More this and that.....

This morning's sunrise, about 7:00 a.m. or a little before.

And this is why I don't really miss the satellite TV that was shut down here recently. The Internet provides the same programming, if you go to your favorite station.

That satellite service was operated by the same company which provides the cable TV here, and they expected us to sign up for cable after they cut off the satellite feed. But I discovered that a UHF antenna I built years ago for my stereo can also receive digital TV signals, so I get 7 channels of digital TV for free from it. Anything else, I can usually find on the Internet. So the cable company didn't get me back.  

It's half-past September....

The hanging baskets on our bridge are still looking good...

The path along the river to Park Royal Mall still looks summery...

And the river itself is nearly dry, waiting for the rainy season.

And south of our border, the American election campaign is still in full swing, and the bullshit is flying thick and fast. Because of all that, we're getting a look at the unwashed underbelly of America, where racism and low I.Q.s are a much bigger problem than we previously suspected. And billionaires like the Koch brothers are buying politicians, and trying to influence public opinion with lobbyists and a lot of deviously distributed 'think tanks' including some outside the USA, like the Fraser Institute here in town. 

The American political system is rotten to the core, and this election is revealing that more than ever before. A lot of the participants arguing over their Second Amendment about guns don't even know the context within which that amendment was written. And the NRA is taking advantage of the unwashed masses of pistol-packing pinheads to scare them into buying even more weapons. Yet America has a large and well-equipped military quite capable of defending the country or maintaining order. It doesn't need a civilian militia of untrained nitwits with semi-automatic weapons, guzzling Jack Daniel's or Old Snootful, and taking the law in their own hands.

And who the hell in their right mind would choose a candidate for President who has never held any elected office, has no talent for diplomacy, and appears to want to become a dictator? What gang of nitwits would allow that to happen? I think we know the answer to that one, don't we? I can hardly wait for all that to be over. It's ridiculous.

Here and there....

This was last evening's sunset. A Facebook friend in the U.K. thinks it's one of my best, but I'm not so sure. I've done others I like better, such as this one...

...but it's all a matter of taste, I suppose. Different things for different people.

And today being the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, I felt that I had to add something to all the things on Facebook about it. So I said that I'd like to remind everyone that there are ten times as many people dying every year from firearms 'accidents' and shootings. So if they are going to hold memorial services for the 3,000 killed in 9/11, shouldn't they also do something about that 30,000 dying every year from gunshots? Nobody rushed to comment on that one. The NRA and its gun-lovers are not saying anything yet. Maybe later....

But isn't it remarkable that a whole country can mourn 3,000 deaths, and the President can make a moving address about it, and patriots throughout the land can puff up and posture, but not a damned one of them pays any attention to ten times as many dying every year because of unregulated firearms sales? That's because it's a whole other thing - business. And God Forbid anything should interfere with business, even if the business is about killing one another or suicide.

More this and that....

Just to maintain my membership in this club, I should add something here, just to prove that I'm alive and still able to do this.

Summer has come and gone. We're into September, and the rainy season is just around the corner once again. I don't like to see the end of summer, because at my age it might have been my last, who knows? But there's nothing to be done about that.

I'm spending a lot of time on Facebook lately. It's amazing what we're learning about the USA during this election campaign. And they seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that the whole world is watching and listening to all that asinine mud-slinging and lack of intelligence. I'm sure we will all be delighted when it is all over. We don't need another 'Dubya' who would like to be another Hitler. Money might buy a college degree but it doesn't buy the smarts that should go with it, and Donald Trump is living proof.