Dog's Best Friend

Obama Checking if Bo is Dead

Recently, I was helping a friend repair his fence in his backyard when his bull terrier started humping my leg. Now, a bull terrier is the perfect size dog to drop kick, and seeing how he was already on my leg, I figured I would give it a go. I shed him cleanly, and he flew awkwardly across the yard. Now dogs don't have the ability to land on all fours like cats. Dinkles the Dog, or whatever his name is tumbled hard when he came in for a landing.

"What the fuck!" my friend exclaimed.


That's dog owners for you. Their dog is raping your leg, and they object to the force you use to get them off. At least Dinkles couldn't shoot his spunk on my Yeezys, being a eunuch and all. He's lucky I didn't put him into orbit.

Dogs aren't really your best friend. I know how unpopular it is to say that. Presidents in this country who want to get reelected are advised to get a dog for the White House otherwise dog owners, which is everybody but me, won't vote for them. I read that Obama hated his dog, Bo, a Portuguese Water Dog. There's a few press pictures of him playing with Bo, but I think Obama just stepped out for a smoke and decided to fake interacting with the animal. I know this because Obama was photographed with a football, and everyone knows dogs just don't play with pig skins. Between the pet dander and the cigarettes, the White House must have stunk terribly.


All my friends have pets, and they collectively bitch about the damage they do. Dog owners are often preoccupied with their dog's bowel movements. They discuss this over dinner. Dogs have a limited opportunity to use the bathroom because they don't actually use the bathroom. They use the yard, and some dog owners have to go with them. One of my friends stands outside in the winter at night when it's one degree outside while his dog pinches because his backyard isn't fenced in.

"I'm gonna fence in this yard," he always says.

He's envious of people who have turned their entire backyard into a toilet for their dog. No thanks!

Dog owners always say I'm depriving my kids by not getting them a dog. One of my dog lover friends was lecturing me as to the joys of dog ownership as we walked Dinkles, who squatted to take a shit. My friend donned a rubber glove, crouched down on his creaky knees and extracted the warm lump from the grass then placed it inside a plastic bag. Whatever he claimed the benefits of dog ownership were was replaced by the timeless image and lingering smell of the turd my friend was now toting.

I read that Obama said his daughters really wanted a dog. Truth is when children really want any pet, they really want the pet for like an hour. After that, you're feeding it, cleaning up after it when it pukes on the rug, and paying its vet bills. Spare me the details of the unconditional love your dog pours on you everyday. There really is no such thing as unconditional love. If a jerk like me started regularly feeding your dog, it would forget you completely. All the times you took it on long walks and bitched about your spouse, the Frisbee afternoons in the park, the special trips to the beach, all forgotten just because I poured the Eukanuba into its bowl.

My friend refers to his bull terrier as "a member of the family" and sometimes as "his favorite child." This always makes me cringe. A lot of dog owners get a second auxiliary dog when the primary dog gets old. This dog on deck strategy helps to maintain continuity, but it also highlights the clear difference between children and pets. Parents don't have a second child just to replace the first when it dies. True, the British royal family does that all the time, but they're a bunch of inbred nutjobs.

Recently, I read that post rapture pet insurance is a hoax orchestrated by Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, an organization that offered pet care services after Jesus returns by popular demand for a limited engagement to judge our behavior here on earth. First of all, it's a little presumptuous to think you'll be going with the Savior after He separates all the good people from the douchebags. The odd thing is that anyone would trust the care of a beloved pet to an atheist contending with post apocalyptic earth. Even if it wasn't a hoax, most pets are going to end up in a pot after the cataclysm gets in full mad max mode.

When I was a kid, a lot of consummate dog lovers would tie their dogs to a tree in the backyard and leave for the day. It's just like a human to take an animal that can run and chain it to something, cage a bird that that can fly, or restrict the range of fish to ten gallons. It's not like dogs watch TV or read a book when you're gone. They're pack animals. They listen to the call of the wild like Buck, but dog owners restrict them such that they can't even take a shit until someone comes home.

An Orca Contemplating
Eating a Trainer

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have protested SeaWorld's practice of capturing and breeding orca's in captivity for performances in shows at theme parks. The protesters point out that whales roam in tight-knit family pods unlike the pools at SeaWorld. Millions of dogs are incarcerated in homes everyday in this country in environments that are nothing like the way they lived in the wild. Although dogs have been domesticated, they certainly don't prefer to be alone even temporarily. That's why dogs bark so incessantly. Most dogs have to wait until their owners come home before they can eat. How ethical is that?

Of course, that pales in comparison to the forcible sterilization domesticated pets endure at the hands of pet lovers. To prevent an animal from procreating, you don't have to perform a hysterectomy or castration. You could just tie their tubes or perform a vasectomy, but that would mean Dinkles would still menstruate or occasionally shoot off his spunk when he humps your leg. Pet people collectively don't want to bother with any of that mess so they surgically carve up their pets so the animal fits into a human world. The same people who remove an animals ability to bust a nut refer to me as a "dog hater." Once on Imgur "my most prized possession" was trending. A woman posted several pictures of her dog, Deke, with the caption,

"My most prized possession is my dog Deke. I just love him."

Being a consummate dick my whole life, I was the first to responded with,

"Deke's most prized possession was his balls."

Jackass Alumnus, Steve-O

Steve-O of Jackass fame got a vasectomy in Puerto Rico to stand in solidarity with his dog, "Wendy," but I got news for him. He didn't go far enough. Steve-O's dog had so much of its anatomy removed that the dog is likely now non binary and probably just sits around and eats all day. Steve-O should have gotten an irreversible gonadectomy if he wanted to commiserate with his beloved pet. There is nothing more undoable then getting your balls handed to you in a jar.

Who knows, maybe our pets suffer from mental illness. Most of them are probably pretty messed up from being torn from their families and forcibly sterilized. Some dog owners elect to implant prosthetic testicals in their dogs after castration as if plastic balls were a good substitute for never again being able to have a nut shot. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) actually encourages the practice of "fixing" your pet. I'll bet dogs don't refer to the procedure by that term. The Kardashians implanted unusually large balls in their boxer, Rocky, after fixing his little red wagon. It must have been Kim's idea because after her butt implants, she was okay with never again being able to ride a bicycle. Maybe your dog is offended by being called "dog." They might prefer the term, "canine." Perhaps they want to be a full fledged seeing eye dog and not merely a service pet. Just can't say for sure.

You may have chosen your dog as your best friend, but ultimately, you'll never know if he would have chosen you.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on February 28, 2017.

The Chicken or the Egg

Years ago when I was in fifth grade at Saint Joseph's Catholic School in Rhode Island, I was deemed a "troublemaker." It all started one day when Sister Mary Artifact told us a story about a boy and a scientist. She said,

One day a little boy asked a scientist, "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?"



The scientist asked the boy why he wanted to know. The boy said, "You're a smart scientist. You should be able to tell me which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

The scientist said, "Why don't you go outside and play little boy."

Sister Mary concluded her fable with the ominous warning,

You see, scientists can't tell us everything.

Sister Mary Artifact was French. She was a thousand years old and shaped like a pear. She never smiled. A lot of nuns smacked us around back then. Sister Mary insulted us often in between cracks to the head. She routinely publicly singled me out for embarrassment. Oddly, she always seemed to be coughing up phlegm.
 

I thought about her story in my eleven year old mind. My parents had a subscription to National Geographic Magazine. That was how I got all my science education during the eight years I spent in parochial school. I had recently read an article on evolution. I raised my hand.

"Sister," I began, "If God created the chicken or the egg, then the scientist would have no clue which He made first. If the chicken evolved, then the egg came first."

Sister Mary Artifact looked at me sternly.

"You think you're smart," she issued, "Bobby Languedoc thinks he's smarter than God."

I didn't think I was smarter than God just smarter than her. For some reason I spit out a question that had bothered me during all my years in Catholic School.

"Sister, why does God let babies die?"

Sister Mary was pissed. At eleven, I wasn't good at interpreting the expressions on the faces of people, otherwise I wouldn't have asked her a question. She responded,

"God is infinite. Bobby Languedoc thinks he's infinite too."

Now, I was sure I wasn't infinite. I just wanted an answer. Sister Mary added,

"It's not for you to know. Bobby Languedoc is a real troublemaker."

That label stuck with me for the rest of my time in Catholic school. Recently, a friend of mine forwarded a video of Bishop Barron, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He has a very prolific online presence with his Word on Fire ministry.

Bishop Barron

Bishop Barron has a PhD in theology. He's very knowledgeable about history. He's a smart guy who offers very interesting perspectives on many religious topics and current events. I watched the video my friend forwarded me. At the end, Bishop Barron took some questions from the audience. A woman asked,

"What do you tell people who ask why God lets children suffer?"

I was very interested in what Bishop Barron had to say since after all these years this question still puzzled me, and he's a way smart dude. Bishop Barron said something like,

"God is infinite. We are a finite mind trying to understand an infinite mind."

That's it? Forty years after my chicken or the egg encounter in fifth grade, and the Catholic Church still punts when it comes to why God lets children suffer? I got the same answer decades ago from Sister Mary Artifact that Dr. Barron was now unloading on this thoughtful woman.

So this got me thinking again about why babies die. It seems so unfair. When a religion depends on an unknowable answer, then we might as well apply that to everything. I think any possible hypothesis should be able to explain most if not all of it. The incomprehensible approach is an assumption which covers the parts of the belief that don't quite fit the hypotheses. A lot of religious concepts were originated to control the masses, not to explain how things might work, like fish on Fridays, the caste system or burkas.

The Bible states that we live and die only once, and we don't marry people in heaven. A priest once told me that heaven is like a big feast. This last bit must have been a huge hit in medieval times when the average family went hungry on a daily basis. He also told me we become nonphysical beings when we die. Even the uptight Muslims believe in 88 black eyed virgins bestowed on martyrs. The problem I have with all of this is that it needs a bit of updating. No one unless they're in a lot of agony wants to die. The idea of heaven as a feast is unappealing to me. Not being married to my wife and not getting any action doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Rather than some well prepared dinner for the life after, I prefer another go around here on earth.

Many religions embrace reincarnation like Hinduism. The problem with this religion is they believe in the caste system here on earth. If you are born a peasant, then be a good peasant in this life, and in the next life, you'll be something better. The Bible says that you can't get into heaven from good deeds. Many Christian fundamentalists believe you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to get into heaven. Nuns used to tell us that if Hitler asked for forgiveness he would have gotten into heaven, and if Mother Theresa stubbed her toe and used the Lord's name in vain just before she got hit by a bus, then she would go to hell. That just doesn't seem fair.

More people have died than are alive today so there must be billions of people in heaven just milling about looking for something to do. If the earth was your project, wouldn't you send people back who did a good job already? I believe if you do more good than bad on this planet, you go back for another whirl. God allows for randomness in conjunction with free will which is why bad things happen to good people, even babies. But God puts you back into the mix if you draw the short straw. A baby who dies is reborn, and God stacks the deck in their favor. Why wouldn't He? He's God.

If you kill someone or yourself, your soul is ended. That much disrespect for life, and you're done. God wants you to live in the real world, in reality, to try your best, to stay off drugs and don't smoke because those things are stupid. He wants you to bring about more good than bad, and preferably very little bad. I don't think you have to believe in Christianity. I think it's more important to not be an asshole which in itself eliminates a lot of us.

I don't think there is a hell or a devil. Those ideas just don't make any sense. Free will brings about enough trouble without a need for some horned dude sneaking about. Why would God let the devil exist? Why doesn't he snuff out that guy right off? Does God really torture millions of people in the fires of hell, or does he just dispatch them and move on? I know the Bible says God can be vengeful, but I don't buy it. Why would an omnipotent being waste time punishing douchebags?

So to answer the question which came first, the chicken or the egg? Evolution says the egg. Creationism could be either. Why do babies die? Chaos and free will add randomness to our lives here on earth. Sometimes, you draw the short straw. Make the best of it, and next time around things will be better.

There's a lot of questions that we'll never be able to answer like is the Loch Ness Monster real, are there aliens stored in refrigerators at Area 51 and what is the song, Tiny Dancer, all about? For everything else, a little logic goes a long way. William of Ockham, a Franciscan Friar, said in the 13th century to always pick the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions.

Life and death seem to make more sense to me ever since I started shaving with Ockham's razor.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on February 23, 2017.

The Real Paris

When our first born was old enough my wife, Christine, and I decided to send him to a private school. There are two reasons why parents would want their kid to attend a private school.

1. You come from a wealthy family, and you went to a private school yourself, and you want the same experience for your kids.

2. You come from a middle class family and were bullied relentlessly in public school and don't want the same experience for your kids.

Both Christine and I heralded from the latter, she having endured both middle and high school run by her town. While it was awful for both of us, it was particularly bad for Christine. When we learned about a private school which emphasized the arts in our town, we were certain that the place would be staffed by avant guard former pot smoking hippies from the 60's who would nourish our son's creative side. That's not necessarily what we got. Instead the staff was more interested in doping up the boys with Ritalin due to their inability to sit still. Since a private school doesn't have to take your child, they're quick to deem them "a problem" especially when doing so covers for their inability to effectively teach.

All the state mandates, thrust upon public schools, which my conservative side initially shunned guides the staff on how to effectively educate fidgety boys without drugs. Meanwhile our private school was trapped in the old ways of teaching like math bees and round robin reading which was ejected from the public school system years ago as studies proved that these techniques provided the least benefit to the students most in need. There was a lot of odd things that occurred over the five years Aidan spent in the private school before we took him out. One of strangest involved scones and Paris.


In my son's class once per semester parents signed up for Family Food Day. This was a day in which the parents brought in their favorite meal for the students and teachers. I think the staff liked Family Food Day most of all since kids are typically happy with simple chow like microwaveable mac and cheese. Anyway, Christine's family food was scones. She makes the perfect scone, and she knows where to get clotted cream and real strawberry jam. If you're not British and don't know what clotted cream is it's a spread made from milk with steam. Several of Aidan's teachers were Brits so scones on Family Food Day was a tall order. Clotted cream, also known as Devonshire cream, was a must have for her Family Food Day.


Whatever went on each week in my son's class was written up and emailed to all the parents. I was certain Christine's scones would make the front page of the weekly classroom activities. When the flyer arrived top billing was given to a mother who had come into the classroom to tell the kindergarteners of her trip to Paris. Christine's scones didn't even make the cut. I asked Aidan about it, and he said,

"Yeah, Dean's mom went to Paris."

As I read the article it was clear that Dean didn't go on the trip nor did Dean's dad. In fact Dean's parents were recently divorced, and Dean's mom went to Paris with her new boyfriend, Steve, who was left out of the article, thankfully. I didn't grow up with a lot of parental guidance, but somewhere in my upbringing I learned that a trip to Paris with someone other than one's spouse was not kindergarten fodder. In fact retelling such a story to a bunch of kids is, how we say, gauche. Aidan elaborated on Dean's mom's trip to Paris.

"She told us she ate a bunny while in Paris," Aidan explained.

I'm sure that wasn't all Dean's mom ate in Paris.

"I told her that I went to Paris," Aidan naively offered.

"What did she say?" I asked.

"That she went to the real Paris. Not the one in Epcot," Aidan recalled.

"Did you tell her you went to the Louvre?" I asked.

"Yeah, she said, 'The Louvre isn't in Florida,'" Aidan recalled.

Aidan asked me why Dean didn't get to go to Paris too. What was I going to tell him?
 

"Well Aidan, Steve wanted to play hide the baguette with Dean's mom, and she told him if he wanted to do that he would have to take her to Paris first."

Actually I told him that Dean couldn't get time off of work.

"He's in kindergarten. He doesn't have a job," Aidan responded.

For a moment I imagined Dean crawling under a loom to change the bobbins as his mother jetted off to Paris with her boyfriend.

Outside the Louvre

Although Christine got a lot of compliments concerning her scones from Aidan's teachers, even the British subjects, to this day I can't imagine why these people thought it was a good idea to write up a divorced woman's trip to Paris with her boyfriend and skip my wife's baking. I thought perhaps Dean's mom might have suggested the idea, and the teachers tried to let the whole thing pass unnoticed. Oh no! They put it in the weekly mailing with top billing. The title of the article should have been,

Dean's Mom Has Sex with Boyfriend in Paris
 

with the subtitle,


Christine's Scones Are "Passable" Says British Teacher.

We left that private school a short time later. I guess in the end we just didn't fit in.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on January 19, 2017.

A Musician's Tapestry

Petty Officer Languedoc
Prepares to Sound Taps 

A few years ago my son, Aidan, played trumpet in the school jazz band. On his third year of middle school, he was lucky to have four strong musicians in his section. The band director usually had senior members of the group teach junior members as part of each student's development. Not only were Aidan's colleagues great trumpeters, they were also mature young adults who pulled Aidan up to their level. It was an all round great experience for my son.

The jazz band is not your normal middle school ensemble. It is an audition only endeavor that reigns in the best musicians from the student body. Some of the kids are extraordinarily talented. The band often takes on difficult jazz pieces considered high school, even college level charts. In the last year of middle school, Aidan was expected to mentor new members, an experience he looked forward to.

Half the band changed out and unfortunately for Aidan, one of the new trumpet players, Bryson, who Aidan was expected to mentor, was both a mediocre musician and a bit arrogant. Bryson would get lost during most performances, and Aidan thought he would help him with that first. Bryson informed Aidan that he knew all there was to know about the trumpet and had nothing else to learn. I told Aidan that it was his job to help Bryson understand that no one knows it all, and that it's highly likely that his education was in front, not behind him. In retrospect Bryson was well beyond Aidan's influence. Before long, Bryson's middle school vitriol focused on my son.

It started with some of the oddest criticism. Aidan had auditioned for a state level orchestral band that was very competitive and difficult to get into. He made it along with seven other students from his school. Most middle schools have only one musician who is accepted, but the music director at Aidan's school had high expectations, and that led to high achievement. Bryson didn't audition. Upon learning that Aidan was accepted, he told Aidan with a laugh,

"Now, you have to learn more music."

On the bus ride back from a concert, Bryson organized a vote among the band members to decide if Aidan should be ejected from the jazz band. Unfortunately, most of the senior musicians were not on the bus so a bunch of novices voted out the only experienced member present. Aidan was quiet that night. He eventually told us what happened. Instead of being angry, he was disappointed in himself. He said,

"I' can't teach him anything."

When middle schoolers are in a group, they all lean towards the lowest form of behavior. Rallying the crowd against someone gives them all a sense of power. There is no equivalent for this misguided behavior in the adult world. Bullying is a middle school phenomena that ironically makes students feel empowered, but in reality they're exercising their immaturity. Aidan's music instructor is a renowned trumpet player. He often imparts grandfatherly advice. When Aidan asked him what he should do, he said,

"Sometimes, all you have to work with is the threads on the back of the tapestry."

Aidan tried to make sense of this, but he was too preoccupied with the immediate situation to think it through. Historically, the concert we had just attended was the event when the music director would point out all the kids who made it into the regional band. For whatever reason, he didn't do it this year. He chose to focus on the achievements of his fellow teachers. Overlooking the students who were actually performing that night was a real misstep. The bus ride home, which included the ostracizing vote, topped off Aidan's night of misery. I was hoping the next performance at a local retirement facility would be better.

The concert went off without a hitch. The audience was mostly retirees. Some danced stylishly to the jazz tunes. At the end of the concert, the band director took the microphone and announced all the students by name who got into the regional orchestra. The crowd applauded vigorously. He also pointed out what an honor and how difficult an achievement it is to get in. As he finished and the applause dissipated, he added one last comment.

"One of our students is the second youngest bugler in Bugles Across America."

Aidan had long wanted to perform Taps at military funerals after reading an article about the nationwide shortage of competent musicians needed to honor veterans. He read about Bugles Across America (BAA), an organization that provides buglers for veteran services. He learned Taps and other bugle calls on his own. We travelled to an outdoor park in the fall to meet our state BAA director where Aidan auditioned in front of a group of people, enjoying the park. I listened to Aidan play from a distance as a small crowd gathered. When I saw that he and the director were talking, I approached. We learned together that he had made it. It was one of those moments of pride that a parent gets to experience which is unmatched by anything else in life. Afterwards, Aidan joined the Naval Sea Cadets so he could sound Taps in uniform.

Now, he was being singled out in front of what surely was a room full of veterans. The band director continued,

"Taps is played on a bugle, so no valves. It's done all with breath control. Breath for the pitches, breath for duration."

An elderly gentleman asked emphatically,

"Can he play it right now?"

Taps at services must be rendered away from everyone. You're supposed to hear it as if played from a distance which is why the bugler does not stand with the color guard. The bugler is allowed to play the first and last notes for volume only. They're not allowed to practice at the site. They have to stand alone then deliver the twenty-four notes when the time comes. This is how Aidan is trained. So when asked, he picked up his trumpet then moved away from the rest of the band.

The crowd grew quiet as he began playing. I closed my eyes and listened to the notes fill the room. When Aidan finished, the silence was broken by the gentle sound of weeping. I opened my eyes. An elderly woman to my right was quietly crying into her hands. Several veterans were standing with their hands on their hearts. Others stood at attention and saluted. Aidan returned his trumpet to his side with military precision, then something happened that was unexpected. The crowd began to move forward. First, the people who were standing, then others rose solemnly and joined the procession making their way to my son.

When the first man reached Aidan, he outstretched his arm. Aidan and the man shook hands. The man said nothing. He didn't have to. You could see what he wanted to say on his face. Another man took Aidan's hand once it was free. A woman reached Aidan and told him that it brought back memories of her father. Still another gentlemen said that Aidan had returned him to a time when his son had played Taps almost fifty years ago at a summer camp. As the crowd receded, the applause flooded the space.

Aidan remained composed and respectful through the entire event. He later told me that he witnessed the elderly gentlemen slowly rising to their feet, one by one, as he played the twenty-four notes flawlessly. His band members rallied around him in congratulations. Two days earlier, the threads of the tapestry seemed to be so tangled. And on this night, one in which few in attendance will soon forget, Aidan played Taps and brought a room full of people back to a time when they remembered their family and friends. And I finally understood what his music instructor meant.

You work with what you have even if that is the discarded threads on the back of the tapestry, and sometimes that makes the best weave.

Editors Note: Originally posted on January 3, 2017. Aidan is a high school junior who plays trumpet in the school jazz band. He has sounded Taps in uniform for over 40 military events. Auditioning each year, he was selected four times for the Connecticut Eastern Regional Band.

Space Farce

Space Force Insignia

Say what you want about the President, he does have some good ideas like removing massive regressive regulations that were strangling small businesses. He also renegotiated awful foreign trade deals made by stupid elected officials, who were selected for the task because they played golf with the president. Although many people openly oppose his immigration policy even my most liberal friends don't want open borders, and none of them want to pay for the healthcare of people who crawled under a fence or overstayed a visa. One idea that came from the White House recently which I don't agree with is the establishment of a sixth branch of the military, the US Space Force, the mission of which is to protect our interests in space.


Space Force Uniform

I think all this hype about unleashing our military might in orbit is just capitalizing on the release of Halo on Steam. Do we really need a bunch of people that are tasked with killing people in space? After the US Space Force tweeted a photo of their uniform many asked why the force combatants are clothed in green and brown camouflage? Officials with the Space Force promptly tweeted that service members were ground based and wore the same uniform as everyone else to save taxpayer dollars. I'm sure a gold sparkly space suit complete with silver helmet would cost way more than standard issue fatigues. Let’s face it. The Space Force is going to be the geek military. They want "space operators" to blend in with the rest of the military because most of them spent high school with their underwear rocket rammed up their rectum. Blending into the crowd is not a covert operating mode for the Space Force. It's the way unsocial nerds navigated high school.

 

Storm Trooper

I would prefer the Space Force to take on the Imperial Storm Trooper's uniform. I know they were the bad guys, but in those threads they at least look tough enough to defend space. If we are going to form a military to protect our oil reserves by killing things in space, they ought to at least look the part. With the Space Academy on the moon and a Spartan II program designed to produce genetically modified palookas, we'll be safe here on earth. We'll need to juice the Space Force because most of the members will be recruited from Best Buy's Geek Squad.



Pioneer 11 Plaque

I think Bill Nye should be tasked as the first Sky Marshal to lead the Space Force. He'll understand how to direct his people against the aliens that are going to follow the map on the plaque that Carl Sagan insisted scientists install on Pioneer 11 showing how to get back to earth. Aliens will be expecting a smiling, waving naked dude and his naked girlfriend as well as a few hydrogen atoms here on earth, but instead they'll be dealing with the US Space Force when they get here. Hopefully some members of the Space Force will be trained to kill goats with their minds.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in a strong military. I just think the Space Force is a stupid idea. I suspect no one ever tells Trump when he’s wrong like the way everyone always agreed with George Lucas which is how we ended up with Jar Jar Binks in Episode I – The Phantom Menace. The Space Force will certainly be the ultimate sequel to Star Wars. Just think of the endless possibilities for Legos!

Trump's Greatest Weakness

"What is your greatest weakness?"

This is perhaps the dumbest question asked by interviewers trying to pry a secret out of you. Some common answers are,

"I work too hard."

"I care too much."



And my favorite,

"I'm a perfectionist."

That question is up there with,

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

Once on an interview I answered,

"Trudging to my desk in a cube farm with no windows, then I win the lottery."

I didn't get the job. Bunch of stiffs.

President Trump

CNBC moderator Carl Quintanilla asked the "greatest weakness" question during the third republican debate held in Boulder on October 28, 2015. He could have asked what each candidate planned on doing about the $23 trillion debt the country is in, or how they would've handled the Iranian nuclear program. Instead, Quintanilla unloaded the stupidest question on the panel of would be nominees. Trump answered,

"I trust people too much, and when they let me down, if they let me down, I never forgive. I find it very, very hard to forgive people that deceived me."

This has me worried. Back in 2006 I was writing Amazon reviews. I was preoccupied with raising my rating so I wrote lengthy critiques of technical books that I read. I gave up when a friend trounced my rating by writing reviews of thong calendars. One of my reviews was a praise of David Hasselhoff's album, David Hasselhoff Looking For... The Best. Admittedly the only song I ever heard The Hoff sing was Hot Shot City. Most of the reviews included the line,

"Hot Shot City is particularly good."

I chose to focus my review on OJ Simpson, Neil Diamond, the Donald and his second wife, Marla Maples. Here it is.

5.0 out of 5 stars Musical Miracle  Musical Miracle

By Robert M. Languedoc - June 30, 2006 

Finally, an uncompromising set of the best of David Hasselhoff on one CD. Hasselhoff had the misfortune of debuting his musical career on June 17, 1994, the same day OJ took a drive on the LA freeway with Al Cowlings. Unfortunately the latter event stalled Hasselhoff's singing career since people were more interested in watching The Juice hide on the floor of his white Bronco while holding a gun to his head instead of the pay-per-view show, "David Hasselhoff and his Baywatch Friends," broadcasted from the sometimes bankrupt Trump Castle in Atlantic City. I was one of the few who watched Hasselhoff's musical extravaganza including the unforgettable duet, "If I Were a Carpenter," with Marla Maples, a sometimes wife of Donald Trump. Hasselhoff is in the same league as Neil Diamond with similar range, feeling and hair. His "Miracle of Love" CD didn't set any sales records, but in my opinion is one of the greatest musical masterpieces overlooked by the music industry, consumers, critics, stores, radio and just about any device that can produce sound.

I'm in big trouble. Who knew The Donald would be president someday? The only thing worse would be President Hasselhoff. To my defense the review is accurate. Hasselhoff's singing career was derailed by OJ Simpson, the only good thing that came out of the OJ murders. I know Trump is often up late on social media so I'm sure he'll stumble across my Amazon review sooner or later. I'm done for. I would like to change my answer to where I see myself in five years.

Cellmates with Bernie Madoff.