The Daily Dose/January 23, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Notes from around the Human Experience…
KEEP EXPECTATIONS LOW, AS USUAL, AND NO ONE WILL BE TOO DISAPPOINTED: One year and three days after his inauguration as president of the United States, nothing President Donald Trump as done, or not done, should be too surprising.
Trump was a misfit as a private citizen and an utter embarrassment as a candidate and it is hardly the Upset of the Year Trump has turned out to be both as president of the United States. His only real talent remains drawing attention to himself. Everything else is ancillary to that.
Dry, Technical Matter: None of this is a bulletin. When he got into the race for the GOP nomination in the summer of 2015 Trump did not have a substantive, long-term plan for our country. There was a time when the American media would have had an attention-needing billionaire without a plan out of the race within a week, but that time has passed. Trump meant clicks and ratings, so the media played along.
Trump’s complete lack of a long-term plan for this country didn’t bother GOP voters, either, who ushered him right into the general election. Trump couldn’t be bothered to produce anything of substance then, either, though that didn’t stop us from electing him president and it is folly to expect him to produce one now.
Fly In The Ointment: The only leadership Trump has shown has been guiding the GOP to a complete inability to govern, having brilliantly parlayed control of both the White House and Congress into a clinic in how not to get anything done.
Their biggest accomplishment was a half-assed tax reform bill that might do some good for some people, but likely will mean little for most of us. More than anything, the GOP tax bill does nothing to either simplify the tax code or stop the government from taking more of our money than they are entitled to.
The Bottom Line: Towards the end of the Obama Administration we wrote that the official Daily Dose position was that Bush and Obama were the two worst consecutive presidential administrations our nation has been obliged to endure. Trump is making it a three-peat. Not only is Trump an embarrassment who has some zero regard for anything other than himself, nothing will be done to address our two most pressing issues: our perpetual wars and our mindless debt, two elements that if not addressed pretty soon will result in our nation’s collapse, probably before this half-century is out.
“MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS CHANGED PLACES…”: What is generally considered to be History’s deadliest earthquake occurs in Shaanxi province in China on this date in 1556. There are assorted accounts of the earthquake and the death toll is estimated at over 800,000 people, about 60 percent of the region’s population.
The Classic Cavalry/Navy Battle: Fighting in the War of the First Coalition, French soldiers riding horses capture Dutch warships on this date in 1795. Known as the Capture of the Dutch Fleet at Den Helder, the ships were frozen at anchor, and the French cavalry forces merely had to charge across the frozen bay to capture 14 ships and 850 guns. It is one of the few instances in military history of horses capturing ships.
To Boldly Go…: Man reaches the deepest part of the ocean on this date in 1960 when US Navy Lieutenant Dan Walsh Jacques Piccard ride the Trieste to Challenger Deep, 35,797 feet below the surface. Challenger Deep is 189 miles southwest of Guam.
It took Trieste four hours and 47 minutes to reach the bottom, and voice communications took seven seconds to reach the surface. Trieste took three hours and 15 minutes to get back to the surface.
FunFact: While on the bottom Piccard and Walsh noticed some sole and flounder swimming on the bottom and noted the floor looked like ooze.
Thanks For The Memories: Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter, sends its last signal back to Earth on this date in 2003. The signal is so weak it produces no usable data.
Dry, Technical Matter: Pioneer 10 had been launched in March 1972 and reached its closest point of approach to Jupiter in December 1973. In June 1983, Pioneer 10 crossed the orbit of Neptune, then the planet farthest planet from the Sun, becoming the first man-made object to leave the vicinity of the Solar System.
Quotebook: …a man does what the situation demands. …we do not have heroes, only people doing what is necessary at the time. – Louis L’Amour, The Lonesome Gods
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Doe v Bolton, which overturned Georgia’s abortion laws, was issued the same day as Roe v Wade.
Today’s Stumper: The Trivia feature will return!
