Weekend Buzz

Torture, Sell-outs, Cops, Mad Magazine and more

Torturing-up, sort of like failing-up  Rude Pundit is on it.

Fake News is going to get worse before it gets better.  Old people can’t open new tabs and it’s fueling our descent into hell and Influence? In this economy?

Cops have a secret, unaccountable system for tracking you by your cellphone, and they abuse it like crazy Police abusing something, imagine that.

MAD magazine. MAD magazine made me the smart-assed, radical I'm am today. More... covers. and MAD Site - issue #1

After Authenticity - nobody talks about sellouts anymore?  Peak sell-out was when The Who sold their first song for a TV commercial.

Digitopoly on the Google AI Calls: Should we let AI just make calls?


The Fuck-Up in the Middle East

The Independent - Robert Fiske

In the West, it’s easy to concentrate on each daily drama about the Middle East and forget the world in which the real people of the region live. The latest ravings of the American president on the Iran nuclear agreement – mercifully, at last, firmly opposed by the EU – obscure the lands of mass graves and tunnels in which the Muslim Middle East now exists. Even inside the area, there has now arisen an almost macabre disinterest in the suffering that has been inflicted here over the past six years.

Project Syndicate: A New Era of Nuclear Uncertainty - Javier Solana

by abandoning the nuclear deal with Iran, the United States has left its European allies in the lurch, with no strategy to restore stability to the region

Oh... and it ain't just anti-war, peace-loving hippies who think the loud-mouth screwed up.

The American Conservative - Israel Nudges Trump Towards War With Iran

Donald Trump has put America on a path to war in the Middle East. Future historians will look back on his decision to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal, and related actions, as a folly akin to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. The consequences could be equally catastrophic.

Also,  Middle East flareups make gas prices go up.

Gin, and Smoke, And Lies