Hey, maybe Trump will nominate me for a federal judgeship

After seeing this video of one of Donald Trump’s nominations for a lifetime position as a federal judge in the US District Court, I feel that I am just as qualified as him. He failed to satisfactorily answer a single question of law posed to him by Republican senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. Trump has been nominating extreme ideologues to the federal bench, many of whom have been deemed unqualified by the American Bar Association. The sad thing is that the Republican senators have confirmed many of them.
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Using ‘lulz’ to recruit white nationalists and neo-Nazis

That we are witnessing a resurgence of white nationalist and neo-Nazi sentiment is indisputable. A noticeable feature is that while in the past members of these groups were distinctive because they were heavily tattooed, skinheads , and wore leather jackets and all the other accoutrements that signified that they were tough and not to be messed with, the current members forego all that and look like regular college students or young executives, as I wrote in my earlier post That nice young neo-Nazi next door. This change has not been achieved by the former group removing their tattoos, growing their hair, and buying a new wardrobe. Instead we are seeing a new kind of member.
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I learn something new every day

I tend to resist watching long clips of talking heads on the internet (speeches, press conferences, debates, lectures, etc.) because it is so time-consuming and I find it so much quicker to read transcripts. Unfortunately. transcripts are not always available and their accuracy cannot be guaranteed. But just yesterday, I learned that at least with clips on YouTube, you can adjust the speed to suit you.

I find that playing the clips at 1.5 times the normal speed works well for me. This results in a 33% reduction in the length of time taken to watch it, which works out to a 40 minute reduction if you want to watch a two-hour lecture on some topic, not an insignificant saving. At this speed, the speaker still moves and sounds fairly normal and not as if they are appearing in a Benny Hill sketch.

I am passing this on for the one or two of you out there who may have been as clueless about this as I was.

Fifth anniversary of Sandy Hook massacre

Susie Madrak has compiled a photo montage of the six teachers and twenty first-grade children who were murdered at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT on this day five years ago

But after the massacre, more laws were passed around the nation weakening gun control (37) than strengthening it (14).

You have to wonder, if such a grotesque event did not lead to any form of reasonable gun control, what hope is there?

And now for some political soap opera

Oh boy, this is going to be good.

Roy Moore has issued a fiery video statement explaining why he has not conceded the race. He says that all the provisional and military ballots have not been counted yet and that the secretary of state (a Moore supporter) has not certified the result. He seems to think that his god will carry out a miracle on his behalf. But it seems likely that the secretary will certify the result soon and then I am not sure what Moore will do.
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Rescue of baby elephant stuck in a drain

When I get tired of politics, nothing cheers me up more than an animal story that ends well. A baby wild elephant had fallen into a narrow open drain near the southern Sri Lankan port city of Hambantota. Animal welfare officers worked with port workers to lift the baby out. It appears that the baby had broken its leg in the fall and is being treated for it before being returned to the mother, whom you can see watching the operation.

Roy Moore is waiting for God(ot)

Roy Moore still hasn’t conceded that he has lost the Alabama senate race, even though the margin of defeat was 1.5%, well above the 0.5% threshold that triggers automatic recounts and that the Alabama secretary of state John Merrill, a Moore supporter, said that he thought it highly unlikely that a recount would change anything. Then Merrill incorrectly said that Moore could ask for a recount if he was willing to pay for it but legal experts say that Alabama law has that provision only for elections to state offices, not federal ones.
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This USA editorial is scathing

The newspaper USA Today, as bland and mainstream a newspaper as you can get, let loose with an editorial on Monday that was shocking because it told the truth about Donald Trump in unvarnished terms. The editorial was prompted by Trump issuing a tweet against senator Kirstin Gillibrand who had called on him to resign because of the many credible sexual abuse allegations against him.
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What might the Alabama result signify?

It is always dangerous to draw sweeping conclusions from one data point, so the stunning victory in Alabama by Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore in one of the reddest of red states should not be taken as a sign that the era of Republican extremism, so well represented by Moore, is over. The result continues my streak of making wrong predictions, since I had thought that Moore would win and that the only doubt was whether he would win narrowly or easily. My repeated wrongness has made me think of referring to myself as ‘the anti-pundit’. But there are some implications that are easy to predict.
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