Presidents’ Day [DOT 20/2/23]

20/2/23 MegMegMcGee 20

Presidents’ Day is one of those weird ones where not everyone (in the US) get a holiday today. Do you have the day off? I do, sorta. I have some things to do for a meeting tomorrow, but other than that I hope to do some relaxing.

This train very likely passed right by my parents’ home east of Cleveland

Before Ohio derailment, Norfolk Southern lobbied against safety rules
https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/02/18/norfolk-southern-derailment-ohio-train-safety/

Thanks I hate it

Florida couple unable to get abortion will see baby die after delivery
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/18/florida-abortion-law-couple-birth

This remains completely bonkers.

South Carolina Murdaugh murder saga winds towards its end
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/19/alex-murdaugh-south-carolina-murder-case-prosecution-rests

Oopsy!

Art Fair Visitor Breaks a Jeff Koons Balloon Dog Sculpture
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/18/arts/jeff-koons-sculpture-broken-miami.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR0sOY8ZOpGIXsMC-kRI3jcmHgx-6g5MuSS34FJ_E5sKfOqgU8hZ5rLWRDQ&mibextid=tejx2t

#RIP

Richard Belzer, comedian and ‘Law & Order: SVU’ actor, dies at age 78
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/19/entertainment/richard-belzer-death/index.html

Same, Richard, Same.

Have a great day!

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20 Comments

  1. …so…joe biden went to kyiv

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/20/joe-biden-visits-ukraine-kyiv

    …which…probably is no bad thing…or at least not in-appropriate…only…if I’m honest…it has some unfortunate echoes of a practically-patented move beloved of a certain tow-headed ex-PM (who just lately stuck his oar in on the NI/EU thing rishi’s trying to put to bed)

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/20/ohio-derailment-train-rail-workers

    …so…that part’s a shame…& I guess we’ll see what the overseas appearance adds up to by way of shoring up support for the duration over there?

    …I guess it’s probably a pretty presidential presidents’ day itinerary, either way…gotta think it probably would compare favorably with the timesheet for what the combover-in-chief did to mark the occasion…he skipped an armistice day graveyard appearance in france that time so there wouldn’t be meme-able evidence of his might-as-well-be-a-wig losing a struggle with the elements…so I guess it depends if rain kept him off the course or something?

    • I don’t think it’s worth overthinking Biden’s trip. It’s a huge gesture of support.

      The right is moaning now that Biden is being too brave.

      There’s a looming issue within the House GOP’s budget brinksmanship that they’re trying to damage funding for Ukraine, and Biden knows the deal. He’s setting up the table for this to be an issue that will open some serious rifts in their alliance, which is one of the reasons why the press is so shy about talking about it.

      It’s also a potent pushback on the stupid complaints about Biden’s age, which the NY Times’ Peter Baker got on the front page last year. Again, they won’t want to make the comparison to Trump stumbling around and refusing to go to a military cemetery in France because it was drizzling, but it’s going to be hard for them to dodge down the line.

      • If you read the tabloid press as avidly as I do, and they allow comments, there are two themes that sometimes emerge. One is that we’re giving all kinds of military support to Ukraine but WE’RE DOING NOTHING TO SUPPORT OUR HERO VETERANS and the other is WE ARE GIVING BILLIONS TO UKRAINE TO SECURE THEIR BORDER BUT LYIN’ BIDEN IS LETTING MILLIONS OF ILLEGALS INTO OUR COUNTRY THROUGH OUR UNSECURED SOUTHERN BORDER FENTANYL BALLOT HARVESTING ELECTION FRAUD [and etc.]

        I actually somewhat admire the passion they bring to these unhinged rants. Some of the commenters must be older than I am, when they say thing like “Nam vet here and I…” or “I got out of New York when I retired back in 2003…” I can no longer summon the energy for this kind of argumentation.

        • …in a funny sort of way…not the laughing sort…but all the same…there’s kind of an overlap in terms of stamina?

          …if biden (or anyone else) is plausibly too old for the pressures of a full-time, full-throttle, high-intensity job like being the putative leader of the free world…then having the stamina to travel halfway across the world while most of your voters are sleeping…give a pretty decent speech & plant a rhetorical flag or two…& get back home to take care of enough of the rest of a day to treat it sort of like a breakfast meeting…arguably implies reserves of stamina I’m not sure I necessarily possess despite being considerably younger

          …but…”public opinion” is not renowned for stamina…or patience…or staying the course…so it’s sort of not surprising that after years of decent mileage from decrying foreign wars & budget-adjacent sophistry that the longer it goes on the more the party of grievance is going to look on it as a line of attack

          …it boggles my mind the sheer extent to which the GOP seems to have steered itself around in circles for so long nobody seems to notice that its currently pointed directly at doing yoeman’s work at furthering the interests of team #everythingwespentmostofourlivesopposingbitterly

          …whatever else follows from the war in ukraine it would appear that “the west” is well past the point of not being in on one side of what putin likely isn’t alone in considering to be a proxy war of various sorts of attrition…& his bet would seem to be on that kind of self-propelled effort to sap the political capital required to ensure the US honors its commitments to thwarting russia on that field

          …it’s not great that you also have people like boris cynically attempting to make hay out of those sorts of personal appearances for more self-serving ends…he’d pop over there when he needed some good press to balance out reporting on him screwing the political pooch at home…which is certainly consistent with his delusions of churchillian destiny…so likewise not exactly surprising…but in its own way also chips away at that kind of necessary public appetite for walking that walk

        • DeSantis was on Fox today doing the whole attempt to moan about protecting Ukraine’s borders, so it’s clearly a standard talking point.

          One thing that’s interesting is that it echoes the Russian propaganda aimed at Europe right before the invasion a year ago. The Russians kept pounding the message trying to get Europeans to stay out and worry about their own issues with migrants.

          Which is not to say that the US right is a getting marching orders today from the Kremlin, but they are both working from the same playbook.

          In a more neutral sense, it’s how two sports coaches who use the same formation will reliably call the same plays in the same situations. And like coaches, the US right and Russia have been co-developing their playbook even though they rarely coordinate on game day.

          • …given that a good bit of what play was made…& indeed continues to be…about migrants in the european context has pretty explicitly been a wedge russia has been happy to drive home any chance they get to take another crack at it…I’d say extremely similar

            …it’s almost as if when you’re sufficiently two-faced you stop being able to tell the difference between an about face & going full circle

          • Whatever happened to the old adage, “Better to fight them over there than over here”? That was the great proxy war argument. Arm Ukraine to the teeth, that’s my position, and humiliate Putin and take out a few thousand or tens of thousands of  Wagner Group mercenaries in the process. Better that than having to confront, say, a potential revanchist argument that Alaska and its vast oil reserves were stolen from Russia under a corrupt and now null-and-void Czarist-era agreement.

            • One thing that is awfully interesting to me is how this started up not long after the US finally threw in the towel on Afghanistan, and it’s as if the Russians forgot about their own disaster in Afghanistan just as the US seems to have finally accepted its own limitations.

              • …much as I want to make a joke about land wars in asia & classic blunders…it’s probably more worthwhile to note that a good bit of how badly things went post-withdrawl from afghanistan stemmed from a not-exactly-arbitrary (not to mention announced with some lead time) deadline by the florida retiree with the penchant for russian talking points & history of quid pro quo “power broking”

                …whatever benefit he thought he got out of dumping something he’d guaranteed to be a disaster in biden’s lap…to look straight past the much larger favor that does to the interests of the kremlin…that surely takes the sort of all-in solipsism that makes it hard not to think those people happy to diagnose him as a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder might have a pretty strong case?

    • …it’s a pure guess, since I think you’re right about that based on the dogs I’ve known…but once in a while I see people walking dogs where the hindquarters are basically suspended in a harness slung between two wheels because they’ve lost the use of those legs

      …I’m guessing one way to get them used to the idea might be to float them & get them to paddle with the front legs…& if the back half is dead weight…maybe it makes sense to have a lifejacket on a dog in a pool?

      …on a boat I can see it for the same reasons as for people…but in a pool the paralysis thing is the only reason I can think of, anyway

      • That’s usually hip dysplasia. Huskies are prone to it, as are Labs, so there might come a day when both Faithful Hound and I are strapped into motorized scooters/wheelchairs and we’ll be taking our daily neighborhood surveys that way. Not exactly the future I envisioned for myself just four or five years ago but I’m sure we’d both adapt just fine.

        • And it can also be because of things like Spina Bifida!😉

           

          There have been a couple dogs I’ve run across on the various MN dog adoption sites I peruse, and a couple of them have carts and/or are dealing with Spina Bifida.

          Nini/Nellie is one of them… if I hadn’t dealt with so much at the end of Lily’s life, regarding incontinence & allllthelaundry *and* I had the sort of money to afford her vet visits, Nini & training her for a cart would 100% be a dog I’d adore!😉😁💖

           

    • Have you ever read Infinite Jest? There is a hilarious subplot involving a Québécois separatist group that terrorizes the American Northeast and huge packs of a feral animal are involved…

    • Making DK take a drug test because of his performance in the celebrity all-star game is SUCH b.s., and there’s no way that it was random, either.🙄😡🤬

      And YEP, I agree with you, Shaq, his performance & skills at the game are 100% natural (and, honestly expected!) since he *does* play Pro Football… ffs, it’s like folks have never seen football players doing their box jumps, ffs!!!

      Of COURSE he’s going to have solid b-ball skills–pro football is alllllll about reaction time, agility, and fast-twitch muscle movement… things that a good basketball player needs, too!

       

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