(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Date_Line)
". . . The IDL (international dateline) is roughly based on the meridian of 180° longitude, roughly down the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and halfway around the world from the Greenwich meridian. In many places, the IDL follows the 180° meridian exactly. In other places, however, the IDL deviates east or west away from that meridian. These various deviations generally accommodate the political and/or economic affiliations of the affected areas. . ."
. . . and there really was one, single, powerful, overseer of all that there is, it would, without a doubt, open the drain to relieve the pressure being felt by their storm-ravaged city in the west. If only it were so, and this lone, all-knowing custodian saw the millions of homeless people, in the United States alone, suffering, starving and living like animals, it would surely provide these disadvantaged people the common, basic dignity that comes from having a place to live. If only it were so, and a great controller watching each and every one, personally witnessed the disregard, greed, and self-serving behavior of so many of its charges with regard to their fellow beings, without a doubt, it would rid these awful creatures of this abhorrent conduct through the supernatural means that it undoubtedly possesses. If only it were so. . .
I've always admired people who know what they want. More specifically, people who know their mind, what they want to accomplish and what they must do to accomplish it. Sometimes I feel like I'm one of them. Sometimes though, I do not. I remember as a student, encountering other students who wanted to be nuclear physicists, microbiologists or structural engineers. What vision! What determination! What a wonderful thing!
. . . people play and the lengths to which they'll go . . .
(thanks to http://www.mikethetiger.com/index.php?display=mike_history and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Tiger and http://www.npr.org/2017/09/01/547270000/the-lsu-tigers-new-tiger-makes-his-debut)
Mike the Tiger is the official mascot of Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and serves as the graphic image of LSU sports. Mike is the name of both the live and costumed mascots. . .LSU's men's and women's sports teams are called the Fighting Tigers and Lady Tigers, respectively, and the university's football team plays its home games in Tiger Stadium. LSU first adopted its "Tigers" nickname in the fall of 1896. . . a reference to the state's Confederate heritage; the Louisiana troops of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia became known as the Tigers during the Civil War in recognition of the bravery of two New Orleans brigades, the Tiger Rifles and the Washington Artillery (whose logo featured a snarling tiger's head). . . In 1934, Athletic Director trainer Chellis Mike Chambers, Athletic Director T.P. Heard, swimming pool manager and intramural swimming coach William G. Hickey Higginbotham, and LSU law student Ed Laborde decided to bring a real tiger to LSU. They raised $750, collecting twenty-five cents from each student, and purchased a two-hundred-pound, one-year old tiger from the Little Rock Zoo. . ."
Much like Lassie and other animals-for-entertainment, several Mikes have held the title?/position? over the years with a new 11-month-old Siberian-Bengal mix officially replacing Mike VI late last month — just in time for the start of school and football season.
. . . this from a man with whom I have little in common politically, but who would at the very least, debate issues intelligently, I am certain . . . (had to share the complete article)
"What's the end game for these preening, posturing doofuses who call themselves Republicans, but who can't pass a CNN camera without slamming their party’s president? There is a lot of blue falconry going on in the GOP right now, and while it's pretty clear why, what's not so clear is what these fair weather frauds believe they're accomplishing.
We know why they do it. Some of them are truly shocked and upset by Trump's rough edges. He's not your grandfather’s Republican. He's more like your grandfather's buddy who got Pops drunk and took him to a brothel long before he ever met grandma. Trump’s rude and crude, and that rubs a lot of Republicans the wrong way. His cheerful vulgarity and vindictiveness, which many find his most attractive qualities, offends some people because they're decent people of moral character who just can’t go there. It rubs others the wrong way because they're hopeless wusses who would rather be loved by the WaPo than kick liberals in their Harry Reids.
Others undermine our party’s leader because Trump dropped a deuce in their profitable punch bowl. They used to have power, and now they’re on the sidelines, and it gnaws at them. For so long they had control of the Republican Party, and they could shamelessly lie to our faces at election time back home in the sticks, then return to Washington, D.C., take off their sensible shoes, slip on their Gucci loafers, and proceed to do the bidding of their donor masters. Ka-ching!
Oh yeah, we’ll repeal Obamacare. Oh yeah, we’ll defend the border. Oh yeah, we’ll defund the baby-butchering cartel. Oh yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. All lies, but they didn't care. They had their power and prestige and the promise of a fat paycheck down the road when they moved from Congress to K Street. Actual conservative ideology? Well, that was for the rubes. And we were the rubes. We in the base, who are suffering from the establishment’s incompetent mismanagement of the society it had been foolish to try to micromanage in the first place, tried to warn them. But the Fredocons wouldn't listen, because they're smart, not like everyone says, like dumb…
That warning was called ‘the Tea Party,” and the GOP establishment didn't like it either. Remember how all those activated Republican voters helped recapture Congress, yet most of the establishment types looked at them like they were something nasty that was smeared on their shoes? See, the base isn’t supposed to be activated. It's supposed to be obedient. It's supposed to turn out on election day to do volunteer work and write checks. It's not supposed to try to have input. That's for our betters, not for us.
But the thing is, now we're woke, and we’ve realized that our establishment sucks, and that we’re tired of being the suckees. They didn't listen to us when we gave them the Tea Party, so now we gave them Trump. And they're very, very upset with us. That's a key reason they want to undercut Trump. Some people are just always going to want to trash the guy getting the attention and wielding the influence they think rightfully belongs to them. That's true whether they are some donkey–looking senator from Arizona or Nebraska pimping a book about his agonizing moral struggles, or some tiresome op-ed scribbler serving as the domesticated house conservative on a failing liberal rag, or the invasion-happy beneficiary of his parents' success who finds he can't fill the cabins on his brochure’s cruises anymore.
But what's the end game? What are they thinking is going to happen? Do they think that one morning Trump is going to wake up and think “Gosh, all these people telling me I'm wrong and mean and crude and tweet too darn much must be right. I'll change, because I always take the advice of people who I've already broken and humiliated.”
Unlikely, because Trump doesn't respect you. And he doesn't respect you because he's already beaten you. He's not a gracious winner, but to be fair, you've hardly been gracious losers. Oh, how it must gall you to be so utterly defeated by someone you consider your moral and intellectual inferior.
So if you're not going to change Trump, what do you think you're going to do? Do you think you're going to somehow drive Trump out of office? Let’s run down that scenario. Now we have President Pence, and about 75% of your party’s base infuriated at your backstabbing betrayal. That seems disastrous even if you buy the idea that President Pence would somehow preside over a return to something like business as usual. He might, at least until the next election. Then you're all toast. Let's just say that in addition to your treachery, your past track record of total failure to achieve the conservative goals you promised won’t particularly inspire Trump supporters to lend you their support.
Or maybe you think our voters would just be so disgusted that they would let the Democrats grab a majority on Capitol Hill and the White House too. Maybe you figure you could live with that. Maybe you think you can wait out the base’s fury by crawling back into the comfortable gimp box of submissive GOP congressional opposition.
Except it won’t work that way. Through all this Tea Partying and Trumping, we normals got a taste for power, and we like it. We're not just going to just shrug our shoulders when the guy we picked gets deposed in a coup. We’re going to get mad. Really mad. And you're going to get primaried. Just ask Jeff Flake (Dork-AZ). Have you seen his approval numbers? There are strains of the herpes virus that poll higher.
No, there's no going back to the old days. This is the new normal, and there are new rules, rules you better learn to play by. The most important of these is, “Take your own voters’ side in a fight.” You should try it, because if you didn't like the Tea Party, and you hate Donald Trump, you are going to be really, really, really unhappy with what we normals will do next."
(from http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/23/james-clapper-trump-arizona-rally-fitness-president-241939?lo=ap_c1)
". . . ‘How much longer does the country have to, to borrow a phrase, endure this nightmare?’. . . (James) Clapper (former director of national intelligence) said he worries about Trump’s access to the nation’s nuclear arsenal and questioned the president’s fitness for office. . . “It’s hard to know where to start. It’s just so objectionable on so many levels. You know, I toiled in one capacity or another for every president since and including John F. Kennedy through President Obama and I don’t know when I’ve listened and watched something like this from a president that I found more disturbing,” Clapper told CNN’s Don Lemon in an interview just after midnight Wednesday morning. “Having some understanding of the levers of power that are available to a president if he chooses to exercise them, I found this downright scary and disturbing.” . . ."
