Friday, November 27, 2020

The Friday Link for 11/27/20

This week, let's start with the turkey's striking back!

Earlier this week there was an uproar about a turkey in Bloomington being shot by police.  It seems the turkey had taken up residence at a busy intersection, and while some people considered the animal like a pet, others were being harassed by the creature.  Sad to see it go, but to those who insist the animal was harmless, don't fool yourselves!

We've talked often on the radio show about the turkeys in nordeast Minneapolis and how they're dangerous. Those things are freaking vicious. Turkey's are wild animals and they have plenty of weapons to cause damage.  Here is a compilation of turkey's going after people.

By the way some adult language, and I do not condone the people laughing as their friends, kids, family are running for their lives!


Also tonight, as we get ready for President Biden, let's also revisit the great President...ial impressions of the last 45 years from Saturday Night Live.


By the way, We need someone a lot better than Jim Carrey to be the regular Biden impression.  I love Carrey, but he's playing it too by the cuff.  Sacrifice the exacts about his behavior and you can deliver a great impression.  Just look at how well Colbert does with just a pair of sunglasses.

Finally tonight, otters! Super cute, and they apparently will chase a turkey!


Have a wonderful and safe weekend everyone! 



Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Thankful

This Thanksgiving is shaping up to be familiar, but also strange.  

For me and my family, it's business as usual.  I'm making up the usual Thanksgiving feast I always make. I was thinking of cutting back on the amount of food this year, but instead we're offering Thanksgiving to multiple neighbors and friends.  The offer of a complete Thanksgiving meal, for some of them, was greeted with relief; an undeniable joy there's an option for them this year.

Corona Virus is horrible.  I wish we all could have a normal holiday, but the recognition of the danger is making many people change long standing traditions.  They're choosing to be safe.  I applaud the sacrifice, but not because I'm against Thanksgiving.  On the contrary, ignoring the unstable allegations from far right loon balls, I love the Thanksgiving holiday, something I cook for days prior to the event.  The happiness and warmth I get from seeing guests enjoy a really nice meal is so rewarding. 

Not having a traditional Thanksgiving is a real emotional blow for many.  The public reactions I'm noticing on social media seem to fall into four different camps.


The Ambivalent:  These are people who are going through their normal routines even though this is not a normal year.  On one side there are the hosts, who seem to be cooking like normal, even though they're not going to be hosting anyone (guilty as charged!).  On the other side are the people who are usually guests for these events, someone who might make one side dish, might buy a can of cranberry sauce (YIKES!), or might grab a bag of rolls as their meal contribution, but since they're not going anywhere, they're treating the day like a normal day.  There's a sad acceptance to this situation, but since neither side (hosts/guests) wants to give up their usual tradition, they're going through the motions, keeping their motors running in neutral, and hoping November 2021 will be back to normal. 

The Culinary Challengers:  There are some people who have never made a Thanksgiving dinner, or a real nice meal before, but they've decided to give it the old college try.  The woman who cuts my hair beamed as she showed me a bacon wrapped turkey breast she is making.  She also was shocked at how easy it was to make cranberry sauce from scratch.  I have more than a few friends who are dusting off the pots and pans and trying to make something this holiday season. The great thing about Thanksgiving is that you don't have to make a turkey.  You can be thankful with any meal, so cook what you are comfortable with.

The Belligerent:  Some people are pushing the idea there's no need to change our behavior during a pandemic; that the pandemic is a lie, not nearly as dangerous as the death rate shows.  They've decided they won't let the liberals win, so they're planning on having a normal large Thanksgiving get-together.  I know they'll have smug toasts about how they're not living in fear, bragging about how they're not caving to the liberals demands to kill the Thanksgiving tradition.  

Everyone, including Democrats, Liberals and Progressives, wishes Thanksgiving could happen like normal.  The Belligerent's stubbornness to win an argument in their own mind will end up getting a lot of people killed.  I don't want anyone to get sick.  I don't want anyone to die.  The best way for you to make sure that doesn't happen is to be Corona Virus responsible, but I can't stop you from being stupid.  Just do us all a favor and don't act shocked when family members start getting sick in December.  I'll feel sorry for you but your pleas for compassion need to factor in your own ignorant decisions from Thanksgiving before you demand empathy from others.

The Sad:  This group worries me most.  There are a lot of cries for help on social media right now.  People are posting how hard it is they can't get home to family, people frustrated this pandemic is still raging 9 months after it started.  The depression is very real, very understandable, and contagious.  

The other day my wife and I were discussing our daughters.  The stress of the pandemic was clearly getting to them, but I had to remind my wife this is the new normal.  What's to like?  As hard as that sentiment is, we shouldn't be walking around demanding people 'turn that frown upside down!'  We have to teach people to live in a pandemic world, a world full of sacrifice and sadness.  It's like the Great Depression.  There was a lot of sad back then, people losing everything, people begging for the basics, people dying in the streets.  As hard as those dark days were, there was always the promise things would get better, and they did.

For the record, I'm incredibly sad right now but I know things will eventually get better. I won't dismiss your depression.  On the contrary, I'll validate it.  It means you're normal.  Even though things like Thanksgiving will be tough, we'll get through this.  We will.

I'm thankful for my family, my health, my life, my job, and my community. I'm thankful for cold mornings and hot nights.  I'm grateful for the nature around us and the incredible modern world at our fingertips.  I'm grateful for all the friends I have, some very dear, some far away, and some I need to catch up with dearly.  I'm grateful for everyone who reads this blog and I'm grateful for everyone who has ever listened to one of my radio shows.

I hope you have a safe, healthy and blessed Thanksgiving, no matter how it manifests itself.





Friday, November 20, 2020

The Friday Link for 11/20/20

Cable television is depressing!  It's not sad due to great heart tugging scripts, but rather it's sad because most cable networks don't even try anymore.

I grew up in the pre-cable TV era.  I remember the 3 networks and PBS.  If you were lucky, you had a fourth local channel which broadcast syndicated shows and movies all weekend long, but that was it.  I remember the first top loading VCR my family got.  The fact we could choose to watch something we wanted to watch at any time felt like a freaking revolution.  It was freedom to be able to tape a show and watch it back at our convenience.  

I remember when we moved into our first neighborhood with cable.  It was Edina, MN in 1983.  Before we moved there, I was living in Georgia.  I'd been hearing about all these cool new TV channels; a sports channel, a weather channel, a channel which played music videos only!  I wanted to see them, but our neighborhood, in rural Buford, was years away from getting cable.  We had a neighbor who had one of those HUGE satellite dishes.  We were allowed to go watch "all the channels" he had, but all he had was the east coast and the west coast feeds of the major networks, and a channel from Brazil.  That was new.

Edina being a wealthy community, cable TV was already in every neighborhood by 1983.  One of the first times I hung out with kids in Minnesota was about 10 of us watching MTV.  Three hours of watching music videos, and we all felt like we had just gotten into the most exclusive club.  As the 80's rolled on, cable TV just got better and better.  A cartoon channel, a fine arts channel, a comedy network, a history network,  a food network; eventually when it exploded with news and sports options it became the place to go.  I think late 90's and early 2000's cable TV was it's golden age.

But then it faltered.  Most cable networks stopped producing as many shows, or moved into reality shows which were inexpensive.  The more they could cut costs the more simplistic the programming became.  I started to look at cable TV with the same disdain I had for network TV.  I remember in the early 1990's when I started watching more cable TV than network TV, but cable TV was now unoriginal and tired.

As unwatchable as cable TV is today, it's a shame they didn't learn from their own success.  Case in point, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day broadcast.  A 24 hour span of MST3K riffing at its finest.  Imagine if a cable TV channel continued to air this sort of programming instead of abandoning it for cheaper fare?  I remember in 2013 when Shout Factory streamed a version of Turkey Day and I watched it there. The minute Cable TV drove people to find programming in other places because their 200+ channels were not entertaining enough, it was over. 

About three years ago, I started watching FAR more streaming services than Cable TV.  I think the only reason I have cable TV today is sports.

Back in 1991, MST3K aired it's first Turkey Day Marathon.  Here are all of the promo bits they did for the original broadcast.  It's so cool someone saved these.


And for your Turkey Day love, a revisiting of the Thanksgiving Day broadcast of Night of the Blood Beast!
 

Have a great weekend everyone! 





A Drunk in a Dark Bar, Swinging at Flies

Let’s recap:


·      There is NO evidence of the “extensive voting fraud” Trump’s campaign says exists.  NONE!

·      Trump’s campaign has repeatedly gone to court in multiple states to overturn election results.  They have gone to court in both red states and blue states.

·      So far, Trump's campaign team has won one case, were a minimal amount of PA ballots were tossed out, a few dozen.  Seriously, the parameters of the votes thrown out are rare to say the lease.  A few dozen might be a large exaggeration.  He has lost the other 31 other cases.  In each case they come to a point where they have to show their evidence, AND THEY DON’T HAVE ANY!

·      Even Conservative news outlets have offered them a platform to make their case, as long as Trump’s team can produce the evidence. The Trump campaign has never complied.

 

Step back for a second.  Trump fans are accusing multiple state's Secretary of State's offices, along with multitudes of County Election officials in a variety of states, ALONG WITH a large portion of the Judicial branches of both those individual states and the Federal courts, of being in on the steal.  We are now talking hundreds of thousands of people being involved in the conspiracy for it to be real.  You're freaking Loon Balls.

 

·      Trump’s new strategy is arguing that since black people voted so heavily for Biden, it must be a sign of fraud, hence their votes should be thrown out.

·      Once again, they have NO EVIDENCE of voter fraud.  And this is clearly as racist as it sounds.

·      Can you imagine what the right would be like if a Democratic campaign loser suggested Trump’s overwhelming victories in rural counties should be thrown out because all the white people voting for him must be a sign of fraud?

 

Now they are asking state Legislatures to throw out the LEGALLY CAST BALLOTS.


·      They want them to install a pro-Trump Electoral College, even though the state Legislatures could never do this without their Governor signing on, their states have specific laws on the books to prevent this exact sort of thing, and even the loyal Trump Republicans have said they can’t do that. 

 

 

It’s over.  There is no fraud. Trump lost!  To quote Trump supporters in 2016, “GET OVER IT!!!”





Friday, November 13, 2020

The Friday Link for 11/13/20

No need to fear Friday the 13th this year!  Earlier today the final states were awarded in the Presidential race (with Georgia for Biden and North Carolina for Trump) meaning Joe Biden, the President Elect, now has 306 Electoral College votes, the same exact amount as Trump got in 2016, something Trump referred to as a "landslide." 

I bet he doesn't regret that at all!

Trump has suggested he can somehow appoint himself to a second term, something he clearly can't do.  Not saying he won't try.  The problem for him is he needs to get multiple states to throw out their vote totals, undermining the voters of their state, and install him as their state winner.  Arizona and Georgia are run by Republicans and they've already called their states for Biden.  It'll be an interesting trick to convince everyone the Republicans of those two states were actually in the bag for Biden.

That doesn't leave a lot of options for Trump.  Sure the states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have blindly loyal Republicans running their state Legislatures, but both states have specific rules about Electors.  Setting aside the fact that both states also have a Democratic Governor, a person who clearly has a say in the matter and who won't go along with throwing out the state's election tallies, the WI and PA Republicans themselves know this would be political suicide for them to actually throw out their election results.

But for argument's sake, let's say Trump convinces Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to throw out their vote totals and pledge their loyalty to Trump.  That's still only 30 Electoral College votes, leaving Biden with 276, still enough for the Presidency. Nevada is the next most likely state but they only have 6 Electoral College votes, so Trump would still need one more. He could try to flip the one Electoral College vote in Nebraska that went for Biden, or Michigan, but both are highly unlikely considering their margins for Biden.  

There is no where else to go. Trump will be anger eating the next few weeks.  Delicious!

Tonight for the Friday Link let's start off with Robert Reich addressing Trump's coup thoughts, and why they won't go anywhere. 


I've heard some Trump supports insist there is a fix in for Biden because his vote totals didn't follow something called Benford's Law.  I had no idea what Benford's Law actually was but the best Mathematician I know, Matt Parker, and his channel Stand Up Maths, had heard of this alleged conspiracy and he made a very informative video about how Benford's Law is unreliable and doesn't apply here. 



Finally tonight, let's move away from politics to something that stunned me.  Britain used to be connected to the European mainland, but I'm not referring to millions of years ago.  Around Eight Thousand years ago, a natural disaster of cataclysmic proportions occurred which destroyed the land bridge connecting England to Holland and The Netherlands.  What could have done it?  Simon Whistler at Geographics has the story. 


Have a great weekend everyone!





Thursday, November 12, 2020

Feeling Minnesota with Georgia On My Mind

 A lot of people are happy about the outcome of Election 2020, namely Trump losing to President Elect Joe Biden.  I myself was celebrating on Saturday when word came down of the win, but I have to admit, I'm mostly mad about what happened in 2020.  Once again the Democratic Party, while catering to the moderate wing of the party, managed to serve up an embarrassing set of losses. The Democrats couldn't take back the US Senate, and lost seats in the US House.  The Minnesota DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) Party also failed at its quest to take the Minnesota Senate, and lost seats in the MN House.

This as a pandemic rages across the country, a pandemic which is far worse because of the Republicans.  AND they're the party trying to actively kill cheap healthcare. 

The Democrats should have mopped the floor with the Republicans, but yet here we are...AGAIN!

(Image via FiveThirtyEight.com)

Since 2006, when comparing Democratic Party results, we've seen a pattern in election seasons.  In years where the party runs unified, touting the benefits of a vibrant Democratic platform, the party wins, and wins big.  But in years where the party's message is controlled by Moderate Democrats, the results go from 'bland' to outright Republican ass kickings.

Let's talk the 2020 mistakes Democrats made by following the lead of the Moderates, both in Minnesota and across the country:

1) Moderate Democrats ran against their own party more than they ran against Republicans!  I can't tell you how many Minnesota DFL candidates I interviewed who vilified the Progressive side of the Democratic party FAR MORE than they vilified the Republicans.  Considering the only way the Republicans would win in 2020 was to make the Democrats turn on themselves, it's comical the Moderate Democrats fell for it so easily.

All Republicans had to say was "they want to defund the police" and Moderate Democrats wet themselves. Instead of saying "I'm running in this district.  When you have people being murdered by police officers on camera, there's clearly a need for police reform in Minneapolis, but I'll leave that to them.  I'd rather talk about issues which matter to my district," they did the Republicans bidding, bashing on Progressives as 'out of touch socialists needing to be reigned in.'

If you're beating up your own party during an election year, you don't convey confidence or integrity.  You look pathetic and foolish.  Democrats and the Minnesota DFL need to make a new standard: Attacking fellow Democrats WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!  

Dear Lord, is that so F-ing hard?!?

2) Republican-lite doesn't sell.  If you have a choice of a regular version of something or a 'lite' version of the same thing, you go for the regular.  Moderate Democrats are convinced their path to victory is NOT to embrace the tens of millions of Progressive voters they ignore, but instead sacrifice their party and platform in the feeble attempt to convince a dozen or so Moderate Republicans to vote for them. 

The last two months of the Election cycle, most of the Democratic candidate ads I heard were like this:  "Hi, I'm the DFL candidate for ____ and my first priority is to make sure I work with Republicans.  All my bills will get Republican approval first as I'd rather work with Republicans than work with my own party.  And if I win, the Republicans have told me I can sit near them in the cafeteria!"

Once again, if you're not proud of being a Democrat, then why should I vote for you, THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE?  You come across as a person without principles

3) And Moderate Democrats, Republican-lite is toxic for the rest of the Democrats.  Dean Philips was one of those Democrats whose ads talked about how much he loved working with the Republicans.  I know his campaign will insist it worked, as he got re-elected.  Great, but it cost the party; Traditional Democrats and Progressive Democratic candidates in his district never had a chance because of Dean's campaign approach.  Not only were they having to campaign against the Republicans, but members of their own party as well. 

In Dean's district, I know at least four great Traditional Democrat and Progressive Democratic candidates who never were able to get traction.  All of them lost.  Whether national races or local ones, Moderate Democrats embracing the Republicans over the Democrats puts the rest of the party on the defensive.  I'm tired of the horror movie "Do you agree with ______ candidate that parts of the DFL party are too extreme or are you part of the socialist gestapo your candidate says is killing America?" phone call coming from inside the DFL's own house!  

Seriously Moderate Democrats, if you can't run without beating up your own party or cosplaying a Republican, go find a different party.

4) Moderate Democrats, terrified of having to defend progressive ideas, made the election ONLY about Trump when the FAR more effective issue was healthcare.  In 2010, after the Democratic Party passed what should've been a signature piece of legislation for decades, the Affordable Care Act, Moderate Democrats, brainwashed by Republicans, vilified the ACA and actively campaigned against it.  It ended up being a disastrous election cycle because Moderate Democrats were too fragile when it came to Republican bullying.  They should have been proud of what they accomplished, instead of cowering away from it.

In 2020, Moderate Democrats were scared to death of having to defend single payer healthcare, so they mostly abandoned healthcare as a primary tentpole issue.  I was astounded they shied away from the issue during a pandemic, especially after it was such a winning issue for them in 2018.  They made the campaign only about Trump.  They managed to get him out of office, but their lack of quality message beyond 'Remove Trump' hurt them pretty much every where else. 

And before Moderate Democrats start bickering, I do know there was some talk about healthcare on the campaign trail, but it was a secondary issue.  Anti-Trump sentiment was strong, but I don't think there was any NEW convincing voters Trump was a bad guy.  The people's minds were made up, so all you had to do was get those people to the polls.  Meanwhile, healthcare is an issue which makes moderate Trump voters reconsider their choice, and Moderate Democrats didn't hammer that home, especially in rural America.

5) All Democrats became convinced the early voting numbers were enough.  In the end they were, but just barely. This should've been a blow out, but Democrats were too busy patting themselves on the back to realize most Republicans were planning on voting in person on 11/3.  There should've be a FAR More aggressive voter engagement program, especially in rural parts of Minnesota and this country, 

6) Democrats in Minnesota and nationwide seem have given up on any seat outside of the large metro areas. In Minnesota, the F in DFL means 'Farmer,' but the way the party seemed to ignore the districts outside of the metro areas made me ask if they had even heard of a farm.

If you give up on a district, I guarantee you will never win it.  In 2006, the Democrats had the 50 state strategy and tried to compete in every district.  It worked!  In 2018, I heard stories from campaign workers telling us it was the first time a DFL'er had knocked on most of these doors in years, and we got great results that year too!  By putting forward a lackluster effort in rural Minnesota, only focusing on the cities and suburbs, the Democrats are back to being a non-existent contender in many rural districts.

And Democrats, I understand there are Republican bullies in rural Minnesota.  I know it can be scary, but if you don't stand up to the bully, the bully always wins.


Winning as a Democrat is not hard:  Run proud Democrats in every district, get them the support system they need to win, campaign on Democratic principles, no bad mouthing other Democrats, don't run a campaign where it sounds like you're a Republican, get voters registered, and make sure they all get to the polls and vote! 

That's what happened in Georgia this year, and look at the results.  The Democrats were able to take a reliably red state and turn it blue.  Was it scary at times?  Damn right it was!  For God's sake, a Q-Anon candidate won a US House race, but if you don't challenge the bullies, the bullies always win.  Thank you Stacey Abrams for standing up to the bullies!  Georgia did it right.

In the days since the election, Moderate Democrats have gone on the offensive.  "The reason we didn't win more was because of those damn liberals!  They need to step back and let us lead."

Go F- yourselves! The reason we failed to gain more wins in 2020 is because you Moderate Democrats sold out the rest of the party and were only in it for yourselves. YOU failed us.  It's time for YOU GUYS, Moderate Democrats, to step back and let the rest of the party lead from here on out.  If you don't like that, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. 





Monday, November 9, 2020

The Absence of Words

 Hi all.

When the Trump Presidency started, I stumbled upon a weekly blog idea, The Trump List.  On a lark, I had posted a list of bad things Trump had done in just one week, and I realized it would be a good bit.  It was. I did the Trump list from early 2017 until January 2018 (with a break in there for summer), but then I had to stop.  The lists were taking up too much time every week, somewhere around 30 hours.  The posts were wildly popular, with some getting over 5000 hits, but it was too exhausting to keep trying to compile the list, edit it and get it posted.  As I said back then, I got kids and they were starting to miss me.

After some fans (including some national pundents) asked for me to keep trying, I came up with the Trump Top 20 Weekly Countdown.  I felt I could trim down the work load, only keep track of the most insane things the Administration did and keep everyone happy.  I managed to keep the Trump Top 20 going for about 6 months, but by early November 2018 I had to stop.  Once again, the weight of going through Trump's weekly messes was too much.

I remember asking when I started the Trump Lists, even as bad as Trump was, would I have enough stuff to post every week, but as Trump's term ramped up, so did the crazy.  It wasn't that I was doing more research or scanning more news sources.  It was because the load of incompetence from Trump and his Administration was quickly getting larger and larger.  

This was by design.  Trump was weaponizing the news.  He made it impossible to cover his crimes by flooding the news cycle with incompetence.  Every time he did something horrible, he'd intentionally do something else horrible to take the spotlight off of his first incompetence.  By being the most incompetent President ever, both unintentionally and intentionally, presenting a daily buffet of things impossible to track, he avoided having to answer for most of his individual malfeasances.

2020 has been a nightmare.  Trump's intentional flooding of the news cycle welcomed in the CoronaVirus. He never had any intention of trying to save the American people from the pandemic.  On the contrary!  He seems to have intentionally made this as bad as possible, and in turn making his deluge of 20 daily news stories, into 50.  

I have a job which requires me to stay on top of the news. I remembered how exasperated I became in late January 2020 when it became clear what was heading our way with COVID.  It was already near impossible to keep on top of the news ("remember last week when Trump was impeached?!?) but we were all hoping, begging to see a side of Trump we knew was never going to be shown.  There was no hidden Trump empathy.  Anyone paying attention to Trump knew he couldn't tackle this historic crisis.  Seeing we were about to enter a long dark tunnel, I hunkered down.

Not only was writing hard during this last year, at times it was pointless.  I would start writing a blog piece and before I could post it, it was dated, needing revisions, or sometimes a complete rewriting.  After that happened a few times I started to write less.  Unless I was posting within an hour of the story, it was dated by dinner time.

I now finally see a light in the distance.  I can't wait to get back to a time when I'd hear a story about the President maybe once a day. I spent a lot of time after Biden was declared the winner decompressing and purposely not watching the news.  This morning, I noticed I looked at about a third of the news outlets I was looking at on Friday. I feel the gears starting to slow down. 

I aim to get back to writing and posting.  I apologize to everyone who has wanted new content.  I highly encourage you to go revisit the Trump Lists and the Trump Top 20's back in the 2017 and 2018 archives. I thought they were quite good.

I should have new content up soon.

Thanks.

Friday, November 6, 2020

The Friday Link for 11/6/20

 It will be nice to get back to being able to write.  This was another week where I had no chance of getting a new blog post up.  But I feel as if I might be able to focus on writing again soon.

Why was I busy this week?  You know why.  Our Cartoon President has a recap, but remember, they use naughty language.  You've been warned! 


I also want to feature a video from Townsends historical cooking.  In it, Jon Townsend talks about the stress of modern times and how it's important to step back and relax; talks about turning off the constant buzz and reconnecting with yourself.  He also will teach you how to make a very common 18th century breakfast, Scotch Collops and Hot Chocolate. 


When I've had a few minutes to try to destress, I have found woodturning videos great.  Dead serious.  

Not only do you get to see skilled craftsmen make amazing pieces, but watching a piece of wood get whittled down is very soothing. Well at least it is for me.  Makes me wonder if I still have enough time in my life to run away from it all and become a master wood crafter.

Enjoy two wood working videos and see if they relax you. FYI, the lower the sound the better.  They can get kind of loud, which might defeat the purpose for you. Good news, is there usually isn't any talking. 




Have a great weekend everyone!