Posts by Alex Miller

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Ditch Mitch

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is perhaps one of the most disliked, and most effective, politicians in the country. First elected in 1984 in a squeaker election which he won by less than one percent, McConnell has won reelection five times, and faces another race in 2020. He was tapped to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) in 2006, and became Majority Leader when Republicans took over the Senate in 2015.

 

The self-styled “Grim Reaper” of the Senate, Mitch McConnell is where legislation goes to die. Through a combination of stonewalling, pigheadedness, and obscure parliamentary tactics, McConnell has done his level best to frustrate Democratic administrations and agendas for decades.

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Joe Biden’s Family Tragedy

Former Vice President and current Democratic presidential nominee frontrunner Joe Biden is often credited with having an authentic, “folksy” style, especially when interacting with individuals who have suffered great personal tragedy or loss. There’s a reason for this: when it comes to suffering and loss, Biden has a lifetime of experience.

 

Just after winning his first Senate race in 1972, Biden lost his first wife and their infant daughter in a devastating car crash, which also severely injured their two sons. Biden was in fact sworn in for his Senate seat at his sons’ bedside in the hospital. Forty-three years later, the Grim Reaper picked up where he left off, and claimed one of those boys, Biden’s eldest son Beau, who lost a two-year battle with brain cancer.

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Asteroid Sleuth: The Case of the Crowing Cockerel

Roosters crow. It’s what they do. But if you’re a wealthy retired French couple with a vacation home on the sleepy isle of Oleron off France’s Atlantic coast, and you have a local neighbor who owns one, you get perturbed at losing your beauty rest. So, what to do? Why, sue, of course!

 

That was the case with Jean-Louis Birom and Joelle Andrieux, who accused resident cock-of-the-walk Maurice of noise pollution in a suit brought against owner Corinne Fesseau in 2017. The acrimonious two year legal wrangle ended on September 5th 2019 when a judge in Rochefort ruled in favor of Maurice’s right to sing, awarding 1000 euros in damages against the plaintiffs.

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The Picture of Dorian Hurricane

Another hurricane season, another record-setting storm. Spawned from a tropical wave in the Central Atlantic in late August, Hurricane Dorian quickly spiked into a strong Category 5, with winds in excess of 185 mph, skirting Puerto Rico and making landfall on Grand Bahama Island. Where it parked; for two days. Dorian now holds the record for the slowest-moving Atlantic storm ever.

 

The devastation in the Bahamas is apocalyptic, with vast stretches of housing obliterated, infrastructure battered and much of the island inundated with water. As of this writing (Wednesday, 4 September) Dorian continues to make its way north off the east coast of Florida, still threatening Georgia and the Carolinas as a Cat 2 storm.

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1939: Best. Film. Year. Ever.

Recently I watched a documentary on TCM which reminded me just how unusual 1939 was for the US film industry. So many classics were released that year, including “Gone With the Wind”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “The Wizard of Oz”. Eighty years later now, I wondered why that should have been, so of course as an astrologer, for greater understanding, I reached for the ephemeris.

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Trumplet, Prince of Greenland

“To buy or not to buy, that is the question.” US President Donald Trump faced this apparent dilemma this week, as he floated a desire to purchase the island of Greenland from the Danes. The bizarre notion may have been prompted by the ghost of Hamlet’s father, rattling around the West Wing while on vacation from Elsinore, but initially it yielded mocking commentary from around the globe. Until Greenlanders rebuffed Trump, and the Danish Prime Minister called the idea “absurd.” Then The Donald went into full assault mode, calling the PM “nasty” and cancelling a state visit to Denmark, a NATO ally, planned for early September.

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