Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Republicans in disarray!

T R E 4 5 O N

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

Second rate reporter says what?

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Come on, man.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

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

White supremacy is terrorism.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

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

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Squishable Morning Thread

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The other day in comments, someone said they’d seen a pro-DeSantis bumper sticker that said “Make America Florida” or similar nonsense, and I said I thought the state’s bizarro-world reputation might make that slogan untenable on a national level. Last night on MSNBC, Jason Johnson (subbing for Joy Reid) said something similar:

In my view, there are three states that you can’t really run from if you’re trying to win across America. You run from New York, you’re too crazy, you’re a liberal. You run from California, you’re too crazy, you’re liberal and you’re trying to make sure I can’t get plastic straws. You run from Florida, it’s all crystal meth and alligators, right? I mean, that’s what people think. And I’m not saying that’s the case. I’m saying those are sort of the national reputations of those states.

So, when you see Ron DeSantis running and claiming that he’s going do for America what he’s done in Florida, it seems like that’d be a problem.

I don’t know if he’s right about New York and California. They do have a national reputation for being liberal, but it seems to me their left-leaning notoriety falls somewhere within the standard political framework. Johnson has got Florida pegged, though. A state where people settle disputes by flinging live alligators at each other may not make a convincing model for national governance.

Open thread!

PS: Our kiddo, who has elected to move to a non-alligator state, drew our attention to a recent incident where an alligator killed “another old person” and warned us to look sharp when outdoors.

Reader Interactions

333Comments

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    OT but I would’ve thought this would be coming out of Florida first:

    Ryan [email protected]
    National Reporters, there’s a story in MT: an entire party has lost its effing mind. Among other things the State repubs have tried to outlaw teaching of gravity and plate tectonics. Now they introduce a bill to make illegal for vaccinated people to donate blood or organs.

  5. 5.

    Princess

    I’m definitely less interested in candidates from NY, CA, and FL, pretty much in that order.

    In other news, good on the Dems for overperforming… everywhere last night especially in rural areas. I think it’s a sign that without Trump, some of his low-propensity voters will stay home.

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    So, when you see Ron DeSantis running and claiming that he’s going do for America what he’s done in Florida, it seems like that’d be a problem threat.

    There, that’s more like it.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    where an alligator killed “another old person” and warned us to look sharp when outdoors.

    You can’t just wrestle them like you could when you were young, BC.

  8. 8.

    trnc

    You have clearly raised your daughter well, BC. Not every child would give their parents the alligator warning.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    A state where people settle disputes by flinging live alligators at each other

    I think it would be an improvement over our current gun culture.

  16. 16.

    prostratedragon

    Oh please do look sharp y’all. I remember such a story from years ago, a spry and active woman [shudder].

    As for what’s-his-name (WHN), it’s possible without slander to turn that slogan into an own goal, but Biden would have to watch out for  folks who get all tetchy if they think they’re being disparaged even mildly, and even if they can easily do better. 2016 taught me there are enough of them around to take nothing for granted.

  19. 19.

    ColoradoGuy

    @Amir Khalid: Based on some of the weird postings I see on Facebook, there’s a lot of overlap between Moon-landing deniers, vax-deniers, Biden-haters, and posting from Southern and remote-rural locations. Most likely not a coincidence, since the justifications for a slave society were also pretty loopy back in the 1850’s. I wonder if this is just a feature of Southern white “culture” that startles the rest of the country.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: The lump on the right side is larger and sometimes it aches a little. The left one is also a little larger but not as large as the one on the right. Maybe they are getting ready to hatch?

    I never did hear from the docs yesterday (not unusual, I can be hard to reach) so I’ll give them a call in a few hours and see what they say.

  25. 25.

    NorthLeft

    Unfortunately, there seem to be more than a small number of people who live outside of Florida who are currently wondering how they can import gators to throw at their neighbours.

  29. 29.

    Geminid

    @Kathleen: I see from a story by TV-5 (Cincinnati) that your new Congressman, Greg Landsman, will be at an event in Cincinnati Friday marking the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cincinnati and Kharkiv are sister cities.

  32. 32.

    Chris T.

    @Amir Khalid:

    Wow. I can’t even imagine how a Christianist might object to gravity (did they mean general relativity?) or plate tectonics.

    Gravity is only a theory!

  33. 33.

    snoey

    @Chris T.: Dumb MT state senator introduced a bill requiring that only scientific facts, not theory be taught.  Probably about global warming etc. in mind. Had the difference between theory and hypothesis explained to him (not that he learned), bill tabled.

  35. 35.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Our kiddo, who has elected to move to a non-alligator state, drew our attention to a recent incident where an alligator killed “another old person” and warned us to look sharp when outdoors.

    OK. I laughed

  37. 37.

    Barry

    @ColoradoGuy: “Based on some of the weird postings I see on Facebook, there’s a lot of overlap between Moon-landing deniers, vax-deniers, Biden-haters, and posting from Southern and remote-rural locations.”

     

    Crank magnetism.

  39. 39.

    Barry

    @Amir Khalid: “Wow. I can’t even imagine how a Christianist might object to gravity (did they mean general relativity?) or plate tectonics.”

     

    From ‘1984’, the final thing demanded by the Party is to deny the evidence of your own eyes.  It is a cult power move.

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    Seems like running from Hawaii/Illinois and Pennsylvania/Delaware produced good results.  Let’s do those again.  ;)

  42. 42.

    Princess

    @ColoradoGuy: the white nationalists are on a big push to support Flat Earthism. I saw it in a woman I know a few years ago — she has a PhD and knows better. Then Milo Y started pushing it. It came out when he was promoting Kanye West last autumn, and now NASA fan groups are being overrun with moon landing deniers. I don’t get it at all but I expect the idea is if you get people to believe one irrational thing, they’ll go all the way with you. Anyway, there are kooks there but these people aren’t all kooks in the sense we usually understand that. They want power.

    ETA What Barry said about 1984. This.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    These days, science is associated with liberalism, and liberalism is associated with things like racial and gender equality.  I’m sure there’s some sophisticated transitive property of politics that explains all this is detail.

  47. 47.

    Jeffro

    Also, while the alligators are of course horrendous, it’s the ever-increasing population of large pythons in Florida that scares the crap out of me.

    And supposedly they’re going to keep moving north as the climate continues to change??  Yikes!

    From a recent article about scientists putting GPS trackers on possums, which are then…eaten by pythons…

    [researchers] hope to get more alerts before pythons find new territories to dominate.

    “The suitable habitat for the pythons is only going to expand,” Crandall said. “We are going to potentially be seeing pythons not just in Florida, but in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana — even as far north as North Carolina.”

    Time to dig a moat, fill it with oil, and set it on fire, Virginia!

  49. 49.

    Barbara

    @Chris T.: ​They should all resolve to demonstrate the non-existence of gravity by going to the roof of a tall building and stepping off — just to teach the rest of us a lesson.

  51. 51.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Maybe negative partisanship, as in, “if They are for it, We are against it.”

    This may explain the horseshoe-like convergence of elements on the right and left regarding issues from vaccines to trans people to the war in Ukraine. They must oppose the liberal Democratic line on anything and everything.

  52. 52.

    Michael Bersin

    @different-church-lady:

    Florida does indeed have alligators and crystal meth. But.

    Missouri: “We’re Number One! We’re Number One!”

    Study ranks Missouri #1 in meth manufacturing (February 13, 2019)
    “….Although no state is entirely unaffected by meth’s presence, certain places emerged as manufacturing hubs. Missouri had 27.6 meth labs per 100,000 residents; authorities regarded the state as America’s meth production capital until Mexican cartels came to dominate the trade in recent years. Several Bible Belt states also witnessed a striking number of labs per capita, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi…”

  56. 56.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: Recently moved from MT back to FL.  MT is so red, and they want to be more red than the other, so it is total bonkers.  The bill that was presented wanted to prevent teaching of ANY scientific theory.  The reason being it is THEORY not proven fact.  Hence, gravity, relativity, etc.  Such dumb, dumb craziness.  Next they want a Constitutional Convention.  MT’s has protections for a clean environment, and privacy and we have to throw those out.  Sad

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Michael Bersin: ​ We had a mobile lab catch fire while being driven thru Sullivan once. I don’t recall what happened to the occupants. I suspect they bailed when they saw the smoke coming out of the trunk.

  59. 59.

    Matt McIrvin

    @different-church-lady: And there are very good reasons to believe our best theories of how gravity works are incomplete–that is, wrong, in the sense of not being the final truth in the matter. But… we can say that because it’s science, and not a just-so story. A sure sign of someone who doesn’t understand how this works is that they use any qualification like that as a signal to throw it all out and replace it with something pulled out of their butt.

  60. 60.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Ken: Sadly, the population of Montana is so low, that if a big university or tech firm was transplanted there, it would flip the state. Unfortunately, the crazy repells real development.

  61. 61.

    Jeffro

    @Spanky: fire ants, I can live with.  18-foot pythons?  Not so much.

     

    @Cliosfanboy: I was thinking right along the VA-NC border, if that’s good for everyone?  Actually wait…why surrender all that territory to the pythons?  How about the GA-FL border?  That works on multiple levels.  =)

  65. 65.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Kathleen: I’ve played a fair bit of golf in Florida and don’t recall ever NOT seeing an alligator.  They are certainly more common than birdies in my experience!

  67. 67.

    BretH

    @Jeffro: Ah, Leiningen Versus the Ants – one of my favorite short stories growing up, along with A Most Dangerous Game and Something Green, about a marooned spacer wandering a red and purple planet with a small companion “Dorothy” at his shoulder who misses Earth so much and the only green he sees is the flash of his laser gun…

  69. 69.

    Argiope

    @OzarkHillbilly: I nearly left my National Health Service Corps job in southeastern Kentucky the day my receptionist told me we had to go get our kids from daycare because the cops had apprehended a mobile meth lab sitting outside the playground fence.  They were not cooking at the time or I likely would have.

  70. 70.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Baud:

    I’m sure there’s some sophisticated transitive property of politics that explains all this

    The equation is:

    I am an asshole bigot = I am superior = I am right = The majority disagrees with my asshole bigotry and it keeps getting worse = Facts back them up = Science backs them up = Facts and science are wrong = Facts and science must be destroyed.

    Of course, it’s just a theory.

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I am always, always amused and boggled that we have overarching theories of matter and energy (which seem to work!) while admitting the vast majority of the universe is made of stuff that all we know is that it doesn’t fit in those theories.

    To be fair:  That is not the same as saying it contradicts those theories, just that they don’t explain it.

  73. 73.

    Bugboy

    @Kathleen: But what was his handicap?

    Seriously, though, the poor woman met her fate because she was trying to save her GD dog.  Why was she forced to defend her dog?  I’m willing to bet because it was not on a leash.  If you don’t want your dog to become gator chow, KEEP YOUR PETS ON A LEASH!  It’s really not that hard, people.  Never forget that we are intruders into wildlife living spaces.

  74. 74.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Bugboy: ​ I am reminded of the older gentleman who had his poodle snatched by a gator and successfully wrestled the gator for his beloved pet. He had the poodle on a leash. His one comment was that “Gators are really fast.”

  75. 75.

    Barbara

    @Ken: ​God isn’t even a theory, just an assertion, and yet that rarely stops them from wanting to teach theology as if it is settled fact. I hate these people.

  76. 76.

    ColoradoGuy

    @Princess: Thanks for the heads-up. So what I’m seeing on FB in the space-fandom posts is an organized trolling campaign, seeking to disrupt science and technology fans. The people, their FB pages, and their purported locations could all be fictitious … none of it real.

    Hmm … it could be a data-collection scheme.

  77. 77.

    jlowe

    Offered as one born, raised and employed in California, a person who has never traveled north of Placerville, or who has never been to Bakersfield, would think that the whole state is liberal.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    @Argiope:

     had to go get our kids from daycare because the cops had apprehended a mobile meth lab sitting outside the playground fence.

     

    Worst zoning laws ever.

  79. 79.

    catclub

    @Baud: ​
    &nbsp

    ;These days, science is associated with liberalism, and liberalism is associated with things like racial and gender equality.

    The nazis rejected modern (for their day) physics because it was too jewish.
    {except when they wanted to build a nuclear bomb.}

  82. 82.

    Shalimar

    If DeSantis gets eaten by an alligator, I swear I will devote the rest of my life to whichever God deserves credit.

  83. 83.

    Ohio Mom

    @NotMax: There is a speciality imported foods grocery store near me. A year ago, the black and white sign read something like “Russian Deli and Food,” soon replaced by a blue and yellow sign that says “Eastern European Foods.” Maybe they were never Russian to begin with, just figured that was the country with a name Americans would recognize?

    About that necklace, it certainly distracts from her neck and matches her outfit. Would she look better without it, don’t think so.

    Finally, I have eaten at that Ukrainian restaurant, Veselka, Second Avenue and East 9th. It is a pleasant, if crowded spot. Never heard of that Russian piano bar.

  85. 85.

    catclub

    @Jeffro: ​
     

    fire ants, I can live with. 18-foot pythons? Not so much.

    I read somewhere that green anacondas were outcompeting the pythons in the everglades. also bigger.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    I went to bed before the results from Wisconsin. Who are the final two candidates for the Supreme Court spot?(Just want party breakdown)

  87. 87.

    tobie

    I have a lot to say about the medical system in Florida compared to the one in Maryland. Florida sucks. I have never seen such indifference to patients in my life. My father died in large part because of neglect in the skilled nursing home he was sent to for rehab in Florida. Finding anyone with any competence to look at him there–a doctor, a physician’s assistant–was impossible. I’m glad I live in a regulated state. This wouldn’t happen in Maryland. We don’t fleece Medicare and then abandon elderly patients.

  88. 88.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Cliosfanboy:

    Can we put the moat along the Occoquan?   Or would you prefer it along the James??

    Let’s put it along the James.  Gotta keep Geminid on the safe side of the moat.

  89. 89.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah:

    I went to bed before the results from Wisconsin. Who are the final two candidates for the Supreme Court spot?(Just want party breakdown)

    Party breakdown: one D, one R.

  90. 90.

    catclub

    @catclub: more news on python anacondas and fire ants:

    He pointed out that the Burmese pythons, as bad as their invasion seems, face a constraint on their numbers that the green anaconda doesn’t. The Everglades are riddled with another invasive species that has conquered most of the Gulf Coast: fire ants. Fire ants were brought to Gulf of Mexico ports accidentally by cargo ships from South America. They are notorious for attacking in swarms with extremely painful stings. Most ants have a bit of formic acid in their bite, but the fire ant also has a stinger equipped with a necrotizing venom.
    Normally an animal stung by a fire ant will flee and survive. But creatures that can’t or won’t move away are at risk of being swarmed, killed, and eaten. Newborn calves are sometimes killed by fire ants before they can get to their feet. Burmese pythons are sometimes at a similar disadvantage. The females spend several months each year guarding their eggs by wrapping their bodies around them and defending against any would-be egg thieves. This places the python—and her leathery eggs—at risk of attack by marauding ants.
    One Burmese python at Trail Lakes, captured in the wild and kept in a large outdoor enclosure, was swarmed by fire ants that tunneled up from beneath her while she guarded her eggs. By the end of the day she and her brood had been reduced to little more than scales and bones. Given the ubiquity of fire ants in the Everglades, it’s imaginable that the ants are limiting the population growth of the pythons.
    The green anaconda does not have this problem. Unlike its smaller relative, the anaconda gives birth to live young rather than laying eggs. It can easily slither away from fire ant bites. What’s more, the anaconda would be less likely to encounter fire ants in the first place. Unlike the Burmese pythons, which are found on land and in trees as often as in the water, the green anaconda is an almost wholly aquatic snake. Perhaps this is why the green anaconda can afford to be about 50 percent heavier than a python of the same length. All of that enormous bulk is borne by the water most of the time.

  91. 91.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @rikyrah: Looks like a D and an R. At the moment, the D’s votes are about equal to the sum of the two Rs

    Late Tuesday, Judge Protasiewicz had about 46 percent of the vote, Justice Kelly had 24 percent and Judge Dorow had 22 percent.

  93. 93.

    Ken

    @Baud: Worst zoning laws ever.

    The explosion in Port Neches, Texas in 2019 brought out the fact that the city and state zoning laws don’t prevent chemical plants, refineries, et cetera from being built near schools, hospitals, et cetera,  or vice-versa.

    And they didn’t change the zoning laws afterward.

  95. 95.

    lowtechcyclist

    PS: Our kiddo, who has elected to move to a non-alligator state, drew our attention to a recent incident where an alligator killed “another old person” and warned us to look sharp when outdoors.

    My kiddo, demonstrating the great respect and reverence he has for me, has been calling me ‘old’ since he was five.

  97. 97.

    Ken

    @Shalimar: If DeSantis gets eaten by an alligator, I swear I will devote the rest of my life to whichever God deserves credit.

    Offler, from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, would be the obvious candidate.

  98. 98.

    jonas

    @Amir Khalid: I think the original bill targeted the “theory” of evolution, but the state rep who introduced it was so stupid, he didn’t realize the law would also effectively outlaw the teaching of other theories — you know, minor, arcane concepts like gravity and plate tectonics. Not to mention anything relying on quantum mechanics, like physics.

  100. 100.

    MagdaInBlack

    @OzarkHillbilly: Last night “Evening Skews”  (Trae Crowder and Smart Mark) were talking about the screeching over that idea and I was thinking about when we used to visit friends who lived and worked in the Italian market of South Philly, and how nice it was to be able to walk to anything we needed.  Neighborhoods vs isolated suburban enclaves.

  102. 102.

    Gravenstone

    @Argiope: Not quite the mobile lab experience, but a buddy of mine had a stint as a professor of chemistry in a small college in NE MO a couple decades ago. Not long after he started some MO state troopers dropped by and dumped the contents of a box on his desk, asking if he recognized any of it. Several pieces had the college’s name engraved on it; all things stolen from the chem lab over the years that had been confiscated in a recent drug lab raid. That kind of summed up the area. That and the fact his landlord (over the road trucker) was a reputed meth dealer…

  103. 103.

    Gin & Tonic

    @tobie: Well, when I visited my daughter in MD and had a minor accident for which I needed to go to an “urgent care,” I ended up with a host of issues which led me to find that the MD Dept of Health exercises *no* regulation or oversight of urgent care clinics. None.

  107. 107.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sdhays:

    Something tells me they’re fine with the “theory” of “Intelligent Design”.

    Even though they’re living disproof of the ‘theory.’

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: I say, stop ’em at the Roanoke River. Gotta keep those pythons out of the Dismal Swamp, or before you know it they’ll be snatching people off the boardwalk at Virginia Beach.

  113. 113.

    tobie

    @Gin & Tonic: Apologies for that. I can’t speak for urgent care clinics generally in the state. The one I go to is associated with Johns Hopkins and is superb.

    I have, however, been to skill nursing rehab centers in MD. There’s a nurse’s station; there’s always a PA at the facility. You don’t have someone die of dehydration when in your care, especially if they have an IV port in place. What I’ve seen of medical care in Florida has left me speechless. Inadequacy and incompetence on full display.

  119. 119.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Gravenstone:

    they hate theories.

    There’s a history to it.  Someone found out evolution is a theory.  Conservatives leaped on that word as proof that evolution is not actually proven and scientists are pulling a hoax.  This argument is a huge deal among creationists.  They think it’s a complete slam dunk and as usual never listen to why they’re wrong.

  122. 122.

    Kathleen

    @Bugboy: Excellent point. The only really scary thing that’s happened to me in 35 years of running is when a dog bit me in the arse because his owner didn’t have him on a leash. I was pissed.

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The US supreme court has let stand an Arkansas law penalising boycotts of Israel that has provided the model for a proliferation of similar legislation to protect oil companies, gun makers and other contentious industries from political protest movements.

    The supreme court declined to hear an appeal from the editor of the Arkansas Times, Alan Leveritt, after a federal court upheld a law requiring him to sign a commitment not to boycott Israel in order to receive advertising contracts from the state.

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) asked the supreme court to overturn the Arkansas law on the grounds it is in conflict with the court’s own ruling 40 years ago that popular boycotts have a long tradition in American history and are protected speech under the first amendment.
    …………………………
    Leveritt said he had no intention of boycotting Israel, with which his newspaper does no business, but he refused to sign the commitment because it “requires the Arkansas Times to take a political position in return for advertising”.

    The editor said he was disappointed that the supreme court declined to take the case but it will not change his position.

    “We’re not going to sign any political pledges in return for advertising. The supreme court can ignore our our first amendment rights but we’ll continue to exercise them vigorously,” he said.

    Never mind that pesky 1st Amendment.

  125. 125.

    jonas

    @Gin & Tonic: ​
      That’s the case in most states, I believe. In NY, urgent care clinics have to have a business license, but so does a dog groomer. That’s about it. I think it’s one of those areas where the business growth has gotten way out ahead of government policy and the industry is probably powerful/influential enough at this point to thwart most attempts at regulating it.

  127. 127.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jonas: The antipathy to scientific “theory” definitely started with creationists. But it’s metastasized to some degree. For a few decades there’s been a fashion on the right to deprecate the theory of relativity–you can see it on Conservapedia.

    It might go back to fascist antipathy to “Jewish science”, but I think that another thing playing into it is an attempt to neutralize anti-creationist arguments relying on the speed of light. There’s a more generally confused idea that relativity has something to do with moral or ontological relativism, which conservatives make a great show of hating. Also, one of the major players in the anti-environmentalist scientific fringe in the 80s and 90s was a EE professor named Petr Beckmann who insisted that relativity was wrong and had a sort of dragged-aether theory of his own.

  129. 129.

    Anyway

    @Baud:

    Frankly, Massachusetts should probably be added to the too liberal list.

    Not many attention-getters at the national level coming from Mass, though.

  130. 130.

    jonas

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
      The current SCOTUS cares only about the religious freedom part of the 1A. The other stuff about speech, press, and assembly — eh, not so much. If the case had turned on a newspaper editor being required by the state to sign off on a LTGBQ non-discrimination pledge or something and he refused on religious grounds, they would have been all over that.

  131. 131.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anyway: Well, there was Elizabeth Warren, and before her, Kerry and Dukakis. Kerry came pretty close to winning, so he’s arguably a counterexample. For a while everyone from there was running in the shadow of the Kennedys for better or for worse.

  132. 132.

    Aussie Sheila

    @sab: Oh my! I’m scared shitless of crocs. When I was a child we lived in Nth Queensland. Crocs in the freshwater creeks and rivers and in the sea. Ugh.

  133. 133.

    Anyway

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The antipathy to scientific “theory” definitely started with creationists. But it’s metastasized to some degree. For a few decades there’s been a fashion on the right to deprecate the theory of relativity–you can see it on Conservapedia.

    It might go back to fascist antipathy to “Jewish science”, but I think that another thing playing into it is an attempt to neutralize anti-creationist arguments relying on the speed of light.

    In the last couple of decades it’s widespread antipathy to empiricism, rules, expertise — “faith-based” supply-side voodoo economics is their ideal. No questioning of RW shibboleths,

  134. 134.

    ian

    @Shalimar:  You may be looking for this fellow

    Sobek  was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and elastic history and nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile or the West African crocodile and is represented either in its form or as a human with a crocodile head.

  137. 137.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @jonas: They don’t believe in religious freedom either, just that Christians should be free to impose their religion on everyone else.

  139. 139.

    jonas

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
      I read somewhere one time that some creationists speculated that the red-shift — the lengthening of light waves from distant stars due to the expansion of the universe — could be explained by “tired light” — photons mysteriously slowing down over time even though they weren’t that far away and so just appearing red.

    *insert Firefly “speechless” gif here

  140. 140.

    Subcommandante Yakbreath

    Here’s some more nuttery. Top story on the local TV news for the past day or so is that the Hellertown PA school district (just south of Allentown) has allowed an after school Satan Club and the locals are losing their shit. School has been canceled for today. It would be funny if not for the possibility of violence.

  143. 143.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jonas: There was a paper that made the rounds in the 1990s where they looked at old, inaccurate historical measurements of the speed of light and insisted that there was a decreasing trend in them, and then fit a curve through the points that blew up to an asymptote at exactly 4004 BC. Yeah, we see what you did there.

  144. 144.

    cmorenc

    @sdhays:

    @Gravenstone: Something tells me they’re fine with the “theory” of “Intelligent Design”.

    Their answer to the objection that ID is “theory” is that ID is God’s truth, versus man’s theory.  Or more generally, if it’s in the Bible, it’s truth, and your “theory” is the artifact of man going astray from God..

  145. 145.

    jonas

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
      I think that’s right, too. If, say, some Sikh or Muslim’s religious freedom were being infringed by, say, having to participate in or recognize some expressly Christian practice, they would absolutely not give a shit.

  146. 146.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    My layman’s understanding of particle physics could lead me to believe in intelligent design if I were susceptible to that sort of philosophy.  Lots of very specific things need to be just right for the universe as we know it to exist.

  148. 148.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: That’s the whole subject of “the anthropic principle”, which is highly contentious to say the least. The physical constants seem fine-tuned to produce an environment in which we could survive, but it’s not at all clear that some hard-to-imagine exotic kind of life or intelligence couldn’t exist in a radically different universe, maybe on a radically different time scale. Our speculations are to some degree constrained by the world we know.

    And even if the constants are fine-tuned, we’re free to argue about whether that is because God did it, or because there are a whole lot of universes with different dial settings and this is just the one we managed to live in (something like this can happen in “chaotic inflation” theories), or something else. Insisting that some natural phenomenon or other is a sign of intelligent design has a poor track record.

  151. 151.

    Jeffro

    @Matt McIrvin:there are a whole lot of universes with different dial settings and this is just the one we managed to live in

    (See also, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 5. =)

  152. 152.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Subcommandante Yakbreath: A Satan Club in Hellertown? LOL (ETA: I see Jeffro beat me to this one.)

    How are these people ever going to survive raising teenagers? I am reminded of a long ago president of the University of Michigan. A reporter asked him what he intended to do about a tent city that protesters had set up on the Diag. He basically shrugged and said “Winter is coming.” (I don’t remember his name. It was George Martin, for all I know.)

  155. 155.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah, you don’t have to convince me.  But I can see how someone could look at that and come away with a sense of spirituality, in much the same way someone could look at the stars in the night sky or a beautiful landscape and have the same reaction.  From there, it’s not that far of a leap to buy into the idea of a creator god that made it all possible.

    There’s long been a “theory” that religion developed early on as a way to understand otherwise unexplainable natural phenomenon.  One of the nice things about the internet and advances in digital photography is that I’ve now seen hundreds of amazing images of nature that really hit home how wild and awesome it must have appeared to early humans.

  156. 156.

    Ken

    @eclare: What was it the former Colbert said?  Science has a liberal bias?

    It was “reality has a liberal bias” at the WH correspondents’ dinner, but it’s possible he re-used it. It’s a good line.

  157. 157.

    SteveinPHX

    I seem to remember (gotten shakier in my later years) that the Sunshine state legalized gator hunting for a number of years back in the 70s or 80s to thin the herd, as it were. Good ol’ boys went at it with gusto.
    No idea what the current status is, but maybe FL needs to promote that a little, but leave my football team alone!

  158. 158.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: I’ve known a fair number of physicists and astronomers who were religious–beliefs are all over the place. Probably more atheists than in the general population but the attitude is by no means universal.

  160. 160.

    evodevo

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
      Are they right behind your lower jaw, just under your ear? May be the parotid salivary glands…my right one swelled up for no real reason one time…the ENT doc drained it with a needle, and I had no more trouble after that. He said the duct was probably blocked for some reason. They analyzed the fluid draw, but it didn’t seem to have any anomalies, except for calcium crystals (??). I was eating a lot of Tums at the time, and wondered if that had anything to do with it.

  162. 162.

    Iron City

    @Amir Khalid: I suspect the concept of general relativity is too complex for the MT legislature.  They seem to grasp gravity in particular because if they accidently let go of their gun it drops.  I find it helpful to keep in mind my dog looks at the world in dog terms.  The same is true of politicians.

  164. 164.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: Evangelical Christians seem to be the only religious group that works hard to turn religion into competitor to physical science.  Although I do occasionally see that attitude pop up elsewhere.

  165. 165.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Look st the bright side Betty… at least your kid wants you alive!

    There’s snow outside! We’re about 90 feet above sea level and 400 feet from the ocean here on the south Oregon coast. Nothing is sticking on the ground but the vehicles are covered with it. It’s very rare for it to snow here and I want it to stay that way.

  166. 166.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @evodevo: ​ They are where the neck joins the the shoulders, towards the front. I had half expected them to go away on their own but right now they seem to have grown attached to me.

  167. 167.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    There was a paper that made the rounds in the 1990s where they looked at old, inaccurate historical measurements of the speed of light and insisted that there was a decreasing trend in them, and then fit a curve through the points that blew up to an asymptote at exactly 4004 BC. Yeah, we see what you did there.

    Usshering in a new wave of pseudoscience!

  168. 168.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat: I have not heard that specific one. I guess I would differentiate between people drawing analogies between beauty in science and religious beauty, versus people trying to prove religion is scientifically real. Not sure where Shiva’s dance fits.

  169. 169.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: I’ve always found it remarkable that that nonsense took as long as it did to get traction, given that the relevant science was 40+ years old by that point. But the Sixties-Seventies counterculture was fertile ground.

  170. 170.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist: I think I’ve read that there are theories about how the speed of light isn’t necessarily fixed, but none that are tied to the biblical age of creation as interpreted by fundamentalists.

  171. 171.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    They are where the neck joins the the shoulders, towards the front. I had half expected them to go away on their own but right now they seem to have grown attached to me.

    Now starring in a sequel to the Aliens movies, our own OzarkHillbilly!

  174. 174.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud:

    Evangelical Christians seem to be the only religious group that works hard to turn religion into competitor to physical science.  Although I do occasionally see that attitude pop up elsewhere.

    Right-wing Hinduists have been busy at it too. Somewhat aided by the Western popular occult’s goofy appropriations of Eastern religion, but they’ve got their own thing going on.

    Also, I’ve seen some of the more hardcore ultraconservative trad-Caths and Orthodox trying to give the evangelicals a run for their money, but those attitudes are not so mainstream in those churches.

  176. 176.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Matt McIrvin: I was shaking my heading all the while I was reading Tao of Physics. Someone gave it to me to read when I was in grad school. They had loved it. This woman was a scholar of Sanskrit with no background in physics. So it was somewhat forgivable.

  179. 179.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Matt McIrvin: Don’t get me started on the Sangh fabulists. They give me a headache. Also too, the Hindu RWNJs have been at it since the late 19th century.

    Their version is the Vedas contain all human knowledge. Brahmins have believed that since forever hence the severe restrictions on who can study, read or even hear Vedic recitation.

  180. 180.

    RaflW

    I guess Biden’s push on junk fees is already having an impact. United Airlines has at least partially blinked.

    @RossFeinstein
    @united says it will make it easier for families to book seats with their children* for free.

    This part is the most interesting: “…new policy also lets customers switch for free to a flight to the same destination with adjacent seat availability in the same cabin.”

    This is inadequate, but it shows me that big corps are actually at least a little afraid of Biden’s version of sensible populism.

    * Under age 12. This is part of what is inadequate. My niece is now 16, but when she was 12 or 13, her parents would absolutely not have tolerated her being in some random middle seat between two unknown adult men, multiple rows from each of the two scattered parents. Nope, no, nuh uh.

  181. 181.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Hey Ozark, I coordinated with Anne Laurie, and your post about Billie Jean will go up tomorrow morning.  It would be great if you are around when it’s up, so if you don’t think you’ll be around early Thursday, I can change it to another day.

    Let me know?

  184. 184.

    Geminid

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The town of East Palestine closed its schools today because the Orange Churl was coming. They blamed traffic problems, but I suspect they did it so trump could have an indoor venue at a school gymnasium.

    Erin Brockovich will appear at a town hall in East Palestine on Friday.

  185. 185.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: ​ I’ll be around early, can’t say about the later morning. I usually get busy by 10 at the latest. Either way, don’t worry about it.

  188. 188.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Geminid: ​ Yep, such as the “proliferation of similar legislation to protect oil companies, gun makers and other contentious industries from political protest movements.”

  191. 191.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud:

    I think I’ve read that there are theories about how the speed of light isn’t necessarily fixed

    It’s gotten hard to talk about, since in the current SI unit system, the speed of light (in vacuum) is absolutely fixed by definition! The meter is just defined as the distance light travels in vacuum in some fraction of a second. So the speed of light is a defined ratio that can never change, just because the unit system made it so.

    But that doesn’t preclude some weird physical process that makes all of our rulers or clocks change such that it would still appear to be variable. (A particle physicist would probably say that what was really happening was, say, a change in the strength of the coupling of electromagnetic force to electric charge.)

  192. 192.

    Kay

    DeSantis is blatantly lying about crime rates in FL v NY and NYTimes. Is letting him get away with it.

    FL has high crime rates. Period. This is fact.

    Maybe if they spent less time fighting g The Woke and more time doing grunt work they could point this out.

  193. 193.

    WaterGirl

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Just to clarify, because it wasn’t clear to me from what you wrote. If you compare vote total for the 2 Dems and the vote total for the 2 Rs, it’s 54 Dem, 46 R.

    So Janet P alone got 46, the sum total of the 2 Rs.  Add in Everett’s votes, and you have 54-46.

  194. 194.

    RaflW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Add in the D who came in 4th (because Democrats in WI did understand strategic voting – I feel bad for Everett Mitchell, who I believe was well qualified and threw his hat in as a Black man in a state that has plenty of racism still swirling around) and we’re looking at about 54% Dem votes, 46% GOP votes.

    Lots of election twitter (including some progressive WI voices) warning overnight not to read too much into that, but I think it shows Dem enthusiasm. And what I’ve heard for many years is that the voting habit is self-reinforcing. So maybe this February whoop-dee-dooo will get more Dems to vote in future frosty primaries!

    eta: snyc w/ @WaterGirl :)

  195. 195.

    jonas

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
      That must have been what I was thinking of. IANAP(hysicist), but as I understand it, it’s definitely possible to change the momentum of a photon, but you also have to explain what acted upon it to do so and account for the change in energy (E=mc^2 and all that). If the speed of light isn’t/wasn’t a constant, where did all the energy/mass go over time?

  198. 198.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: The theory I vaguely recall had to do with the idea that speed of light appears fixed locally, but may have been a different speed at some point in the past when the universe was smaller.  But I really can’t remember enough to talk about it sensibly.

  204. 204.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jonas: It really all depends on the specifics.

    Particle physicists like to do their math in terms that take the relativistic structure of space-time as fundamental, such that the speed of light, c, is equal to 1. Expressed like that, light in vacuum always goes at the same speed, and since a photon has no rest mass, the momentum of a photon is identical in magnitude to its energy: E = p. Very nice.

    For an object that does have rest mass, the relation looks like the Pythagorean theorem but with a funny minus sign: E^2 – p^2 = m^2. A lot of relativity turns out to be geometry with some weird minus signs.

    So if there were some theory with an apparently variable speed of light, a particle physicist would probably prefer to say “well, it’s not really the speed of light that’s changing, it’s something else that made all the rulers get longer.” Or whatever.

  205. 205.

    FelonyGovt

    I think the  statement Betty cited is correct about California, sadly. Gavin Newsom wants to be President someday, would probably be a good one, and he’s tall, handsome and charismatic, but yes, we’re crazy liberals who want to take away your plastic straws (except for Qevin McCarthy)

  209. 209.

    Kay

    Miami and Jacksonville, two FL cities w/GOP mayors, have much higher murder rates than NYC

    one would think a newspaper based in NYC could look this up and print it to refute DeSantis’ obvious lie, but no – they’re too busy fighting Woke.

  210. 210.

    Taken4Granite

    @Amir Khalid: I’m late to this thread, but one reason why a Christianist might object to plate tectonics is that it implies the Earth is much older than 6000 years old.

  211. 211.

    Barbara

    @FelonyGovt: Although it’s probably dishonest, if Newsom were to run, his stock response to anyone who questioned his fitness because he was governor of California should be, “Did you know that Ronald Reagan was also the governor of California?” and then move on and let them figure out a way to spend all their time and energy trying to distinguish Saint Ronnie from everyone else.  Yes, it’s an obvious misdirection, but so what.

    Also, is anybody else following Nikki Haley’s latest demonstration of her inept political instincts — her not so subtle proposal to require a test of mental competency for people over a certain age.  It’s like she can’t game out how this is likely to come across — obviously, opportunistic, but quite likely to keep her from even being considered as a possible running mate to Trump, assuming he is the nominee.

  213. 213.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @schrodingers_cat: The language of physics is math and when we try to express it in English, that’s when problems arise.

    I’m getting distressed at what seems to be a rapidly increasing trend of students turning to ChatGPT as an “expert”, including in physics. So then they ask questions in discussion groups like “here’s what $some_physicist$ wrote about relativity, and here’s what ChapGPT said. Is the physicist wrong?”

    ChatGPT processes English. And not even scientific English. It’s a bullshit generator. But we seem to have turned a corner in human acceptance of AI to “computers are smarter than people, so if a computer says it, it must be true.”

  215. 215.

    trnc

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Sadly, the population of Montana is so low, that if a big university or tech firm was transplanted there, it would flip the state.

    I wouldn’t be sad about their low population if it weren’t for the fact that they get the same number of senators as the other states.

  216. 216.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Taken4Granite: Yes, if you dip into the Alice-in-Wonderland world of creationists, they describe every aspect of conventional physics, geology and astronomy that is contrary to their interpretation of Genesis as part of “evolutionism”. It’s all the same thing to them, and something to be refuted or shunned.

  217. 217.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Barbara:

    Also, is anybody else following Nikki Haley’s latest demonstration of her inept political instincts —

    I only see her on clips on twitter. I think as late as yesterday she was still doing that “kick” thing. I’m getting a strong MarcoBot “Let’s dispel with the notion…” vibe from her

  218. 218.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: the Post had a piece up yesterday (by Philip Bump?) about how DeSantis was being very disingenuous with his crime remarks.

    I’ll have to track it down..

    ETA: here it is

    Terrible headline, of course.  Might I suggest “DeSantis distorts crime data in speech; FL cities with GOP mayors have much higher crime rates than NYC”

  219. 219.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: One of the first things I saw people doing with ChatGPT was mathematicians asking it for proofs and statements about mathematics and getting absurd bullshit out. It seems to be notably weak in that subject–it’s seen all the terminology and can follow very simple logical chains, but its training corpus likely includes a lot of bullshit and it has none of the deep, nuanced understanding that is required to prove things.

    I think I mentioned before, someone asked it if pi + e is rational or irrational (actually an open question!) and it responded that the sum of two irrational numbers is always irrational (definitely false: consider the sum of pi and 5-pi).

  220. 220.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Jeffro: Speaking of the “Divorce,” Michael Harriott has a great thread on some history behind that expression:

    “If you were taught that “states’ rights” caused a Civil War… Or wondered why people shed white tears over monuments of mustachioed un-American traitors… Or seen a Confederate flag at an insurrection

    Well, you can thank one family of white supremacist nepo babies

    A thread“

  222. 222.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    But we seem to have turned a corner in human acceptance of AI to “computers are smarter than people, so if a computer says it, it must be true.”

    This goes all the way back. One of the reasons Joseph Weizenbaum, the creator of the early chatbot ELIZA (which aimed to simulate a psychotherapist), ended up deeply critical of a lot of AI research was that he was alarmed by how people interacted with ELIZA–they started dumping their deepest secrets and treating it as an authority, even though by any modern standard that was a laughably crude program.

    And we’ve all seen math or science students punching numbers into a calculator, getting some result out and just trusting it regardless of whether it is completely absurd given the parameters of the problem. Of course, in many cases that may be an attitude of contempt toward the educational material–the desire to just get through this charade, right or wrong.

  224. 224.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
      Part of my job as a fire direction officer in the army some 30 years ago was to check the firing data spit out by the FDC’s computer and make sure that it made sense.

  225. 225.

    WereBear

    A state where people settle disputes by flinging live alligators at each other may not make a convincing model for national governance.

    You just haven’t given alligator flinging a chance!

  229. 229.

    opiejeanne

    It’s been snowing for quite a while, from the look of the outside world, everything covered in the white stuff. Great big flakes falling now, and lots of them. mr opiejeanne just looked out the window and announced that it’s snowing in the back yard too. Made me laugh. It’s a running gag, that the front and back yard have different weather.

    I’m heading to cardiology this am for an ECG and a stress test. Should be a fun drive to the hospital this morning, pretty but thank goodness we have a Subaru.

  231. 231.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I saw that article about DeSantis’s and Trump’s relationship in yesterday’s Post. I have not read it yet, but noticed there was a big picture of DeSantis and his wife greeting Trump in 2020 at an airport, as he reached the bottom of the steps from his plane. I thought their body language was telling: submissive, even obsequious.

  233. 233.

    Barbara

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Like Rubio and Jindal, she is mostly a biography in search of validation — as my mom once said about John Edwards — and the whole somehow always ends up being a lot less than the sum of the parts.

  234. 234.

    danielx

    PS: Our kiddo, who has elected to move to a non-alligator state, drew our attention to a recent incident where an alligator killed “another old person” and warned us to look sharp when outdoors.

    Bless her heart.

  240. 240.

    danielx

    @different-church-lady: ​
     One of the (many) reasons I avoid Walmart is that every time I go in, I see someone and my first thought is “no way that person is the end result of millions of years of evolution”.

  241. 241.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @eclare: An old friend/roomate/crush of mine lives in Cumming, GA now.  So far as I can tell, she isn’t MAGA, but I bet her husband is.

  242. 242.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Matt McIrvin: “I see. Tell me more about what ‘laughably crude’ means to you.”I played with ELIZA a little back in the day. Got bored pretty quickly though.​

    And we’ve all seen math or science students punching numbers into a calculator, getting some result out and just trusting it regardless of whether it is completely absurd given the parameters of the problem.

    As a TA I tried to explain why it was absurd to say things like “the runner’s velocity is 8.738492837433847 m/s” but I don’t think I ever got through.​ Edit: Or, more to your point, “the runner’s velocity is 83738492.837433847 m/s”​

  243. 243.

    lowtechcyclist

    @WaterGirl:

    I distinctly remember telling my Dad that he wouldn’t be old until he was 40.

    By your youthful measure, I was beyond old from the day we adopted our kiddo – I was 55 then!

    The kiddo’s 15 now, and he’s surpassing me in speed and strength, which I always figured would happen by about now.  So he gets to be the one to mow the lawn and so forth. Win!

  244. 244.

    evodevo

    @Taken4Granite: ​
     it’s also because their viewpoint denies that there was ever a time when the current arrangement of land masses was different than it is today. To admit that would be to negate their entire belief system, thus they cannot let go of even the smallest detail.

  246. 246.

    MikefromArlington

    You’d run from Mississippi the fastest though I would think. Alabama next then maybe those three

  249. 249.

    geg6

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    It’s supposed to rain all day, with temp hovering around low 40s until late afternoon when it starts warming up.  We’re supposed to hit 70 tomorrow.  Seems like the whole rest of the country is getting snow and we’re ready for bathing suits.  I can’t explain how weird the February weather has been here in Western PA this year.

  253. 253.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @geg6: ​

    Not a flake all winter at this end of the state either, and none predicted in this latest “everybody-else-is-getting-socked” storm. The bulbs are starting to grow, which means that I probably ought to start my early spring garden chores over a month before I’d planned to.

  256. 256.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The lawyers I see and hear say these efforts won’t stand up, but they might cause more delays

    Robert Costa @costareports 16m
    News: CBS News has learned that lawyers close to several GOP witnesses in Fulton Co. investigation are preparing to move to quash any possible indictments by DA based on the public statements by the forewoman of the special grand jury, per two people familiar with the discussions

    IANAL but I can’t think of what the objections might be. The only names (from in the GJ proceedings) I heard her mention were Giuliani and Graham, and she was a big fan of both.

  258. 258.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Baud:  once again TFG has led the way. It was a pleasure seeing a judge label him an abuser of the legal system in no uncertain terms.

  260. 260.

    Baud

    Courtesy of Alito, fun with uteri.

    Fla. lawyer argues pregnant inmate’s fetus is being illegally detained

    The attorney filed a petition that alleges the ‘unborn child’ has committed no crime and should be released

  261. 261.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: Pretty sure I heard her say Giuliani took the Fifth– and then she gushed about how of course that was his right! The Former Federal Prosecutors Of MSNBC seem pretty nonplussed by the rules of this special grand jury

    ETA: I remember when Andrew Weissman published his book, another lawyer screenshot a paragraph and commented, this is as close as he can legally come to telling us Don Jr took the Fifth

  264. 264.

    eclare

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:   I saw a clip of her interview on MJ.  That was…weird.  I mean beyond weird, as in what adult acts that way?  Mika was speechless.  I cannot imagine putting up with her for months on a grand jury.

  266. 266.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: We always knew this argument/accusation of BIAS!!1! was coming from Trump, GOPers and other Insurrectionists.  They will make the same accusation against the January 6 Committee too.  Most importantly: has someone found a way to blame Merrick Garland yet?

  267. 267.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @eclare:

    I cannot imagine putting up with her for months on a grand jury.

    as the rather sardonic local (I think) former prosecutor Michael Moore said on Alex Wagner’s show: That’s your jury pool in Fulton County

  271. 271.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: I was watching her wondering if she thinks there’s a book deal or a cable news “analyst” contract in her future

  275. 275.

    Jackie

    @Baud: From the article:

    ”“An unborn child has rights independent of its mother, even though it’s still in the womb,” Norris told The Washington Post. “The unborn child has been deprived of due process of law in this incarceration. You simply have to have the unborn child as a factor in the equation.”

    Norris’s argument, which posits that Harrell’s “unborn child is a person as defined under the Florida Constitution and United States Constitution,” is reminiscent of the concept of fetal personhood, the belief that a fetus is a person entitled to constitutional protections.”

    It’ll be interesting to see if this argument prevails!

  276. 276.

    eclare

    @JPL:   I would too, Fulton is huge!  Lots of different areas from College Park to Midtown to Roswell.  I think Alpharetta is in Fulton too.

  277. 277.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: sorry, just quoting (from memory) the local lawyer

    more generally, I try to remind the Garland-bashers that prosecutors don’t send people to jail, juries do, and all trump (or Rudi, or Eastman) need is one person a fancy defense lawyer can confuse a little

  280. 280.

    FelonyGovt

    @Jackie:

    @Baud: Well, this thing about the wrongfully detained fetus is one of the “logical” corollaries of the fetal personhood nonsense. Along with allowing pregnant women to use the carpool lane, claiming the fetus as a dependent for tax purposes. etc. etc.

  283. 283.

    Ken

    @UncleEbeneezer: Most importantly: has someone found a way to blame Merrick Garland yet?

    “He should have acted sooner than this” is always available, if not particularly fresh (or realistic).

  285. 285.

    Gin & Tonic

    @eclare: I saw on the twitters (so it has to be true) that she has never voted, and that she was awestruck seeing “America’s Mayor” in person.

  286. 286.

    JPL

    Fani Willis, the DA, is trying a high profile gang case involving a local rapper, and that could delay a trump trial.   trump will try to move the case out of Fulton County and then he’ll attack her personally because she is a dem.

    I’d love to know if she has been in touch with the DOJ.

  287. 287.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: Horrifying that it needs to be done, but clever argument by the lawyer.

    I laughed. This is why I can’t take my lunch in the office.

  289. 289.

    Paul in KY

    @Baud: Didn’t Kerry get whupped in 2004? It seemed like it.  My bad on that. You are right, Kerry much closer than Dukakis.

  290. 290.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Paul in KY: …No. Dukakis got 45.7% of the popular vote to Bush’s 53.4%, and was crushed in an electoral landslide in which he won 111 electoral votes in 10 states plus DC.

    Kerry got 48.3% to Dubya Bush’s 50.1%, won 251 electoral votes in 19 states+DC, and could have taken it with one more big state (Ohio was pretty close). 2004 was not as close as 2001 but it really was a squeaker.

    Note, though, that if Kerry had won, it probably would have been with a popular minority in which the loser got more votes, like Bush in 2001 or Trump in 2016. There might have been a major move toward election reform if we’d seen a Democrat win that way.

  291. 291.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: ​Lots of very specific things need to be just right for the universe as we know it to exist.

    Two words: Observational bias. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to observe them.

    (Yeah, maybe some other not-quite-life-as-we-know-it would have achieved something-analogous-to-intelligence in such a universe – and the more stupid of their ilk would point to the rightness of the conditions therein as proof for the existence of a Supreme Being that intervened to ensure their existence. Waltz me around by my willie, why doncha??)​​

    ETA: I see Matt McI got there foist at #148. Suffice it to say I introduced my favorite astronomy prof to Barrow & Tipler’s The Anthropic Cosmologic Principle, which he proceeded to wield to great effect in thought-provoking problem sets for many cohorts of unfortunate students…

  292. 292.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @JPL: I saw someone suggest that the immunity grants likely had to be approved by DOJ, but I’m not sure whether or not that is accurate.

  293. 293.

    Ken

    @Baud: Alito will use this as a way to strike down all protections against illegal incarceration, on the “equal protection of the law” grounds that there is no way to provide those rights to a fetus.

  294. 294.

    RaflW

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Some troll was all up in my grill the other day because I was laughing that some progressives in Florida were using the very poorly crafted book-suspension law that lets just one parent object to a book in a school and it has to be pulled until review.

    These frail, weal people can’t stand it when the obvious shortcomings of their crappy lawmakers are pointed out.

    That said, couldn’t this fetal innocence case have weird repercussions if it moves ahead?

  295. 295.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Paul in KY: Mind you, George W. Bush in 2004 was the only time since 1988 that a Republican has won a popular-vote majority in a Presidential election. A majority of 50.1%.

    US presidential elections tend to be games of inches, and it’s weird how little space in popular-vote margin there is between a blowout and a photo finish. Reagan in 1980 only got 50.8% of the popular vote, but since the vote was essentially split three ways with Carter and Anderson, that was a curb-stomping. And his landslide against Mondale in 1984 was with 58.8%, but on the electoral map that looked like near-unanimity.

  296. 296.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @RaflW: That said, couldn’t this fetal innocence case have weird repercussions if it moves ahead?

    I’m legitimately fascinated. I don’t follow a lot of case law, as I’m not a lawyer, but I’ll have to bookmark this one.

    These frail, weal people can’t stand it when the obvious shortcomings of their crappy lawmakers are pointed out.

    It’s not about the text of the law, it’s about doing what’s (R)ight.

  297. 297.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Ken: I’m just enjoying watching people who have only just now, suddenly discovered the importance of protecting the process, after two years of wishing prosecutors would move fast and even cut corners.

  300. 300.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​I am reminded of a long ago president of the University of Michigan. A reporter asked him what he intended to do about a tent city that protesters had set up on the Diag. He basically shrugged and said “Winter is coming.” (I don’t remember his name. It was George Martin, for all I know.)

    Didn’t have to be – only needed to be modestly conversant with 20th century American poetry, to wit, Ezra Pound’s Ancient Music:

    Winter is icummen in,
    Lhude sing Goddamm

    Most especially in Michigan! ;^D​

  304. 304.

    Matt McIrvin

    The thing that’s hard to get used to if you look at electoral maps from before 1992 is that California was a red state. Democrats only carried it in complete national blowouts, like 1964 or FDR’s. Now they always do, and it usually makes the electoral counts much closer.

  305. 305.

    Jackie

    TFG is throwing a major temper tantrum over Eric Swalwell’s introduction of a resolution to get Trump banned from entering the Capitol due to inciting a violent insurrection.

    “Little respected Representative Eric Swalwell was just kicked off the Intelligence Committee… for having the poor judgement of dating and falling desperately in love with a Chinese Spy, Fang Fang, whose honey net has gotten mass amounts of information for her beloved China,” Trump wrote.”

    I’m linking the Raw Story report as I’m not opening and linking to TFG’s social media site.

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-eric-swalwell/

  307. 307.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jackie: Known and investigated professionally. What magic allows Republicans to keep making assertions and implications of propriety, often decades after debunking?

  308. 308.

    scav

    Honestly, the right won’t care a jot (beyond wild applause) about any restrictions imposed upon the fetus-mobility unit (Mobile Obstetric Module).  Now, any consequences imposed on the freedom of papa, that’s a step too far. They’ll also get huffy if the little all-powerful wonder entities start getting charged as much as full-fledged humans.

  312. 312.

    Jackie

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: We all know that; too bad Swalwell can’t sue for slander or defamation of character!

    I just laughed because when TFG really gets insulting, you know it got under his thin, crepe paper skin😂

    eta: If Jean Carrol can sue Tfg for slander, can’t Swalwell?

  313. 313.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Jackie: It is funny in its profound laziness.

    If I ever made crepes and they came out looking like Trump’s skin…trash.

    Eta: I suppose anyone can sue anyone for anything, no guarantees on performance.

  315. 315.

    Ken

    @Jackie: Trump banned from entering the Capitol

    I would be OK with an exception allowing him entry for the lying-in-state* before his funeral.

    * In however many senses of the word “lying” you choose.

  316. 316.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Abnormal Hiker: Depending on what he was doing, that could be reasonable. It’s good to three significant figures and nearly four, about as good as slide-rule output.

  317. 317.

    CaseyL

    The jury foreperson may have been angling to give her beloved Rudi (*yorch*) grounds for a mistrial.

    Has she appeared on any other show?  Maybe another Officer of the Court had a nice little phone call with her…

  318. 318.

    Citizen Alan

    @Anyway: Oh yes there are, but they’re usually republicans. Mittens came out of Massachusetts. And for a while the MSM was talking up Charlie Baker, though that seems to have died away now that the GQP is too crazy to ever except anyone who could even plausibly be called a moderate Republican.

  319. 319.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Citizen Alan: Moderate Republican just means passive neglect rather than active sabotage. Baker occasionally failed to even live up to this standard.

  320. 320.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think it’s really odd how the press almost ignores the fact that both Democratic and Republican run cities can have high crime rates. Instead, they go with the Republican fixation on Chicago as if it’s the only city in the U.S. People here complain about how bad crime is (it’s really not), and I guarantee you this city isn’t run by Democrats. They don’t think about it that way, though, not at all.

  321. 321.

    Gin & Tonic

    FTFNYT indeed. Here comes their Moscow correspondent, on Twitter, repeating without any fact-checking russians’ claims that there are 200k people at the Z concert in Luzhniki Stadium. The stadium has a seating capacity of about 77,000. Probably too hard for her to mention that.

    I’m at Luzhniki stadium I. Moscow for a patriotic concert and celebration of Russia’s Defenders of the Fatherland day. Organizers say 200K here. Putin to speak later. pic.twitter.com/j3g50nJMXX— Valerie Hopkins (@VALERIEinNYT) February 22, 2023

  322. 322.

    Gvg

    @Aussie Sheila: Alligators are not nearly as aggressive as crocodiles. We have both. Oddly the crocs are rare, possibly because they are saltwater only here. But because of that we actually study the other crocs and all of them are much more dangerous than Alligators.

  324. 324.

    Princess

    @WaterGirl: Oh sorry — just saw this. I was referring to something I saw (on twitter?) that was talking about agregate improved performance at the precinct level across the board last night. So the more rural parts of WI, but also the more rural areas in the other races last night.

  325. 325.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: In the majority of the US you can go down the chain of authority from the federal government to state to local, find the Democrat somewhere in there, and say, see, that’s where the crime is coming from. It’s a really convenient rhetorical process.

    Sometimes you get stuck without any Democrats to blame but if a Democrat is President, there’s always them.

  328. 328.

    El Muneco

    @Matt McIrvin: ” it’s not at all clear that some hard-to-imagine exotic kind of life or intelligence couldn’t exist in a radically different universe, maybe on a radically different time scale.”

    And as I usually chip in with when this comes up – that species will come up with their own version of the Strong Anthropic Principle!

    The initial conditions that led to the development of _any_ one specific life form were so unlikely as to be almost impossible. The interesting question is how many different sets of initial conditions there are that will lead to _some_ form of life.

  329. 329.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: I have an ancestor who was not hanged as a witch in Salem because she was pregnant.  By the time she gave birth, the fever had passed.

  332. 332.

    Paul in KY

    @Gvg: I think our American saltwater crocs are a different species than the Indo-Pacific version.  For us, that’s probably a good thing.

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