That Trump guy keeps claiming that the U.S. spends $200 billion a year to subsidize Canada. Glenn Kessler, the fact-check guy for The Washington Post, can't figure out how that could possibly be true…and apparently, the White House can't, either. […]
At one time or another, just about every person who claims the title of Magician performs the Cups and Balls routine. It's kind of a rite of passage and it's one of the purest tricks because it's (usually) all about artful skill and misdirection, not about how a gimmicked prop was built. I did this […]
Measles is making a big comeback thanks to a lot of misinformation exacerbated by the stubbornness of people who are wrong about the disease and just plain don't want to admit they're wrong. The folks at FactCheck.org are correcting some of the misinfo because much of what's being said is — you'll forgive the term, […]
Once again, I remind you that the many friends of the late Mike Schlesinger — and I am on that long list of friends — will be gathering together in Santa Monica the afternoon of April 6. There will be stories about his life, clips of films in which he had some involvement, speeches by […]
Two weeks from today, many of us will be at WonderCon Anaheim at the Anaheim Convention Center here in Southern California. WonderCon is kind of like Comic-Con International Lite, run by the same folks but on a smaller scale than the July colonizations of San Diego. It's still a pretty big convention with plenty to […]
I believe one of the reasons Donald Trump won the last election was that he and his crew very effectively sold a lot of lies to the American people about Joe Biden and (especially) Biden's economic record. The lying continues and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post discusses a lot of recent claims about job […]
As a kid, I somehow always enjoyed it when Jack E. Leonard was on television. I didn't understand half of what he said but I liked his rhythms…the way he said whatever the hell it was he was saying. Often, he could make absolutely nothing sound like a real joke…and he didn't even wait for […]
Republican Senator Rick Scott from Florida says that "The number of full-time jobs [was] dropping almost the entire Biden administration." Politifact says this ain't so. I believe the answer to the question of why Kamala Harris lost involves a number of contributing factors but a biggie was that Trump and his mob managed to convince […]
This is kinda interesting. In 2012 when NBC had the Super Bowl, they shot a little video to precede it and promote all their shows and stars. Notice if you will what gets a lot of screen time and what doesn't. They single out Smash, which was debuting the day after the Super Bowl…and which […]
There are a number of tributes and remembrances online for the great political blogger Kevin Drum. A lot of you have sent me links to this piece by another of my favorite political bloggers, Josh Marshall. And a number of you have told me that for the first time, you went to Kevin's page, read […]
Trump is probably regretting the needless fight he picked with Canada because there's no way he can possibly sell the notion that they're the Bad Guy Aggressors or that everything that's going wrong was Joe Biden's fault. But he's trying, including — as CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale notes — just plain misrepresenting what's going on […]
Ever since I posted this video clip introducing the song "Pick Yourself Up," folks have been sending me links to other interpretations so…why not? Here's Mel Tormé who, in this video, is not sitting at Farmers Market reading a newspaper. The pianist is the great George Shearing and I should warn those unfamiliar with Tormé […]
It's possible to point to some bad economic statistics from the four years Joe Biden was in the Oval Office but there were a lot of great numbers, too. As Steve Benen of the Maddow Blog points out, some Republicans are fudging numbers and fibbing to soil the previous administration's record. […]
For quite some time on this blog, I've quoted or linked to posts by a gent named Kevin Drum. Of all the folks I've come across on the 'net writing political commentary, he seemed to be the smartest and the most fact-based, meaning that he almost always backed up his views with statistics and history…and […]
Many folks probably aren't aware that Craig Ferguson was and still is a stand-up comedian but he is and he's pretty good at it. I spotted this on the website of my buddy Paul Harris and thought I'd share it here with you. Enjoy… […]