Month: January 2019

 
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

These shibboleths, these household idols, that are being supposedly profaned, though, don’t strike me as being quite the profanity that President Trump is engaging in with his shutdown, which he owns because he has no takers for this highly toxic property of his own building, over a dumb, ineffective wall that he believes he needs to satisfy his little racist fan club. His rhetoric has never had a good foundation with respects to this wall funding–Mexico was going to pay for it, but maybe not. Maybe they will pay for it with tariffs (that are not raised under the tax deal he was so excited about). Maybe he will declare a national emergency and eminent domain all the property he wants for his maybe concrete, possibly steel, definitely slats, kinda see-through, ever changing wall (and watch the many lawsuits roll in, because none of that shit is legal and so many Americans would have standing it is not funny).

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From Tommy Christopher:

Former Vice President Joe Biden (D-BFD) became the subject of uncharacteristic criticism among conservatives when he referred to right-wing media star Ann Coulter simply as “the conservative blonde woman,” and blamed her for Donald Trump‘s government shutdown.

CNN’s Randi Kaye happened to run into Biden at Philadelphia International Airport this week, and among the other subjects that came up was the current government shutdown.

“Republicans overwhelmingly voted to keep the government open,” Biden told Kaye, and added “Then Rush Limbaugh and the conservative blonde woman says he’s losing his base, and so he’s changed his mind.”

That exchange went viral, and drew a variety of reactions.

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From David Robertson at The Moderate Voice:

A 17 May 2012 news report by the Boston Herald says the following:

Elizabeth Warren was touting her claim of Cherokee heritage as early as 1984, according to a cookbook titled “Pow Wow Chow” edited by her cousin that includes Warren’s recipes for a savory crab omelet and spicy barbecued beans.

The cookbook, edited by Warren’s cousin Candy Rowsey, is a compilation of “special recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families,” according to the introduction in a copy obtained by the Herald.

Warren, who has been under fire for claiming Indian lineage despite a lack of documentation, is identified as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee” under each of five recipes she contributes in the cookbook, published in 1984 by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum located in Muskogee.

If Native Americans are people of color, and if Warren now says that she isn’t a person of color, then she lied when she previously claimed to be Cherokee.

This issue isn’t a partisan issue. Even Democrats should be able to tell that Warren lied previously.

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• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from The Baltimore Sun as President Trump’s defense of his very tall wall takes the form of increasingly tall tales.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, Aaron Astor explains where the shutdown is going and why.
   
• Tommy Christopher watches as an obtuse reporter continues to press Nancy Pelosi on whether she will compromise on Trump walling. Would she accept funding of even a dollar? She patiently comes up with a perfect answer.
   
• It seems my President has united America, at least on one issue. Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger does the research. Whether subdivided by age, race, gender, party, or what, polling shows all groups and subgroups say no to the Trump wall.
   
• So the Republican winner of an election in North Carolina won by stealing a truckload of absentee ballots. He wants to get seated anyway. Green Eagle has thought of a simple way to resolve the dispute.
   
• When reading anything by Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged, part of me wants to give up writing, recording, or thinking. Why bother when I can just point and go “like she says.” This time she explains her white knuckle fury at third party voters. She apologizes for being so rude. So eloquently, richly, beautifully rude.
   
• Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass reads Digby’s admiration for, and semi-endorsement of, Washington Governor Jay Inslee for President, and disagrees because Democrats depend for for victory on black women.
   
• Infidel753 has two good choices for the year gone past: one terrific triumph, one terrible loss.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post brings up a notable charity, providing desks to schoolchildren in Malawi.
   
• Max’s Dad is one of tens of millions who watched Bird Box, the blindfolded and stumbling through the wilderness movie, and he doesn’t get it. Apparently the movie is a spoiler of itself.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research finds a study on how to identify authors without regard to the words they print, instead seeing only their punctuation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara considers whether capitalist principles of supply and demand are the same as communist ability and need. He answers no. He may not realize that he misattributes his “From each according to his ability…” quote. I had some thoughts a while back.
   

 
From John Scalzi at Whatever:

I’m increasingly finding that just staring into the computer when I’m not actively writing or engaging with friends isn’t actually enjoyable or making me happy.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to do a few things, and I’m going to tell you now about three of them. The first is something I was already doing to some extent: blocking social media between 8am and noon when I’m at home and having that as my prime writing time; that is, when I’m writing the stuff I’m being paid for. The second is relieve myself of the idea that there is such a thing as multitasking, and to focus on doing on thing at a time. So, when I’m writing (say) a piece on Whatever, not to be checking Twitter or Facebook while I’m doing it, which is really easy for me to do and also really distracting.

The third is simply to ask myself “is this the best use of my time” when I’m aimlessly sitting in front of my computer. Sometimes it is! Sometimes “aimlessness” is me doing nothing in order to recharge my brain. But often it’s not. And when it’s not, I should be doing something else — reading a book or writing something or actually walking on the treadmill or making Smudge chase a red laser dot, or whatever. I do have things I want to do, that aimlessness in front of the computer isn’t helping with. I’m gonna be 50. I’m not going to regret not sitting aimlessly in front of the computer, but there will be other things I’ll regret not doing instead.

These aren’t resolutions and I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t perfectly execute them. What they are, is me tweaking my process to make me happier with how I’m spending my day-to-day life. If they work, great. If they don’t, I’ll try something else instead.

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

Yesterday CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all aired uninterrupted, 30+ minutes of Trump lying, rambling, and babbling. And then breathlessly repeated the lies and asked their powerhouse panels what they thought of the lies. And then they repeated the lies, debated the lies, and did everything but inject the lies into the veins of We The People.

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From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Back in the days of my youth, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches I attended banned their members from going to indoor and outdoor movie theaters. Their logic went something like this:

• By attending movies, you were supporting evil, immoral Hollywood.
• By attending movies, you might cause other Christians to think poorly of you. What if they saw you leaving a multiplex theater that offered G-rated and R-rated movies? They could wrongly assume that you were watching an R-rated movie and not a God-approved G-rated movie. This would lead to you having a bad testimony in the eyes of other believers.
• By attending movies, you could cause spiritually weaker Christians to stumble. If these spiritually immature believers saw you attending a movie, they would assume that it was all right for them to watch a movie too. And their spiritual immaturity could result in them watching non-G-rated movies.

This same logic was applied to watching television and eating in restaurants that served the Devil’s brew, alcohol.

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From Iron Knee at Political Irony:

I was pleasantly surprised by Elizabeth Warren’s policy announcement.

Yes, I know that this was done in the context of announcing her formation of an presidential exploratory committee, but let’s ignore for a moment whether or not she would make a good president (I’ve seen more than enough of that, given that it mostly consists of name calling).

Ironically, Warren is essentially a defender of capitalism to me. Like Warren, I am a “capitalist to my bones” (I’ve started a number of companies and served as a CEO). But unlike the far right and some large corporations, I understand the important role that government plays in supporting free capitalism. For example, Warren and I agree that monopolies are an anathema to vibrant capitalism. Free competition is destroyed by companies that are “too big to fail” (and, as Warren put it, “too big to jail”).

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From The Onion:

In a year where cruelty, deception, and unfettered corruption controlled all three branches of the U.S. government, The Onion’s flawless reportage and above-reproach journalism in 2018 exposed the dark underbelly of society and provided a beacon of hope that human civilization would finally and mercifully come to an end soon. Here, then, are the landmark moments of the year as reported with singular veracity by America’s Finest News Source.

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