Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Jill Dennison has done it again. She’s collected some memes that definitely need to be shared with more folks. Some made me swear, some made me cry, and some were rewarded with heavy sighs. Sometimes, I did all of that at once. Here a few to whet your interest. They show, with these simple words and images, how far we’ve been twisted by Trump’s alternate reality in the United States. Head to Jill’s site to read ’em all. Cheers
The headline about Trump pitching an alternate reality irritated me. This is nothing new. Trump has always pitched an alternate reality as a politician. He pushed and supported the idea that President Barack Obama was not a United States citizen. He damned the 2020 election that he lost as stolen. That alternate reality caught on with his MAGAfans and lured more of them in. Facts and court cases consistently reveal this as an alternate reality. Many of his supporters still live in that alternate reality. Trump went after “Sleepy Joe Biden”, disparaging him as too old and uninvolved, selling the alternate reality via hysteria about inflation that President Biden’s presidency was a disaster. He sold the alternate reality that he would “fix it on day one”, and now claims that’s what he’s done.
Trump continually bellows about what a terrible deal the ACA is for Americans, selling the alternate reality that he would have a big, beautiful replacement. He used to talk about that coming out in two weeks. Then he swung to an alternate reality that he had the concept of a plan. Now that he and the GOP control both houses, Trump doesn’t mention replacing ACA much. It played its part in his alternate reality that he had something better.
If you can cast your mind back to earlier this year, Trump and the GOP eagerly spread the alternate reality that not passing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would cause economic disaster, would not change Medicaid, would not cut SNAP, and wouldn’t add to the national deficit. As the truth about the OBBBA has emerged, enraging voters, elected GOPers are hiding from their constituents, refusing to hold live townhall meetings because of OBBBA blowback.
In Trump’s alternate reality, companies or other nations pay tariffs and they won’t raise prices, because in his alternate reality, companies aren’t profit driven, and other nations were always ripping off the United States. Even in the deals he made, Trump claims in his alternate reality that they were terrible deals and the other nations were taking advantage of the United States.
United States citizens are catching on. Republicans Say Country Not Heading in the Right Direction.
“More than half of Republicans now say the country is heading in the wrong direction, a new AP-NORC poll shows. The new survey conducted between Sept. 11 and Sept. 15 found that 51 percent of Republican voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction, up from 26 percent in March. What’s more, less than half of Republicans (49 percent) now say the country is heading in the right direction, down from 70 percent in June. Republican women and individuals under 45 are more likely to say that America is not on the right track.“
And it’s spreading.
The greater problem now is that corporations are deciding that they’d rather support Trump’s alternate reality than risk upsetting him, because upsetting Trump could jeopardize their business plans and money-making intentions.
And, while the Roberts Court seems to be taken in by Trump’s alternate realities, many other judges and courts are still rejecting them.
I hope all of us could hold out long enough against this onslaught of unnatural realities and get rid of this plague on the world, aka, Donald J. Trump.
Otherwise, it can become very surreal.
Muted sunshine and faded skies greet Ashlandia. New chills float through. It’s Fridaz, September 9, 2025. 68 F, rain’s short shadow hovers the mountains. 86 F will be the high but a sense that it’ll be a cool 86 pervades.
Speaking personally, slumber and I were good friends last night. Residual abdominal pain haunts me. My gallbladder matter tracks in a worsening trend. Each cough and flex ushers in uncomfortable spasms. My gut makes noise like a pen full of feeding hogs. I look forward to my surgery in November. Until then, like others, all I can do is endure and work around the issues.
Political news casts no happy sunshine. Trump and his conservative army of dunces remain bent on Making America Poor and Stupid. Oh, the top 1% will be the richest in the world. On paper, we’ll compare pretty good. Into the trenches of life, most will live the lives of Les Miserables. Hate and stupidity is an ugly brew but it addicts many.
Reading on of Peter Sage’s post this week left me with more dispirited headshaking. Peter writes about politics, often addressing it from the southern Oregon point of view. Peter writes,
“Pence, along with Reagan, both Bush presidents, Dole, McCain, and Romney, are the old establishment, the America that isn’t great, the one that paid unnecessary respect to the wrong people. The old GOP leaders accepted laws and norms. That defined “conservatism.” Trump is different. Trump is a rebel. He smashes those laws and norms because they were tacitly part of the oppression. The old order didn’t protect and reward normal White guys and their wives, good Christians.
“Trump is stomping on the symbols and policies of the old order. Stop wind and solar projects. Erase monuments to civil rights. Fire Black leaders in government, the military, and the universities. Cancel medical research grants. Question vaccinations. Stop the slow-motion, checks-and-balances process-dominated government. The establishment respected the wrong people: foreigners and immigrants. It respected diversity, and “diversity” is just part of the groupthink that benefits everyone except people like my correspondent.”
Many of us understand that Trump has used people like Peter Sage’s correspondent as political pawns. They think he’s going to make life better for them. He won’t. We will instead all be interred in a dark existence of poverty and illness. All those regulations which kept the essentials safe for the Joe and Karen average citizen will be swept away in the name of trade and commerce. This will benefit the wealthiest, but not the commoners. And with Trump’s direction, the commoners will be largest, fastest growing segment.
Today’s music is by Hall & Oates. My wife and I went to have our eyes checked. We did this at Costco. Not wanting to be late, my wife guided us there twenty minutes early. Shopping was done in six minutes, leaving time to waste. We did this by drifting through the book, snack, and clothing regions. Quickly bored, I drifted, and when I turned back to my wife, she was gone. That prompted The Neurons to reboot the 1973 Hall & Oates ballad, “She’s Gone”. A short while later, I heard her call out, “Cah, cah.” That’s how we get one another’s attention. So she wasn’t gone. But The Neurons were so amused by this whole turn that they’ve kept the song going in my morning mental music stream.
Time to get up and get out. Hope peace and grace finds you and keeps you standing.
Trump keeps trying to dodge the truth. The UK won’t let them.
Channel 4 is welcoming Donald Trump to the U.K. with a special program: an unbroken catalogue of over 100 falsehoods, distortions and inaccuracies he’s come up with since taking office in January.
The U.S. President will come to London for a second state visit this month, and the British channel has vowed to put a spotlight on his “prolific oeuvre of untruths.”
On Sep. 17 from 10 a.m. local time, Channel 4 will broadcast Trump v the Truth, the longest uninterrupted reel of untruths running over several hours. The statements will be punctuated by “brief text-based fact-checks, offering viewers the truth behind the tweets, speeches and soundbites.”
Of course, watching this would require me to watch and hear him. That’d be like the tenth circle of hell, TACO’s own circle, combining the worse elements of the circles of fraud, greed, treachery, lust, gluttony, and anger.
But I admire Channel 4. Go, Brits, go!
We begin September’s back-end slide today. It’s Twozda, September 16, 2025. Summer is ratcheting up efforts to stem autumn’s influence by hurling blue skies and sunshine at Ashlandia. 72 F now, 92 plus is expected.
Today’s headlines are familiar fodder. Trump continues to protest about how innocent right wingers are while railing against everyone else. He dismisses all others as left-wing radicals, etc. Meanwhile, he makes it all worse with perpetual lies. The one blowing us out of the water this week is his claim that drugs killed over 300,000,000, almost the entire U.S. population. Quite the whopper! He deployed that lie to defend his decision to murder more people at sea under the guise of defending the U.S., all without offering evidence or using any due process. He’s in an ‘half with their head’ mode, which doesn’t do much for We the People in places like Memphis, where he’s sending more national guard troops. “Hurrah,” MAGALand and the GOP cry, gleefully clapping. “Trump is destroying democracy, usurping the law, wrecking the education system, turning us into a theocracy expressing against our founders’ warnings, and destroying our economy and personal freedoms! Good for us!”
Trump is also suing the NYTimes for defamation for $15 billion dollars, an amount announced with an evil smirk. Trump loves suing others, especially the press when they spill the coffee about his past and the many unsavory things he’s done. Trump thinks himself a golden boy, and then worries about what the Epstein file says about him and tries to write it off as a hoax.
Trump is also interested in doing away with quarterly earnings reports. “Did you ever hear the statement that, ‘China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis??? Not good!!!’” Trump said.
We don’t ‘run’ companies on a quarterly basis in the U.S.; results are reported in a quarterly and annual format. I especially like the 50 to 100 year view comment. Let’s see, 100 years ago, 1925. They were probably planning for computers to emerge and the digital age, weren’t they? Planning for cars to take over the landscapes, planning to find and start mining the rare elements now used.
Or, if they were really smart, they were studying the data and trends to counter climate change, right? Looking down the barrel toward needed changes, they were focusing on more sustainable energy and ways to reduce pollution, because pollution has been found to make people sick and drive up costs while reducing productivity.
We know the truth behind Trump’s proposal. Facts and figures aren’t his friends. He likes making things up, like his weight, or how many people died from drugs, or how he’s reduced inflation by ten gazillion percent. He’d preferred that metrics which could reveal economic struggles get buried and never mentioned. Look how he fired the messenger when the BLS numbers showed a worsening labor market. Witness how he’s gutted the government to do less reporting and did away with Inspector General units and watchdogs. Note how he has scammed again and again on taxes and loan applications. No, truth is not his friend, and nor are hard numbers and facts.
We’re also heading toward a government shutdown. I’m in favor of Democrats not supporting any resolution to keep the government functioning without some heavy safeguards about appropriations and spending. It’s a reluctant position, but. Trump has shown that once the budget is set, he’ll do what he wants, usually to the detriment of We the People. This divisive man has also said he doesn’t care what Democrats want, Democrats who represent over half the nation’s population. But that is soooo Trumpy. He has repeatedly defecated on all things Constitutional and the laws and government norms and traditions. He’s ignoring courts and kicking aside the checks and balance system that worked for several hundred years. He can’t be trusted. So why would you work with someone who can’t be trusted, someone who only cares about himself? They’d be a fool to do so. And yes, shutting down the government will cause huge shockwaves. Maybe such shockwaves are needed to wake people up.
I awoke with Marcy’s Playground performing “Sex and Candy” in my morning mental music stream. The song related to a lengthy dream and fits right in. The song has a lazy dream quality for me about falling into a mental labyrinth of aimless, drifting speculation, and then suddenly coming out of that to the setting around you. “And there she was.”
Coffee has delivered its caffeine to my receptors. Hope peace and grace find you and carries your through the rest of the year. Cheers
Oblivious to facts —
Well, that’s the beginning of a description for many 21st century Republicans in the MAGA age. Oblivious to facts, tone deaf, weak willed, spineless, and unfaithful to their Constitutional duty. But today’s focus sharpens on Marjorie Taylor Greene. As she has before, Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling for a ‘national divorce’. Take it, Marjorie:
“There is nothing left to talk about with the left. They hate us,” Greene wrote on X, adding:
They assassinated our nice guy who actually talked to them peacefully debating ideas.
Then millions on the left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead.
To be honest, I want a peaceful national divorce.
Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us.
h/t to Mediate via MSN.
Who is the ‘nice guy’ ‘they’ assassinated? That would be Charlie Kirk. The ‘they’ who assassinated it turned out to be one of MTG’s own tribe. Maybe she should break up with that part of the tribe. I do think that would be difficult; hate and stupidity forge strong bonds for the weak-willed and shallow-minded.
I call her and them weak-willed and shallow-minded for how ‘they’ turned from disparaging Trump to idolizing him. I call her and them that for what they say about immigrants, and how they pretend to be good Bible-toting Christians whenever it serves them while mainly and primarily disregarding the Bible and its tenets. I say that about her specifically because she took an oath to defend the Constitution. Advocating a ‘national split’ is scarcely defending the Constitution. But as she attempts to pretend, her religion is more important than her oath of office. But as we see, too, her claims about being religious is really just cover for her hatemongering of the left.
My opinion of Marjorie Taylor Greene has been low since I’ve first read about her. She’s silly. Shallow, a true broken window thinker. As others will do more deeply and intelligently, I want to point out that a ‘divorce’ among blue and red states is bigly problematic. Red states are basically poor, uneducated, and not among the healthiest of citizens. They need Federal funds more frequently and deeply than blue states do. They often turn out to be hateful and bigoted, too. Under red leadership, red states and cities are often the most violent.
MTG goes on in her post to say, “Government is not answer, God is. Turn your full faith and trust to our Almighty God and our Savior Jesus. Tighten your circle around your family and protect them at all times.”
Well, gosh, Marjorie. What ’bout that Bible verse that says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Even an atheist like me has learned that one.
What about that one in the Bible that says, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot[a] love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
I do not hate Marjorie Taylor Greene. I pity her. More, I pity her constituents. They deserve better than this self-serving individual. But, I guess they got what they voted for. She finishes, “I will pray for the left, but personally I want nothing to do with them.”
Back at you, MTG. I hope your supporters come to their senses and vote you out. Even if they do, I’m sure you’ll find a home on some right-wing media site where you’ll keep spewing misinformation and hatred until you wither and fade.
Munda, September 15, 2025, has settled in against a backdrop of clear blue skies and warm sunshine. Summer is hanging on, taking us from overnight lows in the lower fifties to an 85 F high. All things end, though, and summer’s last days are coming on in the northern hemes.
I spoke to Dad this morning. He’s still in the rehab center. His voice was not strong. This latest ordeal really seemed to suck his life energy out of him. But…it might also be that he had just gotten out of a very hot shower and said he was sleepy. On a more positive side, my wife seems over her illness. She ate yesterday, picked up a book and read, and went to exercise class this morning.
Had a storm of dreams again last night. Went from being in the military trying to get a haircut to being in charge of a process with IBM and ISS, the Internet security companies where I worked, to recover and shut down security equipment. The latter was a messy, disorganized affair, and no one had done anything, so I was taking it on. Out of the blue toward the end, three young women, teenagers, really, appeared to help me with the computers. They weren’t much assistance at first, as they lacked knowledge but they were eager and energetic. With their help, I began wrangling the mess into something bearing some coherency.
Back to some rock ‘n roll for Munda. I was singing “Honky Tonk Kitty” to Papi this morning after he chirped appreciation for the food being delivered to him. Naturally, my song inspired The Neurons to fire up memory of the Rolling Stones tune in the morning mental music stream, as it’s quite similar to what I was singing.
Today’s project is about getting tree branches cut back from the neighboring apartment complex. I’d do it but realized that some of the branches are higher than my reach, even if I’m standing on a pile of books on top of a ladder where they tell you not to stand because it’s unsafe. I’ve reached out to the apartment complex to start a dialogue about my needs and intentions. They were out of office, so I left a message. Next steps would be to talk with them and then get estimates and get ‘er done.
Hope peace and grace find and lift you up today and every day. Coffee is doing some heavy lifting in me today. Time to bounce on into the day. Cheers
Some insights from the net on the Kirk assassination and right-wing hypocrisy.
Michael Seidel, writer 