Mass Shootings – Page 2

Open Thread February 24, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 242023

Yesterday, the temperature did go up before it went down, although it never for as high as freezing. Today it should, and the next several days should be warmer still. There’s no snow in the forecast for a little over a week.

This article in one of my newsletters caught my eye… and then I saw that it had also caught Mitch’s eye. I know many of y’all are also on his mailing list – and also that the contents are no surprise – but it’s good to see that someone is in a position to prove it.

Cartoon – 24 0224Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – 10 Surprising Lessons of the Ukraine War So Far
Quote – While Ukraine has pleaded for fighter jets for a year, unmanned aircraft have stolen the show … “No Time for Sergeants” was once a TV hit in America. It has been a flop for the Russian army ,,, Speaking of time, it’s time for traditional navies to realize their time will soon be up … Poland is the new Germany. (And Estonia is the new France.) … Vladimir Putin may be a madman, but at least he has the common sense not to want to be obliterated in a nuclear war with NATO … Speaking of Putin, stick a fork in him. He may not be quite done yet, but he will be soon… and besides if anyone deserves to have a fork stuck in him, it’s Putin … TikTok is more than just an annoying teenage time-waster and Chinese espionage plot … Ukraine is already in the EU and NATO whether you (or Russia or Turkey[sic]) like it or not … With friends like Turkey[sic], Israel, the global South and Elon Musk, who needs enemies? … And the most important lesson of all is, as it will be for the remainder of this century, everything is always about China.
Click through for the explanation of each point. I am doing my best to respect the newly preferred spelling of Türkiye. If the UN can do it, I should be able to.

The Nib – The Great Debate: Martin Luther King, Jr. vs Robert F. Williams
Quote – While the debate between King and Williams was waged in dueling magazine columns in pages of the Liberator over the course of 1959, I like to imagine what it would have been like inperson. Maybe I’d be sitting with WEB Dubois, who followed the discussion closely.
Click through for full graphic. The hearts and minds of bigots cannot be won with violence. The hearts and minds of bigots also cannot be won with non-violence. They also cannot be won with legislation, but I believe legislation has the best chance of controlling their behavior, and of at least achieving justice when that doesn’t succeed. But for that to happen we need to elect majorities of sane legislators everywhere and at every level – and we need exclusively sane people in law enforcement and the courts. None of this is easy.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 2/16/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:57 am Open Thread, Politics

Feb 162023

Glenn Kirschner – Mike Pence will fight a grand jury subpoena to testify about Trump’s election crimes, & he will lose

Twitter – Shannon Watts. It was just a matter of time before there was a two-time survivor.

A survivor of the Sandy Hook School mass shooting in 2012 is a student at Michigan State University: “I am 21-years-old and this is the second mass shooting I’ve lived through. We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent.” pic.twitter.com/Jcafl57tmZ

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 14, 2023

Thom Hartmann – Biden’s Shocking Net Worth Revealed!

Liberal Redneck – Ohio Train Derailment and Corporate Greed

Brent Terhune – Chinese Spy Balloon

Pittie Begs His Mom To Keep A Pittie Puppy Half His Size

Beau – Let’s talk about Trump’s laptop problem….

Open Thread for December 5, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:51 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 052021

Yesterday was the first day since the oandemic started that the Metropolitan Opera was able to do a live broadcast over the radio (Last season was all re-runs). It was a new opera, “Eurydice,” which tells (I can’t say re-tells because the story is very far out) the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in the 21st century, from the point of view of Eurydice. It’s very accessible (term of art for “easy to listen to, not a lot of dissonance”). Thatt’s a good thing as just following the plot is plenty challenging.

Cartoon – 05 MCel RTU

Short Takes

NPR – Parents of Michigan school shooting suspect are held on $500,000 bond after manhunt
Quote – “They sought multiple attempts to hide their location and were eventually tracked down after they parked their car somewhere a witness saw it,” said Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald. “These two individuals were found locked somewhere in a room, hiding. These are not people that we can be assured will return to court on their own.”
Click through for details. I thought this was an update we’d all want to see.

Democratic Underground (Eleanor R) – Heartbreaking (tissue alert)
Quote – McClaren Hospital where Oxford community is gathered to supportthe family of Justin Shillings, one of the four teens killed this week. Justin is an organ donor and the crowd is here so that when his body is moved for surgery his family can look down andsee the love and support.
Click through for picture … and comments. Don’t miss comment #15 by barbtries.

HuffPost – ‘Obscene’ GOP Blockade Stalls Dozens Of Biden Nominees
Quote – Republicans can’t actually block all of Biden’s nominees from being confirmed. But they can use the existing rules of the Senate to drastically slow down their appointments, dragging out the process of filling what have typically been uncontroversial jobs in lower-level positions across the federal government. With the GOP refusing to expedite many of Biden’s nominees, placing so-called “holds” on them at the committee level, Democrats must carry out multiple votes to confirm each one, eating up valuable floor time that could be spent on other legislative business.
Click through for story. Dirty tricks and more dirty tricks. All done to “own the libs,” but really all done to hurt the American people.

Food for Thought –

Newer Entries

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.