Obamagate

Authoritarians are not used to having to justify their actions; usually they’ll just follow the shortest path between “what I want” and how to make it happen. So, like most human beings who think I’ve been simultaneously baffled and horrified by Trump’s imbecilic attempts to trigger an “obamagate” scandal.

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Mind. Blown.

In one of the TWiV (This Week in Virology) podcasts, they briefly mentioned a book by Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes. [I guess the publishers are not Bob Dylan fans] Several of the doctors said they thought it was great, or it was on their reading list, so I added it to mine.

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A Measly $55mn

In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini famously issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie; a religious organization then established a reward for carrying it out, to the tune of $2.7mn. Every so often, some group of “hard liners” raises more money and puts it in the pot, so now it’s up to just under $4mn. [nyt]

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