Slouching Towards Oblivion

Saturday, April 08, 2017

Tiny Desk (redux)

I posted this one a good while back. It's worth a repeat or 5.

Phox

Set List
Kingfisher
1936
Slow Motion


And some more.

Phox - Phox


We Knew It Goin' In

Yo, suckers -

He told you who he is. And he told you what he intended to do.  We all told you.


Every time he makes an accusation he's confessing.
Everything he brags about is something he feels inadequate about.
Every time he warns us about some dire result, it's either because that's what he's doing now or what he's threatening to punish us with if we don't do what he says.

Classic Daddy State.

The Professional Left


Episode 383: The Joints Chiefs and pudding for 45*




It's A Loop

Feel what you feel
Deal with what you can deal with
Express it as best you can
Whatever happens next is what happens next
Start again at the top

Today's Tweet

WWaDD


Bill Maher last night

Friday, April 07, 2017

Thursday, April 06, 2017

Tiny Desk

Maren Morris

Set List
Rich
I Could Use A Love Song
My Church

Musicians
Maren Morris (vocals, guitar)
Bennett Lewis (guitar, vocals)
Annie Clements (bass, vocals)

Seriously - there's something pretty great about lady bass players

Samantha Bee





Welcome Back, My Friends

...to the show that never ends.

The Nation:

The University of Chicago Stigler Center’s three-day conference asked: “Does America Have a Concentration Problem?” A sufficient response to this could be “go outside.” Virtually every major sector in our economy has been whittled down to a few major players. Two companies produce nearly all of America’s toothpaste. One, Luxottica, produces nearly all the sunglasses. There are four cable and Internet providers, who have divvied up the country and rarely compete. There are four major airlines. There are four major commercial banks. There are four major Internet platforms—Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google—controlling your information flow, your data, and your virtual life.

These markets are shrinking further, thanks to a continuing wave of mergers. Bayer is buying Monsanto to control a significant section of the agricultural seed market. AT&T and Time Warner’s combination would tie a content distributor to a content provider. The Walgreens–Rite Aid deal would narrow major chain pharmacies down to two (three if you’re generous and include Walmart). Platform monopolies like Google are buying a firm a week; it’s become a large part of their research-and-development strategy to acquire ideas and market share simultaneously.


And the slide backwards to the 18th century continues.

BTW: Try not to think too hard about the striking similarities between what's happening here right now and what started to happen a few years after the USSR fell apart - in about 1991-92, when Poppy Bush sent his old pal Bob Strauss to teach the Russkies how to retool their economy according to Freddy and Milty's Unfettered Free Market Capitalism.

This mess didn't get all fucked up yesterday and it won't get unfucked by tomorrow.


hat tip = J Gorman

It's Who We Are Now

From deep in Real America, we get the story of another 45* voter, learning that selective thinking can easily end up looking a whole lot like bad karma.

Buzzfeed:

A Mexican man who spent almost two decades living in the United States was deported back to his home country late Tuesday, separating him from his US-born wife, who voted for President Donald Trump.

Roberto Beristain, 43, had been in custody since he was detained on Feb. 6 during a routine check-in with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. After spending almost two months in detention centers across six states, the Indiana resident was suddenly taken alone to Juarez, Mexico, late Tuesday night, he said in a statement released by his attorneys, who had filed legal petitions requesting his release.

- and -

For many years, ICE agents took no action against Beristain, despite the order of removal against him. As he bought a local restaurant in Granger, Indiana, he checked in annually with officials, and was even able to obtain a driver's license, social security card, and work permit, according to his family.

Under Obama-era directives, ICE had concentrated mainly on deporting criminals and those who posed a threat to public safety. However, following President Trump's signing of an executive order in January on immigration, emboldened ICE agents have been detaining hundreds of undocumented immigrants, including those not charged with any crimes.

Helen Beristain told Indiana Public Media she voted for Trump, believing he would not deport "good people."

Today's GIF

A Look Inside


And again - why do we get better insight from half-hour comedy shows than we get from the Press Poodles?

Today's Tweet



We have to push back against what seems like a constant pressure to move us further towards a system that predicates the value of a human being almost solely on the potential for that human being to put money in somebody's pocket.