You should all see the freaking embed code for this trailer. WTF, Wired. Still worth it tho.
Chat about whatever, including but not limited to whether the Great Filter theory or a some broad need for discreet communication protocols (e.g., conflict or threat) better explains the Fermi paradox regarding our ability to find clear evidence for extraterrestrial life.
Belafon
Which trailer is it? (Can’t watch videos at work.)
Comrade Mary
I couldn’t view the trailer on Marvel’s site in Firefox, but had to move to Chrome. I won’t complain about Wired because I can SEE this in Firefox.
Looks like fun. I may be able to drag Le Guy out to see this.
scav
I admit to being unaware of the Great Filter overhanging us, but am intrigued by the premise that extraterrestrial communication must be caffeine-based as its Melita presence is impeding contact.
Chyron HR
@Belafon:
Farscape.
boatboy_srq
Dupe post. FYWP.
boatboy_srq
Dinesh D’Souza pleads guilty to violating campaign finance laws. So much for the wingnut chorus chants of “Scary Blah Man Misuses Federal Agencies To Bully Opponents.”
No doubt they’ll change their tune to “D’Souza was beaten into confessing at some FEMA Camp in an undisclosed location. Because Blah Man is Scary.”
Certified Mutant Enemy
@boatboy_srq:
Obviously, Obama had some Black Panthers pay a visit to D’Souza …
mai naem mobile
@boatboy_srq: I do so hope he ends up sharing a cell with a stereotypical big White Aryan Bubba for a year or two in the Deep South.
Anoniminous
In a case of something or another the US is charging 31 Chinese military hackers for espionage. This after NSA techies were photographed inserting spyware into Cisco servers.
Eric U.
@boatboy_srq: “biting criticism” is not what it used to be. In my opinion, there has to be some truth to the criticism in order to rise to the level that could be considered, “biting,” unless they are thinking of anklebiting.
cat
@Chyron HR: he is joking. It’s guardians of the galaxy.
Roger Moore
@boatboy_srq:
Wishful thinking. That will still be the story, just that Obama is so scary he can bully people into pleading guilty to stuff they’re totally innocent of.
kindness
I saw the trailer fine in Firefox. Looks like my kind of crazy.
Cassidy
@boatboy_srq: after how he treated the nice nun on Maher, I’d love for him to beaten.
rikyrah
Judge denies motion to dismiss charges against Bob McDonnell, wife
Posted on: 11:31 am, May 20, 2014, by Scott Wise, Jake Burns, Web Staff and Joe St. George,
The federal corruption case against former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen will move forward after Judge James Spencer denied a motion to dismiss. He also denied a motion to give the McDonnells separate trials.
Judge Spencer made the rulings in a brief filed in the U.S. District Court on Tuesday morning.
“Defendants take issue with the Indictment primarily on the ground that it fails to allege Robert McDonnell performed or promised to perform any ‘official act’ within the meaning of the federal bribery statutes,” Judge Spencer wrote in his order not to dismiss charges. “Whether Defendants’ conduct in fact constituted “the corruption of official positions through misuse of
influence in governmental decision-making” is a question for the jury based on the evidence adduced at trial.”
The couple is listed as co-defendants on the indictment that alleges they accepted more than $150,000 from local businessman Johnnie Williams in exchange for promotion of his company’s products. Defense attorneys for the McDonnells said Maureen McDonnell had information that could acquit her husband of wrong doing, but she could not give that testimony unless the trials were severed because her testimony would harm her own defense in a joint trial.
However Judge Spencer did not agree.
http://wtvr.com/2014/05/20/mcdonnell-motion-rulings/
rikyrah
rikyrah says:
May 20, 2014 at 9:58 am (Edit)
Republicans drag their feet on fixing the Voting Rights Act
05/19/14 01:08 PM—Updated 05/19/14 03:45 PM
By Zachary Roth
The Republican lawmaker in a key position to help bolster the Voting Rights Act (VRA) isn’t convinced new legislation is needed, and wants more evidence that current laws aren’t strong enough to stop racial discrimination in voting, according to people involved in the discussions.
Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s go-slow approach—which comes as efforts to pass the bipartisan measure before this fall’s midterm elections enter a critical phase—is causing frustration among voting-rights advocates.
Goodlatte chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Before agreeing to hold a hearing on the bill, Goodlatte has asked for examples of voting discrimination that have occurred since the Supreme Court weakened the VRA last year in Shelby County v. Holder, as well as information on how such incidents would have been stopped by the proposed legislation.
Lobbyists with the NAACP responded to Goodlatte’s request last week with a 16,000-word document outlining a slew of discriminatory voting changes stopped by the VRA before the Shelby decision, as well as several new ones that went into effect after the landmark civil rights law was eroded.
The Shelby ruling invalidated the VRA’s most important provision, Section 5, which made certain states and localities with a history of voting discrimination got federal signoff—known as “pre-clearance”—before changing their voting laws. The ruling left in place Section 2, which lets victims of racial discrimination in voting file suit. In January, a bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled legislation, known as the Voting Rights Act Amendment (VRAA), that aims to reactivate Section 5, by updating the formula that determines which areas are subject to pre-clearance.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/zero-hour-bid-fix-voting-rights-act
rikyrah
Mayor Tells Tabloids to Apologize to His Wife Over Motherhood Coverage
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
MAY 19, 2014
Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an unusual and stern rebuke of New York City’s tabloid newspapers on Monday, calling on them to apologize for publishing front-page headlines that suggested his wife, Chirlane McCray, had admitted to being a reluctant mother to the couple’s daughter, Chiara.
The mayor’s remarks — he called the coverage “disturbing and inappropriate” — were primarily directed at The New York Post, which featured a front-page photograph of Ms. McCray next to a headline, in two-inch type: “I Was a Bad Mom!”
The headlines referred to a profile in this week’s New York magazine in which Ms. McCray, describing the birth of her first child, said she had struggled to balance her independence and professional career with the newfound responsibilities of being a mother.
“I was 40 years old; I had a life,” Ms. McCray told the magazine. “The truth is, I could not spend every day with her. I didn’t want to do that. I looked for all kinds of reasons not to do it.” She added: “It took a long time for me to get into ‘I’m taking care of kids,’ and what that means.”
Ms. McCray, in the interview, said she still felt guilty about the experience.
Mr. de Blasio, who has taken pains to portray his wife as a prominent and powerful member of his administration, decided midday on Monday that he wanted to address the headlines, and ordered his aides to organize a question-and-answer session with reporters.
“It suggests a tremendous misunderstanding of what it means to be a parent, what it means to be a mother,” Mr. de Blasio said of the coverage.
“A lot of hardworking women in this city are offended,” Mr. de Blasio added. “I think both The Post and The Daily News owe Chirlane an apology. I think they owe all of us an apology.”
The Daily News ran a smaller photograph of Ms. McCray on its front page, above the headline, “Didn’t want to be a mom.”
But it was the front page of The Post that drew criticism on social media on Monday, with some saying it had contributed to a culture in which mothers feel unable to speak openly about the complex emotions that can be involved in raising a child.
Several allies of Mr. de Blasio turned to social media to defend the first lady. “The @nypost’s repulsive distortion of @Chirlane’s @NYMaginterview, shows that they do not even hold motherhood to be sacred,” the Rev. Al Sharpton wrote on Twitter.
The New York chapter of the National Organization for Women addressed the cover on its Twitter account, urging users to write messages of support for Ms. McCray using the hashtag “#standwithchirlane.”
Representatives of The Post and The Daily News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/nyregion/de-blasio-tells-tabloids-to-apologize-to-his-wife.html?hp&_r=0
rikyrah
XMEN this weekend!!!
jomike
Forbes-like minimum wage hackery over at OTB:
:headdesk:
Alex
–Pat Sajak on the tweets.
I’m not sure how that works.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Shorter Bob Goodlatte: Black people aren’t allowed to vote? I fail to see the problem here.
300baud
It won’t show up for people running an ad blocker, but I think this is the trailer involved:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bz0QOOT9Hk
SatanicPanic
@Alex: Alright, I’m going to come out and admit it. My heart is full of hatred for people who pollute the earth and deny man’s ability to damage the environment. I AM bigoted against anti-science people. Please don’t judge me. I’m a nice person otherwise.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
Yes, God forbid a woman discuss the fact that motherhood is not all sweetness and light and there are parts of it that really, really suck.
In other news, marriage is not an infinite round of ecstatic happiness and sometimes requires a little work on the part of both partners. Who knew?
Mnemosyne
@Alex:
Neil de Grasse Tyson is a racist? Because he’s been hammering global warming really hard on “Cosmos” (and rightfully so).
Bobby Thomson
@boatboy_srq: There wasn’t much left for Douche D’Ipshit to do after the judge denied his frivolous motion to dismiss.
Cassidy
@Mnemosyne: Marriage is a lot easier when she just does as she’s told. ;)
The Thin Black Duke
Maybe it’s me, but a talking raccoon makes more sense to me than a nutty billionaire who goes out at night dressed as a bat and beats up bad guys.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: I’m just spitballing, but there probably are parts of the Bible that do forbid that
Roger Moore
@Cassidy:
Yup. If she’d just stayed barefoot and in the kitchen making de Blasio sammiches the way God intended, she wouldn’t have these guilty feelings about balancing work and motherhood.
Ash Can
It’s always good to see justice served, but you just know that after D’Souza gets out of the pen, he’ll get some cushy RW welfare job like Ollie North and G. Gordon Liddy did. RWers luvs them some criminals when they’re on their side.
Cacti
Credit Suisse pleads guilty to abetting criminal income tax evasion.
Did Mitt Romney ever bank with them?
Cacti
@Anoniminous:
If only we disbanded the NSA, the Chinese would never have been forced to such lengths.
No intel gathering, ever!
Kumbayaaaa my lord, Kumbayaaaaaaa!
Ash Can
@rikyrah:
@Mnemosyne:
What would you bet that if de Blasio’s wife were white, she’d be getting all sorts of sympathetic pats on the back from/through the media, along with the whole “There, there, working moms have all been there; you’re so brave for saying it out loud” treatment?
mai naem mobile
@Alex: I knew pat sajak was a rwinger,didn’t know he was a rwnj. Chuck Woolery is a rwnj on the tweeters too. Drew Carey is a rwinger too and Bob Barker too. It’s a game show host thing I guess.
MikeJ
@rikyrah: As much as I would like to see Bob McDonnell convicted, have they actually shown any particular tit for tat? US v Sun-Diamond Growers would seem to imply that it’s required as an element of public corruption. In that case the party giving the gifts was on trial, but Mike Espy had already been cleared. Of course from what I remember the gifts were basketball tickets and the executive had been Espy’s college roommate. I could be wrong on the details but it was certainly much smaller scale than McDonnell.
jibeaux
The inclusion of a raccoon into that gang is…..different.
Poopyman
@The Thin Black Duke: I think we can successfully pitch the talking raccoon concept! Make him a superhero while we’re at it. I’m seeing total cross-product tie-ins here: stuffed toys, video games, cereal … you name it.
Have your people call my people.
WereBear
Kitten update… does this work for everyone?
Mithy in his box
He cried so much when I left I had to box him up and bring him to work… Mr WereBear had just gotten to sleep because his illness is acting up.
My co-workers do not mind.
PurpleGirl
@300baud: I run adblocker and flashblocker and had no problem seeing the trailer in Firefox. (I have to click on a start arrow but that’s no problem.)
Burt Hutt
About 20 years ago as a General Motors engineer I compiled and printed a satire of “words and phrases to avoid”. Anyone working in a large corporation gets a little training fatigue and this was shortly after a training session of appropriate “incident” communication.
This became the backbone of GM’s recent hot water. How legal staff was unable to realize that “rolling sarcophagus” and “words or phrases with biblical connotation” were anything but over-the-top satire is beyond me. To say nothing of finding something created as nothing but a joke.
I left the company a few years later but that list would pop up in the franklin planners of other colleagues. It was a source of perverse and subversive pride.
Burt Hutt
About 20 years ago as a General Motors engineer I compiled and printed a satire of “words and phrases to avoid”. Anyone working in a large corporation gets a little training fatigue and this was shortly after a training session of appropriate “incident” communication.
This became the backbone of GM’s recent hot water. How legal staff was unable to realize that “rolling sarcophagus” and “words or phrases with biblical connotation” were anything but over-the-top satire is beyond me. To say nothing of finding something created as nothing but a joke.
I left the company a few years later but that list would pop up in the franklin planners of other colleagues. It was a source of perverse and subversive pride.
JPL
@Burt Hutt: I guess oh shit would not be appropriate.
Burt Hutt
@Burt Hutt: also, too, FYWP for the double post,
Trollhattan
Hey, a talking raccoon and a green chick, plus explosions, what’s not to like?
Bart
This trailer is currently exclusive to Facebook, AFAIK. Watch it here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=591299944318365
Burt Hutt
@JPL: True.
It’s also ironic that they’re in hot water for telling people NOT to say stupid shit.
By putting examples of stupid shit in print.
Mnemosyne
@Ash Can:
I’m not sure she would be getting a pass if she were white (though she’s definitely getting an extra dose of shit for being black). The Mommy Wars are ugly and expressing any ambivalence or admitting any shortcomings sends up the batshit signal for a pile-on.
ETA: If she were white, she would have more defenders.
PurpleGirl
@WereBear: Aaaawwwwww. Mithy is so cute. (Had no trouble seeing the tweet/picture.)
WereBear
@PurpleGirl: Still working on that belly photo you requested :)
He is composed of an awe-inspiring level of cuteness. Wizardry at work!
Mnemosyne
@SatanicPanic:
The sole sex-related thing that Jesus himself is shown condemning in the Bible? Divorce. Jesus really, really hated divorce. All of the other stuff is hearsay (usually from what Paul claims the Holy Spirit told him since Paul never actually met the Big Guy).
I love pointing that out to holier-than-thou right wingers, especially those who are on their third spouse.
Belafon
@Anoniminous: The hackers are being charged for industrial espionage. The NSA has been doing military and government spying, which I consider a valid function of the government.
SatanicPanic
@Mnemosyne: Paul is the worst thing to ever happen to Christianity
2liberal
re: fermi paradox. The aliens watched Fox news and decided to quarantine this part of the galaxy.
Bill Arnold
Re Fermi paradox, is there some new paper on it, or discussion of it out?
Re the Great Filter, perhaps it is only triggered if a bad sort of strong AI emerges from capitalism/automated greed.
Re. communications, “sufficiently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise”.
Ben Cisco
Kesha Rogers tried to run for office under the Democratic Party banner (TX). See why they said no.
Mnemosyne
@Ben Cisco:
Ah, LaRouchies. We had a LOT of problems with them in Illinois in the 1980s when they managed to hijack the Democratic primary and get their candidates on the ballot.
They are an actual, genuine, full-force cult, not just a political party.
Ben Cisco
@Mnemosyne: You got that right – nucking futs is what they are.
Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity)
Sorry if this has already been posted and discussed, but I reckon it’s worth posting and discussing again, if that’s the case. Frankly, I’d like to see the front-pagers put this up for discussion every damn day this week:
http://courtneymeaker.com/2014/05/11/street-harassment-walking-while-fat-and-writing/
Anoniminous
@Cacti:
Learn something. Specifically, I suggest contemplating the Anchoring Effect.
@Belafon:
The fall out is US companies are no longer competitive in the router, server, and IT services markets, meaning the immediate loss of tens of billions of sales, continuing loss of tens of billions, and moving US IT companies into the second tier of providers in the Cloud Services, considered broadly. The European IT folks I talk to are cancelling contracts and are no longer willing to even consider purchasing US sourced products. The news has, justly or not, led them to the conclusion they cannot trust US products and there are plenty of non-US companies from which to choose and buy.
Cassidy
@Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity): Heaven forbid if said woman becomes a victim of violence and would like a little consideration and accommodation to work past the trauma. The ol’ BJ crowd can just regale her with stories of when they were traumatized and tell her to not be such a wussy!
Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity)
@Cassidy:
Some people would behave that way, yes. I don’t think a majority of the folks here would go down that path.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity):
Your reply would be more convincing if your nym was not currently mocking the idea of trigger warnings.
Just sayin’.
Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity)
@Mnemosyne:
You know, I do sometimes wonder who appointed you as the designated starter of pointless gender fights with other people based on your unique sanctimony about your own perfect understanding of human nature. My nym was a joking response to another commenter on here who had complained that there was a lack of Morzer-related trigger warnings. If you had bothered to read the thread discussing trigger warnings, rather than trying to start another round of bashing all men and starting a flame war just because of your own assumptions about how all men are evil and of course disagree with your perfectly enlightened self, you would have found that I was, in fact, more in favor of trigger warnings than not, although I thought it was a complex thing to do effectively. Maybe, just maybe, you could actually try discussing topics with men on here in some sort of vaguely constructive way, rather than reflexively slamming us as a group. I don’t believe you have any such plan, but I’d like to be pleasantly surprised by you, just for once.
Amir Khalid
It’s way too soon for this movie. Obviously. And the YouTube trailer is all wrong. MH370 was a Boeing 777, not a 747; it certainly wasn’t flying in daylight; MAS cabin crew uniforms are green with batik trim, not pink; and there’s the preposterous suggestion of romantic intrigue among the crew, when no one has the faintest idea what happened on the flight.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity):
I’m not arguing with “all men.” I’m pointing out that your current nym is mocking the very idea of trigger warnings, so it’s a little hypocritical for you to claim to be in favor of them (sometimes, in theory) while mocking trigger warnings with every comment you make.
Cassidy
@Morzer (this is your final trigger warning, do not pass go if you have issues with depictions of Morzers engaging in Morzer-related activity): too late
J R in WV
@Cassidy:
Sometimes the delightful snark get too tangled to see which is snark and which is not.
I like snark; I have no firm opinon on trigger warnings as of yet. Snarky blogosphere remarks, what do they mean?
Bob In Portland
Maybe the fascists will go back to their clubhouses now.
Sir Laffs-a-Lot
Max pix… Moar… Max pix!!!
J R in WV
@Bob In Portland:
Snark, where’s the snark? Not here! No snark here?
richard w crews
I didn’t understand a word of the original post. I read every comment for a clue – still don’t.Mind translating what was meant?
richard w crews
I’m not stupid – IQ in upper 90th percentile. I read BJ every day, amongst lots of other sites. I was completely flummoxed by all the references and subject of original post. Please translate.
Mo MacArbie
I’m undecided on the issue of trigger warnings in academia, but any effort to make Balloon Juice a safe space seems pretty Sisyphean.