Trump had big meetings with generals, to talk about bringing down Pentagon costs.
The funny thing is that, if Trump wanted to do that, he should be “draining the swamp” that is Washington and its network of lobbyists and beltway bandit con-artists.
Since I spend a lot of time on airplanes and sitting in airports, I listen to a variety of podcasts (they work at 10,000 feet!) including the “Stuff You Missed in History Class” podcast.
They did an episode on the Dakota War of 1862, and it’s really really depressing – especially given what’s going on right now at the noDAPL protests/Standing Rock.
White America is at it again, clearing the indigenous peoples from their lands. As I write this, the governor of North Dakota has ordered an “emergency evacuation” because you know, it’s getting cold, and all the protesters had better go where it’s warm so the bulldozers can get back to work in spite of, you know, the cold.
Jean Meslier
When we complain about the violence and evils which generally religion causes upon earth, we are answered at once, that these excesses are not due to religion, but that they are the sad effect of men’s passions. I would ask, however, what unchained these passions? It is evidently religion; it is a zeal which renders inhuman, and which serves to cover the greatest infamy.
Jose was awesome; he brought in the table with the room-service and explained “I added a few pieces of bread to your order.”
“Thanks! I love carbs with my carbs!*” and he laughed with me as I signed the bill and handed him some cash with it.
tl;dr: make sure you have a good supply of popcorn.
I grew up with revolutions; my father is a historian and his specialty was the evolution of absolutism under Louis XIV and the lead-up French Revolutions that culminated in the big one and the terror.
Enroute to Vienna, connecting through Copenhagen airport on an SAS flight out of Washington, Dulles, I slept badly because of a the onset of a gout attack in my right ankle…
If you read Donald Trump’s victory speech, you can see that we’re going to have a great deal of progress made in the war on authenticity. Trump’s speech was clearly not a carefully prepared and manicured product from a writing-room.
It’s going to be an interesting 4 years.
So, this morning I’ll be tottling down to the polling place to cast my vote; a vote which we all recognize lies somewhere between a part of democracy, and an opinion poll. It’s mostly a waste of time, I think, but I live in a swing-state and I loathe Trump, and I’m casting my vote as a “twittergram to the donald” more than anything else.
Florian smiled around the edge of his beer and said, wryly, “We Swiss are not pacifists because we are weak; it’s because we were rental soldiers in the dark age and renaissance. Fighting for your own selfish reasons is bad marketing.”