RIP Rosalynn Carter

If there was a First Lady in my lifetime who wasn’t an opportunist asshole, Rosalynn was the first. Time will only tell when it comes to Laura Bush and Michelle Obama. The verdict has been already determined for Nancy “Blow Job Queen of ’47” Reagan, Barbara “the Bitch” Bush, Bilary “Never My Fault” Clinton, Melania “Trophy Wife” Trump and it’s “Dr.” Jill Biden (PhD, not MD). OK, I will give Betty Ford a pass since she did start her drug and booze rehab center which was a good thing.

I recall my mother mocking her as the first co-president because Jimmy confided in her on numerous issues. Not sure why the jerk attitude. Many past leaders have done the same, I think what made the Carters different than most, they were still glad to be married to each other and Jimmy was one of the few without a mistress. Could you see JFK or Eisenhower discussing the Soviet Union issues with their spouses? Sam Giacana’s mistress, yes. Jackie, hell no; or Mamie. Ike probably shared more state secrets with his caddies.

Thanks for everything Rosalynn. You weren’t perfect, which is what made you more likable than many modern-day First Ladies…you shared the average American’s flaws. You didn’t lord your title past and present over us “commoners” as the Republicans and some Dems have. After you and Jimmy left the White House, you were a partner in helping to make a better world by fighting diseases in Africa, not making bank off Wall Street giving speeches and hiding your connections to union busting. The world will truly miss you.

6850

Posted in History | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Vouchers defeated again so another “special” session

Once again, Gov. Shitbag has been told “no” regarding school vouchers thanks to the GOP members from rural areas. Why? Unlike other, small, more densely populated states, West Texas is very spread out in distance and people. The public schools are a cornerstone in their communities; employment, social gatherings and more importantly, to practice the state religion…football, even if it’s the six-on-six version. Some regions are already facing consolidations as people leave for greener pastures, there’s only so much of brown you can live with. They’re also impossible and impractical there. Who the hell is going to open up a private school in the boonies to educate a dozen kids for a measly $10 grand a head? Right.  In the end, the Christo-Fascist Duo behind this dismantling of public education to create more gullible little stormtroopers, destroy the teaching unions and openly practice their racism, don’t care. They have our hateful, cynical governor by the balls.

So like Veruca Salt, Gov. Shitbag is throwing a tantrum, calling the useless legislature back in to force his way when he should realize it’s pointless. He and his flunkies will do all they can to bribe the rural vote, namely holding other education funding hostage. Too late dick! Numerous teachers have already quit and/or moved away to states where intelligence and critical thinking aren’t a liability.

Posted in Austintatious | Tagged , | Leave a comment

No, this isn’t why I choose to go to work

All five of our cats are very sweet and they spend most of my working hours sleeping but in the early afternoon, they get peckish. To illustrate their demands, one of them would leave a really awful smelling steamer on the guest bathroom’s litter box. Not even the robot box can rotate hard enough to kill the stench.

Posted in Cats | Tagged | Leave a comment

Reason why Biden will lose #1

Currently, Blue MAGA is in its traditional panic as it was in 2019, screaming down the Left to stop supporting anyone but the old fart who will soon be eighty fucking one. I remember  when how worried people were when St. Reagan was re-elected at 73.

Their worries are primarily bullshit right now. So much can happen between now and the election. I don’t think it’s necessarily the general public who has the short memory, it’s the Political class, namely the bloviating dickheads on media Boomers cling to and podcasts. I do remember quite well numerous elections that didn’t pan out as predicted.

  • Early 2016: Bilary was a lock once JEB was eliminated. No way the people will elect a bozo who lives on credit and says racist things publicly.
  • 2007: Bilary is a lock for the nomination. The rest of the field is mostly nobodies and inexperienced wannabes.
  • 1999: There’s no way this moronic dumbass Bush the Lesser will be elected. He is so incredibly stupid! Slick Willie has left the boring Gore a great economy!
  • 1991: Bush the Elder is a lock after the Gulf Distraction made him so popular! The Democrats aren’t even going to try next year!
  • 1975: It’s Teddy’s year! We’re going to have a Kennedy again!

Now what happened? Riiiiiight. None of those things. I skipped a few cycles because 1984 was a waste of time bothering and other times, there was an incumbent up against a loser who was the runner up in an earlier cycle. Oh they may have scored points in the debates yet I know in two instances racism decided the winner: Dumb Amerikans hated the idea we’d have our first POTUS since FDR that was fluent in a language other than English, plus he was Greek! The other time it went the right way, Mr. Magic Underpants got caught saying the GOP line on tape, “I will find a way to lay off 47% of America!”

Again, let’s remember. All the discussion about a second term for either shitty grandpa is just to sell advertising. American media isn’t interested disseminating information for it doesn’t make any real money. They need ginned up conflict. They need chicken-little shit to get your eyeballs on their terrible hot takes on shit they have no clue about, aka Nathan Silver who got lucky in 2012. They, especially Faux News, need your blood pressure to hit the roof so Big Pharma can sell you pills. We need to follow the advice sung by Paul Anka despite his right-wing politics from Treehouse of Horror, Just Don’t Look, or Listen. The Corporate Media will hopefully wither and die or better, focus on shit which really matters, our horrible, horrible, incompetent domestic governments from local to Federal.

So why the gloomy cartoon? Oh, I think Biden is going to lose anyway since he’s a clueless old fuck. I’ve hated him since 1988 when he was outed as the serial liar he’s always been. I also have never forgotten how he gave Uncle Thomas a pass to the Supreme Court. Plus he never has stopped lying about how his first wife died in the car accident…she was actually at fault, not the SOBER truck driver. Of course, all you Grampa’ Brunch stormtroopers are yelling, “So you want Trump‽” For a bunch who rant on over how hard you support non-binary people, you remain binary in your voting. I never want a Republican. However, how can I support the Democrats given their Neo-Liberal (really Republican Lite) positions? What we need is a multi-party system as many other true democracies have along with no more “first past the post” elections (translation: the winner must land 51% or more of the votes, not the most so there are runoffs) and no more fucking primaries. Will this cure us? Not completely. It’s a start.

Meanwhile, Grampa’ Brunch will lose and the illustration above states it clearly, he’s tone deaf to all the economic hardships Mills and Zoomers are facing because he thinks these voters have nowhere else to go as he kisses the asses of “undecideds.” Nope. They will just stay home or vote for the Third Parties. I predict this though. Count on the Bilary thugs to blame and bitch about Bernie, Jill Stein, Susan Sarandon and Colonel West through 2028.

Posted in Humor, Pictures | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Even the bridge’s viewscreen needs a pop-up blocker!

Good thing Captain Kirk doesn’t share the Enterprise‘s content with our current shit for brains Speaker of the House. This reminds me how I need to pony up for a quick month of Paramount+ so I can binge watch PicardLower Decks and Strange New Worlds, the last one sadly having yet another shitty all-singing episode. Another thing I can blame on the very overrated Joss Whedon for causing. However, you Buffy dinguses should know, your show didn’t “invent” this, why suffered through a test drive in the Eighties when he was a writer for Rosanne. Bleck!

Posted in Humor, Pictures, TV | Tagged , | Leave a comment

That is one interpretation of “Mambo Number Five”

The hit you couldn’t escape about 24 years ago…was secretly a song about cannibalism!

Posted in Action Figures, Humor, Pictures, Toys | Tagged | Leave a comment

Wrong Answer! November 2023

For many Star Trek diehards, to boldly go is a phrase they’d barely get to use in the bedroom, well, except solo. Now I’m thinking about the cute lady in Vegas who was the Andorian at the Las Vegas Hilton and her lucky boyfriend, or nowadays, partner. Either way, somebody was lucky there!

Posted in Humor, Pictures | Tagged | Leave a comment

Finally deployed/migrated to my new M3!

Greetings from my new M3 MacBook Pro! It arrived mid last week which is pretty sweet given how Apple only announced their existence a fortnight ago (I don’t like to repeat if I can find a similar word). It lives up to all the expectations so far. Well, what made pleased me the most was the computer arriving with Ventura as the OS, not Sonoma. I’m already using the latest for my work machine (an M1) which is A-OK, the relief comes from my primary system was way back on Big Sur (11) with a handful of apps I paid for. The worries over incompatibility escalate with every upgrade.

The good news? Everything I prefer to use…works! Only one thing needed Rosetta 2 and even it doesn’t trigger the fans to crank up as it did on the MacBook Air 2020 (Intel). The Web site for Hero Forge flows when building a mini without a hiccup! Dang. Maybe there is a stronger upside to the merging of iOS and macOS hardware. Please keep all the cool tower options: RAID, more storage and expansion cards! Is the M3 faster? I’ll have to let you know later since I haven’t gotten around to any Logic or Final Cut work with it.

The bad news? Nothing serious. Not having much luck finding armor for this puppy…in a color I like.

Meanwhile, I have two used MacBooks for sale. In very good condition if you’re interested. You know how to reach me.

Posted in Apple, News, Science & Technology, The Site | Tagged | Leave a comment

RIP Roman Cechmanek

When I was really getting into the NHL courtesy of EA’s 2001 game for my newish PS2, Roman was Philly’s hot new goalie and GM Clarke traded Brian Boucher to Phoenix for Robert Esche to assure him. It didn’t matter after a couple seasons, he got the blame like many goalies before him when the blue liners shared responsibility.

But when he was on his game, Cechmanek was fantastic in the net. When he wasn’t he was crap and my biggest complaint was his tendency to confront or “crowd” the shooter too far away from the goal; thus he’d get skated around for the easy empty netter. This irrational move earned him the moniker Roamin’ Cechmanek.

The season before the 2004-05 lockout, the Flyers traded him to the LA Kings and he then returned to his home country to coach until his untimely, sudden death.

Thanks for helping me appreciate and get more into hockey Roman.

Posted in Hockey | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Rent A Pal

This was a really enjoyable Indie from the IFC Horror people since it paints Wil Wheaton as the villain but if you watch it all the way through, you’ll see it’s debatable.

The plot involves David, a 40-year-old man who lives with his mother in the Denver ‘burbs circa the early-to-mid Eighties, during the gold rush of VCRs and tape rentals. To be fair, he isn’t a “loser.” His mother has dementia and dad passed away a decade ago. David gave up most of his happiness because she didn’t want to be put in an assisted-living home.

Caring for his mother is a full-time job yet he has to time to enjoy his own small pleasures, especially when she sleeps: watching his own movies, listening to his father’s Jazz tapes, nursing a glass of whisky and trying to meet women through a video-dating service. Sadly, he’s a pretty difficult match so one day when comes by to pay his subscription fee with the receptionist, he sees this Rent a Pal in the clearance bin. It’s only a few bucks, no women are dying to meet him, he takes a chance.

As soon as David hits play, Andy introduces himself and explains how they’re going to be great friends. Boy do they! They share stories, they drink, they play Go Fish and through a montage, this tape becomes a daily ritual for David. For a very linear technology, you begin to wonder…how long is this videotape? Is Andy a demon? Is David imagining this? Is it all a bit of everything?

Then out of nowhere the video dating people have a candidate who wants to meet David! She’s too good to be true! Her name is Lisa. She’s around his age. She’s about on par with his looks (we all know how movies think people should be matched). Best of all, Lisa works in an assisted-living home! She’s very familiar with David’s situation and has a great level of patience and empathy for people like his mother.

But how will Andy take the news? They did have plans until Lisa entered the picture. Tune in to find out.

Synopsis aside, Rent was fantastic and I put Thriller as a tag with it since there’s a mystery element along with tension when one character steps out of line, causing another to snap. I also loved how it was a pretty clever “retro” movie, recapturing those days I remember when the VCR was the iPhone of its day and you had local stores before Blockbuster.

Posted in Movies, Streaming | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

A little more levity for Caturday!

The last couple days had been pretty heavy, voting, Nazi pushes and nuclear war. I’m going for a little more fun again. Besides, my Stars won and I enjoyed the comedy of Jackie and her friend Laurie! Jennifer said this joke is pretty old. I still would like one for the house as they’re all shady when it comes to wet food.

Posted in Humor, Pictures | Tagged | Leave a comment

Codename: Outhouse

Hearing Zap Brannigan’s voice yelling “Gooo! Me!” from the parody GI Zap is even funnier in this context. I know, the jokes are too easy. A GI Joe action figure with a plunger and a really awful stench. In reality, it’s pure nonsense since we all know the US armed forces use overpriced contractors to do the “mundane” tasks a military should do for itself.

Posted in Humor, Pictures, TV | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

1923: The Nazi Beer Hall Putsch

The world never learns…is what I am concluding because on this day a century ago, Hitler and 2000 of his Nazi goons tried to overthrow Munich’s government. They reasoned if this succeeded, then a popular uprising against the Weimar Republic in Berlin would begin and they’d lead it. Thankfully the cops did their job unlike the ones in Amerika. Only 16 assholes were killed (a pity), four cops and a bystander. Hitler, being the coward he always was, fled from the scene yet they caught him a couple days later.

Unlike the January 6th debacle, the Germany government tried Hitler and his gangsters in early 1924. Then the disaster that would end in millions of deaths worldwide was put into motion.

  • A sympathetic judge was put in charge of the trial (see later).
  • Until the putsch, the Nazis weren’t well known outside and inside Germany. The failure became a PR success, especially with the martyr crap for the dumb 16.
  • Hitler did speak on the stand but cleverly omitted his hatred for Jews and other extreme views. He put on an act about his concern “for the people.”

He was sentenced to serve five years in what we Americans would call a minimum security prison, maybe a half-way house. Hell, given how ridiculously lenient it was, I think he got sent to a resort. It was a huge mistake too. No forced labor. Comfortable cells. Almost no restrictions on visitors. On the latter, without this, please tell me how exactly was Hitler being punished? Tricky Dick’s people got worse and many feel their sentences were a joke!

Most of us know the aftermath from Hitler’s incarceration. He used this time to co-write the Nazi screed Mein Kampf. He usually gets the sole credit but Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess contributed.

Then came the insult to injury. Hitler was released after only serving eight to nine months because he was “well behaved.” Prison officials disagreed as some said they wished deaf guards watched him due to his evil oratory skills. My History TA in college said, even if you don’t speak German, Hitler could get many fired up. I’m not sure. I think Bugs Bunny and the Three Stooges inoculated me enough to see him as rather cartoonish, not a person I’d follow.

Sadly, Hitler learned his lesson to play it cool in order to trick the mainstream Germans, or what I call the “undecided” or “independent” voters in Amerika. To me, they’re voters who just don’t want to say they’re selfish, racist Republicans out loud. They love to change the subject to the economy or how it’s too expensive to prevent the Mad Max world we’re headed for in polite conversation; still gives away their racism.

My point though is how all the players in Amerikan politics are repeating the same soap opera from 90-100 years ago via Weimar Republic 2. Girth Vader is using the exact words spouted by Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and their ilk. “Only I can fix this.” “I’m going to get even with my enemies!” so on. Throw in dipshit Neo-Liberal Democrats who contributed to creating this monster: the Clintons, Pelosi, Obama, Biden, Schumer, etc. following the losers’ playbook by dismissing the threat and spending more energy on their true enemies! Sen. Sanders! The Squad! The Professional Left! Those pesky kids who confronted and demanded action on Climate Change from Diane Feinstein while she was on her way to cash another check from the defense industry!

Oh, they think about the danger a little by ordering us to vote for them no matter what or democracy will die.* By the way, please forget our 50 years of inaction on abortion and donate five or ten bucks to kick another issue down the road until the Far Right settles it in their favor!

*-With Trump, it will die faster than our plan by a thousand paper cuts!

Maybe I should start believing in ghosts because it may take the millions of Hitler’s victims to haunt the Democrats to grow spines and balls bigger than their greed organs. Oh wait, if thought ghosts were real, then I’d also buy into Biden and Pelosi’s myth about reasonable Republicans are needed to save the GOP.

What’s the lesson about the Putsch? It was Germany’s January 6th. A dress rehearsal for the worst is yet to come since Orange Foolius has “sleepers” within the military, the cops and numerous state-level governments. Don’t hold your breath about the rule of law crap neither. If we don’t take the gloves off now to stomp out this problem, I fear the Pentagon will and we’ll be a giant Myanmar.

Posted in History | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The mixed outcome of Texas politics

No major offices up for grabs in Texas, just the usual bamboozling of the public via props since the legislature doesn’t want their fingerprints on such regressive moves. For a bunch of assholes who point the finger at California on how not to govern, they use the same bait and switch technique. I swear this state’s pathetic constitution is modified more often than Madonna’s acne-scarred mug via plastic surgery. Good thing the Mythical Founders didn’t have access to Liquid Paper®.

In short, across Texas, the majorities lazily voted “yes” on 13 out of 14. The “no” was one I completely agreed upon despite my local Dem Party HQ endorsing “yes” on, Prop 13 which raised the retirement age for state judges to 79. I voted a hearty “FUCK NO!” since I think the current 75 is too high. I’m confident the Political Class will remain tone deaf as this is the first shot across the bow on purging our gerontocracy. I didn’t buy the argument about the loss of expertise and the judge shortage. It’s not hard to get new assholes to be judges, we don’t have a shortage of lawyers in Amerika obviously. It’s time to push the Boomers to their long, overdue retirement and leave the world of the living to those who have to face the consequences of Boomer mismanagement at every level.

Prop 3 was just more Republican/Dixiecrat nonsense to claim this will prevent an income tax by saying Texas won’t implement a net-worth tax like France does. Two very different things plus net-worth would be defeated in court. Even I find such a thing dumb and it will only amplify off-shoring. Again, ask the French how it’s going?

Prop 7 was another moron Hank Hill pitch. Despite how damned hot it was this Summer, we’re stuck giving welfare to the oil and gas industry to fix our decrepit grid when these are resources we should replace with renewables.

Prop 12 made no sense. Why does everyone in Texas need to decide whether or not the city of Galveston has a treasurer? I think it was part of the GOP junta’s skullduggery to punish the brown people over there since they knew the residents wouldn’t do their bidding.

As for Ohio, nice move. I guess there were enough of the dwindling city people to counter the rest in what’s really Northern Kentucky. Now get rid of Peter Thiel’s bitch JD Vance. I did Virginia a shock too. Holding the state senate, nice. Turning over the house? OK, there was a miracle. I suspect relocated Yankees such as my friends Paul and Helen were a big factor. I’m still sad Maryland continues to price out their middle class, it’s what I fear is in the cards for Austin.

Now we can hold our noses and cover our hears as Amerika goes full throttle on 2024, the second battle between two old fucks nobody wants.

Posted in Austintatious | Tagged | Leave a comment

1983: Operation Able Archer 83 almost ended the world

Seriously, 40 years ago, the world almost ended in a fiery nuclear holocaust. If you want to know even more in great, great depth, I highly recommend the podcast Snafu hosted by Ed Helms. I’ll just give a synopsis.

Thanks to St. Reagan’s saber rattling: calling the Soviet Union the evil empire (never mind our foreign policy) and promoting the Strategic Defense Initiative, aka Star Wars since the Pentagon loves bullshit jargon; the relatively new Soviet leader Andropov was worried of an American first strike.

Full disclosure. Even now, I still fear dying in a nuclear war but throughout my teens, I had numerous, difficult nights falling asleep because I didn’t want to get in a quick “shit!” and then be vaporized. St. Reagan was crazy enough to do it; he was getting advice from Nancy’s astrologer on a non-secure phone line to the White House! So I was all in favor of anything capable of preventing Soviet missiles from hitting us despite the asshole in the White House. Today, I know the Math, Physics and computing power to make this even a remote possibility is a fantasy.

Moving along…

Andropov figured a first strike was in the cards. If the US had a shield to prevent a Soviet counterstrike, why wouldn’t St. Reagan try? Throw in another threat we’ve forgotten; West Germany hosting a series of Pershing missiles capable of nuking major Soviet installations and cities within 10 minutes instead of the 22-28 minutes ICBMs and submarines take. This is also why politicians across the spectrum piss me off, they never do nor say anything to our enemies to allay their worries, which also happen to be mine. A Maggi presidency would’ve said, “As we deploy our missile shield, we will also be reducing our nuclear stock pile since our need for a counterstrike will decline. I also want to reassure the Soviets, one thing the US will never ever do under my tenure is execute a first strike…ever! We may not agree on numerous matters but I’m confident we all want to die in our sleep and leave a better world for our descendants.”

It wasn’t meant to be. Throw in the Soviets killing all aboard the Korean airliner and the US invasion of Grenada earlier in the year, tension was high.

Let’s return to Yuri Andropov. Before he was the boss of the USSR, he was the KGB’s boss. Paranoia was in his DNA. As soon as Brezhnev was dead, he had all intelligence agencies in Warsaw Pact watching for American war preparations. The clues he and his inner circle were focused on were ludicrous, again go to the podcast to find out. All the sleeper agents within the US said nothing was happening, American leadership was more focused on the economy. East German intelligence, who was physically closest to NATO bases agreed, no signs nor interest in war. Andropov refused to believe, he figured, “That’s what they want us to think!”

Then NATO forces nearly granted Andropov his morbid wish via the annual Fall exercise named Able Archer 83. He didn’t think it was a drill when certain American units (namely paratroopers) “disappeared” and misinterpreted the allied (practice) communications as the real thing. Once more, Western-based spies and East Germany pleaded to their Soviet bosses to chill the hell out. NATO couldn’t be deploying a first strike; Western media and cities are not even discussing it nor are they prepared for it. Democracies are 99% likely to warn their citizens what’s about to go down.

Andropov didn’t believe anyone so he gave the ordered for Soviet bombers to start packing their nukes and get airborne. We can thank an American Air Force general in nearby West Germany and his staff noticing the unusual Warsaw Pact activity. They considered doing the same to show their readiness since they interpreted the Soviet action to be posturing. But the general wisely chose to wait for them to take their next action…nothing. Within an hour, the enemy bombers withdrew to their home bases. Little did the general know how closely he avoided WWIII until much later, I think when he retired, catch the podcast!

The Corporate Media, the general public, Congress, etc. were never told for years. Oh the CIA, NSA, etc. whipped together a white paper attempting to remove the cause for concern on how The End nearly came.

In 13 days, the first signs of Operation Able Archer 83 scaring the living crap out of those who were in the know, namely St. Reagan’s Cabinet…tried to re-assure America, hey, don’t sweat it. Good thing they sent someone with a terrible poker face. See ya’ in 13.

Posted in History | Tagged , , | Leave a comment