Diaries

So, What Have You Been Doing With Your Life?

Submitted by ek hornbeck on Sat, 04/21/2018 - 6:45pm

Well, I have the two sites thing happening. Olympics, March Madness. I've seen The Post, Black Panther, and The Greatest Showman. I've had family holidays, 3 busted cars (one twice), the great winter plague and SAD to deal with as well as a huge fight between my pharmacy, PCP, and insurance company.

Not to mention broken pipes, frozen toilets, and 3 or 4 Northeasters. How was your winter?

One thing I took the time to do was get down to D.C. and attend #MarchForOurLives. I have it on good authority that between 800,000 and 1 Million attended (the estimate for the Women's March has been raised to 2 Million btw). It was fun and I was happy to be a part of it. I stayed with my cousin and she brought her two kids. After the March we went to Comet Ping Pong.

The Neo Liberal Instinct

Submitted by ek hornbeck on Sat, 04/21/2018 - 4:37pm

Charlie Pierce calls them "death funnels" and he's exactly right. He's referring to pipelines designed to transport Alberta Tar Sand, the dirtiest fuel on the planet, to refineries or ports to refineries that can turn it into technically more usable types of oil. It never gets very good, more the type you can lubricate heavy machinery with or burn in a particularly wasteful in the smoggy toxic sense power plant, barely better than coal.

It's basically asphalt, suitable for paving and not much else and it makes as much economic sense as tearing up roads or taking used tires to achieve the same effect, which is to say none at all in the current market where solar and wind are dirt cheap, batteries are getting less expensive by the hour, and fracked oil and natural gas are driving Saudi Arabia into bankruptcy. In fact the only way you don't operate at a loss simply from mining and refinery costs is if the price of crude is well over $70 a barrel. Which it isn't.

But Big Oil has all these sunk costs based on the notion of $100+ Oil and unlike a smart gambler it doesn't understand that the money you've put in the pot isn't yours anymore, it exists in a quantum state only determined at the reveal.

Comey Is No Hero

Submitted by ek hornbeck on Sat, 04/21/2018 - 4:13pm

One of the most frustrating things this past week has been watching James Comey make the rounds of Stephanopoulos, Maddow, The View, along with other outlets and be lauded as some paragon of moral rectitude and virtue.

Jim Comey is a lifelong Republican who willingly and enthusiastically signed off on Torture (a War Crime in case you've forgotten) and who, immediately after his oh so so brave and principled stand at the bedside of John Ashcroft, personally approved a barely modified program of blanket electronic surveillance on United States Citizens THAT PERSISTS TO THIS DAY!

Thanks for nothing Barack.

Trust someone? On the Intertubz?!

Submitted by ek hornbeck on Sat, 04/21/2018 - 3:34pm

Thank goodness I only tune in sporadically, fortunately I've had Curling to distract me but there's only so many times you can watch the World Championships (5 so far, in the Men's Sweden over Canada 7 - 3 in 8 Ends, in the Women's Canada over Sweden 7 - 6 in an extra End, Mixed Doubles starts today in Östersund, Sweden so you're lucky I have some down time).

Still, I detect some discontent and ill feeling.

First “Vietnamization”. Then “Iraqization”. Now it's "Arabization"

Submitted by gjohnsit on Fri, 04/20/2018 - 4:55pm

There was a surprisingly good ABC News article about Syria recently, concerning the likely upcoming Syrian government offensive against the remaining rebel enclaves.
The article focuses on Iranian-backed militias coming closer to the Israeli border, and how dangerous that is.

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