundipped Pundit 

If it's Sunday, it's Sundipped.  Oh, what a world that has such people, In't. This morning is going to be difficult for a writer. There is so much emotion everywhere, and of course, there is the obvious. Our challenge is to make the obvious obvious without stepping on any landmines or ghosts.

If that sounds like more of that different kind of truth, perhaps you're right. What is it exactly you are prepared to listen to then? 

Pop Music

The Times and Temperature of Troubled Water

The Magical Cause and Effect of Time

More as time and energy permit.

The Times and Temperature of Troubled Water

The Sundays are full of introspection, emotion, and the absurd.  David Gergin hopes this is a seminal moment for Donald, that he finds his Reagan soul and adopts America as his whimpering children.  

A few voices called for a time of unity, for America to pull together. 

Others see recent events as escalation and perhaps the inevitable outcome of life in the pressure the political and justice systems place on us. Coupled with economic stress and the widening wealth gap, one could ask where else the trend would lead.

There are many that would preclude the election outcome, announcing that now that our villian has been shot at, he's a shoo-in for the election. 

Oh woe is he, and heavy the head that first seeks to overthrow the crown and country. 

Sad times, hot water, with a chop.

The Magical Cause and Effect of Time 

Our lives are so short, and we struggle so thoroughly we barely notice the passage of time, but it's always there, and everything we have striven for burns in its fire. 

The path of time seems at times unbidden, abandoning us with our dreams on the beaches of our demise. Often the broken dreams and abandoned hopes of others are the causality of our own struggles.

In this melange, add men determined to alter the path for the sake of excess, greed, or weakness of character, inevitably desolated on the same beach that waits for us all. 

This, too, must pass, and evil men more quickly than most.

The good that men do lives on.   

Pop Pop Pop 

We're all on the edge of our YouTube.  

On the Desktop  

I need an excuse to be irrevocably verbal for a paragraph or two, using verbiage and punctuation to waltz around a topic neither germain, nor beneficial, but just because I can.

Today I thought I'd tell you about my desktop. Not the larger, life encompasing Kanban, but the computer desktop. I have a few computers, and each laptop is a viewport to a similar shared desktop. This is more or less by accident, or side effect of exporting everything to another Mac. But it does take just a bit more organizational glue to be effective enough not to be a hindrance. 

So the desktops are shared, more or less. The cloud provides some of the glue, but to be honest, Apple's iCloud doesn't work well enough to be a practical tool, ineffective for, say, managing a repository, which is something likely to be on the functionality wishlist. 

Things like that I keep in GitHub repositories, which are sharable by nature, with checkpoints. Let's face it, everything I touch ends up in a repository.'Taken to the extreme, one ends up with folders of files and clippings once dropped on any of the viewport desktops that are resized, resampled, and archived in a repository, waiting for commit. But ya.  That's a few of the tweaks. The desktop. 

I usually don't really pay attention to which laptop I sign in on or worry about leaving work spread around. 

The user's Desktop, the one that shows up in Finder, is not shared, except via aliases and limited shared iCloud folders, which are mostly drafts and works in progress.

There, I avoided politics this time ;)

The Umpire Is A Bum 

He's already calling it a fix. I must agree Donald. Anytime someone acts like you, talks like you, treats people like you do, and lies like you do, we all wonder how they ever got people to vote for them in the first place.

I've been saying, an ugly frog should be able to beat Donald Trump.  I wouldn't buy a pencil from him. 

Somehow NBC has convinced America that Ol' Yellowstain deserves his head carved into a marble mountaintop somewhere when he's just a horny old man who lies until people stop asking.

Well, ratings. NBC invented PR, and can make a pig in a poke look like a luxury tie salesman, extra long to cover the physique.

Which was it, eaten by sharks or electricuted? Is in in that 2025 thing?

Busy Days 

It's been a busy day, and regular readers of the blog will know it's Friday, and that means house in order. 

After a week like this, each of us was required to test ourselves in myriad ways; I look back in wonder that so much could be packed into just 5 days. 

Was it good for you?

We've been up, we've  been down, the market says this, the economy says that, inflation slows, but interest is the same, and the election is frighteningly ominous and proximal.  

I've been a critic of Mr. Joe, and I will continue to be a critic of Mr. Joe in the next administration. He needs to do more. Compared to the simmering crater Trump will make of American values, we'll all help Joe do more. 

If the money-crusted upper classes live in fear that Joe Biden is born again American and he's out for the little guy, for real, send a haiku on a postcard from Bimini expressing your concern to the Heritage Foundation. We'll send you the bill for the changes we make.

The Infamous Slip

Well, it is now. I think it's a misunderstanding. Joe has said this before.

Ms Collins

I think he meant ...

"Look, I wouldn't have picked Donald Trump to be vice president, because I think he's not qualified to be president." 

A small slip.

In Control of The Office  

Good job Mr Joe. 

I didn't watch that closely. I felt like a parent who let their child play in the backyard; waiting for the reason to rush with a med kit.  No scraped knees or foreheads. Check.

He could've been sharper.  I think maybe a cup of coffee would do it. He rambles a bit, but his sentences are not disconnected or illogical. Given how deer-in-the-headlights anyone would be in this circumstance, he fucking nailed it. 

I trust his judgment, and that would outweigh everything else. One doesn't easily assimilate the diplomatic domain; you need to live it.   You're either making foreign policy or you're reading about it in the papers. 

Much ado about a done deal.

Ms Collins

I think he meant ...

"Look, I wouldn't have picked Donald Trump to be vice president, because I think he's not qualified to be president." 

A small slip.

A Differing View

I know the polls, and Larry Sabato is usually right, he's got respectable R. However, when ever I worry about the eventuality of Ol' Yellow Stain in the office encore...

I tell myself, an ugly frog should be able to beat Trump.

No matter what, most people, enough to win, are going to get in that booth and have their lives flash in front of them.

I cannot form a vision of a world where Trump Admin II happens. 

The Immediacy of Common Media 

I love the blog here, and I'm usually surprised by who reads it. I don't tell anyone, it's ok.  I have a Twitter nee X account, Mr. Frosty, I think; I'm not sure; I don't go there. I hope to achieve status as a chalk mark before the looming thunderstorm; expecting to make a dent in that firehose, or being desirous of it, is sheer lunacy. It was troll ville before it became popular, and it's become  Elon's private little popularity party since he !#(%ed that duck. 

I guess I miss the near-texting-like functionality and the immediacy of the moment that tempts me to take a picture of what's in front of me, marvel at the irony, discover a meme, and block a troll.  I still have the Tok, but Tok is for kids, and that's problematic. The happy medium I carve out for myself is attempting to be immediate here, in the posts.  

The truth of it, in fact though I've not checked myself, may be that I fail to include a lot of topical content. I will tell myself that I avoid trends and manias. In this world, yikes. 

This Afternoon

This may be an exception to that hypothetical case. I'm here in the office with an orange Sunkist on ice, and some Rolo's watching the pre-game coverage of the execution of Joseph Biden, or one would think.

In a firing squad, one of the riflemen has a rifle with a blank, not a cartridge. They take bets on how many hits they get.

Yes, something just like this.

Joe Has Seen The Light

I think the media and Mr Money have been very hard on Mr Joe. The time for all this is not now. We've made it this far, and he is integral to NATO during a time of great concern in Europe. Many things require long thought and experience. It's mostly not punchline politics. 

What's past is history. Get some rest, and eat your Malt-O-Meal. 

I looked at this again this morning, I don't see the need to change a word. He's still the nominee people voted for; that trumps everything, pardon the expression.

Mr George 

It takes something for a man with as much as you to make these statements. There is one glaring fact.

 In the first place, this is the party's nominee, not the people's nominee. It's the man they stuck on the horse and commanded us to bet on. I like Joe.

Now, the riding and voting public is expected to change mounts because rich people that spent all that money to fuck up the world as bad as this want to have another swing at it, one that doesn't cost them personally probably; you can't blame them. You can blame them for exercising undue influence over a swayable audience based on some screen persona.

I don't watch your movies or follow your manner in People, and if I had my way people with as much as you would pay a lot more in taxes for the damage they do to the world, even with a teaspoon of good intention. 

That's my opinion. The party wanted this option; the party sign said jump, and the people replied how high; they've spoken.

 If you want to make a case for reforming the party and process, getting privilege and money out of politics, speak up; otherwise, shut the front door, George. Your counter-example doesn't serve your purpose. 

I didn't even get to the logical argument, I cover it below. There is no candidate to be named later. No one wants to run and lose as a principal in a privileged party cluster fuck. 

With all due respect.

The Moments Required

The times require a different kind of truth, a different kinds of justice, a different kind of democracy. As long as you keep your job, who cares who's in power and what they do with it?

That's the murmur I hear floating above suburbia. 

We're accustomed to adjusting the mean and measure of America, one face forward, the other behind closed doors.  One justice system for us, a different one for others. Yada yada yada. A different kind of America.

Endgames

These are not new problems, or even obscure, Marvel made upteen movies in a row about this. In the denouement, the villain has his soliloquy, having found the answer to the universe's problems. If he could just snap his fingers and start over.

We're looking at that scene here. There is no up, or out, only the official. That different kind of truth.

Worst Case Analysis

Trump gets elected and tries to take over the country and there's a civil war. Don't act surprised.  As long as you get to keep your life who cares who's in power and what they do with it. A different kind of America.

Mr Joe

Stick it out bud. 

Morning World 

Much love 🖖

I dunno, it was a hot  day and I stayed busy.

The King Of Politics 

At this point, it's risk management.  Mr Stephanopolous was working the Xacto knife in the same spots thoroughly, unusually. It would be reasonable to assume it could only get worse. 

The wind in the trees seems to suggest there is something the press knows that they are not telling us that's not public, and that would be violating confidence.  Franklin Roosevelt was dead for 30 years before I knew he was in a wheelchair. George W Bush had a live in 'close relationship' going on in the WH for the whole time, and no one said a word. Maybe Mr Joe is an alien, and he's about to lay eggs in Spiderman's chest cavity.

https://youtu.be/jQoNILVFFvs?si=ORZ7OuOu2q9gQd8A&t=5 

Follow The Money 

I was watching the news, and there is a report about the Presidential campaign that argues that the situation has become more serious for Mr Joe because this billionaire is slacking off contributions and another one is thinking about it, and it begs the question.

Who in the !#(% is running America? 

I say this with all the candor my words can muster, but it is not at all a new thought -- people with money run the elections, this is known. It's the law. 

Everyone please pay attention to the big picture here: moneyed contributors, power brokers, lobbyists, campaign staff, wannabes, party staff, candidates, voters.

Consider what's the point of a ballot, by that time it's pre-filtered.  

Campaign finance reform, let's be a broken record. The Mr Frosty PAC reform act of 2024, it sings, agreed?

Monday Mondial 

I feel like I'm behind battlements and must raise my gaze to examine the horizon for threats, even looking at the NYTimes World section. The battle lines likewise seem to be forming in Ukraine, with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran building the killer drones. As a battle we must win to protect democracy, it seems familiar to me. We find ourselves with a fire in every room and children nearby playing with matches. 

Genocide Act III

Then there is the Mideast, with more hot spots than Friday night in the projects and almost as dangerous.  The hot-speak details demands to be met, conditionally, and conditionally accepted, often with different conditions. Negotiations with Israel end one way -- Everything or nothing. If there is an end, it is when Israel has killed or displaced enough of the Palestinian population to pay the perceived blood feud. I object to funding this in any way. The nation as a whole needs therapy. 

La Marseillaise

France, living up to its legacy, shows the right where to turn off. Leftists landslide the follow-up elections. I'm not surprised. This is France. Anyone goose-stepping on the Champs Elysees better be armed. Thank goodness.

The Sundipped Pundit 

If it's Sunday, it's Sundipped. I like improvising a meme every week. Sometimes, I even watch MTP, like when I want to know what NBC is thinking. Ok, I'm rarely thusly spellbound.

Today's Topics

Today's topic list I'm borrowing from the Ryan Reynolds movie Deadpool, the one where he character acts Ryan Reynolds all of the way through. No, not the green one, the red one. 

He was on the list too. 

 I'm not saying I'm taking odds on this copy of that list here; it's purely a hypothetical humorous treatise that I thought might break up the dark cloud building overhead.

dead pool (plural dead pools)

1. A game of prediction or gambling that involves guessing when people, typically celebrities, will die. synonym ▲
   Synonym: death pool

The Deadpool

A Politics Jones

Ol' Yellow Stain

Whats-Her-Name

Oh Donna 

More as time and energy permit.

Morning World 

Much love 

The blog has rolled over, check the archive submenu.

Good Sabbath 

Morning World 

Much love 🪡

The Markets 

A brief look in on the padded room with all those geniuses on the Ponzi-Network.  Yo Carter.

NVDA 

Coniption central. All the smart money that cashed out last week took their 10 percent somewhere else, and so other things went up, and the locusts moved to a new hilltop. Moving quickly enough is a challenge. 

Jobs

The jobs report was up a bit in healthcare and other places, which pay a little better, and the cost of payroll is up, so the easy analysis is that wages are up, but it's just better-paying jobs. If you're money, you want scads of minions, low wages, no raises, and no one ever leaves due to fear or lack of move money. AKA slavery. So jobs up, wages up, yippee. 

Belabored Tories

No matter what one's lineage, one must recognize the suffering of the English people. A history unfathomable, thousands of years long pitted by generations of persistent domination by the ruling classes. 

Their system of government is such a mess they can't really be sure exactly what is illegal based on the governing documents.  That sounds a little familiar.

Off with their wigs.

Two Years Hence 

I heard someone mention the times were unsuitable for a political system that picks its favorites two years in advance. Perhaps there is some historical relevance, or perhaps they let the press disassemble potential candidates for them; all these details fade to invisibility, and all that remains is the slight memory of the people they represent. This all seems historically quaint, the unjustness of it easily dismissed, a legacy.

This is perhaps true, but the grist in the mill is what's left of people's interests sorted by moneyed contributors. That's the truth of it. When money's and people's interests diverge, our dogma says we abolish or amend it. This is such an instance.

When neither of the above is the correct solution, it's soul searching or plotting, depending on the party.

All Roads Lead

When you come to a fork in the road, check the map. Maybe you are lost, and it's not the gas station attendant's fault.

Half of you are thinking, the Republicans really should read this, and the other half the opposite. Both are correct.

Morning World 

Much love 🕴️

Happy Fourth

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men  People, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Morning World 

Much love 🤲

I have a completely new use case for this, maybe. This is not what I needed; I just needed to analyze math to look at the problem in numbers and physics; sometimes it helps. 

Making sense of the image takes thought, actually A and B should be transposed.

The Martian thing.

Tuesday's Queue 

I have some math in the queue; the magic interceptor algorithm as natural behavior is what I was thinking; that's Emma on my mind.

Or I may just watch a movie, I watched The Infinity War last evening, so Endgame is also in the queue.

What's your day look like?

Morning World 

Much love ☕

Judgment on Paper 

Should the face of the court change, and a proper case arise, for example, after someone successfully conducts a coup after losing the election. Then, after proper litigation and argument, the court may choose to reexamine the issue. 

All of our rights are leaking through the honorable holes in the constitution.

TWTWTW

That was the week that was.

As it happens, predictions about the voters not being for either one of them enough were prescient. In the meat of the real world there are careers and expectations, and hopes. We all lost a little last week. 

Where do we look for solutions in these instances; Can we rely on the courts, or Congress, or who?. The inability of any branch of government to respond is troubling. The inability of any leadership to stand forward is as well.

Weeks like last are a bitch.

Halftime Markets 

Mr Wapner runs a predictable lunch here, familiar faces. He's on vacation, I'd guess.

Mr Jim is betting recessionary, staples presumably, selling Alphabet. I don't comment on holdings; gold some say, crypto some say; something more predictable, everyone says. Null set.

Mr W is a dyed in green capitalist, META holder. No moral compass stock index, META and AMZN.

Money to bet?  BA, LM, GD, and the like are my usual option haunts; I've been paper trading oil-ish.

If I have a bias, it's aviation, which is harder to do and requires many things an investor finds comforting. My exception in the area is SpaceX, it is my lack of faith in Elon's elan. 

Someone wants to know which AI, and I comment they all are about the same; marginally useful, hard to make a buck on. It's a fool's pursuit, this software glom they call conversive AI.

Sunday Evening 

For me, in a universe far far away I would spend Sunday evenings making popcorn in an air popper and browning real butter for a movie with the better half. I explored these moments in my Analyst series, I'll paste a sample perhaps.

All that is missing is the movie and one other thing. The criteria is loose, available for free and ... available free, usually.

Enjoy the popcorn.

The Sundipped Pundit 

[ If it's Sunday, first find a meme that objectifies no one, is inspirational, and provides valid indicia on the news for brilliant readers everywhere. Then pick two topics to start.]

If it's Sunday, it's hangin' season in Deadrock, there's a varmint with a six-gun, and he's fast, but there's always someone faster. 

How's that?

Ex Officia Political Fodder

The Wanted (More Or Less) List

Rotting In Mar A Lago

The Values War

More as time and temperament permit.

10000 Dead in Guyana

There are not, at least as far as I know. Pretend I was counting fatal traffic accidents beginning last March; it's probably true. If that's not true in Guyana, you know it must be true somewhere. 

Fifty million was donated to Ol' Yellow Stain's Campaign and Legal Expense Fund overnight, all from first-timers. 

That's how you'd write the press release. Is it true? Come on, this is Donald Trump. If it's not true, he'll make it true, even if he has to shoot someone in Times Square.  It makes his numbers go up.

Like I said, 10000 Dead In Guyana, film at 11.