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.
While yesterday was MLKDay, it was not a night off for the late-night talk show hosts. Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Kimmel all had shows last night and all of them mentioned Joe Biden's classified documents. Sigh. Fortunately, Seth Meyers already provided some context in last week's How Biden and Trump Classified Docs Cases Differ; Fox's Gas Stove Freakout: A Closer Look.
Seth takes a closer look at Attorney General Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel to look into the classified documents that were found at Biden's home and office from his time as vice president.
Seth takes a closer look at Donald Trump freaking out over his many criminal probes and Republicans salivating over the discovery of a small number of classified documents in Joe Biden's home and private office.
Angela Bassett accepts the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Congratulations to Angela Bassett for her second Golden Globe, first Critics' Choice Movie Award (she has already won a Critics Choice Super Award for Best Actress in an Action Series in "9-1-1"), and the first acting award from either awards show for a performer in a Marvel movie! May she continue her winning streak at the SAG Awards and earn a nomination at the Academy Awards for a chance at an Oscar. I already have her penciled in as my choice for a Saturn Award.
Not only did Bassett win for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," so did Ruth E. Carter, who took home her third Critics' Choice Award for Best Costume Design. The first of those Critics' Choice Awards was for "BlackPanther," for which she earned an Oscar. Congratulations and may she also have a winning streak that includes a second Oscar. Note that I didn't write "ends" as I have her penciled in as my vote for a Saturn Award, which should happen sometime this fall.
I am planning on posting about the rest of the diverse winners of the Golden Globes and Critics' Choice Awards, ending with the diverse television winners. Stay tuned.
From Norfolk, Virginia
The NSU Spartan Legion performing their musical selections at the 42nd Annual Pasadena Tournament of Roses Bandfest on Friday, December 30, 2022.
The NSU Spartan Legion Marching Band from Norfolk, Virginia at the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, CA.
Video footage - courtesy of KTLA 5 news. All rights of this footage belong to KTLA 5.
ZymbalistiK remarked how unusual this was in his comment.
NSU is the first band I’ve seen stop and do a full routine/performance at the Rose Parade. I think that was a great idea to fully showcase the band. I wonder if this was planned or spur of the moment thing? Good job regardless Legion!
I agree, it was unusual. In a comment, Ebony Johnson responded "They were chosen to do the grandstand performance while the live performer was televised around the corner." I watched the live performance for the television audience and think the Spartan Legion put on the better show.
The debate over which stove to use is moving beyond our kitchens, and into our energy grid. More and more research is showing that natural gas is not the harmless energy source it was once thought to be. As some cities are taking action in the race to reduce emissions, the natural gas industry is fighting back. The last big battleground? Our stovetops.
In addition to examining methane emissions, Verge Science talks a lot about the other greenhouse effects of methane and of burning it for heat, which still produces carbon dioxide, just less than other fossil fuels. It also predicted the current controversy over gas stoves and ranges in April 1, 2021 almost two years ago. That's no joke!
Verge Science gave short shrift to gas stoves and ranges as sources of indoor air pollution and the health problems it causes, but PBS Digital's Reactions made that the main subject of Your Gas Stove is Polluting Your Home.
Most people absolutely love their gas stoves and prefer them to electric. But these gas ranges are polluting our homes.
Yikes! I have written once that I'm an asthmatic, but I never thought much about why I developed the condition until now. Since I grew up in a house that used gas for heating and cooking, I suspect that may have had something to do with it. It's always a good day when I learn something, even when it's as bad as this.
I mention indoor air pollution in passing in my environmental science classes, but these videos have given more more material. If nothing else, I can suggest gas vs. induction stoves as a topic for mystudents'presentations. Students might take me up on it, as it's a hot topic (running joke, I know).
More than 50 California cities have restricted or banned natural gas hookups in homes and businesses to combat climate change. Some researchers have also linked gas stoves to a higher risk of asthma. L.A. Times reporter Evan Halper digs into how electric cooking alternatives such as induction stoves can benefit the environment and our health. But are cooks willing to give up cooking with fire?
Before watching these videos, I would have said no, except that my wife and I currently have an electric oven and stove top, so I wouldn't have to. However, we've been thinking of replacing it with a gas stove. Now, I'm thinking seriously about an induction stove top when we redo our kitchen. That might be a selling point in the future. It's also better for the environment, our health, and the health of whoever owns our house next, and there almost certainly will be someone else who owns this house after us.
Projection may be part of a complex of behaviors called DARVO--"Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." Here's what Jennifer Freyd at the University of Oregon [link updated], who coined the term, has to say about it.
DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of "falsely accused" and attacks the accuser's credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.
As I wrote, projection isn't even the half of it. Tara Palmatier at Shrink4Men describes it as "a combination of projection, denial, lying, blame shifting and gaslighting." Sound familiar?
Yes, it does, and it's become even more familiar during the past decade, especially since 2015.
The Trump organization has been ordered to pay $1.6 million for violating tax laws and its former CFO Allen Weisselberg is now serving five months in jail.
The Trump Organization and its lawyers tried to engage in more blame-shifting by attempting to pin the crime on its former CFO Allen Weisselberg, adding to the DARVO. While the judge and jury didn't buy that defense, it did show that the Trump Organization was unwittingly celebrating another day yesterday, National Blame Someone Else Day (The first Friday the 13th of the year) from 8SA - Books, Biographies and Literature Summary.
National Blame Someone Else Day pawns our mistakes on to other reasons. Blame someone or something for your errors on the 1st Friday the 13th of the year.
I think The Former Guy and his organization fall into the camp of not taking any responsibility for their mistakes and other wrong-doing to the point of really believing they did nothing wrong (they did) and blaming it all on others. For them, every day is Blame Someone Else Day, just like every dayisFestivus.
Bed Bath & Beyond recently warned it may be filing for bankruptcy in just a few weeks. WSJ’s Suzanne Kapner explains the roller coaster of events over the past six months that led to this low point for the company.
After years of declining sales, Bed Bath & Beyond is facing an existential crisis. WSJ’s Suzanne Kapner explains why the company has fallen on hard times and looks forward to what’s next for the veteran retailer.
None of this comes as a surprise to me, as I posted CNBC warns that Bed Bath & Beyond is 'facing extinction,' a tale of the Retail Apocalypse nearly four years ago. I was fairly sanguine then, writing "the chain is facing a crisis, but it's not in imminent danger of going out of business," but became more concerned in 2020, when I wrote "I'm not as calm about the fate of the chain now, if only because 100,000 dead and 40 million unemployed in the U.S. has made the economic environment much more precarious for retailers other than daily essentials such as food and medicine, which I shopped for yesterday and picked up without ever entering the store." I'm only surprised it took me this long to return to the topic.
Follow over the jump for more on Bed Bath & Beyond from CNBC and Yahoo Finance.
Seth takes a closer look at the slim new Republican majority in the House trying to move on after last week's unprecedented meltdown with incredibly weak Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has openly admitted he is indebted to Trump for his position.
Despite the lack of "high crimes and misdemeanors," I'm afraid that the far right of the GOP will find some grounds for impeachment, no matter how shaky. However, that would make Kamala Harris the President. I think they would like her even less. Maybe their plan is that the House would refuse to confirm the Vice President she would nominate, clearing the way for McCarthy to assume the Presidency when Harris is impeached and convicted. Fortunately, that won't happen with a Democratic majority in the Senate, so they're just putting on a show.
As for now-Representative Ryan Zinke, I haven't mentioned him on this blog since 2018 as an example of the irony of the slogan "drain the swamp." He's a fine one to talk about corruption.
Members of the House GOP went on Fox News last night to boast about the diversity of the party, Rep. George Santos refuses to resign despite being outed as a serial liar, and Stephen is not interested in switching to an electric stove.
Yes, the House Republicans are more diverse now than any time since Reconstruction, but they are still much less diverse than the Democrats. As for George Santos, he'll be a great inspiration for comedy as long as he stays in the news, which might be much longer than he stays in the House. Will he last longer than a head of lettuce? Ask Liz Truss.
The last eight years were also the eight warmest recorded.
Since 2021 was the sixth warmest year on record, that means the planet has continued to warm despite last year's continuing La Niña. Even more alarming was that the past eight years have been the eight warmest years on record. Yikes!
NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad joins ABC News Live to discuss the agency’s new climate report, which concludes 2022 was the third-costliest year for the U.S., among other alarming findings.
Kevin "Pickled Tongue" McCarthy finally won the Speaker's gavel after fifteen ballots in the early hours of Saturday, so it took until last night for the late-night talk show hosts to tell jokes about it.* Too bad "Saturday Night Live" hasn't resumed new shows yet; they'd have had first crack instead the last word.
The former president appeared to help Kevin McCarthy win the Speaker’s gavel on the 15th round of voting, and former presidential advisor Steve Bannon is suspected of involvement in Sunday’s coup attempt in Brazil.
I think Colbert made fun of two deja coups, the soft one in the House chamber and the failed one in Brazil. That reminds me that I should give equal time to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after devoting a post to Jair Bolsonaro. Vox has a video about him, too.
Seth takes a closer look at Republicans in the House finally electing Kevin McCarthy as speaker after McCarthy acquiesced to the demands of extreme members in a stunning and humiliating turn of events that nearly led to a physical brawl on the House floor.
Seth, like Stephen, even invoked the Founding Fathers to laugh at the Republicans' spin on the proceedings.
Massive floods have been sweeping the globe lately. British Columbia flood of 2021, Pakistan flood of 2022, Hurricane Ian, New Zealand, Las Vegas, Kentucky, Yellowstone National Park flood, and floods in California are all recent examples of such tragic flooding. And many are blaming climate change. But at the same time, we’re also seeing record lows in rivers and reservoirs all around the world. So what’s really going on here? Is the answer Hadley Cells changing? Is it the moisture capacity of the atmosphere?
In this episode, we try to get to the bottom of this paradox and unravel the role that climate change is truly playing in our increasingly erratic weather and precipitation patterns. We also look at large climatological elements like atmospheric rivers and Hadley cells to see the roles they are playing in these changes. And we look back on the worst flood to ever hit the United States to see what we can learn about our future – the Great Flood of 1862 that submerged much of California, at one point creating a 500 mile lake between Bakersfield and Redding. The California Mega Flood and of course the Las Vegas Flood in 2022.
Each year, flooding kills around 100 Americans and displaces some 75,000 from their homes. And as sea levels rise, storms dump more and more rain, and dams and levees continue aging and increasingly failing, the cost of flooding is increasing in communities all across the country. A recent study shows that, between 1988 and 2017, the average annual cost of flooding in the United States rose by $2.5 billion due to the intensification of precipitation alone. So what do we do?
Well, it’s not an easy question to answer. But there are many innovative solutions that communities are taking, from creating multi-use public green spaces such as parks and football fields that can absorb excess water, to restoring and preserving wetlands. In this episode of Weathered, we also explore cost-effective solutions that you can take to harden your home if you live in a flood prone area.
California is in the grip of a series of dangerous storms, after a week of deadly weather. Some parts of the state saw heavy rain, leading to widespread flooding and landslides, while others were buried in snow.
First responders have had to save several people from quickly rising flood waters, as hundreds of roads transformed into rivers and high winds have torn down structures. Millions have been affected, and it isn't over yet.
Forecasters are warning another atmospheric river of moisture will hit California Monday, bringing what they call a "relentless parade of cyclones" over the next few days.
