I’m consolidating things. I’m fusing the Open Thread (which died in 2020) and the Political Madness thread, which has been going strong all this time, thanks to the stewardship of Lynna, into one unholy amalgam of anything goes. Almost anything goes, that is. I’m hoping Lynna will continue to inject regular antidotes to the political madness, but also it’ll be a place where all the random odd thoughts and question and socializing can go on.
This would be the 20th iteration of the political madness thread, I think, so fill this up and we’ll go on to Infinite Thread XXI.
Oh, also: The Endless Thread has been maintained on Affinity. This is not a replacement for that lovely thread!
Er 1215, not 2015 @500.
Biggest US reservoir declares historic shortage, forcing water cuts across west
This reminds me of a very good book I read recently called “The Water Knife” by Paolo Bacigalupi. Near future water shortage leads to a 3-way shooting war between Arizona, California and Las Vegas. The novel draws heavily on the non-fiction book “Cadillac Dessert” by Marc Reisner.
KG@499 (updated and corrected in @500), on “
ClauseArticle 61″ of the Magna Carta, “Article 61” of Magna Carta doesn’t allow you to ignore Covid-19 regulations:So the eejits in Edinburgh Castle are using the original version, never incorporated into any law at any time, and then misunderstanding it. I wonder if they know who any of their 25 barons are? (As you say, this assumes it isn’t some sort of Festival / Fringe stunt.)
It isn’t – see my #500 in the Older Comments – it’s “sovereign citizen” numpties.
First Dog on the Moon in the Grauniad, Is life getting you down? Me too. Let us take a moment to consider this marvellous bird (cartoon & audio): “The bittern is a ridiculous looking creature. With bonus bittern sounds!” (I also learned the British spelling of “marvellous” has two ell’s.)
@4
Sounds like an episode of “Hamish MacBeth,” in particular the one where they steal the Stone of Destiny.
KG@4, Ah, I took “Sovereign Scots” as something like the name of the Festival Fringe players company behind a (possible) stunt, or simply an invention by whoever might be doing the (possible) stunt, something like Horrible Histories’ “Scary Scotland”. An admittedly quick search didn’t find anything definitive, the closest perhaps being a factsborked page, The League of very Sovereign Scots, but from what (very little) I can see, there’s no obvious connection.
The video in which the comment I quoted occurred is apparently from the “Scotland Against Lockdown” twitter account. They’re a bit late, apart from anything else, as there are very few restictions still in place – just masks in indoor public spaces IIRC, and that’s not really enforced. Covid-19 infections, OTOH, are on the rise!
Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are using Regeneron to make the pandemic worse, not better
Polling shows public siding with Biden on Afghanistan (for now)
If there’s polling evidence of a public backlash against Biden’s policies in Afghanistan, it’s hiding well — at least for the time being.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/sic-transit-12
New wildfire explodes through California town as power company cuts off 51,000 people
“The Caldor Fire Experienced Unprecedented Fire Behavio.”
Meanwhile, rain is falling from a sickly pale yellow-greenish-brownish sky where I am. I was hoping the rain would give me at least one smoke-free day, but everything here still smells like smoke. Headache, sore throat, and that sinking feeling of living through yet another kind of apocalypse..
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette:
Link
UAE says former Afghan president Ghani welcomed into country ‘on humanitarian grounds’ after fleeing Kabul
Washington Post link
Texas school district adds masks to dress code, finding possible loophole in Abbott’s ban.
Washington Post link
JFC.
Arizona’s Ducey denying grants to schools requiring mask protections
Ducey is effectively telling communities, “Don’t have any COVID outbreaks, and don’t take steps that might help prevent COVID outbreaks.”
I think it’s several reasons, several reasons:
1). There hyper-individualist, anti-science, anti-overarching-government ideology makes them flat out refuse to admit that a collective action based upon “intellectual elitist” expertise (e.g. masking, social-distancing, mass vaccination) is best way to deal with a pandemic.
2). They tend to be hyper-macho jocks (yes, even the women) who think that only the “weak” get sick and that tough guy can just walk-off and rub a little dirt on a plague. Which brings us to…
3). They are, at the core, Social Darwinists who think that nothing should stand in the way of capitalism or the comfy lives that system creates for them, least of all the inability of the “losers” to fight off a virus without add that might cost the “winners” money. Let the inferior die off so they are no longer a burden on the superior’s ability to profit and have fun.
NBC News:
US university announces it will fine and cut internet access to unvaccinated students
Quinnipiac University implemented new penalties for unvaccinated students.
@ 19
If the Texas Democrats had any spine, they’d do to the Texas legislature what the Trumpets did to Congress on Jan. 6.
But no. Process. Procedure. Decorum. Maybe the Republicans will finally play nice instead of trampling on the rules we expect them to follow… No wonder they keep winning.
OMG.
Wonkette link
Huffington Post link to article that also provides access to the Stephen Colbert segment.
Why Trump’s sudden shift on Afghan refugees matters
On Monday, Trump said the right thing about Afghan refugees. When members of his base disagreed, he followed their lead, rather than the other way around.
NBC News report calling Afghan ally evacuation a ‘politically heated issue’ cites … Stephen Miller
Don’t quote Stephen Miller unless you are doing so to rebut him or to mock him. Stephen Miller is a “famously racist twerp.” Miller taught Trump how to be even more racist.
Pumpers, Dumpers, and Shills: The Skycoin Saga,” written for The New Yorker by Morgen Peck.
The cryptocurrency promised to change the world and make its users rich in the process. Then it began to fall apart.
All the best people. Are red warning sirens going off in your brain?
Stealing other people’s work, taking credit for other people’s work, plagiarizing stuff like crazy, talking big and delivering nothing. Hyperbole to the point of lying. Sounds like Trump, but with a whole new cryptocurrency-centered vocabulary.
Lots more at the link, including this back-away-it-is-a-scam paragraph:
Georgia board opens review of Atlanta-area elections, signaling possible takeover
ERIKA WILLIAMS / August 18, 2021
Images of bloodied Afghans contradict Taliban’s claims of moderation
The militants are trying to consolidate their control of the country in a campaign to paint a more moderate image.
New York Times:
NBC News:
Washington Post:
@ 26
And, if Democrats really cared about voting rights as much they claim to, why isn’t the GA Statehouse and Governor’s mansion not a smoldering pile of ashes and rubble?
Good for the village! Spanish village tells tourists to suck up roosters and braying donkeys (quoted essentially in full):
US targeted Black Lives Matter activists in bid to disrupt movement, report finds (my added emboldening):
Another
villagecity in Spain, Gijón (population c.250,000) saying enough is enough, Bullfighting festival axed after bulls named and slain:‘They deserve a place in history’: music teacher makes map of female composers (Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):
Ms Ventura’s site, including the map and short descriptions, seems to be entirely in Spanish (excepting items like a link to the above-excerpted Grauniad article).
Nikki Haley pushes anti-Biden line even she couldn’t believe
Nikki Haley must know her new anti-Biden line doesn’t make sense. She also must know that we know it doesn’t make sense. She just doesn’t appear to care.
Why it matters that Biden is banning a Trump-backed pesticide
“Elections have consequences” is a common political cliché, but in the case of a pesticide tied to children’s health problems, it clearly applies.
Akira @31, do not promote violence on this thread.
Quack Didier Raoult over in Marseille is having some well-deserved problems, French
scientist[quack] who pushed unproven Covid drug may be forced from post:NYT:
Texas Can Ban Common Form of Second-Trimester Abortion, Appeals Court Rules
Azi Paybarah / Aug. 19, 2021
Trump’s stance on vaccines gets much worse
The worse Trump’s rhetoric about the vaccines becomes, the worse it’s likely to be for the public.
Link
Follow-up to @39, A snippet from Marseille seeks to ‘turn page’ on controversial Covid
doctor[quack]:If teh quack meant there is a severe imbalance and unfairness in the availability of vaccines, which has and will probably continue to cause problems, he’s got a point. However, when there is a high level of vaccination, very very few of the vaccinated get sick, fewer get seriously sick, and even fewer die. Somewheres around 99% of all hospitalized cases in areas with good vaccination coverage are unvaccinated; e.g., here in France, it’s currently about 18 intensive care cases per one million unvaccinated, but less than 2 for (fully?-)vaccinated. In S.France where I live, ICU occupancy is over 70%, most-to-all of whom are unvaccinated. Vaccines work, now get them out to the rest of the world (indeed, WHO recommends doing so as a priority over general booster shots, WHO condemns rush by wealthy nations to give Covid vaccine booster: “Move likened to handing out lifejackets to those who already have them while letting others drown”).
Not enough turkeys for Christmas due to Brexit, [“U”K] poultry producers warn:
They mean the feathered kind, not the kind who voted for brexit. And there aren’t too many recipes for Roasted Eejit, albeit recipes are generally considered Stuffing in Teh
LandBog of Mushy Pea. (No known relationship to The Bog of Eternal Stench, albeit they are difficult to tell apart; if you see greasy fish gasping or greasy potatoes with mold, its probably the Pea one.)Hereditary Monopolist’s (HM’s) “government” doing its usual thing, Guards at Kabul embassy told they are ineligible for UK protection:
This is bog-standard usual for teh hereditary monopolists and their “government”, with a long history of abandoning people who believed their lies but are no longer considered useful by teh hereditary monopolists or their “government”. As one example, there are currently Gurkha veterans on hunger strike outside Downing Street protesting their manifestly unfair pensions (and until 2009 they didn’t even have to right to live in teh “U”K (the Gurkha’s are all(?) from Nepal)). (Update: Apparently, the hunger strike has just ended (19th August) — after 11 days — with teh hereditary monopolists’ so-called “government” agreeing (finally!) to talk about the issue.)
Oh, FFS.
Dan Patrick falsely blames COVID surge on unvaccinated Black Texans
Following Brooks’ statement, rep says GOP ‘has a decision to make’
WTF! Yikes! Inviting more violence! And, for good measure, spouting lies about “dictatorial Socialism.”
A COVID lesson for many: Refusing vaccinations can be expensive
New reporting raises a question some may not have considered: Are the unvaccinated really willing to take the financial hit?
Chez Lynna report: Rain continued to fall until, finally, the smoke was gone from the air in my community. I can expect about half a day of clear skies before the smoke moves in again. I am really happy to have a break from the smoke, no matter how brief.
Good for some laughs:
Link
Follow-up to comment 50.
Posted by readers of the article:
Texas House Reported A Quorum, Opening Door To Voting Restrictions
America’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Getting More Dangerous
“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine.”
Justice Barrett refuses to block construction of Obama Presidential Center
Applicants said the construction of the center would cause harm to Chicago’s Jackson Park.
Link
Wonkette: “Anti-Maskers Continue Making School Board Meetings Weird, Violent”
Ha! That plural use of “freedoms” reminds me of PZ’s post That Peculiar Plural. Excerpt:
Back to the Wonkette article:
European forces cross Taliban lines for Kabul rescue, pressuring Biden to expand evacuation
Washington Post link
Covid Live Updates: Rice University Delays In-Person Classes as Virus Surges
New York Times link
Florida gives school districts 48 hours to end COVID mask protections
Florida counties defying Gov. Ron DeSantis’ dangerous policy have until Sunday to comply — or else.
Federal appeals court upholds CDC’s eviction moratorium
Jacob Knutson / August 20, 2021
Top Election Official Rips Arizona GOP’s Sham Election ‘Audit’ In Scathing Preview
Immunocompromised People Make Up Nearly Half Of COVID Breakthrough Hospitalizations. An Extra Vaccine Dose May Help.
Follow-up to comment 62:
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/immigration-nice-time
Full text of the opinion is available at the link.
Last week Mike Lindell held a 3 day bouncy castle fun fair at which supposed absolute would be shown that Big China broke into election machines not connected to the Internet via… ah, forget it, trying to make the claims sillier than they already are might inadvertently create an even more funniest joke in the world (apologies to Monty Python). It was supposed to result in the Supreme Court voting 9–0 to reinstall hair furor. Somehow.
As previously logged in this series of poopyhead threads, the evidence was bogus, sourced from a known fraudster, and last week’s fun fair failed so spectacularly Lindell, in true hair furorian style, is lashing at anything and everything (but admitting no faults or blame himself). He’s even now claiming TruNews is part of teh conspiracy, Mike Lindell Accuses TruNews of Being a ‘Fake News’ Front Established by Media Matters. Except for the “Media Matters” part, he happens to correct, albeit not in his intended sense, TruNews is rubbish (RWW edits in {curly braces}):
I opted not to set the TruNews quotes from Wiles in , which normally would be automatic for either, because whilst the quoted statements are bonkers in their own way, important parts are true (or quite plausible). E.g., “Somebody is feeding Mr Lindell a lot of bad information”, “[Lindell] should wise up and take a look at who he has surrounded himself with”, Lindell is a “clown” (not in the good sense, and he hasn’t recently turned into one), he never had any credibility and it now certainly is destroyed, and very Very certainly, “[don’t] trust anything Mike Lindell says”, etc.
Nevada court ruling could reshape US immigration policy:
Just another data point: Rain Fell On The Peak Of Greenland’s Ice Sheet For The First Time In Recorded History
Florida’s Kindergartners Offer to Explain Mask Issue to DeSantis
New Yorker link
Orlando Sentinel:
Good news — Refugees welcome: Several states open arms to fleeing Afghans
Associated Press:
That’s quite a change.
Follow-up to Lyke @67:
Yikes.
Good News.
Link
Link
Fox News ignores a DC bomb threat inspired by right-wing conspiracy theory culture
Wonkette: “PSA: Don’t Go Taking Horse Pills Unless You Are Literally A Horse, Which You Probably Are Not”
Link
Sheesh! You won’t go get a free vaccine, but you will go to the farm supply store and spend money on horse pills that will poison you?!
Wonkette: “Woman Claims Vaccines Are A Secret Plot To Make Us Glow Under Black Light”
There were, yet again, genocide supporters bellowing in the streets in some places here in France, protesting the Health Pass, the vaccines, and Macron — and apparently with a more prominent antisemitic tone. They were out in the village today, but I managed to miss them; it didn’t sound very large, which would be consistent with reports the attendance (nation-wide and in Paris) has fallen again. At least one report, which I’ve managed to misplace the link-to, said a recent poll found over(?) 50% thought the protesters were morons. (The report didn’t quite put it like that.) Multiple reports are focusing on a distinct antisemitic element to the protests; e.g., comparisons to the Holocaust or wearing Yellow Stars, both uncoded and coded signs and chants, etc.
And it continues to be the case a majority support the Health Pass, which (app or paper) is proof of being fully-vaccinated or having had a recent negative test, etc., and the requirement to show it to visit a restaurant, café, bar, etc., indoors or outside. Here in the village most places I’ve visited seem to be asking and checking, albeit just about the full range of non-comedic possibilities has happened to me by now (the Health Pass started 9th August but wasn’t mandatory last Monday, 6th August). I do feel sorry for the staff at several places I frequent, who bloody well know by now I have a valid fully-vaccinated Health Pass, but still need to see it (I’m learning to have it ready so they don’t have to ask).
LYnna… @ # 47, quoting MSNBC quoting Mo Brooks: … I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism …
& Lynna @ # 75 quoting Vox: … a man spouting right-wing conspiracy theories …
According to RawStory.com, in F’book videos posted on his way to fame, Roseberry began his litany of grievances with specific personal issues:
We can all, I think, sympathize with this, even while tut-tutting at the chosen response. But something Brooks – and all other reportage on this I’ve seen – somehow misses: Comrade Roseberry’s problems come from the capitalist institutions regulating access to health care in the US. He (among other tactical misjudgments) parked his truck in front of the wrong building.
Link
Follow-up to blf @78.
Link
Cuomo warns New Yorkers in flood areas to ‘move to higher ground’ before Henri
@ 76
It’s populist anti-intellectualism, as usual. They want to think that the good-old, salt-of-the-earth, common folk had some home-spun, easy-to-obtain cure all along, rather than those snotty, edu-ma-cated, egg-head doctors with fancified degrees and big words.
Back when my favorite social media sites (such as FTB) were funded by skeezy clickbait ads, I sometimes saw the “doctors hate this health trick” pitch and it was one of the oddest things ever. Another was health tricks whose main selling point seemed to be that they were “weird”. Sure, when I look for health solutions I want them to be as weird as possible.
The thing about doctors started clicking in when I realized that in US doctors are mainly known for charging all your money – and that’s in exchange for some incomprehensible treatment that may or may not help you get better. Otherwise, I think the weirdness thing appeals to conspiracy theorists who want to feel they have some important secret knowledge. And like Akira said, probably many people feel drawn to simple old folk-style remedies that are easy to comprehend, obtain and use.
Well, this is … interesting.
Trump Booed At Rally After Quipping That COVID-19 Vaccinations Are ‘Good’
Two video snippets are available at the link.
This was a super spreader event in Alabama!
Josh Marshall:
Link
U.S. Orders Commercial Airlines to Help Ferry Afghan Evacuees
New York Times link
New York Times Editorial Board: “The School Kids Are Not Alright”
Conspiracy-riddled culture Trump created comes back to bite him at Alabama rally
At least 16 dead, dozens missing in Tennessee flash floods
Supposedly, one of the things that happened at Mike Lindell’s 3-day bouncy castle fun fair is he was attacked by invisible ninja antifa, and has since filed a police report to that effect. However, in addition to the attackers being invisible and non-existent, there’s another problem, three witnesses say it didn’t happen, Mike Lindell alleged attack in Sioux Falls: Witnesses say it didn’t happen:
In addition to knowingly filing a (very probably) false police report, Lindell is also interfering with (or at least claims he is) an FBI investigation, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell says he is hiding a pro-Trump election official at a secret safe house to help her dodge a FBI investigation:
And apparently he’s now claiming hair furor will again be squatting in Wacko House by New Year’s Day, Mike Lindell, still in Trump’s good graces, has new prediction: reinstatement by New Year’s. With an amusing snippet:
I guess Venezuela asked the Serbs for help when they finally realised Hugo Chávez was dead.
Joséphine Baker to enter French Panthéon of national heroes:
Hey, everyone!
Related to #s 78 and 81 above – France 24 – “‘On veut montrer qu’on existe’ : à Paris, une manifestation en soutien au peuple afghan”:
I can’t find an English version. Several hundred people demonstrated in Paris yesterday demanding the expedited safe passage of their families and others most in danger in Afghanistan. Several hundred, while 175,000 came out to protest public health measures and a life-saving vaccine during a pandemic while claiming to be persecuted. Priorities.
Here’s a link to the August 23 Guardian (support them if you can!) coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
What are you doing, Guardian liveblog?:
JFC! There’s reporting on this in your own paper! (See my link on another thread.)
Informative!
“Heartening to see this: ‘By morning, dozens of volunteers had assembled at the Annandale campus. And by noon, the piles of donations had grown so high that volunteers had to turn some away’….”
Link to WaPo piece about Afghans arriving in northern Virginia at the link.
CNN – “FDA grants full approval to Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, opening door to more vaccine mandates”:
Guardian world liveblog:
Guardian world liveblog:
From today’s Democracy Now! headlines:
“Trump campaign using anti-vaccine panic to fundraise….”
Screenshot atl. Hawking ugly $45 “freedom passport” flag t-shirts.
Former insider blames Miller, allies for sabotaging refugee process
“It’s one thing for a judge to call out Team Trump for a broken process; it’s something else for a Trump insider to say the process was broken deliberately.”
Link
SC@95,
Yes, I’ve been looking for a place in the Guardian to object to that tosh – although the moderators tend to remove comments criticising the paper’s staff. The same thread has an uncritical report of an anti-mask diatribe by a professor of sociology, Robert Dingwall, a consistent friend and supporter of SARS-CoV-2. I suspect the Guardian‘s Covid live thread team has been infiltrated by – at best – an ignorant fool.
“This went quickly from Covid restrictions to talk of overthrowing the government….”
Video from Donie O’Sullivan interview atl.
FL Teens Now Have Higher COVID Positivity Rate Than Other Age Groups In The State—Amid DeSantis’ Mask War
Follow-up to comment 107.
Posted by readers of the article:
KG @ #105, I had the same suspicion! The ivermectin post was already a problem, and the Dingwall one seemed gratuitously cranky. They really need to get a handle on it – the liveblog’s a great resource, and this undercuts its credibility.
Link
More at the link.
SC @109 and KG @105, I agree. I can’t believe they printed/posted that nonsense.
In other news: “Arizona elections officials launch bipartisan assault on GOP audit”
Link
Apropos of nothing, for lunch today I returned to the same restaurant I’d visited on 1st August (mentioned in this series of poopyhead threads), albeit this time, despite high winds, the dishes were served without collapsing umbrella as a condiment. Didn’t really miss the taste… The amusing incident today was several of the children present (all young teenagers as far as I could tell) found a what I first thought was a disturbing young blow-up sex doll (unclothed and seemingly female) in the playhouse. Apparently not (and no-one else seem bothered) — not sure what that “says” about me, probably that I really Really need a new glasses prescription — and were playing a game, which seemed to be, if you had the doll, you were “it”, an Orc or something, and everyone tried to avoid you. No glowing-blue swords were seen, perhaps because they would make rather short work of a blow-up Orc…
Lunch itself, of course, was excellent, a bacon-and-pasta-and-greens salad, followed by well-seasoned pork and local veggies, with apricots baked in cream for dessert, all with a local vin rosé.
Also from Democracy Now!:
“Proud Boys & Far-Right Groups Tied to Jan. 6 Attack Reporters & Others at Anti-Mask, Anti-Vax Rally.”
“Spencer Ackerman: Today’s Crisis in Kabul Is Direct Result of Decades of U.S. War & Destabilization.”
“Spencer Ackerman on How the U.S. War on Terror Fueled and Excused Right-Wing Extremism at Home”:
Guardian – “Anti-vaccine protesters occupy ITV News and Channel 4 headquarters”:
US Capitol Police press release – “USCP Completes Internal Investigation into the January 6 Officer-Involved Shooting”:
Trump’s border wall reportedly in severe disrepair in Arizona:
News:
Huh. They just closed today’s Guardian world liveblog, several hours before they usually do each day.
Text quoted by blf in comment 116:
Ha! None of the above.
What a failure.
SC@118, Huh? None of the Grauniad’s liveblogs I checked are (unexpectedly) closed? Precise link, please…
Here is a link to the entry @95 et al is complaining about (something omitted from all the complaints I’ve seen, this is not an endorsement), Grauniad’s poor reporting about the hallucinations in both the WSJ and FT about Ivermectin being used to “treat” Covid-19.
Please note that one can link to the liveblog, or to specific entries within the liveblog. My link about is to a specific entry, but what I am asking for is a general link to the whatever blog has been closed unexpectedly.
Fla. officials face new questions as COVID deaths reach record high
As one Florida neurologist said about COVID conditions, “It’s the worst it’s ever been right now. And I just think that nobody realizes that.”
Palm Beach Post link
Jan. 6 Defendant Busted Streaming Mike Lindell In His Garage Compares It To A Drug Relapse
blf @ #120, it’s the one I linked to @ #94.
Photos and video of the violence are available at the link.
Link
blf @ #120:
I literally quoted it @ #95.
@ 124
The operative phrase being “in sight.” Otherwise, there were probably plenty of cops among the fash scum.
US military reports biggest day of airlifts out of Afghanistan
First lady’s press secretary calls on Rachel Campos Duffy, Fox News to apologize for host’s comments
Follow-up to comment 128.
Posted by readers of the article:
Follow-up to comment 124.
Wonkette:
Link
Glad I wasn’t there. Awful.
Health Care costs, scams, inequities, hidden costs, etc.
New York Times link
Lots more at the link.
“Arizona Republicans: Several of the Cyber Ninjas, including CEO Doug Logan, have Covid-19 and are ‘quite sick’. Audit report from cloud cuckoo land delayed….”
Statement atl.
Texas town closes down after COVID-19 positive rate passes 40%
Unvaccinated people are ruining football in Texas.
Unvaccinated are breaking everything—the bank, the health care system, the bonds of society
Re #133: “The city’s name is an amalgamation of the first names of Ira and Ann Yates, owners of the ranch land upon which the town was built.” LOL.
CNN – “House committee plans to seek phone records in probe of January 6, including from members of Congress”:
Jared Holt on Medium – “Far-right extremists in United States applaud Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan”:
Some recommendations:
Maintenance Phase – “The Obesity Epidemic”:
New Books Public Policy – “David E Campbell, Geoffrey C Layman and John C. Green, Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics“:
Jacobin, The Dig – “Jesus and John Wayne w/ Kristin Kobes Du Mez”:
(Obviously, “corrupted a faith” and such isn’t my view, but whatever.)
Finally, I can’t recommend The White Lotus on HBO more highly.
Here’s a link to the August 24 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their morning summary:
They also have a link to this article – “Masks off: how US school boards became ‘perfect battlegrounds’ for vicious culture wars.”
Too much to excerpt, but this paragraph stood out:
Hahaha.
TPM – “InfoWars Host Owen Shroyer In Custody Facing Jan. 6 Charges”:
@ 141
Once again, it’s good to be a white man.
Guardian world liveblog:
Guardian world liveblog summary:
From today’s DN! headlines:
SC @137, OMG! I don’t even know what to say. So much stupid concentrated in a loud minority. Not so “patriotic” then.
How Arizona Republicans’ bizarre ‘audit’ managed to get even worse
“When it comes to the Arizona Republicans’ election “audit,” we were reminded yesterday that this dumpster fire is clearly more pitiful than powerful.”
‘Not that far apart’: Democrats near deal to break budget impasse
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is close to reaching an agreement with moderates that will pave the way for passage of the $3.5 trillion budget framework.
Mostly good news. We’ll see what happens this afternoon.
Follow-up to comment 147.
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette:
Link
Ari Melber talked about how Facebook amplifies misinformation that goes out to hundreds of millions of people.
The video is 11:08 minutes long. Melber is direct and concise. It’s worth watching as a way to really get a handle on the role Facebook plays.
Link
Follow-up to SC @94, excerpts from Jimmy Fallon’s show:
Jen Psaki tells Fox News’ Doocy to stop being a part of the problem and help with the solution
Video available at the link.
Follow-up to comment 148.
If Mitch McConnell is for it, you know it’s bad. McConnell Blesses Centrist Dems’ Attempt To Blow Up Two-Track Infrastructure Plan
Yeah, that’s what McConnell wants. He wants Democrats to walk away from the larger reconciliation package.
CNBC – “CDC study shows unvaccinated people are 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid”:
“‘I think it is time where God is separating the sheep from the goats….I’m a goat. Because I am not a sheep. I’m not doing what they tell me to do. I’m fighting against it (the vaccine)’.
In Alabama — the state with the lowest vaccination rate in the nation….”
Donie O’Sullivan report atl. “They view it as a political statement, almost. And some folks are so intent on not becoming part of this herd of sheep, they’re going as far as taking medicine for horses.”
@ 156
I don’t have access to Twitter right now so I can’t tell, but I don’t suppose anyone pointed out to this dipshit that goats are herd animals too?
They’re not sheep or goats, they are lemmings running of a cliff… And they’re also pushing the so-called sheep of the cliff with them.
It’s the Jesus separating the sheep and the goats thing from Matthew.
As is commonly the case with these sorts of Christians, she’s so twisted the metaphor and its meaning as to have it completely backwards.
Come to think of it, in the terms of the story, she is very much a goat. She just thinks that’s good, for some reason.
Dr. Stephen Grant:
On the bright side, his son sounds great, and will be able to look back on this and be proud.
Josh Marshall:
Link
Link
Charlie Watts died.
Legendary Rolling Stones drummer dead at 80
Follow-up to SC’s comment 155.
Coronavirus vaccines remain highly effective at stopping severe disease amid spread of delta, L.A. data show.
Washington Post link
Guardian world liveblog:
Tweet o’ the day.
Reuters – “Brazil governors express concern at Bolsonaro support among state police”:
Shocking update: “Reported Covid cases in South Dakota have quadrupled in the last two weeks….”
NBC link atl.
Twitter:
Here’s a link to the August 25 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From there:
(Yesterday’s world liveblog kept going for the usual span – until around 8 PM ET in the US. I suspect the early closure of the previous day’s was related to complaints about some of the posts.)
Guardian – “Fury as US politicians fly into Kabul in midst of evacuation effort”:
Guardian – “Murdoch empire strikes back at ABC’s documentary on Fox News’ championing of Trump”:
Empty Wheel – “John Pierce Tries to Hire His 18th January 6 Defendant while on a Ventilator with COVID-19”:
WTF.
Reuters – “U.N. sees massive drop in COVID vaccinations in Afghanistan after Taliban takeover”:
No words.
Apropos of nothing, today for lunch I went to the local shellfish specialist restaurant, and had some wonderful prawns with a selection of oysters — one of which I don’t recall ever hearing of before or tasting, “Utah Beach”, from Normandy, and apparently farmed at or very near that famous D-Day landing site. They were quite good, large albeit a bit salty; and quick subsequent search suggests they are (mostly) highly recommended. I concur. Strangely, no carpenters or walruses were sighted. Burp! (The mildly deranged penguin liked them as well, but complained the shells needed extra chewing and could use more cheese.)
SC @169: “Reported Covid cases in South Dakota have quadrupled in the last two weeks….”
Sturgis. Hundred of thousands of motorcyclists. Crowded bars.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) may not fully appreciate the fact that self-exoneration does not work.
Link
Florida’s Republican governor may believe his constituents agree with him on Covid passivity, but there’s fresh evidence to the contrary.
CNN – “House committee seeks documents from agencies on January 6 Capitol attack, signaling massive investigative effort”:
I only caught a few seconds about it on CNN, but I think I heard her say some of the documents requested relate to Enrique Tarrio, which is interesting.
Lynna @ #178, yup.
The Signorile Report (Substack) – “Conservative radio talk show hosts are killing themselves.”
NBC News:
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Link
Excerpt from the link provided by SC in comment 183:
Follow-up to SC@178, Covid Cases Spike After Sturgis Motorcycle Rally — Again:
All applaud, please, South Dakota’s alleged-“Governor” Kristi Noem, who called the 10-day [2021] Sturgis Motorcycle Rally It was, if the purpose was to kill children, both by spreading a very dangerous virus and by spewing very dangerous (and planet-overheating) emissions. A snippet from South Dakota governor calls the Sturgis rally with hundreds of thousands of attendees as COVID-19 cases spike:
Quite possibly, most of the rest of the world is absolutely horrified at S.Dakota’s deliberate biological warfare on the rest of the planet, the deliberate attempt to sicken and kill people who don’t have the “choice” to be protected (either because of age, lack of access to the vaccines, or genuine medical conditions), and the deliberate chemical warfare assault on the planet (those emissions, etc.).
It’s not the Taliban which is a problem (excepting to most people trapped in Afghanistan), it’s the S.Dakotiban (a subset of the kooks who include the thugiban (of which the alleged-“Governor” is a member)).
House Democrats took a big step by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, despite unanimous Republican opposition.
Jan 6 Committee Aims Massive Doc Request Squarely At Trump
Fury as US politicians fly into Kabul in midst of evacuation effort:
Basically, two of the Taliban’s allies in Congress, or at least people who have “sponsors” (i.e., bribe-payers in Afghanistan) have now self-identified themselves.
Delta (ironically) Airlines is getting serious about the genocidalists and biological war criminals, Delta Airlines to impose $200 monthly fee on unvaccinated employees:
As quoted, it’s perhaps unfortunate Mr Bastian only(?) highlighted the financial cost to the company. I do understand why that was cited — and it’s perhaps useful that it was (as people have been noting, in the States the financial costs to individuals, etc., of a serious or fatal case of Covid-19 is astronomical), but it should not have been the only(?) reason cited. And it’s good to see a fully-vaccinated individual who suffers a “breakthrough” case will not be penalised, which seems like a very very positive step. (I have no idea how the airline is dealing with people who have a legitimate medical reason precluding vaccination, but these statements suggest they could be handling those (fortunately rare) cases sensibly.)
The quoted 75% vaccinate rate is impressive. (For comparison, here in France, it’s a bit less, just over 72% (of those eligible, so the numbers are probably very comparable).) Congratulations to Delta (the airline, not the virus variant) and those responsible 75%.
Re: 156-159:
IIRC, Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods had someone note (paraphrasing) that while both sheep and goats are herd animals, the latter are notably more intelligent and capable of finding the way without constant herding. IDK if there’s any truth in this, but it’s a nice twist of the old Christian parable.
Meanwhile, members of cranky cults always claim to be great independent thinkers, on the account that they disagree with the scientific and/or mainstream understanding of reality.
Follow-up to Lynna@149, etc., Some snarking from Laurie Roberts at AzCentral(? Arizona Republic?), It’s the perfect storm of conspiracy: Arizona’s election audit and COVID-19:
The mildly deranged penguin is wondering just how a head pops off someone who has their head firmly embedded in their arse. Is there a massive, ah, fart, first, or does the head fly out of the mouth?
Additional snippets:
And some more snarking:
That rather presumes teh ninja’s tale of their previously-unknown “audit team” being hit by Covid-19 is true (it’s plausible, teh ninja’s are are based in Florida (and are mostly(? entirely?) thugs)).
Another snippet:
Don’t worry, Jovan Pulitzer (the fraudster who most emphatically did not invent the QR code), whose has a magical mystery machine that can find bamboo fibres in ballets, probably has another magical mystery machine that can identify fake signatures. Probably because the ink contains bamboo fibres, or the marks aren’t for the “correct” candidate, or the name is one allegedly-common to someone who is brown, black, etc., or simply that not enough ballets are being counted as fake. And if that doesn’t work, he probably has yet another magical mystery machine which can identify Chinese-made electrons stuffed into the Internet (presumably because they orbit a bamboo nucleus (electrons, of course, “orbit” a nucleus in an atom, not when free as in an electrical flow, and much of the Internet these days is optical fibre anyways)).
The genocidalists and biological war criminals are freaking out, Vaccine ‘conspiracy theories’ prompt threats, Mississippi’s top health official says:
As reported, Scarlet Pearl’s mandate seems very good, since it does not have an absurd exemption. That’s not too surprising, since Mississippi is (and has been for years) one of the very very few states which does not allow such vaccination exemptions. From memory, Mississippi and W.Virginia (the other state with a long-standing no exemption (in recent years, California, at least, has since joined this same set of sensible states)) both realised their medical infrastructure was too weak, etc., to deal with an epidemic, and that mandating vaccinations (excepting people who have a medical reason) would be far cheaper and easier.
Talk about asking a leading question.
Link
As Californians begin to mail back ballots in the state’s gubernatorial recall election, Democratic officials are increasingly concerned low turnout will not only force incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) from office, but it will also leave the state in the hands of a far-right Republican.
Democrats sweat turnout disaster in California
Good news: some notable doofuses are being held accountable.
NBC News
Oh, FFS.
Arkansas Jail Doctor Reportedly Prescribing Inmates Ivermectin (The Deworming Drug) For COVID
Follow-up to comment 197.
Posted by readers of the article:
Link
JFC!
Erik Prince Is Charging $6,500 a Person to Evacuate Afghanistan on His Chartered Planes
Taliban to allow Afghans with legal papers to travel beyond Aug. 31, German diplomat says
Navalny compares Russian prison to Chinese labor camp
Follow-up to comment 200.
Wonkette: “Can Erik Prince Get You Out Of Afghanistan?”
Link
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity is helping the Perseverance rover’s science and driving teams — again — My Favorite Martian Image: Helicopter Sees Potential Rover Road Ahead:
Ingenuity was originally scheduled for a maximum of 5 flights over the course of the initial month on Mars, to prove it was possible to fly (on Mars). That demonstration was so successful the mission was extended (indefinitely?) to understand ways it could help the main mission (despite lacking any science instruments (the closest thing it has is the sideways-and-downwards-pointing colour camera, which took the image being discussed)). Ingenuity’s now flown 12 times, for a total distance of over 2km (over 1 mile), at a variety of altitudes and speeds, over a variety of terrains — which is exceptionally impressive as it was only designed to fly over largely flat terrain, so the flights over South Seítah (especially) are both quite risky and (as per above) very helpful. (Apologies, I don’t know the total flight time.)
The Guardian world liveblog closed early again today (around 4 PM ET in the US). They did link to this piece elsewhere in the Guardian by Owen Jones – “Workers sacrificed plenty due to Covid, so let’s reward them with new rights”:
I got the Rickie Lee Jones CD Traffic from Paradise recently at Goodwill for like a dollar and loved it. Smiled through the whole thing. It came out during the ’90s, and I don’t think I even knew of its existence even though I’ve always liked her music, but I just adore it.
First Dog on the Moon in the Grauniad, We are desperate for a break, for a way out of Covid, and instead we have Scott Morrison (cartoon): “Now our weary brains have to deal with thinking about The Croods as well as everything else”. Ignore the Ozland-specific (dull-ish?) title, it’s all explained in the cartoon (and the summary of The Croods is probably better, and very probably funnier, then that in Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge).
RE: #197
Holy crap on a non-salt cracker. That’s not just malpractice. It’s a crime against humanity. Like, literally, this guy should be sent to the Hague. He won’t be, but he should.
British Columbia is following Quebec in introducing proof of vaccination for a number of indoor non-essential sporting and social activities, starting Sept. 13. It also includes student housing on campus.
There is an exemption for children under 12, but not for people who are unable to receive the vaccine for health or religious reasons.
I heard today the the daily vaccination rate has now doubled.
[CBC]
Even when the Covid-19 virus patients are being put on a ventilator, they don’t believe the Covid-19 virus exists.
Sometimes, if they survive that, they still don’t believe the virus exists.
And they can watch their family members die of Covid-19 virus and still believe the vaccines are a toxic, government plot.
Going to be a long winter for a whole lot of people and a lot more dead from the virus.
Infowars Host in Custody to Face Charges in Jan 6
Riot[Insurrection]:Sadly, again, there’s a very poorly written and misleading entry in the Grauniad’s current pandemic live blog, about “An Arkansas jail physician has defended the prescribing of widely used anti-parasite medicine ivermectin to prisoners after criticism, including from the state’s American Civil Liberties Union” (previously noted in this series of poopyhead threads). The most absurd part of the entry asserts:
For information on contacting the Grauniad’s Reader’s Editor, please see How to make a complaint about Guardian or Observer content. I myself have contacted that Editor several times over many yonks (all about matters of “Accuracy”), most recently last(!) weekend, over an error in Josephine [sic] Baker to become first Black woman to enter France’s Panthéon, which, as one can deduce from the note at the end of amended article, was accepted and the article (mostly) corrected (confirmed by private e-mail). I don’t ever recall any of my complaints being ignored or rejected, but rather suspect being polite and presenting correctly-stated facts with supporting citations from reliable sources helps.
There have been two explosions in Kabul, one at an airport gate and one at a hotel near the airport. There are reports of (at least) multiple injuries, including among US personnel. USians had been warned away from the airport due to a credible threat of an attack.
Guardian world liveblog, quoted @ blf’s #212:
Outrageous. The drug has been prescribed for humans, in a formulation and dosage meant for humans, for a number of conditions which are not COVID. The FDA is responding to humans taking formulations for other animals (e.g., horse dewormers) that they’re buying at feed stores and trying to dose out themselves for an indication which isn’t supported by evidence even for human formulations. Telling people not to use formulations of a drug meant for other animals or not to use any formulations of a drug to prevent or treat a condition there’s no evidence it prevents or treats isn’t a smear of that drug. Whoever is posting this bullshit shouldn’t be allowed to continue posting there.
SC @214 and blf @212, I agree. The Guardian is really goofing up here. It’s discouraging to see them posting misinformation.
Follow-up to SC @213. Pentagon confirms multiple casualties in explosion near Kabul airport
The Guardian has an Afghanistan liveblog.
From there:
Kevin McCarthy has expressed support for an alternative policy: leave U.S. troops in Afghanistan until, well, some point in the future.
Link
@ 213
According to the accounts I’ve seen, there have been American causalities in that attack. Lovely. (/s) This whole “damned if we do/damned if we don’t” situation has just a bit more damning. If Biden doesn’t respond with force, then it reinforces the charges of weakness and incompetence made by the right seem all the more valid, driving undecideds, and right-wing Dems into the arms of the fascists for the next few elections. If Biden does respond, it will anger the anti-war/anti-imperialist portions of the left who will sit things out the way the did in 2016, again, increasing the likelihood that the Trumpists to take back control of the country in 2022 and 24. Of course, we know the Alex Jones conspiracy kooks will claim the attack is a “false flag” designed to reignite the war.
I can’t even anymore.
Trump throws tantrum as Jan. 6 committee seeks key info
Good news: more unethical doofuses are being held accountable for their actions.
Judge sanctions group of pro-Trump attorneys in dramatic fashion
When a judge concludes that your case was so ridiculous that you clearly require more schooling, it’s a bad sign.
Here’s the general link to the August 26 Guardian world coronavirus liveblog.
From their nonloopy posts:
From the Guardian Afghanistan liveblog:
From today’s DN! (support them if you can, too!) headlines:
Guardian Afghanistan liveblog:
Twitter is no longer letting me click on individual tweets, so I won’t be linking to any more and I guess that’s the end of the Tweet o’ the Day.
From a personal productivity perspective, it’s probably a healthy development. :)
Guardian (from earlier this month but I’d missed it) – “The ‘queen of vegan cheese’ wants to change the dairy industry”:
I had one of my favorite breakfasts this morning: some Miyoko’s Double Cream Classic Chive cheese, a wheat roll, a pear, and a cup of Earl Grey.
Delightful – “Mary Beard’s favourite objects from Nero: the man behind the myth” at the British Museum.
The problem(s) with DeSantis’ new boasts about Florida, COVID
Capitol Police Officers Sue Trump And Cronies For Sparking Jan. 6 Violence
U.S. service members killed in Kabul airport bombings
Cartoon: Will God-Man save reporter Millie Mills from Covidhead??
@ 228
<
blockquote>In light of all of this, perhaps DeSantis should avoid phrases such as “great success”?
<
blockquote>
Not if wants to curry the favor of the MAGA cultists before the 2024 election.
The Pentagon just announced that 12 US service members were killed and 15 wounded in the Kabul airport attack.
Guardian Afghanistan liveblog:
Armed Picnics and Snipers at Family Dollar: Life in a Town With a Government-Approved Militia
In Virginia, paramilitarism gets a rebrand.
NBC – “Tropical system could rapidly intensify into a major hurricane before making landfall on the Gulf Coast”:
This is how you start up school again.
To bad the rethug govs are too stupid to even look at the results.
Both the US and the British evacuation operations are continuing.
Nerd @ #237, also: “Illinois governor shuts down radio host advising him to calm parents anxious over COVID in schools: ‘YOU are spreading misinformation’.”
SC @238, thanks for keeping us updated. I was wondering about the Brits.
The reviews haven’t been spectacular, and it could have dealt in more depth with some of the questions it raises, but I thought Misha and the Wolves on Netflix was worthwhile.
Today’s Guardian world liveblog closed early again.
Andy Slavitt tweeted (I can’t link to it):
Update to #236: tropical storm Ida has now formed.
Madison.com
GOP prepared to spend $680,000, issue subpoenas in hunt for election fraud, Reince Preibus says
Riley Vetterkind | Wisconsin State Journal
Re @212 and who wrote that nonsense at the Grauniad, I didn’t think to check at the time when the entry was still fresh. The entry is timestamped 16:38 BST (lower right→hand corner of the entry).
Léonie Chao-Fong (“a London-based reporter”) signed-on at 09:14 BST, and was relieved by Mattha Busby at 18:41 BST.
Interestingly, at 10:37 BST, Chao-Fong (presumably) wrote (quoted in full):
That is just straightforward reporting of a news event with any editorialising or snarking, unlike the wrong-headed later 16:38 entry.
I’m unconvinced Chao-Fong is a member of the Grauniad’s staff. They have a very small body of work there, all dated this month, and some of the other current blog writers are known to be freelancers (e.g., Mattha Busby (as per their e-mail address)). Their profile at a number of sites (easily found by searching) indicate they are indeed currently freelance, having most recently been employed(?) by HuffPost.
I have not tried to work out who “had the keys to the blog” at the time of the previous incident on the preceding day (as noted in this poopyhead thread by SC and others).
blf @ #246, thanks!
It appears to have been Mattha Busby. I think it’s likely they were responsible for the offending posts on the 23rd.
Guardian – “New Zealand police break up one-person anti-lockdown protest in Auckland”:
Here’s a link to the August 27 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog (Busby is currently at the helm).
From there:
NBC – “Officer who shot Ashli Babbitt during Capitol riot breaks silence: ‘I saved countless lives'”:
Steve Vladeck tweeted: “Tonight’s #SCOTUS ruling nixing the CDC eviction moratorium is the 19th different ruling on the ‘shadow docket’ so far this Term that disrupts the status quo compared to what was true before; and the 21st from which all three Democratic appointees were the only public dissenters:…”
I’m sure cable news will have time to cover this just as soon as the Military-Industrial Complex parade is over.
The older Grauniad liveblog incident (@120 et al.) was at 14:11 BST, with the 14:04 entry immediately preceding it also being problematical.
As SC@247 noted (albeit again without links), Mattha Busby signed on at 11:49 BST, who appears to have been “in control” of the liveblog until it was closed at about 19:03 BST. Busby was also who closed the @212 / @246 later incident, albeit was perhaps not “in control” at the time of that later incident’s dubious entry. As noted previously, Bushy is also a freelancer (I have not done any further searching / research into Bushy).
Léonie Chao-Fong is not logged as being involved in the liveblog that day. It kind-of looks like Chao-Fong was repeating some but not all of the nonsense in Bushy’s much earlier entry. At the moment, my own speculation is Bushy and then Chao-Fong is rather mindlessly parroting unknown / unidentified sites featuring quack / woo-woo / anti-vaxxers, perhaps citing alleged-studies such as Ivermectin, ‘Wonder drug’ from Japan: the human use perspective (Proc Jpn Acad Ser B Phys Biol Sciv.87(2), 2011 Feb) or, rather more likely, Ivermectin [IVM]: a multifaceted drug of Nobel prize-honoured distinction with indicated efficacy against a new global scourge, COVID-19 (August 2021 (PDF available at the link)). That very short “study” does state in its conclusion (my added emboldening): “We believe that the evidence to date supports the worldwide extension of IVM treatments for COVID-19, complementary to immunizations.”
That leads to an additional speculation on my part, that the WSJ article(? option column?) which seems to have started all this, as per Bushy’s original liveblog entry, neglected that that study did not say Ivermectin is an alternative to vaccine, only that it might be an effective therapeutic in addition to (under unstated(?) conditions) vaccination, presumably and especially in so-called “breakthough” cases. And of, course, any such IVM must be the human-approved drug, not the livestock dewormer version.
Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny at NBC – “Clamoring for ivermectin, some turn to a pro-Trump telemedicine website.”
I linked to this when it came out, but just for the record here’s the Cochrane meta-analysis from last month – “Ivermectin for preventing and treating COVID-19.”
SC, there’s a “pro-Trump telemedicine website”?! JFC.
In other news: Trump has spent much of the last two decades saying deeply unfortunate things about the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Yesterday, he made matters worse.
Vera Bergengruen at Time – “How ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’ Sold Access to Bogus COVID-19 Treatments—and Left Patients in the Lurch”:
Much, much more at the link. Very thorough.
The disingenuous Republican response to the terrorist attack in Kabul:
Link
SC @256, I wish the headline could be changed. “How ‘America’s Frontline Doctors’ Sold Access to Bogus COVID-19 Treatments—and Left Patients in the Lurch” leaves the wrong impression if one doesn’t already know that “America’s Frontline Doctors” is an organization full of charlatans, grifters, scammers and whacky-brained doofuses.
How a bogus organization of so-called “doctors” sold unapproved COVID-19 treatments, and harmed patients. That would be a better headline.
Justice Stephen Breyer made comments in the spring about his career plans. His latest rhetoric seems… different.
Link
@255
It stands to reason something like this would arise. We have telemedicine hucksters selling online “doctors” to get prescriptions for everything from dick pills to ADHD meds (at prices you could probably get cheaper from bick & motor pharmacists) .
All hail the free and unregulated market and Internet. Long may it grift.
NPR
After A Bitter Fight, The Texas House Passes A Restrictive Voting Bill
August 27, 2021
EXCLUSIVE: Newly Unsealed Transcript Reveals Crux Of Mueller’s Collusion Case
This is obviously bullshit, but it also doesn’t make sense. If it was of no use to the Russians, what would be the purpose of giving it to them? Also, I’d just like to emphasize that Manafort’s lawyers confirmed in court that he, Trump’s campaign manager, provided the Kremlin, while they were attacking our election, with internal swing-state polling data. That’s collusion.
Follow-up to comment 262.
Posted by readers of the article:
AP – “Judge blocks Florida governor’s order banning mask mandates”:
SC @265, speaking of Republican governors facing defeat in the courts: Greg Abbott’s executive order targeting migrants faces defeat in court.
Six conservative Supreme Court justices are trying to rule the nation from the shadows
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette:
Link
At least 170 people killed in Kabul airport bombing.
Washington Post link
:D
Guardian – “California man charged with attacking Capitol police had history of assaulting activists”:
More at the link.
CNN – “January 6 committee seeks answers on misinformation from social media companies”:
I’m sure Lynna knows about the crisis situation in Idaho hospitals.
It’s like that in a lot of areas, mostly Red areas though.
We’ve reached the point where Covid-19 patients are dying in the hallways while waiting for treatment.
A friend forwarded me an email the local hospital sent out to their patient email list. It said, “Don’t get sick because we don’t have space and probably won’t be able to treat you.”
Update to #244: Ida is now a hurricane.
Raw Story – “Anti-masker ‘not doing good’ as lungs stiffen from COVID-19: ‘They’ve run out of options for him'”:
raven @274, thanks for posting that. We still have way too many Ammon-Bundy-type people in the state. They are anti-vaccine without good reasons. They are spreading misinformation. And also, they are in denial, as if the overwhelmed doctors and nurses at St. Luke’s don’t exist. As if unvaccinated people in that hospital (98% of the ICU patients, as you noted) are not going to die, suffer from long COVID, or be bankrupted by medical bills. It’s just insane. And … it puts people like me, people who tried to do all the right things, in more danger.
The Ammon-Bundy types seem to think that it is so much fun to be a willfully-ignorant bully that it’s worth dying for a bogus concept of “freedom.” Fecking whackos and doofuses.
What do they think is going to happen now that most kids in Idaho are back in school?
Shane Vaughn Claims COVID-19 Vaccines Don’t Work Because The US Is Under God’s Judgment:
Frustratingly, he could easily be correct the current vaccines will not be very effective against some future variant. What he omits — and hence one of the reasons for the — is because he unvaccinated (primarily) are a huge collection of petri dishes in which the virus can further mutate.
It’s not entirely clear who the various , , , etc., refer-to, but unless he means peas or horses, it probably doesn’t matter, the gibbering is so batshite lunatic dangerous.
Vaccine conspiracy theorists become even more desperate after full FDA authorization (Washington Post edits in {curly braces}):
That last claim is something I’ve been wondering about, since EUAs are granted only(?) when there is no approved and available treatment. Well, now there is an approved one, so, eventually, any future Covid-19 vaccine might not be eligible for an EUA? (I don’t know of any reason the existing EUAs would become invalid due to the approval.) The article dives into this legal-ish point some more:
NBC29 – “Liberty University announces quarantine amid COVID-19 spike”:
Feelin’ that liberty.
Got one of fecking slimes! Austria’s former far-right vice chancellor convicted of corruption:
First Dog on the Moon in the Grauniad, Happy Book Week everyone! Here are some popular costumes during lockdown (cartoon). (LGA is Ozland-speak for “Local government in Australia”, the 3rd level of Ozland’s so-called government, apparently broadly the same as both city and county, as the two are not distinguished; the rest of that particular panel seems obvious (pay careful attention to the constable’s name).)
Oh for feck’s sake, ‘It’s only going to get worse’: mask war in Arizona schools ramps up as Covid cases soar:
The article focuses on the rural Miami (yes, in AZ) school district, which does have a mask mandate. However, “[the] district will probably stop requiring masks in order to comply with the new state law that takes effect at the end of September, if it passes muster in the courts.”
CBS – “Veteran dies of treatable illness as COVID fills hospital beds, leaving doctors ‘playing musical chairs’.”
And the most important thing about France’s Health Pass, The health passport is feminine, rules French language guardian (possibly paywalled):
Joy Reid just reported on Florida. They had more than 27,000 new cases in the last day (their test positivity is 15-20%) and almost a thousand deaths. That’s about the same as Brazil, and more than Russia.
Giuliani Makes The Case That He’s ‘A Functioning’ Person
“Socialism Alert! Greg Abbott got COVID and now wants to spread it around to everyone.”
—Trevor Noah
Anti-vaxxer being interviewed by Jordan Klepper: I can’t go to the gym. It feels like a dictatorship. Like we’re living in Nazi Germany and the only things that are missing are the camps and the gas.
Jordan Klepper: Do you think that’s what it was like in Nazi Germany? People were bitching about not going to the gym?
—The Daily Show
“Socialism Alert! Greg Abbott got COVID and now wants to spread it around to everyone.”
—Trevor Noah
Anti-vaxxer being interviewed by Jordan Klepper: I can’t go to the gym. It feels like a dictatorship. Like we’re living in Nazi Germany and the only things that are missing are the camps and the gas.
Jordan Klepper: Do you think that’s what it was like in Nazi Germany? People were [B-word-ing] about not going to the gym?
—The Daily Show
Update: Jesse Jackson moves to rehab following COVID-19 diagnosis, wife in ICU
Jesse Jackson was vaccinated, but his wife was not.
Unvaccinated, unmasked teacher led to elementary school outbreak
Florida Judge Rules That Residents Have a Right to a Smarter Governor
New Yorker link
Humor/satire
At least one drone strike from the USA has killed an ISIS-K planner. The strike was in retaliation for the attack at the Kabul airport that killed more than 170 Afghans, and also killed 13 USA military personnel. More were injured.
Republican election audits have led to voting system breaches, experts say (Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):
I concur. It’s a standard assumption in cryptology work (computing or otherwise) the attacker knows the algorithm (has the software), has an uncorrupted copy of the ciphertext (the encrypted data), and at least a general idea of the plaintext (what was originally encrypted looks like or contains). What they are missing is (simplified), the password needed to decrypt. Those are certainly key assumptions in financial transaction security (e.g., ATMs, chip-and-PIN cards, ticket vending machines, and so on (some of which are Internet-capable)), and I don’t see why that wouldn’t also be true in elections security.
One difference, however, possibly, is the cost-payoff ratio: How much does it cost (in terms of time, money, etc.) to “break” the system, and is that cost worth the payoff. For financial networks that have zillions of dollars flowing through them (e.g., SWIFT) spending before the system changes / improves is probably worth quite a lot, but not so much for laboriously stealing people’s credit card details. Being able to manipulate an election? Seems like it could also be very very valuable.
The cost-payoff ratio matters, as it means certain extremely difficult theoretical “breaks” can be allowed to not so much fester as simply be addressed by preventative measures (usually intended to increase the cost / difficultly of a successfully exploit of the theoretical “break”, as well as simply fixing bugs). The software and its certification have a limited lifetime, so such routine improvements are rolled out fairly frequently. But if the attackers (or researchers) perceive a theoretical possibly as being worthwhile, then the matter is perhaps no longer one of “just” routine improvements. (This sort of cost-payoff tradeoff does not apply to just ciphers, but to all aspects of the system, including the “back room” people (operators (presumably with security clearances)), backups & spares, as well as the more obvious issues like physical protection and communications security.)
Update to comment 292. Officials now say that two ISIS-K members were killed, a facilitator and a planner. The Pentagon says there were no civilian casualties as a result of the retaliatory strike.
Nasa / JPL have created an interactive map, Where is Perseverance?, showing the locations of both the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter, along with waypoints, tracks, latitude & longitude, distances covered, etc. The Martian features, however, don’t seem to be named? (The mysteriously-labeled “layers” control in the upper left←hand corner turns the various displays on-and-off.)
Storm update:
Link
‘Graveyard of Empires’ is an old epitaph that doesn’t reflect historical reality — or the real victims of foreign invasions over the centuries.
Follow-up to comments 292 and 294.
State judge shoots down bid to block controversial Missouri gun law
JOE HARRIS / August 27, 2021
The Right-Wingers Who Admire the Taliban, by Michelle Goldberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/opinion/alt-right-taliban.html
Thousands march on Washington in voting rights push
Videos are available at the link.
Snippet from RWW:
Which means, among other things, hair furor knew Biden would win the election.
A new UK study indicates that the Delta variant is not only much more transmissible than earlier variants, but more virulent (nastier) if you catch it, with over double the risk of requiring hospitalisation relative to the Alpha variant that predominated in Britain before Johnson invited Delta in (by delyaing restrictions on travel from India to butter Modi up and get a trade deal).
To continue PZ’s last theme, welcome to hell. The refrigerated trucks are back because the Covid-19 dead bodies are piling up faster than they can be processed. They are in many places, Florida, Texas, and now for the first time, in Oregon.
The main oubreak seems to be in Jackson and Josephine counties, in far southern Oregon, Ashland, Medford, and Grants Pass. These are far right Red areas with low vaccination rates. Josephine county seems to be run by far right idiots.
Finally getting some data on the severity of the Delta virus. It doubles the risk of hospitalization. This study didn’t address the death rate but that is almost certainly going to be much higher, likely twice as high. All the health care workers working on Covid-19 virus patients say that the Delta patients are younger, sicker, and much harder to treat.
From another article:
““These (delta) patients are different,” said Shavon Albee, nurse manager of the critical care unit. “They’re younger, they’re sicker. Our outcomes are much more poor.
“We had some real good saves and had really good numbers when we started,” she added. “That has changed.”
Apparently, somewhere around 160,000 eejits goosestepped here in France yesterday, yelling , with perhaps 15,000 morons in Paris; both figures continue a declining trend (from a small, by French standards, base). I’m unsure if there was a protest here in the village, since yesterday also happened to be the annual sinking bathtub race. (I didn’t go and watch, it’s hard to get a good view, and I’m very unkeen at being in crowds.) That meant was there was a lot of noise and screams and cheers and live music along almost the entirety of the usual protest route. Hence, hearing a dozen or two genocidalists would be difficult, albeit slightly before the usual time, there was a few horns and synchronised chanting, which I couldn’t hear clearly due to all the accompanying booing… I don’t know if that was an attempted march that got roundly booed, or something to do with sinking bathtubs about to race.
Some snippets from an Ozland opinion column, “A COVID-19 conspiracy theorist sent me links to all of his So I looked into them.”
In(? near?) Reno (Nevada), Public commenters continue to spout conspiracy theories at school board meetings (quoted essentially in full due to the sheer amount of stoopidity on display):
Humoring Vaccine Conspiracy Theorists Is Costing The US Health System Over A Billion A Month:
Done with it? Not exactly, since most of those 5 billion jabs are in wealthier countries, meaning most areas of the world are very much at-risk and suffering… and where, quite possibly, newer variants may evolve.
An opinion column in Canada, Stop paying so much attention to anti-vaxxers spreading conspiracy theories:
Another fecking plauge rat dies, Florida radio host [Marc Bernier] who called himself dies of Covid-19. Pretty much the usual story, albeit no mention of whether or not teh rat recanted his fact-free opinion about being vaccinated. The most distressing thing is he took up a hospital bed and the patience of his healthcarers for three weeks beforehand because of his stoopidity and selfishness. According to Anti-vax radio host Marc Bernier has died after being hospitalized for COVID-19, “Bernier likened the US government to Nazi Germany in his last tweet.”
Good grief (with added Putin-funded misinformation (RT)), Health Sensors Misconstrued as Government Tracking :
COVID conspiracy theorist Alex Berenson banned from Twitter after posting anti-vaccine rant:
Xbox urges its users to get vaccinated and dispels Covid-19 conspiracy theories:
I’m not a fan of Xbox (or any gaming console), and especially not of Micro$oft, but still… Well done!
† The original quoted site used
http:, I changed it to the saferhttps:and verified that it works. (Typical Micro$oft stoopidity.)Follow-up to @279, Comparing Pfizer vaccine approval to cigarettes, alcohol is wrong:
Doctor Advising DeSantis Promoted Dewormer For COVID That Health Experts Warn Against
The article contains an offensive use of the word “rtrd*d” to describe people who wear masks.
The guy employing the offensive word was/is one of DeSantis’ advisors. Figures.
Follow-up to comment 316.
Posted by readers of the article:
An opinion column in Kansas, Rage against the vaccine? Oh, the humanity.:
There are 2 roads to the end of the pandemic. One’s free and safe. The other is expensive and deadly
Republican death cult.
Hurricane Ida makes landfall as dangerous Category 4; residents urged to shelter in place
Yikes. Alarming photo of people crowded together into small spaces.
Washington Post link
France and Britain plan to seek a resolution by the United Nations to designate a safe zone in Kabul to protect those who are trying to leave Afghanistan.
Update to SC@276, another plague rat taking up a hospital’s time people and resources has finally died, Texas man [Caleb Wallace] who led anti-mask protests in name of dies of Covid-19. Some snippets:
No word on whether or not teh rat renounced the fatal ballshite stoopidity.
Indirectly related, in Ozland, Sydney ICU nurses sedating patients more to manage workload as Covid outbreak strains hospitals:
Despite Ozland’s badly botched vaccine roll-out, note that almost all — 113 out of 126 — ICU Covid-19 patients were unvaccinated. And because of the botched roll-out it seems unsafe to assume most or all of those 113+ were vaccine hesitant, deniers, etc — unlike teh plague rats in the States, here in France, and presumably elsewhere (teh “U”K, e.g.?).
About one of those doofuses who looked like he was/is colluding with Trump to overthrow the elected government:
Link
New York Times link
Another Plague Rat ends up dead. This is the third talk radio antivaxxer in a few weeks.
The Perseverance rover on Mars recently twittered (video):
It’s not the first time a rover has imaged either Martian moon; e.g., the Curiosity rover (still going strong) in 2019 made some videos of each of the two moons partially eclipsing the Sun, NASA’s Curiosity Rover Just Saw 2 Eclipses on Mars! Now You Can, Too (video). (That’s a link to space.com who tend to add excruciatingly bad and completely unnecessary “music” to the videos; I suggest not bothering with the sound.)
Southern Covid-19 Spike Leaves Some States With Just Hours Of Oxygen:
This is a familiar pattern. A Covid-19 virus denier/antivaxxer gets Covid-19 virus and dies. His family and friends just ignore what killed him and keep pretending that the Covid-19 virus doesn’t exist. They also refuse to get vaccinated.
This virus is very transmissable and it is everywhere. It’s like measles, chickenpox, or mononucleosis (Epstein-Barr virus). Everyone is going to meet it sooner or later.
The stigma comes in because people they know who die from the Covid-19 virus threaten their fantasy world. So they have to blame the victim.
Some GOP politicians needlessly make ivermectin problem worse
The article is accompanied by a photo of Rand Paul.
Link
Video is available at the link.
Expanding Caldor Fire prompts mass evacuations near Tahoe
The fire is moving northward toward the southern basin of the popular Lake Tahoe.
More than one million people in Louisiana are without power as Hurricane Ida moves on. The storm has weakened and is now a tropical storm. Rainfall amounts are still causing flooding as it heads into Mississippi.
Washington Post Link
Jan. 6 committee turns to tech giants for info on Capitol attack
The Jan. 6 investigatory committee is reportedly interested in the communications of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jim Jordan – among others.
‘This is going to be a really long recovery,’ FEMA head says as Hurricane Ida moves out of Louisiana
Here’s a link to the August 30 Guardian world coronavirus liveblog.
From their most recent summary:
Also from there:
Some podcast episodes:
QAA – “Episode 156: The Matthew Coleman Murders”:
SWAJ – “Weekly Roundup: The Make America Great Again Migration”:
SWAJ – “White Christian Supremacy vs. Multi-Racial Democracy”:
Now & Then – “Afghanistan & American Styles of War”:
Vice – “QAnon Anti-Vaxxer Called COVID a Hoax Even as His ‘Lungs Stopped Functioning’”:
Guardian – “Australian imports of ivermectin increase 10-fold, prompting warning from TGA”:
Wisconsin GOP wants taxpayers to finance unneeded election ‘audit’
Gableman is also a cult follower of Mike Lindell! This just gets worse and worse.
From Steve Benen, who writes for The Maddow Blog:
Link
Video is available at the link.
US troops are now officially out of Afghanistan. ISIS-K fired five rockets at the airport during this last day of evacuations. U.S. anti-rocket technology stopped those rockets. Officials are now discussing ways in which the U.S. can continue to help Afghans and others to get out of the country.
Last US military plane out of Afghanistan ends America’s longest war
Florida rocked by devastating wave of police deaths due to COVID-19
Wonkette: “Happy Birthday Molly Ivins! You’d Hate 2021, But Oh My, You’d Have Plenty To Say”
Oh, FFS.
Cawthorn Calls Jan. 6 Defendants ‘Political Hostages,’ Muses About Trying To ‘Bust Them Out’
Follow-up to comment 347.
Posted by readers of the article:
Wrong again.
Texas abortion providers brace for 6-week ban after Fifth Circuit declines to intervene
Abortion providers say access to the procedure in Texas will come to an abrupt stop Wednesday when the state’s controversial fetal heartbeat law takes effect.
ERIK DE LA GARZA / August 30, 2021
Did Donald Trump float the idea of the United States going back into Afghanistan “with unequivocal military force”? Actually, yes.
Despite court ruling, DeSantis administration targets school board salaries
DeSantis should definitely do a stint in jail for contempt of court.
Follow-up to comments 347, 348 and 349.
One House Republican described Madison Cawthorn’s latest election rhetoric as “insane.” Do any House GOP leaders agree?
Yeah, that’s an obvious call for violence.
Mississippi Guv Blames Everything And Everyone But Himself For Deadly COVID Spike
Oh, FFS!
Oh, FFS… again.
Another call for violence: Pro-Trump PA GOP Candidate Says He’ll Rally ’20 Strong Men’ To Boot Pro-Mask School Board Members
Follow-up to comment 355.
Posted by readers of the article:
Here’s a link to the August 31 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.
From their most recent summary:
Also from there:
They’re also reporting that “UK government ministers intend to roll out a Covid-19 booster programme from September, officials have said.”
Just heard Chuck Todd say that he’s not sure anyone listens when President Biden talks about Afghanistan. What is wrong with that guy? What he means is that he doesn’t want to listen when the President talks about Afghanistan, and he’d rather listen to Republicans talking nonsense about withdrawing from the war.
Some podcast episodes:
Maintenance Phase – “The Great Protein Fiasco”:
(One aspect I’m a little puzzled by is their surprise at the Christian organizations’ boycott and advocacy of breastfeeding. They note that these groups in our time are typically hostile to breastfeeding in public and at work, which is true; but they think women should be breastfeeding at home, where they should be with children generally. Their non-humanitarian interest here was in maintaining patriarchal gender roles.)
That works well with this one from Behind the Bastards – “How Nestle Starved A Bunch of Babies”:
Why Is This Happening? – “The War on Terror with Spencer Ackerman”:
What do Manchin and Sinema want to cut from Biden’s plan? How about dental care for grandma?
Trump’s threats are now nearly toothless. Meanwhile, Republicans that want infrastructure fixes for their states are siding with Biden. See:
https://twitter.com/realLizUSA/status/1420501942787362817
for more on Trump’s stupidity and hyperbolic bullying rhetoric.
Good news:
Link
Paul Ryan says it’s ‘really clear’ Biden won election: ‘It was not rigged. It was not stolen’
Paul Krugman:
New York Times link
Link
Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “The chance of another 9/11 just went through the roof.” He’s wrong.
From today’s DN! headlines:
Lynna @ #358, the cable news coverage of the withdrawal has been so bad in general that you could have thought Todd would just blend in, but somehow he’s still managed to stand out. It’s impressive.
Xpost
This has been happening a lot, mostly in Red southern states. Strangely enough the ones with the highest rates of Covid-19 virus infections and deaths. Vaccine clinics and public health workers get harassed, attacked, and threatened. Usually the police are nowhere and do nothing.
This is the equivalent of a ship hitting an iceberg. The passengers destroy the lifeboats, throw the lifejackets over the side, and scream insults at anyone who tries to rescue them.
The head of the Georgia state health department calls this “normal”.
Well, I guess for some value of “normal”.
BBC – “Sarah Rainsford: My last despatch before Russian expulsion”:
Guardian world liveblog:
Rep. Swalwell tweeted:
John Harwood from CNN tweeted, reporting on Biden’s speech:
Follow-up to #173 – here are the two parts of the ABC Four Corners report “Fox and the Big Lie” (YT links):
Part 1 – “How Murdoch’s Fox News allowed Trump’s propaganda to destabilise democracy.”
Part 2 – “Trump returns to campaign trail amid ‘stolen election’ lawsuits.”
SC @367, so true.
Raven @368: “This is the equivalent of a ship hitting an iceberg. The passengers destroy the lifeboats, throw the lifejackets over the side, and scream insults at anyone who tries to rescue them.”
Yes! Well said.
Link
https://twitter.com/danpfeiffer/status/1432386794926993408
See the link for Sinema’s position, which is, as one reader put it: “So we should fuck ourselves now to avoid getting fucked in the future? Got it.”
Another reader characterized Sinema’s position as: “The good things we might want to do could be undone so we shouldn’t do them.”
https://twitter.com/danpfeiffer/status/1432386794926993408
See the link for Sinema’s position, which is, as one reader put it: “So we should fuck ourselves now to avoid getting fucked in the future? Got it.”
Another reader characterized Sinema’s position as: “The good things we might want to do could be undone so we shouldn’t do them.”
The Washington Post reported that a “torrent of political groups” — spanning drug manufacturers, big banks, tech titans, major retailers, and oil-and-gas giants — are gearing up to derail elements of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic agenda.
Corporate America launches massive lobbying blitz to kill key parts of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion economic plan
JFC. OMG.
As Of Midnight, Texas Is Living In A Post-Roe World
Follow-up to comment 379.
Link
Follow-up to comments 379 and 380.
Posted by readers:
Follow-up to comment 378.
Link
Follow-up to comments 379, 380 and 381.
Follow-up to comment 384.
More on Biden’s remarks:
Wonkette:
https://www.wonkette.com/rip-roe-v-wade
@ 384
Of course, that’s all we’re going to get out of Biden and the Dems: Hollow, useless, words.
Satire/humor from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
@ #387
“Of course, that’s all we’re going to get out of Biden and the Dems: Hollow, useless, words.”
You would have him stay silent?
Sure… for now.
Millions of children in religious groups in England and Wales vulnerable to abuse:
I had to look up what a “non-conformist xian” was (my guess is anyone claiming to be, or designated as, a xian, but who isn’t paying a tithe to teh CoE (this seems to be almost correct)): “all Protestants who have dissented from Anglicanism — Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Unitarians — and also to independent groups such as the Quakers,” and the list goes on and on. And amusingly, “[i]n Scotland, where the established church is Presbyterian, members of other churches, including Anglicans, are considered Nonconformists.” –Nonconformist. The report is only about England & Wales; and teh CoE (and raping children cult) were examined in an earlier report, as the article notes later on.
In other unexpected news, a dog bite someone, the spherical Earth orbits the Sun, and nothing will be done.
The Onion, Elizabeth Holmes Arrives To Trial With Prototype For Black Box That Will Prove Her Innocence (quoted in full):
And to make the comparison with the Theranos scam complete, those “tiny internet-connected modules” actually don’t do the analysis themselves as she claims, instead they are communications links to firms of lawyers who are doing all the work.
And this is not the Onion, : Josh Bernstein Calls for Democratic Voters to Be Starved Until Biden Resigns:
Yes, trucks go laden from nazi areas to dummie areas but come back empty. Hence, nothing can go wrong go wrong get wronger…
Also from RWW (not the Onion), : Hank Kunneman Warns of Dire Consequences if Trump Is Not Reinstated:
This loon has kook-aid drinking sharks jumping away from him.
BLF@394
Hmm. A false prophet. I’ll be in my garden gathering stones like a good Xtian.
World eliminates leaded petrol in ‘huge milestone’ for health, environment:
It’s been known since lead was first added to petrol the inventor, Thomas Midgley, was being dishonest — Midgley got a roasting at a press event about a continuing series of health problems at the plant producing tetraethyl lead (something like 35 of 40 employees got sick in just a few months, with at least one dying, as I recall) — and did a very hair furorian thing, washing his hands in the stuff and claiming it was safe, after having just returned from recovering from lead poisoning himself. The companies involved also did / controlled most of the safety studies commission afterwards (none had been required or commissioned beforehand). Apropos of little, Midgley is also responsible for fluorocarbons (e.g., freon); this time, as I recall, he drank the stuff — he was a one-man global environmental disaster.
†
<rant>No, lead was originally added to petrol because the valve seats of the time were (relatively) fragile, needing both protection against the values banging into them as well as frequent lubrication. Lead did the trick, reducing engine knocking with the added “benefit” of making the engines seem more powerful — which quickly became the reason de jour as the metallurgy improved and both valves and valve seats became more robust (along with other improvements, I presume). Some sources claim lead was first added in an effort to reduce knocking and then it was noticed it also reduced wear-and-tear on the valves. That’s plausible, but either way, the “improved performance” scam wasn’t the original reason per se — when the values aren’t breaking up and there’s no knocking (premature ignition), the compression ratio can be increased (thus more power), but note that increasing the compression ratio means a new engine, wereas working values and no-knocking also works for then-existing engines.</rant>The performance of the existing engine isn’t improved as much as its lifetime, its a new engine with higher compression that is possible.In Ozland where even most of the sheep are dangerous (apologies to Terry Pratchett), Taronga zoo lyrebird perfectly mimics the ear-splitting wail of a crying baby (video) (Gruniad edits in {curly braces}):
I should also think they are fairly fast learners — the fire alarm? Presuming the zoo doesn’t burn down on a regular basis (albeit this is Ozland so, like the lifeforms there, that’s probably not safe), then presumably it’s only had presumably brief snippets of the alarm during tests in which to learn. On the other hand, those tests would presumably be identical and relatively common… I ask the mildly deranged penguin, who points out no lyrebird has ever mimicked a cheese, so they must be extremely dumb and / or use Betamax.
Actually, says the mildly deranged penguin, it’s to scare the cheeses into the lady-lyrebird’s nest to snack on whilst she watches a nice VHS of, say, Hitchcock’s The Birds or a Richard Attenborough documentary, whilst the males struggle to convince them Betamax is better by playing tapes of babies crying out for more cheese.
Sadly, the video only has the mimicked crying baby and not, e.g., the mimicked fire alarm.
@ 389
Oh, I have many suggestions on how we SHOULD be handling the Right, but the Mods would object.
Layoffs improve to pandemic-era low as U.S. economy bounces back
The last time jobless claims were this low, the effects of the pandemic hadn’t even reached the United States yet.
The weather were I am is playing coy. I’ve two weather apps installed on my phone, which are notorious for disagreeing with each other, both in predictions (forecast) and current situation — and also with reality, which is happening right now: One claims it’s currently raining, the other that it will rain in about an hour, whilst a check upstairs through the open skylights (and at the floor) shows were was some light rain sometime earlier. One insists there will be loads of rain tonight (about 1mm per hour, which for this locale at this time-of-year is a lot) and that it will rain all day tomorrow, the other (which doesn’t seem to predict amount) that it won’t rain until the morning nor most of tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the French weather bureau has issued a yellow alert for thunderstorms. Looking at various satellite and radar maps, I can see why just about everything except an eruption of whales has been predicted — we’re either in the clear middle of a U-shaped cloud(? storm?) system, or right at the boundary of two(?) different(?) systems. Other than there not being a Cetacea eruption (which is distinct from raining down mammals), the only thing mostly-in-agreement is the current wind direction.
NBC News:
Commentary, with emphasis on Sotomayor’s dissent:
Link
Sotomayor’s fiery dissent makes sense. It is coherent and effective. You can read all of the dissents here [PDF].
Excerpt from Justice Robert’s dissent:
Excerpt from Justice Breyer’s dissent:
Excerpt from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, (in addition to excerpts already presented above):
blf @ 400, speaking of crazy weather, I have friends who live in New York City. We joked that you’d have to have float devices on your dog to take a walk in the park. Jokes aside, at least 18 people are dead after the storm (Ida) caused so much flooding in the New York area. Horrifying. Really bad.
The New York Times published some startling photos.
Follow-up to comment 402.
Some details, (excerpted from a New York Times article):
Link
Lynna@402, Sofar this year, S.France has largely been spared both wildfires and torrential rains. (There was one notable wildfire somewhere near St Tropez, over 100km away from me.) And the area where I live has also been spared furnace-like heat (barely getting above perhaps 32℃ (c.90℉), albeit further along the Mediterranean coast (both directions) was baked (with some Mediterranean areas (especially outside France) — again, both directions — also burning or(? and?) drowning). Nonetheless, locally there have been a lot of thunderstorm warnings (but very few actual storms over my village) and a few flood warnings. The land around the village has been considered at some very high level of fire risk since June(? or before?).
The mildly deranged penguin claims the nastier weather and fire faeries have learned to avoid her.
There was a loud BANG! on what seemed to be the roof of the lair last night (during high-ish winds), complete with what sounded like falling rocks(? bricks?). So I poked my head out of the skylights and had a look in the morning. Didn’t see anything (nor any interior clews, like a new hole in the ceiling not shaped like a penguin), so am puzzled as to what happened.
blf @404, “The mildly deranged penguin claims the nastier weather and fire faeries have learned to avoid her.” Ah, that’s what I need. Protection.
In other news: Peter Thiel’s super PAC launched this ad targeting state Attorney General Mark Brnovich for not taking made-up voter-fraud claims seriously. Thiel is backing Blake Masters, the chief operating officer at Thiel Capital and president of the Thiel Foundation.
The obvious worship of Trump in that Peter Thiel-backed ad turns my stomach.
Protesters Troll Anti-Abortion ‘Whistleblower’ Site With Fake ‘Tips’
Schools and pediatric hospitals are on the brink. Only emergency action can save kids from COVID-19
Details are available at the link.
Yeah, that’s suspicious.
Lynna@405, “[… T]hat’s what I need. Protection.”
Either have a well-stocked cheeseboard, or pretend you are a cheese. The later is known to work until she takes a few bites (if you’re lucky) or swallows you whole (slightly more awkward).
Don’t worry, she’s been fully-vaccinated, and managed not to bite anyone in the process. However, the needles and lack of cheese meant she was less-cooperative than usual, so she was dressed in specially adapted PPE — wrapped in several kilometres of titanium wire rope — to hold her still. She said — well, it is thought she said (hard to hear her buried under metres of wire rope) — it wasn’t very kinky. Getting her into that PPE was mostly a matter of careful cheese placement, and hiring Fred and co from Scooby-Doo.
Link
Vigilantism is not acceptable to me.
blf @409. Ha! Understood. I’m stocking up on cheese. I may have to subcontract the titanium wire rope version of PPE to experts.
Florida Lawmakers Pledge to Pass Abortion Ban Following Texas’ Model
Well, that didn’t take long.
Snippet from Statue of Confederate
Gen[slave-owner] Robert E Lee in Virginia’s capitol can be removed, court rules: “The supreme court of Virginia ruled on Thursday that the state can take down an enormous statue […] that became a symbol of racial injustice as it towered over Monument Avenue in the state’s capital for more than a century. [… I]ts base is now covered with graffiti.”House to vote on bill guaranteeing abortion access in response to Texas law
Wonkette:
Link
Michael Petro Says God Is Raising Up a Because Democrats Don’t Tolerate Christianity (RWW edits in {curly braces}):
Politicking when pleading for more tithes can earn a visit from the IRS.
Petro’s statements in the last excerpted paragraph above are plausible — both not for the people he means nor via the methods both he and Locke say they want to see happen (violence) — hence the .
There is yet more inane bellowing quoted at the link.
https://twitter.com/mollytaft/status/1433402380754763776
The Grauniad is currently running a series The schoolday I’ll never forget: “Writers on their most memorable day in the classroom and beyond”. To-date, I believe it’s all been UK-centric (I haven’t read all the articles (yet)). Two I have read were:
● I hitchhiked 100 miles home from my school for the blind (“Once a year, we pupils were given total freedom, whether we chose to go to the zoo or get on the dodgems. I decided to surprise my mother with a visit”). A snippet, about the return journey:
● Our teacher broke all the rules and took us for a wild day out:
Related to Wild cockatoos observed using tools as ‘cutlery’ to extract seeds from tropical fruit (video), “Goffin’s cockatoos on Indonesia’s Tanimbar Islands crafted three different types of tools from tree branches to obtain seeds from sea mangoes”, is First Dog on the Moon in the Grauniad, Did you know birds use tools? Did you know some birds make their own tools?! (cartoon). The dog, despite being on the MOON (the mildly deranged penguin’s Massive Orbital Cheese Vault (her styluspenguinship is terrible)), fails to mention any of said penguin’s tools, not even the trebuchet, Tardis, or titanium PPE.
In Ozland, Aboriginal health service asks Kimberley churches to counter Covid vaccine misinformation:
The article does not provide any examples of the nutcase’s lies, identify any nutcases, etc., i.e., the Gruniad’s usual analysis / explanation is missing.
Also in Ozland, ‘Willing as anyone’: Covid vaccine hub in Melbourne town hall to help homeless access jabs:
CORRECTION to me@420, There is some more information at the link, albeit not about the misinformation.
Associated Press:
Liz Cheney’s elevation to vice chair of the Jan. 6 panel makes her an even bigger thorn for McCarthy
Schadenfreude moment if you like seeing Kevin McCarthy discomfited. And I do.
Satire/Humor from Andy Borowitz:
New Yorker link
Yep, much as expected:
Link
Link
Russia warns Google, Apple over Kremlin critic Navalny’s app:
Presumably hair furor — or more likely, his lackys, not all of whom use crayon (but which you should still keep away from knives) — and financed by the thugs (not hair furor), is furiously taking notes: .
Ex-prosecutor indicted for misconduct in Ahmaud Arbery death:
Trump loyalists team up with anti-vax doctors for tour:
The but everyone must give credit and tithes to him for them so quickly! Or else!!
Alls teh besteringist quacks & other hucksters!
Police officers charged in George Floyd’s death oppose TV trial:
Lynna: “Schadenfreude moment if you like seeing Kevin McCarthy discomfited. And I do.”
Yes, but even more than that, I would like to see him crying over the loss of his house seat, or even better, in an orange prison jumpsuit.
Dave Daubenmire’s $100 Million Plan to Fund His Right-Wing Culture War (RWW edits in {curly braces}):
Lynna… @ # 353, quoting Maddowblog: There is no evidence that any election was “stolen” in 2020.
Steve Benen knows better than that, and I wish all the pundits & journalists would stop saying it. Just to pick the closest (to me) and most obvious (ditto) example, if the Florida legislature had not blocked a >60% voter-approved state constitutional amendment which would have allowed former felons to vote, the Sunshine State’s electoral votes would have gone to Biden/Harris – and at least a few incumbent members of said legislature would also have had to find new outlets for their talents.
Better for Benen to have said, “There is no evidence that any election was ‘stolen’ by Democrats in 2020.”
The Onion, New Texas Law Allows Private Citizens To Hold Pregnant Women Hostage Until Birth:
Progressives Tell Manchin To Stick It
TikTokers flood Texas abortion whistleblower site with Shrek memes, fake reports and porn
https://twitter.com/iamgabesanchez/status/1433532350495805441
Video available at the Twitter link.
iOS shortcut – https://icloud.com/shortcuts/46272ecbe1d44d9eb1bedce98a7f61b0
Texas anti-choice activist admits bounty hunter law is a way for men to control women in their lives
Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Countless anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 hoax believers dying from the virus:
Also, Teen Hospitalized With COVID Accused of Being ‘Actress’ by Conspiracy Theorists:
That story got some readers’s comments like:
●
●
Fortunately, there is some pushback on (some) of teh nutters in the comments.
More pushback on the denier nutters (see, e.g., @439), Anti-vaxxer’s family slammed for ‘begging’ for money:
@438
But that’s all libs/Dems know how to do.
Anti-vaccine protesters try to storm London offices of medical regulator:
Child COVID infections higher in low-vaccination states
https://www.wonkette.com/sb-8-nightmare
First Dog on the Moon in the Grauniad, The most dangerous danger to young people from climate change is in fact climate alarmism! (cartoon): “Kids are terrified of wind and rain because the communists in Hollywood are filling their heads with doom and gloom”. Excerpts transcribed from some panels:
● , introducing a shark dressed like a pedopriest.
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Currently top-voted readers’s comment: “Because telling kids there is a place called hell where they will burn to death is so much more comforting than educating them about climate change. Priorities…”
Some schadenfreude moments thanks to renters in Trump Towers failing to pay Hair Furor.
Washington Post link
Republicans in six states rush to mimic Texas anti-abortion law:
Ron DeSantis appeals mask mandate ruling as Florida Covid deaths set record:
US Capitol rioter[Insurrectionist] photographed wearing horns pleads guilty (Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):Link in Finnish, with lots of photos:
It’s been long observed that Russian government under Vladimir Putin has been building a political and cultural alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church, which quickly rebounded after soviet-era suppression. Now, Finnish public broadcaster has this somewhat startling report on how it plays out in practice at Valaam monastery, which seems to have become one of the most influential religious institutions in Russia other than the church itself.
Here are my photo descriptions/paraphrased main points from the text associated with photos/translated quotes/some additional background commentary:
[1] Putin buddying up with God, and headline: “Putin’s holy Valaam – The church became the government’s helper”
[2] View from a boat approaching the Valaam island.
[3] Map showing the Valaam monastery (Valamon luostari) at Lake Ladoga, within Finland’s pre-WWII border. [Though the monastic community that lived in Valaam prior to the war was ethnically mostly Russian, they relocated to interior Finland when the Soviets invaded, and a handful of Finnish monks still run the New Valamo monastery today. Meanwhile, Russians re-established the Valaam monastery at its original site in the 1990s and began restoring the buildings after decades of disuse.]
[4] Note on how Putin has visited Valaam with increasing regularity through his long presidency, both officially and in private.
[5] Note on how the monastic buildings in Valaam have been increasingly upgraded in recent years.
[6] Monk “Father” German, who thanks Putin [apparently meaning his personal oligarch money] for the recent improvements.
[7] Putin is also said to have gifted this yacht [which apparently belongs to the monastery].
[8] A fancy chapel dedicated to Prince Vladimir, the medieval ruler who founded the Russian church. The chapel complex includes luxury lodges that are reserved for the monastery’s VIP guests, first and foremost Putin himself. Wisecrackers have noted the namesake relation between saint Prince Vladimir and the current ruler, also regarded as “St. Vladimir” by some.
[9] Local guide Anna Zivotenko, whose friend recently saw Putin on a private visit in Valaam.
[10] Putin on an official visit in Valaam in 2019, hosting the Belarusian dictator Alyakshandr Lukashenka.
[11] Grave of the monk “Father” Mephody, who died from Covid-19 this July. He was one of Putin’s spiritual advisors in Valaam, and apparently a creepy theocrat. He seems to have conflated Russia’s national persecution complex in global politics with the conservative Christian persecution complex. [Russia is commonly portrayed as the last bastion of true faith and real values.]
[12] Quote from Mephody: “All the forces of Hell, and not only in the West, are rebelling against the truth taught by Russia. It is not Russophobia, but hatred against Lord.”
[13] Note on how Russian politicians ride on conservative cultural values and benefit from the approval of the church, [which is highly trusted, more than any other institution] by conservative voters. Meanwhile, the church gets money, good PR and political favors from the government.
[14] According to German, conservative values are the only thing that can unite Russian people, aside from reheating the national pride from USSR winning the Second World War. [The latter is also a very popular hobbyhorse in modern Russia.]
[15] German quotes Mephody saying, “Russia has two protections: spirituality and nuclear weapons. All is well as long as we have those.”
[16] A fancy church interior, and links to related stories.
Lying liars continue to lie. It’s lies all the way down.
Link
Video is available at the link.
lumipuna @450, thanks for posting that. I no idea that Putin was working that hard (and spending that much money) to buy support from the Russian Orthodox Church.
In other news, women in Kabul continue to protest:
Link
Wonkette:
Paste Eaters Beware: Ivermectin Is Coming For Your Sperms
Funny … but also alarming.
Lynna @453, I don’t know if this is intentional but they are basically recycling the Utopia script.
In another story from 2017, it’s mentioned that several Russian oligarchs have been funding the Valaam monastery. AFAIK when the monastery was re-established in 1990s there were only a few monks and very little funding. Now the place is reportedly planning to become an “Athos of the North”, and lobbying to get rid of the few non-monastic residents who have lived on the island since soviet era. Tourists, including women, would still be allowed to visit Valaam, but increasingly, certain areas of the island group are being closed off for either monastic or VIP tourism purposes. In some places new construction is compromising nature conservation, with dubious legality.
So, Akira Mackenzie@441, will you tell us all what you have done?
I’ve been waiting for real legal experts to say something about this Texas law. Hasn’t happened yet.
Even Dershowitz, who is a right wing hack who somehow is at Harvard law thinks it is unconstitutional in multiple ways. He is probably right.
Notably, there isn’t a word in this law about the men who are the other partners in any unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. The men who had sex with these women just don’t exist for the fundie xians. It’s entirely discriminatory towards women.
Wonkette’s take on this law at #444 is about the best I’ve seen.
I like how she has presented some of the possible things the Democrats can actually do to counter it. She is overestimating their actual power but they have to try even if they fail.
She calls this law sadistic and psychopathic, which it is.
What is getting lost here is that this is the whole point.
The cruelty is the whole reason for laws like this.
It’s all about power and control.
The fundie xians and the GOP don’t really care whatsoever about a random clump of cells in some nonwhite woman’s uterus.
@457
Looks like someone is trying to worm their way back into the good graces polite upper-class liberal society.
Edit: …the good graces of polite…
Texas county judge temporarily blocks anti-abortion group from enforcing ban against Planned Parenthood
Shawna Chen
A Texas county judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order against Texas Right to Life and its associates, preventing the anti-abortion group from enforcing a new six-week abortion ban against three Planned Parenthood affiliates…
The temporary restraining order bars Texas Right to Life and affiliated groups from attempting to sue Planned Parenthood, its physicians and staff while litigation over the law is ongoing.
The order, granted by Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, will expire on Sept. 17.
Planned Parenthood South Texas Surgical Center [and others] filed the request on Thursday.
Judge Gamble wrote that the new law creates “probable, irreparable, and imminent injury in the interim for which [Planned Parenthood] and their physicians, staff, and patients throughout Texas have no adequate remedy at law” if they are subjected to private enforcement lawsuits.
The decision upholds Texas Supreme Court precedent, which has held that “the primary consideration for temporary emergency relief is preserving the status quo while courts consider whether plaintiffs have demonstrated a probable right to the relief sought,” Gamble wrote.
[…]
A preliminary injunction hearing will take place on Sept. 13.
Arkansas Inmates Allegedly Weren’t Told They Were Getting Ivermectin Pills For COVID
Governor DeSantis continues to protect and promote not the people of Florida but the coronavirus.
Link
I’m expecting the situation to get even more dire in Florida. DeSantis is making Florida a petri dish for developing variants of COVID-19.
Link
The most-cited study promoting ivermectin may have been completely fabricated.
Good news: https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1434167993769111552
France’s New Caledonia makes Covid-19 vaccine mandatory for all adults (video):
Related, I haven’t (yet) seen any reports of anti-stuff (Health Pass, vaccine, Marcon, brown- and black-people, etc.) goosestepping mobs here in France overall today, but there was one in my village. Rather large (one hundred-plus lunatics, by my estimation), none wearing masks, etc., etc. They happened to goosestep by the pub where I was having a cidre and following the cricket, so gave them a loud chant / yell (masked), similar to “Feck off plague rats, stop killing my family! (repeat with variations)” (in English). I almost didn’t notice them approaching, they weren’t making much noise, spotting the approaching loons only due to the escort’s flashing lights. I just managed to get my mask on before they goosestepped past with their , etc., lunacy…
Arizona father held after threat to zip-tie school principal over Covid rules:
Oklahoma hospitals deluged by ivermectin overdoses, doctor says (Grauniad edits in {cury braces}):
From text quoted by blf in comment 469:
Yikes! “Several days!”
Jan. 6 committee leaders call McCarthy’s Trump comments ‘baseless’
The committee chair and vice chair called out McCarthy’s “misinformation campaign” in a joint statement.
Those are lies from Kevin McCarthy. I wish Democratic leaders would call them lies instead of misinformation.
German health workers attacked after refusing to give man a vaccination card without a shot
There are no “million moms,” there’s only Monica Cole, an extremist who is trying to brand herself as a one million moms. [video available at the link]
Wonkette:
Link
Lynna@473, Sonic cheeseburger? I know what a sonic screwdriver is, but a sonic cheeseburger… Opens locks, tracks aliens, disarms robots, etc., and you can also eat it for lunch?
Another example of owning the libs in Idaho by dying of Covid-19 virus.
It’s that way in a lot of places. The Red rural counties of Oregon, Texas, Florida, most of the South.
The ICU’s are beyond full and patients are dying in the hallways in some places, 95% of them unvaccinated.
From text quoted by raven in comment 476:
If only Fox News hosts and a few conservative radio hosts would feature that article, preferably in heavy rotation.
Link?
Burying power lines isn’t the only way to weatherproof the grid.
Scientists are working with power companies on fresh tools so that weather-induced power outages don’t last so long.
That’s an interesting concept.
Washington Post link
Lots of good points made in that article.
Op-ed by Colbert King, writing for The Washington Post:
Link
Gun culture in Texas:
Washington Post link
A snippet from Searches for ‘COVID cure’ turn up fake treatments:
These are books. These are boxes. Rather like small… far away… (video).
A few snippets from Welcome to my nightmare: One GP’s adventures with anti-vaxxers and their ‘infodemic’:
blf @475, some background about the Sonic name. Source of the Sonic name for a chain of drive-in restaurants:
Link
Sonic Drive-Ins recently change its advertising campaign.
Link
For no real reason, I always associated Sonic Drive-Ins with the cartoon/gaming character Sonic the Hedgehog (color scheme?]. There’s no connection, but Sonic the Hedgehog seems to have some of the same personality traits exhibited by the mildly deranged penguin. Sort of.
The word “ferocity” was used, also “adventurous” and “cocky” to describe Sonic the Hedgehog. He has a “big ego,” which leads to impulsive and reckless behavior. He’s got blue fur and wears red shoes. “In Heroes [a Sega computer game] he has eaten a cheese sandwich and is really full of energy.”
The Sonic Drive-In logo is red and blue in its simplest form.
Internet Vigilantes Are Fighting Ivermectin Misinformation With Memes And Explicit Horse Cartoons:
@463
How about this workaround then: a business can institute a $20 cover charge for entry, but also offer a 95% discount to anyone who voluntarily shows proof of vaccination.
Covid Surges Nearly 700% In South Dakota After Sturgis Motorcycle Rally — An Even Higher Rate Than Last Year:
Lynna@483, Ah, so a sonic cheeseburger is a cheeseburger made from a sonic hedgehog. Got it. Now, what’s a sonic hedgehog… A mysterious alien animal that sometimes acts like a hedgehog when not being used to open doors (unless wooden), scan for whatever it is that is necessary to find to move the story along, fix or break whatever needs breaking or fixing (respectively), and whines, sometimes with added lights? (Now that you mention it, that does seem similar to the mildly deranged penguin.)
Candace Owens denied service at COVID test site for spreading misinformation (the title is misleading, it’s what happened next):
Some 50 Dutch doctors reprimanded for Covid misinformation:
Trickster Goddess @485, I like that workaround. Should be legal too.
blf @489, good for the Netherlands. The public health officials there did the right thing.
In more news concerning women’s rights:
Link
Misinformation on Facebook got six times more clicks than factual news during the 2020 election, study says (my added emboldening):
Link
See also:
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1432736827623026691
blf @491:
Good point. I need to keep that in mind.
Lynna@493, Here’s a link to the cited report, The COVID States Project #57: Social media news consumption and COVID-19 vaccination rates (July 2021, PDF available at the link). A snippet (more-or-less the conclusion):
I call it factsborked for a reason (“borked” probably should not to be confused with the perhaps unrelated “bork”; something is “borked” when it is “incorrectly configured; damaged; …”, whilst to “bork” someone is to “vilify that person”).
Follow-up to comment 471, with a few more details.
Link
Link
Kabul’s airport re-opens for domestic flights — with no radar — as Taliban battle resistance fighters in last holdout.
Washington Post link
New York Times link
‘Really Bad Politics’: Kinzinger Swipes At McCarthy Over Threat To Telecom Companies
Video is available at the link.