Category: News

  • Here We Go Again…

    Not that I claim I know more than everyone else, but I was not surprised that Trump gave in a stopped the government shut down just hours after Roger Stone was arrested. I pointed out that this is Trump’s behavior back on my January 10th post.

    The day started off with really, and I mean really, bad news for Trump; another person was arrested who took part in his campaign. There was no way the President could let the news cycle for this weekend be dominated with stories of the walls closing in on Trump, and what does Mueller have next up his sleeve? No, Trump had only one card to play today to stop the press from going nuts, and that was to end the shutdown. “Hey look, America! Another bright shiny object to obsess over for the next 24 hours, while you forget about all that really awful stuff!”

    And it will work. All the news about the Roger Stone arrest will just become background noise as the press and people start their stories about getting their checks back, and paying bills, and the wall fight that will be protracted for three weeks. And what does this mean for the State of the Union Address? Ahhh… Roger Stone who?

    Trump is a really awful president, (Only Trump could make James Buchanan look good) but he knows how to make the media do his bidding even when they don’t want to. It really is too bad, and we just can’t shake free from it.

  • That Possible Space Probe: Oumuamua

    This has been one of my favorite stories to read of late, and if you aren’t aware, please check the wiki page. Even The New Yorker did a story on it. I just find it fun that we can have a scientific debate on the physics of this object moving through our solar system, and from the data, it is possible that the object was created and sent by intelligent beings from another planet.

    That’s pretty cool.

    From what I can tell from the data, Oumuamua was in the Neptune distance from the Sun around 2014, and it will leave our system in the 2023 ballpark. So, if this thing was sent by an intelligent being, it sure isn’t in a hurry. I would think that if I could send a craft to, let’s say for the sake of argument, a neighboring star, that I would have a little speed to it, so I would be able to appreciate the discovery. But maybe it was built with the idea that the information would make it to the next generation. They have other things to do while they wait for the data. Maybe…

    Or, maybe they saw us, and don’t want to have any part it. Maybe, having studied how humans behave, the aliens realized it was better to slowly “ghost” out of the system, because humans quickly forget stuff that isn’t in their face.

    You know, like when you walk into a store, get greeted by an employee, but then you realize that you should leave, but you still go through the motions of looking at stuff, so the employee forgets about you and then you can leave.

    Again, if it’s intelligent life, they would know that about us.

  • Gen X: Still a Bunch of Losers

    And I feel completely justified in saying that because I am Gen X, and we are a bunch of losers.

    On SNL this weekend, they had a sketch called “Millennial Millions,” and the clip is below…

    This is a subject matter that I have hit on before, which is that Baby Boomers are ruining everything for everyone, making life way more difficult than they had it.

    Anyway, the part that made me really sit up and laugh was at the 3:15 make when Kenan Thompson as the host laughs at a contestant, then adds, “I’m Gen X. I just sit on the sidelines and watch the world burn.” And there we have it; Nothing better encapsulates my generation than that statement.

    The first person that I know who threw all this shade at us was my friend, and artist Erin Orr, also Gen X, who made this point about three years ago. Her logic to us was more along the lines that Gen X should be moving into the political forefront, as we should be established in careers, earning real money, have families, and the first wave of us just hit 50. In 15 years, retirement will begin to set in. With all of this happening in our generational lives, where are we? Why aren’t we demanding to be on the political scene to have our concerns heard? It’s like we can’t shake our loser persona, and the rest of the world has just moved on to the next group.

    That’s why I’m not real surprised that this story happened, and Gen X got left out again.

  • Morality in Economics

    I read David Brooks today, and call me crazy, I think that this conservative guy is slowly becoming liberal. I will thank Trump for that, but more importantly, I welcome David to the party.

    I took the point of his piece, which was that America business needs to get its morality back in check. Think about employees, customers, and the communities they exist in, and not just the bottom line, shareholders, and stock value.

    Is this the first crack in the Conservative love of all things that came out of Milton Friedman’s mouth?

    I have held, and said many times, that Friedman’s approach and the way he viewed capitalism was destructive to all of us. I always felt that Friedman’s failure was rooted in the idea that an individual or corporation would “pay by the rules” in their quest for capital, and no one would cheat. The truth of the matter is that if there is money to be made, someone, inevitably will cheat, and someone gets hurt.

    Also, Friedman thought that governments should get out of the way and let companies do what they do. He thought all companies would want deregulation, but what he missed was that companies want regulation on everyone else, just not them. That’s why there is a weird revolving door with CEOs and executives getting named as heads of regulation organizations. (FCC, FDA, ect…)

    In a philosophical sense, I believe that all economics are based in emotions and not in logic. Economies are not math, it is not a science; it is completely man made, and as such, will behave illogically often to meet its desired ends. To put a morality on top of capitalism is a neat idea, and to do that, you need some agreed upon regulations.

    Welcome to the party, David.

  • Cohen to Testify for Congress; Trump Will Try to Divert

    According to The New York Times, Michael Cohen will now testify publicly for about his work for Trump on February 7th for the House Oversight and Reform Committee. This could be huge. This could be Watergate or Iran/Contra huge. This could impact Trump’s ability to do his job, or open up more investigations, or start an honest and serious debate about impeachment.

    Or…

    And this is my predication…

    The day before, day of, or day after, Trump is going to do something really crazy to try and divert attention from Cohen.

    He has done it before…

    Remember how he tweeted about Obama wiretapped him to make everyone forget about the start of the Russia investigation?

    Remember how he tweeted about NFL player’s protests to make everyone forget about the failure to repeal Obamacare?

    The stock market started to fall, and then he tweeted that the military was leaving Syria. Anyone remember that one?

    This is what Trump does, and it will happen again. What I would hope to see is that the media won’t take the bait. That whatever created controversy that Trump comes up with won’t get plastered all across the airwaves.

    I keep thinking that news editors and produces will see this pattern of sham, and then choose not to go down the rabbit hole of Trump nonsense.

    I keep thinking people are smarter than this…