Open Thread – Page 265 – Politics Plus

Open Thread for February 24, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 242022

Greetings from the Deep Freeze! Yesterday, our overnight low was -4°F with a windchill of -7°F. Tuesday night it was -10°F with a wind chill of -24°F. It is expected to warm up today to a high of +22°F. There is very little snow on the ground – it’s just cold. By this time next week we should have a couple of days of highs in the 60’s before it goes down again. Never a dull moment. I did finish up my haircut … such as it is LOL.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Cal Matters – Meth, a mother, and a stillbirth: Imprisoned mom wants her ‘manslaughter’ case reopened
Quote – Since her guilty plea, Perez’s story has drawn national attention for her rare plea to manslaughter of a fetus – a charge that doesn’t exist in California law. Abortion rights advocates believe her case has broad implications for abortion access in California, potentially opening the door to criminal prosecutions of people seeking to terminate pregnancies. (Emphasis mine.)
Click through for details. This would not surprise me in many states. It does surprise me in California. And, with everything else going on, it scares me.

HuffPost – Rick Scott Releases Far-Right Plan For GOP Senate Majority
Quote – Scott’s plan starts off with requiring children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school and disallowing teachers from portraying American history in a negative light, following state GOP legislatures in their efforts to ban the teaching of critical race theory. “Public schools will teach our children to love America because, while not perfect, it is exceptional, it is good, and it is a beacon of freedom in an often-dark world,” it says.
Click through for more. Mother Jones also covered this, calling it a “fever dream.” The only good thing I see about it is that it should be very helpful in getting Democrats to turn out. (If they can use imaginary fears, surely we can use real ones.)

Black History – Wikipedia – Charles R. Drew
Quote – He spent time doing research at Columbia’s Presbyterian Hospital and wrote a doctoral thesis, “Banked Blood: A Study on Blood Preservation,” based on an exhaustive study of blood preservation techniques. It was through this blood preservation research where Drew realized blood plasma was able to be preserved, two months, longer through de-liquification, or the separation of liquid blood from the cells. When ready for use the plasma would then be able to return to its original state via reconstitution.
Click through for bio. If you have ever had a transfusion, or had a loved one who has, you are in debt to Drew for his work. And so, of course, are thousands if not millions of others.

Food For Thought:

Video Thread 2/23/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:16 pm Open Thread, Politics

Feb 232022

Glenn Kirschner – Steven Van Zandt Interview, Part 2: The Fight for Racial Justice & Artists United Against Apartheid

American Bridge 21 – Pres. Biden announces bold response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion

Meidas Touch (barf bag alert) – Trump praises Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as ‘genius’ and ‘very savvy’

No Dem Left Behind – Invest in a bright future for working class & rural Americans (I’m ot asking for money, but I wanted to showcase these candidates for Senate)

VoteVets – Lt. Col. (Ret.) Vindman Discusses Russian Aggression Towards Ukraine

WellRED Comedy – Every Boomer Should Be Given the “Kids These Days” Translator

Beau – Let’s talk about a sign about the elections from Colorado….

Open Thread for February 23, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:10 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 232022

Yesterday, I cut a little more hair. I’m getting closer. And also knit a little.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Press Run – Durham’s Corrupt ‘Spying’ Investigation — Ken Starr II
Quote – In the ABC News report, it wasn’t until the ninth paragraph that that network spelled out, “nowhere in Durham’s filing does he state that lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a tech company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House.” That crucial debunking should have been found in the first paragraph, if not the headline.
Click through to Crooks and Liars (which reprinted it) if you can’t get through to the primary source. Boehlert is right. What ever the media is doing, it isn’t journalism. It’s time to stop pussyfooting and start knocking things off tables.

Colorado Public Radio – Who Is The Alliance Defending Freedom, The Legal Team Behind Masterpiece Cakeshop?
Quote – Critics and liberal legal organizations say Alliance’s approach — and burst of enormous success over the past decade — is changing the landscape of case law in this area. They worry they are turning the First Amendment’s guarantee for religious freedom into a justification to discriminate. [Scott] Levin[, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League], worries … that the shield of religious freedom has been turned on its head, and is now used “as a sword to try to influence, to make sure that I conform to the beliefs of ADF.”
Click through. I still maintain that it is time – long past time – for authentic Christians to start “witnessing” (I hate the term, but these people – you have to use their anguage if you want to get through to them) Acts 10 to fundamentalists. God may be “the same yesterday, today, and forever” – but humans are not. Humans are capable of learning. Just because a truth is new to one person or one group, does not mean it hasn’t always been true.

Black History (new chapter): Mother Jines – Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers Found Guilty of Hate Crimes
Quote – The three men who chased, cornered, and gunned down Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of a federal hate crime today. Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan had already been convicted in Georgia on state-level charges of murder, but today’s decision establishes for the legal record that they killed Arbery because he was Black and ensures that the defendants would still have to serve significant amounts of prison time if their murder convictions were overturned on appeal.
Click through for story. Clearly, thought and planning went into both the state and federal prosecutions of this crime.

Food For Thought:

Video Thread 2/22/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:26 pm Open Thread, Politics

Feb 222022

just two for Twos-day –

Glenn Kirschner – Ominous Legal Stories for Trump: Justice is Too Long Coming but Investigative Circle IS Tightening

Beau – Let’s talk about sea levels….

Open Thread for February 22, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:17 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 222022

Today is Twos-day: whether you write it 2/22/2022 or 22/2/2022 or 2022/2/22, it’s more twos than we can expect to see for 200 years (and I for one do not expect to be around.) And, to top it off, it’s also Tuesday. And, yesterday, it was a slow news day. So I just posted two short takes (and two videos on that thread) and took the rest of the day off. If Ukraine explodes, it will have to wait until Wednesday. (Not that you won’t hear about it elsewhere.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Nib – Breathless
Quote – When I moved to Calcutta for college, the second largest and one of the most poluted cities in India, I could not see the stars any more. And I could not breathe. One night I stayed up coughing till the sun rose. The following week I was diagnosed with asthma.
Click through for graphic article. I have been somewhat vaguely aware of how much fighting climate change as an individual depends on having money and health and other privilege. But this brings it home in ways no other medium has done for me.

Black History Month – The New Yorker – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Quote – Perhaps his most important and lasting role has been as a teacher and an institution builder. Gates arrived at Harvard in 1991, and he swiftly recruited an extraordinary concentration of Black scholarship—William Julius Wilson, Cornel West, Lawrence D. Bobo, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Suzanne Blier, and others—all while reinvigorating the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, which is now part of the Hutchins Center. Gates proved a dynamo of both intellectual energy and fund-raising finesse.
Click through for full interview. Skip is sometimes called “the Black Ken Burns,” and certainly no one has any better right to tht title. But he is also so much more.

Food For Thought:

Video Thread 2/21/2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:09 pm Open Thread, Politics

Feb 212022

Glenn Kirschner – NY Judge Slams Trump, Don Jr. & Ivanka, Orders Them to Sit for Deposition in AG James’ Investigation

Meidas Touch (Lost Debate) – Here are the 19 LEGAL CASES against Trump! (I think theremay be a misuunderstanding of the term “corpus delicti” here.)

Rebel HQ – U.S. Intelligence Accuses Conservative Website Of Secretly Helping Putin

Farron Balanced – Sidney Powell Sues Verizon To Keep Her Communications Hidden From Investigators

Armageddon Update – Super Bowl LVI

John Fugelsang – Caffeinated – Bribe Back Better

Beau – Let’s talk about San Francisco, DNA, and the rest of the country…. (This DA is Chesa Boudin, who is facing a recall election. I posted about this earlier and I was upset then and am even more upset now. He could use more help from ethical people)

Open Thread for February 21, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 212022

Yesterday, I worked on cutting my hair – not for appearance particularly, but to prevent it from landing in my eyes, or (in soe ways worse) in my mouth. I made progress … but it’s still a work in progress.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

engadget – QAnon founder may have been identified thanks to machine learning
Quote – With help from machine learning software, computer scientists may have unmasked the identity of Q, the founder of the QAnon movement. In a sprawling report published on Saturday, The New York Times shared the findings of two independent teams of forensic linguists who claim they’ve identified Paul Furber, a South African software developer who was one of the first to draw attention to the conspiracy theory, as the original writer behind Q. They say Arizona congressional candidate Ron Watkins also wrote under the pseudonym.
Click through for more. This story made the New York Times, but I didn’t have a gift link to read it there. This was the best I could find.

The Conversation – Physics abd psychology of cats – an (improbable) conversation
Quote – We’ve had cats as pets for, like, 14,000 years. And in 14,000 years, the cats have told us that they want to live with us, and that they would like a comfortable bed, and they want food, and they want us to snuggle with them. In other words, the cats have really communicated all of their interests and needs such that we’re running around doing whatever they have in mind. So they’re doing a very good job.
Click through. You may remember I mentioned that a webinar was scheduled with the IgNobel Prize paople on this subject. It was held, and it was taped in full. And a snippet of it has been transcribed here, with a link to the full video (with CC).

Black History – Wikipedia – Bessie Coleman
Quote – She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first Black person to earn an international pilot’s license…. She then became a high-profile pilot in notoriously dangerous air shows in the United States. She was popularly known as Queen Bess and Brave Bessie, and hoped to start a school for African-American fliers. Coleman died in a plane crash in 1926. Her pioneering role was an inspiration to early pilots and to the African-American and Native American communities.
Click thrugh for article. These days, Earhart gets all the attention as a pioneering aviatrix, yet Coleman actually preceded her. (And Earhart did not have to travel to France – twice – to get her flight instruction.) In their own day, during the overlap of their careers, they were about equally prominent.

Food For Thought: