Watched some college football yesterday. It’s not the same without the big crowds. But it’s football, right?

Tom Brady debuts with the Bucs today. That should be weird. But in the bigger scheme of things, it’s no big deal. Sports may be big business, but it’s also just a diversion. Of little consequence except to give a fan base something to celebrate or scream at, something to do besides worry about everything else going to shit.

Wow, I’m a happy guy.

If Mother Earth News and other sources can be trusted, we have reports that the Sturgis bike rally has lead to an estimated 260,000 cases of covid. Seems like a giant leap in numbers from previous reports, and time will tell if this is born out. It wouldn’t be all that surprising.

Let’s just let the past six months’ foolishness wash over us for a moment… And we still have three months to go.

There is no cure for stupid. Donald Trump is banking on that.

There cannot be a winning formula for Trump. Everyone knows who he is. No image makeover should help, so may everyone realize such a thing for what it would be: vanity.

A mirage, a chasing after wind.

So I guess college students get a pass on their covid behavior because… they’re just being college students? Can’t we dare expect more from them right now? That they make an effort to up their game, rise to this occasion, and consider the welfare of other people?

It must be the administrators’ fault for inviting them back.

They have a chance to do their part for the cause but all they can think about is not being deprived of the fun they’re supposed to be having at this time in their lives?

Seems pretty selfish to me. Though I can see why these are the age group who get sent off to do our military dirty work.

How can Trump supporters think that everything is ok? How is it possible to take stock of what’s happened just this year and think everything is ok?

Their man blew the Covid response, whether they can admit that or not. Their man is a racist. He is incompetent, empty inside, and has designs on staying in office a lot longer than maybe even they would be comfortable with.

Everything is a mess, yet they can still rush to his rallies without a mask and nod their heads at everything he says. He sprays the crowds with lie after lie, and the crowds just shout “Amen!” It’s like they’re already dead on their feet.

This isn’t going to end well.

-Why have the Kardashians ever been a thing? They really are a symptom of some sort of illness or deprivation.

-Donald Trump never grew up.

-“Regulation” is a dirty word only if you’re comfortable and you really want to stay that way, and you’re just a selfish bastard.

-If Joe Biden is accurate in his declaration that Trump has designs on ending Social Security, you’d think it would be a– maybe THE– line in the sand. The thing that gets Trump fans to reconsider their vote.

-A lingering question remains: How does he get away with all this stuff?

-One more: Besides the Democrats, why does no one else stand in his way? It can’t be because they think he’s doing a wonderful job.

-With Trump, the buck stops somewhere else.

The intentions seem so blatantly obvious and ballsy. Beside the hint at postponing the election, there was the USPS shenanigans, Intelligence briefing issues, and now exhorting his supporters to vote more than once!

And none of it has anything to do with the reality of lagging poll numbers and an immoral incumbent fearful of life after the White House?

It seems what we’re all witnessing, whether or not we want to, are the (hopefully) last gasps of a desperate man.

Was it just me, or did the applause and cheering during Trump’s acceptance speech seem at times less than enthusiastic? Forced, half-hearted, not exactly genuine. Did attendees each get a stipend for showing up? Did they at any time stop and ask themselves what they were doing there? Were they told not to wear a mask?

The speech itself was vintage someone else- probably Stephen Miller or some other adviser. Those weren’t Trump’s words. He’s always just reading scripts and teleprompters. He doesn’t have a true stance. There are no planks in his platform because he has no platform. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He just says stuff that’s calculated to resonate with The Base.

It was great fun to see folks having a field day with Melania’s green screen.

Let’s see… two named storms in the Gulf at the same time, one of which was the strongest to hit the U.S. in a hundred years, intensifying quickly. Mega-fires in California, from one end of the state to the other (and the winds haven’t really picked up yet); drought; pink snow in the Italian Alps; temperatures hovering around 100 degrees IN SIBERIA; an “inland hurricane” that takes out more than one-third of the corn crop in Iowa; locusts in Africa and Asia; a dam threatened in China; above average temps over larger swaths of this country lingering for longer periods of time; views of the Himalayas from northern India that some had never seen in their lifetime because many were not driving and factories were not operating during the early days of covid-19, so the air was cleaner.

Yet there is no climate change. And there are almost 8 billion of us, but we’re having no effect on the natural processes that sustain life…

The fossil fuel hold-outs and flat-earthers must somehow sense this isn’t true, somehow know that there is a connection between our sheer numbers and the condition of the planet. But there are special interests, livelihoods, money and power at stake. And these things still hold more sway than the concerns of a clear majority of rational, well-intentioned scientists who keep telling us we need to wake up and do something before it’s too late.

Only one of a thousand reasons why Trump and whatever party he’s part of have to be defeated in November.

Both conventions are over now, thankfully. Behold the stretch run. The ugliness will be ramped up to a 12 out of 10.

I can’t imagine what’s yet to come. Unless people can break free of the incitement to fear, and they see through the veneer of the Trump camp’s attempts at image makeover, it’s gonna be another nail biter.

Close when it shouldn’t be close.