https://t.co/NJuaJumx5R, https://t.co/DaaxpAmyoB — Paul Epps (@paulepps) August 7, 2024 The “outrage” seems to be over Trump’s implication that Kamala Harris is using racial identity in an opportunistic manner. Which she probably is, making it a fair topic of discussion. Let’s go back a few years to President Obama. His mother was white, his father was black. I never heard anyone refer to him as anything other than black. Do you think it would have been silly if President Obama had identified as white? It would have been silly, right? But he had one white parent and one black parent, so if you can just pick the race of one parent and say “that’s what I am”, ignoring the race of the other parent, what difference does it make which one you pick? To me, the only accurate description would be to say that he’s mixed-race, but mixed-race doesn’t get you… Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Google “Bugs” in Trump Searches
Google's "explanations" are a complete joke. https://t.co/nluR7FtC1c — Paul Epps (@paulepps) August 7, 2024 Google’s “explanation” for this is a complete joke as is their “explanation” for why searching for “Donald Trump” brings up information about Kamala Harris. Software engineers have always called software errors “bugs,” because if you call something an error, it implies that someone is responsible for making the error, whereas if you call something a bug, it sounds like it’s nobody’s fault, really, just something that crawled in there of its own volition, like a cockroach in your kitchen. You could also use the word “bug” for something that was not an error at all. You did it on purpose but got caught out and need to disavow it. That’s what Google is doing here. This seems very important to me. It’s not good at all and here’s why: Google has become synonymous with online search.… Read more →
I Don’t Believe in God, I Believe in Vouchers
We spent a few days in Orlando . . . coming back to Orange County, we had a connecting flight booked through Atlanta. The Orlando flight was supposed to take off at 3:20 p.m. but there was (allegedly) a tornado watch in effect, which delayed the flight until 4:30, then 5:30, then 6:15. By that time, we were guaranteed of missing the connecting flight in Atlanta, so we rebooked on an 8:50 flight from Atlanta to Orange County, the last Orange County flight of the night. Unfortunately, the flight from Orlando to Atlanta was delayed again, didn’t take off until 7:30, and we missed the 8:50 flight. There were weather issues throughout the Southeast, a lot of flights were delayed or cancelled, and the line we had to stand in at the Delta customer service center was very, very long. We were already able to use the Delta app to… Read more →
What Has Happened to Major League Baseball?
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Boras Corporation (@borascorp) Blake Snell of the San Francisco Giants, the league’s reigning Cy Young Award winner, pitched the first no-hit game of his career a couple of nights ago, beating the Cincinnati Reds 3-0. Not only was it Snell’s first career no-hitter, it was the first complete game of his career. What has major league baseball come to when a starting pitcher wins a Cy Young award without throwing one single complete game?! It’s not as common as you might think for a reigning Cy Young winner to throw a no-hitter. It’s only happened five times before. Going back to when I was growing up watching baseball, Bob Gibson did it in 1971. As the Cy Young winner in 1970, Gibson pitched 20 complete games. That’s for one season. In his career, Gibson had 255 complete games. Baseball’s a totally… Read more →
Enlightenment is the Ultimate Disappointment
Perhaps I had inadvertently brushed up against the Buddhist axiom, that enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment. “From the mountain you see the mountain,” wrote Emerson. — Maggie Nelson, Bluets Read more →
Solitude With a Problem
I have been trying, for some time now, to find dignity in my loneliness. I have been finding this hard to do. It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one’s solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem. — Maggie Nelson, Bluets Read more →
Can I Get a Witness?
We sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair. — Maggie Nelson, Bluets I can’t live alone anymore. I’ve tried it and I can’t do it, the reason being that I need to have a witness to my life. Without the witness, I say things and no one hears them, I do things and no one sees them. It’s like I don’t exist. As a younger person, I lived alone successfully, but even then I imagined a witness, an observer. Read more →
The J21 Coup
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024 For years now, you could go online every day and see new videos of Joe Biden falling down, mumbling incoherently, wandering around lost and confused. But if you said anything about this out loud, you’d be called a far-right MAGA propagandist (or something similar), accused of spreading disinformation. And by the way, according to Democrats and corporate media, those videos were fake. Then came the Trump-Biden debate. Why Biden would agree to stand next to Trump for 90 minutes and debate, I have no idea. My best guess is that,… Read more →
I Just Don’t Care Anymore
I went into a local Circle K to buy a soda . . . they have one of those “double wide” soda machines with ice dispensers on both sides. When I went in, there was already a middle-aged gentleman filling up a Mountain Dew on the right side of the fountain, which he then set down well off to his left and started filling up another Mountain Dew. His first Mountain Dew was so far left, it was actually past the left side ice dispenser. I picked out a cup and started filling it with ice from the left-hand ice dispenser, which for some reason he took exception to. “Do you mind, buddy?” he said. “Do you really need the whole width of the store just to fill up a drink cup?” I asked. Politely, of course. He picked up his first Mountain Dew and moved it over closer to… Read more →
I Used to Be Depressed, Broke and Anxious
I used to be depressed, broke and anxious. Now I’m just depressed and anxious. 🙂 I appreciate this gentleman contributing free advice. It seems worthwhile. But something is off when the first thing a person tells you about themselves is how much money they make. I just read an article about a loneliness epidemic in Silicon Valley. People make a lot of money in Silicon Valley but apparently can’t figure out how to convert it into joy or connection. I’ve never seen any evidence that people with a lot of money are happier than anyone else. Quite the opposite, really. People think they’d be happy if they just had lots of money. Then they get lots of money and they’re no happier than they were before. Plus they’ve lost the fallback of thinking that the reason they’re not happy is that they don’t have a lot of money. There are… Read more →
Last Words
It turns out that his last words — I am not kidding — were "Oh f—," which is what I guessed. Probably those are a lot of people's last words.https://t.co/3zvNVgmGIS via @people — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 30, 2024 Read more →
The First 2024 Presidential Debate is in the Books
https://t.co/nNlT0xBJ3Z — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 29, 2024 When the presidential debates were first announced, I said that there was no way Biden was going to do a debate, so now I have to admit that I was wrong. But also, you can probably understand why I said that. Biden is who he is. He’s mentally and physically enfeebled. As long as he doesn’t do something deranged, like challenge his opponent to a live debate, the media can continue to do their best to cover for him. For example: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s revisit this supercut from 12 days ago. Well done MSM! pic.twitter.com/pSrnmnoVMo — MAZE (@mazemoore) June 28, 2024 Here’s what Biden said the day after the debate: “I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t talk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as… Read more →
Questions on the Hunter Biden Laptop
https://t.co/VdehI82LV1 — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 15, 2024 Hunter Biden was convicted of multiple felonies this week, in part owing to the verified contents of his laptop, which the New York Post reported on before the 2020 election. A group of 51 former U.S. intelligence officials released an open letter on Oct. 19, 2020, regarding the Post’s Oct. 14 report about the discovery of the laptop, the contents of which included documentation of a series of ethically questionable business deals that the Biden family was pursuing in both Ukraine and China, with the very likely involvement of Joe Biden himself. The letter asserted that the laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” If you read the fine print, the letter does say that while the signatories had no “evidence of Russian involvement,” the laptop op “would be consistent with some of the key methods Russia… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Jerry West
I’ve always lived in Southern California — mostly in Orange County, south of LA. If you lived somewhere else, it’s probably not possible to describe what Jerry West meant to Los Angeles. It starts with what the Lakers mean to Los Angeles and then what West meant to the Lakers, as a Hall of Fame player, and then as a coach and general manager. Yes, there’s another professional basketball team in Los Angeles but only a few misfits care about them. Quality of life in Los Angeles is determined in large part by how well the Lakers are playing. West was synonymous with Laker basketball for 40 years. You could say that after West retired as a player, the Lakers were synonymous with Showtime, Magic Johnson, Kareem, James Worthy, and later with Kobe and Shaq and Phil Jackson. But West assembled the Showtime teams, acquired Kobe in a draft day… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Chet Walker
Hall of Fame forward Chet “The Jet” Walker, a seven-time NBA All-Star, has died at the age of 84. Although he played with other teams, I remember him as a member of the Chicago Bulls teams of the 1970s, with Bob Love, Jerry Sloan, Norm Van Lier and Clifford Ray. RIP Chet Walker Read more →
Thomas Jefferson on the Hunter Biden Laptop
Ex-Intel Chief James Clapper Says He Doesn’t Regret Signing Hunter Biden Laptop Letter — nationalreview.com My fellow Americans – The FBI had already verified the contents of the laptop when that letter was disseminated. The FBI testified under oath this week at the Hunter Biden trial that the contents were authentic. Clapper knew he was signing his name to a lie but why should he regret it? He’s a professional liar. His job is to lie to the country to further his own interests and the interests of the U.S. intelligence state. Also, if any of the media organizations that propagated and embellished the lie regret doing what they did, none to my knowledge have ever come forward to say so. Read more →
Financial Reporting by Liberal Arts Majors
Payrolls popped by 272K in May — linkedin.com Yippee! They are part-time jobs. There was a significant decrease in full-time jobs and the unemployment rate rose to highest in over two years. (The photo above of the Now Hiring at Pizza Hut sign is from the actual LinkedIn story. I like it. Very appropriate.) It would be helpful to get some context around this 272,000 number, beyond just “Payrolls popped.” Nice alliteration though. Who says there’s no value in a liberal arts degree? Read more →
Four Offerings at the Moment of Transition
Every person that I’ve met in this moment of transition [death] wanted to make four offerings. — Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist, speaking at the University of Pennsylvania commencement. The four are: I want to tell you that I love you. I want to tell you that I forgive you. Would you tell me that you love me? Would you give me your forgiveness? Read more →
Now there are some who think they confute a speaker the moment they ask, “What then ought we to do?” To these I will give the fairest and truest answer: not what you are doing now. — Demosthenes
Bill Walton, 1952-2024
I grew up in Southern California and probably saw every game Bill Walton played at UCLA. I watched him in the NBA, and then as an announcer for PAC-12 basketball games. I bought his book and had it autographed. It feels like losing a family member. RIP Bill Walton View this post on Instagram A post shared by Paul Epps (@paulepps) Read more →