A Milestone of Links

 1100 posts... well, that is something of an achievement, I guess. Obviously, I should be posting more, but... one does what one can.

https://betterletter.substack.com/p/the-better-letter-randomness-rules

Interesting... I can't recall it now, but someone said "Luck is the residue of design," but that's not true, either.  Of course, luck can bring opportunities, and good leaders take advantage of them.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-the-difference-between-smearing

I completely agree with this... of course, I am a pretty dispassionate person, so... this isn't that much of a stretch.  I did appreciate -- immensely -- the reference to the spy wars of the Bush era; I used to mock my liberal friends with jokes about spying on them, and now, it seems, the shoe is on the other foot (ask Tucker Carlson). I do think this is completely natural, and a part of American politics since day one, but it is good to remember that this is not really blood sport.  And with that, I just threw up in my mouth.

And on that note...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/26/democrats-gop-voting-laws-crisis-500726

This I find hilarious, mainly because 1) A lot of what was done in 2020 was due to the pandemic and I don't think it truly helps Dems all that much (or, lots of GOP voters certainly appreciated all that was done to speed up voting, even if more of us marched to the polls on Election Day) and 2) if they are that concerned about losing votes, they deserve to lose elections. It also plays to GOP fears (baseless as they may be) that the Dems do steal elections and that they are trying to do it again.  It's also suprising that the GOP is actually getting this shit done; for all of the cluelessness we exhibit...this is impressive.