Leftovers & links #37
Click any image to engorge.
Asadullah Haroon Gul has been imprisoned for 14 years at Guantanamo, without a trial. That’s illegal and unconstitutional, abhorrent but not aberrant.
Now, a federal judge has ordered him to be freed.
Are we allowed to even briefly be happy about this, to cross our fingers and hope that the judge’s order will be followed? Probably not. I’m sure it’ll be quickly overruled by the obviously rigged US Supreme Court, and Asadullah Haroon Gul will spend the rest of his life in an American prison, guilty of absolutely nothing.
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White House once again delays release of JFK assassination documents
Secret government files relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy were supposed to be released by next week, but President Joe Biden has postponed the release once again. He’s blaming delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The documents will now be released in two batches, one later this year and a larger one late next year, Biden said in a White House memo.
I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again, and I’ll keep saying it because it keeps happening: BS like this is a key reason so many millions of Americans think they’re being lied to about everything, up to and including the 2020 election and COVID vaccines.
If we want people to trust the government, the very first step would be having trustworthy government. This ain’t that, not until you fuckers stop classifying everything super-dooper-secret and lying about it.
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I haven’t seen a doctor in several years, and have no known need to. I’ve never seen my current doctor, because my employer switched health plans a few years back, and then COVID came calling, and for safety’s sake “seeing the doctor” meant talking to him on the phone.
This new doc wouldn’t renew my perpetual prescription unless I made an actual appointment, though, and the next available appointment was two months in the future. His office said they’d renew the prescription as soon as I’d made the appointment, which is low-level blackmail, but also ordinary American medical practice.
I made the appointment, and they renewed my prescription. They also told me to get some medical tests before the appointment.
“What will this cost?” I asked, and the answer was, “You’d have to inquire with your insurance.” Inquiring would’ve taken two hours on hold. The answer would’ve probably been inaccurate. I shrugged, went into the clinic, got jabbed with a needle, and had some blood sucked out of me.
A month later, still a month before my appointment, they’ve sent a bill for the lab work. It’s $111.49. Sure, you and I both knew the lab work wouldn’t be covered by insurance, and it’s not a lot of money, but there’s a principle here. At a restaurant, at a car repair shop, at a grocery store, just about anywhere else you might spend money, you know the price before you buy. At a medical clinic, they pull a price out of their ass, a month later.
I already have no credit rating, and I’m losing my job and health insurance in a few months, so this seems like the perfect time to take a stand.
You guys want $111.49? Frickin’ sue me.
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Speaking of health care: Vitamin C.
I read the idea somewhere long ago, and modern science confirms it, so for many years I’ve taken a whole heck of a lot of Vitamin C in response to the slightest symptoms of a cold coming on. And for all those years, I’ve very rarely had anything more than a hot-sauce sniffle.
Just now, I sneezed seven times in one minute, which is six times more than I’d sneeze in an ordinary day. Immediately I took ten pills, totaling 5,000 milligrams of Vitamin C. Chances are, that’ll be the last of my symptoms.
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Top basketball recruit goes off the plantation.
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When Alec Baldwin shoots someone accidentally, he’s the one doing the shooting, actively. (New York Times headline: Alec Baldwin fatally shoots crew member with handgun…)
When a police officer shoots someone intentionally, it’s always the victim who “is fatally shot.” (New York Times headline: Teenage girl is fatally shot by police…)
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Twerker’s butt is
censored in mural.
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No time to die:
An in-depth analysis of James Bond’s exposure to infectious agents.
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Sexy women moan your IP address.
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Hyperloops are basically a pneumatic tube, like the ones carrying documents from a bank’s drive-through window into the building, only much bigger and the tubes have people inside. It’s an intriguing concept, but tragically, most talk of everything hyperloopy leads back to Elon Musk, a very wealthy man who, unsurprisingly, is an enormous throbbing butthole.
Musk, and probably his money, has inspired Zeleros, a lovable but kooky daydream of a worldwide hyperloop network.
Given workable public transit, I’d always rather take the bus, train, subway, or hyperloop, and I’m absolutely a geek for such things. It used to be a hobby of mine to buy a city map, and use a felt pen to plot out routes where a subway should be built.
Zeleros seems every bit as practical as that.
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Mystery links — Like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going:
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Sincere tip ‘o the hat to:
• Becky Jo
• Dave S.
• BoingBoing
• Captain Hampockets
• Follow Me Here
• Hyperallergic
• Messy Nessy Chick
• National Zero
• Ran Prieur
• Voenix Rising
• and One of the Butt Sisters but definitely not the other.
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