Monday Overnight Open Thread (7/20/20)

Quote I

“Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter, right? For the Black people. This is for the black people. They’re destroying business for black people. They’re looting for black people.”Bevelyn Beatty

Quote II

At the same time Illinois Democrats are pushing for a massive tax increase, residents are again confronted with Democratic corruption at the highest levels of their state government. If the allegations reported today against Speaker Madigan turn out to be true, then he should resign,” Illinois Senate GOP Leader Bill Brady

Quote III

I give thanks to my Creator for this wonderful life where each of us has the opportunity to learn lessons we could not fully comprehend by any other means. Joseph B. Wirthlin

Quote IV

Politics demands that politicians be seen doing “something” rather than nothing, even if that something is more harmful than doing nothing at all. That is why Washington is so addicted to sanctions. Former Rep. Ron Paul

Quote V

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong

Quote VI

"If you're a woman who's been a victim of ‎a sexual assault, ‎and the assailant is ran away, wouldn't ‎you rather ‎talk to somebody who is trained in ‎helping you ‎deal with what you're dealing with, as ‎opposed to somebody whose ‎main training is that they know how to ‎use a firearm, ‎right?" ‎MN AG Keith Ellison

The zinger of the day...............

We've always been told, "It's about the kids." Fine, if you don't want to teach (work) you shouldn't get paid either.

TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s largest teacher union sued Gov. Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to overturn a sweeping emergency order that requires schools to physically open five days a week, saying the policy bypasses local leaders and defies national public health guidelines.

The complaint, filed in circuit court in Miami-Dade County, comes as the Republican governor sought to distance himself from the order, which has been targeted by teachers, parents and school leaders since it was issued July 6.

The order has made Florida a political battleground over schools and the coronavirus outbreak as DeSantis and Corcoran followed the lead of President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Molly Devos, who are pressuring states to fill classrooms with students in the fall. DeSantis in recent days has backpedaled, making it clear on Monday that the mandate wasn’t his idea and putting his own education secretary on the defensive.

We all know it isn't about the kids. It's about lining their pockets with sweet taxpayer cash without working.

I may be a deplorable. I may be a bitter clinger. At least I'm comfortable in my own skin, unlike Sen. Kamala Harris............

Still butt hurt from the 2016 presidential campaign, John Katshit, the mailman's kid, is going to be backing the Paste Eater Joe Biden. FOAD John.

Former Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich is expected to speak on behalf of presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden this August at the Democratic National Convention, according to the Associated Press.

Kasich is one of many high level Republicans expected to support Biden, an anonymous source “with direct knowledge of the plans” told the AP.

A fool and his money is soon parted.

Nothing against her, but I wouldn’t pay $100,000 to have the real Whitney Cummings hang out at my house and do anything I want for a year, so I’m kind of surprised someone paid that much money to buy a sex doll based on her:

A sex robot based on comedian Whitney Cummings sold for an incredible $100,000 (£80,000), a doll company has revealed.

Mike Wilson, an employee at RealDoll, said the doll was the most expensive model the company had ever produced.

Cummings previously introduced the robot on her stand-up comedy show.

Latest: Opinion at Yahoo: It’s OK to Yell at Strangers Who Don’t Wear Masks

It was also a guest of the Joe Rogan podcast, and has been filmed answering questions.

…After the robot was sold a RealDoll rep, who uses the alias Brick Dollbanger, said demand had soared for exact version.

But he said it was not possible to keep selling more because that would breach licensing laws.

So.....Why are you still married?

When people come to r/AmItheA**hole to find out if they’re an a**hole, they sometimes unintentionally reveal a whole lot more about themselves. Like, that maybe everyone in their family needs therapy. This post remains up, but the original poster has deleted their account, probably because they were tired of people DMing them “wtf dude.”

The title of the post is, “AITA for giving my wife an ultimatum about getting a dog?” I don’t know what I expected, but that title really buries the lede on the OP’s story. He starts with this:
I had a dog when my wife and I got married. I loved her, she was my buddy. When my wife got pregnant, she became increasingly paranoid that the dog would be a danger to the baby. She brought up rehoming, and I refused. She was an “aggressive breed”, but she was trained. One day, she called me crying at work that the dog ran away and she couldn’t run after her. I believed her. I looked for that dog for weeks. I finally just accepted it because we had to go to the hospital to welcome our child and there were just other pressing concerns

If it sounds too good to be true. It is because it is.

A basic-income program in Stockton, California, is moving into its final stretch, and requests for advice from programs in development in other cities are flooding in.Photograph by Jason Henry / NYT / Redux
Last October, a fire tore through the apartment complex in Stockton, California, where Laura Kidd-Plummer had lived for five years. Nearly a decade earlier, Kidd-Plummer, who will turn seventy this year, had retired from her job in the wardrobe department at the Oakland Coliseum, where she had worked for twenty-one years. She eventually moved to Stockton in search of cheaper rent. After the fire, she and her dog, Poopee, a Pomeranian-Yorkie mix, were left homeless. Ever since, she told me, “I’m just trying to keep my head above water.” She stayed in a motel for a couple of months, which was covered by insurance, and then with acquaintances. In May, she moved into a loft in North Stockton. She was able to make the deposit on the apartment using funds she has received as a participant in the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or seed, a basic-income pilot program that has provided unconditional cash transfers of five hundred dollars per month to individuals over the last year and a half. Before seed, Kidd-Plummer “had credit cards and had to use them to eat,” she said, because she was only eligible for sixteen dollars per month through food stamps. Now she’s able to cover food. “I’ve always worked, so most programs I’m not eligible for,” she told me. “I didn’t expect to be chosen. When I got the letter in the mail, I was floored.

High at work? Is she or isn't she?

Victor Davis Hanson is an intelligent man. There aren't many times you can say to him, "No shit Sherlock". The NFL has a black lives matter problem.

In a culture so obsessed with identity politics, is it the players or the owners and coaches (or both) who do not “look like America”?

Given that about 13% of the U.S. population is black, and given that the Black Lives Matter movement embraces concepts like proportional representation, today’s NFL teams hardly qualify as diverse. Social activists might argue that the league should mentor and recruit more Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans to better reflect their percentages of our diverse national population.

Perhaps an NFL compromise could ensure that 30% of coaches and owners are nonwhite, thus reflecting current U.S. demography. But then, in reciprocity, the players would match such mandatory demographic diversity—leading to Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, whites, and those of mixed ancestry accounting for 87% of the player population. The NBA might also take note.

This progressive model of proportional representation could also apply to overrepresented white athletes in hockey, tennis, golf, and swimming—sports faulted by identity politics groups as being unfairly overrepresented by whites.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Before we plan on colonizing our solar system, can we work on some of the human basics here on earth?

The human future in the cosmos could be all but limitless, if we don’t destroy ourselves first. The same would be true of intelligent aliens elsewhere in the Universe, assuming they exist: how far they travel depends strongly on how long they survive as a species. That survival variable, which the US astronomer Frank Drake incorporated into his famous equation on the likelihood of technological civilisations beyond Earth, is unknowable at present because we are the only such civilization yet identified. Let’s be optimistic and assume that humans are persistent, working their way through the manifest problems of mastering their tools – or at least mastering them long enough to plant colonies off-world, so that our destruction in one place doesn’t mean the death of the species.

There’s a lot of real estates to consider across the star lanes of the Milky Way. Take a sphere 100 light-years in radius, with the Earth at its centre: within it, there exist about 14,000 stars. Beyond that, we don’t know the frequency of habitable planets in our entire home galaxy of 200 billion stars, but current indications are that they’re plentiful, with some estimates running into the tens of billions. If we can begin planting even a few colonies elsewhere in our solar system, and eventually on planets around other suns, our species becomes ferociously hard to eliminate. Kill off one branch and the others persist: learning (we hope) from the sad experience of their forebears; trying new social experiments; pushing technologies to ever-higher levels of sophistication; finding out about life elsewhere; and continuing to explore.

If you are white and live in a blue city, don't expect the police to defend you. And don't expect the George Soros' acolytes in the DA's office to back you either. You are on your own.

St. Louis’ top prosecutor on Monday charged a white husband and wife with felony unlawful use of a weapon for displaying guns during a racial injustice protest outside their mansion.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who are both personal injury attorneys in their 60s, also face a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree assault.

Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner told The Associated Press that the McCloskeys’ actions risked creating a violent situation during an otherwise nonviolent protest.

“It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner — that is unlawful in the city of St. Louis,” Gardner said.

An attorney for the couple, Joel Schwartz, in a statement called the decision to charge “disheartening as I unequivocally believe no crime was committed.”

Supporters of the McCloskeys said they were legally defending their $1.15 million home.

Gardner is recommending a diversion program such as community service rather than jail time if the McCloskeys are convicted. Typically, class E felonies could result in up to four years in prison.

Several Republican leaders have condemned Gardner’s investigation, including President Donald Trump, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and Sen. Josh Hawley, who has urged Attorney General William Barr to undertake a civil rights investigation of Gardner. Parson said in a radio interview Friday that he would likely pardon the couple if they were charged and convicted.

Well of course. DUH!!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among the lawmakers linked to business interests that profited from the federal Paycheck Protection Program.

A Pelosi spokesman said the Democrat’s husband, Paul, is a small investor in the company that owns the El Dorado Hotel in Sonoma, located in northern California’s wine country, according to an Associated Press report published by SFGate.

Paul Pelosi owns 8.1 percent in the company, EDI Associates, which amounts to somewhere between $250,000 to $500,000, Pelosi’s office said.

Elon Musk, Jack of all trades, master of none.

Elon Musk’s brain-hacking startup Neuralink is gearing up for a long-awaited reveal on August 28.

And Musk himself can’t seem to help himself from teasing the brain-computer interface. On Sunday afternoon, when computer scientist Austin Howard asked Musk on Twitter if we could one day listen to music directly through such an interface — streaming it directly into the brain, in other words, with no headphones needed — Musk replied with a curt “yes.”

On this day: 20 Jul 1940
Billboard's first comprehensive record chart was published. The magazine had previously published best-seller lists submitted by the individual record companies, but the new chart combined the top sellers from all major labels. Their first number one song was ‘I'll Never Smile Again’ by Frank Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. via thisdayinmusic.com

Born on this day: 20 Jul 1947
Carlos Santana, Mexican and American rock guitarist. Santana had the 1977 UK No.11 single 'She's Not There', and their 1999 US No.1 single 'Smooth' spent eleven weeks at No.1, (also No.1 in the UK). He won eight Grammy Awards for his Supernatural album at the 2000 awards. via thisdayinmusic.com

A man has to know his limitations. Or in this case three of them. Genius Award Winners.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — The Chattanooga Fire Department (CFD) confirms a group of fishermen had to be rescued during a fishing trip that took a dangerous turn Saturday evening.

CFD spokesperson Lindsey Rogers says it happened just after 6 PM off Amnicola Highway at the Chickamauga Dam locks.

Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

Researchers at the University of Arkansas have developed a new nano drug candidate that kills triple negative breast cancer cells.

Triple negative breast cancer is one of the most aggressive and fatal types of breast cancer. The research will help clinicians target breast cancer cells directly, while avoiding the adverse, toxic side effects of chemotherapy.

Their study was published in June issue of Advanced Therapeutics.

Researchers led by Hassan Beyzavi, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, linked a new class of nanomaterials, called metal-organic frameworks, with the ligands of an already-developed photodynamic therapy drug to create a nano-porous material that targets and kills tumor cells without creating toxicity for normal cells.

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posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM

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