Happy Halloween!

By Kit

This is an open thread. But I do have a rather heartwarming treat for you below.

Paul Ryan, our new speaker, who Democrats have informed us likes to push grannies off cliffs, apparently prays with heroin addicts.

Really.

I may have had some disagreements with him but I have never gotten the impression that he was anything other than a decent human being.

Here are some little treats from classic movie monsters

"This is Halloween" set to Universal horror monsters, cuts off rather quickly at the end but it is still fun: LINK

Classic Horror monsters set to Imperial March: LINK

And, "The Monster Mash", LINK

Happy Halloween!

One Step Forward; Two Steps Back...UPDATED

So this week has seen one giant leap forward on the horizon and a few steps back in global health -

First, one giant leap forward:

This is very cool and it was only a matter of time...introducing the Cicret bracelet!



My only problem is what does one do when one is wearing sleeves. Other than that, next stop - brain implants.

Btw, since this is an invention from Israel, I just want to point out if you did not catch it . It starts with the guy waiting for the subway or most likely the Metro in Paris. One of the images on the forearm at around :41 has a headline from Le Monde. Now my French is not that good, but loosely translated, the headline reads "Hamas refuses any negotiations for disarmament". It goes by really quickly, but you got to love the lack of subtlety...

Now for the "Two Steps Back":

What is the point of World Health Organization (WHO), the CDC of the United Nations? On Monday, they publish findings that all red and processed meats "may" cause cancer. Yeah, but don't worry, they spent billions to come up with this 1st World disease scrouge.

Then, the next day, the eminent scientific brains that ignored the Ebola epidemic in western Africa until it became a global panic, publish another study opining that tuberculosis now rivals AIDS as the leading cause of death in the 3rd World. The reason is as unshocking as it is unsurprising.

"...there remains a $1.4 billion gap in the amount of funding needed for TB interventions in 2015."

All I can say is that if WHO had spent less time and money on demonizing beef and processed meat, they would have all the funds they would ever need to fight the very real scourge of TB.

Okay, the floor is open...

Well, okay, this will learn me. After speaking to my IT friend and doing about 20 seconds worth of "research", I have found out that the Cicret bracelet/arm pad is not technically real. But in my defense using my best Dan Rather/Mary Mapes logic: "It COULD have been real!"

Whoops! Reality Strikes Again

Sticking with the theme of feminism, there was devastating news this week for the feminist left. It turns out that women are not the only victims of domestic abuse. In fact, women are just as likely to be abusive as men! Read on.

For those of you who read my film book, you are already aware that Hollywood presents an absolutely false view of domestic abuse. Film after film shows the abuse occurring to middle-aged, married white women, with the abuser being their slightly older husbands. In fact, that is the only abuse allowed to be shown on film. But that version is the least statistically likely scenario for abuse. White women are the least likely race to be abused. White males are least likely to be abusers. Middle-aged males are the least likely age group to abuse, and middle-aged women are least likely to be abused. Married people are far, far less likely to be abused or engage in abuse. Middle class people also are much less likely to be involved in abuse than poor people. Basically, the by far most likely portrait of abuse is a poor, single, young black male abusing his black girlfriend. And the by far lease likely portrait of an abuse is a middle-aged, middle class married white man beating his wife.

What's more, men aren't the only abusers. According to DOJ, women account for about 30% of abusers, and women are far more likely, as a percentage, to kill their spouse while abusing them. Yet, you'll never see the reality on screen because that would be an attack on blacks or women and the identity politics left will not allow it.

Well, now there's an even bigger CDC study and it found that 40% of the victims of severe violence as domestic abuse (beaten, burned, choked, kicked, slammed with a heavy object, or hit with a fist) are men. These numbers have been consistent for several years.

So why does this matter?

Well, feminists use abuse as a crutch... like black racists use "racism." They use it to claim that males are inherently dangerous (particularly middle class white males), and from this stem all their demands for any number of "protections," with those "protections" being legal as well as things like special privileges, demands for re-education, differing legal standards, etc. If, as it now turns out, women are just as likely to be abusive, then the whole idea that abuse is a gender issue goes away and the very argument feminists use to support their positions vanishes. In other words, if men are no worse than women, then women have no valid basis to claim a need for protection.

It will be interesting to see if this changes the view of abuse and what effect it will have on feminists. If they are forced to admit that women are just as abusive as men, and that blacks are the worst abusers, and that lesbians are equally bad, then the feminist left has a problem. Not only does it's only accepted-as-valid weapon vanish, but they will be causing a schism with other identity politics groups.

Interesting.

Thoughts?

Real Women v. Feminists

Oh, it is so much fun when bush-league college feminists start feeding on themselves. But it's much more fun and ridiculous when the icons of capital letter Feminists do it.

Here are two examples from this weekend:

The first came from the great Goddess of first-wave Feminism Gloria Steinum who took to the airwaves while promoting her latest venture to blame Rush Limbaugh for Feminism's bad rap.

Now let me be honest. I have never embraced the doctrine of feminism and more importantly to me, have always refused to call myself a feminist. I am a person. A person with skills. And I blame Gloria Steinem, not Rush Limbaugh. She never spoke for me. Steinem and her ilk like Ellie Smeal of N.O.W. drove the feminist bus off the cliff long ago by losing sight of the real goal of the Feminist Movement which was winning the right of choice for women. And while driving this bus over the cliff they made sure to demean any and all woman who made choses not in line with the feminist doctrine.

Feminism has always been much too limiting and whiny to me. I, like Meryl Streep as describe in the NY Post article, call myself a "humanist". To me it has always been about choice. I fully embrace the equality of opportunity for all humans regardless of gender, race, or whatever grievance group one might be defined. All should have the opportunity to compete equally in all fields of endeavor and achieve because they are qualified. No grading on curve. To lower standards just to achieve some faux, statistical "equality" demeans those who have qualified and do qualify on their merits and abilities. And in cases where lowering standards to just to achieve "equality" specifically in fire departments and elite military units, it can actually endanger the general public. But, most of all, I cannot tolerate whining about "Boo-hoo-hoo, they wouldn't let me [fill in the blank} because I am a [fill-in grievance group]".

But then this issue is just as stupid. For those of you who are not hip to the fine feminist monthly manifesto that is Glamour magazine, let me enlighten you. Rife with emaciated, holocaust victim-esque models and endless academic treatists on the joys of botox injections and age-abating plastic surgery, meaningless sex, and the latest in hem lengths, Glamour magazine will name in their latest issue Caitlyn Jenner (a/k/a Bruce "Kardashian" Jenner) as their 2015 "Woman of the Year".

Germaine Greer, leader of the second-wave feminist movement (whatever that is/was) has taken exception to a former man being named as any kind of "Woman of the Year" calling it just another example of misogyny. And then as right on cue, came the cry of "transphobia" as in this from Jezebel Germaine Greer Says Caitlyn Jenner, Transgenered Woman Are Not 'Real Women'.

Ms Greer was booked to speak at Cardiff University. But after her honest opinion about Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner's "Woman of the Year" honor at Glamour, the expected petitions by feminist student groups have been signed to unbook her because she dared to speak her opinion which translates in current college campus-speak as her obvious transphobic misogyny against the transgendered men. Science and Biology be damned! To the credit of Cardiff University administration, they refused to uninvite her.

I happen to agree with Ms Greer on this, but then I am a biological woman with all of the biological privileges that come with that who resents Glamour Magazine making me feel less than for not being an emaciated, holocaust-victim-esque model type. But more importantly, naming a former man as "Woman of the Year" demeans real womem of accomplishment by naming a man who just cut his man-parts off so he can call himself woman and wear pretty clothes. But then again, when did Glamour Magazine have any relevence in defining what a real woman is anyway.

So what have we learned here. Well, it boils down to this. If you don't go along with first or second-wave feminist doctrine, you are the enemy of everyone or a Republican. God help you if your Carly Fiorina...

Pet Peeves and Other Annoyances

I’m feelin’ ornery. So much annoying me. Here are some things that bug me. Feel free to add your own!

● You’re Soooo Brave!: I’ve been watching sports. Because of this, I’ve been subjected to ads for someone called Colin Cowerd, who does a sports show. He advertises using the same pathetic crap all these talker do... he tells us how brave he is to spout his opinion and how he will never back down in the face of non-existent pressure.

How in the world can it be heroic to spout an uninformed opinion in a land where you face no danger from doing so... in an industry where the more ignorant and strident you sound the better... to an audience that is too stupid to know better. You know what? I am heroic for shopping at Target the other day... and I will never back down on what I bought!! All glory to me!

//*sshole

● No More!: Dear Daily Mail... stop giving us articles about the Kardashians. Seriously, my eyeballs don’t even need to see the headlines anymore. And stop telling me what Bruce Jenner is wearing. WTF? He was hideous as a man and he looks like a corpse as a woman. I don’t want to see him and I certainly don’t care what he’s wearing.

● Ugly: Have you ever noticed that so many models are ugly?

● F-You Whiners: There are now people trying to destroy high school football because seven kids have died playing the game this year. This is actually a typical number. The problem is that the morons whining about this have no ability to use reason. They see seven dead kids and they think “why won’t somebody do something!” A number have demanded that the NFL do something, even though the NFL has nothing to do with this... this is Board of Education matter. Others have whined that the game is too dangerous, even though most of these kids have died from things other than hits. Some have whined that it’s the lack of qualified medical staffs at games that have caused this without even asking first if there were medical staffs at the site of any of the death (hint: there were).

This is very typical of liberals and idiots... but I repeat myself. They see a problem because they see a group of things they don’t like. They never ask if the statistics bear out that there is a problem or if this is just a random thing. They immediately reach into their bag of “things they want to blame” without ever figuring out if any of those were even implicated. And then they look for someone with deep pockets to blame for not having fixed this horrible problem already even though they themselves only just noticed it.

//*ssholes

● So Much For The Media: When did pranks and emails posted on Facebook and notes left on windshields and crap that went viral become news?

● Call In The Clowns: Trump is done. He’s run out of things to attack and his popularity never went beyond the fringe base. He’s gotten boring. Yaaawn.

Bernie Sanders is done. Well, he was always done, but people are starting to notice. When Biden refused to run, his decision essentially told the Democrats that Hillary had won, so they are now lining up behind her. She could still lose to a new candidate, but not to the ones in the race.

I’m thinking Bush has killed himself. It’s not certain yet, but Bush’s strategy of pretend to be a tree (dare I say a bush) as everyone else takes each other out has left the impression that he’s as bland as a bologna sandwich and, more importantly, cannot win over the public. The ball shifts to Rubio.

Did Carly Fiorina go on vacation? She seems to have disappeared, leaving the vice presidency open to Ben Carson.

Personally, I think we should put them all in a blender and run it until... well, until we need new candidates. :)

Thoughts?

Friday's Thoughts: Open Thread

Some thoughts from this week:

—Paul Ryan has the path cleared away for the Speakership after a supermajority of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, though it wasn’t enough to get the 80% needed. So, despite the lack of endorsements, the way is cleared. Unless some revelation comes out or he has a McCarthy-sized gaffe, Ryan will be our next Speaker.

As expected, talk radio and others are going crazy. It did not help that Harry Reid “endorsed” Paul Ryan, an endorsement seconded up by an army of Democrats on capitol hill and in the press. And, what is aggravating is that a bunch of these conservatives, who expound endlessly on why compromise with Democrats is bad because Democrats are untrustworthy, took this at face value.

The reason the Democrats are endorsing Ryan is for two reasons. One, in the case of Reid it is just to screw with Republicans, a bait these conservatives have taken hook, line, and sinker. Second, in the case of Luis Guiterrez, who said a vote for Ryan is a vote for amnesty, it is so that in several months when Ryan does not pass a massive amnesty bill, or whenever the House does work on immigration, it is so he, and the rest of the liberal pundits, can talk about how “Ryan is allowing himself to be pushed around by the Tea Party.”

They do it all the time.

Givne he could win over the House Freedom Caucus and the most of the people opposing him are those who think Donald “I love Kelo”Trump is a standard bearer of conservatism, I’m inclined to support Ryan.

—On Kelo and Trump, if Rubio, Jeb Bush, or any other Republican candidate and come out with his position on Kelo and eminent domain, these people would’ve been apoplectic, but instead, they praise him for a “nuanced” position. He is our Obama.

—Benghazi hearing: What can I say? People died, Hillary lied. ‘Nuff said.

—Oh, Trump falls behind Carson in Iowa. Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end for Trump.

—Jews are being stabbed in the streets of Israel because of provocation by the Palestinian government. And, again, the “moral” leaders of the world are saying “both sides need to de-escalate”. If both sides of World War 2 had “de-escalated” in 1942 there would not be a single Jew left in Europe. Sometimes, you have to fight back.

My support for Israel, which, yes, is a flawed country, is not based on some biblical principle of the Jewish people being special. It is based on the fact that Israel is the freest country in the Middle East, the only true democracy with a system of governance based upon the rule of law.

Yes, it has problems, there is discrimination, against christians and other Arabs and, yes, it can be a pain in the neck for those who live there but it is not anywhere near the pain in the neck it is for Christians or dissidents in the rest of the Middle East. You don’t tear down a good thing because it is flawed, you improve the good thing. You cherish it and, most importantly, you protect it.

Especially when it is the only island of freedom in the sea of anarchy, violence, and tyranny that is the Middle East.

—Star Wars: The Force Awakens, well, I saw the trailer and, dammit, it looks really good and now I have to see it. Crap. But, hey, after the prequels the only direction we can go is up, right? Right?
Trailer: LINK

—#BoycottStarWarsVII went viral and I want to say that I fully understand the sentiment. Star Trek: Into Darkness was an awful waste of time that relied entirely upon the emotional beats of a movie nearly 30 years old and, from what I’ve heard, Abrams other recent movie, Super 8, was a stupid, 1970s Spielberg knock-off. I don’t see why a bunch of people were angry over it.

Hold on.

Wait, wait a minute. Ok. Apparently it has to do with the black actor in the movie? Huh? What?

Ok. Apparently, a couple of trolls started it and a few people saw it, were shocked, and then it went viral with a bunch of people tweeting about how terrible it was and, since it was now trending heavily because all these people were shocked about it, a bunch of other people saw it, and failed to realize it was trending because most people didn’t agree with it.

Really. One of the trolls actually bragged about it, saying, “We did it Again #4chan should win a Nobel Peace Prize ! We made a racial issue out of thin air!!”

This should not be surprising, the people who forwarded this are obsessed with "proving" that America is nothing but a putrid swamp of racist, knuckle-dragging sexists. Why else would the NRA have a 58% approval rating among Americans?

Read this Esquire article for an explanation of the: LINK

Questions Answered While We Wait For Hillary

Former Sec't of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be "testifying" today before the House Committee investigating the events leading up to the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya where our ambassador and three others were murdered. Expect lots of blustering about how this is a waste of taxpayer money.

Expect lots of excuses as to why she was not running the State Department when she was supposed to be Secretary of State. Expect some interesting questions about her ongoing relationship with the Clinton Foundation while at State and donations made to same. Of course, there will be questions about e-mail security or lack of same. Expect even a few really tasty sound-bites that both parties can use to bludgeon each other with.

What not to expect - any real answers from Clinton to any questions.

I know how frustrating it can be to want a straight answer and not get one. So, as a little diversion to quell that frustration, here are some answers to questions that may have kept you up at night:

Question #1: Which is the correct way for toilet paper to roll to go - over or under?
Answer: The original patent shows that the toilet paper should roll over...LINK

See, wasn't that nice...asked/answered...moving on.

Question #2: What was the first novel written on a typewriter?
Answer: Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain a/k/a Samuel Clemens in 1874.

Done. And now the answer to one of the most important question of the 20th Century...

Question#3: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
Answer: It takes about 142.18 licks to reach the center of a Tootsie pop.

See, it was that easy. If you need another endorphin rush that only comes from straight answers to simple questions, here is a link to...the internet. Uh, you were expecting a link? Do you own internet searches....{{{mic drop}}}

Fun With Statistics and Tiny Pigs

For today, let's discuss one of my favorite pet peeves - "glaring racial achievement gaps". Let's start with some basic demographics by percentages of students (by race) in the NYC public school system (total) from a Hunter College Summary:

Overall demographics*:
11% Asian
15% White
28% Black
47% Hispanic

vs.

Graduation rates (see above):
82.6% Asian
80.7% White
63.8% Black
61.4% Hispanic

[*75% of all students participate in the free/reduced meal programs]

On October 7, 2015 one of the endless articles on the racial disparity in high school graduation/college graduation statistics the NYC public schools was published in the NY Post. Glaring Racial Gap Growing - LINK [not sure if you can access it without having to log in] The two paragraph in this article are very telling -

"The racial achievement gap among New York City public school students gets worse once they reach college, according to a new study."

“The data lays bare the devastating costs of education inequality in this city. When half a million children — almost all of color — are trapped in failed schools, doors to the middle class are slammed shut and $4.4 billion in wages is lost,” said Jeremiah Kittredge, the organization’s CEO.

Issues you should know - The organization in question is the Families for Excellent Schools, a procharter group. There is a battle waging in our school system between the traditional public school advocates (Mayor Deblasio) and the charter school advocates (Gov. Cuomo). The battle centers on "racial disparity" in achievement. But here is where my real pet peeve comes into play. "Racial" equals "minority" which, in NYC Public School-speak translates to "Black" and "Hispanic" students only. And it always boils down to the disparity of achievement between White students (rich, white, privileged) and "minority" students (Black/Hispanic, poor, underprivileged). But this racial disparity oddly never includes the smallest minority - Asian students.

Why do the people using statistics for this argument never include Asian students in the "minority" group? Oh, I know the answer. Look at the statistics for the Asian students in the chart above. Though, Asian students comprise the smallest minority at only 11% of the student population with the same issues of poverty and seemingly "underprivilege", they outachieve even the White students in graduation rates for both high school and college. My conclusion to this is that if you include Asian students as "minority" the disparity disappears hence the argument disappears. And the argument of more money both sides swear they need to alleviate this disparity disappears...

-
On a completely unrelated note (but one that makes me very happy): Chinese scientist have announced that they have genetically engineered teeny-tiny pigs - tea-cup size - to sell as pets! Tiny snouts, tiny split hooves, tiny curly tails and they are guaranteed to only grow to 40 lbs. This is a monumental achievement in modern science. Yey, science!

UPDATE: On another genetically-modified animal note in the morning papers: Chinese scientists have now genetically engineered a mutant beagle that has “more muscles and are expected to have stronger running ability, which is good for hunting, police (military) applications”. Huh, yeah, dogs have been doing just fine in that department for hundreds of thousands of years. But,maybe the Chinese scientists could put their genetic engineering skills to work and engineer a panda bear that wants to breed on it's own again...

It's A Stunning Success, So Stop Asking Questions!

One of the easiest ways to know when something leftists love isn't working is that you start seeing articles that declare it a success and then strongly suggest that we stop talking about it immediately. Obamacare is just such a thing. Over the past few months, HuffPo has been jammed with articles declaring victory and then declaring it a thoughtcrime to keep looking into the issue... pay no attention to the contrary data that keeps pouring in. Well, the problems keep a mountin'.

The evidence that Obamacare is failing is building up fast. Let me remind you that in June I pointed out that Obamacare had barely reduced the number of uninsured (LINK). The point I made then was this: when Obamacare was being sold, we were told that 42 million people were uninsured. Those were the people Obamacare was supposed to help. Well, then came all the Obama Administration-generated numbers which told us that as many as 35 million people had signed up for Obamacare, depending on how you counted it... and if you squinted. Well, in June we learned that 11.9% of the population remains uninsured. That works out to 38 million people. That means that Obamacare only moved five million people from the ranks of the uninsured to the ranks of the insured. The rest was smoke and mirrors. And that's a total failure.

What's more, the number of people who signed up through the exchanges remains ridiculously low. The original estimates were in the neighborhood of 10-12 million people signing up in the first year, 20 million by the second and the rest within five years. The Obama administration has dropped those numbers time and again so they could declare victory. In the latest, we were told that there would be 8ish million in the first year, then 15 million in the second and so on. Well, Obama claimed to get 8 million in the first year, but recent data released show the number was only six million. Now they're estimating there will be only ten million in this second year -- around half of what they originally claimed even after lowering expectations repeatedly. And even at that, there is no sign that ten million will sign up.

This is all very bad news for Obamacare. Not only does it make a mockery of the whole idea since it did almost nothing to help the uninsured, but it endangers the system if more suckers won't sign up. And in that regard, the data has indeed shown what we long suspected, which is that young healthy people are not signing up. That will make the finances even worse.

And it gets worse yet. One of the things that was supposed to help Obamacare was the creation of healthcare co-ops, which were supposed to provide the cheap alternatives which would force the big insurance carriers to lower their rates. Well, guess what? As of this week, eight of the 23 co-ops created have gone broke and are closing. This includes the largest, a New York coop that was supposed to be the flagship model for success. Eleven of the remaining 15 have received warnings from HHS about the way they manage their businesses and their finances. Interestingly, the co-ops are claiming that part of the problem they face is that HHS is starting to cut their subsidies.

Whoops.

This whole thing reminds me of East Germany. It started great because there was money, optimism and fear of not going along. But the whole system was so badly designed that its collapse was already obvious just beneath the surface and each year saw the problems mount until the system just ground to a halt and then fell apart.

These Are Not Kit's Thoughts... Maybe They Should Be?

With Kit lying in a Democratic-Debate-Induced Coma, I am taking over his post tonight. Now, what should I write? Hmm. I know, I'll write some random thoughts that I'm pretty sure Kit believes. :) So sue him if you don't like these!

● Hipster Beards: I hate hipster beards. Seriously, when did looking like hillbilly trash become a good look? Are you going to decorate your house with a meth lab too? And do you know what else? Just like all the idiots who got "tribal" tattoos to show their individuality, none of you looks like an individual doing this. To the contrary, you look like an army of clones. How do you show your individuality by doing what everyone else is doing anyways?

● The F-35: Why are we building an airplane that doesn't do anything better than the plane it's replacing? I keep reading about this thing and it sounds like an expensive step backwards. I know that military systems tend to improve in the field, but this seems like a serious mistake.

● What Fringe Commentarama Would Be Like: OMG! There are killer Islamic TERMINATOR robots driving a secret CHINESE aircraft carrier to Syria to somethingsomething... or so I'm told. It's all OBAMA's fault! He spends all his time spying on my house!!! We must destroy the GOP to stop Obama!! I hate you Jennifer Lawrence!!!

Aren't you glad that's not us?

● Make It Stop!: If there is a God, then hear me. Why have you cursed us with the Kardashian plague? Have we sinned against you? Can't we have the syphilitic toads instead?

● Ain't Got No Dignity: What the hell is going on with all these supposedly respectable actors and actresses going on talk shows to answer questions like "which of your co-stars would you f*ck and which would you kill?" Is there no dignity left in these people? And who says you can't do both to all your co-stars? No creativity... no originality... no dignity.

● Sexism: You want an example of sexism? This ==> the girl posse or girl gang or whatever they call it. You know what I'm talking about, right? This is when some actress or singer gathers together a group of other "women" and they act like friends and partners and cohorts and they talk about banding together for empowerment (which I believe translates into pillow fights). But have you noticed that they only pick other hot young women? Not one of these posses includes women who are fat or ugly or old. So maybe if women want to talk about sexism holding them back... maybe they should look at themselves first.

● Water... waaaaater: Like a parched camel on its last hump, NASA thinks they found water under the surface of Mars. That is soooo cool. That means we may colonize Mars in our lifetimes! I wonder how long it will take for the first environmentalist to whine about our carbon footprint on Mars?

● Ethical Question: Is it wrong to pass a school bus when its red light is flashing and the stop sign is out? What if you found yourself sitting behind it for five minutes as the driver worked to get a wheel-chair bound kid strapped into place? Isn't there some sort of five minute mercy rule or something? Doesn't it seem like the driver shouldn't have turned on the sign in the first place if it was going to take that long?

Worst...Aunt...Ever

Well, Mercury has finally stopped retrograding and all of my electronics are now working again. And just in the knick of time too. New York Daily News reported this morning about a story that should go down in the annals of legal history as one of the stupidest lawsuits ever...

An Upper East Side woman has managed to get herself deemed the "Auntie Christ" when she sued her 8-year old nephew for "negligence and carelessness". You see, he was so excited to see his beloved aunt on his birthday that without thinking, he ran at her and jumped into her arms while shouting "Aunt Jen!! Aunt Jen!! I love you!" and they tumbled down. In the fall, she broke her wrist. This poor woman was so broken and damaged that she can no longer walk up the stairs to her apartment. Even worse, she couldn't even hold her hors d’oeuvres plate at a recent party.

In her lawsuit in which her now 12-year old nephew was the only named defendant, she claimed that "[t]he injuries, losses and harms to the plaintiff were caused by the negligence and carelessness of the minor defendant in that a reasonable eight year old under those circumstances would know or should have known that a forceful greeting such as the one delivered by the defendant to the plaintiff could cause the harms and losses suffered by the plaintiff". Seriously, she sued a child for not being reasonable.

Fortunately, the jury who heard her case found her claims preposterous and decided against her. She will not be taking home that $127K and more than likely won't be getting any invitations for Thanksgiving either.

In the words of the great humor columnist Cindy Adam, "Only in New York, kids, only in New York".

The floor is now open...

Correction: In a comment earlier today, I mistakenly referred to pandas as rodents. In fact, pandas are bears. I am truly sorry for spreading this scurrilous lie.

More Random Items!

Tonight we do another random issues article as there is no single major issue worth writing about. Where is our World War II? Where is our Flu Pandemic? Where is our Teapot Dome Scandal? These are trying times for bloggers my friends... trying times.

● Debatable Democrats: Didn’t watch, don’t care. Seriously, could there be a less appealing group of suckophyants trying to become our leaders? I think not. A dried up old crone with a penchant for fraud and buggary. An aging Trotskyite who smells of maple syrup. A former Republican ginger from Virginge-a. The wishy-washiest former Republican Independent Democratic mayor/governor of a small Northeastern sh*thole.

What’s worse, they all hold the same views on every single issue. It’s like a batch of clones that spoiled in the oven.

By the way, the Democrats listed their top security concerns and it made me chuckle. Sanders said Climate Change because he’s a moron. Stopping climate change, just like making socialism work, is like stopping the waves with a sword. Personally, I would have gone to the root problem: not enough love in our hearts.

O’Malley picked climate change and ISIL. At least he realizes that the band of insane murders who want to destroy everything on the planet is a problem. Good for him... doubt he has any idea what to do about it though. Chafee referred to the chaos in the entire Middle East, likely because he doesn’t want to point fingers at the army of murders, rapists and terrorists actually causing the chaos. The smartest of the pack, James Webb picked China and cybersecurity which confused the audience who expected he would answer “George Bush”. Still, this is oddly insightful for a Democrat.

Then Hillary talked about the spread of nuclear weapons, which hasn’t been “the” issue since her hubby was launching missiles at interns. Did this woman sleep through the last 20 years? Why does she keep raising issues from the 1980s and 1990s?

All in all, this tells us that the Democrats wouldn’t know a security threat if it bit them in the ass... which is what most of security threats do.

● Syrianna: Syria just keeps getting uglier for Obama and the left is turning on him fast. On the one hand, the left is furious that Obama is being such a meanie war monger! They wonder why he hasn’t solved this with magic oratory and they are holding it against him that everyone hasn’t dropped to their knees, cried at his words, and become fast blood brothers. Why won’t he solve this problem? Seriously. On the other hand, they’re upset that he hasn’t blasted the living crap out of Assad and laid waste to his entire regime and killed all his people to end this sucker. No, I’m not kidding. Now they’re upset that he’s letting Russia kill people... the meanie.

At the same time, Putin is playing Obama for a fool. He’s doing whatever the hell he wants and making Obama look impotent. Welcome to reality.

By the way, the talk radio crowd isn’t satisfied with this chaos and is now seeing nonexistent secret Chinese aircraft carriers stalking Syria. Seriously.

● Nobody for Speaker!!: The talk radio crowd has turned against Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House. It was rather obvious this would happen. They have never liked Ryan and really came to hate him after he refused to destroy the country over the budget to prove the size of his testicles. Grunt grunt!

● Pre-Traitor!: It turns out that Ben Carson only became a Republican a year ago. The horror... the horror. So according to the fringe, he can’t be the GOP nominee anymore. Of course, most of them only became Republicans themselves a year or two ago... if they even bothered... so they don’t have room to talk. And their hero, The Donald, was once a Democrat and then a Republican and then left the GOP to become an independent.

● An Update-io: No sooner had I posted my impressive interview with Salma Hayek than Jennifer Lawrence was asked about how she felt about being paid less than her male costars in recent films. She said she was upset... at herself! She said that the reason she got less was that she settled for less during negotiations because she wanted to be seen as likable. She didn’t blame it on sexism (the person who negotiated the pay was actually a woman, btw), or on culture or whatever. She said, the problem was that she didn’t hold out for her own worth because she didn’t want to cause problems. Bingo.

In no small irony, the reporter chick who did the interview then tried to say in her article that this showed that sexism was alive and well, which is the opposite of what Lawrence said. Lawrence really just put to shame all the other actresses whining from their mansions about how unfairly they are treated. Lawrence even noted that complaining about this is not something to which the public can relate. Are you listening Salma et al? Probably not.

Salma Hayek... Warrior For Women!

Oh, I have something special for you today. I’ve interviewed Salma Hayek (sort of) about her whining the other day at some chick “empowerment” conference about evil, sexist Hollywood dumping women after they turn 30. I think you’ll find this very enlightening...

Me: Hola, Chicka. You just gave what some retards are calling “an impassioned speech” at the wishful-thinkingly-named Variety’s Power of Women event in Beverly Hills on Friday, did you not.
Ms. Hayek: Si.

Me: In this speech, you whined about Hollywood not hiring any women over the age of 30, correct?
Ms. Hayek: Yes, it is a serious problem.

Me: A “serious” problem, like genital mutilation or Islamic marriage laws?
Ms. Hayek: No comment.

Me: We'll come back to the 30 year old thing. In the meantime, in your speech, which I’m assuming you wrote... you did write it, right? I mean, actors are pretty stupid people and rich people rarely do their own work because it's easier to hire a team of writers. So did you actually write this “impassioned speech” on your own?
Ms. Hayek: No comment.

Me: Thought not. Moving along, you did marry a billionaire, right?
Ms. Hayek: Oh si. Francois Pinault.

Me: And no doubt he married you for your personality, right? I mean, he wasn’t looking for a hot young thing, right? You were both looking for some normal mate of average looks and income when from out of the blue, you just happened to meet this super rich guy who married you despite your looks, right? I mean, come on, we would never want to assume that you used your looks to get ahead in life. That would be horribly hypocritical since you're complaining about Hollywood rewarding actresses for their looks.
Ms. Hayek: Exactly. I would never do that. We are both very average, at least for people on the “Sexiest Woman Alive” list and the “Richest Man Alive” list.

Me: Glad to hear it. So before you married Mr. Average, you began your career as an actress, correct? I believe your first couple movies were Mexican crap and then you made Desperado with Antonia Banderas and Robert Rodriguez, correct?
Ms. Hayek: Yes.

Me: And did Robert cast you for your acting talent or because you were young and hot as f**k? Be honest now.
Ms. Hayek: It was because I was young and hot.

Me: And in that movie, did you give impassioned speeches or dramatic turns, or were you basically just flashing your T&A?
Ms. Hayek: Uh, T&A.

Me: That pattern kind of continued, didn’t it? I mean, weren’t you basically hired as eye candy? Have you seen yourself in From Dusk Til Dawn? Good Dios, woman!
Ms. Hayek: What’s your point?

Me: Well, my point is this. Isn’t it hypocritical that you got into the industry based entirely on looks rather than talent, that you continued to exploit your looks until you were well established and could then do a movie like Frida which no one cares about, and then you married a billionaire based entirely on him having a mahogany (rich version of a “woody”) for the hot chicka he saw on film... and now you’re whining that it's unfair that other women are getting all the roles because they are young and hot? I mean, didn’t it bother you when you were young and hot that a lot of good actresses weren’t getting jobs because you were taking them just because you were hot? Isn't that like a bully whining about bullying after they run across a bigger bully?
Ms. Hayek: No comment.

Me: So when you were young and hot, you were cool with the system working for you. But now that you’re older, you want to change the system so it works for you again? Tell me, do you also want to help ugly actresses or just ex-hot actresses? Hollywood only allows one fat chick at a time, are you planning to change that? Or is this just about women already in the system?
Ms. Hayek: No comment.

Me: In your speech, you said that women represent 66% of the workforce, but only get 10% of the income of the world. Did you pull that out of your curvy ass? I mean the world is roughly 50% to 49% male to female, and in many countries, women don’t really work. So where do you get the workforce figure? It doesn't seem mathematically possible.
Ms. Hayek: No hablo Ingles

Me: And this idea that women only get 10% of the income, how does that work? I mean, the gender gap in the US is supposedly 77 cents to a dollar. In Europe it’s about the same, and the US and Europe account for like 90% of world income. Moreover, in a World Economic Forum report a few years ago, even the worst sh*tholes in the world weren’t worse than 45 cents to the dollar. So uh, it’s frankly impossible to come anywhere near the figure you quote.
Ms. Hayek: No hablo Ingles

Me: Yeah, I didn’t think so. How do you say liar in Mexican?
Ms. Hayek: //silence

Me: Oh, let us continue. Now you, Oprah, Beyonce and the fashion brand Gucci have created something called “Chime for Change,” and you claim this group has “[i]n only two years... we have affected 3 million families and communities.” You say you’ve done this by “empowering women and girls the world over with education, health and justice." More specifically, you say you’ve benefited 400,000 girls and women around the world by raising over $7.3 million dollars! Yay!
Ms. Hayek: Isn’t it amazing?

Me: Yes, it is, but probably not in the way you think. First, I have to ask, how can you “affect 3 million families” but only benefit 400,000 girls? Those numbers don’t really work together do they?
Ms. Hayek: No hablo Ingles

Me: Moreover, if we divide this $7.3 million into the numbers you’ve given... and we count only the 400,000 “benefited” rather than the 3 million “affected,” then you are talking about spending a little less than $20 per girl. Does that sound like you’ve done much of anything? That’s the cost of two movie tickets to see one of your films.
Ms. Hayek: No hablo Ingles

Me: And that’s before you take your cut for “expenses,” am I right?
Ms. Hayek: geegle geegle Si. I mean, No hablo Ingles!!

Me: Interestingly, you’ve earned an estimate $85 million over your career... a tad more than the ugly fat girls seeing your movie who need to work at McDonalds because Hollywood won’t hire them—
Ms. Hayek: Is there a question there?

Me: Not in your mind apparently. Anyways, you’ve made $85 million. Your hubby is worth $15 billion. His company makes about $1.5 billion a year in profit (about $4 million a day). Oprah is worth $3 billion. And all you’ve raised in $7.3 million? I’ll bet that mostly came from women who have to save to see your films too, doesn’t it?
Ms. Hayek: I am only trying to help the world!

Me: No, you used the system to get filthy rich and now you’re trying to use that wealth to force that same system to keep giving you favors. You are a hypocrite who has never once cared about non-hot and young women until you fell into their ranks. What’s more, you hide behind a foundation that has less money than you and your friends make in a single day and you use obviously fake statistics to justify the existence of this pittance of a foundation in the hopes being able to delude yourself into thinking that you have changed the world, when all you are really doing is whining about first world problems.
Ms. Hayek: I am saving the world. “We are not going away at 30! They cannot ignore us anymore.”

Me: I'm glad you brought that up again. You turned 30 in 1996. You made 40 of your 49 films after that. In fact, you made at least one film every year between 1996 and the present except for 2005 and 2008. So can you really say that your career ended when you turned 30?
Ms. Hayek: I am an activist!

Me: No, you are an actor. You spend your life acting out the form, but not the substance of events that are inherently more interesting than yourself... much like you are doing now.
Ms. Hayek: You must hate women!

Me: No, just frauds.

Thoughts?

Friday's Thoughts: Speakers and Wendy Davis Sitcoms (Really!)

By Kit

Sorry of the late post but it's been busy recently with school. So, here goes. Not much today, with the news obsessed with WHO WILL BE THE NEXT SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.

Oh, and USA Today is using emojis now for their front page. I don't talk about it below, just something I thought I would bring up. Western civilization is dead.

Anyway, about Speaker of the House…

The Reluctant Speaker

Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the Speaker race and over the past couple of days one man has come up who is probably the only Republican House member who could easily win the Speakership, due to having just enough credibility with both the Tea Party and the Republican Party moderates. Even other candidates for the Speakership, Chaffetz, are saying they would vote for him. This man? Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and former Vice Presidential candidate Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

But there’s one problem: By all accounts he has absolutely no desire whatsoever to be Speaker.

In fact, he seems pretty happy at the House Ways and Means Committee.

So, we’ll see how this goes.


Hollywood Helps Democrat Politicians and Media Hacks

Wendy Davis is getting a sitcom! Really:
“Written by Jennifer Cecil, the untitled project centers on a female Democratic senator who, after losing the Texas governor’s race, gets her world turned upside down. In the vein ofThe Good Wife, while she pieces her pride back together, she goes to work in the law firm of her best friend — a black male Republican — and discovers that with no political future to protect, she can unshackle her inner badass.”

“Unshackle her inner badass”? Kill me.

And if that was not enough, we also have a movie about Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and those memos that got both of them canned titled Truth, and it appears to be anything but. Starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett as Rather and Mapes, respectively (can you imagine if it was the other way around!) it is based on Mary Mapes’ book, Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power which details how she and Dan Rather took on the man and the man won, revealing to her how far entrenched powers will protect their interests and those of the Oxford Comma.

Seriously, USE IT! For example, Ms. Mapes, would “The memos, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes” make any sense? No, it doesn’t. Because it should be “The memos, Dan Rather, and Mary Mapes.” Got it? Good.

So, anyway, it’s got (shocker) good ratings among critics at 79% (actually, I’m shocked it’s that low). As Sonny Bunch said, “It’ll probably win 5 Oscars.”

So, anyway, have a nice weekend. Here are some links:
.
—Jonah Goldberg excellent USA Today column on Saturday Night Live's recent plug for Hillary and the Citizens United decision: LINK

"You Don't Have To Like Me!"

Team Hillary has tried everything to make the public like her. Nothing has worked. Surprise! Now she had a new strategy, and it's probably the worst strategy ever.

Hillary Clinton is one of the worst campaigners ever. Despite having the power of the entire MSM, feminists, and the Clinton machine behind her, she has sputtered and stumbled and collapsed like an asthmatic racing through an endless field of pollen toward the smokey finish line. She has proven to be uninspired, timid, offensive and gaffe-prone. She's a me-too candidate who takes angry positions on controversial issues years after they stop being controversial. She exploits expired tragedies. She speaks like a drone. She lectures when she should converse, monotones when she must inspire, and leads from behind... far behind. She waffles, dodges, and lies. She's probably a criminal too.

Hillary began by falling on her face with a thud in 2008. Bizarrely believing her problem to be a lack of foreign policy experience, she tried to pad her very thin resume by becoming Secretary of State and vanished in a cloud of incompetence and irrelevance. Since then, she's been dogged with questions of security breaches, destruction of evidence, missing emails, and giving improper favors to her lover personal assistant.

Since her 2012 campaign started in earnest, she's had a half-dozen resets. She's angered reporters by trying to control them, spoken to empty stadiums, and tried to rig the debate schedule. The MSM is so furious at her mishandling of them that they are even openly reporting negative information about her, like how she's notorious for being late to speaking engagements and how this is turning off her voters.

Her ideology, or lack thereof, has turned the left against her. She didn't support gay marriage until everyone else did. She never said a word about Keystone, Wall Street regulation, repealing the Cadillac tax in Obamacare, student loan debt reduction or increasing the minimum wage (all standard positions on the left) until every one of her opponents staked out their position. She barely speaks about Syria or Iran or Israel, and when she does, she says nothing. She never said a word about guns until her latest reboot in the face of an Oregon issue that has already faded to the back pages by the time she spoke up. She wants to help women by accusing the Republicans of politicizing the Planned Parenthood video. She wants to help blacks by N/A. Gays by N/A. She doesn't favor Trumping Hispanics, but doesn't really tell us what she does favor. She was for giving illegals drivers licenses back when she was a Senator until the voters were against it and she's never gone there again. She hasn't even spoken about the Great Trannie Bathroom Civil Rights issue on which Biden is trying to make a name for himself. On education, her position is that she wants the support of the NEA teacher's union, and she vaguely dislikes the parts of the No Child Left Behind Act that everyone else dislikes... you know the parts, but she won't say if she supports or opposes Obama's anti-education union policies. She certainly wants to stop Climate Change in some way yet to be determined. She doesn't like Super PACs either unless they give her money.

Just about the only thing she's been firm on, pun intended, is wanting to see Lenny Kravitz's penis. No, I'm not kidding.

Anyways, a lot of people have a lot of negative feelings about Hillary. Her team tried to squelch this by claiming that anyone using the negative words their focus group found that people applied to her were being sexists or talking in code or something like that. That flopped. Then the email thing hit and she needed to prove she wasn't a liar. She tried to deny that, but that didn't work. So she tried to laugh it off, but that came across as insulting and crazy. She then tried to show that she's a man/woman of the people in the hope that people would forget that she's a liar. She even went on SNL and very stiffly mocked Donald Trump for his hair (that's so 1980s) hoping to show how down with it and hip she is you jive ass turkeys. DynOmite! This didn't work either.

Well, now she has a new strategy. Tryanmax noticed the first part of this a week or so ago when her team of flying monkeys descended upon media land and claimed that it doesn't matter if Hillary is "genuine" because you can be a good leader without being genuine. But genuine is not really the problem because Hillary is genuine all right, she's a genuine b*tch. In fact, recent reports from the Secret Service, again played up by the MSM, have just added to image of Hillary as a real sh*t of a human being. So this week, we finally saw them address the real problem head on. This time, her minions in the MSM are selling the line that it doesn't matter if we like Hillary or not, we should still vote for her. In fact, here are a couple quotes of the dozen or so quotes I saw like this all weekend:

"She kind of turns me off, but I'd rather have a Democrat in there as opposed to a Republican." -- Marsha Campaniello.

"She just rubs me the wrong way. But, hey, you don't have to like her, right?" -- Jim Gallagher

Drink Coke, it sucks and you hate it, but hey, it stops your thirst, right? That is the new strategy??! Yes it is... "You don't have to like me to vote for me!" That is not a winner. Voters will never pick an unlikable candidate. They want someone they would feel comfortable handing power, and that means someone who shares their interests and whom they trust to take care of their interests. The way most people reach that judgment is the emotional question of whether or not they "like" the person.

This is a doomed strategy.

Thoughts?

Open Thread

I apologize for once again shirking my duties at CommentaramaPolitics. I am going through another e-meltdown again. Good news is that Verizon finally has finally restored my internet service after 2 weeks, then Apple/Itunes decided to destroy my Ipad with a new 9.0.1 ugrade". Then after I got that all sorted out, I wanted to cancel the auto-pay on an App and two hours later and four "password" changes, I finally got in. Why do I feel that I achieved some kind of victory against "the Man"? It used to be so much easier when all we had to do is take a book back to the library. I am beginning to take all of these issues personally as a misogynist, micro-aggression.

Anyway, enough about my e-problems...there's so much more happening in the world. Any clue what's happening in Syria? I hear Putin has started regular bombing raids? Or that Trans-Pacific trade agreement? Did you hear about the American Airlines pilot who died mid-flight? Frankly, I don't care because I finally defeated Itunes...for now.

The floor is open

It's The Left's Fault

A few thoughts about this Oregon shooter. I blame the left.

● This Is Important: There is no single type of shooter. This is important because the left and the MSM hide behind the different types like a shell game to evade responsibility for what they’ve done. I’ll deal with this point more in a moment. For now, let me identify the types that I see.

(1) The forgotten loser. This type is typically sexually incompetent and a failure at life economically. They seek a body count to make them important.

(2) The revenge killer. There is the personal revenge killer who seeks to kill people he knows who have offended him. Again, sexual inadequacy is a key.

(3) The grievance killer. These are people who are generally economic losers and have bought into the left’s grievance view of the world. Hence, they seek to kill large numbers of the people they believe oppress them. Every one of these has bought into leftist ideas about grievance.

(4) The looney tunes. These are guys like Hinckley who are simply insane. They hear voices.

(5) The sickos. This is guys like Manson, Bundy and Dahmer. These guys get off on killing.

● I Blame The Left: Yeah, I blame the left for the vast majority of shooters. Here’s why.

The main advertising strategy the left has employed since the age of Marx to the present is the creation of conflict. The left attracts voters by telling people that they are oppressed by someone else and that they need the left to help them settle the score. This generates hate. It puts people at each other’s throats, and makes them feel that their own failures are the result of some vast conspiracy to keep them down: the rich keep down the poor, whites keep down blacks, men keep down women, and so on. The result is that society loses its cohesion and fills with hateful people who advocate all kinds of nastiness in the name of getting revenge against their enemies. Not only does this spur on killers in the third category above, but it wipes out the institutions (mental institution) that tend to suppress the fourth category and the support network (church, families) that keep the first category from becoming lost and seeing murder as a way to solve their problems.

I also blame the left for creating an atmosphere of violence. On the one hand, by framing the world in terms of armed struggle, they promote the idea that violence is a political tool... because for the left it has been for a long time. At the same time, the left dominates entertainment and they use things like gun violence to sell movies, and in so doing, they promote gun violence as a “cool” means of solving problems. Ditto on rap music. This won't affect well-adjusted people but shooters are never well-adjusted, they are weak-minded people living on the fringes. Hence, this encourages the first and second categories. They also turn sickos into celebrities... the sicker the better. Even outside of Hollywood, the left runs the media and their mantra is “if it bleeds, it leads” which again turns sickos into stars. Hence, anyone can become famous just by spilling blood. This encourages the first category.

Really, the only people the left doesn’t encourage is the true sickos, who are simply born defective.

● How The Left Avoids Responsibility: The left avoids responsibility for the carnage it’s caused by playing a shell game with killers. Let me give you an example by talking about an article from the AP. In this article, the reporter noted that many law enforcement agencies are now refusing to release the names of shooters so as not to give them the notoriety they seek. They even noted that the FBI endorses this. But that would lay the blame on the MSM, so the AP counterattacked throughout the article.

First, they noted that there are killers who aren’t motivated by publicity, hence, they claimed this strategy won’t work. That's bunk. This is an evasion: this solution won’t solve the entire problem, so we shouldn’t do it. How does that make sense?

Then the author warps the argument and says the police are trying to stop copycat killers because some study found that copycats were more likely within 13 weeks. This argument is then dismissed by saying there have been no school-shooter copycats on record. But this isn’t the point at all. The point is to stop an entire category of killers: those seeking notoriety, which appears to be most of them these days. Also, there is an obvious copycat shooter that the author (intentionally) ignores: the theater shooters. In China, you had a series of knife-wielding copycat killers at grade schools. Guys like the Oregon shooter also are clearly copycats because he was obsessed with Sandyhook documentaries and he specifically spoke about the Virginia Tech shooter online. And isn't it interesting how often Hollywood or TV land needs to hold off on some film or television show because what they do is exactly what some killer just did. The author ignores all of this.

Then the author argues that without releasing the name, it would become harder to understand these killers. But how does that make sense? Doctors always study patients without names. The name is the most meaningless of data points. The author even quotes some professor who actually whined that it would be harder for him to study these people if the name is withheld. Gee, so making it easy to do your job is more important than saving lives, huh?

Then get this. The author notes that “media organizations... reason[] that the name is the key detail that helps unravel and answer broader questions about the killer’s motivations and hold the government accountable. Only with a name can the public know, for example, whether a killer shouldn't have been able to buy a gun or if authorities missed red flags." Bull.

The name is irrelevant to the motivation and motivation can be examined without releasing the name. It is also irrelevant to “holding the government accountable,” whatever that means. Knowing whether the killer got the gun legally or whether the authorities missed red flags can all be done without revealing the name of the killer. Not to mention, none of these guys ever buy their guns illegally, so this is a red herring. As for missing flags, that’s just a game of gotcha at this point, where the same media who attacks people then quickly changes sides and argues against any changes that might actually impose responsibility. Moreover, I have yet to see a genuine analysis of what “the authorities” should have done in any of these instances other than wish guns away.

Finally, like all leftists, the author offers static thinking: It’s impossible to know if withholding the names would have prevented any of these killings, ergo it would not have helped. This is how the left evades things they don't like. If they don’t like a thing, then we have no way to know if it would have worked because no one has tried it, so we should not try it. That's a tautology and an evasion. But if they like a thing, then they accept every benefit anyone suggests as guaranteed to have been true if only we had done what they wanted. This is myth as fact, not genuine argument.

So just keep dying folks because it's too risky to change anything except the one thing that won't change anything... gun control.

● Nothing New: Finally, despite all the media coverage of these guys, it should be noted that the number of mass shootings has been going down decade after decade, that the world is safer, and that anyone’s chance of dying from something like this is infinitesimally small. You are more likely to die from diarrhea.

Thoughts?

I Hate Mercury...

It is as if Mercury is sitting in my living room, drinking my premium scotch and smirking at me while laying back in my brown leather Laz-Y-Boy recliner. I hate Mercury when it's in retrograde.

You may not believe in such things, but after 2 week of my DSL line being down because of a "construction mistake" and the "upgrade" to my Ipad taking 8 hours to "correct", Mercury in retrograde is just pure evil. Needless to say, with so many celestial events in the last week - Pope sightings and Blood Moon lunar eclipse* - I am now a believer and I am exhausted from the stress.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mercury seems like such a small, insignificant planet just out there next to the Sun all molten and stuff, but it is has to power to wreak havoc everywhere on Earth or maybe just in my living room...while drinking my scotch and lounging on my recliner. It's pure evil.

By contrast, national politics, domestic social issues, and international politics just seem so insignificant. So, I don't have anything but celestial wars to fight right now. And if Mercury hasn't done enough damage, now there's a freaking hurricane heading my way!!!

Let's open the floor to discuss anything other than Mercury...

*Hopefully you got a glimpse of the Blood Moon/Lunar eclipse because it was spectacular!