Monday, February 29, 2016

KLEM FM


Keith Richards wrote that song 50 years ago and it was released in early 1967.  According to Wiki, there is some dispute concerning the late Brian Jones' contributions. That is Jones playing the recorder.

WRLEM-TV: Marco Rubio has a rally in Texas and a Dance party breaks out!

Scooby Doo who are you!


Scrappy Doo: Scrappy-Dappy-Doo!
Scooby Doo: Hey!
Scrappy Doo: Trolls don't stand a chance with me! Let me at em. I'll rock 'em and sock 'em. I give them what for. I post and I post and I don't care how many times I get deleted.
Fred: Scrappy, for the thousandth time, there's no such things as Trolls on this blog! Don't bring your nonsense over here. We are here for a reason. To stay away from you.
Scrappy Doo: Sure there are, and when I find them I'll give them a good of puppy power!
[Urinates on Daphne]
Scrappy Doo: Ta-da!
Daphne: Oh God. He's peeing on me!
Fred: Don't worry. He does that on every thread. 

Like a Doll's Eye!


Quint: [Quint first scratches the chalk board to get everyone's attention] Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this Trump for you and improve your blog, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad Commentors. Talking about things that interest them in their own voice. Not like going down the pond chasin' bluegills and tommycods. This Trump, swallow your blog whole. Little shakin', little tenderizin', an' down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back your tourists, put all your businesses on a payin' basis.  But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my self-important sense of myself over any sort of good fellowship. I'll find the sweet spot for you blog, but I'll decrease the number of comments, and just give you people who think the way I think. All one of them. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's just too many captains on this island. These peons are just not as smart as me. I am a world travel who got parking tickets on three continents. Because I am a driver. Just obey me and my opinions for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the toupee, the whole damn Trump. And all the reality show rubes who kiss his puffy ass will be gone. Giving clicks and comments on some other blog.

"Stacey Dash Oscar Appearance did not flop.... "



Hollywood wants to envision itself like Rudy Huxtable’s playgroup – they want their actors and actresses to be Asian, black, redheaded or blond. They want the illusion of diversity, tolerance and open- mindedness, even though they’re much less ideologically diverse than your average suburban megachurch. As Hollywood grapples with its “diversity problem,” they are aspiring to add minorities to major roles.

That still misses the point.

Yes, black actors and actresses should have more roles. (Take a note from Hamilton the musical, guys.) But, if you have a Hollywood cast that looks different and THINKS EXACTLY THE SAME, that’s not real diversity. Chris Rock pointed it out quite nicely last night during his opening monologue.
Now, I remember one night I was at a fundraiser for President Obama, a lot of you were there, and, you know, it’s me and all of Hollywood. And all the, you know, it’s all of us there and there’s about four black people there, me, let’s see, Quincy Jones, Russell Simmons, Questlove, you know, the usual suspects, right? And every black actor that wasn’t working. Needless to say, Kevin Hart was not there, okay? So, at some point, you get to take a picture with the President.
And as they’re setting up the picture, you get a little moment with the president, I’m like, “Mr. President, you see all these writers and producers and actors? They don’t hire black people. And they’re the nicest white people on earth. They’re liberals.”
So, in their absolute thirst for different varieties of skin tone, they miss out on the one type of diversity that would make it truly interesting: ideological diversity. What if, for example, white Hollywood liberals aren’t the “nicest white people on earth?” Since Rock and his friends probably don’t ever come in contact with conservatives, they’d never know. Last night, you witnessed a rare instances when they did encounter a conservative, and that’s when their ‘open-mindedness’ really kicks in.

That’s what made America cringe as they watched the Oscars last night. It wasn’t a joke that fell flat, it was a moment that revealed just how unwilling Hollywood is to embrace anyone who thinks differently.

Kasich courtesy phone


This is news: Justice Thomas asks questions in court, 1st time in 10 years

Thomas' questions came Monday in case in which the court is considering placing new limits on the reach of a federal law that bans people convicted of domestic violence from owning guns.
Thomas asked the Justice Department lawyer defending the government's prosecution whether the violation of any other law suspends a person's constitutional rights.

Joe Scarborough: “I mean is he really so stupid that he thinks Southerners aren’t offended by the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke?"

Excerpt:

"It’s breathtaking. That is disqualifying right there. To say you don’t know about the Ku Klux Klan? You don’t know about David Duke?" the co-host said during the opening segment of the show after remarking upon Trump's feigned ignorance of the group and Duke during an interview with CNN on Sunday, two days after he explicitly disavowed the group in a news conference.

The "most stunning thing" about the latest development, said Scarborough, a southerner himself, is that the latest maneuver "isn’t buying him a single vote."

“I mean is he really so stupid that he thinks Southerners aren’t offended by the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke? Is he really so ignorant of Southern voters that he thinks this is the way to their heart — to go neutral, to play Switzerland when you’re talking about the Klan?" Scarborough asked. "And to say he doesn’t know enough information about the Klan to condemn them — exactly what does Donald Trump expect to learn in the next 24 hours about the Klan.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/joe-scarborough-donald-trump-kkk-219950#ixzz41ZLpcfTw

Oscar Winners 2016

These are the winners of the 88th annual Academy Awards.
Best Picture: “Spotlight
Direction: “The Revenant,” Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Revenant”
Actress: Brie Larson, “Room”
Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance, “Bridge of Spies”
Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, “The Danish Girl”
Did you watch? Want to tell us your impressions. Please do.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

WKRLEM-TV: Bags finds out that Trump was elected President!


Why did I have to miss out on the finale of Downton because of this bullshit commie Oscar nonsense!

super lice


Eliot Ness talks about immigrants!

This is a job for the Untouchables.



“Ricco, Youngblood, Lee. Let’s go. We are going to get Trump. Taxes. The same way we got Capone. We need to get him to release his taxes. We have to go over them with a fine tooth comb. He doesn’t use a comb. I think he takes his hair off and sends it out to be dry-cleaned. So we need to do it. There has to be something there. I just know it.

I bet there is a lot to find. Where he contribute to charity. He doesn't give to Vets groups like he says he does. I do know he founded a school for wayward Eastern European models with larger than a D cup. I think he calls it the Jenny McCarthy House. Plus he donates his used Trump Toupees to Habitat for Humanity. I think they use them to thatch huts or something. The rest of contributions would also be very interesting. We need to humiliate him if his cheap or out him if he ever gave to a cause that subsequently became unpopular.

Most of all we have to check his Mob ties. Just because every business in New York has Mob Ties doesn't mean anything. If he has any receipts from the Shop Right Supermarket chain we got him. Everybody knows they are owned by the Gambinos.  If he bought concrete thirty years ago from a Mob Concrete Company when they were they only concrete companies in business well we got him! In fact if his mother bought an Artichoke in 1942 he is ours since everyone knows that Ciro Terranova owned the artichoke business. He has Mob ties. I know it. Let’s go over his tax returns. He can’t issue a summary like Rubio or Cruz or Mittens. We have to look up his asshole to see what we can find. Nobody wants to do that to Rubio. God knows it is too crowded up in there.

Get the accountants and let’s get to work boys. We finally got him. Trump is going down. What? Shut up Marco. Nobody wants you to go down on anybody. Save it for South Beach. Let's go.”

It's Not Rocket Science

"You know, I plan on traveling to the Moon at some time."
 ~ Wernher von Braun (1930)

It seems fitting that Trump will announce the endorsement of Sen. Jeff Sessions at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama where Wernher von Braun led a team of rocket scientists (initially all Germans). Von Braun  essentially drove our space program from the end of WW II through the Cold War. He is credited with inventing both the V-2 and Saturn V rockets.

But wasn't von Braun also a nasty foreigner who took STEM jobs away from Americans? Unfortunately for us, Robert Goddard had died. We have always attracted or taken (in von Braun's case) the very best scientific talent and probably always will. Years ago, I worked at a well-known science institute here in SoCal.  One day, an eminent chemistry professor named Sir Derek H. R. Barton, PhD, FRS, paid a visit. Now Sir Derek (RIP) had an interesting history. Schooled in Britain in her post war days, he made unprecedented contributions to the field of organic chemistry (you can read details here). After reaching mandatory retirement age in Britain, Barton left England to continue working, moving first to France and then eventually to Texas, that bastion of free enterprise.

I forget Sir Derek's lecture topic that day and my notes are buried somewhere, currently irretrievable. What stands out in my mind was his effusive praise for his graduate students and postdocs -- especially his Chinese ones. Not for their cleverness nor for their contributions -- for Sir Derek had an ego the size of Donald Trump's. Rather, he praised their willingness to work around the clock and through weekends for him for very little money. I still recall his quaint description of their microwaved noodle breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And I remember thinking "this is who will rule the world." That was around 1997 or 1998.

Like A Doll's Eye!

“You were at the debate? What happened?”
“Macro Rubio slammed two torpedoes into the SS Trump, Chief. We was comin' back from that terrible loss in South Carolina... just dropped like a bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred million in Super Pac Money went into the water. The Bush Campaign went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the Donald Trump coming for about a half an year. Tiger. Asshole. Reality star.
Thirteen footer. Of pure bullshit. You know... you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, at least at his toupee... it is a dead giveaway. I have lived all over the world. It’s not like I lived on one block all my life. I have traveled. I even know how to drive. A car. A boat. A golf ball. Everything except a nail. I hire Mexicans for that. Sailed the seven seas. B'cause my missions had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent to anyone, huh. I know everything but I can’t school all of you fools. I can only bomb one blog at a time. So when I didn’t attack that reality star asshole they didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The Trumplets come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the Battle of Waterloo. The elitists. The Republican establishment. The small businessmen who exploit illegal aliens. The conservative pundits who Trump refuses to consult. The Neocons who never saw a war they didn’t want to start. And the idea was, the Trump goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the Trump and the Trumplets would go away and attack someone else.

"Boy awakes from coma addicted to cheese and swearing"

Independent: Doctors were forced to put Kai Thomas in a coma while he recovered from a brain bleed last year, and though he eventually regained the ability to move and speak he was left with two bizarre side effects (also ones I experience from time to time when drunk).
"He's addicted to cheese and he can't stop swearing," his mum Tracey told the Daily Mail.
"One day I was in the kitchen, when I heard Kai yelling in his bedroom," she added.
"He was screaming 'F*ck, bastard, sh*t'. I wondered what on earth was going on - the expletives were coming thick and fast."
She headed upstairs and found her son chowing down on a wheel of cheese. She's since noticed more of it going missing from the fridge.
"He had always liked cheese but now he was obsessed with it - he even added it to his cereal," Mrs Thomas said. (read more)

KLEM FM


Overheard at Althouse:
Chuck said...
I'd like everybody who cheers the end of the Republican Party do me a favor; stay the fuck out of Republican primaries. If you don't like the Party, fine. Get your own party. Just don't come to the Republican Party, insult Republican donors and Republican incumbents who were all elected with solid majorities and in some cases against great opposition in purple states, and expect to be treated nicely.

"Making the case for president Trump"

Ex-CIA chief: Armed forces would have to disobey Trump.

Instapundit: See, if a black (or female) Democratic president gave an unlawful order, they’d follow it anyway so as not to be called racist or sexist. So if you’re worried about executive misbehavior, you’ve got to vote for the white male Republican.

Here’s the exchange:
Maher brought up Trump’s pledge to kill family members of Islamic State terrorists. “That never even occurred to you, right?” Maher deadpanned.
“God, no!” Hayden exclaimed. “Let me give you a punchline: If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act.”
Maher responded incredulously, “What? Well, that’s quite a statement, sir.”
“You cannot—you are not committed, you are not required, in fact you’re required to not follow an unlawful order,” Hayden replied. “That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”
“You’ve given us a great reason not to support Trump. There would be a coup in this country,” Maher cracked.
Hayden said he was not sure about “a coup.”
“I think it’s a coup that you said it,” Maher said.
It’s certainly something.

Woman police killed first day on the job


Link to story

Separated At Birth?


What's the old saw? Old men (and women) all look alike just like babies do?

I swear to Blog* that I thought that was a photo of Jerry Brown when I first clicked on it.

Why is Biden in town for the Oscars?
_____________
*h/t Ruth Anne

WKRLEM Marco has a new campaign song



Saturday night music video


Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out (Live)

Saturday, February 27, 2016

WKLEM_TV Which way will the Election bounce!


You know I would be perfectly happy with the right woman as President.

Just sayn'

Whose that girl?



There are two big reasons to remember her.

First she was one of the adorable stars of a beloved family sitcom of the eighties. Her co-stars were much more famous and desired but she grew up to be a beautiful woman.

Second she is starring in a revival that puts her best ......errr.....features forward every episode.

Don't be rude dude. Tell us. Whose that girl?

The Case of the Well Oiled Politician


My dear Holmes,

It is your most humble petitioner, Inspector Lestrade. It has been some time since I have stopped requesting assistance in the troubling matter of the disappearance of Lord Douchebag which you might not recall as it happened several years ago. That curious case had dragged on and on but is now considered dead. It seems to have escaped the notice of so many who at one time claimed the deepest interest and concern, but who have gone on as though nothing had happened. It is as though Lord Douchebag never existed. We can close the books on that unfortunate subject. So it falls to me to solicit your assistance in an entirely different matter.

As you know new elections have been called in Parliament for the spring. It seems that the Earl of Roseberry means to be a candidate once more. He is favored by the Queen for reasons we need not elaborate other than they are both described with the same honorific. Her Majesty because of her title and the Earl because of his inclination. In fact he is the favorite of much of the establishment because he is malleable and corrupt which is what they seek in leadership. The Yard has determined that he has used government accounts to enrich himself while selling his country seat to a military supplier for a suspiciously high profit. In addition he has obtained a naval frigate at a nominal price which had been declared salvage by an Admiralty clerk who obtained his position by the Earl’s good offices. Yet this is not the problem.

"Bill Clinton snaps at veteran during speech: ‘Shut up and listen to my answer’"


Link to story

…then he nailed me to the chair with a rat-a-tat grilling

"What should I call my next project? Celestia? Empyrean? Royal Imperial Regal? He must run that routine on every visitor. 
This is "the Sign Lady" telling her story on NY Daily News, a woman contractor who came into contact with the deadbeat Trump. She tells about her unhappy interaction with Trump and how she managed to get him to pay his bills owed her. Virginia Postrel pointed to this sub hosting at pjmedia.

The story puts us in Trumps office. He told her to show up at that specific time. She went there to challenge him about paying up. He dismissed all that as matters for clerks and went on with his style of questioning instead. This is the moment in reading the story that matched up with something else unrelated that's been lingering for days. It's been bugging the hell out of me. This trait in Trump matches with traits shown by friends repeatedly.

I'm not talking or thinking about Trump anymore. I'm bringing it home, what he did there is corrective to a personal failure. I've been lingering on this for days.

On Monday two acquaintances stopped by after work for dinner. They stayed for two hours. We had a great time. They both work the next day.

I don't drink alcohol. Acquaintances are divided among non-driners and lushes. So I keep a completely stocked cabinet. Very well stocked. I'd blow your mind considering I don't drink. Whatever you might want is in there, that I could reasonably know about, it's a full garage type storage cabinet. It's ridiculous. Come over, you can have anything.

I know a good host will ask what they can get you by way of refreshing beverage. Immediately. So I do. Deena thinks and answers, "Water, please." Pleased with her decision.

That set the tone for everything.

I asked, she answered. Simple as that.

Others I know would insist. They'd make suggestions. Every negation and all uncertainty is call for further suggestion. So it goes, bing bong, hello, glad you can make it, would you like a cocktail? Would you like a glass of wine? Would you like red wine? Would you like white wine? Would you like a Cuba libre? Would you like gin and tonic? Would you like a beer? How about a soft drink? Would you like some vodka?

Before you can think you are hit with a barrage of bar drink suggestions that makes your head spin until you blurt out something to make the suggestions stop. Before you have your coat off, before you enter a room. That is the way of hosts that I've seen. That is where I utterly fail. I am to total fail host when it comes to that.

I was looking at a photo of a dinner win and realized the wine glasses are empty. We three all have our full choice of what we want and it's not wine and it's not cocktails. Even though all that stuff is right there. The Pepsi can stick out in the photo and so do empty wine glasses. My friends will see this photo and imagine dinner fail because of that. Dinner fail in the eyes of all drinking friends. They will not understand this as preference. They will understand this as hosting fail.

If a bottle of wine is to be opened, then they'd have to do it themselves because I cannot share the wine. That's what happened. That's what needs correction. They'll have to drink the whole bottle. That's not so hard. They'll have to decide to open the bottle. As if the decision is beyond me because I cannot drink it. And guests cannot do that. They're being polite. I really should have forced it. Even though they're working the next day. Anyone else that I know would have simply insisted. Just opened one of the bottles and poured it. That didn't occur to me any more than it would occur to me to roll a joint and torch it up and pass it around. It's not something I do so I didn't think of it. But when it comes to this wine at dinner I should think of it. I think. I think the pictures shows I really should behave more hostly obnoxious. As Trump does, as regular aggressive hosts do.

I'm still undecided.

Peggy Noonan: Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully....

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration. You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote.

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance.

Mr. Trump came from that. (read the whole thing)

NFL's Dante Fowler -- Refs Baby Mama Brawl


NFL star Dante Fowler -- the 3rd pick in the '15 Draft -- played the role of referee as the mother of his child brawled with another woman at a FL apartment complex.

Soldiers coming home

Click Link for more detail

Friday, February 26, 2016

Flying Scotsman

Flying Scotsman is an historic train in Britain that's been out of commission for a decade undergoing extensive refurbishing. A rail tour is prepared to display the train across the country attracting train enthusiasts in large numbers.


Let's join such a train enthusiast, Ryan Allen, who traveled fifty miles by train to get a good shot of this green Flying Scotsman as they pass each other on separate tracks at Little Bytham village. This is timed in advance by careful schedule. We join Ryan on his train as he is fraught with excitement seconds before the perfect viewing moment so carefully planned.



Bummer. That's okay. Ryan whinged on social media, the tremendously funny mishap went a bit viral, it was picked up by Branson of Virgin who compensated Ryan with a trip to Atlanta Georgia, U.S, where Branson says they have a super busy rail network. That should make him happy. Virgin apologizes for photobombing the man's big moment.  "Fancy a trip courtesy of Virgin Atlantic? Because we’d love to make you the #FlyingYorkshireman in apology!" Class.


KLEM FM


The song is from 1979 -- the penultimate year of Carter. Of course those were bad times for the US and I remember them well. I chose to escape to Italy for the summer and for part of the fall -- so long that I missed the registration deadline at UW-Madison and had to sit out a semester working full time. But enough of that.

This song goes out to all the old-enough-to-vote-but-dumb-enough-to-vote-for-Carter people. We know who we are. We missed the Reagan bandwagon.

Melania Trump's Diary



What a night! We had another debate in Texas and Donald is very upset. It seems that little Marco Rubio grew a pair and decided to play with the big boys. We know he likes to play with boys but he decided to let his bitchy side show. The nasty sweaty Queen.  It was like a Reality show. Rupaul’s Drag Race with a Spanish accent.

"Harvard ‘racial justice’ protesters protest award ceremony about … racial injustice"

The College Fix: Approximately 20 demonstrators representing Reclaim Harvard Law, which is currently occupying part of a building on Harvard’s campus, and Brandeis University’s own building-crashers Ford Hall 2015, interrupted a Brandeis awards ceremony on Thursday honoring Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow.

Ironically, Minow was being recognized for her “scholarship on race relations and legal issues.”

Also ironically, the protesters weren’t there to confront one of the theses of Minow’s presentation (titled “Bystanders, Upstanders and Justice”) – “expanding the full scope of civil liberties” beyond the public realm into the private.

They were there to tell Dean Minow “Your school is racist. Your school is not inclusive. Harvard Law School does not teach justice.” (Read More)

"Chris Christie Endorses Donald Trump"

He’s been my friend for many years, he’s been a spectacular governor,” said Mr. Trump, standing with Mr. Christie at a press conference in Fort Worth, Texas, for the endorsement.

hagwon

Like parents everywhere South Korean parents take the education of their children very seriously. In South Korea the educational system is more tightly state controlled, more totalitarian, actually, and this extends to the authorization of extracurricular tutors that appear for every subject, a very large business in South Korea in addition to formal state education. These tutorial schools are for math and science mostly, known as hagwons.

Here an American language instructor writes for Cato Institute about South Korea clamping down on private tutors like himself. One of the concerns of government is the schools not charge too much for their services.

Since the breakout artist Psy with the dance craze that he introduced, Gangnam Style, a new demand arose for dancers, a new demand for different type of hagwon has appeared and the number of dance K-pop hagwons is startling.

This is the study that South Korean children choose to cram.

This is where South Korean children choose to have their education money directed.

But not all of it is for study for career in dancing on stage. Most students are paying some few hundred dollars to cram to learn K-pop dancing just because they want to learn dancing. They're just having fun and learning to dance and that's all.

The schools come under criticism for turning out synchronized robots but that challenge misses a tremendous amount of intriguing variation.

And the thing that just kills me while watching is how expressed in another form this same synchronization is admired as with military precision in parades. Grown men practice for hours and prepare as long polishing and having absolutely every detail just so. The product is a type Sheltie-dog type of precision devoid of individuality or heartfelt humanity. This is not that. This is not bizarre jaw-rattling North Korean marching. This is its polar opposite. And there are more, dozens, scores, hundreds more studios uploaded to YouTube, endless videos of K-pop dancers and every single one of them, each team from every studio is fascinating to watch.

This is their education of their choice and their pouring their hearts into it as fanatics do.

I want to dance too.

They make me want to join them. My legs don't work anymore. I watch them with tremendous envy. I love them. Every single one.

If my daughter of my son said, "Dad, I want to go to South Korea to learn some K-pop dance." I'd go, "Here's 10,000 bucks try not to hurt yourself and have a great time."  It would be worth it to have this added to their life.

I think this will be Lia Kim at the front very first. Her's in one of several hundred such videos available on YouTube. I find them addictive.


Shit. After all that, SME.  Here, watch the f'n thing on YouTube. Now I'm cross.

But that reminds me. When the nattering nabobs of negativism proscribe cultural appropriation, the essence of cultural exchange, then this stands as counter example, and fine examples too, all the South Korean studios prefer American songs to interpret to set their dance moves. Heavily prefer American songs. And this song they're using for this video, you'll see if you click over, has me wondering, what in this song appeals to South Korean sense of music? When you consider their own cultural music. What elements in here are they really digging? They're showing us what they're picking up on by what they choose to interpret into dance. You'll notice a jaw dropping signal and robotic energy wear-downs to the beat. I must say, the whole thing altogether is brilliant.

Buttons

The icons are speaking but sometimes they say too much. Don't listen. Or hear them but then have them shut up. 

It's sillier than you might think because it appears to be inaccessibly technical and complex. The engineers are saying the button is important by placing it next to on/off in a short array of small buttons it is first. So there's that. That's what the engineers are saying, "this function is important."

The second thing the button says is "I control exposure compensation" and that is all. Nothing more can be read into it. Even though it offers more symbols. Surely it is telling us more. No, it is not. 

It does not say positive for darkness and negative for lightness. It is not making a suggestion one way or another. It is not saying which direction positive and negative go, toward light or darkness or from light or darkness. The position of the plus and minus symbols within the new icon is arbitrary. The button is not making any suggestion regarding what you want or what you have. The icon designer was not thinking of that. All they were thinking is "this is the exposure compensation control."  Too bad. 


When you get into it you'll be pressing minus for less exposure and darker photos and you'll be pressing plus for more exposure and lighter photos. The opposite of what the button shows.

Photograph from BMW photo via Google images [nikon exposure button

This lesson in semiotics is a continuing service of Lem's Comonocreerendios.

KLEM TV


Q: How can a victim of eminent domain be against paying the Federal Income Tax?

I mean, I thought the eminent domain meanies were the tax scofflaws.

Last night's GOP debate highlights

Thursday, February 25, 2016

GOP Debate Open Thread

Reason Number 395 why Trump should be President instead of Hillary or Bernie or Rent Boy.


Trump is not in the pockets of the special interest. Yeah I get it. He was his own special interest. He bribed and paid off politicians with campaign contributions. I mean they asked him how he got Hillary to come to his daughters wedding and he said "I paid her to come."

The excellent blogger Don Surber has a great post about this in his excellent blog. In it he qoutes Donald talking about an new boondoggle in the F-35 airplane that is not as good as our existing planes. Trump is quoted as follows:

"I do hear that it’s not very good. I’m hearing that our existing planes are better. And one of the pilots came out of the plane, one of the test pilots, and said this isn’t as good as what we already have. And to spend billions and billions of dollars on something that maybe isn’t as good …
They’re saying it doesn’t perform as well as our existing equipment, which is much less expensive. So when I hear that, immediately I say we have to do something, because you know, they’re spending billions. This is a plane, there’s never been anything like it in terms of cost. And how about, you know, we’re retooling with planes that aren’t as good as the ones we have, and the test pilots are amazing people. They know better than anybody, okay, and I think you would accept that."

The Great Brown Hope of the Establishment is losing in his own state.....what's up with that Sparkles?


It seems that there is trouble in Paradise for Marco Rent Boy Rubio in his home state. As reported by Briebart.com:

The latest Quinnipiac poll of Florida Republicans shows that Donald Trump is now leading that state with 44 percent of the vote, while home state Senator Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
is in second with only 28 percent.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is now in third place with 12 percent.


Trump is now 16 points ahead of Rubio after former Florida governor Jeb Bush dropped out of the race, an astonishing result in an important winner-take-all state that votes on March 15. Rubio yesterday pointed to Florida as a state he expected to win.

David Thompson: Sweet Sorrows

I’ve heard it called “Luxurious Concerns.” That is, your concerns mark your social status. If your concerns are about keeping your job, paying your rent, or whether your kids’ school is any damn good, you’re worried about Big Things, and therefore you are marked as a Struggling Person. Only those who have really made it -- who are at the top of the economic and social order -- have the luxury of worrying about the Small Things. And if you worry about the Very Small Things, or indeed the Microscopic Things, then, well and truly, you have arrived… If you can’t afford a Luxury Car, or a Luxury Apartment, you can at least adorn yourself with Luxury Worries. It’s very cheap. Easy, too… Our modern class of intellectually-insecure social climbers are posing as connoisseurs of offensiveness. 
See also Kristian Niemietz and Daniel Hannan on the same. 
The attempt to cultivate pretentious guilt and pretentious indignation, and to balance grief and umbrage on a very tiny thing, the tinier the better, is of course a Guardian staple. It gives the left’s national organ its distinctive tone - that tinny, unconvincing high-pitched whine. Affecting woe, especially improbable woe, is how many leftwing columnists signal their position in their own moral hierarchy, relative to you, the heathen rabble. As I said some time ago
It’s important to understand these are not just lapses in logic or random fits of insincerity; these outpourings are displays – of class and moral elevation. Which is why they persist, despite getting knottier and ever more absurd. Crudely summarised, it goes something like this: “I am better than you because I pretend to feel worse.” 
And this is why, for instance, a tearful Theo Hobson tells us, “There is no excuse for failing to feel liberal guilt about race and class.” Because until “this problematic world” has been purged of all vice and inequity, however unrelated to your own behaviour, a heavy, heavy heart must be worn on the sleeve. How else will people know how superior you are? According to Mr Hobson, if you aren’t ostentatiously fretting about the eating of meat and “affluent lifestyles endangering the planet,” and if you aren’t “anxious about your status as a comfy bourgeoisie” and ashamed of earning more than some other random person, then there must be something wrong with you. And so you should feel guilty for not feeling guilty about things you shouldn’t feel guilty about. It’s the Guardian way. (read more)
Also see Tom Wolf on status signaling. (posted by ChipA)

The sausage festival

"Donald Trump and Paul Ryan on Collision Course"

NY Times:  Speaker Paul D. Ryan, chairman of the Republican National Convention, recent vice-presidential candidate and the highest elected Republican in the country, has one goal for this year: to form a conservative policy agenda for the Republican presidential nominee to embrace.

If that nominee is Donald J. Trump, that may be a waste of time.

Panicked Republicans question whether Mr. Trump will be able to unite a Republican-controlled Congress that would normally be expected to promote and promulgate his agenda, an internal crisis nearly unheard-of in a generation of American politics. On nearly every significant issue, Mr. Trump stands in opposition to Republican orthodoxy and his party’s policy prescriptions — the very ideas that Mr. Ryan has done more than anyone else to form, refine or promote over the last decade.

“You’re hitting on a very big problem, which is that Trump is not a Republican,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who dropped out of the race for the White House in December “I have no idea how we reconcile a Donald Trump agenda with a Republican agenda. How do we write a platform?”

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

KLEM FM

Marco Rubio: You don't win the Nomination by how many states you win....you win by coming in third.



Breibart News.com by Pam Key'


Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio (R-FL) declared “the majority” of the electorate and Republican voters do not want Trump to be the GOP nominee and that the nominee is not selected by how many states are won.

Melania Trump's Diary

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I got this figured out

I got this one. I got this. The sky is a touchscreen and the moon is a fingerprint of someone swiping the screen to turn on the lights. The lights come on as the fingerprint disappears. With modern technology I was able to catch this in action.

Happy ending







The court also spared Perry from a second felony charge of coercion of a public official, ruling that a lower court correctly tossed out the law last summer as unconstitutionally vague and a violation of free speech rights.

Wednesday’s ruling brought an abrupt end to the politically charged legal troubles that have dogged Perry for 18 months, looming over the closing months of his 14 years in office and casting a pall over his second unsuccessful run for president."

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/appeals-court-dismisses-rick-perrys-criminal-case/nqXG5/

They are getting better

Reddit: "I miss Jon Stewart"

"I want to see him covering the presidential race. Right now I feel like I can't cut through the fog, the whole race feels absurd. It feels like every news outlet is just repeating whatever each campaign spins, I need Jon Stewart to cut through the bullshit.  I miss Jon Stewart."

Reddit top comment...
Jon really bailed at a bad time for all of us. What a perfect storm this election would have been for him. Gold, Jerry.

The monotony of being Anita



I wondered, "What do you even look like?" This person who parlays a perfectly crap and truly dangerous education into cash. And good cash too. And when I saw for myself and looked through all the images allowing them to take hold something happened, I connected, I felt something disturbing and I realized what it is like to remove one's eyebrows and draw new ones on every day. Psychologically I put myself there and felt what it's like. Every day new eyebrows over the obliterated original ones. And I thought further, and this is really mean, I can do the same thing, draw little eyebrows on my bell end and have a similar result and it turned out like this. 

Trump wins Nevada

Drudge leads with "The Nominee" a link to Politico reporting Trump taking Nevada by a large margin. Anger with Washington chief among reasons given much stronger than the previous caucuses and much stronger than expected. A win that widens the gap further between Trump candidates associated with establishment.

Madison

What makes an elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

Books!

What makes a muskrat guard his musk?

Books!

What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the ape in apricot?

Books!

Madison of Cleveland explains free lie-berries. Books put the precious in precocious.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

"An absolute necessity"

WKRLem: The real reason why Marco Rubio is going to best trump!



Everybody knows He is a Macha Man.

cupboard

The note is suspect of being fake but the misspelling of cubbard is a nice touch. The note is titled "When you're house sitting for millennials and ask how the lights work."

The link goes to twitter post that circulated but search those words and a lot of results appear.

The house sitter is answered with a long description involving downloading an app to one's presumed smartphone and synching the app with their home device that turns on/off the lights. Access to the device to synch is convoluted and involves opening a cupboard above coat hooks. Synch the device manually then go the bathroom and flick off the lights.

The story is about young people's preference for complicating edge technology over simple straightforward appliance.  Comments latched onto misspelling cupboards.

I am a terrible editor. Everything looks good to me. I missed that one. Schwing, went right by. Yet most everyone else saw it. And it bugged them. It colored their view of the people writing the note. The error diminished the writers in the reader's view.

What a bummer.

I'm going to start saving the grammatical errors that British commenters point out. They concentrate on the error to the exclusion of all else. Without registering annoyance their nit-pics are the finest of all. They are really very good at pointing out mismatches within and between predicates. Spotting and naming them is their expertise. It signals an exceedingly haughty superiority in language without complaining. That's what I'll do, I'll start saving and sharing for entertainment.

I just now read, "I'm so glad you didn't end the sentence with "for" that's one of my pet peeves." The sentence was restructured to avoid it making it sound a bit funny in order to be proper. But it satisfied the reader.

I didn't have the heart to tell the intern trying so hard to impress to drop the word "Moms" for "mother."  The street language really does not work at the Federal Reserve Bank. He needed to know that but I couldn't tell him. Their memos are voiceless. Even in a meeting that street language will hold him back, and learning their language is not a cultural or racial sellout, white kids had to learn the specific and limited corporate language too. It's not his culture not fitting, all cultures must learn to fit, and it's not white culture, it's foreign to whites too. It's a signaling thing.

Peeved, really? There's an emotional thing going on that prevents acceptance of different forms?

I get corrected in every language I try. If I were afraid of correction then I wouldn't try anything. There is always a palpable sincerity. Except when there's not. Except when there's only signaling.

Grammar is my worst subject.  I can't match up anything right. That's where my scores are always the worstest.

"Meerkat expert cleared of assault in zoo love triangle spat"

AP:  A former meerkat expert at London Zoo was cleared Tuesday of assaulting a monkey handler in a love spat over a llama-keeper.  Two High Court judges said Tuesday that Caroline Westlake had not "recklessly" injured Kate Sanders.

In October a lower court found Westlake, 30, guilty of assaulting Sanders, who suffered a cut cheek from a wineglass after the two women argued at a zoo Christmas party in 2014. Both had dated colleague Adam Davies.  Westlake had said she did not remember hitting her colleague with the glass. Westminster Magistrates' Court found she had struck Sanders "recklessly but not intentionally."

"Judge threatens subpoena against Clinton over emails"

Washington Times: A federal judge warned Tuesday that he may have to subpoena former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s entire secret email account, saying he has real questions about whether the Obama administration gave her special treatment.
In the interim, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said he was granting discovery to Judicial Watch, a public interest law firm who’s sued to get a look at the emails, meaning the group will be able to demand the State Department explain who approved Mrs. Clinton’s server, how many officials knew about it, and what accommodations they made to her after her emails become a public issue.
And the judge said he is “inclined” to issue a subpoena eventually, forcing the department to go back to Mrs. Clinton and demand she turn over the entire clintonemail.com system she and top aide Huma Abedin used during their time in the department. He withheld that order for now, saying he will wait to see what discovery produces, but said he’s concerned with the chain of events that led to the emails being shrouded in secrecy for so many years.
“How on earth can the court conclude there is not at minimum a reasonable suspicion of bad faith,” Judge Sullivan said.
In the meantime, Washington Examiner has a story saying released Clinton emails may show aides try to hand pick State Department's inspector general.
Hillary Clinton's private emails indicate the former secretary of state and her closest aides may have played a role in selecting inspectors general that oversaw work from their agency.
In a 2010 exchange between Clinton and Cheryl Mills, then her chief of staff, the two discussed an unnamed "IG candidate" and whether he would be a good fit for the agency.
Margaret Carpenter, a former official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, wrote to key Clinton aides in March 2010 to note that "Cheryl approved nominating" an individual, whose name was redacted, to an inspector general position and asked how to proceed in an email made public Friday evening that was first flagged by the Wall Street Journal.  "Let me know if you DON'T want to proceed," Mills told Clinton.

"Zimbabwe park warns it may shoot 200 ‘surplus’ lions now that big game hunters are staying home"

National Post: The outcry over Walter Palmer’s killing of Cecil drove other big-game hunters away from Zimbabwe, fearful they too would attract the ire of the public.  But in what is being described as a side effect of the affair, Zimbabwe’s largest wildlife area says it now finds itself suffering from an overpopulation of lions.

Bubye Valley Conservancy has more than 500 lions, the largest number in Zimbabwe’s diminishing wildlife areas.  It has warned that its lion population has become unsustainable and that it may even have to cull around 200 as a result of what is being called “the Cecil effect.”

422% Fee Increase To Renounce Citizenship Yields Millions, With Exits Up 560%

Forbes: It is odd that the U.S. is making millions from Americans tossing their passports. The government has collected about $12.6 million in fees just since the fall of 2014, after hiking its fee to renounce citizenship by 422%, according to CNNMoney. The fee to renounce is now $2,350. Even so, Americans are expatriating in record numbers. There are now 18 times as many renouncers as in 2008. Some write why they gave up their U.S. citizenship.
In all, the number of Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship has gone up 560% from its Bush administration high. In 2015, there were approximately 4,300 expatriations according to the published names of individuals who renounced. The name and shame list is published quarterly, with the most recent three-month total being 1,058. That brings the total to 4,279 for 2015...
Previously, there was a $450 fee to renounce, and no fee to relinquish. But the precise difference between the two procedures was often confused. Presently, the $2,350 fee is supposed to apply to both. That was a hike from $450 to $2,350 for renouncing, and an even steeper hike–from zero to $2,350–for relinquishment. The U.S. State Department said raising the fee was about demand and paperwork, but American expatriations are still growing after the increase.
If the administration thought a fee avoidance would decrease the amount of tax payers leaving, the raising of the fees has not worked.

Meanwhile a student changed his name to avoid an airline change booking fee.
Armstrong... changed his name to West for free and drove to Liverpool to rush through a new passport for £103... Armstrong said: “Her stepdad got my name from Facebook but I had put it as Adam West as a joke, because he was the actor who played Batman on TV. 
“Ryanair were not helpful at all. We showed them we were not trying to change the person, just the name, but they wouldn’t back down.

"Homicides in Chicago this year double same period last year"

"Four homicides over the weekend and two more Monday morning pushed Chicago's homicide count so far this year to double the same period last year."
The city has recorded at least 95 homicides since the first of the year, compared to 47 last year, according to data kept by the Tribune. The city has also more than doubled the amount of people shot - about 420 this year compared to 193 last year.
Meanwhile, Chicago police "stop and frisks" is down 80% in 2016.
As shootings and murders spike one major component of Chicago police crime fighting is way down. The number of street stops by officers has plunged 80 percent this year.
For decades when Chicago police stopped and frisked someone on the street, they had to fill out a small card called a "Contact Card." It required simple, basic information about who was stopped and why. Beginning January 1, 2016, a new state law regulated when cops could stop and pat down people in public and then officers had to fill out a two page "Investigatory Stop Report."...
More than paperwork or new laws, Chicago police officials say they know that some cops may just be shying away from controversy.
"Periodically somebody will say something to the effect of that they are concerned of being the next 'viral video'. Even when they're doing something right they are concerned that their actions are being questioned and they'll be the next one to go viral," he says.
Viral video is one way to put it. In a fish bowl is another; that's where the president of the police union says his members are forced to their jobs. Fraternal Order of Police president Dean Angelo says less-aggressive policing no doubt coincides with the spike in Chicago murders and shootings.
Do you believe there a correlation between the uptick in murders and the decrease in aggressive police tactics?

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog schools PC students



h/t bago

KLEM FM


Pay attention to the story. Does it bother you that the narrator can't conjugate the verb "to be"  correctly?
We was drivin' up Grapevine Hill passin' cars like they was standin' still
It doesn't really bug me. My dad talked that way. It's authentic vernacular.

What does grate on me is the increasing use of "was" for "were" in the subjunctive mood. Especially among the twittering classes.

"If I was rich, I would do ____."

 Plenty of famous people construct their wishes exactly that way. Just try googling "If I was" (with the quotation marks) and the names of celebrities. You'll be surprised.

Monday, February 22, 2016

"Meeting people was the key"

Vegas Caucus Open Thread

"Woman killed boyfriend for spending too much time on Facebook"

NY Post: Terri-Marie Palmer, 23, broke down in tears as she was convicted of 24-year-old Damon Searson’s murder following a one-week trial, where the details emerged about the fatal end of their rocky relationship, according to multiple reports.

Moments before the killing, Palmer posted: “He p***** me off sitting on Facebook, completely blanking me when I’m talking to him,”

She regularly posted on the social media site about how Searson would ignore her while scrolling through Facebook messages on his phone, adding random girls and posting shirtless photos of himself.

“Gross,” she wrote on one of his topless pics. “Didn’t expect any different to come out of your mouth f–king b–ch,” he fired back.  Eventually, Palmer texted her man that she was fed up — and furious.  “Crying myself to sleep for the second time this week and it’s only Wednesday. Thanks Damon. I’m so angry and hurt I honestly want to f–king stab you,” she wrote...

Hairdresser
The two met at Palmer’s hair salon, Costa Del Sol in Lancaster, England, and moved in together last July.