Posts from — April 2018

It’s Hexennacht, but there is no Blocksberg available for dancing down here and it is so soggy that bonfires are out of the question.

Of course the Church grabbed this holiday too and called it Walpurgisnacht in honor of one of their Anglo-Saxon saints, rather than good German witches [Hexen]. The Celts celebrate Beltaine at this time of the year. It is considered the beginning of summer in much of Europe.

Archæoastronomy

Given the amount of trouble he is already in with Melania this will come up in the divorce:

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump admitted on Fox News that he’s been too busy to get a birthday gift for his wife, first lady Melania Trump, who turned 48 years old Thursday.

When asked during a telephone interview on Fox & Friends what Trump bought the first lady for her birthday he responded with a laugh,” Well, I better not get into that ’cause I may get in trouble. Maybe I didn’t get her so much.”

For someone who claims to be fabulously wealthy, not having someone to buy a birthday present for your wife is negligence in the first degree. This is the sort of thing that can end up in court after the fool gets out of the hospital.

A card and a call to 1-800-FLOWERS doesn’t hack it.

Interesting:

Chinese scientists have concluded that North Korea’s nuclear test site has partially collapsed, potentially rendering it unusable.

The test site at Punggye-ri has been used for six nuclear tests since 2006.

After the last, in September, a series of aftershocks hit the site, which seismologists believe collapsed part of the mountain’s interior.

On Saturday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un announced he was suspending his country’s nuclear and missile tests.

The last North Korean test was so much more powerful than any of the previous tests that many people believe that it was a hydrogen (fusion) bomb, not an atomic (fission) bomb. The other difference was the series of aftershocks that were thought to be collapses of the tunnel complex in which the tests took place.

The bottom line is that Kim Jong-Un may have decided to announce a pause in testing to cover for the reality that his test facility was destroyed by the last test.

Update: Mea culpa – in the initial post I had fission and fusion reversed.

Today is World Penguin Day. Krill is the appropriate gift – well for a penguin…

It is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, which is similar to the American Veterans Day, in that it began as a remembrance of World War I, and has become more generalized over the years.

“Anzac Day commemorates the involvement of Australian and New Zealand troops in a World War I campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.”

The Gallipoli Campaign began as a Winston Churchill [then First Lord of the Admiralty] plan that spun out of control and got a lot of people killed on both sides with nothing much changing, but then, that was quite common in World War I.

Peter Weir made a movie, Gallipoli, which, if nothing else, proves that Sergeant Alvin York, and T.E. Lawrence weren’t the only people who fought in World War I.

[Note: The date is April 25 which April 24 in the US because of the time difference.]

Saint George is the patron saint of England, Georgia [the country], Bulgaria, Portugal, Catalonia, and the city of Moscow. Orthodox countries tend to celebrate George on November 23^rd.

PETA condemns George for his senseless slaughter of dragons. The YWCA condemns the condemnation and wants to know when PETA is going to volunteer to be DragonChow™

It is UNESCO’s International Day of the Book.

It is also the birth and death day of Billy the Bard, who was a great writer in desperate need of a spelling checker.

Master Shakespeare gave all of the best lines to villains supplying low humor to those who have read the Folio, e.g. Arlen Specter quoting Iago, reputedly in support of Clarence Thomas.

She’s the only planet we have, if we blow it, we can’t pack up and move.

There’s no Plan[et] B.

Wikipedia has an Earth Day entry, with links to other sites.

Lieutenant HRH Princess Elizabeth

Working on another apartment, so blogging will be spotty unless there is a major disaster, which I probably won’t know about because because there is no WiFi at the Apartment. Yes, I’m really roughing it – no Internet, no radio, and no TV – just like when Reagan was President in the Dark Ages of the last century.

Due to the 15th falling on the weekend and Monday being Emancipation Day in Washington DC, today is the filing deadline for income taxes in the US. In many area the post offices will have extended hours to accept completed tax forms or requests for delays in filing.

Let’s go with Stevie Ray Vaughn instead of the British original.

Update: Due to issues with the IRS web site, the deadline has been moved to tomorrow at midnight. Apparently the site couldn’t handle the volume of traffic.

President Trump stepped up his long-running battle with Amazon, ordering a federal task force to investigate the Postal Service’s finances. Actually that’s misleading as the battle is really with the Washington Post and its coverage of him. Jeff Bezos owns a controlling interest in both Amazon and the Washington Post, so Trump attacks Amazon.

One problem with the Postal Service is that while Trump nominated three to USPS Board of Governors in October of 2017, he still hasn’t nominated anyone for the other six positions. The Board of Governors oversees Postal operations.

The Postal Service has financial issues that were intentionally caused by Congress as part of a push to privatize it. The Mail Handlers know what the problem is:

… The most immediate step to secure financial relief and sustainability for the USPS would be to address the 2006 Congressional mandate to pre-fund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance – an onerous burden that no other private or public entity in America is required to carry.

For those who don’t follow these things, when private equity firms or hedge funds or other vulture capitalist entities take over a company they raid pre-funded pensions first and then start selling off parts of the company and mortgage what they can. This is the process that bankrupts large companies like Sears, Toys-R-Us, and major newspapers.

Property and Excise are 11 today.

Your taxes aren’t due until Tuesday, the 17th because tomorrow is Emancipation Day, a local holiday in Washington DC.

The theme music for the day on YouTube.

The Schmuck in Chief jumped on Twitter to proclaim: “Mission Accomplished!”?

So, are we going to get thousands of US troops and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed and be stuck in another Middle East war for a decade? That’s what happened the last time a President declared: “Mission Accomplished!”

This is the result when you don’t have a functioning staff – you stumble from one ‘own goal’ to another. This is why he has been losing money for years.

Yes, it’s Friday the 13^th, which is good news for Scooter Libby who just got a Presidential pardon for being a traitor and revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valery Plame. Just the latest attack on the intel community and the rule of law by the Schmuck in Chief.

It is bad news for Michael Cohen who discovered that he is the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI and Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York for his business activities including his taxi business.

It is a good day for James Comey as his book showed up as the main topic on all of the news shows resulting in a lot of free publicity.

It is a bad day for the Schmuck in Chief [see Michael Cohen & James Comey above].

Of course we can expect the normal Friday night news dump to come.