But Lindsey Graham (Idiot – R) laughed it off. “Ho, ho, that Trump, such a funny dictator — I mean, such a humorous dictator — no! That’s not what I’m trying to say. He’s a funny politician.”
No, that’s not what Lindsy said. I made it up, much like Trump makes up so much! Ha, ha, it’s so much fun. Note: CNN likes to label Trump’s lies as ‘false claims’. Any parent would tell him, stop lying.
What Graham said, seriously, “We will have democracy, god willing, for a very long time in this country, but what President Trump is trying to tell people — ‘I did it once, I can do it again. These problems can be solved, but you got to go in a different direction.’”
So number one, dickhead. Trump is a former president. He’s either Mister Trump now or former President Trump. He is not President now. Get it through your casaba, Graham.
Number two, what did he — Trump — fucking do for the nation when he was POTUS that they’re all so gleeful about? Are they really that happy about having a convict and rapist as their leader, an amoral individual and grifter whose biggest gift is conning others into giving him money over and over again?
Trump’s record speaks for itself as evidence of what not to do for the nation to be a prosperous, responsible, and free country.
And if you don’t believe me, just look at what Trump and the GOP has planned in Project 2025.
Flouddite(floofinition) – An animal who refuses to adapt or change. Origins: early 19th century Floofland.
In Use: “Simon le Meow was such a flouddite that when the new dog came into the household, Simon would act like the dog wasn’t there and just go about his business, baffling the dog, who really just wanted to be friends.”
In Use: “Being a bonafide flouddite, Caramel wouldn’t eat from her bowls when they changed her eating set up, forcing Carol and Pat to put the bowls back where they had been.”
Today is Thursday, July 25, 2024. Still a little time to get your early Christmas shopping done.
It’s been a noisy morning in my Ashlandia. A parade of sounds. Garbage trucks banging on and roaring down the street. Motorcycles. Barking dogs, overhead jets, loud talking people. There may have been a marching band as well. Couldn’t tell for the noise. A jackhammer capped the performance.
Then Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah), my black and white thick-furred floofhead, settled on my pillow above my head and vigorously groomed himself, sometimes leaning on my skull to prop himself up in his washing process. Hello!
Of course, the noise can all be explained in rational ways, especially when you set them against the situation. Iit’s a chill morning. Up to sixty now as the sun breaks over the mountains and trees overseeing my home site. Things must be done before the heat arrives. Also, the air quality is very breathable, better than it’s been in days. Better want to get things done before the air goes bad and the day heats up. And the passing jet could well have been a fire-fighting tanker. Not sure why the marching band was out there.
But come on, if this is what I have to complain about, the noise of life and a cat’s activity, I don’t have it bad at all. Massive fires still rage in all compass directions. Pity the animals and people chased out of their homes and habitats who face the task of rebuilding and finding new homes. And thanks to all those individuals at every level, tracking fires, managing and fighting them, and keeping us updated on what’s happening. Imagine what it would be like without them.
So WordPress has some AI magic to help me write better. It highlighted ‘may’ above, citing it as an ‘unconfident word’. The magic suggests I replace it with ‘been’, so the sentence would read, ‘There been a marching band as well.’ Yeah, that sounds more confident, although, perhaps, a little asinine as well.
Had a good time with friends sipping a few beers out in the shade and wind of a local brewery. Moderate turn out of ten. Progressives all, we were jazzed by the energy and optimism the Kamala Harris campaign is generating. We also noted the GOP’s lame and increasingly desperate attempts to undermine the Harris campaign. The GOP is running scared. Other than that, we discussed dark oxygen being generated at deep sea levels, along with airships, you know, derigibles. I think it was unanimous that we’d all like to experience traveling like that, as long as you’re not in a rush.
I’m chillin’ with a cuppa coffee in hand, and cool fresh air wafting in through the window behind me. The Neurons turn Frankie Goes to Hollywood loose in the morning mental music stream (Trademark televised) with “Relax” from 1983. That’s the theme song for the moment.
Stay positive and remain fresh and strong. I’m trying to do the same. Let’s Vote Blue in 2024, and bring the United States its first female in the White House as POTUS. Here’s the music. Cheers
Floofcipitate(floofinition) – Something happening abruptly that was triggered by an animal’s actions. Origins: early 21st century Internet.
In Use: “A loud ‘woof’ in the house’s soft stillness floofcipitated the cat leaping up, Pat knocking his glass of wine over, and Linn dropping her phone. Laughter followed.”
Goorning folks. I thought it was time we blended good and morning as a greeting and just use goorning. Economical. Cuts down on those extra syllables weighing us down. “Goorning. Hoyadoin?” Hoyadoin is another blend.
Today is July 22, 2024. It’s a Monday. 76 F with smoke painting the blue sky gray, today’s high will be in the mid to upper 80s again for us. Smoke is worsening through the day, as it usually does. We started with our air quality charting as ‘moderate’. We’re edging toward unhealthy. An alert has been issued. There’s also a fire warning issued because the land is so dry and hot winds are picking up.
I spent the morning outside while it was cool and the air was healthy friendly, so I’m writing late today. Picking up on the news, the big stuff for the U.S. at this point is President Biden dropping out and Veep Harris announcing that she’s chasing the nomination. At this point, we expect an uphill fight. Kamela is not the incumbent President and its positives. But she’s part of a good administration, a strong one. However, she has things against her as viewed from some circles: female, other than white, young, from California.
Those negatives are bullshit, of course, but this is the United States, home of the free and land of the bullshit. Vice President Kamala Harris is intelligent and passionate and has garnered several significant endorsements. The Nikki Haley Voters PAC endorsement really pleased me. Close behind is the six governors endorsing her. And for what it’s worth, a Times article claims that the change from Biden to Harris has fired up support for Dems in the tech industry.
After reflecting on all of this, I convinced myself that I’m a Kamala Harris believer. It’ll be a tough fight. I’d like to see her debate Trump. Naturally, we can expect every legal machination possible thrown at her and her ‘legitimacy’. Hope the SCOTUS doesn’t get involved, because my faith in them is in the dumpster.
Besides all of that, what Trump and the GOP represents is just unaccepted. Project 2025, while not a coherent document, displays dangerous counter-democratic and outright hateful, bigoted ideas. Agenda 47 is loaded with ideas meant to exclude people based on who they are. Sorry, but that’s fucking unacceptable. Most of us agree with that; the ones who don’t want to drag us back to the stone age. They must be stopped.
As my wife and I were both avoiding delving into the news last weekend, I spent a lot of time perusing book lists in the NYTimes. They had created a reviewer’s list, and then a reader’s list. My wife is a big reader and when I read the reader’s list, I thought that she had read almost all of them. So I went through the list with her. She’s read 88 of the 100. Most that she didn’t read were non-fiction. Several of the fiction books she hadn’t read are in the house awaiting her attention. Well done to her, you know?
BTW, she doesn’t agree that “Demon Copperhead” should be #1. She’s not a fan of the book.
We also went off to the library yesterday to pick up more books and another jigsaw puzzle. The week’s activities are becoming set.
We my thinking about Kamala Harris percolating, it’s not surprising that “I’m A Believer” is circulating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark qualified). Neil Diamond wrote it, and the Monkees had a hit with it back in 1966. But I have the Smash Mouth cover of it from 2001 in mind. They did it for the movie Shrek but it solidly charted in the U.S.
Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Be a believer. Here’s the video. Feel free to sing along with it. Coffee has made its way into my systems. Here we go. Havagooday. Cheers
I was walking past several parks today. People were out with their dogs, always in the shade, playing.
One shaggy-haired young man looked like he was in his mid-twenties. His canine companion looked old and out of shape. The guy lightly throw a Frisbee. The dog galloped after it. After twenty feet, the dog stopped and turned around, looking for the disc. It sailed over his head and landed four or five feet behind him.
“Behind you,” the man called to the dog. Turning around, the dog saw the Frisbee. Picking it up in his jaws, he trotted back, but stopped four feet away and settled down in green shade.
“Drink water,” the guy said.
The dog went to a water bowl and took a few sloppy laps. “Bring me the toy,” the man said.
Doing as told, the dog brought it over and put it on his man’s feet.
“Ready?” the man asked.
Watching him, the dog began jogging away. The Frisbee was launched. The dog ran out, stopped, and turned around as the Frisbee landed behind him.
Dry, hazy, hot. Not as hot as many U.S. places. Haven’t really checked the rest of the world. I’ve been mired in my American experience.
It’s 83 F in Ashlandia, where the sky is postcard blue and the sun beams down with frying bacon intensity. Gonna get hot today. How hot is questionable; one source said, 99 F. Another gave us a quote of 95 F. Somewhere in the upper nineties is my guess.
Tomorrow will be cooler, they’re saying. Fingers crossed, they’re right. Some are saying, 89 F will crown the temperature. Others declare, 91 F.
I’d love something in the high eighties for a change. I’m working on the side yard. We have a couple raised beds located there but chose not to use them this year, because we had other plans. While I was away in May, this yard grew thick with weeds. Now they’re all straw yellow and ripe fire fuel. I’m trying to remove it all but the heat gets in my way. Also, I grab this stuff and it just breaks away. Getting rid of it is going to be an involved process. I’m considering watering it to green it and then pull it up.
Papi and this jay have something going on. Papi is our ginger blade, a rescue floof abandoned when neighbors moved away. He and they apparently didn’t get along well. He’d started visiting us and socializing. Originally calling him Meep because of the soft sound he made, we started feeding him and giving him shelter when the weather went to shit. Eventually, he was ours and his original folks were gone.
I don’t know what precipitated it, but whenever Papi leaves the house and goes into the backyard, this jay flies over and screeches at him. I mean, it’s relentless. This started several days ago but this morning’s episode seemed more intense. I had the bedroom slider open to let the cool night air in, with the screen closed. Papi came in and ate just before six and went back out, and that jay started up like a frenzied MAGA fan. I could see the bird on our table yelling at Papi. Papi didn’t seem to be doing anything in response.
Anyway, out of that, The Neurons conjured the 1972 song which Billy Paul had a hit with. See, I’d said to myself, Papi and that jay have a thing going on. I guess The Neurons thought that segued well with the song’s lyrics, “We have a thing going on.” So now I have the song playing in the morning mental music stream (Trademark scratched). If you listen to the song as I did, I sang along but subbed the words, “Papi and the jay have a thing going on.” When I sang it to Papi, I swear that he rolled his eyes and walked away.
Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and Vote Blue in 2024. Coffee is mingling with the tastebuds. Time to jam. Here’s the music. Cheers
Floofroad (floofinition) – 1. The path taken by an individual to meet an animal, or vice versa. Origins: early 21st century Internet.
In Use: “Mark’s normal floofroad for finding strays is just to open the front door. It’s like, if he opens the door, they will come. And he can never turn any away.”
In Use: “Many people’s floofroad to a new floof addition to their home begins with a visit to an animal shelter, but more frequently in this Internet age, the floofroad begins on social media.”
2. The course an animal takes to get from point to point.
In Use: “Papi’s floofroad is never straightforward, as he engages serpentine routes to go from door to door — except when he’s heading for his food bowl. Then he’s like an arrow shot from a bow.”
Every once in a while, a website that I visit will change their layout. WordPress has done it today, forcing me to ‘search’ for the stuff I generally use, adjust to where they put things, and new features. I say ‘search’ like that because I can’t just slide my mouse to its usual position and click. I’m forced instead to use my eyes and scan the page and then employ my brain. It’s difficult. TG for coffee.
Inspired by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, I’ve come up with my five stages of coping with a website redesign.*
Warning: there’s a ton of f*****g cursin’ involved with a website redesign for me because I’m easily irritated and was enlisted in the military for twenty years. Back then, before cell phones and computers, swearing was our primary pastime as we hurried and waited.
Realization. Where is the — what the actual f**k – m*therf****r, they changed the f*****g web page.
Complaining. Jesus, WTF did they do that? Where is – damn it, they changed everything. They f*****g changed it all. Now I have to find my favorite things and the things that I use all over again. Jesus Christ, just what I f*****g needed today.
Promises. I’ll tell you what, if I ever find another f*****g website that works as well as this one does – or did, until they did this s**t – I don’t know how it’ll work with all these god**n changes they’ve made – I will switch so f*****g fast, their f*****g heads will f*****g explode.
Grasping. Okay, wait, here’s what I wanted. A pull-down menu. Well, that’s f*****g stupid. Why the f**k did they put it there? WTF. It was fine right where it f*****g was. There was no f*****g reason at all to move that. What else did they f****g move? S***heads.
Stewing. Okay, I think I can live with this crap and these f****g changes, but I don’t f*****g like it. grumble grumble mutter mutter imprecations
*These stages can also be employed for when a store rearranges its aisles and products, and you rush in to grab the one thing you need and it’s not there because they moved it, forcing you to run around the store in search of.
Michael Seidel, writer 