Open Thread October 17, 2023

 Posted by at 5:50 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 172023
 

Yesterday, I received confirmation for my visit to Virgil. I also learned that, on Monday, a train derailed on I-25 “near Pueblo” and that I-25 is closed indefinitely. I looked deeper and discovered that in this case, “near Pueblo” means at about exit 106, and that, when it derailed, it took a railroad bridge with it, dumping the bridge remnants onto the interstate. I normally use the interstate from Exit 128 to Exit 99, so I expect to need an alternate route. (I suppose I can be grateful the train didn’t explode.) I’ve been looking at road maps, and it’s pretty clear that the safest route which I can depend on it being there is via Cañon City. Virgil was in Cañon City for a few montjhs last year, so I know the route, or most of it, and the part I don’t know is US 50, so it should be well marked. An extra half hour should probably do it. Of course that also means I’ll be home later than usual, so please don’t worry. I’ll do my best to be extra oprganized in advance as much as possible so I don’t have to cut into sleep time.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – Dad of Palestinian Boy Stabbed 26 Times in Chicago Reveals Last Words (hanky alert)
Quote – The Chicago landlord suspected of stabbing a Palestinian-American six-year-old 26 times had a “good” relationship with the boy and her mother before the killing, the child’s father told The Daily Beast on Sunday…. “[Wadea Al-Fayoume, the boy] “He is an angel. Basically a small angel in the form of a person. To this minute, I cannot believe how this could have happened,” the father, Oday El-Fayoume, told The Daily Beast. “My ex-wife and son knew him, and they had a good relationship. It is hard to picture this man holding a knife about to stab my son. I keep thinking that my son was probably running towards him before getting stabbed, trying to give him a hug.”
Click through for story – which you probably have heard, since it is egregious, so it’s all over. I should also provide a barf bag alert, because I can already hear the gun crazies yelling, “See! See! Guns aren’t the problem!”

The 19th – This Latinx geologist and TV show host is disrupting stereotypes of who can be a scientist
Quote – On a sunny day, perched on slanted beige rocks of the San Andreas Fault line, Michelle Barboza-Ramirez is dressed in a white sun hat, with retro sunglasses and dangly flower earrings, discussing how plate tectonics transformed the Los Angeles landscape as the camera rolls. “Take a look behind you. These rocks are tilted. Like hella tilted,” they tell Blake de Pastino, a fellow host of the popular PBS show “Eons.” The camera pans to the background. “If you didn’t know anything about geology, you’d see them and you’d be like, ‘Wow, that’s so weird that these rocks formed sideways.’” This conversational tone makes Barboza-Ramirez, who is a paleontologist and geologist, relatable to viewers.
Click through for article. Don’t get confused that Barboza-Ramirez’s pronouns are they/their. There is actually only one of them. (Not that there shouldn’t be more – Latinx scientists, that is.)

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 5/2/2023

 Posted by at 12:03 pm  Open Thread, Politics
May 022023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump attorney cross-examines E. Jean Carroll while Trump flys off to golf; judge DENIES mistrial

Foundation to Combat Antisemitism – #StandUpToJewishHate: Son

Farron Balanced – Trump’s Lawyer Gets Completely Humiliated By Judge At The Start Of Assault Trial (Not sure he’s actually capable of humiliation, but the judge did get in some good remarks.)

John Fugelsang – Don’t give up, George Santos!

Half-Pound Kitten Now Pounces On His Siblings Every Chance He Gets

Beau – Let’s talk about Republicans shifting on climate and numbers….

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Open Thread November 29, 2022

 Posted by at 7:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 292022
 

Yesterday, the weather prediction was for snow today – and very cold – with a high below 32°F. Since I start shivering and my teeth chatter at 72°F, I’ll be staying in (not that I don’t anyway.) I also received confirmation to visit Virgil Sunday (and snow is NOT predicted for Sunday.) Also too, I learned that last Saturday was the 100th birthday og Charles M. Schulz. Here’s a link to a page of cartoons, which starts with political ones, but also includes more birthday tributes to the creator of “Peanuts” than you would probably think possible (and one or two are conspicuous, to me at least, by their absence.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Axios – World’s largest active volcano starts to erupt in Hawaii
Quote – Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano — located on the Big Island — began erupting late Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Survey said…. “Based on past events, the early stages of a Mauna Loa eruption can be very dynamic and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly,” USGS said…. Webcams for the volcano can be found at https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mauna-loa/webcams
Click through for developing story. It appers when that say “largest,” they are talking about its perceived height, not the amount of damage it can do world wide. The latter would probably be Krakatoa. And the danger isn’t lava, but volcanic ash particles released into the air, whoch can block sunlight for years, sort of like a “nuclear winter.” Look up the year 536 CE (or “Worst year to be alive.”) Also, I don’t remember the year, but it wasn’t that long ago, when an eruption caused enough particles in the air over Europe that planes couldn’t fly for weeks. You may remember that too.

Wonkette – Buffalo Gunman Pleads Guilty To Hate Crimes, Will Spend Rest Of Life In Prison
Quote – This theory, whether it’s been called that or not, has been around for decades. Most people will date it back to the work of French crackpot Renaud Camus’s 2011 essay “Le Grand Remplacement,” in which he claimed that white citizens of European countries were being replaced by Black and Middle Eastern immigrants, or back to the “White Genocide” nonsense of 1990s white supremacists, but it’s always been there. A major feature of early 1900s antisemitism and racism in the United States was that Jewish people were supporting Black civil rights struggles because they wanted to replace WASPs with Black people and then take over the world.
Click through for more information. Today’s FFT summarizes my thoughts on this pretty well (it ain’t just Mexicans).

Food For Thought

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Open Thread September 6, 2022

 Posted by at 7:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 062022
 

Yesterday was, of course, a holiday – so I was going to fall back on “News of the Weird” in the short takes for a little comic relief. Then I saw the article on Ken Burns’s newest docuentary, whch is about the Holocaust, centering on American behavior during that period, and staring soe truths in the face that most of us would rather not see.I encourage everyone to look it up on your local PBS station, especially if your local station has more than one channel (mine does, and they’ll be screening it on the main one 9/18-9/22 and on the fourth one from 9/25-10/10), but essentially there are just three episodes (which may or may not be 2 hours each), named after lines in the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statur of Liberty: “The Golden Door,” “Yearning to Breathe Free,” and “”The Homesless, the Tempest Tossed.”

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Conversation – Dog owners take more risks, cat owners are more cautious – new research examines how people conform to their pets’ stereotypical traits
Quote – In another study, we wanted to get individual-level data, so we used an online survey tool to recruit 145 owners of either a cat or a dog – not both. We gave participants an imaginary US$2,000 and asked them to invest any portion of it in either a risky stock fund or a more conservative mutual fund. Dog owners, who made up 53% of participants, were significantly more likely to invest in stocks and also put more money at risk than cat owners.
Click through for details. I see only correlation here – do cat peole avoid ridk because their pets do, ot do risk avoiders seek out cats as kindred spirits? I know I am a cat person and a risk avoider, but since I have been around cats literally since I was born, I have no way of knowing which came first. I do know that. when I vote (which I would do in any case), what’s uppermost in my mind is generally avoiding the havoc that Republicans would wreak.

The Daily Beast – Why Ken Burns Is Exposing America’s Evils During the Holocaust
Quote – An in-depth study of fascism, intolerance, and the push-pull between ideals and complex political/social realities, The U.S. and the Holocaust, buoyed by testimonials from scholars and survivors of the Holocaust, is informative and heartbreaking in equal measure. For Novick, it’s also an inquiry that’s apt to shock many. “I think this will be, for the general public, somewhat surprising and a little hard to ingest,” she says. “That we could be both the liberators of freeing the world from tyranny and fascism, and unwilling—as Daniel Greene says in the film—to do much to rescue the victims of fascism.”
Click through for article and interview.

Food For Thought

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