After blathering on for a few days that, by golly, he was going to get the citizenship question on the census form somehow despite the US Supreme Court ruling that he could not, and that he would announce the method today, he said that he was giving up on the effort and the forms would be printed without asking the question. To save face, he said that he would get the information by other means.
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My favorite fake British journalist Jonathan Pie says that after being given an extension by the EU until October 31 and advised not to waste that time but to come up with a workable plan because there would be no more extensions, the country has done nothing really about what to do next on Brexit. Instead they have been spending much of their time choosing between whether foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt or former foreign secretary Boris Johnson will replace Theresa May as Conservative party leader and hence become the next prime minister. (Language advisory because it is after all Jonathan Pie.)
In the second semi-final game played today, England beat Australia. It does not really count as an upset since there is not a whole lot of difference in the skill sets and rankings of the two teams. But England had lost badly to Australia in their first round match and even lost to lowly Sri Lanka. Meanwhile Australia had won seven of their nine matches, most quite easily, losing only to the strong Indian team and to South Africa in their last game when they had already clinched a spot in the semi-final and the pressure was off. Australia was the in-form team and had also never lost a semi-final game in their seven previous appearances in the 11 tournaments held before the current one.
So Australia was favored to win this game but not overwhelmingly so. The real surprise was how easily England won.
Which one of us, finding ourselves near a large body of calm water, has been able to resist the temptaion to indulge in the delightful activity of trying to skip stones across the surface? The number of skips that I am able to get before it sinks is three, maybe four. So it is a pleasure to see world champion Keisuke Hashimoto in acction. His wind up alone is thing of beauty. (Via Rusty Blazenhoff)
(To see the above, follow the link that the ‘video unavailable’ window provides.)
But he is still mortal and doesn’t always succeed.
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Writer Jesse Kornbluth at one time moved around in the same social circles as Jeffrey Epstein and he describes his personal experiences with Epstein and his entourage and the rich people who enabled his behavior.
My wife-to-be was then a military historian, with a book about to be published. Interview Magazine photographed her in a buttoned-up military shirt, with a taut khaki tie. A witty photo of an attractive woman. But not a sexy look. Jeffrey Epstein had chatted her up at a few parties. The military look fooled him not at all.
The night before our marriage, Epstein called. “It’s your last free night,” he told my wife-to-be. “Why don’t you come over and fuck me?”
That was how, in June of 1987, Jeffrey Epstein became dead to me.
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UK residents who read this blog may have felt that I have been rather harsh in my criticisms of successive UK governments who proudly speak of having a ‘special relationship’ with the US when all it seems to mean is that they feel obliged to go along with anything that the US does on the international stage, even into its disastrous wars, and getting little in return. What is worse is that this subservience likely contributed to the other nations in the EU seeing the UK as less than committed to a common European cause.
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In an upset win in a rain-interrupted game, New Zealand beat favorites India in a thrilling first semi-final game in the cricket World Cup. New Zealand batted first and scored a very modest 239 runs in their 50 overs. Given the powerful Indian batting line up, it seemed like India would win with ease even on a difficult pitch but their top order batting collapsed, leaving them reeling at 92 for 6 before a stout rearguard action by M.S. Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja threatened to completely turn the tables by taking them to a score of 208, leaving them with just 32 runs to make to win.
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From my favorite comic strip Pearls Before Swine because its creator Stephan Pastis shares my love of outrageous puns that require elaborate set-ups.
I had known that some people could call a coin toss correctly far more than was likely by chance alone but thought that they somehow knew how to take advantage of the slight asymmetry between the heads and tails sides in coins. Maybe some do have that skill but others take advantage of an optical illusion as shown in this video.
It looks like it could be easy to learn so beware of betting on coin tosses unless you are the one doing the tossing and thus can be sure that there is no cheating.
Now that the spotlight has turned with a vengeance on the odious Jeffrey Epstein, journalists are looking into shady aspects of his life other than the sex trafficking charge he currently faces and his previous convictions for abuse of minors that has resulted in his mow being a convicted sex offender.
He is described in the media as a billionaire or a multi-millionaire but the specific label is unimportant. The fact that he has mansions in pricey locations like Manhattan and Florida in addition owning an entire Caribbean island with yet another mansion, and that he flits between them in his two private jets, means that he has plenty of money and likes flaunting it and entertaining all manner of prominent people in his homes and on his planes. These include politicians (the Clintons and Donald Trump to name three), academics (like Steven Pinker and Lawrence Krauss), and lawyers (like Alan Dershowitz),.
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