VT Day, Things That Scare Us, and More Words From Our Elders

Candy-Covered Clown, Dean Stockwell, left us on this day in 2020.

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Just crossed my mind that this is the fourth time I got stitches in my face, haha. That's pretty good, right?

November 7, 2021

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After researching yesterday morning, we went to Brickerville Lutheran Church and found my great-great grandmother's great-great grandparents. We somehow have at least 44 direct ancestors buried there spanning six generations. (Zuzu decided to dress like Gretel for the day.)

November 7, 2021

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VT Day- November 7, 2020

Have you seen the movie Inside Out, where 5 little beings are inside the girl's head representing different aspects of her personality? If you would peak in my head right now, you would see 3 or 4 little Steve Kornackis running around.

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The president's scheme to have judges decide the election versus the voters, couldn't be Illustrated more clearly than the example of his supporters simultaneously chanting "STOP THE VOTE!" in Pennsylvania and "COUNT THE VOTE!" in Arizona. 

They believe that votes for the president count, while votes against the president are fraud.

This happens to perfectly echo Trump's own months-long claim that either he wins or the election is rigged. To Trump, the ONLY legit outcome is that he wins. He quite literally called the election for himself months ago.

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You may have noticed that Steve Bannon called for the beheadings both Dr. Fauci and Christopher Wray, the FBI director. Why would he do something that would so blatantly get him booted off Twitter? Publicity. He's promoting a new project. 

This kind of guy is the best that Trump could find. A guy that ratchets up the violent rhetoric for monetary gain. The guy who stated that it was their objective initially to divide people. Trump's main guy, indicted for fraud, stealing from a veterans' fund. Those guys have three guiding principles- power, fame and money. Beyond that, a vacuum.

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BIDEN WINS! I guess I can eat and sleep again.

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Now that Biden has won, let's not gloat about it. Or at least we shouldn't gloat more than Trump himself gloated about beating Hillary... for years and years. And years. 

But seriously... let me give Trump a compliment. He deserves a thousand condemnations, but here's an honest compliment in the spirit of reconciliation! 

Before he started his term I would have bet my house that we were going to war at some point, that he would drop atom bombs as a display of power, that even if it wasn't warranted, he would do it to boost his popularity, something just totally ridiculous. Yet here we are war-less. 

At least so far!

So if somebody points out some possible voter fraud, we need to take the high road and not just yell, "fake news!" Maybe 100% of us can finally see that it's simply a way to condemn the argument without actually engaging in it. Let's all learn from Trump's communication failures. 

Maybe it's true though, maybe there was indeed a massive multi-state conspiracy of voter fraud, that's one theory. I guess the best evidence could prove it, right? Sure. But from 2000 to 2014 there were only like 30 cases of voter fraud in a billion votes. So either evidence will prove it, or we can just dismiss it out of hand. 

It's probably worth mentioning that voter fraud is a federal offense, and people who commit it derserve prison time. (In my opinion, voter suppression is a worse crime because it tips the scales worse, magnitudes of order worse.)

It's also possible that Trump's antics over the last 4 years somehow caused a few tens of thousands of people in key states to vote for the other guy. That's a theory that doesn't even require a conspiracy. Except for one guy conspiring against himself. Anything's possible!

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Joe Biden elected 46th president??? Not so fast. 

If Trump resigns, Biden will be the 47th.

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Trump's political career began in earnest after Obama brutally heckled him, as he sat in the audience at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. This was after years of Trump demanding to see his birth certificate. Legend has it, that is when he decided to run. There's a poetic justice in seeing his political career end in part due to Obama's Battleground State Stand-Up Comedy Car Rally Tour 2020.

Puts me in mind of Sam Harris's 1st podcast after Trump won:

"Imagine the way his ego feels right now. Just imagine the satisfaction Trump will feel when he takes possession of the White House and shows President Obama the door. The first black president who humiliated him in front of all the Washington elites at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. All those laughs at his expense. Trump has been a punchline for decades. He’s been the Rodney Dangerfield of billionaires. But that moment with Obama at the podium was the worst. And now he gets to tell Barack Hussein Obama to get out of his house, and then tear his legacy to shreds. You’ve got the first black president being shown the door by a man who always questioned his legitimacy in racist terms and who has now been officially endorsed by the KKK. Only Shakespeare could do this moment justice."

Imagine how his ego feels right now. Just kidding, he has no ego. He's 100% id. He puts the id in pres-id-ent. And soon we can say he used to.

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I just had a billion dollar idea- blue MADE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hats. 

I'm too busy, so take that and run with it. Just send me a check for 10%.

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Damn, I almost feel like I know something... earlier today I said that so much of what Trump has done wrong was done through executive orders which could be immediately undone. Later Biden and Harris announced they were doing just that- we're back in the Paris Climate Accord, again a part of the WHO, Muslim ban repealed, Dreamers are safe, Coronavirus task force back in action, etc. If they can keep up that pace for 1300 more days we might be on the right track...

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I wonder if "Hunter's Laptop" it's going to disappear post-election, as fast as Trump thought Coronavirus was going to disappear.

The good news is that they still have 74 days to get to the bottom of this scandal of historic proportions.

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I guess Trump and Barr still believe in the absolute power of the president through Article II of the Constitution... for the next 74 days.

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Now that the whistleblower's accusations have been corroborated under penalty of perjury, it doesn't matter who they are. Those hell-bent on outing that person are trying to intimidate them, and it's a warning to future would-be whistleblowers. Proponents of that intimidation need to practice a new chant- "PRESERVE THE SWAMP!"

November 7, 2019

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Bring your friends to the #PresidentialPityParty, honoring perhaps the greatest victim of the entire history of human civilization. (His words.)

November 7, 2019

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The ACLU is calling Jeff Sessions the worst attorney general in modern American history. House Democrats are eager to punish Trump for firing him. But if he's the worst attorney general in modern American history then he deserves to be fired, right? Sure, but everyone knows Trump didn't fire him because he was bad. He fired him because he wouldn't be worse.

November 7, 2018

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Bill Maher is right- time is our greatest ally against idiot candidates. The longer the election season, the better... helps us weed out the lunatics. (Well, some of them at least.)

November 7, 2015

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Why are you people so happy? Florida is still too close to call... I really don't like the sound of that.

November 7, 2012

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What kind of person can declare with 100% certainty- "No, ALF's real name was not Gordon Chumway. It was Gordon SHUMway!"

November 7, 2010

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The next time you meet a smart person tell them, "What you don't know could fill a book!" That implies that their vast knowledge encompasses everything except the contents of just one book.

November 7, 2010

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Help me analyze my diet so far this morning- one quart coffee, one quart decaf coffee, one quart water, one donut.

November 7, 2010

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A lot going on here.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for a fourth term as president on this day in 1944. Great president, bad precedent.

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Eleanor Roosevelt died on this day in 1962.

She said, "Do one thing every day that scares you."

In honor of Eleanor Roosevelt, tonight I'm going to dig up her grave, because that would be terrifying.

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Albert Camus was born on this day in 1913.

"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

My guiding philosophy can be summed up by Bob Lane explaining Camus- "[Camus] sees human beings as small and mortal specks on a minor planet, in an ordinary solar system, located no place in particular, and infinite space, and subject to all sorts of dark irrational forces, over which we have little control. Human beings must therefore live and die with the fear and anxiety, the frustration and futility that people today know. One must live in the present moment and attempt to find out the actual, bare, given facts of human existence; to find them out, to face them and to live with them."

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Jim Kaat was born on this day in 1938, and elected to the Hall of Fame just this year.

 "I'll never be considered one of the all-time greats; maybe not even one of the all-time goods. But I'm one of the all-time survivors."

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Professional wrestler, King Kong Bundy, was born on this day in 1957. Who knew that he was related to the Bundy's of Married... With Children? Uncle Irwin, but strangely, not on the Bundy side.

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Christopher Knight of Peter Brady fame, was born the same day.

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Philosopher, Will Durant, left us on this day in 1981, two days after his 96th birthday.

"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance."

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On this day in 1973, Congress overroad President Richard Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, limiting presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.

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Other notable birthdays- Marie Curie (1867), Leon Trotsky (1879), Herman J. Mankiewicz (1897)

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Leonard Cohen left us on this day in 2016.

"There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in."

I assume he wasn't talking about asses.

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Roy Halladay left us on this day in 2017.

Derek Jeter- "Everyone talks about the great pitchers in the game. They need to start talking about Halladay because he's as good as they come."

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This seriously might be at the top of the list of things I never want to happen to me, just ahead of getting rolled up in carpet and thrown off the golden gate bridge.

http://vimeo.com/7455990

November 7, 2009

BROKEN LINK, WHAT THE HELL WAS IT???

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Great blog about why you might be here about to read this blog. The comments are particularly good.

https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/all-the-lonely-people

November 7, 2010

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Yahoo- Religious Kids Aren’t as Good at Sharing, Study Finds

The atheism = immortality myth keeps getting corroded through experiment.

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/religious-kids-arent-as-good-at-sharing-study-221423445.html

November 7, 2015

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Every time I see Kit Kats in my kids' Halloween buckets I think about going down there to the Kit Kat factory and demanding the chocolate they robbed by imprinting their name.

https://youtu.be/D9F3_9XpSao

November 7, 2021

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Elia Kazan on James Dean- "He was talented, but we love him for what he promised; for what was to come; for what was destroyed. He is a station of the cross in the church of the performing arts."

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When you look at sea anemones it looks like they're just sitting there. But if you look at them through time lapse they're actually jockeying for position on rocks, battling each other.

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Robert Oppenheimer- "There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress."

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Studs Terkel- "Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew."

He also said, "I always love to quote Albert Einstein because nobody dares contradict him."

Haha, the logical fallacy of the appeal to authority. Einstein would hate that! (Maybe, if Studs wasn't so loveable.)

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Lao Tzu- “A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others.”

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George Orwell- "All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force."

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Father Guido Sarducci- "If God made man in his image, why aren't we all, like, invisible?"

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Campbell- "Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths."

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Norm Macdonald- "They call gambling a disease, but it's the only disease where you can win a bunch of money."

Addendum

John Steinbeck, Cannery Row:

Look at them. 

There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. 

I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. 

All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.