Tap, tap, tap

No words for today’s earworm. Just something to celebrate Spain’s World Cup team—not for their win on the pitch, but for having the last word when the Kleptocrat inserted his fat self into their victory photo op. Even though he refused to get the hell off the dais, the team edited his considerable corpus out of the official photo and published it to the world.

So let’s have some flamenco in honor of the stomping Team España rendered to the biggest baby on the planet.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Sign of the times?

Something different appeared in my mailbox this week. At first glance, I thought it was another instance of Verizon throwing away money trying to lure me into their technological hell, but no—a different megalopoly:

Amazon employs 45,000 Virginians? I thought that HQ2 was not the economic boon that the pols and techbros promised? I can’t imagine. Wait—hourly employees, you say? So I turned it over:

Yeah, no, dawg—that’s a hard nope.

But I wonder what it says about our economy that a company notorious for sweatshop conditions, below-subsistence pay and general disdain for the employees who make the magic happen thinks they can trawl for suckers with expectations of success. It’s not even the holidays.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Moth on the wall

A while ago I was filling up my car’s tank at Costco.

And the attendant pointed out a visitor to the station:

About 2.5” and vibrantly colored. Perfectly happy to just hang out and watch people giving their entire paycheck in service of mobility.

  

©2026 Bas Bleu

Zeliging

Entirely unsurprisingly, the Kleptocrat inserted himself into the official photo of World Cup winners, Spain, Sunday afternoon. He was only at the match because he was awarding the trophy and medals; if not for that, he undoubtedly would have left before it was over, since it was hard for him to sleep on those uncomfortable chairs.

I fully expected him to hold on to the trophy and take it home with him. But instead, he just planted himself on the dais for the official video/photo, despite even Gianni Infantino trying to pull him away.

The dementia is strong with this one.

Anyway, hardly had the video been taken when the memes began. Mostly to do with sporting themes, but, really, the opportunities are endless. (Reminds me of the time Nicolas Sarkozy inserted himself into the Paris unity march in 2015 and the memers were off to the races.)

The Close Encounters one was kind of hopeful, although I’m pretty sure that the aliens wouldn’t have him.

And Spain had the final word:

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

 

Gratitude Monday: just an anomaly

I knew that the environs of The District They Call Columbia was in the path of the smoke from Canadian wildfires, but Friday morning, when I stuck my head out of the back door to toss out birdseed, I’d forgot about that. Because my yard is closed in by trees and shrubs, I couldn’t see the haze, but I reacted to the smell and taste of the air.

“Is-is someone barbecuing at this hour? Burning leaves?”

Then I remembered.

I had to go out a couple of times, once in the morning and once in mid-afternoon. Both times my eyes burned and by late afternoon I felt that painful catch in my lungs as they notified me that they were full of particulates and I should cool it.

Here’s the thing—I grew up in Los Angeles before anyone gave a damn about air quality. I must have spent half my childhood and youth never being able to actually fill my lungs with air because of smog. Only rarely could I see the sky without the pollution blocking the view (usually after rain), and never in the summer months. It got so that schools throughout the Basin couldn’t let kids out for recess or physical education for weeks at a time. It wasn’t until I moved away and then returned after some years of lung-clearing that I realized what I’d been ingesting all that time.

LA cleaned up its act—well, California did. It took decades and caused much squawk from industries—including auto manufacturers—and consumers. But they cleaned the air, and that’s my gratitude for today. It’s been decades since I experienced what I did this past weekend—I’ve taken it so for granted that I forgot all about it. But what a gift to live in a functioning advanced society with clean air!

I say this recognizing that even as the words flow from my keyboard this administration is doing everything it can to send us back to Smog Alertville. That just makes me all the more grateful that something like this weekend is an anomaly, and it should be so. We may have to do it all over again when these kleptocrats are driven from office, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu