About eleven years we moved into our current home. The neighborhood borders on a field that is currently unused. They did build a new neighborhood on one side and so the wild life that lived there had to relocate. We occasionally see raccoons, possums, pigs, coyotes, and even the occasional alligator.

This presented problems for our cats at the time. They were indoor/outdoor cats that had been pretty safe at our previous home. This changed in the new neighborhood. Three of our cats went missing within the span of about a year. Two of them were sickly. One of them we were quite certain just ran away to die on her own. The other was suffering from a likely bladder infection, so we thought the same had happened to him. However, the third was a perfectly healthy cat that had grown close to our daughter. We thought it was highly unlikely that he would have run away. We suspected foul play.

Maybe a I should say fowl play. Around that time we noticed than an owl started to perch on our roof. We called him “Owlie”. In a house with as many as four cats he just seemed like another family pet. Yet, we couldn’t get past the stories. Supposedly, owls have been known to swoop down and take smaller cats and dogs. We immediately suspected Owlie.

Needless to say we don’t allow our cats outside anymore. It’s just too dangerous for them. We do have a 100 pound Rottweiler/lab mix that should be able to fend off Owlie and any of his friends. Those include coyotes that bay at night and occasional pigs that look for food in the yard. He is naturally proprietary about our home and has adopted the cats as members of the family.

Without any warning Owlie left us. We had naturally assumed that the motives were sinister. We no longer let our cats out and the dog is too big to go after. So, we assumed he went to a new house that had cats roaming around. Maybe he flew south for the winter, but I don’t know if Owlie does that sort of thing.

Our thinking evolved as we saw the other wildlife. Maybe an alligator was quick enough to take care of Owlie. Maybe one of the coyotes took him out in a titanic battle between fowl and varmint. Maybe Owlie flew too close to the feral pigs . I suppose the state of nature provides for endless possibilities. Either way we had be casting aspersions on Owlie and all of his animal friends to everyone we knew. We warned them about their pets and the impending danger that these “undocumented” animals obviously brought to our neighborhood. They were bringing death, disease, and property damage with them. Sure, I suppose some of them were nice animals, but most came from deranged insane asylums for wayward beasts.

As it turns out, Owlie and his furry friends were likely victims of human migrants in search for food. I have to admit that I’ve never seen migrants perusing the local greenbelt for food sources, but maybe they do it at night. Maybe it was one of the many workers that came through the neighborhood to mow the common areas or trim the trees. Maybe it is damn dirty migrants posing as hard working contractors and repairmen. We are onto their dirty little secret. They are hunting down Owlie and his friends.

We’re sorry Owlie. We hardly knew you and we blamed all of this nasty death and destruction on you. You were likely a victim yourself of nasty migrants in search of food. The liberal media doesn’t want you to hear about this. They want you to believe Fluffy ran away or got lost. They want you to believe that Fluffy may have encountered a wild “undocumented” animal. It is pure scapegoating. They are all victims of the cycle of migrant/pet violence. Do better mainstream media. We expect more from you and wherever you are Owlie, we’re sorry.

So I lost the Bingo game. But it was not my fault. For some reason, my dog started barking at TFG, and I missed a square. (She has only barked at the TV once before when she saw Toto pulling the Wizard of Oz’s curtain aside).

There is little more to say about this lop-sided debate that hasn’t already been said by Taylor Swift.

So I won’t because right down the street, right now, my Haitian neighbors are putting on an awesome barbecue celebration ( I’m on the Left Coast, so the sun sets here almost last). The main entree, of course, is Felis domesticus.

They cook a mean Calico.

Hey Kids!

Let’s have some fun today and play Debate Bingo!

It’s FREE!

Since the debate tonight isn’t going to actually affect the election at all, we can at least have some giggles watching it. The Salon has lovingly stolen these 4 Bingo cards from some website or other and is providing them to use for tonight’s Presidential Debate. 

It’s Easy! All you have to do to play is download and print the four Bingo card images you see below, get four Sharpies (the preferred tool to sign checks to porn actresses and alter hurricane tracking maps), pop the popcorn and uncork that bottle of cab that you’ve been saving (or drop a couple of “funny gummies” if it’s legal – or nearly so).

When you hear Harris or TFG say something that’s shown in one of the squares, take your  Sharpie and mark the square. Five in a row, column or diagonally and YOU WIN! 

What you win is strictly up to you and your friends, but I suggest a buy-in of at least a Hamilton. Toney players might want to bump it up a bit and pitch in a Franklin each, but that’s your call.

Enjoy!

Where to watch? Apparently any channel you want except for QVC – they have marcasite rings to sell.

In order to do some debate prep of our own today, let’s hone our skills at spotting a lie. In this case, however, the challenge is to spot which of the nine quotes listed below made by actual human beings were uttered by TFG, and which (at the risk of violating Godwin’s Law) were made by Adolf Hitler.

It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation.

When I recognize a concept as correct, I not only have the duty to convey this to my fellow citizens, but moreover the duty to eliminate contrary interpretations.

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

Our strategy is to destroy the enemy from within, to conquer him through himself.

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.

Those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law which will include long term prison sentences so that this depravity of justice does not happen again.

Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.

Who says I am not under the special protection of God?

It is not truth that matters, but victory.

Now the truth is that all but one of the quotes listed above were that of Herr Hitler. 

Just messing with you.

Down at The Salon this morning, Juanita Jean challenged her customers to listen to Dr. Allan Lichtman’s Presidential Prediction video. So I did, and you can as well.

See it before The Debate tomorrow. Or after. It doesn’t matter. Lichtman’s prediction is based on his 13 keys model, and not ONE of them entails how a given presidential candidate does at a televised debate.

There, I said it. The debate won’t turn a page. It is, as advertised by websites with phone numbers that charge $3.99 per minute, “For Entertainment Purposes Only.”

On the other hand, I just had to find out which one of the past 10 presidential elections did Lichtman get wrong? So I looked it up.

Al Gore. He got it wrong with Al Gore.

Lichtman got that one wrong because one of his keys doesn’t take into account a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that overturns an election.

Do better, Allan.

Here on the Left Coast there is a storm brewing in several congressional districts that threatens to turn the congressional red-blue balance on its ear.

As a denizen of CD-41, one of these races is of high interest to me. A longtime member of Congress, Ken Calvert has comfortably weathered fifteen challenges from Democratic opponents. But in 2022, Calvert came so close to defeat that he could hear the bullet whizz past his ear.

Too soon?

This was because of the 2021 redistricting which put Calvert in a newly redrawn CD-41 which now includes what has been called (but not by me, no way) “the gayest city in California“.

In 2022, Calvert edged his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Attorney Will Rollins by a mere 11,100 votes. That’s fewer votes than TFG needed from Georgia Governor Kemp in 2020.

But now I am learning that, with the switcheroo that replaced Joe Biden with Kamala Harris at the top of the ballot, Rollins, who is repeating his run at replacing Calvert in this year’s contest, has an even better chance to knock over the MAGA-prone Republican.

With Harris now at the top of the ballot, new polls are showing a trend that 7 Republican congressmen in California are now eying: Harris polls 8 points higher against TFG than Biden did among California Hispanic voters.

Should this continue down ballot, Calvert will experience (excuse me for being born in a less cultivated era) a veritible Mexican Standoff.

By the numbers, CD-41 had 237,000 voting participants in 2022, and the U.S. Census reports that residents of CD-41 are 38% Hispanic. If voting percentages are in the same futbol stadium, this means that there were 90,000 Hispanics that voted in the mid term election. Assuming an 8% shift in their voting, this means that about 7,500 more Hispanic votes will be cast for Rollins this year.

That cuts Calvert’s 2022 edge down to 3,600 votes.

I don’t expect an increase in the LGBTQIA+ vote for Rollins (who is openly gay) this year because they all hate Calvert with the same passion that Calvert believes they are all pedophiles. So, no help from Palm Springs.

This election is still going to be “tight as a tick” as they say, but with the 8% Hispanic bump, plus the additional voters awakened by decisions by a criminally unethical Supreme Court, plus the gravitas of a Presidential (as opposed to a mid-term) election, Congressman Calvert should probably be honing his retirement plans.

He needs a nice (hopefully) long rest.