Category Archives: Uncategorized

Erick Erickson wants to convince his audience that the media is out to mislead the world:

From Fox News to CNN to MSNBC, the major talking heads and anchors are back in the pre-Trump era of attacking the conservatives, claiming it is all nihilism, theater, and ego, and not actually honestly articulating the issue with fairness to the conservatives.

The bottom line is actually very easy to understand despite the pro-McCarthy and Establishment GOP spin. This is about ending Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership. Some things really are that simple.

Sure, there are some rule changes the conservatives want too. You know, we didn’t use to rush into debt ceiling and government shutdown crises. Now, leadership lets the crises fester till they can rush through sight-unseen, multi-thousand-page pieces of legislation.

The conservatives want to end that and go back to regular order, which was done until about fifteen years ago.

Then there’s this anonymous Republican member of the House:

House Republican Member of Congress goes off against @GOPLeader McCarthy’s GOP detractors: pic.twitter.com/ZtdnBeltcp

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 3, 2023

Without considering history, it’s hard to say who’s closer to the truth; hidden agendas are easy to imagine. However, while we can’t say much for the anonymous Republican themselves, it’s not hard to see that their description of what has been called, by Republicans themselves, the Taliban-19, is far more congruent than Erickson’s description.

I find this mismatch in presentations from two people claiming to be conservative quite interesting. It provokes good questions.

Just like this web.

From CNN:

A 41-year-old California man was placed under arrest Tuesday on multiple charges after he allegedly intended to drive off a cliff on the Pacific Coast Highway with three passengers in the car, authorities said.

All four occupants of the Tesla survived the crash on Monday after the car plunged between 250 and 300 feet below the road it was on and into a rocky beach area known as Devil’s Slide, about 20 miles south from San Francisco, according to the California Highway Patrol. …

They were all taken to a local hospital with serious injuries, the highway patrol said Tuesday. The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office previously said in a social media post that the children were “unharmed.”

Congrats to the Tesla safety engineers!

Regardless of the results of the Speaker of the House election today, the far-right extremists who cannot stomach Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is himself a far-right extremist, are lighting the path forward for the Republican Party.

It’s right into an abyss.

Fly away! Get off my back!

But, in the meantime, how is this going to play out? This is a classic example of a Party pulling itself apart, as power hungry ideological extremists claw for power. Right now a faction of convenience, called the Freedom Caucus, has McCarthy by the neck, wringing concessions out of him in his moment of weakness.

OK, so he’s had years of weakness, but you get my point.

But this breakup of the Party will be delayed, because the base of the Freedom Caucus’ power is, of course, their positions in Congress. If they choose to leave the Republican Party, how can they guarantee they’ll continue in their positions.

They can’t. If presented with two conservative candidates, district voters may choose the other one, the one with (R) after their name on the ballot.

So watch for the Republican Party to continue to lurch along, parts rattling loudly and smoke coming out where it shouldn’t. Can the Democrats take advantage? We’ll have to wait and see.

Bibelot:

a small object of curiosity, beauty, or rarity. [Dictionary.com]

Somehow, that one’s evaded my notice for decades. Yes, yes, I know there is, or was, a store chain named the same. I thought it was just a proper name. Noted in “The newly relevant relationship between Trump and ‘Sunset Blvd.’,” Karen Heller, WaPo:

Unfortunately, all of the pigments were poisonous. The hospital commented that this was the third dead actor brought to them in a monster costume last week.

Destination Inner Space (1966), a science-fiction / horror film concerning an ocean floor research station, features human frailties, inner turmoil, some ladies who, while holding doctorates, don’t really add to the plot, a cute little seeding (no, not “seedy”) alien spaceship, and an alien that looks like a successful art project.

And that’s all you really need to know.

But if you insist:

The potential outcomes of tomorrow’s struggle over the seat of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives are numerous, and many pundits are enumerating and commenting on them. Here’s Steve Benen:

Aside from the palace intrigue, why should folks care about this?

Because the public needs a functioning House — and ideally, a majority party capable of governing. If the GOP struggles to elect a speaker, it would represent a new level of Republican chaos.

Brendan Buck, a consultant who previously worked for Republican Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner, wrote in The New York Times today, “If Republicans are unable to muster the votes for a speaker, it will make very clear from the outset they cannot be counted on to fulfill the body’s basic responsibilities.”

Let’s say McCarthy comes up short tomorrow. Then what?

That would be the first ballot, making a second ballot necessary. If no one secures a majority on the second ballot, either, then there’d be a third, and so on.

McCarthy has said he intends to keep trying, as long as it takes, but no one can say with confidence how long his own allies will remain behind him. It seems likely that at some point, if McCarthy’s GOP opponents won’t budge, rank-and-file Republicans will start taking alternative solutions more seriously.

It sounds like serious chaos. Elsewhere, Benen notes that the core of the McCarthy opposition wants a single Rep “motion to vacate” capability, i.e. no confidence vote, and McCarthy has offered a compromise of a five Rep requirement. Given the GOP repugnance of compromise, it seems unlikely to be accepted.

And it raises the question of how often it would exercised, too. Interestingly, National Review does not seem to be addressing the potential chaos at the moment, so on to Erick Erickson:

Congress will convene this week and in so convening, I must remind everyone again that here in 2023 there still is no good reason to put Kevin McCarthy in the Speaker’s chair. The response has been, “Who is the alternative?” Well, there are at least 218 better choices. Note that this number means I’m excluding people like George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene. From Jim Jordan to Steve Scalise to Jim Banks to Chip Roy to literally just about any other Republican, there are better options than McCarthy.

For those who say, “Well, they’re all supporting McCarthy,” I would respond by saying that’s for the first vote.

What I suspect will happen is that McCarthy will rely on Democrats to get the votes, which is actually appropriate and fitting. An opportunist with no principles relying on Democrats, not conservatives, to win the Speaker’s chair highlights McCarthy’s opportunism.

Given Erickson’s long history of being wrong, on the side of extremism, and his suggestion that Rep Jordan (R-OH), a flaming lunatic, is substantially better than McCarthy, I’m not thinking he’s right. I cannot see why Democrats would vote for McCarthy, given that this is an opportunity to show American independents that portions of the Republicans, such as Jordan, Rep Biggs (R-AZ), etc, are really just power-mad nutcases.

They’re so bad that they bring dishonor and infamy down on their districts, in case the point isn’t clear.

But let’s step back and ask who all this crap benefits. Got your guess in place? If it’s not one of our national adversaries, such as Putin or Xi, then you’re not thinking big enough. For those who love decisive, strong decision-makers, regardless of wisdom, of consensus, of humility, they’ll believe this chaos illustrates the foolishness of democracy.

To my mind, though, it illustrates the foolishness of humanity, especially if tomorrow is a maelstrom of madness, of moral pygmies chasing after power.

I would not be surprised if, twenty or thirty years from now, forensic financial experts discover efforts by the aforementioned national adversaries to influence some of those opposing McCarthy today. Not that there’s much to admire in McCarthy, mind you, but paralyzing the armory of democracy requires chaos and not a smooth transfer of power.

Curated:

carefully chosen and thoughtfully organized or presented [Merriam-Webster]

Note its lack of synchrony with the related curator:

a person who oversees or manages a place (such as a museum or zoo) that offers exhibits

Certainly, one might add a modifier to curator, but to do so is to draw attention to the abnormality of applying such a word to the modifier, amplifying the dubiousness of suggesting the item is worthy of a word carrying a relatively high amount of prestige, which it has not previously earned.

Keeping in mind that museums and zoos are generally considered to be establishments of high respectability, although personally I hold the admittedly minority view that zoos are offensive, this leads to the observation that the initiating word of this post, curated, is being appropriated by less esteemed institutions. An example is a local cinema cum restaurant, ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE: WOODBURY, under the subsection Location Features:

Vetted Well, an attached lounge featuring a curated craft cocktail menu, and an array of local and regional craft beers

In other words, Our booze is served as entertaining cocktails selected by our bartender. Please get sloshed to enhance our profitability.

Another example arrived in email, and originates with The Motley Fool:

Curated content that shares the top stories most relevant to your services.

As Random content … would hardly be sensible, the selection of Curated reveals itself as little more than a desperate grasp after a higher level of respectability, an attempt to impress the reader with the effort that may have been put forth. As I have not yet inspected this new web site, I cannot comment on whether this is an improvement on earlier iterations, or more resembles an office notice I encountered thirty years ago and now quote, to the best of my memory:

In order to improve service to our patients, this office will be closing.

Instead of walking to the doctor’s office, I had to drive for ten to fifteen minutes. I was not amused.

So, color me annoyed with the use of curated in Internet discourse. A curator in a museum? Great. A curator in a grocery store. No.

And, for those unfamiliar with this sort of discourse, permit me to summarize: No! Unless you work for a museum, do not use curated! It’s deceptive and annoying!

But in many ways, [typing] is less challenging for the brain [than handwriting] — and challenging the brain is central to education itself.

– Markham Heid

I hated handwriting with a passion when I was a kid, to the extent that there is family lore about it, Heid’s point is very important. Read the article.

This is the zombie draft board. Each dead person must register, failure to do so results in … can’t quite read this … “becoming dinner.” Please fill in your paperwork and remain sitting until we call for you.

The zombies in King of the Zombies (1941) are not the variety found today in movie theaters, a statement that brings forth weird visuals of the dark caverns of cinemas, infested with dead humans and the inferior popcorns on which they subsist. Yeah, yeah, I live near a large chain movie theater.

I mean, we’re sort of there, but not really, if you ken my drift.

No, in this movie we’re talking the voodoo zombies segment, who seem to be mostly big guys who are fighting to keep grins off their faces.

And the referenced king? No, no magnificent super-zombie there, sad to say. But still set on evil, he’s captured a US Navy Admiral, and he’s intent on extracting his secrets, using zombie-style methods. But he finds himself beset by surreptitious rescuers who survive a plane crash, and find themselves provisioned with little else than cliched dialog, with which they do their best to find the missing admiral, as well as each other.

All in all, there’s a zombie element, a comedic element, and a romantic element involving a couple of ladies, and they are not well-melded. I could see the welds, and they were rushed and prone to leakage. The cinematography is nice, I dearly loved the character of the old lady, and Mantan Moreland completists will have to see this flick, but otherwise I foresee this to have a scant current audience.

Oh, you’re one? Here, let me help you out.

Dave is our God, for he is all-creating, all-knowing, all-…. line!

Dave Made A Maze (2017) is a top-rank whimsy machine.

Maybe literally.

Annie, a young contemporary professional, comes home from a business trip to find her boy friend, or maybe boy toy, Dave, has made a maze the living room of their apartment. Constructed of traditional cardboard, artist-wannabe Dave has chosen to go with an enclosed variety of maze that he has constructed from within, meaning that when Annie comes in the door, her living room is engulfed in a maze, and she can’t find Dave. Neither, for that matter, can he.

But she can hear him, and he can hear her, just by yelling. Warned not to enter, nor to destroy, she goes along with these suggestions when he expresses existential alarm at her disassembly attempts.

But their friends, called upon to help talk him out of the construct, talk themselves into going in after them, despite his frenzied attempts to dissuade them, and before we know it, shrinkage occurs, and the fun begins.

Indeed, the fun can’t be stopped even when one friend ends up with her tongue-protrudant head ends up separated from the rest of her.

And now it’s an exploration of Dave’s subconscious, a race against the monsters who think humans tasty, and the real question: Will Annie keep Dave around after this particular fuck up?

A whimsical comedic horror that left us laughing, Dave Made A Maze is good fun. Unless you have an artist in the family. Then, good luck with that.

Long-time readers will recall my occasional, but sincere, concerns about journalism’s faltering ability to cover news critical to the health of the United States. This observation, from Tim Franklin, senior associate dean and professor at the Medill School, does nothing to reassure me that the problem is being resolved:

Franklin predicts that “if we don’t fix the crisis in local news, we’re going to see more George Santos-type cases and instances of politicians going unchecked.”

Fox News has proven uninterested in the task, instead letting the Fox owners’ lust for money and power dictate their agenda. It’s getting to be too late to return to the traditional journalistic models, and that may result in the loss of everything we hold dear.

Parvenue:

a woman who, having risen socially or economically, is considered to be an upstart or to lack the appropriate refinement for her new position [Dictionary.com]

In the example, parvenues is used. The author may be referencing the above regardless of gender. Noted in “Learning an old lesson from the Tudors: Grifters gonna grift,” Philip Kennicott, WaPo:

From Wikipedia.

Long ago, in a reality far, far away, the legendary Orson Welles put on a radio play, and, lo, it wasn’t all that bad. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1939), was broadcast as part of the Campbell Playhouse series of radio plays, from a novel by Agatha Christie.

As is often the case, Christie is chronicling the not unusual burden that wealth can impose on individuals, whether one that controls it, Roger Ackroyd in this case, or lusts after it, as do several characters in this clever little play.

But not, of course, Mr. Hercule Poirot, now in retirement in the tidy little village of King’s Abbot. Upon the discovery of the rich Mr. Ackroyd’s death, he leaps into the breach, more than willing to plug it with his, ah, little gray cells. Kind of annoying, that.

Needless to say, but nonetheless mentioned, nothing is really what it seems. Misdirects are everywhere, and crabby characters around every corner, even in the control booth of the play, one might suspect.

Naturally, the play comes complete with commercials. Sometimes such cultural ephemera can be fun, even fascinating. These were not; indeed, they made my Arts Editor shake her head in some disgust.

So much for Campbell’s Chicken Soup.

But they are mercifully short. The audio itself is in excellent shape, with very little distortion. While I don’t think it’s to everyone’s taste, it’s only an hour long, so if you want a peek into how people spent their entertainment time 90 years ago, this is not an atypical activity. We fount it on Amazon Prime. Enjoy!

You’d think it was a horde after just one night.

And the cats? They keep pushing their walkers about, complaining they’re too tired to chase the whipper-snappers.

An entire movie about ambling. Whoda thunk?

Now You See Me (2013) is about seven magicians. Four are a team, working together to accomplish amazing feats of illusion; one is a monitor, tracking and deconstructing them.

And the last two? Ah, but that’d be telling.

Sadly, none of them come to life; they are a collection of cardboard cutouts in this story, a story formulated by tellers captivated by their own cleverness, and not about the impact of the plot on those who’ve been plotted about. As a result, there’s merely an intellectual question of where this is going, how the tricks are accomplished, and no driving need to see the plot succeed, or not, because of a connection to the characters.

At best, it’s a paean to the importance of planning and preparation.

And, maybe … well, that’d be telling, too.

Important to completists, I suspect, but not many others.

I think the drama in New York surrounding Rep-elect George Devolder-Santos (R-NY) is building into a wave that Santos will not be able to surf through. The big time pundits such as Steve Benen have been noting Santos’ lack of support by Republicans, some of whom are even making the appropriate noises about Santos resigning.

And part-timers are starting to point at oddities in his FEC reports. This is from justin423 on Daily Kos:

I pulled down all 1.8 million disbursement records from the FEC, loaded it into a database, and then screened it for just transactions between 199.90 and 199.99. Looking at the data, it appears a lot of campaigns spent that amount on zoom, and after removing those transactions, we have confirmation.

only 1 ID shows up with more than 5 transactions with THIRTY-SEVEN transactions for exactly 199.99 each totaling about $7400….

Committee ID…C00721365

Devolder-Santos for Congress…

www.fec.gov/…

yeah, those totally look like campaign expenditures…

And then he shows them. Follow the link if you’re interested.

I’m a little puzzled by aspects of the quoted FEC filing. My Arts Editor cum Former Banker suggests money laundering, although just how sending $199.99 to, for example, “DELTA AIRLINES,” will launder money was not clear – unless that’s not the Delta Airlines who we think we knew and, well, let’s just not go on with that. But apparently $200.00 is the point at which the FEC starts paying attention, so there’s something fishy going on.

There’s two potential consequences to what I’m seeing. First, Santos might make it to and participate in the swearing in and seating of new members of Congress, as that happens January 3rd, 2023 – that is, next Tuesday. But how long will he last before he’s shamed out of Congress? Well, it’s not clear that he can be shamed out of Congress. As a Trump supporter, it’s likely that he’ll emulate his political leader by simply ignoring the shameful aspects of his life, and thus not do what an honorable person would do: resign and seek solitude.

But it’s not impossible, or even unlikely, that he’ll be arrested and charged with some election-related crime, and that could result in his resignation. If he still won’t resign, the House might gets its gumption up and expel him, but that takes 2/3 of the membership.

The other consequence is What will this expose? Remember, Santos won his 2022 election in an upset, and it wasn’t even close, with a nearly 9 point victory. Democrats held this seat starting with the 2012 election and won by large margins; prior to that was the redrawing of district lines, rendering comparisons dubious.

Was New York District 3 substantially redrawn after the 2020 election, and the result naturally had Santos winning? If so, why did election watchers still pick his opponent, Robert Zimmerman (D), to win? Or did something happen here? While I recognize there’s a superficial similarity between this speculation and the actions of Republican election deniers, it’s only superficial. I’m curious as to whether evidence, real solid evidence, is found for election fraud of some sort: subversion of election machines, election workers actually engaging in fraud, or some other activity of an illegal nature that gave Santos an illicit victory? I have no interest in lighting my hair on fire while screaming about election fraud with zero evidence.

This second consequence might possibly have nation-wide repercussions. I rate this a 5% change of occurring.

Hey, why did the dead chicken cross the road?
Oh, no, not him again.

In Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957), aliens from outer space who view humans’ tendency towards violence with alarm decide to Do Something About It.

And that would be to resurrect some freshly dead humans from their graves and send them to kidnap live humans for further study.

I can’t believe I hadn’t seen this horrendous mess before now. It’s bad. It’s embarrassing. Sometimes it’s laugh out loud funny.

But it’s not worth a single serious word. No, seriously, it’s not. Only view after a cushioning dose of your favorite alcohol. Try to drink only during commercials.

The latest nominee for overwhelming loyalty to the former President is MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Here’s WaPo’s Aaron Blake:

Shadowbanning:

Art teacher Jennifer Bloomer has used Instagram to share activism-themed artwork and announce classes for eight years. Then last fall, while trying to promote a class called “Raising anti-racist kids through art,” her online megaphone stopped working.

It’s not that her account got suspended. Rather, she started to notice her likes dwindled and the number of people seeing her posts dropped by as much as 90 percent, according to her Instagram dashboard.

Bloomer, it appears, had been “shadowbanned,” a form of online censorship where you’re still allowed to speak, but hardly anyone gets to hear you. Even more maddening, no one tells you it’s happening.[“Shadowbanning is real: Here’s how you end up silenced by social media,” Geoffrey A. Fowler, WaPo]

Back when I was active in social media provision, single line BBSes only generated enough content for such a thing when they were networked together, such as Fido (I hypothesize they had enough traffic) or Citadel-86, and even that would come under the “only barely” column, so I have no administrative experience with such a tool. Moderation consisted of creating subject areas (“rooms”), deletion of messages, or, on rare occasion, expelling someone from the community.

On an unrelated note, this is a banyan.

But I can see shadowbanning’s utility and its dangers. Whether or not the social media providers can be forced to reveal more of their inner workings and other such data related to shadowbanning depends on whether they are behemoths relative to competitors or not, really. The government can mandate it, but then there’ll be litigation, with a fair to middlin’ chance that the law would be invalidated.

And this is a trust issue crossed with an unknown algorithm, isn’t it? Algorithms need not be fair, they can be grossly unfair, not to mention just out and out broken. Building that trust with your userbase is a big part of being a social media provider. But, on the other hand, forty years ago users just walked if they didn’t trust the provider. These days there are not nearly as many providers.

Will Mastodon step into that gap? I’ve heard it described as a ‘fed-iverse’, which sounds a lot like how the networks of BBSes worked, each having its own administrative policies. I wonder how that’s working out for them. I suppose I should investigate and see if Mastodon sites have local-only traffic as well network traffic, or if it’s all network.

Ya gotta wonder what’ll happen with these babies when he gets macular degeneration.

If you have superheroes, you must, eventually, have retired superheroes, right? Watchmen (2009) briefly, if darkly, treated the subject; The Incredibles (2004) also deal with the subject with a certain noir brevity. Supervized (2019), however, makes it the entire point of the movie: what’s to be done with those wheezing, tired folks who were once superheroes, may want to continue to be super, but can only manage it in spurts?

And what if they suspect the retirement home manager is engaged in the theft of their powers?

Well, it’s all fairly silly, but at least it’s engaging and has some chemistry. The powers may be different, in some ways, from that of the aforementioned movies, or, for that matter, the equally grim TV show Heroes (2006–2010), but the only really intriguing power is that of Madera Moonlight, a newly arrived resident, a regal presence who finds two of her former lovers resident in their Irish retirement home, and can communicate with the beings of the “negative dimension,” known as the Elder Gods, and use some of their power in this dimension.

Now that she’s elderly, using her power gives her a terrible headache. An aspirin, please.

The story rambles hither and yon, featuring rivalries rooted in personality conflicts decades old, but unfortunately the final battle between those who’ve given so much and those who are taking so much isn’t rooted in what the audience knows, but in the unmentioned and unforeseeable circumstance that one can have, well, too many powers.

And that makes that final battle an unsatisfying climax.

If you’ve been wondering what happened to some of your favorite stars, such as Louis Gossett, Jr., or Beau Bridges, this is a fine way to spend a couple of hours. Their relaxed competence and obvious amusement at the movie they find themselves in has its own entertainment value.

But if you’re looking for your next high-strung episode along the lines of The Boys (2019, 2020, 2022, ?), this is not for you. This is for some mild giggling and a little light meditation, rather than shocking gouts of blood and guts.

Oh, and the costumes are awful to the point of feeling … right?

So is this a bumblebee playing?

And here’s SciShow going into more detail.

Mark Sumner on Daily Kos presents one of the weirder theories for, ah, current Republicans:

As in other mammals, the effects of infection by [Toxoplasma] gondii are very different between males and females. But here’s what happens to men infected by this tiny, single-celled organism:

… the personality of infected men showed lower superego strength and higher vigilance. Thus, the men were more likely to disregard rules and were more expedient, suspicious, jealous, and dogmatic.

Suspicious. Jealous. Quicker to make an immediate judgment. Less willing to listen to others. Guys who were ready to break the rules if it helped them personally. Sound familiar? Other factors, such as self-control and even “clothes tidiness” were found to be decreased by infection. Here’s another one: Infected men scored significantly lower than uninfected men when it came to establishing relationships with women.

It is very hard not to draw a line between these results and guys like Nick Fuentes screaming about “replacement theory” and fretting over declining sperm counts while claiming that relationships between men and women “are gay.”

I suppose it’s comforting, in a way, to think ideological opponents are being driven around the bend by an infection, all zombie-like. It may even be true.

But, considering this from the non-conventional point of view, could this be simply a way to avoid understanding your adversaries’ positions and reasons? To not acknowledge good points that might fatally damage your own religiously held ideological tenets?

Sure, Fuentes is freaking nuts. But not all Republicans are as nutty as he, and some may have valid points that should be addressed. Is this a way to avoid allowing any validity to your opponents?

Lissome:

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• • adjective Moving or able to move with grace and ease; lithe and graceful.
  • adjective Easily bent; supple.

… [Wordnik]

I’d seen it before, but was uncertain as to its exact meaning. Noted in “A 1934 murder mystery’s pages were printed out of order. Now the world is obsessed.” Hannah Natanson, WaPo:

I love this article, “Cutting through customer service doom-loops by calling in a ‘Karen’,” from WaPo: