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My dentist said he needed a hand like this...
3,525 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 3525 Newer› Newest»Loving the coverage of the march, especially the signs. Of course, some of them were cerebral enough that Trumpsters would need an explanation. Comments section is the usual cesspool, including one genius stating that if scientists are going to "get political," all science funding should be eliminated.
NP, in answer to your question: much better. X-Rays confirm a healed collarbone, and antibiotics seem to have done their job on the abdominal abscesses. I hope to be done with hospitals for quite some time.
Hi, Boodle! Glad to see you're still around. Hope to see you at the regular place soon.
Jim19 in L.A.
R-mom, it's good to read your encouraging news. Hope it keeps up.
Hi, Jim!
Here is a picture from the Pittsburgh march, taken by a friend.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwM05XMI0YySUXdLVjZOdXpaRE0/view
I should have done a how-to video or slide show. A clump of bromeliads between the trunk of an oak and the neighbor's chain-link fence had grown out of control and was messily covered with leaves.
It merely took a shovel to dislodge everything and surprisingly little time to tear the clump apart, save the modest root system with some good rosettes, set aside a few more for propagation (i.e. leave to sit around until a bit better looking), rake up leftovers and unwanted leaves, and put the remnant of the clump and one additional rosette back in place. Much tidier now.
A whole bed needs the same treatment.
And now to rescue some rain lilies that need space.
Raysmom, I'm so glad you're doing better! That was a long, unpleasant stint, and let's hope you're done with all that. No more hospitals!
gmbka, that's a really good picture. I love reading all the signs.
dotc, I expect that all the plants in your garden perk up when you step out there. "Oh boy oh boy, he's coming to do something!" and then the lucky one smirks at all the others. "MY turn!"
This is the best line from Joel's article on the Science March:
At times, the lines to get through the event’s security checkpoints stretched for several blocks. The advanced technologies known as the umbrella and the rain poncho proved useful. The program ran so precisely on schedule, you would think it had been timed with an atomic clock. People danced when Thomas Dolby took the stage to perform his 1982 blockbuster hit “She Blinded Me With Science.”
I will vouch for all the things in that paragraph. When I heard them playing "Blinded With Science", I thought it was a little too on the nose, unaware that it was a live performance.
Also:
As it happens, the National Math Festival is also in Washington — so there’s an unusual number of people in town who can recite pi to more than five digits.
A very strange day yesterday. I opened the door to see a strange guy outside. He had a look on his face like he was either going to kill me or himself. I asked him some gentle questions. He said he was from Liberia.
All the while I was loading my truck with 2 TVs, a computer monitor, two fried laptops, my old cannibalized desktop tower, and two never-used 13-year-old tower PCs fit for not much more than XP or some basic tasks; tasks I have no need for. I was headed for the recycling place where people who will either know a use, or recycle the parts. All the hard drives I retained just for prudence, except the good towers I never even cranked up in the 4 years or so I've had them.
Although I insisted these were junk, Preston of Liberia took interest. I thought he might make $20 each on the PCs and so he talked me into stashing them in the abandoned house across the street. He told me he couldn't stay with his father anymore. He said he had messed up his mind on cocaine and lost his job. He said he was 25 and read on a 4th grade level. I offered him $20 but he refused it.
I told him I have an awful job, and no real work for him. I mentioned some people find a home in the church but he said he was unchurched. I told him I had to do some other stuff. I thought I heard him outside and later opened the door to find him on my steps, startling me. He seemed to be crying but denied it when I asked. I told him the cocaine was not good for his spirit and it takes some time to recover,and that he must maintain his spirit as he was the best to do that.
I had made a delicious smoothie with fruit and frozen peach yogurt but he declined to drink or taste from the glassful I gave him. I gave him icewater and said I had to ask him to leave. I need sun treatment for a skin ailment which has me crippled these days, the details of which are TMI for friends, not to mention this guy. He wandered off, finally. The nude sunbathing was definitely not going to happen, I'll tell you what.
All this makes me feel like a jerk, and freaked out, and I did NOT want to put the cops on him.
Bailey, whom I filled in on this, told me he had parked himself on the corner 100 yards up from our cul-de-sac. It rained overnight.
Happy Shakespeare's birthday, everyone! He was born 453 years ago.
In the interest of Canadian/American relations, the Post today is a column about a memorial in DC to the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 which demilitarized, with minor exceptions, the Great Lakes boundary between Canada and America. The column starts with a very embarrassing anecdote for the U.S. regarding the agreement:
On April 29, 1935, two U.S. generals testified before the House Military Committee about the country’s war plans.
The committee was meeting in executive session, so the comments were supposed to be classified. But the testimony was inadvertently published, which is how people learned that in the event of war in Europe, there were plans for the United States to seize British- and French-administered islands in the West Indies and to build secret air bases on the Great Lakes.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was livid. As a writer for the Evening Star put it: “The worst of it was that the Canadian government requested an explanation almost at the very moment that Undersecretary of State [William] Phillips was unveiling a tablet here commemorating the signing, 118 years ago, of the Rush-Bagot agreement, whereby the United States and Canada agreed never to militarize their frontiers.”
In fact, one of the very people who had attended the memorial’s dedication — Hume Wrong of the Canadian Legation — had also visited the State Department to request “whatever documents have been given the press that formed the basis of press stories” about the clandestine airfields.
Awkward, eh?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/good-treaties-make-good-neighbors-just-ask-the-canadians/2017/04/22/3909b3b8-25cf-11e7-bb9d-8cd6118e1409_story.html?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-columnists%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.a215579616ae
pj!!! How ya feelin' these days? How was the tour? Sublime music and delicious food, I hope.
gmbka, did you know him? I think dementia must be the worst way to live the last years of life (as the deceased's op-ed linked in the obit indicates):
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/obituaries/2017/04/22/Nathan-Hershey-pittsburgh-health-law-expert-dying-on-own-terms/stories/201704200189
The trip went well, NP, outside of some delayed jet lag, which gmbka thought was the case. Superb music and some very tasty food, indeed. We lucked out with good weather, too. I think the next trip is to London in the late fall.
I'm feeling well. I'm supposed to go to the hospital for a few days this week while they try a new medicine on me. They want to administer it in the hospital in case of a bad reaction. Like hair growing on my palms or something like that. I hope this new drug works.
Raysmom, very glad to hear you are healed. pj, hope the new drug does what it needs to do. Jumper, you handled that poor soul with empathy but I hope he goes on his way now.
It's sunny (!) and not cold so I was in the yard cleaning up and dividing a few perennials. Really too early to do much more and way too early to plant anything but lettuce and grass seed. I'm also a chicken since I had lyme disease two years ago. I spray myself and check very carefully for ticks because I do not want to ever feel as crummy as that again.
The Mexican border is notably militarized, with vast installations in San Antonio, near El Paso, Arizona (Fort Huachuca), and San Diego. I'm not aware of anything equivalent on the other side.
London? I have 3 nights there in June. Two plays and a musical booked.
It's Macron and LePen in the French Presidential runoff election, in two weeks.
In other European news, I heard this program, hosted by Owen Bennett ("I don't need no steenkin' microphone!") Jones TWICE on BBC recently, and recommend it highly, although that Hungarian nationalist on the panel scares the spit out of me:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04zvr2j
Distressing how the name "Soros" has become such anathema, due to the combined forces of European nationalist and American populist propaganda.
Am so-o-o frenvious of pj and Dave's peregrinations :-)
London should be lovely in June, Dave. Crowded, I'm sure, but you will have lots of daylight. It may still be dusk when you get out of the plays. It seems like Europeans usually start concerts and plays earlier in the evening that we do. Enjoy your trip!
Dave, perhaps now's the time to start researching which type(s) of British cheese you plan to bring back with you from the UK. I'm sure they're all available for sale in London. One interesting kind is Blue Cheshire (YMMV):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_cheese
Will you be there during the official 91st birthday celebration for QE II (her actual bday was this past Friday, however)?
If I were in London in June, my number one visit would be Kew Gardens. Maybe twice, it's a big place. I'm not much for High Culture.
Jim19 in L.A.
For cheese, Neals Yard seems to be the place.
Kew is across the Thames from Syon House, an 18th century interior extravaganza that I've never seen. I will be the weekend before the Queen's Birthday.
Will be seeing Barbershop Chronicles the NT, Woyzeck at the Old Vic and The Braille Legacy at the Charing Cross Theatre.
Jumper, psorasis is like that, so are a few other awkward skin critters. That does sound like a strange encounter vaguely like the boy that had fallen in the river by my house.
Glad you were kind enough to give him something, but he probably needs a halfway house more than he needs to sell junked computers or squat in an abandoned house.
I think if he comes by again, I would recommend contacting your local community's social services (public health or a safe house might be a good place to ask about such contacts, if you can't find it in your local phone book.) I agree that the police was not the ones to call, as no crime had occurred at that point.
Sorry, that was from moi, Haikucule Poirot.
I enjoyed the March for Science, although it's not getting as much coverage as it merits, it's certainly been a nerdfest and that alone is affirming. :)
Whenever I read the phrase "Kew Gardens," I'm always reminded of the verses about it in "The Barrel Organ"
http://www.bartleby.com/103/117.html
One advantage of royalty and an established church is more holidays. Queen's Birthday, Good Friday, Easter Monday. And Christmas, but we have that, too, without the established church. The disadvantages are also clear.
Jim19 in L.A.
France almost voted for an election between a Fascist and a Communist, like the 1930s, but managed to avoid that.
Jim19 in L.A.
Add Boxing Day to that list, Jim. When we were in London in the '70s, it was harder to find things to do and places to eat on Boxing Day than on Christmas.
Joel's had a busy weekend. Science and figuring out what the Administration intends to do, or not, with dreamers.
E.J. Dionne, "Sessions’s aloha-baiting could bring attention to the real problem":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sessionss-aloha-baiting-could-bring-attention-to-the-real-problem/2017/04/23/7f5e6e40-26d2-11e7-b503-9d616bd5a305_story.html
Sessions' Aloha-state "dog whistle" was the shameful equivalent of Trump's bogus accusation that Judge Gonzalo Curiel is a Mexican, except without Sessions explicitly stating Judge Watson's racial background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Watson
IOW, Sessions is still an unreconstructed (see what I did there?) sneaky white racist.
The New Yorker has an investigative story on Steve Bannon by Connie Bruck. Quite a lively life, from not exactly being a movie mogul, Biosphere 2 (his brother still works there), to not wanting his kids to go to school with Jews.
I just threw up a little bit in my mouth:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/04/24/trump-boasts-of-highest-tv-ratings-since-the-world-trade-center-came-down
...“It's the highest for 'Face the Nation' or as I call it, 'Deface the Nation,' " Trump told the AP's Julie Pace, referring to the CBS News Sunday political talk show. “It's the highest for 'Deface the Nation' since the World Trade Center — since the World Trade Center came down”...
"The End of Second Languages Is Near":
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/28/the-end-of-second-languages-is-near.html
...Think of the dozens of languages available with Google’s translation tool, or the multiple apps that can translate signs, menus, and text in real time by using the camera on a smart device...
Have you seen what a poor job Google Translate still does on all but the most basic tasks, and sometimes not even on those?
Joel expressing, um, the trumpishness of the situation. Going to Mars.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/04/24/trump-wants-nasa-to-send-humans-to-mars-pronto-by-his-second-term-at-worst/?utm_term=.7d3efb980b68
Thanks for the newest Achenbach article! His keyboard must be smoking after this weekend.
I heard about Peggy Wilson, astronaut eplaining how she drnks her own pee (after filtering) and that Trump lied cold in response-- "better you than me."
In other news, Gorka had a bad day today. He was not kow-towed to, and fled some questions by students about anti-muslim rhetoric.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gorka-storms-out-of-georgetown-panel-after-tough-student-questions
I want to see him fall, publicly. You know he has a book out? I flipped throught it in my library and he is endorsing massive arming and militia action against these dang muslims, as well as a lot of overall ISIS paranoia, and he's pretty much tied to Nazism via his Hungarian background.
He should not be in the employ of our government in any means.
HP and Mr. Hastings.
The Bolivarian government of Venezuela is busy arming militias, some with weapons that can shoot down helicopters (Miami Herald).
If Paris has groups of police and soldiers with automatic weapons, perhaps the norm in the US will be civilians with pistols.
It is Spring
Spring lets her blue ribbon
Flutter in the breeze again;
Sweet, familiar scents
Drift with promise o'er the land.
Violets lie dreaming now,
Soon to be awakened.
—Listen, the sound of a harp,
so faint from so far!
Spring, it is you!
I can hear you coming!
Eduard Mörike 1829
Translation: Charles L. Cingolani
Calypso, thanks for posting the timely poem!
I looked up the original online, then out of morbid curiosity ran it through Google Translate. The result leaves *cough* *cough* something to be desired:
Spring lets its blue ribbon
Again, fluttering through the air;
Sweet, well-known fragrances
Strips know the country.
Violets already dream,
Want to come balde.
- Listen, from afar, a low sound!
Spring, yes you are!
I heard you!
THat's actually not bad for a literal machine translation, except for "balde" With line breaks and no punctuation guides, it's not gonna be good at rearranging syntax, so it's staying literal.
Gmbka, the students were studying for finals. I'm sure some care a lot, but a lot of people said right off when the March for Science was scheduled that it would interfere with studying for final exams and hurt turnout.
I wonder if there is any chance the comments can be ordered so newest is first? When I type comments, I can't really see the latest comments. :).
HP,
on my way there I saw students partying on the front lawn of their rented houses. I still can hear the generation of my parents saying "I don't understand the kids". That's the place where I am now.
Calypso,
this one of the few poems I still know by heart and love. "Spring, it is you, I can hear you". It's a poem full of hope and anticipation.
Something else on my mind: the eagerness of the Arkansas government to kill is revolting.
Have a good day everybody.
Since we don't listen to/watch lunatic radio or TV, I had no idea of this until today.
"Chobani sues Alex Jones, saying he falsely linked company to child rape, tuberculosis":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/25/chobani-sues-alex-jones-saying-he-falsely-linked-company-to-child-rape-tuberculosis
Interestingly, not a single comment thus far (out of 194 and counting) in defense of Jones. Guess even Putin doesn't think he merits support from Russian trolls.
He'll always be a young 'un in my book ;-) "NPR’s Robert Siegel set to leave ‘All Things Considered’":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/04/25/nprs-robert-siegel-set-to-leave-all-things-considered
Perhaps he'd consider joining the panelist pool on Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me.
Hey, who doesn't LIKE Chobani yogurt? IT tastes good, and well if that stuff is false, he should go down for ruining a good creamy spoonful of yogurt with his craziness.
The ones who believed Alex Jones probably are busy dying from amoebic dysentery. (Oregon Trail video game joke.)
I am still waiting for the boodle-eulogy.
At last someone is taking on the Evil Empire to our north and their economic abuses of the poor little United States.
HF -- it's all those toques they wear! After all, can you REALLY trust someone who eats all that maple syrup? And what do they ACTUALLY mean when they say, "Eh"? Yes, I'm glad that big mean nasty Canada isn't going to be pushing the US around any more!
*facedesk*
As to Jim's remark about holidays in the UK, The Federal Republic of Germany has up to 13 public holidays, depending on the state, but at least 9. That in addition to the usual 4 weeks of vacation makes for a bearable working life.
That "fat-cats" were willing to pay Obama 400 K for a speech about health insurance, not bad at all. :-)
It's now possible to grow artichokes commercially in Florida, tricking the plants into thinking it's a California winter with a plant growth substance, gibberelic acid.
http://www.floridatrend.com/public/userfiles/news/pdfs/HS128900-globe-artichokes.pdf
Somehow, it seems easier just to grow them in California.
Obama's high-priced speech seems exactly what generous presidential pensions were intended to do away with.
In the future he probably will make the money for us, the taxpayers.
"But that $400,000 could quickly disappear under the proposed law, which cuts the pension and expense payments by a dollar for every dollar that a former president earns above $400,000. So taxpayers are off the hook entirely once a president earns $800,000 a year."
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/20/news/obama-pension/
Especially for Poirot. Daniel Drezner, "I have a clarifying question for Dr. Sebastian Gorka":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/04/26/i-ha?utm_term=.760ed343708d
... it would be nice to know what you actually do at the White House the next time you say something that sparks controversy (and let’s be honest here, with your track record we know that’s going to happen). Surely you would not violate any confidences by telling us about your day-job. Inquiring minds want to know!!...
I have (unfounded) suspicions about Bannon, Gorka, and the like. They're going to end up tossed aside like those small businesses that did a job for Trump, and are then tossed aside once they weren't useful to Bigly. The obvious difference is those small businesses actually did something productive, unlike the idiot bomb throwers. And I can only hope all their 'efforts' result in no payday like those unfortunate business folk.
Oh, we all HAVE gone to Google and taken a look at the Cassini-inspired doodle, haven't we? It is delightful!
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#spf=1
Reading the comments so far. Yeah, Gorka et al. are useful tools. I do wonder what work they actually do, though.
The latest March of Science strand on rainbow clouds (fire rainbows) has me remembering how hard clouds can be. The Weather Channel video is purty though, and I suspect this will be repeated on TV news in the next couple days.
https://weather.com/news/news/iridescent-cloud-ocho-rios-jamaica?cm_ven=fb_wx_AN_42617_1
"When and how can Trump pardon Michael Flynn?":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/04/27/might-as-well-jump-into-this-when-and-how-can-trump-pardon-michael-flynn
...the crimes would have to be federal crimes or crimes committed in the District of Columbia...
Were Trump to pardon Flynn at this point, it would also be a breach of guidelines set by the Department of Justice, which sets timelines and procedures that Trump would be sidestepping. Not to mention the political cost. Should Trump pardon Flynn, it would immediately increase the amount of attention paid to Flynn’s ties to Russia and raise strong questions about Trump’s desire to avoid having those ties adjudicated in public...
Salient reader comment:
marentz 12:27 PM EST
Mercifully Eric Schneiderman, the NY AG is working on RICO charges for the State of NY, and if even one is proven, Trump is gone.
Trump can't pardon state charges, and he goes to jail same as everyone else.
Samantha Bee on Gorka:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=398HJb0_PFg
I take it there's no word on another kit anytime soon?
Vukovar
"People Are Trolling Trump's New Anti-Immigrant Hotline With Reports Of Space Aliens And The Government Is Not Amused."
Well, I find this amusing. Have a good Friday everybody.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/briannasacks/people-bombarded-trumps-new-criminal-alien-hotline-with?utm_term=.wlQKdXkRk#.dq6v3JZAZ
Morning Vuko.
I hope we've stopped by Google for a moment to admire their new sketch -- which is no doubt in honor of ALL makers of dairy products.
I am missing the mice enjoying the cheese.
Oh-la-la, Camembert! Equally important, I wonder who created the baguette (information probably lost in the mists of culinary history). Clearly I need lunch, stat!
You mean a bagget, as one clerk informed me after I unsuccessfully asked for one and then pointed to it.
"The Armenian genocide is still being denied: 'This human tragedy has been allowed to be treated as a debate rather than actual history'":
http://www.salon.com/2017/04/26/the-armenian-genocide-is-still-being-denied-this-human-tragedy-has-been-allowed-to-be-treated-as-a-debate-rather-than-actual-history
What if, back in the ’90s, the U.S. State Department had leaned on Steven Spielberg and asked him to not make his movie “Schindler’s List” because it would upset our NATO ally Germany?...
There was no good way for the Germans to deny the holocaust, too many witnesses. But the Turks enjoy the luxury of denial, to their detriment.
The Turks recently tried unsuccessfully to lean on several European governments, who for one reason or another denied Erdogan to campaign in their countries for the new constitution. These days too many countries lead by megalomaniac politicians.
I'm desperately hoping that LePen loses the French run-off Bigly.
In some ways the Boodle has been rude to Joel. It is his house, and the barking at strangers has always occurred with too little provocation, I think, and the carving out of our space there has stymied some things the management wants from the comments, and likely some of those things Joel wants too. Such as ongoing dialog on the topics he thoughtfully presents.
And he is thoughtful. I get a kick out of almost every post of his. I used to have my own rule that I'd comment on the topic before wandering off into the cocktail party, (which truly can be delightful and highly educational too.) Many of the regulars will opine on the topic at hand, and they are the best of the whole deal.
All I'm saying is look at it from Joel's POV. Whole kits going by with zero or maybe one comment relating to what he had to say. Sad!
I can't think of any way to change this except to mention it.
Or maybe I'm full of gas and he's merely started a new book. Not sad!
Jumper, your points are on target.
I'd add that the Post's principal agenda for everything they offer is unique visitor traffic, with concomitant ad revenues. These seem to have declined on the Achenblog in recent years, especially since it stopped being listed on the WaPo homepage (which blessedly kept out most trolls, but also reduced visitorship).
Obviously Hax garners massive unique clicks on both her columns and online chats. Petri's are larger than the Achenblog. And as Weingarten observed at the end of Tuesday's chat re his recently-reinstated weekly online chats (upped from the monthly schedule since his retirement):
See you here next week. And I keep saying this, and will keep on: I'm here every week so long as you all keep showing up in the numbers you have. [my emphasis]
I've noticed, however, that some Post chat hosts are cancelling part of the time (Eugene Robinson and Monica Hesse in particular), while with the departure of Chris Cillizza "The Fix" is down to once a week (I fondly recall ca. 2008 when it seemed there was a different Post political reporter chatting with us every weekday).
The harsh reality, I suspect, is that it's all about the eyeballs, and the Benjamins they generate. I'm sorry to be so cynical, but the reality is that the Post is a for-profit enterprise. I don't know whether the Achenblog can be saved, but the best option I can see is like on Hax's column, where "Off-Topic" can be selected as an option.
Jumper, you are right, this could be a possibility.
Spicer accidentally tells truth:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/white-house-denies-any-ties-to-united-states?
Besides Weingarten's plea (cited above), I also drew my inference re WaPo eyeball-attacting concerns from the "Style Invitational Week 1223: WaPo again seeks to mislead public!" which I sense is a gentle push-back against the increase in clickbait headlines online in general, and even (or especially?) at the Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/style-invitational-washington-post-again-seeks-to-mislead-public/2017/04/13/a4580ccc-1ea0-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84_story.html
I didn't enter, but if there had been a recipe for mashed potatoes in the Post food section during the April 13-24 window, I'd have submitted this headline: "Idahoans skinned, boiled, whipped, salt dumped in wounds."
Joel's reply to me was that he is really busy doing what his bosses want him to do, and that the blog is not on their radar. No indication that he's disappointed in the comments or anything. If I knew who his bosses are, I'd email them. I do despair a bit for a new Kit at this point, but maybe he'll get a breather soon. Others can try emailing him if they like.
seasea
I had a conversation with Joel at a book signing or something a few years ago and he mentioned that in the WaPo org chart, the person he reports to is not the person in charge of blogs so it is not an internal priority. He recognized that eventually the Achenblog would eventually be put out to pasture but was being allowed to be kept on for sentimental reasons.
Joel has always referred to the Boodle as an emergent phenomenon which was independent of his writing. He was always being too modest in that respect. His writing attracted a certain set of people and it created a virtuous circle.
The Boodle itself has fractured and replicated onto the backboodle, Facebook, Twitter, other WaPo blogs, and now Jumper's Bunker. Wherever two or more boodlers gather the Achenboodle lives.
Thanks for the comments on the fate of the Boodle. It seems somewhat like navel gazing, but indicates continued interest in the Achenblog. Hope JA has a few minutes to create a new one -- if you have one written, I would be surprised if posting it would take very long, which suggests their absence is the result of more than the effort involved.
That was from Jim19
We just voted in the town election. One of the candidates for selectman is a mini-drumpf which has brought out both sides. I saw a sticker on a pick-up in the parking lot - EPA with a red slash through it. I wish I could have asked the truck owner what exactly is it that he doesn't like about clean air.
Loved your comments about the boodle, yello.
Yard work and cleaning the porch for summer are my chores for today.
Sneaks
Here it is still leaves, weeding, fertilizing and putting some seeds down. I am not ungrateful for the rain that set in because my back started complaining about all the bending. My back and I are in complete disagreement about the pleasures of gardening, sigh.
Happy news - the mini-drumpf candidate lost badly and the two women that we voted for won! I have regained a bit of faith in my town tonight.
Porch is half cleaned. It should go better tomorrow when the weather is cooler. Great turnout in DC today for the march!
Sneaks
Yello, you're right. I would credit TBG with starting the boodle porching hours, as well. I think people are often politer to people that they know actually do exist and are not bots.
I once sent a person from a dog training list there (there was some kind of dialogue going on I thought she would have helpful feedback on.) She said, "that's a weird place, everybody seems to know each other there."
And that's exactly it. An online Cheers.
HP and Mr. Hastings, the latter who has already excused himself to be on guard against nocturnal hoppers.
My sister and I were driving to a birthday party and we discussed elections. I mentioned voting machines and went on to say "but what really drives me crazy is..." and she interrupted me and said "The machines can't be hacked; they aren't hooked up to the internet." What I was going to say is, people who say "The machines can't be hacked; they aren't hooked up to the internet" drive me crazy. So I started telling her about Stuxnet and the Iranian centrifuges, and she started on about "me and my conspiracy theories on the internet." She literally thought my story of the Stuxnet hack was crazy talk.
Jumper, I don't doubt what you are saying, but I do not understand how a virus can get into computers when they are not hooked up to the net.
Gmbka, it takes some work, but it can be done. Let's take stuxnet... but the Chinese did something similar to get into the DoD secret net, and is why USB storage can't be used on DoD computers. Anyway, I digress... stuxnet was floating free on the interwebs, Basically doing nothing. Some Iranian scientist downloaded something on to portable media, and stuxnet came along for the ride. When the stuxnet virus was connected to a network with the right controllers and the right conditions, it activated and sent the connected centrifuges spinning out of control. So, that network was not connected to the internet, but the human in the loop acted as a bridge.
The part that has been admitted is "accidentally lost" thumb drives techies find and can't resist examining. These may be custom-made, with special chips which act just like normal thumb drives but carry hidden instructions or data. There are other backdoors not well-publicized such as "sleeper" chips hidden in common peripherals which "wake up" when our government - or another - or an industrial supplier - includes certain strings in otherwise benign-looking data.
Whew, what a weekend! Two days of galley proofreading, with just a few hours off to watch hockey, and a nap just now after finishing.
Meanwhile, the Cheeto-in-Chief's pandering to his base continues. "Trump administration still considering how to make it easier to sue the media, Priebus says":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/30/trump-administration-still-considering-how-to-make-it-easier-to-sue-the-media-priebus-says/
Trump has threatened legal action against news organizations before. As a candidate, he warned that he would sue the New York Times after the newspaper printed stories about unwanted sexual advances Trump was accused of making toward several women.
However, the truth is a complete defense against defamation allegations.* Thus Trump's taped admission of p***y-grabbing would likely cause any lawsuit he might file against media for reporting his sexual harassment of women to be dismissed.
* I vaguely recall a single case in Massachusetts where the truth wasn't enough, but wonder if it's just an outlier. But the SCOTUS justices of all political stripes tend to back the 1st Amendment. Certainly with SLAPP [Strategic lawsuit against public participation] suits, that's key to getting them tossed by lower courts.
As to computers not connected to the Internet being infected by a virus, a human bridge could possibly be bought.
Thanks for the explanation. My previous post disappeared.
"Sources: Sebastian Gorka to leave White House":
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/30/politics/gorka-leaving-white-house/
...One senior administration official said Gorka is expected to find an opportunity outside the White House soon. Another said it's possible he would take another job in the administration, but added it's more likely he will leave altogether. That official said Gorka was simply generating too much controversy for the White House...
The five types of tee shirts you see at a Southern Rock festival:
1. Harley-Davidson. You'd think they were the festival sponsor. Like every imaginable type of Harley.
2. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The were the headliners so plenty of people were showing their loyalty.
3. Confederate flags. It's not so much the quantity as that the few there are really stand out.
4. Tropical bars. Souvenir shirts from any place that sells booze near a body of water. Being in Maryland, Ocean City was best represented but the Outer Banks and the Keys also made strong showings.
5. Other bands. Lower-billed Outlaws were way behind Skynyrd but all sorts of bands were represented. Rolling Stones, Misfits, country artists, Indigo Girls. Anything goes.
That's my summary report from my anthropological expedition into the habitat of rednekkus Americanus.
Jim19 posts...
Not a lot of Schubert chamber music, eh?
Jim, I'm consoled that in another 15-20 years the jkts will be old farts like us ;-)
Re "accidentally lost" thumb drives: I recall a news story a few years ago about computer attackers having thumb drives printed with the logo of the company or agency they want to breach, then loading viruses or whatever onto the drives and strewing some in the employee parking lot. The human-engineering theory was that some employees would spot and pick them up, assume they were legitimate workplace drives, insert them in their work computers, and voilà !
I think the jkts are not going to slow down their cultural activities too much even 25 years from now-- as long as they can drive and get out of the house, they will, and that will keep them young for their age.
I compiled a LOT of science book reading ideas for my imaginary nightstand of books to read.
If anybody has suggestions for some new math books, I'm open to these. I have read "How to Bake Pi" by Eugenia CHang and "Things to do and make in the 4th Dimensions" by a british bloke who calls himself a stand-up mathematican, which is pretty funny (and with a lot of activity suggestions) and explains a LOT of stuff like how credit card verification and encryption works (hint: prime numbers.) and many other things.
Right now I am reading "The Book that Changed America" about how Darwin's The Origin of Species was received by various Americans (hint: abolitionists saw in it proof that humans might be all the same species, just diverse, and that slavery was a horrendous evil. Others saw different lessons.)
Mr. Hastings wishes to mention he would like to be out and about as much as the jkts, but probably not at rock concerts.
Haikucule Poirot.
I always expected still to be healthy and vigorous at this age, given my pantheon of healthful habits. Unfortunately, disease intervened. Sometimes life sucks, and all one can do is try to see the glass as half full, and adapt in order not to lose more.
As the principal specialist treating me at the time observed, if I hadn't led such a healthful lifestyle for so long, I most likely would have died from my illness, but at least I had a reservoir of good physical condition to keep me alive while I recovered (as much as possible). I never imagined this could happen to me, until it did :-(
NP, Try being tired and brain foggy in your 20's like I was. SIGH. Sometimes it is just discouraging in retrospect to think I did so well recovering only to slide down the ladder again in a different way,and not get diagnosed. Life's not all about eating right; genetics, infections, and environmental insults all play a role.
HP, you're right that even when people try to take the best possible care of their health, *spit* can still happen for reasons having nothing to do with a healthful lifestyle. And I agree, it's discouraging.
My doctor's point was that if by midlife I'd instead had a long history of not taking good care of my health (not only diet but also exercise, refraining from *substances* and not taking dangerous risks), my illness would likely have been fatal. Even so, it took a couple years to make my maximum partial recovery, and a full return to my former physical powers was not a realistic prospect.
Don't get me started on all the well-meaning folks (not to mention snarky folks pretending to be well-meaning, who had no grasp of the severity of my illness) who'd say, "Nosy, you really need to try [this or that facile approach]," as though my doctors and I hadn't thought of it and either discarded the idea as inappropriate to the situation, or I'd tried it but it didn't work. Then there were folks who'd obviously never had such a serious illness, so assumed I must be slacking off, or angling for attention. I could write a whole Hax column on these people.
HP, you and I are lucky in that we've survived a while longer against considerable odds, have our intellects intact, and are even able to write articulately (a skill I lost the ability to do well for months). Glass half full.
Back to "accidentally lost" thumb drives: Our company IT department held a training program for several of us who needed a certification. This particular trick was mentioned, and they were threatening to drop their own "infected" drives in our lots. It'd have some code that did nothing harmful, but did "phone home". Never heard if they did it. The "correct" protocol was to take the thumb drive to Security. I don't know about everyone else's office security team, but ours were about the least tech savvy crew in the building. We expressed how little faith that they'd know what to do, to which our instructor sighed and said "yeah, we're going to have to do some training for them too."
Is it possible to run an anti-virus program on a thumb drive?
Preferably on an "empty" computer?
Yes, but virus detection is pretty limited in this case. Virus detectors work on a library of things they've seen before. So something targeted and new is going to bypass it entirely. And the big problem with USB in particular is they have an auto execute capability. So plug it in, and the program will execute itself.
Ah, NP. Everybody with a chronic illness could write a book on these people.
Yes, that does make a difference if it's multisystematic disease. Livers are important to take care of, they're a valuable detox organ, and kidneys, too, etc.
Just commenting that sometimes pre-existing health makes no difference whatsoever, in that all that really is not as under people's control as people want to believe.
I actually did not write that well for a while when I was quite ill, and what I did write was rambling and depressed.
Anyway, Mr. Hastings takes his safeguarding duty rather seriously in that regard, so I am happy to have him helping out.
Gmbka, you can scan the thumb drive with an antivirus program, but the problem is that if the drive is set to execute a program when plugged in it renders the option to scan it as useless. There are ways to prevent that from happening; if you let me know the operating system I can post the instructions.
Programs like hacksaw and switchblade were developed to take advantage of thumb drive U3 autorun partitions that were common on Sandisk thumb drives; they'd execute their payload and gather all the information from a target computer (password hashes, saved browser passwords, IP address, etc). Best advice is if you don't know the origin of the thumb drive, don't plug it in.
Vukovar
"Turn off autorun Win7" or whatever on Google gets you "how to" pretty quick. I think Microsoft has it off by default nowadays. Many computer service people keep up-to-date antivirus programs on their thumb drives. Works fine unless "the hacker" is very slick. I found a key logger on a friend's thumb drive once. I may have stumbled on a marital distrust situation. Or just sloppy users.
For yello and other theater junkies, "Tony Award nominations 2017: ‘Natasha, Pierre’ leads with 12 nods":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/05/02/tony-award-nominations-2017-natasha-pierre-leads-with-12-nominations
IIRC, the jkts saw Dear Evan Hansen in DC tryouts. Did you or other boodlers see any other 2017 nominees?
I confess to being a Hello, Dolly junkie since before it was even a musical, i.e., back when it was still *only* Thornton Wilder's great play The Matchmaker.
SCC: Hello, Dolly! (like Oklahoma! and Jeopardy!) !
More re thumb drives: I periodically receive spam emails soliciting me to order custom-imprinted thumb drives with my business logo on them, to use as promotional items. Now, I wouldn't be ordering such a product anyhow, but it got me to wondering if those thumb drives are in fact infected, and this is just another way to attack computers. This would certainly be a clever con.
NP, you need a good spam filter. I get almost none from Comcast or Gmail. Maybe someone has a recommendation.
seasea
Oh, it was in my spam filter. I was merely observing that these get emailed.
The only other new Broadway show we saw this year was "Amelie" based on the quirky French movie and starring Philippa Soo who was Tony-nominated for "Hamilton".
Amelie was basically shut out with no nominations I could find. That's a shame because the traveling gnome costume was pretty funny.
I'm gun jumping by seeing the out of town tryout for "Mean Girls" this November so I'll be rooting for that in 2018.
"Tony Nominations: 9 Biggest Snubs and Surprises":
http://variety.com/2017/legit/news/tony-nominations-2017-snubs-surprises-1202406380/
Brexit did no have a good start. The EU and Mrs May have pretty much diametrical opposite ideas how Brexit should be done. What puzzles me a bit is that Mrs May talks about "the rest of the EU", yes, the rest consists of 27 states.
Where Charlie Pierce has been the last few days:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a54870/healthcare-commodity-human-right/
seasea
SPORTS!!!
Thanks for the heads-up, sea. I missed Charlie's regular segment with Bill Littlefield on last weekend's Only a Game on NPR, as his absence was (rightly) unexplained. Glad to know he's on the mend.
How some Romance language users are finessing gendered endings on words: I just received an email with the greeting "Amig@s" -- although that doesn't work for French.
"Reconciling controversies about the ‘global warming hiatus".
The climate scientists are now more sure than ever that human action causes the warming and can explain the 14-year hiatus, just not in this abstract.
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v545/n7652/full/nature22315.html
Just discovered that the Kinetic Sculpture Race is this Saturday in Balmer. Never been before, I'm planning on seeing it this time.
The Kinetic Sculpture Race is a blast. The most entertaining place to watch it is at the Canton waterfront where they have to do the maritime portion of the race. That is where these artsy crafts really get tested.
My photos from several years back.
Thanks yello. I was thinking about doing the later Patterson Park bit with the "Pit Crew Challenge", Sand, and Mud pit. Besides it's close to the Creative Alliance where we'll be headed that night for the Bumper Jacksons show.
I enjoy the movie Amelie and remember the traveling gnome bit in it quite well. One thing abot that movie, it is so much a time capsule of 1997 that that's half the delight of the movie-- being blasted back in time, only sideways, with humor.
I think you shared some pictures with the cast, including the gnome, Yello.
Buzz is Queen has summoned all her royal staff for an emergency meeting. Maybe The Queen is asking them to plan to capture and test 45 for proof of mental illness.
Yello, I liked the Kinetic Sculpture Race a lot and really would like to see the race itself. One day that may happen.
https://ameripics.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/joe-btfsplk.jpg?w=640
Jim 19 -
Btfspkl has the same hole in his shoe as Abner. But who wants to see cartoon strips about Trump voters? Al Capp might have been against Trump, but his characters likely would have favored him.
Dave, do you know if there's anywhere in the US with a "relatively dry, sunny climate" sufficiently like Iran's that one could successfully raise saffron crocuses?
"The Secret History of the World's Priciest Spice"":
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/history-origin-of-saffron-spice-iran
A slight consolation for having insomnia this hour. Definitely kit-worthy.
Owen Bennett Jones, BBC Newshour Extra, "What's Wrong with Science?":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051b9zg
Science has changed the world - it helps us live longer and more productive lives. It helps us communicate, explore the universe, understand our planet and cure our illnesses - it's so powerful a force that it has undermined confidence in religion and challenged humans to rethink their purpose - and yet some of science's keenest advocates fear that there is a problem with science, that there is something wrong with the way it is currently practiced and this at a time when science is under attack not just from old fashioned creationists but from people opposed to vaccination, climate change deniers and those who are suspicious it servers the interest of big corporations. So, are there fundamental problems with the way science is done today? Join Owen Bennett Jones with his guests this week discussing how science can live up to its promise.
Re Saffron, I would think many places in the US qualify-- certainly Arizona offers a variety of dry climates. The problem is getting some to propagate in the first place.
What a dismal news day. Somebody pointed me to Louise Mensch and she is saying arrests any day now for the White House Gang. I sure would like to think so.
By the way, Saffron is grown in Pennsylvania! This site as tips on growing your own saffron with caveats. http://www.gardensalive.com/product/grow-your-own-saffron/you_bet_your_garden
https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/herbs/saffron/growing-saffron-crocus.htm
I am looking up how to use lemon leaves in tea.
The last posts (The Pup) were from Haikucule Poirot. Mr. Hastings evacuated the account to me yesterday so he could supervise some yard sales instead.
NY Times has a story about Reince Priebus being the one who pushed hard for the ACHA to be passed this week, gladhanding folks and leaning on Ryan. He's desperate to show his value, even as he stays at third banana, he's schmoozing up Kushner and Ivanka.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/us/politics/reince-priebus-health-care.html
Make of that what you will. It's been rumored that Priebus has been trying to find out what Putin has over Trump since day one, so I could see a marginal reason to do this-- but to be honest, I don't think Trump cares that much about this bill, but a "victory" and celebration to sop that big ego never goes astray. And it is close to what Ryan wanted to pass all along.
I don't see this as good at all, and I hope the rumors about sealed warrants are true and some folks are going to be arrested soon.
I feel the GOP vote amounted to depraved indifference and abuse of office, and I am keen to see some states charge these legislators, especially if pay to play was involved.
Not to worry, I suspect most (if not all) of us figured out which boodler "Pup" is :-)
Evan Osnos' latest article. "How Trump Could Get Fired / The Constitution offers two main paths for removing a President from office. How feasible are they?":
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/how-trump-could-get-fired
A Guardian piece seems a bit leery of Louise Mensch:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/30/wiktribune-experiment-will-not-address-journalisms-underlying-issues
Transcript of (and audio link to) Terry Gross' interview with Osnos on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday.
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/04/526857048/trump-s-fitness-to-serve-is-officially-part-of-the-discussion-in-congress
Amazon is planning to open a physical bookstore in DC. On M St. in Georgetown. No date set for the opening.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/05/05/amazon-to-open-a-real-live-physical-bookstore-in-d-c/?hpid=hp_local-news_amazonbookstore752pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.14ffbffecc99
NP, yep, Louise Mensch is the source of these rumors. An acquaintance is following her, but I took one gander at her twitter account and it reminded me too much of a gossipmonger I know, and I just don't want to follow that drama.
But it's nice to think it's true, right? IT SHOULD be true, therefore it MUST be. :) Confirmation bias, non?
Jumper, maybe that bookstore will be the only way we can buy printed Washington Post newspapers straight from Amazon ;). I expect it will feature heavily on WaPo authors and politics and suchlike.
It is sad that the Barnes and Noble store closed, good there's another bookstore there. Bookstores can be a surprisingly crucial element of the DC dating scene. Where else can you scope out a person's likely interests and political leanings before saying hi? (Other than stalking them on social media, I mean.)
But I must say the photo of Amazonbooks doesn't actually vibe with ye old Bookshoppe romance, although the quotes are cute. It's more like Starbucks with books.
Jim 19 writes
NYT story on measles outbreak in MN, largely among Somali immigrants, who were targeted by anti-vaxers and convinced not to vaccinate. That would be a target population likley with less scientific background than even the normal US population which is poorly educated in matters scientific. In brief, the anti-vaxers are trying to kill people, although they may not realize that. Why?
My guess is politics. Yeah, I saw a meme today of a quack who declared he felt no guilt whatsoever about scaring Somali immigrants about vaccines. We're quite upset here in MN and concerned, too.
Toward the end of a vacation whose second day started with abruptly straining something on the backside part my right knee. Driving was put off, two nights at a mountain lodge cancelled.
A highlight was a private garden whose owner ordered me to see a public one, which I did today, after an amazing streamside path in rugged limestone country with lots of stairways and even a group of innertubing tourists emerging from an underground stream.
Finally, the busy public Hamilton Garden with its gardens representing various styles and historic periods, often with architectural follies, like Japanese structure that's merely two facades, one facing a quite good sand and stone Zen garden, the other a pond. Likewise, the Italian Renaissance villa in Palladian style is a mere screen. Pass through its open door and you're on a terrace overlooking the river. Walt Disney would have been delighted.
Looked that up, Dave O' the Coonties. http://hamiltongardens.co.nz/collections/ I will be happy to peruse these photos at length after a nap.
Arnold Palmer was not an admirer of Donald Trump. In case you miss NPR's Only a Game this weekend (BTW, Charlie Pierce's segment is already back, with no mention of his gallbladder-ectomy), you might find this story re a golf writer's back-to-back encounters with Trump and Palmer enlightening:
http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/05/05/james-dodson-donald-trump-golf
..."[Trump]’s very beguilingly chummy, except for his handshake, which is sort of odd," Dodson says. "He really does want you to like him. I mean, I think understanding Trump is that simple. He wants you to like him. He wants you to feel grateful that you belong to his club."
As he took his leave, Dodson explained to the future president that he had to prepare for his trip to Latrobe."Who are you seeing there?" Trump asked. "Arnold Palmer," Dodson said. "And he smiled broadly at that," Dodson told me. "He crossed one finger over the other and he said, 'Arnold and I are like that.'"
"And I told Arnold that the next night at dinner," Dodson says, "and he laughed and said, 'Really, Shakespeare? It’s more like this.' And he crossed his hands and put them at his own throat."
Dodson thought Palmer’s gesture was pretty funny. And it was, but perhaps it wasn’t much of an overstatement. Arnold Palmer was the son of a greenskeeper. The way he saw it, golf should belong to whoever wanted to play it. As James Dodson has put it, Donald Trump celebrates golf as an "aspirational game"... [my emphases]
That's what's killed golf in the US. No matter that some very cool people love it.
I'm not too sad about the decline of the golf course, quite frankly. It's an expensive hobby to indulge in what has been called "a nice walk ruined." However, any activity that allows people to get out and walk out more and have some company is not entirely bad.
The Kushners are in for the money. In China Jared's sister is trying to raise money for a project in the US by pointing out how important her brother's position is.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/world/asia/jared-kushner-sister-nicole-meyer-china-investors.html?_r=1
"In a Beijing ballroom, Kushner family pushes $500,000 ‘investor visa’ to wealthy Chinese":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-a-beijing-ballroom-kushner-family-flogs-500000-investor-visa-to-wealthy-chinese/2017/05/06/cf711e53-eb49-4f9a-8dea-3cd836fcf287_story.html
...Journalists were initially seated at the back of the ballroom, but as the presentations got underway, a public-relations representative asked The Washington Post to leave, saying the presence of foreign reporters threatened the “stability” of the event.
At one point, organizers grabbed a reporter’s phone and backpack to try to force that person to leave. Later, as investors started leaving the ballroom, organizers physically surrounded attendees to prevent them from giving interviews.
Asked why reporters were asked to leave, a PR person who declined to identify herself said simply, “This is not the story we want.” [my emphasis]
VIVE LA FRANCE! Guess they learned from the US's mistake in 2016. Hope the size of the anti-LePen majority swells. "Centrist Macron on course to become French president after beating back populist tide, projections show":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/with-europe-on-the-line-polarized-french-voters-choose-between-macron-and-le-pen/2017/05/07/ccf8e5e2-31d9-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html
Parlez-vous français?
Quasi-conservative: http://www.lemonde.fr/
Liberal: http://www.liberation.fr/
Satire: https://charliehebdo.fr/
And now France has a 39-year old as president. I hope he's got brains and just enough wisdom and is not at least a flaming fool.
Justin Trudeau is 46, just a year younger than Obama when he was elected in 2008.
Gotta catch up on my reading before library books are due again.
Jim19 said
I like the idea that he has a 64 YO wife, and 3 of her kids, which should be a restraining influence.
Theodore Roosevelt and John Kennedy weren't that much older than Macron when they became president. I don't think age will be much of an issue.
I like the NYT maps of the French vote, which apparently are updated in realtime. (By now the totals are in and not changing.)
Nixon was still only 39 when elected VP to the elderly Ike (although he turned 40 just before the inauguration). Never thought Tricky could be electable as President. What did I know :-(
The FCC's Pai is a jackazz and John Oliver is at it again.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/08/the-fcc-says-an-attack-not-john-oliver-hampered-its-website/
HF, I left a message yesterday. Here's the access (I got there via Oliver's link):
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/proceedings?q=name:((17-108))
Choose the "+ Express" option to the right of "Restoring Internet Freedom" (ha!) listing near the top.
How's everybody doing? Same-old-same-old Chez Nez, which is always preferable to a crisis.
Enjoyed the Yates love, but if Congress is bought we won't have impeachmet. House congressmen are home, so hassle them some.
My senators are sure not to vote for the ACHA, but if anybody has a GOP senator, hassle them mightily on ACHA and impeachment.
Comey's gone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/comey-misstated-key-clinton-email-evidence-at-hearing-say-people-close-to-investigation/2017/05/09/074c1c7e-34bd-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html
As much as I think he's a blowhard... I fear he's more honest than anyone Trump will nominate.
I am with you, HF, there is not much reason to applaud. I also think that this is part of a cover-up. Mere speculation of course.
The senate would have to confirm the successor. The number 2 also met with the Trump WH. Republicans may be bought and venai, but if they have any political nose, (never mind constitutional loyalty etc as they were sworn to do), they should be smelling power-consolidation that bodes ill for THEM too.
But I think Price may be the one going down first.
I wonder why-- I mean his muzzling his employees and having a journalist arrested is probably reason enough, but I don't see many of the other cabinet members being better- look at that shameful Sessions from Georgia, after all.
Sessions also was supposed to be recused from Russia investigation and he in particular because of that recusal shouldn't have recommended Comey be fired. He should be getting burned at the same time, too. Hmm.
Mainstream media is having fit(s) over Comey's removal, looks like McConnell will block any special prosecutor, and Trump will get whitewashed. Our First Family is looking magical.
1) McConnell is leader only as long as his colleagues permit him to be. Not all of his GOP senate colleagues agree with his stance.
2) Sessions should be impeached or pressured to resign.
3) Something is bound to change sooner or later to shift the balance of power in the Senate, despite the long terms. I count on a death or two. 299 senators have died in office (average: one death every 9 months. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/299-senators-have-died-office/314670/ )
A lot of the power players in the Senate are 70+. The Koch brothers are 70+. (One is 80.) We have a 70+ year old president who is gaining weight like he wants to out Taft-President Taft. Many of the cabinet members and the AG are not young either. It is probable something will shift in the next few months. The only question is whether it will be soon enough.
There's a write-up in ZooBorns about a brand-new tiger baby at the Minnesota Zoo, and it was the first time that Mama Tiger had a baby and wasn't sure what to do. So the staff swooped in, rescued the baby, nurtured her, and then gave her back to Mama Tiger. Mama Tiger got the hang of it, everything's fine, and there's a tiger-cam to prove it: http://mnzoo.org/tigercub2017/
ZooBorns:
http://www.zooborns.com
I'm encouraged that the Senate Intelligence Committee is moving aggressively on Flynn and possible money laundering. Maybe they'll do what a muzzled FBI won't.
Sen. Angus King suggested the committee hire Comey.
Tweet from the Richard M. Nixon Library:
"FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the Director of the FBI"
*coffee spray*
Speaking of Tricky Dick, "Is Roger Stone making good on a 40-year-old grudge?":
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/10/opinions/stone-trump-comey-firing-opinion-dantonio/
Àpropos of nothing, I've never trusted Diane Sawyer as a journalist, because of her work for the Nixon administration and then his library.
The Post's political coverage is looking impressive. The opinion columnists are managing, under circumstances that could lead to silence from being flabbergasted.
PSA: Adrian Higgins is scheduled to do a live online gardening chat today during the noon hour EDT:
https://live.washingtonpost.com/gardening-0511.html
Mr. Hastings has been quite concerned today as to how I am feeling, but I prefer not to be excessively nursed while I am trying to sleep.
Phoned USDOJ, reps, senators, all on the theme of independent investigation. I'm told my senator is gathering a count of voters demanding an independent investigation and will read it on the senate floor. I also urged my rep to speak out too.
Oh, dear FSM. The snark just writes itself! "‘You have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out’: Trump targets the Navy’s new aircraft catapult":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/05/11/you-have-to-be-albert-einstein-to-figure-it-out-trump-targets-the-navys-new-aircraft-catapult
President Trump set his sights on the Navy in a new interview, calling the service’s new electromagnetic catapult to launch planes off aircraft carriers “no good” and saying that the Navy needs to go back to “goddamned steam,” the method used for decades...
Well, I certainly would depend on President Bigly's opinion as to what sort of equipment the carriers should use, so I would -- why, it's a shame they didn't consult him when they were designing the platform. in fact, I'm surprised they didn't; I certainly would expect a real estate developer and reality TV show host to be an expert on that sort of thing.
Unsurprisingly, there are a number of Scientolocultists on the list,* as well as some nobodies and a few just plain ol' bat-guano crazies. "Here's a Fairly Comprehensive List of Anti-Vaccination Celebrities":
http://jezebel.com/heres-a-fairly-comprehensive-list-of-anti-vaccination-c-1714760128?wpisrc=nl_act4&wpmm=1
Jenna Elfman,* Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Alicia Silverstone, Charlie Sheen, Kirstie Alley,* Selma Blair, Donald Trump, Rob Schneider, Miranda Bailey (who???), Erin Brockovich, Danny Masterson,* Juliette Lewis,* Bill Maher, Kristin Cavallari (who???), Esai Morales.
What a shame. We loved the earlier version."How Not to Adapt 'Anne of Green Gables'”:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/how-not-to-adapt-anne-of-green-gables
...part untrustworthy stranger, not “Anne of Green Gables” at all. It adds new dialogue, scenes, and plots; it subtracts jollity and subtlety. And it’s no documentary. It opens with a sequence that evokes “Game of Thrones”: camera sweeping over coastal terrain, strings and pounding drums, horse and rider galloping through water. Then it shifts to an illustrated indie-rock video of a title sequence, set to a song by the Tragically Hip. Message received: this is not your beloved Megan Follows series. (Don’t get me started on the new Gilbert.)...
We are past snark and into Watergate territory. Or so I believe, not having experienced the original but I believe people who say this is exacly how Watergate felt like.
More concerning is the GOP congressional leaderships' attempt to forestall this. I now want the GOP leadersip investigated for treason. Dark money, gerrymandering, policies designed to hurt Americans. This is a political coup staged by billionnaires.
Simple as that. We're gonna need a Deep Trunk (aka GOP dealings) though.
While no two situations are entirely parallel, Poirot is correct in recognizing similarities between Watergate and Trump. Unlike HP, we were already adults then, even residing inside the Beltway at the time. I had the summer off so was watching all the Senate hearings on TV, when Alexander Butterfield revealed the White House taping system to the public that fateful day (I even phoned Mr. P at work with the amazing news). I'm confident that Trump will get his just deserts, but am not yet sure when or how, as the possible scenarios are legion.
Charlie Pierce has an interesting suggestion that the Russian connection that Bigly's trying to hide has to do with money laundering.
He also has some sharp remarks about the timing -- especially in relation to the Senate Intelligence Committee's RFIs to the Treasury, and to Manafort, Flynn, Stone, and Carter Page.
On the afternoon of May 9, Bigly fired Comey. Big noise! Lots of attention! Big distraction -- maybe.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a55048/trump-russia-finances/
Has anyone heard from ftb lately? Hope she's OK. I haven't seen any comments by her on the WaPo news articles we all seem to be reading, which is uncharacteristic (unless she's taking a voluntary hiatus for the sake of her health, which would be understandable).
I'm not sure. I bet she's OK, just busy. This would seem to be a great time to be a lawyer in certain fields.
Yes, this partisan blog tracks with what I am thinking-- RICO charges-- and suggests that Ryan would be swept up too, and Hatch would have to be president once the dust settles. Not ideal, but a lot better than the options.
https://patribotics.blog/2017/05/11/sources-russia-probe-means-president-hatch-rico-case-against-gop/
It was a week ago, but the White House Chief Usher was fired.
Dave, supposedly certain of Trump's staff had issues with the chief usher (Black female), so I assumed it might be the white supremacist faction. But now, I wonder if she had suspicions re a White House recording system (or some other skeleton in Trump's closet).
Charlie Pierce echoes my own suspicions. I also suspect there's evidence somewhere that a while back Trump had a stash he was supposed to tell bankruptcy adjudicators about, and didn't.
Now would be the perfect time to come clean and to to jail. :-)
A guy in the UK slowed down the world-wide virus, by accident he said.
"The hacker, though, didn’t register the gwea.com domain name. On Friday morning, a 22-year-old UK security researcher known online as MalwareTech noticed the address in WannaCry’s code and found that it was still available. “I saw it wasn’t registered and thought, ‘I think I’ll have that,’” he says. He purchased it at NameCheap.com for $10.69, and pointed it at a “sinkhole” server in Los Angeles, hoping to gather information on the malware. “Immediately we saw 5 or 6 thousand connections a second.”
He’s been using the data to track infections in real time—so far his server has been contacted by 78,000 infected Windows machines around the world. But his tracking also shows the infection rate is slowing down. It’s too soon to say with certainty, but by answering connections from WannaCry, the UK researcher appears to be activating its self-destruct. “Completely by accident,” he says.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/12/stolen-nsa-tech-shuts-down-hospitals
Nice! I hope Trump goes down really soon, and Ryan and Pence with him as is being rumored on Claude Taylor's Twitter from "relible sources.
Yesterday's best overheard comment on Trump was to the effect of "I want him to stay in office because Pence would have a much better organized administration."
...also more ideologically conservative, and religious :-(
I pretty much concur with a column by one Erick-Woods Erickson at the NYT that Trump had excuses to fire Comey (if only he'd stuck to them), and anyway, Trump's popular with Republican voters and popular enough with Republican members of Congress (though he's not doing himself much good with them).
The extensive (and justified) concerns expressed at places like the Post mostly don't register in Trump's political world, at least not yet. It may take something extraordinary to provoke a Trump crisis: presidential ethics have been trashed, so have expectations that the government will be run competently (exclusive of the military). No one much expects Congress to adopt useful legislation, with or without presidential leadership.
Erick Erickson is (or was) the vile blogger at Redstate. He turned against Trump over the Megyn Kelly "blood coming out of her where ever" remarks. Not sure if he came back to Trump once he was the nominee. I'm sure he would never support a Democrat, much less Hillary.
NPR had a couple of Trump supporters on this morning, who maintained he "followed a process" in firing Comey and could basically do no wrong in their eyes. No pushback or fact checking from the host (Lulu Garcia Navarro). Then Mara Liasson came on to downplay hopes of impeachment from this Congress (duh). I hate to be enraged when only half awake.
In better news, Happy Mothers Day to all that are one or have one. I have some morning glories started, trying to get tomatoes and peppers going. It's still cooler than usual for May here, so very slow going. So ready for summer!
seasea
This is a very good column by Masha Gessen in the NY Review of Books, on Trump and language:
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/05/13/the-autocrats-language/
seasea
A good column indeed. The Economist described how Angela Merkel intensively prepped for meeting with Trump, figuring out how to, somehow, make an impression on him. It seems part of the secret is that he's genuinely ignorant and doesn't want to be briefed, so it's possible to delight him with basic info.
I suppose senior members of Congress might do a Trump-prep retreat. A secret one, of course.
suesea, I was thinking similar things re Trump's commencement speech yesterday at Falwell U, where he proclaimed, inter alia, “Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic." Let me translate that for you: "Anyone who criticizes ME is pathetic." Never mind all the criticism he flung at his opponents, public servants and institutions including the government, etc., during the campaign...
Then there's Trump's claim that “In America we don’t worship government, we worship God.” The government is of, by and for the people, and the guiding principle of the United States is the Constitution, which *in theory* protects non-believers as much as it does believers in Falwell's religion and other faiths.
I'm not so sure about the last bit Dave. I think the incompetence and lack of anything beyond 'No' with a sycophantic Congress will start to wear thin. But I do think this will take time before it really sinks in.
Dave, HF et alii: My hope is that Trump stays in office but thanks to the courts and Congress (especially after the 2018 elections) is rendered so administratively impotent that steam chronically comes out of his eyes, his ears, his wherever...
A piece by Joshua Kurlantzick (Council on Foreign Relations) at Bloomberg on the recent international fashion for strongmen (think Turkey, Nicaragua) notes that Trump is running such a "dysfunctional, domestically unpopular government" that he's undermining the notion that a strongman is a panacea for fixing problems.
Would an impotent Trump quit out of frustration?
Bloomberg also reports that the French wine industry was hard hit by an April 27 freeze/frost.
The last irises are fading but the bleeding hearts are still pretty happy with life and the grass absolutely adores the chilly, wet weather we've been having lately. I managed to hack down the hayfield in the back yard, and I really hope I can get the front done before the heat arrives.
I put a bunch of summer bulbs into pots -- freesia and rain lilies and whatnot -- and some of them are starting to come up. This is so exciting! I can't wait to see what they look like, in bloom.
We're in drought. I have two big boxes of caladiums to set out, eventually, and a small box of a hundred or so rain lilies, to augment a small bed.
We are having a beautiful day, aside from the fact it is in the 50s. Grass and the weeds like it too, but fortunately so do the digitalis that carry majestic flower spikes. Have a good week, everybody.
We have grass agalore here too. I had to ask a neighbor to help me mow my lawn. He refused payment and gave me some dried cranberries, I know he can't really eat these (type I diabetic) but I might be able to put them in a bread later on.
Mr. Hastings enjoyed a frolic on the lawn and is napping now. I want to do the same, too. I have a lot of gardening ahead of me-- need to put in beds.
On other news, the Guardian is breaking a story that Robert Mercer who bankrolled Trump may have had a filthy, covert hand in Brexit-- illegally so.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/14/robert-mercer-cambridge-analytica-leave-eu-referendum-brexit-campaigns?CMP=share_btn_fb
JFC, Trump may have committed treason while hosting the Russkies in the Oval Office last week.
"Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html
Also, would like to read feedback especially from Tarheel Boodlers re this.
"Supreme Court Declines Republican Bid To Revive North Carolina Voter ID Law":
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/15/528457693/supreme-court-declines-republican-bid-to-revive-north-carolina-voter-id-law
Leak city, and the Post is the bucket. Looks like the President should be given a don't-meet-with list.
It does seem that presidents are free to spill all the beans they want. It's just not a good thing to do.
With respect to the Supreme Court, just as I worried about the possibility of gunfire in crowded alleys in Paris, I assume that court security officials wonder about people wanting to speed up the consolidation of a solid conservative majority.
Comments are really pouring into the Post story. Orlando Sentinel (a Tribune paper) has picked up the Post story.
Trump was interviewed by Economist. I really tried hard to read it, but after a while I got so confused by his answers that I gave up. Maybe you have more stamina.
http://www.economist.com/Trumptranscript
According to multiple tweets, someone is projecting "Pay bribes here" and the entire text of the emoluments clause on the drumpf hotel in DC. It is a beautiful sight!
"The writing was (kind of) on the wall: ‘Pay Trump Bribes Here,’ in front of Trump Hotel":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-writing-was-on-the-wall-pay-trump-bribes-here-on-front-of-trump-hotel/2017/05/15/2e5ca7fa-39dd-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html
...The letters appeared directly above the entrance to the building. An arrow pointed toward a door of the hotel.
It was not immediately clear who projected the letters onto the walls of the landmark Washington building that was converted into a hotel.
Nor was it immediately known from where the words were projected...
Photo of projection:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pay-trump-bribes-here-protest-message-at-trumps-dc-hotel/article/2623178 (scroll down)
A commenter shared the artist's identity, Robin Bell @bellvisuals
The Miami Herald reports that Cleatus the American crocodile has been evicted from Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, and moved to Everglades National Park. The very lonely croc, a resident since 2003, had recently gotten too interested in obtaining food from park visitors.
Dave, the beauty of Robin Bell's art is that I can't think offhand of any law that's been violated, can you? At most, Trump could file a defamation lawsuit, but then he'd have to prove he hasn't been bribed (or received emoluments). Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
And on another topic, now this: "Trump acknowledges ‘facts’ shared with Russian envoys during White House meeting":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/16/trump-acknowledges-facts-shared-with-russian-envoys-during-white-house-meeting
As usual, Trump's tweet messed with the official version given by his subordinates.
Prep for the upcoming NATO meeting means 2 to 4 minute presentations to keep Trump's attention.
Trump makes me think of the oldie "Mr. Big Stuff" (no doubt there's a performance of it online):
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/jean_knight/mr_big_stuff.html
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