Pontification

Jesus.  H.  Christ.  Just as I finish gathering my thoughts about all of last week's issues here comes another goofball, a Nazi no less, shooting up a synagogue killing a whole bunch of folks.  There's something in the air, probably emanating from the piehole of our president who proudly brays that he is a "Nationalist."  The alleged shooter claims that he hates Trump but he shares Trump's sentiments about how to deal with your enemies, be they real or perceived.  I think there's a long list of people that Trump would like to shoot if he thought he could get away with it.

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That bomb guy is a curious case and I wonder if he's some kind of patsy; things seem a little too cut and dried and there are things that don't make any sense to me at all.  Fourteen bombs and none of them explode?  The authorities are being coy in not describing the kind of explosive material that was used, only saying that it "had the potential of detonating in transit, or if shaken or exposed to a heat source."  That's a description of a box of kitchen matches.  The feds don't think the devices were operational and there are no charges of terrorism or attempted murder; something ain't right.

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I think a certain amount of attention to the lamestream news is a responsibility of a Beaglestonian pontificator.

Good choice of words there, Uncle Ken, and you may pontificate to your heart's content as Mr. Beagles and I try to discuss things in a reasonable manner.  Zing!

What constitutes lamestream news these days, anyhow?  I'm thinking it's probably newspapers and TV, both broadcast and cable.  Sadly, few of those news sources have the budgets or resources to aggressively pursue investigative journalism; online media seems to be doing a better job and some can even be called trustworthy.  They certainly move more quickly; the choice stories appear in the papers and on TV a few days later.

Sometimes I think the general public can be pretty dumb in not being able to distinguish between fact and opinion when they consume the news.  The Pew Research Group has a dandy little online quiz that will test your ability to do so, and I recommend taking it.  We're not always as smart as we think we are.

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I like a little white space at the end of the page.