Just wondering if you received the pic of my Donald S Trumpkins pumpkin carving in your E-mail on or about 22nd of October? I forgot to include my CW dot com Stig nom de guerre in the header line.

One of my more minimalist carvings, I think it depicts Trump's World View and The World's View of him. Not a pretty picture from either side.

I do think the WH came out better (and actually simpler) than the one I attempted last year:

http://www.chrisweigant.com/2016/10/28/haunting-halloween-nightmares-for-left-and-right/

Credit where credit is due: both carvings are based on the classic Tom Toles cartoon depiction of the WH. I tip my hat in his direction...

-CW

In the second one, Trump moved faster.

Heh.

Actually, I did think about this while writing it (I hate continuity errors in movies, personally...). In the first one, Pence is legally president with no hanging constitutional questions. So the Secret Service would take his orders without question. In the second one, they might be confused enough for at least a short delay...

TheStig [2] -

When I bought the pumpkin, I wondered if it was tall enough. I carved the WH first, and initially expected it to be smaller, but it came out kinda big. So I just used what was left for the cross, and then (to compensate) shot the photo from underneath, to kinda make it look like the cross was "looming" over the building -- which would change the measurements you've done, since you'd have to take into account some trig to figure the angles, right?

Heh.

To be honest, I started with "a 100-foot cross" but it just didn't sound big enough...

As for swampland, the Washington Monument is slowly sinking, something like a half-inch a year. But then, it's made of stone and is 555' high.

Oh, well, see, I just got to your next paragraph, and we do agree on that height! But then you've got to admit, 555' is pretty easy to remember...

As for lightning, I used to travel the interstates in OH, and remember touchdown Jesus, personally. Guess God didn't like it or something? But Ben Franklin could have solved that problem, with his handy lightning rods, right?

:-)

TheStig [3] -

Thanks! Although the VERY FIRST CUT I MADE screwed up the difference between the negative and positive areas. Used a toothpick or two, and it was good to go. The lattice wasn't the tough part, actually, it was getting the scrolly bits at the corners to photgraph well (OK, I used a bit of Photoshop magic and three separate photos to create the one above, I fully admit...).

But thanks for the pumpkin critique! I do put a lot of time into my gourds...

Don Harris -

Now, see, using the WashMon would actually be a much easier idea, but then it wouldn't leave me much in the way of a memorable image to carve, would it?

:-)

Paula -

See that introduction:

each and every day... a new nightmare to wake up to.

Sigh. That's been my past year, at any rate.

-CW

Well done on the 25th Amendment Carving. Lattice carving is very tricky.

There is a 208 foot Great Cross in St. Augustine Fl. It weighs 70 tons. You couldn't just anchor that monster to a chimney with some clamps and bolts. The supporting structure of the Pence Cross would have to go thru the roof right down to bedrock....and the latter may be very deep in swampy D.C. The unseen supporting structure would seriously reduce habitable space inside the W. H. Might make a good wall for a squash court...does Pence play?

Beyond this, the 270 foot Cross:White House would still be dwarfed by the secular Washington Monument's 555', making the latter "Washington's biggest erection." I'm not sure Pence could live with 2nd best or less.

Finally, there is the lighting rod factor. Lightning did in the late, great, Touch Down Jesus on I-75, but good engineering and the use of steel:concrete materials could fix that problem. There is a more fundamental risk. Would Pence be happy with all those photos of God slamming electric bolts into the W.H. with every thunderstorm? This is a huge politics/religion optics problem - Why is God mad at Pence at now?

Happy Halloween to all.

As weird as the 1950s and 60s were, not to mention later decades, we never actually experienced an attempted right-wing military coup d'etat (Knebel), or a craven Democratic administration that accepted Soviet advisers and domination (Drury).

[Granted, we did eventually have a black president, but not even closely in line with Irving Wallace's lurid imagination (read 'The Man', 1964).]

Was there some reason why, in the first scenario, the Secret Service dramatically sedates and removes President Trump, but in the second scenario they do not, allowing him to rave and foment civil war?