Experts Guess Our Next President

This morning I amused myself by reading a dozen or more recent articles written by egotistical "experts" predicting, explaining and placing their bets on who will win the 2024 election. These articles appeared in New York Magazine, The New York Post, on CNN and FOX  websites, in Politico and The Hill online, the New York Times, The Washington Times and more like those. Everyone who wrote an article got paid for it, some quite handsomely I expect. 

If you were to read just one of these articles you might give it some credence, but taken as a whole you can see how ridiculous they all are, despite any individual author's political prowess. Basically, this is what I learned:

Trump will keep his base and win the Republican nomination but lose the general election.

Trump should never be underestimated -- he will win the nomination and win the general election.

Trump will not be the Republican nominee and Biden will win re-election in 2024.

A dark horse will show up late in the game on one side or the other and win the election.

With the exception of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein, both deceased and so unable to weigh in on this election, "experts" are just regular people who think very highly of themselves. Take, for example, a woman named Elaine Kamarck, the Founding Director for the Center for Effective Public Management. (What?) On this subject Elaine sings her own praises loud and clear, writing for the Brookings Institution, a D.C think tank: 

"A few months ago, I helped create the now conventional wisdom which says that a large field of challengers will help Trump because the Republican winner-take-all or winner-take-most delegate selection rules are tailor made for a candidate who holds a solid base among primary voters and who can wrack up a series of plurality wins."

That's funny, since I thought my husband posited that one during dinner with friends one night, and everyone agreed. (Elaine was not present.) Oh well, she says she helped create it so let her think that, what does it hurt. After all she's in charge of public management, whatever that is.

My new title, self-bestowed, is CEO at Clarifying Ridiculous Accumulated Pablum (CRAP). My first proclamation is: Ignore All Experts. We will discuss this further at the next meeting of Loners Anonymous to be held in my living room and attended by nobody.

Big Brother is Listening, and Possibly Vacuuming

More and more we are learning how AI robs us of our individuality and virtually handcuffs mankind, yet its purveyors continue to soldier on with nary a backwards glance at the destruction it causes.

After watching the episode entitled "Joan is Awful" on Black Mirror streaming on Netflix last night (as many people did), with any sense I'd smash my computer and my iPhone with an axe and hope I can get away with living out my life sans AI interference. It may be too late, though, since all my personal info is already stored in a giant cloud overhead, making me nothing but an insignificant pixel in the movie called "People, Ha!" 

A few nights ago during dinner in our kitchen, my husband and I were alarmed when a loud female voice  advised that she "couldn't really do that," whatever it was, further explaining it was outside her bailiwick, at least for now. The thing is, we don't have any of those Siri-listening things, like Alexa and Echo -- not even a Roomba which I totally do not trust -- so who or what was that? Apparently the voice came from our TV, two rooms away and turned off at the time.

You better watch your microaggressions, bro, that's all I'm saying.

Living On the Edge

If Humpty hadn't fallen.....

Hoping to cheer me up after a hard day dealing with many of my life's stressors, my husband reminded me that I was going to die soon. Then I saw a meme on Instagram saying that with any luck we can all live to be 75. Next, I saw a picture on Facebook of one of my old high school chums after her facelift, wrinkle-free and smiling at 77, same age as me. 

Being old is by all accounts a drag. Yet our current president is 80 and his major opponent is also 77. What do they know that I don't?

Happy Gender Confusion Month

According to the updated LGBTQ Glossary on the Johns Hopkins University website, a lesbian is a "non-man" who is attracted to other "non-men." In the past those people have been referred to as "women," but the new definition includes non-binary people who may also identify with the label and thus is so much more inclusive. Inclusivity is very important these days. God forbid anyone feels left out -- except for Donald Trump, Melania Trump, all Trump offspring, all Republicans, anyone who owns a MAGA hat or a pickup truck or a gun, Elon Musk, anyone who watches FOX News or Tucker Carlson on Twitter, and certainly Tucker Carlson himself. But I digress. 

It's all so confusing: Are only lesbians "non-men"? Since I am only attracted to men, can I still be called a woman? But then, who knows what a woman is -- certainly not Ketanji Brown Jackson, our first black female Supreme Court Justice who could not define the word during her senate hearing in March of 2022, citing the fact that she's "not a biologist." (Sadly she was confirmed despite her apparent derangement.)

Today's LGBTQ-ers are celebrating Pride Month in a miasma of confusion and nonsense, where men have babies and women are non-men and there are 72 genders and dumb doctors constantly assign genders incorrectly at birth and Caitlyn Bruce Jenner is considered to be a lady. Still they remain proud, and really what else matters?

God only knows what goes on when one of those "non-men" gives birth to a baby. Do all of her non-men friends throw her a non-gender reveal party?

What To Do With A Dead Beatle

Back when they were both alive.

Not wanting to write another silly love song, and who could blame him, ex-Beatle Paul McCartney is instead acting the gravedigger through the use of AI, the modern-age technology that threatens to eradicate all that was once good and pure about being alive. He is doing this by using the voice of John Lennon, his former bandmate now dead for 43 years, and applying it to a new song, either with McCartney or without him, it's not yet known. Who knows, he might get Ringo in on it, which would be easy since he is still alive. (George is dead so he is definitely out.)

Lennon's voice was extricated from an old cassette by Hollywood director Peter Jackson during his making of the 2021 documentary, "The Beatles: Get Back." Paul is calling this bit of technological chicanery "the last Beatles record," to be released later this year. Tentative title: "Now and Then," as in now I'm dead and then I was alive.

I wonder who will reap the profits, if any, from the music. Is Yoko in on the deal? And more to the point, why do it at all? As a former Beatlemaniac, I'm appalled. Surely Paul has enough money already.

Sick of Transgenders and People Who Write tRump

Yeah, that's right-- I'm sick of transgenders. Well, to be accurate I'm sick of hearing about them, reading about them and thinking about them, since I don't know any personally. Why should I care? Your life isn't perfect?  Either is mine.  But I don't blame it on my vagina, or having breasts or lacking a penis. That makes as much sense as saying I only have one head and everyone knows two heads are better than one.

Yes, life is hard. We are all going to die, we just don't know when, and that's a bitter pill to swallow. Some people simply can't, so they become drug addicts or alcoholics or push strangers onto train tracks or shoot up schools and try to forget about it.  

The terms suck for all of us, but please don't blame your "wrong gender" for your unhappiness. And remember --there's just a tiny minority who do, less than 1% of the population, and we are all supposed to worry about them. Well, I don't. At all.  I will not be flying a gay pride flag at my house, or any flag for that matter -- I'm sick of the whole lot of you (except Melva and Ted). 

And how about those silly sheep who write Trump as "tRump" as if they are so damn clever, like they thought of it themselves and like it means anything. Like what? That Trump is a Rump? What does that even mean? 

Most people are not clever, like those who actually believe that drinking through a plastic straw in your own home will somehow kill the planet. I had a friend like that once and she was dumb as a stone. (Naturally she was allergic to gluten and also lactose-intolerant, two "things" people glom onto in order to feel special and get attention.)

And another thing: Giving every black (Black) person in California a million dollars in "reparations" will just make California poorer and the drug lords richer. Gavin Newsom is surely a moron. (Nice teeth, though.)

Keeping Treat Alive

Treat Williams in "Hair"

This morning I was saddened to learn that actor Treat Williams was killed in an accident yesterday, not far from his Vermont home. His motorcycle was hit by an SUV making a left turn directly into his path. This made me cry, not just for Treat, who at 71 was still a vital and handsome working actor of considerable talent, but for my friend Debra who died similarly last July 22 when her car was struck by a speeding semi as she was making a left turn. 

Cars and trucks kill people every day, that's a fact. These deaths come out of the blue and thus are the most shocking, unlike the long, slow, painful buildup of cancer and chemo and hospitalizations and hospice with other, more ghastly passings. (Face it, there's no good way to die, except maybe in a vet's office in the loving arms of your owner where first you drift off to sleep.)

More than ten months have passed and I still think of Debra every day, so she's not all the way dead -- at least not yet. Thinking about the deceased is the only way to keep them with us. Today I changed my Facebook cover photo to one of Debra that I took a few years ago. She's with me now whenever I look at Facebook!

As for Treat, he's gone but his movies are still available to see on many platforms. A few weeks ago I saw "The Deep End of the Ocean," a real tear-jerker for sure but still a fine example of his outstanding acting ability. Watch a movie starring Treat Williams today and keep him alive. ("Hair" is priceless.)

Shout Out to My Singapore Fans

According to my analytical statistics, this blog is insanely popular in the island nation of Singapore, attracting hundreds of readers daily. I have never been to Singapore, nor have I ever written one word about it. In fact I know nothing of the country except that it is very clean, that littering is outlawed, and that chewing gum in public can land you in prison.

Or at least it could have in the past. There used to be stories about people being flogged for the slightest infraction, but those stories seem to have gone away. 

Lately you hear that Singapore is very beautiful, quite wealthy -- one out of six households earn a million dollars or more -- and with many government benefits for its citizens, among them a monthly gym stipend to encourage exercise.

All I know for sure is that they have some wild architecture (see photo) and very good taste in blogs.

Looking for Conspiracies and Coming Up Empty

Yesterday I received the comment concerning a recent post: "Conspiracy blog." The post in question said that the World Health Organization (WHO) decrees what is or is not a mental illness. I believe this is a true fact and not one that is made up, concocted by a special interest group or specious, so where's the conspiracy? In fact, what is a conspiracy? The definition is "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful." 

Have I ever believed in a conspiracy? Not really. However, some things have happened during my lifetime that do seem odd and/or suspicious, but not all the way to conspiratorial. I did wonder who was behind the murder of JFK but I had no reason to suspect our government. Of course I was 16 at the time and so was pretty much focused on which one was my favorite Beatle. 

I have questioned how Vince Foster found Fort Marcy Park (where he allegedly shot himself but had no gunpowder on his hands and in fact was still holding the supposedly fired gun), after being in D.C. only six months and working "12-hour days, six or seven days a week," when I never found it after living there 30 years and and hiking with friends on many weekends. 

I am not convinced that our current befuddled president makes any decisions at all. It seems more plausible (to me) that a team of politicos, all younger and more able than Biden, work behind-the-scenes on policy and send Joe out to deliver the results.

I honestly believe the lion's share of the media work hard to downplay any wrongdoing of the Democratic Party and to inflate the missteps of the Republican Party unfairly to make them seem evil.

That's it. Nothing about WHO. I have never thought about WHO until I learned that they decree what is and what is not a mental illness, which I found out yesterday while doing research for the post that inspired someone to call this "a conspiracy blog."

WHO Decides Who's Crazy

Mattel is ready with Wheelchair Barbie.

If you hate your penis and want it gone -- that's fine, and even commendable. Alternatively, you could be at war with your breasts and have them surgically removed and everyone will applaud your self-actualization. 

You may even bombard your body with hormones to stop menstruation or grow hair on your face and chest and there will be flags in your honor. But don't you dare dream about being an amputee or being partially paralyzed, even if that's how you wish you could live, because you'll be seen as insane. 

BIID stands for body integrity identity disorder, a rare condition experienced by people who desire the amputation of one or more healthy limbs or who desire a paralysis. Some of these persons mutilate themselves; others ask surgeons for an amputation, or for the transection of their spinal cord. (These people have in the past also been called "amputee wannabes.")

There are doctors, usually in other countries, who will perform these surgeries for people who desperately want them and claim to be happier afterwards. Today BIID (or BID) is classified as a mental illness -- but so was transgenderism until 2019, when WHO ( World Health Organization) stopped listing it as such.

So go ahead and have your penis removed, or cut off your two healthy breasts and look like a hero, but if you want one less arm or leg or desire to live in a wheelchair in order to feel like your "true self," you're considered nuts. Go figure.

They Won't Stop Until He's Dead

The lottery "winner" surrounded by townsfolk bent on his murder. 

Once again I implore you to read "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson's chilling short story that was published in 1948 yet explains exactly what has been going on with Donald Trump since 2016 and continues today. You will understand that the Democrats will not stop haranguing, harassing, and hectoring the man -- and yes, he is simply a man -- not the Devil, not a God -- until he is stone cold dead.

The latest in a trail of indignities is his indictment yesterday for the very same crime committed by Hillary Clinton in 2016, when FBI director James Comey said that she and her colleagues "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." But he declared her "free and clear," adding that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."

Nevertheless, relentlessly dogging Trump for something many other presidents -- including Obama, George W. Bush and Biden-- have also done is par for the course. It's all about keeping Trump from re-gaining the presidency while allowing Democrats to continue to "fundamentally change America," as Obama famously boasted he would do. And after all, Trump did pick the short straw back in 2016, so he deserves to die.