Adverse Headwinds

AND THE SHIT JUST KEEPS ON COMING!  Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson is Donald Trump’s choice as secretary of state, NBC reported on Saturday, a move that would hand top diplomatic powers to a man whose ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin go back almost two decades.  The report couldn’t be immediately confirmed. NBC said its sources, people close to the president-elect’s transition, cautioned that nothing is final until the president-elect makes an announcement. Trump has said he’ll announce his decision next week.  Tillerson, who reaches Exxon’s mandatory retirement age of 65 in March, has become the leading candidate for the post of top U.S. diplomat over the past few days, two people familiar with the matter said late Friday. If confirmed by the Senate, Tillerson would be the first oil executive and only the second Texan to lead the State Department.

Do you want some more bad news?  Here it is.  BEIRUT — Islamic State militants fought their way back into the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra on Saturday nine months after they were driven out by Syrian government forces, in a reminder that the group is still a force to be reckoned with despite major losses of territory elsewhere.  The advance into Palmyra seemed set to reverse a year of steady defeats for Islamic State fighters and came three days after a big offensive launched from three directions in the surrounding desert.  I guess is President Elect Trump better get on the stick and do something about this.  He’s good at pulling rabbits out of a hat.  We’ve been told for months now that ISIS was on the run.  Now we hear otherwise.  Palmyra is the site of an ancient Roman complex of temples that is considered one of the world’s archaeological treasures, and work had recently begun on restoring some of the many ruins that were blown up during the Islamic State’s 10-month occupation of the city.  Of course ISIS destroys these sites because they are “idolatry” and all that Sheria crap.   It is also the one place where Russian military intervention had made a significant difference in the fight against the Islamic State. Russian airstrikes facilitated the Syrian government’s recapture of Palmyra in March, and in May the Russian military escorted a planeload of journalists on a victory tour of the city, complete with a performance by a Russian orchestra.   These historic sites are disappearing just like natural resources.  Once they’re gone they can’t be brought back.  If Trump has a way of working with Russia to get the job done on ISIS he’d better do it. 

“I’ve always said -- shouldn’t be there, but if we’re going to get out, take the oil,” Trump said in September. “It used to be, to the victor belong the spoils. Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: Take the oil.”

Trump at the Republican convention said he “Is the only person who can get the job done that needs to be done”.  He has touted flying solo.  He thinks he’s too good to get intelligence briefings.  He just listens to his own people.  Donald Trump's insult-laced dismissal of reports that the CIA believes Russia hacked the 2016 election to help him is rattling a spy community already puzzled over how to gain the ear and trust of the incoming president.  Some fear that Trump's highly public rebukes of the U.S. intelligence apparatus will undermine morale in the spy agencies, politicize their work, and damage their standing in a world filled with adversaries. After all, if the U.S. president doesn't believe his own intelligence officials, why should anyone else?  "There is nothing more sacred to intelligence officers than their professionalism, honesty and non-partisanship. Trump's charges strike at the core of their integrity," said John Sipher, a former CIA officer with broad expertise on Russia.  Trump is a guy with no conscience this side of Gordon Gecko in the business world with no national security experience, has long taken positions that have alarmedintelligence officials, such as supporting torture and suggesting that it's OK to kill the family members of terrorists.   Bozos actually voted for this man!  

It’s been some time since Rhapsody in Black did anything from the ‘fifties, and they didn’t today either.  Donald Trump was being interviewed at the Army Navy game.  He’s such a media whore he likes to appear everywhere.  So was I smarter in the fall of 1990 at ROP than I am now?  I used to think there was a time when I could get a computer to translate any base number to any other base number like from a base 10 to base 5 for example.  I must have dreamed that because you can’t do it.  For instance a 6 would become 11 in base five, and I can’t get a computer to do that.  The best it does is giving you the log of any number based on any number base you want.  That’s part of the parameters of the entry.   I got two cups of grape drink from Rico in the courtyard.  It’s increasing overcast out.   Rain may be on its way. 

I had Chris Matthews on some during the morning and he was playing clips of Donald Trump as a man in his late thirties from 1985 and Trump was saying things like Blacks have it easier than whites when it comes to getting a good job.  He also said that women are more sexually aggressive than men.  Does he know this from personal experience?  We were supposed to have turkey for lunch.  It was some kind of mystery meat chunks and potato chunks and carrots.  We had to wait a long time for dessert and we all thought it would be something special but it turned out to be watermelon pieces.  Augustine came by with two refills on the coffee.  The first two cups were black coffee and the third was with cream and sugar.

Bill turned on the Army Navy game on CBS and the TV picture was acting up once more.  If it’s Saturday it must be things missing day.  I have discovered two more things missing from the closet not counting that straw hat I got from Ron Rhodes that was missing a couple of weeks ago.  I had the Leo Le Port program on at noon and he was remarking that today’s computers don’t have DVD players any more.  That really seems strange to me.  It got me to thinking I’d like to see my DVD of the movie “300”, which is some movie Terry gave me.  It was missing.  I looked in that one bag I thought belonged to Bill but it turns out it was a bag of mine I had forgotten about since last summer till now.  Of course the DVD wasn’t in there.  But also missing was the white connecting cord from my Power Shot camera to the computer.  Fortunately the battery charger and the two extra batteries were there.  But there was other stuff in that bag I don’t remember now that’s also missing.  I sought to call Paul but Judy said Paul was at work.  We didn’t have to go shopping now.  Judy says she and Paul weren’t expecting to go Christmas shopping till after the Holidays.  I guess that will cut down on the gift exchange this year.  Judy did say that we were getting together on Friday December 23^rd, but she didn’t say where we would gather.