Friday, November 18, 2022

Today's News: Sometimes I wanna go Where a few hundred people know my name...


After ordering everyone back to work, Musk has now locked up his office buildings and ordered everyone to stay home for a few days. 
Nobody knows whether Twitter will reopen or just disappear. 
So the feeling on Twitter tonight is gloomy. 
I know Twitter wasn't perfect, but I liked it -- met some great people there, and I even got followed by a few hundred good folks too.  
I would be sad to see it all disintegrate.
So tonight I tried out my Mastodon account - here it is:  
It took me FOREVER to find where I could turn off the "dark mode" that Mastodon apparently defaults to - I find it too difficult to read white print on black background all the time - but I notice here when I embed a toot it is coming through in Dark mode still.
Anyway, for anyone interested in following me there, my Mastodon name is:
I will add it to the side column as soon as I can figure out how to do this. 
UPDATE: Just had to share this one, too:

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Today's News: Christ, what an asshole!

Time for this week's edition of "Christ, what an asshole!" 

So this happened: Leading, of course to this: Here's the reference:
   

 Speaking of perfection: And here's the reference:
   

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Today's News: It is to laugh!

The least surprising news of the day was Trump announcing he would run for president again --to the delight only of cartoonists and Maggie Haberman, I think. 

"Growing visibly" Maggie? What, is Little Donnie eating more donuts again?










The hashtags "NotAgain and #GoAway reflect exactly the way I feel, too: And from overseas: Other reactions:
Finally, in other news:

Sunday, November 13, 2022

From the bookmarks


Of course dinosaurs and humans never co-existed - dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years before humans developed, and the CBC knows it, as do all paleontologists. 
But no scientist wants to put their job on the line with our nutty right-wing government over such a stupid issue, just because the CBC is trying to play Got-ya! with Scott Moe:

Remembrance Day was Friday - here are some tweets I noticed especially:

Friday, November 11, 2022

Today's News: When the waves turn the minutes to hours

 
"Does any one know where the love of God goes 
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?" 

Here is a great thread about a great song: This is a beautiful version, too: In other news:
Trudeau does it again! The Canadian right may froth and scream but Trudeau doesn't care, he just keeps on reaching out and leading Canada to become a happier and more inclusive place - sunny days:

Tuesday, November 08, 2022

Finally!

Finally ... Ford blinked. Finally .... Canada is finding out who the FluTruxKlan organizers actually are: Finally...the US midterms are almost over: Finally...the Musk Lettuce Watch has begun:

Sunday, November 06, 2022

Today's News: The story behind Russia-gate and the Ukraine War

The New York Times has published a major article The Untold Story of "Russia-gate" and the Road to War in Ukraine (gift article link), and the story actually turns out to be remarkably simple -- Putin wanted to get Trump elected so Trump could support a plan that would give Putin control of Ukraine's industry and agriculture. 
Paul Manafort was the go-between - he had a plan to trade Mariupol for Russia's help in electing Trump in 2016. After Manafort's arrest, Giuliani jumped into the game in 2020.  It was a domestic and international scheme to hand Ukraine to Putin. When that failed, war became inevitable. 
This story explains everything from the inexplicable deletion of Ukraine support in the 2016 Republican platform, to the incredible July 4 2018 Congressional trip to Russia, to Trump's incredibly inept series of secret meetings with Putin.  Here's an excerpt that summarizes the thesis of Jim Rutenberg's article:
Putin’s assault on Ukraine [in 2022] and his attack on American democracy [in 2016] have until now been treated largely as two distinct story lines. Across the intervening years, Russia’s election meddling has been viewed essentially as a closed chapter in America’s political history — a perilous moment in which a foreign leader sought to set the United States against itself by exploiting and exacerbating its political divides.
Yet those two narratives came together that summer night at the Grand Havana Room. And the lesson of that meeting is that Putin’s American adventure might be best understood as advance payment for a geopolitical grail closer to home: a vassal Ukrainian state. 
Thrumming beneath the whole election saga was another story — about Ukraine’s efforts to establish a modern democracy and, as a result, its position as a hot zone of the new Cold War between Russia and the West, autocracy and democracy. 
To a remarkable degree, the long struggle for Ukraine was a bass note to the upheavals and scandals of the Trump years, from the earliest days of the 2016 campaign and then the presidential transition, through Trump’s first impeachment and into the final days of the 2020 election. Even now, some influential voices in American politics, mostly but not entirely on the right, are suggesting that Ukraine make concessions of sovereignty similar to those contained in Kilimnik’s plan, which the nation’s leaders categorically reject.
Its a long read but worth it. 
In other Ukraine news: Here is an American pilot's message to Putin:

Friday, November 04, 2022

Friday funnies

Just some of the funny stuff collected this week: Elon Musk continues to demonstrate why he so richly deserves the sobriquet "Christ, what an asshole!": An interesting comment here, too -- and see this article at Daily Kos for more:

Wednesday, November 02, 2022

Today's News: It's another edition of "Christ, what an asshole!"



Elon Musk - he will be the gift that keeps on giving, at least until he has bashed Twitter into the ground: Elon's inner 12-year-old is emerging now: Everyone is declaring "their stance" about whether they will quit Twitter or not:

Monday, October 31, 2022

Hey, its Halloween!

Likely the best video ever:
   

 Here are some good Halloween tweets and tweet-stories I have been collecting! Some posts about Halloween in Ukraine: "I love candy!"

Sunday, October 30, 2022

Twitter stories

I have collected a few more great twitter stories

First, follow this one from @ppirapokin about his Power Rangers adventure in a ramen restaurant -- the tweet below is the beginning of the thread, the photo in the second tweet is one that someone else took of the restaurant: Who knew bike safety could be so interesting? A thread that all parents and teachers should take to heart: Here's an interesting discussion from Josh Marshall: I love this story. Click the tweet to see the entire text: What it was like to be a doctor during the time of Covid:
Finally, enjoy!

Friday, October 28, 2022

I'm back!

Just catching up on a few of the interesting tweets saved over the week while we were away.

Fascinating stuff: Ha Ha! Time for some animal crackers -- first of all, I found this posted on twitter:

Monday, October 24, 2022

Today's News: Ukraine update

I will be travelling over the next few days so I may not be able to put up more posts this week
Tonight, I am trying to figure out the latest from Ukraine. 
They likely will have a few more weeks of decent weather until winter strikes, so I hope they can liberate Kherson and more of the Donbas soon. Meantime, Russia continues to try to frighten the world into withdrawing support from Ukraine. 
I hope it won't work. Here is some discussion about Russia's overall goals: Right now, Russia is trying to scare the world with talk about "dirty bombs" -- first, it needs to be understood that there actually is no such thing, not really -- it is a "speculative" weapon, in the words of Wikipedia. It might be possible to build a bomb that combines conventional and nuclear explosives, but it isn't clear whether anyone has actually done so. 
But whenever the media mentions "dirty bomb" it sends people into a panic (it reminds me of the police fentanyl panic myth) and this is what Russia is counting on. The US, Britain and France aren't having it:

Sunday, October 23, 2022

More great stuff

What a week -- we really need some great stuff right now, don't we, and I've got some. 
But first, let's consider the nominees for this week's "Christ, what an asshole!" 

Is it Doug Ford?  First he posted a three-amigos tweet that included his fire pit, then twitter exploded because said firepit is not legal in Toronto, so then he just deleted the tweet - Christ, what an asshole! Or Danielle Smith? The National Post is calling her Canada's first "alternatively-informed" premier.  Smith now seems to think she can override public health orders, abandon Kenney's federal commitments, and basically do whatever she wants - Premier Loon indeed. 
Or maybe our very own Scott Moe? He heard that Singh was coming to Saskatchewan for the NDP convention and instead of welcoming him as a fellow politician, Moe decided he had to try to insult him instead -- Christ, what an asshole! I can't decide ,... so, I guess it must be ALL THREE! 
But wait, there's more -- I'm wondering if any of the Brain Trust advising Moe has considered whether they are scaring people away from Saskatchewan? The Globe and Mail is not impressed: The Globe and Mail writes:
...Last week, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe presented what he claimed was a serious analysis of how federal climate rules will hurt his province. But it was in fact the opposite, a threadbare and mathematically halfwitted sketch that was brutally panned. The episode was much like, earlier this year, the widely lambasted “sovereignty act” put forth by the new and embattled premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith.
In both cases, the Prairie premiers made a basic mistake: They conflated what are ordinary provincial-federal policy debates and disagreements with accusations of Ottawa’s undue constitutional overreach. It is akin to shouting “fire” when nothing is ablaze....
Standing up for a province is one thing; doing so with misleading and disingenuous proposals is another.
If Saskatchewan wants more control over immigration or policing, that’s a reasonable idea. But it’s not reasonable to try to ignore federal climate policy. The constitutional questions are settled. And if Mr. Moe wants to make serious claims that are worthy of debate, he should start with a course in remedial math.

Friday, October 21, 2022

Today's News: Buh-bye

Today we said "buh-bye" to Liz Truss. 
The tweets were priceless: If Larry Kudlow thinks Truss is OK, no wonder she crashed and burned. 
Hey, did you know that Republicans also now want to delay paying Social Security until age 75, and stop paying it at age 90? What, do they think 90-year-olds should support themselves by getting a part-time job at MacDonalds? 
Here's a strange one (Medvedev is a Putin wanna-be, and Musk is...Musk)