Sep 102017
 

It’s a slow day for news, because Irma [R-FL] dominates media coverage.  All under her assault, even Republicans, remain in my thoughts and prayers.  Wendy is due here in about forty minutes.  It’s a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos will not be worshiping until Monday Night, so today, may the Blessed Orb shine it’s holy light on your team.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:31 (average 5:07).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: In a finding that has wide-ranging implications for society, British researchers at the University of Leeds announced on Saturday that they have identified the gene for awfulness.

The study, which focussed on one adult male and three of his adult children, makes a persuasive argument that there is a “powerful dominant gene” that makes people heinous.

“When we began our research, we wanted to find an adult male with pronounced characteristics of horribleness,” Alistair Dorrinson, the scientist who led the study, said. “In studying three of his adult offspring, we found that they were all carriers of the gene that makes one smug, tone-deaf, and oblivious to the fate of others.”

Additionally, certain subtraits of awfulness, such as an inability to tell the truth, appear to be genetically mediated, Dorrinson said.

“If the father is unable to explain honestly why a meeting took place, for example, the son who carries the same gene will also tell crazy lies about that meeting,” he said.

But Andy, couldn’t you tell that Trump has defective genes just by looking at his face? RESIST!!

From NY Times: Almost from the moment Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act collapsed this summer and weary senators fled the capital, Senator Chuck Schumer began calculating how best to take advantage of the persistent Republican struggle to govern.

“Even when I was on vacation with my family in August, I started looking,” said Mr. Schumer, the New Yorker who leads Senate Democrats, as he recounted the buildup to the stunning debt limit deal that Democrats struck with President Trump this past week over the objections of gobsmacked Republicans.

In an interview with the New York Times podcast “The New Washington,” Mr. Schumer said he pursued an approach that would allow the Democrats to assert themselves as the minority party in coming showdowns over funding the government and increasing the debt limit, while denying Mr. Trump money for his border wall and seeking protection for the undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.

“What’s our leverage?” Mr. Schumer said he kept asking himself. “We only had one thing as leverage at that point, which was the debt ceiling.”

From past experience, Mr. Schumer, like other congressional veterans, knew Republicans would have a difficult, if not impossible, task rounding up votes among themselves to increase the government’s borrowing authority because many conservatives simply won’t vote to do so, even at the expense of the nation’s fiscal stability.

I agree in principle with what Schumer did, but I think, since he had Trump by the short hairs,  he should have extracted more concessions, such as permanent residence for Dreamers. RESIST!!

From John Pavlovitz: …I can barely figure out how my microwave works, let alone interpret how a horrific weather event is being wielded by God to teach you or me or gay couples a lesson—and I’d feel like a reckless fraud pretending I know what’s happening. I guess guys like Kirk Cameron and Joel Osteen and Pat Robertson know better, though I’m doubtful.

It’s ironic that Cameron refers to the book of Job. When Job loses everything and is stricken with grief, at first his friends show wisdom by simply sitting with him in his grief. Only later do they fall into the temptation of placing blame and playing God.

Maybe we who claim faith should refrain from pretending we understand how this world works when it comes to faith and pain and suffering.

Maybe we should admit the mystery, discomfort, and the tension that spirituality yields in painful, terrifying times.

Maybe when people are being terrorized by nature or by the inhumanity around them, instead of shouting sermons at them—we should shut up and simply try to be a loving, compassionate presence.

Maybe we should stop trying to make God into something as petty, hateful, judgmental, and cruel as we are.

If the God you’re following and preaching to people in their times of pain is an a-hole—it’s probably not God at all.

It’s probably just you.

Amen! God is not an asshole. Authentic Christians are not assholes. Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians ARE assholes! RESIST!!

Cartoon:

0910Cartoon

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  19 Responses to “Open Thread – 9/10/2017”

  1. 4:48  (I expected to exceed the average, actually.)  I don’t see anything edible, and if it stays in drydock you can’t even catch anything from it.

    TNY –  Well, the problem is straight news.  Would that the solution had truly been found.  Oh, well.  Maybe some day.

    NYT – I have a nagging fear that the Republicans are somehow going to make this backfire before the 2018 elections.  I hope I am wrong.  Democratic party leaders – PLEASE CYA!!

    John Pavlovitz – Love this guy.  He is pretty straightforward.  One doesn’t often see him get snarky.  But when he does, Katy bar the door.  He can cut off a pseudo Christian at the knees so cleanly that they don’t know it’s happened – and then they try to walk, and they STILL don’t know it’s happened.

    Cartoon – Sigh.  So true.

  2. NYer: Good one, Andy! Good one!

    NYT: Good for Mr. Schumer, the battle continues! Best to him, and our fighters! up on the Hill.

    John Pavlovitz: What a refreshing article!

    Cartoon: Yep, they wouldn’t have it any other way!

    Well….I guess I didn’t pray hard enough. It was painful to watch my guys today, 29-07. Yes, this is big, bad storm going up the peninsula, and up beyond. Prayers to those living there. Hope that you get your chores done, get some rest, and take care. Thanks, Tom.

  3. New Yorker: If we go by looks, Sessions has to be lower than whale poo!  Oh, he actually is?  TC, you hit it on the head!
    NYT: Schumer did good, but he’s playing with fire, needs to watch himself, his back, and who might make orange pee on his shoes.
    Pavlovitz: “…we should shut up and simply try to be a loving, compassionate presence.” -Wouldn’t that be nice change!  Osteen, Robertson, and their ilk are simply grasping, cruel sob charlatans!

  4. My Chiefs did very well Thursday night giving Tom “Deflated-Balls” Brady a YUGE sad.  GO CHIEFS!

    And the Pavlovitz post reminded me of this poster:

    Note to All republicans:

    • So glad about your Chiefs, and love the poster.  As I type, Irma is supposed to be just leaving the Tampa Bay area, which means all the water it pushed out to sea will now start getting pushed in by the other half of it.  I hope everyone we love has access to higher floors.  At least it has slowed down some.

    • Thank Hill for me.  He’s one of my receivers, and I got 19.8 fantasy points from his performance. 04

  5. I am frozen out from commenting on TC’s C2 page as well as Joanne’s C2 page too. I tried to comment on other people’s C2 comment pages as well and was not able to do anything other than to NOTE the article. I was frozen out from moving the page up or down and from commenting. This has been going on for the past few days. I can comment on the PP page without difficulty although I like to use the same comment in C2 as well.

    I used 4 different browsers and two different OS with an Apple Mac Intel computer. C2 has a serious problem somewhere in its site. I have never had this problem on C2 in the past. All other websites and pages, aside from C2 commenting news articles, work just fine.

    Firefox says ” Warning: Unresponsive script. It also froze me out.

    Safari gave me the “spinning wheel of death” and froze me out on the page. This webpage and one other page are not responding.

    Chrome gave me this: “Aw, Snap!” “Something went wrong while displaying this webpage.” It also froze me out.

    Opera gave me “Page crashed” “Unfortunately, something caused this page to quit. It might have been an extensions conflict or some other reason.

    Any advice…?
    .

    • TC said a couple of days ago that only Firefox was allowing comments on Care2 news stories, and he mentioned a few other browsers (but didn’t include Opera, or for, that matter Safari) that were not working at all.  I tried both Firefox and Opera on my Windows 7.1 O/S, and the only thing that worked for me was Firefox – BUT I could not do it in the regular operating mode, I had to go into Safe Mode With Networking.  Even then, when I first clicked in to the open comment box, I got an error message (on a line across the upper part – one has to look for it – it doesn’t scream at you like the Microsoft error messages) that says a page is slowing you down, and do you want to stop or wait.  I had to say “stop.”  Then I could get in.  It is smart to have your comment handy to cut and paste when you get to that point (for one thing, you are probably too exhausted to type much more).

      The only things in the above that TC didn’t already say much more succinctly are (1) Opera won’t work either, (2) You MAY have to put your computer in safe mode, (3) be ready to cut and paste (and that’s just a suggestion.)

      Interesting to hear Safari doesn’t help either.  Of course it is designed for Mac.

      Please let us know if this helps. 

      • I’ve been working with Firefox as usual, in regular mode, but I also have AdBlock and NoScript running, which may influence what I get to see. If I start a C2NN page in a new tab, it opens the page but then freezes up all of Firefox for a long time. I then get a message telling me there’s a script that’s not working properly with the options to continue, debug or stop the script. Only stopping it gets the page, and everything else, running again and it then lets me add comment but not give green stars. After adding a comment the page refreshed of course, and I need to go through the whole cycle of waiting and stopping the script.

        • Joanne & Lona,

          I tried using the “stealth mode” in both Safari & Firefox and they did not work in either one. I guess I am going to have to wait for C2 to fix the problem. I have been using Safari ever since it came out and not having to use IE anymore many, many years ago. Very happy with Safari. I have been using Firefox more recently within the past two years but only sporadically prior to it. There have been other browsers I have used but they were designed strictly for the older Apple OS prior to the Intel Macs.

          Thanks for the tips. Hugzzz, Jim.
          .

          • Yeah, I was afraid it was not JUST a browser issue but a browser-O/S combination issue.  I’m not knowledgeable about Macs at all.  Sorry.

          • Jim, since their last “fix” my experience is identical to Lona’s.  I’m using Firefox 55.0.3 (32 bit). 13

          • Jim, as of today, about noon your time, Care2 news is working again for me on Internet Explorer.  I did try before that to fix a completely unrelated browser issue, and the fix didn’t fix that; it shouldn’t have been what fixed this, but, if Care2 still isn’t working in Internet Explorer for others, I’ll share.  But I am hoping that the fix is from Care2 and will thus help everyone.

          • Looks like the problem of freezing is now fixed. I used Safari & Firefox to check out and verify a few things. Looking good so far. Yes!
            .

  6. Well, so far my team has done OK. Can’t believe Brady’s play today blew so BAD! 
    Loved Andy! Had me goin’ for a sec, but he always does!
    Dems need to watch their backs with Twitler! The goppers and Drumpfenfarten will make them pay for this deal! It is known, it is known!
    Pavlovitz is so right! The evangelicals are the worst of the worst! They beat you over the head with their piety, then do worse things than you EVER DID! 
    My son is doing OK, so far. He got a chance to text me to tell me to “quit worrying, I. Am. Fine.” When you get that kind of text it makes ya feel like a worry-wart. But, I can’t help it. Granddaughter is down there with him!
    Take care, TC! May the Holy Ellipsoid Orb favor your team, I great ONE!

  7. Puzzle — 4:05  I was tied up!

    The New Yorker — So it is not all nurture.  There is a hereditary factor too?  Don’t give the offspring an excuse to flaunt!  Just goes to prove in any case that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

    NY Times — ” … to increase the government’s borrowing authority because many conservatives simply won’t vote to do so, even at the expense of the nation’s fiscal stability.” — These conservatives are so short sighted.  Have they not heard the expression ‘it takes money to make money’?  Likewise, if they create instability, not only will the US economy flounder, but so will the global economy.  When one wants to be the greatest, there comes a responsibility to the rest of the global community.  Instability breeds instability, and stability breeds stability.  As for Schumer, IMO he is walking a bit of a tightrope . . . push too hard and he may blow it.  Mind, with Drumpf’s unpredictability, he could change his mind before the ‘deal’ is done.

    John Pavlovitz — I very much appreciate Pavlovitz.

    “If the God you’re following and preaching to people in their times of pain is an a-hole—it’s probably not God at all.

    It’s probably just you.”

    AMEN!!!  There should be a rule: No preaching during times of trouble . . . only supportive love.  Unfortunately, too many right wing Christians don’t get it.  Their brand of Christianity is ideological, whereas true Christianity is based on agape.

    Cartoon — The Republican jobs plan since before Obama looked just like that.  I’ve got mine.  Help yourself.  Not our job to help you.

    Resist, Persist and Remove!!!

  8. TNY: Andy, like most satirists and comedians, is quite understandably starting to run dry on Drumpf humor. All of them have done have done great jobs with turning things that basically aren’t all that funny into a laugh and Andy has produced some of his best columns in the past weeks. But it’s getting terribly hard to come up with yet another angle and make fun of the horrible things this senile old man and his offspring are saying and doing, or not saying and doing, which is sometimes just as bad. But I’m glad Andy keeps trying and RESISTING!

    NYT: I too think that Schumer did the right thing by wrenching control out of the hands of the GOP and making a (3 months) deal with Drumpf. But Drumpf is “mercurial” at best and barking mad when not mercurial, and by now has stabbed everyone ‘s ever made a deal with in the back, so if I were Schumer I wouldn’t count on Drumpf upholding his end of it too much.

    John Pavlovitz: Even as a non-believer I can appreciate his wisdom. The pot should stop calling the kettle black and people should stop projecting their own shortcomings. Accept responsibility for what is happening and accept that we’re all in it together. Be compassionate and help each other and do not try to make money out of the misery of others like the disgusting Cameron, Osteen and Robertson do.

    Enjoy your Bronco worship tonight, TomCat.

  9. Thanks all.  Pooped hugs! 16

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