Smoke and Mirrors
05/03/23 07:05
This morning, I asked the missus: Is it my imagination, or did you not sleep a wink last night? The truth of the matter is, when she doesn't sleep well, I don't sleep well. When I don't sleep well, I wake up feeling less well-rested, more prone to irritation, and less focused. I don't like waking up feeling less focused. There is literally no way to get this train back on the tracks without catching up on the sleep that I lost. I'm not against taking a nap somewhere along the line, but I'd rather not wake up feeling like I need to do that. Maybe the good news is that I have the luxury of taking a nap if that is what I require. As for the missus, not so much. Not nowadays, anyway.
I need to get on the stick and make the chili recipe that I've wanted to make for the better part of a week now. I prefer meat in my chili, but I occasionally enjoy a good veggie chili. I have all the ingredients, so I need to get to it. The missus won't eat my beef chili so I usually make her a side portion without the meat. That won't be necessary if I can get it all together today. We also have a nice lentil soup recipe that we should make before the spinach that I bought for the recipe goes bad. There's plenty of snow in the forecast for the upcoming week, so it will nice to have a good pot of hot chili readily available. That reminds me. I need to talk to the Ev man today to hammer out a schedule to get his car over here and in the garage. The storm is expected shortly after midnight tonight, so today is the day to get the details sorted.
I already have an e-mail from my neighbor about the snow that fell overnight last night. I don't know if that's her way of telling me to get on the stick and over to her driveway to clear the snow or if it's just her making a casual observation. What message will I be sending if I don't respond? Will she interpret that as my saying that I'll be there when I get there? Or, worse yet, will she interpret that as do it yourself if you want it done now? I plan to do my driveway in the next couple of hours, and then I'll pop over and do hers after I do mine. That's fair. Right? By doing mine first, I want her to know I have my priorities straight. She will always be second fiddle when it comes to snow removal. If she doesn't like it, she can clear her own driveway. I'm trying to be a good neighbor. No, really.
The missus and I were out and about late yesterday afternoon, walking around in downtown Portsmouth. They really need to do a better job of clearing the sidewalks when it snows. There are a lot of brick sidewalks, and they get very slippery when it snows. Putting down sand or salt probably doesn't pass muster with the locals who make such decisions. The missus and I had to walk hand in hand. Not because we're all lovey-dovey but because we thought leaning on each other might keep us upright should one or both of us lose our footing. The ankle-high snow banks separating the sidewalk from the curb where we parked were all but impossible to traverse unless you followed the tracks already laid down by pedestrians that came before you. Nothing was easy. Nor did we have any luck deciding on where we might like to stop for something to eat. For some reason or other, that's never been easy for us. Pandemic or no pandemic, it's always tough.
I thought Tucker Carlson would start unveiling footage of the January 6th "insurrection" on his show last night. That never happened for whatever reason. I know other groups also wanted to see the footage, and some of those groups have brought lawsuits. "It isn't fair that the Speaker of the House in the United States Congress should give this footage to a conservative media member and him alone," they whined. Tucker never explained why he had nothing to share despite his promise to his audience last week that we'd see it this week. I don't personally care who the Speaker shares the video with, but I do care that someone shows everything there is to show that effectively lifts the veil on what really happened on that fateful day back in 2020. Maybe we'll see it tonight. I also think there's a ton of footage, so it might have to be shared over several of Tucker's shows. Let's get this damn party started!
How the hell are we supposed to process everything we hear about Covid and the Wuhan labs? So, the Energy Department has now stated unequivocally that they believe that Covid started in a lab in Wuhan. Since day one, Trump has been saying this; many others have chimed in with the same theory. Most "theorists" have been blackballed, shut down, shadow banned, or roundly criticized by our government officials and their praetorian guard, the main street media. Conservative media is now showing many of those clips on a loop. It has to be somewhat embarrassing to the talking heads who were out front early on and vociferous with their condemnation and ridicule of people making those assertions. Where are the apologies? Has even one of those dopes walked back their comments? Not on your life. The bigger question now is, why. Why would China want to kill millions of people across the globe? Was that their intent?
I don't think I like the tone of what I hear from the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) these days. When the spy balloon thing was front and center in the news, China was insanely critical of the United States for shooting down their balloon. They conveniently said nothing about the fact that they were flying spy balloons over our country. Forget the fact that Bumbles Biden allowed the damn thing to traverse our country sucking up everything in sight for thousands of miles from coast to coast. I'm not sure that I take issue with the CCP accusing the Biden Administration of hypocrisy as it relates to Biden's criticism of China providing military assets to Russia when his Administration has been doing the same thing with Ukraine. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. No? I saw something this morning about China taking issue with our government banning the TikTok application on all government hand-held devices. You know, the very same TikToc application that sends data back to Beijing. My only question is, what the hell took Bumbles so long to do this?
Did you see footage on the telly of that wily old coot, Janet Yellen, in Ukraine? What the hell is our silver-haired octogenarian of a Treasury Secretary doing walking around in a war zone halfway around the world, rubbing up on Zelensky with a check for a billion dollars? We've already given Ukraine a hundred billion or more. How much more of our blood and treasure must we bleed before Zelensly and his comrades are satisfied? Who decides that? You would think that Zelensky does by how Biden and his minions prostrate themselves at Zelensky's feet at every turn. It makes me fucking sick to my stomach. When will the Europeans step up to the plate with their checkbooks? We look like fucking patsies on the world stage, and for what? So Bumbles and his crew can say they're fighting for democracy? They know Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. Right? Does this have anything to do with ten percent for the big guy? What about our people? What about East Palestine? Our homeless vets. Our mentally ill and homeless citizens?
It wouldn't surprise me at the end of the day to find out that Zelensky and his buddies have squirreled away billions of our dollars in a Switzerland bank account so he can live high off the hog when he's finished fleecing the Ukrainian people and all the suckers around the world who were dumb enough to send him money. I hope the Ukrainian people catch on to him sooner rather than later so they can bring him to justice. Maybe that's at the end of a rope, maybe it's in a jail cell. Someone has to pay a price for all of the lives needlessly lost in Ukraine so Zelensky and his friends could enrich themselves while Ukrainians die by the thousands on the ever-contracting front lines against Putin's war machine. Would it surprise anyone to find out that Zelensky doesn't even reside in Ukraine? I might even go so far as to say that Hollywood has done their part by constructing sets to mimic downtown Kyiv so Biden could be seen as America's Churchill during his visit to "Ukraine." Smoke and mirrors.
It looks like Twitter is down this morning. How am I supposed to catch up on the news? It's very disconcerting. Has one or more of Elon's people taken down the system in sympathy with those impacted by the latest round of layoffs at Twitter? You kick a bunch of these entitled but talented fucks to the curb, and you never know what kind of blowback you'll get. Who doesn't think that Elon will get the last laugh? I do feel a little exposed, though. It's part and parcel of who I am and what I do in the early morning hours on any given day. God forbid I have to go to Drudge.com or some such website to get my news. I stopped looking at his nonsense ages ago, so I'll just put that out there. Headlines on run-of-the-mill rags like the Washington Post wouldn't lower themselves to chime in the trials and travails of Twitter, but might well tell me who won the mayoral race in Chicago last night. Yes, I'm delighted that Lightfoot is toast. She was a real piece of shite.
I thought I heard a story or two about the Ukranians lobbing a couple of somethings across the border and into Russia. Not sure if they were drones, missiles, or what. I thought Vlad had said something about the end of times should this conflict cross into Russia. Will he be unleashing the hounds of hell now? I thought I saw pictures of one of Russia's oil refineries taking a direct hit. I thought the Ukrainians needed long-range missiles to hit inside Russia and that no country was willing to provide Ukraine with the missiles for fear of escalating the conflict or dragging one or more NATO countries into the conflict. This is how rumors get started. Who thinks for a minute that had a Russian refinery taken a direct hit that Putin would allow pictures of the resulting inferno to get out for the world to see? Putin is a lot of things, but dumb isn't one of them. By the way, Has Putin declared war on Ukraine? I don't think he has. Officially, I mean.
Is Bumbles still selling China oil out of our Strategic Oil Reserves? Why is nobody talking about the Strategic Oil Reserves anymore? That's the oil store we as a country should use in an emergency. In the days leading up to the 2022 mid-term elections, Biden was accused of selling off our strategic petroleum reserves to bring down prices at the pump to favor democrats running for office. Prices dropped below $5 a gallon and have fallen even further. Oil prices spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine, and we all thought we'd be paying $10 a gallon at the pump, but that never came to pass. Home heating oil also spiked to over $5 a gallon, making for a long and expensive winter for many folks living on the margins. That, too, never came to pass. It's been a mild winter here in the Northeast, so that's helped keep prices lower than they might otherwise be. We're still far from the $1.99 a gallon at the pumps when Trump was in office. Just sayin'.
Speaking of living on the margins, people who qualified for food stamps during the pandemic have now lost that benefit since the pandemic is officially over. If I'm not mistaken, I think people received an extra $200 a month in food stamp benefits during the pandemic. Can you imagine receiving that kind of benefit only to have it taken away? This is the problem with these types of benefits. Imagine having a bogey like that and all the good it does in helping the poor and underprivileged deal with issues like food insecurity. Food stamp recipients might end up with as little as $26 a month in benefits now that the program has ended. You might as well not have any benefits at all for all $26 a month gets you these days. How are people living on the margins supposed to compensate for that shortfall? Food banks would be one way. Charity from friends and family would help. Still, financial independence is a cherished and noble goal in our society, yet it remains out of reach for many people. That's just a fact.
My chili turned out pretty good. It's a keeper is what you're supposed to say when you find a recipe that clicks. I made enough so that we might be able to freeze some for a rainy day. I think what I liked most about it was the consistency. The missus said it was borderline too spicy, but that didn't stop her from finishing her dish. You can put just about anything in chili and get away with it. My recipe used summer squash, corn, red and green peppers, and three types of beans. I served the missus a nice hot dish of chili with a piece of fresh buttered sourdough bread. I sprinkled the chili with a nice blend of Mexican cheeses. I passed on the bread since I'm trying to avoid things like white bread. It's all about staying away from the foodstuffs that spike my blood sugars. I almost put margarine on the bread I served the missus but thought better of it when I looked at the margarine. It looked sick. There's just no substitute for real butter. I think I'm done with the margarine.
There's another case of a human dying of the bird flu in the news this morning. I'm unsure if this is China's latest attempt to poison the world's population or maybe just another pandemic in its infancy. The missus mentioned to me the other day that if a poultry farmer finds even one case of bird flu in the birds they house, they are forced to kill all their birds. That seems a little heavy-handed to me but okay. Did I also see something about treating the chickens with an mRNA vaccine of sorts? These bastards are doing everything possible to get those damnable vaccines into our bloodstream. It wasn't enough that big pharma paid every politician in sight to force the jabs on us until we wised up and saw their efforts for what they were. If anyone asks me if I plan to have a chicken dish anytime soon, my response will be, "hell no!" I don't care how many "mRNA-free" stickers I see on the packaging.
More and more reports are coming out on the inefficacy of masks. I've never put much stock in them anyway. They are usually slipping here and there on our faces, and, more often than not, you're using your hands to readjust your mask. How many times have you been warned to keep your hands away from your face to prevent transmission of viruses and other things? It's just another case of how we deal with things like pandemics that only come once in a hundred years. If you look at pictures of the smallpox pandemic in 1918, you'll see the same old rags hanging off people's faces that you saw in 2020. We haven't learned a goddamn thing. I asked the missus if she would consider not wearing her mask everywhere she goes in light of the reports. She told me she'd continue to wear it while shopping at places like Walmart and our local grocery stores. I still see people driving alone in their cars while wearing masks, so I guess it could be worse.
The American woman I follow on Twitter, who now resides in Taiwan with her husband, posted a 360-degree video of the view from her apartment on the fourteenth floor. It was a pretty-pretty nice view. Now that the Chi-Coms have announced that they are moving up their timeline for reunifying Tawain with mainland China, I have to run her video through my mind with a filter. If you've seen the smoldering ruins of many a Ukrainian city or village after a constant barrage of missiles by Russia, you know where I'm going with this. We're talking hollowed-out, decimated, unimaginable. Will she and the hubster be forced into subterranean shelters for endless days and weeks while subsisting on a finite supply of canned rations while Taiwan fights for its very existence above ground? Will I even recognize her when she's perp walked out of her shelter by her Chinese captors? Will her American citizenship be a burden or, better yet, a get-out-of-jail-free card? Knowing what I know about the Democrat's appetite for waging war in shitholes worldwide, I don't see this ending well for this woman or her husband should China invade Taiwan. It's just a matter of time.
I'm no tactician, but I don't see how we here in America mount a credible defense for Taiwan thousands of miles away against a country the size of China, which is, relatively speaking, a mere stone's throw away from mainland China. The disadvantages of doing so are countless. Even if we were to win, that is to say, we could keep the chi-coms from occupying Taiwan, how would we sustain such a victory longer term? Maybe it's not much different from what we see with Cuba, just 90 miles off our shores. I don't know where I'm going with all of this. I think it's a bit foolhardy to underestimate China's might, willingness, and ability to do what they want with Taiwan. Hell, they waltzed into Hong Kong, and we did nothing. Why is Taiwan different? They (China) have more of everything than we do in terms of their tools to wage and win a war, if we're to believe what we hear, and that has to count for something. Right? Convince me, if you can, that we should be willing to sacrifice American blood and treasure to protect Taiwan from China. I'll wait.
I think I'll do what I did when this whole Ukraine thing kicked off back a year or more ago. I went looking this morning for people to follow on Twitter who know a thing or two about what's happening daily between China and Taiwan. You have to be careful when you do this. You never know who is tweeting state-sponsored propaganda and who is giving you the straight poop. The same can be said for the people I followed back in the day about Ukraine and who I continue to follow. You could say I pick and choose who I want to believe on any given day. Words are one thing, and video is quite another. Everything you see or read is intended to send a message. When the Ukrainians post pictures of dead Russians piled up like cordwood to suggest they have the upper hand, I'm getting out my bullshit meter and looking for evidence that what I'm looking at has been staged. I do the same thing when looking at pictures posted by the Wagner Group. It makes it that much more difficult to call winners and losers.
Have I chimed in yet on this whole drag show thing? Yes, I see it as yet another weapon of the left to distort and pervert our social mores. As if it isn't bad enough that the leftists have control over our educational systems, they need to go after our society's most cherished and valued members, our children. I don't get their overt attempts to sexualize our children, but that seems to be what they want to accomplish when holding these so-called drag shows in our communities. I've seen the videos, and believe me, they are not only not staged, but they leave little to the imagination. I'm not against pole dancers, per se, but when male pole dancers dress up like women and strut their stuff while inviting three-year-olds to stuff dollar bills into their garter belts, I'm calling them out. Arrest the mother fuckers and put laws in place to put these perverts out of business. If they want a cultural conflagration, we'll give them a cultural conflagration. Twerk at your own peril, you perverts.
Have you seen the videos of groups of people, usually from marginalized communities, going into stores in our bigger cities and walking out with armfuls of merchandise? That really pisses me off. Somewhere along the line, someone has convinced these losers that they are somehow entitled to help themselves to whatever the damn hell they think they're entitled to, and all they have to do is to show up and take it. Soros has put all the right attorneys in office to ensure that none of these criminals are charged, much less jailed, for their transgressions against society. The Walmarts of the world, and other big box joints like Walmart, are taking matters into their own hands. Good for them. They are packing up and moving the hell out of these god-forsaken shithole communities and heading for greener pastures where looting and pillaging are still against the law. Mom-and-pop stores likely have no such option available to them, so if budgets allow, I suggest that they put everything from toothpaste to tapioca behind bars to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the criminals to help themselves. Now you understand why the left is so hell-bent on taking away your guns.
I told the missus this morning that I had a good bike ride yesterday. It was a cold and cloudy thirty-seven degrees out of doors, and rain was in the air but not yet visible to the naked eye. It was just one of those days where I was both dressed perfectly, so I wasn't too hot or cold, and the cold moisture-saturated air was hyper-conducive to supercharging my energy stores and putting that extra spring in my step. I had to let up on the peddling here and there when I realized I was discharging energy at a seemingly reckless and breakneck pace. I steered clear of the painted white lines on the blacktop, thinking, perhaps incorrectly, that the surface of the painted lines was slicker and more dangerous beneath my careening tires. Traffic was lighter than usual along the Boulevard, which gave me a license to do as I damned well pleased, and all I could think of when I was coming down the home stretch was, feets don't fail me now.
The missus and I stopped by Otto's in Exeter, NH, yesterday afternoon to pick up a pizza on our way home from visiting Mrs. G. We ordered a large mushroom and Vidalia onion pizza for $26. This same pizza a year ago probably cost eighteen dollars or less. I could count the number of mushrooms on the pizza on one or two hands. The onions were hard to find, but I convinced myself they were probably tucked beneath the cheese topping somewhere. The crust was pretty darn good, but not twenty-six dollars worth. I usually give my crust to the missus to gnaw on, but I ate my own crust this time around. It had a buttery crispness to it that I quite enjoyed. As of late, I've been steering clear of bread products, but I rather enjoyed this particular indulgence, delicious as it was. We had a hankering to try out this pizza place, so that is what we did. It's not our favorite pizza joint in town, but it's a close second.
It's hard to believe that March has arrived here on the seacoast. Well, not just here, anyway. I guess that goes without saying. We're supposed to get close to a foot of snow today, but nothing is coming down at the moment. Maybe it's the big guy's way of telling me to get out and clear the few inches that have already fallen before the storm resumes. I'm keeping an eye on the temperatures since this thing could turn to all rain, which would make for a sludgy mess. I have no problem with sludge, per se, but my snowblower will invariably clog up, and then where would I be? My neighbor wouldn't be pleased if I failed to show up since she is still recovering from hip surgery. As it's March, and warmer temperatures are likely on the way, maybe I will do nothing and let Mother Nature do what she does best. One thing I won't be doing is shoveling. That would be tempting fate, and nobody in their right mind does that in times like this. First things first. What's for breakfast, little darlings?
Was there any particular reason that the White House had to release a story yesterday afternoon about Biden's doctor removing a cancerous lesion from Biden's chest? Who gives a flying fuck? The release of this story is about as meaningless as the bullshit releases they sent out after Bumbles had his most recent physical. Where is the report on Bumble's faltering cognitive function? Where are the reports from the Intelligence Agencies about money laundering and other criminal activities being conducted out of our country's beloved White House by the Biden Crime Family? Has this demented old fuck declared his run for the 2024 presidency yet? Oh, that's right. Doctor Jill, the one with the fishnet stockings, says that he's going to run. I guess that means he's running. We're talking about the same "president" who hasn't stood at a podium and given a press conference in over a year. There is no number of cue cards or earpieces feeding him answers that would get him through a presser. Again, when will we, the American people, hear anything resembling the truth coming out of this administration? No wonder we're a laughingstock on the world stage.
I'm waking up to yet another clown from Biden's Administration going over and shaking hands with that grifter Zelensky in Ukraine. This time it's our Attorney General. What the hell is the Attorney General of the United States doing traveling halfway around the world to shake hands with the criminal, Zelensky? Last week it was Janet Yellen, our Treasury Secretary. What the fuck is going on? Curious minds want to know. I'm beginning to think that these staged events are happening not in Ukraine but on a Hollywood set somewhere in the foothills of Hollywood, California. I said the same thing when I saw Bumbles Biden stumbling stiffly alongside the camouflage-clad Zelensky as they allegedly made their way through the streets of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital city. There is just no fucking way these clowns traveled to Ukraine for what amounted to a photo op with the grifter who has effectively fleeced our country's taxpayers of tens of billions of dollars. I'll ask again. Where are the Congressional hearings? Have we no fucking heroes left? Stand the fuck up and be counted! Godamnit.
I'll end this little tirade of mine with one last little clusterfuck. I was watching this show on the telly last night called "The Watchful Eye." It got pretty good reviews on IMDB so I decided to give it a try. Besides, I like Hulu productions as much as the next guy (or gal). Don't get me going with any of your binary or non-binary bull. Anyway, you hear rumors about this network and that network going woke. I couldn't care less as long as I don't feel like they're trying to bamboozle me with their cultural bullshit. Apple productions are notoriously woke and, with a couple of exceptions like "Servant" and one other show whose title escapes me at the moment, I avoid them like the plague. Anyway, this Watchful Eye show is the first show I've ever seen where actors introduced themselves using their pronouns. It was a real WTF moment. There may have been other clues but being the ludite that I am they may well have gone right over my head. I'm not saying that I won't finish watching the series. I am saying that this better not be the start of some goddamn trend or I'm going to be done. Maybe they can start labeling shows woke and pre-woke. God help us.
I need to get on the stick and make the chili recipe that I've wanted to make for the better part of a week now. I prefer meat in my chili, but I occasionally enjoy a good veggie chili. I have all the ingredients, so I need to get to it. The missus won't eat my beef chili so I usually make her a side portion without the meat. That won't be necessary if I can get it all together today. We also have a nice lentil soup recipe that we should make before the spinach that I bought for the recipe goes bad. There's plenty of snow in the forecast for the upcoming week, so it will nice to have a good pot of hot chili readily available. That reminds me. I need to talk to the Ev man today to hammer out a schedule to get his car over here and in the garage. The storm is expected shortly after midnight tonight, so today is the day to get the details sorted.
I already have an e-mail from my neighbor about the snow that fell overnight last night. I don't know if that's her way of telling me to get on the stick and over to her driveway to clear the snow or if it's just her making a casual observation. What message will I be sending if I don't respond? Will she interpret that as my saying that I'll be there when I get there? Or, worse yet, will she interpret that as do it yourself if you want it done now? I plan to do my driveway in the next couple of hours, and then I'll pop over and do hers after I do mine. That's fair. Right? By doing mine first, I want her to know I have my priorities straight. She will always be second fiddle when it comes to snow removal. If she doesn't like it, she can clear her own driveway. I'm trying to be a good neighbor. No, really.
The missus and I were out and about late yesterday afternoon, walking around in downtown Portsmouth. They really need to do a better job of clearing the sidewalks when it snows. There are a lot of brick sidewalks, and they get very slippery when it snows. Putting down sand or salt probably doesn't pass muster with the locals who make such decisions. The missus and I had to walk hand in hand. Not because we're all lovey-dovey but because we thought leaning on each other might keep us upright should one or both of us lose our footing. The ankle-high snow banks separating the sidewalk from the curb where we parked were all but impossible to traverse unless you followed the tracks already laid down by pedestrians that came before you. Nothing was easy. Nor did we have any luck deciding on where we might like to stop for something to eat. For some reason or other, that's never been easy for us. Pandemic or no pandemic, it's always tough.
I thought Tucker Carlson would start unveiling footage of the January 6th "insurrection" on his show last night. That never happened for whatever reason. I know other groups also wanted to see the footage, and some of those groups have brought lawsuits. "It isn't fair that the Speaker of the House in the United States Congress should give this footage to a conservative media member and him alone," they whined. Tucker never explained why he had nothing to share despite his promise to his audience last week that we'd see it this week. I don't personally care who the Speaker shares the video with, but I do care that someone shows everything there is to show that effectively lifts the veil on what really happened on that fateful day back in 2020. Maybe we'll see it tonight. I also think there's a ton of footage, so it might have to be shared over several of Tucker's shows. Let's get this damn party started!
How the hell are we supposed to process everything we hear about Covid and the Wuhan labs? So, the Energy Department has now stated unequivocally that they believe that Covid started in a lab in Wuhan. Since day one, Trump has been saying this; many others have chimed in with the same theory. Most "theorists" have been blackballed, shut down, shadow banned, or roundly criticized by our government officials and their praetorian guard, the main street media. Conservative media is now showing many of those clips on a loop. It has to be somewhat embarrassing to the talking heads who were out front early on and vociferous with their condemnation and ridicule of people making those assertions. Where are the apologies? Has even one of those dopes walked back their comments? Not on your life. The bigger question now is, why. Why would China want to kill millions of people across the globe? Was that their intent?
I don't think I like the tone of what I hear from the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) these days. When the spy balloon thing was front and center in the news, China was insanely critical of the United States for shooting down their balloon. They conveniently said nothing about the fact that they were flying spy balloons over our country. Forget the fact that Bumbles Biden allowed the damn thing to traverse our country sucking up everything in sight for thousands of miles from coast to coast. I'm not sure that I take issue with the CCP accusing the Biden Administration of hypocrisy as it relates to Biden's criticism of China providing military assets to Russia when his Administration has been doing the same thing with Ukraine. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. No? I saw something this morning about China taking issue with our government banning the TikTok application on all government hand-held devices. You know, the very same TikToc application that sends data back to Beijing. My only question is, what the hell took Bumbles so long to do this?
Did you see footage on the telly of that wily old coot, Janet Yellen, in Ukraine? What the hell is our silver-haired octogenarian of a Treasury Secretary doing walking around in a war zone halfway around the world, rubbing up on Zelensky with a check for a billion dollars? We've already given Ukraine a hundred billion or more. How much more of our blood and treasure must we bleed before Zelensly and his comrades are satisfied? Who decides that? You would think that Zelensky does by how Biden and his minions prostrate themselves at Zelensky's feet at every turn. It makes me fucking sick to my stomach. When will the Europeans step up to the plate with their checkbooks? We look like fucking patsies on the world stage, and for what? So Bumbles and his crew can say they're fighting for democracy? They know Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. Right? Does this have anything to do with ten percent for the big guy? What about our people? What about East Palestine? Our homeless vets. Our mentally ill and homeless citizens?
It wouldn't surprise me at the end of the day to find out that Zelensky and his buddies have squirreled away billions of our dollars in a Switzerland bank account so he can live high off the hog when he's finished fleecing the Ukrainian people and all the suckers around the world who were dumb enough to send him money. I hope the Ukrainian people catch on to him sooner rather than later so they can bring him to justice. Maybe that's at the end of a rope, maybe it's in a jail cell. Someone has to pay a price for all of the lives needlessly lost in Ukraine so Zelensky and his friends could enrich themselves while Ukrainians die by the thousands on the ever-contracting front lines against Putin's war machine. Would it surprise anyone to find out that Zelensky doesn't even reside in Ukraine? I might even go so far as to say that Hollywood has done their part by constructing sets to mimic downtown Kyiv so Biden could be seen as America's Churchill during his visit to "Ukraine." Smoke and mirrors.
It looks like Twitter is down this morning. How am I supposed to catch up on the news? It's very disconcerting. Has one or more of Elon's people taken down the system in sympathy with those impacted by the latest round of layoffs at Twitter? You kick a bunch of these entitled but talented fucks to the curb, and you never know what kind of blowback you'll get. Who doesn't think that Elon will get the last laugh? I do feel a little exposed, though. It's part and parcel of who I am and what I do in the early morning hours on any given day. God forbid I have to go to Drudge.com or some such website to get my news. I stopped looking at his nonsense ages ago, so I'll just put that out there. Headlines on run-of-the-mill rags like the Washington Post wouldn't lower themselves to chime in the trials and travails of Twitter, but might well tell me who won the mayoral race in Chicago last night. Yes, I'm delighted that Lightfoot is toast. She was a real piece of shite.
I thought I heard a story or two about the Ukranians lobbing a couple of somethings across the border and into Russia. Not sure if they were drones, missiles, or what. I thought Vlad had said something about the end of times should this conflict cross into Russia. Will he be unleashing the hounds of hell now? I thought I saw pictures of one of Russia's oil refineries taking a direct hit. I thought the Ukrainians needed long-range missiles to hit inside Russia and that no country was willing to provide Ukraine with the missiles for fear of escalating the conflict or dragging one or more NATO countries into the conflict. This is how rumors get started. Who thinks for a minute that had a Russian refinery taken a direct hit that Putin would allow pictures of the resulting inferno to get out for the world to see? Putin is a lot of things, but dumb isn't one of them. By the way, Has Putin declared war on Ukraine? I don't think he has. Officially, I mean.
Is Bumbles still selling China oil out of our Strategic Oil Reserves? Why is nobody talking about the Strategic Oil Reserves anymore? That's the oil store we as a country should use in an emergency. In the days leading up to the 2022 mid-term elections, Biden was accused of selling off our strategic petroleum reserves to bring down prices at the pump to favor democrats running for office. Prices dropped below $5 a gallon and have fallen even further. Oil prices spiked after Russia invaded Ukraine, and we all thought we'd be paying $10 a gallon at the pump, but that never came to pass. Home heating oil also spiked to over $5 a gallon, making for a long and expensive winter for many folks living on the margins. That, too, never came to pass. It's been a mild winter here in the Northeast, so that's helped keep prices lower than they might otherwise be. We're still far from the $1.99 a gallon at the pumps when Trump was in office. Just sayin'.
Speaking of living on the margins, people who qualified for food stamps during the pandemic have now lost that benefit since the pandemic is officially over. If I'm not mistaken, I think people received an extra $200 a month in food stamp benefits during the pandemic. Can you imagine receiving that kind of benefit only to have it taken away? This is the problem with these types of benefits. Imagine having a bogey like that and all the good it does in helping the poor and underprivileged deal with issues like food insecurity. Food stamp recipients might end up with as little as $26 a month in benefits now that the program has ended. You might as well not have any benefits at all for all $26 a month gets you these days. How are people living on the margins supposed to compensate for that shortfall? Food banks would be one way. Charity from friends and family would help. Still, financial independence is a cherished and noble goal in our society, yet it remains out of reach for many people. That's just a fact.
My chili turned out pretty good. It's a keeper is what you're supposed to say when you find a recipe that clicks. I made enough so that we might be able to freeze some for a rainy day. I think what I liked most about it was the consistency. The missus said it was borderline too spicy, but that didn't stop her from finishing her dish. You can put just about anything in chili and get away with it. My recipe used summer squash, corn, red and green peppers, and three types of beans. I served the missus a nice hot dish of chili with a piece of fresh buttered sourdough bread. I sprinkled the chili with a nice blend of Mexican cheeses. I passed on the bread since I'm trying to avoid things like white bread. It's all about staying away from the foodstuffs that spike my blood sugars. I almost put margarine on the bread I served the missus but thought better of it when I looked at the margarine. It looked sick. There's just no substitute for real butter. I think I'm done with the margarine.
There's another case of a human dying of the bird flu in the news this morning. I'm unsure if this is China's latest attempt to poison the world's population or maybe just another pandemic in its infancy. The missus mentioned to me the other day that if a poultry farmer finds even one case of bird flu in the birds they house, they are forced to kill all their birds. That seems a little heavy-handed to me but okay. Did I also see something about treating the chickens with an mRNA vaccine of sorts? These bastards are doing everything possible to get those damnable vaccines into our bloodstream. It wasn't enough that big pharma paid every politician in sight to force the jabs on us until we wised up and saw their efforts for what they were. If anyone asks me if I plan to have a chicken dish anytime soon, my response will be, "hell no!" I don't care how many "mRNA-free" stickers I see on the packaging.
More and more reports are coming out on the inefficacy of masks. I've never put much stock in them anyway. They are usually slipping here and there on our faces, and, more often than not, you're using your hands to readjust your mask. How many times have you been warned to keep your hands away from your face to prevent transmission of viruses and other things? It's just another case of how we deal with things like pandemics that only come once in a hundred years. If you look at pictures of the smallpox pandemic in 1918, you'll see the same old rags hanging off people's faces that you saw in 2020. We haven't learned a goddamn thing. I asked the missus if she would consider not wearing her mask everywhere she goes in light of the reports. She told me she'd continue to wear it while shopping at places like Walmart and our local grocery stores. I still see people driving alone in their cars while wearing masks, so I guess it could be worse.
The American woman I follow on Twitter, who now resides in Taiwan with her husband, posted a 360-degree video of the view from her apartment on the fourteenth floor. It was a pretty-pretty nice view. Now that the Chi-Coms have announced that they are moving up their timeline for reunifying Tawain with mainland China, I have to run her video through my mind with a filter. If you've seen the smoldering ruins of many a Ukrainian city or village after a constant barrage of missiles by Russia, you know where I'm going with this. We're talking hollowed-out, decimated, unimaginable. Will she and the hubster be forced into subterranean shelters for endless days and weeks while subsisting on a finite supply of canned rations while Taiwan fights for its very existence above ground? Will I even recognize her when she's perp walked out of her shelter by her Chinese captors? Will her American citizenship be a burden or, better yet, a get-out-of-jail-free card? Knowing what I know about the Democrat's appetite for waging war in shitholes worldwide, I don't see this ending well for this woman or her husband should China invade Taiwan. It's just a matter of time.
I'm no tactician, but I don't see how we here in America mount a credible defense for Taiwan thousands of miles away against a country the size of China, which is, relatively speaking, a mere stone's throw away from mainland China. The disadvantages of doing so are countless. Even if we were to win, that is to say, we could keep the chi-coms from occupying Taiwan, how would we sustain such a victory longer term? Maybe it's not much different from what we see with Cuba, just 90 miles off our shores. I don't know where I'm going with all of this. I think it's a bit foolhardy to underestimate China's might, willingness, and ability to do what they want with Taiwan. Hell, they waltzed into Hong Kong, and we did nothing. Why is Taiwan different? They (China) have more of everything than we do in terms of their tools to wage and win a war, if we're to believe what we hear, and that has to count for something. Right? Convince me, if you can, that we should be willing to sacrifice American blood and treasure to protect Taiwan from China. I'll wait.
I think I'll do what I did when this whole Ukraine thing kicked off back a year or more ago. I went looking this morning for people to follow on Twitter who know a thing or two about what's happening daily between China and Taiwan. You have to be careful when you do this. You never know who is tweeting state-sponsored propaganda and who is giving you the straight poop. The same can be said for the people I followed back in the day about Ukraine and who I continue to follow. You could say I pick and choose who I want to believe on any given day. Words are one thing, and video is quite another. Everything you see or read is intended to send a message. When the Ukrainians post pictures of dead Russians piled up like cordwood to suggest they have the upper hand, I'm getting out my bullshit meter and looking for evidence that what I'm looking at has been staged. I do the same thing when looking at pictures posted by the Wagner Group. It makes it that much more difficult to call winners and losers.
Have I chimed in yet on this whole drag show thing? Yes, I see it as yet another weapon of the left to distort and pervert our social mores. As if it isn't bad enough that the leftists have control over our educational systems, they need to go after our society's most cherished and valued members, our children. I don't get their overt attempts to sexualize our children, but that seems to be what they want to accomplish when holding these so-called drag shows in our communities. I've seen the videos, and believe me, they are not only not staged, but they leave little to the imagination. I'm not against pole dancers, per se, but when male pole dancers dress up like women and strut their stuff while inviting three-year-olds to stuff dollar bills into their garter belts, I'm calling them out. Arrest the mother fuckers and put laws in place to put these perverts out of business. If they want a cultural conflagration, we'll give them a cultural conflagration. Twerk at your own peril, you perverts.
Have you seen the videos of groups of people, usually from marginalized communities, going into stores in our bigger cities and walking out with armfuls of merchandise? That really pisses me off. Somewhere along the line, someone has convinced these losers that they are somehow entitled to help themselves to whatever the damn hell they think they're entitled to, and all they have to do is to show up and take it. Soros has put all the right attorneys in office to ensure that none of these criminals are charged, much less jailed, for their transgressions against society. The Walmarts of the world, and other big box joints like Walmart, are taking matters into their own hands. Good for them. They are packing up and moving the hell out of these god-forsaken shithole communities and heading for greener pastures where looting and pillaging are still against the law. Mom-and-pop stores likely have no such option available to them, so if budgets allow, I suggest that they put everything from toothpaste to tapioca behind bars to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the criminals to help themselves. Now you understand why the left is so hell-bent on taking away your guns.
I told the missus this morning that I had a good bike ride yesterday. It was a cold and cloudy thirty-seven degrees out of doors, and rain was in the air but not yet visible to the naked eye. It was just one of those days where I was both dressed perfectly, so I wasn't too hot or cold, and the cold moisture-saturated air was hyper-conducive to supercharging my energy stores and putting that extra spring in my step. I had to let up on the peddling here and there when I realized I was discharging energy at a seemingly reckless and breakneck pace. I steered clear of the painted white lines on the blacktop, thinking, perhaps incorrectly, that the surface of the painted lines was slicker and more dangerous beneath my careening tires. Traffic was lighter than usual along the Boulevard, which gave me a license to do as I damned well pleased, and all I could think of when I was coming down the home stretch was, feets don't fail me now.
The missus and I stopped by Otto's in Exeter, NH, yesterday afternoon to pick up a pizza on our way home from visiting Mrs. G. We ordered a large mushroom and Vidalia onion pizza for $26. This same pizza a year ago probably cost eighteen dollars or less. I could count the number of mushrooms on the pizza on one or two hands. The onions were hard to find, but I convinced myself they were probably tucked beneath the cheese topping somewhere. The crust was pretty darn good, but not twenty-six dollars worth. I usually give my crust to the missus to gnaw on, but I ate my own crust this time around. It had a buttery crispness to it that I quite enjoyed. As of late, I've been steering clear of bread products, but I rather enjoyed this particular indulgence, delicious as it was. We had a hankering to try out this pizza place, so that is what we did. It's not our favorite pizza joint in town, but it's a close second.
It's hard to believe that March has arrived here on the seacoast. Well, not just here, anyway. I guess that goes without saying. We're supposed to get close to a foot of snow today, but nothing is coming down at the moment. Maybe it's the big guy's way of telling me to get out and clear the few inches that have already fallen before the storm resumes. I'm keeping an eye on the temperatures since this thing could turn to all rain, which would make for a sludgy mess. I have no problem with sludge, per se, but my snowblower will invariably clog up, and then where would I be? My neighbor wouldn't be pleased if I failed to show up since she is still recovering from hip surgery. As it's March, and warmer temperatures are likely on the way, maybe I will do nothing and let Mother Nature do what she does best. One thing I won't be doing is shoveling. That would be tempting fate, and nobody in their right mind does that in times like this. First things first. What's for breakfast, little darlings?
Was there any particular reason that the White House had to release a story yesterday afternoon about Biden's doctor removing a cancerous lesion from Biden's chest? Who gives a flying fuck? The release of this story is about as meaningless as the bullshit releases they sent out after Bumbles had his most recent physical. Where is the report on Bumble's faltering cognitive function? Where are the reports from the Intelligence Agencies about money laundering and other criminal activities being conducted out of our country's beloved White House by the Biden Crime Family? Has this demented old fuck declared his run for the 2024 presidency yet? Oh, that's right. Doctor Jill, the one with the fishnet stockings, says that he's going to run. I guess that means he's running. We're talking about the same "president" who hasn't stood at a podium and given a press conference in over a year. There is no number of cue cards or earpieces feeding him answers that would get him through a presser. Again, when will we, the American people, hear anything resembling the truth coming out of this administration? No wonder we're a laughingstock on the world stage.
I'm waking up to yet another clown from Biden's Administration going over and shaking hands with that grifter Zelensky in Ukraine. This time it's our Attorney General. What the hell is the Attorney General of the United States doing traveling halfway around the world to shake hands with the criminal, Zelensky? Last week it was Janet Yellen, our Treasury Secretary. What the fuck is going on? Curious minds want to know. I'm beginning to think that these staged events are happening not in Ukraine but on a Hollywood set somewhere in the foothills of Hollywood, California. I said the same thing when I saw Bumbles Biden stumbling stiffly alongside the camouflage-clad Zelensky as they allegedly made their way through the streets of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital city. There is just no fucking way these clowns traveled to Ukraine for what amounted to a photo op with the grifter who has effectively fleeced our country's taxpayers of tens of billions of dollars. I'll ask again. Where are the Congressional hearings? Have we no fucking heroes left? Stand the fuck up and be counted! Godamnit.
I'll end this little tirade of mine with one last little clusterfuck. I was watching this show on the telly last night called "The Watchful Eye." It got pretty good reviews on IMDB so I decided to give it a try. Besides, I like Hulu productions as much as the next guy (or gal). Don't get me going with any of your binary or non-binary bull. Anyway, you hear rumors about this network and that network going woke. I couldn't care less as long as I don't feel like they're trying to bamboozle me with their cultural bullshit. Apple productions are notoriously woke and, with a couple of exceptions like "Servant" and one other show whose title escapes me at the moment, I avoid them like the plague. Anyway, this Watchful Eye show is the first show I've ever seen where actors introduced themselves using their pronouns. It was a real WTF moment. There may have been other clues but being the ludite that I am they may well have gone right over my head. I'm not saying that I won't finish watching the series. I am saying that this better not be the start of some goddamn trend or I'm going to be done. Maybe they can start labeling shows woke and pre-woke. God help us.