Author: photog

You Won’t Have Tim Walz to Kick Around Anymore

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

Tim Walz, that hero of the George Floyd Riots (I mean protests), the only politician stupid enough to make Kamala Harris look like the smart half of the ticket, is not running for re-election.  Well, well, well.  How the knuckleheaded hath fallen.  Okay, now things will get interesting.  The ongoing investigations into Somali scams that ate up billions of dollars should be very interested in exactly what Tim knew and when he knew it.  Who knows, maybe Tim might have to defend himself in court against charges that he was complicit in the large-scale fraud that occurred in the state he ran as governor.  Or maybe he wasn’t part of the fraud.  Maybe he really is as stupid as he says he is.  If that’s the case then it’s the voters of Minnesota who are at fault.  They elected and re-elected this guy.  After all he was the one at ground zero when the George Floyd riots were getting started and he did nothing to stop them.  In fact, he enabled them in every way he could.  When some National Guard troops could have put a stop to the looting and arson, he let it happen and even justified it as “peaceful protests.”

And during the COVID fraud he went along with the school and work shutdowns and the mask mandates and all the other nonsense that crippled this country and deprived kids of their education.  Yes, at every turn Tim’s been a rolling disaster of a nincompoop.  Whether it was putting tampon dispensers in the boy’s bathrooms in the high schools or resigning his military position right before the Iraq War, Tim has been at the forefront of unmanly behavior wherever he was.

And yet the interesting thing is that Kamala Harris selected him, not only because he was almost as stupid as she was but because they thought he would appeal to white male voters.  As a white man I find this incredibly insulting.  They must think we really are idiots.  What normal man thinks Tim Walz represents him?  Even a cursory glance at his history or his statements would clearly show him to be a radical progressive with a clear hatred of traditional values and white men.  He is the antithesis of J. D. Vance and this was openly apparent in the vice-presidential debate during which Vance made Walz look like a low-grade moron (which he is).

So just a little over a year after Tim Walz helped Donald Trump become president of the United States again, Tim will be helping Trump show the country just what dishonest and incompetent politicians the Democrats are.  California, Minnesota, New York and Illinois are all floundering in debt and dysfunction.  Tim will be a symbol of how the leaders of that party are personally responsible for the fraud and waste that went on during the Biden presidency.  Walz may be lucky that he’s leaving now.  Even his incompetency may soon be eclipsed by the spectacle of Mayor Mamdani turning the largest city in the nation into a third-world hellhole.  But even so Tim Walz has earned himself a spot on the Wall of Shame.  Adios Knucklehead.  We hardly knew ye.

05JAN2026 This ‘N’ That

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Trump

Sunday January 4th is the end of my vacation.  So, I’ll be busy with a bunch of stuff; work, book launch and various chores and repairs.  So today I’m luxuriating in a trifecta of “Christmas Carol” viewings and so I’ll be steeped in “peace on Earth, goodwill toward men” right before I go back to despising the citizens of Dunwich on a face-to-face basis.  Honestly, the bureaucratic nightmare that is unfolding has me questioning my current status and I may decide to walk away from all this nonsense but we’ll have to see.  Ethically I’ll have to give notice and let them find someone as stupid as me to volunteer to suffer through all this.  And I’d have to train my replacement so relief would still be delayed by weeks.  But it is fun to contemplate escape.  Even this short venting has lifted my spirits.  Okay, enough for now.

The world stage is becoming increasingly troubled but for now I’ll restrict myself to Venezuela.  Now this crisis is actually the most manageable.  Essentially letting the US military eject the Cubans, guard the oil fields and end the drug shipments to the United States might all be within the abilities of the Trump administration.

Theoretically the oil infrastructure that was nationalized by Maduro’s predecessor could be returned to the western oil companies and very reasonable arrangements could provide enormous money for Venezuela’s people and also flood the American market with cheap oil and gas.  This would have the effect of lowering American transportation and energy costs and thereby lowering the cost of living here.  Now actually making this happen without major problems is a different question.  But I think Trump sees this as an opportunity to attack the cost-of-living problem head on.  If nothing else you have to admire his guts.  I’ll take a wait and see attitude (since I don’t have any choice anyway).

And finally, it’s only seventeen days until the publication on Amazon of my magnum opus, “The Sniper” I’m hoping everyone who has friends that might be interested in a right-wing, alternate history, techno-thriller will let them know about this great event.  In the run-up to the launch, I will become increasingly annoying with my constant shilling and repetitive praise of this product of my literary labor.  I apologize in advance to everyone but I must do my best to drum up business.  So, if hyperbole makes you break out in hives be warned this will be ground zero for such stuff.

Alright, that’s enough of that.  On a local weather note it has been snowing either a little or a lot every couple of days for the last couple of weeks.  Now I’m pretty used to this but lately it’s been getting mixed up with freezing rain and ice.  That’s a lot less fun.  So, I’ve been spending a lot more time on driveway surface preparation.  Because of this I haven’t had as much time for thinking up stuff for my posts.  So, I hope after this weekend things will be better for the next couple of weeks.  Thank you for your patience.

Be Careful, Donald

photog Current Events, Trump , , , ,

Well, Trump is definitely disrupting things.  The question is can he keep the whole machine from shaking itself apart.  Venezuela doesn’t bother me.  That’s not even a real country.  It’s a mafia neighborhood with a money-printing machine in the basement.

Iran on the other hand is a much bigger and more dangerous neighborhood.  Their economy is in tatters and the middle-class is so starved that they dared to face off in the streets against the thugs that Khamenei employs to silence all protestors, with a crow bar.  Trump threw in a threat against the mullahs if they start murdering the protestors in the street.  And that is his place as leader of the “free world” I guess.  But is it just an idle threat?  And will these protests really go anywhere?

The last time protests accomplished anything in Iran was 1979 when the Islamists overthrew the Shah of Iran and brought the Ayatollah Khomeini out of exile to begin the Islamic Republic.  And that kicked off the Islamic Revolution by holding Americans hostage for over a year.  Is it possible that enough Iranians are angry enough to risk torture and death to kick the mullahs out of power and turn Iran back into a modern country?  I guess it’s possible but why now?

I read that inflation in Iran is currently at 43%.  That is definitely getting close to some kind of breaking point.  But standing up to men with machine guns and torture cells takes a lot of guts.  I’m far from convinced that anything will come of the Iranian protests.  Now maybe it will soften up the regime into cutting a deal with the West.  Maybe they’ll agree to end their funding of terrorist groups and in that way begin to have economic sanctions lifted against their oil exports other commercial enterprises.

Now, all of this going on at the same time that Ukraine and Russia are battling to the death may not be a coincidence.  Both Venezuela and Iran are Russian allies and trading partners.  These situations may be an attempt to destabilize the Russian economy.  Sanctions against Russia have been skirted in part by using oil tankers that trade outside of the western countries and this is the same strategy that Iran and Venezuela have used.  Perhaps Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on all of these “shadow fleets” to destabilize the economies of all three of these countries.

And maybe it will work.  Iran is badly hurting and Russia is beginning to suffer from the combination of sanctions and war fatigue.  And Venezuela was a sitting duck for US military and covert attacks.  Maybe Trump will get a trifecta of victories.  He might even get his Nobel Peace Prize.

But I’ll have to say it’s an exceedingly dangerous game he’s playing.  There must be dozens of Iranian sleeper cells that snuck in during Biden’s open border policy.  What if the mullahs grow desperate and decide to spread some chaos in the land of the “Great Satan” before they lose control of their own country?  I get so tired of these places on the map that are nothing but misery for their own people and anyone that gets involved with them.  Donald, be careful.

04JAN2026 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter’s art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have.

Joshua Reynolds