Left tenant Sanders

I discovered the other day that it's still easy to annoy me, 3+ months into Donald Trump's presidency, by saying "Bernie Sanders would have won". Or at least by saying it really condescendingly; I might react better if it were said in other ways, but it doesn't appear I'll find out. The first problem with this claim is, of course, that we'll never know; our reality lends itself poorly to controlled tests involving experimental Earth and control Earth. But the other problem is that I *believe* the claim to be preposterously wrong. I think Bernie would have been crushed, solidly losing the popular as well as the electoral vote. Since my own politics are by American standards far left and anti-corporate, and basically share Sanders's goals, I think this delusion is harmful.

The case for "Bernie would have won" is, I admit, simple.

Cooked fish: the quiet tyranny

At Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump's favorite of the private clubs he owns, government safety inspectors discovered that fish intended to be served raw wasn't being inspected for parasites; that chicken, duck, beef, and ham were being dangerously stored at temperatures of 49 to 57 degrees F; and that the kitchen staff weren't washing their hands in a way that would sterilize germs. They learned this days before he was going to host Japan's Prime Minister there.

Trump, like any of the other Republican candidates would have (and like the Republican congress has repeatedly voted to do), is dramatically slashing the number of government safety inspectors, and attempting to repeal many safety regulations altogether.

Turing the White House

I'm seeing tweets of people doubting -- and this really shows you how the dishonest left in this country treats a sitting president, a popular president -- doubting if I could pass a Turing Test. Now maybe you've heard about the, look, the mainstream liberal media reports the Turing Test all wrong, for one thing. Alan Turing, brilliant man, a heroic veteran, one of the first computer scientists; I had an uncle who was a computer scientist, very smart, one of the smartest, met Turing, had deals with Turing, I have nothing but good things to say about him, but the Turing Test was about men and women. That's what they don't tell you.