Is America still immune to the soccer virus? Yeah, probably...

 

It’s World Cup time again, and Americans from Bangor to Batavia don’t even bother to stifle their quadrennial yawns, while more fervent patriots are praying to the God who adjudicates sporting events that the US team flames out early, as usual. 

​It’s been 32 years since the World Cup first tainted American soil. 

The 1994 invasion was a colossal flop, despite the corporate subsidies lavished by Coca-Cola, Mastercard and the usual suspects. The title game – oh, excuse me: match – a thrilling 0-0 tie in regulation between Brazil and Italy, did not win millions of new fans. There's a good reason it's not as big here as it is everywhere else. Americans want to see action. The want home runs. Touchdowns. Bench-clearing brawls. Holes-in-one, even. 

What they don't like is the fact that a final game in a world tournament can end in a tie with neither team scoring anything more than just paychecks. It's that simple. And besides, the field's are too big and what the fuck is up with referees holding up colored cards? I don't get it. You probably don't either. Juss' sayin'...

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This was $ 26.99 on Tuesday...

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Everybody's got something to bitch about...

 As my Father often said, 'If it ain't something it's 

something else'. Truer words never spoken...  

You can't watch a TV show, read a news item or just sit quietly at the bar and not hear somebody bitching about something. I think it's because everyone has an opinion on basically everything, and they think you give a fuck about what they don't like. 

It's kinda like that other adage - 'No matter where you are, there you are...', or something akin to that. I'm not gonna argue about who said. The bitching and moaning is unescapable. Who doesn't like immigrants. Who doesn't like the Mets. Who doesn't like the death penalty. Who doesn't like certain ethnic groups. Who doesn't like  chocolate friggin' ice cream, and it goes on and on.

Here's my advice. Don't listen. Walk away. Tell them straight up front you don't give a shit. And then they'll get pissed off that you don't give a shit. It'll never end. Pisses me the fuck  off. Juss' sayin'...

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And so it begins...

The match between Mexico and South Africa is scheduled to take place today at 3:00 PM as the opening game of the FIFA World Cup 2026.The game is held in Mexico City at Estadio Azteca.This is a reverse repeat of the opening match from the 2010 World Cup.

I have to be honest - I don't get soccer/futbol at all. It's just a shitload of running around kicking the ball and every once in a while somebody tries to kick it in to the net. If it's such a great sport, how can you have games end in a tie? 

And that brings up another question about this FIFA tournament shit - are they going to allow games to end in a tie or - as they say  - nil/nil? If so, what was the point of playing? Like I said, I don't get it...

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Ya have to ask - although you'll never get a good, honest answer - how is it compassionate to allow people to set up tents and campsites on City streets? Certainly, there are plenty of parks and open spaces where it would make a little more sense for them to camp out - kinda like the Hooverville encampments during the Great Depressions. 

Best as I can figure, the only reason these people wanna stay in the city living in squalid conditions is so that they can stay close to their drug sources. So basically, they're not dealing with a homeless issue - it's a drug issue. Hmmm...

 

Hooverville, Seattle 1937 - One of many shanty towns that sprang up across 

the USA during the Hoover years of the Great Depression.

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I think this is a little photomagic...

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This is the kind of throwback we really don't have a need for, but I guess we get 'em anyway, Wanna know why you feel as old as you do? Well, it's because this poster of Farrah Fawcett - certainly an iconic photo if ever there was one, right? 

Well, this came  out in 1976. Fifty years ago. Half a fuckin' century ago. Now - go ahead. Tell me that doesn't make you fell old as fuck. Juss' sayin'...

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Police blasted water cannons Wednesday at protesters in Northern Ireland who set small fires and hurled bricks, rocks and bottles at them during a second night of violence over a brutal stabbing on a Belfast street.

Demonstrators wearing masks tore bricks from the walls outside homes and smashed sidewalks with sledgehammers to toss at riot police. In one place, the unruly crowd used sections of a dismantled a picket fence to take cover on the street.

The clashes with police came several hours after a 30-year-old man from Sudan appeared in a Belfast court charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack that left a man seriously injured and triggered anti-immigrant violence.

So here's the question - why doesn't the Newark, NJ Police Department get something like that and just hose the fuckin' shit out of all those morons causing trouble up at Delaney Hall?

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That's so bad it's good.

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Just my luck. My ship finally comes in and I'm in the airport parking lot trying to remember where I parked the car. This boat was - for a very short time - a ferryboat between St. Thomas and St. John. Heineken was the best selling beer in the Carribbean back in the 80's and 90's when I first moved down there, and Henieken's distibutor, The West Indies Company, paid the ferry operator to paint the boat as a floating billboard.

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Iran launched a barrage of missiles at a trio of US allies in the Middle East early Thursday after American forces carried out a second round of airstrikes in response to Tehran’s “unwarranted and continued aggression.”

Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait were targeted by the Islamic Republic, as happened a day earlier after an initial wave of US attacks.

Kuwait closed its airspace for several hours, but did not elaborate on any damage. Jordan said it intercepted 20 Iranian missiles fired toward an area that is home to a base hosting US troops, though no one was hurt.

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Family time...

 

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 Birthday or Anniversary coming up?

Here's a great idea for a gift for her

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34 years later, it's still true. We are better tippers...

 

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 Birthday or Anniversary coming up?

Here's a great idea for a gift for her

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They're simple yet elegant - and come to you with free shipping!

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Evidently, Bonnie and Clyde weren't the badasses we all were told they were...

Pop culture and Hollywood glamourised Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, but the reality of their 1930s crime spree was much grittier, desperate, and less successful than most people realise.

They Were Petty Thieves, Not Masterminds. They rarely robbed big banks. They mostly targeted small grocery stores and gas stations. Their robberies often netted as little as $5 or $10.

They were frequently broke and hungry. They did not stay in fancy hotels. They slept in stolen cars or the woods. They went weeks without washing clothes or bathing. Clyde walked with a permanent limp after cutting off two of his own toes in prison. Bonnie suffered horrific third-degree leg burns from a car battery explosion during a crash, forcing Clyde to carry her everywhere.

 Their "badass" reputation largely came from a roll of undeveloped film they abandoned at a safehouse. The media published playful, staged photos of Bonnie holding a shotgun and smoking a cigar. Bonnie wrote poems and sent them to newspapers, which fueled the romantic "star-crossed lovers" narrative.

The Barrow Gang killed at least nine police officers and several civilians. Most killings were panicky reactions to avoid getting caught, not calculated movie-style showdowns. The public initially saw them as anti-hero rebels fighting the system during the Great Depression. 

 

This sympathy vanished when they brutally executed two young highway patrolmen in Texas.In the end, their run lasted only about two years before they were ambushed and killed in a hail of 167 bullets in Louisiana.

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Melinda knew. Epstein knew. Now maybe we'll know what a scumbag Gates is...

Blame it all on the dead guy, Bill. That's a good strategy. Bill Gates told a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein used Gates’ marital infidelities as “leverage” to keep the billionaire in Epstein’s circle. In a prepared opening statement, Gates told committee members that he “never witnessed nor had any indication that Epstein was engaged in ongoing criminal conduct.”

“I never went to his island, his ranch, or his Florida home. I have never victimized anyone. While he may have sought to foster a personal relationship, I was never interested in that and never reciprocated,” he went on.

 

But the fuckin' 'Nerd's Nerd' went on to say that the dead baby raper learned of Gates having “been unfaithful in my marriage” and sought “to use information about my infidelities - in addition to many lies that he layered on top - to pressure me to re-engage with him.”

So - inquiring minds want to know - what kinda fuckin' skag would fuck him? Hadda be an aboslute shitload of hunjies involved. Juss' sayin'...

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Shocking News! The usual suspects like.....playing cards?

 

A group of smash-and-grab thieves in the Bay Area managed to get away with thousands of dollars worth of Pokemon trading cards in under a minute.

It happened on Saturday night at The Card Lab in Brentwood, California where a group of three broke into the specialty trading card and collectibles store and stole $15,000 worth of the cards, Brentwood Police Department told ABC7.

 

Surveillance footage from the store's RING camera system captured the trio all dressed in black inside the store, hopping over the counter and dumping tons of the cards into giant plastic garbage bags.

 

The burglars smashed through a glass display case containing the valuable cards in the Pokemon heist that took just 39 seconds to commit before driving away, per police. Together the trio worked quickly to gut the store of boxes and boxes of the highly-sought after trading cards. 

I wonder who their fence is for this stuff...

Hats off for this lovely brunette HillBetty...

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Surf's up - shut it down...

A powerful south swell rolled into Southern California on yesterday, bringing some of the biggest summer surf the region has seen in years and - of course -  prompting urgent warnings from lifeguards and weather officials. The National Weather Service issued a 'Beach Hazard Statement' through Thursday afternoon, with the largest waves expected yesterday and today.

Orange County is taking the brunt of the swells, with surf forecast between 8 and 10 feet in some areas and up to 15 feet in others. Early Tuesday, waves overtopped rock jetties at Newport Beach and Dana Point, while rough surf pushed beneath piers in Huntington Beach and San Clemente.

 

That one dude ducked under just in time...

At Newport Beach’s famed Wedge, waves could reach the 20-foot range as incoming swells combine with reflected waves from a jetty, creating the break’s signature towering surf. Officials warned of dangerous ocean conditions across the coast.

Worst case scenarios...

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I guess Bill Gates never saw the 'It's not nice to fool Mother Nature' ads...

A Bill Gates-backed mosquito factory in Medellín, Colombia, is turning one of humanity’s deadliest insects into an unlikely ally in the fight against disease. Every week, scientists breed tens of millions of mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacterium that makes it much harder for them to transmit viruses like dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. Instead of killing mosquitoes with chemicals, the program releases these specially bred mosquitoes into local communities, where they mate with wild mosquito populations and help spread the protective trait naturally over time. 

 

What sounds like science fiction is actually a public health strategy already being used by the World Mosquito Program, with Medellín reporting major reductions in dengue after Wolbachia mosquitoes became established in the area. 

It’s a strange but powerful idea: releasing mosquitoes not to spread disease, 

but to stop it...