You answered your own question…😎

Stay as dry as possible. Understand the situation as we just went through some wild flooding this past month up here in MI.

Okay, first lawn mowing of the season, with trimming and edging.

Looking good!

Winter can now come back and shut the grass down. Ibuprofen in 5…4…3…😂

I like historical threads like this.

Dusty cred in PoliSci/History is fascinated and amused. We KNOW this shit’s gone on since there were markets to manipulate. But until 2000 it was kept discreetly under the table. After 2016 it’s just nakedly out.

Collapse is academically interesting, but damn it’s gonna be messy.

Only edit I’d make is to say “starting in the era of…”

Grateful Dead…

My life since 1982, when I first started filing taxes…😰

Chuckle. I got a refund this year but only cuz I over-withheld out of caution while transitioning to retirement. All other numbers show my overall rate went up.

As we say, grifters gonna grift.

Had a couple of times recently at Meijer where I scanned items w/security tags. Associate pops over to go remove them, and in putting them back w/scanned items the POS a bit later decided it wasn’t happy. (Associates think these systems suck; we chat about it.)

Counterpoint is that rocket science has a good track record of yielding improvements for we who are not likely to leave the gravity well. And NASA’s costs pale in comparison to what we blow on war, coddling the oligarchs, etc. (Disclosure: Space Geek since ‘67 w/NASA friends/family.)

Handful of Clannad CDs in the family library. RIP.

If I recall y’all are north of us in the Bay Area and our new cabin up in Harrison is still seriously soggy in the yard. Figuring on a lot of manual work later so fully get what you’re seeing. Ugh is correct…

Thinking you’re about to get a loaf of banana pancake, which piques my interest. Please update…✌️

This atheist former CHI resident likes Leo and hopes he’s getting a grin from this as he deals with a most turbulent 2026. Wish I could get there but even if tix were handed to me that kinda road trip can’t occur.

Rusty old MBA thinks that over the last couple of decades (at least) there are factors apart from the wage/inflation dynamic-which has kept pace-that are messing w/folks and getting lumped into a generic “affordability” bucket. Nuances that don’t lend themselves to tweets etc.

Now has does the fact that as you age you are becoming like Asimov, Niven, and Pournelle in terms of multiple playgrounds does that feel…🤘✌️😂😘

(Write away. I’ll read it…)

Sixteen year old me in ‘77 never caught them live, but the old car stereo had some tapes to blast while motoring about. Nice memories…🤘

Always a hoot to watch the behavior of cornered rats. Albeit worrisome as these sadly have access to big weapons.

Dementia Donnie: Featuring the current Donald Trump, but in the universe in which his father bequeathed his estate to the Ku Klux Klan instead of his son

By @rubenbolling.bsky.social

Sadly, this fence guy has nukes.

Thought my new retirement was gonna be semi-mellow. Blew that call, damnit.

Every political system has a theoretical breaking point. A “worst case” state; largely defined as a time when fools and poltroons somehow manage to capture the core mechanisms of power and control.

I thought ours would hold off another generation or so despite trends.

I underestimated. Sorry…

On the bright side, the last time a dictatorial fool said the Pope has no guns it wasn’t comparatively long before he went to chat with Lucifer. (Comment Theist oriented; this Atheist would say “blinked out into dust”.)

College Senior Poli-Sci at that time. Dad a retired Army Major. Jewish friend in the PS track, and back then we were baffled by the OpSec holes that allowed this to occur. Hmmm…must dig back into this now.

What Is the Best-Case Scenario with Trump? “Twenty-Fifth Amendment that fucker!” “Democrats need to do something!” “Article II, Section IV.” Much to Secretary of Dumbfuckery Pete Keg’s Breath’s chagrin, no one was bombed back to the Stone Age yesterday. Meanwhile Fox News and the rest of the cult are pretending like Cheddar Ceaușescu didn’t totally TACO and get ass fucked on the international stage. While he’s acting like some great statesman, everyone who didn’t drop out of middle school to pursue a career in competitive cousin fucking knows that Velveeta Voldemort fucked up bigly. He thought he could just steamroll Iran like it was Venezuela, do a quickie regime change, and be praised for it. Instead, Iran is dictating the terms of the ceasefire, and the Manchurian Cantaloupe is backed into a corner with no way to save face. And shit still might go sideways; the issue with Lebanon is the latest stumbling block to the ceasefire. Needy Amin’s deranged posts threatening genocide had people who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis thinking Not this bullshit again. The United States needs to be rid of the Fanta Menace, and social media is rife with commentary on how to make that happen. Alas, most of it misunderstands American law, and also misses the mark on what is actually feasible. Section IV of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a non-starter. The people with the power to initiate it are all sycophants of their Jaundiced Jesus. They’d betray their own mothers rather than go against Orange Julius Seize Her. What’s more, all Donny Crappleseed has to do is say nuh-uh I’m totally sane and then both the House and the Senate need to vote a two-thirds majority that yeah the guy actually is totally bugshit (which won’t happen with the current Republican majorities) and then we’d get President Couch Fucker. On that note, Captain Guyliner would be an improvement because he doesn’t control the cult. More on that in a bit. So, yeah. Twenty-Fifth Amendment ain’t happening.

Why don’t the Democrats DO SOMETHING?! Ima hold your hand while I say this: BECAUSE AMERICANS DIDN’T GIVE THEM ANY POWER TO DO SHIT. To quote President Obama: “Elections have consequences.” Too many American voters were too fucking racist, or too fucking sexist, or too fucking concerned over their purity politics to vote for someone they were 90% aligned with so they stayed home or voted third party and congratu-fucking-lations now the Republicans control all branches of government. Only the Republican Party can do anything about Mango Unchained right now, and they ain’t fuckin’ gonna. So, what is the best-case scenario? A lightning bolt or a nice little chunk of cholesterol would solve a lot of problems, but I’m talking about what you, the American voter, can actually participate in that will help ameliorate the fucktacular shitnado of ass the United States and even much of the world finds itself in. This brings us to Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution. I see a lot of people bringing this one up like it’s some kind of fucking miracle too, because this is what it reads: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. A lot of people are posting that this magical Article II, Section IV means America can just make some giant sweeping motion and send all those fuckers packing. Alas, it doesn’t work that way. In fact, it’s already been tried twice with Coppertone Caligula, and it didn’t work either time. Remember when he got impeached in 2019 and we started calling him IMPOTUS? Then he did an insurrection and got impeached a second time? News flash: It was Article II, Section IV that was the clause being enacted to do that. And both times, it didn’t fucking work because the Democrats didn’t have the votes in the Senate to convict him.

So, what IS the best-case scenario for dealing with this maniacal motherfucker? It’s still Article II, Section IV. But it being successful depends on American voters. You need to do two things to make it happen. First, you need to stop bitching at Democrats to do something because they don’t hold the power right now. Instead, you need to be contacting REPUBLICAN representatives and letting them know just how fucking pissed off you are. Every Republican needs to be endlessly harassed by the public to let them know that this bullshit is intolerable and they need to fucking wield their power to bring it to an end. We are seeing a shift taking place. People across the political spectrum are pissed about the price of gas, the price of groceries, ICE, the Epstein Files, and also yes the fucking war. Republican senators don’t love Trump. They love power. They support Trump because going against him angers the cult and the cult is what keeps them in power. If they see that things are shifting, some of them might actually fucking do something. It happened with Nixon in 1974. He resigned because he knew there were enough senators who would vote to convict on impeachment, even though the Democratic Party only had 58 of the required 67 senate seats needed. There were enough Republican senators who also agreed Nixon had to go. The other thing, and this is the really critical part, is that you need to vote in the midterms. Stop all this doomsaying bullshit about how it’s all rigged or there won’t be midterms and blah fucking blah. It’s somewhat rigged in some places but there will be midterms and you need to show up. You need to help and encourage others to show up too. Because if the midterms swing hard enough toward the Democrats, THEN he can be impeached a third time, and MAYBE there will be enough Democratic senators—along with enough Republican senators who find their spines—and they will actually convict the piece of shit and then he’s out of power. Then, it’s Vance. And I …

Again, it takes 67 senators to convict on impeachment. I cannot fathom that the Democrats will take 67 seats in the senate in November. We can dream, but that is one helluva long shot. Every single one of the 22 Republican senate seats that are up for grabs in 2026 would have to swing Democratic to hit 67. In other words, for Trump to be convicted, it’s going to require some Republicans to go along. And they might, especially if shit keeps going the way it has. But what they won’t do is also go along with convicting Vance. The reason why is that if they do that, the Republicans lose the presidency. Because if both the president and the vice-president are removed, the next in line is the Speaker of the House. If the midterms swing Democratic hard enough so that there is an impeachment in the first fucking place, then that means the new Speaker will be a member of the Democratic Party. Some Republicans may ditch Trump to get Vance, but they won’t also ditch Vance to put a Democrat in the White House. No. Fucking. Way. President Vance in early 2027 is the best-case scenario, and you gotta fucking work for it. He doesn’t control the cult because the guy has the personality of an incel’s wank sock. He’s not insane. He doesn’t have dementia. He won’t nuke the planet because of the Epstein Files. The chances of him winning in 2028 also aren’t that great. Oh, and he’d pick a new cabinet too. Hopefully one with fewer psychopaths and morons. It. Is. An. Improvement. So do the fucking work.

This is your wakeup call:

"President Vance in early 2027 is the best-case scenario, and you gotta fucking work for it."

I dig that. Though with 40 years of armchair beyond the rusty am now trying to figure out where the core coin is going…

Nicely succinct summary.

Within that framing, it’s a setup for failure. So assuming failure where do you think it then goes? (Honest Q from an Old One w/a rusty old PS parchment.)

Sweet! We’re still well north of the migratory wave but hoping to get some action when we get our feeders out.

Sandman Slim (Stark) road on the route to our new cabin.

Grabbed a cabin in the woods last Dec and now starting to get it de-winterized. Finally got a chance to get a pic of a road along the route that has me think of @richardkadrey.bsky.social every time we drive past the exit.

All things considered the numbers Harris got were very good despite being short. On paper the demographics in the Metro ATL part of the district could counter the NW part. Herculean GOTV effort required for the coming Nov round…

Nothing at all snarky. Vibes. This shit is beyond insane. Sad I’ve got no way to fix it; not remotely how I saw getting into retirement would flow.