03 October 2023

Oktoberfest für das Auto

Nobody can complain about filling my car up with 20 proof 10% ethanol fuel — its twenty-first birthday was a few days ago, so it's perfectly legal for it to sip alcohol.

This link sausage platter platter is dedicated to the more-than-slightly inebriated in public life. Because, well, it is Oktoberfest!

  • So at the opening of his civil trial, The Orange One's incredibly misguided, obviously desperate lawyer tried to claim that all real-estate valuation is inherently subjective (which would come as a complete surprise to the tax authorities), and claimed that some of his properties were like the Mona Lisa. But the picture has a mustache in the form of the huge five-letter piece of graffiti applied on the outside of virtually every "fine-art-grade" building in the "gallery" (and past "exploits" of The Orange One echo elsewhere in that song, too). Comparing any piece of commercial real property development to the Mona Lisa has other obvious problems, too, that expose the desperation of that lawyer. When the facts are against you, argue the law; when the facts and the law are against you, pound on the table; when pounding on the table (or courtroom staff) elicits a gag order from the judge, resort to fanciful comparisons to completely irrelevant cultural artifacts that can be refuted by virtually any high school honors student.
  • McCarthyism (2d series) is over. This is the inevitable result of being so intoxicated (with present and hoped-for power) that one can no longer distinguish between "Speaker of the House" and "Prime Minister in a parliamentary system" — because that's really what happened here. The egos, general idiocy, inherent buffoonery, and intolerance for dissent (let alone actual discussion of the issues leading to dissent) of the second McCarthy era, and especially the various attempted legislative hostage-takings, just aren't funny. There's really only one thing to say to Gaetz: "Splitter!"

    n.b. All insults and disparagement implied in or inferrable from comparing these fools to failed sectarian revolts are entirely intentional, and probably understatements. I suppose they can look on the bright side of governance…

  • All of which is slightly more intoxicated-with-power-in-public than being a New Jersey politician. Of course, I lived for several decades somewhere that makes the most-corrupt New Jersey politician shenanigans look as amateurish as they really are. Or maybe it's just that law enforcement is better in Illinois — they actually convicted almost half of the governors. (We'll carefully ignore the mistrials-with-no-retrial, the refusals to prosecute, and the rest of the government.)
  • Or you could just worry about inept tax collection systems resulting in "unanticipated" shortfalls. <SARCASM> But that hasn't ever caused any problems Over Here, has it? </SARCASM>
  • Ok, ok, it's Oktoberfest, so we should at least acknowledge some good German festival music. Before imbibing any more bier (and this is why that clydesdale-delivered product doesn't count: it includes rice, which is not one of the four lawful ingredients — even if those bureaucrats in Brussels didn't get it).