Saturday silliness
I remember Dave King, the lead singer for Irish punk band Flogging Molly, thanking the Pope for all the song inspirations he had given them. Looking at some of the ideas floated by our newly elected President-redux, it looks like the next four years should be interesting.
If anything, it’s hard to decide where to start just because of how many ideas floated in the last week or so are just so damn dumb. Where to start?
Taking over Greenland. Gotta be a worthwhile contender… an island whose inhabitants largely do not speak our language, has next to no ties with us other than a couple of cold war Air Force bases to my knowledge, and is tied with one of our own NATO allies, Denmark. Anyone here speak Danish? Thought not. (Although I will admit that back in the ’70s my wife and I took advantage of their liberal marital policies and were married in Copenhagen. After almost 50 years I don’t hold it against the Danes but I think she does.) Fox News Lots of natural resources there we could use and great strategic positioning near the SOSUS line, but either a costly purchase we frankly can’t afford (Musk won’t save that much eliminating the penny) or if we took it militarily, the only possible move guaranteed to draw the world’s ire MORE than the Ukraine invasion.
Taking over Canada. Well, lots of them speak English, so that’s a start – but an entire province speaks French. And Trump suggested the whole country as a 51st state? What, the provinces become really big counties? And why would they want to swap their bad socialized medicine for our pay-more-get-less system? They elected Trudeau repeatedly, too…so in this case we would be importing 35,000,000 potential Democrats as well as creating at least one, if not 10 or 13 red states. Yeah, what a GREAT idea. AP News
The Panama Canal – well, that one almost makes some sort of sense, since Jimmeh gave it all back to Panamanians in an incredibly stupid move. I am told this critical waterway has its ports at both ends owned by the China Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO – you’ve seen that name on shipping containers). Bad for us strategically, but what do we do about it? Relaunch the 82nd to take it back again? Sounds about on a par with China taking Taiwan, with less justification.Wiki
Oh, yes, and then there is renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Just speaking that idea already has countries like the UK essentially saying “uh, no” – and why? Sure, we border it… as does Mexico, a fair number of South American countries, and a bunch of islands, most of which we don’t own. PBS Now in a broad sense, “the Americas” does include all of these – but we want to change over 500 years of history jingoistically just because? (Could have been worse, he hangs his name on everything possible, he could have suggested the Gulf of Trump. Anyone want to bet that has not come out of his mouth at least once? A fool’s bet.)
Most of these, I hope, are just the kind of bloviating bombast Trump is known for. But he is doing one thing I find irritating: anyone notice that lately he is saluting the flag during the Star Spangled Banner? I’m cool with the President returning the military’s salutes (we all know we’ll hold that salute till the cows come home otherwise, right? The IndependentReagan started the Presidential salute return, and I’m good with that) but while he COMMANDS the military he is not IN the military, and holding that salute through the Star Spangled Banner is military. Vets, uniformed military – the list of folks who should do that isn’t that long. As someone who never served in uniform, he can hold his hand over his heart with the rest of the non-server folks. Just my (probably less than humble) opinion.
Change my mind?
Category: None, Op-Ed, Pointless blather, WTF?
DAVE!!!! THANK YOU!!!!
Dave King, his singing and recording debut, many years before Flogging.
Fastway – April 1983
Dave King 1984 music video from 2nd Fastway LP.
Hang in there with ¼ mile drag strip opening scenes.
Lars is that you?
Nope, I am just not a Trump fan and have been saying here for almost 10 years.
So which of his options above are GOOD ideas and why?
Here’s some good ideas for ya, David. I’ll find me a piece of greenland for a picnic of Maple Syrup covered Danish…washed down with some Irish Whiskey…while toking on some good Panama Red. Afterwards I can take a nap with the Lass Molly. The body of water? The Robert E. Lee Memorial Gulf. SALUTE!
good luck surviving here David. Oh, and again, Lars is an admin sock puppet dreamed up for the proletariat
How about this?
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtUUE6tMObSgTfB-yCrrGsICrt2I8WVyB_Tv1Sf2HgQ4qcNTjLYGn-W0SH-IhL2SsFNI2ETQzjYFlGLXN6lrkDafaloEsHmemazO7fbg_Mr1KERdkMmTosf1jEn1XJp1s6CL-8XG9lwj7UBRVgqtYnC6-LYPLRLw8u3yGdh1KZJnk1RIdQQZW4y61rh-A=w411-h357
You should change your name to Dana and apply for a job on “The View”….
Silly, but not really… Army’s found recruits so socially/functionally ‘tarded they need training on how to deal with each other and life nowadays (no sh*t):
https://news.yahoo.com/news/breathing-yoga-healthy-boundaries-why-230022156.html
“Recruits not prepared for the stress of military life”. No shit, that what basic training was for.
Meh. The deal is an art.
As long as the right people continue to be pissed off and he cuts spending, or at least closes the GDP/waste gap, he can carve his fucking name on the moon for all I care.
Feel free to fact check me, but I don’t recall Trump starting any new shooting wars in his first term. He inherited them, but didn’t start them. And for anybody here unfortunate enough to have been through any of that, I would think they would see, acknowledge and appreciate at least that part of Trump.
When I heard those pronouncements out of Trump, I laughed my butt off and said, “Here we go. He’s setting up the board for 3-dimensional chess, and will win, while the opposition is busy arguing over which color piece they get to use while losing at Chutes and Ladders”.
It was here, on these august pages, on which I saw my favorite, possibly of all time comment. Paraphrased, because I can’t find/don’t know who shared it first –
“Trump’s back and he’s got a laser pointer”.
In other words, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And I’m loving every minute of it. It’s not just about distraction, it is also about allowing the other side to claim a victory. Few things are more useful than an enemy that thinks its winning, the more inconsequential and empty, the better.
Those victory laps over nonsense serves as a further distraction and depletes their resources – the time and attention of their public, trained to consume sound bytes and intentionally un-educated to be incapable of digesting substance – for the battles that matter.
I sincerely hope you are right. Time will tell. As above, Trump did not involve us anywhere new, and I suspect had he been re-elected would have done a better Afghan withdrawal. On the plus side, he isn’t tweeting the first thing he thinks as much. On the down side he allowed with BATF to get away with more than many presidents (and his AG pick already said she would be willing to work with the Dems on “commonsense gun safety” which is a giant red flag. We’ll see.