Sep 21, 2016
Tim Wise
Make the connections between Racism, Homophobia, Xenophobia, Misogyny, etc. There're reasons we encounter these things (often) in the same places, and just as often expressed by the same people.
A take-away for me: It must really suck for you to have been told your whole life that the world belongs to you and you get to take whatever you want from it, only to find out that you were lied to, that the world is not really that way, and you won't be getting every little thing after all.
Today's Keith
Find Keith's new home at GQ
BTW - to reiterate - what Trump is doing comes under the heading of Stochastic Terrorism.
It's the shitty little thing that despots are always pulling - the dog whistle calling to the Lone Wolf who'll interpret it to mean he should do something the Strong Man's id wants to make happen while maintaining the necessary deniability.
It's the lowest political dirty trick ever.
And Keith's absolutely right to recall Hillary doing basically the same thing - although I hafta give her props for backing it off right away, which means to me that she may have stumbled into it not recognizing at the moment that it'd be taken the wrong way. Point being, she fucked up; she owned the fuck up; she learned not to do it again.
And so to Trump - once can be an anomaly; twice could certainly be coincidence - but that second time, when it's Donald Trump, is just as likely to reveal a deliberate pattern.
Sep 20, 2016
Seth
Seth Myers, Samantha Bee and John Oliver are the 4th estate now
"You don't get to peddle racist rhetoric for 5 years and decide when it's over" —Seth Myers on Trump's birtherism: pic.twitter.com/hQ2IpGX8nD— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 20, 2016
I ❤️ Elizabeth Warren
But what we really need to do is de-regulate big business - to help the little guy make his $200,000,000 in stock options.
Sam Bee
Donald Trump and the media: a terrifying, country-ending love affair. Watch Part One: https://t.co/NdiztfIstn pic.twitter.com/n1mzOCtSeN— Full Frontal (@FullFrontalSamB) September 20, 2016
Today's Keith
We're back! Vol.5 of #TheCloserGQ: @realDonaldTrump A) Withholds Plan To Beat Isis, Thousands Die; or B) Has No Plan pic.twitter.com/egZKNSrFFv— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) September 20, 2016
Sep 19, 2016
Extrapolated
All of the guns in USAmerica Inc are owned by 22% of the total Adult Population of USAmerica Inc.
78% of the Adult Population is being told what we can and can't do about guns and gun violence and gun-related problems by the other 22%.
Gettin' pretty fucking tired of this Minority Rule bullshit.
Trump's Guy
Sorry - but I had to. I feel a need to check in on these guys once in a while just to see for myself. So if I have to do it, then so do you. I really don't like going there alone.
It doesn't get better. It's been getting worse for quite a while. Even if it's mostly just an act for Alex Jones, some otherwise normal people are taking too much of this shit way too seriously.
And just to reiterate - this is Trump's guy. Trump has said as much. I have some Facebook pals, known to be Trump voters, who parrot the Alex Jones talking points almost verbatim when they try to engage with me. They don't generally get this het up about it, but the signs of Political Dementia are there in a pretty big way.
Today's Tweet
😹😹😹😹😹😹😹 @KonaLowell @coastclark @MoBea @pinkponypatriot @7Politics24 @JoMadRam @CraigRozniecki @bennydiego pic.twitter.com/U9ZIttqdCx— Kate Doolan (@crocodilekatie) September 19, 2016
Sep 18, 2016
Gary Johnson Strikes Again
Another WTF moment on the air:
"...just grateful that nobody got hurt..."?
How does anyone justify even considering voting for a guy with that much empty space in his head?
Sep 17, 2016
Revisiting The Prisoner's Dilemma
(keep Donald Trump's behavior in mind as you read thru this)
From +Plus magazine (this is the whole post):
To highlight this puzzle, consider the Prisoner's Dilemma, described in detail in Adam Smith and the invisible hand in Issue 14 of Plus. To summarise, this very famous paradox in Game Theory describes two people suspected of being accomplices in a crime. They are held prisoner in separate, non-communicating cells. The police visit each prisoner, and tell both that if neither confesses, each will be sentenced to two years in jail. However, if only one prisoner confesses, implicating the other, the one who confesses will get off scot-free as a reward, and the other, who didn't confess, will receive a punitive sentence of seven years. If each confesses and implicates the other, both will be sentenced to three years.
From +Plus magazine (this is the whole post):
Survival of the nicest?
One of the most puzzling aspects of human behaviour is cooperation, in situations where backstabbing and selfishness would seem to be more rewarding. From the point of view of evolutionary theory, the very existence of altruism and cooperation appear mysterious. The mechanics of evolution seem to imply that rugged competition is the order of the day; that, given an opportunity to benefit by cheating someone, or by defaulting on a deal, we will inevitably do so. Surely to do otherwise would mean relegation to the sidelines of the evolutionary game - and in that game, demotion means extinction.
In fact, as even the most cynical observer must admit, cooperation is rife in human society. Even if you sometimes despair of human nature, you must admit that the "dog-eat-dog" scenario conjured up by the phrase "survival of the fittest" doesn't bear much resemblance to life as we know it. So it must be that, from a purely selfinterested point of view, cooperation can actually be good for us.
Solitary confinement
What should a prisoner do in this situation? Suppose the other prisoner doesn't confess. Then the best course of action is to confess, and go free. Even if the other prisoner does confess, it will be better to have done likewise - at least the sentence will be lower. Both prisoners will reason thus, so both will confess and end up serving sentences of five years - even though, if both had remained silent, both would have served sentences of only three years.
Second-guessing
If you think this dilemma is very far from your everyday life - after all, you are lawabiding and will never be thrown in jail! - think again. Every time you make a bargain, you are potentially facing the prisoner's dilemma. What is to stop you - or, more to the point, the person you are making the bargain with - from defaulting? Surely both of you will be tempted by the prospect of getting something for nothing, and afraid that if you are honest the other person won't be, and you'll get landed with the so-called "sucker's payoff" - getting nothing for something? It's all very well to say that "honesty is the best policy" but surely this is a luxury that only the civilised and comparatively rich can afford?
Well, the good news is that we are not dependent on the benevolence of others, as the prisoner's dilemma would seem to suggest. In fact, cooperation can spontaneously break out even among fundamentally selfish agents - provided you assume that people meet each other more than once, and can remember what the other person did last time they tried to strike a bargain.
To explore this sort of sitution, political scientist Robert Axelrod invented the game of "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma" - Prisoner's Dilemma played repeatedly against the same opponent - and set up a tournament, inviting academics from all over the world to devise strategies. First Axelrod compared various strategies by pairing them and seeing who won; then he held a meta-tournament, in which there were many agents, each with its own strategy which it was allowed to modify in response to what was going on around it, for example if it saw that other agents had more successful strategies.
Over the long term, Axelrod discovered that selfish strategies tended to do very badly, as did foolishly generous strategies. Defecting encouraged others to defect; not punishing others for defecting only encouraged them to do so again. One of the most successful and stable (in other words, successful against many different strategies and in many different environments) was "Tit for Tat". This strategy involves cooperating the first time you meet another agent, and after that always repeating your opponent's last move. So if your opponent defaults on one turn, you punish them by defaulting on the next; if they cooperate on one turn, you reward them by cooperating on the next.
A slightly better strategy - because it avoids the possibility of getting trapped into long cycles of retaliation - is "Tit for Tat with forgiveness". This is Tit for Tat with a small randomised possibility of forgiving a defaulter by cooperating anyway. Forgiveness is particularly helpful if you introduce the possibility of misinformation into the game - that is, if moves are sometimes randomly misreported.
The submitted strategies varied in many ways - initial hostility, tendency to forgive or retaliate, complexity, how much past behaviour they took into account, and so on. No one strategy will always be best because how a strategy does depends on who the other players are - if you're playing against mugs, you may as well be a freeloader, and if you're playing against sharks, you may as well get your retaliation in first! And research into human behaviour is ongoing, with biologists, economists and mathematicians studying phenomena such as spiteful behaviour, altruism, and kin selection (generosity between close relatives, which is evolutionarily useful since their genes are similar). But Tit for Tat did well or best in Axelrod's tournament against very many different opponents - showing how cooperation could evolve using only the selfish mechanisms of natural selection.
That yellow-hilited paragraph sounds a little like Trump, especially in light of his recent "birtherism pivot", but other than the misinformation bit, has Trump ever shown the slightest inclination to forgive anybody but himself for anything? The guy has said he's never even asked God to forgive him.
Gotta remember one fairly important aspect of this mess. It's all well and good when we're talking about real estate deals and bargaining for some financial leverage with one of your business cronies, but it takes on a slightly different tinge when you throw in actual military options that include Nuclear Weapons.
Tit For Tat, motherfucker. This Trump guy gets elected, and we're one randomly perceived insult on a bad hair day away from World War III.
Today's Podcast
Deplorables, Trump's Childcare Trickle Down Plan, The Worst Birther Day Ever for the media.
As always, be sure to throw 'em a little tip by going to Amazon thru their website link.
Today's Tweet
The entire event promoting his hotel ― carried in it's entirety by all three cable news channels ― lasted more than 30 minutes. Trump proceeded to spend approximately 30 seconds blaming Hillary Clinton for inspiring his quest to find Obama’s birth certificate.
So Trump did the usual politician thing - at least, the usual Trump thing, by inviting the inference that Hillary caused the problem, so he had to fix it. It's classic - the arsonist taking credit for pulling the fire alarm.Ashleigh Banfield on CNN is completely fed up with Trump's "birther crap" 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/4AvcEckaAb— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) September 16, 2016
It really was just a free ad for Trump's hotel in DC. The thing went on for 30 minutes and there was nothing but a tour of the hotel and some pander-fawning of Medal Recipients, ending with Trump spending 30 seconds "renouncing" his birtherism bullshit.
Finally - FINALLY - the Press Poodles are starting to get a little hip to the simple fact that they actually are the suckers Trump is playing them for, and that some of us have been trying to tell 'em about for years.
And yet, The Trump Scampaign® marches on.
Fun Facts:
The cheapest room at the Trump DC hotel is almost $400 a night
The Penthouse is rumored to go for $100,000 per night, with a 5-night minimum
Of course, if you have to ask how much it costs, then you can't afford it anyway - so fuck off, loser.
And yet, The Trump Scampaign® marches on.
Fun Facts:
The cheapest room at the Trump DC hotel is almost $400 a night
The Penthouse is rumored to go for $100,000 per night, with a 5-night minimum
Of course, if you have to ask how much it costs, then you can't afford it anyway - so fuck off, loser.
Sep 15, 2016
Meet-N-Greet
America's youth should be encouraged to contact and engage with the people who want to run the joint. That way, they can get a sense of what those people are trying to do and help us all gain a deeper understanding of just how great the good ones are...
...and how terrifying the bad ones can be.
Always trust kids and dogs when it comes to dickhead detection - they are absolutely unerring.
Today's Keith
.@KeithOlbermann explains what Hillary got wrong about her "basket of deplorables" comment pic.twitter.com/8VFv1KSrrO— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) September 15, 2016
Sep 13, 2016
Mr Paul Mooney
hat tip = Facebook pal DR
And whatever else you do, don't go watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled.
Today's Quote
"Calling a liar a liar isn't an opinion if you can prove it. That's what we call a fact. The idea that news network executives traded their balls for ratings, that's just my opinion." --Samantha Bee
Part 1
Part 2
Where To, Bub?
Hillary went out of her way to assure us that she's not dead. Of course, we all know what a liar she is so I guess that means we'll have to stay home and let that orange Nazi guy win it.
Today's Olbermann
In the debut episode of his new series, “The Closer with Keith Olbermann," GQ's Keith Olbermann tallies the most outrageous of Donald Trump's offenses in what is now his 15-month assault on American democracy.
Sep 12, 2016
A Razor Blade In The Apple
Buzzfeed:
Hillary has made some noise about swinging around in opposition to TPP, even tho' her buddy, Virginia Gov Terry McCauliffe says she'll swing right back once she's been sworn in - so we just don't know.
All the more reason to find out as much as possible about any given candidate's leanings on something like "Free" Trade. Guess it's time to email Jane Dittmar on this one.
It might be nice if a Press Poodle or two got up on their hind legs and started asking real questions, specific to things like ISDS.
PS) Elizabeth Warren - please come to my house so I can hold you and pet you and call you George...
The secretive private legal system written into many international trade treaties is the epitome of a “rigged game,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told BuzzFeed News. But it is not set in stone, she said. In an interview in her office on Capitol Hill, she outlined three steps that could get rid of it entirely.
This legal system, which empowers foreign businesses to sue entire countries for hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, was the subject of an 18-month investigation by BuzzFeed News published last week. Among the findings: Executives convicted of crimes have used the system to avoid punishment, and companies have used the mere threat of a lawsuit to gut a country’s laws.
Warren described a case, highlighted in the investigation, that she said “really jumped out in front and put the human face on what this obscure clause can actually do”: A court in El Salvador found that a factory had poisoned a village with lead, failing for years to take government-ordered steps to prevent the pollution. But by threatening to take the matter to this global super court, lawyers for the company helped it avoid a criminal conviction and the responsibility for cleaning up the community and providing needed medical care.
“The company that damaged so many people just gets to slip away,” Warren said of the case. “This is a reminder how the game is rigged.”If there's something like "the other side" of this one, I haven't heard much of it yet. My main thing is that the ISDS thing wreaks of privatization and corporatocracy. Too much power in too few hands.
Hillary has made some noise about swinging around in opposition to TPP, even tho' her buddy, Virginia Gov Terry McCauliffe says she'll swing right back once she's been sworn in - so we just don't know.
All the more reason to find out as much as possible about any given candidate's leanings on something like "Free" Trade. Guess it's time to email Jane Dittmar on this one.
It might be nice if a Press Poodle or two got up on their hind legs and started asking real questions, specific to things like ISDS.
PS) Elizabeth Warren - please come to my house so I can hold you and pet you and call you George...
HRC's Episode
Some tweets:
I'd rather they just come out and tell us what's going on. I think I understand that they don't wanna make her the center of attention in order to countervail the fact that Trump superimposes himself on everything in sight; and they believe they always have to protect her from the shit that everybody throws at her every minute of every day and blah blah blah - but she's gonna catch that shit either way, so I think she's better off if they stop trying so hard to be cute with it and just let her own it.
"Yeah - I tho't it was just the usual allergies that bother me this time of the year. Turns out I have pneumonia. And then I did a coupla campaign stump speeches and a fund-raiser or two, and a buncha other work-type stuff, and then I sucked it up on a Sunday and went to a 9/11 memorial and I started feeling really bad and I had to take a little break - because pneumonia, bitches. Do ya think Presidents get to call in sick every time they feel a little funky? I'm gonna do this job, and I'm gonna keep on doing this job, and they're gonna have to carry me out in a fucking box before I stop doing this job. Hear what I'm sayin'? Good - what else ya got?"
hillary has pneumonia and is still campaigning 24/7 meanwhile my back kinda hurts so i ordered delivery 3 times today— jomny sun (@jonnysun) September 11, 2016
Wait, so Hillary has PNEUMONIA and she's still campaigning as hard as she is? You realize how badass that is, right?— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) September 11, 2016
It shows her doing her best to grit her teeth and work hard even with pneumonia. And it's humanizing, relatable.— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 11, 2016
I'd rather they just come out and tell us what's going on. I think I understand that they don't wanna make her the center of attention in order to countervail the fact that Trump superimposes himself on everything in sight; and they believe they always have to protect her from the shit that everybody throws at her every minute of every day and blah blah blah - but she's gonna catch that shit either way, so I think she's better off if they stop trying so hard to be cute with it and just let her own it.
"Yeah - I tho't it was just the usual allergies that bother me this time of the year. Turns out I have pneumonia. And then I did a coupla campaign stump speeches and a fund-raiser or two, and a buncha other work-type stuff, and then I sucked it up on a Sunday and went to a 9/11 memorial and I started feeling really bad and I had to take a little break - because pneumonia, bitches. Do ya think Presidents get to call in sick every time they feel a little funky? I'm gonna do this job, and I'm gonna keep on doing this job, and they're gonna have to carry me out in a fucking box before I stop doing this job. Hear what I'm sayin'? Good - what else ya got?"
Sep 11, 2016
Wow.Just.Wow
It just can't ever be about anything but Trump.
There's audio of Trump patting himself on the back for having the tallest building in Manhattan after the WTC fell! pic.twitter.com/vQFFcAibQz— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) September 11, 2016
Sep 9, 2016
Listen For It
The next GOP rebranding is well underway. Because they know they're gettin' their butts kicked and they have to salvage something.
"What The American People want..." Listen for it.
Then go to their Amazon link...
"What The American People want..." Listen for it.
Then go to their Amazon link...
...and buy some stuff (that you were gonna buy anyway), which helps the podcast at no extra cost to you.
Sep 8, 2016
Gary and Jill
I have an editorial policy that requires me to address politicians by the appropriate title, and with the appropriate respect.
That said - fuck this Johnson jagoff. "What's Aleppo"!?!
That said - fuck this Johnson jagoff. "What's Aleppo"!?!
Libertarians - we just wanna be free from Government Interference, man - and Societal Norms - and Facts - and having to think about anything but ourselves. OK?
And speaking of the fringe candidates, Dr Jill Stein went to North Dakota to get in on the demonstrations of the Standing Rock Sioux as they try to stop a pipeline - which of course is getting minimal coverage because when did Neo-Americans start giving one single fuck about "The Noble Savages"?
CANNON BALL, N.D. — A North Dakota county has issued a warrant for the arrest of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who is accused of spray-painting construction equipment during a protest against the Dakota Access pipeline.
Stein was charged Wednesday in Morton County with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and criminal mischief.
A spokeswoman for Stein said Tuesday that activists invited her to leave a message at the protest site, and Stein sprayed “I approve this message” in red paint on the blade of a bulldozer.
So first, good for you, Dr Stein.
But then, bad, Dr Stein. Civil Disobedience is (at least it can be) a very good thing. But you're not doing it right if you don't stay for the whole party.
ie: you need to get arrested and you need to pay the fines and/or spend some time in jail, and then make sure you make enough noise that the press covers the thing so everybody can see the injustice of what you're protesting. Otherwise, you're just making yourself the center of attention. And that makes you a grandstanding asshole, using good people and their good cause as nothing more that chumps and unwitting accomplices for a publicity stunt.
Get your ass back up there and finish what you started, Jill.
Sep 7, 2016
Music
From NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts:
Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop
"Sailor To Siren"
"Know The Wild That Wants You"
"Every Songbird Says"
Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop
"Sailor To Siren"
"Know The Wild That Wants You"
"Every Songbird Says"
Sep 6, 2016
Bible Bust
I guess we should keep an eye on it, because it's possible that maybe someday, if Ken Hamm can spoof his way thru enough pigeons, he could manage to make it work, but - nah - prob'ly not.
Here's some drone footage from a fairly recent Sunday, about 30 minutes before the place opened.
Here's some drone footage from a fairly recent Sunday, about 30 minutes before the place opened.
Now, maybe, the good little Christians were all still at church, but it does seem there could be a bit of a problem considering the break-even number for visitors per day is estimated at about 5,600. That sounds a bit low, but never mind, because it makes no real difference when you only get 10,000 visitors on the whole of opening Weekend. Uh-oh.
Adding to the potentially fatal embarrassment, here are a few pictures I grabbed from The Ark Encounter's website:
Not what I'd called "crowded" cuz, y'know, you kinda need a crowd to be crowded. And in case you didn't notice, in a coupla those shots, the employees outnumber the visitors - never a good sign.
Today's Tweet
...has not pledged allegiance to you. pic.twitter.com/s6zPYefWEc— deray mckesson (@deray) September 1, 2016
Sep 5, 2016
Ding Dong
Paraphrase Bette Davis. My mom told me only speak good the dead. Phyllis Schlafly is dead. Good.— Packers (0-0) (@ShomahKhoobi) September 6, 2016
I'm never gonna celebrate anybody's death, but the news of somebody like Phyllis Schlafley dying doesn't exactly make me sad. She was destructively wrong about a lotta things for a long time. And the things she was wrong about - things she led the fight to stop or deflect or delay or mitigate - are all things that would've helped make life a little better for millions of women in this country and (probably) hundreds of millions of women around the world.
If we help women, it's almost automatic that we'll get whole big batches of better men out of it too.
So if such a thing is possible, when Ms Schlafley gets to hell, she can hang out with Fallwell and Scalia, and they can cogitate on why there seems to be such a shortage of Liberals down there.
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