kurtadbdear lord i hope i never run into someone who looks like that.
State and local authorities have arrested Ricky Reasoner, an Aryan Syndicate gang member who dodged parole when he cut his ankle bracelet off.
Ricky Reasoner, 33, who disappeared on June 7 was apprehended early Thursday in Lakewood by officers from the Colorado Fugitive Apprehension and Lakewood Police department. The Colorado Department of Corrections announced Reasoner was apprehended shortly after midnight.
Reasoner, 33, has ties to the Colorado area.
kurtadbso interesting to think about having to think about these definitions. i saw a quick vid of the USPNT and mostly it looked like dudes who just weren't as athletic/good at soccer. (not to trivialize whatever disabilities they surely have.)
The U.S. Paralympic Soccer Team is an elite level program that selects players from across the United States in preparation for International standard competition. The National Team, in addition to friendly matches and invitational tournaments, competes in the following events:
For players to be eligible, they must be ambulant (no requirement for assistive walking aids) and have a one of the following neurological conditions:
Individuals with the above conditions may display varying degrees of the following impairments:
In many cases the above conditions may result in only minimal levels of motor dysfunction (some not noticeable to the untrained eye); however, under the rules of the sport, this could still make players eligible for the U.S. Paralympic National Team.
To find out additional information on this program please follow us on Twitter @ussoccer_PNT or on Facebook. If you would like to discuss any element of the program, feel free to contact U.S. Paralympic National Team head coach Stuart Sharp at ssharp@ussoccer.org or Team Manager Pam Perkins at pperkins@ussoccer.org.
kurtadblord.
Republican Jefferson County Commissioner Libby Szabo was largely ignored during her brief appearance on stage at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Monday — she was also misidentified as a Colorado legislator — but at least she got to hang out with Chichi Chachi (damn you, autocorrect!)
Scott Baio is 5’10” tall, if you were wondering.
Scott Baio and Libby Szabo, together at last.
kurtadblook at this exchange on climate change. what is that? there must be a name for this sort of thing. sophistry i guess? he thinks he is so clever.
relatedly, we've been saying for years that republicans are comfortable saying up is down, red is blue, etc. but i'm kind of floored by how much worse it is, in the age of trump, than we ever thought. "michelle obama didn't invent the english language"???? i don't even know where to start with that.
(Promoted by Colorado Pols)
Republican Senate nominee Darryl Glenn
If you’re still trying to understand Republican U.S. Senate candidate Darryl Glenn, consider listening to the interview of Glenn that aired on Colorado Public Radio last month. It’s one of the most illuminating interviews of Glenn so far.
Host Ryan Warner touched on a bunch of topics, first explaining that Glenn, who describes himself as an “unapologetic Christian, constitutional conservative pro-life, Second-Amendment-loving American,” is an El Paso Country Commissioner whose low-budget primary victory was fueled by a powerful speech at a Colorado Republican convention and his endorsements from Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz.
A good radio interview gives you an overall sense of the interviewee, in addition to the substance. And Warner’s interview of Glenn shows the candidate’s combativeness and confidence. So you should listen to the interview, not just read it, though you can do both here.
Warner pushes Glenn with admirable persistence on global warming, which Glenn rejects as being caused by humans. Here’s the exchange:
Warner: To get you on the record, you do not agree with the majority of scientists who say climate change has human causes. Is that correct?
Glenn: Well that’s your assumption. You’re bringing an assumption to the table and the premise to your question has me to basically adopt your position and I can’t do that without verifiable data.
Warner: Oh it’s not my position. It’s that the majority of scientists believe that climate change has a human caused component. Do you concur with them?
Glenn: Again, you are bringing facts to the particular issue that I don’t have, been presented to me. You’re saying that the majority of scientists are saying that. That’s your statement.
Warner: Right. Well, that’s a fact. Is it a fact that you agree with?
Glenn: Well that’s the fact that you’re representing and I don’t accept your premise of that question.
Warner: Do you believe that climate change has human causes?
Glenn: Well again, I would, I am a data guy, I would want to see the, a verifiable information of that.
Warner: There’s a lot out there. Have you looked at it?
Glenn: We’ve looked at a lot of things. We’ve also looked at that and we’ve also looked at the economic impact of this policy and how they are disproportionally hurting people when it comes to their livelihood. So that’s really where the focus is. We need to make sure we’re looking at policies like that that we’re looking at both sides of the equation instead of just one. And unfortunately I gotta head into another interview. But I really appreciate this opportunity. I look forward to talking to you again in the future.
Warner: Thanks for your time.
On taxes, Glenn told Warner he supports something like a flat tax.
Glenn: “And then you need to come up with a tax philosophy that’s simplified, something that’s easy for people to understand that allows people to contribute their fair share, in my opinion, probably a flat tax rate is something that we should look at.”
Glenn told Warner he does not believe that suspected terrorists on the government’s “no fly” list should be prohibited from buying guns, because the no-fly list is not accurate enough and could delay or stop innocent Americans from buying firearms.
Glenn backs Trump, yet he would not answer a series of questions from Warner about Trump policies, including whether he supports Trump’s proposal to force Mexico to build a wall on the border. And Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S.
The constitution lets Americans bear arms to fight against state tyranny. I know from experience that this leaves police vulnerable – and on edge
The tragic shootings in Baton Rouge on Sunday are yet another reminder that the second amendment, which grants Americans a constitutional right to be armed, is an extreme danger to police officers. It always was and it always will be.
The right to bear arms means that police operate in an environment in which members of the public can purchase, store and practice with weaponry similar to that of police and military. Some of this weaponry can send pieces of armor-piercing lead through whatever bullet protection police officers may be wearing. This threat makes many police feel scared for their lives.
Continue reading...
As the Denver Business Journal’s Cathy Proctor reported last week:
Bustang, the Colorado Department of Transportation’s foray into regular statewide bus service, had a stellar first year, according to the agency better known for road and highway construction…
The agency had forecasted Bustang’s first year ridership at 87,376.
Actual ridership was 17 percent higher, with a total of 102,577 people taking Bustang through the end of June, said Bob Wilson, a CDOT spokesman.
CDOT expected revenues from paid fares to hit $647,817 for Bustang’s first year.
Instead, the actual revenue was 57 percent higher, with $1,014,781 recorded through the end of June, Wilson said.
As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Dennis Webb reported this weekend, with the success of the system’s first year there is growing interest in expanding the Bustang service west:
The first-year success of the new state transit service called Bustang is spurring increased hopes of it one day galloping past Glenwood Springs to serve Grand Junction as well…
Wilson said the idea of extending the western service to Grand Junction is on the agency’s radar. There’s just no timetable for it occurring, and any expansion would require approval from the state Transportation Commission, whether additional funding is required or not.
“But extending it from Glenwood to Grand Junction is part of the plan,” [CDOT spokesman Bob] Wilson said. “… It’s become more likely as time has gone on because of the success of the west route.”
This story takes on added political significance because in this year’s legislative session, Republicans introduced legislation to eliminate funding for the Bustang system entirely. Even with income and ridership exceeding expectations, fares aren’t enough to cover the total budget for the Bustang service. The system is funded in part by revenues from the Funding Advancements for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery Act of 2009 (FASTER) fee program. Longtime readers will recall that Republicans bitterly fought against FASTER as a violation of at least the spirit of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), suing and losing all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court–and perennially vowing revenge at the ballot box for this skewering of their most sacred cow.
Well folks, now they’d be taking something away that benefits voters. It’s easy to understand why even the conservative bastion of Grand Junction would want this additional transportation option. The practicalities run up against their rigid ideology, and ideology loses.
And with apologies to the ideologues, that’s how it should be.
kurtadbno comment.
Jefferson County Commissioner Libby Szabo
Congratulations to Jefferson County Commissioner Libby Szabo…though we can’t even begin to try to explain the logic behind this decision. As Ernest Luning reports for the Colorado Statesman:
The heavy presence of Coloradans on stage could draw attention to the perennial swing state, which was swept by Trump primary rival U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas when Republicans selected delegates to the RNC. One of the speakers — Szabo — is even a Cruz delegate, and Glenn won a five-way Senate primary at the end of June after winning an endorsement from Cruz…
…Szabo, a former House minority leader from Arvada and a delegate to the RNC, said she was stunned when she got the call on Wednesday asking her to speak on Monday night at the convention.
“‘At the real convention, not just at a luncheon or something like that?’” Szabo said she asked the RNC official. “She said, ‘Yeah, on the stage,’ and I said, ‘Well, little Libby’s all grown up,’” Then, after a hearty laugh, Szabo added, “What an opportunity, huh?”
This is a tremendous opportunity for Szabo, who apparently isn’t quite sure herself how she ended up being selected for a main stage speaking role at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. After all, Szabo is barely a household name in her own home.
kurtadb62%!?
In order to have a mature discussion about foul trouble, we need to know what foul trouble is. I could define it myself, but there are really only two groups of people who should be making this determination: coaches and players. These two entities are not completely independent. If a coach treats a player like he is in foul trouble, he’ll probably play like he’s in foul trouble. Nonetheless, as a first step it’s easy to identify what coaches think, so let’s take a look at the data.
What I’ve done here is look at how coaches treat starters. If a starter has X fouls, how likely is he in the game with Y minutes left? Here’s the resulting graph using games since the 2009-2010 season.
I should mention a few notes on the data. While the NCAA provides play-by-play data in a standardized (if unwieldy) format, there are some limitations to it. Substitution data is not always correct. In a study where we need information about whether a player is on floor, this is a problem and forces some of the data to be discarded.
The other issue is that the play-by-play does not distinguish between technical fouls and regular fouls. I have ways to correct for this, but there are definitely a few cases that slipped through the cracks. However, most of the data included here should be correct.
Now let’s use the chart to look at how fouls have an impact on playing time.
One foul: Think of the player with zero fouls as the control group early in the game. Players picking up an early foul see a slight impact on playing time. For instance, with 17 minutes left in the first half, a starter with no fouls will be on the bench just 4% of the time, while a starter with one foul will be benched 12% of the time. By the time we get to the 11-minute mark of the first half, the player with one foul is treated the same as the player with no fouls.
Two fouls: The player with two fouls has his minutes severely restricted for the entirety of the first half. There is some leniency given with 4-6 minutes until halftime, but there is very little opportunity for the player with two fouls to see the floor in the first half. There is odd unanimity among coaches that a player with two fouls should be protected with 20:01 remaining and should not be protected with 20:00 left in the game. If you are of the mindset that coaches are too aggressive benching guys with two fouls, this is a good piece of evidence that a herd mentality exists.
Three fouls: There aren’t many cases of guys getting three fouls in the first half, but when they do, they sit. And some of them don’t even start the second half. The ones that do tend to head to the bench before the normal time for a starter. By roughly the nine-minute mark, the player with three fouls is back to playing the same amount of time as other starters. But even in the worst case, a coach does not consider three fouls as big of a deal in the second half as a player getting two in the first half.
Four fouls: The player with four fouls doesn’t get to the 50% mark in playing time until there are five minutes left in the game. And he doesn’t get out of foul trouble in all coaches’ minds until there are two minutes left. An interesting data artifact is that in the very last minute, the likelihood of a starter being on the floor is inverse to the number of fouls he has. If a player has made it to the final minute with no fouls, chances are he hasn’t played as much as others in the starting lineup and is less likely to be on the floor in closing time.
If there’s one thing to be learned from this exercise it’s that coaches really value starting the same lineup in the first and second half. “It’s not about who starts the game, but who finishes it,” the saying goes. But coaches have a lot more flexibility about who finishes the game than who starts the second half. (Some of the playing time dip at the end of the game for starters is the result of lopsided finishes.)
Coaches universally consider the end of the first half the end of foul trouble for a player with two fouls. There is no such agreement on the player with three or four fouls, for whom coaches dole out playing time with more judgment.
For that reason, I’ll be focusing on the two-foul decision initially. There’s a lot less context involved in the first half while decision-making in the second half is more influenced by time and score. Which coaches are most and least likely to put a player on the floor with two fouls in the first half? We’ll find that out in the next installment.
Last month, the Obama administration accused Donald Trump of undercutting American legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Trump’s call to ban Muslims wasn’t just morally wrong, according to Vice President Joe Biden, it called “into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world.” President Obama followed Biden by asserting that Trump’s rhetoric “doesn’t reflect our democratic ideals,” saying “it will make us less safe, fueling ISIL’s notion that the West hates Muslims.” His point was simple—wanton discrimination in policy and rhetoric undercuts American legitimacy and fuels political extremism. This lesson is not limited to Donald Trump, and it applies as well abroad as it does at home.
Last week, 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson murdered five police officers in Dallas. This abhorrent act of political extremism cannot be divorced from American history—recent or old. In black communities, the police departments have only enjoyed a kind of quasi-legitimacy. That is because wanton discrimination is definitional to the black experience, and very often it is law enforcement which implements that discrimination with violence. A community consistently subjected to violent discrimination under the law will lose respect for it, and act beyond it. When such actions stretch to mass murder it is horrific. But it is also predictable.
To understand the lack of police legitimacy in black communities, consider the contempt in which most white Americans hold O.J. Simpson. Consider their feelings toward the judge and jury in the case. And then consider that this is approximately how black people have felt every few months for generations. It’s not just that the belief that Officer Timothy Loehmann got away with murdering a 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it is the reality that police officers have been getting away with murdering black people since the advent of American policing. The injustice compounds, congeals until there is an almost tangible sense of dread and grievance that compels a community to understand the police as objects of fear, not respect.
What does it mean, for instance, that black children are ritually told that any stray movement in the face of the police might result in their own legal killing? When Eric Holder spoke about getting “The Talk” from his father, and then giving it to his own son, many of us nodded our heads. But many more of us were terrified. When the nation’s top cop must warn his children to be skeptical of his own troops, how legitimate can the police actually be?
And it is not as if Holder is imagining things. When the law shoots down 12-year-old children, or beats down old women on traffic islands, or chokes people to death over cigarettes; when the law shoots people over compact discs, traffic stops, drivers’ licenses, loud conversation, or car trouble; when the law auctions off its monopoly on lethal violence to bemused civilians, when these civilians then kill, and when their victims are mocked in their death throes; when people stand up to defend police as officers of the state, and when these defenders are killed by these very same officers; when much of this is recorded, uploaded, live-streamed, tweeted, and broadcast; and when government seems powerless, or unwilling, to stop any of it, then it ceases, in the eyes of citizens, to be any sort of respectable law at all. It simply becomes “force.”
In the black community, it’s the force they deploy, and not any higher American ideal, that gives police their power. This is obviously dangerous for those who are policed. Less appreciated is the danger illegitimacy ultimately poses to those who must do the policing. For if the law represents nothing but the greatest force, then it really is indistinguishable from any other street gang. And if the law is nothing but a gang, then it is certain that someone will resort to the kind of justice typically meted out to all other powers in the street.
The Talk is testament to something that went very wrong, long ago, with law enforcement, something that we are scared to see straight. That something has very little to do with the officer on the beat and everything to do with ourselves. There’s a sense that the police departments of America have somehow gone rogue. In fact, the police are one of the most trusted institutions in the country. This is not a paradox. The policies which the police carry out are not the edicts of a dictatorship but the work, as Biden put it, of “the greatest democracy in the history of the world.” Avoiding this fact is central to the current conversation around “police reform” which focuses solely on the actions of police officers and omits everything that precedes these actions. But analyzing the present crisis in law enforcement solely from the contested street, is like analyzing the Iraq War solely from the perspective of Abu Ghraib. And much like the Iraq War, there is a strong temptation to focus on the problems of “implementation,” as opposed to building the kind of equitable society in which police force is used as sparingly as possible.
There is no shortcut out. Sanctimonious cries of nonviolence will not help. “Retraining” can only do so much. Until we move to the broader question of policy, we can expect to see Walter Scotts and Freddie Grays with some regularity. And the extent to which we are tolerant of the possibility of more Walter Scotts and Freddie Grays is the extent to which we are tolerant of the possibility of more Micah Xavier Johnsons.
But globalization cannot nor should not be stopped. Done right, it delivers great benefits to advanced countries through the increased supply of goods, and it helps improve the living standards of workers in developing countries through profits made from trade with wealthier nations. Trump’s tariffs would undermine all of that.
So how can we best realize that potential? If we can avoid the pull of Trump’s empty demagoguery, we may be able to use this moment to derive and implement a new set of rules of the road for trade that represent all drivers on the global highway, not just those in the BMWs.
In a forthcoming paper, trade expert Lori Wallach and I argue that the United States should do the following:
It’s not hard to see how global capitalism and the elevation of financial markets have transformed the world over the past 30 years, upending our societies in ways we’re still trying to grapple with. What’s less obvious is the extent to which global capitalism has also upended racial hierarchies by degrading whatever material benefits accrue to those deemed “white.” For as much as capitalist economies entrench racial inequality, the logic of capital doesn’t especially care. It will impoverish black, white, and brown all the same.
Trump supporters are largely white Americans. Brexit backers are largely white Britons. And on both sides, they’re older, often elderly. In addition to everything else—all of the particular concerns of particular communities in the United States and the United Kingdom—we are witnessing a backlash to the weakening of a hierarchy that gave real status to people at the top, that protected them from the whims of capital or gave them prime social status as the expense of nonwhites.
There are a million caveats here, and I’m obviously flattening too many dynamics to name. But it’s important to place race at the center of this story, as part of the bundle of factors and trends and stories that are driving a new wave of nationalist anger from whites—or people deemed “white”—on both sides of the Atlantic. Both Trump and Brexit are part of an anti-elite backlash. But it’s not a backlash against the economic arrangement, per se. The older workers and pensioners who backed “Leave” are handing power to men of capital like Boris Johnson and Farage, a former commodities trader; the working and middle-class whites who back Trump, if they succeed, will hand power to a longtime financial elite, leading a party that bends fully to the prerogatives of financial elites. No, this is a backlash against the cosmopolitanism of those elites, against the belief that they broke the contract that upheld the relative social and economic status of people like them. If you’re on the left, this is a backlash for all the wrong reasons.
kurtadbin the end i don't really have much of a problem with how most of this went. we always say that some candidates run to help shape the conversation. but bernie was actually way more effective at it than pretty much any i can think of. even hillary -- i don't remember her pushing to get her ideas incorporated nearly this much. but this is how it's done and for him to have given up a lot earlier probably wouldn't have gotten him as much.
also hillary handled sanders perfectly -- never seemed worried, probably just doing a shit-ton of work in the background.
Our long national nightmare is over at last:
Hillary Clinton's campaign is making it official: Former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders will join her at a New Hampshire event on Tuesday where he plans to endorse her.
....Though Clinton effectively clinched the nomination more than a month ago, Sanders has been slow to formally endorse her fall bid against Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump. He has instead maneuvered to win commitments from Clinton and the Democratic Party to incorporate portions of his agenda into theirs.
Last week, Clinton announced revamped policy on college tuition and healthcare that did just that. And at a meeting on the Democratic Party platform, Sanders successfully pushed for liberal positions on an
array of issues, including the minimum wage and climate change.
This all makes sense. Though I've had my issues with Sanders, I said a few weeks ago: "In the end, the threat of Donald Trump will prevent Bernie and his followers from hating Hillary too long, but in the meantime there's no reason not to use every weapon in his arsenal to browbeat both Hillary and the Democratic Party into moving in the direction he wants them to go."
And that's what he's done. He cooled it on the personal attacks, but used every bit of leverage he had to move both Hillary and the Democratic platform to the left. He didn't get everything he wanted, but unlike some of his more rabid supporters, he never expected to. He did lose the primary, after all.
Nonetheless, he got a helluva lot. He played his cards well, and in Hillary Clinton I think he had a fairly willing sparring partner. She didn't fight all that hard against his platform demands.
But yesterday the platform was finished, and Bernie is pretty happy with it. With that done, he's endorsing Hillary almost immediately. My guess is that it will be a fairly enthusiastic endorsement, too—and will get more enthusiastic as time passes and the wounds of the primary race fade away. In the end, I'm happy to see that Bernie has pretty much played things the way he should: he stopped the personal attacks, pushed the party to the left, and now he's diving in to the campaign against Donald Trump. Good work.
kurtadbyeah, that’s funny.
When someone asks me to explain JavaScript's quirks: pic.twitter.com/gf0xAwopU8
— Reginald Braithwaite (@raganwald) July 4, 2016
I find that “funny” license plates usually run the scale from trying too hard to idiot identifier, but this one is an exception. (Always had a soft spot for a VW Bug ever since my dad got one of the first ones in New York City. Just before his family increased from three kids to six… )
Apart from fond memories, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
By Babak Dehghanpisheh
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Abbas Kiarostami, the writer-director who showed that Iranian cinema was one of the most original and emotionally engaging in the world, died in Paris on Monday from complications related to cancer, according to Iranian state media. He was 76.
Part of a new wave of Iranian cinema that started in the 1960s and known for realist stories focused on the lives of ordinary people, Kiarostami was one of the few film makers to stay and prosper in Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Despite their very local, Iranian themes, his movies struck a chord with global audiences, and Kiarostami won the Palmes d’Or at Cannes in 1997 for "Taste of Cherry", about a middle-aged Iranian man planning to commit suicide and looking for someone to bury him when he is dead.
"What is peculiar about his art is that he’s both a rootedly Iranian artist in terms of his landscape, his urban sensibilities, his cinematography," said Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies at New York's Columbia University.
"But he’s also managed to raise those Iranian aspects to moments of universality."
American director Martin Scorsese said of his work: "Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema."
Born in Tehran in 1940, Kiarostami studied at the School of Fine Arts at Tehran University. His first foray into video was making commercials for Iranian TV.
After the 1979 revolution that ousted Iran's monarchy and ushered in an Islamist system of government, Kiarostami chose to stay while many artists and writers fled the country.
His own films, which often centered around children or poorer Iranians living in rural areas, were never seen as overtly political, but some of the screenplays he wrote for his protege Jafar Panahi were.
Panahi's 2003 movie "Crimson Gold", the tragi-comic portrayal of a pizza delivery man humiliated by his lowly social position in Tehran, a city divided by class and money, was seen as critical of the Islamic Republic and was banned in Iran.
Kiarostami leaves two sons, Ahmad and Bahman.
(This version of the story has been refiled to change dateline to BEIRUT, pvs PARIS)
(Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Larry King)
Notable People We've Lost In 2016
Every Sunday, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will always be interesting. You can read the archives here. The episode of the week for June 26 through July 2 is the latest installment of TBS’s Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.
The most remarkable moment of the latest episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee wasn’t when Bee ripped into Brexit. It wasn’t when David Tennant, the former Doctor Who star, read tweets excoriating Donald Trump in his thick Scottish accent. It wasn’t even when Bee’s graphics team pasted Trump’s face onto that of a Weeping Angel, one of Doctor Who’s most dreaded monsters.
No, it was when Bee asked her viewers to visit the website for their state’s board of elections and make sure their voter registration was up to date. "Take this election seriously!" Bee implored, and it was as forceful as anything else she said during the episode.
It also marked a substantial break from tradition, even if it didn’t seem like it. For the most part, The Daily Show and its children (a family tree Full Frontal belongs to, along with HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver) have done their best to appear at least slightly objective.
When former Daily Show host Jon Stewart endorsed John Kerry in 2004, he didn’t come out and encourage his viewers to vote for Kerry. Instead, he noted that George W. Bush had made it really easy to do his job as a comedian poking fun at politics, and said he would prefer it if, in the next four years, said job was really hard. He just toed the line when it came to outright endorsement.
But Bee doesn’t see political discussion as a semi-polite fight, where the most reasonable voice in the room will carry the day. No, she sees it as war.
HBO
Bee’s call to action crystallized something I’ve been thinking about since her show debuted back in February, and "Who do you think is better, John Oliver or Samantha Bee?" became a topic of debate among TV fans. (It should go without saying that question persists only because both hosts have launched such terrific shows.)
I’ve always preferred Bee. I find her jokes funnier, I find her material more invigorating, and I find her show’s point-of-view more exciting. It’s not that I dislike Oliver — whose show is sometimes the very best on television — but that something in Full Frontal’s DNA just speaks to me on a primal level.
And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that my preference for Bee stems directly from how frequently Bee essentially declares that the only way anybody will ever succeed in making this world a better place is by fighting for it.
Full Frontal is angry, as my colleague Caroline Framke has pointed out, but so was Stewart’s Daily Show. The difference is that Stewart’s Daily Show seemed to believe that much of what makes us angry is, in some ways, intractable. We can’t fix the world, but we can make jokes about it.
Bee, however, will frequently lash out at her audience of presumably young, presumably hip, presumably progressive viewers and say that we can’t blame all of the world’s problems on some horrible political system — Republican, Democrat, or otherwise. Instead, she proposes that all of us are at fault, even you, and that if we don’t do something, things are only going to get worse.
TBS
This sets Bee apart from pretty much everyone else — including Oliver, whose comedy is by and large designed to flatter the audience. The implication of any given Last Week Tonight segment is that even if you don’t know already know what Oliver is talking about, you will be a better person for learning it, and because you are receptive to what he is talking about, you will be able to absorb important information and carry it forth to be more knowledgeable about the world around you.
There’s nothing wrong with this approach, especially since Oliver usually turns his spotlight on issues that get about one-thousandth of the attention reserved for the political horse race (something Bee covers extensively). But I can never escape the sense that Last Week Tonight’s default position is that if you know this stuff, you are a better human being, and that by simply becoming better informed, you are superior to those who hear Oliver’s message and reject it.
The reason for this is simple: Oliver rarely draws the connection between the horrible injustices he’s reporting on and how we at home either profit from or indirectly support them.
When he discusses, say, medical debt, it’s with the implication that medical debt is just one of the world’s many ills, one that we should probably get around to fixing someday, but also one that will require sustained political action, probably from somebody else, to truly solve.
This approach — knowing about stuff is more important, ultimately, than doing stuff — is very much in keeping with the traditional role of the comedian as a detached, amused observer. But it’s also a recipe for viewer ego-stroking, especially in an era when TV audiences are self-selected niches who seek out programs that will speak to their partisan opinions.
Bee is constructing the first season of Full Frontal to serve as a blanket condemnation of an entire political system where everybody is lazily comfortable with their privilege
And that creates the kind of world where pieces like this Jimmy Kimmel sketch (which asks the audience to gawk and laugh at random passersby who hate Hillary Clinton but keep getting tripped up in their own ignorance and hypocrisy) are greeted as hilarious instead of cruel. Because we’re on the "right" team, and we know all the "right" information, we can feel comfortable in our righteousness.
Oliver, of course, doesn’t stoop that low. His show is still adventurous, ambitious, and frequently very funny. But it exists on the same continuum of suggesting to the audience that signaling you’re on the side of the good guys is more important than trying to understand why somebody else might disagree with you.
And don’t get me wrong. Samantha Bee thinks everybody who disagrees with her is completely and totally incorrect — if not utterly idiotic. She frequently presents those who oppose her own political positions as enemies in the grinding trench war she’s waging.
But because she also views them as actual opponents, rather than uneducated folks who only need to hear the right information (laced with jokes!) to see the light, she weirdly grants them more respect. The only way to defeat them is to overturn the system itself.
Thus, she’s not terribly interested in coddling her audience. This is the world all of us have built, she posits, and if we’re going to make it better, it will be together.
TBS
I should probably mention the detail that most people usually open with when talking about Full Frontal: Samantha Bee is the only current late-night talk show host who is a woman. (We’re going to pretend Netflix’s Chelsea doesn’t exist, because the idea of a "late-night show" existing on a platform that doesn’t have timeslots is madness.)
And where most of the ensuing conversations treat this as a welcome change, or an intriguing novelty, or even a strike back against industry sexism, I think her gender is intrinsic to why she’s been able to so radically push past the usual Stewart/Oliver playbook.
Put simply, the effects of institutional sexism — something especially noticeable for women in theoretically progressive realms like the entertainment industry — affect all women in one way or another. Their political leanings, the level of education they have, how feminist their male bosses claim to be — none of that matters. They all have to deal with it sooner or later.
Stewart and Oliver can say to their viewers, "Well, hey, if you have this information, you might be able to understand how the world is filled with problems and issues, and that might be helpful for you," because to a real degree, as rich, white male comedians, they don’t have to deal with it. It’s interesting, but it’s not vital.
Bee, however, is constructing the first season of Full Frontal to serve as a blanket condemnation of an entire political system where everybody is lazily comfortable with their privilege.
Some of the topics she covers are clearly of less interest to her than others; you can tell when she really comes alive (early episodes dealing with Texas’s restrictive abortion laws — recently struck down by the Supreme Court — snarled with sharp teeth). Her segments on race and class, especially, occasionally suffer from "Well, that’s unfortunate!" syndrome, just a bit. But she doesn’t just feign concern for most of this stuff abstractly; she feels like she has skin in the game.
Of course, that means those who disagree with Bee politically are going to find something else to watch. But in an environment of political and cultural niches, she seems fine with that (and her ratings are solid, so she doesn’t need them anyway).
The days when a Walter Cronkite could sway national opinion on the Vietnam War, or even when a Jon Stewart could take a Jim Cramer to task, are pretty much over. What’s left behind, Bee’s suggests, is a kind of endless, grinding battle, one that will outlive all of us but one that is necessary if we’re ever going to live in a better world.
She doesn’t want to make her job harder, as Stewart famously did when he semi-endorsed Kerry. She wants to make her job unnecessary, impossible as that might seem.
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee airs Monday nights at 10:30 pm Eastern on TBS.
DENVER — Parents in Denver are complaining after finding out their children attended a Cub Scout camp that was sponsored by Hooters.
KMGH-TV reports (bit.ly/29cG9XS) Michelle Kettleborough picked up her 7-year-old son from the Frontier District Day Camp and found him surrounded by people wearing Hooters visors.
But parents say it isn’t the attire that irritates them — the women were wearing shorts and fitted T-shirts — but that Hooters doesn’t fit the philosophy of the Scouts.
The Boy Scouts of America Denver Area Council says the restaurant chain, known for its scantily clad waitresses and sports-bar atmosphere, approached the organization about working with the scouts.
Hooters Colorado had posted photos of boys holding their craft projects and posing with employees but has since removed the images.
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Information from: KMGH-TV, http://www.thedenverchannel.com
The British public wants the right to work in the EU but they don’t want EU citizens to have the right to work in the UK.
This was from a poll taken in 2014 that presciently illustrated some of today’s confusions and misgivings.
Hat tip: Lones Smith.
The post Sorry, but you Kant have that appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
kurtadbholy on point, mike!
Jared Bernstein says that Donald Trump has a legitimate point about the problems with American trade agreements:
The process by which they’re negotiated is undemocratic, they uplift investor rights over sovereign rights, they reverse the order in which certain challenges should be tackled, and they fail to deal with currency issues. But globalization cannot nor should not be stopped. Done right, it delivers great benefits to advanced countries through the increased supply of goods, and it helps improve the living standards of workers in developing countries
through profits made from trade with wealthier nations. Trump’s tariffs would undermine all of that.
Most liberals agree with this criticism. Until Trump, in fact, opposition to trade deals was mostly limited to liberals—and still is, judging by the number of Republicans who oppose Trump's trade agenda. But as Bernstein says, international trade is basically a good thing. So what should we do to make it fairer? Tariffs and trade wars aren't the answer. Here are Bernstein's five recommendations:
Take action against those who suppress the value of their currencies relative to the dollar.
Change the sequencing of labor and environmental rights. Any benefits to partners in terms of market access must be preceded by confirmation that labor and environmental rights are enforced. That means that countries we enter trade agreements with must offer sustained evidence that conditions on the ground have improved, and that we withdraw trade benefits when there’s evidence of backsliding.
Relocate risk in investor disputes. The current Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process is set up in such a way that investors in countries that are signatories to trade deals can, through non-elected tribunals, override the sovereign laws of developing countries....The answer to this problem is to shift this risk away from the broader public and back to the investors themselves. The way to accomplish this is by taking ISDS out of future trade agreements and insisting that investors privately insure themselves against investment losses.
Take a public welfare stance toward patent and copyright protections. Trade agreements should not increase protectionism. They should not extend patents or limit the competition that reduces prices and increases access to needed medicines.
Sunlight disinfects trade agreements. The trade agreement process is uniquely secretive and exclusive — and as a result non-representative of the views of millions of people affected by the deal....This level of secrecy must end. We’re not talking about nuclear codes but about the formulation of policies that will affect the everyday economic lives of every American. US-proposed text and then the texts of agreements after each negotiating round ought to be made publicly available.
Personally, I think the second point is the most important. We talk endlessly about protecting labor in these agreements, but nothing much ever really happens. The only way it will is to insist that labor rights come first, before markets are opened up.
Conversely, I've never been convinced that ISDS is quite the villain it's made out to be. I'm open to argument on this score, but trade agreements always need some kind of enforcement authority outside the nation states themselves, and ISDS is one of them. It's been around for a long time, and really doesn't seem to have done any harm to US interests.
Assuming only racists and sexists are being pushed into the arms of Donald Trump overlooks a huge number of potentially alienated voters
I may believe in women’s reproductive rights and LGBT equality and background checks for gun purchases, but I also took childhood naps each Thanksgiving under the watchful glass eyes of my cousin’s prized deer head mount. And I may now work in the white-collar journalism world, but I spent my formative summers wandering around my Illinois hometown’s “Bagelfest”, an homage to one of our community’s several factories and its working-class heritage.
That’s all to say: the American electorate is complicated. But there is a narrow perspective that many liberals in my adult life use to paint the people from my hometown, and from the thousands of other places like it.
Continue reading...kurtadbthis was kind of amazing. rivers is such a weird dude, but kind of a mad genius.
“Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori”
Weezer’s 10th album, the self-titled “White” album, came out April 1, 2016. In this episode, Rivers Cuomo breaks down the meticulous process of making the song “Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori,” through the different demo versions that the track went through, and the array of spreadsheets that he uses collect, analyze, and harvest his ideas.
You can buy “Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori” on iTunes.
“Walk Away Renee” by The Left Banke
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
ARVADA — Nearly 300 people packed an auditorium at Ralston Valley High School on Tuesday night to sound off about a proposed outdoor shooting range that could feature up to 30 firing lanes for pistol and rifle owners.
Most of those who took to the microphone railed against the range as an inappropriate facility that will have negative noise impacts on an area that is experiencing rapid residential growth, with hundreds of homes going up in several neighborhoods in burgeoning northwest Arvada.
Amy Woodley, who lives in Leyden Rock, expressed concern about how the county-owned range might affect a future elementary school planned for her still-growing neighborhood.
“Will Jefferson County be willing to build a school so close to a shooting range and right in its direction?” Woodley asked. “What about the safety of the children?”
Spring Mesa resident Jonathan Snyder said neighbors who recently moved into homes are here now and said it’s unfair to have “a shooting range imposed on them after the fact.”
But Michael Schievelbein, from the same neighborhood, said he was warned by his real estate agent that there could be a shooting range built in the area when he bought several years ago. He said he has to drive two hours to fire his guns and said the metro area needs more venues for firearms owners.
Jefferson County officials began looking at locating a shooting range in the county several years ago after demand for such a facility began to increase. Open-space planner Scot Grossman told the audience there are only two outdoor shooting ranges in the metro area.
“It’s causing people to go elsewhere to shoot,” he said.
Those makeshift shooting venues, he said, are generally on Forest Service land, where trees are shot up and lead from spent ammunition contaminates the ground. A shooting range, Grossman said, would be able to capture and recycle lead while keeping errant bullets from hitting hikers and passers-by.
There will also be sound mitigation measures — including a firing shed, berms and baffles — put in place to dampen the noise, Grossman said.
A working group two years ago identified the Blunn/Pioneer area of Arvada, at the southeast corner of Colorado 93 and Leyden Road, as the most feasible place to build a shooting range. It will be months before a final decision is made by Jefferson County commissioners.
But opposition to the concept has been mounting in recent weeks in the wake of a noise study released last month that attempted to model what level of impact would be felt by those in the area. Many residents in attendance Tuesday questioned the integrity and methodology of the $47,000 study.
Resident Steve Jouflas held up a recording of guns being fired at a shooting range, with the distinct pop-pop-pop sound competing with his comments.
“It’s annoying, isn’t it?” he said. “You have to mitigate it or put it somewhere where it’s not going to annoy so many people.”
Others at Tuesday’s meeting worried about their property values being eroded by a nearby shooting range.
But Murph Widdowfield, a longtime resident of Jefferson County, said the need for places where gun owners can practice their hobby is a critical amenity. And, he said, a range also presents a measure of safety for larger society.
“To be a safe gun owner, a person needs to stay proficient with a gun,” he said.
It’s a sight Rapids fans have been waiting for since his March signing: Tim Howard. In Commerce City. Wearing Rapids gear.
Lucky #MLS fan @BJaerger2003 scores @TimHowardGK #Rapids96 autograph #1@Marco_Cummings @DanielBoniface @CurrentOfCO pic.twitter.com/fIp2BEkJty
— John A. Babiak (@Photog_JohnB) June 27, 2016
Howard on Monday was spotted by photographer John Babiak as the goalkeeper left the Rapids’ practice field at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. He was kitted out in Rapids gear, and a team spokesman said Howard participated in his first training with his new club.
The U.S. goalkeeper started Saturday for the Americans in a 1-0 loss to Colombia at the Copa America Centenario tournament.
Howard is set to be introduced to the media at a news conference Tuesday. He will be available to play in the Rapids’ next MLS match, on July 4 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park against the Portland Timbers.
Colorado (9-2-5) sits in first place in all of MLS with 32 points in 16 games. The Rapids are 7-0-1 at home in league play this year.
But let’s just pretend for a moment that the 50 million number is deceiving, that just as there’s a structural unemployment rate that will never entirely vanish, there’s a structural disenchantment rate — ordinarily populated by the dumbest, the most gullible, the most irritable, the meanest, the hurtingest, the most selfish Americans — whose numbers swell during certain frightening moments in history. Such as war, economic recession, globalization and inequitable concentration of wealth along Gilded Age lines.
That’s the narrative we’re hearing in the press. The problem is, what’s happening now isn’t some transitory blip; it’s the culmination of a 40-year campaign, an incessant drumbeat of grievance against minority rights, gun control, same-sex marriage, secularization, tax-and-spend Big Government, climate hoax, “job killing” regulation, feminism and the rest of a sinister Liberal Agenda that amounts, of course, to tyranny.
There’s not much for fans of the United States Men’s National Team to celebrate in the club’s 0-4 loss to Argentina Tuesday in the Copa America Centenario.
Except maybe seeing an incredible goal from one of the best soccer players in the world today.
Lionel Messi and Argentina squared off against the U.S. Men’s National team in the Copa America semifinals Tuesday. During Argentina’s rout of the United States, Messi scored a beautiful goal off a free kick in the 31st minute. From outside the box, the Barcelona forward placed the ball in the top right hand corner of the net, just beyond the reach of U.S. goalkeeper Brad Guzan. The goal put Argentina up two nil over the U.S.
In vintage Messi style, he also surpassed Gabriel Batistuta to become Argentina’s leading all-time scorer with 55 goals.
Some say it’s Messi’s world and we’re all just living in it. With goals like this, it’s easy to see why.
PATNA, India — Lightning has killed 56 people, mostly farm laborers working in fields, across the eastern India state of Bihar.
A top Bihar official says 24 others were injured when thunderstorms and monsoon rains lashed at least 14 districts of the state.
The disaster management official Vyasji said Wednesday that scores of cattle also perished after being struck by lightning.
The dead included at least eight shepherds out grazing their sheep, said Vyasji, who uses only one name.
Lightning strikes are common during India’s monsoon season, which runs from June to September. However, the past day’s toll in Bihar was unusually high.
kurtadblooks like someone hit “publish” a little early. this opens on wednesday. still, pretty cool.
GOLDEN — I’ve blasted through the city of Golden a hundred times, usually driving to or from the mountains or Red Rocks Amphitheatre, sometimes wondering what I was missing in this original Colorado gold-rush town. So, on a recent Saturday morning, I turned off U.S. 93, parked by Clear Creek and started to wander.
The first thing I found was Golden’s newest library, a one-room shed behind the Golden Visitors Center. … But it didn’t have a single book. Rather, the new bike library will allow visitors to “check out” a bike and tool around town. Amazingly, the first two hours are free, and it’s only $10 if you want to keep the bike all day.
The new program, which is funded through a federal grant, opened June 22 in conjunction with Bike to Work Day. Golden’s bike library was modeled after the lending program in Fort Collins but adapted for a smaller population. It is different from Boulder and Denver’s B-cycle programs in several ways: For one, those first two hours are free. Also, Golden has a handful of children’s bikes and relatively light-weight geared bikes, so you’re not limited to heavy cruisers — important when tackling some of Golden’s hills.
The Golden Bike Library is located right on the Clear Creek bike path, which connects to most of the town’s main attractions, including historical sites, the Golden Farmer’s Market and various hiking trailheads around town. Maps and self-guided tour suggestions are available inside the Visitor’s Center, where you check in at a special desk before claiming your ride. You can also do your own brewery tour — believe it or not, there is more than the Coors Brewery in town, which offers daily tours and free tastings. You can bike to a handful of craft breweries as well, and there’s even a gluten-free brewery, Holidaily, which opens at 11 a.m. on weekends.
On this day, the bikes weren’t ready yet, so I joined the crowds streaming along the path. I passed people returning from the Golden Farmer’s Market, cradling overflowing plastic bags of veggies, family stroller excursions and around the bend, a group of firefighters in dry suits were practicing swiftwater rescues in the creek.
And there was me, poking around, crossing the creek and looking for a sandwich. I settled on a Rodeo Reuben at the Windy Saddle Cafe, a family-friendly joint on one end of Golden’s welcome arch, which I carried back to the creek’s edge. I enjoyed my lunch in the shade of a snowing cottonwood tree, while continuing to watch the parade of people. Next time, I thought, I’d grab a free bike and venture a bit further downstream.
If you go
The Bike Library and Golden Visitor’s Center are located at 1010 Washington Ave. Users can check-out bikes Thursday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and a key drop box allows bikes to be returned after hours. Bikes come equipped with a lock and helmet; riders also get a reusable water bottle and a coupon booklet for nearby businesses and restaurants. For more information, visit www.goldenbikelibrary.com.
You want more soccer content on the television? You got it!
You probably haven't heard this until now, but the United States is playing Argentina in the semifinals of the Copa America Centenario.
FOX Sports 1 expanded their studio programming for Tuesday night because this is a really big match. Argentina is the top ranked team in the world and features one of the best players of all time. The U.S., the host nation, inspires fervent support and big television numbers.
What are the names and numbers attached to the broadcast?
The semifinals kick off Tuesday, June 21, as a surging United States team, winners of three straight matches and the only team representing CONCACAF in the semifinals, battles five-time world player of the year Lionel Messi and world No. 1-ranked Argentina live on FS1. Renowned play-by-play announcer JP Dellacamera calls the action with U.S. National Team all-time leading scorer Landon Donovan providing analysis and Jenny Taft reporting.
FS1 kicks off the night with an expanded two-hour pregame show airing live from Houston, with coverage beginning at 7:00 PM ET on FS1.
Rob Stone hosts pre-match, halftime and post-match coverage alongside Alexi Lalas, Fernando Fiore, Aly Wagner and Stu Holden live from NRG Stadium. Later, Fiore hosts a 60-minute edition of COPA TONIGHT at 1:00 AM ET from Houston, joined by Lalas, Wagner and Holden.
Grant Wahl continues his role as correspondent-at-large, and Dr. Joe Machnik provides expert analysis on key refereeing decisions.
I recognize most of those names!
FOX is putting a lot of effort into their broadcasts. The four Copa America matches featuring the USMNT have drawn big ratings and viewer numbers, and one imagine this semifinal match will be setting a record for the channel.