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 |   Tales from real life |
| Well, if they're not true, they oughta be! |
| In the beginning was the lie, and the lie was with Trump, and the lie was Trump. - The Gospel of Trump There's a certain presidential impostor who wants to blame all of America’s ills on DEI. He blames diversity, equity and inclusion for everything from his felony convictions to wildfires to plane crashes. His goal in fighting diversity is to return to a time when those who were different in any way were not allowed to compete, let alone succeed on their own merit. He fears losing out to those he sneers at as 'lesser', such as minorities, immigrants, women, the handicapped, and dwarves. He seeks to rig the game in his favor by reducing the talent pool. His cabinet picks bear this out. Even a freakin’ moron looks smart among this unqualified group of drunks, incompetents, and mental midgets. Another definition of the acronym DEI, which Trump used to disparage Kamela Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign, is ‘didn’t earn it’. His obvious envy of her very real accomplishments was just sad. Our pathetic loser of a president, who’s made America a worldwide object of ridicule, is the poster boy for didn't earn it. This so-called man dodged the draft with a case of bone spurs that never showed up on an x-ray. He speaks loudly but carries a small stick, kowtowing to communist dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. The bankruptcies and loan defaults of the so-called businessman are infamous. And this so-called leader closed down his charity rather than doing even the legal minimum of charitable works. Then he closed down his for-profit university rather than provide the students with plausible coursework. In both cases, he denied culpability even though he signed a consent decree not to repeat the same scams in the future. But what about the things that this ‘man of the people’ claims to have done? There's no evidence that he ever had an interview for a real job, that he ever had to punch a time clock, or sit through a performance review. He's a real estate mogul who's never designed a building or hammered a nail (but he may have laundered money for the Russian mob). A golf resort magnate who never laid out a course or put down a single piece of sod (but he is known to cheat when he plays). This so-called genius claims to hold a business degree, but there isn’t any proof that he actually received one. There's no proof because he filed a legal injunction to prevent Wharton University from releasing his records. We can reasonably speculate that his grades were embarrassing, and that his transcript would show that he was a DEI graduate. This same presidential fraud who rants about being treated so unfairly began as a DEI hire at the Trump Organization. And he relied entirely on his father’s reputation to jump-start his business career. He was gifted millions of dollars of seed money from daddy rather than earning it. His father also provided him with access to real businessmen, pressured bank executives, and co-signed loans on his behalf. His start in business was handed to him on a silver platter, he didn't earn it. But even with the advantages of wealth and political connections, he managed to lose most of his father's net worth with a string of poor investments and multiple bankruptcies. One of his few personal successes was a stock company, DJT, that lured gullible investors to put their money into literally nothing. They were conned into investing in a dishonest man rather than a business. DJT never offered any products or services and never showed a profit. But the inevitable bankruptcy netted huge profits for its CEO, Donald J. Trump. In addition to taking millions in salary, Trump sold his own over-mortgaged properties to DJT at inflated prices. The paper shuffle left investors with ten cents on their dollar, DJT ceased to exist as a corporate entity, and Trump received hundreds of millions of dollars without earning it. The supposedly spontaneous announcement of Donald Trump's political career was cheered and applauded, but the adoring crowd was mostly made up of hired actors. This startling fact came to light because he tried to stiff them for their work, and the subsequent lawsuit to obtain their wages became public record. The applause for his candidacy wasn't earned. It wasn't even paid for. Eventually, this serial fraud was appointed to the highest office in America by the electoral college. He was elevated over a better qualified candidate who received 5 million more votes. He may have been president, but he certainly didn't earn it. Now Donald J. Trump is back in office and boasting of a 'huge' mandate from 49% of the voters. But his so-called victory doesn’t pass the smell test. He didn’t actually earn it. It’s my opinion that the 2024 election was rigged. It just isn’t plausible that every swing state went for a guy who was trailing in the polls on election day. And Elon Musk, the computer genius, warned us about the voting machines. He told us that we shouldn’t trust the software. We know that it’s difficult for someone who’s on the spectrum to tell a direct lie. I believe that Elon eased his conscience by giving us his confession that day. And no one is better equipped to hack the machines than a guy who owns a whole constellation of nefarious spy satellites. But how can I suggest election fraud without direct evidence? Because I have common sense! Trump may be back in the White House, but once again he didn’t earn it. Upon further reflection, maybe America's problems really are the result of DEI: Donald J. Trump, DEI. |
My wife and I went to an Oktoberfest fundraiser at our local parish church last fall. The menu was brats and sauerkraut, of course, and several local brewpubs donated their products for a taste testing. The food was good, the beer was better, and the subject of proper condiments came up in the conversation. Some of the folks at our table insisted that mustard is the only acceptable hot dog condiment, while others said they preferred catsup and relish. And some of us confessed that they liked their dogs piled high with everything, even unto onions, cheese and chili. I expressed my view that hot dogs are a guilty pleasure and I’d enjoy them no matter how they’re served. But then Deb had to point out that I won’t eat spicy mustard, and thus renewed our long running discussion (argument) about Dijon mustard. Deb thinks that plain yellow mustard is boring, but I can't abide the horseradish in the Dijon version. And it isn't just that I don't like the taste, I physically cannot swallow the horrible stuff. I learned this as a child, because my mother likes horseradish and used to put it on her roast beef. She persuaded me to try a bite and I literally gagged. So that was the last time I had to eat horseradish. I can force myself to swallow a dab of Dijon mustard if I have to, but I try to avoid even a hint of that awful, burning gastric disaster. Our mustard discussion (argument) did, however, remind me of a story that was perfect for a tableful of friends and acquaintances who were just trying to enjoy their meal. In 1980, when I was a 22 year-old applications engineer working at Summit Engineering, I spent a full month in England. I was supporting a project at the H. W. Ward company to outfit a vintage turret lathe with one of our modern computer controls. It turned out to be a big job and there was also a bit of culture clash between my enthusiasm for technology and the traditional English way of doing things. My 'minder' at the Ward plant was a middle-aged mechanical engineer named John Payne. John wore a sweater vest and bow tie under his ever-present suit coat. He was very proper, perhaps even stuffy, but he tried to overlook my brash blue jeans attitude and he did his best to facilitate the project. Our schedule was tight and pub lunches were expensive, so John offered me tea and roast beef sandwiches one day instead of going out to eat. I like roast beef and English pub food is mediocre at best, so I gladly accepted. What I didn't know was that John was a horseradish fiend. He slathered his sandwiches with a layer of that awful white goop as thick as the meat itself. And I didn’t see it coming because the Brits always insist on drinking tea. I'm not nearly as fond of tea as I am of roast beef, so my attention was focused on adding enough milk and sugar to make the insipid ‘cuppa’ palatable to my sweet tooth. I didn't really look at the gift sandwich as I picked it up and took a big mouthful of pure horseradish. To quote Col. Kurtz from the movie Apocalypse Now, "The horror, the horror . . ." My reaction was immediate and uncontrollable. The bite of sandwich bounced, literally, and I barely managed to reach the waste basket as everything came up. John, with perfect British reserve, didn't even flinch. "If you don't care for roast beef, you could have just said." Author's note: ▼ |
"Life, like love, is as simple as ABC: Always Be Cheating!" - The Gospel of Trump The inaugural address was a truly comedic performance. Setup: I will, very simply, put America first Punchline: Federal grants and loans must advance President Trump's priorities Setup: The unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end Punchline: Trump pulls security details from political enemies Setup: our government confronts a crisis of trust Punchline: absolute presidential immunity Punchline: pardons for insurrection co-conspirators Setup: Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency Punchline: Trump suggests abolishing FEMA Setup: the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda Punchline: Except for the 50 percent of Americans who disapprove of Trump Setup: defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices Punchline: inflation hit 8% under Biden, 12% under Reagan, currently at 3% Punchline: 100 % tariffs will raise prices in all sectors and cause widespread inflation Setup: I will also declare a national energy emergency Punchline: the end of wind and solar energy production Setup: establish the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency Punchline: Trump fires independent inspector generals Setup: I also will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship Punchline: Trump orders Google Maps to rename Gulf of Mexico Setup: Never again will the power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents Punchline: Trump fires DOJ prosecutors who worked on insurrection investigation Setup: restore fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law Punchline: a blatantly unconstitutional violation of the 14th amendment Setup: We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based Punchline: except for presidential cabinet nominees Setup: That's what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier Punchline: we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen Punchline: would not rule out the use of military force to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland Setup: President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs Punchline: McKinley later called his tariff policy a mistake Setup: we will end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children healthy Punchline: Trump nominates anti-vaxxer for Secretary of Health and Human Services Punchline: Trump bars CDC from cooperation with World Health Organization Setup: The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation Punchline: deport millions and millions of aliens back to the places from which they came Setup: We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God Punchline: Bishop criticized by Trump after asking for mercy for immigrants Setup: bring unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable Punchline: Don't treat them gently, hit back harder, I'd like to punch him in the face. Punchline: 2nd amendment people can 'do something' about liberal judges Punchline: I like turnover. I like chaos. It really is good Wow, comedy gold! And these are only a few highlights from his first week. I'm laughing so hard it hurts. |
I talked with an old friend last week and we reminisced about our college days in the late 1970's. We shared some typical stories and then Dave reminded me of the time I wished we had cable TV. We'd been drinking beers while watching some stupid sitcom and I was bored. There were only a couple of channels available over the air in Bozeman, Montana, so it took about 30 seconds to channel surf our options. And that was mostly because we didn't have a remote control. "There's got to be something better than this," I complained. 'No problem,' Dave replied. "You got a ladder?" "Sure, there's one lying next to the garage." My wife, Debbie, and I were renting a basement apartment at the time, and our elderly landlord lived upstairs with his wife. I'd seen a ladder that looked as old as the landlord while going in and out of our private entrance. We had to park on the street and walk up the narrow driveway so as not to block access to their detached single-car garage. There was already a cable outlet in the wall behind the television, but as starving students we couldn't afford the monthly fee. And Dave had made cable hook-ups back in his hometown, so what followed was almost inevitable. I'd like to say that we weren't drunk, but our judgment may have been slightly impaired. I know I was a little wobbly as we carried the ladder to the utility pole in the alley. We weren't exactly stealthy, but luckily for us, the landlord went to bed early and was kind of deaf besides. So, we soon had the ladder propped up against the pole and Dave commenced to climb. "Hold it steady!" "You bet!' Easier said than done. The ladder was a bit short, but Dave is pretty tall. He could just reach the cable box by standing on the top rung while hugging the pole with one arm (kids, don't try this at home). I held onto the rickety ladder as much to steady myself as to steady Dave. Somehow, he managed to open the box on the utility pole one-handed and hook up the cable wire that went to our apartment. Dave's foot almost pushed the ladder away from the pole once or twice, but he grabbed on with both arms, and I just managed to keep it from falling out from under him. We may not have equaled the comic genius of the three stooges, but it was still a funny performance. Afterward, Dave managed to climb down without falling and we went back inside to try out the cable. We even put the ladder back against the garage first, leaving no evidence of our midnight mission. Other than the raw scrapes on the inside of Dave's arms where he'd clung desperately to the utility pole. Debbie shook her head at our lack of good sense and made Dave sit down at the kitchen table. She tweezed out a few splinters and cleaned off the oozing blood with a wet washcloth. Meanwhile, I was hooking up the TV to the cable outlet. "Hey, Dave, it worked! You're a genius, man!" Debbie looked at his arms and rolled her eyes. Dave just grinned with the satisfaction of a job well done. So, we grabbed a couple more beers and sat down to enjoy the luxury of a full ten channels of clean, clear television. This time it took almost 3 minutes to channel surf through all the shows. "There's got to be something better than this," I complained. |
"You don't have to be a genius to lie about your IQ." - The Gospel of Trump How do you get to be the smartest person in the room? Being born with a Mensa-level IQ is one way, but it's tough to arrange after the fact. Another way, perhaps even better, is through hard work and extensive study. We may not be fully successful, but making the effort is within our control and definitely improves the odds. The MAGA approach is to pack the room with idiots. Even a freakin' moron looks intelligent among the incompetents and fools nominated for the second Trump administration. And Pete Hegseth appears to be the poster child for the idiocracy. His lack of qualifications for heading the military have been laid bare and his distasteful personal history has been exposed for all the world to see. It matters not to the MAGAnaughts. One senator used Hegseth's confirmation hearing as an opportunity to curry favor with the president elect. He suggested that the unqualified Hegseth might be just as successful as a certain unqualified presidential candidate in 2016. Talk about damning someone with faint praise! Then Senator Markwayne Mullin defended Hegseth with an observation that all congressmen are drunken incompetents who cheat on their wives. He insisted that it would be the height of hypocrisy to disqualify a Trump nominee just because he wasn't smart enough or decent enough to deserve the post. Mullin finished his self-referential exercise in stupidity by declaring "Give me a joke!" Hegseth accommodated him by squawking "meritocracy, meritocracy" like a deranged parrot. I don't know if they rehearsed this routine, but it could hardly be any more comical if they had. It seems obvious that Mullin meant to say 'give me a break' but tripped up on that old Freudian Slip thing. And Hegseth himself displayed a woeful lack of intelligence when cornered by Senator Tammy Duckworth. He wouldn't answer a direct question of whether he would be loyal to his country or to his president. He couldn't bring himself to say that he would refuse an illegal order from Donald Trump. Did he learn nothing from the nominees of the first Trump administration? Just tell the damned lie, Pete! MAGAworld doesn't care about the truth, and no one will ever hold you accountable. And therein lies the tragedy that only emphasizes the comedy. "Give me a joke!" |
| Reposted from Real Fake News: Canada to annex Alaska in 2026 by staff reporter Landon Fisch “Canada is stepping up,” announced Prime Minister Ootin N. Boot. “We’ve worked out an agreement with President Trump to solve more than half of the U.S. border problem. Making Alaska the eleventh Canadian province will eliminate 2500 km of border entirely. And we’ll take over the responsibility of guarding more than 10,000 km of the Alaskan coast. Current Alaskan residents will be allowed to apply for Canadian citizenship or they can go back where they came from. Law enforcement and municipal workers will be welcome to stay on after completing upgraded courtesy training. And the costs of the transfer process will be covered by reciprocal tariffs on all goods imported or exported between our two great nations. That way, nobody has to pay.” When asked about the actual price tag, the Prime Minister had this to say, “President Trump is doing a fantastic job and we certainly appreciate this opportunity to work together on border security. In return, Canada will cede ownership of Greenland to the U.S. and acknowledge it as the eighth continent. We will also recognize its new name, Trumpland. There is no mention of money at this time, no quid pro quo. So, any subsequent monetary payment to our favorite president will be merely a tip, a gratuity for a job well done. It would in no way be a bribe because there is no upfront agreement. Everything will be open and aboveboard as per the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Snyder vs United States. “GREAT DEAL FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!” the U.S. President posted on X. “HORDES OF ILLEGALS POUR ACROSS NORTHERNMOST BORDER EVERY DAY! IMAGINE THEIR DISAPPOINTMENT WHEN THEY FIND OUT THEY’RE STILL IN CANADA!” |
When I was with Summit Engineering, way back in 1980, I worked on a project to retrofit an H. W. Ward turret lathe with a Bandit CNC. Ward was a venerable British machine tool company founded in 1889, and Summit was an American startup barely ten years old. The Bandit was one of the first machine tool controllers to incorporate a microprocessor, and H. W. Ward wanted to make their entry into the 20th century. For reasons that were never clear to me, the Ward lathe project began in rented space at an industrial park in suburban Chicago. It seemed that the decision to embrace computers and automation wasn’t popular with everyone at the company. The man in charge of the project told me at different times that it was being kept secret from competitors or that it had to be protected from the old-school naysayers who wanted to see it fail. Either way, I wound up spending two weeks at that industrial park helping the Ward technicians adapt our control to their machine. There were two things that bothered me in Chicago, the bitter February cold and converting between metric and english units. Great Britain converted most of their measurement systems to metric units in the 1970’s. When I traveled to England in the 1980's, I found currency based on 100 new pence per pound and petrol sold by liters instead of gas sold by gallons. Britain also changed their standard for nuts and bolts from British Standard Whitworth (BSW) to Metric SI units. BSW fasteners are defined in fractions of an inch and metric fasteners use millimeters. The thread shape and pitch of the two systems are not compatible, and neither are the wrenches used to work with them. A third standard for nuts and bolts is used in the U.S. The UNC standard defines coarse threads and UNF is for fine threads. The UNC/UNF standards are based on BSW but differ enough that those two systems are also incompatible. Today, BSW is rarely used but it’s still common to distinguish fasteners as being either english or metric. Even though it’s the U. S. that uses english units and the English actually use metric now. Confused? Well then, you’re up to speed on what we faced with that lathe. The lathe project began with an existing H. W. Ward machine that was designed in feet and inches with BSW fasteners. The big cast iron parts for the machine slides and the headstock were shown on drawings with english units. Newer bits, such as ball screws and motor mounts, were designed with metric dimensions and metric fasteners. And the newest parts that were sourced in the U.S., like our Bandit CNC, used english units and UNC/UNF fasteners. That created a comical situation with 3 sets of drawings, 3 toolboxes full of wrenches and 3 shelving units with bins of incompatible nuts and bolts. There was constant swearing as the technicians tried to remember which parts used which units and needed which wrenches. Stripping a thread by jamming a fastener into the wrong type of threaded hole wasn’t unusual. And it was often necessary to search for missing wrenches that had migrated to the wrong toolbox. Despite the compatibility challenges, we got the machine up and running. The H. W. Ward people boxed up all those different parts and shipped them back to their factory in Droitwich. I went home for a couple of weeks, but I wasn't finished. The next phase of the project was to prep the lathe for the big Birmingham machine tool show in April. So, I went to England in March and continued to play my supporting role. It was my first transatlantic trip, and I found it difficult to adjust to the time zone change. I arrived at The Raven Hotel on a Saturday, crashed too early, and found myself wide-awake at 4 am. I had to wait a couple of hours for the hotel restaurant to open. After breakfast, I wandered around Droitwich for a few hours and then crashed again. So, it turned out that the hotel bar was my only option to get something to eat at 9 pm on a Sunday. The menu was limited, but there was a beef stew sort of thing that sounded okay, so ordering food was easy. But what to drink? Just about the only place in Britain that successfully resisted metrification was the pub. Their traditional beer glasses were sized for the classic British pint, and they still are today. I'd seen this scene on TV, so when the bartender asked what I’d have to drink, I knew just what to say. “A pint of beer, please.” “Bitter or stout?” Hmm, bitter doesn’t sound very tasty, I thought, but what the hell is stout? I had no idea what the guy was talking about. Neither of those choices sounded like beer to me, but I didn’t want to admit my ignorance. “I’ll have the stout,” I declared as though I knew what I was doing. I don’t remember the brewery name, but their stout was like mud compared to the American lagers I was used to. I tried not to make a face as I slowly chewed my way through that glass of syrup. One pint of English stout has more alcohol than two American beers and one was enough for me. From then on, I ordered bitter beer and liked it. But what about the turret lathe? We got it prettied up for the show and it generated a bit of interest, but the naysayers prevailed in the end. I have to admit that it was more 'proof of concept' than finished product. At any rate, it never went into production, we never sold them any more controls, and a few years later the H. W. Ward company passed into history. |
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