Sacramento

Funny, I never heard of this band before, or heard of this song, but it's all about Sacto!

Zumba Flashmob Tomorrow At The State Capitol

9 a.m., west steps of the California State Capitol.

Can't find the instructive videos though.

Be prepared to 'wing it' tomorrow. The routine is simple.

They say.

OK, You Get A 'Golden Apple'

Well, things could be worse. I could be living in Arizona.

California State Fair 2012

On Fire!

Whee!

Zipper.

Midway.

Duckies.

'68 Camaro.

Noel's Mexican Food.

Sheep.

Sheep.

One-month-old calf, and his owner (from Woodland).

Texas longhorn. I didn't see any Ankole Watusis this year (like back in 2007).

Texas longhorn.

Too close to the Texas longhorn. One small flick of the animal's head, and this fellow will go to the hospital! Nevertheless, nothing happened....

I overheard one woman say that she could practically read the thoughts of one longhorn: "He's tired. He just wants to go home."

"Please do not touch. I WILL defend myself." Nevertheless, people were sneaking brief touches of those dangerous, alluring horns.

Get to know your llama.

Llama. One llama owner said llamas really like to roll around in the dirt, and when the owners start cleaning them up for the Fair, they first use a leaf blower to blow away the dust before trying to wash them. She was impressed with the Fair: she had never seen such clean llamas!

Watchful llama.

Alpacas. I asked a llama owner what the difference was between llamas and alpacas, and she said, apart from the size difference, llamas were much smarter. So, alpacas: dumber than the dumbest llama.

Cute alpaca. No question, no one can beat the alpacas when it comes to cuteness.

Cute alpaca.

Love your llama.

Llama anatomy.

Llama.

"Pets welcome. Humans must be on a leash."

Midway.

Soul Train.

Queue.

Macaw.

Left: The fatal allure of the bungee jump.

Below: Pillar.

Ride from Michael Jackson's 'Neverland' is back!

Ride from Michael Jackson's 'Neverland' is back!

Sylvester - Hard Up

Pepper started using this song in his work-outs lately. No one is better than Sylvester! From 1983.

And Speaking About The Emerald City....

Poppies!:

Hiker discovers vast pot farm near Las Vegas

...Officials said the hiker alerted police after he came across four plots of marijuana plants near the 8,400-foot level of the canyon located on State Route 160. Officers from a drug-trafficking task force removed the plants, which could have produced more than 11,000 pounds of marijuana and was worth an estimated $16.5 million, officials said.

Marc's Third Bungee Jump

Bungee jumping Thursday night, at the California State Fair. Riding along with me in the gondola was Adam Sartain, who played 'The Wizard' in Davis Musical Theatre Company's (DMTC's) 2006 production of "The Wizard Of Oz." One of his best roles ever!

Prior to the jump, Adam entertained me with quotes; specifically, from when the Wizard boards his balloon gondola to return to Kansas from Oz, and says good-bye to the assembled citizens of the Emerald City. Along the lines of: "To confer, converse, and otherwise hob-nob with my brother wizards" - and - "I can't come back, I don't know how it works! Good-bye, folks!" I was laughing so hard I had almost no time at all to dwell upon the specter of imminent death.

FOX News To The UK: Shut Up!

More expert diplomacy:

Fox And Friends’ Brian Kilmeade: “I think the British press better back off — and so should the officials! This guy could be president!”

Mitt Romney Slays Them In London

Pure 24-carat gold for the Obama campaign! Only in fevered campaign dreams does it ever get THIS GOOD! And he's off to Jerusalem too. Oh joy!

First, Timothy Noah:

Right now you're probably wondering: What possessed Mitt Romney to insult the Conservative Prime Minister of Britain--on a foreign trip meant to demonstrate Romney's supposedly superior ability to manage foreign affairs--by criticizing the U.K.'s handling of the Olympic games on the eve of their commencement? This blunder catches Romney in an exquisite trap of his own making. On the one hand, he seems to have genuinely angered David Cameron, a rare European ally in the lonely fight against European-style socialism. On the other hand, Romney's 11th Commandment is: Thou Shalt Not Apologize To Foreign Leaders, especially when on foreign soil. The guy wrote a whole book about it! How could Romney be so stupid as to hoist himself on this petard?

...So how did Romney get himself into this mess? I think that becomes clear when you look at what Romney went on to say to Williams after he noted that the early signs about the London Olympics were discouraging:

Because there are three parts that makes Games successful. Number one, of course, are the athletes. That's what overwhelmingly the Games are about. Number two are the volunteers. And they'll have great volunteers here. But number three are the people of the country. Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.

You've heard this voice before. It is the voice of a comically self-satisfied man basking in the glory of achieving something very few mortals would be capable of--in this case, running a successful Olympic Games. Indeed, Romney would have you believe that he didn't just make the Salt Lake City games a success--he saved the Olympics themselves. He grabbed ahold of an Olympic torch extinguished by international scandal and relit the flame. That is the unembarrassed message of Romney's 2004 book Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games.

...It's also, as I've written before ("No Medal For You,") a pretty weak case. Romney did a perfectly fine job running the Olympics, but so have lots of other people. ... Romney is deeply invested in the idea that it takes superhuman skills to save an Olympic Games from the disaster and international humiliation to which it naturally inclines. The idea that it can be done reasonably well even by a past-its-prime power like Britain is too much for Romney to bear. And I'm afraid he let it show at a very inopportune moment.

And Joan Walsh:

To recap: He called the state of the games “disconcerting” and told NBC’s Brian Williams, “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out.” He was rebuked by Prime Minister David Cameron and mocked by London Mayor Boris Johnson, in a speech that played hourly on the BBC Thursday. “I hear there’s a guy, there’s a guy called Mitt Romney, who wants to know whether we’re ready. He wants to know whether we’re ready? Are we ready?” And the crowd went wild, screaming “Yeah!” (Later Johnson led the throng in chanting “Yes we can,” coincidentally the 2008 slogan of Romney’s electoral rival, President Obama.)

Then Romney publicly discussed a briefing by MI6 head John Sawers (looking extremely chastened), when it’s customary to keep such briefings private. He seemed to forget Labor Party leader Ed Miliband’s name when they met. “Like you, Mr. Leader, I look forward to our conversations this morning,” Romney said to Miliband, shaking his hand.

Also on Thursday, unbelievably, our attention was called to an idiotic passage in Romney’s book, “No Apology,” in which he dismissed Britain as “a tiny island nobody wants.” (What kind of person talks like that about another country? I mean, what kind of person who wants to be president talks like that about another country?)

Romney went on:

Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn’t been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler’s ambitions. Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth’s land and a quarter of the earth’s population.

By the end of the day, when asked by BBCNewsnight whether Romney will carry the Olympic torch, Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson replied, “Certainly not after today.”

...[S]ome conservatives are worried. Charles Krauthammer called Romney’s Olympics remarks “unbelievable” and “incomprehensible.”

I’ve written that Romney’s many gaffes reflect his enormous sense of entitlement and lamentable lack of empathy. Surveying British Olympics logistics, he felt entitled to hold forth on its flaws harshly, because that’s the sort of thing he did at Bain Capital. Perhaps Romney thinks the British should have outsourced the Olympics. Or maybe he sees an opening for a leveraged buyout, to make it more efficient. At any rate, the guy who said, “I like to be able to fire people who provide services to me,” is a guy used to mercilessly appraising a situation and delivering a slashing verdict. He clearly feels he’s entitled to do that anywhere.

...Romney wrapped up his no-good very-bad day at a fundraiser with the banks at the heart of the Libor scandal. Sad to say, it was probably a step up for him, given all the rancor he provoked. Maybe that was the idea: Commit a lot of gaffes to distract the media from your banking fundraiser. Don’t let it turn into a Hamptons soiree kind of thing.

And more pundits at Daily Kos:

Toby Harnden:

Later on, Romney told donors at a fundraiser (tickets had been slashed from $25,000 to $10,000 during the day) that he was 'looking forward to the bust of Winston Churchill being in the Oval Office again'.

The problem with that applause line is that the Jacob Epstein bust was a personal loan from Britain to President George W. Bush made in July 2001 for the duration of his presidency.

When Obama took over from Bush, the loan expired and he apparently showed no interest in extending it. The bust was returned to the Government Art Collection.

The whole issue, which has been used to portray Obama as anti-British, is a sore point for British diplomats, who view it as presumptuous for Romney to assume the bust would be loaned to him.

And then the incorrigible Mayor Boris Johnson turned the day into what one American reporter on the trip aptly described as a 'Cat 4 manurestorm' when he mocked Romney before 60,000 people.

National Journal:

Mitt Romney's clumsy start to his overseas trip is shaping up as a stark contrast to candidate Barack Obama's tour of the Middle East and Europe in July 2008, when he managed to strike perfect pitch at press conferences and in visits with foreign leaders.

The Telegraph:

Mitt Romney is perhaps the only politician who could start a trip that was supposed to be a charm offensive by being utterly devoid of charm and mildly offensive.

The Mayor Of London Mocks Mitt Romney

Looks like that international trip (to show everyone how ready he is for the international stage) is cratering. The spinners are spinning, but there is only so much they can do.

About time the British fought back. Mitt's been a total dick to them for years (from 2007):

The United States is in danger of becoming a "second-tier" nation like Britain and other European countries if Hillary Clinton wins the White House, according to Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential contender [...]

Mystery Of The Undressing Homeless Guys

Facebook is fun, sometimes:

M.V.: OK, why were those 2 homeless guys undressing behind those dumpsters?

A.T.: It's laundry day?

A.S.: Better than in front of the dumpsters.

M.V.: I thought a train was coming, so I dodged down an unfamiliar alley. One fellow was handing the other his shirt. Maybe it is laundry day?

N.B.: Or maybe they were trading clothes?

M.F.: They were hot? Perhaps they were taking an "air bath" like Ben Franklin used to...

M.V.: On the return, I didn't go back through the alley, but dodged around a parking lot from where I could still observe. Saw one fellow standing there with his shopping cart. Seemed quiet. I suspect 'laundry day' was the correct explanation. But M.F.'s comment makes me laugh. Were they (Chippendale's) hot? Not. Even. Close.

Mount Hood Has A Toxic Glamour

Back in 1974, I nearly got killed at pretty much this exact location.

In 2002, the location became even more famous as a very nasty place to get into trouble.

Yearning to go back, actually. It's a little bit glamorous....

"A Plan"

Deborah recently sent this, as she now faces the daunting task of picking up the shards of her mother's estate.

Baffled By The Bots

When I posted this video from two weeks ago on YouTube, it was with a sense of embarrassment. The video wasn't very good, and doesn't do justice to Ms. Veloz and her talents. Nevertheless, I posted it, for the record.

To my surprise, the video was picked up on Twitter, and many of her fans watched it. Strangely, although one person noted the video being off-sync, no one seemed to dislike the video enough to give it a 'thumbs-down'. They just seemed happy to hear news from her summer tour.

And now, I have a number of new YouTube subscribers who don't seem to be human beings at all. They all joined YouTube on April 2nd, and they are each 22 years old. The new subscribers appear to be "bots", and they spend their days indiscriminately watching YouTube videos (with a particular penchant for watching business-marketing schlock that they probably watch a lot of at Guantanamo). The bots really like this video! The viewing statistics are really jumping for this video, and it's among the worst videos I've ever uploaded! What could it mean?

Which reminds me, Carla told me two months ago that these bots really exist. That's how people get such spectacular viewing statistics on YouTube, and it can make a big difference to a singer's career. I smiled at her and didn't believe a word she said. Guess I was wrong!

But what to do with the bots? Do they like to read blogs too? Maybe I've found my true audience?

Bet They Insist On Naming The Stadium Too

Not Ready On The Right

An innocent abroad:

Mitt Romney left critics of his foreign policy stances a big opening when he fumbled the first full day of his international trip. A group of Democratic foreign policy experts was eager to plow through it Thursday.

“We’ve watched him insult the Brits in telling them that the nation that handled the Battle of Britain and showed resolve throughout very trying times can’t pull together during the Olympics?” Mark Jacobson, a former deputy NATO civilian representative in Afghanistan, told TPM on a conference call sponsored by the progressive Truman National Security Project. “That’s not the right way to start off this trip abroad.”

Jacobson said Romney’s big stumble in England — which resulted in near-uniform harassment from the British press as well as umbrage from British Prime Minister David Cameron — “betrays Romney’s lack of experience” in foreign policy.

“He’s simply not ready for the very delicate diplomatic dance that is necessary when handling our country’s relations abroad,” Jacobson said.

Rip Van Romney

One thing that worried me about the way the Cold War abruptly ended was that the United States itself experienced no sudden jolt. Nothing changed. Defense spending continued on as before, even though the Soviet threat had vanished. There would eventually be hell to pay for the lack of a signal to the U.S. population, and its politicians.

And so, twenty years later, American politicians find themselves locked in a fantasy world:

A foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s campaign warned against policies that would aid “the Soviet Union” Wednesday, making him at least the third person from Team Romney — including Romney himself — to refer to a country that hasn’t existed since 1991 in the course of attacking President Obama’s foreign policy.

Dramas In Fake English

As I get older, and my dance-music-impacted hearing begins its ever-so gradual deterioration, ordinary life is beginning to more-and-more resemble this movie. Half the time, I don't know what the hell is going on. And even if I understand the words, I can't puzzle out the meaning.

It's that damned aspartame, I tell you....

Bitchin' "Breaking Bad"

Tilting At Windmills In Woodland

Righting unrightable wrongs, and all that.