With everything else going on, we had another fire in the building, sort of. It turned out to be a false alarm, occasioned by cooking smoke. The idiot just kept cooking and did not open his door to vent the smoke, until it got so thick that someone saw it coming from a window. Today is grocery delivery day. Tomorrow is my MRI. Hopefully I will have a Personal Update, but if I don’t don’t worry. Remember I have to fight downtown Obama traffic to get home.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:43 (average 4:37). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: Chloe Hugh was in the middle of her final shift at Boss Hawg’s Barbecue in Topeka, Kansas when Governor Sam Brownback and his family sat down in her section. Upset by Brownback’s repeated assault on Kansas school funding, she decided to use her last shift to make a point and when she handed Brownback the bill, she left a tip of her own:
Kudos to Chloe. That Brownback ate there demonstrates that pigs are cannibalistic.
From The New Yorker: One day after the former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O. Carly Fiorina announced her candidacy for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, a new poll shows that she enjoys extremely high name recognition among the tens of thousands of former H.P. employees she fired.
According to the poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, Fiorina’s name recognition stands at a hundred per cent among the legions of employees she terminated, with many of them calling the former C.E.O. “unforgettable.”
Additionally, a broad majority of the laid-off workers described their feelings about Fiorina as “intense,” and noted that very few days go by when they do not invoke her name in a vehement manner.
Andy’s doing news again. My former job in research gave me a front row seat to watch how HP transformed when she took over. Before, they were totally focused of quality, ease of use, and user satisfaction. Afterward, they were totally focused on profit margin. She would certainly do for America what she did for HP.
From Upworthy: If you’ve ever wanted a side-by-side illustration of how racism seeps into everyday situations like job hunting, driving, and even going to the doctor, this video from Brave New Films breaks it down flawlessly.
Some of this surprised even me.
Cartoon:
25 Responses to “Open Thread–5/6/2015”
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4:21 average still 4:37. It looks like it might be tough. The fact that they are calling it a "statue" rather than, say, a "decoration," reinforces that.
A couple of days ago you posted Sen. Jeff Merkley's video about the House and Senate versions of the Budget (both unacceptable). He has now sent an email to a twitter form, through Americans for Financial Reform, addressing not all of the problems, but specifically the CFPB. http://action.civilrights.org/site/Survey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=4481
Daily Kos – I guess I thought we already knew from "Animal Farm" thet pigs were cannibalistic.
New Yorker – Yeah. I feel sorry for William and David. I don't think that when they decided to have lives it was all that obvious yet that they would be throwing it to the wolves. I wonder how theor kids are doing. I went to school with Walter and played bridge with Jim. Nancy was a counselor at my Girl Scout camp, but I really didn't meet her, I just knew she was there.
Upworthy – I am on Brave New Films' email list, so I had seen this, and yes, it is very good. Whether anyone who is empathy-deficient will be able to pick up anything from it, however – well, if not, it will not be the fault of the filmmakers. They did their job.
Cartoon – Sure the elephant doesn't mean "almost"?
While typing this I was interrupted by a lightning-induced power failure which probably lasted all of a second but took me about a half hour to recover from. It's going to be another one of those summers.
P.S. Just in case you want to be even angrier at Brownback, http://dailykos.com/story/2015/05/05/1382653/-Head-of-Kansas-GOP-Calls-Waitress-Who-Returned-Brownback-s-tip-Arrogantly-Stupid-and-Ignorant
Seems they want to pretend he's the Great Oz instead of a little man hiding behind them …and creating a Kansas even Dorothy doesn't want to return to
I saw thay. How vile!
3:32 I saved you from breaking one of your teeth on this false big bird.
3:00 I've never seen a peacock like that one! Much prefer the real ones with their iridescent colours.
You can have that one too!
Daily Kos ~ Goof for Chloe Hugh! This is what got me though : "She handed the bill to Brownback, whom she said was pleasant to her all evening, and went to serve other tables. A co-worker saw him look at the receipt and then put it in his wallet, Hugh said." What? He doesn't pay for his food?
New Yorker ~ My Repub friends were happy she's running. I asked if they thought she did a good job at HP. They had no idea, they only knew she was CEO at one time. Duh! Spot on, Andy! She does have great name recognition to the 30,000 former employees and their families.
Upworthy ~ Brave New Films has hit a home run with this film. They usually do though.
Cartoon ~ Viva la Revolucion!
Simple graph to share w/ your Repubican friends how Fiorina (and Meg Whitman) drove H-P into the ground:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/HPQ_Stock_Price_Since_2000.png
… BUT as I've said before, Fiorina's years at H-P does give her a pithy campaign slogan for the GOP primaries:
Nameless, like all Repugs, my friends have blind eyes and deaf ears concerning their politicains. They can only see fault with Dems and Independents.
I think it's time HP brought back Mark Hurd.
I bet Republicans would say that it's because they were neither barefoot nor pregnant.
my hope for the future is that one day this video will be obsolete, but for today it is a sad reality for a country that wants to claim "all people are created equally"
The other day a couple of else wondered how Alternet could not include Gov. Abbott (R-Texas) in their list siince he called out the Texas Guard to monitor Jade Helm 15 – a scheduled military exercise in which Abbott is worried that Pres. Obama is going to takeover Texas.
Well, since then Ron Paul, Ted Cruz, Louis Gohmert AND Chuck Norris now also agree that Texas dissidents are going to be rounded up during the Jade Helm 15 takeover of Texas.
My question is – where are all the FEMA camps holding the dissidents captured in Jade Helm 1 through 14?!?
It's amazing the degree of cognitive dissonance among Repubicans that on the one hand they believe the federal government is so incompetent it can't accomplish anything – and yet turn right around and claim that it's going to takeover an entire state … the size of TEXAS!
It's not amazing . . . it's normal for Republicanus/Teabaggerum fear mongerers. Republicanus/Teabaggerum practice SNAFU!
Bush started to repair and renovate the, a practice Obama discontinued.
Versailles is worth a trip yet still feels overindulgent.
The film is indeed excellent.
Carly couldn't raise funds from others for her failed Senate run in CA( at least 90% self-funded like Meg)–what makes her think the US will be any different?
Kudos to Chloe and sad that Brownback's cronies feel the need to crucify her instead of helping him learn from her as seems needed.
Sounds like he learned to cook from my godmother who had her smoke detectors set to tell her when her food was ready…
I will enjoy all these when I get home. took ten minutes to type two sentences. Good luck tomorrow.
Puzzle — 3:00 I've never seen a peacock like that one! Much prefer the real ones with their iridescent colours.
Daily Kos — I wonder if Kansans will ever get as mad as Albertans did and throw out the conservative government? Kudos to Chloe!
The New Yorker — Darth Vader and Satan . . . that's a heady couple to be associated with, even if it is name recognition only. If I were Fiorina, I'd withdraw now! That kind of name recognition is not what she should want. On the other hand, let her stay in and demonstrate her stupidity etc.
Upworthy — Excellent piece. It reminded me of a book I read in high school called "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin, experiencing racism from another's point of view and learning about white privilege.
Cartoon — Ah, Versaille. When I visited Versaille in 1978, parts of it were under repair and reconstruction. At the end of June 1978, a month after I left France, Breton nationalists bombed Versailles doing a great deal of damage. Fortunately, I saw it just before the bombing. The gardens are magnificent. I would not let any bankster stay at Versailles, not even in the kennels at Versailles!
A side note from north of the 49th . . .
After the 5 May 2015 provincial election, the Alberta Tory government has gone down to defeat with a giant belly flop in the sea of politics. The NDP (New Democrat Party — social democrats) cleaned house, and good! The provincial Progressive Conservatives bear no association to the federal Conservatives (Harper dropped the word 'Progressive' from the federal party when he took over). There have been references to Alberta today by federal Conservatives as 'Albertastan' which I find particularly amusing. Have a look at the results here http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/alberta-election-results-2015-live There has been quite a change over the past 4 elections. Notley, the new Premier indicated at one point that the NDP oppose the Keystone and the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines, both of which Harper has given the OK for. Should be an interesting time in the oil patch. Already oil stocks are down. Wouldn't surprise me if someone tried to launch a NAFTA challenge. I'll bet Boehner and the Grumpy Old Pharts are in a dither as the Keystone XL is called into question further.
I read 'Black Like Me' too!
Good – but certainly unexpected – to see us "libtards" prevailing in Alberta.
Someone said it'd be like if Democrats took over the House and Senate in Texas.
Upworthy/Brave New Films – utterly excellent film, thanks TC. I knew a lot of it, but in generalities, not the details – for example black people and women generally almost always pay more for cars and get worse service in other areas (Heaven help black women trying to buy a car!), therefore it is logical to assume that this spills over in other areas such as house buying – but the news about black people not being told vital medical information as much as white people really HORRIFIED me and I hadn't heard of that before!
Daily Kos – God bless and protect Chloe the brave and principled server/waitress! I do hope and pray she is not sacked for the Repuglicon cardinal sin of having principles and opinions!
New Yorker – rather mild considering what their feelings about Fiorina must be – but I do like the subtlety…
Drat – forgot to say that when I was 16 I read a book called 'Black Like Me' where a young man took medicines and used makeup to transform himself into a young black man and travelled round America to see what differences there were in their experiences – and oh boy was he treated differently as a young black man! If only people read that book now….
The people that need to read the book and embrace it are the ones that will not and would not read it!
Thanks all. Totally pooped here.