Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

You don’t have to be a lover of the royals to not be a hater of the royals. Charlotte is a lovely name.

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If Bernie Sanders gets the nomination, and I think it’s a very real possibility, he will win the presidency. But, it will be a nasty election. There will be an outpouring of anti-semitism that will shock a lot of people – and it will come from the same exact crowd that’s been kissing Netanyahu’s butt so hard their lips are practically stuck. Doublethink is just not a problem for that bunch.
It’s O.K., though. They weren’t going to vote for Hillary, either. Although their numbers are disturbingly large (around 30%) the apocalyptic, rapture-ready Christians are not a majority. We got a black president without them. We will have our first Jewish president without them. Heads will explode. (that’s an added bonus)
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It’s bizarre enough that some people in Texas think that recent military exercises (which happen with great regularity on U.S. military bases, some of which are in Texas, are part of a plot by Obama to ‘take over’ Texas (which he’s already president of, btw). The plot, known as Jade-15, also has something to do with
Wal-Marts closing.
What’s more bizarre than that is that Texas Governor Greg (whose middle name is Wayne, like many serial killers) Abbott is taking the threat seriously enough to call out the Texas State Guard (That’s different than the Texas National Guard. They do things different in Texas. Whole ‘nother country, remember?) to ‘monitor’ the exercises.
What’s more bizarre than that is that Texas Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz is playing along with this paranoia. He said that since Obama has interfered with people’s 1st amendment rights (he hasn’t), 2nd amendment rights (he hasn’t) and just all around been an evil dictator (he hasn’t), this level of paranoia is justified (it isn’t). Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was blunter, just saying “I’m on the case.”
What’s more bizarre than that is the NO Republican candidate has stood up and said “Hey, come on guys, the U.S. military is not plotting to take over Texas, because Texas is actually part of the U.S., FFS, how stupid can you get?
Their career would die quicker than you can say “John Huntsman.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is one of those super rich guys, like Richard Branson and Elon Musk, who are really big space geeks and it seems that perhaps their main goal in becoming rich was to travel in Space, a bit like the David Bowie character in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”

That’s cool. No billionaire yet has used their incredible wealth to emulate Bruce Wayne and fight crime with a super cool crimefighter suit and awesome car, but going into space is even more awesome.
Musk, however, may have just added a new and very strange aspect to this. His recent launch of an experimental rocket was considered by everyone to be a success, but the one thing everyone noticed above all other details, was that the rocket looked like a penis.
It’s probably just a coincidence. Rockets, bullets, bowling pins and all sorts of things look a bit like a penis; at least, similar enough for the purposes of low comedy.
Even for a billionaire, hundreds of millions of dollars is a significant amount of money, and you’d have to be one might strange billionaire to just say “Hah, I’ve got so much money I’m just going to troll the internet and get the attention of the whole world by using our high profile launch to get something that looks a hell of a lot like a penis into the news.”
On the other hand, if that’s what it takes….bring on the penis rockets, boys….it’s all in the name of science.

Ruth Rendell died today. She was pretty old. She was a great writer and, more importantly, a unique one.
I first found out about her about 10 or 12 years ago when some friends of mine changed flats and left me a couple of boxes of books (Thanks, Becky and Steve!) There were a couple of hers in there. I read the blurbs on the jackets and thought “Oh, good, some more detective novels.”

I quite like the genre. From Arthur Conan-Doyle to Agatha Christie to Raymond Chandler, some of the writers are a bit grittier than others, but the formula is pretty much the same, and they are fun to read because it’s not just a book, it’s also a puzzle. I love trying to guess the villain before the denouement, and I manage it about 50% of the time.
Well, Ruth Rendell was not that kind of a writer. If she ever met Agatha Christie, I imagine she’d have just slapped the shit out of her.
Ruth Rendell started in the mind of the murderer and worked out. She told you why they killed and what made them the way they are. She wrote so many different versions of fucked up childhoods, extremely plausible fucked up childhoods, that it almost makes you despair for the human race.
Because every twisted, messed up character she wrote was totally believable.
RIP Ruth Rendell. You were one of a kind.

I am glad the 6 police officers who killed Freddie Gray (I am not on the jury and I am not a public official so I am going to grant myself the privilege, in this case where guilt is really the only conclusion possible within the realm of physical reality as we know it, of abstaining from the normally obligatory use of the adverb allegedly) have been charged and will be tried for his murder.
Perhaps other municipalities will follow suit. If so, I expect the incidents of police killing people will dramatically decrease.

The Czech Republic lost to Sweden in world cup hockey, but it was a close, exciting game. Regulation time ended 5-5, overtime didn’t yield any goals, and the Swedes won it on the shootout. Fortunately, this isn’t an elimination round yet, and I take solace in the fact that after the USA spanking Finland, Canada crushing Latvia, and the Russians skating past Norway, the Czech-Sweden game was the first close, exciting game of the tournament. Well played, Sweden, congratulations.

I’m seeing a lot of support out there for Bernie Sanders and I’m thrilled. We have a genuine liberal to support. When people say he’s unelectable, we should reply “Says who?” When people say he’s too liberal, we need to say “So what? Liberal is a good thing.” When people say he’s a socialist, we need to say “You bet. He’s going to spend government money to give people jobs repairing the roads and bridges. That makes sense.” When people say he’s too old, or complain that he’s just another white man, we need to say “Piss off, troll. You’re just trying to stir up shit for no good reason.”

The thing about the riots in Baltimore (which is largely a media contrivance – as in Ferguson, there have been more peaceful protests than riots, but who wants to watch a peaceful protest on TV? That’s just a bunch of people walking. Even the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is more interesting than that, and that’s about the most boring television possible. People watch that just hoping that one of the balloons will fail spectacularly), but I digress, allow me to begin again….
The thing about the riots in Baltimore is that they could have been avoided. There was plenty of warning that they would happen. Not necessarily in Baltimore, but somewhere.
There were riots in Ferguson, but the problem was not only not solved, it was not even addressed. The policeman who killed Michael Brown did not stand trial.
So, cops across the country felt free to continue to kill. The policeman who shot Tamir Rice, a 12 year old boy, was not charged with a crime. The Cleveland Police Department did not say they were going to reform their hiring practices and try not to hire any more people who’d been fired from other police departments for being batshit crazy.
The 70 year old police deputy who killed a man because he didn’t know the difference between a taser and a gun was charged with manslaughter, I think, but the judge said it was O.K. for him to go ahead and take his vacation to Bermuda, because he had that all planned before he killed somebody. So, police everywhere knew they could kill and it wouldn’t mess up their vacations or anything.
It’s almost as if the police thought there would NEVER be riots over this.
I’m not condoning looting or burning buildings but let’s put the blame where the blame belongs. On the police. They need to be charged with murder whenever they murder somebody. Or there will be more riots.