July 10, 2023

Texas gets $60M for the grid from the Infrastructure law. Not a peep of thanks from Texas wingnuts.

Over the years there have been news items about how Blue States pay while Red States reap tons in ("welfare"? ) while the Red States brag about how 'murrican Self-Reliant they are. Anybody have those numbers?

So we all remember how ABBUTT's grid in Texas went bust and Carnival CRUZ became Cancun CRUZ, and yet the Texas wingnuts bragged about how their grid is SEPARATE from the rest of the country, how they are the very model of Rugged Individualism and don't want to be hooked up to the national grid because that would be Woke Wussiness and Welfare Queenie and they don't need anything from anybody, and how all the Texas low income, Medicaid deprived people there will continue to get the customary negligible help from Texas, on a par with the bottom states of Alabama and Mississippi.

So lookee here, around June 29 the news somehow escaped notice that because of BIDEN's Infrastructure law, Texas will get $60M for improving the Texas grid. Not only was there no encouraging "thank you" heard from Texas wingnuts, but the news somehow escaped all notice at all. Oh, and the old news was that Texas had a $32.7 BILLION surplus in time for this year's legislature budgeteering. But somehow Texas Rugged Individualism brooks no leeway in not providing for the common good.

Oh, and look, the $60M federal funds will be at the disposal and delegation of State officials, which in Texas means all-Wingnuts - what could possibly go wrong?!

*********QUOTE******

.... The U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday that it will award the funds so that Texas’ power grid might better withstand extreme weather events. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law created the grant program. ....

State emergency officials will develop parameters for how to use the money. The funds could go toward programs such as trimming trees around power lines or improving how equipment functions in extreme heat or cold, for example.

The (Texas Division of Energy Management) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Grid resilience has been top of mind for Texans since the 2021 winter storm forced power grid operators to call for electricity cuts to millions in the state. Hundreds of people died as the freezing weather took hold and residents could no longer heat their homes. ....

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/13/texas-budget-surplus/#:~:text=Texas'%20%2432.7%20billion%20surplus%20is,the%20budgets%20of%2024%20states.


Texas’ surplus is bigger than the entire budget of many other states.
Texas’ $32.7 billion surplus is about the size of the budget of South Carolina. It’s larger than the budgets of 24 states. ....

********UNQUOTE****

July 5, 2023

When he started his (unscripted?) "Club Random" where he corrals guests & monopolizes them

I've been giving it a chance, same as with the KARDASHIANs and Celebrity Apprentice for a couple of seasons, because I want to know what people are talking about and to have my own take on things.

For his regular show I've gone against the headwind here of calling him a sell-out and favoring wingnuts and his criticizing Libs because we Libs are known for looking inward to identify strategy flaws and correct them. Besides in his defense because, despite hosting wingnuts, he usually stands them down.

*** With the (unscripted?) "Random," he has come across as *STALE* - harping on how he got cancelled for Politically Incorrect for saying the terrorists were courageous, and irritating about how he defines "freedom" as able to refuse the vaccinations and masks, but more stale and fuddy duddy about how he says Libs are unthinking and just kneejerk in "obedience" (wearing masks OUTSIDE). Repeat/repeat/repeat how he loves Johnny CARSON, who was the BEST, and how things used to be great - sounding very much like MAGA.

Instead of being his erstwhile semblance of "cutting edge," he sounds like "get off of my yard."

*** But I saw a YouTube of him with ROGAN, and he seemed to be IN LOVE, intimidated by ROGAN's physicality and submitting to ROGAN's dominance in being "open" to wingnuts, "free speech" doncherknow.

Over the years his claim to fame has been how Libertarian he is to (Free Love?) regarding women of whatever ideology and race, yet I saw him being VERY uncomfortable with Leslie JONES, who guested as very OPEN and EQUAL with him, not kissing up to him, and he was very uncomfortable with her.

Then he demands that the guests smoke pot and drink. Some don't do it and he acts shocked. And with the ones he kisses up to, like he did on ROGAN's show, he gets all giddy and tells them he wants them to go for a Vegas weekend with him. The other one who stood up to him was Kris JENNER, who is nothing if not experienced at dealing with immature underlings. She didn't do the pot/alcohol thing, talked like an adult to him like Leslie JONES, and let his Vegas overture just die in the air.

July 3, 2023

My LST in Vietnam (1967-68) was built in '45 too late for WWII but in rusted use 20 yrs later.

It also was in Korea before that.

LST = Landing Ship Tank, colloquially a.k.a., "large slow target," (top?) speed 10 knots. About the length of a football field, an empty/hollow tube below like a warehouse, meant for carrying tanks, bulldozers, troops. Flat bottomed, able to enter rivers. The flat bottom meant it didn't "cut" through waves, would BOUNCE off a wave, the hull lifting into the air and vibrating like a tuning fork, and then SLAMMING down onto the surface until hitting the next big wave. Known to break in half, from being a long empty/hollow "tube." They would be (purposely) crashed into the shore ("beached" ), with the "bow doors" then being opened and a ramp being lowered to unload the bulldozers, troops, cargo supplies (via forklifts and pallets).

So after my first 7 months on board up and down a gigantic river carrying supplies from Saigon to an Army base at Can Tho, we were given 3 weeks of R&R in the Philippines (with a stop in Hong Kong). On the way back we went through a terrific/horrific storm for a couple of days. USN says things have to keep going on, so we had to keep our regular shifts while bouncing along skeered shitless, with the ladders ("stairs" ) being straight up and down and climbing up meant being paralyzed by the pull of gravity until a leg at a time got freed up.

When it was over, came gorgeous weather, sun, and calm. The "captain" (actually a Lieutenant for a small ship, 250 crew) exhibited one of the two times, during my year, of noblesse oblige by granting us "Holiday Routine" (no work except for basic maintenance), and the crew spread out to sunbathe on the deck and the Captain sent down from Officers' (secret) stockpile of ice cold oranges. Somebody had a cassette playing and as we lounged along, we were in dreamland to the strains of The Doors' "The Crystal Ship."

********QUOTE*******

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1990/april/lst-large-slow-target

....

*****UNQUOTE*******

July 1, 2023

"Catholic" /Mexican Drumpf-ite, homophobe wannabe president of Mexico, VERASTEGUI

First name, Eduardo. Surname's pronounced: ver-ASS-te-ghee.

First, let's see his mug:

Beefcake versions readily available, also with all popes and wingnut leaders of several countries (maybe he's just a climber? ) .

Out of central casting, as Drumpf says, and somehow "worked" in the Drumpf mob outfit White House, supposedly as a bridge to Hispanics.

In his yoot, allegedly in his barrio he was a toy for elder molestors for pay

Later, in his early 20s, allegedly, he was boytoy with Ricky MARTIN. Claims to be "celibate" except for masturbation, despite rumors of liaisons with tons of celebs and politically powerful wingnuts. Never mentioning known sexploits amid rumors of orgies with seminarians, only-catholics, non-caths need not apply.

Later, he was, allegedly (with pics), something going on with President PENA-Nieto (pics on "air force-1" of Mexico).

*** Past several years, he's been a severe "catholic" (think, Mel GIBSON) and hawking for pay "catholic" events/retreats.

He joined the Drumpf regime, as a figurehead "Hispanic" and shenanigans.

Went to John Paul II on bended knee with church pervert Marcial MARCIEL, founder/exploiter of "Legion of Christ". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcial_Maciel

Runs an alleged money scam outfit of "catholic" rosary "reverence" for cash.

*** NOW, has a movie out about child trafficking with CAVIESAL and - say-it-ain't-so Mira SORVINO. 30 seconds of the trailer shows mawkish melodrama that is supposed to tug heart strings. In interviews he claims that all boy molesters are only-Gay.

Oh, didn't mention gawd told him to run for president of Mexico - viva Mexico!


********AM leaving more research to the estimable DUers.

Bald head behind JP II's hand is MACIEL:


Equal opportunity for Francis:

June 27, 2023

Oyez oyez oyez - Lounge court in order, COMPLAINT on dog "Lucky"

Here is the mug shot of the nefarious defendant:



Let any appearance of favorability "cuteness" be DISQUALIFYING by judicial participants!

COMPLAINT: I, companion/"human" can only arrive of whatever length of absence, whether 30 minutes to the grocery store or 2 1/2 hours to escape my home sequestration, and said Defendant LEAPS and DEMANDS entire ATTENTION, no matter my carrying groceries or whatever and I am expected to give all priority to HIS demands IMMEDIATELY.

*** Complainant/MOI makes every accomodation to include and take him on multiple other vehicle excurions, wherein he has abandoned activities such as looking out the window, now only laising around on the front/"shotgun" seat and expecting/demanding to be skreetched with my right hand while I must steer/drive with my sinister hand.

*** I supplicate to Lounge that 1- Not be seduced by the appearance of the mugshot and that 2- Four ankle monitors be issued.

ON EDIT: Relief request is Amended to add a tail monitor. Predictably, jury nullification is going on, bolstering the wingnut allegation that there is a two tier judicial system. And be it noted that the Defendant taints the jury by insisting his mug shots are backlit like STREISAND.

June 23, 2023

Would sooner get help from AMLO than from ABBUTT

Connecting historical dots, I was *stunned* after Katrina to see pics of the Mexican military convoy crossing Texas to deliver help. The convoy looked totally AT HOME, cough cough.

We know that ABBUTT’s and his wingnuts’s priorities are to gut voting rights, guns, and grift for wingnut base/donors, with anything that actually HELPS PEOPLE not even in contention for a place on the list. So now I’m *stunned* at myself to be (only) a tiny bit nostalgic for George W. Shrub’s personality compared to my level of detestation for Drumpf and all his wingnuts. Not to be confused with forgiveness for Shrub.

****QUOTE***

https://www.redorbit.com/news/general/235025/heads_turn_as_mexican_troops_roll_into_us_with_aid/

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) – A Mexican army convoy rolled into the United States on Thursday with food, water and
medicine for Hurricane Katrina victims, the first Mexican military operation on U.S. soil in 90 years.

Part of an aid package that includes ships and rescue teams, the convoy of 45 olive-green vehicles and some 200
troops went over the Rio Grande into Texas from the city of Nuevo Laredo, witnesses said. ….

The Mexican army trucks, filled with of thousands of ready-to-eat meals, drinking water and medical equipment, were
searched like regular vehicles as they crossed the border early on Thursday headed for San Antonio, Texas customs officials
said. ….

Mexico and the United States are now trade partners and President Vicente Fox told Reuters this week that the military
convoy was a sign of how close the two nations now are.

*******UNQUOTE*****

May 9, 2023

All I understand is (my interpretation of) what I see.

It dates to 2012 in Vanity Fair (article I haven't read). The date is pertinent to the timeline of the relationship, but I digress. Back to what I see: Her (being posed) pose is titilating, salacious (my definitions), she/directly addressing him, he/engaging the viewer with a conspiratorial intimation. Since the title of the article is "Hot Ticket" the overt sexuality is a "joking" excuse to pose them that way.

*** I was an early viewer of MSNBC - monitored especially Tweety (that's Chris MATTHEWS for those too young here) - and was drawn by the Microsoft and NBC appeal to Libs in its supposed concept. I liked the afternoon program of three young women, especially Ashleigh BANFIELD (who later was hounded out by I-think the "Savage" WEINER), but don't remember that Mika was one of the three as Wiki says, made no impression on me.

So Tweety hosted SCABS a lot and I guess shepherded him into his own show, where Mika became the sort of unequal news reader. All I knew was that she had been some kind of junior (intern?) for Dan RATHER, and she was definitely treated as a junior here. My observation was that SCABS verbally and emotionally abused her, but also the poor weatherman who was just a working pro, but also Andrea MITCHELL. But it was way worse on Mika, who always seemed to be on the verge of tears as she tried to do the readings while he shut her down and talked down contemptuously. And yet she was pleading for simple respect, which led me to start calling her "Mika Mouse."

Things sort of toned down and then gossip happened that something was "up" between them. There was a long period when it was unspoken but acknowledged, with all the other regulars sort of alluding. Then it was out in the open as a relationship, then "engagement" and marriage. SCABS had turned into a solicitous, deferential "partner" to her, turning from treating her as a subordinate. So all that happened and with the marriage came her self-proclaimed persona as a champion for empowered women, her books about women being assertive in demanding equal status and pay, with my Irony radar dinging that she had gotten where she got by putting herself on the block.

*** So now seeing the Wiki for the first time, the timeline is that the affair started way back in 2010 and seems to have been a factor in her divorce. So back to the picture, the date of 2012 is during the affair and before the divorce. What else is not to be understood?

*********QUOTE******

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/10/joe-scarborough-mika-presidential-run

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mika_Brzezinski
.... ... In 2001, Brzezinski began a short hiatus from CBS News, during which she worked for rival MSNBC on the weekday afternoon show, HomePage, with co-anchors Gina Gaston and Ashleigh Banfield.[6] Entertainment Weekly described the trio as "the Powerpuff Girls of journalism".[6] ....

... "Mika, the 'hot anchor' was born. The producers slowly encouraged my participation in news reader segments that I was more at ease with. Geist and Joe slowly found me a capable news reader and the expansion of my role was a process. I was not pleased with the reference to being the 'hot anchor'."[7] ....

On October 23, 1993, Brzezinski married TV news reporter James Patrick Hoffer, now of WABC-TV.[34] They met when both worked at WTIC-TV. They have two daughters, Emilie and Carlie Hoffer. Hoffer and Brzezinski divorced in 2016 amidst allegations of an affair that started years prior in 2010, between Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.[35]

In early 2017, Brzezinski became engaged to her co-host Joe Scarborough, and they were married on November 24, 2018, in Washington, D.C., with Rep. Elijah Cummings serving as the officiant.[36][37][38] ....

*******UNQUOTE*****

May 7, 2023

A lack of - *fading* of? - ATTENTION. "Losing" stuff, not lost, just placed automatically.

ON EDIT: I guess this also applies to posting in the wrong/GD forum!

*** So I could blame it on aging. But sort of increasingly over the past year, have had little episodes of "losing" personal or household items, spent significant 15-20 minutes looking for them, sometimes very necessary items whose loss is troubling. A recent one the other day was the missing partials, very troubling and resulting in an overnight worrying and then resigning to a solution of having a new set remade. And always with the Lapsed Catholic supplication to St Anthony, who finds lost things. The next morning, after having gone through prolonged searching of the likeliest places I had been, searching through pockets and repositories, *there* they were, on the floor beneath and under the laptop work station where I had sat the night before.

So this morning, getting the electric mower ready - installing the battery, getting a paper towel for sweating in the shirt pocket, putting on the work hat - almost fully ready, could *NOT* find the electric starter button. It was NOWHERE, not in its storage place, not in the mower. The searching verged on getting increasingly frenetic - like, without it I'll be stuck, ordering the part will take a week, WHAT to do. And St Anthony ON CALL. Finally, *there* it was: In my shirt pocket under where I had stuffed the paper towel. I had NO/ZERO memory of having retrieved it from its place or put it in my pocket. All done automatically, without ATTENTION.

I'm sure that deteriorating mental faculty might be obvious to some, and 76 years is not totally relevant since it can happen earlier. The wild variation in the quality of my DU posts will appeal to some, who will focus on my ridiculous ones and not on my cogent ones.

At a training delivered by a clinical social worker from the Mayo clinic, the trainer cited how a person was observed for (dementia?) yet was said by persons knowing her well to be an EXCELLENT driver. The trainer said that so long as the driver was traveling on streets that were totally familiar over many years, the driving might well be excellent, but if something UNEXPECTED happened, it would all go out the window.

*** Just throwing this out there for my own whim. Also, have been biting my tongue over my anti-"royal" feelings of the past days, just letting it fester, unless my hornet's nest gets kicked.

April 2, 2023

Local radio wingnut's predictable take on Drumpf's indictment: "Petty. VERY petty."

This fellow's family used to own the station. I started listening to talk radio as a college student and when I came back here in my late 20s, this was and still is the only one, and it was the standard line-up of syndicated doctors, psychologists, and general topics, with only 3-minutes of wingnut rants from this guy in the mornings. Then came LIMBAUGH, who was a shock even to the wingnut owners to the point of only running an hour of him and keeping the local farm report, until they got the nerve to run his full three hours and then, over years, replacing the doctors with the full lineup of Faux yakkers, finally replacing ABC news with Faux, everything all Faux.

I started replying to this host with single spaced letters and he replied, all this way before computers/emails. He harbored hopes of converting me, to the point of making nice with socializing with his wife and friends at the Country Club (I never went). He is of the Old Repuke faction of the Repukes. After the first few years he figured out no conversion was going to happen and took a break saying, "I'm tired of being your Right Wing whipping boy." But then resumed, and emailing made it all zoom with immediacy. They had sold the company to a conglomerate that let their several stations keep their separate formats (country, rock, sports, this one wingnut yakking) for cash diversification's sake, and he continued with a solo yak show, then retired, then came back. So the sparring has gone on for some 30 years. He's got co-hosts who are younger and there is only one actual Lib/newsreader in the whole place. Sometimes he refers to my email in terms of "a friend of mine says... "

As usual, opinions are opinions, but quality varies. And (wingnut’s) comprise a long rapsheet of wrongness, too bad there’s not a spreadsheet for instant substantiating - all wingnut world view for starters, Iraq, before Iraq, everything ever after. And his are never original or surprising, just parrot points of the conventional wingnut variety.

So his take on Drumpf’s indictment is just that it is “petty” and even more emphatically “VERY PETTY” along with the other wingnut assertions that everything is just Dem vindictive plotting to get rid of Drumpf and that it will all backfire and motivate Drumpf’s flying monkeys. Couldn’t be that Drumpf has brought everything on himself, all his life.

(Wingnut) is beyond conventional, he is for the status quo power structure of yore (America great AGAIN, the OLD childhood way). The way things WERE, with the people in power being the ones that WERE. I would say he is an institutionalist, but that’s a tricky word because it can mean NORMS, but norms can vary since all structures have their own institutions. And when Drumpf is involved, his whole m.o. is to rip down all norms, being just an authoritarian a-hole out only for himself – brute power for his own benefit.

(Wingnut) believes there is a class of leaders who deserve to be, should not be questioned, sort of Divine Right.

(Wingnut) supports anybody (minority tokens) who/tools will accommodate his wingnut power structure. Just as he said he didn’t agree with “EVERYTHING” Limbaugh said, when Drumpf DESCENDED the escalator he immediately jumped onto the descent, minimizing all of Drumpf’s atrocities, pooh-poohing all red flags, finding cover in The Atlantic’s article about not taking Drumpf LITERALLY, claiming that Drumpf is a POPULIST, saying that Drumpf would be all right if he would JUST SHUT UP – excuse, excuse, apologist-ing, apologist-ing, minimizing, slippery sloping – the question being, when he wakes up one morning in a Fascist system, will he pinpoint when he could have said, “Enough, too much, no more”?

So in the context of (wingnut's) lifelong wingnuttiness, no expectation that he will ever think outside that box, but Drumpf left wingnuts bare about their utter lack of principles, completely cynical about anything-goes for the sake of their own POWER, stripped of any pretense to higher moral ground of any kind. He and his ilk wingnuts never hesitated one little beat about dropping all of what they had professed: Tear down democracy, personal freedoms, institutions, law enforcement, veterans, DECENCY ITSELF. Why wasn’t any of Drumpf’s obnoxiousness - quite apart from his concrete criminal activities - in denigrating Gold Star families, military service (“losers”), disabled people, actually any stripe of disadvantaged people – enough?

As George W. Shrub said, “It (the Constitution) is just a piece of paper.” So, I can list at length things that need to be changed about the Constitution, but nihilism is something else. Like how WASPs claim to be good Christians because they socialize on Sunday mornings for business networking. The Acts of the Apostles is all MARKETING, fundraising, recruitment, reaping material rewards via surface “virtues.”

Seems like wingnuts wink-wink don't really believe in the Constitution or their religion (Heaven, Hell), are really in some sort of nihilistic mindset, opportunistic, self-survival.

So (Wingnut) and his ilk having exposed themselves as selling out their professed values, which we Libs always suspected were FALSE to begin with, all he can do in defending Drumpf is to IMPUGN MOTIVES projected on Dems. They used to harp on “personal responsibility”. Yet they don’t credit Drumpf for having done everything TO himself. Just Mr Victim.

March 31, 2023

Making Time (magazine) Great Again - cover thanks to Just A Box of Rain & El Supremo

Thanks to Just A Box of Rain and El Supremo for the proto-mugshots.