An insufferable lout becomes a national celebrity and proceeds to destroy himself and everything and everyone around him.

This is after he flies nonstop around the world. Think about history with Charles Lindbergh. In addition, a short intro to the story by Henry Fonda.

Jack ("Pal") Smurch has become shorthand for a hero, politician, or celebrity who, in person, turns out to be a lout or a stupid, rude, awkward person; a clumsy, ill-mannered boor; or an oaf.

Everyone who knows him knows what he's like, but everyone is reluctant to say anything about it.

As totalitarian regimes attempt to spread their tentacles, officials don't respond positively to local journalists' interview requests. 

Reporters' queries about their alleged illegal activities or questionable actions keep rising, whether they're taking bribes, making unilateral decisions concerning restrictive laws, or about the local zoning and backroom plotting. These so-called public servants appear more interested in achieving total control and lining their pockets with developer money rather than responding to their local constituents' concerns.

Our planet kicked off another year with a warm start: January 2023 ranked as the seventh-warmest January in 174 years.

The average global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.57 degrees F (0.87 of a degree C) above average, ranking as the seventh-warmest January in NOAA's global climate record.

January 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive January and the 527th-consecutive month, with temperatures above the 20th-century average. 

Sea ice at both ends of the world also ran very low, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Putin’s Desperate Hours Are going from bad to worse, and folks wish he will soon fall out of a Kremlin window in Moscow, Russia.

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international law. It has unleashed widespread death, destruction and displacement,” 

U.S. private equity funds boost Asian acquisitions outside China. Investment activity rises in Japan and India as investors hedge against risks.

Major U.S. private equity funds are diversifying their Asian acquisitions, increasing activity outside China as Beijing's pandemic countermeasures and worsening relations with the U.S. make investors wary about the country.

Flush with money; the funds could step up acquisitions of non-Chinese Asian companies this year and beyond.

The Sunshine State of Florida has become our American national bellwether, and certainly not in a perfect way, I should add.

Another shooting, this time a TV news crew has been shot while covering an earlier shooting. One journalist is dead. The other newsman is critical as of this posting. Fellow journalists rushed to help the crew that was shot. Then a mother and 9-year-old were shot. The 9-year-old didn't survive.