Category: Uncategorized

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I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president… I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.” ~ Legitimately elected state representative John Lewis (D-Georgia) who will not be attending Trump’s coronation inauguration.

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Evan Rachel Wood attends the 18th Annual Post-Golden Globes Party hosted by Warner Bros. Pictures and InStyle at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California (January 8, 2017)

I’ve been meaning to post this since I first saw it. For an actress to dress like this for such a prestigious event takes balls. Her look was so stunning and yet caused me to do a double-take because I knew I had seen something very similar before. Then it dawned on me: Victor-Victoria.

Bravo! No, “Brava!”

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• “This is way too sweet.”
• “They’re remaking that movie already?”
• “My back hurts.”
• “Wait…people get mad about that now?”
• “I can’t eat that, it’s gonna fuck my stomach up.”
• “Hold on let me check my calendar first.”
• “I need to buy a bigger pill box.”
• Turns on radio. [groans]

Feel free to add your own in the comments!

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…the only way to take pictures of my junk was with the family Polaroid—and then have to explain to Mom why the 10 pack she loaded in the camera the day before now only had one or two shots remaining.

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…right on cue, the petulant, cheeto-faced man-child set to assume the Presidency in 11 days had a 3 am meltdown on Twitter over Meryl’s speech last night.

In the hours after after Hair Furor disgorged his early-morning missive, the army of his sycophants chimed in, led by the always death-warmed-over Kellyanne Conway, a.k.a. das Backpfeifengesicht, who appeared on Faux News to ask if Meryl was so concerned about the disabled why she didn’t mention the mentally-challenged boy who was tortured on Facebook during her speech.

The lack of self-awareness displayed by Trump supporters complaining that celebrities like Meryl should stay out of politics when they elected a reality TV star with no political background is just fucking deafening.

More than anything, it punctuates the shitgibbon’s lack of self-esteem. And again I have to ask, if this man is so thin-skinned that he will obsess about anyone who doesn’t bow down and kiss his tiny-handed ring by spewing out insults via Twitter, how is he going to react to a real crisis?

I don’t even want to think about it.

I believe what’s at the root of this insecurity is Trump knowing in his heart of hearts that he will never be loved or admired by people in a way that Meryl (or Obama, or any number of others he’s lashed out at) are—and it’s drives him crazy. Hell, he and his administration are actually shaping up to be the most resoundingly hated group of people ever to assume power in this country, and that’s a stink that he won’t ever be able to wash off no matter how many rim jobs he gets from his Nazi followers.

 

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35 years ago I would just be starting my night. Now I’m wondering if it’s too early to go to bed…

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I’m not saying that David Bowie was holding the fabric of the Universe together, but [gestures broadly at everything]…” ~ Katie Loewy

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“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” ~ Sinclair Lewis, 1935

Thanks to a horrifically outdated electoral system based on slave ownership and proven interference by Russian Intelligence led by Vladimir Putin, 25%—TWENTY FIVE FUCKING PERCENT—of eligible voters in the United States just legitimized and put in power what is for all intents and purposes a reborn and rebranded American Nazi Party. And this party is led by a 70-year old, emotionally unstable, sociopathic man-baby whose only concern is is own aggrandizement, communicates to the world via Twitter, and now has access to the country’s nuclear codes. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, another 25% (plus about 300 million, give or take) of us who actually voted for the sane candidate, did everything in our power to prevent this—although my faith in our current Democratic leaders has been seriously compromised because a last-ditch effort to merely examine and debate Electoral College irregularities yesterday was thwarted because a Senator was required to make this happen and no Democratic Senator—not a single one, not even Bernie FUCKING Sanders—stood up to join the two brave Representatives who brought it to the house floor prior to Congressional confirmation.

While no one can totally predict the future, those of us who saw this coming have a reasonably good idea of what lies ahead, and it ain’t pretty. Battlestar Galactica’s famous line “All this has happened before and will happen again,” resonates loudly.

I can’t help but wonder what half the country who couldn’t pull themselves away from their 50-inch flat screens, Survivor reruns, porn and fast food drips long enough to get their fat asses to the polls will think once the economy tanks (like it has under every other Republican administration since Reagan) and they start losing their jobs, their healthcare, their social security benefits, the minimum wage disappears, and the air and drinking water start turning brown because 80 years of government oversight and the social safety net that generations have relied upon have been dismantled.

As Ben is constantly telling his students, “Actions have consequences.”

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I’m taking a break from Twitter, maybe permanently.

Since the November election it’s become an absolutely toxic cesspool of disinformation and stupidity, and frankly if the world is going to start collapsing around us, I don’t need constant 140 character reminders of it.

I’m not going to delete my account outright, but I have removed Tweetbot from my phone and the corresponding Mac app from the dock.

I quit Facebook cold turkey in 2012 when it crossed my tolerance for stupidity and I’ve reached the same point with Twitter.  It took years for me to get over the need for a Facebook fix, but the detox was necessary to maintain my sanity. I expect it to be much the same with this other social network.

That leaves me with Instagram. At least that one mostly just pretty pictures with only occasional forays into the morass that is contemporary political discourse.

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The Fisher RS-3050: this is one that flew under my radar all these years. Maybe because back in the day Fisher wasn’t considered as good as Pioneer or Sony or Technics. No matter; this is one gorgeous piece of gear.

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https://twitter.com/voenixrising/status/816151640629596160

From Think Progress:

11 things exposed by the ethics office Republicans just tried to dismantle

On Monday night, on a federal holiday, behind closed doors, House Republicans voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) — the independent body tasked with rooting out corruption and conflicts of interest on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, after a public outcry, they abandoned the plan, though some Congress members suggested they may try again at a later date to gut the ethics panel.

Since the office was created in 2008, it investigated dozens of cases each year, uncovering damning information on Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike. The following cases, which range from insider trading to accepting gifts from foreign governments, reveal the kind of behavior that may now go unchecked without the government watchdog in action.

1. Steering information and favors to a lobbyist’s wife. In July of this year, the OCE reported that Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) allowed his wife, Constance Harriman, to lobby his own staff on behalf of the Humane Society between 2011 and 2015, “dispensed special favors” to her, and helped her set up as many as 100 meetings with other members of Congress. Whitfield also introduced bills supported by the pharmaceutical technology company LaserLock while his wife served on their board and while the couple held stock in the company. The OCE uncovered e-mails showing Harriman using her husband’s congressional office to gather information that would benefit LaserLock. Whitfield announced his resignation shortly after the report’s release.
2. Boosting a junk vehicle inspection side business. In 2010, the OCE found that Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) violated House ethics rules by meeting with Georgia officials about making changes to the state’s vehicle inspection program while co-owning a business that conducted the inspections. “Deal sought to preserve a state vehicle inspection program that had generated significant personal financial benefit for him,” the report found. Deal resigned following the probe.
3. Using a public office to benefit a personal hedge fund. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) may have violated half a dozen House ethics rules by continuing to operate a hedge fund and multiple law firms while serving in Congress, the OCE concluded in 2015. The report found Grayson may also have omitted nearly $1 million in outside income from his financial disclosure statements, directed his congressional staff to do work for his hedge fund, used government resources for his reelection campaign, and indirectly profited from a military jet fuel company that held government contracts. Grayson lost his primary bid for a Senate seat this summer.
4. A luxury trip and gifts on Azerbaijan’s dime. In 2015, 10 members of Congress from both parties and 32 of their staff members attended a conference on the Caspian Sea paid for by Azerbaijan’s state-run oil company. There, they were showered with gifts, including hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, turquoise earrings, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs worth up to $10,000 dollars. The oil company funneled the money through U.S.-based non-profits to conceal it from ethics watchdogs, and several members of Congress refused to cooperate with the ensuing investigation. At the time of the gifts, Azerbaijan was seeking an exemption from U.S. sanctions against Iran so it could build a massive natural gas pipeline. Five days after the conference, President Obama signed an executive order that included the exemption.
5. Continuing to pay a staff member who was fired for harassing women. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) fired his chief of staff Kenny West in April of 2015, after female staffers complained he was sexually harassing them. Yet the OCE found that Meadows continued to pay West more than $12,000 a month until August of that year. A year later, the office decided to continue investigating the allegations. They interviewed women in Meadow’s office who said West looked down their shirts, touched them without consent, and made inappropriate comments about their “love lives.”
6. Ethical violations and financial malfeasance from Harlem to the Caribbean. In 2010, the OCE dug up a mound of dirt on veteran Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), including evidence that that Rangel “improperly used his congressional staff and official letterhead to raise seven-figure donations from corporate charities and chief executives for a college wing named in his honor; violated New York City rules by housing his political committees in his rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; did not pay taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic; and did not properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal financial assets.” A few months earlier, the office found that Rangel had taken corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean. Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which Rangel co-founded, called for the elimination of the ethics office after Rangel was found guilty of 11 different ethical violations. He retired earlier this year.
7. Improperly using federal resources for a campaign. In 2014, the OCE investigated rising Republican star Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) for improperly using federal resources to further her political campaign from 2010–2012. While it’s common for House and Senate staffers to help with their boss’s reelection campaigns, to abide by the law, they must do it in off-hours and outside the congressional buildings. McMorris Rodgers, the OCE alleged, broke these rules and used her House staff and federal financial resources for election campaigns (including staff travel), paid a consultant for work in her House office with campaign funds, and mixed the two resources to campaign for a House leadership office. In 2015, Brett O’Donnell, a Republican debate coach, pleaded guilty to lying to the OCE about how much campaign work he did for lawmakers while being paid from their office accounts — including Rep. McMorris Rodgers.
8. Trying to buy a Senate seat. The OCE uncovered recordings showing that an “emissary” of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) offered money to former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in exchange for the governor appointing Jackson to fill the Senate seat vacated by President Obama. Jackson also used resources from his D.C. and Chicago House offices to lobby for the nomination, which he did not ultimately get. Blagojevich remains in prison for attempting to sell the seat. Jackson resigned in 2012 after taking a long medical leave of absence.
9. Flouting campaign finance rules on a book tour. While mounting a failed bid for the White House in 2012, the OCE found, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) paid the same consultant through her campaign and her PAC, violating rules barring coordination between the entities. She may have used funds from her presidential campaign to promote her book, and used her book tour — paid for by the publisher — to campaign for president. The office said there was “ substantial reason to believe” she violating federal campaign finance laws and House ethics rules. Bachmann retired in 2013, effectively ending the investigation.
10. Taking contributions in exchange for a bar mitzvah fireworks permit. In 2013, the OCE found that Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) agreed to assist a constituent in obtaining a permit for setting off fireworks at his son’s bar mitzvah on Long Island. Bishop then requested a donation of $5,000 from the constituent and his wife, and received it shortly after. Bishop lost his bid for reelection in 2014 after his opponent hammered him on the ethics charges in campaign commercials.
11. Paying for family trip to Universal Studios with campaign funds. In 2015, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and his family took a five-and-a-half day trip to Los Angeles. Stutzman met with supporters over two of the trip’s days, but billed the entire trip — including his family’s airfare and rental vehicle — to his Senate campaign, according to the OCE. While in California, the Stutzman family visited Universal Studios and toured the Reagan Presidential Library and the Reagan Ranch, where they posed for pictures Stutzman’s wife later posted to Facebook. Stutzman, who denies the charges, lost his bid for the Senate in the Republican primary this year. He was facing a probe from the House Ethics Committee, after the OCE’s report, but his retirement took him out of both groups’ jurisdiction.

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But also a bit of an optical illusion.

Messier Object M45, or as is commonly known, the Pleiades, aka “The Seven Sisters,” one of the most famous star clusters visible to the unaided eye in the night sky and now prominently visible after dark, presents itself as a compact grouping of stars surrounded by the wisps of gas and dust leftover from the stars’ creation. From all the earth-bound photos, one would assume that the cluster is physically compact and these stars are very close together.

But that assumption would be wrong. Thanks to the wonders of Celestia, an entirely new view of the cluster can be seen, exposing the true relationship of the stars in the group.

Not only are the seven main stars in the cluster further apart from each other than the Earth is to its nearest neighbor Proxima Centauri, on average, adjacent stars are as far apart as the Sun is from Sirius, and the distance from the star closest to earth and the one farthest away is nearly 40 light years.

While a night sky on a planet orbiting any of the stars in the cluster would still be wondrous compared to a night sky on Earth because the stars of the Pleiades are young, hot, and burn with a blue-white intensity, it wouldn’t be as bright and filled with glittering jewels as you would think. The other main stars in the group would appear anywhere from the brightness of Sirius to about twice the intensity of Venus in Earth’s sky. Bright, yes, but perhaps not as awe-inspiring as you’d expect based on the photos from Earth.

That being said, I certainly wouldn’t turn down an invite to visit…

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…that the people who voted for him “because Hillary’s emails,” or as a protest vote “I didn’t think he’d actually win!” or the rabid Bernie Bros who did it out of spite, or simply sat at home and didn’t vote at all because “both parties are the same” are going to be in for a very rude awakening in the next few months.

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Wish me luck.

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Never have I approached a new year with such trepidation.

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