In case Friday had lightened your mood...

The library clerk goes on to tell me that sovereign citizens don’t have to pay taxes because of the “straw man” theory. The explanation of this is convoluted and takes a while for my brain to process. But the idea is that all humans have two personas, a legal entity and their physical self, and the latter is not responsible for the debts or taxes of the former.

Yet the IRS is very aware of the “straw man” theory and will fine an individual who uses it $5,000 for filing a “frivolous tax return.”

I try to explain this, but to no avail.

“Just write the word Frank where the stamp goes,” I hear another inmate telling a friend in the library.

I have to ask what he is talking about. He tells me that it is common knowledge that a very wealthy man named Frank died and donated his millions of dollars to the U.S. Postal Service. Now all poor people have to do is write his name on an envelope in place of a stamp, and the mail will be delivered for free.

Many prisoners swear they have used this method, and that it works.

A 15-year effort to build a school in the city’s Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil.

The $70 million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the county’s insane asylum.

Is there a worse vegetable than eggplant?

We have seen and heard President Donald Trump take so many actions that unsettle the stability of our democracy that we are reaching a point where this is simply becoming the new normal. The danger is that when an alarm goes off that we really can't afford to ignore, we won't take it seriously. Too many people will say that it's just Trump being Trump. Everything will be ok -- until it is not.

The normalization of presidential instability has been stunning. In a week that saw the unprecedented shakeup of high level executive branch officials continue, and a "60 Minutes" interview with a porn star who claims the President's men threatened her to be silent about their alleged affair, many experts noted how quiet the week had been because Trump didn't tweet too much.

'Normalization' should be the word of the year.

(creator unknown)

And so is his attorney.

On TV, he said Cohen negotiated the Stormy Daniels agreement without telling Trump, which may invalidate the contract and be grounds for disbarment.

And here's what Tumblr is going to do about it.

A friend of Stormy Daniels says the porn actress kept the dress she wore on an alleged date with Donald Trump. “All I know is that Stormy still has the dress that she wore from that night,” adult actress Alana Evans told CNN during an interview Monday.

We've had this loveseat for several years now. But, I recently noticed something sinister in the upholstery.

There are two things that look a lot like the fanciful Mexican "sugar skulls". And around them are three sixes.

Now those skulls and the '666' are all I see when I look at the chair.

Loveseat Of The Damned.
Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch Of The Devil!

According to Italian newspaper La Nazione, three 20-year-olds bought some pasta and took it back to their apartment in Florence, with high hopes for an authentic Italian dinner. But instead of boiling several quarts of water before adding the pasta—you know, step one on every set of back-of-the-box instructions ever—they emptied the dry noodles directly into the pot. (Sigh...)

Reminds me of a guy.