Thursday, August 30, 2018

No offense Bloomberg News...

But I could have told you back in May, that nothing would come of the current denuclearization talks with North Korea, summit with Comrade Kim or no summit.
Weirdly both sides got what they wanted, which wasn't much to begin with, Trump wanted a short term sugar high pseudo "diplomatic triumph", true he got some hostages back and some Korean War  Soldiers Remains have been returned, other than that pfft.
Kim on the other hand got a de-escalation of tensions and a reopening of negotiations with the Seoul, without giving up his nukes or even rendering up an accounting of his strategic stockpile.
Of the two, I'd say Kim came out with a bigger haul, he's kept all his assets and collected a few tangible and intangible perks as well.
Its clear to me that the P.R.C. can live a lot more easily with a nuclear armed North Korea than it can with the prospect of a Korean Peninsula that may be united under the auspices of the USA and its defense "umbrella".

And as long as that is the case, our options are limited, Peking wants a divided Korea, Kim's price for that division is the retention of his nukes. At the end of the day, all we can do is reinforce the garrison and reassure our allies that we stand by our military commitments to their defense.  I am sure the phone lines are open to Secretary Pompeo's office.

Lastly, and this is for the historic record, Congress is well within its rights to ask the State Department for a full accounting of the Kim-Trump Summit if only to assure itself and the electorate that no unseemly or unreasonable obligations were promised or undertaken by this republic.

Rhetorically speaking we are right back where we were in January...

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

This is...

The Wachusett Reservoir Dam,  largest hand built Levee still in use in all the world, dedicated in 1906 if I am not mistaken.
And I hope to Hell someone is keeping up with inspections on this sumbitch BETTER than whoever was tasked to keep an eye on the Alewife MBTA Parking Garage...cuz a couple of thousand people live downstream of this dam...just saying thats all.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

After yesterday's One-Two Whammy...

Manafort & Cohen both guilty...rubble falling from the sky all over Washington DC, I'd gently advise GOP Senatorial Aspirant Geoff Diehl to forego mentioning Donald Trump's name out on the Hustings.
That Man is profoundly unpopular in the Commonwealth and after yesterday all the questions will sooner or later land on impeachment no matter how much you squeal on and on about fake indians and tax cuts.
As a matter of fact you can cut that Indian Crap entirely if you are nominated, it'll only be a cue for Warren to start calling you "The Apprentice"....A word to the wise is sufficient, forget what Howie Carr is telling you.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Wow check this out...

someone is making a comprehensive case Against Governor Charlie "Lumpy" Baker on line, this is a good resource by which to make a case for a change in the corner office come November.  What I like is, they aren't for anyone, they are simply making a case against Lumpy, and piling up the necessary ordinance.
Health to all their efforts!

Thursday, August 16, 2018

You know the Primary Season is at least upon us when

I have to take myself OFF "Barbara L'Italien for Congress" mailing list as I don't live in her notional congressional district and I can just tell she's about to go to three emails a day right thru primary night.
Indeed suddenly the local news hour is clogged with gawd-awful adverts some using that ghastly condescending narrator y'know the one I mean the one that drips with hatred for democracy itself...
Its enough to make me vote FOR Question One simply to spite that unctuous voiceover!

BTW good luck to any GOP Senate Nominee who wants to run this fall as Donald Trump's "Apprentice", polls indicate the President is hated by a majority of the Commonwealth's citizenry.  But then I suspect all those jobbers are looking to make a sufficiently obscenely unpleasant spectacle off themselves to warrant a soft touch gig in DC after the election.


Saturday, August 11, 2018

Just as I've long predicted

the decay and deterioration of the Alewife Red Line Station garage has forced that structure's closure this weekend for inspection & renovations.  This after a chunk of the roof fell on someone's car on Wednesday.
This has been a long time coming, the Alewife Garage exudes an air of dangerous dilapidation, there are holes in the floor that allow one to observe pedestrians on the level below, the dedicated exit ramp is a vast checkerboard of exposed rebar, temporary hydraulic pillars hold up the roof in ominous places...the joint feels in every way like a disaster waiting to happen.
I strongly doubt it'll be open for business on Monday, fixing said garage is gonna cost $$$ and take time with bad ripple effects on everyone's commute from Boston up into New Hampshire (it was a favored parking spot for inter-state commuters believe me).
Meanwhile what is Charlie Baker doing? Formally announcing his candidacy for re-election touting all his successes....and as usual staying silent about bad news.
Our one hope is that its an election year and if a dedicated allocation of state funds is needed to renovate or even replace the garage, Charlie will probably sign it, he'd sign a leaf that blew in from a window if it would smooth his path to reelection.

Tuesday, August 07, 2018

Charlie Baker has decided

To start running campaign commercials on TV during the Dawg Daze of August, predictably passive aggressive he's done it thru some bullshit PAC no one has ever heard of, until now. The adverts themselves are upbeat "happy horseshit" in every way, decorously declining to note that Lumpy is a republican and making the imcumbent governor the veritiable source of soft cooling breezes and gentle rainfall amidst droughts.
Its an old play from an even older playbook, "run to the center like a rat in a firestorm" it worked for Weld, Cellucci and it seems to be Baker's "brilliant strategem".
Ho Hum....
It works great by the way, as long as you don't recall that the MBTA is wheezing like an old derelict on life support or that the State Police is being investigated by the Feds, something Lumpy is monitoring by seemingly anxiously scanning the Boston Globe every day or that the governor probably has never given up his utopian fantasy of privatizing public education behind the electorate's back.
Other than that, everything is shipshape....

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

The TSA has some

elaborate metric cued by everything from travel history, financial transactions to general twitchiness that activates covert surveillance by a team of agents, who sometimes actually fly along with the mark,  undercover....
Its called "The Quiet Skies Program", you wish they could put all this superfluous effort into quieting squawling infants in Coach, they'd get better results maybe...
My Ghod, some spectrumy programmer wrote the code on behalf of a paranoid administrator for an agency with seemingly little to do save shadowing passengers at random!
Its akin to the Arlington PD arresting every tenth person to walks past police headquarters on grounds  that 10% of the population abuses crystal meth!
This is all the earmarks of bureaucratic mission creep from an agency seemingly that doesn't have enough to do....