The View from Here

Today’s featured image is of Upper Saranac Lake. The lake is located in Franklin and Essex counties in the Adirondack park in upstate NY.


Super Typhoon Haishen is bearing down on Japan. The category 5 typhoon is expected to make landfall on Okinawa Sunday and continue on to the Korean peninsula near Busan by Tuesday.


There were a couple of pro-Trump boat rallies today. One, off the Jersey shore, aimed to break the record that was just set in South Carolina recently. The second, was on lake Travis near Austin Texas. There, authorities responded to several calls about sinking boats.


No, I am not making this up. A linguistics professor at USC has been suspended beca he used a Chinese word that sounds a little like a racial slur. Greg Patton, in the process of teaching a class was discussing standard vocal patterns in different cultures.  In explaining the Chinese pattern of using the word “that”, which translates into Chinese as  “nega,” Patton said the word in quick succession which led to students questioning his use of the word.

“Two things, one is you can… you have a lot of um or ers, and this is culturally specific so based on your native language, like in China the common word is ‘that’ that, that, that, that, so in China it might be ‘nega.’ Nega, nega, nega. So there’s different words that you hear in different countries but they’re vocal disfluencies. That’s saying that, that, that, um, um, um, er, er, er. “

It gets worse. USC has offered “support services” for those offended by a Chinese word that sounds almost kinda offensive.


In case you missed it, it’s Derby day. Post time is set for 1900 eastern time today.


Hell must have frozen over. The DNC media arm over at the Washington Post gave Joe Biden 4 Pinocchio’s over a campaign ad about social security.

Trump gets mentioned in this ad three times. But there is no such Trump plan.

The president gave the Democrats an opening with a series of confusing remarks after he signed an executive order that would suspend the payment of payroll taxes until the end of the year…

The ad cites “Trump’s plan.” But the actuary’s letter says it is referring only to a hypothetical plan sketched out by Democrats.

T he ad asserts that if “Trump gets his way,” benefits will run out. But actually the letter says if transfers are made from general funds, no benefits would run out. That, at least at the moment, is what Trump says he would do.

That adds up to Four Pinocchios. (If Trump yet again opens the door to permanent elimination of the payroll tax, we will revisit this fact check.)

Must have been too big a lie. . . .


Recommended: Deracinate


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