As online holiday shopping starts, please use my Amazon affiliate link

By David McElroy · November 20, 2018

Every time I mention a book on here, I try to remember to include a link to buy that book at Amazon.com. You might have heard of them.

I’m not just including the link out of the kindness of my heart, of course. I’m a member of an Amazon program that pays me a small commission every time you buy something from there after you’ve clicked a link on my site.

I don’t make a ton of money from this — it probably averages $30 a month — but it helps offset the cost of cat and dog food. And right now, it can even help offset the cost of the long transition I’m going through to update the site to a new design and “plumbing” underneath the surface of what you see. (That upgrade has taken longer than I ever thought it would.)

But if you don’t mind, I’d like to explain how you can help support this site as you do online shopping in the next month or so — and it won’t cost you a nickel.

If you seen a book or other product I mention and you’re interested in, click on the link. Buy it if you’d like. But even if you don’t buy that product, I will still get a commission from Amazon for anything else you buy.

So if you come to my page and click on a link — whether it’s a book link or just that nice little Amazon ad on this page — whatever you order next will earn a commission for me. It’s usually about 4 percent, but it varies depending on the product. And it doesn’t increase the price you pay for the product. It’s a win for both of us.

Just for the record, you keep complete privacy. I don’t know who has clicked one of m links. I won’t know what you’ve ordered. Amazon lets me know what products people are buying after clicking on my links — so I’ll know what to promote — but I have no way of knowing who bought anything or of linking you to a purchase.

(Last month, I earned commissions on a bunch of sex toys, with is the most interesting thing I’ve seen so far. It’s usually just vitamins or dog food or books or a million other mundane items.)

So as you do your shopping at Amazon, please take the time to start with a link here first.

And just to make sure that I’m being clear, here’s a disclaimer that the lawyers from Amazon like me to use:

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

I appreciate those of you who’ve supported me in this way for the last couple of years. I hope to greatly expand my use of Amazon links in the future, but that’s a story for another time.

Have a great Thanksgiving — and then buy all your stuff from Amazon through my link. Thanks.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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