dumber and dumber

I managed to go two weeks without mentioning Donald Trump here. In those two weeks, he has done a masterful job proving several times why he's so unfit to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

His Reichstag burning speech at the convention was a sham. "I alone can fix this," he boasts. This speech takedown exposes him for the hypocrite and demagogue that he is (and normally I don't have much time for the source organization on the linked page).

Donald's biggest fuckup in the last two weeks has been the Russia mess. He just cannot stop shooting himself in the foot.

Rather than offer a statesman-like response to something at the Democratic Convention, he made several bizarre statements about Russia within a few days that had Republicans giving him smackdown after smackdown for his stupidity.

Trump has terrible impulse control. He has no sense of self-restraint. He takes to Twitter or the airwaves and just humiliates himself. That's absolutely the wrong kind of person for a job where a screw-up can cause war.

Some unknown person curated an excellent and comprehensive list detailing why Trump is so woefully unqualified.

Share it with everyone you know who may be on the fence about this election. A vote for Trump is a vote for tyranny.

portfolio porn

I watch the American stock market nearly every day because of my investments. I've learned a lot about how the game is played, but sometimes I'm completely mystified.

Two stocks I own reported quarterly earnings this week. One stock reported a loss for the quarter and underperformed analyst expectations. The company revised their long-term forecast downward. Nonetheless, the share price shot up almost 10 percent when this new hit the street.

Another stock reported a quarterly profit above analyst expectations. The company also revised their long-term forecast upward. The stock price dropped 4 percent at this news.

Each of these stocks moved the wrong way based on their earnings and forecast. Usually when a company reports their earnings beat expectations and revises its outlook upward, the price surges.

The only reason I can figure the one stock price jumped nearly 10 percent was because investors are thinking the company is ripe to be acquired by another company. Buyout prices are usually well above the current trading price, so if that happens, they're in the catbird seat along with the rest of us who invested in the company earlier.

But why did the other stock price drop when the company outperformed and improved their outlook? In that case, the only thing I can think of is that a large institutional investor decided to cash out and take their money off the table. If so, that would depress the price if they dumped a lot of stock on the market.

I didn't sell either stock because both pay good dividends and I'm a buy-and-hold investor. If I had sold the first one, I would have to pay the higher tax on short-term capital gains. And I've held the other for about five years and it's more than doubled in price, so that would've meant a capital gains hit that I'd rather avoid.

idiots in the news

Two couples and a child drove through a safari park in China earlier this week, a place where wild animals like tigers, lions, and elephants roam free. Like many similar parks around the world, as long as people remain in their cars, they're safe.

One of the couples in the car began squabbling. The wife grew so angry, she exited the car, stomped around to the other side, and demanded to be admitted.

At that moment, one of the tigers in the wildlife park attacked the woman and dragged her away. Horrified, the other couple exited the car, and the second woman was attacked by another tiger. Her husband was also injured by the animal.

The husband of the first woman stayed inside with their child. Whether or not he was still angry at his wife when this all went down is unknown.

All three people who exited the car did not fare well. One woman died and the other two are still in the hospital.

This leaves me wondering -- and I'm sure I'm not alone -- about what kind of idiot would leave a car when dangerous carnivores were wandering all over the place. I think the only way I would leave a car in a situation like this was if it was on fire.

This incident proves the old adage that common sense isn't necessarily commonplace. But at least the Darwin Awards will now have a strong group of contenders from China this year.

life isn't fair

The Atlantic is one of my favorite magazines. The entire last two decades of their issues are free online plus selected articles all the way back to 1857.

A recent issue featured an interesting short article titled "Life Isn't Fair" about how many people believe life somehow is really fair and you get what's coming to you in the karma department.

What I found particularly noteworthy was how perceptions of fairness affect other aspect of people's thinking. For instance, those who believe the universe was fair even after a traumatic incident suffered much lower anxiety and depression.

I don't know whether I believe life is fair. I've written before about how I don't believe in luck. It's nice to think some people will get a karma payback, but I don't believe there's any guarantee of that nor any real way of finding out if it has happened.

I do believe if you're more accepting of what life throws at you, you'll be a happier person. Worrying about fairness, IMHO, could lead to feelings of envy, and that ultimately could be very self-destructive.

hacking gone wild

Imagine I told you that someone broke into our house and stole my personal journal. They read through and found catty comments I had written about our neighbors, then copied those and handed them around the neighborhood.

Obviously I'd be furious -- my property would be stolen and my privacy invaded.

But should I be held responsible for my snide remarks now being read by neighbors, written in a journal no one was ever supposed to see except me?

I pose these hypothetical questions to draw a comparison to the recent email hack of the Democratic National Committee. With growing evidence that the Russian government was behind the hack to help Donald Trump's chances and with growing evidence those emails were altered by the Russians to make Democrats look bad, shouldn't people be more outraged at the hack itself and not the contents of private emails that may be partially forged?

Wikilinks started out as a well-intentioned movement meant to expose military excesses. But since then, the organization's Julian Assange has become a pariah because of his personal behavior and the growing evidence indicating his posting of the DNC documents was part of a personal vendetta against Hillary Clinton.

Hacking military footage and files is one thing -- they're not personal correspondence. Hacking employees private email is something else entirely.

After all, the Russian hackers and their enabler Julian Assange are doing the same thing as the Watergate burglars who physically broke into the DNC in 1972 in order to find dirt to use against them. In the latter case, the break-in horrified the citizenry, but many Americans today are shrugging off the Russian attack.

In short, the nobility of hacking is gone; it no longer is a form of quasi-journalism. Now it's just a sleazy crime, one that doesn't cause positive change but instead grinds personal axes.

obstruction of justice

I showed this short video loop to my husband and I thought he would die laughing. He was an insensible mess for a good five minutes, holding his stomach and trying to catch his breath.

That kitten is just total badass. Pets are so funny sometimes with the crazy ideas they get in their heads. I have no idea why the officer was writing up the ticket, but at least he had a good sense of humor about the experience.

recycling crimes

If you're a Seinfeld fan, you'll probably remember the story about the plan to recycle bottles in Michigan instead of New York because the latter had a lower bottle refund fee. In real life, a Kentucky man drove into Michigan with a truck full of 10,000 bottles to recycle and was arrested.

He has been charged with one felony count of attempted return of non-refundable beverage bottles. If convicted, he faces up to five years in state prison.

The case may turn on whether or not the defendant was far enough along in the refund process to have actually violated the law -- he was only carrying the bottles and had not yet made any attempt to seek a refund.

The larger issue here interests me: should we be throwing people into prison for non-violent incidents like this? Yes, the state should make sure abusive refunding practices are not taking place.

But incarceration seems like ridiculous overkill. Fining the man several times what he would have received in a bottle refund seems more than enough punishment to make people think twice about doing this again.

last fuckable day

I've seen this video several times, and it always makes me laugh. At the same time, it's rather sad.

I suspect the reason many men don't consider middle-aged women as "hot," no matter how much they take care of themselves, is instinctive. The more primitive male subconscious is attracted to young women of traditional child-bearing years, notwithstanding that many fortysomething and fiftysomething women have children.

So that's why a sixty-year-old goat will be panting after a young thing his daughter's age and ignoring the hot forty-year-old woman who would be better suited to carry his child. The penis in his lizard brain is controlling his libido.

Ergo, fewer males will respond to a movie with a sexy older female lead, so ticket sales are hurt. And rather than figure out a creative way to get around this problem, shortsighted Hollywood thinkers just demonize older women and cast them in "mom" roles.

I imagine this video is what's called ironic humor. It's subtle but biting. Less is more.

bombs over tokyo

I would love to meet this woman but not so I could admire her tattoos. I want to ask her what the hell she was thinking when she got these.

She can never wear anything strapless, a tubetop, or anything with much of a neckline without revealing her horrific mistake to the rest of the world.

Poor girl. I imagine she will wake up one day deeply regretting this decision and not be able to do anything about it.

Diamonds could be stolen, but bad tattoos are forever.

lady ghostbusters

I will probably not see the new Ghostbusters movie. Neither my husband nor I particularly like high-concept comedies, so that's why we'll pass.

In all honesty, I was indifferent to the original movie. I can't get into movies that aren't grounded in reality, and the 1984 film was very broad and quite silly. That's not to say it was a bad film -- just not my cup of tea.

With that said, I am totally mystified by all the controversy surrounding the Ghostbusters remake with a female cast. Things have become so heated that some of the leads have actually received numerous death threats about the film.

There's something very wrong with people who get that uptight about a movie. You don't like it, don't see it. You like the original and don't think it should be remade, then just watch the original and ignore the new one. Forget it exists.

With all the problems in this world, some people clearly have their priorities very screwed up that they're so angry about something so trivial like this.

library porn

I love libraries. My brother used to take me to the local library when I was a small child. I've never outgrown my love of going to the library, and I'm happy our older son loves his library, too.

Tumblr has a feature that randomly links other Tumblrs of interest when you're using your dashboard. Bibliotheca Sanctus popped up on my screen the other day and I was hooked immediately. (If you look at the Tumblr's archive, you can see all their posts in thumbnails.)

The site features nothing but pictures of beautiful libraries, old and new, throughout the world. The image seen below is from the Shiba Ryotaro Memorial Museum Library in Japan.

The design for the Shiba Ryotaro library is striking, but how the hell do they get books out of the shelves that are twenty feet off the floor? And considering Japan is in the Rim of Fire, the world's earthquake zone, how do they keep the books from falling during a tremblor?

an exciting new book

I'm really looking forward to reading this new book. You can see the cover below. People are saying it's a fascinating read. Once you start it, you can't put it down.

Okay, if you don't understand the gag, you will after skimming this news item.

horrible baby names

I recently ran across this curious article where the writer argues that "hipsters" should consider medieval names for their new baby.

Other than wanting to look like a pretentious poseur, why would you do this? Why would you handcuff your beloved offspring for life with a name you picked out of a book because it sounded kewl?

One of the names the writer advocates is Everbern. Who in their right mind would name a child something that sounds like a perpetual rash?

Then there's Rustic and Frost. These sound more like paint colors than child names. I pity the kid named Rustic Brown or Frost White.

Others just look like misspelled words. A kid named Magner would forever be called Manger or Manager. And poor Unica would be called Utica.

I do not see one name on this list I would even consider for my child. Ysoria? Osgyth? Please.

I have a cousin whose first name is Zebulon. It's an old family name and he's never liked it so he legally changed it to Zeb a few years ago.

But what could you change Hainfroy or Cherubina to?

Medieval names belong back in the middle ages with other winning concepts like burning witches at the stake and reading fortunes with goat entrails.

speaking strine

Although I can do an Australian accent that will fool genuine Aussies, I almost always speak with my normal American accent. At home, I almost never do the Aussie voice.

So I've always wondered why our older son has a genuine Australian accent with no American influence. He's around me more than my Aussie husband, yet my accent has apparently had no influence on his speech.

Since he turned three, he has attended pre-school several days a week, so he interacts with lots of little Aussies there. Plus, he sees neighborhood children and relations all the time, all of whom are Australian, so I imagine this is part of the reason.

Nevertheless, he has no problem understanding me. I was talking to him the other day about accents, and he didn't really seem to understand that I spoke differently.

He does understand I originally came from another country that's far, far away, but I think he only understands that in the most abstract sense. He knows you can only travel to America by air, but he doesn't seem to grasp the concept of extreme distances.

Other American and British mothers I know here have observed the same thing about their small children's accents. Cultural influence on speech seems much stronger than familial.

My brother and I Skype semi-regularly, and he said not long ago he hasn't noticed any change in my accent whatsoever, notwithstanding I've been here a number of years now. I've known Americans who moved south or to Texas who picked up southern accents, and the same for those who moved to the United Kingdom.

I do listen to American podcasts and watch American news segments online fairly regularly, as well as listen to some American recorded books on my iPod, so that influence may be part of the reason my accent has not changed. Maybe if I was entirely immersed in Australian media and culture my American accent would slip away more.

As for the title to this entry, strine is the slang word here for Australian slang and pronunciation. As for the picture below, that's the Australian bobsled team.

trump's troubling mind

The Atlantic published a longish and very interesting article last month by a biographical psychologist who looked at Donald Trump closely to see how his traits like narcissism, disagreeableness, and grandiosity would affect his presidency should he be elected.

Needless to say, the article is very disturbing.

With each passing day, I'm more convinced than ever that Trump would be a disastrously bad president and also seriously endanger the United States in many fundamental ways. The Atlantic piece makes me believe that even more.

Deeply fucked up people can be very successful. That has happened throughout history.

That doesn't mean we should allow deeply fucked up people to hold positions of power, particularly elected office. Never in history was a person so unqualified and so unfit to hold an important elected office as Donald Trump, let alone the presidency.

If you're on the fence about this year's election, please read the article.

longtime blogger silenced

For fourteen years, popular author and artist Dennis Cooper maintained a blog on the Blogger platform where he made daily entries enjoyed by his fans throughout the world.

Earlier this month, the blog was abruptly removed by Google (Blogger's parent corporation) without any notice or explanation to Cooper. He hired a lawyer to find out why it was shut down and if it can be restored.

While this has incorrectly been labeled as censorship (technically, censorship involves a government silencing someone), the action is nonetheless deeply troubling and outrageous.

Monolithic multinational corporations like Google and Facebook arguably have more power than a government in silencing someone or something they don't like. Once a blog or online journal is gone, without any prior notice, its creator is left in limbo and all links to his or her audience are severed with no easy way to reconnect them.

Now Cooper could have hosted his own blog on a private server, but that can be expensive and requires some technical know how. More importantly, a privately hosted blog or webpage can still be silenced if the server owner wants to -- and that has certainly happened before, too, with writers and artists.

Digital companies like Google and Facebook actively lobby against government actions and proposed laws that they see as censorious, yet they have no problem acting like Kim Jong-un when they encounter something they don't like themselves.

That's not only hypocritical, it's wrong.

dimwitted criminals

The Washington Post recently ran an article about a North Carolina woman who put her dead mother in a freezer and later sold the appliance for $30 to a neighbor with the body still inside. The elderly woman had died of natural causes, and the daughter never reported the death so that she could collect the mother's income.

The seller said the buyer would have to wait to use the freezer, which was sealed with duct tape, until nearby church volunteers arrived to remove items inside. But when no one claimed the contents after three weeks, the buyer opened the freezer and discovered the corpse.

The whole business about the church and the tape was obviously a ruse to delay discovery of the body, but such a scheme would only work for so long. Did she think authorities would just skip trying to find her because some time passed before the body was discovered?

The seller moved to a nearby state. She's never heard of extradition?

The neighbor who bought the freezer isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, either. Who buys something sight unseen that's sealed with duct tape, a red flag about something wrong inside? At best it might have stunk of rancid food or had damage inside.

I remember reading not too long ago about how freezers are not an uncommon way to dispose of elderly relatives so that survivors can continue to collect their income. When an older person is reported missing, one of the first place law enforcement checks are family members' freezers.

the americans once more

The husband and I just finished watching the latest season of The Americans. We both felt it was the strongest season to date.

There are several characters I sort of hate -- and I think they're designed that way -- while the actors playing them are particularly strong.

Alison Wright plays Martha, a not particularly likable and needy gullible frump who's seduced by a Soviet spy and then tricked into stealing secrets from the FBI counterintelligence division where she works. Sometimes I just want to smack Martha, but I concurrently recognize the exceptional level of Wright's performance.

Holly Taylor as Paige is also excellent in a role of someone I don't think we're supposed to like. Paige is a sometimes whiny Jesus freak who is always sniveling about something and is consistently annoying as overly religious people sometimes are, yet I have to recognize Taylor is a very strong actress in this role.

In the beginning of the series, I thought lead actress Keri Russell was over her head but she has grown into her role nicely. She had some excellent moments in this season.

The show has now aired fifty-two episodes but I don't recall we ever saw the place where the spies store all their espionage accoutrements, costumes, wigs, vehicles and more. I think that place could be an interesting setting and provide possible subplot complications and jeopardy to exploit dramatically -- right before an important mission, for instance, something keeps them from going into their hideaway.

I've never quite been able to suspend disbelief about how the two main spies are so American. I just can't buy that two Russians could be trained to completely lose their accents, yet I haven't let this get in the way of enjoying the show.

The program will have two final seasons for a total of twenty-three more episodes. I think that was a wise choice. They can go out on a high note and really end with some interesting developments.

Rather than trying to milk the series for an endless run, they have embraced the idea that less is more, which more often is the case than not.

grammar girl

I never paid much attention to grammar lessons when I was in school. I usually had a paperback book on my lap or inside the textbook which I read instead of following along with the rest of the class.

Not surprisingly, I ended up with mediocre grades on my tests. I made up for that with extra credit book reports, more often than not on the book I was sneak reading in class.

So most of what I learned about grammar and usage I picked up by reading a lot. When I saw a semi-colon, for instance, and didn't know the difference between that and a comma, I simply looked it up on the internet.

Nonetheless, I enjoy reading well written prose explaining in a straightforward ways some of the trickier aspects of grammar and usage. At some point, I stumbled on the Grammar Girl website that has a short, well-written daily lesson on English pitfalls.

Unlike many English usage websites that are deadly dull, Grammar Girl is fast and fun. You can also subscribe to her lesson of the day and receive it by email or text.

If you, too, stumble at times on issues of grammar, style, usage and more, you should check it out.

(Spelling, alas, is still my Waterloo, but I'm a lot better at it than I used to be.)

sex and sexism

Several new studies have found that women who feel their partners are sexist and selfish are significantly less likely to orgasm during sex.

I can't say I'm surprised by these results. With that said, I don't think sexism and selfishness always go hand in hand.

I've known men who were selfish but not particularly sexist. I can also think of a few who were sexist but not particularly selfish.

If the selfishness was specifically sexual, then that makes sense. A man who only cares about getting himself off is likely to leave a woman unsatisfied. But he might not be sexist in other ways.

I've known men, and my husband is certainly one of those, who really get off on seeing a woman orgasm both repeatedly and intensely. While James is reliably non-sexist, I knew another man once who was pretty sexist yet loved to make me orgasm.

I could definitely see how a rampant misogynist might not go down on a woman. Various studies have shown that some women can only orgasm during cunnilingus, so if he won't muff dive, you have a problem.

I'm left wondering if studies like this are too binary. You can't really define either selfishness or sexism as an either-all-or-none trait. For one, I think you really need to look at what motivates sexism in a man -- true misogyny or simple ignorance or cultural factors or something else.

All of the above notwithstanding, this is why I think it's so important for women to test drive a potential lover before heading into a more committed relationship. Some men can be harmless kittens most of the time, but they turn into monsters once they're in the bedroom.

male bathroom habits

A female friend and I were talking and laughing the other day about male bathroom habits. IMHO the worst are men who, after they have slept with you, presume sexual intimacy means open sharing of all his bathroom experiences.

I'm reminded of some guy I met in Los Angeles back whenever. We ended up in bed together. He was above average in looks and bedroom prowess, but nothing exceptional, either.

After a pleasurable encounter in bed, as I started drifting off to sleep, he went into the bathroom. After leaving the door wide open, he proceeded to take a rather loud and smelly dump.

I don't care how intimate we are sexually -- I have no interest in sharing your bowel moving experience, and most certainly not right after sex. If nature calls, you go in the little room, latch the door, and proceed with your functions.

Peeing is not an issue to me. A latched door seems a bit neurotic for that. A wide-open door seems a bit narcissistic. A closed but not latched door seems the most emotionally stable. Polite but not prissy.

Here in Australia, this is never much of an issue for women because most houses have toilets in little closets that are not en suite with bedrooms. He has to trot down the hall to take a dump.

Bathroom habits were always litmus tests for me, and I know other women who have said the same. When I slept with my husband for the first time before we were married, he scored 100 percent on potty behavior, I'm happy to report, one early indicator he was a keeper.

drive-through revenge

From the age of sixteen to eighteen, I was a waitress in a greasy spoon. I was emancipated by my parents, and it was the only job I could get. Some of the customers were nice, but some of them were absolute shits.

The worst seemed to be young males from affluent families who enjoyed playing pranks on overworked, underpaid waitresses. I thought back to them when I saw this video.

This incident provides a new twist on the old saying, "revenge is a drink best served cold."

penis horror story

This past week, a Toyko court sentenced a former boxer to four-plus years in prison for severing his wife's lover's penis with garden sheers and then flushing the severed organ down a public toilet.

The missing penis was never recovered.

The suspect committed the act because he believed the victim had forced himself on his wife, based on her deceptive statement about what had happened. However, he later learned the affair was entirely consensual.

Now you have to concede that castrating a man like this is a surefire way to make certain your wife will stop fucking him. At the same time, the resulting penalty of imprisonment will mean she has four and a half years to engage in as many affairs as she wants.

She's already shown she has a tendency to wander and also a tendency to lie in order to manipulate other men. So while the suspect has eliminated one rival, he's opened a proverbial Pandora's Box for many more.

mesmerizing tattoo

You don't have to read much of this blog to know I am not a tattoo fan. But sometimes I see one that I like, even if I still think it would be a mistake to get one.

The picture below fits into that category. I can't deny that the tattoo is striking. It's the sort of thing that would turn people's heads because it's so memorable and captivating. The three-dimensional effect and the hyper-reality are what makes it work IMHO.

At the same time, it's a mistake because you'll have that thing the rest of your life, even if it is very well done. But if you have to make a mistake and get a tattoo, you could do a lot worse than this one.

The image will lose its appeal unless its owner maintains the same muscle tone and definition that he does now. If he bulks up, she'll look overweight and distorted.

Later in life, when his muscles start to sag and his shoulders become spindly, as happens with most older men, she'll look like she's melting. And, of course, she'll fade, and any scarring on his skin will further blemish her face. Plus, old men grow hair out of weird places; she might look odd with a partial goatee.

back to high school

The Atlantic just published a fascinating article about adults who masquerade as teenagers so they can enroll in high school again.

These are not people conducting academic studies undercover or covertly making documentaries. These are people who have serious voids in their lives and can't move on from the past.

The piece focuses in particular on one woman who was a high school dropout and former stripper (not me!) who went back to high school so she could become a cheerleader.

"Many people focus on choices they made -- or chances they didn't take -- as a way of grappling with understanding their current circumstances," says a clinical psychologist quoted in the article to explain why people do this.

Although I never finished high school, I did put in two years before I pulled the plug so I have typical teenage memories of that time. There is no amount of money you could pay me to experience that again and re-enroll in high school.

I see high school as something like puberty -- we all had to go through it, but once was more than enough. Life is not high school nor does it have high school rules.

With that said, although most people would never want to go back to high school, I think too many are still stuck in a high school mentality. They still have a high school immaturity. They still are trapped in high school social competitiveness. And they still avoid self-education just like they did in high school.

I emailed a link for this article to my favorite uncle because I know he lives a stone's throw from his high school. He moved back to his home town after living in other states for many years. I asked him if he ever visited his old school or attended athletic games or reunions.

"Never have and never will," he replied. "I still see people I knew in high school on occasion but never speak to them unless they recognize me. I've moved on with my life and have no interest in talking to people who haven't."

the sack dress

Every time I thumb through a fashion magazine, I see runway ensembles that you can tell are dead on arrival. The "hot" new designs are as unflattering as they are impractical.

This look with the impossible to dryclean jacket because of the bizarre creases and roadkill shoes is a good example from last year. Notice how nobody is wearing such a getup this year. Imagine keeping those shoes clean.

Whenever I see stuff like this, I think "sack dress." The sack dress was a "hot" trend in the late 1950s heavily pushed by the big fashion houses like Givenchy and Balenciaga.

It was an unflattering bag that looks something like what corrections officers now give to inmates on suicide watch. Although prominently featured in fashion and lifestyle magazines, it was a resounding flop and has become emblematic for how the fashion industry tries to strongarm the public.

The style was so reviled that it was openly mocked in the popular media, a practice unthinkable for the time. For instance, Lucy and Ethel wore potato sack dresses after Ricky and Fred tricked them into thinking they were Paris originals.

Marilyn Monroe got the last laugh on the sack dress with some personal alterations to remind designers that the original style was far too baggy. You can see the results below in a now iconic photograph.

This proves the old maxim that a woman can wear anything if she can wear it well.

wall street wench

When interest rates were falling dramatically in 2011, rather than roll over my CD because the return would be so poor, I decided after much consideration to invest the principal in blue chip American stocks that were "dividend aristocrats" -- companies that had increased dividends annually for twenty or more years.

In the five years since I did that, as of last Thursday, my principal had slightly more than tripled. I'm also earning a bit more than 6 percent annually on my portfolio.

With time, I have sold some of the stocks that had significant appreciation and reinvested in other stocks. This practice is known among investors as "taking money off the table."

My husband jokes with me that I should be running a hedge fund. I don't know if those kinds of returns would be considered good for a hedge fund, but I think they're better than many mutual funds in that five-year period.

Of course, I didn't invest anywhere near the sums that hedge funds handle. This is where the small investor has an advantage, because when I buy two hundred shares of XYZ, the market wouldn't budge as a result, but if a hedge fund bought two million shares of XYZ in a single day, the price would bubble and then pop.

I also wouldn't want the responsibility of handling other people's money. If I fuck up and lose my principal, then it hurts no one but me.

At random moments, I do worry that I have almost all of my original savings in the stock market. If it takes a giant dump, I have enough of a capital gains cushion now I won't lose my principal but the hit would be painful. Also, if interest rates go back up to 5 percent or so, I won't be able to cash out all the stocks without incurring painful capital gains taxes.

The original principal was saved over the five years I earned ridiculous money as an exotic dancer. I still lived absurdly frugally during those years, and had saved the money with the idea of taking a few years off to travel and living on my cash stash.

But then I met my husband and we married, so I still had the savings but the travel plans were put on the shelf. Because the dividends now pay a nice annual income and we pay no rent, I've never really had to work. My husband works, but only part time on jobs that he really likes.

I think I've succeeded with my investments to date in part because I do a lot of research before I put money in a company. I also invested entirely in dividend stocks, so if the market tanked for a while, I would still be earning income.

At the same time, I think a lot of my success was dumb luck and entering the market at the right time. I read a lot of articles back in 2011 that predicted the market would rise significantly, and that has turned out to be the case.

happy independence day

Today is America's birthday, July 4, the anniversary of when independence was declared in 1776.

While the United States is not without faults -- no country is -- our nation nonetheless was an inspiration for many others who followed our example and pursued democracy.

Countless millions of people throughout the world today are free, and freedom has become an accepted norm for most of them. So that could make it difficult to realize how extraordinary our experiment with democracy was in 1776.

It was not the first time that people tried democracy in world history, but ours arguably was the most lasting experiment. Now 240 years later, that experiment is still going strong.

For all those who celebrate July 4, may you have a happy, safe, and memorable Independence Day.

donald trump's many scandals

The Atlantic has very helpfully assembled a detailed article chronicling more than a dozen major scandals plaguing Donald Trump in recent years.

The list is by no means exhaustive, because new scandals involving The Donald pop up in the media almost every day. But the piece provides helpful detail to forward to any friend, coworker, or relative you know who might be leaning toward Trump.

The article doesn't include details about Trump's many failed businesses, like Trump Mortgage, Trump Steaks, and Trump Vodka. Time magazine ran a good article about his business disasters last year. They also compiled a handy list of his "top ten" failures.

Of course, Trump's catastrophes are not limited to business and scandals. The year 2016 is shaping up to be an epic disaster in the making for him, so those tracking Trump will likely have more information to add to the archives after his widely expected defeat in November.

This Politico article from last Friday, for instance, details a Trump slaughter in the making because his ground game in key swing states is virtually nonexistent. His first foray into politics is proving to be laughably inept.

In closing, an aside to my longtime readers. If you're wondering (or worried) I'm turning this blog into an anti-Trump manifesto, fear not. I have been limiting my anti-Trump broadsides to one a week at most.

australia's big day

Australia's national election is today and all members of Parliament will be elected. It's the first "double dissolution" election in thirty years, which makes it a really big deal.

A double dissolution election means the entire Australian Senate is up for election. The Aussie government structure is something of a hybrid between the American and British political systems, so normally not all Senate seats are up for grabs in a national election.

The election season here is much shorter -- at eight weeks -- than it is back home in the United States. The election itself is also more complex, with something called preferential voting for some races and so-called "optional preferential voting" for other races.

Preferential voting means voters rank how much they prefer each candidate for each race, so it ends up being what some call an "instant runoff." By voting, you're essentially picking backup candidates for each race, in case your first choices do not win.

This is different than in the US, where we have so-called "first past the post" elections. Back home, whoever has the most votes wins -- e.g. who leads at the finish line.

Australia also has enforced mandatory voting, which has been the law for more than ninety years. That means all eligible citizens must vote; if you don't, you're fined.

Personally, I like the idea of compulsory voting. That way, everyone is invested in their country through participation.

I cannot vote, of course, because I'm not an Australian citizen. Hubby will be voting as will his entire family.

a genuine nightmare

I had a nightmare last night, the first one I ever recall having in my entire life. I may have had some when I was a small child, but I don't remember any and I was never afraid of the dark or bedtime.

I know I was sleeping restlessly last night, which is a rarity, and had awakened several times. At one point, I was dreaming I was awake and realized some kind of winged Nazi alligator crab demon was crouching on the floor beside the bed.

In the dream, I knew somehow that the human-sized creature would not attack women but would attack and devour men. So I knew I was safe, but I knew the monster wanted to try to attack and kill my husband.

Then I realized the creature was not alone and at least a dozen winged Nazi alligator crab demons were all around the bed just waiting to attack my husband.

They started to make this horrible noise, like giggling and hissing combined with squealing brakes on a car. They also emitted steam when they made this noise, which began fogging up the already darkened room.

Suddenly, the one closest to me on the floor leaped over me onto the bed and went for my husband's neck with its jaws. I screamed absolutely bloody murder and started beating at the beast.

And then I woke up screaming and flailing at the air.

My husband woke up, put on the light, and leapt out of bed. The dog woke up and barked. The children slept soundly.

At that point I realized this was a nightmare. My pulse was racing but I knew right away I had been dreaming so I was not freaked and instead laughed.

So I had a slash, returned to bed, the lights went out, and soon I was back to sleep.

I'm sure my subconscious was trying to tell me something, but I have no idea what it was. I was fascinated I had a nightmare, because I have no stress in my life that I know of which would cause such a dream.

And, no, I didn't eat anything weird before bed. I never eat anything after supper at all.

Now my Irish ancestors would probably tell me this was an omen of something horrible. But I think that's crap.