More slides.

This is Hverfell (or Hverfjall, something to do with whether it’s a hill or a mountain, a hair I leave Icelanders to split). Not my photo, obviously, as I didn’t have a helicopter at my disposal:

hverfell

It’s a volcano, obviously, near Lake Myrvatn. We called it Dog Bowl Mountain, also obviously. All over Iceland are volcanos that have grass growing well up their slopes, but Hverfell is, after 2,900 years, still rock and cinders and dust. But you can climb it, via a steep walking path up the side. Up, up, up you climb. Pant, pant, pant. Trudge, trudge, trudge. Rest, rest, rest. You’re up very high — look at the cars in the parking lot. Like ants:

hverfell2

And then you come out at the top. I was expecting water down there. Instead, another heap of cinders, but in true Icelandic fashion, utterly otherworldly. The whole country looks like a Star Trek set, of about 19 different planets.

hverfell3

And that’s Hverfell. Let me know when you guys get tired of these pictures.

I’m exhausted, the sort of exhausted one gets when you’ve had a frustrating day, it’s too hot to go outside and the wind is just howling outside, huffing and puffing. Some of you people who are more politically savvy than me, please explain (if such a thing can even be explained): What possible motivation would Donald Trump’s campaign manager have to plant damaging stories about his own boss’ son-in-law? Because as a person who generally expects things to make a certain linear sense, I have to say I just don’t get it.

And for more entertaining Trump news, there’s this GQ profile of his 27-year-old press secretary, who has never worked in politics before. Welcome to Crazytown:

As for what arrives in Hicks’s in-box, a typical day brings upwards of 250 media requests. Usually, she alone decides who gets in and who’s kept out. But sometimes it’s Trump who plays bouncer for his own private party. “She sees the tantrums, and there are tantrums,” a source who’s been with Trump and Hicks told me. “He reads something he doesn’t like by a reporter, and it’s like, ‘This motherfucker! All right, fine. Hope?’ He circles it. ‘This guy’s banned! He’s banned for a while.’ That’s exactly how it works.” Hicks plays parole officer to an extensive and expanding blacklist of outlets and reporters (your correspondent once included) no longer welcome at his events.

While Hicks is often eager to please, she doesn’t mind upsetting the media and harbors no reverence for the civic duties of a free press. When reporters send her questions, she’s often irked—convinced they’re playing detective merely to irritate the campaign. She’s seemingly unaware that they might just be vetting a potential United States president. Often she doesn’t respond.

Finally, oncologists have had it with you mealy-mouthed pediatricians, and plan to go hard on HPV vaccines. Good for them.

Now to watch the “Game of Thrones” I missed last night because HBONow went down at the worst possible moment.

Posted at 12:13 am in Current events, Same ol' same ol' |
 

50 responses to “More slides.”

  1. Sherri said on June 21, 2016 at 12:41 am

    There are probably a couple of reasons behind Lewandoski trying to plant stories about Kushner. One, Lewandoski is a grade A prime jerk. Two, Trump seems to respond to whomever last had his ear. Three, the campaign is a dysfunctional disaster, and whenever that happens, the in-fighting becomes really ugly. I think Lewandoski has shown himself to be dirtier than smart, and I guess he thought he’d take his chances on cutting out Trump’s son-in-law. Trump undoubtedly has said some unflattering things about his son-in-law, because Trump, and Lewandoski thought he could win.

    Meanwhile, the fundraising in the campaign is barely above the level of a tough state senate campaign in an expensive city.

    This was my favorite part of the GQ piece:

    I wanted Hicks to help me understand just how all this had come to pass, how a person who’d never worked in politics had nonetheless become the most improbably important operative in this election. But she declined my request to talk. Instead, she arranged something more surreal: I could talk about her with Donald Trump, in front of her.

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  2. Dexter said on June 21, 2016 at 1:05 am

    Where is our itinerant lady, Deborah? I just saw a headline: “Bear Attacks Woman Marathoner in New Mexico.” http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/bear-attacks-woman-running-marathon-mexico-39974311

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  3. adrianne said on June 21, 2016 at 5:44 am

    Corey Lewandowski is a thug, and not a particularly bright one, either. Why he thought he could get away with undermining Jared Kushner, I don’t know. But my favorite part of the story is Ivanka going to Daddy Trump and saying, either Corey goes or I will. Guess who he chose?

    And other collateral damage – Michael Caputo, another political thug on Trump’s payroll (I met him when he was campaigning for Carl Paladino for New York governor, another train wreck of a campaign) – also jumped off the Trump train after sending out a Tweet when Corey was thrown overboard that said “Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead” and showed the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East. On further reflection, Caputo realized it was “inappropriate” and defenestrated himself.

    This is better than reality TV.

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  4. Deborah said on June 21, 2016 at 7:18 am

    It wasn’t me Dexter, I’m alive and well in Chicago but leaving for NM tomorrow. That place where the woman was mauled is beautiful, we call it the Caldera. We often see herds of elk there. If you ever read about someone training for a marathon you can bet it’s not me.

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  5. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 21, 2016 at 7:30 am

    Dexter, there’s about a dozen shots of Valle Grande in the middle of this album: the caldera is just above Los Alamos, where we were last summer. Parts of Longmire were filmed there, and a number of other old westerns I can’t think off off-hand. Gorgeous place.

    https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153452349514679.1073741958.811054678&type=1&l=8a5a561452

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  6. beb said on June 21, 2016 at 8:05 am

    I was in Indiana visit my Dad. While there I saw a lot of ads for a guy running for governor. He had endorsements from retired Republican politicians, claimed to be a fiscal conservative, etc. but no where in his ad did he claim to be a member of any political party. I had to look him up on Wikipedia — John Gregg, Democrat. Indiana is really FUBAR when the Democratic opposition to the Republican FU’s in office is afraid to state his party affiliation.

    I have no opinion about Corey Lewendowski’s firing. Except to note that usually royals wait until they’re in power before turning on each other like rabid hyenas.

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  7. alex said on June 21, 2016 at 9:10 am

    Beb, this is Indiana, where politicians of both parties think the electorate is stupid. And for the most part they’re right.

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  8. Jenine said on June 21, 2016 at 9:37 am

    Here’s a page with more info on the Valle Grande caldera http://www.geotimes.org/july07/article.html?id=Travels0707.html . I’ve never seen a place that made me want to get on horseback more.

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  9. Danny said on June 21, 2016 at 9:38 am

    Seeing all of these names of places in Iceland, it strikes me that the Icelanders are vowel-challenged. They need Vanna White to buy them some vowels.

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  10. Judybusy said on June 21, 2016 at 9:40 am

    Keep the pictures coming. We got to see a very small slice of Iceland, and this is inspiring me to return–as if I needed the encouragement!

    Can a campaign this dysfunctional have any chance of winning the election?

    Day three of a 7-day nurses’ strike in our metro area. One of the biggest health care providers want the nurses to go to the same choice of crappy plans that all the non-nurses get, and the union ain’t having it. Will go join the picket line today at a hospital I used to work at. Non-nursing staff inside the hospitals are letting us know how the care is really going. They brought in 1400 replacement workers to do the work of 4600. Someone snapped a shot of one of the replacement nurses napping and put it on FB. Sure, could’ve been her break, but it looks bad!

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  11. ROGirl said on June 21, 2016 at 9:50 am

    He doesn’t want to be president, he wants to be king. He wants the power without having to be accountable to anybody.

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  12. brian stouder said on June 21, 2016 at 10:10 am

    ROGirl – a great summation!

    Given that he seems to be headed for an personal income tax trainwreck (doesn’t seem to want to release his returns) – “Accountability” may well be a cornerstone theme from the HRC campaign

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  13. Danny said on June 21, 2016 at 10:13 am

    Alternatively, Brandon could emigrate to Iceland. Hawaii has a surplus of vowels.

    Thinking more in the thread from yesterday, it strikes me that the term I was perhaps searching for was orthodoxy. It is arguable that the militaristic interpretation of jihad in the Quran is an orthodox view within a meaningful portion of Islam. And having an idea like this at the level of orthodoxy, supported by not only the religious leaders, but also, in some cases, by the governing theocracies, makes it a distinctive and dangerous concept that is unique to the current lineup of major world religions.

    I don’t doubt that a large portion of leaders of Muslim countries and large swaths of the garden-variety common Muslim population are horrified by this orthodoxy and all it portends. In many cases, they probably feel helpless to speak out and affect change and it does leave one to wonder how change may come.

    And in the end, this orthodoxy of violence is probably in large part rooted in more practical considerations like discontent of the general Middle easterner with the greedy oligarchies that are cozy with the West and selling the resources out from under them and padding only there own cofers while everyone else is kept poor. Add to that the somewhat frequent military actions of Western powers in their lands. Always follow the money, as they say.

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  14. Bitter Scribe said on June 21, 2016 at 10:20 am

    The comments on that WaPo article about HPV vaccine are depressing. The usual vaccine conspiracy nuts with their made-up numbers.

    I don’t know who’s dumber–those people or the ones who oppose the vaccine because it will “encourage” young girls to have sex. Yes, by all means, let’s increase the odds of their getting cancer decades from now. That’ll show those sluts.

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  15. Dorothy said on June 21, 2016 at 10:50 am

    You could do Iceland pictures for a month and I don’t think any of us would complain. They’re all great!

    I had a sad phone call this morning just before leaving for work. A friend here in Dayton called to share that her 5 month old grandson died yesterday. His other grandma babysits him and she went to see if he was awake from his nap yet, and he was blue. Probably a case of SIDS. I was weepy all the way into work today.

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  16. alex said on June 21, 2016 at 11:12 am

    Alternatively, Brandon could emigrate to Iceland. Hawaii has a surplus of vowels.

    Or better yet, Danny and Brandon could become Dandron or Branny, seeing as how both Brandon and Danny share so much in common, especially their syntax.

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  17. Danny said on June 21, 2016 at 11:22 am

    Huh?

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  18. Charlotte said on June 21, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    Don’t even get me started on the anti-HPV folks — I have been known to regale reluctant parents with the goriest blow-by-blow of my Beloved Stepmother’s 15 year battle with HPV-related cancers, including anal cancer, which led to her both nearly dying and being saddled for life with an ostomy bag. Get the goddamn vaccine already.

    And JudyBusy — one of my cousins is a major union organizer for SEIU nurses on the east coast — her family money came from meatpacking, and after reading The Jungle in 9th grade, she’s dedicated her whole adult life to union organizing. She’s a fabulous badass and I love her dearly.

    Iceland looks fabulous, and I seem to have half a dozen FB friends posting pictures from there right now! It’s a pretty easy flight out of Minneapolis, and I’m hoping to convince my flight-averse Himself that we should go there …

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  19. Judybusy said on June 21, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    Charlotte, what a great union connection!

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  20. Deborah said on June 21, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    I had been looking at today’s Nancy photos only on my iPhone and I finally got a look at them on my iPad. Wow! One of these days I’m definitely going to go there. Please keep the photos coming.

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  21. beb said on June 21, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    Via Mike The Mad Biologist, an article on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which suggests that the roots of PTSD lies in actual physical damage to the brain from the blast impact from explosions.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/what-if-ptsd-is-more-physical-than-psychological.html?_r=0

    A scientist doing research on PTSD patient’s brain tissue finds strange damage to the cells distinct from the damage due to concussions. He believes this damage is caused the shockwave from an explosion. In a way the original term for this, shell shock, would appear to be more appropriate than PTSD.

    In happier news a very, VERY small study was recently conducted where stem cells were injected to the brains of people suffering a variety of brain injuries. A significant portion of the patients show good to incredible improvement

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/06/02/stanford-researchers-stunned-by-stem-cell-experiment-that-helped-stroke-patient-walk/.

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  22. Sherri said on June 21, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    Danny, if there is an arguable case that militaristic jihad is an orthodox view within an meaningful portion of Islam, I haven’t seen the argument made. I have seen Western neocon clash of civilizations types claim that, but that would be akin to claiming that “Onward Christian Soldiers” is a call for a return of the Crusades, a simple-minded, dehumanizing view of the other that isn’t helpful in doing anything but whipping up support for a political goal that has nothing to do with theology.

    Quoting Western scholars, no matter how credentialed, isn’t good enough. If militaristic jihad really is orthodoxy, then it should be easy enough to find Islamic scholars that represent a broad swath of the complexity that is Islam claiming the same.

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  23. Brandon said on June 21, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    @Danny: I’m good in Hawaii, though I’d like to check out Iceland one day.

    Or better yet, Danny and Brandon could become Dandron or Branny, seeing as how both Brandon and Danny share so much in common, especially their syntax.

    @alex: As Danny said, “Huh?” Where did that come from? Maybe you can cite some examples of how we “share so much in common, especially [our] syntax.”

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  24. Brandon said on June 21, 2016 at 2:00 pm

    In fact, back in 2013, you claimed we were one and the same.

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    • nancy said on June 21, 2016 at 2:07 pm

      Do you keep records of this or something?

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  25. Sue said on June 21, 2016 at 2:07 pm

    Apparently Iceland will prevail:
    http://grapevine.is/culture/2016/06/10/icelands-path-to-certain-victory-at-euro-2016/

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  26. Brandon said on June 21, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    Do you keep records of this or something?

    Actually, no. This reminded me of his previous comment so I googled his name, my name, and Danny’s.

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  27. brian stouder said on June 21, 2016 at 2:31 pm

    I just googled me, and saw a collection of other ‘brian stouder’s – who ain’t me!

    On a different (and more interesting!)subject, Pam sent me two photos of our just-turned-12 year old daughter; one of her on the first day of her fist zoo camp (when she was 5), and one from now – her last week of zoo camp.

    Don’t know what the word is for happy/sad/sweet/amazed/melancholy/forward-looking, but that’s what the photos evoked!

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  28. LAMary said on June 21, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    Sue, you should watch an Iceland game. They Icelandic soccer players all look like models or actors.

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  29. LAMary said on June 21, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    The UEFA championship and the Copa de Americas championship games are all going on now. You can watch four or five hours of soccer every day if you really want to.

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  30. brian stouder said on June 21, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    Don’t know about the soccer, but the Formula One race in Baku was uncommonly good this past weekend, especially owing to the other-worldly beautiful background of an honest-to-goodness castle, apartment frontages with people watching the race cars from their balconies, modern glass office towers with eastern European curves and flair, and a beautiful backdrop of the Caspian Sea…..

    and they put on a great race, with no shunts or crashes against the intimidatingly narrow street course

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  31. Judybusy said on June 21, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    There was a lot of Euro Cup action in Paris and Brussels. In Paris, they would have huge fan zones where people could gather and watch the games.As in, I didn’t get to see the Tulierie gardens because it was a fan zone. Ditto the Eiffel tower. Huge temporary fence around it, and a long line of security screening to get to it. Since we had limited time that day, we just took pictures from further off. When we took the train from Brussels to Paris, there were a bunch of very rowdy Irish guys who thankfully boarded a different car. Could have been a long ride if we had to share it with them. Happily, the Cluny, the museum of medieval history was completely unaffected and I was able to spend a lot of time with the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries.

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  32. jcburns said on June 21, 2016 at 3:33 pm

    The inside of the Hverfjall crater looks just like our pictures of the inside of the Vulcano crater on the land of, well, Vulcano. So if you were planning to go there as well, nah.

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  33. Sue said on June 21, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    All football, all the time right now for us, LAMary.

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  34. Jakash said on June 21, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    Tweet from Hillary:

    “Trump has written a lot of books about business — but they all seem to end at Chapter 11.”

    Zing!

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  35. Deborah said on June 21, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    Hillary needs to keep up the humor. What a great way to take trump down.

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  36. Brandon said on June 21, 2016 at 6:54 pm

    She’ll likely win, and her administration will resemble Obama’s.

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  37. Jakash said on June 21, 2016 at 7:30 pm

    And do you think that will be good, or bad, Brandon?

    One difference, right off the bat, though. If she does win, the freaking Senate, (even IF it maintains its Republican majority) would be hard-pressed to flout the Constitution for 4 more years re: the duly elected president appointing a Supreme Court justice. Though I put nothing past the distinguished Turtle from Kentucky nor the esteemed Mr. grASSley.

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  38. Sherri said on June 21, 2016 at 7:55 pm

    Josh Marshall captures the essence of Trump in a race against Clinton:

    What Trump needs, though it’s uncertain how he’d manage it, is to rebrand, build a cocoon and reemerge, as a sane, emotionally balanced Republican who could leverage public uncertainty about Hillary Clinton and harness the inherent strengths of the party which hasn’t held the presidency in eight years. He desperately needs a public perception reset on the temperament front. But his impulse, which always rules him, is to channel every white guy over 50 who’s spent twenty years gnashing his teeth for the opportunity to call Hillary a c#%t and developed hypertension for lack of an opportunity to say it to her face.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/terrifying-ride

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  39. Brandon said on June 21, 2016 at 8:08 pm

    And do you think that will be good, or bad, Brandon?

    I think it’ll be both. If she can reduce gun violence in a substantial and lasting way, that will be her crowning achievement. If she ramps up wars in the Middle East, that will be her legacy.

    What people should consider are third parties. If you can’t bring yourself to vote for an independent presidential candidate, because either Hillary or Donald will win, then vote for one or the other. But, consider third-party candidates in your municipal and state races. Support third parties in your area with money, time, or labor. Building up independent parties so that one day we have Greens, libertarians, socialists, etc. in Congress, in state legislatures, governorships, and even mounting substantial campaigns for President is a worthy goal.

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  40. Deborah said on June 21, 2016 at 8:13 pm

    Ha ha ha ha ha https://mobile.twitter.com/manwhohasitall?lang=en

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  41. Deborah said on June 21, 2016 at 8:29 pm

    What a difference a day makes, as I’ve said before. Yesterday was a miserable day on the face of the earth in Chicago, but today was glorious. Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn I head for the airport to go to New Mexico where the highs are in the mid 90s but it’s dry, dry, dry.

    Our new furniture gets delivered Thursday (hopefully), of course while I’m gone. My husband will be here to accept it before he heads out for NM too. I just hope it happens like it’s supposed to, the way things have gone so far I have no expectation that it will.

    I went to the DMV in Chicago this morning to get my license renewed and to change my address, but of course I wasn’t able to do it because you need 2 proofs of address which I had no idea I needed. The woman behind the counter said this is relatively new, you didn’t need this before but now they don’t believe you when you say you’ve moved. So I will have to wait a few weeks when I get back to Chicago to do it.

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  42. Sherri said on June 21, 2016 at 9:07 pm

    Joe Lieberman continues to be worthless. Al Gore’s biggest mistake in 2000 was picking Lieberman as his running mate.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/06/joe_lieberman_former_senator_discusses_donald_trump_hillary_clinton_and.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top

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  43. Julie Robinson said on June 21, 2016 at 9:13 pm

    Deborah, be glad you don’t live in Indiana. Not only do you need two proofs of address, but certified copies of everything, including every name change. My poor mother had to go three times and spend $40 to get an Indiana ID for voting and flying. (And I had to drive her every time.)

    First they rejected her Iowa birth certificate, which she has had all her life. She had to download and print out a form (she doesn’t have a printer), fill it out, get it notarized (another trip for Julie!), write a check for $20 and wait six weeks for Iowa to send her a new one. It was a xerox of her old one with a new seal on it.

    We thought we had it all together and went back, only to be rejected yet again for her marriage certificate. You guessed it, the original, not-a-copy, given to them when they got married in 1952, is no longer acceptable. She had to fill out another form, get it notarized, send $20 and wait another six weeks.

    She was ready to give up and just not fly or vote. We did finally prevail. But how many would give up, or not be able to pull together three trips to the BMV, two notarizations, and $40? What if you didn’t have a computer, printer, or internet? Or a checking account?

    Please, no one ever tell me that voter ID laws aren’t about voter suppression.

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  44. alex said on June 21, 2016 at 9:50 pm

    To all the management-level folks who say they’re voting for Trump:

    If you were hiring someone as a subordinate, you probably wouldn’t give any consideration to someone who had zero qualifications and a belligerent attitude.

    Why would you want that in a leader?

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  45. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 21, 2016 at 10:32 pm

    I’d post a lengthy comment about how modernism has a fundamentalism problem, manifested in the last century in different forms of which the Islamic variety is most publicly debated and in view, but facilitated by Christianity’s consumerism problem that both limits and warps the expressions of fundamentalism within its sphere, and routes major assets to a regime that sells the oil to our consumeristic marketplace, empowering the most structurally robust form of Islamic fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia . . .

    . . . but I’m too full of fudge to make a longer, clearer point. I’m still gonna say the so-called Militant Jihadist problem is simply one variety of a 31 Flavors of reaction to Modernism, aka Fundamentalism. I could get really boring about American expressions of this reaction (the second manifestation of the Klan being the beating heart of my case), but we do indeed have them. They’re just much more dispersed and de-centered right now — and trying to coalesce around Trump, who thankfully is too inept to capitalize more effectively on their numbers.

    It’s why he’s still only 4% or so behind in 4-way polls, though.

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  46. Danny said on June 21, 2016 at 11:26 pm

    Jeff, I get your gist. Insightful as always. These things wax and wane in religious movements. For better or worse.

    Brandon, nice assement. You ever get to San Diego or I get back to Hilo side of the Big Island, would love to say hello in person. And who knows? With all the goodwill, Bon-homme gravitas that Nancy carries, we may even have an NNC meet up of our whole desparate group in Iceland some day.

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  47. Danny said on June 21, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    Anyone ever seen the documentary,Bronx Obama? I got about half way through and plan to finish it later. It’s kind of cool.

    Another movie I recommend is Tangerines. It’s in Russian and Estonian. Profound pastoral treatment of the war Oberon that region

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  48. Danny said on June 21, 2016 at 11:32 pm

    Over in

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  49. Brandon said on June 22, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    You ever get to San Diego or I get back to Hilo side of the Big Island, would love to say hello in person.

    Danny, same here.

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