Last week we correctly predicted that Steve Bannon would be gone from the White House by the end of the weekend. He was gone Friday afternoon.
We are venturing another prediction. Truthfully, we can’t believe no one has yet said this as it’s pretty obvious. We think that the naysayers are just hoping that Trump will continue to provide them daily fodder for their shows.
Last night Trump spoke to the nation ostensibly about Afghanistan but he touched on many subjects. He made more sense than Obama ever did about foreign policy. Obama may have been a good orator, but his words were empty and he was impotent.
Now here’s the prediction: With Bannon now gone and Trump surrounded by generals and other military people, he will stop all the negative and inflammatory rhetoric. Bannon was bad news, anti-establishment and bent on stirring as many pots as he could find. That’s fine for an editor but not for the president in the White House.
We can hear people asking so why did Trump pick him in the first place? The only answer we can come up with is that Bannon was one of the ones who helped get him elected. He was going into a new job, in a new place with new people all around him. He needed familiarity and Bannon offered that. In the end however, Bannon out-manouevered himself. Time will tell if we are correct.
Blanche never switched over to gmail or anything to do with google. We never liked the configuration. What we are going to tell you now about google only applies to those with Android phones. iPhones were not affected.
First the bad news: Google is secretly listening to your conversations. It works like this: If you own an Android phone, it’s likely that you’ve used Google’s Assistant, which is similar to Apple’s Siri. When you utter the words OK Google, or, as some say, just ok, you activate their listening device.
Once Google is done recording, it uploads the audio files to its computer servers – often dubbed “the cloud”. These files are accessible from absolutely anywhere in the world – as long as you have an internet connection.
That means any device that is signed into your personal Gmail or Google account can access the library of your deepest, darkest secrets.
Google claims that it states on its terms and conditions that it keeps these recordings for “improving speech recognition against all Google products that use your voice”. Spare us.
Now for the good news: Here’s how to see what they have on you: First, you’ll need to be signed into your Gmail or Google account. Click on “Activity Controls “on the left-hand side of the page. Once you’ve done that, type “history.google.com/history” into your web browser.Under “Web and App Activity”, click “Manage Activity”.You’ll be taken to a hub which contains your entire digital footprint, so be careful, it could make for some grim reading.If Google’s keeping tabs on you, there should be a stream of web pages and map searches that show up in chronological order.You can randomly delete searches, or select all the searches to make them disappear.
Don’t say Blanche doesn’t take care of her readers.
Now for a travel advisory:The U.S. State Department warned its citizens about traveling to parts of Mexico including Cancun and Playa del Carmen, as homicides rise at resorts popular with American tourists.
The advisory issued on Tuesday upgraded the warnings for two states, Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur, saying turf wars between crime gangs have led to a surge in violence.
If you have some extra money put aside, we have a good place to spend it. The iconic Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue is for sale.
While it is unclear how much a buyer would pay, hotel investors and brokers suggest it could be one of the most expensive hotel sales on a per-room basis, a popular industry metric. By that method of valuation it could bring in more than $500 million. Bada bing bada boom.
Remember Mayor Drapeau’s classic line in 1967 that the Olympics can no more run a deficit than a man can have a baby? Well, Coderre is not far behind him.
Reporters are trying, in vain, to find out the cost of the Formula E race that took place in Montreal recently. They are getting the royal runaround.
When the opposition parties asked Coderre for an accounting they received the following answer: no financial data or ticket sale numbers were available. Blanche, how can that possibly be? Nobody can find a few invoices and add them up? Oh wait. Nobody wants to find those invoices. That makes much more sense.
Mayor Coderre said the final tally would be made public once Montreal, c’est électrique (race organizers) and the city’s auditor-general completed their reports, neither of which are expected to be released before the next municipal election on November 5, 2017.
Let’s bet the numbers won’t be available then nor until the next election. Let’s also bet that the total amount is more than double the anticipated close to $40 million.
And speaking of Coderre and his spending spree…We went to take a look at the $40 million lights on the Jacques Cartier bridge. We got totally hosed.
There’s no way those lights were $40. Most likely they cost $10 million (or less from the looks of them) and the balance of $30 million is being pocketed by bureaucrats who think they will never get caught. Here’s a headline: Everybody who has their hand in the till gets caught sooner or later.
We watched the lunar eclipse yesterday on the internet. While some people poo-poo’d the whole thing, we thought it both spiritual and a physical example of the beauty of G-d’s world.
One of the reasons that it was such a big deal is that the last time this happened, ninety-nine years ago, it was basically not recorded. Whoever saw it, saw it, while others who had no clue what was flying were most likely frightened to death. Imagine, the moon blocking the sun in the middle of the day?
The secret service is running out of money protecting Trump and his large family. While we understand that because Trump moves around so much the costs are increased, what we don’t understand is this: Nobody saw that he has a big family with married children and grandchildren who all need protection? This is now coming as a huge surprise? Seriously.
The secret service needs to be allotted more money without having to ask for it or, even worse, grovel. Get a grip down there.
We’ll talk…
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