Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

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

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

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Archives for 2020

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Displacement Activity

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Angry Doxie has been told and told and told that yelling at the doorstopper is an exercise in futility. He is all too well aware that people are gonna laugh at him for attacking the doorstopper, again. And yet there is another dog barking out there, just at the edge of human hearing, and there is nothing he can do about that other dog. So he comes scrambling in, banging chest-first off the wall, to… yell at the doorstopper.

Angry Doxie is the spirit animal for at least half of Political Twitter.

(But a lot more entertaining to watch.)

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On The Road – ?BillinGlendaleCA – The Great Conjunction

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?BillinGlendaleCA

Last week Jupiter and Saturn appeared in our sky as close as they had in the last 400 years. Conjunctions happen all the time with the Moon, planets, and stars; but what makes this conjunction interesting is Saturn and Jupiter are particularly bright objects. My plan had been to shoot this from one of the hills northeast of downtown LA, using the city as a backdrop. Due to parking and access issues this was a bit of a problem to shoot.

I decided(quite at the last minute) to do a test shot the night before the actual conjunction at Leo Carrillo State Beach in Malibu. The one thing I leaned from this, is that shooting from atop a hill probably wouldn’t be the best place to capture this. So I ended up shooting from the Broadway bridge over the LA River. The only concerns with this location was parking and whether the planets would be sufficiently above the buildings in downtown LA.

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Leo Carrillo State Beach, Malibu, CADecember 20, 2020

Saturn and Jupiter in the southwestern sky just after sunset.

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Tuesday/Wednesday, Dec. 29-30

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Late Night Open Thread: The Mad King of Versailles Mar-A-Lago

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After having the White House staff (and all the ‘most important’ journalists & pundits) at his beck & phone call… somehow getting schmoozed by a bunch of retired car dealership owners just isn’t as sweet. Strong end-of-the-empire vibes here — Trump angered by Mar-a-Lago renovations, sources say:

His mood darkened as soon as he walked into his members-only club Mar-a-Lago, three days before Christmas, according to multiple sources. The changes to his private quarters, many of which were overseen by his wife, first lady Melania Trump, were not to President Donald Trump’s liking, and he was mad about it, according to a source familiar with the President’s response.

Several weeks in the works, the renovations, undertaken to make the approximately 3,000-square-foot space feel larger and updated in preparation for the Trumps post-White House life, didn’t appeal to Trump’s aesthetics, according to his reaction. Trump was also displeased with other renovations at the property, the source said, not just in the living space…

If the kick-off to his last Florida sojourn as President was rough, the days that followed would be much of the same, with Trump appearing “moody,” according to the source at the club, spending more time than usual behind closed doors and not mingling and conversing as much as he normally does with club members and senior White House staff, many of whom have in the last few years joined him there…

Though he has largely publicly ignored the ravages of Covid-19 on the country, commenting little in recent weeks and seemingly taking a backseat approach as hundreds of thousands of Americans become infected each day, Trump hasn’t been able to avoid the coronavirus’ impact at his beloved sanctuary of Mar-a-Lago…

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On The Road – Mike in Oly – Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

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Mike in Oly

Washington State is rife with incredible natural wonders, but one of the more iconic ones is Mt. St. Helens. It’s eruption in 1980 killed dozens, affected tens of thousands and fascinated millions. It was a boon to science as well, offering a smorgasbord of data in its wake, and remains a focus of study today. Just a couple hours drive for me, it is a favorite destination for day hikes and photography, and to take out-of-town visitors. Here are a selection of photos I’ve taken there over the years.

 

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Mt. St. Helens, WA

A view from the Hummocks trail. One of my favorite hikes in the area, it is only 3 miles and covers some really interesting terrain and offers nice views of the mountain.

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Thank the Gods for Nancy Smash

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While #MoscowMitch continues his career as a sabateur — more on that later — I’m grateful, again, that we have Speaker Pelosi as an example of how legislating can be done…

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Respite: Magnets!

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My brother the magpie sent me this old clip of Richard Feynman explaining that explaining why magnets repel or attract each other is not at all a simple matter:

 

I saw this aeons ago, and had forgotten it, and am very glad to reencounter it.

Respite: Magnets!

Because 2020, I can’t help hearing our current predicament in Feynman’s discussion of the vast substructure of shared knowledge required to make even simple communication possible.  A big part of the Trumpist take over of the GOP–and much of America–has turned on destroying even the possibility of am agreed baseline for reality.

In Feynman’s metaphor, it is as if half of the country are aliens, and have no idea what, say, “shall” means in the sentence, “The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.”

So there’s that: we’re living with Vogons.

But this is supposed to be a respite–so just enjoy the listening for a few minutes of very smart talk. It’s a relief, or at least it is so for me, to be asked to think in the company of a virtuoso at that craft.

ETA: I should add: Feynman was a very smart guy, but not an exemplary one, in particular in ways that also bear on 2020.  His treatment of women as documented in his own memoirs was awful–and his doing so as a Caltech professor created conditions in which female students would have had no doubt about their status and function in the mind of the most famous star in the department.

Elite science as an enterprise has long had this problem.  In the last few years some of the most egregious of the misogyny and abuse has been exposed, but the job is very far from done. Which means that the above isn’t intended to celebrate Feynman as an avatar of reason. Take what he says for what it is: an elegant, accessible bit of teaching (his reputation turns almost as much on his being one of the legendary teachers of physics as on his genuinely important contributions to physics itself), and do not see the whole of the artist in his art.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming:

Image: Raphael, School of Athens, 1511

 

 

 

 

 

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