A Piece on Earth: not a typo. It's about life on our planet. (Or is it life in our world? On closer examination, life on the planet might be superior to life in the world.)
That's the only way to describe it. That's the feeling you get when first entering Crete - away from the immediate influence of Western culture. And it feels great, liberating. Few cares or worries. You see people for who they are and not for what they can represent.
Argentina won the World Cup, in case anyone was paying attention.
As Rod and Reginald had already bought their own, Desmond Morris once bought himself a football team and began looking into the arcane history of the sport. And he discovered some interesting things.
Having a simple game where you kick a ball (but cannot use your hands) was a no-brainer. It features in the Connery/Gere vehicle First Knight, you may remember.
Along about the 1800s both Oxbridge universities started toying with football. They came to regard themselves as quite good. Then they heard there was a third team in the country, up in Scotland. So they arranged a visit to Scotland for a match.
The Oxbridge team lost something like 25-1.
There was no offside rule back then. The clever Oxbridge players never thought about it. The Scots simply kept one player downfield at the Oxbridge goal. When the Scots got control of the ball, they kicked it downfield.
Instructive is that, although the match went on for some time, the clever Oxbridge side never considered modifying their overall strategy. The final score speaks profoundly.
The offside rule really cramps the game. The rule also means that matches are low-scoring. Desmond cited statistics on this. He cited that over half of all matches end with at most one goal.
The more points scored, the greater the law of averages comes into play, and you can better determine who the superior side were. The fewer the goals, the greater the almost religious hysteria. And it's really religious and very hysterical. It's down to luck. Neither side can claim to be better in a true sense, only in a fanatical one. 'We were destined to win' and such claptrap.
Then the penalty kick. Almost more lopsided than the offside rule. The odds of missing a penalty kick are very low. Look at the goalie in the net. There's no way he can guard the complete area. He has to make a vital decision at the moment the ball is kicked. Does he lunge right? Or left? Or stay in the middle? Only one of those options gives him a chance. Barring the kick being bad, it's a goal unless the goalie guesses correctly.
Here you have an event which is supposed to be regarded as a world championship, which truly and accurately determines which side is best in the world. But they have this bloody offside rule, which means the matches will be mostly low-scoring, which means you can be forced to move to overtime to try to eke out a score, after which you move to penalty kicks.
A system like that cannot possibly determine champions with any level of accuracy.
But in the US? The NY Cosmos changed a number of things when they moved football stateside. They reduced the overall time of play from 90 minutes. The matches took just as long, because they stopped the clock if the ball went out of bounds (out of play). Football has no such provision. Kick the ball into the next county? That's OK. Go get the ball and keep playing - and then the referee can arbitrarily add minutes of play to compensate.
Nothing's exact. If you want reliable results, you need exact. Football has no 'exact'. It's just a ball you kick around, with a minimum of ostensible rules. Just kick the ball. It's fun. (And it is - for fun.)
In case you're still reading: no, we didn't watch any of the World Cup. None of it.
In related news, Kari Lake spoke at TPUSA today, late afternoon Phoenix time. TPUSA is a youth movement with heavy overtones of religious fundamentalism. (Then again, most things in the US have heavy overtones of religious fundamentalism.) Check your favourite news aggregator to see how the MSM received TPUSA and especially Kari.
Kari's back in court on Monday, contesting the contesting of the contesting of Arizona's yet again scandalous election machinery. Officially she lost to Katie Hobbs by some 17,000 votes, but everything about that election is so grimy, so dirty. No one believes Kari actually lost the vote.
A lot of people, including people here, were wondering what was going to be done to avoid a repeat of 2020, and 2018, and 2016, and... There didn't seem to be a lot that could be done. The US constitution places all responsibility on the state legislatures. A number of laws were broken in 2020. You need a cooperative legislature to change election procedures.
It's been widely acknowledged for some time that voting machines suck. And that moving away from the friendly precinct model was another step into the welcoming arms of Big Brother. And that voting centres invite fraud.
One might be amazed how much is actually at stake in an election outcome. It's more than most of us think. As always, there's a lot of money involved.
And transparency is always desirable.
Arizona is a key to the status quo of the world itself. Why? Because a victory for Kari Lake will amplify Ron DeSantis who cleaned up Florida. The clean Florida had election results in hours. Dirty Arizona hadn't finished counting even after three weeks.
If you want to know what issues concern Arizonans most, check out Kari's January speech in Florence. For she makes a point of citing each and every one of them. She knows what they want. You can tell by their response that she's on the money. But we'll list them anyway.
Support the police
Secure the borders
Crush censorship & fake news
End racist curriculum
No covid masks on children
No unlimited abortions
Stop the fentanyl & child-trafficking
Finish the wall
Crush Fauci policies (no mandates, no lockdowns)
End election fraud
Even most adult Europeans would agree with most of that. We don't understand what's going on with their abortion hysteria, but otherwise most points seem self-evident.
But why is Arizona so important? Why is Arizona a 'key'?
For the other guys, it's 'key' because they're looking ahead to 2024. They don't want Trump back in the White House. They need the swing states. Arizona is one of them, along with Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and a few others. The overall picture in the US is muddled and complex. One can only hope, from a distance, that things work out well.
But trying to provoke WWIII is not the way to go about it. And that's what Brandon seems to be up to. It's demonic.
Everything is extreme in the US. Fettuccine Alfredo can't be fettuccine like Alfredo made it. No, you have to change it completely, removing its entertainment value too. Clogs can't be simple shoes as Swedes use them, a simple slab of wood with soles and heels glued on, with tops stapled on, made cheap, sold cheap. No, you have to add bells and whistles and sell simplicity for a fortune.
So too with political or social values. You either go back to 1776 with everything, start quoting and living by books that are thousands of years old - or, at the other extreme, you declare 57 genders and start burning down buildings in the name of democracy. It's always an extreme. They have no rudder in their history.
You see this in Steve Bannon. You see this in Charlie Kirk. You get a glimpse of it in Kari Lake. Ultimately the question is: which brand of insanity do you prefer?
As Kari Lake represents 'America First', a policy first espoused by Woodrow Wilson in 1916 that eschews intervention in world affairs, that's the extreme we'd support.
But, truth be told, we hate politics with a passion. Never liked it, never will.
The Obligatory Coding Section
Yes, we have a new app in the works. All updates and all new apps accrue for free to all clients - just a reminder.
That being said, the platform the ACP runs on is beyond hope. Apple running Unix? It seemed an enthralling idea. (And why? Because of the market clout and cachet, and the potential to replace a harmful standard with a safe one.)
But the philosophies and the architectural keys are irreconcilable. If we could share the types of queries we got back then...
The 'Mac community' is also a repugnant foreshadowing of the warmongering wokeism we see today destroying what's left of the inevitably declining 'western world'.
(There are two ways to navigate and coordinate a decline. The bullshit you see going on around you is not the intelligent way of the two.)
Now onto better (more important) things. And a bit of bio, all sort of tossed together.
Disclaimer
DISCLAIMER: We love Arizona. We also love Kari Lake who to us is the embodiment of Arizona. Kari is not a career politician. She's also one of the few people in existence who can co-opt Donald Trump. She's an inspiration.
Kari campaigned for 525 days nonstop whilst Katie Hobbs mostly stayed out of the public eye. Hobbs was caught once by 'RC' of Project Veritas at an outdoor seating for a fast-food restaurant. She fled so fast she spilled her soft drink all over the tabletop and the pavement below, then made a dash for the restroom and locked herself in. Similar scenarios played out at other locations with members of the media.
Hobbs accepted an invitation from an Hispanic association and was asked onstage what she found inspiring about Arizona's Hispanic community. Hobbs emanated 'er' and 'um' for one minute thirty seconds in her spooky voice as the emcee tried to help her - but to no avail.
Katie Hobbs broke the twenty-year tradition of debates held by the Arizona Clean Elections Commission. When asked why, Hobbs referred to something supposedly derogatory about Kari Lake. OK, so why did she refuse to debate in the primaries? That was because I was so far out in front in the polls so I didn't have to, responded Katie Hobbs.
Voting machines are part of the problem with today's elections, in any country. Kari Lake petitioned early on to have Arizona conduct elections without them in the future. Motion denied. Arizona elections are infamous. There's no excuse.
Kari Lake also saw an issue with Arizona's Secretary of State supervising the coming 2022 elections, especially the gubernatorial election. Katie Hobbs was set to be a candidate for governor, and Arizona's Secretary of State was... Katie Hobbs. Not only must justice be done, it must also be seen to be done, goes the old saying. But Katie Hobbs was not about to recuse herself.
And yet it is this self-same Katie Hobbs who was the spider in the network behind the 2020 election scandal, where the supposed 'tabulation' dragged on for days, where Trump was ultimately defeated by some 10,000 votes, where official inquiries were thwarted and sabotaged, where important documents were disappeared, and so on.
It's not like Katie Hobbs had come into 2022 with an acceptable track record, much less an impressive one.
The Whole World's Watching
Kari Lake is Arizona's Walter Cronkite, although somewhat prettier. She had a very similar relationship with her viewers for over twenty years on Fox 10 Phoenix where she and cohost John Hook were the undisputed leader in news, turning up twice every weeknight.
(Leo Sayer said he never understood the Eagles until he saw the Rockies.)
2021 was a crisis of conscience year for Kari. She was given news to read that she knew to be false. Fake news? Dangerous news! And with over twenty, closer to thirty, years in the business, Kari had learned all the tricks of the bad actors. No matter what they tried, she'd be onto them. Local flunkies, CNN, apprentices from the once-acceptable Arizona Republic - even hacks from Australia tried to toss her 'gotchas', and she got them every time.
Kari is never mean or disciplinarian but always forgiving, telling the dishonest journos to 'do better, guys!' This is unheard of in the industry. Here was a champion of a fighter, undefeated, knocking down her opponents, one after another, then extending a hand and helping them back on their feet again.
She expands on 2021-06-01.
We love Arizona because almost everybody we know from back in the Midwest fled there. First one family, then another, then another. You want to fly the pond and catch up with your old friends? You fly into Sky Harbor.
Desert landscaping. Instead of a lawn. Who wants a lawn? Life's so different there, so much better. When you arrive, you realise you've wasted all your years in the wrong place, but now you can get into it, and every day forward is precious.
Driving down Scottsdale Road, seeing the planes passing overhead as they leave and approach Sky Harbor...
And Camelback Mountain? Is it true that Dick Van Dyke and Johnny Carson had palaces carved into the side of that mountain? Nobody knew for sure.
Park your golf cart in the garage. Then promenade through to the garage in the morning, click the remote to open the garage door, drive out, closing the door behind you, drive right up to the first tee and the rest of your foursome...
Heat is heat is heat, but Arizona heat is a different heat. It's a dry heat. It's a healthy heat. Arthritis? Rheumatism? Guess what.
Drive up to Bell Road. To the Indian reservation. Drive beyond to Cave Creek. The Mystery Diners show was there. Lovely lass who's held public office, former stripper actually, running a diner like you'd want your own diner run.
Follow Bell Road west and come to the retirement communities Sun City and Sun City West. Del Webb projects. The company tried one time earlier in California. Disaster. They made the homes available before they finished the recreational facilities. People moved in but tired of waiting for the fun and so moved out. These two Arizona locations fared better. Nobody got to move in until recreation was operational. A good time for all.
Arizona: It's just too beautiful for words.
Scottsdale & Tempe
Our families clustered in Scottsdale and Tempe as filling station owners, mechanics, department store managers, city park mounties, musicologists, their parents often early retirees. Who wants to work in Arizona?
Katie Hobbs isn't at all retired but she definitely doesn't like to work. For the half year preceding the elections in November, Katie turned up for work only nineteen times. That's not even a full month. The rest of the time Katie Hobbs is unaccountable.
But one thing Katie did: she stiffed a black woman.
For whatever reason, Katie Hobbs hired a black woman and paid her thirty thousand less than her white male colleagues doing the same job. When the black woman found out, she confronted Hobbs. And Hobbs sacked her.
The black woman took it to court. Twice. She won both times. On behalf of Katie Hobbs, the state of Arizona's taxpayers shelled out nearly three million dollars. All because Katie Hobbs apparently doesn't like women, especially black women.
To this day, you should still be able to find a 'photo op' of Katie Hobbs on her website of a little black girl with Katie stretching out her hand to the bewildered youngster - who clearly doesn't know what's going on - in a vainglorious attempt at damage control.
Katie Hobbs made a feeble attempt to apologise to her dismissed employee in a cringeworthy video. The black woman was asked by the media if she found the apology genuine. 'Nope', was her reply.
Everyone in Arizona knows who Katie Hobbs is. Save for a tiny coterie of like-minded crooks, everyone in Arizona wishes she'd just go away. Her election as Secretary of State was already suspect. And for 2022, as for 2020 which she also ran, no one believes the elections were fair, or that there was any way the hated Katie Hobbs could have won even a position as dog-catcher.
Phenomenon
Kari Lake is a phenomenon, a once-in-a-lifetime event. A lot of people admire Trump and warm to him. They appreciate what Ron DeSantis did for Florida. They admire the leadership and management skills of Kristi Noem in South Dakota. But they turn out in droves to get in on the Kari Lake phenomenon. She's more fun than Trump, easier on the eyes, and completely enthralling.
Kari Lake wants to clean up Arizona. Drain its desert swamp. Especially the monster Maricopa County which has become one of the biggest and most corrupt in the country.
Katie Hobbs and her subordinates Bill Gates (yes) and Stephen Richer are out to stop Kari Lake. This is not along party lines. Hobbs is a Democrat, Gates and Richer are Republicans. Leave party politics at the saloon door when you join in on this charade.
The Republicans allying with Hobbs aren't vanilla Republicans anyway. They're McCain Republicans. Those rooting for Kari talk of themselves as MAGA Republicans or America First Republicans.
What is 'America First' anyway? Relying on that most untrusted of history sources, Wikipedia, one can find:
America First refers to a policy stance in the United States that generally emphasises nationalism and non-interventionism.
Sounds good. So that means no more funding Nazis in the Ukraine? And it also means closing down those eight hundred military bases in one hundred fifty countries? That should mean a lot of tax money that can be used to help those in need at home - instead of financing murderous conflicts they never win anyway!
So how again is that a bad thing exactly?
America First?
The term 'America First' was coined by presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson in 1916. It was his pledge to keep the US neutral in the Great War (WWI).
So that'd be before JP Morgan got to him and convinced him otherwise (and also got him to invade Russia in 1918).
The opposite of 'America First' definitely sucks.
'America First' means 'we tend our own garden and we'll not mess with you tending yours'. And if there's one thing - one motherfucking thing - we need in this 'world' right now, it's more of that.
Stay home, take care of yourselves, be happy.
Trump rallies are always like picnics. Festivals. That's how we first encountered Kari Lake. Just another Trump supporter, right? But there was a disturbance in the Force that night. However it happened, it happened. And, suddenly, politics wasn't boring anymore. Suddenly there was someone who didn't tolerate the bullshit (and called bullshit by its name: 'bullshit') and who was goddamned determined to do something about it.
Tucker noticed - he devoted his entire opening to Kari.
Five hundred twenty-five days. Based out of her home in East Phoenix. Kari keeps an indoor temp of 80ºF (eighty). How she does it, no one knows. How her husband and two grownup children cope isn't known. Perhaps they get used to it. With Phoenix as dry as it is, 80ºF can often feel like being wrapped in cotton.
(But beware those car door handles. Always have a kerchief at the ready.)
Kari's been subsisting on a lot of junk food on the road. Put on 2-3 pounds. (She'll take them back off - she's got a lovely figure.)
You outside the US: You might not like everything the 'America First' people go on about. This 'advocacy of American exceptionalism' isn't good. Sounds like Obama. And it won't hold in today's multipolar world either - something that at least 87.5% of the people on this rock have long understood. The McCains of this world never got it. Perhaps the Trumps will get it sooner. Sticking to your own patch and minding your own business doesn't rhyme well with exceptionalism, and exceptionalism and interventionism are two sides of the same Uniparty coin. 87.5% have had enough of that nonsense.
We in Europe and other parts of the globe will always engage in stinging facepalms as people in the US try in vain to achieve a 'happy medium' - at anything. But that's neither our concern nor our worry. As long as they leave us alone, it doesn't matter what they do in their own backyard. The 'America First' MAGA crowd can help all of us into a peaceful transition to multipolarity.
War sucks. Let's have some fun.
From Media to Politics
Kari Lake is a treasure. Really. Watch her speak once. You'll see. You'll not find a more skilled communicator.
Play Devil's Advocate. Try to find a chink in her armour. Any slight sign it might all be an act. You won't find one. Kari doesn't have a tell because this is totally genuine.
And that's rare. Actually more than rare. It's almost unheard of. Try to remember one political figure who ultimately wasn't all bullshit. Remember The Interpreter? Kari's genuine.
Does Kari know what she got into? How did she put it? 'From the ugly world of the media to the even uglier world of politics'? But whatever. That cute bundle of energy, that perpetual-motion dynamo, is not letting up. She will never be defeated. Never. And Hobbs and Gates and Richer are trying to convince themselves that they didn't go too far this time.
But come on, guys. You sabotaged machines in how many locations on Election Day? Five-hour lines to vote? You didn't give a fuck, did you, you bastards, for when Kari Lake gets in there she's going to turn Arizona around like Ron DeSantis did with Florida, and you cockroaches are going to be out of a job, and all your crooked friends are going to lose out too.
Tell us, please: How do you vermin sleep at night? Booze and pills? This is a big kick for you, fucking over your fellow Arizonans? You saw it on the news on the telly and almost spilled your Coors Lite? Big laugh, huh? Dumbfuck Republicans, voting on Election Day as if it was some sort of sacred bullshit ritual, we're all one people or something. Fuck MAGA! Fuck MAGA Republicans! Fuck Kari Lake!
No way. No fucking way we're gonna let that bitch take over and clean this state up. This is our state, motherfucker! Lake can go - jump in the lake! She should go back to news, or at least stay the fuck out of politics!
CALIFORNIA
California. What an unreal place. Your ears can be a bit out of whack when coming in from London.
California: it just looks unreal. And not particularly impressive. One is underwhelmed, honestly. Like from the pages of a Raymond Chandler.
RR convertibles coming out of Rodeo Drive. Not a driver over 25.
Stop into a cafeteria on 3rd in Santa Monica. Drag a tray all the way to the end just to get a Covfefe. Cute curly-haired blonde at the register counts out the change.
'Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, one dollar - whoopee!'
'You're Swedish, aren't you?'
We become fast friends. She and her mate, also from Sweden, just got a new flat in West Hollywood. Not a single straight tenant in the building, they say, creeped out.
My friend's from Rågsved, south of Stockholm. Her friend was a wallflower back home. My friend left her daughter with nan and went out with her friend for the New Year to LA. And her wallflower friend suddenly bloomed and turned into the life of the party, but now my friend fucking hates LA and wants to get home.
'These people are fucking crazy', she tells me. 'One night, in the middle of the night, these people ring us up and say we're all going to San Francisco, in the middle of the night. So OK, we pile in the back seat, and off they go, peeling rubber, popping pills, and drinking white wine.'
'Whilst driving.'
'Yes. Two of them. They're all crazy in California. I gotta get out of this place.'
John Steinbeck likened LA to a bathtub drain filter. Everything flows out and down, and the filter catches all the shite. That's LA.
Venice. Venice Beach. It literally stinks. As in smells bad.
The Hotel Bonaventure? Downtown LA. Whatever 'downtown' means. Stand outside the hotel at an intersection and listen to the automobiles waiting for green, the sound of their engines muffled.
It's the smog.
'Helluva a smog you have here.'
'Where?'
'Here. LA.'
'Smog? LA? We don't have any smog.'
'Oh yeah you do. You can read about it all over the world.'
'Oh yeah THAT smog! That smog's on the other side of town.'
'Oh yeah? So what do you have here?'
'FOG. This is FOG.'
Absolutely. Doesn't matter where you are in LA. They'll never have smog. Only fog. The smog's on the other side of town.
Land at LAX of a typical afternoon and JUST LOOK AT IT. It literally hangs in a purple/yellow cloud over the city. Purple/yellow. Like a...
On the freeways. On any of the 23 or more of them. Regular roadsigns.
'OZONE COUNT 1.1 DRIVE SAFELY'
Nice place to live.
We initially lived in the general Santa Monica area. A few blocks from Michelle Phillips as it turns out. But we didn't know that at the time.
Right away we want to see the famous 'HOLLYWOOD' sign. Couldn't find it. We ask around. No one seems to know. Or care. No, seriously.
Then comes Halloween weekend. Torrential rain for three days straight. No one goes outdoors. The morning of the fourth day we go out. Take but a few steps to the curb and turn to the right.
It was there all along. Right up ahead. But you couldn't see it - you couldn't even see the mountains - for the smog.
Or fog perhaps. Perhaps the smog's on the other side of town.
Robert Altman, Shortcuts. Starts and ends with helicopters. All night long, all through the 'city', the sound of police helicopters. All night long. Every night.
Welcome to LA.
'California': sounds Greek, right? 'Kali' being their word for 'good' as in 'good stuff'? As in calligraphy, or 'pretty writing'? And so forth.
Or so you could think. Actually it's something else with roots in 1500s mythology.
No one would call California 'hot' anyway. Arizona is hot, although unfortunately not all the way through. Scenic Flagstaff, for example, isn't hot.
Nevada
Jack ran the K-Mart in Scottsdale. One day a little old lady comes walking up to the ammunition display in the sports section.
'What kind of bullets are those, young man?'
'Those are dum-dum bullets, ma'am.'
'What are they good for hunting?'
'Humans, ma'am.'
Drunks come in on Friday nights. Back in Sweden, we might sit at home and have a few drinks before heading into town to get laid. But of course the way to get laid was to not go out on a Friday night and to stay sober. But whatever. Swedes chase tail - but not Arizonans. In Arizona on Friday night they get fucking drunk and then they want to buy some FUCKING GUNS.
Ten questions on the questionnaire printed on faded yellow paper. Honest Injun, it's all true. Sign your name. Are you an escaped convict? Gosh, now that you mention it, perhaps I am! Gosh darn! Perhaps I should turn myself in!
Or just tick the box 'NO'.
'I can't sell this shotgun to you', Jack tells a drunk.
'Why the fuck not?'
'Because you're drunk', Jack tells the drunk.
No problemo. The drunk turns to his sober friend who completes the transaction and immediately hands the shotgun over to the drunk. All perfectly legal. And no way to stop it.
Not much good sex, but lots of bullet holes, spilled blood, and dumbfuck destruction.
Time to head out of town. Nevada. It's Friday, the Ford's ready, buy a six-pack of Coke and a bottle of generic rum. Both on the shotgun seat. Say goodbye to Jack. Once out of town I pop open a Coke, take a sip or two or three, then, still racing down the highway, unscrew the rum and fill up the Coke can. Nice drive.
A ways up ahead there's a dude with his girlfriend sitting in the middle so he can keep his arm around her. They're doing about 45. He's got only one hand on the wheel. The road gets a bit treacherous, but he keeps going at 45, and I stay behind at a safe distance, enjoying my Cuba Libre. I drink one or two more Fidels before the dude up ahead is gone and I'm at the Hoover Dam.
Scenic clip. Not the way I remember it. I remember a road snaking down from the Rockies, then a drive across, then snaking back up again to what seemed to be a quiet leafy neighbourhood with a boulevard, in Henderson. I follow the boulevard towards the distant street lights, and then, when pulling onto that street, see the Vegas strip miles ahead and down below, a completely straight path to diamonds nested in a desert sky.
Across on the far side is a filling station with a hooker in hot pants filling up her orange and white Toyota. Friday night house calls.
(I should have let that filling station image impress me more.)
On the way down I think of George Harrison's squeaky bottleneck on Belinda. I drive straight through without pausing, without reflecting, I have no idea where I'm going, I've not thought of that at all, not once. I'm not, at any rate, stopping on the strip - no way.
Detour to Northern Italy
Random neuron.
We once worked with other YouTubers to locate the village of that clip. It's somewhat north of Rome is all I remember. The cutest shots are at 3:30 and 3:40. Those villagers are precious.
What we know, Belinda and her hub were holed up in Provence. Their migration story is in a song from the same album. A quake hits LA on a Monday or so, and by Friday they're gone for good.
Back to the first detour. It was a hot summer in Stockholm. Hot in Sweden is 80ºF or above. But in Sweden that 80ºF can be very uncomfortable. And now I was called back to Stockholm to hold a programming course.
Sleep is prio one when teaching. The teacher is responsible for everything and everyone. That's why my Swedish client had the key. Courses only two-day and four-day. Why? I sat with the head of marketing as we tried to create our own catalogue. Why only Tuesday to Friday, I asked her. Why never Monday to Thursday? She wasn't interested and didn't see any significance. I did. I knew it was no mistake. But why?
It had nothing to do with the students. It was all about the assembly crew.
Setting up a classroom is a lot of work that can take several hours for several people. The boxes have to be wiped, everything freshly installed from the course manual. The boxes have to meet course requirements. They all have to be tested. Local networks must be created and tested. Course materials laid out - pads of paper, pens, erasers all ready. The whiteboard must be meticulously clean.
All this is ultimately the responsibility of the teacher. If something doesn't work, the teacher gets the blame. Which is why it's crucial for the teacher to turn up at the end of assembly day to make sure all is in order.
The assembly crew may be hungover on a Monday, but they're not in a hurry to go out and get drunk. But on Friday they are!
So we made all our four-days Tue-Fri for that reason.
And now I'm supposed to teach in Stockholm. I've never done that before. Luleå, Brussels, London, Reading, British Aero, Edinburgh... Not Stockholm.
Normally you fix my hotel on trips, I told Katarina. But I need one here too. I live perhaps one hour outside the city centre. We can't rely on Stockholm commuting. I need to live close to the venue for the four nights before each course day, I told her.
Katarina agreed, and got me a double room - but out in the harbour. What were you thinking, I ask her. Sorry, she says, and switches us to a cool double under street level at the Hotel Anglais, only a stone's throw from the course venue. All is set save for one tiny detail. My GP Thorleif takes care of it: he rings in my prescription to the Scheele 24/7 chemists across from the central train station.
We take a cab to the chemists, tell them about the call-in from Thorleif, and take our seats as they work through it. A dark-haired Swedish lady beckons to us after a few minutes.
'There's a problem with this prescription', she tells us. 'Your doctor prescribed one package with 100 tablets, but unfortunately we don't have packages of that size.'
'So what sizes do you have?'
'We have packages with fifty tablets.'
'So can't you just give us TWO packages with fifty tablets?'
'I see your point', she says reluctantly. 'Because two times fifty is indeed one hundred. But it's still not the same thing, is it?'
'How is it not the same thing?'
She didn't answer. 'I'll see what I can do, I'll try ringing your doctor.'
Remember when George Carlin asks his audience to picture in their minds the stupidity of the average human, and then try to remember that half of the people are even dumber?
We sit and wait. No point in stressing the lady out. No Hadron colliders up there. Everyone else in that goat farm would be the same. We wait. And we wait. And we wait. Finally, after more than half an hour, the lady waves us over.
Get ready.
'Hi!' she says. 'I've been unable to reach your doctor. But do you know what I just realised? If I give you two packages with fifty tablets each, that's the same number of tablets!'
We thank the lady, rush out into the street at the Klaraberg viaduct, and hail a cab to return us to the hotel. We're starving, we still have to get dinner, we still have to get a pint, we still have to get under the covers in our chilled subterranean room, and I have to get important sleep so I'm ready and frisky for teaching the following day in this overheated Stockholm.
Whoever picked us up in that cab: he had a four-channel super-stereo, and this great song was blasting when we got in. The timbre of the instruments was fantastic. Lots of piano, an asymmetric bass line, an extra half measure at the end of the middle-8 and the refrain. Unusual inversions. We had no idea who it was, but what a glorious sound, after all we'd been through, on this boiling Stockholm evening.
It was 'In Too Deep' by Belinda Carlisle. We'd never listened to Belinda before. I got the CD the following week. And it turned out that our own Per Gessle contributed two songs plus studio musicians. Those songs are OK but just OK. One of the crackers is the song called California, a true story according to Belinda as she told UK morning telly.
And yes, that's really Brian Wilson 'singing' in there.
Hoover Dam & Henderson
Back to Hoover Dam. And Henderson. And the descent onto and through the strip. And from there? I didn't know. I just kept driving.
You may have guessed by now, if you've not been bored out of your crania and left long ago, that I should have checked and filled the petrol tank. I drove all the way from Phoenix, to and through Las Vegas, and never checked once. I still haven't. And I'm getting out of town fast.
Here's something you might not know about filling stations in Nevada. It's possible at any rate. And it's very simple. It goes like this.
The price of petrol is proportional to the distance to Las Vegas. Get close to Vegas and gas is cheap. Get farther away and it gets expensive, fast.
Anyway. This road: it's a road, it's an anyroad, probably heading more or less due north, and it's dark, very dark, and there's nothing around anywhere, only desert. And suddenly now I look at the gas tank. Running on empty. Geez. I pull over to the side of the road and turn off the engine. I try climbing in the back seat to get some sleep.
Suddenly I get this picture of rattlesnakes finding the car, crawling all over the car and into the engine to get close to the heat. I see pictures, come morning, of them hanging off my windshield. It's too freaky. I climb back into the driver's seat.
Suddenly I somehow see a vehicle coming my way in the other lane. It must be moonlight. I can't remember. But he can't have had his headlights on. I can't remember why he wouldn't have had them on.
He pulls up parallel with me, stops his vehicle. (Probably a pickup.) Now the lights are definitely off. I wind down my window. He speaks first. Asks how I'm doing. I tell him: I'm running on empty.
'Well there's a station only about two miles back down the road', he tells me. 'And I got my Colt 45 right here on the seat next to me, and you can borrow it if you want to rob the station!'
I make it back to Vegas by mid-morning but I'm too knackered to do anything more, drive any further. And it's fucking hot. All I remember is I pulled into a leafy neighbourhood and tried to nap. But it was hot.
Getting back to Scottsdale and getting back to work on Monday felt great. Being bathed in all that air-conditioned coolness was also great. 45ºC is hot, even when it's dry.
The drive back through Vegas. A mostly sleepy town at that hour. Sinatra blasting on FM 24/7. I remember all the supposed 'professional gamblers' sitting on the benches at the bus stops. The casinos love those guys. Because they convince themselves they have a way to win. Bring it on, laugh the casinos. And there they sit, waiting for their ride home, wiped out again.
BREAKING: LANGLEY KILLED JFK?
Tucker's monologue. Parts 1 & 2.
1:
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-source-says-yes-the-cia-was-involved-in-jfks-assassination/
2:
Almost no one's covering it. The second part with Miranda Devine comes with a Google disclaimer.
BREAKING: BEANZ
Tracy 'Beanz' Diaz has done a superlative analysis of the Kari Lake lawsuit against Kathleen.
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2022/12/12/analysis-kari-lake-files-az-election-integrity-lawsuit/
If nothing else, this should show you how 'third world' Arizona's become and how serious this is.
Maricopa Matters
Maricopa's important on the world stage. For several reasons.
Maricopa is one of the biggest counties in the entire US. Maricopa affects everything in Arizona. Maricopa is 62% of the Arizona vote count.
Maricopa is infamous for chaos, confusion, and corruption. Attempts to remedy the situation fail because the same coterie of crooks control it all. Crooks know how to profit by this chaos, confusion, and corruption.
Maricopa was the focus of the 2020 debacle. Paper ballots tallied in neighbourly precincts always yielded final results on election night until the machines came along.
Maricopa started reorganising their system away from small controllable (and sovereign) precincts into massive voting centres where a single act of malfeasance could suddenly make a big difference. How change an election outcome if you can only fiddle with a few hundred votes and everybody knows everybody in the neighbourhood?
Maricopa 2022 is a repeat of Maricopa 2020 but this time it's 'in your face' malfeasance.
Anyone using that tired phrase 'election denier' should be shot. It's a way to brand adversaries, to creep into the reptilian part of the human brain, and to trigger an automated response. A better assessment of the situation would be 'fraud denier' for the creeps on the other side.
You don't have to be a Vint Cerf to understand that machine voting is inherently evil. Two programmers studying for a degree in the Philippines caused worldwide havoc with a single Windows PC. Distributed systems such as precinct-based voting with paper ballots do not have this weakness. Even Canada's gone back to paper ballots (coincidentally meaning we can know for certain they're all as crazy and dangerous as we suspected). Trump's now clamouring for paper ballots.
Florida cleaned up their act. Yes, they found the corruption and rooted it out. Despite the mayhem caused by the recent hurricane, they were able to have a final tally the same night. Maricopa took weeks and still they're not finished.
Political nuance isn't as important as trust in representation, even though the colour blue is currently not to be trusted in the US. The GOP and its RNC are also corrupt. The RNC's been run by a Romney who's misallocated and abused funds and hurt good candidates. Romney RINOs do not represent the will of the people. Kari Lake had to carry several Arizona candidates on her back because a Romney refused to help. But a Romney was able to blow $20,000,000 in a primary campaign between Republicans because that Romney didn't like one of the candidates.
From a global perspective, which is ultimately the only meaningful perspective, it's only 'America First' MAGA Republicans who can lock onto world peace. This is seen daily.
The absurdity of supporting an openly Nazi regime will eventually be so exposed that even the Dems - Tulsi called them 'an elitist cabal of warmongers' - have to relent. Bringing order to yet another of the fifty will help get the ball rolling.
Part of the strategy in Maricopa is to ensure a 2024 victory for those elitist warmongers. That is why there are such issues to this day in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona. The elitist warmongers need control of those states to make sure they have control of 2024.
Tulsi said she initially chose to be a Dem because the GOP stood for big business and the Dems seemed to be for the common man. But things have changed radically. Trump is very much a working class POTUS. Not once in his 30-minute DNC speech did Bernie Sanders mention the working class. The Dems chant 'middle class' until it's coming out of your ears. So many Dems are today accused of being 'Marxists', and Marx helped champion the mantra 'workers of the world unite', but the Dems today, run by Clinton Cash even Obama cash, have long since gone all-in for Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex.
Yet there's a reason people like Tulsi are declaring independent and not GOP. There's a reason Ivanka reminded the 2016 RNC convention that neither she nor her father were card-carrying GOP. These people, like Kari Lake, are categorised instead as 'MAGA Republicans'. There's a reason Brandon gave that scary 'Son of Satan' speech in Philly: it's because the elitist warmongers are scared shitless of America First MAGA. Just as the world around is scared shitless of the warmongers. America First MAGA means a dramatic reduction in global tensions. And we can all like that. War sucks - let's have fun instead.
To some outside ears and eyes, the fringes of this very nationalistic philosophy might seem alien. But that's of no matter: most of the world's already woken up to what the 'globalism' is that the 'elites' are always pimping. No one wants it.
Or think like this: Those MAGAs on the fringe can seem OTT, but as long as they respect 'NIMBY', what's your worry?
Peace on Earth
'Peace on Earth to men of good will.'
Where's the good will today?
This was recorded during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Perhaps RFK2 can laugh today.
The history on that recording.
https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/The_First_Family_(album)
'Immediately upon hearing of Kennedy's assassination, producers Booker and Doud, along with Cadence president Archie Bleyer, pulled both albums from sales and had all unsold copies destroyed so as not to seemingly 'cash in' on the President's death. Both albums remained out of print for many years, until they were finally re-issued on CD together in 1999.'
Kari & The Machine
Remember?
Kari on Greg Kelly.
She's always a straight-shooter.
She correctly calls Ukraine 'Brandon's war'.
She can pronounce 'fentanyl'.
You know why they're scared of her.
With Glenn Youngkin. Listen what Hobbs did.
Both Switzerland and Australia are present.
At the WH a year ago. She is pissed!
Kari on free speech back in October.
Destroying CNN politely.
On Covid early treatment.
From Sedona.
Sedona is a lot cooler - but gorgeous.
'Arizona has a big deep swamp.'
Kari on Katie Smollet.
'Absolute gold.'
'Kari's destruction of the media never gets old.'
But look who started this - just look.
'Knowing the questionable reliability of most polls, my guess is that it's more than 11 points.'
'It is so refreshing to see a politician who does not feel that the American voters are children, is not arrogant and does not need a teleprompter!'
'HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS WOMAN!!!'
'I love this woman. The fact that she’s only up 11 points shows just how sick this country is.'
With Tulsi in Chandler.
Kari helped the ones Ronna's RNC abandoned.
Katie Hobbs at 23:00, Kari and Tulsi (in BLUE?) at 28:43.
With Bongino.
Ideological Blocks
We know a lot of people who still think this is all a game. Who will not look twice at Kari because she's on a GOP ticket. Who will criticise her for voting for Obama. This makes no sense, but there's no point in discussing with them.
These people notice that Tulsi Gabbard demonstratively left the Democrat Party and endorsed Kari Lake, but they still won't budge. Heaven help them.
https://rumble.com/v1tf034-watch-tucker-carlson-scorches-maricopa-election-incompetence.html
Kari @ Amfest
Is the party over? Kari's the new Messiah to some.
We'll see. Won't we?
'And my pronouns are I/won.'
Start at 03:05:00.
'Kari Lake #forsuchatimeasthis'
'In the 2018 AZ secretary of state election, Katie Hobbs faced Steve Gaynor. On Nov 6, 2018 the race was prematurely called for Steve Gaynor. After counting the ballots for 10 more days, on Nov 16 Hobbs was declared the winner by around 20,000 votes. She was the first Democrat to hold the post since Richard Mahoney left office in 1995.'
'Kari Lake is the epitome of dynamite coming in small packages. Hobbs should not have been running her own election. PERIOD. Let's hope there is some justice still alive in the State of Arizona, we know there are not many judges left that aren't politically owned.'
'If all those that support Kari Lake donated just $5, it would be worth millions to fight this battle.'
Yes, it's OTT. But almost everything today is OTT.
Postscript: Sedona
Sedona was named after Sedona Arabella Miller Schnebly (1877–1950), the wife of Theodore Carlton Schnebly, the city's first postmaster.
'Free & fair elections are the bedrock to every other Freedom and Liberty We The People hold dear.
'Without honest elections, we have nothing.
'I will never stop fighting against rigged, stolen sham elections.
'This is the biggest issue of our time.'
- Kari Lake
'They have built a house of cards here in Maricopa County.
'I think they're all wondering what I'm gonna do.
'I'll tell you what, I'm not just gonna knock that house of cards over.
'We’re going to burn it to the ground.'
- Kari Lake