All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.
Thomas Paine
No thirty inches of snow! No ice storm! No baseball sized hail stones! April Fool’s Day didn’t punish us here in New England. It’s a bloomin’ miracle. It’s a pretty nice day so Camera Girl handed me her “Honey Do” list. The one item I’m stalling on is walking the property with a garbage bag and a stick with a nail on it picking up all the trash that has blown into the wooded areas. As Sergeant Snorkel told Beetle Bailey, “If it don’t walk, if it don’t talk, police it!” But it’s annoying. It makes me feel very uncharitably toward the whole human race when I see what kind of stuff they toss out the windows of their cars.
So, I was driving down the main east-west road in Dunwich in a section that is full of blind curves and rolling hills when up ahead about a quarter of a mile I see something in the road. I see it’s moving but it’s too short to be an adult human so I slow down. “Could it be a child or is someone sitting or kneeling on the road? And then I can see. It’s a huge tom turkey with his feathers and wings all puffed up. He’s in the oncoming lane and he’s staring me down! So, I creep past him looking for his harem. But I couldn’t see them. Either they were shielded by the trees or they were gone. But Tom was sticking to his guns and wasn’t afraid of me. So, I left him there and in my rearview I could see him still standing there like some blithering idiot trying to act as crossing guard to an invisible flock.
After cutting down the raspberry canes last week I’ve been hoping to see some leaves sprouting up from the dirt. So far nothing.
But the hellebores are coming up. More confidently in the sunnier areas and tentatively in the shade.
And likewise for the daffodils. We have three different stages of development depending where they are on the property.
The hostas near the house have just broken ground.
And this little crocus is bravely showing its colors.
So winter is climatically over. I will now stow the shoe spikes, snow shovels, ice scrapers, snow blower, snow boots and all the rest of the paraphernalia that litters the mud room and move forward into the growing season. And now that the ground is completely thawed, I can begin things like fixing fences, gates, damaged wood and all the other weather-beaten components of my poor house and adjacencies.
And I will move the lawn mowers to the front of the shed and contemplate that fateful moment when I drive the mower over the grass for the first time this year. Right now, it’s unimaginable. Some of the grass is overly long and soaked with winter water in the soggier areas of the west field. Some areas are worn away by snow, ice and rain. Other areas are dead and brown. Cementing the whole thing over sounds like a better solution. But in just a very few days the darn thing will revive and life will return.
And in honor of this projected return of life I have put out ten preying mantis egg sacs. I purchased them from an American company that said they are Chinese mantids. Well, why not? Apparently, they’re already outcompeting the Carolina mantis right here in New England. Who am I to stand in the way of Darwinian selection?
The only thing left to cap off the beginning of spring is the reappearance of the pond turtles. They have not made their reappearance but Camera Girl will keep me apprised of their status.
“O brave new world that has such people in it!”
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.
Thomas Paine
Well, first of all, Europe has gone all in on lawfare to prevent their own people from electing candidates on the Right. I guess I can paraphrase this as. “If you can’t beat them at the ballot box just round them up and jail them.”
“Monday’s court sentence declares Le Pen ineligible to stand for president in 2027 and gave her a four-year prison sentence – half of it suspended – for embezzlement of European parliament funds.
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the League party Matteo Salvini called the court’s ruling a “declaration of war by Brussels”.
“A bad film that we are also seeing in other countries like Romania,” wrote Salvini on social media.
“We don’t let ourselves be intimidated, we don’t stop: full speed ahead my friend!”
Romania’s electoral bureau in early March rejected the candidacy of far-right politician Calin Georgescu for the re-run of presidential elections in May.
The fierce EU and NATO critic shot to prominence last November, when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting before the constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion.
Georgescu, who denies any links to Moscow, has slammed the vote annulment as a “formalised coup d’état” and the subsequent banning as “a direct blow to the heart of democracy.”
So that’s interesting. It’s kind of what they tried against Trump only their people are so cowed that it’s successful. I guess the question I’ll ask is are their people such slaves that they’ll put up with that forever? I guess we’ll find out.
The other big “international” development is that the New York Times admitted that the United States military has boots on the ground in Ukraine. And in fact, the CIA is coordinating missile attacks on the Russian homeland.
Ultimately, the U.S. military and C.I.A. were allowed to help with strikes into Russia.
The hardest red line was the Russian border. But in spring 2024, to protect the northern city of Kharkiv against a Russian assault, the administration authorized the creation of an “ops box” — a zone of Russian territory within which U.S. officers in Wiesbaden could provide the Ukrainians with precise coordinates. The box’s first iteration extended across a wide swath of Ukraine’s northern border. The box was expanded after North Korea sent troops to help fight the Ukrainians’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. The U.S. military was later allowed to enable missile strikes in an area of southern Russia where the Russians staged forces and equipment for their offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Longstanding policy barred the C.I.A. from providing intelligence on targets on Russian soil. But the C.I.A. could request “variances,” carve-outs to support strikes for specific objectives. Intelligence had identified a vast munitions depot in Toropets, 290 miles north of the Ukrainian border. On Sept. 18, 2024, a swarm of drones slammed into the munitions depot. The blast, as powerful as a small earthquake, opened a crater the width of a football field. Later, the C.I.A. was allowed to enable Ukrainian drone strikes in southern Russia to try to slow advances in eastern Ukraine.
So, we’ve been playing chicken with the Russians for several years in Ukraine. Is this still going on? Why? Have we officially lost any personnel to the war officially? Unofficially? Is there any reason why we should?
From what I can see of Europe’s approach to “democracy” I don’t see any meaningful difference between Russia, Ukraine, France or Romania. None of them are really democracies in any real sense. So why are we choosing winners and losers there? They’re supposed to be grown-ups. Why can’t they sort out their own messes? Why should American money and blood be involved in any way?
From what I can see we have no more place telling the Russians or the English how to run their lives than we do the Afghans or the Chinese. They’re not us. We’re not them. If they don’t shoot at us, they can do whatever they damn please. They can even say mean things about us. Now as far as buying whatever crap they make in their country, as long as we have the same tariffs on them as they have on us, have at it. The crap we get from China is no better or worse than the crap we get from Mexico or Canada. It’s all still crap. If they want to make their crap here and pay Americans to make it, well, that’s another story. Now we’ve got something to talk about. If Toyota builds a plant in Tennessee, then God bless Toyota. They’re my kind of foreigners. We can do business and we can even be friends!
I hope Donald Trump understands that blowing people up to “make the world safe for democracy” is just a globalist bumper sticker. Minding our own business to make America safe for Americans is a policy that can help make America great again.
Just my two cents today.
A long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
Thomas Paine
“Catch Me If You Can” is the screen adaptation of the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr.; a boy who at the age of sixteen years old impersonates an airline pilot, a medical doctor and a lawyer and steals millions of dollars as he crisscrosses the United States and the rest of the world forging and passing bad checks.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank Abagnale Jr. a New York city teenager whose parents Frank Sr. (played by Christopher Walken) and Paula are divorcing due to the IRS fraud investigation that has swallowed up Frank Sr.’s livelihood. Rather than acknowledge his parents’ split he runs away. And while trying to survive on his own he figures out how to impersonate adults like airline pilots and forge checks.
Eventually his successful check forging career catches the attention of the FBI’s bank crimes division in the person of Carl Hanratty played by Tom Hanks. But for a while Frank’s dead-heading from city to city on airline flights keeps him one step ahead. But eventually Hanratty learns Frank’s true identity and Frank tries to throw him off his trail by laying low. He impersonates a doctor down in Atlanta at a small hospital. Eventually he tries to settle down with a nurse who wants to marry him. Her father (played by Martin Sheen) is a successful lawyer down in Louisiana and Frank convinces him that he’s not only a doctor but also has a law degree and after (legitimately) passing the Louisiana bar exam he settles in to become his future father-in-law’s assistant prosecutor. But just as the engagement is being celebrated Hanratty shows up and Frank bails out the back window and escapes.
Frank leaves the United States and travels around Europe and elsewhere but eventually Hanratty catches up to him in France and brings him back to America. He makes one last desperate break by escaping from an airliner bathroom through the pipe chase and escaping out of the taxiing plane. But Hanratty finds him when he tries to see his mother and drags him off to jail. He is convicted of grand theft and sentenced to twelve years in prison.
But over the course of several years Hanratty visits Frank in prison and decides the FBI could use his extraordinary knowledge of check fraud. He gets Frank released into Hanratty’s custody and eventually Frank becomes a valuable asset to law enforcement and eventually becomes extremely rich perfecting fraud countermeasures for banks and other financial institutions.
This is a remarkably entertaining movie. I’m assuming a lot has been stretched from the literal truth for the sake of enhancing the plot. But if even a quarter of the things he did in the movie are true, it’s a remarkable story. Frank Jr.’s brilliance as a criminal and a confidence man is contrasted with his search to restore the family life that is exploded in the beginning of the movie when his father’s wealth is snatched away by the IRS and his wife leaves him. The interplay between these two facets of his existence gives poignancy to the story. The ironic aspect is that every Christmas Frank Jr. calls Carl Hanratty to talk and Carl figures out that Frank calls because he has no one else to talk to. It’s a very strange relationship between the two of them but it is effectively portrayed. All the main characters are acted very ably and for once Spielberg directs a picture in a very balanced and well-paced way. I’ll say this movie comes highly recommended.
The nearer any disease approaches to a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together, and it is only the last push, in which one or the other takes the lead.
Thomas Paine