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Rest In Peace -United States of America

Rest In Peace
United States of America
July 4, 1776 – January 20, 2025
“Even God could not save her from the religious.”

There needs to be some serious soul searching amongst the denizens of this country.  There was no sane, moral or ethical reason for having voted for the chimera that is Donald J. Trump, especially this time around, as his psychopathy had been on full display for years.

If you voted for him because your religion is preaching an Armageddon / Second Coming of Christ fantasy, and he is the the agent that God will use to fulfill those end days delusions, you need to apply critical thinking skills to what they are  spewing from the pulpits and to religion in general.  But then again, it seems to me, the only way for people to be religious is to forego thinking critically about it.  With the Evangelicals embracingTrump as they have, faith has become a four letter word in my book.

God save us from the religious.

For the first time in my life I am truly afraid, afraid of future, afraid of what this country is becoming, afraid of many of my fellow citizens, afraid of what DJT and his ilk are going to do to this world. The only bright spot I can see in this cluster f*** is that I will not be around much longer to witness it.

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Quadrillion versus trillion

Sorry.

When I originally posted my article The Three Biggest Lies, I was rushing out the door. I mixed up trillion and quadrillion.  A trillion has 12 places (1,000,000,000,000) while a quadrillion has 15 places (1,000,000,000,000,000) after the first set of numbers.

C’est la vie.

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The Three Biggest Lies

  1. Sure, I will respect you in the morning (clean version)
  2. The check is in the mail
  3. I will give every American $5,000 if the Republicans win the mid-terms, or so sayeth El puta pendajo

Let’s see…  the current population of the United States is 342,620,143.  Multiple that by $5,000 and you have an amount of this blatant bribe of $1,713,100,715,000. To put it another way, 1.7 trillion dollars.  Even if he is just talking about taxpayers in the United States of which there are 153,800,000 that number is $769,000,000,000 or 7.69 billion dollars.

Yeah, right!

That, my friends, is the definition of inflation, when the government starts printing money wildly like would be needed for that give away.

To give you some perspective, the first number is roughly what the United States spent on social security in 2025, a program that the Republicans are trying to eliminate as they say it is too costly.

Sorry.  When I originally posted this as I was rushing out the door, I mixed up trillion and quadrillion.  A trillion has 12 places (1,000,000,000,000) while a quadrillion has 15 places (1,000,000,000,000,000) after the first set of numbers.

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Quote of the Day – Charlemagne

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

“To have a second language is to possess a second soul.” ~~ Charlemagne

Or from another tradition:

“The number of languages you know, the number of persons you are.” ~~ Local Oral Tradition from Asia

I heard the first quote while watching a Great Courses offering of all things, Earth Science.  The professor relayed the quote without attribution.  His contention being that to learn Earth Science was to learn a new language, the language of the planet.

I do not know about another soul, but learning Spanish has opened me up to learning about other cultures, other countries, other ways at looking at the world.

I’m going to keep an eye on it to see if I become a slightly different person when conversing in another language.

Here is an interesting article I am across while researching the origin of the quote: A Proverb on the Expansive Power of Language

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Venn Diagram for Upcoming Election

Apologies to the comedian Don McMillan, an engineer who has forged a very good comedic career using Venn diagrams. This is not his Venn diagram, but I like his idea of using Venn diagrams for such things. Check him out on YouTube.

If you like what the Enshittificator-in-chief has done to this country, the economy, the world, our relationship with our allies, the return of childhood diseases, a food inspection program in shambles, a military in disarray, the dismantling of our social safety nets, ICE harassing folks simply for the color of their skin and murdering citizens and non-citizens, climate change about to hit us like a sledge hammer, a man who idolizes murderous dictators, a man who started an unnecessary, unwinnable war that has killed hundreds of innocents, a man who has made $2.2 billion using the office of the President,  a man who has made the United States the laughing stock of the world, and a man who is mentioned 38,000 times (according to the New York Times) in the Epstein files, then by all means vote Republican in the upcoming mid-terms.

Remember that Trump could not have done any of this without the Republicans enabling him or minimally, lacking the backbone to stop him.

Venn diagram of what happens when corruption meets incompetence

May Ahura Mazda save our souls.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #5,697

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

I have decided that I want to get into a poker game with a bunch of MAGAs.  They obviously do not know when to fold a losing hand or how to bluff convincingly about such a losing hand.

But then again, they might follow their idol’s example and ignore the rules. Thus, claiming their pair of jacks beats my 10 high straight. An argument would ensue with the flipping of the card table sending chips, cards and cash flying to all corners of the room causing a mad scramble for the greenbacks. Phones would be drawn, racing to post a video of the bad behavior on social media. They neighbors would hear the clash and the loud voices.  They police would be called and I and the others would spend the night in the hoosegow for disturbing the peace and illegal gambling.

Perhaps I should forego the opportunity to pad my wallet.

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The USA’s Problem in One Image

The image below is circulating on social media.

There is so much wrong with this image, I am at a loss as to where to begin. While the majority of our Founding Fathers were deist, and many other presidents were not particularly religious, Abraham Lincoln comes to mind, Trump does not believe in anything except himself.  And I am even doubtful of that. I do not even believe him to be irreligious as that would imply he has thought, even if only shallowly, about religious beliefs.  If he has a god, it is green or gold. If I were a religious person I would view this depiction as a gross sacrilege. Come to think of it, I am not religious, and I still view it as a gross sacrilege. If there is such a thing as unholy, the definition is: See Trump.

What is sad to me is that politics and religion have almost always walked hand in hand.  Both are efforts to control the behavior of large groups of people.  Religion tends to pretty it up with ideas about improving the person and society, with ideas about aiding the believer to get to heaven or, more importantly, stay out of hell. Politics frequently dresses itself up as doing the most good for the most people, but often does not even bother with that. In the end  they are both about the same thing, power and control.

The melding of conservative politics with fundamental religions is as scary to me as various theocracies, past and present. There are good reasons the Founding Fathers were so adamant about the separation of church and state.

God save us from the religious.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #5,351

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

Spellcheck…

I am trying to decide which is the lesser of two evils.  To release one of my puerile little blog articles into the wild with spelling errors, or to release it with spellcheck having unknowingly substituted my original intended word with a word spelled somewhat similarly but with an entirely different meaning.

Between my fat fingers and the inability to edit my own writings, it is of deep concern for this poor, deluded scribbler.

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The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard

“A man’s got to know his limitations” ~~ Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in the 1973 film Magnum Force.

Part of me is really glad I read this book, and another part is not.

Why am I glad? 

This is a well written, well researched book.  While it relates a true story, it reads like a novel. As opposed to an actual novel, there is a minimal of dialog. What little dialog that is included, is taken from the various journals, diaries and other documents written by the people on the expedition. It is also a mix of history, as taken from the aforementioned documents and news stories of the time, as well as a brief history of Teddy Roosevelt before and after this journey and the history of parts of South America. Add more than a generous dollop of Continue reading “The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #5,070

yeah I know you did not ask!

You should so be blessed – well cursed at times actually – with a mind such as mine, making all these weird connections between my rumored neurons. Just be thankful that I do not share all of my random thoughts.

Back in the day… what used to trigger my decision that I needed a haircut was when my bangs began to interfere with my vision, or in recent years when Señora began chasing me around with her scissors.  As the years have descended on me like a rugby scrum, my decision is frequently triggered by my eyebrows having grown to the point that they are interfering with my vision.

Gotta love this getting old gig.

*****

Señora has been cutting my hair for years now.  Her doing so was a combination of things.  First, there was COVID with everyone staying home afraid of being around other humans.  Then, the barber who I had been going to for years had a series of small strokes.  She was still trying to work, but her quality was less than optimal.  I hung with her as long as I could out of loyalty, but at some point I had had enough of her hacking up my hair.  A lot of other customers must have felt the same way as her shop closed up not too long after I stopped going there.

Gotta love this getting old gig.

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Quote of the Day – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Quote of the Day… not actually daily, but whenever I encounter one I think worth sharing and there are not too many in sequence.  I like quotes as they frequently distill a piece of wisdom into a brief passage, or make other points very succinctly – such as the witticisms of Oscar Wilde.

 “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” ~~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Yup, that Roman cat Cicero was prescient about our current situation in the United States… just saying.

Sad part is that he was writing about a situation in the Roman Empire 2000 years ago, and it still applies today. As a species, it seems we never learn some very basic lessons, we seldom learn from our mistakes.  What was it a renowned sage once asked, “are we suffering  the Arrogance of Ignorance, or the Ignorance of Arrogance?”  Either way, we are screwed.

And so it should not go.

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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