Are you ready for some football?
Sep 24 2018
Cartnoon
Sep 24 2018
The Breakfast Club (Something To Say)
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 hungover we’ve been bailed out we’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
Patricia Hearst gets prison time; Author F. Scott Fitzgerald born; ’60 Minutes’ premieres; Baseball’s Dodgers play last Brooklyn game; Muppets creator Jim Henson born; Children’s author Dr. Seuss dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.
Sep 23 2018
Overtime
Look, you have to understand I think Bill Maher is a total asshole even though he’s an avowed atheist because he’s militant and an Islamophobe when frankly it’s no more phony than Mormonisn or Christianity (Buddhism? It’s not a religion it’s a moral philosophy and Siddhartha Gautama is a real guy just like Aristotle and Plato, nothing special. He gave up the wheel to die beneath a tree ABOUT 400 YEARS BEFORE CHRIST not that I’m counting mind you.).
Clio is your friend.
But I also have ties to Flint and Michael Moore was my Grandma’s paper boy long enough for her to hate him because he didn’t leave each day’s edition centered on her door mat, rotten kid.
Mike understands something which is that Democrats are nearly as deeply despised as Republicans because instead of defending working people they betray them constantly in the name of political expediency WITH NO RESULTS AT ALL!
Yeah, it would make a difference if it was working.
And so here we are, on the threshold of yet another “most important election in our lives.” “The other guys are more horrible than we are” is both amply demonstrated as a fact and a failed strategy. “You gonna ask me to die because our side doesn’t eat babies Sarge? I love this plan. I’m excited to be a part of it. Let’s do it!”
I disagree about Obama. FDR was waaay better, even Truman. Kennedy, Johnson? Vietnam was an awful thing and they didn’t have to. Clinton is a charming liar and so was Obama but they’re both Republicans. Carter is much better as an ex (also Republican).
Are you a Democrat?
Interesting question. I’ve been a registered Democrat for over 100 years and I normally point to that when asked, but to tell you the truth I’m an Anarcho-Syndicalist which means I believe in Worker Control of the Means of Production (Capital) at the lowest possible level (Democracy!).
I hope this makes things clearer for you.
Sep 23 2018
The Breakfast Club (Fact Checkers)
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 hungover we’ve been bailed out we’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 10:30am (ET) 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.
AP’s Today in History for September 23rd
Richard Nixon gives his ‘Checkers’ speech; Rome’s Augustus Caesar born; Lewis and Clark finish trek to America’s West; Psychologist Sigmund Freud dies; Musicians Ray Charles and Bruce Springsteen born.
Breakfast Tune Alternative Facts
Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below
A PROGRESSIVE DA WON IN MASSACHUSETTS. BUT THE MAN SHE BEAT WON’T BACK DOWN.
Eoin Higgins, The Intercept
AFTER BEATING THE establishment candidate to win the Democratic primary battle for district attorney in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Andrea Harrington now has to do it again.
On September 19, two weeks after losing the September 4 election by 692 votes, her primary opponent, Paul Caccaviello, announced a write-in campaign.
In many ways, the primary election was a referendum on criminal justice reform strategies. Harrington and a third candidate, Judith Knight, both advanced a more progressive approach than Caccaviello. Harrington, for example, pledged to review all unindicted cases of sexual assault and rape from the last 15 years, addressing the department’s perceived indifference toward rape and sexual assault. Knight’s campaign prioritized criminal justice reform for cases targeting youthful offenders, proposed drug and alcohol education initiatives, and focused on prosecuting violent crime.
By contrast, Caccaviello ran on a status quo platform — largely promising to continue the policies of his predecessor David Capeless, who abruptly resigned his position earlier this year to give Caccaviello the opportunity of incumbency. “I’m taking this step now,” Capeless told reporters, “because I want Paul to be able to run as the district attorney, as I did 14 years ago.”
Yesterday, Caccaviello announced that he was heeding the call of “hundreds” of supporters urging him to stay in the race, citing his experience as a prosecutor as necessary for the job. “They must know that their DA is an experienced criminal attorney with a vast depth of knowledge, not a product manufactured by a powerful political machine,” wrote Caccaviello. (When asked what he, the establishment candidate, meant by that characterization of Harrington, Caccaviello demurred, telling The Intercept that he would go into more detail on the charge in the weeks to come).
Harrington hit back hard against that charge in an interview with The Intercept, saying, “These are the ideas that were thoroughly debated during the primaries. The voters made their choice, and elections have consequences.”
Harrington sees her primary win as a victory for the county’s marginalized communities against entrenched power. “Women, people of color, people with disabilities — we fight and we fight and we fight, and we don’t win,” said Harrington the night of her viewing party at the Flavours of Malaysia restaurant in Pittsfield, Massachuestts. “But tonight, it looks like we may have changed that story.”
Caccaviello dismissed Harrington’s ideological mission as motivated by political considerations, and said that he would bring a nonpartisan approach to the office if re-elected. “Citizens must have the utmost confidence that their District Attorney will represent and protect them without regard to their party affiliation or political ideology,” wrote Caccaviello in an email to The Intercept.
The primary election results seem to corroborate Harrington’s view that voters wanted reform. Although Harrington won by only a narrow margin, her vote share, combined with Knight’s, suggests that voters chose progressive “change” over the status quo by a margin of over 25 percent.
…
Something to think about over coffee prozac
Maine investigates restaurant that gave lobsters marijuana
Associated Press in Southwest Harbor, Maine
State health inspectors are investigating a Maine restaurant that tried to mellow out lobsters with marijuana before killing them to be served, cracked and eaten.
The Portland Press Herald reported that Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor remains open but has stopped allowing customers to request meat from lobsters sedated with marijuana.
Owner Charlotte Gill is a state-licensed medical marijuana caregiver. She said on Friday she hoped to resume sales of “smoked” lobster meat by mid-October, a move meant to lessen the suffering of her lobsters before they are dropped in boiling water.
It is unknown whether pot smoke calms lobsters or has any effect on their meat.
A Maine Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, Emily Spencer, would not say if the state had asked Gill to halt such sales.
But Gill told the Press Herald that “after being contacted by the state, and upon reviewing its present laws and codes applicable to this arena, and then making a few minor adjustments to our procedure, we are completely confident that we will be able to proceed as planned”.
“I imagine we will still have a push back from the state on our hands,” she said, “but we are confident that we will be able to field any issues they may have with us, and do it with grace.
“These are important issues and ones that can also benefit not only the lobster, but the industry as well. Truly we are not trying to go against [the state’s] wishes and would love to work with them in order for us all to make this world a kinder place.”
Spencer said it would be up to the Maine Medical Marijuana Program to determine if Gill was using cannabis appropriately. A program spokesman, David Heidrich, told the newspaper he could not confirm if it was investigating the lobster restaurant.
But he added: “Medical marijuana may only be grown for and provided to persons with a marijuana recommendation from a qualified medical provider. Lobsters are not people.”
Sep 22 2018
So What’s Happening In Afghanistan?
You’ll be sorry you asked. In short form, we are losing, badly, to a bunch of guys running around with AK-47s which, to be equitable, are fairly expensive weapons even in Kabul with a street price of $1,500 which is also about what brand new in-the-box Night Vision Glasses freshly looted from the U.S. Supply Depot go for.
It’s an amount I don’t customarily carry in my pocket and considering the median wage in Afghanistan is 1, 012, 308 Afghani (I didn’t make this name up, the U.S.Government did) and the exchange rate is whatever you can get for Ur Cow Tokens but generally 67 Afghani to $1 USD (according to the CIA in 2016) meaning about $15K a year or one month of income. Remember, we’re talking downtown Kabul (Manhattan) and not Joe Hemp, Poppy Farmer from Helmund. I doubt he’s ever seen an Afghani (the currency, not the people) and would use it for toilet paper or fuel except it’s not very good at either one of those tasks.
Besides, Joe Hemp, Poppy Farmer from Helmund has all those buckets of filthy U.S. Benjamins to wipe his ass and feed his goats. His daughters sleep in field of crimson (Poppies!) and run naked among the buds to harvest hash (actually a very icky concept like squishing grapes with your feet).
Now occasionally Joe Hemp’s family invite him to a wedding or funeral, you know, one of these boring rituals where you can’t just send a gift and regrets lest crazy Uncle Max decide you’re disrespecting the crazy side of the family and rip up your house with those AK-47s you gave him for his birthday.
Ingrate.
It used to be these things would settle themselves with only a few centuries of bloodshed and they may still, too soon to tell, but the United States Government has adopted the insane policy of bombing just about any gathering larger than a very small herd of goats which a) costs $110, 000 (as opposed to 7.62 x 39 mm which goes for $.21 a round in quantities of 1000), b) doesn’t kill that many people (and almost certainly not the ones who would matter).
I’m going to take a moment and do the math on that. Let’s be generous and say you have all the top leaders of Al-Queda and the Taliban and Daesh having a big old party in the middle of the desert (interesting fact- most Arabs don’t live in the desert) and there are about 100 of them which makes the math easy. Just for fun they brought along their 100 favorite goats.
$1000 a pop. $500 if you count the goats.
But ek. We killed 100 of their top leaders, and their goats!
Umm… think we would notice if 100 Generals died? Hell, include the goats.
Probably not much except…
c) It pisses them off!
You know, if I’m Joe Hemp I’m kind of upset that you keep trying to kill me, and my private army that I pay to keep the poachers away from my daughters and crazy Uncle Max (Allah accept his soul, he wasn’t a bad sort except when he got really wasted) in line and I’ll keep blasting away at you with nice cheap $.21 bullets until you get tired and go away.
It’s not called “The Graveyard of Empires” for nothing. Where do you think they got all these AK-47s?
The Death Toll for Afghan Forces Is Secret. Here’s Why.
By Rod Nordland, The New York Times
Sept. 21, 2018
Taliban insurgents killed so many Afghan security forces in 2016, an average of 22 a day, that by the following year the Afghan and American governments decided to keep battlefield death tolls secret.
It’s much worse now. The daily fatalities among Afghan soldiers and policemen were more than double that last week: roughly 57 a day.
Seventeen years after the United States went to war in Afghanistan, the Taliban is gaining momentum, seizing territory, and killing Afghan security forces in record numbers.
Last week was especially bad, with more than 400 killed, according to an account by diplomats. But even the average numbers in recent months — from 30 to 40 a day, according to senior Afghan officials — represent a substantial upswing from two years ago and appear unsustainable in a country that has been shattered by decades of war.
…
The figure of 400 Afghan soldiers and police officers killed last week leaked out of a meeting last weekend between Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the new American military commander, and Western diplomats in Kabul, according to two of those present, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was meant to be off the record.Asked about the meeting, the American military spokesman, Col. Dave Butler, did not specifically address the number killed last week, instead saying, “General Miller’s remarks are not accurately reflected by your sources’ recollection.” He added: “He was reflecting on Afghan sacrifice over a several-week period. He was relaying a sense of urgency to the team and encouraging focus on the mission.”
The quiet acknowledgment of higher casualties is coming at a time of alarm about the Taliban’s gains across Afghanistan. More districts than at any time since 2001 — including some provincial capitals — have fallen under threat or outright control by the insurgents over the past year.
…
Last week’s death toll, the highest known toll of any week in the war so far, arrived without any single spectacular attack but was instead made up of numerous smaller attacks in at least 15 provinces and 23 districts, according to reporting by The New York Times.Times reporters interviewed officials in every province where there were known military operations from Sept. 7 to 14, and according to those officials, a total of 193 government soldiers and police officers were killed in those 23 districts, less than half of the real total.
But official Afghan government policy forbids representatives for provincial and district police and government bodies from divulging casualty details to the news media, so many simply refuse to do so; that most likely accounts for the much higher figure the American military cited last week. The spokesman for one provincial police chief said his boss had recently ordered him to “only give information about our successes, not our failures.”
Sep 22 2018
Health and Fitness News
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
What To Cook
Summer ends tonight at 9:54 PM ET but the fall activities are already in full swing. After outings with family and friends, what better way to end the day with a delicious meal that is quick and easy to fix.
Any steak benefits from a quick marinade, but especially a flank steak. The salad, made from long strips of carrots, is a light, sophisticated side.
No better way to serve sweet sea scallops that in a buttery lemon sauce.
Spaghetti in the dead of summer, when tomatoes are at peak ripeness and break down quickly to coat any pasta in irresistible flavor, is the best time to eat spaghetti.
Be sure to slather the vinegary herb sauce on the still-warm salmon to allow the warm spices and fresh herbs to get to know each other better.
For a kale salad to be successful, use the most tender kale you can find and cut it into very thin filaments or chop it very finely (or both). Curly kale and Russian kale are more tender than black leaf kale.
FDA: Pets May Have Bad Reactions to Flea Medicine
Contact Lenses May Harbor Serious, Blinding Infection
Fewer Teens Having Sex, Most Use Birth Control
Regular Bedtime Might Be Key to Better Health
We All Carry a Personal Cloud of Germs, Chemicals
Easing Sleep Apnea May Be Key to Stroke Recovery
Mediterranean Diet May Cut Stroke Risk for Women
U.S. Alzheimer’s Cases to Nearly Triple by 2060
E. Coli in Ground Beef Causes Illness, Death
Opioids Driving U.S. Life Expectancy Decline: CDC
Gluten in Pregnancy Tied to Baby’s Type 1 Diabetes
1 in 6 Americans Over 40 Has Been Knocked Out
Reports Warn of Growing Senior Opioid Crisis
Coca-Cola Eyes Cannabis Oil Market
Sep 22 2018
The Breakfast Club (Road To Destruction)
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 hungover we’ve been bailed out we’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
Nathan Hale hanged in the American Revolution; Iraq invades Iran; President Gerald Ford faces a second assassination attempt in weeks; ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ hits Broadway; Songwriter Irving Berlin dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Sep 21 2018
Anita Hill
Wasn’t she a Law Clerk or something?
Joe Hill was a very real guy, Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, a Swedish immigrant (White enough for you? Not Ben Franklin. Swedes are filthy mud people who smell of Herring and Punsch.).
Anyway Joe wrote about half the Little Red Songbook of the Wobblies and is memorialized in most of the rest of it due to his unfortunate execution for a crime he probably didn’t commit because he was an avowed Anarchist and Labor Organizer.
Not that it excuses him from being a criminal mind you, if he was, just that it’s the main reason they hung him.
This is a song he wrote that is notable for coining the phrase “pie in the sky”.
Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;
But when asked how ’bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
And the starvation army they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray,
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they tell you when you’re on the bum:
Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out,
And they holler, they jump and they shout
“Give your money to Jesus,” they say,
“He will cure all diseases today.”
If you fight hard for children and wife,
Try to get something good in this life,
You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.
Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight:
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you’ve learned how to cook and to fry;
Chop some wood, ’twill do you good,
And you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
Sep 21 2018
Evil ek
I suppose I should have warned you about this before. I have an evil twin who looks exactly like me and has all my passwords.
Now I realize this can cause some confusion so I have devised a foolproof test- if I say anything that diminishes your opinion of me as a suitable Supreme Court Justice or pin you on a bed and start raping you…
Well, that’s bad ek, my evil twin, and I forgive you for being mistaken because I’m such a nice and reasonable guy and not rapey at all. Your apology is accepted.
Now that that’s straightened out I want to talk to you about sovereign power, divine right, and why it’s good to be the King even if you have to put up with idiots like Hedley LaMarr (I mean Count the Money, I mean de Monet– like Colbert and “de” means “of” in French which would mean he either owns all the Money which of course he can’t because it has my picture on it or he’s an accountant who knows the depth of my Scrooge McDuck vault so I can safely dive in it.
Or maybe I’m a Piss Boy, you can tell by the mole. His is fake.
I want you to round up every vicious criminal and gunslinger in the west. I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.
Could you repeat that, sir?
So we’re going to have a super special midnight Supreme Court vote that no Democrats need stay awake for and most Republicans can give a pass too and all this unpleasantness will soon be over and we can get back to making America great again or at least safe for straight white rapey guys.
Sep 21 2018
Cartnoon
Zack Morris Is Trash
What?! You think I’ve forgotten you?!
Even if he doesn’t get convicted this is still a good thing, because for too long the women who have accused him of this crime were not being listened to. They were being silenced by a powerful man and a complacent culture. And now finally, regardless of what happens next, they’re being heard – and that’s a start.
Sep 21 2018
The Breakfast Club (Innocent Trust)
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 hungover we’ve been bailed out we’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
President Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky scandal aired on TV; Authors H.G. Wells and Stephen King born; ‘Monday Night Football’ premieres; Actor-comedian Bill Murray born.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool. Stephen King
Material below the fold maybe NSFW.