Open Thread: Spoilsports At the Emmys

by 11:05 am. It has 65 Comments.

Except…

Colbert, per NYMag:

…— “And we all know the Emmys mean a lot to Donald Trump. Because he was nominated multiple times for Celebrity Apprentice but he never won. Why didn’t you give him an Emmy? I tell you this. If he had won an Emmy, I bet he wouldn’t have run for president. So in a way this is all your fault.”

— “I thought you people loved morally compromised antiheroes. You like Walter White. He’s just Walter Much Whiter.”…


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On the Road and In Your Backyard

by 5:00 am. It has 22 Comments.

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

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Monday Morning Open Thread: The Toddler Files

by 4:06 am. It has 145 Comments.

As I mentioned Sunday morning, I’ve got an old friend visiting from out of town, so my participation here is liable to be (even more!) spotty and unreliable this week. Think of it as a chance to rack up some TBogg comment units (500+ on a thread), and to read some of the longer projects available:

… The point of the [original April 25] tweet was to push back on the occasional impulse by Very Serious People to claim that some speech or act by Donald Trump proved that he was “growing into the presidency.” The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has been examining Trump’s words and actions for the 2016 presidential campaign and thought this was nonsense. Hence the tweet.

The thing is, it quickly became clear that the evidence that Trump was not growing into the presidency was hiding in plain sight. Barely a week or even a day could pass without someone with access to Trump telling the news media in no uncertain terms the ways in which he was unfit for office. So I decided to keep adding to the thread…

… While Twitter followers can find the thread when I add to it, the functionality of Twitter is not ideal for finding it. Therefore, I have decided to curate this thread here at Spoiler Alerts as well. Below are all the tweets in this thread, in order. Every week I will update this post to include any additional tweets…

One last point: All I’m doing is curating these stories. The real credit goes to the myriad reporters who have wrested these anecdotes and quotes from individuals who, in all likelihood, genuinely want this president to succeed. Yet, in their heart of hearts, they know that the commander in chief of America’s armed forces has the oppositional nature of a 3-year old…

Most recent, so far:


***********

Apart from being eternally grateful to the Republican Party for wishing this stunted monster on the rest of us, what’s on the agenda as we begin another (hopefully slow news) week?


Late Night Music Open Thread: Farewell to Cassini

by 11:51 pm. It has 39 Comments.

Late-night nostalgia, from the Washington Post:

PASADENA, Calif. — Linda Spilker checks the clock: 12:04 p.m. As the NASA scientist sits in this crowded conference room on the Caltech campus, the aging Saturn orbiter Cassini is flying past the moon Titan for a final time. The maneuver on Monday will give Cassini the gravitational tug needed to sling it straight into Saturn’s atmosphere, where it will vaporize above roiling clouds of dust and gas.

There’s no turning back now. Spilker’s life’s work is officially doomed.

That is the nature of being a planetary scientist. No mission lasts forever. Every spacecraft eventually runs out of fuel. Spilker knew this when she joined the Cassini team half a lifetime ago. Later, as head scientist, she was part of the group that devised the mission’s “grand finale,” which has sent Cassini on dizzying dives between Saturn and its rings and ends Friday with the fatal plunge.…

The assembled researchers lift their glasses of juice and chorus their appreciation. A few are close to tears. After Cassini disintegrates, this team will be disbanded, and NASA’s view of Saturn will go dark. For the moment, the space agency has no plans to return to the ringed planet.

But Spilker and a young protegee have submitted a proposal for a new mission to the Saturnian system, which would investigate one of Cassini’s most significant finds: jets of water on the moon Enceladus that could contain traces of alien life…

Only peripherally related, but somehow appropriate:


Anyone watching the Emmy Awards?

by 8:18 pm. It has 171 Comments.

I’m switching back and forth between that and Packers vs. Falcons. OMG, Colbert just trotted Sean Spicer out for a cameo as Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer. Really.

Open thread!





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Sunday Evening Open Thread: Nice Weekend for Some Protesting

by 5:13 pm. It has 141 Comments.

Since some of y’all were confused by yesterday’s post:

Even Insane Clown Posse couldn’t quite believe it.

“We’re the good guys here today,” Violent J, one half of the widely loathed face-painting “horrorcore” rap duo, told the fans, known as “Juggalos,” who had gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. “We’re actually in the right this time!”

The Juggalos, so easy to make fun of, had a case: the feds were the real clowns. And for a surreal Washington afternoon, the colourful people of one of America’s most-mocked subcultures were being seen by powerful people as freedom fighters, weird makeup and all.

Profane freedom fighters, yes. Two of the Juggalos’ Saturday refrains of choice: “You f—ed up” and “F— that s—,” which they occasionally chanted in the direction of police helicopters, fingers extended skyward.

But this was the exception. They were so cheerful that some of them insisted on hugging journalists. And their favourite chant was a single upbeat word: “family.”

It was their response to the term the FBI insists describes them: gang…

Hundreds of Juggalos had assembled for the demonstration and march in protest of a curious six-year-old FBI decision to include the Juggalos in their official national gang list, alongside such indisputably dangerous entities as MS-13.

The gang classification, Juggalos said, had led employers to force them out of jobs, convinced judges to deny them custody of their kids, and subjected them to police harassment for their Insane Clown Posse tattoos. One Virginia woman, Jessica Bonometti, said she had been fired as a probation officer because of Facebook posts about the band…

Violent J and partner Shaggy 2 Dope cast the Juggalos as the defenders of Americans of all kinds, warning that the persecution of America’s “most hated people” would inevitably lead to the persecution of others. As usual, they railed against racism, homophobia and economic segregation…

Okay, the music (and the Faygo) aren’t to my taste, either. But neither is the Grateful Dead, and I wouldn’t want Deadheads classified as “gang members”, if only for Cole’s sake. And ICP’s heart is in the right place:

Meanwhile, same time same city…


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Sportsball Open Thread

by 3:50 pm. It has 39 Comments.

I have a ton of cleaning that needs to be done but I am just sitting, unshowered and in dirty clothes, drinking coffee and generally being lazy as shit.

I don’t even want to cook dinner and think I will just eat watermelon and cheese.





This post is in and has 39 Comments.