Storm

Tweet storm. Trump is tweeting up a storm.

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR OYUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

See that? Caps. And you know what caps mean. Caps mean business!

I wonder what triggered this. Was it something they said? Curious.

* So President Obama knew about Russia before the Election. Why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he tell our campaign? Because it is all a big hoax, that’s why, and he thought Crooked Hillary was going to win!!!

* I had a GREAT meeting with Putin and the Fake News used every bit of their energy to try and disparage it. So bad for our country!

*  “Source #1 was the (Fake) Dossier. Yes, the Dirty Dossier, paid for by Democrats as a hit piece against Trump, and looking for information that could discredit Candidate #1 Trump. Carter Page was just the foot to surveil the Trump campaign...” ILLEGAL! 

* Andrew McCarthy - “I said this could never happen. This is so bad that they should be looking at the judges who signed off on this stuff, not just the people who gave it. It is so bad it screams out at you.”  On the whole FISA scam which led to the rigged Mueller Witch Hunt! 

* Looking more & more like the Trump Campaign for President was illegally being spied upon (surveillance) for the political gain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Ask her how that worked out - she did better with Crazy Bernie. Republicans must get tough now. An illegal Scam!

* Congratulations to @JudicialWatch and @TomFitton on being successful in getting the Carter Page FISA documents. As usual they are ridiculously heavily redacted but confirm with little doubt that the Department of “Justice” and FBI misled the courts. Witch Hunt Rigged, a Scam! 

* No Collusion, No Obstruction - but that doesn’t matter because the 13 Angry Democrats, who are only after Republicans and totally protecting Democrats, want this Witch Hunt to drag out to the November Election. Republicans better get smart fast and expose what they are doing!

* The Rigged Witch Hunt, headed by the 13 Angry Democrats (and now 4 more have been added, one who worked directly for Obama W.H.), seems intent on damaging the Republican Party’s chances in the November Election. This Democrat excuse for losing the ‘16 Election never ends!

* Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of. Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong! 

And more, people he'd like to see elected, characterization of Pelosi, remarks about NFL, remarks about media, European money grabbers, Russia, Hillary, he's all over the place. You really must see this.

Or not. Your choice. It's the best thing online.

Eat a bunny

Fresh from a month-long trip to Ukraine my brother, his wife and two boys called to congratulate me for living a another whole year and to wish me good luck for another. I asked the boys, "What did you learn?"

"Um. Uh, Hmmm. Uh. Hmmm. Duh. Uh. Um. Hmmm. Uh. Hmm. Um. Um. Er. Um. Huh. Uuuuuh. Hmmmmmmmmm. Errrrrr. Deeeerrrrrr. Uuuuuuuuuh. Uuuuuuum. A lot of people smoke cigarettes.

I told the boys that I ate the last chocolate rabbit. I saved it for last because I thought it'd be gross but it turned out to be the best thing of all. I thought that I disliked milk-chocolate, but the bunny made me realize it's actually delicious. It took me back decades to when I was their age and loved milk-chocolate. So now I think I'm reverting.

I described how I ate it, in detail, and the boys are so easily amused, they both paid close attention as if I was reading a story. They participated in the story-telling and created quite a ruckus on their end in California, and I could hear how my sister-in-law and brother enjoy their boys being in a gleeful high-energy state of near riot. Those two boys add so much to their lives. Those boys are their lives.

Bubble-wrapped Clinton

This is not a video to actually watch, nor is it to be listened to. It's a link to YouTube so you can read the comments there.

YouTube went funny. You touch "view more" button and more related videos appear and underneath the list of new videos, the comments to the current video appear. That's what you want. We're looking at people pointing in wonder at the spectacle of a mental hospital patient provided an audience for her ramblings. For some very strange reason people still assemble to hear what this woman has on her mind. And not to throw tomatoes. What is it? The same macabre fascination as with car wrecks?

I don't know.

They're talking about her dress. She looks insane.

In another thread a Twitter woman said, "Sure, nevermind what she has to say, talk about her dress instead."

That's right, Sister. Absolutely. Nevermind what she says. There is nothing of any value whatsoever to be heard. Nothing. And you're foolish and hopeless if you think that there is.

Reminds me of that dreadful episode in hospital ICU. I could write a book about it. A very dreadful book. So much happened those few days. So much recalled. I'll spare you. Except, at one point I realized the people passing by the window to come visit their loved ones in ICU were all curious about people being repaired. It was just natural curiosity. But it did make me feel like a zoo animal, hooked up and unable to move, a veritable prisoner tied to my bed by several criss-crossing wires and tubes going into both arms and even out of my dick. And every person who passes by is gawking at me tied up like that. 

I was a little bit upset at the time. 

Distraught, you might say.

And you might say a psychological mess.

Following several visitors doing the same thing, gawking at the broken prisoner inside his little cell, like a scene from a horror movie, a heavyset woman is walking with her husband, he is looking forward and she is holding his hand walking forward with him but with her head turned staring at me for the moment she has until they both pass my window and I extend my arms sideways imploringly and with 500% exaggeration I silently pantomime: 

"WHAT?"

Then I felt a little bit bad for being so mean to a woman I don't know for simply being curious. I know better than that. I'm a bad Christian.

Then on the return the couple both walked past again the opposite direction but forcing their gaze forward, stiff-necked and militaristically, commanding themselves, overriding their natural impulse to look. And HARD. 

I laughed so hard at that the whole bed and assemblage of wires and tubes shook, the entire room shook with my laughter. My little piss bag was splashing. God, that was funny. The awareness of her discussing with her husband what I did and both of them responding to chiding hit me as hilarious but you had to be really sick for it to be that funny.

Peace In The Valley

Everyday the wife and I pull an affirmation card. It is from deck of cards with a word or saying on it. It might be "I am Strong" or simply "Think." It is our little start to the day with our coffee where we sit and plan out what we are doing. It gives us something to think on or sometimes something to aspire too during a busy day.

Today I pulled a card and it said "Peace." The perfect card for a Sunday afternoon.

I have been away from the Internet the past few weeks. I haven't been feeling well but more importantly I am just tired of the constant nonsense that Chip describes in his last post. The non stop idiocy of the uninformed. You get it at family barbecues. At the check out line. At the store. Everywhere. It is exhausting.

I am tired of fighting with ignorant people. So I am trying something different. I am meditating. Gardening. Cooking. Writing. Resting. Trying to find some peace.

I know I get riled up when I see a blog post about something like the NFL or the Deep State attacking the President. I might blow off some steam now and again. But I have decided that I have to be more dedicated in finding something. That something?

Peace.

I have been feted

With liberal bullshit.

Again.

It is a beautiful gentle summer night, the setting upscale and elegant and generous. I'm having beef tenderloin prepared for me on a Big Green Egg grill, a dinner in honor of my having survived another year. Another whole year on earth, and that really is something to celebrate.

The host wanted to do for me what I had already done for them. The idea is not new at all. A nice big hunk of the most tender beef possible, but without much flavor, cooked briefly on a particularly smokey grill.

With imaginative sides that take a bit of thought and time assembling.

I gave him the grill. To get rid of it. He still cannot get over that. "I don't deserve this. Why don't you put that on Craigslist? Why don't you sell it? Why don't you give it to someone closer to you? Why not your own family? Why not to someone you love?"

"Because I want it to be placed well. That's all that I care about."

"What?"

"I don't want to give it to someone who's dying. To someone who'll be dead in a few years."

"Holy shit."

"I don't want to give it to someone who doesn't understand what it is."

"I can see that."

"I don't want to give it to someone who isn't going to use it."

"That makes sense."

"I don't want to give it to anyone who can't  be inspired."

"What? But still, why not sell it?"

"Because I care about it being placed well more than I care about cash. Because I think it makes an excellent gift. For the right person. You."

It's generosity he does not comprehend because it doesn't make sense to his fundamentally conservative values. The more he talks about common sense economics the more conservative he sounds.

I am not that.

The gift doesn't fit anything.

He's got a bug up his ass about Trump eliminating contributions tax deductibles that eat away at his colon with the other bug about Trump eliminating home mortgages interest.  He's brought it up the last three times I've seen him. Given enough time, say, thirty minutes, and these bugs make their appearance.

Out of his butt.

"So if you make some kind of contribution, do you deduct that amount from your taxes, or do you deduct that amount from your taxable income? That is, do these contributions of yours put you into a higher tax bracket?"

"No. Not that. It's about itemizing. We pay our taxes then start itemizing deductions, the itemizing reduces the amount that we pay."

"When you make a contribution, then deduct that from your taxes, doesn't that make you the decider of where government puts its contribution, not your contribution? I posit, if government kickback is part of your decision about contributions, then you're really not all that generous after all."

Why is government part of your contribution decisions? Why is government part of your home-owning decision making experience? Government used to allow all interest deductions. Until it was realized that encourages running up high interest and running up debt. That same artificial meddling distortion applies to homes. It causes investors to buy homes they don't actually live in, driving up the cost of homes out of reach of first time buyers.

"Still, it remains, that a lot of organizations that rely on contributions are going to be seriously hurt by Trump's new tax law. I am not going to make as many contributions because of it. And neither will a lot of other people like me."

"Those individuals making those contribution decisions about where government money goes, are spending public money on their private concerns. Say, I'm against contributing to Planned Parenthood, then citizens out there can use my portion of public money to fund them."

"Well, the home mortgage interest rate write off will hurt a lot of people. "

"I saw a bumper sticker that said, 'Elect a clown, expect a circus.'"  

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. 

[Elect a hag, expect witch soup. Elect a criminal, expect high crimes to be excused through multi-tiered justice, and corrupted government departments. Elect a dynasty and expect to elect their offspring. Elect a socialist idiot, expect Idiocracy.]

"That wright off too, intended to help homeowners specifically, has already hurt more people than it helped, by causing incentive to buy homes even when homes are not needed. It created its own new market, an economy within an economy, that drives up the cost of homeownership putting homes way out of reach, and ridiculously so,  for a whole lot of people."

"But that's the system that we've had forever. It's what we've come to rely on."

[Fallacy: appeal to tradition.]

"You're playing the system because that's the system you found when you entered. It's what you've learned. And now that's the system that new players find because it's the system you're playing. In both cases, you are insisting on perpetuating tax systems that discriminate against non-married people, non-home owners, and people who disagree with you using their public money to support your political contributions. Further, you dismiss it as meddling by a clown for the simplistic expediency of simplifying tax returns. Even as you admit you'll be richer for paying less taxes, all that so you can entertain animosity against a Republican president."


"Trump hates Mexicans. Trump hates gays. Trump hates immigrants."

"I'm sitting at the end of three patio tables pushed together literally surrounded by surface liberals. Their remarks sound like the comment section of Washington Post.

"Where do you people get your information?"

"From the news."

"Well then. That does explain it. You're actually informed by zombie retards. I must now pray. *looks skyward piously* 'Lord, I pray thee, look at me and see if I can stand this one more fucking second.' Look, [all of] you really do need better sources of information."

[Don't bother asking which ones, just find them.]

I'm not even going to argue with them. Why argue with resolute political retards who are otherwise lovely human beings who love me?

It is an excellent dinner. These people adore me. That much is clear. While it is still not possible to have anything nice without also having full doses of moronic liberal horseshit come with it. From everyone. And it is not possible to challenge full on indoctrination across all media accumulated through entire lifetimes, with small doses of counterargument. But it is possible to leave impressions through genuine generosity that blows people's minds by its incomprehensibility. The Big Green Egg looks great on their patio. It's a large heavy anomalous monolith representing genuine generosity. And it's fun! And finally it's actually being used to its fullest.

Here we go again!

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

The NFL National Anthem Debate is alive and well again - can’t believe it! Isn’t it in contract that players must stand at attention, hand on heart? The $40,000,000 Commissioner must now make a stand. First time kneeling, out for game. Second time kneeling, out for season/no pay!

The President is in mid season form even before the beginning of training camp. The new NFL anthem policy lasted about as long as the Jets Super Bowl hopes. The policy basically had two options. First they could take the cowards way out. Not come out of the dressing room at all. Or they could set up their own policy if the players came on the field and knell down to disrespect the flag and our nation. The Miami Dolphins were the first team to set up a policy that they would fine or suspend players who decided to knell. The Players Union shit a brick and of course the NFL dropped to their knees to blow them.

Making pickup trucks great again!

So I am waiting at a stop light on Merrick Road out on Long Island. A pickup pulls up with a Hispanic guy blasting salsa music. I go to put the window up and then I notice it.

A sticker of the God Emperor in the back seat. As though this guy is happy driving around with Donald Trump as one of his boys.

You see I think there is a great groundswell out there. Thousands and thousands of working guys of all races and ethnicities who have jobs now or are getting more money in their paycheck. Who don't give a shit what CNN or MSNBC or Lady Graham or Mitt Romney or Songbird or Joe Scarborough have to say. Who don't care about Russia, Russia, Russia.

Support for the President will be evident in unexpected places. Now I don't over value it. His black support might be maxed out at 20%. Which is phenomenal for a Republican. A total game changer. His Hispanic support will be much higher. The media will be dumbfounded. The pollsters will not understand how they got it so wrong.

They will conclude that someone had tampered with the election.

My vote is that it was the Martians.

Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency invites entries

Photo by DARPA

"Picture the Olympic Games — except instead of human athletes, the competitors are all insect-sized robots.

...The robots would be developed for a new DARPA program called Short-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms (SHRIMP). Under SHRIMP, the bug-sized bots will be tested for deploying in locations that are difficult for people to navigate, or are dangerous or inaccessible to humans, according to the statement.

...One of the "sports" categories for the bots will test untethered actuator-power systems, showing how high and how far the robot can jump, how much weight they can lift, how far they can throw objects and how they perform in a tug of war.

The other category is for complete robot designs: The tiny bots will be evaluated on rock piling, climbing a vertical surface, navigating an obstacle course, and performing in a biathlon."


What could possibly go wrong?

Please forgive me

Comments to this video on YouTube are adorable.

terrace garden

The garden is at midpoint. There are still things popping out of the dirt, it's sill filling out. The morning glories still haven't begun to bloom yet. I imagine that's still a few week off. But when they do, oh boy, it's going to be flowers all over the place. Their vines are trying to take over the world.

I gave seeds to a neighbor and told him what to expect. I advised him to plant them in pots on the floor so they'll climb up the railing and spread. I look up to his balcony and see he was modest about it, planting only a few in only two areas, and they have taken over, his whole railing is covered. It's delightful to see. He has his own little jungle up there. Like I do.

He's a cop.

If he's still around next year I think I'll take up a dozen or so caladium bulbs up there so he can max out on the jungle effect.

I have a million pictures to show you. Want to see 'em?

What?

Fine!

How about 24 pictures then?

sourdough starter

My niece asked me about sourdough. Her form of communication is by phone messaging. My nephew told me "Sometimes I wish Amanda had never gotten a smart phone because now she messages 100 times a day." And he's such a sweet nephew, that type of remark is unusual. But that is how my niece communicates, zippy-zappy spurts. Nothing long. Nothing engaging. Nothing with any depth to it. I'm afraid I dissuaded her. It's not her type of thing.

Then I felt bad.

This Denver Power sourdough starter is a good one to start with because it behaves close to how commercial yeast does. Of all the sourdough starters I've tried, the ones purchased online from International Sourdoughs, and from vendors on eBay, and Carl's 1847 Oregon Trail still offered for free, and all the sourdoughs I've cultured by traveling, Hawaii, California, etc., this Denver one is most powerful, fastest, and most close to commercial yeast in speed and reliability. Except a LOT more interesting.

I had been keeping it going as sponge, then burned out on bread altogether, so the last sponge languished in refrigerator untended, unfed, for months. And you just don't do that. Still, when I finally went back to it, the culture sprang back to life as if it had been merely sleeping and not woefully neglected.

But I don't want to have a huge bowl of sponge in the refrigerator all the time. I don't want to be attentive to another live pet. Since this starter springs to life so quickly (comparatively), that makes it reasonable to rejuvenate it from freezing each time. It's that easy to start up. A day and overnight at room temperature. That's it. Boom. It's 'ready to go.
I just now did that again, to prove the point.

I did not reserve active sourdough from the last most recent batch. There are still a few slices left of that bread. Instead, I reactivated the starter from frozen state and began it again, baked a new loaf. And still didn't reserve any starter for next time. There is still quite a lot in frozen powder form.

So to compensate to my niece for giving her the short shrift, I sent her a few teaspoons of Denver Power sourdough stater and a note explaining how to use it, assuming she already knows how to make bread.

It's a simple note in Text Edit. Had I known it would print out to six pages I'd have reduced the font size. Now I'm worried all over again that it's too much for the poor girl to read. She's not the reading type like her brother. Perhaps he'll read it for her and tell her what it says. Maybe she's more capable than I'm giving her credit. I don't know. We'll see.

The note follows.

watermelon

The watermelons are particularly good this year.

That's what a friend said and I agreed. I bought one and it was bright dark red throughout and with very few seeds. I cut it like a pineapple so all the rind was removed leaving a large American football shape, a deep red oval form dripping all over the table.

It was brought home for the base of a fruit salad, and although the fruit salad is massive, sufficient to feed the Swedish army while trekking across the Sahara, and although I picked out a small one, it was still too much watermelon, the proportion was off with all the rest of the fruit. And berries. An entire pineapple, an entire large tray of strawberries (cheap as can be right now), mango, papaya, peaches, and kiwi fruit. 

So I processed the watermelon with an emersion blender and made ice cubes. 

Thing learned: watermelon ice cubes go great with Coca-Cola. 

Watermelons are the best fruit ever. Right there is proof there is God and he loves us. Why else would there even be such a thing? It's an example of the art of creation, God the artist, BLAM! "I love you guys." Ta-daaaah: Watermelon.