genxlib
genxlib's JournalMissing the Point on Stormy
Amidst all of the lurid details and hopefulness that TFG will get his due, I fear that people are missing the significant underlying point.
Yes, he is a scumbag. We know that.
Yes, he manipulated the system to try and buy silence to effect an election. We know that.
But the underlying problem here is far more fundamental than that.
He had something to hide. Something that was worth a lot to hide. People with secrets are compromised and can be extorted .
She could have asked him for anything...state secrets, pardons, a high ranking position, green cards. She had him by the ballsack and could have demanded things a lot more damaging than money.
People who have secrets are dangerous because they will do unethical things to keep them a secret.
To be honest, I was pissed at Bill Clinton for this too. I didn't care that he was getting blown in the Oval Office. I cared that he was compromising himself in ways that made him vulnerable to extortion.
Congratulations for a bright young progressive
I am very proud of my daughter.
She graduates this week with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering with Honors Research Distinction from Ohio State.
Academic accomplishments aside, she is a great person through and through. Proud progressive, votes like there is no tomorrow and even leads an organization committed to LBGTQ+ equality. I have always prided myself on my liberal street cred but she has taught me a few things over the years.
Such a proud Daddy of a great young adult.
She is still looking for her real career opportunity so if you happen to know anyone in the industry or have any recommendations, please give me a shout. The front doors of these industries are guarded by AI driven resume filters and sometimes you just have to find the right people on the inside.
The deSantis behavior really speaks volumes
Biden is coming to Florida and deSantis is avoiding meeting with him.
Yes, deSantis is a sniveling coward with a petty streak. But we all knew that already.
What it really says to me is that he knows that the GOP is a pit of vipers and he can't trust them to be honorable.
Under the circumstances, any reasonable political party would let him meet with Biden in a time of crisis because it is what is traditional and what is good for the state.
But he knows that his party is a sludge pit and his political opposition will use a harmless photo op against him as campaign fodder.
Of course it is ridiculous that such a thing would be seen in a negative light in the first place but even more ridiculous that it would be weaponized against him.
It is an indictment of the entire party.
Important read about history and the Jacksonville killings
This thread from Michael Harriot goes back in time and creates context for 150 years of history that led us up to this point.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1696489770527207589.html
It is a weird feeling to be both shocked and unsurprised. Of course the killings are shocking. Even now, I have trouble wrapping my head around that level of hatred.
But then at the same time, I am completely unsurprised. In the larger sense, these things have happened all over the Country. But as a native Jacksonvillian, I am not in the least bit surprised. I could see this undercurrent of racial resentment my entire life. I left for college but I still go back to visit family. Parts of Jacksonville modernized but in many ways, it is a deep south culture with all of the history that goes with that.
I have personal connections to this tragedy because I was raised within a few miles of this shooting. Until the age of 13, I lived in one of those redlined neighborhoods even though I was a lower middle class white kid. I was a part integration because I was bussed across town to elementary school. I had no understanding of this at the time.
Of course none of this was taught to me in Florida schools. It is only now with time and the help of many of you at DU that I can reflect on my childhood with any sense of history.
I have learned more in the last decade than in the first 45 years of my life. Of course that is progress on one front. But it has come at the cost of a backlash where acknowledgement of history is seen as a greater problem than the history itself.
Three steps forward, two steps back. Onward still.
For me, this Titanic Sub thing is a cautionary tail about Climate Change
We are fragile creatures. We live in an environment that has vary specific characteristics that we need to survive.
We can only comfortably exist within a narrow layer of atmosphere a few miles thick around our home planet.
Everywhere else in the universe is trying to kill us. Everywhere. Always. Usually in horrible ways.
We can sometimes venture into those hostile environments with a substantial amount of technology. But when we do, we live on a razor's edge where death is one mistake away.
In a way it reminds me of the movie "The Martian". Great movie, well acted and relatively true to the science. I know I am supposed to be warmed by the storyline and the triumph of the human spirit. But I just came away thinking..."Holy Shit, that place is horrible and it took the collective capabilities of two Countries to keep one man alive."
In both cases, it just makes me realize how lucky we are to live in the Goldilocks zone. This is a reminder to how unforgiving those hostile environments out there really are.
We need to work harder to keep what we have so that we don't find ourselves needing that Planet B that doesn't exist.
WTF AT&T
Somebody decided to run a test on the Emergency Broadcast System and my cell phone started blaring a fog horn alarm at top volume at 4:45am !!!!
What the ever living hell!!??!!
Mind you, those of you who remember me may recall that I do rescue work with FEMA USAR. So I am on call for disasters. When an alarm goes off in the middle of the night, it generally means that something has gone terribly wrong. My adrenaline kicks in wondering whether there has been an earthquake or tornado somewhere. My system gets so flooded with energy, I had no shot of going back to sleep.
So thanks a bunch AT&T and whoever decided to pull the cord on that particular alarm.
On edit, it looks like it was state wide across multiple carriers. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2023/04/20/florida-emergency-alert-test-today-why-did-you-get-an-alert-how-to-view-it-should-you-turn-it-off/70133335007/
So I blame DeSantis now. Why the hell not.
Big Basketball Day for me Today!
I have two basketball teams to root for today in the Final Four today.
I am an alumnus of University of Miami and have followed the team closely since the program was re-started in 1985. I even had season tickets for a decade when I lived closer. Go Canes!
And...
I live just a few miles from Florida Atlantic University. It's an exciting time for the plucky little local team. Go Owls!
I love a good Cinderella story. Today there are two.
Wish me luck!
Is a battered McCarthy still our best outcome?
At the end of the day, it still seems best that a weakened Kevin is the best outcome.
Going to a second option seems like it would only be someone that is even further to the right or worse.
My only concern is how much he will have bargained away in the process of winning.
There seems to be some idea that it would be good if we could steal the position but that seems problematic to me. I don't want them to have anyone to blame for their disfunction.
I wouldn't mind seeing an outsider like Cheney take it but that seems like a pipe dream.
Spoiler Alert Alert
Please don't post sports results on this board without burying them in a spoiler alert.
Today (and indeed over the next month) there is a soccer game we would love to be home watching.
But since we can't, the next best thing is DVR.
Please do us the favor of not ruining it.
Thanks in advance.
Interesting view of Hurricane Ian Projected Track
The National Hurricane Center keeps all of the records and allows you to review their guidance in time-lapse
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2022/IAN_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line_and_wind
This view shows every guidance release over the entire life of the storm. It allows you to see the history of the track, cone, warnings etc.
I know there is a lot of discussion of when the evacuation orders were given for Lee County. This will give you a sense of what the projection was over time.
In hindsight, we can all say they should have been evacuated earlier. In reality, that is a tough call that Emergency Managers struggle with.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: South Florida
Member since: Thu Aug 16, 2012, 05:52 PM
Number of posts: 5,547
