Why does Trump tweet like a teenager?

As pretty much everyone might have expected, Donald Trump responded vigorously to the assertions in Michael Wolff’s new book that everyone around him, including his closest confidantes and members of his family, think he’s an idiot. He sent out a series of tweets praising his own intelligence.

“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star….. ….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”

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The real axis of evil

Peter Maass warns us that we should pay less attention to the Donald Trump-Steve Bannon relationship that is currently dominating the news and more to the malevolent influence that Rupert Murdoch has on Trump.

One of the less-noted passages in Wolff’s book explains that the president reveres Murdoch, regularly seeking advice from the founder of the Fox empire, a condition that made Bannon jealous of Murdoch’s power over Trump. The book quotes Roger Ailes, who ran Fox News for Murdoch until being dismissed for sexual harassment, as noting that “Trump would jump through hoops for Rupert.”

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This is good news?

Matt Taibbi tries hard to convince us that there is an upside to the awful revelations in Michael Wolff’s gossipy new book about the first year of the Trump presidency.

The book certainly doesn’t seem like good news. Wolff tells us our president is probably a neurotic illiterate, incapable of focus beyond a few seconds, and thought of as a deranged simpleton by even his most trusted advisors.
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Wolff basically describes Trump as a deficient buffoon who, when it comes to politics anyway, is totally out of his element, mistaking fake ardor for the real thing, constantly demanding fealty from Congress, the business world and staff:
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Surprise withdrawal in Ohio senate race

Republican Josh Mandel announced today that he was dropping out from the US senate race because of his wife’s health issues. Democratic senator Sherrod Brown is trying to retain the seat he has won twice previously. He faced a strong challenge from Mandel, an intensely ambitious young (he is just 40 years of age) Republican who is currently the state treasurer and was the clear front-runner to gain the Republican nomination. In his 2010 campaign for the treasurer’s office, Mandel falsely suggested that his opponent was a Muslim and in general his campaigns have become notorious for their tenuous relationships with the truth.
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Why aren’t roosters deaf?

When roosters crow at the break of dawn, their sound output is quite prodigious, reaching as much as 140dB levels at very close range. If you get that close, you can damage your eardrum in less than a second. But at even moderate distances, levels can reach 100 dB, close to the levels of a chainsaw. So the question arises as to why roosters do not become deaf from their own sound output. Christie Wilcox writes that scientists intrigued by this question have investigated and found the reason.
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How science is helping eliminate false convictions

In my post on the documentary The Thin Blue Line, I mentioned how in so many jurisdictions in the US the police, the prosecutors, and even the medical examiners offices are so determined to pin the crime on someone that they are willing to manufacture evidence or overlook or even actively suppress evidence that suggests that they might have the wrong person. Fortunately, there has been an increase in private individuals and pro bono lawyers who have taken an interest in such cases and there have been some high-profile releases of wrong incarcerated people.
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Channeling Marcel Marceau

We are currently experiencing a prolonged period of snow and extreme cold and wind, though In Cleveland the snowfall has been a couple of inches every other day or so and not the massive snowstorms that have hit other parts of the northeast. But it was bad enough that driving required considerable caution.

This video of Mike Warner of Oregon trying to climb stairs in 90 mph wind reminds me of the old ‘walking into the wind’ mime classic.
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Lifestyles of the rich and drunken

Jacqueline Kent Cooke, the heiress daughter of the late Jack Kent Cooke, the former owner of the Washington football team that refuses to change its racist name, apparently got drunk on New Year’s eve at a fancy restaurant and used anti-Semitic slurs on a fellow patron that later resulted in a brawl on the street outside that was captured on video, with Cooke sitting on the sidewalk and bringing down her adversary with an ankle tackle.
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