I just finished a flurry of contract signing — my mother’s house is thiiiis close to being sold. We have a final hurdle of getting the lender’s approval, but my agent says there’s only like a 10% chance that they might have an objection. I’ll be surprised if all the dotted lines are signed by the new year, but otherwise, everything is imminent.

Also, this is Seattle.

Someone hacked the traffic signs. Keep it up, you weird radicals!

The CEO killer may have been caught. The alleged murderer is named Luigi Mangione, and he’s not quite what I expected.

He is from a prominent Baltimore family, and attended a private, all-boys high school in Baltimore, called the Gilman School, according to school officials.

Mr Mangione was named as the valedictorian, which is usually the student with the highest academic achievements in a class.
…
A former classmate, Freddie Leatherbury, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Mangione came from a wealthy family, even by that private school’s standards. “Quite honestly, he had everything going for him,” Mr Leatherbury said.
…
Mr Mangione went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science, according to the school, and founded a video game development club.

He comes from a wealthy family in the Baltimore area that owns country clubs and other businesses, although it sounds like he’s fallen away from that family in recent months. He’s well-off, a privileged member of the upper middle class, but he was apparently radicalized by a severe spinal injury that has sporadically left him in agony. He was rightly enraged by the criminal health policies of the United States by his personal experience.

Insurance company CEOs ought to be trembling in fear. It’s not just the poor who are stirring, it’s everyone recognizing that living in thrall to for-profit insurance companies is a bad situation. Here I am, a tenured college professor with a stable income, and I’m hesitating to retire (especially after the last election), because I’d have to depend on the predatory sharks of some random, greedy insurance company if my health failed…it’s safer to remain in the bosom of the one particular greedy insurance company that my university chose for me.

We’re all going to have to read more Marx and Engels, I think.

Dismantle the system. Shut down private insurance companies, create a single pool controlled by the government that pays out to each according to the needs of the citizens. Don’t allow managers of those funds to draw salaries of $10 million — no one needs that kind of income, especially not if we prevent people from wobbling on the edge of bankruptcy if they get sick.

Sometimes, life comes at you fast. One moment you’re moaning over the fact that wanna-be tyrant got elected in the USA, the next you’re watching a wanna-be tyrant getting slapped down in South Korea, and the next you’re watching a full-blown tyrant, Bashar al-Assad, running for a helicopter to flee Syria before the mob gets him. Putin is very disappointed. Chaos reigns! The citizens are looting the palace!

Forgive me, I’m self-centered and too America-centric, but that got me wondering what we could get by descending on Mar-A-Lago with axes and crowbars.

Now we wait and hope that this is a resurgence of democracy and that a peaceful Syria emerges from the wreckage.

He’s better than the Bible.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” shouted Moist. “You can’t just go around killing people!”
“Why Not? You do.” The golem lowered his arm.
“What?” snapped Moist. “I do not! Who told you that?”
“I worked it out. You have killed 2.338 people,” said the golem calmly.
“I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!”
“No, you have not. But you have stolen, embezzled, defrauded and swindled without discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You have ruined businesses and destroyed jobs. When banks fail, it is seldom bankers who starve. Your actions have taken money from those who had little enough to begin with. In myriad small ways you have hastened the deaths of many. You do not know them. You did not see them bleed. But you snatched bread from their mouths and tore clothes from their backs. For sport, Mr Lipvig. For sport. For the joy of the game.”

Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

The rich gomers who are in charge of the “department of government efficiency” have floated some of their plans to save money, which mainly seem to involve the wholesale destruction of various government agencies, throwing thousands of people out of work and also gutting important government funded programs, like science. They want to just shut down NIH? Jesus.

Who wants to tell all the veterans who sacrificed so much for their country that we’re going to simply end Veteran’s Administration health care? I imagine they think we can just privatize all the prisons, and that will somehow save money.

There’s more. Let’s dismantle the department of education, starve Planned Parenthood and the IRS, and let’s stop the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission from meddling in rich people’s money. They also want to make massive cuts in NASA funding, specifically to end all those “bureaucrats and contractors unearned bonuses”. Yeah, too many outside contractors are leeching off NASA’s budget…like SpaceX, maybe?

You know, killing established programs within the federal government does not reduce expenses or improve services — it just opens the door to private parasites moving in and taking over to increase their profits.

Let’s ask Amnesty International.

Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International said for the first time on Wednesday, calling on countries, especially those with influence over Israel, such as the US and Germany, to take action to bring the violence to an end.

Let’s ask the people living under oppression.

“Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse,” Mohammed, a 42-year-old father of three, was quoted by Amnesty as saying. “There is no room for you to pitch a tent; you have to set it up near the coast… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.”

Of course, if you ask the Israeli government, you’re going to get nothing but denial.

The Israeli government has repeatedly balked at charges of genocide, claiming it takes great efforts to protect civilians while Hamas deliberately puts Palestinians in danger. The US has made similar defenses, and, when pressed, often defaults to its line that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

Amnesty found such claims are “not credible,” saying that the presence of Hamas does not absolve Israel from its obligation to avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.

From “the clear pattern of causing intergenerational harm by dropping bombs on residential areas at night where children, infants, parents and grandparents are sleeping,” to “the constant forced movements of populations that are already traumatized by having been displaced and then attacking them once they have been moved,” O’Brien said it is “absolutely not the case” that Israel’s violence can be “understood exclusively as an attempt to defeat Hamas.”

But the Times of Israel says Lebensraum Needed for Israel’s Exploding Population, as an excuse. They actually said “lebensraum,” as if we’ve never heard that before, and as if it is a legitimate excuse for exterminating the people living on the land you want.

Or we could just look at the numbers.

The Israeli military has killed at least 44,532 Palestinians, injured at least 105,538, and displaced an estimated 90% of people in Gaza since the war began. The death and injury toll is feared to be a drastic undercount due to decimated health and tracking capabilities, and thousands missing in the rubble.

With its conclusion, Amnesty International now joins an ever-burgeoning list of people and organizations who have found Israel to be committing acts of genocide against Palestinians.

How about looking at the pictures?

Now that the question of whether Israel is a genocidal regime is settled, let’s ask another question: why are we still propping them up with arms?

Trump met with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada and had the kind of friendly conversation that should make everyone nervous.

The president-elect told the prime minister if Canada cannot fix the border issues and trade deficit, he will levy a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods on day one when he returns to office.

Trudeau told Trump he cannot levy the tariff because it would kill the Canadian economy completely. Trump replied – asking, so your country can’t survive unless it’s ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion?

Trump then suggested to Trudeau that Canada become the 51st state, which caused the prime minister and others to laugh nervously, sources told Fox News.

But he continued, telling Trudeau that prime minister is a better title, though he could still be governor of the 51st state.

Sources told Fox News someone at the table chimed in and advised Trump that Canada would be a very liberal state, which received even more laughter. Trump suggested that Canada could possibly become two states: a conservative and a liberal one.

He told Trudeau that if he cannot handle his list of demands without ripping the U.S. off in trade, maybe Canada should really become a state or two and Trudeau could become a governor.

Could he be joking? Maybe he’s joking. Except…this is the kind of thing Trump would dream about. I also suspect there are a lot of Fox News junkies/MAGA hat wearing assholes who have just perked up at the idea of their red wave rolling across the border and teaching those commie liberals up north a lesson.

If it came to that, I’d be on the Canadian side of the fight.

This is personally worrying — my son is in the midst of interviewing for a new position in the army (he’s a Major in the signal corps), and just this past week he was narrowing his options down to a position in South Korea. We thought this was good news, since he’s currently stationed in Kuwait, and we’d rather he were in a nice, peaceful, calm place. But look! South Korean President Yoon has declared martial law, citing vague threats from North Korean communists while actually targeting the South Korean opposition parties.

“I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free constitutional order,” Yoon said.

Yoon did not immediately specify who constituted the pro-North Korean anti-state forces. But he has cited such forces in the past as hindering his agenda and undermining the country.

He did not say in the address what specific measures will be taken. Yonhap reported that the entrance to the parliament building was blocked.

“Tanks, armored personnel carriers, and soldiers with guns and knives will rule the country,” Lee Jae-myung, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, which has the majority in parliament, said in a livestream online. “The economy of the Republic of Korea will collapse irretrievably. My fellow citizens, please come to the National Assembly.”

Yeah, everyone who opposes my politics is a Communist who supports the terrorists. Sounds familiar.

The news sources are predicting immediate protests, rallies, and even riots in response — South Koreans do not abide autocracies taking over. The American military won’t respond (we hope!), but it’s probably no fun to be hunkered down in Camp Humphreys while the citizenry takes to the streets.

It’s probably too much to expect that someone in the military will always be posted to someplace calm.

The first quarter of 2025 is going to be rough.

Does he even understand what tariffs do? Like, who ends up paying for them? He wants to impose a 25% tax on our two most important agricultural partners, and also on our trade partner, China. In the middle of winter, fruit and vegetable prices will be launched skyward. I also expect that the big grocery chains will see this as an opportunity for even greater price gouging. Didn’t he campaign on complaining that grocery bills were too damn high?

He also tried this before in 2018, slapping more tariffs on goods from China. It doesn’t seem to have worked.

I think my Christmas present to my wife and myself will be all about stocking the pantry in December, and maybe we’ll have to expand the backyard garden in the spring.

Do we have to remind him of Smoot-Hawley? I hate having to dust off my high school civics knowledge.