SOTUS - Great Speech, Shame About Some of the Facts. Supermoon in Milton

Blue Supermoon seen from Milton

I watched the whole US State of the Union Address, all ninety minutes of it. From a speech makers perspective, it was very well done, with President Trump looking and sounding Presidential throughout.

There were heartstrings tugged as ordinary, or rather extra-ordinary people had been invited to be celebrated as true Americans because of their bravery and deeds.

From the welder who financed his education to get a job with a company which is expanding, via the helicopter pilot who flew rescue and mercy missions after the Hurricane, to the police officer who, with his wife, adopted a baby from a pregnant heroin addict living rough on the streets that he encountered as part of his duties. From the boy who placed flags on veterans graces to the couple whose son had returned broken from North Korea and died soon afterwards. There was even a North Korean refugee who fled his country after losing his legs and now campaigned in South Korea.

However, for more than half the address, when the camera panned to the Democrat side of the chamber, there were rows of grim faces whilst standing ovations were occurring on the Republican side, Going to a range of fact checking sites, it seems that often the facts were, well, Trumped up, especially with regards to size of the tax cuts and immigration. I looked at CNN, BBC, ABC15 Arizona and NBC News and PolitiFact. The growth of the economy an employment appeared to be benefits from previous president's actions.

Perhaps the most worrying item is that Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre is not going to be closed but continue to be used for terrorists.

For a speech trumpeted to be conciliatory, it seemed to me to still leave half of the audience unconvinced.

After a migraine day (probably caused by watching the address), it was off to Huntingdonshire Speakers for a training evening in speaker evaluations. Robert and Faye both gave excellent presentations. Even the Tabletopics were evaluations, first of a great speach by Nadine on being the 'other mother' in a gay relationship, and then as evaluations of the evaluations. My role in the evening turned out to be the evaluator of the Tabletopics evaluations, fortunately with great hilarity in places.

Coming back late in the evening, the Supermoon was bright in a clear sky. I dug out the camera and 600 mm mirror lens again and took 120 or so photos, of which 30 could be combined into a reasonable stack. I'd caught glimpses of the lunar exclipse on the PC earlier in the day too.