Video of the day -- imagination

Who knows what daydreams live in the minds we cannot read?

Victory over barbarism

Syrian forces have recaptured Palmyra, one of the most important Classical sites in the Middle East, from Dâ'ish (ISIL).  The religious fanatics captured the ancient city in May of last year, since which they have destroyed several irreplaceable relics of the ancient pagan civilization there and murdered Khâled al-As'ad, the curator of the site.  The fate of Palmyra symbolized the clash between the totalitarian monocultural vision of Dâ'ish and the real heritage of the region.

The recapture of the city is an important symbolic and strategic step toward the final defeat of Dâ'ish, over 400 of whose fighters were killed, their highest losses ever in a single battle.  Along with the Iraqi recapture of Ramadi last month, this victory shows that Dâ'ish is clearly losing the war.

Airstrike support, in this case Russian, helped the Syrian army beat the jihadists.  Despite the bloviations of Republicans who seem to get antsy if they go too long without invading something, the present strategy of limiting outside powers to air support, while leaving the ground fighting to the Arab and Kurdish forces who have the most at stake, is the correct one.

Dâ'ish has terrorized and murdered gays, religious minorities, and educated women; destroyed priceless relics of pre-Islamic civilization; fueled the war that is driving millions of refugees into neighboring countries and as far afield as Europe; and recently, lashing out against its looming defeat, committed terrorist mass murders of random civilians.  Every victory over it is a victory over barbarism.

Link round-up for 27 March 2016

Hey, it's Easter!

A cop meets three physicists.

Two cats find a container.

The Smithsonian responds to a startling anthropological discovery.  Update:  Comrade Misfit notes that this isn't real -- but it's still funny.

This Bernie supporter is a real American.

The Batman vs. Superman fiasco is just one example of how superhero crossovers don't work.

How do these ridiculous prigs ever hope to survive in the real world?

This SF writer sounds worth checking out.

Here's some advice on dealing with autoplay videos.

Some people keep pretty busy.

Trumpolines don't mix well with others.

Georgia's new anti-gay law continues to provoke a growing backlash.   Attempted redboard commentary quickly devolves into the usual blather about Jews, Odin, etc.  North Carolina has passed an even more mean-spirited bill.

Faye Kane speaks truth to capitalism.

Is ambulance service really this bad?

A week ago it was Nowrûz (Persian new year), and Obama once again took stock of our relations with Iran.

A fellow victim should not have to apologize.

A German extremist gets some unexpected help (found via Fair and Unbalanced).

When the ultra-religious are allowed to live by their own rules, innocent people suffer.

Never forget the reality of Cuba.  Did you hear about this?

The Republican convention could get even more exciting.

Hillary's no warmonger.

A National Review writer laments impending doom, while Douthat reports the Republican leadership paralyzed with fear and denial in the face of Trump.  Here's how US politics might evolve after the Republican party is gone.  Don't mourn the party, they're all disgusting.

Forget Cruzin4chicks, here are the real scandals.

No, Trump won't change his act for the general election, and no, he can't win by sweeping the Midwest.

Republican third-candidate hopes are empty fantasy.  Maybe they don't understand how the Electoral College works.

Lady and the Trump

So.  You thought the spectacle of the Republican front-runner reassuring the world concerning the yuuuge size of his "pocket Donald"* during a televised official debate was the lowest this campaign season could sink?  Pshaw.  Just before the Utah caucus, an anti-Trump PAC bafflingly named "Make America Awesome" began the bathysphere plunge into even profounder depths of nastyness with this ad:

The picture comes from a nude photoshoot which Melania Trump did for a men's magazine (British GQ) years ago.  Mrs. Trump, who is said to speak five languages and has a degree in architecture, can hardly be dismissed as a bimbo even if she was once willing to show off her more primally-appealing assets (and she is not the first person about whom such questions have been raised in a political context).  I agree with John Amato's assessment -- while Donald Trump is a horrible person, this line of attack was thoroughly slimy.

But nobody out-slimes The Donald, and the impresario of insults soon showed the amateurs at Make America Awesome how it's really done.  Wrongly assuming that the "support Ted Cruz" admonition meant the ad came from the Cruz campaign (it was based on Cruz being the sole viable alternative to Trump left in the race), he launched his counteroffensive with the following:

Having thus embraced the principle of "an eye for an eye, a wife for a wife" (maybe that's in his alleged favorite book somewhere?), Trump escalated further with this absolute gem:

The mind reels at the possibilities for memes exhibiting Mr. Trump himself similarly photographed at the moment of an unflattering facial expression, and I hope anyone with the relevant skills will exploit them to the full now that he has effectively declared open season.  But the real question, of course, is this:  Has the Republicans' contest, with this exchange, finally reached the bottom of the vomitous morass of teeth-gritting cringe into which they have dived -- or can it get even worse?  I'm not optimistic.  It's still more than seven months to the election, and this is Donald Trump we're talking about.

But this is quite bad enough.  The degeneration of the Republicans is staggering (try to imagine McCain, to say nothing of Eisenhower, campaigning on the basis of "Nyaah nyaah, I've got a big dick and your wife is ugly").  Then there's the issue of Trump's appeal to a certain critical voting bloc -- I'll give Nate Silver the final word:

We can dream.  Maybe nobody has told The Donald about the Nineteenth Amendment?

[*Kudos to Samantha Bee for this epithet.]

Religion strikes again

It's not officially determined who was responsible for the apparent suicide bombings at Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels today, but there's not really any serious question about it.  This was the work of Islamists acting on a deep belief -- and remember, we're always told that we must "respect" religious beliefs no matter how insane -- that God would welcome them into Heaven if they slaughtered a bunch of random people to express outrage or take revenge about something or other that those random people had nothing to do with.  It has happened before and will happen again, an ongoing plague afflicting civilization.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

First, in Iraq and Syria, events like this -- or other forms of religious violence similar in motive if not in execution -- happen often enough that they barely make the news in the West.  In fact, an organized gang of murderous thugs very similar in mentality to those who attacked Brussels (and previously Paris, Beirut, the Russian airliner over Sinai, etc., etc., etc.) is trying to take over both of those countries and has seized control of large parts of them.  Is it any wonder that millions of people are fleeing those countries?  What would you do if you were in their position?

Second, we must be prepared for some even bigger and nastier attack, specifically targeting Americans, as our November election approaches.  A Trump (or other Republican) Presidency would be the greatest recruiting tool the jihadists could dream of, and they are perfectly capable of plotting to panic and stampede American voters into bringing it into existence.  Within hours we will hear Trump and other wingnuts calling, not for the kind of targeted retaliation against jihadist leaders and resources that we and our local allies have already been carrying out for months, but for "bombing the hell out of" vaguely-defined things, less intelligent strategy than emotional catharsis.  In other words, kill another bunch of random people who have nothing to do with the terrorist threat, presumably once again with God's blessing.  Americans like to think that we shape events in the Middle East, but in this case it's the jihadists who are attempting to manipulate Western thinking and behavior toward the result they want -- the full adoption here of the idiotic "clash of civilizations" world-view that they themselves already embrace.

[Image at top:  Blown-up metro train, Maelbeck station]

Video of the day -- Trump, the American

Trump embodies one of the most annoying quirks of American culture.  Found via Progressive Eruptions.

Link round-up for 20 March 2016

An artist used 20 different drugs and then produced portraits inspired by each (link from Ahab).  Here's more of the same artist's work.

Hey, televangelists need those private jets (found via Mendip).

Check out the photography of İlhan Eroğlu.

Some redboarders still remember me, it seems.

Beings from another world?  No, from our own. But this critter looks disquietingly Cthulhoid.

Billboards will mock Ken Ham's stupid ark project.

Fair and Unbalanced blog has been down for weeks, but is trying to come back.  Keep checking.

Here are the world's most photographed places -- no big surprises.

Behold, an asshole.

The St. Patrick's Parade catches up with the twenty-first century.

No one can tell me it would be better if this customer had been unarmed.

There's a fundamental conflict between sexual freedom and Christianity (found via Republic of Gilead).

Right-wing economics doesn't work in the real world.

Trumpolines have no respect.

Some people still hate gays this much (gruesome photos).

Choose wisely, accept your child's nature.

Obama's Garland nomination puts the Republicans on the defensive.

Different people have different reasons for opposing religion.

Bigotry gets expensive in Tennessee.

The forces driving illegal immigration are partly our fault -- which suggests a way of eventually solving the problem.

Iceland begins to abandon a brutal tradition.

Here's a look at the surreal world of Dâ'ish sex slavery.

Anger over migration leads to electoral gains for Germany's anti-establishment party.  And I wonder how typical this Polish magazine cover is.

In India, romance sometimes needs a helping hand.

Indiana Republicans' attack on gays failed last year, so they're back to attacking abortion.  Never forget who the enemy is (found via Clarissa).  Here's how they lose voters, one by one.  Georgia Repubs target the gays and run afoul of -- the NFL!

Krugman explains the roots of Trumpism. A rural social collapse, exacerbated by wingnut obstructionism, also contributed -- but don't look to the rightists for help.

The media are ignoring Hillary voters, though we outnumber the supporters of any other candidate. But Obama has his eye on the ball.

You Might Notice a Trend looks at some Electoral College scenarios. Addendum:  He's also taking votes on what to call Trump supporters.

Green Eagle argues that Trump is not Hitler -- or at least the circumstances today are different from those that made Hitler's rise possible.  I'd be interested in readers' opinions of this video ad.  Anyway, there's plenty more insanity out there.

A Bernie supporter issues an appeal.

120 Republican national-security specialists post a manifesto against Trump.  But the party's fight to stop him may be nearing its end.

[Image at top:  Irish cartoon of Trump, found via Progressive Eruptions]

Republican chaos

A much-ballyhooed meeting of big-name wingnuts yesterday produced a call for a "unity ticket" behind which all anti-Trump Republicans could unite in a last-ditch effort to snatch the nomination away from the Orange Peril.  So far, so good.  But who should comprise that unity ticket?  Cruz and Kasich are the obvious choices -- yes, it means pairing an extremist religious wacko with a moderate religious wacko, but they're the only two non-Trump candidates still in the race.  But which one should get the top spot?  And maybe some of the 14 ex-candidates should be considered?  Cruz is even more hated by the party establishment than Trump is, and Rubio did pile up a passel of delegates even though he dropped out after losing his home state by 19 points, and, and.....

These people are hopeless.  This is just more of what they've been doing for months as The Donald led the polls and then swept state after state.  Almost everyone agreed that anti-Trump Republicans should unite behind just one of their absurdly large (though steadily shrinking) motley plethora of candidates, but nobody could agree on which candidate should be that one, and so the non-Trump vote remained hopelessly divided and ineffectual.

There's a lot of talk about another option -- if Trump wins the needed 1,237 delegates to clinch the nomination or gets very close, the bigwigs can still save the party by dragging out a bunch of arcane technicalities from the rule book which will allow them to set aside the decision of millions of Republicans in the primaries and hand the nomination to somebody else.  Most of the objections to this idea have centered on the obvious fact that the Trumpolines would go apeshit, storm out of the party, and either vote for their man as a third candidate or sit out the election.  But it seems like the immediate problem would be agreeing on who should get the nomination instead of Trump.  If a few insiders in a closed-door meeting can't settle on a "unity ticket" to oppose Trump, how are 2,472 delegates engaged in some Rube Goldberg parliamentary process at a chaotic contested convention going to do it?  There are too many possibilities.  Cruz would point out that he got the most primary votes after Trump.  Kasich would argue he appeals more to centrist voters.  A lot of insiders admire Romney.  And Rubio.  And Ryan.  Christie would have a case to make.  Even the hapless Jeb! might try to drag his exclamation point out of the grave.  How would the party make a final choice?  Could it make a final choice?

The same problem applies with the last-ditch back-up plan -- that if Trump gets the nomination, the establishment would run a "normal" Republican as a third candidate in hopes of luring non-Trumpoline Republicans to the polls where they would hopefully also vote for endangered Senate, House, Governor, etc. candidates and save the party from a total rout.  They even dream that this third candidate could carry enough states to deny both Trump and Hillary an Electoral College majority, thus throwing the election to the House, whose Republican majority could then install the third candidate as President.*  But who would be that third candidate?  The number of options is just as large -- larger, in fact, since they include throwing support to the Libertarian or Constitutionalist candidate.  Most likely everyone would dither and argue for months and wind up with several desultory third candidates taking the field.  The anti-Trump Republican vote would end up as divided and ineffectual as it has been in the primaries.

I, for one, can hardly wait to see this all play out.  The way we're going, this election is going to look like 1964, but with the Republican side organized by the Three Stooges aboard the Hindenburg.  There's not enough popcorn in the world.

[*This is, of course, very unlikely to happen.  Even if the establishment did choose a single third candidate, that candidate would not get any electoral votes unless he got a plurality in one or more states.  The only scenario where this could happen would be if he and Trump genuinely split the right-wing vote between them, which would mean they would just divide the red states between them, leaving Hillary's electoral majority intact -- in fact, a divided Republican vote might allow Hillary a plurality in some red states, giving her even more electoral votes.]

Out with the old.....and out with the new

I've already commented on the ignominious implosion of the Bush dynasty which had previously been emerging as a sort of royal family of Republican politics.  That collapse, however, had been widely expected and even hoped for, even before this campaign really got under way.  America is not receptive to dynasties, and many Republicans wanted a fresh new face to represent them to the country.....

.....well, so much for that.

The first hint that Rubio might not be quite ready for the big leagues was, of course, the infamous water-bottle lunge during his 2013 SOTU response.  It was a minor thing, but it stuck in the memory as a misstep that a more skilled performer would have avoided.

His next and most fatal error -- though almost no one saw it as such at the time -- came soon after, with his involvement in the Senate "Gang of Eight" illegal-alien amnesty bill.  Perhaps he didn't realize how angry a large chunk of the Republican base is about illegal immigration -- but he should have.  His involvement dogged him through the primary campaign, and was by far the most often-cited issue among Republicans who opposed him, based on what I saw in discussions on their sites.

The real end, though, came at the hands of Chris Christie during the debate in early February, where he got Rubio rattled enough to fall back on reciting the same memorized talking point four times:


From this kind of gaffe, there's no recovery.  "Rubot" memes proliferated, the jokes wrote themselves, and primary voters started thinking about what such a stilted performance implied about how future debates with Hillary would go.  From that point on, Rubio's campaign was a dead campaign walking.  All Trump did yesterday was to put down the zombie.

If Rubio had waited -- perhaps run for Governor of Florida for some executive experience, and tried for President later when he was more prepared for the intense stress and scrutiny -- he might have done better.  As it is, I suspect his political career is over.  This spectacular crash-and-burn, capped with a 19-point loss in his home state, will define him.

At that, we should be relieved.  Rubio is no reformist.  He would just have put a younger, less lily-white, and more attractive face on the same old garbage.  He rejects global warming, his opposition to abortion is extreme even by Republican standards, and he injects religion into political talk to an alarming degree.  He represented a danger, but not an opportunity.

The Republicans have opted for a very different savior.  After yesterday, it's hard to see how anyone but Trump has any credible path to the nomination, unless the leadership pulls some Byzantine maneuver at the convention, which would enrage the Trumpolines into all-out revolt.  Be thankful that our opponents have, at least, chosen a messenger as repugnant as their message.

Link round-up for 13 March 2016

For one Ohio farmer, the medium is the message.

The Thing is all over the place!

Take a look at the occult-inspired art of Glyn Smyth (found via Mendip).

Compare the candidates.

Check out these libraries.

Chimpanzees display what may be ritualistic behavior (found via Lady, That's My Skull).

Here's a strange sea animal.

The present rise in carbon dioxide is catastrophically faster than what ever happens under natural conditions.

I generally distrust articles about "anti-aging" pills, but since this one is so cautious and appears in Scientific American, it's worth a look.

Here's one possible reason why the world is becoming more peaceful.  But I'm sick of sharing it with idiots like this.  Then there's this guy.

A lesbian couple ventures into the belly of the beast (found via Republic of Gilead).

Faye Kane has a capsule history of Republicans since 1996.

The US is secularizing like the rest of the world -- we've just been lagging a bit.

A Buddhist monk is attacked by someone who bizarrely mistook him for a Muslim (link from Ahab).  Hood River is less than 100 miles from where I live.

This takes guts -- openly-atheist Athena Salman is running for office in Arizona.

The public has seen through the "free trade" sacred cow, something Hillary needs to understand.

The manufacturing jobs aren't coming back, but there are things we can do (my own proposal is here).

Diplomats and leaders from around the world voice concerns about Trump (found via Republic of Gilead).

The notorious migrant camp at Calais has been partly removed, but it's just spreading the problem around.

Turks defy their Islamist government's ban on International Women's Day demonstrations.

Russian nationalists are in a snit about the Eurovision Song Contest again.

A woman is found dead after negligent workers caused her to be trapped in an elevator for a month.

In Idaho, "religious freedom" now includes killing your kids (found via Crooks and Liars).

Gary Legum has an entertaining post on the collapse of Rubio -- "why wouldn’t you trust a GOP establishment that has displayed such a sharp political acumen this cycle that it just about handed its nomination over to a jar of orange marmalade in a bad wig before it knew what hit it?".

Trump is Hillary's dream opponent (found via Mark Evanier).  61% of Americans say they won't vote for him, and here's a blunt case for why nobody should.

Reagan's son and daughter look at today's Republicans.  Even when subdued, they're still awful, and have been for a long time.  Maybe it's time to shut down the party and start over again.

Hillary pwns Fox with straight talk.  Black voters have good reasons for preferring her (found via Clarissa), and Michigan didn't change the trajectory of the race.  Dare I hope for the dream ticket?  The real threat to the Democrats comes from within.

Concerning the recent violent shut-down of the Trump rally in Chicago, I've already covered that general kind of situation here, here, and here.  At the least, this idiotic action neutralizes and even reverses the "Brownshirt" meme that was beginning to take hold based on violent behavior by Trump supporters, and grotesquely enables Trump to claim victimhood and the moral high ground.  At the worst, it will help the bitterly-divided enemy re-unify against us.  I'll give the last word to PM Carpenter:

"Protest the beasts -- from afar -- all you like, but avoid their violent belly. The speech they are free to embrace may indeed be absolute 'shit,' and by now, in the 21st century, it may fairly be characterized as 'unAmerican.' But it is more and lastingly unAmerican to shut down speech, any speech, even shitty speech -- including speeches by shitheads like Donald Trump."

[Image at top from Squatlo]

Where is it?

A place perhaps not so soothing to visit as it might appear.  I'll hold off posting comments until late in the day so others can guess for themselves.

Some perspective on the primaries

The People's View blog has posted some interesting graphs that provide a reminder of the reality behind the spin and "narrative".  The one above, for example, shows popular-vote totals for the remaining candidates in both parties, in all the primaries and caucuses so far (yes, including this Tuesday's).  Despite the much-hyped higher turnout on the Republican side -- hardly surprising given the intense support and opposition Trump has aroused -- our front-runner has about 600,000 more votes than theirs.  Also, despite the perception that Trump is blowing away all his competitors while the two Democrats are in a tight race, Hillary actually leads Bernie by a far larger margin than Trump leads his nearest rival, Cruz.

Concerning Tuesday specifically, take a look at this post.  Hillary's lead over Bernie both in the popular vote and in pledged delegates (that is, excluding the unelected "superdelegates") actually increased on Tuesday, reflecting the fact that her much-discussed loss in Michigan was extremely close while her Mississippi win was a blowout, 83%-to-17%.  The concern expressed by some bloggers that the superdelegates are an un-democratic distortion of the nominating process shouldn't obscure the fact that, even without them, Hillary is ahead by a sizable margin.

If the Michigan result (and the inaccuracy of the polls there) is replicated in other somewhat-similar states such as Ohio and Illinois, Hillary may have a problem, but that's speculation at this point.  Right now, even taking Michigan into account, she's still unequivocally winning.

Video of the day -- a pitiful embarrassment

Samantha Bee mourns/celebrates the self-destruction of a once-great political party (found via Crooks and Liars).  I hadn't realized the last debate was that godawful.  You could find a more dignified political process in a pack of baboons.  I shudder to imagine what the rest of the world must think of us as they watch such antics.

Link round-up for 6 March 2016

We did not fall from grace.

Here's how to make meat substitutes taste like the real thing.

Try this life-extension technique -- what have you got to lose?

Chris Christie gazes into the abyss of horror.

Here are some crows trolling everybody.

Hey, I thought this was just a person with a unique style.

Take this helpful pharmacist's advice.

Why vote for the lesser evil?  Here's more (both found via Mendip).

Palin gets it wrong as can be.

It's Springtime for Trump!

Hmm, this looks kind of familiar.  Then there's this.

CPAC was loopier than ever this year.

Alabama gives up on the Wallace-in-the-schoolhouse-door thing.

Maybe Trump is trying to launch a new poetic form.

Point taken, though these are not mutually exclusive.

Tengrain analyzes Palin's reply to Romney's Trump speech.

A new law to protect women from domestic violence arouses the ire of religious leaders.

Reformists score a resounding electoral win in Iran.

Turkey's Islamist regime seizes the country's biggest newspaper and violently disperses protesters -- an alarming development in the Middle East's oldest secular democracy.

Stalin's death gets an interesting commemoration.

Super Tuesday led to an interesting wave of Google searches.

Jobsanger looks at the Texas Democratic primary and the phony e-mail "scandal".

The wingnut masses are revolting, in both senses of the term.  But here's what genuine popular anger looks like.

To squelch Trump, Republicans must offer the supreme sacrifice (found via Republic of Gilead).  But really, they just can't win.

Steal these moderates!

Could Trump actually win the Presidency?  Only if this happens.  Read this too.

Don't forget Rubio.

Squatlo has a message for sensible Republicans.

Remember that stupid dress that had nettards arguing about what color it was?  The Romans had something cooler.

There's snow on Pluto, but not as we know it.

The empire strikes back

The wingnut civil war is escalating with Mitt Romney leading a new establishment counter-offensive against Trump.  His 17-minute speech lays out the case against Trump in surprisingly blunt language, point by point.

This is aimed at on-the-fence Republicans who might be considering The Donald, not at the hard-core Trumpolines (who are probably unreachable at this point).  But neither camp can claim they weren't warned.

Race42016 has comments by a range of rank-and-file Republicans.  Horizons observes that Romney, despite his dignified delivery (a striking contrast with Trump) is perhaps not the best person to deliver this message.  You Might Notice a Trend concurs, and offers suggestions for what the Republicans really should be doing if they want to stop Trump.

I tend to agree that while Romney's attack will give anti-Trump Republicans a rallying point, it won't slow Trump's march toward the nomination very much -- the forces Trump has unleashed can no longer be stopped.  But it's a cornucopia of material for Hillary to use against him in the general, despite Romney's unfair digression against her in the speech.  Never before has a party's presumptive Presidential nominee been attacked like this by one of the most important leaders of his own party.

A racial issue in the Democratic contest

Super Tuesday's results are in and they're pretty much as anticipated.  Hillary won seven states, mostly by large margins, including the giant state of Texas.  Bernie won four -- definitely a less successful result, but not the kind of total defeat that would induce him to drop out.  The contest continues.  Hillary remains the presumptive nominee, but it is not a done deal yet.

Here's the thing, though.  Of all the states that have voted so far, Hillary has won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.  Bernie has won Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Vermont, and came very close in Iowa and Massachusetts.

Notice the pattern.  Bernie does well only in states with an overwhelmingly white population.  Hillary has swept every Southern state that has voted so far.  Most Southern states have large black populations, as does Texas (Texas and Georgia also have large numbers of Latinos) -- and in those states, those minority populations form the core of the Democratic party.  Starting with South Carolina, they've voted overwhelmingly for Hillary.

For a discussion of why black voters favor Hillary so strongly, see this post at Horizons -- it has also been observed that Bernie's tendency to view all issues through the lens of economic inequality does not play well with those who demand recognition of racism as a separate problem existing beyond economic issues.  (And "Bernie-splaining" to black voters is not going to work.)

The US population is 13% black and 17% Latino.  Within the Democratic party, the percentages are obviously even higher, since few members of those groups identify as Republican.  The fact that Bernie has been unable to win much support among them suggests that he would have great difficulty unifying the party if he were to be the nominee.  Beyond that, it is actually necessary and appropriate that the party's choice of nominee should be ratified by the black and Latino voters without whom the party has no hope of winning on a national level.  We can't have a nominee chosen with only, or nearly only, white support.  We need a candidate who can fully engage the support of all of the Democratic base in order to be sure of beating Trump, or whomever the Republicans nominate, in November.

Something to consider, when your state's primary arrives.