Stay crazy, world

 

In Flushing, players boo fans.  They're only seven and a half games behind Atlanta but the Mets are tired of being booed and have begun responding with this.  Team president Sandy Alderson says it's "totally unacceptable."  I say it could be worse.  

Kanye West held an event at Soldier Field in Chicago to publicize his new album and as part of the festivities set himself on fire.  

Two hundred new covid cases have been linked to Kristi Noem's Superspreader Sturgis Spectacular and some of them play for Kid Rock.  In a tweet he raged at having to cancel shows in Texas, blaming "shit for brains bloggers and media trolls" and expressing zero concern for his sick employees.  Kanye-Kid 2024!

This is sad:  Hurricane Ida destroyed the Karnofsky Shop in New Orleans, where young Louis Armstrong was befriended.  The family loaned him money to buy his first cornet and employed him on their coal wagons.  He wore a Star of David around his neck for the rest of his life in their memory.  The shop was one of several South Rampart Street venues associated with the history of jazz that were damaged or demolished.

Shaquille Brewster was on a beach in Gulfport, Mississippi, talking to MSNBC about the weather this morning when he was accosted by a man shouting unintelligibly.  Apparently the man was concerned about inaccuracies in the report, or something.  Brewster's fine.

Anyone want to hear Trump rant about the "corrupt" media because they talked about a Category 4 hurricane in a major city "all night long" instead of Afghanistan?  Here's your link.  He also thinks he should be given back the presidency because it was stolen from him like diamonds from Tiffany's.  Have fun.  I'm really tired of this senile moron.

Everything's a little more extreme in Japan -- game shows, comic books, amusement parks.  Fuji-Q Highland fun fun park has shut down its roller coaster because apparently traveling at 112 miles an hour can result in broken bones.  Odd, they never have this problem with bullet trains.

School board meetings are the newest front in the Kulturkampf of the Trumpanzees, and one Pennsylvania candidate for Northampton County Executive promises physical violence against boards which impose mask mandates.  That, says Steve Lynch, will "make men men again," albeit incoherent ones if his speech was accurately reported.  Steve just wants to hit somebody.  It's a new side-effect of Ivermectin abuse.

Speaking of violence, Hitler fanboy Madison Cawthorn is eager to "bust them out" -- he means the January 6 rioters, or "political prisoners" as they're now known among idiots -- but he can't figure out what dungeon they're languishing in.  Unlike Lynch, Cawthorn already holds elective office for some unfathomable reason.

A crewless electric cargo ship will sail from Heroya to Brevik in Norway later this year.  As long as it doesn't get anywhere near the Suez Canal...

  

 

Thank you, unmasked man

"When you believe in eternal life, when you believe that living on this earth is but a blip on the screen, then you don't have to be so scared of things."  

That was the suicide bomber from ISIS-K explaining why he died along with dozens of Afghanis and Americans last week when -- wait, what?  I'm sorry, wrong quote.  That was Tate Reeves, governor of Mississippi, explaining to other Republicans at a Memphis fundraiser why he's not afraid to handle poisonous snakes -- wait, that's wrong, too.  Explaining why he doesn't fear the covid and won't do anything to protect the lives of Mississippians.  Got it.  A blip on the screen.  A bird that flies in one end of the mead-hall and out the other.  (I read Beowulf so you don't have to.)  It's a lovely image from a poet, not so much for an elected official charged with the welfare of millions.

Reeves is probably not as stupid as he looks and sounds; last August he required wearing masks for a total of two weeks "as irritating as it can be," and I'm sure he's been vaccinated until his arm is sore, but he knows that faith-based babble unlocks those donor checkbooks a lot faster than science.  You don't get to be a governor just by joining a blackface fraternity in college.  And Mississippians who don't buy into this stuff?  They're going to hell anyway.

Of course, the stupid is not confined to The South.  In Butler County, Ohio, Judge Gregory Howard overruled the CDC and FDA and ordered a hospital to administer Ivermectin to Jeffrey Smith at the insistence of his wife.  He has been on a vent all month, so maybe Julie Smith just wants to get this over with.  I'm pretty sure Ohio has one of those laws that lets doctors refuse treatments and procedures they claim violate their personal beliefs (i.e., abortions), so maybe his doctor just doesn't want any more legal trouble, or is too tired and fed up to advocate for his patient.  Whatever, I assume Mr. Smith has been dewormed by now.  

Senator Doctor Paul, who has contracted covid and received vaccine, knows what the problem is:  Trumpophobia..  "The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much that they're unwilling to objectively study Ivermectin...They will not study hydroxychloroquine without the taint of their hatred for Donald Trump."  Or "they" would understand, as he does, that equine worms and coronavirus are genetically identical and can be treated with anything to hand -- aquarium cleaner, laundry bleach, Blue Willow nasal spray, and especially Dr. Reckeweg Arsenic Album Dilution.  

The World Health Organization calls this tide of bullshit "the infodemic."  A century ago there were people who thought "Spanish flu" could be cured with everything from hot baths to bourbon, but there was no internet to spread nonsense in mere seconds.  We have N95 masks, hand sanitizer, at least three vaccines, high-tech respiratory apparatus and the technology to study and work from home, but we also have more lunatic propaganda than all sides produced in the First World War.  One of the most prolific is of course QAnon, which wants its followers to know that far from keeping people alive, vents actually kill them.  Why?  Because it's all part of the vast conspiracy.  I'm not at all sure I have a problem with this.  When an anti-mask covidiot reports to the ER and adamantly insists on not being vented -- I believe it's called a "do not resuscitate" order -- that frees a vent for a child or immunocompromised person who couldn't get the vaccine.  It's a win-win.  If only we could stop them spewing virus over innocent people on the way to the morgue.   

By the way, Liberty University is under a campus quarantine.  I guess their faith isn't quite strong enough.  I would ask Dr. Jimmy DeYoung, the radio pastor who called vaccine "a form of government control," but the Lord called him home two weeks ago.   Rick Wiles might be next.  Say, you don't suppose it's some kind of slow-motion Rapture, do you?  

  

To the sea!

 

Generally speaking, the Organization is happy to leave dinosaur news to Charlie Pierce's shebeen but this was too exciting:  Some Egyptian paleontologists discovered the fossil of a four-legged whale that lived 43 million years ago.  The legs suggest that protocetid anubis lived at least part-time on land before deciding there was no future in it and returning to the ocean.  I'm not sure he was wrong.

The twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, but why is it such a big deal?  Trump has informed Hugh Hewitt that Osama bin Laden was a one-hit wonder:  "It was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center," he explained, proud of his great memory, but Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were "bigger by many times...monsters."  He had them killed, ushering in an era of peace like you wouldn't believe, the greatest peace.  The previous day he told Sean Hannity about how he "knocked out a hundred percent of the ISIS caliphate [sic]," which has now regenerated as "ISIS-X," an apparent reference to Islamic State Khorasan or ISIS-K.  (Somebody's too vain to wear glasses.)  

I doubt Trump will be at ground zero two weeks from tomorrow -- too many New York process servers on his trail -- but you can be sure Rudolph Giuliani will, especially if there's a lunch.  America's mayor, last seen sprucing up in an airport restaurant, told NBC News's Melissa Russo that he's not the manic drunk depicted in I Alone Can Fix It and other books, but a victim of the Justice Department's malice and a social drinker of scotch who functions "better than ninety percent of the population."  His greatest achievement is his password, because the FBI still can't unlock his phone.  Have they tried sitting on it?

All these calls for Biden's impeachment might carry a milligram more weight if they hadn't begun last March when one of his dogs crapped in the White House.  Now it's on the cusp of becoming a joke, like Joe McCarthy yelling "Point of order!"  "He must resign," says Josh Hawley, presumably the same doofus who tweeted "President Biden should withdraw troops from Afghanistan by May 1, as the Trump administration planned, but better late than never."  (You don't suppose there are two Hawleys, do you?)  "This is the most dishonorable thing the commander-in-chief has done maybe in modern times," said Lindsey Graham, hiding his picture of Trump saluting a North Korean general.  Graham is also sure "Al Qaeda and ISIS are coming after us" and predicts "the likelihood of a 9/11."  Hasn't he heard it was a lucky one-off, no big deal?  Besides, ISIS is a hundred percent destroyed.  Keep up, Lindsey!  

If you were wondering about "sane" Republicans, here's 1/6 commissioner Adam Kinzinger:  "Trump set up a deal that would make Neville Chamberlain blush."  But Biden "owns this decision as much as President Trump."  So that makes Biden...Churchill?  Chamberlain thought he was preventing war by sacrificing half the Czechs, a lousy decision but hugely popular in a country still stunned by the horrific losses of the Western Front.  To me it sounds more like what Trump did to the Kurds when he gave Erdogan permission to invade Iraq and wipe them out.  But to paraphrase Chamberlain's adversary, who now remembers the Kurds?

A still-shaky Washington braces for two wildly contrasting events.  Tomorrow, the 58th anniversary of "I have a dream," the Make Good Trouble rally calls for the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act currently blocked by (if we're honest) Joe Manchin.  On September 18 the "Justice for J6" event will demand that the "political prisoners" who smashed into the Capitol be freed and given a medal or a pony, whatever.  It will be interesting to see how police react to the two.  

I am returning to the sea.

 

Only fools and horse medicine

 Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.  We can try to correct it, we can choose to repeat it.  Ignoring it or putting a ribbon in its hair and calling it American Exceptionalism does not work.

Nearly half a century after the end of the notorious Tuskegee syphilis "study" Americans are still being subjected to medical experiments.  At the Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, inmates are being prescribed Ivermectin, the horse-dewormer drug that the FDA has repeatedly warned against.  Services at the jail are provided by an HMO called Karas Correctional Health, whose website touts its "compassionate professionals."  The sheriff says he knows all about it and everything is fine, as no one has died.  (No idea how many prisoners are excreting strands of intestinal lining.)

Last night Thomas Massie (R-KY) tweeted and deleted the familiar it's-just-like-the-Holocaust trope but he wasn't thinking of Mengele at Auschwitz, much less Tuskegee.  He knows that...well, see for yourself.

Horrifying.  And yet I have to carry a photo ID card to vote.  Millions do.  Any thoughts, Tom?  No longer a free country?  Hello?

A suicide bomber possibly from the local Islamic State affiliate has killed twelve US Marines and numerous civilians at Hamid Karzai International Airport (I had to write that once) in Kabul.  Prepare for a highly selective history lesson with many references to Benghazi, where four Americans died in 2012.  Remind them that four Americans also died in a Niger ambush in 2017; that their commander in chief had no response for nearly two weeks; and that his subsequent call to one man's widow was less than comforting.  When that doesn't work delve into the distant past -- 1983, the golden age of Reagan, when 241 Americans died in Beirut as a result of a suicide bombing.  Then give up.

The bad news from South Dakota is that covid cases have increased 450 percent thanks to the Sturgis superspreader rally.  The worse news is that Jason Ravnsborg will not resign or do any time for last year's hit-and-run homicide.  And thanks to Ken Paxton of Texas he's still not the worst attorney general in the country.  The worst?  Well, Noem is still governor and still doing everything she can think of to make sure people get covid.  Maybe a Sturgis rally every month?

They tried poison.  They tried beatings.  Now Russian authorities are subjecting Alexei Navalny to the worst torture yet:  Eight hours of official state TV every day,  the equivalent of four Tucker Carlson shows or thirty minutes with Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Stay strong, Alexei.

You know why Afghanistan is a shitshow?  (Who said "Because we didn't need to be there in the first place"?)  Because Biden didn't take advice from master diplomat Henry Kissinger.  Fortunately The Economist pried pearls of wisdom out of the old oyster and shared them with us.  He still thinks we can "overcome terrorism," in Asia if not in Michigan.  Although Ty Garbin just got six years for plotting to kidnap Governor Whitmer, far more than any Capitol coup participant so far.

John Pierce represents a number of coup participants as well as Kenosha gunman/patriot Kyle Rittenhouse.  Ten days ago he proclaimed, "The entire 82nd Airborne couldn't make me get an experimental governmental vaccine stuck in my arm."  An associate now describes him as "on a ventilator, non-responsive."  Tell the 82nd to stand down.  It's too late.

 

  

Only supposed to blow the bloody doors off

 Trumpty-dumpty ordered a wall...

...and this happened.  In the largely uninhabited part of Arizona, far from the cities desperate for rain, a monsoon came through.  Because Nature, a lady who combines the hauteur of Maggie Smith and the exasperation of Nancy Pelosi confronting a particularly stupid freshman, has had it with us.

Not exactly formidable before the wind blew hard, was it?  Long before politics, when his fondest wish was not to be laughed at by Manhattan's haute monde, the name Trump was already associated with shoddy construction.  At least this piece of crap is asbestos-free.

But the grift goes on:

  

Yes, for only $45 you can proudly display a pile of shit on your chest.  For when your Kevin McCarthy "MORON" shirt is in the wash.   Can they tell him you stepped in it up?  (Hanger not included.)

In other entrepreneurial news, Blackwater founder and Betsy DeVos sibling Erik Prince has chartered a plane and will fly well-off Afghanis out of the country for a very reasonable $6,500.  Extras include cutting a path through the Taliban to the airport in Kabul and presumably Halal meals on the flight.  It's not clear where the mission of mercy will land, maybe Paris for those with reservations at the Ritz.  Prince made millions off the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and he just wants to give back.  I'm calling the Albert Schweitzer people.

Oh, and Hillary Clinton is also trying to fly women out of Afghanistan.  Free.

Jessica Rosenworcel is acting chair of the Federal Communications Commission but she isn't waiting for confirmation.  The FCC just announced a fine of $5,134,500 against popular comedy team Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl for the stunt they pulled last year, robocalling Black and Latino voters in Ohio, Michigan and New York to threaten dire consequences if they voted by mail.  The pair identified themselves by name on the call so there's not a lot of wiggle-room; criminal prosecutions are proceeding in Ohio and Michigan.  Well, Martin & Lewis didn't last forever, either.

Governor Kathy Hochul isn't wasting time either.  She named state Senator Brian Benjamin of Harlem as lieutenant governor, and she revealed that Andrew Cuomo's number of state covid deaths was too low by 12,000 because it omitted people who died at home or in hospices.  Cuomo has been stripped of his honorary Emmy Award -- not for cooking the numbers but for moral turpitude.  Yep, he's on that list with Bill Cosby and Kevin Spacey, disgracing the industry that brought us Love Island and The Apprentice.

Now we can have this debate again:  Is it ever all right to shave in a restaurant?  Rudolph Giuliani was observed doing so in the Delta lounge at JFK --  is he homeless already?  Rupert Hawksley says it's no big deal but he seems to be talking about airport bathrooms, not a table where people eat.  Where would Hawksley draw the line?  Clipping toenails into someone's soup?  Applying shoe polish to one's hair before a very important hearing on election fraud?  Changing socks?

You've seen the chaos and desperation at the Kabul airport.  And you probably thought, "You know what they need?  A couple of visiting Congressmen."  That's why Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Peter Meijer (R-MI) grabbed the next flight to do some "fact-finding."  Yes, they're up for re-election next year, what an odd question. 

Wait, wait, don't amaze me -- the NRA cancelled its annual meeting in Houston after a number of gun dealers pulled out over covid concerns.  And today's snarkmaster is NPR's Peter Sagal:  "Weak trash.  In my day the NRA would insist the solution to widespread COVID deaths is to make sure everybody had a COVID of their own."

(rimshot)   

Improbabilities

 Someone is poisoning students at Darmstadt Technical University in Germany, using a substance that causes nausea and in some cases makes their limbs turn blue.  Six people were hospitalized.  

 Chesa Boudin has four parents.  Google him and you'll see:  David Gilbert, Kathy Boudin, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, all connected with the Weather Underground, so he's the Son of the Movement, I guess.  Why is this news?  Chesa Boudin is the district attorney of San Francisco (previously its Deputy Public Defender) and David Gilbert had his sentence commuted by Andrew Cuomo in one of his final acts as governor.  Gilbert was serving seventy-five years for the botched Brink's robbery of 1981 in which two Nyack police officers and a security guard were killed.   Commutations were issued to four other men convicted of murder, while desperado Lawrence Penn got a full pardon for first-degree Falsifying Business Records.  Penn did two years.  These halfway-out-the-door clemencies are always controversial, or why not sign them sooner?  Compared to sleazebags like Joe Arpaio, Michael Flynn, Scooter Libby, Roger Stone and Dinesh D'Souza, it's fine to have a few regular murderers back on the street.

Meanwhile, eleven former Black Panthers have been in prison longer than Gilbert -- so long that a coalition of Black police groups is petitioning for their release, especially that of Sundiata Acoli, now 84 and in failing health.  

Everybody stand down.  The Cyber Ninjas will not be turning in their term paper on the MASSIVE FRAUD in Maricopa County because three of them have covid.  Their mom, Karen Fann, says they will need another three weeks because they are "quite sick" and their tummies hurt.

Of all the Brexit-related supply-chain problems plaguing Britain, the Great Milkshake Shortage must be the least important, or so you'd think.  Blaming a lack of lorry drivers (deported?), McDonald's has run out of milkshakes and bottled soda for its stores in England, Scotland and Wales; diners who can't do without can pop over to Ireland, where everything is cool (and sweet and thick).  Last week the Nando's restaurant chain had to close due to chicken shortages.  Governments have fallen over less.

I thought Rolling Stones who made it out of their twenties were immortal but Charlie Watts has died at age 80.  I assume they will be auditioning drummers for their tour, still scheduled to begin next month in St. Louis.

New feature!  Welcome to "Scorpions In a Bottle" wherein we watch from a safe distance as the white nationalist abominations sting each other.  We present Roger Stone:  "Robert Mueller informant and perjurer Steve Bannon doesn't know his ass from his elbow...He's a grifter -- a fat ugly inarticulate poorly groomed alcoholic with delusions of grandeur.  He has never elected anybody to public office in his life most particularly not Donald Trump who is his own man in implemented his own strategy.  Despite being an informant for Robert Mueller they indicted him anyway...you'll see me as his trial in the front row and I will not leave until he is convicted and jailed."

Can you stand a second?  Here's Alex Jones:   "Shame on you, Trump.  Seriously.  Hey, if you don't have the good sense to save yourself and your political career, that's OK.  At least you're gonna get some good [sic] Republicans elected, and we like you.  But my God, maybe you're not that bright.  Maybe Trump's actually a dumbass."  Jones really does not like vaccines.

And for dessert:

“It is ridiculous that we have had a sitting United States congressman suing a fake farmyard animal, let alone me, for being mean to him on Twitter.”

—Republican Strategist Liz Mair, upon learning 2 lawsuits against her by Devin Nunes had been dismissed.

Moo.

  

  

 

You are not a horse

 

"You are not a horse.  You are not a cow.  Seriously, y'all.  Stop it," the FDA tweeted on Saturday, helpfully including illustrations for the reading-impaired.  As the "y'all" suggested, Mississippi seems to be the epicenter of Invermectin abuse according to its health department.  State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs has issued an ultimatum:  the sick must isolate or face a fine and jail time.  Yeah, right, these people won't even wear a mask -- you think they'll surrender to the covid police?  The hospitals are full of people suffering from covid and/or worm medicine poisoning; where do they plan on treating the gunshot wounds?  The state's request for a hospital ship two weeks ago was denied but FEMA is setting up field hospitals.  It might be time to call Doctors Without Borders.

Well, that's one state.  New York experienced the wettest hour on record between ten and eleven on Saturday night as Hurricane Henri boiled into Central Park with 1.94 inches of rain, curtailing the big, ill-advised Homecoming concert (though not in time to prevent Jennifer Hudson's assault on "Nessun dorma").  Apparently the real outrage was that Chuck Schumer showed up and danced with Stephen Colbert and some woman instead of solving all the world's problems.  At least the woman wasn't Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Today, after taking two weeks to clean out his desk and stew over his grievances, Andrew Cuomo resigned with a sour speech about how his fall from power was the result of "political pressure and media frenzy" which can only damage future governors.  Really, no speech was necessary.  Just get on the helicopter and wave.  Keep your hands where we can see them.

A few weeks ago Governor Maude Frickert Kay Ivey was lamenting the lack of common sense in Alabama, and sure enough, the maskless thrill-seekers of MAGA Nation turned out for a super-spreader rally in Cullman where the Once and Future President actually got booed for recommending vaccines.  "I believe totally in your freedoms.  I do...But I recommend taking the vaccine.  I did.  It's good.  Take the vaccines."  This caused much confusion, as when a cow is confronted with a chalk line.  "I find it hard to believe...If someone like myself is aware, I can't imagine someone who spear headed the campaign and has a genius IQ is not aware of the danger," tweeted one disciple.  The growing consensus is that Trump got the "good" vaccine before the evil Biden/Fauci axis made it toxic.  So it's not his fault -- he's just ill-informed.  Or as they used to say in the gulag, "If only Stalin knew..."  Mo "Insurrection" Brooks also got booed for suggesting that the mob concentrate on 2022 because 2020 isn't being overturned.  Heresy!

Speaking of Arizona, we're still waiting for the Cyber Ninjas to release their exhaustive report on the bamboo fibers and the bleeding-through ink and all the other "evidence" of massive fraud.  It takes time to fend off a Congressional investigation and conspire with the state senate while finding a suitably opaque way to say "We got bupkis." 

Some of Trump's "very fine people" the Proud Boys rallied in Portland (Oregon) to threaten trans people, beat up some women and exchange gunfire with an antifa counter-protestor who recalled his Second Amendment right to bring a gun.  I think "he took cover behind a solar-powered trashcan" might be the funniest thing ever written about a PB thug.  It was billed as the "Summer of Love" because of course it was.

The Boys were said to be headed north to Vancouver.  They might have found a welcome in white, rural northern California.  Public records from 2020 obtained by Property of the People reveal how easy it is to dupe the region's racist cops.  Tweets warning of "Antifa buses" full of BLM troublemakers were taken more seriously than a Presidential Daily Briefing in the Bush White House, which isn't saying much.  

In case you don't watch "Two Foul Balls and a Miss" on Fox News because you'd rather pick glass shards out of a rabid honey badger, the "Biden is ga-ga" trope continues to be amplified.  Today's miss, Rachel Campos-Duffy, filling in for the vacationing blonde, fixed the blame for the chaos in Afghanistan firmly on Jill Biden.  "Who are the people responsible for putting someone this incompetent and frankly this, you know, mentally frail in this position?" she wondered, feigning compassion.  It was Dr. Biden's job "to love her husband and not let him run...I think she failed the country as well."  Which country, Rachel?  All of them?  Maybe you should listen to H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser:  "This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020.  The Taliban didn't defeat us.  We defeated ourselves."

Unmark your calendars and mark them again, for New Year's Eve, I guess.  At the Cullman Covid Cookout Mike Lindell was not booed when he told the soon-to-be-patients that Trump will be reinstated by the end of the year.  "Or," he added ominously, "there is no 2022 or 2024."  It's Y2K all over again, people -- the world is plunged into chaos and darkness if SCOTUS doesn't rule 9-0 to "call a whole new election," which they are totally empowered to do by Corinthians Two.  "Remember, everybody, we have to melt down the machines to make prison bars out of them!"  I don't know what it means, either, but I am intrigued by the 66% off on a MyPillow.  He's practically giving them away!  Trump called Crazy Mike "a patriot who's willing to die for this country," which would mean more if he hadn't previously called our war dead suckers and losers.

Last week the Department of Education announced it will erase the student debt of 300,000 Americans with severe disabilities who have no prospect of significant earnings.  Yesterday the Secretary told Meet the Press that the DoE will use its civil rights division to investigate school bans on mask mandates.  I think Miguel Cardona just became my favorite cabinet member.  Now pass the fucking infrastructure bills so Pete Buttigieg can show us what he's got.

In a series for Britain's Channel Four John Cleese means to explore "cancel culture":   "I'm delighted to have a chance to find out, on camera, about all the aspects of so-called political correctness.  There's so much I really don't understand, like how the impeccable idea of 'let's all be kind to people' has been developed in some cases ad absurdum."  And who better than the 82-year-old veteran of Monty Python's Life of Brian?

  

 

Puzzling evidence

 I don't expect the world to make sense, but I expect to see it trying.  So many people saying and doing things and not even making the effort causes me sadness and confusion.

In spite of the evidence we have all seen and heard, the FBI just doesn't think the coup of January 6 was a coup ("scant evidence" of coordination).  Yes, several thousand people just happened to gather on the Ellipse in colorful costumes with crutches, bats, bear spray, zip ties and a gallows, just happened to draw inspiration from the eloquence of Trump and Mo Brooks (who just happened to be wearing a Kevlar vest), just happened to get a wild idea to invade the Capitol, just happened to know the way to obscure offices like Jim Clyburn's -- can I stop writing "just happened" now?  Hundreds have been arrested but most are "unaffiliated" with terrorist organizations that have names so...maybe the feds need a little more imagination.   Their conclusions will no doubt encourage the next mob of terrorists scheduled to visit the Capitol on September 18, demanding "justice" for the first mob.  Why not?  They have a permit.

Will there be a special shout-out to Floyd Ray Roseberry?  He shut down Capitol Hill yesterday when he parked his truck in front of the Library of Congress and claimed it was a bomb.  (He had bomb ingredients but had not yet assembled them.)  All he wanted was a call from Joe Biden, the resignations of all the Democratic senators and someone to listen to his complaints about Afghanistan, which he probably could not find on a map.  (They always zero in on libraries.  I'm sure the Taliban will be burning all the non-Korans they can find by next week, when they're tired of beating up women.)  Floyd Ray has already found a fan:  Mo Brooks!  "I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society," Congressman Kevlar tweeted.  It looks like Trumputsch 2.0 has found its keynote speaker.

Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, is a privately held company and all its assets are in the hands of the Sackler family.  Nevertheless Richard Sackler insists in bankruptcy court that his family is not responsible for the opioid epidemic that has killed half a million Americans so far.  They accepted the billions of dollars in profits but they don't accept the blame.  Well, bankruptcy law has nothing to do with morality so they may get away with it.  Lots of universities and museums have quietly expunged the Sackler name; let's see if they return the money.

President Xi Jinping told the Communist Party's central financial and economic affairs commission that the government will "regulate excessively high incomes" and "encourage" China's many billionaires to "return more to society."  Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren sound more radical than that.  Communism certainly has changed since Stalin killed millions of Ukrainian and Russian peasants just for resisting collectivization. 

Elizabeth Johnson, Jr, was convicted of witchcraft in 1693 but not executed.  Her conviction has stood for 328 years but it looks like she will finally be exonerated by Massachusetts.  So why is it so hard to get Kevin Strickland released in Missouri, where he has been locked up for 47 years for three murders that the current prosecutor says he didn't do?  Mr. Strickland is 62, uses a wheelchair and has had several heart attacks.  He poses as much danger to society as Elizabeth Johnson.

Earlier this month a bunch of Indiana University students sued the school over its requirement that they receive the covid vaccine instead of bringing their viruses on campus.  After lower courts found the directive Constitutional the students appealed to Amy Coney Barrett, considered reliably nutzoid -- and she let it stand.  Today some Chicagoans asked her for an injunction to stop construction of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park and she said no.  How long before Trump starts denouncing his worst appointee as a "Woke Leftist who is BAD for our Country!!"?  (For what it's worth, I don't think they should be building in a city park either.)

Federal election data indicates that 95 percent of eligible adults in Georgia are registered to vote, because Stacey Abrams is that awesome.  The new voter suppression laws had better be explicitly James Crow.

The coronavirus closed out another successful week by infecting three fully-vaccinated Senators right across the spectrum:  Roger Wicker (R-MS), Angus King (I-ME) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO).  Take the hint and the vaccine.

"First you bring out all of the American citizens.  Then you bring out ALL equipment.  Then you bomb the bases into smithereens -- AND THEN YOU BRING OUT THE MILITARY...No chaos, no death -- they wouldn't even know we left!"  Can you guess?  Who values "equipment" ahead of the military?  Who thinks all that bombing would be unchaotic, harmless and quiet?  Who hasn't thought this (or anything else) through in seventy-five years?  And is a stable genius?  Have a brass figlagee with bronze oakleaf palm.

In Florida ("Vote Republican and Find Out!"), each day brings another unpleasant surprise.  Residents of Orlando are being told to limit water use because of a shortage of liquid oxygen, which is used to treat the city's water.  It's also used to keep covid patients alive.  Without treatment the water smells like rotten eggs, or Ron DeSantis's politics.  (Pretty sure this does not apply to Disney World or other tourist traps, but call first.)  Meanwhile in Jacksonville patients are crowding the Josef Mengele Center for the monoclonal treatment promoted by DeSantis patron Ken Griffin.  

And that, as C.J. Cregg would say, is a full lid.

  

       

Can't stop the process

 Ronny "Candyman" Jackson, the latest reason to worry about how America trains doctors, has discovered that the most important job of a freshman representative is fundraising.  Unable to deliver anything to his district or state, even common sense like "put on the damn mask," he has decided the best way to attract attention in a particularly unhinged crowd of first-termers is to pretend he is medically qualified to diagnose Joe Biden's mental capacity.  In fluent unhinged he tweeted, "Remember when I said it was time to consider the 25th Amendment and the LIARS in the liberal press ATTACKED me?  I wonder what they think now after Biden is very OBVIOUSLY mentally incapable of leading during a crisis?  Something MUST be done!"  With extraordinary prescience he said last month, "There is something serious going on with this man...they're going to have to use the 25th Amendment to get rid of this man right now."  He'll be saying it at every maskless fund-raiser, too.  

I'm not prepared to speak for "the liberal press," but I want to point out that "this man" was opposed to the Obama surge that was supposed to shore up Afghanistan's armed forces, according to Rajiv Chandrasekaran's now-forgotten book Little America:  The War Within the War For Afghanistan.  (Not forgotten by Lee Papa, The Rude Pundit, who brought it to my attention.)  Back in 2009, Vice-President Biden wrote a memo warning that the surge was based on flawed intelligence.  It went ahead anyway.  Twelve years and much bloodshed later, President Biden is cleaning up the mess because somebody has to.  That's the opposite of incapacity.

Here's what incapacity sounded like a month ago:   "I started the process, all the troops are coming home, they couldn't stop the process.  Twenty-one years is enough.  They couldn't stop the process, they wanted to but couldn't stop the process."  Yes, that was Jackson's former patient talking about his deal with the Taliban, who he believes have been around for "a thousand years."  Stop the process, stop the process, who's in charge of administering dope-slaps these days?

Get your Schadenfreude out!  Texas is reporting 20,000 covid cases a day and yesterday one of them was Greg Abbott, who tested positive hours after a y'all-crowd-in-and-breathe-on-one-another fundraiser in Collin County.  Abbott says he was fully vaccinated plus a booster (available to some of us next month maybe) and is getting the wonder drug Regeneron despite being asymptomatic.  He's isolating in the governor's mansion, much nicer than a crowded apartment, and if he needs an infusion of virgin blood, virgins are standing by.  Dr. Vin Gupta of NBC News describes Abbott as "anxious and scared" but that can't be -- he's a Texan.

And he's not the only moral vacuum in the Lone Star State, by a long scratch.  Following a leak of hydrogen sulfide the Harris County Pollution Control Services Department issued an advisory to stay indoors if possible and wear a mask.  That was the magic word that set off a state representative with the unimprovable name Briscoe Cain:  "What in the sweet libtard hell is this?  Stay inside & wear a face mask to avoid exposure to hydrogen sulfide?"  I inhale toxic fumes every day and it ain't never made me dumb, he didn't need to add.  How long before Texas Trumpanzees start demanding that surgeons take off the damn masks?

Trump knows where to reach the ignorant and stupid, which is why he has abandoned his marginal social media outlet for The SpongeSean Squareface Show.  Here he is admitting to criminal incompetence while praising himself at the same time:  "I have never realized how important, frankly...a president, the head of this country, is.  I thought it would maybe run through bureaucracy, it doesn't.  You need somebody up there that they are going to respect."  (Translation:  I thought I would watch TV until noon every day, give medals to people who praise me, sign some papers, tear up the ones I didn't like and play golf every weekend.  Who knew?  But I'm probably greater than Lincoln and Biden is a loser.)   And Hannity's audience respond, "Hallelujah!  Make America great again again!  Who stole my pudding cup?"

We close, because I don't want to think about these bipeds anymore, with a quote from the one and only Six-gun Boebert:  "I'm a Christian.  So they may try to drive me to my knees, but that's where I'm the strongest."  Who's "they," Lauren?  Don't mention BJs.  Is it the scary Taliban Muslims, Lauren?  Don't think about BJs.  Are you worried about the health department in Cowpat, Colorado?  Just don't.  Better put the safety on before you hit your knees.  Shit happens.

 

Occam's Razor

 Ron DeSantis's biggest donor is Kenneth Griffin, CEO of Citadel.  Citadel makes a covid drug called Regeneron, which sold last year for only $1,500 a dose.  Ron DeSantis has done everything he can think of to infect people with covid and now promises to cure a lucky few with his pal's wonder drug.  See how simple that is?  Watch and learn, Jared Kushner -- this is how you do corruption.  (We should check and see how many other plague-loving governors are on Griffin's Christmas card list.)

Millions of words have already been produced about the bug-out in Afghanistan, none more cogent than Simon Jenkins's essay about the twenty-year "post-imperial Western fantasy."  It has been nearly forgotten that Tony Blair was Bush's enthusiastic partner in folly without even the excuse of the 9/11 atrocity, and that in 2006 his defense secretary said that only "remnants" of the Taliban remained.  I remember that one of the goals of the occupation was to wean Afghani farmers off opium poppies and get them to grow corn or something.  We were going to solve drug addiction and terrorism at the same time!   Yeah, not so much.  

If Blair has had anything to say for himself this week I can't find it, but George Bush has spoken up, if only to praise the troops who "kept America safe from further terror attacks."  Apparently he hasn't heard about the invasion of the Capitol last January.  (Admittedly there isn't much US forces can do when the commander-in-chief sends in the terrorists.)   No acceptance of blame for this monumental SAPFU, but at least Bush advocated allowing Afghani refugees into the US.  Perhaps we could start with Zarifa Ghafari, the mayor of Kabul, unless she has already been killed.

That won't sit well with the White Replacement Axis.  Last night Fox News was wall-to-wall panic about the "couple hundred thousand Ilhan Omars" that Biden is yearning to welcome, putting an end to the Norman Rockwell vision of America we all love.  That's been his evil plan all along!  That's why he ended American involvement instead of pumping in more blood and more billions and passing the parcel along to the forty-seventh president.  The fiend.  Speaking of which, I wonder how many immigrants will be welcome in the UK, where xenophobia is official post-Brexit policy.  Boris just spent 300,000 pounds to deport seven people to Jamaica, which is hard-core commitment to Making England Great Again.

HANNITY: There is a stampede, not only out of Afghanistan, but a stampede away from high prices, overpriced service from the big carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile. The average family making the switch to PureTalk.

That is authentic ad copy from SpongeSean Squareface's radio show.  You can't make it up.

But life goes on.  Across the seas Arwa Mahdawi of the Guardian is appalled that people are paying a lot of money for the paintings of Hunter Biden.  "The whole situation screams nepotism," she huffs.  Well, people buy art as an investment -- other such artists have included John Wayne Gacy and George W. Bush.  I have a CD somewhere whose cover art is a watercolor by HRH the Prince of Wales.  Somebody just paid $6.6 million at auction for a Honus Wagner baseball card.  (That means somebody dropped out at $6.5 million, muttering, "What am I, insane?  I don't even like baseball.")  It's not as if Joe Biden brought his vapid daughter to a G-20 meeting.  Calm down, Arwa.

New Zealand is entering three days of national lockdown over one (1) case of covid.  That's proactive.

The Afghanistan catastrophe has brought out the funny side of Six-Gun Lauren Boebert.  When several men fell to their death clinging to a military plane as it departed the Kabul airport, the Joan Rivers of the Colorado Third tweeted, "At least they won't have to read 'mean tweets.'"  She also praised the new overlords:  "The Taliban are the only people building back better."  Boebert declined to re-post her tweet from last February:  "We need to end the endless wars."  It's so hard to know when witty people are being serious.  As Eric Swalwell observed, "You tried to overthrow the US government so of course you support the overthrow of the Afghan government."  In one respect, Afghanistan is lucky -- it won't have women like Boebert in its government.

Happy now, J.D. Vance?  Pete and Chasten Buttigieg are no longer "childless cat-ladies" (cat-gentlemen?).  They have begun the process of adopting a child.   So shut up.

    

National Hypocrisy Week

 It took some digging but I found some good news to go with the fall of Kabul, the agony of Haiti and the impending collapse of civilization:  Raymond Burke has covid.  

Why is this good and not just mean?  Burke is a Catholic cardinal with a record of vileness that must be the envy of Protestant fundamentalist preachers.  He refused communion to John Kerry because the then-senator supported freedom of choice.  He said Catholics who voted for Barack Obama "collaborated with evil" and attacked Notre Dame for giving him an honorary degree.  He called the church under Pope Francis "a ship without a rudder."  He was angered by even the tiny role assigned to women (e.g. "altar assistants"), saying it "feminized" the church and drove men away.  He equated gay people and the divorced with murderers.      

But the covid pandemic inspired His Eminence to up his game.  He attacked social distancing and wore a mask only because he lives in Rome (the pope wisely gave him a bullshit job running a charity) where they are required.  Last December he was still preaching about "Wuhan virus" and hinting darkly that "certain forces" use it to "advance their evil agenda."  Of course he opposes vaccine mandates:  "The state...is not the ultimate provider of health.  God is."  And on a trip to Milwaukee, where he used to frighten children, God gave him covid, big-time.  As in, he's on a vent.  Couldn't he get sick in Italy?  Wisconsin's getting slammed like every other state.

Burke's "press team" noted that his solution to other people's problems was thoughts & prayers.  "He faithfully prayed the rosary for those suffering from the virus...Let us now pray the rosary for him."  You bet.  I'm going to use my extra-large beads, and I'm going to pull them out of my ass one...by...one.

That felt good.  We all need a break from the encroaching madness.  George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice are about the only Republicans who haven't had anything to say about the disaster in Afghanistan, not even an apology.  Weird, huh?  Joni Ernst is "afraid of a Benghazi 2.0" because it's still a magic word on the right.  Margie Greene's well-reasoned response was that Americans are entitled to assault weapons because the Taliban have them.  She's ready to file a second set of Articles of Impeachment because "I wouldn't be surprised if they're paying the Taliban" in the form of weapons and equipment left behind.  The Forty-fifth President would never do that.  By way of proof, here is a picture of Mike Pompeo with the new president of Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar,

 after he was freed in 2018.  And here's a link to the webpage mysteriously deleted by the Republican National Committee.  I'm glad Margie can't read.   She'd be so disillusioned.

It's Haiti's curse that its most recent disaster coincided with all the others.  More than 1,400 dead are reported and the search goes on.  The island avoided Tropical Storm Fred, only to be soaked by Tropical Storm Grace.  Aid workers have to bribe armed gangs to reach the affected areas.  And as the hottest year on record grinds on, we can study Haiti for clues to what to expect when the whole planet goes Mad Max.  By next year visitors to Arizona will be advised to bring their own water.

Every time someone in Tempe flushes a toilet, Lake Mead gets a little lower.  How long can this go on?  Green New Deal?  How about Green Last Chance?

What was that again?

It's Perseid time!

For those who dismiss the Q Continuum as a bunch of harmless crackpots waiting for Trump's "reinstatement" we offer the story of Matthew Coleman, the Santa Barbara surf instructor (whatever that is) who killed his two young children with a spearfishing gun because his wife had passed her serpent DNA along to them.  He had to save the world.

Tonight in Tulsa, Nico Ali Walsh will make his professional boxing debut.  The 21-year-old middleweight is the grandson of Muhammad Ali, and I am now officially Old.

Ken Loach, director of such films as Cathy Come Home, The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, says he has been "purged" from the Labour Party for refusing to disown other Corbynites previously thrown out.  Not even a show trial, Keir?

Jake Davidson treated the UK to one of its exceedingly rare shooting rampages, including his mother and a three-year-old, before shooting himself.  Jake has never been able to get a date because women "treat men with zero respect."  His photo suggests he could have smartened himself up a bit, maybe talked to a surgeon about that superfluous thumb...

Incredibly, Polish Jews and their descendants are still trying to recover property stolen during the German occupation, and President Andrzej Duda just signed a law which will make that more difficult by setting a thirty-year limit on filing claims.  

I have to admit I have no idea where Yakutia is, except that it's in Russia and it's on fire.  So is a large portion of the country, apparently.  According to the Daily Beast Yakutia is getting no help from Moscow, where they're concentrating on politics.  And yet, to promote the image of Russia as a world power, Putin sent a firefighting plane to help Turkey, also battling wildfires.  It crashed, killing the eight crew members.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (in Texas that's a county executive) is the latest official to tell Governor Abbott where he can stick his ban on school mask mandates.  Houston public schools will be a little safer when they open.

The "murder hornets" are here (Washington state) and they're attacking WASPS!  Alert Tucker Carlson!  No, wait, that's wasps' nests.  Sorry.

Murder hornets are about the only sorrow not visited on Haiti:  covid, political violence, and now over 200 dead in a 7.2 earthquake.  Did I mention the possibility of Hurricane Fred?  Well, there it is.

Enough.  I'm going to look at meteors.  Once again...

Ebony and irony

 In America you get food to eat

Won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet

You just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day

It's great to be an American

Ain't no lion or tiger, ain't no mamba snake

Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake

Ev'rybody is as happy as a man can be

Climb aboard, little wog, sail away with me

Sail away, sail away,

We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

Sail away, sail away, 

We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

In America every man is free

To take care of his home and his family

You'll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree

You're all gonna be an American

Sail away, sail away

We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

Sail away, sail away

We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

The death of irony has been proclaimed every year since Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.  It went on life support when Dan Quayle became vice president and signed a Do Not Resuscitate order when Sarah Palin was nominated for the same office.  By 2015, when Trump's campaign began, all we could do was monitor its breathing.  Now that Randy Newman's "Sail Away" is becoming a basic text of the American history curriculum, it's time to plan the memorial service.

If we delve deep enough we find that all societies have genocide, slavery and ethnic discrimination as part of their history.  Leviticus, that compendium of hate and recipes, also speaks of a year of Jubilee when the "servants" (slaves) of the Hebrews were to be freed.  India's caste system is nearly as old.  The arrival of the Normans in England in 1066 meant centuries of serfdom for the Anglo-Saxons.  In Russia, serfdom persisted until 1861; I wonder if Alexander II's Emancipation Manifesto inspired Lincoln to come up with something similar and equally selective.  The word genocide was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, and despite more recent attempts at legal codification, is still a bit like pornography:  we know it when we see it. 

The United States is history in a nutshell insofar as all our conflicts and contradictions came about in a relatively short space of time.  Between 1492, when the first meaningful interaction between the inhabitants of the Americas and Europeans occurred, and the present, only five centuries passed, exhaustively documented by the Europeans and their descendants.  So why is it so hard to reach even a basic agreement about what happened?

Critical race theory has been around since the late 1970s but has only recently been drafted into the culture wars as the Right gropes for a scare-phrase to rival "international communist conspiracy" from the good old Cold War days.  CRT is also, of course, a conspiracy to make little white children feel bad or encourage violence or destroy America As We Know and Love It, depending on the mob being harangued.  (The hazier the definition the better, obviously.)  As no sane person could deny that this country's existence required the destruction of its original inhabitants and the labor of millions of enslaved people, mostly Africans, they have been unable to refute CRT through counterargument.  Which is why Republican legislatures are rushing to pass laws designed to make it go away, with grotesque penalties for daring to suggest that systemic racism is still alive and flourishing.  

Not good enough.  The private religious "schools" and the home-schooler industry are already leading the way and no doubt a second wave of legislation will soon mandate the adoption of their texts in the public schools.  Why stop at banning The 1619 Project when you can create a 2021 project where "the War Between the States" is again a tragic lost opportunity and the Klan is a fraternal organization that D.W. Griffith would recognize?  Barack Obama is now responsible for most racial strife, Islam is partnered with "murder" and slavery is the result of "black migration."  Folks, Randy Newman was joking.

Panic about the erosion of white power and white privilege escalated with the release of 2020 census data and the news that the US is becoming more ethnically diverse and more urban.  The total number of white people is declining and soon, horrors, we will be just another minority.  I assume this is behind the fashion for castigating whites who have failed to breed, or to breed enough children.  Also, probably, the deranged rumor that covid vaccine is a plot to make us infertile.  And when whites are a minority, maybe they will treat us the way we treat them now, and have for centuries.  That's the quiet part they don't say out loud, the part that confirms the importance of critical race theory.  And why we need to exercise the last days of our white hegemony to keep Them from immigrating, from voting, from breathing.  The history of South Africa suggests that we too will endure a period of minority rule -- the red states are already gerrymandering like mad to take control of the House -- before we emerge into democracy, and that it will be a bloody period.   The reluctance of Congress to expel members who supported the January Putsch is not encouraging.  

All we can do is speak the truth and refute the lies.  And as Frederick Douglass said to a young disciple, "Agitate.  Agitate, agitate."  Irony is not going to save us. 

Not silent but deadly

With Mississippi sending out an SOS for a hospital ship and Louisiana re-directing ambulances to Texas (out of the frying pan...), it's easy to forget the other public health disaster, gun violence.  Let's check in with the Second Amendment sector.

Altamonte Springs, Florida:  a 21-year-old woman was on a Zoom work call when she was shot in the head and killed by her toddler.

Kenosha, Wisconsin:  a 19-year-old woman turned on the laser sight of her friend's gun and used it to torment the cat.  She shot her friend, a 21-year-old man, in the leg.  He was patched up and charged with violating a criminal bond by having the gun.  She was charged with negligent use of a weapon.

Chicago, Illinois:  Officer Ella French was killed and her partner wounded during a traffic stop.  The suspect, Emonte Morgan, was on parole despite a previous robbery and hit-and-run.  When Mayor Lori Lightfoot visited the hospital Chicago police ostentatiously turned their backs to her.  Nineteen people were shot on Wednesday and another eight Thursday, but these apparently were not the mayor's fault.

Washington, DC:  Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling was locked down after a report of a "black male with a medium build carrying a Gucci bag."  Gunfire has been reported.

Albuquerque, New Mexico:  as I write, parents are being asked to collect their children from Washington Middle School, where one person is in custody after a shooting.  "It appears students may be involved," said a spokesperson with impressive understatement.

Washington, DC:  a fourth police officer attacked by Trump rioters on January 6, Kyle deFreytag, died by suicide earlier this month.

Memphis, Tennessee:  Alvin Motley, Jr., was driving with his girlfriend and pulled into a Kroger to buy gas.  A security guard named Gregory Livingston objected to the volume of Motley's music.  As Motley approached him, a can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Livingston, a former Mississippi cop, shot and killed him.  He is charged with second-degree murder.

All of this and more is tracked, in cold statistics, at gunviolencearchive.org.  At the rate we water the Tree of Liberty, I'm surprised it isn't a whole damn forest.

 

Everybody just calm down

It's under control.

Well, maybe not all.  The Dixie fire is not under control but authorities believe they have the man who started it.  U.S. Forest Agents grabbed Gary Maynard, who used to teach criminal justice at Sonoma State University, in the act of setting small fires which may have been intended to trap firefighters.  He is also a suspect in the Ranch and Cascade fires.  The judge had the good sense to deny bail.

Your ex-roommate won't be forwarding any more Facebook posts about covid vaccine turning people into monkeys.  "Astrazeneca created a vaccine based on chimpanzee genes, when tests showed side effects, this vaccine should be banned, otherwise we will all become chimpanzees" was the post, betraying the tortured English associated with Russian bots.  Sure enough, it was traced to a UK front called Fazze whose 65 Facebook and 243 Instagram accounts have been deleted.  Sorry, tovarisch, we happen to know vaccine is made from baby parts.  Magnetic ones.  You lose again, just like Cold War!

If you have $275 and a mean streak, you can go to a site called Cameo and strip Rudolph Giuliani of the last microfibers of his dignity.  Apparently ex-mayors of New York don't get a pension, because he will read anything you want to the person of your choice, no ups, no extras, as Earl Scheib used to say.  Because defrocked drunken lawyers with a carload of ex-wives and a teetering stack of legal bills can't be choosers.

In June we reported on the woman in Runcorn, Cheshire, UK, who was certain that children were being forcibly tested for covid in a marquee beside a pub (set up for patrons to watch European football).  She's back, and she brought friends.  A group of anti-vaxers in London stormed the building that was BBC headquarters until 2013, yelling that the media is the "real virus."   Piers Corbyn, their apparent leader (his brother used to lead the Labour Party), was heard to say, "We've got to take over these bastards," as police struggled to keep them out.  (The building now contains flats, a private club, and studios rented by ITV.)  Since no one brought bats or bear spray there were no serious injuries and the group soon departed for "BBC Southbank," which does not exist.  

Jeremy Corbyn isn't the only one with an embarrassing relative.  Chet Hanks, described as a "musician," delivered an unhinged rant about vaccines and masks despite his parents, Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks, having been among the earliest celebrity victims of the disease.  "Get over it!" he advised us.  "Sike!"  (Apparently a musician term.)  "You ain't sticking me with that motherfucking needle!"  This is why Rita and Tom have taken Greek citizenship.  

Probably there's a place I could actually watch the Cyber Symposium telethon but I don't know...we only get so much time on this poor old planet.  After "hackers" delayed the kickoff, Pillow Mike vowed to stay onstage and not even eat for 72 hours.  Then he did his first comedy bit, an extended struggle with the name "Bolsonaro."  The Trump of the Tropics sent his son Eduardo to explain that when he loses to Lula it will be a completely rigged, corrupt election.  In South America, they know how to do military coups right.  The ever-fragrant Steve Bannon sat in.  I'll check in tomorrow night, when Rupert Pupkin Lindell sings "You'll Never Walk Alone" to a portrait of Trump.

Pillow's Symposium

 Yesterday's story was basically U.N. RECOMMENDS SHOPPING FOR ANOTHER PLANET and I had a little trouble getting my head around it so I took the day off and read Mark Harris's biography of Mike Nichols.  As the proprietor and sole employee of the Organization I can do that.  Today is another day, however, bursting with manageable news.  Where to begin?

Blaming "generational and cultural shifts that I just didn't fully appreciate," Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation without exactly admitting he did anything wrong.  Making lewd comments to women who work for you and reaching under their blouses has always been wrong.  When all your defenders work for Rupert Murdoch, it's time to go.

Even worse than groping is forcing yourself on a sixteen-year-old.  That's the gist of Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit against Prince Andrew, filed under New York's Child Victims Act.  If the process servers can't find him at Balmoral, they should try Pizza Express in Woking.

We await the start of the "cyber symposium," delayed because, according to Mike Lindell, "the whole technology was attacked."  Yes, he's surrounded by cyber assassins!  And South Dakota is the proud host of two loon-friendly events this week, the other being Super Spreader Sturgis.  I need to see the Venn diagram on these two.  

Bikers heading home should probably avoid Texas and Florida for a while.  Our two favorite "Covid?  What covid?" states are sensing the hell-hounds of reality on their trail, with Texas seeking medical staff from out of state and instructing hospitals to postpone elective procedures (I'm sure they are already doing that).  Large school districts like Austin, Dallas and Houston are openly defying the governor's no-mask/no-vaccine mandates.  Two hospitals in Harris County are erecting tents and patients are being sent out of state.  But with a breathtaking 23,903 new cases on Friday and 135 hospitalized children, Florida continues to set the pace, earning its governor the title Prince Variant.  In a blow to Ron DeSantis's bloodthirstiness, U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams ruled that Norwegian Caribbean (and presumably other cruise lines) can indeed require passengers to show proof of vaccination.  This just in:  Florida has requested another 300 ventilators from the federal government.  It was easier to get supplies when all Ron had to do was call Jared.  I hope Biden doesn't hold grudges.

I hope Pillow Mike gets his symposium started because a raging case of VOTER FRAUD just came to light in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:  Julie Blanchard lives in Westlake, Texas, with her husband Herschel Walker, but voted from her Atlanta address last November using an absentee ballot.  You won't be shocked when I tell you that Walker is Trump's hand-picked candidate to challenge Raphael Warnock in next year's Senate election despite living in Texas.  Well, Brad Raffensperger did say there was skeevy voting in Fulton County -- I guess Blanchard is it.  She thought she was entitled to a vote for every residence they own under the principle of one house-one vote.  Walker has written about his diagnosis of multiple personalities, so we may never know how many times he voted.  Sorry, Walkers, but ignorance of the law does not excuse illegal voting.  Ask Crystal Mason.

Sports teams change their uniforms every year so the fans -- the ones who dress like players -- will buy new gear.  The FEC made Trump give millions back to supporters who struggle with literacy, but you can't keep a grifter down.  Today the new MAGA cap was unveiled, only ten dollars more expensive than the original ($40 if you want it "autographed" since he has nothing better, or even different, to do).  At least one Chinese factory will be hiring this fall.  Here's the one I want:

The Dixie fire in California is already the largest in state history but firefighters report residents are refusing to evacuate and in some cases pointing guns at them.  They probably think they're being asked to get a covid shot.  This suicidal embrace of the Second Amendment should be some consolation to Margie Greene, whose freedom to tweet lies about the vaccine earned her a one-week time-out from the communist left liberal woke socialist lunatics at Twitter.

In America's totally sane ally Pakistan a boy accused of urinating on a rug in a madrassa has been charged with blasphemy, which usually involves the death penalty.  He is eight.

Goofball quote of the day comes from Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer:  "I remember twenty years ago going to Trier, Germany, and trying to find the home of Karl Marx 'cause, you know, 1848 -- he wrote Mein Kampf.  I want to know what it's all about."  Hemmer later said he meant The Communist Manifesto.  Not sure what he hoped to learn by looking at Marx's house, and in any case it was written in London.  Clearly there's not a thing wrong with the way history is taught now -- why mess around with it?