Good News – Page 2 – Politics Plus

Open Thread October 25, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:51 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 252022

Yesterday I received the email that my ballot has been received. Good news. There was other news also, consequential and inconsequential, but today I am just focusing on humor, because that also came in multiple emails, and I think we all could use some. That’s also why the FFT is just a wordplay, only marginally related to news. If you really want some har news, Letters from an American touches on the presser held by DOJ and also the letter to Biden from Congressional Progressives which weems to have been overinterpreted.

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Short Takes –

The New Yorker (Borowitz) – Americans Seething with Envy of U.K. After Malignant Narcissist Opts Not to Run Again
Quote – From coast to coast, Americans expressed bitter jealousy of the British for having an incompetent former leader who, though maniacally self-absorbed and attention-craving, nevertheless possessed enough realism to depart the public stage after only twenty-four hours of hogging headlines…. “If you have to have a malignant narcissist, that’s the kind you want.”
Click through if you like. Boy, did this ever hit home.

Psyche – Just when in history did men decide that women are not funny?
Quote – Allow me, an historian, to offer evidence about the modern origins of this myth, instead of theories about the supposed evolutionary advantage of bro jokes…. Perhaps the answer will come as no surprise: it was when men began to value humour highly that they decided women didn’t have it.
Click through for story. Just offhand, my mind jumped first to “Much Ado About Nothing” (1598), specifically to Beatrice and Benedict, who are supposed to be a subplot, but whom audeiences have always considered the stars, and who “never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.”

Food For Thought

Video Thread 10/20/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:49 am Open Thread, Politics

Oct 202022

Glenn Kirschner – Prosecutors ask judge to sentence Steve Bannon to 6 months in prison & a $200,000 fine for contempt not long now!)

The Lincoln Project – Social Security

Eric Swalwell’s new ad

Ring of Fire – Conservative Group Loses Bid To Stop Biden’s Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Liberal Redneck – OPEC, Foreign Oil, Gas Prices, etc

Beau – Let’s talk about a positive note for the weekend…. (…last weekend – I warned you I’d get behind.)

Open Thread October 1, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 012022

Yesterday, putting this post together, I realized I had picked two good news stories. I didn’t set out to do that. It was just, having read so much legal-judicial stuff, I was looking for something new and different, and these jumped out. Besides being good news, the two have something else in common – both hark back to the Obama administration in some way.

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Short Takes –

The 19th – 53 years ago, the White House sought to end hunger. Now it’s trying again.
Quote – “This conference is engaging all sectors — the public sector, the private sector, community-based organizations — all around shifting the conversation from just getting food into people’s hands to also making sure that we get healthy food into people’s hands and that it is seen as a public health issue, rather than just an emergency food issue,” said Jason Wilson, vice president of marketing and development for the Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit organization created in conjunction with former First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign.
Click through for details. Fifty-three years ago most Republicans were human beings, and only a few were fascist monsters. Now, it’s the other way around. I widh the conference alll the luck in the world.

Wonkette -Schools Go Solar, Save Millions On Energy, Upgrade Classrooms, Pay Teachers More — Yes, In The USA
Quote – It’s been another crazy exasperating week, so we bet you could do with some really cool news about public schools that are switching to clean solar energy, saving millions of dollars in some cases, and using the savings to improve the schools and even their communities. This isn’t a proposal in some position paper about how we might create a wonderful clean energy future, either — it’s been going on for a while now, as the New York Times recently reported [There is a free gift link in the article but it’s too long to reproduce here]. The story notes that one in 10 US public and private schools in the US was using solar energy by early 2022, according to a report from clean energy nonprofit Generation 180 — twice as many as in 2015. That’s one more benefit of the rapid decline in the cost of solar panels in the last couple decades. Hey, if you’d like to say “Thanks, Obama,” you certainly could, since clean energy investments in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped jumpstart the widespread adoption of renewable energy and the resulting reductions in solar energy costs.
Click through for story – stories actually. It’s happening in states you would not ecpect. Amazing.

Food For Thought

Open Thread August 22, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:47 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 222022

Yesterday, I basically tried to keep things slow and calm. It was a pill-organizing weekend, and everything runs out at different times, so there is literally never an occasion when I don’t have to run to another room for a new bottle of something OTC or order a prescription renewal – I generally do that in advance for the following fortnight so I can at least get the bottles filled and capped without interruption (otherwise this klutz would be knocking them over and using choice language.)

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Short Takes –

The 19th – Magnolia Mother’s Trust marks a history-making three cycles of paying Black mothers $1,000 a month
Quote – The Magnolia Mother’s Trust is now the longest-running guaranteed income program in the United States. But the program, which gives Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi, $1,000 a month for one year, no strings attached, was never meant to last forever. “I don’t think that’s the systems change we need,” said Aisha Nyandoro, CEO of Springboard Opportunities, which runs Magnolia Mother’s Trust and provides programs and services to families that live in federally subsidized affordable housing. Instead, the goal of the trust is to model what could be, in a more just and fair society.
CLick through for story. If Republians really wanted a world with more happy and healthy people, this is what they would be doing (which of coursethey don’t.) Likewise, if they really wanted a world of people who would fall easily into categories and be content with that, they should be emulating Brave New World – the ohly dystopia I’m aware of in which the characters aren’t aware that it’s a dystopia. But Republicans don’t want that either. They aren’t happy unless someone is getting hurt.

Vice – Scientists Achieve the Impossible, Safely Destroy Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’
Quote – In a new paper published [this month] in the journal Science, a team of researchers have uncovered a new way to dispose of a class of these chemicals under comparatively mild conditions, including ambient pressure and temperatures as low as 176 degrees Fahrenheit. William Dichtel is a lead author on the paper and a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University. He said in a press conference about the work on Tuesday that one of the exciting benefits of this discovery is that the reaction leaves no damaging products in its wake. “We were pleased to find a relatively low temperature, low energy input method where the one specific portion of these molecules falls off and sets off a cascade of reactions that ultimately breaks these PFAS compounds down to relatively benign products including fluoride ions… that are in many cases found in nature already and do not pose serious health concerns.”
Click through for background and more info. Nobody saw this coming – even the scientists were pleasantly surprised. And good news is always welcome.

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 11, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:49 am Open Thread, Politics

Jul 112022

Yesterday, I set up my meds for the next two weeks, because I hadn’t done it Saturday. Oh, well, that’s why I keep a couple of extras filled – so I can miss a day withut actually missing a day. And nthat was pretty much all I did. the weather is what my Aunt Mary used to call “enervating.” (Yes, love of words runs in my family – both sides.) And I want to save as much energy as I can for the hearings which I understand are scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday.

Cartoon – 11 0711Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – SNEAKS: PA GOPers Advance Anti-Abortion Amendment Last [Thursday] Night
Quote – The first step happened last night, but the long-term plan is to get an anti-abortion constitutional amendment on the ballot next year…. In PA, the process is they need to pass through both chambers twice, in consecutive legislative sessions, then they hit the ballot. If Rs time the anti-abortion one correctly, it will hit the ballot in an off year, low turnout election with least amount of voter participation
Click through for story. Yes, this is one state, but it could happen elsewhere.

[Detroit] Metro Times – We interviewed the guy behind the viral ‘woke’ HVAC ad from Lansing
Quote – ”I can’t pretend like everything is ok,” the ad reads. “Gun fetishes are being prioritized, women are no longer in control of their own bodies. The earth is heating up. Black and Brown people are still being killed, brutalized, or otherwise harassed. Honestly, at this point, who gives a SH*T about HVAC. But if you’re hot, give us a call.”
I’ve quoted the ad. Click through for the interview.

Food For Thought

Open Thread June 1, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:37 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 012022

Yesterday, I got an email from WellRed Comedy. That’s not terribly unusual,since I get emails on their tours But this one was about a new series which I had seen a little of on Trae’s channel but which now has its own channel, which they call “Puttin on Airs.” I had seen a couple on Trae’s channel, but the new channel (which has videos and clips ranging from under a minute to over an hour) puts them together in a way which – shall I say – makes them ore coherent. I may be able to use some in the Video Thread (not that I’m ready to just yet. I do suspect looking at, for instance, Marie Antoinette and Henry VII through Trae’s and Corey’s eyes may well be worth a look see.

Also, I have to admit that that tiny little patch, smaller than a postage stamp, actually stayed in place overnight. Amazing.

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Short Takes –

No More Mister Nice Blog – MAYBE THE COMMENTARIAT SHOULD TRY LEARNING SOME BASIC FACTS
Quote – I’m pleased that he recognizes the uniquely American nature of this sick fetishization. But how can he not “fully understand the message”? This ad shows a little kid fondling an assault weapon under a Bible verse (Proverbs 22:6) because — as is obvious to anyone who’s paid a reasonable amount of attention to U.S. conservatism in recent years — right-wing Americans don’t just believe they have an unlimited right to bear arms, they believe that this right was given to Americans by God.
Click through for full blog. I don’t know what the answer is. I am coming around to the idea that, since “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” we should concentrate on regulating gun owners before trying unsuccessfully to get rid of the guns, and also that a big part of that should be getting ANY guns out of the hands of domestic violence perps and animal abusers who are provably associated with way more than their share of incidents.) This also may not work, but at least it is in line with their own rhetoric, and not just ours.

Daily Kos (Walter Einenkel) – Qronicles of Anon: It’s all about saving the children—until actual children are killed
Quote – This has been a hard week in America. They’re all hard weeks, but this one was particularly difficult. It was a glaring reminder of the violent cost of our country’s obsession with guns and weapons, and how conspiracy theories like QAnon help feed the paranoia that’s necessary to believe everybody should own an assault rifle. The fact that the QAnon world, not unlike its Republican leadership, hides behind children while allowing their actions and inaction to end in dead children as collateral damage is breathtaking and gut-punching all at the same time.
Click through – the article doesn’t so much develop the headline; instead, it rounds up all kinds of QAnon insanity surfacing.

Raw Story – Pope Francis sends ‘powerful message’ by elevating liberal Bishop over Archbishop who banned Pelosi from communion
Quote – “The choice of Bishop McElroy is the biggest surprise of this consistory [the council of cardinals] for the church in the United States,” reports the Jesuit publication America. “A graduate of Harvard, Stanford and the Pontifical Gregorian University, Bishop McElroy has demonstrated that he is one of the strongest supporters of the pope’s vision of church among the American bishops since Francis appointed him to be bishop of San Diego in March 2015. By choosing him to be a cardinal, instead of others, Pope Francis is sending a powerful message to the American bishops and church.”
Click through for details. So many of the humorous things we see are just pure idiocy (like “gazpacho police”); our laughter diesn’t affect them, and the stories lead nowhere. This is a story I can laugh at and treasure – because accountability.

Food For Thought