This has nothing to do with the prosecutor, taking her out of the role of being prosecutor. This is about violent criminals on the streets of St. Louis that cases haven’t been filed on … I wouldn’t know why anyone wouldn’t want you to come in and help try and take violent criminals off the street, no matter who you are.” Gov. Mike Parson (R-MO)
Quote II
“They’re making millions of dollars a year to play a sport you’d be playing anyway if you didn’t make … they’d be playing it on the weekends. They have to respect their country. If they don’t, frankly, if the NFL didn’t open I’d be very happy. If they don’t stand for the flag and stand strongly I’d be happier if they didn’t open. Without that and with that being said, I’d love to see them open.” President Donald Trump
Quote III
“I just wanted to tell my story. I wasn’t – I don’t want to be in this position. I’m not a political person but if I can be the voice for the families that have lost loved ones and I have made one difference for one family, then it was all worthwhile.” Janice Dean
Quote IV
“I think it’s a little late now, but we certainly would invite [the NRA] to come to Texas to avoid this in the future because if they’re in New York, it opens them up to investigation by the attorney general’s office in a way that I don’t think would happen in Texas, so I would encourage them to move as soon as they can,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
MLB Teams Explore Using Cameras to Detect Maskless Fans at Games
A California startup is in talks with some teams to help monitor face mask use in stadiums.
The baseball season has started with eerily empty stadiums, but some teams are exploring high-tech ways to verify that people in the stands are taking health precautions, a possible step toward bringing fans back.
Several Major League Baseball teams have held talks with a California startup called Airspace Systems Inc. that develops technology to detect whether people are wearing face masks, the league and the company said. The discussions focus on implementing the systems into cameras around the stadium to identify people without face coverings, with masks dangling from their chins or otherwise worn improperly.
For anyone who thinks beer can qualify as a meal, we have some non-scientific evidence to support your claim: it’s shaped like ravioli, it tastes like a soft pretzel, and it’s filled with warm, yeasty deliciousness.
It’s deep-fried beer.
The story behind this culinary triumph began more than 10 years ago at a bar in Texas, where Mark Zable and his wife were scanning another uninspired menu with the same few finger foods. Zable made an offhand comment about how the bar should offer fried beer, and the couple realized it wasn’t such a bad idea—especially for the state fair.
fter flip-flopping in the face of public opposition, the "Big Ten" on Tuesday has officially decided to postpone its football season until at least the spring semester, making the league the first of the NCAA's marquee "Big 5" conferences to implement such a plan.
It follows UConn's decision to scrap its 2020 season entirely due to issues with traveling caused by the tri-state quarantine.
Here's more from the NYT:
The decision, after weeks of announcements from smaller conferences and some individual schools that they would not play this fall, had potentially substantial implications for the rest of college sports.
The move, about five months after the virus’s threat led to the cancellation of the N.C.A.A.’s basketball tournaments, extended the greatest crisis in the history of college athletics, a multibillion-dollar industry with extraordinary cultural clout. But, by stopping short of canceling the season outright and saying that it would evaluate the possibility of playing in the spring, the league offered a lifeline for some of the nation’s most celebrated athletic brands, many of which play in the Power 5 conferences.
The Big Ten’s membership includes Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin and Maryland, among other schools.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Big Ten commissioner, Kevin Warren, said it had become “abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall."
Canceling the season entirely would have assuredly starved schools of tens of millions of dollars in football revenues that oftentimes balance budgets and underwrite lower-profile sports. Now some of that money may prove merely delayed, causing new pain on campuses but perhaps arresting a graver economic calamity for college athletics.
Rutger fans no longer have to hide in shame on Saturdays this fall.
Husband discovers wife's affair after spotting her in the act on Google Maps
A husband who recognised his wife as she got cosy with another man on a bench on Google Maps later discovered she was having an affair after he confronted her over the image
Man upset when offered free mask at Highland Park liquor store leaves $1,000 in damages
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (FOX 2) - The owner of Azzo Liquor Store in Highland Park says a man created a mess inside his store after he got turned away for not wearing a mask - and that customer disturbances over face coverings are becoming more and more common.
The most recent disturbance left about $1,000 in damages at the store.
Woman calls out husband over ‘shocking’ life decision: ‘I told him my honest feelings’
A woman is stirring controversy after calling out her husband’s supposedly “shocking” life decision.
The 24-year-old, writing under the username throwra_l8tr asked for help in Reddit’s r/relationship_advice forum. In her post, she shared the extremely unique reason she’s been fighting with her spouse.
The problem? Her husband, who’s 25, has apparently set up an “entire Taco Bell dining booth” in his home office. Many Reddit users found the issue pretty frivolous, but for throwra_l8tr, it’s a serious problem.
Apparently the toilet seat issue had previously been resolved.
A weatherman for a National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate in Tacoma has been taken off the air for a personal blog post that shows in vivid detail the destruction two months of incessant rioting and protests have wrecked on Seattle.
The NPR affiliate took issue with Cliff Mass' comparison of the destruction in Seattle to Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass" in 1938, where rioters destroyed Jewish owned stores, buildings, and houses of worship while German authorities looked on without intervention and even encouraged the violence.
So Now There’s A Dating Site Just For Anti-Maskers
Dating in the time of COVID-19 has certainly gotten…strange. While some conscientious people are abstaining from dating altogether while riding the pandemic out at home, others are merely chatting on Tinder, or going on first dates via Zoom, and some are even cautiously going about a socially distant date or two.
One might assume that anti-maskers are just going about dating as normal, but that would disregard everything we’ve seen about anti-maskers during these unprecedented times. That is, we know perfectly well they aren’t satisfied doing anything short of making a big show out of their refusal to “live in fear” or “be a sheep” or whatever ludicrous thing they’re calling showing respect towards their fellow humans this week.
McDonald's Corporation has sued former CEO Steve Easterbrook to recoup a $40 million severance package, saying the company found evidence on its email servers that Easterbrook was lying when he denied having sexual relationships with employees. Easterbrook initially fooled McDonald's by deleting emails from his phone, allowing him to get the generous severance payment despite being fired, the lawsuit against him said. But months after paying him the severance package, McDonald's checked its email servers and discovered that Easterbrook sent nude photographs of employees from his work email account, the lawsuit said.
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
Born on this day: 11 Aug 1950
Erik Braunn, guitarist from American rock bandIron Butterfly who had the 1968 US No.14 single 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida'. The band's seminal 1968 album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is among the world's 40 best-selling albums, selling more than 30 million copies. He died on 25th July 2003 aged 52. via thisdayinmusic.com
&&&
On this day: 11 Aug 1979
Led Zeppelin played their last ever UK show when they appeared at Knebworth House, England. The set list included: The Song Remains The Same, Celebration Day, Black Dog, Nobody's Fault But Mine, Over The Hills And Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop, Since I've Been Loving You, No Quarter, Hot Dog, The Rain Song, White Summer/Black Mountainside, Kashmir, Trampled Under Foot, Sick Again, Achilles' Last Stand, In The Evening, Stairway To Heaven Rock And Roll, Whole Lotta Love and Communication Breakdown. via thisdayinmusic.com
MARION COUNTY, Fla. – A Florida man who admittedly had “maybe a little too much to drink” was caught on dash camera video riding a lawn mower on a highway, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies said they caught Paul Burke, of Fort McCoy, driving the riding lawn mower in the middle of Highway 316 on Wednesday.
Video provided by the department shows Burke slurring his words and admitting that he had been drinking, although he never quantifies exactly how much he had.
A missing port worker in Beirut has been found in the Mediterranean Sea following the explosion on Aug. 4. Injured but miraculously alive, the man survived in the water for nearly 30 hours after being thrown from the port by the force of the blast.
Amin al-Zahed was admitted to the Rafic Hariri University Hospital in Beirut after a sea rescue team found him and pulled him into their boat, Al Arabiya reported. Al-Zahed was weak and bloodied but still breathing. A photo of the rescue shows al-Zahed in blood-soaked, tattered clothing, being treated by a Lebanese soldier.
***
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Utility Vehicles.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and its red-headed step child AceCorp, LLC. Proudly conceived in the USA.
Dog vs. Dinosaur. Note that even though the dog is wigged out by this freaky interloper which is much larger than himself, he doesn't bitch out. He stays On Mission.
And That Ludicrous Leftwing Hack Was Me: Washington Post's Philip Bump Claims That Kamala Harris Didn't Really Call Joe Biden a Racist When She Called Him a Racist
"As the only black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race," Harris said prompting audience applause and a concession from the MSNBC moderators to give Harris time.
"I'm going to now direct this at Vice President Biden. I do not believe you are a racist," Harris declared before going on to call Biden exactly that.
"I also believe -- and it's personal and it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing," Harris said. "There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school everyday. And that little girl was me."
Philip Bump claims that the "I'm not calling you a racist" was completely sincere -- even though she then went on to accuse him of providing aid and comfort to segregationists, and trying to bully her from attending an integrated school -- and that this is in fact such a clearly-provable fact that any claims that she called Biden a racist are objectively "false" claims.
Tater's squeeing at the fresh opportunity to call Trump a Poopy-Pants Liar:
"The very first words of the very first statement President Trump’s reelection campaign offered in response to the selection of Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) to be Joe Biden’s running mate were false," @PBUMP notes https://t.co/E4YAMzPMbv
Meanwhile, the New York Times has done its own fact-checking and they've decided that Kamala Harris is a "pragmatic moderate," though they might later have to deem her a "committed progressive" if she gets attacked by the left as a "cop" as she was attacked during the primaries:
"Pragmatic Moderate" is apparently the messaging that Democrats are going with. HA HA HA HA HA. I LOVE IT. https://t.co/FI64eS29YG
In the heart of Manhattan, national chains including J.C. Penney, Kate Spade, Subway and Le Pain Quotidien have shuttered branches for good. Many other large brands, like Victoria’s Secret and the Gap, have their kept high-profile locations closed in Manhattan, while reopening in other states.
Michael Weinstein, the chief executive of Ark Restaurants, who owns Bryant Park Grill & Cafe and 19 other restaurants, said he will never open another restaurant in New York.
...
Even as the city has contained the virus and slowly reopens, there are ominous signs that some national brands are starting to abandon New York....
J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus, the anchor tenants at two of the largest malls in Manhattan, recently filed for bankruptcy and announced that they would shutter those locations.
One of the podcasters I listen to (Cecil Says) pointed out that companies have had a five month experiment in letting people work from home instead of making them come into offices.
Offices with very expensive floorspace.
This will probably go on for a few more months.
If it turns out the loss in productivity is smaller than the savings for not maintaining big office spaces, many companies might permanently abandon the large office.
What happens to New York commercial real estate then?
Meanwhile, retailers and restauranteurs are fleeing New York. One can imagine Shoppers Havens rising up in outlying towns.
New Yorkers will have to take a 90 minute car ride, or two and a half hour bus ride, to go to the stores. Like they do now when they want to go to Ikea.
Another pleasure of living in the city -- easy access to all the best stores -- will soon be gone.
And what happens to New York residential real estate after that? I spoke to a friend last night who told me that real estate in Rumson, NJ -- a tony suburb of New York -- is a gold rush market as everyone is buying houses to get out of New York City.
If many fewer people will be working in New York, and New York remains a diseased, riot-filled hellscape thus obliterating any social/pleasure reason to remain in New York -- what happens then?
These people are going to be abandoning the cities -- the cities that they themselves poisoned and killed with their socialist suicide impulse.
Unfortunately, they'll be swarming out of the cities to infect areas that aren't -- for now -- so dysfunctional and suicidal.
New Yorkers will mostly ruin New Jersey and Connecticut, which are hardly capable of being further ruined. (But give the hard left a chance...)
But they'll also be streaming to cities and states which are halfway functional, like Florida.
She called him a racist segregationist, for crying out loud. (I mean, they call everybody that now, but this is his running mate saying this about him.)
Joe Biden
@JoeBiden
I have the great honor to announce that I've picked @KamalaHarris -- a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country's finest public servants -- as my running mate.
4:17 PM -- Aug 11, 2020
Most things not related to HBO Max are being "streamlined."
On Monday, WarnerMedia began a round of layoffs, letting go hundreds of staffers amid the coronavirus crisis that has crippled Hollywood with shelved tentpoles and production shutdowns. Sources said the first wave of layoffs is expected to be around 600 staffers, with a heavy focus on Warner Bros.
Stephens said that HBO Max will remain one of the key growth focus areas for the company....
He says that he doesn't know when they'll be releasing films.
Addressing planned upcoming theatrical releases, he said, "I am not certain where those are going to go," suggesting possible "further delays in some of the titles" as the cinema reopening and theatrical release schedules have remained in flux.
The merged company was already heavily in debt due to the cost of AT&T buying the huge Time Warner, and already was planning layoffs and the sales of entire divisions to reduce that huge debt load.
But Layoffs Intensified, as ABC might say, due to coronavirus:
AT&T recently detailed a roughly $830 million hit to second-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization from the novel coronavirus pandemic and a roughly $2.8 billion revenue impact after in the first quarter having mentioned a $433 million earnings and a $600 million revenue hit.
The monopoly Amazon is refusing to add HBO Max to its Firestick, probably because any of these streaming services are a competitor to Amazon Prime.
This is a clear threat to Amazon, and a clear offer to testify against them in Congress:
WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar hasn't shied away from sharing his thoughts on Amazon's refusal to add HBO Max to its Fire devices.
Addressing the importance of putting consumers first, Kilar explained to Bloomberg how, with a society that is so technologically driven, "what tends to happen is concentration of successful companies unlike anything history has seen. We have fewer companies but larger companies."
Kilar argued how some companies, however, conflate their interests with statements pertaining to consumer focus. Kilar noted how this leads to a lot of decision-making that favors the company, not the consumer. When pressed for an example, he pointed directly at Amazon, saying, "If Amazon were truly focused just on the consumers with Fire devices, HBO Max would be on Fire devices. The consumer wants it." He then joked how people should "call the Seattle folks" for answers as to why HBO Max is currently unavailable on Amazon Fire devices.
It's a "bloodbath" at the WarnerMedia-owned DC Comics, with the Editor in Chief, the Publisher, and one third of the editorial staff sacked.
Included in the sackings is -- this is a rumor as of yet, not confirmed -- leftwing SJW ideologue Andy Khouri, one of the absolute cancers killing the industry, who brought in GamerGate skel Zoe Quinn to "write" "comics" for DC, despite her having no comic book experience and no writing experience (outside Depression Quest and a failed kickstarter). Khouri filled DC's Vertigo imprint with angry yet untalented SJW freaks; Vertigo was cancelled within a year.
DC had already laid off people last year, and now has to cut even more. Co-publisher Dan DiDio was fired last year, leaving the other co-publisher, Jim Lee, supposedly in charge; now Jim Lee has been pushed out of that position, though he'll probably be kept in some other role. (He's a major comic book artist.)
That's a variant cover of the upcoming comic book version of the Wonder Woman 1984 movie, for an animation company called Rooster Teeth -- which itself is a WarnerMedia property.
That cover may not have caused the "bloodbath" of cuts at DC, but this kind of aggressively alienating #Woke bullshit -- which has been going on for years and years -- has put DC on the chopping block.
Not only did DC Comics -- which itself has chased Marvel for a gold medal in the #Woke Olympics -- accept this variant cover, they actually celebrated it and promoted it through their DC Nation twitter account:
Rooster Teeth is itself a Time Warner, now Warner Media property, and is itself expected to be severely downsized -- was this cover an insult/fuck you to WarnerMedia as Rooster Teeth gets ready to be "consolidated" with another division and almost entirely scrapped?
They were just hit with big layoffs this past September, which they're probably still pissy about.
Today, as part of the broader representation and inclusion goals of our company, we are reviewing our content library and removing some videos we no longer feel comfortable hosting on our platforms. We took an honest look at 17+ years of videos, many of them made live and uploaded on a daily basis, and concluded some do not fit the values of Rooster Teeth today and are counterproductive to the work we are striving to do to be more inclusive of all people. We aspire to entertain our existing community while fostering connections with a diverse audience. Any content that doesn’t do that doesn’t belong on our platform. This review is ongoing; over time we will also edit videos, provide disclaimers where appropriate, and continue to remove content if we so choose.
In June we stated #BlackLivesMatter and said we were working on a plan to ensure a more diverse, inclusive and equitable Rooster Teeth. We want to be transparent about what we’ve accomplished and what we’re still working on. Laney Ingram, our Head of Legal & Business Affairs, has expanded her responsibilities to include Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI). She is partnering with Senior HR leader Stephanie O’Connor, who comes to us from Fullscreen. We have also hired an outside DEI consultant, Ingrid Hadley. Together, Laney, Stephanie and Ingrid are laying the groundwork for our DEI strategy and initiatives going forward. We are also working closely with WarnerMedia on all of our DEI strategies and are thankful for their support and the opportunities they open up in this area.
So yeah, I can see this as a real #PowerBottom move by butthurt SJWs who know that they'll soon be forced to Learn to Code.
And why did DC accept and then promote this cover? Maybe for the same reason.
The cover is interesting because while Wonder Woman is clearly fat, she has no breasts, really. That's now standard SJW artistic practice -- men like boobs so women must not be drawn with them, to defeat the "male gaze." Even if the woman is very fat and could be expected to have big boobs.
But the artist herself usually draws curvy women who do have breasts. #Cancelling Wonder Woman's breasts seems to have been a Special Customer Request by either Rooster Teeth or DC Comics.
I'm not a prude, and lord knows I don't mind some lesbian sex, but... what is this artist doing on a book aimed largely at teenaged (or younger) girls?
"EVERYONE loves my Wonder Woman covers and wants me to stay. Greg Rucka [the SJW writer\ is the ONLY one who has any problem with covers. Greg Rucka has been trying to alter and censor my artwork since day one," Cho told the site.
According to Cho, Rucka, who declined to comment, found his third Wonder Woman cover "vulgar" and said it "showed too much skin".
...
Cho called Rucka's objections "baffling, since my Wonder Woman image is 'on model' [meaning: It follows the "Bible" of the drawn model of what the character looks like] and shows the same amount of skin as the interior art", and said the author had a "weird political agenda" against him.
A "weird political agenda," yes, but not just against him. This double standard is now the rule at both Marvel and DC -- heterosexuality is a disease to be censored and denigrated, but gay sex should always be celebrated and exalted. Even in books aimed at teens!
AP: Andrew Cuomo Significantly Undercounted the Number of Nursing Home Victims He Murdered By Only Counting Those Who Died In the Nursing Home -- Rather Than at the Emergency Room or ICU, After Being Infected by Him -- as "Nursing Home Deaths"
Riverdale Nursing Home in the Bronx appears, on paper, to have escaped the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, with an official state count of just four deaths in its 146-bed facility.
The truth, according to the home, is far worse: 21 dead, most transported to hospitals before they succumbed.
"It was a cascading effect," administrator Emil Fuzayov recalled. "One after the other."
New York's coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there.
That statistic could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire.
"That's a problem, bro," state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat, told New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker during a legislative hearing on nursing homes earlier this month. "It seems, sir, that in this case you are choosing to define it differently so that you can look better."
How big a difference could it make? Since May, federal regulators have required nursing homes to submit data on coronavirus deaths each week, whether or not residents died in the facility or at a hospital. Because the requirement came after the height of New York's outbreak, the available data is relatively small. According to the federal data, roughly a fifth of the state’s homes reported resident deaths from early June to mid July -- a tally of 323 dead, 65 percent higher than the state’s count of 195 during that time period.
Even if half that undercount had held true from the start of the pandemic, that would translate into thousands more nursing home resident deaths than the state has acknowledged.
Another group of numbers also suggests an undercount. State health department surveys show 21,000 nursing home beds are lying empty this year, 13,000 more than expected-- an increase of almost double the official state nursing home death tally.
Andrew Cuomo continues insisting that there is no need -- none! -- of any outside investigation into his murderous policy of seeding the nursing homes with coronavirus.
He created his own "super-spreader" events that killed literally thousands -- but he insists that any questions about this must be due to "politics."
Mayor Lori "Baby Groot" Lightfoot: Maybe The Riots Were Caused by Kim Foxx Setting Every Criminal Free (But Don't You Dare "Bait" Me By Asking About That)
She also obviously dismissed charges of Friend of Michelle's Jussie Smollett.
REVEALED: Top Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx's office has dismissed more than 25,000 felony cases - including murders, shootings, sexual assaults and Jussie Smollett's 'hoax' attack
Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx dropped charges against 29.9% of felony defendants during her first three years in office, the Chicago Tribune found
Foxx's case dismissal rate is more than 35% higher than that of her predecessor
The state's attorney told the Tribune that its analysis gave an 'incomplete picture of her commitment to keeping the public safe'
She said she's dropped cases against low-level, nonviolent offenders so prosecutors can focus on violent crimes
But data showed Foxx's office has dismissed cases involving murder, shootings, sex crimes and serious drug offenses at a much higher rate than her predecessor
Foxx gained notoriety last year when her office dropped felony charges against Jussie Smollett, the actor accused of staging a racist, anti-gay attack on himself
By MEGAN SHEETS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
...
Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx has dismissed more than 25,000 felony cases - including many involving charges of murder and other serious crimes - in her first three years on the job, a new report shows.
...
The Chicago Tribune on Monday published an analysis of Foxx's overall record on dropping charges, revealing that she has done so at a rate that's 35 percent higher than her predecessor.
...
Foxx took over as state's attorney in 2016 with a promise to bring criminal justice reform and to reduce the population of Cook County Jail.
She also took over with a big assist by communist revolution financier George Soros.
I'll keep saying that until they officially make it illegal to say.
...
Foxx asserted that her office has focused on dropping cases against low-level, nonviolent offenders - though the Tribune's analysis paints a different picture.
It found that Foxx has consistently dismissed cases involving murder, shootings, sex crimes and serious drug offenses at a significantly higher rate than Alvarez did.
If "unprepared" Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot can't get crime under control, the feds must be called in to help, a Windy City politician is urging in the aftermath of a chaotic night of riots and looting.
Brian Hopkins, an alderman who represents parts of the downtown area, blasted Lightfoot in a statement to CWBChicago Monday night.
"Our city was devastated by widespread looting and rioting for which our mayor seemed totally unprepared," he said.
He also accused Lightfoot of offering "nothing but rhetoric and blame," just like she did after similar riots in May.
Obviously this George Soros Agent of Influence has let BLM and antifa terrorists free.
“People believe there is no accountability in our criminal justice system... we need the prosecutors and courts to step up” -Mayor Lightfoot appears to take a swipe at Cook State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, whom she previously endorsed. pic.twitter.com/QkfXOb7wHz
"Don't bait us! This is a serious situation” — @chicagosmayor Lori Lightfoot snaps at a reporter for saying looters took advantage of the lack of consequences seen in riots after George Floyd's death pic.twitter.com/EE3k2AGZ42
Carmen Best, Seattle's First Black Female Police Chief, Resigns After City Council Cuts Her Salary in Half and After Mayor and Governor Permit Rioters to Surround and Menace Her House Every Night
Seattle's first black police chief is resigning after the city council quite randomly cut her pay and then let anarchists repeatedly surround her house
Great job, everyone involved.
Seattle activists have been demanding that the city cut the police force for months, although it's not clear why. Seattle has fewer officer per capita than...Portland, Maine. It's not a particularly big police department.
Police Chief Best was also upset that her police force was ordered not to police the CHAZ/CHOP, resulting in four people getting shot and two people, including a teenager, dying.
Seattle wasn't letting her do her job, she was being harassed at her home by protesters, and they were cutting her salary by $100,000 (something they never did to her white dude predecessor) in the name of "Black Lives Matter." Sometimes irony is too much, gotta ragequit.
Interestingly this poll of Seattle residents showed that Carmen Best was more popular than Mayor Jenny Durkan, the city council, or defund police protesters. https://t.co/VhIm4GPq2Upic.twitter.com/Td8IqSExec
The City Council has all but given antifa and BLM the green light to run riot all over the city tonight and loot everything. And, probably, straight up kill some cops.
They will take that opportunity.
Seattle deserves everything that's coming to them.
They will just have to die with the consequences of their actions.
True!
80 68 Joe Biden said it best. If you ain't on the Dem Plantation, you ain't black.
New York State politics has always been rough-and-tumble, but the Cuomo Crime Family has taken it to new lows. There have been persistent rumors that Cuomo pere was mobbed-up, and he chose not to run for president in 1988 in spite of his significant popularity. But those are rumors; his active support for progressive causes coupled with his embracing of backroom political machinations laid the groundwork for the incredible corruption in Albany.
His son Andrew, or as I prefer to think of him: the slightly-smarter-than-Fredo Cuomo, wallowed in the corruption, and has had no qualms about using sleazy and crooked colleagues to do his bidding.
But we have other corrupt state governments (Hello Illinois!), so this is nothing new in America. But his rank stupidity, coupled with his arrogance that he knows better about pretty much everything conspired to kill thousands and thousands of New York's most vulnerable.
And then he lied and obfuscated and blamed others for his catastrophic missteps.
New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there.
That statistic could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing a better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire.
“That’s a problem, bro,” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat, told New York Health Commissioner Howard Zucker during a legislative hearing on nursing homes earlier this month. “It seems, sir, that in this case you are choosing to define it differently so that you can look better.”
Will we ever get the true numbers? I doubt it, but if Groping-retard Biden gets dumped by the power players of the Democrat party, it will be hugely entertaining to see a Cuomo candidacy. How would he navigate the credible charges of rampant corruption in his administration plus the unbelievable mismanagement of the Wuhan Flu in New York's nursing homes and assisted living facilities?
With lies and manipulation and arm-twisting and blackmail. You know...the Cuomo way!
Good morning, kids. Tuesday and what can only be described as a terrorist campaign is being ramped up as both the lockdowns imposed by Democrat mayors and governors on the pretext of a ginned-up health crisis and the initial wave of rioting and urban insurrection have not only not dinged the intended target, President Trump, at all, they have boosted his popularity as we head into the home stretch towards November 3rd. At the very least, they have exposed the true nature of the Democrats to the American people and to put it mildly they do not like what they see.
..."The suspect approached the officer and told the officer he had a weapon. The suspect then turned around, ran aggressively towards the officer, and in a drawing motion, withdrew an object from his clothing. He then crouched into a shooter's stance as if about to fire a weapon. The Secret Service officer discharged his weapon striking the individual in the torso."
The shooting occurred just as the President was conducting a press briefing, and was escorted out of the room within moments. To be sure he was not in any real danger and the Secret Service was probably following standard procedure. But given what's going on in America's urban areas and the firebombing of nearby St. John's Church late last May this incident is troubling. And then there's this bit of news.
The Occupy anniversary arrives September 17th, 2020. And it may be the perfect day to trigger another global big-bang moment -- a massive collective action of the sweetest kind of disobedience.
The why hardly needs recitation. Because, for these nine years, the shadows have only grown longer. Inequality has soared. Not a single Wall Street CEO spent a night in jail for his role in the 2008 financial meltdown. Politicians and corporate criminals continue to savage the public trust with impunity. And all the while, this howling void of a president, his sins too many to name, sits smugly atop a corona death-toll that may surpass two-hundred thousand Americans by Christmas.
It's time again for dramatic, decisive action. Which is why, on September 17th, in the original and enduring spirit of Occupy, we and tens of thousands of our fellow citizens will stream into Lafayette Square, in Washington. D.C.
We will lay siege to the White House. And we will sustain it for exactly fifty days. This is the #WhiteHouseSiege.
A siege only works if it is sustained. We witnessed this -- the multiplying power of a strategic occupation -- nine years ago. You dig in, hold your ground, and the tension accumulates, amplifies, goes global...
While the optics of a bedraggled mob of black-clad terrorists attempting to scale the gates at the White House will play in Peoria about as well as CHAZ/CHOP and last weekend's pillaging of Chicago's Magnificent Mile, in the words of poet Jim Morrison "they got the guns but we got the numbers." Of course if they ever attempted a mass assault on the White House, they'd be massacred. Or at least I assume they'd be massacred. Somewhere in the back of my mind, if the shit ever got real in a situation like that, would the phony generals do the same thing that Obama and Clinton did to Chris Stevens and the other martyrs of Benghazi?
Meanwhile, Mayor Lori Light-in-the-Loafers Lightfoot has lost all control of her city as roving gangs of thugs are not only ransacking up and down North Michigan Avenue with impunity, the subhuman garbage of BLM are openly boasting about and calling their thievery "reparations." Seattle, too has lost its mind where yesterday, the city council voted almost unanimously to defund the police, which given the slashing of cops and salaries is in effect an abolition of the police force itself. As a result, Chief Carmen Best, beleaguered as she has been over the past several months, has decided to throw in the towel. Along with the Stumptown, the Windy City and the Big Apple, sic transit gloria Democrat Party.
There have been anecdotal cases of lifelong Democrats looking at what their party is doing and jumping off the crazy train. One story in particular is the absolute surge in gun ownership and first time gun registrations, even in deepest, darkest, bluest anti-gun NYC. It's one thing to have differences of opinion on particular issues, even the most contentious such as abortion. But for the divide to be about the legitimacy of the nation and society itself is quite something else. Even those steeped in bilge from Howard Zinn or the 1619 Project have got to look at the Burning Looting and Murdering and be appalled - even if they won't openly say so for fear of being Burned Looted and Murdered. Naturally, the totally brain dead true believers are a lost cause and are the ones that are doing the Burning Looting and Murdering. So the question is, are they in the majority or the minority, and, down the road, will these old time Democrats turn away from the Shining Path Maoists who have just about hijacked their party? The world wonders...
...the riots in places such as Portland and Seattle were highly organized and coordinated, calling them "a new form of urban guerrilla warfare." Barr explained how Antifa "hides out among the people as a fish in the ocean," which is the essence of guerrilla warfare, and that "what they do is they are essentially shielding themselves or shrouding themselves in First Amendment activity."
Barr also noted that the Democratic Party's embrace of the violence from Antifa as well as Black Lives Matter was indicative of a broader shift in the American Left, which has "pulled away from the umbrella of classical liberal values that have undergirded" the founding of the United States, in favor of establishing "a secular religion" with the goal of "complete political victory."
"They want to run people's lives so they can design utopia for all of us," Barr said. "And it's the lust for power. And they weren't expecting Trump's victory. And it outrages them..."
Well, if they were "outraged" by Trump's victory four years ago, stay tuned for this November because you ain't seen nothing yet. And that's win or lose, but especially if he wins.
CIVIL WAR 2.0: LEFTIST REIGN OF TERROR, WAR ON POLICE
"Hundreds of people descended on downtown Chicago overnight after a police shooting on the city's South Side, with vandals smashing the windows of dozens of businesses and making off with merchandise, cash machines, and anything else they could carry, authorities said." Jesse Jackson: Chicago Riot "Humiliating... Our Martyrs Cry Together in Shame"
"Measures that would cut less than $4 million of the department's $400 million annual budget this year passed out of committee unanimously last week. On Monday, only council member Kshama Sawant voted against the budget package, saying it does not do enough to defund the police." Seattle City Council Approves Plan to Defund Police, Layoff 100 Cops, Slash Salaries
"Carmen Best, the city's first Black police chief, said in a letter to the department that her retirement will be effective Sept. 2 and the mayor has appointed Deputy Chief Adrian Diaz as the interim chief." Seattle Police Chief to Resign Following Department Cuts
"I'm all for peaceful protests, even against me, but this was anything but peaceful. The irony in all of this is that they chanted Black Lives Matter the entire time, but had zero regard for any of the black children that live there or me, a black man." Suspended Wisconsin Officer Assaulted, Shot At By Mob At His Home, Police Say
"If we are now going to hold our nation hostage because of this obsession over PCR (polymerase chain reaction) swab tests, we should at the very least make certain they're accurate." Mass Testing Results: Endless Panic and False Positives
Sen. Loeffler: "We don't need Blue State Bailouts -- we need more of the Blue Collar Boom that this President has created, and that's exactly what these executive order will do." Republicans Furious As Democrats Leave Town With No Deal
"One of the little covered aspects of the debate over the current stimulus bill is Democrats acting as proponents of repealing the $10,000 limit on State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions. For politicians whose left flank is screaming to tax the rich, this is a truly odd, but utterly explainable, phenomenon." And You Thought Democrats Wanted to Tax the Rich
"With Republicans at risk of losing control of the Senate in November, Senator Ron Johnson (R.-Wisc.) needs to work fast. Fortunately, it appears for now that Johnson is undeterred by the Democrats' attempted character assassination of him." Russian Collusion Perps Target Johnson
OFFICIAL DEMOCRAT PARTY-ENDORSED ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-CHRISTIANITY
"While many of these sites have begun to police speech, including that of President Donald Trump, little has been done to stem the spread of anti-Semitism, including by world leaders such as Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei." Advocacy Groups to Facebook: Stop Allowing Anti-Semitism
"WinRed's fundraising haul for the Republican Party could particularly help House GOP congressional candidates across the country. Republicans need to take a net 17 congressional seats to retake the House majority." GOP Online Fundraising Site WinRed Raised $164 Million in July
"The numbers suggest a whole army of moderates and conservatives keeping quiet... but preparing to vote." Have Conservatives Gone Dark?
"Nevada Democrats implemented the exact universal vote-by-mail system President Trump has warned against for months. The state will mail every voter -- living or dead, at home or moved -- a ballot. This is the same system that led to the "train wreck" primary in New York." Nevada's November Nightmare
"I'll say it again, this president, and I've lived under 12 presidential administrations, I was born during Eisenhower's administration, this president has been the most pro-black president in my lifetime." Rasmussen: Trump Approval Rating at 36% Among Black Voters
"What really will tell the tale for the future is how the elections at the local and state levels play out. For you see, it is those governments by their very actions that give us a peak into the future. What they do will percolate upward with time." It Ain't the National Elections in November That Matter
"The most significant unmasking caused by the ongoing riots and the ongoing pandemic scare, has been the complete ineffectualness of many of our local governments and politicians." Local Politicians: America's Achilles Heel
Conrad Black: "The Democrat Party is now committed to a far more radical socialist platform than has ever been remotely hinted at by a serious American national party." A Blueprint for a Pacifist, Socialist Republic
AMNESTY, IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY
"Fraudulent driver's licenses, which are used for criminal activity or fraud, continue to be found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the International Mail Facility (IMF) at Chicago O'Hare International Airport." 20,000 Fake IDs Seized In Chicago, Majority Smuggled In From China
"The unfamiliar development is a problem for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). He is working with many of India's U.S.-based visa-workers in the United States to pass his S.386 bill that is intended to boost the migration of India's college grads into Fortune 500 jobs throughout the United States." Vice: Indians Bring Caste Discrimination into "Every US Company"
FIRST AMENDMENT, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER
"The mainstream media, in their determination to exploit Donald Trump's notoriety and subsequent quixotic quest to destroy him, has achieved an unprecedented negative trifecta." The Mainstream Media Is at the Point of No Return
SECOND AMENDMENT
"The five boroughs have some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation and are one of three regions in the U.S. to mandate citizens have permits before they can purchase either handguns or rifles, according to the Giffords Law Center." New York City Rifle Permit Applications Surge by 340%
"Letitia James's proposal to dissolve the NRA, a nonprofit organization, is alarming." An Affront to Civil Society
Salena Zito: "When protests and riots started sweeping the country after the May 25 death of George Floyd, the FBI clocked another record in June by conducting more than 3.9 million background checks." The Economy Is Struggling, but Gun Sales Are Soaring
ABORTION
"Specifically, we ask that you investigate how these affiliates were able to obtain PPP loans despite their ineligibility under the Small Business Administration's (SBA) rules, whether any Planned Parenthood affiliates knowingly provided false information in their PPP loan applications, and to what extent the parent organization, Planned Parenthood for America (PPFA), was involved in the application process for said loans." GOP Senators Press DOJ to Investigate Planned Parenthood
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
"I have always thought I might one day be sent to jail for my publications or for my calls for democracy in Hong Kong. But for a few tweets, and because they are said to threaten the national security of mighty China? That's a new one, even for me." Hong Kong Crackdown: 200 Police Raid Newspaper, Arrest Beijing Critic Jimmy Lai
"The only way to prevent Chinese ascendancy and a potential war is to make it clear that we will not accept their bullying." Why We Can't Afford to Abandon Taiwan
"Top US envoy to Iran resigns, to be replaced by former NeverTrump and neoconservative diplomat Elliott Abrams." Crucial Vote on Iran Looms at UN
"China's reach is far more widespread than many people have understood, and China's ultimate goal is total control of the world and its economy." China Means to Take Over the World
"President Trump made history when he dismantled NAFTA. He should continue dismantling bad deals by terminating the unfair Columbia River Treaty." President Trump Has Another Treaty to Dismantle
"The truth is, Trump has scored a series of foreign-policy and national-security successes, based on key principles we can call the 'Trump Doctrine' -- an approach sharply different from that of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush but still rooted in longstanding American traditions." In a Second Term, Trump Could Build on His Foreign Policy Successes
"In August 2019, Clark posted instructions about how to conduct lone wolf attacks in New York City, detailing how to avoid attracting law enforcement attention and how to carry out stabbing attacks, noting that the discomfort at "the thought of plunging a sharp object into another person's flesh" is "never an excuse for abandoning jihad." American Who Pledged Allegiance To ISIS, Directed Others On How To Attack New York Pleads Guilty
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, THE BUREAUCRACY, WASTE, FRAUD, ABUSE
"More than half a dozen groups told HuffPost they are already coming up with names for potential judicial nominees and crafting policy objectives that could be accomplished if progressive judges are appointed to the federal judiciary." Report: Progressives Prepare To Take Over Courts If Biden Wins
"Donald Trump's policies for marginalized Americans closely resemble the recommendations made in a new book -- though its authors don't seem to recognize it." Anti-Despair Economics
A two-fer from our intrepid science reporter. First: "According to a new detailed analysis of data from the Dawn mission, scientists are now postulating that cryovolcanism in Occator Crater on Ceres began immediately after impact about 22 million years ago and has continued in fits and starts since." Cryovolcanism on Ceres Still Ongoing?
And second... "Almost immediately after the award of these contracts was announced in 2018, Blue Origin and ULA announced one-year delays in the development of New Glenn and Vulcan. Apparently, meeting the additional requirements of military's bureaucracy in exchange for getting the cash slowed development." Air Force Terminates Development Contracts to ULA, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
The Times' supposition that America was racist at its core follows radical abolitionists rather than thinkers like Frederick Douglass who claimed the Constitution is an anti-slavery document." 8 Big Takedowns of the 1619 Project For Its One-Year Anniversary
HITHER & YON
Dennis Prager: "Americans have long been proud of the fact that, unlike European countries, America never went the route of totalitarianism as embodied in communism, fascism and Nazism. This achievement may be coming to an end." Why America Is in Real Danger
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
The number of conservative successes achieved by the insufferable Never Trump Fredocons in the two decades before Trump came along and broke and humiliated them. None. Kurt Schlichter
Quote II
This state is bankrupt because they’re incompetent. They’re not going to become competent if you give them more money. They’ve they’ve managed the money that they got very poorly. They already have high taxes. There’s a 13.5 state income tax here in California, and the place is still fucked up.Joe Rogan
“I am all for peaceful protests, even against me, but this was anything but peaceful,”
“The irony in all of this is that they chanted Black Lives Matter the entire time, but had zero regard for any of the black children that live there or me, a black man,Wisconsin police officer Joseph Mensah
Quote V
"The stress that I felt in the U.S. and concern for my husband and son was gone. It was more of a weight than I had ever realized.” Najoh Tita-Reid
Reporter: "It almost sounds as though you're saying this is... the reason this happens is that the courts and the prosecutors were not doing their job. That they were going too easy on the looters from the last time around."
Chief Brown: "Don't take it from me, just go by what's been done. There were no consequences for the people arrested."
Mayor Lightfoot: "Don't bait us. Do not bait us. Do not bait us. This is a serious situation. People are concerned about their safety. Officers are concerned about their safety. So don't bait us. What we're saying is, as a result of what happened last night there have to be consequences. We've got teams of people that are aggressively out there, identifying the people responsible, looking at the plates, and we're going to bring them to justice. But when we do, and we do make those arrests, our expectation is that this is going to be treated with the level of seriousness that it should be. Period. Don't try to bait us, mischaracterize, pittin' one against the other, we're not playin' that. We are in a serious situation here, and we need a serious response. That's what we're sayin' period."
Reporter: "I'm not trying to bait you ma'am."
***
Paul Joseph Watson explains the Attack of Corona Karens. Of course the language is NSFW
And just think, I got a timeout on Twitter for telling that to Jake Tapper.
From the same friend comes the following an upcoming EPA event. It certainly appears they appreciate diversity of thought. NOT!
Read-Watch-Listen
Antiracism Discussion Forum Resources
“No one becomes “not racist,” despite a tendency by Americans to identify themselves that way. We can only strive to be “antiracist” on a daily basis, to continually rededicate ourselves to the lifelong task of overcoming our country’s racist heritage.” – Ibram Kendi
Things to Read:
Book List
How to Be an Antiracist – Ibram Kendi Follow along with book club discussion questions
Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility - Dorceta E. Taylor
FATAL INVENTION: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century – Dorothy Roberts
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain - Langston Hughes
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think and Do – Dr. Jennifer L. Eberhardt
So You Want to Talk About Race - Ijeoma Oluo
Things to Read: Short Reads:
Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing - Anneliese A. Singh
7 Ways we Know Systemic Racism is Real – Ben & Jerry’s
First, Listen. Then, Learn: Anti-Racism Resources for White People - Julia Wuench
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack - Peggy McIntosh
Things to Listen to:
Talking Race with Young Children
This Is How I Feel: A Playlist by Young Black Listeners
1619 – The New York Times
Momentum: A Race Forward
Episode 7, June 8th, 2020: BLACK LIVES MATTER
Travis Jones: How Can White People Be Better Allies to People Of Color? - NPR
Things to Watch:
Reverse Racism: Fear of a Brown Planet – Aamer Rahman
How to Build an Antiracist World – Ibram Kendi
I am Not your Negro – Based on James Baldwin’s book, “Remember this House”
Selma – Ava DuVernay
Dear White People – Justin Simien
RACE-The Power of an Illusion – PBS
Disclaimer of Endorsement:
Mention of or referral to commercial products or services, and/or links to non-EPA sites does not imply official EPA endorsement of or responsibility for the opinions, ideas, data, or products presented at those locations, or guarantee the validity of the information provided. Mention of commercial products/services on non-EPA websites is provided solely as a pointer to information on topics related to environmental protection that may be useful to EPA staff and the public.
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday said it's highly unlikely a coronavirus vaccine with 98 percent effectiveness will be developed.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a vaccine that is 50 percent or 60 percent effective would be acceptable, although 75 percent would be preferred.
“The chances of it being 98 percent effective is not great, which means you must never abandon the public health approach,” Fauci said during a Q&A with Brown University School of Public Health.
“You’ve got to think of the vaccine as a tool to be able to get the pandemic to no longer be a pandemic, but to be something that’s well-controlled,” Fauci said.
WILLIE BROWN TO KAMALA HARRIS: DON’T JOIN BIDEN’S TICKET
Willie Brown was instrumental in launching Kamala Harris’ political career, so I guess he has standing to give her career advice. His advice is that Harris should say “no” to Joe Biden if he offers her a place on the Democratic ticket.
Here is Brown’s rationale:
[T]he vice presidency has often ended up being a dead end. For every George H.W. Bush, who ascended from the job to the presidency, there’s an Al Gore, who never got there.
True, the vice president does have an advantage the next time the party needs a new nominee, which in Biden’s case could be four years from now. But in the meantime, the vice president has no real power and little chance to accomplish anything independent of the president.
Basically, no one takes the vice president seriously after election day. Just ask Mike Pence.
***
***
My kind of Granny......................
(H/T LadyL)
No word if LadyL has that sticker on the back of her tank...............
It’s easy to shroud oneself in gloom and doom, the country’s situation literally hands those two things to you. The past has been torturous, the present has become chaotic, and the future ever so uncertain. Time slips from your fingers faster than the country’s undead currency, months of quarantine have already passed, and before you know it, most of the year is gone already. The hopelessness and nihilism sink their claws into your psyche, the anxiety ferments and infects your mind, and lastly, the depression overcomes you. That’s how I’ve felt lately, I thought I had overcome this earlier this year or at least had it in relative control — on path to getting myself together — but here I am, once again, dancing with my own worst enemy: myself.
No word from Sean Penn, Danny Glover and the rest of the Nicolás Maduro Moros enablers.
The Big Ten is expected to cancel its fall college football season in a historic move that stems from concerns related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, multiple people with knowledge of the decision told the Free Press early Monday.
"It's done," one high-ranking source in the Big Ten said Monday afternoon.
Sources said the presidents were in favor Sunday of not playing sports in the conference this fall. Michigan and Michigan State — which both have physicians as presidents — were among the schools in favor of not playing this fall, sources said.
Multiple sources said early Monday morning that presidents voted 12-2 to end the season, though the Big Ten said Monday afternoon no official vote had taken place. Dan Patrick, who first reported the 12-2 vote, said on his radio show that Iowa and Nebraska were the two schools in favor or playing.
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
Born on this day: 10 Aug 1947
British musician, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson, best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist and acoustic guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull. Anderson has also owned several salmon farms in the UK. via thisdayinmusic.com
If you’re planning on practicing for your adult naked basketball rec league at your nearest public park, think again. To the surprise of literally no one except this one guy, it’s illegal to droop and hoop. A Florida man arrested for playing basketball naked learned this lesson the hard way when he was approached by police while free ball ballin’ in Longwood, Florida.
Police received a call around 7:30 p.m. on a Sunday night that there was a naked man playing basketball at the for-that-moment-unfortunately-named Candyland Park and responded accordingly. When officers from the Longwood Police Department arrived they found Jordan Anderson, 29, playing basketball naked with two balls too many. When they asked the Florida man why he was Dikembe Mutombo wagging his dong all over the public court Anderson said it was because he thought playing naked would help improve his basketball skills.
***
When I think of Massachusetts, I first think about some of our founding fathers, then I think of the deplorable Ted Kennedy and the rotten liberal trash that live there. There a few decent people there after all. Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.
A Massachusetts hotline set up to enforce coronavirus safety guidelines instead received profanity, fake reports and porn from residents fed up with the rules — similar to what happened in April when New York City launched a similar effort.
It didn’t take long for things to go downhill for Gov. Charlie Baker’s compliance hotline, according to MassLive.com.
In just a matter of hours, there was a picture of a penis from an account dubbed, “Good German,” missives slamming the hotline as a “rat line,” complaints about “unmasked dogs” and gripes about Baker’s lack of a mask during news conferences, the outlet reported.
***
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Casual Monday.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. ONT tips, loose change, drink tokens and burner phones to petmorons at gmail dot com. Complaints, pissing and moaning to 1-999-Get Bent.
Andrew Cuomo: Nah, I Don't See the Need for an Independent View of My Decision to Kill Thousands and Thousands of Elderly People By Forcing Nursing Homes to Take Coronavirus Patients
—Ace
These nursing homes did not have isolation wards and did not have any capacity to keep coronavirus to specific places.
So the wholes of the nursing homes were soon infected, and thousands of people died needlessly.
Or perhaps... this was always the intention?
Well, Andrew Cuomo says there's no need to investigate why he ordered this murderously terrible decision.
He's looked into his actions, and he's given himself a clean bill of health.
Jon Campbell
@JonCampbellGAN
Cuomo says he doesn't see the need for an independent review of the state's handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes.
This will actually be enough for almost half the country. A Democrat said something, and therefore it is racist to question it.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said "you'd have to be blind" to think calls to further calls to investigate the coronavirus deaths linked to state nursing homes amid the pandemic are "not political."
Cuomo, during a press conference Monday, said he "wouldn't do an investigation" into the nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic in the state of New York.
"I wouldn't do an investigation whether or not it's political, everybody can make that decision for themselves," Cuomo said. "I think you'd have to be blind to realize it's not political."
We don't need independent investigations into political wrongdoing, because each person can decide for himself what happened?
Does this rule protect Republicans, too, or just leftwing corporatist Democrats?
...
Cuomo has been insisting that the thousands of nursing home deaths had nothing to do with his March 25 order that required nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients who were medically stable without testing them, claiming that the deaths were caused by infected staff members who spread the virus.
A report released last month backs up his claims, but experts have questioned the report's methods.
A report Cuomo ordered and which was conducted by his political hacks, they mean. Thus the refusal of an outside investigation.
Unrelated: Kamala Harris' twitter account has unfollowed Joe Biden's account.
Shots fired outside the White House complex is an absolute redline. Good call by the Secret Service under extremely difficult conditions, considering the ramifications of interrupting a national press conference in front of the nation’s eyes.
Sounded like a gun shot right outside the White House. Secret service making press clear the lawn. Law enforcement holding guns everywhere. pic.twitter.com/KQx6HWcKij
In Liberal Blue Northern Virginia, a Judge Lets a Rapist Out of Jail To Protect Him from COVID. He Then Goes to His Accuser's House and Shoots Her in the Head.
A rape suspect who was released from jail in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Ibrahim E. Bouaichi, went on to kill the woman who had accused him, police in Virginia say.
On Wednesday, July 29, officers found a woman shot to death on S. Greenmount Drive. It was Alexandria's first homicide of the year. The victim was later identified as Karla Elizabeth Dominguez Gonzalez.
Gonzalez had testified against Bouaichi in Alexandria District Court in December. He was indicted on rape charges and jailed without bond.
So he was in jail only on charges.
The fact that he immediately went out and murdered this woman, and then killed himself like a coward, suggests to me he was guilty, and that his original judge was right to jail him pre-trial.
When the pandemic hit, Bouaichi's lawyers argued that he should be freed while awaiting trial because the virus endangered both inmates and their attorneys.
Did him being in jail also endanger the precious School Teachers? Because whatever happens, we must protect the precious School Teachers.
Circuit Court Judge Nolan Dawkins released Bouaichi on $25,000 bond, ordering him not to leave his Maryland home unless meeting with his lawyers or court officials, The Washington Post reports.
It is well known that criminals always obey laws and judges orders.
He was released April 9 and murdered this poor woman August 5th. So he waited a couple of months to commit the murder.
Maybe it took him that long to buy an illegal gun. (Strange that he went out hunting for a gun even though he was ordered to not leave the house...)
How many more need to die before the Suburban Karens wake the fuck up?
Thanks to redridinghood.
In Manhattan Beach, CA, #WokeWhiteMoralityPolice attacked two men for not wearing masks as they tried to eat burritos.
The "Ken" of the couple threw coffee in one guy's face, prompting one of the two men to go after him. The "Karen" actually tried to mix it up with the guy, and I am very, very sad that the guy didn't slap the #Whore out of her low-class mouth. Instead he just traded wrestles with her.
The right is going to start using the same level of violence that the left is using, and the bodycount on the left is going to be high.
Last Friday, Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic, who is an ordained Christian minister, became the first NBA player to refuse to kneel for the national anthem; he also would not wear the Black Lives Matter T-shirt his teammates were wearing.
On Sunday, as the Magic played the Sacramento Kings, Isaac suffered a season-ending ACL injury, which prompted ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard to post a poll question asking whether people thought the injury was "funny."
In case you're wondering, yes, "Le Batard" does in fact mean "the bastard."
Le Batard's show is the epitome of far-left sports coverage. A player standing is so bothersome that it justified laughing at a gruesome injury.
Could you imagine Le Batard running a similar poll if Colin Kaepernick went down with an injury? Of course not. He’d be met with a termination letter before he had time to check his Twitter account.
...
As is the case in any industry, employees know what they can get away with, and what they can’t. So, those in favor of the double standard, push it until they go too far.
Let's check in to see how the ESPN television network is doing -- they've seen a lot of losses in subscriber base for going on ten years now. Has that finally stabilized?
With no sports in sight, ESPN has decided to dedicate its 24-hour sports network to radical social justice, and their fanbase has fled faster than women fled the Titanic.
2 weeks ago, ESPN did its lowest viewership in the 41-year history of the network. Abandoning sports altogether, ESPN has spent the last month of their coverage on the death of George Floyd and race relations in America. These are fine topics for CNN and MSNBC but not for the worldwide leader in sports.
...
Then ESPN tripled down on woke with The Undefeated, a Sportcenter special that sought to teach it’s audiences about white privilege.
"When you have been the beneficiary of a system of inequality. When you have actually reaped billions of dollars over the years in wealth and assets and land. You're not going to want to confront that."@timjacobwise discusses why it's hard for white people to talk about racism. pic.twitter.com/Z50K6NLEb8
We need to change our relationship to the word “privilege” and understand that it’s not an attack on someone’s character to call it out. (via @goodtrouble) pic.twitter.com/opo9DXlfje
The special drew only 100,000 viewers, the lowest in 25 years for the network. ESPN once again proves to its audience that they are a sports network that doesn’t want to talk about sports.
The PGA was higher-viewed than all but one game played in the NBA, the NHL, and in MLB.
A quick primer, the Tennessee Valley Authority (or “TVA” for short) was created in 1933 to provide flood control on the Tennessee River, generate electricity, and propel economic development in Appalachia.
President Donald Trump said Monday that he had fired the chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority, criticizing the federally owned corporation for hiring foreign workers. Trump told reporters at the White House that he was formally removing chair Skip Thompson and another member of the board, and he threatened to remove other board members if they continued to hire foreign labor.
The order followed the TVA’s announcement that it would outsource 20% of its technology jobs to companies based in foreign countries. TVA’s action could cause more than 200 highly skilled American tech workers in Tennessee to lose their jobs to foreign workers hired on temporary work visas, according to the White House.
The president of a TVA engineering union has been telling local media that TVA workers are now having to train their replacements, and that many of the new contract workers are foreign citizens working in America under H-1B visas
It’s not just the outsourcing that has President Trump upset. He is also highly critical of TVA’s CEO receiving an $8 million compensation package.
Trump also urged the TVA board to immediately hire a new Chief Executive Officer who “puts the interests of Americans first.” According to the president, the current CEO, Jeff Lyash, earned $8 million a year. “The new CEO must be paid no more than $500,000 a year,” said Trump, who lacks the authority to remove the CEO. “We want the TVA to take action on this immediately. Let this serve as a warning to any federally appointed board: If you betray American workers, you will hear two words: ‘You’re fired.’”
CEO Lyash followed the True Conservative™ playbook of terminating employees, making them train their inexpensive foreign replacements, then rewarding himself with a 7 or 8-figure salary for all the labor expense he eliminated. But what if his actions could have saved consumers 1 cent per kilowatt hour after the executive bonuses? David Harsanyi would tell us that as consumers we should celebrate all those employees being fired. To the open-borders / outsource-all-the-jobs / Principled Free Traders™ at National Review, Lyash earned that money by firing his workers and finding cheap foreign replacements. And those displaced tech workers? They can just, uh, learn to code. Oh wait. Our thought leaders now want to outsource coding too.
So what does Senator Lamar Alexander (R – Chamber of Commerce) have to say about this?
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the TVA doesn’t get any taxpayer money and defended the CEO’s salary, saying it is in the bottom fourth of what his counterparts earn at other big utilities. “TVA may have shown poor judgment hiring foreign companies during a pandemic, but, on most counts, it does a very good job of producing large amounts of low-cost, reliable electricity. Residential electric rates are among the 25 percent lowest in the country, and industrial rates are among the lowest 10 percent,” Alexander said in a statement. “TVA’s debt is the lowest in 30 years, its pension fund is stronger and TVA leads the country in new nuclear power plants.”
Wait…what? TVA’s outsourcing of labor is only a problem “during a pandemic”? Otherwise it’s an idea we should rally around because TVA has a well-funded pension plan? This lifetime politician’s tenure as a Tennessee senator has only a few months left. He won’t be missed.
Oh, and look here. After Trump made his announcement, CEO Lyash suddenly found out that his pet Senator doesn’t have any influence on President Trump.
TVA President Jeff Lyash said Tuesday the IT employees at TVA who have received termination notices -- both in a round of 62 individuals whose jobs were to end this summer and another 38 workers whose jobs are ending in October -- will remain on the payroll while TVA goes through a review of the new executive order and completes all of the appeal processes for laying off workers at TVA.
President Donald Trump takes bold action like this one against the TVA Board. He also makes some flippant tweets. Which one do you think matters more to Americans who take pride in bringing home a paycheck?
Hundreds of looters descended on downtown Chicago early Monday following a police shooting on the city's South Side, with vandals smashing the windows of dozens of businesses and making off with merchandise, cash machines and anything else they could carry, police said.
When police shot a man after he opened fire on officers Sunday afternoon, the incident apparently prompted a social media post hours later urging looters to converge on the business district, Police Superintendent David Brown told a news conference.
Some 400 additional officers were dispatched to the area after the department spotted the post. Over the next several hours, police made more than 100 arrests and 13 officers were injured, including one who was struck in the head with a bottle, Brown said.
Brown dismissed any suggestion that the chaos was part of an organized protest of the shooting, instead calling it "pure criminality" that included occupants of a vehicle opening fire on police who were arresting a man they spotted carrying a cash register.
What makes this opportunistic mayhem any different from the other opportunistic mayhem we've seen for an entire season now?
Is this admission -- that these are merely savage criminals, not "protesters," whether mostly peaceful or otherwise -- prompted only because the truth cannot be hidden in this particular case, or is this a sign that looters and rioters will no longer be given the "mostly peaceful protester" cover?
Probably the former, I think. They're only admitting these were simple criminals because the cover story of "protesters" would not hold here.
No officers were wounded by gunfire, but a security guard and a civilian were hospitalized in critical condition after being shot, and five guns were recovered, he said.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot agreed that the melee had nothing to do with a protest. "This was straight-up felony criminal conduct," she said. "This was an assault on our city."
Oh look, Gizmo from Gremlins woke up for once.
I think it was the gun crime that did it. The left doesn't like guns. Looting, rioting, and vicious attacks with hand-held weapons they're absolutely fine with.
But guns? That's some KKK shit right there.
Even this leftwing firebrand -- who you might remember offered such a strong defense of Jeremiah Wright that even Obama criticized him -- admits this was "orchestrated:"
"This was obviously very orchestrated," the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a prominent Roman Catholic priest and activist on the city's South Side, told Chicago television station WBBM.
Look at Chicago and understand this is every city, every town, under Democrat rule. If you're a working middle-class American, you're fighting for your life in the 2020 election, and voting Democrat is suicide. Abolish the Police is the only issue and they're on the wrong side.
Don't let Joe Biden's handlers convince you he's some kind of "moderate" who just wants "reforms." The Democrat Party is 100% run by extremists now. They are VERY insistent that when they say Abolish the Police, they mean exactly that.
The core ideology of the radicalized Democrat party requires dissolving the rule of law. This is baked into everything they say, every policy they push. They think impartially enforced law is racist, sexist, transphobic, etc. "Justice" is the antonym of "law" to them.
That's why Dems shriek like banshees against the presumption of innocence, a core concept in the traditional American understanding of law and justice. Their ideology is all about presumed GUILT. Every policy is based on politicized notions of identity and grievance.
Everything from Democrat speech codes to economic policy is based on variables of grievance and entitlement, not absolute principles that apply equally to everyone. What you're allowed to say and do, what you're allowed to own, depends on your class, race, and politics.
This radicalized concept of law as a political instrument is cooked into every single policy on the Left. Some people just have more "rights" than others. No rights are inalienable. Everything, right down to the words you're permitted to use, is calculated based on your identity.
These riot-prone blue cities are just the most vulgar example of what will happen everywhere in America if Democrats take power. It's ALREADY happening everywhere because they have so much power over media, and especially over education.
Once you throw out the rule of law, the presumption of innocence, and inalienable rights, you're lucky if the worst thing that happens is local officials deciding your family and property don't deserve police protection from looters, or the privilege of defending yourself.
That's the key word right there: PRIVILEGE. The Left's obsession with that word is very illuminating. They think everything is a "privilege," nothing is an inalienable right. Privileges can be revoked. The term conveys a sense of unfairness that needs redressing.
Understand that the radicalized Democrat Party thinks even the basic duties of government, like protecting lives and property rights, are actually "privileges." They hate police because they see them as racist mall cops enforcing the unfair privileges of the middle class.
The Democrats are hell-bent on taking those "privileges" away: your money, property, liberty, and security. You're not even allowed to refuse to participate in their ideological crusades. They loathe middle class "privilege," which they rhetorically disguise as "white privilege."
If you want to keep a shred of the traditional, REAL American ideals of equality, opportunity, security, and lawfulness, vote against Democrats in November like your life depended on it. They will sacrifice every shred of law on their altar of "justice" unless you stop them. /end
Below, a presumably stolen car is used as a battering ram to break into a store to loot it.
As one reply suggested: This was probably a Bread Store and the poor dears were probably starving.
Mayor Lightfoot is scheduled to address the looting in a press conference at 8 a.m.
Earlier this morning, Alderman Brian Hopkins told us: "The Mayor needs to address the city. Enough breaking up parties on the beach. That isn't our problem right now" pic.twitter.com/D4thxkQNqo
CNN chief medial reporter Brian Stelter beclowned himself yet again during Sunday's no-so Reliable Sources. Between raging at right-wing media and talk radio for questioning Joe Biden's mental lucidity, and claiming left-wing hacks like himself weren't dedicated to "tearing down" President Trump, Stelter was out to prove that he was willing to lie with impunity. And at one point, a guest floated the idea of weaponizing the Federal Communication Commission to target and presumably shut down right-wing talk radio.
Gaslighting his viewers from the get-go, Stelter hoped they wouldn't remember how he was among the first in the liberal media to demand the press start questioning Trump's mental health, as he railed against right-wing media for now questioning Biden's.
.@brianstelter: "When you see entire media companies essentially exist to tear down Joe Biden, is there an equivalent of that on the left, tearing down Trump?"@emarvelous: "There really isn’t." pic.twitter.com/JlMkqAQeIW
Below, Mark Dice takes credit for launching Little Brian Stelter's career. Enjoy the part where Michael Wolffe gives him a brutal review, right into his fat pigface.
CNN’s Brian Stelter is trending for the first time. Here’s the true story of how he became the laughing stock of social media: pic.twitter.com/1lpDW7BlwB
Maddie Ziegler has offered an apology for some old videos of her that have resurfaced online.
In a post on Twitter, the dancer and actress apologizes for the videos, which were made when she was 9-years-old, and featured her mocking "people and accents."
I can't think of a better way to Signal Your Virtue than bullying a child into a forced rite of public humiliation.
"SOMEBODY CALL THE POLICE!" shrieked the Antifa thug with a 'DEFUND THE POLICE' sign and an ACAB T-shirt just before he was slammed to the pavement by the driver of the car whose progress he thought he could obstruct.
I've seen a number of videos where there's pushback on Antifa/BLM from normal Americans, either by simply not stopping their vehicles or actually getting out and decking one of the loudmouth protestors.
And I'm surprised (maybe I shouldn't be) how they react most of the time when this happens:
They start screaming "Somebody call the police!"
Isn't that kind of weird?
This is a group that wants to *defund* the police. And now they want *help* from the police who wouldn't be there if they had they way. They want help from from those whom they have previously declared to be bastards, all of them. That's what ACAB means, right?
It looks like the Antifa losers haven't thought through what it means to reject law and order. Because the laws and morality that they despise actually protect them. What if normal Americans did not feel restrained from going out and busting heads? What if the citizens of Portland decided that if the Portland police weren't going to do their jobs, they would do it for them?
If that day ever came, it would go very badly for Antifa/BLM.
In the video below, a scuffle breaks out and it looks like the Antifa losers are getting whupped on pretty good. This is called making them play by their own rules. They claim to have rejected all of the norms and values of Western Civilization. OK then, this is what life is going to be like when you do that. The violence and chaos they bring to others is now being visited on them. It's going to be all against all and only the strong will win. Soy boys with mental health and social adjustment issues will not stand a chance in such an environment. Do they actually think the world of 'Mad Max' is going to be fun?
LOl heres the antifa ass whooping footage ... i guess what started it was they attacked an oldman in wheelchair ... you'll see(fckin twitter sucks i had to re-encode each one bc fckin idk) pic.twitter.com/1ryt43EPM8
— 🏴☠️👨🦯user("/n/3/f/").adm1n=255()👨🦯🏴☠️ (@nulluser10) August 9, 2020
"Selling your labor in a capitalist marketplace so you don’t end up on the street is horrible and unnatural, and we shouldn’t have to exist this way." –@kandistmalletthttps://t.co/lwIUIDBeF2
Biden is exactly the same as he was 20 years ago. He is completely sound mentally and physically.
Biden has a few tongue-tie moments and rambling anecdotes while Trump literally sounds like a mental patient with tertiary syphilis whose frontal lobe is melting. Absurd to compare.
There was quite a bit of commenting in last Friday's rant thread concerning the manifold virtues of singer/actress Julie London. Remembering that she was a 'who dis' pick back in March, and because I'm a giver, I thought it would be fun to provide you morons with a surprise retrospective of those pics.
Friday's Who Dis: Bond girl Luciana Paluzzi teamed up with Australian actor Rod Taylor in a number of productions, including an episode of the short-lived early 1970s TV series Bearcats! and the 1967 western Chuka.
Today's Edition Of The Morning Rant Is Brought To You By Chicago-Style Hot Dogs:
... When the virus first appeared, Trump, in good faith, allowed Fauci to lead him down the primrose path. This meant giving in to, and signing off on, the Democrats' demands for stimulus bills. His agreement made the Democrats foolhardy. With the economy on life support, deaths from the virus dropping, and Americans desperately wanting to go back to work, the Democrats decided that they could again lard the latest stimulus bill with all manner of things. They assumed Trump would be either trapped or compliant.
What they hadn't realized was that Trump, like a cat watching a rat draw near, was just waiting for the right moment to spring. Saturday was that day. In the kind of press conference that helps win elections, Trump explained that he was cutting through the Democrats' ridiculous negotiating tactics and using his executive power to bring relief directly to Americans...
The executive orders Trump signed do four things:
1. Create a payroll tax holiday for Americans earning less than $100,000 annually. The executive order will be retroactive to August 1 and end on December 31, putting more money in employees' pockets.
2. Continue enhanced unemployment benefits at $400 per week, which is $200 less than the Democrats were demanding, which Trump alleges (probably correctly) makes going back to work more attractive.
3. Extend the eviction moratorium on federal subsidized housing.
4. Suspend student loan payments. (It's to be hoped that Trump will not ultimately endorse Elizabeth Warren's demand that the Wuhan virus should be used as an excuse to forgive all student loans. If someone was stupid enough to get a $300,000 gender studies degree, taxpayers should not be on the hook.)...
"The pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop. President Obama did not have the power to unilaterally rewrite immigration law with DACA, and President Trump does not have the power to unilaterally rewrite the payroll tax law," Sasse said...
Well, Senator Sasse, you are correct in the abstract, but this is illustrative of the overall pickle we're in as a nation and society. The Democrats will use the Constitution as a shield as well as a cudgel when it suits them. When they can't and it doesn't, they ignore it completely, banking on the fact that a rogue judiciary and the SCOTUS will rubber stamp anything they do. And even then, the bureaucracy is always there to implement laws with zero constitutional authority, again relying on the judiciary to cover their ass and carve it into granite when the lawsuits fly. We on the other hand, have to always play by the rules even when the entire thing is rigged from start to finish.
Look, I get it. I'd be lying if I said I thought that this end run was kosher. But neither was DACA and look what happened when Trump exercised his absolute legal authority to end it. With America's cities going up in flames and Bolshevik Revolution 2: BLM/Antifa Boogaloo a red nether hair's breadth from wiping us out for good, should we be sticklers for following rules that the other side never does?
Or perhaps I'm over analyzing this whole thing. As I said, from a political standpoint, it was brilliance. Trump read Alinsky's damn book and played this perfectly. Look at what the Democrats are being forced to do - oppose a program giving money to average citizens who are hurting because of Democrat-imposed lockdowns and shutdowns. Cutting off the people from Uncle Sugar does not go down well with the public, especially less than 90 days from an election.
...Questions surround the legality of accomplishing at least some of these things via executive order. Trump's response to that might be, "so sue me."
There are also questions about the fiscal impact of some of the measures, at least for those who still care about the national debt. In addition, there are questions about the efficacy of a payroll tax cut and the wisdom of extended generous unemployment benefits.
However, as a political matter, Trump's move looks like a masterstroke. Since the days of FDR, the public has always seemed to approve of presidents who act to ameliorate suffering while Congress diddles. A flurry of activity, even of the futile or potentially counterproductive kind, makes a president look energetic and caring.
In this instance, Trump's move might well force congressional Democrats to reach a deal. That outcome, too, would be a political win for the president...
This move comes right on the heels of Angel-of-Death Cuomo's decision to order New York state's public schools to open on time for the fall semester. The two, like virtually everything in the links across all categories, are interrelated. People need to get back to work and the continued lockdown is now a political albatross around the Democrats' collective neck, with the violent riots and Joe Biden's liquefied medulla oblongata the cinderblocks tied to each leg.
Insofar as the only way they can defeat Trump is through the Mail-In Voting swindle, having the schools open, and in a state as important politically and population-wise as New York, means it's safe to vote in person. Schools representing a large percentage of polling places in NY and no doubt all over the country. Naturally, Cuomo can pull a fast one and order them shut but to do that would earn him the wrath of New Yorkers across all political lines.
Even putting that aside, the nation has had enough; enough of the riots and thuggery of Antifa and BLM, enough of Dr. Falsie and his Medicine Show, enough of having lives and livelihoods destroyed and enough of being blood-libeled as racists. Again, at the risk of the pessimists shaking their heads, let me just ask, given all of this, can you still see Biden's carcass dragged over the finish line in a clear, unambiguous victory come November? I can't.
We're absolutely loaded with links and there are a lot of good ones, so do peruse all of the categories.
CIVIL WAR 2.0: LEFTIST REIGN OF TERROR, WAR ON POLICE
"There was a generous turnout at the rally, where people lined the streets near the Law Enforcement Center in Sioux Falls and waved American flags and other flags showing support for law enforcement." South Dakota "Back the Blue" Rally Sees Generous Turnout
"Can we, for the sake of our children's children, find at the last moment a way to reverse course, to step back from the brink, to find a future timeline that avoids the dreadful singularity of civil war?" The Singularity Is Near
"In our arrogance, we imagine that it is we who are disdainfully rejecting America's Founders. They would want nothing to do with us." Twilight of the Founders
Lloyd Billingsley: "The hour is late, but the possibilities of rescuing America are many." An ARM Agenda
CHINESE CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS, FACTS AND AMERICA IMPRISONED
"After lawmakers on both sides of the aisle failed to reach a deal on a fourth [Chinese] coronavirus stimulus package, Trump responded by signing four executive orders Saturday. These included a payroll tax cut holiday through the end of the year, a prohibition on evictions, student loan relief, and $400 per week for unemployed workers." Steve Mnuchin: Democrats Will Have "A Lot of Explaining to Do" If They Sue To Stop Trump Executive Orders
"Between executive orders giving Americans economic relief, and a phenomenal press conference, Trump undercut and called out the greedy Democrats." Trump's Triumphant End-Run Around the Democrats
"Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, has supported the Sturgis rally, citing the fact that no infections were reported as a result of the event held by President Trump at Mt. Rushmore last month. She's also avoided a mask mandate and highlighted the idea of personal responsibility." Sioux Nation Will Block Bikers Headed to Sturgis Rally, Citing Chinese Coronavirus Concerns
"Like so many other organizations that began in the service of a reasonable -- even noble! -- cause, AARP has become merely an excuse to rake in the cash for a handful of executives." Swampy AARP
Victor Davis Hanson: "The inner-Biden at 77 is turning out to be an unabashed bigot in the age of 'cancel culture' and thought crimes that has apparently declared him immune from the opprobrium reserved for any such speech." Who or What Exactly Is Running Against Trump?
Robert Spencer: "That noted economist Sid Vicious sang back in 1977 about 'a cheap holiday in other people's misery,' and the leftist establishment moved quickly from cheap holidays in other people's misery to cheap labor in other people's misery." Trump Stands Between You and the Poverty the Democrats Have Ready for You
"While mainstream media organizations worry about foreign meddling in our last election and the next one, we should take a look at how they themselves are meddling." ViacomCBS is Meddling in the Presidential Election
"The genesis of gun control was designed to keep guns out of the hands of black people. The last thing that they want to do is prop up a message that demonstrates to the very people they rely on to gain their power is the idea that we utilized the very thing they are trying to ban to gain our freedom or to protect our families back during the time period where we needed them the most." "Black Guns Matter": The Racist History of Gun Control
"Azar touched down in Taiwan on Sunday, marking the first trip from this high-ranking of a U.S. official since the United States shifted formal diplomatic recognition in the late 1970s under former Democrat President Jimmy Carter from Taiwan's government, the Republic of China, to the People's Republic of China (PRC)." Alex Azar on Taiwan: "Very Important Partner of United States"
"The new agreement provides Pakistan Defense Ministry officers with top-secret clearance to use and interact with the Chinese intelligence infrastructure under the aegis of the Joint Staff Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission." Pakistan and China Reach New Intelligence Sharing Agreement
"If the state of things in one of its iconic neighborhoods is any indication, New York isn't creating the conditions for recommitment to the city." West Side Storm
"To beat the [Chinese] COVID-generated economic crisis, Congress needs to partially repeal Dodd-Frank and bring back the no-qualifying loan." Bring Back No-Qualifying Loans
"This environmental humanist agenda that prioritizes love for humanity is a direct challenge to climate alarmists, who must now answer the question, as Michael Shellenberger writes 'are they motivated by love for humanity or something closer to its opposite?'" Apocalypse Never Takes Direct Aim at Consensus Climate Alarmism
"By focusing on characteristics that aren't essential to the job -- such as skin color, gender, and sexual preferences, HR departments expend scarce resources on policies that don't contribute to the bottom line." Human Resources and Cancel Culture
"So what did this ex-slave believe and say that made him 'too white' for modern wokeness to notice, much less endorse?" Was Booker T. Washington Too White?
Channeling William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane in a new film portrait of Donald Trump. Exploring Citizen Trump
"It is good for us to play sometimes, and not fight. In reality, people are united by what the political utilitarian cannot recognize: by play and song and worship." Scorch the Field
"Hitler had detailed plans for the 'racially superior' Nordic state." Adolf Hitler and Norway
"Resistance in response to the Nazi aim to eliminate all Jews has helped preserve the existence and communal life of the Jewish people who have not been eliminated from human history." Jews Transcending Adversity
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
“I had distant relatives who died under the Nazi’s,” Shatner said. “I hope you can understand that I feel ‘distinctions’ are labels & labels are dehumanizing. Am I clear?” William Shatner
Quote II
“My doctor prescribed it. My pharmacy had it. Took it that day and within two to three days I was able to breathe. Within a week I was back on my feet.” Democratic New York City Councilman Paul Vallone
"I made the decision for my kids to be at home, and I don't really see how any district can come in and say what my kid can't wear in my house. I don't think they have any right to say what happens in my house. I think they have enough to worry about as opposed to what the kids are wearing. They need to make sure they're getting educated"Elizabeth Ballinger
Quote V
"I trusted my people, they trusted me, and South Dakota is in a good spot in our fight against COVID-19. The #Sturgis motorcycle rally starts this weekend, and we're excited for visitors to see what our great state has to offer!"South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem
The University of Georgia is urging students to wear masks while having sex.
The university reportedly sent out notices to on-campus students that said they should “consider wearing a face mask during sex. Heavy breathing and panting can further spread the virus, and wearing a mask can reduce the risk,” according to OutKick.
The ritual was to arrive at work half an hour early, so I could gradually wake up in the car listening to the radio, drinking coffee, and eating doughnuts. I’d park my Honda Fit beside the site foreman’s pick-up truck. His morning pre-shift was like mine, except that his breakfast was vodka-soda with painkillers. Another two labourers usually arrived after I did: an irritable six-foot-three indigenous guy called by everyone, including himself, the “BFI,” which stood for “Big F-cking Indian”; and a cocaine-addled Italian who split “a gram or two with the wife” nightly, pairing it with a three-litre bottle of red wine. He claimed to sleep only two hours, which I never doubted, since he had to commute an hour to get on site at 6am. Of my colleagues, only the BFI always worked sober, having survived years of alcoholism (not to mention some prison time).
At age 20, I’d started my first week in construction, excavating a commercial space for a liquor store. The dark pits of freshly-dug soil gave the air a musty sweetness that stuck in the back of the throat. We’d spend 12-hour days digging trenches in the subterranean dark, and then fill them up with concrete. The ready mix splashed onto my skin and made my eyes burn, while men yelled monosyllabic instructions over the din of engines. The air smelled of diesel, with notes of liquid metal thanks to the welders. On break, we made our way outside, the only time we saw the sun, to immediately contaminate the fresh air with a round of cigarettes. True to stereotype, not one woman escaped our gaze. They were something to look at that wasn’t steel, dirt, dust, or rock.
This is how some men spend the majority of their lives.
Houston's swanky H Bar is serving up a $1,600 burger that takes conspicuous consumption to a whole new level. While it's far from the only extravagantly-priced stunt sandwich on the market, the Black Gold burger is surely the first meant to be a gilded tribute to Houston's oil industry, using actual 24-carat gold leaf in the black brioche bun.
The burger's other ingredients will be familiar to those who have followed the ultra-expensive burger game: sixteen ounces of Wagyu beef flown in from Japan, seared foie gras, black truffles and truffle aioli, all piled between the striking black and gold bun.
Police have shut down an illegal rave after hundreds of revellers broke coronavirus restrictions to party into the early hours of the morning. An estimated 500 youngsters converged on Epping Forest for the organised event held near the North Circular Road in north London. The rave broke current government guidelines making it illegal for more than 30 people to gather in one place – unless social distancing measures are in place. Footage from last night shows dozens of people crammed in together on the makeshift dance floor in the woods, which boasted huge speakers and fairy lights weaved through the trees.
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
On this day: 9 Aug 2007
Baltimore's mayor Sheila Dixon proclaimed today as the city's official Frank Zappa Day, citing Zappa's musical accomplishments as well as his defence of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. via thisdayinmusic.com
Zappa: Magnolia Pictures Serving Up Frank Zappa Documentary For Thanksgiving
On this day: 9 Aug 1995
Jerry Garcia guitarist and singer from the Grateful Dead died from a heart attack at the Serenity Knolls rehabilitation clinic in San Francisco aged 53. Garcia co-founded the New Riders of the Purple Sage and also released several solo albums. He was well known for his distinctive guitar playing and was ranked 13th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarist's of All Time. via thisdayinmusic.com
AUGUST 8--A Florida Man was jailed yesterday on a felony Slurpee battery charge, records show.
Investigators allege that Brian Duffy, 40, last month doused a 7-Eleven employee with the frozen treat during a 9:20 AM argument about the drink’s price inside a store in Pinellas Park.
According to an arrest affidavit, a surveillance camera recorded Duffy “back handing the cup full of a Slurpee drink” out of the female victim’s hand. The Slurpee “flew onto the victim’s person,” a cop reported.
While Duffy left 7-Eleven before police responded, the victim yesterday afternoon “pointed the defendant out to law enforcement,” apparently after he returned to the convenience store.
Newly licensed Dyfed-Powys Police dog Max, and his handler PC Peter Lloyd, were crucial in tracking down the woman who had spent a night in a remote location Wales with her young child.
The two-year-old German Shepherd mix was called into duty at just before noon on August 1, when the force received a call reporting the pair missing in Powys.
"The woman had not been seen or spoken to for two days, which was out of character, and her phone wasn't working, so naturally concern for her safety was high," Inspector Jonathan Rees-Jones said.
***
Weekly commenter stats for week of 8-9-2020
Top 10 commenters:
1 [628 comments] 'Insomniac - Ex Cineribus Resurgo' [88.15 posts/day]
2 [476 comments] 'Christopher R Taylor'
3 [449 comments] 'Sponge - China is Asshoe!'
4 [445 comments] 'Miklosius ad infinitum'
5 [429 comments] 'Commissar Hrothgar -Your Rulers Have, and Deserve, Different Rules! -'
6 [410 comments] 'CN'
7 [404 comments] 'Rodrigo Borgia (kneels to no one on this Earth)'
8 [377 comments] 'JT'
9 [359 comments] 'Tom Servo'
10 [357 comments] 'JackStraw'
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Diagnostic Skills.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. Our call center is up and running and unaccented English is primarily spoken here.
Gun Thread: Post Hurricane Madness Edition! [Weasel]
—Open Blogger
I tried to tell you people that a hurricane was coming! As predicted, we had a bigly amount of rain this past week from the storm that came up the east coast. Bigly amounts. Torrentially bigly amounts. Truth be told I think the farm in Central Virginia was spared the worst, but it's going to need a few more days to dry out. I'm also a little bit scairt of the vegetation situation there, as I haven't mowed the road on the farm in about 8 weeks. So that's going to be project one as soon as I get back down there. Fortunately, the tractor and the brush cutter are up to the job. Project two will be to catch up on shooting some video! Having said all that, there is still some gun stuff for the week. Let's get to that below, shall we?
Looking around for content, I see I just happen to have a P239 here on the desk. It's a gun I've had for years, and I am a big fan of the all metal P series, so much so that I went to the Sig Academy in New Hampshire and took their Armorer's Course. It's a 2 day class covering troubleshooting and maintenance of these popular guns. What motivated me to take the course? Well, I own a number of P-series guns, and I wanted to be able to take them apart and put them back together without having a lot of leftover parts. Here's what I had to say regarding the course back in a May 2019 edition of the GT.
Some assembly required...
Simply cleaning a weapon requires some level of disassembly and I was always curious about all the little pins and springs and other teensy parts that make up the innards of a gun. Frequently my re-assembly attempts ended with leftover parts on the bench, necessitating a frantic YouTube search until a helpful video help was found, or worse, taking the gun and a baggie of loose parts to my gunsmith.
Two things eventually happened; my collection of Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistols grew large enough, and I got tired of paying for simple adjustments, repairs and parts replacement. It was at this point that I decided to take Sig's Armorer's Course so I packed a bag, pointed the car north, and headed for Epping, New Hampshire.
The Sig Sauer Academy sits on 140 acres a little over an hour north of Boston, MA. The facilities include an assortment of indoor/outdoor ranges, classrooms, tactical training areas and a pro shop. It's a really impressive setup, and I'd been to the Epping facility before taking rifle courses so I was familiar with the layout. Signing up was simple and done online, including uploading various credentials required for the specific courses. The armorer's courses are conveniently held in locations all over the country, last two days, and cost $430. Upon successful completion, students are awarded a certificate good for three years which allows them to fully service the pistols while maintaining the factory warranty. Recertification is a one day refresher class for $260.
The P226 in the picture above is the gun I took apart and put back together about 100 times over the course of two days. You start by working on the smaller sub-assemblies and eventually work up to complete disassembly and re-assembly of the pistol. I thought I'd be cute and organize the parts by group to make it easier, but I guess the instructor had seen this before and helpfully mixed everything up into a big pile for me. Eventually, it was fairly straightforward to take a pile of parts and turn it into a working firearm. The course is quite a bit of fun, but it's also no joke. You must demonstrate proficiency working on the weapons to the instructor and pass a written test. I've found the experience gained even helps in troubleshooting problems with other brands of firearms.
I have to say I'm happy to have taken the course but I haven't felt compelled to keep the certification current. I'm also not sure I'd pay any more than the the $430 they're charging. The quality of instruction is very good but at that price I don't think it's a bargain for the casual shooter. Not a waste, but not a bargain.
So that was my opinion last year, and it's sort of still my opinion this year. What changed? Well, I think my opinion of the relative value of the knowledge gained has increased. In these difficult and uncertain times which we're all living in together, I think the value of what I learned has gone up. Way up. Rather than before simply being a matter of mere convenience, I know I can work on these guns and repair them myself as necessary when it's not practical or possible for me to take them to someone else to fix. I think you need to have at least some familiarity with the operation and assembly of your firearm.
Why am I mentioning this now? Well, for two reasons; first, it saves me from having to think of new things to write about, and more importantly, it identifies something you need to be thinking about in addition to buying ammo and practice. Your trusty carry handgun isn't going to do you much good if, say, a trigger spring breaks and you do not have the spare part and the ability to replace it. Yourself.
If you followed the Sig Sauer course links above, you will have found there are currently no armorer's classes listed, I'm guessing due to the Chinese Cooties, and even the popular basic defensive handgun courses are full until sometime in October and November. Guess all the new handgun owners have decided to train up, but the armorer's courses are simply gone altogether. Who would have thought this would be the new reality even a mere six months ago, and what do you do now that it is?
I would encourage you to start looking for general maintenance references and resources for your most frequently used firearms, and identify the most common parts subject to wear and order replacement parts now. I'm talking about springs, pins, grip screws and firing pins - that sort of thing. Anything that is subject to wear and tear through normal use. You need to have these spare parts now, and not try to source them when they break and are needed in a hurry. You should also have a basic maintenance kit with the tools needed for precision work. A small set of gunsmithing screwdrivers, needle nose pliers, punches, and a small brass hammer. I am sure you can think of other things to add. Clearly label the parts and get a small inexpensive fishing tackle box to keep it in. There are countless reference books on basic firearm repair and you can probably find one with an exploded parts diagram for your particular firearm. Keep this with your tools and you will thank yourself later.
Here's a video example someone made of a Sig P226 reassembly, and there are a lot of others. It's difficult to see detail of some of the small parts, but you get the idea.
What do you think? I'm sure a lot of you are already doing this. Right?
******
I like this guy. Any of what he's saying sound familiar?
******
A question I get almost as often as shooting a .50 BMG round on a stump with a .22 cal bullet, is about firing a 12 ga birdshot shell, attached to a tree and outside of a barrel, at a balloon. Seems like everyone wants to know about this one strange trick! Note: You may need to follow the link to YouTube to watch. Pretty cool!
******
Own a Henry Single Shot Rifle?
Here's some information on the Henry rifle recall[h/t redc1c4 and JTB]
******
So this is interesting. How hard is it to get into the low cost pistol safes? Apparently, not too difficult. [h/t CBD]
******
Next, our pal WTM sends in something I don't think I've ever seen before. An example of "sweetheart" grips. Evidently, it was common in World War II to have pictures of loved ones under a clear grip on a pistol. Neat-O!
******
ATTENTION NoVaMoMe 2020!!
Sad people who cannot make the new NoVaMoMe date of August 29th
Due the Chinese Cooties hysteria in Virginia, the NoVaMoMe 2020 has been postponed until Saturday, August 29th. The time and location remain the same. If you haven't already, please check your email and let the Central Planning Committee know if you are able to make the new date. If not, your registration fee will be refunded and we will open your spot to those on the wait list. Questions? Just email us at NoVaMoMe2020 at gee mail dot com. Thank you!
Our pal and prolific Mail Bag contributor ibguy sends us this week's entry. Thanks ibguy!
******
Please note the new and improved gmail account morongunthread at gmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
I've never been a fan, for many reasons. First of all, those skewers get hot, or if you use wooden ones they burn. And why jam all of that food together and miss out on the best part of the grill...the smoke and flame hitting the food...on 1/3 of the surface of the food? It doesn't make sense. And then we arrive at the silliness of cooking all of that stuff together, for the same amount of time with the same amount of heat. This is not cooking; this is laziness.
But the photo is gorgeous, so what the hell...
That's the problem with a lot of the food photography that I find on the internet. It's of food that doesn't interest me much, but it looks so damned good that I am tempted to use it anyway. And the alternative is to take my own photographs, but as many of you (Bluebell!) love to point out, half the time they are upside down.
I have been touting Australian wines for years, and my luck ran out. I read the reviews, which described this wine as a pretty standard Aussie Shiraz, which is definitely in my wheelhouse. So I bought four bottles, figuring that it would be pretty much just like the other 1,000 bottles of Australian wine I have drunk, which means big and fruity and pleasing to the palate.
But this one was crap. On the thin side, with way too much tannin and not nearly enough fruit. But I figured that the first bottle was an anomaly, so I opened another a few nights ago. And much to my chagrin (talk about first-world problems) it was just as crappy as the first one. I'll struggle through it, because it is drinkable, especially with food, but I am going to steer clear of this winery for a bit.
The worst part of this sad and tawdry story? I think I bought a bottle of this a few years ago, and didn't like it much. But I failed to document it and promptly forgot. That's the trouble with having thousands of wines at our fingertips...how do we differentiate; how do we keep track?
I have a wine cellar management program, but I rarely use it because the last thing on earth I want to do after dinner is run over to my computer and update the database.
******
Miley brought up an interesting point.
I was reading an old Nero Wolfe mystery last night (as you may recall, he was an epicure and had a world-class chef). One of the dishes included chervil. I haven't seen any mention of chervil in decades (I last used it in a bearnaise sauce in the early 80s, before the days of internet recipes. I think it was from The Women's Day Encyclopedia of Cooking, or the Time-Life Books cooking series, which is where I got most of my recipes back then).
Some herbs and spices wax and wane in popularity, don't they? Have you come across any recipes lately that call for chervil?
I'll answer the question first, and get to the interesting observation later.
Chervil is sort of gross, and just like Miley, the last time I used it was in a Béarnaise sauce a long, long time ago. As I suggested to Miley, I think that Béarnaise was invented just so that some chef could gt rid of all of that chervil in his garden, since nobody wanted it anywhere near their food otherwise.
But the waxing and waning of herbs and spices, and to extend it further, liquor and wine varietals and foods, is driven by lots of things, most of which are fickle. Sure, some foods become popular because producers figure out how to grow it more cheaply and get it to market faster. And some things become popular out of necessity and smart marketing. Look at Chilean Sea bass! Patagonian Toothfish was a garbage fish that nobody wanted, but the fishing industry was running out of product and figured that renaming an ugly looking prehistoric monster would give them a shot at selling some of them.
Yup...I have no idea.
******
I like wings. Every flavor, every different preparation is fine with me. As long as they aren't overdone I will eat them, happily and messily. Cooking them is another issue entirely. I have pretty much stopped frying stuff because I just hate the mess. I will fry the occasional chunk of fish for tacos, or some breaded thing like Scotch Eggs (Love 'em!), but that's really what restaurants do well, and I am happy to pay them for the pleasure of them cleaning up after the fry cook.
So Grilled Chicken Wings sure does sound like a good idea. It's nothing earthshaking, so don't get too excited, but it seems like a solid recipe, so I'll try it and get back to you, unless I forget, like the wine.
******
I tried maple syrup on a grilled pork chop. SHUT UP! I usually Sous Vide pork chops (the thicker the better) and then coat them with a Dijon mustard glaze and finish them on the grill. But a few nights ago the chops I bought weren't very thick, and I wanted a bit more sugar in the glaze so that they would caramelize quickly and not overcook. So I used maple syrup on one of the chops, and it did indeed caramelize nicely and quickly. But it didn't taste nearly as maple-y as I expected.
******
I love what they call this Ground Pork Stir Fry dish in Taiwan..."flies' heads." it looks great, and it looks easy. Too much of what passes for Chinese cooking is unnecessarily complicated, with too many ingredients. I like this dish because it is simple and ingredient driven.
******
I was at a loss for cooking ideas last night an stumbled past the poultry display case at my local Whole Foods. And before you pillory me for stepping foot in one, the prices have come down considerably, and with the recent closing of my favorite supermarket (a victim of Sino-Lung-AIDS and lousy management), it has become much more difficult to find good stuff!
Anyway, I bought a roasting chicken, mostly without thinking. It was a big one too, and when I grilled it (at low temperature) I realized that it was just a bit too long in the tooth for anything other than a liquid braise. The meat was neither tender nor pleasing texturally, and while it was certainly a relatively good meal for certain definitions of "good," in the future I will avoid fast cooking techniques for big chickens like this one.
And now for a chaotic segue...I ate this monster and immediately thought about buying a truly old chicken from lmy local poultry farm and making Coq Au Vin. That is a perfect dish for an old and tough chicken!
******
Food and cooking tips, Large-breasted Muscovy ducks, young wild pigs, bartenders who use vermouth in Martinis (but not too much), pork belly that doesn't have 5-spice, low-temperature-roast chicken, and good tomatoes that aren't square, pale pink and covered with Mestizo E.coli: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com. Any advocacy of French Toast with syrup will result in disciplinary action up to and including being nuked from orbit. And yes, shaking a Manhattan is blasphemy...it's in the Bible!
Woe is me! My little town, which is dotted with gorgeous hardwood trees, lost more than 100 of them because of a recent windstorm. In the process of falling they also knocked down dozens of power and cable lines, which, while not uncommon, was notable because of the number of homes affected.
And what did we lose? Light and air conditioning and refrigeration and powered garage door openers and pool pumps and traffic lights and TV and worst of all...the internet!
This happened a few times in the last tens years or so, and after the second flood of my basement I got a generator to run the sump pumps*. Then of course I wanted to run heat and refrigeration and some lights, so I installed a manual transfer switch, which allowed me to power up to 10 circuits, which is plenty! I also installed a dedicated plug, so I simply roll out the generator from the garage (Yup..I have to lift the door by hand!), plug it into the receptacle, and start it up.
But I did some calculations, and I realized that I could power the entire house if I don't try to run the air conditioners. But that means removing the transfer switch and installing an "interlock," which separates the house from the street power (to prevent sending power back to the street and maybe killing a utility worker) and replaces it with the generator power.
But...can I also power up the air-conditioning system (one of them...not both)? That's the worst part of blackouts during the summer..we are so incredibly lucky to live in America, where air conditioning is just assumed. And none of this 78 degrees crap. The colder the better!
Rated load is 16 amps, and it requires a 30 amp circuit. So assuming the worst, that it pulls 30 amps at startup, that's still only 6,600 watts, which is just below the transient capacity of my generator. But...does it pull more power than that during the few seconds of maximum load, and are the breakers designed to handle more than the rated capacity for brief periods?
This is the agony of 21st century America!
The horror...the horror...
* I recently installed an inverter with two deep-discharge marine batteries to drive one of the sump pumps in case I'm not around when we lose power.
You Tout Socialism For Others? Well Here It Is For You: Good And Hard!
—CBD
Bernie, after you have spent your entire career spouting nonsense and supporting pretty much every crackpot leftist idea, you finally stumbled onto one that makes real (read: angry) conservatives smile.
The “Make Billionaires Pay Act” would impose a one-time 60% tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021. The funds would be used to pay for out-of-pocket health-care expenses for all Americans for a year. As of Aug. 5, the bill would tax $731 billion in wealth accumulated by 467 billionaires since March 18, according to a press release. If passed, the bill would tax billionaires on wealth accumulated through the end of the year, however.
From a rational public policy perspective, it is stupendously, catastrophically, wildly counter-productive. And as tax policy it is even worse. But I don't care. Stick it to our current crop of billionaires, whose wealth is sheltered to a large extent from the depredations of the Democrat party (and, sadly, many Republicans). It is so very easy for them to advocate spending other people's money, because even confiscatory taxes injure others far more than they. Tax Bezos' income at the highest marginal rate, and he is still left with an almost unimaginable amount of money. Tax a small business owner at the same rate and he must carefully budget and allocate and modify his spending to survive.
The schadenfreude if this ever manages to pass (of course it won't) would be delicious, and would absolutely last for more than four hours. Imagine the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments among the Silicon Valley elite, or the sneaky old bastard in Omaha, or Soros!
Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), and the rest of you winos, wine aunts, lushes, imbibers, tipplers, dipsomaniacs and other assorted drunks. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which just scream out "racism!" and "cultural appropriation!"
Pic Note:
This is the "Norrington Room" of Blackwell's, which contains 160,000 books on > 3 miles of shelf space. It was named after Sir Arthur Lionel Pugh Norrington, publisher and President of Trinity College at Oxford.
It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®
An ANTICHTHON is a hypothetical Earth-like planet, hidden from view on the opposite side of the Sun.
Every time I think we have, something else comes along to prove me wrong. This is why I'm encouraged by the upcoming publication of The Elven Inquisition: A Woke Fairy Story by Steven Wiley. Here's the Amazon blurb:
Welcome to the chaotic kingdom of Fantasmagoria, where an inquisition for absolute equity rages and the masses combat all forms of social injustice by any means necessary. Elves are burned at the stake for suggesting there is a biological difference between mermaids and goblins. Djinns are executed for granting capitalistic wishes. Vampires are tortured to death for insensitive jokes made five hundred years ago.
Finbar Finneban is a well-intentioned faun employed by the kingdom newspaper. At work, Finbar is made to censor, ensure staff diversity, and write virtuous articles on the inquisition. Problem is, Finbar resents the inquisition. He hates the victimology, identity politics, and cancellation culture. More than anything, he hates the madness of crowds. The question is: can he, and the kingdom, survive them?
Of course, there have been any number of serious anti-woke books published, and even novels making fun of the woke-ist mindset. But when I look at the other books Mr. Wiley has written, The Fairytale Chicago of Francesca Finnegan and The Imagined Homecoming of Icarus Isakov, and note the adjective used to describe them is 'absurdist', and there's no indication that he's a right-wing ideologue, I have to wonder if "normal" (i.e. generally moderate or non-political) people are starting to take notice of woke-ist ideology and policy proscriptions and have decided that they don't much care for it. Because the woke-ists can only hide behind anodyne truisms such as "black lives matter" or "women are people, too" for only so long before the perniciousness of the real agenda becomes too obvious to ignore.
In other words, perhaps normal people are getting 'woke', but not in the way the woke-ists would want.
If so, this is a very healthy trend, and I hope it continues.
Who Dis:
(Last week's 'who dis' was iconic actress Olivia DeHavilland, who passed away a few days ago at age 104. I thought this piece about her wising up to communism was a good read:
As I read The Glass Bees and it's prescient look at nanotechnology, I can only wonder about engineering a virus for control. Junger takes aim at technocrats and the ethics of their work and power.
Posted by: CN at August 02, 2020 09:14 AM (ONvIw)
OK, I looked up The Glass Bees and it does sound interesting:
In The Glass Bees, the celebrated German writer Ernst Jünger presents a disconcerting vision of the future. Zapparoni, a brilliant businessman, has turned his advanced understanding of technology and his strategic command of the information and entertainment industries into a discrete form of global domination. But Zapparoni is worried that the scientists he depends on might sell his secrets. He needs a chief of security, and Richard, a veteran and war hero, is ready for the job. However, when he arrives at the beautiful country compound that is Zapparoni's headquarters, he finds himself subjected to an unexpected ordeal. Soon he is led to question his past, his character, and even his senses...
Electronic copies are not available, only paperback and hardcover editions.
The author's bio sounds like he led quite a life:
Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) was born in Heidelberg and early on developed a fascination with war. As a teenager, he ran away to join the French Foreign Legion, then enlisted in the German Army of the first day of World War I. Jünger’s first book, Storm of Steel, provided a graphic account of his experiences. Jünger kept his distance from the Nazis, and his 1939 novel On the Marble Cliffs presented an allegorical account of the destructive nature of Hitler’s rule. One of the most controversial of twentieth-century German writers, Jünger was the recipient of numerous literary prizes, and continued his career as a writer until his death at the age of 102.
___________
84 I'm reading "Faster" by Neal Bascomb. It's the true story about an ex-pat American heiress who basically starts what would be today's equivalent of an F1 team. She works w/French car maker Delahaye to build the car, and assembles a team to take on the German powerhouses of the late thirties. The two German are backed by the Nazis, and the story has the David/Goliath theme about it. It's very interesting, but to this point the writing is flat; I feel like I'm reading a series of newspaper stories. I'll stick with it to the end, but it's getting a little chore-ish to read.
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at August 02, 2020 09:38 AM (7Fj9P)
Here's the Amazon blurb:
They were the unlikeliest of heroes. Rene Dreyfus, a former top driver on the international racecar circuit, had been banned from the best European teams—and fastest cars—by the mid-1930s because of his Jewish heritage. Charles Weiffenbach, head of the down-on-its-luck automaker Delahaye, was desperately trying to save his company as the world teetered toward the brink. And Lucy Schell, the adventurous daughter of an American multi-millionaire, yearned to reclaim the glory of her rally-driving days.
As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, these three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day—but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history.
I like the cover, though. I'll give them that. It has a nice sort of retro feel to it:
___________
283 I just finished Mao: The Untold Story, upon recommendation some weeks back in the book thread. It is an intense, laborious read and took me quite a while to get through it, but it was excellent. I highly recommend it if you want to delve into the full-on nightmare he brought upon China (and a Communist Party that is still ruling the country with an iron fist). It was informative as to how Russia was so intricately tied to spreading Communism in China in those early years. It was heartbreaking, unbelievable and horrifying. I was particularly nauseated near the end to read about the accolades showered upon Mao's rule by Nixon and Kissinger, but perhaps it was just diplomacy. I'd rather believe that than believe our government was blind to Mao's ruthless dictatorship. Anyway, very good book and thanks to the Moron who recommended it.
Posted by: Lady in Black at August 02, 2020 11:00 AM (O+I8R)
I really need to read Mao: The Untold Story. As I've read all 3 volumes of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, I think it is my duty to do so. And if you want to see something really heartbreaking, unbelievable and horrifying, scan through the Amazon reviews for this book, and you see rat bastard commiest actually *defending* their idol like he was some kind of great benefactor for the people of China. And if Holocaust deniers have acquired a deservedly scummy reputation, why not these scummy Maoists?
And I think the first thing Trump needs to do on Monday Morning is call a press conference and announce that the United States is officially recognizing Taiwan. Throwing one of our allies under the bus back in the 70s was a despicable thing to do, and screw Kissinger's realpolitiking. Some things just shouldn't be done.
___________
A long-time lurker notified me of a book self-published by a doctor friend of his:
The author (full disclosure) is a very conservative close friend of mine. We’ve been climbing partners for 20 years. He is a retired physician, triple-certified in emergency medicine, dermatology, and cosmetic surgery. Well published in his field. He is a brilliant guy, very contrarian, and a brutal critic of the Left.
He has recently completed a book, choosing to self-publish so he’d have total content-control, and I served as an editor for him as a favor. This work is a blistering critique of the various deeply corrupt aspects of the American medical profession. It is the most gripping thing I’ve read in non-fiction in perhaps a decade. It is wonderfully readable, has powerful reviews by a number of high-profile physicians and medical professionals, is thoroughly documented, and is frankly stunning in its arguments. I’ve been through it nine times as it developed into its final form and I never once got bored.
He has chosen to offer it free on a variety of platforms. It was just released, and as this is a spur of the moment idea of mine this morning, I have not yet told him I am sending you the link about it. I have no idea really what kind of marketing he has in place, but I know AoS and the Book Thread readers would really benefit from hearing about it. Though Robert is extremely conservative, he has chosen not to make his politics explicit in the book (though sharp readers will surely be able to detect it). The book is simply about the corrupt monetization of industry processes and practices. The title “Butchered by Healthcare” is deliberately unsubtle...
Just read the opening few paragraphs about losing two patients and you’ll be hooked.
The book is subtitled What to Do About Doctors, Big Pharma, and Corrupt Government Ruining Your Health and Medical Care and can be downloaded FREE at this link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/4kliod8a9z. Glancing through it, it does not have nice things to say about medicine and, in particular, the pharmaceutical industry. It sounds like a book that will be enlightening or depressing. Or both.
___________
Books By Morons
A.H. Lloyd tells me his long-awaited book on the Spanish Civil War is now available on Amazon, in both paperback and kindle. His e-mail to me includes this hat tip:
Much of its topics were honed in discussions on the book thread, and I gained some excellent information as a result of those exchanges, which I was able to cite as a source. I hope the Horde enjoys it and I thank them for all their input and encouragement.
( *ahem* ) SmartMilitaryBlog™ ( *ahem* )
Few wars are more shrouded in myth than the Spanish Civil War. For decades, histories have focused on politics at the expense of studying the military lessons of this pivotal conflict. This book provides a welcome addition to the growing body of work that examines the war as a military rather than political event...The book includes a detailed chronology, helpful maps, and a short illustrated guide to the tanks and aircraft involved in the conflict. As part of his wide-ranging analysis, the author is perhaps the first historian to develop a methodology that explains Franco's strategic thinking. Franco's shrewd but cautious strategy is contrasted with the Republican leadership's many failures, and the book chronicles how the Republic squandered its many advantages and thereby lost the war. Long Live Death provides a new way of understanding the Spanish Civil War, making it important to dedicated historians as well as casual readers wishing to learn more about the topic.
Set in the presidential election year of 2016, when everyone who was anyone absolutely knew Hillary would be president, the novel tells of the adventures of a young woman of blue collar background but high class aspiration who navigates the palace intrigues of cable news powerhouse Siren News and of the Starkadders, the family that owns it. Fun and timely, especially knowing what we know now.
The Amazon blurb goes into a lot more detail. And the Kindle price is only $2.99.
___________
So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.
What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.
Malka goes to consult with Dr. Cohen about reviving her husband’s libido.
“I’ll give you some Viagra,” he says .
“Thanks, but Moshe will never take it. Moshe hates pills.”
“In that case," says the doctor, "when he’s not looking drop one in his morning coffee. He won’t even know it’s there. Call me next week and let me know if it helped.”
When Malka calls the doctor he asks her how the little experiment worked out.
“We had mixed results, Dr. Cohen,” she says “The pill worked immediately . Within minutes, he leaped up to his feet, tore off my dress, and made love to me right there on the table.”
“That’s wonderful” says the doctor . “So what’s the problem?”
"I’m pretty sure they’ll never let us into that particular Starbucks again.” H/T Isophorone Blog
Thong-wearing aerial acrobat Sam Panda found trouble with Myrtle Beach cops Monday after police were called to stop the Panda Express from parading around in her offensive swimsuit. Panda, extremely fired up on Facebook, made claims that a ‘Karen’ called cops on her and used a Myrtle Beach thong ordinance to have her booted.
Panda, who is best known as the woman who broke her neck during a performance in Bali, was asked to leave the beach because of the thong after three cops cuffed her and looked up the ordinance. According to Fox 8, cops were originally called — allegedly by a ‘Karen’, according to Panda — for two women wearing thongs and see-through tops who were “dancing and soliciting” videos.
So the average erect penis is about an inch shorter than what most men think it is. The problem with this disconnect between perception and reality is that it has prompted male dissatisfaction with their genitalia. Surveys suggest that between 45 and 68 percent of men wish they had a larger penis. Forward-thinking male sexual health expert Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld once remarked, "It is not much of an exaggeration to say that penises in [men’s] fantasyland come in only three sizes—large, gigantic, and so big you can barely get them through the doorway."
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
Born on this day: 8 Aug 1961
The Edge (Dave Evans), guitarist, singer, songwriter with U2. They signed with Island Records and released their debut album, Boy in 1980. Their 1987 worldwide No.1 album The Joshua Tree spent 156 weeks on the UK chart. Their U2 360° Tour of 2009–2011 is the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour in history. via thisdayinmusic.com
&&&
On this day: 8 Aug 1980
The Greater London Council banned The Plasmatics from blowing a car up on stage during their UK live debut at London's Hammersmith Odeon. via thisdayinmusic.com
Blowing up a car? What the hell could go wrong??????
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A 13-year-old boy who crashed into five people Tuesday night while driving on his grandmother’s lap said his grandmother was giving him driving lessons at the time.
“I didn’t want to, but I ain’t had no choice, so she told me to sit in her lap, and I did,” 13-year-old Joseph said.
His grandmother, Ernestine Hollomon, 58, faces a number of charges in connection with the crash, including DUI-child endangerment.
Police said her car was speeding down Boyd Street when it hit five pedestrians.
“I ain’t know what to do,” Joseph said. “I pushed the brake, but she pushed the gas pedal and went straight ahead and started crashing into those folks.”
***
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Editing Programs.
Notice: The ONT is posted. Don't ask, we won't tell.
Saturday Evening Movie Thread 08-08-2020 [TheJamesMadison]
—Open Blogger
Hitchcock, The Early Years
I've gone through all of Alfred Hitchcock's filmography, and I can easily say that the man made a lot of movies over a long period of time. From the mid 20s to the late 70s, he has directing credits on fifty-three feature films that still exist. That's a lot of ground to cover, and it's far too much ground to cover in a single Saturday Evening Movie Thread. I may or may not follow this up with other Hitchcock threads, but for tonight I'm going to focus on a single period in the man's illustrious career.
Hitchcock started his career in the movies as a title designer before being promoted to director with The Pleasure Garden in 1925 (which I actually wrote about a while ago here). He was a contract director in the British film industry at Elstree Studios, and he took whatever assignment the studio handed him. He was well on his way to developing a cohesive cinematic signature by 1929 as he was directing the feature film Blackmail when sound suddenly became a big thing and threw every film industry in the world into upheaval. Eager to capture the zeitgeist, the studio mandated that the already completed Blackmail should become a silent/talkie hybrid, and it took several years and several feature films for Hitchcock to regain his assured cinematic hand.
This period fascinates me mostly because it's a wonderful microcosm of the tumult in the film industry as a whole. It's a wonderful vehicle to talk about the overall transition into sound pictures.
When cinema became a medium in the final years 19th century, almost no one looked at the silent black and white moving images and felt like that was as far as the medium would go. They wanted both sound and color back then, but the technologies for either simply did not exist at the time. So, as inventors fiddled with how to match sound and image, the movies were born and they flourished for thirty years.
In those thirty years, the movies went from cameras on tripods capturing action on a set the size of a theater stage like in The Great Train Robbery:
To wildly inventive forms of visual language as evidenced by people such as Carl Theodore Dreyer and his film The Passion of Joan of Arc:
And Sergei Eisenstein in the new Soviet Union and his movie Battleship Potemkin:
At the same time, people like Lee de Forest were taking the sound to film problem seriously. The first and most obvious solution was trying to use phonographs to record and playback sound, but synching became impossible on playback. In addition, films often lost frames over time as projectionists clipped films for a variety of reasons, making the phonograph a complete impossibility to use for the long term. Sound needed to be captured on the film itself, and de Forest, along with men like Freeman Owens, used light to capture sound information directly onto the film in a system called variable density, which became Phonofilm and the default sound system for early film. There were problems, though.
The Jazz Singer Changes Hollywood
Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer was not the first sound film ever made, but it was the feature film that convinced Hollywood that sound on film was a viable commercial product. It was wildly successful financially and the film industry did what it does best: it copied.
In the middle of this was a workmanlike director in the United Kingdom named Alfred Hitchcock. He was on the tail end of filming his newest feature titled Blackmail for British International Pictures, and orders came that they needed to change the movie to sound. The film was completed (and was, in fact released silently to the vast majority of theaters that did not have the ability to play back sound), but new material needed to be shot in order to become a talkie.
And that's why Blackmail becomes so interesting from a historical perspective. Not only was it the first British talkie, but it demonstrates both the near cluelessness that early talkie filmmakers approached the use of sound as well as showing how Alfred Hitchcock quickly adapting to a new technology. In the silent sequences, the camera moves freely with interesting uses of shadows and motion to tell the story visually, but for all but one of the sound sequences, everything becomes nailed down and rather dull.
The central problem was that early cameras were rather loud machines and would easily pollute the soundtrack with extra noise. Editing sound was an incredibly difficult process in those early years, so everything needed to be caught along with the image with no dubbing later. The solution ended up being putting the camera in a literal box with a glass pane separating the camera lens from the action. As one early sound man described it, the glass made great lenses mediocre. The camera couldn't move, and, on top of it, the dialogue written wasn't necessary for the story since the story was designed to work without it. The extended dialogue sequences feel meandering and pointless, all while the actual quality of the sound ended up being rather poor because of the primitive technology at play.
The people loved the gimmick though, and Blackmail was a success, convincing British International Pictures to make more talkies. But what should they do now? It's not like they had screenwriters experienced in writing dialogue. So, they did just about the worst thing they could decide to do: The went to the theater.
Theater on Film
Theater and film share a lot of superficial characteristics. They both involve actors, dialogue, sets, costumes, and drama. However, the innate natures of both mediums are vastly different. The key is in how cinema uses the camera to focus the audience on individual things instead of letting the audience discover the entire stage of a theatrical production, and the use of editing. Plays need to be adapted to the cinematic medium in order to work, to account for the changes in how the two convey human emotions to the audience, but early talkie filmmakers either didn't understand that just yet or they simply were moving too fast to really think about it. Hitchcock got caught up in this move just like the rest, and his next picture was a filmed production of the Irish play Juno and the Paycock.
I imagine the play works better on the stage, but in film, Hitchcock's "adaptation" is flat and rather dull. There's almost nothing remotely cinematic about the experience and it represents the ultimate cash grab by a studio. They knew they needed to get sound pictures out, so they grabbed a play and filmed it. The technical limitations still applied, so the camera is static throughout most of it, only going into the occasional zoom to differentiate itself.
It wasn't until his next movies that Hitchcock began to feel more comfortable in the medium with the new rules.
Advancements
When looking back at the transition from silent to sound, it's easy to sit here ninety years later and scoff at the dullards who imagined that sound would never take hold. But, learning more about how film worked and the technical limitations of capturing sound at the time, it becomes clear why filmmakers would be dismissive of the new technology. Everything that made film film to those who actually made films was in the camera. The ability to move, to tell things visually, to tell them well with great lenses all with a style of acting that had taken hold and allowed for actual subtly in performance was all being tossed aside so that audiences could hear characters say inane things that didn't advance the story. Films came to screeching halts with sound and the unique visual feel of the cinema got completely lost when sound equipment came on stage. The early naysayers of sound missed two things, though. The first was the simple mass appeal of hearing people talk. The other was that sound equipment was going to get better.
An interesting thing about this point in Hitchcock's career as sound technology crept forward is that he made the same movie twice at the same time. The first was for English audiences and the movie was titled Murder! while the second was for German audiences and was titled Mary. They are literally the same movie shot for shot (save some minor changes here and there) but with English versus German actors. What's important in terms of this discussion is that Hitchcock was finally able to move his camera again.
There's a scene early where a woman, who was an acquaintance of a murdered actress, tries to get some information from the owner of the small hotel where they were staying about the murder. The scene moves from a small dining nook to the kitchen and back, and it's all done in a single take. It tracks them from one room to the next and back again several times all while the characters were talking back and forth about the murdered woman and the woman accused of doing the murdering. It shows how far the technology had already come in just a couple of years. Hitchcock could move his camera again.
It's also a window into a studio technique of how to appeal to foreign markets. In the silent era, they could take film from any country and change the intertitles to match the language of the local market. It was pretty easy, but suddenly with people talking, you couldn't just send an English movie to Germany. What do you do? Well, the modern solution is subtitles or dubbing, but some studios at the time decided that it was best to send completely localized versions to those markets. The most famous example is the Spanish version of Universal's Dracula that used a different cast and crew but the same sets and filmed at night after the American cast and crew had left. Mary was just Hitchcock's contribution to that funny little practice.
However, there was still a lot of unknowns about effective dialogue. The film, in both versions, has an extended jury deliberation where the characters talk for an unnaturally long period of time about different theories of fugue states that ends up having nothing to do with the story at hand. It feels more like a way to have a dialogue scene rather than anything to advance the story. There was still work to be done. It wasn't until The Skin Game when Hitchcock even began to feel overall comfortable with the new tools at his disposal.
From Hindrance to Asset
From 1931 through 1934, Hitchcock made five movies. The Skin Game was another adaptation of a play, though it feels far more cinematic with better performances than Juno and the Paycock. East of Shanghai is a drama about a married couple on an extended vacation who grow apart and come back together again, and it feels rather natural as a sound picture, though as drama there's not a whole lot of interesting things to the sound design. Number 17 would be a classic Hitchcock thriller if it were about thirty minutes longer, and it suffers because of the struggle to film a more action-oriented story with early sound tools. Strauss' Great Waltz is a comedy of limited amusements centered around music and allows for some interesting little jokes based on sound, but the sound design is very limited, allowing only some use of some basic tools to make them work.
It's The Man Who Knew Too Much, the movie that Hitchcock would later remake in the 50s with Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart, where Hitchcock finally feels at home in this new sound world. There's still some roughness to the sound design, especially around the opening skiing sequence, but it finally feels like Hitchcock isn't being held back by sound anymore. This was the first time since the silent version of Blackmail where it feels like Alfred Hitchcock was in full control of the technical aspects of filmmaking. It just took five years of pounding out other movies for him to regain his feet. He finally regained the cinematic language he had lost with the advent of sound. He could do chases, shootouts, even a big climax at Albert Hall centered around a specific piece of music and it all felt like a natural part of the story.
Singin' in the Rain
Of course, you can get a similar, concentrated, and fictionalized telling of the troubles of the early sound era by simply watching the Gene Kelly movie Singin' in the Rain. It's the musical, American version of some of what Hitchcock went through in converting Blackmail into sound.
From the placement of microphones:
To the fact that the main star did not sound the way audiences expected in much the same way as Blackmail's female lead, Anny Ondra, was Czech and spoke English with a heavy accent so she was dubbed over by Joan Barry on set as Ondra lip synched her lines:
The film captures a lot of what studios had to go through to latch onto the new sound frontier.
Vertigo (Rating 4/4) Full Review "The movie actually gets better on rewatches because the characters are so well built that while Scottie is going through his end of the mystery that we already know, he's not just following breadcrumbs. He's building an ideal that carries him through the film to the end." [Personal Collection]
Topaz (Rating 1.5/4) Full Review "It's an overlong, uninvolving mess of a film. It's several stories that happen to involve some of the same characters squished together. It's a drag, but at least it looks pretty good." [Personal Collection]
North by Northwest (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's bright and colorful and the most purely fun movie Hitchcock had made since The 39 Steps." [Personal Collection]
The Wrong Man (Rating 4/4) Full Review "The Wrong Man is a different film for Hitchcock, embracing certain aesthetics and narrative conventions that he hadn't touched before while embracing a burgeoning set of cinematic techniques originating from France and Italy (as opposed to the early German influences on his visual style). It's a great film." [Personal Collection]
Rear Window (Rating 4/4) Full Review "However, more importantly, it's a crackling great thriller with great characters, an intriguing central mystery, and some of the best sequences of pure tension that Hitchcock ever produced in one of his best movies." [Personal Collection]
Dial M for Murder (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review " It's a highly entertaining mystery that moves through its twists deftly and with charm. It's not Hitchcock's best, but, if he was as disengaged as the stories say, then it's probably his best work when he didn't care." [DailyMotion]
The Trouble with Harry (Rating 3.5/4) Full Review "While I can understand why many modern audiences wouldn't share my enthusiasm for The Trouble with Harry considering its slow pace and gentle sense of humor, I find the combination rather infectious. It's a delightful movie that straddles a combination of tones rather deftly. [Personal Collection]
Psycho (Rating 4/4) Full Review "It's Hitchcock playing with the audience, twisting the knife into them about expectations, emotional investment, and denouements. He's playing the audience like a fiddle, and it works so incredibly well. It's experimental, cruel, and wildly effective." [Personal Collection]
Contact
Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
Follow me on Twitter.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.
Good afternoon to all of you chess and/or dress lovers.
TheJamesMadison will be along later with the movie thread. As always, the chess/dress pr0n thread is an open thread, so there is no such thing as an off-topic comment.
Beginner Problem - White To Play (1176)
Goal: White can force mate in 3 moves
Hint: Deflecting the bishop is key
r1b1k2r/pp2bppp/8/3N2q1/2p5/8/PPP2PPP/R2QR1K1 w kq - 0 1
Goal: White can force mate in 6
Hint: You won't succeed without bringing up reinforcements
2kr3r/pppbqn2/2Pp3p/3Pp1p1/4p1n1/2P2NP1/P2Q1P2/1RB3K1 w - - 0 1
Advanced Problem - Black To Play (1161)
FINISH HIM!
Goal: You should be able to wrap things up in, at most, 7 moves
r1q2k1r/pp2pp2/2P3p1/4B1n1/P7/5BPb/2QPPP2/R2R2K1 b - - 0 1
Dress Pr0n For the 'Ettes:
This week's #FridayFrills is this 1945 Norman Hartnell evening dress for Queen Elizabeth. It has some of the emblems of the UK (rose, daffodil, shamrocks, and thistles) embroidered in its lace. #FashionHistorypic.twitter.com/yN357RMvJO
Gold embroidery and sequins smother this glittering Mainbocher satin 1938 evening dress, the sequins almost look like reflective mirrors. The swirling line pattern takes influence from Japanese design, yet the cut of the dress follows 1930s styles. @V_and_Apic.twitter.com/LtIg6d1Llj
r1b1k2r/pp2bppp/8/3N2q1/2p5/8/PPP2PPP/R2QR1K1 w kq - 0 1
1.Nc7+ Kf8
2.Qd8+! Bxd8
Deflecting the bishop allows the rook to enter the fray:
3.Re8#
Intermediate Problem - White To Play
2kr3r/pppbqn2/2Pp3p/3Pp1p1/4p1n1/2P2NP1/P2Q1P2/1RB3K1 w - - 0 1
1.Rxb7 Rdg8
2.Qb2!
An important and necessary zwischenzug. Too hasty is 2.Rb8+ Kxb8 3.Qb2+ Kc8 4. Qb7+ Kd8 5.Qb8+ Bc8 and White's attack is stymied.
2...Kd8
3.Rb8+ Bc8
4.Rxc8+ Kxc8
5.Qb7+ Kd8
6.Qb8#
Advanced Problem - Black To Play
r1q2k1r/pp2pp2/2P3p1/4B1n1/P7/5BPb/2QPPP2/R2R2K1 b - - 0 1
1... Nxf3+
2. exf3 Bg2
3. Bg7+
If 3.g4 then 3...Bxf3 4.Bxh8 Qxg4+ 5.Kf1 Qg2+ 6.Ke1 Qg1#
3...Kg8
You don't want to take the bishop 3...Kxg7 because 4.g4 Bh1 5.Qb2+ f6 6.Re1 Qc7 7.Qc3 Rh3 8.Re3 bxc6 9. Rae1 Qh2+ 10.Kf1 Qf4 11.Ke2. Even with his extra bishop, it's going to take awhile for Black to dig out White's king.
4.Qf5 Qxf5
5.f4 Bf3
6.Bxh8 Qh3
7.cxb7 Qh1#
Hope to see you all next week!
___________
Note: that cryptic line of letters and numbers you see underneath each board diagram is a representation of the position in what is known as "Forsyth-Edwards Notation", or F.E.N. It's actually readable by humans. Most computer applications nowadays can read FEN, so those of you who may want to study the position, you can copy the line of FEN and paste into your chess app and it should automatically recreate the position on its display board. Or, Windows users can just "triple click" on it and the entire line will be highlighted so you can copy and paste it into your chess app.
___________
So that about wraps it up for this week. Chess thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to my yahoo address: OregonMuse little-a-in-a-circle yahoo dott com.
(Jeesh, that looks familar, not to mention any names, right Izzy?)
Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread, where animals rules and libs drool. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.
These are sisters kittuhs. Casper and Laura. The picture of them on the steps is about 5 years old. Casper is looking at the camera with his big Lemur eyes. Laura is being coy. The other 2 are recent. Both cats are 14 years old now. Casper is now blind and has health issues. Laura is stubborn and will live forever. - Uncle Puddleglum luvs his niece and nephew kittuhs!
A proud uncle. All of the spoiling and none of the pet rearing. Nice move and thanks for sharing.
***
Love the HQ's Pet Thread and finally have something to contribute...
I have the honor of a "Christmas in July" birthday, July twenty-five. My cat (I believe) understood when I said, "Let's steam some crabs for dinner.." that or she knew it was my birthday...
And to think that at one time, I regretted finding her and feeling compelled to take on the dependency of yet another life...
I feel loved.
Good kitty my Lucky.
Outdoor female cats rock....mostly.- Diane
Oh my, Lucky needs to learn about the animal kingdom. I hate to see what she brings back when you order steak. Thanks for sharing.
***
Hello!
Just wanted to send along a photo of Toby. Some here may recognize my nick; in the past, I've been a little, shall we say, negative about dogs and dog owners after the ex used her dogs and their feces as weapons to end our marriage and cover for her cheating. The healing process has been hard, what with our culture telling me at every turn that I'm evil and all that. We all know the drill. But a huge step for me came recently in first babysitting a friend's dog for a few days over several weeks. Liking having the dog around, I considered adopting my own. Met a few awkward candidates, then met Toby -- and the connection was instant. Our backstories are similar, but I won't bore you with that - neither matter now, really. Driving home from the humane society, we stopped at a light. Toby stood on the back seat, the leaned forward and rested his head on my shoulder and pressed the side of his head to mine. In that instant, the last two years of purgatory and the years of hell before that almost evaporated. I wept. And I still do when I think of that moment. It's hard to describe, and hard to recall.
Anyway - here's Toby on the trail along the river beside our home.
Be well -- Lickmuffin
A story with a happy ending for both man and dog. There is a reason dogs are known as "Man's best friend." Thanks for your contribution.
***
When we were first locked down here in California (before this second infinite lock-down) the DH decided to replant all the pots on the back patio and brought home a ton of flowers. Our Abyssinian cat, Gizmo, immediately had to check these out.
Lately there has been a spell of below-average weather, with heavy fog in the mornings. A cold house means Miz Gizmo sogs out in her heated Kat Kup until the sun comes out in the afternoon, whereupon she transfers over to a patio chair or the nice sunny window shelf. She is super spoiled!
Thanks for the pet thread, I look forward to it every Saturday!-- Tankascribe
Beautiful flowers. Gorgeous cat. Quite the photograph you shot there. Thanks for sharing and your kind words.
***
Working from home, discovered my co-workers all sacked out together. Top to bottom, Selma, black and white shorthair with one wonky eye, Claire, Maine Coonish beauty queen, Hank, neurotic big boy who loves his mommy. Never miss the Pet Blog, keep up the good work. - Leonard
Co-workers? They look like adorable slackers to me!! Quite the crew if they do decide to perform labor. Thanks for the contribution today.
***
Long time fan here and love the pet thread. We lost our little Charlie a few weeks ago, passing away in our back yard on a blanket under our apple tree. She was 13.5 years old and was the best little dog ever, such a sweet and gentle girl. I will miss her following me around the house everywhere and our long walks around the neighborhood. We have a big hole in our hearts now. - Scott
Condolences on your loss. Such small creatures can leave such a big hole in our hearts and lives. She was a cutie. Thank you for sharing today.
***
Long time reader.
This is our two rescues. Dixie Skynyrd (2 1/2 years old) & BC (Barn cat,
Blacksmith cat B&$%h cat, maybe 3? years old). Note Dixie did not chase
the cat she just walked over to say hello and BC felt that would be
unnatural. The shelter has a program where they catch, fix and give away
feral cats to people who want a barn cat here in Alabama. She is a
ferocious hunter who has cured my problems with mice, chipmunks and
squirrels. Dixie is a great companion dog who just loves to run and is
just looking for another friend in the wrong place. She feels that it is
cheating to climb trees or be able to fly. - Brian
That's a really cool snap shot. I don't recall having a photo like this submitted to the Pet Thread. Dixie & Barn Cat seem to keep you on your toes. Thanks.
***
Two hardcore pet morons here:Mark and Patrick.
Over the past 49 years our home has been blessed by thirteen pet angles:six Yorkies,three whippets, three rescue greyhounds and one cat. Pictured top left is our whippet Hannah chillin’on her back - her signature position. Hannah passed on to Doggie Heaven in May at the age of thirteen years five months.Top right shows Hannah with our other whippet Sophie.They were best buddies and Sophie misses Hannah terribly. Bottom right shows the whippets catching some rays with their big “little” sister Dazzle a ten year old rescue greyhound.Dazzle is pictured in a resting mode bottom left. Dazzle is a happy happy party animal.She is constantly poking her nose into her toy box to find the perfect prize to toss around while doing her tornadic pirouettes.Hannah was somewhat of a loner constantly going off on her own to hide under a chair only to appear whenever she thought it was time for some more food which was about forty-seven times a day.Sophie is a lap dog who constantly craves human contact and attention. She is not happy unless she has a daddy’s lap to curl up in.
Everyone in our home is a senior citizen now so we will not be getting any more pets.There is no guarantee either of us will live long enough to care for a new adoptee.But for the past five decades our home has been filled with joy and love thanks to these thirteen wonderful critters.
First off, sorry to hear about your pet Hannah's passing. The key to your story is that your pets have filled your life with joy and love. That is what is all about. May everyone in your household have a long and healthy life.
***
Hi,
Long time lurker here. If I did post it would be under the name Mrs. X.
This is our Lucy, also lurking in this photo, taken last summer when she was a spry 14 years old. She was a character, who loved treats, children and Mr. X far more than she loved me.
She was a hardy soul. She had cancer, which she survived, and kidney failure, which she didn’t. Our hearts are broken.
Well Mrs. X thank you for being a lurker and sharing Lucy's story. I'm sorry to hear that she has passed. May your memories always be fond of her.
***
Such great pets. Such great folks. Thank you all for being here today.
If you have something to share you can reach us at petmorons at gmail dot com.
Saturday Gardening and Puttering Thread, August 8, 2020 [KT]
—Open Blogger
Hello, gardeners, putterers, and summer dreamers! The lovely amaryllis flower photo above was provided by our friend 40 miles north.
80 year old bulbs (They were apparently planted when the house was built in 1941) and still going strong.
The photo below is why they are also called "Naked Ladies". They bloom in the fall, when the plants are otherwise "dormant". No leaves. Best time to transplant them if you are going to do it. There is a similar Lycoris if you don't live on the arid West Coast.
40 miles north has another grape report. The one I've been waiting for. His "red" grapes are looking kinda more than red:
This batch was REALLY sweet. I felt like an addict after I washed out all the spiders.
When I was growing up, the grape vines at our house were infested with leaf hoppers until little whitish "grape spiders" took up residence. We have some similar ones here. And some grapes, too. They don't look as good as the ones above.
We do have 3 varieties of Pluots on. Remarkable how long some varieties can hang on the tree looking ripe until they really get sweet. One is a little freestone. Most people probably never get to taste a ripe one.
I understand that those ubiquitous flattish black "Friar" plums you see everywhere are also delicious when fully tree-ripened. They keep for weeks when picked when they look ripe but are not fully ripe. You can use them to make Chinese red plum sauce. Better to use ripe ones, I would think.
pickle powder
Last week, late in the comments,Gordon asked,
What is pickle powder?
This was about a substance used to amend soil. But also to used pickles, maybe?
Gordon also mentioned a battle with squash bugs. Here they are. The adults are much more dramatic. They really don't look like the same insects. Anybody else doing battle with them?
Little white nymphs. I didn't see an adult but I found a lot of eggs on the underside of the zuke leaves. Treating with neem oil, diatomaceous earth and thumb & forefinger.
Those eggs are very hard, except after they are first laid, but if you can get rid of them, it saves a lot of problems.
Critters
Here's a spectacular bird bit. Seriously spectacular.
Illiniwek had an insect adventure:
A large hive of bees were quite upset when my tractor scoop knocked over their home.??
These pictures are the next day.?? The majority seem to be in that darker region below, with a large bunch higher up.
Hard to say where the queen is ... but I ordered a couple hive boxes to offer them a better home.?? It arrives Thursday.
Supplying good housing makes sense since honey bees are so important as pollinators * some honey might be a bonus.
Brave to get this close to a bunch of angry bees:
Gardens of The Horde
Illiniwek also sent in the following:
This is the third year for my deer resistant flower plot ... invaded by some chicory and red clover, for a ragged mix of color.
Nice! Bet the bees love it, too.
On the more refined side, we have this:
Hi -- I don't know if this is good enough for the Garden Thread but wanted to share. Keep up all your good work! Carlotta
It's beautiful! Wouldn't mind spending some time there. How about you?
If you would like to send information and/or photos for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden
at that g mail dot com place
Include your nic unless you want to remain a lurker.
Race and (Trans)gender, Race and (Trans)gender [KT]
—Open Blogger
It was only January when we first posted the photo above of a gender reveal that went too far. Since then, there have been many other instances of people going to far regarding race and gender. There is one bit of good news. We need it.
UNT's Journal of Schenkerian Studies is under investigation following calls from around the country for it to be shuttered and for one of its advisers, UNT music theory professor Timothy Jackson, to be fired. The journal's sin? Following criticism by scholar Philip Ewell that 19th century music theorist Heinrich Schenker, whose influence on music theory is "hard to overstate," was an "ardent racist and German nationalist," the journal presented an edition including debate among scholars on racial issues and music theory. . .
The graduate students claimed that Jackson had used the journal "to promote racism" by defending the music theorist after Ewell wrote that Schenker's "racist views infected his music theoretical arguments." Jackson's article, one of several defending the composer in the 2019 edition of the journal, contextualized Schenker and his changing views on race, which were partially due to the rise of Nazi Germany. (Schenker was Jewish; his wife was arrested by the Nazi regime and died in Theresienstadt concentration camp.)
You can now cancel a college professor for suggesting that music theory (based on writings of a Jewish guy whose wife died in a Nazi concentration camp) is not as white supremacist as another college professor claims?
How did we get to this point? Of course, "cancel culture" has been going on against conservatives for a long time, but it's kind of a new thing to see liberals and leftists suddenly becoming targets.
These ideas arose in the late 1960s, when people from different disciplines suddenly started saying they were sceptical of meta-narratives, that knowledge was a social construct, and that language could not convey meaning reliably. There was a critical attitude towards everything we thought we knew. This was a really aimless development, because if you do not believe language can meaningfully convey anything, you cannot really use language to change anything. As a result, this movement burnt itself out by the middle of the 1980s.
But around 1989 there was another flood of new writing, in which people . . . all started saying postmodernism had some useful tools, but was not very good for activism. There had to be some kind of objective truth, if we were going to say certain people in a certain place are disadvantaged. They all wanted to use the idea of social constructivism, but also identified power structures that they felt were objectively real. That was a dramatic change. Then came intersectionality, queer theory, critical-race theory and later disability studies and fat studies. . .
. . . We have gone from a scepticism towards meta-narratives to a social justice meta-narrative. And that has been escalating, particularly in the last five years, and especially this year.
spiked: What are the most revealing examples of this trend?
Pluckrose: One key example is cancel culture. We have had all these different marginalised identities for a little while. But in the last year or so, things have been refining, and now we are really looking at two key identities. Activists are not so worried about women as a sex anymore. This is evident from all the Karen memes. Similarly, activists feel gay men are not consistently being intersectional, and have lost some of their interest in the gay identity cause. What we have ended up with is race and transgender.
Ed Driscoll picked up a sensible point from The Dispatch this morning. It focuses on the Washington Post's decision to capitalize both White and Black as "distinct cultural and ethnic groups". Totally binary.
At some point in the future people will look back at how the left made two contradictory arguments at the same time. When it comes to sexual identity, the word has gone forth to oppose "artificial" categories, "false binaries," etc. People can define themselves sexually without any regard to medical science, never mind tradition or political or cultural orthodoxy. I've lost count of how many genders there are now. Just last week, CNN was so scared of using the word "women" it tweeted that "Individuals with a cervix are now recommended to start cervical cancers screening at 25 ..."
Meanwhile, when it comes to race, it's all about new artificial categories and enforced binaries. White people who pretend they're black are committing theft. Heck, white people who cook non-white food or pay homage to non-white art forms are committing theft. Cultural appropriation is evil. But gender appropriation is something to be celebrated. Biological males can collect all the women's track and field awards and that's fine. But don't you dare wear dreadlocks if you're not black? . .
In recent months, a sense has emerged that the tide might finally be starting to turn in the gender debate: Things that most everyone believes to be true, but that no one has been allowed to say, are now increasingly being said by writers, lawmakers, and litigants.
Certainly, the battle is still far from over. CNN is referring to women as "individuals with a cervix." Last month, J.K. Rowling was trolled yet again for stating ordinary views about men and women (though thankfully, the media is no longer getting away with defaming her). And best-selling children's author Gillian Phillip has been sacked by her publisher, Working Partners, because she added the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter bio. But at least now, in mid-2020, these acts attract growing criticism.
J. K. Rowling did take some heavy hits recently. Some of them quite hysterical, to use an old sexist term. Someone wrote that her transphobia put me in danger.
"Transgender women are women," he wrote. "Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo (Rowling) or I."
Back to the Quillette piece. The author, Julian Vigo, does an overview of how thinking about transgenderism got so extreme. Very much worth reading. The ACLU has not been the friend of the American family on this issue. The universities have not been the only culprits.
Then come some signs of change:
That's why it's significant that the website of Britain's National Health Service (NHS)--the umbrella group for the country's publicly-funded healthcare systems--has removed the prominent, once-numerous references to Mermaids from its online materials. Mermaids is a charity that has long identified its constituency as "transgender children" and their parents, but which long ago focused on pushing for the most rapid possible transition of the highest possible number of children, with the fewest number of safeguards. As the notorious case of a seven-year-old boy who was removed from his mother's care shows, there really seems to be no line the group won't cross in this regard. (One particularly memorable Mermaids moment came when the organization promoted an article on transgender children supposedly written by two academics named Natacha Kennedy and Mark Hellen. It later turned out to have been written by a single person, who, bizarrely, then appeared under two different names on the Goldsmiths University of London website--one male, the other female, naturally.)
Look for any mention of Mermaids today on the NHS site, and you're likely to find the pages are gone. The BBC, too, seems to have wiped away references to Mermaids from its list of "Gender Identity" "Information and Support" resources, which listed Mermaids prominently until last month. This has unfolded during the same period when the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation, which provides mental-health services to children, is facing a lawsuit from a former patient who says she was rushed into an aggressive, and ultimately destructive, program of hormone therapy. A former psychiatric nurse at Tavistock is making related legal claims, alleging the provision of drugs to children as young as nine. Numerous clinicians have resigned in protest at such policies. And it may be the case that lawyers at the BBC and NHS are simply seeking to protect their clients from legal exposure.
LEGAL EXPOSURE. That seems to me to be a key to the change. But there is much more. Changes have been occurring on several fronts. Take a look.
Which brings us back to J.K. Rowling, who recently responded to an article describing women as "people who menstruate" by Tweeting, "'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people." The fierce onslaught she received has served as a wake-up call, even for those who have not been following the debate closely.
In a culture war, which side are you going to pick--the beloved children's author tweeting common sense, or the angry mob demanding that women be defined in language according to their bodily discharge? It's what some feminists now look back on as their "peak trans moment"--that instant when you realize that we are being gaslit by extremists who rely on hyperbolic language, pseudoscience, exaggerated suicide statistics, and social-media mob campaigns, all the while pretending to represent the forces of universal love and toleration. . .
The way this struggle has developed has been so stupid. I saw some of the recent attacks on Rowling myself on social media. They attacked her even for her responses to attacks on her.
It's not over . . .
Gendered dancing:
Hope you have a good weekend. Considered cutting a rug?
Open thread, opine and/or bloviate away. Just a few friendly reminders. The 'ettes don't have cooties. The hallway isn't designed for racing with sharp objects in your hands. And lastly have a great weekend!!
U.S. Manufacturers Are Coming Back Thanks to Trump "Prior to Donald Trump's stop at the city's Whirlpool manufacturing plant, no U.S. President had set foot in Sandusky County for more than a century. Much like Ohio's manufacturing sector, the region was sorely neglected by the political elites, who cared more about maximizing America's GDP than they did about the lives and livelihoods of millions of American workers. " [CBD]
Holy Shit, Government "Republicans" are just liberal Democrats who sometimes go to church. Purge these statist liberal fucks. Remember, Andy McCarthy, and virtually every other "Republican" who takes a government check, vouched for the integrity and competence of Robert Mueller, as well as for the unbiased, incorruptible professionals of the DOJ, every single fucking day.
Government "Republicans" are government men first and foremost, and government is, was, and always will be a fundamentally progressive venture.
Thomas Sowell
@ThomasSowell
Aug 6
People who talk incessantly about "change" are often dogmatically set in their ways. They want to change other people.
Big truth right there.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click People talking
And they're saying that you're leaving
So unhappy
With the way that you've been living
Is Tiger Woods walking around The Masters wearing a thin blue line face mask? The thin blue line pattern is intended to show support of cops. But is that how Tiger Woods means it? I doubt it; he's very corporate and tries to be noncontroversial. I don't think he'd show any pro-cop sentiment just as I don't think he'd come to the Masters with a Black Lives Matter cap. But I imagine the leftist (mostly white) headhunters will come after him for this.
.jpg)
