Thursday, January 26, 2017

Comic Relief

❄️ The funny thing is that this is actually fairly accurate! ❄️



12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I can certainly confirm that in southeast Arkansas, more than an inch of snow meant the schools closed and a lot of people didn't make it to work. Nobody knew how to drive in snow and there was certainly no equipment to clear the roads.

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  2. Keep forgetting to mention, bedtime reading for the past few days has been The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of by Thomas M. Disch. Though I don't know as much about the genre of Science Fiction as I'd like and the book is informative, still I'm not particularly enjoying it. Don't like Disch's manner: He's smug and condescending and a male chauvinist and he gives me a right pain in he arss. Ploughing through the book but mainly because I don't know as much as I should about the genre and since I've got the book, it seems foolish to waste it. But, what an insufferable jerk! Looking forward to finishing it and moving on to something more palatable.

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  3. Hmmmmmm….what’s going on?

    Via politicalwire.com:

    “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era,” the Washington Post reports.

    “Several senior foreign service officers in the State Department’s regional bureaus have also left their posts or resigned since the election.



    Via talkingpointsmemo.com:

    “The entire senior level management team at the State Department was fired by President Donald Trump’s administration this week, CNN reported Thursday.

    Senior administration officials told CNN's Elise Labott that four top State Department staffers were informed in letters sent by the White House that their service was no longer required. The pro forma resignation letters typically submitted by the heads of federal agencies at the start of new administrations were accepted.”

    Alan

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  4. Meant to mention yesterday that if a federal scientist wants to provide a news tip, Chemical and Engineering News, the news magazine of the American Chemical Society, has an encrypted site where they can do so. For many sorts of leaks this may be more appropriate than the big mainstream media.

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    Replies
    1. Got link? Or is that something scientists know how to find?

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    2. Here's the entire snippet from the recent C&EN Newsletter:
      POLICY
      Are you a muzzled federal scientist?

      Multiple federal agencies reportedly told employees this week not to talk with members of Congress or the press. If this affects you, tell us securely via centips@protonmail.com. (Please note that the subject line won't encrypt but the message and any attachments will.)

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  5. "Give him a chance" said Trump supporters
    To recap:

    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the DOJ’s Violence Against Women programs.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Minority Business Development Agency.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Economic Development Administration.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the International Trade Administration.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
    * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Fossil Energy.
    * On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered all regulatory powers of all federal agencies frozen.
    * On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered the National Parks Service to stop using social media after RTing factual, side by side photos of the crowds for the 2009 and 2017 inaugurations.
    * On January 20th, 2017, roughly 230 protestors were arrested in DC and face unprecedented felony riot charges. Among them were legal observers, journalists, and medics.
    * On January 20th, 2017, a member of the International Workers of the World was shot in the stomach at an anti-fascist protest in Seattle. He remains in critical condition.
    * On January 21st, 2017, DT brought a group of 40 cheerleaders to a meeting with the CIA to cheer for him during a speech that consisted almost entirely of framing himself as the victim of dishonest press.
    * On January 21st, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference largely to attack the press for accurately reporting the size of attendance at the inaugural festivities, saying that the inauguration had the largest audience of any in history, “period.”
    * On January 22nd, 2017, White House advisor Kellyann Conway defended Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts” on national television news.
    * On January 22nd, 2017, DT appeared to blow a kiss to director James Comey during a meeting with the FBI, and then opened his arms in a gesture of strange, paternal affection, before hugging him with a pat on the back.
    * On January 23rd, 2017, DT reinstated the global gag order, which defunds international organizations that even mention abortion as a medical option.
    * On January 23rd, 2017, Spicer said that the US will not tolerate China’s expansion onto islands in the South China Sea, essentially threatening war with China.
    * On January 23rd, 2017, DT repeated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing him the popular vote.
    * On January 23rd, 2017, it was announced that the man who shot the anti-fascist protester in Seattle was released without charges, despite turning himself in.

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  6. * On January 24th, 2017, Spicer reiterated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing DT the popular vote.
    * On January 24th, 2017, DT tweeted a picture from his personal Twitter account of a photo he says depicts the crowd at his inauguration and will hang in the White House press room. The photo is curiously dated January 21st, 2017, the day AFTER the inauguration and the day of the Women’s March, the largest inauguration related protest in history.
    * On January 24th, 2017, the EPA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to freeze all grants and contracts.
    * On January 24th, 2017, the USDA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to stop publishing any papers or research. All communication with the press would also have to be authorized and vetted by the White House.
    * On January 24th, 2017, HR7, a bill that would prohibit federal funding not only to abortion service providers, but to any insurance coverage, including Medicaid, that provides abortion coverage, went to the floor of the House for a vote.
    * On January 24th, 2017, Director of the Department of Health and Human Service nominee Tom Price characterized federal guidelines on transgender equality as “absurd.”
    * On January 24th, 2017, DT ordered the resumption of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, while the North Dakota state congress considers a bill that would legalize hitting and killing protestors with cars if they are on roadways.
    * On January 24th, 2017, it was discovered that police officers had used confiscated cell phones to search the emails and messages of the 230 demonstrators now facing felony riot charges for protesting on January 20th, including lawyers and journalists whose email accounts contain privileged information of clients and sources.
    *On January 25th, 2017 … the wall and a Muslim ban...

    To be continued...my apologies.

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  7. A Therapist Attempts to Explain Donald Trump’s Rocky First Few Days in Office

    It's called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It's unofficial only because he hasn't submitted to a clinical evaluation. However, he gives ample, consistent evidence.

    http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/a-therapist-attempts-to-explain-trumps-behavior-so-far.html

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  8. Although it's important to note that the order applies to *all* federal scientists. Including those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

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