Are the End Times Near?

I'm going to start easy this week, though for me, this is tragically funny.

I wrote about buying what may turn out to be my last car awhile back, and though she is accomplished with a manual transmission, my lovely wife would prefer it be an automatic. Though all my personal cars have been manuals, but not being a blithering idiot and realizing a divorce would blow through my retirement savings, I said, "Why of course, sweetheart."

And I am reminded of how rare manual transmission cars are now. Only 24 models from all the world's manufacturers can be had with a stick, and that number is dwindling. No surprise. I am reminded of an incident when I was in TV a few years back, and still doing weekly auto reviews.

The Ford test fleet folks sent me a new Shelby Mustang to drive for a week. And the shiny red rocket drew a lot of attention at the station. Our newsroom computer guru asked if he could drive it, and I reminded him it is expensive and not mine, so be careful. About 5 minutes later, he returned with the keys and with downcast eyes confessed, "I can't drive a stick."

I immediately held out my hand and demanded his man card be returned.

You have no doubt heard the joke about how to protect your car from young thieves. Buy a manual transmission model and write out the instructions in cursive.

But now there is hope for this guy, and it is another sign of our shallow new world. Believe it or not, Toyota has been granted a patent for a fake manual transmission. It can be installed in a car equipped with an automatic, or even an electric vehicle. With computer-produced shifting feel and sound, it can mimic the real thing. It even has a fake clutch pedal. That way, even my friend can look like Steve McQueen roaring through San Francisco with manly abandon.

One auto writer called it the automotive equivalent of the Hair Club for Men, but I consider this a sign of the end times. Get your affairs in order, carmageddon is nigh.

Now to the less amusing stuff. As we are roughly a year and a half into the President's second term, let's look at where we are now. According to President Trump's absolutely embarrassing speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, we are the "hottest country in the world" right now.

The lame and rambling narrative aside, here are some facts.

We are engaged in a war with Iran to achieve what was achieved for free with the original Iran Nuclear Agreement.

The war has depleted stockpiles of US armaments to the point that the Pentagon is concerned about future needs.

The price of gasoline, and more importantly, diesel, is now at levels not seen in 4 years, in the wake of the pandemic.

Inflation is higher than when Trump took office.

Economic growth is slower than when Trump took office.

Unemployment is higher than when Trump took office.

Gross Domestic Product growth is slower under Trump.

Factory construction is down since the Inauguration.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis concluded that "Biden handed Trump the strongest economy in half a century." So, why is everything slowing down?

One word...tariffs.

OK, two words...tariffs and war.

We are now no longer trusted by our traditional allies in Europe, and Canada is now the target of Trump wrath, after laughing off his frankly irrational and fatuous suggestion of making them the 51st state. Canadian wildfires, partially brought on by climate change the President does not believe in, are burning furiously and much of that smoke is drifting south to the US. Trump has decided that instead of helping, he will punish Canada with higher tariffs, which actually punish Americans even more.

All this despite, as reported by Global News, during the Los Angeles fires...

On Jan. 12, 2025, former emergency preparedness minister Harjit Sajjan posted on X that the federal government, alongside Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, was ready to deploy 250 firefighters, aircraft equipment and other resources, saying that “our American friends have asked for help to fight the wildfires in California and Team Canada is responding.”

He also added that the Canadian Armed Forces were also standing by to move personnel and equipment, with the Canadian Coast Guard being made available as well

Sajjan posted the next day that “this is what neighbours do.”

To repeat, this is what neighbors do.

So, let's be honest. How do you defend this record? Easy, the other guys are communists.

And, frankly, Democrats are playing into this narrative with events like the vice-chairperson of the Democratic Socialists of America on Fox News, confirming every cliché about granola-eating liberals. Disband the US Senate? Close prisons? Are you people nuts?

I mean, they are a minuscule percentage of Democratic candidates, but they won't look like that when the GOP spin-doctors get through with them, and AOC and others expend valuable breath defending them.

Speaking of Representative Cortez, she recently drew lot's of MAGA criticism by lapsing into a fake southern drawl in a speech. Now, I hate phony dialects anywhere but in the movies, but, have you ever heard Senator John Kennedy Cornpone (R-Dogpatch) in his actual voice?

And his latest homespun metaphor makes no sense at all. In speaking on the Iran war, he referred to new rounds of bombing with this gem...

"Sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys."

Now, I was born in Baton Rouge, but I confess to having never heard that one, nor seen any monkeys and I'll wager no sentient being has either. He appears to be just putting random animals together hoping the result makes some sense, in a Foghorn Leghorn sort of way.

But that's where we are. A Boston College grad trying to go all Scarlet O'Hara on us, and a Rhodes Scholar law grad pretending to be Mortimer Snerd. As one who thinks of himself as an aforementioned sentient being, I am now officially convinced that we don't need poll taxes but perhaps a restoration of literacy tests.

All this as we await the return of Senator Mitch McConnell from eternity leave and the diarrhea outbreak continues. All I can say is...

"Lettuce pray."