Weekend Wrap Up

I found this on Wiki, but I had to search for it.  The Wiki article mostly talks about their other activities, but it seems that they are also into drugs.  
"MS-13 appears to use Texas as a stopping point for travel from Los Angeles to the East Coast and for the trafficking of drugs, humans, and weapons between Mexico and the United States.^[17]   "

If you want to change the terms that Supreme Court justices serve, you will need to pass a  constitutional amendment.  Lots of luck with that one.

I don't know if the GOP is likely to split up anytime soon.  Party splits like that are rare, but not unheard of, in US history.  If they do split up, I doubt it will be because some Democrat told them to.  If you want to influence the Republican Party, you would have to join them and get yourself appointed as a convention delegate.  As for writing down their principles,  I think that happens at a meeting of their platform committee, which meets sometime before the big national convention that they hold every four years.  The national convention usually rubber stamps the platform committee's recommendation, but it doesn't matter because nobody pays attention to the platform after the election anyway.  Other than that, the only party that I know of that has a set of written principles and sticks by it is the Libertarian Party.  At least they used to the last I heard, but I have been out of that loop for awhile.

Since NATO was founded to resist Russian Communism, I thought it should have been disbanded after Russia gave up Communism.  Looking back on it, maybe it's a good thing they didn't because, as we have said before, Russia is still Russia.  There was another one called "SEATO",  South East Asia Treaty Organization, that was supposed to protect us from the Red Chinese, but I haven't heard anything about them in a long time.  Maybe Nixon shut them down after he threw South Vietnam and Taiwan under the bus.

what He said

Thiessen is indeed a Trumpist.  He seemed to have his panties in a bunch about some bill Nancy Pelosi brought up to please her base, but which of course had no chance of ever even getting a hearing, so he was using her having that audacity to gin up the Trump base.  So what  else is new?

The Kennedy resignation of Justice Kennedy was the doom I was talking about.  The Republicans will now have complete control over all three branches of government.  Even if the dems take the house in 18, and even the senate, the supremes will be conservative for easily the next 20 years.  If it were my party getting this power perhaps I would not suggest this, but objectively I think we have to acknowledge that the supreme court is broken.  It'used to be presidents would nominate judges who were in the mainstream and who had the respect of the other party, but anymore it is hostage to whichever party has the president and half the senators who can ramrod anyone they want, and these vacancies appear almost at random (though Kennedy appears to have perfectly timed his to occur before the 18 elections) so that one prez may get two or three and another none.

I guess the appointment for life was done so that the justice wouldn't be swayed by poliitcal forces.  That sounds quaint by today's standards.  Wouldn't a four or six year term evenly spaced between justices  make more sense?  I'm surprised that I don't hear anybody talking about  it.  Maybe that's because it will never happen.

MS 13 have been around a long time and they are mostly violent  kids, too violent to engage in a responsible business like drug dealing or anything beyond fighting each other in nasty violent ways.  Certainly less of a danger than Putin playing footsie with the pres right in the white house.

As far as the reps splitting into a 'normal' party and a Trump one that will whither on the vine.  It is not the Trump rump that will whither.  There is really almost no 'normal' party left (Kasich, and Flake and Corker who are both not running for another term).  The republicans used to have things they believed in written down.  Anymore that has all been crossed out and replaced with Whatever Trump said yesterday.

NATO, why it's worse than NAFTA.  Something Trump said yesterday.

Shoot First, Aim Later

www.timesonline.com/opinion/20180628/marc-a-thiessen-on-immigration-democrats-give-trump-upper-hand---again

I read this in our local paper today.  This guy is a bit of a Trump fan, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt but, if it's true, it looks like Trump isn't the only one shooting from the hip these days.  I suppose it doesn't matter because it will never pass, but it goes to show how people can screw themselves up when they go off the deep end without first testing the water. Speaking of Trump, a lot of guys would have built the detention facilities before they started arresting people.  I know that I didn't think of that till today myself, but I'm not the President of the United States.

I saw on the TV news this evening that Trump gets to appoint another judge.  I seem to remember that, during the campaign, some people were saying that we should vote for Trump for this, if for no other, reason.  Of course, when I say "we", I mean me and my ilk, not my esteemed colleagues at the Institute.  I suppose that "we" are "them" to youse guys, but no need to open that can of worms again, we've got more important matters on our agenda.

I remember when Reagan fired all those air traffic controllers.  I was a union steward at the time, and our international rep used that as an excuse for not doing anything for us until he retired years later.  The thing is, government employees are not allowed to go on strike.  It's a law, but it's a funny kind of law.  Every once in awhile you hear about government employees, usually teachers, going on strike, but nobody comes and hauls them away to a detention facility or anything like that.  What happens is the school board or the superintendent has to get a court order telling them to go back to work.  If they defy this order, they can be summarily fired from their jobs.  Usually they can't fire somebody for going on strike but, in this case, they can.  It doesn't always happen, often the management tries to settle the strike another way first to avoid stirring up hard feelings in the community and only goes to court a last resort.  I seem to remember that was what Reagan did, but I don't know that for an absolute fact.  I suppose that was about the time that union influence began to decline in this country, but I doubt it was the sole cause.  There were, and still are, other factors at work.

I heard MS-13 mentioned on the TV news the other day, and I looked it up on Wiki.  I was surprised to learn that it did indeed originate in the US, and that it had been around that long.  I had never heard of it before, but I'm beginning to suspect that there are lots of things that I don't know about.  Funny, I seem to remember that I knew everything that was worth knowing back in my younger days.  

Strike out

In light of more recent events (the pending Supreme Court vacancy) talks of immigration policy may be on the back burner for a while as legislators try to sort out that mess.  When Trump mentioned the importance of The Wall (TM) he made constant references to the criminals, the MS-13 gang in particular.  They are a nasty bunch, comprised of mostly Central Americans, El Salvador in particular, but there is one salient detail that the media (and the White House) seems to have overlooked.  MS-13 was indeed founded by a guy from El Salvador but he did so in the city of Los Angeles, California in 1980 and that makes MS-13 an American criminal enterprise if I'm not mistaken.  USA!  USA!

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Doom, indeed.  I don't think anyone saw that coming, the retirement of Justice Kennedy; I certainly didn't.  I figured Ruth Bader Ginsburg, being the oldest, would retire first but she seems to be a tough old bird what with the yoga and all.  The next oldest guy is 79 but I don't know much about him.  Judges, if they can keep their wits, can carry on for a very long time which makes a Supreme Court loaded with Trump appointees a scary proposition.  That would make his dominance complete, the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government all dancing to his tune.  I don't have a good feeling about that.

The GOP will, I hope, take a lot of lumps this November and I hope it forces them to get their act together.  Maybe they should split in two and create a third party of "normal" Republicans and let the Trumpists wither and die on their own merits.  I know it's asking a lot for sanity to prevail but I can dream, can't I?

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I wonder if Trump is a little jealous of the way his new best pal, Kim Jong Un, exercises his power. It seems that one of his generals was a little too optimistic in his views of the recent confab and those views were not in line with official party policy.  The solution?  A firing squad, naturally.  I'm not sure if it's only a matter of time before some of Trump's critics have unfortunate accidents or otherwise disappear.  Happy Vlad in Moscow would be more than happy to provide a few pointers; he has enjoyed great success as far as media critics go and they go with alarming frequency.

And there's a NATO summit coming later this summer.  That should be interesting.  I wonder if Trump will bother to attend since he doesn't seem to be on good terms with any of the other NATO countries, except maybe Turkey.  It's quite a world we're living in and I'm not the only one having trouble making sense of it.

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I found a boycott ad for Uncle Ken in the current issue of the Redeye, the free weekly paper produced by the Tribune Company.  The ad is by the Local Teamsters 727 urging a boycott against The American Bottling Company for unfair labor practices, so you should quit drinking Dr.Pepper, 7Up, Snapple, RC Cola, and a few others.  This is a boycott I can get behind since I don't drink any of those beverages but is it a boycott if I don't drink them in the first place?  I was surprised to see that the Teamsters were still in business; didn't the decline of unions begin when Reagan was messing around with the Air Traffic Controllers way back when?  That's my recollection but maybe you guys can set me straight.

the doom

Before the doom hit yesterday the news was the muslim travel ban being upheld.  This alarmed me a bit, but it wasn't completely unexpected.  Then the supremes put a nail in the coffin of unions, well who didn't see that happening?

But then the big news was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the young socialist woman who defeated long time dem stalwart Joe Crowley in the Bronx. Cable TV was making a lot of it but it seemed a lot of ado about not much to me.  I just went to the google machine and it appears that Crowley had close ties to Wall Street.  I don't know, don't all incumbents have close ties to the money men, isn't that how they remain incumbents?  Isn't that the American way?  Not that it's completely alright, those guys in the pockets of the Kochs and Adelson certainly carry it too far.  

Another thing against him was that he sent a surrogate to one of the primary debates.  Well that's bad, no way around that.  

The third factor was, well let me quote one of my watercolorist friends on fb.  Old white guys being replaced by young multicultural women? Finally the future has arrived!   I replied, Yup and now she is coming after an old white woman, Nancy Pelosi.  My watercolorist friend by the way is an old white woman.  I mean if my friend had said rah socialism, or serves the bum right for skipping that debate, I could see her point. but to target him simply because he is an old white man, it's just not right.

And then there is that other angle, the split in the democratic party that has remained papered over, the Bernies (Alexandria was a Bernie campaign worker) vs the Hillarys.  Potential problems down the road but I don't see them surfacing until around the 2020 election campaign, but election campaigns start earlier every year.  If I go back to the young Uncle Ken, who wanted to vote for the Peace and Freedom party, but was afraid that when he got into the polling booth he would pull the lever for The Hump (Dump the Hump), so he didn't register to vote in the 68 election, I guess I would like young Alexandria.  And I guess I still believe in those ideals, but I don't see them working, and more importantly I don't see them winning elections.  The old Uncle Ken would be more likely to go with Old Joe Crowley, a seasoned pro in the progressive wing who has maybe made a few missteps, but who is old hasn't?  The young seem so simon pure because they haven't been around long enough to make missteps.

But all that was blown to smithereens by the doom, the retirement of Justice Kennedy.  Holy shit.

The reps have the prez and the reps have the senate and there is nothing to keep them from getting this done before the 2018 elections.  The only hope I see is the reps getting into a fight where the ruby reds get into a fight with the tomato reds over a really really really right wing guy and a merely really right wing guy, and neither one will give an inch, like in that immigration and DACA thing lately.  It's a slim hope, but that is all we dems have this Thursday morning. 

"My Country, Right or Wrong"

Some famous guy said that, but I don't remember who.  Another famous guy, I believe it was Robert E. Lee, was offered a commission by both the Union and Confederate armies.  He decided that his loyalty to his state, which I believe was Virginia, took precedence over his loyalty to the United States.  I can see his point because Virginia was Virginia before the United States was the United States, but the same cannot be said about Illinois and Michigan.

I once read on Wiki or someplace that the Pledge of Allegiance was controversial when it was first proposed, which I believe was around the 1930s.  That surprised me because I always assumed it came out of the Civil War because of the "indivisible" part.  In the early version, pledgees were supposed to hold up their right hand with the palm wide open.  I can see how that would give the Pledge a bad name with the rise of Hitler a few years later.  Truth be known, Hitler didn't invent the NAZI salute, he copied it from the ancient Romans, which is probably what the supporters of the Pledge were thinking.  Nevertheless, they changed it to the hand over the heart salute to pacify the people who weren't so sure about the Pledge in the first place.  Logically, we should be pledging allegiance to the Constitution instead of the flag, but little kids in kindergarten or first grade don't know much about the Constitution and everybody knows what a flag is.

Another famous guy said that patriotism means being loyal to the President only so far as the President is loyal to the Constitution.  That's what I was taught in elementary school.  I don't remember studying American History in high school, but we got plenty of it at old Sawyer Elementary.  My sister once told me, "In elementary school they taught us that America was always right, in high school they taught us that America was sometimes right and sometimes wrong, and in college they taught us that America was always wrong."

I agree that open borders will never pass in today's political climate, I just threw it out there because I can't think of any other alternatives.  I think we can agree that the present system is not working, about half the people think it's too strict and the other half think it's too loose.  Can either of my esteemed colleagues think of something else that might work?  I like the idea of Trump's Wall in theory, but it probably won't pass, and might not even work if it did pass.  I seem to remember reading that, at Ellis Island, they made the ships wait at anchor in the harbor and brought them in one at a time when they were ready for the next one.  I was thinking of something like that with the Wall but, the more I think about it, if the asylum seekers felt safe waiting for months on the Mexican side, they wouldn't be seeking asylum in the first place.

Here's another link from the "mysterious app":
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAzg72l?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare

bending the rules 3

I think of central America as the land between the Americas.  Mexico is in southern North America.  and central America begins south of Mexico and continues past the canal until it hits Colombia and South America..

A short google search reveals libertarian arguments for and against open borders.  I've long known that libertarians support legalizing pot, and all drugs as well I believe.  One of the things I liked best about libertarianism is their non-interventionist foreign policy.  Rand Paul never sang so sweetly to me as when he ridiculed our involvement in the mideast, but everything else he favored gave me the willies.  Libertarianism has things that appeal to both the left and the right, but its central tenet of limited government appeals most strongly to the right, so that when libertarians run for office they jettison the cool stuff like legal dope and non-intervention, to appeal to their conservative base.  Son O Rand is even anti abortion which is decidedly non-libertarian.

Open borders is what we dems are now routinely accused of backing, on the theory that the only alternative to tossing a kid in a cage is to have open borders.  I don't see open borders going anywhere in the current political climate, and nobody running for any office would dare utter the words, but you know if you consider what if, it may be a position worth discussing.   I's so crazy it just might work.


I oppose zero tolerance in everything.  You could say I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance.  On the face of it it's just so stupid.  People like it because it sounds tough, and people like to look tough, but in practice I have yet to see where it works on anything.  I remember a judge running for office and his commercial consisted of a slamming cell door.  It made me think why do we need him them, why don't we just pass a law where everybody gets the maximum sentence? 

Along with honesty and fairness and obeying the rules we were also taught patriotism.  We pledged allegiance and we were taught that America had never done anything wrong.  And it wasn't just our country, we were supposed to be proud of our state and our city, and our school as well.  School spirit that's where they lost me.  If I lived just a few blocks more this way or that I would be in another school, and the whole thing kind of unraveled there.  If my family moved I would be in another city and another state, and if my great grandparents had moved east I would be in some Russkie school wearing a young pioneer uniform so what the fuck?

Here's one thing I wonder about.  Along with that patriotism thing we were taught that our leaders were all upstanding men honest as the day is long, and that Americans, being the good guys were also honest and fair.  Well if everybody is obeying the laws, doesn't it make sense for you to obey the laws too?  But then as we grew older and I think the press became more investigative and it was revealed that our leaders and our fellow men were not as good as they were cracked up to me.  So didn't it then behoove us to bend a few rules too. 

But what if we never learned this?  Wouldn't we behave well all our lives?  Wouldn't that be good?  Probably not because wouldn't we just be toadies for the local dictator?

So Many APPs, So Little Time

Windows 10 comes with all kinds of APPs, news, sports, weather, financial, games, and some others that I don't know what they do.  You access them by clicking on your "start" menu.  The news APP draws from numerous sources, to wit:  Associated Press, New York Times, Bloomberg, Washington Post, CBS News, Huffington Post, Money, CNN, Daily Caller, Daily Beast, Boston Globe, Fox News.  Those are the ones featured tonight, there may be others.  Like I said, if I refer to any of them in the future, I will be sure to post the link...….Here's one hot off the press:
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAzdixp?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare

Uncle Ken says that Central American countries are run by drug gangs, but not Mexico.  I thought that Mexico was a Central American Country.  Technically, everything north of the Panama Canal is North America, but everything between the Canal and the Rio Grand is commonly referred to as Central America.  At least it used to be.  Did they change that too?

I understand that the asylum law is a real law, and of course it should be enforced.  As I said, the problem is that the current batch of asylum seekers has overwhelmed the system by sheer force of numbers.  I used to think that they did that on purpose, but now I'm not so sure.  It may be that conditions in Mexico and other Central American countries have gotten so bad that people are desperately trying to get away from them by any and all means possible.

As I said, I don't know what the answer is, but here's a thought:  How about we give open borders a try again?  According to Wiki, we had an open border with Mexico until 1924, and then our government decided to try to regulate it, with limited success.  If the border were to be opened again, all the resources currently being spent trying to regulate the border could be redirected against drug gangs, foreign and domestic.  Another thing that might help pull the fangs of the gangs would be to legalize pot.  We get to vote on that in Michigan this fall, and I am inclined to vote "yes".  Before you agree with me, I feel it's only fair to warn you that both open borders and legalization of pot are agendas of the Libertarian Party, or at least they used to be.  I don't know for a fact that they still are, but I would be surprised if they weren't since those guys don't change their minds very often.

Old Dog's link about Trump's Trade War with Red China was helpful. I think I understand the issue a little better now, although I still don't know why he's pissed at Canada, the EU, and whatever other countries are on his shit list this week.  As far as I'm concerned, we should never have started trading with Red China in the first place.  Red China is like Face Book, everybody complains about it, but they still go there.  Just say no!

Bent out of shape

The bending of rules is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.  Not every violation is a blatant disregard for the law and common sense should be judiciously applied.  If there was a zero-tolerance policy for every law the criminal justice system would be overrun with jaywalkers and litterbugs, to say nothing of the many drivers who don't come to a complete stop at a stop sign.  There aren't enough police officers to enforce everything, nor should there be.  I think it comes down to what level of enforcement is necessary for public safety and stability.  A police state is never a good thing but neither is a societal free-for-all.

That's one of the problems of life in the good ol' US of A.  We are taught from an early age about our rights as individuals but then we are confronted with all those laws, rules, and regulations that prevent our expression of those rights.  Individual rights should be preserved at all costs, save those that threaten the health of our society and it is not always easy to determine where the lines should be drawn.  One of our problems, I think, is that we lack continuity of cultural cohesion and identity.  We come from "all over the place" and our mobility is such that we don't spend enough time in the same location to establish a good sense of community.  These ideas are half-baked and I'm not articulating them very well but I have a sense that we are still grappling with what our society should be.  The political processes have been eroding over the last year and a half and we may end up in deep shit.  Decorum has long since departed, replaced by mendacity and pettiness.  Decisions aren't being made on the strength of the arguments but by personal attacks and ridicule against the opposition.  It grates me that this is the new normal and accepted by the powers that be in Washington, with trust and respect only memories of a past gone by.  The feckless are prevailing.

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So, how about all the tariff and trade hubbub, bub?  Soybean farmers are in a tizzy, the EU is fighting back, Harley Davidson is on the hot seat, and China is baffled by the developing trade policies.  It may very well be that the economic gains made in the past year and a half will vanish despite the extensive deregulation and tax cuts for the fat cats.  With any bit of luck the Trump supporters will realize that they've been played for chumps and any government safety nets have been removed.  The Chinese had it right: be careful what you wish for.

bending the rules 2

The reason I posted that article was because earlier Beagles had said something to the effect of you may not  like the immigration law, but it is the law and therefore it should be enforced and obeyed.  Likewise the asylum stuff is the law, and if your argument is that laws should be obeyed and enforced whether you like them or not, then it too should be obeyed and enforced.

Immigration is a complex issue and unless you deal with the individual issues in detail one by one, you are riding scattershot over a rough range and generating a lot of heat but not much light.

Drug gangs have influence in Mexico, as organized crime has in the US but, some articles in the National Geographic aside, I doubt that they are practically running the country.

This mysterious news app, is that like a Yahoo home page.  I go to Google news which is similar most every day, but it is hardly my sole source of news.


Bending the rules, is that where it all begins?  Is that the difference between the US and England, and Romania and say those central American countries which are practically run by gangs?   Are we not all people?  Don't we all come into the world similarly naked and with an idea of fairness.  I say the latter because of my experience with K and pre-K kids.  They knew right away when something unfair had happened, and they were disturbed by it.  If one kid beat up another for no apparent reason the whole class was upset, unlike say the thuggish sixth graders who were likely not to care, or to think he had it coming.

In school we are not taught the law of the jungle, where the strong take from the weak and that is nature's way.  We are taught to treat our neighbor well, to be honest, to obey the rules, to be good straight arrow citizens,  If everybody was a good straight arrow citizen, would we not have a better world?  I think we would.

I think probably they teach their kids the same things in Romania and Guatemala, though I imagine people don't spend as much time in school there as they do here.  The example of my mother telling me to lie to the bus driver aside, as a little kid growing up in America I think it seems like everybody is obeying the rules, you don't see people cheating on their taxes, paying bribes to cops, or people being beat up just because.

So that's one reason why I think we see fewer people bending the rules in the USA than in rougher areas of the world, they don't see so many people around them bending the rules.  If nobody is bending the rules you are inclined not to either, but  if everybody is bending the rules, you are a fool not  too.

I've barely just begun on this, so I will warn the dawgs right now, this is likely to be one of those Uncle Ken topics like The Liberal Agenda, which I know neither of them is crazy about, but hey when you donned the Robe of Enlightenment, which we all do before we sit down to type, you knew it was not going to be a walk in the park.

Too Little, Too Late

If Uncle Ken had read the entire article, he would have learned that applicants for asylum are required by law to have a hearing before an immigration judge to determine if they are eligible. The problem is that there are so many applicants that it might take months, or even years, before a hearing can be scheduled.  If the applicant is released pending his hearing, there is a good chance that he will disappear into the Mexican-American community and never show up for his hearing.  This is what they think happened to most of those "lost children" that were recently in the news.  There are numerous detention facilities around the country, but they are all full to capacity, and people are being stored at military bases, county jails, and privatized facilities of questionable quality.  Okay, some of that didn't come from Wiki, it came from those articles I read on my news app, which seem to be consistent with what I found on Wiki.  The news app draws from a number of sources, the only two I can remember are CNN and the Washington Post.  If I find any more like that, I will be sure to post a link.

Gang rule in Mexico has been featured in a number of National Geographic articles over the years.  There still is a "legitimate" Mexican government, but most of the officials and local police have been compromised by bribery and fear of retaliation, so the gangs are practically running the country.

This immigration thing has been out of control for a long time, and now Trump and his people are clumsily trying to close the barn door after the horse has gotten out.  One of the reasons Trump got elected in the first place was that he promised to send all the illegals back where they came from on his first day in office.  I don't know whether or not he was even aware of the magnitude of the problem at the time, but I suspect he is more aware of it by now.

bending the rules

I asked wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_the_United_States for US ayslum laws and got this:

The United States is obliged to recognize valid claims for asylum under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. As defined by these agreements, a refugee is a person who is outside his or her country of nationality (or place of habitual residence if stateless) who, owing to a fear of persecution on account of a protected ground, is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of the state. Protected grounds include race, nationality, religion, political opinion and membership of a particular social group. The signatories to these agreements are further obliged not to return or "refoul" refugees to the place where they would face persecution.


And this:

Asylum has three basic requirements. First, an asylum applicant must establish that he or she fears persecution in their home country.^[3] Second, the applicant must prove that he or she would be persecuted on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or particular social group. Third, an applicant must establish that the government is either involved in the persecution, or unable to control the conduct of private actors.

So I think it is clearly the law, and if your position is that we should obey the law, there it is.

I't's commonly said that central American governments are run by gang characters, but I have never heard that said about Mexico,  Well except  for Trump saying it that is.


So this Saturday I watched a Romanian movie, Graduation.  There's this doctor who returned to the country after Ceausescus met that impromptu firing squad.    Apparently he wanted to help rebuild the country into more of an honest government without rampant graft.  I assume he fought the good fight but was unsuccessful, and when the movie catches up with him he has a daughter undergoing examinations which if she does well enough on she will be able to go England to study.  The guy has lost all hope for his country and he just wants his daughter to live in a comparatively uncorrupt country.

But then she gets attacked, her hand is in a cast, and the examiners aren't flexible about giving her extra time to write the test, but when he goes before the police one of them mentions some high official that might be able to help him out, 'a really good guy,' who needs a new liver, but is way down on the list to get one, maybe something could be done about that.

It turns out it can, and this just leads to a whole world of deals being made,  But they don't quite see it as corruption, it's more a matter of 'really good guys' helping out other 'really good guys,' and the bad guys become the honest guys who won't go along with the 'really good guys.'  It turns out to have a slightly upbeat ending where the daughter ditches the scheme to get a good grade on her exam by crossing out some words on the form thereby identifying her paper as one to be given a good grade, and passes it all on her own, and maybe instead of going to England she is going to stay in Romania and fight the honest fight for good government.

It  got me to thinking about  bending the rules.  Back in my childhood the CTA used to let young kids on the bus free, or maybe at a reduced fare, and as we were waiting at the bus stop my mother looked me in the eye and told me to lie to the driver if he asked my age.  What?  Tell a lie?  My mother who has always taught me to be a good boy now wants me to tell a lie? 

I shrugged, Okay Mom, and she added that it wouldn't hurt if I slouched a little, and I did my best at that too.

Sorting it Out

Here's what I've got so far.  Some of it was consistent with what I had previously read, and some of it was new to me. Of course some of it might not be true, but that doesn't mean that none of it is.  I'm still trying to sort it all out in my mind.  Suffice it to say that this issue is more complicated than I thought it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_family_separation_policy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_the_United_States

I don't follow the news as much as my esteemed colleagues, but sometimes a topic catches my interest and I explore it further.  I thought that I knew everything I needed to know about the immigration issue, but apparently not.  It has always bothered me that those illegals were casually crossing back and forth anytime they wanted and nobody in authority seemed to care.  Well the scenario has changed over the years.  Now, instead of a bunch of wetbacks crossing over to pick produce for pennies, we've got everything from drug smugglers to people seeking asylum to get away from the drug gangs that seem to be running Mexico these days.  I don't know what the answer is, but it seems apparent that the current system is inadequate to handle the new reality.

Blip

Laws, whether good or bad, should be obeyed and enforced.  The bad laws can be challenged and overturned given enough time and resources, and sometimes they are.  But the enforcement of law should include some discretion and not be absolute in all cases, I think.  Recently, a French lady was visiting family in Canada and went for a jog along the beach in British Columbia and inadvertently crossed the border.  She wasn't carrying her passport, probably a simple oversight when you're out jogging, and was nabbed by US Border Patrol agents.  This seems like a situation that could easily be resolved by a few phone calls and the delivery of the passport, but no.  She was detained and sent to a facility more than a hundred miles away and held for two weeks.  The letter of the law may have been enforced but the spirit of the law got clobbered with a great waste of manpower and time.  There's probably more to the story but I think the situation was very poorly handled.

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Mr. Beagles would know the names of the clowns in the national circus if he followed the events more closely or dug deeper into the stories.  But the doesn't, and that's fine.  I shouldn't waste so much time on this nonsense but I'm curious as hell as I watch history being made before my eyes.

I don't trust any single news source because they all put their own spin on events.  Remember that G7 Summit photo where it looked like Angela Merkel was leaning on the table scolding Trump?  That was part of series of photos and others showed everyone smiling like they were having a good time.  Different photos from different angles tell different stories.  We are only fed bits and pieces from the media and the full picture is seldom revealed but that's the nature of the game.  Exactly what the game is, I don't know.

Gaming the System

It appears that Uncle ken has been reading from different news sources than I have.  I got most of my information about this asylum thing from my Windows 10 news app, but those articles are long gone by now.  I'll have to do some more research over the weekend, and this time I'll post the links.

The first time I remember hearing about the asylum law was a couple years ago when Obama was still president.  There was a plane load of unaccompanied minors from Guatemala that showed up at the border asking for asylum.  I seem to remember that they had been coached by their parents to cross the border illegally, immediately turn themselves in to immigration authorities, and then ask for asylum.  Some people were saying that they should just be sent back home, but the law said they had to have a hearing first.  They were allowed to stay in the country, supposedly under adult supervision, while waiting for their hearings, but I don't remember hearing about how those hearings turned out.  More recently, I heard about the current controversy about separating the children from the parents.  I don't think these are the same children, because there was a big deal made about those Guatemala kids being sent here by their parents, not brought here by their parents.

During the Cold War days, there was a law that allowed people who had either defected or escaped from Communist countries to apply for political asylum.  If they were accepted, it didn't detract from the annual immigration quota, it was above and beyond.  I never heard the term "asylum" mentioned without the "political" part in those days.  Nobody says the "political" part nowadays, so I wonder if this is even the same law.  If it is indeed the same law, it sounds to me like the illegals are using it to game the system.  That Sessions guy recently said that the law was never intended to cover situations like this.  If it is the same law, then I tend to agree with him.  If it's a different law, then neither Sessions nor I know what we are talking about, but that's never stopped either of us before.

eating our frijoles in peace

What I was saying about that separation of the children thing was that to just say well it's the law, so there's no reason to discuss it,  just obey it, is not an adequate response.  And anyway it is the law that asylum seekers be allowed to come to the border and ask for asylum, so how are they illegal, and again it was basically not the law but the policy, put into effect to discourage people from exercising their legal right to apply for asylum that was being protested, a policy that could be changed at any time without recourse to changing laws that Trump to glorify himself made into an executive order (of dubious content) instead of making the phone call to little Jeff.

My own preference come the coming blue wave revolution was to leave the long guns in the hands of the hunters, but Beagles makes an alluring case with those muzzle loaders.  Unfamiliar as I am with firearms, I think using muzzle loaders involve a stick to tamp down the powder and cartridge and I am wondering if that stick could be sharpened, and if so, do we want to allow gun nuts to brandish sharp sticks? 

But say we do allow muzzle-loaders, we are liberals after all, when the letter with the official stamp arrives in the Beaglesonia mailbox, does Beagles shrug and pack them up and take them to the nearest recycle center because it is the law?

We have our people and other countries have their people and between them they have worked out the current trade situation.  It seems improbable to me that in every case, every single case, our people, working from a position of strength, have been hornswoggled in every situation.  Remember in the system of The Dealmaker, the only good deal is one where the other guy gets screwed.


I've been kind of watching the Qatar situation, because it is so peculiar.  with the Saudis ganging up with the gulf states to oust Qatar from that cozy nest, and the fingers of Jared all over it.  The Saudis are on the move, the new guy has deposed and robbed his brothers and now he is going by initials and is cozying up to the Israelis to fuck with the Iranis and continuing to bomb the bejesus out of the land of Sheba knowing that he has the backing of his brother of the sword dance,.

I saw that article about AI winning the debate, but it seemed a little complicated because isn't it a subjective thing rather than a mathematical thing as to who wins a debate?  How about this? Amazon is replacing their six-figure execs in oh, supply and demand, with AI.

From what I've read lately I think Bannon is sort of on the outs while Hannity remains the pillow talker, Lewandowski pops in and out, and I am pretty sure Cohen is about to be completely out.  Lately Stephen Miller (didn't he used to have a band?) is coming to the fore which may be unfortunate for him because he is a distinctly unpleasant man.  He was Trump's man on the Sunday shows this February and basically didn't answer any questions, insulted the commentator and rotely praised Trump, who of course was watching, and had to be physically removed from Jack Tapper's show. 

And googling for that I see where he, like Kjirsten, has been booed out of a Mexican restaurant, so maybe now we will be able to eat out enchiladas rancheros with frijoles and rice without our lunches being disturbed by their loathsome ilk.

Happy Friday guys.

Good Laws - Bad Laws

Okay, let me get this straight. What I think my esteemed colleagues are saying is that we are only supposed to obey the good laws, not the bad laws.  The first question that arises is:  Who gets to decide which laws are good and which laws are bad?  I'm pretty sure that it's not me because, if I had my way, abortion and gay marriage would still be illegal.  I'm also pretty sure it's not my esteemed colleagues because, if they had their way, the only guns that civilians would be allowed to own are single shot muzzle loaders.  So who gets to decide this stuff?  It's supposed to be majority rule, more or less, but sometimes it's less not more.  The majority of the voters in Michigan decided that abortion and gay marriage should remain illegal, but they were subsequently overruled by the U.S Supreme Court.  I guess you could say that we have a system in this country that decides all this stuff.  Each of us is a part of this system, but a very small part.

It's like that kid on my school bus who was bragging to everybody that he owned the bus.  The other kids disagreed, and it was getting hot and heavy. Rather than just suppressing the uproar, I decided to make it a teachable moment.  I explained to everybody that we all owned the bus, and so did all the other citizens of our school district.  The bragging kid interpreted this to mean that I agreed with him about owning the bus.  I tried to explain to him that he only owned a part of the bus, as did we all.  As luck would have it, there was this little screw that had fallen out of somewhere some time ago.  I had been saving it in case I ever found out where it belonged.  I picked up the screw and handed it to the kid saying, "Here, I'm giving you your part back. Now shut up and sit down."

I'm not going to defend the statements of Trump or any of his entourage.  (By the way, how do you guys remember all those names?)  I'm also not going to defend the actions of people who did bad things before I was even born.  I understand that you guys, with your liberal guilt, want to do something to atone for the sins of others, but I do not.

I've been trying to find out something about this tariff thing, but all I have found so far is the opinions of people that either like or dislike tariffs in general.  What I want to know is: Is there any truth to Trumps assertion that the U.S. has been the victim of "unfair trade practices" for decades.  Specifically, were these countries tariffing our stuff long before we started tariffing their stuff?  If that's true, Trump is right in tariffing their stuff.  If that's not true, then Trump is wrong.  Trump is not right or wrong because he's Trump. Trump is either right or wrong because, either they were tariffing or they were not tariffing.  Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.

Be still my bleeding heart

Illegal immigration is such a hot topic that I'm beginning to suspect that it is a distraction and not much of a threat to the US in any meaningful way.  All the focus is on the southern border and immigrants from Mexico and Central America, which makes sense, I suppose, because those folks can simply walk in but I am sympathetic to the plight of those desperate people.  We forget that prior to 1848 most of the southwest US was Mexico and maybe some of those Mexicans got screwed out of land after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  And more than a couple of Central American countries got all screwed up because of US business interests and US government interference; the term banana republic did not spring out of thin air.  If the US has been responsible for the poor conditions that create so many refugees then the US should show a little more compassion.

All the blathering about enforcing the regulations and following the rule of law is a bunch of hogwash.  The White House seems awfully selective in which laws it chooses to enforce.  Emoluments, anyone?  The threat to the American labor force is completely phony.  The jobs that illegal immigrants take are at the bottom of the food chain, the lowest of the low.  All the high paying jobs are taken by the legal immigrants, with our government's blessing.  I wonder if that hospital in Petoskey has any doctors from India or nurses from the Philippines.  I agree that immigration should be regulated and documented but we don't have to be heartless assholes about it. We have plenty of room and maybe those illegals could figure our what to do with Detroit if given the chance.

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The wacky Saudis are at it again, and I hope they don't give Trump any ideas to build a canal instead of a wall.  Qatar is being cut off from the Arabian Peninsula and will be an island if the Saudi plan is fulfilled.  It's pretty clever, though, digging a canal a mile or so south of the border, wide enough for the big ships.  And what, you ask, will be on the strip of Saudi land adjacent to Qatar?  A military base, of course, and a facility for nuclear waste.

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Like many Bible thumpers, Jeff Sessions likes to cherry pick verses that suit him but the Bible is full of contradictory rules.  I don't know exactly what St. Paul wrote but if we are to follow the law in all cases then the German citizenry had an obligation to follow Hitler in all of his psychotic glory, didn't they?  Sessions is delusional if he thinks that all laws are good laws and I'm sure unwavering fealty is part of the deal; we know who else demands such loyalty.

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It's been a while since I've posted anything about AI so here's a little update.  An IBM computer won a debate against a human, but it lost one, too.  The fact that computers can verbally debate humans is mind boggling; the  voice was female and reminded me of the voice of the HAL 9000 in it's speech cadence.  Creepy, I know, but our runaway future started quite a while ago.

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You can't accuse the Japanese of not making long term plans.  Their government recently approved a 70-year plan for the scrapping of a nuclear reprocessing plant.  No wonder nothing gets done in Washington; nobody plans for anything beyond the next election cycle, or so it seems to me.

Since Trump seems incapable of any original ideas I wonder what he would be doing if he didn't have Steve Bannon whispering in his ear or Stephen Miller writing his speeches.  Get rid of those guys, give the Cheeto an extra scoop of ice cream and I think the situation would improve dramatically.  Well, at least until he finds suitable replacements; isn't Sean Hannity on speed dial?

the solstice

Yar that's the Sessions explanation isn't it?  The bible says obey the law, therefore you don't question whether it is a good law or a bad law, render unto Caesar, well everything.  In separating the parents from the kids it's a matter of policy, and Sessions makes the policy and suddenly that policy, made by one man, appointed by a guy who regularly flouts the law, who the majority of Americans voted against is like unto Caesar who is to be meekly obeyed because of some line in the bible, which includes many lines saying that slavery is God's will.

And speaking of slavery, how about  those underground railroad guys, nothing but a bunch of criminals huh?  And how about those slaves?  The law was clear as a bell and yet here they were trying to break the law to avoid their fate.  How dare they?


But anyway I was speaking of pivoting yesterday and how I thought Trump was incapable of it, and apparently I was wrong again.  He could have just phoned Sessions, but he's a man of action so he made an executive order which actually doesn't change that much, and may or may not be legal, even though just a day earlier he had claimed that he didn't have the power to do it.

But nevertheless it is a pivot.  CNN called it caving, and that term is more satisfying, but maybe too extreme.  I don't think he was enlightened by the experience, I caught him at the Minnesota rally during commercials on Natgeo, or the Smithsonian, or one of those channels on the edge of the spectrum, on the Yakuza, which turned out to be, like all the shows on those supposedly serious networks, geared to grade school dropouts, and he was his usual berserk self.  I think this pivot or cave is going to work on him, is going to be a festering sore that may drive him over the pale, the disturbing aspect of that being that his horde will follow him.

Let's see how they like the burgeoning trade war, which will cost us all a pretty penny.


Ah. but Dawgs, it is summer at last.  The sun will set at 8:29 here.  It will set at 9:31 in Beaglesonia, but they are in a different time zone.  Actually they are on the western edge of the eastern time zone and we are on the eastern edge of the central time zone, also they are two or three hundred miles east of us.  When I was in Texas it was really hot in the summer, and I guess I expected that the sun would set even later, it being all that hot and all, but of course that is not the way it works and the sun set considerably sooner there.  But Yahoo tells me that the sun will be setting at 8:36 there which is even later than here, but Texas is considerably west of us and I see where the sun will rise at 6:30 there, while here it will rise 5:15 here, so we clearly have an hours more daylight than they have, and in Beaglesonia it will rise at 5:48, which will give them, and I hope that this is right because it is really hard to do arithmetic with hours and minutes, half an hour more sunshine than we have.

A lot of people think Einstein's theory about time being relative is awfully complicated, but with time zones and locations and doing time using arithmetic using a base 60 because the Sumerians thought that was nifty and we haven't gotten around to changing it in 5,000 years, crazy man crazy.

The Missing Word

"If Beagles thinks separating kids from their parents is simply an efficient way to deal with the little tykes while the folks plead to the rubber hose types for asylum,. I don't believe he is reading much news past the headlines, particularly the part where Sessions and Trump brag, in that manly way they have, that the purpose is to discourage immigration.  One wag has asked why don't they just burn the kids alive in front of their parents?  Surely that would discourage immigration.  I can imagine Trump and Sessions stroking their chins." - Uncle Ken

There is an important word that should be placed between "discourage" and "immigration", and that word is "illegal".  If Trump's purpose is to discourage illegal immigration, than good for him.  Mexicans have been allowed to cross the border illegally for as long as I can remember, during both Democratic and Republican administrations.  Now we've finally got a president who is trying to do his job by enforcing the law, and everybody says that he's a mean prick.  Okay, Trump actually is a mean prick, but that's not the point.  If people don't want the immigration laws enforced, they should speak to their congressmen about repealing or amending them.  Meanwhile, the laws should be enforced as written.  I wonder what would happen if Canadians started swarming across their border in numbers large enough to overwhelm the system.  Of course they won't because Canadians are too polite to do that, but that's not the point.  I have to obey the law, you have to obey the law, the Canadians have to obey the law.  Why should the Mexicans be immune from the law?  Sounds like discrimination to me!

Maybe Trump's Wall is not such a bad idea after all. A wall won't stop people who really want to get in, but it might slow them down to the point that they can be processed in an orderly fashion.  Another thing is that people applying for asylum should have to wait on their side of the border until their hearing comes up.  They could fill out a form and mail it in. Then, on the scheduled day of their hearing, have somebody meet them at the gate and escort them to the hearing.  If their request is denied, they should be escorted back to the gate.  If it is granted, only then should they be allowed to bring their children across.  If some laws need to be changed to accomplish this, then have Congress change them.  

space cadets a go go

I remember the big Chavez boycotts, though more for grapes than lettuce.  There was a famous Jules Feiffer cartoon where the hippie chick in the grocery store was saying, "Sorry Caesar, but I gotta have a grape." as she popped one into her mouth.  I think Caesar achieved some success in his time, but it is likely all eroded by now.  Hard to see in today's atmosphere the general public being alarmed because a migrant worker from Mexico didn't have a soft bed to rest his weary bones in,

The ironic thing about  that draining the swamp thing, as far as removing corruption from government, is that Washington is way swampier than it has ever been with the leader taking big slices of the pie.  Actually it's almost not corruption anymore because corruption implies something that is undercover.  Any more it is just business as usual.

Proper swamps anymore are called wetlands, We used to have an EPA to protect them but now we have Pruitt.

The most exciting thing about the space force is, as Old Dog has observed, what kind of uniforms they will wear.  Hopefully not those dopey dowdy pajamas of Star Trek, but something with big shiny  shoulder pads and tights, and for the women, short skirts and boots of course.  Which brings to mind why do we have an army. and a navy and an air force, and marines, and coast guard?  And doesn't the navy have it's own planes, and the army its own ships?  Way back it might have made some kind of sense, but anymore aren't they like all those odd taxing districts in a state which could be easily consolidated, but none of the guys that run them want to lose their jobs?

If Beagles thinks separating kids from their parents is simply an efficient way to deal with the little tykes while the folks plead to the rubber hose types for asylum,. I don't believe he is reading much news past the headlines, particularly the part where Sessions and Trump brag, in that manly way they have, that the purpose is to discourage immigration.  One wag has asked why don't they just burn the kids alive in front of their parents?  Surely that would discourage immigration.  I can imagine Trump and Sessions stroking their chins.

But I am not so sure about my predictions of Trump's demise.  Just last night he showed signs of pivoting something he hasn't done since the days when he had handlers to keep him in line.  But will that take after his late night pillow talks with Hannity?  Only time will tell.

Yesterday CNN was aflame with the separation thing, but when I tuned in Fox was showing congressional hearings where they didn't bother to grill witnesses against Trump, but now are a house on fire about locking her up.  Later that day I saw Donald complaining about  how CNN was making trouble showing crying babies while the real news was how crooked Hillary was.  As far as he is concerned cable news is what governing is all about.

Here's something I came across in the funny papers which reminded me of an issue Old Dog brought up a week or two ago.

It's Different Here

Maybe the reason it's different here is that we don't have a county hospital.  Actually, we don't even have a real hospital anymore.  Our local hospital went bankrupt a few years ago, was closed for about a week, and then reopened under a different name.  Since then, they don't call it a hospital, they call it a "campus", although it's not really a school either.  They have an emergency room and do all kinds of outpatient stuff but, if you have to stay overnight, they ship you to Petoskey, some 50 miles away.  I have never heard of them turning anyone away for any reason, either when it was a real hospital or since it's become a campus.  Back when they were debating Obamacare, I said it would be a better idea to establish government owned medical facilities like your Cook County Hospital all over the country.  Sure it would be no frills care, but it would be free.

When I had my bleeding ulcer back in 2008 they were upset with me because I didn't have a regular doctor, but they took care of me anyway.  The guy who handled my case was a specialist, and he wanted me to take up with a regular doctor after he was finished with me, but I never did.  I was sick a lot when I was a kid, and I remember going to the doctor quite often.  I have seen doctors less and less over the years, and my health kept getting better and better as I did.  I've got this chronic back problem, but they can't cure it, and I have learned how to work around it over the years.  Other than that, I'm in pretty good shape for an old geezer.  I know lots of people younger than me who are in worse shape than me, some of them are even dead, and they all saw doctors on a regular basis before they got like that.  This leads me to believe that, the more you go to the doctor, the worse your health gets.  Of course you do need to seek medical care on occasion, but the less you have to, the better off you are.

Like I said before, the reason they are separating families at the border is that they can't send the kids to jail with the parents.  The reason the parents go to jail is that they have crossed the border illegally.  If the parents didn't cross the border illegally, they wouldn't have to go to jail and their kids would still be with them.

"Draining the swamp" is obviously a figure of speech, no real swamps are being drained here.  I'm not sure how that saying got started.  The closest thing I ever head to it is an old saying we had at the paper mill:  "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your original intention was merely to drain the swamp."  I don't think that means the same thing.

To infinity and beyond

So do either of the Dawgs boycott anything?

Not at the moment but there is little that I've boycotted in the past.  Maybe my memory is faulty or I'm in some serous denial.  The only thing I can think of is back in college when the girlfriend, a self-styled campus activist, was bent out of shape about lettuce because of the plight of the migrant farm workers led by Cesar Chavez.  There were arguments, sometimes heated, about the efficacy of a boycott.  It can be an effective method of drawing attention to an issue but not much more, I think.  Is there something today that I should consider boycotting?

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"Draining the swamp" was a big part of campaign rhetoric but what's so bad about a swamp in the first place?  They are necessary parts of the ecological landscape, rich in biodiversity and a key component of a healthy watershed.  The only problem with a swamp is that it iso nature's domain and can't be developed for human profit.  If you want to farm or build on it you have to drain it but then you will be prone to flood  damage which will wipe out your costly development.  Leave the swamp alone, I say, and work with it and not against it.  We all know what happens when you try to fool Mother Nature.

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I was thinking about the good old days, when the president was in the news on a daily basis but it was just for things like greeting the national 4-H Club or a foreign dignitary in the Oval Office, a three minute news bite at most.  But now?  Who can keep up with all the nonsense?  The plight of the immigrant children may have some legs and may be a deal breaker.  There is more than the usual amount of grumbling within the GOP ranks, and even Fox News seems to differ with the First Occupant of the White House.

And what's the deal with the Space Force?  If memory serves, there was an implicit international agreement that exploration of space was to be for peaceful purposes and not to be weaponized.  I think Trump smells money in space and his rationale is that someone is going to have to defend that valuable resource so it might as well be us.  You've got to seize the high ground, don'cha know.  I bet he already has some dandy uniforms in mind, drawn up with that new box of crayons that Melania gave him for his birthday.

Trump's demise

I don't think they really have to take care of you in the emergency room if you don't have insurance.  I imagine they have to keep you alive until they can ship you to the crappier county hospital, but that is as far as they have to go.  And you can't treat a serious medical condition by just showing up at the emergency room when you are at death's door.  You have to have a regular doctor and a continuum of care. 

The Republicans hold all three branches of government now, how come they haven't been able to repeal Obamacare?  You really need a majority of ten in the senate to get anything through there, and back then the dem majority had a lot of blue dogs who were no help at all. 

Again Obamacare is better than what came before and certainly better than Trump No Care which is what we are heading for.  And by the way, whatever happened to Trump's plan to negotiate lower drug prices?  He has the three branches and he certainly would have democrat help for that. 


Of course I've been consistently wrong in speaking of Trump's demise, but I will venture to say this separating children at the border might be it.  Any other politician, and even the earlier Trump who had been somewhat trammeled by advisers, would have backed off on this one.  It's a small issue in the greater immigration thing, but it has a big impact, people hate it, even Lyin' Ted is talking about a bill to prevent it,  It would be nothing for Trump to back off on this one, it wouldn't even be a loss of his honor because he could just lie about it and blame it on somebody else like he always does and the Trumpists would drink it right down.

But I don't think at this point he is able to do it, it is just not in his nature.  The firestorm only gets his dander up, and Trump loves nothing better than a fight.  It's hard to see where this will go.  I don't see this as bringing him down, but I do think he could incur a serious wound.

We've seen stuff like this before and Trump has rolled right through, but I think this may be different, but then I have been wrong before.   

Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

If you go to the emergency room, they have to take care of you, it's a federal law that was passed during the Reagan administration.  If you can't afford to pay, they will help you sign up for whatever government program you are eligible for, if you're not already on one.  This was true in 2008 when I went in for my bleeding ulcer which, I believe, was before Obamacare was passed.  I have only heard of one case where somebody was turned away because they didn't have insurance, and that was in Florida before the federal law was passed.  If you have a past due medical bill, they can't do anything about it as long as you make some kind of payment each month.  If you don't get it paid off in your lifetime, they might try to get it out of your estate. If you don't have an estate, they just have to write it off and charge their other customers more to make up the difference.  The Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress when Obamacare was passed, so you can't blame the Republicans for preventing single payer legislation.  

I'm not happy about Trump kissing up to North Korea, just like I wasn't happy about Nixon kissing up to Red China.  I tried to boycott Red Chinese products when they first came on the market, but it eventually got so that practically everything was coming from Red China, and you can't boycott everything.  

Our neighborhood junk yard is kind of a recycling facility.  They used to process junk cars there, but they gave that up when a bunch of new regulations were passed that made it more trouble than it was worth.  They still take in other kinds of scrap metal and store it until the price is right and they have enough to bring in a crusher or a dumpster bin.  I believe that they sell most of it to East Jordan Iron Works, which is a couple counties away.  If you look at some of the manhole covers and storm drain grates around Chicago, you will likely find some that are stamped with the East Jordan name.  I don't know if my neighbor ever made a living off his junk yard.  He has worked other jobs in the past, and I believe that his wife still works.  He told me once that the only reason he keeps it going is that it's a non-conforming land use that is grandfathered because his father started it before the zoning codes were passed.  That means, if he discontinued the operation, he would not be allowed to start it back up again.  Likewise, if he sold it, the new owner would not be allowed to operate it as a junk yard.  There hasn't been a lot of activity around there for several years now, and the forest is starting to reclaim the land. 

 Our house is set back off the road and is surrounded by trees, so we can't see the junkyard from here.  The camera in that deer photo was pointed away from the junkyard.  That open meadow is an intermittent marsh that usually dries up in July and August.  I mow it once a year to prevent the brush from re-invading it, although it never did dry up enough to mow last summer.  Beyond the marsh is a brushy swamp that soon gives way to some higher ground that supports real trees.  If that vegetation wasn't there, you could probably see my deer blind, which is located on the edge of a 1/3 acre clearing that I made in the forest.  It's about a quarter mile walk by the trail, shorter as the crow flies.  

in the midst of life

Was it a foot?  I remembered it as an arm, but at least it was a limb, sort of.  I recommended that to Old Dog and he liked it, and that's what made me think he would like Bottle Rocket, the kind of absurd dumb and dumber aspect, but apparently he didn't.  Nevertheless I am going to recommend a movie I saw Saturday, The Insult, about how a petty incident grows and grows in Lebanon, between a Palestinian and a Lebanese Christian.  How do people get along in a country where your neighbor's ilk massacred your ilk in response to an incident where your ilk massacred them?  Lots of courtroom scenes for those who like them.

My Dinner with Andres got rave reviews, but I was reluctant to see it, I mean just two guys eating dinner, I didn't know.  But I eventually did see it and it was pretty good.  One guy was an optimistic new ager type and the other guy more of a cold scientist type and that was the way the conversation ran, though it was more nuanced than that.

I wonder if Old Dog has ever been to Architectural Artifacts on Ravenswood, not far from his house, room after room of gorgeous and odd junk to roam through.

Beagles's admiration of Trump's achievements makes me think of an Italian in the thirties admiring how cool it was because the trains were running on time.  I suppose the present situation is better than when Trump and Jong Un were were hurling insults at each other, but  how long will it be until they are back at it when nothing comes of the negotiations (though it seems that Jong Un has already received the gift of no more war games in exchange for, well, nothing)? 

I suppose my friend could pay medical bills by putting that eight hundred in the bank, but some medical facilities won't deal with you if you don't have insurance, and if something major happened to her she would never be able to pay that off in her lifetime.  Most indications are that Obama had to jettison single payer and cozy to the insurance companies because the reps would never give him single payer, nevertheless Obamacare was better than what came before and certainly better than Trump No Care which is now in ascendancy.

Nice photo of young Bambi frolicking in the sylvan wonder of Beaglesonia.  Is that the junkyard just behind the trees?

I remember the feeling of roadkill.  Way back when I owned a car, I think it was a squirrel, paused in crossing the interstate right in front of my car, sidled this way and that and in the end dashed right under a wheel.  Thump.  I had picked up a hitchhiker a few miles previous and we had been chatting but after that we rode in silence for a half hour.  And the same thing happened to me and Ruby Dew last summer.  Again with all of life and its riches in front of it, the critter dashed right under the wheel.  Thump.  In the midst of life we are in death says the man of the cloth.

So do either of the Dawgs boycott anything?

Up in the air

Mr. Beagles mentions living next to a junk yard and I'm curious as to the type since there are all kinds.  Sanford and Son depicted a nice little business but I've always associated junk yards with auto "bone yards" where you would grab your tools and go scrounging for that obscure part you needed.  The prices for parts were something the owner just pulled out of thin air most of the time depending on his mood.  Fun places to visit with plenty of odd characters just hanging around and they usually had the part I needed  Transmission cross member for a '65 Bonneville?  No problem, and one of the employees would even pull the part for you for a minimal charge.  The north side had a couple of good bone yards but they're all gone now, shut down completely or moved out to the suburbs.

There has been a new type of junk yard but they don't call it that; they are businesses that deal in "architectural restoration."  When older homes are demolished a crew will show up and strip out the oak floors, doors, windows, cabinets, hinges, fittings, sinks, bathtubs, cabinets, and just about anything that can be removed.  There is a big demand for all that old stuff because of the quality and the simple fact that none of it is being made anymore, at least not at an affordable price.

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I've never heard of any movie about a guy who bought an amputated arm and it started to  drive me crazy because the idea of exhibiting a severed limb was familiar.  Then I remembered a documentary I saw about a guy who found an amputated foot in something he bought at a yard sale and tried to earn some money showing it off.  The movie is Finders Keepers and is available at the usual places you find movies these days.

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I know you guys don't care about motor sports but bear with me.  The 24 hour race at Le Mans was this weekend (Toyota won with an electric hybrid) and it got me thinking.  The road course is almost eight and a half miles long, situated in the French countryside, and what do they do about critters?  Not much, apparently; those swoopy cars just toss them in the air as in the case of this unlucky deer.

Under the Bus

It has occurred to me that Trump might throw South Korea under the bus like Nixon did with Taiwan.  That's the trouble with Trump, he's a loose cannon, nobody knows what he's going to do next.  If you remember, I said that about him before he was elected, and he hasn't changed much since then.  Nevertheless, he has done some things of which I approve.  It's like that old saying, "Even a broken clock is correct twice a day."  I still believe that his main purpose in life is to give the Republicans a bad name, which is why I intend to vote straight Republican this fall.  Well, I probably would have anyway, but this is one more reason.  One thing I like about Trump is that he drives the liberals and the RINOs nuts.  I watched with dismay while Obama drove the conservatives nuts for eight years, and turn around is fair play.

Eight hundred dollars a month is way too much to pay for health insurance.  Uncle Ken's friend would be further ahead putting half that much in the bank and paying her own medical bills as they come up.  If she has a major health problem before she can build her account up, she could pay for it by installments.  She might be paying those installments for the rest of her life, but that's would be better than paying insurance premiums for the rest of her life.  I said in the beginning that Obamacare was nothing but a sweetheart deal for the insurance companies. I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the friends of big business and the Democrats were supposed to be for the little guy.  Well, I suppose one way to keep the little guy little is to soak him for insurance premiums, so I guess that makes sense.

I have heard it said that you're better off hitting a deer than trying to swerve around it, but I'm not so sure about that.  I think what causes people to lose control is when they try to brake and steer at the same time.  One thing I learned from driving on snow and ice is that you can brake or you can steer, but not both at once.  I suppose you would get he same effect on pavement if you were going fast enough.

Well, here's a more cheerful photo of Bambi. You can see that he's alarmed because his tail is up, but he is not in any real danger.  I probably spooked him when I opened the curtains in the morning.  I didn't see him at the time, but my trail camera did.  You can see from the photo that we are not fussy about lawn care in Beaglesonia.  That's the nice thing about living next to a junk yard, nobody can say that I'm ruining the neighborhood.

 

Roadkill

I was surprised to read about the number of deer-related traffic accidents; Lady Luck was smiling on Mr. Beagles.  Most accidents aren't caused by hitting the deer but by the loss of control when trying to avoid them.  I guess it's instinct to slam on the brakes or jerk the steering wheel but that will put you into the ditch before you know it.  I've been lucky in that regard and have hit an animal only once, a poor rabbit in Alabama.  It was at night and the damn thing was sitting in the middle of the road, a very rural and poorly paved piece of pavement and I wasn't going very fast, maybe forty.  I was mentally shouting "Don't move! Don't move!," thinking I would drive over it, avoiding it with the wheels.  But the rabbit wasn't psychic and didn't hear me so, at the very last moment, he decided to make a break for it.  I didn't see him move but I heard a loud thump inside the right front fender, and that was that.  There was no apparent damage, steering was fine, so I didn't stop.

Critters and traffic don't mix, a fact that us city folk tend to forget when we travel through the hinterlands, especially at night.  You're usually fine if you stick to the interstates but if you travel the state and county roads you really have to be on your toes, especially on a motorcycle.  Hitting anything, regardless of size, could prove fatal to both you and the animal.  There was one time in northern Wisconsin when I was ripping through the Chequamegon State Forest at a brisk seventy or so (it was daytime) and I saw a porcupine about a quarter mile ahead.  Quite a big animal, I thought, and hitting one of those at speed would not be a good thing so I slowed down a bit.  Testing the results of high velocity porcupine quills upon tires and the human body is something I chose not to pursue.

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I found Bottle Rocket online and started watching it but bailed out after thirty minutes or so.  I didn't recall anything from my first viewing and it didn't seem worth it to keep watching.  There are better movies out there.  I think I'll give My Dinner With Andre a try, heard it was pretty good with just a couple of guys yapping in a restaurant.  It might be interesting.

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There was a humorous little side item from the G7 summit and the French guy, Macron.  When they first met a year ago there was a big deal made about their handshake and how it went on and on, like they were trying to crush each other's hands.  Or was that Trudeau I'm thinking of?  Anyhow, after this year's summit there was a post-handshake photo showing white marks on Trump's hand from the mighty grip of Macron.  Score one for the EU as Trump finds solace in the comforting embrace of the little Kim, a smart guy, a skilled negotiator, and a great leader of his beloved people.  Even his generals are worthy of a salute from our Commander in Chief.

boycotting

I suppose a deer that doesn't get hauled away quickly is quickly eaten by critters and nature takes care of itself. 

So I had lunch with an old chum yesterday.  She's one of these gig workers you hear so much about  these days, she does some work here, she does some work there, altogether it is a good enough living, but a good part of her wages go to health insurance.  Thank god for Obamacare she says, and the waitress passing by says, right on for that, because she too is on Obamacare.  But it is not cheap, eight hundred a month and a six thousand dollar deductible.  And it keeps going up.  Eliminating the mandate has certainly been a factor in that, and there is more of that sort to come from the Republicans whose method of fighting Obamacare is not to provide an alternative that allows people to get affordable healthcare, but to raise the price of Obamacare so high that nobody can afford it.  This is what I mean by Republicans not actually aiming to put people into poverty, but not minding at all if this is the result of their policies.

She is thinking of looking for a full-time job, but  who knows what  kind of insurance they will offer.  And now the Republicans are coming after insurance companies having to cover pre-existing conditions, which she has, so maybe even if she gets the job the insurance can refuse to cover her.

Well it was just a few minutes conversation until we got to Trump.  In addition to all the terrible things he has done, he has dominated our true blue chats, because once the conversation gets to Trump it is a litany of outrages and there is no time left to discuss literature and art and philosophy like we liberals like to do.

What are you gonna do?  She was speaking of boycotts.  I don't know, I am not a big fan.  I avoid Amazon when I can because I think Jeff Bezos is trying to take over the world, but then Trump hates Bezos too. so maybe I should support Amazon?  Outside of the fact that I think boycotts in general are ineffective, I don't like the blunt force aspect of them.  It goes against the grain of The Liberal Agenda which says we should bring people to our side by reason, not by force. 
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Blunt force can be used by anybody on anybody for any reason, but the sweet voice of reason can only bring people to the right side.  Am I right?  Am I right?

Happy weekend guys, I hear it will be a scorcher.

Not My Department

I think that you're supposed to call the cops when you hit a deer, but some people don't because they've been drinking or something.  There is usually some damage to the vehicle and, if the driver wants to file an insurance claim, the company will want to see the police report.  Also, if the car goes into the ditch or otherwise becomes undrivable, the tow truck driver is required to call the cops.  Likewise for the ambulance driver, if anybody is injured.  If you want to salvage the deer, you are required to get a permit which, I believe, is free.  I think the DNR as well as the police can issue the permit.  If you are caught transporting the carcass without a permit, you can be charged for illegal possession or something like that.

Disposition of unclaimed deer carcasses is a bit of a problem around here.  The cops, the DNR, or the County Road Commission people will drag it off the road if it constitutes a traffic hazard, but that's as far as they will go.  After that, it's Mother Nature's responsibility, or the property owner, if he cares.  Deer that are hit in the winter usually become buried in snow and are not noticeable until spring. That's when people complain about it, but nobody does anything about it.

I knew a guy, not far from here, who had a deer hit in front of house, which is in the city limits.  The injured deer stumbled into his yard and laid down, but it didn't die.  The guy called the city police, the county sheriff, the state police, the DNR, and the humane society, but none of them would come out.  The guy then called he city police back and asked them if he could shoot the deer in the head to put it out of its misery, but they told him it was illegal to discharge a firearm in the city limits.  After trying unsuccessfully to dispatch the deer with a knife and a hammer, he called the cops again.  They told him it wasn't illegal to shoot a bow and arrow in the city limits and, as luck would have it, archery season was open at the time.  The guy didn't have a bow, but he knew somebody who did and called him up.  The archer came over, shot the deer with his bow, an put his tag on it.  End of story.

movie talk

Sometimes I forget why I put a movie in the queue.  It might be because I liked the trailer, maybe the queue was low and I went out scouting for the best movie of 2016. 15. 14, whenever, and sometimes I take a shine to a director, or actor.  I was wondering why I put this one in my queue, and then I saw that is was directed by Wes Anderson and that's why I put it in,  It has a dumb and dumber aspect that I thought might appeal to Old Dog like that movie where the guy buys another guy's amputated arm and tries to make money exhibiting it which strangely doesn't come up in response to 'movie about a guy who buys another guy's arm.'

I used to go to a video store called Video Shmideo, by State and Ontario that was like the store Old Dog speaks of, it gave you kind of an insider feeling chatting the guy up.  Those Blockbuster kids, they didn't know or care about anything.  But Blockbuster is gone now too, and I am surprised that Netflix is still going on in its snail mail hardcopy manner.  I don't pay any attention to its recommendations, mostly they seem on the level of if I watch a movie set in Australia, it thinks I like movies about Australia.  There doesn't seem to be a category for movies where the good guy is not that good and the bad guy not all that bad, with a lot of talking, no car crashes or explosions, and the ending is not  all that happy, it can be upbeat but I don't want to see all the good guys rewarded and all the bad guys punished. 

There is this thing, maybe the current version of AI, where they select things for you because other people who have watched or bought what you have watched of bought also watched or bought them.  Something sinister in that like separating us humans into similar tribes.


As an artist I refuse to read an article about dogs playing poker.  If there is anything interesting in that article Old Dog should have presented it in the body of the post rather than have me scrambling through Artsy,net and trying to dodge its request to sign up.  We have this woman in the building who gives art talks that consist of her talking about some artist who did this and that and maybe people laughed at him, but nowadays people pay piles of money for his paintings and this proves I assume, that he was a great artist.  And I am like what does one have to do with the other?  Why should I care?


You notice on that G7 thing Tump didn't diss our allies until he was on the plane.  I don't think Trudeau would have punched him in the mouth, or Macron stomped his toes, or Merkel, I see her giving him a sharp jab in the gut, but Trump, being a coward bully, obviously fears this so he never insults to the face.


Perhaps that incident on the country lane could have been worse for Beagles or for the white pickup guy, but I don't think it could have been any worse for Bambi.  When I was in Missouri Ruby Dew was pointing out all the deer carcasses.  I had never noticed them before, but once I was looking there were a lot.  Do you have to contact someone after you do that so they can haul it away, or do they just pick them up as they come across it?  Isn't there some deal where you can take it home and butcher it?