Bounty for Heads

The New York Times broke a story Thursday evening that Russia had a bounty on the American soldiers in Afghanistan. According to the report, verified by The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations, the Russian government had a deal through at least 2019 to pay the Taliban for each American soldier killed.

 

So, the president may or may not have heard about the Russian bounty deal with the Taliban back in March. As usual, we've gotten mixed messages from the administration on whether or not the president knew and when or when't [sic] he knew/knew't. Today, before he retweeted a video that included racist language and profanities (from both sides), he tweeted that he didn't know about the bounty. However, the administration doesn't disavow the actual core charge.

 

Which leads me to contemplate three possibilities:

 

1. The intelligence services and/or his closest advisors were too afraid or oblivious to share this news with the president.
    
2. The president received the information in his Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB), but didn't read it or understand it, and no one pointed it out to him.
    
3. He read it, and ignored it. He didn't care.
    

None of those three possibilities are especially comforting, nor are they a good look for the president. The fact is that since he was or should have been advised on this attack on American troops by Russia, the president responded by by doing three things:

1. He announced the withdraw pulling 28% (9,500) of our troops out of Germany, something that Putin has long desired. Something that will, arguably make the EU less secure from Russian aggression.  German Withdraw
    
2. He's petitioned for Russia to be granted readmission to the G7 (G8). If you recall, Russia was kicked out after it annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. Again, this is something that Putin has long wanted.
    
3. Nothing. He has done absolutely nothing about this. In fact, the day after the story broke...when Trump said that he was staying in Washington for the weekend to keep "LAW & ORDER", he went out to play golf at his Virginia course.

Carnival Games at Lakeside

Carnival Games at Lakeside

(This was adapted from a free-flowing FaceBook response)

I worked the games from 1978-1982. The first year, I was an all-purpose worker, which means I was banished a lot to Color Dot, Machine Gun, and Dime Pitch (damn merry-go-round music still sears my brain); places where workers learned the art of boredom. I graduated to The Weight Game that year and on to The Birthday Game. Eventually, I was elevated to stock room and finally to games supervisor before I was canned (still makes me angry).

I only recall one game being "rigged”:Dime/Quarter pitch. At that game a fine silicone mist was sprayed onto the plates to cause the coins to skid across and off the plate. When the giant animals (expensive) were given away, you know that someone screwed up.

Some games were made almost impossibly hard: basketball shooting (small rim), Basket Game (23 degree angle to the wicker basket using hard plastic light softballs--I got the angle wrong when I built it with Dave Wade), Machine Gun: had to shoot out every thread of the red star from the target. Cat Rack, a part of the Front Games, was trickier to win than you might think. The "cats" were fluffy and allowed to ball to pass through without striking anything of substance.

Other games were relatively easy to win, but the prizes reflected that. Birthday Game was quite straight forward. We knew that you had only 14 places to drop your quarter, so our losses were essentially predetermined when the "rhomba-casa-quaddecahedron" was rolled. Later, Don (the boss boss) added two more dates to the board for a total of 16 squares and a new hexakaidecagon. The Weight Game only gave away "slum" and "flock", prizes worth pennies. Once you got someone to play, we won.

There are a few tips I learned along the way to consistently win at some of the games. Most of the tips center on one over-riding principle: less is more. To win at almost any throwing game, making a slow, under-powered toss is the key. On Cat Rack, I could knock down three clowns almost every time I tossed by using a gentle dart throwing motion. Simply aim the "dart" (ball) and toss like a dart. I used the same strategy at Break-A-Plate with great success. Todd Stafford mentioned the bank shot in Skeeball. One of my favorite strategies worked on Machine Gun. Most people who played, took the gun and blasted away all 100 shots in rapid-fire fashion. The way to win, however, was to take single shots. Since the sights weren't standardized, the first couple of shots gave you an idea where the shots would go. Then you simply cut a circle around the red star using single shots, causing it to drop out of the target completely in one piece.

A Ranty Rant and a Rebuttal

A Ranty Rant and a Rebuttal

I know lots of people on social media. Some of them don't share my political beliefs. One of them posted this rant this afternoon.

I thought I'd post it here in its entirety. I believe that this is something that someone on the Interwebs wrote and is being passed around.

Read it, then look for my retooled anti-rant that follows the bones of the original.

*****************************************
Copy paste but still:

I'm not posting this for debate. I don’t need any comments. Unfriend me if you must. Just please consider this...when you think the President is a jerk...

The bottom line has been that Trump IS a jerk. He’s crude, he bloviates, he gets his feelings hurt and he’s a hot head. And he should stay off Twitter.

Let me tell you what else he is. He is a guy that demands performance. He is a guy that asks lots of questions. The questions he asks aren’t cloaked in fancy phrases, they are “why the hell....” questions.

For decades the health industry has thrown away billions of face masks after one use. Trump asks, “Why the hell are we throwing them away? Why not sterilize them and use them numerous times?” He’s the guy that gets hospital ships readied in one week, when it would have taken a bureaucrat weeks or months to get it done. He’s the guy that gets temporary hospitals built in three days. He’s the guy that gets industries to build ventilators and face masks in a business that’s highly regulated by agencies that move like sloths.

He’s the guy that asks why we aren’t using drugs that might work on people that are dying; what the hell do we have to lose? In spite of all the naysayers. He’s the guy that shut down travel from China, when the liberals and the media were screaming xenophobia and racist. Now they are asking why didn't he react sooner? He’s the guy that ran on securing the border in the face of a screaming press and media. When he shut down borders in the midst of the coronavirus virus they were up in arms over such a draconian move. Then the rest of the world followed suit all over, including the European Union between member countries.

Has he made mistakes, yep. Everyone I know would have. All of these experts wouldn’t have done any better. Trump is working harder than I’ve ever seen a President work. He isn’t hiding in his office, he’s out front every day.

Take for instance, all the shortages of PPE’s and ventilators. I’m unaware of anything that prevented all of these governors from ordering all the PPE and ventilators for emergency purposes over the last two years. And yet, it is Trump’s fault that they didn’t.

He’s balanced his approach and listened to the experts, when his distractors said he wouldn’t and couldn’t. When he offers hope, he’s lying and when he’s straight forward, he should be hopeful. It’s a no win, but he is not deterred by all of that BS coming from the press and the liberals.

I’ll take this kind of leadership over a nice guy that can make eloquent speeches.

He is my President!

**********************************************************

My Anti-Pro-Trump Rant

I'm not posting this for debate. I don’t need any comments (well, actually I do). Unfriend me if you must. Just please consider this...when you think the President is a jerk...

The bottom line is that Trump IS a jerk. He’s crude; he bloviates. He gets his feelings hurt, and he’s a hot-head. And he should stay off Twitter.

Let me tell you what else he is. He is a guy that makes ridiculous, nonsensical demands and expects unrealistic performance. He is a guy that asks lots of whacked-out questions. The questions he asks aren’t cloaked in fancy phrases; they are “why the hell...” questions that devolve into complete unrelated, incomprehensible babble.

For decades the health industry has thrown away billions of face masks after one use. Trump asks, “Why the hell are we throwing them away? Why not sterilize them and use them numerous times?” It’s a great question, and he received a scientific answer that either confused him or simply didn’t satisfy him. He’s the guy that ordered hospital ships readied in one week, despite the ships lacking full crews, having Covid-19 members, and undergoing scheduled, vital maintenance when it would have taken a bureaucrat a similar amount of time to get them launched properly if they had received the order a month earlier. He’s the guy that gets temporary hospitals built in three days, but a month late. He’s the guy that gets industries to build ventilators and face masks two months late using private business that need more time to retool before beginning to pump out these vital supplies.

He’s the guy that asks why we aren’t using drugs that might work on people that are dying; what the hell do we have to lose? - In spite of all the nay-sayers. Nay-Sayers who appropriately noted that there is NO scientific basis for his claims.

He’s the guy that “shut down travel from China”, when people who follow actual factual reporting from the non-state media were pointing out that while Chinese people were barred from returning to the US, over 40,000 US citizens and those with special “passes” were allowed back without receiving any directives to self-quarantine.

Now these same educated information consumers are asking why didn't the president react sooner? He dismissed the impending crisis all though February, despite warnings from WHO and many countries. In fact, he continued his mass political rallies all the way through early March, HUGE rallies with “the biggest crowds ever.” As late as mid-March he was dismissing the impact of the pandemic telling us that it was completely under control.

He’s the guy that ran on securing the border (Mexico will pay for it one day) in the face of a screaming press and media upset at the inhuman treatment of legal asylum seekers. When he shut down borders in the midst of the corona-virus pandemic, they were up in arms that he was directing his ICE agents to stalk the border seeking out more asylum seekers to deport. Their protestations forced him to have his private police back off. He sealed the borders with Canada and Mexico after most other countries had taken similar action.

Has he made mistakes? Yep. Has he lied? Absolutely, with almost every breath. Most of the people in government who are critical of his lack of leadership would have handled the crisis better; providing factual, science-based information confidently in an unambiguous fashion without lying and distorting the truth. Trump is working hard to politicize the pandemic. Instead of unifying us, he seeks to tear us apart. I’ve never seen a President so completely unfit and humanely dysfunctional. He isn’t hiding in his office, he’s out front every day spewing his lies and attacking his “enemies”, fellow U.S. citizens who dare point out his incompetence, lies, or malfeasance.

Take for instance, all the shortages of PPE’s and ventilators. He’s done NOTHING to help build some sort of emergency storehouse. In fact he suggested that he wouldn’t directly aid states until they bowed or “showed their appreciation to [him].” He forced states to compete in the open market for PPE, cotton swabs, and respirators, driving the prices up to astronomical levels. Despite being President since 2017, he’s sought to defund the CDC and reassigned the members of the pandemic response team. Our lack of preparation as a nation is 100% Trump’s fault.

His approach is unbalanced and incomprehensible. Many of his “experts” are completely unqualified; like the “My Pillow Guy”, Jared, and the sycophantic vice president. When he offers hope, he’s lying and when he’s straight-forward, he’s lying. His only motivation appears to be how the pandemic will affect him and his business interests. He is not deterred by all of the just criticism coming from the press and the people who are actually paying attention to what he says and DOES. He continues his unhinged “leadership” while proudly proclaiming, “Only I can fix it.” While also saying, “I am NOT responsible.”

This kind of leadership from the impeached president is destroying and will completely destroy our country if allowed to continue. We need a leader who can unite us behind a shared purpose, a common enemy. We need a generational leader, not a charlatan and crook.

He is NOT my President. He needs to be relieved of duty.

Write your own version if you agree. It’s therapeutic.

Grocery Shopping in Early Covid-19 Days

Grocery Shopping in Early Covid-19 Days

SWSNBNOSM and I ventured out to buy groceries and gasoline. Since the price of gas about $0.20 cheaper in nearby Daleville, we decided to shop at the Kroger there. 

I have rarely felt so uncomfortable. The store was quite crowded. With our faces covered and our fresh latex gloves on, we were in a distinct minority Few shoppers were even slightly concerned with their proximity to us. Every time one of them headed toward us, we scurried away like ghost crabs on a beach at night.

We happened upon one of those shopper's shoppers. This guy had a cart with 8 open paper grocery bags labeled with a bar code sticker. He used a handheld device to fill each bag, scanning each item and beeping the bag as he placed them into the proper bag. Amazing technology. Such a fabulous service. However, this man wore no mask and no gloves and was moving at will across the store oblivious to scurrying ghost crabs he encountered. 

That shopper's shopper wasn't alone, however. That Kroger was loaded with busy employees. Almost none of them was wearing any kind of protective gear as they handled produce, restocked shelves, bagged groceries, and checked out items. Of the 20-30 store employees I saw, only two were wearing masks.
When we were checking out, SWSNBNOFB chose the self-checkout, which was uncrowded, She purposely picked one unit on the end of the bank of automated, robotic checkers. Almost immediately, a couple entered the checking area and decided to use the machine two feet away from us, despite there being 8 other machines not next to us that were open. 

After paying, we fled to our car.