Freethought Blogs

My internet has been down most of the day, so I’ve taken advantage of the silence to do a bunch of class prep. Nothing exciting, no problems, I’ve just been temporarily inaccessible.

Progressive Angie Nixon scored an upset win over the Democratic Party establishment candidate Alexander Vindman despite being vastly outspent by him by a ratio of 16-1.. In an upset for the Democratic establishment, progressive Angie Nixon won the party’s US Senate primary in Florida, beating former army intelligence officer Alexander Vindman.

Gentle mockery of zoroastrianism again. I found out, or was reminded of, the version of your soul that goes for judgment at the end of days – the daena. That judgment is literally a beauty contest, as everyone’s daena is only as beautiful as the cumulative righteousness of all their lives. These are ladies, too. Every bruce is a morality-embodying sheila waiting to happen. And if he was bad news? She’ll be an uggo.

This morning I got my entire first week of lectures tidied up and uploaded, along with my syllabus (actually got that done last week), and am ready to begin my semester. Almost. Tomorrow I’ll get my first week of lab organized.

After the humiliating reversal over the charges to four people accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, US attorney and former Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro was lambasted by her cult leader Trump for backing down and saying that the pool fiasco was caused by shoddy and rushed work. Now, no doubt in an effort to suck up to him, she has brought vandalism charges against a 41-year old homeless woman Melissa Farris for defacing a World War II memorial.

I have a new column this week on OnlySky. It’s about why we should get rid of the Senate once and for all. Despite their willingness to fight and die for democracy, despite everything they sacrificed for democracy, the American founders didn’t actually trust democracy. They designed America’s constitutional system to create multiple barriers to the will of the common people. The Senate was one of those.

I told you about how James O’Keefe had tried to prank Minnesota elections. This state had a major fraud scandal where a few people had scammed childcare funds for millions of dollars, and the government has been hammering through those cases and slamming the con-artists into prison, while MAGA has been shrieking for justice because some of the perpetrators were Somali (never mind that the organizer was a white American-born woman).

There I was nodding along with all the stuff social media is telling me, when I was brought up short by an innocuous comment. 20 years ago, normal people avoided technology and techies would jump on the newest gadgets as soon as they could. Now, normal people buy smart toasters & coffee mugs while every techie I know is on the verge of retreating to the forest. Ha ha, yeah, people are so different now…hang on, wait a minute. None of that is true.

One of the drawbacks to volunteering at the local theater is that you have to sit through way too many showings of movies you don’t like. I’ve suffered through four showings of Spider-Man: Spiderless New Day so far. I don’t actually sit through the movie, but instead wait in the concessions area, listening to the absurdly loud booming noises. This may be advantageous as the school year starts — I’ll be able to bring my laptop and gets some work done while simultaneously supporting the theater.

The Bolingbrook Babbler William Brinkman is author of the Bolingbrook Babbler Stories series and has run the Babbler blog since 1998. He's probably one of the few critics of former Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar didn't exile to Florida. You can find the Babbler on the Freethought Blogs Network. The books are available on Amazon and other retailers. To keep up with the Babbler and news about William's other activities, visit him at freethoughtblogs.com/babbler