Innocent Bystanders

Clinton Email Thread October 28, 2016

I’m curious to hear your reactions to the news this morning. Let me offer up a few options:

1. Hooray, this will finally end Hillary’s shot at the Presidency!

2. Hooray, she’ll finally be properly investigated and then thrown in jail!

3. Whatever. It won’t cost her a single vote, because her voters know she’s crooked and don’t care.

4. Whatever. She’s too rich and powerful to even get indicted, let alone convicted, let alone see a day in jail.

5. Comey finally saw the light and decided to do the right thing.

6. Comey was forced to do it because of the hit to his reputation.

7. Comey was forced to do it under that of mutiny by FBI agents.

8. Comey did it because Obama told him to (a lot of options for this one, like “Obama knows that such-and-such is about to come out and wants to distance himself from Hilary”).

9. Comey did it because Hillary double crossed him somehow.

10. Comey did it when he realized Andrew McCabe got half a million out of Hillary’s minions, and Comey himself only got $250k.

11. Comey did it because he’s a Republican hack who wants to throw the election to Trump.

12. Comey did it because he realized Trump will win, and wants to make nice with his future boss .

13. We should all start (or continue) drinking heavily.

14. I like turtles.

Um, Wow October 27, 2016

The Oregon standoff guys were acquitted.

That’s pretty crazy, because a) they did it, and b) everyone saw them do it, because c) it was broadcast all over the country. So my take on the whole thing is that the jury basically wanted to say “Screw you” to the federal government. I don’t see any other angle.

In part, that’s because other proposed angles make no sense to me. “White guys can do what they want with impunity!” Well no, and that argument is especially weak when you compare the number of Occupy Wall Street types who were prosecuted for, um, occupying Wall Street: zero.

The other complaint I’ve seen is that the white guys got off while the Indians in North Dakota are getting prosecuted. But some of those ND protestors are white, so the racism angle doesn’t work, and they’re also on private land, so that comparison doesn’t work.

Another important difference is that this verdict is a decision by citizens. The decisions not to prosecute the Occu-poopers and to arrest the ND protestors were by government officials .

So as I said, I think this is more about anger at the feds than anything. The government has destroyed the confidence of its citizens. We’ll see how that works out.

High and Dry October 21, 2016

Bonus points if you can name the group that did the original recording.

Poof! Goes the Promise October 7, 2016

Jobs report is out. Nothing much to see here: the crawl toward recovery continues.

But to raise your interest level, there’s always the fact that the 4-year wait is finally over. President Obama’s promise to add 1 million manufacturing jobs within 4 years has officially been broken:

Seeing manufacturing jobs struggle like this is saddening – the only amusement value comes from seeing the president’s hubris and his followers’ faith given an overdue exposure to reality.

Get Those Scumbags October 7, 2016

I get scam calls from IRS impersonators all the time, to the point where I’m about to give up my landline. So. Flipping. Annoying. And infuriating, when you think about the elderly or uniformed who might fall for it.

Nice to see something being done about it, no matter how small an impact it may have:

Police in India have arrested 70 people on suspicion of posing as IRS agents to steal cash from U.S. citizens.

Authorities in the western Indian city of Thane said they were investigating another 630 people suspected of being involved in the extortion scam.

Workers at nine call centers allegedly impersonated IRS agents during calls to the U.S., according to local police commissioner Param Bir Singh. The victims were told they owed back taxes and would risk arrest if they hung up.

Singh told CNN the call center workers had been trained to speak with an American accent.

The call centers were making $150,000 a day for up to a year before being discovered.

Of course we’ve got this problem at home as well:

Treasury Department investigators have filed criminal complaints against five individuals in three states, accusing them of fleecing nearly $2 million from more than 1,500 victims as part of a scheme to impersonate IRS agents.

According to criminal complaints filed in Minnesota, Arkansas and Texas, the five individuals pretended to be IRS agents, threatening jail time if their victims didn’t pay up.

Round them all up, and then tell the IRS about the undeclared income they received.

They will never sleep again.

Jobs Report Tomorrow October 6, 2016

It will be the official demise of the president’s promise to add 1 million manufacturing jobs within 4 years.*

*Unless he created 650,000 manufacturing jobs last month.**

**Which, of course, he didn’t. We probably lost manufacturing jobs last month.

Blade Runner Sequel Just One Year Away October 6, 2016

Didn’t know they were doing this:

Director Ridley Scott’s iconic 1982 dystopian-future film “Blade Runner” has reigned as a sci-fi classic for nearly 35 years. News of a sequel from Alcon Entertainment heated up in early 2015 as actor Harrison Ford signed on to reprise his role as Rick Deckard, the maybe-or-maybe-not replicant. The new movie now has an official title: “Blade Runner 2049,”…

“Blade Runner 2049” and Facebook accounts both posted a sort-of teaser photo to go along with the announcement of a theatrical release date of October 6, 2017.

Pleeeaaase let it not suck.

I’ll Admit It October 4, 2016

Yes, I was up at 3 am waiting for the big data dump from Julian Assange, the one that was supposed to crucify Ms. Clinton. And there I was at 3:15 am, finally realizing that there was no there there.

I was had.*

*Or “Wikirolled,” as they’re calling it on Twitter.**

**Would have rather been rickrolled***

***’Cuz then you at least can be fascinated by the incongruity between his face and his voice.****

****Which is mind-boggling, really.*****

*****As is the fact that Assange promised “devastating” info and instead gave us a low-budget coffee klatch followed by a pitch for his book.

When Baby Pandas Turn to Drink October 2, 2016

It gets ugly fast:

Nature’s Most Murderous Mammal October 1, 2016

Never turn your back on a meerkat.

Monkeys kill their own kind, as do lions, a few bat species and long-tailed chinchillas. But the bloodiest, most homicidal of more than 1,000 species surveyed is the meerkat.

It turned out that, at about 1 in 5 meerkat deaths due to intraspecies slaying, the little African carnivores stood at the head of the violent class.

A wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Kind of casts some doubt on the premise that humankinds’ violent tendencies can be resolved by empathetic nurture. In your face George Lakoff!