Category Archives: Blogosphere

Open Thread for Saturday, December 16, 2017

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Yes, a weekend Open Thread. To make up for giving you nothing new the last two days:

  1. ‘Chicken Man’s art trailer stolen — You know, some crooks out there don’t respect anything. That goes for the lowlifes who took Ernest Lee’s trailer, for sure…
  2. On their heads be it — Congressional Republicans seem poised to pass, as their signature (let’s face it, their only) accomplishment of 2017, a completely unnecessary tax plan that is only favored by a third of the electorate. Democrats must be hugging themselves at this point, with visions of 2018 dancing in their heads.
  3. How Doug Jones Destroyed Roy Moore’s Whole Shtick with One Well-Chosen Verb — Kind of an interesting piece on the use of words in politics. The most damaging word Jones used in his takedown was “prancing.” Interesting choice of weapon for a Democrat these days.
  4. Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program — The stuff of science fiction movies revealed, at last. Where does the funding come from? “You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?”
  5. Palmetto State Armory’s Xmas billboards making a stir again — You know, like the “Silent Night” one showing a semiautomatic pistol with a noise suppressor?

 

 

 

No, Democrats: Alabama doesn’t mean you’re on a roll…

And congrats to the winner. We don't have to look at the #fakecowboy any more...

And congrats to the winner. We don’t have to look at the #fakecowboy any more…

An old colleague who now works in Washington, John O’Connor, reported this this morning:

I couldn’t help replying, “Well, yeah… if the other guy is a child molester…”

John followed that up with:

And here’s what I had to say to that…

Yeah, but we’re extrapolating from a sample of two, and the circumstances of the two are miles apart. Show me a few more Virginias, and you have a trend…

Democrats like Schumer are desperate for good news. They want the augurs to tell them that they’re going to win big in 2018. This grasping at hope can be seen in SC as well:

And while Democrats are looking to win, the rest of us — independents, and rational, normal Republicans — are hoping to see the national nightmare of Trump come to an end.

So there’s satisfaction, relief, in the Alabama results. But cause for celebration? No. The nation dodged a bullet. A terrible thing did not happen.

But just barely. Good Lord, look at what lost: Trump’s man was an absolute nightmare of a candidate, regardless of your political implications. We have good reason to believe he’s a child molester. He wants to do away with every amendment after the 10th, which means (and he knows this is what it means — he’s a lawyer, and a former judge, as incredible as it may be that he ever passed a course in law school) doing away with the amendments that freed the slaves and guaranteed equal treatment before the law. He seems incapable of opening his mouth without saying something shockingly idiotic.

In a sane world, he should have been creamed; he shouldn’t have received 10 percent of the vote. But he almost got 50.

It’s a bit early to say Trumpism is dead. Yes, we should all be happy that a horrible candidate lost. And to be a little more upbeat, we can even take comfort from the fact that a decent guy seems to have won (I liked that Joe Biden chose to focus on the positive, without making too much of it.)

But the country’s not out of the woods. All we’re seeing is flickers of light through the trees…

Open Thread for Tuesday, December 5, 2017

SlagerShooting5x3.1

Very quickly:

  1. Russian Team Barred From 2018 Winter Olympics — Yeah, OK. Get back to us when they get barred from the real Olympics. But I will say this is a better way of punishing Russia than the last time we did it, when we stayed home instead. Y’all know I like me some Jimmy Carter, but that was a huge disappointment to a friend of mine who was coaching our boxing team.
  2. Trump risks backlash as he prepares to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — Seeing as how it is the capital, it’s hard for me to get worked up about this one. Of course, I don’t have to because millions in the region will get worked up for me….
  3. Justices seem divided in case of baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple — I’m including this for Bud, who may have a point — this guy seems to have a stronger case than most defendants in this are. But in the end, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t eat cake, so what do I know?
  4. Evidence of fight, threats mark defense’s version of Scott shooting case — Can anyone ‘splain to me how the defense thinks any of that adds up to, “It’s OK to shoot a guy running away from you in the back?”

That’s it for now. Gotta run…

Your Virtual Front Page, Thursday, November 30, 2017

Is it that the missile is so big, or he's just so small?

The experts say it’s a real monster.

I haven’t done one of these in awhile. There’s certainly plenty of news for it:

  1. Senate GOP tax plan hits deficit snag, leaving leaders scrambling — Flake and Corker are refusing to agree to jacking up the national debt. Good for them. In the bad news column, John McCain has agreed to support the bill, despite the news that it will increase the deficit by a trillion over 10 years. That’s very disappointing.
  2. If North Korea fires a nuclear missile at the U.S., how could it be stopped? — I’d be leading with this, since it’s infinitely more important than stupid tax policy. But the actual news of the N. Korean test was yesterday, so it can’t lead today. And the tax thing is breaking. There are rules. Meanwhile, in this story with a rather comical headline, experts note with alarm that Kim’s missile is way bigger than they’d thought.
  3. 2nd undisclosed report shows delays, poor oversight doomed SC nuke project — Hang on. Did I just hear “undisclosed” again? And get this: “State regulators and legislators said Thursday that they were unaware of the Fluor report’s existence until told of it by The State.”
  4. Alan Wilson joins multi-state effort to ban abortion after 20 weeksThe State reports that “Other states whose attorneys general are part of the coalition include West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas.”
  5. White House Plan: Replace Tillerson With C.I.A. Chief — Well, I doubt he’d be any worse. Meanwhile, talk about Nikki Haley getting the job has faded to the background. I suppose if Pompey doesn’t want the job, they’ll go with Crassus or Caesar. Oh, wait — it’s PompeO. (Sorry. I’m still reading, and enjoying, Rubicon.)
  6. Gloria Steinem: ‘I wouldn’t write the same thing now’ — Normally, I pay little attention to what she says about anything, but that piece she wrote defending Bill Clinton in 1998 was so deeply shameful and egregious that this is worth noting. But like the sex harassers who “apologize” with caveats and excuses, she’s still not ashamed that she did it then — and that’s appalling.
"I want you to listen to me... and to Gloria Steinem..."

“I want you to listen to me… and to Gloria Steinem…”

Finally looked at the Nancy Mace video. Wish I hadn’t…

Nancy Mace, in a photo from her campaign website.

Nancy Mace, in a photo from her campaign website.

Somebody brought this to my attention on Twitter last week. Seeing it was video, I didn’t click on it (I frequently check Twitter in places where that would be annoying to other people), and soon forgot about it.

That is, I forgot about it until Nancy Mace, as expected, won her runoff last night for the GOP nomination for Jim Merrill’s old House seat, District 99. Suddenly more people were mentioning the video.

So I went and found it.

First, for those who need reminding, Nancy is known for three things, mostly for the first:

  1. She was the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel, back in 1999.
  2. She was Will Folks’ partner for a time in the FITSNews blog. Will handled the content, she dealt with the technical side. (At one point I met with her to ask how they worked that out, looking for ideas for turning this blog more into a business. I tried setting up something similar, but it didn’t work out.) Here’s Will’s coverage of her win last night.
  3. She was one of the crowd of folks who ran against Lindsey Graham in the primary last time around.

Now, conventional wisdom would have it that she’s positioned to cruise into the House. Because, you know, it’s a GOP seat, and they don’t draw them for Democrats to win.

There are only a couple of factors that might stand in the way of that. First, Democrats seem pretty enthusiastic about their candidate, Cindy Boatwright. Second, there’s that video, which has been mentioned quite a few times on social media since last night.

So I went back and looked at it. The first person you see is Nancy Mace:

Perhaps not wishing to share the part about “that’s not her husband… or a man,” a number of Democrats have Tweeted about it separately, especially in recent hours, now that they know whom they’re facing.

Here’s Cindy Boatwright’s statement:

I hope they can get to the point of discussing factors other than this between now and election day Jan. 16. But whether they do or not, this is likely to get interesting…

boatwright twitter

Open Thread for Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Yeah, it was dopey, but back in the century when I was a kid, we watched 'The Time Tunnel.'

Yeah, it was dopey, but back in the century when I was a kid, we watched ‘The Time Tunnel.’

When you type the date “2017,” do you ever, just for a second, think you’re living in, or writing, a science-fiction story? I do, every once in a while. How can that date belong anywhere but in the future? Of course, I’m still adjusting to 1984 being in the distant past, instead of the distant future the way it was when I first read it. In fact, it’s farther in the past now than it was in the future then — which seems impossible. Maybe time travel really IS a thing, only instead of jumping over years to get to the future, you just fast-forward, which mean you store “memories” of the intervening years as though you had lived them, when you really haven’t. Maybe I’m onto something. Or not.

Here are some more down-to-Earth things to talk about:

  1. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe resigns, ending 37-year rule — I’m going to go with the BBC and lead with this, even though the denizens of Trump’s America are all like, “What’s a Zimbabwe?”
  2. FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see, use — OK, would one of y’all please explain “net neutrality” to me one more time, and see if I can hold onto it long enough to form an opinion?
  3. ‘I feel so good about myself doing this.’ says Trump — He was pardoning his first turkey.
  4. Trump Defends Roy Moore Amid Sexual Assault Allegations: ‘He Totally Denies It’ — Well, OK, as long as he denied it “totally;” otherwise I’d doubt him. When this republic started, we had presidents who were conversant in Latin and Greek. This one is fluent in Valspeak. (Look it up, kids — it was an ’80s thing).
  5. Former SC first lady, widow of Carroll Campbell dies — The end of an era — one that had just begun when I came home to SC to work at The State. Back to my time-travel theory, above.
  6. Indie rock group cancels Columbia show after singer is accused of ‘sexual coercion’ — Does it count as a celebrity scandal if I’ve never heard of the celebrity?
Ya know, I never FULLY realized how surreal the turkey-pardoning thing was until Trump did it...

Ya know, I never FULLY realized how surreal the turkey-pardoning thing was until Trump did it…

Open Thread for Thursday, November 16, 2017

Apparently, Al Franken thought this was funny.

Apparently, Al Franken thought this was funny.

Some possible topics — but as always, feel free to introduce your own:

  1. Wal-Mart Posts Strongest U.S. Sales in Nearly a Decade — So that’s who’s been doing so well in this economy. Sorry if you can’t pull up the story; I don’t have access to WSJ these days, either. But what I could see said this was the retailer’s “strongest quarterly U.S. sales growth in nearly a decade” and that it was “boosted by a big jump in ecommerce and strong store traffic.”
  2. After Tokyo Commuter Train Leaves 20 Seconds Early, Company Apologizes — Yeah, we get it — yours is a very conscientious culture. But come on; lighten up. You’re forgiven (even though, in my book, leaving early is way worse than waiting a minute).
  3. Senate bill would cut taxes for millionaires but hike them for the poor, working class — That’s according to the official assessment by the Joint Committee on Taxation.
  4. Senator Al Franken Apologizes After Groping Accusation — You know, I still haven’t adjusted to the idea of this guy being a U.S. senator. The above photo fits more closely to the way I think of him than his serious senator photos.
  5. Four Women Accuse Moore as Campaign Pushes Back — Four more that is, bringing it to nine. Who knew there were so many lyin’ women in Alabama? That Bernie Bernstein must be running out of money about now, huh? Of course, this leaves Moore WAY short of Donald Trump’s 16, but then, Trump is the Man… I guess I shouldn’t joke, since there are people reading this blog who actually think that way, which is no laughing matter.

Open Thread for Tuesday, November 14, 2017

You know what ELSE I think Sessions has forgotten? His Twitter account, which is where I found this picture. He hasn't Tweeted since 2014...

You know what ELSE I think Sessions has forgotten? His Twitter account, which is where I found this picture. He hasn’t Tweeted since 2014…

I hate doing back-to-back open threads; I like to give y’all some leavening in between, but it’s been a busy day, and this is all I have time for, and y’all aren’t paying for this, so quit yer bellyachin’…

  1. Senate GOP to add repeal of Obamacare insurance mandate into tax bill — OK, I thought this was dead. Like, three or four times dead. Rotting. Moldering. Did it not get a stake in its heart? Who was supposed to have the wooden stake and drive it in? Somebody is not getting the job done…
  2. Sessions Denies Lying Under Oath About Russia Contacts — You see, he just forgot (as he does so often) about that meeting with his aide who wanted to get Trump together with the Russians. Yeah, forgot — that’s the ticket! Oh, by the way, you know how many meetings we now know about between Trump and Russians? 30. Three-zero. Also…
  3. Donald Trump Jr. communicated with WikiLeaks during 2016 campaign — Wikileaks was like, Why don’t y’all Tweet about what we’re doing to Hillary? and Trump Sr. tweeted minutes later. Then they said, Why don’t y’all Tweet the link, too? And then Trump Jr. tweeted the link. Not that it’s collusion or anything, right? And the Russians weren’t behind Wikileaks, right? And the check is in the mail…
  4. Senate committee questions Trump nuclear authority — While others lead with other stuff, BBC is leading with this. I guess they think nothing is more important than making sure somebody keeps the really dangerous toys out of Trump’s hands. You know what? The thought of Trump having the power to use WMD could tempt Iraq to invade us — with our erstwhile allies cheering them on…
  5. Catherine Templeton: ‘Henry ain’t Trump!’ — Looks like this GOP primary is a contest to see who can bring the most crazy. What else can you say about a competition in which you try to score points by saying your opponent is no Donald Trump?

Open Thread for Monday, November 13, 2017

There he is, representing all of us to the world...

There he is, representing all of us to the world…

Not a lot of what I’d call news, but some things we could talk about:

  1. Moore Faces a 5th Accuser as McConnell Asks Him to Quit — Of course, he’s likely to ignore that the way he tried to dismiss The Washington Post. After all, if I recall correctly, Moore has been running against McConnell and the party. Basically, if somebody says something that makes sense, Moore and his supporters will dismiss it.
  2. Iran-Iraq Earthquake Kills More Than 400 — OK, this is news. Of the really bad kind.
  3. N.S.A. Struggles to Recover After Breach of Spying Tools — Oh, but don’t worry. As y’all keep telling me, these leaks and breaches don’t harm the country in any way. Right?
  4. Trump Picks Alex Azar To Lead Health And Human Services — What I want to know is, why not Joe Azar? Joe’s been interested in public service way longer than this guy, I’m guessing.
  5. Penn State Student Given 18 Drinks In 82 Minutes Before Hazing Death, Prosecutors Say — Tell me again why fraternities should exist? I keep forgetting.
  6. Trump hails ‘great relationship’ with Philippines’ Duterte — Just to remind us that fraternity boys aren’t necessarily the biggest idiots in the country, or the most dangerous.
  7. If you see a naked person in Five Points on Tuesday … — Continuing with that theme… No, it’s not serious news, but it’s local. Why will there be a naked person in Five Points on Tuesday? Well, it has something to do with PETA, so don’t try to make sense of it.

‘Make Trump Eight Again’

This is so apropos, it’s kind of scary.

There’s a Chrome extension out there, called “Make Trump Eight Again,” that substitutes the font of Trump’s Tweets into a child’s crayon scrawl. It was brought to my attention by this Tweet.

For instance, it makes this Tweet look like this:

crayon

Unfortunately, I’ve loaded and enabled the extension, but it’s not working for me yet.

Here’s hoping I didn’t willingly download and activate a Trojan Horse. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate malicious Russian hack?

Yo, Catherine! TURN THE PHONE SIDEWAYS!

Yeah. there’s a lot of other stuff to be said about this bit of poorly-recorded braggadocio.w3ztXvTl_400x400

But I thought I’d start with my own pet peeve: If you’re going to shoot video and inflict it on the world, turn the phone sideways! I really don’t want to see those wasted black bars at the sides, thank you very much.

As for the rest… Catherine Templeton has definitely chosen her bed, as both Tweets shown here demonstrate. Let’s see how comfortable she is lying in it going forward…

Open Thread for Monday, November 6, 2017

The Guardian has gone totally ape over this Pentagon, uh, Panama, uh, Paradise Papers thing...

The Guardian has gone totally ape over this Pentagon, uh, Panama, uh, Paradise Papers thing…

Some possibilities:

  1. Texas gunman who killed 26 ‘sent threatening texts to mother-in-law’ — This angle is many hours old, but this shooting story remains the big one, and we haven’t talked about it yet.
  2. Paradise Papers — I don’t have anything to say about this yet, for two reasons: First, it’s about money, so, ya know. Second, I can’t concentrate on it for Bernie Sanders yelling, “I tolja so! I tolja so! I tolja so! I tolja so!” Meanwhile, The Guardian‘s gone absolutely ape over it — you have to scroll down a screen and a half to read about anything else.
  3. Which Columbia-area hospital is the safest? Not one got an A. — Yikes.
  4. Amazon’s Roy Price Left Alleged Trail of Sexual Harassment — I’m just sharing this to note that The Wall Street Journal is leading with it, when everybody else (except The Guardian) is leading with the Texas shooting… Interesting… Maybe the WSJ is just trying to distract The Guardian from its shiny new toy: Look! Business executives! Sexual harassment! 
  5. Steve Benjamin won’t be on the ballot tomorrow — No, he’s running, and I assure you he will be re-elected. But he’s not on the ballot, which Cindi is pointing out because it’s such a dramatic example of one of her pet electoral peeves…

Open Thread for Friday, November 3, 2017

Yet another shot of Ben Tillman with a bird of prey on his head.

Yet another shot of Ben Tillman with a bird of prey on his head.

We haven’t had one of these all month, have we?

  1. G.O.P. May Repeal Health Mandate as Part of Tax Bill — These fellas just do not want to pass any actual legislation, do they? The tax bill was already an uphill climb, so what do they do? Stick in a poison pill. This is really, you know… stupid.
  2. Bergdahl Avoids Prison; Trump Once Urged Death Penalty — Well, we generally don’t shoot deserters anymore, but no prison at all? Really? I heard someone on the radio — probably from his defense attorney — talking about what a terrible ordeal this has been for poor ol’ Bergdahl. Yeah, well, tell that to his comrades who suffered casualties trying to “rescue” him.

  3. European arrest warrant issued for ex-Catalan leader — We’ve been ignoring this story, and it’s a biggie.

  4. White House allows release of dire climate report that contradicts views of Trump officials — How about that? But what does it mean, Mr. Natural?

  5. SC governor hopeful Templeton praises Bannon, calls him ‘voice for the rest of us’ — I neglected to mention this earlier in the week. She just seems determined to out-crazy Henry, try as he might with his crusade against nonexistent “sanctuary cities.”

Would YOU vote for Comey? If so, why? If not, why not?

Comey Iowa cropped

First there was the revelation that James Comey was indeed @FormerBu, author of the “Reinhold Niebuhr” Twitter feed.

Then, on the cushioned rubber heels of that, was the stranger speculation caused by his most recent Tweet, which showed him on the road in Iowa in… running shoes. Was he running for president? I mean, why else does anyone go to Iowa? I’ve only been to Iowa once in my life, and while I wasn’t running, I was there to cover someone who was — Howard Baker, back in 1980. (I ended up flying through an ice storm in a four-seater plane, and haven’t had the urge to return since.)

So how do we feel about that? What do we think of him as a candidate?

Of course, I can’t answer that meaningfully without an answer to the other essential question, compared to whom? Compared to Trump, no question. With others, it gets complicated.

But I have to say, while I’ve never thought of him that way, I respect him more than a whole lot of other people who have run for the office in recent years.

Even if he did deliver the election to Trump. Which I’m not totally convinced he did — but as close as it was, any one of a number of small things could have made the difference. And what he did at the last minute in the campaign was not really a small thing.

Still, I’ve always felt that what he did grew out of his own finely honed (perhaps a tad too persnickety for the nation’s good) sense of honor and integrity. (And wouldn’t that be a wonderful change for the nation, a guy who may be too honest?)

He’s a smart guy, with perspective and a sense of proportion. Of course, I’m basing that in large part on the fact that he gets how big a deal the Russian interference in our election was, and that’s a fairly low bar, isn’t it? I mean seriously — how many of us, aside from Trump and his most deluded followers, don’t get that?

But I’m intrigued. This is a serious man, and has a lot less B.S. to him than so many others we’ve seen don their running shoes in Iowa. Think about it: He named his feed for the subject of subject of his thesis at the College of William & Mary, one of the deeper thinkers of the 20th century. As opposed to, you know, something dumb like “Drain the Swamp.” Or “Jeb!” With me, that gets him a bunch of points.

I’m curious what y’all think….

This made me smile today: Pumpkin-Spice Dostoevsky

I loved this tweet from Tim Ervolina:

Truth be told, if you follow the link, the joke becomes extremely silly to the point of being unfunny almost right away. I mean, it’s not a deep joke to start with. That, after all, is the point — something as profound as Dostoevsky being paired with something as superficial as…

Well, never mind. I just enjoyed the tweet…

Open Thread for Thursday, October 19, 2017

Oh, and another thing: I forgot to share myoutrage at a local Walmart being full of Christmas stuff, way back on Oct. 7.

Oh, and another thing: I forgot to share my outrage when I found Walmart full of Christmas stuff, way back on Oct. 7.

Not much going on, but here are some topics:

  1. Sure, There’s A Health Care Deal. That Doesn’t Mean It Can Pass — I’m leading off with this because, whatever happens, I’m proud of Lamar Alexander for working so hard to find a bipartisan solution. I’d be proud of Patty Murray, too, except I don’t know her.
  2. Bush Speech Is Seen as Rebuke to Trump, Who Goes Unnamed — You tell him, Dubya! As Jennifer Rubin wrote about it, “This is what a president sounds like.”
  3. What would happen if Amazon brought 50,000 workers to your city? Ask Seattle. — What if they build HQ2 here? Would we like that, or not?
  4. Who gets $60 million when nuke project fails? SCANA execs with golden parachutes could — Just to keep you outraged. I mean, that’s a bunch of money. It’s more than I make in a year.
  5. This Is What Victory Over ISIS Looks Like in Syria and Iraq — Such is the constant political freak show in Washington that it seems we’ve almost entirely overlooked the fact that we’ve sort of, you know, won the war against ISIL. I think….
  6. Dear Men: It’s You, Too — Apparently, we’re all Harvey Weinstein, this writer seems to think. And in a way that may be true, but not in the chock-full-of-ideology way the essayist seems to mean it.
You go, Lamar! Alexander back in the days when I covered him.

You go, Lamar! Alexander back in the days when I covered him.

Open Thread for Monday, October 16, 2017

What's this? I don't know. The category was "Any other meritorious vegetable," which cracked me up.

What’s this? I don’t know. The category was “Any other meritorious vegetable,” which cracked me up.

Some random topics:

  1. I recommend the pork chop-on-a-stick — Have you been to the Fair yet? What did you eat? I tried the pork chop-on-a-stick, and it was really good, once I removed the stick — about 3/4 thick, nicely grilled and tender. It may have been the most normal Fair food I’ve every tried. Goes well with Fiske Fries…
  2. Scientists detect gravitational waves from new kind of nova, sparking new era in astronomy — This is pretty old news: It happened 130 million years ago. Still, the science boffins are excited.
  3. Iraqi Forces Seize Kirkuk, in Blow to Kurdish Separatists — This is a real mess. For whom should we root? Normally, I abhor separatism. But the Kurds have been worthy allies, and they’ve taken a lot of grief from their neighbors. Should they have their own homeland?
  4. Deserter Bergdahl pleads guilty — And what a long, strange trip it’s been.
  5. Trump stumps for McMaster in Greenville — This hasn’t happened yet as I write, but I put it on here in case y’all want to talk about it.

87AA4987-326B-4404-A492-9AFCA7D8B504

Open Thread for Thursday, October 12, 2017

"Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead!"

“Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead!”

A few topics to consider:

  1. Trump threatens to abandon Puerto Rico recovery efforts Really? What a petulant child… In the same vein, how about his threat to NBC?… He is just so embarrassing…
  2. Jeff Duncan worries admitting girls will ‘destroy’ Boy Scouts — Well, I guess they’ll have to change the name, anyway. Meanwhile, the Girl Scouts are steamed. It all seems pretty odd to me. But what do I know? I never made it past Tenderfoot.
  3. Dueling Confederate flag controversies — First, go read Cindi’s column. Then, consider this: I think her points are mostly sound, but it seems to me the Orangeburg guy might have a case to make that his neighbor’s actions are lowering his property value and possibly even putting him in danger. I’d be particularly interested in what you lawyers would think of that.
  4. American woman and famly freed in Pakistan after 5-year hostage ordeal — And why didn’t I know about this before now? I guess because nowadays presidents don’t go around saying things like “Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead!” Then we would have heard about it!
  5. Spain asks Catalonia: Did you declare independence or not? — Good question. And from there we should be able to have a good discussion about separatism in general. For my part, I don’t hold with it.
  6. Trump signs order to eliminate Affordable Care Act insurance rules — Hmmm. Maybe it’s just me, but I have this vague memory of Republicans thinking it was really, really bad for Obama to do things administratively that he couldn’t get done through legislation…
  7. Happy real Columbus Day! — Never mind the controversies, which to me are neither here nor there. Just enjoy the cartoon. (And yes, I know that everybody knew the world was round, and that Columbus was wrong about how big it was. It’s just the untrue story is funnier.)…