Sunday, July 14, 2024

Weekend Funny Stuff and Animal Crackers


We need a break before plunging into the fresh hell of next week. 

First, some funny stuff:
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Tuesday, July 09, 2024

Today's News: Save the Last Dance For Me

 
So some Democrats may still be flirting on the dance floor, but Biden is telling them all to save the last dance for him. 
Josh Marshall describes the media frenzy around Biden and whether he will withdraw from the nomination:
...For the second half of last week I was basically certain that Joe Biden would be forced to end his candidacy and that it was simply a matter of time before he did so. Then, starting Saturday, things seemed to shift. These things work in waves. For any politician the best way to avoid being forced to resign ...is simply not to resign. It’s one of those truisms that contains more depth and nuance than one at first realizes.
One of the reasons for that shift was simply that Biden was still there. He’s still running and still the nominee. We’re in the midst of a level of feeding frenzy I’ve only seen twice as a political observer — the first week of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal in 1998 and the one that ended Al Franken’s career in the Senate in 2018. The Washington press corps and national political press overwhelmingly and vociferously want to force Biden out of the race. I don’t say that in the sense of bias, per se — it’s not even necessarily at the level of intentionality. It’s more at the level of crowd behavior. It’s just how these feeding frenzies work. What do foxes think they’re doing when they rip through a hen house? For the DC press, this is all mixed in with ego and a sense of vindication. But again, it’s just how feeding frenzies work. But at a certain point, the feeding frenzy has been churning for days and Biden’s still running and there’s some element of a wave cresting. Like, hey we’ve been telling you all the reasons why Biden has to withdraw from the race for days but he’s still running and okay, well, maybe not — or, like, we can’t keep up this 100 yard dash forever. It’s just a cresting pattern.
At the same time I think there were the first hints of a realization that this has been overwhelmingly a conversation among media and political elites without much focus or knowledge about anything average voters are thinking or doing....
As the days go by and as Biden holds fast, the tide is turning. 
At No More Mister Nice Blog, Steve M writes
...It's striking that his poll numbers have dropped only slightly since the debate -- he trailed Trump in FiveThirtyEight's poll average by 0.2 on debate day, and trails by 2.2 now. FiveThirtyEight's forecast has Biden winning in 49 simulations out of 100. And Morning Consult's polling shows Biden gaining ground in swing states.
...When people ask about Donald Trump's baffling popularity, one frequent answer is that voters look at him and think, "He fights." I wonder whether Biden's refusal to step aside is being seen by some Democratic voters as a "He fights" moment. That might explain the polls that show only slight slippage, or even an improvement, in Biden's standing.
I think this battle is effectively over. I just hope that Biden's renewed fighting spirit doesn't dissipate once his would-be dumpers have retreated. I hope he stays invigorated, and pivots to fighting Trump with the spirit he's showing in fighting his intraparty doubters.
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Wednesday, July 03, 2024

Today's News: Moving on from Biden?


As the days pass after Biden's disastrous debate, I'm reading more stories from people I respect, saying that Biden needs to withdraw from the presidential race. 
For a time after the debate, I dithered about this. But the problem as I see it now is this: Trump is a terrible person, and Biden is a great one. But Biden's awful debate performance demonstrated that he isn't able to rise to the occasion anymore, he has apparently lost the ability to lead, to be a president. Americans have never voted for a leader they consider weak, and the way things are going, Biden will not only lose himself, he will drag down the whole ticket with him: Then again..
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Sunday, June 30, 2024

Today's news: Hooray for Pride Parades!


The happiest photos ever taken in Canada are from our Pride parades!

Here are photos of Toronto's Pride Parade today:



As usual, Trudeau was there!
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Saturday, June 29, 2024

Animal Crackers!

A Dog at the Museum, by Tom Mosser

It's been one of those weeks, eh ... the Liberals lose the by-election, the Oilers lose the cup, Joe Biden loses the debate. 
So here's some funny to go on with, for the weekend:
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Saturday, June 22, 2024

Happy Saturday: from Reggie Jackson to Indigenous Peoples Day; from "shark!" to Dark Brandon; some great moments in Twitter; animal crackers; & some beautiful threads to enjoy


Reggie Jackson describes the racism he had to endure when playing ball: For National Indigenous Peoples Day: American politics:
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Thursday, June 20, 2024

Random Roundup: trying to kibosh the capital gains tax; trying to debunk misinformation; jousting over "likes"; hearing Dr. Fauci's story; and laughing at Trump


Some interesting factoids and articles recently: 

First, some comments on how Canada's rich people are trying to kibosh the Liberal plan to increase tax rates on capital gain profits:
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Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Today's News: Heatwave!


This summer's first heat wave is here.
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Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Today's News: About the Foreign Interference Scandal, from May, Wark, Smith, and Scrimshaw


So I've been sort of following the NSICORP (National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians) report revelations about foreign interference in Canadian politics, except there really hadn't been any, nothing concrete at any rate, about exactly who did what and to whom.
Until this happened:
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Wednesday, June 05, 2024

80th anniversary of D-Day: "We will remember them"

Too much going on this week to do a longer post, but here's some interesting stuff about D-Day and the 80th anniversary.  
First, posted above is the Veterans Affairs video commemorating the 80th anniversary - "We will remember them".
Next, check out historian Craig Baird's Canada on D-Day podcast:
,,,The Canadian troops had managed to push farther inland than any other force on D-Day, but only one Canadian unit made their objectives.
Regardless, the first line of German defences were completely smashed.
One Canadian journalist said,
“The German dead were littered over the dunes, by the gun positions. By them, lay Canadians in bloodstained battledress, in the sand and in the grass, on the wire and by the concrete forts. They had lived a few minutes of the victory they had made. That was all.”
In the mayhem of Normandy, progress was made...
Plus, Baird has a great story about James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek!
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Thursday, May 30, 2024

Guilty X 34 = two solitudes in America


In Canada in the 1940s, we were experiencing what we described as Two Solitudes  between our French-speaking and English-speaking peoples:
...two peoples within one nation, each with its own legend and ideas of what a nation should be. ...the chasm between French and English communities growing deeper. ...a perceived lack of communication between English- and French-speaking Canadians.
We worked through several confusing, divisive, sometimes painful decades filled with questions about whether our Confederation could ever work for the whole country -- the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, the FLQ crisis, the Quebec referenda, the founding of parties like the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois, stupid arguments against bilingualism, idiotic complaints about French on cornflake boxes and other excuses for periodic spasms of western alienation, etc. etc -- it is part of Canadian history and culture.
Today, I think we are seeing the same dynamic happening between progressives and right-wingers in the United States, with Trump as their personification. The MAGA true believers and their media enablers seem to have created their own world and they are determined to live in it, regardless of how delusional they are.
Today's Trump verdict is a case in point.
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Tuesday, May 28, 2024

And on the lighter side!


This is one of those weeks for me personally -- so here's some funny stuff to lighten the mood:
First, some Poilievre makeup jokes:
Next, haven't we all done this?
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Thursday, May 23, 2024

Great threads: from sculptures to libraries, from Curb Your Enthusiasm to Cow 88, from TikTok to Kermit (NEW: update on Cow 88)


Here are some fascinating threads I have seen recently on Twitter - click to see all of the posts: 

Amazing sculptures:
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Sunday, May 19, 2024

Into the long weekend: mosquitos and Poilievre and polls, oh my


Ahh, summer is starting at last!
Moving on to something even more biting, I think Pierre Poilievre is now finding there is a downside to being up 20 points in the polls -- people actually expect to hear something sensible from him sometimes, not the usual anti-Trudeau deflection three-word-slogan talking points. 
Some examples: 
In the Globe and Mail, Shannon Proudfoot describes why it matters that Pierre Poilievre pretends all the media is against him and refuses to even try to answer press questions: Pierre Poilievre is pretending he doesn’t know how his job works because it makes it easier
...Mr. Poilievre has spent the past two years energetically insisting that any journalist who asks him a spiky question is enacting some greasy partisan agenda. There are entire swaths of the media that he’s been training the public to see as #JustinJourno grifters....
...What he’s doing is insulating himself from any future unwelcome questions or scandals that might surface. And he’s teaching the receptive public to automatically distrust anyone critical of him. That means Mr. Poilievre doesn’t even have to be there to yell at some annoying reporter, because he’s already set the table for people to discount them.
Imagine what this looks like three years from now when – if current polls hold – Mr. Poilievre will be prime minister and perched atop a stout majority in the House of Commons.
Spending issues, policy choices, dumb programs, stinky e-mails, ugly behaviour from public officials – why, to poke at any of it is to be part of the conspiracy. To deny this, or to insist these are valid questions that the public deserves answers to? That’s what bought-and-paid-for stooges would say...

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Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Today's News: Trump makes cowards of them all.


The more I see of the Congressional Republicans, the more they remind me of The Sopranos.
And anyone who doesn't fall into line gets sent to the Gulag.
The cowardice is appalling.
Why isn't all of America pointing and laughing at these guys? This is the guy they're supporting: And by the way, the New York Times also owes America an apology for acting as Trump's steno:
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