Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Come on, man.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

No Justins, No Peace

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: In America, Even Kermit Has An Embarrassing Backstory

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: In America, Even Kermit Has An Embarrassing Backstory

by | 205 Comments

This post is in: , ,

And yet, per the Washington Post:

In June 1992, an unusual complaint was filed with the New York City Police Department. Jane Henson, widow of Muppet master Jim Henson, had allegedly thrown a punch while attending a trademark and licensing convention.

“One of my employees was physically attacked by Mrs. Henson,” a marketing executive named John T. Brady told the New York Times. “With her fist, she knocked her across the booth.”

What had so enraged Jane Henson, whose 53-year-old husband had died of pneumonia two years earlier? Well, it all goes back to some of the couple’s earliest creations: a pair of Muppets named Wilkins and Wontkins.

The two Muppets were used in ads for Wilkins Coffee, a firm founded in 1899 by John H. Wilkins Sr., who sold coffee, tea and spices at the corner of 14th and Wallach streets NW…

… [Henson’s] Muppets made their debut as part of a WRC show called “Afternoon” that featured Willard Scott and Mac McGarry as co-hosts. But it was on an evening show called “Sam and Friends” that Henson — assisted by his future wife, then-Jane Nebel — really came into his own. Making its debut was a character fashioned from an old felt coat of Henson’s mother: Kermit.

“Sam and Friends” was produced in a studio in the Sheraton Park Hotel. The show’s success enabled Henson to buy himself a white Ford Thunderbird. The show also caught the eye of Helen Ver Standig, who handled advertising for Wilkins Coffee. In 1957, she approached Henson and persuaded him to make ads for the company. One catch: The ads would be just eight seconds.

If anything, that focused Henson’s creativity. The agreeable Wilkins will drink Wilkins coffee, but when offered a cup, the grumpy Wontkins won’t. And because he won’t, Wontkins is punished in all sorts of creatively gruesome ways: shot with a cannon, thrown from a tree, run over by a train…

Reader Interactions

205Comments

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    The dates in that story make me crazy. It’s simply not possible that Jim Henson has been gone almost 30 years.

    [*wanders off, whistling and hands in pockets, Wikipediaward*]

    Damn! He died in May 1990! This entire timeline is nuts.

  4. 4.

    West of the Rockies

    Oh, and I hate, no, loathe, no detest Elmo and his first-person-speaking, laughing-at-his-own-jokes red ass.

  5. 5.

    Quaker in a Basement

    OK, but what’s the end of the story? Why did Mrs. Henson punch someone out? The rest of the story is behind the WaPo paywall.

  6. 6.

    Matt McIrvin

    Jane’s story strikes me as such an infuriating example of opportunity cost from systemic sexism. Co-creator of the Muppets, married Jim Henson because they loved the art of puppetry so much and worked great as a team… and when they had kids, she immediately quit to raise them, as you do. And the Muppet team was overwhelmingly male from then on (does it show in the product? Oh yes it does), though Jane did keep making leadership decisions.

  7. 7.

    sab

    @SiubhanDuinne: Ozark Hillbilly. Take health concerns seriously. I am so tired of good men dying while they try to trouper or trooper through illness. My sisters in law are dealing with this idiotic behavior. Suddenly I am grateful for my guy who is tough against anything except his own bad health.

  8. 8.

    Nicole

    @Quaker in a Basement: The coffee company was advertising themselves in connection with the “original Muppets” and as Jane Henson was protective of her late estranged husband’s legacy, she got upset. (I have a WaPo subscription so I read the rest)

  9. 9.

    randy khan

    @Quaker in a Basement:

    The coffee company decided to try trademark licensing after the coffee business started doing badly, and the company decided to license the two characters that Henson had created.  They marketed them at some licensing convention as the original Muppets, which is what ticked her off, so she punched someone in the company’s booth.  This was a couple of year after Henson had died.

    Also, there was a lawsuit over the use of the puppets by the coffee company, and the settlement gave the rights to Henson’s business.

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    Interesting. Thanks.

    In other news, CalculatedRiskBlog:

    CR Note: These lower population estimates are important for projections of economic growth and housing. I mentioned this slowdown in growth earlier this month in Is the Future still Bright?

    From housing economist Tom Lawler: US Population Growth Slowed Again in 2019

    Yesterday the Census Bureau released its “Vintage 2019” estimates of the US resident population, which showed that population growth in 2019 was the slowest (in numbers) since 1942 and the slowest in percentage growth since 1918. According to these estimates, the US resident population on July 1, 2019 was 328,239,523, just 1,552,022 (or 0.475%) higher than the downwardly-revised population estimate for July 1, 2018. 2009 [sic, should be 2019] was the third consecutive year that US population growth slowed significantly, reflecting lower births, higher deaths, and lower net international migration.

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    I wonder what happened in the last 3 years… :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  13. 13.

    sab

    @Immanentize: Yes you can die if you are under seventy. Also if you are under forty. A kid in Pittsburgh  ( same last name as me) died last flu season in his his early twenties. Sick men! Yes you maybe can die. Get medical attention.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Alleged Real Estate Genius Wants World To Know: Nancy Pelosi Has Long-Term, No-Rent Lease On His Bat-Infested Belfry

    “They produced no case so now she doesn’t want to go to the Senate. She’s all lies. Most overrated person I know!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Scott:

    I think the main culprit in our slowing population growth is income inequality.  Young people aren’t having as many kids these days because kids are too expensive.  If the family needs two incomes to make ends meet, they can’t afford to have one parent stay at home to look after the kids, and they also can’t afford childcare while they’re both at work.  If we expect people to have kids, we need to make sure they’re paid enough to afford it.

  20. 20.

    sab

    @sab

     

    @Immanentize: Somehow this got tagged to you. I am a luddite.

    I am so sorry to have my comment tagged to your name. I certainly did not mean to cause you more pain today of all days.

  22. 22.

    Immanentize

    @sab: I think that was meant for someone else?  I just put up a song.

     

    Ahh, I see you caught it.  I do that a lot myself.  Somehow hit the person above the one I intend to reply to.

    No fretting allowed about that!

  25. 25.

    JPL

    Little Grand Imp loves Rainbow Connection as do I, since he’ll normally fall asleep before the song finishes.   For his first birthday in February he’ll have a cake with a rainbow on it.

  26. 26.

    PST

    @prostratedragon: Death from infection disease among people in their prime is becoming more common and will only get worse. There is a scary article from the Christmas New York Times, Crisis Looms in Antibiotics as Drug Makers Go Bankrupt, about how big pharma is not interested in new antibiotics and the little companies who are can’t stay in business. In my work as a malpractice defense lawyer, I have in the last five years seen more cases of multiple amputation (often all four limbs) due to sepsis than in all the decades before. That too is a consequence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Jim Henson was ahead of his time.

  28. 28.

    JPL

    @Immanentize: That was good.   At first I thought it was going to be the Zou Bisou song that once on Mad Men.

    Happy New Year to you and little immp.   I imagine that both of you want this year to be over.

  30. 30.

    Ascap_scab

    Corry Lewandowski quits Senate bid before officially entering.

    After much consideration I have decided to forgo a campaign for the US Senate. While taking on a career politician from the Washington swamp is a tall order, I am certain I would have won. My priorities remain my family and ensuring that
    @realDonaldTrump is re-elected POTUS

    Personally, I have decided not to play LeBron James in one-on-one basketball even though everyone knows I would humiliate him into early retirement.

    It’s the same reason I chose not to obliterate Tiger Woods at The Masters.

  31. 31.

    JDM

    Mid-1970s a friend’s girlfriend worked at the tennis club in Banksville, NY, near the Connecticut border.  She’d let us play for free on empty courts (if I remember right, 7:00 am start times were several thou a year plus membership).  One day we were sitting down behind the counter overhearing two customers talking about time-shares in Vermont as tax shelters (popular tax shelter then).  Looked up and one of the two guys was Jim Henson; I hadn’t realized that in those pre-muppet movie days he was making so much money.

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    @Another Scott:

    I think the main culprit in our slowing population growth is income inequality.  Young people aren’t having as many kids these days because kids are too expensive.  If the family needs two incomes to make ends meet, they can’t afford to have one parent stay at home to look after the kids, and they also can’t afford childcare while they’re both at work.  If we expect people to have kids, we need to make sure they’re paid enough to afford it.

    I remember when is was popular to advocate for zero population growth.

    I think a number of industrialized countries are dealing with slowing population growth, though the dynamics in the various countries may differ somewhat.  Japan used to be the most notable example often cited.

     

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    Wonkette does a bit of year-in-review:

    […]
    A Quick Foray Back to the Past

    Remember Terri Schiavo? She was the Florida woman in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, whose husband, Michael, decided after eight of those years that she was not coming back. He requested her feeding tube be removed. The courts agreed and the Supreme Court declined to take the case. Her parents disagreed strenuously. The legislature passed a law allowing the governor to intervene in private family medical decisions. Jeb Bush, then Florida governor, ordered her feeding tube reinserted. Since it wasn’t going their way in the state supreme court, Bush’s brother the president worked with the Senate to transfer her case to federal courts. People were literally climbing over the walls of the hospice where Schiavo lay; they had to shut down the local elementary school. It was a Florida shitshow as only a Florida shitshow (see Gonzalez, Elian) can be.

    The lawyer representing Schiavo’s parents was Pamela Campbell, who would be appointed judge by Jeb Bush after the Schiavo case. She went on to preside over the Hulk Hogan Gawker case that eventually bankrupted the outlet, because every one of these rightwing fuckers pops up again and again like a malevolent Forrest Gump.

    And that’s all I have to say about that.

    […]

    It’s almost like there’s a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy or something…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    Marcopolo

    Just wished y’all a good NYE down below; thought I’d repeat it here. Also, everyone go see Little Women & marvel at the acting chops of Saoirse Ronan & Florence Pugh—what a great pair!

    Btw, wasn’t the Schiavo case the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused our blog host’s final parting of ways from the R party?

    I’m off, everyone play nice (or not). I won’t be here so I don’t care.

  39. 39.

    opiejeanne

    @Marcopolo:  I thought it had something to do with Palin, but I don’t remember.  What I do remember was a little of his rant, about how he just couldn’t do this any more.

  40. 40.

    zhena gogolia

    @Marcopolo:

    I posted my review of Little Women twice the other day and nobody was interested. I loved the acting, music, cinematography, and costumes. I’m sick of the story but she changed it up by mixing up the time frame so I wasn’t bored.

  42. 42.

    raven

    @sab: I hit the weather channel for my Chicago trip tomorrow and see a giant “Flu Alert”! I had my old people shot and I’m starting to feel better after my pre-Christmas bout of URI but I have no choice but to go.

  43. 43.

    The Golux

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Henson was only 53. Insanely young.

    A year older than Roy Orbison was when he died.

    (A fact that flabbergasted me when I learned of it.  I thought he was pushing 70, at least.)

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    I’ve told this story here before, but in the last 3 years, 11 people I knew personally, have died. Oldest- 67. Youngest- 27. My cousin was 6 months old when he went, grandfather and his daughter both passed in their 40s. Any age, any time.

  45. 45.

    JPL

    Trump is tweeting that his storming of the embassy was better than Benghazi.   Why not end 2019 with trump continuing to embarrass us.

  47. 47.

    HinTN

    In the absence of any calendar information,  or having missed that content, I went to Cafepress and looked at the Pets of Balloon Juice 2019 calendar. The months were labeled 2020 so I bought two. They arrived today. They are indeed the months of 2020 with the pictures from 2019, allowing me to contribute more to MARC when the time is ripe AND have calendars for the New Year. Celebrate, y’all. It’s great to be associated with this joint.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Marcopolo: I had remembered that it was Schiavo (and that’s one of the reasons why I posted that excerpt), but he actually said it was something else that made him change his registration. (October 31, 2007):

    I had meant to re-register independent (or as it is known here in West Virginia, “No Party Affiliation”) for the past two weeks after I had finally had enough of the bullshit during the Graeme Frost escapade, but never got around to it (and it really was not that big of a deal, I had made the mental commitment, which is what matters). I had to pick up a registered letter for an unrelated issue, so I went to the Court House to the Voter Registration Office.

    […]

    (Schiavo’s official date of death was March 31, 2005.)

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My wife is currently very happily preparing the broth for tomorrow’s seafood paella for which she defrosted one of our chickens for the breasts. I had the bright idea that I might take the thighs and legs and make dinner for tonight. Yeah, right. She is spread all over the kitchen and I might be able to actually enter come 7;30/8 o’clock. If I’m lucky.

  52. 52.

    debbie

    @Another Scott:

    My youngest brother was on the verge of giving up on the Republicans while Schiavo was playing out. He clung on long enough to vote for Trump, though. //

  54. 54.

    JPL

    @OzarkHillbilly: Do you have an outdoor grill?   Even when we lived in IL, we cooked outdoors in the winter.     you can do it.

    Also if you are still hacking Thurs. call the dr.    just sayin

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Another Scott:

    That’s funny because

    A Clinton campaign ad says one of her accomplishments was “winning health care for 8 million children.”

     

    That statement is largely accurate. Clinton was key to creating the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage for 8 million children. 

    I omitted the bullshit part of poltiFact’s analysis.

     

    ETA: link

    https://www.politifact.com/colorado/statements/2016/feb/17/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-wrong-sanders-claim/

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    BBC News:

    US radio host and prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $100,000 (£76,000) in legal fees and court costs in a defamation case against him.

    The case has been brought by the father of a child killed in the Sandy Hook mass school shooting in 2012.

    Mr Jones has long claimed on his show and Infowars site that the attack was “completely fake” and a “giant hoax”.

    Twenty children – all under the age of 10 – and six adults were killed.

    Sandy Hook parents sue for defamation
    School shooting: How it happened

    In a 20 December ruling, Judge Scott Jenkins of Travis County District Court in Texas said Mr Jones and his lawyer had intentionally disregarded an October court order to produce witnesses and other materials to the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Neil Heslin, US media report.

    Mr Heslin’s son, six-year-old Jesse Lewis, was killed in the shooting.

    The judge said their failure to co-operate “should be treated as contempt of court”. In two separate orders issued the same day, the judge told Mr Jones to pay $65,825 and $34,323 in lawyer fees incurred by Mr Heslin.

    Added to an earlier October order against Infowars, Mr Jones and Infowars have been ordered to pay $126,023.80 over the case, even before it reaches trial, reports say.

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    Good, good. Throw the book at them. This crap isn’t going to stop until there are consequences that make them stop.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    Fair Economist

    @Roger Moore:

     

    I think the main culprit in our slowing population growth is income inequality

    All over the world, in places with low birth rates like Europe and East Asia, if you ask people why they are having few children, the answer is overwhelmingly “because it’s too expensive”. Inequality is certainly a part of that.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Kinda what I had in mind. Did not know your neighbor died. Is this the one who got naked?

    @JPL: I grill all year round. Unfortunately I can’t even get into the kitchen to cut, clean, and rub the meat. Never mind the Brussel’s Sprouts or potatoes. We actually have a fair sized kitchen (12’x10′) but one person really fill’s it up.

    It’s OK, that chicken will be waiting come Thursday.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    I remember when is was popular to advocate for zero population growth.

    Zero population growth is a good long-term global goal.  Actually, we should probably be targeting a population that’s somewhat lower than ours today, since we’re already overpopulated.  The problem is transitioning from a growing population to a shrinking one without creating a nasty demographic gap.

    We obviously don’t want to move to a shrinking population by raising the death rate, so the only way of doing it is by reducing the birth rate.  But shrinking the birth rate has a long-term effect of changing the age distribution so the population skews older.  If you shrink the birth rate too much, you can wind up with an inverted population distribution, where there are way more old people than young ones.  Japan is very worried about this right now, and so is China.  I’d really rather we not create that kind of problem for ourselves, which means we should try to rein in population growth more gradually.

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    @debbie: If the BBC story is accurate, the trial trial hasn’t started yet.  These are just fines for pissing off the judge.  The jury verdict is yet to come…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Fair Economist: Historically, the poorer a population is, the more children they have. The more disposable income available, the less children they have. Not to say you are wrong, but there is a very muddy middle.

  65. 65.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yep, heart attack at 51. We’re doing what we can to help his widow, she’s worked at the university library for years and I know she doesn’t make much dough. The house is really in bad shape with holes in the roof and soffits, rotted window sills and generally neglected all over. He had a weird mix of a membrane on the flat part, metal on the front porch and regular shingles on the back of the roof. I didn’t realize the shingles on the back were new until I was up on my roof with my gutter dudes yesterday. Somehow he wad patch work done but left the front totally trashed.

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Time gets us all. Hopefully you and others can help his widow thru the transition.

    My neighbor, who’s husband died 3 years ago, has lately been emphasizing how much she enjoys our weekly visits. Makes me think I need to visit more. Maybe invite her over for dinner once every week or 2. I think it’s because our only other “neighbor” (Ray is actually an absentee landowner but he was visiting her at least once a week and helping her with stuff as I do) had triple bypass and is recovering.

  77. 77.

    sab

    @joel hanes: Immigrants are all alive. The question is do they live here, where they chose to live, or there, where they left?

    I want them here. They want to be here.They worked hard to get here.

    If you are recommending that immigrants die to alleviate overpopulation, then I think you are despicable.I don’t think you recommended that.

    But what to do with them? We have room, and the need for them.

    Why  is this even under discussion? Kill your dying community because you are too racist to accept these new people who want to live amongst you.

  81. 81.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    I haven’t done it recently but I used to do a Pilates tape because it’s good for my core. I’ve never done a class.

     

    ETA: Guys will do anything if there’s a girl involved.

     

    ETA 2: what OH said.

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Scott:

    These are just fines for pissing off the judge.

    Not just pissing off the judge: refusing to cooperate in the judicial process.  Ignoring a court order to make witnesses and documents available during discovery is a very serious matter.  If he continues to ignore the orders, he could wind up in jail, or the judge could just tell the jury they can assume his failure to produce the documents is a sign they are bad for the case.  Judges hate to do the latter, but it seems as if Jones is intent on forcing the issue.

  84. 84.

    debbie

    Trump and his damn farm baillouts.

    Also, the payments are quite generous. According to studies by several independent economists, the USDA is paying farmers roughly twice as much as the actual harm that they suffered from the trade war. And the payments are based on production; the bigger the farm, the bigger the payments. Thousands of farmers got more than $100,000 each. According to an NPR analysis of USDA records of payments made through July 2019, 100,000 individuals collected just over 70 percent of the money.

    The American Farmer: Twenty-First Century Welfare Queen.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    Happy New Year’s Eve, jackals.

    Eat your 12 grapes, if that is your thing. (Gastro Obscura link.)

    When clocks strike midnight on New Year’s Eve in Spain and parts of Latin America, many revelers are too busy to pop champagne, set off fireworks, or kiss their spouse. Instead, they’re stuffing 12 green grapes in their mouths—an attempt to ward off bad luck in the new year.

    A common story traces the tradition of the twelve lucky grapes, or uvas de la suerte, to grape farmers in Alicante, Spain, who cannily suggested the idea when they had a surplus harvest to unload in the early 1900s. But according to food writer Jeff Koehler, newspaper articles about the tradition from the 1880s suggest it developed from Madrid’s bourgeoisie copying the French custom of drinking champagne and eating grapes on New Year’s Eve.

    Either way, Spanish tradition eventually became a superstition that spread to Central and South America. Eating one grape at each of midnight’s 12 clock chimes guarantees you a lucky year—if and only if you simultaneously ruminate on their significance. (Each grape represents an upcoming month.) If you fail to conscientiously finish your grapes by the time the clock stops chiming, you’ll face misfortune in the new year.

    No one informed us of the “simultaneous rumination” obligation, and the coming year turned out pretty well, all things considered.

  92. 92.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Baud: Guys will do anything if there’s a girl involved.

    Straight guys, maybe? Not all guys swing that way.

  96. 96.

    Steeplejack

    Just getting hooked up to the media fire hose after a pleasant afternoon away. Kind of amazing that our vaunted “24-hour news” channels are almost completely silent on the situation in Baghdad. The only coverage I can find is on PBS NewsHour. The big three—CNN, MSNBC, Fox—are running canned specials. (Fox’s is on Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meeting during World War II. WTF.)

    And apparently that was just one segment on PBS. They’ve moved on to other stuff.

    P.S. Do not look at Trump’s Twitter feed. He is currently blatting out a string of retweets from someone named Heather Jones.

    ?????Lindsey Graham: Trump Has World on Notice, ‘There Will Be No Benghazis on His Watch.’ https://t.co/4yfHKlZlV9

    — Heather ?? Jones (@heatherjones333) December 31, 2019

    ETA: Heather Jones with a “moderate” 42% troll rating from BotSentinel.

  104. 104.

    Another Scott

    GovExec:

    With just over 10 months to go before Americans head to the polls to elect their next president, states will have access to additional money to help shore up insecure voting equipment. The funding—$425 million—was included in appropriations for the Election Assistance Commission under the 2020 spending bills President Trump signed into law on Dec. 20.

    EAC Chairwoman Christy McCormick said the commission “will do everything in its power to distribute these funds as expeditiously as possible.” The funding is a boost over Congress’ most recent appropriation of $380 million for election improvements in 2018—the first time since 2010 that Congress made resources available to help states and localities with their election infrastructure and administration.

    “State and local election officials from across the country regularly tell us about the need for additional resources,” said EAC Vice Chair Benjamin Hovland. “This new funding will allow election officials to continue making investments that strengthen election security and improve election administration in 2020 and beyond.”

    Despite widespread evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and repeated warnings from the intelligence community about the vulnerability of election infrastructure, the bipartisan and independent Election Assistance Commission has struggled with funding and staff cuts as well as House Republicans’ threats to terminate it. With the 2020 presidential election less than a year away, the EAC lacks a permanent director and general counsel.

    While election experts welcomed the new funding, they said it may not be sufficient in the face of ongoing threats. In late November, Ohio state officials announced they had prevented an attempted cyber attack by a Russian-owned company on the state’s election infrastructure earlier that month, the Associated Press reported.

    Lawrence Norden, director of the Electoral Reform Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the funding is “an important and necessary step” to protecting the 2020 elections. However, it “should not be Congress’s only investment in election security,” he said. “State and local election officials need more than haphazard funding to fight that battle. They need a partnership with Congress that includes sustained and ongoing investments in election security. Every jurisdiction must be able to build election infrastructure designed to withstand today’s ever-evolving threats.”

    Norden also noted that the House’s version of the spending bill contained more detailed provisions on election security measures but the final version of the legislation signed into law used Senate language that had fewer requirements on how the funds could be spent.

    Maurice Turner, deputy director of the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology, tweeted that the legislation is “missing critical accountability measures like replacing paperless [direct-recording electronic voting machines] and implementing risk-limiting audits.” Experts have been calling for such measures nationwide following revelations about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

    Aquene Freechild, co-director of the consumer advocacy nonprofit Public Citizen’s “Democracy Is For People” campaign, said, “We must ensure that as election hackers’ tactics continue to evolve, we will fight back and protect our democratic institutions.”

    “We will continue to press decision-makers at the state and local level to use this funding wisely. In the future, Congress should fund election security more consistently and pass comprehensive election security reform,” Freechild said.

    Good, good. But more is needed. And continuing Teabagger attempts to block funding and effective implementation needs to be loudly called out.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    BigJimSlade

    @Immanentize: I did an internship in a recording studio and this one band recording a demo did a wonderful version of Eagles’ Desperado in Kermit’s voice. I was enthralled.

  108. 108.

    raven

    @JPL: Yea goddamit, I guess my neighbor dying doesn’t matter. I’m going to launch at dawn but traffic shouldn’t be bad in the morning.

  113. 113.

    Patricia Kayden

    Obama made this possible by creating a global network of deployable forces with short tethers (over DoD’s objections I might add). I know. I had responsibility for the Emb Security brief at NSC after Benghazi. Meanwhile Pompeo cared only about political points against Hillary. https://t.co/0OdTt5tAxK— Kelly Magsamen (@kellymagsamen) December 31, 2019

  115. 115.

    sab

    @raven: Just heading into my last tax season without my shingles shot. My 50 year old boss got shingles (not the shot) last year, and it messed up his year and our year a lot.

  116. 116.

    Fair Economist

    @Roger Moore:

     

    If you shrink the birth rate too much, you can wind up with an inverted population distribution, where there are way more old people than young ones.

    Conservatives trying to invent excuses to cut Social Security have put an enormous amount of work into convincing people an inverted population distribution is bad, but it’s (almost) complete bunkum. The reality is that if a population’s birth rate drops, there is a tremendous *improvement* in the dependency ratio (the proportion of population that’s adult and healthy) which lasts for about 40 years. This is followed by a slight worsening, but far less of a loss than the preceding gain, and the eventually a stabilization around the stable point for the new population growth rate, which for any change we’re going to see is scarcely different from the current one. The best long term rate is basically zero population growth, but anything from 2% growth to 2% shrinkage is almost indistinguishable from the ZPG optimum.

    The reason is that 20 years after the birth rate drops, there are many fewer children – so much lower expenses for child care, child health care, and education – but just as many adults, because they were already born. The economic benefit at that point is *huge*. After that the number of adults starts to decline from what it would have been, but the net is still an economic benefit for about another 20 years. At that point the relatively large elderly population brings costs similar to those saved by the relatively small child population. For the next 40 years or so the relative costs of the elderly population outweighs the benefit of the smaller child population; but it’s never nearly as much of a loss as was gained in the first 40 years because in that period there’s very little cost to outweigh the savings of raising fewer children.

    If there is almost any expected growth over time, the growth from the resources saved raising fewer children will outweigh any later costs forever and the reduced birth rate is an unalloyed eternal boost to the economy.

    The only caveat is that for really fast population shrinkage rates you can end up somewhat worse off than on the ZPG optimum. But that needs something like only 1 child per woman. Currently only South Korea is there. Even Japan and Italy are well above that. Even South Korea’s rate wouldn’t be that bad – it would be a burden similar to what the US has shouldered for its growing population since the baby boom ended.

    tldr: Ignore conservative lies; fewer children is good for the environment *and* the economy, short term *and* long term.

  117. 117.

    raven

    @mrmoshpotato: Well I changed my flight to early morning Friday so we’ll see. The hour difference trashes me and I wake up @ 4 here so I should be able to make good time from Shaumburg to Midway!

  118. 118.

    raven

    @sab: I got the new one and it kicked my ass. On the other hand I had shingles in my eye 20 years ago and I’d do about anything to avoid that again.

  124. 124.

    sab

    @raven: That is why I have been dithering about it. My husband got the new elder flu shot and the shingles shot the same day, and spent the next 48 hours shivering and barfing. He was really really sick. I was worried. He recovered, and is theoretically now immune. I am trying to schedule when my family can have me bedridden for a couple of days. Hubris that. If I get sick they will cope, like families always have. Thart is why we have families.

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    @HinTN: Beth is still working on the calendar.  So the 2020 calendar will be coming, but we obviously didn’t make it in time for Christmas.

    I talked with Beth yesterday and she was in the process of arranging the photos and the quotes.  (Quotes from some of our beloved BJ folks who are no longer with us.)

    So don’t spend all your Christmas cash just yet!

  130. 130.

    mad citizen

    My wife and me saw Little Women yesterday–it was good.  My wife really liked it, said afterwards, “move over Steven Spielberg, Greta Gerwig is here.”  I thought the acting was generally top notch.  At times, though, I thought the dialogue sounded too modern, etc. and the young guy playing Laurie especially seemed like he was in 2020 and not the mid-19th century.  In a scene towards the end, low light upstairs in the house, I saw a dangling white earphone/wire hanging down the middle of Saoirse Ronan, but only momentarily, like a second from that take but it wasn’t there for all the other takes.  Can’t confirm on the web, though.

    My favorite part was watching Bob Odenkirk play the dad, and then thinking back to the time he told the story at the dinner party on Curb Your Enthusiasm (he covered his finger with tobasco sauce and…”).  He’s come a long way.

    Last night I watched an interesting you tube video comparing all four of the Little Women movies through the years.

  134. 134.

    sab

    Me too. Husband’s doctor got promoted to head of the whole hospital. Emergencyly installed  practical nurse recommended it.

    My 95 year old dad had a practical nurse at a competing hospital that was head and shoulders above the residents rotating through.

    This one not so much. I didn’t like her either for my last appoinrment. Obsessed with diabetes, which no one in my family has ever had. Utterly ignored all sorts of health isssues we have actually died of routinely.

  135. 135.

    raven

    The story of my life, weed will become legal while I’m in Illinois.  I got busted for drinking a week after I came home from the Army. When I turned 21 the lowered the age to 18!

  146. 146.

    raven

    @mrmoshpotato: The keyboard player Dave “Hawk” Wolinski was in the band before he was in Bangor Flying Circus, Madura and then Rufus. He wrote “Ain’t Nobody” and Quincy wanted it for Thriller but he’d promised it to Chaka and there it stayed. The Shadows of Knight’s biggest hit was a cover of Gloria. Them (Van Morrison” released it but the Pope, or whoever in Chicago, pitched a bitch because it said “she came up to my room” so the Shadows changed it and released it in the Midwest.

  157. 157.

    NotMax

    Based on the annoying nocturnal previews over the past week or so, NOT looking forward to a quiet night in the neighborhood, boom-wise.

  158. 158.

    TomatoQueen

    @WaterGirl:  Tom Cruise is a Pilates practitioner, the better to do his own stunts. Also, those who sail small sailboats, which frequently require strange-looking poses while hanging in what looks like mid air over the side of the boat, do Pilates and anything else that will strengthen the core.

  159. 159.

    Ken

    I’m getting ready to go to a New Year’s party.  We’re all getting to the age where half the entertainment is seeing who makes it to midnight.

    By the way, thanks to whoever it was that recommended “Dinner for One” last year.  IIRC, over half of Germany watches this skit every New Year’s Eve, and I’ve decided to add myself to their ranks.

  161. 161.

    japa21

    @raven: Being the nice person I am, I was not going to point that out.  Since I live two blocks from Schaumburg I do know the correct spelling.  According to my son, back when he was a student at Hoffman Estates HS, the correct spelling is Scumburg.

  175. 175.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I was just gonna say I don’t personally know any guys who do pilates, then I remembered my neighbor and his wife, in their 60s and in ridiculously good shape, have a spare bedroom set up as a pilates studio. The name comes from Joseph Pilates who developed it for, IIRC, ballet dancers?

    This whole discussion reminds me of the time I was telling a cousin of mine about a great sushi place I had been to, and she looked at me kind of quizzically and said, “Isn’t sushi kind of a… woman thing?” She is, as my uncle used to say, a good-hearted, simple soul

    ETA:

    @MomSense:

    Yes.  It started as a system for providing physical therapy to WWI veterans.

    So… I was way off.

  182. 182.

    Amir Khalid

    @MomSense:

    I’ve always been a little disappointed that they left Hermione’s misguided pro-elf activism out of Goblet of Fire, and the tragic story of Voldemort’s mother out of Half-Blood Prince. I understand why — the movies would have been too long with those subplots in — but they said a lot about Hermione and Voldemort, and I missed them.

  183. 183.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @zhena gogolia: I was introduced to him via the second and third hand cassette tapes of the various Secret Policeman’s Balls that were in circulation when I was in undergrad.

  192. 192.

    The Pale Scot

    @PST:

    and the little companies who are can’t stay in business.

    Blame goes to Big Pharma. They suck at R&D and have been buying up start ups instead like those mentioned in the article.

    The way it worked was that venture capital put up the development and Stage One and Two trials. If the trials went well Merck etc would buy the co., the investors cashed out and Merck would fund the really expensive Stage Three & Four trials. The BP financial types realized that if they waited a bit the startup would run out cash and could be bought for a song. Result? Venture capital is no longer getting involved so there is no funding by anyone for any drug that isn’t a reformulation of an existing drug. All the new drugs coming out now are the result of decisions made at least five years ago. Five years from now? It will be interesting to see.

    Trump’s office requiring research funded by the government  to be accessed without charge is one tiny step toward the government requiring payment for new tech development payed for by it. So much of the world’s talent is directed toward apps and tax avoidance it’s sick

  193. 193.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.

    It’s midnight somewhere.  (The developers are already out celebrating the New Year; I’d call that good thinking ahead.)

  196. 196.

    WaterGirl

    @japa21: i knew, too, but what kind of asshole points stuff like that out?  (rhetorical question)

    I knew what he meant; that’s what counts.

  198. 198.

    WaterGirl

    I was apparently going for a personal best – 5 comments by me at the end of a dead thread.  I didn’t quite make it, since my personal best was 6, so I’ll make this one a tie.

  199. 199.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @MomSense: The movies are fine but they are a poor substitute for the books.

    Goblet of Fire may be my favorite of the books.

    Unfortunately, it is a garbage fire of a movie, since they decided that the main plot in the book was too complicated. So they just kinda hand-waved the plot away in favor of filming all the exciting set pieces and loosely stringing them together. Excellent cast as always, but a terrible adaptation of the book. ?

  200. 200.

    StringOnAStick

    @Another Scott: I know a couple that were trying to decide when to become parents, then tRump got elected and they both agreed to skip having kids.  As for their choice, they said “TRump definitely helped make our decision.”

  201. 201.

    Daddio7

    @Fair Economist: So how is that Africans, Arabs, and Mexicans can afford to have them by the hundreds of millions? Of course they do have to migrate to Western Europe and the US to find jobs that amazingly are very easy to find and pay enough to support them. And they have no trouble having children while making minimum wage.

  203. 203.

    joel hanes

    @sab:

    I think we should welcome immigrants.

    My comment was a reaction to the assumption that population growth is inherently a good thing, which is an axiom that I think that the world will eventually be forced to abandon.

  204. 204.

    2liberal

    @sab: without my shingles shot

    My dad had shingles about 5 years ago when he  turned 90 and it damn near killed him.   He was in so much pain he had to have medication but the meds made him sick and he lost a lot of weight.  He finally shook it off but lost sight in one eye. He had taken the shot.  Nasty disease to have.

  205. 205.

    2liberal

    @NotMax:   Noticed that the copyright date at the blog bottom has advanced slightly prematurely.

    that’s because the server is in Russia  ///

Comments are closed.