Author: Old Man With Candy

Brett is at the doctor’s office this afternoon, starting his rounds of plastic surgery to repair the alligator bite wounds. So, following SP’s morning links, y’all get me and my inimitable afternoon links. It was a tossup between Lucky Pierre and Sloppy Seconds, but I felt that the former was more apropos.

I feel empowered now that I know how to put lines between each story like a real grownup. Ironic that it was SP who showed me how to do this, albeit with much sighing and eye-rolling. Well, whatevs, let’s look at the news.

In big news that for some reason has totally escaped the notice of the Trump-obsessed media, the House has actually passed a piece of legislation that INCREASES the strength of private property rights. And the vote was unanimous. There is one teensy little obstacle, though…

The House vote didn’t have much drama to it, but the issue directly aims at the relationship we have with government and the nature of private property, a core right recognized in the Constitution. Kelo perverted that relationship, putting everyone’s property rights hostage to politicians who want to hand off spoils to bigger entities. The case prompted some states to step in and redefine eminent domain to prevent another New London abuse, but despite four attempts by the House to correct this injustice, the Senate has remained obstinate.

And of course, a president with a veto pen who has declared that he LOVES eminent domain. I very often disagree with Clarence Thomas, but his dissent in the Kelo case is delightful invective.

Of course, any of us little people, after stealing over $100k by fraud, would have gotten off with no jail time and no felony conviction. Right? Her family connections were of course completely irrelevant.

Caroline, 31, offered an apology while promising her wild ways are behind her, as she accepted her sentence of two-years probation. ‘I not only acknowledge my conduct and take responsibility but deeply regret the harm caused,’ she told Justice Curtis Farber. ‘I can assure you that I have made amends, full restitution, completed community service and that nothing like this will ever happen again,’ Biden said, according to the New York Post.

As part of her deal she plead to a lesser charge of petit larceny.

Decked in a fitted black dress and ankle booties with her blonde locks flowing,  Caroline happily had her felony conviction tossed.

Some animals are more equal than others.

Here’s something that, had it happened anywhere else but the woke capital of the world, would have resulted in a Darwin Award.

The investigation revealed that the couple had been asleep in their bedroom when they were awakened by the unknown suspect speaking to them and asking to use their WiFi network. The suspect was wearing something covering over his face. The male victim got out of bed, confronted the suspect, and pushed him down the hallway and out the front door of the house before calling police. No one was injured.

Chez SP/OMWC, if he had managed not to get eaten by our rather large guardian dog, he would have taken the Room Temperature Challenge, assuming SP (a crack shot) had a gun within reach of where she sleeps. Which she totally doesn’t because it would be illegal. Totally.

Turban Man.

Grewal, the country’s first Sikh American attorney general, took to Twitter in response to the comments, which were made during Wednesday’s episode of “The Dennis & Judy Show” on New Jersey 101.5 radio. Grewal wears a turban as part of his religious beliefs.

Hosts Dennis Malloy and Judi Franco brought up Grewal’s turban in a conversation about his recent order to suspend marijuana prosecutions. Malloy said he could not remember Grewal’s name, telling Franco, “I’m just going to say the guy with the turban.”

“Listen, if that offends you, then don’t wear the turban, man, and I’ll remember your name,” Malloy said at one point.

Me, I’m Yarmulke Man.

Nothing Left To Cut

In 2012, the New York Army National Guard paid the Buffalo Bills $250,000 to conduct on-field re-enlistment ceremonies. In 2014, the Georgia National Guard paid the Atlanta Falcons $114,000 to sing the national anthem. In 2015, the Air Force paid NASCAR $1.5 million in part for veterans to shake hands with racing legend Richard Petty. Your tax dollars. At work.

If you skip the usual SJW drivel in this article, the main point still stands.

Too bad he’s not a Biden.

McFarland pleaded guilty to felony charges of wire fraud, bank fraud, and lying to a federal officer in an 11 a.m. appearance before Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald on Thursday, according to the Justice Department. The plea deal carries a federal sentencing recommendation of 135 to 168 months in prison, though he could be sentenced to as many as 75 years under the felony maximums.

The alleged fraud happened while he was out on bail awaiting trial on the Fyre Festival fraud. Well, you do have to commend him for consistency.

Old Guy Music yet again. I think I’ve posted a Leon Thomas song before, but there’s always room for more. This time, a short piece from an album that ought to be much better known than it is, with Thomas, Oliver Nelson, and Johnny Hodges, a real supergroup. This song is basically a vocalese version of Duke Ellington’s “C Jam Blues,” which beats three chord rock by being basically two note jazz. Thomas does his usual “holy shit, how can he make his voice do that?” pyrotechnics, Nelson’s arrangements are pitch-perfect, and Hodges is… well… Johnny Hodges.

Just when you thought it was safe to go out… Brett, after more tequila, decided to take me up on a dare and consequently got eaten by an alligator (this will be tomorrow’s Florida Man story). Moral: Ignore the Jew, especially when there’s a reptile involved. But do pay attention to these first rate news stories that (((we))) generously throw out there for discussion.

I’m beginning to lose all respect for the business school program at Wharton. How do they turn out someone with this sort of remarkably muddled thinking? Or with a total ignorance of the history of Smoot Hawley? Or about how globalization has led to local manufacture of so-called foreign brands?

Trump has said imposing tariffs on foreign cars could push Americans to buy more U.S. automobiles, helping U.S. workers. But critics think tariffs would drive up the cost of all cars and pass those inflated prices on to consumers.

Commerce Department officials are now considering a variety of options to address Trump’s insistence that cheap foreign cars are flooding the U.S. market, and some of those measures would stop far short of imposing tariffs, two people briefed on the discussions said. But several of Trump’s advisers think he is expected to follow the approach he took with steel and aluminum imports and choose the most severe restrictions and his favored tool — tariffs across the board, according to the three people briefed on White House discussions.

SFX: palm to forehead

But at least the ladies like him. The poor and stupid ladies, that is.

Just 44 percent of white women voters with college degrees approve of Trump, while an even smaller 36 percent of white women with graduate degrees approve. By contrast, among working-class white women, views are split evenly.

Oh, and old ladies.

Among the youngest cohort of white women, Trump’s approval rating is a pathetic 32 percent, whereas among white female senior citizens it’s a very strong 51 percent.

The inevitable happens in Canada.

The Toronto City Council has voted overwhelmingly to urge Canada’s federal and provincial government to ban the sale of handguns and handgun ammunition in the largest city in the country. The council’s 41-4 vote came two days after a man shot two people to death and wounded 13 others in the city.

Here’s an idea: ban shooting at people. That should work.

There’s so much conflated in this article, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Some 13.5 percent of the U.S. population — 44 million — is foreign born, the highest level ever, and many are not proficient in English, choosing to speak Spanish at home instead. A report from the Migration Policy Institute found that 22 percent of the U.S. population does not speak English at home. The share was highest in Nevada at 31 percent and Florida at 29 percent.

Funny, when I was a little kid, we lived with my grandmother who was an immigrant- and her English was definitely not proficient, nor did it ever become so. Yet for some reason, we still didn’t speak Spanish at home. And like it has ever been, my parents and their siblings were perfectly bilingual, and my generation (except me, because we lived with Bubbie) could only speak English. Huh.

The spirit of sending someone a dildo from “Hugh G. Rexion” is alive and well.

Los Angeles Police Department officers responded to a report of a suspicious package at 2:30 p.m. PT, LAPD Public Information Officer Mike Lopez told USA TODAY. The officers then called in a Los Angeles Fire Department hazardous materials team. “The package was addressed to ‘Anne Thrax,’” Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said in a statement.

I’m sure you imaginative types will come up with better aliases.

Rand Paul dishes shit and gets shit. The article was ho-hum, but the comments are a rich delight.

Bob Rousseau: Too bad Rand Paul’s neighbor didn’t beat him harder. Rand Paul is a useless waste of good air. John Brennan, Clapper, Hayden, and Comey are the Best of the best…true Americans who served their country 40x more than Trump. These American Law Enforcement, and Intelligence professionals deserve our gratiitude for speaking out to protect the United States from Trump and his Anti American fascist authoritarian policies and behavior.

You tell ’em, Bob!

Speaking of delights, this is the Gray Lady today, albeit not menopausal.

And lately, women — and transgender and nonbinary people who menstruate — are talking about it in public more than ever before. There are new products and services on the market, from menstrual cups to period underwear to medicinal cannabis and “period coaches.”

Period coaches?
“C’mon, BLEED! BLEED!”

I don’t usually do the Old Guy Music on weekday posts, but hey, what the fuck. Lee Barber is the greatest songwriter you never heard of, and this delightfully horrifying tune comes off his latest album. By the way, he also did the featured painting on this image, and his visual work is just as disturbing and wonderful as his music.

It really does take some effort to fuck up waffles, Nature’s Perfect Food. I hope the featured image was enough to convince you that there is no God, we’re all doomed, and hatred and evil rule our world. And as always, I offer plenty of ammo for people leaning toward antisemitism with the image above. I would say “no Christian babies were harmed in the production of those waffles,” but I’d be lying.

Speaking of which, this is the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Which one? Both of them. Fucking Iraqis and Italians. And fucking Krauts and Polacks- it’s also the anniversary of the deportation of the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, about which in accordance with current law I am forced to say that the Polacks had nothing to do with, nossir, they were off somewhere else eating pierogies. It was only the Germans.

OK, I knew my good mood wouldn’t last.

The only redeeming quality of July 22 is that it’s the birthday of Stephen Vincent Benet, who is one of my favorite American writers. If you weren’t forced to read By The Waters Of Babylon as a public school inmate and had it thereby ruined for you, I urge you to read it now. It was the Ur-post-apocalyptic story, copied thousands of times since. And if your lips are too tired to read The Devil and Daniel Webster, the movie version with Walter Huston was absolutely delightful and quite true to the story.

On to the depressing news.

Nice to see that Donald Trump has cheerfully continued Obama’s doctrine of “kill them all and let God sort it out.”

In what has become a familiar litany, particularly in Taliban-dominated Kunduz Province, Afghan and American officials had initially denied that any civilians had been killed in the strike on Thursday, claiming the victims were Taliban fighters. Then 11 bodies belonging to women and children appeared at the hospital in Kunduz City, about four miles from the site of the attack in Chardara District. The Taliban do not have women fighters and the children were very young.

Next up: Trump gets a Nobel to match Obama’s.

A follow-up to a story from yesterday. One more step toward Heinlein’s “polite society.” In this case, there was no one polite.

The shooting “is within the bookends of ‘stand your ground’ and within the bookends of force being justified,” the sheriff said, later adding, “I’m not saying I agree with it, but I don’t make that call.”

Well, Florida. Hardly “society.”

On the bright side, progressives should be happy that the current wave of drive-by shootings don’t involve expenditure of fossil fuels.

Dr. Mark Hausknech and the shooter were both riding bikes on South Main Street, near Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women, shortly before 9 a.m. local time, Executive Assistant Police Chief Troy Finner said at a news conference. Hausknecht, 65, was biking north when he passed the shooter going in the other direction, Finner said. The shooter turned, fired two shots at Hausknecht and rode away on his bike, Finner said.

At least Poppy didn’t grab anyone’s ass. This time.

Shootings, of course, cannot happen in California because they have common-sense gun laws. You know, the kind that guarantee that the folks who shop at Trader Joe’s are almost certain to be unarmed and make a perfect target for hostage-standoff-shooting.

“We all laid there for about a half an hour until LAPD came and got us out. They helped carry me across the parking lot and they sort of tossed me over a wall,” Kohles said.

I’m not saying that this was caused by the store running out of Quinoa Corn Chips, but… this was caused by the store running out of quinoa corn chips.

More follow-up, this time about the bus stabbings in Germany. The news stories yesterday kept emphasizing that the suspect was a “German citizen.” That was repeated several times. Well, we all know what that means.

A German court has issued an arrest warrant for a German-Iranian man suspected of carrying out a knife attack on a bus in the northern city of Luebeck but there is no indication that it was a terrorist attack…

Of course not.

Video surveillance footage from the bus led to suspicion that he wanted to set fire to the vehicle, thereby injuring as many people as possible and potentially killing some.

At some point, Europeans will have to start asking themselves why this kind of thing is so common there, yet so rare in the US. Apparently, today is not the day.

Old Guy Music! What happens if you take a great Paul Simon song and have it covered in an acoustic version by a great bluegrass band? I would say, this:

Can you imagine what it’s like to be married to a prodigy like SP? I look upon her works and despair. Then she taunts me, before running off to play Barbie. At least she left me some good anniversary stuff today, the most notable being Neil Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the Moon in 1969. Right after Teddy Kennedy had a little oopsie involving killing a girl he was finished with. Oh, and it’s the birthday of Ernest Hemingway and Don Knotts. I am vastly more familiar with the oeuvre of the latter.

On to today’s leftover news:

Someday, we’ll understand what the fuck is going on between the Israelis and Hamas. Today is not that day.

Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers said Saturday they had accepted a cease-fire ending a massive Israeli onslaught on militant positions after a soldier was shot dead, once again pulling the sides back from the brink of a full-fledged war. Israel and Hamas have fought three such wars over the past decade and Hamas agreed to the second such cease-fire in a week under heavy Egyptian and international pressure.

The “massive onslaught” once again being bombing some empty buildings. I’m not saying that there’s some kind of hidden conspiracy, but there’s some kind of hidden conspiracy.

New York voters get another preview of their soon-to-be star congresschimp. Who of course will be busy representing them, campaigning for their votes, and attending to the issues that affect her district. Or maybe not.

Headlining a rally with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez sought to infuse the final weeks of Democrat Brent Welder’s congressional primary campaign with the enthusiasm that lifted her over 20-year Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley last month. Kansas’ 3rd District, where Welder is competing, represented by four-term Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder, is on Democrats’ target list as they aim to seize the GOP-controlled House in November.

When in doubt, prog harder!

This is no surprise at all.

According to a study by the apartment search service “Rent Hop,” the city received 50,963 rat complaints last year – more than any other city in the country. New York came in a distant second place, followed by Washington, D.C., and Boston.

The study claims “when comparing the number of complaints per 100,000 residents, Chicago topped the list with 1876.09 complaints per 100,000 residents.” Most of the neighborhoods with a higher concentration of rat complaints coincide with the neighborhoods with a higher concentration of dog poop.

This of course begs the question of, “Is Chicago the capital of rats or of complainers?”

This research explains much of the shitty driving I have to deal with on my lengthy daily commute.

The study found that cumulative RF-EMF brain exposure from mobile phone use over one year may have a negative effect on the development of figural memory performance in adolescents, confirming prior results published in 2015. Figural memory is mainly located in the right brain hemisphere and association with RF-EMF was more pronounced in adolescents using the mobile phone on the right side of the head.

Of course, this may be a self-healing condition.

Brittney N. Prehn, 22, of Illinois was holding her cellphone when she was hit. A bolt struck her in the ear and went through her body. The Kenosha County Sheriff’s office said at first they had trouble identifying Prehn because she had no ID on her and was unconscious.

This was an old Polish joke, the punchline of which is, “They thought of that, so they’re going at night!”

“To send a probe where you haven’t been before is ambitious. To send it into such brutal conditions is highly ambitious,” Nicola Fox, a project scientist from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, told a news conference on Friday.

I should make the obvious SP joke, but I value the integrity of my generative organs.

OK, Old Guy Music, and this time, I’m classing it up a bit. I’m amazed that Beethoven’s Piano Sonata 32 isn’t as well known as some of his more iconic pieces like Moonlight, but there you are. This is longer than my usual selections, but worth it. If you don’t know this sonata already, be prepared for some surprises- Beethoven foresaw jazz and boogie woogie. It’s unbelievable that this was written 75 years before Scott Joplin started composing. Seriously, put on your headphones, take 20 minutes out of your day, and be amazed.

Sundays suck. You’re just getting into the swing of the weekend and you realize that, shit, it all starts again tomorrow. There isn’t even any football- yet.

Yes, I’m in a shitty mood. Even “Today in History” sucks. John Ball, who is an inspiration to us all for protesting taxes, forever wars, and the unaccountable Deep State, was brutally executed by some asshole king who was young, elegant, and handsome, so therefore totally woke. Christians broke into Jerusalem and slaughtered the Jews, while burning their synagogues to make the city Judenrein. Georgia was readmitted to the US, a major mistake that ended up giving us Jimmy Carter. Twitter was launched, plunging the world’s IQ into the single-digit range. There was seriously nothing good happening. Looking at birthdays, for a moment I got excited when I saw Ian Stewart was on the list, but then found out it wasn’t the mathematician, it was some guy who drove his car around in circles.

Fuck Sunday.

Well, at least I ran across a cute dog and baby pic. It’s still not enough.

And on these depressing notes, here’s some news to chew on:

Mencken once observed, “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” This is one of those times.

The police got a search warrant for the devices, claiming that they contain evidence of “Possession of Cannabis Less Than 20 grams” and “Possession of Drug Paraphernalia”—both of which Montanez already admitted to, which makes it unclear why the cops still want to search the phone to prove the charges.

It was that warrant that brought Montanez to court, where the judge asked him to unlock the phones, which he again refused—or simply couldn’t do because he didn’t remember the passcodes for the devices. Now he’ll spend nearly the next six months in jail for not allowing police to dig through his phones for evidence they don’t seem to need.

As stupid as the London “protests” were yesterday, this might even be stupider.

Across the other side of London, a pub in Hammersmith had renamed itself “The Trump Arms” for the presidential visit and was scheduled to hold an event Saturday evening featuring hot dogs, cocktails and other American treats. Decorated with copious amounts of American flags, MAGA caps and a life-size cutout of President Trump, patrons told Fox News they had come out of their way to show support for Trump.

On the one hand, we can only be delighted that the single most evil and corrupt member of the Senate has gotten kicked in her wrinkled ass by her own party. But it’s not like the alternative is any better, and if he’s not as blatantly senile, he could even end up being worse.

De León’s campaign has focused on the party’s energized liberal faction. He supports single-payer healthcare, aggressive goals for renewable energy and helped lead the successful effort to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. He has criticized Feinstein, known for having moderate tendencies, for being too conciliatory toward Trump, such as when she urged people to have “patience” with the president last year.

Left harder!

On the topic of stupidity, I don’t know if I can top this.

When she was about 16, Ms. Ponce decided to undergo hormonal treatment and eventually vaginal plastic surgery, “to remove what for me was a burden and a trauma.” But she said that her message to the teenagers whom she now meets is always that vaginal surgery is a personal choice, and that it is not essential to being a woman.

“There are women with a penis and men with a vagina, because the only key part of being a woman is to be and feel like a woman,” she said.

I suspect that a “woman with a penis” probably doesn’t feel much like a woman, but what the fuck would I know.

Did I say that I couldn’t top the previous stupidity? Hold my beer. Vegan beer, that is.

The global workplace startup told employees this week that the company will ban employees from expensing meals that contain red meat, pork or poultry. The company won’t provide meat for events at its 400 locations, either — part of an effort to reduce its environmental footprint.

“New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact, even more than switching to a hybrid car,” WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey said in an email to staffers.

Employees wanting “medical or religious” exceptions can hash those out with a company policy team.

As a lifelong vegetarian, I admit to being embarrassed.

Wait, didn’t somebody make a remarkably shitty movie about this?

“The waters are back open this morning. Ocean Rescue will remain on high alert and will continue monitoring the water,” the city said on its Twitter page Saturday — which just happened to be Shark Awareness Day. The city fire department said it received a report of the first incident at 3:35 p.m. ET Friday. Three minutes later, while attending to the first victim, the department received a report of a second biting incident. The city then closed the beaches to swimmers.

There’s only one thing that can possibly cheer me up. Yes, indeed, Old Guy Music. I admit that I’m not much on dinosaur tours, but at least this one still had Robert Fripp, even though Greg Lake was unavailable due to being dead. And it’s a pretty enjoyable rework of a classic, capturing the way I feel today. Still, couldn’t they have replaced the three drummers here with one Michael Giles? (trivia: the singer here is Giles’s son in law)

OK, after SP’s masterpiece links yesterday, I have resolved to never try to outdo her on her terms. Like most bright 9 year olds, she’s adept with modern technology in a way that I cannot be. So I need to be more clever.

/racks brain

Fuck, I give up. She wins. For now. But one day, ONE DAY…

Anyway, the obligatory birthdays: Woody Guthrie, a despicable person who wrote some excellent songs; Martha Coakley, a despicable person of no particular achievement; Jane Lynch, tall, talented, and surprisingly intelligent for an actress; Tom Carvel, whose birthday we will celebrate with Fudgie the Whale; and Patrick Kennedy, the human equivalent of what would be best scraped off the bottom of my shoe after I’ve walked through a dog park.

In history, today marks the anniversary of the Alien and Sedition Acts, proof that the absolute first reflex of a government is to be oppressive and self-preserving. That didn’t take long. Fuck John Adams. And it’s the anniversary of the Chicago Fire, which didn’t finish the job and stuck us with multiple generations of Daleys. Loser!

On a personal note, my sincere wishes for a rapid recovery for Suthenboy. It will be great to see you back!

And in the news:

Today is the birthday of Ben Skardon. He’s 101 and still kicking. Who is that, you ask? He is the last living survivor of the Bataan Death march. And a damned remarkable human being. h/t deadhead

Guess who died? Nancy Sinatra. At 101. Not the boots Nancy Sinatra. The other one.

This whole story just infuriated me, and it’s getting worse and worse. Now the “victim” of the “hate crime” has figured out (or was advised) that there’s some extra magic words she needs to use to put someone in jail for exercising his First Amendment rights. And I rarely have sympathy for a cop, but I do for this one. Asshole shouldn’t have apologized for not arresting someone for the crime of unpleasant speech. Even his union is equivocal.

It doesn’t matter how much money we “give” the government, they can always spend more. Record tax collection, and yet still, deficits on the $670B range. Interesting, though, in that this is a perfect illustration of the difference between tax rates and taxes, a distinction which still eludes the progressive mind. And some conservative minds as well, given their nostalgia for big-spender Reagan.

This really should have happened in Florida. Well, Georgia is close.

I cannot adequately express my disappointment at this.

The youthful face of Team Blue. This is rapidly becoming a weekly feature.

And speaking of weekly features, Old Guy Music. A ’60s classic, where I can’t decide which is goofier, the costumes, the dancing, the hair, the psychedelic production, or the lyrics. Still, damn fine band and a nostalgia rush for me.

It was a fun day yesterday. SP and I really love going up to Wisconsin, and yesterday’s excuse was the Ed Gein Memorial Fun Walk and Barbecue. It’s a great event, honoring a great man, and it’s fun for the whole family. It was delightful to see such diversity among the people participating, the weather was great, and I think the entire day went by with no one being groped or mugged. We need more positive things like this in our sick society.

I forgot to do the birthday roundup yesterday, and missed Robert Heinlein. I’ll forget again today because it was a pretty dull bunch. I’m not doing sports because the Orioles are setting new records for suckiness, football season doesn’t start for two more months, and there’s no other sports going on now. So let’s do some links:

Trump raises the art of “brain lint as free association” to ever-higher levels. I’m sure he’ll eventually top this, but my limited imagination can’t see how.

I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ.

Yes, I’m sure he does.

Speaking of which, how often do you meet a girl, take her home, start rolling around on the floor, get her pants off, and discover… something extra? Well, worry no more, now you can know exactly what to do.

…as Allison Moon writes in Girl Sex 101, “For some girls, too much glans stimulation can feel annoying. This can be especially true if she gets erections.” In this case, Moon recommends “small licks about an inch down from the frenulum, on the ventral [under] side of her clit.”

On a similar theme, apparently the British can’t achieve the same sense of fun and unity that we witnessed from Wisconsinites.

A small group of activists protesting against what they perceive as the erasure of lesbian identity by trans women, attempted to insert themselves at the head of the parade at Pride in London. When authorities intervened, the women laid on the floor until persuaded to move by officials.

Personally, I find the word “insert” to be triggering.

“You didn’t build that!” This is one of those articles that is so transparently ignorant and mendacious that you can make a party game out of “who can find the most fallacies, ignorance of technology and history, and non sequiturs?”

Contrary to public perception, it is government and taxpayer dollars, not private enterprise, that are the main drivers of technological innovation. If it wasn’t for government funding of new technologies, the smart phone you are holding in your hand right now wouldn’t exist. Furthermore, nearly the entire high-tech industry owes its existence to government.

Where is Sirhan Sirhan now that we so badly need him?

Legalizing marijuana means that Americans will be faced with new forms of the addictive chemical found in marijuana, THC. By and large, marijuana today is not the marijuana the hippies were smoking at Woodstock, or even the kind they were smoking outside of Metallica concerts in the ’90s. Big Marijuana is selling us “elixirs” like orange-aid with potent levels of THC in it. There are also edibles: brownies and gummy bears laced with THC.

These drugs, which masquerade as food, have caused emergency room visits to skyrocket. People don’t adequately understand how edibles work or how much THC they are consuming. One gummy bear turns into a handful, and the next thing you know, someone is hallucinating in the emergency room.

Old Guy Music! This one from a Wisconsin-born singer-songwriter whose songs about historical events are always interesting and beautifully crafted. He’s not well-known but ought to be, dammit. In any case, the futility and waste of war are recurring themes in his music, and World War I may have been the most futile and wasteful of them all. Which of course is why our Progressive president of the time found it irresistible to get the US involved in it. Oh, and if the artist stumbles across this, please don’t dox us.

It’s been a somewhat eventful week here, and despite the holiday on Wednesday, it seemed like it was ten days. On the bright side, I had a personal triumph this week, breaking an inventive drought and filing a patent application for my first real invention in several years. I got to mock JW for his amateurish attempts at posting Links. Taking advantage of a free trial, we binge-watched Season 4 of our favorite TV show, Silicon Valley. My most senior researcher retired, leaving me with all of his work on top of mine. I got a new computer. I wrote a long introduction to Links with a bunch of shit no-one cares about.

And speaking of links, here we go.

The nightmare may be upon us. WE MAY ACTUALLY TAKE OUR ARMY OUT OF EUROPE. This is, of course, unthinkable, letting sovereign nations fend for themselves instead of sucking off the American taxpayers’ teat to fund their own welfare states.

After 18 months of Donald Trump’s “America First” presidency, European leaders meeting with him next week fear the United States may change its traditional course and begin to bring American troops home from the continent.

OK, we’re probably not going to do that, this is more Trump brain-lint, but fuck, it’s a nice thought. It is amusing to see the “Trump-Is-Hitler” crowd now worrying that Hitler is going to remove his armed forces from their soil…

Now this is stunning. Apparently, the head of the executive branch actually CAN appoint appointed officials, even if his name isn’t “Obama.” There’s no exception for “hobby horse agencies created by Liz Warren.”

Mulvaney’s appointment set up a partisan showdown over who was the CFPB’s rightful acting director. Democrats and liberal groups previously aligned with CFPB backed English and refused to recognize Mulvaney’s legitimacy. Republicans and financial services industry advocates backed Trump’s authority to supercede (sic) the CFPB’s line of succession.

As usual, neither Team backs “get rid of the fucking thing entirely.”

The main highway through Chicago is being shut down this morning by a hustler-authoritarian “Father” Michael Pfleger. In theory, this is to bring attention to the fact that Chicago has a lot of shootings, because before Pfleger came along to teach us, no one had any idea. Oh, also, to hustle money. And as the photos in the articles indicate, Pfleger learned from the best, noted antisemite attention and money-whore “Reverend” Jesse Jackson.

Pfleger said his decision to shut down the Dan Ryan [Expressway] was inspired not only to make a statement about stopping violence, but also by a variety of movements including those pushing for immigration reform and the teacher’s union in Chicago.

Gee, the union thugs involved in trying to extort more money. >This< is my shocked face. Now it would be wrong of me to think that it would be just irony if someone trapped in the massive traffic jam got pissed off and shot Pfleger. Yes indeed, that would be terribly wrong and I absolutely wouldn’t be laughing my ass off about it. Nossir. What’s amazing on the surface is that the protest is backed by the Chicago mayor and police chief. But not really so amazing- for those of you unfamiliar with Chicago history, the city has no jurisdiction over the expressways because it was taken away by the courts due to a legacy of corruption and bribery by the city cops. So it’s the state cops’ worry. HAH-hah!

Every once in a while, I ask myself, “Can CNN get any more deranged?” Their response to me this time is, “Here, hold mah beer.” This is the kitchen sink of stupid.

…before a cheering crowd in Montana he poked at Elizabeth Warren for claiming to have Native American ancestry, disparagingly saying that he would send her a test kit to check her DNA: “We will take that little kit and say — but we have to do it gently. It’s the ‘Me Too’ generation, so we have to be very gentle. And we will gently take the kit and slowly toss it, hoping it didn’t hit her and injure her arm. Even though it weighs only 2 ounces.” In the same speech, he again insulted Rep. Waters’ intelligence, spewing the now-familiar mix of racism and misogyny.

Oh, no, insulted Maxie again! RACISM!

As bad as you thought global warming was, it’s far worse than that. Don’t mind the actual data which show changes in temperature far below previous models’ predictions, here’s a better model which shows that it’s going to get hotter faster and that the older models underestimate warming.

In their observations, the team saw that there are “amplifying mechanisms,” not well-represented in climate models, which make long-term warming worse than what is forecasted in climate models. “This suggests the carbon budget to avoid 2°C of global warming may be far smaller than estimated, leaving very little margin for error to meet the Paris targets,” said Hubertus Fischer, lead author and University of Bern professor.

And of course, no good climate science paper is complete without pleas for more and bigger government.

“This research is a powerful call to act. It tells us that if today’s leaders don’t urgently address our emissions, global warming will bring profound changes to our planet and way of life – not just for this century but well beyond.”

Old Guy Music, yet again. Feel free to ignore it and wallow in your nekulturni love of contemporary pop music. But this is the real deal, a classic, one of the most modally complex songs ever written, and here covered by a superb band. Besides the amazing (((Lee Konitz))), who amazingly is still alive and kicking at age 90, the band features one of my favorite trombonists, Jimmy Knepper.

I suspect Hell is about as hot, but not quite as humid, as it has been here this weekend. The rabbits and squirrels are moving listlessly, and their predators aren’t even bothering to chase them. Birds are walking. The only things stirring are our cops and our criminals.

Deputies believe Williams possessed less than 1 gram of cocaine and a 9 mm bullet without a firearm owner’s identification card, according to a criminal complaint filed in McHenry County court. Williams originally was stopped for multiple traffic violations, and then deputies searched his car, Sheriff’s Deputy Sandra Rogers said.

Williams, of the zero to 100 block of Ivanhoe Lane, has been charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and possession of ammunition without a FOID card.

Good thing that the fine folks in the criminal justice system don’t believe in overcharging to force a plea deal.

Team Blue is too fucking lazy to make giant puppet heads any more. Now, I can get behind getting rid of ICE, but what will their union say? And here’s a better idea: get rid of all of DHS, a remarkably bad idea shoved through during a spasm of hysteria. ICE, sure, but start with TSA.

The “Families Belong Together” demonstrations, like the Women’s March and the March for Our Lives protests before it, attracted crowds of seasoned activists and normally apolitical first-timers to political dissent.

I wonder if they carried on the Women’s March tradition of banning Jews? And of course, the usual abusive use of children as props:

But by far the most powerful images of the protests came from the children, who spoke out for the rights of kids their own age to enjoy happy and normal childhoods.

Y’know, I was part of protests against the Viet Nam war and I didn’t know anyone who said, “Hey, let’s dress up the kids in Viet Cong outfits and bring ’em along!”

Here’s a perfect example of why I’d start with dismantling TSA.

[TSA spokesman Mike]England said the concern is not that people may be hiding explosives or other illicit material inside of food. Rather, it’s that the food itself can look similar to the components of an explosive — therefore making it more likely that bags with snacks would be flagged for a time-consuming manual search. Officials thought it might be more efficient, in some cases, to have passengers remove the snacks from their bags ahead of time.

“Some foods and some organic materials can bear a strong resemblance to explosive materials,” he said.

Don’t you feel safer already?

And while we’re at it, let’s abolish the IRS. We have several ex-pats among us who will sympathize.

Americans overseas often face a complex filing regimen. Swanson received another shock when he found out he was behind on tax filing requirements he did not know about. “It was in the tens of thousands of dollars to get caught up,” Swanson said.

He did not actually owe much in taxes because he had been living in Germany, a high-tax country, which offset what he owed to the U.S. Most of that money went to the cost of the paperwork and accounting fees.

Here’s one more “journalist” who manages to gather the facts, assemble them, and… then miss the obvious conclusion entirely. While we’re getting rid of government agencies, let’s kill government schools. And their lobbyists.

Willie Brown Middle School was the most expensive new public school in San Francisco history. It cost $54 million to build and equip, and opened less than two years earlier. It was located less than a mile from my house, in the city’s Bayview district, where a lot of the city’s public housing sits and 20 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level. This new school was to be focused on science, technology, engineering, and math—STEM, for short. The money for Brown came from a voter-approved bond, as well as local philanthropists.

On opening day in August of 2015, around two dozen staff members greeted the very first class. That’s when the story took an alarming turn. Newspapers reported chaos on campus. Landake was later quoted in the San Francisco Examiner: “The first day of school there were, like, multiple incidents of physical violence.” After just a month, Principal Hobson quit, and an interim took charge. In mid-October, less than two months into the first school year, a third principal came on board. According to a local newspaper, in these first few months, six other faculty members resigned. (The district disputes this figure.) In a school survey, only 16 percent of the Brown staff described the campus as safe. Parents began to pull their kids out.

What’s the culprit? I think you know:

In 1978, California voters passed the state’s most infamous law: Proposition 13 severely restricted raising property taxes, and required a two-thirds majority to pass many tax measures. This gutted California’s education funding so severely that the state’s public schools, which had been ranked best in the nation in the 1950s, fell to among the worst in a few decades.

NEED MOAR SPENDING!!!

OMG, the ambassador to ESTONIA quit in protest of Trump’s brain lint! Of course, you have to scroll way, way down before hitting the crucial part.

During more than three decades as a diplomat, Melville had served at U.S. embassies in Moscow, London and Berlin before President Barack Obama appointed him to the ambassadorship in Estonia in 2015.

Art or kiddie porn? We report, you decide.

Kaplan disputed the child pornography categorization and told Indiewire that the filming of the scenes was done “under the careful surveillance of the girls’ mothers” and neither of the girls were aware of what they were depicting.

HAWT!!!

Need another reason to believe that soccer is stupid? Here ya go.

During the World Cup, Lumidolls Moscow is giving fans the chance to dress their sex doll in whatever football shirt they like. They are offering all the different football t-shirts worn by each team, England, France, Spain, you know,” Sergi, a former telecoms worker, explained.

Punters can pay around £67 for half an hour, or £83 for an hour, to get down and dirty with the dolls.

Expect Dirty Jobs to cover the guys who have to clean this up.

The demon weed strikes again. 

E don reach five years wey Ogochukwu dey try stop smoke Igbo. But if im stop am, small time e go start again. But for di past six months now, e dey try to stop am again. Ogochukwu say, “e first start as competition among my friends wen we dey school but before I know, e don take over my life.” Dat na how im take start to abuse cannabis aka Igbo, five years ago.

Any questions?

Old Guy Music! There are several iron laws, one of which is, “Anything by Justin Bieber sucks.” Another is, “Never try covering a Tracy Chapman song. It just won’t work.” So of course my universe is shaken by… a Justin Bieber cover of a Tracy Chapman song. And fuck, he pulls it off. This is really good.