A Critter

I think I just found a bug to add to my list of favorites. It's definitely another amazing thing that makes the world amazing.

Hemeroplanes Triptolemus:

In its larval form, the Hemeroplanes triptolemus is capable of expanding its anterior body segments to give it the appearance of a snake, complete with eye patches. This snake mimicry extends even to the point where it will harmlessly strike at potential predators.[2][3]

Keith

It's hard to get people to forget about something when you keep talking about it.

And the vague tracings of parallels between 45* and Nixon are getting really distinct.

Today's GIF

Don't do drugs

No Hand Of God

Mr Deity is back

A Tyranny Of Images

This one's pretty good:

I'm just glad CNN is pushing back with a little vim and vigor - finally.  They have a good ways to go yet before I stop calling them Press Poodles, but I like the direction it's headed.

Of course, there has to be the parody:

Oh yeah - BTW - none of that shit is either an apple or a banana. They're images of bananas and apples.

There is truth where you find it. Accept nothing at face value.

Today's GIF

For everybody who isn't a 45* supporter - or who was and has come to their senses.

Or just somebody at random who's working at making it work.

Or trying to work something out.

Or whatever good they're trying to do.

You're welcome in this world and I hope it works for you.

Today's Pix

Click a pic and the show magically begins

Keith

Today: Really Realy Mad Keith

Today's Tweet

Starting at about 3:10, when we see 45* sitting with his arms crossed, making it worse just by talking.

Look at his posture: arms crossed, not showing his hands = Defensive. 

But also, it's a self comforting gesture. He's lying and he knows it, and he needs a little hug to reassure himself.

Second, "...a very nice conversation with - the woman - the wife..." = Distancing. 

It's entirely possible he can't recall her name even now, but what he's doing is moving away from his lies by moving away from Myeshia Johnson.

It also serves to deflect the thing towards a fight with Fredericka Wilson.

Something's very wrong with this guy.

Here is a response that only .@Trevornoah would know how to say to a racist POS like .@SebGorka please watch 👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/8Fl8GMSjeB

— Rafael Jr. (@chibearfan74_jr) October 24, 2017

Today's Today

1975 - Reykjavik

Not to put it too terribly indelicately, ladies, but you own half of the wealth and all of the pussy, which puts you in a fairly powerful bargaining position.

Sometimes we push back really hard because whether we care to admit it or not, we're listening. And what many of us hear you saying sounds pretty scary.

But we're learning. Don't give up on us just yet.

1975 Icelandic women's strike:

On October 24, 1975, Icelandic women went on strike for the day to “demonstrate the indispensable work of women for Iceland’s economy and society”[1] and to “protest wage discrepancy and unfair employment practices.”[2] Ninety percent of Iceland’s female population, led by women’s organizations, did not go to their paid jobs and did not do any housework or child-rearing for the whole day.[1]

Today's Tweet

Along the lines of: Bill Gates walks into a soup kitchen, and the Average Personal Wealth goes up to several hundred million dollars, but you've still got a room full of homeless people plus Bill Gates.

Fun with arithmetic.

If I give 10 apples to one person and no apples to nine people, the average person has one apple.

Why are nine people mad at me? https://t.co/ezQWsReU6i

— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) October 23, 2017

Perspecticide

This is from the viewpoint of a personal relationship, but it seems obvious that it pertains very much to what 45* is up to.

And of course, this is nothing new. It bears repeating though, because nobody's immune to this shit.

So here's your booster shot.

Lindsay Dodgson, Cult Education Institute

Living with a controlling or abusive partner is confusing and draining. They blame you for things that weren't your fault, or that you didn't even do, and you become isolated from your friends and family in an attempt to keep the abuser happy.

The way you see the world can also completely change, because it may be dangerous for you to know the truth.

Lisa Aronson Fontes, a psychology researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of "Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship," told Business Insider the word for this is "perspecticide."

She said the word, which basically means "the incapacity to know what you know," was first used in the literature on the brainwashing of prisoners of war, and has also been applied to people in cults.

"In an abusive or controlling relationship, over time the dominating partner changes how the victim thinks," Fontes said. "The abuser defines what love is. The abuser defines what it appropriate in terms of monitoring the partner. The abuser defines what is wrong with the victim, and what she needs to do to change it."

Over time, the victim — or survivor, if that is your preferred term — loses sense of what their own ideas, goals, and thoughts were. Instead, they start taking on those of their dominating partner.

"Through perspecticide, people give up their own opinions, religious affiliations, views of friends, goals in life, etc," Fontes said. "I am not talking about the natural mutual influencing that occurs in all intimate relationships — this is much more nefarious and one-sided."

Today's Poe

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a stirring defense of Donald Trump’s chief of staff, General John Kelly, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Friday that it was “unpatriotic in the extreme” to offer irrefutable video proof that a four-star general lied.

“It is unpatriotic enough to accuse a four-star general of lying,” Sanders told the White House press corps. “But to make available a video that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that that general lied is unpatriotic bordering on treasonous.”

Poe's Law:

Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers or viewers as a sincere expression of the parodied views.[1][2][3]

Today's Tweet

"...numskulls..." - (former) sheriff Clarke is kind of the new Sarah Palin in 45*'s GOP, and is thereby considered a leading light.

It's going to take me a good long while before I can let John McCain off the hook. It's not completely his fault, but he gave in to the pressure from the stoopid wing of that party when he knew better - and he said it: "...there is a dark side to American populism".

The numskulls running the DNC haven’t figured out that a message of destroying American traditions won’t sell. #MAGA https://t.co/clEmiEQZ2Q

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) October 23, 2017

Today's Lesson

It's a big machine. Fuck up part of it and run the risk of fucking up the whole thing.

This is truly incredible.#nature #SundayMorning #October1st pic.twitter.com/j21OkF5dGL

— Fredon Moniteau (@FMoniteau) October 1, 2017