Well, WWW/wW and I finished our chores yesterday. I have an easy week this week, but next week medical mayhem will kick in. I popped on George, skipped my morning nap, and tried to do extra research this morning, hoping to find a third article. I found a couple extra short takes. Today I am officially in mourning. The Olympics distracted me, but now the absence of blessed light from the holy Ellipsoid Orb has become apparent. Woe to the world!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:27 (average 5:25). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Parody Project Channel): HE DOESN’T KNOW THE TERRITORY – Parody of the opening scene from The Music Man
Beautifully done. Parody Project Parodied Projection. RESIST!!
From CNN: Lina Crisostomo’s SATs are coming up next week, but college test prep has taken a backseat to funerals, vigils and walkouts.
It’s been like that since a gunman stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people and sending Lina running from campus.
"Homework doesn’t really seem that important now," she said Friday, the day before her 17th birthday. "My attention has changed to fighting for these 17 lives."
Lina is one of many Stoneman Douglas students who’s been channeling grief into fighting the gun lobby since the February 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida. In little more than a week, the student-led movement made gains no one predicted, not even the students. Now, with classes set to resume on Wednesday, Lina and others worry about losing momentum.
"I know I have to get back to reality, but it just doesn’t seem as important as fighting," she said.
In a way, I partially understand her. I had to drop out of college in the 1960s, because my class attendance and assignment completion were too sporadic for me to pass. Fighting against the war and for civil rights just seemed more important at the time. RESIST!!
From NY Times: After President Trump signed the Republican tax cut into law, companies put out cheery announcements that they were giving workers bonuses because of their expected windfalls from the tax reductions. The president and Republican lawmakers quickly held up these news releases as vindication for their argument that cutting the top federal corporate tax rate to 21 percent, from 35 percent, would boost workers’ incomes even as it added $1.5 trillion to the debt that future generations would have to pay off.
Now corporate announcements and analyst reports confirm what honest observers always said — this claim is pure fantasy. As executives tell investors what they intend to do with their tax savings and their spending plans are tabulated into neat charts and graphs, the reports jibe with what most experts said would happen: Companies are rewarding their stockholders.
Businesses are buying back shares, which creates demand for the stocks, boosts share prices and benefits investors. Some of the cash is going to increase dividends. And a chunk will go to acquiring other businesses, creating larger corporations that face less competition.
We all knew this was coming! RESIST!!
From Liberals Unite: News website Axios reported late Sunday that Trump considers drug dealers to be worse than serial killers and would love the U.S. to pass laws making capital punishment mandatory for drug traffickers.
In Singapore, the death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking offenses. And President Trump loves it. He’s been telling friends for months that the country’s policy to execute drug traffickers is the reason its drug consumption rates are so low.
“He says that a lot,” said a source who’s spoken to Trump at length about the subject. “He says, ‘When I ask the prime minister of Singapore do they have a drug problem [the prime minister replies,] ‘No. Death penalty’.”
A senior administration official told Axios that Trump “often jokes about killing drug dealers… He’ll say, ‘You know the Chinese and Filipinos don’t have a drug problem. They just kill them.’”
I oppose the death penalty. It is ironic, that the only possible exception, if any, is for treason. RESIST!!
From RWW: Last week, End Times pastor Paul Begley appeared on “The Hagmann Report,” where he stood by his claim that First Lady Melania Trump had ordered the White House to be “completely exorcised” before she moved in.
After Begley made this claim earlier this month, the story was widely circulated among those who saw it as a sign of President Trump’s growing Christian faith, which eventually prompted the Associated Press to contact the White House for comment, forcing the first lady’s office to declare that Begely’s claim was “not true in any way.”
But Begley is standing by his claim and insisting that the AP’s story denying the exorcism is “fake news.”
Assuming that the Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christian (same as Antichristian) isn’t lying, the exorcism was a complete failure. The orange dung demon still tweets from there. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
7 Responses to “Open Thread – 2/26/2018”
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CNN: Perhaps the Douglas High bloodbath was the tipping point. At long last, the mound of corpses from gun massacres is starting to outweigh the clout of the NRA. Years of building frustration, rage and pain have reached critical mass – if I’m not mixing my metaphors too badly.
NYT: Is that any surprise? The working masses are nothing to the fat cats. What’s worse, soon automation will take a lot of our jobs. However, the 99% may still get the last laugh. When nobody has money to buy anything, what will Wall Street do? The system is top-heavy, and either some weight heads downstairs or it will topple. The bigger they come…
Cartoon: All too true!
6:12 Taking my time and being ve-ry care-ful around those thorns.
PP – Wow – what a winner! Of course the material was a natural. But it couldn’t have been done better.
CNN – Frankly, I think fighting is not only more important, but also a better career move. Even more than when we were that age, real world experienc is going to be at a high premium in the future – as long as there is a future – and provided it is in furtherance of a good cause. If there is a future, colleges are likely to be there, and are likely to value adults who are knowledgeable.
NYT – “[H]onest observers” – that says it all doesn’t it?
LU – Since he doesn’t read, I can only assume he saw the wrong movie. Instead of “1984,” he should have watched “Brave New World.” It’s not too late – it’s on YouTube – some really good hacker could sneak it into his Fox feed. It’s on YouTube (well, at least one of them is.)
RWW – Begley must have failed to pay his exorcist’s bill. He’s obviously been repossessed.
Cartoon – So true. (Freya – great minds …)
PPC: ‘Shill on the Hill’, ‘Con Man’, smack on !!! Well done too!!
CNN: Yes, some things need to be put on the back burner. She, and others will do what is in their hearts and what’s on their minds right now. I respect that, and also their emotions, and support them.
NYT: A–es! Work until they day you die, then leave debt to your kids. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
LU: I too, am opposed to what dt said…he’s got a demented mind. Treason is applicable under the Federal Capital Offenses which is 18.USC.2381.
https://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004927
RWW: I would say that most, if not all the Spirits that have lived there, would have left immediately the night they moved into the WH.
Cartoon: Of course!!!
Hope that you have a relaxing evening, take care, and Thanks, Tom.
Parody: Good job!
CNN: Sadly, getting “…back to reality,” is not possible for the ones killed. I hope these kids can find a way to channel their grief, and anger, into motivation to get on with their lives , and, somehow, keep the pressure up on the ammosexual bastards!
NYT: I hope this predictable situation will fuel anger at the polls, come November! The Dems ought to remind people of the GOPIG scam!
LU: they did not do it that way in Portugal!
RWW: Begley, and ilk need to go back on those anti-psychotic drugs! This kind of idiocy is the result of ours being the only western country with a major religious addiction. Thank you Billy Graham and friends! Billy got G.W.Bush to be re-born and then decide that Gog and Magog were “afoot” in Iraq! Then he goes in to Iraq with no sense of the religious tinderbox it was, because he was utterly ignorant of any other religion! And, Pence thinks Jesus talks to him, literally, it seems.
PP: Respect! Don couldn’t have pinned the shill on the hill in a more excellent way.
CNN: Linda makes a very important point there. She’s afraid that the student movement fighting the gun lobby will lose momentum when they resume classes and she’s right. And it’s exactly what the RNA and Republicans are counting on.
NYT: The corporate pretence only lasted a few months, now it’s back to “business” as usual, generating more money with stocks in a pseudo-economy, that has little or nothing to do with the real economy the other 95% are part of and depend upon and which is drained to feed that pseudo-economy for the greedy few.
LU: ? As Drumpf and so many Republicans believe that all drug dealers are either brown or black, and the US judicial system is already so warped towards racialist incarceration of those groups that putting the death penalty on dealing comes down to genocide. Another step towards a fascist regime. But when Drumpf says he’s in favour of capital punishment for drug dealers, what he means he’d like to have them, and the drug users while they are at it, executed in the streets as they do in the Philippines, where his great friend Duterte recently told his police officers to shoot female drug dealers in their private parts. ?
Cartoon: The arrow pointing to southern Europe should point to India instead. No jobs for us, just some post-office-box companies to avoid taxation. ?
Puzzle — 4:55 I was slowed down by those prickly appendages!
Parody Project — I have heard of the Music Man, but I am not familiar with its music or songs. As a result, it is more difficult to comment. The production of these videos is fantastic . . . editing in all those parts which are played by the same person. Marvellous!!! Having said that, the words are spot on!!!
CNN — These protests against gun violence are, in themselves, a real life education in civics and the values that the US says are important to it. The colleges and universities will be there when the protesters have accomplished what they need to accomplish. It is important to keep the momentum up. The NRA and Republicans are counting on this to be just a flash in the pan, nothing enduring. Stoneman students, prove the NRA and Republicans wrong!
Liberals Unite — I absolutely oppose the death penalty. Like usual, Drumpf is being an asshole and pandering to his base. What would be more productive is for the administration to tackle some of the causes of drug addiction like poverty and hopelessness, things that keep the trafficers in business. Of course, that would mean less money flowing upwards and Republicans certainly don’t want that. Look at drug addiction as a health issue as in the case in Portugal for example. Take the money out of illegal drugs and the trafficers will move on. There will always be those who have the “addiction gene”, that cannot be stopped at this point, but the rate of addiction can be dropped.
RWW — If the story is true, I suspect it was done to rid the WH of the spirits of the Obamas. We all know just how fixated he and all Republicans are with Obama, the first (but not the last) black president. However, it will take more than an exorcism to change history.
Now that is as likely as the pope becoming a protestant, or bears shitting in an outhouse, to paraphrase one of Tom’s favourite lines.
Cartoon — I echo Lona’s comment — the arrow should go to India, Bangladesh etc.
It rained last night and today so the snow is going away, but it will take some time for it all to disappear given the amount we received. Must go and tackle the dreaded task!
Thanks all. Hugs!