Random Notes from a Crank

A while back one of the words of the day was "kakistocracy," which means "government by the worst people."

With Adolf's number of executive orders and with the GOP having majorities in the House and Senate, that is the country the U.S. is living in, unfortunately, 

It's all very depressing. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert helped get me through his first administration, but I haven't girded up my emotional loins to watch the program since Adolf took office. 

But what can we expect with 54% of Americans reading below a sixth-grade level?

One of the better editorials I've read is from Bernie Sanders in The Guardian: "What Trump Didn't Say in His Inauguration Speech." 

Here are the last two ¶s of the opinion piece, but I recommend reading it all. 

Bottom line: as we enter the new Trump presidency, we have got to remain focused. We can’t panic. No matter how many executive orders he signs and statements he issues, our goal remains the same. We have got to educate. We have got to organize. We have got to bring people together around an agenda that works for all, not just the few.

Now more than ever, we have to fight to create an America based on economic, social and environmental justice. Let’s get to work.

He's right. 

But what's happening is damn depressing. 

Nothing like "backing the blue" when you release the Jan. 5 insurrectionists.

And repealing civil rights protections. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The Washington Post has an exclusive report about police officers sexually abuse kids and get away with it. Please read this gifted article titled "Abused by the Badge." 

No one should be above the law. 

In other news, the ignoramuses who are members of the Southern Baptist Convention oppose in vitro fertilization, and a majority of the voters think women shouldn't be preachers. Check it out in "Southern Baptist Convention Votes to Oppose In Vitro Fertilization." 

You can't reason with stupid.

Music Friday: "Black Man in a White World"

Thankfully justice was meted out in the Ahmaud Arbery case. 

We still have to do so much better, however, regardless of how the psychopaths on FoxNews stir up racist white people and scare people about "critical race theory" or how schools are indoctrinating kids about this or that. 

Fuck FoxNews. 

Fuck Tucker Carlson. 

Fuck racists.

Fuck 2nd amendment idiots. 

Musing of the Moment: The Dangers of Left-Handedness

Mrs. Nasty got me an electric powered chainsaw for my birthday. I'm finally going to get around to using it this weekend because the weather has gotten more hospitable. 

It looks like a good chainsaw from what I can tell. It has a self-sharpening device on it, which is nice. But I have a concern. It's designed for a right-handed person. 

So I did some searching on this matter, and the InterWebs spit out this figure and statement: "More than 2,500 left-handed people are killed each due to using right-handed products. Right-handed power saws are the most deadly." 

Where did this figure come from though? 

It appears there is not such a thing as a left-handed chainsaw. 

In light of all this, I give you "The 20 Worst Products for Left-Handed People." 

I will also drop this here: "15 Less Known Facts about Left-Handed People." Apparently, we are only 10% of the population, have more people with high IQs, are more likely to be schizophrenics, are not "more creative" as the common notion espouses, tend to have worse tempers, and are more likely to be queer.

Random Notes from a Crank

Here's some factoids from the September "Harper's Index":

• Minimum number of police killings since 2010 in which restrained victims told officers they couldn't breathe: 32
• Number of those incidents that resulted in criminal charges against the officers: 5
• Number of those cases in which charges were not eventually dropped: 2
• Average number of times per day that Donald Trump tweeted in 2017: 7
• In 2020: 32
• Percentage of Americans who want Trump to tweet more frequently: 3

And here's some tidbits from Harper's "Findings" from that same issue:

• "The depression-prone are less attracted to the political right."
• "The presence of a professional sports team increases a city's seasonal flu deaths."
• "Recent toilet-paper hoarding was more prevalent among Americans than Europeans and more prevalent among the old than the young."

The Premier League had a trio of upsets on Sunday. One was mild. The other two were surprising. My Spurs whipped Manchester United 6 to 1 at Son and Kane both had a couple of goals, and the Frenchmen Aurier and Ndombele had a goal each. West Ham beat Leicester City early on Sunday, and Aston Villa demolished Liverpool 7 to 2 later in the day.

I know it's early in the season, but Everton sits atop the table, and Aston Villa is second. 

Random Notes from a Crank

It is a sad coincidence that Moscow Don signed an executive order to revive the Dakota Access pipeline when today I finished reading An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. This passage from Chapter 11: The Doctrine of Discovery is relevant: "The collusion of business and government in the theft and exploitation of Indigenous lands and resources is the core element of colonization and forms the basis of US wealth and power." 

Here are a couple other passages that are noteworthy:

• "Any true history of the United States must focus on what has happened to (and with) Indigenous peoples--and what will happen."
• "The late Native historian Jack Forbes always stressed that while living persons are not responsible for what their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in, which is a product of the past." 

Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States should be required reading for anyone who gives a damn about US history. 

I've never liked Peyton Manning, and now it seems have a reason to not like Tom Brady. 

Here's an infographic I discovered on the interwebs that is worthwhile.

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm tired of hearing all this crap about bathroom bills related to transgender people. Backers of the bill tout that they are to protect people, especially kids, from being sexually harassed. Where is there any proof that transgender people mess with kids? Not long ago regular gay people were associated with child molestation, so these political moves aren't much different than that anti-gay nonsense. 

To keep it real here, check out "All the Things You Can No Longer Buy If You're Really Boycotting Trans-Friendly Businesses." A portion of the second ¶ of the article is noteworthy: "The American Family Association (AFA), a fundamentalist Christian nonprofit that is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)." 

If you really want to protect children, young boys in particular, from sexual abuse, legislators might want to pass some kind of bill about priests. 

Hell, the New York Times has a whole section of its website devoted to "Roman Catholic Church Sex Abuse Cases." When a topic has its own section on the New York Times, it's likely to be a significant problem. 

For a while now I've been entering The New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest. Recently the guy in charge of comics started partially crowd-sourcing those who submitted captions to rate others' submissions, a peer review of sorts. The other day I rated a bunch of submissions, and it was interesting to see how people's comic minds work in similar ways. It's hard to be original. 

Chris Cillizza thinks Mark Cuban will run for president sometime in the future. He may be right.