This is not just the best response to the debates, it’s the best possible response to the debates:
That debate was the worst thing I’ve ever seen & I was in The Star Wars Holiday Special.
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) September 30, 2020
That being said, Weird Al Yankovic is a pretty close second:
It’s actually pretty impressive that he got together a song based on the actual event in such a short time.
A professor teaching Zoom classes, and he discovered that his head was being removed by the program.
He called tech support, who trouble shot the problem, and (with said professor’s permission) related the account on Twitter.
It turned out that he Zoom algorithm was choosing a globe for his head, and removing his actual head when it was doing that background trick thing.
One fact that will surprise anyone who has seen THAT episode of Better off Ted, is that the professor with the problem was Black. (See clip below)
It appears that much like Racist Republicans, Zoom cannot see color.
It cannot see it at all, and so the person is erased, which is one f%$# of a metaphor.
The optimists among us say that computer algorithms will eventually do away with racism.
The pessimists among us say that the computer algorithms will reinforce and extend racism.
The police, of course, are pulling out their wallets, because this gives them a excuse to discriminate, as is evidenced by the false arrest of a black man based on racist facial recognition.
Color me cynical.
Josie Huang, an NPR reporter was brutalized and arrested by LA Sheriffs, who then claimed that she was interfering with their actions and did not declare that she was a member of the press.
Unfortunately for them, she caught it all on tape, as her Twitter thread shows:
As Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies tackled Josie Huang to the street on Saturday night, the reporter for NPR affiliate KPCC screamed repeatedly she was a journalist. Deputies arrested her anyway, leaving her with scrapes, bruises, a five-hour stay in custody — and an obstruction charge that carries up to a year in jail.
Police claimed Huang, who also reports for LAist, didn’t have credentials and ignored demands to leave the area.
But those claims are contradicted by video Huang shared on Sunday showing her quickly backing away from police when ordered to do so and repeatedly identifying herself as a journalist. Huang said she also had a press badge around her neck.
NPR executives and reporters groups condemned Huang’s arrest, demanding her charges be dropped and the sheriff’s department explain why officers forcefully tackled her.
“We hold the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department accountable to provide answers for the excessive use of force in the detainment of our colleague,” the Asian American Journalists Association said in a statement. “The Los Angeles chapter of AAJA demands an investigation and apology for her arrest.”
An independent monitor who oversees investigations into the sheriff’s department also launched a probe into her arrest. “What surprises me the most is that once she was identified as a reporter that they transported her, that they cited her,” L.A. County Inspector Gen. Max Huntsman told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday.
……
Huang said that is precisely what happened to her on Saturday.
Like dozens of other reporters, she had gone to a news conference outside St. Francis Medical Center, where doctors were treating two officers who had been shot in the head in an ambush earlier that night. Afterward, she was typing notes in her car in a parking garage when she heard a commotion in the street, Huang recounted in a Twitter thread on Sunday.
She ventured outside, with her press ID hanging around her neck, and found a few men waving flags and taunting deputies. As the police chased one man and then tackled him, she followed at a distance, filming the incident with her camera’s zoom function.
Suddenly, as seen in a video she shot, one deputy yelled, “Back up.” In her next video, Huang backed quickly away as a number of officers marched toward her, and then knocked the phone from her hand and took her to the ground.
“I’m a reporter,” she yelled. “I’m with KPCC!”
Her phone continued recording during her arrest, capturing her telling officers that they were hurting her and yelling yet again that she is a journalist. Another bystander’s video shows Huang being roughly pulled to the ground while a number of officers piled on top of her.
………
Early on Sunday morning, the sheriff’s office told a different story in recounting her arrest. The department said that as officers were struggling to arrest a protester, “a female adult ran towards the deputies, ignored repeated commands to stay back as they struggled with the male and interfered with the arrest.”
Huang “did not identify herself as press,” the department claimed, “and later admitted she did not have proper press credentials on her person.”
………
“Her arrest is the latest in a series of troubling interactions between our reporters and some local law enforcement officers,” Herb Scannell, chief executive of Southern California Public Radio, said in a statement to the Times. “Journalists provide an essential service, providing fair, accurate and timely journalism and without them, our democracy is at risk.”
The first step of fixing the police is to make sure that when they lie in the course of their official duties, they need to be fired, charged with a felony, and have their guns taken away forever.
I am referring, of course, to John Oliver.
He masterfully juxtaposes the lie fest at the RNC with the events in Kenosha.
It’s sad that a comedian is pretty much the only person in the main-stream-media providing good context and analysis.
As an aside, I think that John Oliver is much better than Jon Stewart ever was.
Stewart subscribed to the “View from nowhere”, and Oliver does not hide his opinions.
It appears that the Mayor of Danbury, Connecticut is VERY angry about a recent bit that John Oliver did on juries.
Specifically, he’s angry that John Oliver had the throw-away line, “F%$# Danbury,” when he was discussing disparities in jury selections, and highlighted specific circumstances in Hartford and New Britain, Connecticut where the residents of those cities (about ⅔ of the minority population in those judicial districts) were excluded.
The Mayor of Danbury will not allow this to stand, and so will rename the local sewage treatment plant after the comedian, because, and this is a quote, “Why? Because it’s full of crap just like you, John.”
I get that the Mayor of Danbury is offended, but I’ve seen what Oliver did to killer coal baron Bob Murray (Also here), and you ain’t gonna win this fight.
Picking a fight with John Oliver is like wrestling with a pig, you both get dirty, and the pig loves:
Officials in Danbury, Connecticut, say they will name their sewage plant after the comedian John Oliver, in retaliation for an expletive-filled rant about the city on his HBO show.
Mayor Mark Boughton announced the move on his Facebook page.
“We are going to rename it the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant,” the Republican mayor said. “Why? Because it’s full of crap just like you, John.”
In a recent episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the British-born comic explored racial disparities in the jury selection process, citing problems in Hartford and New Britain.
“If you’re going to forget a town in Connecticut,” he said, “why not forget Danbury? Because, and this is true, f%$# Danbury!”
Noting Danbury’s “charming railway museum” and its “historic Hearthstone Castle”, he said: “Danbury, Connecticut can eat my whole ass.”
Oliver added that he knew “exactly three things about Danbury. USA Today ranked it the second-best city to live in 2015, it was once the center of the American hat industry and if you’re from there, you have a standing invite to come get a thrashing from John Oliver, children included, f%$# you.”
(%$# Mine)
I know very little about Danbury. I’ve never been there, even when I was living in Connecticut, though I might have driven through it on the way to New York City, but I do know this: Don’t pick a fight with John Oliver.
You have introduced yourself as a world of hurt.
Folks, this really happened. pic.twitter.com/EviEJCGvs7— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) August 21, 2020
Hmmmmm………
So, a few months back, Steve Bannon joked about how he and his literal partner in crime at the “Build the Wall” crowd-funding campaign were taking all of the money and living large on a yacht in the Mediterranean:
Welcome back and this is Stephen K. Bannon. We’re off the coast of Saint-Tropez in southern France, in the Mediterranean. We’re on the million-dollar yacht of Brian Kolfage. Brian Kolfage — who took all that money from Build The Wall.
No, we’re actually in Sunland Park, New Mexico.
Now that Bannon and Kolfage have been arrested on fraud charges related to the effort, Bannon while he was LITERALLY onboard a plush mega-yacht, I’m thinking that this joke has not aged well.
Charlie, my son, and sometime standup comic, disagrees. He thinks that this joke has aged like fine wine.
Maybe he and I should split the difference, and say that it aged like fine wHine.
The Rolling Stones played their first gig at the Marquee Club in London.
It makes me feel so f%$#ing old.
I’m not sure who did this version of the Rolling Stones video for Paint it Black, but it captures the song perfectly:
Thanks to @beeragon for putting together this amazing short titled “Coming Out.” #HappyPride 🌈 pic.twitter.com/wG9OptRSZm— GODZILLA.OFFICIAL (@TOHO_GODZILLA) June 30, 2020
Godzilla, Jr. coming out as trans in this fan film is beautiful.
Even more beautiful is that Toho Studios retweeted this in support.
Well, here is another sign of the apocalypse, I am favorably impressed with a realtor. (It’s a family thing, realtors, and real estate developers, have always been the enemy)
This realtor is just a trifle upset that she is showing houses to people who refuse to wear masks or socially distance, and she lets loose with a real “Palmer Moment.” (You Gotta Be F%$#Ing Kidding………)
I’m thinking that we need to strap the never-maskers into a chair, use clips to hold their eyes, hook up the electrodes, and make them watch this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.
Finally an aggressive, and somewhat profane, case for masks, gloves, and social distancing that doesn’t resort to fear mongering or moralizing.
I don’t know who this woman is, but if she ever runs for office, I am making a donation.
Also, she is wearing her f%$#ing seat-belt.
Always wear your f%$#ing seat-belt.
In response to a protest marching down the street in front of their house, “Ken and Karen”, aka Mark and Patricia McCloskey, came out and pointed guns at the protesters.
I’m not sure why they haven’t been charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
Oh, I forgot. They are white and rich, so the law does not apply to them:
Two years ago, Mark and Patricia McCloskey made local headlines when they raised the curtain on the decades-long renovation of their palatial and historic St. Louis home.
On Sunday, the home was the backdrop of different attention-grabbing scene: Mark brandishing a semiautomatic rifle as protesters en route to the mayor’s home approached nearby. Patricia, a few feet away, was seen pointing a pistol at the crowd, her finger directly on the trigger.
Reaction to photos and videos of the incident was swift: One video had been viewed more than 16 million times and counting as of Monday evening and captured the attention of President Trump, civil rights advocates and the St. Louis Circuit Attorney, who is now investigating the incident.
BTW, while we are talking about insane people, the protest was calling for the mayor to resign, because she read the names and addresses of people calling for police reforms in a press conference, (Doxxing) which was a clear attempt to intimidate people who would be inclined to criticize the police.
The protesters passed the McCloskey’s home on their way to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s house a block over. The Democratic mayor had drawn the ire of local activists and civil rights groups days earlier when she publicized the names and addresses of several fellow activists.
FWIW, I’m with the ACLU on this. The mayor’s behavior was contemptible:
Our statement regarding the decision of the mayor of St. Louis to read the names and addresses on Facebook Live of residents she disagrees with. This was intimidation pure and simple. pic.twitter.com/hyIKV42MPF— ACLU of Missouri (@aclu_mo) June 26, 2020
Yes, the mayor should resign.
Fox News was reporting on the Seattle Capitol Hill occupation, and unironically reported dialogue taken from Monty Python and the Holy Grail as evidence of growing tension within the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.”
Does the phrase, “We’re an Anarcho-Syndaclyst Commune,” sound familiar?
Seriously?
I am left staring at the screen like a cow that has just stepped on its own udder.
H/t Crooks and Liars.
I’ve always felt that of everyone at The Daily Show John Oliver was the best host.
Jon Stewart was always a big subscriber to the view from nowhere, and while Trevor Noah is better, he is still tentative. (The less said of Craig Kilborne the better)
John Oliver is better at addressing the outrages of the day because he actually shows sincere outrage when an outrage occurs:
Videos have emerged showing police slashing tires on cars.
Their excuse, that someone might drive the cars in a dangerous manner, is bullsh%$.
It is thuggish retaliation and vandalism, and, dare I say it, swinish.
Clearly this will convince people that there is no need to reform the police:
Update, 6/8/20: The Star Tribune has identified the officers puncturing tires as state troopers and deputies from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. The officers strategically deflated the tires to “stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon. The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Knotz said deputies were following directions from the state-led Multiagency Command Center.
After long nights of tear gas and rubber bullets, some protesters, news crews, and medics in Minneapolis last weekend found themselves stranded: The tires of their cars had been slashed.
………
The officers appear to be state troopers or county police, though it’s not clear from the videos. Neither the Minnesota State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests from Mother Jones. The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota National Guard denied involvement.
Update, 6/8/20: The Star Tribune has identified the officers puncturing tires as state troopers and deputies from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. The officers strategically deflated the tires to “stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon. The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Knotz said deputies were following directions from the state-led Multiagency Command Center.
After long nights of tear gas and rubber bullets, some protesters, news crews, and medics in Minneapolis last weekend found themselves stranded: The tires of their cars had been slashed.
In a city upended by protests about police brutality after the death of George Floyd, many assumed protesters were to blame. But videos reveal a different culprit: the police.
In the videos, officers puncture tires in a K-Mart parking lot on May 30 and a highway overpass on May 31. Both areas briefly turned into police staging grounds near protest hot spots.
The officers appear to be state troopers or county police, though it’s not clear from the videos. Neither the Minnesota State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests from Mother Jones. The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota National Guard denied involvement.
The gray car in the video above was the rental car of Luke Mogelson, a New Yorker writer who typically covers war zones and is now stationed in Minneapolis to write about the protests. As the protest on Sunday evening turned hairy, with law enforcement tear-gassing peaceful groups soon after curfew, Mogelson went to check on his car, showing his press pass to officers along the way. (Media were exempt from the curfew.) One officer took a picture of his press pass and said he would “radio it up the chain so everyone knew that car belonged to the press,” said Mogelson. When he came back later that evening to retrieve his car, officers informed him that the tires were punctured. “They were laughing,” Mogelson recalled. “They had grins on their faces.”
With every violent, criminal, and petty act, police are making the case for dismantling the entire rotten edifice of law enforcement in the United States.
For the same reason that you never saw Miley Stewart and Hanna Montana together in the eponymous show:
POLICE OFFICER TELLS PROUD BOYS TO HIDE INSIDE BUILDING BECAUSE THEY’RE ABOUT TO TEAR GAS PROTESTERS. THE OFFICER SAID HE WAS WARNING THEM “DISCREETLY” BECAUSE HE DIDN’T WANT PROTESTERS TO SEE POLICE “PLAY FAVORITES.” iTs JuSt a FeW BaD ApPlEs #GeorgeFloyd #babygate pic.twitter.com/sbcpbH2iVu— Taylor (@sprtneo) June 5, 2020
I’m not surprised that this happened in Oregon.
Oregon used to have a provision in its state constitution prohibiting black people, and in the 1920s, it was arguably the most Klan dominated state in the nation.
Still it raises a broader question, how do you keep white supremacists out of the police force, or as in the case of the Minneapolis Police, keep them from becoming the head of the police union.
Archaeologist Dr. Jean-Loup Ringot specializes in prehistoric music, here he demonstrates a Lithophone. 🔊 pic.twitter.com/xqaov8Q8LZ
— Daniel Holland (@DannyDutch) May 16, 2020
A stone vibrophone. My percussionist son was impressed.
Until you have heard it in the original Klingon:
H/t Boing Boing.
I am still not convinced of the veracity of Ms. Reade’s claims, but I am far more credulous of her accusations following the emergence of this call into king’s show.
Anyone in the #MeToo community who is not demanding a rigorous and independent investigation at this time is a hypocrite, period, full stop:
A new piece of evidence has emerged buttressing the credibility of Tara Reade’s claim that she told her mother about allegations of sexual harassment and assault related to her former boss, then-Sen. Joe Biden. Biden, through a spokesperson, has denied the allegations. Reade has claimed to various media outlets, including The Intercept, that she told her mother, a close friend, and her brother about both the harassment and, to varying degrees of detail, the assault at the time. Her brother, Collin Moulton, and her friend, who has asked to remain anonymous, both confirmed that they heard about the allegations from Reade at the time. Reade’s mother died in 2016, but both her brother and friend also confirmed Reade had told her mother, and that her mother, a longtime feminist and activist, urged her to go to the police.
In interviews with The Intercept, Reade also mentioned that her mother had made a phone call to “Larry King Live” on CNN, during which she made reference to her daughter’s experience on Capitol Hill. Reade told The Intercept that her mother called in asking for advice after Reade, then in her 20s, left Biden’s office. “I remember it being an anonymous call and her saying my daughter was sexually harassed and retaliated against and fired, where can she go for help? I was mortified,” Reade told me.
Reade couldn’t remember the date or the year of the phone call, and King didn’t include the names of callers on his show. I was unable to find the call, but mentioned it in an interview with Katie Halper, the podcast host who first aired Reade’s allegation. After the podcast aired, a listener managed to find the call and sent it to The Intercept.
On August 11, 1993, King aired a program titled, “Washington: The Cruelest City on Earth?” Toward the end of the program, he introduces a caller dialing in from San Luis Obispo, California. Congressional records list August 1993 as Reade’s last month of employment with Biden’s Senate office, and, according to property records, Reade’s mother, Jeanette Altimus, was living in San Luis Obispo County. Here is the transcript of the beginning of the call:
KING: San Luis Obispo, California, hello.
CALLER: Yes, hello. I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.
KING: In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?
CALLER: That’s true.
King’s panel of guests offered no suggestions, and instead the conversation veered into a discussion of whether any of the men on set would leak damaging personal information about a rival to the press.
The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) wanted Joe Biden in the worst possible way, and now it appears that the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) got Joe Biden in the worse possible way.
Someone caught the VERY hard landing of an Mi-26:
Abakan Avia Mi-26 heavy helicopter made hard landing at Yamal peninsula in North Russia this morning pic.twitter.com/HvzPH8Fa6U
— Максим Пядушкин (@M_Pyadushkin) April 25, 2020
The folks at Fox News are in a tizzy over Donald Trump’s proposal to suspend green cards, because they will not be able to find immigrants to exploit as their au pairs, and that would an unimaginable horror.
For people who are making something north of ½ million a year, perhaps paying a fair wage for child care is not an unreasonable sacrifice:
Last night, Trump sounded like he thought he had finally found an answer to dealing with the coronavirus. No, not better testing or more PPE but an immigration ban. He tweeted, “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!”
This morning, cohost Ainsley Earhardt briefly acknowledged that farmers rely on immigrants. Then she launched what looked like a direct plea to Trump, who never seems to let the pandemic interfere with his TV watching:
EARHARDT: Many families here, including mine, we have au pairs, and we rely on them. I go to work at three o’clock in the morning, so I need her there and I need her in my house so that she can help me with my daughter. So, many families rely on child care from other countries. These au pairs come here on work visas, they have to go back to their country to get the visas renewed, and we’ve been talking in my house about how that’s going to happen. So, these are all things, these are questions that we have that, hopefully the president will roll out a plan and we’ll all be informed on how this is going to affect all of our lives.
………
Apparently, when it comes to their own and their pals’ homes, these Trumpers don’t care so much about America first.
The selfishness and hypocrisy is stunning.
It’s pollen season, which means that various plants are in the process of making life, and breathing miserable.
I’m starting to sneeze, and this will probably move to a cough, over the next week or two.
This sucks, particularly since every time I cough, it goes something like this: