5.21.2016

Not Really Accurate

Meet Deadeye Donald - The New York Times

"At the N.R.A. gathering, where Clinton was depicted as a near-maniac intent on freeing criminals, confiscating guns and repealing the Second Amendment, Trump claimed that “Heartless Hillary” wants to disarm the nation’s grandmothers, leaving them defenseless against murderers and rapists."

Officials blame printer

DUMBEST: California High School Mangles 2016 Diplomas | The Daily Caller

"Officials at a high school amid the endless sprawl of Southern California actually managed to give out diplomas to this year’s crops of graduating seniors with the word “school” misspelled on the covers."

Printers get no respect.

Even for mosquitoes life is unfair

When the mosquitoes will be biting in your state - The Washington Post

“…some states are a lot more interested in mosquitoes than others."

Look before you buy

No, Bill Clinton Does Not ‘Know How’ To Fix The Economy | FiveThirtyEight

"Bill Clinton’s second term was the last time the U.S. economy was unequivocally strong; for most voters this November, it was the best economy they’ve ever known. But while Hillary Clinton wants voters to look back fondly on the first Clinton presidency, she should hope they don’t remember too much about what happened next."

Not better late

Democrats Can't Unite Unless Wasserman Schultz Goes! - BillMoyers.com

"Unless she steps down now or Hillary Clinton has her removed, Philadelphia will be dominated by someone who represents everything that has gone wrong with the Democratic Party and Washington. At the convention’s opening session, Debbie Wasserman Schultz will be bringing the gavel down squarely on progressive hopes of returning the party to its legacy as champion of working people and the dispossessed."

5.20.2016

Why wait?

KING: Here’s why I’m leaving the Democratic Party - NY Daily News

Well, OK, if you live in a state that has a closed Democratic primary and haven’t voted yet, stay in that long. Then…

This op-ed piece by Shaun King is worth reading to the bitter end.

Count me in

A Cheese Glut Is Overtaking America - WSJ

"America has built up a glut of cheese so big that every person in the country would need to eat an extra 3 pounds this year to work it off."

And here’s a little educational thing as an extra bonus.

"Commodities markets frequently swing from boom to bust because of the long lead time for ramping up new supply. Decisions to expand herds of beef and dairy cattle have to be made far in advance, reflecting a cow’s nine-month pregnancy and the year or more it takes for a calf to mature."

Which reminds me, I need to find a restaurant that makes really good cheesy melty grilled cheese sandwiches soon. I like grilled cheese sandwiches. But this oh so healthy whole grain bread I’ve been eating is horrible for making them. 

I can’t bring myself to think about any more.

But there must be some restaurant that will make me one, right? Let’s hope.

You save 20%

Amazon.com: Pope Francis Bobblehead: Toys & Games

Just pointing out. We wouldn’t want you to miss a good deal.

Block that simile!

Trump Republicans Champion Compulsory Voting | The Resurgent

"The criteria for choosing a President of the United States is very simple. Either a candidate is fit for the office, or a candidate is not fit for the office. The binary choice is that Americans cannot both vote for a candidate while voting for something else or nothing at all. The one vote citizens have to cast here is atomic in nature and cannot be split, therefore the choice is binary and exclusive, like a spermatozoa fertilizing an ovum."

In fact, bock the whole paragraph.

Ovum? Are you kidding me?

5.19.2016

Zuckerberg tries to conserve him some conservatives

Facebook Moves to Repair Its Fractured Relationship With the Right - The New York Times

 

Could this be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard?

Bernie Sanders, Eyeing Convention, Willing to Harm Hillary Clinton in the Homestretch - The New York Times

"Mr. Sanders has won nearly 10 million votes, compared to Mrs. Clinton’s 13 million, and Democratic leaders say she needs time to begin courting the young voters, liberals and other Sanders supporters who view her as an ally of corporate and big-money interests."

You mean she hasn’t been courting them all along? Sanders has 10 million votes because she just wasn’t trying? But now she wants to?

Yeah, right. That’s pretty dumb. 

Some nudge

Clinton's allies nudge Sanders toward reality - POLITICO

"Several of Hillary Clinton's most ardent supporters in Washington are delivering a not-so-subtle message to their colleague Bernie Sanders: Get behind Clinton, or else."

Stop breathing now

Whoa, here's a little bit of retrieved trivia

Commentary: Whatever happens, Sanders will be a force at the convention | Reuters

"Clinton, meanwhile, would like Sanders to endorse her 'without conditions,' as she says she endorsed Obama. (She made the endorsement only after Obama promised to help her retire some $22 million in campaign debts.)"

Or maybe untrivial. I wonder how that turned out.

Let's hear it for riling people up

A fractured Democratic Party threatens Clinton’s chances against Trump - The Washington Post

"'Do these people read newspapers?' said Bob Mulholland, a California superdelegate and Clinton supporter who has accused Sanders supporters of harassing his peers. ’I hold Sanders somewhat responsible for this, because he comes across on TV as a very angry old man, riling people up.'"

Angry old men too.

File under Stuff I Stopped Reading Right There

A spa in Burger King? A Taco Bell lounge? This is the future of fast food. - The Washington Post

"If you’ve ever wanted to work up a nice sweat after eating a Whopper and a side of fries…"

Trump this

Noam Chomsky predicted the rise of Donald Trump six years ago - Salon.com

"America’s political class has not simply faltered under the weight of the Trump phenomenon; its failures created him, and the establishment is now faced with a choice. It will either address the legitimate concerns of the people who are attracted to Trump’s fake populism — from his critiques of disastrous trade deals to his contempt for America’s foreign policy elite — or it will resign itself to the fact that the Republican Party is now the party of Donald Trump, who says out loud what Republicans have been saying in code for decades."

5.18.2016

Imagine our complete astonishment

US intelligence: Foreign hackers spying on campaigns | Fox News

“…cyber experts say neither Donald Trump's nor Hillary Clinton's campaign networks are secure enough to eliminate the risk."

But hey…

S&P 500 CEOs made average of $12.4 million - NY Daily News

"The chief executive officers made 335 times more than the average American worker last year, according to the AFL-CIO.

"CEOs also made as much as 819 people working at the federal minimum wage.

"In 2014 the average S&P 500 CEO made $13.5 million, roughly 373 times the annual paychecks of workers."

…see that? In ’14 it was 373 times so we’re making progress. Assuming we is us, not them. If them is us, well, not so much. 

Pop quiz: How long before some tech genius invents a CEObot that works for free?

If you know the answer, live with it.

Keeping up with the Clintons

Hillary Clinton’s Financial Disclosure Shows Millions in Book Royalties and for Speeches - The New York Times

"The Clinton campaign has used Mr. Trump’s reluctance to reveal his tax returns to imply that he is not as wealthy as he claims, a criticism that has irked Mr. Trump. 'What Is Donald Trump Hiding?' read the subject of an email blasted out on Tuesday by the Clinton campaign. Clinton aides, meanwhile, have circulated the Twitter hashtag #PoorDonald."

Yet another wacky plot twist in what must be easily the longest-running reality show on record, Keeping Up with the Clintons, the Clintons are now engaged in a fund-raising and social-media campaign accusing the Donald of not being rich enough. Up the people.

Also one of the Clinton’s super PACs (or, in the NYTimes stylebook, “Super PACs”) released its first anti-Trump TV commercial (and no, Bunky, no amount of fervent hoping will make it the last—Obama ran on hope, the Clintons run on there is no hope, we are inevitable (except in 16 or 17 states so far, but who needs them))—where were we…oh yeah—released its first anti-Trump TV commercial which the Times runs—in toto, breathlessly—as a news story here. With another for good measure—more news!

And in other news, Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) reported last night—I watched for about five minutes after the house consortium finished viewing Duck Soup—Clinton (the H one) “campaigned her guts out” in Kentucky, presumably to pull out a squeaker (or, if you’re counting delegates, a tie) in there. So you know.

Which brings us to today’s pop quiz: Would the title video in Duck Soup—a bunch of live ducks swimming in a cauldron of water over an open fire—have survived PETA?

Yes you’re right. Too bad.

5.17.2016

I don't get it

Plan to store nuclear waste near Great Lakes proves radioactive - The Washington Post

"The 2,231-foot hole would go far below the water table and into layers of rock so ancient that they have not moved in more than 50 million years…

"The planned Deep Geological Repository is controversial in part because it would sit about a mile from the bottom of Lake Huron."

I get that people are upset about this nuclear waste facility is on the bottom of Lake Huron, but why is it important that it’s a mile from the bottom? Would two miles from the bottom be better? One hundred yards? It’s clearly not a mile under the bottom (closer to half) and a mile above the bottom wouldn’t make much sense, I get that. But a mile where, then? Which way?

5.16.2016

Let's give these poor guys some help!

Billionaires lining up for Trump aren’t sure where to send their money - The Washington Post

 

So, lack of interaction with human instructors and the solution is…what?

What happened when a professor built a chatbot to be his teaching assistant - The Washington Post

"Now Goel is forming a business to bring the chatbot to the wider world of education. While he doesn’t foresee the chatbot replacing teaching assistants or professors, he expects the chatbot’s question-answering abilities to be an invaluable asset for massive online open courses, where students often drop out and generally don’t receive the chance to engage with a human instructor."

5.15.2016

The unknown quantity

This Gender-Neutral Word Could Replace ‘Mr.’ and ‘Ms.’ | TIME

"If you don’t feel like labeling yourself a Mr. or a Ms. and would rather leave your gender unknown or undeclared, Mx. (pronounced like mix) is a gender-neutral option. According to Dictionary.com lexicographer Jane Solomon, this honorific has one of those rare, very-clear etymologies: Dating back to at least the late 1970s, the M was taken from the first letters of those gendered honorifics, and the x was attached to suggest an unknown quantity or thing, like it might in algebra class."

"O, brave new world
that has such people in’t!"

― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

It's a point

Trump's lies are nothing compared to these pols - NY Daily News

"If we eliminated every politician who lied to us, we’d be down to Mother Teresa. And she’s dead."

You vill follow ze instructions

Germany is trying to teach refugees the right way to have sex - The Washington Post

"Operating under the premise that many Syrians, Iraqis and others seeking asylum here are naive about the predilections and pitfalls of the European boudoir, Germany’s Federal Center for Health Education has gone live with a sexual education website for adult migrants. "