The utter depravity of the CIA

While much of the attention regarding the documents that have been released about the Kennedy assassination has focused on the issue of whether Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole perpetrator or whether there was a larger conspiracy that was covered up, my attention was drawn to an item that did not get much attention and that was about one of the plans that the CIA developed to undermine Fidel Castro. We already knew that the US, the very country that is now up in arms about the possibility of the Russian government interfering in US elections by doing things such as the dastardly practice of buying ads on Facebook, tried many times to actually murder Castro.
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Review: Broadchurch: Season 3 and the elimination of mystery clichés

I just watched the eight-episode third series of the British detective drama Broadchurch and it is excellent, maintaining and even exceeding the standard set by the first two seasons. The third series takes place three years after the second one and features the return of detectives Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) to investigate a new crime of the rape of a woman after a party, but it also weaves in some storylines and characters from the previous seasons.
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How to fold a fitted sheet

I decided that this blog has been woefully lacking when it comes to providing helpful household hints, so here is something that I found pretty useful.

Fitted sheets are nice in that they stay in place on the bed. But anyone who has tried folding them prior to storage knows that you end up with just a bulky mess that takes up a lot of space in the closet. So I was pleased to come across (via Mark Frauenfelder) these two videos that show how to fold fitted sheets (with and without elastic along the edges) so that they end up flat, something that really appeals to someone like me who likes to keep things neat.
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The sexual harassment problem

Now that the floodgates have opened and many women are coming forth with allegations of sexual harassment by powerful men, the question remains who else will be named. So far, the people involved have been in high-profile industries like films, TV, Silicon Valley, and politics. I have noticed that current members of Congress have not been named and wonder if that is only a matter of time. But the power dynamics that led to such abuse exist in other contexts as well and any business that really values its employees should take a pro-active role in ensuring that such things do not happen.
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Same old Democratic party?

While attention is focused on what Donald Trump is doing to the Republican party, whether he is splitting it into two, transforming it into his own image, leading it into the ditch, or successfully channeling all the racist, sexist, and xenophobic impulses that seems to be quite widespread in the nation, there are some interesting goings on within the Democratic party.
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Eddie Izzard on running 27 marathons and coming out as transgender

I find Eddie Izzard to be always worth watching, whether he is doing a stand up act or not. He set himself a goal of running 27 marathons in 27 days, a total of 707 miles in all, to raise money for charity and completed in March of 2016. The target number was set to commemorate the 27 years Nelson Mandela spent in prison and he ran in South Africa. Because he could not run on one of the days, the 54-year old Izzard had to run two marathons on the last day to meet his goal
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