Quotes for 2021-01-24 23-56-34

@ithayla: Reminder that Twitter once tested an automated Nazi ban algorithm. they never rolled it out because it was catching too many Republicans. Google it, it’s true.

@TheDoorTHEDOOR: Your pet thunderstorm bobs around excitedly when you lift the lid of the terrarium. You turn on your hair dryer and blow in a tiny warm front. It booms with joy as its little clouds flash and roll

@MarkHarrisNYC: If Dems don’t end the filibuster, the GOP will block everything, then run in ’22 on the premise that Dems are ineffectual–which will be true. If Dems end it and pass a ton of stuff, the GOP will run on the idea that Dems have wrecked America, hate Jesus, etc. Let’s do that one.

birdiehalll: I seriously hope [the Bernie meme] goes down in history as one of the most endearing, sad, and brilliant photos of a man who, wearing the same jacket he always wears and mittens knitted by a Vermont school teacher, acknowledges his position as a public servant and not a celebrity entertainer decked out in Miu Miu or other exorbitant performance costumes. He’s wearing the same cheap, ugly blue surgical mask we all have to wear. He seems to understand how absurd and disconnected pop grandiosity can be in the midst of a pandemic where most of the population doesn’t have $400 or health insurance or the money to stay safely home. He is still sitting strong in true moral solidarity with the working class and all disenfranchised people of this country. Long live brother Bernie Sanders.

New York Times: “Mr. Biden will also seek to allow workers to draw unemployment benefits if they quit jobs they fear are unsafe amid the pandemic, by asserting ‘that workers have a federally guaranteed right to refuse employment that will jeopardize their health, and if they do so, they will still qualify for unemployment insurance,’ White House officials said in a fact sheet detailing the orders.”

Slate: “Twenty-three minutes after assuming the presidency, Joe Biden demanded the resignation of Peter Robb, the notoriously anti-union general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board appointed by Donald Trump. Robb refused to resign, so Biden fired him. Alice Stock, another anti-union Trump appointee, then assumed the role of acting general counsel–and Biden demanded her resignation the next day. Stock also refused to resign, so Biden fired her, too.

“Both Robb and Stock, who relentlessly undermined unions’ ability to organize and bargain, are now complaining that Biden fired them without just cause. Stock went so far as to suggest that Robb’s firing was illegal. She is wrong. Robb and Stock were at- will employees of the executive. Like the countless American workers whom they prevented from unionizing, they had no guarantee against termination without just cause. Biden did not violate any laws. He simply gave the nation’s chief union busters a taste of their own medicine.”

@Voodoo_Pork: You know how your parents used to call every console a “Nintendo”? That’s how conservatives use the word “socialist” to describe everything to the left of hunting the homeless for sport.

@JuliusGoat:

The left aren’t fascists because:

  • They don’t want to consolidate all power in the executive
  • They don’t want to corporatize government
  • They don’t demonize vulnerable religious/ethnic minorities
  • They don’t praise nationalism
  • Fascism is by definition a far-right ideology

The left is being called “fascist” because:

  • The left is rigidly intolerant of fascism
  • Fascists are rigidly intolerant of many other things
  • Republicans would really like you confused about fascism

@Strandjunker: I need someone to explain to me why Al Franken had to resign for a joke photo he took years before he was a senator, but the elected officials who participated in or encouraged the capitol riots are allowed to stay in government. Explain it to me like I’m in kindergarten.

Links for 2021-01-23 23-25-03

Cure bear.

“Shadows in the City.” I like it. Not $536 worth, but I like it.

A soundtrack I gathered earlier this week for obvious reasons: Sting and Stevie Wonder singing “Brand New Day“; “A Brand New Day” from The Wiz; the American Authors’ “Best Day of My Life“; a neat cover of “Celebration“; Shirley Bassey (w/Orchestra!)’s cover of “Get the Party Started“; Barry Manilow’s “Looks Like We Made It“; and, well, this one.

“A Catholic, a Woman of Color, a Teacher, and a Jew walk into the White House … with a rescue dog. No punch line. Just amazing progress.”

@LeftistCEO: “Paying 20% of your paycheck to insurance = good, capitalist, affordable. Paying 4% of your paycheck to Medicare = bad, communist, too expensive. Americans really are the most propagandized people in the world.”

Someone’s description of how the COVID19 vaccine works:

Imagine there’s a bully in town who wants to kick your ass. You find his picture online and show it to all your buddies so they know how he looks like. When the day comes and you see the bully on the street, you phone your buddies, they come, recognize him, and beat the sh*t out of him.

Watching The Stand. Wonderfully twist-the-knife moment to have “Brand New Key” as the outro credits of The Stand S2E2, what with Heather Graham guest-starring in that episode.

Trump on the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but what many are saying is the most apt description of his own last days:

The thug who tried so hard to intimidate others spent his last moments in utter fear, and total panic and dread, terrified of the American forces bearing down on him.

10 Classical Composers With Extreme Eccentricities:

Less well known, however, is that Mozart liked to imitate a cat. He’d be rehearsing an opera with his singers, when he’d suddenly grow bored and leap over tables and chairs, meowing and turning somersaults. He even wrote a comic song in which a woman responds to her husband’s questions with nothing but meows, until the poor man has no choice but to break down and meow, too. In English, the song is known as “The Cat Duet.”

“So proud of you,” Obama, the first Black president, can be heard saying to Harris, the first Black vice president and first woman to hold that role.

“In all fairness, some of those who wander are definitely lost.”

Trump Admin’s Last Minute Policy Changes: “Social service providers can discriminate based on sexual orientation; adoption agencies can turn away same-sex couples; homeless shelters can turn away queer teenagers.” Imagine passing that as your last act as President, knowing that it would immediately be reversed, that its only purpose was to make a statement of your homophobia.

“My Neighbor Bernie” by Francesco Francavilla.

@POTUS: “It is the policy of the United States to encourage union organizing and collective bargaining.”

“Saturday Morning Confusion“, by Carol Burnett.

Justin Long on Alan Rickman (Galaxy Quest)

“When I got to work with Alan Rickman on Galaxy Quest, I was a very wide-eyed young actor doing my very first movie. It spoiled me. It gave me the false impression that all great actors were like Alan. He treated everyone the same. He always sat and ate his lunch with the crew. He’d stay and do off-camera for the other actors even if he was just giving them “a look” in the scene. He was equally generous with his downtime, letting me and Jeremy Howard pick his brain like hungry young acting vultures. He had an unbelievably funny and dark sense of humor but his delivery was often so dry that if you weren’t present enough to catch his subtle rhythms or the faint mischievous gleam in his eye, you might think he was being a stuffy misanthrope. The thing that amazed me most about him was that, in those instances, he’d never make it clear he was joking! It was something that required real social courage and a commitment that I doubt I’ll ever possess but will.”

Links for 2021-01-22 20-55-26

So, evidently furry hoods can be mistaken as toys to dogs, to the owner’s great amusement.

Baby and Dog Crack Each Other Up. I love that ‘ah-hyeel, hyeel, hyeel’ laugh that you hear from some babies.

In the March 19, 2000 episode “Bart to the Future“, this is the outfit that President Lisa Simpson wears in the first presidency after Donald Trump (again, 2000), as compared to the outfit Kamala Harris wore to the Inauguration.

Free Rebekah Jones.

Diabetes training dog alerts his human with boops.

Press Briefings: Trump Admin vs. Biden Admin.

Links for 2021-01-21 21-38-48

President Biden has removed the Diet Coke button.

Some of the most tone-deaf MLK Day tweets.

“My favorite thing about Rogue One is it makes the opening of New Hope so funny.“:

It is the best thing ever because it establishes that he knows she’s a Rebel and she knows he knows she’s a Rebel and he knows she knows he knows she’s a Rebel and here’s the kicker – every moment she stalls him is another moment Artoo has to get the plans off the ship and head for Kenobi, and so she’s standing there all “Rebellion? What Rebellion? Me? *kicks dead Stormtrooper underneath carpet* I don’t know about any plans, have you checked behind the sofa?” and making Darth Vader’s blood pressure rise, and, oh, the best part of it is that she’s his daughter so guess where she got that sass from, like every fucking dead blue Force Ghost Jedi who got killed at the birth of the Empire is whooping and cheering from the Blue Force Ghost Afterlife seeing Anakin Skywalker get inflicted with everything they had to deal with from him.

Celebratory ’80s ‘thumbs-up’ supercut (turn on audio).

Wil Wheaton put this well:

Having an abuser as president was so hard for me, and millions of other people who are abuse survivors. Every day was a trigger for something. It was exhausting. It hurt. (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. You were there.)

I feel this incredible sense of relief, like the worst storm I’ve ever experienced is finally gone, and the sun is peeking out from behind the clouds.

I’m going to go outside, and soak it up.

Biden to his new staff about his One Rule: “I’m not joking when I say this: If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot. On. The. Spot. No if, ands or buts […] Everybody, everybody is entitled to be treated with decency and dignity.” Note especially the use of the phrase “working with me.” Not for me.

If Marge Simpson was in the Godfather instead of Marlon Brando.

For the first time in a while, kind of dug watching some patriotic fireworks.

Russian Tiktok-er about American phrases. The pure delightful shade.

Anthony and Jodi talk about The Silence of the Lambs, via Zoom, for (I think) the first time since the film.

“This groom surprised his bride by having her students with Down’s syndrome be the ring bearers.” Awwwww.

Pretty awesome and unique way of proposing marriage.

Macklemore does a “Trump’s Over” rap.

Health indicator. Sometimes ya gotta love the vaudeville.

Eugene Goodman – the cop who diverted the crowds and honestly saved lives – promoted to Deputy Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and given a standing ovation at the inaugural.

Um, Kamala Harris was evidently a straight-up beauty at Howard University.

Arnold on his COVID19 vacc: “Come with me if you want to live.“

“This is a Wake-Up Call for Republicans”

Matthew Cooke:

This is a wake-up call for Republicans.

America elected Joe Biden by over 7 million votes and you’re confused because you didn’t see us flock to his rallies and cheer his smackdowns like we were at a pro wrestling event during a global pandemic.

We don’t wear matching hats or have “No More Malarkey” flags waving from the backs of our trucks. Do you know why? Because Biden is not our tribal warlord. We believe the job of a U.S. president is to represent more than one interest group. That’s why 81 million of us turned out to stop a narcissistic personality cult that embodies all seven of the deadly sins, most of all pride, which you’ve taken to levels of blasphemy, claiming your political leaders are handpicked by Jesus Christ.

This country is called the United States and we have multiple converging crises that need adult supervision. But we are being distracted trying to get control over a critical mass of you who no longer believe in reality, who’ve been hypnotized to fear a Joe Biden presidency whenever you hear the trigger words radical socialist.

Never mind that Biden is backed by America’s billionaires whose existence depend on corporate capitalism. So your cognitive dissonance is staggering but understandable because the most sophisticated mass media tools ever created have eviscerated your powers of discernment. And there’s a gold rush on slinging alternative facts making millions for opportunists who’ve taken you for quite a ride.

But you need to wake up now and start the deprogramming. The election was not stolen. All that proof you kept sharing about suitcases and duffel bags of discarded ballots? It’s all been debunked.

All the affidavits claiming widespread fraud have been thrown out – over 60 lawsuits contesting the election in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin – republican states, many of the cases overseen by republican and Trump appointed judges.

61 cases tossed out. Trump’s hack attorneys are being sued or are under threat of disbarment. That’s consistent with the countless criminal prosecutions of many former Trump associates.

But the PR stunt worked on the tens of millions of americans primed for mass hysteria. You succumbed to Salem witch trial levels of mental lapse, believing our elections were stolen based on spectral evidence, dreams about krakens which are make-believe.

It’s time to wake up now.

Black Lives Matter is not a terrorist organization any more than Martin Luther King, Jr was a terrorist or Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. Peaceful protests and strikes and boycotts. That’s how a society creates change without violence. Everybody reasonable knows that violence and looting and murder are wrong and counterproductive to a peaceful society. That’s why everybody reasonable condemns militarized cops executing citizens over cigarettes, cell phones, driving, jogging, walking, sleeping, resisting execution. That’s what Black Lives Matter has been protesting. This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s the largest civil rights movement in the history of the nation.

You need to wake up now.

If you join Black Lives Matter then all lives will matter. If it helps you understand it better, shut your eyes. Say to yourself, my life matters and Black Lives Matter.

If we unite there’s hope we can end the savage practice of imprisoning millions of people for the crime of being black or brown or poor.

Atoning for and correcting the mistakes of our ancestors does not mean the next logical step is white genocide, unless you think the legitimate purpose of the criminal justice system is to protect white supremacy like it has up until this moment. If that’s your underlying premise you’re a racist. That’s why you wave a confederate flag. You just doxed yourself and you need conversion therapy.

Time to wake up.

There’s no national Antifa network pretending to be Fascist Trump supporters who want civil war. Antifa are anti-fascists who only exist right now because there are Fascist Trump supporters threatening civil war, inspired by the official republican platform which doesn’t have anything in it other than clinical paranoia re-educating you to believe there’s a conspiracy to seize your guns and gender identity at the same time so you’re so disoriented you can’t defend yourself against a mass immigrant invasion threatening your livelihood.

Come on.

The real danger came from putting a recklessly uneducated man with a personality disorder in the White House who spent his one catastrophic term branding America’s Democratic cities enemies of the country while taking credit for economic growth rates he inherited from a Democrat.

He and his republican Senate, under the smoke screen of your disassociation from reality and the brand name “drain the swamp,” filled the cabinet with profiteers like themselves. Billionaires made a trillion bucks while they gutted our State Department, our FBI, our CIA, our dDHS, our Post Office.

Whatever Trump touched he wrecked. They attacked our U.S. education system, they tore down the minimal regulations that we have protecting america’s water and air, they turned our already abysmal borders into a human rights crisis, they smeared america’s top scientists and doctors, our health care system. They attacked our entire U.S. media.

Their willful incompetence has been so destructive the USA is the epicenter of the worst pandemic in a hundred years. Hundreds of thousands of us are dead, millions are hungry and struggling to survive, and their final act was a massive campaign to try to sabotage the bedrock upon which we stand, American Democracy itself.

This is on you, the republican party.

The majority of white America elected a man whose business model is lying, who demands total obedience while swindling and eventually turning on all of his employees and followers after years of abuse. You elected a perfect cult leader. Our enemies are ecstatic. Our allies are horrified because of the suicidal republican ideology of opposing any limits on gluttony and greed. What was once a beacon of hope all over the world, American Democracy, is no longer a given. Your right-wing leaders and shouting heads, they’re not going to stop clawing their way down a bottomless pit of excuses to continue profiting off of selling you a virtual alternate reality made up of false accusations and revenge fantasies giving you a persecution complex. They won’t stop feeding no matter how many of you are driven right off the deep end.

Any citizen of the United States continuing to fall for it, some of you thinking of taking up arms against the strongest military power on earth, others making excuses for these terrorists because you share the same beliefs, you’re delusional. You don’t have a political party anymore. Come back to reality.

January 6, 2021, that was your come to Jesus moment. Armed insurgents threatened to hang the Vice President, kill the Speaker of the House. They dragged a cop down a flight of stairs and brutally beat another with an American flag. They killed police. A suicidal Q anon follower gave her life trying to break into the House chamber. For what?

The most significant terror attack on our country since 9-11 happened because republican radicals believe Democrats are Satan worshiping pedophiles who stole their country and they’d rather die than lose the protection of their leader.

Defending truth and democracy and equality for all people against any tyranny, foreign and domestic, is the only thing that unites us and protects our freedoms. That’s why Trump is being held accountable for his crimes, along with every Congressperson, every official, every officer, who conspired or continues to wage a mass deception campaign to overthrow American Democracy, especially under the threat of violence.

The First Amendment protects our right to express ourselves without fear of arrest. The right to free speech does not include threats of violence and it certainly does not grant the authority to force media platforms to broadcast single-party hate propaganda that claim only its members are the real America.

For the former republican party who call themselves patriots, this is your wake-up call.

Your nightmare of a brainwashed radical anti-American movement trying to destroy the country was you.

” … I Think You Look Like Giants … “

On Doctor Who, by someone:

Anyone who writes the Doctor in a way that doesn’t allow him to see humans (and similarly-aged species) and say that …

They’re referencing:

Doctor: I’m older than you.

Wilfred: Get away.

Doctor: I’m 906.

Wilfred: Oh really though?

Doctor: Yeah.

Wilfred: 900 years. We must look like insects to you.

Doctor: … I think you look like giants.

Continuing:

… doesn’t deserve to write the Doctor.

He sees us, and our short short lives, and our passion, and the effort we put into trying to change things even in our short short lives, and he sees people ever so much stronger and more impressive than him.

And I think that’s what the Doctor’s all about.