Hi everyone,

Welcome back!  How are you?  Before we go any further, BDH and Little Buddha want to know if you notice anything different around here.  That's right, we're working with a new computer.  The guys are excited to check out all of the bells and whistles and see if there's anything on it that they can use for your benefit.  Before we go any further though, we have to give a shout-out to this computer's predecessor.  That beast was here for at least 75% of our previous meetings at Clutter Headquarters over the last eight years, and we have nothing but appreciation for the hard work it put in to bring us all together.  Cheers.  Now, the guys have the coffee, so help yourself to a nice medium DD, and let's clear out some Thursday Clutter.

It was a frightening scene yesterday, as bombs were sent to Barack Obama, the Clintons, and CNN headquarters (among others).  Donald Trump uttered the bare minimum of opposition to the threat yesterday, saying, "We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that threats or acts of political violence have no place in the United States of America," which would be great, except he's been doing the exact opposite for two years, and he refused to acknowledge it.  Thankfully no one was hurt, but you can't have the occupant of the White House referring to the media as the enemy of the state day after day, and applauding when officials attack reporters, and not think something like this is going to happen.

The United States is being threatened by right-wing fanatics.  (pic via usatoday.com)

Hold on, Robert DeNiro also received a suspicious package. 

Saudi Arabia officials are reportedly now acknowledging that Jamal Khashoggi's death was a premeditated murder.  What will Donald Trump do/say to continue avoiding having to take any actions which go against his personal interests?

It looks like Megyn Kelly is out at NBC News after recently making pro-blackface comments on her show.  Raise your hand if you're surprised this is how things ended for Kelly.  Anyone?  Anyone at all?

Facebook has been fined £500,000 in the United Kingdom for failing to protect users' privacy in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.  The episode took place before a new U.K. law went into effect, because now the maximum penalty would be £17 million.  Even so, that's a drop in the bucket compared to the social media giant's revenues.  We still don't know what the answer is to fixing Facebook's lack of privacy controls.  The company is based on selling every last bit of personal information they can squeeze out of their users.  They need some sort of regulation, but politicians benefit from Facebook's capabilities as much as anyone else, so they don't have much reason to want to limit their impact.  Also, who in Washington has any idea how to do it anyway?  (Note:  We also use Facebook ads, but we're not trying to alter democracy.  BDH and Little Buddha just like making friends.)

Now that Mega Millions made someone a billionaire, all lottery eyes turn to Powerball, which now has a prize that's "only" $750 million.  We just want to remind everyone that we understand the entertainment value of the lottery, but long-term investing will actually improve your financial footing and not just give you a 30 second adrenaline rush while looking at a list of numbers.

Take a deep breath before you read that stress may shrink your brain.  Apparently there's an association between higher levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) and smaller brain volume, but it hasn't been confirmed that one causes the other.

The Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2 to take a 2-0 lead in the World Series last night.  David Price was lights-out once again, giving up just three hits and two runs over six innings.  Give the lefty all of the credit in the world, he's completely rewritten his story in Boston by winning two postseason games.  It's just another reason why baseball is awesome.  The Sox were down 2-1 after four innings, but they scored three runs in the 5th (all four Boston runs came with two outs), and the Dodgers couldn't do anything with the combination of Price - Joe Kelly - Nathan Eovaldi and Craig Kimbrel.  The Sox are clicking on all cylinders right now and they have been relentlessly attacking the Dodgers inning after inning.  The series now moves to Los Angeles for three games, with Rick Porcello getting the start for Boston on Friday.  As much as we would usually hate to say this, we hope we've seen the last Fenway Park baseball game of the year. 

We finally found out which major Modern Family character died last night.  Going to have to check the archives, but we're pretty sure we predicted it would be this person.  How do the show's fans feel about the reveal?

Adam Sandler has a new stand-up special on Netflix, and it's...entertaining?  Well, in a world where David Price has now become nails in the postseason, all things are possible.  We may have to take a peek at this one and see for ourselves.

We admit we did not predict what happened in last week's Supernatural episode (no spoilers), but of course that won't be the end of the story.  After all, that's just the start of the new season.

Okay kids, that's going to do it for now.  We were watching the Quentin Tarantino movie, Jackie Brown, again recently and were reminded how much we love the theme song, so here's Bobby Womack with, "Across 110th Street," for today's, "Song of the Day."

Thanks for stopping by, everyone.  It was great to see you, as always.  Enjoy the rest of your day, be good, and we'll meet up again for more fun soon.  Until next time, that's today's Clearing out the Clutter, and we are outta here.