This week we saw the same dreary scenario played out again. The big tax cuts for business and the wealthy were passed on the claim that this would result in both groups investing more in business, which would result in huge growth in employment and wages, thus increasing tax revenues that would offset the cost of the cuts and thus make it budget neutral
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I have expressed before my dislike of the fact that cheating in baseball by tricking the umpires is not only not punished, but the players and media gloat over their success in duping on on-field officials. That strikes me as disgraceful. Another thing I dislike is not cheating but involves the fact that spectators can, in some instances, interfere with the action. This can happen because spectators can sit right behind the wall that designates the boundary. So if a ball is hit over the wall, you can have a situation where the fielder leaps to catch it before, or even after, it reaches the wall, while spectators, rather than moving away and giving the fielder room to make the play, also try to catch the ball and interfere.
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An Air India pilot displays an incredible level of insouciance.
Boeing 737 flies into brick wall – and just keeps going
An Air India pilot flew a Boeing 737 through a brick wall Friday. Incredibly, that marked the beginning of its journey and not the end.
The jet not only clobbered the top of a five-foot perimeter wall but also destroyed a small landing guide tower as it climbed out of Tiruchirappalli International Airport in Tamil Nadu, India, shortly after midnight, the Times of India reported.
With 130 passengers on board, it was bound from the southern tip of India to Dubai across the ocean. And despite the audible and obvious collision, the pilot apparently saw no reason not to continue on.
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(For those who do not live in the US, there is a chain of restaurants called Fuddruckers.)
I mentioned in an earlier post my puzzlement as to why Turkey and its president were taking such an aggressive role in revealing information about the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi after he entered a Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey. There has been a steady release of information from Turkish authorities saying that they had information that Khashoggi was murdered and his body dismembered by a hit squad that came from Saudi Arabia, and this had led to worldwide outrage.
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October 10th was the World Day Against the Death Penalty. One of the most encouraging signs is how the use of the death penalty is declining around the world. According to Amnesty International, “142 countries have either abolished the death penalty in law or in practice and that in the past five years 33 countries have carried out at least one execution.” In 2017, just 23 countries out of the 193 member states of the UN executed someone.
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I am not by any means an expert on Russian theater and so seized the chance to see a film adaptation of Anton Chekov’s acclaimed play The Seagull starring Annette Bening. It was an enjoyable film, but as I watched it I could not help noticing that it conformed to the popular view of Russian plays where no one is happy and everyone complains to one another about their unhappiness.
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As worldwide condemnation grows, the Saudi Arabian government definitely acts like it is guilty in the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khasshoggi.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Tuesday said police who entered the consulate for the first time on Monday had found some surfaces had been painted over. “My hope is that we can reach conclusions that will give us a reasonable opinion as soon as possible, because the investigation is looking into many things such as toxic materials and those materials being removed by painting them over,” he told reporters.
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The New Zealand singer Lorde had scheduled a concert in Israel but later canceled it when Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab, two young women in New Zealand, one Jewish and the other Palestinian, started a petition that asked her to not go because of Israel’s apartheid-like policies against Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Territories.
So what happened? Three young Israelis filed a legal case against Sachs and Abu-Shanab, claiming that “their “artistic welfare” was damaged because of the cancellation and that they suffered “damage to their good name as Israelis and Jews”.
No, really!
Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab
First off, John Oliver looks at the latest atrocity involving the disappearance and possible murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the context of long-term US coddling of the murderous regime that rules Saudi Arabia.