The Friday Link for 6/30/23

Howdy all and I hope everyone has a nice Independence Day weekend.

Followers of mine will know I'm a cook. I like cooking.  When I got married my wife said she didn't cook a lot and was one of those people content with cold-cut sandwiches on a regular basis. I being the youngest of 7, being raised by an exceptional cook in my mom (and my dad was pretty good too), and growing up for part of my youth in an underappreciated Italian/Portuguese/Seafood food mecca of Rhode Island, I gladly stepped in.

Am I pretty good? I think I do okay, with far more hits than misses (but I do have my misses). You know what I'm not foolish enough to do?  Go up online and post cooking videos and act like I've discovered cooking itself.

There are a shocking amount of people who do post cooking videos, many of them missing far more than hitting. This is not about being judgmental about easy quick hearty American food cooking.  I love some of the channels dedicated to that style of cooking (SuperMommy and the Backwoods Gourmet are two of my favorites).  This is about people doing something like boiling water and warming up tomato sauce and reacting like they're Julia Child incarnate. 

Sometimes, when you see the list of ingredients you realize they are trying too hard to be the lowest common denominator cooking, and it usually is a mess.

Sometimes, it's clear they are intentionally trying to be jackasses, pulling a gag, and trying to get people to cook something atrocious that ends up being a culinary disaster.  The spaghetti on the counter video that was circulating a few years ago is a prime example of that.

Thank goodness for Chef Reactions.  I am late to this one, but I am not much on TikTok and that's where he's been huge. (2.4 million followers).

The chef (whose identity remains a bit of a mystery.  I didn't look too hard so if he doesn't want to be known, I'm cool with that) watches cooking videos and rates them.  Sometimes they are rated as good, most of the time they are rated as horrible, but he still will admit he would at least try a bite of many of them.  Most of all, he is freaking hilarious as he tears these monstrosities down. Seriously, at times I was laughing so hard that I had to stop the video for a few minutes.

Let's start with a video of him watching a REALLY bad cook.

Note, he swears, A LOT! If you are against that sort of thing, see you next week.

Here's him taking on some guy called "Dr. Food." The best part is Chef Reactions continually calling out the Doctor for saying he's making French cuisine when he's not even close!

The next one, sweet lord! I need a t-shirt that says, "Why is the egg in there?"

To prove he is not all negative, here is a video of him praising a chef video.  Once again, he does swear a lot!  

Finally a bit of a different video from Chef Reactions.  Occasionally he will go somewhere and review the food.  He did so at the numerous Disney Parks. He also gives some pretty good advice on visiting these parks and how to navigate them.  10 out of 10! 

He has A LOT of videos on TikTok.  Go enjoy him there. 

Have a Happy Independence Day and Happy Birthday America.

Make sure you stay up to date on your vaccinations!

Police State

Last Friday, The U.S. Department of Justice released its report of its investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department.  This investigation was started in the aftermath of four police officers murdering George Floyd at 38th and Chicago in south Minneapolis. 

We all knew the report was going to be brutal.  It ended up being far worse. I highly encourage you to read the full report (https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1587661/download).

What I'm going to post here are a few dozen of the choicer excerpts. This is disgusting behavior, made by a police force that never thought they would be held accountable.  This was a police force that HATED the people of Minneapolis, HATED the news media, and punished the minorities of the city with ruthless cruelty.

Since it became clear what was coming down, the police who were the problem, mainly the former head of the police union Bob Kroll and his intentionally built force of hate, have fled, like rats jumping off a ship. They ran away because their days of abusing the city were over.  Their sick twisted jollies can no longer be fulfilled by violently assaulting the masses at will.  They ran before they could be held accountable, but I would love to drag every one of those cowards back to the city by their short hairs and put them on trial.

This was a disgrace; not only by the police department, but by their enablers too.  There was the whipped Hennepin County Attorney who refused to hold these out-of-control officers accountable.  There were the repeated ineffectual mayors who were (AT BEST) unable to reign in the worst gang in the city; at worst they were condoning the behavior.

And there was one other group that needs to be held accountable, the Republican Party of Minnesota, which is really responsible for this behavior going unchecked.  Through legislation, they made it virtually impossible for anyone to hold the police accountable for anything, and in return, the Minneapolis police would lend themselves to Republican political campaigns with endorsements, photo ops, and a now haunting narrative; "vote for the Republicans and they'll allow us to keep 'THOSE PEOPLE' under control."  The Minnesota Republicans are a major reason this debacle occurred.

Funny.  Those cowards are also the most quiet about the abuse they allowed to be unleashed on the citizens of the city.

Read through the highlights of the report.  Warning - there is a lot of adult language.  I guarantee even the most pro-cop individual will eventually have to pick their jaw up from the table when they realize the extent of the tyrannical police state that existed in Minneapolis.

I have hope the DOJ and the new Chief will clean this mess up.

And for the officers who did all of these things, may you all burn in hell.  

The Friday Link for 6/23/23

Let me start this week by reminding everyone of a story that has slipped from the headlines, the writer's strike. They have legit reasons to be concerned about the future.  I hope they get everything they are asking for.

Speaking of the writers, I haven't done an SNL recap this year so here you go.  Overall, I didn't think the season was great.  I usually watch the skits on Sunday and as I went through them this season, there seemed to be more misses than hits.

Here are what I think were the best sketches for this season. 

Hands down the best was the first one of the season, the Peyton brothers doing a live breakdown of the show.  What makes it spectacular is Miles Teller's spot-on Peyton Manning impression. 

Next was Lisa from Temecula. Ego Nwodim is hilarious, so much so that Pedro Pascal and Bowen Yang lose it the entire skit. Sometimes the stars laughing is the best part, and this is the best skit to have that since Debbie Downer and Close Encounter. 

Pedro Pascal was the best episode of the season, and another skit, Waking Up, was also great. 

The Arby's skit was pretty good, where the cast has some legit questions about he math involved in Arby's menu. 

I thought this one was pretty good, the King Brothers Toyota Ad.  Maybe it's because I have seen this God-awful city planning in person, especially in the South. 

Finally tonight, a rather adult one.  When Woody Harrelson hosted and they did a take-off on the service where you send a sample to a lab to determine if you are at risk for colon cancer.  I had a friend use this and it was a little awkward.  SNL ramped up the awkwardness quite a bit.

Adult content!

Have a great weekend.  Stay safe and stay vaccinated. 

The Friday Link for 6/16/23

Hi all!

As you might know, I have been enjoying the podcast Smartless.  It is the one with Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes, three friends, and all of them very good actors/comedians.  They interview someone on each episode and generally hilarity ensues. 

One slight problem.  They do have the occasional bad episode. Not many of them, but occasionally the show goes south.  It's usually when they start ignoring the guest and just go off on tangents.  Hey, I have my stinker shows too.

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is the same way.  Jerry Seinfeld interviews someone from the comedy realm and most of the time hilarity ensues. Occasionally it's just not good, but with both CICGC and Smartless, the good outweighs the bad, so go enjoy.  I highly recommend both.  CICGC is now finished, but Smartless is still pumping out new episodes.

Two of the better CICGC episodes for you.  These were edited in a weird way to omit a lot of the intro and incidental moments, but the jokes are still good.  Steve Martin is up first, and this features one of the funniest stories ever, about the worst comedy gig of all time. 

Also the Jim Gaffigan episode is worthwhile. Same weird editing thing. 

And finally tonight, with the new Flash movie coming out, Honest Trailers decided to go back and revisit The Flash TV series.  It wasn't a good series.

Have a great weekend! Stay healthy and stay safe! 

The Friday Link for 6/9/23

I watched the full season of Citadel on Amazon Prime.  But before I get to that, let me complain about how much streaming services have destroyed a lot of movie/TV genres.

Most streaming content is just garbage.  It is!  It's done on the cheap, and not usually too concerned about quality. It's contrived, cliched, poorly acted, written, and directed.  It reminds me how so many of the cable channels ruined themselves by getting away from their niche programming (History Channel - History. Bravo - Fine Arts. MTV - Music.) when they found out they could air reality TV in its place.  They all just quit.

It's not exactly the same for streaming services.  They are so desperate for the content they just churn out programs like Twinkies.  On the plus side, it does give a lot of people work, and some of it is good, but the vast majority is not worth it.

The spy genre is one which has been beaten into the ground. There is very little 'spy' to it anymore, just an over-the-top action scene followed by another over-the-top action scene.  That's why I was somewhat pleased by Citadel. Sure it is predictable at times, and some of the action scenes are over the top, but overall I thought it was good.

Citadel is well written, with some really unique concepts and twists.  The acting was enjoyable with Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden having nice chemistry. Stanley Tucci was also entertaining.

The series just finished up its first season a week ago, with a heck of a stunner in the end.  Enjoy the opening 10 minutes of the first episode of the season. 

Finally tonight, a video! There is a great band out of Burnsville called Durry, and they are GOOD! Here is their latest song, 'Coming of Age.'

Have a great weekend.  Enjoy the sunshine! 

Minnesota, F*&# YEAH!!! The Stunning Success of the DFL Miracle!

You might have seen Minnesota showing up win your local news feeds lately for being the polar opposite of Republican led states like Florida, Texas, Montana and others.  While those Red States relished in passing bills based on hating people and restricting people's rights, Minnesota has had a different approach in 2023.

Last Fall, as we approached the 2022 Election, after years of divided government in the state where the Right refused to help most non millionaire and billionaire Minnesotans, Republicans were insisting they couldn't wait for the "Red Tsunami" that was coming, where they would take over the entire state (Governor's office, the MN House and MN Senate).  They proudly bragged about how they were going to "Jam their agenda down those Liberal's Throats!"

But a funny thing happened.  The Right in Minnesota had stacked the deck against themselves.  They had a disastrous gubernatorial candidate, and a FAR more disturbing Secretary of State Candidate.  They were intentionally ignoring the strong pro-abortion current in the electorate against them, courtesy of the Republican stacked court overturning of Roe v. Wade last June.  And they grossly underestimated the public appeal of their douche-y tone and false alpha male jerkish-ness. 

They lost...BADLY!

The Minnesota Democrats (or as they call them in Minnesota, the DFL) EASILY won the Governor's office, held the House, and (shock of all shocks) got a one seat majority in the Minnesota Senate!

I was a little skeptical of how much the DFL was going to get done here.  This is a team who historically would take a simple free throw and not only miss the shot, but miss the backboard completely and injure four people in the stands.  They have a record of shootings themselves in the foot.

But in 2023, a Minnesota Miracle happened.  Learning from their INSANELY overly cautious strategy of the past, they decided to find their common ground up front and ended up passing a once in a 100 years legislative agenda, one that will benefit Minnesotans for generations to come.

Below is an INCOMPLETE list of all the Minnesota DFL got passed this session.  Bask in the glory that is Minnesota! 

• Minnesotans can make 'autonomous decisions' about their reproductive health, concerning contraception, abortion and pregnancy
• Minnesota is a sanctuary state for women seeking abortions.  Subpoenas and extraditions in regards to abortion will not be enforced in Minnesota
• Other abortion restrictions (24 hour waiting period, hospital mandates, women's information gathering, informed-consent rule) were also ended
• Minnesota is a sanctuary state for transgender individuals seeking gender affirming care. Minnesota will not help enforce any out-of-state prosecutions
• The practice of conversion therapy for children and vulnerable adults is now forbidden
• Paid Family and Medical Leave is now the law in Minnesota
• The DFL delivered the largest tax cut in Minnesota history
• A major expansion of high speed broadband across the state brings us closer to border to border coverage
• All electricity in Minnesota must be carbon free by 2040
• Rebate checks for Minnesotans making $78K or less a year, and married couples making $150K or less, and rebates for up to three kids per household
• A child tax credit focused on lower income workers, up to $1750 per child under 18
• A massive expansion of social security tax exemption, geared towards couples making less than $100K a year and individuals making less than $78K a year. Over 75% of Minnesota seniors no longer will pay the tax
• Universal free school breakfast and lunch to all kids
• $7.8 Billion for funding roads, transit and airports over the next two years
• Minnesota has a 'red flag law,' which means authorities can seize firearms for someone deemed to be a high risk of injuring themselves or others
• Private party transfers of certain firearms now require universal background checks
• Free tuition to state universities, public colleges and tribal colleges for families making $80K or less
• Every school district in the state got a major budget increase, especially in essential services 
• Rental assistance was expanded for 5000 more low income households, with about a third guaranteed to go to outstate communities
• New paths for struggling farmers to get their product to hunger relief organizations across the state
• Undocumented workers can now get a driver's license
• $300 million to low income families to get access to early childhood education
• More mental health resources for every level of education in MN
• Major investments into the state colleges
• It's now illegal in Minnesota for people to knowingly spread false information with the intention of stopping someone from voting
• Money to address food insecurity on college campuses
• $300 million in new funding to help public safety officials treat mental health calls
• PFAS (forever chemicals) are banned in Minnesota in 2025
• Marijuana is now legal in Minnesota
• Minnesota will expanded MinnesotaCare (the state's medical care program) to more people, with he goal to offer it to all Minnesotans within a few years
• Some marijauan convictions in Minnesota will be expunged when legal marijuana becomes law
• A massive investment in green energy, primarily solar panels
• Rebates for buying an electric car
• Schools will now offer free menstrual products for students and schools will have the opioid treatment Naloxone available
• $80 million per year for local government and county aid
• $326 million for local roads and bridge repair
• The gas tax is now tied to inflation, preventing further budget shortfalls
• Home weatherization funding for low income individuals
• Voting rights restored for 55,000 Minnesotans with felony convictions, with new rules to reinstate those rights for all felons upon their release from incarceration
• Far more restrictions on police serving no-knock warrants
• Harsher penalties for car-jackers
• A massive increase in spending to upgrade the facilities at the State Parks in Minnesota, benefiting every part of the state
• A major investment in expanding mental health services for farmers 
• 16 year olds will be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 in Minnesota
• $43 million to help battle violent crime in Minnesota
• More authority to the AG to scrutinize medical mergers in the state, to make sure the mergers benefit Minnesotans
• Removal of bizarre rule that prohibited the studying of expansion of mass transit in the south Twin Cities metro area
• Funding to get commuter rail from the Twin Cities to Duluth
• Increased funding for the Attorney Genral's office to allow him to help more counties in prosecutorial duties
• $5 million in renovations to the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center
• $200 million in down payment assistance for low and moderate income Minnesotans to buy homes
• $233 million for helping to address flood mitigation in the state
• Money to replace lead pipe water lines across the state
• Protections for farmers when grain buyers become financially insolvent
• Cracked down on price gauging during emergencies
• Helping with emergency funding for food shelves in the state
• Cracking down on catalytic converter thefts in Minnesota
• Money to encourage the growth of new farmers in Minnesota, especially immigrant and BIPOC farmers
• $300 million ot the state nursing homes to help address the shortages within the industry
• The state will aggressively combat the deer disease Chronic Wasting Disease, in an effort to limit the impact and consequences
• New money for management of our natural lands
• $25 million for snowmobile and ATV trails
• Money to deal with crimes and drug issues on the metro transit lines
• All full time workers can now accrue paid sick and safe leave time
• Money set aside to study the long term effects of COVID
• It is now illegal to discriminate against a person due to their hair 
• Replenished the AG Emergency account
• State fish hatcheries will be rebuilt and/or improved
• Improvements slated for 'from shore' fishing facilities statewide
• They expanded dental benefits for the needy
• The Governors commissioner appointments can no longer be held hostage as a long term negotiation tool
• Money to help homeless people pursue employment and educational opportunities
• New Police stations, fire departments and public safety centers across the state
• Student loan forgiveness for hospital nurses
• Employment protections for meat packing workers
• $35 million to improve boat ramps and facilities at lakes statewide
• Tax credits for electric bikes
• Civics and personal finance classes will be required to graduate high school
• Expansion of bike trails across the state
• New rules regulating pesticides, to stop the devastation of pollinator species
• Money to improve Spirit Mountain Ski Area
• The end of non-compete agreements in Minnesota
• Rental assistance for people struggling with mental illness
• MN schools must teach about the Holocaust and genocide
• $90 million for Minnesota Veteran care
• Employers can no longer force employees to attend an anti-union captive audience meetings
• Increased local cybersecurity grants for local communities
• A new Public Health facility in Bloomington
• Teachers unions can now bargain over educator to student ratios in classrooms
• More school resources for Native America students
• Worker protections for Amazon warehouse employees
• $350 million for new affordable housing statewide and $120 million to subsidize preservation of existing affordable housing
• In MN a contractor entering into a construction contract assumes liability for any unpaid wages
• A $40 million increase to Head Start
• All schools in Minnesota will have to have expanded ethnic studies by 2028
• $65 million for two years to try to limit family homelessness
• $380 million for 47 wastewater projects across the state of Minnesota
• Cash money for various projects including rebuilding US Hwy. 8
• Stopped religious colleges from requiring public high school students taking classes at their facilities (PSEO) from requiring the students sign a faith statement
• 5.5 million to deal with youth homelessness
• Active shooter drills are now banned in Minnesota schools, replaced with violence prevention training once a year
• They revived the historic building tax credit which gives money for people to fix up older buildings
• Adopted a new educational reading curriculum based on phonics
• People on bicycles can have rolling stops at interchanges, as long as they safely yield
• They increased the film production tax credit to encourage more movie and TV productions to film in Minnesota
• We've address the potential minnow shortage crisis
• Juneteenth is now a holiday in Minnesota
• A committee to explore the possibility to expand the Northstar line all the way to St. Cloud
• A new sheet of indoor ice in Hermantown

And Minnesota renamed a highway after Prince (we should at least give him a county too!).

DAAAAAAAMMMMMMNNNN!  This is stunning, but to see them pull all of this off with a one seat majority it truly amazing.  How many times would a Democratic party act like three or four of these LESSER bills would be a triumphant session.  Heck, Democratic states with solid Democrat majorities rarely pass one tenth of an agenda this beautiful during a session! 

As you can imagine, a lot of Minnesota Republicans are now screaming "we're leaving!"  To them I say BYE!  Trust me, whatever red state you move to you are about to come across a lot of unexpected and expensive things which will sting, but let's let that be a surprise.  And the healthcare in red states! Bless your hearts and good luck!  Considering the beacon the Minnesota DFL just made Minnesota, I have ZERO doubt far more poeple will be coming to Minnesota than leaving.

And frankly, we will not miss you if you leave.

If you are that uptight and stresses out about all of this, a reminder that dope is legal in Minnesota starting August 1.  That might help.