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.

Soviet Union breaks WWII Leningrad siege; Robert F. Scott reaches South Pole; Boston Strangler suspect Albert de Salvo convicted.

There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange.

Daniel Webster

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(Did I mention I write about popular culture?)

Actually, sending a selfie to Google is a really bad idea and you shouldn’t do it.

Scientific Fact!

It’s not about race, or gender, or religion, or…

It never is.

It’s about Conspiracy Theories!

Remember The Stars Hollow Gazette and DocuDharma, your source for only the most vile and scurrilous rumors.

We want to believe!

(X-Files final season @ 8 pm on Fox, The Librarians @ 8 and 11 pm on TNT and The Magicians at 9 pm on SciFi; in addition to Full Frontal @ 10:30 on TBS, The Daily Show @ 11 pm on Comedy Central, The Opposition @ 11:30 pm on Comedy Central, The Late Show @ 11:35 on CBS and Late Night @ 12:35 on NBC)

Ain’t no rest for the wicked.

(Yes, I also write about popular culture.)

So James Cameron is the man who gave us Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley, two characters I never hesitate to recommend to anyone, regardless of gender, as epitomes of heroic badassery. For Connor there are just two words, scratched in a picnic table in the desert- “No Fate.” Ripley gets a longer line, “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Well, it is.

Of course James Cameron is also the asshole who gave us the sentimental piece of tripe (that’s a cow’s stomach you know) Titanic and the overblown and incomprehensible Avatar (female aliens must be mostly naked and have tits, seriously).

But I want to talk about True Lies which he wrote as well as directed. It has minor flaws like being a total waste of Jamie Lee Curtis’ talent (Aahnold has no talent so the same can’t be said) and gives too much screen time entirely to Tom Arnold who is best forgotten as someone who once shacked up with Roseanne Barr.

And of course it is recently notorious from a #metoo standpoint because of Eliza Dushku’s on set molestation by the stunt co-ordinator Joel Kramer when she was 12 years old. That’s 6th Grade folks, he was 37. Oh, and he broke her ribs in retaliation when she narced him out.

He still gets gigs, his last one was Blade Runner 2049, a film I was excited to see until now. Now, I don’t know.

But it’s not like he’s on screen talent nor a “creative industry force” as Cameron is which brings me to why True Lies is one of the most abusive and misogynistic movies I have ever had the bad fortune to see.

Spoiler Alert

Actually, I hope I do so you are never tempted.

Curtis is the wife of a CIA operative (Schwarzenegger) who, suspecting her of infidelity because he is constantly spying on her communications illegally, has her kidnapped and tortured. While he is distracted by his multiple jealousy induced War Crimes an actual nuclear terrorist (Muslim of course) threatens Miami with destruction and is defeated in an incredible (as in, you can’t believe it, no, really, suspension of disbelief goes literally out the window onto the wing of a Harrier jet) action sequence and Aahnold, Jamie Lee, and the aforementioned Eliza Dushku (as daughter Dana) are safely reunited with Curtis and Schwarzenegger experiencing a Fifty Shades revitalization of their romantic relationship.

That made me feel dumber just typing it.

There is absolutely no proof that James Cameron knew anything about Joel Kramer and Eliza Dushku or indeed that anything happened between Kramer and Dushku though I suppose there is a dusty X-Ray somewhere that proves she broke her ribs doing a stunt supervised by him.

Unless you believe her, which I do.

There is ample evidence James Cameron wrote and directed the excrescence that is True Lies.

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.

Benjamin Franklin born; Soviet and Polish forces liberate Warsaw; Eisenhower farewell address; Japan earthquake; Al Capone is born;Muhammad Ali born.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.

Benjamin Franklin

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You know, I actually saw the Commodores in concert long after they were even a D-List ticket (New Year’s is not the same without Kathy Griffin and Andersen, your boyfriend is a dope).

Actually, although I’ve been given free reign to demonstrate my 20 year old vocabulary (I swear, I took an Internet survey!) I have chosen not to. Instead I bring you tales from the North that illustrate why enlightened people are hesitant to allow unrestricted immigration from s___hole countries.

Oh, I’m talking about the United States of course.

Norwegians suffer from desperate shortage of parking, will come to America in droves
by Lloyd Alter, Treehugger
January 12, 2018

The President of the United States, discussing immigration, recently said “We should have more people from Norway.” This is a wonderful gesture; he must have been spending his executive time watching the shocking Streetfilms documentary Oslo: The Journey to Car-free and learned about the tragic destruction of parking spaces there.

Unlike America, where cars are Liberty Machines that give people the freedom to drive and park wherever they want, in Oslo, everybody is walking and cycling. They must be exhausted; when Emma Lazarus wrote “Give me your tired” for the Statue of Liberty, she must have meant Norwegians.

The executive officer of the bicycle program says that “Norwegians are used to using their bodies to get around.” How primitive, that’s what people did a thousand years ago.
…
Unlike in the United States, where bike lanes provide convenient parking and loading for cars, they can’t do that in Oslo. There appear to be no placard privileges or any of the normal rights that drivers have in the States. Drivers almost seem oppressed. And the buses! There are so many of them, and everybody knows that buses are horrible.
…
When you look at the people who are forced to walk everywhere because the parking has been stolen, they all look so skinny and pale. And clearly, they have no public education about the dangers of not wearing helmets, of looking at screens, of wearing headphones. It is like they are from another era, before people knew better.

The city is noisy and dirty as they actually take away all the parking and give the space to people who walk and bike. It is like a step back to the 19th century, it’s so primitive. It’s a great thing that the President is inviting in all the tired Norwegians. They will come in droves for all the parking.

Yes, ignore the 40,860 Euro (net after Taxes) median wage, free health care, and other amenities of a modern developed nation, along with the spectacular vistas and excellent skiing. Who wouldn’t trade that to fight for a spot next to a pile of garbage that’s still three blocks away from where you want to be?

Bunch of Socialist Sissies.

Oslo, Norway, is giving residents $1200 toward purchasing an electric cargo bike
by Derek Markham, Treehugger
February 15, 2017

Getting around on a bicycle can be an excellent way to clean up our daily commutes and errand runs, but sometimes you need a little bit of a boost, which is where electric bikes come in. And sometimes you need a little more space to haul groceries and gear with you, which is where cargo bikes come in. Combine the two, and you’ve got an efficient and fun way to not only get from point A to point B, but to also get the shopping home in a single trip without having to stack boxes and bags on your rear rack until you’re wobbling your way precariously down the road (been there, done that).

The capital of Norway, Oslo, is looking to get more of its citizens out of their cars and onto bikes, and more specifically, onto a set of wheels that is made to haul more than just a single person, in the form of grants covering part of the cost of an electric cargo bike. Last year, the city council offered residents a financial incentive toward buying an electric bike, up to 20% of the purchase price of an e-bike, capped at 5000 kroner (about $600). Now that effort has been extended a bit into an electric cargo bike grant program, which will cover part of the cost of purchase of one of these electric workhorses.

According to the Oslo Council, residents can apply for a grant for up to 25% of the purchase of an electric cargo bike, capped at 10,000 kroner, or $1,200, through its Climate and Energy Fund. This subsidy won’t help those who can’t come up with the rest of the purchase price of an electric cargo bike, which can run anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 kroner ($2,400 to $6,000), but it’s certainly a decent incentive to those who might be leaning toward buying one anyway. City Lab reports that Oslo has experienced poor air quality recently, causing the city to place a temporary driving ban on diesel-fueled vehicles, and this financial support for a cleaner transport option might help push people toward choosing a more efficient mode of getting to work and to the market and home again.

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.

Start of Operation Desert Storm; Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off; Prohibition takes effect; Shah of Iran flees into exile; musical “Hello Dolly” opens.

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.

Dian Fossey

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Have I mentioned I’m a Buddhist recently? Not as a religion, more as a philosophy.

Side Effects include- anger, anxiety, behavior changes, discouragement, feeling sad or empty, feelings of panic, irritability, loss of interest or pleasure, mood swings, seeing, hearing, or feeling things that are not there, thoughts of killing oneself.

Smoke free (well, that kind) since 1999. Just what I’d prescribe for someone with clinical Depression and Anxiety.

Men are Dogs

More Sciencey!

Men are Dogs Part 3

Men are Dogs Part 4

Every Day Is Exactly The Same

Weekend Update

Weekend Update Part 2

Phil? Phil Connors?!

Three short, three long, three short. Just blink it out Mika.

Fifty years ago Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Room 306.

Now we have an avowed racist in the White House.

Some people think between his death and that of Robert Kennedy it was the end of hope. I agree.

The King family and others believe the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government, Mafia and Memphis police, as alleged by Loyd Jowers in 1993, and that Ray was a scapegoat. In 1999, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers for the sum of $10 million. During closing arguments, their attorney asked the jury to award damages of $100, to make the point that “it was not about the money”. During the trial, both sides presented evidence alleging a government conspiracy. The government agencies accused could not defend themselves or respond because they were not named as defendants. Based on the evidence, the jury concluded Jowers and others were “part of a conspiracy to kill King” and awarded the family $100. The allegations and the finding of the Memphis jury were later rejected by the United States Department of Justice in 2000 due to lack of evidence.

I like to re-publish this letter from Birmingham Jail because I think it a very clear statement of what the struggle is and what we must do today.

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation.
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We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
…
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
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You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of “somebodiness” that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence.
…
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides–and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: “Get rid of your discontent.” Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action.

It’s easy to forget that Martin Luther King Jr.’s message was not directed only at African Americans, but at all of us equally. I am the whitest guy you will ever meet, just ask TMC, and he speaks for me and to me. When he was assassinated he was working on the Poor People’s Campaign, not a race thing, a class thing. What made him particularly reviled and despised was not his opposition to discrimination and bigotry, but to the imperialistic impulse of the Vietnam War (and yes, Tonkin Gulf was a deliberate and direct lie that exactly presages the War Of Terror we are prosecuting today).

Why direct action? It is the only thing left to do.

This is a struggle about the 82 8 6 people who claim over half the world’s wealth. Watch your back assholes, there are waaay more of us than there are of you.

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.

Martin Luther King, Junior born;Richard Nixon suspends U.S. offensive in Vietnam;Queen Elizabeth the First crowned;Work completed on Pentagon;first Super Bowl takes place.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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