At my age, hangovers are no laughing matter, and I’m paying for getting bombed. Not that this will slow the snark. Nor the curated list of birthdays, today including one of the funniest humans ever, Sam Kinison; iodine bottle model Ann Coulter; least-talented brother Gregg Allman; highly talented dead guy Jim Morrison; and even more highly talented live guy James Galway.

France continues its silliness.

Scenes of schoolchildren kneeling with their hands behind their heads has triggered outrage as France braces itself for more violent protests this weekend. Footage, which has sparked condemnation by politicians, shows the pupils on the ground as riot police yell orders at them. The students were detained by police in the Paris suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie, in unrest that has spread to dozens of schools during three weeks of anti-government demonstrations. A total of 146 people were arrested outside the town’s Saint-Exupery high school after protesters clashed with police and burned two cars.

I remember having this happen to me at Vietnam protests. Except there was clubbing as well. And we were protesting actually killing and getting killed. Yeah, we definitely need to become more like our sophisticated betters in Europe.

Some people have humorously suggested that Occasional Cortex is the right wing’s Sarah Palin. And as the days pass (and she still hasn’t taken office yet), I’m starting to see the wisdom of that analogy.

“I have noticed that Junior here has a habit of posting nonsense about me whenever the Mueller investigation heats up,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Please, keep it coming Jr – it’s definitely a “very, very large brain” idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month. Have fun!”

“It’s worth noting that the official House Ethics Manual explicitly prohibits the kind of threat that @Ocasio2018 just issued against @DonaldJTrumpJr for his refusal to support her political agenda,” The Federalist’s Sean Davis wrote on Twitter.

As always, attention gives her power she would not have otherwise. And despite my presence on Twitter (“Not Banned Yet!”), I truly believe that it has done more to lower the intellectual level of the world than any influence since the release of Jaws.

I don’t know what’s more fun, science or The Sun.

Dr Millis, of Anderson University in Indiana, compared sex in space to having intercourse while “skydiving” but added that it was “not impossible.” He told The Sun Online: “The issues surrounding the act all revolve around the free-fall, micro-gravity, environment experienced by astronauts. Dr Millis, whose work has been funded by NASA, explains that in micro-gravity blood rises to your head, instead of your wedding tackle – making it harder for both men and women to get aroused. This low blood pressure below the waist also causes the tissue in a bloke’s proud todger to shrivel – potentially impacting an astronaut’s confidence when it comes to lift off.

Todger?

Why I Love Illinois Politics.

State Rep. Stephanie Kifowit apologized Wednesday to outgoing Republican House Leader Peter Breen for saying she’d like to “make him a broth of legionella and pump it into the water system of his loved ones” so they could “ultimately die.”

Addressing representatives on the House floor Wednesday, Breen acknowledged Kifowit’s apology — but stopped short of accepting it. “If the representative had made her statement to me in the parking lot or left it as a phone message at my office, she would be in custody right now,” he said. “But because she made her statement on the House floor, her remarks were met with applause instead of handcuffs.”

I really can’t add anything to this shitshow other than observing that we can’t get out of this state fast enough.

And yet more Why We Can’t Get Out of Here Fast Enough.

Two Waukegan aldermanic candidates were tossed off the February 2019 primary ballot Friday for failing to meet state election requirements with their nominating petitions. The objections upheld by the Waukegan Electoral Board Friday morning in separate 3-0 votes targeted Jose A. Guzman in the 2nd Ward and Marvin Reddick in the 1st. Guzman filed candidate petitions last month to run against incumbent Pat Seger, also a Democrat, and Reddick did the same to oppose incumbent Democrat Sylvia Sims Bolton. [Emphasis mine- OMWC]

Antonio Campos filed an objection against Guzman, arguing that Guzman failed to securely bind his petition pages as required by state law. Guzman, who submitted his petition papers in a purple folder, said the papers were clipped together but said the clip had been removed, perhaps by the Clerk’s Office when stamping the petitions to mark when they had been received. The objection filed against Reddick’s petitions by Faye Ladon Luna argued that the pages failed to list what political party he was running for in the header of each page as required by state law.

Got that? Disqualified because the petitions were missing a fucking PAPER CLIP and some pages didn’t have the word “Democrat” at the top. Gee, this couldn’t be entrenched interests at work, could it?

More science news!

Rapid global warming caused the largest extinction event in the Earth’s history, which wiped out the vast majority of marine and terrestrial animals on the planet, scientists have found. The mass extinction, known as the “great dying”, occurred around 252m years ago and marked the end of the Permian geologic period. The study of sediments and fossilized creatures show the event was the single greatest calamity ever to befall life on Earth, eclipsing even the extinction of the dinosaurs 65m years ago.

“It does terrify me to think we are on a trajectory similar to the Permian because we really don’t want to be on that trajectory,” [Stanford researcher Jonathan] Payne said.

“If we continue in the trajectory we are on with current emission rates, this study highlights the potential that we may see similar rates of extinction in marine species as in the end of the Permian.”

Those goddam trilobites and their gas guzzlers.

I can think of nothing positive that has ever come out of First Lady crusades. Unelected and unaccountable cunts like Nancy Reagan have used their power-by-injection to cause no end of problems for “the little people” that they feel obligated to “protect.” And while Nancy’s drug war crusade continues almost unabated, at least there’s signs that a few of Michelle Obama’s idiocies might start fading away.

School lunches are healthier than they were five years ago. But Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says schools need more flexibility in serving meals that kids will eat.”If kids are not eating what is being served, they are not benefiting, and food is being wasted,” Perdue said in a statement announcing a rule that is set to be published later this month.”We will continue to listen to schools, and make common-sense changes as needed, to ensure they can meet the needs of their students based on their real-world experience in local communities,” Perdue wrote in a statement.

Of course, there’s bleating from the usual suspects.

“Parents will be disappointed when they learn that the meals served to their kids in school are under attack from President Trump’s de-regulatory agenda,” Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a statement. She points out that schools now will have until the 2024-2025 school year to meet the next phase of sodium reduction that was spelled out in the rules originally developed under the Obama administration.

“Worse yet, the administration jettisoned the third and final sodium reduction targets that originally were set to go into effect school year 2022-2023,” Wootan said. “This will mean that school lunches will fail to be consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, as is required by law.”

CSPI is the equivalent of SPLC. And just as successful at making their founders wealthy. There is always money to be made in destroying liberty for the sake of the children.

This news saddened me.

A 107-year-old YouTube famous Indian great-grandma died on Sunday, after launching a career as a YouTuber at the age of 105. Karre Mastanamma starred in dozens of viral cooking videos, and racked up 12 million views for cooking a chicken inside a watermelon.

I was one of the subscribers to her channel, and absolutely marveled at what she could do with only the crudest of cooking and food prep tools. Her stuff was always simple, but looked absolutely delicious. Thanks Ms. M, you brought a lot of pleasure into the lives of millions. And this is why globalization is a wonderful thing.

Fuck the news, let’s have some Old Guy Music. SP and I went to a show last week featuring a friend of ours who is a remarkable multi-instrumentalist. During the show he pulled out a tin whistle and performed an Irish traditional music solo that was… astonishing. And while I sadly failed to record that, I at least thought of something similar I’d heard on a transverse flute by Matt Molloy, who is probably the greatest Irishman to ever blow into a hole. It’s also fun seeing birthday boy James Galway staring in amazement and appreciation.