Latest Posts

Caught Fiddling

Elections

About that “foreign interference in U.S. elections” thing:  not Russia, this time, but… Britain’s Labour Party?  Even the Brits are appalled:

There are some basic rules in foreign policy obvious even to the most half-witted politician.

One is that you can never be seen to interfere in any way in the elections of a democratic country. You don’t state preferences about any of the candidates, and you don’t try to influence the outcome.

This cardinal rule has been spectacularly broken by the Labour Party, which has enraged Donald Trump by apparently lending support to his rival, Kamala Harris, in the presidential campaign.

Of course, having fucked around and been found out, the denials quickly followed:

Labour denies it has done any such thing, pointing out that its activists have often travelled at their own expense to help Democratic Party candidates in previous elections.

Uh huh.

Maybe. But the Trump camp has unearthed a LinkedIn post from Sofia Patel, Labour’s head of operations, encouraging ‘party staff’ to ‘help our friends across the pond elect their first female President’. Activists were invited to send Ms Patel an email. She added that she would be going to America for the final two weeks of the campaign.

What is this if not a call to Labour activists to roll up their sleeves on behalf of Kamala Harris? It would matter less if the post – which has been deleted as Labour desperately tries to cover its tracks – had come from an obscure underling.

But the head of operations is an important figure. She represents Labour. Ms Patel’s message is that activists should do whatever they can to defeat Donald Trump. This looks like a blatant attempt by the governing party to influence the election.

And it is.  Glover points out:

Donald Trump won’t be [forgiving]. He is vengeful, and likes to bear a grudge. He also has a low opinion of Labour, which his aides describe in a formal complaint to the U.S. Federal Election Commission as being ‘far-Left’. This is a characteristic exaggeration.

Except, of course, that it’s no exaggeration.  Compared to the U.S. political spectrum — which is the milieu in which Trump is active — Labour IS about as far Left as any Socialist party could be.

Doesn’t matter, one way or the other.  As Glover points out:

Of course, if Trump isn’t elected on November 5, Labour’s injudicious meddling won’t matter. But if he becomes America’s next President – an increasingly likely eventuality, which I regard with foreboding – he could bear a grievance against the British Government. That would affect us all.

Trump already knows that the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, has variously described him in the past as a ‘neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath’, a ‘dangerous clown’, and ‘a tyrant in a toupee’.

And then Glover panders to his readers by adding:

At least partly true.

Which part, Stephen?  The “neo-Nazi”, “sociopath”, “dangerous”, “clown” or “tyrant”?

Lest we forget, Trump has already been President once before, during which time he exhibited none of those traits that the Left tried to smear him with (and continues, like Glover, to do so).  And I hate to spoil your fun, you Lefty assholes, but he’s not going to do it during his next term, either.

Just don’t expect any special favors from him, Britishland — Trump’s not the only one who bears a grudge, and if nothing else, he’s keenly aware of what his supporters expect from him.

 

Old Vs. New

Drive Time

I know that I am irretrievably old-fashioned, and here’s the latest example.

Former footballer David Goldenballs Beckham was seen proudly showing off his new car, a McLaren 750S, valued at about £240,000 ($310,000).

Now never mind the stupid-money price (I know, the McLarens are supercars and probably worth it, just not to ordinary people like us.  Forget the money for a moment, if you can).

Now take a look at this nuts-and-bolts restored/upgraded 1964 Jag E-type Series 1:

It looks so hopelessly out of date compared to the 750S, doesn’t it?  And yet it’s on sale for a third less than the McLaren, at $218,000.

That’s also stupid money, but I have to tell you that if I had that kind of stupid money, I’d be driving that Jag already, and not the blingy over-powered and overpowering McLaren.  Just for kicks, know that the 750S needs to have its oil changed about every thousand or so miles, an operation which requires the engine to be dropped out of the engine bay, and can cost in excess of $25,000.  The Jag?  Nothing even close to that in cost, let alone inconvenience.  Hell, with a little learning and practice, you could probably do your own oil changes.  (Not that I would.)

Take a look at the Jag’s interior:

…compared to that of the McLaren:

Note the thoughtfully-placed accommodation for Goldenballs, or maybe it’s a pee-hole for Victoria in the passenger seat… either way, that interior looks like it was designed by LucasFilms.

Sorry, but no.  I love cars, I love performance cars, but to be honest — and this was as true back when I was younger as it is today — that wonderful Jag 3.8-liter engine, with its top speed of about 140mph is far more appealing than the million-horsepower McLaren electro-gizmoded powerplant.

And to be honest:  I think it’s far easier to get in and out of the E-type — and that’s a nod to my advanced age.

Beckham can afford the McLaren, and there’s no wealth envy on my part.  What I can’t forgive is that he gave his son an E-type for a wedding present — except that he’d had it converted to an electric motor.

The Ears Of Texas Are

Entertainment, Music

…relieved, after Judas Priest unexpectedly canceled their Houston gig a couple days back.

I saw Priest in 1986(?) in Austin, and that concert got me to wear earplugs to concerts ever thereafter.

Let me tell you:  I played in a loud rock band for ten years before that, and Judas Priest were LOUD.  My ears rang for about four days after the show.

I am frankly amazed that these old farts can still play the shows they do, ditto the Rolling Stones etc. (but not the Eagles, who are pretty much just a mime gig nowadays, apparently).

More power to them, say I, although perhaps the last thing the Priest need is more power.

All that said, I myself have often said that I would (still) love to play in a band — just not a rock band;  been there, done that, got the tinnitus.  But put me in a quiet little dinner-dance restaurant, playing old 1940s and -50s standards and ballads, preferably in a trio (piano, bass, and Drummer Knob on drums) with a torch singer like Julie London or Diana Krall… I’d be the happiest septuagenarian in history.

I still miss playing in a band.

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice, Men & Women

“Dear Dr. Kim:

“I have been happily married to my husband for two years now. We met when I was in my late 20s and we tied the knot when I was 31. I’d never had a serious relationship before, and I used to travel around for work – so I’ll admit that I’d slept with a fair few people before we met.

“Not that it’s something we ever discussed.

“Last week, however, my husband told me his best friend had discovered his girlfriend’s ‘body count’ and was horrified by the total. His girlfriend had admitted to sleeping with 20 people, a number judged by my husband and his friend to be ‘extremely high’.

“Then, out of curiosity, he asked what my ‘body count’ was. And, having heard his outrage at 20, I decided to lie. A little panicked, I claimed I’d slept with no more than 15 guys.

“It turned out that my husband was disturbed even by that lower estimate – and admitted that he found ‘so many’ sexual partners to be a little off-putting.

“Yet the truth is that I’ve slept with well over 50 men, so many that I’ve lost count. Now I don’t know what to do. Should I stick to my lie and just hope the subject never comes up again?”  — Heels-Up Harriet

Dear Harlot  errrr Harriet:

It’s always so healthy to base your relationship on a total lie, isn’t it?  Okay, here’s the deal.

The topic is going to pop up again, because your hubby is clearly one of those “vulnerable” men who feels that your previous shags will form the basis of a comparison to his performance — and it might, might it not?

However, having lied and given the number as fifteen, you may as well stick with it;  but here’s how to rationalize it.  Assuming that you started at age 19 or 20 (I’m going with averages here, as most women “claim” hem hem to have lost their mimsy-wall during their first- or second year at university), that number of fifteen translates into fewer than two men a year in the decade before you met him — which, to be honest, is not that horrendous in this day and age — and if he does bring it up again, show him the math, so to speak.  (Maybe even that number will be too high for Hubby, in which case you are in deep shit — okay, deeper than you are already.)

Just pray that one of your female BFFs doesn’t let your actual number slip during a Drunken Party Episode, or as a way of getting a revenge shag out of Hubby, just for spite.

Welcome to the Sexual Minefield, honey.

—

Bad Back Then, Still Awful

Technology

I see that Microsoft’s Excel spreadsheet program has just turned 40, which is proof that you can fool a bunch of the people all the time (provided that you bundle your foul, inadequate software into a compendium suite which just “happens” to work okay with the core operating system which, lest we forget, you also created).

I don’t know a lot about a lot of stuff, and even less about software, except that I’ve been a spreadsheet user — at times, a very heavy spreadsheet user — all the way from early 1980s VisiCalc, to SuperCalc, Lotus 1-2-3 through Quattro Pro, while having all that time avoided Excel because its first iteration was dreadful.

Then I joined a company which only used MS Excel, and insisted that I do too (as well as the stupid Word and even-worse Access.  Of course, it required re-learning all my old commands in a new language — not too difficult — but what was difficult was discovering that Excel had not really improved much over the years.

So I quit using the thing, did all my development and report design work in Quattro Pro — which was still the best spreadsheet program extant — and then translated everything into Excel, which was time-consuming and also counter-productive because a great many commands I’d used in Quattro as a matter of course had no equivalent in Excel.  (Bear in mind that this was back in the 1990s and early 2000s, and things may have changed since then.)

Also, Quattro’s companion database product Paradox was streets better than pretty much all other such programs back then, which hamstrung me even more.

It always struck me that MS products, like Apple’s, are great if you’ve never used anything like that before.  If you have, however, and are familiar with the competitive products, MS always comes up short.

Nowadays, my needs are a great deal more modest than back then, so I use Apache’s Open Office suite (Writer and Calc) because a) they work just fine for me and b) they’re free.

Now, if I have to send someone something I wrote or crafted on a spreadsheet, I just tell the recipient to download Open Office to be able to read the stuff.  (I should point out that the Son&Heir used OO Writer exclusively to write his papers all the way through college, and never had a problem — to this day it’s the only thing he writes with — but at his job at Global MegaBank Inc. he has to use Excel, which he hates more than I do.)

So Happy Birthday, Inferior Spreadsheet Product, for what that’s worth.  (Nothing, by comparison to Open Office’s Calc.)