Fox

Stunning Rupert Murdoch deposition leaves Fox News in a world of trouble

By now you have read or heard about the defamation lawsuit by Dominion Systems against Fox, claiming damage to their voting machine company through the lies told by Fox news hosts and their guests. The owner of Fox, Rupert Murdoch, admitted he knew his minions were spreading lies, but he didn't stop them because of the "green" those lies were bringing in from their viewers - Trump's brain-dead cult members.

Hopefully, Fox will soon be paying a lot of "green" to Dominion, but I can't stop thinking about the viewers. They have chosen Fox as their news source because it gives them the information they want to be true, and that's nobody's fault but their own.

R.E.M.

I have now plumbed the depths of available (and likeable to me) Youtube videos from Austin City Limits, but found this adjacent one from Live from Austin, TX, a 2010 video album by R.E.M.

Nickel Creek

I'm looking at old Austin City Limits episodes ... never watched that PBS show before ... and came upon an appearance by Nickel Creek.

Brendan Fraser

Today on the Sunday Sitdown, Willie Geist interviews actor Brendan Fraser. Fraser is an Academy Award nominee for his film The Whale, but I chiefly love him in his earlier roles in The Mummy. Gods and Monsters , Blast from the Past , Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Inkheart . I'm looking forward to seeing The Whale, for which Fraser won a minutes long standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival.

A year ago

It's hard to think about all the Ukrainians have been going through in this last year. I hope Putin is held accountable for his war crimes.

Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne sings his song Fountain of Sorrow. I believe this is from Austin City Limits, November 16, 2002 ...

Cloudy

I see in the news that's it's supposed to be cold and icy in most of the country, but here it's just cool and cloudy. I was out with the cats, as usual.

Here's Snowy. She looks sleepy or maybe she's just squinting at me ...

Here's Prince Wendell napping in the sometimes sun ...

And here's Olive (nicknamed Oleg Kittypaska after the Mueller report) checking out the dead tree ...

AMNH

Making my morning visit to New York's American Museum of Natural History. There's always something interesting at their Twitter account ...

Have you ever seen a unicorn? 🦄 Well, how about a unicornfish? Also known as unicorn tangs, there are ~20 species of unicornfish that make up the genus Naso. Scientists aren't sure what their signature horns are for, but theorize that they're used during courtship displays! pic.twitter.com/Kt0ebkZnWJ

— American Museum of Natural History (@AMNH) February 21, 2023

Biden in Ukraine

Biden in Kyiv: U.S. will support Ukraine 'for as long as it takes'

"Freedom is priceless," Biden said in a joint press conference. "It's worth fighting for, for as long as it takes, and that's how long we're going to be with you, Mr. President," he added.

I'm proud of President Biden for doing the right thing, despite support for Ukraine wainig somewhat in the US.

King Tut

From my favorite historian, Michael Beschloss :) ...

Don’t miss this video of @SteveMartinToGo on SNL as King Tut (1978) —“Born in Arizona / Moved to Babilonia": https://t.co/Bw2WgMi6DL pic.twitter.com/rLf3KFtHPt

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 16, 2023

Balloons!

Everything you might want to know about the thousands of balloons filling the sky, from Chuck Todd (of Meet the Press). I was agog! Here's a blurb ...

Flying objects recently shot down from North American airspace have left many Americans confused and anxious — yet experts caution that the U.S. is not being overrun by new UFOs, but rather coming to terms with the quantity of objects that fly overhead at all times. Paul Fetkowitz, president of a weather balloon-maker for governmental and civilian use, joins Chuck to detail just how crowded our skies are.

Childfree

People are mocking the conservative outrage to Chelsea Handler’s ‘Childless Woman’ sketch

Something like 20% of people in the US choose to be childless (or childfree) and those of the political/religious Right just hate that. They concentrate only on the childless women, not the men, predicting they will be all alone, that they will be miserable, and that they will have too many cats ;)

I've known a lot of childless people, from my doctor of 30 years, to my college boyfriend, to a co-worker at my last job. All were men, all were married, and ok, all did have cats, but I think that was a coincidence rather than an inevitable outcome. Speaking for myself, my continuing feeling about having no children is "Whew! Dodged that bullet!".

Poor conservatives ... they really can't bear the fact that they cannot control the intimate lives of every single other person.

In the yard

Flowers are already starting to bloom here, like these plum tree blossoms ...

And the periwinkle vines ...

Some of the cats hung around with me, like Gretel ...

And Mouse ...

Dina was asleep on the couch ...

There was a woodpecker in the privet tree. I couldn't see him very well but I could hear him, so I aimed the camera at that spot and clicked a bunch of times. All I got was a photo of his behind ;) ...

Sense and Sensibility

On this Valentine's Day I'm watching Sense and Sensibility ...

a 1995 period drama film directed by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen's 1811 novel of the same name. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and stars as Elinor Dashwood, while Kate Winslet plays Elinor's younger sister Marianne. The story follows the Dashwood sisters, members of a wealthy English family of landed gentry, as they must deal with circumstances of sudden destitution. They are forced to seek financial security through marriage. Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman play their respective suitors ...

Here's a video about the making of the movie ...

Run, hide, or fight

"Run, hide, or fight". That was the advice from police to students at Michigan State University when a gunman started killing them.

There is one reason this keeps happening ... Republican politicians. They will not allow Congress to pass the gun laws that most of the country wants. They care soooooo much about the eggs, embryos, and zygotes embedded in a woman's reproductive tract, but they do not give a poop about actually existing children.

Mike Lee

If you watched the State of the Union address, you saw Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee looking shocked and betrayed when Joe Biden said that some in the Republican party want to get rid of Social Security. Lee even went on to give interviews after that, saying that Biden had lied.

Well, there is video evidence of Lee (see above) telling voters/donors ...

“It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it up by the roots and get rid of it ... Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort. They need to be pulled up.”

I want to say something about the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that the Republicans want to destroy. It is not just seniors who use it and need it. Those programs are the primary lifeline for the disabled, from children to the elderly.

I was lucky with my degenerative eye disease. Because the onset was gradual, I was able to work at various jobs for 20 years. But over 70% of visually impaired/blind people do not have jobs. All they have to count on for survival is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

I hope the Republican party is destroyed for its lies, hypocrisy, and cruelty.

State of the Union

Above are some of the memorable moments from Joe Biden's State of the Union address last night. I thoght he did a really good job.

One moment in particular that made a big splash was when Biden mentioned the national debt, that Trump had increased it by 25%, and that the Republicans had raised the debt ceiling three times under Trump. Then he addressed Republicans now trying to hold raising the debt ceiling hostage through threatening to sunset Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (Are Republicans Trying To Defund Social Security And Medicaid? A State Of The Union Fact Check (Updated: Biden Fires Back)).

Some Republicans heckled Biden, calling him a liar. That didn't shut him down. He has the receipts, so to speak, and he was able to flip the script, forcing the Republicans to say that they would not touch those programs. It was pretty funny ...

Bob Marley

Happy birthday today to Jamaican musician Bob Marley, who died in 1981. Here is Eric Clapton doing one of Marley's more well known songs, I Shot the Sheriff ...

Trump's balloons

Suspected Chinese Spy Balloons Crossed Into U.S. 3 Times During Trump Administration

Suspected spy balloons from China crossed into the continental United States at least three times while Donald Trump was president, according to a statement Saturday by the Department of Defense citing an unnamed “senior defense official.” “Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration,” the statement said ...

But but but ... I'm shocked, shocked I say, to read this! Because Trump has denied it, and every Republican lawmaker is saying that Trump would never, never, let a Chinese spy balloon pass over the US, and that Biden is a terrible president for not shooting down the spy balloon before it entered our airspace.

Major Tom (Coming Home)

On the muzak at the grocery store today: Major Tom (Coming Home) ...

a song by singer Peter Schilling from his album Error in the System. With a character unofficially related to "Major Tom", the protagonist of David Bowie's 1969 song "Space Oddity", the song is about the character breaking off contact with ground control and traveling off into space.

The song was originally recorded in German and released in West Germany on 3 January 1983. It reached No. 1 in West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The English version was first released in the United States on 24 September 1983. It reached No. 1 in Canada, No. 4 in South Africa and peaked at No. 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart the week of 24 December 1983 ...

Our periods

In the news is the story that Florida governor Ron DeSantis wants to track schoolgirls' periods. That's not quite accurate, in that the state of Florida has been asking schoolgirls about their periods for years. It's just that now they are considering making the answers mandatory. And they aren't the only state that does this - most states do, including California.

But it's not just schools. I recall this from the Trump years ...

The U.S. Is Tracking Migrant Girls' Periods to Stop Them From Getting Abortions

I've got to say, what the hell? Why should any school or government agency have the right to be involved in a female's reproductive life? Same question for religious institutions like the Catholic church (see Natural Family Planning, a failed teaching concieved by celibate men).

Despite what this Idaho Republican legislator has to say, women are not livestock, to have our reproductive systems scrutinized and managed by others ...

Ilhan Omar

House passes resolution to remove Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee

The Republican-led House of Representatives voted on Thursday to pass a resolution to remove Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar from the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.

House Republicans have argued Omar should not serve on the committee in light of past statements she has made related to Israel that in some cases been criticized by members of both parties as antisemitic ...

Right. The Republicans in the House are soo very worried about antisemitism. That's why they renounced the leader of their party, Donald Trump, after his dinner with two celebrity antisemites. And That's why they chastized Marjorie Taylor Greene for her Jewish space lasar trope. And that's why their party has managed to attract the huge number of two, yes two, Jewish people to serve as Republicans in Congress.

Oh wait.

The Republicans in the House got rid of Representative Omar because they hate her and their base hates her. And they hate her because she is a woman, a liberal, a Muslim, a refugee from Somalia.

No one is fooled by their sudden revulsion for antisemitism, and they know that, but it's all just a game, right?