Barring a surprise that has not been forecast, I have a whole week of sub-80°s days, and I can’t wait for the building to bleed off the heat. Today through Sunday are minor holy days in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. For one evening I’ll have to give up my solidarity with the LGBT community, because on Saturday my Broncos are having a service with the 69ers, a team notorious for wise receivers and very tight ends. 
The game will not be televised live here, because the networks are showing only the damn Seachickens, as usual. I will get to see the game later, though.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:02 (average 4:19). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: In another entry in the 2016 annals of "If Trump’s doing it, me too," Ted Cruz went after Fox News host Megyn Kelly after she dared to ask him a question on whether he would deport citizen children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants. Nick Gass reports:
When Kelly pressed the Texas senator on what he would do as president, Cruz said that he’s “not playing the game” and declined to answer the question.
“What would President Cruz do? Do American citizen children of two illegal immigrants, who are born here, the children, get deported under a President Cruz?” Kelly asked.
Donald Trump, she said, “has answered that question explicitly.”
“Megyn, I get that that’s the question you want to ask,” Cruz said. “That’s also the question every mainstream media liberal journalist wants to ask.”
Asked whether it is an unfair question, Cruz said that it is “a distraction” from solving the issue.
“You know, it’s also the question that Barack Obama wants to focus on,” Cruz retorted.
Megyn Kelly? Mainstream?!? Liberal?!!? Bwaha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
From NY Times: President Obama came to this once-stricken city on Thursday to make a case for his entire presidency: that when disaster strikes, the federal government should help not only to rescue the stranded but also to rebuild better and fairer than before.
“The project of rebuilding here wasn’t just to restore the city as it had been,” Mr. Obama said to several hundred people at a new community center in the once-devastated Lower Ninth Ward. “It was to build a city as it should be — a city where everyone, no matter what they look like, how much money they’ve got, where they come from, where they’re born, has a chance to make it.”
The president explicitly linked New Orleans’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina, which struck 10 years ago this month, to the nation’s recovery from the 2008 recession. “That’s the story of New Orleans, but that’s also the story of America,” he said.
Frankly, I think Obama was wrong to pay lip service to the New Orleans recovery, because the recovery aid has been unfairly targeted to whites by Republican state officials. Obama should have called them out for that.
From Media Matters: CNN political commentator Jeffrey Lord attacked Univision anchor Jorge Ramos for playing the "race card" even though he is a "blue-eyed, light-skinned … European Mexican." Lord also connected Ramos to Virginia shooter Vester Lee Flanagan II and alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof, claiming they all engaged in "dividing the country by race."
Ramos is an American, and every day CNN is looking more like Faux Noise Lite.
Cartoon:
40 Responses to “Open Thread–8/28/2015”
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3:08 That Budgie doesn't stand a chance with a hungry TomCat stalking him. Someone please help!
2:55 TomCat must have been hungry. I cannot even move the pieces around that fast even if I knew where every one was supposed to go.
2:46 I could not save Baby Budgie . . . (sigh). I guess it is budgie fricassée for the ol' snaggle toothed Puddy Tat.
BURP!!
Supposed to drop to the 80's here starting tomorrow, too.
Cruz seems to have a going through the motions aspect to his campaign and reporters as if he considers it all irrelevant and unimportant…which makes it all the more despicable.
Hopefully there will be some follow-up recommendations and efforts from federal agencies to redress things in New Orleans, otherwise the words, insufficient as they might appear, ring even more hollow.
Lord needs to get down on his knees and pray for guidance on appropriate behavior towards his neighbors and peers.
I fear MLK is turning in his grave on what has happened and it is up to each of us to speak up in solidarity with those who have picked up his mantle for this age (e.g., Black Lives Matter).
On the strangeness of rightwing Christians:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/27/1416041/-On-Rightwing-Christians-Have-you-noticed-something-odd-about-this-Ashley-Madison-scandal?detail=email
We may not covet our neighbor's wife. We may not covet our neighbor's ass. Republicans thing they can squeak by, vecause they are coveting their neighbor's wife's ass.
A good article on how a Biden run should benefit Bernie:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/4-reasons-why-biden-entering-race-would-help-sanders
3:37. Give TC something he can sink his teeth into, and wow, he is right on it!
Daily Kos – Anyone who shows a shred of intelligence or common sense is a "mainstream media liberal" to him and his homies. And real live people and the effect grandiose policies have on them are always a distraction. That alone shows unfitness to govern. I wish more people would see that.
NY Times – I am sure the lip service will not have been missed. There are plenty of articulate people who know what has happened and is happening in New Orleans.
Media Matters – What the hell is a European Mexican? I know New mexico is in the United States, but what part of "Mexico" is in Europe? I think CNN is already past looking like Faux Noise Lite and is looking more and more like Faux Noise Period.
Cartoon – I don't think Dr. King was under any illusions about what had and had not been accomplished by the time of his death. It is the rest of us who were kidding ourselves.
European Mexicans are closly related to Hawaiian Kenyans.
I see.
re. visit to New Orleans.and Katrina.No .one a great deal of the devastation was caused by yhe actions of the"Army Corps of Engineers, Who widened the cnannel into the City by demolishing the small off shore islands which would have stopped the ocean surge..This is fact .verified at the time.
Also. Why take ten years and still not be finished.? (I actually know one of the reasons. ) Think what would have happened if this had happened to Martha,s Vineyard!!.
London was decimated by the "BLITZ" in the early 19.40,s. lierally flattened by thousands of bombs(yes I was alive at that time.) and remember the Pathe, News. pictures. It DID not take ten years to get the City back into shape. ! Why so long America? and still not finished.!. Infra structure problems (as usual)?
Nuff Said.
Avril, you are so right about the Corps of Engineers culpability.
The Army Corps of Engineers were just following the orders of their Republican political bosses.
I am sure that MLK IS turning in his grave!
Some of the same people that have been spouting off about the Trump and his circus show are now taking up the mantle for him and using his speeches as fodder for their news broadcasts! CNN is definately changed to the sister station of Faux Spews!
A "Fun Friday Fling Thing to Do" – view the surreal and beautiful photos of a cloud sculpture made out of 100,000 white balloons at Covent Garden in London.
Gorgeous … simply gorgeous!
http://qz.com/489660/photos-a-beautiful-ethereal-installation-of-100000-balloons-comes-to-londons-covent-garden/
Thanks–"just what the doctor ordered!"
Wonder if it was posted with no kitty claws allowed…
Beautiful. Thanks.
Today also marks the sad 60th Anniversary of the murder of Emmett Till.
Emmett was a 14 y/o teen from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Mississippi who whistled at a white woman. For this "transgression" he was brutally beaten and had an eye gouged out before being shot in the head and dumped in the Tallahatchie river with his body weighted down.
When hia body was recovered his Mother insisted on an open-casket funeral to show the brutality of white sumpremacist racism that was rampant in the South.
NOTE: The second link has a photo of Emmett in the open-casket. DO NOT CLICK THE SECOND LINK UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED FOR THE GROTESQUE!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
WARNING:
http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-1960/8-civilrights/1954-1960/19550000_Emmett_Till_After.jpg
wish such brutality were only history…
Tragic and shameful.
Such brutality leaves me speechless. How long must man's inhumanity towards his fellow men go on?
This is the what the Republican Party wants to restore.
Something fun, and you get to learn something about African animals. http://www.awf.org/campaigns/spirit-animal-quiz/?utm_source=1508summerquizc2da&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=fy16summerquiz&ms=B16A03E01W
I am a Black Rhino!
Me,too!
So was I!
When I did it the first time w/ my FIRST CHOICES, I too was a Black Rhino
I did it a second time w/ my SECOND CHOICES for the ones I had second choices (about half) – that time I was a Chimpanzee.
Thanks – that was fun!
In my case, it's purrrrfectly obvious.
Lion!
I did one of these – not this one – that pulled some animal out of left field, I forget what, but left me feeling "If I can't get something nice I'm not going to play." This one gave me lion, so I'm fine with that. (I'm not 100% sure it would have given me "lioness" if that were an option, but let's not go there.)
Daily Kos: If Cruz is so out of touch that he thinks she, Meygan Kelly, is liberal, heaven help anyone dumb enough to vote for him!
NY Times: I agree, TC, the ninth ward still looks almost as bad as it did immediately after Katrina. I am in New Oreans often, due to visiting my son on the Gulf Coast. The white, upwardly mobile, communities are thriving while the rest is not doing so well. New Orleans is a lot whiter than it used to be. The prez should have noticed this and said something about it. After all, he is not running for re election .
Media Matters: I won't watch CNN anymore, they make me so angry with their veiled attempts to serve the corporations that are their masters. Wolf and Brook both make me ill,. My husband still likes them so they show up on our tv sometimes, but i refuse to watch.
Cartoon: It is getting harder and harder to do.
Puzzle — 2:46 I could not save Baby Budgie . . . (sigh). I guess it is budgie fricassée for the ol' snaggle toothed Puddy Tat.
Daily Kos — Since Cruz referred to the question as "“a distraction” from solving the issue", perhaps Kelly or the next 'liberal' media reporter should phrase it as 'How would a President Cruz solve the issue of dealing with the US born children of illegal immigrants?' I suspect, even though rephrased using his words, Cruz would refuse to answer the question. Cruz is a miscreant of the basest order!
NY Times — It seems that wherever Republicanus/Teabaggerum hold sway, there is corruption. Obama should have called out Jindal and his boys for corruption and gross mismanagement. That might have put a twist in their knickers!
Media Matters — Lord is totally bereft of any sense and seems to contradict himself! . . . but then he is apparently a Republicanus/Teabaggerum! Need I say more!?
Cartoon — The dream must live and it is up to everyone to see that it does!
With everything cooling down nicely now, don't get too heated up about the minor holy days in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, TomCat. By the way, did you know that Brisbane has a club called the Broncos too? They play rugby, though. You know, the game where real men try to flatten each other without wearing a suit of armor?
Daily Kos: My goodness, how pathetic do you need to get before you realize that you're no match for Donald Trump in putting women down, Ted Cruz? You're equally vile in your politics and the way you treat other human beings, but you just don't have that showmanship to let the inherent streak of nastiness, that you both posses, rip at the right moment. Yours is always contrived, too thought-out, Donald's rips are natural, straight from the heart.
NY Times: "[] the recovery aid has been unfairly targeted to whites by Republican state officials." Funny you should say that, TomCat, because this is exactly what was pointed out when the A(ustralian)BC had a news item on both Obama and Bush visiting and speaking in New Orleans. Well, they didn't say the Republicans waylaid the recovery money when it finally came, but they did point out that it was beneficial mainly for white citizens and entrepreneurs. The Black community mainly helped themselves to a better future.
Media Matters: I've given up watching CNN some years ago. I only watched it when trying to keep up with what happens in the world when abroad anyway, but I go to BBC World for that now, but anything will do if it keeps me from having to watch Faux News or it's little brother.
Ouch, make that "its little brother
As little as Americans care about apostrophes, it's kind of you to care.
I prefer MSNBC
You've heard me rail against Herr Harper. Well in the video in this CBC report, Environment Canada scientist and songwriter Tony Turner sings about "Harperman It's Time For You To Go!"
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/harperman-tony-turner-scientist-investigation-1.3207390?cmp=rss
Hope you'll give it a listen. This is how many Canadians feel. BTW, in true Harperian style, Environment Canada has suspended Turner and alleges that he "…has violated the departmental code of values and ethics in that the writing and performing of this song somehow impeded his ability to impartially study migratory birds,"
Enjoy some Canuck political humour!
How Orwellian!
That was too good not to steal.
Thanks all! Hugs!