Politics

Sanders wins big in New Hampshire, along with Trump. My first thought was that this must really shake the ground under the Clintons' feet, but this is Sanders's home court. The smart money still must bet that the quasi-socialist's momentum will melt in the south like the northeastern snows in spring and summer. However, I think that Sanders and Hillary are polling fairly evenly in national polls, and it can certainly be said that there is no longer that sense of inevitability about the Clinton campaign. Hillary's confidence must be a little shaky. She knows what it is to have the rug pulled out from under her in a presidential contest by somebody coming in from left field, when Obama took the Democratic nomination in 2008 to go on and amaze the world with his ultimate victory against John McCain. She must know that it can happen again - so close, yet so far. And then there's the general contest against the Republicans.

Speaking of the Republicans, we have a colorful story on Trump's son defending his fathers defense of waterboarding.

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Eric Trump defended his billionaire blowhard dad's Sunday night statement that he would "bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding" if elected president, bizarrely claiming that the banned torture tactic is "no different" from everyday fraternity hazing rituals that have routinely made headlines across the nation over the past year.

“You see these terrorists that are flying planes into buildings, right? You see our cities getting shot up in California. You see Paris getting shot up. And then somebody complains when a terrorist gets waterboarded, which quite frankly is no different than what happens on college campuses and frat houses every day,” said Eric Trump, the executive vice president of The Trump Organization, during an interview with "On the Record" host Greta Van Susteren.

“And, you know, the man would keep this country safe," added the silver spoon scion. "There is no question about it.”

-- New York Daily News

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Blurty

Googling for information on Blurty, I came across a touching tweet: "Aww, now #Blurty doesn't even load at all anymore. :( If only it would come back for just 1 more week." I know the feeling. If the site came back online for a week, it would be a very busy week for me as well - madly copy & pasting day and night. They still have that notice up that they are doing a server upgrade, so I am not utterly without hope, but it has been a long time, about a year.

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Ooh, googling some more, I discover that Blurty's license with its hosting service expires in April of 2018, in two more years. Maybe that is when the site goes the way of GreatestJournal and disappears from the Internet forever. I am guessing that Cheever is someone who does not care to needlessly do away with his options, so that he has not nuked the site, but neither does he want to pay to keep running it. So, he saves money by not running it, only maintaining that notice at its webpage, while maintaining the possibility of picking the business back up again sometime before his hosting contract expires, if he should feel so inspired, hungering again to get back in the blog-hosting business. Or might he be considerate enough to put the site back on again in the last few months of the contract, giving old Blurtians a chance to salvage their youthful memories? Again, I am neither optimistic nor without hope.