I'm shocked — shocked, I say — to hear that cryptobros lost a lot of money on a major downturn. Now all we need is some hungry sailor to eat some cryptobro's SIM card…
- Saturday afternoon was mildly nostalgic; very few people on the monorail understood why I mentioned "burning draft cards." (My hat — my last active-duty BDU hat, with an exceptionally obscure unit designator and subdued grade insignia — might not have helped.) Not surprisingly, the current Speaker alleged that the demonstrations were Marxist. I'm very much afraid that he knows no history regarding demonstrations, either in his lifetime or not quite a century past — or just how (in)correct the central authorities' kneejerk accusations of "Marxist control" proved then, either. Perhaps, though, he's been impaired of late by poor choice of beverages (and additives), on advice of Secretary Brainworm.
- At least the No Kings protesters were noticed, even if they end up getting precisely as much substantive attention.
- I'm certainly not booking any Caribbean cruises from 12 December onward. OK, I'm not booking one at any time (just not my style), but you shouldn't then, either.
- It normally takes about a decade or so to remove the "carpetbagger" label from politicians when they significantly change their residences. That's perhaps the best explanation for the "at least a decade" prospective delay in seeking elective office proposed by this guy; if he moves to where he's most qualified to hold office right now — Illinois, as Governor (since despite the commutation he's still a convicted felon) — he'll have a couple years to practice on the Cook County Council before the 2038 election cycle. He'd be breaking a campaign promise to run in 2034… oh, who am I kidding?
- With all due respect to the Chancellor of my undergraduate institution, I think he is making a mistake "engaging in dialogue" on some subjects; in this particular instance, it is all-but-formal negotiation with terrorists. That is not a winning strategy — especially when that terrorist organization has previously, and repeatedly, demonstrated that it will not in fact "engage in dialogue" but will instead seek further opportunities to propagandize based on at best out-of-context statements by those with whom it purports to communicate. Dialogue does note mean "provide further opportunities to make demands without actually listening to responses," nor "meaningless opportunity to try to explain reality to those whose minds are already made up on ideological (fact-free) grounds."
In this, Chancellor Martin is at least being explicit that he's not agreeing to anything. Which is not at all to say that this terrorist organization won't mischaracterize "agreeing to sit at the table" as "agreement," whether tacit or explicit — because it will (which is one of the major reasons not to negotiate with terrorists). Anyone who doesn't perceive that organization, and particularly the
militant wing of the IRADepartment of Education, as a terrorist organization for these purposes is respectfully referred to Zillow to peruse valuations and financing options for purchase of several acres of waterfront property approximately 45km east of Mar-a-Lago. - Meanwhile, PW continues to demonstrate its utter obliviousness with its annual list of "the world's largest publishers" that ignores at least three publishers with greater revenues than their #1. Oh, but those publishers don't sell to "the trade," so they don't count. That's sort of like ranking the biggest bookstores in the world and excluding the 'zon because they couldn't find it on a street map.
The real point here is that this is far from an isolated instance when talking about "publishing": Virtually everyone — and absolutely all "publishing news outlets" — silently restrict their datasets to exclude things they just don't want to talk about. Or, more frequently, can't get paid to talk about… or have any present/recent conflict of interest talking about. That doesn't meet even the minimal standards of Faux News and the WSJ…
- All of the above really make me want to exercise my linguistic skills as acquired from the real experts: Senior NCOs.
If this platter — despite the current-events flavor profile of the individual sausages — somehow makes you nostalgic for the late 1960s, you need to brush up a bit on the full context of 1968. Perhaps you can ponder one of the gaping loopholes in the XXVth Amendment, too: There's no similar mechanism regarding cabinet members, only at most the President's own ability to fire them, and if we're thinking about XXV that's already in play otherwise…