1/. How to cope with what's coming...
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Hello, excuse me, are you lost? Not in physical space or in your personal life — just kind of cosmically unmoored? It seems like we’re in a catastrophe. I mean, obviously we’re in a catastrophe.
Our clown-car democracy. Our warm embrace of surveillance capitalism. Dobbs. Just days ago, Elon Musk bought Twitter and the fascists openly rejoiced. Six months ago, a teenager killed 19 kids and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, while hundreds of law-enforcement officers stood around. Plus the big granddaddy catastrophe of them all, the planetary crisis. The planetary crisis … what a term. Your life is still stable enough that you’re reading magazine articles. You’ve got that huge lucky fact going for you. But even so, how could a person possibly stay sane and oriented? How could a person think straight and well in a moment such as this?
2/. The Lincoln Project ad that ran on Fox News.....wow....
3/. Bob Lefsetz with an excellent column about the media and how wrong they were about the Midterms, and how even the Times has a narrative it
follows in spite of the facts. He asks some good questions like - who can you trust now?
Well worth reading....
Now who do we trust?
The story of the election is the failure of the Red Wave to materialize. And based on my political leanings, this was a good thing. But the overwhelming Republican victories were not only predicted on Fox News, but in the “New York Times,” the “Washington Post”…supposed bastions of liberalism. So if the news outlets got it wrong on this, WHAT ELSE ARE THEY GETTING WRONG?
4/. Tom Tomorrow looks at right wing media....
5/. If you read Lefsetz above about the media [#3], there is another media narrative taking shape - Trump is finished, Trump is a loser,
time for Ron to run etc etc. Don't buy it - yet.
This line from Lefsetz's column got me - But how do you declare defeat for a movement that is built around refusing to accept defeat?
An excellent discussion.....
6/. John Oliver's main topic this week was the British Monarchy.....mildly amusing....
7/. Tampa Bay News explains why Florida has turned deep red.....
About a week before what turned out to be an electoral catastrophe for Democrats in Florida, two state senators took a bus trip to save what was left of their party.
Jason Pizzo and Lauren Book were being realistic. They aimed to retaintwo vulnerable colleagues, while hoping to flip a Miami-area seat. They weren’t trying to turn the Republican-led Senate blue. Democrats could only hope to avoid complete irrelevance by winning these three Senate seats.
With no signs of a promised multi-million-dollar voter registration push by their party, they tried to beef up registration in targeted areas. Pizzo, of Miami, pledged at least $500,000 from his own campaign coffers to help other Democrats.
8/. Bill Maher with "Books That Didn't Age Well".....
9/. Michael Moore was right, and a few of the media outlets acknowledged it too......here is his post-Midterms blog, and it's theme is don't give up hope....
It’s hard, isn’t it, to believe in ourselves? Especially when you’ve spent the past few months feeling politically hopeless and trying not to believe the “predictions” shoved down our throats that we are all going to drown in a Trumpian Red Wave of election deniers and right wing nutters. And so millions of you — good people, liberals, lefties, Democrats, Montessori parents — sink into a despair, knowing in your heart of hearts we are doomed. Between Biden’s low approval ratings, the “record high“ inflation, and the media telling us over and over how the first midterm election of a new president is usually a slaughter (Obama lost 63 House seats in his first midterm), most liberal voters simply gave in to the inevitable.
10/. Sarah Sherman takes over Weekend Update....you either love her....or not....
11/. The Justices that overturned Roe were at a Federalist Society dinner, and got standing ovations....
Don't think because we did well in the midterms it's all OK - these bastards are totally ruthless......
Samuel Alito speaks during the Federalist Society's 40th anniversary dinner at Union Station in Washington. Photograph: José Luis Magaña/APGuardian staff and agenciesS
Four of the five US supreme court justices who overturned the constitutional right to abortion in America showed up at the ultra-conservative Federalist Society’s black-tie dinner marking its 40th anniversary.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion in the shock decision, got a long, loud ovation at the event on Thursday night from a crowd of 2,000 people, most in tuxedos and gowns, when another speaker praised him on the overturning of Roe v Wade in June.
12/. What the hell is a potato hole? SNL's Dave LaChappelle tells us.....eventually....and you will be stunned....
13/. Matt Taibbi muses on Twitter and Elon Musk, and censorship being considered.....a thoughtful article, very good.....
We burn witches in America. When heathens won’t convert, when the crop is bad, we still burn the village freethinker.
The Federal Trade Commission last week told The Hill it was “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” adding, “no CEO… is above the law,” clearly referring to the company’s despised new owner, billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk is the new bête noire of the American consensus. He is the Negative Current Thing, a role mostly played by Donald Trump since summer 2015, with occasional fill-ins (in no particular order, Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson, Novak Djokovic, J.K. Rowling, Jeremy Corbyn, Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, whatever they call Kanye West these days, and others have manned the slot). The coverage playbook for these heel-of-the-hour stories is rigid. Certain elements are always present.
14/. This is about all that was achieved at COP27...
15/. Jimmy Kimmel had a good segment on the night Trump announced he's running again.....most amusing and some great zingers....
16/. The DNC put this ad out last night, the night Trump announced.....another wow....
17/. Electric cars are becoming mainstream really quickly.....
The first wave of people who bought electric cars tended to be affluent, environmentally aware technology enthusiasts who lived in California. The second wave may be people like Russell Grooms, a librarian in Virginia.
Mr. Grooms last year bought a battery-powered Nissan Leaf, spending about $20,000 after government incentives, as a way to save money on gasoline.
“I don’t have the disposable income to throw $50,000 or $60,000 at a car just to help the environment,” said Mr. Grooms, a resident of Manassas, who works at a community college. “It really came down to numbers.”
18/. Music video - The Glass Animals with "Heat Waves".....this is mentioned in the Lefsetz article [below] as a monster hit, over 2 billion plays on Spotify...
To this reviewer it's only an average song and a really dull video, but hey what do I know......2 billion hits....
Lefsetz on the Grammys and the music business....
19/. Will Smith with his new movie "Emancipation".....
At times, I found watching Emancipation so painful that it was almost unbearable. Its director, Antoine Fuqua, knew this and—to his great credit, I think—talked to me openly and at length for this group of Q&As about his film. Will Smith, a producer as well as the star, answered questions separately by email, and his costars Ben Foster and Charmaine Bingwa spoke to me as well. All of which is to say that—though the Apple Original Film was a late entry into the calendar after a now legendarily difficult year for Smith—the team is very much united behind it. In the movie, Smith plays Peter, a man who escapes the shackles of slavery through the treacherous swamps of Louisiana. It’s inspired by the frankly inconceivable trials and tribulations of an escaped slave best known to history as “Whipped Peter.”
The story of "Whipped Peter"....
Today's Middle Eastern joke
A Jew and an Arab go into a bakery. The Arab steals 3 pastries and puts them in his pocket.
He says to the Jew, "See how good I am? The owner didn't see anything!"
The Jew says to the Arab, "I am going to show you there is nobody better than a Jew."
He goes to the owner and says, "Give me a pastry and I will show you a magic trick.''
Intrigued, the owner accepts and give him a pastry. The Jew swallows it and asks for another one.
The owner gives him another one. Then the Jew asks for another one and swallows it just the same.
The owner is starting to wonder where the magic trick is and says, "What did
you do with the pastry? Are you trying to fool me?"
The Jew answers, "Look in the Arab's pocket."
Today's parenting jokes
Q. Am I more likely to get pregnant if my husband wears boxers
rather than briefs?
A. Yes, but you'll have an even better chance if he doesn't wear
anything at all.
Q. What is the easiest way to figure out exactly when I got pregnant?
A. Have sex once a year.
Q. What is the most common pregnancy craving?
A. For men to be the ones who get pregnant.
Q. My blood type is O-positive and my husband's is A-negative.
What if my baby is born, say, type AB-positive?
A. Then the jig is up.
Q. My husband and I are very attractive. I'm sure our baby will
be beautiful enough for commercials. Whom should I contact
about this?
A. Your therapist.
Q. I'm two months pregnant now. When will my baby move?
A. With any luck, right after he finishes college.
Q. How will I know if my vomiting is morning sickness or the flu?
A. If it's the flu, you'll get better.
Q. My brother tells me that since my husband has a big nose, and
genes for big noses are dominant, my baby will have a big nose
as well. Is this true?
A. The odds are greater that your brother will have a fat lip.
Q. Since I became pregnant, My breasts, rear end, and even my
feet have grown. Is there anything that gets smaller during
pregnancy?
A. Yes, your bladder.
Q. Ever since I've been pregnant, I haven't been able to go to
bed at night without onion rings. Is this a normal craving?
A. Depends on what you're doing with them.
Q. The more pregnant I get, the more often strangers smile at me.
Why?
A. Cause you're fatter then they are.
Q. My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she's
borderline irrational.
A. So what's your question, d*&!#@%?
Today's blond jokes
Question: How did the blonde break her leg while raking leaves??
Answer: She fell out of the tree
Blonde 1: Don't tell anyone, but Bees scare me.
Blonde 2: Don't worry, the whole alphabet scares me
I'm changing my name to {Benefits} on Facebook.
Next time someone adds me, It will say 'you are now friends with {Benefits}
Why can't you tell blonde knock-knock jokes?
Answer: Because they go answer the door
What do you call an intelligent blond?
Answer: A Golden Retriever
Why can't a blonde dial 911?
Answer: She can't find the eleven
Why was the blonde disappointed with her trip to England?
Answer: She found out Big Ben was a clock
What do blondes and beer bottles have in common?
Answer: They are both empty from the neck up
Why couldn't the blonde make Kool-Aid?
Answer: The 8 cups of water didn't fit into that little packet
Why did the blonde lose at breast stroke in the swimming competition?
Answer: She later learned, other swimmers were cheating, they were using their arms!!!
Answer: She fell out of the tree
Blonde 1: Don't tell anyone, but Bees scare me.
Blonde 2: Don't worry, the whole alphabet scares me
I'm changing my name to {Benefits} on Facebook.
Next time someone adds me, It will say 'you are now friends with {Benefits}
Why can't you tell blonde knock-knock jokes?
Answer: Because they go answer the door
What do you call an intelligent blond?
Answer: A Golden Retriever
Why can't a blonde dial 911?
Answer: She can't find the eleven
Why was the blonde disappointed with her trip to England?
Answer: She found out Big Ben was a clock
What do blondes and beer bottles have in common?
Answer: They are both empty from the neck up
Why couldn't the blonde make Kool-Aid?
Answer: The 8 cups of water didn't fit into that little packet
Why did the blonde lose at breast stroke in the swimming competition?
Answer: She later learned, other swimmers were cheating, they were using their arms!!!
