And We’re Back! [DOT 29/6/20]


Hey gang, happy Monday. I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Maybe you were able to get away from the news for a few days. Maybe you baked some cookies? Or read a book? Or went on an epic rant?

Let’s see what else is going on, shall we…


This seems to be snowballing…

Russian bounties to Taliban-linked militants resulted in deaths of U.S. troops, according to intelligence assessments
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/russian-bounties-to-taliban-linked-militants-resulted-in-deaths-of-us-troops-according-to-intelligence-assessments/2020/06/28/74ffaec2-b96a-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html
Russian bounties offered to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several U.S. service members, according to intelligence gleaned from U.S. military interrogations of captured militants in recent months.


The dog whistle is an air horn at this point.

Trump deletes tweet of supporter shouting ‘white power’ after outrage
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/28/trump-deletes-tweet-supporter-shouting-white-power-after-fierce-criticism


This seems fine, everything is fine.

Health secretary: ‘Window is closing’ to stop coronavirus as US cases pass 2.5m
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/28/us-health-secretary-window-closing-stop-coronavirus-cases-pass-25m


Sprots!

Kansas State players demand action after student’s tweet insults George Floyd
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/26/kansas-state-players-demand-action-after-students-offensive-tweet-about-george-floyd/


Stonks!

Stock futures recover as U.S. coronavirus cases surge to record levels
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/28/tock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html


I freaked out my book club of middle-aged ladies by having them read “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark”; it’s riveting but save it for daylight hours.

‘I pray it will finally be over’: Golden State Killer survivors hope guilty plea brings justice
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/28/golden-state-killer-survivors-guilty-plea


This guy tweeted that his wife had to wait “18 minutes” for cheese for her fajitas and got roasted on line. This is probably why I’ll never quit the hellsite that is Twitter.com.


#RIP

Milton Glaser: graphic designer who created the look of the Sixties
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jun/27/milton-glaser-why-the-new-york-graphic-designer-was-so-influential


Go out there and have a great Monday!

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28 Comments

  1. …those bounties weren’t just offered for US troop casualties

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/27/russia-offered-bounty-to-kill-uk-soldiers

    …& he really ought not to be able to get away with saying “I didn’t know about that” or “it wasn’t considered credible” when what he means is “I didn’t listen & I would have chosen not to believe it no matter what the facts in front of me might be because that’s my whole deal in a nutshell”

    …the thing I’m learning about myself during the Dolt45 years that I don’t think I ever really wanted to is that I actually can hate a person I’ve never personally met with the kind of fire I used to think was only to be found at the center of a solar system

    …but I’m trying to tell myself part of that is that it’s monday & everything somehow seems worse on mondays?

      • “I would get it if the Patriots were busted over a good team, but the Bengals?”
        When you’re a shitty bunch of cheaters, you cheat against everyone, it’s only about the wins for that bunch of assholes. There here are no real ethics in journalism! that entire organization.
        Bellicheck is a cheater.
        He runs a damn, dirty, cheating organization.
        But because they have “A Legacy of Wins!” (And more importantly,bringing a LOT of eyeballs, and therefore $$$$ to the league🤨🤨🤨) folks look the other way, even though they’ve been caught out for literally YEARS now.
        Honestly, between the shitty way players have been treated in regards to brain injuries/CTE, the bullshit about owners bowing to trump & forcing players to stand, and the multiple years of Pats’ “cheating scandals” that barely earn a tap on the wrist (not EVEN a slap!🤬), I’m sick of the bullshit & don’t even watch the league anymore–except *maybe* the superb owl–and that ONLY for the commercials (the last few years, I’ve ended up looking up most of THOSE separately online, too).
        I used to go out EVERY week to watch football with my friends, or we’d get together at someone’s house on Sunday, and watch every game.
        No more.
        Lysistrata that.
         

      • Her “holding the gun by the barrel” hubby, who also appeared to sweep her with the barrel of his gun really wasn’t much better.
        Neither of them should be allowed to handle a weapon, until they both have… let’s say a few YEARS’? worth of gun-safety classes.
        Scared dumbasses like them are EXACTLY the sort of folks who should not be handling weaponry.

    • …so twitter is a sinkhole of moral turpitude & all but since the link within that tweet is all about what an incredibly & ostentatiously expensive example of a fucking horrible house owned by apparently similarly awful people it is…I had to peck about a bit to find the bit where they got the guns out

      …so maybe I just want to spread the misery but I found a couple of efforts that seemed worth bringing back…this one for the sheer irony value

      (…gotta think that guy might want to trade in for a new lawyer on that case)

      …& this one for the poster but I figured it worked better with the replies included…it’s worth seeing the thing in the full length version though which requires an extra click or two?

      …& finally, for the alternate contender that’s a photo from a flight & certainly sums up something

  2. Starbucks and Levis have joined the corporate walkout on Facebook:
    https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/06/29/starbucks-and-levis-join-facebook-ad-boycott-what-will-be-the-impact
     
    All of this is probably just a short term face saving thing, like some giant German industrial conglomerate running an obligatory ad in Spiegel proclaiming “Allgemeine Elektricitats-Gesellschaft AG Lobt BLM”
     
    But all the same, Zuckerberg ought to think in particular about Coke joining the boycott and watch the 1985 movie The Coca Cola Kid, about a US marketing expert who is sent to a little backwater Australian town to find out why nobody there drinks Coke.
     
    It’s not a very good movie, but it shows how Coke was focused on its micro level data to an insane degree even 35 years ago. Zuck thinks he invented this stuff and everyone else is amateurs, but he ought to be worried that Coke of all companies is doing this, because they have clearly run the numbers and decided Facebook isn’t an asset. And now they are compiling data that maybe, just maybe could make the case for a repeat of the boycott.

    • …the coca cola thing stuck out to me, too…there might not be a brand that had better market penetration world wide than coke back in the pre-internet era & they even learned to tweak it for local markets

      …a friend once brought me a bottle from india that had rosewater in the mix which they told me was just the standard way they remembered it being when they were a kid in that part of the world…sort of like how guiness is different in ireland…or out where the maasai are doing the drinking where they use an old version of the recipe

      …all of which is kind of beside the point which seems to be to be that coke remains a very poor omen for the way facebook has been handling this stuff so far

    • Does anyone else feel like these events are escalating at an extraordinary rate? I know people of color have always dealt with crazy white people, but I just feel like in the last few months the Karens and Chads have gone completely fucking berserk. Maybe it’s because they are starting to feel control slipping away from them, I don’t know. But these lunatics are springing up hourly now. Or are we just paying more attention to something we should have paid attention to all along?

      • I don’t think they’re going crazier; it’s just more people are starting to film and report on these incidents. Shit like this happens every day; it’s just we live in environment where shit like this goes viral WAY faster than it used to, and more people are feeling more brave to call out these psychos.

        • …it wouldn’t surprise me if there were an extent to which the quarantine thing combined with all the protests had served to take some people who’d been stewing in their own juices for too long & wind them extra tight so that statistically the chances of one going off in front of a camera were up a little from what you might call the baseline

          …but you’re right all the same…& at the risk of quoting an old dead white guy very much out of context…I think “happens every day” is underselling it

          …I’d go with “this is an accident of hourly proof – which I mistrusted not”?

    • meeee….i put cheese on fajitas….hell…i put cheese on damn near anything if given half a chance
      wich isnt as often as i’d like coz the stuffs getting pretty expensive….and usually my daughter murders all of the cheese whilst im at work and then denies it….must have been one of the other people at home all day (there arent any)

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