Well, you nice folks were supposed to be rid of me this morning. But Sloopy called in sick and I’m the only staff guy stupid enough to be awake this early on a holiday. So you’re stuck with me for one more day. And indeed, Links will have a certain… rushed quality. Not the high quality, high precision Links you’re used to from the Sloopster. Ah well, we’ll live.

Birthdays and anniversaries looked pretty dull today, so fuck that. Except that it’s Charlie Sheen’s birthday, so we should all celebrate with coke and hookers.

Sloopy did say something about some Little League thing involving Michigan. This is shit I don’t bother with.

See, we have a theme! Now let’s briefly look at some news.

 

America is now leading the world in taking silly things like grapes out of wine production, and grain and barrels out of whiskey.

Over the past two years they have developed a way to re-create wines, using flavour molecules, sugars, acids and ethanol derived from natural sources. Decolongon said they identified more than 100 compounds in the wines they have replicated.

The beverages would be cheaper to manufacture than real wine and have less of an environmental impact.

Hopefully, they’ll be better than that really horrendous Photoshop job on the photo of Decolongon.

 

We used to have Planet Ten to fantasize about. Since Pluto’s demotion, we now are back to single digits.

Circumstantial evidence continues to accumulate for the existence of Planet Nine, the hypothetical body thought to be lurking in our solar system far beyond Neptune. But no telescope has been able to spot it. Michael Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, says he feels “eternally optimistic” that someone will soon find it, but there’s reason to believe that Planet Nine, if it exists, might be essentially invisible to existing observatories.

Wait a minute, didn’t Michael Brown get shot and killed by a racist cop? This is all very confusing.

 

In the Department of I Told You So, Team Blue is suddenly rediscovering their love for the filibuster.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, expressed remorse that her party eviscerated the power of the filibuster five years ago, leaving them no path to stop Judge Kavanaugh, barring Republican defections. Ms. Klobuchar, who voted with fellow Democrats in 2013 to trigger the “nuclear option” and curtail the filibuster, said she would support reverting to the 60-vote rule should her party regain the Senate.

“I don’t think we should have made that change when we look back at it. But it happened because we were so frustrated because President Obama wasn’t able to get his nominees, but I think we would have been in a better place now,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Clearly a woman of steadfast and consistent principles.

 

Well, Florida’s gubernatorial race is taking a predictable turn- the Team Blue guy wants to monkey with health care, but he has a creative way to pay for that boondoggle. He’ll raise taxes. But not on ordinary people, he’s got newer, fresher ideas.

“We will increase taxes for corporations in our state who, right now, just so you are aware, only 3% of companies in the state of Florida pay the corporate tax rate. … And that 3% under the Donald Trump tax scam got a windfall of $6.3 billion overnight due to the tax reform that took place in Washington, DC,” Gillum said. “We’re not asking for all of it,” he continued. “We simply said we believe that we ought to bring a billion of that money back into the state’s government because being a cheap-date state has not worked for the state of Florida.”

Clearly not. That booming economy and huge in-migration of people and business are things that must be stopped.

 

And here in Chicago, our “Reverend” Livingston is still determined to piss off as many people as he can, pursuing the goal of drawing more attention to… Reverend Livingston.

Protesters led by an activist Chicago minister plan to shut down the nation’s second busiest airport on Labor Day by blocking the primary highway leading into and out of O’Hare International. The Rev. Gregory Livingston says Monday’s march along the Kennedy Expressway is an effort to highlight the violence and lack of educational and employment opportunities on the city’s South and West sides.
“We must end Chicago’s tale of two cities,” said Livingston, pastor at New Hope Baptist Church on the city’s West Side. “We will shut down O’Hare International Airport.”

Well, I’m sure every gangbanger in his neighborhood is thinking, “Shit, I gotta stop doing this, they’re gonna shut down O’Hare!”

And of course, the penalty for having me sit in on Links today is more Old Guy Music. And still old school Tull, another song I’ve played in various bands over the years.