Monkeys Lurking To Attack Trump During Trump India Visit

HuffPost won the headline war last week with this header for a story they ran:

Who will survive Trump's trip to India? Trump himself, or hostile
rhesus monkeys. Stay tuned!

"India Doesn't Want Monkeys Attacking Trump During Taj Mahal Visit."

President Trump is indeed in India this week on a state visit, and he is scheduled to visit Taj Majal.

Officials in India naturally want the visit to go smoothly, but rhesus macaques might ruin the plan.  There's probably 600 or so monkeys living near Taj Mahal.

As HuffPost reports, "The rhesus macaques have a reputation for being very aggressive toward the 25,000 tourists who visit the Taj on a typical day."

The monkeys aren't the usual terrorist threat.  Apparently, the best way to ward them off is with slingshots. Says HuffPost:

"'We found that monkeys get scared by just seeing us brandishing these slingshots,' Brij Bhushan, head of the Taj Mahal security force, told Reuters last year.'"

Here's the problem:  Slingshots are pretty effective at discouraging lone monkeys or small groups of them. But if there's a big pack of them, slingshots don't work.

I'm quite sure there are at least a few people in the United States who would say that India should just leave the monkeys alone and let them have their way with Trump.  It probably would be fun to see how the macaques react to Trump's, um, colorful orange hair and makeup.

Social media, of course, reacted predictably and humorously to this situation.

"But why? @POTUS @realDonaldTrump surrounds himself with monkeys everyday. Why would he object to a few more," wonderedr Mike Murdock (@theMagicalMrE).

Other people made remarks like "Get him monkeys!" or "I'm Team Monkey."

Anyway, let's hope peace continues between the mercurial Trump and his equally mercurial contestants, those damn monkeys.  Trump is headed home today. I guess crisis averted?

Some 2019 Compilations To Celebrate The First Day Of 2020

Welcome to 2020, and say goodbye to 2019.

As is the case every year, there's all kinds of compilation videos to say so long to the year just past.

They are wonderful time wasters if you are having a quiet New Years Day or are nursing a hangover or whatever.

So, without further ado, here's a few of those time wasters.

The first one just has a hodgepodge of odd moments and such from the year.  It's all over the place, just like the entire year was:



There's one or two repeats of the above video in this next one. But it's still worth watching to prove that other people had a worse 2019 than you did:



If you weren't feeling it at work in 2019, it could have been worse. Here you go!



Finally, on a good note, here's a compilation from 2019 of people (and some animals) doing things better than you can.  Much better. The very last clip in this long compilation is one of my favorites, and certainly the most moving. Happy New Year!

Vermont City Marathon Scenes

Runners make their way up "Heartbreak Hill,"
which to most of us is Battery Street
in Burlington. The  Taiko Drummers helped
push people up the hill

I briefly had time to check in last Sunday - yes a week ago - for the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, Vermont.

There's always a few scenes and moments that are pretty cool.

Any one person will miss most of the quirky momets, but everybody will catch at least some. This post has just a few photos of the scenes, just for fun.

Dude with a huge
beard runs in
the marathon.

Runners make their way down Pine Street
in Burlington Sunday during the
Vermont City Marathon

Dude caught running the marathon barefoot 

A spectator and his dog watch the marathon
proceedings in Burlington this past
Sunday. 

News In Review: Bad Lip Reading Of Trump's State Of The Union

Let's do another Bad Lip Reading to keep this month's absurdity going.

OK, I admit I just featured the "Bad Lip Reading" YouTube videos during the Super Bowl earlier this month, but I can't resist the same YouTube channel's take on Donald Trumps State of the Union address.

In this absurd lip reading world, we learn Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence don't get along (no surprise there).

We also learn how much animosity Bernie Sanders feels toward Trump. In the bad lip reading, Sanders tells a colleague, "I want to roast all of his fingers."

And that famous Pelosi clap back was actually approval when Trump told the Halls of Congress: "I like a pizza party very much."

Here's the rest of the craziness for your deep winter entertainment:

Was Barbie's Boyfriend Ken's Black Sheep Brother Arrested In Tennessee?

Jullian Mitchell, arrested in Tennessee on identity theft
charges, looks like Ken's bad little brother.
I bet Barbie does NOT like him. 

The crime wasn't too spectacular.

A man named Julian R. Mitchell, 20, was recently arrested in Tennessee for identity theft.

Television station Fox 17 in Nashville says Mitchell tried to use somebody else's debit card at a bar, but the business system at the tavern said the card was lost or stolen. Mitchell was asked for his ID.

He handed over a Tennessee driver's license, but police said it was "plainly obvious" to the barkeep that this wasn't Mitchell's license.  

The real story here is the mug shot when Mitchell was booked. As you can see in this post, his photo is......stunning.

Stunning enough to cause a stir on social media.  When local media began tweeting about Mitchell's arrest, lots of people decided to add to the news story. You know, fill it out a bit.  I opinied that in an exclusive interview, Barbie's boyfriend Ken has no idea why his brother turned to a life of crime.

Other comments indicated Barbie might not be so squeaky clean: "Suspect was last seen in a red convertible with accomplice Barbie."

One person asked incredulously: "Identity theft? There are TWO people who look like that?"

Other people guessed at Mitchell's day job. I agree with one person who said he's Roger Stone's eyebrow consultant.

At least the guy isn't all match-matchy, given the blonde hair, red beard and very black, big eyebrows.

Anyway, enjoy my early nominee for Mug Shot Of The Year, 2019

A Sinkhole Turns Into A Bank Robbery Investigation

This "sinkhole" in a Florida bank driveway turned out to be part
of a tunnel. Somebody was digging the tunnel in an attempt
to rob the bank. 

As will become obvious, given Florida's weirdness, the following incident took place in the Sunshine State.

A sinkhole recently opened up in the driveway of a Pembroke Pines, Florida bank. That's not unusual. The geology of Florida makes the area prone to sinkholes.

It turns out, though, that geology had nothing to do with this sinkhole. It turns out somebody was digging a tunnel from an embankment toward the bank in an attempt to rob it.

But: Curses! Foiled again! The tunnel was too close to the surface. The dirt and the pavement in the driveway collapsed, which was the "sinkhole."

They haven't figured out who dug the tunnel yet. The tunnel extends 50 feet from an embankment to near the bank. It looks like whoever it was was trying to access an ATM.

The person who dug the tunnel wasn't claustrophobic, apparently. The tunnel was only two feet across or so, so you really had to shimmy and squeeze your way through it.

The FBI is investigating.

And thus, Florida continues to uphold its reputation for weirdness.

"Star Spangled Banner" Sounds Suspiciously Russian When Played In Minor Key

Comedian and musician Bill Bailey gives us an unsettling
take on "The Star Spangled Banner"

A comedian and musician named Bill Bailey has given us a rather startling musical oddity.

He likes to play around with musical scores, playing tunes intended to be played in a minor key in a major key instead. And he plays songs in major keys in minor keys.

There's a viral video floating about in which Bailey gives examples. The video is at the bottom of this post. At first he plays around with different snippets of songs, then gets to "The Star Spangled Banner," the United States National Anthem.

Like most national anthems, "The Star Spangled Banner" is meant to be played in a major key. As Bailey says, that makes them feel celebratory and uplifting.

He then tries "The Star Spangled Banner" in a minor key. The result is pretty unsettling, given the alleged deep ties between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and the allegations Trump colluded with Russia to get elected.

Yep, in a minor key, the "Star Spangled Banner" sounds like, well, Russian!

Listen for yourself:

You Will Love Or Be Perplexed By This Strange Russian Band Called Little Big

Just one of many bizarre scenes from the viral Little Big
video and dance craze "Skibidi"

Apparently, the latest dance craze is something called the Skibidi.

There's a viral video out there by a Russian rave band called Little Big. (They actually have several viral videos, but this one is the latest, and biggest hit yet.)

The bizarre video that I can't stop watching is at the bottom of this post. The Skibidi mostly involves walking with legs out, doing high steps, while punching your fists crossways in front of your chest.

There's a few intermittent hip thrusts, wobbles and hand motions as well, but you get the idea.

The lead protagonist in this video is a very stern, determined, rather creepy blonde man with a mustache. He's a bit like a scarier version of Borat. In the video, he hooks up with another member of the band, who vaguely resembles a highly maniacal version of Debra Messing.

There's also a potential street fight, which devolves into a Skibidi battle  The song itself is all electronic, with random dog barks and other sound effects. Other creatures get into the song, including a dog, city highrises and a Godzilla-like monster.

In other words, this video is so stupid, so tacky, so tasteless, so absurd, so weird that it's absolutely fantastic and mesmerizing.

Other Little Big videos are hits, too, like Faradenza, in which our blond mustached guy seems to attract the babushka type women. Another tune, called LollyBomb, appears to show North Korean leader Kim Jung-un having a torrid love affair with a nuclear bomb.

They're worth watching, for laughs and giggles.

But really, you have to watch Skibidi. And learn the dance, too. And always do the dance while walking down the street. Just because.  Everybody else has. People are being challenged worldwide to do the Skibidi. On Twitter #skibidichallenge is trending.

The Skibidi video had more than 42 million clicks as of Sunday. You can watch it too, if you haven't already:

SNL Has White Supremacists Moving To Vermont In Scary, Weird Scenario

A Saturday Night Live sketch a few weeks ago skewered
Vermont's whiteness. Funny, but unsettling

A few weeks ago, Saturday Night Live had a skit about a Neo-Confederate meeting that had us Vermonters especially unsettled.

The video featured a group of white supremacists having a meeting somewhere in the South.

The group leader wants to establish their own white settlement, a "our own place for our own people" with "an agrarian community where everybody lives in harmony, where every single person is white"

A member of the meeting raises his had pipes up: "Yeah, I know that place. That sounds like Vermont."  That's a definite laugh line, but geez.

The leader says he doesn't understand. He's talking about a place where even the people who wash the dishes and pick the fruit are white.

"Oh,  yeah, that's Vermont," the man responds. The leader grows suspicious of the man, especially when he says he's from the North. But the guy's white supremacist creds remain in place when he quickly explains he's from Boston. The whole group is satisfied with that.

"I'm talking about a place where a white man can take things he grew from the ground and trade things with another white man, who grew things from the ground."

Replies the northerner: "That's a farmer's market and they're all over Vermont."

Pretty soon, the groups is deciding that Vermont sounds like just the ticket. It's a place where "The leaves change color but the people never do."

In the end, it's settled. They're going to Vermont.

That's a bit chilling.  Especially since racism does seem to be alive and well in Vermont. Just take the recent case of Kiah Morris. She had been Vermont's only black legislator. She dropped her re-election campaign, then resigned after receiving racial threats.

Her house was broken into and swastikas were painted on trees near her property. The Vermont Attorney General's office is investigating.

Yeah, we're not always the liberal, welcoming place we want to think we are. In any event, I hope that white supremacists don't regard SNL as a documentary.

Here's the video:

ZZ Top And U2 Sang The Same Song?

If you're of my generation especially, you are pretty familiar - and often are fond of - many songs from the 1980s.

Two of those classic songs are "Legs" by ZZ Top and "Where The Streets Have No Name" by U2.

At first, you'd think these two songs are completely different from each other. Uh-uh. A guy mashed the two songs up together and guess what? They're the same song.

Listen to the mashup on this video for yourself (H/T Boingboing)

 

Creepiest Political Candidate Ever Favors Incest, Pedophilia

Nathan Larson is a longshot candidate for Congress but a frontrunner
for title of creepiest politician ever

In this weird age of Trump, people seem more and more encouraged to come out of the closet as racist, mysogynist, scary or worse.

So, unfortunately, I'm not entirely surprised by what I'm sure is the worst political candidate ever.

According to the Huffington Post, Nathan Larson, a 37 year old accountant from Charlottesville, Virginia, is running for Congress as an independent candidate.

Sounds safe enough, right? An accountant, so pretty low key. Probably a fiscal conservative, who would keep an eye on excess government spending. What's not to love?

A HUGE amount, it turns out. He is admitted pedophile who has almost gleefully bragged about raping his late ex-wife. (Who later committed suicide. I wonder why).

As reported in the Huffington Post:

"When asked whether he's a pedophile or just writes about pedophilia, he said, 'It's a mix of both. When people go over the top there's a grain of truth to what they say.'

Asked whether there was a 'grain of truth' in his essay about father-daughter incest, and another about raping his ex-wife repeatedly, he said yes, offering that plenty of women have rape fantasies."

Larson things this attitude is a plus that will endear voters to him. "A lot of people are tired of political correctness and being constrained by it..... People prefer when there's an outsider who doesn't have anything to lose and is willing to say what's on a lot of people's minds."

OK, I suppose can see the rebellion against so-called political correctness. But I really don't believe people think about incest and rape and think, "What a great idea! Too bad those politically correct laws ban it."

At least I hope that's the case.

He also says he'll garner votes because "People are open minded."

Riiggght.

Yep, Larson's a real charmer. He would legalize child pornography and legalize incestuous marriage and favors "benevolent white supremacy."

Um, I don't think it's possible to be a "benevolent" white supremist.

Going on, Larson also thinks "we need to switch to a system that classifies women as property, initially of their fathers and later of their husbands."

Cripes, by comparison, he makes the world of "The Handmaids Tale" sound like something Gloria Steinem would embrace.

As if you needed more proof this guy is truly scary, he had a wiki page called Nathania.org, which has since been pulled down in which he wrote articles with the following titles:

"A Man Should Be Allowed To Choke His Wife To Death As Punishment for Cutting Her Hair Short Without Permission or Other Acts of Gross Insubordination."

"The Justifiability of an Incel's Kidnapping A Girl And Keeping Her As His Rape-Slave For Sex and Babymaking."

(The word Incel refers to mostly men who are virgins or not having sex because women aren't attracted to them, and the Incel blames the women and is angry at them for not submitting to them. Ugh.)

I'm frankly a little surprised Larson has not been arrested, since he seems to be admitting to crimes.

On the bright side, he is certainly considered a very long shot for that Congressional seat.  Which of course is a good thing.

Of course, there are other creeps out there running for office, too.  In Illinois, Arthur Jones, regarded as a Nazi, recently won the Republican primary in the state's Third Congressional District. Luckily, the district is heavily Democratic, so somebody more sane than Jones will end up in Congress from that district.

There are other wackos out there as well, but so far, they've been kept at bay. Let's hope that continues.

High School Students Ordered To Smile All The Time - Or ELSE

Bert from Sesame Street would not do well in the Northern Lebanon School
District in Pennsylvania. 

My nominee for the most Orwellian high school in the nation goes to the Northern Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania.

Students there are required to smile at all times while in the hallways between classes, or else they get in trouble. If they don't, they must go to the guidance counselor to discuss their "problems" or get detention.  

So you're not allowed in the school to show any normal emotion other than benign (fake) happiness.

No anxiety over an upcoming tough test. No thoughtful contemplation over which colleges to apply. No anger or grief over the latest school shooting elsewhere in the nation. No thoughts of regrets over the argument with  Dad this morning over smart phone use.

Any normal thing like that is grounds for counseling or detention. It's just bizarre.

Meanwhile, according to the Lebanon Daily News in Pennsylvania, some parents are complaining that bullying incidents are being ignored by administrators. My guess is because the school district has some obsession with turning the school into some Stepford Wives perfect world.

Several teachers told the Lebanon Daily News said the smiling thing isn't a written rule in the school, Assistant Principal Benjamin Wenger has been enforcing this smiling "regulation."  I guess the fake smiling is more important than dealing with the real bullying in this school district.

After the "forced smiles" article came out, North Lebanon School District Superintendent Erik Bentzel denied that there is a "must smile" rule, but I suspect that's PR in the wake of the embarrassing news coverage.

So, if you ever go to this school for a visit, smile! You're on Orwellian camera!

Guy Clings To Free Housing At Parents House; Alex Jones Gets Him Out, DIscusses Nose Jobs

Michael Rotondo is being evicted from his parents' house, but
he is getting some help from some highly unlikely sources.

Talk about having no sense of personal pride!

As we learned in incessant news coverage this week, a 30-year-old guy in New York State really made a splash by refusing to leave his parents' house.

Mostly because it's free lodging and he really doesn't want to give up the great deal.  For the record, I moved out of my parents' house late - when I was 23 - but I did so with no prodding form my parents. I decided on my own.

Not like most adults who, you know, go out and get a job, find an apartment, pay the rent and otherwise support themselves like normal people.

I don't oppose people living with their parents if they do so for the right reasons.  Some adults live with their parents for years or decades. But most people who live with their parents assist them with health issues, or pay the bills, or generally stay helpful and productive. That's what normal people do.

Apparently, though, Michael Rotondo is not normal people.

Still,the great lengths he went to in attempts to prevent his parents from evicting him show a commitment to hard work. It just would have been easier, and more effective for him, to put that energy into finding an independent place to live.

Speaking of hard work, Rotondo's parents went through a lot of efforts get this bozo out of their house. It started in earnest in February, when Rodondo's parents wrote him this missive. (I guess face to face conversations weren't working.)

"After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided you must leave this house immediately. You have 14 days to vacate You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision."

First of all, when your parents write such a strongly worded note, it's past the time to move out.

However, the parents' note didn't work. So they gave their son another note on March 15, demanding he move out. No movement.

On March 20, the parents tried another tack: They offered him $1,100 to help with moving expenses, and also offered advice. The advice was sensible enough, in my opinion. It's what normal people would think of in this situation, but as I said, Rotondo doesn't seem very normal to me.

The advice included:

--- Organize the things you need for work and to manage an apartment.
--- A reminder that "there are jobs available for those with a poor work history like you Get one - you have to work!"
---  Also: "Sell the other things you have that have any significant value (e.g. stereo, some tools, etc.) This is especially true for any weapons you may have. You need the money and will have no place for the stuff."

Wait, what? Weapons? Yikes! I know little of this guy, but what little I know makes me a little nervous about him having weapons. But I guess that's another story.

It turns out the judge quickly decided with the parents, and Rotondo needs to move out, pronto. But our ever persistent protagonist says he will appeal the judge's decision.

On the bright side, the online cam site  CamSoda offered Rotondo a paying gig in its "LifeStream" program, TMZ reports.

As TMZ points out, CamSoda is apparently a site where porn stars to online camming, but to our great relief, Rotondo will remain clothed if he takes the gig. The job pays $1,000 a month for six months.

The whole thing got even more bizarre if you can believe it on Thursday, when Rotondo appeared on wacko conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' InfoWars show. Jones gave Rotondo a check for $3,000 to move out of his parents' house.

A high point in the Jones/Rotondo conversation is when Jones asks if he's going to use the $3,000 to get a nose job.

"I don't think so," Rotondo said. "I like my nose the way it is."

As Vice continues this story, Jones, obsessed with noses, apparently, tells Rotondo he like his "noble nose" and that his wife's nose is so big she gets mistaken for a Jew, but he he also likes her nose a lot, so much so that he'd divorce her if she ever got a nose job.

Jones apparently meant the $3,000 check and the interview as a pep talk to encouage Rotondo's independence, but the interview, as we would expect from Jones, stayed weird.

Jones worried that Rotondo came off as "autistic" in other TV interviews, and warned him that he should move out of his parents' house immediately or risk being taken control of by "globalists."

In the end, I have to agree with Vice that Jones, for once in his life, actually sounded sensible at times.

Jones told Rotondo: "I think you should go back, no matter what your parents have done to you, and say, 'Thank you for life and I appreciate you and I'm going to figure out how to make money and be a part of society.'....From then, if you can do those basics, the big ideas will come.'"

How about that? Decent fatherly advice from one of the world's biggest wackos!  Black is white  and day is night now, I guess.

Recycled, Frozen Adventurer's Toes Going To Yukon Bar

Nick Griffiths lost some toes in a frigid Yukon endurance race back in
February, but his digits live on in a bar cocktail. (ewww!)

I'm all for recycling. Why make the world's refuse problem even worse? Just re-use stuff.

However, anything can be taken to a bit of an extreme, and I think Nick Griffiths is doing just that.

Griffiths was one of several people who ended up hospitalized from injuries suffered in extreme cold while competing in the long distance backcountry Yukon Arctic Ultra race in February.  

The race - your choice between 100 miles or 300 miles was run amid temperatures of around 40 below. No wonder several people got frostbite.

Griffiths was among them. He had three toes amputated due to severe frostbite. But what to do with the discarded toes?

The answer: Give them to the Downtown Hotel in Dawson City, Yukon, home of the infamous Sourtoe Cocktail, reports CBC in Canada.

The cocktail has a simple, but, to me at least, an unappetizing recipe: It's a shot of whiskey with a real human digit bobbing in the glass. Yep, somebody's toe or finger.

Yum!

Griffiths said the Downtown Hotel contacted him and said, "Can we have them if you're not going to need them anymore?"

The hotel needs the toes in reserve in case they lose them themselves. Once, a customer stole a toe, and another time, a customer swallowed a toe for a $500 fee. (Dawson Hotel policy is there's a $500 fine for swallowing a toe.)

So if you ever go up to Dawson, Yukon, there's an interesting cocktail waiting for you up there.

Or not.

Scandal Botox Cheating In Camel Beauty Contest. Really!

Yes, there's such a thing as camel beauty contests, and yes,
these big money events have cheating scandals

I've never though of camels as particularly beautiful animals, but we all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So it is that in Saudi Arabia, they have camel beauty contests. They do! And these are high stakes contests, right up there money-wise, it seems, with Miss Universe or something like that.

According to The National UAE, about $57 million is awarded to winners of the camel beauty contests and camel races. Nearly $32 million just goes into the beauty pageants.

Who knew?

With any high stakes competition, you have to worry about cheating scandals and one just erupted.

The National UAE reported a veterinarian was caught performing plastic surgery on the camels to enhance their beauty, such as it is. Camels were given Botox, and underwent surgery to reduce the size of their ears. apparently, small, delicate ears are a sure winner.

Reports the National UAE:

"'They use Botox on the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,' said Ali Al Mazrouei, 31, a regular attendee at the Gulf festivals and son of a top Emirati breeder 'It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it's like 'Oh look at how big that head is. It has big lips, a big nose.'"

These camel botox injections and collagen filters only last for a few months. Breeders buy these camel beauty contest winners only to realize weeks or months later they'd been conned by a cheater.

In all, twelve camels were disqualified from the recent Saudi camel beauty show because of cheating. I guess it's all a Middle Eastern version of the Russian Olympic doping scandal, huh?

Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil Causes Family Crisis In Staten Island

A phobia of Looney Tunes' Tasmanian
Devil is at the center of a weird New
York family dispute 

The holidays are finally over, and most of us have headed home after spending time with our families.

Many of our extended families have a few eccentrics among them, but one Staten Island family takes the cake for oddness and discord.

According to the New York Post, Mazem Dayem, 36, has had a lifelong phobia of the Tasmanian Devil, the ill-mannered angry and inept Looney Tunes charactor.

Dayem's father in law, Yunes Doleh, 62, has been tormenting Dayem by menacing him with a toupee that supposedly looks like the Tasmanian Devil.

This all came to a head at a funeral in November, when Doleh waved his toupee at Dayem and grimaced, snarled, grunted and gesticulated toward him.

Which is odd behavior anyway, but especially at a funeral, but maybe that's just me. There's a chatge of criminal contempt against Doleh, lawsuits and general bad blood. I'd love to hear conversations in this family.

And how were your holidays?

Postman Dutifully Delivers Mail To Neighborhood That's Not There Anymore

A postal worker delivers mail to a neighborhood that
no longer exists after the California wildfires

One of the strangest videos I've seen coming out of that California wildfire tragedy is one you'll see here:

It's a United States Postal Service van delivery mail to a neighborhood that was completely incinerated by the wildfires.

It seems stupid at first, but then I'm thinking what else was the guy to do? The mailboxes were still somehow intact.

I guess he just hopes the people who lived in those destroyed houses will come back. Maybe even get a millisecond of normalcy back in their lives by checking their mailboxes.

Here's the spooky video:

The Gays Did It

This wacko says Texas was devastated by
Hurricane Harvey because The Gays Did It.

I notice this repeatedly with every disaster.

The religious nutjobs all blame The Gays whenever there's a calamity. It's like clockwork.

It's as much of a cliche as TV reporters getting blown away while yelling into a camera on a hurricane-blasted beach.

We saw "The Gays Did It" with Hurricane Harvey and we'll surely see it if Hurricane Irma turns out as bad as feared.

Here's an account from Right Wing Watch:

"Extremist anti-LGBTQ pastor Kevin Swanson is joining other radical religious right activists in declaring that Hurricane Harvey is God's judgment on Houston and other cities the refuse to repent for their embrace of 'sexual perversion.'.....

"....Swanson said it is no coincidence that Houston was hit by this storm because 'it was persecutiving pastors and churches' and recently had a 'very, very aggressively pro-homosexual mayor. On top of that, the Texas legislature recently failed ot pass a bill 'that would have prevented cross-dressing men from using the women's restrooms' because 'they wanted to encourage the abomination of men attempting to dress lie women and women to dress like men.'"

Phew! That's a lot to unpack.

I'm sure Swanson and his ilk are too snowflakey and just plain flakey to sit down with someone to see if we can pick apart their logic.

But I would love to get in the same room with him and force him to answer these questions:

If God hated the former lesbian mayor of Houston, why now with the flood? She's not the mayor anymore.

Surely, some of Harvey's victims did not vote for that former mayor and some probably supported the failed "bathroom bill" in Texas in which transgendered people would have been prevented from using restrooms that go along with their current gender.

So why were your allies victimized by Harvey and by extension God, Mr. Swanson?

The Harvey flooding and devastation was, if anything, even worse in Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas. Those cities are pretty conservative and I think neither ever had a gay mayor (but I could be mistaken)

So why the suffering in Port Arthur and Beaumont?

Why is it always The Gays that prompt God to unleash disasters on unsuspecting cities? Why doesn't God also smite cities that have adulterers, liars, sinners, etc. Only the Gays. Makes me suspect you think God might be a self-loathing closeted gay person. Is that what you think?

Today, Right Wing Watch told us about another loathesome "preacher," Jim Bakker, who used Houston to say The Gays Did It and to hawk his line of survivalist products.

Hey, nothing like making a buck off of God's imagined wrath, right?

All this is meant to get the general public to hate gays, because The Gays seem to be causing one cataclysm after another. I can't believe that these purveyers of The Gays Did It don't realize that nobody is buying it, and everybody is laughing at them.

Probably even God is laughing at them at this point.

Even people who don't really believe The Gays Did It rejoice in bringing it up. The odious Ann Coulter got a lot of heat after Harvey when she Tweeted:

"I don't believe Hurricane Harvey is God's punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that's more credible than 'climate change.'

Okey dokey.

The former Houston mayor, Annise Parker responded via Twitter: "Darn it, I thought no one knew I had super power over weather."

As a gay guy, I wish I did have such power.  I want to be one of the gays among those Gays Who Did It. Of course I would never want to unleash a disaster on anyone, including these weird "religious" nutcases. Nice weather for everyone, but with enough well-timed rain to prevent droughts.

I'd make exceptions, though. For the Gays Did It preachers and hucksters and swindlers, I would impose on them a lifetime of  low, dark overcast, fog and freezing drizzle. And nothing else.

There's plenty of real-life blame to go around for weather disaster. It's legitimate to blame the randomness of nature, bad luck, poor planning and development decisions, recklessness, even global warming.

We all know that most of us wouldn't want to make deadly disasters worse than they already are. Most of us have an impulse to help, which explains the many millions of dollars from so many Americans that are pouring into Texas for hurricane relief.

A few people like to make things worse, though. Or at least more bizarre. Like The Gays Did It crowd.

They're their own weird little disaster.

Florida Man (Of Course!) Shoots Utility Truck Tires Because Who Knows Why

An image taken from a cell phone video shows Jorge Jove,
64, shooting utility trucks in front of his house for
reasons only he seems to know. 

Some utility trucks, parked legally on a Hialeah, Florida street, came under assault the other day because some guy who lives there didn't like them parked in the neighborhood.

As you can see in the remarkable video below, the guy, age 64, opens fire on the tires and radiator of at least one of the trucks.

Guy seemed to be having a bad day.

According to NBC Miami, one of the AT&T utility workers was trapped in the bucket above the truck while another shot cell phone footage while waiting for police to arrive.

Says NBC Miami: "The suspect, identified as Jorge Jove, reloaded his weapon several times, police said. Moments later, officers arrived at the home....and took Jove into custody."

According to an arrest report, Jove told detectives he went 'bananas' and shot at the tires and trucks to stop them from leaving. 

'He just lost his mind for a moment. We don't know what the deal is with him,' said Hialeah Police Detective Carl Zogby."

We don't know either. If Jove didn't want the trucks there, why did he shoot them to make them stay?

Anyway, logic doesn't apply here, does it?

Here's the video:

Be An International Citizen By Buying House In 2 Countries: Vermont/Quebec

This apartment building straddles the U.S./Canadian
border in Vermont and Quebec. If you want it, it's for sale. 

Imagine waking up in Canada walking just a few feet to the bathroom to brush your teeth in the United States.

You can do that if you buy a 3,000 square foot apartment house in the fine village of Beebe Plain,  Vermont.  The same house is also in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada.  (Beebe Plain is a village within the town of Derby Line, Vermont.)  

Confused? Don't be. It's a rare building that straddles the international border Vermont and Quebec. The building is for sale for a low, low price of $109,000, but it's a major fixer-upper that probably needs three times that much money to renovate.

Plus, there's the whole international border thing. Border officials, especially on the United States side, have gotten a lot more pickier over the years about who crosses the border and when and why.

"In the day it wa a normal and natural thing,' Brian DuMoulin told the Associated Press. He grew up in this house. When he was a kid, nobody thought twice about crossing the border over and over again in one day. "Now it stresses everybody out," DuMoulin said.

This is the state of affairs now in Beebe Plain, Vermont/Stanstead, Quebec, according to the AP:

"Residential streets that used to be open were blocked by gates. The back doors of an apartment building straddling the border iin Derby Line village have been locked shut. The street next to the Haskell Free Library and the Opera House, deliberately built in both countries, is blocked by flower pots, although Canadians are still allowed to wak ot the library's U.S. entrance without going through a border post."

Plus, as you can imagine, border agents might be suspicious of people who want to move into the apartment house that staddles the border. (The current owners are in their 70s and inherited the building, but now want to move to Ontario to be closer to their grandchildren.)

The apartment building, currently vacant while it awaits a buyer, is monitored.

Border agents try to know the people who live in the house and let them move back and forth across the border if they stay in the house or its tiny yard. So no need to show your passport if you really, really have to urgently move from the kitchen in the United States to the bathroom in Canada.

Despite the renovation costs and the border stickiness, several would-be buyers have expressed interest in the building. So if you want it, better hurry up and make an offer.