Tuesday, September 26, 2023

New Book, Published TODAY!


 

28 comments:

  1. Here are a bunch of posts all in one; gotta run.
    —Alan

    Charlie Sykes: Old-School Bribery [Click] Melendez case.
    —Alan

    Supreme Court Refuses to Restore GOP Map for Alabama [Click]
    —Alan

    TPM morning memo [Click] An unusually good aggregation of political news, I think.
    ——Alan

    BBC: The five best things to do in Turkistan [Click]
    —-Alan

    Holy Cow—UK train trip from Hell [Click] Company response a far cry from the Japan Railway’s public apology years ago for a train leaving ten seconds ahead of schedule.
    —Alan

    Observatory built to represent Einstein’s theory of relativity reopens in Germany following extensive renovations. [Click]
    —Alan

    ‘Healing a wound’: from neglected East German relic to lauded art gallery [Click]
    —Alan

    Yesterday I watched a fairly long video about Alfred Thayer Mahan which I can’t locate at the moment; very interesting. One odd thing is that despite his fame as a naval historian and theorist, as an active naval officer he was, to put it very generously, unremarkable.
    ——Alan

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    1. If you get BritBox on your TV, look for Upstart Crow...a comedy series about the early life of Shakespeare. They frequently pander the British rail system by saying similar things about the horse and coach service there. LOL

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    2. PS: The women characters in the show are (deliberately) the most intelligent.

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    3. Well! I never!
      ---Alan

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  2. Replies
    1. It's not just Republicans who gerrymander. Illinois is highly gerrymandered. The state leans Democratic, but not to the extent of having 14 of its 17 Congressional seats and something like 2/3 of its state Senate seats in Democratic hands.

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    2. Everyone ought to get to vote in their own neighbourhood area...and just let the candidates deal with the results.
      But then, I'm someone who thinks players ought to be on baseball teams near their own hometown and not get traded.

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    3. Thanks to Gov. Schwartzenegger, California is less gerrymandered than it used to be, but gerrymandered it still is. I blame the Democrats for making sure the GOP has some safe districts (notably including ours). I don't know about other areas (too lazy to look it up), but up and down the Central Valley the cities are divided like pies, with the small and generally Democratic urban pieces joint to larger predominantly Republican exurban areas. I was under the impression that it was intended that county, city, and geographic boundaries were to be respected insofar as possible, but they don't seem to be. Oh, well.
      ---Alan
      ----Alan

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  3. BTW, After posting yesterday, I managed to figure out, thanks to street view maps, which shop in Camden, Maine has the Aunt Marie pillows. Yesterday, I emailed them to inquire about purchasing a pillow. I'd like that green one, but if it doesn't have the triangle edging, I'll go with the red one.

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  4. Replies
    1. It won't. Trumpsters are rabidly anti-union.

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    2. Cat: By and large, yes. Yet, oddly, there have veen a number of union members who have swung toward the Republicans since Reagan. It could make a difference.

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  5. Continuing the discussion from the end of the last thread: I've been giving a small monthly donation to Barbara Lee for some time now. Mom liked Katie Porter, but I really hope Lee makes it. She has the kinds of values I admire.

    Now, what I came over here to say is this: Just came across a quote I simply *had* to share:

    "There are three kinds of men, the one who learns from reading, the few who learn from observation, and the rest of them, who have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." - Will Rogers

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    1. 😹 That's a good one all right!

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    2. That's a new one for me, and a real keeper. I particularly like Will Rogers' essay about how water trickles down, but money trickles up. Come to think of it, Will Rogers considered Calvin Coolidge to be the funniest man he knew; but Coolidge learned that the greater part of the US citizenry did not understand his droll humor and he needed to keep it under wraps.
      ----Alan

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  6. Replies
    1. Out of curiosity, I googled Donald Trump's net worth. The answer was 2.5 billion USD. That should pay a few fines and lawyers' bills.

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    2. MSNBC: BREAKING: Judge finds Trump committed fraud in NY civil case [Click] Overstated values to get loans; I haven’t yet read whether or not he was found guilty of tax fraud for understating values for tax purposes. Maybe the ruling covers both.
      —Alan

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    3. I hadn't prevously been clear that, in addition to the Trump Organization, the Trumps as individuals were defendants in this suit.
      I don't believe tax fraud is an issue in this case. Calims of insurance fraud and falsifying business records are yet to go to trial.

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    4. Come to think of it, understating the values of properties to get lower real estate taxes would probably have to be prosecuted in the affected counties.
      ----Alan

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  7. Anybody else getting really tired of reading "X, formerly known as Twitter"?
    Like we can't remember that from one day to the next?

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    1. Sort of like the artist formerly known as Prince. X formerly known as Twitter is its name now.

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    2. How about "conservatives, formerly known as radicals"?
      ----Alan

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  8. Since we're just one day short of three months till Christmas (yeah, I'm one of *those* people, lol!), want to strongly recommend that you get yer hands on a copy of the DVD "Love Actually"--just watched it and it's as lovely as ever. Thankful recced years ago, and boy was she right!

    puddle~~

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    1. It's my niece's favourite movie. I like it in part. We have it on DVD that contains four movies, including Because I Said So, Definitely Maybe and Notting Hill. All pretty good!

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