In Your Lifetime

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“This will be the most important election in your lifetime.”  How many times have you heard those words?  How many of the last elections have been described exactly that way?  Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt.  2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980, 1976, 1972, 1968, 1964, 1960, 1956. 1952, 1948, 1944, 1940, 1936, 1932.  That’s twenty-three presidential elections and eighty-eight years of crises, wars, world war, depressions, riots, drafts, atom bombs, collapsing evil empires and cultural psychoses.  Forget the boy who cried wolf.  This is almost a century of crisis.

But heaven help me, I think I believe the expression is true this time, in a sense.  Now I don’t think Armageddon is upon us.  Nor do I believe that either Biden or Trump is going to change the world that much, either for the better or worse.  But I do believe that we have reached a point where Americans have gone beyond wondering if our elections are honest and basically will make up their minds based on the results of 2024.

Would you believe an election was honest if it reelected a frail, mentally struggling 82-year-old incumbent who has knowingly allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood the country, increased the cost of living to unaffordable levels for the working and middle classes and waged war on his political opponents through lawfare?  I’m going to say for most honest people the answer is no.

Effectively, this will undermine the legitimacy of the United States federal government in the minds of its citizens over a wide swath of the country.

THAT WOULD BE A VERY BID DEAL

We’ve never been in this territory before.  Well, not since the Civil War, anyway.  And I believe it will have a profound effect on the way Americans think about and interact with their government.  I see this as akin to how the Americans felt about the British government in the 1770s.  There will be an adversarial mindset and the federal government will react to this mindset in kind.  And that could lead to a spiral of actions and reactions.

Of course, trying to predict the future based on historical precedents is a fool’s errand.  But the attitudes are hardening and there is definitely a civil war vibe that has infected both sides over the last couple of years and there definitely is such a thing as self-fulfilling prophesies.  But let’s just say that if Biden is “re-elected” I think it will ignite a political movement to resist the malfeasance of the federal government, especially concerning illegal immigrants.

What happens if Trump wins?  Isn’t it funny how no one even talks about that?  Then he’ll really have a tiger by the tail.  He would have to start off his term by pardoning everybody on our side; himself, first of all and all of the January 6th defendants and as many of his people as have been hounded by the DOJ.

After that he’s going to have to try and make good on his promise to fire almost a quarter of the federal bureaucracy.  Hopefully he’s really done his homework and has a decent plan for such a monumental endeavor.  And then he has to try and revive the economy.  And then boot out tens of millions of illegal aliens.  And then he has to end the war in Ukraine.  And then he has to dismantle the green energy boondoggle.  And then, and then, and then, …

I don’t know about you but electing Trump president is starting to sound like the next round of presidential elder abuse.  The poor guy.  Well, maybe he can make DeSantis VP so he’ll have a kid around to do the heavy lifting.

And even if Trump gets is elected, I don’t think unity is going to be restored to the US.  In fact, based on the last time he came into office I expect the CIA to send a hit squad after him as he steps into the White House on Inauguration Day.

So, is this the most important election in my lifetime?  I’d say yes.  But let’s hope the next one isn’t.

 

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Lazing Away the Day

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The First Selectman Taking a Stroll

I couldn’t face talking about politics today.  I spent a good part of the day staring out a window at the huge snowflakes swirling around in the gale force winds that blew in circles around the compound.  At one point there was an inch or two of some combination of slush and snow on the grass and asphalt.  But by 2pm the driveways were miraculously clear.  So, I decided that my well thought out strategy of not doing anything had worked brilliantly and now I should go outside and take my victory lap with my snow shovel over my shoulder.  Hail the conquering hero!

These April snow events in New England are transitory oddball affairs.  The daffodils and hyacinths and hellebores can be buried in snow and ice but surprisingly these delicate flowers take no apparent harm from it.  Even the birds who you’d think would be devastated by the snow disrupting their feeding and mating activities seem unphased by the whole thing.  In fact, the crows almost seemed to be playing in the snow and clowning around.

Another fence post cracked in the fierce winds we had last night (thanks a lot First Selectman) and I made a mental note to fix the damn thing as soon as the snow retreats away from it.  Honestly, this winter has done a good bit of damage to the infrastructure, what with the pine tree landing on the upper driveway fence and the gutter cracking off of the pool shed.  My to-do list has been growing steadily.

And yesterday my laptop told me the battery is dying.  Of course, this isn’t one of those laptops that has the external battery, so now I have to do brain surgery on it.  So, I bought an electronics tool kit with the fifty screw driver bits, pliers, pick, static wrist band and two spudger tools.  Well, since I don’t know what a spudger is I guess I can’t let myself be caught short so two must be right.  Of course, the tools are going to show up a week after everything else so I hope the battery can struggle on for that long.  All in all, the world is crumbling before my eyes and honestly, I really can’t blame it.  Currently we’re being led by moochers and morons and it’s a miracle we haven’t gone over a cliff, lock stock and barrel.

But all things considered I’m calm and relatively jovial.  The First Selectman was glad to hear that folks still remembered the good works he did back in the colonial era and that his chronicler Howard Philip is still remembered as a kook with an overactive imagination who did give Batman a place to warehouse the lunatic criminals that cropped up so consistently in Gotham City.  Although how that managed to be in New England I’ll never know.  Maybe they thought placing it far away from New York City would be good for their nerves.  Or maybe they just moved the whole darn thing to Gotham over a long weekend or something.  Anyway, all praise to His August Cephalopodliness and long may he reign over Dunwich and please don’t let him raise my property taxes again.  Amen.

Farmer Cthulhu in Hi s Fields

The Western Alliance Begins to Plan for the Ukraine’s Collapse

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Politico published an article that confirms that Ukraine admits that the Russian offensive will force the Ukrainians to yield large swaths of their country wherever the assault comes.

“Ukraine is at great risk of its front lines collapsing

According to high-ranking Ukrainian officers, the military picture is grim and Russian generals could find success wherever they decide to focus their upcoming offensive.

Essentially, everything now depends on where Russia will decide to target its strength in an offensive that’s expected to launch this summer. In a pre-offensive pummeling — stretching from Kharkiv and Sumy in the north to Odesa in the south — Russia’s missile and drone strikes have widely surged in recent weeks, targeting infrastructure and making it hard to guess where it will mount its major push.

And according to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers who served under General Valery Zaluzhny — the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces until he was replaced in February — the military picture is grim.”

And there don’t seem to be any optimistic dissenting opinions either

“There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We don’t have those technologies, and the West doesn’t have them as well in sufficient numbers,” one of the top-ranking military sources told POLITICO.

“Don’t believe the hype about them (the Russians) just throwing troops into the meat grinder to be slaughtered,” he added. “They do that too, of course — maximizing even more the impact of their superior numbers — but they also learn and refine.””

The latest rumors are that the West is advising Ukraine to re-brand itself as a smaller country where the western areas are ceded to Poland and the eastern to Russia.  These sound like desperate attempts to make disaster appear as strategy.  What a horrible blunder the Ukrainians made listening to Washington.

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 04APR2024 – The Witch’s Curse

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I grew up not too far from Dunwich; Danvers, MA, better known among the arcana-read as the real site of the Salem Witch trials. Back then it was known as Salem Village, while modern Salem was Salem Towne. Growing up I noticed that when a storm was forecast to bring, say nine inches of snow, we got 12. Or a Foot was forecast and we got 18 inches.

I finally had a chance to put this question to no less than Don Kent, meteorologist at WBZ-TV. He looked me in the eye and said “You’re from Danvers aren’t you?” I said yes, and just why is the weather so weird? He answered honestly “We don’t know…BUT…” and then he told me about how, during the Trials, one of the accused witches, on the way to the gallows, laid a curse on the town, that it should always suffer a harder winter than the rest of the county. And this curse WORKED! Even changing the town’s name didn’t help (That’s why the town seal says “Without the King’s Consent”. They did it without the approval of the Colonial Office.)
Best regards to the First Select-Entity. The Eldrich Powers are hard at work in other regions as well.

[Editor’s Note – The First Selectman sends his greetings to his cousins on the shore and hopes they are enjoying the weather they ordered a while back from his cousin.  Gurgle, glug, gurgle, gurgle glug glug glug.]

 

Reply from Tregonsee 314

I live just down the road from Danvers, Close enough that when the leaves are off the trees I can see the remaining building of the Danvers State Hospital (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_State_Hospital )

the alleged inspiration for Lovecraft’s Arkham Asylum (amazingly there are now expensive Condos there, with only the historic main tower remaining as a shared space). Our little town was part of Salem Village but split in the early 18th century from Danvers. We also seem to share in that curse 🙂 . It has to be true Mr. Kent was one of New England’s top meteorologists for most of my life and if that was the explanation he had that is good enough for me, certainly nothing else makes sense,

Reply from photog

Tregonsee. there used to be a similar mental hospital in Worcester.

Likewise it was recently demolished leaving only a replica clocktower to mark its former presence. But when it stood it was an eerie reminder of a different world.

Voigtlander 10mm e-mount Clock Tower vertical angle

 

 

The Long National Nightmare of Me Being Way Too Busy is Over!

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Today I finished up a weeklong marathon project that really made my life a misery and seriously cut into my on-line time to the detriment of this site.

Whew!!!

So here I am looking around and I see…

The same crap as the week before!

Hmmm.

Okay, there’s a claim that Biden’s poll numbers have gone up a point or maybe two.  Let’s grant that.  But his swing state numbers, both with and without third party candidates are the same or maybe even a little bit worse than before.  And inflation has gotten worse but the disastrous housing market is forcing the Fed to drop interest rates to try and generate some good news for Biden.  Which will make the inflation worse still.

And the Zoomers are really angry about Gaza.

Apparently, the big tent party is beginning to turn on its Jewish contingent because of Biden’s support for the Gaza War.  And this is causing pundits like the Ragin’ Cajun James Carville to hit the panic button.  His exact words were:

“I’ve been very vocal about this,” Carville said. “It’s horrifying, our numbers among younger voters, particularly younger Blacks, younger Latinos … younger people of color. Particularly males. We’re not shedding them, they’re leaving in droves,” he added.”

So, Biden has lots of election problems because the country has lots of problems and it’s too late to fix them before November.

And the border crisis is worse than ever and the criminal aliens are in the news every day.  And the cities are becoming war zones.

And now ships are crashing into bridges and destroying them.  I mean, you can’t make this stuff up!

Sure, this is more of the same.  But it’s like a train crash.  Once you’ve discovered that you have no brakes and you’re closer than some minimum distance “x” then you can’t avoid the crash.  But the closer you get to the impact the more terrifying is the view from the engineer’s seat.  So, I’m sure whoever is running the Biden campaign is in daily contact with the voting officials in Pennsylvania figuring out if they can add an extra five million votes to the Biden total on Election Day.

Well, enough election crap.  Instead something nearer and dearer to my heart; my novel (The American Archipelago: Book 1 – The Sniper).  Thanks to all who’ve been reading along and special thanks to those who have provided feedback.  Honest criticism is extremely valuable when you’re trying to make a story attractive to the publishers and compelling for the readers.

Anyone who has a taste for dystopian science fiction, I ask that you give it a whirl and leave some comments that reflect your take on the story, positive or negative.  And the more specific the better.

Here in Dunwich the weird is the rule and the weather is no exception to this.  It’s supposed to snow tonight and then rain will freeze up tomorrow night and create a Class IV Kill Storm. So tomorrow, after helping Camera Girl navigate the frozen tundra, we’ll probably hunker down and enjoy the sounds of squealing brakes and screeching cries on the road outside as the black ice claims numberless victims on the crater strewn back roads of Dunwich.  Afterward I’ll go out for the traditional gathering of the pocket change from the bodies of the crash victims and I’ll return as a conquering hero (of sorts) as I dole out this largesse to my minions (dog one and dog two) in the form of low-quality pressed rawhide that I purchase on the websites of third world competitors of Amazon dot com.

I’ve often wondered what would happen if a prolonged storm cut off the supply of these “treats.”  I fear that my minions might notice that there is a disturbing similarity between pressed rawhide and, well, me!  Me thinks Dog One has a lean hungry look about him.  Such minions are dangerous.

Well, anyway, enough yammering.  I’m back and on the job.