What You are NOT Being Told About the Clinton Email Report

found online by Raymond

 
From Tommy Christopher at the Daily Banter:

If the past two days have taught us anything, it is that Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server during her tenure at the State Department is a threat to the American way, and even to all human life on Earth. The media’s sirens-a-blaring reaction to the State Department Office of the Inspector General’s report on email practices would lead any rational observer to conclude that the only crime greater than using personal email to conduct State business is the crime of ever believing a word that Hillary Clinton says.

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This World Was Never Meant For One As Beautiful As You

found online by Raymond

 
From driftglass:

You may have noticed that I do not post on this blog about every lunatic shudder and tic and primal scream of the Donald J. Trump rolling freak show.

First, because other blogs with staffs and such already do that, so keep up the Lord’s work there people!

Second, because it seems to me to be an empty, repetitive exercise.  Of course Trump lies about Iraq and lies about Libya.  Of course he’s a braying, racist troll.  Of course he’s trying to drag the race for president to his level by yelling “Rape!” at the top of his lungs.

Of course a thousand other things.

So what?

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Is Profit-Seeking At Odds With Consumer Value?

found online by Raymond

 
From Michael A. LaFerrara at Principled Perspectives:

In the comments section of Linda Stamato’s for-profit hit piece The predatory for-profit college industry and its enablers in Congress, which I covered in my post of 5/19/16, a correspondent ironically calling himself thinkerbell wrote,

. . . once you’ve gone for-profit, it’s pretty much axiomatic that your final concern will be the generating profit rather than the development of wise and committed citizens who can envision and enact a better future.

I left this reply:

This makes no sense. The idea that the path to profitability is to disregard the good of or do bad things to your own customers can be easily debunked by a little personal introspection: When was the last time you sought out the lowest quality, highest price, worst service, or most dishonest provider in deciding how you spend your own money?

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FT Pub Quiz Takes Look at Wacky 2016 Election Season

found online by Raymond

 
From Marc McDonald at BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com:

As many pundits have noted, this has been one of the most wacky and bizarre political campaign seasons in decades. And I sometimes wonder if we’ve ever faced an election where the voters were less informed on the issues, and the candidates, than they are today.

I recall reading once about the early days of television. The great TV pioneer Philo Farnsworth, among others, had high hopes for the new medium.

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Dancing Around the May Poll

found online by Raymond

 
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

I know there is some hay being made out of this spring grass already,  but I just don’t know how to relate to May polls when I know that Barack Obama wasn’t supposed to win in 2008 according to a poll done as late as September.  After McCain picked Palin. I don’t even know what all was going on at the time because I was unplugged in Reggio Calabria on a personal vacation, but as far as I know–my individual data from people I knew didn’t match the poll numbers. I thought Obama would win, and he did.

A poll in May of 1988 showed Dukakis comfortably kicking Shrub Senior’s ass. Belief in polling strength was nothing but stupid for Romney. And we all have anecdata of where polls were especially wrong.

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On This Day … Commitment to Science, Technology, Space

found online by Raymond

 
From Kathy Gill at The Moderate Voice:

On this day, 55 years ago, President John F. Kennedy challenged Congress and Americans to think big, to look beyond the stirrings of conflict in the developing world, to “turn recession into recovery”, and to turn our eyes to the stars.

Unemployment was 7.1%, the peak of the recession.

And the recovery he led — a testament to Keynesian economics — was “the second longest economic expansion in U.S. history.”

Part of that recovery included investment in science and technology as well as a vision that captured the nation’s imagination:

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We Were Promised Punch & Pie

found online by Raymond

 
From nojo at Stinque:

Well, that didn’t take long.

A couple of weeks ago, champagne corks were popping as we were duly instructed to celebrate shamelessly over Trump’s effective nomination. Republicans in disarray! Congressional rats deserting the ship! Better confirm that moderate Justice now, cuz Hillary’s gonna appoint Raul Castro soon as she gets back from the Inaugural!

And then the post-nomination national polls started coming out. Whoops!

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Pay Attention to Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party

found online by Raymond

 
From Michael John Scott at MadMikesAmerica:

Gary Johnson might be on the verge of becoming a household name.

At the moment, he’s probably most often confused with that plumber who fixed your running toilet last month or your spouse’s weird friend from work who keeps calling the landline, but he’s neither — he’s the former governor of New Mexico, likely Libertarian candidate for president, and he’s polling at 10 percent in two recently released national polls against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

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Primary Fairness

found online by Raymond

 
Raymond: Iron Knee, who brings us re-posts of late night television monologue humor, often has other insights.
 
From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

It is hilarious when people complain about some aspect of the primary elections as being “undemocratic” or unfair, for a number of reasons. First of all, people complain only when some obscure detail of the primary process works against them (or their favored candidate). Or they just complain when they are losing.

For example, Bernie Sanders and his supporters have complained loudly about the primaries, even claiming that they are rigged against them. But you don’t hear Sanders or his supporters complaining about caucuses, which have been very good to him.

Likewise, Donald Trump complained loud and long about the unfairness of the primaries, until he won. There is plenty of evidence that the Republican primaries are unfair, but Trump actually benefitted from that unfairness.

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Iran Keeping Its Word – How Sad for Conservatives

found online by Raymond

 
From Bloomberg News:

Iran held to its accord with world powers by keeping the amount of nuclear material it produces below agreed thresholds and continuing to allow monitors wide access to facilities, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Friday.

“The agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used,” the IAEA wrote in a 5-page restricted report distributed to member governments and obtained by Bloomberg News. Iran has additionally taken steps required to allow more inspectors into the country, according to the IAEA.

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