Sparky is trying out some Halloween costume.
His baby seal costume isn’t very convincing, but is easy.
He really wants to be “Sparkle, the saucy princess”.
Sparky doesn’t want to go with the obvious. He thinks that Snoopy is kind of a tool.
Whatever Sparky decides to go with, Halloween might get him a car ride. That’s about it.
Vote for whomever you’d like, but admit that this is funny shit.
It doesn’t matter if Biden meant that Trump was garbage, or Trump’s ideas, campaign staff or supporters. The words of a feeble dotard don’t carry much weight.
I’m impressed that Trump’s staff spotted Biden’s line in the transcript and made it a talking point or meme, long enough to acquire a clean garbage truck and prep it for a campaign event. Trump and his people are having fun and are quick to respond.
It brings to mind a video shot by a diverse group of Trump supporters at the Madison Square Garden event. In the days prior to the event, the Harris campaign was drawing a parallel to the 1939 Nazi rally at the same venue. Playing off of the Harris message, individuals in the group proudly claimed to being the Black Nazi, the Jewish Nazi, the White Nazi and the Asian Nazi.
I get that they were riffing off of the absurd Nazi statements, but it’s not good to see people comfortably call themselves Nazis, even if it was facetious. That is a danger of making false or exaggerated claims about a person or group. If everyone thinks a person is awful, then the person may decide there is no reason not to be awful. The reputation penalty has already been paid.
Sparky and I stayed up to watch the entire Joe Rogan episode with Trump. It’s possible that Sparky only stayed up to eat popcorn.
Survey to identify your ideology.
Vote for whomever you’d like, it’s none of my business. So close to the presidential election, it gets stupid. This year is stupider than usual. Trump gave a big speech at Madison Square Garden, just like the Nazis. Harris gave a big speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., just like the KKK. Like I said, stupid.
The I Side With survey is only about policy questions. All of the policy questions, it’s very long, but you don’t have to answer all of them. It seems more nuanced because it asks if how much you like a policy and how much you care about that policy.
At the end, the survey provides the candidates who are most compatible with the survey-takers answers, along with political party and ideology. I’m just “Right-Wing”, which is kind of disappointing. I like to think I’m more sophisticated than that.
Joe Rogan’s episode with Trump was just posted on Youtube. It’s midnight, so I’m not staying up to watch it, but thought I’d check in. I was curious how Rogan presents himself.
Here’s Rogan from last week’s episode.
Here’s Rogan for the Trump episode.
Joe cleaned up. Looks like he waxed his head. Shaved his head, his face, and is wearing his nice shirt.
Rogan is already a big deal, he doesn’t need this episode with Trump, but guests on his show have been suggesting it for several months. Rogan’s guests are people he thinks are interesting or friends of his, but that’s not it this time. My sense is that Rogan is trying to help. Not help Trump, but help the rest of us. Everyone else that writes about Trump or Harris, are either trying to help or hurt the campaign. Rogan isn’t a partisan guy.
Trump and Rogan are interesting because they have a lot in common. They have both been successful in several different fields. Both were involved in combat sports and both had reality TV shows.
The beginning is boring, as they get comfortable.
Talking about his first days as president, Trump says, “I picked a few people that I shouldn’t have picked”.
Rogan: “Neocons?”
Trump: “Yeah, neocons, or bad people”
I like how Rogan is using political lingo, and Trump isn’t.
A few minutes later, Trump says, “I always got more publicity than other people. And it wasn’t like I was trying. I don’t now exactly why, maybe you can tell me.”
Rogan: “Oh yeah, I can definitely tell you. You said a lot of wild shit.”
Trump: “Maybe, maybe.”
They are loosening up, so it’s starting to get good. I may stay up for a while.
Sparky is snoring.
Newsweek: Political realignment
This article in Newsweek is evidence that the elite class are finally starting to figure out why they are wrong all the time. The authors did make a fundamental mistake. Trump caused this political realignment. John McCain, Mitt Romney and other establishment Republicans were comfortable managing the decline of America. My younger brother called them puppet-dickheads.
This last week, during an interview with Republican Vice-Presidential candidate JD Vance, ABC’s Martha Raddatz tried to dispel concerns about Venezuelan gangs infiltrating Aurora, Colorado by stating that only “a handful of apartment complexes” in the city were affected. Listen more closely, and that benign-sounding dismissal is actually more sinister than it seems.
Euronews: Fire station burns down.
Germans are known for being smart and industrious, and not questioning their leaders. This leads them to getting too swept up in ill-advised causes.
A fire alarm system wasn’t installed in the building because experts did not consider it necessary.
A new fire station in Germany that was destroyed in a fire, causing millions of euros in damage, did not have a fire alarm system.
Germany has building codes. Someone made the decision to exempt this new fire station from customary procedures. Nobody objected.
Buried in the news report:
The fire broke out on an emergency vehicle belonging to the fire department, which contained lithium-ion batteries and an external power connection.
Lithium batteries burn very hot and are difficult to put out. When an electric car burns, fire fighters don’t extinguish the burning battery, but keep the fire contained. Why did the fire department need an electric vehicle? Because Germans are suppressing the smart part of their brains, and embracing the EV cult.
Here is respected physicist, Sabine Hossenfelder, explaining “Why I’m embarrassed to be German”.
Fox Business: GS increasing dues
The Girl Scouts are none of my business, but a few friends have complained about it, and I’ve seen a few articles, so rather than go outside on a beautiful day, I’m reading up.
Sparky took a dump on the floor in the middle of the night, but I can’t be mad at him. I might be turning into a crazy person.
I am a deep sleeper, but wake for unfamiliar noises. At 5 am, I heard something, and it wasn’t Sparky’s tap dancing on the hardwood floor as he goes for a stroll. It was enough to warrant a sweep of the house, but that didn’t last long.
In the solarium, Sparky had taken a dump in the middle of the room. It was so ludicrous, I was tempted to take a picture. It was right in the middle of the room, and larger than his head. One, let’s call it a segment, looked like an Arturo Fuente Magnum.
Last night, Sparky was uncomfortable. If I lay on the couch to watch TV, he likes to flop over so I can rub his belly. He didn’t want that. Any flopping or belly rubbing was unappreciated. Sparky even went to bed early, which is unusual. As is our routine, I took him out before I went to bed. It would usually be a quick trip, but we walked down to the bridge. Sparky wasn’t talkative on our walk, and almost reserved. I was a little concerned.
Something had him stopped up. Maybe it was the change in routine from camping over the weekend or eating too much of whatever he found in the garbage bag. Sparky is an old guy. I’m an old guy. I’d have had a cup of coffee to set me to right. He has limited options.
Sparky did the only thing he could, so I cleaned up his deposit, and went back to bed.
At about 8 am, Sparky came out to face his impending doom. He knows what he did. You can see the shame on his face in the photo. I might be crazy for empathizing, and pretending like it never happened.
After taking the photo and talking for a little while, we went out for a walk. Somehow, the little tube managed to poop again, but that was small potatoes. It may have been a performative poop to convince me that a ground hog or hobo had creeped into my house to take a dump. Fine, we’ll go with that.
Sparky was crying a little bit after I had to lecture him and put him in jail for getting into the trash.
I’m a bad parent. No, not parent. Dog owner doesn’t feel right either. I’m not trying to instill good habits or protect him from the world. He’s an adult with agency. If Sparky wanted to smoke, I wouldn’t buy him cigarettes and he’d have to do it outside, but otherwise, it’s his decision. It’s like when Hickman stays with me. I want him to be comfortable and I enjoy his company, but he can make his own decisions.
After camping, the trash bag from the camper was accessible to Sparky. I heard some rustling in the other room, but he is always doing something wacky, so none of my business. Eventually, I found that he’d chewed through the bag and lapped up a bunch of barbecue sauce.
When I would take my students to Cedar Point for Physics Day, there were two primary rules.
One year, Jess and I were in the back of the park, near Rip-Cord. Three of our students were talking to a cop. Our students had changed into morph suits. A morph suit looks like this:
Cedar Point has a rule prohibiting guests from wearing costumes. It has something to do with their affiliation with Hanna-Barbara. Jess loaned one student a jacket to cover the suit, then traveled to the lockers with that kid to get their clothes.
It was a violation of rule #1, so I had to punish them. They could serve a week of detentions, or bring ice cream for the class.
That’s how I feel about Sparky’s infraction. The bag was right there, he chewed a little hole, didn’t scatter any trash or get barbecue sauce on anything. I’m not going to feed Sparky garbage, but if he eats some, well, that’s on him. I didn’t lecture him, just pointed out the hole in the bag and put him in jail. In that photo, Sparky was laughing, but tried to cover it by licking his paws.
I left him in there for 5 minutes.
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