Open Thread April 19, 2022

 Posted by at 6:56 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 192022
 

Yesterday, after a nice quiet Easter, my inbox kept filling up again after I’d empty it. It wasn’t as bad as it gets at the ends of months (and, even worse, quarters), but it was a smmall annoyance. Obviously, I sirvived (grin). I am still knitting crutch covers. It took me until the fifth one to finally optimize the casting on process … but I learned a lot from that, so it was well worth it.

Cartoon – 19 0419Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

The New Yorker [Jane Mayer] – The Slime Machine Targeting Dozens of Biden Nominees
Quote – [S]ince at least 1987, when President Ronald Reagan unsuccessfully nominated Robert Bork to be a Justice, the fights over Supreme Court nominees have been especially nasty. Yet the A.A.F.’s approach represents a new escalation in partisan warfare, and underscores the growing role that secret spending has played in deepening the polarization in Washington.
Click through for details. Things just seem to get worse and worse sometimes.

POGO – Misconduct at CBP Runs Deep, and Congress Must Address this Systemic Problem
Quote – For years, officers and agents from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the largest law enforcement agency in the country, have faced few consequences for mistreating migrants, even when their assaults were captured on film — even when they killed people. A new investigation from the Project On Government Oversight now shows that this lack of accountability has shielded some CBP agents from being held accountable for other unconscionable behavior as well.
Click through for specifics. In the United States today, any group that does any policing should, sadly, be automatically suspect. That runs deep, and far too few peole are willing to even look at it, let alone do something about it.

Democratic Underground (demmiblue) – A Bowl for Ukraine
Quote – Not only that, he had over 20,000 orders for bowls and chopping boards, which, he calculated, would take him 32yrs to fulfil. And now the press were knocking at the door. It was a lot to take in for a wee lad of 12yrs…. But Gabriel was certain of one thing – he wanted to share the kindness. So instead of carving 20,000 bowls, he would carve just one special one – his #BowlForUkraine
Click through for story. If you needed some hope after those first two … well, I did too.

Food For Thought (crude, yes – but clever)

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Open Thread April 18, 2022

 Posted by at 6:39 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 182022
 

Yesterday,, being Easter, I more or less relaxed.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Teri Kanefield – It’s Not About “Faith”
Quote – One point I keep making is that rule of law is difficult. It’s frustrating. It strives for fairness but isn’t always fair. Perfect fairness is not possible on Earth, where human beings are flawed, and there is constant pushback from those who prefer autocracy. This causes people to grow cynical and reject democracy. But the only real alternative is autocracy. “Confidence in democratic institutions” doesn’t mean “faith that we always get what we want” or “faith that courts will reach the right results.”
Click through for full argument. I found this through “Crooks and Liars” blog roundup.

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Devin Nunes Defamation Claim Over 2019 CNN Report
Quote – Nunes had originally sued in federal court in Virginia, but a federal judge, citing concerns about “form shopping” and noting that there was “no logical connection between the events in this case and this district,” transferred the case to New York. Chief U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed Nunes’ claim in February 2021. Swain found that California law should apply to Nunes’ case, since that is where he lived and would have presumably suffered the greatest damage to his reputation. In applying California law, Swain further found that Nunes had failed to meet the statutory requirement that a plaintiff alleging defamation must make a written demand for a retraction within a short period of time after publication. Nunes had not done so, and Swain determined that he could not maintain his claim.
Click through for details. I’m sure Dairy Devin doesn’t think so , but I find this funny AF.  “Musical states,” anyone?

Florida rejects 54 math textbooks over ‘prohibited topics’ including critical race theory
Quote – Florida’s education department has rejected 54 mathematics textbooks from next year’s school curriculum, citing alleged references to critical race theory among a range of reasoning for some of the rejections, officials announced. The department said in a news release Friday that some of the books had been rejected for failure to comply with the state’s content standards, Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking [Best], but that 21% of the books were disallowed “because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT”.
Click through for what little detail the state was willing to provde. Heaven knows what they think CRT is – but, whatever they think, it isn’t that.

Food For Thought:

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Open Thread April 17, 2022

 Posted by at 6:44 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 172022
 

Yesterday, the opera was “Elektra,” by Richard Strauss, about one of the earliest and most dysfunctional families. They weren’t doing so badly until Paris met Helen, whose brother-in-law was Agamemnon (a much better general that Menelaus, Helen’t husband), who in irder to assure victory in Troy sacrificed one of his daughters, Iphegenia, for which his wife, Klytemnestra, (understandably) never forgave him. So in the ten years he was gone, she took a lover, Aegisth, and when he got back they mirdered him. This did not sit well with the children – Elektra, Chrysothemis, and their brother Orest (who had fled in fear for his own life), but Elektra and Chrysothemis did not feel competent to kill their mother and stepfather so they were stuck waiting for Orest to return. And here the opera begins. Chrysothemis really just wants a normal life; it is Elektra who is obsessed with revenge, and rants a lot to anyone who will listen, and to the gods. Eventually Orest does return and kills the guilty pair (off stage, thankfully), leading to Elektra’s final rant, a dance of victory. (Incidentally, the situation put Orest into a bind with the Furies – he was cursed if he killed his mother, but equally cursed if he failed to avenge his father’s murder. His trial by the gods is how the Furies got their other name of Eumenedes, and their other mission of resolving impossible situations. But that trial was after this opera ends.) Nina Stemme, who sang Elektra is probably the top dramatic soprano of today, as were Kirsten Flagstad and Birgit Nilsson before her. And a soprano really needs to be at the top to sing this part. But the rest of the cast cannot be slouches either. It also demands a fair amount from the audience – as do all Greek tragedies, whether spoken or sung. They weren’t intended as entertainment.

Cartoons

Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Russian Wife Laughingly Authorizes Her Husband To Rape Ukrainian Women
Quote – A conversation in which a woman invites a man to rape Ukrainian women was published by the Security Service of Ukraine on April 12. From the recording, it can be assumed that the published fragment is part of a longer dialogue. The man turned out to be Roman Bykovsky, a former conscript of the Russian Guard, and then a soldier of the 108th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment, which participated in the annexation of Crimea. It was here that he recently moved his family from Russia.
Click through – if you have a barf bag. I am not making this up.

Daily Beast – FDA Grants Emergency Authorization to First COVID-19 Breath Test
Quote – The first breath test for the virus collects a sample in a manner similar to blowing up a balloon, and can be analyzed for results in under three minutes. “Today’s authorization is yet another example of the rapid innovation occurring with diagnostic tests for Covid-19,” Jeff Shuren, the director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement. The company behind the test, InspectIR, reported that, in a study of just under 2,500 people, it could correctly detect a COVID-19 infection 91.2 percent of the time
Click through for details. I just received my first shipment of four free tests (rapid, swab in the nose) which take about 15-20 minutes. I can handle the annoyance if necessary, but this is a great development for peole for whom the discomfort is a deal breaker.

Daily Kos (Marissa Higgins) – Watch openly gay Democrat tell anti-trans Republican colleague exactly what he needs to hear
Quote – [Mackey (D)]: “I recall a story you told. About your brother….And I remember you said that your b[r]other, or, rather, your mother called to tell you that your brother had some news that he was afraid to tell you…. And your brother wanted to tell you that he was gay, didn’t he?… Can I tell you, if I were your brother? I would have been afraid to tell you, too.” [Basye (R)] “Well, I’m sorry.” And that was meager remark was enough to let Mackey really unleash the heart of his argument.
Click through for full argument. You might need a tissue.

Food For Thought:
Peace
I think thr author would give me permission to republuish it. But I want to share it today, on Easter. And this is a short and easy-to-save link. (The picture is not of the author’s property, but it is of a place within the historic Onondaga territory.)

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Open Thread April 16, 2022

 Posted by at 7:19 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion
Apr 162022
 

Yesterday. after putting as much as possible for the blog together, I looked at another free knitting pattern I had found – this one for a crutch cover. I have a coulple of pairs of critches. I never use more than one at a time (I probably should touch wood when I say that) and when I use one, it isn’t always for pain – sometimes – most times –  it’s for balance. Years ago I got a couple of sets (underarm pad and hand pad) in leopard skin patterns, one natural colors and one shocking pink; but they do need laundering, and I thought it would be nice to have some spares. The pattern calls for a cast-on technique I can always use more practice on, and it also calls for brioche stitch (like stocknette but the odd and the even columns are different colors.) I’m not experimenting with brioche stitch yet – instead, I’m using novelty yarn scraps instead of plan yarn for texture. The designer is known on the internet by the name “The Wooly Kraken,” which gave me a smile.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Daily Beast – RNC Flounces Out of Presidential Debates Commission With Unanimous Vote
Quote – In a Thursday statement that announced the unanimous vote, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said, “We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make the case for the American people.”
Click through for details.  Reality may have a liberal bias – and, if so, it’s about the only thinkg that does. Certainly the media and the CPD don’t.

NBC News THINK – Why Good Friday is a warning against far-right Christian nationalism
Quote – Yet while Trump’s authoritarian MAGA movement has become all but synonymous with white evangelical Christianity, it does not speak for most Christians in the U.S., who are sick of seeing our faith hijacked for hateful political agendas.
Click through if a Scriptural condemnation of “white evangelical Christianity” woould be useful to you. Lord Acton’s famous quote doesn’t go far enough. One does not need to have power to be corrupted by it. Wanting power is more than enough to corrupt.

Crooks and Liars – James Carville Has Had It With Democratic Whiners
Quote – If you’re a Democrat, I don’t care what you are with gender, race, if you don’t see that and you are not outraged, and it doesn’t make you want to vote, I can’t do anything for you! You’re just a whiny, complaining person…. If we can’t stand in there for Joe Biden and talk about the great things he’s done, then we don’t deserve to win this election in 2022.
Click through for full opinion.  Not that anyone here is guilty, necessarily. But this is the same thing we saw in 2016. It didn’t turn out well.

Food For Thought:

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Open Thread April 15, 2022

 Posted by at 6:37 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion
Apr 152022
 

Yesterday I overslept – the only surpise there is that it didn’t happen sooner after the weekend. But at least I had gotten pretty well caught up the previous day, so I was able to keep up.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Why ‘bad’ ads appear on ‘good’ websites – a computer scientist explains
Quote – Programmatic advertising is a powerful tool that allows advertisers to target and reach people on a huge range of websites. As a doctoral student in computer science, I study how malicious online advertisers take advantage of this system and use online ads to spread scams or malware to millions of people. This means that online advertising companies have a big responsibility to prevent harmful ads from reaching users, but they sometimes fall short.
Click through for more detailed explanation, I used to see people in comments complaining about site advertising (and assuming everyone else was seeing what they were seeing) on a daily basis Nowadays I don’t. But the problem is still real – in fact worse, because not it has infested newsletters (from large sites which use a mail service to send them out.) Not that anyone here ever does … but never click on an ad in a newsletter, even from a trusted site.

Dr. Seuss’ Banned Anti-War ‘The Butter Battle Book’ Is Now a Netflix Kids’ Show
Quote – Written in 1984, The Butter Battle Book centered around the war between an orange race called Zooks and a blue race called Yooks. Their countries were divided by a wall over a disagreement on which was the right way to butter bread: Yooks preferred them butter-side up while the Zooks preferred butter-side down. Given the time of the book’s publication, The Butter Battle Book was considered a direct commentary on the Cold War. Seuss unapologetically delved into exploring the consequences of nationalism and the nature of war via the military-industrial complex. Most of the book focused on a heated arms race that got so deadly, it ended with a dour, open-ended conclusion.
Click through for synopsis of original, synopsis of adaptation, and a trailer (plus a link to a John Olver video torching Ted Cruz ove Dr. Seuss which is probably not new.) Theodor Geisel was not a perfect person … but his propensity for making people think (which too many people don’t like) was a great gift.

truthout (OpEd) – Republicans Refuse to Name Courthouse After Black Judge in Overtly Racist Move
Quote – Hatchett retired from the court in 1999 and went into private practice. He passed away last year at age 88, a widely praised and highly admired jurist. “Joe Hatchett is a person who lives and has lived by the ethical precepts which have historically guided the conduct of truly great judges and lawyers of our past and present,” said former American Bar Association (ABA) President Chesterfield Smith when Hatchett was awarded the Florida Supreme Court Historical Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “Joe Hatchett to me exemplifies what is best in an American judge, one who is sometimes lonely, but one who never shirks standing alone.”
Click through for full opinion. Yes, this is truthout, and yes, truthout is pretty far left. Bu there’s only one phrase in it I could conceivably disagree with, and that because it is too kind to Republicans. See what you think.

Food For Thought:

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Open Thread April 14, 2022

 Posted by at 7:22 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion
Apr 142022
 

Yesterday was another pretty quiet day. It was cold, and there was some snow, but I do have a working heater in place (as opposed to last week, when the one I had died), so i was just fine.

Cartoon 14 0414Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Daily Beast – Why Putin Is Itching to Get His Hands on This Ex-American Banker
Quote – [Bill] Browder, a financier who had once been the largest foreign investor in Russia, had long been a thorn in Moscow’s side before he was detained that day in May 2018. Years earlier, Browder had discovered that many of the companies he had invested in were being robbed by oligarchs and corrupt officials. Unwilling to let this fraud go unchallenged, Browder, as detailed in his 2015 bestseller Red Notice, decided to fight back.
Click through for the gist of the story. I expect that Freezing Order is quite some book. Every group has its exceptions, even bankers (I don’t mean bank employees, who are generally good pwople; I’m thinkinfg of management when I make that generalization.)

New Mexico In Depth – Money for abandoned uranium mine cleanup spurs questions about design, jobs
Quote – Uranium mines are personal for Dariel Yazzie. Now head of the Navajo Nation’s Superfund program, Yazzie grew up near Monument Valley, Arizona, where the Vanadium Corporation of America started uranium operations in the 1940s. His childhood home sat a stone’s throw from piles of waste from uranium milling, known as tailings. His grandfather, Luke Yazzie, helped locate the first uranium deposits mined on the Navajo Nation. His father was a uranium miner, then worked for Peabody Coal mine. Yazzie, Diné, heard the family stories about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scanning his family’s home for radiation in 1974, when he was 4 years old, finding several high contamination readings.
Click through for details and anecdotes. Cleaning up after fossil fuels is bad enough … but cleaning up after uranium is worse.

Want to improve student achievement? Hire a Black principal.
Quote – Researchers have found that principals of color yield multiple benefits for students of color. A University of Minnesota study published in January about the impact of Black women principals in secondary schools linked Black principals and higher math achievement for students. Black men make up a slight majority of Black secondary school principals, but the researchers suggest that Black women in these roles have a positive effect on student achievement and teacher investment in schools.
Click through for evidence. I don’t know that this would work in every school district, but in those where it wouldm it would do so like a champion.

Food For Thought:
Not a picture today, but a short quote from an email from Faithful America. Anyone not in the Christian faith tradition, please take this as confirmation of what you already know: far too many “Christians” don’t act Christian.

During Holy Week, the church remembers the final days of Christ’s earthly life and ministry. But we often forget just what it was that Jesus did to anger the religious and political authorities in the first place:

“Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers… He said to them, ‘It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer;’ but you are making it a den of robbers.'”

If we’re serious about following Jesus, we need to start flipping more tables ourselves.

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Open Thread April 13, 2022

 Posted by at 7:19 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 132022
 

Yesterday was pretty quiet. Which was definitely fine with me!

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Second Nexus – Devout Fox News Viewers Were Paid to Switch to CNN for a Month and the Results Have People Surprised
Quote – “Despite regular Fox viewers being largely strong partisans, we found manifold effects of changing the slant of their media diets on their factual beliefs, attitudes, perceptions of issues’ importance, and overall political views. We show that these effects stem in part from a bias we call partisan coverage filtering, wherein partisan outlets selectively report information, leading viewers to learn a biased set of facts. Consistent with this, treated participants concluded that Fox concealed negative information about President Trump. Partisan media does not only present its side an electoral advantage—it may present a challenge for democratic accountability.”
Click through for story. You may have seen this elsewhere; this is one of George Takei’s sites. To me the jaw-dropping part is that it only took one month to get significant change.

Cheney: Plenty Of Evidence To Make Criminal Referral For Trump
Quote – “But now, with the Justice Department appearing to ramp up a wide-ranging investigation, some Democrats are questioning whether there is any need to make a referral — and whether doing so would saddle a criminal case with further partisan baggage at a time when Mr. Trump is openly flirting with running again in 2024.” … Cheney downplayed the notion that there’s a “dispute” and told Tapper she was confident they’d come to an agreement soon.
Click through for more pros and cons. I’ve been wondering about the optics myself … and also whether a criminal referral by Congress (particularly at t time when the DOJ says it is 100 or 131 prosecutors short – and I absolutely believe that) might (and of course this is pure speculation) would push the DOJ into going to court without the best possible case, and/or without the best possible staff.

Daily Beast – The Obscure Law NY Prosecutors Could Use to Charge Trump Years From Now
Quote – Law enforcement in New York has five years from the date of an alleged crime to officially file charges for most felonies, but under New York law § 30.10(4)(a)(i), that clock stops for up to five more years when a defendant is outside the state. That 10-year grace period means Trump’s time in the White House and his post-presidential political exile at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida may be gifting prosecutors much-needed extra time.
Click through for details. Does Trump** know about this? I have no clue.

Food For Thought:

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Open Thread April 12, 2022

 Posted by at 7:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 122022
 

Yesterday, I pretty much caught up. At least I have two full posts today, and I have thrown a little PSA at the bottom of this one. A couple of people remarked about my “mask extender” project, and since knitting them is like eating potato chips – you can’t stop at one (or two. or six. or more) – I thought I’d make some available.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Mother Jones – Exclusive: Leaked Messages Reveal the Origins of the Most Vile Hunter Biden Smear
Quote – Late in the 2020 presidential campaign, trailing in the polls, Donald Trump and his allies worked to make a campaign issue out of a trove of files on a laptop that his opponent’s son, Hunter Biden, had apparently abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. The effort to publicize compromising emails, images, and videos from the device involved prominent Trump confidants including Rudy Giuliani and Steven Bannon. But it also featured an unexpected player: Guo Wengui, a fugitive Chinese tycoon who was working with Bannon to build a small empire of Chinese-language media outlets, nonprofits, and other ventures.
Click through. It never ceases to grab my attention how Republicans are so ready to give America away to anyone in exchange for criminal actions – while they won’t give a dime to American people who are starving, or homeless, or drowning in debt.

Crooks and Liars – Germans Intercept Russian Radio Traffic Discussing Murdering Civilians In Bucha
Quote – The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence service, has acquired gruesome new insights into the atrocities committed by Russian military forces in the town of Bucha near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the BND intercepted Russian military radio traffic in which the murder of civilians in Bucha was discussed. Some of the intercepted radio traffic can apparently be directly linked to dead bodies that have been photographed in Bucha.
Click through for details. This may be all I have to say about atrocities. I’m not crazy about gory details. do like solid evidence.

PolitiZoom – Trump Flips Out On Manhattan D.A. After It’s Revealed They Made A New Demand On Trump Org
Quote – Maybe Donald Trump knows something that we don’t, because the New York Times article quoting Alvin Bragg on the current state of the Trump investigation in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office was bland at best. All Bragg said, in essence, was that he had shelved nothing and that he was looking into every aspect of the Trump case. It was also mentioned that a new demand had been sent to the Trump Organization, but that it was a follow up of previous requests. You know how Trump doesn’t respond to discovery requests. That’s why he’s got the state attorney general asking a judge to sanction the hell out of him for every day he delays with respect to that case. So that is what is publicly known as of the past 24 hours. Is that, and that alone, sufficient to trigger this harebrained, maudlin ramble?
Click through for Trump**’s rant. This is getting overripe for speculation – and very interesting.

Food For Thought:

PSA: Here is information on the mask extenders (some call them “ear savers”). They look like this:

The link is here. Download is free, though they will want an email and a password (possibly a name I know they jave my name – and address – becouase I occasionally order.) But no money and no commitment.
There is also a crochet pattern, but it isn’t free. However, it’s so simple I could write you a pattern from the picture. If you’d like that, or if you just want the knit pattern and don’t want to register, email me and let me know which you want and I’ll email it. Or if you want one but don’t want to make one, I can send one of those Heaven knows I’ve made enough – and if you want to put on your own buttons I can send one without buttons even easier. I will need a mailing addreess (PO boxes are fine.)

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