Bye Bye Bumbles
22/01/23 07:04
Let's get this party started, boys and girls. It's a new week. It's time to let our hair down and mix things up a bit. We got some snow overnight, so that's interesting. Just when I thought we were going to have a snowless winter, I woke up to an inch or two on the ground. I'll clear a section on the back deck to throw a few peanut thingies out for the birds. They seem to like the food I'm putting out, so that's good. I have to believe that foraging for food after a snowfall has to be more difficult than less, so I'm happy to offer an assist. I'll also want to keep an eye on the temperatures outside since moving snow with my snowblower becomes a chore if it gets too damp and heavy when the melting starts.
I'm not a huge football fan, but I will watch a game or two on the telly, given half a chance. I watched some of the two televised games yesterday between the Giants and the Vikings and the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins. Man, that is some physical shit. Those guys take a beating over the course of every game, forgetting for a minute what they must endure over the course of a season. I can't imagine the toll that it must take on their bodies over time. Such is the sacrifice that professional athletes make, I suppose. Maybe they think to themselves that they'll get in and get out, make a few bucks, and go on to something else for the rest of their lives. Then again, I'm not sure that's the way it works. I don't know how much money they make, but at some point, they have to ask themselves, was it all worth it?
The Ev man was over the other day, and we went out shopping for mattresses. His mattress is barely four years old, but it's definitely starting to sag and ripple in all the wrong places. It needs to be replaced, so that's that. We stopped at a Portland Mattress factory store in Portsmouth and looked around at mattresses on their showroom floor. I know that foam mattresses were all the rage at one point, and they still fetch a pretty good price, but I'm more interested in the tried and true spring or coil mattresses. They, too, have foam included in their construction, but it's minimal. We found one mattress, or model, that was around $800, which seemed to be the sweet spot between comfort and pricing. I made a mental note to myself that the next time we go looking at mattresses, we're going to bring a pillow along. None of the mattresses had a pillow on them. How do you determine how comfortable a mattress is or isn't without having a pillow under your head? I'll cut to the chase: You don't.
The missus and I stopped over at the Ev man's place yesterday to help him spruce the joint up before the inspection that is scheduled for this coming Thursday. There wasn't a lot to do, truth be told. The missus did a few dishes while the Ev man and I watched the football game. I putzed around the bathroom a little bit and helped with a couple of other things, but I think we were in and out of there in the space of an hour. The Ev man gets pretty particular about what he does and doesn't like us to clean up, so we go along to get along. Anything under his bed is off-limits. He has a collection of this and that next to his television that he refers to as a work-in-progress, so we leave that be as well. The missus and I want to leave as small a footprint as possible when paying the Ev man a visit, and he's good with that approach. I would also say that his place looked as good as we've seen it in some time, so it's good to see him staying on top of things. Baby steps. Right?
Tucker Carlson had an interesting theory about why all of our airports were shut down this past week for the better part of twelve hours. He mentioned that a handful of other countries also shut down their airports simultaneously, which I was totally unaware of. That would seem to be an important piece of information for anyone trying to understand what happened. No? The other piece of information which seemed to tie all of these loose threads together was the fact that Bitcoin increased by some 20% in the space of a couple of days during this so-called shutdown. Tucker's hypothesis, which some on the left might refer to as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory, was that hackers had hacked into the systems that controlled our airlines and demanded ransom to be paid in Bitcoin. Our government's injection of billions of dollars in purchases of bitcoin is the only thing that could possibly account for the increase in the value of bitcoin that occurred during that brief 24-hour period of time.
If true, wouldn't that be the fucking bees' knees? Biden and his gang of fools tried to put another one over on us by blaming it on a computer glitch. I actually bought that bullshit like the fool that I am. I should have known better. Who's decision was it to lie to the American people about what really happened that fateful morning? Now that I think of it, shouldn't someone in Congress be demanding that the Transportation Secretary, Petey Butt-Edge-Edge, get his sorry little ass down in front of them to explain to the American public why every last airport in our nation was shut down without notice stranding millions of flights and passengers across our country? What are we hearing from the Republican House of Representatives? Notta. They are going along to get along. That is not why we sent them to Washington. They are complicit in the crime covered up by the Bidenistas through their very silence. If Tucker has now shamed the Republican house into doing the right thing, then I say, yeah, baby! Whatever it takes is what I say.
Let me throw another log on the fire. What if this was just another ruse to send more money to that grifter, Zelensky, and his band of thieving oligarchs in Ukraine? There must be a money trail. I mean, Biden and his minions can't just write a check to pay off these hackers. Right? I thought Congress had control of the purse strings. Is there a ten percent fee somewhere in there for the Big Guy? I have questions. The money sent to the hackers aside, how vulnerable are we as a nation if someone sitting behind a keyboard can shut down our nation's air travel? What if that someone was someone sitting in a country like maybe Russia, who we just so happen to be fighting a proxy war against in the backwater of a country, Ukraine? I'm guessing that it wouldn't have much impact on our military flights if we needed to get a fighter squadron into the air in a hurry. Is there a chance in hell that these very same hackers have the codes to our nuclear arsenal? Just one last question: How in hell's name might they have obtained these codes? Does any of this have anything to do with the classified documents that they found in the boxes stored behind Biden's Corvette in his garage in Rehobeth, Delaware?
Mrs. G will be happy to hear that her car has passed its annual inspection with flying colors. I may have mentioned that I took it to be inspected after Mrs. G expressed some anxiety about taking her vehicle to a local garage. Her anxiety seemed to stem from the question about where she might park once on the premises, but I think it was more than that. I think the entirety of the process was more than she thought she could navigate. Maybe she worked herself into a tizzy thinking through the various and sundry outcomes involved in the process. She had mentioned something to us somewhat recently about someone saying that she needed work done on her car. That may have left her feeling a little vulnerable. Nobody likes to think that someone would take advantage of a ninety-year-old when they bring their car in for inspection, but we all know there are some pretty unscrupulous characters out there who would be happy to separate you from your money. Anyway, I got in and out, and everything passed. It will be one less thing for her to worry about. That's a good thing.
Have you ever tried to cut sugar out of your diet? It's a bitch. I swear to Christ that the sugar they put in food these days ain't the sugar your grandma used to use to make her molasses cookies back in the day. I'm not even talking about high fructose sugar here. I'm talking about the run-of-the-mill sugar that they add to everything you buy in the store. I'm old enough to remember when I could sit down with a cold glass of milk and a couple of Oreos, and I'd be happy as a clam. These days, I pop one of those fuckers in my mouth, and I can't stop eating them until I've finished off the entire package of cookies. The makers of Oreos and the rest of the food manufacturers out there have figured out not only how to get us into the stores to buy their products, but they've figured out how to get us to consume their products in a single sitting. No wonder we have a national problem with obesity that is bad and getting worse by the day.
I'm fighting back starting this week. I'm going on a diet that will, God willing, reset whatever it is that makes me eat this crap like it's going out of style. I'm doing it one day at a time. I can tell you that on my first day without sugar, and adding to that the carbs that drive my blood sugar numbers along with it, I was feeling pretty good about not having consumed any sugar for just one day. That's how you do it, babycakes. It's probably a little like alcohol anonymous if you think about it. Everything is one day at a time. Day two is now also behind me, and I think I can feel my waistline shrinking. No, really. There is something to be said for momentum. Maybe it's all in my head, but I think I'm actually getting up and out of bed in the morning with a bounce in my step. The usual floorboards that let me know when I've put on a few too many pounds are now strangely silent. I have a few more days before I can add fruit back into my daily regime. Then, I can have one serving per day for the first week and two servings per day in the second week. Now, if I can only get the missus on board.
I'm trying to teach myself how to play the song by Kansas, Dust in the Wind. It's not going well. I like the fact that I have the finger-picking part down pretty well, but, having said that, my version of the song bears little resemblance to the song you hear on the radio. As an extreme novice on the guitar, this finger-picking stuff can take some getting used to. I'm picking all the right strings, but I think I'm not picking them fast enough to the point where it sounds like the actual song. I don't even want to tell you how long I've been at this. I've decided that I don't really aspire to be the second coming of John Denver, and I don't have the vocals to do James Taylor, so if I work long and hard enough at this finger-picking stuff, maybe I'll end up being able to whip off something recognizable. I'm practicing every day, so maybe I need to practice longer and practice with fewer distractions every day. It's just one of many reasons that I give myself for getting out of bed every day. Oh, and thank the baby Jesus for YouTube.
I sent an e-mail to Mrs. G yesterday telling her that her car passed inspection with flying colors. I thought I was doing her a solid by taking her car to get inspected when she was disinclined to do the same. She never responded, so it makes me wonder. Maybe she feels as though I should have stepped up to the plate sooner to get it done. I half expected to get a thank you, at a minimum. Maybe she's forgotten that I took her car to get inspected. Surely, my e-mail would have brought all of that back into focus were that the case. No? I'm probably overthinking this, but it just strikes me as odd that she's not responded at all. Maybe this is no different than the list of things that she has for me to "fix" every time the missus and I pay a visit. One and done, as it were. I never signed up to be her handyman, but I think she thinks I am, for better or worse. I should have nipped that in the bud long ago. I'm not asking for flowers, but a sweet and simple "thank you" might be nice. Am I asking for too much?
I want to watch this show on the telly out of the UK entitled "Souls." I think it has something to do with a lost plane and a young man who, after barely surviving a car accident, recalls a previous life as a pilot of that very plane. I'm a big fan, or an aficionado as they say in the business, of plane crashes and the forensics involved in same, so this baby is right up my alley. It's also one of those shows that the missus would never in a million years sit down to watch with me. It's no fun watching television alone since half the fun is dissecting the lot of it after the fact. I wish her psyche weren't so fragile, but it is what it is. Maybe there's a transference of fear and dread in watching people die a horrific death on the telly, even if only vicariously, that takes her to a bad place. Whatever the case, I am, as she likes to say, yoyo. That's missus-speak for you are on your own. It doesn't work perfectly, but it's close enough.
I've never seen any of the daily press conferences put on by the White House by the infamous black Haitian lesbian Karine Jean-Pierre. No, really. I've seen a lot of clips of her abject buffoonery and have had a good laugh along the way. She's something of a caricature of herself, truth be told. The words coming out of her mouth aside, she has this clownish appearance that gives her even less credibility than she might otherwise claim in her role as press secretary for the president of the United States. Anyway, the basic requirements for the position she holds require that she answer questions or, at a minimum, give the appearance of trying to answer the questions. It's probably more of an art than a skill, but whatever the case, she likely comes up short more often than not based on what I've seen in both the aforementioned clips and in today's appearance in front of the White House Press corp.
After watching her for the better part of an hour, I am more convinced than ever that she is particularly ill-suited for the position. The rumors circulating on the dark web about her gender identity being her single most important qualification for the job are probably not wrong. The press corp peppered her relentlessly with questions about the latest revelations about Biden's various and sundry caches of classified documents discovered here and there across various properties owned by Biden. She answered each and every question regarding the classified documents by referring them to the White House Counsel's office. It became a feeding frenzy of sorts, and the press corp did what they do best when they smell blood in the water: They piled on and continued pressuring her for answers. I thought to myself while watching the fiasco, this is not the same press corp that not that long ago wouldn't have gone nearly this far when asking questions about their beloved democratic icon, Joe Biden. Something has changed.
I feel a little sorry for the press corp knowing that they have to attend these pressers where they are practically assured of walking away with next to nothing of note with which to write their articles or otherwise inform their listeners or readers. I don't think I heard anything coming out of her mouth that was something you could take to the bank. It was a colossal waste of time for anyone who thought they were there to get information from the one person behind the podium who allegedly had the president's ear. My sense in watching her at the podium was that she has very little to no access to Biden and that anything she says or does on his behalf in her role as press secretary is of her own making. What was obvious was that she was doing her level best to cover up or redirect any and all questions about Biden's criminality when it comes to the issue of leveraging our nation's secrets for his and his family's personal financial gain. That makes Karine Jean-Pierre, Press Secretary extraordinaire, complicit in the crimes committed by the man sitting in the Oval Office.
Some people seem to think that all of this classified leak stuff would have never happened had the people behind the scenes at the White House decided that they were going to get behind Biden's run for reelection in 2024. Tucker Carlson went so far as to say that our votes don't really count anymore. There are powers behind the scenes who decide who sits in the office and who doesn't sit in the office. Were that the case, how did Trump win in 2016? It does make you wonder. Was it their intention all along to put someone like Biden in the White House, knowing full well that he would do their bidding? Was their so-called bidding the destruction of America? If they could somehow find a man corrupt enough, vile enough, perverted enough, and senile enough where he would put the interests of his family above those of his country, they would have their perfect puppet. Good old Scranton Joe would restore the institution to its previous glory that Trump had nearly brought to the brink of ruination since his election in 2016. That was their opening bid, anyway. Unfortunately, for America, it worked.
I don't think anybody would miss Joe Biden if he were kicked to the curb tomorrow. There, I said it. We'll see soon enough if all of this classified document stuff is enough to get him to resign. If it takes something more, like maybe impeachment proceedings, to remove him, then I'm good with that too. He finally responded yesterday to all of this business about the classified documents, but it was nothing more than what we usually see from Bumbles. He read from his script and took no questions. What a surprise. I know I feel better despite not having heard the entire speech. He's hard to watch, much less listen to. It doesn't help that everyone in America knows he's a liar and a thief. That's just for starters. Shall we talk about his daughter's diary entries? We know he has this weird thing for children that may or may not be associated or otherwise related to the showers that he took with his prepubescent daughter back in the day. Those are her words, not mine. Will we breathe a sigh of relief when Kamala is sworn in for the duration of Biden's first term, or will we gird ourselves for what's to come?
I'm all over the place this morning, and I feel bad about that. Brush it off, Johnny Boy, and get on with it. The day is young, and your day is just getting started. I was a little disappointed yesterday when the Supreme Court said something about being unable to determine who had leaked an early draft of the Dobbs's decision earlier this year. You know, the decision that ultimately overturned Roe vs. Wade. How is that even possible? The Supreme Court has been investigating for months now, and this is all they have to say? It hardly seems possible. What and who are they covering up for? If it turns out to be a clerk, they need to be summarily fired, and their reputation destroyed for degrading and impugning the trust of one of our most treasured and essential institutions. It hardly seems possible that one of the justices had a hand in this. If they can't determine who did what, what's to stop someone from doing this all over again in the future? Was the leak even all that consequential when all was said and done? I'm not sure. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has to do better. Our Republic depends on it.
My nearest neighbor, who happens to be on the mend after breaking her hip earlier this summer, sent out an e-mail, basically bringing everyone up to speed on her progress, or lack thereof. She mentioned something in her e-mail about clearing a path on her property for her dog in the wake of our recent snowfall. This particular task, at least for now, has been assigned to the fellow staying with her, who is scheduled to leave for Florida in two weeks' time. He's no spring chicken, so if I had to give him any advice, I'd tell him to take it slow. More troubling to me was the intimation in her missive that the path that he was planning to clear would still need to be cleared after the departure of her friend. Who precisely did she have in mind for that job? Is she expecting me to do the job in addition to what I already do for her? I've been clearing her driveway of snow these past couple of winters, and it's not been a big deal one way or another. Well, I figured if I didn't respond to her e-mail, which I've not done, maybe she'll take the hint. It's more than I want to take on, so we'll let the chips fall where they may. Plan accordingly, dearie.
We enjoyed a lovely piece of halibut for dinner last night. The missus has a recipe that we love to make, and it calls for steaming the fish in a broth of diced tomatoes and calamata olives. We have fish so seldom these days that we have to remind ourselves from time to time that we should be eating more fish and not less. We live on the seacoast, for chrissakes, where the fish is almost always fresh and, as they love to say in the shop, straight off the boat. We have no excuse for not adding more fish to our diet. As I've already mentioned, I'm kicking carbs to the curb, for now, to break my addiction to sugar, so having fish is a no-brainer. The missus can make this recipe in her sleep too, and that's a good thing since, and don't tell her I said this, but she's no Gordon Ramsey. You put the fish in some aluminum foil, add the tomatoes and juices, and stick it in the oven for maybe ten to fifteen minutes. I might have liked to have had a half-pound or so of broiled asparagus to go with the fish, but, alas, that was not in the cards. Tonight, God willing, we'll have chicken and brussel sprouts.
I follow this one particular woman on Twitter who announced recently that she's moving to Taiwan for two years in a couple of weeks. Her husband has a two-year stint with some company there, or so she says. It got me thinking, who the hell has Taiwan on their bingo card as a destination du jour, knowing what we all know about China's designs on Taiwan? Being an American will not give him a pass one way or another once the shooting begins. He and his wife will head to the local fallout shelter together, like everyone else, once the missiles start flying overhead. Hell, the two of them could end up dead if things go to hell in a handbasket, Ukrainian style. She has a military background, so I suspect she understands all too well what she's getting herself into. For all I know, her husband is training the Taiwanese on how to use sophisticated weaponry that either has been or will be provided to Taiwan should China follow through on its plans to reunify the country of Taiwan. As for America joining that fight on behalf of our allies in Taiwan, I think that's a whole lot of wishful thinking.
Besides, every NATO country, including the United States, has largely depleted its military assets and, consequently, its capabilities on behalf of the Ukrainians in its fight against the Russians. Hell, we went on bended knee to our military cupboards in South Korea just last week, looking for spare parts to send to Ukraine. It's not something that you'll hear our military brass talking about, but that is where we are, folks. That said, it seems we don't have a lot to offer Taiwan or anyone else if things go sideways in the near future. Maybe that was the plan from the jump. That would explain why China has been largely absent when and where the Russian war in Ukraine is concerned. The more the West bleeds out, militaristically speaking, the less they have in the tank when it comes to rushing to anyone's aid. We, the United States, may even come up short were we to have to confront the CCP on our soil should that come to pass. We still have nukes, though. Oh, wait. So do they.
It sounds like Nikki Haley is thinking about throwing her hat into the ring as a presidential wannabe in 2024. She loves to say that she's never lost a campaign as if we're supposed to infer from that that she'd win if she runs. It sounds like she's setting herself up as Trump's vice presidential running mate if you ask me. I approve of her politics in the sense that she's a conservative, but I'm not sure she has the requisite curb appeal to sell herself as a national candidate. She was governor of South Carolina, and she was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, so she's not chopped liver. You have to give the lady her due. She's put in the time, and she has a record of accomplishment. I'm just not seeing her in the mix when the primaries in the Mid West roll around. I can hear them now: Nikki who? They might well say the same thing about Ron DeSantis. Trump is and will continue to be the veritable 800-pound gorilla in the room. These other candidates must think long and hard about taking Trump head-on in the primaries. Maybe they do it to gain name recognition. Maybe they do it to position themselves as a potential vice president. Maybe they don't do it at all.
Just when you thought Biden's classified document fiasco couldn't get any worse, they found another tranche of documents this weekend at one of his homes in Delaware. I've lost count on the number of documents that they've fouud since last November. This time around, it was the DOJ performng the search, not Biden's attorneys. And then there's this: Ron Klein, Biden's Chief of Staff, announced his departure in two week's time. Klein is the brains of the operation so that can't be good for Biden. It's possible that Klein doesn't want to get indicted as a co-consiprator once they start to unravel Biden's extensive criminal enterprise. You also have to imagine that the Republican majority in the House and their committees that plan hearings on Biden corruption beginning in February also play into everything that we see unfolding. Biden is now a veritable Dead Man Walking. The expose's from his pretorian guard, the mainstream media, will only ramp up from here. They want him gone.
I'm not a huge football fan, but I will watch a game or two on the telly, given half a chance. I watched some of the two televised games yesterday between the Giants and the Vikings and the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins. Man, that is some physical shit. Those guys take a beating over the course of every game, forgetting for a minute what they must endure over the course of a season. I can't imagine the toll that it must take on their bodies over time. Such is the sacrifice that professional athletes make, I suppose. Maybe they think to themselves that they'll get in and get out, make a few bucks, and go on to something else for the rest of their lives. Then again, I'm not sure that's the way it works. I don't know how much money they make, but at some point, they have to ask themselves, was it all worth it?
The Ev man was over the other day, and we went out shopping for mattresses. His mattress is barely four years old, but it's definitely starting to sag and ripple in all the wrong places. It needs to be replaced, so that's that. We stopped at a Portland Mattress factory store in Portsmouth and looked around at mattresses on their showroom floor. I know that foam mattresses were all the rage at one point, and they still fetch a pretty good price, but I'm more interested in the tried and true spring or coil mattresses. They, too, have foam included in their construction, but it's minimal. We found one mattress, or model, that was around $800, which seemed to be the sweet spot between comfort and pricing. I made a mental note to myself that the next time we go looking at mattresses, we're going to bring a pillow along. None of the mattresses had a pillow on them. How do you determine how comfortable a mattress is or isn't without having a pillow under your head? I'll cut to the chase: You don't.
The missus and I stopped over at the Ev man's place yesterday to help him spruce the joint up before the inspection that is scheduled for this coming Thursday. There wasn't a lot to do, truth be told. The missus did a few dishes while the Ev man and I watched the football game. I putzed around the bathroom a little bit and helped with a couple of other things, but I think we were in and out of there in the space of an hour. The Ev man gets pretty particular about what he does and doesn't like us to clean up, so we go along to get along. Anything under his bed is off-limits. He has a collection of this and that next to his television that he refers to as a work-in-progress, so we leave that be as well. The missus and I want to leave as small a footprint as possible when paying the Ev man a visit, and he's good with that approach. I would also say that his place looked as good as we've seen it in some time, so it's good to see him staying on top of things. Baby steps. Right?
Tucker Carlson had an interesting theory about why all of our airports were shut down this past week for the better part of twelve hours. He mentioned that a handful of other countries also shut down their airports simultaneously, which I was totally unaware of. That would seem to be an important piece of information for anyone trying to understand what happened. No? The other piece of information which seemed to tie all of these loose threads together was the fact that Bitcoin increased by some 20% in the space of a couple of days during this so-called shutdown. Tucker's hypothesis, which some on the left might refer to as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory, was that hackers had hacked into the systems that controlled our airlines and demanded ransom to be paid in Bitcoin. Our government's injection of billions of dollars in purchases of bitcoin is the only thing that could possibly account for the increase in the value of bitcoin that occurred during that brief 24-hour period of time.
If true, wouldn't that be the fucking bees' knees? Biden and his gang of fools tried to put another one over on us by blaming it on a computer glitch. I actually bought that bullshit like the fool that I am. I should have known better. Who's decision was it to lie to the American people about what really happened that fateful morning? Now that I think of it, shouldn't someone in Congress be demanding that the Transportation Secretary, Petey Butt-Edge-Edge, get his sorry little ass down in front of them to explain to the American public why every last airport in our nation was shut down without notice stranding millions of flights and passengers across our country? What are we hearing from the Republican House of Representatives? Notta. They are going along to get along. That is not why we sent them to Washington. They are complicit in the crime covered up by the Bidenistas through their very silence. If Tucker has now shamed the Republican house into doing the right thing, then I say, yeah, baby! Whatever it takes is what I say.
Let me throw another log on the fire. What if this was just another ruse to send more money to that grifter, Zelensky, and his band of thieving oligarchs in Ukraine? There must be a money trail. I mean, Biden and his minions can't just write a check to pay off these hackers. Right? I thought Congress had control of the purse strings. Is there a ten percent fee somewhere in there for the Big Guy? I have questions. The money sent to the hackers aside, how vulnerable are we as a nation if someone sitting behind a keyboard can shut down our nation's air travel? What if that someone was someone sitting in a country like maybe Russia, who we just so happen to be fighting a proxy war against in the backwater of a country, Ukraine? I'm guessing that it wouldn't have much impact on our military flights if we needed to get a fighter squadron into the air in a hurry. Is there a chance in hell that these very same hackers have the codes to our nuclear arsenal? Just one last question: How in hell's name might they have obtained these codes? Does any of this have anything to do with the classified documents that they found in the boxes stored behind Biden's Corvette in his garage in Rehobeth, Delaware?
Mrs. G will be happy to hear that her car has passed its annual inspection with flying colors. I may have mentioned that I took it to be inspected after Mrs. G expressed some anxiety about taking her vehicle to a local garage. Her anxiety seemed to stem from the question about where she might park once on the premises, but I think it was more than that. I think the entirety of the process was more than she thought she could navigate. Maybe she worked herself into a tizzy thinking through the various and sundry outcomes involved in the process. She had mentioned something to us somewhat recently about someone saying that she needed work done on her car. That may have left her feeling a little vulnerable. Nobody likes to think that someone would take advantage of a ninety-year-old when they bring their car in for inspection, but we all know there are some pretty unscrupulous characters out there who would be happy to separate you from your money. Anyway, I got in and out, and everything passed. It will be one less thing for her to worry about. That's a good thing.
Have you ever tried to cut sugar out of your diet? It's a bitch. I swear to Christ that the sugar they put in food these days ain't the sugar your grandma used to use to make her molasses cookies back in the day. I'm not even talking about high fructose sugar here. I'm talking about the run-of-the-mill sugar that they add to everything you buy in the store. I'm old enough to remember when I could sit down with a cold glass of milk and a couple of Oreos, and I'd be happy as a clam. These days, I pop one of those fuckers in my mouth, and I can't stop eating them until I've finished off the entire package of cookies. The makers of Oreos and the rest of the food manufacturers out there have figured out not only how to get us into the stores to buy their products, but they've figured out how to get us to consume their products in a single sitting. No wonder we have a national problem with obesity that is bad and getting worse by the day.
I'm fighting back starting this week. I'm going on a diet that will, God willing, reset whatever it is that makes me eat this crap like it's going out of style. I'm doing it one day at a time. I can tell you that on my first day without sugar, and adding to that the carbs that drive my blood sugar numbers along with it, I was feeling pretty good about not having consumed any sugar for just one day. That's how you do it, babycakes. It's probably a little like alcohol anonymous if you think about it. Everything is one day at a time. Day two is now also behind me, and I think I can feel my waistline shrinking. No, really. There is something to be said for momentum. Maybe it's all in my head, but I think I'm actually getting up and out of bed in the morning with a bounce in my step. The usual floorboards that let me know when I've put on a few too many pounds are now strangely silent. I have a few more days before I can add fruit back into my daily regime. Then, I can have one serving per day for the first week and two servings per day in the second week. Now, if I can only get the missus on board.
I'm trying to teach myself how to play the song by Kansas, Dust in the Wind. It's not going well. I like the fact that I have the finger-picking part down pretty well, but, having said that, my version of the song bears little resemblance to the song you hear on the radio. As an extreme novice on the guitar, this finger-picking stuff can take some getting used to. I'm picking all the right strings, but I think I'm not picking them fast enough to the point where it sounds like the actual song. I don't even want to tell you how long I've been at this. I've decided that I don't really aspire to be the second coming of John Denver, and I don't have the vocals to do James Taylor, so if I work long and hard enough at this finger-picking stuff, maybe I'll end up being able to whip off something recognizable. I'm practicing every day, so maybe I need to practice longer and practice with fewer distractions every day. It's just one of many reasons that I give myself for getting out of bed every day. Oh, and thank the baby Jesus for YouTube.
I sent an e-mail to Mrs. G yesterday telling her that her car passed inspection with flying colors. I thought I was doing her a solid by taking her car to get inspected when she was disinclined to do the same. She never responded, so it makes me wonder. Maybe she feels as though I should have stepped up to the plate sooner to get it done. I half expected to get a thank you, at a minimum. Maybe she's forgotten that I took her car to get inspected. Surely, my e-mail would have brought all of that back into focus were that the case. No? I'm probably overthinking this, but it just strikes me as odd that she's not responded at all. Maybe this is no different than the list of things that she has for me to "fix" every time the missus and I pay a visit. One and done, as it were. I never signed up to be her handyman, but I think she thinks I am, for better or worse. I should have nipped that in the bud long ago. I'm not asking for flowers, but a sweet and simple "thank you" might be nice. Am I asking for too much?
I want to watch this show on the telly out of the UK entitled "Souls." I think it has something to do with a lost plane and a young man who, after barely surviving a car accident, recalls a previous life as a pilot of that very plane. I'm a big fan, or an aficionado as they say in the business, of plane crashes and the forensics involved in same, so this baby is right up my alley. It's also one of those shows that the missus would never in a million years sit down to watch with me. It's no fun watching television alone since half the fun is dissecting the lot of it after the fact. I wish her psyche weren't so fragile, but it is what it is. Maybe there's a transference of fear and dread in watching people die a horrific death on the telly, even if only vicariously, that takes her to a bad place. Whatever the case, I am, as she likes to say, yoyo. That's missus-speak for you are on your own. It doesn't work perfectly, but it's close enough.
I've never seen any of the daily press conferences put on by the White House by the infamous black Haitian lesbian Karine Jean-Pierre. No, really. I've seen a lot of clips of her abject buffoonery and have had a good laugh along the way. She's something of a caricature of herself, truth be told. The words coming out of her mouth aside, she has this clownish appearance that gives her even less credibility than she might otherwise claim in her role as press secretary for the president of the United States. Anyway, the basic requirements for the position she holds require that she answer questions or, at a minimum, give the appearance of trying to answer the questions. It's probably more of an art than a skill, but whatever the case, she likely comes up short more often than not based on what I've seen in both the aforementioned clips and in today's appearance in front of the White House Press corp.
After watching her for the better part of an hour, I am more convinced than ever that she is particularly ill-suited for the position. The rumors circulating on the dark web about her gender identity being her single most important qualification for the job are probably not wrong. The press corp peppered her relentlessly with questions about the latest revelations about Biden's various and sundry caches of classified documents discovered here and there across various properties owned by Biden. She answered each and every question regarding the classified documents by referring them to the White House Counsel's office. It became a feeding frenzy of sorts, and the press corp did what they do best when they smell blood in the water: They piled on and continued pressuring her for answers. I thought to myself while watching the fiasco, this is not the same press corp that not that long ago wouldn't have gone nearly this far when asking questions about their beloved democratic icon, Joe Biden. Something has changed.
I feel a little sorry for the press corp knowing that they have to attend these pressers where they are practically assured of walking away with next to nothing of note with which to write their articles or otherwise inform their listeners or readers. I don't think I heard anything coming out of her mouth that was something you could take to the bank. It was a colossal waste of time for anyone who thought they were there to get information from the one person behind the podium who allegedly had the president's ear. My sense in watching her at the podium was that she has very little to no access to Biden and that anything she says or does on his behalf in her role as press secretary is of her own making. What was obvious was that she was doing her level best to cover up or redirect any and all questions about Biden's criminality when it comes to the issue of leveraging our nation's secrets for his and his family's personal financial gain. That makes Karine Jean-Pierre, Press Secretary extraordinaire, complicit in the crimes committed by the man sitting in the Oval Office.
Some people seem to think that all of this classified leak stuff would have never happened had the people behind the scenes at the White House decided that they were going to get behind Biden's run for reelection in 2024. Tucker Carlson went so far as to say that our votes don't really count anymore. There are powers behind the scenes who decide who sits in the office and who doesn't sit in the office. Were that the case, how did Trump win in 2016? It does make you wonder. Was it their intention all along to put someone like Biden in the White House, knowing full well that he would do their bidding? Was their so-called bidding the destruction of America? If they could somehow find a man corrupt enough, vile enough, perverted enough, and senile enough where he would put the interests of his family above those of his country, they would have their perfect puppet. Good old Scranton Joe would restore the institution to its previous glory that Trump had nearly brought to the brink of ruination since his election in 2016. That was their opening bid, anyway. Unfortunately, for America, it worked.
I don't think anybody would miss Joe Biden if he were kicked to the curb tomorrow. There, I said it. We'll see soon enough if all of this classified document stuff is enough to get him to resign. If it takes something more, like maybe impeachment proceedings, to remove him, then I'm good with that too. He finally responded yesterday to all of this business about the classified documents, but it was nothing more than what we usually see from Bumbles. He read from his script and took no questions. What a surprise. I know I feel better despite not having heard the entire speech. He's hard to watch, much less listen to. It doesn't help that everyone in America knows he's a liar and a thief. That's just for starters. Shall we talk about his daughter's diary entries? We know he has this weird thing for children that may or may not be associated or otherwise related to the showers that he took with his prepubescent daughter back in the day. Those are her words, not mine. Will we breathe a sigh of relief when Kamala is sworn in for the duration of Biden's first term, or will we gird ourselves for what's to come?
I'm all over the place this morning, and I feel bad about that. Brush it off, Johnny Boy, and get on with it. The day is young, and your day is just getting started. I was a little disappointed yesterday when the Supreme Court said something about being unable to determine who had leaked an early draft of the Dobbs's decision earlier this year. You know, the decision that ultimately overturned Roe vs. Wade. How is that even possible? The Supreme Court has been investigating for months now, and this is all they have to say? It hardly seems possible. What and who are they covering up for? If it turns out to be a clerk, they need to be summarily fired, and their reputation destroyed for degrading and impugning the trust of one of our most treasured and essential institutions. It hardly seems possible that one of the justices had a hand in this. If they can't determine who did what, what's to stop someone from doing this all over again in the future? Was the leak even all that consequential when all was said and done? I'm not sure. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has to do better. Our Republic depends on it.
My nearest neighbor, who happens to be on the mend after breaking her hip earlier this summer, sent out an e-mail, basically bringing everyone up to speed on her progress, or lack thereof. She mentioned something in her e-mail about clearing a path on her property for her dog in the wake of our recent snowfall. This particular task, at least for now, has been assigned to the fellow staying with her, who is scheduled to leave for Florida in two weeks' time. He's no spring chicken, so if I had to give him any advice, I'd tell him to take it slow. More troubling to me was the intimation in her missive that the path that he was planning to clear would still need to be cleared after the departure of her friend. Who precisely did she have in mind for that job? Is she expecting me to do the job in addition to what I already do for her? I've been clearing her driveway of snow these past couple of winters, and it's not been a big deal one way or another. Well, I figured if I didn't respond to her e-mail, which I've not done, maybe she'll take the hint. It's more than I want to take on, so we'll let the chips fall where they may. Plan accordingly, dearie.
We enjoyed a lovely piece of halibut for dinner last night. The missus has a recipe that we love to make, and it calls for steaming the fish in a broth of diced tomatoes and calamata olives. We have fish so seldom these days that we have to remind ourselves from time to time that we should be eating more fish and not less. We live on the seacoast, for chrissakes, where the fish is almost always fresh and, as they love to say in the shop, straight off the boat. We have no excuse for not adding more fish to our diet. As I've already mentioned, I'm kicking carbs to the curb, for now, to break my addiction to sugar, so having fish is a no-brainer. The missus can make this recipe in her sleep too, and that's a good thing since, and don't tell her I said this, but she's no Gordon Ramsey. You put the fish in some aluminum foil, add the tomatoes and juices, and stick it in the oven for maybe ten to fifteen minutes. I might have liked to have had a half-pound or so of broiled asparagus to go with the fish, but, alas, that was not in the cards. Tonight, God willing, we'll have chicken and brussel sprouts.
I follow this one particular woman on Twitter who announced recently that she's moving to Taiwan for two years in a couple of weeks. Her husband has a two-year stint with some company there, or so she says. It got me thinking, who the hell has Taiwan on their bingo card as a destination du jour, knowing what we all know about China's designs on Taiwan? Being an American will not give him a pass one way or another once the shooting begins. He and his wife will head to the local fallout shelter together, like everyone else, once the missiles start flying overhead. Hell, the two of them could end up dead if things go to hell in a handbasket, Ukrainian style. She has a military background, so I suspect she understands all too well what she's getting herself into. For all I know, her husband is training the Taiwanese on how to use sophisticated weaponry that either has been or will be provided to Taiwan should China follow through on its plans to reunify the country of Taiwan. As for America joining that fight on behalf of our allies in Taiwan, I think that's a whole lot of wishful thinking.
Besides, every NATO country, including the United States, has largely depleted its military assets and, consequently, its capabilities on behalf of the Ukrainians in its fight against the Russians. Hell, we went on bended knee to our military cupboards in South Korea just last week, looking for spare parts to send to Ukraine. It's not something that you'll hear our military brass talking about, but that is where we are, folks. That said, it seems we don't have a lot to offer Taiwan or anyone else if things go sideways in the near future. Maybe that was the plan from the jump. That would explain why China has been largely absent when and where the Russian war in Ukraine is concerned. The more the West bleeds out, militaristically speaking, the less they have in the tank when it comes to rushing to anyone's aid. We, the United States, may even come up short were we to have to confront the CCP on our soil should that come to pass. We still have nukes, though. Oh, wait. So do they.
It sounds like Nikki Haley is thinking about throwing her hat into the ring as a presidential wannabe in 2024. She loves to say that she's never lost a campaign as if we're supposed to infer from that that she'd win if she runs. It sounds like she's setting herself up as Trump's vice presidential running mate if you ask me. I approve of her politics in the sense that she's a conservative, but I'm not sure she has the requisite curb appeal to sell herself as a national candidate. She was governor of South Carolina, and she was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, so she's not chopped liver. You have to give the lady her due. She's put in the time, and she has a record of accomplishment. I'm just not seeing her in the mix when the primaries in the Mid West roll around. I can hear them now: Nikki who? They might well say the same thing about Ron DeSantis. Trump is and will continue to be the veritable 800-pound gorilla in the room. These other candidates must think long and hard about taking Trump head-on in the primaries. Maybe they do it to gain name recognition. Maybe they do it to position themselves as a potential vice president. Maybe they don't do it at all.
Just when you thought Biden's classified document fiasco couldn't get any worse, they found another tranche of documents this weekend at one of his homes in Delaware. I've lost count on the number of documents that they've fouud since last November. This time around, it was the DOJ performng the search, not Biden's attorneys. And then there's this: Ron Klein, Biden's Chief of Staff, announced his departure in two week's time. Klein is the brains of the operation so that can't be good for Biden. It's possible that Klein doesn't want to get indicted as a co-consiprator once they start to unravel Biden's extensive criminal enterprise. You also have to imagine that the Republican majority in the House and their committees that plan hearings on Biden corruption beginning in February also play into everything that we see unfolding. Biden is now a veritable Dead Man Walking. The expose's from his pretorian guard, the mainstream media, will only ramp up from here. They want him gone.