IRA'S STUPID STUFF - EARLY AUGUST, 2016

1. An NBA all-star basketball player posted a picture of his penis to the public on Instagram or Snapchat or some such. "I pushed the wrong button," he said. "It could happen to anyone." Not to me. But this sort of thing seems to happen often to NBA players. Did you see that the US Olympic team 'accidentally' had drinks in a Rio bordello? Oops...

2. Kansas elects a doctrinaire, tax-slashing governor and state legislature. After a few years, Kansas faces such a huge budget crisis that the Speaker of the Kansas State House of Representatives lost in his primary, one of about a dozen other tax-cutting conservatives in the Kansas legislature to lose their seats. Even a notorious Kansas Tea Party member of the US House of Representatives lost.

Wait a minute. That's smart stuff. Never mind...

3. Trump says that he'll keep Putin out of Ukraine. A little late for that, don't you think?

4. A Texas law allowing students to bring concealed weapons onto university campuses goes into effect on the 50th anniversary of one of the first mass shootings in American history that took place...wait for it...on a Texas university campus. If it was in any other state but Texas, you'd just know that it was a joke. It's not.

5. A spokeswoman for Trump tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the dead Marine whose parents have been involved in a tussle with Trump was probably killed because Obama and Hillary changed the rules of engagement in Iraq...in 2004...four years before Obama took office. You're fired! The only member of the Trump campaign allowed to lie with impunity is Trump!

6. Hillary doubles down. "The FBI says that I told the truth about the emails." Not really. Just admit that you screwed up and move on. Or, as Krauthammer has said, take lying lessons from Bill.

7. Florida's Governor Rick Scott demands that the federal government step up with anti-zika funding after he cuts Florida's pest research and control budget by 50%. It's the new States Rights mantra from conservatives...the states have the right to demand federal bailouts.

EXPAT BONUS: 600,000 or so recipients of retirement benefits from the American Social Security Administration were no longer able to access their online accounts as of August 1st. In order to increase cyber security, Social Security now requires you to register a text-enabled cell phone. You log in using a user name and password, they text you an access code to input. One problem. The system only allows you to register a cellphone with an American telephone number. Either the government can't figure out how to accommodate 600,000 foreign-residing recipients, doesn't realize that foreign-residing recipients were being locked out of the system, or just doesn't care. Either way, stupid.

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats. So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up? It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t

CONGRATULATIONS, DUNCAN AND FIONA: JUNE 1, 2019

We've known Duncan since he was about 5 and were honored to be invited to all of the festivities surrounding his wedding to Fiona. The wedding was held in a magazine converted to a military museum in Gosport. Duncan's dream...a wedding in a place where they used to blow things up. I've never been around so many uniforms. Live Long and Prosper! A kiss was the price to continue... That's Duncan's sister Clair arriving on the right. Grandparents...headed for 100 and sharp as tacks. Reception in an old magazine/museum. Mom baked the cake and made the ducks to order. Not from the wedding but seemed appropriate.

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look

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