Home » Open thread 1/2/23

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Open thread 1/2/23 — 53 Comments

  1. So far so good, but Sundowner comes back today so who knows what mischief the Puppeteers will do

  2. Woke up to more snow, not much, but still some I will have to shovel. It just might be a very snowy Winter. The Mountains have a high snowpack, which is good.

  3. Has anyone seen _Glass Onion_? I thought it a trifle tedious, but not uninteresting, mostly because I couldn’t quite figure out its sly anti-PC nods. Elaborate plotting always goes way over my head, but I didn’t miss the shots at lockdown: “It’s okay, it’s my pod” says one of the characters, obviously at a large party. Characters arriving at the billionaire’s private island are shot in the mouth with…something…and are told just to submit and take it, surely a vaccine reference. Said billionaire is a bit of a sendup of the whole lot of tech billionaires, but it’s pointed out by the detective that said billionaire is actually rather dumb — more Sam Bankman Fried (as Elon Musk is now Bad, film critics seem to identify him as the model, however).

    There are very PC elements to the plot as well. The premise is the overworked one that the white guy billionaire got his billions by ripping off a black woman. And there’s a bit at the end where the heroine (I think heroine, as I said, I am not good at plots) seems to deliberately destroy the Mona Lisa. I can’t figure out whether this twist (which depressed me) was meant to be celebrated in the “Burn it Down!” ethos of this age — or deplored.

    So is it a PC movie with chuff for us deplorables, or “subversive”? Any opinions?

  4. “The Mountains have a high snowpack, which is good.”

    Which should continue to be added to through spring, which is good news for the Colorado River basin and the reservoirs down stream.

  5. Knives off wasnt terrible but not as good as looper his gangster time travel tale

  6. I wasn’t a fan of Knives Out, so I haven’t seen Glass Onion. I did like Brick which was Rian’s early effort.

  7. Haven’t followed every story, any speculation tying killer to prior murders?
    Wouldn’t be surprised if he confesses to priors

  8. fullmoon, it’s early days yet. The accused’s family has issued a statement calling for the presumption of innocence. No details of the evidence against him have emerged, consistent with Idaho state law before arraignment. Also not emerging are any stories about him torturing animals as a child or anything other than a couple of stories about how he’s odd. Well, lots of people are odd and are not murderers. At this point it’s wait and see.

  9. Adding to the Legal Insurrection predictions:

    DeSantis will continue to demonstrate competent and courageous leadership.

    Trump will be arrested on 534 counts of mirror-rape. Legal proceedings will drag on throughout the year (and probably on into perpetuity).

    Biden will wake up one morning and ask Dr. Jill “Who am I?”

    Carlos Correa will sign with the Mets.

  10. Carlos Correa will sign with the Mets.

    And the Phillies will win the 2023 World Series (well, after last year’s NL pennant race, anything is possible).

  11. Re: Trump running as an independent.

    What makes anyone think a Republican can win the presidency in 2024?

    Check out the map. Without Georgia, Arizona, Nevada a Republican can’t win. Michigan and Pennsylvania may be gone.

    Check it out.

    https://www.270towin.com/

  12. Check out the map. Without Georgia, Arizona, Nevada a Republican can’t win. Michigan and Pennsylvania may be gone.

    ‘Electoral lock’ was an au courant idea in 1987, promoted by George Will, among others. Bilge Clinton was elected five years later.

  13. Re: “Knives Out” / “Glass Onion”

    Nancy B, TommyJay:

    I watched “Knives Out” after it went free on Amazon Prime and I kept wondering, “Why is Daniel Craig talking so weird?” Then I realized he hadn’t had a small portion of his tongue removed, he was an Englishman trying to do a mid-Southern accent.

    My guess is Craig had prepared by lightly listening to Shelby Foote on Ken Burns’ “The Civil War.”

    “Knives Out” wasn’t bad, but it became silly early on with a ridiculous murder and a character who couldn’t lie without literally vomiting. If one wants the Real Thing, I suggest watching Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine duel it out in “Sleuth” (1972) or “The Orient Express.”

    So, I’m not rushing to see “Glass Onion” though I probably will when it’s free on Amazon.

  14. Nonapod: All I get when I click on that link is a pop-up ad that freezes out everything else.

    It’s become par for the course from Trump. It’s all about him, not the country or anyone else.

    He’s now blaming Pro-Lifers for the mid-term election results. He’s like the Russians in Ukraine: He can’t win, only destroy.

  15. 2023 has just begun and now folks are sure that no Republican can win in November 2024.

    Events.

    They happen.

  16. Hi, folks. Do any of you use humidifiers? I got a cute one that reminds me of R2-D2. Should have done it years ago.

    Also, while Amtrak’s announcement about the Airo train introductions is nice and all, for me it’s quite devalued by the fact that they’re not actually going to be in use before 2026 or something.

  17. mkent, President Trump said:

    “It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms. I was 233-20! It was the “abortion issue,” poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters. Also, the people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again. Plus, Mitch stupid $’s!”

    As a political issue, he is more right than not, even if you believe abortion should be illegal in the cases of rape, incest and life of the mother.

    Democrats used the issue to put abortions on the ballot in several states, that motivated those voters.

    Remember when Graham was criticized for suggesting legislation to make abortion up to 16 weeks legal nationwide. You may disagree with that, but it would have changed the dynamic of the midterms.

    DeSantis signed a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks in Florida unless “health of the mother is threatened or the baby has a “fatal fetal abnormality.”” While DeSantis supposedly favored a more restrictive “heartbeat” ban, he compromised.

    While he identified the abortion issue, notice he also blames McConnell’s diversion of funds from candidates he didn’t like.

  18. Banned Lizard:

    No, it’s NOT a thing lately. I’ve dealt with the statistics on this before. The number of sudden deaths, especially at young ages, has NOT increased. I offered a host of charts and numbers, but at the moment am too busy to find the exact place where I discussed it.

  19. I don’t remember this ever happening before:
    CINCINNATI — Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field, was adminstered CPR and then was taken away by ambulance, which resulted in the game between Buffalo and the Cincinnati Bengals being suspended until further notice Monday night.

  20. Chases Eagles:

    You may not remember it, but it happens to a certain percentage of professional athletes with some regularity. Go to the link. Read it. See the list towards the bottom under “notable cases.” And those are just cases of fairly well-known athletes who died. There are many many cases of people who are not professional athletes, or who had some sort of incident but didn’t die.

    Note the dates.

    There has been no recent uptick, by the way. But people are paying more attention, that’s all.

    Here’s a statistic from the article: “a population as large as the United States will experience the sudden cardiac death of a competitive athlete at the average rate of one every three days, often with significant local media coverage heightening public attention.” The footnote for that quote is from an article written in 2012. Long before COVID or COVID vaccines.

    It is a tragic phenomenon and unfortunately it’s not as uncommon as we would like. But if you’re going to talk about it, please get the facts.

  21. Neo:

    Time flies. By “lately” I meant it’s a trend the past several years. It will be good to know what the true cause(s) are, be they artificial sweeteners, climate change, high energy costs, shoveling snow, etc, etc. On the way to that finding, the Garrison cartoon highlights a growing problem with medical establishment credibility.

    We’d like to trust, but feel compelled to verify. The medical issue is similar and possibly directly connected to the political establishment credibility problem.

  22. Only one NFL player has died on the field before and they just ran out the clock and ended the game.

  23. Kate at 5:28 pm
    That link describes the actions of a crazy person. Could he be angling for a not competent to stand trial verdict? Just a thought.

    Art: Thanks for the Dinah Shore video. No one finer than Dinah. Who was that guy she was sitting by? 🙂

  24. Back when I used to browse comic bookstores, I would run into those big French compilations of the Tintin and Asterix comics. But they were in French and looked weird — a Belgian kid with a carrot-colored pompadour who wore a trench coat, and some odd characters from Gaul when Caeser ruled, who looked like Vikings. Bizarre.

    I’m now watching \video adaptations in French and in English, hoping to spark some new synaptic connections for learning French or at least to find some enjoyment. The latter is definitely occurring.

    If one is French, Tintin and Asterix were as much a part of one’s life as Batman and Peanuts are for Americans.

    It’s so easy not to notice how idiosyncratic one’s own cultural heritage is. So much of who I am is just because I was born in the United States in the 50s.

  25. NFL’s Troy Vincent: “I’ve never seen anything like it”

    “Obviously we saw the coaches, players, and those who tuned into the game all traumatized.”

    I was watching. Hamlin may had blunt force to the chest. His condition is critical. The nature of his injury has not been released. I wonder if the meltdown means we are becoming hypersensitive.

    I don’t feel traumatized.

  26. Meanwhile, a note from Facebook:

    #diedsuddenly
    Keeping our community safe
    Posts with diedsuddenly are temporarily hidden here. Some content in those posts goes against our Community Standards.

    It’s nice to be safe. How considerate of them!

  27. The Bills player was fortunate that he had this occurrence when CPR-trained personnel and an AED are available. Before modern CPR techniques, he would probably have stayed dead. Here’s hoping his oxygen deprivation was not long enough to cause serious brain damage. The failure to resume breathing after the heartbeat was restored is concerning. They did, I think, administer oxygen on the field, before he went in the ambulance.

    Presumably, once he is out of the ICU, as one hopes he will be, he will have scans and tests to see if there’s some previously undiagnosed heart condition.

  28. JJ @ 11:45 p.m.: That’s an interesting thought. The alleged killer has studied abnormal psychology and criminology. The killings were very calculated. He might be capable of putting on a “crazy” act on purpose. It would have to be maintained for a long, long time, though.

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