Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Come on, man.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You cannot shame the shameless.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

No one could have predicted…

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“woke” is the new caravan.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Fun Facts

Fun Facts

by | 220 Comments

This post is in: ,

I was thinking about all the interesting things I learned on the podcast Jack yesterday, and I thought it might be fun to have a thread where we could all share interesting stuff we have learned in the past few days from reading, or videos, conversations, or podcasts.

I thought I might call it Fun Facts to Know and Tell, and then I wondered about the origin of that particular phrase, so I googled.

This is the first thing that Google told me:

  • It is impossible for most people to lick their own elbow.
  • A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
  • A shrimp’s heart is in its head
  • It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

Not exactly what I had in mind!

I was very pleased to hear Andrew McCabe speak so candidly about Durham and Billy Barr, using the phrase “ginned up” multiple times, with the word “corrupt” peppered in that conversation, too.  He also mentioned that he doesn’t believe that the Trump financial crime, as reported by the Italians, fits under Jack Smith’s remit as Special Counsel.  They also wondered on the podcast, and I wonder, too, why the DOJ, who has likely known about that for quite some time has not fired Durham fore cause.

Reader Interactions

220Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    It is impossible for most people to lick their own elbow

    I do not want to see a photo of the people who can.

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

    What if the pig is lying on its back?

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    Handlers have complete control of Trump’s phone now, don’t they. No way he wrote that.

  7. 7.

    Barbara

    Totally disconnected from anything else, but I learned through a book I am reading that beginning in 1946, Venezuela supported tens of thousands of displaced refugees, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe, and this likely had a measurable impact on its state of development over the next few decades.

  10. 10.

    Splitting Image

    @WaterGirl:

    I assume all 500 songs are not by Love, who I have never heard of.

    Love is an amazing band that flew under a lot of people’s radar. Forever Changes is possibly the best album that came out in 1967, a year which had some real juggernauts.

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Doesn’t the DoJ fall under the purview of the Senate Judiciary Committee? I just checked their twitter feed going back to 1/24, and if there’s a single mention of the Barr-Durham story, I missed it. There were at least ten on the Ticketmaster hearings, most of them using what I gather are Taylor Swift lyrics. I get the need to meet people where they are but… come the fuck on.

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: SRSLY? I’m picturing Hope Hicks and even Jared seeing the “late, great gangster Al Capone” and thinking, “Oh shit, and he’s texting now”

    ETA: SRSLY because I had trump texting on my mind, just realized that looks a little more “Well akshully…” in print than it did in my head.

  25. 25.

    ian

    @trollhattan: From what I understand, he was still spewing anti-Asian rhetoric at Elaine Chao on T.S. very recently.  So if some handler has control over his phone, they are not doing a very good job controlling for content.  Or they (the handlers) are fine with anti-Asian hate speech.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    Brazil’s Trump wants nothing to do with Brazil.

    January 30, 2023 at 2:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

    Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, has applied for a six-month visitor visa to remain in the U.S. as his legal standing in his home country grows perilous, the Financial Times reports.
    As the Washington Post notes, Bolsonarro really doesn’t want to go to jail.

  27. 27.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Fascinating facts from a Facebook poster called Roman Empire:

    Roman roads were equipped with everything necessary for long journeys. In fact, every ten miles or so, mutationes and mansiones, ‘ante-litteram’ rest stops, were located along the routes. The mutationes were changing stations for the horses, which were also equipped with veterinary surgeons. They also had a small tavern. The mansiones, on the other hand, were much larger service stations offering amenities such as food, accommodation and even thermal baths. The mansiones were so important that towns developed around some of them.

  30. 30.

    patrick II

    They don’t mention investigating Barr-Durham because they want to set as little precedent as possible for undercutting a special prosecutor they probably always knew was coming for Trump.

    You impeach one of our presidents, we impeach one of yours.  You kick two of our congressmen off of committees we kick off two of yours.  They add a false equivalence of made-up crap to make it sound reasonable for those who want it to be.  So, get them later if Smith doesn’t take too long.

  31. 31.

    Immanentize

    Looking like a born again
    Living like a heretic
    Listening to arthur lee records
    Making all your friends feel so guilty
    About their cynicism
    And the rest of their generation
    Not even the government are gonna stop you now
    But are you ready to be heartbroken?
    Are you ready to be heartbroken?

    Are You Ready to be Heartbroken? — LLoyd Cole

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Seems cromulent to this thread: John Ratzenberger auditioned for the part of Norm on Cheers, but figured out he wasn’t gonna get it and sold the show’s creators on the idea that every neighborhood bar had at least one loud mouth know-it-all. The part got bigger as they wrote it.

    And apparently, IIRC about halfway through the first season, somebody said, “Shouldn’t our Boston bar have at least one person with a Boston accent?” I won’t weigh in on its quality.

  33. 33.

    Raoul Paste

    I remember the song “My Little Red Book“.  It had a punk energy.
    And I think Robby Krieger of the Doors doesn’t get enough credit.   And if you don’t like it, send my credentials to the house of detention

  35. 35.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @ian:

    So if some handler has control over his phone, they are not doing a very good job controlling for content

    TFG is famous for being unmanageable. He doesn’t listen to his lawyers’ advice. Handlers? It is to laugh.

  37. 37.

    Tony Jay

    It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

    They can, they just don’t, because they know what’s up there and it frightens them.

    Also, too, they covered this question where it relates to dogs in that 2004 documentary that predicted Brexit.

  41. 41.

    AliceBlue

    I’ve gotten hooked a on a Youtube channel run by a wildlife rehabilitator, who is taking care of three orphaned beavers.  I’ve learned that beavers have bright orange teeth; have flaps in their ears which close when they are underwater; have clear additional eyelids that serve as goggles when underwater; and they can detect changes in water pressure through their tails.  When she had them in her house, they made a dam out of throw pillows, stuffed toys, wrapping paper and a discarded christmas tree.

  42. 42.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: Right, Love was an LA band fronted by Arthur Lee and was an early mixed-race group. One of the reasons they were less known outside of LA was that they couldn’t tour the south or midwest.  They were truly groundbreaking and I was into them from the start.
    The Daily Planet.
    From Forever Changes. My wife, brother and I went to see them I. LA about 20 years ago and it was great.

  46. 46.

    MisterDancer

    The below are all YouTube links I’ve watched in last week of so, between work and other projects:

    1. The Making of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 is one of the most important events in modern geek cinema. A delay meant we got Hugh Jackman as wolverine, and Ian McKellen as both Magneto and Gandolf — critical actors in films that have defined the current media landscape.
    2. This is a fascinating video on Female Rage in media; where it comes from, and where it might evolve. A key learning for me was that the origins of said presentations go further back, but are mediated by men until…uncomfortably recently. Not surprising, just clarifying.
    3. You can debate this 60 Minutes bit on the smartest dog in the world, but there are really good points about the abilities of canines that we are only beginning to understand and appreciate in that bit. Learning that there’s a credible-sounding (coming from me, this is something!) test of the kinds of intelligence your dog might have is something I think can change the discourse around not just dogs, but other pets.
    4. For those of us who struggle with the place of “slang” terms in our modern discourse, this quick PBS video is the bee’s knees. :) We tend to use these terms without considering them, and this video isn’t pedantic about it, but helps clarify why some usage just sounds wrong.
    5. Related to #4 is this longer video from one of my fave science people talking thru the bad science of one of her (former) faves; it’s esp. critical due to the impact of corporate money in science that is parallel to it’s impact in our politics. Very basically, this presenter points out that efforts to get propane to be “clean fuel” for school buses over electric  have a lot of flaws, and that electric buses have better ranges and flexibility than I know I thought, before.
    6. Finally, if you’re wondering about the impact on A.I. in legal matters, this video from Legal (or as I like to call him, “Ryan Reynolds, Esq.”) is a really good intro to the messy state of the art around those matters. I don’t know if I can point out one thing I learned, aside from the messiness of trying to claim that pulling material off Internet for training AI isn’t a slamdunk case of copyright infringement.
  47. 47.

    Tony Jay

    Got to love the “I am leading everyone in the polls by 12 inches points!” followed immediately by “Don’t believe anything you see about this in the media!” on the off-chance any of his target market shows enough initiative to go check this claim out.

    He’s, like, 2015’s idea of what 2024’s Republicans want, with added defensiveness.

  55. 55.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: Back in the day RT 47 and I-55 (RT 66) at Dwight, Il was the last stoplight between Chicago and LA! I had some hair raising experiences hitchhiking there!

  56. 56.

    Alison Rose

    Because one of the co-creators of Sesame Street passed away recently, I was reading a bunch of random articles about the show, which was my favorite as a kid, and found out that Cookie Monster’s real name is Sid. I do not know what to do with that.

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @patrick II: You make an excellent point.  Once again, it’s all about preserving the institutions over all else.

    There’s a case to be made for that, of course, but it can be hard to care about that when you can’t spit without hitting a corrupt republican in the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court.

    It sometimes feels like they can destroy them faster than we can preserve them, but we still have to try.  They may win some of the battles but we have to carry on the fight to win the war.

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @patrick II: They don’t mention investigating Barr-Durham because they want to set as little precedent as possible for undercutting a special prosecutor they probably always knew was coming for Trump.

    Who’s the “they” here?

  69. 69.

    mali muso

    So the kiddo and I got to visit the White House on Friday! First time I’ve ever gotten the opportunity, and of course, very educational for both me and her. Fun fact that I did not know, the White House is a National Park. Kiddo was able to go to the visitor center after our tour and get “sworn in” as a National Park Junior Ranger. Other fun fact, there is absolutely no mention or hint of the Orange Menace anywhere in the WH or the visitor center that I could see. No photos, no voiceover interviews during the fluffy info videos, nothing. Lots of emphasis on the WH being the “People’s House” though. :-)

  70. 70.

    Alison Rose

    @eclare: Mr Rogers was also definitely a favorite! My mom loves to tell the story of how, when my oldest brother was little, if he was misbehaving or not listening or something, all she’d have to do is tell him she wouldn’t let him watch Mr Rogers, and he’d shape up :P

  71. 71.

    CaseyL

    This is not a Fun Fact that I’ve just learned; it’s an Established Fact that I still can’t make myself believe: that lightning strikes up, not down.

    I have trouble believing it because, like anyone else who has seen lightning, it clearly comes down from the sky.

    If I understand the actual process of lightning correctly, that part – the forked bit that comes down and occasionally explodes things – is the “aftershock,” so to speak. The charge originates in the ground, shoots up into the air, and then….. something something forked lightning.

    Honestly, I don’t understand this at all, and it’s way counterintuitive, so if someone wants to take a stab at explaining it, that would be much appreciated.

  72. 72.

    JPL

    @Immanentize: hah   When Ralph Reed ran for office in GA, someone called to see if I could support him.   One of the questions was “Are you born again” and I responded that my mother almost died the first time, so yup that would be a no.

    They hung up on me.

  74. 74.

    WaterGirl

    @AliceBlue:

    When she had them in her house, they made a dam out of throw pillows, stuffed toys, wrapping paper and a discarded christmas tree.

    I think i recently saw a short video of a  beaver building a dam out of those things.  I wonder if it’s the same beaver, or the same person?

  78. 78.

    Ruckus

    Jack E. Smith – He processes the world like a petulant child.

    Well of course that is because he never has grown past being a petulant child.

    The very best that can be said about him is that he is very good at being a petulant child.

    He’s had seven decades of practice and a willing teacher.

  79. 79.

    Kent

    @trollhattan:Brazil’s Trump wants nothing to do with Brazil.

    He probably has good reason to be worried.  It was his allies who railroaded and imprisoned Lula on trumped up (no pun intended) charges.

  83. 83.

    Yutsano

    Interesting column from Dean Obeidallah on CNN. Right now this does indeed make DeSantis look like a bit of a wimp. He’ll have to strike back against Dolt45 at some point, and the longer he waits the harder it will be to not look reactionary and weak. I wonder if he’d make it even in an open primary like that.

  85. 85.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I really wish the Jack Podcast (and Legal AF) had written transcripts for their episodes.  I hear so many good things that I want to quote but I’m usually driving.  They cover so much ground and do a great job of refuting so much of the bad-faith misinformation that Garland-haters (and other justice pessimists) love to spread.  A transcript would make rebuttal and better public understanding much easier.

  87. 87.

    eclare

    @WaterGirl:   A friend and I hitchhiked in Greece when a hike dumped us out on a dark road (five miles my ass).  Luckily a bus took pity and picked us up.

  92. 92.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Splitting Image:

    Love is an amazing band that flew under a lot of people’s radar. Forever Changes is possibly the best album that came out in 1967, a year which had some real juggernauts.

    This has been a good day for learning about music from the 1960s that’s new to me.  Last night’s thread (which I didn’t see until this morning) was the first I’d heard of the Raspberries, which I’m gonna have to give a serious listen to as well.

    I tended to miss stuff like this at the time because in 1967 I was 13 and listening to the motherfucking Cowsills on top-40 AM radio.

  93. 93.

    japa21

    @CaseyL: ​
      Unless you are talking about cloud to cloud lightning.
    Actually, the first phase of what we normally see is invisible, and is an electrical current coming from the clouds down. When it nears the ground a charge rushes up from the ground and that is when it lights up.

  95. 95.

    patrick II

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    “They” is Democrats generally, but more specifically, Biden, Garland and Democrat congressional leadership.  All for slightly different emphasis on common underlying reasons, with Garland being more of an institutionalist, the house not wanting to distract from the J6 hearings, and the Senate probably prioritizing the continuation of some variation of investigating Trump.  When Trump’s culpability is more clearly established, then so will Barr and Durham’s stories be more clearly made-up, and they will be riper for plucking then.  Although, frankly, there is so much corruption we will probably be glad to have gotten Trump (if that happens, if it doesn’t it’s all moot anyway) and just try to move on.

  97. 97.

    lowtechcyclist

    If we were only indicting his intellect, he’s end up in a juvenile detention center.

    I’m saving that one.

  99. 99.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Layer8Problem: I loved The Doors when I was in HS.  Grew out of them after that.  But I can still appreciate the songs and why the music was so exciting for he times.  I can also acknowledge that JM was an egotistical, misogynist d-bag.  The Doors, imo, were neither the greatest band ever, nor the worst (or even most overrated).  I’m not sure why people have such extreme opinions on them.

  101. 101.

    mali muso

    @eclare:

    @WaterGirl:

    It was a super fun day!  Sadly no sightings of Uncle Joe or VP Harris, but we did get some nice photos with the portraits of Forever FLOTUS and POTUS.  Kiddo let me know that she is going to be the first “girl” president.  I sure hope we get one earlier than that, but I appreciate her positive energy.

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @CaseyL:

    It’s been a few decades since I’ve studied this so this is old fart memory. If it needs correction please do.

    The potential of the earth and sky are different. In case you don’t know potential is the difference, in this case of the voltage between the sky and ground. And the potential of the sky changes because of moisture and therefore clouds or clear sky. When the potential of the ground is greater than the sky it will attempt to connect and when it does an electric connection is made causing a spark. What you see is stage 2 of the connection.

  106. 106.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: The death of Tom Verlaine led to a lot of online writing about Tom Verlaine and Television, a band I confess I completely missed during their 1970s proto-New-Wave heyday (because, well, I was a little kid). They seem to have been kind of like the Velvet Underground, not many people bought their records but everyone who did started a band.

    “Marquee Moon” doesn’t sound all that special to me but I think it’s just because I heard all the stuff that was influenced by it in the early ’80s, and now its sound just sounds like another one of those. It’s hard to hear with fresh ears.

  108. 108.

    Layer8Problem

    @UncleEbeneezer:  We must have gone to the same high school.  Morrison’s Doors had been gone for seven years, nobody was listening to it, but the group I hung around with and I thought they were amazing.  Then Rolling Stone had a cover story in 1981:  “Jim Morrison.  He’s hot, he’s sexy, and he’s dead.”

  109. 109.

    Mart

    @raven: “Last stop light between Chicago & LA”? None of these places had stop lights? –
    “Now you go through Saint Looey
    Joplin, Missouri
    And Oklahoma City is mighty pretty
    You see Amarillo
    Gallup, New Mexico
    Flagstaff, Arizona
    Don’t forget Winona
    Kingman, Barstow, San Bernandino”

  112. 112.

    Jacel

    @Alison Rose: If I remember right from over 40 years ago, my girlfriend told me she was introduced at work to The Real Cookie Monster. That man (and Sid might well have been his name) was friends with Jim Henson (or someone in charge of the shows). One time he was visiting and ate all the remaining cookies on a plate. A daughter came wanting cookies, found what he had done and screamed that he was a “cookie monster”. That man inspired the Henson character.

  113. 113.

    Gravenstone

    @Baud: Actually had a former colleague who bragged about being able to do exactly that at one of those professional “mixer” things. Turns out she’s double jointed in a manner that let her flex her arm inward. And no, she didn’t demonstrate.

  114. 114.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Layer8Problem: I wasn’t in HS until a few years later (graduated in 92) but Classic Rock was still the altar that we worshipped (I was more of a Zeppelin, Hendrix, Van Halen etc. guy myself).  My best buddy was obsessed with JM and bought into him being the Great American Poet, lol.  I also knew a guy in college who thought The Doors were HANDS DOWN the greatest band ever!  Which, even then, seemed a bit over-the-top.  That said, I still like the Greatest Hits tunes, at least the ones that I didn’t over-play to death.

  116. 116.

    Betty Cracker

    Reading about quantum entanglement gave my head an ouchie, so I’ll have to bookmark this thread for later.

  117. 117.

    Brachiator

    @raven:

    Just looked over this podcast. From the titles of songs featured, looks very interesting. For example, Stevie Wonder, I Was Made to Love Her. Great early song.

  118. 118.

    jackmac

    @raven: Dwight, Ill.  once featured the last stoplight between Chicago and L.A.?  That’s a great piece of trivia. I’m quite familiar with that intersection (Route 47 and I-55 / Route 66) over the past decade with visits to a daughter enrolled at Illinois State University and now employed there, plus travels downstate for work. A couple of years ago I took the family to breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s in Chicago (near the historic start of Route 66) and over Thanksgiving experienced a full circle as my daughter and I visited the terminus (the Santa Monica pier).

  120. 120.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Betty Cracker: Quantum stuff is one of those concepts I gave up on ever grokking years ago.  And that was after I tried a couple books and several videos/lectures etc., that were basically Quantum 4 Dummies.  I don’t feel bad though because people in that field say that very, very few people really do understand it.

  123. 123.

    trollhattan

    @Layer8Problem: I remember that. Partially a product of cut-out bins, which dumped yuge numbers of remaindered Doors albums into countless record and discount store racks (which we shopped with an onion tucked into our belt), they were back on the album charts years after Morrison had died. It was weird.

    Doors had a unique sound in part being jazz musicians who had better craft and more chops than typical ’60s bands. When the first album debuted in ’67, nothing like it had been heard and the full-length version of “Light My Fire” had lots of radio stations breaking the rules on how long a pop song could be.

    Sans LSD, the Doors might…I’ll stop now.

  124. 124.

    patrick II

    An interesting thing I have read in the past few days:

    From “Jewish telegraphic Agency”

    Ohio is investigating a Nazi homeschooling network that teaches children to love Hitler

    By Andrew Lapin January 30, 2023 1:29 pm

    These are the more than 2,500 members of the “Dissident Homeschool Network,” a channel on the social network messaging app Telegram. The “dissidents” are a group of Nazi parents who share homeschooling lesson plans extolling the virtues of Hitler and white nationalism…

     
    Is shouting “be a good nazi” in a crowded schoolroom outside the bounds of free speech?

  127. 127.

    WaterGirl

    @mali muso: That’s very exciting about the photos with Forever FLOTUS and POTUS.

    First girl president, we heard it here first.  You should make a note of the link to this post so you can share the with her when she turns 15 or 17 or 18.

  131. 131.

    dexwood

    When I tell people Jim Morrison lived in Albuquerque and give them the street address I often receive strange looks, but it’s true. I live two blocks away from that house, pass it every week. When he was five or six, his father was stationed at the Air Force base here.

  133. 133.

    kindness

    @UncleEbeneezer: Back in the 70’s David Crosby used to grouse that the Doors weren’t a real rock band because they had no bass player.  Most of their music has Ray Manzerack playing a Fender Rhodes keyboard bass.  I love Crosby but he was kind of a curmudgen wrt the Doors.  I grew up on AM radio in the 60s and still remember Light My Fire playing endlessly.

  138. 138.

    jonas

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:The mansiones, on the other hand, were much larger service stations offering amenities such as food, accommodation and even thermal baths.

    Including a lot of other special services, aimed at the single male traveler in particular…

  140. 140.

    Kay

    “I think these papers all show that permissive laws around carrying of guns promote more gun violence than they stop and restrictions on assault weapons and high capacity magazines dampen mass shootings,” Donohue told Salon writing, citing his own extensive research into the subject. As one example of this, Donohue pointed out how Texas banned gun carrying from 1870 to 1995 before taking “a very sharp pro gun turn” in 1996. The results?
    “In 1995 Texas had about the same level of homicide as New York, and California had a 25 percent higher murder rate than Texas,” Donohue told Salon by email. “Today Texas has a 57.4 percent higher murder rate than New York and about an 18% higher murder rate than California. That is an astonishing turn around in 25 years compared to the two other large states. New York and California were restrictive on guns and benefited; Texas went the other way and has paid a price.”

  142. 142.

    Eyeroller

    @UncleEbeneezer: ​
      Really understanding it takes a significant mathematical background. It is difficult to explain qualitatively, not least because it’s not intuitive at all. And, of course, there are some aspects that are still fairly mysterious, such as what exactly wavefunction collapse represents. Quantum entanglement is one of the most counterintuitive properties.

    My personal opinion is that we will not have a really fundamental understanding of quantum mechanics until somebody figures out how to incorporate gravity.

  143. 143.

    evodevo

    @CaseyL: Lightning operates on the same principal as you getting shocked by a doorknob after sliding across carpet..can you tell at the time whether the spark goes from you to the knob? Probably not.  You scuffing your shoes adds electrons to your person, and when you get close to a conducting surface, they want to jump off, and you get a spark.  With lightning, the clouds roiling around create a lot of loose electrons..they gather at the bottom of the cloud mass creating a very large negative charge there.   Positive ions on the ground tend to gather at high points – church steeples, bldgs on hills, lone trees in a pasture, or YOU, if you’re out in the open – and when a strong enough positive charge is gathered, BOOM!   As far as I know, it’s the electrons that move…

  145. 145.

    Kent

    @Mart:@raven: “Last stop light between Chicago & LA”? None of these places had stop lights? –
    “Now you go through Saint Looey
    Joplin, Missouri
    And Oklahoma City is mighty pretty
    You see Amarillo
    Gallup, New Mexico
    Flagstaff, Arizona
    Don’t forget Winona
    Kingman, Barstow, San Bernandino”

    Well, to be fair you can still drive cross country from coast to coast in any direction without hitting a single stoplight if you way on the interstates.

  147. 147.

    TriassicSands

    Fun Facts???

    The thing is that with Trump and his supporters — that is, virtually the entire Republican Party — facts don’t matter at all. Trump spews out his lies and his supporters Hoover them up like they are diamonds. The most corrupt among them, yes, the elected officials in numerous states, the U.S. House and Senate, and many of the judges appointed by Trump, may know the difference between the truth and everything Trump says, but that doesn’t matter because their corruption is so complete.

    It has become a fascinating question, to me anyway, as to why anyone would agree to defend him. Money shouldn’t be enough. No amount of money will remove the stain of having represented Trump, if the lawyer agrees to say or do almost anything demanded by the client. And failure to acquiesce? I’d assume that would result in immediate termination, often accompanied by public vilification. One of the most troubling, yet hilarious aspects of Trump’s political career is how he has always appointed or hired what were supposedly the most accomplished, brilliant, and competent people, only to have to fire those same people for being utterly hapless, stupid, and incompetent. Eventually, you’d think Trump might begin to wonder if that is the effect he has on people. It would be the wrong conclusion — the problem has always been who the people actually are when hired — often corrupt, normally partisan, but with an ultimate line they won’t cross. However, there is never any danger of Trump putting anything together (rightly or wrongly) because introspection and self-awareness cannot exist inside his demented brain.

    If the legal profession had nothing but honest practitioners, Donald Trump would be forced to rely on a public defender or someone else forced to represent him. Trump’s problem is never being unable to pay a lawyer — all he has to do is toss out a bogus fund-raiser and he’ll be awash in cash. But who in their right mind would ever agree to represent Donald J. Trump?

  148. 148.

    CaseyL

    @japa21:  @Ruckus:

    OK, those explanations make sense.  I think.

    Japa21:

    an electrical current coming from the clouds down. When it nears the ground a charge rushes up from the ground and that is when it lights up.

    Ruckus:

    When the potential of the ground is greater than the sky it will attempt to connect and when it does an electric connection is made causing a spark.

    Potential = attempted connection, of cloud to ground.  Nothing visible yet.

    Charge emerges from cloud, nears ground, then triggers an answering charge that comes up from the ground, but still nothing visible.

    And then…the answering charge connects with the originating charge, and that causes the fireworks, which are visible, and go downward back to the ground, because the charge is basically bouncing back and forth between at this point…?

  150. 150.

    Kent

    Here’s a fun fact.  There is no such thing as a poisonous snake.  That is something I even see places like the NYT sometimes get wrong.  Snakes are, of course, very good eating.

    Some snakes are venomous, but no snakes are poisonous.  Some mushrooms are poisonous, but no mushrooms are venomous.

    Rule of thumb?  If it bites you and you die it was venomous.  If you bite it and you die it was poisonous.

    I have to teach my Biology students this every year.

    [don’t get me started on the difference between a dike and a levee]

  151. 151.

    Steeplejack

    @Eyeroller:
    Re “understanding of quantum mechanics”: My memory is a little fuzzy, but one of the underlying tropes of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem is the threatening aliens’ scorn of our primitive knowledge of “only” three or four dimensions of reality and related quantum stuff. Liu does a good job of weaving in the quantum stuff with some plausible hand-waving that doesn’t tax the reader’s brain.​

  152. 152.

    sab

    @Kay: Ohio also went nuts on guns. When I was in high school in the early seventies in town nobody had guns. The toxic masculine types flashed switchblades. (1972) We laughed at them.

    Now every angry 13 y/o has a gun and when they kill somebody they get tried as an adult.

    Parts of my city are having weekend gun battles by teenagers, policed by newbie cops supervised by guys with 6 years experience. It is nutz.

    Small city, but we acknowledge we are urban. I want to go drop bombs on those rural communities that keep votings these morons in, but the suburbanites really drag them over the electoral finish line.

  153. 153.

    Mart

    @raven: A Weatherlady, sort of. Dwight is a good exit for gas prices before they rip you a new one in the ever expanding Chicago metro. Moved down to the Lou, and don’t tell them, but City gas prices are often lower than in the burbs here.

  154. 154.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kent:

    [don’t get me started on the difference between a dike and a levee]

    Why not? I mean, I knew the difference between poisonous and venomous (and it drives me mildly crazy every time I see or hear someone confuse the two), but the difference between a dike and a levee? No.freaking.clue.

  158. 158.

    karen marie

    @MisterDancer: In re that dog “being the most important” – my completely airheaded spaniel learns the names of different toys when told precisely once the name of a new toy.

    Have these people never met a dog before?

  160. 160.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    Here’s a fun fact.  There is no such thing as a poisonous snake.

    This is interesting. I hear people talking about poisonous snakes all the time, and know the difference between poisonous and venomous, and I guess just make the correction in my head and keep going.

    So, you can you eat a venomous snake without any negative consequences? Does it make a difference if you eat it raw or cooked?

    I guess maybe digesting venom is not the same as being injected. Duh.

    Poisons and Venoms. Great class for wizards at Hogwarts.

  162. 162.

    WaterGirl

    @Kent: Did you hear the one about the mama snake and the baby snake that were rustling through the woods?

    Baby snake: “mama, are all snakes poisonous?”

    Mama snake: “why do you ask?”

    Baby snake:  “I just bit my tongue.”

  165. 165.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Eyeroller: ​
     

    My personal opinion is that we will not have a really fundamental understanding of quantum mechanics until somebody figures out how to incorporate gravity.

    No need. Here on Earth, gravity incorporate YOU!

  166. 166.

    Jeffro

    Fun fact: apparently, under the once-again-led-by-Ronna-Romney-McDaniel RNC, Republican candidates are being encouraged to “go on the offensive” about abortion and be in favor of passing the strictest abortion restrictions possible.

    Yes really.

    They learn nothing.  It’s kind of unbelievable.

    Say it with me peeps:  please proceed, GQP

  167. 167.

    Cameron

    “It is impossible for most people to lick their own elbow.”

    Typical sell-out Democratic officials.  They. Didn’t. Even. Try.

  168. 168.

    patrick II

    @WaterGirl: ​ Horrifying is correct . Iwas serious about my question though. Can we allow the teaching of Nazism to children? This sort of instruction is partof the reson for the attock on public schools be De Santis and his ilk. they iwant home schooling and e new generation of good Nazis.

  169. 169.

    lowtechcyclist

    @patrick II:

    Is shouting “be a good nazi” in a crowded schoolroom outside the bounds of free speech?

    As DeSantis is amply demonstrating in Florida, the state certainly has the right to regulate what does and doesn’t go into a K-12 curriculum.

  171. 171.

    jonas

    @Jeffro: I guess they’ve concluded that the reason all those amendments and measures to ban abortion didn’t pass last year in places like Kansas is that they weren’t harsh enough, so the hardcore forced-birther crowd stayed home in dejection or something.

  173. 173.

    TriassicSands

    @Brachiator: ​
      You also got the idea that these people believe that if an authoritarian government took over, the media would still be allowed to prattle happy talk nonsense.

    I saw your comment in another thread after it had already run its course. My response was that given the general state of the MSM today, even if we transition into a fully authoritarian government, most of the media won’t miss a beat. They’ll adapt and unburdened by journalistic ethics or commitment to much beyond their salaries the happy talk will continue. Of course, there will be casualties, but not many on network or cable news.

  176. 176.

    WaterGirl

    @patrick II: We should not tolerate this.  Sadly, though, with so many things on fire, it’s hard to think that this will rise to the top of the pile.

    It seems like homeschool curriculum would have to go through some sort of approval process with the school system.  But what do I know?

  177. 177.

    Miss Bianca

    @jonas:

    I guess they’ve concluded that the reason all those amendments and measures to ban abortion didn’t pass last year in places like Kansas is that they weren’t harsh enough, so the hardcore forced-birther crowd stayed home in dejection or something.

    That certainly seems to be the conclusion that a certain segment of the Colorado Republican Party has drawn from recent elections – that the reason they lost so decisively at the state level is that all the batshit-crazy GOPer candidates lost is because they weren’t bat-shit crazy enough.

    Uh…yeah. Please proceed, GOP.

  179. 179.

    TriassicSands

    @WaterGirl: ​
      I’m mostly harmless!

    I trust you; that is, I trust YOU. But what would such a tongue be capable of in the mouth of a lesser person?

    Normally, the form of that sentence might be “But what would such a tongue be capable of in the hands of another person?” But that’s getting way too complicated.

  181. 181.

    Brachiator

    @TriassicSands:

    I saw your comment in another thread after it had already run its course. My response was that given the general state of the MSM today, even if we transition into a fully authoritarian government, most of the media won’t miss a beat. They’ll adapt and unburdened by journalistic ethics or commitment to much beyond their salaries the happy talk will continue. Of course, there will be casualties, but not many on network or cable news.

    If you have Fox News, no other media would be necessary.

    I think that a lot of people assume that an authoritarian US would never exist, or that they would personally be ok because their race or income would immunize them from being oppressed.

    And I don’t think the media take the possibility of an authoritarian regime seriously at all. They presume that they would be OK, but of course this has not been the case in countries where democracy has been supplanted. Journalists are intimidated, imprisoned or killed as part of the suppression of a free press.

    Our media think it’s a joke, but they don’t have to worry about the punch line.

  183. 183.

    sab

    @Kent: My Indian comparative religions professor was willing to waive all his vegetarian beliefs to share eating a snake with a Pakistani college under Muslim food restrictions (mostly same as Jewish kosher parve.) They couldn’t find an appropriate snake in rural Ohio.

    Innocent times those were.

  184. 184.

    TriassicSands

    @JPL: ​
      She’ll always be Venus to me.

    Is that Venus de Milo? if so, does that mean you think she’s typing with her tongue?

  185. 185.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: What joke? I click on your nym and get ActBlue. No joke to me.

    ETA If it was the snakes I bellowed it out to my husband, and he laughed and then he  said  “That was actually quite good.”  My jokes usually suck.

  186. 186.

    Mart

    @raven: Making me work too hard. “Part 1 of the song “Diana” was written in response to the story of Diana Oughton and the Weathermen.”

  189. 189.

    dmsilev

    @Miss Bianca:

    but the difference between a dike and a levee? No.freaking.clue.

    If you drive there in your Chevy and there are good old boys drinking whiskey and rye, it’s a levee. If you drive there in a Ford, or if the good old boys are drinking beer, it’s a dike. Hope this helps.

  191. 191.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: I only bellowed it because I was upstairs reading and he was downstairs watching tv. We do these relays a lot. Big big win that he laughed.

  192. 192.

    TriassicSands

    @Brachiator: ​
    I don’t disagree with you. Superficiality reigns, especially with network and cable news. Many may believe that their “bothsiderism” and “false equivalence” will protect them. But Fox News aside, I expect the other outlets to adapt and do whatever is necessary to survive. If the paycheck keeps coming, most will be able to deal with it.

    As with the very few right wingers who were finally pushed beyond their comfort zone by Trump’s insurrection, there will be some in the media who will suffer.

    I haven’t watched or even seen Chuck Todd in a very long time, but from what I saw in the past, I can imagine him adapting to a new authoritarian reality and proceeding as if nothing had changed. What many may not understand is that their past malpractice won’t suffice. Bothsiderism and false equivalence are not enough when obedience is expected.

    If you have Fox News, no other media would be necessary.

    Fox, too, would have to change. They might not be sufficiently pro-fascist.

  193. 193.

    Splitting Image

    @Miss Bianca:

    but the difference between a dike and a levee? No.freaking.clue.

    It’s fairly straightforward. A dike is masculine. A levée is feminine. (You can tell by the extra e on the end.)

  194. 194.

    TriassicSands

    @WaterGirl: ​
    It’s not your fault, WaterGirl. The last six years have killed a lot of people’s senses of humor. When I was a kid, global nuclear war was the big thing to worry about. Those were positively hilarious times compared with now.​
    ​
    ​

  195. 195.

    Mo MacArbie

    Fascism will bring a golden age to the media as we all are compelled to watch it and click every ad.

  196. 196.

    raven

    @Mart: And my doggie, Artemis, is named for her too

    eta

    Katherine (also known as The Radical) is a 1975 American TV movie written and directed by Jeremy Kagan, and starring Sissy Spacek, Art Carney and Henry Winkler. Intended to portray the time period of the Vietnam War, the title character was loosely based on Diana Oughton of the Weather Underground, who died in the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion when a bomb she was building accidentally exploded.[1]Reviewers have also noted that Katherine also “borrowed from the then-current headlines involving Patty Hearst, another heiress whose exact level of voluntary involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Armyremained hazy in 1975.[2][3][4]

    Through a series of flashbacks, the film, told in semi-documentary fashion,[5] retraces the main characters’ lives through the years 1964–1972.[6]

    Katherine originally aired in a two-hour time slot on October 5, 1975, and later was syndicated in a 78-minute version.[7]

  198. 198.

    Kent

    @Miss Bianca:Why not? I mean, I knew the difference between poisonous and venomous (and it drives me mildly crazy every time I see or hear someone confuse the two), but the difference between a dike and a levee? No.freaking.clue.

    You can actually find a lot of different definitions.  But generally speaking:

    Dikes hold back standing water (they are wet all the time).  So, for example the Dikes in the Netherlands that hold back the sea.  Or the dikes in New Orleans that hold back lake Pontchartrain.

    Levees only hold back flood waters and sit dry most of the time.  Typically they are on rivers.  If you look at levees on the Mississippi or Sacramento rivers they are typically a long earthen berm sitting on high ground and the river only reaches it when in flood stage.

    Sometimes people make a different distinction that dikes hold back standing water (bays, lakes, oceans) while levees hold back moving water (rivers).

    And often reporters just use the two terms interchangeably.

  199. 199.

    Kent

    @Brachiator:So, you can you eat a venomous snake without any negative consequences? Does it make a difference if you eat it raw or cooked?

    Yes, although you probably wouldn’t want to eat the head of a rattlesnake where the venom sacks are, just the body.  People eat rattlesnakes all the time.

    As for eating/drinking snake venom?  Snake venom is protein based and the hydrochloric acid in your stomach will denature it pretty quickly, long before it is absorbed in your bloodstream.  It has to be injected into your bloodstream to be deadly.  If you drank a lot of it it might well make you sick.  But not in the same way as getting a snake bite and having it in your bloodstream directly.  So you might say that snake venom is mildly poisonous.

  200. 200.

    Amir Khalid

    @eclare:

    As a native speaker of Malay, I’d like to point out to everyone that orang hutan is in fact two words, the second beginning with H..

  203. 203.

    CarolPW

    @Kent: Having grown up in the Sacramento delta I can assure you that the Sacramento River levees are not on high ground, and that the river before major climate change was typically at least a couple of feet higher than the ground on the other side of the levee. Where a levee had broken, the previous dry island became a pond surrounded by useless levees. There was a classic Mississippi-type sternwheeler stuck in the middle of one when I was a kid.

  204. 204.

    Brachiator

    @TriassicSands:

    Fox, too, would have to change. They might not be sufficiently pro-fascist.

    Fair point. Murdoch and others might also be surprised by the results of a sufficiently ruthless authoritarian regime.

    ETA: Tangentially, I am amazed that the conservative British tabloid media (and even the BBC to a large extent) lie about and support BREXIT even though it is, predictably, resulting in a decline of the British economy. The Conservative Party government is also seeking to pass all kinds of laws restricting rights.

    It is a slow disaster that is hurting many who were strong advocates, and yet the press barons and a hard core of zealots continue to relentlessly push for a strong BREXIT.

  206. 206.

    Wapiti

    @CarolPW: Yeah, I grew up in Antioch, SW corner of the delta, and the levees on the north side of the river there had ground below the water level. But further upstream I don’t know.

  207. 207.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    As a native speaker of Malay, I’d like to point out to everyone that orang hutan is in fact two words, the second beginning with H..

    The loose translation I was taught was “old man of the forest.”

    Absolutely fascinating primates.

  208. 208.

    prostratedragon

    @Amir Khalid: ​Well I learn new things like this often — thanks Amir, nice to better understand what one is saying. Have t rifle some tabs to remember what else I’ve encountered.

    On a sadder note, I just learned the name of the person who originally sang the Motown hit “Money,” because he just passed away. Barrett Strong was also the author or co-author of huge hits like “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”.

  209. 209.

    Mart

    @raven: Was Dianne a friend of yours? Is the deep state still looking for you?

    Don’t recall the “Radical”. Who doesn’t like Sissy Spacek?  We just watched “Running on Empty” along those lines. The Google has a list of nine radicals of the 70’s films. I was a little too young to get involved, maybe for the best. Did steal “Steal This Book” and read all of Hunter S. Thompson and Ken Kesey I could get my hands on. Mom wanted me to go to Canada if drafted. So you know, pretty much a bad-ass revolutionary. Or more likely a dopey stoner.

  210. 210.

    CarolPW

    @Wapiti: ​
     Oh god, the old Antioch bridge used to give me the willies, and I once got stuck on it when they had to lift the center section for a ship to pass and I almost got seasick from the swaying.

  212. 212.

    Jeffro

    @jonas: they’re…they’re slow learners, let’s just put it that way

    @WaterGirl: I think that someone, possibly Ron Klain, is paying Ronna on the side.

     

    Doubling/tripling/quadrupling down seems to be the only thing they know how to do, which is kind of what one would expect from folks whose only animating principle is to ‘own the libs’.  Backtracking?  That’s just for wusses!

  214. 214.

    NotMax

    @kindeness

    I grew up on AM radio in the 60s and still remember Light My Fire playing endlessly.

    Top of the charts playback over that summer.

    ‘Twas a strange time indeed. What was played to death by the same stations come summertime the very next year? Frank Sinatra singing Strangers in the Night.

  216. 216.

    James E Powell

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    In the 50+ years since Morrison’s death, The Doors have gone in and out of fashion with people who claim authority to declare who is good. Fuck those people. The Doors sold about four million albums when they were active, about 30 million more since, so there is something in the music.

    Patti Smith & Iggy Pop each cite Jim Morrison as one of their biggest influences/inspirations. And there is no counting how many people were influenced by those two. Looking back, the lyrics are embarrassing, but that is true of a lot of lyrics from that era. People were trying different things, trying to go beyond I love you, please love me, etc.

  217. 217.

    James E Powell

    @sab:

    Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers is Mike Love’s nephew.

    I’ve never held that against Kevin, who seems like a nice person.

Comments are closed.