ON MATTERS OF DUBIOUS INTEREST
The present heat waves here and in Europe are not just a warning but a forecast. I started writing this blog about climate change in 2019 and after a time gave up on it. Few were listening, and the topic was just too complex and intimidating. Now many everywhere are dying from intense heat and exposure—and the situation is bound to get worse. Continue reading “Death by Heat”
Much ink has been spilled over the Reflecting Pool disaster, so excuse me for adding to the torrent. My partner discovered this picture on Facebook, and it does have its appeal (even if it never gets built) principally because it gives the finger to Trump. Continue reading “Maybe This?”
Vance: They put us up at this crummy hotel while the boss signs his ass away at Versailles. I don’t think he even knows how many disastrous treaties were signed there. And now the peace talks here are going to start again but will probably end up in the toilet. Continue reading “At the Hotel Ceasefire, Geneva”
Trump: Bibi, it’s simple. Your thing is just to destroy Iran. Everyone else knows I want peace. Why else would I keep negotiating with these assholes? Your way will keep Hormuz closed forever.
Netanyahu: My friend, you have deliberately kept us out of the negotiations, out of the loop. We went into this as partners, compadres to blow these terrorists to smithereens. Our goal, we agreed, was to knock out the regime, destroy their nuclear program, and annihilate their missile capability. Once you dropped us as a partner you blew any chance for our joint security. Continue reading “Dialogue 2”
Trump: It’s my great pleasure to see you again, Mr. President. No, no groveling, please!
Xi: Did you sleep on the plane?
Trump: Very little. Too busy posting memies on Truth Social. I get so many stupid questions directed at me. Continue reading “Dialogue”
The original project was to cost $200 million, provided by private donors. The cost soon jumped to $300 million, then $400 million, now $1 trillion, adding unspecified security and military spaces paid for by you and me. Now they are talking about a West Wing expansion to “balance out” the 90,000 square foot ballroom on the east. Continue reading “A Ballroom Built on Bloat”
We have to get rid of him. George Conway has a great summary piece here. He “lays out his case that Republicans will eventually have no choice but to remove the president before his term ends.” I urge you to read it. Until then, here are a few visual reminders of what this lunatic has wrought. Continue reading “See What the Mutant Has Done”
In these times of hysteria and sociopathology, it may be useful to remind us that there is “nothing new under the sun,” as Ecclesiastes put it. The Mark Twain of our time surely was Hunter S. Thompson, whose words still drive me crazy and apply so directly to what the Trumpworld has brought us. Continue reading “Trumpism Predicted”
Matt Spence
There is a new book out that I want very much to read. It’s an anatomy of capitalism: The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World, by Trevor Jackson. Capitalism plainly dominates the world’s economic and social life. “An economy predicated on infinite accumulation, mass consumption, and fossil-fueled industrialization is not reconcilable with a finite planet.” Continue reading “Capitalism Exposed”
Here is Sidney Blumenthal on Trump’s infantile obsession with war as a game: “The Trump White House is the first in history to define a war’s purpose as achieving the ecstatic sensation of playing a simulated war video game.” Continue reading “How the White House Sees Iran”