STUPID STUFF - EARLY JUNE, 2019: CHICKENS, SPEED LIMIT, BAD WRITING, MORE

The world's most common vertebrate is the broiler chicken, created by humans to be eaten by humans. 23 billion are alive at any one time. If they had opposable thumbs...

Just when I got used to driving at the between-gears speed limit of 80kph on many of the local roads here in France, our department has voted to return to 90kph. Apparently, the French can't make up their minds about important legal matters any better than the Brits.

So I'm reading a trashy novel on my Kindle to pass the time. It's the first of a series of several books. Apparently, the writer thinks that he's got something to say. The protagonists have just been chased south from Virginia to North Carolina. They are holed up in what is described as a cheesy motel in a forgotten town in the hills off the Blue Ridge Parkway. They're hungry, so they go to a takeout place and pick up some sushi. Sushi. In a forgotten town in the hill country of the Carolinas. The definition of Stupid Stuff...

Trump, the man who has led 'Lock Her Up" chants at every campaign rally for the past three or four years, calls Pelosi a terrible person for wanting to see him in jail. He called Meghan Markle 'nasty' in a taped interview, then denied having done so the very next day. He claimed credit for giving veterans healthcare choices outside of the VA, something that he said that John McCain couldn't accomplish, when the truth is that the first veterans healthcare choice bill was signed by Obama and McCain was a co-sponsor. What's stupid in all of this is that about 40% of Americans still believe the shit coming out of his mouth when he lies about everything. Every. Thing.

An American internet provider is holding a lottery. The winner will be paid $1,000 to ditch their smart phone for a week and use a flip phone. They'll be provided with a paper map - no GPS - and have to keep a diary. I don't qualify. I've been using a flip phone for the past 20 years and still do. Being connected all of the time may be your idea of a good time. Not mine. If a $20 flip phone is good enough for multi-billionaire Warren Buffett, it's good enough for me. 

Have you ever felt as though you would die while waiting in a line? People do. On Mount Everest. No, that picture has not been photo shopped. Un-freaking-believable.These people paid $40,000 to look at the backs of other people who paid $40,000 while they stand on the graves of an estimated 300 people who have died trying to climb the mountain while leaving 24,000 pounds of garbage behind. Un- freaking-believable.