a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
So there they were, actually meeting – Kim and Trump. (A little jarring to see the American flags side by side with the North Korean flags).
I certainly don’t care for Trump’s thumbs-up enthusiasm .. but I’m sure the South Koreans & Japanese are way, way more nervous about the consequences of this meeting. Kim already won big by ‘legitimizing’ himself. What will the world get in return?
I went down to the Space Needle this afternoon, to check how the removal of the scaffolding is progressing.
It’s Friday, and Trump is out of the country .. yay!
Our President-That-Alienates-Our-Allies suggested out of the blue, on the way to the G7 meeting, that Russia should be allowed back into the G7. (Haha. I think they will decline). Relations are so frayed, that the G7 may actually become the G6 – by throwing the United States out. (Hopefully not). Does Trump’s staff even tell him that? Does he even know that Russia was kicked out of the G8 in 2014 because Putin invaded Ukraine (and his army shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17)?
P.S. The indictments are piling up for Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. An additional indictment today lumps Manafort and suspected Russian intelligence operative Konstantin Kilimnik together, charging them both with obstruction of justice. (Manafort made numerous phone calls to Kilimnik while out on bail, while already indicted for a long list of serious crimes). Manafort needs to take his toothbrush with when he goes to court next Friday. Word is that his bail is going to be revoked – that he is going to sit in jail to await the start of his trial in July.
Update Sat Jun 9: At the conference ..
It was ‘beers & a bite’ night for me and my compadres, at our usual Irish pub (The Chieftain) on 12th Avenue.
We usually try not to make the conversation all about politics and the Trump Administration Circus .. but it’s really hard not to!
Below is a still frame of
a successful mountain rescue mission on Monday. Four hikers got in trouble high up on Mt Baker, and had to shelter in a cave on Sunday night.
The rescue helicopter only had a 30 minute window of clear weather conditions. Landing in the snow created tricky white-out conditions (churned- up snow powder), and the four hikers were the maximum load that could be accommodated by the helicopter.
Trump’s support of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August last year was a particularly low point (‘very fine people’).
But what is going on now at the border is even uglier. The New York Times: ‘United States authorities had separated several hundred children, including toddlers, from their parents or others claiming to be their family members, under a policy of criminally prosecuting undocumented people crossing the border’.
And so what does Trump do today? Does he own it? Does he defend it? Does he explain it? Of course not. He peddles FOUR BRAZEN LIES in a single short tweet.
My attachment to Café Francais goes back to the very first time I set foot in the United States in 1990. My older brother and I were visiting my younger brother in Palm Desert, California. He had some in his kitchen cabinet.
The stuff has been my favorite additive for hot milk, ever since. (Just one teaspoon).
I completely ran out of it last week, and horrors! it seemed to have disappeared, or was sold out, everywhere. But just tonight, I checked one more time here at the local Safeway (grocery store), and there it was, on the shelf.
Animals that qualify, have to be ‘cute’ or otherwise ‘interesting’. (Yes, I know: not very scientific, my criteria).
The Norwegian Bliss is brand new, and the biggest cruise ship to visit Seattle yet. (Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas is slightly bigger).
The Bliss’s passenger capacity is 4,004, crew of 1,716, cruise speed 23.2 knots from diesel electric engines, length is 1,094 ft (333.5 m) and maximum beam 136 ft (41.5 m).
She was constructed at Meyer Werft in Papenburg, Germany.
Friday night saw almost 3 inches of rainfall in Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town. Still, the Cape Town City Council is said to be entertaining the possibility of towing an iceberg from Antarctica to Cape Town, to further help boost the city’s low water inventory. Say what? Can that possibly work? was my first reaction.
Well, here are the numbers*. Some 200 billion tons of ice from Antarctica slide into the sea in a typical year – the equivalent of more freshwater than the world uses in a year. Some icebergs float for 5 years in the ocean, and some make it to Gough Island. Such an iceberg could be towed from there, for the roughly 2,700 km (1,700 mi) distance to Cape Town. The iceberg will be stationed off the coast (Cape Columbine on the west coast is mentioned), and could conceivably deliver 100 megaliter of water every day for a year as it melts. (About 20% of the city of Cape Town’s needs). If such a project is can be pulled off successfully, its cost is projected to be less than half the cost of desalinating an equivalent amount of seawater.
*From an article in the Sat Jun 2 issue of ‘Die Burger’ newspaper.
Not a day goes by, with no scandal or bad news, from the Trump administration. Today, President ‘Bring-Back-Law-and-Order’ Trump pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, a right-wing Twitter troll, that pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in 2014. It’s pardon No 6. Rumored to be next, are Martha Stewart, and a commutation of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s jail sentence he is serving. Why them? Former FBI director James Comey (fired by Trump) led Stewart’s prosecution, and Comey’s friend Patrick Fitzgerald, led Blagojevich’s.
So Trump is using the presidential pardon power for revenge. Or even to signal to the criminals associated with him (think Micheal Flynn, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort) that he will pardon them as well, in the event the Russia investigation finds them guilty. (Flynn has already pleaded guilty, as a matter of fact).
Some analysts note though, that it is not out of the question that these pardons – and what they signal – could become part of the obstruction of justice evidence, collected by the Russia investigation.
A contractor for Seattle City Light stopped by my house today, to install my ‘smart’ meter (for metering electricity usage). I see the device is from a Swiss vendor Landis+Gyr.
‘The meter will last you 20 years or more’, said the technician. (OK. But if vastly better technology becomes available, I’m sure it will be replaced).
Why a smart meter? The meter beams its readings to a collector tower nearby, and to the utility from there. So no more driving around by meter readers (that get bitten by the dog, or cannot get to the meter). The meter will automatically notify Seattle City Light of outages. Finally, once all the back-end systems are in place, customers (me) would be able to monitor their electricity usage remotely and in real time.
Birds of a feather flock together. – English proverb in use since the mid-16th century.
It is Memorial Day, when we honor the service and memory of soldiers that gave their lives in wars fought for the United States.
May of 1968, 50 years ago, would turn out to be the bloodiest month, of the bloodiest year, for American soldiers in Vietnam. As 1968 drew to a close, public opinion in the United States turned against the war.
The little lantern flowers on my flowering maple* (genus Abutilon) in my back yard, have started to appear. If it stays happy, it should produce flowers throughout summer. *The leaves look like small maple leaves, but it is not a true maple at all.
We have had summery weather this May. It has been drier and hotter than normal all month here in the Pacific Northwest.
‘Dear Kim Jong Un: It’s just not working out between us. Sorry. Hope we don’t have to nuke you. Please call’. .. – the way the Los Angeles Times paraphrased the letter sent by Trump to Kim to cancel the planned meeting of June 12.
The timing of the announcement was terrible: American journalists were still in North Korea, witnessing the (apparent?) destruction of one of the nuclear test sites. The last part of the journey to the site was a two-hour walk.
It’s easy to look back now and realize: it never really was going to happen.
We’re into our second year of the Russia investigation into a. the ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia, and b. the question if Trump obstructed the investigation.
Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters (co-conspirators?) spout outright lies & conspiracy theories on Twitter, and to the media, almost every day. On Sunday, Trump ‘demanded’ by tweet that the FBI be investigated. (So the subject of the investigation, demands that the investigators be investigated).
Just today, Trump repeated allegations that federal investigators had used spies against his presidential campaign (‘Spygate’. OK .. evidence, please?).
Anyway, let’s focus. Below is a great comparison of special investigations since 1973. Take-away: Mueller has found a lot of wrongdoing already, but probably has a year – or more – to go.
Then today, the New York Times, laid out the main possible outcomes when Special Counsel Mueller eventually completes his investigation.
Outcome 1: Trump did nothing wrong.
Outcome 2: Trump broke the law (many possibilities here).
> 2.1: Mueller’s Least Aggressive Option: Mueller submits a report (to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein).
> 2.2: The ‘Nixon Option’: A grand jury from Mueller’s investigation deems Trump an un-indicted co-conspirator & sends a report to Congress.
> 2.3: Mueller’s Most Aggressive Option (unlikely): Mueller indicts Trump.
Additional Notes:
Note a. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is the gatekeeper for Outcome 2, and Mueller’s report goes to him first .. but if Mueller tries to indict (2.3), and Rosenstein says ‘No’, that triggers an automatic report to Congress.
Note b. The Nov 2018 Mid-term Elections will likely happen before Mueller’s investigation is done.
> If Republicans then control the House: Impeachment proceedings will start only if the report has damning evidence of wrongdoing, or of breaking the law.
> If Democrats then control the House: They will face tremendous pressure to do something. They are likely to consider impeachment.
There was a mountain lion (cougar) attack on two mountain bikers on Saturday morning. Isaac Sederbaum (31) was injured but is OK, but his friend S.J. Brooks (32), tragically, did not survive. Brooks was an avid biker that had moved here from Boston. Before Saturday, 16 cougar attacks, one of which was fatal, had been reported in Washington state during the past century.
The used copy of ‘Dead Wake’ that I had ordered from a third-party seller on Amazon for $6, arrived in the mail today.
It is a retelling of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, by a German U-boat. I glanced at the detailed Wikipedia entry, but did not really read it. I will read of all the dramatic events in the book.
