Trumpthought, and Mouth-Watering Baseballs

Under Donald J. Trump's executive order, a non-Christian mother and child traveling from a Middle Eastern country would be detained at the airport. 

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When I was reading White Noise yesterday, the word "puggish" caught my attention. I put the book down mid-sentence, checked Craigslist for pugs, found one that didn't seem like a scam (a 1 in a 100 chance), called the guy who seemed nice but is going back to work without time to take care of her, met them, he had all of her paperwork in order, and next thing you know there's a 6-month old pug lapping all of our faces.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid034W147A823VL2aw3APnposhAwCf4rqUGnqqi9e9qMkj7CSEbvd4vRhMiYEiMPTdbcl&id=741063511&mibextid=NnVzG8

January 28, 2022

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"Trumpthought": an absurd rationalization or advocation for inarguably bad Trump behavior that is accepted without principle, and without hesitation, at the same time that the same behavior exhibited by anyone else would be viewed as grounds for life imprisonment, at a minimum. 

To test if you are a victim of trumpthought, consider this statement. 

"If Biden incites an insurrection with two weeks left in his term leaving people dead and the Capitol ransacked, in an attempt to disrupt Congress from confirming the election results for his opponent, and even if he gets impeached by the House, trying him in the Senate, in part to prohibit him from holding office in the future, would be unconstitutional and we would need to just put it behind us." 

If you disagree with that statement, as you should because obviously Biden should never hold office again under those conditions, while also believing Trump can't be tried by the Senate, you are a victim of trumpthought. 

Variation of trumpthought: orwellianly believing your opponents' argument is orwellian.

January 28, 2021

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Orwell- The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

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Margaret Atwood- "This above all, to refuse to be a victim."

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Republicans against cancel culture should remember that Democrats were split nearly 50/50 between Sanders and Biden, while Republicans who question the last president's infallibility get death threats.

January 28, 2021

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At the end of the workday I realized that I had only eaten a granola bar in the morning. I was voraciously hungry but too busy to realize. My food drawer is often empty but I was thrilled to see an apple. I reached for it ravenously, then realized it was a baseball. I drove home hungry wondering how that baseball would have tasted, and wondering if I made the right decision.

January 28, 2021

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Each day lately is like an episode of Breaking Bad... I can't believe how far the story progressed based on the absurd and dangerous decisions of a lunatic.

January 28, 2017

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Trump just banned immigrants from Muslim-majority countries he doesn't do business with, but continues to allow immigrants from Muslim-majority countries he does do business with.

The odds of this happening randomly are about the same as playing roulette and picking black or red correctly fifteen times in a row.

Trump does business with these countries- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, United Arab Emirites, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Indonesia and Turkey.

Trump does not do business with these countries- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. 

Add to that:

-All nineteen 9/11 hijackers came from countries he does business with. (Again, not banned.)

-For two decades there have been no deaths as a result of terrorism from an immigrant from banned countries.

These two things need to happen:

-Congress needs to remove him from power immediately (think 25th amendment.)

-His supporters need to justify this near-mathematic impossibility, or renounce their support.

Or he can resign.

January 28, 2017

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Want to do something that makes a real impact? Donate $10 to the ACLU if you're able. They are already taking the refugee ban to court. If one in ten Americans donate $10, that would be $300 million. (A lot of my posts tonight are math-based, I knew that degree would be good for something.)

January 28, 2017

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At last, a statement all can agree on. I mean, am I right?

"If we turn our backs on widows and orphans fleeing the very evil we despise, we do not defeat our enemies; we surrender to them."

It doesn't matter who said it.

January 28, 2017

Postscript- Tim Kaine, btw, vice presidential pick with zero pizzazz, not the best decision. If she picked Cory Booker, I bet she would have won.

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I haven't liked Serena since she threatened the line judge, telling her that she'd jam a ball down her throat. Nevertheless I like seeing her and Venus playing in the Australian Open final. They got so good, partially, from playing on cracked courts in the poor neighborhood they grew up in, adjusting to their inconsistencies.

January 28, 2017

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Bannon told the media to keep its mouth shut and just listen. Nixon thought the same thing of course, except they would put him in a straight jacket if he called the media to tell them that.

January 28, 2017

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Holy shit! Did you know that taboo words make up approximately .3% of daily spoken language?

January 28, 2017

Postscript- And 5.5% of the that fucking post!

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Our farmers were on a bus trip to DC last week and some kid threw a rock through the window. One of the farmers turned ghostly white and started patting around his legs and torso- he thought he had been shot and he was looking for the bullet hole! I asked him about it today and he laughed and said, "it just added some extra sugar and spice to the trip."

January 28, 2015

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We "must move off permanent war footing," says the commander in chief of a military with a yearly budget of over a half trillion dollars.

January 28, 2014

Postscript- My thoughts on this are always evolving!

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Just caught Quentin Tarantino playing one of ten Elvis lookalikes at Sophia's wedding on Golden Girls.

January 28, 2011

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Today driving through downtown Lancaster I passed a cop- he was going 25, I was going maybe 26.5. He followed me for a few blocks. If he pulled me over, I don't think he would have looked kindly on the quart of moonshine I had riding shotgun.

January 28, 2010

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The Diet of Worms began on this day in 1521, lasting until May 25. Thank goodness it wasn't what it sounds like! From Wikipedia:

The Diet of Worms of 1521 was an imperial diet (a formal deliberative assembly) of the Holy Roman Empire called by Emperor Charles V and conducted in the Imperial Free City of Worms. Martin Luther was summoned to the Diet in order to renounce or reaffirm his views in response to a Papal bull of Pope Leo X. In answer to questioning, he defended these views and refused to recant them. At the end of the Diet, the Emperor issued the Edict of Worms, a decree which condemned Luther as "a notorious heretic" and banned citizens of the Empire from propagating his ideas. Although the Protestant Reformation is usually considered to have begun in 1517, the edict signals the first overt schism.

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On this day in 1754, Sir Horace Walpole coined the word "serendipity" in a letter to a friend.

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Elvis Presley made his first national television appearance on this day in 1956, and we've never been the same.

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The Lego company patented the design of its Lego bricks on this day in 1958, and they are still compatible with bricks produced today.

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Today marks the anniversary of the first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977, which dumped 10 feet of snow in one day in Buffalo, Syracuse, Watertown, and surrounding areas.

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The Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated after liftoff on this day in 1986, killing all seven astronauts on board. I remember the excitement leading up to the mission. Inconceivable that it would end that way. 

So many people think that they were home from school watching it on TV, but that just can't be the case. Is is everybody just misremembering? Here's the thing, I swear that I was home from school that day. Am I just one of the many with faulty memories?

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Protests began today, after African American police officers beat and murdered African American Tyre Nichols. I'm looking forward to a future where the race of the murderers and victims is in material.

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Howard Zinn- "Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem."

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Notable birthdays- Alan Alda (1936), Mo Rocca (1969), Amy Coney Barrett (1972)

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Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor, died on this day and 8:14. He's everybody's like 40x great-grandfather.

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Irish poet and playwright, W. B. Yeats, left us on this day in 1939.

"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."

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Anybody watching the State of the Union?

https://youtu.be/0znNiN0lYAQ

January 28, 2014

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Whoa! This chart shows the percentage, by country, of Muslims who believe one should get the death penalty for leaving Islam. How can they not raise the question to themselves, "Do I believe because I want to, or do I believe because I have to?"

Jan 28, 2015

Postscript- Link was broken but this is interesting:

https://mobile.twitter.com/michaelshermer/status/829706232990560256

Strange that this post turned up from 2015 and 2 years to the day later is when Trump started his Muslim ban. It really is miraculous that there haven't been more significant terrorist attacks in the United States since 2001, considering how extreme their views are, when they are by the book (i.e. The Koran.) I think that says something positive about our country. Talk about positive assimilation. How many people would we want coming here, if they believe that you deserve to die if you leave Islam?

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Patton Oswalt- “‘You’ve gotta respect everyone’s beliefs.’ No, you don’t. That’s what gets us in trouble. You have to acknowledge everyone’s beliefs, and then you have to reserve the right to go: ‘That is fucking stupid. Are you kidding me?’ I acknowledge that you believe that, that’s great, but I’m not going to respect it. I have an uncle that believes he saw Sasquatch. We do not believe him, nor do we respect him!”

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Politico- Is American Democracy Strong Enough for Trump?

The case against panic, and just in time! (Answer to the question, btw, is probably.)

http://politi.co/2jjbPCr

January 28, 2017

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Slate- Why Do Pro-Life Activists Seem Only to Care About Unborn Lives?

"I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/01/27/the_flaw_in_the_pro_life_argument_that_i_can_t_ignore.html

January 28, 2017

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NPR- How Does Trump's Immigration Freeze Square With His Business Interests?

Any Trump supporters want to explain this to me? I'd like to have a reasonable discussion. Add to the article the breaking news that green card holders from those countries will not be allowed back in. I think it's the clearest tangible proof that this guy is an awful human being with his business interests above all else, and I see no way to spin it. But I'm usually wrong. Or I can accept your silence signifying your acceptance of my claim. From the article:

"The executive action, "Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States," targets seven nations: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Trump has no business interests in those countries.

One other thing they have in common, as NPR's Greg Myre writes: "No Muslim extremist from any of these places has carried out a fatal attack in the U.S. in more than two decades."

The 19 terrorists in the Sept. 11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, Myre points out. They are among the Muslim-majority countries not affected by Trump's immigration freeze, but where Trump does business."

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/28/511996783/how-does-trumps-immigration-freeze-square-with-his-business-interests

January 28, 2017

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Washington Post- Trump’s erratic first week was among the most alarming in history

Feel overwhelmed? Read this, because so do congressional Republicans. I'm often wrong about these things, but I think a very positive change is coming, and soon. Even if only for reasons of political expedience, they literally have the golden opportunity to save the country from tyrrany.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-erratic-first-week-was-among-the-most-alarming-in-history/2017/01/27/c6405144-e4b9-11e6-a453-19ec4b3d09ba_story.html

January 28, 2017

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Holy cow, I need more songs like this. People used to make me mixtapes. What other songs have I missed over the last 15-20 years?

Bright Eyes- Road To Joy

https://youtu.be/37r9aqTxhBQ

January 28, 2018

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Raw Story- Tennessee man flips car five times after letting 'Jesus take the wheel'

Now this guy had FAITH! (But the kind of faith that will get you to attempt to murder your firstborn son if you know what I'm saying.)

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/tennessee-man-flips-car-five-times-letting-jesus-take-wheel/

January 28, 2018

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New York Times- Health Workers, Stuck in the Snow, Administer Coronavirus Vaccine to Stranded Drivers

Who says there's no good news these days?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/us/oregon-vaccine-stuck-in-the-snow-drivers.html

January 28, 2021

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Somehow we're aware that we're aware, and we're also aware of that.

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Paraphrasing Pinker:

In regular English we have four qualifiers, 10,000 nouns, and 4000 verbs providing 6.4 trillion (4 x 10,000 x 4000 x 4 x 10,000) five word sentences. It would take a million years to crank them all out.

They don't all make sense, but still.

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Photograph by Elliott Erwitt

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Paulie Walnuts- "Snakes have been fucking themselves since long before Adam and Eve, T."

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Marcus Aurelius- "Poverty is the mother of crime."

So what's the mother of poverty?

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D. H. Lawrence- "If you don't like it, alter it, and if you can't alter it, put up with it."

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Norm MacDonald- “My dad died, and my grandfather died, and my great-grandfather died. And the guy before him, I don’t know. Probably died.”

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Bukowski “Each month some new country discovers an atom bomb. It’s a new world. Nobody is allowed any more mistakes.”

Yuval Noah Harari believes that you truly assured destruction is what's keeping us from killing each other. It's noteworthy that the long piece started with the explosions of the first atom bombs.

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Rodney Dangerfield- "I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet."

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Thomas Paine- "It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry."

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Muhammad Ali- "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.

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Pete Seeger- "It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with."

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George Carlin- "A fart is like a shit but without the mess."

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There once was a woman from Cue, Who filled her vagina with glue, She said with a grin, "If they pay to get in, They'll pay to get out of it, too."

Addendum:

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from These are My Rivers

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind happiness

not always being

so very much fun

if you don't mind a touch of hell

now and then

just when everything is fine

because even in heaven

they don't sing

all the time

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind some people dying

all the time

or maybe only starving

some of the time

which isn't half bad

if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't much mind

a few dead minds

in the higher places

or a bomb or two

now and then

in your upturned faces

or such other improprieties

as our Name Brand society

is prey to

with its men of distinction

and its men of extinction

and its priests

and other patrolmen

and its various segregations

and congressional investigations

and other constipations

that our fool flesh

is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all

for a lot of such things as

making the fun scene

and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

and singing low songs and having inspirations

and walking around

looking at everything

and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

and even thinking

and kissing people and

making babies and wearing pants

and waving hats and

dancing

and going swimming in rivers

on picnics

in the middle of the summer

and just generally

'living it up'

Yes

but then right in the middle of it

comes the smiling mortician.