Vladimir Putin has announced he now has a missile with a top speed of 3,600 miles per hour, making it impossible for anyone to shoot down, another stealthy missile that runs on nuclear power and therefore has unlimited range, as well as a submersible vehicle so stealthy it can creep up to any coastal city and detonate a hydrogen bomb, wiping out New York or London. Well, perhaps we shall see if he really has these wonders. And perhaps not.

So Putin has a missile
That runs on fuel that’s fissile
With sensors that he hopes will help it find
Fat targets just by glances
And not just by pure chances
As happened with some others of its kind
He’ll send it by Australia
Then surely without failya
Heads north with our destruction in its mind
It’s stealthy he reminds us
And stealthily it finds us
By heading north and creeping up behind
Plus objects that  are coastal
Sit quiet then go postal
And taking out New York or Port au Prince
With bare chest and flexed muscles
He sneers he’ll win all tussles
It’s sad enough to make you want to wince

In 1812 Napoleon’s La Grande Armee entered Moscow, believing they had won the war, and shortly thereafter, starving and cold, the Grande Armee set out for home in the dead of winter. Very few made it back to France.

The snow so deep, the wind so cold
The city far away
There’s wealth and food there we were told
Press on another day!
We struggle on, the horses die
And still the city sits
Fair against the winter sky
So far from Austerlitz
We gained the prize, another dawn
But neither wealth nor food
The city burned, the people gone
The men in murderous mood
A tinsel prize, a barren dream
We starved and headed home
Through snow and sleet and cold that seem
To mock each onion dome
We died by roadside, died by wood
We watched the death toll grow
We ate our horses when we could
Then lay down in the snow

Quantum physics implies that every particle has a twin, a doppelganger. Reminds me of Professor Schrodinger’s now famous thought experiment of the cat in the box, who was either alive or dead, but how could you know without opening the box?

Mr. Schrodinger! Where’s my cat?
I want to know just where he’s at
I saw him just a while ago
And you have got him, this I know
I hear him sir, he’s in that box
Be kind enough to loose those locks
How can this be, it’s empty now
And yet I clearly hear him meow
Ah there he is, he’s in your yard
I can just see him, looking hard
I’m not quite sure that I should mention
My cat has only one dimension
And there he goes, again he’s gone
He’s now on Mrs. Cratchit’s lawn
I’m leaving, sir, where is my hat
Good lord above, sir, what is that?
Oh no, I’m going in the box!
Please sir, I beg you, not the locks
A doppelgang, that’s what you said?
Good lord what’s wrong now with my head?
I’ve paws and tail, dear lord, but how?
Please let me out, dear God……meow

It has been suggested that the insanity going on in Washington is the result of the entire Democrat Party being infected by an especially virulent virus. I spoke to a virus the other day and she said she was outraged that her kind was being blamed for everything from disease to politics, when in fact most viruses only wanted to live a normal life with a suitable host. None of us want to kill anyone, she said, but there are always some bad apples in every barrel.

Bad apples, rotten to the core
Reflect quite badly on the more
Benign examples of our kind
Who only seem to be resigned
To live their lives with a good host
Until they both give up the ghost
It’s politics that’s killing us
As nutrients we are a plus
But too much can be worse than none
And that is why each mother’s son
And daughter of a virus seeks
A host who knows of what he speaks
Now I myself, progressive pure
Am fairly certain, nearly sure
That right wing viruses all scheme
To sabotage our leftist dream
As a result we must fight back
And that is why we must attack
Conservatives wherever met
And see that they instantly get
The palsy or a runny nose
Or Asian flu or one of those
Queer maladies identified
As viruses that cannot hide
But most of us just bide our time
We have no reason, have no rhyme
In man’s affairs we seldom mix
And not at all in politics
But right now though we’re having fun
Infecting Dems to think they won

When I was but a child my dreams were never
Without a playful laugh, and without care
I knew it all would last somehow forever
I knew my parents always would be there
My youth was filled with plans of life tomorrow
It mattered not if dreams were small or great
Like most of us our dreams lead but to sorrow
For dreams are overtaken oft by fate
I dreamed my children filled my life with pleasure
I dreamed not that their lives be filled with gold
But only they be happy beyond measure
And bless me with a grandchild when I’m old
My dreams have all come true and that’s a blessing
I have a wife I’ve loved since first we met
My children gave me grandkids and I’m guessing
My life’s about as good as it can get
My childhood dreams are still as bright as ever
My parents are still young and always near
The dreams we dream through life we cannot sever
They stay with us as long as we are here

Proud I am of my Celtic blood
As thin as it might be
For when the embattled farmers stood
They stood for you and me
The tapestry the people weave
Of deeds of great renown
Show Washington one Christmas Eve
Cross o’er to Trenton town
Yes Irishmen were in those boats
And bitter cold that night
With many without shoes or coats
No matter, they would fight
The Irish Brigade at Burnside’s bridge
The 69^th New York
The lads who fought Elsenborn ridge
With roots in County Cork
No passive’s not the word I’d use
When speaking of the Celts
They’re quick to smile but light the fuse
And you’ll wind up with welts

The raid on Syria was many things, but what it wasn’t was a message to Assad. It was a message to Kim and Putin, but to Kim in particular before his meeting with Trump in Finland. Let us connect some dots. Obama drew a red line in the sand and then erased it when Assad crossed it, demonstrating to all that the United States could not be relied upon to honor its word. The critical dot was laid down in April of 2017 when Assad used chemical weapons again, forcing Trump to make a decision. President Trump did what Obama could not bring himself to do. He destroyed a quarter of the Syrian air force. Fast forward to the dot that is Kim Jong Un, who was getting close to having the capability of nuking an American city, and President Trump convinced Kim that if he ever married a nuke to a missile the United States would destroy North Korea, including Kim Jong Un. Enter the Syrian dot again, when Assad, one year later, again used poison gas against his own people. Why would Assad do this? An examination of previous dots shows that North Korea, Syria and Iran have for years been partners in the development of missiles and nuclear weapons, the North Koreans having built a nuclear reactor in Syria that the Israelis destroyed with an air strike. The American, British and French strike on Syria on 14 April 2018, was watched closely by Kin Jong Un, and was the intent of Assad’d provocation. Connecting the dots raises likelihood to virtual certainty that North Korea and Iran set the plan in motion because they were interested in seeing if President Trump would respond to Assad’s blatant spit in the face. The answer would determine Kim Jong Un’s assessment of Trump’s threat to North Korea before the meeting in Finland . We may assume Kim Jong Un has drawn the correct conclusions and the meeting in Finland will result in the complete destruction of the North Korean nuclear arsenal, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the end of the Korean war, and the return home of all American forces in South Korea. Game, set and match. President Trump has connected the dots, and in return has laid down a few dots of his own just to keep everybody guessing.

How great the fun connecting dots
They twist and turn and tie in knots
Conjecture is the game of choice
The dots know well but have no voice
They lie there placid, feeling naught
Like Congressmen already bought
And yet there’s reason in their stance
Connecting dots but not by chance
Determines who will win the game
And losers always put the blame
On dots but dots just like the way
They tend to lead the dense astray
While guys like Trump who play the dots
Give guys like Kim Jong Un the trots

The elected rulers of Western Civilization have, consciously and with purpose, set their people and countries on the path to state suicide, Western Europe by admitting millions of Muslims into the continent who will remove all traces of western thought and culture the moment they achieve political power at the ballot box, and in the United States by importing into the country millions of uneducated third world people who have no common interests with us. Darkness approaches and tyranny will quickly follow, and freedom and democracy may not return to the earth for many thousands of years.

The night so silently descends
Ignored until too late
The Bishop smiles as he pretends
That all is going great
The King sits idly on his throne
The unwashed sit and wait
And listen to the cold wind moan
Announcing that the date
Is fast approaching as the night
Envelopes man and State
And still as yet there is no fright
There’s nothing at the gate
They will not see the night so near
The night they did create
Too late they see with sudden fear
That darkness is their fate

China’s mercantile economic policy threatens to overtake the United States in world economic leadership. And they may very well get there. The Chinese are going for the brass ring.

The Midway smelled of smoke and beer
And hot dogs crackerjack and booze
The carousel ride hid no fear
As couples boarded two by twos
Calliopes sang out the tune
As slowly spun the wooden horse
While couples circled ‘neath the moon
The carousel slowly changed course
And gliding slowly through the dark
The Midway fading in the light
The riders frightened by the bark
Of feral beasts deep in the night
Around them mirrors gleamed and glowed
Projecting images surreal
The carousel grew dim and slowed
To grinding sounds of steel on steel
The mirrors showed a Chinese face
And marching forth a billion more
To shouts that they had won the race
Now to the ears a growing roar
As on the screens a ring of brass
Shown bright and shiny in the sun
And laughing billions filled the glass
To tell the riders that the fun
Was over and that only fools
Would kick their country ‘til it’s down
And sell their freedom for paste jewels
And wade in hatred ‘till they drown

The mind at times goes drifting back
I’m ten and she is too
Her hair the shade of sunlit gold
And eyes cornflower blue
I saw her after years had flown
We both now aged and old
Her hair still fair but flecked with gray
No longer sunlit gold
She disappeared into the crowd
And vanished from my view
I lingered but she’d gone for good
And once again I knew
That there would always be the time
I’m ten and she is too
Her hair the shade of sunlit gold
And eyes cornflower blue