Oopsie

What is a pundit? What are they for? Okay, what am I for? Back in the early blogging days a bunch of cranky stupid pundits were mad that bloggers were "advocates" or "activists" while they were... I guess I never figured out what they thought they were. They certainly didn't express opinions about things in hopes of influencing politics and policy! Or something.

McCain in Twilight: An Unfettered Voice Against Trumpism

Senator John McCain, the sometimes cantankerous, often charming and eternally irrepressible Republican from Arizona, has never minced words. But in the twilight of a long and storied career, as he fights a virulent form of brain cancer, the 81-year-old senator has found a new voice.

Canada’s Love Affair with Monuments to War

I wondered about this when reading about a recent tussle in the nation's capital over the location for yet another celebration of people killing each other. Last month the Canadian War Museum complained to the National Capital Commission about the planned site of the National Memorial to Canada's Mission in Afghanistan.

Mr. Toxicity Zaps America

America's all-time-leading heartless anti-science zealot EPA Administrator Scott "Mr. Toxicity" Pruitt, as of March 2017, nixed his own agency's proposal of 2015 to ban the toxic chemical chlorpyrifos, an insecticide that attacks the nervous system of pesky insects, as well as pesky and non-pesky people . It's sprayed on crops of foodstuff that ends up in grocery stores.

Op-Ed Columnist: America’s Best University President

Several years ago Robert Zimmer was asked by an audience in China why the University of Chicago was associated with so many winners of the Nobel Prize - 90 in all , counting this month's win by the behavioral economist Richard Thaler. Zimmer, the university's president since 2006, answered that the key was a campus culture committed to "discourse, argument and lack of deference."

Trump Rates Himself A Perfect ’10’ For Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Response

While meeting with Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello today, Trump issued himself and his administration a "10" when asked how his "administration: reacted to the Hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico. During a presser with Gov. Rossello, a reporter asked, "Mr. President, between 1 and 10, how would you grade the White House response so far?" Trump replied, "I'd say it was a 10. I'd say it was probably the most difficult -- when you talk about relief, when you talk about search, when you talk about all of the different levels and even when you talk about lives saved."

Republican senator takes being a Trump apologist to new heights

In a bizarre defense of President Donald Trump's lack of grasp of public policy, Sen. Bill Cassidy suggested on Thursday that it does not matter if the president of the United States has any understanding at all of major legislation. His reasoning: a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that he is reading currently noted that the 32nd president did not have a deep understanding of fiat money.

Spain announces takeover of Catalonia autonomous government, shattering 40 years of democracy

Catalonia's regional government will be disbanded and its functions taken over by central Spanish government staff, ministers, and police under Article 155 of the national constitution, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy declared Thursday after his deadline for Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont to bend the knee to Madrid passed without action. While Rajoy's government must still hold a formal vote scheduled for Saturday in order to put the provision into formal motion, the gears began grinding at 10:00 a.m. Thursday there.

Shit is gonna bust your brains out, baby

I won't say what made me think of this topic , but I was just thinking: what are the best movies and books about people losing their minds? There's various Poe short stories, John O'Hara's Appointment in Samara, what else? I don't mean stuff like Fight Club or I Am The Cheese, I mean stuff where the narrator or protagonist is not obviously insane at the beginning but is by the end.

10/14/2017

But not to last: Blade Runner 2049 By Dennis Hartley . **************** Empathy, evidently, existed only within the human community, whereas intelligence to some degree could be found in every phylum and order including the arachnida.

Black males get smeared and falsely prosecuted: Harvey Weinstein gets a 30-year cover up

The Sexual abuse and rape culture in the faux-liberal entertainment industry Bartering Sex for Food; Jobs and Fame for sex Some would say one category just gets paid better and might be able to amass enough inner power and material luxuries, 30-year later, to speak up, name one name, when a crowd also speaks up. Sexual abuse, exploitation, and rape by the powerful against vulnerable children, women, and men in Haiti is a terrible crime and scourge.