Writing for tomorrow, I’m feeling somewhat drained, because the heat has interfered with my sleep. Today is forecast in the high 70°s, and tomorrow will be cooler. After taking a rest day today, I have a lot of housework to catch up this weekend. Day 12.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:27 (average 4:39). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times: Jeb Bush’s increasingly serious and public examination of a run for president has shaken the ranks of establishment Republican donors and fund-raisers who had planned to back Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey in 2016, forcing many of them to rethink their allegiance to the embattled governor.
In private conversations that are now seeping into public view, some of them are signaling to Mr. Christie’s camp that, should Mr. Bush enter the race, their first loyalty would be to him, not to Mr. Christie, according to interviews with more than two dozen of them.
A Jeb Bush candidacy is my greatest worry for 2016, because “Strike Three” has the ability to mask is fascism and appear normal. You’d never know that he was the architect of Stand Your Ground laws.
From The New Yorker: A broad-based coalition of millionaires converged on Washington today to defeat a bill that would have increased the minimum wage for American workers to $10.10 an hour.
Leaving behind their mansions and yachts, the millionaires were motivated by what they saw as an existential threat to the country, Mitch McConnell, a spokesman for the millionaires, said.
“This was an extremely diverse coalition,” McConnell said, noting that everyone from the rich to the very rich to the super-rich united to vote down the bill.
OK, Andy, I give up. Where’s the satire?
From Daily Kos: You can’t fool George Will. Scientists are just progressives who are looking to consolidate power in Washington.
“The whole point of global warming is it’s a rationalization for progressives to do what progressives want to do, which is concentrate more and more power in Washington, more and more Washington power in the executive branch, more and more executive branch power in independent czars and agencies, to micromanage the lives of the American people. Our shower heads, our toilets, our bathtubs, our garden hoses — everything becomes involved in the exigencies of rescuing the planet.”
Sounds like an open and shut case to me. Scientists from all around the world are in a global conspiracy to seize power in the United States. Perfectly logical.
What? You want proof? George Will has proof!
Gwynne was the science editor of Newsweek 39 years ago when he pulled together some interviews from scientists and wrote a nine-paragraph story about how the planet was getting cooler.
Ever since, Gwynne’s "global cooling" story – and a similar Time Magazine piece – have been brandished gleefully by those who say it shows global warming is not happening, or at least that scientists – and often journalists – don’t know what they are talking about.
Fox News loves to cite it. So does Rush Limbaugh. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has quoted the story on the Senate floor.
That one article in 1975 was so brilliant, that it has managed to disprove over 33,000 scientifically researched papers written since.
Republican pollution pawns always have an excuse and a reason to believe that the obvious isn’t happening. The excuses are many. The reason is that profit trumps people in a Republican Reich.
Cartoon;
The New Oklahoma flag.
24 Responses to “Open Thread–5/3/2014”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was practicing medicine I would ALWAYS get my information from THIRTY-NINE year old medical journals!
Would you even consider going to a doctor who relied on the latest, most advanced research? I didn't think so.
Gloriously and succinctly put, Nameless!
Oh the Far Reich just beggar belief, don't they – thanks for this TC, I missed the article and particularly loved this glorious sentence on global warming –
"That one article in 1975 was so brilliant, that it has managed to disprove over 33,000 scientifically researched papers written since."
Brilliant!
Forgot to say – please tell me another blighted Bush running for the top job is a joke – come on guys, it's not funny any more!
It's no joke. 🙁
Time 3:54 – dad gumit!!! That was tough going.
Andy forgot to mention that this coalition of loving millionaires have decided that $10.10 is probably an acceptable daily wage, if the "entrepreneurs" do not object. Papa John has already registered his complaint. "Ten dollars and ten cents per day should not be a required salary, some of these people don't even work a full 12 hour day."
I agree with Jeb's mother. We have already had enough Bushes and the weeds they bring with them. Bush or Christie, both a bridge too far, and both seem to miss the required rhetoric for a really crazy tea baggin' lunatic. These guys have made attempts in the past to seem slightly able to make compromises, that will never do for a national presidential election.
George Will, the right wing "brain" must be correct, forty years of scientific work for the single purpose of advancing a non-existent plan to grow the government. Wow! This is the republican brain on self generated flatulence. Actually this is so transparent. Just be a booster and whore for the Oil, Gas and Coal industry and you too can be the republican mental load of dog poop. It's getting boring now, the polls are losing both the ice and elasticity of the ice caps, meaning we might just be at the point of no return. In much smaller doses but with tragic results we have seen the results of blind trashing of an Eco-system. When earlier civilizations slashed and burned trees, not for farming land but for the heat to melt limestone and paint structures, the civilizations began to erode, turn inward and self destruct.
Water is the final essence of life, and we are allowing, intentionally, our few secure water resources to be fully corrupted. No matter how many water rights are stolen, in the end even billionaires will find that as unlikely as it seemed, they too are human and need water.
Oklahoma has the perfect face and voices for their beliefs, Fallon and Coburn, neither possessing even a modicum of human compassion or empathy. Makes me wish that ghosts and karma were real, Fallon should be haunted to the end of her days and be returned again and again as Clayton Lockett, struggling to fight for a breath of life, fully awake and aware. I do not believe for a moment that the vein blew, that is an easy cop-out. Noticed even by incompetents within seconds. (I am not in favor of the death penalty being used willy-nilly, though this man is a poster boy for the death penalty, if it had been done honestly and correctly.) Reporters at the execution with experience at witnessing these things reported an aggressive, even gleeful attitude by those conducting the execution.
Relax and enjoy your day, TC.
Day 12 of what?
No cigs. Good job TC!
🙂
Keep it up TomCat. You can do it this time!
5:40 When an eel has a jaw like an alien's maw, that's a Moray.
NY Times – Stand Your Ground itself is bad enough, but the way he did it is even scarier. No one in Florida wanted it. There was opposition from every group including gun owners and law enforcement. Only the Koch Brothers wanted it. He pushed it through for them over eyeryone's objections. I don't even get why they Kochs wanted it; I mean, I don't see the money in it – did they just push it because they could? I think maybe we ought to start spreading the story now, preemptively, because the thought of him as a candidate is really, really scary.
New Yorker – I suspect the only satire is the phrase "Leaving behind their mansions and yachts." They didn't have to do that, so they didn't.
Daily Kos – But that is just what they are doing with the economy, except for real. Their continua; hammering at the deficit and how poor we are is just an excuse to screw the poor, women, people of color, gays, worthwhile programs in the arts and sciences, National Parks, drinking water, clean air. So naturally they project that onto us. What else is new?
Cartoon – Nice flag, dude.
3:12 Hallellujia! I beat that old TomCat to the fish!
3:09 Yeh, but I got there before you Patty! Don't worry, I'll share the feast with you guys! Now where is that Critter?
3:04 Here I am. You were looking behind. You should be looking in front. At least we made TomCat number 4 today.
🙁
5:27 – Puzzle 😥
NY Times ~ All the Bushes from that family tree are bad.
New Yorker ~ The satire is they didn't converge on Washington themselves. That's what they pay lobbyists to do.
Daily Kos ~ George Will was on the Colbert Report last week spouting this same nonsense. I think he actually believed that stephen agreed with him. His character is that good!
Cartoon ~ Sad
I opened my e-mail this morning to find a graphic and petition from the Democrats about the minimum wage. See it here http://www.democrats.org/ . Scroll down to 02 April 2014 WORKING FAMILIES WILL LOSE OUT. The petition is at the end http://my.democrats.org/RaiseTheWage
I've already been there and signed that.
Puzzle — 3:09 Yeh, but I got there before you Patty! Don't worry, I'll share the feast with you guys! Now where is that Critter?
NY Times — A 3rd Bush in the White House? I don't think the country could stand that, and especially since he is a Republicanus/Teabagger. But Christie is no better. Christie does however make a bigger target, and I don't refer to his size.
New Yorker — There is no way that millionaires etc would gather to march. They would be taken as the publicans they are, the rich welfare queens/kings. They send others to do their bidding.
Daily Kos — I wonder what the naysayers would say to this: If we continue to pollute the waters and air, especially the air with thick particulate matter, it will block the sun and we WILL HAVE a solar winter . . . damn cold!
Cartoon — So representative. So sad.
NY Times: We need to publicize his faults as miuch as we can because he is thought to be a "reasonable" man and his marriage to a Latino makes him attractive to the Latino vote. God help this country if we get another Bush in the White House. We have barely survived the first two.
The New Yorker: You are right, TC, this was not satire, but plain truth. I still don't understand why so many Kentuckians keep voting for Mitch. We are a blue collar state, and he has done NOTHING to help the poor or middle class.
Daily Kos: If they admit that global warming is real, they will lose all the money they have invested in fossil fuels and all the campaign donations they receive from the polluters.
Cartoon: A disgrace on all of us that this could happen.
TC, I hope your apartment has cooled off and you get some rest.
Thanks everyone. The apartment tooled off and I slept… actually, I overslrpt.
I know this and speak of it…