A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson (Alex Moffat) interviews senators Lindsey Graham (Kate McKinnon), Ted Cruz (Aidy Bryant) and Mitch McConnell (Beck Bennett) on former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial.
Thank you, cast and crew of SNL, for imagining what the reaction would be on Fox News so the rest of us wouldn't have to, or, worse yet, actually watch it.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like House impeachment managers showing Capitol riots footage during former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Michael Che was right when he said "just because there is video evidence doesn't mean you are going to get a conviction." Sigh.
That's it for impeachment, which is a little easier to swallow the day after with laughter. Follow over the jump for SNL's skits celebrating Valentines Day.
I can't say I'm either surprised or disappointed in today's outcome, because I foresaw the outcome of the impeachment trial on Tuesday, when I wrote "I think it's important to at least try to keep Trump and hopefully his supporters accountable, although I expect the prospects of convicting him and disqualifying him from office are slim to none. Politics will almost certainly trump the merits, pun intended."
I expressed my exasperation Friday, when I observed "Republican Senators aren't just not listening to the House impeachment managers. They're not even listening to themselves. They were right about Trump then, but don't care now. Sigh." I followed that with skepticism farther down the same entry, writing in response to Jimmy Kimmel's path to conviction "That's not a promising group of Senators, but at least there are 20 of them, so 17 voting to convict is at least theoretically possible, if extremely improbable. I wish the House impeachment managers luck. They'll need it."
The Senate found Trump not guilty of inciting insurrection after a majority of Republicans voted against convicting the former president.
The bad news is that Trump was not convicted and disqualified from holding office again. The good news is that 57 Senators voted yes, including seven Republicans, so the prosecution made more progress. Unfortunately, I don't think another ten days of the trial would have gained 10 more votes for conviction. Here's the the court of public opinion making that judgment instead.
Though parties and travel may be discouraged in much of the world right now as Covid-19 casts a shadow over Lunar New Year for the second year in a row, that doesn't mean there aren't ways we can still mark the occasion.
Lunar New Year falls on February 12 this year as we bid farewell to the Year of the Rat and say hello to the Year of the Ox.
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While you may have heard of the 12-year Chinese zodiac calendar, represented by 12 different animals, it's actually far more complicated.
A year isn't just categorized by its zodiac animal. There's also a complex sexagenary cycle -- a combination of one of 10 heavenly stems and one of 12 earthly branches.
For example, February 12 marks the beginning of the xin chou year, according to the sexagenary cycle. "Xin" represents the heavenly stem for the element metal, while "chou" is the earthly branch symbol for ox, making it the Year of the Metal Ox.
We asked Thierry Chow, a Hong Kong-based feng shui master, to share her thoughts on what this means for the year ahead.
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"The year of xin chou will have a strong emphasis on the yin metal element," she says. "The metal element represents anything sparkly from jewelry to the needle of a syringe. So we can see a bigger emphasis on industries related to metal in 2021.
"The ox, in Chinese culture, is a hardworking zodiac sign. It usually signifies movements so, hopefully, the world will be less static than last year and get moving again in the second half of the year."
I don't think one needs to be an astrologer to make that prediction.
“GMA” takes a look at the holiday full of joy, gifts and food that is celebrated by various cultures and people around the world.
Sounds like the Year of the Metal Rat already has the same reputation as the Gregorian Calendar's 2020, which John Oliver blew up in November. Since there was nearly 11 months overlap between the two and more of the pandemic happened in the U.S. during the Year of the Metal Rat, I think that reputation is well-deserved.
Now for two images that represent the year.
Last year, I wrote "I'm wondering which character they will have as the guest star next year, Ferdinand the Bull or Clarabelle Cow. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Clarabelle." I would have won that bet, as AllEars.Net shared the following image from Disney today.
For a literal metal ox (actually a metal bull, but that's still closer than a cartoon cow), one only has to go to Wall Street, where the Charging Bull statue resides.
Enough of this year's festivities. It's time to conclude this post with the generic greetings I've recycled many times over.
Mandarin: Gong Xi Fa Cai/Xin Nian Kuai Le
Cantonese: Kung Hei Fat Choi
Hokkien (Fujian/Taiwanese): Kiong Hee Huat Tsai/Sin Ni khòai lok
House impeachment managers closed their case on Thursday with more incredibly damning evidence tying the former president directly to the deadly attack on the Capitol, and warned Senators of dire consequences should they vote to acquit.
"We must say enough — enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again," Schiff, D-Calif., told the Senate. "He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again. You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What's right matters even less, and decency matters not at all."
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"Can we be confident that he will not continue to try to cheat in [this] very election? Can we be confident that Americans and not foreign powers will get to decide, and that the president will shun any further foreign interference in our Democratic affairs?" Schiff asked. "The short, plain, sad, incontestable answer is no, you can't. You can't trust this president to do the right thing. Not for one minute, not for one election, not for the sake of our country. You just can't. He will not change and you know it."
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"What are the odds if left in office that he will continue trying to cheat? I will tell you: 100 percent," he said. "A man without character or ethical compass will never find his way."
Schiff was right about nearly everything he warned the Senate and Americans watching at home, and all of it will be true if there was foreign, probably Russian, support of the people involved in and behind the insurrection. He told us so.
Follow over the jump for more comedic commentary on yesterday's proceedings from Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah, and Jimmy Kimmel.
For some reason, animals keep evolving into things that look like crabs, independently, over and over again. What is it about the crab’s form that makes it so evolutionarily successful that non-crabs are apparently jealous of it?
Not only do crustaceans keep evolving into crab-like forms, but crabs keep invading the land. A bonus video from SciShow examines that, Crabs Keep Turning Into Land Animals!
When a species evolves from living in water to living on land it’s called terrestrialization, and it’s not an easy task. Yet crabs keep making the jump from sea to shore. Why? And how do they do it?
Yesterday, I observed that the former President's lawyers "provided a lot of unintentional comedy by either bumbling their way through their arguments (Bruce Castor) or making stupid and insulting arguments (David Schoen)." That became the theme of most of the "comedic observations of the trial" last night. I open the reactions with Trevor Noah's comedic criticism in Impeachment Trial Continues: Trump & GOP Slam Trump's Lawyers.
Trump’s second impeachment trial ramps up with the GOP bashing Trump’s lawyers, and Trump reportedly yelling at the television as he watched.
"No one was more upset by Trump's $#!++y lawyers than the man who was never going to pay them anyway, Donald J. Trump." Well, you get what you pay for.
Seth takes a closer look at Senate Republicans sticking with former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial despite the House impeachment managers' powerful evidence and the fact that Trump's lawyers are very bad.
For years, I've been saying on Facebook that Trump doesn't want to listen to his lawyers. He wants lawyers who listen to him. He should be careful what he wishes for. I think he's getting them, and they're not that good.
Republican Senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott couldn't bring themselves to watch as House prosecutors opened their impeachment case with a video demonstrating in no uncertain terms that the former president bears responsibility for the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building.
While the description called out the Republican Senators who very studiously paid no attention to the House's impeachment managers, the heart of the video focused on the impeachment managers and their counterparts, former President Donald Trump's defense lawyers. The former pointed out that impeachment trials of former officials took place while the Founding Fathers were still alive; if it was constitutional then, it's constitutional now. The latter provided a lot of unintentional comedy by either bumbling their way through their arguments (Bruce Castor) or making stupid and insulting arguments (David Schoen).
Seth takes a closer look at former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, where House impeachment managers laid out powerful evidence of his guilt while most Republican senators had no interest in holding him accountable.
My reaction to Senator James Lankford's assertion that the Senators' votes were "locked down" is to note that the vote on January 26 to proceed was 55-45, while the vote yesterday was 56-44. The prosecutors made progress while the defense lost ground.
As Trump’s second impeachment trial begins, Democrats show a video of Trump’s speech on January 6 interspersed with scenes of violence from his supporters, and his defense team struggles to make its case.
First, Castor sounds even worse when he's not interrupted. Second, Trevor is right about why the trial should take place; we need to see the evidence and the refusal of the Senate to convict despite it.
The circus is back in Washington for the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Republicans are too afraid to do the right thing, the two lawyers defending Trump formed a disaster duo and Trump was said to be deeply unhappy, officials in Palm Beach are discussing whether or not he is allowed to live at Mar-a-lago, Trump sycophants always use his middle initial when saying his name, plans are in place to safely re-open Broadway, and while Jimmy is more than happy to wait his turn but with that being said – he gives a list of people he should get the vaccine before, and he chats with a “vaccine hunter” (Andy Daly).
I never tire of writing that Kimmel's videos have the most complete descriptions. I'd write more, but today's proceedings are on, so I'm going to watch that now. See you tomorrow with more comedic observations of the trial!
Seth takes a closer look at former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial being a chance to hold Trump accountable for his crimes and to shine a national spotlight on the decay of the GOP and our democratic institutions.
Seth did a good job of expressing his hopes for the trial while making it funny. I think it's important to at least try to keep Trump and hopefully his supporters accountable, although I expect the prospects of convicting him and disqualifying him from office are slim to none. Politics will almost certainly trump the merits, pun intended.
In this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Tia Mitchell of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution joins to discuss what to expect from former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. The crew also looks at Republican proposals to change election laws in Georgia and other states in the wake of their 2020 presidential election loss.
That's a good preview of the arguments both the House managers and Trump's defense team will make along with an eye-witness account by Tia Mitchell, who was covering the certification of the election inside the Capitol. Mitchell and Perry Bacon, Jr. had compelling things to say about both. Nate Silver came off as more cynical. Maybe that's the appropriate attitude about a proceeding that won't result in a conviction by the Senate, but will serve to sway the court of public opinion.
In addition to impeachment, the panel discussed House Republicans' handling of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney, pandemic relief, and Georgia Republicans' attempt to restrict mail-in voting after Democrats won the Georgia Senate runoff elections, which led to the possibility of eliminating the filibuster to allow the For The People Act to pass in the U.S. Senate. Greene and to a lesser extent Lauren Boebert will continue to be irritants for as long as they are in Congress, but I doubt their fellow Republican representatives will do anything about them. Pandemic relief will pass in one form or other. Georgia will probably restrict voting-by-mail. Finally, I'm for the For The People Act, but I don't know if it will pass the Senate; it already passed the House last year and will do so again this year.
I'm sure I'll have more about impeachment tomorrow with more comedy. Stay tuned.
Great news! Joe Biden is signing climate change-based executive orders AND appointing people of color to take the lead on environmental justice for the first time ever. And it's not a moment too soon for communities of color who have been disproportionately suffering the ill effects of corporate greed and environmental racism. It's time to get those resources to the people who need them the most. And also, some f*cking clean water, please.
In addition to this being a good survey of the subject, it includes two examples of environmental racism, theFlintWaterCrisis, which I've been blogging about for years, and "Cancer Alley," a location I've never written about before. It's about time I did.
Rachel Maddow looks at how former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's suspension of democracy brought about the mistakes that created the Flint toxic water crisis, and only now is Snyder, along with other officials, being held to account for their role in what happened.
Maddow's history goes back 9 years and not only demonstrates how the Republicans in Michigan's legislature along with former Governor Snyder turned Michigan into Ignoreland, but focused their anti-democratic efforts on majority African-American municipalities, showing that the Emergency Manager law had racist effects, if not an outright racist intent. The resulting disregard of local rule allowed the health and environmental disaster of Flint's contaminated water supply to happen. Maddow may not call the Flint Water Crisis environmental racism, but she doesn't have to; it's clear it is.
Toxic air can weaponize the coronavirus.
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Across the US, black people are dying from Covid-19 at disproportionately high rates. While there are many different factors at play behind the stark racial disparities — there’s one possible reason that’s been lurking in the air for decades: pollution.
The long history of segregation and housing discrimination has long put black people at greater risk of living near chemical plants, factories and highways, exposing them to higher levels of air pollutants. These pollutants have had a chronically negative impact on health, leading to conditions like hypertension and asthma. Now, those same diseases are associated with severe cases of Covid-19, and showing that where you live can determine whether you survive from Covid-19.
Dr. Robert Bullard, who Vox interviewed for this video, spoke to my environmental science class about his work in fighting environmental racism 13 years ago. I have featured him in my slide show about the politics and economics of the environment ever since. Now I have a video of him to add to that slide show so my current students can see and hear him.
I also tell my students the story of Commoner's Laws. These videos serve as good examples of three of them, "everything must go somewhere," "there is no such thing as a free lunch," and "everything is connected to everything else." The first two laws weave through all three videos, but the last video connecting environmentalracism to air pollution to the pandemic serves as a good example of the third law I listed. That's yet another reason to add the Vox video to my presentations. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Happy, SuperBowlSunday! I'm celebrating this year by concentrating on a featured entertainer probably for the first time since Predictions vs. reality for Katy Perry at the Super Bowl, although calling Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman mere entertainment does her a disservice. I expect her reading will be truly inspirational instead of merely sentimental.
Amanda Gorman discusses reading her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration, what poetry means to her and her upcoming Super Bowl performance.
This is the one interview I'm embedding today that mentions Gorman speaking at the Super Bowl, so of course I'm placing it first. I don't think she realizes how much larger an audience she will have during the game than for the Inauguration, even though the latter is technically more important. Remember, entertainment getsAmericans to act.
James Corden connects with Amanda Gorman, who captured the collective attention of Americans with her striking poem, "The Hill We Climb," during the inauguration ceremony for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. James asks Amanda about her journey from being selected to standing at the podium delivering her art to the world. And Amanda talks about her coming children's book, "Change Sings," which is already atop the chart.
Welcome to fame, Amanda. May it treat you well and may you continue using your fame for good.
