The Daily Dose/February 5, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
HERE WE GO AGAIN: One of the delights of the Trump Administration is its consistency. I mean we knew going into Tuesday’s State of the Union address that there would be nothing of any particular substance because President Trump governs, lives, off the top of his head. He has never had a substantive, long term plan for our country so there was no reason for him to start now.
We also knew – knew! – the speech would be chock full of the exaggerations, half-truths and outright falsehoods that Trump has been issuing since he left the womb. He is a man who has never bothered to get his facts straight.
Editor’s Note: Click here for a detailed fact check of the president’s State of the Union speech by the Associated Press. Click here for one by The New York Times.
Dry, Technical Matter: Starting with the second President Bush we’ve taken to reading presidential speeches because they are tedious to listen to. Reading Tuesday’s speech was like reading some notes scribbled by a kid running for class council: breezy, scattered, all over the place, lot’s of bragging and some name-calling, but nothing of substance, hardly a bulletin because President Trump is not a substantive man. He’s a man whose only real talent is drawing attention to himself.
Leading Off: President Trump – President Trump! – wasted no time, either. Our favorite lie came in the second paragraph:
…our country is thriving and highly respected again!
Fly In The Ointment: No, it is not. Our country is a mess. We’ve been at war every day for over 30 years, our finances are a shambles and our nation is a shooting gallery. There is nothing thriving nor respectable about America right now.
LOL: This came late in the speech:
This is the place where greatness is born, where destinies are forged, and where legends come to life.
More Fly In The Ointment: Again, no, it’s not. It used to be, but this is not an accurate description of America anymore. America is now nothing more than a partisan, fractured and bickering mess governed by a partisan, fractured and bickering mess.
This Isn’t A Plug For Your US Senate Candidacy, Is It?: We deserve better than this, of course, but we are not demanding it right now, we are tolerating it. We have nobody to blame but ourselves. We elected all of it.
Today At The Site
Editor’s Note: it’s Read Free Fortnight at The Diary of a Nobody. So go, scoot, click on the link and enjoy the Diary with Sparrow’s compliments.
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow notes there is no longer any music at all playing in the lobby. Today’s Diary.
Someone, probably Front Desk Manager Brandon, decided to stop fighting the Christmas music battle and now no music is playing in the lobby at all…Recall Brandon said we were waiting for a CD to be sent, a circumstance I seem to remember from working at the timeshare…Apparently hotel lobby music is shipped via camel over the Aleutian land bridge because they are always taking forever to get here…
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On This Date
Great moments in us.
In 1971 – Apollo 14 lands on the moon, the sixth manned mission there and the third to land. Commander Alan Shepard and astronaut Edgar Mitchell spent a total of 9 hours and 22 minutes walking on the moon, then a record. Their launch had been delayed four months after modifications to their spacecraft were made following the in-flight explosion on Apollo 13. The mission would return to Earth on Feb 9 and is widely remembered for Shephard hitting two golf balls with a makeshift club he brought with him.
In 1994 – Peter Bondra of the Washington Capitals establishes a new NHL record for the fastest time scoring four goals, getting them in 4 minutes and 16 seconds of the first period in a 6-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Bondra added a second-period goal and finished with five points on the night and research into whose record Bondra broke was inconclusive. The four goals also tied the NHL record for most goals in a period, accomplished many times, a record that still stands.
In 1972 – American Pie by Don McLean is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the fourth and final consecutive week. It was the first of six Top 40 hits for McLean and remains his only #1 song. American Pie also went to #1 in South Africa, Canada and New Zealand, spent three weeks at #2 in Great Britain, was Billboard’s third-biggest song of the year and ranked 210th on their 60th-anniversary chart in 2018. The song returned to the Hot 100 in 2000 when Madonna took it to #29 in the US and her version also went to #1 in 13 other countries.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
What did he do?/He made counterfeit dimes./Dimes? Jesus Christ, what kind of ambition is that? – Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
The only song in Hot 100 history that went to #1 in its second chart run after going to #1 in its first chart run was The Twist by Chubby Checker, which went to #1 in both 1960 and 1962.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
How many men who have walked on the moon are still alive? – Answer next time!
