a tosser...

Photo: New York Daily News

“A ‘tosser’ is literally a man who is overly fond of masturbation. By extension in general usage, it denotes someone (usually male) who behaves in a selfish and inconsiderate manner. It is almost identical in meaning and usage to the word 'wanker' but is perhaps considered slightly less vulgar.
     In Britain, tossers are most commonly observed while driving or while queueing for a drink at a crowded bar. The same tossers may later be found shouting and singing loudly in densely-populated areas late at night, and playing their music too loud when they get back to their poorly insulated apartment.”
— Simon Crump, commenting on the definition of “tosser” (Quora.com)
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“America will not survive this moment unchanged. Great powers often fall from within. Some future Edward Gibbon will write about this moment in lucid detail. Alas, we are living through it in real time. History will condemn Donald Trump's voters, supporters and enablers. But history will also not be kind to those who stood by mute, crippled from fear, who surrendered to learned helplessness or believed that Trump's America would be but a blip or interesting curiosity in the country's history. The American people's hands are now collectively stained, and the mark may be indelible.”
— Chauncey DeVega, Salon
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Trump Transition Team in Process of "Rebranding" America

This is the kind of fake news everyone should be aware of: Here's one I just concocted to show you how easy it is to be misled.

"In an exclusive interview, a source close the Transition Team of President-elect Donald Trump has revealed that the soon-to-be president and his advisors are in the early stages of a nation-wide “rebranding” program that will start with a makeover of the US flag.

Our anonymous source says that the new design is a reflection of President-elect Trump’s close ties to both the Russian Federation (The flag of Russia is a tri-color flag made up of three equal horizontal bars: white at the top, blue in the middle and red on the bottom.) and the White Supremacist movement. Mr. Trump sees himself not only as  deal maker, but a unifier: “Who else could bring together ex-KGB guys like Putin and the people who run the KKK? We made a deal — all I had to do was say, 'Stop it,' and the Klan people said, 'Sure, we'll  stop with the anti-communist stuff..." In return, Trump has assured them that all of his hotels and restaurants will never serve the vodka/coffee liqueur cocktail known as a “Black Russian” ever again."

E.T. phones home...

Photos: toptenz.net and dailymail.co.uk

“However well-intentioned, this talk assumes that [president-elect, Donald] Trump is prepared to find common ground with his many opponents, respect the institutions of government, and repudiate almost everything he has stood for during the campaign. In short, it is treating him as a 'normal' politician. There has until now been little evidence that he can be one.
     More dangerously, Clinton’s and Obama’s very civil passages, which ended in applause lines, seemed to close off alternative responses to his minority victory. (It was hard not to be reminded of Neville Chamberlain’s statement, that 'We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will.') Both Clinton’s and Obama’s phrases about the peaceful transfer of power concealed the omission of a call to action. The protesters who took to the streets of New York, Los Angeles, and other American cities on Wednesday night did so not because of Clinton’s speech but in spite of it. One of the falsehoods in the Clinton speech was the implied equivalency between civil resistance and insurgency. This is an autocrat’s favorite con, the explanation for the violent suppression of peaceful protests the world over.”
— Masha Gessen, The New York Review of Books
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repeating. repeating, repeating...

Graphic by Michael Hale

I posted this reworking of Martin Niemöller's poem on Facebook in December of last year; I think it's worth repeating: