I’m not going to get too fancy here because I was up far too late for a pervert my age. SP and I were watching a self-consciously arty French film, then moved on to a particularly cheezy old oater which featured a young Gabby Hayes. We immediately noticed a strong resemblance to The Late P Brooks, except that Hayes know how to thread. I came away with a burning desire to get a 10 gallon hat so that I could look like an old Jewish mushroom. It did not help that Spudalicious and I spent the evening texting each other tomato porn. On the bright side, we polished off a nice Gruet Brut and a better-than-nice Prunotto Nebbiolo d’Alba.

So anyway, that’s my excuse for a half-assed job today.

And today is the birthday of John Venn, the inventor of the Venn Diaphragm, birth control of many generations of mathematicians. Also Helen Thomas, the spirit animal for Jim Acosta. And Richard Belzer, one of my favorite comic actors. Oh yeah, and hack Chicago politician Barack Obama, who was the “Hold my beer!” answer to the question, “Could we possibly get a worse president than George W. Bush?”

On to the news of the hour:

 

Somehow, this escaped everyone’s notice.  You know, I did vote for SMOD for president.

A meteor hit the earth and exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force last month, but the US Air Force has made no mention of the event. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed an object of unspecified size travelling at 24.4 kilometres per second struck earth in Greenland, just 43 kilometres north of an early missile warning Thule Air Base on the 25th of July, 2018.

What didn’t escape MY notice: the Fox “reporter” not knowing the difference between a meteor and a meteorite.

 

I love shit like this.

[T]op officials from the CIA, NSA, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the Chinese smartphones makers posed a security threat to American customers. FBI Director Christopher Wray told the commitee the FBI is “deeply concerned that any company beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values are not companies that we want to be gaining positions of power inside our telecommunications network.”

Funny thing, I don’t think it’s just foreign governments that don’t share my values.

 

I… don’t quite know what to make of this.

[Ray] Lewis said that he was such a force for good that his presence on the football field with the Ravens actually resulted in a reduction in crime in Baltimore. “When I played, crime went lower in Baltimore,” Lewis said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “It’s like, nobody needs to be mad now. It’s like everybody wants to be happy and celebrate.”

Well, certainly crime decreased in Atlanta when Lewis was busy playing.

 

I know our commenters will have fun with this story.

The 24-year-old’s lawsuit claims that men watched pornography at the office and that the “server area” was used for masturbation. According to the complaint, “An intimate knowledge of the porn industry and lingo appeared to be a job requirement.”

Gives new meaning to the legal term “wrongful discharge.” Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week!

 

When is this guy going to die already?

McCain, 81, and those closest to him have not publicly revealed his long-term medical prognosis. His daughter cannot imagine a world without him, she told Glamour. “He’s the last person who needs to be sick now because I so need him here, fighting for all the things that we believe in,” she says. “I’m scared of America without him.”

Oh honey, we’ll manage somehow.

 

I’m still betting that this will be the Team Blue presidential nominee in 2020.

Shortly after she won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2016, Kamala Harris said she expected to follow the traditional freshman lawmaker playbook: “Listen and watch, and kind of get a lay of the land.”

As opposed to the lay of Willie Davis.

 

Sigh. Cosmologist does a titty-grab, hysteria ensues.

The unnamed woman, who according to the report declined to be interviewed by investigators when the probe was first opened in the summer of 2017, did speak with them in March. She told them that “she did not feel victimized, felt it was a clumsy interpersonal interaction and thought she had handled it in the moment,” telling Krauss directly that his behavior was not OK. According to the report: “She also stated to the OEI investigator that the incident did not merit the man losing his career.”

I’m having trouble imagining what kind of shit Richard Feynman would find himself in if he were alive today.

 

Do you know who else’s birthday it is today? The subject of Old Guy Music. And I can’t really comment beyond, “Wow. Just wow.”