Porphyrion

 

As the activities of one earth species spiral out of control, let's keep it all in perspective by thinking about Porphyrion, the huge plasma jets exploding from a black hole in a distant galaxy.  There's not a thing to do but step back and gaze in awe.

Meanwhile...

In Sparta, Michigan, J.D. Vance blamed the media for blowing the Battle of Springfield out of proportion -- fifty bomb threats but every one of them false!  Does that even count, just because the hospital staff and the students have to evacuate while the bomb-sniffing dogs and their handlers race from one site to another?  Speaking of dogs, the real problem is the "twenty thousand migrants primarily from Haitia [sic]," not the righteous indignation of Real Americans.  OK, maybe the migrants don't eat pets, but they could.  They could have Temporary Protected Status because of the violence in Haitia -- I mean Haiti -- but who knows? 

The Vance team thought they had a "gotcha" when they found a police report of a missing cat in Springfield last August.  The cat, named Miss Sassy, turned out to have been hiding in the basement of her human's house because cats do that kind of thing.   Who knows why?  Expect Vance to explain that she was terrified of the scary Haitian people.  Miss Sassy's human is a Trump supporter, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with it, although she has apologized to her Haitian neighbors.

Speaking of special visas, super-classy FFL Melania Trump has decided to emphasize the nude-model portion of her forthcoming memoir with a video where she compares herself to several works of art.  For once nobody will accuse her of plagiarizing Michelle Obama.  It remains to be seen if adolescent males will pay $40 for something they can get free on their computers.

We're learning more about Ryan Routh, the "assassin" who never fired a shot last weekend.  A friend says they were pickleball partners when Routh lived in Hawaii, and that he was an exceptionally aggressive player.  There's a paddle involved and a tennis court, and that's all I know about pickleball.  Routh has been charged with two federal counts of firearm possession but the state's attorney for Palm Beach County has no plans for prosecution.  Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, is shocked that "those same [federal] agencies that are prosecuting Trump are now going to be investigating this?"  Bootsie thinks attempted murder and a life sentence are more appropriate for the "radical leftist" whose dream ticket appears to have been Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Last night at the Fox Theater in Atlanta a gala celebration was held for Jimmy Carter's hundredth birthday, which occurs on October 1.  Performers included the Drive-By Truckers, the B-52s, and Chuck Leavell of the Allman Brothers band.  So it was exceptionally delicate of Charlie Kirk to wait until today to demand that Carter's Secret Service detail be transferred to Trump.  And since they're obviously not up to the task of securing an entire golf course at a country club where any Chinese spy with a million dollars can join, maybe the military, too.  That the old man might take up a different hobby -- pickleball, for instance -- is apparently out of the question.

The old man owns a course in California, too, and decided to combine campaigning with some free publicity for the place.  "The reason you have no water...is because Gavin 'Newscum' didn't want to do it," he explained.  "I had it all done...you have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps in Canada, and it is all pouring down.  And they have essentially a very large faucet.  And you turn the faucet, and it takes a day to turn it, it's massive.  And all of the water goes into the -- aimlessly into the Pacific.  And if they turned it back, all of that water would come down here and right into Los Angeles...and all those fields that are right now barren, the farmers would have all the water they needed and you could revert water up into the hills where you have all the dead forests, where the forests are so brittle."

I'm impressed that he remembered the name of the ocean.  And I can't wait to get a look at the giant faucet.  Is it turned by Clydesdales?  Why would the Canadians give us the water instead of using it to fight their own wildfires?  Why the hell am I taking this seriously?

Trump likes to hold "press conferences" where no reporters can ask questions and "town halls" where nobody can ask questions so his handlers can whine, "Why doesn't Kamala ever answer questions?  What's her plan for a cease-fire in Gaza?  Why hasn't she fixed everything yet?"  Sparta, Michigan, was the lucky winner and the interlocutor was Sarah Sanders, imported from Arkansas.  Trump's ex-press agent, a prime example of the Peter Principle, opened with the tired complaint that poor, barren Kamala Harris has no children to keep her "humble" like Governor Lectern.  Still focused on the environment, Trump then explained why it's not a real worry:  "Nuclear power.  And when I hear these people talking about global warming, that's the global warming that you have to worry about, not that the ocean's gonna rise in four hundred years an eighth of an inch and you'll have more seafront property, right, if that happens."  The people of Michigan were so dazzled by the thought of seafront property, they may not have noticed when he promised energy independence because of "Bagram in Alaska."  ("Might be bigger than all of Saudi Arabia.")  

Trump has found that he can fundraise off every threat, so a Xwitter post amplified by the reliably xenophobic Daily Mail claimed "explosives" were removed from the vicinity of his rally tonight at the Nassau Coliseum.  Nassau County police have dismissed the rumor, which may have originated when someone saw a K-9 dog being trained in a nearby park.  So the festivities will go on as usual and Trump can whine that the Federal Reserve cutting the prime rate by half a point is part of a plot by "Comrade Kamala" and "Crooked Joe Biden" to steal his re-election.  (Chairman Powell is a Republican appointed by Trump, so expect to hear him called names, too.)

Step aside, son, I say step aside, and let the master show you how racism is done.  At a hearing putatively about hate crimes and antisemitism, John N. Kennedy started his questioning of Maya Berry, executive director of the Muslim American Institute, by demanding to know if she supports Hamas.  When she gave a measured but negative response, not the "yes or no" he demanded, he then accused her of supporting Hezbollah.  Then he wanted to know what she thought of "Iran and their hatred of Jews."  But she kept treating him like a sentient adult instead of a Trumpanzee (that Oxford degree fools a lot of people), so he concluded with a suggestion the Senate has probably not heard before:  "You should hide your head in a bag."  You first, Senator Claghorn.

Billie Eilish has endorsed Kamala Harris.  I can't wait to see if Trump calls "him" stupid.