This Week-end At The Vessel

So I have been to the outside of the Vessel a few times. I was not thrilled, albeit a bit impressed.

This week-end Ed, Randy, his son and I went to the Vessel. Randy and his son were going to a Kung-fu musical (his son is 30) right near the vessel, so we went to Vessel and dinner together first.

I have posted pictures from outside before, but these are from the inside looking out (or up). It was reasonable cool, but you’re done after a few minutes.

Looking out at the Hudson

A Fascinating Elevator (still not very ADA compliant).

Inside, looking up.

Let’s All Stop Talking About Impeachment

Let’s just stop talking about impeachment. It isn’t going to happen.

Sure, the President has broken the law and should be removed. But it is too late for impeachment and it will suck up the oxygen in the country.  Trump and his fastest, most racist thumbs in the West already dictate our discussions.

Let’s use what little extra bandwidth we have to talk about how life under Pete Buttigieg (or Kamal Harris or even Joe Biden) would be better than our current liar in chief.

Don’t get me wrong. I would love to impeach his ass. But it gives him more press and would make his followers more rabid, not less. So let’s just suck it up until the election. It will produce the same outcome, with a lot less stress.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Disconcerting Sign on Highway 80

Driving to work in Jersey is a very disconcerting sign flashing. It says Lake Hopatcong is open for boating, but not for swimming. It continues, “Do not touch the water.”

That is worrisome if I am taking my family for a nice boating outing on the lake....

But then I read some more, and people in Jersey are just pissed at the government. Bacteria / Schamteria they say...

Towns you may not have heard of? HA!

Okay, Apple news had names of medieval towns you might not have heard of, with fewer tourists.

One is San Gimignano.

Bullshit. I have been to the tourist trap that is San Gimignano now.  It is full of people. F U L L!

Saw Mouline Rouge Yesterday

First, I have to say, Moulin Rouge was amazing. I loved it. Two of the best voices in the business, Aaron Tveit (the best voice in the business) and Karen Olivo (tony winner from West Side Story) were forces of nature.

Baz Lurhman speaking to the audience after the show.

Their command of the songs and emotions was masterful. They've added a lot of songs (from Adele, Lady Gaga, Tina Turner, etc) and it was great.

The sets were wonderful (as shown below) AND it was a special performance for Baz Lurhman - the creator and director of the movie and other shows.

It was spectacular. Below this post is a post of Aaron Tveit singing one of the songs from t

he show.

Aaron Tveit Sings from Mouline Rouge Broadway

THIS is what we are becoming....

It scares the fuck out of me....



I'm going to pull a newsletter review, because I am so worried I can't express it.

ANOTHER NEW LOW

President Trump viciously smeared Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night, prompting his supporters to chant “send her back!” while he stood back and relished it.  There’s no sugarcoating this—it’s a genuinely alarming and dangerous development. But the pushback has been fierce, and there are some signs that this won’t become routine. Here’s what happened: Trump has used Omar, a citizen who moved to the U.S. from Somalia as a child, as a scapegoat for months, and increasingly so since he was roundly condemned for telling her and three other American-born congresswomen of color to go back where they came from. His supporters chanted “send her back” after he falsely accused her of praising al Qaeda and slandered her as having a “history of launching vicious antisemitic screeds.”  After the rally, he tweeted of these chanters, “What a crowd, and what great people.” By Thursday morning, the sheer horror of what he’d done dawned on House Republican leaders, who pleaded with the White House to prevent it from becoming a fixture at his rallies like “lock her up.” (So much for those “Trump’s racism is a savvy political strategy” takes!) Trump apparently got the message, and told reporters he wasn’t “happy” about the chant and that he “very quickly” stopped it. You can tell he’s lying by, you know, watching the video. Note: These Republicans aren’t saying they won’t fall in line behind Trump again if the chant continues, just that they worry it’ll be politically damaging. (Very honorable of them.) So now we wait and see if Trump’s supporters take the hint, how Trump responds if the chant returns, and how Republicans and Democrats in Congress respond if he eggs it on.  We also wait and see how other institutions, particularly the media, treat this incident, and the GOP’s efforts to whitewash it, going forward. There’s no ambiguity about what has actually happened this week. But acknowledging hard truths about Republicans and the country has been a challenge that political journalism has never been able to rise to. Read →

Memories

"Send Her Back"

Reminds me of something.... what was that....

What The Absolute Fuck!

Troops to Saudi Arabia?!? And they are going, technically, to help protect the Saudis from Iranian aggression.

For. Fuck's Sake.

Let's look at the stupidity of this.

First. The Iranians aren't threatening the Saudis. They are lashing out against the United States which has as its stated goal, destroying the Iranian economy.

Second. Trump's administration wants to start talking and will accept discussions based on the originally Iranian Deal that Trump killed (because Obama did it). Had Trump not screwed the pooch and left that deal, there would be no "tensions".

Third. The ONE thing that definitively kicked off the current US / Al Qaeda / War on Terror/ Attack on the Twin Towers current shit show is that the Saudi Arabia was allowing infidels in The Holy Land (i.e. Saudi Arabia).  So we are set now to kick off problems with all sects of Muslims.

Fourth. A vastly rich country, which has purchased billions of dollars of weapons does not need America to protect it. Don't they have a cast of cartoon villains, fresh from killing a Washington Post journalist, hanging around ready to define themselves with our latest bombers and a bone saw?

African Birds, Part 1

I love the animals of Africa: the elephants, gnu, zebras, giraffes and antelope. But I also have a sweet spot for the birds. Here are some from the trip.

Guinea Fowl.  You know if you raise these with domestic chickens, they will act like a chicken but eat ticks from your garden.

Marabou Storks and a few waders.

Brown Vulture

Juvenile Black Hawk

Since When Was Being An American Partisan

This is from an Article in the Daily Beast and it is worth sharing far and wide...

Over the last 240 years, immigrants who came to this country to change their lives and to better the destiny of their children built, prayed, worked, and struggled alongside those here since before the Mayflower. Their sons gave their lives in our wars. The language they spoke, the god they worshipped, and the dances of their homelands were irrelevant in the eyes of the Constitution and the law. America creates Americans.
As flawed as our operating system was in the beginning with the stain of slavery, generations have worked to extirpate that sin, through civil war and civil rights, through the long, slow bending of the arc of history. We are a country with a memory of our mistakes, but still bound together and lifted by a shared commitment to being better than we were.
It wasn’t just that America has been one of the few places in the world where the persecuted and oppressed could rest their heads at night without the terror of the secret police kicking down the door. It was more. The American dream was that anyone from anywhere could come here, work hard, rise to live in prosperity, dignity, security, and even hold political office. Yes, Donald, even Muslims. Even women. Even people with whom we ideologically disagree.

It Must Be Said, He is a Sad Old Racist...

Read image from the bottom up (a quirk of twitter).

I am tempted to ignore this, but you have to call out vicious racist attacks.  The Women members of Congress our President is disparaging are from the United States, except one who was brought here as a refugee when she was 12.

These women are in Congress because they love this country AND are willing to put up with death threats and racists comments from the President just to improve the lives of their co-citizens.

Our President is vile. It brings me no joy to say that.

Re: the bottom box, they are from America.
Re: the middle box, they have not viciously told the people of America anything.

The Slave Monument in Zanzibar

Zanzibar was, for hundreds of years, the center of East African slave trade. We toured the old slave quarters and the museum. It was harsh.

The actual slave market has been replaced with an Anglican Church - the British were the beneficiaries of the slave trade, but also the key forces to stopping it.

The monument is quite provocative in context.
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Some Pics of Zanzibar

We took of the older part of Zanzibar, Stone Town. It was interesting.

You know me, I love an old deco building, especially when it is out of place.

The old British House, now a hotel

Detail above the door.

Having ornate doors is something that the merchants of Zanzibar brought with them from India. The brass points are there based on Indian designs, to stop elephants from banging them.

John Neppl and Rich Wang Win a Sports Inovation Award

My brother-in-law, John Neppl working with the Minnesota Vikings, has won a sports innovation award.  Nice look John!!!!

I can’t have that Ugly mug at the top of NincompooperyToo!

So here are some better faces from Africa....

Math for the Very Stable Genius.

Read the tweet fest below.  He is trying to troll Elizabeth Warren, but - by our VSG’s own math, Elizabeth Warren is 41 native-Americans.

Pete’s Comprehensive Plan to Address Past Injustice In America Towards African Americans

I have read more than a few stupid plans to address the systemic injustices towards Black Americans. I don’t think reparations (a few or even thousands of dollars for the sins of slavery) is a good idea.

On the other hand, Buttigieg’s plan is an fully realized, out of the normal thought process, plan towards addressing structural problems and bring a sense of fairness going forwards. It isn’t reparations, it isn’t quotas, it is a new way of looking at these problems. And it is a younger take on it without much of the baggage older people of all races bring.

Take a look here.  It’s a great plan.

Oh no more for me... I’m full

It is hard to understand the volume of Wildebeests on migration. But these pictures might help. At the bottom are pictures of numbers. But the two above are even more interesting. Both show animals walking, calmly, near the lions. That is because the lions are full.  They’re stuffed! Everyone knows they are safe, at least for a moment.

This is odd .. “No Standing”

The Trump administration claims a ”victory” in this decision, but it seems odd to me.

The case was thrown out because the State of Maryland and District of Columbia have “no standing” to sue the President for violating the Constitution. I am not sure who does have “standing” to do that?

The idea of “no standing” as I understand it, means that the state or district isn’t being harmed by the President violating the Constitution.  But who is? I mean this means that the President violates the Constitution and as long as no one is “hurt” it’s okay.

Why doesn’t that work with speeding?  Why doesn’t that work for drug violations? Why doesn’t that work for regular people, why only the President?

Kind of the point

This headline is funny. The point of legal cannabis is to use it as a bit of relaxation / medicinal use. I use a little to help me sleep instead of sleeping pills.  It’s been great.

But of course it pushes out drug users. It is the same reason that then end of prohibition ended the mob’s rule of bootleg hootch.

A Newly Born Elephant

This little guy was a highlight of the Ngorongoro Crater...

A Video of Wildebeest...

The day before I took this video, there were no Wildebeests in this entire area.  I hope you can see the video well. It was amazing.

I’ve been derelict

Well, we’re back from Safari and it was freaking amazing.  I’m going to start with some pictures of the lions and cats.  In the close pictures they were full from the migration.  They didn’t care about you because they were stuffed!