Category: Uncategorized

The Studebaker Dream

Dream fade in. I’m a young adult. I’m with a real-life friend who passed away a few years ago. He’s charging me to take care of his care for him. “Drive it over to the condo and put it in the parking garage,” he tells me.

The car is a silver 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk in pristine condition. I agree to do as he asks. He and I are on vacation together, along with our extended families. I drive the Studebaker over and park it in the garage. I can see it from the rented, shared condo. The condo is enormous. The living room/dining room/kitchen combo’s entire western side is open to the sun and surf. Yes, surf, because it’s located right above a long, flat beach. Wonderful sunshine and blue sky are visible outside.

The condo is busy with people coming and going, talking, making plans. All of the people are familiar t me. Many are real life friends and relatives.

I’m part of the conversations and activities about our plans. But I’m also distracted, concerned about the Studebaker. Word comes to me that it needs to be moved to let some big truck by. I don’t want to go over there to move it. But somehow I have a black, wireless remote control. Using it, I start the car, back it up, let the truck by, and then park the car again. I end up doing this same maneuver three more times. In parallel, I discover that the remote works on other cars as well. I keep moving cars for people using the remote.

Then we’re all dashing around, doing things, collecting groceries, making meals, eating. As that happens, I discover that all of the Studebaker’s windows are shattered. The car is also riddle with dents and scratches. Non-plussed, I wonder aloud, what the hell happened? I’m concerned about what my friend will say about his car’s condition.

While I’m still fretting, we all go outside to enjoy the sunny beach and ocean. It’s wonderful out there. Then, shallow, long waves enter. News reaches us that there’s a storm far offshore driving these waves. Sunshine glitters along the waves. We talk about what a powerful storm that must be.

I return to the condo for something. When I’m in there, I hear shouting from outside. Turning, I see a long, flat, white wave race up the beach. It’s not deep or thunderous but it was wholly unexpected by everyone. Watching, I see that no one is hurt. Fast moving, the water only reaches most people’s knees.

Although the condo is above the beach, the wave rushes into the condo. It carries me, upright, the condo’s length. I laugh, enjoying the experience. Looking across at the parking garage, I realize that it’s gone, along with all of the cars which were parked in it. I’m amazed but relieved; I can’t be blamed for my friend’s car damage now.

The water swirls around inside the condo. I wish for a towel. Then I realize, damn, I left it on the condo floor. It’s underwater now.

I think, I should have picked up a towel when I saw the wave coming.

Dream end.

A note: the man who passed away shared my first name, Michael. The car in the dream was made the year that I was born, 1956. Coincidence? Who knows?

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Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Donald Trump declared “Liberation Day” on April 2, 2025. The phrase was used in conjunction with his ‘retaliatory tariffs’.

It reminds me of George Dubya Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Given on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the U.S. led Iraq invasion, the Bush Administration backpedalled from the speech and the phrase. Dan Bartlett, Dubya’s communications director, said it was the ship’s banner. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that he edited the speech and removed references to “Mission Accomplished”. Bush later stated in several different interviews that “Mission Accomplished” was a mistake.

History tells that the mission wasn’t accomplished as far as that disastrous war goes.

At the time of the president’s speech, Americans had yet to pay the main costs of the Iraq War. The years immediately following “Mission Accomplished” were the deadliest in the conflict, which has left 4,500 U.S. troops killed and over 32,000 wounded. American taxpayers can expect to pay nearly $3 trillion for the Iraq War through 2050 when factoring the costs of veterans’ care, war-related defense spending increases, and additional interest on the national debt.

On a strategic level, President Bush was even more pollyannaish. He declared that, in deposing Saddam, the U.S. had “removed an ally of al-Qaeda” and prevented terrorist networks from “gain[ing] weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime.” These claims reinforced since-disproven narratives that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to begin with, or that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction.

The key results of the invasion were two-fold: it empowered Iran to expand its influence in Iraq and across the Middle East by removing a check, and it aided our great power competitors, Russia and China, by distracting us in counterinsurgency operations for decades, delaying modernization programs, and wearing out our all-volunteer force and its strategic assets — such as the B-1 bomber fleet — from overuse.

In the days since that Bush speech, “Misson Accomplished” has often been employed in a mocking fashion. As in, “If you were trying to prove yourself ignorant, mission accomplished.”

As the Bush Admininistration did with the war in Iraq, Trump is using misinformation to convince us this is a great idea. Trump’s tariffs have introduced huge uncertainty. His thinking defies the lessons of history and economic theory. Trump will have you believe that the experts’ opinions that he’s wrong proves that he’s right.

I have doubts. Trump has always claimed to be the greatest. Evidence proves him otherwise. He says he’s a great negotiator. Evidence shows otherwise. He claims to be a brillant businessman. Multiple bankruptcies and failed businesses undermine that claim. Trump has instead proven that he’s an inveterate con man, master of spin, and consummate liar.

I believe that “Liberation Day” will join “Mission Accomplished” as a new mocking label in history. As it happened with “Mission Accomplished”, we’ll see in a few years what “Liberation Day” means to the United States and world.

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Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

41 days into the Trusk Regime, and Trump floats the idea of militarily taking over Greenland. As in, invading them. You know, as Russia did with Ukraine and several others.

Welcome to the New Dark Ages

A bullshit right-wing site claims that Greenlanders ‘want’ to be part of the United States. An actual poll, with supporting information, reports that 85% of polled Greenlanders have no interest in it.

And what of the United States and its people? Do they want to attack nation, as the United States did back at the turn of the century? Have they already forgotten Dubya’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Most U.S. voters probably have. Because, you know, it’s hard. Hard to keep up with the Superbowl, the NBA playoffs, March Madness, the Oscars, and the stock market, along with political news, you know, when you’re sick, worried about bird flu, RSV, COVID-19, measles, and a ration of misinformation and garbage spewing from the government. Especially when money is tight and newspaper owners slant the news to kowtow to the Trusk Regime.

Not surprisingly, because this is Donald Trump, MAGA, and the GOTP discussing the idea, some Americans support the idea.

Half in US say Greenland takeover a bad idea: Survey

More than half of U.S. voters in a new survey don’t support the U.S. taking over Greenland, a prospect President-elect Trump has entertained publicly in recent weeks.

In the Suffolk University/USA Today survey, 53 percent of likely voters say they oppose the idea — including 86 percent of self-described liberals, 61 percent of moderates and 25 percent of conservatives.

Of course, I’m pretty much a fool, discussing polls and voters under the Trusk Regime. As if polls and voters matter. As if the law has a place in it. Only thing that matters in the Trusk States of America is what Trusk wants. Donald J. is the figurehead, and the GOTP answers to his whims.

Just a pause, you know, a sidebar to the activity, invading Greenland would probably take a chunk of money. Moving troops in there, etc. You know, like we’re doing along the southern U.S. border, where we now have 9,000 military members stationed there. Maybe it’s just me, but you’d think that while the Trusk Regime and the Grand Ol’ Trump Party are working to cut money to reduce the deficit, you know, probably by cutting Medicaid, they would be leery of spending money on a new military boondoogle.

But that’s probably just me. Truth is, if Donald J. wants to go after Greenland, the GOTP will quickly feed the propaganda machine about what a great idea it is and indulge him. Meanwhile, a third of the nation probably will be oblivious to it happening.

It’s the American Way in the New Dark Ages under the Trusk Regime. Because, In DOGE They Trust.

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Thirtsda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

My wife and I remain surprised by how many friends and families are acting as though events under PINO Trusk is business as usual and no big deal. Pretty astonishing to me and downright demoralizing to the household’s female ruler. While one friend scowls and proclaims there won’t be 2026 elections — or they’ll be a sham — many others speculate that life will go on as usual; we just won’t have a useful Federal government.

Head-shaking to us, it’s head-in-the-ground thinking IMO. “Let’s just not pay attention and and pretend nothing is going to change and we’ll be fine.” These are self-professed Democratic lifers and progressives, retired professionals such as doctors, accountants, teachers, college professors, and nurses. I wonder, are my wife and I too deep into Doom Scrolling to make objective and intelligent assessments of WTF is going on? I don’t think so.

  • Hard to plan things now as His Idiocy is perfecting the skill of being unpredictable. PINO Trusk is quite the dancer, two-stepping around truth, logic, and consistency. Gotta love that shit show he put on the other night. Pulled in a juvenile saved from cancer as a prop after cutting funding to NIH and medical research at colleges and universities. No shame in the PINO, not at all.

Now we’re seeing His Slickness reversing the tariffs. No, puttin’ ’em on hold. How’s that make sense? He’s all bold speech about how great tariffs are and then jumps back when he installs them and they have the immediate expected negative impact which anyone with common sense predicted.

“And you listen to some of our stupid people, and some of the very stupid people in Washington, DC, “We don’t want to charge tariffs. That’s not… It’s going to increase inflation.” China paid us hundreds of billions of dollars and we had almost no inflation. This group that came in, they had the highest inflation in the history of our country. We took in billions and billions of dollars from foreign countries in the form of tariffs that I hadn’t even gotten started yet. We’ll be a rich nation again. We’ll be able to do what we want to do. We have to do the tariffs. We have been treated so badly mostly by allies. If you want to know the truth, our allies treat us actually worse than our so-called enemies. But we have been treated so badly on trade and other things on military. We protect them, and then they screw us on trade. We’re not going to let it happen anymore. We’re going to be a tariff nation. It’s not going to be a cost to you. It’s going to be a cost to another country.”

That was Donald J. Trump in Wisconsin last year. Seems like stupid is as stupid does and DJT is cornering the market on stupid.

The Trump administration’s massive federal cuts and swelling feelings of economic uncertainty helped fuel a recession-level spike in layoff plans last month, new data showed Thursday.

US-based employers last month announced plans to slash 172,017 jobs, a 103% increase from a year ago and the highest February total since 2009, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’s latest monthly job cuts report released Thursday.

It’s the 12th highest monthly total in the 32 years Challenger has been tracking job cuts. The 11 others (four came during the Covid-19 pandemic) all occurred when the US was in a recession, Challenger data shows.

The largest share of job cut announcements came in the government sector, where the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency has axed jobs, slashed federal spending and scrapped contracts.

By Challenger’s count, there were 62,242 announced cuts across 17 federal agencies. That’s a 41,311% increase from the 151 cuts announced through February 2024, Challenger noted.

The DOGE effect was not limited to the public sector: Downstream impacts, such as the loss of funding for private nonprofits, led to another 894 cuts, according to the report.

Outside of the government, the next largest cuts were in retail (38,956), technology (14,554) and consumer products (10,625).

I fully expect PINO Trusk and his MAGAzens to proclaim this to be former President Biden’s fault. Cos we know that story well, how PINO Trusk tries to take responsibility when things go well and blames every other biped when it doesn’t.

The firings of over 5,000 probationary employees at the Agriculture Department may have been unlawful, and the workers should be reinstated for at least the next 45 days, a federal civil service board ruled Wednesday.

U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board Chair Cathy Harris issued the order after the Office of Special Counsel alleged that the Agriculture Department had “engaged in prohibited personnel practices” to carry out the mass firings.

The question for me is, seriously, if you’d treated me like crap, firing me in the manner that you did, and then brought me back because it was probably illegal, how would I respond? Sadly, I’d prefer to act like a professional and do a good job because the nation depends on it and I swore that I would. But it would be evilly tempting to be spiteful and sabotage PINO Trusk’s government, basically treating him and his kind as assholes because that’s how they treated me.

Guess it’s a good thing that I’m not part of that workforce.

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Thursda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

We have such classic Trump in action: confusion, lies, misdirection, and trying to blame others. In this case, his administration rolled out an illegal spending freeze. His administration wants to vet the programs the money is supporting to ensure it aligns with his ideology.

Not how it works. He and his administration know this. But in classic vengeful, sulking child fashion, play his way or he takes his ball and goes home and no one plays.

Execution, as it always is with a Trump endeavor, was sloppy and poorly vetted. It lacked details and was so broad, it froze money to hundreds of systems, programs, projects, and communities. All across the nation, the response by civic leaders in towns, states, churches, schools, and offices was, “What’s going on?”

The press reported this. This made Trump sad. Angry. From a NYT story:

During a bill signing at the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Trump cast blame on the media for the confusion. “We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,” he said.

Once again, Trump proposed that you trust him over your lyin’ eyes. Even if his goal was to look at “parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,” that’s not how it’s done. Laws are not ignored. The will of the people are not ignored. Nor is the voice and role of Congress.

Likewise, Trump’s reaction to the air collision between an Army helicopter and a commercial airliner is blamed on others. Trump’s kneejerk reaction was that it was DEI. What? He couldn’t specify how, only that it’s ‘common sense’. Yeah, WTF are you smoking now?

Next, Trump tried blaming his predecessor, President Joe Biden. Never did he admit or accept that his chaotic actions could have contributed to the tragic accident. The fact that he fired 100 FAA officials in the last 11 days? No, surely that had no impact. Nor did the ‘resign’ offer he sent the air traffic controllers. Of course not, right? Just a week before, on January 22, 2025, Trump issued a fact sheet that flat-out lied.

Almost unbelievably, as a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiative, the Biden FAA specifically recruited and hired individuals with “severe intellectual” disabilities, psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis over other individuals who sought to work for the FAA.

Common sense will tell you that such a ‘fact sheet’ probably did wonders for morale at the FAA.

But that’s Trump, lying, lawless, and reckless, self-identifying as a genuis when he’s just a bulllying cheat and con man who never accepts responsibility when things go wrong. Never has, never will.

He proves this every day, in every way.

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Sa’da’s Theme Music

Mood: freezincoffeevated

Ashlandia is sportin’ a frosty crazy frog mornin’. Fog greets our vision in all directions. Frosts offers greetings from the low plants and unpaved ground. Sunshine mingles with fog to inspire bleak graylight. Warmth is an alien suggestion. It’s up to 28 F here, a long way from promises of mostly cloudy sky with sunshine and a high of 50 F. We never crept anywhere near the forecasted claims yesterday as fog declared, “Nope, not leaving.”

I read Paul Krugman’s piece, “Voodoo, MAGA Style”, last night. Krugman covered Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, and his magical thinking about how to change the economy.

Bessent is very much like Trump. Promises are made, details are vague. Dusting off the Wayback Machine, we can revisit Trump’s claim that he’ll build a wall, and that Mexico will pay for it. He’ll replace the ACA. Etc. I recommend you read Krugman’s post about Bessent’s declaration about how the economy will be changed. Because, like Trump’s vaporwords, there are no details, and the promises vanish, often with a defiant stance that goes, “I never said that. That’s a lie. Fake news.” No, I don’t expect Bessent to be different. Maybe, though, he’ll start selling Trump-branded gimmicks to improve the economy. That’s a Trump fave to make money. Natch, Trump will get a cut.

My wife’s exercise routines inspired The Neurons today. She sometimes plays “Head Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK. Now it’s caught on in the morning mental music stream. Those of you familiar with the bouncy 2020 song will understand. To the rest, I warn you: it is catchy. It is a repeat song choice.

Coffee and I had a morning tryst. Hope your day goes in a satisfying way. Here’s the music. And away we go. Cheers

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Brigfloofading

Brigfloofading (floofinition) Animals coordinating together to cause chaos or disrupt activities. Origins: Internet, 2021

In Use: “People forced to work at home often share net tales about brigfloofgading, when their housepets come together in mock combat to distract them from whatever they’re doing.”

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Mistday’s Theme Music

Mood: dhilldown

We bounced into a misty Sunday. It’s 48 F, up from 38 F. Mist dominated the morning. Rain dropped for a while on this November day, then sunshine blasted through. Now it’s like mist from a walk-in freezer is rolling over us. This pattern cycles throughout the day.

It’s the 17th. We’re slinking toward December, the holidays, and the end of 2024.

The shifty weather has the cats floofboozled. Is it warm, is it dry, what’s going on? Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) tested it once. Papi has campaignd for a revolving door. Now both are in, dry, warm, napping.

Foot and ankle recovery was set back. Some bleeding. Lot of swelling. Ice and Salan Pas applied, with lots of rest with an elevated foot. Feeling much better today, but I’ll continue a slow roll of recovery.

With mists swirling through my awareness, The Neurons cranked the mental music box handle. Up popped Led Zeppelin with “Misty Mountain Hop” into the morning mental music stream.

Be positive and hold fast. Coffee was skipped. Here’s the music. Cheers

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