December 31, 2023

It's just almost unbelievable....

https://www.inquirer.com/education/clarice-schillinger-arrested-bucks-county-20231228.html

A former GOP candidate for Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and leader of a political action committee that fueled conservative opposition to school boards has been charged with assault after allegedly punching a teenager at a boozy birthday party she threw for her 17-year-old daughter.
Multiple teenagers were assaulted by intoxicated adults during the Sept. 29 party at Clarice Schillinger’s Doylestown home, according to a police affidavit. Police say that Schillinger’s intoxicated boyfriend punched one teen in the face and assaulted another. That teen also was punched in the eye by Schillinger’s intoxicated mother, who also chased that teen around the kitchen, the affidavit said.
As teenagers tried to leave the home on Liz Circle, Schillinger — who police said had supplied the more than 15 minors at the party with a basement bar stocked with vodka and rum, played beer pong with them and encouraged them to take shots with her — ordered them to stay.
She then punched one young man in the face three times, according to the affidavit, which said video footage showed Schillinger lunging toward a group of teenagers in the foyer and having to be restrained.

More at the linky.

December 24, 2023

A story for a Sunday afternoon...

In the summer between college and professional school, two close friends of mine came to visit me in my mom’s home in pre-gambling Atlantic City. Other than the beach, boardwalk leading into Ventnor, and the ocean, the town was a real shithole. In some ways it still is, but that’s a post for another day

Anyway, we were walking down the boardwalk and we came upon a Three-card Monte game. Now, I had read Scarne on Gambling when I was younger and identified it for my friends who were watching the decoy player, holding a fistful of bills. One friend got really excited and said that he could play and win. I told him in all seriousness that you can’t beat these guys: they’re magicians and you’re going to lose without question. He didn’t believe me and after they let him win $10 early, they promptly relieved him of $70. In 1975 that was a lot of money. They folded the newspaper that masqueraded as a table and they went three different ways, disappearing into the mist.

My friend kept saying, “I had them. I can’t believe it.” I was smart enough to just STFU. But I learned a valuable lesson which applies in Trumpian/Nazi politics. You may be intelligent, you may be sharp, you may actually have good intentions, but there are certain aspects of humanity and society which appeal to the pure id and are logically almost inexplicable. I had told my buddy exactly how they beat the mark or sucker and armed with this knowledge, he still felt that the situation could be turned to his advantage. People knew exactly what Trump was and is, but they rationalize their choice and behavior with that irrationality ascribed to the charisma of the perpetrator. People erroneously believe that they fully understand the situation but in fact have almost no concept of the higher-order agenda and plotting of the villain/criminal. Thus the term “evil genius”. In this case it is not so much the sophistication and wherewithal of the bad guy, it’s the acquiescence of the victim to his or her basest instincts.


And not to be clichéd, but PT Barnum was absolutely correct in his famous surmise about fooling the population: in this case of electoral college politics, you just have to fool enough of the people enough of the time.

December 23, 2023

Ok...time for hypotheticals:

Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you don’t do what you do, but you are an underwriter for a life insurance company. Yeah, yeah. I know. But they’re just guessing anyway and they use statistics…so we all know what that means on an individual basis: absolutely nothing. Pretend this is your job.

An application appears before you with the following facts as stipulated by the field agent:

A 77 year old male, 90-110 lbs. overweight, sedentary with a long history of uncontrollable bowel motility and spontaneous defecation, diet of fried foods and protein with high fat content exclusively, history of continuous battling with extremely high-stress situations of his own making with concomitant hypertension and hypercholesterolemia, possibly poorly controlled, and history of severe COVID-19 for which he was hospitalized and presently suffering from long-COVID symptoms, history of multiple episodes of sexually transmitted diseases over decades, likely chronic viral infections including Human Papilloma Virus, herpes, recurrent aphthous ulcers, and others. Subject to violent fits and episodes of extreme anger and acute rage with concomitant rise in blood pressure. No hobbies or athletic activity for decades.

On edit: I failed to include drug use of various types. Use your imagination.

Applicant wishes a five year, one million dollar term life insurance policy. What is the premium and what would be the conditions imposed, if any? And presume that the policy’s payment is guaranteed by a third party of substance, just to remove the notion that it’ll lapse due to non-payment.

My guess is that the premium is prohibitively high assuming that they would even write it, that it might fall outside the guidelines no matter what the premium or waiting period might be

Lesson to be learned: pay careful attention to the Vice-presidential nominee.

December 22, 2023

Please allow me to posit this notion:

When I was a kid, born in the early 1950’s, my parents and their liberal friends pointed to two occurrences which may have saved America from the fascists whose front man was Sen. Joseph McCarthy. First was this moment:

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Then when McCarthy went up to President Eisenhower and Ike turned his back on him, likely because the HUAC had attacked Ike’s minister or someone close to him. That was “it”.

Of course, such mild-mannered reproaches would be insufficient in this age of vitriol, but the equivalent needs to be accomplished. What that would be, how it would be phrased or executed I do not know, but enough parsing and milquetoast responses to overt repressive, anti-democratic, frank Nazism.

We need a cinematic moment, for we are Americans and require that subtlety and intellect be dispensed with. Think of the one-liners uttered by Pacino, Eastwood, Schwarzenegger, or Stallone which utterly disarmed the adversary. (For those who doubt Stallone ever had anything but his own trademark stupid dialog, I refer you to the early film entitled Cobra, wherein he says to the hostage-taking insane murderer: “You’re the disease and I’m the cure.” It brought the house down when I saw it in the theater.)

The paragraph in my opinion should include references to unnecessary Covid deaths, innumerable lies, and reference to the smell of feces which emanates from him among other things. It needs to be concise and like a bolt from a crossbow.

I rest my case.

December 21, 2023

Yeah...can't argue this point...

December 20, 2023

One thing of which I am certain:

All the predictions made: the USSC will or won’t do such and such, Trump will pick so and so as VP, such and such a group won’t vote for Biden/Harris because of whatever, and the like are purely specious speculation and conjecture.

No writer, not Shakespeare, not William Goldman, not Ian Fleming, not Tom Clancy could have scripted the political narrative beginning in November, 1963 to today. It is the epitome that truth isn’t just stranger than fiction, it is orders of magnitude stranger and utterly unpredictable by the common folk. It exists in a four or five dimensional matrix of which we have no concept.


This is not because we are not rational, thinking individuals. It is largely because there are forces of which we are utterly unaware as well as the vagaries of random events, including but not limited to, disease, accidents of various types, and metaphorical lightning strikes. The former “forces” to which I refer involve individuals who exert influences and powers from a metaphorical “subterranean lair”.

The randomness coupled with the plotting and planning creates a syncytial weave which is like a diffuse network of events, utterly unpredictable as a roulette wheel’s white ball. Sit back and watch…and yes: vote and attempt to convince anyone on the fence that we are facing an extinction event in this nation.

(As an aside, and I know how many people despise diagnosis by HDTV, I believe that there is a decompensation process ongoing which is going to be manifesting itself upon awakening some morning within a few months. Yes…I know what you’re thinking. But something is palpably different in the last few weeks. I could be mistaken but the hair on the back of my neck stood on end the other day. This happens after years of seeing people in his age range and dealing with their issues which present similarly.)

December 19, 2023

Next up: TFG's lawyers appeal because the Bazooka Bubble Gum Comic

he received was double-printed.

If I or anyone I had ever known were indicted for anything, we’d be in jail for two years already. There is a case right now where a Pennsylvania dentist and his associates defrauded Medicaid and insurance companies to the tune of, and this is not a misprint: $300,000,000. That federal trial is scheduled and proceeding apace. These people are gonna be locked up for certain.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/dental-practice-owners-charged-fraud-and-rico-conspiracy

This fascist treasonous bastard gets to walk free and pollute this great country.

Where’s the binder, btw? You KNOW that there’s an unredacted copy in the Kremlin.

AAAAUUUUGHHHH! As Charlie Brown used to say.

December 12, 2023

In the first Dirty Harry film,

There is a scene which takes place between Clint Eastwood’s titular character, and various members of the hierarchy of the police force in San Francisco. A young woman has been kidnapped by the psychopath, and they are discussing how the ransom is to be delivered and paid, and Clint Eastwood says words to the effect of “You know she’s already dead.”

I would submit to you that these are the types of discussions already going on in Israel at the highest levels. Many of the hostages are already dead and they know this. In fact, they know much more than they are saying, despite what all the American keyboard experts are insisting.


But do not give up hope: remember Entebbe. The Western countries “knew” that Idi Amin and the terrorists were going to win that battle. And the Six Day War: Israel was thought to be doomed by “experts” and commentators here. I know this well because the father of a classmate of mine in 1967 was a professor at Princeton and considered one of the world’s foremost experts in the Pan-Arab movement and predicted the certain demise of Israel. After the Egyptian Air Force was annihilated, even then he was unshakable. Eventually, he had to revise his writings dramatically by placing a lot of “nots” and “didn’t-s” in.

We shall see what ensues.

December 11, 2023

This is the acting board chairman at Penn:

https://www.inquirer.com/education/julie-platt-penn-university-pennsylvania-trustees-board-chair-20231210.html

With Scott L. Bok’s resignation from the University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees Saturday, the school has announced that Julie Platt will step in as interim chair.
“Julie was the clear choice, and we are grateful to her for agreeing to serve in this capacity during this time of transition,” Penn’s executive committee said.
Platt, who had served as the board’s vice chair, will lead the group until a permanent successor for Bok is appointed.
Bok’s resignation came following an informal gathering of trustees Saturday. Sources said that Platt took over the meeting after Bok announced he was resigning and signed off the call.


Much more at the link.

The Penn Jewish community has a true friend here.

December 10, 2023

About Penn and its culture:

I shall begin by stating that within my nuclear family we have a total of eight Penn degrees including three doctoral degrees and Penn faculty experience totaling twenty-four years. This may qualify me to make a few statements.

First, three out of the last five presidents of the University were Jewish, a far cry from its Jewish-quota days which extended well into the 20th Century. If any of these three or even four Presidents had been faced with this question there would have, I am certain, been an unequivocal repudiation of all anti-Semitic tropes and statement with associated punishments. This is the University that threw fraternities off the campus for denigrating women and minorities. There was always a great protection of the individual during my tenures there, including but not limited to the safety of that individual.


All that being said, there was always a revolutionary undercurrent pervading the University which sought to grossly undermine the status quo. I’m not referring to the usual interest groups but what most who were present did not realize is that there is an enormous amount, an inconceivable amount of money passed in, around, and through that institution via interest groups and individuals. There was a fraternity there whose members were all sons of the billionaire’s club. Denzel Washington’s son was a member due to his father’s fame, but was by far, the poorest person in the frat.

And there is the foreign money which pours in, funding professors and departments and buildings. The campus layout is positively jaw-dropping compared to where it was fifty years ago when I arrived. It is like something out of a Sci-fi movie with the glass skyscrapers rising one after another

Which brings me to a story: in the early 1980s I was treating a gentleman who was a member of the board of overseers of the university. He was a friendly sort, no youngster, and we would have many spirited, fun conversations about Penn where he was one of the principlal behind the scenes. His best friend was Walter Annenberg, to give you an idea of the circles in which this man traveled. One day, when I was working on a large temporary bridge for him, I made a remark which included the phrase “50 year plan“. He sat up from his chair and asked me “how do you know about that?“. I replied that I didn’t know much about anything of the sort, that I just came up with it serendipitously. He gave me this sidelong glance, which I will never forget. A few years later, upon reflection, I realized that one mission of Penn, among others, was appropriate the land from the Schuylkill river out to 52nd St. And from Market St., South to Lombard or below in West Philadelphia. This is a gigantic plot of land under control of one entity. Obviously I had inadvertently used a phrase as though it was something out of a spy novel. They obviously had planned to do this secretly at least at the beginning from the 1960s and in fact it has taken about 50 years to come to fruition. (Cleverly, they began by gentrifying by giving faculty very low interest loans to purchase residential properties for themselves and their families. This worked and in fact there is an elementary school, the Penn Alexander school in West Philly that is the envy of every other public school in the city. And it’s much more complicated than you think it may be. )

This is how Penn thinks, it is the biggest of big business, and all the academics and tutelage is a supporting structure for research and development involving enormous profitability and prestige. I will leave you with the story of the two scientists who were ridiculed for years for their study of mRNA, and who are now heralded, as changing the face of infectious disease and vaccination. This after their entire department laughed at them behind their backs - not laughing now.. Many of us suffered this way within Penn if we were on the wrong side of the cool club. My stories about that aspect, which are trivial compared with what is going on now, might be fun to tell at some future point.

This is a very serious time and I believe it some in America have now received a primer in their education of how things work at the level within corporate academia.