Tuesday.

We plan to be out for a good part of this morning so I don't know how far I will get with my reading on-line today.  See what happens.

We have heard the reports about Apple Pay and how it is supposed to change our lives by allowing us to load all of our credit card data on smart phones, iPhones in particular, and then pay with a "swipe" of the phone instead of a swipe of a card.  I love the slant this article takes, especially in the headline. Our first thought was that the Apple Pay system was designed to obscure how much one is spending by taking all thought out of the process.  Lucky for us we don't have iPhones and don't want them.  And, with all of the hacking that has been going on, we are shifting back to cash for a lot of our purchases.

Evidently we aren't alone in thinking that cash might be a better option.

Love this take on the ebola "crisis" from the Agonist.

Wednesday.

At least our politics has not descended to this kind of viciousness.  Yet.

So the Governor of Hong Kong opined that something as democratic as an open nominating process would give the poor too much power.  My first thought: gods, what an idiot.  There are some things a politician in a putative democracy shouldn't say out loud even if he thinks them.  My second thought: how does his sentiment differ from that expressed by some idiot billionaire a few weeks ago that he should have as many votes as he has dollars--one dollar, one vote.  Interesting isn't it how the Communist version of democracy seems to resemble the "democracy" of an American capitalist oligarch?

Oh, yeah--the coverage of the ebola story is more than a bit over the top.

I have long thought that university sports tail have been wagging the university dogs.  I remember one semester I was teaching an intro U.S. history course and a request from on high came down for me to "reconsider" the failing grad one of the athletes had earned so he could play in a bowl game.  I refused but noted that he did play in that game--I watched to find out.  Perhaps another instructor raised a grade enough to balance the F.  This fraud shows why our universities should stop being the farm teams for professional football and basketball.

At last.  It has taken far too long but four of George Bush's Blackwater cowboys have been convicted of murder/manslaughter and/or other charges.