Wondering on Wednesday 10/6/21

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Tonight, I'm wondering on the Facebook thing: the whistleblower, corporate profits, marketing, artificial intelligence, actual intelligence, ethics, and more. 

How do you regulate Facebook's algorithm, content, and the decisions behind what gets promoted, and not do the same thing with every other social media outlet?

How do you regulate Facebook's algorithm, content, and the decisions behind what gets promoted, and not do the same thing with Fox News, MSNBC, and every other television network?

How do you regulate Facebook's  algorithm, content, and the decisions behind what gets promoted, and not do that with the NY Times, the NY Post, and every other print and digital newspaper? 

How does Wikipedia survive this new regulatory framework? Anyone can enter anything they want - who's going to be the boss of that? Are we going to create a regulatory framework for that, too?

Who gets to decide what content is abusive or divisive? Artificial intelligence can't do it, and humans can't do it either. What or who is left? And, even more fun, who gets to pick the arbiters?

What about the 1st Amendment? Doesn't that protect divisive speech?

How is it not insanely ridiculous and hypocritical for members of the House and Senate - professionals all, at spreading misinformation and division - to complain about Facebook's failure to stop the spread of misinformation and division? Seriously - how is that not the most insane aspect of this?

If the said misinformation- and division-spreading legislators decide to change the rules and let Facebook be held liable for 'harm' on its pages, which one of them will be the first to file a suit, and how long will it take - more than 30 minutes, or less than 30 minutes - after the rules are passed? I'm guessing Devin Nunes and less than 10...

If Facebook can be held liable for harm done to someone who's under age and on the platform, will Facebook be able to sue the parents for allowing the child to use the service?

And why do six-year-olds have smart phones, anyway? Who is responsible for that?

Before they go all out and regulate potentially harmful content - something that, by nature of the 'potentially' label, cannot be regulated - will the legislators do something to increase access to and the affordability of mental health services, particularly for children, and particularly for rural areas?

Isn't it ironic, and more than a bit ridiculous, that the same people who would to deny treatment options that would help transgender kids are all up in arms about body image issues on Facebook?

Why would the people who complain about their own voices being stifled on Facebook be willing to stifle other voices on Facebook? Is the algorithm unfair, or do they just not like what it does? Do they really care about any of this, or does it just look good to care, in which case they can make a profit, i.e., get re-elected because they 'showed they care?

How is Facebook to control the viewing habits of its users? For example, how are the people who ignore multiple notices that what they are reading is not real and then argue vigorously, and share widely, their outrage about the outrageously fake posts, supposed to be  protected from themselves?  Who's job is that, anyway?

Or the folks who wouldn't know sarcasm if it bit them on the butt cheek in the checkout line at Wegmans? (That's sarcasm, by the way. Sarcasm doesn't have actual teeth.) How is Facebook to be held accountable for them? 

Are we going to regulate comedians? Celebrity magazines, with pictures of stars or wanna-be stars and their "boldly topless" photos? The Kardashians and their puffy lips, 'trained' waists, and abundant behinds? People try to emulate them, and cause themselves real physical harm in the process; clearly, that can't be allowed to continue? 

How ironic is it, that the people who don't think the government should be able to require masks or vaccines during a pandemic are now contemplating having the government dictate what we're allowed to see on Facebook? What about "my mind, my choice?"

If we're going to ban detrimental content on Facebook, can we please ban Love Island, Big Brother, Hoarders, My 600-lb-Life, Married at First Sight, Real Housewives, Love After Lockup, Cellmate Secrets, 90-day Diaries, You, Me and My Ex, Ex-Rated, Naked and Afraid, Addicted to Marriage, 90-Day Fiancé, RuPaul’s Drag Race, My Big Fat Fabulous Life, and the rest of the unreal reality TV shows? Without much difficulty, I could make an argument that each of those shows is detrimental in one way or another...and I've never watched any of them.

Who gets to determine how 'good' a company must be in order to be allowed to make a profit? And how will those decisions be made? 

Are we going to require every company to provide us with their internal research on everything they internally research? Or is that just going to be shared with regulators? Just legislators (they're not the same thing as regulators, I can assure you.) And what if someone who gets the information as part of their job decides to leak it, for fun say, to the Wall Street Journal? What's the accountability there?

Based on the number of times the quote was shared, the big soundbite from Frances Haugen's testimony was, "Almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook."  

I'm wondering if anyone reading this post can tell me everything that happens inside their current employer, or any of their former employers? I maintain that it's probably true for every company, even those in highly regulated industries, that outsiders don't know what happens inside, and neither do employees. I also maintain that that lack of knowledge can be positive (allowing a company to launch a new product, charitable plan, marketing campaign, etc. without leaks) as much as it can be negative (e.g., Enron, Wells Fargo, and perhaps Facebook, too). 

Especially in a country where we're supposedly working on improving the privacy rights of people. And, of course, where we consider corporations to be people, too. Unless, of course, corporations aren't really people after all. And isn't that a whole nother world of wonderment we can attack... 

What are you wondering about tonight? 

Wondering on Wednesday (9/9/20)

Ready... Set... Wonder!

• Like many people, I'm wondering when the president will roll out his health care plan, which he promised us weeks ago. In fact, on July 19th he promised us "we're signing a health care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health-care plan." Time flies when you're having fun, I guess... Or, maybe, time flies when you're never delivering a health care plan...

• I wonder what it must have been like to work for PostWrecker General Louis Dejoy before he started 'fixing' the USPS? On the one hand, he really encouraged employees to donate to Republicans, which is typically not my cup of tea, but on the other hand, if you did, you got a nice bonus that not only covered but exceeded the amount of your donation, if what we're being told is true. So, should I sell my soul for a nice payout later, or do I stick to my guns and not fall for the bribe?  Hmm... Actually, there's no wondering on my decision.  I'll pass on the bonus, thanks.

• Is anyone wondering that another whistleblower is coming forward in this administration, or that the issue he's blown the whistle on is Trump's downgrading Russian interference and upgrading Ch-eye-na's and Eye-ran's instead? Because we know that fits the narrative that Trump likes. His minions have made no mistake about that in many appearances in the Sunday classrooms. The experts say Russia, the minions say the other two. The experts say Russia, Trump says the other two. The whistleblower says Russia, and says that Acting DHS Director Chad Wolf says the other two...  I can't help thinking I'm not the only one seeing a pattern here?

• Another thing I'm wondering about? What on earth possessed the president to talk 18 times with Bob Woodward?  Did he really think he'd be able to talk his way into a flattering portrayal this time out? Is he nuts? Is this what he considers "the art of the deal?" I mean, in addition to having to convince us he never said what he could quite believably have said about American veterans, he's also got to convince us that he lied to us about the coronavirus to protect us, and not to make his numbers look good?  What kind of crap is that? Does he think we're stupid, I wonder? Oh wait - silly me - of course he thinks we're stupid.

• Snitty Snitty Bill Barr is expanding the Justice Department's already huge role as Trump's personal law firm, by moving to take over his defense in E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit.  Barr said it's fairly common for this to happen, and blames the political climate for the kerfuffle we're seeing. And, he said, the White House asked for the DOJ to intervene. I certainly don't wonder about that last part - Trump's more a fan of threatening to sue other people than he is paying lawyers to defend him, so having our tax dollars pay for it is a win-win for him, no doubt about that.

• And finally tonight, it's hard to remember all of the wacky things that have happened in this uniquely weird year, so you might have lost track of those mysterious seeds from Ch-eye-na that we were warned not to plant. Well, is it any wonder that we planted them? Or that we ate them?  

I do have to say, the opening line of the article on the seeds are truly words to live by: 

The same rules apply to a package of mysterious seeds found in your mail as do to a bag of fries discovered in a parking lot: As tempting as it is, don't open it, and most certainly do not eat what's inside.

What are you wondering about tonight?

Sunday School 11/10/19

Looks like Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was the only 2020 Dem presidential candidate making the rounds today. She's gotten plenty of Sunday School time recently, so I opted not to sit in with her and instead visit with some other folks in the classrooms.

Let's listen in as Chuck Todd talks with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Connecticut's Rep. Jim Himes on Meet the Press.

First, the Senator Paul what-about, what-about segment. In response to a question on whether he's been reading the deposition transcripts, the senator said he's been reading reports but not the actual transcripts. He went on to sa (with my emphasis added)

But I guess my impression so far is, I think the American people want fairness. And I don't think they're going to judge fairness, when they're accusing President Trump of the same thing Joe Biden did, threatening the aid, if some kind of corruption's not investigated. And it seems like everybody, both parties, have been threatening aid, if some kind of investigation either doesn't happen or is ended. And so I think, really, what's going to happen is people are going to say, "Oh, they're impeaching President Trump for exactly the same thing that Joe Biden did."

He threatened the aid, if they didn't fire someone. And supposedly, the president did, if they didn't investigate someone. So it sounds exactly like what Joe Biden did. And if they weren't going to impeach Joe Biden, they look like, you know, hypocrites, in a way, for going only after President Trump and having not a word to say about what Joe Biden did.

Todd did not push back on the "Trump and Biden did the same thing" point, but he did try to pin the senator down on whether Trump should have done what's alleged, that he sought a quid pro quo from Ukraine. Paul's response, with some emphasis added:

I think there's a real question whether you think the president should specifically go after one person. But there's a real question whether Joe Biden should've gone after one prosecutor. It's exactly the same scenario. So I think there is a question --  There is a question about that. But if it were me, I wouldn't give them the aid, because we don't have the money. We have to actually borrow the money from China to send it to Ukraine. So I'm against the aid. And I think it's a mistake to do the aid. So I wouldn't have played any of these games. But I think the American people think it's unfair to treat Trump under one standard and Joe Biden under a different standard.

And so, Todd went back again, asking

But is that really -- I understand trying to go back. I go back to, do two wrongs make a right? I want to set that aside because I don't understand why that's always used as a deflection. Does that mean you think it's now okay for the president to act this way? It doesn't matter what we think of Joe Biden, at this point. If it's wrong for this to be done, then it's wrong period. No?

And here's how the senator responded.

Well, it kind of does, it kind of does. But I'll approach it from a different way. Fairness is one angle. And I don't think people are going to think this is fair. But I think the second angle is this. Foreign aid, by law, can only go out to countries that are not corrupt. So if you think that a country is acting in a corrupt way, a president can always withhold aid, until the corruption is fixed. So you're going to have to get into the mind of Trump and his advisers and say, "Well, he didn't really believe that the Bidens were corrupt." I think he absolutely does. I think you could give him a lie detector test and say, "Do you think the Bidens were corrupt? And do you think you were investigating corruption, and that corruption is in the law, that you can't give aid to a country that has corruption?" So there's no way. This ends up being a policy debate and a partisan debate. And it has nothing to do with legality or illegality or impeachment. It's purely a partisan way of trying to overturn the election.

So, fairness is the issue, except that it's not the issue,  it's getting into the head of the president, unless it's not that, it's a partisan attack on the results of the election. OK - fine -- let's go there, then, right Chuck Todd?

Negative on that; the next question had nothing to do with Paul's answer, it had everything to do with giving the president cover. That's right - the question was whether a distinction should be made between Trump asking for a quid pro quo and his administration asking for one. You know, Mulvaney maybe?

You know, I think we've gotten lost in this whole idea of quid pro quo. And I think Senator Kennedy kind of hit the nail on the head. It's that, if you're not allowed to give aid to people who are corrupt, there's always contingencies on aid. Even, even President Obama withheld aid. You know, he was supposed to give lethal aid. Congress said, "Give them $300 million in lethal aid." And he sent them blankets.

So presidents, since the beginning of time, have resisted Congress. And there's been this sort of back-and-forth jockeying over what is sent. But also, presidents have withheld aid before for corruption. So the thing is is I think it's a mistake to say, "Oh, he withheld aid, until he got what he wanted." Well, if it's corruption, and he believes there to be corruption, he has every right to withhold aid. So I think it's a big mistake for anybody to argue quid pro quo. He didn't have quid pro quo.

And then, knowing that he'll be a juror, should articles of impeachment come to the Senate, Paul offered the president a new defense.

And I know that's what the administration's arguing. I wouldn't make that argument. I would make the argument that every politician in Washington, other than me, virtually, is trying to manipulate Ukraine to their purposes. Menendez tried it. Murphy tried it. Biden tried it. Trump's tried it. They're all doing it. They are all trying to manipulate Ukraine to get some kind of investigation, either to end an investigation or start an investigation.

No follow-up on that, no probing on what Paul said, even the part about "every politician" trying to manipulate Ukraine, except Rand Paul. Nope; back to whether an average American should be concerned about the president asking a foreign country to investigate a political rival, and does Paul "understand why some people think...that that is, basically, abusing the office for political gain, to mess with the election?" More from the Senator, more emphasis from me.

I think you're right, Chuck. But I think an equal number of people are upset that Hillary Clinton hired a British spy to hire Russians to get dirt called the Steele Dossier. So here's Hillary Clinton, in the middle of a campaign, hiring a foreign spy agency or a foreign spy-

So, it's not about Joe Biden, now it's about Hillary Clinton? This time, Todd came back.

Alright, you did it again to me. You did it again. You went back and said, "Okay, there's behavior that's bad over here. There's behavior that's bad over there." All that does is condition us for more bad behavior. When do we put a stop to this?

Paul denied the 'what-aboutism, even though that's exactly what it was.

No, but what it says is — no, what I'm asking for is that they be treated equally. And I think the American public's going to say, "If you didn't do anything to Hillary Clinton for hiring a foreign spy, why is it, all of a sudden, wrong for President Trump --

Todd, interrupting: "So two wrongs make a right?"

And Paul:

--to have a country investigate somebody-- well, what I would say is that people want them to be treated fairly. I'm not saying, two wrongs make a right. I'm not even saying I would've done it that way. All I'm saying is, is that you're going to impeach President Trump, and you're going to give Hillary Clinton, you know, let her skate? So then I think people see that as unfair. And so it becomes partisan. That's why no Republicans voted for impeachment.

And, no follow up on that. Which one is it? Is it Biden? Clinton? The Elf on the Shelf?

Final question: Are you an open-minded juror? 

I'm very open minded and fair minded. You'll not meet a person who is more fair than I am. I really do believe that justice should be colorblind, gender blind, you name it. I think justice should. But you know, one of our traditions about justice, about finding justice, is a defense should be able to present their witnesses. So if you can't call Hunter Biden, and you can't call the whistleblower, that's not -- that’s sort of a sham. That's not even really a trial. So I am fair minded. But the trial has to be fair.

So now, we have to call two people, one who has never been involved with Trump in any way, and one with no first-hand knowledge of anything, according to Republicans?  My head spins - it Joe Biden literally spins.

But that's OK, because I'm going to share one bit of the interview Todd had with Rep. Himes, who addresses that point nicely.  Todd asked if there's going to be new information learned once the public hearings kick off on Wednesday.

Himes said there will be new info, and that he suspects "most of the public" hasn't read the transcripts that have been released.  And, he said, we'll hear from "immensely patriotic... articulate people" who'll tell us about a president who "extorted a vulnerable country." And then, he said this.

And Chuck, if you'll, if you’ll grant me one second here, my head is only now decombusting from the exchange you had with Rand Paul. I've spent 11 years in public service defending the press, and when Senator Rand Paul comes on and says that what Donald Trump did -- and the transcript is there -- extorting a foreign government for his personal political gain, and that's exactly the same thing as Joe Biden, "Exactly the same thing," is what he said, as Joe Biden saying that this prosecutor should be released. When Joe Biden is acting in consistency with American foreign policy and back then we had a whole list of things that had to be done and this was American foreign policy, it was European Union policy, it was IMF policy that this prosecutor needed to go.

When Rand Paul says that that's exactly the same thing as the president of the United States saying, "You need to find dirt on my political opponent," and with all due respect, Chuck, when you say, "Well, do two wrongs make a right?" Let's be very clear. The president of the United States demanding, extorting a vulnerable country to do his political bidding, to go after his opponent, has nothing to do with Joe Biden executing the foreign policy of the United States or Hillary Clinton, who is a private citizen, doing opposition research on her - on her presidential opponent. Those are radically different things. What the President did is wrong and impeachable.

See you around campus.  

Wondering on Wednesday (v189)

Where should we start the wondering tonight, I wonder..."

Let's start with the impeachment thing and get that out of the way:

• I wonder how successful "shooting the messenger" will be as a defense for the president? The whistleblower wasn't even there, the Rs used to say, and so not the report is not even credible. And then, it was the whistleblower was partisan, so completely not credible. 

• And now that there is credible evidence from people who were there, it's escalated to "the whistleblower used to work for Biden and therefore is a material witness" (to something that happened before Trump was elected and is not germane to whether Trump did or did not commit an impeachable offence)after taking office), but now, we need the whistleblower exposed IMMEDIATELY and WE NEED TESTIMONY! LOTS OF TESTIMONY! 

• Silly me -- the defense is not "shoot the messenger", it's DEFLECT!! DEFLECT!! DEFLECT!!  

• Honestly, if the Senate wants to waste everyone's time and not do the job we sent them there to do and go after Joe Biden and his son, that's fine, but that's the exact same argument they're using to suggest that the impeachment is the wrong thing to do -- and so, I wonder if we can get this impeachment thing out of the way first?

• Little Donny Trump has tweeted the identity of the alleged whistleblower, and allegedly so have Little Donny's Daddy's Russian friends. And he apparently denies any coordination with the White House on this -- as if he'd do anything like that, he suggested. He's his own man and all. But I have to wonder, do you think he told Daddy he was going to do that, or if it was a surprise? 

• And which one of them, I wonder, told Russia, "Hey, if you're reading Don Jr's tweets, there something there you could publish if you want..."

Moving on to yesterday's election results: Virginia turned blue last night, for the first time in a generation. and the lady who flipped Trump off won a seat. Not because she flipped him off, mind you, but because her message resonated with voters and because she worked her fanny off. In Pennsylvania, Republicans lost in Delaware County where they've held seats since the Civil War; Democrats flipped several seats in Central Ohio, and may have narrowly won the Kentucky gubernatorial contest, although a re-canvass has been requested by the Republican incumbent Matt Bevin.

So - does all of that, or any of it, have anything to do with what can be expected in 2020, I wonder? Does it have anything to do with impeachment/ With bad trade deals? Leaving the Paris Climate Accord? The Iran nuclear deal?

Or, does it really only mean that people at the state and local level are unhappy with what's going on where they live?

I wonder...

TGIF 10/25/19

It's that time again folks...

Ready... Set... Go!

Bad weeks were had by:

• House Freedom Caucus members, who orgasmically 'stormed' the Secure Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, in the basement of the Capitol. Their breathless assault on a room where depositions are being taken in the House impeachment inquiry in front of both Democrats AND Republicans was laughable - at best - and it was played out for an audience not of their constituents, but for an audience of one. They know that, and we know that - everyone knows that. 
• Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who was found to be in contempt by a federal judge (in addition to having been found to be in contempt by millions of Americans) and was fined $100,000. Some say the fine was too low, given her resources, but at least someone in a position to do so took a stand. 
• The DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, after a bunch of federal watchdogs said the decision to stop the whistleblower complaint in Trump's impeachment inquiry from getting to Congress was wrong, and not only that, it "could seriously undermine the critical role whistleblowers play in coming forward to report fraud, waste, abuse and misconduct across the federal government."
• And, let's add Rudy Giuliani to the list this week - not for the usual reasons, such as a wacky TV appearance, assault and battery on sentence structure and logical thought, or any of that. Nah -- this time, it's because the founder of Giuliani Security & Safety, which "offers corporations, individuals, and governments a full platform of security, investigative and crisis management services" managed to butt-dial a reporter and leave a voicemail - for the second time in less than three weeks. 
• Democratic presidential candidates; it seems several Dem money bigwigs are unhappy with the choices they have, and might be trying to get others into the race. 

And now, on to the good week, with a World Series focus. My team is spending the off-season trying to figure out what to do next year, but it's still fun to pay attention to the Fall Classic.

• The Washington Nationals are up two games to none, as I write this, against the Houston Astros. That's probably surprising to most experts, it seems, who tended to pick the Houstonians. Sadly, this is also good news for the Baby Shark song.
• Super gymnast Simone Biles had a flippin' good week, too, as she busted a move before throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in Game 2.
• And women had at least a bit of a good week. Astros' assistant general manager Brandon Taubman was fired after repeatedly shouting at three female reporters how "(bleeping) glad" he was that the Astros had picked up Roberto Osuna before the playoffs. Osuna was the third player suspended by MLB for violating the league's domestic violence policy.  

Here's to some good baseball, a clean series, and hopefully, a first win for the Nats.

Oh -- one last thing: hey, Freedom Caucus - you KNOW it's a bad week when even Russia is laughing at you.

TGIF, everyone.

OrangeVerse XLVI: Lies, Damn Lies, Poetry

The president gave us another lie-filled poetry reading this week, speaking before he headed off to Florida to speak at The Villages, the largest retirement community in our solar system.  Let's take a look. 

Absolute Perfection
If you look at the whistleblower's
complaint, it's totally inaccurate
because the conversation I had
was absolutely perfect. The
whistleblower never saw the
- saw the conversation. He got
his information, I guess second-
or third-hand. He wrote something
that was total fiction and now when
people see that they're not happy.

China by the Numbers
We're going to have a meeting with them. We'll see. But
we're doing very well. Some of the numbers I
think are being affected by all of the non-
sense of all of the politics going on...
by the Democrats I call them the
"Do-nothings...." But the
numbers really are
looking very good
going into the
future I have
a lot of
options
on
China
 but if they
don't do what we want
we have tremendous - tremendous power.

I Hoped Zelensky Would China
If they were honest
about it they'd
start a major
investigation
into the Bidens.
It's a very simple
answer. They should
investigate the
Bidens because
how does a
company that's
newly formed -
and all these
companies if you
look at - and
by the way
likewise China
should start an
investigation
into the Bidens
because what
happened in
China is just
about as bad as
what happened
with -- with
Ukraine.

On Subpoena Compliance
Well
I leave that
to the lawyers.
I can say though
that Schiff has now
been proven to be a liar.
We've known it for three years
because they've been trying to impeach
for three years. He's a li - he's a stone-cold liar
So I leave that up to the lawyers. That's up to them
to decide but the
 whole investigation
is crumbling Yeah.

The Innocent Project
...I read Mitch McConnell's statement yesterday,
and he read my phone call and as you know he put
out a statement that said it was the most innocent
phone call he's read and I spoke to him about it, too.
He read my phone call with the president of Ukraine.
Mitch McConnell - he said "that was the most innocent
phone call that I've read." I mean, give me a break any
body that reads it says the same thing and the only
people who don't understand it is when they look
at the false fabricates fraudulent statement
made by Shifty Schiff.

Oh, Sweetheart!
Well I think Biden                  is going down and I.
think his whole situation -    because no you may very
well find that there are other countries that they scammed just
like they scammed China and Ukraine. And basically who are they
scamming? The USA. And it's not good. And that's probably why
China, for so many years has had a sweetheart deal where
China rips off the  USA - because they deal like
people with Biden, where they  give their son
a  billion and a half  dollars and that's prob-
ably why China has such a sweetheart
deal that, for so many years
 they've been ripping off
our country.

Honesty
Thank you I'll
see you in Florida.
I'll see you all in Florida.

TGIF 9/21/19

Let's dive right in to the good week/bad week stuff, shall we?

How about the word 'shall', which according to our friends at Merriam-Webster, has this particularly relevant meaning, under 3(b): --used in laws, regulations, or directives to express what is mandatory.

Hmm.. mandatory? You mean like when a whistleblower complaint has been investigated and determined to be credible and urgent, and therefore it shall be turned over to Congress?  I would have thought this would be a good week for 'shall' but in our bizarro world, 'shall' and 'shall not' are synonyms, not antonyms.

Now, admittedly only the whistleblower, the Inspector General for the intelligence community, the (Acting) Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel, and if we believe his tweets, the president, know what was reported and why it was determined to be both urgent and credible, and whether it meets the standard outlined in the regulations. We, the public? Yeah, we don't get to know that.

Congress? Yeah, they don't get to know that either, even though they have oversight of the Executive. As I said, in this bizarro world, up is down and left is wrong and right is where the president always is - just ask him.  But when the Wall Street Journal reports that during one phone call in July, Trump asked the president of Ukraine eight times to investigate Joe Biden's son, this is a problem whether he offered them a payment or arms or money or oil or a dinner with Ivanka or anything else.

Of course, there's always the chance that the call to Ukraine's president is not the one that kicked off the whistleblower complaint -- except that the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani (a true match made in heaven if there ever was one) set himself on fire last night in an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN.

It was one of those head-spinning things, in which Rudy claimed to have affidavits, but those are likely unnecessary because the proof is all over the Internet, but he wouldn't give the proof to Chris Cuomo anyway, because he's fake news and also that he (Rudy) both absolutely did and did not talk to Ukraine about investigating Joe Biden and China and Hillary and let me tell you, he's damn proud he did. Or didn't. Or something. Rudy had a good week and a bad week in a matter of mere seconds.

Finally, let's close with some business decisions recently made public:

• Walmart will stop selling e-cigarettes, the company announced today. Sure, the retail giant may be looking to save time, aggravation and money trying to implement the quickly changing regulations on a city-by-city, state-by-state basis, but this comes after they recently stopped selling ammunition used in so-called assault weapons. Earlier this year, they raised the age for tobacco purchases to 21. We can question their motives until the cows come home, but I appreciate the stands they've been taking.
• Colt Manufacturing is stopping civilian sales of AR-15s, one of the weapons of choice in mass shootings. Again, motivation can be questioned -- they're already experiencing poor sales of the weapon to regular folks, and they've gotten a tasty contract to provide the AR's fully automatic sibling to the military.

And I was reminded of this post from 2014 which included a mention of CVS stopping cigarette sales. There were least four vocal components complaining after that decision, about them going too far, or not far enough, or about the nanny state, or questioning the company's motivation.

Seems little has changed in the past five years, doesn't it? 

TGIF, everyone.