Jack Benny honored at Carnegie Hall, 1961
Quoting another honoree – this one possibly fictitious;
- President Biden’s popularity has taken a nosedive. At jobsanger, Ted McLaughlin dives into the numbers. Biden is more popular than Congress. And, more than either, President Biden’s programs remain at a crowd pleasing level.
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This is quite the graphic. pic.twitter.com/NDYFFuO5Hg
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) January 25, 2022
- In Letters from an American, noted historian Heather Cox Richardson sees an economic contradiction. The economy is growing at a rate not seen in a generation. Voters seem ready to blame Democrats for perceived shortcomings, largely because of news media downplaying the phenomenal growth.
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Trump: I tried to steal the last election and I'm running again to do the same. Here it is in writing
Biden: Trump just told us in his own words that he's going to steal the next election, let's do something about it
Media: Why do both sides cast doubt on our elections? https://t.co/QjFslOTwvS
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) January 21, 2022
- Tommy Christopher sees many excellent choices for the primetime slot that had, until recently, been occupied by Chris Cuomo, with Jim Acosta as the perfect choice.
- Nan’s Notebook guests a local editorial on why voters should not tar all office-holders with the same brush. Throw the bums out might better be Throw some of the bums out or at least pick and choose among the bums.
- Among those not entirely pleased with President Biden’s foreign policy, Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson gets a little sarcastic at US and allied plans for retaliation in case Putin invades Ukraine:
This way Russian troops' credit cards won't work at gas stations and toll booths. https://t.co/7TArB9OL2A pic.twitter.com/Wfhyls1SJO
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson) January 29, 2022
- MadMikesAmerica goes picture-worth-a-thousand as Vlad Putin plays a game of Risk over Ukraine.
- In the Palmer Report, Robert Harrington has weapons grade chemical reason to regard Vlad Putin with contempt and hatred as a dangerous and evil presence.
- Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group join in podcasting, with expert legal analysis of the Breyer retirement and prospective replacement. A transcript will arrive soon.
- At The Moderate Voice, Paul Collins of Amherst University considers the retirement and sees a moderate, pragmatic legacy.
- tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors visits GOP attacks on President Biden’s Supreme Court pick while the nominee is still unknown to any of them. They’re against whomever no matter whomever the whom might be. For principled reasons, of course.
- News Corpse brings us Tucker Carlson raging against the idea that President Biden might nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
- Continuing the pattern established on proposed voting rights legislation, The Onion has President Biden meeting with Democrats to discuss breaking up his Supreme Court nominee and confirming her in parts.
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Come on, folks. Mr Trump is absolutely right.
Next thing you know they'll lock her in a cage with other kids, and have her sleep on a concrete floor with an aluminum blanket, before shipping her away from her family forever.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 23, 2022
- In Hackwhackers, the January 6 investigating committee is calling on fake Trump electors to testify.
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So those who died after the assaults were either some cosmic coincidence or simply did not matter? And, since those deaths were a bizarre happenstance, assaulting police officers are a trivial matter, not worth bothering with?
Thought you were a patriot.
Perhaps I misjudged you.— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
- Ever been corrected by a supercilious conservative who points out that America is a republic, not a democracy? The Propaganda Professor takes a look at the difference and discovers that it’s less than the occasional right-winger may think.
As in: That’s a poodle not a dog, you libtard!!
I have devoted similar thoughts before, when a favored conservative went to James Madison, and I helped James defend himself posthumously.
- driftglass doesn’t have much use for Republicans who are fed up with Trump, and who generously will now show all us ineffective leftist hippies how opposition is done by adults.
I dunno. I’m thinking of Winston Churchill’s discussion of potential cooperation with everyone’s ideological adversary, Stalin’s USSR:
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
When democracy is plausibly at risk, we might temporarily want to temporarily embrace our temporary frenemies, at least temporarily.
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz defends voting rights and is accused of tribalism. He pleads guilty, and defines his version of tribalism differently than his antagonist may have expected.
- Nojo considers motivation, and is not optimistic about the survival of American democracy. He sees a lack of patriotic spirit.
- Perhaps the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. CalicoJack in The Psy of Life is more generous about motivation, but takes a look at burnout, harboring doubts about whether we are up to saving our Republic.
- Vixen Strangely, at Strangely Blogged, provides the objections, the banning, and the amazement as a county school board in Tennessee bans a Pulitzer Award winning graphic novel about the Holocaust. Mass murder on a mega-scale might be the subject, but the real disturbing parts are some swear words.
- So Maus is banned at a school district in Tennessee. Vagabond Scholar introduces us to the careful, child-introduction to the mega-murder aimed at wiping out all Jews.
Listen, guys, let’s be reasonable. Relax standards and let one of these books in, and pretty soon school kids across the entire state might be exposed to unpleasant Pulitzer Prize winning literature.
- Julian Sanchez of CATO Institute has a thought on school library book banning:
For those who haven’t read it, the “nudity” in Maus. https://t.co/rWLaylW7W0
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) January 28, 2022
- John Scalzi at Whatever considers book bans, which won’t work and shouldn’t work, and censorship of personal appearances and discussions which should be fought, but probably not with counter-boycotts.
- Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara objects to children instructing adults on social issues.
The idea is that children attend school because they need to be instructed. Since they have not completed their schooling, they are still uneducated, largely empty vessels waiting to be constructively filled.
He protests that he is not advocating children be seen and not heard, since they need to voice opinions in order to have those opinions corrected by adults.
Think of it as Seen-and-Not-Heard lite.
One possible response is that an idea should not be held responsible for the age of the one who holds it. It should be evaluated on its own merits.
Admitting youngsters and the elderly to adult debate sometimes teaches us the value of defining and defending ideas, which is to say it can teach us to think
To adapt the Gospel according to Paul Simon, the words of a prophet can be written on a chalkboard wall.
- Andy Borowitz documents the painful saga as parents struggle to explain to their children who Sarah Palin was.
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I hope and pray you recover completely,
And that you change your mind and get vaccinated,
And that you urge others to do the same.You could save some lives.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 24, 2022
- Frances Langum has the story, augmented by video as Sarah Palin’s lawsuit against the NY Times gets complicated by disease and lawbreaking. Sarah, who refuses the vaccine and doesn’t seem to mind infecting random passersby, gets COVID, then dines out in New York City.
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Both, but more so than she used to be. pic.twitter.com/5w2Kn2pB0q
— Paloma_Wear A Damn Mask 😷 🕊️ #GetVaxxed💉 (@palomapoetry) January 27, 2022
- Well here’s part of headline stories I had missed about Sarah’s sojourn in Gotham. PZ Myers has the highlights after the COVID infection and after the unmasked, unvaccinated public dinner celebration. Seems Ms. Palin’s dinner companion got thuggish with a news photographer, complete with threats and twisted fingers.
And you thought gangster films were just on screen?
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The Black Plague killed about 2/3 of Europe. Those who caught it and spread it, yet survived, were unlikely to be infected again.
That presented them with no particular virtue.
Did it?But they did have the legitimate excuse of having no available vaccine.
What's your excuse?— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 24, 2022
- Yet another witless anti-mask zealot interrupts a commercial flight by suddenly refusing to follow rules. Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit reads the account of a planeful of people having to turn around and land – and has a constructive suggestion.
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When you’re so fragile and so entitled and have such a persecution complex that you perceive “please wear a mask to help combat a pandemic” as being the moral equivalent of “get on this train bound for a gas chamber,” you’ve lost all touch with reason and decency.
— Tennesseine (@Tennesseine) January 25, 2022
- At Scotties Playtime, a Florida judge denies a high school girl’s right to an abortion because she only has a B grade point average. The idea is that a less than sterling grade is evidence she is too immature to make a grave decision about her life and well being. He will make it for her.
Fortunately, the decision is overturned on appeal by wiser jurists.
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil asks an obvious question about humans and hatred after two incidents. In one, a well known actor chases an elderly man around a restaurant screaming anti-Semitic slurs. In the other, a Brooklyn woman decides she doesn’t like Jews, so she assaults, screams at, and spits on small children playing on a sidewalk.
- Green Eagle goes all biblical Daniel, traveling into the liar’s den, confronting and refuting pompous right-wing shibboleths.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce is urged by my brother-in-Christ “Ansen” that he should try really hard to believe in Jesus.
- Infidel753 has wonderful, truly wonderful, adventures of stupid people.
Whenever I want to feel superior, forgetting my own mishaps, I’ll come back to these.
Okay, I know it won’t completely work, but maybe it will help.
- Invaluable lessons in life: @momwino98 helps teach us all how to flirt.
@momwino98 #trend #flirtingtips #tiktokmom #fyp #foryourpage #humor #eyecontact ♬ original sound – Kevin - More useful life-hacks! Reductress guides us on just how to casually hold a shovel without looking like a murderer.
- You wanna know what Yellowdog Granny has done in the past while drunk? Think love, marriage, and Vegas.
- The Journal of Improbable Research finally YAY-Y-Y-Y-Y finds a study of stretched out words in Twitter posts. Words like YAY-Y-Y-Y-Y
- SilverAppleQueen is in Buffalo, where it is cold, cold, but fortunately she has cats.
Tweets I thought worthy:
Also did you notice that the Anti Vax people refuse to believe Covid has killed as many people as it has.
They however have no problem believing (falsely) the vaccine is maiming and crippling millions though.
— Big (American AF) Teezy (@TNSouthernlib) January 28, 2022
Everything that doesn’t kill me is really starting to piss me off.
— A̸n̶d̶r̸e̶y̷a̵ 🏳️🌈 (@AndreyasAsylum) January 28, 2022
Some musical gratitude for all the healthcare workers who do the impossible every day.
Simple Gifts, #songsofcomfort pic.twitter.com/K83e9TYXzA
— Yo-Yo Ma (@YoYo_Ma) January 26, 2022
Mom's ER doc called last night to tell me there are no ICU beds in Oregon.
Because of anti-vax untermenschen.
Local ER will "do their best."— 🇺🇸UNFORGIVINGBEAST Hates Antivax Untermenschen!! (@InvestigatorCps) January 28, 2022
I forgot to use my quantum detangler and my hair has been a mess all day. pic.twitter.com/YNUzAJd0Gk
— Holding the line 🌊🗳️ (@JD_in_VA) January 28, 2022
And I’m allowed a few of my own:
I was told that once, but I made up my mind to ignore insults and move on.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 23, 2022
He seems nice. https://t.co/8ZQMOmGJff
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 23, 2022
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 25, 2022
I'm elderly and I may have it wrong.
Didn't her last theory have something to do with secret Jewish space lasers from hidden satellites starting forest fires as part of a plot against California?
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 26, 2022
Totally agree.
I especially hated the way he led chants of "FAKE NEWS" and labeled reporters as enemies of the people. That's right out of history books on dictators.
Never thought Biden would do any of that.
.
.
Uh oh! My wife tells me that was all Mr Trump.
Ok.
Never mind!— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 26, 2022
I usually decide to get up.
Then I try to figure out which way is up.— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 27, 2022
I'm only speculating, but my guess is it doesn't look at all like your drunk ass.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
I understood every word.
Every word!The way they were strung together into sentences was incoherent gibberish.
But I did understand the individual words.— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
Ah. The grand conspiracy of scientists, researchers, hospitals, healthcare staff, not only in this country, but the world over. Joined by families faking the deaths of loved ones.
Psychopaths all.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
A boy and his Ma, ordering a leaning tower of their favorite food.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
Sure.
Accountability would not be erased by that forgiveness.— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
I don't
Partly it's because I'm a wise and tolerant individual who respects the wishes of others
Partly it's because I don't know how
Partly it's because anyone who doesn't like me or think it worthwhile to pay attention to my opinions is likely just a good judge of character
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
I'm elderly, but I can rely on what people under 65 tell me on the internet.
I understand lots of people die from it, and it's a Bill Gates plot to implant microchips, and it hasn't been tested. And does Fox Network really require it of all employees, but campaigns against it?
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 28, 2022
A little off, I know.
When the occasional young woman expresses any interest in meeting me, I find a way to mention:
– I'm elderly
– I'm not that attractive
– I need a note from my wife— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 29, 2022
Why thank you.
Naw.
I'm just an elderly fella who is saddened by anyone's belief that scientists, medical experts, and health care professionals, have devoted their entire lives to deceiving you, while a blogger from here in St. Louis is your only beacon of truth and honesty.
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 29, 2022
Before I became elderly, we used the phrase, "err on the side of caution."
Excessive masking costs nothing and does no harm to anyone.
Erring the other way is filling up ICUs and harming non-COVID patients who wait for available beds.
So tell me again which is fresh hell?
— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) January 29, 2022
– Podcasts –
Sir, I haven’t read this post yet, but trust that all is well and you’re recovered from that health issue you had a few weeks ago. And now, to the delicious part, *reading*!
Here’s that study the antivaxxer idiot mentioned. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm If you read it, you will note that it comes to a conclusion entirely different than why they said it was.
Anyone complaining about me wearing a mask outside or anywhere can be told two things:
First, if I don’t know you, your option of me counts for two things, diddly and squat.
Second, your problem with me is a you problem not a me problem.