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 →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
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 →
Climate Change — Is There Anything it Can’t Do?
Climate change is behind increasing flight turbulence, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says — cnbc.com There’s no “asserted without evidence” caveat of the kind you see whenever Donald Trump says anything. Climate change is the default explanation for everything. “Climate change,” Buttigieg says and everyone just nods in agreement. I remember reading a news story several years ago saying that climate change was reducing the amount of fog in the Bay Area of California: The sight of Golden Gate Bridge towering above the fog will become increasing rare as climate change warms San Francisco bay, scientists have found. But a a news story from the previous summer stated that climate change was increasing the amount of Bay Area fog: The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it’s about to get even foggier. Less fog? Climate change. More fog? Climate change. What if… Read more →
“All These Things That I Believed In For All These Years No Longer Exist”
View this post on Instagram A post shared by CBS Sports College Football (@cbssportscfb) Read more →
The Wild Iris
At the end of my suffering there was a door. Hear me out: that which you call death I remember. Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. Then nothing. The weak sun flickered over the dry surface. It is terrible to survive as consciousness buried in the dark earth. Then it was over: that which you fear, being a soul and unable to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth bending a little. And what I took to be birds darting in low shrubs. You who do not remember passage from the other world I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice: from the center of my life came a great fountain, deep blue shadows on azure sea water. — Louise Glück, “The Wild Iris” Read more →
The Importance of Messaging
Teens come up with trigonometry proof for Pythagorean Theorem, a problem that stumped math world for centuries https://t.co/g0z8IObsu4 via @60minutes — Paul Epps (@paulepps) May 18, 2024 These young ladies attended St. Mary’s Academy, a Catholic school for young Black women in New Orleans. The school has a 100 percent graduation rate and a 100 percent college acceptance rate. There’s no test to get in, but expectations are high and rules are strict: no cellphones, modest skirts, hair must be its natural color. The success formula seems to be pretty simple and that is that the school instills in students the idea that they have the ability to accomplish anything. I’ve always thought that would work. It seems like the message that most Black Americans, kids and adults, get is that if you’re Black, you can’t be successful in America because of racism. Your efforts will not be rewarded fairly.… Read more →
The Three Nevers of Working With Recruiters
I recently read a LinkedIn post written by a recruiter, the gist of which was that recruiters are fully transparent with candidates, therefore candidates should be fully transparent with recruiters, and candidates who are not fully transparent about things like current salary are “cagey.” That was the word the author used — “cagey.” Multiple other recruiters added supportive comments. Full transparency is not a quality I associate with recruiters, even though I’ve worked with some excellent recruiters that I like a lot. Recruiters work for clients. They get paid by clients. When they submit you for a job, they also submit multiple other candidates to compete with you because that maximizes their chances of getting paid. I suppose everyone knows this but it’s never mentioned. It’s not something recruiters are transparent about. Never tell a recruiter your current salary. In some localities, like my state of California, asking a candidate’s… Read more →
The Fraud of “Disinformation”
It is hard not to notice something quite odd about our courageous and noble combatants against disinformation: namely, they lie more frequently, more casually, and with far greater impact than any other societal faction. When they get caught in these lies, they never correct them, never explain them, and certainly never retract them – they instead simply move on to the next set of partisan lies because they genuinely believe that their cause of defeating Trump is so just and so righteous that anything and everything they invoke to further that aim, including overtly lying, is inherently justified. — Glenn Greenwald Read more →
California’s Workers Now Want $30 Minimum Wage
California’s Workers Now Want $30 Minimum Wage — msn.com In January, California raised the minimum hourly wage from $11 to $16. In April, the minimum wage for fast-food workers went to $20. That’s a problem if you own a fast-food restaurant because in addition to the increased labor cost, you’ve got to deal with inflated prices for beef, poultry, vegetables, eggs, etc. You can either eat (no pun intended) the costs yourself or pass them on to customers, some of whom will become former customers because they can no longer afford to eat at McDonald’s. Another option is you can lay off workers — 10,000 fast-food workers in California have lost their job since the $20 minimum wage took effect. Nobody learned anything from that because now they want $30/hr. If you think about it for a minute, you’ll realize that if you have skills that are worth $30/hr, you’d… Read more →
12 Years for Bullets
https://t.co/u7jTIDLmY5 via @nypost — Paul Epps (@paulepps) May 17, 2024 Twelve years in prison seems excessive for a tourist with bullets in his luggage. Not even a weapon. Just bullets. Maybe a modest fine would be warranted. That said, I’m skeptical that the bullets wound up in his luggage “accidentally.” Although I admit I can’t think of any reason for packing bullets on a family vacation, I can tell you that on any vacation or trip that I’ve ever taken, every item in my luggage was there for one reason only and that’s because I put it there. Read more →
If I can predict all of your beliefs from one of your beliefs, you’re not a serious thinker. — Chris Williamson
When I Am Among the Trees
When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often. Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches. And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.” — Mary Oliver, “When I Am Among the Trees” Read more →