1/. Interesting and scary story about CPAC, the Republican Party and Trump from Jonathan Chait....
Trump supporters at CPAC fashion a golden statue of their idol. Photo: @NumbersMuncher/Twitter
In the American system, with the president’s dual roles of symbolic head of state and head of government, defeated presidents generally fade from sight. The last two presidents to be defeated after a single term, George Bush and Jimmy Carter, immediately entered into political exile. Their fellow partisans wished to escape the stench of failure, and the only people who brought up their names at all were members of the opposing party. Their rehabilitation came only years later, after a long absence from the political scene allowed them to return in a nonpartisan context.
2/. The SNL cold open, and the format is a game show hosted by Dr. Fauci....some good lines, but not
one of their best...seven minutes...
3/. Robert Reich in the Guardian on how the rich are using climate change to keep the class wars going....
Texas has long represented a wild west individualism that elevates personal freedom – this week, the freedom to freeze – above all else.
The state’s prevailing social Darwinism was expressed most succinctly by the mayor of Colorado City, who accused his constituents – trapped in near sub-zero temperatures and complaining about lack of heat, electricity and drinkable water – of being the “lazy” products of a “socialist government”, adding “I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!” and predicting “only the strong will survive and the weak will perish”
4/. "Weekend Update" with Marjorie Taylor Greene.....a very funny three minutes...
5/. Thomas Friedman in the Times [who I am normally lukewarm about] with a very good column.....he makes sense for once....
In the last six months I’ve heard one phrase more often than I had in my previous 66 years: “Can you believe this is happening in America?”
As in: “I spent the whole day hunting online for a drugstore to get a Covid vaccination. Can you believe this is happening in America?”
“Fellow Americans ransacked our Capitol and tried to overturn an election. Can you believe this is happening in America?”
6/. The "Weekend Update" lads with more topical jokes....three minutes...
7/. How Fox saw danger to the Republican brand, so went full tilt brainwash mode.....
If the total breakdown of a state’s electrical power grid, plummeting millions of people without warning into subzero temperatures for several days, had occurred anywhere else but Texas, most media outlets, including Fox News, would have dutifully covered the story in accordance with their usual practice.
8/. John Oliver as comedic reporter on the meatpacking industry, and how horrid they are
to their employees....a very good 18 minutes...
9/. A fascinating story from the Atlantic on how they dealt with pandemics in the 19th
century.....ventilation....most interesting....
A few years ago, when I still had confidence in our modern ability to fight viruses, I pored over a photo essay of the 1918 flu pandemic. How quaint, I remember thinking, as I looked at people bundled up for outdoor classes and court and church. How primitive their technology, those nurses in gauze masks. How little did I know.
I felt secure, foolishly, in our 100 additional years of innovation. But it would soon become clear that our full-body hazmat suits and negative-pressure rooms and HEPA filters mattered little to Americans who couldn’t find N95 masks. In our quest for perfect solutions, we’d forgotten an extremely obvious and simple one: fresh air. A colleague joked, at one point, that things would have gone better in the pandemic if we still believed in miasma theory.
10/. Tom Tomorrow on Texas....
11/. Charles Blow on how the states have to deal with racial injustice....good column from the Times...
This week, Illinois became the first state to eliminate its cash bail system, and Virginia became the first Southern state to abolish the death penalty. These developments illustrate that many of the most impactful criminal justice reforms can and must be enacted by states, not by the federal government.
12/. Bad Lip Reading - NFL 2021...love the weird names....
13/. I like this commentary on the 2022 election.....this week's CPAC convention seems to be bearing out the premise of this article so far [Sunday evening]....
There are so many memorable quotes from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather series that can be applied to our current political environment. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer,” comes to mind, for example.
But there is a lesser known quotation, specifically from The Godfather Part II, that seems uniquely suited to the way Democrats ought to be viewing the circus of abject Trump tongue-bathing currently underway in Orlando at CPAC. It’s a line Michael Corleone delivers to his adopted brother Tom Hagen early on in the film, reflecting a strategy he learned from his father, Don Vito Corleone, but one he applied to friend and foe alike. He advises Hagen to “try to think as the people around you think,” noting that “on that basis, anything is possible.
14/. Pete Davidson with a very good spot on "Weekend Update".....two pretty good minutes...
15/. Ezra Klein with the obvious - Texas is a rich state in the richest country on earth....and look what happened....
A few months back, because I really know how to live, I spent a night reading “The Green Swan: Central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change.” The report, released in January 2020 by the Bank for International Settlements, argued that central banks, concerned as they are with the stability of prices and financial systems, were negligent if they ignored climate change. The economies we know are inseparable from the long climatic peace in which they were built. But that peace is ending. There are no stable prices in a burning world.
16/. "Nomadland" is on Hulu, may be up for Best Picture at Oscar time.....we watched it last
night and it is wonderful.....Frances McDormand is "Fern"...
17/. "I Care A Lot" on Netflix....Mary and I saw it and it's excellent....Rosamund Pike and Peter Dinklage are amazing.....
18/. "Framing Britney Spears" is a NYT documentary on Hulu....looks interesting....
Today's video - "I Should Have Killed You When I Had the Chance".....a supercut.....
Life is full of regrets. And amid the mountainous accumulation of those regrets, the biggest one is not killing your nemesis when you had the chance.
Well, that's what the movies tell us anyway.
YouTube user Jukka-Pekka Bohm has compiled a four-minute, 22-second supercut of movie characters reciting the line, "I should have killed you when I had the chance," in films from Star Trek to Run All Night to Ella Enchanted.
Today's medical joke
I went to the doctor for my yearly physical and the nurse started with the basics.
He asked my how much I weighed. "185 pounds," I answered.
She asked me to step on the scales. It turns out I weigh 215 pounds.
She asked me, "How tall are you?" I told her, " I'm 6 feet even."
She then measured me. I topped out at 5 feet 9 inches.
She then measured my blood pressure. "It's very high," she said.
"Of course it is," I yelled. "When I came in here I was tall and thin. Now, I'm short and fat."
She put me on Prozac.
What a bitch!
Another medical joke
Professor Higgins at the University of Sydney was giving a lecture on 'Involuntary Muscle Contraction' to the first year medical students.
This was not an exciting subject and the professor decided to lighten up the mood.
He pointed to a young woman in the front row and asked, 'Do you know what your asshole is doing while you're having an orgasm?'
She replied, 'Probably golfing with his buddies.’
Todays brothel joke
The madam opened the brothel door in Butte and saw a rather dignified, well-dressed, good-looking man in his late fifties.
May I help you sir?" she asked.
The man replied, "I want to see Valerie."
"Sir, Valerie is one of our most expensive ladies. Perhaps you would prefer someone else", said the madam.
He replied, "No, I must see Valerie."
Just then, a gorgeous Valerie appeared and announced to the man she charged $5,000 a visit. Without hesitation, the man pulled out five thousand dollars and gave it to Valerie, and they went upstairs. After an hour, the man calmly left.
The next night, the man appeared again, once more demanding to see Valerie. Valerie explained that no one had ever come back two nights in a row as she was too expensive. "There are no discounts. The price is still $5,000." Again, the man pulled out the money, gave it to Valerie, and they went upstairs. After an hour, he left.
The following night the man was there yet again. Everyone was astounded that he had come for a third consecutive night, but he paid Valerie and they went upstairs.
After their session, Valerie said to the man, "No one has ever been with me three nights in a row". Where are you from?"
The man replied, "Great Falls."
"Really," she said. "I have family in Great Falls."
"I know." the man said. "Your sister died, and I am her attorney. She asked me to give you your $15,000 inheritance."
The moral of this story is that three things in life are certain:
3. Being screwed by a lawyer
