A popular book by Ernest Cline.  Enjoyable, if only slightly, and as it is a quick enough read I’d narrowly recommend it.  (The prose is maybe a little clunky — Ernest Cline reads not from the standard classics.)  The book is … constructed… contrived in a manner — the point of the elderly Christian character, for instance, merely being to have a sympathetic character against his horrible family somewhere in there before the place goes to smithereens.

But the book bugs the Hell out of me in a strangely ideological sense.  Part of it may be the familiar trope that the protagonist, deep nerd and misfit down low on the economic scale is in the society of this dystopia future, by extension — you, the reader, the misfit nerd who may or may not be living in your own personal Stacks.

But the thing that bothers me.  The band of misfit nerds running through this computer program akin to running the “Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” bit –  are doing so at the behest of the interests of the eccentric, once reclusive programmer.  His collection of nerdish obsessions, centered as they are on popular culture of the 1970s through 1980s, are the writer’s nerdish obsessions, and (dare I say) yours.

And it’s what’s going to win the game.  Align your interests with this sphere of interests.  Leave aside whatever you like.  It’s all one spectrum of interests.
The effect is a little cold.

Steven Spielberg is adapting the book.  Of course he is.  He’s name checked round enough, so he pays tribute to a tribute to him…

My observation upon the 2013 defeat of the last major push for a gun control bill — Toomey and Manchin spear-heading for their political aims of, oh, Blue state (vulnerable in upcoming cycle) Republican and Red State (needing credibility for the party in rural America) Democrat–

my observation stands.

The theory of this is that this bill will come back up and it will be tougher.  Frankly, though, I align with the gun control “sour grapes” contingency of “just as well this didn’t pass”, but for different reasons.  Whether or not something pops up that is more meaningful — […] — I would rather have no bill come out and no pretense that something just happened than a bill come through with the illusion that something just happened — when it didn’t.

That particular bill… would not have addressed the issue of how the killer in Orlando managed to purchase his semi-automatic weapon… with, oh, major domestic violence in his background, even more of an issue, says me, than that he would be probed in the hunt for radical jihadism.
On that latter score, you can imagine that the Democratic challenger to one Rand Paul in the state of Kentucky is going to… try to flank to his right in his argument while flanking to the left.

The info-graphic has it.  Newspaper prints a black bar for one death, adding up to 29 for some previous mass shooting.  Compared to 20 for another.  And 50 for this one.  Showing that, yep, this one has roughly two or roughly three times more casualties than those previous ones.

I’ve come to understand some of the — hm– more “ugh”ish political commentary for some of these things do, at least, reflect back to what the person believes.  If they view things in the prism of that as casualty, than this the tragedy will confirm that casualty.  It works around on all sides of the political spectrum.  But what I can’t wrap my head around is the unseriousness of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump… Tweet away…

What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough

Stop at the first sentence.  Keep in his framework of Islamic Terrorism, and Islamic Terrorism on American soil, and I’m struck by historical stops and gaps.   9/11?  Boston Marathon?  Does everything begin again?

Somewhere out there, and maybe this is pure cynicism on my part, a Rainbow Flag with the words “These Colors Don’t Run” are being sold … or, you know… the already existing “These Colors Don’t Run” rainbow items are seeing an increase in sales due to new (perhaps confused, perhaps not so confused) meaning.

David French is not running for President.

Who the hell is David French?  He didn’t have a wikipedia page until Bill Kristol asked him to run for president.  Apparently he’s one of Kristol’s favorite bloggers.  And he’s supposed to be the Gold Democrat 1896 candidate for the Republicans in 2016 — which did the causes of John Palmer greatly, right?

But John Palmer probably would have had a wikipedia page.

Bill Kristol looks around backward to try to find someone else.

Come Wednesday, it will be an impossibility for Bernie Sanders to defeat Hillary Clinton — unless, the on rush of “super-delegates” slides whole sale to him.

Bernie Sanders is undecided on what to do about it.

It is 2008, and Bernie Sanders is Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton is Barack Obama.  With the difference being that in 2008 there was no real difference politically between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and in 2016 there is a one between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

But it is worth looking back to see when Hillary Clinton quit being apprehensive on what to do, and seeing whom throws out barrages against Bernie Sanders.

I am getting contradictory streaks about the gun issue as it relates to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to not get embarrassed by Bernie Sanders with one last biggie win in California… (Lest Bernie Sander be stuck doing that Terry MacAuliffe in South Dakota routine in North Dakota or Montana instead of in California)  —

somewhere I read about the campaign in general, and see — embedded in an article, comments on guns.  But then I google it up and see Newsweek claiming she’s not bringing it up.

… And Ralph Nader… still a’hating on current trends in contemporary leftist politics.

For a moment I had thought Dilbert creator Scott Adams had come out in favor of Donald Trump.  It squeaked past an editorial from, I believe it was National Review, calling Scott Adams a supporter while relaying that he predicted Trump thumping to victory in November.  This, momentarily, made yesterday’s edition of Dilbert pretty intriguing.

  If Wally were a sympathetic character in this regard, he would then make a good stand in for Scott Adams on this Trump thing.

I had known that Scott Adams had predicted Donald Trump’s rise on his internet sites, at just about the time that I had gone from thinking it not going to happen to at least seeing the possibility, and a time a few others I saw who prognosticate on these made the “gulp” leap.  But I assumed it was not support for this prediction, but a prediction.

Before I could go to the archives to look into it, I see in the news that… yeah, that’s what it was and is.

And I doubt it will come to pass as the prediction goes, but I can see it happen.  The one strange thing about this election… in most election cases a larger electorate will favor the Democrat — see 2008 and 2012 versus 2010 and 2014.  In the case that you have a celebrity “blunt talker” — well, see Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The fear for Hillary Clinton supporters, tepid or enthusiastic, is that an apolitical mass is looming and will swarm in off a strange “cool”ness factor.

As it were, Scott Adams — sure, haggle away in 1990s era polemics with art from Tom Tomorrow all you want to disparage a neo-liberalism bent, but … not for Trump.

I suppose the logic of Donald Trump tapping into the sense of the aggrieved of Bernie Sanders supporters — the system is rigged against him — plays into the up-ending of the map.  Trump asserts he may well win 40 percent of Bernie Sanders’s primary voters.

I suppose the logic of Bernie Sanders trying to debate Donald Trump is to rebuff the politics of Trump.  To assert that they’re both anti-Hillary Clinton, sure, but somehow a vote for Sanders here ought not lead to a vote for Trump there.

The logic of Donald Trump’s sarcastic rebuff to this debate fits the logic of Bernie Sanders’s sarcastic rebuff to Trump’s rebuff.

The logic of Bernie Sanders doing better in the polls than Donald Trump is that Donald Trump and his team of Republicans are campaigning against Hillary Clinton, and think they have an in with 40 percent of Bernie Sanders supporters.  They won’t be getting to town calling Bernie Sanders a Bolshevik.

The logic of Bernie Sanders facing a “rigged system” is … hit and miss.  Certainly the super-delegates might swarm in against him in the case of a tie against Hillary Clinton, but a funny thing… it’s a moot point.

From a pure point of ego, the problem of a “left” being lead into the 2 system through Bernie Sanders perplexes him.  As it does some of his supporters.  But probably not the ones who’d be going off to vote for Trump…