As Hank Kingsley would say, “Hey now!” It’s Saturday morning, I’m up ridiculously early, and the weekend is full of work in preparation for a business trip next week to what might be my least favorite city in the US (Atlanta). I’ll be trying to explain the Butler-Volmer equation to a room full of people who have to open their flies to count to 11. This does not please me, so don’t piss me off.

Notable birthdays today include constipated Jew-hater Martin Luther; Nobel laureate Ernst Fischer, whose work will be part of my PowerPoint deck next week; Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the eponymous weapon; Roy Scheider, star of one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen and scourge of giant rubber fish; and bassist and supergroup stalwart Greg Lake.

Fuck that, the news has to please me today.

The first story did. It’s no secret that I’m not a Trump fan, but I admit he pisses off people who I think need pissing off. In this case, hapless granny-chaser Emmanuel Macron.

“President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly,” Trump tweeted minutes after landing in France. He is set to spend the weekend in Paris to commemorate the centennial of the end of World War I.
Tuesday on Europe 1 radio, Macron called for a “real European army” within the European Union, according to AFP. “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America,” Macron said.

Yeah, the US is a major threat, Manny. But of course, les flaques are busy with le clarification. “What President Macron REALLY meant was…”

A senior French official said Friday night that Trump took Macron’s words out “out of context.” According to the official, Macron will likely want to respond to Trump’s tweet directly himself, and likely Saturday.
The official, though, clarified the language Macron used, saying that the French leader did not mean he wanted a European army but better coordination and funding of Europe’s already-existing resources. The official said that Macron was conveying that Europe should organize better to protect itself. There is already a European defense project, and Macron would like to see more capability, the official said.

Translation: “We didn’t even need an army to surrender this time.”

My evil black libertarian heart is warmed when our system delegitimizes itself. This is actual Third World shit, and no-one is even bothering to pretend otherwise.

By late Friday, attorneys for Governor Scott said they didn’t get very far in their efforts to inspect the ballots, as required by the judge’s order. Scott’s attorneys say they did receive documents before 7 p.m. but they could not access them. “We don’t know how many pages of documents,” said attorney Jessica Kopas. “We don’t know the quality of the production. We don’t know much at all.”

Scott’s lawyers waited outside the Supervisor of Elections office into the evening Friday waiting to get in and do their inspection. Then they CBS4’s Carey Codd that they were asked to return for their inspection at 10 a.m. Saturday.

“Did they tell you why not tonight?” Codd asked.

“Just logistics. Just logistics,” replied attorney William McCormick.

“This process is about one thing — making sure every legal ballot is counted,” Nelson said in a video statement. “Clearly Rick Scott is trying to stop all the votes from being counted and he’s impeding the Democratic (sic) process.”

Insert Nelson Muntz “HAH hah!” here. Love the unintentional capitalization, which makes a lie into truth.

Sometimes, stuff is beyond parody.

With strict British laws making guns hard to obtain, knives have become the weapon of choice for members of London gangs, who youth workers say fight over territory and are prepared to kill over trivial slights. As stabbings become more frequent, more young people feel compelled to carry knives for their own protection, fueling a cycle of violence. There is little consensus on why knife violence began increasing in 2014, after declining for years, and continues to grow. Some opposition lawmakers have blamed government cuts to police numbers, while those in power argue that changes in drug trafficking, such as the greater involvement of teenagers in the sale of drugs, is the key factor. Youth workers say the closure of youth centers because of government budget cuts have left children to make their own rules on the streets. Numerous British charities are working to educate children about the dangers of carrying knives.

Moar funding needed!

The knives themselves have gotten bigger, said Detective Inspector Paul Considine, who led the investigation into Daniel Frederick’s murder. “The weapons we are coming across at the moment are zombie knives, specifically designed to cause major injury to human beings,” he said, describing a type of knife, banned in Britain, the size of a machete with serrated edges and jagged protrusions.

Assault knives!

The actual numbers aren’t actually scary. But saying, “There’s been a minor rise in reported knife crimes which may not be statistically significant” doesn’t generate panic, clicks, and demands for more government “investment” and control.

SP is remarkably flexible and tolerant. But there are certain things she will NOT abide, and having “smart” devices like Alexa or Echo in the house is one of them. And for good reasons.

Prosecutors said they believe the Echo device, which listens for Alexa voice commands, might have recorded audio of Sullivan’s death, as well as anything that happened before or after it. State police have the speaker, and the judge agreed to let them access the recordings and ordered Amazon to turn over any recordings on its servers.

Experts said the case reveals some of the implications of having such devices in people’s homes. “I think most people probably don’t even realize that Alexa is taking account of what’s going on in your house, in addition to responding to your demands and commands,” said Albert Scherr, a professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

Law and order types will argue that this was a murder case, so of course this is valid evidence to gather. After all, it takes a court order to get Amazon or Apple to release information or recordings. Paranoid libertarian types note that FISA courts and other secret tribunals would be very inclined to favorably treat requests for court orders to investigate crimethink. I still think this technology was a brilliant ploy to get citizens to pay for wiretaps out of their own pockets, analogous to Chinese families being billed for the bullets used in executions.

Once more, mainstream media beclowns itself.

In September, the Texas daily was rocked by scandal after questions were raised about the reporting of Austin bureau chief Mike Ward. A lengthy investigation was unable to identity a number of sources Ward quoted on the record for his stories. He ultimately resigned from the paper after being confronted by Barnes. The Chronicle then began an extensive effort to investigate all of Ward’s reporting to identify if there were any other instances of phony sourcing during his career there. The paper brought in Pulitzer Prize winner David Wood to lead the effort. The results of his investigation led to the the paper’s decision to retract the stories.

“Of the 275 people quoted, 122, or 44 percent, could not be found. Those 122 people appeared in 72 stories,” said Wood. “It’s impossible to prove that these people do not exist, only that with extensive research and digging, the team could not find them. And in this age of online records, including property ownership and court filings, almost everyone can be found quickly.”

I know this is going to shock you, but… the fakery all appeared to go in one political direction.

And surprisingly, there’s some really inspiring and heartwarming stuff in the comments to this story.

Old Guy Music time, and today, it’s Old Jewish Guy Music. There’s a long history of cantorial vocal pyrotechnics, and within the Orthodox community, skilled cantors are superstars. Here’s a young guy I stumbled across who’s starting to break out of the ghetto and achieve some success outside the usual niche. This song is a Passover favorite for drunken after-dinner singing, and is both Aramaic (actually, it’s a curious mix of Aramaic and Hebrew) and cumulative, but I can assure you that at our family gatherings, it never sounded like this. Brilliant singing, with elements of scat, choral, and opera intertwined. Amusingly, the capsule Google provides when I searched Lemmer’s name classified the music as “Christian-Gospel.” And several commenters were unhappy with Lemmer’s Ashkenazi pronunciations. Ah well. Listen with an open mind and I bet you’ll enjoy it despite the impenetrability of the lyrics.