This is nowhere near the worst thing he’s done. But this one really, really pisses me off. Congratulations, You’re a Trump Campaign Donor. All my conservative friends will just wave this away, no big deal. But can you imagine if Biden or Harris had done this? The apocalypse, for sure. But using taxpayer money for these partisan ads breaks at least three laws, and is basis for impeachment. So get ready, Donny. The impeachment machine revs up December 2026.

Same for this – many worse crimes committed by Convict Donny, but this petty action pisses me off. Dissing Obama in the White House for the amusement of his dictator friends. It’s wrong, embarrassing, immoral and pathetic. If/when Dems ever regain power, every trace of Convict Donny, every photo and piece of gold trim, should be removed and burned. That’s if Donny himself doesn’t burn it all down on his way out.

Shifting gears, if you’re thinking of going to Ireland, I would recommend this approach. I wish I had known this sooner. Our expensive, travel agent and private driver heavy approach to seeing Ireland was a disappointment. We spent a ton and didn’t see all that much due to really shitty weather. I would have been a lot happier going slower, cheaper, on trains and such, given the weather. Most of our days looked like this. Big views of gloomy weather.

But some Irish days were better, more like this from Muckross, in the national park above Killarney.

The Times article sort of made me want to go back and try again. I’m sure Ireland is beautiful when the sun shines a day or two each year. Perhaps my memories of Ireland are colored (darkened) by my brother Don’s death a day or two after we returned to the states – that was a gloomy time, and memories are funny things. Unreliable, mostly. They tend to conflate.

Even attending a Rush concert a week later didn’t erase those gloomy memories. I remember thinking that Don sure would have loved to be at the show. He was a Rush fan; we had that in common. June 2026 will forever be a weird dark time in my admittedly-flawed memory.

Haven’t played golf in a week as I spent seven full days working on the pool deck. Finished that yesterday, and catching up on current events is painful – there’s so much being broken/destroyed by Convict Donny and his lawless minions, so fast.

So let’s play a little fantasy game. Here’s my dream team for rebuilding our broken federal government and culture starting in 2026 and 2028. They’ve got their work cut out for them.

New Congressional players in 2026, playing defense against the Trump Crime Family until they can be voted out:

• Senator James Talarico, TX
• Senator Jon Ossoff, GA
• Senator Anyone-But-Susan-Collins, ME
• Senator Sherrod Brown, OH
• New D Senators from IA, AK, MI, NC and KS
• House Speaker, Kristen Gillibrand
• 15-20 new Democrat House members

New Executive Branch players in 2028:

• President Mark Kelly
• Vice President Andy Beshear
• Secretary of State JB Pritzger
• Attorney General Kamala Harris
• Secretary of Defense Elissa Slotkin
• Head of EPA Pete Buttigieg
• Head of TSA Tammy Duckworth
• Ambassador to Israel Rahm Immanuel
• Three newly-appointed-by-Kelly Supreme Court Justices, to negate the axis of evil Roberts-Thomas-Alito-Kavanaugh
• Chief Justice of the expanded Supreme Court, Barack Obama

There are plenty of other Cabinet-level seats needs leadership for rebuilding – Education, Interior, HHS, CIA Director and so on, but with Kelly and Beshear in charge I have no doubt we’d get quality, empathetic, strong human beings in place.

The odds of all that happening are low, but…one can dream.

Democrats should go to war with this new insult to our intelligence and our paychecks. Convict Donny is now using our tax dollars to buy TV ads that praise him. WTF? From Digby:

A decade ago this would have been unthinkable, clearly illegal. And instant death for any politician’s career. But after 12 years of Trump, nothing is too low, too awful, too insane. Arrrgh.

Speaking of insanity, the White House just raised the stakes in its illegal ban on certain journalists. Yesterday a federal judge, appointed by Trump (!), ruled that the ban was unconstitutional (duh) and the journalists’ credentials and access must be returned. Yet today, White House security refused to obey the court’s order. So where does that leave us? We have an Executive Branch that constantly ignores and disobeys court orders, this just being the latest example. They believe they are above the law.

It’s all so exhausting. Adding to that exhaustion from another angle, Anthropic just disclosed that they’ve done one of the stupidest things possible. They’ve given their frontier model Claude access to a biology wet lab (a physical lab, involving real people, animals, and biology research) with the goal of having Claude discover new drugs. Let’s see, how would I go about killing humanity if I were an out of control AI model? Hmmm. The most efficient way is biologic warfare, but to accomplish that I have to have access to a lab facility, viruses and drugs. How can this not be obvious to Anthropic? I love tech, but stupid shit like this is why I think the brakes need to be stomped on with regard to AI development, yesterday.

There are huge debates happening right now about the existential risks of frontier AI models – is the risk real or just ignorant hand-wringing? My take is that (a) the trendlines indicate that model capabilities are progressing much faster than most anyone expected, (b) the creators don’t fully understand how or why the models do what they do, (c) people will always do stupid/dangerous shit (see above note about Anthropic’s AI-powered wet lab), (d) all the developers are now encouraging recursive model development, in which frontier model N creates better model N+1, an exponential curve that leads to who-knows-what. Given all that, ignoring the possibly-existential risks is just dumb. Stop or slow development, think about how to control these rapidly-evolving entities, and at least try to make sure that the Matrix future doesn’t happen.

Maybe this explains the Fermi Paradox. Why can we see no evidence of alien intelligence in the universe? Because at some point in each civilization’s technological progress, they created autonomous, self-improving and self-replicating machines. And the machines decided they didn’t need the competition with organic life. We’re at the threshold…

It’s Day 5 of the rather large pool deck repair project, in which every morning I clean a section or two of the pool deck, use the new sprayer to apply Cool Deck, a thick paint. On the section I painted the day before, I then apply a clear sealer. Each needs to dry for at least 24 hours. It’s tedious work, involving lots of prep and cleaning to keep the paint sprayer functioning – those things are a needy tool. Today I should finish, and hopefully won’t have to do this again for 18 months, maybe spring 2028. About 15 months ago I paid a company a stupid amount of money to do this same work, mostly because I had no clue what had to be done after the first re-leveling of the concrete slabs (that involved lots of holes drilled in the slabs, driving the need for surface refinishing). But I learned, and now have traded my own labor for another five figure payout to someone else.

Things have kind of come full circle. When I started working after college, there was no money to pay anyone to do anything. I did it all myself, from the car’s oil changes to house painting and kitchen remodeling. I could afford tools and basic supplies, but not human labor. Then I started making money and having very little free time, so I hired people to do those things. Now I have LOTS of time, so doing many of these things myself is again feasible and in this case, very cost effective. I don’t love the work I’m putting in on the pool, but I do get the satisfaction of knowing I’ve saved a lot.

During the afternoons this week I’ve rested and read a bit, including a very difficult to read book, The Sixth Nik. I bought it at Carmichael’s because it looked interesting, but didn’t do any real research on it. Oops. It started well, but quickly devolved into a Lovecraftian body horror story that was hard to read. I finished it, but I sure can’t recommend it. The author, Daniel Kraus, has a big imagination but…not my cuppa tea.

Here’s an article from The New Republic that made me smile. MAGA types have hosted a “Freedom Fest”, a MAGA music festival, for the last few years. This year’s festival featuring Kid Rock (ugh!) was to be held in KY, but it has been cancelled due to lack of interest. From the article:

The Freedom Fest began in 2022 and has drawn large crowds in the past, while featuring speakers like Donald Trump Jr., Candace Owens, and Eric Trump. But this year saw a massive drop in VIP ticket sales and general interest, possibly due to Trump’s horrendous approval rating, rising costs tied to the Iran war, or an oversaturation of MAGA events (like that barely watched Republican midterm convention).

Once again, everything Convict Donny touches dies. Made me smile, because we don’t need that shit in Kentucky.

There’s a lot of discouraging political news this week, and I won’t bother to chronicle it all. Tariffs, the Iran War, Donny’s embarrassing speech at the UN, California’s capitulation to Paramount/CBS, the White House media ban, soaring gas and diesel prices, ongoing corruption of every single federal Cabinet, ongoing atrocities committed by the American Gestapo, ICE…the zone is indeed flooded with shit. I’d say Convict Donny has finally succeeded in distracting us away from the Epstein Files. Where does one start in trying to fix it, any of it? Voting, I suppose. The midterms can’t get here soon enough. Same with UK basketball season.

Third day back in Socal and a lot happening on this last day of summer, 2026.

UK won an improbable football game against #9 Texas A&M. The UK team looked strong, played strong and whipped the home team in front of 102,000 rabid TX fans. Even better, in front of drunkard SecDef Pete Hegseth, who is apparently an A&M alum. It’s nice to have something to be happy about in football season.

Ants have taken over the CA house again. Lack of water seems to bring them inside, where there are lots of water sources – bathrooms and the kitchen. It’s a real problem, they keep me from sleeping at night because they’re *everywhere*, and as a light sleeper feeling them crawl on your skin pulls me right out of sleep. Time to call Orkin.

I’m learning to coat a concrete pool deck with the right kind of paint and sealer, using a paint sprayer. It’s tedious work, but the newly leveled pool deck needs some kind of protection. In retrospect we should have just kept the 40+ year old concrete coating, discolored as it was, and sealed over it. But we installed Cool Deck, a kind of paint, and now we’re stuck with what looks to be at least annual re-application of it. One more chore for the place. ugh.

The “free press” is finally finding some courage and standing up to Convict Donny’s ban on negative coverage and First Amendment crime. We’ll see how long that lasts, but it’s good to see it at all. The press’ idiotic “both sides” coverage of Donny’s corruption and dementia has been infuriating. Now that the leopard has started eating their face, they’re waking up.

Fuel prices and inflation are making my two-home lifestyle way, way more expensive. Southwest Air prices are suddenly up 50+%. One-way tickets from Socal to Louisville, or reverse, used to be $300ish, and now they’re $500 and more. This is 100% due to the Iran war and tariffs, both originating with Convict Donny’s idiotic decisions. Thanks for nothing, asshole.

Convict Donny has also decided his Trumphal Arch should be weaponized. That’s his go-to move – invoke national security for any project he wants, bypassing courts (national security as the rationale) and tapping the infinite DoD budget to pay for his whim. We may have to simply bulldoze over most of DC after he’s gone.

My prized Sansui AU-505 has developed a left channel problem – that’s a bummer. Could be out of spec capacitors, or a failing transistor in the preamp or main output boards. Either way, it’ll be a big test of my ability to tear down a vintage receiver, troubleshoot it and fix it. The 505 could be out of commission for a while, because I’m not quick at this whole process. The 505 has a uniquely warm sound and pairs perfectly with the high efficiency Spatial M3s – it’s my favorite vintage receiver. I’ll miss listening to it.

However, I found a sweet underpriced replacement on Craigslist, of all places. A beautiful AU-505 / TU-505 matched pair with custom walnut side panels, priced the same as my original 505 alone. I pick them up today. That’ll take all the stress/risk out of my electronic repair project.

Back in Socal, with all its pros and cons. Pros – cool days and nights at the moment, kinda back to normal for here. Cons – crazy shitty traffic – I just barely got out of downtown San Diego before the Friday crunch. And I-15 was bumper to bumper all the way north, 230-330pm. It brought back memories of all those years commuting on that God-forsaken stretch.

Flights in yesterday were fine, though I had the pleasure of sitting next to WWE-scale humans on both flights. Normally, the middle seat of the exit row stays empty these days. Exit rows have extra legroom, so Southwest now charges extra for them, unless you’re one of their regulars like me (A-List Preferred). Most people just won’t pay extra for a middle seat. But yesterday both exit row middles were filled, and in my case they were filled by extra large people. I don’t mean fat, I mean pro football sized. So I was a little cramped and a little cranky after 4-5 hours literally rubbing shoulders (and elbows) with bulky strangers.

The two-home cross-country lifestyle has its nice moments, but this day wasn’t one of them.

One of the things that a travel day does is gives me a chance to really catch up on current events, and since we’re in the worst timeline possible, that’s generally a lot of bad news. In no particular order…

• RFK Jr is crazy as a shithouse rat. It’s not enough that he’s encouraging folks to avoid vaccination, and contributing to measles misery and death in the US. Now he’s going on about chemtrails. He’s really, really gotta go.
• Donny Convict is refocusing his efforts to put his name on everything in sight. The Kennedy Center, the Peace Institute, the new Epstein/Trump East Wing, the Trumphal Arch, various bodies of water…the dude is a bottomless pit of me, me, me.
• Fuel prices (gasoline and diesel) are really gonna spike the next month or two. Iran has us over a barrel (so to speak), and there’s not much we can do about. Donny Convict has fucked thing up with the Iran War, and there’s no clean exit for us.
• Speaking of the Iran War, turns out they’ve dealt us a lot more damage than we expected. More than 60 aircraft demolished at various staging sites throughout the Mideast, and lots of regional bases we use for staging/logistics attacked and ruined. All this winning – how does Dear Leader do it?
• Donny Convict Jr allowed a Russian oligarch to pay for his wedding reception. What could possibly be wrong with that – the billionaire son of the US President taking a few hundred thousand from a high-ranking Russian?
• And now the “free press” is not allowed to attend press conferences involving Donny Convict. Seems a little counter to the First Amendment, dontcha think? Free speech, freedom of the press – not so much in MAGA USA. Next I guess they’ll just have ICE shoot the journalists who try to attend Donny’s events.
• The Trump admin EPA just removed restrictions on lead ammo being used on federal lands, because who in their right mind wants to protect eagles and other wildlife from lead poisoning? They’re consistent, though – cruelty, sadism, and destruction are their brand.
• From Digby: “Secretary of WAR! Pete Hegseth this week escalated his all-out war on “reduced libido, loss of spontaneous morning erections, erectile dysfunction,” and other symptoms of pussyfication in the U.S. military. Do you feel safer now?” I can’t even believe that this is real, but this is what our Dept of Defense/War/WTF is focused on. I’m embarrassed to be an American with this kind of news.

All that said, the odds are looking pretty good for the midterm elections. Perhaps, if Dems get control of the House and Senate, we can chart a course back toward sanity. Perhaps.

Travel day today. Leaving hot and humid Louisville for the cooler Left Coast. Travel plans have changed, so not entirely sure when I’m making the reverse trip. We planned a quick trip to Maine to see the fall colors starting next week, but the leaves aren’t cooperating. As of today, there is almost no change in color, and a week won’t be enough time for that to change. So that trip is off or delayed. Thank goodness that Southwest lets me book and cancel with no penalties. Same for Avis.

So back to Socal, where a hundred little and big chores await. The summer of 2026 is effectively over.

Judge Michael Luttig is an accomplished, intelligent man. What he sees coming after the November elections is frightening. We can hope he’s wrong, but we must prepare just in case he’s not. I give it a 50/50 chance that it will come to violence in January 2027 – Republicans will block the transfer of power, the corrupt DoJ will fail to act or even support the coup, and we’ll have another Jan 6. Only this time the thugs are inside the Capitol from the beginning.

It would get ugly, but it might take a million citizens descending on the Capitol to force the transfer of power. Once one party decides to ignore the Constitution and make up new rules, I’m not sure what other action is possible. Capitulate or fight.

Meanwhile, there’s another threat that all US citizens need to deal with. Inflation is about to get much, much worse. With oil supply strangled due to Convict Donny’s idiotic Middle East war, diesel prices are going up, fast. Diesel and jet fuel power the US economy, with everything Americans consume being delivered by truck and aircraft. Transportation costs are going up very quickly, and all those costs will get added to the price of goods. Add to that the extra cost of Donny’s dumbass tariffs, and life is about to get expensive. I recommend that everyone who can do so, adjust their budgets – consume less, buy less, trim your expenses wherever possible. A 20% household budget reduction is a good target. I’m starting that process now. Even if Dems win big in Nov, and even if we get past the Jan 2027 Constitutional crisis, it will take months (years?) to reverse the effects that Trump and MAGA have put in motion. Best case, we get back to a normal-ish economy in late 2027.

Soooooo….super El Niño coming. Then a Congressional coup attempt and rampant inflation. The winter of 26-27 sounds like fun.

The 25th anniversary of 9-11-01 – certainly a day to remember, a day that set America’s course for much of my adult life. We had no idea how much was going to change because of that day.

Like most of us I have a very clear memory of where I was on that day. I can remember watching the news in our small new seaside condo, in Leucadia. Then the wild horror when it became clear that this was all a coordinated attack, not some random tragedy. The unreal scene of the towers falling. My vivid memory makes Ted Cruz’s statement lie about not remembering if Convict Donny was on scene or not so, so obvious. Everyone remembers. It was a strange, surreal day, become only more strange as we’ve lived through its repercussions. 9-11 changed America from a hopeful, helpful worldly culture into the frightened fascist culture we’re on the verge of becoming, the culture of hate that MAGA has already become. In the long term, the terrorists won.

America needs another singular event to pull itself out of the self-inflicted damage that Convict Donny is doing. It will almost certainly have to be a common enemy (not immigrants, for fuck’s sake) that more or less unites us. Maybe climate change accelerates and it becomes an existential threat, quickly. Maybe aliens land and all those science fiction stories/movies I love become true. Maybe the idiots running AI companies lose control of their systems and we get attacked by the bots. But I think it’ll take something like that, something existential and dramatic, to change our course again. I probably won’t be around to see it.

Meanwhile, a much larger than advertised Middle East war is brewing. The Saudis (who attacked us on 9-11, and who now are inexplicably our allies) are being attacked by Iran and its allies. With the Strait of Trump/Epstein Hormuz effectively closed, the Saudis have been moving oil northward, up through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Iran is trying to close that route also. So on one front we have Israel v Palestine and its proxies. On another front we have Iran v Saudi/Quatar and others. Russia backs Iran, the US backs Saudi and Israel, and China just watches the fun. Convict Donny’s idiotic foreign relations, dumbass wars and corrupt trade deals have created a potent mix of conflict coming to a head in the Middle East. Any day now things are going to escalate, and they may escalate fast. A missile strike on a US aircraft carrier or a tactical nuke in Riyadh l and we’re in WW3.

It’s all so predictable and avoidable, though with the Trump administration in charge, things will only get worse.

I normally try to bring these gloom and doom essays back around to something more positive, but I’m not sure I can rescue this one. Maybe the best thing to do today is to embrace the suck, reflect on all the mistakes we’ve made since 9-11-01 and find a way to do better.

Moods are a funny thing. For a few days I’ve felt like a dark cloud hovered over me, but today it’s gone. Is it just chemistry? Lunar cycles? Wordle scores or sleep quality? Whatever the cause, I’m grateful that the cloud has moved on. Today I cruised out and played 18 holes of golf, walking and carrying my clubs in the heat, and loved it. A sweaty happy mess. That kind of hard physical activity is the perfect foundation for a good day.

I’m not much of a football fan these days, but I am looking forward to the UK v Alabama game on Saturday. There’s a chance that UK and our new coach has crafted an actually competitive SEC team, a rarity in my lifetime. And KY fans are hungry for some sports action – Kroger Field will be full and rocking. So Saturday afternoon I’ll post up, take a look and hope for the best.

I’m rewatching Game of Thrones this summer, and one of the subplots is the story of The Mad King and the prince who killed him – the aptly named Kingslayer. It seems The Mad King mistreated his subjects sufficiently that news of his death was cause for celebration across the land. It’s said that life imitates art, and Convict Donny is doing his best impression of a Mad King lately. Will we have a Kingslayer in real life, or will our just-barely-democratic system rid of us him by less violent means? We have no choice but to stay tuned and find out.

Speaking of Convict Donny, he has recently shown some competence. He has a talent! It seems he’s really good at losing wars. He’s losing a kinetic war with Iran and will certainly lose the economic war with Canada. He’s tearing down the world’s finest military culture by placing an idiotic drunkard in charge, insuring that we lose any other wars we might start. Given that the man drove six casinos into bankruptcy, we should have seen this coming. DJT, loser extraordinaire!

The ethical dilemma embodied by Elon Musk keeps getting larger. His financial support of Germany’s nascent-Nazi party is unconscionable. At the same time his Louisiana investment in Starship launch facility is a shrewd move, one I support. Once again, how do you reconcile thoughts about a smug racist/fascist prick who is also an spaceflight engineering visionary? The end can’t justify these means, so I hope for some future where Musk and his engineering creations part ways.

Labor Day. A national celebration of human labor, of the common working man. Now that I’m not one of them (a working man), it seems a bit quaint. US politics now favors the non-working man, the rich folks who control capital assets. Labor Day is an anachronism. I can identify with that. feel anachronistic most days.

The weather in KY and CA has suddenly reversed – KY is now pleasant, and Socal is now hot, humid and not fun. Go figure. For once I’m on the right side of the equation.

Today my family helped me avoid a down day – a nice lunch with my brother and SIL, then a short visit to Lakeside with Em’s family. Hundreds (thousands?) of people celebrating Labor Day by jumping in the spring-fed water, dressed in tiny outfits that they will likely renounce at church a few days later. Classic. In my late teens I lived in places like this, Dreamland and South Side in Ashland, pool cultures where I learned to swim, play basketball, and love those summers. It was glorious. All that helped me get out of my head and feel a little connected to the world. Might seem hard to understand, but that connection is hard to come by lately.

September has been tougher to deal with than July or August. Still not sure why, but…there it is. Mornings watching the grandsons play soccer or just hanging out with them make it all a bit simpler. Here’s a picture of a kid completely caught up in the moment. I envy that. We all probably do. Probably should.

It was 102 degrees today. Yikes. I practiced a lot of golf indoors at 5Iron, spent time with the grandsons, watered the lawn, watched some TV. Not a bad day given the shit weather.

I’ve been inside a bit given the heat, and I keep seeing the ASPCA commercial “…will you open your heart to feed a hungry animal….will you fill their bowl?”. Eric McCormack, the king of animal misery. Busts me up every time. It’s a shit world we live in.

Tough day, financially. CA Franchise Tax Board sent us a letter saying we owed a lot of money, unexpectedly. My accountant and I will have to sort that out. Chase Bank told me one of my credit cards has been hacked, so….a new card and a whole lot of changes to automatic payments. And now dealing with a financial conflict with my so-called Turo partner. Feels more like Friday the 13th, not the 4th. Tomorrow’s gotta be better.

Up fairly early after landing in the eastern time zone late last night. Groggy, but not feeling too bad, considering. Happy to be a good jet lagger.

Tarrant County, Texas, looks like ground zero for Rethuglican voter suppression schemes in 2026. Heather Cox Richardson sums it up nicely:

Last night, in Tarrant County, Texas, county commissioners tried an even cruder way of rigging the election. As Cecelia Lenzen of the Texas Tribunereported, they voted 3–2 along party lines to get rid of 92 of the polling sites the county had in 2022 before the midterm election. In 2022 there were 316 election sites; the Republican commissioners cut that number to 224. They also cut three sites for early voting, from 50 to 47. Republicans voted for the cuts; Democrats voted against them.

“It’s not about cost. This is about power. This is very political. This is campaigning from the dais,” said Democrat Alisa Simmons. Throughout the eight-hour meeting about the cuts, speakers from the audience called on the commissioners to increase, rather than decrease, the number of voting sites for the more than 1.3 million people registered to vote in Tarrant County.

Those 1.3 million people are more than live in Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, or Montana, and about the same number of people who live in Maine or New Hampshire.

She fails to mention that Tarrant County, while traditionally conservative, is trending toward Democrat. The county, centered on Ft Worth, narrowly voted for Biden in 2024. And more alarming to Repubs, in early 2026 a high-profile special election in Texas Senate District 9 saw Democrat Taylor Rehmet flip the historically red seat, drawing significant state and national attention to the shifting political dynamics in the region. So the state legislature says OK, if you’re going to elect Dems, we’re going to make it really fucking hard for you to get out and vote by closing 30% of your voting places. Let me guess where those polling places are? In the neighborhoods that went Dem in those elections, almost certainly (no proof, I haven’t seen or done the analysis, but it would make sense).

But there’s a good workaround for this, if Texans will band together just a little. Take some of the D party money normally used for ads and hire some nice high-end buses to travel those neighborhoods during the day and take the disenfranchised voters to a polling place. Advertise the pickup and drop off schedules. Give them AC and a bottle of water. Take them to vote and then take them home, have a little party along the way. I checked; it’s legal. Texans could turn this evil insult into a great opportunity for celebrating the election and giving voters a chance to socialize. I like this idea so much I’m going to write it up and send it to the Texas Dem organization. I hope they adopt it.

One last unrelated thought. I’m really fucking disappointed in Apple and Google for immediately renaming Lake Ontario in their map software, bending over for Convict Donny. There was no legal requirement to do so – they’re just showing obedience to the wannabe king. Time to download Mapquest.

I’ve read a lot of Ed Ziron’s anti-AI essays, and found his arguments interesting. Maybe not compelling, but interesting. I had noticed that he seems angrier than a good technology analyst should be, but that didn’t invalidate some of the points he made. But after reading this, I won’t waste time on Zitron any more. His posts/essays tend to be looooong, and as it turns out they’re not accurate. I’ve seen him on TV quite a bit lately, and his short-term fame is/was probably the entire goal. He’s monetized his anger and found an audience, now an audience minus one.

Today is a travel day, taking my favorite route east – SAN to DEN, then DEN to SDF. Weather looks fine, so it should be an easy travel day. I’ve done a lot of thinking lately about my post-work life and travel schedule. I tend to focus on the downsides of a dual-home life, a long list. Constant exposure to viruses during travel. No good way to have a dog, with life in two places 2000 miles apart. The rather extreme expense of maintaining two residences and commuting between them. Some non-trivial issues with healthcare and health insurance across two very different states. No way to have a weekly get-together with golf buddies, a book club, or pretty much any regular social activity, as I’m gone half the time. The occasional trip from hell, which can really wear you down physically and mentally.

But there are some pluses. I don’t get stuck in a rut as much as I might, because every 2-3 weeks I reset by changing home bases. Then there’s the core reason for the travel, being close to family in KY – that outweighs pretty much every other factor. Being a material part of the grandsons’ life is a very high priority for me. The joy I get in just being somewhere with rain and dense greenery. The time for thinking/reflection while flying. The fact that getting up and going somewhere every 2-3 weeks keeps me active, gives me another good reason to stay in good shape, good health.

I mention all this because I’ve come to enjoy the travel days, weirdly. It’s not reasonable to like spending a bunch of money to shuffle through TSA security, wedge myself into a packed Southwest flight, and pay stupid prices for bad airport food. But I do enjoy these days, for the most part. I guess you can get used to anything. But I’ll still buy the occasional lottery ticket in hope of being able to fly private and take my still-aspirational dog everywhere.

The fall elections are looking to be a shitshow of grift, graft, and corruption. ICE is gonna show up a key swing state polling places to intimidate anyone nonwhite or with a non-European name. Unlimited PAC money is gonna lie to and confuse voters with intentional misdirection across all media. Democrats will continue to divide themselves across the socialist to moderate spectrum, helping conservative candidates win where they shouldn’t. And now the US Postal Service has been compromised, and is NOT on our side. A whistleblower from the USPS has published a 20-page memo detailing how Convict Donny’s mail-in ballot restriction system is being implemented, in spite of court orders. Rules and laws are for the little people, amiright?

Here’s the advice for everyone voting this fall, especially those voting in close races where your vote will certainly matter:

Vote early and in person if at all possible. 

If intending to vote by mail (and you actually receive a ballot), alternatives to using USPS for return are to use drop boxes (if available in your state), to hand-deliver your ballot to the county Board of Elections, or to hand-deliver to early voting locations (if allowed). The USPS can no longer be trusted as a ballot delivery service, according to a veteran election official.

If I get a mail ballot, I’ll drop it off at the SD County registration offices, NOT at a post office. Those days are over. It was good while it lasted, but just as Convict Donny and his cronies have captured and compromised the DOJ, the DoD, DHS, the Park Service, the Dept of Education, the CDC, the FDA, the IRS, the Border Patrol, SCOTUS, CBS, the Census Bureau, the US Treasury, the State Dept, and Congress, they’ve infiltrated and compromised the USPS. It’s gonna take a generation or two to root out all the MAGA loyalists in these institutions, if we ever do.

Kinda feels like the fate of the country depends on the fall elections. If we (dems, liberals, people with empathy, non-MAGAs) can take control of the House and Senate, there’s a chance that we can stop and reverse the rapid destruction of American democracy. A chance. But if we don’t, Convict Donny will continue his insane wrecking-ball behavior for another two years, unchecked by anything. I don’t think we survive that scenario.

So get out there and vote early, in person, and often!