My new A/C is certainly powerful enough to cool my tiny place. It’s also very loud, and the noise bothered me last night. I’m sure I’ll get use to it, and after a night of three, I won’t even hear it. I’m about to leave to go to PT with Courtney. Later. Back and pooped. George needs an ankle adjustment.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:48 (average 4:45). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The Guardian (H/T Daily Kos):A group of Polish women walk out of a church service to protest against a proposed tightening of the country’s abortion laws. The video, posted on Facebook, shows the women leaving as a priest reads out a letter in favour of the ban. In Warsaw, thousands of people have attended a pro-choice rally outside parliament, after the leader of the ruling party backed a call from Catholic bishops for a full ban on pregnancy terminations.
It looks like Poland has Republicans that hate women too!
From Daily Kos: In disappointing Tuesday news, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race went to Rebecca Bradley, a conservative. Bradley beat progressive candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg in the non-partisan election. Wisconsin residents are now stuck with Bradley for the next ten years.
It’s a sad end to an ugly race, and an ugly type of race at that. Judicial elections are rife with problems as a general matter—politics, bias, secret money, and low voter engagement, to name a few. But in Wisconsin the elections have been particularly grimy.
Bradley is so Republican, she makes Nancy Grace seem like a progressive. This is how she won.
From Media Matters: A Media Matters investigation of the discredited right-wing group Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), the main source of baseless smears against, and false characterizations of, Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, reveals a familial web of self-dealing between the organization, a major dark money funder of JCN called the Wellspring Committee, and a third nonprofit that also receives funding from Wellspring.
Nepotism’R’Us, Nepotism (R-US), or just plain Koch sucking?
Cartoon:
10 Responses to “Open Thread–4/8/2016”
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4:24 Striated scenes like this are certainly better for one's time that those with four-way symmetry. I suppose there are fish in those waters. What kinds of fish live in the Bahamas? Just don't get swept out to sea, puddy tat.
Noise – After a night or three, you probably won't hear riots, or fireworks, or gunshots. Hopefully the fire alarm will still get through. It probably will. The white noise doesn't block sounds you are listening for as much as it blocks sounds your subconscious knows are not important.
Guardian – GOOD FOR THEM! Every country has Republicans who hate women. Not every country has women who stand up for themselves and other women. But every country needs them.
DKos – There are also people who are trying to blame Bernie for this, claiming he is not encouraging voters enough to vote the whole ballot. I have no doubt there were some who did not vote the whole ballot because they have never taken part in politics before, maybe never even voted before, and didn't feel like they knew enough. Democrats tend to be more realistic about their knowledge than Republicans, who think they know everything. I am truly sorry my near-namesake lost, but I am still grateful to Bernie for getting non-voting Democrats out of the woodwork and into the polling booth.
Media Matters – Great graphic. I wonder what the combined net worths are of all the people named in it.
Cartoon – Now that so much dark money has gone into electing supermajorities in state legislatures whose politics are to the right of Franco, OMG can you imagine what would happen if they repealed it! But no wonder they want to.
New topic – If you are as excitied as I am that Bernie is going to speak next week at a conference at the Vatican, and want to read more about it, be sure to be judicious about what you believe. There are a lot of shorts in knots and unfair rumors being passed. No, the Pope did not personally invite him, and neither he nor his staff ever claimed so. It was the senior person on the committee organizing the conference who invited him. It happened some time ago. One Vatican official who feels she was bypassed is miffed, which appears to be personal to her. Bernie is apparently not scheduled to meet with the Pope privately, though of course that could happen; neither Bernie not his staff has claimed a private meeting.
Kudos on your new topic! The BS is already flying!!
3:50 That lighthouse certainly did not light my way.
I agree with JD on noise…me, when I moved here I had trouble adjusting the quiet after years of blocking out city noise.
I celebrate women in any part of the world who make any kind of statement in response to male proposals that would make the lives of women harder.
In CA, the last data I saw, most voters do not vote for everything or everyone on their ballots–no matter which party or how new they are to voting or the state.
And here I hoped the long silence about Wellspring meant they'd faded off into the sunset…sigh
From Wiki:
"The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) …established the popular election of…Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I,§3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. It also alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, allowing for state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Guardian: Kudos to those ladies who stood up and walked out!!! More ladies should do it here too, imho.
DK: I'm going to have to send this to family in WI., I don't know if they've been following this or not. Ugh!!
Cartoon: Thank you, JL for the wiki info.
I think you'll adjust to the AC noise and it will probably act as a buffer for the party goers, or loudness outside your apartment. Just adjust the volume on your TV. LOL. Enjoy your evening, take care, Thanks, Tom.
Cheers for the women that walked out in the holier-than-thou bunch that want to ban the RIGHT TO CHOOSE what happens to each person's body!!! Glad they are staunch supporters of the RIGHT!!!
OH, GEEZ!!! Wisconsin just made a big mistake THERE!!! If Nancy Grace looks like a progressive, that bodes terrible things are gonna happen there!!!
Well!!! If it ain't the Koch-suckers!!! Never ceases to amaze me how they can waste so MUCH MONEY on political races!!! Makes me SICK!!! All to stop the confirmation of Judge Garland! Just wait and see!!! If the RepukkklicanTs get their azzes whupped in November, and if Bernie or Hillary win, they will wish they had voted to seat Garland on SCOTUS!!! The next one will be a doozey!!!
Glad you have cool air! Soon the noise will be nothing and you will sleep like a baby!!! Peace, Love and Hugs, TC!!!
Very busy, very late, so just breezing through, TomCat. I'm sure you get used to the sound of the A/C very quickly, and wake up should it suddenly stop 😉
After it's short spring revolution led by Solidarnosc all these years ago, the Catholic church has Poland back in a very firm grip. The difference now with the communist regime before is that people can now decide to leave and the do so in droves. First they came to Western Europe as cheap labor, wanting to return when they'd made enough money, but now most are staying, enjoying the freedom they cant have in a country that has seems to go backward as religious doctrine is slowly taking over the government. It seems the Polish people have had enough and are standing up for themselves. I wish them well and hope they can turn the tide.
DK: Once again I'm very glad we don't elect our judges and jurisdiction remains an independent entity and (relatively) free from political influence.
MM: The intricate network in that graph is really scary. I think you're right on three accounts there, TomCat.
Kudos on the more local input!!
Thanks all! Hugs!!
Is there something in the cheese, in Wisconsin, that keeps its people from being able to think rationally? Walker wins the, election then wins the recall election, continues to destroy democracy there, and they support a conservative judciary?
The Guardian: Another example of the intransigence of establishment religion, and its black-and-white thinking. thank you, Lona, for the background on this.
MM: One view of how the Big Money cess-pool works its greed agenda!