Samantha Bee gives some advice to the low-polling Democratic candidates

I think that much of this concern over so many candidates at this stage is misplaced. This is the time for multiple candidates and views to be aired. As time goes by, the field will be winnowed and those who lose out will seek other positions, such as the senate seats she is urging. Running for president gives them the national attention that politicians tend to enjoy.

What we should hope for is that the field is winnowed by policies and the preferences of voters, not by the pundits and party establishments

Trump’s disappointing re-election rally crowd

We know that Donald Trump is an insecure narcissist and wants desperately to project the image that he is massively loved by everyone. We also know that he is an inveterate liar. These things come together when he lies about the crowds at his rallies and at his inauguration. On Wednesday he kicked off his 2020 re-election campaign at a rally in Florida. Suspiciously, he held it in an arena that only seats 25,000 people, a decent size but not huge and that was likely because he loves to boast that he gets sellout crowds at his rallies and that there is massive overflow. And sure enough, the Trump people claimed that they had issued over 100,000 tickets and had to arrange for a screen outside so that the huge overflow crowd could see their hero.
[Read more…]

Sunday funnies

As usual, it takes the comics pages to remind me that today is Father’s Day, a marketing device to get people to buy pointless gifts that their fathers will probably hate but will feel obliged to feign delight at receiving and even, if it is an item of clothing, to wear. I long ago made it clear to my children that the best Father’s Day gift to me would be to never buy me a gift for it. They never do, showing to me that my contempt for its purpose has been effectively communicated. I don’t like the peculiar concept of ‘roasts’ either but found this cartoon funny.

[Read more…]

Fight the global tyranny of the metric system!

Who knew that the metric system was planned by the French revolutionary Robespierre and adopting it would lead inevitably to the introduction of the guillotine? We should be thankful that there are those who are aware of this danger and want to make sure that the US sticks with the British system, even if it is out of step with the rest of the world, because is not a made up system that seeks to break our links with what the nation’s founders bequeathed to us.

We’re #1, baby, and so whatever measurement system we have must be the best and others should conform to what we have.

It is ultimately the stupidity that is going to lead to disaster.

Entitled comedians should stop taking cheap shots at millennials

Around this time of year, many commentators take the opportunity to make mock graduation speeches as a way of giving advice to young people and comedian Bill Maher used his ‘speech’ to attack the younger generation, all lumped under the ‘millennial’ label, as pampered whiny brats with a strong sense of entitlement who have been so coddled by their parents and the ‘politically correct’ environments of their schools and colleges that they are in for a rude shock when they enter the ‘real’ world.
[Read more…]