pic.twitter.com/8ZKYcKmCvC This dog found a cat freezing to death. Look what he did to save it…
GIF via AleZ2016
— M LeMont (@MisterSalesman) December 24, 2022
- Tommy Christopher watches Fox so you don’t have to, even on weekends, where he sees an unusual attack on libs.
His headline is a good summary:
Watch Deranged Fox News Segment on ‘Anti-Human’ Liberals, Chaos Theory, and The Walking Dead: ‘They See You as a Virus!’
- My valued conservative friend Darrell Michaels has more conservative cartoon humor, less useful for laughs than it is for insight into the fantasies of the right.
For example, we begin with Biden thinking the economy is beginning to move ahead when it’s really tanking into a depression:
(tee-hee. Get it? He’s so wrong.)
- Dave Dubya has the video and the Congressional transcript as Guy Reschenthaler(R-PA) demonstrates the evils of socialism by demanding that Maxine Waters(D-CA) define what
“Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi … all have in common.”
Ms. Waters proceeds to take Mr. Reschenthaler apart with her one word answer.
- The Propaganda Professor explains variations of proof pretense: the presentation of proof that is not actually proof.
- driftglass is unimpressed with Glenn Greenwald’s fawning interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Headline has about the right tone:
Checking In On Bolshi Freedom Troll Glenn Greenwald
Personal note: Each night, I sleep a peaceful sleep, knowing that I despised Greenwald when despising Greenwald wasn’t cool.
- The Palmer Report can find no good news for George Santos, the most comically corrupt public figure since Rod Blagojevich.
- Those of us who watched Bobby Jindal and poor Marco Rubio (suffer the little video) may be forgiven for thinking Republican responses to the State of the Union are where political ambitions go to die.
tengrain, of Mock Paper Scissors, tells us that Republicans have selected Sarah Huckabee Sanders to deliver this year’s SOTU response.
tengrain seems skeptical about the choice.
- Doesn’t take much interpretation to read what is explicit. News Corpse brings us Trump promoting a message from a supporter urging physical violence.
Key reposting:
Then they will have to figure out how to fight 80,000,000 + it’s not going to happen again. People my age and old will physically fight for him this time. What we got to lose? I’ll donate the rest of my time here on this planet to do it. And I know many many others who feel the same. They got my 6 and we Are Locked and LOADED
- Well … he’s no Nixon.
M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has the video as mr Trump repeatedly takes the 5th on whether he’s a crook.
- Andy Borowitz says mr Trump is on the attack, as the former president charges Ron DeSantis with lacking the classified documents necessary to be President. (Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s satire.)
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit points to the real lesson from Ron DeSantis and his war on Woke Education.
- At The Onion the DeSantis approach to education is working. The new revised African American Studies Program will focus mostly on Herman Cain’s rise to Pizza CEO.
Key quote:
Although the syllabus no longer includes the writings of Kimberlé Crenshaw, bell hooks, or Ta-Nehisi Coates, we have gone to great lengths to include Cain’s various writings about Burger King and his 9-9-9 tax plan, as well as an in-depth analysis of all his favorite pizza toppings.
- In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson remembers the story behind the song on February 1, 1862, as Julia Ward Howe struggled to come up with adequate words for the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Then came other Februarys: a season of triumph, a decade of let down, a century of defeat, and a resurgence at a lunch counter.
And, of course, the aftermath of the death by a terrible police beating.
Key ending:
Mine eyes have seen the glory.
Rest in power, Mr. Nichols.
- Disaffected and it Feels So Good offers thoughtful speculation about the Tyre Nichols murder by police officers. What will the initial reports by the five police officers reveal? What about reports by those who investigated the officers? The more basic point is that the savage, deadly, beating is part of a more global pattern.
- Professor PZ Myers is understandably (and quite wrongly) extreme in his universal condemnation of police. He analyzes the use of language by police in this case to mislead, including the passive voice to describe very active violence.
He does not stop with the initial reports of the incident. He attacks Commander of Public Information Major Karen Rudolph for wanting to take steps…
…to rebuild the trust that has been negatively affected by the death of Mr. Tyre Nichols.
Professor Myers answers:
Hey, Karen: I think that what negatively affected the trust was the savage brutality and violent tactics of the cops, not the fact that the victim died.
Valid as is his acerbic analysis, we can still object when he lapses to this:
All cops are bad. All cops are liars.
For those of us who default (I think wisely) to support our local police, the temptation is to minimize instances of police brutality by correctly pointing out that they involve a minority of officers.
We can, and should, and must, go with this more balanced observation from a few years back:
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz begins with a quote:
“Every police officer who killed Tyre Nichols was Black. This can’t be white supremacy.”
But Pastor Pavlovitz disagrees. If we trace back to the roots we find that White supremacy killed Tyre Nichols.
Key point
The myth of discrimination is that it is only an individual act, a singular expression of a personal belief.
The truth is, we exist in both stories and in systems.
- Max’s Dad sees the beating as color motivated – not Black, not White: Blue.
- Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger says more rules and better training, necessary though they may be, are not enough to reduce police violence.
- Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged offers the most eloquent expression of sadness and anger at the murder of a young man who just wanted to get home.
On the brutality itself:
This feels like watching something primal and ritualistic.
I am not better for having seen it. It leaves me wondering what trapdoor in the human soul drops open in the midst of serving one’s job that reveals a monster below…
On the family:
…he called for his mother–and yeah, I’ve heard that before too, and I, without kids by choice, hear that and I am suffering for that human, so close the last of his life calling out for she who was there for the first part of it. If I am so moved, what is it like for one who carried a child under their heart, and lived with a child in it, concerned for their every breath under the sun, until the time that breath was stolen?
I cannot imagine.
On those who justify:
They will not understand why humans are moved by a human death that didn’t need to be. And I don’t know how to teach decency to them.
- Scotties Playtime goes to documented history in Nazi Germany as lesbians were raped, beaten, murdered.
- Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group take on new scare tactics over abortion pills:
- Courtesy of Frances Langum, we see the reaction of Schumer and Jeffries to the Republican plan to impose a national sales tax intended to raise the price of everything by 30%.
- Infidel753 has a largely unexplored solution to the deficit:
Tax the churches.
- Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes has a thought over tea on whether Britain’s bad economic news is actually a good thing. Has to do with a projection in 1972 from The Club of Rome.
- In Nan’s Notebook, Nan makes clear that her speculation about consumer shortages in the event of an actual war with China is intended as sarcasm.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, atheist Bruce examines a proposition taught in Evangelical circles, that the Bible is never wrong, refuting that proposition with the Bible.
- Dave Columbo knows that marriage is all about compromise – When done to the tune of Medieval Times.
Pithy note:
No idea why TikTok goes to autoplay and defaults to zero volume.
Try clicking volume, then reload (such a bother)
@davecolumbo Marriage is all about compromise #marriage #dating #couples #roadtrip ♬ Medieval Times – Daniel Summer
Pithy viewer comment:
At least she didn’t pull out the “We have medieval times at home” card
Pithy response:
And even if we did, it’s just not the same - So cute! Clickbait satirist Reductress brings the heartwarming story of a little girl with the impossible fantasy of becoming an astronaut even though she’s not a billionaire.
- SilverAppleQueen sees love in the rain.
- YellowDog Granny has an old person’s perspective on the inherent contradiction of cool: The Geezer’s Paradox. With additional insight on aging and frogs.
- Contemplating technology that may someday read minds, Julian Sanchez has a ready-to-read thought:
- At The Moderate Voice Dorian de Wind explains ChatGPT by conducting an interview with ChatGPT.
- John Scalzi at Whatever is still on Twitter, expecting it to experience less of a crash than a slow deflation. He explores for us alternative Social Media with 2023 becoming a transitional year. I hear the siren call of Mastodon.
- @whiskeywhistle98 watches the latest mystery at the gas pump:
Gaaaa – Once more:
No idea why TikTok goes to autoplay and defaults to zero volume.
Try clicking volume, then reload (such a bother)
@whiskeywhistle98 #stitch with @a_fitnessx #QuakerPregrain #sweetjesus #tiktokmom #gasstation #gas #slapit #fyp #foryourpage #justno #stop ♬ original sound – @Whiskeywhistle98- - The Strategic Studies Book Club reviews that part of Peter Crawford’s biography of the Roman Emperor Justinian II that details the collapse of the Byzantine rule over North Africa. (Okay, so I’m a history dweeb)
- Hackwhackers remembers who we lost on February 3, 1959:
The Day the Music Died.
- In Happiness Between Tails da-AL hosts retired teacher, retired Wall Street broker, retired Post Office official, and current blogger Joseph Coniglio with thoughts on a few great pieces of Rock n’ Roll music.
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson encounters a generation gap:
Had to explain Doc Severinsen to my daughter the other day. pic.twitter.com/Fva0LTXTe6
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson) January 29, 2023
– Podcasts –
tax churches yes!!! thanks again for linking my blog here. also much appreciate how your posts introduce me to other great sites
Thank you, da-AL, for being among those great sites!