Open Thread for June 30, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 302021
 

Last night’s opera, “Doctor Atomic,” was about the making and the first testing of the atomic bomb. You may say, “Well that sounds like a weird choice of subject,” and I won’t disagree. But it works. And it even manages to show respect to the indigenous Americans in and around the area of Los Alamos. The character of Pasqualita, the Oppenheimers’ housekeeper and nanny, is given an absolutely gorgeous aria representing Native American prayer and respect for the land. Meredith Arwady, a true contralto (they are not all that common), made her Met debut in this role in this production. Though serious, the opera is not without humor. For one thing, Edward Teller is present as quite irreverent (probably accurately), and for another, the character of General Groves is given lines from the actual general’s journal expressing his discomfort with the weight control program he was involuntarily placed on.  And, of course, just about everyone’s favoriet line – “With respect, sir, anyone with two good eyes could havefound Los Alamos just by following the trail of beer cans from Santa Fe.”

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Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Fox News Host Celebrates FL Building Collapse As ‘Shining Moment’ For DeSantis
Quote – “Another thing I gathered from watching these press conferences is the leadership of Ron DeSantis,” she said. “We’ve seen him be a leader so many times, time and time again. This is also another shining moment for him. And I can’t sing his praises high enough.”
Click through if you can stand to. I haven’t addressed this in part because structural engineers were discouraging speculation about the cause(s). But this is so Republican!

Raw Story – Right Wing Watch reinstated after YouTube experiences massive backlash – Well, this came rapidly.
Quote – “We are glad that by reinstating our account, YouTube recognizes our position that there is a world of difference between reporting on offensive activities and committing them,” said PFAW in a statement on their website.
Click through for more.I am saving both links (YouTubr and Vimeo) – for now, the newest ones are on Vimeo only.

PolitiZoom – WATCH: MAGAs Left Trump’s Ohio Rally In Droves Because He Wasn’t ‘Radical’ Enough For Them
Quote – This could be some kind of a turning point, the MAGAs deciding that Trump just isn’t crazy enough for them anymore. Trump’s going to have to go waterskiing and jump a shark, literally. The phrase, “jumping the shark” “is an idiom used to describe the moment of a misguided attempt at generating new publicity for something once, but no longer, widely popular; the attempt serves instead to highlight the irrelevance of what it intends to promote,” according to Wikipedia.
Click through for more (and I also have a pdf – PolitiZoom doesn’t seem to like all browsers, so if you can’t get through, let me know and I’ll send it). Maybe we were wrong to snicker; maybe we should have panicked (or at least gone into alert.) Because if he isn’t radical enough for them, there are others who are.

Food for Thought

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Video Thread 6/29/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 292021
 

Glenn Kirschner – NY DA Trump Org Indictment Watch – First Criminal Indictment Expected Soon. Won’t likely be the Last

Now This News – UN Releases Report on Global Systemic Racism (sometimes the word “state” is used where we would say “nation” or “country” – the UN realli is talking world wide.)

Right Wing Watch has been kicked out of YouTube. So I’m going to start looking for them on Vimeo. This one features “prophet” Chuck Pierce (who is pretty clearly delusional.) Update:  Yes it’s back already.  Overwhelming support.  Article tomorrow.)

Rebel HQ – The Deadliest Weather Phenomenon In DECADES!

Pigeon loses ability to fly. He adapts by becoming one of the dogs.

Beau – Let’s talk about how the Trump years impacted capitalism…. – This is priceless.

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Open Thread for June 29, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 292021
 

The opera last night was “Marnie” – based on the same bool as the Hitchcock movie. It premiered in 2019 to good reviews and good audience response too. So it’s very new. (I’m a fan of the mezzo-soprano for whom it was written, Isabel Leonard, and was lucky enough to get to see her in person in another new opera, “Cold Mountain,” when it premiered in Santa Fe.) I’m sure the movie left out things that were in the book, and the opera has left out things from both, but it’s still a plenty twisted story.

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Short Takes –

The New Yorker – Out-of-Practice Trump Forgets to Strand Rally Crowd in Parking Lot
Quote – “People have come to expect that, at the conclusion of one of our rallies, they will be marooned in the middle of nowhere for hours, often in inclement weather,” Harland Dorrinson, a Trump aide, said. “On Saturday night, we didn’t get it done.” Dorrinson said that the entire Trump team would be conducting a postmortem of the rally to find out why attendees were able to leave the event without incident.
Click through for details. Andy, it’s harder to strand a crowd when it’s small to begin with and much of it gets boored and leaves early.

Daily Beast – YouTube Permanently Bans Right Wing Watch, a Media Watchdog Devoted to Exposing Right-Wing Conspiracies
Quote – “What are we going to do?” he asked. Launched in 2007, Right Wing Watch has posted thousands of clips of prominent right-wing figures making controversial comments, perhaps most famously including televangelist Pat Robertson and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In fact, Right Wing Watch’s exposure of Jones’ false and conspiratorial rhetoric was key to YouTube and other social-media platforms eventually removing his channel InfoWars from their sites. Notably, many of the right-wing outlets and personalities that Right Wing Watch chronicles are not currently suspended or banned from posting content to YouTube, while RWW has been booted for merely exposing their comments and content—something Mantyla noted as being particularly ironic.
Click through for full story. This is NOT good news. They are still on Vimeo, at least.

Independent – GOP senator says roads and bridges are ‘a woman’s problem’ because women ‘do the shopping’
Quote – “My wife says that roads and bridges are a woman’s problem if you will,” said Mr Cassidy. “Because oftentimes it is the woman – aside from commuting to work – who’s also taking children to schools or doing the shopping…. And the more time that she spends on that road, the less time she spends doing things of higher value,” he added.
Click through for absolutely not satire. Yes, Senator, women are human beings, and human beings need roads and bridges. (And your wife sounds brainwashed.)

Food for Thought

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Video Thread 6/28/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 282021
 

Glenn Kirschner – Bill Barr’s Shocking Atlantic Interview Reveals Incriminating Evidence of Trump’s Corrupt Intent (Referring to oneself in the third person has a name – it’s called “illeism.” It is not exclusive to marcissists – far from it – but they, monarchs, and toddlers are probably the groups which use it the most.)

Meidas Touch – Joe Tripp – On other words, it’s not right v. left, it’s up v. down. Seriously – see The Political Compass. https://www.politicalcompass.org

CNN – Stelter: I watched Hannity’s show for a week. Here’s what I found. Political amnesia is real. If you don’t think so, that’s because you have it. (It can be slective.)

Rebel HQ – OK, funny, but the message is serious. And there will be people injured – there always are.

A different kind of blast from the past – an interview.

Dodo – Two Orphaned Baby Foxes Go Nuts When They Meet For The First Time

Beau – Let’s talk about DeSantis beating Trump….

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Open Thread for June 28, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 282021
 

I’m trying to get little smarter about finding the news,since letting it come to me is not always enough any more. We’ll see how it goes in the long run.  We can be glad Colleen is recovering even though the recovery is not yet complete.  I also heard from Carrie B last night, and she has a couple of spots on her face which she worries may be cancerous, and is stalled waiting for a referral to a dermatologist.  Prayers for her please.

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Short Takes –

Axios – Bill Barr on Trump’s election fraud claims: “It was all bullsh*t”
Quote – Barr said that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had been urging him to speak out against Trump’s false claims since November but would not do so himself. McConnell did not want to upset Trump as he needed Trump to campaign in Georgia. “Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell said, according to Barr. “And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
Click through for as much of this profile in cowardice as they are willing to print from a book not yet released

Insider – 14 years after a sexual assault in Tampa, a man has been charged with rape because he entered his own DNA into a genealogy database
Quote – DNA evidence was collected at the time but did not find any matches, and the case remained unsolved for more than a decade. In 2020, however, detectives revisited the case and began to search genealogy testing databases, including GEDmatch and FamilyTree, two services often used by people who are researching their ancestry, to find potential matches…. Florida was the first state to establish its own forensic genealogy unit in 2018. Similar units have since been created in California and Utah to solve cold cases.
Click through for more. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, even to Florida.

The Guardian – Rattlesnakes everywhere: the odd consequences of California’s drought
Quote – Surprisingly, disease-carrying mosquitoes, which most people associate with wet times rather than dry, thrive in cities during times of drought when waters recede and grow still. Webb explains that human-made structures like pipes, pits and ponds are prime spots for stagnant water to become a breeding ground for the insects. “Fish and other animals that live in these systems die and the mosquitoes have free rein”.
Click through for details, and a multitude of consequences, obviously, of climate change. And yet, some still deny it.

Food for Thought

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Video Thread 6/27/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 272021
 

Glenn Kirschner – NY DA Vance to Indict Trump Org. Will this Inspire Other Jurisdictions to Finally Indict Trump? (I guess now we know what it takes to make Glenn be a smart-ass. “Tip of the Weisselberg” indeed.)

MSNBC covered multiple aspects of the Chauvin sentencing – TRMS – Judge Sends Message With Historic Prison Sentence For Derek Chauvin

Prosecutor In Chauvin Trial: ‘Sense Of Peace’ With Sentencing

MSNBC also paid considerable attention to the Trump** saga – TRMS – Increasing Pressure Threatens To Burst Trump Bubble With Potentially Concerning Fallout

NYT: Trump Admin. Considered Using Military On Floyd Protests – The 11th Hour

Expected Charges Against Trump Org. Are Far From ‘Minuscule’ – The Last Word

Corey Ryan Forrester – An important PSA…

Beau – Let’s talk about Biden’s plan for the interpreters and more…. This is (at least mostly) good news, but it comes with a cost. We owe Beau tthanks for the warning, and need to be ready.

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Open Thread for June 27, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 272021
 

Yesterday was strange – not that nothing happened around the nation and the world, but that so many of the things that did happen were so odd.  We can blame climate change for some of it, but not for all, certainly.  I think I remember that Colleen’s delayed surgery was for carpal tunnel or somethiing of the sort – if so, she may be recovering just fine but not feel up to commenting yet.  I hope that’s the case, but also hope to hear soon.

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Short Takes – News of the Weird today!

WFAA – ‘Once you see one, you’ll see another’: Have you seen one of these worms in your yard? They’re toxic. Here’s how you deal with them.
Quote – “The way this flatworm harms our ecosystem is it eats earthworms, which are necessary for our forests, our crops…our gardens to survive,” Morgan-Olvera said, “In order for it to digest earthworms, it secretes a chemical, or a neurotoxin, and that can cause an allergic reaction on your skin if you’re handling it.”
Click through for full story, including what – and what not – to do.

NBC News – Vehicles stuck on Detroit freeways after torrential downpour
Quote – [I]t was predicted that the city would get close to two inches of rain Friday night, but nearly seven inches fell. “The intensity of these storms exceeded the design standards for pump stations and combined sewer overflow facilities serving the Detroit region,” Brown said at a press conference on Saturday. There was so much rain that there was nowhere for the water to go, he explained, other than flooding streets and basements.
Click through for more. (But there’s no such thing as climate change. Right.)

NextShark – Australian Woman Who Woke Up From Surgery With Irish Accent May Be Stuck With It for Life
Quote – This week, Yen underwent a brain scan which confirmed “nothing wrong.” But she was diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS), a rare medical condition that may be triggered by neurological or psychological damage, according to speech pathologist Kirrie Ballard. “Foreign Accent Syndrome is a legitimate disorder. It’s described as a person’s speech changing, so that it sounds as though they’re speaking in a different accent to their habitual accent,” Ballard told 60 Minutes.
Click through for the story. Bizarre, but true. And it says a lot about how we humans treat each other – none of it good.

Food for Thought

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Video Thread 6/26/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 262021
 

Glenn Kirschner – Giuliani Law License Suspended is Part 1 of Accountability: SDNY Criminal Investigation is Part 2

No Dem Left Behind – Hold Them Responsible

Armageddon Update – “Voting Wrongs”

Rebel HQ – Trump Fanatic Facing Extra Jail Time After GOP Law Backfires (Karma is quite a lady.)

Randy Rainbow has a Tribute Parody for Barbra Streisand – it’s not satirical, so I’m not embedding it, but I thought I’d provide the link for those who love Randy as much as I do (and as mush as he loves Barbra)

Otter Reaction to Popcorn Maker (trilingual CC) These little maniacs are pretty cute. No, we don’t domesticate otters in the US. But this isn’t in the US and these are not US otters.

Beau – Let’s talk about Texas building the wall on its own….

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