Sure, if you look, you can find a new alarming thing every day.
The New Republic, 15 Aug 2025: Trump Is Ready to Invade U.S. Ally if It Doesn’t Cave to His Demands, subtitled “Donald Trump has drawn up attack plans for Mexico.”
The White House has authorized the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American drug cartels—but the sweeping directive also appears to violate the sovereignty of America’s southern neighbor.
Because Trump is a bully and would-be dictator and thinks he can tell anyone anywhere in the world what to do, and if they don’t, he’ll tariff them.
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But let’s pick up on some fringier items from recent days. First, other countries have their own wacky health beliefs. I’ve actually heard about this one before.
Boing Boing, 14 Aug 2025: South Korea’s most peculiar health myth: the deadly electric fan
For decades, many South Koreans have believed that sleeping in a closed room with an electric fan running can kill you. This superstition has done more than spark late-night conversations—it has shaped the way manufacturers design fans and how consumers shop for them.
The link is to Wikipedia, which gives some background — but no rational explanation for what is merely a superstition. Thus today:
Although no law requires timers on fans, almost every model sold in South Korea has one. Retailers say consumers simply expect the feature, and authorities still recommend setting a timer to prevent overheating or fire risk during hot summers. Finding a timer-free fan in Korea today is nearly impossible—not because of regulation, but because the belief endures.
This is how culture works. Ideas and “beliefs” are shared precisely to cement a cultural bond against “others” who don’t share those beliefs. As long as those beliefs don’t cause any actual harm, they can endure indefinitely.
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Even something like this.
JMG, 14 Aug 2025 (from The Hill): GOP Rep: I’ve Seen Proof Of “Interdimensional Beings”
Proof? Then I’m sure she does not understand what the word means. Quoting The Hill:
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said during a Wednesday podcast episode with Joe Rogan that lawmakers have seen evidence of “interdimensional beings.”
“I think that they can actually operate through the time spaces that we currently have,” Luna said during the podcast. “That’s not something that I came up with on my own. That’s based on stuff that we’ve seen. That’s based on information that we’ve been told,” she added.
She claims “evidence,” which is not proof. And “stuff what we’ve seen.” And “information that we’ve been told.” It’s nonsense.
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How about these two?
JMG, 15 Aug 2025: Hegseth’s Pastor: “Gay Marriage Doesn’t Exist”
Gay marriage does not exist in the world. It can’t, any more than a square triangle can exist. God created marriage.
Because Bible. That’s why I think people like this are dim. He’s besotted by what he thinks his “God” wants, when really it’s all about survival strategies of early humans for survival, as captured in the most ancient holy book we happen to have around. Which is an distillation of base human nature, not a literal account of history.
Anyway, gay marriage *does* exist in the world. People have decided it does. People who are not hung up on the scruples of the goat herders who told the stories of survival strategies that eventually became the Bible.
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We’ve heard about this guy, and this movement, before.
Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, 14 Aug 2025: Lance Wallnau Says God Is Using Trump To Give Right-Wing Christians Control Over The Seven Mountains
Right-wing evangelist Lance Wallnau is a self-proclaimed Christian nationalistand unabashed Trump cultistwho has, for years, been one of the leading purveyors of Seven Mountains Dominionism,a radical theology that advocates having right-wing Christians control all aspects of society.
Followers of Seven Mountains theology believe that they are to “do whatever is necessary” to take controlof the seven main “mountains” that shape our culture—education, government, media, business, arts and entertainment, family, and religion—in order to implement the will of God throughout the nation and the world.
And… I’m not going to read any more than that.
Again, Christians like this guy are besotted with ancient stories that represent and excuse the survival strategies of ancient humanity, especially at the time herding was giving way to agriculture. (See my partial review of this book.) And think those strategies should apply today.
Look, even if there was a god who created the world an intervened in human affairs and was omnipotent, why would his presence be not *much more obvious*? It’s *easy* to imagine how the world might work if there were an intercessory God who altered events in full view. That never happens. Why would his will need to work its way through morons like Donald Trump? The answer: it’s because religious claims are no more than chance. There’s no there there.
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I’m not sure I understand this piece. I thought MAGA doesn’t want women in the military. Anyway, they’re just lying again, via AI.
JMG, 15 Aug 2025 (from CNN): Pentagon Uses AI Pics To Claim Recruitment Success
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One more for this evening.
LA Times, Jackie Calmes, 14 Aug 2025: Donald Trump makes America worse than tacky
For President Trump, it’s all about appearances.
He’s busy with so many makeovers: The Versailles-ification of the Oval Office, which seems to sprout more gold leaf and ornamentation every time Trump assembles the media there. The paving of the Rose Garden, now Mar-a-Lago Patio North, crowded with white tables and yellow umbrellas just as at his Florida retreat. The estimated billion-dollar conversion of a Qatari luxury jet built for a king, more in keeping with Trump’s tastes than the “less impressive” Air Force One. Even a new golf cart, the six-figure armored Golf Force One. And, assuming Trump gets his way, as he mostly does, he’ll break ground soon on a $200-million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a veritable Hall of Mirrors nearly doubling the footprint of the White House.
The president has $257 million from ever-compliant Republicans in Congress to transform the nearby Kennedy Center into the “Trump/Kennedy Center,” as Trump immodestly suggested on Tuesday. (Meanwhile, the purported populist president has canceled grants to local arts groups across America and seeks to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, which underwrites cultural events in every state.) Even the medallions for the annual Kennedy Center Honors winners are getting a makeover — from Tiffany & Co., natch. Trump, having made himself the Kennedy Center chair after a first term in which he skipped the honors shows by popular demand, was there on Wednesday to announce the 2025 honorees.
And:
Let’s pause here to consider just how Fox News and MAGA World would react if the president overseeing all this extravagance were named Biden, Obama or Clinton.
And after many more details and examples, ending:
Yes, he’s a busy man. But you know what Trump hasn’t done? Release the Epstein files. Wouldn’t be good for appearances.
And that’s as much as we can do tonight.
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I really like Arvo Part’s Symphony #4. I’ll link it here shortly.
