Randomized (Mostly) Unlinked Sausages

• I already said this before — during the last cycle — but I just don't believe that Donald Trump's "hair" was born at the same time he was. Or even in this country: I suspect it is a dyed hyena pelt... from Kenya. #BirtherTrump'sHair
• There's really only one thing left to say about the atrocity in Charleston, South Carolina. To quote a former Congressman from that state, just before That Flag became an issue for the first time: "South Carolina is too small to be a nation and too large to be a lunatic asylum." (Or maybe he said "republic" and "insane asylum" — I've not seen an original, and secondary sources disagree.) My point is that nothing much has changed since the Hon. James Petigru noted the problem over 150 years ago. In some ways, it's a replay of the not-as-cold-as-civilians-thought war, accepting individual Russians (especially potential defectors) and hating/distrusting Soviets — only to end up with the stereotype of Redfellas and corruption.

  And on the gun-control sideshow: Maybe if we armed our law enforcement personnel with adequate nonlethal means, the insanity of the self-defense rationalization for individual carrying of weaponry utterly unsuited to a well-regulated militia would be more apparent... to anyone who is actually paying attention, which doesn't appear to be much of anyone.

• It's really hard to know where to begin on the Greek financial crisis, or where it will end. There really aren't any possible winners, or credible balanced sources. There's a fundamental underlying problem, though: The financiers demanded terms that purportedly reflected the risks of default... and now that Greece is in danger of default, the financiers are demanding further, outside actions to cover those very risks while retaining their profits.