https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/1224397027502690308?s=20
It’s been my great pleasure to have discovered an astronomer on twitter this past year who lives in my backyard (not literally, I don’t have room for his goats). I’m sure I followed one of you jackals to him.
https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/1155179248421756928?s=20
He has a weekly free newsletter (as well as a weekly paid newsletter for you hardcore astronomy buffs).
This week he discussed Hurricane/Alabama Sharpiegate (just in time for jokes about KC, MO map jokes).
“HELP!!!” Internal #SharpieGate Emails Show Government Officials Freaked Out Over Trump’s “Doctored” Hurricane Map
Got to team up w/@JasonLeopold on this one @BuzzFeedNews. The FOIA emails are 👀 https://t.co/17HczRpx07
— Zahra Hirji (@Zhirji28) February 1, 2020
Seems the scientists were none too pleased with NOAA coming down on their forecaster for correcting the criminal-in-chief’s map work.
“For an agency founded upon and recognized for determining scientific truths, trusted by the public, and responsible in law to put forward important science information, I find it unconscionable that an anonymous voice inside of NOAA would be found to castigate a dutiful, correct, and loyal NWS Forecaster who spoke the truth,” Craig McLean, then the agency’s assistant administrator, wrote in a Sept. 7 email to other top-level government officials.
A day later, NOAA issued an unsigned statement backing Trump over its forecasters who suggested the president was wrong when he said Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama. That led to an internal revolt and a flurry of emails between top officials who disavowed the statement.
“What concerns me most is that this Administration is eroding the public trust in NOAA for an apparent political recovery from an ill timed and imprecise comment from the President.”
“Please reassure those of us who serve the public, and do so with commitment and humility that we are not mere pawns in an absurd game. Please do not allow the science and support that we perform on behalf of the American public to be tossed into the trash heap by political expediencies. Please support us and stand with us. Please,” wrote Gary Shigenaka, a senior NOAA biologist, in an email to acting administrator Neil Jacobs.
“You have no idea how hard I’m fighting to keep politics out of science,” Jacobs replied. “We are an objective science agency, and we won’t and never will base any decisions on anything other than science.”
The article has screenshots of the actual emails and a link to all the emails regarding #sharpiegate
Open thread
Lapassionara
Has anyone else seen a news report that Rush Limbaugh has lung cancer?
PsiFighter37
@Lapassionara:
Yes, I have seen the same – advanced lung cancer. I won’t read the eulogies when they come out – that’s about the nicest thing I have to say about it.
Cermet
@Lapassionara: yes, advanced, too. Couldn’t happen to a more vile animal except, maybe cheny.
HinTN
I’ve been reading Bad Astronomy for years. He’s always interesting and informative.
Cacti
@Lapassionara: To Rush Limbaugh, I offer this most solemn benediction:
Sucks to be you!
Elizabelle
@Cacti: Laughing.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Lapassionara: Yes. Talk about mixed emotions. I have nothing good to say about him, but the very, very faint bit of remaining humanity in me tells me not to gloat
“I did not attend his funeral, but I did write a letter saying that I approved of it” -Mark Twain.
JPL
In the previous post I said that I didn’t wish ill upon anyone, but I need to amend that statement because there is one person that I do. For rush my thoughts are too late. bless his heart and may he rot in hell.
trollhattan
@Lapassionara:
Pity.
dmsilev
@PsiFighter37: Gee, maybe all those cigars that he spent years waving around weren’t such a great idea after all.
No sympathy for guy who makes poor choices; I’m sure Limbaugh would agree with that.
Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog
He probably meant Kansas.
trollhattan
@dmsilev:
Nobody told him, “Don’t inhale.”
WaterGirl
OT, but checking in on the active threads to ask for confirmation that (hopefully) the evil ads are gone.
Tom Levenson
I’m just going to note with pride that Zahra Hirji was one of my students at the MIT science writing program.
MattF
@WaterGirl: Seems so.
Benw
“You have no idea how hard I am fighting to stop Trump from doing a very bad thing! Wait how did a very bad thing happen anyway?” Is the cry of the noble man, nobler than all for his sacrifice.
NotMax
@Lapassionara
I can express sympathy, as I would for any living creature, coupled with the wish that he learn some measure of humility and compassion from this.
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Yes. Don’t gloat, vote.
JPL
@Tom Levenson: This is the place to come to gloat, as you should. You must be proud.
The Moar You Know
When science is suborned to politics and religion, you’re living in bad times.
Elizabelle
How strange that we live in a world where Rush Limbaugh is going to see — in stereo, in triplicate — that he is not going to be mourned. By the sane majority.
Better that he had never lived. Or at least never become a broadcaster. Same for Rupert Murdoch and Sean Hannity and their ilk. Murdoch has done outsized evil. (Caught a glimpse of him and Jerry Hall in a box at the Super Bowl. Maybe she was feeding him grapes. Or heading in the direction of the popcorn. Thanks to whoever put up the Tracey Ullmann clip of that.)
MisterForkbeard
@NotMax: I can express sympathy for his loved ones and agree that it’s a horrible way to go.
I don’t really have any sympathy for him, given what he’s wished on other people.
Chief Oshkosh
Rush has an opportunity. He could have a moment of self-reflection, and like Lee Atwater, spend his last days trying to convince everyone, but especially the ditto heads, that he really made it all up, that they should get back to reality. Also he should change his will, and announce it, that he plans to donate all of his wealth to a charity chosen by the Clintons.
Otherwise, fuck ‘im and I hope it hurts.
waspuppet
I’m really quite tired of people calling Donald Trump “crazy.” That word implies that someone is disconnected from reality, but in a neutral sense — someone whose disconnect can lead them to do things that aren’t in his interest.
That’s not Trump. He’s deeply stupid; he’s barreling downhill cognitively; he’s lazy; he’s surrounded himself with sycophants his entire life; he’s likely on drugs much of the time; he’s a domestic abuser, a trait that leaks into his attitude about everything else he does; he’s a spoiled little boy who is now 73. He is not “crazy.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Lapassionara:
There’s a god, and she hates that useless fat fuck.
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev: He has said much, about poor choices and drug usage. A nice person would forbear to throw all that back in his face during this most difficult and trying time.
I’m not nice. I hope he dies the kind of death he wished on so many others.
Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Hope it’s true. Back to work.
Elizabelle
@Tom Levenson: Yea Zahra. Yea you. Yea FOIA. Good article.
West of the Rockies
I’m conflicted. Limbaugh has used lies to inflict pain. He has LARGELY created the argutainment industry which has contributed to white nationalism and given us Clump. He dissembled, he chortled over the misfortune of others.
But I do not wish to introduce rot into my own heart. I think I won’t do a happy dance at the news.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Limbaugh apparently announced it on his radio show.
Cacti
@West of the Rockies:
“Kurt Cobain was a shred of human debris.”
-Rush Limbaugh
“All drug users should get the death penalty.”
-Rush Limbaugh
You were saying?
JPL
The article points to the dangers of politicizing science, and we should all be concerned. trump could decide to not fund NOAA and if the repubs get the house, it could happen. scarry stuff.
Baud
@West of the Rockies:
Take it from me, it hurts you more than it hurts them.
Elizabelle
@West of the Rockies: It’s not a happy dance. And one can feel some sympathy, because cancer is awful.
But I do not feel any sadder than the day I heard Scalia had died. Or Roger Ailes. They were terrible, terrible people who brought suffering to many, especially the vulnerable.
Actually, my sister and I high fived when we heard the bulletin about Scalia.
We were raised Catholic. And Scalia’s son was a priest at our church! One degree of separation. But A. Scalia will get no mourning from me.
Jerzy Russian
I can’t recall ever meeting Professor Plait in person, but we have exchanged emails from time to time. I appreciate all of the work he does with public outreach and education.
Bruuuuce
I don’t hate Rush enough to rejoice at his suffering. Neither do I have any sympathy for the lying, hatemongering bastard.
That it’s lung cancer reinforces my belief in karma, however.
JPL
@Cacti: Before he was caught doctor shopping for opioids, he railed against black drug use. He’s not a good person.
Cacti
“Rest in pieces, Senator.”
-Rush Limbaugh on Paul Wellstone
Mike in DC
My earliest clear memory of Rush was the day after the Rodney King verdict, with him rationalizing the acquittal of the officers. An incredibly toxic legacy, a top 5 individual factor, imo, contributing to the breakdown in civil discourse and the surge of the right wing fever swamp into the mainstream. The fact that every foray of his into actual mainstream media(football, appearances on late night tv talk) was met with hostility and/or indifference, was an indicator of how a “normal” person should respond to the guy.
I don’t wish him dead, but I’m not going to pretend that he’s deserving of the customary graciousness and deference most public figures get. If you’re awful enough, you don’t get that.
MattF
@waspuppet: The problem is that ‘crazy’ normally implies ‘dysfunctional’, but Trump and his cult want to convince you that he’s doing just fine. But being a pathological liar is not just fine, being a career criminal, being a schoolyard bully, being asshole-of-the-century are not just fine. ‘Crazy’ is just too kind.
Cacti
Could we all maybe pass the hat around to send Rusty a nice box of cigars?
pamelabrown53
@Elizabelle:
Don’t you think it bizarre that Jerry Hall would go from Mick Jagger to Rupert Murdock? About the only thing those 2 men in common is big $$$.
germy
Rush is only 69? I thought he was older.
He’ll probably beat this. I have a theory about rich people. They survive diseases that would kill the rest of us. They get the best care, visit the best hospitals.
If I had his exact diagnosis right now, I’d probably be dead before the end of this month. I predict he’ll still be broadcasting next year.
Frankensteinbeck
@JPL:
I do not wish ill on anyone. I do wish some people to be removed from the position where they can inflict harm on the world.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Elizabelle:
I should watch her show more
West of the Rockies
@pamelabrown53:
I’ve wondered, too. I always have found her to be sorta sleazy.
Kent
I worked for NOAA through the entire Clinton and Bush Administrations. This sort of ridiculous politicization just never happened to my memory in either administration. Clinton and Bush 43 were honestly both equally bad when it came to ocean policy and ocean management. The Clinton Administration basically paid zero attention to marine policy at the executive level and just left the Senate Commerce Committee run the show which meant Senators Stevens (R-AK), Gorton (R-WA), and Hollings (D-SC) basically determined ocean policy for the US. Clinton, for example, appointed non-scientist Penny Dalton, one of Holling’s aids to run my agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service. When it came to ocean policy in some ways the Bush Administration was even better. They also basically let the Senate run the show, but Bush did protect more ocean habitat than any other president with his creation of marine sanctuaries around the Marianas, Samoas and western Pacific. And his dad, Bush 41 was actually second.
I know Bush was an absolute horror with the Iraq war and Katrina. But Trump has brought things to a whole entirely new level with his utter vandalism of the Federal government in every single agency from Education to NOAA to the state department. Honestly the next Democratic president is going to have to devote 48% of their time to repairing our tattered relationships overseas, 48% of their time to repairing our tattered executive branch here at home, and about 4% of their remaining time pushing big legislative initiatives through Congress where most of the heavy lifting is going to have to be done by Pelosi and Schumer. And of course if McConnell is still running the Senate then nothing.
senyordave
@Mike in DC:
I don’t wish him dead, but I’m not going to pretend that he’s deserving of the customary graciousness and deference most public figures get. If you’re awful enough, you don’t get that.
Sums it up perfectly.
catclub
ummm,… Steve Jobs excepted. otherwise, yeah.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
There really is only so much you can do about cancer, because treatment success depends so heavily on one’s individual body chemistry.
My father in law was able to live for 2-1/2 years with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor because he responded well to chemotherapy. If he hadn’t, he would have had six months. But the tumor still got him in the end. And advanced lung cancer has one of the worst prognoses out there, as we found out with my older brother.
I feel a little bit of distant sadness for his family because I know what they’re about to go through, but otherwise … ?♀️
kindness
1st place I go every morning when I open up my computer is Nasa Picture of the Day..
Kent
Well, Congress could certainly decide that. But unless Trump decides to veto that portion of the budget he really can’t defund it They can do a lot of evil shit like out-sourcing and simply deciding not to spend the funds. But even that is kind of hard to do because there is a lot of inertia, and a lot of Red state and and corporate interests supporting NOAA. Florida and the Gulf Coast are not interested in seeing hurricane forecasts go away. And Alaska is not interested in turning the Bering Sea and North Pacific back over to the Russian and Japanese fishing industries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this is showing up weird as a cut and paste, we’ll see how it looks
Poor Barron is there in a coat and tie, cause every fourteen year old dreams of watching the Super Bowl in a cheap hotel ballroom while wearing church clothes
jl
“HELP!!!” Internal #SharpieGate Emails Show Government Officials Freaked Out Over Trump’s “Doctored” Hurricane Map
“Doctored”? Why in quotes? That map was the most obviously doctored thing I remember seeing.
germy
@catclub: Steve chased after an “alternative” cure. If he’d listened to his doctors, he’d still be around.
I’m not saying rich people are smart, they just have access to the best care.
MomSense
Rush Limbaugh has lead a terribly destructive life. He didn’t add beauty, or grace, or joy to the world. He amplified ignorance and cruelty. He’ll never suffer enough to offset the harm he has done, so it doesn’t even matter whether we wish him ill or well.
MJS
@germy: Not only that, but I’m kind of shocked at the number of people taking his announcement at face value. Maybe he has lung cancer, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it’s serious, or maybe it’s not all that serious, but he wants people to believe it is, for whatever reason his diseased mind came up with. From the little I heard him, he is very invested in knowing that he’s a tough guy, not like all those wimpy liberals. “Beating serious lung cancer” would certainly seem to be something he’d like to brag about.
Shorter rant – he’s a liar. Believe him at your own peril.
jl
@Kent: “When it came to ocean policy in some ways the Bush Administration was even better.”
I’ve read that Bush 2’s good record is due to infernal pestering by FLOTUS Laura. Do you know if any truth to that?
catclub
@Kent: Did you know Richard Merrick? I knew him when I was in grad school in Seattle. Back in the 80’s
Elizabelle
@pamelabrown53: Yes. It’s vile. I had always kind of liked Jerry Hall, but no accounting for taste there.
I suspect Murdoch may even be charming in real life — it’s possible — but he’s brought ruin to three major democracies now. Not to mention all the burned animals and creatures (and firefighters and other victims!) in Australia. (Hearing his adult kids are distressed that people can draw a straight line from Daddy’s media to the destruction.)
Foo on him. Foo on Jerry Hall. Pass the popcorn.
Mallard Filmore
@senyordave:
Can I wish him a long life battling the cancer, draining his wealth into a black hole of treatment, unable to participate further in public discourse?
MattF
@Kent: It’s not really politicization. Trump’s whole controversy with NOAA boils down to a claim that he is never wrong, ever, about anything. No one with even a vague understanding of how science works could buy that. There’s a fundamental conflict with fact-based reality.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Well said.
jl
@Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog: “He probably meant Kansas.”
There IS a Kansas City, Kansas, which has, AFAIK, been a KC MO commuting suburb for 100 years or so. There must be some KC Chiefs business there. Practice field, storage sheds… something, gear outlet….
Unfair to Trump! /snark
r€nato
it’s a shame that Limbaugh will not have to suffer the financial stress that often accompanies cancer when it happens to us little people (in America).
I am not much for deathbed conversions, but I would hope that his illness will make him reflect on what he’s done and renounce his career of hate-peddling. He has done much to harm this country and to divide families over petty partisan politics, including mine. I would actually have a few good things to say about him if he was to use the time he has left fixing the damage he’s done.
Kent
Yes, I knew him when I was in grad school in marine science at the UW in the early 90s and then when I started working at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle out of grad school where he ran one of the divisions. As I recall, he went off east to run the show in the North Atlantic fisheries out Woods Hole and then higher up in NOAA.
Soprano2
I have no sympathy for Limbaugh – he wished the worst on everyone he didn’t like, and gleefully mocked all kinds of people. He implied that an 11-year-old girl was a dog. I hope he dies a slow, painful death, and I’m not ashamed to say that. Some people have brought suffering on themselves by the way they lived their lives. It’s too bad that dealing with it won’t bankrupt him and force him to sell everything he has and live on the street.
MattF
@kindness: I always get my desktop background image from APOD.
Bruuuuce
@jl:
Perhaps to avoid insulting actual doctors? :-)
trollhattan
@germy:
“Advanced” likely means it has spread. By the time my dad was diagnosed the lung cancer had metastasized and formed a large brain tumor. At that point they could shrink the tumors and clear up the pneumonia, and little else. Dad was tough and lasted about a year and a half.
It’s a bad ride.
Bruuuuce
@kindness: My wife has an app on her phone that sets its background image to the APOD daily. Some really cool shots, but I would hate to have to lose the good ones for the less spectacular ones after only 24 hours
jl
@r€nato: “I would hope that his illness will make him reflect on what he’s done and renounce his career of hate-peddling.”
And for spreading misinformation. He’s repeatedly said smoking isn’t bad for health. I don’t know if he ever smoked cigarettes. But if he has a strong cigar habit, that could easily do it. Even if you think you just puff, more than enough smoke gets down into the lungs to cause cancer.
Kent
No, it’s also politicization as well. It goes WAY WAY beyond sharpie-gate. The Trump folks are squelching all the climate research that NOAA used to be one of the world’s lead agencies, if not the planet’s lead agency. Trump appointed a non-scientist, the head of Accuweather to run NOAA (the company most in line to benefit from privatization of the weather service). oceanleadership.org/trump-taps-accuweather-ceo-head-noaa-breaking-precedent-nominating-scientists/
There is a whole lot more going on than just sharpie-gate. Trump is basically vandalizing every scientific agency this nation has, and politicizing all of them in favor fossil fuel industries, climate change denial, polluters, and privatization.
cckids
@dmsilev:
jl
@Bruuuuce: Just occurred to me that maybe it was in quotes to avoid insulting competent doctoring and related methods of spreading misinformation and falsifying documents.
germy
@Kent:
This is why the GOP puts up with him.
Gin & Tonic
@pamelabrown53: You answered your own question.
MattF
@Kent: You’re right. I guess the weirdness of sharpie-gate diverted me from the policy aspects.
Gin & Tonic
@germy:
How do you know that? Pancreatic cancer is almost impossible to beat, and unless you’ve read his charts you can’t know.
jl
@Kent: Good point. Problem is that with an authoritarian government, almost impossible to separate politicization and person of the leader. Any criticism of the leader is be definition political. And the leader’s whims and opinions render whatever they concern political.
That problem has been with us for a long time. We’ve just moved from GOP authoritarian oligopolistic rule (though sometimes from minority position), which has now been transferred to the individual authoritarian leader Trump.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huh, Manchin has called for a censure of trump
jl
@Gin & Tonic: You are correct. We just don’t know. There are two kinds of pancreatic cancer. One is almost invariably, and quickly fatal, one that is not, but brings extremely unpleasant chronic symptoms that are hard to control. I don’t think which kind he had has ever been reported. But seems to me that he survived to long for it to be the invariably fatal version.
There is exocrine and endocrine versions and I keep forgetting which on is the very fatal one.
Elizabelle
@pamelabrown53: Have always remembered this quote from Jerry Hall. Wondered about it when she first said it, years ago.
From 1981. Some self-awareness there.
Another quote, from this Guardian article (Did I say that?Jerry Hall, model and actress, 53, from 2009)
Anyway, she sounds witty and bright. Sad to see her end up with Murdoch, but seems to have been her choice.
Not like she did not make a lot of money as a top model, or that Mick Jagger left her destitute.
Keith P.
@dmsilev: yeah, if I was Bill Burr, I’d be reevaluating my lifestyle, what with his love of helicopters and cigars.
Kent
Honestly, I really don’t know. I do know that Bush 41 had a pretty far-sighted vision of marine policy and ocean protection, perhaps from all the family history of blue blood yachting out of Kennebunkport or whatever. But he started the family legacy of ocean protection: sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/dec18/national-marine-sanctuary-legacy-president-george-hw-bush.html
I think it may be partly a distinction between a coastal mindset vs a continental mindset. Clinton was from Arkansas as were as were a lot of his appointees. I guess you can only focus in on so many aspects of policy from the top executive level and leave the rest of it to Congress and the professional bureaucrats. Clinton was decent on land environmental policy with Bruce Babbitt. But the Clinton White House never seemed to engage on any marine or ocean policy. Partly that is because NOAA is in the Dept of Commerce and gets neglected. But Clinton’s Sec of Commerce was Ron Brown who was much more of an international trade sort of guy and not a science type even though NOAA is the largest agency within Commerce.
Unlike Trump, Bush 43 did have something of an environmental thread to him. We lived in Waco towards the end of his presidency and he did a lot of environmental protection and prairie restoration type stuff out at his so-called ranch in Crawford outside Waco. I used to bike on the back roads around his ranch every weekend because the landscape was quite pretty and remote. I actually got a kick when he would drag all the world leaders out there to his ranch in rural Texas to chop brush and mountain bike. And it meant we got to keep some decent local restaurants in Waco because the national press corps and low level aids would keep them open with their business.
He is a little bit of an enigma with his art and the stepping aside during the Obama years. The Iraq war can never be forgiven. But he wasn’t the wholly mindless evil that is Trump. But I honestly don’t know to what extent Laura had anything to do with it as opposed to carrying on the sort of blue blood environmental traditions of the elder Bush clan.
Kent
That is exactly what Trump does. He distracts you with all the utterly outrageous shit with one hand while doing all the secret nefarious stuff with the other hand. I’m convinced it is completely on purpose.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wonder what he’ll do when the GOP doesn’t bite.
John Revolta
Cole’s got it right
catclub
@Kent: There is a whole lot more going on than just sharpie-gate. Trump is basically vandalizing every scientific agency this nation has, and politicizing all of them in favor fossil fuel industries, climate change denial, polluters, and privatization.
Michael Lewis’s book “The Fifth Risk” is great on this.
It was written two years ago, so it simply highlighted all the things the government does that hardly anybody else thinks about.
catclub
Tell that to a million dead Iraqis. Fully mindful evil is not necessarily better.
Roger Moore
@MisterForkbeard:
Does he have any?
TS (the original)
@germy:
If it is late stage lung cancer – he won’t. It is treatable in the early stages but many people (including a number I knew) do not get diagnosed until it is too late for any worthwhile treatment.
Elizabelle
@Kent: Some really interesting comments today. Always good to see the life and professional experience people bring to this blog.
Continental vs. coastal. Federal priorities and staffing.
Jeffro
@Lapassionara:
@PsiFighter37:
@Cermet:
I am making some homemade beef stew that smells absolutely awesome while listening to Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes and having a beer on the day after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl and I also was actually able to help Fro Jr with his Spanish homework a few minutes ago. And now this.
Feb 3rd, I hereby dub thee, “Awesome Day”
jl
@Kent: Unfortunate GW Bush didn’t discover his artistic talent earlier.
There is a policy center associated with Bush’s presidential library actually puts on good conferences I’ve watched some of them. The place is not afraid to invite excellent scholars who don’t go along with conservative and GOP orthodoxy. A couple of the one’s I’ve watched, GW showed up and made a contribution defending his misguided and conservative beliefs. I think he is a true believer in supply side economics, and improving education through competition from private schools. I don’t want to say his contributions are weak, and somewhat embarrassing compared to others, but… well, he shows up and tries.
I don’t know about the overall quality of the place, I’ve only watched the sessions that look good, judging from the speakers.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Fuck him.
But maybe he thinks that’s better than nothing.
Schiff was magnificent.
Kent
@catclub: You have no argument from me. The Iraq war was the biggest stain on our country since I don’t know when….Vietnam? The Spanish-American War and the Philippines? I was as horrified by Bush as anyone, from Florida 2000 until the very last day of his presidency. But with Bush not every single aspect of every single area of Federal policy was horrible. They did do some reasonably decent stuff. And basically just let a lot of agencies just run themselves professionally.
Trump, on the other hand, is just utterly rotten to the very core with zero redeeming qualities and nothing you can point to anywhere in the vast Federal bureaucracy where the Trump people have been the slightest positive force. They are utterly evil and destructive absolutely every where you look and when you peel back the layers it only gets worse.
jl
@catclub: “Fully mindful evil is not necessarily better.”
Fully mindful evil will never correct itself. Reagan and GW Bush could correct some of their obvious mistakes, get rid of evil and incompetent advisers, they made a few good decisions, took a few good positions, and stood by them against opposition from their reactionary buddies in the GOP .
It was too little and too late for Reagan and GW , not nearly enough to correct the damage they did. But they could have been worse.
Trump will only go from bad, to worse, and then ever downward from there.
MisterForkbeard
@catclub: I’m going to put this in sci-fi/fantasy terms:
Trump is like an orc invasion. He blunders in and destroys things because he can and its fun, but the defending army is keeping him from directly killing too many people.
Bush was like a much-dumber Emperor Palpatine. He knew what he was doing was wrong and he killed a bunch of people, but there was less resistance within the state and a lot of people inside his control did just fine.
… You know what? I think this is a bad analogy :)
zhena gogolia
Elizabelle
The Guardian:
The conservative “shock jock” Rush Limbaugh revealed on Monday that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.
The hugely influential radio host made the announcement during his nationally syndicated radio show.
Limbaugh, 69, added that although his intention is to continue working “as competently and as expertly as [he does] each and every day”, he will begin undergoing treatment immediately, taking him off-air for the next couple of days. He said he was aiming to be back by Thursday, calling the program “the source of [his] greatest satisfaction”.
“Every day I’m not here, I’ll be missing you and thinking about you,” he said. In the segment, Limbaugh said doctors discovered the issue after he complained of shortness of breath.
MisterForkbeard
@Roger Moore: I wasn’t going to go there. Maybe his pool boy?
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: Thank you for the link to Schiff’s closing statement (youtube). Will watch it.
Ready for any cheer that can be found.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Unfortunately, instead of any Repub defections, I guess we can expect the pusillanimous Dems like Manchin to abandon ship.
Kathleen
@Kent: Do you know Dennis Hartman? He’s a professor at UW. I believe his specialty is Climate change
Kent
@jl: I think he really did believe the “Compassionate Conservative” meme. But he also was not particularly bright and spent his whole entire life from childhood on to the governorship of Texas being “handled” by smarter and more ambitious people. I think the real lynchpin of the Bush 43 presidency was picking Cheney as VP. Had he picked someone with a different, more inward looking perspective like a Christine Todd Whitmann, or someone with less interventionalist outlook like McCain then the arc of that presidency could have been different.
Elizabelle
@zhena gogolia: I hope not.
Not over until it’s over. Katty Kay (BBC, again) was trilling about possible Democrats possibly voting to acquit. I do not like that woman. Villager to the bones.
Mary G
@zhena gogolia: I sent a tweet:
Kent
No, but I graduated in 1994 and I was in the school of oceanography and marine affairs. Only graduate courses I took outside the department were coastal zone and maritime law classes at the law school. He is in atmospheric sciences. It is a VERY big university.
Jeffro
Also (this may have been covered earlier) I see that Bloomberg/his campaign congratulated the Chiefs on winning the Super Bowl, finishing with “It’s a great day for the great state of Missouri”.
Oh, OUCH!
I’m just sayin’…
Elizabelle
@Kent: Yes. And Cheney separated W from his father’s advisors. Scowcroft spoke of Condi Rice no longer taking his calls.
W is someone who has benefited from Trump. While he was still a failed president (Iraq, letting Bin Laden escape, etc etc), he looks better in the rear view mirror. And he got him some tax cuts, too.
Elizabelle
@Elizabelle: 911! Jebus. How did I forget that one.
jl
@Mary G: I just listened to Manchin’s statement. Sounds like he is waving his finger in the WV political wind to see which way it blows. His statement didn’t rival Murkowski’s in incoherence and bad faith, which is a good sign. It was designed to say as little as possible in a lot of words, except that he will advocate censure after Trump is acquitted.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro:
Hahaha
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
You probably didn’t mean it this way, but I have seen a whole lot of lefties on Twitter saying that Trump is a thousand times better than Hillary because at least Trump didn’t vote for the Iraq war. Kids in cages — who cares since only tens of them have died and only thousands of them have vanished without a trace, which is nothing compared to how many people died in the war Hillary cast 1 vote out of 100 for, so she’s clearly worse than Trump, amirite?
Focusing solely on body count is a very, very bad way of making moral judgments.
Kent
@Elizabelle: I just can’t fucking watch anymore. I’m sure Schiff will be brilliant today. But I just can’t watch anymore. It’s like I can’t watch any retrospectives of Florida 2000 or 2016 when those sorts of things pop on Neflix. I know how it’s going to turn out and I just don’t need to raise my blood pressure and get newly enraged.
jl
@Kent: @Elizabelle: I think one of Bush’s major faults, at least when he entered office, was arrogance. A not very diligent or bright person, with mistaken beliefs, who was arrogant about his beliefs and what he could handle and not handle.
Edit: and in some ways he was mindfully evil: use of ruthless and hateful GOP electoral tactics.
opiejeanne
@Roger Moore: wifey #4? Are they still married
My dad gave mr opiejeanne a tie for Christmas that #4 had “designed”. Looked like a very loud stained glass church window. The following year we gave him a really nice one designed by Jerry Garcia. He was not amused.
zhena gogolia
@Kent:
I’m like you in general, but I find that watching Schiff helps me — if he can keep going in the face of this, then I can too. He restores my faith in the country (or at least California — maybe that’s where we should all emigrate rather than Canada, and then secede).
Timurid
So how many days away are we from Joe Manchin hoisting the Jolly (R)oger?
ThresherK
@Elizabelle: as competently and as expertly
Nice to know he’s gonna take it easy while afflicted with such a serious condition.
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: I was interested to learn that they have a school of international studies named after Scoop Jackson – named after him pretty much the moment he died, IIRC.
Kent
@zhena gogolia: Agreed. The Pacific Northwest is trending decently too. Dem majorities in both houses in both states, Dem governors, four Dem Senators, and an 11-4 Dem majority in the combined Congressional delegation. Gonna be working hard this fall to make that 12-3 if we can defeat Jaime Herrera Beutler in the WA-3rd where I live.
We’re going to do a CA road trip this spring break to visit a bunch of CA colleges and universities with Daughter #2 and see if there is anything down there to attract her away from attending the UW, UO, or one of the local privates.
Spanky
I see I’m far from the first with te Limbaugh news. I’m with Cole. I hope it’s slow.
Not sure if I ever was a nice person, but fuck every one of these motherfuckers to hell.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: As far as any action the Senate might take condemning Trump’s illegal behavior, that might be the best we can hope for.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: They also renamed Sea-Tac for Scoop after he died, they changed it back.
Kent
Yes, he was a mid-century Democratic Icon in Washington and the Pacific Northwest, back from a time when individual Senators had a lot more stature and integrity than they do today with the rump Senate that McConnell and the GOP have created. He was also a UW grad from an old Norwegian immigrant family so about as died in the wool Washingtonian as it gets.
zhena gogolia
Ooh, blya, Bloomberg is on fire
Yutsano
@Kent: I’m greedy. I want the 4th. I want Cathy McMorris-Rodgers unemployed.
Kent
Same thing happened in Alaska with Senator Ted Stevens. Every damn thing up there is getting renamed for Stevens.
The Anchorage International Airport and the big new NOAA science center in Juneau, for example: afsc.noaa.gov/abl/TSMRI.htm
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: Yeah, I know who he was, back to Jackson-Vanik days. My son applied to the Jackson School – they had a pretty generous financial aid program – but ended up at Fletcher.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Reminds me we really, really need to get Reagan’s name off the DC airport.
Change it back to Washington National Airport. First president, destination it serves.
Ron, Jr. (proud atheist) and Patti would be down with that, I think. Their mom has passed.
Not so much the congressional Republicans who forced the name change in the first place. (There was NO local demand for the name change.) Fuck ’em.
Kent
@Yutsano: I don’t know who is more vulnerable, her or Beutler. But I want them both taken out. Jaime Herrera Beutler is an unacceptable stain because she is the last GOP member with a district touching the Pacific Coast outside Alaska.
trollhattan
Speaking of people we’d like to scurry more quickly to the afterlife.
Jeffro
FYI, I just emailed my RWNJ dad to make sure he was still alive (was surprised not to have heard jack from him last night – he knew I was rooting hard for the Chiefs) and here was the response:
I LOL’d
My response:
r€nato
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: We can change it back, but it’s almost more fun this way…I always call it ‘National’ or ‘DCA’ in conversation with RWNJ family/friends, and it irritates the crap out of them.
Hey, if they’ll agree to quit calling it the ‘Democrat Party’, I’ll…no, never mind, I’d keep calling it ‘National’ anyway ;)
Aziz, light!
Rush Limbaugh and I are near the same age and he hails from Cape Girardeau, Mo. , just down the river from my home town of St. Louis.
For decades I made long drives across the U.S. where no matter where you went, there was Rush’s hateful bile filling up the airwaves, poisoning America.
Die in horrible agony, motherfucker.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: I always still call it National Airport. We have a freeway named for St. Ronnie(it’s the 118 that goes to his library in Simi), but we all call any freeway here in SoCal “The (freeway number)”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I’ve said for a while Manchin will pull something like Arlen Specfter’s “unproven” waffle
gonna put my heart on my sleeve enough to say Doug Jones will do the right thing.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@Jeffro: Yep. Always, always National Airport. Nothing else.
Kathleen
@Kent: You might want to check out University of Portland. Megan Rapinoe is an alum!
MisterForkbeard
@zhena gogolia:
He has good ad and communications people. He’d BETTER, since I think he’s paying them 2x the going rate. :)
Yutsano
@Kent: Again: I’m greedy. I want them all. I want the wilderness to start with a complete wipeout in the 2020 election. Make them fight everywhere even where they think they’re safe. And especially make Bloomberg empty his pockets for us everywhere, not just on the Presidential race.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
I think both Bushes are good examples of the corrupting influence of power. They both showed signs of personal decency and some concept of noblesse oblige, but they got so wrapped up with doing whatever it took to win and keep power that they rarely did anything positive once they got it. Once they were retired from the Presidency and weren’t in a position to do anything more, their decent impulses could come out again.
To be very clear, I’m not saying this to excuse them for the awful stuff they did. The truest expression of our values is what we do, not what we think. But it explains how there can be such a difference between their apparent beliefs and their actions in and around power.
Kathleen
@Elizabelle: In Cincy a local highway was renamed Reagan. I still call it Cross County.
trollhattan
@r€nato:
Huh, based on that little nugget I guess dad took up smoking at 15. Not impossible, but IIUC he took it up in the Navy when they were free rations for the boys while they were fighting the Japanese. It is certainly true a bomb will kill you more quickly than coffin nails will.
And before I tell Rush what I think of his cute theory, he’s not addressing cardiovascular events. Smoking causes a hell of a lot of heart attacks a lot younger than his 50-year time window accommodates. Fuck you, Rush.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They’ve both stuck with the Dems so far, but yeah, that would be my prediction too.
Elizabelle
The WaPost. And LOL (and no surprise), they turned off their comments feature after 27. A bit amazed they opened it at all. And “talking with God.” Good. Sounds serious.
r€nato
@trollhattan: I’ve never heard of carrot-induced lung cancer, but who am I to question the stable genius Rush Limbaugh?
Karma can be a goddamn bitch but isn’t nearly often enough.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
oh good lord, MSNBC is reporting live from the caucuses.
I don’t know if I can take i
ETA I don’t think I would do well in a caucus, I might lose my composure with supporters of a certain candidate
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I see some commentary that this would actually be a good thing, given the circumstances.
Nelle
First report on satellite caucuses around the world…First, Klobuchar, second Pete, third Biden, fourth, Sanders. Remember, some sites have as few as eight voters.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
r€nato
@Elizabelle:
zzzzzzzzzz let me know when you get to the part that has to do with deathbed conversions and making amends for the wrongs you’ve done to others.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: I thought he’d be short of breath because he’s a morbidly obese smoker who does no cardiovascular exercise. But lung cancer works for me too.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think I’ll fire up another episode of Brideshead Revisited tonight.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Censure is better than nothing, I guess. Maybe it let’s some Senators off the hook, but it would piss Trump off.
Elizabelle
@r€nato: There was a very good play about Lee Atwater’s deathbed conversion.
“Fixin’ to Die.”
hueyplong
Kind of pleased to be told by Rush Limbaugh himself that God will be verbalizing at him as he’s shown across.
Hard to imagine him accurately relaying that conversation to his listeners.
zhena gogolia
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
CONNI! OMG! How cute!
hueyplong
@zhena gogolia: Anyone thinking any GOPers will vote for censure is basing that thought on something other than what they’ve actually done over the last 36-odd months.
Unless, of course, we’re talking about censure of Hunter Biden or Robert Mueller or The Whistleblower.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I still think Bolton has a trick or two left in his ba
ETA: @hueyplong: I had a similar thought– Lindsey will demand a censure of Joe Biden
zhena gogolia
@hueyplong:
I don’t know, somebody said Manchin wouldn’t have proposed it if he didn’t have the votes. I’m lost in twitterville, so don’t ask me where I saw that.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You do? Rick Wilson thinks he missed his chance and will end up in prison.
Quiltingfool
The Bad Astronomy website was my go-to reference when I taught an astronomy unit to 7th graders. I wanted to make sure I had the most accurate information – middle school science textbooks can have errors or in an attempt to make information at grade level, they can be a little sloppy. Another great reference for teachers, parents or anyone who likes to read science stuff is the “Stop Faking It” science books. The author writes about topics in physics, chemistry and math. Enjoyable read AND very informative.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Except when we don’t. We tend to use the name rather than the number in two cases:
frosty
@WaterGirl: Yes, the dropdown ad on my phone is gone. (iPhone 6SE, Firefox).
Thank you for moving so fast on this!
The Lodger
@Mike in DC: I don’t wish Limbaugh dead either. If his prognosis is accurate, I don’t have to bother.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: who knows? I imagine Wilson and Bolton have overlapping circles of acquaintance, and maybe Wilson knows or has heard something, but Bolton strikes me as crazy, smart, and self-righteous, and probably vindictive. I’d bet a mortgage payment, if not the farm on him dropping something tomorrow afternoon to get into trump’s head before the SOTU.
And I’ll as ever defer to the real lawyers, but I doubt Bolton has broken any laws. I think Barr’s plan– with John Brennan, with Comey, probably with the Bidens, maybe with Mueller, and probably with Bolton– is not conviction, even indictment, but harassment, maliciously forcing people to run up big legal bills and get whatever attendant bad press he can force on them. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Graham (Grassley, Hawley, Cruz, Scott.. whichever one has whichever gavel they can use) do the same thing with Senate hearings.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: She’s cute, but I think she’s a Republican.
different-church-lady
@Baud: In practical terms, censure is nothing.
different-church-lady
@The Lodger: Alive and suffering is alright by me.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore:
But we really don’t do that with The 5, or The 10, or The 110, but I do see your point.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
We’re not going to get anything in practical terms. That ship has sailed, if it was ever docked in the first place.
TomatoQueen
@jl: The Jobs story as I recall was a matter of Jobs’ condition (a pancreatic tumor) first being treatable by non-invasive means, about which he dithered and ate raw corn, then becoming untreatable by any means other than surgery, which terrified him and he ate raw corn, then becoming cancerous and it was too late at least in part because his body was breaking down. The extent to which his willfulness and ego were factors in his demise won’t be known.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Being the first and only president
impeachedcensured (let my wishes get ahead of my typing) would enrage trump, enough that I imagine word is going out to Gardner and Collins that they’d better notSomeone reported a couple of weeks ago that elected Rs are even now getting angry confrontations with MAGAts who are still mad the didn’t support Gilded Ox on the Access Hollywood tape
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You mean censured?
ETA: never mind
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am on Team Doug Jones, also.
Kent
No Warren? I find that kind of surprising.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Imagine if you will, what rush would say if one of the Obama’s got cancer. I’ll say the same about him.
sdhays
If that were true, he would have died long ago.
Kent
Yes, but my LGBT daughter is leery of anything connected to the Catholic Church, Rapinoe not withstanding. They are a women’s soccer powerhouse so have had various US national team members over the years. She is also interested in digital arts and animation which is not a thing at all at UoP and probably the bigger issue.
But it is only 20 minutes away from us so my wife would be happy.
WaterGirl
@frosty: Cole is the one who makes all the ad decisions, so it’s him you have to thank for this.
But I will gladly accept an assist for making the case and my repeated nudging of Cole this weekend. :-)
Baud
@Kent:
Fascinating since I would have guessed ex pat Iowans would be more progressive than average.
Kent
@Baud: I could live with Klobuchar winning Iowa. That would sure shake things the fuck up! And in a good way I think.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Baud: Now I’m confused.
Trump has actually been impeached, and any hope for censure is still a gleam in our collective eyes, correct?
Baud
@Kent:
I would do the Dance of Joy if that happened.
JPL
@Kent: CNN had one site that had Sanders and Warren as viable, but no one else. I stopped streaming and decided instead to listen to music.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I saw at least one of those satellite caucus is in FL, Snowbirds
ETA:
I typed “impeached” when I meant “censured”
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ok, that makes more sense.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I love that split-second shot of Trump’s hair flying wildly in the wind!
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
People do distinguish the Pasadena Freeway from the Harbor Freeway, and the Santa Monica Freeway from the San Bernardino Freeway. The latter makes a lot of sense to me, since the East LA Interchange is so weird.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Andrew Jackson was censured by the Senate in 1834.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Maybe, but if I were giving directions to go from Santa Monica to Palm Springs, I just say take The 10 to The 111*.
*I might throw in The 60 in that mix.
Viva BrisVegas
So that’s why God created lung cancer?
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
His people expunged that after he and they swept the next election though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I did not know that
Don’t tell trump, he’ll decide it’s a good thing
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It was for withholding documents related to defunding the Bank of the United States, however the censure was expunged towards the end of Jackson’s term.
@Baud: True, I went and read the full Wiki on that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I can’t remember why this name is familiar, but I don’t have good associations with it
Ohio Mom
Kathleen @144. Me too. And I’ve taken to explaining to young Lyft drivers why I call it Cross-County (along with how Indian Hill stopped it from actually crossing the entire county).
There is a group that is dedicated to getting at least one public work in each state named after Ronnie. All I can figure is, Republicans are easily hypnotized, else why all tne worship for that phoney putz?
Kathleen
@Kent: Understood!
Roger Moore
@Ohio Mom:
The Reagan worship was part of a long-term plan to turn the Republican party into a personality cult. With Trump, they’ve finally succeeded.
zhena gogolia
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Aw, say it isn’t so!
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Me too. Or Warren.
Uncle Cosmo
@Kathleen: When places, streets or buildings are named after some prominent person, whether that name sticks with the locals seems to depend on how long that place/street/building had been around with an earlier name.
I recall two Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevards. One is in Lansing MI & runs along the west side of town & the east border of the airport. When I was visiting there (for a couple of yrs at the end of the millennium) most of the locals still called it by its pre-1994 name, Logan St., which is the name they & their parents grew up with.
Here in Baltimore, the 6-lane Harbor City Boulevard, built very fairly recently to bypass downtown in a semicircle to the west, had only been in existence for a few years when it was renamed after Dr. King. Everyone now knows it as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, or “MLK”; hardly anyone remembers the original name – no one had much of a chance to get used to it.
Uncle Cosmo
@Uncle Cosmo: Another instance is Baltimore-Washington International Airport, which from 1950 to 1973 was known as Friendship International Airport; the 3-letter code was changed from BAL to BWI in 1980. Over the next couple of decades the locals got used to referring to it as “BWI”. In 2005 it was renamed again to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to honor the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, who was born in Baltimore; but most locals still call it “BWI” & only occasionally “BWI Marshall.”
rekoob
@Uncle Cosmo: And then there is the pronunciation of the airport code: I remember distinctly hearing a gate agent refer to it as “bee-wee” in the late 80s/early 90s, but most folks still seem to say it “bee-double-u-eye”. I think the former is more endearing, but I also squeeze in Marshall when I can (not forgetting Friendship when talking to those of a certain age).
catclub
@Kent: Jac-Tac!
Brian
@opiejeanne: Have you read Al Franken’s bit on Rusty’s ties in Big Fat Idiot?
2Funny
@Ghost of Joe Lieblings Dog: or Wisconsin
Shakti
@Lapassionara: You know, when I think of him, if I ever think of him of all, it’s to remember what a consistently vile person he is.
He’s high school classmates with Terry Jones so maybe he’ll be next?