06/08/2014 archive

Tom Englehardt this morning channels Andy Borowitz:

I hate to laugh, but why not? Here’s New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz on a recent study showing that the phrase “climate change” manages to essentially elicit no reaction from anyone. Tom

“After a report from the Yale Center on Climate Change Communication showed that the term “climate change” elicits relatively little concern from the American public, leading scientists are recommending replacing it with a new term: ‘You will be burnt to a crisp and die.’

“Other terms under consideration by the scientists include ‘your cities will be ravaged by tsunamis and floods’ and ‘earth will be a fiery hellhole incapable of supporting human life.’ Scientists were generally supportive of the suggestions, with many favoring the term ‘your future will involve rowing a boat down a river of rotting corpses.’“

In D&D and other nerdy table-top RPG games I used to play, we play different characters. Knights, dwarfs, vampires, super heroes, gunslingers. Those characters never last forever. They’re not real. When they are done, we hand in our character sheet. One rule in RPG’s was that things that happen in character shouldn’t affect the people we were in real life. When we handed in our character sheet, that character’s exploits were reduced to memories, but the people we were in real life lived on.

We all play characters in our lives. You may play a different character at work than you do with your family. On the Internet we play characters too, known by their Internet names.

I have to say that the character known as Hubbard Squash/Broke and Unemployed/whatever will be no more. This isn’t like the GBCW I posted on DailyKos. I am deleting my Twitter account, and will have no more dealings on political blogs or any type of social media tied to Hubbard Squash. Not as Hubbard or any identity tied to, or not tied to, Hubbard. Why?

Because a few on DailyKos, led by Denise Oliver Velez, have made it clear they are taking steps to ruin my real life. They want me to be put in jail for posting on DailyKos after being banned. One of them may be filing a fake police report right now. I don’t have time to work out the HTML but the comment thread is here:

http://www.dailykos.com/commen…

I wouldn’t be scared of these bullies normally, but this isn’t fair to my family. My wife is sick and about to go thru major surgery. After years of being Broke and Unemployed I’m about to start a real middle-class job in my field. Finally my wife won’t have to work so hard. Finally, we won’t be poor. They want to destroy all that because I posted on a blog and they didn’t like it.

To be clear, I never stalked anyone. I never took this Internet quarrel outside of Dailykos and Twitter, and few posts here at SHG. But there’s no limit to how far they’ll take it. They want to see me suffer financially. They want my family to suffer. They literally want me dead or in jail. And are taking the first steps to do that.

So Hubbard Squash and anything linked to that identity is gone forever. Any political activism, outside of local stuff I didn’t talk about on the Internet, is gone forever too. To protect my family from those who want to harm them.

Sorry for any trouble I caused at SHG. But I’m gone from the political Internet. For good. Because the most important character I play is that of being my wife’s husband. She needs me. Not in jail because some vindictive assholes gamed the system to put me there.

I have to protect my family above all else. So goodbye, and thanks for all the fish. At SHG you treated me with respect, and I’ll remember that.

Bill Maher ended his show tonight by going after the “nitwits” of the Open Carry movement and their belief that bringing a gun to a public place with “sane people’ who might freak out about seeing those guns is just a reasonable show of support for their Second Amendment rights.

Renault’s engines are a huge FAIL and threaten everyone who uses them with 5 position grid penalties for the rest of the season.  Red Bull is threatening to sue.  Both drivers have been through 3 engines, transmissions, and kinetic energy units and Vettel has ripped through 4 engine control systems (3 for Ricciardo).  And this is race 7 of 19.  Kobayashi has already picked up a 5 Grid penalty this weekend which is not very effective since he was already starting 20th.  Gutierrez was unable to Qualify at all due to chassis damage.

Hamilton and Rosberg are feuding over Rosberg deliberately bringing out a Yellow at Monaco costing Hamilton the pole and the win.

Caterham is on the auction block and there is a great debate among the teams over further budget caps.  Haas Racing will definitely not field a car during the 2015 season and will stick with their plans for a 2016 debut.

While like Monaco the walls are very close, instead of being the slowest this is one of the fastest tracks.  On offer are Softs and Super Softs with about a 1 second per lap advantage.  They’ve just signed a new 10 year contract for the venue.

• Formula One Official Website

• Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
• Formula One Interactive Track

Pretty tables below.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on image to enlarge

June 8 is the 159th day of the year (160th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 206 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1776, Canadian Governor Sir Guy Carleton defeats American Patriot forces under John Sullivan, who were already in retreat from Quebec toward Montreal.

After General Richard Montgomery’s early success in Montreal, he and Colonel Benedict Arnold attempted to take Quebec in the middle of the night between December 31, 1775 and January 1, 1776. Montgomery lost his life and Arnold was wounded in the action; half of their men were also lost to death, injury or capture and Quebec remained in British control. The colonists’ ill-conceived, pre-emptive attack on Canada ended in disaster. Instead of winning French Canadians to the Patriot cause, it led only to a huge loss of life among Patriot forces.

The Battle of Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers in English) was fought on June 8, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. A British army under Quebec Governor Guy Carleton defeated an attempt by units from the Continental Army under the command of Brigadier General William Thompson to stop a British advance up the Saint Lawrence River valley. The battle occurred as a part of the American colonists’ invasion of Quebec, which had begun in September 1775 with the goal of “liberating” the province from British rule.

The crossing of the Saint Lawrence by the American troops was observed by Quebec militia, who alerted British troops at Trois-Rivières. A local farmer led the Americans into a swamp, enabling the British to land additional forces in the village, and to establish positions behind the American army. After a brief exchange between an established British line and American troops emerging from the swamp, the Americans broke into a somewhat disorganized retreat. As some avenues of retreat were cut off, the British took a sizable number of prisoners, including General Thompson and much of his staff.

This was the last major battle fought on Quebec soil. Following the defeat, the remainder of the American forces, under the command of John Sullivan, retreated, first to Fort Saint-Jean, and then to Fort Ticonderoga.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re an outspoken, whip-smart, glittering (especially psychodrew) group of rebel lefties who hang out and croon, sip on martinis, pat ourselves on the back, rub elbows with the connected and the disconnected, and generally enjoy being ourselves and being with one another.  At times we may get ourselves into some trouble because we can be as pointed as we are insanely charismatic. That’s why you love us, that’s why you keep coming back.  Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our glamorous, exciting lives and to make fun of LaEscapee. If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.  If anything, ever, goes wrong, you can be sure Phil had a hand in it.

This Day in History

This bit was posted at Voices on the Square, The Stars Holllow Gazette, Docudharma, and Daily Kos.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on this Sunday’s “This Week” are: House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI): Seattle Mayor Ed Murray (D);  FiveThirtyEight.com editor-in-chief and ABC News special contributor Nate Silver; and a preview of Diane Sawyer’s exclusive interview with Hillary Clinton.

At the roundtable are Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK); ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd; Fusion’s “AM Tonight” host Alicia Menendez; former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D); Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot; and editor and publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests are: Senate Intelligence Committee chairperson Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA); and journalist David Rohde.

His panel guests are Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times; Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal; David Gergen of Harvard University; and Michael Gerson of The Washington Post.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: This Sunday’s dancing contest with “Lurch” is preempted for the Men’s Final of the French Open.

Must more interesting and better eye candy.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guest are Secretary Of State John Kerry; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Three retired generals will debate the fine line with “bringing them all home” and “never negotiate with a terrorist”. They are retired Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who has kept in touch with the Bergdahl family; retired Lt. Gen. William Boykin; and retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton.

Her panel guests are Donna Brazile, Jackie Calmes and Ana Navarro.

Brazil Olympics: Rio bay ‘will not be clean for 2016’

 8 June 2014 Last updated at 01:29

 BBC

Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes has said that the Brazilian city will not be able to clean the polluted bay where Olympic sailing competitions will be held before the 2016 Games.

Brazil had made a commitment to reduce pollution in the Guanabara Bay by 80%.

But Mr Paes admitted that the target would not be met.

He regretted the missed opportunity but told the AP news agency that the pollution didn’t pose a risk to the health of athletes.

Olympic sailors who visited Rio de Janeiro recently described the bay as an open sewer.