linkdump

“Federal Courts Keep Shooting Down Anti-Trans Laws. Will That Hold at SCOTUS?”

“Your location data is for sale, and it can be used against you.”

Australian cockatoos can open garbage can lids, and what’s more, they can learn how to do it from other cockatoos.

“It seems like after the election, someone really did stop talking about COVID-19. It was the guy who never cared.”

“A Vaccine Or This Marriage: Conspiracy Theories Are Tearing Couples Apart“.

“Quick thread: I don’t think most people know what antivaxx posts on Facebook really look like. That’s good. Why would you? But I think people assume it’s Suzy Turmeric plaintively yelling at you about the microchip, and it’s not. It looks like this. Like code. Or gibberish.”

“Even in the face of Delta, vaccines are still doing what they’re designed to do. That is, they’re defanging the threat of a Covid-19 infection, protecting people from getting so sick they have to be hospitalized and from death. Pretty much nothing in medicine is absolute, so a tiny fraction of vaccinated people will still wind up getting really sick, but there’s a clear reason why some 97% to 99% of current hospitalizations and deaths are occurring among those who are unvaccinated.”

“A mysterious marketing agency secretly offered to pay social media stars to spread disinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. Their plan failed when the influencers went public about the attempt to recruit them.”

Want to buy some classic pinball machines? Now is your chance.

RIP, Bob Moses, civil rights leader and voting rights advocate.

“There is no way to understand the January 6th insurrection without beginning with the fact that it was led by, at the behest of and for the benefit of Donald Trump. It was the result of his actions. It was one of the final developments in a failed coup plot by Donald Trump.”

Rep. Mo Brooks is a traitor. Fortunately, he’s also an idiot. That may help to hold him accountable.

RIP, Dusty Hill, founding member and bassist for ZZ Top. I spent some time Wednesday afternoon , though please understand that the only correct way to listen to “Waitin’ For The Bus” is having it segue into “Jesus Just Left Chicago”. I played that for Olivia a couple of years ago, partly to explain how the age of streaming means a loss of such musical conventions. She was properly impressed.

“But the coverage of the hearing and the violence those officers experienced at the hands of people sent to the Capitol by Donald Trump could have unfolded very differently if Republican flamethrowers like Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio had been seated on the committee.”

“As we all know, Donald Trump isn’t the cause of the Republican Party’s descent into madness. He’s merely the result of decades of evolution that started when Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, Rush Limbaugh picked up a microphone, and Newt Gingrich reinvented modern conservatism. But these were just warm-up acts. It wasn’t until Fox News was up and running that we started to see permanent changes in the electorate.”

RIP, Ron Popeil, infomercial and “As Seen On TV” king.

“Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney over Black Widow‘s Disney Plus release”. She’s due a bonus based on box office receipts, which are of course lower now that the movie was simultaneously released on D+.

“We need to be placing the burdens on non-vaccination on the unvaccinated. And we need to be clear with the public that the problem is the non-vaccinated. They’re at fault. They’re to blame. And even more, the public influencers, celebrities and political actors who’ve driven resistance to vaccination are to blame.”

“This is a significant development that will clear the way for witnesses to provide evidence to the committees investigating post-election conduct, including the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. It also presents important questions for the doctrine of executive privilege in future cases.”

“Sorry, Leonard Leo. If you wanted someone without a sense of humor, you probably shouldn’t have tapped a 44-year-old from Teaneck, New Jersey. Also, your party should probably have nominated a senate candidate who wasn’t credibly accused of sexual impropriety with multiple teenage girls.”

“Not surprisingly, many of Trump’s supporters don’t approve of how their dear leader is displayed on TV, and they’ve been very quick to let the FCC know. Roughly 360 pages of anonymous grievances from “SNL” viewers dating back to 2017 have been published on Government Attic, thanks to FOIA requests. And wow, they’re a doozy.”

“What do you get when thirty liars write thirty books? Thirty lying books.”

“Researchers have found that “expiration” dates — which rarely correspond to food actually expiring or spoiling — are mostly well-intentioned, but haphazard and confusing. Put another way, they’re not expiration dates at all. And the broader public’s misunderstanding about them is a major contributor in every single one of the factors I named above: wasted food, wasted revenue, wasted household income, and food insecurity.”

“You hear somebody that’s got $200,000 or $300,000 in debt, they almost surely went to graduate school. They didn’t borrow that much money from the Department of Education to get a bachelor’s degree.”

“American kids watched so much Peppa Pig during the pandemic they now have British accents“. Gotta admit, I don’t mind that my kids were too old for Peppa.

The simple reason why ratings for the Emmy awards are down.

“If I were a multi-billionaire, what would I do with my money? […] I would dedicate my fortune to destroying Fox News. I would do it any way I could. Marketing. Lawsuits. Boycotts. Talent poaching. Cable access. Making Rupert Murdoch’s life miserable. You name it. Nor would I have any qualms about playing fair. You have a plan for a space-based laser that interferes with Fox News broadcasts and makes them unwatchable? Great! Here’s a hundred million to give it a go.”

“How Sketchy Data Scavengers Are Using Hatred Of ‘Big Tech’ To Attack Plans To Make The Web More Private”.

“Hey everyone having politicized arguments about vaccine hesitancy/refusal: Are you sure you’re talking about the same people? Let me explain.”

“The last 48 hours on here have been all about The Vaccine Discourse. Is FB killing people? Is the govt passing the buck? Who even can tell what IS misinformation, and who watches the watchmen, anyway? I’ve spent ~7 years watching the AV movement evolve online and have thoughts”.

Of COURSE it’s “Mary’s dress sways”. How was this ever a question?

Screw Jeff Bezos. I’m happy that Wally Funk got to go up into space.

“The goal has to be to eliminate COVID-19. Not live with it. Because we really can’t.”

“Many experts have argued that, even with Delta, the United States is unlikely to revisit the horrors of last winter. Even now, the country’s hospitalizations are one-seventh as high as they were in mid-January. But national optimism glosses over local reality. For many communities, this year will be worse than last.”

“The Pentagon’s watchdog said on Tuesday it would evaluate the safety protocols surrounding the president’s “nuclear football” – containing codes needed for a strike – after one such briefcase nearly came within range of rioters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.”

The “conservative pr0n star” who got canceled at CPAC. It’s even stranger than it sounds.

“As more people are vaccinated (and all else being equal), total hospitalizations will decrease but the *percent* of vaccinated hospitalizations will increase, not because the vaccines aren’t working, but because there are more vaccinated people and fewer hospitalizations overall.”

“So Donald Trump isn’t going anywhere because he has finally found a swindle in American politics where he can quite literally just ask people for money and they simply give it to him by the millions. It’s not complicated. It never is with Trump.”

“Lower vaccination rates among young adults in the United States are resulting in anxiety and painful decision-making for those who are vaccinated but have friends, family, loved ones and colleagues who aren’t.”

Don’t be like Missouri. Parts of Texas are already starting to look like Missouri. That’s bad.

“In May, I broke the story that the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees would not grant acclaimed journalist and New York Times Magazine staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure. They didn’t vote it down. They just refused to consider it. Killed it in committee. If that sounds more like politics than academia to you, well …”

“But with that increased attention has come increased scrutiny. Some critics dismiss the paint-by-numbers aspect of some of the genre’s biggest hits, while others worry that the truth often takes a back seat to dramatic flair. Perhaps most worrying is the fact that true crime often exploits or diminishes victims, survivors, and their family members—the people most affected by these horrendous events—while lionizing the perpetrators (and sometimes turning them into sex symbols). As the genre continues to explode in quantity, there’ll be an even greater chance of such mistakes.”

“Archaeologists may finally know the age and true identity of the “Rude Man,” also known as the Cerne Abbas Giant, one of dozens of geoglyphs etched into the British countryside.”

“Business leaders frequently proclaim that “people are our most important resource.” Yet those who are resistant to permitting telework are not living by that principle. Instead, they’re doing what they feel comfortable with, even if it devastates employee morale, engagement and productivity, and seriously undercuts retention and recruitment, as well as harming diversity and inclusion. In the end, their behavior is a major threat to the bottom line.”

“When we think about the normal discrimination statutes…we have protected classes based on something that is sort of inherent to you, with religion maybe being the one that is a choice. But vaccination status you certainly can control.”

“Whereas many people’s fundamental heuristic for health-related decisions is to trust medical and scientific experts, vaccine hesitancy reminds us of the many competing forces informing people’s intuitions about health, be they religious, political, historical, or identity-based.”

RIP, Edwin Edwards, four-term Governor of Louisiana, who defeated David Duke in 1991.

“What we’re seeing right now with these efforts to short-circuit the legislative process is what the legislative filibuster in the Senate should be like.”

“What you do is you take the horse, and you put two horses in a box, and you put the box on the plane.”

“A federal judge has temporarily blocked Tennessee’s transgender restroom law, which requires businesses to post a specific sign if they allow transgender people to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.”

RIP, Charlie Robinson, actor best known for his role on Night Court.

“Days After Threat From Biden, Major Ransomware Group Goes Dark”.

“If you’re a big fan of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, you may want to brace yourself: The recipe for your beloved drink is changing. Coca-Cola said Tuesday that it is tweaking the beverage in an effort to make the drink taste more like regular Coke.”

RIP, Fred Allred, longtime owner of Houston record store Allrecords.

“My point is that the great voice actors are great at voice acting. Some who are not primarily voice actors can be fine in certain roles in certain situations as Mr. Jones was…but when I see a list of nominees like the one for this year’s Emmy Awards, I think someone is disrespecting professional, full-or-most-time voice actors. They’re voting for celebrity, not talent.”

“Ironically, it was Trump’s own Supreme Court nominees who empowered Biden to purge so many Republican holdovers.”

Of course there’s a Ken Starr connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

“One thinks of 911 as a major advance in American law enforcement, but it had several less than beneficial consequences. In our haste to get to every call and handle them quickly, cops began to lose the intimacy of their relationship with the neighborhood they were policing.”

“For now it is more evidence of what we still – six months on – seem mostly in denial about: a defeated President plotted to overthrow the government to remain in power. The nation’s top general and his colleagues had to come up with contingency plans to thwart the coup they believed the commander-in-chief of the military was plotting.

“Norwegian Cruise Lines, through its counsel Quinn Emanuel, sued Florida for actively jacking its whole business model in the name of trolling.”

“How Lola Bunny Broke the Internet”.

“Republicans were happy to support vaccine when they could credit Trump, then went on the attack”.

“Most of us know generally what “stab in the back” mythology refers to but it is worth understanding in the particulars where the idea comes from and how it relates to today.”

If only these people could have had some way to know that getting vaccinated was a great way to protect themselves from serious COVID risk.

The world is a slightly better place now.

RIP, Biz Markie, hip hop musician, DJ, and actor.

“Now a new FX TV series based on the [Alien]franchise is in the works from Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley—who says it’s about time for the facehuggers and xenomorphs to sink their claws into the white-collar executives who have been responsible for sending so many employees to their doom.”

“Is internet savvy the most important skill an editor in chief ought to have right now? I don’t know. But currently, the skillset seems like an afterthought, especially in larger institutions. That’s a mistake.”

“No, You Can’t Recycle a Bowling Ball (But People Sure Keep Trying)”.

“Trump’s lawyers have called the charges petty and contend they are politically motivated. Others view them as designed to put pressure on the organization’s longtime chief financial officer to turn state’s witness. As a tax professor, I see them as a fantastic opportunity to talk about tax policy and the cat-and-mouse games that people play to avoid paying their fair share.”

“Remember that time when Hobby Lobby paid ISIS for illegally smuggled ancient artifacts from Iraq?”

RIP, Matiss Kivlenieks, goalie for the NHL Columbus Blue Jackets, who died as the result of a fireworks accident.

“Vaccinated people are safer than ever despite the variants. But unvaccinated people are in more danger than ever because of the variants.”

RIP, Richard Donner, film director best known for the first Superman film, The Goonies, and the Lethal Weapon franchise.

“If a party confesses to a crime with the understanding that his words are protected, that they won’t be used against him, or revealed to others, the power of the state or federal government must abide by that promise. It’s simply cheating to do otherwise.”

“He was not found innocent. He was released on a technicality. I would say the world still believes him to be guilty for the heinous crimes he was charged with and he’s going to live a very O.J. Simpson-like existence for the rest of his life.”

RIP, Dicky Maegle, former NFL and Rice University running back, best known for being on his way to a 95-yard touchdown in the 1954 Cotton Bowl when Tommy Smith came off the Alabama bench to tackle him.

“Former President Trump has reportedly cut ties with his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and has been annoyed with Giuliani’s requests for financial compensation in his efforts to overturn the election results.” Do these two deserve each other or what?

“Meeting with #NikoleHannahJones for an interview this week made me reflect on my June interview with Walter Hussman, the conservative Arkansas media magnate and #UNC megadonor who lobbied against hiring her. It’s worth talking a bit about these two people and interviews.”

“Americans may have fallen short of President Biden’s July 4 vaccination goal, but by most measures, we should be thankful for how far we’ve come in the past year.”

“Trump Sues Facebook, Google, and Twitter: Is It All About the Grift? The cases had barely been filed before the former president began fundraising off of them.” So, in other words, yes.

“The lawsuits are claiming that the former president’s First Amendment rights were violated by the decision to suspend his account, when in fact that is exactly backwards. The First Amendment strongly protects the decision by these companies to make content moderation decisions.”

“Reading between the lines I get the sense that the CDC and FDA see boosters, for the moment, as a solution in search of a problem when the overwhelming threat to public health remains the fact that half the population in the US still hasn’t gotten any vaccine. There’s probably also a desire to keep the tempo of key public health decisions in their hands rather than being driven by a private company.”

“It didn’t have to be this way. It’s easy to imagine a world in which Fox hosts relentlessly talked up how Donald Trump had made the vaccines possible and how if viewers got vaccinated, the dreaded masks and lockdowns would be gone forever.”

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

“Following a months-long investigation into a litany of dubious election fraud claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies, a GOP-controlled Michigan Senate panel concluded [last] Wednesday not only that the state’s 2020 results are accurate, but that some of those who continue to push such claims should face criminal investigation.”

“Two assumptions about gender were at work here. The first was that no man would ever roll a suitcase because it was simply “unmanly” to do so. The second was about the mobility of women. There was nothing preventing a woman from rolling a suitcase — she had no masculinity to prove. But women didn’t travel alone, the industry assumed. If a woman travelled, she would travel with a man who would then carry her bag for her. This is why the industry couldn’t see any commercial potential in the rolling suitcase.”

John Scalzi and Jenny Lawson have a conversation about writing and other things.

“People hate mosquitoes, and so companies make a lot of anti-mosquito things: candles, wristbands, chemical and herbal sprays—even electronic devices. But if you want to keep mosquitoes off your bare skin this summer, you really just need two things: bug spray and a fan.”

“The case for eating bugs is straightforward: They’re healthy, and doing so is good for the environment.”

“A new species of the ancient giant rhino – among the largest mammals to walk on land – has been discovered in north-western China, researchers say.”

“Network television has essentially given up. It’s dying, but instead of seeking treatment, it’s decided to continue doing the same thing until its heart gives out. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no reason one of the networks couldn’t take a defibrillator to its chest and resurrect itself.”

“The Department of Justice is setting up a task force to address the rising threats against election officials and administrators, something Attorney General Merrick Garland said would not have happened without news reports bringing the severity of the problem to his attention.”

“The structure of the Democrats’ new select committee must reflect the new reality that their Republican counterparts are engaged in an active cover-up of the events they are investigating. If Republicans in Congress wanted to be honest and equal partners in this investigation, they would have supported forming a bipartisan 9/11-style commission. Instead, they blocked it.”

“That’s it. All that happened is that a restaurant in Minneapolis decided to implement European-style gratuities included in the bill. They hope this will allow them to pay back-of-house workers more fairly and they also hope it will overcome known bias in tipping behavior.”

“And in that sense, the most successful horror story of 2020 is QAnon.”

“Harris’s dilemma is not simply a product of her supposed naivete about her own political interests or Biden’s supposed insensitivity to them. Rather, it is a natural consequence of her new position—where holding the status of potential president-in-waiting is often seen as more important than whatever the occupant might be expected to accomplish while waiting to be president. If it were otherwise, perhaps a vice president who tackled a difficult national issue would be praised, not second-guessed, for addressing the governing challenges of today rather than merely protecting her personal ambitions for tomorrow.”

RIP, Stuart Damon, actor best known for a longtime role on General Hospital.

“A Bronx Tale: One Sperm Donor, 19 Siblings, and Six Decades of Secrets”. It’s a riveting and somewhat bonkers story. Definitely worth the read.

“The WNBA made clear this week that it is leading the major professional sports leagues in COVID-19 prevention measures, with 99 percent of its players fully vaccinated and zero new players testing positive since the start of the regular season.”

“The Trump Org is in deep, deep trouble. And not because of the criminal charges. Because of its bank loan covenants.”

JD Vance is a tool. That’s it, that’s the link.

“Rudy Giuliani, already being sued for defamation by Dominion Voting Systems Inc. over his debunked election-conspiracy claims, has been issued a subpoena in a similar lawsuit the company filed against Fox News Network.” Sydney Powell and the MyPillow guy, too.

“How to Cut Down on Ransomware Attacks Without Banning Bitcoin”.

“The Fair Repair act would make it easier for everyone in America to fix their own stuff.”

“As Republican legislatures enact new voter suppression laws, Congress should reaffirm the House’s promise in 1965 to refuse to seat, or to unseat, members who benefit from discriminatory voting laws.”

“A CEO of a prominent aviation company has admitted that he helped invent a fake spokesperson for his company — and even gave interviews as that phony press representative for years.”

“I assure you, the Black Death was actually bad”.

“The decision by the bishops to take greater offense to a fellow Catholic over abortion than, say, the abuse of migrant children or the the state murder of prisoners by a grinning philanderer illustrates their real motivations.”

A great story about finding some of the still-missing box scores to Negro Leagues games, to help fill in the historical record and add to the database of Major League statistics.

“That 2009 climate bill, the one that President Barack Obama couldn’t pass? It required the U.S. to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 17 percent by 2020 as compared with their all-time high. Yet last year, our emissions were down 21 percent. The same bill said that the U.S. had to generate 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2020. Last year, we met that target. We will surpass it in 2021.”

Meet the pink fairy armadillo, an animal that really does exist.

“A majority of the 52,000 separate drinking water systems in the United States still haven’t inventoried some or any of their information technology systems — a basic first step in protecting networks from cyberattacks.”

James Hong, whom you know from Big Trouble in Little China and Wayne’s World 2 and the Kung Fu Panda movies, is finally getting a well-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“Telling the people what they want to hear isn’t good leadership. It isn’t leadership at all. It’s pandering—and yet millions of Americans love it even though it harms them in the end.”

RIP, Sang Ho Baek, pitcher at George Mason University who died after complications due to ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, otherwise known as Tommy John surgery.

Three cheers for Carl Nassib, the first active NFL player to come out as gay.

“A unanimous ruling from the nation’s highest court might not be a death knell for the NCAA’s business model, but it clearly and devastatingly exposes the facade upon which the entire enterprise rests”.

“Facing both the rapidly spreading Delta variant and dominated by the somewhat vaccine evasive Gamma variant (formerly known as the Brazil P1 variant), these countries are being hit with a one-two punch of the worst variants evolution has yet cooked up, and vaccination programs that are either completely ineffective or short of high-efficacy vaccines. Things may be getting back to normal in much of the U.S., but mass graves and overflowing hospitals are still the rule in far too many nations. The pandemic is not over.”

Wishing Coach RC Slocum all the best.

“On the one hand this is totally insane. But it is also textbook incitement.”

“Trump lawyer and Ukraine conspiracy peddler Rudy Giuliani can no longer practice law in the state of New York: A state disciplinary group requested and was granted an immediate suspension of Giuliani’s license for lying to courts during his attempts to overturn the U.S. presidential election on Trump’s behalf.”

RIP, John McAfee, antivirus software pioneer and total whackjob.

RIP, Janet Malcolm, longtime writer for The New Yorker.

“U.S. government prepares to issue landmark report on UFOs”.

RIP, Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska and 2008 Presidential candidate.

“The India that Silicon Valley once so loved has long given way to a different one: an increasingly authoritarian regime that wants even tighter control over information dissemination. It’s an India that’s not only willing to bully the very companies it once welcomed in order to firm up its grip, but also one that’s attempting to craft its own parallel social mediasphere as a bargaining chip to Silicon Valley: Either you play by our rules, or we don’t need you.”

“Danish PSA for wearing bicycle helmets is the best Viking movie in 63 years”.

RIP, Ned Beatty, versatile character actor.

The rise and fall of the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain.

“The FBI has released an unclassified intelligence assessment that predicts that some Qanon adherents will soon decide they can no longer “trust the plan” after so many Q predictions have come up short and resort to acts of violence.”

Everyone involved in this story is an amazing human. Standing ovation. (Via Ask A Manager.)

“How Does One Get Hired by a Top Cybercrime Gang?”

“Senate unanimously passes a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday”.

“Again, I ask: Doesn’t this all sound pretty fucking familiar?!!!”

“Biden’s efforts to strike up an anti-authoritarian chorus among our allies will be uncomfortable for Putin (as well as Xi, Erdogan and many others). But nothing he could say privately to Putin will resonate as strongly as enhanced unity on this issue by a newly energized western alliance. After all, Putin’s main goal throughout his entire career has been to weaken that alliance. Trump was his pawn in that effort. But Biden will deliver a message before he sees Putin that his efforts have now suffered a major reversal.”

“This month, corporations are plastering their social media avatars with rainbows, sponsoring Pride parades, and declaring their unwavering commitment to the LGBTQ community. Many of these companies, however, are spending millions supporting the campaigns of anti-gay politicians at the federal and state level. A Popular Information investigation found that 25 major corporations have spent more than $10 million since 2019 supporting members of Congress with a zero rating on the latest Congressional scorecard produced by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the most prominent LGBTQ rights organization in the United States. These same corporations have also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to state legislators who have sponsored anti-trans legislation this year.”

“In an all-out push to clean up Europe’s beaches — one plank in the European Union’s trailblazing efforts to address the almost 28 million U.S. tons of plastic waste it generates annually — a ban comes into effect July 3 that halts the sale in EU markets of the 10 plastic products that most commonly wash up on the continent’s shores. These include, among other items, plastic bottle caps, cutlery, straws and plates, as well as Styrofoam food and beverage containers.”

“Per Breyer, the red states and the individual plaintiffs lack standing in the big case involving the Affordable Care Act. The case is dismissed. The holding here is one that I’ve discussed many times before, but let me walk you through it.”

“The federal calendar has long served as a national text into which the country writes a story about itself. Among many other things it does, the Juneteenth federal holiday puts the political Civil War back at the center of the national story and affirms the centrality of African-American liberation, albeit incomplete, to the American story.”

How the Obamacare Town Halls of 2009 connect to the current critical race theory “controversy”.

“In the strongest move yet this year from the Biden administration in support of transgender students’ rights, the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Education (DOE) have filed a joint brief in support of a transgender girl who is suing her state for the right to participate in school sports.”

Sooner or later, the hammer is going to drop on Rep. Matt Gaetz.

RIP, Champ, Presidential dog.

RIP, Frank Bonner, actor best known for WKRP in Cincinnati.

“A pandemic upside: The flu virus became less diverse, simplifying the task of making flu shots”.

“Take a closer look at Walt Disney’s 1961 animated One Hundred and One Dalmatians film, and you may notice its animation style looks a little different from its predecessors. With its dark outlines defining characters from backgrounds, its departure from the subtle and sensitive animation of Sleeping Beauty just two years prior was considered jarring to some. That’s because the film is completely Xeroxed. The technology, invented by American physicist Chester Carlson in the 1940s, completely streamlined the animation process, and ultimately saved Disney’s beloved animation department.”

“But it begs the question: why is America’s meat supply so at risk of price fluctuations and shortages in the first place? The answer is simple: the industry is too consolidated. More than 80% of the beef industry is controlled by just four companies—JBS, Tyson, Cargill and National (owned by Brazil’s Marfrig)—and two of them are foreign businesses. Brazil-based JBS is responsible for a quarter of the U.S. beef market through its JBS USA subsidiary. The company is the country’s largest beef producer and its No. 2 producer of pork and chicken. That hyper-concentration makes any shocks to the system feel seismic.”

“Political parties rarely run ads to try to win over long-term loyalists. New research suggests it’s actually possible—and worthwhile.”

RIP, Clarence Williams III, actor best known for The Mod Squad and Purple Rain.

RIP, David Dushman, the last surviving Soviet soldier involved in the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

“There’s nothing wrong with taking the layup, with pandering to voters’ most basic interests. With control of the White House and Congress, and with the predictable pushback to Biden’s proposed infrastructure spending bringing his honeymoon period to an end, Democrats could make an easy play to curry favor with voters by creating new federal holidays.” Juneteenth and Election Day are given as obvious first candidates, I’m sure you can think of others. Speaking as someone with a lot of European co-workers, we sure could have more holidays.

“Two Senate committees have released their long-awaited, bipartisan report investigating the January 6 attack on Congress by Trump supporters over the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The report, as expected, includes a list of recommendations for boosting security and intelligence-sharing practices after the insurrection at the Capitol more than five months ago. It also reveals that federal agencies had intelligence about plans to attack the Capitol and their “potential for violence” well in advance of January 6.”

“The report doesn’t provide a deep look into the causes of the insurrection. As might be expected, Republicans have opposed every effort to look into how Trump’s statements and actions—not just at the rally on the morning of the insurrection, but before and after the election—encouraged his followers to conduct an assault on the Capitol that included an attempt to capture and kill lawmakers. Instead, the Senate report focuses on the structural issues in preparing for the events of that day led to inadequate actions to protect the Capitol, and how a series of structural failures led to a lengthy delay in providing National Guard support to the overwhelmed police force.”

“That is, after all, what hypocrites do. Otherwise they wouldn’t be hypocrites.”

“With a strong vaccination campaign, the United States was able to reduce the B.1.1.7 (alpha) variant’s toll to a bump in cases. What might happen with B.1.617.2 (delta) which is ~50% more transmissible, and more evasive to our immune response?”

“The first quiz show launched on radio in 1923; now, nearly 100 years later, the National Archives of Game Show History has launched at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y.”

On shooting sex scenes during COVID times.

The NFL will impose restrictions on unvaccinated assistant coaches.

“While Republicans have been doing their damnedest to stonewall an investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, new information about the event continues to emerge as congressional inquiries continue, and federal prosecutors continue to amass evidence in the hundreds of arrests already made, as well as the fresh round of indictments handed down each passing week.”

“Election officials and their families are living with threats of hanging, firing squads, torture and bomb blasts, interviews and documents reveal. The campaign of fear, sparked by Trump’s voter-fraud falsehoods, threatens the U.S. electoral system.”

“Should President Joe Biden convey legitimacy upon a man who shares blame for the death of 400,000 or so Americans? That’s one way of questioning whether Biden made the right choice in proposing the summit he is set to hold with Russian leader Vladimir Putin next week in Geneva. “

“Someone finally asked restaurant workers why they’re not returning”.

“Gun Church That Worships With AR-15s Bought a 40-Acre Compound in Texas for Its ‘Patriots’”. It’s located near Waco. What could possibly go wrong?

“Specific language about the QAnon conspiracy theory has all but disappeared from mainstream public social media platforms, new research concludes.”

Using blimps to fight climate change by replacing short plane rides.

“Among the unvaccinated in Washington state, for example, the rate for hospitalization and deaths is the same as it was in January, the most virulent month of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

They just don’t make the mark of the Beast like they used to.

What should the military do about seditious nutbag Michael Flynn?

“Meaning you can add “flying killer robots” to your list of plausible fears that science fiction predicted.”

“A ransomware attack against Brazilian meat-packing giant JBS has disrupted production in the U.S., Canada and Australia.”

Don’t act like a hooligan at sporting events. I know it’s been awhile, but surely we all remember this.

“With the coronavirus pandemic receding for every vaccine that reaches an arm, the push by some employers to get people back into offices is clashing with workers who’ve embraced remote work as the new normal.”

“Unfortunately, the trendline of where children are getting vaccinated so far shows an expected but still disappointing development. The same places where adults aren’t getting vaccinated are not seeing children getting vaccinated either, which will only exacerbate the growing discrepancies in the places where the most people are protected from the virus.”

“No one is coming to our rescue, certainly not “history.” Once democracy is gone, it’s gone. It is up to us to protect and preserve it. Right here, right now.”

RIP, Mike Marshall, first relief pitcher to win the Cy Young Award.

“Kraken Lawyer Sues MLB For Violating Atlanta’s Constitutional Right To Host The All Star Game”.

RIP, F. Lee Bailey, criminal defense attorney who represented Patty Hearst, O.J. Simpson, the Boston Strangler, and the army commander at the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, among others.

“But I have another theory. It’s the thirst. Trump broke the cardinal rule of fame: He made it clear how much he wanted it.”

“Why Hawaiian-Born Surfers Aren’t Excited to Surf for America in the Olympics”. If the Olympics happen, anyway.

Here are the pioneering women who will be on new quarters, beginning in 2022.

“We found that across states, a doubling of population size is associated with a 22 to 33 percent increase in regulation.”

“How did UFOs become so respectable? Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s excellent and lengthy New Yorker article provides some useful context. What we’re seeing now is actually a return to an older norm; there was a golden age of UFOs in the late 1940s and early 1950s when mysterious encounters with flying objects were widely discussed in both government circles and by respectable media.”

The TL;dr version of this is basically “give a person an extra thumb on one hand and they quickly adjust to having the extra thumb, but also begin to forget what it’s like to only have the one thumb on the other hand”.

I’m pretty sure that I myself would not read the unpublished John Steinbeck werewolf mystery novel if someone were to be allowed to publish it. But I do think I would read what someone else wrote about the John Steinbeck werewolf mystery novel, and so therefore I would like for it to be published.

“We’re approaching the year-and-a-half mark of the globe’s collective experience with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Covid-19 pandemic it has triggered. At this point, it’s fair to assume people the world over are asking themselves the same two questions: How will this end? And when?”

RIP, Kathleen Andrews, former top executive with Andrews McMeel, the syndicate that launched the comic strips Doonesbury, Ziggy, and Cathy, among others.

“Gordon Sondland, the former U.S. ambassador to the EU, is suing former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the government in a bid to have one of the two pay for $1.8 million in legal fees incurred during the 2019 Ukraine impeachment inquiry.”

Attempting to solve the Toeflop mystery.

“Pete Rose will do more for the game as a pariah than he could ever do pardoned.”

“Once any reasonable person hears the tell-tale features of the now hackneyed lie – the big, burly man, the calloused hands, the tears streaming down his face – that person will correctly conclude that this story must be presumed false unless proven true.”

RIP, Samuel E. Wright, Tony Award-nominated actor who originated the role of Mufasa in the Broadway version of The Lion King and was the voice of Sebastian in The Little Mermaid.

“But among the strangest and easily one of the most ill-advised dispensers has got to be this Pez gun, which shoots candies with the simple pull of a trigger.”

RIP, John Warner, former Senator from Virginia.

RIP, Kevin Clark, Chicago musician who as a child actor portrayed drummer Freddy “Spazzy McGee” Jones in the 2003 film School of Rock.

RIP, Eric Carle, author and illustrator best known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

RIP, John Davis, one of the real vocalists behind Milli Vanilli.

“Mitch McConnell Saw the Insurrection Clearly and Then Decided He Liked It“.

RIP, Mark Eaton, former Utah Jazz center and two-time NBA defensive player of the year.

RIP, Gavin MacLeod, TV actor best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Love Boat.

RIP, BJ Thomas, Houston singer/songwriter best known for “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”.

“I Quit the GOP and Moved Left. Will Liz Cheney Do the Same?”

“Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows”.

“In this article, we will explain how [Major League Baseball’s Automated Ball/Strike System (ABS)] operates, review the system’s initial design and subsequent iterations, and preview some of the additional ABS changes and improvements slated for 2021.”

Let the people repair their electronic devices.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic has progressed, it has become clear that many survivors — even those who had mild cases — continue to manage a variety of health problems long after the initial infection should have resolved. In what is believed to be the largest comprehensive study of long COVID-19 to date, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that COVID-19 survivors — including those not sick enough to be hospitalized — have an increased risk of death in the six months following diagnosis with the virus.”

“But here’s the thing: Digital extortion gangs like DarkSide take great care to make their entire platforms geopolitical, because their malware is engineered to work only in certain parts of the world.”

“The constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy may now be under more severe and imminent threat than it has been at any time since Roe came down in 1973.”

RIP, Damon Weaver, youngest person to interview a sitting President when he talked with President Barack Obama in 2009 at the age of 11.

“In three weeks, my twins will have their second shot. Two weeks after that they will, if the research holds, have a 100 percent immunity to the Covid virus. That means that in five weeks, our family will be able to move in the world, largely in the way we did in the before times. I will likely encourage masking in crowded spaces and in school, but this nightmare is almost over, and I can’t wait to take my 13-year-olds to the movies and on airplanes and to meet their unvaccinated one-year-old baby cousin. We don’t know how this pandemic will change our kids, but we can vaccinate them so we don’t need to know how Covid could ravage them.”

RIP, Buddy Roemer, former Governor of Louisiana.

RIP, Charles Grodin, versatile actor known for Midnight Run and The Heartbreak Kid.

RIP, Neal Ford, Houston rock pioneer.

“Investigators from the New York attorney general’s office are now working alongside the Manhattan district attorney in its ongoing criminal fraud investigation into former President Donald Trump and his company.”

“New research shows how fraudsters can abuse wireless provider websites to identify available, recycled mobile numbers that allow password resets at a range of email providers and financial services online.”

“Drones Reveal That Great White Shark Encounters Are Extremely Common”. Mostly, they leave us alone.

“There are a lot of reasons Americans are reluctant to get vaccinated, and one of them has nothing to do with religion or politics: It’s the fear of lost income. For many people, getting the shot requires taking time off work ― not just once but twice, if the vaccine is a two-dose regimen. A bout of side effects may well keep someone off the job for another day or two after getting jabbed. But the U.S. has no universal guarantee of paid time off, and low-wage workers are much less likely to enjoy the benefit than high-income workers.”

RIP, Lee Evans, who won two gold medals at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City and was part of the Black protests against US racism.

“What Really Happened With that Weird Yankees COVID Outbreak”.

“A look at how TV and film productions are faking big crowds these days”.

“The end of the emergency phase of the pandemic is in sight in the United States, at least for now. But as the weight of the crisis is lifted, experts are also anticipating a long-term impact on people’s mental health.”

“Eventually, I want to do a post quantifying all the damage to national security Billy Barr did by thwarting an influence-peddling investigation into Rudy Giuliani in 2019. But first, I want to quantify four ways that Barr is known to have obstructed the investigation into Rudy, effectively stalling the investigation for over 500 days.”

“Here’s who’s most and least enthusiastic about getting vaccinated”.

“Wyoming is faced by a transition to renewable energy that’s gathering pace across America, but it has now come up with a novel and controversial plan to protect its mining industry—sue other states that refuse to take its coal.”

“No one has a greater interest than progressives in public safety and low rates of crime. Because rising rates of crime, especially violent crime, drive rightist politics as sure as night follows day. This is a demonstrable fact.”

RIP, Pete du Pont, former Delaware governor and Republican Presidential candidate.

“Well I can see why you don’t want to talk about Dominion Voting Systems because if you do, Newsmax could get sued and lose billions of dollars because these are lies.”

“All of which is to say: Family policy is one piece of the declining birth rates story. But it’s just one piece, and I’m not sure it’s wise, long-term, to justify good family policies by saying they’ll increase births. Because even if they don’t — and the evidence suggests that even the best family policies in the world may not nudge birth rates above replacement rate — they’re still good, necessary policies that women, children, and families need.”

Just say No to reality TV.

“There are four possibilities for holding an attorney general accountable if evidence suggests he did abuse his office to protect a president.”

What if Rudy Giuliani has already been pardoned, and we just don’t know it yet?

“Five Former IRS Chiefs Say Biden’s Plan Would Make Tax System ‘Far Fairer’”.

Using image metadata to infer Q’s location.

“A Closer Look at the DarkSide Ransomware Gang”, the group responsible for the attack on the Colonial Pipeline.

“I mean, if the prevailing theory is that unemployed workers are just sitting back and collecting UI bc it pays more than any job, how about going out and finding somebody who says that that is what they are doing? People have admitted far more embarrassing things to reporters.”

“Pipeline Hackers Say They’re ‘Apolitical,’ Will Choose Targets More Carefully Next Time“. No, that is not from The Onion.

RIP, Norman Lloyd, longtime actor best known for St. Elsewhere. He got his start on Broadway in 1927 and worked with everyone from Alfred Hitchcock to Judd Apatow.

While vaccine resistant people are mostly Republican, vaccine hesitant people are mostly non-voters.

“What we know is that when Trump attempted to subvert the election, a number of Republicans in key positions refused to go along. We know that, for the most part, those individuals won’t be able to stop a similar effort in 2024, and that the party has sent clear signals that standing up for the constitution and the rule of law was unacceptable.”

My early nominee for 2021 Headline of the Year: “Carole Baskin of ‘Tiger King’ blames Ted Cruz, John Cornyn for Houston’s missing tiger on CNN”.

“Joe Manchin’s surprisingly bold proposal to fix America’s voting rights problem”.

“There is a growing public wish to put COVID-19 behind us by eliminating visible signs that it still exists (e.g., mask wearing). But guidance driven by this magical thinking will cause unnecessary harm. Public health measures should protect the larger population, including those who cannot be or have not yet been vaccinated. This CDC guidance proffers individual advice at the expense of the goals of public health.”

“A lot of people may be wondering, with 8 vaccinated breakthrough cases on the Yankees – is this evidence the vaccines aren’t as effective as we thought? The short answer is no.”

“We have a few months to go before we reach ideal vaccination levels. For the sake of at-risk community members’ peace of mind, I’m happy to wear my mask outdoors and in non-intimate indoor environments for a little while longer.”

“From my vantage point Republicans are giving the left a massive opportunity to wedge them.”

After the pandemic…

“Remote Places Desperately Need Vaccines. Drones Could Help.”

For a deep dive on the Josh Duggar backstory, and the “counseling” he got from another evangelical icon who was also a longtime sex creep, read this 2015 TPM story. And then take a shower, you’ll feel like you need it.

“this whole Duggar mess is leading me to think we need to discuss the ways in which purity culture hinders essential skill-building and requires teens be secretive about their sexuality in ways that lead directly to predation”.

Pacific Island nations are now dealing with COVID and trying to get vaccinations after a year of mostly being safe due to their isolation.

“We have plenty of reasons to worry about the continuing pandemic: the variants, runaway viral spread in India and Brazil, differences in vaccination rates that mirror racial and political divides. But cautionary public-health guidance risks losing its impact if it fails to acknowledge what the American public surely can see: We are winning the war against COVID-19 in the United States, and we can adapt better than the virus can.”

You want to browse some classic Far Side cartoons, don’t you? Of course you do.

RIP, Billie Hayes, Broadway and TV actor known for playing Witchiepoo on the psychedelic kids TV show HR Pufnstuf. Mark Evanier has some memories of her and her Bay City Rollers co-star Les McKeown.

RIP, Al Jamison, original member of the Houston Oilers.

RIP, Bobby Unser, three-time Indianapolis 500 winner.

Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border. Who among us has not done the same thing?

“Prince’s earth-shattering “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” solo gets a director’s cut with even more Prince”.

Relax, you’ll know who the next Jeopardy! host is soon enough.

This reasonably sums up how I feel about Rep. Liz Cheney.

“Twitter is taking its permanent ban of ex-President Donald Trump seriously, with the company on Thursday suspending an account for sharing comments Trump made on his new website.”

Don’t drive while on a Zoom call. I mean, seriously.

“Tucker Carlson May Be America’s Biggest Public Health Problem“.

“The public health challenge of the next few months can’t be disentangled from the political problem of the next few years.”

RIP, Tawny Kitaen, actor and music video star.

Please don’t feed the bears.

“U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s reported $2 million book deal is drawing criticism from legal experts who say its size and timing create bad optics for a court that is already in the political crosshairs.”

A new malaria vaccine could save a lot of lives.

“David Brooks can be maddening, but he has a role to play in moving the needle of progress.”

“The issue is in part semantic: The term low-skill as we use it is often derogatory, a socially sanctioned slur Davos types casually lob at millions of American workers, disproportionately Black and Latino, immigrant, and low-income workers. Describing American workers as low-skill also vaults over the discrimination that creates these “low-skill” jobs and pushes certain workers to them. And it positions American workers as being the problem, rather than American labor standards, racism and sexism, and social and educational infrastructure. It is a cancerous little phrase, low-skill. As the pandemic ends and the economy reopens, we need to leave it behind.”

In which dogs are used to find turtles to help fight an emerging virus that affects turtles.

“There are basically four countries in the world that are at the head of the pack in terms of vaccinations – with one, Israel, far ahead of the other three. There are as many as a dozen others but they are either city states or tiny jurisdictions that it’s hard to draw much from in terms of statistics. Those four are Israel (Pfizer), the United States (Pfizer & Moderna), the UK (AstraZeneca) and Chile (SinoVAC). There’s a decent body of theoretical and empirical support for the proposition that the population-wide effects of COVID vaccination kick in when about 60% of the population has been vaccinated – at least with the Pfizer/Moderna vaccinations.”

“You don’t need to win every vote. You need to get a majority of votes. Similarly, we don’t need to get everyone vaccinated (thought that sure would be nice). We need to get to herd immunity.”

“To recap: A tabloid falsely linked a study to the Democratic president; Fox News regurgitated the lie; Fox News consumers swallowed the regurgitated lie like conspiratorial ipecac then urped it up all over the internet; America became a measurably dumber place to live.”

“Quentin Tarantino Had A Diabolical Method For Preventing NBC From Messing With His ‘ER’ Episode”.

“A Jan. 6 Commission is Crucial to Understand the Reality of the Attack, and the Alternate Reality of the Attackers”.

“I think the bottom line here is somewhat simple, though: Mask up in crowds. Otherwise—though some judgment calls might be involved—if you’re outdoors, it’s just not as necessary.” Here’s an opposing view to that.

“Russian singer finally voted off reality TV show he didn’t want to be on following three months of misery”. Honestly, that may be the most 2021 story we’ll ever see.

“Good news: Prancer has been adopted.”

I’d say that not listening to Joe Rogan is good advice in general.

RIP, Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut.

RIP, Courtney Hall, Rice Owl and former NFL player.

“Josh Duggar is in the position he is in because he was enabled and protected from consequences at every step by his revolting parents and their patriarchal, dehumanizing theology.” (More here, if you can stomach it.)

“Newsmax apologized on Friday for airing false allegations that an employee for Dominion Voting Systems manipulated machines or tallies on Election Day to the detriment of former President Donald Trump.”

RIP, Olympia Dukakis, Oscar-winning actor and cousin of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 U.S. presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

The story of William Clarence Matthews, a Black baseball player (and many other things) who almost integrated the sport in 1905.

“Having police interrogate you while showing you pictures of the weapons and bombs made *literally feet from where you sleep at night* and telling you how badly this guy wanted to kill you over and over again… I can not explain how this felt.”

Three words: Purple Urkel Cannabis. You’re welcome.

“A New York Times report suggests OAN knew its election claims were false when it made them”.

Bitche, please.

“Billions of cicadas will emerge in the eastern United States this spring, presenting a once-in-a-17-year opportunity for scientists to understand how they shape populations of birds and other species.”

RIP, Helen McCrory, actor known for Peaky Blinders and as Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies.

RIP, Walter Mondale, Vice President under President Carter, Senator from Minnesota, diplomat, statesman, mensch.

How network TV navigated the COVID shutdown.

“Our politics can never truly move forward on anything until there is a final and complete reckoning of the only organized mob coup d’etat in the country’s history. The longer that reckoning is delayed, the harder it’s going to be for the country and its politicians to recover public confidence in the government’s institutions, without which self-government itself is a limping, spavined farce. If the Democratic congressional majorities have to go it alone, then they should. If Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice needs to be the venue for that reckoning, then so be it. It’s too important to be hostage to a party that has lost its mind, and that’s funding its operation on the public’s mania.”

“Social Media Influencers Are Spreading Wild Rumors About COVID-19 Vaccines and Periods”.

“Rather than attempting to obtain the consent of the governed, the Republican Party has turned to a model that relies not on persuasion of voters, but on slicing and dicing the electorate—and erecting more and more severe and onerous barriers to broad participation in elections—to help ensure that they remain in power, regardless of whether they have majority support.”

“It’s not just you: Commercials, particularly those that air on streaming services, are too loud. The FCC is now asking the public to weigh in on whether or not it should update its rules that are supposed to prevent commercials from being louder than the programming they accompany.” YES. YES, THEY SHOULD. Sorry, didn’t mean to shout.

RIP, Jim Steinman, iconic rock composer responsible for “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” and a whole host of rafter-shaking big-vocal 70s anthems. As I said on Facebook, I hope that in the end, the last thing he saw was his heart, still beating, breaking out of his body and flying away, like…well, you know.

BTW, if you liked Steinman at all, you really owe it to yourself to listen to the Hit Parade episode about him.

“For most of the House’s history, however, states did not lose representation after the national head count’s results were released. Generally speaking, as the country’s census numbers grew, so did the size of the House since it was first established at 65 seats by the Constitution before the first U.S. count in 1790.”

“In other words, Bitcoin has few of the attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible. And because it’s the original cryptocurrency it’s more sought after than, say, Ethereum, the way a 1952 Mickey Mantle is worth more than a 1951 Willie Mays. And both are more valuable than a Tom Egan rookie card, sort of the Dogecoin of baseball cards.”

“That’s right, Dominion Voting Systems, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Denver, Colorado, is functionally the same as the United States government for all eternity as a result of having sold its machines to various jurisdictions for election administration.”

RIP, Tempest Storm, burlesque dancer and star of Russ Meyer films.

America will finally get the LeVar Burton Jeopardy! guest hosting gig it has been waiting for.

RIP, Thelma Harper, Tennessee’s longest-serving female state senator and the first Black woman to be elected to the chamber.

RIP, Lance Mannion, blogger and culture writer.

RIP, Chandler Davidson, founder of the Rice University sociology department and a leading expert on voting rights.

Hope everyone had a happy Sarah Cooper Day.

“Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? first aired on PBS 30 years ago, between 1991 and 1995. But the show’s legacy lives on for the kids of the ’90s.”

“The Krispy Kreme backlash (and backlash to the backlash) was the latest salvo in the decades-long battle about fatness, anti-fat bias, and whether fat Americans realize that doughnuts do not have the same nutritional value as raw carrot sticks. If that sounds like a familiar dance, it is. If that sounds patronizing, well, buddy, it is.”

“Evangelicals also understand the power of narrative, which is why they’re so concerned with controlling the stories the public hears not only about themselves, but also about those of us who leave evangelicalism and tell the truth about how it has harmed us, criticizing evangelical theology as well as the racism, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ animus, and culture-warring politics that theology bolsters.”

“As presented by the Biden team, [the American Jobs Plan] represents not only an enormous total investment, but some really smart investments, in areas where the positive knock-on effects for the clean energy transition could be enormous. There were some true-blue energy wonks involved in writing this thing.”

“At any rate, the 17th Amendment isn’t going anywhere, so it may be time for the nation at large to understand it.”

“For the last few months, the primary focus of the U.S. has been getting shots to everyone who wants them, as quickly as possible. Soon, that focus will abruptly shift to convincing holdouts to get vaccinated.”

“How Gabby Giffords is using music to rewire her brain after being shot”.

Don’t depend on Greg Abbott to protect you from phony vaccine passports, learn to recognize them for yourself.

Welcome to the Freedom Cafe!

“Almost no person or entity who helped spread Trump’s election fraud lies is even attempting to back them up with evidence. In fact, most of those lie-spreaders have either partially or totally backed away from them in the face of litigation: Fox, Newsmax, OANN, Giuliani’s radio host WABC, the RNC, and two former Trump lawyers.”

“Men are sharing ways they’ve experienced sexual harassment from coworkers, friends, and total strangers. It’s an eye-opening perspective — one that isn’t often discussed.”

“Not long ago, women playing college baseball was unthinkable. Today, it’s more of a reality than ever, with opportunities opening up quickly at all levels of the collegiate game.”

Bernie Madoff has died. He doesn’t get to rest in peace.

RIP, Bob Gallarza, musician and producer, known as the “Quincy Jones of Tejano music”.

“There are other humans in this movie, which is a shame, because my antidepressants got a stress test every time they came on screen. But I suppose the world is not ready for a dialogue-free monster movie. (I mean … I am.) Alexander Skarsgård is also a scientist, but he’s haunted by loss and forced to deliver — with a face as straight as listening to Toby Keith at a gender reveal party — lines about the Hollow Earth realm from which the giant monkey and lizard hail. Brian Tyree Henry plays a podcasting conspiracy theorist looking to expose the shadowy corporate … things happening. Millie Bobby Brown is also here because she is friends with the lizard and has a good agent.”

“How “A Drive Into Deep Left Field by Castellanos” Became the Perfect Meme for These Strange Times”.

“Selena Quintanilla-Pérez’s legacy is one that has transcended generations, languages and cultures. The Tejano music star was born April 16, 1971 — today would’ve been her 50th birthday.”

“Biden’s Evangelical Foes Set Aside Satan Fears, Cash Aid Checks”.

“No, Eric Greitens Was Never “Exonerated” of Sexual Misconduct”.

“Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) political career has been imploding for longer than we knew.”

“But, in truth, Boehner’s I-Was-Just-a-Feather-in-the-Gales-of-Crazy act gets a little wearisome for those of us who lived through it. If there’s any evidence that John Boehner tried to arrest the prion disease before it took over his caucus, and then his entire political party, it was not evident in his performance as Speaker.”

“Thanks for noticing that NY’s voting laws are bad! Like GA, many of NY’s restrictions on the right to vote are rooted in racism and xenophobia and need to change. “So, why aren’t you suing NY over early voting and no-excuse absentee balloting right now?” Glad you asked.”

This is a great story. That’s all you need to know.

“Some new research out this week suggests that, for all the high-minded good intentions behind those other strategies, shut the hell up about national politics can actually reduce political polarization — not just at a dinner table, but in an entire community.”

RIP, Yahoo Answers, in case anyone was using it.

“Paige Bueckers has to wait to play in the WNBA because the league never thought there would ever be a player this good, and this young. She’s proof of just how much the game has evolved.”

“Ne’er-do-wells leaked personal data — including phone numbers — for some 553 million Facebook users this week. Facebook says the data was collected before 2020 when it changed things to prevent such information from being scraped from profiles. To my mind, this just reinforces the need to remove mobile phone numbers from all of your online accounts wherever feasible. Meanwhile, if you’re a Facebook product user and want to learn if your data was leaked, there are easy ways to find out.” Basically, bookmark Have I Been Pwned and refer to it any time you see a story like this.

“John de Lancie will reprise his role as Next Generation trickster god Q on Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard“.

“Embattled National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre feared for his safety after mass shootings in recent years, forcing him to take refuge aboard a friend’s luxury yacht, the gun rights advocate testified.”

“New surveys show Americans’ membership in communities of worship has declined sharply in recent years, with less than 50% of the country belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque.”

What is it about Trump voters that makes them such easy marks for scammers?

RIP, Midwin Charles, legal analyst for CNN and MSNBC.

“You can’t complain that right-wing media have usurped the church’s role when the church itself has abdicated that role, refusing to stand up against those usurpers.”

“Why, that sounds like the kind of systemic market failure the [Wall Street] Journal is always insisting can’t happen.”

“The standard explanation for all this is the advent of the coronavirus. The country is in crisis, and Biden is rising to meet the moment. But I don’t buy it. That may explain the American Rescue Plan. But the American Jobs Plan, and the forthcoming American Family Plan, go far beyond the virus. Put together, they are a sweeping indictment of the prepandemic status quo as a disaster for both people and the planet — a status quo that in many cases Biden helped build and certainly never seemed eager to upend.”

Be wary of immigration attorney ads on TikTok.

“That Fyre Fest tweet with the sad sandwich will be auctioned as an NFT for medical expenses“. I got nothin’.

RIP, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

RIP, Anne Beatts, original Saturday Night Live writer and creator of Square Pegs.

Everything you wanted to know about muons but were afraid to ask.

RIP, DMX, hip-hop artists and actor.

RIP, Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General and civil rights champion.

“For many cities and counties, the American Rescue Plan’s (ARP) state and local funds are not just a $350 billion lifeline; they represent the largest positive fiscal jolt to their budgets in decades. Now, a scramble is underway to determine how best to deploy the money. The decisions made in the coming weeks— and over the next year regarding the second tranche of funding—will determine whether cities merely enjoy a brief stimulus or seed a new trajectory of inclusive economic growth. The stakes are high. The money needs to move fast and be deployed smartly and equitably. In 10 years, we may look back at this time and ask: Which places merely spent their money, and which places invested it?”

“America’s Covid Swab Supply Depends on Two Cousins Who Hate Each Other“.

“How One State’s Public Health Defunding Led to Vaccination Chaos”.

“For decades, Americans relied on analog televisions employing UHF signals for our hundreds of (mostly inane) channel distractions, but one particular stop on the dial was nowhere to be found: channel 37. Apparently, the nationwide lack of a channel 37 on living room TV sets wasn’t some big coincidence, but an intentional decision overseen by the U.S. government based on two very obvious reasons: the location of a 400-foot radio telescope and aliens.”

“The true dimensions of the worst Christian sex abuse scandal you’ve never heard of have long been largely unknown.”

I had no idea that The Flintstones had a different theme song for its first two seasons.

“An Extremely Scientific Economic Breakdown of the MCU”.

Frequently asked questions about the Deshaun Watson lawsuits, by attorney/Texans fan/all around good egg Stephanie Stradley.

“Yesterday the CDC reported the results of a study which suggest the vaccines are almost as effective against infection as they are against the disease itself.” (We already knew the vaxxes were very good at preventing you from getting sick from COVID, but you could still carry the virus, which is why mask-wearing and other precautions are still recommended after you get your shots. If this study is accurate, it means you’re unlikely to be an asymptomatic carrier as well, which would mean that a true return to normal is on the horizon.)

“The second half of May could see rates of COVID-19 finally plunging to levels that have not been seen since the first weeks of the pandemic. It’s entirely possible that, at that point, a national program of testing and case management could do what it should have done from the beginning: Help direct isolation and quarantine to take those remaining cases and push them, as much as possible, toward extinction. But that can’t happen yet. There simply are not enough doses in enough arms at this point. Which is why social distancing and mask mandates remain critical.”

“It’s amply clear that Biden’s judge-picking machine has learned some important lessons from the Federalist Society’s stranglehold on judicial selection. The game has now changed for both sides.”

“With billions of dollars in lawsuits now in the balance, Dominion Voting Systems has quietly expanded its legal armada in recent days, as the election technology company goes after Trumpworld and conservative media giants.” Among the attorneys representing truth, justice, and democracy against these modern-day Visigoths is Justin Nelson, 2018 Democratic candidate for Attorney General against Ken Paxton.

“One of the interesting things about the current misinformation landscape is that it’s not necessarily uninformed people. It’s misinformed people. It’s people who say, ‘I do my own research; I don’t trust the elites.’ And their research is nonsense, it is sophisticated nonsense.”

“Confronted with compelling video and photographic evidence in court, dozens of rioters have apologized and expressed regret as the consequences of their actions have started to sink in. The ramifications include potential job losses, financial ruin, and possible time behind bars.”

“In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.”

Are we entering the beginning of the end of Pat Sajak’s time as host of Wheel of Fortune?

“Should Masking Last Beyond The Pandemic? Flu And Colds Are Down, Spurring A Debate.”

It’s impossible to keep up with the Matt Gaetz scandal, but one should try anyway. Especially since it’s getting really ugly about now.

“The Democrats seem to understand very well that all politics is national right now. The more they stand by the president, especially a popular one, the more likely they are to survive the coming midterms. Bottom line: this [infrastructure] plan is going to happen. The Democrats will work out the details. It’s not a matter of if or whether. It’s a matter of when. They’re hoping by July’s end.”

“In the simplest terms, Gates gets splashy headlines for his interest in problems that, according to Q and MAGA types, are overblown or don’t even exist — the climate crisis, the strain of overpopulation where resources are scarce and pathogens that can wipe out millions in the West as well as poorer countries. Therefore, it stands to reason that this is all a front for some nefarious secret agenda, which he can bankroll indefinitely.”

“Being an Asian woman means moving through spaces with the constant anxiety that someone is about to make you their sex object or punchline.”

“There is a robust symbiosis between misogyny and white supremacy; the two ideologies are powerfully intertwined.”

Everything you ever wanted to know about that Geico “Scoop There It Is” TV commercial but were afraid to ask.

“Rights of the dead and the living clash when scientists extract DNA from human remains”.

“As U.S. drivers buy more full-size and heavy-duty pickups, these vehicles have transformed from no-frills workhorses into angry giants. And pedestrians are paying the price.”

“How scary are cow burps exactly? Measured by their planet-warming power, methane-filled livestock belches are the equivalent of 850 coal plants burning year-round. But scientists have found that spicing up cattle feed with a little seaweed can dramatically reduce the methane they produce.”

“‘Evidence is trending’ toward sedition charges for some involved in the Capitol insurrection”.

RIP, Elgin Baylor, all-time great NBA player and executive, who was also a civil rights leader.

RIP, Kent Taylor, CEO of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain.

Some people just have no idea who supported or voted for what in Congress.

A delightful thread of famous person reaction GIFs, posted by the famous people themselves.

Just some funny dog photos. Isn’t that enough?

If fear of lost commerce is what it takes to veto nasty anti-trans legislation, then that’s what it takes.

RIP, Jessica Walter, Emmy-winning actor known for Arrested Development among many other roles.

RIP, Don Bankston, former Fort Bend County Democratic Party Chair and District Court judge.

RIP, George Segal, longtime actor known for roles from The Owl and The Pussycat to The Goldbergs.

RIP, Dr. Bobby Brown, former MLB player and executive, Korean War veteran, and cardiologist.

“Overlooked is that Biden and his team are also making a strategic bet. Limiting his exposure to the press and, by extension, the public isn’t simply a defensive ploy to avoid an embarrassing gaffe. It’s a conscious calculation that people don’t need—or want—to hear from the president on an hour-by-hour basis, that they will be satisfied if he can revive the economy and end the pandemic. After all, Americans just had a president who entered their life and refused to leave, who gripped the megaphone and wouldn’t let go. Biden has no wish to resurrect Donald Trump’s in-your-face presidency.”

RIP, Larry McMurtry, legendary author and screenwriter known for Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment, among many others.

“Georgia is an all-hands-on-deck crisis for our democracy.”

RIP, Beverly Cleary, beloved children’s author.

RIP, Leon Hale, beloved Houston Chronicle columnist and damn Texas treasure. Seriously, whether or not you have any idea who Leon Hale is, go read that obituary.

“THREAD: Lots of us learned classical music from watching old cartoons, so I’m going to identify the pieces that frequently popped up.”

“Huey Lewis-Inspired Anthology Series in the Works at Fox”. I’m sorry, but if the title doesn’t contain a duck-related pun, then what are we even doing here?

“I grew up in a family of people who loved classic films. Now, how can you love these films if you know that there’s going to be a maid or mammy that shows up? Well, I grew up around people who could still love the movie. You appreciate some parts of it. You critique other parts of it. That’s something that one can do and it actually can enrich your experience of the film.”

“When private equity firms acquire nursing homes, patients start to die more often.”

“Over a hundred thousand people have now died of Covid-19 in the UK alone; people around the world have been separated from their family and friends, and entire economies have come to a standstill. All of which raises an important question: how can the world prevent another pandemic? The obvious place to start is at the beginning – before a pathogen has been seeded around the world and serious damage has been caused. If we can predict where the next pandemic will come from, perhaps we can stop it at its source.”

“When you put on the White House stage the official with direct operational responsibility – you incentivize reporters to try to extract useful information, not to generate viral video.”

“If you don’t recognize our democracy at this point in time, then I don’t think you’re going to be helpful to successful legislation.”

Zoom should hire this kid as a product interface tester.

RIP, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, middleweight boxing champion.

RIP, Yaphet Kotto, TV and film actor best known for Alien, Live and Let Die, and Homicide: Life on the Street.

“Uncertainty about why only 75% of the House is confirmed as vaccinated against the coronavirus is fueling a debate about when the chamber can return to its normal rules of operation.”

“The White House will soon unveil a wide-reaching public relations campaign aimed at boosting vaccine confidence and uptake across the U.S.”

“The Democrats just passed a massive spending bill with no GOP support. So why are Republicans talking about Dr. Seuss and the border?”

“For Cruz’s Tweet to make any sense, you have to already believe that Biden saying he hopes people can gather safely for barbecues on July 4 was actually a threat to forbid them from doing so. You have to believe that the president has the power to do such a thing. (He doesn’t.) Basically, you have to be steeped in [Fox News Cinematic Universe] canon.”

RIP, Glynn Lunney, NASA flight director who played a key role in Apollo 13.

“You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice.”

“What to expect when you’re inoculating (i.e. what you can—and can’t—do after being vaccinated)”.

“In the areas where Amazon operates, though, low-wage workers at other businesses have seen significant wage growth since 2018, beyond what they otherwise might have expected, and not because of new minimum-wage laws. The gains are a direct result of Amazon’s corporate decision to increase starting pay to $15 an hour three years ago, which appears to have lifted pay for low-wage workers in other local companies as well”.

“The world’s oldest known wild bird, a Laysan albatross named Wisdom, has hatched yet another chick at Midway Atoll in the Hawaiian archipelago. Biologists first identified and banded Wisdom in 1956; she is at least 70 years old.”

“In other words, Lola Bunny—one of the most infamously sexualized female anthropomorphized figures in recent animation history—has been rendered as a normal cartoon character, rather than the strange manifestation of subliminal interspecies horniness that she previously embodied.”

“The world is now confronting a growing number of coronavirus variants that threaten to slow or undo our vaccine progress. In recent months, it’s become clear that the virus is mutating in ways that make it more transmissible and resistant to vaccines, and possibly more deadly. It’s also clear that, at least in the United States, there is no organized system for tracking the spread or emergence of variants.”

Make the filibuster theatrical again.

“Treating these lost sheep as innocent dupes unwittingly led astray won’t have any effect because they were not dupes and they were not innocent. The problem was not one of error, but of sin — of moral choices, made willingly. It’s not a problem of “fringe ideas” or “conspiracy theories” spreading in congregations due to gullibility and naivete, but more starkly a problem of bearing false witness against they neighbor.”

“I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it seems Democrats … learned from their mistakes?”

You want to know about the history of Pepe le Pew, Mark Evanier can tell you.

This is the best example I’ve seen of a fight in which you root for both sides to lose.

The latest Microsoft Exchange hack looks really bad.

RIP, Norton Juster, author best known for “The Phantom Tollbooth”.

“As a result of sharing my personal experience, others have come forward to confide in me and reveal their own experiences with abuse. So it is my aim to help educate anyone reading this on how to be an ally and support a person who has survived trauma in its many incarnations.”

“A quick thread on what we, in TV writing, call the Idiot Ball. This is a term used to describe when one character, in order to make the show work, has to behave, uncharacteristically, like a complete idiot. It is usually a different character each week.”

“It’s too early to know for sure. But I’ve begun to wonder whether ex-President Trump’s greatest legal jeopardy may not be in Georgia, where there is what seems to be a pretty active investigation into his efforts to bully Republican officials into falsifying the 2020 election results and making him President.”

RIP, Lou Ottens, inventor of the cassette tape. Did you ever make a mixtape for someone back in the day? Then tip your hat to Lou Ottens.

RIP, Roger Mudd, longtime broadcast news correspondent, mostly for CBS.

“John Schnatter, founder and former chairman of Papa John’s, said Monday he’s been working on eradicating the N-word from his vocabulary for 20 months.” I got nothing.

“‘Harry Potter’ Actress Katie Leung Details Racist Fan Abuse: Publicists Told Me Not to Talk About It”.

“One of the more mystifying turns of events since the Harry and Meghan interview with Oprah on Sunday has been the response from right-wing commentators. In my understanding of Republican ideology, breaking away from the monarchy and seeking independence, financial or otherwise, would be seen as commendable. There are bootstraps to be pulled! The right-wing commentariat, however, has run toward the opposite direction. They have inexplicably sided with the … British Royal Family.”

“Let Us Take a Moment To Appreciate the Angry Ballpark Goose“.

“Netflix is testing a way it can limit password sharing, in what could signal a notable shift of the streaming giant’s posture toward users.” They’re not yet blocking anyone’s logons, so you can continue to use your mom’s account to binge The Great British Bake-Off or whatever, but you have been warned.

“U.S. health officials are exploring a partnership with Dollar General, one of the nation’s largest retailers, to accelerate the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the nation’s rural areas.”

“The truth and power of fundamentalist Christianity derived from and depended on its unanimity and total lack of ambiguity. In church, in other words, we all were taught — as all fundamentalists must be taught — that there can be only one pure, true form of fundamentalism and that any deviation from that one pure, true form meant a rejection of the entire construct. But then we all went to school where we were confronted with the subversive fact that there existed a diversity of fundamentalisms. We were all fundamentalists, but we were fundamentalists in different ways. That wasn’t supposed to be possible. The entire authority structure of fundamentalism hinged on the claim that it was not possible.”

“Mentioned in Exodus 32 and I Kings 12 in the Old Testament, worship of the golden calf is seen as a supreme act of apostasy, the rejection of a faith once confessed”.

“In other words, the reason Impossible and Beyond products have taken off in a way that earlier, vegetarian-targeted brands such as Boca and Gardein never quite did is not their nutritional profile. It’s the fact that they actually taste good.”

“As COVID-19 vaccination distribution efforts continue across the United States, the latest KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor reports that a majority (55%) of U.S. adults now say they have received at least one dose of the vaccine (18%) or that they will get it as soon as they can (37%), up from 47% in January and 34% in December.”

“But speaking of history repeating itself, studios hoarding content for their own platform, and Paramount+, aren’t we heading into a new era of vertically integrated entertainment providers that looks a lot like the early days of the Hollywood studio system?”

“Waiting Rooms (And Other Public Spaces) Should Ban Cable News And Put Food Network Or HGTV On Their TVs Instead”.

“All told, the sharp increase in absentee voting in 2020 wasn’t disproportionately beneficial to either presidential candidate.”

“And now … we wait. Maybe there will be evidence of rampant criminality in those returns. Or maybe everything is by the book and Trump just tried to hide them because he’s given away so much money to charity that he didn’t want to embarrass Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg for their paltry donations. (Yeah, probably not.)”

RIP, Irv Cross, former Pro Bowl defensive back who became the first Black man to work full time as a sports analyst on national television with CBS, on “The NFL Today” with Brent Musberger and Phyllis George.

Remember those weird Quizno’s ads from the Aughts? That will remind you, if you need/want to be reminded.

RIP, Vernon Jordan, civil rights leader and advisor to President Clinton.

“Disney CEO Bob Chapek said Monday that despite how rotten it was to have theme parks closed for so long, the forced downtime was also an opportunity to tinker with technology and data to reopen better than before, for both guests and for shareholders.”

The fruitless hunt for a pristine copy of Citizen Kane.

“Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades.”

As a lifelong Yankees fan, I fully endorse this proposal to honor Roy White in Monument Park.

“An orangutan named Karen, the first in the world to have open-heart surgery in 1994, has made medical history again: She’s among the first great apes to get a COVID-19 vaccine.”

“At least 30,000 organizations across the United States — including a significant number of small businesses, towns, cities and local governments — have over the past few days been hacked by an unusually aggressive Chinese cyber espionage unit that’s focused on stealing email from victim organizations”.

“Lifting restrictions is exactly what the virus wants us to do—as we’re seeing the world over, more community spread creates the perfect conditions for the virus to accumulate mutations that can lead to more transmissible and potentially more lethal strains.”

Note: Because of the chaos of last week, I was never able to collect links like I usually do. So, the handful that I had that I was originally going to post last Sunday are here with the ones for this week.

“HuffPost spoke to nine children of QAnon believers in seven states, ranging in age from 19 to 46. Some are desperately trying to deradicalize their moms and dads — an agonizing process that can feel maddening, heartbreaking and futile. Others believe their parents are already too far gone and have given up trying to help them. A few have made the painful decision to cut off contact entirely, for the sake of their own mental health.”

This Politico story about the QAnon Casualties Reddit board is along those same lines.

I’m glad to see that Shelley Duvall is alive and well and living in a community that cares for her. She deserves it.

“Happy Anniversary to the Best Accidental Headline in Christian Newspaper History”.

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Congress will establish an independent, Sept. 11-style commission to look into the deadly insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol.”

“American anti-majoritarians have always promised that minority privilege will deliver positive results: stability, sobriety, the security of the public debt, and tranquil and peaceful presidential elections. But again and again, those promises have proved the exact opposite of reality. In practice, the privileged minority has shown itself to be unstable and unsober.”

“With Trump out of office, this group of researchers is now working to make sense of the deluge of data that they’ve collected from platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s been a lesson in modern populism: a world leader amplified once-obscure conspiracy theories, with each tweet and retweet strengthening the ideas and emboldening their supporters. Now, researchers are retooling to understand — and prepare for — what comes next.”

“Working for the Trump hotel meant putting on a performance every night—right down to the gummy bears and popcorn.”

“Scientists have recovered DNA from mammoth fossils found in Siberian permafrost that are more than a million years old. This DNA—the oldest genomic evidence recovered to date—illuminates the evolutionary history of woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths. It also raises the prospect of recovering DNA from other organisms this ancient—including extinct members of the human family.”

There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of The Muppet Show episodes on Disney+, because as my friend Therese notes, it’s a 40-year-old show and some things that were funny or at least not remarkable in the 70s are not so today. Deal with it.

The snow truthers of TikTok.

I don’t know when lying stopped being a sin. It’s still in my Ten Commandments.

“Ah, those delightful Germans! Always with the single word that describes a very specific thing that any normal language would never have a single word to describe! Well unsurprisingly, the Hamsterkauf was just the Eisbergspitze. Over the past year, German has coined some 1000-plus new terms endemic to the Now Times — ironic capitalization, by the way, being an annoying method that English-speakers use to create new language.”

“The world is a bit bleak at the moment, so we decided to get a little nerdy this week and dive into an entirely new frontier. So grab a bowl of your favorite Klingon cuisine and a barrel of blood wine, because we’re exploring something a bit different: the Klingon language and its interesting impact on modern pop culture.”

“Over the next five-plus years, I learned a lot about covering national politics. Some lessons came the hard way: By being really wrong. So now that we’re about a month into a new presidential administration, I’m trying to keep those lessons front and center.”

“Federal judges are at risk. What are we going to do about it?”

The law is coming.

“Using social media, people across the state are volunteering their time and digital expertise to help others navigate the complicated and confusing web of allocation lists, websites, phone numbers, and seemingly endless waiting lists that make up Texas’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan.”

“Is it Mr. Potato Head or not?”

You too can help beloved MAD Magazine artist Al Jaffee celebrate his 100th birthday, but you will have to act quickly.

“The prospect of lab-grown meat separates two activities that have been inextricably linked for virtually all of human history: Eating meat has always required animal killing. But with the development of lab-grown meat, these two activities can be separated, and the morality of each activity assessed on its own.”

“A wave of anti-trans bills are hitting statehouses”.

“The main goal here is to deter anybody from ever trying this again. That’s what we have to do. There has to be a penalty so that anybody in a future situation looks at this and says, ‘I will go to jail if I try this and so I won’t do this.’”

“Americans have shorter lives than international peers. Some researchers now say conservative policies may be to blame.”

“There has never been any evidence that major sporting events are associated with a rise in human trafficking.”

All hail Rob Gronkowski’s mom Diane, who somehow survived raising Gronk and four other sons.

“Today, by contrast, economists increasingly accept the idea that deficits are not inherently destabilizing, but a normal part of economic management. The price of going too big isn’t a crash, but a little unwanted inflation ― something that can be reined in through Federal Reserve policymaking or some tax increases from Congress. These may be unpleasant when they come, but it will be much worse for people to lose jobs, incomes and homes in the meantime. When the costs of going too small are shattered families and broken faith in a shared national project, the choice is not difficult.”

“https://www.stripes.com/news/us/barrier-breaking-texas-astronaut-dies-at-75-she-lifted-people-up-1.661397″>RIP, Millie Hughes-Fulford, barrier-breaking astronaut and scientific researcher.

RIP, Cathy Cochran, former Texas Court of Criminal Appeals justice and key criminal justice reformer.

RIP, Marty Schottenheimer, longtime NFL head coach.

RIP, Mary Wilson, founding member of Motown legends the Supremes.

“The spread of extremist conspiracy theories in the United States is the second most dangerous pandemic the country faces right now.”

“This is why I continue to think that democracy in the United States is way stronger than people are giving it credit for. It took a devastating punch from a uniquely demagogic president supported by hundreds of Republican politicians and the massed media efforts of Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media machine. Despite this, everyone outside of Trump’s cult opposed him and the effort failed miserably. That’s not bad.”

“I’ve got my assistant here, and she’s trying to remove it but uh… I’m prepared to go forward with it. I’m here live. I’m not a cat.”

“I never hear much about nature or dinosaurs or things like that. Maybe you should call your show Newsy things Considered, since I don’t get to hear about all the things. Or please talk more about dinosaurs and cool things.”

There is now a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s attempt to interfere with Georgia’s election. Someone please tell Dan Patrick to stand by with his one million dollar reward for Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

“Liz Cheney may not have been Never Trump, but she is clearly Never Again Trump, and that’s a beginning. But it also raises the question: What do we do with the late arrivals like Cheney?”

I’m just appalled by the allegations Charisma Carpenter is making against Joss Whedon. I was a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and I loved her on those shows. She deserved so much better. At least her fellow cast members are standing with her.

RIP, Larry Flynt, publisher of “Hustler” magazine.

RIP, Chick Correa, groundbreaking and multi-Grammy-winning musician and composer.

“House Democrats Are Showing That Trump Is More Guilty Than You Thought”.

“Who Is Stacey Plaskett, the Breakout Star of the Senate Impeachment Trial?”

“The 19th reached out to all 143 women in the 117th Congress to ask about their experiences January 6. Twenty-three, all Democrats, shared their points of view, many remembering new details after a month of processing.”

“So, how many early human species were there?”

So, have you bought some Dogecoin yet?

One reason why it’s basically impossible to do political TV shows these days is that any accurate representation of the vast majority of Republican officeholders and members of the professional conservative movement would be basically just cartoonish villainy, the kind that would have been justifiably seen as unfair and unbelievable as little as ten years ago. Among many other things, that kind of characterization makes for lousy TV.

“Looking to political personalities rather than Jesus for salvation is the worst kind of mistake a Christian can make, [Rep. Adam] Kinzinger said.”

“Customer entitlement, or what customers believe they are owed, has long been an issue in the hospitality industry. Restaurant workers swap stories like war veterans about ridiculous demands, difficult customers, and bad tippers. But the pandemic, and the terrible customer behavior that has come with it—impatience regarding wait times, name-calling, frustration over limited seating and menu options, and disregard for safety protocols—has only served to highlight how pervasive and, frankly, dangerous the problem really is.”

RIP, Janie Tarses, first woman to run a network entertainment division.

RIP, Dustin Diamond, actor best known for Saved By The Bell.

I’m happy that some QAnon acolytes are looking for a way back to reality, but at some point they’re going to need to reckon with all the harm they caused.

“Implementation and Evolution of Mitigation Measures, Testing, and Contact Tracing in the National Football League, August 9–November 21, 2020″.

RIP, Freddy the Great Dane, the tallest dog in the world.

“And yet, there’s something to the idea that we need to ask how American schools can help to build a more cohesive society and more resilient democracy. Americans’ lack of regard for their country—or, more accurately, the people with whom they share it—is a real problem with profoundly negative consequences. The Capitol insurrection offered a vivid illustration of that. And schools have an important role to play in addressing the problem.”

RIP, Hal Holbrook, actor who among many other things made a career out of playing Mark Twain in a solo stage production.

“The Pilot Who Can Connect Prince Andrew to Jeffrey Epstein’s Plane Is Reportedly Cooperating With the FBI”.

“The Georgia secretary of state’s office is investigating allegations that Lin Wood, a high-profile pro-Trump attorney who launched fruitless challenges to election results and pushed baseless conspiracies of fraud, may have illegally voted in the November general election.” Get Dan Patrick on the line, stat!

“The fact that Cheney has faced more criticism from her colleagues than Greene in recent days reflects how the GOP’s traditional values are under siege and the vast power that extremists and conspiracy theories welcomed into the party by Trump are accumulating.”

“For people who have been monitoring the growth and spread of right-wing extremism inside the mainstream Republican Party—manifested in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol—the arrests that came in the aftermath of that event provided some revealing numbers. Of particular interest is the fact that the average age of the arrestees was 40 years old. That’s a surprisingly high number, particularly considering that most of the pro-Trump activists involved in violent protests of the past four years (especially the Proud Boys) have been younger men between 20 and 40 years old.”

“More than 370 Democratic congressional aides have signed onto an open letter appealing to senators to convict former President Donald Trump for inciting a violent “attack on our workplace” that threatened the peaceful transition of power and left one of their co-workers dead.”

“March for Our Lives co-founder David Hogg tweeted on Thursday that he and software developer William LeGate are launching a pillow company to compete against MyPillow, which is led by Trump supporter CEO Mike Lindell.”

“Voting technology company Smartmatic files $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell over ‘disinformation campaign'”. Lou Dobbs is already a casualty of it,

RIP, Christopher Plummer, Oscar-winning actor known for The Sound of Music and so much more.

RIP, George Shultz, four-time Cabinet official.

RIP, Leon Spinks, former heavyweight champion who defeated Muhammad Ali.

“The story of [Father Charles E.] Coughlin, the demagogic radio priest who dominated American airwaves during the Great Depression, offers an intriguing analog-age precedent to the digital-age debates over the limits of free expression. Then as now, the serene pleasure of no longer having to listen to a noxious voice blare incessantly in the ear coexists with a queasy unease at the realization of how suddenly and imperiously the rulers of corporate media can switch off one’s microphone.”

More technology troubles for Parler.

“That late-summer showdown inside the Statehouse in Boise on Aug. 24 showed supporters of President Donald Trump how they could storm into a seat of government to intimidate lawmakers with few if any repercussions.”

“Representative Madison Cawthorn has misled the public about training for the Paralympics, just as he misrepresented his education and business history.”

What other female basketball coaches have to say about Becky Hammon and her inexorable rise to an NBA head coaching gig.

“Trump Left A Big Legal Mess For Biden”. Figuring out what to do with a bunch of lawsuits where Biden disagreed with the position taken by the Trump Justice Department will take time and a lot of careful case management.

“But there is good news. If the Biden administration’s Department of Justice wants to rectify some of Trump’s abuse of the pardon power, there are now options at its disposal.”

“Five reasons to wear a mask even after you’re vaccinated”.

“Beverage giant Anheuser-Busch InBev is benching Super Bowl commercials from Budweiser, perhaps its best-known product — the first time in nearly four decades that the brand won’t have a place on the Big Game ad roster.” They will give money to the Ad Council for pro-vaccination PSAs.

“Rudy Giuliani has made a lot of money since his time as New York City mayor, but he has not made the $1.3 billion for which Dominion Voting Systems is suing him for what the company characterizes as a “viral disinformation campaign.””

A pro-Trump think tank sounds like a contradiction in terms to me, but you do you.

“Note that the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” doesn’t concern itself with whether the bearing of false witness is maliciously deliberate or the result of mere ignorance. It doesn’t suggest that such ignorance would be relatively benign or exculpatory. It simply states that we are morally responsible for the truth of any witness we bear against others and does not allow for any separate sub-category of spreading “innocent” false accusations.”

Five simple things President Biden can do to shore up democracy in the US.

RIP, Cloris Leachman, Oscar and Emmy-winning actor, known for many great roles but who will always be Frau Blucher to me.

“Chronicling Trump’s 10 worst abuses of power”.

RIP, Cicely Tyson, iconic Emmy-winning actor.

“So many folks (esp. the media) are missing the complete backstory on $GME and how we got here. This has been simmering for over a year and the story behind it is great. I’ve been tracking this since September and devoured all of the details from the origin through today.”

“The Most Sought-After Capitol Insurrectionists Remain At Large”.

RIP, John Chaney, Hall of Fame coach for the Temple Owls.

Oklahoma may have legalized marijuana before we did, but they also bought $2 million worth of hydroxychloroquine that is now sitting on a shelf gathering dust, so.

A long list of things President Biden has already done on climate change.

“This Story About Ivanka, Obama, and Poop Is So Much Worse Than You Could Imagine”.

“If you’re using an Android device—or in some cases an iPhone—the Telegram messenger app makes it easy for hackers to find your precise location when you enable a feature that allows users who are geographically close to you to connect. The researcher who discovered the disclosure vulnerability and privately reported it to Telegram developers said they have no plans to fix it.”

No Coke or Pepsi ads in this year’s Super Bowl.

“This is one of the most abject, groveling admissions of guilt I’ve ever read.”

“Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president’s grassroots supporters.” Three words: Lock. Them. Up.

“At noon on January 20, Trump will be in desperate shape. His business is floundering, his partners are fleeing, his loans are delinquent, prosecutors will be coming after him, and the legal impunity he enjoyed through his office will be gone. He will be walking naked into a cold and friendless world. What appeared to be a brilliant strategy for escaping consequences was merely a tactic for putting them off. The bill is coming due.”

“There is nothing of Jesus in the frenzied waving of flags bearing one man’s name. There is nothing of Jesus and nothing pro-life about a politician and his minions who whip-up a crowd in a rally and then point them in the direction of the Capitol where five people lost their lives in the violence, including a police officer. Do not be deceived, Jesus was not any part of that. His name has been desecrated just as clearly as our nation’s Capitol has been desecrated.”

“Trying to pick the most notable lies from Donald Trump’s presidency is like trying to pick the most notable pieces of junk from the town dump. There’s just so much ugly garbage to sift through before you can make a decision.”

“Voting rights advocates say the attack on the Capitol represents the culmination of an administration that used lies, deception, and misleading claims to undermine key democratic institutions.”

“Delta Air Lines is threatening to permanently ban passengers who don’t show respect and civility to employees and passengers. Personally I think the US airline industry is long overdue for some more repercussions for poor behavior on planes.”

“That pattern of trolling until you aren’t anymore has happened alongside the algorithmic spread of disinformation and conspiracy-mongering across social media. The combination of alt-right trolls obfuscating truth to spread their agenda, and the confusion about reality that conspiracy theories like QAnon help propagate, has created a chaotic, emotion-fueled online environment in which people like Gionet have thrived the only way they know how: through constant disruption.”

“MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell confirmed on Monday that his products had been dropped from several major retailers after the pro-Trump executive sought to relentlessly spread false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.” He’s also gonna get sued by Dominion Voting Systems.

Here’s a current list of who’s been arrested so far for the Capitol coup attempt. Here’s hoping that list keeps on growing.

Twelve unforgettable photos of Trump’s presidency. I have to admit, I thought that iconic and highly memed “Trump stares/yells at kid mowing the lawn” picture was a Photoshop job.

“82 Stupid Things From The Trump Era You Probably Forgot About“. I actually remember nearly all of these, which probably means I need to get off the Internet more often.

RIP, Don Sutton, MLB Hall of Fame pitcher mostly for the Dodgers, and broadcaster for the Braves.

“So, what exactly did Trump write in his note to Biden? Twitter has some excellent guesses”.

It was one year ago this past week that the first COVID case was reported in the US.

RIP, Mira Furlan, actor best known for Lost and Babylon 5.

RIP, Henry Aaron, all time great baseball player and a world-class human being. The amount of hatred and racism he had to deal with as he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record was appalling, and meant he was never able to enjoy his massive accomplishment. I love what Andrea Thome, wife of Jim Thome, had to say, “if there’s a HOF for Hall of Famers, he’d be in it”. Rest in peace, Henry Aaron.

RIP, Larry King, longtime CNN talk show host.

A comprehensive timeline of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

“David Hasselhoff is auctioning off KITT from Knight Rider“.

“The ongoing breach affecting thousands of organizations that relied on backdoored products by network software firm SolarWinds may have jeopardized the privacy of countless sealed court documents on file with the U.S. federal court system, according to a memo released Wednesday by the Administrative Office (AO) of the U.S. Courts.”

“For Biden’s Justice Department, tackling domestic terrorism will now be front and center.”

“Even Trump Loyalists Can No Longer Defend His Legacy”. But don’t let that let them off the hook even a little.

“Every Republican—all 147 of them but especially Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz—who voted to overturn election results even after the insurrectionist mob of terrorists drove them out of the House and Senate chambers must be held to account and ostracized. Hitting them where it hurts by taking away their big donors is exactly the right lane for the [Project] Lincoln gang to be in.”

That defamation lawsuit against Sidney Powell looks pretty solid.

“The PGA of America will strip Donald Trump of the 2022 PGA Championship, which is scheduled to be held at Trump National Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.” There’s similar action in Scotland, affecting Turnberry.

“When historians eventually tally the cost of the Donald Trump era, the manifold indecencies of which culminated in Wednesday’s sacking of the United States Capitol during a failed insurrection, golf will not be counted among its casualties. The game will instead be portrayed as Trump’s refuge, something he did while ignoring a pandemic that has claimed 365,000 lives, refusing to acknowledge a resounding electoral defeat, and inciting feeble-minded fascists to violence that left five people dead at the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s the best case scenario.”

“It is the main cause of our current crisis – and of the difficulty in solving it. Today’s Republican party is one where it is considered divisive to take decisive action against a faction that was trying to hunt down Democratic _and_ Republican politicians a few days ago.”

“Preferring such lies seems strange, given that they involve a massive evil conspiracy that includes nearly everyone at every level of government and in every institution. It’s an awful thing to imagine that the entire world is out to get you and that the situation is so dire that you’ve got to arm yourself and begin stockpiling food so you can flee to the woods as your only slim hope for survival. But it’s an even more awful thing to reach the point where you consider your whole life — your job, your family, your home, your church, your passions — as so entirely meaningless and unrewarding that you’d be better off as someone on the run from such a massive, evil conspiracy.”

RIP, Michael Apted, award-winning director of the 7 Up documentary series and much more.

RIP, Pat Loud, matriarch of the family featured in An American Family, the first TV reality series.

“Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists above, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet. Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away.”

“Republican Attorneys General Association Encouraged Supporters To Attend Wednesday’s Action At The Capitol”.

“I’ve received several DMs from friends asking what do to about parents/family members who believe misinformation regarding the election, vaccines and COVID. Here’s a research-based thread to help explain the roots of these beliefs and how to (and how *not* to) address them.”

Losing his law license should be the first of a very long list of consequences for Rudy Giuliani.

Facial recognition technology is still a bad thing, even if right now it is being used against bad people.

“If you want to understand the real Deep State, the biggest thing you need to know is it’s institutional, impersonal, and operates on a national scale.”

Here’s one thing Parler was good for.

As far as I’m concerned, Elizabeth Smart has a lifetime pass to do most anything she wants.

RIP, Siegfried Fischbacher, the “Siegfried” part of Siegfried & Roy.

“I think it’s reflective of where Trump’s own status is these days in which he has relatively little to offer and people don’t want to be associated with him generally. The fact is he’s not going to get the A team.”

RIP, Joanne Rogers, pianist, humanitarian, and widow of Fred “Mr.” Rogers. You should read this LA Times profile of her, it’s terrific.

““Unity” begins with repentance, and Republicans should get started. Supporting Trump’s removal from office and instituting his permanent exile from American politics are the necessary first steps.”

RIP, Charlie Thomas, former owner of the Houston Rockets.

“Situation with new #sarscov2 variants is becoming harder to follow (and not just because of the names), so let me try and give a brief overview: Where are we at? What should we be worried about? And how worried?”

“Which Side Are You On?”

“Train your children to think of mass-death as good and thrilling and they’ll grow up to be the kind of people who simultaneously deny and celebrate a global pandemic.”

“There is no reason, frankly, for any of the PAYGO rules to still exist.”

“We resolve to double down on measures to protect ourselves, our families, and our community so we may endure the current surge of COVID-19 cases. We all can do our part by covering our faces anytime we are with anyone outside our immediate household, by maintaining at least 6 feet of physical distance, following hand hygiene and environmental control measures, and by not going to work or school when feeling unwell. Masking, including while indoors, is safe and more effective in preventing COVID-19 — including the coronavirus mutation first seen in England — than any other tool we have available today and clearly works to prevent transmission of the virus.”

“The price we paid for Rutherford B. Hayes was too damn high.”

RIP, Tanya Roberts, actor best known for Charlie’s Angels and That 70’s Show. It was then reported that she was still alive, and then reported later than she had in fact passed away.

Solicitation to commit election fraud is a felony under both federal and Georgia law. Donald Trump and everyone else in the room with him should be prosecuted for it. And given how many times he tried to call Brad Raffensperger, there are surely more such calls out there that we don’t yet know about.

And no, recording the call was not in any way wrong or criminal.

“Ordinary people worn out by the dramas and lies of the past four years have a right to refuse to take Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters seriously. To reject further debate with people whose views are completely incoherent is not only understandable, but sensible.”

How to save the Postal Service, and let it thrive.

My kids never knew about the PBS Kids show Caillou, and it seems that makes me lucky.

If you’ve been saying to yourself “What I need in my life right now is a life-like replica of David Hasselhoff that is fourteen feet tall“, boy is today a good day for you.

“WTF Is Going On In The Georgia US Attorney’s Office? And how can Donald Trump make it worse?”

“In October 2020, KrebsOnSecurity looked at how a web of sites connected to conspiracy theory movements QAnon and 8chan were being kept online by DDoS-Guard, a dodgy Russian firm that also hosts the official site for the terrorist group Hamas. New research shows DDoS-Guard relies on data centers provided by a U.S.-based publicly traded company, which experts say could be exposed to civil and criminal liabilities as a result of DDoS-Guard’s business with Hamas.”

The mot pirated TV program of 2020 is The Mandalorian.

“Certainly a basic problem here is that Capitol Police, under the jurisdiction of Congress, were not prepared for yesterday’s attack. But when we ask what happened yesterday, a significant part of the equation is that the various agencies charged with handling such situations – federal marshals, DHS, FBI, DOJ, National Guard, et al – were under the control of the person who was trying to whip the crowd against Congress.”

Go look up the word “superfetation”, then come back and read this story. Pretty damn amazing.

Help the FBI identify and find the insurrectionists. Some of them are already facing consequences, but so much more is needed.

RIP, Tommy Lasorda, Hall of Fame manager for the LA Dodgers.

“They bankrolled Donald Trump. They applauded his tax cuts. They cheered as the stock market soared. Now, the sound coming from some of the president’s wealthiest donors is this: silence.”

“A voting machine company sued former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell on Friday, accusing her of spreading false conspiracy theories about November’s election that Republican President Donald Trump lost to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.” They’re seeking $1.3 billion in damages.

One last goodbye to Alex Trebek.

It’s taken them way too long, but finally the far right insurrectionists are getting deplatformed.

“If you are a rank-and-file Republican, the kind of person who listens to your party’s elected officials and friendly media outlets, you have been marinating in anti-democratic beliefs for years: that Democrats are fundamentally hostile to the American way of life, that people telling you otherwise cannot be trusted, that you have an obligation to fight against tyranny on your own.”

RIP, Theodore Lumpkin, Jr, Tuskegee Airman.

All right, fine Sean Hannity did not have his Lifetime Pasta Pass revoked.

“Career officials at the State Department filed a second unprecedented dissent cable condemning President Donald Trump for inciting the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and urging top administration officials to consider invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. The dissent cable is the second such cable sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week, reflecting widespread shock and anger in the diplomatic corps at Trump’s actions and Pompeo’s own response to the political crisis. The protest against the sitting U.S. president by American diplomats is largely unparalleled in the department’s nearly 232-year-long history.”

“One thought I keep returning to: if there were a functioning federal government we’d be seeing regular press conferences updating the public on on-going arrests, health status of the injured, progress of the investigation. As far as I can tell there hasn’t been a single one. Nothing from DOJ, FBI, Capitol Police, the Pentagon. Normally you might expect such information to be channeled through press conferences at the White House. But, not to put too fine a point on it, it’s not clear or perhaps too clear which side the White House is on.”

Welcome to 2021. It’s got to be better, right?

Here’s your Jon Swift Memorial Roundup for 2020.

“JPS Health Network is experiencing something of a quarantine baby boom, seeing as many as three times the number of babies born in a shift as are expected on an average day.”

“Common holiday cookie shapes, he’s found, don’t typically fit together very neatly. Bulbous Santas, candy canes, and gingerbread men tend to leave lots of dough scraps behind. In his quest for a festive yet efficient cookie cutter, he’s designed a shape that can punch out neat ranks of cookies with minimal leftover dough.”

“The big picture lesson from 2020 is that ensuring an accurate result isn’t enough. Elections also have to be able to prove to a skeptical public that the result really was accurate.”

“Operation Warp Speed is set to miss the first distribution goal it laid out, Trump administration officials said last week”.

“Almost everyone agrees that the ATF is in trouble. But this obscure federal agency may be President-elect Joe Biden’s best chance at having a real impact on gun policy—if he takes the opportunity to restore the beleaguered agency’s reputation and revive its mission.”

“The end of the year is usually a good time for retrospection and one of our favorite traditions: digging into the archives and recognizing the best cybersecurity stories of the year. Stories so good, we wish we had written them ourselves.”

“Reality TV Couple Check In: Who’s Still Together and Who Split in 2020″.

“Amongst other things that we are worried about — the big things, the things that actually matter — when I think what we do for a living going forward, I start worry about just the future of entertainment because I don’t know what it looks like. It’s hard to imagine being in a writers room, it’s hard to imagine being on a set, how do you shoot a scene with 200 extras ever, how do you go on location in someone’s house, who in their right mind will let us into their house to shoot a scene. It seems so crazy to imagine going back to the old ways that we did this. We will figure something out because we always do. Hollywood has a knack for ingenuity, and there is a long way to go with the other, more important issues before we get to that point but I’m very nervous to figure out how this works after this is all over.”

Apparently, there was a bucatini shortage this year. I should pay closer attention to these things.

Predicting the future is hard.

“Kelly Loeffler’s Conflict of Interest Is Even Worse Than Reported”.

RIP, Pierre Cardin, fashion designer and entrepreneur.

RIP, Luke Letlow, incoming freshman Congressman from Louisiana, from complications related to COVID-19.

Beam me up, Scotty.

“There is a likely future in which America’s immune system learns lessons from COVID-19 but its collective consciousness does not.”

RIP, Dawn Wells, actor best known as Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island, of causes related to COVID-19.

RIP, Joe Clark, high school principal on whom the movie Lean on Me was based.

“As Statues Of America’s Racist Past Were Removed This Year, So Were Tattoos“.

Apparently, the guy who invented the CueCat is now one of Rudy Giuliani’s “election experts”, now making crazy claims about the Georgia Senate runoffs.

RIP, Paul Westphal, Hall of Fame player and coach mostly with the Phoenix Suns.

“When Usually Solitary Octopuses Get Together, Odd Things Happen”.

“Atlantic City Is Offering Bidders The Chance To Blow Up A Former Trump Casino”.

“What If There’s a COVID-22? How Should We Handle It?”

You’re not helping, guys. Not helping at all.

“That means don’t book liars, don’t show fighting for the sake of fighting.”

“So, one has to ask: What were the worst things to lie about in 2020, and who among those who told those lies had the most responsibility to do better? The first part is easy. Lies about subjects of national importance, such as the election and COVID, rise, like pond scum, to the top. The second part of the question takes you to people who, at least in theory, have more power at their disposal than your run-of-the-mill Proud Boy-adjacent meme-maker. Therefore, in the spirit of holiday cheer and the impending joy that will come in slamming the door shut on 2020, and to memorialize this remarkable age of outrageous, magical, and maniacal thinking, here are my offerings for the year’s worst takes from politicians and other political figures aside from Trump himself.”

“A pluralistic society needs to insure that people of faith, as well as those without any faith, have a role in the public square. But the defiance of the church during the pandemic has come with a cost. The pandemic in 2020 has held a mirror to Christianity, just as the epidemics of antiquity did, but today’s reflection carries the potential to repulse rather than attract.”

“Five Tips for How to Actually Change an Anti-Masker’s Mind, According to Experts”.

Leave Fairytale of New York alone!

More than you ever wanted to know about various jokes on The Simpsons.

RIP, Francesca Kaczynski, also known as Bean, Beanie or Beans. Cancer truly, truly sucks.

RIP, KC Jones, Hall of Fame player and coach for the Boston Celtics.

RIP, Phil Niekro, Hall of Fame pitcher known for his knuckleball.

Face shields aren’t quite enough to fully protect you from COVID.

Two words: COVID penis. Make sure you get that vaccine when it’s available for you, OK?

“I get it. It’s a pandemic. If ever there was a time to give up, this is it. Don’t be pressured into half-assing your holiday lights. If you’re fortunate enough to be housed — in suburban Disneyland or anywhere else — you have done enough this year. I’d rather you give up before you murder the inflatable elves every morning or deaden your soul with projector lights at night.”

“U.S. government agencies were hit by a “global intrusion campaign” of cyber-attacks that exploited a flaw in the update of a software company, cyber-security firm FireEye said, which the Washington Post reported was a breach by Russian government hackers.”

RIP, John le Carré, master British spy novelist.

“Shortly before six o’clock Eastern Time, in Sacramento, California, fifty-five Democratic members of the Electoral College cast their votes for Biden, raising him above the threshold of two hundred and seventy. The 2020 election result was now official, pending only the formality of a ratification by the U.S. Congress, on January 6th.”

RIP, Ann Reinking, Tony Award-winning actor, dancer, and choreographer.

RIP, Ann Criswell, longtime food editor, writer, and evangelist in Houston.

How much Star Wars is too much Star Wars?

Lots of info about that SolarWinds hack.

“Let’s Talk About Simulated Sex: Intimacy Coordinators Two Years On”.

RIP, Catie Lazarus, writer, comedian, and creator of the talk show/podcast “Employee of the Month”.

“The City of Detroit wants attorney Sidney Powell to pay—literally—for her reality-adjacent dog and pony legal challenge to Michigan’s election results.”

“Trump failed to steal the election because he and his legal team are incompetent criminals, not because our democratic institutions defeated him. Saying that our democracy proved resilient against Republican attempts at subversion is like saying the fences at Jurassic Park proved resilient against raptors.”

“Joe Biden should use every legitimate power at his disposal as President to do everything at once. No sequencing or playing for buy-in. You win an election. You gain certain legitimate powers. You use them. Period. Should Biden be open to bipartisan compromise? Absolutely. The door should be open. But it would be a grave mistake to spend any time coaxing anyone to come through it. We’ve played that game enough. Biden should always be willing to talk but not to delay.”

“How fingerprint and firearm experts use misleading math to appear infallible.”

RIP, Jeremy Bulloch, actor and the original Boba Fett.

One of the more interesting election maps you’ll see.

“This means that the set of potential victims is not just (just!) the 18,000 SolarWinds customers who may have downloaded the compromised updates, but also all of those 18,000 organizations’ customers, and potentially the clients of those second-order organizations as well—and so on. So when I say the SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign will last years, I don’t just mean, as I usually do, that figuring out liability and settling costs and carrying out investigations will take years (though that is certainly true here). The actual, active theft of information from protected networks due to this breach will last years.”

RIP, Bear Dalton, wine expert, Rodeo fixture, general mensch and man about town.

An oral history of the demise of the Southwest Conference, 25 years later. I was there for that Rice-UH game, with the MOB as always. In fact, it’s one of the rare times when I wasn’t playing in the band but doing something else. The halftime show was basically a funeral, and I was tapped to be in the casket that was brought out onto the field as part of the show. I was dressed in a Brunhilde costume, and at the designated moment I emerged from the casket to portray “the fat lady singing”, thus signifying the end. (I had a stunt double who did the actual singing, into an off-stage microphone. I was just there for the visual.) Anyway, it’s a good trip down memory lane.

“Thawing permafrost is releasing microorganisms, with consequences that are still largely unknown”.

“If you want to see a close-knit cabal of self-styled experts picking our economy’s winners and losers by subsidizing their favorite unprofitable firms, which then drive more efficient competitors out of business by selling products at a loss — all while substituting their judgement for the judgments of millions of investors, making decisions without proper vetting, embracing fads, spending promiscuously, ignoring warnings from impartial experts, and handing economic power to charismatic liars — don’t look to Washington, D.C., in the age of Obama, but to Silicon Valley in the age of Adam Neumann. Or, more simply, to see how privatized central planning works, consider WeWork.”

“AI has cracked a problem that stumped biologists for 50 years. It’s a huge deal.”

“At almost every step of this pandemic, we have failed magnificently as a country. And in ways that we just really didn’t need to fail.”

“The crisis threatening the republic goes far deeper than bad acting lawyers. But a central threat to our public institutions is the lack of stigma which attaches to sowing public distrust in the electoral system or even trying to throw out or alter the results of election results you don’t like. We are all glad these efforts aren’t making much progress for this election. But the very attempt is an assault on our public institutions and our republic. For a democracy, willfully sowing doubt about integrity of an election is the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater.”

“The only thing Biden will have real control over is his administration and what it does. And his North Star, his organizing principle, should be doing as much good on as many fronts as fast as possible. Blitz.”

Dionne Warwick is your new queen of Twitter.

“But I know a little something about Grover Cleveland. And Donald Trump, you’re no Grover Cleveland.”

“Magic Castle, the exclusive club for magicians in Los Angeles, is facing accusations of sexual assault, harassment, discrimination and racism leveled against its management, members and performers.”

RIP, Chuck Yeager, US Air Force officer and test pilot who first broke the sound barrier.

RIP, Dick Allen, MLB great who played for the Phillies and White Sox and belongs in the Hall of Fame.

RIP, Fred Akers, former UT football coach who succeeded Darrell Royal.

“The battle against pathogens reshaped the inner working of buildings, too. Take that familiar annoyance for New Yorkers: the clanky radiator that overheats apartments even on the coldest days of the year. It turns out that the prodigious output of steam-heated buildings is the direct result of theories of infection control that were enlisted in the battle against the great global pandemic of 1918 and 1919.”

RIP, Ray Perkins, former coach of the NY Giants and the University of Alabama.

RIP, Karl Kilian, owner of the Brazos Bookstore and co-founder of the Inprint literary non-profit.

“Over 80% of [restaurant] workers (83%) report that their tips have declined during COVID-19. This decline is severe: nearly two thirds (66%) report that their tips have declined by at least 50%.”

RIP, Deb Price, first nationally syndicated lesbian newspaper columnist. IIRC, her column ran in the Houston Post.

RIP, Sigmund Jucker, Holocaust survivor and co-founder of the iconic Three Brothers Bakery in Houston.

RIP, Charley Pride, first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Congratulations, you can still make the Elf table read to support Georgia Democrats in the Senate runoff.

“In its 244-year history, the United States has never prosecuted a president (that is, outside the specialized judicial theater of impeachment). Not that some didn’t deserve it. The reticence is understandable. Locking up a former commander in chief would be politically divisive and potentially set a dangerous precedent. Would holding him accountable restore faith in the justice system or further erode it? But for Trump, whose antics and incompetence contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands, who attacked the very foundation of the democratic institutions that made the United States a beacon, and who pushed the nation to the threshold of autocracy, the American people might be willing, even eager, to take the risk.”

Everything you wanted to know about the Word of the Year for 2020.

“Bail reform in the county that includes Chicago had no impact on new criminal activity or violent criminal activity of defendants who were released before trial, according to a new study.”

“President Donald Trump’s demonization of mail-in voting may have cost him votes in the recent election. Now, his demonization of Georgia’s entire electoral system is hurting his party’s chances at keeping the Senate.”

Fire all the Trump minions ASAP. We can’t move forward as long as there are people in positions of power holding us back.

The story of the 1917 Halifax explosion, and the reason why the people of Nova Scotia send a Christmas tree to Boston every year.

“It’s an embarrassment that in 2020 that the country that played such an integral role in building and then commercializing the Internet has fallen so woefully behind other nations in developing suitable policy and regulatory measures to address the resulting risks. And it’s not just embarrassing, it’s actively harmful—to consumers whose personal data is being stolen or exposed on a regular basis and to companies that lack clear guidance on how they should be protecting their customers’ data.”

“Across America, this type of honest confusion abounds. While a misinformation-gorged segment of the population rejects the expert consensus on virus safety outright, so many other people, like Josh, are trying to do everything right, but run afoul of science without realizing it. Often, safety protocols, of all things, are what’s misleading them. In the country’s new devastating wave of infections, a perilous gap exists between the realities of transmission and the rules implemented to prevent it.”

“Yes, that’s right: for just $20, you, too, can have a Richard Simmons Chia Pet growing your own home.”

“Earth is 2,000 light years closer to the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole than previously thought”.

“Nowhere are these regulatory disparities more counterproductive and jarring than in the border areas between restrictive and permissive states; for example, between Washington and Idaho, Minnesota and South Dakota, and Illinois and Iowa. In each pairing, one state has imposed tough and sometimes unpopular restrictions on behavior, only to be confounded by a neighbor’s leniency. Like factories whose emissions boost asthma rates for miles around, a state’s lax public health policies can wreak damage beyond its borders.”

“European Space Agency is sending a giant claw into orbit to clean up space junk”. All hail the Space Claw.

“Let’s just spell this out: Republicans have no credibility, moral authority, or any other legitimate justification to object to anyone nominated to Biden’s proposed Cabinet. None. Nada. Zilch. And anyone who they fail to confirm—for any reason short of wanton lewdness or an undisclosed, serious criminal offense—should be afforded “acting” status by President-elect Biden.”

RIP, Maria Jimenez, longtime Houston civil rights activist.

How to stay warm when it’s cold outside. My preference is to stay inside, but that’s not always practical. Gotta walk the dog, after all.

RIP, Rafer Johnson, Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, who later worked on the Robert Kennedy campaign and helped subdue and capture Sirhan Sirhan.

“Singapore is the first country in the world to approve lab-grown chicken products“.

“Where’s the outrage?”

Maybe now wasn’t the best time for a swingers convention. And honestly, how could anyone not have known that?

RIP, David Lander, actor best known as Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley.