March, 2019 archive
The Entitlement Society 0
Thom’s guest, Vicky Ward, argues that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are no Ken and Barbie.
A Gamed System 0
The Founders argued that the Electoral College would prevent incompetent persons from becoming president. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton asserted that
Clearly, the Founders were, as my old boss used to say, “in error.”
Twits on Twitter 0
The Rude One comments on our Out-of-Control-Twit-in-Chief (warning: rudeness).
All that Was Old Is New Again 0
At the San Francisco Chronicle, Robert Reich argues that the new Gilded Age needs a new trust-buster. A snippet:
The answer then was to bust up the railroad, oil and steel monopolies.
We’re now in a second Gilded Age — ushered in by semiconductors, software and the internet — that has spawned a handful of high-tech behemoths and a new set of barons such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
QOTD 0
Dorothy Sayers, in the voice of Lord Peter Wimsey:
I know what an Act to make things simpler means. It means that the persons who drew it up don’t understand it themselves and that every one of its clauses needs a law-suit to disentangle it.
Sayers, Dorothy, Unnatural Death (New York: Avon, 1964), p. 137.
Stray Question 0
Who was the bright light who decided that mattresses no longer need to have handles on the sides?
Pest Control 0
How I responded to a request for a political donation via a text:
Me, I do my contributing by mail. For every text I receive requesting a contribution, I will deduct one dollar from my next contribution. Go away.
Fingers-crossed–I haven’t heard for that particular outfit since, and it’s been about a month.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
If you are so unfortunate as to be involved in a vehicular incident, it is essential that you comport yourself most courteously.
The victim was able to follow Olsen and get his tag number, but was forced to stop when Olsen parked his truck and blocked both lanes of Hwy. 54 just outside Luthersville. Olsen then got out of his truck and began firing around 20 shots from his AR-15 in the direction of the victim, Crowdis said.
Words fail me.
Call Him the Bag Man 0
Honest to Pete, you can’t make this stuff up.
“A Globalized Ideology of Hate” 0
Thom interviews New York Times reporter Wajahat Ali about the roots of the Christchurch massacre.
Read Ali’s New York Times article.