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:

It’s a relatively lazy Saturday for a pooped Puddy.  Thoughts and prayers for all in the path of Irma [R-FL].

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:19 (average 5:17).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From YouTube (RWW Channel): Carl Gallups Says The ‘Deeply Demonic’ Deep State Is Working To Destroy Trump

Barf Bag Alert!!

The extent to which Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians goose-step behind Trump is proof that they are NOT Christians. RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: An estimated 8,000 people are battling a series of 24 raging fires in Oregon, most notably Chetco Bar Fire, which has engulfed nearly 180,000 acres, and the Eagle Creek wildfire which is threatening the eastern edge of Portland. The Eagle Creek fire has burned 33,000 acres and while Oregon firefighters are starting to make some headway, containing about 5 percent of the fire through burnouts conducted on Wednesday, more resources are needed throughout the state. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that Governor Kate Brown previously asked the Trump administration for help and they flatly refused any assistance:

But if there is wildfire management to second-guess, Oregon’s Democratic governor would direct it at the Trump Administration and its response to a request she made last month.

“I talked with the federal authorities two weeks ago, asking for additional federal assistance, I was told point-blank ‘no’,” said Brown. 

The U.S. Forest Service has been helping, and Oregon is expecting the arrival of 200 active duty military from Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington.

But Gov. Brown argued federal officials should be directing more resources to Oregon, because of the disproportionate degree of fire danger in the state. Brown’s numbers and those from the National Interagency Fire Center tell a similar story: that Oregon accounts for nearly one-third of the scorched acres in the country. Of 1.5 million acres or more burning across the country about a half million acres are in Oregon.

I can personally attest to how severe it is. Coming back from the motel on Tuesday, the sky was brown, and the smoke in downtown Portland was like fog. I have been unable to keep my window open, because the air burns my eyes. It has also been setting off my COPD. I wonder if the Republican Reich is withholding aid, because Oregon Governor, Kate Brown, is openly bisexual. RESIST!!

From Think Progress:

Rush Limbaugh will be evacuating South Florida, just days after the popular conservative radio host claimed that Hurricane Irma would not hit the United States and that scientists and the liberal media were hyping up the hurricane as proof of their global warming “lie.”

“So there is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it. You can accomplish a lot just by creating fear and panic. You don’t need a hurricane to hit anywhere,” Limbaugh said on his show Tuesday. “All you need is to create the fear and panic accompanied by talk that climate change is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and bigger and more dangerous, and you create the panic, and it’s mission accomplished, agenda advanced.”

But on the show Thursday, Limbaugh said he would be off the air for the next few days.

“May as well… announce this. I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow,” Limbaugh said Thursday. “We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown.”

Scheesch! How do you spell hypocrite? R-e-p-u-b-l-i-c-a-n. RESIST!!

Cartoon:

Their more popular alternative is sheets and hoods.