Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

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

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

We still have time to mess this up!

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

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Archives for May 2021

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Restaurant Relief (& Tacos)

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Give the man credit, he loves being a politician, in the best old-fashioned sense. From AP, “Biden touts $28.6B restaurant relief program, orders tacos”:

Setting foot in a restaurant for his first time as president, Joe Biden made a Cinco de Mayo taco and enchilada run to highlight his administration’s $28.6 billion program to help eateries that lost business because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The president went to Taqueria Las Gemelas in Washington on Wednesday and ordered lunch. The restaurant, owned in part by Mexican immigrants, was a beneficiary of a pilot version of the restaurant relief program. It went from 55 employees to seven during the pandemic, though it was able to rehire some workers through the Paycheck Protection Program that predates the Biden administration…

The White House said that 186,200 restaurants, bars and other eligible businesses had applied for the program over its first two days of accepting applications. More than half of the applicants are owned by women, veterans or people from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. The aid for eateries was part of the Biden administration’s broader $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

The coronavirus outbreak was especially brutal for restaurants. America lost nearly 2,700 dining establishments through last summer, according to the Labor Department. About 1.8 million food service jobs also have been lost, though the sector has been gradually returning jobs since last May…

Under the Biden relief program, which started accepting applications on Monday, restaurants and bars can qualify for grants equal to their pandemic-related revenue losses, with a cap of $10 million per business and $5 million per location.

The program has set aside $9.5 billion for the smallest restaurants and bars, and a third of the applications were filed by businesses with annual pre-pandemic revenues of less than $500,000. For the program’s first 21 days, applications from women, veterans and socially and economically disadvantaged people will have priority for being reviewed and funded…

Or, as the sad Breitbart luzers see it:

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But, But, Stigma, HIPAA, mah Freedoms!

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The New York state plan is now officially that any big outdoor event will have tightly packed “vaccinated” sections, and loosely packed “unvaccinated” sections. My guess is that the latter will be very small, because if I’m an event promoter/sports team owner, I want to fill my venue/stadium.

To move things along, the big NYC sports teams are going to host vaccination sites and give away tickets to those who get vaccinated:

The not-so-hidden message to Trumpy anti-vaxxers here is, “cry, motherfuckers, cry.”

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Biden Administration Supports The Waiver Of IP Protection On Covid Vaccines

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Just tweeted —

It’s not clear to me how much of a problem this is, which is why I haven’t said much about it, but now it’s no longer an issue to be fought over in the media. The Biden administration is focusing on the reality – getting the vaccines to people.

Open Thread!

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If My Brain Interprets It As Something Where I Fits, I Sits (Open Thread)

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It’s no secret that cats of all sorts love boxes.

If My Brain Interprets It As Something Where I Fits, I Sits (Open Thread)
(via imgur user theportraitssecretinattackmode)

Why, I cannot say, since I don’t have a very good handle on what it’s like to be a cat. But we do know that they love sitting in boxes so much, they’ll happily sit in a square you tape on the floor.

If My Brain Interprets It As Something Where I Fits, I Sits (Open Thread) 1
(via twitter user @MarleyDee1)

A new paper demonstrates that they will also plop themselves down inside a Kanizsa illusion ‘square’ you tape on the floor.

Recent trials have found cats to be much more cooperative research subjects if they’re studied at home, and that’s what this researcher, Gabriella Smith, did.

With paper, scissors, and some tape, the owners were instructed to create several different shapes for the cats. This included the typical square, but it also included the Kanizsa square illusion, a pattern of Pacman-like shapes that fool the human brain into seeing a fully outlined square. For their control, they created a similar Kanizsa shape, but one where the illusion isn’t possible.

Once the shapes were put down on the floor, in various arrangements, the cats would enter the room. If they chose a shape to sit or stand inside for at least three seconds, the trial would be considered a success and their choice would be marked down. To monitor the trials remotely, the owners were asked to record the cats via a camera and smartphone. And to avoid influencing the cats in any way, they were told not to interact with them and to wear dark sunglasses so no eye contact could be made.

Ultimately, 30 owners completed the experiment in full, which involved six days of trials. Of these, nine cats were cooperative, meaning that they actually made a choice at least once during the trials. And out of the 16 times a choice was made, cats sat on the square eight times, the square-like illusion seven times, and the control illusion once.

The actual finding here is that cats are susceptible to Kanizsa illusions, but gosh if they didn’t test it in the most adorable way. I think I’ll have to test this out on Samwise…

Open thread!

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I Got the Shot! – #14

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Congratulations to all who have gotten at least one vaccination!

Anyone still waiting for the vaccine?

If you need to find a place to get the COVID vaccine, just text your zipcode to 438829. You’ll get locations near you where you can get vaccinated! Text to VACUNA (822862) for Spanish.  (lifted from a tweet by Ron Klein, who should know what he is talking about.)

Or go to https://www.vaccines.gov

For Canadian readers, if you’re looking for a shot, vaccinehunters.ca is doing incredible work to highlight locations with available appointments.

Tell me which stickers you want, so I can sticker you!

ruemara’s kitties, Odoroki and Himesama:

Dr. Fauci and Nancy Smash:

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Liar, Liar, Big Fat Liar

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I’m not sure what we actually expected from this guy, but here it is in plain English:

A federal judge in Washington accused the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr of misleading her and Congress about advice he had received from top department officials on whether President Donald J. Trump should have been charged with obstructing the Russia investigation and ordered that a related memo be released.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court in Washington said in a ruling late Monday that the Justice Department’s obfuscation appeared to be part of a pattern in which top officials like Mr. Barr were untruthful to Congress and the public about the investigation.

The department had argued that the memo was exempt from public records laws because it consisted of private advice from lawyers whom Mr. Barr had relied on to make the call on prosecuting Mr. Trump. But Judge Jackson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011, ruled that the memo contained strategic advice, and that Mr. Barr and his aides already understood what his decision would be.

And soon we will be able to read his bullshit for ourselves.

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Hot Potato

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The headline is that the Facebook Oversight Board has upheld Trump’s suspension. But the details struck me kind of funny:

The Board has upheld Facebook’s decision on January 7, 2021, to restrict then-President Donald Trump’s access to posting content on his Facebook page and Instagram account.

However, it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension. Facebook’s normal penalties include removing the violating content, imposing a time-bound period of suspension, or permanently disabling the page and account.

The Board insists that Facebook review this matter to determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform. Facebook must complete its review of this matter within six months of the date of this decision. The Board also made policy recommendations for Facebook to implement in developing clear, necessary, and proportionate policies that promote public safety and respect freedom of expression.

In other words, Facebook punted it to the board, and the board shoved it right back in their face.

Of course, Zuckerberg just wants to just let Trump dangle indefinitely. On the one hand, Trump might run in 2024 and bring Facebook more “engagement”. On the other, if they let Trump back in now, while Democrats control Congress and the DoJ, they’re inviting anti-trust attention.

The only question left is how Zuck will weasel out of the demand by the Oversight Board to make a decision in 6 months, because that’s not a convenient timeframe. Trump starting his own blogspot page is going to make it even tougher for Zuck to continue kicking the can down the road, since it will inevitably be wall-to-wall “stop the steal”. That said, I have no doubt that that the asshole Zuck and his soulless valley bro minions will find a way to cut this baby in half.

Anyway, delete your account.

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