Archives for December 2025

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

As most of you have heard The Kennedy Center has been renamed and the decision was unanimous by the board. A few notes, the rules were changed as to who on the board can vote, and only people appointed by the President could vote, so, amazingly, the vote was unanimous. This is the kind of leadership we have come to expect from this guy.

According to his flunky in charge of the Kennedy Center, they are glad that lots of artists have cancelled because they were from the old administration and apparently were left wing and no one was watching their stuff and now the Kennedy Center will put on plays and entertainment for the masses and stuff in line with the President’s vision and no more of that gay commie crap.

Accordingly the chief has learned from her boss and she has taken to his favorite way of reporting. The technique is called lying. And as far as I know they haven’t scheduled anything to replace what has been cancelled. Trump said he was surprised and honored by the name change. The fact that he’s been pining for this and to say it was a shock to him is not a lie it’s a bold faced lie.

Some of his old buds have shown up, among them Lee Greenwood. The miniature (5’ 3” 83 year old is known for the song “God Bless the U S A,” which is played at citizen induction ceremonies. Well, it used to be, I doubt we are holding them anymore. There was a time when they couldn’t play the song because Lee wasn’t getting enough money from them. He’s such a patriot. He’s got another song, “God Bless Canada,” which you’ll be surprised to learn sounds a lot like his other hit.  He’s such a patriot.

Now the Kennedy Center is playing stuff for the masses ticket sales are down. Not by a little but by a lot. Typically the Center had a 93% sell rate. Now? 53% That’s what winning looks like.

But we don’t have any of that left wing propaganda. You know like “Hamilton,” which pulled. And then there was a cabaret show that was still going on, that is until the artist was told she’d have to change some parts that had drag scenes. She refused and they cancelled her, and publicized that it was cancelled by the artist. This despite her explicitly saying she did not cancel.

Ah well, what did we expect? So to summarize: lying, lying, and more lying.

Any questions?

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

That Donald Trump and Jeffery Epstein who were pals for at least ten years, swapped inuendo cards, and that Trump who traveled on Jeff’s airplane and Trump who was photographed with young girls multiple times while around Epstein and from whom Trump got his most recent wife did not know a thing about olde Jeffie schlepping young women?

That Albrego Garcia who was deported illegally and when he got back is now accused to human trafficking is being so accused completely independently of making the Trumpo admin look like the louts they are? I mean it’s just a coincidence right? The charging attorney did it all on his own and had nothing to do with word from The white House or Pam Bondi? Right?

BTW the Human Trafficking charge is for being stopped for speeding and he had a bunch of guys in his car that he drove to work. So, I guess that means anyone who carpools is really human trafficking? Am I right?

Sunday, December 28, 2025

Let’s begin with car ads. I have never ever seen anyone stop and look at a car with an ohh – awah stare of approval. Maybe a Ferrari or a Lotus. Maybe for a second, but certainly not a sedan, or a hatchback or an SUV. No one spills their coffee or drops a package looking at a car drive by. And what about the ads where the spouse surprises their better half with a car or truck? Yeah. Right. You think maybe they’d have liked to have been in on the decision? At least GMC ran the same ad as last year with a truck bursting through the snow. They saved some bucks. Mercedes with the big red bow on top? Eh.

And those medicine and pill ads – OMG! What are these conditions? What are the diseases? I mean whatever they are helping you with must be really bad if one of the side effects could be death. And the line everyone hates – “Don’t take if you are allergic to it.” Really? Ya think? How do you know? Is the real question. (How do you know if you are allergic? Well, that’s simple. Take it and see. If you die then you shouldn’t have taken it.)

Then there’s the one that offers you a boost to your anti-depressant. I had to think about that for a bit. Okay you’re depressed so you take something to make you feel happy. But it’s not enough so you take something else. Now you’re bouncing off the walls. Great. What happens when you come down. Warning – thoughts of suicide, etc.

Then there are the text messages to my phone. OMG. I have to select and delete three times a day. Rick, this is important. Rick we’ve only got three hours until the dead line. Hi I’m Jack manager for Jill and I just looked at Spot and he’s says his bowl is empty can you pleas rush five dollars or what ever you can…

If you enter “stop” they change numbers. If you delete repeatedly they get hostile We’ve asked you seven times… Yeah? You’d think they’d get a hint. No one ever comes back and tells me what they did with the money. No one ever says, “Thanks, we have enough.”

And if you sign up to “make it monthly” They keep taking month after month even after the election is over.

Oh and the jazz guy who canceled his concert Christmas Eve at the Kennedy Center because it had been renamed The Trump-Kennedy Center? He’s being sued for a million dollars because it was “a political stunt.”

A Political Stunt? No. The Center he was supposed to perform at no longer exists. I mean if you want to talk political stunt – renaming a memorial that would have to be approved by Congress – that’s a political stunt.

How long will it take us to remove the stain of the current president?

We are creeping up on a new year. I wish I could be hopeful but I think we have another eleven month (come on new elections) before we might get any relief.

Two other things: ICE & China’s trade surplus.

ICE has been running ads looking for people to join. I think everyone should join ICE, especially YouTubers, content providers and streamers. “Today I’m in Chicago where we are going out to crack some heads in the suburb of … Please join us!”

China has a trade surplus – duh. It’s huge. We don’t know how huge because they cook their books. They have a problem in that they can’t find good investments for their money. People in China save money like crazy, which is good to a point but they are way over that point. People in China don’t have guarantees of health care or retirement so they save “just in case.” Their standard of living remains low. Their leadership doesn’t want to do much about it because they fear falling into a middle income trap. That is if people spend more and are guaranteed health care and retirement they might stop working and given the one child policy they don’t have workers coming behind to fill in the gaps so production will decline. But it will decline anyway because they don’t have enough workers and they are getting older and won’t be able to work so they are trapped.

Which brings me to Africa, which I forgot about until I wrote about China. Trump bombed Nigeria to protect Christians who he says were being targeted. Okay. Just a few problems. His bombs were directed at a place where terrorism wasn’t happening and there were few Christians. Oh yeah and his bombs landed in fields and no one was hurt. American might – fuck yeah! But the Nigerians are scratching their heads. WTF? 

Okay. All the problems solved. Wait – let’s send ICE to Nigeria! There are lots of black people there and they are used to gangs roaming around terrorizing people. Maybe, send them to Haiti too? 

I read an article that said 2025 was summed up in conversation between Joe Rogan and Mel Gibson last January. These are two no nothings discussing things they don’t understand and offering solutions that don’t make sense. Go Team. They should sit around a table with Aaron Rodgers and swallow bleach with an ivermectin chaser and then blame someone when they are close to death. (Jews? Biden? Kamala? Doesn’t matter.)

Would the Hague indict Trump, Pete Hegseth, and Netanyahu for war crimes? Wouldn’t that be something?

I forget the last ”e” in Hegseth’s first name when I originally wrote the above sentence, making him “Pet Hegseth” maybe that’s what Trump calls him? Donnie has a pet it’s Pete! Oh man. 

I was in Target yesterday they have signs all over saying “High Prices, Expect Less”  Maybe I got that backwards? “Expect Less, High Prices”? Yeah. That’s it. The funniest thing was the puffy cloud motto above where the pillows was – “Pillow Fart”. Maybe, it was “Pillow Fort”? No. Fart for sure.

Gotta go.

Wait. Bridgette Bardot died. she was 91, which is weird because Yoko Ono is 92. I thought Bardot was from an earlier generation. A beautiful woman who turn ugly in later life, both inside and out.

Scream on Yok.

Friday, December 26, 2025

The other day I wrote about Donald and company having a problem with math, and reality, when it came to economics. Today, in keeping with the reality theme, I present battleships.

Donald has announced a new class of battleship. The Trump Class! The news article I read had in its headline that Donald had a problem here with – get this! – Reality. Trump announced that this Trump Class of battleship – ( Isn’t it weird to use the name “Trump” in the same sentence as “class”? ) –  was going to be bigger and badder than any battleship ever made. I mean like 100 times bigger and badder, maybe a thousand times? Now, the article pointed out a few things. These things are called facts. Facts are something people in the Trump orbit don’t deal with. They ignore them, if they even know about them. If they are confronted with them (facts) they claim alternate facts. We know this.

So some of the “facts” the article pointed out were:

We haven’t build a battleship in seventy years,

Any battleship will be a magnet for bombs.

Some say generals fight the previous war. This is not true with Donald. He is fighting, not his father’s war, but his grandfather’s. Well, actually, no Trump has ever served in the military, any military so there is no way they can claim a war. I guess they can say they were alive during a particular war, and as suchthey can claim it as theirs. (If so wouldn’t that war be called The Trump War?) Wait. Fred was in the KKK. That’s a kind of military.

But nevermind all these facts. Let’s get to the important stuff. What are the names and types of ships in this first wave of Trump class ship?

The Donald J Trump – This will be the biggest ship in the fleet. It’s huge 24″ guns will take 100 pounds pf powder and can hurl a shell halfway around the world. Maybe farther. Actually, further. In  fact it can throw a shell so far the designers of the ship’s guns came up with a really novel solution. (naval? Could be? Ha ha. Get it?). The gun designers told the Donald that they could throw a shell almost completely around the world. But they came up with a faster and better way. Instead of, say, firing off the portside and having the shell travel all the way around the world they can turn the guns 180° and fire in that direction, thus eliminating the need to go all the way around the world.

The Ivanka  – Fast, sleek, and the best looking ship in the fleet. The dual radar domes are huge!

The Steven Miller – This is a whole new class of submarine. It was inspired by the idea of a web crawler. It isn’t really a sub.  It’s more like a sea slug. It sits on the bottom and it crawls and slithers. It can pick things up in its dual pincer arms. It really isn’t good for anything.

The Charles Kirk – A light duty fast little ship. It runs around, spits out lots of shells from its dual turreted pom-pom guns in all directions. It tends to be drawn into battles that it started with navies that hithero we had no beef.

These ships will cost a lot of money. I mean – A Lot! 

Peering into the future I see the Ivanka running aground in its training trials. The Kirk will take on a 70s PT boat that completely rips The Kirk apart. Backing out of the fight it lists heavily to the right, until it eventually rolls over, displaying it weak underbelly. There’s a shudder and as the middle gives way, either end of the boat (I mean ship. Excuse me!) rises up out of the water and the two ends can eventually see one another as it disappears beneath the waves. And what about the mighty Donald? After numerous delays and problems it finally puts to sea. For no reason known it decides to take on an Argentinian cruiser. The cruiser armed only with a mortar from the American Civll War era lobs a high flying shell. Meanwhile the Donald responds with salvo after salvo. There is a great deal of noise and smoke, but then a curious thing is observed. No shells. Just smoke and noise. Apparetnly, no one ordered shells, just powder. This was not discovered until it was in its first firefight. The high lobbing projectile having reached its zenith now comes crashing down onto the decks of the Donald. The deck immediately folds due to shoddy workmanship and poor quality materials. The shell eventually exits through the keel of the ship and then exploded, lifting the ship ever so slightly in the water, which caused everything to buckle, crack and leak. The Donald went down, guns booming.

The Steven? Nothing was ever heard from the Steven and was assumed lost in the muck.

BTW – In searching for the classic picture of the Team Trump boat that sank in a parade for him from 2020 I discovered that the event was worse than I had known. Five boats sank. All due to the fact that they all started to go in the same direction at the same time: big boats, little boats, fat boats, skinny boats. This set up waves within the fleet and some of the boats couldn’t handle the churn. This reminds me of a WWI event where a line of ships sailed one behind the other toward a position and then they were to abruptly turn about, which they did. It’s a very very precise manuever. Unfortunatley, the bow of one ship hit the stern of another and so on down the line. I think it fitting seeing as how our President wants to fight the naval battles of WWI with his super duper new class of warships. I never did find that picture.

Several years ago I read a book entitled “67 Reasons You Won’t Get Published and Three Why You Just Might.” or something like that.

It was laid out in a list/memo format, similar to Up the Organization.

The book was written by a publisher who read hundreds of submissions. Two of the reasons given for not taking on a potential book were:

You can’t spell,

and

You don’t know grammar.

Pretty basic right? I know I stop reading something as soon as I hit a me and numbnuts did yadda yadda yadda.

Look if you don’t know that you don’t put an objective pronoun as a subject than what else don’t you know?

I really don’t care. When I’ve suggested a “Numbnuts and I” correction I’ve gotten critized for being old school and a fuddy duddy. So be it. Fuck you. Fuck them. Fuck they (blah).

So when I read Paul Krugman’s latest piece and he said one of the problems Trump’s economic advisors have is they can’t do math I was remembering the “67 Reasons” book. Apparently, Peter Navarro et al think that slapping tariffs on mainly China will help our manufacturing capabilities. This is something olde Petey has been espousing for decades, despite cogent arguments to the contrary.

The other problem these advisors ignore is reality. That is the reality of how modern global economies work. Econ folks like to talk in simified terms like “guns and butter.” They construct models that start with the words “Given …” The problem I have learned is that no one seems to know if the givens are close to correct, and they also assume people work in their own best interests, and are rationale. All things I have come to question. Or as Rodney Dangerfield once said to an econ professor who asked where to build a factory given this and that, which Rodney had just shown was not true, “Build it in FantasyLand.”

So the other problem that Navarro and company have is they think slapping tariffs on goods coming into our country solves the problem by protecting our manufacturing. The majority of what we import in manufactured goods is parts and assemblies for things we put together. (like cars) So if our manufacturers have to pay more for the parts they get then final product is going to cost more (Should I add “period”? Or “Duh”?)

Not knowing how much the  cost of what we import in parts and assemblies is, which they apparently don’t or don’t care, means they fail at math and I would say reality.

Trump promised to lower prices “on day one” and to increase the number of manufacturing jobs. He’s failed at both.

On to more items: Kristi Noem, now known as Ice-Barbie, has some guy in charge of ICE Security or some title like that. He went for a polygraph test and he failed it. His solution was to get rid of the people who set up the test. Claiming somehow he was tricked. Now bare in mind he didn’t need to take this test. He asked to take it. In fact, you have to sign your signature on a form requesting that you take the test. So, how is it “their” fault? Well, if I know Kristi and Donnie the solution is simple – deport him. He has a long name with lots of consonants in it. Looks kind of dark and swarty. Might be dangerous. Send him to – I don’t know – Kenya?

And then there is the ICE ad that’s been running during football games. Okay, ICE wants to hire people. You’d think the rational they give would be factual, but it isn’t. The ad claims terrorists were in this country hiding on January 11th. And that’s why ICE needs more peoplle – to hunt down these hidden terrorists. Excuse me, weren’t the terrorist on January 11th on the planes that flew here from Canada? So doesn’t that mean they weren’t here hiding in this country? Come on. Can’t you at least make a claim that isn’t a lie?

Ever onward. I guess we can be distracted from Epstein by The Great Gasighting Tour. Which kind of reminds me of W C Fields selling tonic out of the back of a wagon. The rube gives him a bill expecting a bottle and change. Instead Fields give him two bottles. “But I only wanted one.” “Yes, Yes. Well so do I. So do I, but I’ve got a whole wagon load.”