Monterey Park Motive

A bitter, lonely old man with access to an assault weapon decided to share the pain of loneliness and rejection with the regulars at the dance studio where he had gone for companionship.

The $750,000 Santos Mystery Solved

Drumroll please:

the mystery of the Santos $750,000 campaign contribution solved.

The $750,000 Santos Mystery Solved

Drumroll please:

the mystery of the Santos $750,000 campaign contribution solved.

santos #campaignfinance #santos

Lawyers: How to Differentiate

Lawyers fail to monetize their networks. This often has value. Instead, lawyers pretend that it doesn’t exist or is inaccessible, even as the Internet has proven over and over that networks have value. The network itself is proof of that value, but if you pretend it doesn’t exist, then there is no value. Look at your network and capitalize on it.

Collateral Damage

“Vaccines saved lives and flattened the curve. Sure, there was collateral damage like Hamlin and Presley, but there was collateral damage in Baghdad too and no one said ‘boo.’”

Lawyers: How to Differentiate

Lawyers fail to monetize their networks. This often has value. Instead, lawyers pretend that it doesn’t exist or is inaccessible, even as the Internet has proven over and over that networks have value. The network is proof of that value, but if you pretend it doesn’t exist, then there is a failure of value. Look at your network and capitalize on it.

Give Santos a Break

OK, he lied. He’s not Jewish, his grandparents had nothing to do with the Holocaust, he didn’t work at Goldman Sachs or even graduate from college.

So what? Let’s judge him on his performance rather than on whom he once claimed to be. Obviously, this man has skills: he ran a successful, federal congressional campaign and won as someone who had never held any kind of political office.

The fact is that no one is safe while the Congress is in session. Santos cannot possibly do worse than others who have held the office. If anything, his “embellishments” will keep him humble, a character quality otherwise sorely lacking amongst his new peers.

Riyals, Rubles or Renminbi

No one–except the US–is happy with the fact that the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. Remove its status and Europe will be happy to buy riyals, rubles or renminbi to purchase oil.

George Santos: American

Really, what is more American than the grift?

George Santos “embellished” his resumé, not worrying about the fact that identity politics trumps even outright lies. Santos claims to be Jewish, biracial, and finding one box unchecked, gay. He is Latino enough and there are Holocaust survivors in his family tree.

A claimed 9/11 death in the family makes up for a lack of military service, and when the New York Times finally looked into his background and uncovered his failure to graduate from college the fact that Santos is a high-school dropout was lost in the noise.

Shilling for sympathy, Santos had his mother die twice. He started a charity for animals and pocketed the cash, knowing that dogs and cats don’t complain. He is a liar and shameless, as any good grifter must be. None of this prevented his election to the 117th Congress.

If anything, he is the perfect candidate.

Give Santos a Break

OK, he lied. He’s not Jewish, his grandparents had nothing to do with the Holocaust, he didn’t work at Goldman Sachs or even graduate from college.

So what? Let’s judge him on his performance rather than on whom he once claimed to be. Obviously, this man has skills: he ran a successful, federal congressional campaign and won as someone who had never held any kind of political office.

The fact is that no one is safe while the Congress is in session. Santos cannot possibly do worse than others who have held the office. If anything, his “embellishments” will keep him humble, a character quality otherwise sorely lacking amongst his new peers.

Cali’s New Evidentiary Rule

No longer can rap lyrics be held against their author in a criminal trial, a new California law tells us.

Many would assert that rap glorifies the thug lifestyle, though arguments will ensue as to whether that lifestyle is merely a fashion statement akin to the “heroin chic” that glamour magazines pushed in the 90’s.

Still, violence by and against rap stars seems to be part of that world. Some of these killings, like the assassinations of Tupac and Biggie. The former CEO of Death Row Records, Suge Knight, is himself in prison, serving a lengthy term for murder.

Some would question whether rap lyrics’ discussion of violence is nothing more than an elaborate pose. After all, didn’t white rapper Vanilla Ice sing of prowling the streets of Miami with a 9mm handgun?

A prosecutor would be eager to use such lyrics in a criminal prosecution. After all, Google searches for “how to dispose of a body” can and are introduced as evidence of premeditation.

Hollywood knows not a little about make-believe and saw this as a dangerous trend. Hence, the new protective evidentiary rule.

But there’s nothing new about the use of literature in criminal cases. Kawashima Yoshiko was a member of the Chinese imperial family who, not entirely unsurprisingly, cast her lot with the Japanese occupiers of the puppet state of Manchuoko, as they had restored her family to a much-reduced, Japanese-controlled throne.

She spoke fluent Japanese, was raised in Japan for a time and commanded an army.

And she was trans, deciding that she would no longer be a woman. “Yoshiko” is her dead name, she adopted the name “Ryosuke” as her male name.

Accused of treason after the fall of Japan and the second fall of the Qing Imperial House, she was tried in a Chinese court, where a novel about her life was entered into evidence. Not a record or a report: a novel. A novel not written by Ryosuke and fictionalized. No matter: she was convicted and shot.

I doubt that the California legislators considered the facts of her case when considering the new legislation. The new evidentiary rule is largely symbolic since a judge may waive it and allow song lyrics to be considered by the jury.

And presumably, novels as well.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiko_Kawashima

Horizontal Space in Ulysses

If you need blank horizontal space in Ulysses, try using a UTF-8 space character.

Ulysses does not strip blank space where that blank space is a UTF-8 character, like U+2004 (three em space). While this symbol cannot be generated in Ulysses–like s̵t̵r̵i̵k̵e̵t̵h̵r̵o̵u̵g̵h̵ for example–if generated in an external program and copied to Ulysses, it will both be displayed in Ulysses and upon export.