Nobody does it like Simone! @Simone_Biles is the first person in history to perform this beam dismount and she NAILED IT. ?? pic.twitter.com/kf0L7GM35F
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) August 10, 2019
Simone Biles in slow motion pic.twitter.com/ztfWBgasYC
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 12, 2019
For this brief moment, let us celebrate the wonder…
Simone Biles wins her sixth U.S. all-around women's gymnastics title, tying the record for most all-time. https://t.co/j1xOSCz3Qv
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 12, 2019
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For the first time, betting markets think Elizabeth Warren is the most likely Democratic nominee pic.twitter.com/lPPn4nlcVK
— Disappointed Moms for Pete (@Kenghazi) August 11, 2019
Cast Your Kernel results through Saturday night. Democratic kernels cast now outnumber Republican ones, which pretty much never happens at the Iowa State Fair pic.twitter.com/PLfIMAtEWt
— Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) August 11, 2019
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And a slightly belated Eid Mubarak! to our Muslim readers…
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
rikyrah
In awe ?, Everytime I watch Simone Biles ???
OzarkHillbilly
A high of 97 today. To the north, folks are presently getting hammered by a very active thunderstorm. Blech.
mrmoshpotato
Fuck the betting markets. Hillary should be allowed to cave their faces in too after she’s done with Chuck Todd’s.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Happy plants in northwest Missouri.
Mary G
I know the Iowa kernel contest is a completely useless straw poll, but I find the Democrats’ lead very satisfying.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Mid nineties here with the heat index over a hundred, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I thought it was going to cool down mid week, but apparently not.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: It’ll cool down here thru the week then go back into the 90s for the wkend.
oldster
Simone Beils, good Lord.
I don’t know nothing about women’s gymnastics, but I can see when someone is jumping twice as high as their own height.
That is astounding. There is not a guy in the entire NBA with that vertical jump — possibly not in absolute terms, and certainly not relative to their own height.
Isn’t she doing something that should get in the Guinness Book? I don’t know what the exact description is — jumping multiples of one’s height? — but I can’t believe anyone else is doing it better.
pluky
@oldster:
To be fair the the NBA types, modern floor exercise mats are sprung (think large low-flex trampoline). Still, as someone who tumbled (many, many moons ago :)), this is just crazy!!!
Baud
@pluky:
NBA players are also much taller. Different physical dynamics. Not linear.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning, me too!
@OzarkHillbilly: we’re supposed to get that same storm this afternoon. Rain has been predicted for the last 18 hours but hasn’t materialized, so I hope this one gets some rain this way. From spring floods to summer drought seems to be the new normal around here.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Did you get any of that nice weather over the weekend? Here, it was 30% humidity and in the low- to mid-80s. Unheard of in August!
JPL
She is amazing.
debbie
Wow on that slo-mo! She exactly hit that mark!
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: The temps were OK, the humidity was thru the roof. Started yesterday morn in the garden picking tomatoes then did the push mower parts of the place. After an hour and a half I was soaking wet with sweat and I hadn’t even begun with the main job for the day, splitting the last of my winter supply of firewood. (for which I borrowed my neighbors splitter, my shoulders just can’t handle swinging a maul these days)
Steeplejack (phone)
@rikyrah:
Good morning. ?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yikes, hope the storms make it down to you to clear out the air.
Tata
After Simone eventually retires, it’s going to be years before the young ones catch up. I can’t think of another time that happened in women’s gymnastics.
Baud
Baud!/Biles! 2020! sounds pretty good.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Simone is amazing.
I like thunderstorms. I hope we do have one this afternoon.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: We’ve got a cold front coming thru tomorrow morn.
OzarkHillbilly
I know everybody hates Jake Tapper but this was a start:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….. gasp….. wheeze….
Funny thing for the head of a law enforcement organization to say he doesn’t know anyone in law enforcement, that in fact he doesn’t even know himself. Tapper should have just laughed in his face.
delk
Good morning everyone!
Also during that competition, Biles become the first person in history to land a double-twisting double somersault beam dismount. if she performs and lands it at an International Competition the move will be named after her.
Kay
What happened after the last round of school shootings was, Republicans refused to even consider any gun regulation of any any kind so the United States instead decided to pour billions into the NRA’s agenda for “school safety”:
So what we’re doing is conducting a huge experiment on public school students- if we deliberately ignore gun regulation (which we are forbidden to have in the United States) and pour billions of dollars into the one “solution” conservatives will accept (schools bristling with expensive security systems) will that reduce gun violence?
Their approach is being tried, at huge expense to the public. Gun regulation is not being tried along with it or instead of it, because they refuse any and all gun regulation. So we are testing the conservative solution to gun violence, right now, in the US, on school children. This should be raised after the next shooting when they all fan out to insist we haven’t tried their solutions. Yes, you have and you’re all paying for it.
Kay
Regulating guns properly would be a hell of a lot cheaper than securing every public space against gun nuts. This is insane. To see the problem as insecure BUILDINGS is to treat gun violence as a natural disaster- a hurricane or an earthquake or a tornado. This tiny subset of people are so powerful, they so dominate our lives, that we are not even permitted to TRY the much cheaper and much more logical step of regulating their weapons. Instead we’ll literally lock down everything else. At HUGE expense and for schools that’s money that could be going to instruction- classes- or field trips or athletics or extracurriculars or tutoring- things that improve students lives. Instead we’re going to pour billions into just keeping them alive.
Why? Because a tiny subset of fanatics and the politicians they bought will not allow us to try anything else.
Immanentize
@Kay:
I really love this line of thinking you are pursuing. What does the failure of gun control cost the country in policy stand-ins?
If I had half a brain these days and any time to use it, I would be working on a well researched article on the topic. As it is, I am just really appreciating your insights. Thank you.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: But their “solution” is bound to fail. Surely they know that. Or have they convinced themselves otherwise? With Rs, it’s cosplay all the way down.
Kay
@Immanentize:
I’m on a school committee and there are already thousands of school security contractors. Everything from facial recognition to survelliance to crackpot scammers promoting ways to identify troubled students through ridiculous online questionaires they threw together to get a piece of the pie the gun lobby threw them. It’s a feeding frenzy. We’ll waste billions on this over the next ten years.
We now will have a whole new group of government contractors who have a direct financial interest in lobbying against gun regulation. Their business depends on a lack of gun regulation. They are, as you say, “stand-ins” for gun regulation.
sdhays
@Dorothy A. Winsor: As Thomas Jefferson said, the Tree of Liberty needs to be regularly watered with random acts of domestic terrorist violence. (Or so they say.)
But it’s all good. It’s always someone else’s kids in the closed casket.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s stupid, Kay. The obvious solution is to give every child bullet proof vests. But that’s too socialist for our conservative friends.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I don’t know if they believe it. Good salespeople seem to believe what they’re selling, so who knows?
But we’re right now conducting a huge and expensive experiment in conservative “solutions” to gun violence and we aren’t trying any of the liberal solutions, so we can no longer be told we haven’t “tried” their hugely expensive and wasteful “security” bleating. This is a lavishly funded experiment in Right wing ideas for shooting prevention. Sandy Hook was a well funded public school. It HAD top notch security systems. He busted through all of them, because he was carrying a godammned arsenal on his back and he was on a suicide mission.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
Impossible, as there is a sad lack of research on the topic.
Kay
@Baud:
They have this kind of gallows humor, the students. It makes me sad. It’s so pretend-sophisticated for 12 year olds. This is what we did to them- we told them over and over we couldn’t help them – that we are too corrupt and bone-headed stupid to do anything real for them so instead we’ll conduct these ridiculous drills and they just had to suck it up. So they do. They pretend it’s normal. Of course they don’t respect us. We’re clowns. We’re bad and reckless and silly guardians. They can’t rely on us.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @Kay: They believe it, if by “they” you mean the suckers who continually send money to the various “a gun in every household” lobbying groups.
Baud
@Kay:
Part of the plan. Cynicism leads to conservativism. The left thinks it can win the cynacism game, but the right is better at it.
Villago Delenda Est
Saw something on my smart phone from (gag) Politico where some fundigelicals are upset with Donald.
Not about his racism, not about his cheating on Melania, not about his intentional cruelty, not about his endless grifting, not about his taking a shit on the environment, not about his endless mendacity, not about his total disregard for the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, but for his language.
You see, Donald uses “goddamn” a lot.
It causes them to wince, but Jerry Falwell Jr. doesn’t see this as a deal breaker.
They’re all going to fuckin’ Hell. Every last Donald supporting fundigelical.
hueyplong
@Villago Delenda Est: The last 3 years it has been helpful to develop a belief in hell.
Either that or tumbrels.
Many here have shown a talent for multitasking on this topic.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I blogged about how I decide whether to post a review of what I’m reading.What if I don’t like it? Am I willing to hurt the other writer? Am I willing to lie?
gene108
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Has a conservative solution to anything actually ever succeeded?
They have shallow, poorly thought out, talking points and try to implement them as policy.
Pretty much everything conservatives have tried, as policy, over the last 25 years hasn’t worked.
The problem is we don’t have our own news networks to constantly remind people about this 24/7. Honestly, if Steyer wants to help Democrats, he should look into buying media outlets and using them to hammer home the TRUTH that Republican policies always fail at their stated purpose. Of course, their actual purpose of screwing minorities and the poor succeeds, but that’s not what they are officially selling.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Love the way you’ve framed it: as an expensive experiment to avoid doing the obvious. So true and easy to understand.
It has been fascinating — and possibly instructive nationally — to watch how NRA-branded politicians in Florida have dealt with the issue post-Parkland. Then, as now, we have a wingnut majority in the legislature and a Republican governor.
After Parkland, they shocked everyone by passing some minimal, commonsense restrictions, e.g., red-flag law and raising the age for gun purchases to 21. This over the howling objections of the very powerful NRA operative here, who also threatened to fund primaries against individual Republican lawmakers who strayed from the NRA line.
Last I checked, the red-flag law had been used about 2500 times, saving who knows how many lives. I haven’t seen any data on whether the overall gun homicide rate is down.
As a sop to the NRA, the GOP ruling coalition created a school guardian program to provide training to allow teachers and other school employees to carry guns on campus. Good guys with guns, right? You’d think it would be highly popular, particularly in rural counties. The FL DOE set aside something like $70M to fund it.
So few districts signed up during the program application period that the current wingnut governor signed an executive order to extend the application period a few months ago, practically browbeating school districts to come get the money.
It’s like you said — they know this is a bad idea, even if they won’t admit it. Common sense tells them one thing, the NRA another.
My county district is in the program, and it will be operational for the first time when school opens next week. Getting the program up to speed has been a giant clusterfuck that has played out in the local newspaper, complete with infighting between the sheriff’s office and the school. I don’t think anyone feels safer.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: The part that could be researched in law are all the work-aroind laws we have passed instead of regulating firearms
Michael Cain
Re Biles… As a friend remarked, for some people it seems that gravity is just a suggestion.
rikyrah
@Kay:
truth truth truth truth
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Ohio doesn’t have county districts, so we have (usually) one big system and then a bunch of tiny ones surrounding it. I’m in the “city” system- the largest- although it’s relative. It’s a tiny city. One of the rural districts did the armed teachers thing, and that was just treated as sort of bewildering and sad in school circles because it’s has such a low income cohort of students that this is literally the last thing they should be spending money on. Their kids need so much. They need intervention and tutoring and health care and extended school hours. They need this just to get them to the point where they will graduate. It seems criminal to put anything toward some wingnut battlefield scenario.
Gin & Tonic
The newspaper of record, everyone: “The officials have said nothing publicly about what is possibly one of the worst nuclear accidents in Russia since Chernobyl.”
Chernobyl is not in Russia. Not now, not in 1986.
You get an “F” on your geography quiz, David Sanger.
Kattails
Good morning everyone, stopped by on my way out the door… nice here, 70’s and dry for now.
Simone Biles: I watched that slow-motion several times, and she doesn’t even do a deep-knee squat to launch her into the air, just her toes. Sprung mat or no, it’s still awesome. Then the tumbles. I can’t comprehend how she does it, she has to get her feet over her head, keep everything in some kind of control, get her body to twist three times. How does she know where she is relative to anything in order to do those spins and get her feet back underneath her in time to not land on her head? You can see the force her legs are absorbing when she hits the mat.
Same with the balance beam dismount. Does back cartwheels on a stick of wood 3 inches wide, has to hit the end exactly right, launch far enough out and up to both do the twists and not brain herself on the beam coming down. How the hell do you even begin to practice that and get your brain to instruct your body how to do it? I’m thrilled if I catch myself if I trip on a step.
@Kay: screen shot this, the argument is perfect. If I find time to write to the local editor would you mind if I borrow the premise as part of my own points?
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Wishing Little Imma positive thoughts during his recovery :)
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
We had this delightful thing happen at one of the gun nut “security!” forums. Some Right wing grifter had wandered into town to sell his bullshit “active shooter program” to the county. So they’re fawning all over him because he’s supposedly a “combat veteran”. We have an eagle-eyed local reporter who is a veteran and something didn’t smell right to him, so he checked. All bullshit. Not a veteran at all, let alone a “combat veteran”. They all looked like idiots.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are bringing the stone cold truth this AM.
Amen.
rikyrah
@Villago Delenda Est:
Can you believe that muthaphuckin’ shyt?
Ridiculous.
They are COMPLETE FRAUDS
Immanentize
@rikyrah: Thank you. It has been rough going the last couple of days. He is improving but at a rate too frustrating for him so he perceives himself regressing. He made the hardest decision of his not so long life yesterday — he decided to defer college for a year. He felt a great relief, and he said so, but I think that is impacting his sense that he is not progressing.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I have been wondering this..
who is providing the INSURANCE in all of this?
cause, they have to have INSURANCE – the school district, correct?
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
All the parts could be researched, what is lacking is the data needed to evaluate the research.
Note, I am reading an article right now on the state of the science on gun violence. In the article the author/s state that while we do have limited but incomplete data on gun homicides and suicides, we have NO data, as in zero, nada, zilch, on injuries from guns. Considering the fact that the vast majority of victims are likely to survive, in no doubt a diminished physical state, that is a huge data hole to try and write a research paper around.
Kay
@Kattails:
Not at all. Please do. I think it’s important to remind people that we are already paying for conservative “solutions” to gun violence. Their “ideas” are in place at the federal level, thanks to Donald Trump, his low quality executive hires and Congress.
If the carnage continues they need to be called out on it. Why isn’t it working? Are we permitted to try something else? If not, why not?
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Can’t offer much except sympathy from afar, but after major surgery it’s not all linear. I’m far older than he is, but thought I was in basically pretty good shape, yet still I went through some pretty dark periods after mine, where I convinced myself I’d be a cripple for the rest of my life. It worked out fine, but I also had to abandon something I’d really been planning on just because it was medically unrealistic. Things will work out.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: Not necessarily. It really depends on the school district and municipality that runs it. Some are what’s called “self-insured” for some risks. Which means the taxpayers are on the hook.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
I have to admit that I was sort of praying that he’d delay it.
I didn’t have a physical trauma like Little Imma, but, I had an emotional trauma only about a year older than him. I ‘pushed’ through and went back to school, and, to be honest, doing it, and not taking the time off is one of the few regrets that I have to this day. He will be so much stronger this time, next year.
Tell him, Malia Obama took a ‘gap’ year, and that’s great company to be in.
As someone older, he’s not regressing. He’s taking the time to get to learn his new body, and work with it. Besides, there are things he can do, once he gets on his feet, and into his new routine. I am certain that a smart, bright young man like Little Imma will find something worthwhile to occupy his time. If, at the very least, volunteering with younger kids who are also undergoing medical emergencies that change their lives, and force them into a new normal.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kattails:
It’s actually 4 inches wide, which speaking as someone who spent a lifetime walking on 2×4 walls (and falling once when my foot got entangled in a cord) is still plenty narrow and I can not imagine doing the things gymnasts do on them.
Kay
Just to add insult to injury, the manly-men of the Right hand-waved toward “mental health” in schools but didn’t actually provide any real funding for that aspect. It’s another fucking lie. There are tens of thousands of school districts in the US. Providing ten million in federal funding is bullshit. It’s phony. It’s a lie. The vast bulk of this funding is going to go to security systems, because all of these paid consultants are selling PRODUCT. They’ll be tracking those kids like they’re the criminals and if they’re doing it in schools they’ll be doing it everywhere.
Because gun nuts refuse any regulation we are ALL going to be regulated. And that is guaranteed to be abused. They don’t support “freedom”. They’re enthusiastically backing creating a country that is bristling with regulation- just none that goes anywhere near their fetish object.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
I am glad to hear that and saddened by the necessity of it.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Excellent question. I don’t know the answer.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Wise decision. Feel in my bones it will turn out to be a year of wonderment.
To Immp:
You may be minus a stomach but boy you’ve sure got guts aplenty.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: @OzarkHillbilly:
I know it is the right decision. And have felt so all along, but I have been fighting with whoever needed to be fought to maximize his chances that he could make it this year. In the end, he realized, like rikyrah, that he could go, but he would need various accomodations to do so. And he would probably have to use a wheeled book bag for this computer and books. That was a bridge too far!
OzarkHillbilly
Burglary Suspects Foiled by Meddling Comic Book Store Owner
Some fun, and good, news for a Monday morn.
rikyrah
@Kay:
No, they don’t support freedom in the least.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
Heh, so uncool!
Immanentize
@NotMax:
That is a great line and I will share it with him at the most appropriate moment. When he is not feeling too miserable to hear it.
Immanentize
By the way, jackals, has anyone heard from Eric re: Emma? I’ve been here so sporadically I miss so much….
JPL
@Immanentize: That had to be a difficult decision for him to make, and I’m sure with your help this year will be one of enlightenment for both of you. hugs
Spanky
@rikyrah:
Perfectly put. I’ll also add that he may feel up to a spring semester at the local community college just to get back in the practice of studying. And the credits might hopefully transfer, too.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Exacaticatacally
Immanentize
@Spanky:
He can take classes at the Uni. where I teach for free. Not that he will want to be know as being related….
rikyrah
@Spanky:
That’s true. And, the community college – suggest that he take something that he’d NEVER regularly take.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I love that losing his stomach is just something that happened (happens to people all the time, right?) but Dawg forbid anybody see him making allowances for the fact.
rikyrah
Yes???
I just learned Shirley Chisholm was accused of playing “vaginal politics” in 1972. They’ve been using the same insult for 50 years.
I refuse to take it as an insult. I’m a vagina voter who uses vaginal politics. Cause penis politics sure hasn’t gotten us anywhere
— Mia Brett (@QueenMab87) August 11, 2019
Miss Bianca
@Kay: I am copying and pasting your insights into a text document. I am going to be reporting in our local paper soon, so I probably can’t include them in a letter to the editor, but I am hoping to get to do a guest editorial some day, and I plan to quote you – dare I say it? – liberally.
Keep on keepin’ on, Kay. Your points about how conservative “solutions” work to keep us MORE regulated and LESS safe are just brilliant.
Ruckus
@Kay:
It is after all the very least they can do. And that is always the motto of the republican party, always the least they can do for anyone else. And yes I’m going there, selfish cocksuckers.
There is always a republican payoff anywhere there are asinine laws involved. I’d bet that most of the approved magnetic detectors are made by republican owned companies as are the guard companies. This one of course also has the NRA involved. Cause and effect.
patrick II
@Baud:
Nate Robinson is 5’7″ and won the NBA dunking contest twice. I will grant you not as short as Simone, but still pretty good. He blocked 7’6″ Yao Ming’s jumpshot once. I will grant you he isn’t Simultaneously doing double back flip double twist though.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
There is no actual hell. It’s only taken 2000+ yrs for them to figure it out. So they are creating one here on earth because religion forbid that life should be reasonable and not full of pain, otherwise there is no need for religion, which is supposed to give hope that life after will be better than life during. Lead in the water? Can’t fix that, life will be better. War? Have to have those or life will be better! Poverty and hunger? Can’t fix that, life will be better. The rich have all the fun and none of the penalties? Of course, have to show you why you will be better off after you are dead.
No, I’m not a believer, why do you ask?
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I’m going to be a bit cynical here and say that the first time a teacher or security guard or school official who shoots someone accidentally when some asswipe brings a gun(s) to school, there will be an outcry. But the republicans and the NRA will have an excuse and blame anyone, everyone, anything, everything but themselves. And unfortunately we know that someone will be shot, there is just too much overwhelming evidence that more guns cause more deaths, never, ever less, even in the hands of highly trained people. Give people a tool and sooner or later they will find a use for it. Like monkeys figuring out that flinging poop is a good defensive, and offensive use of an every day, always available thing.
catclub
@Tata:
Probably sooner than you think.
This sounds like what was said when Tiger Woods won the PGA champ(?) by 15 strokes or so.
They caught up.
as to jumping height, I doubt she could win a track and field high jump competition, but maybe she could!
I also thought that the world height jumping record is kind of a tie between humans and some insect.
JAFD
@Immanentize Am sending some good energy his way (yeah, ‘thoughts and pray.rs’ too!) Tell him that recovering from major surgery is _WORK_, takes Energy, just because it’s not ‘something you Do’, doesn’t mean it ain’t fulltime job.
(Been 10 months since my heart attack, not quite 100% yet, but can see myself getting there. (But I’m Old…))
I took 8 years between by high school diploma nad my BA, would have been better off if I’d had ‘gap year’ to start (but they had draft in those days…),
Anyway, remind him of what The Coach said when they showed him The Robot Quarterback;
“This, too, shall pass.”
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
Worth repeating. Unfortunately.
bjacques
@Immanentize: The Immp just needs to get well and the Owls will be ready to greet him next year.
Simone is because nobody living has seen Nijinsky’s famous leaps.
Ruckus
@Kay:
So that’s why they seem to like Russia. They want controlled life. They don’t want anyone to be able to make decisions, like choosing how they present themselves to the world or thinking for themselves, or not tithing to the church (that last one may be the big one). They want someone to tell them what to do, to think, to be…. Basically they don’t want to live, the want to exist for a time and then poof, get their reward. Surprise! It doesn’t work that way. Hell it even says that in their book. And what they really don’t want is to be shown that they are wrong, because then they will be wrong in everything. They are all in or nothing. So they make excuses that cover, we can’t control life, and outlawing guns will control life and that can’t be. They use the concept that we were able to form the country because we had guns, therefor we need guns. Hey I never said it would make sense, be logical or realistic.
KSinMA
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s a funny story–thanks!
I also followed the link at the bottom to the story from Aug. 9 about the crooked ex-St. Louis County Executive who was sentenced to prison time. His lawyer said, “I have no doubt he will continue to be successful in his next endeavor.” !
Philbert
The world record high jump is 8.046 feet. Something for Simone to break in her spare time after retiring. Soft landing too!
Chris Johnson
@OzarkHillbilly:
So… Russia? Remember that’s pretty well documented, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.
Jerzy Russian
@catclub:
I think that was the US Open at Pebble Beach.