That brings back such wonderful memories.
— Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) February 22, 2019
@SandyBoynton That brings back such wonderful memories.
Category: Blogging & Internet
RIP, Peter Tork
Peter was the the "dumb blonde" of the Monkees, friendly and gentle and (presented as) kind of stupid, but still lovable. He's the one on the left in the picture below.
Tork was the oldest of the Monkees, and he's the second, after Davey Jones, to pass away.
Thanks, sir, for the many hours of musical (and TV) entertainment you offered me.
Saloon Doors
I have to confess that, for all the Westerns I've seen, the question of "How did saloons lock up for the night when they just had those swinging doors in front?" never occurred to me.
Short answer: most saloons in the Old West didn't actually have those silly little doors, and those that did just had larger doors that could be closed in front of them to lock up at night (or address the cold of winter).
And now you know.
How Did Saloons in the Old West Lock Their Doors at Night?
What stopped no-good varmints from crawling underneath the doors?
When Bea Arthur was a US Marine
Cool little article about Bea Arthur — of Maude and Golden Girls fame — and her WW2 experience in the Marines.
Also cool: The Marines were the last service to admit women to support the war effort — but, interestingly enough, the Commandant of the Marines refused to come up with a "cute" name or acronym for the female members of his service.
'Public opinion favored a catchy nickname for these new female Marines, with suggestions of names like Glamarines and Femarines. General Holcomb wasn’t having any cute names for his Marines. “They are Marines,” he told Life magazine in 1944. “They don’t have a nickname and they don’t need one. . . . They inherit the traditions of Marines. They are Marines.”'
Including Bea Arthur.
Bea Arthur, US Marine | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans
Bernice Frankel’s Official Military Personnel File reveals a Golden Girl’s WWII service history.
Preserving History on the Moon
A wide-ranging and fascinating article about efforts to protect original artifacts of lunar exploration … artifacts on the Moon.
How Do You Preserve History On The Moon?
As the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing nears, some say the site of the first footprints on the moon should be protected. But historic preservation off our planet is unprecedented.
Blockchain Blues
Nothing is unhackable. But reading about how blockchain currencies are being hacked is kind of fascinating.
Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked – MIT Technology Review
More and more security holes are appearing in cryptocurrency and smart contract platforms, and some are fundamental to the way they were built.
Silencing the Inconvenient Press
Justice Clarence Thomas' musings — supported by Neil Gorsuch — that there's nothing in the Constitution about public figures having a much higher hurdle to prove libel, and therefore New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) should be reexamined, is not just about celebrities being more able to sue lascivious supermarket rags. As the article points out, libel laws were used to tie up and ward off journalists from covering the events in the Jim Crow South — precisely what this SCOTUS case was about. Holding libel trials in the Deep South for newspaper coverage of the Deep South made victory likely, and, even when not, the cost of defending such suits was prohibitive.
One could argue that, from an Originalist standpoint, the practical effects don't matter so long as the original text of the Constitution remains pure. But there's little doubt that such a change in Constitutional law would have a massively negative effect on investigative journalism of any ideology, and simply ensure that the powerful are more able to retain their power.
Vaccinations and the Social Contract
This article comes out of Canada, so most Americans will discount it reflexively. The idea of mandatory anything, especially regarding medicine, is a third rail to American culture, the antithesis to personal liberty.
But truth is truth, and science is science, and people dead of diseases don't have a lot of enthusiasm for personal liberty. The legal principle that "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins"[1] applies here. Your refusing to be vaccinated (or to vaccinate your children) directly impacts me and my own loved ones as the herd immunity is diluted.
'Vaccination, like paying taxes, is a civic duty; it is part of the social contract. Opting out for personal beliefs should not be an option.'
Yes, the "social contract" is another of those things that Americans seem ambivalent about, when push comes to shove. Which may be fine over little things, but when it comes to epidemics, it's murderously shortsighted.
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[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/15/liberty-fist-nose/
Vox Tyrannus
Hey, Donald — you know who calls individuals or institutions "ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE"?
Tyrants.
No, really. It's classic authoritarian, autocratic rhetoric, spewed against enemies of those in power by every dictatorial power from the Nazis to the Commies, from Goebbels to Stalin to Mao to Pol Pot to Idi Amin to every dictator, noteworthy or tinpot.
It is, almost literally, an un-American thing to say.
And it's a prime example of what you'll be remembered for.
This isn't to say that you cannot criticize the NYT (et al.), or deny what they report, or even express your irk at their reporting. But using the rhetoric of dictators and tyrants — well, if you choose to assert the shoe fits …
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1098218016255414272
The Climate-Be-Damned President
Apparently even a treaty that has the support of major US businesses, GOP lawmakers, and the US Chamber of Commerce, can't get any traction in the Trump Administration because (a) it was originally proposed under his predecessor, which delenda est, and (b) it has implications in fighting climate change, which makes it utterly no-go for Donald Trump.
Also, you know, it's a treaty, which Trump is always convinced means a bad deal for the United States.
What’s Keeping Trump from Ratifying a Climate Treaty Even Republicans Support?
Republican senators and the Chamber of Commerce have urged Trump to back the Kigali Amendment on HFCs, saying it’s in the U.S.’s economic interest.
California police unions fight to protect police misconduct from becoming public
A new California law opens up police misconduct records around excessive violence and sexual misconduct to the public. But, for some mysterious reason, police unions in the state are fighting tooth and nail to keep the law from going fully into effect, or to restrict such record releases to misconduct that occurs only after the law went into effect on January 1st.
It's almost as if the police are trying to cover up wrongdoing. Which surely cannot be the case, right?
Of course, in some cases the police unions have local city support. Special bonus point to the City of Inglewood that decided in December to shred official records on over 100 officers dating back to 1991.
Law and order, indeed.
California Police Unions Fight New State Law Promising Transparency on Misconduct Records
Senate Bill 1421 requires law enforcement agencies to make public investigative records of officer-involved shootings and uses of force resulting in great bodily harm. But law enforcement unions argue that the law threatens the privacy of their members.
A good cause for an awful reason
The Trump Administration is apparently pushing on the "diplomatic" front against countries that have criminalized homosexuality, to get them to change their internal policies.
Which sounds great except:
1. The focus is on Muslim countries, as part of Trump's general demonization of Islam. Non-Muslim countries with problematic records around gay rights — like, say, Russia — are not being targeted.
2. Trump's administration is acting unilaterally, eschewing multilateral efforts against such laws. Because, of course, the US doesn't want to be seen hobnobbing with the interests of other other nations.
3. None of this seems to be affecting Trump's domestic policy, which is around marginalizing LGBTQ* rights, banning transfolk from the military, encouraging "religious freedom" exemptions to discriminate against gay people, rolling back previous administration protections, etc.
In other words, it's anti-Islamic rhetoric, hypocritically framed as civil liberty protections.
Trump administration on decriminalizing homosexuality: Do as we say, not as we do
The administration voted previously against a U.N. resolution condemning the use of the death penalty to punish homosexuality.
How Not to Build a Wall
Donald Trump not only caved on a legislative approach to getting his Big, Beautiful Wall built, he also apparently didn't spot some built-in wall breaches in the funding bill he grudgingly signed.
' But the fine print shows secondary capitulations: In addition to allocating only $1.37 billion for the wall, the bill includes limitations on where it can be built. […] The five areas the federal government isn’t allowed to build are: the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, the La Lomita Historical Park, the National Butterfly Center, and within or east of the Vista del Mar Ranch tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. All of these locations have been named in border wall–related lawsuits.'
Note that while the headline of the article claims these restrictions as a victory for Democrats, the sponsor of the amendment to include them says that Republicans signed onto these exemptions as well.
'Cuellar thinks part of the reason he was able to secure the protections was that the committee negotiating the spending bill allowed an open line of communication between Democrats and Republicans in Congress as well as with the administration. He said he even thanked Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney for listening to his concerns when he brought it up at a rare bipartisan Camp David meeting that Mulvaney held a few weekends ago with members of Congress.
“I said, 'Look, we're just trying to make people understand that in my area you just can't run over private property rights and some of those sensitive areas like the National Butterfly Center and other areas,’” Cuellar said. According to Cuellar, Mulvaney was a partner in working out language on the protections.'
Democrats secured a quiet border wall victory in the spending bill – VICE News
The spending bill’s fine print shows the president agreed to protect certain areas in Texas.
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes
Biologists have found one possible reason why zebras are striped — the stripes seems to seriously disrupt flies from landing and feeding on them.
(This result parallels another from a few years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/science/animal-magic/2014/apr/02/why-do-zebras-have-stripes-scientists-have-the-answer).
It's important to remember, of course, that more than one of the various explanations for zebra stripes may be true. Evolution works very slowly, and multiple advantages may come into play over time, as well as benefits that occur after natural selection first starts off down a given direction. Determining between correlation and causation is always tricky in these kind of things.
Why the zebra got its stripes: to deter flies from landing on it | Science | The Guardian
Swearing like a sailor
How 19th Century sailors influenced non-sailor language, and why "son of a bitch" was such a dire oath.
How to Swear Like a 19th-Century Sailor
They’ve made pretty salty contributions to English language and culture, starting with some well-known profanity.
Patterns of Terror
You know, it's funny — we keep being told about all those Evil Muslim Terrorists seeking to destroy our country from within (with extra bonus points for Evil Muslim Terrorists Sneaking In From Mexico).
And yet, when it comes to it, what we seem to keep running across are are domestic right-wing white nationalist terrorists. Like this dude.
'While searching Hasson’s suburban Maryland home, investigators found a number of files on his computer suggesting that Hasson planned to target members of Congress and media figures in the hopes of creating a “white homeland.”
“Liberalist/globalist ideology is destroying traditional peoples esp white,” Hasson wrote in a draft email, according to court documents. “No way to counteract without violence. It should push for more crack down bringing more people to our side. Much blood will have to be spilled to get whitey off the couch.”
Hasson referred to his targets as “traitors,” and appears to have named figures such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta. He appeared to find inspiration in Russia for its antipathy toward American liberalism, and his browser history revealed searches including “what if trump illegally impeached” and “civil war if trump impeached,” according to the court filing.
“Looking to Russia with hopeful eyes or any land that despises the west’s liberalism. Excluding of course the muslim scum. Who rightfully despise the west’s liberal degeneracy,” Hasson wrote in a draft email according to the filings.'
Huh. Hating liberals, Democrats, Muslims, MSNBC journalists, but looking to Russia for inspiration. How the heck does that happen here in the US?
Coast Guard officer accused of plotting to kill Democrats, journalists – POLITICO
And so the disinformation begins
The right-of-center Politico reports on currently detectable efforts by right-wing and "foreign state actors" to disseminate false information and discrediting memes against leading announced and unannounced Democratic candidates, including Warren, Harris, Sanders, and O'Roarke — with the dual goals of tearing down those candidates and dividing the Democrats.
So let us observe a moment of sympathy to those candidates not seen as prominent enough to draw such campaigns.
But, having said that … jeez, guys, really? Like the Dems ever outside encouragement to be divided against each other …
‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates – POLITICO
Supreme Court limits state use of excessive fines — and civil forfeiture
It's rare these days that SCOTUS rules unanimously on anything, but everyone there (including a returned RBG) agree that the Federal Constitution, in all its ramifications, trumps state laws — in this case, the use of excessive or inordinate fines by states (which violates the Eighth Amendment).
What's interesting about this is that the particular case in hand had to do with forfeiture laws, a long-term scandal in state (and occasionally federal) law enforcement. The case involved a man arrested for selling a few hundred dollars worth of heroin — whereupon the state confiscated his $42,000 Land Rover.
SCOTUS has made noises about being uncomfortable with the extra-judicial confiscation of property through civil forfeiture laws in the states. Though this case drew headlines about fines, in reality it really seems to be targeting such laws. Based on it, I expect to see a lot more legal push-back on such laws and practices. And it's about time.
The secret of "Trader Joe's" success
Interesting video (with transcript), seeking to explain why a small store with fewer choices in any given category does so well. (Short answer: because they do, in fact, have fewer choices, but those choices are generally good ones.)
A psychologist explains how Trader Joe’s gets you to spend more money
Trader Joe’s sells more than double its grocery competitors like Whole Foods. A psychologist explains why it’s easy to spend money at Trader Joe’s.
Oh, you mean "religious freedom" means people can discriminate against ME?
Yeah, lots of people love pounding the "religious freedom" drum — "I shouldn't have to associate with / offer services to / dispense medicine for / accept customers who are those types of people" — when they think that they're part of "Us," not one of "Them."
So there are certainly a number of Christians who think, "Well, yes, a Christian should get cut slack when their moral beliefs conflict with those of someone else … because Jesus loves Christians most of all, and this country was founded on religious freedom, and if I'm forced to bake cakes for gays or make flower arrangements for Muslims, well, that's just like Nazi Germany."
Those Christians forget that "Christianity" is hardly a monolith. Most Christians think Mormons don't count. Many Protestant Christians think Catholics are beyond the pale. In the early days of this country, Quakers were persecuted, as were Baptists. The Founders had centuries of examples from Europe of wars and organized persecutions between Catholics and Protestants (with the occasional crusades against heretics for good measure).
Once you start legitimizing religious discrimination (especially when spending taxpayer money), sooner or later, you will be on the losing end of that equation.
(See also, "The Best Religious Joke of All Time" https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion)
Catholic mom sues after Trump-backed foster care agency calls her the wrong kind of Christian
The rug has been pulled out from under “religious freedom.”
