He is at this moment hosting the annual awards show and his opening monologue is already online even before the show ends. I do not watch these shows but the opening monologues by the host sets the tone. Meyers made the recent revelations of abuse by powerful people in the film industry the focus of his jokes.
North Randall mall that is located close to where I live was at one time the largest mall in the country and its opening was a celebrity-studded event. But like many malls that do not cater to high-end customers, it has fallen on hard times and became a ghost mall with all the stores moving away. So the impoverished city of North Randall was delighted when Amazon announced its intention to lease the property, raze the largely abandoned mall, and put up one of its giant ‘fulfillment centers’ that would reportedly bring in 2,000 jobs.
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As pretty much everyone might have expected, Donald Trump responded vigorously to the assertions in Michael Wolff’s new book that everyone around him, including his closest confidantes and members of his family, think he’s an idiot. He sent out a series of tweets praising his own intelligence.
“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star….. ….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”
The comedian got a tweet from a stranger with a single derogatory term. Rather than responding in kind, she took the high road and what ensued is worth reading.
Ever wondered how hedges can be shaped into perfect spheres? Via Andrea James, I came across this video of a company that makes trimmers that can create spherical hedges with specific diameters. The rousing Wagner accompaniment is not included.
Peter Maass warns us that we should pay less attention to the Donald Trump-Steve Bannon relationship that is currently dominating the news and more to the malevolent influence that Rupert Murdoch has on Trump.
One of the less-noted passages in Wolff’s book explains that the president reveres Murdoch, regularly seeking advice from the founder of the Fox empire, a condition that made Bannon jealous of Murdoch’s power over Trump. The book quotes Roger Ailes, who ran Fox News for Murdoch until being dismissed for sexual harassment, as noting that “Trump would jump through hoops for Rupert.”
Matt Taibbi tries hard to convince us that there is an upside to the awful revelations in Michael Wolff’s gossipy new book about the first year of the Trump presidency.
The book certainly doesn’t seem like good news. Wolff tells us our president is probably a neurotic illiterate, incapable of focus beyond a few seconds, and thought of as a deranged simpleton by even his most trusted advisors.
…Wolff basically describes Trump as a deficient buffoon who, when it comes to politics anyway, is totally out of his element, mistaking fake ardor for the real thing, constantly demanding fealty from Congress, the business world and staff:
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Republican Josh Mandel announced today that he was dropping out from the US senate race because of his wife’s health issues. Democratic senator Sherrod Brown is trying to retain the seat he has won twice previously. He faced a strong challenge from Mandel, an intensely ambitious young (he is just 40 years of age) Republican who is currently the state treasurer and was the clear front-runner to gain the Republican nomination. In his 2010 campaign for the treasurer’s office, Mandel falsely suggested that his opponent was a Muslim and in general his campaigns have become notorious for their tenuous relationships with the truth.
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When roosters crow at the break of dawn, their sound output is quite prodigious, reaching as much as 140dB levels at very close range. If you get that close, you can damage your eardrum in less than a second. But at even moderate distances, levels can reach 100 dB, close to the levels of a chainsaw. So the question arises as to why roosters do not become deaf from their own sound output. Christie Wilcox writes that scientists intrigued by this question have investigated and found the reason.
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