To Buy, or To Bully

With President Trump, it is "buy or bully." That might work with lesser nations, like the Arab states, or the Europeans. But China is big, and as rich as the U.S.  It will neither be bought nor bullied. 

Americans, then, are encouraged to look at China as "our enemy." It is neither friend nor foe. China is simply our equal. After having been told for so long of our vaunted "exceptionalism", that must be a difficult pill to swallow. I say, either swallow it, or choke on it. What say you?  

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Speaking of Bullies...

They are now saying that we must begin to make Artificial Intelligence kinder, considering it will one day become more powerful than ourselves, and we will be dependent on its benevolence. Is that the only reason we should want A.I. to be kinder? If the answer is "yes", then I guess that is as good a reason as any.  

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Abraham, Abraham...

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith has decided that California's governor, Gavin Newsom, would make a fine presidential candidate because he "looks so good." Interesting...

I wonder what Stephen A. would have thought of Abe Lincoln? I hear tell a rather homely woman encountered Lincoln on the streets of Springfield, Illinois, and straightaway declared: "I swore that if I ever met a man uglier than me, I would shoot him." Lincoln simply smiled. 

Don't Go There...

They are better than us - these women, 

    I'd say

Closer to heaven in every way

With their hands and their hopscotch

    (certainly nothing wicked)

Yet, even as girls

They scared us to crickets.

(Such secrets, such eyes

So much more civilized.)

Not good enough - they want to be like the boys

    Want to try those hands

    Want to re-tip the scales

    Want to make their own stand.

"Want more women's sports?

They'll take the call

Yet, they can't fly high

    with a basketball."

"They are queens and models

Cat and canarys, at once

Such sweet music they make

If only they could dunk...

What started out as Title IX

To give girls a chance to play

Has become a curious parody

Of when, and when not to pay,

They have given us the professional WNBA

(Along with a concerted attempt to mislead)

There is a dearth of great talent there

Certainly, no dearth of great greed.

Comes soon a women's Flag Football League

With the NFL's commish as high patron

He will falsely declare "must-see games"

What we know will be pure recreation. 

In '28 we will call them "Olympians"

For playing kiddie football, for Christ's sake

Fits a pattern of social engineering

Corrects God's awful mistake. 

Women rise to the top anywhere they chose:

Business, politics, even war

But, when it comes to athletic excellence

"Katie done barred the door!" 

Cash in your glories - call yourselves "studs"

Go to where the maned lion lingers

You've only descended the mountainside 

To forever be a league of pretenders. 

So be it - you have nothing to prove

What truly matters is plain to see: 

When we boys were hanging from every limb

It's you girls who coaxed us out of the tree. 

The Wrong One

Kamala Harris, in her new book, "107 Days," claims she chose Tim Walz as a running mate over her first choice, Pete Buttigieg, because the American people were not ready for a black woman married to a Jewish man on the same presidential ticket with a homosexual. Nonsense. 

First, American voters do not vote for vice presidents; they vote the top of the ticket. Second, Americans will vote for whomever they please. 

People said America was not ready for a black president, that is, until Barack Obama came along. Then, they voted for him twice. Why? Because he was the right one. They said America was not ready for a Catholic president until it voted for John Kennedy. Again, he was the right one.  

America would have voted for Hilary if she had been the right woman. She was not; neither was Kamala. (In fact, Kamala was a bad candidate. It did not help that party leaders chose to anoint her with the top spot on the ticket, leaving voters with the bad taste in their mouths that she had not earned what previous candidates had to endure a gauntlet to achieve. Much of the blame for that can be put on Joe Biden's selfishness. But, don't blame the American voters. They are resilient. They say, "Show me what you got." Kamala did not show much. Wrong move, Kamala.)

You would think that such sophisticated people as Americans would not vote for a maniac for president. But, what if he was the right maniac, like Donald Trump?

Americans will vote for a woman, a Jew, a communist, a gay - Americans will vote for a felon for president... if they like that felon. Kamala should stop blaming the American people for her loss to Trump and start looking at her own shortcomings. 

Buttigieg, Walz, Pennsylvania's Jewish governor, Shapiro - it does not matter. She could have chosen either of them, and she still would have lost - no matter her color, her creed, her husband, or whatever else she thinks might have defined her. America defined Kamala Harris: She is the wrong one. 

Baseball's Top 25

1. Josh Gibson*

2. Willie Mays

3. Shohei Ohtani

4. Babe Ruth

5. Hank Aaron

6. Barry Bonds

7. Nolan Ryan

8. Ken Griffey, Jr.

9. Aaron Judge

10. Frank Robinson

11. Stan Musial

12. Satchel Paige

13. Bob Gibson

14. Ted Williams

15. Roger Clemens

16. Buck Leonard

17. Jackie Robinson

18. Lou Gehrig

19. Ricky Henderson

20. Mickey Mantle

21. Steve Carlton

22. Iciro Suzuki

23. Mike Trout

24. Smokey Joe Williams**

25. Alex Rodriguez

*Josh once proclaimed, "I don't break bats, I wear them out." Over a 17-year career in the Negro Leagues, he hit .347. Against Major League pitching, he hit .426. In 1936, he clubbed 84 home runs. He was a catcher. 

**Smokey Joe Williams spent his entire career in the Negro Leagues. Against Major League teams in the All-Star Games and exhibitions, he was 20-7.