On 9/18/2025 at 11:28 PM, BruceVC said:

I enjoyed both seasons, its obviously exaggerated but its entertaining  

Yes, that type of large scale conspiracy is entertaining but ultimately implausible. Somebody somewhere is going to slip up, and there goes the entire scheme. It's not that different from large scale election conspiracies, which require control of all forms of media to successfully pull off.

Trump is about to escalate the situation... 🥁

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Yes I would assume it was the  massive backlash from the initial  decision that Disney took

But also ABC didnt cancel his show, they just suspended it and it and it could have just been temporarily strategic because of how tense everything was

Wait at least for the funeral to end and then bring Kimmel back 

It's back, but I can't watch it on the local network station per Sinclair management decision. Well I'm awful glad they're deciding for me, because of all the negative impact satire might have. Whew.

Basically ET with a predatory alien. Not sure if it's any good.

Trump makes unfounded claims about Tylenol and repeats discredited link between vaccines and autism

I see our Secretary of Pseudo-Science has been busy, striding boldly into a new future of national quackery. I'm feeling so proud right now... 🙄

Political satire like the Jimmy Kimmel show should probably be migrating to streaming channels where the FCC has less control. That will keep them more independent of a thin-skinned President. They can always license it back to the networks for broadcast.

10 hours ago, BruceVC said:

And then these actions get challenged in  the various courts and sometimes Trump wins and sometimes he loses

believe Congress and the courts in the US can and absolutely do have final say on what any US president can or cannot do on many things 

When he loses it tends to happen in the lower courts, then win when it is taken to the SCOTUS, the final authority. The difference is that the lower courts are populated by both liberal and conservative justices selected by various Presidents, whereas the SCOTUS is majority conservative with three of its members selected by DJT. What shouldn't be happening is so many of his decisions needing to be validated by the court system. It seems to be part of DJT's personality to try and skirt legal restrictions as much as possible.

What will be particularly interesting is whether his tariff packages survives appeal at the SCOTUS. Technically it shouldn't, since the required emergency conditions just don't exist.

In the aftermath of the Jimmy Kimmel show's indefinite suspension, I have to wonder:

Apart from the political alignment, how is what Jimmy Kimmel said about the suspect any different than what DJT said?

In this case, the only difference I can see between Kimmel and DJT is in who has more polical power. Both claim without evidence that the suspect is a member of an extreme political faction; one claims left wing and the other the right wing. Indeed, conspiracy theories included a conjecture about the suspect being a member of the far right Groypers, who are in conflict with Kirk. Likewise, DJT immediately jumped to the conclusion that the (then unknown) suspect was a member of a radical left group.

As usual, the answer is probably somewhere in between.

Phew, close one.

On 9/17/2025 at 4:47 PM, Hurlshort said:

Zion is one of my favorites. Hiking the Narrows with my wife and kids was just magical. Glad to hear you are doing well.

Yes, Utah has some really beautiful scenery. I never appreciated it until we took a photography tour down there. It's a terrific place for sunset lighting. Of course, the geologist down there blamed us up in Washington for "stealing" all their rain.

4 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

usa label antifa as terror organization

so blatant it might as well be parody

Apparently DJT has done this before, but nothing came of it. As usual he's wasting government money and resources chasing his own alternate reality viewpoint.

I've been enjoying a thriller series on Peac*ck called 'The Capture'. It's about London's use of CCTV along with the surreptitious employment of deep fake technology. Perhaps a view of what's to come?

3 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Tuesday I gave a whole lesson on the 1st amendment and free speech. I addressed the Charlie Kirk shooting, but my focus was mostly on the freedom of religion, speech, media, and protest that the 1st amendment covers. 

Now the FCC has pushed a network to remove Jimmy Kimmel from his late-night show. He wasn't removed because of costs or ratings, he was removed immediately after the FCC made threatening statements.

I'm not sure how to proceed with my lesson. 

edit: Also what the hell is happening that the head of the FCC is going on podcasts? Like when did that become a thing?

For me, I think the lesson is that the First Amendment doesn't protect us from media conglomerates controlling the message. The irony is that Kimmel's show wasn't suspended for something he said about Kirk, but apparently about the killer being another gun nut like the Trumpies.

ABC suspends Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show indefinitely over his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s death

Well that should make DJT immensely happy. While I've enjoyed Kimmel's work, he has spent the last nine or so years lambasting the Donald. It got a little tiresome. But I suppose this is cancel culture in reverse.

10 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Today in class a kid ran up, got really close to my face, and whispered "I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Just go to the nurses office, kid. You don't need to throw up on me. 

Thanks for "sharing"? 🦠

 

I tried to watch the Man C v. Man U match on Peac*ck, but there was a constant stuttering of the view that made it unpleasant to watch. Provider-induced lag from choking the bandwidth perhaps? I hope that's not a sign of things to come.

Trump team disbands controversial US climate panel

Quote

Faced with a lawsuit, the administration of US President Donald Trump has disbanded a panel of five well-known critics of climate science who issued a controversial draft report questioning the evidence underlying global warming. US energy secretary Chris Wright asserted that the group had accomplished its goal in publishing the first draft, which the Department of Energy (DoE) has declined to withdraw. 

Okay, I don't get this one. He hand picks a panel of people who hold non-mainstream beliefs unsupported by facts and data. They produce a report with non-mainstream beliefs unsupported by facts and data. They he fires them over a lawsuit?

I guess their task is finished, so off with their heads.

From what I read, he just sounds like some quiet kid who may have spent too much time on internet political forums and didn't know how to rationally deal with the hate and nonsense festering in those places. I don't see some vast left-wing conspiracy at work. At best, another one-off event like a David Depape.

2 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

--my vision seems to be getting worse. Hard to read monitors/screens or subtitles at the moment, with or without glasses. They're also super dry/gummy feeling all the time. I guess I gotta see an eye doc.

Yeah, I hear that. I'm at the age where I can't read the fine print. My old college notes look so tiny now I can barely make them out. I have to keep one of those magnifiers with a light handy so I can read things like the prescription labels. Plus I wake up with the eyelashes all gunked up and I have to scrape them clean. Yuck.

One current media trend I really don't like is when they display smart phone IM-ing from a distance so that you can barely make out the text. Then they whip the view away before you can finish squinting at it. They should at least display it in close-up. But I suppose the only audience that matters is the sharp-eyed kids.

Charlie who? Well my sympathies for his family.

The radical right live in their own alternate version of reality, so I'm not expecting much reliable information about this event from them. Hopefully the legal investigation is more productive.

19 hours ago, melkathi said:

I watched Dr No in the outdoor cinema this year. I didn't remember how bad that movie actually was. But it made history. So many things in later movies were directly inspired by it, including the villain dying in a tank of liquid, with just the hand above the water as he dies.

It's rated very high on the rotten tomato meter, so I guess most critics don't agree with you. It is, of course, pretty culturally dated at this point, but that's also interesting from a historical perspective.

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

Yup. This video was shown at the hearing yesterday of the US House committee investigating UAPs. Several ex-military witnesses testified under oath that the DoD has entire servers full of such videos. Damning evidence against the deniers.

I don't think most scientists are still denying that UAPs exist. But it's still not proof that they are space aliens. I like to speculate they are some yet unexplained physical phenomenon. For example, we've only had video evidence of sprites since 1989.

My more far-fetched alternate explanation is that they are human-built devices from a different time (or dimension). (Which would be almost as interesting as space aliens.)

Technically, the US hasn't declared war since World War II, so we haven't really lost anything. These have all been Presidential actions, and unless Congress formally declares war you can't expect the full backing of the country or its economy. Hence the supposed lack of "victories". It has nothing to do with the name change.

I shudder to think what would happen if little Trump takes the US into another (non-internal) conflict.

Trump celebrates West Point alumni group canceling award ceremony to honor Tom Hanks

Quote

Hanks was scheduled to receive the 2025 Sylvanus Thayer Award on Sept. 25, but the U.S. Military Academy’s alumni association canceled the ceremony last week, according to news reports.

Sometimes DJT can be a very small-minded man. Well... maybe not sometimes. Little Trump.