Nov 192017
 

I’m waiting for Wendy to arrive to shine and polish the TomCat and help with other work, including the dreaded task.  I shall finish this after she leaves.  Then it’s time to meditate upon the Ellipsoid Orb.  I’m still improving gradually.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:44 (average 6:42).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (SNL Channel): Weekend Update: Jeff Sessions

 

Is this based on a transcript? RESIST!!

From The New Yorker: Unimpressed by President Donald Trump’s sudden backtracking on his proposed elephant-trophy ban, elephants from Zimbabwe and Zambia released a scathing official statement on Saturday, ominously warning Trump, “We don’t forget.”…

…“The decision to lift the trophy ban reeks of political expediency as it worst,” the elephants’ statement read.

The elephants also sent a strongly worded legal letter to the Republican National Committee, demanding that the G.O.P. immediately cease and desist using the elephants’ likenesses in Republican fund-raising appeals and all other materials.

They should never have said that, Andy. Trump wanted to kill them all just for fun, let alone over the image! RESIST!!

From NY Times: As we watch Roy Moore thumping his Bible to defend himself from accusations of child molestation, let me toss out a verbal hand grenade: To some degree, liberals practice the values that conservatives preach.

This is complicated terrain with lots of exceptions, and the recent scandals involving Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. and Al Franken underscore that liberals can be skunks as much as anyone else. Yet if one looks at blue and red state populations as a whole, it’s striking that conservatives champion “family values” even as red states have high rates of teenage births, divorce and prostitution. In contrast, people in blue states don’t trumpet these family values but often seem to do a better job living them.

According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 32 states, those with the highest percentage of high school students who say they have had sex are Mississippi, Delaware, West Virginia, Alabama and Arkansas. All but Delaware voted Republican in the last presidential election.

Meanwhile, the five states with the lowest proportion of high school students who have had sex were New York, California, Maryland, Nebraska and Connecticut. All but Nebraska voted Democratic.

Most Republican pseudo-Christians preach piety and behave immorally. Most Democrats preach freedom and behave responsibly. RESIST!!

Cartoons:

1119Cartoon

TCHateLaundry

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  16 Responses to “Open Thread – 11/19/2017”

  1. 6:43  Just waffling.

    SNL – “Childhood trauma – the passing of the Civil Rights Act.”  That wins the internet!

    TNY – David Horsey did a cartoon (which I won’t post here for copyright reasons) about the (GOP) elephant trying the forget “the elephant in the room” (the Siberian mastodon about eight times his size.)  But of course, elephants  can’t forget, can they?  Too bad!  I sure hope these elephants have good lawyers and better bodyguards!

    NYT – Statistics, like other facts, generally favor liberals.  I like the Criminal-indictments-by-administration statistics myself.

    Cartoon I – Well, of course!  The President was a Democrat!

    Cartoon II – Poor baby!

  2. SNL: Such talent from all of them! “I don’t Recall’ could be a new term too. lol

    NYer: dt’s a vile & sick man! I think most elephants and lions would agree too!

    NYT: What an interesting subject, I clicked Texas, and this is what I got: We’re in the ‘NA’ group: 46: Teen Birth Rate 36: Decline in Teen Birth Rate 46: Teen Pregnancy Rate

    Cartoon: #1. Sad. #2. Me too. 😉

    My guys won. Beautiful day here, hope that you have a good evening, take care, and Thanks, Tom.

  3. SNL: Gosh darn genius!
    New Yorker: So, what will be the next flashy balloon tump will send up to distract the fools from the real world?
    NYT: It’s long been known that the red states, especially in the Bible belt, have had the highest rates of teen pregnancy, for instance.  In another universe, Roy Moore would be seen thumping his Bible, and it would spontaneously combust! 

  4. SNL: For me nothing is more iconic of how deep American politics have sunk than an Attorney General lying his ass off and feigning memory problems to only very specific events before congress and getting away with it. SNL is doing some great sketches on that, but the laughter sounds very much like that of a group of the Dutch proverbial farmers with toothaches.

    TNY: Thanks, Andy, you made a great point for elephants there. Drumpf trying to recall that ban on importing elephant parts because of a strong lobby of the trophy hunters who shot those animals, i.e. his sons, is one thing, but endangering the animal totem of the GOP is quite another. But I never understood how the so un-American elephant could represent a group of Americans that have expressed their dislike of anything else coming from Africa, or India, so vehemently. Choosing a foreign animal seems downright unpatriotic, so the GOP is likely to agree with the elephants’ proposal to letting this symbol go and replace it with a genuine American animal. An alligator, or any of the lifestock imported by white settlers perhaps?

    NYT: Speaking from the experience in my own country, which has one of the highest rates of secularization combined with the lowest rates of teenage pregnancies and abortions, I can only attest to the findings of this article and with TomCat’s addition: It is all about the combination of personal freedom and taking personal responsibility based on a good education. Numbers are relatively higher under first generation immigrants, but the numbers for second and third generation are at the same low percentages as for the rest of the population while education and secularization increases over generations.

    Cartoon #2: Perhaps if they didn’t put you in the washing machine or drier all the time you wouldn’t hate it so much? 454545

  5. Thanks all.  Hugs! 17

  6. Arghhh!!!  I just lost my entire post for the 2nd time and this time I have no idea why!  The first was my own stupidity.

    Puzzle — 5:44 This could turn anybody off of waffles!

    SNL — I wish the person or entity that is blocking SNL from Canada would get their shit together and unblock it! 

    The New Yorker — I’m with the elephants!  How about using the “don’t tread on me snake”, after all, Republicans are snakes in the grass!  They live in webs of lies and deceit!

    NY Times — Interesting correlation.  Critical thinking skills are evidently missing from the education system, such as it is in red states.  Walk in lockstep and stand still, at best.

    One thing that I find interesting about right wing nut job evangelicals is that they are up in arms about their perception that “Christians” are being persecuted and denied their rights by secularists and other religions.  They object to other views being “rammed down their throats” which they are not.  But in their bid to takeover government, they would ram, unapologetically, their brand of Christianity (which is not Christianity at all!) down everyone else’s throats.  Hypocrisy at its worst!  That is why the Founding Fathers saw fit to include the separation of church and state right into the first amendment of the Constitution.  That was an issue in their time as it is today.  Nobody is denying them the right to worship as they believe.  They just can’t make the country into a pseudo Christian theocracy that serves only one religion — theirs — and forces everyone else to conform!  OK, rant over for now.

    Cartoon — I knew the US was opposed to the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles but I could not for the life of me remember why.  This from Wikipedia:

    “A discontent bloc of 12–18 “Irreconcilables”, mostly Republicans but also representatives of the Irish and German Democrats, fiercely opposed the treaty. One block of Democrats strongly supported the Versailles Treaty, even with reservations added by Lodge. A second group of Democrats supported the treaty but followed Wilson in opposing any amendments or reservations. The largest bloc, led by Senator Lodge,[95] comprised a majority of the Republicans. They wanted a treaty with reservations, especially on Article 10, which involved the power of the League of Nations to make war without a vote by the US Congress.”

    There is a cartoon in Wikipedia from the day which “Refers to efforts by Republican isolationists to block ratification of Treaty of Versailles establishing the League of Nations.”  From an outsider, things have not changed any.

    Cartoon 2 — I have to keep the basement door closed so the furbabes don’t go downstairs and find the warm dryer full of dry, warm laundry.  Warm clean laundry is always appealing!

    Sorry I am very late but between losing my comment and going up and down 2 flights of stairs, I was pooped!

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