John Oliver dissects Donald Trump’s lies and the sources of those lies. Don’t omit to watch at the 21:00 minute mark where Oliver produces a series of ads to be actually aired on the cable news shows that Trump watches, where the actor in a pseudo-commercial provides Trump with accurate information.
The ACLU of Ohio has come up with a set of videos where members of the transgender and gender non-conforming community tell their own stories. They have also provided a page that lists resources that are available. It says that there are “approximately 1.4 million transgender adults in the United States, but only 22% of Americans say they know someone who is transgender, compared to nearly 90% who know someone who is lesbian, gay or bisexual.”
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It appears that the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner is going to be short on media and celebrity attendances.
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It looks like Saturday Night Live has decided to portray as many male members of the Trump administration as possible with women, knowing that this gets under Trump’s skin. In addition to Melissa McCarthy reprising her role as press secretary Sean Spicer, yesterday saw Kate McKinnon as Jeff Sessions. Can Rosie O”Donnell as Steve Bannon be far behind?
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It has long been known that infants, long before they can talk, are sensitive to issues of fairness and some have probed to see if that is true for other animal species as well. A recent study looked at capuchin monkeys and dogs and found that they too seem to make what looks to us like moral judgments.
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If there is any comic strip that can claim to not be political, it is Peanuts, which is why reruns of this much-loved venerable strip are still running in our daily papers, strips that first appeared about a half-century or more ago. And yet, yesterday’s strip seems utterly timely.
In a comment to my post about a short thriller film that was shown in reverse, sonofrojblake alerted me to a four minute video “Sugar Water” by the performers Cibo Matto that was directed by Michale Gondry that shows two parallel storylines, one forward and one backwards that have a dramatic crossover at the 2:00 minute mark. Fun!
Josh Marshall writes that in the past week Donald Trump has had to stomach three reversals, something he hates to acknowledge. One is of course the defeat that was handed to him by the Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeal over his immigration Executive Orders. After tweeting his defiance suggesting that he would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, now there are suggestions that he might issue new orders instead.
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I have just finished watching season 2 of this gripping series that was initially shown on the USA Network but both seasons are now available on Netflix. It is the story of Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a young computer hacker, a total genius at it, who spends most of his spare time using his skills to routinely hack into the computers of people, either out of idle curiosity or a desire to help them. He also acts as a kind of vigilante, and in his hacking if he finds someone engaged in some kind of heinous crime, he will inform the authorities. He finds it hard to talk with others or reveal anything about himself, but lives in the rich world of his own mind where he analyzes things and shares his thoughts with you, the viewer, often by directly addressing you.
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