STUPID STUFF - APRIL/MAY, 2019: SPEEDING PIDGEON, LYFT, US TAXES, REALITY, AND MORE

A German speed camera recently snapped a picture of a pidgeon flying 45 kph in a 30 kph zone. Law enforcement does not believe that an arrest is imminent.

In response to a lawsuit concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act, Lyft's lawyers argued in court that Lyft is not a transportation company. They are a technology platform. That's like Ben and Jerry saying that they don't make ice cream. They provide cultural commentary that tastes good. UPDATE: The EU courts have just ruled that Airbnb is not a real estate company. It's a technology platform! Live long and be amazed...

The US Congress has moved forward the (intentionally?) misnamed Taxpayer First Act that would prohibit the government from developing free tax preparation software. Sellers of for-profit software who distribute campaign contributions on a bipartisan basis helped write the legislation. But campaign contributions have nothing to do with the legislation, right? And contributions from Big Pharma had nothing to do with Congress forbidding Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices either. Right? Or am I missing something?

"[If he] was smart, he would’ve put his name on it  You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you."

Who said it? Where was it said? Who might we forget?

During a recent visit, Trump said that George Washington should have put his name on Mount Vernon. Otherwise, why would we remember him? I guess that Washington wasn't smart.

A scientist from Harvard says that it is likely that we are living in a computer simulation, that a sufficiently technologically advanced society could create such a simulation and that we could probably do so ourselves in 100 years or so.
      Scientists at Oxford say that they have proven, using quantum physics, that the reality that we experience could not be a simulation, that there is such a thing as a discernible, definable objective reality. Let the debate begin. Is there such a thing as objective reality or is all that we experience a shared construct? Is Schrodinger's Cat alive or dead? Is Schrodinger's Cat alive AND dead?
      A more important question might be: Will global warming effect the taste of my favorite wine or the price of my favorite wine? These are the sorts of problems that define my reality for me.

Mitch McConnell, who loves to call out Democrats for obstruction, has approved a re-election video touting his obstruction of Obama's pick of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court.

Theresa May is the PM. Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of the opposition. Nigel Farage is running in the upcoming EU elections to represent the UK in an institution that he wants to leave. Boris Johnson could very well be the next PM, otherwise it might be Corbyn.

You can't make stuff like this up. That's why it belongs in Stupid Stuff.

BORIS JOHNSON EXPLAINS BREXIT

SECRET RECORDING OF THE MEETING BETWEEN MAY AND CORBYN

AOC & HILLARY, BREXIT, BOEING, AND BEING LIBERAL: MARCH 2019 RANT

AOC & HILLARY
They've got their knives out and they are coming after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She only has another forty years or so of savaging to endure before she can truly understand how Hillary feels.


BREXIT
Is Bercow a hero or a villain? In my estimation, he's the adult in the room. Even if you believe that he is interfering, that interference demonstrates a level of competence that I haven't seen from May or Corbyn or just about anyone else in Parliament.

BOEING
From what I have read, since a plane may stall if it climbs at too steep an angle, Boeing put sensors on the 737 Max to automatically nose the plane down if the sensors detect what the sensors consider a dangerous climb angle. It may be that a single malfunctioning sensor caused two recent crashes. I repeat...MAY be. My reading further indicates that sensors automatically nosing down planes at takeoff is a known phenomena. Pilots are actually trained in the override procedure.

That training MAY give Boeing cover to blame the pilots for their design flaw, if that flaw is found to be at fault. 

To quote Tom Hanks quoting Sully, "Can we get serious now?" (If you don't know the scene that I'm talking about, search that quote on YouTube.) If you have to train pilots to handle a common design flaw, the designers, the manufacturers, and the FAA are the responsible parties whether or not the pilots were properly trained.

BEING LIBERAL
I thought that I was a liberal. I believe that a woman should have control over her own body. I believe in equal pay for equal work. And that color makes a difference in paintings but not in people. And that if the state imprisons people, the state should run the prisons in addition to collecting the garbage and owning and operating the turnpikes.

I know that single-payer healthcare leads to better outcomes.

I thought all of that makes me a liberal. I have recently discovered that I'm not a liberal. I am a neo-liberal. Why? Because I haven't given up entirely on capitalism.

Progressives tell me that I'm dead wrong. Capitalism is bankrupt. I should embrace democratic socialism. But here's the rub. I live in France, a country that damn near invented democratic socialism, on a continent with several democratic socialist governments. And guess what. Capitalism is alive and well. Entrepreneurship thrives. There's even a profitable and competitive supplemental health insurance industry to go along with single-payer.

So call me a neo-liberal. Just don't call me late for supper.

BONUS
Newt  Gingrich should sue Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for plagiarism. Gingrich co-authored the Contract With America, a document that contained reforms that were both politically and economically unattainable. The object of the exercise was to move his political party farther away from the political center and toward the fringe that he and his cohorts represented.

He succeeded. It took more than two decades, but Republicans have embraced that fringe.

Now comes AOC and the Green New Deal, a politically and economically unattainable manifesto designed to move her political party farther away from the political center and towards the fringe that she and her cohorts represent.

Those who do not study history don't realize that we have been here before...

  

PEANUT BUTTER, E-TAIL, AND YES, BREXIT AND TRUMP: JANUARY, 2019 RANT

PEANUT BUTTER

What's so hard about it? You take a pile of peanuts, you grind 'em up, you put the resulting paste in a jar, and there you have it. Peanut butter. High in protein. Calorie dense, yes. But not excessively so. It's good for you, dammit. And if you keep it simple without adding sweeteners or stirring in chocolate, it's an inexpensive, natural food.

Peanut butter is an essential part of my daily breakfast. I take a few fibrous crackers (fiber is good for you), spread some peanut butter on them (for morning protein), and cover the peanut butter with blackberry jam (high in vitamin C). In preparation for this post, I even read about a 2009 study that found that rats who were fed blackberries had improved cognitive and motor skills over a control group. So don't give me a hard time for breakfasting on PB&J. Nobody's going to mess with my cognitive skills by putting me in a control group, thank you very much.

Apparently, however, the French don't appreciate the benefits of the humble goober and its accompanying comestibles. When we first arrived in France going on five years ago, I found jars of the heavenly paté d'arachide for under 5€/kg. Cheap as chips. Over the years, more and more imported jars became available - Skippy and Reese's and others - but they sold for 10€/kg. 14€/kg, and more. Fine. Go gourmet if you must. The cheap stuff was still available.

Until now.

Gone from E.Leclerc. Gone from Carrefour. Gone from Géant. Gone. I either have to spend way too much money or give up peanut butter altogether. The French can't keep Nutella on the shelves, for heaven's sake. They make a spreadable paste out of Speculos, the French equivalent of graham crackers. But peanut butter? Can't be bothered. As one frustrated blogger has complained, the French will slather garlic butter on snails but find peanut butter disgusting? How does that work?

There's no excuse for it. No excuse.

E-TAIL IN FRANCE

Jeff Bezos is a genius. Well, except for the prenup thing. But the idea that you don't need a brick-and-mortar store to build a retail empire was inspired. In France, Amazon's major e-tail competitor, pale by comparison, is Cdiscount. I don't use Cdiscount much, mostly to comparison shop. And sure enough, when Cathey decided that she needed another wall-mounted kitchen cabinet, Cdiscount came up with the winner. A close match to our current cabinets, which are of course no longer in production, and reasonably priced as well. Free delivery. I made the order.

Do you want to join our discount club?

No.

Free for the first month. Are you certain?

Yes. I'm certain. Can I buy the cabinet, please.

(Remember, this is all in French. At times like this, Google Translate is your friend.)

Okay. Credit card please.

And so I paid. And so I discovered that Cdiscount would not be the supplier of the cabinet. No. Cdiscount, having received payment, sent me to Comforium, a purveyor of kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Apparently Belgian. At least, it appears that the cabinet would be coming from Belgium.

I quickly received an email from Comforium confirming my order and giving me a delivery date of no later than November 27. So far so good.

On December  3, I emailed Comforium and copied Cdiscount. Where's the cabinet?

It's being prepared for shipment.

When can I expect it?

Next week.

Repeat on December 17.

Repeat on December 24. I added that if the cabinet did not arrive the following week, I would expect my money back. If that seems unduly patient of me, you must understand. This is France. Not quite Mexico, but certainly not the United States. You expect timely communication? You expect timely delivery? What planet do you live on?

You learn patience or you stroke out.

On January 7, I received an email from Comforium. The cabinet that I ordered isn't in stock any more and there's not a date certain for restock. With Google translate in reserve, I initiated an online chat with Comforium. Cathey and I had gone up on the Comforium website and had found a cabinet substantially the same as the one that we had ordered but without windows in the doors. A little icon indicated that it was in stock. Fingers crossed...

Could we order that one instead? Reference number so-and-so...

Yes. it's in stock. I'll have customer service call you to confirm.

I'd really rather have them email me. I have trouble understanding French on the phone.

Noted.

Of course, within the hour, customer service called. But I got through it. Then came an email with a link to follow to track the order.

Meanwhile, Cdiscount sent me an email. Your refund should arrive within 72 hours. Hmmm. And yes, a couple of days later a full refund appeared in my bank account. The same day, the cabinet left Belgium. And yesterday I received a voicemail announcing delivery tomorrow between 13h00 and 15h00.

Will the cabinet arrive? Will the driver expect payment? If not, will either Comforium or Cdiscount realize that they've shipped me a free cabinet?

Stay tuned.

BREXIT AND TRUMP

Holy Shit! That's all. Just that. Holy Shit!

FRENCH YELLOW VESTS, BREXIT, AND THE COLOR OF CONCRETE: 12-2018

A friend worried that she'd been dropped from my blog's feed because she hadn't read anything from me for a couple of months. Shame on me. Yes, there have been problems and there's been work to be done. But I have an opinion for every minute of every day and I type reasonably well. So what am I waiting for?

THE COLOR OF CONCRETE: We live in the oldest part of our village, maybe 50 meters from the site of the original Roman villa, in a house that has probably been inhabited in some configuration or another for 1,000 years. We're packed in tightly with our neighbors. Our front door opens onto a pedestrian walkway that we can just barely fit our car into if we approach it from a certain angle. But the walkway is barely wider than the car, it's illegal to park there for longer than it takes to offload our stuff, and there's no way out except to back and fill and return the way we came.

The pieton, as we call it, used to be paved with bricks. This past summer, the town decided to replace water lines. They pulled up the bricks, covered everything with dust and dirt and mud, replaced the lines, and then poured concrete instead of replacing the bricks. It's a shame. A concrete sidewalk is easier to keep clean, yes. A boon for the young ladies who work for the town sweeping and cleaning our streets and sidewalks daily. But a concrete sidewalk simply has none of the rustic charm of a brick-paved walkway.

Last week, a work crew began digging up one half of the new walkway. Why? Well, after they poured the second half of the walkway this summer, it rained just enough to slightly change the color of the concrete. So the two halves of the walkway didn't match. That meant redoing one half and matching it to the other.

This tells you two things about the French. They don't have the good sense not to pour concrete in the rain. And color coordination is more important than money.

BREXIT: The world is getting smaller. The idea that a small island with a mid-sized economy can compete globally with the European Union, the USofA, China, Russia, India, South Korea, and even Japan is absurd. (Yes, the UK has the world's fifth largest economy. But that's today with free access to its largest trading partner, the EU. After Brexit?) The idea that a better deal than the one that Theresa May brokered but could not possibly get through Parliament can be renegotiated with the EU is absurd. Brexiteer Tories calling for a vote of no confidence when they had no chance of winning, thereby accomplishing nothing except their egotistically greedy goal of weakening the leader of their own party and assuring her departure sooner rather than later, is absurd. The fact that the best that Labor can do in terms of an alternative to PM May is Jeremy Corbin is absurd.

This tells you two things about the English. The English system of higher education has created a coterie of elite, self-serving, unpatriotic twerps who care more for the way that the seams on their trousers fall when they sit at their desks, counting their money, than they do for the health and welfare of their home country. And that the English are just as susceptible to covert Russian disruptive influence as was the USofA during our last Presidential election.

YELLOW VESTS: I asked an American friend living in Paris if the lawlessness was as widespread as it appeared in the media. Yes, she said. So I don't go near the Champs-Elysées. Well, the Champs-Elysées isn't all of Paris and Paris isn't all of France. Yes, there are goons of the extreme right and extreme left who have taken advantage of the situation, mostly in urban settings where they can remain anonymous. Remember, we're probably talking about maybe a couple of hundred bad apples in a movement that put hundreds of thousands of people on the streets.

The rural French are the backbone of the movement and they have a right to be upset. The government has pushed the use of diesel cars and trucks for years. The thinking was that diesels last longer than gasoline-powered motors and are more cost-effective to operate over the long term. Thus, diesel fuel has been subsidized. As a result, every French grape grower owns a little white diesel-powered van (usually inhabited by a little white dog) and all of their families own diesel-powered cars. Suddenly, though, the French government has changed course. The environment takes precedence. What had been encouraged was now about to be discouraged and heavily taxed. Why? To reduce France's carbon footprint. (And France, with its heavy reliance on nuclear energy, already has one of the smallest carbon footprints of any industrialized country.)

So we are stopped just about daily at a local traffic circle here in the rural south. The GJs (Gilets Jaunes = Yellow Vests) hand out flyers detailing the cost of government, the pay and fringe benefits of government ministers as compared to the income of local farmers. They explain that Macron is taking food from their mouths. I tell them that I'm an American. "Vous avez Macron. Nous avons Trump." They laugh. And then they raise the barriers and we are on our way in less than five minutes.

Those are the folks that are the true face of the GJs, not the bomb-throwers.

But my American friends, at least those who support the anti-immigration rhetoric of Trump and his ilk, will tell you that FRANCE IS BURNING! REVOLUTION! THEY ARE CHANTING 'WE WANT TRUMP' IN THE STREETS!

This tells you two things about Americans. The first is that those who claim that the media are peddling fake news are the first to believe the media if the reporting fits their agenda. And they forget the Boston Tea Party, when Americans rebelled against a far away and seemingly disinterested government that put a tax on a staple by destroying private property. Every American has heard that story in school. But most Americans have the long-term memory of a fruit fly and a capacity similar to that same fruit fly to think critically.

SOUPY SALES, FACEBOOK, BREXIT, AND TRUMP: WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT - AUGUST, 2018

If your family in the USofA owned a television in the early days of broadcasting and as a child you were given the opportunity to watch it, you had many shows to choose from. They're considered classics now. Generally shown during late afternoons or on the weekends, kid shows included Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Leave It to Beaver, Sky King, The Lone Ranger, Father Knows Best, Zorro, Make Room for Daddy, and a bunch more. Simple tales for a simpler time.

I didn't really enjoy the most popular kid shows that featured puppets. I was too young for Kukla, Fran and Ollie and too old for Lamb Chop.  But there was one show that featured puppets and a couple who lived in a pot-bellied stove and giant talking dogs and a guy with a big bow tie. That guy was Soupy Sales and the show was Lunch with Soupy Sales and it was positively revolutionary. Check out this clip. It's eight minutes long. Settle in for some silliness.

Other than the fact that this clip always makes me laugh out loud, there's a good bit of gentle subversion going on here. This was the mid 1960s. Did you notice the offhand dig at the military draft at the time of the Vietnam War? And Soupy was a great lover of jazz. Most folks outside of Detroit don't know that at the same time that Soupy spent his days entertaining kids (and their hip parents) on local TV when he was just starting out, at night he hosted a comedy show that featured all of the great jazz artists coming through Detroit, at the time a true jazz mecca. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Charlie Parker, and Clifford Brown were among those who appeared. I've read that Miles Davis was on Soupy's show five times. So in the above clip, on a kids show, you have an Oscar Peterson jazz piece kicking off a sketch and a John Lee Hooker blues tune finishing it off. In the middle, a pun about the draft. Heady stuff for network television back in the day.

Once we realized some years later that network television had settled into its rightful place as the home of police procedurals and reality programming, we turned to the internet. Facebook. It was new. It was hip. The kids were into it. So, like a granny wearing skinny jeans and high-heeled sandals to the beach accompanied by her Speedo-attired husband with his gut hanging out over his junk, we pretended that we were hip, too. And in the process, we chased out the kids who were the ones who made Facebook hip in the first place. They've gone elsewhere. But we're still on Facebook, posting videos of our cats, of our grandchildren, and of the signs that we waved at that march last week against (or for) something or other.

And with the onslaught of adults, politics are taking over Facebook. And like Bexit and Trump, lots of what's being said doesn't make much sense. For instance, I'm an old-fashioned liberal Democrat. I don't know what a neo-liberal is. Every time that someone tries to explain it to me, it comes out sounding like a neo-liberal is really a conservative. On one Facebook post, Margaret Thatcher was described to me as a neo-liberal. I can hear her laughing. About the only thing liberal about Thatcher was her liberally-voiced contempt for liberalism. So you can call me what you want. I'm a liberal. Period.

And that's what's really important. You can say anything about anything or anybody on Facebook and the only filters are the comments, ranting for and against, often hidden from view. A red bus proclaiming that Brexit would add £461 million per week to NHS funding found its way all over the internet, seen by millions more people than could ever have seen that bus in person. Does anybody today really think that, after Brexit, the NHS will suddenly find itself fully funded? Trump showed up at a factory in Indiana during the Presidential campaign and told the workers that he would save their jobs. I saw a clip of his speech on Facebook. The company moved operations to Mexico anyway. Do those workers get to change their vote?

Let's be clear. As much as we enjoy Facebook, as much as it has enriched our lives with videos of kittens wrestling with parrots, it has also been used by folks with less benign motives. In fact, even the most well-intentioned among us have been known to disseminate incomplete, confusing, or downright false information. But there are those of us, completely taken with this new communal toy, who will believe without reservation that there's a pedophile ring operated by Hillary Clinton located under a pizzeria in Washington DC. I understand from some of my English friends that there are those who would be perfectly happy with Boris as PM. What are we going to do with people like that? Just yesterday, Trump's lawyer said, "Truth isn't truth." That's straight out of 1984 or Animal Farm.

Look. I get it. It's not Facebook's fault that people believe lies and that pernicious governments, our own or those of our enemies, take advantage social media for their own ends. But seriously. What are we going to do about it? I don't know. Do you?



 

AN AMERICAN EXPAT'S TAKE ON WORLD POLITICS: PART 2 - BREXIT

I've chosen Brexit for PART 2 rather than THE UK or something similar because, as an English-speaking expat in a region whose English-speaking expats are primarily English, the UK's march out of the European Union dominates English-language political discourse...until Trump is mentioned. I'll get to Trump in Part 3.

For the uninitiated, a brief lexicon:
European Union (EU) - 500,000,000 Europeans in 28 countries in a political and economic union.
The Four Freedoms - The free movement of goods, capital, services, and labor within the EU. 
English - The language spoken in the UK coloured by the whimsical use of the letter u. 
Brexit - Shorthand for the United Kingdom's (UK's) withdrawal from the European Union.
Remainer - Those who advocated for the UK to remain in the EU.
Leaver - Those who advocated for the UK to leave the EU.
Boris - Euphemism for "I lost my hairbrush."

I admit that the politics of Brexit had me stumped for quite a while. To some extent, it still does. Why did Remainer David Cameron call for the referendum in the first place? How did the ensuing closely-contested, nonbinding referendum become The Will of the People? And given that we now know that such claims of the Leavers as the claim that leaving would instantly and completely shore up UK's ailing and failing healthcare system are fraudulent, why is the UK still sailing headlong into financial purgatory with seemingly no one at the wheel?

To this American looking in from the outside, that last phrase holds the key. No one is at the wheel.

Why did Cameron call for the referendum? Apparently, because the Conservative Party that he led had made the referendum a plank in its platform during the Parliamentary elections of 2015. When the Conservatives won a relatively decisive and somewhat surprising victory, Cameron felt compelled. Why a politician should feel compelled to follow a party platform after an election is beyond my American comprehension. Platforms are put aside after elections in favor of the reality of governance. But for some reason, Cameron decided to put the Conservative platform ahead of his own best judgement and called the referendum. In other words, Cameron chose not to lead.

No one was at the wheel.

The natural ally of Remainer Cameron in the run up to the Brexit referendum should have been the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn. But Corbyn was not a fan of the UK's entrance into the EU in the first place, opposed many aspects of membership, was at best a lukewarm Remainer, and went on vacation during the run up to the referendum. Even had Corbyn been more enthusiastic, he is neither a charismatic leader nor a dynamic speaker. With Cameron's own party advocating leaving the EU; without any committed, articulate, charismatic politician/public figure making the case to Remain in the EU; and with voter apathy brought on by polling that may have depressed Remainer turnout, the Leavers won by 52% to 48%. Cameron, having presided over the debacle, resigned. Theresa May took over as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister.

After following Theresa May for several months, I think that I can safely say that I know Theresa May well enough to judge and I feel confident in saying that Theresa May is no Margaret Thatcher.

No one is at the wheel.

The EU has been very clear from the beginning of this process. In order for the UK to enjoy the benefits of the lucrative single market that 500,000,000 consumers in the EU represent, the UK must honor the Four Freedoms. The EU will not allow an outsider to benefit from the free movement of goods and capital without also allowing for the free movement of labor. If they did, other countries antithetic to free movement of labor - and other aspects of the Union - might peel off as well.

No free access to the single market? If such is the result, Brexit leads to disaster. The UK would have to negotiate with the EU, paying a stiff price for access, or else spend the next several years in uncertainty while negotiating 27 individual trade agreements with 27 individual European countries whose main interests lie within the EU. Major business sectors headquartered in the UK might find it necessary to move to the Continent in order to continue to benefit from the single market. Some have already announced such a move. A brain drain going out, or a failure to be able to attract the best and brightest coming in, might further depress the business climate in the UK.

There are those who insist that through Brexit, the UK can return to past economic glory. I don't see it. In a multi-polar economic world that includes such concentrations of population and wealth as the US, China, India, Russia, and yes, the EU, the UK becomes a minor player. Can the UK claim to have even the same economic prospects as Japan, with half of Japan's population and half its GDP? The entire UK auto industry manufactures one-third of the total number of cars that Honda alone sells annually.


So, in this American's estimation, Brexit has left the UK with a rudderless ship and bad hair. But given a liberal democracy that can hold elections at any time if Parliament expresses no confidence in its leadership, and with backbench members of both major parties expressing dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, methinks that there are acts yet to unfold in the drama known as Brexit. It may well take a talent as bold as the Bard to complete the script.

Click HERE if you missed PART 1 - FRANCE.

VANDALISM REPORTED AT CHURCHILL'S BURIAL SITE

During a press conference at St. Martin's Church, Bladon, British Minister of Cemeteries Sir Digby Graves responded to reports of vandalism at the resting place of Sir Winston Churchill.

"The rumors of vandalism are completely without substance," declared the Minister. "The disturbances on the site were due solely to the fact that, having heard Theresa May's 12-Point Plan speech, Sir Winston turned over in his grave."

IRA'S STUPID STUFF & A JT/CAROLE KING DUET - 21/10/2016

1. A man buried 2,500 years ago in northern China had 13 marijuana plants covering his torso like a shroud. Not the first burial in the region showing signs that the Chinese were stoners. A grave close by contained two pounds of seeds and powdered leaves. Seeds and shake in a grave? Saving the buds for the living, maybe?

2. Conservative pundit Matt Drudge said that he didn't believe that Hurricane Matthew had the potential to be as bad as was forecast. The National Weather Service lied to hype climate change, said Drudge. We are in a post-truth world. Drudge makes a claim. News agencies report the claim. The claim becomes a concern. The concern requires a Congressional investigation. And suddenly the National Weather Service has to defend its science because Drudge was having a brain fart. Bull cookies! (And of course, the flooding in the Carolinas was massive...)

3. Hillary said, "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders..." and the Right and the Left go nuts. Open borders and open markets. Like a nerdy Star Trek future. Hillary also said that it's not for governments to do. Specifically not for governments, she said. Spin, spin, spin...

4. The American Presidential election. That's all. Just that.

5. Brexit, Hard or Soft? The Europeans are saying that as long as the Brits choose to leave, it's Hard. Period. As if that wasn't obvious from the start...

My kind of singer/songwriters...

#NeverMind: BREXIT REVISITED

The International Olympic Committee has announced that, beginning in Rio, the winner of each event will still be awarded a gold medal but only the flag of the second place finisher's country will be displayed and only the national anthem of the third place finisher will be played. The only person/team allowed on the podium will be the last place finisher.

"We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings," said IOC Chairman Phineas Bluster. "It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game."

It all started with a peewee soccer league in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Jonah Rainbow's mother Persephone was so distraught at the sight of Jonah's tears after a last second goal cost Jonah's team the league championship that she ordered a set of trophies exactly the same as those presented to the league champions, invited all of her son's teammates to a barbecue, and held a presentation ceremony in her back yard. Everybody got a trophy.

The movement grew when the Democratic Party agreed to change its name to the Democratic Socialist Party in order to appease Bernie Sanders' supporters. And #EverybodyGetsATrophy went international when newly elected British Prime Minister Sissy Brightly Tweeted #NeverMind when asked about the Brexit. "Did you see all of those young people marching in London? I just couldn't disappoint all of those poor kids who were too busy to vote in the referendum. #NeverMind. We'll stay in Europe."

A reporter asked her about all of her rural constituents who voted Leave. "Have they marched yet? You get points for marching, don't you?"

THE OBAMA/FARAGE TREATY

In a stunning turn of events, President Barack Obama and UKIP's Nigel Farage will announce that they have brokered a deal that will provide the answers to the most pressing problems that face each of their countries.

Obama has been confounded by the problem of Texas, a state that is home to George Bush and Rick Perry, a state that embraces the idea of a huge wall separating it from its southern neighbor, a state that has threatened to secede from the Union.

On the other side of the Pond, how can Farage expect to govern a country in which at least half of the population think that he is Satan incarnate, a country that already has a wall along its northern border, a country that has in fact already voted to secede from the Union?

The answer?

Swap places.

Obama will use eminent domain to confiscate the life-sized model of Noah's Ark that is being built in Kentucky. "If it was capable of carrying the Biblical dinosaurs to safety, it should be able to accommodate all the Texans that we want to get rid of," says Obama. "On the return trip, England can send along folks who voted Remain and bring them home to where they belong, the common market known as the USofA."

When asked about the Royal Family, Obama said,"We'll take Queen Elizabeth and her brood. They'd be perfect fodder for a reality television show. And Betty White has agreed to take her place in England. They're about the same age, Betty can handle anything that the newly transplanted Texans can throw at her, and she likes dogs almost as much as Elizabeth."

HILLARY'S ELECTORAL MANIPULATION EXPOSED

The deadline for registering online to vote in the Brexit referendum to decide Britain's relationship with Europe has been moved back due to problems with the servers. During an interview with BBC MUNDO, Boris Johnson laid the blame squarely on Hillary.

"First of all, it's a problem with a server (Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.) Frankly, I don't think that she cares which side wins. This was just a trial run for November in the Colonies."

When confronted, Hillary replied,"What do men with bad hair have against me? Get styled, for heaven's sake."

APPLE, BREXIT & TRUMP

APPLE
Unlock the damn phone.

The phone's user was a terrorist. Undisputed. The owner of the phone, the terrorist's unwitting employer, has given permission for the phone to be unlocked. There's a court order that is specific to that one phone and does not require that phone-hacking software be provided to the FBI for their future use.

With a court order, the Feds can get into my bank account. With a court order, they can paw through my underwear drawer. And I'm this side of certain that, with or without a court order, there are a bunch of coders at Apple who already know how to unlock a phone.

Apple's argument seems to be that a search warrant should apply to all the rooms in a house except the loo because what goes on in the loo should remain private forever.

That dog won't hunt.

Unlock the damn phone.

BREXIT
Some time ago, the nervousness over the possibility that the Greeks would be forced out of the EU led to a 20% devaluation of the Euro against the US Dollar. The cost of one Euro went from 1.35 USD to 1.10 USD and has stayed in that neighborhood ever since. Oh, I know that there are other influences and that the devaluation probably cannot be ascribed solely to the problems with Greece...and Italy and Spain and Portugal. But Greece was certainly a convenient place on which to hang a commentator's hat.

Recently, the Euro enjoyed a bit of a comeback, reaching 1.13 USD or better. That may not seem like very much, but 2% or 3% is not an insignificant amount when applied to a fixed pension. No worries, though. We apparently had nothing to fear. The possibility of a Brexit continues in the news. And a big Thank You to Boris for coming down on the side of the Brexiters. We're back at 1.10 USD again.

At this point in time, European uncertainty is an American expat's best friend.

TRUMP

There is a misconception that American electoral politics have been governed by rules of engagement that are relatively benign until just recently. We think of the American Founding Fathers (and Mothers, to be fair) such as Thomas Jefferson as persons of intellect whose Declaration of Independence and Constitution created the framework for a new, progressive style of governance.

Wrong.

Well, they were persons of intellect. But the Founders were also rebels. Traitors to Mother England. It should come as no surprise that they were, in fact, the architects of partisanship. Some believed in a strong federal government. Some abhorred the idea of federalism. Thus were two political parties born. And thus, partisanship.


Broadsheets, the news outlets of the times, were often owned by partisan politicians and were used unashamedly to denigrate their rivals. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, all were savaged with venom that today only appears on the very fringes of the internet. Washington's Farewell Address, generally considered to be one of the most important speeches ever given by an American politician, was described at the time in the organ of a rival as the "loathings of a sick mind." Washington himself, Thomas Paine implied, was a traitor and perhaps a double agent in the pay of the British. The elder Adams was "old, querulous, bald, blind, crippled and toothless."

Enter Trump. There is no regard for truth. There is only hate combined with lust for power.

An American tradition...