Jim Jordan Looks For Turnaround

       One of the funniest headlines of my hometown newspaper had to do with high school wrestling:  "Eagle Grapplers Look For Turnaround."  Today's first Impeachment Inquiry made both parties look stupid, as high school wrestling coach Jim Jordan tried to put Adam Schiff in a headlock.
       The most disturbing part of the testimony showed that Assistant Secretary of State George Kent and Ambassador William Taylor, providing professional expertise on foreign policy, and National Security Advisor John Bolton, providing bad-assery, were being made to take a backseat to E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sundland and traitorous pig Rudy Guliani, who provided only Trump-humpiness.
       The story starts when Oh Blah Blah refused military aid to the Ukrainians in their efforts to repel Russian invaders.  Newly elected Donald Trump was certified to release military aid by the D.O.D. in July, but apparently held up the aid until September, seeking dirt on Joe Biden from the Ukrainians.  The Ukrainian President Zelinsky was also denied a prestige-boosting White House visit.
       Both parties looked juvenile and partisan.  Democrats looked to undo an election, while Republicans personally attacked career diplomats.   Some Republicans, like Elise Stafanik, continued to act like intelligent adults.  Others, like Jim Jordan and Eric Swallwell, looked more like they were vying to guest host The Sean Hannity Show.  Such clowns hid behind a shyster in an ill-fitting suit, who tried to use Joe Biden's corruption as a Get Out of Jail Free card.
       Political hacks like Sundland and Guliani have no business being allowed to make foreign policy decisions.  This is an effect of an administration where syncophants are valued over experts.  This looks just as corrupt as Rod Blagojevich selling Obama's Senate seat.  Which probably explains why Trump wants to pardon Blagojevich.

Lebedyev on Cannibalism

       "'An artful and ironical idea, insidious as a larding-needle!'  Lebedyev greedily caught up Yevgeny Pavlovitch's paradox;  'an idea expressed with the object of provoking opponents to battle--but a true idea!  For you, a worldly scoffer and cavalry officer (though not without brains), are not yourself aware how true and profound your idea is.  Yes, sir, the law of self-destruction and the law of self-preservation are equally strong in humanity!  The devil has equal dominion over humanity till the limit of time which we know not.  You laugh?  You don't believe in the devil?  Disbelief in the devil is a French idea, a frivolous idea.  Do you know who the devil is?  Do you know his name?  Without even knowing his name, you laugh at the form of him, following Voltaire's example, at his hoofs, at his tail, at his horns, which you have invented;  for the evil spirit is a mighty menacing spirit, but he has not the hoofs and horns you've invented for him.  But he's not the point now.'
       'How do you know that he's not the point now?' cried Ippolit suddenly, and laughed as though in hysterics.
       'A shrewd and insinuating thought!' Lebedyev approved.  'But again, that's not the point.  Our question is whether the 'springs of life' have not grown weaker with the increase of. . . .'
       'There must have been an idea stronger than any misery, famine, torture, plague, leprosy, and all that hell, which mankind could not have endured without that idea, which bound men together, guided their hearts, and fructified the 'springs of life.'  Show me anything like such a force in our age of vices and railways. . . .I should say of steamers and railways, but I say vices and railways, because I'm drunk but truthful.  Show me any idea binding mankind together to-day with anything like the power it had in those centuries.  And dare to tell me that the 'springs of life' have not been weakened and muddied beneath the 'star,' beneath the network in which men are enmeshed.  And don't try to frighten me with your prosperity, your wealth, the infrequency of famine, and the rapidity of the means of communication.  There is more wealth, but there is less strength.  There is no uniting idea;  everything has grown softer, everything is limp, and every one is limp!  We've all, all of us grown limp. . . .But that's enough.  That's not the point now.  The point is, honoured prince, whether we shouldn't see to getting the supper, that's being prepared for your visitors.'"  Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot, Part III, Chapter 4.  

Thanks to Google

    Estase needs to thank his awesome platform, Google, for claiming that a hard-core porn site was the main source of his readers.  You people really want to drive me into the arms of WordPress, don't you?