I’m running way late today because Julie was here. I’m a very pampered puddy tat. We finalized the details for my surgeries next week. We did a whole gamut of housekeeping tasks, including the dreaded task. Killer Dawg helped.
I fed her lunch, a plate of Tony Roma’s Baby Back Ribs. The down-side is that Killer Dawg has hidden three rib bones in my apartment, and I have no idea where they are. We also took a pic of Killer Dawg in his official duds, in compliance with a European request for it.
The parade was cold and it rained on and off. I took a few pics, but as the bands passed us, none were playing and almost none of the girls were baton tossing, pompom shaking, or flag waving. Everyone was just walking past, so about mid-way through, I gave up and had lunch. I still have to resize the pictures and plan to post them tomorrow.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:51 (average 4:51). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos (classic 2/2015): The U.S. Geological Survey has backed-up what scientists have been suggesting for years–that deep injection of wastewater is the primary cause of the dramatic rise in detected earthquakes:
Keep it in the ground!!
Also from Daily Kos (classic 3/2015): DW-NOMINATE is a method for analyzing data on preferences, such as voting data, developed by political scientists Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal. Unlike the scoring done by interest groups, DW-NOMINATE doesn’t rely on subjective determinations of what constitutes a liberal vote or a conservative vote–it sorts members of a population according to how similar each member’s choices are to those of other members of the population. Two senators who vote the same way 90 percent of the time will be much closer to each other than two senators who only vote the same way 10 percent of the time. Poole and Rosenthal have used this method to discover some interesting statistics and trends going back to the First Congress in 1787-89.
Using House and Senate roll call votes as inputs, DW-NOMINATE has been used to chart every member of every Congress in a two-dimensional space. The primary dimension corresponds strongly to conventional notions of the liberal-conservative axis in modern politics, while the significance of the secondary axis tends to change over time (traditionally it tended to highlight the distance between Dixiecrats and the rest of the Democratic party; today it’s kind of a more nebulous indicator of social and cultural differences and is, in my opinion, not particularly interesting). The point is that we can sort the members of a particular Congress by their scores on the primary dimension to easily rank them from most liberal to most conservative based entirely on their own voting data.
And when we do this for the period in which Hillary Clinton was in the Senate, here’s what we get:
As it turns out, with a first-dimension score of -0.391 based upon her entire service in Congress, Hillary Clinton was the 11th most liberal member of the Senate in each of the 107th, 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. That places her slightly to the left of Pat Leahy (-0.386), Barbara Mikulski (-0.385) and Dick Durbin (-0.385); clearly to the left of Joe Biden (-0.331) and Harry Reid (-0.289)
This surprised me, but I can’t argue with authentic voting stats. I was not surprised that Bernie is number one!
From LA Times: A heavily armed gunman who had reportedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State stormed into a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday, and began rapidly firing into the crowd, killing at least 50 people and wounding 53 in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
The gunman was killed by a SWAT team after taking hostages at Pulse, a popular gay club, investigators said at an early morning news conference. He has been preliminarily identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Fla., a U.S. law enforcement official said.
Mateen called 911 moments before the attack, pledging allegiance to the Islamic state, a federal law enforcement official said, confirming earlier reports. Federal investigators said they also were looking into reports that he recited prayers to Allah during the attack. The investigators stressed that they have just begun digging into his background and don’t want to jump to conclusions about any links to Islamic State.
May their loved ones be comforted. Barack, Bernie and Hillary all tried to comfort their suffering and condemned the pseudo-Muslim from the Daesh. Rump Dump Trump wants congratulations. Some other Republicans are even condemning the victims.
Cartoon:
20 Responses to “Open Thread – 6/12/2016”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
6:04 (4:51) It's Wishbone! Ummm – eating Wishbone would be like eating Dr. Seuss —
Look forward to parade pix tomorrow, even if probably wet. Killer DAWG is pretty cute.
DKos – Yes – and that the sun is primary source of light outdoors in the daytime – and the mountains are the reason some places are higher above sea level than other places. D'oh!
DKos2 – Yes – I saw this. I've been thinking that emphasizing WHAT the differences are tends to make the SIZE of the differences look bigger. Another statistic is that while Hillary and Bernie were both in the Senate, they voted the same 93% of the time. I don't have the source, but it should be findable.
LA Times – And, moving on with the LA times, a man has been arrested in Santa Monica with a car full of weapons and explosives. He said he was going to meet a friend at the LA Pride Festival in West Hollowood and that he "wanted to harm" the event. Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a long gay pride month – between Christianist terrorists, Islamist terrorists, and just plain sick terrorists.
Cartoon – And thank God for that decision!
Correction to the story about the car arsenal. He didn't actually say anything about harm. As near as I can gather, someone misled the Chief of Police, who then tweeted the error. Understandable, though – can anyone think of another likely reason someone would be driving around with an arsenal other than to use it?
You'll find that 93% statement here,
A higher proportion of our senators are more conservative than is true of those in the House.
Shorter time periods would skew these data since some areas of ongoing congressional action would not appear at all since they tend to cycle with when that area of law is due to expire (e.g., education, domestic violence). Given the relative short time in the Senate, such factors could make Clinton appear more liberal than she is because where she is not had no votes to capture it.
These data capture a portion of the views–not all of them by any means–and it would not be ethical if used to suggest otherwise or anything more.
A critical consideration:
If Anything Can Unite the Democrats, It’s Climate
https://ourfuture.org/20160613/if-anything-can-unite-the-democrats-its-climate?utm_source=progressive_breakfast&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pbreak
DK2: Interesting, nice to see Bernie at the top though. 😉
LAT: Sad news coming out of Orlando, and thankfully, also of the guy in Santa Monica getting arrested before the parade there. Dan Patrick should be ashamed of himself, for his lack of compassion during this horrible tragedy. Prayers to the community there, as well as friends & families.
Cartoon: PTL !!
What adorable pictures of Killer Dawg!! Hopefully, you'll find the ribs before the ants do. Or, like my Corgi, I'd trip over a bone, or toy in the dark and find her stashed treasure(s). Hope you get some good rest, take care, and enjoy your evening. Thanks, Tom.
Petitions to remove Dan Patrick from office. This is by far not the only ugly thing that he has done.
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-house-remove-dan-patrick-immediately
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-house-impeach-lieutenant-governor-dan-patrick-for-his-support-of-mass-murder-in-orlando
https://www.change.org/p/united-texans-remove-dan-patrick-from-office
Signed all 3 petitions.
This bigoted man, Dan Patrick, must be removed from his public office immediately.
He is unfit to hold a public office.
Signed all three. I note that if everyone who is unfit to hold public office were removed from office in Texas, there would be very little government left (which would be a definite improvemrnt.) Don't Republicans claim to want small government? Then why don't they all drop…
out?
Thanks Bonnie!
Signed all three petitions. There is no doubt that this idiot is not an authentic Christian. Can't say that they will do any good since Republicans control Texas!
Killer dog looks great.
DK: No shit Sherlock!
LA Times: Sick bastards acting on one or another version of delusional nonsense!
Cartoon: Again, the ugliest word in the english langauge is miscegnation!
More "Killer DAWG" please …
LOTS more "Killer DAWG"!
(I'm not even a big dog fan, but s/he is damn cute!)
Killer Dawg is FANTASTIC! He looks like the perfect guard dog for YOU!
Love Killer Dawg. I don't know if he would survive in this cat populated house, but I would give him a try.
DK: Climate deniers still insist that isn't causing so many earthquakes, and probably think the earth is not round, too.
DK2: These stats surprised me.
LA Times: Horrible! Thoughts and prayers t othe victims and their families.
Cartoon: They are trying!
Cute pup. lol.
KOS 1: Yup, fracking causes earthquakes. Duh. And it also causes poisoning of the waters with its toxic chemicals and unbreathable toxic air at and near and around the fracking site.
KOS 2: I see that my favorite Senator Barbara Boxer is number 2, consistently except she was once at number 3, on the list right behind Bernie. My other Senator Diane Feinstein ranked at 35. Boxer is retiring. Boo-Hoo.
LA Times: Sad news from Orlando, FL. My condolences to the families and friends of the victims. Glad the guy in Santa Monica, CA. carrying weapons and explosives was stopped and arrested. I used to sell raffle tickets for a brand new Harley at the Gay Pride in San Francisco for many years. Always fun being there.
Cartoon: An excellent decision by the SCOTUS on June 12, 1967. Mixed marriages have been going on for centuries all over the world. Love. My own ancestors, grandparents, a Native American woman and a white man, celebrated 50+ years together. Awesome.
.
Thanks for the pictures, TomCat. I'm a cat lady by nature and I like most other animals too, but usually don't think much of the small yappy dogs. Killer dawg is a definite exception though, especially in his service gear. So cute. You'll probably find the bones he stashed in your apartment next spring cleaning. Sorry they rained on the parade.
DK: The Dutch have learned the hard way that even "normal" gas drilling to deplete the large gas pockets underneath the northern part of the country's thick layers of clay and sand lead to earthquakes. There's never been any doubt in my mind that fracking, which destroys part of the hard shale layers underneath and dramatically disturbs existing geological forces, will do the same, perhaps even on a larger scale. Scientific research now shows it's even worse than I imagined. Ban all fracking and leave fossil fuels in the ground.
DK2: Hillary Clinton voted quite progressive consistently through four Congresses. That sounds promising on the assumption that she hasn't drifted more to the right in the past 9 years, campaigning for the presidential nomination twice and in her time as Secretary of State.
LAT: Such sad tidings from Florida, my thoughts go out to all the victims, and their families and friends, in this tragedy. The news here carried the shooting as soon as it became known with the Dutch correspondent in America explaining that the gunman was an American man of Lebanese descent, that he had claimed his terrorist act has been carried out for Da'esh, but although Da'esh will undoubtedly claim it as theirs, there was no evidence that they had ordered it nor that they aided him in any way and that this was the attack of yet another lone wolf. His father had said it had absolutely nothing to do with religion, but that it stemmed from his strong hatred of homosexuals and his ex-wife stated that he had been a very violent and unstable man during their marriage. The correspondent also pointed out that the discussion would now be about how to keeping Muslims from terrorist attacks on the right and the control of guns on the left, and that, as usual, the two discussions would never meet and come to anything. I'm afraid I share his conclusion.
Drumpf has already said something along the lines of shutting the borders for all Muslims (again), something that completely ignores that this terrorist was an American, born in the US, that again it probably was a lone wolf, this time driven by homophobia. If his homophobia had a religious aspect, it may just as well be triggered or exacerbated by the evangelical crusade against LGBT people. But I'm sure nobody in the GOP will talk about that, they rather condemn the victims than do some soul searching.
Cartoon: Interracial, same-sex…the talibangical GOP will not accept anything that isn't conform their current and very personal interpretation of the old testament.
Love Killer Dawg! We need those smiles….
Guns are weapons of mass destrucion – 103 lives changed forever plus all those lives of the people who loved them. How can anyone object to regulations that might help?
Thanks all! Hugs!!
Puzzle — 3:28 No doggie fricassée for you today Puddy Tat!
Daily Kos — AMEN to "Leave in the ground!"
Daily Kos — Very interesting information.
LA Times — Absolutely heart breaking! Here, the flag atop the Peace Tower at Parlilament in Ottawa was flying at half-staff as a show of respect for the victims and their families. In Vancouver, the Pride flag was lowered to half-staff for the same reasons. I have heard Drumpf's comments and can only think that he really, really is one very, very, very sick bastard. Although I haven't heard anything specific, I am sure that NRA is perfectly giddy with the news . . . after all, it will give them an excuse to promote guns that much more. On the business news today, I heard that the market value of gun manufacturer stocks has gone up. More gun sales! A Canadian diplomat has spoken with several American politicians urging them to have a national conversation on gun control, to rein in the gun nuts. Prayers for the families
Cartoon — True love does not see colour. Those state laws should never have existed.
Killer is ver photogenic, a real cutie. Did you have him folding the laundry or testing it to see if it was dry? The daytime parade photos are very good.