He is easily the most obnoxious personality on Food Network.
Well, if you exclude Mario Batali whom it turns out had Picasso-like relationships with the females in his life. Still, he made you think Italian cooking was totally possible in his presentation though it is fair to say he didn’t emphasize quality ingredients to the extent he might have (I have recently tasted Sardines, dressed in Olive Oil with a Lemon and all y’all who think they stink like Herring ought to give them a try)
Not that I want to excuse or explain him, I learned stuff. Bobby Flay just makes me want to impose some Nickelodeon Slime on top, but they say it’s just a pose- like a WWE Wrestling Persona.
Oh yeah. Concentration Camps!
The Most Hated Politician In The United States
Ok, and here’s where the age thing comes into play (at 120+ I’m older than Joe Carson), I was 19 years old when Mitch McConnell was elected
when the man dances, certainly, boys, what else? The piper pays him!
He’s a music man and he sells clarinets
to the kids in the town with the big trombones
and the rat-a-tat drums, big brass bass, big brass bass,
and the piccolo, the piccolo with uniforms, too
with a shiny gold braid on the coat and a big red stripe runnin’…
Well, I don’t know much about bands but I do know
you can’t make a living selling big trombones, no sir.
Mandolin picks, perhaps and here and there a Jew’s harp…
No, the fellow sells bands, Kids’ bands.
I don’t know how he does it but he lives like a king
and he dallies and he gathers and he plucks and he shines and…
Yes, sir. Yes sir.
Harold Hill was a bit beyond my ability as an artist, though I do a killer Ralph Rackstraw.
Rather a more #MeToo interpretation than I offered but mine was chaste enough. I got the gig not because I was warm for Josephine (which I totally was) but because I was more Tenor than anyone else in the cast. The Captain gets all the good songs and Ralph dances around like a dofus in the chorus. Ugh. Always Herod, never Pilate or Judas or any of the good parts.
Yes, Casanova! I can be charming and whimsical if that’s what you’re looking for though I think I much more resemble Dash Hammett and am enigmatic and inscrutable.
I’m certainly a librarian. Have been since 7th grade. There is nothing at all about that statement which is sexual, I knew Dewey and didn’t much like spending crowded periods staring at a clock in a sweaty classroom because there weren’t (coined 1691) enough teachers to occupy my mind.
Anarchy!
There are all kinds of ways to stage Gilbert and Sullivan. I think I’ll try exploring some.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
A shooting rampage takes place at the University of Texas clock tower; Germany declares war on Russia in World War I; Adolf Hitler opens the Berlin Olympics; Author Herman Melville born; MTV debuts.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The religious fundamentalists of the Republican party are a mirror image of the religious fundamentalists of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.
The Treasury Department said on Wednesday that it was imposing sanctions on Zarif for acting on behalf of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Javad Zarif implements the reckless agenda of Iran’s Supreme Leader, and is the regime’s primary spokesperson around the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Hong Kong protests: China military breaks silence to warn unrest should not be tolerated
Chinese military garrison chief in Hong Kong says army is determined to protect China’s sovereignty, stoking fears of intervention
The head of the Chinese army in Hong Kong has spoken on the protests for the first time, saying the unrest has “seriously threatened the life and safety” of the people and should not be tolerated.
The commander of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison in Hong Kong warned it was “determined to protect national sovereignty, security, stability and the prosperity of Hong Kong”.
The remarks were made by Chen Daoxiang on Wednesday at a reception celebrating the 92nd anniversary of the PLA. They came the day after 43 protesters were charged with rioting and released on bail. Some of those charged were as young as 16 and included a Cathay Pacific pilot.
Germany expresses ‘deep shame’ for Nazi destruction of Poland
At an event marking the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, Germany recognized its moral responsibility for Nazi wartime atrocities in Poland. But Foreign Minister Heiko Maas ruled out financial reparations.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Wednesday said Berlin feels moral responsibility for Nazi Germany’s devastation of Poland. He made the comments during a visit to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.
“For what was done to Poland by Germans and in the name of Germany, you can only feel deep shame,” Maas said during joint press conference with Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz.
DR Congo Ebola epidemic spreads as second Goma patient dies, third case is confirmed
An Ebola epidemic in eastern DR Congo sharply widened Wednesday, the eve of the first anniversary of the outbreak, with one death and another diagnosis reported and the quarantining of 15 people in a previously unaffected province.
A total of 1,803 lives have been lost in the second worst outbreak of Ebola on record, according to figures released Wednesday.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s pointman on the crisis, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, said a second person had died of Ebola in Goma, a densely-populated city on the border with Rwanda that has transport links to many parts of East Africa.
When Trump Tweets, the Editor of ‘China’s Fox News’ Hits Back
Inside a bustling, 700-person newsroom in downtown Beijing, Hu Xijin leads a 24-hour propaganda machine that some media scholars call China’s Fox News.
Mr. Hu was one of the first to defend China’s vast detention of Muslims against international criticism. His newspaper has described Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as crazy. Thirty years ago, he marched with students on Tiananmen Square demanding democracy in China, but now he is a leading critic of protesters in Hong Kong who have been resisting Chinese rule.
2 lawmakers with serious disabilities attend 1st Diet session
By Kazuhiro Nogi
Two lawmakers with serious paralysis took their seats in the Diet’s upper house on Thursday to cheers from supporters, marking the first time people with severe disabilities have served in the body.
Yasuhiko Funago and Eiko Kimura won seats last month in the upper house election and their use of special reclining wheelchairs has required modifications to the Diet.
The pair both rely on caretakers for support, and their election has highlighted the fact that Japan only pays for such care if the disabled person is not working.
The first night of CNN’s Democratic debate in Detroit drew 8.7 million television viewers, a steep drop from last month’s event hosted by NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo.
The June event brought in 15.3 million viewers across the three networks on night one, with 18.1 million tuning in for the second night, a Democratic primary record.
Digital viewership was also down for Tuesday night, with CNN announcing that 2.8 million watched via livestream. NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo said they drew more than 9 million livestream viewers on the first debate night in June.
The TV networks that sponsored last month’s Democratic debate had the advantage of being first, when viewers would surely be curious to see the sprawling field onstage, and also of airing across broadcast, cable and Spanish-language television. Viewership can also be expected to decrease in the middle of the summer, with the final two days in July a tough slot to draw eyeballs.
Still, it’s a significant decrease and follows the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, touting ratings last month as evidence of enthusiasm in the party. “People understand that democracy is not a spectator sport,” he told POLITICO in Miami.
CNN’s moderators on Tuesday tried to avoid some of the onstage interruptions and cross-talk of last month’s debate by rigidly enforcing time limits, a strategy that kept down the chatter but also drew criticism for abruptly cutting off the candidates.
I recently visited over seas.
Laugh all you like, I crossed bodies of water big enough to display Earth curvature by boat and the large amount I swallowed was distinctly salty. I keenly felt the boot heel of oppression when CBP, after looking at my Passport said “Smile for me. You were smiling in the picture.”
That is so funny. Mind you I’m pretty sure I’ll get away with my nefarious deeds like smuggling firewood because I look like every other White ‘Murikan in a Bucket Cap, Driving Aviators, Flamingo Shirt, and Shorts.
Yes, exactly like Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke, Doctor of Journalism.
Anyway the worst part of the trip was that CNN was the only consistent source of U.S. News and everyone watched it and thought it was normal (yes, this was even worse than Tim Hortons).
Folks, MSNBC is bad, CNN might as well be Faux Noise. It’s awful, and not in the good way like Niagra Falls.
Still you might want to tune in to see if they shove a stick up Joe Carson’s butt like a repeat of Heston’s El Cid, they’ll certainly try.
Harris needs do nothing, Booker needs to score or he’s done (good riddance to a corporatist). It won’t be a useless waste of time, entirely, but you might want to sign up to the CBS free streaming trial and binge Star Trek and The Good Fight.
Pondering 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 “Pondering the Pundits”.
These two-night spectacles make it impossible to take stock of the Democratic presidential field.
I hate to diminish political debates with sports analogies, but the hoped-for contest of ideas was no contest. CNN did its best to introduce drama into the proceedings and certainly encouraged the centrists to beat up on the progressives—Warren and Sanders—who also happen to be polling the highest of everybody on stage. We know what they were doing: using those centrists as a stand-in for former vice president Joe Biden, who wasn’t there. It’s hard not to conclude, after the moderators gave the centrists so much help, that they’re all in low single digits for a reason: They aren’t making plausible cases for their candidacies.[..]
An unintended consequence of this formula—randomly distributing the qualifying candidates over two nights—is that the night with the strongest candidates dominates media coverage. Last month and this month too, that was the second debate. It’s just chance, but it means Warren and Sanders’s joint victory will likely be forgotten as we all analyze what went on in Wednesday’s clash. (Also by chance, last night was all white; on Wednesday, five of 10 candidates are people of color.)
We’ve still got six months until the Iowa caucuses, so realistically, there’s plenty of time for a clash of the Democratic titans, even many clashes. On the other hand, life is too short—and the nation too imperiled—to have to endure more nights of contrived controversy ginned up by hopeless candidates or desperate debate moderators.
In his congressional testimony last week, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III once again confirmed the seriousness of Moscow’s attack on our democracy in the 2016 presidential election. Yet that wasn’t even the most important news for those of us who track Russian election interference.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has just published the first section of its report on Russian efforts to influence the election. The bipartisan panel’s report has made headlines by showing that the Russians probably targeted elections systems in all 50 states in 2016. That calculated operation was designed not only to help Trump but also to undermine American democracy more generally.
You’d think this report would give President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) the perfect reason to support new legislation designed to enhance the security of our elections infrastructure in 2020. As the bipartisan report makes evident, enhancing cybersecurity for our election infrastructure is not a partisan issue — it’s an issue of national security. Department of Homeland Security representatives told the committee “there wasn’t a clear red state-blue state-purple state, more electoral votes, less electoral votes” pattern. So far, though, there is little sign that Trump and McConnell are paying attention.
Unqualified Texas congressman could be a second Matt Whitaker — but he’s still part of Trump’s massive cover-up
By this time no one should be surprised when Donald Trump hires a partisan hack to do a previously independent job in a vital government agency. After all, that’s been his habit from the beginning. To the extent there were ever any nonpartisan Cabinet members or top advisers, it has been because he simply didn’t know what the job entailed.
Trump fired both former FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions for being insufficiently loyal. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis were effectively forced out for failing to properly toe his line. Since Trump really doesn’t have an agenda beyond harassing immigrants and economic intimidation, the only real criteria at this point in his presidency is whether or not officials will do whatever it takes to protect him personally from myriad legal scandals and possible electoral defeat. Basically, the only job of the Trump administration for the next 15 months is to perpetrate a full-time cover-up.
Robert Mueller’s report followed by his live testimony to Congress last week, made one thing very clear: The Russian government interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump in a number of ways, from propaganda to stealing personal emails and dumping them on the internet to probing the election systems in all 50 states. All of this was based upon information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies and allies across the globe.
President Trump has said many a ridiculous thing. But his South Lawn growl about Baltimore, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), corruption and “thousands of phone calls from African Americans” was the Burj Khalifa of bull. Nothing epitomized that more than when he said, “I’m the least racist person you’ll find anywhere in the world.”
Okay, saying you’re “the least racist person” is an admission to some racism. But who are we kidding? If you didn’t burst out laughing at the assertion, you don’t know what racism is. [..]
No matter how much he denies it, the president of the United States is a racist. We see it. We hear it. We know what racism is.
Racial issues will likely be front and center again, as Joe Biden will be flanked by Cory Booker and Kamala Harris
Despite being oriented largely around dry policy concerns, such as health care, the first night of CNN’s Democratic debates in Detroit was gangbusters TV. Both Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts nimbly batted away attacks from centrist candidates who functioned mainly as stand-ins for former Vice President Joe Biden, the current frontrunner in the Democratic primary race and the only candidate with a timid policy agenda who is polling well.
But while Biden was mostly there in spirit, with his views being poorly represented by also-ran former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, he will be available in face and body during Wednesday night’s debate. There’s good reason to imagine the debate will be as dramatic as the one from the night before, even if Warren and Sanders, Biden’s fiercest critics, won’t be there.
That’s because Biden will stand on stage flanked by Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, the two African-American candidates in the 2020 field. Both Booker and Harris have spent recent weeks of this campaign leveling pointed criticisms at Biden over his ’70s-era relationships with old-school Southern Dixiecrats, his opposition to school desegregation efforts from that era, and his support for harsh criminal justice policies that have disproportionately affected people of color.
I am voting for Marianne Williamson. Don’t try to argue me out of it, she is definitely the kind of motivational speaker we need to feel good about having burned the planet to a cinder and causing the largest global extinction since oxygen exhaling plants poisoned about every other species.
Still working for Mike Gravel though. He has gumption.
CNN is making it difficult to give you the full stream which was far more amazing than the season finale of… The Bachelorette?
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Ranger 7 beams lunar pictures; France’s Marquis de Lafayette makes his name in the American Revolution; Thomas Eagleton withdraws as George McGovern’s running mate; Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
North Korea fires two ballistic missiles as South Korea bristles
Two projectiles flew about 250km as Pyongyang intensifies pressure on the US to start up new denuclearisation talks.
North Korea conducted its second weapons test in less than a week on Wednesday, firing two short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast in a move observers say could be aimed at boosting pressure on the United States to set up new denuclearisation talks.
The projectiles were launched early from the Hodo Peninsula in South Hamgyong province on North Korea’s east coast, according to South Korea’s military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
‘A cop said I was famous’: China accuses foreigners in Hong Kong of being ‘agents’
Chinese state media and pro-Beijing lawmakers post images of westerners to stoke suspicions of ‘external forces’
Westerners living in Hong Kong are being targeted online by China’s state-owned media and local pro-Beijing politicians who have accused them of stoking demonstrations that have now run into their eighth week.
Images showing foreign workers at the site of protests are being circulated, sometimes alongside speculative text questioning why they are there.
Some images have been circulated so widely that one foreign worker and long-term Hong Kong resident said he was now recognised in the street, including by police. “I now sometimes have to pose for CIA selfies with protesters,” he said, referring to a post which asked if he was a member of US intelligence.
Chicago shooting deaths: Outcry as anti-gun violence mothers shot dead while campaigning
Two women who campaigned against Chicago’sinfamous gun violence have themselves been shot and killed on a street corner where activists frequently stood to keep watch.
The anti-gun violence group Mothers Against Senseless Killings (MASK) confirmed Chantell Grant and Andrea Stoudemire were killed after a blue SUV pulled up to the corner, and someone in the vehicle opened fired into the crowd.
“People are tired of being afraid. We’re sick of being afraid. We live in these communities and then we somehow are penalised and punished for living here. If you’re poor, you’re poor,” said MASK founder Tamar Manasseh.
Vilification and the language of villainy
US and Iran, short memories
Western media have demonised Iran for 40 years, especially in the US. A selective memory of recent history greatly helps the tone and content of that demonisation.
by Serge Halimi & Pierre Rimbert
Imagine an Iranian drone had been shot down over Florida or just off its coast. Rather than arguing about its exact position, we would surely be shocked at its presence 11,000km from Iran. But on 20 June, Iran downed a US drone that had come close to its territory (according to the Pentagon) or violated its airspace (according to Tehran), and almost nobody asked if the US military presence in the Persian Gulf was justified.
Gregory Shupak, a media expert at the University of Guelph-Humber in Canada, warns that in the current escalation between the US and Iran, ‘presenting Iran as a threat, nuclear or otherwise, over and over again, carries the clear message that it must be confronted … It’s much more accurate to say that the US is a threat to Iran than the opposite; after all, it’s the US government that is destroying Iran’s economy through sanctions that limit Iranians’ access to food and medicine, while surrounding Iran with military bases and land, sea and air forces. Iran has done nothing remotely comparable to the US’ (1).
The Brazilian justice minister’s dubious deportation decree
Justice Minister Sergio Moro wants Brazil to deport “dangerous foreigners.” Observers believe that the threat is aimed at the US journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose Intercept has aggressively reported on Moro’s conduct.
On Friday, Justice Minister Sergio Moro issued a decree, provocatively titled No. 666, that would expedite the deportation of noncitizens whom the government alleges pose a threat to Brazil — or even bar them from entering the country at all. Many observers call the timing curious.
“Nothing has happened in Brazil that would warrant such a decree,” Tania Maria de Oliveira, of the ABJD jurist association, told DW.
Kyoto Animation confirms it received novel from writer with same name, address as arson suspect
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24
The July 18 arson attack on Kyoto Animation’s Fushimi studio has resulted in the deaths of 35 employees who were in the building at the time the arsonist struck. Though the building was compliant with all local fire codes, such regulations are largely designed as precautions for accidental fires, not the sort of pre-meditated attack that was carried out on the anime production company.
Based on security camera footage and witness reports, investigators believe that the suspect, 41-year-old Shinji Aoba, purchased two 20-liter canisters of gasoline at a gas station, the wheeled them to the studio on a hand cart before igniting them inside the building, and also spraying the flame accelerant directly on victims.
The pre-meditated nature of the attack suggests a grudge against the company and/or its employees, and as Aoba was taken into custody by police he was heard to have shouted “They ripped me off” and “They stole my novel, so I set the fire.” Following the attack, Kyoto Animation CEO Hideaki Hatta said: “I have no idea what he’s talking about,” and that he had never had any written or spoken communication with Aoba.
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