Decency

In an election tainted by negativity, lies and insults – a temporary antidote with a charming letter Bush Sr. left for Bill Clinton:

Can you imagine that happening nowadays if the power was turned over from Democrat to Republican or vice versa?  I can’t.  Such is the terrible polarization of today’s American politics (though hopefully Trump’s behavior and insanity will draw the Republicans just a little bit away from the extreme right.  Please.) 

I have to apologize for the sheer amount of political blog entries I’ve been posting recently, but my feelings about the shame being brought onto American and world politics (initially by Republicans generally, and now almost exclusively by Trump) is very strong and I have to vent.  It’s been noted that my blogs haven’t had much positivity in them recently – I hope that will change, particularly when Trump hopefully disappears from the political landscape after the election which should improve my mood no end! 

Presidential Debate #3

I didn't watch the third debate - I can't stomach Trump and his inability to answer a question with substance rather than turning it into yet another nasty, and unwarranted, attack on Clinton.  So instead I stayed late at work and drove home during the debate.  I, by accident, listened to Best of Bowie followed by Ultimate Prince.  Great music, but made me kinda sad.

Match Game

Did you know: Blankety Blank is called Match Game in the US, and is currently presented by Alec Baldwin.  The double entendres are a lot more obvious, and a lot less funny, than the version I remember with Les Dawson.  Much like Crystal Maze, I also read that they are trying to bring this back to British TV.  Nowadays, I bet I wouldn’t even know who any of the panelists would be if they did (kind of weird to think that I probably recognize more American than British panelists).

Not Making America Great Again

It’s clear that Trump has conceded that he is going to lose the vote – why else for the frankly dangerous talk about a rigged election?  Such is the bile and hatred towards Hillary that Trump has instigated that it’s going to be a far from smooth transition to her presumed presidency, and I predict a lot of ugliness and several assassination attempts being made by the crazies who think she will take away their right to bear arms, that she didn’t really win the vote or whatever other outlandish theory that Trump tweets about.  He is an absolute disgrace – to the Republicans, to the political process and to America.  I hope he loses in a landslide, but he probably won’t – unbelievably he is still polling around 40%, so who knows what else he can get away with saying or doing….  I’ve been watching a few shows and reading a few articles about Trump supporters and what they believe in, and they are cringe-worthy and make me so, so angry – their statements and opinions are uneducated, uninformed, idiotic and extremely offensive.  Stuff like Obama is a foreign-born Muslim, climate change is a hoax, etc.  This is all due to the nonsense that Trump spews out, and millions of people actually believe in this drivel.  It’s very disheartening, and shows just how ignorant some people are and how divided America has become.  If it’s not a landslide victory by Hillary, don’t expect future elections to be any better.

Voters' Pamphlet

I won't bother mentioning the enormously anticlimactic "windstorm" last night - consisting of approx 10-15 minutes of it getting a bit blowy, and not even the slightest suggestion of a power cut.  Thanks competent weather forecasters, again.  The emergency local news coverage of the nonevent was hilarious.

Instead, here's a page out of the voters' pamphlet I received in the post yesterday - a 200 page monstrosity covering the various measures and candidates in the upcoming election that I can't vote in.  The "very definition of the American success story" is still polling at 40%, no matter what ridiculous and outrageous thing he says or does next.  I even saw a Trump/Pence sign in a street next to mine.  Unbelievable.

 

Power cuts

I'm writing this blog post early, with a high likelihood that I will lose power later this evening.  We have a second and stronger storm coming in this evening - they were talking about gusts up to 75 mph in Seattle, but the most recent forecast says it will only get up to about 55 mph in the urban areas.  Still more that enough to cause damage and disruption.  We had a lesser storm yesterday with some high winds, and that resulted in a power cut at home whilst I was at work where there were no problems - and on the drive home you could see where some trees had come down in my neighborhood.  I think this might be a sign that after a few years of benign weather in the Seattle area, we are due to experience something more extreme.  There's already been talk about this being a cold winter - it could get nasty.

PS Christmas present idea - I would like to get the GCHQ puzzle book coming out next week.  I need to better exercise my brain, and if these puzzles are anything like what I've seen online then they should be suitably (too?) challenging.

Death Star

I’m in a moral dilemma.  I recently ordered the Lego Death Star.  Not cheap, a bit impulsive, a bit of a see if it will be worth anything in 10 years’ time type purchase.

I had some trouble ordering it from the Lego website – it kept on hanging up without confirming a purchase.  So my order got duplicated.  I phoned Lego and left an e-mail asking if they could cancel one of my orders – and, to their credit, they got back to me saying they would and that my credit card wouldn’t get charged twice.  So all was good and the set arrived at the end of last week.  But then this week, another set got delivered to me – apparently from my cancelled order.  So now I’ve got 2 Lego Death Stars but I was only charged for one.  My moral dilemma – do I let them know this?  I think I’m going to hold on to it for the time being – if they get in touch with me then I will return.  But if not, then am I doing a bad thing by not saying anything or am I just a lucky recipient of their mistake?