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Do you remember a couple years back, during the Democratic primaries, when I, and a lot of other Bernie supporters, were saying “Hey, isn’t it strange how Joe Biden’s son works for a Ukrainian oil company, and back when Joe was vice president he managed to get the Ukrainian guy who was investigating that oil company for corruption fired?” ?
I’m guessing that a lot of Bernie Bros remember, but most VBNMW types do not. After all, they brushed it aside as being of no importance at the time, so it’s not likely it’s fixed deeply in their memories.
“So what?,” they said. “He’s an adult, he’s allowed to have a job.”
I think, now that a lot of people are talking about Ukraine like it might be the flashpoint of WWIII and the complete destruction of life on Earth as we know it, it might be a good moment to reflect on that. On how we said maybe it wasn’t a good idea to elect somebody president because he was working with an oil company in Ukraine (Hunter was working for, and if Joe was exerting influencing the Ukrainian government on their behalf, with is the correct preposition), and that what’s done in secret very often winds up not to have been a good idea.
I don’t think we will wind up with WWIII. But, I do think it’s a good time to think back to those days, which were not so very long ago, and ask once again – just what the hell is Hunter Biden doing in Ukraine, anyway.

More on Joe Rogan, which might be counter productive, because I’m keeping the argument alive, adding fuel to the fire, when it must be best to just let the argument die, he’s going to continue with his podcast and the people who hate him are going to continue to hate him, whether they’ve got a good reason or not.
The most recent accusation, after the accusations of trans-phobia because he doesn’t believe trans-women belong in women’s sports, which a lot of female athletes agree with, and of being a crazed anti-vaxxer because he had some crazed anti-vaxxers on his show, is that he is a racist, because somebody made a tape of all the times he said that forbidden word which is an anagram of Ginger (see Tim Minchin – Racism, a great song, you can find it on YouTube).
Well, I watched his apology, and it was an apology and a vow never to use that word again, but the part that struck me was this: “I know for most people there’s no context where a white person is allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now. I haven’t said it in years, but for a long time, when I would bring that word up, instead of saying the N-word, I would just say the word.”
As did Mark Twain, when he wrote Huckleberry Finn.
There was no ill intent on Rogan’s part, and I remain a fan. The treatment he’s getting reminds me of the feminist witch hunt which ended the political career of Al Franken. Sure, there was a photo out there of him grabbing a woman’s tits. But, if anybody looked just a wee bit beyond that, it was obviously meant for humor, the woman in the photo was an entertainer participating in the joke, and the whole thing was a big nothingburger, but a lot of women weren’t willing to look that wee bit beyond.
We should always look a wee bit beyond. That’s where the truth is.

As the wealth of the wealthiest continues to grow, as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and a couple of dozen others continue to amass fortunes which are greater than the economy of many nations, a conflict such as this was bound to arise eventually. Jeff Bezos v. Rotterdam, the Netherlands is probably just the first example, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Here’s the conflict. Jeff Bezos had a new yacht built (I guess his old one just wasn’t doing it for him) in the city of Rotterdam. It’s big, it’s tall, and it cost him nearly half a billion dollars. In fact, the three masted ship is so tall, it can’t get under the bridge it needs to get under to get from the shipyard to the ocean. I am reminded of about a million cartoons of somebody painting themselves into a corner, and of one of my favorite books as a child, about Mike Mulligan and his steam engine, Mary Anne, who dug the basement for the new town hall, and then couldn’t get out, so Mike Mulligan became the janitor and Mary Anne became the boiler, and everybody lived happily ever after but, this being real life, I doubt it will have such a happy ending. Somebody, either Jeff Bezos or the people of Rotterdam, are going to come out of this seriously pissed off.
Bezos wants the city to temporarily dismantle the bridge, and he has offered to pay for it. On the other hand, it’s a historical bridge, the last time it was renovated Dutch authorities swore it would never be trifled with again, and a fair number of people in Rotterdam are saying “Fuck Jeff Bezos. We don’t have to take down our bridge just for him.”
Now, in fairness to Jeff Bezos, I’ve seen a photo of the bridge. It may be historical but it is just a low, ugly, metal bridge. It being closed for a couple of months certainly won’t make the city any less attractive, and if he’s willing to foot the bill, my guess is the city fathers will concede.
On the other hand, I saw one comment on this over on Facebook that really grated on my nerves. “He’s already spent half a billion on the boat, and it has to put out to sea.” Oh, does it, now? Is it putting out to sea to combat Nazi submarines? Will it be monitoring icebergs, or ocean levels, to give us an early warning about climate change? Is it’s purpose to rescue dolphins from tuna nets?
Nobody in the whole world will be negatively impacted if it doesn’t put out to sea, if it sits in the Rotterdam shipyards until Jeff Bezos gets tired of it and dismantles it for scrap. Even Jeff Bezos will only be out half a billion, less than 1/400th of his net worth, and he’ll just have to make do with a couple of his lesser yachts for a while.
So, I think the city should leave the bridge alone, tell Jeff Bezos to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, so to speak, and we all could have a good laugh about how one of the richest men in the world was too stupid to not consider the height of the bridge before building his big ass boat.
But I suspect it will go the other way.

It’s true, I do not like Whoopi Goldberg and refuse to watch anything with her in it, due to her horrible, rude, unprofessional interview with Bernie Sanders back in 2020, but I think the current brouhaha which has led to her suspension from The View is misguided. She didn’t really say anything hateful about Jews. What she said was that the holocaust wasn’t about race because both the Nazis and the Jews were white. It all depends on your definition of race, and the question of whether Judaism is a race or a religion (it’s a club, in my view) is one that is often debated among Jews.
So, she’s been suspended from The View, a show whose entire premise is four or five ignorant female celebrities, each of whom is dumb as a box of rocks and collectively they are dumber than that, talk about the issues of the day.
My original reaction was to gloat, because I dislike her so much, but it is similar to the Joe Rogan case. Those who accuse him of racism point to an interview with Jordan Peterson, in which they say the terms Black and White are irrelevant because there’s a wider range of skin tones than that and almost nobody is actually black or white. Joe’s phrasing was pretty bad when he said ‘You’d have to go to deepest, darkest Africa where nobody’s wearing any clothes to find somebody who’s pure black.’ I’m not looking up the exact words but that was the gist.
In summary, I still like Joe Rogan, I still hate Whoopi Goldberg, I still believe in free speech, and I still think people get offended over petty shit way too easily.

“Propaganda has distorted people’s perception of reality so severely that Twitter cares more about obsolete musicians pulling their content from an app because they don’t like a podcaster than the fact that the most powerful government in the world is flirting with nuclear war” -Caitlin Johnstone

As usual Caitlin Johnstone gets right to the heart of the matter. Although I wouldn’t call Neil Young and Joni Mitchell obscure musicians.. They are all time greats for sure, and I will miss their presence as I continue to enjoy Spotify. All day long, I’ve been arguing with people about Joe Rogan, largely because of the free speech aspect of the whole thing, those who want Rogan removed are horrified at the banning of books, and they don’t see this as the same thing.
But, another reason is that I actually like Joe Rogan’s interviews.

But, Caitlin’s point is probably even more important. Here’s a list of things more important than who wins in the battle for the hearts and minds of Spotify subscribers, and whether Neil Young or Joe Rogan is the more influential person, which is really an asymmetrical debate anyway. It’s like who is better, JRR Tolkien or the Beatles.
Anyway, here is a brief list of more important issues than Joe Rogan:
Global Warming
Conflict in Ukraine
Palestine
Julian Assange and freedom of the press
Homelessness
Overpopulation
The refugee crisis
Police murdering people
School shootings
Rigged elections
Corporate influence
rich people not paying any taxes
AI taking over the world
Bitcoin

…and so on.