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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

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Usually wrong but never in doubt

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Republicans do not trust women.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

So many bastards, so little time.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

I don’t recall signing up for living in a dystopian sci-fi novel.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

I really should read my own blog.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

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You are here: Home / Archives for 2020

Archives for 2020

Ghosts of Holidays Past: Albatrossity Christmas Edition

by WaterGirl|  December 21, 202010:00 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Albatrossity, Ghost of Holidays Past, On The Road, On The Road After Dark, Photo Blogging

For the next couple of weeks, we are having Ghosts of Holidays Past instead of the usual On the Road After Dark.

So send in your pictures!  Either as a full set for a post, or just send one or two that will go into a group post.  Be sure to include some text so we know what we’re looking at.  If you want to send photos but not have them identified as yours, let me know that, too.

We haven’t declared war on Christmas, but we did switch to Holidays so all celebrations are welcome!

My father was a professional photographer, so there are lots of pictures of the family Christmases, as well as home movies etc. It’s hard to pick just a few, and I also don’t want to embarrass myself or my siblings, so here some that I chose with that parameter in mind. Be forewarned, I’m officially old, and grew up in the middle of the country, so some of these items and customs might be novel for some of you youngsters! But I’m still impressed by Kodachrome; some of these slides are over 60 years old, and they look great, color and tone-wise!

Ghosts of Holidays Past: Albatrossity Christmas EditionPost + Comments (24)

Ghosts of Holidays Past: Albatrossity Christmas Edition 8
Montezuma KS

One of the family traditions when I was young was a Christmas Day trip to my aunts house in the tiny town of Montezuma KS, about a half hour away. Here we would gather with my dad’s parents and some of his siblings (most of whom were still in that part of KS), have Christmas dinner, wash a lot of dishes, and open presents. We took turns opening one present at a time, starting with the youngest and proceeding to the oldest, so my grandfather was always the last to get to open his first present. But he always had more than anybody, so he could keep opening presents long after the kids had completed theirs. Here’s a pic of my sister “helping” my grandmother open a present; other relatives can be seen in the background.

Starry Night Open Thread

by TaMara|  December 21, 20209:34 pm| 29 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

Starry Night Open Thread

I’m sure there will be tons of great photos, including from our own BillinGlendaleCA. But I couldn’t wait to share my favorite Colorado photographer’s work.

“Christmas Star” (Colorado).

My fiancée had the idea and wanted to take a photo of the Saturn and Jupiter conjunction behind this Christmas tree and Pikes Peak tonight. We got there and the tree was not on. So we waited a little bit. The sky got dark but the tree was still not lit. I guess they skipped today for some reason. I decided to combine my “Christmas Star” photo from tonight with the lit tree that I took a few days ago to make her idea a reality. I hope you enjoy it and be merry. ?

https://larsleber.com

I had a great view from the backyard and a few minutes after I spent some time viewing it, they slipped behind a large (lenticular I think) cloud formation. Fun while it lasted.

Open thread

Starry Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (29)

Schadenfreudelicious (Fake) News Open Thread: RED SLIME!

by Anne Laurie|  December 21, 20207:15 pm| 161 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Information Warfare, Open Threads, Trump Crime Cartel, Schadenfreude

I have been informed by my lawyers that if I don’t read some stuff we’ll all be “living in a refrigerator box behind the strip club eating dog food out of the can” https://t.co/atF7ikwwup

— kilgore trout, assless pajama afficianado (@KT_So_It_Goes) December 21, 2020

When the Grifter King falls, all the courtiers find themselves scrambling. As long as Trump was The Biggest Dick in the Room, the up-and-coming disinformation outlets felt they could push lies without being called out, but now that there’s a new President coming to town…

show full post on front page

Schadenfreudelicious (Fake) News Open Thread: RED SLIME!Post + Comments (161)

The Great Conjunction Is Complete!

by Adam L Silverman|  December 21, 20206:31 pm| 54 Comments

This post is in: Nature, Nature & Respite, Open Threads

Now the surviving Gelflings will be safe!

Open thread!

The Great Conjunction Is Complete!Post + Comments (54)

Monday Evening Open Thread: Jab, Jab, Jab

by Anne Laurie|  December 21, 20205:37 pm| 164 Comments

This post is in: Biden-Harris 2020, COVID-19, Open Threads

Maybe if they promised Trump a sticker, he'd get one too. … https://t.co/R5VbfCW3pf

— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) December 21, 2020

show full post on front page

Monday Evening Open Thread: Jab, Jab, JabPost + Comments (164)

Low Barr (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  December 21, 20201:06 pm| 158 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Trumpery

William Barr, America’s shittiest attorney general for two more days, doesn’t support illegally seizing locally owned voting machines or appointing special counsel to investigate the Trump/Flynn/Powell-Kraken election fraud fantasies, so let the media rehabilitation commence? Via TPM:

Attorney General Bill Barr said Monday that he saw “no basis” for the federal government to seize voting machines, responding to a reporter’s question geared at the recent news that President Trump’s allies have floated such a gambit.

Barr also gave no support to the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate the conspiracy theories around election fraud. Over the weekend, Trump reportedly discussed the idea of appointing Sidney Powell — the fringy lawyer leading the flailing legal gambit to overturn the election results — to such a role.

“If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, I would have named one,” Barr said Monday. “But I haven’t and I am not going to.”

Barr said he stood by his previous remarks indicating the Department had not found evidence of mass voter fraud in the 2020 presidential contest, though he stressed Monday that he did think some fraud occurs in “most” elections.

Just checked the shitgibbon’s Twitter feed to see if there’s any reaction. He’s tweet-screaming at Georgia’s Gov. Kemp and hyping yet another supposed bombshell fraud discovery in Pennsylvania today, but nothing about Barr. I hope Trump is truly as panicked and agitated as he sounds and that he spends every remaining second of the next 29 days setting Republicans at each other’s throats instead of actively wreaking further havoc on the country at large. It’s all I want for Christmas, really.

Open thread!

Low Barr (Open Thread)Post + Comments (158)

Pwned!

by Cheryl Rofer|  December 21, 202011:20 am| 73 Comments

This post is in: Rofer on International Relations, Russia

Alexei Navalny is a Russian critic of the Putin government. He was nearly killed by a Novichok nerve agent in August. Yesterday, he talked to the FSB agent who poisoned his underwear and got a full confession.

Bellingcat is an investigative organization that developed out of Eliot Higgins’s investigations of Syrian munitions, particularly nerve agent munitions, when he blogged as Brown Moses. They worked with CNN and Navalny in this operation.

Bellingcat uses open source information in their investigations. They exposed the two FSB poisoners of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia and have uncovered large amounts of information about nerve agent use in Syria.

[Disclosure: I consult with Bellingcat and occasionally write for them.]

The Bellingcat folks do a good job of telling their own story, with CNN’s help. So I’ll let them give the details. Here’s their full report on the Navalny investigation. The report on the phonecall, with a recording and transcript. The transcript is in English, and the phonecall video has English translation. CNN report.

Navalny called several FSB officers with no luck, then decided to pretend that he was an FSB higher-up who wanted a readout of the operation. It worked stunningly.

Why did they poison his underwear?

https://twitter.com/gregkoblentz/status/1341035140026396672

Bellingcat has been wildly successful in using open-source information to scoop conventional news sources and, probably, national intelligence services. National intelligence services have been reluctant to admit that open source information can be as useful as their classified sources. Bellingcat is not the only non-governmental organization doing this kind of work. The James A. Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury’s Monterey campus is also excellent. Datayo is a newcomer and much quieter than I think they should be. The New York Times has recently acquired a visualization unit who use overhead photos.

Bellingcat, with its Skripal and Navalny investigations, have shown that the Russian intelligence services are sloppy in their execution, dropping clues everywhere and leaving far too many things, like telephone numbers out in the open.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner

Pwned!Post + Comments (73)

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