Some more random thoughts

So much stuff. So little time.

Lithium battery fires are rare but intense. That is why when I considered replacing my Can Am Spyder’s battery with a lithium one I opted for the old fashioned lead acid one. The lithium has a lot going for it. It is lighter, more powerful and longer lasting. However it requires a different charger and I don’t want it in my garage. Too many reports of fires for me.

Media says that the Trump campaign was not prepared for Biden to step down and be replaced by Harris. If that is true then Trump needs a new campaign staff because most of us knew that Biden was going to abdicate.

Trump can’t stop calling names. While on a stop in Montana to support Tim Sheehy in his race to unseat Jon Tester, Trump said don’t be fooled because Tester “is a radical left lunatic like Kamala.”True that Tester professes to be independent while voting with Biden 90 percent of the time but calling Harris a lunatic is off putting to so many of the electorate. However calling her a radical leftwing is on point.

The media is going to brand Trump’s name calling of Harris as either racist or chauvinistic or both. Of course Trump insults everyone friend or foe but he has got to stop it.

I understand why Trump was in Montana. Taking back the Senate should be a priority to the republicans. But Trump needs to concentrate on the swing states and send surrogates to the rest. I am still aghast that he continues to make a fool of himself in Georgia.

Trump and Vance’s campaign theme should be “Where’s Kamala?” The democrat brain trust has decided to emulate Biden’s stay-in-the-basement strategy. It worked. Trump was out there as he repeatedly said “working his butt off” while Biden was in the basement. Biden won. Now Harris is not granting interviews with a press that has elevated her from the lowest ranked national politician to St Kamala. Harris did not even deign to be interviewed in the Time cover article that fawned all over her non-accomplishments. I would be shocked if she debated Trump. All he would need to do is ask her to explain her previously announced positions on anything. I would love to hear him ask if she favors an arms embargo of Israel. It is apparent that the democrats will try to keep her quiet because she will spout some nonsensical word salads and embarrass everyone but herself. It will be interesting to see if they can keep her quiet up to election day.

Again, a cardboard cutout would be twenty points ahead of Harris. That Donald Trump is not ahead is a testament to how perfectly awful he is as a candidate.

The war in the Sudan is horrific and largely ignored by the press. More than 200,000 are dead and 24 million are in need of food. More than 200,000 have starved. In its capital of Omdurman is buried The Mahdi, the legendary Islamic cleric who defeated the Egyptian and British armies and who is said to appear at the End of Times to conquer evil and injustice. Not coincidentally the fans of Dune (of which I am one) recognize the Mahdi as the one who leads the Freemen to save Arrakis. Perhaps many in the Sudan hope that the Mahdi will intercede in these desperate times.

Speaking of the forgotten or the ignored, it is amazing that China can get away with its human rights abuse of its minorities, in particular the Uyghurs.  Also ignored is the systematic repression of ethnic minorities and religious groups such as Christians, Buddists and the Falun Gong who make up over half of China’s forced labor camps.

There are over 70,000 ISIS men, women and children in detention camps in Syria. What is going to happen to those people? Surely you cannot turn them loose to create more havoc in the Middle East.

There are over a million Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. The Rohingya are native to Myanmar where they have suffered genocide. They have been called the most persecuted people in the world. Myanmar has removed their citizenship, restricted their travel, and denied them access to public education and civil service jobs. One over 1.5 million lived in Myanmar and now they reside mostly in camps in Bangladesh. Many fled to Malaysia but that country closed entry. Now many, including unaccompanied children, are migrating to Indonesia in search of a better life. The world ignores their suffering making them the largest group among those whose plight is either ignored or forgotten.

You have to be brave to be a Christian in Nigeria. The Islamic Boko Haram insurgency has murdered over 60,000 Christians since 2009. Yet the world yawns. Over 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been destroyed. Remember the abduction of the Christian girls? Well to date over 800 Christians have been kidnapped. Five million Nigerian Christians have been displaced and are now sheltered in refugee camps. There is no more dangerous place in the world to be a Christian than in Nigeria. One wonders if the western world would be so indifferent to this genocide if it were Christians persecuting and killing Muslims?