I pretty much sit all day, mostly working on the computer or reading. I have done this all my life. I am told that I should exercise more but have not done so, due to a combination of laziness and other factors. I now see a report that says that my daily routine of largely sitting is going to kill me and that occasional walking would not have helped anyway.
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Now that Roy Moore has won the Republican senate primary in Alabama, the chances of the Democratic candidate Doug Jones of winning the election on December 12 have gone up slightly, though they are still not great given that we are talking about Alabama where religious extremism thrives. The question is whether the Democratic party establishment throws its weight and resources behind Jones. Jones has been quietly raising money for his campaign.
Jones has some good credentials but the party has not as yet enthusiastically embraced him.
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The local newspaper the Plain Dealer has quite a few daily and Sunday strips but their policies puzzle me. Most strips run seven days a week. But one strip called Baby Blues appears only on Sundays and not weekdays but another strip Judge Parker appears on weekdays and not on Sundays. I cannot fathom the reason for this. Surely it would makes sense to pick either Judge Parker or Baby Blues to run seven days a week and drop the other? This would not require more space on the comic pages.
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One result of Donald Trump boorishness is how much his coarseness has brought out into the open those ugly aspects of the nation’s psyche that had formerly been hidden. Thanks to Trump, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, racists, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, and xenophobes have felt emboldened to strut their stuff in public.
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Sergey Lavrov describes the one thing that is preventing the US from attacking North Korea
North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons is preventing the U.S. from launching a first strike against the rogue nation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview.
“The Americans won’t strike because they know for sure — rather than suspect — that it has atomic bombs,” Lavrov said Sunday on Russia’s NTV television. “I’m not defending North Korea right now, I’m just saying that almost everyone agrees with this analysis.”
Lavrov said the U.S. attacked Iraq “solely because they had 100 percent information that there were no weapons of mass destruction left there,” refuting arguments the American government made at the time.
There will be a town hall style debate on the new health care bill on Monday at 9:00pm on CNN. It will feature Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy on one side and Bernie Sanders and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar on the other. It should be a good debate since I doubt that any senator has studied the issue of health care more than Sanders. But unfortunately I don’t get cable TV and will have to read about it later.
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It turns out that even the major players in the health industry don’t like the Graham-Cassidy bill.
Backers of the GOP Graham-Cassidy health-care bill — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., plus President Trump via Twitter — maintain it doesn’t touch protections for those with pre-existing conditions. And Cassidy also says the legislation will cover MORE people than current law does.
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Jimmy Kimmel excoriates the senator from Louisiana who is the co-author of the so-called Graham-Cassidy health care bill that the Republicans are trying to jam through Congress with minimal debate before the September 30the deadline. Cassidy had earlier promised Kimmel and millions of others that any bill that he proposed would provide a list of protections for people but what he is actually proposing has none of them. Kimmel delivers a righteous rant on the topic, explaining clearly why this bill is so bad and why it must be defeated.
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