Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Weepin’ John will soon be gone
He surely won’t be missed
they’ll replace him with somebody crazier still
so comedy will persist

Go cry at home, John.

We don’t know for sure who will replace Boehner (I’m hearing the name Kevin McCarthy a lot), but we know for sure it will be an absolutely insane, right-wing, paranoid, loony tune, cuckoo for Coco-Puffs dingbat (which I assume McCarthy is.

The reasons I am sure of this are: a) the Republicans (and John Boehner) have been quite upfront about it.  Boehner was hesitant to lead a government shutdown in order to try and force defunding of Planned Parenthood, because it’s not only a dick move, it’s a potentially suicidal move politically.  Most Americans love Planned Parenthood.  Most Americans don’t approve of government shutdowns.  And b) because that’s all whose left in the Republican party.  They have no moderate wing any more.  It’s all climate deniers and people who have God on speed dial.

But, I am optimistic.  I see this as a sign that the Republicans are in trouble (you don’t  fire the coach if you’re team is winning, you don’t write the lead actors out of the script if your show’s getting great ratings), and I don’t think the new guy is going to have a much easier time than Boehner.

At least, not from me they won’t.

Here’s a lovely little tidbit that’s getting passed over as we all yell at Martin Shkreli for being the worst person who ever lived (he is, he really is), or look at Bindi Irwin on Dancing With the Stars and say, ‘Oh my, she has grown,’or get caught up in the Popemania that’s sweeping the nation: the biggest donor to Carly Fiorina’s campaign is…..wait for it…..Ted Cruz.

Nobody knows why, and there’s probably no law against it, but it’s weird enough that speculation on the why of the matter is inevitable, predestined.

Ted Cruz; Makin’ deals

I’ve heard plenty of commenters say that Cruz (and in fact all of them) want Carly in the race because she can shovel shit in Hillary’s direction without looking as unchivalrous as they would.  This theory doesn’t explain why Ted Cruz is the only one giving her money.
I saw one commenter suggest that it was hush money, that Ted and Carly had had an affair, but ewwww.  Although I can certainly conceive of other reasons he might be coerced into giving her money.  I’m sure he’s not squeaky clean.

Still others have suggested that he wants Carly to take out Trump which, as an alternate business candidate, she could do.  It seems to me this is a risky strategy because  if she takes Trump down, she will be the front runner and she’s not likely, at that point, to step back and let Cruz take the baton, because there’s no reason why she should.
Maybe he made some kind of deal with her that whoever wins offers the other the vice-presidential nomination, or secretary of state.
Personally, I reckon Ted Cruz has been watching ‘Survivor’ and has figured out an alliance, knowing full well he  intends to screw her in the end.  I think that will backfire, too, because Cruz is an idiot.

But, we will see.

I’m not even a baseball fan.  I never enjoyed playing it as a kid (do you remember that scene in WKRP of Cincinnatti, with Les Nesman standing in the outfield saying ‘please don’t let it come to me, please don’t let it come to me? – well, that was me), I find watching it on TV less entertaining than watching guys build treehouses (and that’s going some), and I do not care who wins the World Series.

Lawrence ‘Yogi’ Berra 1925-2015

Still, I would be remiss if I did not use my blog tonight to comment on the passing of Lawrence ‘Yogi’ Berra.  He was a hell of a competitor, took the game very seriously (which is what you want in a ball player), and was, by all accounts, an all around good guy.  He  was so well liked that he even had a cartoon character named after him, and Yogi Bear was one of  my favorite cartoons.

In addition, which is important to me as a writer, he had a talent for turning a phrase, an idiosyncratic but not terribly  grammatical way of speaking that let everybody know what he was thinking, even if what he said didn’t actually make any sense.

“I shoulda stood in bed.”

“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

“If you don’t know where you’re  going, you might wind up somewhere else.”

“Nobody goes there any more.  It’s too crowded.”

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

One of my personal favorites actually makes perfect sense.  “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice.  In practice, there is.”

But on the occasion of his death, the one quote that people are recalling the most is his famous “it ain’t over till it’s over,” which he said to a reporter one year as manager of the New York Mets.  They were way behind but did come back to win the pennant in the last days of the season.  It ain’t over till it’s over.

Yogi Berra played from 1946 to 1965, almost all of the time with the Yankees.  Then, he continued on as a coach and a manager.  He was involved  in 21 World Series’, and that’s a record.  He was married for 65 years and raised three sons, two of whom also played pro sports.

Now, at the  age of 90, it is finally over.  Well done, Mr. Berra.  Well done.

I’m not saying that anyone should kidnap Martin Shkreli, shackle his wrists to the wall at about a foot greater than his height, pull down his trousers and taser his balls until he agrees to start acting like a human being – that would be illegal, and not a nice thing to do.  However, if  somebody were to do that, I would understand their motivation, and I would not be rooting for the police to apprehend them.

This Creep

I’m not saying that Martin Shkreli should get tons of hate mail saying that he is an evil man, putting his own profits over the lives of thousands of people.  I am saying it’s odd that most articles don’t mention his name at all, they just refer to him as ‘an ex hedge fund manager. And they never say where he lives.

I am not saying that he should get a chicken bone stuck in his throat at a fancy dinner where absolutely none of his selfish rich friends knows the Heimlich maneuver, and dies, turning purple, on the floor.  But it would be proof of karma.

In short, Martin Shkreli is the most evil person in the world.  He bought the patent on a drug – a very necessary, life saving drug – and raised the price of it – from $13.50 to $750.  People will die.

I’m not saying Martin Shkreli should be dragged by his heels through the streets by drunken motorcyclists while the crowd pelts him with slushies and empties buckets of fire ants over his head. I’m just saying he deserves to be.

For somebody who’s lived in the Czech Republic for 17 years, I don’t follow local politics nearly enough.  I’m not as critical of Miloš Zeman as a lot of people I know, for instance.  Basically, I see him as a drunken old geezer, who is comically representative of this insanely alcoholic nation.

Bye Bye, Scott. You won’t be missed.

But, I did find it entertaining, and inspiring, that a group of people managed to get up onto the roof of the castle and replace the Czech flag with a giant pair of red underpants.

It makes me proud to live here; there’s a good, healthy  spirit of anarchy.

I don’t follow British politics closely, either.  So, although I know he’s a conservative, which basically means if he were American he would be a Republican, I don’t care about David Cameron.   I know he’s a horrible person, but I don’t feel it as viscerally as a British person would.  So, I’m  amused at the rumor that, when he was at University, he stuck his dick in a dead pig’s mouth – sort of a drunken frat thing.

I can look at this a bit objectively.  The guy who included this in a book has a serious grudge against Cameron, there is no actual evidence that’s been produced, and Cameron  denies it.

So, this will blow over.  It won’t help Cameron any, but it won’t destroy him.

In American politics, which is the  NBA of politics, I am very happy to see that Scott Walker has dropped out of the presidential race.  After Rick Perry, that makes him the second one to drop out.

It’s worth looking at why he dropped out, though.  Sure, his popularity had withered to nothing, but why?  Sure, his fundraising had dried up, but why?  He was the Koch Brothers’ golden boy.  If his financing dried up, that means they shut it off.

Well, they definitely want to back a winner, and they’ve decided he’s not it.  Expect a surge for whoever replaces Walker in their affections.  Kasich? Rubio?

The reason his support dropped to 0%, though, is kind of scary.  Despite going to war against cops, nurses and teachers, despite believing that unions are the #1 cause of America’s ills, he just wasn’t crazy enough to keep up with Trump, Carson, and Fiorina.

Seriously.  Scott Walker lost because he wasn’t crazy enough.  That’s how bad it is.