I picked out some photos to share. from July 4, 1976, when New York hosted the Operation Sail event. They show many of the main vessels featured in the celebration. I hope you like them. I was going to do this over multiple days but decided to just push it out in one long article. I got my information from Wikipedia, and from a few other books about sailing.

I had the good fortune to have an uncle who was a senior engineer for the Port Authority of NY & NJ. He was able to get tickets to the reviewing stand, which was at the end of a pier in the Passenger Ship Terminal in New York City. Right on the Hudson River.

The large square buildings down low in the background of many photos are the air handlers for the Lincoln Tunnel, which was almost directly underneath us. They are still used today. The cliffs are the Hudson Palisades in New Jersey; and they run from here almost all the way up the west side of the Hudson River Gorge.

It was a typical July 4th in NYC; muggy and hot. At the time I was living in NJ and had an easy commute to the West side of Manhattan. All those hotshot politicians were probably wondering who the young guy with the Minolta camera was. For me it was the thrill of a lifetime, to be able to see all those historic ships in one place. Wow!

The photos were originally shot on 35mm Kodachrome film, but after 50 years, the color was very faded, so I decided to scan them into digital files and edit them in black & white to sharpen the images. Out of about a hundred slides, I picked the major ships, and some shots of the fleet assembled up and down the river. I hope you enjoy this slice of history. I had a great time that day, and had more fun putting this article together for our country’s 250th Anniversary.

Operation Sail featured about eighteen tall ships from several countries. There were hundreds of smaller boats in the flotilla from all points of the compass. They ranged from Viking longboats to some that looked like they could barely float.

The tall buildings almost dead center on top of the Palisades are apartment houses that occupy the old site of Palisades Amusement Park, which had the largest saltwater swimming pool in the world at the time.

USCGC Eagle (WIX-327), formerly Horst Wessel and also known as Barque Eagle, is a 295-foot (90 m) barque used as a training cutter for future officers of the United States Coast Guard. She is one of only two active commissioned sailing vessels in the United States military today, along with USS Constitution. She is the seventh Coast Guard cutter to bear the name in a line dating back to 1792, including the Revenue Cutter Eagle.

Each summer, Eagle deploys with cadets from the United States Coast Guard Academy and candidates from the Officer Candidate School for periods ranging from a week to two months. These voyages fulfill multiple roles. The primary mission is training the cadets and officer candidates, but the ship also performs a public relations role for the Coast Guard and the United States. Often, Eagle makes calls at foreign ports as a goodwill ambassador.

The ship is the sixth to carry the name Esmeralda. The first was the frigate Esmeralda captured from the Spanish at Callao, Peru, by Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane of the Chilean Navy, in a bold incursion on the night of 5 November 1820. The second was the corvette Esmeralda of the Chilean Navy, which, set against superior forces, fought until sunk with colors flying on 21 May 1879 at the Battle of Iquique. These events are considered significant milestones by the Chilean navy.

Danmark is 252 feet (77 m) in overall length with a beam of 32 feet (9.8 m) and a depth of 17 feet (5.2 m), and with a gross tonnage of 790 tons. She was designed for a crew complement of 120, but in a 1959 refit this was reduced to 80. Although she is equipped with a 486-hp diesel engine capable of 9 knots (17 km/h), in other respects she retains many primitive features: for example, the steering gear lacks any mechanical assistance, and the stock anchors are raised by a capstan rather than a powered windlass. The permanent crew have berths, but the trainees sleep in hammocks.

Gorch Fock is a tall ship of the German Navy, launched in 1958 as a replacement for the original Gorch Fock (1933) launched in 1933 which was taken as war reparations by the Soviet Union after World War II, renamed Tovarishch, and returned to Germany in 2003.

ARA Libertad (Q-2) is a steel-hulled, full-rigged, class “A” sailing ship that serves as a school vessel in the Argentine Navy. One of the largest and fastest tall ships in the world, holder of several speed records, she was designed and built in the 1950s by the Río Santiago Shipyard, Ensenada, Argentina. Her maiden voyage was in 1961, and she continues to be a training ship with yearly instruction trips for the graduating naval cadets as well as a traveling goodwill ambassador, having covered more than 800,000 nautical miles (1,500,000 km) across all seas, visited about 500 ports in more than 60 countries, and trained more than 11,000 navy graduates.

The basics of rigging

A sailing vessel’s rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging. Examples include a schooner rig, cutter rig, junk rig, etc. A rig may be broadly categorized as “fore-and-aft”, “square”, or a combination of both. Within the fore-and-aft category there is a variety of triangular and quadrilateral sail shapes. Spars or battens may be used to help shape a given kind of sail. Each rig may be described with a sail plan—formally, a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side.

Modern examples of single-person sailing craft, such as windsurfers, iceboats, and land-sailing craft, typically have uncomplicated rigs with a single sail on a mast with a boom.

In the English language, ships were usually described, until the end of the eighteenth century, in terms of their type of hull design. Using the type of rig as the main type identifier for a vessel became common only in the nineteenth century.  This is illustrated by the terminology for ships in the large fleet of colliers that traded to London from the coal ports of the Northeast of England (of which HMS Endeavour was a well-known example). Many of these full-rigged ships (square rigged on all of three masts) had the hull type “bark” – another common classification was “cat”. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the square sails on the mizzen were often eliminated. The resulting rig acquired the name of the hull type: initially as “bark” and soon as “barque”. This explains the Royal Navy’s description of Endeavour as a “cat-built bark”.

Each rig may be described with a sail plan—a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side, depicting its sails, the spars that carry them and some of the rigging that supports the rig. By extension, “sail plan” describes the arrangement of sails on a vessel. A well-designed sail plan should be balanced, requiring only light forces on the helm to keep the sailing craft on course. The fore-and-aft center of effort on a sail plan is usually slightly behind the center of resistance of the hull, so that the sailing craft will tend to turn into the wind if the helm is unattended. The height of the sail plan’s center of effort above the surface is limited by the sailing craft’s ability to avoid capsizing, which is a function of its hull shape, ballast, or hull spacing (in the case of catamarans and trimarans).

Types of sail

Each form of rigging requires its own type of sails. Among them are:

A staysail (pronounced stays’l) is a fore-and-aft sail whose leading edge (or luff) is hanked to a stay.

A headsail is any sail forward of the foremost mast on a sailing boat. It is usually a fore-and-aft sail, but on older sailing ships would include a square-sail on a bowsprit.^[11]

A jib is a headsail that is set in front of any other headsail, or in modern usage, may be the only headsail. It may be hanked to a stay, used in roller reefing or set flying (as in the more traditional cutter rigs).^{[12]: 28–29} In a large vessel with many headsails, you may, for example, find a flying jib, outer-jib, inner-jib and then the forestaysail.

A genoa is a large jib that increases area by extending rearward of the mast.

A spinnaker is a full sail of light material for use when sailing downwind in light airs. When in use, the jib or genoa would be lowered.

A gennaker is a sail that is a cross between a genoa and a spinnaker.

A mainsail (”mains’l”) is a sail attached to the main mast. The principal types include:

A square-rig mainsail is a square sail attached at the bottom of the main mast.

A Bermuda-rig mainsail is a triangular sail with the luff attached to the mast with the foot or lower edge generally attached to a boom.

A gaff-rig mainsail is a quadrilateral sail whose head is supported by a gaff.

A spritsail-rig mainsail is a quadrilateral sail whose aft head is supported by a sprit.

A lug sail is an asymmetric quadrilateral sail suspended on a spar and hoisted up the mast as a fore-and-aft sail.

A mizzen sail is a small triangular or quadrilateral sail at the stern of a boat.

A steadying sail is a mizzen sail on motor vessels such as old-fashioned drifters and navy ships (such as HMS Prince Albert). The sail’s prime function is to reduce rolling rather than to provide drive.

Kruzenshtern or Krusenstern (Russian: Крузенштерн) is a four-masted barque (Russian: барк) that was built in 1926 at Geestemünde in Bremerhaven, Germany as Padua (named after the Italian city). She was surrendered to the USSR in 1946 as war reparation and renamed after the early 19th-century Baltic German explorer in Russian service, Adam Johann von Krusenstern (1770–1846). She is now a Russian sail training ship.

Juan Sebastián de Elcano is a training ship of the Spanish Navy. She is a steel-hulled, four-masted topsail barquentine. At 113 metres (371 ft) long, she is the third-largest tall ship in the world, and is the sailing vessel that has sailed the farthest, covering more than 2,000,000 nautical miles (3,700,000 km; 2,300,000 mi) in her lifetime.

Bluenose II is a replica of the fishing and racing schooner Bluenose, commissioned by Sidney Culverwell Oland and built in 1963 as a promotional yacht for Oland Brewery. Sidney Oland donated the schooner to Nova Scotia in 1971 and it has since operated as a sailing ambassador and promotional device for Nova Scotia tourism. In honor of her predecessor’s record, Bluenose II does not officially race.

I hope you enjoyed this slice of history as much as I did in reliving it. It was a full day, with all the ships and other vessels, a huge thunderstorm in mid-afternoon, and loads of enthusiastic people on the pier, and around midtown Manhattan.

The full Wikipedia article can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sail

Sail 250

The Sail 250 schedule celebrates America’s 250th anniversary with the largest peacetime maritime gathering in U.S. history, featuring over 60 international tall ships and military vessels. The festival tours the East Coast in five major host cities from May to July, culminating around the 4th of July. Here’s what’s left:

New York, NY & NJ

• Dates: July 3 – 7, 2026

• Highlights: The marquee Independence Day International Naval Review, International Tall Ship Parade, and Aerial Review.

• Website: Sail 4th 250

Boston, MA

• Dates: July 11 – 16, 2026

• Highlights: Grand arrival parade and daily deck tours at Black Falcon Pier.

• Website: Sail Boston

For localized information, exact ship arrival and departure times, and free public tour ticket reservations, check your specific city’s official link or review the national lineup on the Tall Ships America Events Page. [1, 2]

It’s especially curious that this happened on the first correspondents dinner that Orange Foolius attended as president, and in the middle of losing a needless war, more protest about the Epstein-trump Files, crazy inflation, and lousy employment numbers, among other issues.

Inmate P01135809 is desperate for something to distract from the trump-EPSTEIN FILES. Anything to change the subject will do. He also is fixated on having a ginormous ballroom and turning the White House (OUR White House I might add) into another cheesy cheap motel-a-lago. The man has no class, and is incapable of actually learning anything about style, or giving a shit about anyone but himself.

Next up is the crowd at the banquet. If you look at the photos, inmate P01135809 is literally the only person there who is not surprised by the action going on around him. Given the fact that he is a total coward, one would think he’d be the first person to hide under a table or try to run away. This is totally out of character. From what I’ve seen in social media, a rough guess would be that 95% or more of the comments are not buying that this was a real attempt on Diaper Donny’s life.

Now everyone’s attention is off the failed war, Epstein, high gas prices, and everything else, while the lamestream media spouts some nonsense and then lets the story wither on the vine. There might be an article or two, but any kind of in-depth investigation will be smothered,

Why do these morons keep getting suckered into fake assassination attempts? Since this is the third attempt, you’d think MAGA would have some inkling that they’re bogus. Then again, it took MAGA until just recently to figure out that the gig in Butler, PA was a HOAX. Something the rest of us figured out months ago.

I guess the survivors are getting some hefty payouts, and foreign vacations on Donny’s dime. Or are these things financed via the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, or other right wing nutjobs?

When are the Republicants in Congress going to actually do something for the country, and not just for their own self interests? They are ignoring crisis after crisis brought on by a totally insane president, and just letting the country be destroyed piecemeal. As I see it, ALL the GOP members of the House & Senate, the Supreme Court and agencies are complicit in the ongoing treason of trump; as are the military members who are not refusing Kegsbreath’s illegal orders.

In his drive to always be the center of attention, inmate P01135809 is dragging the country down, and setting us up for his Russian Master to attack while Republicants in congress sit by and watch while they get rich off illegal stock market manipulation, fraud, and treason.

Share

Last week I if anyone could name a major piece of legislation that was originated by Republicans and that has helped the majority of people in the US since the end of Eisenhower’s presidency. So far there are no answers. That’s because the Republicants only think in terms of helping the wealthy, and not what’s good for the general population. More food for thought to remember in November. #VOTEBLUE

Wed 4 Mar 2026 02.00 EST

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on track to lose $14bn this year. Its market share is collapsing, and its own CEO, Sam Altman, has admitted it “screwed up” an element of the product. All it takes to accelerate that decline is 10 seconds of your time.

A grassroots boycott called QuitGPT has been spreading across the US and beyond, asking people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions. More than a million people have answered the call. Mark Ruffalo and Katy Perry have thrown their weight behind it. It is one of the most significant consumer boycotts in recent memory, and I believe it’s time for Europeans to join.

Here’s what triggered it. Early this year, the news broke that OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, donated $25m to Maga Inc, Donald Trump’s biggest Super Pac. This made him Trump’s largest donor of the last cycle. When Wired asked him to explain, Brockman said his donations were in service of OpenAI’s mission to benefit “humanity.”

Let me tell you what that mission looks like in practice. Employees of ICE – the agency that was involved in the killing of two people in Minneapolis in January – have used a screening tool powered by ChatGPT. The same company behind your friendly chatbot is helping the government decide who to hire for deportation raids.

And it’s not stopping there. OpenAI helped launch a $125m lobbying initiative, a Super Pac, to make sure no state can regulate AI. It’s attacking any politician who tries to pass safety laws. It wants Trump, and only Trump, to write the rules for the most powerful technology on earth. Every month, subscription money from users around the world flows to a company that is embedding itself in the repressive infrastructure of the Trump administration. That is not a conspiracy theory. It is a business strategy.

Things got even worse last week. When the Trump administration demanded that AI companies give the Pentagon unrestricted access to their technology – including for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons – Anthropic, the company behind ChatGPT’s main competitor, Claude, refused.

The retaliation was swift and extraordinary. Trump ordered every federal agency to stop using Anthropic’s technology. Secretary of war Pete Hegseth declared the company a “supply-chain risk to national security”, a designation normally reserved for Chinese firms such as Huawei. He announced that anyone who does business with the US military is barred from working with Anthropic. This is essentially a corporate death sentence, for the crime of refusing to help build killer robots.

Subscribe now

And what did OpenAI do? That same Friday night, while his competitor was taking a principled stance, Sam Altman quietly signed a deal with the Pentagon to take Anthropic’s place.

I want to be clear: I am not anti-AI. I use AI tools in my work every day. This is not about rejecting technology. It is about rejecting the idea that we have no choice but to fund a company that’s bankrolling authoritarianism.

Now, as a historian, here’s what excites me about this moment. The most effective consumer boycotts in history share two qualities: they are narrow and they are easy. QuitGPT fits this pattern perfectly.

First, let’s talk about the importance of targeting our efforts. In 1955, Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama did not try to dismantle the entire apparatus of segregation in one stroke. They picked one target – the city bus system – and for 381 days, they walked and drove to work. This broke the bus company financially and it broke the back of segregated transit across the American south.

OpenAI is our bus company. It is the perfect target because it’s incredibly vulnerable. It is burning through money at one of the fastest rates in corporate history. Its market share has plummeted from 69% to 45% in a single year. It’s so desperate for revenue, it has started running ads, something Altman once called “a last resort”. Investors are watching its subscriber numbers like hawks. Every cancellation registers.

And there’s another thing that makes QuitGPT different from #DeleteFacebook or the periodic calls to boycott Amazon – campaigns that failed because the ask was too big. Quitting Facebook meant losing your social graph, your family photos, your community groups. And for many Americans, quitting Amazon is like quitting oxygen. The friction defeated the principle.

In contrast, cancelling ChatGPT is a piece of cake. You can do it in 10 seconds, and the alternatives are just as good or even better. History shows why #QuitGPT has so much potential: effective campaigns such as the 1977 Nestlé boycott and the 2023 Bud Light boycott were successful because they were narrow and easy. They had a clear target and people had lots of good alternatives.

The great boycotts of history did not succeed because millions of people suddenly became heroic activists. They succeeded because buying a different brand of coffee, or choosing a different beer, was something anyone could do on a Tuesday afternoon. The small act, repeated at scale, becomes a political earthquake.

Go to quitgpt.org. Cancel your subscription. Using the free version? Delete the app, because your conversations still feed the machine. Then try an alternative, and tell at least one person why.

Leave a comment

OpenAI’s president bet $25m that you would not notice where your money was going, and that, even if you did, you would not care enough to spend 10 seconds switching to something else. Time to prove him wrong.

• Rutger Bregman is the author of Moral Ambition, Humankind and Utopia for Realists. He was last year’s BBC Reith lecturer and is the co-founder of The School for Moral Ambition

Obviously this isn’t everyone, but the majority of what we thought of as “law enforcement” has gone over to the dark side. It’s will only get worse as they fail to meet the deportation goals of PeeWee German, and others like him. I have a few suggestions that might help us all.

Help your immigrant neighbors. If you know ICE is on the hunt near you, let them know.

• Buy their groceries and other stuff so they can stay safe.

• Run errands for them.

• Do status checks to see if they are safe.

• Ferry their kids to/from school if there’s no school bus.

• Pick up their kids at the school bus stop.

• Show them how to make a ‘go kit’ to leave in a hurry if needed.

Helpful tips.

• Be vigilant! Following these gestapo wannabees increases your odds of being injured or worse.

• Avoid confrontation with ICE. You can be observant, but be careful.

• If local LEOs assist ICE, note who they are and report them.

• Don’t post videos of them. If they get no publicity, and have no victims to persecute, they’ll fail in their mission, and it could lead them back to you.

• If you have an American flag for your house or business, fly it in ‘distress’ mode. (upside down)

• Support local businesses that do not serve ICE members.

• I’ve found that trying to call my representative is useless. They are GOP/MAGA and never answer the phone, so make sure you vote on 11/3/2026 so we can get rid of MAGA in congress.

Note:

Call your legislators and advocate for them to stop this bullshit.

White House

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121

Ask for your Senator’s or Representative’s office.

Subscribe now

Something to brighten your day:

Taughannock Falls, Trumansburg, NY

Taughannock Falls is the tallest single drop waterfall (221 ft.) East of the Rockies.

Of course there will be times when issues that require more attendance are needed and they might have to stay for extra session days, but the cost savings will far outweigh the inconveniences of calling them back into session.

This part time legislature is done at the state level, and seems to work OK so far, so I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be implemented at the national level. Coupled with term limits it could make for a much more efficient way to govern.

Leave a comment

I’ve decided not to post any more of my opinions indefinitely.

I’ll probably be checking online to follow the discussions and comment, but the desire and concentration required to compose and edit a complete article has left the building. My heart (and head) just isn’t in it. I’m opting for some self preservation.

Note:

Rather than inaction and passivity in just going along for the ride, how about this:

Call your legislators and advocate for them to stop this bullshit.

White House

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

U.S. Capitol

Switchboard (202) 224-3121

Ask for your Senator’s or Representative’s office.

I’ll leave you with this moment of serenity, and thank you for putting up with my rants.

Whispers touch the stones,

Misty rain wraps like a dream,

Nature’s soft embrace.

If it is deemed that JD Vance will be a difficult president, then hold off on the 25th Amendment until after Cankles kicks the bucket. Saves that hassle.

Then, immediately use the ‘nuclear option’ to control votes in congress. If the GOP can do it so can the Dems.

Finally impeach, convict, and remove JD Vance. This should send a clear message to anyone in the line of succession that we mean business.

Transport all currently serving Republicans in congress, members of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation to Guantanamo Bay until their role in this coup is sorted out. Make it abundantly clear that Republicans would be best served by resigning from Congress, losing all their lifetime perks, , and would be banned running again in the future.

Begin Nuremburg style tribunals for any republicans who serve currently and refuse to quit, with penalties appropriate to attempted overthrow of the government.

Charge the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation with treason and sedition for their attempt to overthrow the government via Project 2025. Disband both organizations and seize their assets as compensation for all the bullshit they’ve stirred up.

I’d also like to recommend the following new legislation for stability going forward.

What should also happen is that there should be a requirement for independent testing of all presidential candidates once they declare to run. This is in an effort to head off another fiasco like we have now.

Enact a commission to rewrite the Constitution and remove many of the loopholes that have crept in over the last 250 years.

Codify the prohibition of tax free churches, free range lobbyists, corporate subsidies, etc.

Term limits for ALL Federal offices, both legislative and judicial appointees.

I admit this seems like a load of pie in the sky, but it seems pretty clear that we’ve hit a situation that the Founders never contemplated, and that needs correction.

Subscribe now

Today’s photo

Morning Alpenglow on Merritt Island, FL

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not said why he wants generals and admirals serving around the globe to show up for a meeting at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, according to three defense officials, who said they and their colleagues were floored by the move. (Politico)

Speculation is that this is to gear up for the elections and voter intimidation, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet. Given that Drunken Pete is utterly unqualified to run the military, it could also be a giant boondoggle. The president seemed to not know what was going on when asked about it.

Curiously it falls on Oct 1, the same day the government is due to shut down if the congressional Republicans don’t agree on a budget. Since the GOP controls both houses and the presidency, the onus would be on them to keep things running. Likewise, if there is a government shutdown, the blame would be on the GOP for failure to actually do their jobs. I’ve tried several times to call or write my rep (Dan Meuser) who, by the way is a Republican, and unreachable. It should be noted that my district is heavily gerrymandered for many years, to the point that many government offices have no democrat or independent candidates at all.

Subscribe now

If this happens the way people with more knowledge about it than I have seem to think, it would be a precursor to imposing martial law across the country. After that they’ll be coming for your guns, among other things.

My wife suggested we rewatch “Red Dawn”, the old Patrick Swayze movie about similar circumstances.

Today’s moment of Zen.

Blue Hour #35

It seems the right wingers are OK with a double standard. On one hand, they have that pinhead from Fox New spouting about euthanizing the homeless, and getting no penalties. On the other we have Jimmy Kimmel who accurately pointed out that the killing of Charlie Kirk was MAGA on MAGA crime, and everyone goes bonkers and he gets canceled.

From The Hill 2017: (latest I could find)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn’t have the authority to revoke a broadcast network’s license based on content, Chairman Ajit Pai said Tuesday in response to President Trump’s call on it to challenge NBC’s FCC licenses.

So what we're stuck with is TV broadcasters who take in tens of millions in revenue unwilling to spend a little to defend their show. Canceling Kimmel and Colbert is just more corporate greed (CBS-Paramount merger; and because Sinclair / Nexstar companies got their panties in a bunch over his remarks.)

Meanwhile Brian Kilmeade can advocate for euthanizing the homeless on Fox, and not hear a peep of reprimand from anyone.

I also think it's interesting that Kirk's widow was so distraught that she immediately started a GoFundMe page even though she's worth millions. I guess that's how MAGAts show their grief, and I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of rubes wanting to donate and keep the grift flowing.

My head hurts. I think I need more whisky.

Subscribe now

No photo this time, just some really good jazz. Biographical info is from Wikipedia.org.

Roy Anthony Hargrove (October 16, 1969 – November 2, 2018) was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved critical acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles of jazz in 1998 and 2002. Hargrove primarily played in the hard bop style for the majority of his albums, but also had a penchant for genre-crossing exploration and collaboration with a variety of hip hop, neo soul, R&B and alternative rock artists. As Hargrove told one reporter, "I've been around all kinds of musicians, and if a cat can play, a cat can play. If it's gospel, funk, R&B, jazz or hip-hop, if it's something that gets in your ear and it's good, that's what matters^]

Roy Hargrove at Monterey Jazz Festival 1992

A quiet and retiring person in life, Hargrove struggled with kidney failure and substance abuse. He died at the age of 49 of cardiac arrest brought on by a kidney disease on November 2, 2018, while hospitalized in New Jersey. According to his long-time manager, Larry Clothier, Hargrove had been on dialysis for the last 14 years of his life.

Invitation

• He was a racist.

• He was a sexist.

• He was a xenophobe.

• He was a homophobe.

• He weaponized fear.

• He demonized the vulnerable.

• He mocked the marginalized.

• He spread lies with a smile and called it patriotism.

• Now he's being mourned as a martyr.

Let's be clear. He was not a martyr, nor did he sacrifice himself for a noble cause. He was taken by the violence he helped to normalize. Nothing more, nothing less.

Still, I don't condone his murder.

All the false patriotism with the flag at half-staff, various GQP lawmakers wanting a Charlie Kirk holiday, is just disgusting. Those same lawmakers have consistently refused to help enact sensible gun laws. It's been said that if Charlie Kirk was in third grade, we would have moved on within 24 hours.

If the US was like any other "civilized" country this would already be fixed, but our GOP is bought and sold by the NRA, and the Heritage Foundation.

It's all a distraction from the basic fact that the current president is a pedophile, and IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES. These disgusting events will continue until we throw him out of office, and incarcerate him, or he kicks the bucket. And when he goes, we need to have a thorough investigation into his medical history, and who was covering it up.

Rather than inaction and passivity in just going along for the ride, how about:

Call your legislators and advocate for them to stop this bullshit.

White House: Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414

U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121

Ask for your Senator's or Representative's office.

Subscribe now

And now today's photo:

A Foggy Day in Georgetown, Maine

Orange Foolius is still trying his damnedest to fuck up the Federal Reserve, and thereby the whole economy. This time he sent Scott Bessent out to try and act serious about how bad the Fed is, and how lowering interest rates can make things better. They forgot to tell you that if you're not at oligarch level income, you're likely to get fucked when they start messing with it. When's he gonna kick the bucket?

In other news, I started polishing my plans for a trip to the Finger Lakes for some photography. They have a ton of waterfalls there, and many of them look like a one-eyed geezer in his mid-70s could actually get close enough to get a good photo or two. Stay tuned.

Subscribe now

I got nothing else today. Stay healthy, sane, and safe, my friends. #RESIST

Today's moment of beauty.

A 30 second exposure of the soft shell crab farms on Tangier Island, VA. The island is located towards the south end of the Chesapeake Bay, and is expected to completely disappear within the next 20-25 years because of climate change.

The Democrats have been licking their wounds since they lost in 2024, and I'm not really sure they have a good idea of what's needed to reclaim the house and/or senate in 2026, but they better get to it soon.

The thing that really pisses me off is that the Republicans in Congress haven't done squat about Donnie convict, nor have they done anything else to actually show that their working. Can we ask for their salaries back, since they haven't done jack shit since Congress was sworn in back in January? I know that when I try to leave a message or contact my rep, I may as well try and speak to Mars. In all the districts around me, which are all GOP controlled there's been nary a town hall, or any kind of public presence by our reps.

Next up, is Bobby 'Brainworms' Kennedy Jr., a mostly useless child of privilege who has absolutely no clue about the realities of daily life for just about all Americans. The man is a former junkie and a total fraud, hired by another total fraud. He has no qualifications whatsoever to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Well, flu and COVID season is coming on soon, so it should be interesting to see if we can get vaccinated or not. This is also exacerbated by the fact that most of the drug store chains (Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens) have closed their doors in the last few months, making it harder too even find a pharmacy. With the collapse of the CDC, and other government agencies we used to rely on, things will be really difficult in the future.

On a brighter note, I recently went to Ricketts Glen State Park in Pennsylvania, to see some waterfalls. They have a bunch of them along a 7 mile trail through the gorge. I couldn't do most due to some physical limitations, but I did manage to get one after some struggle with the access. Below is a shot of Adams Falls. It is 36 ft. at the crest, and flows almost all the time. It is located on Kitchen Creek.

For those who like the details, this is a 5 second exposure using ND (neutral density) filters.

I think that at some point after this administration either goes away or is overthrown, Congress should authorize two commissions with an unlimited time period to completely investigate the current administration's fascist activities and policies.

The first should be a Nuremburg style investigation into how the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, the Republican Party and members of congress, and the judiciary can be held responsible for the ongoing coup, and how they should be punished for their crimes against the country. They cannot and should not get away with this.

Second, whatever form of congress we wind up with should have a commission to completely rewrite the Constitution, making it much less vague, and much more airtight in its protection of our freedom and rights. The new constitution should be written so that the Supreme court, or whatever replaces it has more accountability to the people.

Also one of the key things to make sure of is that ALL Federal offices have term limits, and age requirements, both to get into office, and to be forced to leave after serving your terms. No more doddering old geezers walking around the Capitol clueless, and in their own private universes.

When the original constitution was written, during what was called the Age of Enlightenment (roughly 2nd half of the 18th century), the framers had no idea that a clueless, soulless monster like inmate P01135809 would come anywhere close to holding office, much less being elected to the presidency. As far as the presidency is concerned, we have a two term limit. What must be in place for whomever is elected to be president is a comprehensive physical and psychological exam by an independent, board certified group of medical experts so that we can avoid a situation like we currently have.

Today's photo:

A young girl looks out from the Timothy Hill Overlook, on St. Kitts, toward the south and the island of Nevis. The body of water on the left is the Atlantic Ocean, and the one on the right is the Caribbean Sea.

Subscribe now

My first actual post on Substack. And I can't say how often I'll be posting. epends on what's going on in the news.

I'm retired, and happy for the extra free time. I like to go out and explore the world around me with my cameras. A two or three day trip to some national park suits me to a T.

Around the house I like to relax with a good neat single malt. I can tolerate most things, but if you want to argue, you'll need to have good sources to back up your position.

So here goes.

Notice the discoloration on the back of Inmate P01135809's right hand? That's concealer to hide the wounding from constant IVs. There's speculation that this is an indication that he's got congestive heart failure. He needs a steady flow of diuretics and other stuff to control his condition.

Enough diuretics and he'll have kidney failure, so either way it might be over (this phase) by New Year! Then the problem will be dealing with Couchfuck McGee. I'm guessing that a change at the top will have a huge effect on the midterms next year. I also think that even though Vance will be the top dog, he'll be easier to manage for Congress. That, plus his unlikeable "personality" or lack thereof might set the stage for him to get impeached, and hopefully convicted.

Assuming that the Democrats get control of congress, I think three things need to happen for the country to get back to normalcy.

First, Congress has to impeach and convict Vance and possibly Mike Johnson.

Second, there has to be an independent commission set up like the one after WW-II in Nuremburg; and every currently sitting Republican member of both houses of Congress should be on trial for treason, sedition, and failure to uphold the oath to defend the constitution that they all took when they were sworn in.

Third, there needs to be a reckoning for border patrol, ICE, the J6 rioters, that includes any pardons the traitorous president gave them. They failed to defend their country against rebellion, and that should not be pardonable ever.

After that, there's a shitload of things we can do to make the Constitution less vague, and cleanup the many loopholes that let scumbags get away with criminal activity like they are doing now.

And now for something a little lighter

Relaxing under the Palms - Tamarindo.