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.