the dustbin of history

  The Qanoners, like Trump, have no particular love for the Republican party. They see him as some guy who is there to root out all the pedophiles in government which they assume are mostly democrats but probably a few republicans also.  He is a double agent in that they think he is working for them and not the republican party.  

At first all the rep candidates said (truthfully) terrible things about Trump, especially those who later became his biggest sycophants, but at the debates nobody would take him on.  They knew that he would attack back and that he had that fearsome horde behind him, and they all hoped that one of the the other candidates would have the guts to take him on, but that never happened.  They didn't wait for the election, they all hopped right into bed with him the moment he secured the nomination.

I don't go for the canard that this is just a part of the normal yingyang of one party wins and then the other wins and it is just the typical ebb and flow of the way the US does politics.  There is nothing normal about Trump.  I don't think I need any backup for that statement.

I am surprised that neither of the dogs has taken up on that poetry thing.  I know Beagles has a fondness for Service, and I'm sure there is plenty of Kipling that he would like, and surely some whiff of poesy has touched the heart of Old Dog as he walked the streets of his hood.

But anyway:

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Last night that Joan of Arc (who, don't get me wrong, I highly detest) took on the Trump lovers in the house and defeated them handily 145 to 61. and that Qanon chick, though they didn't harm a hair on her blonde head, they made her step back and sort of apologize for her Qanon leanings, which may sound like weak tea, but a heady brew indeed for a Trumpist.

There is still the impeachment.  I expect maybe ten rep sens will vote for it, and the rest will be against, though more on a procedural grounds than that stolen election crap.  The dems, busy with bringing social justice and prosperity to all, will not want to raise a fuss about it.  It seems at this point that Trump has been shuffled into the dustbin of history.

Of course I have been wrong about this many many times before.

The People Have Spoken

" I submit to Beagles that the question is not is Trump a double agent (which is very close to what Qanon is saying), as to what is wrong with a political party that so happily breaks down like a shotgun for him?  Is this a party worth saving?" - Uncle Ken

What little I know about Qanon I picked up from listening to a few minutes of an NPR interview that came over the radio while I was driving my pickup.  I'm surprised to hear that they accuse Trump of being a double agent, I thought they were fans of his.  Some people were saying way back in 2016 that Trump was a "Trojan horse".  I suppose, since Trojans are rubbers and rubbers go on a dick, that makes some sense, but I think that "double agent" is more accurately descriptive.  

I don't remember any Republicans being favorable to Trump before, or even after, he won the nomination, it was only after he won the election that they started saying nice things about him.  I speculated at the time that this was because he won the election.  They had nominated two reasonable candidates in the two previous elections and they both lost.  Along comes Trump and he wins.  The people had spoken, and the party listened.  Now the people have spoken again, and the party must listen again if they want to stay in business.

Since the days of Ross Perot, both major parties seem to have assimilated their lunatic fringes.  The Democrats seem to have theirs under control, at least for now, the Republicans, not so much, but that can change.

If the Republican Party does crash and burn, it won't be the end of the world.  Sooner or later, a new conservative party will rise from the ashes.  There has always been, and there always will be, a conservative party in this country.  Remember, you heard it first from Talks With Beagles. 

groundhog day

  I never said that the lockdowns had no effect, I just said that they have failed to stop the virus.  

Well there we are then.  It seemed to me that you had said that about a week ago when this maddening exchange began but I do not have the heart to search for it right now.  And of course I don't think anybody, including myself, ever said that it would stop the virus, it will merely slow it down and fewer deaths will ensue.

There are some things that don't add up for me, like how is it that a vaccine that is 95% effective in the US is only 70% effective in another country? 

It is indeed a puzzlement.  I would definitely look into that if I knew what vaccine is being spoken of and what that other country is.

I'm glad to hear that Old Dog's kidney stone was just a glancing blow.  And kudos on him for breaking the chains of tobacco.  Let me salute him with this from one of my favorite shows of many years ago.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgIMJcBpqKI

Groundhog Day.  January is in the rear view mirror. God is it only two weeks ago that Trump hit the rear view mirror?  It seems like months since my teeth clenched whenever I heard the words, "The president."  That vac has been percolating in my veins almost a week.  Things are looking up.  My show about big cats and alleys has been up in the Ten Cat windows since July 27 and this afternoon I will be replacing them with reruns of corn and tomatoes.  I am calling it Summertime 2021, which is a long way off I know, but it is something to look forward to at last.

And this just in in the Trump/GOP wars:  Moscow has just denounced that crazy Qanon chick from Georgia who wants to have Nancy Pelosi executed.  I would have mentioned her name except that neither did Moscow who clearly thought that would be imprudent.  A profile in courage.

I submit to Beagles that the question is not is Trump a double agent (which is very close to what Qanon is saying), as to what is wrong with a political party that so happily breaks down like a shotgun for him?  Is this a party worth saving?

Some Clarifications

 I never said that the lockdowns had no effect, I just said that they have failed to stop the virus.  It was shortly after the first lockdown that I made that statement, and none of the subsequent lockdowns have changed my mind about that.  The first lockdown was supposed to be temporary, which led me to believe that the virus itself was temporary.  Looking back on it, Queen Gretchen did not promise any such thing, but it is human nature to read what we want to hear into what is actually being said.  

Like in many states, the urban areas of Michigan tend to vote Democrat, the rural areas tend to vote Republican, and the suburban areas tend to swing back and forth based on how unhappy they are with the current administration.  Our governor and state senators serve four year terms, while our state representatives serve for two years.  This means that everybody's term doesn't expire at once.  If people are pissed at a governor who still has two years left to serve, they retaliate by voting for state and federal legislators of the opposite party.  For some reason, all of our federal senators seem to be Democrats, which might be a coincidence.  They serve for six years, but both of their terms do not expire at once.  Maybe every time a Michigan US Senator comes up for re-election, the suburbanites coincidently are pissed at the Republicans that year.  Just guessing.  I have already conceded that there has been some gerrymandering going on.  A ballot proposal passed a few yeas ago promised to end that, but we won't know if it actually will till after the effects of the 2020 census are felt.  

I advanced the theory that Trump was a double agent way back in 2016.  I subsequently found out that some others had said it before me, but you heard it first from Talks With Beagles.  I said that he was sent by somebody because I don't know who sent him.  It might have been the Democrats, the Russians, the Red Chinese, the Mafia, or Trump might even have been working for his own self.  One way or another, Trump was on a mission to damage the Republican Party, and he did a pretty good job of it.  If the party ever hopes to recover from this, they need to cast Trump into the outer darkness where men shall weep and gnash their teeth.

My point about the chainsaw repair was that I am not the guy on the next barstool telling somebody how to fix their chainsaw, I am the owner of the broken saw and will take whatever advice comes my way, but I don't expect to pay for that advice if it doesn't work.

My real chainsaw in real life probably has a blown engine.  This is what I suspected, and the guy at Ace confirmed it.  I don't even know if it's possible to change out the engine but, if it is, I'm pretty sure it would be cheaper to buy a whole new machine.  The guy told me upfront that it would be a long time before he could get to it because he has been really busy lately.  To my knowledge, he is the only guy doing small engine repair in the Cheboygan area since Taylor Equipment went out of business.  I was in no hurry anyway because I have another chainsaw, which the Ace guy had repaired for me before I turned in the second one.  I am a pretty good  amateur chainsaw repairman if I do say so myself, but some jobs are best handled by a professional.    

 

Happy February

Someday I'll be able to make some sense of the pandemic but I don't think it will be anytime soon.  There are some things that don't add up for me, like how is it that a vaccine that is 95% effective in the US is only 70% effective in another country?  I wasn't planning on getting the vaccine but the Johnson & Johnson version might change my mind.  It's much less effective than the  others but it's only one shot, and none of the people that caught the virus ended up in the hospital or dead.  With all the new variants popping up it seems like a crap shoot; there were a couple of guys in Brazil that had two versions of the virus at the same time.  Face masks and social distancing still seem like a good strategy to me.

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I find it hard to believe that such a simple thing as a chainsaw can't be repaired but it's very easy to believe that the folks at Ace Hardware didn't have a clue.  If it took them a month to decide that it couldn't be fixed I suspect that it sat on a shelf and nobody wanted to deal with it, or knew how to deal with it.  I ran "chainsaw repair Cheboygan MI" through Google and got a few hits, some nearby and others as far away as Traverse City.  Also, this could be another case of it being cheaper to get a new one than fixing the old one.  Are there local tool rental places that you can use in the meantime?  Finally, did you try troubleshooting the problem yourself? 

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Just saw the latest post from Uncle Ken, guess he couldn't wait for my later-than-usual Monday post.

Anyhow, the kidney stone must have passed; there was only one day of discomfort and it wasn't as bad as some other times.  I think if I keep a closer eye on my diet I'll be fine.

More than two years since the noxious weed, can almost taste it and think about it way too much.  No going back, though. 

Hey Old Dog

 A couple things I have been meaning to ask Old Dog, but then Monday comes and goes, and I know I won't hear from him for a week, so I don't bother and the next thing I know Monday has passed again.  You know what I mean.

So here they are.  

Did that kidney stone ever pass?

Are you still staying away from the noxious weed?   How is that going?

Thank you very much.

Monday morning conspiracies

 Like Uncle Ken said, the numbers generally declined while the lockdowns were in force, and shot back up again after they were lifted.

See that is all I was saying.  The lockdowns are effective in cutting down on covid deaths (PERIOD).  If you want to make a case that they are not a good idea because they damage the economy you can well make that case, but if you begin it with saying that the lockdowns don't have any effect it's like saying two plus two equals five.  Your argument is dead in the water.

It appears that Beagles' main argument is not so much about the covid as it is about gutsy Gretchen.  In fact the whole state seems to be a bit nutsy about Gretchen.  The Governor of Michigan is a democrat as are both of its senators, elected under the principle of one man one vote, but the statehouse is republican.  Why is that?  Could it be gerrymandered.  Submit the question to google and you will learn that it certainly is.  Well that is all I have to say about Michigan.

The story about the mechanic was about who do you trust to fix problems, the experts in the field or the loudmouth on the next barstool? Though I am sad that Beagles' chain saw was irreparable, but happy that he learned that it without cost, it has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

While all the cool people were hopping on the Qanon bandwagon Beagles has remained aloof, espousing instead his very own conspiracy theory that Trump is some kind of double agent sent by ahem, somebody.  See just saying somebody is not going to cut it.  It's just too amorphous.  Why not blame the Queen of England or Elvis Presley, who we all know isn't really dead?  Then you can print up some t shirts and make a few bucks.  Or here's one, my personal favorite, maybe it was the moral rot of a party whose only real goal is tax cuts for the rich.  Kind of hard to fit that on a t shirt though.