FB Zucks, Willard, Small Members, Fauci’s Blasphemy, Groove w/Grover

How can anyone NOT love this lady?!!

• So Facebook will become Meta? Well, just the corporation itself, right? Facebook will still be Facebook?
   
  Andy Borowitz provides the under reported rest of the story. Mark Zuckerberg’s image also needs a restart. He will be changing his own name to Mother Teresa.
   
• Mark Z says the new/old company/platform will be dedicated to the metaverse. There is some debate among the elites about just what that means, since the metaverse is supposed to transcend mere social platforms, and kinda sorta make them impossible.
   
  Sarah Cooper has her own reaction:
   

• Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson reads about the big renaming. Color him skeptical:
   

• The innocent bunch of tourists falsely blamed for their peaceful attempt to visit the nation’s Capitol building on January 6 was a narrative that didn’t last for a New York minute. So the story metastasized into the innocent rally that turned into an impromptu march and accidentally became a spontaneous riot, stunning the rally sponsors.
   
  Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged explores the exploding evidence from the Willard Hotel that Trump’s allies, including members of Congress, were coordinating the whole thing and getting their minute by minute instructions directly from the Trump White House.
   
  So… some of our worst conspiracy theories are suddenly passing the solid evidence test, complete with documentation.
  Yikes.
   
• News Corpse examines Tucker Carlson’s latest effort to paint the Jan 6 insurrection as a false flag operation, with the FBI orchestrating the violence and blaming it on Trump.
   
  Well, it is different, I suppose. Most wingnuts I come in contact with on the internet, those thinking Trumpers weren’t really responsible, blame left wing infiltrators. Makes me wonder about anti-Trump antifa types dressing up like Trump supporters and storming the Capitol, trying to lynch legislators in order to overturn the election that Trump had just lost.
   
  But seeing the FBI now transformed into a leftist organization strikes me as even less likely.
   
  Freedom of speech did not apply to the lynch mob that succeeded in killing a few police officers and sending more to the hospital.
  It does apply to Tuck.
   
• Hackwhackers doesn’t really need to make the case that Steve Bannon is tied to the violence of the Jan 6 lynch mob insurrection. Just quote Bannon’s own words.
   
• Scotties Toy Box relates a sad saga through a series of Tweets as a Canadian Neo-Nazi plots with those of similar outlook in the US to hunt for minority victims to kill in the hopes of starting a race war.
   
  At sentencing, the would be race-based mass murderer tells the judge he had simply fallen in with the wrong crowd.
   
  Peer pressure. It’s a killer.
   
• CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests that the divisiveness of zero-sum Trumpism has turned political debate into a series of win-or-lose sporting events. You don’t seek solutions or even a mutually beneficial compromise in a gladiator death-match.
   
• driftglass gives us the last few years as a wild interpretive movie script. Entertaining.
   
• Green Eagle might be trolling rightists if it weren’t just on his own blog. He highlights the most widely circulated of wingnut messages, along with his pithy responses.
   
  Green Eagle is a VERY patient individual.
   
• Tommy Christopher watches British television as a conservative host badgers an environmentalist who is also a carpenter for hypocritically using lumber that comes from trees. Okay, so trees can be grown but, says the host, so can concrete. Then dumps the guest, seemingly for his astonishment.
   
  Imagine, anyone thinking concrete can’t be harvested from concrete trees.
   
  Next time I need a new car, I’ll be out looking for a good automobile orchard.

• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger quotes Rev. Raphael Warnock, US Senator from Georgia with a way to put voting into perspective.
   
• Republican Senators are outraged that the FBI is pursuing parents for protesting masking mandates and the teaching of Critical Race Theory. In Letters from an American, political historian Heather Cox Richardson watches Attorney General Merrick Garland calmly explain to the Senators the difference between protesting and threatening violence. One is protected speech, the other is against the law.
   
• When defending the right of the right to protest at school board meetings, Republicans occasionally go pretty far. Frances Langum watches Ted Cruz as he reminds us that Nazis have the right to give their straight armed salutes. Howard Dean does not sugarcoat his reply.
   
  For the record, Cruz had angrily defended the right to give the Nazi salute at school board meetings. He demanded to know if that was legally permitted. Attorney General Garland simply said Yes.
   
  Actually, I remember hearing that in class, all those decades ago, in high school.
   
• MadMikesAmerica has an idea of how we should treat COVID.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz explains how a respected public health expert became the enemy of a large section of Americans. It has to do with religion. Dr. Anthony Fauci committed blasphemy.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara argues that student loans should never be forgiven because taking a loan for any reason carries the moral obligation to repay it.
   
• Reporting in the popular press continues to be how to say it? shoddy, presenting the negotiations on the Biden bill only in terms of the amount to be devoted. And that figure shown over ten years.
   
  Polls show overwhelming support for each actual item in the bill, when those items are included in polling questions. The problem is those items are seldom reported in understandable form in the popular press.
   
  The tradition of lazy coverage is partly motivated by informal what-bleeds-leads standard. And it’s simply easier to keep score if the news is seen as a sports parallel. Forget the details. AND forget that it will be paid for by finally having the fabulously wealthy pay at least part of what is fair. What really counts is what yard line they are on at any given.
   
  tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors makes the noble effort that big name reporting personalities can’t carve out of their schedules, presenting some of the highlights of what is in the current proposed legislation. Seems it’s still a hell of a big deal.
   
• At The Onion, an innocent billionaire guilty only of buying a sandwich is unfairly targeted with a 5% sales tax.
   
• Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group remind us that it is likely to be one hell of a Supreme Court term when it comes to abortion rights in America. Your choice of a podcast or a transcript.
   
• Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez explains the basic problem with providing police in the field with qualified immunity when they do bad things.
   

• Well, this has exaggerated television drama written all through it.
   
  PZ Myers has the script, ripped from the headlines!
   
  A leading creationist, basher of atheists, is about to serve a term in jail for spousal abuse.
  Good dramatic start.
   
  A minor fellow creationist will generously fill in, donating his time for as long as it takes.
  Can we see where this is going?
   
  Major is a narcisist, likely to tolerate the arrangement only if he can direct from behind bars.
   
  Minor is a narcicist, unlikely to accept an apprentice position that involves taking directives from anyone.
   
  Professor Myers does not see this ending well for either.
   
• In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, former pastor, current atheist Bruce speculates on why evangelicals are offended by what he writes.
   
• Infidel753 has a series of Halloween images here and here.
   
  I thought the dancing bones were especially talented.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil writes it up. Apparently there is a demonstration of sorts in support of males with sexual proportions usually ascribed by juveniles to those they dislike.
   
  Hey! Give me a break! Aunt Tildy labors in the belief that innocent children with easily bruised ears might read this.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit is right about history. She makes the case that the real Father of the Country was the obstinate, power hungry George William Frederick.
   
• Dave Dubya finds himself banned from commenting on a conservative site that had welcomed him for years. Dave refuses to retaliate, welcoming the conservative blogger onto his site.
   
• @momwino98 hears something really, really stupid:
   

  @momwino98

  Kids…. .##SamsClubScanAndGo ##kids ##goodgod ##fyp ##foryourpage

  ♬ original sound – Schitt’s Creek

• Nojo looks into the fatal shooting involving Alec Baldwin. So far, the scant evidence we have might be leading to a single individual. The deadly incident provides a parallel to national governance.
   
• The Palmer Report carries the strange coincidence, slowly discovered by crime writer Ann Rule, that the nice man sitting next to her while she volunteered at a suicide prevention center happened to be a serial killer. The story carries a continuous lesson about the nature of evil.
   
• The Moderate Voice reviews how one rescue flight out of Afghanistan and one photo of one sleeping child wrapped in one part of one uniform of one US airman became a symbol of America’s humanitarian character.
   
• Nan’s Notebook covers some of the argument over the time change we experience every damn year.
   
  Okay! I confess I still kind of look forward to that extra hour. Recently, though, adding back an hour to the year has sort of been like getting a bonus track on an album by Yoko Ono.
   
• Reductress reveals how learning about the only American President ever (so far) to serve two non-consecutive terms can change your romantic life. Yay Grover Cleveland!!
   
• SilverAppleQueen has a cool cat.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever didn’t much care for the original Dune movie of almost 4 decades back. Who the hell did? But he has really nice things to say about this year’s new version. Recommends seeing it in the theatre, presumably when it’s safe.
   

A few Tweets I thought worthy:

This should make us mad.
 

@tizzyent

Brazilian singer McGui is a horrible person.

♬ original sound – TizzyEnt

Beautiful:
 

And I’m allowed a couple of my own:
 

An explanation offered in court by a Capitol building rioter:

– Podcasts –