Double Secret Probation

Dean Vernon Wormer once  imposed Double Secret Probation on the Animal House in that classic movie by the same name. Now the Justice Department's Mueller team is claiming the same sort of gobbledygook applies to the "scope memo" that defines the original limits of the Trump-Russia collusion special investigation. Fortunately Judge T.S. Ellis wants to see for himself if Mueller has exceeded his authority in his prosecution of Manafort for bank fraud and money laundering.

The DOJ is claiming to  Judge Ellis and to Congress that this scope memo is secret because it contains national security issues ... maybe "double national security issues," but I doubt if the American people are going to tolerate such an unfettered mandate in what every day becomes clearer what it really is -- an effort to "take down a duly-elected president" to paraphrase Judge Ellis.

As Allan Dershowitz and many others repeatedly complain ... this is criminalizes politics and thus undermines the very foundations of our Republic. It is Mueller and his posse of Clinton contributors that needs to be investigated.

Animal House

The Alpha Delta (AD) fraternity at Dartmouth has been derecognized by the college. For you of an age, AD was the fraternity which was the prototype for that very popular and raucous American movie "Animal House" back in 1978, This administration action was because of some hazing incidents that occurred there last fall and, by the tone of the indictment letter, it seems unlikely this fraternity will be reinstated ... see: Dartblog Story.

And if I were Dartmouth College, I would not be participating in any festive parades anytime soon.

Goodbye ...

to the Internet Explorer. Microsoft has decided to phase out this Internet browser in favor of a newer technology, "Project Spartan" ... see: PC Magazine Story. This browser once held north of a 80% market share, but upstarts have been quietly eroding this monopoly over the last so many years until the boys at Redmond had to take this technology out behind the shed and shoot it.

This blog you are reading had 4031 hits over the last month and here is the breakdown of what browsers were used to reference it: Firefox - 46%, Chrome - 31%, Safari - 9%, Explorer - 7%, the rest - 7%.  Now we can see why Microsoft is making this move. As Dean Wormer said in Animal House, "Fat, happy (actually drunk) and stupid is not a way to go through life."

So, as it turns out, Microsoft has been forced to face its past lassitude and will try to use the leverage of its other monopolies to once again crush its competitors.

We'll see.

Humiliated

To no one’s surprise outside of the administration, the last four-month extension to the talks with Iran about constraining its nuclear program has concluded with another seven-month extension without an agreement … see: Reuters Article . I claim no unique insight in my pessimism about this process … see: Foot Dragging, but this result was just as I and thousands of other thinking people had predicted.

Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama are clearly suffering romantic agony in their attempt to woo Iran into abandoning its quest for atomic weapons. Kerry is so whipped that he allows the Iranian negotiator, Javad Zarif, to bombast him with tirades during their “discussions” … see: Free Beacon Story ... without any consequence. I’m reminded of that great “Animal House” hazing scene where the pledge being paddled says, “Thank you sir, may I have another?”

I think that Iranians must get their jollies by humiliating America and Americans. Remember how they treated the American embassy hostages back in 1979 through 1981? And somehow weak American presidents, like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, must feel that their public frailty somehow benefits them and their country. Ronald Reagan knew better.

I will again go out on another limb and predict that nothing good will come out of this next extension of these talks with Iran … at least nothing good for Israel and the United States.