Untitled Post - You can bid for naming rights!

• Once again, there has been rioting and looting after police brutally executed an angelic choir boy/honor roll student in Milwaukee.  (Note to self: You forgot to turn on the sarcasm font.)  About a half-dozen businesses burned, police cruiser windows smashed out.
• The usual.

Guess who's not coming to dinner...

• That dude was no Sidney Poitier.
• I want a Jet wood lathe, and maybe also a ShopSmith.  What event will allow me to loot a Rockler, Woodcraft, or Texas Tool Traders store?  I mean, like, because, you know - fair?  Right?
• Had a doc visit yesterday to interpret recent lab tests: Overall cholesterol 126, CHOL/HDL 3.0, Triglycerides 118, BP in normal/good range.  Food choices and bike rides paying off.
• About three weeks ago, I noted that political observer/talkfest host John McLaughlin did not look well.  Rest in peace, Dr. McLaughlin.
• The Playboy mansion went on the market a few months ago for $200 million.  I commented at the time (but can't seem to find whether it was on MWB or on another blog) that it'd be lucky to bring half that.  Well, it did bring half that.
• Karl Rove assesses the state of Election 2016, but gives no clues about receiving political insight from MWB.
• I had a job interview in Collin County yesterday, which I think went really well.  It was a panel, affair, with two women questioning me.  One of the questions was: "When have you had a time when a plan of action did not produce the intended result?"  My response, "Besides marriage?" broke them up.  Of course, I followed up with an actual business example, so they would know I'm not really the next Shecky Green (like they would've known who Shecky Green is...).
• There's lots of office building construction near the DNT and the Sam Rayburn interchange.
• Coming back, I cut across FM-1171, which is apparently soon to be 6 lanes from I-35 east to west.
• Attended a high school orientation last night.  I saw fewer tattoos on the parents than I'd remembered at a similar event years ago, but I thought the students kind of resembled a freak show.  I texted the kids' mom that I'm glad to have graduated when and where I did.
• Nice bike ride this evening.  Coming back through the park, there was the smell of wood smoke - maybe folks grilling at the outdoor cooking area.  Enjoying the cooler temps.  Still a lot of idjits wandering forlornly around like the undead, looking for Pokémon.
• Another Russian woman, Katunya Sweet, wants to meet me.  She seems more down to earth than the other prospective honeys: "Hey there.. I am looking for a serious relations I like cooking and watching tv. I live in Russland. I would be grateful if you could answer." Like, she seems low-maintenance, isn't making any lewd suggestions or such or telling me to check out her nekkid pics (although there was a .jpg attachment)¹.  Maybe she might be the one I could settle down and grow old with?

¹ Heck, no, I didn't open it!  I don't want to get interwebs cooties.

In the Heat of the Thursday

• Would it be fair to say that DJT is HRC's only chance to win the WH? Seriously, with all of her flaws and lack of integrity, she'd be trailing any serious candidate by strong double digits.
• Yesterday's would-be Tobey Maguire apparently wanted to deliver a message to DJT.  Wouldn't a phone call or email be easier?
• Sometimes the news is in the silence.  After much fanfare last week, not much this week about the Libertarian candidate, or endorsements thereof. Is the GOP considering tumping Trump?  As kids, we used the word 'tump' all the time, but in my 20s or so, I remember saying it to my mother and she had no idea what I was talking about.  I understand it's a Southern-ism, but we're not exactly carpet-baggers.
• Regarding the brouhaha about DJT's 2nd amendment gaffe - My sense is that he was being tongue-in-cheek, and 'yugely' overestimated the humor factor, then spun the idea he was talking about 2A supporters' votes as damage control.  I don't agree that it intrinsically means he lacks the temperament for the Presidency, but it's poor judgment to fail to understand that such gaffes - in the limited time remaining in the race - are costing him tons of political capital that he doesn't have, while establishing no policy positives to attract undecideds.
• Word has it that Ted Cruz may have rough going in seeking Senate re-election in 2018.  Maybe the Weatherford car dealer should take another run at it.
• I know what you're thinking: "If Karl Rove were smart, he'd come to MWB for advice."  (Not that KR is consulting for any major candidate this cycle, so far as we know.)
• As I had the day off today, I took a phone interview (to be followed up in-person next week), and had a bike ride commencing just before noon. Who knew that on the day predicted to be the year's hottest, there'd be so few joggers/bikers on the trails?  I've never used a Camelbak, but at a couple of stations along my ride, I don't fail to replenish with several gulps of water from the water fountains.  My heat tolerance is getting better.
• Confirmed - all of the Carson shows this week have featured an Olympian(s).
• RPM's commute may be getting a bit more congested - Chuck Schwab is putting in a Texas campus nearby¹.
• Why can't we be friends?
• Blazing Saddles, History of the World, Young Frankenstein, and Silent Movie are all great Mel Brooks movies.  Life Stinks (1991) was a bit atypical, equal drama and comedy, and less slap-stick.  Nonetheless, it featured a stellar cast, with Lesley Ann Warren, Jeffrey Tambour, and Billy Barty (remember Foul Play?).  Another character in the movie, Sailor, looked sorta familiar:

• Here's some of Howard Morris' earlier work:

• This Christmas, Antenna TV is bringing back the '90s TV show Wings. This will be a plus for their lineup.  Now, if someone would just return the Bruce shows: The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (Campbell), and Moonlighting (Willis), as well as Lorenzo Lamas' Renegade.
• Speaking of Christmas...the other night I caught an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, Christmas edition.  In the show, Cordell defuses a tense barrio situation by reciting from Luke 6, then delivers Maria y Jose's baby, with Trivette's help.  Lots of references to Jesus Christ.  Think that episode would make prime time TV today?

¹ A dated news release was used, for the photos.  In image #1 (with Lake Turner on the right), Dad & oldest son and I shot sporting clays several years ago from the hilltop just left of the bald spot in the foreground.

Goodbye Ruby Tuesday

• Another newcomer seems to be jumping into the Presidential election fray.  Heck, why not?
• Will any credible candidate rise to save the 2016 election?  Can Meteor Strike's chances reach a plurality?  The remaining election season looks like a monkey screw.
• A co-worker of mine predicts civil war II within two years.  I don't think smart money would bet against him.
• Clock dork is back in the news, still trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame and win the litigation lottery in the waning months of the current administration.  The article bemoans that he misses his 'makeshift laboratory'.  If his student desk with a few scavenged electronics bits and pieces is a makeshift lab, my garage is a certifiable Menlo Park (NJ).  It's been reported that he wants to return to the U.S., as the fam's fifteen minutes have fizzled in Qatar, as well.
• HRC could try to make a useful idiot of him - she already has Kazir Khan and the Orlando shooter's father.  He could round out her three stooges lineup.
• BTW, props to the DNC for scheduling Khan, in what was basically a non sequitur attack on DJT.  The calculation was spot-on, that DJT would overreact and make an ass defending himself.
• I surmised something like this would happen.  After widespread success getting representations of the Northern Virginia battle flag removed from public view, the PC crowd is now going after the Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag.  The convoluted logic apparently has it that because someone who allegedly harassed someone else wore a cap with the flag depiction, it's a "racist" symbol.  Lawyers for CAT, Ford, Ram, GMC, NASCAR and Cabela's should probably be paying attention if this gains traction.
• Similarly, certain PC groups, emboldened by successes in recent years, now want to quash any vestiges of normalcy wherever they can be found.  The culture war rages on.
• I've watched several features on Grit-TV lately.  If we get into another war, forget the B1s, B2s, B52s, F15/16/18/22/35s - All we need is to send Chuck Norris, Wesley Snipes, Clint Eastwood, and maybe Bruce Willis (but not as Petruchio) to wreak devastation and havoc on any foe.

Wilbur never knew Ed was a classically trained Shakespearean actor...

•  Apparently Col. Braddock didn't always keep his dong in his wallet - giving rise to Missing in Action III, in which Col. Jimbo returns to get his Vietnamese love interest and their son.  She doesn't make it, but he is able to take out about a hundred Charlies, and with his son and a priest liberate an orphanage, hijack a C-47 and flee to Thailand.  In The Marksman (2005), Wesley Snipes is able to evade thousands of rounds of machine gun fire and RPGs, while practicing an economy of shooting with a suppressed carbine, seemingly earning a 1:1 shot:kill ratio that would've made White Feather proud.  I do at least admire his practicality, as in the 'fog of war', you probably won't have Danny Noonan to caddy around extra ammo for you.
• The schedulers of Carson's reruns at Antenna-TV seem to be capitalizing on the Olympics.  Last night they had Greg Louganis (and more interestingly, Carl Reiner).  The night before featured Caitlyn Jenner (née Bruce), from about 1979, which was kind of a fun time capsule, as Jenner spoke of the upcoming birth of hizr (a term I just coined) first child, and preparing to be a commentator for the next year's Olympics, along with Orenthal James.
• Carson's monologue featured a reference to the L.A. Rams moving...to Anaheim during the off season, noting that the move exceeded yardage gained during the prior year.

Keep on Rockin'

Celebrating eight years of freedom - nine if I count the nearly year spent helping make payments for my fat ba$tard shyster's Lexus.



I usually say I can't hold a grudge - which is true - but, back in the day, if I'd seen the sonofabitch by the roadside with a rusty knife half sticking in him, I'd have had to stop just to make sure it was fully inserted.

I'm over that now.  Kinder and gentler, you might say.

But I still wouldn't talk to him if I saw him at the Tom Thumb.

Be vewy, vewy quiet...

I wonder if a few Elmer Fudds with A.H. Fox side-by-sides, or even some Remington 870s or proletariat Mossberg 500s, might dissuade the morons with cellphones from looking for the mythical monsters.

He's hunting Pokémon.

Mr. Fudd was always pretty hapless afield.  But I'll bet Elmer Keith coulda bagged a tote sack of the little devils...

Pokémon?  Just dad-blamed tomfoolery!

Blowing the cobwebs out of my mind

• Clint Eastwood is fed up with PC.  I caught part of Any Which Way You Can last night.  Trivia notes: A different primate was used for Clyde, as the original orangutan had grown too big.  In the scene where Philo takes Clyde to a motel for a conjugal visit, I thought I saw a blip from Bedtime for Bonzo flash across the TV the drunk motel attendant was watching. When Clint became mayor of Carmel, CA, RWR is said to have phoned the actor to ask "What's an actor who once appeared with a monkey in a movie doing in politics?"  The director of Bedtime for Bonzo (and some episodes of Leave it to Beaver) later had a successful career as producer of a top late night talk show.
• But no one can make the left more apoplectic than Ted Nugent.  Someone protesting an upcoming appearance in Minnesota described the gonzo musician as "[tolerant] of racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, xenophobia, ableism, and incivility toward people who protest his remarks".  Ableism? BTW, it's also rumored he's crossed against the light, jaywalked, and once left chewing gum under a table at Dairy Queen.
• Knowing his disdain for prosecutors, I am surprised the circus blogger did not pick up on this news story.
• China's 'one child' policy, which began in the 1970s, is being phased out. Since about 1990, about 60% of the country's primary schools have closed.  Estimates - some disputed - say that 400 million females were aborted, sometimes against the will of the parents.  The effect has been overcrowded and polluted cities, and underpopulated rural areas.  China will need a massive influx of foreign workers to bridge the gap for at least a generation until normal population trends take hold.
• Tell me what you want, what you really, really, want.  Apparently, most environmental groups won't support carbon tax plans if they're revenue neutral.  Well, isn't that special?  So, do they want to decrease carbon emissions, or grow taxes?
• Leptokurtosis - I looked it up so you won't have to.  It's not contagious.  I learned the word after watching an interview with JPM Chase's Jamie Dimon, in which he referenced a possible "fat tail event" regarding Brexit, which has nothing to do with WJC chasing interns.  Black Swan Theory is related, but not synonymous with the term.
• Here's an old concept that has resurfaced as a result of BLM.  OK, the forty acres are in Alaska.  And ole Bessie is ornery as a, well, you know.
• Your newfangled ways frighten and confuse me.  This guy coulda been a lawyer.
• Carlos Norris for President.  In the past week, I caught part of a couple of Missing In Action movies.  As a POW/laborer, Col. Braddock is promised freedom if he will sign a document stating he committed crimes against Viet Nam.  His captors additionally taunt him by telling him his wife is getting ready to marry another man.  Dude, it's classic psy-ops. Norris/Braddock of course succeeds in eliminating the prisoner camp, amid lots of gunfire and explosions.
• They never are.  I wonder if the captors intercepted a letter from her.

• The other night, I heard a familiar tune on The Andy Griffith Show, featuring Andy and some bluegrass/jug band players (whom I later learned were The Dillards).  I was a bit surprised, as I'd always thought it was from a Burt Reynolds/Jon Voight/Ned Beatty/Ronny Cox film.  Turns out the tune predated both screen appearances.
• This will make ComKev - and anyone else - weep for the species.
• As I was on a bike ride last night, well over a dozen flippin' idjits with cellphones in hand blocked a bike path bridge.  Apparently Pokémon was hiding under the bridge or such.
• I have been riding for about a week now, since I found my compressor wasn't really broken.  Fattening my calves for the killing.
• A newly-wed Tom and Roseanne Arnold appeared on the Carson show last night, talking about their derriére tattoos.  So classy, those two, although by this century's standards, they almost seem quaint.

Mittwoch musings

• I watched just a bit of the DNC the other night.  Whenever I see this guy, I can't not think of this:

Apparently, the DNC had enough funds for a fixed sat uplink

• Or this: 

Write your own joke...

• Which led to this gem: 

The Richmeiseter - doesn't get any Laymer than that, huh?

(And, to all the statements in the pic, the answer is "No, not really.")

• And finally, this one: 

• I included the last because Michael Jordan just recently donated $2 million toward finding a solution to tensions between police and minority communities.  Time will tell whether it's successful, but credit is due for putting his money where others just tweet or run off at the mouth.  Good on you, Mr. Jordan!
• If ComKev goes to Norway in about 20 years to visit Waterworld, maybe he can drive through one of these.  Driving a Ford through a fjord.
• I'm OK with just watching Watters' World: Immigration Edition, from Philadelphia.
• Former President WJC spoke last night at the DNC.  It's a phenomenon that totally flummoxes me, but I believe that he's probably the best resource HRC has, and if he were the candidate, he'd win in a landslide.  Go figure.
• The persecution prosecution of the remaining officers' trails in the Freddie Gray has been dropped.   Apparently, the State's Attorney finally took some remedial reading classes, and read the writing on the wall.
• Is this an endorsement one would actually want?  Uncle Jimmy releases a video supporting HRC.
• Mark Cuban, at times a 'loose cannon', offers possible motive for DJT not releasing tax info.  Other pundits offer different reasons.
• H.P. Scotsman and would-be Presidential assassin John Hinckley is set to be released.  An internet troll/commenter wrote "When John Hinckley Jr. gets out, I hope someone breaks the news about Jodie Foster to him very gently."   Although I am a bona fide admirer of the 40th President, those injured by Mr. Hinckley in March 1981 are now gone, so I am not overly troubled by his release if it's supported by competent psychiatric evaluation.
• From Pokémon to hidden gold: Annie Lennox was right - everybody's looking for something.
• I frequently cringe at some of the 'progressive' rubbish that land on PBS' America Reframed, but last night's episode was very good.  A historically black neighborhood in Athens, GA, sought designation as a protected site when a white fraternity moved in nearby.  Added into the mix was a former Colorado hippie/Mother Earth woman who was part of the area's gentrification.  Between the woman getting assistance from the college boys to clear kudzu from her lot and till the soil for a neighborhood vegetable garden, and the local pastor reaching out to the fraternity, strong bonds were forged that benefited the entire community.