Friday, August 02, 2019
How Stuff Works
WaPo:
President Trump on Friday made light of new reports that the Baltimore home of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) had been recently burglarized, drawing a chiding response from his former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, among others.
“Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah E. Cummings was robbed. Too bad!” Trump tweeted to his more than 62 million followers.
The one thing you have to do is make sure there's no way to link you back to the fuckery of the Cult45 devotees, but of course, that's exactly what 45* did - partly because, "You just don't do that."
He hinted at it, perhaps trying to give himself a little "plausible deniability", but he can't stop himself; he has to gloat and invite the inference that he gets the credit - just like he does with practically everything.
And of course, it doesn't matter if most of us cringe and recoil because he doesn't care about that.
And he doesn't care about making any specific thing happen.
And he doesn't care about the morality of taking a hand in making something happen.
He only cares about stirring the shit, getting something to happen, and looking for a way to benefit from whatever grows out of the chaos.
Stochastic Probability may well be 45*'s animating principle (and I use the term "principle" in the loosest context possible).
Daddy State Awareness Rules
2a. Sometimes, what sounds like boasting ("I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes") is intended to soft-peddle some horrific thing they've done, or intend to do.
And of course, it doesn't matter if most of us cringe and recoil because he doesn't care about that.
And he doesn't care about making any specific thing happen.
And he doesn't care about the morality of taking a hand in making something happen.
He only cares about stirring the shit, getting something to happen, and looking for a way to benefit from whatever grows out of the chaos.
Stochastic Probability may well be 45*'s animating principle (and I use the term "principle" in the loosest context possible).
Almost as an aside:
2a. Sometimes, what sounds like boasting ("I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes") is intended to soft-peddle some horrific thing they've done, or intend to do.
12,000,000,000 Tons
Greenland is melting. Today is expected to be the single biggest melt in recorded history, as 12 billion tons of water dump into the ocean - causing irreparable rise in sea levels.— Nick Knudsen 🇺🇸 (@DemWrite) August 1, 2019
The next President has to lead on climate as no president has before.pic.twitter.com/pS1SuYXcNX
I’m no climate scientist but this sounds really Fucking bad https://t.co/zENlxgikJk— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) August 1, 2019
A classic case of Fouling The Nest.
For those of you scoring at home, the Greenland icepack ended July with a Net Loss of 197 BILLION tons - just for the month of July.
Wednesday, July 31st 2019:
WaPo:
When one thinks of Greenland, images of an icebound, harsh and forbidding landscape probably come to mind, not a landscape of ice pocked with melt ponds and streams transformed into raging rivers. And almost certainly not one that features wildfires.
Yet the latter description is exactly what Greenland looks like today, according to imagery shared on social media, scientists on the ground and data from satellites.
An extraordinary melt event that began earlier this week continues on Thursday on the Greenland ice sheet, and there are signs that about 60 percent of the expansive ice cover has seen detectable surface melting, including at higher elevations that only rarely see temperatures climb above freezing.
July 31 was the biggest melt day since at least 2012, with about 60 percent of the ice sheet seeing at least 1 millimeter of melt at the surface, and more than 10 billion tons of ice lost to the ocean from surface melt, according to data from the Polar Portal, a website run by Danish polar research institutions, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Thursday could be another significant melt day, before temperatures drop to more seasonable levels.
- and -
The ongoing melt event is being compared to a record extreme heat and melt episode that occurred in Greenland in 2012. While the extent of surface melt during that event may have exceeded this one so far, Shuman found that Summit Station experienced warmth that was greater “in both magnitude and duration” during the current event. The temperature only remained above freezing about half as long in 2012, and the peak temperature reached 34.02 degrees this year, whereas it only hit 33.73 in 2012. During the 2012 extreme event, however, 97 percent of the ice surface experienced melting.
Don't have kids.
Tell your kids not to have kids.
Cuz yeah - we're in for some real bend-over-and-grease-up squeal-like-a-pig yeehaw-and-away-we-go kinda fun.
Today's Tweet
Some quick maintenance.
BREAKING: President Trump is caught on live camera, touching up his dye job.#CincinnatiTrumpRally pic.twitter.com/f8hVD79qI7— Paul Lee Ticks (@PaulLeeTicks) August 2, 2019
Thursday, August 01, 2019
Huckleberry Butchmeup
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham warns there will be “collateral damage” if Democrats move forward on impeachment: “Those of us in the Republican Party in the Senate need to shut out the House,” meaning move on with GOP agenda
PoliticusUSA:
Besides the fact that Senator Graham was warning House Democrats not to impeach his new political daddy, there was a serious threat in his statement. Graham was saying that if House Democrats impeach Trump, the Senate is going to freeze the House out. There will be no more legislation from the House that will get passed in the Senate. Mitch McConnell’s Senate majority will ignore everything that comes out of the House, including articles of impeachment.
The only constitutional requirement is that a trial is held on articles of impeachment. Theoretically, McConnell could hold a trial in an hour, have Senate Republicans vote not to convict, and impeachment ends with a whimper.
House Democrats need to ask themselves how much different life would really be if Senate Republicans ignored them. McConnell is refusing to bring House-passed bills the Senate floor for a vote, so what would House Democrats really be losing?
Republicans are very worried about impeachment, and Lindsey Graham’s words should be read not as a warning but as an expression of fear.
Today's Tweet
Word
What's my beef with (most) Never Trumpers?— driftglass (@Mr_Electrico) August 1, 2019
It's really simple.
Allow Ace from "Casino" to explain: "Listen, if you didn't know you're bein' scammed, you're too fuckin' dumb to keep this job. If you did know, you were in on it. Either way, you're out!"
The American Freak Show
Anybody else flash on Gilda Radner when they see Marianne Williamson?
Zack Beauchamp, Vox:
Self-help guru Marianne Williamson was the breakout star of CNN’s first Democratic debate — at least if internet chatter and pundits are to be believed.
Williamson was the most-searched person on Google after the debate in 49 out of 50 states.
CNN analyst and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm praised her “really compelling and authentic” answer on reparations, saying, “Honestly, I think she brought it.” GOP pollster Frank Luntz tweeted that “she’s cutting through the clutter tonight.” A Washington Post article claimed she had “a big night,” writing that she “used her limited time on the microphone to maximum effect, attracting attention for meaningful answers on race and Democratic ideology.” Even current Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) singled out her “surprisingly eloquent answers” to some of the debate questions during his post-debate MSNBC appearance.
This all needs to stop.
Something that I think would go a good long way in trying to stop it is exactly what Mr Beauchamp is doing - ie: take every opportunity to bitch at the Press Poodles whenever they hint at the standard bullshit of "horse race" or some other worn out metaphor, or when they start with the bromides like "Bringing some common sense..." or "a much-needed fresh perspective from outside the beltway..."
(BTW, ever notice how often the inside-the-beltway puffballs complain about how stuffy and stale it is inside the beltway, as they limo their way from one Georgetown cocktail party to the next?)
Marianne Williamson is not a serious candidate for the presidency: She’s a self-help celebrity who openly disdained policy debate onstage Tuesday night. Worse than that, she looms as a menace to public health — someone who has attacked antidepressants and vaccination in a manner that “can literally kill people,” as my colleague German Lopez (who covers public health) put it. She has no business being on the debate stage; the more famous she gets, the more harm she can do.
Zack Beauchamp, Vox:
Self-help guru Marianne Williamson was the breakout star of CNN’s first Democratic debate — at least if internet chatter and pundits are to be believed.
Williamson was the most-searched person on Google after the debate in 49 out of 50 states.
CNN analyst and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm praised her “really compelling and authentic” answer on reparations, saying, “Honestly, I think she brought it.” GOP pollster Frank Luntz tweeted that “she’s cutting through the clutter tonight.” A Washington Post article claimed she had “a big night,” writing that she “used her limited time on the microphone to maximum effect, attracting attention for meaningful answers on race and Democratic ideology.” Even current Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) singled out her “surprisingly eloquent answers” to some of the debate questions during his post-debate MSNBC appearance.
This all needs to stop.
Something that I think would go a good long way in trying to stop it is exactly what Mr Beauchamp is doing - ie: take every opportunity to bitch at the Press Poodles whenever they hint at the standard bullshit of "horse race" or some other worn out metaphor, or when they start with the bromides like "Bringing some common sense..." or "a much-needed fresh perspective from outside the beltway..."
(BTW, ever notice how often the inside-the-beltway puffballs complain about how stuffy and stale it is inside the beltway, as they limo their way from one Georgetown cocktail party to the next?)
Marianne Williamson is not a serious candidate for the presidency: She’s a self-help celebrity who openly disdained policy debate onstage Tuesday night. Worse than that, she looms as a menace to public health — someone who has attacked antidepressants and vaccination in a manner that “can literally kill people,” as my colleague German Lopez (who covers public health) put it. She has no business being on the debate stage; the more famous she gets, the more harm she can do.
The fact that a lot of media figures aren’t recognizing this — that they’re either celebrating her flashes of insight on issues like reparations for slavery or enjoying her kookiness — shows that they haven’t fully internalized the lessons of Donald Trump’s rise to power. Williamson is vanishingly unlikely to win, or even come close, but the amount of press attention she’s getting is troubling. Even if public interest in her mandates some level of coverage, at least it could be more muted and skeptical than what we’re seeing.
“As far as I can tell, Williamson has zero experience or expertise that would prepare her to effectively do the job for which she’s auditioning, and that’s terrifying to me,” Seth Cotlar, a historian of the US at Willamette University, tells me. “It’s fun to cover politics as a circus, because it often is a circus, but the stakes of what happens in DC are incredibly serious and have real consequences for people’s lives.”
It's not a game show. It's not a beauty pageant. It's not Wrestle-fucking-Mania.
We're trying to figure what's best for the most, and while we don't get real close to it very often, we do manage to move things along when we're not encumbered by Rent-Seeking Media Leeches who think the point of the exercise is to sell cut-rate insurance bundles, mail-order housewares, and boner pills.
Hey, Press Poodles - wanna know why about 80% of us hate "the media"? Take a look at about 80% of the shit you guys put on cable all day every fuckin' day.
Bring back Bobbie Battista and HLN. We got 30 minutes of actual news, followed by another 30 minutes of actual news, followed by another 30 minutes...
And when something else happened, they covered it like - you know - a fucking news story. They didn't treat every little thing like it was the Hindenburg in 1937, and they made sure they checked their shit before anything got on the air.
And when they fucked up (because people fuck up once in a while), they went on the air and they said, "Dang - we fucked up. Sorry, guys. We'll try to do better."
It's like we've lost our ability to have an internal dialogue with ourselves before we blurt out whatever the fuck is rattling around in our heads. We're like 5-year-olds who just start yapping and end up asking grandma if she really is "ignorant hillbilly trailer trash, like Mom said you were a coupla days ago when she was talking to the neighbors...?"
We're trying to figure what's best for the most, and while we don't get real close to it very often, we do manage to move things along when we're not encumbered by Rent-Seeking Media Leeches who think the point of the exercise is to sell cut-rate insurance bundles, mail-order housewares, and boner pills.
Hey, Press Poodles - wanna know why about 80% of us hate "the media"? Take a look at about 80% of the shit you guys put on cable all day every fuckin' day.
Bring back Bobbie Battista and HLN. We got 30 minutes of actual news, followed by another 30 minutes of actual news, followed by another 30 minutes...
And when something else happened, they covered it like - you know - a fucking news story. They didn't treat every little thing like it was the Hindenburg in 1937, and they made sure they checked their shit before anything got on the air.
And when they fucked up (because people fuck up once in a while), they went on the air and they said, "Dang - we fucked up. Sorry, guys. We'll try to do better."
It's like we've lost our ability to have an internal dialogue with ourselves before we blurt out whatever the fuck is rattling around in our heads. We're like 5-year-olds who just start yapping and end up asking grandma if she really is "ignorant hillbilly trailer trash, like Mom said you were a coupla days ago when she was talking to the neighbors...?"
As The World Burns
Wired:
“Arctic fires - the combination of these two words is still an unusual term in my field of fire science,” says Guillermo Rein of Imperial College London. “Arctic fires are rare, but they're not unprecedented. What is unprecedented is the number of fires that are happening. Never before have satellites around the planet seen this level of activity.”
Unprecedented, yes, but not unexplained. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, leading to the desiccation of vegetation, which fuels huge blazes. Fortunately for us, these wildfires typically threaten remote, sparsely populated areas. But unfortunately for the whole of humanity, so far this year Arctic fires have released some 121 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, more than what Belgium emits annually. That beats the previous Arctic record of 110 megatonnes of CO2, set in 2004—and we’re only in June.
This came onto my Twitter feed, and one of the replies - from a denier, of course - was "Don't pretend this is the first time it's happened".
I say "of course" because it's a very familiar theme - "It's happened before. Global warming and climate change and all that hippy dippy shit is happening now because it's always happened and you're just trying to fuck me out of enjoying my freedom and blah blah blah."
What isn't as obvious is the invited inference that we're supposed to be calmed somehow by the knowledge that the world has fucked us over before and there's nothing we can do about it, so we might as well relax and have some fun as we wait and watch and make bets on how long it'll take before we all choke to death because of our own stupid complacency.
And it's a theme that fits with a kind of nihilistic overview I see in way too many people.
The emotional and intellectual heavy lifting required to deal with some of these problems is just too much for a lot of folks.
So we get The Prom Committee Effect. A dozen or so kids do all the work, while everybody else concentrates on getting a date, buying something cool to wear, and boosting their own expectations so they can bitch about it at the after-party.
'Twas ever thus, and ever thus 'twill be.
But this ain't the fuckin' prom, kids - this shit's gonna kill us.
Today's Quote
When the sun sets on your career and they are writing your story - of all the good and bad things you did in your life - the thing you will be remembered for is whether, in this moment, with this president, you found the courage to stand up to him.
--Pete Buttigieg
How Stuff Works
Trump rallies are pretty much exclusively held in Trump-friendly places.
That's not to say he avoids the blue states. It's just that he goes where he's welcome - he stays in the red parts, no matter what.
And that little detail is kind of important.
NAACP reminds us of an interesting little tidbit, via Business Insider, as reported back in March of this year:
US counties where President Donald Trump held a campaign rally saw a 226% increase in reported hate crimes over similar counties that did not hold a rally, political scientists at the University of North Texas said in an analysis published in The Washington Post.
According to a study done by University of North Texas professors Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers, and PhD candidate Ayal Feinberg, the scientists found that Trump's statements during the 2016 campaign "may encourage hate crimes" in the respective counties.
The study measured the correlation between counties that hosted a 2016 campaign rally and the crime rates in the months that followed. The scientists used the Anti-Defamation League's map that measures acts of violence and compared the counties that hosted a rally with others that had similar characteristics, including minority population, location, and active hate groups.
- and -
Branton, Martinez-Ebers, and Feinberg noted that their study "cannot be certain" that the marked increase was solely attributed to Trump's rhetoric. But they also shut down the suggestion that the reported hate crimes were fake.
"In fact, this charge is frequently used as a political tool to dismiss concerns about hate crimes," the analysis said. "Research shows it is far more likely that hate crime statistics are considerably lower because of underreporting."
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