Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
From M. Bouffant at Web of Evil:
And what is the now 70-yr. old United States Air Force up? Why, nothing worth noting.
[WARNING: Auto-play at link, because Newsweek is just that irksome.]
CHRISTIANS IN U.S. MILITARY ‘SERVE SATAN’ IF THEY TOLERATE OTHER RELIGIONS, AIR FORCE CHAPLAIN SAYS
From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:
Meanwhile, the Juggalos (the dedicated fans of the rap-rock band Insane Clown Posse) have been planning a Washington rally of their own, too/also. They were going to protest the FBI’s designation of the Juggalos as a “loosely organized hybrid gang.” (But we cannot get people who want to blow up abortion clinics designated as domestic terrorists. Go figure.)
Anyway, the clowns went to DC! (See what I did there?)
So, the size-queen question Trump is no doubt asking as he stares at his short fingers: Who had the bigger rally?
From The Borowitz Report:
Emerging from an Oval Office meeting with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a beaming Trump touted the deal for his imminent removal from office.
“Chuck and Nancy and I got a deal done on impeachment,” Trump said. “It was a good deal and it was a fast deal.”
Trump said that the Democrats had convinced him that agreeing to be impeached would make him soar in popularity.
From Green Eagle:
The Mother of All Rallies!!! Promoted by Republicans for at least two months, this event took place in Washington D.C. today. Didn’t hear about it? Well, here’s some of the advance material:
“MOAR Mother Of All Rallies Patriot Unification Gathering-The Woodstock of American Rallies
America First patriot rally in support of American values, American culture, American traditions, and of course President Donald Trump. Our goal is to rally 1 million patriots to Washington DC to send a shock-wave message to the world that they have to go through us to take this country or change its culture.”
ONE MILLION PATRIOTS! Well, as is the inevitable outcome of right wing marches, they fell a little short of their predictions.
Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.
From The Journal of Improbable Research:
“During high-speed pursuit of prey, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) has been observed to swing its tail while manoeuvring (e.g. turning or braking) but the effect of these complex motions is not well understood.”
Prompting, perhaps, the question ‘what is a cheetah’s tail actually for?’
A joint US / South African study (2016) has made made steps towards answers. A set of experiments, in which tails were aerodynamically tested at various airspeeds and inclinations, in a wind tunnel, yielded results :
From Max’s Dad:
Vietnam. If you werent around when that war raged on you dont know nuthin about division. Oh we have division now between dummies and non dummies and white supremacists and normal people but thats not what went on back then. Ken Burns latest is a must. His past documentaries have been fascinating and this one should be just as great. Burns may be the James Patterson or Thomas Kincaid of documentarians but you cvsannot deny his passion or attention to detail. His Baseball doc and his Jazz doc were the ones I looked forward to for years and neither disappointed. Vietnam wont either.
Vietnam was the event that “radicalized” me. Before 1968 I cared about baseball. The 64 Series with Bob Gibson, the 65 Series when my Twins lost, the 67 American League pennant race when my Twins lost on the final day. That was it. That was my list of what I cared about. Then came 1968.
1968 I was in 6th grade. I was oblivious to what was going on. I remember LBJ quitting on a Sunday night and my grandma expressing surprise. I remember Bobby Kennedy coming into a presidential race I knew nothing about. I remember MLK being assassinated and Bobby Kennedy going into a black neighborhood and telling them what had happened, an act of courage and compassion that has never been duplicated in politics. But Vietnam? That was just a war far away and one we had to win. Just like WW2, the war my father fought in. Hell yes I was for the war, why wouldnt I be? I was a kid raised on WW2 movies and TV shows.
One day Sister Julie asked us in class who supported the Vietnam War.
From PZ Myers:
Pournelle died earlier this month. He (and his writing partner, Larry Niven) were big, popular names back in the 70s, and long ago I read several of his long tomes. I will say this for him: he could write an engaging potboiler, where the plot kept churning along. But in every one of his books, there was a “what the hell am I reading?” moment, followed by a period of introspection in which I had to admit to myself that if I’d been paying attention, I would have noticed that there were clear hints that this regressive conclusion was exactly what he’d been building towards all along. Then I read a few more and realized that you could predict exactly how the story would proceed from the first chapter on: the solution would always be a gushing militaristic/Libertarian fantasy. So I stopped reading him.
Except for one thing: those were also the heady days of the microcomputer revolution, and I read Byte magazine every month. Pournelle had a column in there, that was apparently popular to some people, but that I found plodding, unreadable, and useless. Well, not quite unreadable: I’d hate-read him.
From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:
Their new plan eliminates the federal insurance subsidies, and federal medicaid payments. Instead, it sends block grants to each state for that state to come up with their own health plan. It also lowers the amount of money that the states that expanded Medicaid will get, and raises the amount the states that didn’t expand Medicaid will get.
This is an admission by Washington Republicans that they are incapable of coming up with a plan to provide Americans with health insurance, so they are punting the ball to the individual states. You can bet the Republican states will continue to deny heal insurance to many of their citizens, while Democratic states will have to drop many from their insurance programs (or increase their state budgets to cover them). The plan also gives states the right to petition to remove any of Obamacare’s requirements — like coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Wondering why a few conservative friends are less than impressed.