Random Notes from a Crank

The anti-vaccine stupidity will be infectious. Literally.  

And it's appropriate that Florida is leading in stupidity by ending vaccine mandates: "Florida Says It Plans to End All Vaccine Mandates." 

This political cartoon by Clay Jones sums up what's happening at the CDC. 

I'm with Lucy. 

I bought some plums from my local Aldi. 

I know Dr. Pepper does not contain plum juice, but its plum-like flavor has made it the second most popular pop in the U.S. 

It's surprising that plums aren't that popular. They're tasty,

As a bourbon drinker, I'm intrigued by the offerings by Holladay. I remember when I used to live near that area in Missouri, and I traveled to Weston back when it was the McCormick distillery.  

But I have a hard time buying a bourbon over forty bucks. It's just booze, man. 

My hope is that there are fewer bourbon enthusiasts in the future and supply leaps ahead of demand. 

Random Notes from a Crank

 

I saw this image from the Radical Centrist on FB. I thought I'd share. 

If you were to make a Venn diagram of these assertions, that Venn diagram don't hunt. 

I don't understand why Tottenham Hotspur appears not to be showing any interest in the Canadian striker Jonathan David. 

He's a free agent. He's two-footed. He's productive. He's in his mid-20s. And there's no transfer free. I think he's a fabulous player. 

In a recent YouGov daily survey, 50% of people polled said "Yes" to this question:"Would you ever vote for a third party or an independent candidate?" I said Yes to that question. I'd vote for one for sure if the candidate was viable. 

The third question was "Do you think a third major political party is necessary for the United States, or are the Democratic and Republican parties enough?" 55% answered "A third party is necessary in the U.S." Only 20% agreed with "The Democratic and Republican parties are enough to represent Americans." 25% were "Not sure." 

Mother Jones has a solid short article that describes the importance of preserving and probably expanding wetlands: "The Economic Case for Preserving America's Wetlands." 

As the author relates, wetlands work like sponges, so they can prevent the massive flooding events that are only going to be more frequent because of climate change. Unfortunately, under the the administration of President Adolf, I doubt many projects like the one in Raleigh are going to get going.  

A frightening article in that same issue of Mother Jones is one about Clearview AI, a facial-recognition tech company whose founders have ties to right-wing extremists, Holocaust deniers, and Neo-Nazis. 

Check out "The Shocking Far-Right Agenda behind the Facial Recognition Tech Used by ICE and the FBI."

Here are some interesting statistics from the June "Harper's Index":

• Percentage by which tourism to the United States is projected to decrease this year: 9
• Percentage increase this year in seizures of eggs being smuggled into the United States: 48
• Percentage increase last year in the number of U.S. households that owned chickens: 28
• Factor by which the word "notable" appears more frequently in AI-generated sentences than in those written by humans: 13
• By which the word "esteemed" does: 120

I'm surprised the decrease in tourism is only projected to be 9%. I thought it would be in the high teens.

I'll be on the lookout for "notable" and "esteemed." 

Musing of the Moment: Ineptitude at Tottenham

It's June 3rd, and over ten days after Tottenham won the Europa League, fans like me are not sure if Ange is still the manager, and there appears to be a shakeup with the board. 

It's ridiculous. 

After winning the Europa League and then finishing the season with an unfortunate loss, the chairman of the ENIC board Daniel Levy went on vacation. 

He went on vacation during a time when other clubs are taking advantage of this new mini-transfer window. 

Other clubs are signing players while there's silence in N17. 

Ineptitude. 

Ange In. 

Levy out.

Why did I have to choose a Premier League club that is so poorly run? 

Random Notes from a Crank

In the wake of all kinds of deregulation from the Adolf administration, the U.S. is set be a hell of a lot less safe and more polluted: "Inside Trump's Plan to Halt Hundreds of Regulations." 

I saw a clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart talking to Rahm Emanuel about who will become the next leader of the Democratic Party, who will become the next presidential candidate. 

Emanuel seemed to think that the next leader will be a governor, which got me contemplating which governors would be good choices: 

• Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan)
• Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania)
• J.B. Pritzker (Illinois)
• Andy Beshear (Kentucky)
• Tim Walz (Minnesota)

I'd be fine with any of those people. Beshear is the only person from a traditionally red state.

The notion that other countries "stole" American jobs is asinine. The ultra wealthy and greedy corporations moved those jobs to other countries because they didn't want to pay U.S. workers what they deserved and didn't want to follow sensible environmental regulations. Instead, they wanted to employ sweatshop cheap workers in foreign countries. 

Moscow Don and his cronies are defying court orders. We are in a constitutional crisis. 

President Adolf has bankrupt this country morally and ethically. And don't forget money. The guy who somehow got a casino to go bankrupt is fleecing Americans because of his stupid tariffs and his dumb economic policies like tax cuts for the wealthy. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I found an image on a social media site. 

It says, "A straw man walking a red herring up a slippery slope on his way to the comment section." 

It's true. Reading the comments on a newspaper's site will make you understand how stupid the average person is, which reminds me about what George Carlin said.  

In areas that are likely to be hit hard by tariffs, the Canadian government has an ad campaign that is trying to educate dumb Americans. The New York Times has an interesting article about this move: "Canada Drops the Gloves in the Tariff Spat, Makes Its Case on U.S. Billboards." 

I hope the Democratic Party does something similar. 

Regardless, the last paragraph of that article is hilarious: "'Normally, Canadian fans come down on buses,' she said. 'I hope they know we like to have them. They sure are nicer than Philadelphia fans.'" 

Oh lady, travel and tourism to the U.S. is definitely taking a hit.

I saw that Soundgarden has been nominated three times for the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame and has not gotten in. That's a travesty. 

Vote for Soundgarden.

When we visited the Hall of Fame years ago, I think that was the year after Pearl Jam got in. And I remember this video playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in which Prince just totally shreds. It's a great solo. 

Prince was a genius and an underrated guitar player. 

And then there's this. He brings the funk even better than the original. 

When we lived in St. Louis, Mrs. Nasty went to one of his concerts. I should have gone too. 

I need to reacquire Sign O' The Times. That's a great album. 

Happy National Beer Day. 

Random Notes from a Crank

On a mainly weekday basis, I've been posting definitions from the Dictionary of American Slang, which was published in 1967, in alpha order on my FB feed. 

Today I was on the letter M in the alphabet, so I posted this definition from the dictionary:

"meatball meat ball n. 1. A dull, boring person; an obnoxious person; anyone regarded with disfavor, esp. one of flat or uninteresting character; a creep, a drip, a square, a wet blanket. 2. A tactical signal flag bearing a black dot on a yellow field; also, the Japanese national flag. #. A swelling of or on the face, cause by a blow in fighting. 4. In baseball, any pitched ball that can be hit readily by a given batter. v.t. 1. To strike someone with a fist. --ism n. 1. Anti-intellectualism; the state of willing ignorance or mediocrity. 2. A state of, or instance demonstrating, decreasing standards of integrity, ethics, intelligence, and individualism in culture, politics, education, and the like; democratic rule by an uneducated, non-thinking majority."

I'm particularly fond of the term "meatballism" because I think it properly describes the U.S. for quite some time. It's an anti-intellectual country, and it's been like that for centuries. 

The amount of willful ignorance is astounding, and the if you follow politics for any amount of time, the "decreasing standards" will make you depressed. 

I think the U.S. is currently engaged in "democratic rule by an uneducated, non-thinking majority." 

I guess there are glimmers of hope though with the Labour Party coming back into majority power in the U.K.: "How Ken Starmer Overwhelmed Britain's Conservatives."

And over in France, Macron's gamble to call an election turned out better than expected since left-leaning folks flocked to the polls and put down the right-wing idiots trying to take power: "France Electioin Results: Far Right's Rise Suffers Unexpected Blow as Left Surges." 

But what does this mean for November? 

At least if you're going by a flash poll by YouGov that I took today Trump hopefully is in trouble. At the time I'm writing this post, 36% of people polled think Moscow Don is mentally fit to be President, 5% think he was mentally fit to be president in 2020 but is no longer mentally fit to be president, and 54% believe he was not mentally fit to be president in 2020 and is not mentally fit today. 

At least on that last answer, Biden only clocks in at 31%. 

In better news, the people polled were asked about their opinion of the GOP's "Project 2025," and 53% have a very unfavorable opinion of it. 

The biggest challenge before Biden is that he has to hit the swing states hard since we still live under a system that relies on the idiocy that is the Electoral College.

Music Friday: "Mr. Brownstone"

My son played a varsity baseball game at a school this morning, and the announcer/DJ played this song in between one inning. 

It's a song about heroin. 

Mr. announcer, you need to do better. 

Musing of the Moment: The Danger and Stupidity of Bottled Water

The Washington Post has a great article out today about the danger of not just microplastics but also nanoplastics in bottled water: "Here's What You're Really Swallowing When Your Drink Bottled Water."  

Bottled water is one of the biggest scams out there because a lot of bottled water simply comes from municipal sources. 

And then there's an old Penn and Teller bit on bottled water that you can watch below.

So people are buying water they can get from their faucet or filtered from a refrigerator. 

They are voluntarily ingesting microplastics and nanoplastics, which I would assume it bad for one's body. They are paying an exorbitant fee for the water they could get from their municipality. And because so few people actually recycle the bottles, the world is awash in plastic polluting the very water they want to drink. 

The stupidity of humans.

Random Notes from a Crank

The past month or so I've been watching Game Show Network on a fairly regular basis. It's astounding to me how stupid the average person is. 

Watching these shows in which people give dumb answers reminds me of the statement by George Carlin: "Think of how stupid an average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that."  

Since I've been a kid, I've had the uncanny ability to stub my little toe on either of my feet about once a week if I'm lucky. The nails on my little toes are bashed to ugliness. 

I've discovered the HBO show/podcast Talking Sopranos that I'm enjoying a lot. I'm revisiting that great series. 

A while back I rewatched all of Boardwalk Empire. I had forgotten what a great TV series that one is. 

I bought a book recently that is likely to be banned by some idiotic parents in school districts because the non-fiction book talks about racism, sexism, and antisemitism, among other issues. It's titled Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater. 

I don't normally read books that are typically labeled "young adult," but this book looked interesting.

Musing of the Moment: A Rant & a Plea for Sanity for the Strike Zone and for Me

I will preface this musing (or rant) with the fact that I have umpired and probably will continue to umpire. I have simply umpired for our local rec league baseball either behind the plate or as a base umpire. 

Umpires have a difficult job. Lots of fans bitch and moan about calls. Coaches are sometimes dicks to them. Players have terrible body language after they don't get the calls they want. I've seen some terrible fan behavior to umpires. 

Some fans are just deplorable. 

For the past four years, I've been on the coaching staff of travel baseball team. And I don't understand what the hell has happened to the strike zone. 

The official definition of the strike zone from Major League Baseball is as follows: "...the area over home plate from the midpoint between the batter's shoulders and the top of the uniform pants ... and a point just below the kneecap." 

You can see for yourself by hitting the hyperlink above. 

So why in the hell are home plate umpires not calling strikes at the belt or above the belt to batters who are nine, eleven, fourteen, and sixteen years old? 

What are we trying to accomplish by not calling high strikes? 

I've seen strike zones called that are basically from the players crotch to his knees--balls to kneecaps. I'm in the dugout and can see quite plainly the vertical range of the strike zone. 

If a home plate ump calls high strikes, the game moves more briskly and the batters are more likely to put the ball in play. In addition, those strikes at the belt and above the belt are great pitches to hit. More balls in play equals more action and entertainment. 

There were umps out there this season calling a smaller vertical strike zone in 15u travel games than when you watch MLB baseball games. 

The common counterargument is, "Well, as long as the strike zone is consistent for both teams, that's fine." 

I disagree. A strike zone that small is shitty, dumb, and annoying. 

Having a consistently shitty strike zone is no way to play baseball. Go by the strike zone laid out by Major League Baseball. 

For me, I'm calling the zone from the midpoint to the bottom of the knees with a ball inside the plate and one or two balls outside the plate. And if a batter has two strikes on him and there's a borderline pitch thrown, the only walking he's doing is back to the dugout. 

I hope more home plate umps do the same. 

Musing of the Moment: Stop the Idiotic Parental Overreach

Leonard Pitts Jr., the renowned columnist for The Miami Herald, has a great opinion piece that everyone who cares about K-12 education should read: "Let's Respect Teachers as the Trained Professionals That They Are, Shall We?" 

As he states, "So here’s my modest proposal: How about we respect educators as the trained professionals they are? How about we trust their judgment? How about we stop requiring them to reach consensus with those who have not the first clue? If a parent feels their child can’t handle some challenging material, fine: empower that parent to opt the child out of the lesson — not to deny the lesson to everyone else."

I am so tired for ignoramus parents and dumb-ass school boards trying to dictate what is and what is not being taught in schools because of their snowflake sensibilities or idiocies. 

The extreme example of parental and politically motivated overreach is the idiotic proposal in Iowa that proposes to put video cameras in every public classroom. 

Big Brother wants to watch. 

If you think there's a teacher shortage now, if more of this nonsense about banning books and doing surveillance on teachers continues, the problem is only going to get worse. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The article about omicron and its spread in Denmark in the The Washington Post is a good one to read since the Danes are the best folks in the world to test and track the virus: "What Does the Omicron Variant Mean for a Highly Vaccinated Country? Denmark Has a Dire Answer." 

I checked the other day, and in my county in east central Illinois, only 43% are fully vaccinated. 77% of those 65 years and older are fully vaccinated, and 50% of those 18-64 are fully vaccinated. Those percentages are terrible. 

If you're interested in your own county or state, check out the Post's "Tracking the Covid Vaccine" link. 

I recently got a smoker, and I've spent the past two weekends smoking various meat. Last weekend it was a pork loin and then salmon fillets. This weekend it is spare ribs and then a whole duck.

I picked up a case of Sierra Nevada IPAs at Costco on our last visit. That is some great ale. It could be argued that Sierra Nevada is the brand that helped start the craft beer movement in the US.

Random Notes from a Crank

News outlets are regularly running stories about Covid-19 deniers who die. One of the more recent ones is about a preacher who believed God can cure anything. He died of Covid-19 after discounting the pandemic and going to Mardi Gras: "A Virginia Preacher Believed 'God Can Heal Anything.' Then He Caught the Coronavirus." 

Thoughts and prayers I guess. 

The draft came and went, and as usual, Matt Miller of the Bleacher Report has "2021 NFL Mock Draft: Matt Miller's Way-Too-Early Predictions." There are a lot of players from Alabama and LSU on that list. 

I just heard on The Dan LeBatard Show with Stugotz that men who are able to grow beards early on are more likely to suffer hair loss. God damn it. 

Random Notes from a Crank

When I was driving around our town the other day, I noticed a sign advertising "seasoned firewood." I had never heard of seasoned firewood before. But apparently seasoning is a deal.

Of course, the smart ass in me began to think about what spices and herbs would pair well with wood. Taco seasoning? Sage? Cumin? Maybe a pinch of cayenne pepper? There are so many possibilities, folks, so many possibilities. 

I'm taking over a travel baseball team here in these parts. We held tryouts on a cold, cold weekend. I'm still waiting for my feet to warm up. We're only up to nine kids on the team, so we'll need to add 1-2 kids via a spring tryout.

The team's name was one I didn't like, so I came up with all kinds of possible names as you can probably imagine if you've ever read any of my "Band Names Gratis" posts. 

Here are a number of names I came up with:

• Blue Jays
• Slam
• Slammers
• Hammers
• Chargers
• Athletics
• Travelers
• Wolves
• Wolf Pack
• Thunder
• Defenders
• Raiders
• Ghosts
• Crimson
• Tide
• Bucks
• Warriors
• Demons
• Diamond Demons

I finally whittled them down to three possibilities, and the kids will vote on the team's name on Friday. If you're interested, reply in the comments about your top three choices. 

In a big win, a Democrat won the US Senate seat in Arizona. Read the Post's "What Democrats' Big Win in Arizona Means" to, as it says, understand what it might mean. 

As could be expected, Moscow Don had a tweetstorm about the California wildfires to show that he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about: "Trump's Overly Simplistic and False Claim on California's Wildfires." 

It's hard to expect anything better from that moron. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Traveling around this weekend, I saw a few cars with the "Blue Lives Matter" flag on their vehicles. As much as I support good, smart policing (the kind that doesn't kill innocent people), people who use these flags are being associated with white supremacists. As related in a recent issue of Harper's, white nationalists and supremacists are beginning to the use the black and white flag with the blue line down the middle as a replacement for the Nazi flag and the Confederate flag. 

What's so hard about using the Stars and Stripes to show one's jingoistic flamboyance? 

In not so surprising news, Papa Johns founder used a racist slur in a conference call. 

This Saturday the Nasty family took in a Single A baseball game: The Lake County Captains versus the Cedar Rapids Kernals. We had great seats behind home plate, but two idiots behind us spoiled the game a bit. They constantly shouted at the opposing team, making asinine comments that I'm sure opposing players couldn't hear. 

Tomato paste is one of those pantry staples I should have on hand at all times, but I rarely have it on hand for whatever reason. 

The same goes for sour cream. 

If your detective senses are tingling, you might sense that I'm making beef stroganoff in a slow cooker. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Here's an "alternative fact": the Alabama Crimson Tide won the 2017 National Championship. 

I wonder when Moscow Don is going to establish a Ministry of Truth. I highly doubt he'll create Ministries of Peace, Love, and Plenty, however. 

As we're going to see time and time again, propaganda and shoddy studies are going to be the evidence this administration uses when dealing with the energy sector and environmental concerns. The study used recently was commissioned by the fossil fuel industry and not peer reviewed. Check out "Tossing Environmental Rules Won't Raise Wages, No Matter What the White House Says." 

Here's a petition worth signing. Yes, I want to see Moscow Don's tax returns: "Immediately Release Donald Trump's Full Tax Returns." 

If you're a reader of this blog, you probably know how I hate when people talk all kinds of nonsense about how the framers of the Constitution were Christian and how the U.S. is a "Christian nation" and all that bullshit despite the fact that many of the founding fathers were Freemasons who then strongly supported the separation of church and state. Another defense against the Christian nation stuff is the last part of the last ¶ of Article VI of the Constitution where it states, "but no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or Affirmation or public Trust under the United States." If the framers wanted the US to be Christian, why didn't they create a religious test to ensure the government is filled with Christians? In contrast, they clearly state that NO religious test should be used. 

I've been attracted to being a Mason, but I'd have to believe that there is a supreme being apparently, and I'm not willing to go there. I'm agnostic. Or another way to look at it is that I could be described as an atheist with hope or an atheist hedging his bets. 

For a good while I've been okay with what has been called "ceremonial deism," but this article in Psychology Today is making me rethink that comfort: "The Dangerous Fallacy of Ceremonial Deism." 

Random Notes from a Crank

I detest people who tell me that I "should believe in God" and people who want to insert all kinds of religious-based nonsense into politics and government. Now we have people wanting to put "In God We Trust" on cop cars and governmental buildings. As a curative to this crap, read "The Danger of Claiming That Rights Come from God" from Psychology Today. 

This happening is a bit of a surprise, but The Atlantic has endorsed Hillary Clinton for the presidency. That current affairs/cultural magazine has only endorsed a presidential candidate twice before with Lincoln and Johnson. Check it out: "Against Donald Trump." 

Here a some juicy quotations from the article: 

• We are impressed by many of the qualities of the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, even as we are exasperated by others, but we are mainly concerned with the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.
• Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no record of public service and no qualifications for public office. His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.
• We believe in American democracy, in which individuals from various parties of different ideological stripes can advance their ideas and compete for the affection of voters. But Trump is not a man of ideas. He is a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office, and voters—the statesmen and thinkers of the ballot box—should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent.

In light of Friday's bombshell from the Washington Post about Donald Trump, the Tic Tac company made some comments: "Tic Tac Denounces Donald Trump." 

Random Notes from a Crank

As someone who works at a university, I'm often astounded and frustrated how some people with PhDs and impressive credentials can be really @#$%ing stupid.

I would like to watch a sporting event on television without having to listen to commercials about boner medicine. Please stop the incessant marketing of pecker pills. 

I need to start a campaign. 

Because I've become a fan of the TV series Manhattan, which is about the making of the atomic bomb, I recently purchased and have started reading the 25th anniversary edition of The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. When I got it in the mail I was a bit surprised. I didn't realize it was 747 pages long. I'll be reading about this history for a good while. 

Another TV series I've been watching is Jessica Jones on Netflix. I was not familiar with that character until I started doing some online sleuthing. I remember her being teamed up with Luke Cage toward the end of Matt Fraction's Iron Fist series, but she's quite the character. I've had experience with the villain of the series, Killgrave, in a Daredevil comic recently. So it seems like the TV series is piecing together parts of old story lines to create a clean narrative. Though a major discrepancy is that Killgrave, aka The Purple Man, looks normal in the Jessica Jones series. 

Regardless, I've enjoyed the series so far (I'm about six or seven episodes in). In fact, I think I like it better than the Daredevil Netflix series because I have little prior knowledge about Jessica Jones. With Daredevil, I've been reading those comic books since I was a kid. 

Like Wolverine was, Jessica Jones is a drinker, in particular bourbon. As a bourbon aficionado, I've noticed the brands of bourbon she drinks. So far it's been Jim Beam White, Wild Turkey 101, Four Rose Yellow Label, and Heaven Hill Bottled-in-Bond, which she wouldn't be able to get in New York City because it's only sold in Kentucky and Indiana. 

Random Notes from a Crank

With all the talk about the Indiana law about "religious freedom" dying down because the 24-7 news media outlets are focused on something new, I've been thinking about how there should be such a thing as freedom from religion. Stop shoving your Jesuses and other saviors down my throat, people. 

I've never been a big fan of the Clintons, but "8 Nightmare Scenarios That Would Come to Pass If GOP Presidential Speech Became Reality" scares the hell out of me. 

Interestingly, Grist provides its own eight-item article: "8 Things You Need to Know about Hillary Clinton and Climate Change." 

I'm not a fan of Angry Birds, but I might be now. 

Speaking of video games, I'm hopelessly addicted to Star Wars Commander. I haven't felt this way since Dig Dug.

Random Notes from a Crank

We got home late Saturday night from Florida. When I went to pick up the dog from the kennel on Sunday morning, I received the happy surprise that all of the sweet gum balls on my front yard were gone. Before we left for spring break, I mentioned to my neighbor that when I get home, I will be taking care of the scads of sweet gum balls covering my front yard. While we were away, he cleansed by lawn of them. I guess shoveling their driveway all winter has some pay-it-forward dividends. 

Jason Isbell will have a new album out this year. This interview on radio.com provides some insight about the forthcoming album and his songwriting methods. 

I'm about to finish reading Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World by Naomi S. Baron. If you're an educator or you're just plain interested in literacy, you need to check it out. 

In my previous Random Notes post, I linked an article about the upcoming presidential race. In a whole different direction, Alternet offers "The Six Most Evil Presidents in U.S. History." George W. Bush shouldn't be in the runner-up category. To me, he's gotta be somewhere in the top six. 

And here's "Seven Demented Right-Wing Moments..." on FoxNews. 

On a cheerier note, the U.K. created an enormous marine sanctuary in the Pacific.